Dear Mr.
Prime Minister:
I write to you today because like so many of my fellow citizens (‘My’ or ‘Our’? Is Barkha dutt living in India or Pakistan?)
I write to you today because like so many of my fellow citizens (‘My’ or ‘Our’? Is Barkha dutt living in India or Pakistan?)
I write to
you today because like so many of my fellow citizens, (My fellow
citizens? Is Barkha Dutt Prime Minister or President? Or in her own delusion
‘She is Queen of Banana Republic where ministers are appointed by her with the
help of Nira Radia?) I am both
angry and anguished. I am aware that a missive from someone like me -
"presstitute", "bazaaru", "sickular"
and worst of all, "anti-national"(After alienating herself from
India is it surprising that she accept she is Anti-National?’)- will be most likely junked
by your office as not worthy of your time.(Oh WOW! Now the Queen is
playing God deciding the fate of the letter even before posting.)
In any case, ever since I reported on the 2002 riots in Gujarat, I am among the journalists you have clearly shunned and disliked - that is, of course, entirely your prerogative. But this week, I read that you told opposition parties that you are the PM of "all of India, not just of the BJP", and I thought I would hold you to that promise and ask for your attention as a citizen's entitlement. (So does this mean, till this week Barkha Dutt was not ready to accept Narendra Modi as democratically elected prime minister of India? Does she need personal assurance either directly or from her associates from opposition to tell her that fact? Furthermore, Narendra Modi was set free by Supreme Court in various cases of 2002 Gujrath Riots. Isn’t that the reason why Barkha Dutt started disliking him instead? And wasn’t ready to ask for his attention as a PM before this week?)
Modiji, I take you back to the years before you became Chief Minister and began the "othering" of large sections of the English media whom you were convinced were out to get you: when you were the approachable and friendly General Secretary of the BJP, and I was a young reporter still learning the ropes. If you remember those years - and I am told you never forget (or forgive) (What is this page 3 gossip? If Barkha known Modi so well to tag him as friendly and approachable, then why she need an unnamed source to tell her he never forget? Or she just want to play safe instead she need to change her master in near future?)
In any case, ever since I reported on the 2002 riots in Gujarat, I am among the journalists you have clearly shunned and disliked - that is, of course, entirely your prerogative. But this week, I read that you told opposition parties that you are the PM of "all of India, not just of the BJP", and I thought I would hold you to that promise and ask for your attention as a citizen's entitlement. (So does this mean, till this week Barkha Dutt was not ready to accept Narendra Modi as democratically elected prime minister of India? Does she need personal assurance either directly or from her associates from opposition to tell her that fact? Furthermore, Narendra Modi was set free by Supreme Court in various cases of 2002 Gujrath Riots. Isn’t that the reason why Barkha Dutt started disliking him instead? And wasn’t ready to ask for his attention as a PM before this week?)
Modiji, I take you back to the years before you became Chief Minister and began the "othering" of large sections of the English media whom you were convinced were out to get you: when you were the approachable and friendly General Secretary of the BJP, and I was a young reporter still learning the ropes. If you remember those years - and I am told you never forget (or forgive) (What is this page 3 gossip? If Barkha known Modi so well to tag him as friendly and approachable, then why she need an unnamed source to tell her he never forget? Or she just want to play safe instead she need to change her master in near future?)
- You would recall that I first cut my teeth
as a journalist reporting a war from the frontline in Kargil in 1999. I was
still in my 20s, and the intimacy and immediacy of that overwhelming exposure
would make me a life-long admirer of our military. (Sadly
though it wasn't reciprocated. Due to Barkha’s onsite reporting, many soldiers
lost their lives in Kargil. That’s how Anti-Nationalist was born. The same
story repeated in Mumbai attacks)
My
emphasis, even back then, was to humanize and personalize the stories of
soldiers in the trenches and ensure they would not remain faceless, nameless
statistics. Over the years, the bonds I forged with the Fauj only grew
deeper - my reporting has often taken me back to the border, to the Line of Control
and a variety of conflict zones to where they've been deployed. Over the past
two decades, I have done hundreds of news programs devoted to the Soldier - the
discrepancies in hardship allowances between jawans and bureaucrats, the
shameful mountain of government litigation against disabled soldiers who are
dragged to court for pensions, the pending promise of One Rank One Pension, the
bottlenecks in defence procurement, and the many sacrifices of our men and
women in uniform. (In Hindi there is a saying. “Jo bund se gayi woh
haud se nahi aati”. Once you have caused death of soldiers due to irresponsible
reporting, then you cannot claim goodwill for doing your job. Tell us Barkha,
haven’t you been paid for all those stories you mentioned?)
