I also want Azadi

Last few days India had been a divided nation over sedition charges on some JNU students. All for shouting a slogan; “Bharat tere tukde honge; insallah; insallah”. I fail to understand by what yardstick this measures up to sedition and anti-nationalism. Probably all poor JNU Students have said is that if God willing; India will be broken into many pieces. That simply implies that our destiny is in hands of God. If God is willing; India will be broken. If God is not willing; India will remain united. If God is willing; Pakistan will conquer India; if God is not willing; Pakistan will get down to its knees and plead to India to be accepted back in the family. If God is willing; China would surround and choke India from all sides. If God is not willing; China will come to India with a begging bowl to seek investment in its fast declining economy. God reigns supreme. That is all the poor guys have said.

I remember our music teacher taught us a song in the middle schools:

Teri hai jameen; tera aasman
Tu bada meharbaan tu bakhsish kar
……………………………………………………….
……………………………………………………….
Tu chahe to hame rakhe; tu chahe to hamme mare
Tere aage jhuka ke sar; khade hain aaj ham saare

This in essence meant the same thing.
Oh God; if you wish; you keep us alive; If you wish; you kill us.
We all are standing with bowed head in front of you.
No one was charged with sedition then. This song is still played freely.

You may say that I am playing with words. Umar Khalid and his associates actually want to see India broken in to pieces and are letting the God take a final call on the decision.

If you think so; you are raising the stature of Umar Khalid to almost Jesus Christ.

"Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me; yet not my will, but yours be done."

And then there is Kanhaiya Kumar. He perhaps did not speak much but got thrashed blue and black. I fail to understand the shock people are expressing over Kanhaiya’s fate. All the Kashmir Separatist lobby guys managed to get into secret hide outs and surrender at mid night and are taken to undisclosed destinations. Poor Kanhaiya had no place to hide. He was beaten in police custody; in the court; on the street. Three lawyers came out in front of camera valiantly and gave graphical details of how they beat him and their plans to go into the jail and beat him again.
Please remember, Kanhaiya is Bihari. Bihar has no negotiation power. China or Pakistan does not lure it to drift away from India and join their side. Bihar has got junk status. Bihar does not supply water or electricity to Delhi. Alas, Modiji’s party also lost it badly in the state elections in spite of promising vulgar investment packages. Kanhaiya is also Hindu. Those thug lawyers or administration have nothing to be scared about Kanhaiya. Kanhaiya can be made an example for other detractors. A Kashmiri; a North East guy; a muslim guy incites fear of repercussions. Those lawyers would not have come on camera if they would have hit a Kashmiri muslim boy.

Do not shed tears for Kanhaiya either. He is perhaps more like the ones prosecuting him than you and me. I remember in 1990 Lalu Yadav became chief minister of Bihar. Most of us had not heard about him before. We were in high school. Till that time, we boys had always seen successive Congress Chief Minister taking turn.

One of our classmates father recounted Lalu’s political background from Jayaprakash Narayan’s movement and student agitation days. During emergency period in 1975; student agitation started in Patna under guidance of JP. My friend’s father was journalist in a local newspaper then,

The students would gather at Dak Bangla crossing to register their protest. Lalu Yadav, Nitish Kumar, Ravishankar Prasad, Sushil Kumar Modi et. al. used to be students’ leaders.
The moment police would come charging with their batons; Lalu would spring into action. While most of the others would recede; Lalu would ensure to take up the first blow. He would hog the newspaper front page due to his constant bleading head. Eventually Lalu took lead in student politics over Nitish, Ravi Shankar Prasad and Sushil Modi by virtue of getting beaten up first. A lead that he maintains till this date.

Lalu became renowned politician by getting thrashed. Once he came into power; his arrogance and tyranny superseded his predecessors. Arvind Kejrival gained prominence by his famous dharnas and forced evictions by police. When he came to power, the same person now gets his opponents kicked out including the poor 3 BJP MLAs in Delhi Assembly and old time collaborators Yogendra Yadav and Bhushan and son.

It would be premature to predict that our Kanhaiya would also groom in to a national leader sometime soon. I would not be surprised if he follows the same path.

Everybody is shouting slogans for Azadi. Witnessing the rampage of the Patels in Gujrat and now the Jats in Haryana; I also want to shout out my heart.

Mujhe chahiye pichadi jatiwad se aazadi!(I want freedom from backward caste attitude).