Month: June 2021

Return To Status Quo Ante On Tibet Govt In Exile

By LokMarg

A few weeks ago, in a sober and low-key ceremony on account of the pervasive and raging Wuhan Virus, Penpa Tsering was sworn in as the democratically elected Sikyong or the President of the Dharamshala based Central Tibetan Administration (CTA), the Tibetan government in exile.

From the time results of the elections were declared in mid-April 2021 to the swearing-in ceremony on May 27 and even thereafter, messages of felicitations have poured in from parliamentarians across the world, Tibet support groups, international bodies and institutions. Notably, the US State Department, parliamentarians from EU countries, Canada and from Japan and Australia – 3 of the 4 Quad member countries- and Taiwan’s Foreign Minister sent congratulatory messages to the new Sikyong.

However, there was no official media reportage on the election, the swearing-in ceremony, or message of felicitation to the new democratically elected Sikyong from political leaders, officials or organizations affiliated to the Indian government.

The conspicuous silence is evidently in line with the classified directive issued by GOI in a letter dated Feb 22, 2018 that was circulated to all offices in the Central and State governments. The letter imposed restrictions in the form of an “advisory” to all Ministries/Departments of the Government of India as well as State Governments not to accept any invitation or participate in any function organized or hosted by the CTA. It was issued on the eve of the then Foreign Secretary’s visit to China citing the reason to be a “very sensitive time in India-China relations”.

Speculations on the underlying reasons for the issue of the referred letter made by a stunned CTA, Tibetan community in exile and many China/Tibet experts varied.

Some believed that it was a condition to pave the way for Prime Minister Narendra Modi – President Xi Summit in Wuhan that followed in April 2018.

Some said that it was to persuade the Chinese to change their position on Masood Azhar being listed as a terrorist by the UN.

A few opined that it was to get China’s nod on India’s membership of the Nuclear Suppliers Group.

One assessment suggested that it could have been a mere pique at the undisclosed visit of a senior representative from the Dalai Lama set up to China ostensibly as part of their back-channel negotiations for the resumption of dialogue between the two sides.

Whatever the considerations at that time were, the revised policy guidelines were in line with India’s genuine desire to continue to build on the goodwill generated during Xi’s parleys with PM Modi in Ahmedabad. It was a significant step taken by India to bridge the “trust deficit” coming in the way of improvement in bilateral relations.

However, India’s efforts to build mutual trust were brutally undermined in May 2020 by the pre-meditated and brazen display of deceit and deception when an aggressive and expansionist China diverted troops to occupy territory previously not under its control in Eastern Ladakh.

It blatantly violated painstakingly negotiated bilateral agreements, confidence-building measures, protocols and understandings. The “trust deficit” which India sought to bridge actually widened due to Chinese duplicity.

Meanwhile, the international situation has also undergone significant changes. The Biden Administration has signalled its inclination to abide by the Tibet Policy and Support Act.

It made an unprecedented gesture in publicly extending greetings to the CTA on the occasion of the Tibetan New Year. It has indicated a steady and firm resolve to reconfigure its relations with China to one of “strategic competition”.

China is viewed as being bent on disrupting and defying the rules-based international order and threatening peace and stability. The Quad has galvanized. The EU has frozen a massive investment agreement with China.

Internal repression in China is getting more focus than ever in the recent past. Tibet, Xinjiang, Inner Mongolia, Hong Kong and Taiwan are gradually gaining renewed global attention for a variety of political and strategic reasons.

Under these circumstances, an urgent need is felt for a substantive reappraisal of India’s relations with China across the board and with Tibet in particular.

Many ideas have been mooted in the strategic community as a befitting political riposte. These range from India abandoning the One China policy, to awarding the Dalai Lama with the highest civilian honour, to the Indian government expressing support for all the decisions taken by the Dalai Lama in the matter of his reincarnation, to welcoming the 15th Dalai Lama as an honoured guest of India.

While all such suggestions can be discussed on their merit and efficacy, the lowest hanging fruit is the quiet unpublicized burial of the February 22, 2018 directive and return to status quo ante in relation to interaction with the CTA as it prevailed since 2011.