So I write this as a sentimental and proud Indian who has often been teased by my more left-leaning friends and colleagues for my rather maudlin and unintellectual patriotism. (Calling oneself Anti-National and Patriot at the same time are symptoms of split personality disorder. This is just for reader’s knowledge not for Presstitute writer) I would submit that the binaries that spokespersons of your government have created (aided by the hyper-nationalist drum-beating of channels like Times Now and News X) are absolutely false. It is entirely possible to deeply respect the military and feel ashamed of the multiple manipulations, doctored videos, police excesses, government heavy-handedness, brazen hooliganism and ominous environment of intimidation that the crackdown on JNU has revealed. (It may be possible Barkha, but it is absolutely impossible to call oneself Anti-National and then call oneself Patriot just 4 paragraphs apart. That my dear is, what we common men call lying) In fact, for your party to use the death of ten Siachen brave hearts to validate the gross over-reach we have seen in JNU is to, in my view, cynically exploit the honour of the uniform. I wish there was half as much outrage when your good friend Jayalalithaa's photograph was placed on the coffin of one of the Siachen soldiers by her minister, who was then proudly photographed with it.(No wonder you wish that. All you want is break of outrage all across country. You could have wish for half of calmness when few soldiers dies at Siachen in the month of November. But calm doesn’t make a story. Half outrage make half a story.)
Modi ji, I would also like to take you back to a man whose name you love invoking - Atal Bihari Vajpayee. I remember the tingling excitement of hope and optimism that ran through my veins as I stood among the crowds in Srinagar in 2003 and heard him discard the rigidities of legalism and offer "Insaniyat" as the framework for reconciliation in the Kashmir Valley. Sadly, in its handling of the JNU controversy, the government has subverted the Vajpayee legacy in one fell swoop - I assume with your approval.(On taking people back to Atal Bihari Vajpayee, I would like to take Barkha back when she might be in her teen. After making alliance with Shiv Sena in 1987, Atal Bihari Vajpayee Said “Hindu ab mar nahi khayega”)
Where Vajpayee promised that Humanism would override the literal application of the law as he stretched out a hand even to pro-Azaadi separatists, this week we have seen a singular absence of generosity or empathy from the team you lead. (What empathy has to do with taking a suspect into police custody? We all seen what happened to Kanhaiya outside court. At least he is safe and alive in police custody. If police has shown insaniyat he would be another martyr after Rohit.) The Home Minister went so far as to link students to the dreaded Lashkar terrorist Hafiz Saeed, based on a police endorsement of a fake Twitter account. Not just have we not seen any evidence of terror links, but it now appears that the video used to slap a sedition charge on Kanhaiya Kumar, the JNU student leader, has been doctored, with the audio spliced onto images from a different day.
In a country that took pride in giving even Ajmal Kasab, a 26/11 perpetrator, a fair trial, a young man whose worst crime (and that's if you stretch it) is that he could not stop a handful of other students from raising some admittedly disturbing slogans - has been slapped and pushed around in court in the presence of a police that failed or perhaps refused to protect him. The HRD Minister Smriti Irani speaks of how the anti-India slogans were an insult to "Mother India". But aren't Mothers benign, forgiving, broad-minded and all embracing? Stern, yes, when a child needs it, but surely never heartless. (For your own knowledge, watch a climax of film called Mother India. A classic, popular at the same time profit making film gave exactly how forgiving, broad-minded and all-embracing a mother should be. If you are not into films ever heard a story of a thief biting ear of his mother because she was too forgiving?)
Yet, heartlessness and hypocrisy combined with sneering aggression is what's been on display this entire week. (I am confused? You meant JNU’s Anti national protest or something else?) As goons in black robes rampaged through the Delhi court house where Kanhaiya Kumar is being tried, they assaulted journalists not just on day one, but then once again, a little over 24 hours later, emboldened by the knowledge that no cop was going to come after them and in open contempt of a Supreme Court directive. Euphoric from the taste of blood, they congratulated each other on social media for being the "shers" who did "what the government and military could not do". The Chief Goon, Vikram Chauhan, photographed with a slew of BJP leaders - everyone from Rajnath Singh to LK Advani - has been garlanded on the court premises; candles have been lit in "solidarity" for him. The alacrity with which the police arrested Kanhaiya Kumar is in cruel contrast to the inaction against these lumpen lawyers who enjoy political patronage. (It’s remarkable that Barkha really tried to make it about Kanhaiya who is enjoying media patronage, against some lawyer who is enjoying political patronage because Barkha Dutt has photographs? Do you know who else called sher in last few weeks? Afzal Guru. No mentioned of him in this entire letter)
There are police raids across the country to find the sloganeering students who have gone underground; friends who knew them are being identified from Facebook and summoned by the police from towns outside the capital; there are reports of hostels being searched, and landlords ousting JNU students to avoid "trouble". But the rowdies in robes are free, though surely the brazen violence and anti-constitutionalism by men meant to represent the law is a graver danger to democracy than mere words (Barkha went so far to coin the new term Law is mightier than sword, replacing Words with law. Because words are mere words. It’s not words, its emotions behind the action that counts) - no matter how awful and offensive - could ever be.
