Will the Indian Rednecks (short on ability to think) understand this?
MikeGhouseforIndia.Blogspot.com
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MikeGhouseforIndia.Blogspot.com
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I am proud to be ‘anti-national’, says Rajdeep Sardesai
- Rajdeep Sardesai |
- Updated: Feb 20, 2016 14:03 IST
If
support for Afzal Guru is to be seen as ‘sedition’, then at least half the
erstwhile Cabinet in Jammu and Kashmir would be held guilty. (PTI Photo)
In
the 1990s, the country’s polity was divided by secular versus pseudo secular
faultlines; now, another divide, and frankly far more insidious, is sought to be
created between ‘national’ and ‘anti-national’ forces.
When
I was first accused of being ‘anti-national’ on social media, I was angry. Now,
a few years later, the current coarse political discourse, where desh bhakti
certificates are being liberally distributed, tempts me to scream: garv se kaho
hum desh-drohi hai (proud to be ‘anti-national’). Let me tell you why.
Yes,
I am anti-national because I believe in an expanded definition of the right to
free speech as spelt out in Article 19 of the Constitution. The only two
‘reasonable restrictions’ are incitement to violence and hate speech. What
constitutes hate speech may be open to debate. Is, for example, the slogan of
the Ram Janmabhoomi movement ‘Jo Hindu hit kee baat karega vahi desh pe raj
karega’, which openly calls for a Hindu Rashtra, to be seen as violative of the
law or not and does it spread enmity among communities? Is ‘Raaj karega khalsa’,
the slogan of the Khalistanis, to be seen as seditious or not? In Balwant Singh
versus State of Punjab, the Supreme Court ruled in the negative.
Yes,
I am anti-national because while I am discomfited by the slogan shouting at JNU
in support of Parliament terror convict Afzal Guru, I do not see it as an act of
sedition. The sketchy video evidence made available shows the ‘students’ (we
still don’t know if all of them were, indeed, students) shouting slogans like
‘Bharat kee barbaadi’, and hailing Afzal’s ‘martyrdom’.
The
speeches are primarily an anti-government tirade but is it enough to see the
students as potential terrorists or rather as political sympathisers of the
azaadi sentiment? And is that ideological support enough to brand them as
jihadis who must be charged with sedition?
Yes,
I am anti-national because in a plural democracy I believe we must have a
dialogue with Kashmiri separatists as we must with those in the North-East who
seek autonomy. I will listen to student protestors in Srinagar or Imphal as I
will to those in an FTII or a JNU.
Prosecute
all those who break the law, incite violence, resort to terror but don’t lose
the capacity to engage with those who dissent. The right to dissent is as
fundamental as the right to free speech: shouting down alternative views, be
they on prime time TV or on the street, is not my idea of India.
Yes,
I am anti-national because I don’t believe in doublespeak on issues of
nationalism. If support for Afzal Guru is to be seen as ‘sedition’, then at
least half the erstwhile Cabinet in Jammu and Kashmir, where the BJP is in
coalition with the PDP, would be held guilty.
After
all, the PDP’s stated position has been to protest Afzal’s hanging as a
miscarriage of justice. If the Kashmiri youth today see Afzal as someone who was
framed, they should be challenged to a legal and political debate but can they
be branded as ‘jihadists’ simply because their views are repugnant to the rest
of the country?
Would
we then by extension also suggest that the Hindu Mahasabha, which even today
glorifies Nathuram Godse every January 30, even as the rest of India mourns the
Mahatma, is an anti-national organisation? Should BJP MP Sakshi Maharaj’s
defence of Godse be seen as an anti-national act or not, or will definitions of
nationalism be shaped by the convenience of power politics?
Yes,
I am anti-national because while I am a proud Hindu who wakes up to the Gayatri
mantra, I also like a well done beef steak, which, according to BJP minister
Mukhtar Naqvi, is a treasonous act, enough to pack me off to Pakistan. I
celebrate the rich diversity of my country through food: Korma on Eid, pork
sorpotel with my Catholic neighbours in Goa during Christmas and shrikhand
during Diwali is my preferred diet. The right to food of my choice is again a
freedom which I cherish and am unwilling to cede.
Yes,
I am anti-national because I will fight lawless lawyers who attack defenceless
women journalists in the name of ‘Bharat mata’ (don’t forget women journalists
were targeted on a fateful day in December 1992 also) while policemen do little
to stop the pseudo-patriots.
I
am a proud Indian who admires the sacrifice of our jawans, which is why I
believe our men on the border must get higher wages rather than be trapped in a
bureaucratic tangle. I support gay rights, am against the death penalty on
principle, find any violence in the name of caste, religion or gender
unacceptable. And yes, I like raising inconvenient truths in the public domain:
if that makes me anti-national, then so be it.
But
above all else, I am anti-national because I believe in Ambedkar’s concept of a
republican constitution that places the citizen and rule of law at its core. No
one has the right to impose their vision of ‘cultural nationalism’ on a diverse
society in the guise of ‘one nation, one religion, one culture’.
And
when I get weary of the ‘desh-drohi’ abuse I will seek solace in the legend of
my original icon, Muhammad Ali, who, as Cassius Clay, threw his gold medal into
the river in protest at being denied entry into a whites-only restaurant. His
act led him to be termed ‘anti-national’ and stripped of his Olympic medal.
Several years later, as he lit the torch at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics, it was
America’s way of apologising to one of its greatest folk heroes. I hope some of
you say sorry to me too one day!
Post-script:
Last week, at the Delhi Gymkhana litfest, I suggested that the right to free
speech must include the right to offend so long as it doesn’t incite violence. A
former army officer angrily got up and shouted, “You are an anti-national who
should be lynched right here!” When even the genteel environs of the Gymkhana
club echo to such strains, we should all be very worried.
Rajdeep
Sardesai is a senior journalist and author. The views expressed are
personal.
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