The flow of words with an emphasis on exposure of the truth can be lethal – history perhaps is the biggest proof to this notion till date.Beginning from the uprisings in the belated 18th century France to the modern day ‘big’ democracies of the world,the attempts to silence voices that share instances capable of changing what apparently resembles truth is observable if you take a keen look into the chronological outflow of these incidents.
“Nigger!Get your hands outta my pocket!” was the last thing the assassin of Malcolm X yelled. The autopsy identified 21 gunshot wounds to his chest, left shoulder, arms and legs, including ten buckshot wounds from the initial shotgun blast.Five decades later,in the heart of the “largest democracy in the world”,Muslim men are murdered for the consumption of beef,students from the minority communities strangely disappear and nothing but brute force is exerted on their families to sabotage the initiation of any further protests that might arise from the spark,Dalit students are institutionally murdered and if,by chance,you end up getting vocal about these instances,you are encountered with seven bullets right in front of your own residence in a metropolitan and three of them hit you in the danger zone,including the head,hands and chest.
Several media outlets including The Quint,Firstpost and The Indian Express have made a comparative analysis of the murders of senior communist leader Govind Pansare,activist Narendra Dabholkar,writer and scholar MM Kalburgi and Gauri Lankesh only to discover eerie similarities in the way they have been murdered.
While Indrajit Lankesh,brother of the fifty-five year old journalist has claimed that her death might as well be the consequence of her dealings with Naxalites,her sister Kavita Lankesh has clearly denied any such claims and expressed Gauri’s own fears about her being targeted by the Sanghis.Lankesh had interacted with Naxalites and tried to understand their core problems.Her latest attempt was to expose scams associated with industrialists and BJP leaders but before anything could be done,she was silenced.
Protest gatherings were noticed in several parts of the country in the subsequent days and students,journalists,authors,intellectuals were observed to take part in the same.That being said,the immediate need of the hour is to build up a combined resistance against all attempts that intend to curb freedom of speech and expression.As Lankesh had once said,”Intolerant voices find strength in our silence.”,our emphasis has to be in ensuring the notion that our voices are heard – loud and clear to those who want to curb the very spirit of freedom on this planet.