Yet, after all this, it was students of JNU who marched peacefully in their thousands carrying the tricolour and roses, using the gentleness of Gandhigiri to respond to the Goondagardi of the thugs in court. (Have they marched using the gentleness of Gandhigiri to respond to Anti-National slogans that has been shouted at Nation from inside of their campus? No!)
Through all this, they may have wondered - as we do - what our Prime Minister thinks. Do you approve of the decision to send police onto a student campus? (Have they ever wonder who let the Anti-National inside the student campus in the first place?) Might it not have been wiser and more mature to let the university administration tackle the issue, as the Jadavpur Vice-Chancellor has done? (See, what Barkha want to suggest here is that an alleged crime like sedition should be handle not by Police but by academic who are ill-equipped for this) Now that it's clear that the "Azaadi" Kanhaiya Kumar spoke of was not from India, but from Hunger, Inequality, Communalism and Caste Bias, will the government apologize to him? (For What? Conducting an investigation based on evidences provided? Have Barkha Dutt apologised to Modi even after he was set free by Supreme Court in Gujrath Riot Case?) And in any case, do you really think the Indian State is so fragile that it would come undone by a clutch of "Hum Kya Chahate - Azaadi" cries? (Ever heard a term prevention is better than cure?) Because if that's the new thinking, we may have to arrest an entire generation of Kashmiri youth instead of politically engaging with them.
Do you not, Mr. Prime Minister, agree that if you can visit Lahore to greet Nawaz Sharif on his birthday despite the spectre of terrorism (and I thought it was spectacularly bold of you), if you can negotiate with Naga secessionists and proudly announce a peace accord (the details of which are still awaited), if you can ally with the PDP whose leader Mehbooba Mufti believes not just that Afzal Guru should not have been executed, but has, as part of her father's "healing touch", often visited the families of dead militants because she does not think their children should be punished - if you can take these decisions and never have your patriotism questioned, do you not think it's a crazy over-reaction of the government to arrest a young man for slogans that it now turns out weren't even his own? (There is only one video of Kanhaiya which turns out to be false. Police still state that they have enough evidence. Court has granted Police custody for Kanhaiya as I write this on 26th Feb 2016. Do you think court is granting police custody on basis of false video?)Is battling young students - first at the Pune Film Institute (They were not young by any standard. These student took 7 years to complete 4 year’s course. These students must be in their early 30s or late 20s), then in Hyderabad, (What happened in Hyderabad was suicide of Terrorist Yakub Menon’s sympathizer. Fellow student didn’t allowed doctors to examine the body till morning. Ensuring death of Rohit) and now at JNU - really the war you want to lead your troops into? (Whether it is innocent students of JNU or Anti-National of JNU battle must be fought when threat is to the nation.)
Do you agree that "cooking beef" and "worshipping demons" should be part of a police report (Shouldn’t be or should be? Ok let’s agree to agree with Barkha for one and only time. It should be) to explain the "anti-nationalism" of young men, doubly ironic because the police reports to a Minister who is from the beef-eating state of Arunachal Pradesh? (Characterisation of entire state as beef eating is not only derogatory but also shows narrow mindedness of a writer.) Did your heart not break, just a little bit, when you saw Kanhaiya Kumar being dragged and pulled, his eyes worn by physical fear? And what was your thought when you opened the morning newspapers to see a legislator of your party pounce on an opposition activist who lay flat on the road with hands folded in fright, an image that made national and international headlines for both the asymmetry and abuse of power it conveyed? (While writing on death of soldiers of Siachen Barkha wrote few para above “In fact, for your party to use the death of ten Siachen brave hearts to validate the gross over-reach we have seen in JNU is to, in my view, cynically exploit the honour of the uniform.’ And now she is using the fear in the eyes of Kanhaiya Kumar. Who is cynically exploiting fear as seen in eyes of Kanhaiya Kumar? And who has seen it? Barkha? In the entire letter Barkha tries to exploit police action against Kanhaiya)
we do not know the answer to any of these questions because you have just not spoken. (Or maybe you have just asked? Don’t you have patience to write the letter and wait for the answers? Or you have already made your mind that even if Modi answer you will shut your ears) you have become curiously Manmohan-esque in your silences after mocking your predecessor for them. With one crucial difference - he hardly ever spoke on anything, whereas you are voluble on a host of issues, except the festering crises that are often self-creations of the government. (Modi has spoken on every issue including Rohit Vemulas’s death. But here Barkha employees “Naro va kunjrova” tactic and refuses to listen. She has concluded that Modi has not answered the questions even before finishing the letter in which she ask those questions. Bravo Barkha, Bravo) With respect,(after all this, you can smell-taste-touch sarcasm of her writing) Mr. Prime Minister, given that you are a masterful orator and won the 2014 election at least partly on the back of effective communication, these silences are bewildering.
