{"id":334756,"date":"2021-12-01T03:53:12","date_gmt":"2021-12-01T09:23:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/tehelka.com\/?p=334756"},"modified":"2021-12-04T04:00:32","modified_gmt":"2021-12-04T09:30:32","slug":"a-country-sans-comedians-conversations-counter-views","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/a-country-sans-comedians-conversations-counter-views\/","title":{"rendered":"A country sans comedians, conversations & counter views!"},"content":{"rendered":"

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On National Press Day, the irony hits: it was difficult for journalists to report from Tripura, to detail the ground realities to the communal rioting, yet there were speeches after speeches from the political who\u2019s who!<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

At first it was the hounding of stand-up comedian, Munawar Faruqui (mind you, his hounding continues, as his shows are getting cancelled in city after city) and now news just coming in is this – a\u00a0 case has\u00a0 been filed against the absolutely brilliant comedian, Vir Das. Why?\u00a0 Because of his latest show where he spoke out, on the huge range of disparities and double standards and the hitting ironies in the \u201ctwo Indias\u201d!<\/p>\n

What\u2019s going on! We are surviving in an atmosphere that\u2019s choking us to near death! First, the corona scare seems ever looming on our heads. Then comes in the scare of the smog which seems lethal enough to destroy whatever remains of our vital organs. And in the background the communal anarchy spreading out from Tripura to Maharashtra to Madhya Pradesh to Uttar Pradesh\u2026right up to the hills of Uttarakhand. All this getting to be so very horrifying that one doesn\u2019t know how many amongst us will be alive enough to drive along the over flaunted \u2018political\u2019 Expressway in Uttar Pradesh.<\/p>\n

In this tight throttling atmosphere it is getting increasingly difficult to even voice an opinion. It was shocking to see Salman Khurshid\u2019s house in the Nainital district getting vandalized because of his views and comments on the Right-Wing Hindutva forces, expressed in his latest book.<\/p>\n

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And as I write this column on National Press Day, the irony hits: it was difficult for journalists to report from Tripura, to detail the ground realities to the communal rioting, yet on the National Press Day there were speeches after speeches from the political who\u2019s who! Tell me, for how long this sheer farce will go on! Of course, exposed stand the who\u2019s who, but because of the new trend of cases slapped even on members of fact finding teams, and the hapless victims projected as culprits, we sit back, all too quiet!<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Can all the perfumes be potent enough to save us!<\/strong><\/p>\n

Can the Samajwadis be so utterly na\u00efve to label their recently launched perfume, Samajwadi Perfume, potent enough to wipe away the communal hatred spreading around by the combined forces of the Right-Wing!<\/p>\n

No doubt, a refreshing idea to launch a perfume in these dark times, but can the might of all the perfumes of\u00a0 Kannauj contain the cries of communal hatred and the aftermath unleashed from the various quarters of the State?<\/p>\n

Let us not sit amidst under illusions. Let us not survive under the notion that sensitivity still prevails. Today, polluted lies the entire expanse. If the political pollution wasn\u2019t hitting enough, the climatic and communal pollution is more than lethal. In fact, it wouldn\u2019t be amiss to say loud and clear that we Indians are surviving amidst not just the climatic disturbances but also in the midst of the communal pollution caused by the fascist forces.<\/p>\n

With Agra very recently declared as one of the worst polluted cities, I have been sitting wondering how traumatized be the very soul of\u00a0 the\u00a0 long-departed Mughal Emperor Shah Jahan. He built the monumental wonder, the Taj Mahal, with such intensity for his love; perhaps, little realizing the severe levels of pollution that would one day be enveloping Agra, the city where stands the Taj Mahal.<\/p>\n

In fact, present rulers of Uttar Pradesh apparent bias or aversion or call it by any other term of your choice, for the Mughals and their built monumental wonders was more than apparent, when the annual budget for 2017-2018 made no mention of Taj Mahal in the section\u00a0 \u2018Hamari Sanskritik Virasat\u2019 (Our\u00a0 Cultural Heritage) incorporated in the finance minister\u2019s 63-page speech. This attitude for the upkeep of the Taj Mahal! Not to overlook the fact that the Taj Mahal is one of the seven wonders of the world. It is also UNESCO world heritage site that draws thousands of tourists and earns crores in terms of revenue for the government.<\/p>\n