At that time, in an astute and far-sighted move, the Dalai Lama approved the devolution of all the administrative and political powers vested in him to democratically elected Tibetan leaders.

The Government of India viewed this in a positive light. The former Sikyong, Lobsang Sangay, was invited to attend PM Modi’s oath-taking ceremony in May 2014 along with other Heads of Government.

Contacts and interaction with the Dalai Lama and Sikyong at the highest political levels, albeit unofficial, continued. This was despite China conveying her objections to India for permitting the CTA to carry out their legitimate functions and pursuit of religious activities.

A return to the pre-February 22, 2018 policy will send the right signal about India’s determination to shun any notion of appeasement in its relations with China as the latter continues to play hardball on border negotiations.

It will be a small but significant step to bring the Tibet issue back on the table. It will have the desired effect in the Tibetan community in exile and within Tibet in the form of tacit support to the CTA’s international advocacy efforts to resume Sino-Tibet negotiations. It will also indicate India’s willingness to join the call from the wider comity of democratic countries in this respect.

The time to shed any perceived ambivalence on the Tibet issue is now. The time to restore the status quo ante on India’s policy towards the CTA, and the Tibetan community is here.

(The author is former Special Secretary, Government of India, Cabinet Secretariat – ANI)

Drones Carry Out Twin Blasts At Jammu Air Force Base

By LokMarg

A team of National Investigation Agency (NIA) has arrived at the Air Force Station in Jammu, where two blasts took place earlier in the day.

Initial inputs from the two explosions that took place inside the Air Force Station in Jammu suggest that a shaped charge (explosive device) was used for the attack, sources informed.
The two explosions took place at 1:27 am and 1:32 am, they added.

Earlier today, two drones were used to carry out the attack inside the Air Force base in Jammu, sources said. They added that the possible target of the drones was the aircraft parked in the dispersal area.

As per sources, no major damage has been reported from the incident. However, two personnel suffered minor injuries.

According to the Indian Air Force (IAF), one of the blasts caused minor damage to the roof of a building, while the other exploded in an open area. An investigation into the matter is in progress along with civil agencies, it said.

Defence Minister Rajnath Singh also spoke Vice Air Chief, Air Marshal HS Arora regarding the incident and informed that Air Marshal Vikram Singh would soon reach Jammu to take stock of the blasts.

Sources informed that a high-level investigation team of the IAF will reach Jammu shortly

Meanwhile, all flight operations are normal and 16 flights scheduled for the day departing to Delhi, Srinagar, Leh and Gwalior.

Only two flights G8 185 and SG 963 cancelled for the day due to operational reasons, Jammu airport officials said. (ANI)

Modi Urges People To Shed Covid Vaccine Hesitancy

By LokMarg

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday applauded the country’s commendable momentum on the vaccination front and urges the nation to overcome vaccine hesitancy.

Addressing the “Mann Ki Baat” radio programme, PM Modi said that India achieved a historic achievement by vaccinating more than 86 lakh people in a day.
“The battle we the countrymen are fighting against corona is continuing, but in this fight, together, we’ve achieved many an extraordinary milestone! Just a few days ago, our country accomplished an unprecedented feat. On June 21, when the new phase of vaccine drive began, more than 86 lakh people made a record of receiving free vaccines doses in a day,” he said.

He talked to two villagers of Dulariya village in Betul district of Madhya Pradesh who informed about vaccine hesitancy being spread in their village through social media. The Prime Minister counselled them to take the COVID vaccine amidst their doubts.

PM informed the villagers to not believe in rumours and said, “I have taken both doses. My mother is almost a hundred years old, she has taken both vaccines too. Please do not believe any negative rumours relating to vaccines.”

He said that those who are spreading rumours on vaccines, let them be. “We all will do our work and ensure people around us get vaccinated,” he said.

“I want to tell villagers to get rid of vaccine hesitancy. There are many villages in India that are 100 per cent vaccinated,” PM Modi stated.

The Prime Minister said the threat of COVID-19 remains and people have to focus on vaccination as well as following coronavirus protocols.

“I urge you all to trust science. Trust our scientists. So many people have taken the vaccine. Let us never believe in negative rumours relating to the vaccine,” he added.

