‘Extraneous noise’. An old phrase, but it took on new meaning after social media erupted over a private group’s decision to invite an accused rapist (Tarun Tejpal) for a literary festival. And this proved to be a really bad idea. The group subsequently withdrew its invite saying it did not want ‘extraneous noise’ to affect its prized festival. It was essentially telling people protesting vehemently through their Twitter feeds that it was the Marie Antoinette to our angry masses. Not that she ever asked people to have cake and wine.
While we were being quite righteous, upstanding citizens determined to call out anybody suspected of wrongdoing, let us stop and think about the wonderful men and women we have elected to represent us.
In 2011, Nihal Chand Meghwal was one of the men named in an FIR filed by a woman in Haryana. The accusation levelled against him and his ‘associates’ was that the woman’s husband had drugged her and let said ‘associates’ to rape her. The BJP Member of Parliament, and a Minister of State, went ‘missing’ just as the court asked him to appear, and instead sent his lawyer.
Or Gopal Goyal Kanda who was a Haryana MLA. A flight attendant, Geetika Sharma, committed suicide, and in her note, pointed to him as the reason for her death. He had harassed her, she had written. A year later, Sharma’s mother too committed suicide, in the same manner as her daughter.
Then there’s former BSP MP Dhananjay Singh, who came to power while facing several other criminal cases. He and his wife were accused in what is now known as the ‘maid murder case’. They were accused of mercilessly beating their domestic helps, and they ended up murdering one of them. Or even Congress leader Bikram Singh Brahma, who was thrashed by locals when they found that he was sexually assaulting a woman.
These are the stellar people we have elected to govern us, while they ruthlessly go about killing, raping and murdering innocents who are supposed to be under their protection. These are also the people we expect to be our clarion calls when injustice occurs. Look at a Facebook or Twitter timeline for outrage against them, and you will find none.
Instead, we outrage against something that is socially meaningless, something that has little to no influence or impact on our daily lives. Public memory is so short we can’t even remember the wonderful examples of human beings we have representing us in the highest house in the country.
Of course, being Indian politicians, we expect no less of them, but for some reason, we think protesting against a private group’s decision to invite someone for a fest is the right way to go about it. Even without the group’s callous response, our hypocrisy seems to know no bounds.
