This whole business of silencing voices of dissent has been going on since Indira Gandhi’s emergency or even before that.
The emergency was an operation in silencing voices of dissent. Among other things.
And it wasn’t three or four, but hundreds of thousands of voices.
People were arrested, jailed, poisoned when in prison, others eliminated in mysterious ways, opponents dis-empowered and so on.
Before indira gandhi, Nehru had eliminated many many whose ideology was opposed to his. Their deaths were shrouded in mystery and no enquiry commissions were appointed to look into them.
In the recent times, hundreds of BJP and RSS workers have been killed. In Kerala, a prime accused in a killing is the presiding chief minister himself. Yogi Adityanath isnt accused of murder, is he? And yet, his chief minister-ship is questionable but that of the Kerala CM is not!
All this anger and shock and concern about democracy now, is like America waking up to terrorism only after 9/11.
Then all of a sudden, there was terrorism in this world, suddenly there were terror outfits, there was Osama, war was necessary, what was the world coming to, establishing humanity the need of the hour and so on.
We Indians had been suffering terrorism for years and decades.
And there was not a word from these people.
Until she was killed, I did not even know who Gauri Lankesh was. I had heard of Lankesh and Lankesh Patrike though.
So I decided to read something from the public domain about this largely unknown woman ‘shot’ to fame.
The first Youtube video I watched proved that she was a Modi hater and a ‘secular’ when she was enlisting opportunities that could have been used against Modi that the ‘stupid’ Karnataka Congress government had missed. Not the first of her kind, I thought and moved on to the second video.
It was the second that I watched repeatedly, a video that made unnecessary the watching of a third.
Since the speech is in Kannada, I will translate it here - a part of it that resounds in my ears, and in between them.
“Hindu Dharma, it seems. Who established this Hindu Dharma?
We all know well who established the Christian faith and what it’s holy book is. We know who established Islam and about it’s holy book. We know about Sikhism, Buddhism, Jainism. But can someone tell me who founded this Hindu Dharma?
This is a religion that has no father, no mother. This one does not even have a holy book. Until the British came and gave a name to it, this one didn’t even have a name. Religion it seems. You call that a religion?
You know how our constitution defines a Hindu? It defines a Hindu this way: One who is not a Musilm, not a Christian, not Buddhist, not Jain, not Sikh, not anything, a nobody, he is a Hindu. There is no such thing as Hindu religion. These right wing groups want to protect this religion it seems. We don’t need it. We have our constitution and that is our Dharma”
Why I am translating it for you? Most of the sympathizers hadn’t even heard her name and didn’t even bother to find out more before they joined the crowd in gasping, crying and of course, condemning her murder.
By all means, you may continue to sympathize with her even after reading this but I thought you should know your subject in case you don’t at all.
She gave this speech in 2012 in Mangalore. And got away with it. For five years.
Did she ever realize that had she given such a speech about Islam in a Muslim country, she would have been eliminated in 5 hours? Of course she didn’t.
This JNU woman, Shehla Rashid who is a supporter of terrorist Afzal Guru and had been adopted by Gauri Lankesh along with ‘son’ Kanhaiya, was expressing outrage at the silencing of ‘Gauri maam’ calling her a most kind woman and what not.
If it was Islam that Gauri had been criticizing instead of Hinduism, would Shehla Rashid even be seen around her? Of course not.
Every murder is unfortunate, horrific and deserves fair investigation(note my stand!) but State funeral?
I was taken by mild surprise by the gunshots.
When I woke up this morning and browsed FB, after turning the geyser on, I was made familiar with some more of the ‘activist’ in her and my mild surprise turned into shock and disgust.
In one tweet she says Narendra Modi had a gay marriage with Australian PM Turnbull - referring to the picture of Modi and Australian PM, both standing garlanded in front of Akshardham temple.
In Another tweet, she wants to send her used sanitary napkins to Narendra Modi instead of pink chaddis.
In yet another tweet, she says the mothers of RSS people are either sex workers or rape victims and their fathers rapists or brothel goers. She ‘gives’ them two options and ‘asks them’ to ‘choose one’.
And the most recent one, there is a photograph of an Indian toilet with the word Modi written on it and the tweet says 'ghar ghar mein Modi '.
And they gave state funeral and gunshots to this loose cannon, this rogue journalist of such low class?
The State has lowered its esteem by giving State funeral to these irresponsible, cheap, abusive, flippant words from a woman on the loose.