When you do break them, it's almost always far too late to contain the damage. Think Dadri. More recently, think how a young man called Rohith Vemula was driven to suicide in Hyderabad (By whom? That is the question. Have he ever mentioned Modi or BJP or central government in his suicide note? Aren’t Rohit keeping silence on the matter which drove him to his death? And you find Modi’s silence unacceptable?) By the time you did express your grief, party spokespersons had defiled the debate with conspiracy theories about whether he was a Dalit or not. Then, like now, they had forced their construct of nationalism onto the debate with whispers about how slogans were raised by Vemula against the execution of Yakub Memon. (How a person whispers in ear of Television and mic that pickup almost all the sounds. They are openly stating the facts with photograph. But because you didn’t not show them on your news channel you label them as whispers. They are not whispers they are hard hitting facts)
Modiji, naturally, none of us like a slogan that calls for India's ruin. (No one care about your personal likes and dislikes. The important point here is are we going to seat and do nothing like Bhishma and Drona did in court of Dhutrashtra or We are going to act now and prevent another Mahabharata from happening? Remember ISIS is trying to break India. They might be delighted not only to see people like Rohit and Umar Khalid but also likes of Barkha Dutt)
But thought cannot be policed, and nationalism cannot be regimented; it's for every Indian to define it for herself. (No one here barring the thoughts. The whole drama unfolded because of action. Gathering crowded in the street of National Capital city and chanting to break the country on the name of Allah is something that can be and must be policed and regimented.) I still get goose-bumps every single time I hear our anthem, I leap to my feet to stand and sing it out loud in my foghorn voice. But I would never support punishing or intimidating those who sit through it in a movie hall, as we saw happen in Maharashtra recently. (The question is will you push those who said Bharat tere tukade honge inshaallah insha allah? Or will you push those who said Bharat ki barbadi tak jang rahegi jang rahegi? Let alone pushing you are not even airing those chant like they never happened)
We are all getting on in age, but let's for a moment think back to our years in university. Being young and being rebellious is all about non-conformism and anti-establishmentarianism, It's about questioning everything - marriage, love, sexuality, caste, religion – (See the extent Barkha has generalise the rebellious feeling of young – “everything”) and yes, for some, even the Nation-State.(Well that is no surprise. You have already declared yourself an Anti-National) As long as this sloganeering is not accompanied by an incitement to violence, surely we need not use the sledgehammer of sedition against young people. (Here Barkha want to play role of Judge-Parliament and Police. She will decide what should be the law, how to interpret it and what action to be taken. There is no such provision of “slogans must be accompanied by incitement to violence” But she is the Queen and Banana Republic and want to make her own laws.)
You wouldn't need me to remind you of the famous case Balwant Singh Vs State of Punjab - the Supreme Court overturned the charge of sedition and acquitted those who had shouted, "Khalistan Zindabad, Raj Karega Khalsa" a few hours after Indira Gandhi's assassination. If the highest court of the land can show that maturity in a much more volatile and sensitive case than the JNU controversy, why can't the government? (First Khalistan Zindabad is different from Bharat tere Tukade honge Inshaallah Inshaallah, Or Bharat Ki Barbadi tak jung rahegi jung rahegi. The earlier is clearly about breaking India into fragments and latter is about destruction of India. The qualitative difference to simply put is Khalistan Zindabad is positive slogan. Can same be said about the slogans chanted at JNU?) Do we even need a sedition law that was given to us by the British in the 1860s? (Britain incidentally scrapped it in 2010.) (Are we supposed to follow Britain? Britain which is called UK has only 4 states namely, England, Wells, Scotland and Northern Ireland and some Islands around the globe. Out of which Scotland had a referendum on their independence last year. Comparing that teeny-tiny country with a Nation as vast and complex as India Barkha has shown her intellectual shallowness. Why she is not quoting any American example her? America the same country to whom many of the intellectuals wrote not to award Visa to Modi has very strict sedition. Few years earlier there were group of people who were hosting southern flag from civil war era. And that’s for the last time we heard from them. America as a country is not even half as complex as India. And even they feel need of sedition laws to protect them from within)