In fact, on previous occasions, Right-Wing rulers had publicly commented that the Taj Mahal, built by the Mughal Emperor Shah Jahan, did not reflect India\u2019s ancient culture. Also, they made it amply clear that no replicas of the Taj Mahal would be presented to the foreign dignitaries visiting Uttar Pradesh; instead copies of the Hindu scriptures would be presented to them.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Right-Wing\u2019s blatant dislike for the Mughals<\/strong><\/p>\n

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Over four summers back, when the BJP-led government was in power in Rajasthan, news reports had stated that students in Rajasthan were to be taught incorrect and twisted versions of historical facts:\u00a0 Maharana Pratap defeated the army of Mughal Emperor Akbar in the Battle of Haldighati some 450 years ago.<\/p>\n

This is factually incorrect. To quote historians on this: \u201cThis is historically incorrect as historical evidence shows that Maharana Pratap, ruler of the Mewar region, had fled the battlefield, although in the later years he continued his guerilla war against the Mughals.\u201d<\/p>\n

In fact, the Right-Wing government\u2019s dislike for the Mughals can be also judged from the fact that during the then\u00a0 BJP\u00a0 government, not just the very title \u2018Great\u2019 was removed from Mughal Emperor Akbar\u2019s name, but also the relevant focus on him from the text books taught in the state of\u00a0 Rajasthan.<\/p>\n

And the then BJP-led government in Rajasthan had even renamed the Ajmer Fort \u2014 from \u2018Akbar Ka Qila\u2019 to \u201cAjmer ka Qila and Sangrahalaya’. No expert committee of historians and academics was involved in the decision. Just by the order of the then Rajasthan education minister, Vasudev Devnani, the name of this historical fort was changed. Mind you, this fort built by Akbar in 1570 was left untouched even during the rule of the Rathors, Marathas and the British. The original name of the Ajmer Fort was legally sanctioned by a Gazette notification in December, 1968. It was named as \u2018Akbar ka Qila\u2019 or \u2018Daulat Khana\u2019 and this name continued till, of course, Right-Wing came centre-stage.<\/p>\n

And the Maharashtra government under the earlier BJP rule had almost near-defaced the names of Muslim rulers from its history text books. There were plans to omit from the text books, vital details to the Delhi Sultanate and the Suri Empire in India. Without realizing that without those, the very history of India would be incomplete, if not riddled with gaps. As a commentator put across, \u201cWithout focus on the Bijapur Sultanate, Aurangzeb’s rise to power over other contenders to the throne and the invasion by Ahmed Shah Durani, cannot be put in the historical context. Also, one cannot bypass other vital historical facts \u00a0\u2014\u00a0\u00a0 In the third battle of Panipat, where the Marathas were defeated by the Durani Empire of Afghanistan, the Marathas sided with Shah Alam II (Shah Alam II was only a puppet under the Marathas) and then led an army to punish the Afghans for their atrocities in 1772. They attacked the fort of Pathargarh and forced the Rohilla Afghans to pay a huge war indemnity\u2026 Muslim rulers hold out much in terms of the historical past. And it would be a folly if not unethical to cut or omit or trim or distort historical facts.\u201d<\/p>\n

And the RSS-affiliated Shiksha Sanskriti Utthan Nyas, headed by Dina Nath Batra, sent a list of recommendations to the National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) demanding a host of changes in its textbooks. Amongst other changes, Batra had also wanted references to the Mughal Emperors as \u201cbenevolent\u201d to be removed!<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On National Press Day, the irony hits: it was difficult for journalists to report from Tripura, to detail the ground realities to the communal rioting, yet there were speeches after speeches from the political who\u2019s who! At first it was the hounding of stand-up comedian, Munawar Faruqui (mind you, his hounding continues, as his shows […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":334759,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[23,2205],"tags":[14827,14826,14825,12039,2355],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/334756"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=334756"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/334756\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":334760,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/334756\/revisions\/334760"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/media\/334759"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=334756"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=334756"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=334756"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}