Navras - Avyooh

Nav reaches the hallway which is on the level which had no stairs and where no elevator could go and which was in a different dimension of time. It has endless rows of doors, doors and more doors on both the sides. One of those is ‘the door’ – so said the Keymaker who came in Nav's dream the previous night. Nav has limited time before he could find ‘it’. Else the entire place will go Kaput! Hurriedly he reaches out to the first door on his left. Opens it and peeps inside.

He was in the Ram lila Maidaan in the midst of a crowd. It seemed  like 2011 but Nav wasn't sure. He saw Delhi Police which falls directly under the Central Government used brute force to break up a drama strike err… hunger strike by one ‘baba’ who was doing the ‘protest’ with full support of BJP. When the strike was broken, BJP termed it ‘undemocratic’. One of their shining vibrant state CM who came up  with a state governance model which is a 'riddle wrapped in a puzzle and enveloped in a  mystery' commented that it was ‘Ravan lila’ and said, “It is one of the worst days of Indian history.” One ‘Telangana Chinnamma’ said “This is not democracy... the police cannot alone have taken such a step. It had the approval of the Prime Minister”. Nav immediately shut the door feeling for sure that it cannot be ‘the door’.

He opened the door to his right thinking to himself that right cannot be wrong.

There are a whole lot of layers of barricades, spikes all around, endless reams of barbed wires and a humongous police presence. Nav started scratching his head trying to understand where did this door open and if he was on the LOC/LAC/IB. He was smart enough to negate those because there were cops guarding and not the army/BSF. He looked closely what they were trying to protect. It was a cold foggy morning and the visibility was very low and added to that there was a drizzle. He looked around and he noticed some farmers and their tractors. He tried looking at the names on those uniformed guys and then he realized that none of the cops had their names displayed. Strange, he thought to himself. Then he noticed that these guys uniforms had a logo which read ‘Shanti, Sewa, Nyay’. Nav was shocked. He knew it was Delhi Police. These guys won’t change he thought to himself. 10 years and still the same! Then he felt that it got worse. A city has been fortified. The last time Delhi was fortified with walls was when Shahjehan instructed the construction of Shahjehanabad which is now a part of Old Dilli. Nav was puzzled if a new ruler has come and if democracy ended in India. He landed in the middle of the farmers. All of a sudden, a commotion started with some people who looked like goons chanting ‘Dilli Police Tum Lath Bajao, Hum Tumhare Saath Hain’, the cops started charging towards the crowd in which he landed with Star Wars style shining laathis made out of steel. He ran for his life, found the door out, ran out and banged the door closed.

Phew. He thought to himself. Had he not found the door out in time; he would have faced the wrath of those laathis. Nav was puzzled. Was this not the worst day(s) in Indian history? Could this have happened without the knowledge and approval of the PM? As if there was someone in that hallway who could hear Nav, he heard a mysterious voice talking to him saying “Arre paagal, this is a result of ‘too much democracy'. These are anti-nationals and Khalistanis masquerading as farmers. They deserve this treatment. Don’t you dare question the collective wisdom of the ‘karma yogi’, the ‘fakir’ and the ‘chanakya’. STFU and try locate your door!” Realizing the purpose for which he was in there, Nav hurriedly opened another door, this time to his left.

He saw a macho guy with a 56-inch chest trying to open his mobile to tweet something using his right hand while feeding a peacock with his left hand sitting in a huge room. Nav tried to peep onto the phone as to what the guy was trying to tweet, and the guy was typing “Distressed to see news about rioting and violence in Washington DC. Orderly and peaceful transfer of power must continue. The democratic process cannot be allowed to be subverted through unlawful protests.” Nav realized that he was seeing none other than the ‘prime servant’ of the country and he felt proud of  the fact that India finally claimed it rightful place on the global stage and our leaders could comment on international happenings, especially on the internal affairs of the lone superpower. Then he realized that he is running short of time and had to find ‘the door’. So, he ran out of there and closed that door.

