State of play: In land of the duplicitous, double-dealing, doublespeak

The 16-year-old boy going home after Eid shopping, accused of transporting beef, his skull cap ripped off, before being beaten half to death on a train in Haryana that he was thrown out of, bleeding, only to die in his brother’s arms… What brought this on? A rising tide of Islamaphobia? What are we now, a nation of murderers? A mobocracy? ISIS in reverse? Should I be afraid now? That if I’m carrying a packet of meat  - yes, even beef  - and stand up to bullies, I will face the same murderous and threatening mobs as Junaid did? For being a meat-eater. And that I will only get away with it, if I’m a chest-thumping politician from the Sena or Naidu’s TDP and can pull rank?

One has watched – gutted, in silence, – as the electoral juggernaut rolls through the country, time and time again, these past few years, crushing everything that stands in its way, watched how before every poll encounter, a burning match is thrown into the cauldron of hate and resentment, igniting long held grievances and anger suppressed, that has divided us as a nation for as long as I can remember. The flames are meant to scorch and kill the unprotected innocents at the bottom of the food chain, leaving the supremacist majoritarian to exult in his newfound dominance. Be it in Muzaffarnagar or Ballabgarh or Srinagar (where the policeman's killing at the hands of a mob that was at the mosque to pray, portends a turning point). 

All this, to reap a political dividend in the form of a seat in the assembly, become a member of parliament or head a state government or run the country!

What can we expect to be when by 2022, we turn 75? Bloodied, but hey, one nation, one people, speaking only one language, professing only one supreme faith!  Surely, surely, there is much more to life and living than to crave the power to remake India in this flawed uni-dimensional image? Vikram Seth’s A Suitable Boy had this chilling passage that has stayed with me all these years, of a young man being pursued by a furious mob. Cornered, pleading for his life, he is asked to prove he is a Hindu, by chanting the Gayatri mantra!  The mantra that we were taught to chant every day, and that in turn, one has taught the children. The mantra that is meant to bring knowledge, illuminate our lives.

This descent into anarchy across the lawless north – it must not cross the Vindhyas – where murderous lynch mobs use religion as a cover to settle scores, always citing a higher power, should know that recreating the circumstances that set off the exodus of Partition, India’s own Holocaust, with mobs, both Hindu and Muslim, going from one train compartment to the other, caught in a bloodlust, cannot be revisited at any cost. Is this the India that we want?  There’s no question that political parties like the Congress and the many regional parties that have been spawned in its wake, as the Congress' hold over the masses recedes, have played minority politics for electoral gain. And in fact, continue to be completely cynical about it; be it in using language as Mamata Banerjee has done in a bid, to not just push the Gorkhalis to the wall, but attempt to expose the BJP by forcing it’s hand on their promise of statehood for the Gorkhas; Or religion, or caste. 

Duplicitous, double-dealing, doubletalk. That’s the politician for you. Everyone's an enemy if he isn’t your chamcha, err..friend.

In poll-bound Karnataka, with assembly elections expected to be called early, you can expect the politics of caste appeasement to turn into a feeding frenzy. We could live with that. But for the Congress party to take a leaf out of the BJP's book and do an NDTV-2 crosses the line!  It didn’t get the national media's attention. Neither Mr Ravi Belagere nor Mr Anil Raju are Prannoy Roy. Nor do their tabloids have the reach of NDTV.

But a cautionary tale, Mr Siddaramaiah. The law's the law. File a case, take them to court. But to alienate the journalistic fraternity in a poll-bound year, by throwing two writers in jail for 12 long months, because they ran or wrote articles that were defamatory - against the Speaker and his family - and refused to appear before a Legislative House appointed Privileges Committee, is rank bad politics. Even a slew of freebies a la Amma's canteens, farm loan waivers, aimed at this caste and that community may not be enough. 

Especially, when all that the BJP needs for a UP in the south is to turn India’s economy around, deliver on the electoral promises made...But to arrest Ravi Belagere on the day before the Emergency was imposed - June 25, 1975 - is to gift the state to the rival BJP on a platter!