How I feel about Delhi Crime- Sakhshi’s Murder

Completely cut off from the news, I was scrolling Twitter when I checked out the trending on Twitter, and found this hashtag #DelhiCrime; the first video I saw was of a person beating a girl unconscious in some village location. It was not Delhi, but the further I scrolled, I saw the CCTV footage of a girl running through a busy street, and then the next clip is of a boy repeatedly stabbing her. When she falls down, he kicks her in the face and stomach. But not yet quenched, he picks up a big boulder, probably a piece of concrete slab, and smashes her head, FOUR TIMES.

I felt disgusted at it; angry would be an understatement.

What broke me was not how this animalistic person killed her but the apathy of the people around them. They just looked at it as if it was a regular, everyday scene. Nobody dared to interfere or protect her. They just walked by.

I could count a dozen people who walked by and did not even stop to look at her. the last part shows, that there is nobody around when he smashes her with the slab.

Where did they go? How could they just let it happen? How would they be able to face themselves in the mirror?

I feel ashamed to be a part of such a society. I am more angry at the people who let it happen than the person who did it. He will be punished under the law, but what about those who just looked at it. What about those who will now come out to protest about it but were mere onlookers while it all happened? Those who will start blaming governments and police and law and order, and whatnot. Those keyboard warriors who will leave no social media platform without playing their agendas?

Now politicians will start blaming each other for not being able to protect women, not being able to maintain their regions, and their crime rates.

As a society, this is what we have become, unashamed, unapologetic onlookers. Dead inside, so much so, that a person is being killed, brutally murdered next to us, and we don’t even bat an eyelid.

As Sikhs, we were bestowed with a Kirpan(a dagger) by our Guru, to protect the downtrodden, to be the just civilian, to help and protect those who were helpless, to become the shield in such cases.

But I believed that in these times why would one carry a Kirapn/sword all the time, what use would one possibly put it to. In a situation like that, if there was a proper Sikh, who abided by those principles, he would have definitely come to her rescue.

But I wonder, if I would be able to do that, would I have the courage to do that even if I had a sword with me. Or am I also a keyboard warrior who would have shit his pants when he encountered such a scene. Or would my lineage, my Sikh blood hit me and make me come forward and fight the person.

Whatever faith, religion, caste, or ethnicity one believes in, as humans, we should use all that to fight incidents like these instead of fighting against the belief, ethics, and faith of others. The boy is a Muslim, and the girl is a Hindu, that is the narrative right now. But should Hindus fight against Muslims for that, or should humans fight against such animals. Who were the onlookers, Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs? The criminals don’t have a religion, nor do cowards.

5 Reasons Why Kashmir movement will fail?

Learning from Indian National Movement!

After almost three decades the Kashmir Freedom movement stands no further than where it started. Every passing year is a mix of mass agitations, protests, hartals and then accepting the failure, only to rise again the next year. The surge of untamed energy of the youth goes down the gutter every year. The only outcome at the end is the addition to death toll, damage to public infrastructure, serious loss of human resource in terms of education and economic stability. But with every rising sun, the energy is refilled and a new protest is in the building. The question that thus arises is, “why continue on such a futile path, that leads to nowhere. ”

The answer lies in learning from the past. History is the best teacher, it is said. But the only thing one learns from history is “that no one learns form history”. The Kashmir Freedom movement is a poignant reflection of the Indian national movement. India as a vast nation took two centuries to become independent. But that was a time when all the present modern day inventions were not at their behest.

For Masrat et al.

Il miglior fabbro

Deep purple is not just a colour,
but an award, under our clothes,
that shines,
brightly but painfully,
awarded to the woke, for excellence
in resistance and dissidence.

How do you speak?
and why do you want to?
only inside the mouth,
a tongue is a tongue;
no bone, then how?
how do you make it stand
on its feet, and make it march,
restlessly and tirelessly.

What do you want to muckrake?
for expression is lost,
upon expressing, it ceases to be,
the moment a tide of reckoning hits it
with waves of misinterpretations
and it is pulled into the cesspool
of allegations and arguments, and is
trapped forever in the quagmire of
ambiguous desolations.

May-be you too are haunted,
by the ghosts of azaadi,
or may-be you are a troubled child,
of an unhappy marriage between
concealed fascism
and
divulged freethinking.

First published in The Universe Journal

Subsequently in Asian Speaks.

Photo by getty images.

Does Delhi reek of 1984? Drawing parallels; 1984 vs 2020

Three thousand killed! That was the official statement. The sky was grey with smoke and air pungent from the mixture of tyre and flesh burning on the road side. The earth was red at places from the fresh blood leaving the bodies of those three thousand. It was a mass massacre. It was named riots but by definition it was a genocide.
Sikhs were pulled out of their houses and shops. They were dragged out of busses and autos. Pinpointed and killed. Women were raped on roadsides. Paraded naked. And later killed. Hundreds of houses and properties burned and ransacked. Unofficially the toll was somewhere between eight to ten thousand with several thousand injured. A huge number of people relocated to other states and some to other countries.
It all started after Indira Gandhi was assassinated by her bodyguards who happened to be Sikhs. The revenge was taken on the whole community.
That could not have happened. It was allowed to happen. Hate speeches inspired people to come on the roads. The then government ministers and party workers were mobilising the mob, supplying them with petrol bombs, iron rods, swords, sticks etc. The police were told to stand down for two days. The media was not allowed to cover. The mob knew exactly who lived where. Bikers carrying petrol cans roamed to refill the mob supplies for flambeaus and petrol bombs. Trucks and cars loaded with iron rods, sticks, stones were stationed at main chowks. Anyone wearing a turban was to be killed instantly. Some of the ministers proclaimed prizes for those who will kill and rape Sikhs.
The current situation in Delhi smells the same. The majority is being mobilised using hate speech, pseudo-patriotism, fake-nationalism. The issue started with an entirely different thing but turned into Hindu-Muslim dipole. The ministers of the government are mobilising and supporting the majority against minority. The police were seen helping one faction to beat another. Armed people are allowed to run amok with police watching from a distance. The judiciary is quiet and the ones who try standing up are being transferred. Religious places are being burned down to the ground. The media is one-sided propaganda machinery that is only blaming parties. The figures cannot be trusted. And nobody knows what’s going on the inside. The story comes out only after the affair settles.
Thirty-nine are already dead as of now, more than three-fifty people are injured and the toll is increasing. Muslim men have started to shave, and through away their caps, women are stripping out of bhurkhas and naqabs. They are being asked to recite national anthem and Hindu shlokas to ascertain their religion. Circumcision is being checked.
This cannot happen. This is being allowed to happen.
The things can take an entirely different route. If it is not checked, the mob violence will be widespread, more and more radical minded fanatics will join in and a mass execution of one community will be the outcome.