It is amazing that both the UPA government at the centre and the state government of J&K are opposing the flag hoisting at Lal Chowk. One wonders at the wisdom of the Manmohan Singh government. The PM himself made a clumsy statement that flag hoisting on Republic Day should not be used to score political points. So since when is flag hoisting an act of scoring political points?
If the PM made that statement Omar Abdullah came up with a beauty! He states: ''Unlikely that I'll be able to leave Lal Chowk open and give them the space to raise the flag with the pomp it deserves, which I think is an insult to the flag. If the BJP really wants to raise the flag with the pomp and ceremony it deserves it should join the official ceremony. Instead of trying to overshadow the function, they should be a part of the function and give respect to the flag hoisting that it deserves".
The separatists along with other anti-national speakers like Arundhati Roy, Maoists and others go around Delhi, Chandigarh and other places to spew their anti-national venom using the freedom this nation allows. And yet the UPA and the J&K governments find flag hoisting a disruption of peace and an insult to the flag itself. Someone should be telling Omar Abdullah that a flag hoisted in celebration anywhere in the country, even on the leanest of poles or sticks is an honourable act. Adbullah describes Lal Chowk as just a bazaar and not the proper place for a flag. When will the media call such lies?
Time and again the separatists have been burning the Indian flag with impunity and hoisting Pakistani flags. Instead of combating such people the Indian government is at war with the BJP on the issue. A train from Karnataka with BJP workers was turned back from Maharashtra during night time on January 24 while the passengers were sleeping. Such cowardice is not known anywhere else in the world where patriots express solidarity to symbolic acts of flag hoisting on their own territories. If anything, the UPA and the J&K governments should be offering all protection to the Ekta Yatra and let them hoist the flag.
In a democracy freedom of speech and assembly and the right to hoist the national flag should neither be denied nor should be opposed on any grounds whatsoever. After all, the ones who feel offended by this are only the enemies of the nation. Contrast this with a US Supreme Court order in 1978 which allowed Nazi groups to march through Skokie in Chicago. Skokie is a predominantly Jewish locality and the Jews had objected to such a march. And the Jews were not even separatists or enemies of the state. Yet the supreme court allowed the march to protect the group’s right to freedom of expression and assembly. The state cannot cite threats of violence by separatists to disallow free assembly and flag hoisting. It is the state’s job to ensure protection to the event and not prevent it.
Maverick politician Subramanian Swamy puts the issue in its right perspective. He mentions that “Lal Chowk is a historic place and not some "bazaar area" "as the present chief minister blandly and ignorantly states". And further adds "The UPA government is duty bound under the Transaction of Business Rules framed under the Constitution to officially unfurl the tricolour national flag at Lal Chowk in Srinagar, J&K"
Many media pundits are also lecturing the BJP on giving up the Ekta Yatra. These so called liberals will write endlessly about a Pakistani governor being assassinated and the intolerance that pervades the state of Pakistan. Would they like the intolerance of separatists dictating the course of this country as well? Instead of strongly backing the yatra the media too is guilty of supporting the separatists indirectly. They keep asking if the BJP if it will accept responsibility if there is violence or deaths. Why should there be any violence or deaths? The media should be holding the government responsible for the safety of those in the yatra and not the other way around.
The enormous security measures they are taking to prevent hoisting of OUR NATIONAL FLAG should have been taken to apprehend Pakistan sponsored militants who are creating mayhem in J&K and stamp separatism there. But governments both at the State and Central level are going against people who have nothing else but Our National Flag in their hands. Someday when taking cue from this incident Maoists and other anti-national forces too will object to hoisting our National Flag threatening violence and this government will meekly give in.
ReplyDeleteRavinar,
ReplyDeleteI salute you for our forthright analysis. I feel we are becoming weak due to onslaught from everywhere. We should emerge stronger and defeat the anti-nationals.
Ram
After I saw todays debate on HT I am convinced, we are heading towards hell. I am optimist, but still the way our media works, I have resigned to pessism.
ReplyDeleteAfter barkha, Rahul is trying his best to cover ground for Barkha.
