HOLD STRONG, GABON IS WITH US

“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.”