While traitors are
unhanged, monks suffer
First Published : 26 Apr 2009 12:42:00 AM
IST
Last Updated : 26 Apr 2009 08:59:22 AM
IST
When Alan Paton wrote Cry
The Beloved Country he was lamenting how the whites could devise, construct and
implement race and colourbased social and economic injustices over the blacks in
apartheidera South Africa. ‘Cry O my Beloved India’ could be very well applied
to our politics, for things have gone to such a pitch of unfair, blatant and
outrageousness that it baffles the mind. Yet neither the politicians, nor most
of the press find anything wrong in it. Just a few examples: Varun Gandhi spent
nearly three weeks in jail under the NSA, just because he said something that
might be reprehensible.
But many mullahs spew fire and venom in their Friday discourse in
numerous mosques in India — and none ever gets arrested, because riots would
erupt immediately.
Sadhvi Pragnya, a Hindu woman monk, has been languishing in jail for
months, even though no conclusive proof has been brought forward of her direct
involvement in the Malegaon blasts case. Recently she was assaulted by a Muslim
inmate at Byculla Jail and sustained injuries to her face, nose and neck. But
you have the Islamist leader Abdul Nasser Madani, a prime accused in the
Coimbatore bomb blasts, which cost the life of 60 people, who is standing for
election in Kerala with the full backing of the CPI-M.
In Orissa, the police arrested the BJP candidate from Kandhamal
constituency, Ashok Sahu, because he accused the church of using foreign money
to induce innocent tribals to convert — which is a well documented fact, please
read Tehelka’s cover story.
Yet terrorist Ajmal Amir Kasab, who went on killing people as if he was
strolling in a mall, is enjoying a royal life. The entire Arthur jail has been
vacated for him. 11.000 pages of his indictment charges are going to be
translated in Urdu, just because he has asked for it and the court has even
sanctioned the absurdity of DNA tests to determine his age. The entire country
wants him judged quickly and hanged, but to please a minority, the Congress is
dithering.
In the same way, the President of India, who is pliant to the will of the
Congress, will not allow Afzal Guru, who has committed treason against his own
country, to be hanged, till elections are over, for fear of alienating the
Muslim vote. Yet the Congress keeps telling us Indian Muslims are patriotic.
Then, why should it fear losing its votes when it hangs a traitor? Nobody
thought two times about hanging Godse.
The LTTE blew up Rajiv Gandhi in a totally senseless and cruel manner,
just because he was on the verge of becoming PM again. But today, because of
Tamil Nadu votes, Rajiv’s widow, Sonia, sent emissaries to Sri Lanka to pressure
the government to effect a ceasefire just as it is about to wipe out the LTTE
after 25 years of a bloody civil war. Does it make sense to you? India is about
equality and rising above castes; yet since 1947, politicians of this country,
particularly the Congress, and later V P Singh, Mulayam Singh, or Lalu Prasad,
have divided India along castes and religious lines.
But Mayawati tops them all: she gave a push to her prime ministerial
aspirations, promising Scheduled Caste status to 16 more castes if she takes
power at the Centre.
In India, you are supposed to be elected with Rs 10 lakh of white money.
But everybody knows that to become an MP today, you need Rs 10 crore, as you
have to boast of a hundred-car caravan when you go campaigning, hire private
planes, helicopters, gift free saris, dhotis, televisions, cash even, more and
more. So where do you get the balance in black money? From corrupt businessmen,
from the mafia, from kickbacks.
The tragedy is that the Indian press does not play its role, because not
many mainstream newspapers or television channels complained when Varun Gandhi
was in jail, while Madani, a criminal who has the lives of 60 innocent people on
his hands, was not only scot free, but was standing for MP with the full backing
of a political party, whose leader just said that he would not refuse the post
of Prime Minister.
The real problem is that India has been colonised for too long, contrary
to China whose people remain proud of their culture and intensely nationalistic.
It has resulted in a deep-rooted inferiority complex in the Indian psyche, where
every intellectual is always looking towards the West for approval and Indians
are so obsessed with having the western type of democracy, without adapting it
to the Indian conditions.
The system has become so perverted that only radical surgery to remove
the diseased parts will start the indispensable cleansing process.
Cry O my beloved India: look at what Thy children have done to Thee…
fgautier26@gmail.com