By Adolf Washington
Bengaluru: “Gaikwad” is the new word for Indians. It means a democratically elected lawmaker who blatantly flouts laws to abuse, humiliate, insult, harm, tyrannize and dominate the very people who chose him to serve them.
The term traces its origin to Ravindra Gaikwad, who is a member of Parliament belonging to the Shiv Sena, a party known for violent protests on numerous issues winning media attention for all wrong reasons.
Gaikwad used his footwear to slap a 61-year-old staff of Air India, the government-owned national carrier, before the aircraft took-off to Goa from New-Delhi, giving grave inconveniences to the flight and its passengers.
The parliamentarian, a professor, indecently demanded a “business-class” seat despite being told there was no such provision. A year earlier, the same Gaikwad stuffed food into the mouth of a Muslim on fast in full public view because he claimed the food served in the restaurant by the Muslim was ‘not good.’
Gaikwad not only threatened to throw the senior airline employee over the makeshift stairway but also gloated before national television cameras that he indeed “slippered” the official “25 times.”
The deafening silence of his party chief Udhav Thackeray can be construed as either condoning the incorrigible behavior in order to save one voice from suspension from among the meager 11 seats the party holds in the Maharashtra State Legislature or that the party endorses the act of indecency and justification of violence of a public servant voted to power over the dignity of its citizens.
The arrogance and act of the parliamentarian not only invites punishment but betrays the character of the party itself that chooses to remain silent even when the entire nation is aghast at his incorrigible behavior.
After prolonged legal battles by the accused and the victim winding through laws, bye-laws, defenses and counter-defenses, it incident, will be dumped into oblivion, as has always been the case in India.
But public opinion, in this case, nurtured by an agile Indian media should keep the issue in focus not because of a person, but because there are many Gaikwads out there we don’t want to see again.
If so, regardless of our political affiliations or apolitical stand, we must courageously stand up against any form of human indecency and public misconduct.
You can post a comment on social media with the convenience of a fan running over your head, but will you dare to question someone who oversteps you in the queue?
We don’t do that. So there will be more Gaikwadness in this nation of equality and fraternity that promises equal opportunity to all.