Nav opened the next door. He noticed a TV set playing some high decibel programming. He heard a male voice shouting ‘Poochta hai Bharat, Trudeu, this is India’s internal matter. You don’t dare comment on our internal matter. Is your Khalistani vote bank behind your comment?’ As there was no one else in the room, he took the remote and tried changing the channel because he was scared that he will become deaf in no time. The channel was showing some highlights from the past. He noticed that an orange haired guy was walking hand-in-hand with a guy in Indian leader wearing new clothes and both of them taking a sort of a victory lap. This was interesting, he thought to himself. It was our peacock feeding, yoga practicing self-proclaimed fakir and the prime servant who went up to the stage and said ‘Ab ki baar, Trump Sarkaar’. Now Nav was a bit confused that if we can comment freely on another country’s internal affairs - their elections and expect no outside leader or individual to respond to our internal issues.

Feeling a bit dejected, he came out of that room while a Raj Kumar movie dialogue was running in his head “Jaani, jo sheeshon ke gharon mein rehte hain, wo doosron par paththar nahi phenkaa karte”. Then he said to himself, maybe this is not the right side, so let me open the door on the right to check if this is ‘the door’ to get me out of here. He opened the door and found another empty room and a laptop with Twitter on it. Nav got curious, looked around, found that there was nobody. He pulled the chair and started browsing the feed of whoever left the laptop open. He found a twitter storm going on and people were talking to some RiRi. He started going up to see the original tweet. He found that it was a tweet by a Barbadian artist, an individual, but yes, the fourth most followed person on Twitter with a 100 mn followers – about 35 mn more than our ‘great leader’. The tweet by her was just 26 characters which read “why aren’t we talking about this”. Nav thought to himself: “Yes, she might be very big on Twitterland. She might also have been talking about other issues in the past including domestic violence or she might be an ambassador agianst cancer, HIV, an LGBTQ activist, has created and runs a charity for the causes she relates to. But, how can she, a foreigner, a non-Indian ask the world to talk about an internal matter of India? How dare she?”

He wondered if no one came to the rescue from this “lady with the umbrella” to protect the rulers from calling out the wrongs they actually are doing? Where is the famed IT cell? Where are the contacts and the glitter and glamor? Nav scrolled some more on Twitter and found a tweet by another foreigner who came to the rescue, a true Khiladi who said “Farmers constitute an extremely important part of our country. And the efforts being undertaken to resolve their issues are evident. Let’s support an amicable resolution, rather than paying attention to anyone creating differences”. Nav was feeling proud that the IT cell has paid the world ‘paid anarchists’ in their own coin by pitting a Canadian national against RiRi. “Now that was a master stroke” he chuckled and thought to himself. He couldn’t also help but notice that a barrage of similar tweets (give and take a word or two here and there) and using the same hashtag sprang up from the who’s who of the Indian Twitterati. There were cricketers both past and present who get their pensions from and who are governed by a General Secretary of BCCI who happens to be the son of a Chanakya who also tweeted on the same ‘official IT Cell’ lines. The cricket brigade included no less  than the Demigod whose net worth is over $160Mn but who sought duty exemption of just over a crore of rupees for a Ferrari he imported.

Now Nav’s head started spinning in all directions and he didn’t realize what he was seeing. He was in a trance unable  to make out if these were the hallmarks of 'achche din'. He shut the laptop, ran out of that room fearing that he will die in that matrix and will never be able to come out of it. He closed the door ajar and double checked to ensure that he indeed is out of that room. Unable to make sense of anything that he saw in any of the rooms and unable to find ‘the door’, he wanted to give it one last try. He skipped a few doors, ran past a few doors and randomly opened a door praying for sanity everywhere, and viola, he saw the Keymaker smiling at him. The Keymaker said "I've been waiting for you". Nav ran inside and hugged him. The Keymaker handed him a glass of dragon  fruit err... ‘kamalam juice’ and said, “this is the SOURCE that you were searching for."

PS: This is a satire and is meant not to hurt anyone’s sentiments. Also, heartfelt apologies to the Wackowskis

