Down the wrong Laine

There seems to be no dearth of divisive issues which the politicians can exploit to create strife and trouble in our society. The latest episode revolves around the book “Shivaji – Hindu King in Islamic India”. This book authored by American writer James Laine was first published in 2003 and promptly banned by the Maharashtra govt in 2004. There were loud and often violent protests before the ban led by various organisations like the Sambhaji Brigade. The book is again in the lime light as the Supreme court did not uphold the ban as the state govt could not submit evidence that the book was hurting religious sentiments.

This time around the scene is pretty unique with the ultra nationalistic state govt also joining in the chorus for the ban on the sale of book. There are the usual culprits like the shiv sena, MNS and Sambhaji brigade and they have threatened to resort to violent protests to stop the sale of the book. All this in the 21^st century in a country which claims to be functioning democracy. When arguing with Pakistan we make it a point to mock at them by claiming to be a democracy. But is this the way a democracy must deal with an important issue as the freedom of expression?

We see the usual goons on the streets during the protests and can be sure that none of them would have read the book. The primary reason being the price tag ($60.74) on the book. The goons may not be paid so much for these sponsored protest. The reason for the reactions against the book is the way we look at our History .We are used to the text book view of history where we have most characters in shades of black and white .We start to take the text book images seriously and treat the characters as demi- gods . When we grow up we are supposed to take a more impartial view of our history and the historical characters.

And we have various political outfits that pick and choose their heroes and villains to further their brand of politics .And we have ambiguous laws which have gaping loop holes and a perennially lethargic judiciary and the executive which fail to deal with law breakers. And we have a situation where we have a few bigots holding the entire society to ransom in the name of hurt sentiments.

It is time we stop living in our past and start thinking seriously about our future. We are a nation with a glorious past and should be proud of it. The people and events from the past should act as inspiration for us to move forward and not as distractions in our march towards future glory. We must realise that History is a chronicle of events involving people with human failings and not a fairy tale involving fictitious characters

R K Laxman , the immortal common man

The news about the eminent cartoonist R K Laxman suffering three stokes and being admitted to a hospital in Mumbai was one which would not have been classified as a banner headline in a newspaper or as a breaking news one on a TV news channel. But it was still disturbing as if this was a tragedy in our families.

R K Laxman through his cartoons especially the “you said it” series in Times of India had a constant presence in our Drawing rooms. Through his cartoons he immortalised the “common man “ a much neglected creature in our society. I personally feel indebted to him because when I started reading newspapers in my early teens the only thing that was attractive in the paper was his cartoons . The speciality of his cartoons was that the character “common man” never spoke while all he did was watch and observe the events happening around

The character with his checked shirt , dishevelled hair and a constant confused look on his face was made immortal by the great cartoonist.

Such was laxman’s status that people felt privileged to be featured in his cartoons. He had caricatured leaders right from Nehru thru Indira Gandhi down to Vajpayee ,Advani and leaders of our times. And everybody appreciated his work and never felt hurt by the caricatures.

His work was never censured or censored even during the worst days of Emergency in 1975. That shows how objective his cartoons and the comments in them were. He was one of most celebrated cartoonist of his time and served “Times of India” for more than five decades.

There are stories around his arrival and stay in Mumbai ,Bombay then. He has reportedly observed that when he came to this city in the early fifties the most striking image of the city was the dug up roads He had resolved then that he will leave the city once all the dug up roads get filled up. But he says that he was forced to stay on in this city as we still are living with dug up roads.

For once we must be thankful to the corrupt contractors ,politicians and the civic officials for giving us some joy because it was due to their effort ( or lack of it ) that we could enjoy the presence of this great man in our city .

Ultimately he had to leave Mumbai and settle down in a much quieter Pune in 2003 due to continued ill health which left him partially paralysed. But his cartoons still appear in the “ Times of India “ but with a lesser frequency.

We as mortals will all have to take a bow one day and leave this world . But in the case of RK Laxman our irrational mind wants him to be left immortal so that he and his work can amuse ,and educate the generations to come who will otherwise be deprived of It. If and when he departs the void that he may leave behind will not be breached .

It is a ferverent plea to the almighty to grant good health to this great soul and if he needs the presence a wonderful cartoonist in heaven ,this man should be eased out with the minimum of pain and suffering. This is the least that god can do to a wonderful person who has given a trillion moments of joy to a nation for more than five decades.

Poor Indians

It is not enough to lament the death of a dalit some where in haryana when we were busy watching the IPL on our flat screen Televisions. We have to first accept both as the reality of our life and then go about dismantling the evil in them. Although it may be hard to accept but we have to accept that we are a caste and class-ridden society where the chasm between the classes and castes are ever-widening. But strangely we are just not doing anything at all to rid the society of these evils. But silently we are doing everything to perpetuate this system. Even when we have the opportunity to do something to change we just prefer to be mute spectators than be the instrument of change. We are active participants in caste based organisation and parties who do everything to perpetuate these divisions. And it is always a middle class hobby to play the victim and complain about being powerless to ring in any changes. When will we try to rise above our limitations and start doing things than whining about the mess around us?

