WE ARE GUILTY AS A NATION
By Robin Shukla
That Delhi student Gurmehar Kaur had to throw it all away and return to her hometown, Jalandhar, is an indictment against the entire nation and its government. Gurmehar was under attack for declaring that she has no truck with the Akhil Bharatiya Vidhyarthi Parishad (ABVP) whose cadres had attacked other students during an event, in the presence of a benign Delhi police.
In a subsequent contest of images featuring her, it was only after one depicting her alongside Narendra Modi, and referring to the 2002 Gujarat riots when he was CM of that state, began to circulate on FB did the one featuring her and Dawood Ibrahim get withdrawn by trolls of the BJP.
The ABVP is constantly being exposed as a dogma-driven association that strong-arms its way on most issues since it has no brains to tackle them democratically. But to have union minister Kiren Rijiju suggesting in a tweet that the girl’s mind was polluted is to expose the complicity and the low moral standards of the current government.
Pratap Simha, BJP MP from Mysuru, revealed he is also just as birdbrained with this tweet: At least Dawood did not use the crutches of his father’s name to justify his anti-national stand.
That Gurmehar’s father is a Kargil martyr is only incidental and instituting this kind of comparison was pathetically lowdown and actually points out to the immoral mind-set of all her detractors!
The less said about some stupid cricketer, a twisted wrestler and other assorted pseudos including some cranky captain Kalia, the better. Army types joining issue please note that you need to keep off and rather refocus on the jobs you are taking your salaries and subsidized CSD rations for. Your bungling in Kashmir and on the borders continues big time.
The girl has every right to feel the way she does and the issue could have been debated in a healthy manner. Unfortunately, under today’s dispensation headed by a surprisingly silent prime minister, the rotten trend of cheap and violent attacks on dissenters is commonplace and acceptable. Modi finds his eloquence only when deriding rivals and clowning around on the campaign trail.
Strangely, the Delhi police are not under the state government headed by CM Arvind Kejriwal but are directly under control of the Central government headed by Modi. Any wonder then that the videos showed them being soft on the violent ABVP lumpens even as they assaulted girls who were trying to flee from molestation?
Significantly, the Delhi police have failed to substantiate their trumped up sedition charges against another student, Kanhaiya Kumar of the JNU!