JNU crackdown: Is freedom of speech all India cares about?
In other news, Vodafone gets a notice from tax authorities asking the company to pay Rs 14,200 crore in dues; ABVP disrupts college event by Shah Rukh Khan; Indian Railways is deciding on surge pricing; India is preparing to import genetically modified organism (GMO)-free corn; Bernie Sanders seems to have an edge over Hillary Clinton and Chhattisgarh government has quietly taken away rights of tribals over their traditional lands to facilitate coal mining of Prasa East and Kete Besan coal block. The block, according to Business Standard, has been allocated to Rajasthan Vidyut Utpadan Nigam Limited (RVUNL) and Adani Enterprises Limited.
And this is how it is done - smoothly and without fanfare. Rights are usurped and most don't even know or care. I say it even when the freedom of speech debate is raging across the country. A lot of the mediapersons have lost sight of what should be and has to be; our beloved home minister Rajnath Singh tried the '90s tactic of "blame Pakistan for everything (he thinks we still live in the '90s when internet was a privilege)"; and our freedom is being curbed every day, slowly but surely.
For everyone two rights violations in the city, there are eight instances of it happening outside of the metros and this is a much sanitised number. College campuses are where leaders are made or broke. We need those voices not just of the saffron brigade. Dissent is the sign of a healthy campus. We need to let such politics be left on the campus and the media should know better when reporting.
The rest of us should focus on where the rights abuses are acute and violent. In Chhattisgarh, where BJP is in power, an order was issued cancelling the land rights of the tribals in favour of a private enterprise run by the Adanis.
No surprises there. But, the outrage that we are capable of for a freedom of speech violation, is the kind of outrage we need when the rights of many are violated.
Let's narrate the instances. In Chhattisgarh alone, 50 tribal women were allegedly molested and sexually abused by the police in early 2016; a young girl Meena Khalkho, then alleged to be a Maoist, now proven to have no affiliation was killed in an encounter in late 2015; everyday, on an average, a crime is committed against a Dalit every 18 minutes and this includes rapes, murders and ill-treatment; men have been lynched for allegedly storing beef; a woman was raped in the hospital after delivery; around 40 women were gangraped in Kashmir's Kupwara district in 1991 - the case is still in the Supreme Court; Arunachal Pradesh is under President's rule; Irom Sharmila is still on a hunger strike for rights violations by the armed forces in Manipur. I could go on because the list is endless.
Why don't we bring to the fore that kind of emotion then? Is it because it is for a tribal cause or because it doesn't sit well with the newsmakers? Therein lies our folly. Today them; tomorrow us. If MF Husain and Salman Rushdie can be hounded out of this country, so can anyone else. Where were our thundering voices?
Many of us already censor our speech, food and thoughts "lest we get into trouble". It is a common refrain - one we should never be heard in a free country. Even the JNU campus speech will be forgotten in 10 days just like how the protests of December 2012 are a distant memory. We raise voices in our living rooms, drink a bit, sleep our pretty sleep. Like clockwork our lives go on.