He further praised the awareness and intelligence of people living in villages during COVID-19 and said, “People in the villages made quarantine centres, and made covid protocols keeping in mind the ground level requirements. In villages, people did not let anyone sleep hungry and didn’t let the agriculture work stop either. They also ensured supply of milk and vegetables in nearby villages, they not only sustained themselves but sustained others too.” (ANI)

BSP To Go Solo In UP, Uttarakhand Assembly Polls

By LokMarg

Dismissing reports that BSP had entered into a tie-up with the All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) for Uttar Pradesh polls, former Chief Minister Mayawati on Sunday informed that her party would contest alone in the state.

The BSP chief clarified that the party will go solo for the Assembly elections scheduled to take place early next year in Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand.
In a series of tweets, she said: “This news is being broadcast in a media news channel since yesterday that the AIMIM and BSP will fight the upcoming Assembly elections in UP together. This news is completely false, misleading and fact-less. There is not even an iota of truth in this, and BSP vehemently denies it.”

“By the way, in this regard, it is again clarified by the party that, except Punjab, in UP and Uttarakhand… BSP will not contest any alliance with any party; that is, it will fight alone,” she added.

Meanwhile, BSP National General Secretary and Rajya Sabha MP, Satish Chandra Mishra, has been appointed as National Coordinator of BSP Media Cell.

The BSP in Uttar Pradesh has been seeing defections and most of its leaders who have switched sides have gone to the Samajwadi Party. BSP had won 19 out of 403 seats in the 2017 assembly elections.

In Punjab, the party will be contesting the polls with the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD), former ally of the Bharatiya Janata Party. (ANI)

Karenjeet Kaur Bains: First British Sikh Female to represent Great Britain in Olympic Power Lifting

By LokMarg

63kg Powerlifter. ACA Chartered. All England Champion. British Champion. Commonwealth Champion and First British Sikh Female to represent GB. Quite the CV Karenjeet Kaur Bains holds at under 25.

Karenjeet Kaur Bains has become the first British-Sikh woman to represent Great Britain in powerlifting. Yet there is a lot more to the multiple Championships and titles that she has won. Her family and background have played an integral role in getting her to where she is today and her story is one worth delving into.

malala.org

Her first breakthrough came when she was a 17-year old competing in an amateur powerlifting competition. Her raw strength was what made her stand out and propel her promising weight lifting career into a major life passion. As of today, she has accumulated several accolades of which the most notable are the 2019 Commonwealth Championship in the under 63kg category and placing top 10 in the World and European Championships. Over social media and through interviews, Karenjeet expresses how proud she is of her heritage and insists on having her full name wherever and whenever she competes.

Now 24 years old and breaking into the senior circuit, Karenjeet is continuing to add to her already impressive record: she placed in the top 10 at the World and European Championships, claimed her first international title and became the 2019 Commonwealth Champion in the under 63-kilogram junior women’s class. Most recently, she placed in the top two at the British Senior Bench Press Championships. Her best lifts in competition include a 140 kg. squat, 82.5 kg. bench press and a 167.5 kg. deadlift. 

But one of her proudest accomplishments she tells malala.org in the sport is being the first British Sikh woman to represent Great Britain in an international powerlifting competition. “I’m very proud of my culture and my heritage,” she says. “It’s almost like I’m making a bit of a stand or a mark for other girls…I like to carry that on my shoulders to be an example. Particularly with strength sports I’ve noticed there are not many Indian girls. I feel like sometimes we’re overlooked. In my culture, we embrace the side of working hard, which I have taken to apply to not only my sporting side but academically, too.” 

That drive to succeed is how Karenjeet achieved first-class honours in accounting from Durham University while also preparing for the World Powerlifting Championships. Crunching numbers, crushing records. It’s all in a day’s work.

Whenever Karenjeet competes, she makes sure to represent her heritage. “I insist on having my full name — Karenjeet Kaur Bains — because the middle name is quite distinctive of a Sikh person…I also wear a kara, a bangle, one of the five religious symbols you can wear as a Sikh person. I have rituals in my head when I’m on the platform and I’m lifting. It helps keep me focused if I think of God,” she explains. 

