Kanpur: When I get home at night after a hard day’s work I like to relax after dinner and watch a bit of TV. I prefer to watch Comedy Central that gives some comic relief, because what we see on news channels and TV debates are in no way relaxing. Night after night we are served up the same hash about violence and intolerance; with acrimonious debates, where spokespersons of various political parties believe that attack is the best form of defence.
Newspaper headlines the next morning are not very different, though the print media is relatively subdued and objective, as compared to the eyeball grabbing competition of TV. However, the events of the last month have been unduly disturbing.
First there was the alleged abetment to suicide of Rohit, the Dalit student in Hyderabad. Then all hell broke loose with the commemoration of Afzal Guru (hanged for the attack on Parliament) in which allegedly seditious and inflammatory slogans were raised. The charge of sedition was based on a TV report, which was subsequently found to be fabricated.
The shock treatment continued with lawyers in Delhi’s Patiala House court taking the law into their own hands and blatantly attacking Kanhaiya Kumar, the main accused in the sedition case. Some of these lawyers were subsequently caught on candid camera boasting of how they had taken the law into their own hands.
We were in for further shocks when we saw the images of arson, looting and wanton destruction by the Jat community seeking reservations in Haryana. To cap it all was the gross mishandling of our foreign policy and defence preparedness, resulting in the needless deaths of our young army officers and soldiers.
What is the use of grand Republic Day parades, and our PM taking selfies with world leaders if he doesn’t know the basic principles of diplomacy?
One night I was restless. I could not sleep. It prompted me, in my capacity as Convenor of the Kanpur Nagrik Manch, to organize a “Dhairya Diwas “ (Forbearance Day) on February 26 at Gandhiji’s statue at Phoolbagh, the central park in my hometown, Kanpur. Leaders of all major religions, social, civic and political activists participated.
We first kept 30 minutes of silence so as to get the spiritual and mental energy required to engage in a long battle against the growing mayhem that seems to have engulfed the country. Most people seem to have lost their cool.
It was therefore heart-warming and uplifting to see the members of the Vishwa Gayatri Pariwar (a reformist Hindu organization), the Shahar Qazi (head Muslim cleric), the kirtan singers from the main Gurudwara, the choir from St Patrick’s Church and the Kanpur Catholic Association (KCA) come together in human solidarity praying for peace and universal brotherhood.
The gathering itself was eloquent testimony to the same, speaking more than a volume of words, and received extensive media coverage the next day.
Noted litterateur, Padmashree Dr Giriraj Kishore said that in such circumstances there was an urgent need for dialogue, to listen to each other’s views, and respect them. We should build bridges, not walls. India is a land of many religions and we must respect that. He said it was shameful how HRD Minister Smriti Irani was making fallacious statements in Parliament and making melodramatic announcements. There is too much disinformation being spread to poison people’s minds. The latest in this series was the outlandish claim that Jesus Christ was born in India in a Tamil Brahmin family!
Speakers at the assembly said that those who had fabricated the video in order to portray Kanhaiya Kumar as a seditionist, by falsely implicating him, needed to be prosecuted as per law. They expressed grave concern at lawyers in Delhi, and earlier in Lucknow, taking the law into their own hands. If the guardians of the law are lawless, from where will people get justice?
The utter anarchy in Haryana was condemned outright. Destruction of public and private property was in fact far more anti-national, than a handful of students raising slogans in private gathering.
Incidentally, this writer would like to add that the Dalit Christians have been seeking their legitimate rights for the last 66 years and have got nowhere. Obviously, because they do not hold the Government to ransom by arson or blocking rail, road and water traffic. The same goes for the migrant adivasis in the tea gardens of Assam. They are denied their legitimate ST status.
The Government’s foreign and defence policies also came under fire. Just a handful of terrorists are repeatedly bringing the country to its knees, and making a laughing stock of our defence preparedness.
It is no use boasting of a 56 inch chest, if we are bird brained. Defence experts say that it is absurd that officers and soldiers from the crack Para Commandos become cannon fodder for the militants. The present Government seems to brazenly blunder along; for which the country is paying a heavy price.
Besides the religious leaders, members of various political parties like the Congress, CPI, CPM, JDU and RLD also participated in the Dhairya Diwas.
Many of our countrymen may have lost their cool, but the voice of sanity, goodwill and brotherhood should not be lost in the cacophony of hate and profanity.
(The writer is the Convenor of the Kanpur Nagrik Manch and President of the KCA)