Today it’s an open Jung between the Sanghis and the non-Sanghis! Its all out in the open. Thankfully and Finally! Yes, finally the facades are done and over with. Over with that silly shying-away of criticizing the hardcore Hindutva characters and their terrorizing tactics. Done with the scare of the aftermath of that criticism; that invariably comes along, unleashed in the so many ways.
And as the brutality of the Hindutva forces increases by the day, so are the numbers of its open haters and bold critics. Today, side tracking and bypassing hackneyed notions that only menfolk will take on Hindutva goondas and goons, thousands of women have come out in the open, challenging the fascist dictates.
In fact, it’s about time the fence-sitters take a definite firm decision. Either this side of the fence or on the other end, I would dub the fence sitters as ‘Soft –Sanghis’ because they are not too openly condemning the horrifying Hindutva forces, out to destroy our country and all of us. Maybe a small percentage of the fence sitters are taken in by those ‘Hindu Rashtra’ slogans! Little realizing that the fascist forces are whipping up sentiments along the ‘Hindu Rashtra’ slogans, to emotionally control the masses, before mercilessly butchering them too.
In these recent years, there has been targeting of the various communities and groups. One by one. The Muslims, Christians, Dalits, Sikhs…Not to overlook the Tribal and the Backward and the other disadvantaged groups. And in the last few years many more in the firing range: students and scholars and researchers, the NGOs, the liberals and artists who dare to question and take on! Even young school going children not spared.
Mind you, the targeted communities and groups on the fascists’ hit list is increasing by the day. Even in their so called ‘Hindu Rashtra’ (that is, if it ever happens!), the fascist rulers will make sure to set one caste against the other. This country of ours will stand reduced to bloodshed, with anarchy and killings overtaking.
It’s about time that we, the non–Sanghis, save this country. Our country. Now and immediately. Hindutva rulers have already started demolishing documents, monuments and institutions. Changing text books’ content and the very syllabi. Silencing voices of dissent. Imprisoning innocents, either in open or the closed prisons. Transforming the very lives of the alive. In fact, this brings me to write that I wasn’t really shocked to see the much — in -circulation photographs of the much — bearded, former chief minister of J &K, Omar Abdullah. Why? Because almost all the Kashmiri families I have known in Srinagar, in the last thirty years, have been surviving semi–imprisoned. Right from 1990; the on going curfews, crackdowns, midnight knocks, arrests and detentions and killings, have definitely affected the lives and the lifestyles of hundreds and thousands of the Kashmiris. Friends who looked like Bollywood film stars look so very changed in these years…After all, each one of them surviving under severe stress and grave apprehensions.
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Today as I look around, levels of stress are rising …spreading out. Writ large on the faces and in the eyes of the young and old, as they see the Hindutva rulers baring their fangs. Earlier, we were all well aware of the fact that the arms training camps were held to train Hindutva cadres to attack the ‘other’ during riots and pogroms. And now its seems that its getting all too formalized as comes in news that come April the first formal RSS ‘Army’ training school will get formally inaugurated in Uttar Pradesh. Needless for me to add that with the RSS training, what level of communally charged men will come out, after all that training! Perhaps, many more illegal arrests and torture sessions and killings.
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And I sank into some level of depression seeing the chief guest — Brazilian President Jair Messias Bolsonaro — at my country’s Republic Day celebrations. Little need for me to quote the utterances of this Brazilian President! Why waste time and energy on such vulgar silly stuff! But it certainly did make me feel very, very sad. After all, we have had the honor of brilliant statesmen coming to our land as chief guests. Personalities, who carried charisma and brilliance …And now, this contrast!
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The only and only way out from this mess, is for the Non-Sanghis to be getting united and vocal and courageous. Also, the fence sitters get off that fence and see through the political treachery that’s going on, where political games are targeting us all, one by one.
Nah, no easy days ahead. Not easy to be hounded and attacked and targeted by the State machinery.
Leaving you with these lines of Faiz Ahmad Faiz for his upcoming birthday — February 13…Born on February 13 in 1911 , he passed away in 1984.
“LOVE’S PRISONERS
Wearing the hangman’s noose, like a necklace,
The singers kept on singing day and night,
kept jingling the ankle — bells of their fetters
and the dancers jigged on riotously.
We who were neither in this camp nor that
just stood watching them enviously.
shedding silent tears.
Returning, we saw that the crimson
of flowers had turned pale
and on probing within, it seemed
that where the heart once was
now lingered only stabbing pain.
Around our necks the hallucination of a noose
And on our feet the dance of fetters.”
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