By Ananya S Guha
Once again we are witness to barbaric acts going unnoticed or applied blinkers to by the authorities. I am referring to the stone pelting on a school bus in Gurugram, Haryana. Picking on innocent children is an example of the worst sort of mayhem and complete breakdown of law and order. Watching the videos on television is mortification. Innocent children are desperately trying to ward off the attacks and cowering under the seats. We as a nation are benumbed into silence by violence, brute force and vicious malevolence. Hatred is simply a reason to shout, attack or kill. From Dalits to low castes to minority religious communities we have perverse ways to express animosity. The world of protest does not exist. Protest is letting go unmitigated hatred, it does not matter who the victims are.
Just take this example of stoning school children. The perpetrators were children once upon a time. By such attacks they are making a murderous attack on their childhood, their relatives and their friends. But they do not know this. This is their tragedy.
The Karni Sena has been described as a fringe group. If they are a fringe group why are they able to create such chaos over a movie? Why can’t we eliminate such groups by strong- willed action? We choose to remain silent. Why? Because the historical antagonist six centuries back was a Muslim? So we vent our anger on children and resort to violence in four states? And the state governments are silent! The central government looks askance. And we talk of educating the child? We are causing the worst kind of ignominy on them by instilling fear of going to school. And of course educators could not care less. If we could have a “Not In My Name,” protest why are we not bothered about preserving the innocence of lives. We have tarnished the innocence of children and the country has a collective responsibility for it.
It is not difficult to see that behind all this is a political wisdom. The choice of the four states testify this. So does the tacit support of the state governments. We are criminalizing our lives in the worst ways. The politics of the times typify this. Why could not the opposition political parties call for a protest march? They met on Republic Day for a march and to ‘ save ‘ the Constitution. These were their own words. What about child rights protection groups?
The India of the present is under the vicious control of politicians geared only towards their lust for power, at any cost. They are only interested in appearing in front of the media for self glorification. There is no innocence in our lives because the country ruled by these people has lost it and we are bereft of any sensitiveness. We lost it, whatever little we had left over, on that day, the 24th January 2018.
The worst part is that the issue is not the film. The issues are political, and the vote banks to garner, keeping in mind pending elections. And that makes such looting, burning, stone pelting and smashing so irrational and diabolic. So on the one hand we project a fantastic picture of 21st century India on the threshold of development, but inside primeval horrors and atavism rule. Schizophrenia within the country has led to the many Indias not in dialogue with each other but pitted against one another. And all this is due to vote bank politics, politics of expediency and politicization of life in every sphere. Writers are killed, books are banned, films lead to uproar, what next?
The film Padmavati is a non- issue. It does not hurt the sentiments of the Rajputs. If anything at all it is adulatory about the Rajput valour. On the other hand it castigates the Muslim invaders of the 13th century, showing them as caricatured marauders and in fact it is anti – them. Malik Kafur, Alauddin’s slave boy is shown as a queer, and his character is lampooned, but his viciousness to kill is clearly and gleefully highlighted. So what is wrong with the movie? Nothing from the Hindu/ Rajput point of view. Then why this hue and cry?
Obviously, something has to be created out of nothing, to hold to ransom at least four states with the predatory Karni Sena around. Children in buses which are attacked, cowering to save their lives, scared out of their wits’ end are pictures which the mind cannot wipe out. But who says anything? Not a whisper.
This then is the real India. The India which is caught in the web of depraved politics, read vote power, when on the eve of every election in a state or at the center is vitiated by controversies which actually do not exist. The fall outs are force, brute strength and violence. It is this tragedy that I’m pointing out – that of the victims. Cow vigilantism, attacks against Dalits, Muslims, beef eating, controversy surrounding the Taj Mahal, assaulting tourists and now a movie. The tragedy is that innocent, poor people and children are brutalized.
The other India projected as real to the world outside is plastic and totally out of sync with what is happening within. In fact we are at the crossroads where the country is threatening to tear apart, all because of this insane lust for power and votes. This is the cussedness of it all.