We the Gaggers….
105 years is a long time
and being a Pontiff of a lingayat math in Karnataka for most of those years, is
an unparalleled experience that none can aim to achieve. This astounding achievement
of Sri Shiva Kumara Swamiji of the Siddaganaga Math near Tumkur was being
celebrated that day when the dynastically empress of Congress had flew down to
make sure that her party wouldn’t lose more votes from the dominant communities
that follow the Mahatma, who has now seen more than 104 revolutions of the
Earth round the Sun.
Politics was the actual theme of the
celebrations – but this isn’t a point of concern; every public organization
will be part and parcel of such a process for its own good or bad (especially
the religious orgs) but what took me out my seat (while watching the program on
TV) baffled was an incident that happened out there in the function itself. As
her ladyship rose up to deliver her written script, the arranged silence was
broken by a protesting lady with a black cloth in her hand. With her meek yet
shrieking voice she was waving the black cloth as a protest for not providing a
sub reservation for a dalit caste in Karnataka and was demanding that it should
be provided. Then started the great muzzling and gag show which has become so
common now days.
A bunch of policemen (not women)
caught hold of the protesting woman and tried shutting her up (I mean
literally) but she was too much to handle thus they caught her by her hair and
dragged her and when another woman protested this action, she met with the same
fate. Then they delivered these women to the waiting police women at the other
side of the barricade and they took their turn to trash these women. What wrong
did these protesters do? ‘Damn women! You have tried to use your right of free
expression in front of the great empress of the dynastical party! What a
terrible sin!!’ They forgot that our country is still feudal!
The dragging of those women out of
that gathering by holding their hair, epitomized the era we live in – It’s the
Dritharashtra’s hall of Mahabharatha repeated all over again – As the leaders
stand blinded by the pedestal they seek or stand on, the empowered Dhushanas
serve the purpose of the Duryodhanas (power mongers) by disrobing the helpless
citizens (genders no bar). Where are the fundamental rights that our sacred
constitution promised? What a damned citizen I’m… the real question I should be
posing is – Where are the leaders who know that we have a constitution in the
first place!
I’m not a believer in the cause that
the women were protesting for, in fact I have been a victim of senseless
reservation but I’m a firm believer in their rights to express it. Of course,
the police were supposed to maintain the decorum, but what constitutes decorum?
The police may not have been wrong in maintaining or moving away the unpleasant
voices but the method they chose was horrendous. This makes all the difference
in a democracy – they were not a terrorist gang to be neutralized at the first
place, they were protesters and they are the first signs of a democracy. There
was no attempt for a dignified exist. We the common people don’t deserve the
dignity as we vote for dynasties!
How’s the voice of the empress of the
Dynastical party more important than those women? This will be a difficult
question to answer but for sure the person who will ask these questions, will
be made to shut up! When a systematic attempt is done to shut down social
networks then this incident just counts as one among the plenty. In a
hierarchical society of castes, families based on dominance (either by age or
gender) and when the daily theme of our lives is submission - then a parallel
theme of gagging is bound to thrive.
I think it’s time to change the
euphemism of our constitution which starts with the words ‘We the People….’ to
‘We the gaggers..’ after all our freedom exists where those gaggers chose to let
go!
Vaibhav Sarvesh
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