I have just one question. If all parties maintian that J and K is integral part of India, what signal are we sending arresting the people who want hoist national flag but at the same time do not take effective measures to stop mullahs from hoisting pakistani flag? if law and order, as cited by these hypocritic governments is the reason we can not hoist our national flag, then the government is guilty. They should allow hoisiting of national flag under complete security rather than allow hoisting of pakistani flag with all precautions.
PM and CM of JK should resign for failing to provide basic security to a common man to hoist naitonal flag in the very integral part of india.
Else declare J and K as pakistani territory and hence national flag can not be hoisted.
And screw all those sickulars who are tweeting nonsense.
Ravinar,
I was thinking of writing a blog similar to you, but after I came across your blog, I feel better that right people are involved in right issues. I request you to grant me permission to use the articles to make them reach common man.
Thanks
Ram
Ex Gen Malik will be governor of some state soon. Congress will reward him.
ReplyDeleteWhen Pakisthan was experiencing day in and day out the impact of terrorism, the president or the prime minister of that nation did not call green terrorism is tall in order in their nation. But our netas blabbered more to the point the Mr.Clean PM. Such is the patriotism of our rulers.
ReplyDeleteI read somewhere, Hitler happened to witness the Kabadi game and enjoyed it for long and even appreciated a single man comes from opposite and drives the men at the opposite end and wanted to bring in as their nation's game. Later upon knowing the birth of that game from India he sniggered and disdained that from a slave country. Such was his top heavy. But what kind of premier as shadow we have and the shadows will drive home such substandard utterances.
We have all selfish, unpatriotic, autocratic people at the helm of affairs and their way of governance will be so substandard only. Even if you say Narayana! it will be unparliamentary for, they are such sect.
If Rahul and Omar are sailing in the same boat means, no wonder for the genes are the same!
@ Ram
ReplyDeleteThanks. Good to hear you'd be starting a blog on similar lines. Feel free to use my posts with due credit to the links of Mediacrooks. More and more people should be writing about all this. Do let me know when you start off cuz I'll be happy to read.
In case you wish to write and carry some of your articles here I would be glad to do so. Of course, being the blog-author here I may do some minor editing. If so, you can always send me material at ravinarin@gmail.com
Thanks again for your regular feedback.
Ravinar
@ Vaidya Iyer
ReplyDeleteGood to see you back. Both Emmaarcee and I were wondering where you had disappeared.
Dear Ravinar,
ReplyDeleteI have posted your writeup in my facebook, with link to your article. Credit is all yours!. Good work. Mother India needs people like you in multifold. I am just trying to spread the word to whomsoever I can reach...
warm regards,
Ravindra
today we saw that j and k is literally foreign territory,where an attempt to raise the indian flag admittedly by the bjp,perhaps even to score some brownie points,was put down with brute force and how the separatists were gently herded into police vans when an attempt to raise their own flag was thwarted near lal chowk.bravo manmohan singh ,under your ‘honest’ leadership,the secession of j and k is almost complete,never mind the thousands of indian soldiers who have died to prevent this very occurence.the picture of ‘outsider’ indians trying to hoist the indian flag in foreign territory was complete.
ReplyDeleteDear Ravinar,
ReplyDeleteGreat post as always. Other than Twitter-junta and odd journalists/bloggers here and there, there is a complete lack of an honest assessment and coverage of what this Ekta Yatra signifies. It is being summarily dismissed by the Congressmen and their unquestioning supporters as a political stunt. The perpetually cynical and anti-nationalist journo Sagarika tweeted about the "comical" sight of BJP activists carrying the TIRANGA. It's amazing how her perception of these people just does not go beyond the BJP-label in ANY circumstance whatsoever. Are they not Indians first and BJP members later? And then the media accuses "us" of "politicizing" the entire issue. Who is constantly bringing into picture the fact that BJP is undertaking this Yatra rather than discussing the context of the Yatra itself? BJP never claimed to wanting to raise the flag by itself. It had requested for it to be an all-party event but in vain. It has ceaselessly been inviting Omar Abdullah to join in but his arrogance knows no bounds. I hope that the true message and significance of this entire episode was able to be conveyed to the greater Indian population without being drowned under biased media rhetoric. It's purpose was to counter the psychological defeat (in Arun Jaitley's words) of the Congress govt. before the separatists. And I don't know if 'India' came out at top, given the sick, high-handed and cruel way in which the J&K govt. acted.
