The JNU case erupted on the national imagination like no other. Some video clips came out of the campus showing students slogans like ' Bharat ki Barbaadi', 'Hindustan Murdabad', 'afzal hum tumhare saath hai' and what not. A certain news channel anchor who claims to speak for the nation (Well its apparently what he wants to say) played the clips on and on and branded the students worse than terrorists. To be frank after watching the videos I was also sad but not to the extent of branding them 'Anti-national'. This started off the next big battle between the so-called left leaning liberals and the right-leaning liberals (Nobody wanted themselves to be termed extremists). This set up the stage for the next phase of the war and the battlefield was the social media.
Before I start commenting on the war I would like to say one thing about the protesting students. They organizers might not have shouted the anti-india slogans or the pro-Afzal slogans. They might be against the death sentence . But they should have admitted that 'lionising Afzal Guru' who got a more than fair trial in the Indian courts and tried avoiding the death sentence by exploring all avenues of the judicial process was wrong. In the process they set out with no/incomplete knowledge about the whole issue to question the judiciary . They failed to recognize if our judiciary had been biased the trial wouldn't have lasted for 10 years. Anyways the students could have admitted that some fringe elements in the crowds did shout slogans which wasn't the objective of the protests and apologized. But young blood seldom sees any reason when they think they are right and all reason went to the bin and they jumped right up to again defend Afzal Guru. So as innocent they might have been they just lost the whole perception battle just here and a situation which could have been controlled just continued spiraling out of control.
Now comes the offensive launched by the 'right-liberal' crowd.Some of the nationalist guardians decided the law of the land isn't good enough and tried beating up the arrested student leaders and some journalists. This didn't happen once but twice. The lawyer who led the mob was felicitated and this incident brought a divide in the narrative. Earlier when about most of the people who had spoke up against the students started having their doubts and deserted the right-liberal camp. These were the very people who change their votes in every election hoping for a better India but who are ducated enough to have a view of their own. The 'left-liberals' got hold of this opportunity and took no time to brand the 'right-liberals' anti-national and claimed a threat to freedom itself. And this set up the battleground for the next phase.
We are now in the third phase of the saga where both the groups have dug into trenches and bombarding each other with claims and counter-claims. In the process many friendships turned sour, many people whom we deemed as good turned out to be far more abrasive than ever imagined. People started calling each other names and both the groups became the vanguards of freedom & nationalism in their own perceived ways. In this din many journalists on either side of the debate started writing open letters to 'god knows who'. These people who couldn't talk to each other now used the social media to voice their disapproval using snide remarks in these letters. None of them were brave enough to call each other by name so that tells us how brave they are.
In all this din everyone forgot what was the reason we were arguing for? It's not a war in the first place . The branding by both groups was bad enough but they failed to realize our democracy which prides itself in freedom of speech was being abused by both the groups when the name calling started. Freedom means the ability to voice the opinion without the fear of being branded 'anti-national'.In a mature democracy both the voices can and should co-exist but minus the the high-voltage bitterness because I believe both the sides want the country to be great just by following different methods. But what did we do with our freedom? Well we call each other names, abuse each other and at times make a lynch mob and beat up the opposite view holders. And our media the so-called fourth pillar of democracy has to be blamed equally for the situation.
Reporters suddenly became opinion makers and started presenting opinions reaching millions of apeople when their job was to present the news in a objective manner and let the public make their opinions. Suddenly the reporters were stars because people found someone to make opinions for them and the shrillest and the loudest were made heroes because the public was also frustrated with the system but never found a voice which echoed their sentiments so strongly. We felt the louder the voice more clear is the signal to the government that we are not mute spectators. But we the public forgot heroes are not gods and every word they say is not the gospel of truth. None of the media houses in India can claim to be unbiased. Times now till a few days back was the darling of the crowd because it asked uncomfortable questions to the govt, never mind we never got the answers. Other channels tried following the same pattern but they couldn't match up to Arnab Goswami. I don't believe he is pro-govt but what he created was the lynch mob mentality and what he deems right is the holy grail. Other channels woke up to the threat and in a way to reclaim lost ground tried to unite against him and other pro-govt media houses but they forgot one important thing. They themselves were biased which led to the rise of Arnab goswami because he came as a whiff of fresh air to the Indian public.
I have written quite a lot most of the stuff is unstructured but that is the state of my mind with all the chaos going around. I have been branded anti-national many times by the right-liberals but so far have managed to keep the bitterness out from my narratives. So the key takeaways would be:
This is not the last word and many more blog posts might come-up now that the situation is evolving rapidly.