COVID’s spread ebbs; Kashmir issue resurfaces; Mallya’s extradition

By Mehnga Singh

The number of COVID cases continued to decline in India. Last week, daily cases were down to around 50,000. Not long ago the daily number of cases had soared to more than 400,000. India’s vaccination programme, stymied for a while by widespread vaccination shortages, has also picked up. Several states, including Delhi, have eased restrictions and lifted lockdowns. Tourist destinations such as the Taj Mahal are now open again and big cities are beginning to get back to being busy and crowded. 

While the ebbing of COVID’s spread has brought cheer to people, particularly small businesses and daily wage earners, experts say a third wave of the spread of Corona, particularly its new variants, cannot be ruled out. They advise caution and gradual lifting of restrictions rather than a swift relaxation that could turn out to be hasty.

Of concern is the fact that although the vaccination programme has been gaining momentum, India has vaccinated only 4% of its population till now, a mere drop in a population that numbers more than 1.4 billion. 

AppleMark

At the end of the first wave early this year, India’s authorities may have jumped the gun while freeing up restrictions. Religious gatherings of millions of people (e.g. the Kumbh Mela) were allowed; elections in several states were held preceded by large political rallies, and sports and entertainment events drawing several thousand were allowed. The Indian government came under massive criticism when the second wave of corona hit in Spring this year. As India’s COVID cases soared, acute shortages of medical care, including hospital beds, oxygen, and medicines shocked the world and the death toll owing to the virus turned alarming.

Many observers feel India needs to exercise more caution this time around to prevent a repeat of the second wave that ravaged the country. It is a tough decision for the government to make. India’s economy has been rendered quite fragile because of COVID’s spread and agencies have been cutting down their growth projection. In a scenario such as that, it could be tempting for the authorities to relax restrictions in the hope that it would boost economic activity but as risks of a third wave loom, smaller steps towards taking down measures such as lockdowns and other stipulations could be a wiser strategy.

Imran Khan wants US to help resolve Kashmir issue

The territorial conflict between India and Pakistan over Kashmir is nearly 75 years old. Amid wars, insurgency, and the rise of militancy in the area, the issue has remained unresolved. Now, Pakistan’s Prime Minister Imran Khan has raised another bogey for India. In an interview recently, Khan called for an intervention by the US Administration to resolve the Kashmir issue. India has always been of the opinion that the Kashmir issue can be resolved by the two countries by themselves and not with the intervention of a third party. 

Although Khan’s new statement before he proceeds on talks with US President Joe Biden has not evoked a quick official reaction from the Indian authorities, it is not going to go down well. India believes Kashmir is its internal issue and feels believes that Pakistan sponsors or backs terrorism in the state. In his interview, Khan also talked about nuclear disarmament and said there was no need for the two countries to remain as nuclear powers once the Kashmir issue was resolved. It’s over to the Indian side now for a response.

Vijay Mallya’s extradition

Last week, the long arm of law reached out to defaulting business tycoon and former billionaire Vijay Mallya. First, Mallya, 65, lost his case against extradition to India in a UK court and was disallowed an appeal in the UK Supreme Court. More importantly, his attached assets, including his shareholding in United Breweries, India’s largest brewing company, were sold and the proceeds were received by Indian banks on whose loans Mallya had defaulted. 

Mallya’s defaulting loans are not the only ones for which the banks have been transferred assets. According to India’s Enforcement Directorate, it transferred a portion of the seized assets valued at Rs 8,841 crore that it had seized in connection to, besides Mallya’s defaults, those of two other fugitive Indian businessmen, Nirav Modi, and Mehul Choksi, both of whom the Indian authorities are trying to extradite back to India.

All three have been accused of defaulting on large bank loans by either siphoning them out or misusing them and then not paying back their lenders. But among them Mallya stands out. He has had a larger-than-life image and reputation as a playboy billionaire, which made him a celebrity; and has even dabbled in politics (he is a former member of the Upper House in India’s Parliament). 

