{"id":339991,"date":"2022-10-17T03:36:35","date_gmt":"2022-10-17T09:06:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/tehelka.com\/?p=339991"},"modified":"2022-10-17T03:36:35","modified_gmt":"2022-10-17T09:06:35","slug":"shouldnt-the-hate-speeches-be-banned","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/shouldnt-the-hate-speeches-be-banned\/","title":{"rendered":"Shouldn\u2019t the hate speeches be banned!"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/p>\n

What can an average citizen of this country do to counter these\u00a0<\/strong><\/em>communal slogans? Try and make others sense that the dangerous build-ups that one is witnessing seem leading towards civil strife.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

In these recent days a bunch of political men have publicly come up with provocative communal statements and hate slogans. Even giving public statements to be equipped with swords and arms. And at one particular rally in Karnataka they were seen carrying swords. All in full public view.<\/p>\n

Shouldn\u2019t these hate speeches and communal slogans be banned! Aren\u2019t these eerie build-ups outrageously horrifying\u2026out to destroy us! Shouldn\u2019t these communal characters be halted and banned and jailed!\u00a0 Aren\u2019t these moves just too dangerous for our very basic survival, for once civil strife spreads out it could get un-controlled.<\/p>\n

What can an average citizen of this country do, to counter these hate speeches and communal slogans? Wake up to these disasters staring in the face. Try and make others sense, drill into their heads that the dangerous build-ups that one is witnessing seem leading towards civil strife.<\/p>\n

Years back, when I had asked actor turned politician, Sunil Dutt, what could be the possible solution to halt communal poisoning cum rioting, he said,\u201cThere can\u00a0 be only one solution! Only last night I was going through the latest \u2018Time\u2019 magazine and the photographs of the civil war ridden Somalia shocked\u00a0 me so much that I couldn\u2019t eat. It was dinner time but I couldn’t touch a morsel. Just couldn\u2019t! Those pictures of the hapless humans injured and ill, crawling about, rendered so frail and weak that many couldn\u2019t even walk, hit! They relayed the havoc taking place because of the ongoing civil strife in Somalia. I\u2019m\u00a0 going to\u00a0 suggest\u00a0 those photographs should\u00a0 be\u00a0 displayed\u00a0 all over our\u00a0 towns and\u00a0 cities, at all public places\u00a0 —in colleges, schools, universities, offices, libraries. And\u00a0 displaced\u00a0 with\u00a0 this caption: “See what internal war and\u00a0 civil strife and\u00a0 unrest\u00a0 can do\u00a0 to\u00a0 you, to your\u00a0 country, to your\u00a0 fellow countrymen!\u201d<\/p>\n

*******<\/p>\n

She stood up for the rights of the citizens<\/p>\n

Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay had passed\u00a0 away on 29\u00a0 October 1988,\u00a0 but till date she is remembered \u00a0as the woman who stood up for the rights of the citizens. In her memoir, \u2018Inner Recesses Outer Spaces\u2019 there are\u00a0 more than glimpses of her observations on the various aspects – the challenges of being a prisoner,\u00a0 the post-partition plight of refugees, the role of Muslims in the freedom movement.<\/p>\n

She was strong, independent and daring. In fact, when Mahatma Gandhi had announced the Satyagraha movement in 1930, she was one of the only two women chosen for inclusion in the frontline unit of seven volunteers at Bombay (Mumbai) who marched to the beachfront to boil seawater and make salt. Later, in a startling move, Kamaladevi marched to the High Court and asked the magistrate present whether he would be interested in buying the \u2018Freedom Salt\u2019 she had just prepared!<\/p>\n

Although she used to interact with several leaders associated with the freedom struggle, including Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, Maulana Abul Kalam Azad and Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, Mahatma Gandhi figures the most in her writing. She comments how everyone in those days was trying to understand his philosophy of non-violence: \u201cImpatiently, we looked to Gandhiji for a sign, but none seemed visible. We had not yet grasped his uncanny capacity to gauge a situation accurately, and the ability to act at the proper psychological hour. \u2026 Though we fretted, we knew that when the hour came, he would strike and strike hard and one day it would be the final stroke.\u201d<\/p>\n

In addition, she has highlighted his aversion for security \u2018bandobast\u2019. To quote her,\u00a0 \u201cThe past few weeks before it [his assassination], one had been persistently hearing of threats to the Mahatma\u2026 then the bomb explosion. Still it did not carry reality. Who would want to kill one who was an embodiment of love and compassion? \u2026 When it happened many blamed the victim himself, for he sternly forbade any security measures. For him his life was not worth it if it was to be guarded by weapons. If such a moment came, it meant it was time for him to go. He could live only if he could serve and his service was welcomed\u2026 What a different world we live in now. The public today is universally suspected. The more important a public function, the more ferocious the display of weapons.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kamaladevi has been among the handful of commentators who focused on the contributions made by the Muslim community, including women, in the Independence movement. She writes: \u201cThe picturesque Begum Hazrat Mahal played an active part in the 1857 war by personally leading her troops into the battle.\u201d\u00a0 She dwells on other details too, \u201cIn the early days of the Civil Disobedience movement under Gandhiji, a body of Muslim theologians was founded called Jamiat-ul-Ulema-i-Hind to get all Muslim religious leaders to fight the British. \u2026When the Satyagraha movement was launched in 1930, the Jamiat was amongst the earliest to take the plunge, followed by the Ahrar Party of Punjab, the Shia Political Conference, the Khudai Khidmatgar of the North West Frontier \u201d<\/p>\n

Detailsof the days she spent in prison\u00a0 should be read\u00a0 by all those who are working on\u00a0 jail reforms and considering improving prison conditions for the\u00a0 better survival of the\u00a0 jailed inmates. She describes life in confinement: \u201cA prison brings out the worst in people is a common phrase much bandied out. No doubt confinement within a limited space has its own exasperations apart from discomforts; its capacity of irritation is limitless\u2026 Here we are placed in a heterogeneous group drawn from hundreds of homes, diverse communities with different habits, speaking babble of tongues\u2026 Prison to me was a trial in other ways. I am not a gregarious animal and it is a great trial to live for months on end in small crowds. \u2026It\u2019s is not surprising that one\u2019s outlook gets cramped, sense of values distorted and people are inclined to be irritated over trifles, which are\u00a0exaggerated.\u201d<\/p>\n

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What can an average citizen of this country do to counter these\u00a0communal slogans? Try and make others sense that the dangerous build-ups that one is witnessing seem leading towards civil strife. In these recent days a bunch of political men have publicly come up with provocative communal statements and hate slogans. Even giving public statements […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":339992,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[23,14770,2205],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/339991"}],"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=339991"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/339991\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":339993,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/339991\/revisions\/339993"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/media\/339992"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=339991"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=339991"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=339991"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}