Free Speech in Bangalore

Jamal tumne kamal kiya bhai...... Nazrul

All legal tests are these bizarre; you would not know whom to support! Terrorism in Bombay scared the people in power, and people's power is not the slogan for any party; but the police and securities are on the highest alert everwhere, specially in Bangalore!

Before the Al Queda,Laskar and the Talibans, I had heard of Abu Nidal, Khalistanis, LTTE, Naxals and Panthers! And of course before that I had read of all the "extremists" who are now admired as "violent freedom fighters" ----- the musclemen protecting the land of the Gandhis.

What is the issue? After the Bombay massacre, one journalist threw shoes at Mr. George Bush (USA), got his own limbs and ribs broken by the security, and apparently also got a job offer from Lebanon. Soon after one employee in a company in Bangalore talked about the incidents to his colleagues ---  in the colours of his own sympathy; then got into minor altercations with his colleagues, an incident that reached the police. The Bangalore police had to act on the complaint, had to go through his personal life, e-mail, bank accounts and mobile phone! Imagine what followers of Hillary Clinton would say as regards rightto privacy in Bangalore! Eventually of course the person got a clean chit from the police today. They might not appreciate why I was advising few of my young over-enthusiatic collegues to be conservative in behaviour at work (it really happened in September)!

Now imagine the likes of me, in Bangalore and elsewhere. How much they have to manage gangs, thiefs,police,  IB's, other party men. If you know me, you would know the differences between idiosyncratic conservatives and the paranoid!

Sheepishly I was going through one of the national magazine ( most probably TOI). They surprised me by printing a letter to the editor that claimed that Mr. Bush deserved the insult. In the same issue, the front page carried the story of the employee who was questioned as suspected terrorist! Perhaps they asserted "Freedom of Press".

When I was very young in Kolkata, some of my communists friends used to say, that I should be careful, otherwise BJP might charge me with "attempted murder"!  I was jacked up and I thought that I might become a Kolkata minister! However the CPIM did not like me either! In any case I did not do much better in my thirties in the USA. My failure had nothing to do with politics ----- it's all personal problems.  ALL PROBLEMS PERSONAL.............

What I learned is that it saves to be conservative, and it pays to be progressive! Would I ever pretend to be progressive again ???  (And even Mr. Bajpayee needs Mr. Jyoti Basu against Indira Gandhi's authoritarianism!)!

SG,
Bangalore,
Dec 19, 2008.