If  Mallya is eventually brought back to India, the political fallout of Mallya’s extradition could be significant. If he is tried in India for his alleged financial misdemeanours, it could be a boost for the Modi government’s image, which has taken a bruising in recent times. If the Modi regime shows that it deals a hard hand to financial defaulters such as business tycoons, it could help it counter its opponents who have often accused it of being soft on India’s business tycoons.

PM Holds Review Meet On Vaccination Drive

By LokMarg

Prime Minister Narendra Modi is chairing a review meeting on Saturday to discuss the progress of the COVID-19 vaccination drive across the country.

As many as 31,50,45,926 doses of COVID-19 vaccines have been administered so far in what has been billed the ‘world’s largest vaccination drive’, including 61,19,169 in the last 24 hours.
India started the world’s largest vaccination drive on January 16 this year in a phased manner with healthcare workers (HCWs) getting inoculated first. The vaccination of frontline workers (FLWs) started on February 2. The next phase of COVID-19 vaccination commenced from March 1 for those over 60 years of age and for people aged 45 and above with specified co-morbid conditions.

India launched vaccination for all people aged more than 45 from April 1. Phase 3 of the vaccination drive was started on May 1 for the beneficiaries belonging to the age group 18-44.

As many as 48,698 new COVID-19 cases, 64,818 recoveries, and 1,183 deaths were reported in the country in the last 24 hours, the Union Health Ministry informed on Saturday.

The total number of positive cases now stands at 3,01,83,143, including 2,91,93,085 recoveries and 3,94,493 deaths.

There are currently 5,95,565 active cases in the country, 1.97 per cent of the total caseload. Yesterday, there were 6,12,868.

The recovery rate stands at 96.72 per cent, while the death rate is 1.31 per cent. (ANI)

If Need Be, Will Enter Delhi On Russian Tractors: BKU

By LokMarg

Bharatiya Kisan Union (BKU) leader Rakesh Tikait on Saturday issued an indirect threat to the Central government over the ongoing farmers’ protest and said that if required they will use Russian tractors to enter Delhi border.

According to him, the Russian tractors are very powerful and will crush everything that comes in their way.
“It is a kind of an automatic tractor, when left on gear, it won’t stop and will crush everything which comes on its way. When the need arises, these tractors will be used to enter Delhi. We are not taking our tractors anywhere right now, but we have several of these tractors,” said Tikait while speaking to ANI.

The BKU leader has brought a Russian tractor to the protest site at the Delhi-Uttar Pradesh border to display the farmers’ power.

“This tractor is 53-years-old. As per the guidelines of the government, tractors should be replaced within 10 years. However, several such Russian tractors are still working. This tractor will go to National Green Tribunal (NGT)’s office. We will show this tractor to the NGT officials that such tractors are still working,” stressed Tikait stating that it is not a violation of rules to use 53-year-old tractors.

“We have been sitting here on protest for the last 7 months, isn’t this violation of the law? If the government hasn’t done anything to end our protest how will it stop the tractors to ply on roads?” he said.

Tikait further said, “These tractors were imported from Russia during the Green Revolution. The speed of these vehicles is less but did a good ploughing work on the fields.”

To mark the completion of seven months of the ongoing farmers’ agitation, the farmers are observing ‘Save Farming, Save Democracy Day’ across the country today and submitted a memorandum to all the Governors in the name of the President of India on this occasion.

On Saturday, several thousands of farmers pushed the barricades aside in Haryana’s Panchkula as they marched towards Governor’s residence in Chandigarh to submit a memorandum seeking repeal of the farm laws.

Farmers have been protesting at the different borders of the national capital since November 26 against the three newly enacted farm laws – Farmers’ Produce Trade and Commerce (Promotion and Facilitation) Act, 2020; the Farmers Empowerment and Protection) Agreement on Price Assurance and farm Services Act 2020 and the Essential Commodities (Amendment) Act, 2020. (ANI)

An Idea Cannot Be Jailed

By Amit Sengupta

Old men, however powerful, or, drowned in the heady intoxication of their own glory and greatness, should rethink their relationship with the young, with or without a generation or ideological gap. Especially, those who are dissenters, thinkers, protesters, rebels, contrarians, idealists, dreamers – who don’t agree with ‘their’ idea of the world! And who refuse to succumb, come what may – police atrocities, prisons, draconian laws, huge charge-sheets, concocted charges, fake news, demonization in the sold-out media, and a priori condemnation as ‘anti-nationals and terrorists’.