Whatever the BJP calculations were on converting the JNU crackdown into political advantage have clearly dissipated. Given legal precedence, Kanhaiya Kumar is sooner or later likely to be acquitted by a higher court, and will walk out a hero. (Or will be made hero with the help of some media patronage. Just like they made Ishrat a heroine for few decades) Given the writing on the wall, wouldn't you, Mr. Prime Minister, think it's wiser, kinder and yes, politically smarter - apart from it also being the only correct thing to do - to drop the charges against him, order the police and the Home Ministry to concede its mistake and apologize, (The said matter still under investigation. Court has allowed the Police custody on 26th Feb 2016 which I have mentioned earlier. Now dropping charges even before investigation is completed will be unjust to people of this nation. And apologising? How about you and your channel starts by apologising to People of India about making a heroine out of Terrorist Ishrat?) drop the criminal charges against the other students, (This, it’s all boil down to this. By chanting Kanhaiya 108 times what Barkha ultimately wants is Umar Kahlid and his all other accomplice should be set free to spread their venom among our society. She can’t see what is wrong in that because she has in her own word at her university age “questioned Nation-State” and now an Anti-National. So for her this is not a crime at all. She can’t understand what all the fuss about it. And hand back the case to the JNU administration to handle it as a disciplinary issue from here on? (Being intellectually shallow is one thing, but being wrong is another. There is no question of Jurisdiction. This is not a case which is taken away from JNU like CBI take case away from Local police. The JNU can still investigate and maximum they can do is prevent student appearing for Exam or cancel their admission. Police investigation is under criminal law not under any Educational rule book. The fate of police cases must be decided only in court of law. What Barkha is asking here is direct intervention from a politician into a serious matter such a sedition. This must not be allowed under any circumstances.)
Gurudev Tagore, who gave us our stirring national anthem, also wrote, "Patriotism cannot be our final spiritual shelter; my refuge is humanity. I will not buy glass for the price of diamonds, and I will never allow patriotism to triumph over humanity as long as I live" (It is so easy to quote or rather misquote great thinker or philosophers. Barkha is free to practice what Gurudev has said. But keep in mind his humanity was all inclusive humanity. Not just concentrated on minorities.)
Modi ji, India belongs to its young. (Keeping her Anti-National mind set Barkha deliver a final blow to herself by simply squashing everyone not young. India belong to everyone, not only youngs and certainly not only to congress.) The tricolour is in their hands. (After preaching us from the Rabindranath’s quote on humanity just 2 lines ago, Barkha suddenly turn towards Nationalism. Where does humanity goes now?) And so is our future.
So I write this as a sentimental and proud Indian who has often been teased by my more left-leaning friends and colleagues for my rather maudlin and unintellectual patriotism. (Calling oneself Anti-National and Patriot at the same time are symptoms of split personality disorder. This is just for reader’s knowledge not for Presstitute writer) I would submit that the binaries that spokespersons of your government have created (aided by the hyper-nationalist drum-beating of channels like Times Now and News X) are absolutely false. It is entirely possible to deeply respect the military and feel ashamed of the multiple manipulations, doctored videos, police excesses, government heavy-handedness, brazen hooliganism and ominous environment of intimidation that the crackdown on JNU has revealed. (It may be possible Barkha, but it is absolutely impossible to call oneself Anti-National and then call oneself Patriot just 4 paragraphs apart. That my dear is, what we common men call lying) In fact, for your party to use the death of ten Siachen brave hearts to validate the gross over-reach we have seen in JNU is to, in my view, cynically exploit the honour of the uniform. I wish there was half as much outrage when your good friend Jayalalithaa's photograph was placed on the coffin of one of the Siachen soldiers by her minister, who was then proudly photographed with it.(No wonder you wish that. All you want is break of outrage all across country. You could have wish for half of calmness when few soldiers dies at Siachen in the month of November. But calm doesn’t make a story. Half outrage make half a story.)
Modi ji, I would also like to take you back to a man whose name you love invoking - Atal Bihari Vajpayee. I remember the tingling excitement of hope and optimism that ran through my veins as I stood among the crowds in Srinagar in 2003 and heard him discard the rigidities of legalism and offer "Insaniyat" as the framework for reconciliation in the Kashmir Valley. Sadly, in its handling of the JNU controversy, the government has subverted the Vajpayee legacy in one fell swoop - I assume with your approval.(On taking people back to Atal Bihari Vajpayee, I would like to take Barkha back when she might be in her teen. After making alliance with Shiv Sena in 1987, Atal Bihari Vajpayee Said “Hindu ab mar nahi khayega”)
Where Vajpayee promised that Humanism would override the literal application of the law as he stretched out a hand even to pro-Azaadi separatists, this week we have seen a singular absence of generosity or empathy from the team you lead. (What empathy has to do with taking a suspect into police custody? We all seen what happened to Kanhaiya outside court. At least he is safe and alive in police custody. If police has shown insaniyat he would be another martyr after Rohit.) The Home Minister went so far as to link students to the dreaded Lashkar terrorist Hafiz Saeed, based on a police endorsement of a fake Twitter account. Not just have we not seen any evidence of terror links, but it now appears that the video used to slap a sedition charge on Kanhaiya Kumar, the JNU student leader, has been doctored, with the audio spliced onto images from a different day.