Before I start commenting on the war I would like to say one thing about the protesting students. They organizers might not have shouted the anti-india slogans or the pro-Afzal slogans. They might be against the death sentence . But they should have admitted that 'lionising Afzal Guru' who got a more than fair trial in the Indian courts and tried avoiding the death sentence by exploring all avenues of the judicial process was wrong. In the process they set out with no/incomplete knowledge about the whole issue to question the judiciary . They failed to recognize if our judiciary had been biased the trial wouldn't have lasted for 10 years. Anyways the students could have admitted that some fringe elements in the crowds did shout slogans which wasn't the objective of the protests and apologized. But young blood seldom sees any reason when they think they are right and all reason went to the bin and they jumped right up to again defend Afzal Guru. So as innocent they might have been they just lost the whole perception battle just here and a situation which could have been controlled just continued spiraling out of control.
Now comes the offensive launched by the 'right-liberal' crowd.Some of the nationalist guardians decided the law of the land isn't good enough and tried beating up the arrested student leaders and some journalists. This didn't happen once but twice. The lawyer who led the mob was felicitated and this incident brought a divide in the narrative. Earlier when about most of the people who had spoke up against the students started having their doubts and deserted the right-liberal camp. These were the very people who change their votes in every election hoping for a better India but who are ducated enough to have a view of their own. The 'left-liberals' got hold of this opportunity and took no time to brand the 'right-liberals' anti-national and claimed a threat to freedom itself. And this set up the battleground for the next phase.
We are now in the third phase of the saga where both the groups have dug into trenches and bombarding each other with claims and counter-claims. In the process many friendships turned sour, many people whom we deemed as good turned out to be far more abrasive than ever imagined. People started calling each other names and both the groups became the vanguards of freedom & nationalism in their own perceived ways. In this din many journalists on either side of the debate started writing open letters to 'god knows who'. These people who couldn't talk to each other now used the social media to voice their disapproval using snide remarks in these letters. None of them were brave enough to call each other by name so that tells us how brave they are.
In all this din everyone forgot what was the reason we were arguing for? It's not a war in the first place . The branding by both groups was bad enough but they failed to realize our democracy which prides itself in freedom of speech was being abused by both the groups when the name calling started. Freedom means the ability to voice the opinion without the fear of being branded 'anti-national'.In a mature democracy both the voices can and should co-exist but minus the the high-voltage bitterness because I believe both the sides want the country to be great just by following different methods. But what did we do with our freedom? Well we call each other names, abuse each other and at times make a lynch mob and beat up the opposite view holders. And our media the so-called fourth pillar of democracy has to be blamed equally for the situation.
Reporters suddenly became opinion makers and started presenting opinions reaching millions of apeople when their job was to present the news in a objective manner and let the public make their opinions. Suddenly the reporters were stars because people found someone to make opinions for them and the shrillest and the loudest were made heroes because the public was also frustrated with the system but never found a voice which echoed their sentiments so strongly. We felt the louder the voice more clear is the signal to the government that we are not mute spectators. But we the public forgot heroes are not gods and every word they say is not the gospel of truth. None of the media houses in India can claim to be unbiased. Times now till a few days back was the darling of the crowd because it asked uncomfortable questions to the govt, never mind we never got the answers. Other channels tried following the same pattern but they couldn't match up to Arnab Goswami. I don't believe he is pro-govt but what he created was the lynch mob mentality and what he deems right is the holy grail. Other channels woke up to the threat and in a way to reclaim lost ground tried to unite against him and other pro-govt media houses but they forgot one important thing. They themselves were biased which led to the rise of Arnab goswami because he came as a whiff of fresh air to the Indian public.
I have written quite a lot most of the stuff is unstructured but that is the state of my mind with all the chaos going around. I have been branded anti-national many times by the right-liberals but so far have managed to keep the bitterness out from my narratives. So the key takeaways would be:
- The media needs to clean up its act and start 'Reporting news ' and not 'Opinions'
- The students need to apologize simply to gain the higher moral ground. Students would be forgiven as I am sure many of us in our youth would have done things not worthy of mentions.
- The Universities should lay down guidelines on speech making as I believe a educational institution is no place for political battles.
- The govt needs to look at the archaic sedition law and debate in parliament if it needs to even exist. And get to work if you work every dissenting voice will die down if we get even half of the things promised
- And lastly real work needs no advertisement. If the economy is doing well we will vote for the same party again because we will be well off. No matter how much fake/real facts are put out in the social media it wouldn't work but only help in polarizing opinions.
This is not the last word and many more blog posts might come-up now that the situation is evolving rapidly.
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