Why should the old and powerful refuse to learn lessons from history? Power does not hold forever. No greatness is eternal. Time is never a great healer. Immortality is impossible. Prisons and injustice cannot kill ideas or idealism. Perhaps delayed, justice too must arrive, one day. Hope floats. And dreams don’t die so easily, especially in the hearts of the young.

So why are the those hailed as Dear Leader, the Great Helmsman, Prophet, Iron Man or Messiah, with the entire State apparatus and media at their command, therefore, obsessed with the paranoia that some young scholars are their enemies?  Why are they so afraid of their youthful dreams?

The young are not the enemies of an ‘open society’. If the open society is flawed and fragmented, is it their fault if they are choosing to ask questions? Those in power should have the courage to agree and disagree, argue and discuss, establish a dialogue and discourse, accept a paradigm shift; why gag the voices of the young? Why lock them up in prisons? Why condemn and exile those who defy and deny their power and authority? And why should such old men, who have lived their life of power to the full, hate the educated, critical, thinking, young women and men, who are just beginning their adult journeys, with such ferocity and venom?

The young are doing what they should in any open society: Doubt everything! This is a philosophical and political quest! If India is unequal and in-egalitarian, if its secular ethos is being destroyed by a brazen neo-Nazi narrative, and if the State seems so brazenly partisan and one-dimensional, is it wrong to seek answers, while seeking to protect the original principles of the Indian Constitution? Is it a crime to peacefully oppose a communal law like the CAA and defend the secular and pluralist values of the Indian freedom movement?

ALSO READ: ‘FIRs, Arrests Can’t Break The Spirit Of Dissent’

Whose portraits were splashed all over Jamia and Shaheen Bagh when mothers, sisters, daughters and students sat on a prolonged sit-in, stoic, non-violent, steadfast, for months, in the freezing winter, like the farmers now for months at the borders of the capital? Did the powerful men in Delhi bother to see those portraits and posters?

They belonged to the freedom movement: Sarojini Naidu, Babasaheb Ambedkar, Ashfaqullah Khan, Sardar Patel, Bhagat Singh, Mahatma Gandhi, among others. So was that a crime, to remember and resurrect these icons yet again, and how was it anti-national?

There is no absolute truth or absolute power. One day, the rigid walls of authority must break or crumble, finally. That is, if humanity wins over inhumanity, wisdom over arrogance, and justice over injustice. Or, as streams of a new consciousness turns everything sublime; the sudden, inevitable arrival of a great moment of history, a revelation, a revolution, a fantastic kaleidoscope turning the  four seasons luminescent with its rainbow colours!

It happens. It is possible. This is an inspiring lesson, from here to eternity. This is because such intense luminescence of stoic resistance is never measured in terms of defeat and victory in history. They burn in the sky like magic realism, meteors, shooting stars, full moon tides – and they never die –  not even in one hundred years of solitude. They are etched in the pages of history.

So what did the graffiti writers write during the spontaneous students’ uprising on the wall of Sorbonne near Paris in May 1968? Or, what did the students of JNU, on their own campus in 1983 and 1989, resurrect from this shared past? The same graffiti on the wall: Society is a carnivorous flower; Give Flowers to the Rebels who Failed; We won’t forget. We won’t forgive. We won’t let them get away. And then they all sang the same songs: All in all, we are just another brick in the wall… The answer is blowin’ in the wind… We are in the same boat brother!

In India, there were other songs too. The various versions of The Internationale, and, of course, the eternal greats: ‘Woh Subah Kabhi to Ayegi’ by Sahir, Tu Zinda hai to zindagi ki jeet par yakeen kar by Shailendra, and Hayei Samhalo Dhaan by Salil Chaudhury, among other immortal renditions of revolution and freedom. This was the dream in the insomniac eyes of the young, a new world, a new dawn, a new language of secular, enlightened democracy, a new egalitarian freedom based on total equality and human dignity. 

