- Just when you were mocking Shilpa Shetty
- for having an opinion on Animal Farm
- without reading it,
- your Supreme Court has turned the joke on you.
- It has made the playing of the national anthem mandatory.
- In theatres.
- And you must rise.
- To salute the flag, fluttering on the screen.
- (Before Ramdev sells his toothpaste to you)
- Stand you must for the anthem.
- The long bank and ATM lines must have prepared you for it.
- It's been three weeks now, after all.
- It was an order
- that stopped short of making
- the RSS hands-on-chest salute mandatory.
- We will come to that later, said the court.
- Hang on.
- Most parts of India today
- woke up to the season's first fog.
- A few hours later, we realised
- it was the fog of fascism.
- It might be a long winter ahead.
- So, grab your popcorn.
- The macabre theatre of fascism is about to begin.
- And it's no comedy.
- Even those who think
- they will survive the grandstanding
- won't.
- There are no survivors in fascism. Only history.
- As the play unfolds, here's a bigger tragedy:
- there is no space outside fascism.
- They first owned your religion.
- You did not flinch.
- They became stronger.
- And defiant.
- They killed, raped, burnt,polarised, pulverised, repeated.
- With impunity. In your name.
- You did not flinch.
- You did not say: "not in my name".
- They grew emboldened,
- moved more fiercely.
- They occupied the country.
- And the popular imagination.
- Helped by dreamweavers on television.
- You felt something was wrong.
- You flinched a bit.
- In a meek effort to raise the voice. Or hand.
- But that would make me an anti-national, you feared.
- Your wisdom prevailed. You chose silence.
- And they loved it. And you.
- And promised more nightmares.
- Disguised as dreams.
- Stop mocking Shilpa Shetty
- We are all in the farm.
Also read: My father was in RSS, why I dread men in khakhi knickers
Last updated: December 01, 2016 | 09:34