“Dude, I am scared. I write
random stuff that won’t be very pleasing to many fringe groups that have
suddenly started feeling empowered more than ever. Though the good part is
nobody actually reads what I write.”
“There is no such thing. Just
stay away from social media for a while. Everything will be alright.”
“I tried that. But a journalist
in Karnataka was killed at her door step for
writing and the sad part is all main stream media, newspapers are reporting
about it. Even it is part of discussion in this year’s literature festival. So I
think it will take more than shutting down my social media. May be I should try,
stop watching TV and stop reading newspapers and books and attending social
gathering and meeting other fellow human beings and probably start watching
Salman Khan’s movies.”
“You are stretching it brother. Nobody knows who killed her. You are
just jumping the gun and getting panicked. At max you can call it a failure of
state’s police force”
“That’s what I thought until I
find people celebrating her murder because she used to write against their kind
of ideology.”
“They can be anybody or nobody at
all; people on internet don’t really have an identity.”
“True But the thing that worries
me is that our Prime Minister follows these identities less murder celebrating
people on social media and don’t think these people are nobody. They exist and
their existence is empowered more than it could ever be.”
“You are saying anything on just speculations.
Reality can be easily miles away from it. You are just scared because people in
the power are less westernized and more nationalist now which probably doesn’t
align with your ideology that you have developed reading the western literature
and philosophy.”
“I wish that to be true. But how do you explain somebody beaten to
death and burnt alive, that too on camera?”
“How is it related? He was just a
random psycho killer who was arrested”
“No, He wasn’t just a psycho
killer. He was representation of how protected these anti-social elements has
started to feel. He recorded the murder because he was assured that there are
people who will celebrate his act and he will be a hero and he wasn’t actually
disappointed. People actually sent money to his accounts for his family”
“So what? Government is with us.
Wasn’t he arrested and his accounts were seized?”
“Yeah, Government off
course. A film was protested by some
fringe groups before its release without knowing any script or story. Sets were damaged during the shoot and director
and crew were manhandled. Bounty of crores on director and actress head was
announced.
But off course our government is
here for the rescue. It arrested all the fringe elements (one of them off
course was a member of ruling party) who gave open life threats to people and
set the theatre on fire and also assured the smooth running of the film to
maintain people’s faith in law and order but sadly, only in my dreams.
Five state governments banned the
movie in the state even before censor Board screened it. Even when censor board
passed it after some insane editing suggestions, some of the states still
maintained the ban on the movie.”
“Ok, Then director should go to
the court. We have an independent and impartial judiciary to help us out.”
“May be not so much, a judge who
was to hear a case on the president of the ruling party was approached for
bribery and later died in mysterious circumstances and judgement on that case
was done in first hearing by the new judge.
How can you expect them to be independent? They are human and they love
their lives too.”
“That can be just another
conspiracy theory. If they had some solid proof they might have re-opened the
investigation.”
“Anything is possible until you
keep the blind fold on. It’s like Schrodinger’s cat. To be sure, you should
always open the box. Four Supreme Court judges just did that for us yesterday
and the cat is not doing very well. “
“So you are trying to tell me,
now these people can give threats to anybody, kill openly, vandalize properties
and these people have specifically started to feel protected in current regime
and we can’t even go to court against them.”
“Don’t worry; we can obviously go
to court. The government is totally taking care of courts. Leader of one of the
state scraped off cases against himself and another state government tried to
pass a bill to protect all member of its assembly from any possible
investigation”
“So how do you raise your voice
against it?”
“Don’t you get it, you
don’t. If you raise your voice against
any of government policy (like even against the multiple increase in the fare
of the very metro we are travelling in) you will be termed as Anti-National and
character assassinated for everything you have ever done. If you write anything
against it, you will be murdered at your door step. If you report loophole in the
government procedures, there will be an FIR against you and if you want to pass
a judgement against it, you will die a natural death mysteriously.”
“Where is the democracy then?
It’s like we are living under dictatorship. Now I am scared too bro.”
“Don’t worry brother. Hold strong, Gabon is with us.”