ALSO READ: ‘Our Songs Give Voice To Farmers Protest’

The human condition must change – that was the dream. Then, now, and in the days to come. In a nation which celebrates this dream. Not clampdown on campuses, young minds and ideas. Not mob-lynchings – not in my name please! Not a Police State. Not a crackdown on peaceful protests and non-violent dissent. Not NRC/CAA, UAPA and jail!

The British hanged the young, including Bhagat Singh, Ashfaqullah Khan, Ramprasad Bismil, Sukhdev, Rajguru, Khudiram Bose, among others. They put others in the horrible torture chambers of Andaman’s ‘Kala Paani’, including the adivasi rebels led by Birsa Munda, who fought with their bows and arrows against the guns and cannons of the British, in the hills of Jharkhand in the late 19th century. They killed young Birsa in prison – he was just about 20 – poisoned to death, murdered.

Later, among others, they murdered Master Surya Sen, the leader of the Chittagong armed struggle led by the young; he was so brutally tortured that it is difficult to narrate it. They put freedom fighters in jail for many years. They enacted the Jalianwala massacre!

Did it then stop the young to dream of a new India? Did it stop Udham Singh and Bhagat Singh? Did it crush the dream? Did the young refuse to join the freedom and revolutionary movement because of the fear of death or prison or torture? No.

Rhetoric apart, remembering the Machiavellian metaphor, a government should not only appear to be democratic, it should prove its democratic credentials as an everyday national reality. While we remember how Indian democracy was ravaged during the Emergency, let’s not run away from the horror stories of the contemporary times in India, especially after May 2014. And there are umpteen unhappy examples to prove that.

That is why the bail given to Natasha, Devagana and Asif became a cathartic moment of joy and relief across the nation. That is why the metaphor and reality of ‘Pinjda Tod’ flew on the wings of emancipation, freedom and justice! That is why, Umar Khalid and all those brilliant scholars and peaceful dissenters  in prison were remembered at the gates of Tihar Jail in Delhi, amidst youthful slogans and songs, which celebrated these young idealists and dreamers of India, our future of hope, and reminded the nation, how truly unjust, and revengeful, it all is. 

Natasha said, outside the Tihar Jail, that all the women prisoners laughed when they were told that she and Devangana were branded ‘terrorists’! Indeed, you might agree or disagree with them, but even their hardened opponents know it deep inside their hearts – these young scholars are not ‘terrorists’. They are committed and courageous young intellectuals, dissenters and rebels, and they have a right to peacefully protest, under the Indian Constitution.

Natasha said, talking of the ‘prison inside’, and, perhaps, of the ‘prison outside’: “We should think – what kind of society are we making!”

And Devangana replied, when asked what if they are once again sent back: “Knowing the prison inside now, we are not afraid anymore!”

Surely, prisons cannot kill ideas. Or, the dream of a just, secular and humane society. Truly, that is what the ‘bailed’ freedom of Natasha, Devangana and Asif teach us.

Centre Urges All Farmers Unions To End Protest

By LokMarg

Union Agriculture Minister Narendra Singh Tomar on Friday urged the farmer unions to end their agitation against the Centre’s three farm laws.

Addressing mediapersons in Bhopal, Tomar said, “I urge all farmer unions to conclude their agitation. The government had held 11 rounds of talks with them. Agriculture Reform Bills will bring betterment to the lives of farmers.”
Tomar added, “Government of India has worked towards increasing MSP and towards more purchase at MSP.”

The Minister said, “A large section of the country stands in support of these laws. Still, if farmers have any objection against any provision of the laws, then Govt is ready to listen to them, discuss with them and work on it.”

On the completion of seven months of the ongoing farmers’ agitation, Samyukt Kisan Morcha (SKM) has sought President Ram Nath Kovind’s intervention to ‘Save Agriculture and Save Democracy’ and in repealing of the three “anti-farm” laws.

The SKM said it will send a memorandum from all over India to the President on June 26, which marks seven months of their agitation, on farmers’ “anguish and indignation” and appeal to him regarding getting the farmer laws repealed, and to get a legal guarantee of minimum support price for farmers. (ANI)