In a country that took pride in giving even Ajmal Kasab, a 26/11 perpetrator, a fair trial, a young man whose worst crime (and that's if you stretch it) is that he could not stop a handful of other students from raising some admittedly disturbing slogans - has been slapped and pushed around in court in the presence of a police that failed or perhaps refused to protect him. The HRD Minister Smriti Irani speaks of how the anti-India slogans were an insult to "Mother India". But aren't Mothers benign, forgiving, broad-minded and all embracing? Stern, yes, when a child needs it, but surely never heartless. (For your own knowledge, watch a climax of film called Mother India. A classic, popular at the same time profit making film gave exactly how forgiving, broad-minded and all-embracing a mother should be. If you are not into films ever heard a story of a thief biting ear of his mother because she was too forgiving?)
Yet, heartlessness and hypocrisy combined with sneering aggression is what's been on display this entire week. (I am confused? You meant JNU’s Anti national protest or something else?) As goons in black robes rampaged through the Delhi court house where Kanhaiya Kumar is being tried, they assaulted journalists not just on day one, but then once again, a little over 24 hours later, emboldened by the knowledge that no cop was going to come after them and in open contempt of a Supreme Court directive. Euphoric from the taste of blood, they congratulated each other on social media for being the "shers" who did "what the government and military could not do". The Chief Goon, Vikram Chauhan, photographed with a slew of BJP leaders - everyone from Rajnath Singh to LK Advani - has been garlanded on the court premises; candles have been lit in "solidarity" for him. The alacrity with which the police arrested Kanhaiya Kumar is in cruel contrast to the inaction against these lumpen lawyers who enjoy political patronage. (It’s remarkable that Barkha really tried to make it about Kanhaiya who is enjoying media patronage, against some lawyer who is enjoying political patronage because Barkha Dutt has photographs? Do you know who else called sher in last few weeks? Afzal Guru. No mentioned of him in this entire letter)
There are police raids across the country to find the sloganeering students who have gone underground; friends who knew them are being identified from Facebook and summoned by the police from towns outside the capital; there are reports of hostels being searched, and landlords ousting JNU students to avoid "trouble". But the rowdies in robes are free, though surely the brazen violence and anti-constitutionalism by men meant to represent the law is a graver danger to democracy than mere words (Barkha went so far to coin the new term Law is mightier than sword, replacing Words with law. Because words are mere words. It’s not words, its emotions behind the action that counts) - no matter how awful and offensive - could ever be.
Yet, after all this, it was students of JNU who marched peacefully in their thousands carrying the tricolour and roses, using the gentleness of Gandhigiri to respond to the Goondagardi of the thugs in court. (Have they marched using the gentleness of Gandhigiri to respond to Anti-National slogans that has been shouted at Nation from inside of their campus? No!)
Through all this, they may have wondered - as we do - what our Prime Minister thinks. Do you approve of the decision to send police onto a student campus? (Have they ever wonder who let the Anti-National inside the student campus in the first place?) Might it not have been wiser and more mature to let the university administration tackle the issue, as the Jadavpur Vice-Chancellor has done? (See, what Barkha want to suggest here is that an alleged crime like sedition should be handle not by Police but by academic who are ill-equipped for this) Now that it's clear that the "Azaadi" Kanhaiya Kumar spoke of was not from India, but from Hunger, Inequality, Communalism and Caste Bias, will the government apologize to him? (For What? Conducting an investigation based on evidences provided? Have Barkha Dutt apologised to Modi even after he was set free by Supreme Court in Gujrath Riot Case?) And in any case, do you really think the Indian State is so fragile that it would come undone by a clutch of "Hum Kya Chahate - Azaadi" cries? (Ever heard a term prevention is better than cure?) Because if that's the new thinking, we may have to arrest an entire generation of Kashmiri youth instead of politically engaging with them.