The most aptly ironic thing happened today. My family and I were cleaning out the garage and I came across a book titled "Godhra:The Missing Rage by N.K. Modi (2004)". It's about the grave media bias and injustice in the context of the Godhra incident and beyond. Don't know who it belongs to or how it got there, but it's funny that it should fall into my hands during the period that I am coming discover the true colours of Indian media. I will definitely give it a read and I wonder if it's a popular book. I am happy that there are published works on this issue of grave importance to supplement the relentless drive of bloggers like you.
On another note, Happy Republic Day to all! May India be rid of all those elements that are pulling it into the abyss of decline, MediaCrooks being right there at the top!
@Ravinar
ReplyDeleteWould like your feedback and comments on this.
http://thoughtsofmangoman.blogspot.com/2011/01/ekta-yatra.html
Request you to provide valuable feedback and help this blog improve.
Correction:
ReplyDeleteThe author of the book I mentioned earlier is S.K. Modi and not N.K. Modi.
@Ravinar:
ReplyDeleteIt is heartening to see good people pointing out what others fail to. Are you also thinking about what steps there could be to arrive at a solution? May be you could have a discussion post on such aspects as well. Merely to hear about the problems can sometimes be depressing! And right minds, who can point out the problems, can also point out possible directions for the solutions. Could you please consider taking that step as well?
Indian politics had a mixed year in 2010. There were several political figures like Nitish Kumar, Meira Kumar, Sonia and Rahul Gandhi along with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh who were dedicated to the cause of India's growth and portrayal as a politically righteous nation.
ReplyDeleteRahul Gandhi: Congress leader Rahul Gandhi made various attempts to touch the hearts of common people in his constituency and throughout the country. However, his comments regarding saffron terrorism attracted lot of criticism from the opposition.
The above being plagiarized from India post and Indian map, no exception to be sycophant to cong my comment over the excerpts:
Yeah! He is omniscient and omnipotent. Gre8 economist to have invented the corruption is as a result of coalition. Hence, while the cong bank their vote bank more on minorities and aam and aadhmi (ignorant) wants to add the innocents (students –voting aged reduction to 16 years) to bring back the Nehru legacy to loot unquestionably.Without any accountability
@ Common Indian..
ReplyDeleteGood to see you've started off a blog. I read the post and it's nice. I hope you continue to post regularly and our collective voices will be heard.
@ samAlochaka
ReplyDeleteI think in most of my posts the issues that are discussed throw up some obvious solutions too. Besides, those who are involved in these issues are pretty much capable of the solutions. Only if the decide to ACT HONESTLY. I know it's not very exciting to read negative aspects of public issues but we can't hide from them either. You yourself are doing a good job of bringing out such issues in your blog too. We can hope that sooner or later more such voices will be heard
@Ravinar
ReplyDeleteYou are absolutely right. Unfortunately, the honesty that you have mentioned has become such a rare commodity amongst politicians. It's a irony that a nation whose national emblem contains the verse "Truth Alone Triumphs", has political leadership which is deeply mired in dishonesty, fraud, the veritable symptoms of "untruth".
And, if I may suggest. Even if the solutions are "obvious", please do state them, for you express ideas well. It is important that those who read your blogs are able to use them in their arguments, and in their decision making. This also guards against the usual danger, that in India, there is so much inaction and lethargy, that unless explicitly exhorted, most people lull themselves to sleep assuming "nothing needs to be done"!
And yes, continuing to wish you (and All of us!) all the very best.
Will The Banana Republic of India one day be afraid of hoisting Indian Tricolor in Delhi too if they get some threats of voilence?? Sardar Patel will be turning in the grave...
ReplyDelete