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Kashmir conflict-revisited

In early1980s, walking through the lush green fields, on crisp spring and summer mornings, on my way from the student hostel to the chemis...

Friday, December 31, 2010

Absconding left


One of the things that has almost gone unnoticed is the conspicuous silence that has befallen mainstream politicians on the issue of bizzare and completely unjust conviction of Dr. Binayak Sen. Prominent individuals and different organizations have singularly condemned his sham trial and conviction based on evidences bordering on ridicule. The issue was raised by Amnesty International, so did Dr. Amartya Sen. The stance of thuggish saffron parties, though despicable, can, nevertheless, be understood. The case itself was brought and conducted by the Chhattisgarh government run by ideologically driven BJP. Congress party, for reason best known to it, is now on a definite lurch towards self-destruction. Where does that leave hypocrite pretenders of the left, who never missed an opportunity to project themselves doyens of the downtrodden? It is not only Dr. Sen and his concocted conviction where politicians from left have forfeited their moral right of carrying on those false pretensions but also on every other issue their rectitude completely deserted them. Because of virtual absconding, their irrelevance is total and consequently oblivion cannot be far away. Their absence from the national scene would hardly be mourned, were it not for the vacuum being filled by abominable fundamentalists of saffron brigade. Instead of realizing their sinister designs in recent continuous holding of parliament as hostage, leftist for petty gains have become pawns in the vicious game plans of the right. Those rightist elements being operational at several levels have permeated every strata of society and government. A sudden surge in the use of a section of penal code dealing with sedition cannot be accidental. Dr. Sen was charged and convicted for this alleged offence; a college teacher in Kashmir was charged for same offence because he allegedly set a question paper with a paragraph about situation in Kashmir. So were famously Arundhati Roy and Syed Ali Shah Geelani. It is sometimes puzzling to understand the authority that decides between seditious and non-seditious. Is that authority political or those security forces, whose behavior, in dealing with ordinary people, most of the times borders almost on sedition, adjudicate whom to condemn. A democratic system hinges on the premise of accountability and primacy of political authority; until and unless that principle is adhered to letter and spirit, it does not take long before edifice of polity starts crumbling.   
-Rajiv Kumar

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