Do you not, Mr. Prime Minister, agree that if you can visit Lahore to greet Nawaz Sharif on his birthday despite the spectre of terrorism (and I thought it was spectacularly bold of you), if you can negotiate with Naga secessionists and proudly announce a peace accord (the details of which are still awaited), if you can ally with the PDP whose leader Mehbooba Mufti believes not just that Afzal Guru should not have been executed, but has, as part of her father's "healing touch", often visited the families of dead militants because she does not think their children should be punished - if you can take these decisions and never have your patriotism questioned, do you not think it's a crazy over-reaction of the government to arrest a young man for slogans that it now turns out weren't even his own? (There is only one video of Kanhaiya which turns out to be false. Police still state that they have enough evidence. Court has granted Police custody for Kanhaiya as I write this on 26th Feb 2016. Do you think court is granting police custody on basis of false video?)Is battling young students - first at the Pune Film Institute (They were not young by any standard. These student took 7 years to complete 4 year’s course. These students must be in their early 30s or late 20s), then in Hyderabad, (What happened in Hyderabad was suicide of Terrorist Yakub Menon’s sympathizer. Fellow student didn’t allowed doctors to examine the body till morning. Ensuring death of Rohit) and now at JNU - really the war you want to lead your troops into? (Whether it is innocent students of JNU or Anti-National of JNU battle must be fought when threat is to the nation.)
Do you agree that "cooking beef" and "worshipping demons" should be part of a police report (Shouldn’t be or should be? Ok let’s agree to agree with Barkha for one and only time. It should be) to explain the "anti-nationalism" of young men, doubly ironic because the police reports to a Minister who is from the beef-eating state of Arunachal Pradesh? (Characterisation of entire state as beef eating is not only derogatory but also shows narrow mindedness of a writer.) Did your heart not break, just a little bit, when you saw Kanhaiya Kumar being dragged and pulled, his eyes worn by physical fear? And what was your thought when you opened the morning newspapers to see a legislator of your party pounce on an opposition activist who lay flat on the road with hands folded in fright, an image that made national and international headlines for both the asymmetry and abuse of power it conveyed? (While writing on death of soldiers of Siachen Barkha wrote few para above “In fact, for your party to use the death of ten Siachen brave hearts to validate the gross over-reach we have seen in JNU is to, in my view, cynically exploit the honour of the uniform.’ And now she is using the fear in the eyes of Kanhaiya Kumar. Who is cynically exploiting fear as seen in eyes of Kanhaiya Kumar? And who has seen it? Barkha? In the entire letter Barkha tries to exploit police action against Kanhaiya)
we do not know the answer to any of these questions because you have just not spoken. (Or maybe you have just asked? Don’t you have patience to write the letter and wait for the answers? Or you have already made your mind that even if Modi answer you will shut your ears) you have become curiously Manmohan-esque in your silences after mocking your predecessor for them. With one crucial difference - he hardly ever spoke on anything, whereas you are voluble on a host of issues, except the festering crises that are often self-creations of the government. (Modi has spoken on every issue including Rohit Vemulas’s death. But here Barkha employees “Naro va kunjrova” tactic and refuses to listen. She has concluded that Modi has not answered the questions even before finishing the letter in which she ask those questions. Bravo Barkha, Bravo) With respect,(after all this, you can smell-taste-touch sarcasm of her writing) Mr. Prime Minister, given that you are a masterful orator and won the 2014 election at least partly on the back of effective communication, these silences are bewildering.
When you do break them, it's almost always far too late to contain the damage. Think Dadri. More recently, think how a young man called Rohith Vemula was driven to suicide in Hyderabad (By whom? That is the question. Have he ever mentioned Modi or BJP or central government in his suicide note? Aren’t Rohit keeping silence on the matter which drove him to his death? And you find Modi’s silence unacceptable?) By the time you did express your grief, party spokespersons had defiled the debate with conspiracy theories about whether he was a Dalit or not. Then, like now, they had forced their construct of nationalism onto the debate with whispers about how slogans were raised by Vemula against the execution of Yakub Memon. (How a person whispers in ear of Television and mic that pickup almost all the sounds. They are openly stating the facts with photograph. But because you didn’t not show them on your news channel you label them as whispers. They are not whispers they are hard hitting facts)
Modiji, naturally, none of us like a slogan that calls for India's ruin. (No one care about your personal likes and dislikes. The important point here is are we going to seat and do nothing like Bhishma and Drona did in court of Dhutrashtra or We are going to act now and prevent another Mahabharata from happening? Remember ISIS is trying to break India. They might be delighted not only to see people like Rohit and Umar Khalid but also likes of Barkha Dutt)
But thought cannot be policed, and nationalism cannot be regimented; it's for every Indian to define it for herself. (No one here barring the thoughts. The whole drama unfolded because of action. Gathering crowded in the street of National Capital city and chanting to break the country on the name of Allah is something that can be and must be policed and regimented.) I still get goose-bumps every single time I hear our anthem, I leap to my feet to stand and sing it out loud in my foghorn voice. But I would never support punishing or intimidating those who sit through it in a movie hall, as we saw happen in Maharashtra recently. (The question is will you push those who said Bharat tere tukade honge inshaallah insha allah? Or will you push those who said Bharat ki barbadi tak jang rahegi jang rahegi? Let alone pushing you are not even airing those chant like they never happened)
We are all getting on in age, but let's for a moment think back to our years in university. Being young and being rebellious is all about non-conformism and anti-establishmentarianism, It's about questioning everything - marriage, love, sexuality, caste, religion – (See the extent Barkha has generalise the rebellious feeling of young – “everything”) and yes, for some, even the Nation-State.(Well that is no surprise. You have already declared yourself an Anti-National) As long as this sloganeering is not accompanied by an incitement to violence, surely we need not use the sledgehammer of sedition against young people. (Here Barkha want to play role of Judge-Parliament and Police. She will decide what should be the law, how to interpret it and what action to be taken. There is no such provision of “slogans must be accompanied by incitement to violence” But she is the Queen and Banana Republic and want to make her own laws.)