Coming to the IPL we are back to tokenism that we are so famous for. The entire fiasco has precisely claimed one and half victims. We have a Shashi Tharoor who lost his job as a Minister for being candid in admitting that he took active interest in getting an IPL team for his home state. The entire opposition and an overzealous media hounded him as if he was the first minister to commit this impropriety. It won’t be an exaggeration to state that majority of the ministers in union ministry and in state cabinets will have to be removed if the same yardstick of Propriety is applied to their activities. We are all aware that almost all projects right from local municipal level ones to national level mega project are sanctioned to the “right” people with “blessings” of panchayat level leaders, corporators, MLA’s & MP’s depending on where they are in the pecking order. Shashi Tharoor received the punishment for not being discreet about the whole thing. And Lalit modi for the moment has just been suspended by the self-righteous BCCI who in turn have given themselves, all the worthies in the Governing council and Sharad Pawar a clean chit wherein the actual reality is that all of them are equally culpable in bringing disrepute to the game by turning a blind eye to the happenings that were taking place right under their noses. Media as usual is losing interest in the entire episode as they have milked it to the maximum extent possible. Moreover why will they want to upset the gravy train when reportedly they were promised 250,000 sq cms of space in the print media and 3000 hrs of coverage on the electronic media by the IPL .Why will they want to kill the goose that gave them so many golden eggs. The only loser in the entire game will be the aam aadmi who will be busy saving hard earned money which can fuel the jamboree in its next edition.

THE IPL STORY

Well it may be unjustified to say that IPL is now a Hub of corruption ,but matters in it are not squeaky clean too. But for that matter BCCI is also not known for clean and transparent transactions.As the parent so the offspring. We need not go into details and we will never be privy to the complete details.Look at the set up in BCCI and the IPL .We have more than required presence of politicians in BCCI and with IPL it has brought in a plethora of businessmen too,and we need not speculate about the outcome of this nexus. And who do we have as the Governing council members of IPL ,some faces from the pack of BCCI members and some ex cricketers who are milking the venture as commentators or in some other way .And that leaves the entire show to be controlled by none other than LALIT MODI a man not known for a squeaky clean past unless he has done a Valmiki act in getting reformed. It is known that power corrupts and absolute power corrputs absolutely .Don't we have the clear picture now ?

terrorism

These days the hot topic of discussion across all sections of the society is terrorism and ways & means to tackle that. The govt is spending a lot of the Tax payer’s money to develop anti terrorism squads to tackle this menace. But inadvertently there is a steady addition to the band of people who want to indulge in this kind of unlawful activity. This is due to the cavalier attitude of the government and civil society towards unlawful activities and general break down of our criminal justice system in bringing to book people indulging in unlawful activities. Witness the government’s reaction (or rather lack of it) in dealing with the agitations being carried out by the MNS in the last couple of years and by the shivsena now. Spare a thought for the families of the innocent people who may have lost their lives and livelihood in all these opportunistic agitations. Remember No Thackeray has ever led any agitation on the street so they are never hurt and never loose anything because they do not have to work for a living. They just reap the benefits out of the common man's miseries. Search the dictionaries for a right word for this kind of organisms. And when the law cannot provide security to law abiding citizens don't be surprised if some of them decide to take law into their own hands. This is at the root of the all the insurgency and terrorist activity that we see around the country.

So spare a thought the next time we see some of our dear leaders egg on their supporters to launch another agitation. Think and Decide as to who pays the Price for it.

Amitabh The Mahanayak

Dear Amitji

I was amazed reading this post of yours on the blog space.This is more like the monologue in the climax of Your movie “Rann”.It just amounts to nothing ,just random mumbling.
And another thing that stands out is your attempts at remaining on the right side of the trouble makers.Your attempts at showing that you are close to the thackerays is just appalling.Of Course you may argue that they are your Family.But as always your family always have regular dates with activity which are bordering on lawlessness.I am not taking any names because they are Obvious ones .If they are indeed your family I think you can use your wisdom to restrain them from indulging in unwanted slander.Reference to the article in your family’s mouthpiece saamna and the comments in them about Rahul Gandhi.And If Iam not mistaken the Gandhi’s are your Ex-family.Your silence on that matter borders on spinelessness or are you happy that the Gandhi’s are no longer your friends and the present family is helping you in getting back at them.I was watching Jaya Bacchans interview on Tele on the 3rd Feb.She Had an interesting take on The SRK issue.She was mentioning that everyone must face these crises on their own and not expect any kind of help or support,that is because she had to endure her trials with MNS all by her self.Despite her attempt to smile away like a trained method actor one could not miss the vindictive and the cruel undercurrents behind that facade.And you have proved to be the proverbial political butterfly by hobnobbing with the Congress first ,then Amar Mulayam Saga,coupled with your dalliances the Thackerays and now your latest alliance with narendra Modi.You have proved yourself to be perfect immigrant ,the quintessential survivor who knows which side of the bread is to be buttered