Has it become a crime to articulate opinions and views freely, wisely and maturely?
Why are celebrities speaking up on issues impacting and influencing our polity and society at large being doubted and disapproved by our media, netas and activists? American pop star Rihanna, Swedish social activist Greta Thunberg’s position on the farm agitation in India was not received in the best of the spirits illustrated as undue interference in our internal affairs.
I fail to acknowledge how this distress can at all qualify as internal when at the very root it has created widespread disgruntlement in the minds of those associated with the traditional farming communities. Especially the NRIs residing in countries like Canada, England, Germany and France pinpointed by their respective leaders like Justin Trudeau and Boris Johnson for a quick and early remedy.
How can these leaders afford to disregard their genuine grievances unlike ours where a communally divisive domestic politics has severely delivered a blow to the exercise of democratically administering and governing the constituents of the state? The judiciary has been widely contested, claimed and challenged ever since this Hindutva brigade claimed charge in 2014 as for the partisan manner and approach of the bench in question.
Otherwise, four senior-most judges of the Supreme Court would have never dared to come on record of the media cameras in January 2018 detailing how the judiciary has become selective in passing verdicts and judgement, directing their ire against former Chief Justice of India Shri Deepak Mishra as the rest was history.
Media has also become unruly and unresponsive in carefully and consciously reporting the facts of the matter wishing to suppress the rightful content. The opposition is nowhere to be marked and seen as for the common and ordinary movements and protests have become the visible lived practical reality. Because nobody bothers for the citizen abiding and upholding the law of the land and territory.
It is with this spirit that civil society groups are collectively organising, assembling and mobilizing themselves against the excesses of the state resulting in the encroachment of their dutiful rights. We saw this happening during the CAA protests, later during the communal riots in Delhi last February and now during the farmer movement. Every time, there is a fear if the government fearing a push back an occasion arises where IT cell and Hindutva brigade takes charge aided and assisted by the sharp and intelligent minds from behind the scenes.
We can take positions on corresponding foreign affairs but we are not simply going to allow anyone that privilege, come what may. So, what if we have too much of democracy in our country?