Arm Aadmi

Take a look at the pic on the left. If you were showing this to a young school-student he or she would be very impressed and would probably be inspired to join the National Cadet Corp (NCC) or the Indian Defence Academy. Why not! And so, the Baba Ramdev satyagraha chugs along, with a new addition. He has now called for raising an ‘army’ of 11000 to protect citizens or his followers from state atrocities. So that’s your new ‘arm aadmi’ movement. The brutal attack on peaceful, sleeping men, women and children was bound to provoke even a weirdo to think up such actions and Ramdev is hardly one.

A regular reader of this blog (TaMoGhNa) had this to say: “ I don’t see anything wrong with Ramdev's call for arming the protestors to save themselves. US constitution gives this right for every ordinary citizen to own the firearms in case the government turns into tyranny and help them safegaurd themselves from the government that has become rogue..” I have quoted a part of the US Second Amendment before but will quote the explanation again:

From ‘Sense & Senility’: The second amendment of the US constitution allows people to bear arms. The words in that amendment have been interpreted in many forms but here is a very common interpretation: “The Constitution aside, bearing arms is a fundamental human right. It is the only means the American people have to reclaim control of their government, should it one day become irredeemably corrupt”. Arms aside, it is the duty of the unelected to reclaim their government should it become irredeemably corrupt….” The 2^nd Amendment was also meant to ensure ordinary Americans had adequate defence against a tyrannical government. Is the Indian government corrupt and tyrannical? Make a wild guess! The attack on protesters last Saturday in the middle of the night is the sign of a government desperate and clueless. It was nothing but a sheer act of tyranny. This government does not have the moral right to continue.

The 2^nd Amendment was made in the 18^th century and in modern times one wouldn’t expect a US President to declare an emergency, overthrow the constitution and usurp all military powers. Can you say the same about this Congress government? The Emergency, after all, happened not so long ago.

Sure enough, P. Chidambaram warned Ramdev against his ‘arm aadmi’ call. He then goes on to repeatedly assert what others in the Congress have been screaming so far. ‘Ramdev’s agitation is backed by RSS, VHP’. So what? The government refuses to acknowledge that it’s not WHO is agitating, but WHAT they are agitating for that should concern them. So in response name-calling and even going to the extent of calling Ramdev a thug is the kind of dog-barking that will reflect political maturity. There are more gems from P. Chidambaram:  (From Firstpost.com)

“I think sections of the media, for reasons which I can’t spell out, are engaged in competitive populist coverage of these movements. This undermines parliamentary democracy….But I don’t support elected representatives yielding their obligations and responsibilities to civil society representatives. Let us remember that the foundation of this country is parliamentary democracy..” he said. Really? So which assholes conceded the demands of Anna Hazare for a joint bill drafting committee? The Congress should have listened to the demands of the Hazare team, talked to political parties and should have formed a committee consisting of minsters and maybe even the opposition party heads. Instead, they take on the civil society members in the group and then complain. As for the media, the words I quoted were spoken by PC to Doordarshan. I think he ought to also know that much of the media is a Congress puppet and he should be grateful and not grumble about them.

It never occurs to the corrupt government that they were indeed the ones who started this corrupt practice of letting unelected people into the law-making system. How do you explain the members of the NAC, some with dubious backgrounds, drafting laws? Are they not civil society members, most of them with an anti-BJP agenda? The Congress even has the dubious record of ‘selecting’ an unelected man as prime minister of this country. Those who have already surrendered the supremacy of the parliament to the whims of one person are likely to repeat that mistake over and over again. They will crash in the same car.

That said, I do not support Ramdev’s call for a defence force of 11000. This can then slowly turn into an armed struggle. Even if the government is to blame for this consequence it is not a healthy move. We already have a whole bunch of militias at various places in the form of Maoists. We don’t need the danger of creating more.

In case you are still wondering about the pic at the start of this post. It is almost the militia cadre of the Popular Front Of India, a muslim party in Kerala that has regularly organised such marches of their cadre. The same party whose members chopped off a professor’s arm. (Here come the pious!) Since 2008 the PFI has been organising such parades. Where was the UPA then? If the government continues its corrupt ways and tyranny there will be more calls to ‘arm aadmi’ to use their ‘hand’ to slap the Congress back!