Skip to main content

Not in my name




The various demonstrations that took the country by surprise yesterday show that India is not lost yet.  People gathered in thousands in various places to show their protest against the attacks on people belonging to a particular religious community.  From the time Mr Modi came to power in Delhi, certain criminal groups emerged under the banner of right wing religious activism and attacked certain sections of people.  Unfortunately the Prime Minister never condemned any of those attacks.  It appeared that the attacks had his tacit blessings.  It also came to light that the BJP and its allies are spending huge sums of money on spreading malicious information on social networks.  Those states ruled by BJP are changing the history textbooks in order to present the new generation with distorted histories.  In short, falsehood and hatred were being foisted on the nation very liberally.  It was an alarming situation.

The latest protest in the form of #NotInMyName gives hope to the nation.  If the people refuse to accept falsehood and hatred, no one can foist it on them.  India deserves a far better government than one which insists on selling balderdash to the people. Let movements such as #NotInMyName rise and spread throughout the country so that the 2019 general elections will teach the right lessons to our politicians (most of whom are hard-core criminals). 

The BJP’s contribution to the nation has been a neurosis.  The party took the nation from one stereotype to another, one contradiction to the next, one paranoia to another, never achieving anything beautiful, elegant, vibrant and swinging.  So much rubbish was heaped on the collective psyche of the nation.  As a result, certain animals became more sacred than certain human beings.  Human minds became polluted with filth that was given religious colouring. 

Let that change.  Let the Prime Minister and his teams learn that Indians still value life and its beautiful forms such as harmony and creativity.

Comments

  1. Yes such movements are a need of the hour, when elections are not that far away. But, I am telling you now, two years from now we will see the biggest mockery of elections ever happened on this soil.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. That's something I fear too. The way things are going, it is more likely that the elections will be rigged heavily. But the people have so little choice. There is no viable alternative to the BJP and the party is really taking advantage of the situation. What a pathetic situation in a country of 1.3 billion people!

      Delete
  2. I still very much believe in the subversive potential of Soial Movements and critical Civil Societies, not of course, those constructed and stage-manged by the State and the Market. As David Harvey, the Marxist,Human Geographer envisioned, " There should evolve Little Pockets of Resistance."

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. No doubt movements like #NotInMyName have a tremendous subversive potential. But strong leadership is what's missing.

      Delete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Randeep the melody

Many people in this pic have made their presence in this A2Z series A phone call came from an unknown number the other day. “Is it okay to talk to you now, Sir?” The caller asked. The typical start of a conversation by an influencer. “What’s it about?” My usual response looking forward to something like: “I am so-and-so from such-and-such business firm…” And I would cut the call. But there was a surprise this time. “I am Randeep…” I recognised him instantly. His voice rang like a gentle music in my heart. Randeep was a student from the last class 12 batch of Sawan. One of my favourites. He is unforgettable. Both Maggie and I taught him at Sawan where he was a student from class 4 to 12. Nine years in a residential school create deep bonds between people, even between staff and students. Randeep was an ideal student. Good at everything yet very humble and spontaneous. He was a top sportsman and a prefect with eminent leadership. He had certain peculiar problems with academics. Ans

The Adventures of Toto as a comic strip

  'The Adventures of Toto' is an amusing story by Ruskin Bond. It is prescribed as a lesson in CBSE's English course for class 9. Maggie asked her students to do a project on some of the lessons and Femi George's work is what I would like to present here. Femi converted the story into a beautiful comic strip. Her work will speak for itself and let me present it below.  Femi George Student of Carmel Public School, Vazhakulam, Kerala Similar post: The Little Girl

Sanjay and other loyalists

AI-generated illustration Some people, especially those in politics, behave as if they are too great to have any contact with the ordinary folk. And they can get on with whoever comes to power on top irrespective of their ideologies and principles. Sanjay was one such person. He occupied some high places in Sawan school [see previous posts, especially P and Q ] merely because he knew how to play his cards more dexterously than ordinary politicians. Whoever came as principal, Sanjay would be there in the elite circle. He seemed to hold most people in contempt. His respect was reserved for the gentry. I belonged to the margins of Sawan society, in Sanjay’s assessment. So we hardly talked to each other. Looking back, I find it quite ludicrous to realise that Sanjay and I lived on the same campus 24x7 for a decade and a half without ever talking to each other except for official purposes.      Towards the end of our coexistence, Sawan had become a veritable hell. Power supply to the

Thomas the Saint

AI-generated image His full name was Thomas Augustine. He was a Catholic priest. I knew him for a rather short period of my life. When I lived one whole year in the same institution with him, I was just 15 years old. I was a trainee for priesthood and he was many years my senior. We both lived in Don Bosco school and seminary at a place called Tirupattur in Tamil Nadu. He was in charge of a group of boys like me. Thomas had little to do with me directly as I was under the care of another in-charge. But his self-effacing ways and angelic smile drew me to him. He was a living saint all the years I knew him later. When he became a priest and was in charge of a section of a Don Bosco institution in Kochi, I met him again and his ways hadn’t changed an iota. You’d think he was a reincarnation of Jesus if you met him personally. You won’t be able to meet him anymore. He passed away a few years ago. One of the persons whom I won’t ever forget, can’t forget as long as the neurons continu

Pranita a perverted genius

Bulldozer begins its work at Sawan Pranita was a perverted genius. She had Machiavelli’s brain, Octavian’s relentlessness, and Levin’s intellectual calibre. She could have worked wonders if she wanted. She could have created a beautiful world around her. She had the potential. Yet she chose to be a ruthless exterminator. She came to Sawan Public School just to kill it. A religious cult called Radha Soami Satsang Beas [RSSB] had taken over the school from its owner who had never visited the school for over 20 years. This owner, a prominent entrepreneur with a gargantuan ego, had come to the conclusion that the morality of the school’s staff was deviating from the wavelengths determined by him. Moreover, his one foot was inching towards the grave. I was also told that there were some domestic noises which were grating against his patriarchal sensibilities. One holy solution for all these was to hand over the school and its enormous campus (nearly 20 acres of land on the outskirts