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The rule of the philistines
One is amused and amazed at the fact that the terms ‘moral policing’ and ‘freedom of expression’ are much in the thick and thin of things these days. Is it because there is now an upsurge of conservative militancy? Or, is it because the world has not suddenly become a bad place; but that news travels faster now, and television and the Internet are there to blow things up? Look closely, you will know there is a little of both to it.
A decade or so back when Shiv Sena hoodlums plundered the offices of a small Mumbai-based newspaper called Mahanagar, there were few to take up the cudgels on its behalf. But today when the Star News office is pillaged by marauders of an unknown entity over what good journalists will not think of as earth-shaking news, it does have more people reviling the act. And yes, most would have seen the leftovers on television.
Utterly bitterly malicious
We have a new national pastime these days – humiliating our heroes, degrading the very people who have done our nation proud. If the jeering of Sachin Tendulkar by the lumpen scoundrels of Mumbai masquerading as cricket fans wasn't enough, the takeover mafia of Gujarat has done a moo de grace by hounding out Verghese Kurien.
It is all fine, some might say. The old order must certainly changeth. And it must just as certainly yield place to the new. You cannot fault the contention – it is the law of nature. But you can drill holes in this contentious argument when it becomes a ruse – when you seek refuge in the laws of nature to serve your pernicious wishes. Subterfuge it was the way the Gujarat Cooperative Milk Marketing Federation debased the very person who made it the biggest cooperative marketing success story in the world. It is fine, the old-fogey order must change. Pal, we are a nation of young people aren't we?
The Northeast and its Bandhs
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We have seen two, virtually spontaneous, bandhs in the Northeast in the days just gone by. One was a relatively-short 12-hour Assam bandh called in protest against the letting off of the accused in the botched-up Parag Das murder case. The other was a much more gruelling 48-hour bandh called in Manipur over the cold-blooded, fake encounter of a former militant.
Bandhs have been so rampant in the Northeast in the last 20 or so years that people have become inured to them. And bandhs, more often than not, are a success without the advocates of the bandhs having to drum up much support for them.