I mean, there were people like Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Shyama Prasad Mukherjee, and others - universally accepted, respected, and possessing unquestionable integrity and character that were associated with the RSS - and she said their mothers were sex workers!
Was she tweeting in a state of drunkenness?
Amazing Grace! said some eulogies of her from the family.
Really? May be in personal life.
From her videos and tweets, I only see disgrace.
By the way, Shyama Prasad Mukherjee was one of the people eliminated by Nehru - arrested on no solid grounds, just ideological differences, jailed and injected with poison and killed.
And Gauri says in one of her speeches that her family always criticized Nehru, Indira and Rajiv Gandhi but never received death threats from them.
Yes, Nehru and family did not send death threats, they directly eliminated people. Not just those having different ideologies but those within their own party who could challenge their dynastic rule. What happened to Madhav Rao Scindhia and Rajesh Pilot? So many mysterious deaths?
Gunshots and eulogies alright, I hope they will not turn her into a Goddess and build a temple for her. Remember she was a rationalist, atheist and secular?
Her atheism brings me to another point. Her burial. She wasn’t cremated but was buried. So if you are a secular or an atheist, it means you cannot be cremated according to Hindu rites but you can be buried like a Muslim or a Christian.
In death, as in her life, she has shown us what ‘secularism’ of the ‘liberal Indian’ means - abandon and condemn Hinduism. Condone or follow Christianity and Islam.
But abandon Hinduism for sure. And kill their cows.
Oh yeah, she was one of the participants in that beef ban protest near town hall.
Though as I said before, the second of her speeches I watched made unnecessary the watching of a third, I went on to watch a few others that were lost in the crowd of videos condemning her murder.
In one speech, she is campaigning for Tipu Sultan, trying to use it, of course, as a weapon against Modi.
Most of these fellows do not seem to know that Tipu’s fight against the British was no act of patriotism nor ‘freedom struggle’.
In fact, his defeat and death were a blessing.
Tipu wanted to defeat the British but by joining hands with the French!
Tipu was at constant war with the Nizam of Hyderabad and the British were allied with the Nizam.
Tipu invited Napoleon to ally with him so he could defeat the Nizam and the British. Napoleon was all set to arrive in Bombay when a British rookie sank an entire French fleet of ships in the Mediterranean and Napoleon retraced his steps back to France.
If Tipu had won, India would have been a French colony instead of a British colony. And we would have got independence not in 47 but in 67, for the French torture machine was far more sophisticated and ruthless than the British torture machine.
The French wouldn’t have cared an iota for Gandhi’s non violence. They would have simply blown away his bald head into bits!
There was an FB post saying we love Taslima Nasreen for questioning Islam but hate Gauri for questioning Hinduism.
Firstly, I haven’t read Tasleema Nasreen nor Salman Rushdie though I am familiar with their stand.
Secondly quite a few times I have wondered if these might be the Ram Mohan Roys of the Muslim society who walked away from their religion in anger due to compelling circumstances, having no patience to interpret the true meanings of their scriptures.
So, yes, I have asked this question of myself and not jumped in excitement at the usefulness that the opinions of these Muslims present to those of us who bear resentment towards the Muslim community, more often justified than otherwise.
And I chose Ram Mohan Roy because comparing them to Burqa Dutt, I mean Barkha Dutt or other financially motivated likes of her might be an insult to these people.
And lastly, as for those who do love Taslima and hate Gauri, they may not have double standards. Not necessarily.
Because may be Tasleema is right and Gauri wrong.
For though all religions may be equal as scripted by their prophets , they may not be so in the forms they have taken today.
I will give one example and that one will be enough.
When Yakub Memon was hanged for terrorism, ten thousand Muslims gathered on the streets of Nagpur to join the last journey of their 'brother'. But if Chota Rajan were to be put to death, not even ten Hindus will gather around his body. Not even ten!
She brought some Naxals into the mainstream it seems. How many? I don’t have the number. I was wondering and just then, I saw news about Sri Sri (Ravi Shankar) bringing together 67 groups in the North east, some of whom had taken to militancy. And its not the first time he has done it.
Thank God for people who exemplify the truth that you can save dalits, naxals and muslims without spewing hatred for Hinduism, or even while being a guardian of it.
Long live freedom of speech. Not the abuse of it.
Long live the rational mind. But not perversion disguised as one.