You wouldn't need me to remind you of the famous case Balwant Singh Vs State of Punjab - the Supreme Court overturned the charge of sedition and acquitted those who had shouted, "Khalistan Zindabad, Raj Karega Khalsa" a few hours after Indira Gandhi's assassination. If the highest court of the land can show that maturity in a much more volatile and sensitive case than the JNU controversy, why can't the government? (First Khalistan Zindabad is different from Bharat tere Tukade honge Inshaallah Inshaallah, Or Bharat Ki Barbadi tak jung rahegi jung rahegi. The earlier is clearly about breaking India into fragments and latter is about destruction of India. The qualitative difference to simply put is Khalistan Zindabad is positive slogan. Can same be said about the slogans chanted at JNU?) Do we even need a sedition law that was given to us by the British in the 1860s? (Britain incidentally scrapped it in 2010.) (Are we supposed to follow Britain? Britain which is called UK has only 4 states namely, England, Wells, Scotland and Northern Ireland and some Islands around the globe. Out of which Scotland had a referendum on their independence last year. Comparing that teeny-tiny country with a Nation as vast and complex as India Barkha has shown her intellectual shallowness. Why she is not quoting any American example her? America the same country to whom many of the intellectuals wrote not to award Visa to Modi has very strict sedition. Few years earlier there were group of people who were hosting southern flag from civil war era. And that’s for the last time we heard from them. America as a country is not even half as complex as India. And even they feel need of sedition laws to protect them from within)
Whatever the BJP calculations were on converting the JNU crackdown into political advantage have clearly dissipated. Given legal precedence, Kanhaiya Kumar is sooner or later likely to be acquitted by a higher court, and will walk out a hero. (Or will be made hero with the help of some media patronage. Just like they made Ishrat a heroine for few decades) Given the writing on the wall, wouldn't you, Mr. Prime Minister, think it's wiser, kinder and yes, politically smarter - apart from it also being the only correct thing to do - to drop the charges against him, order the police and the Home Ministry to concede its mistake and apologize, (The said matter still under investigation. Court has allowed the Police custody on 26th Feb 2016 which I have mentioned earlier. Now dropping charges even before investigation is completed will be unjust to people of this nation. And apologising? How about you and your channel starts by apologising to People of India about making a heroine out of Terrorist Ishrat?) drop the criminal charges against the other students, (This, it’s all boil down to this. By chanting Kanhaiya 108 times what Barkha ultimately wants is Umar Kahlid and his all other accomplice should be set free to spread their venom among our society. She can’t see what is wrong in that because she has in her own word at her university age “questioned Nation-State” and now an Anti-National. So for her this is not a crime at all. She can’t understand what all the fuss about it. And hand back the case to the JNU administration to handle it as a disciplinary issue from here on? (Being intellectually shallow is one thing, but being wrong is another. There is no question of Jurisdiction. This is not a case which is taken away from JNU like CBI take case away from Local police. The JNU can still investigate and maximum they can do is prevent student appearing for Exam or cancel their admission. Police investigation is under criminal law not under any Educational rule book. The fate of police cases must be decided only in court of law. What Barkha is asking here is direct intervention from a politician into a serious matter such a sedition. This must not be allowed under any circumstances.)
Gurudev Tagore, who gave us our stirring national anthem, also wrote, "Patriotism cannot be our final spiritual shelter; my refuge is humanity. I will not buy glass for the price of diamonds, and I will never allow patriotism to triumph over humanity as long as I live" (It is so easy to quote or rather misquote great thinker or philosophers. Barkha is free to practice what Gurudev has said. But keep in mind his humanity was all inclusive humanity. Not just concentrated on minorities.)
Modi ji, India belongs to its young. (Keeping her Anti-National mind set Barkha deliver a final blow to herself by simply squashing everyone not young. India belong to everyone, not only youngs and certainly not only to congress.) The tricolour is in their hands. (After preaching us from the Rabindranath’s quote on humanity just 2 lines ago, Barkha suddenly turn towards Nationalism. Where does humanity goes now?) And so is our future.
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