KG Suresh
A die-hard Pakistani fan of Indian batsman Virat Kohli is facing up to 10 years’ imprisonment after being arrested for hoisting the Indian Tri-colour atop his home in Punjab Province. He had done so merely to show his love for the cricketer.
Twenty-two year old Umar Draz was arrested on January 26 when India beat Australia in a T20 match, in which Kohli scored 90 runs. The Provincial Police registered a case under Section 123A (acts of damaging the sovereignty of the country) of the Pakistan Penal Code, which entails a maximum punishment of 10 years in jail or fine or both. Draz, who pleaded before the judge that he hoisted the Indian flag only for his love for Kohli, told reporters, “I am a big fan of Virat Kohli. I support the Indian team because of Kohli. Hoisting of Indian flag on the rooftop of house only shows my love for the Indian cricketer.”
Maintaining that he had no idea that he had committed a crime, he sought a pardon stating that he should be seen as “an Indian cricketer’s fan”. Yet, no Pakistani intellectual or media house spoke in defence of this apparently innocent but supposedly anti-national act.
Unfortunately, back home, the situation is almost reverse. From refusing to stand up for the national anthem (remember the Jehovah’s Witness case and a Mumbai cinema house matter) to even burning of the Tricolour and raising anti-India slogans, a section of the intelligentsia has always found it convenient to defend such acts under the garb of freedom of speech and expression to freedom of religion to ‘taking a lenient view towards our misguided boys’.
What is more regrettable is the manner in which political capital is sought to be made out of such incidents. The justification sought to be given to such incidents puts a big question mark on our evolution as a nation, even several decades after independence. Can any caste or religious interests be above that of the nation? Can any caste or community survive, if the nation itself ceases to exist? Yet, such double standards have dominated our intellectual discourse over the years. These very intellectuals mouthing platitudes for freedom of speech and expression maintained an unscrupulous silence when India became the first country to ban Salman Rushdie’s Satanic Verses or when exiled Bangladeshi author Taslima Nasreen, who highlighted the brutal rapes and atrocities on women, particularly from the minorities, in her country, in her book Lajja, was shamelessly attacked by All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen goons in Hyderabad and made to run from pillar to post when she sought refuge in this country. Yet, these very so-called liberals were the first to jump to the fray and cry hoarse from roof-tops when some local courts issued notices to artist MF Husain for portraying Hindu deities in the nude. In fact, none of them showed even the courage to openly condemn the attack on Charlie Hebdo by religious fanatics.
Sadly, successive Governments too have failed to nip such tendencies in the bud. If overcoming petty political interests, if the then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi had cracked down on the likes of Jarnail Singh Bhindrawale when he came to Delhi with his armed goons, couldn’t we have prevented the showdown at the Golden Temple and the subsequent assassination of the Prime Minister and resultant massacre of innocent Sikhs across the country?
Similarly, weren’t activists of some Maoist and separatist outfits carrying on their nefarious agenda on the JNU campus for long enough now? Yet, the powers-that-be turned a blind eye and the outcome was the imminent clash that we witnessed recently. Yet, arguments are being made out making the police entry into the capital look criminal and the anti-national act sacrosanct. As Minister for Finance Arun Jaitley appropriately put it during the Parliament debate, the JNU is not sovereign territory where the country’s law and order authorities cannot enter.
It was also specious and farcical on part of certain intellectuals to equate the JNU protests with the PDP’s stand on the Afzal Guru issue and thereby question BJP’s alliance with the party in Jammu & Kashmir. Of course, we all have a right to question even the verdicts of the highest court in the land, but does that endow on us the freedom to openly call for the country’s dismemberment? The PDP certainly had reservations on the death sentence to Afzal Guru, but so long as it remain as a recognised political party sworn to uphold the Constitution, its loyalty to the country cannot be either questioned or equated with anti-national sloganeering in the JNU.
It is most inappropriate on the part of some sections to label the entire Left as anti-national. Most of the student outfits in the campus are affiliated to mainstream communist parties which have sworn to uphold the Constitution and are duly recognised as national parties by the Election Commission of India. The mainstream Left parties have as much a right to air their views as as the nationalist groups have. But the Left parties also have a special responsibility to openly distance themselves from the actions and utterances of the ultra-Left groups, who openly preach secessionism. The liberal Left should also learn to distinguish between the mainstream nationalists, who too have sworn to uphold the Constitution, and the extreme variety. If they don’t do so, they have no right to protest against the ‘anti-national’ tag that has been given to them.
Nationalism cannot be forced down anyone’s throat nor has anyone the right to hurt religious or patriotic sentiments. It is a sense of pride that has to come from within and the sentiment cannot be viewed in isolation from the principles of liberty, equality and justice to which every citizen of this country is entitled. Therefore, calls for freedom from hunger, poverty and injustice cannot be treated as seditious.
It must be said here that the recent agitation in Haryana, which saw public property being openly destroyed, private property of certain sections looted and modesty of women outraged, was no less anti-national than that at the JNU.
For political expediency, no party has a right to either defend or glorify terrorists, whether they be from Kashmir, Punjab or Tamil Nadu. If leaders in Tamil Nadu endorse the killers of Rajiv Gandhi or political parties or religious organisations in Punjab openly glorify the assassins of Indira Gandhi, their acts too cannot be condoned and should be treated as treason and sedition. There is no room for leniency or double standards.
While we may all have separate visions and concepts of nationalism, it is important that there should be a basic minimum national consensus on the need to preserve the country’s unity, integrity and sovereignty. There cannot be any compromise on such a
consensus.