A Well Deserved Thrashing
by Abdaal Akhtar
The Rang de Basanti brand of activism, served up Civil society style, has been around for quite some time in India. Its current flowering dates from the time Anna Hazare left his cocoon of anonymity to take up the role of the swashbuckling crusading knight bringing down the castles of corruption erected by politicians, old and new. This modern day Don Quixote was ably assisted by a bunch of Sancho Panzas ranging from the Bhushans to the Kejriwal and Bedis. This is where the story took a turn that even Cervantes could hardly have imagined. From the safety of their houses emerged thousands of other Quixotes, candles in hand, blank expressions on their face- raging and ranting against Anna’s foes. An ineffectual government surrendered meekly to lusty cheers by this motley crowd.
Act II: A saffron clad baba peddling the potent mix of yoga and dharma decides to have his share in the limelight too. Its not enough to appear only on Aastha TV daily. Now its time to graduate to NDTV and Aaj Tak. This baba incidentally is not a hermit baba of the Vedic kind. He owns a private jet, has an isle in Scotland to chill and through a ‘charitable trust’ owns property worth hundreds of crores throughout India and abroad. Oh and all this apparently from selling ayurvedic medicines! (Psst..The medicines were found to have human bone fragments..Has to be a rumour spread by those insidious Marxists!). Presto! A modern day Ramayana is enacted at the sprawling Ram Lila grounds. Baba out to save Bharat ‘Sita’ Maata from the clutches of the Ravanesque Government. Again the Government crawls when asked to bend and sends in a phalanx of ministers to receive the clown at the Airport. All attempts at conciliation fail (obviously! No photo ops till now..and call off the agitation??) and Baba starts his modern day Ram Lila.
Then something snaps.
The State wakes up, sends in the police, beats the living crap out of Baba’s bhakts and has Baba, in a very un-Ramchandraesque fashion, scampering away in a sari. And that was the damned right thing to do.
Civil Disobedience as a tool has no relevance in an independent, democratic India. Many a demand has been forced down the throat of the Government, against its better judgment, through such ill conceived satyagrahas and dharnas. Political change cannot come through online activism or middle class led NGOism. You want a change, then you join the system and change it. What sort of a movement is this where you abdicate all responsibility but want your demands to be accepted all the same? Encouraged by the Government’s wavering, a whole bunch of self serving NGO types have mushroomed all over the country. They’ll oppose anything that has the Government in it somewhere. There is no informed discussion, no attempt at dialogue-just protest because of the publicity it ensures! They contribute a lot towards pushing genuine causes to the periphery of public discourse. Administration has ground to a halt because everyday there is a new group holding candles at India Gate or setting up tents outside Jantar Mantar.
This brings me back to the Ramdev episode. He did not join the Anna campaign because he wanted to be Don Quixote himself! Plus educated men like Kejriwal and so were not really the kind of people Ramdev is comfortable with. He likes the rabble rousers and the danga-fasaad types. No wonder then that his biggest supporter today is the original outlaw of this country-the RSS who have never sworn fealty to anything but the Union Jack and the Swastika. The Dhongi Baba is also a clever media manager, he wanted to launch a dharna in Noida because he can be easily covered by media houses there. Even India TV would not send its reporters to Haridwar! (No offence to Uttarakhandis) What really took the cake was Advani comparing this episode to Jallianwala Bagh. Now we all know that Advani and blood bath go back a long way but even die hard Sanghis would take that comment with a large lump of salt. The sooner AdolfVani reconciles himself to the fact that he will never become the PM, the better it’ll be for him and the country.
The belated but apt response of the Government has ensured that the Indian State is not perceived as weak or vacillating. The process established by law has to be followed in every case, no matter whatever be that issue. Any more kowtowing to the “Hang Kasab”, “Hang Corrupt” and “Hang John Doe” brigade will erode the very foundations on which the government of this fragile nation state runs. Let the chattering classes howl and let Ramdev do his muscle flexing, there should be no surrender to these vested interests. Every blow rained on Ramdev’s minions was a decisive blow against this media created monster that was running amok. That midnight thrashing sure set him in place!
why is there always a hint of anger and revenge in your post when it come to anything related to Hindus?
Point accepted you hate them. Didn’t expect such a mediocre post from you. Seems too much prejudiced reading is showing its effects.
Hindus? Who is a Hindu? Ramdev? A politician who thrives on showmanship? Don’t degrade your faith by linking it to a stuntman’s actions.
And thank you for your precious comments on my ‘reading’. Till I dont read the kind of bullshit people like you read and encourage, I think I am quite safe.
@Anon:
I don’t see any hint of anger or revenge. If a Hindu were to call the SIMI or the Lashkar-e-Toiba militant organisations, would that be hating Muslims?
Making a point against the RSS is in no way tantamount to hating Hindus. If you essentialize Hinduism to a collective of individuals who have nothing better to do but to perpetuate hate, then you’re belittling the very religion you claim to espouse. Someone like Ramdev might be your Kalki, but he certainly isn’t mine.
Hi. Your post + the comments are rather passionate, so I wont say much. Except that I disagree. In a mild, non-threatening, we should discuss this over coffee, manner.
Civil disobedience always has a place, more so because democracy can be fully optimal only in a country where such participation in the democracy is informed and voluntary. I’m sure you’ll agree that this isn’t the case in our country. (yet. I’m a hopeful person). Until then, and maybe even beyond, the right of an individual to question the government is not something that should ever be restricted, because the government as it stands, isnt truly of the people, and therefore, by default, not representative of that particular individual.
Also, what is this reading thats being referred to?
to call the tamasha created by ramdev and his stooges “civil disobedience” would be an affront to the very word.In a representative democracy like ours,civil disobedience is an important tool,saying someone has to join the system to change it is i think being too idealistic and impractical.our democracy hasn’t matured to such a level.the medha patkars and swami nigamanandas have shown us that in most situations civil disobedience is d best and perhaps d only way……….infact we r lucky that we have a tradition of such non violent protests inherited from d independence struggle….