Dear Irfan Pathan,
As I was trying to process the news on Kashmir, I read your tweet. The media reports I have seen so far either reproduce your tweet without comment or seem to be applauding your sentiments. The tweet reads: “The fact that #AmarnathYatris have been asked to go back and stopped the #Yatra means it is under threat. That’s why security measures are taken. Apni gandi soch badlo . (Change your dirty/ rotten thinking) Har baat mein religion mat daalo (Don’t shove religion into everything). Har baat mein saboot mat maango . (Don’t keep asking for proof for everything.)” The English translations are mine.
Irfan bhai, there are many upheavals in the country so why am I choosing to address this particular tweet of yours? I’m doing so because your five sentences seem to encapsulate the most important political challenges we as a nation are facing today. Allow me to respond to the sentences, somewhat out of sequence.
1. Don’t shove religion into everything. It appears that you are addressing those people who are questioning the Central government’s decision to stop the Amarnath Yatra. I find it odd that you think it is the people doing the questioning who are shoving religion into everything. But would you not agree that it’s the BJP-RSS who have built their path to power on religion? Even while the country was facing many serious problems they raised the ‘issue’ of the Ram Mandir at the site of the Babri Mosque as the most important crisis facing the nation. In a land of a million Hindu shrines, they claimed the building of the Ram temple at this one spot was more important than eradicating poverty, providing education and healthcare, or protecting our environment.
Even now, having come to power misusing religion, through its silence and inaction, our government licenses the goondas who use religion as the basis of murdering people for transporting cattle, and beat up or kill people because they won’t say Jai Shri Ram.
2. Don’t keep asking for proof for everything. The reason people like me constantly ask for proof from this government (as one should from every government) is because we distrust what Mr. Modi and Mr. Shah have been saying since February 2002. Most recently, their government has loaded all kinds of lies on to us including fudged figures about demonetisation and economic growth, but let’s just look at events around Kashmir in this year.
Irfan bhai, what happened when 46 of our soldiers died in a jihadi bomb attack in Pulwama? Did we get any proper, transparent inquiry into the security and command failures that led to our jawans being exposed to the suicide bomber? No. Next, do we have any proof that our IAF ‘smart bombs’ actually managed to kill a single jihadi in the retaliatory night raid across the border? No. The day after the IAF strike, several international journalists based in Pakistan were allowed to see the targeted site and surrounding areas, and they found no evidence that a single jihadi had been killed. These are not paaltu journalists we see so often in India; these are professionals who are not afraid to ask tough questions, with no loyalty to Pakistan or its terror groups.
Jane’s , a reputed defence journal, also seriously doubted the Indian government’s story about the air raid. Then, the next day we were told the PAF shot down one of our old MIG-21s but that we shot down two of their far superior fighters. That’s like saying someone riding one of those old Vespa scooters from Ahmedabad won a race against two brand new Harley-Davidsons. Again, there was no proof of this, from any angle or any side.
The official reason given by the government for shutting down the Amarnath Yatra was that jihadis were on the loose in Kashmir, bent upon ‘revenge’ for the Indian airstrike on their camp in Balakot. And yet, two days later, we see that all of Kashmir is shut down, opposition leaders who have risked their lives to fly the Indian flag in the face of separatists put under arrest without any charge, phones and Internet shut off, emergency services badly affected. It’s now clear all this, including shutting down the Yatra, was done because the top leaders of the government knew they were about to take a hugely immoral step that may throw a burning torch into a godown full of explosives. So, given Mr. Modi and Mr. Shah’s repeated triple talaq with truth, I feel forced to ask for proof, forced to ask questions about every single thing this government proclaims.
3. Apni gandi soch badlo. (Change your rotten thinking) Is a very good sentence and, as conscientious Indians and Gujaratis, you and I need to keep saying this clearly to the people who are bent upon destroying the country, our society and our Constitution.
The writer is a filmmaker and columnist.