1041 Days...

1041 Days...

That is exactly the number of days that it took to bring the last perpetrator to book from the day he, along with nine others came onto Colaba in inflatable speedboats and rook over their 'targets' and committed the most daring attack aimed at the business capital of the country in order to gather international attention and to put to practice his ISI-Pak Army training of "kill to the last breath". I have seen a lot of reactions to this act of serving the sentence upon Mohammad Ajmal Amir Kasab. One can recall the reactions right from 26/11/2008 when the wounds were fresh and a shell shocked country saw things unfolding right in their drawing rooms. Emotions ran high. Heart overpowered head. It was a mob hysteria that at that time stated that he should be hung in full public view for the world to showcase that India is not weak and cannot be played around with, especially by a country which uses terrorism as a state policy. It was a mentality of 'show me the blood' that existed at that time, rightly so. As days passed by, the voices got shriller to hang Kasab. Reason? Details of the way he was being kept in Arthur Road jail, the way he behaved in the courts, and the large amounts that were spent to keep him alive. There were online petitions, Facebook/Twitter/social media posts, making a mockery of the existence of Kasab in the jails. He laughed at the judges, behaved moody while in court rooms during the trial, was provided with biryani, all this at the expense of the exchequer.

Right from day one, from the time he was captured, it was the right things that the Indian state has done. I do not say Union government nor the state government of Maharashtra because it was the Home minister of the same Union government who was so incapable that he had to be shunted out and it was the CM of the state government who gave a 'guided tour' of the horror to a film director. But, as I always believed, and still do, that it is the statute, the constitution that has always stood up and it is because of the constitution of India that India still exists. It has never let me down. Even when people were getting impatient during the days of the seize and wanted him to be shot right then and there, or later when the trial started and so did the tantrums of this person started and people were shocked that he was being served biryani while the families of the victims (including that of high profile IPS officers) were still running from office to office, babu to babu just to get what was due to them, be it jobs or compensation, the decibel levels of people asking for his blood has gone up, I still had faith in the government. Yes it took 665 days for the case to be heard and a judgment pronounced. No lawyer came forward to represent Kasab in courts, to the extent that one of the local bar council has passed a resolution that none of its members would take up this case. Finally, some lawyers came forward after legal luminaries like Fali Nariam and some others and tried to point out that for it to be a fair trial; Kasab should have legal assistance in the form of a lawyer. People have even gone to the extent of attacking the lawyers who came forward to argue 'for' Kasab. Finally the trial started with the voices of 'hang Kasab' playing in the background. As time passed by, those voices again started getting louder as people started getting impatient. But here are the reasons that make me have a sense of immense pride in the constitution of India:

- There is a difference between a law abiding state and a terrorist or a state that sponsors terrorism and it has always been kept intact

- Had Kasab been killed on the spot or right during the course of the attack being unraveled, how could India prove to the world that these were Pakistanis? Everyone knows that these are Pakistanis, but, for it to be fair as per any court of law, there need to be 'proof'. I know it sounds funny when someone asks you to prove something like, say, pain, but, that’s how it works

- Had Kasab not been provided with all the evidence, case, and most importantly a lawyer before pronouncing the death penalty, how different would the Indian state be from those terrorists? At the end of the day, both would have fit the bill when someone wrote 'they killed a group of people irrationally'

- Had all the legal options not been exhausted before executing Kasab, how could the Indian constitution be upheld? After all, we take pride in our constitution. The legal recourse was that the trial court had to pronounce a judgment, then, Kasab should have recourse, and then if it won’t be in his favor in the High Court he should have recourse in the form of a Presidential review. It is only after this door closes should he be executed and that’s precisely what happened

Yes there was a delay, it took 2 years to pronounce the judgment, but, it is a quick one by looking at the backlog of cases in Indian courts. Yes, he was kept as if he was a 'state guest' as many said, but, if he was not treated fairly, then what is the difference between a terrorist outfit which abducts people and the world's largest democracy? At the end, he was executed after all the legal options were exhausted, he was executed as per the jail manuals that are in line with any human rights court, and he was executed while respecting Islamic religious sentiments.

If I have vociferously argued and debated with my friends against the way Saddam Hussein was executed by the US and NATO, if I have argued against Mamur Gaddafi being executed by the rebel troops, in the same breath I say that Kasab was executed as per law and no law was breached, not even a wee bit. There is the most powerful country on the face of the earth which could not or did not have the will to capture its most wanted criminal alive but instead chose to eliminate him and give him a 'at sea burial'. Then, there is India which followed all the laws - personal, human rights and religious laws. This puts India ahead of a lot of countries on the 'ethical and follow the land of the law to the 'T' quotient'.

But, alas! Not many are ready to acknowledge the greatness of this constitution, let alone take pride in it. I saw people distributing sweets, dancing, celebrating today’s event. There were politicians jumping at the first moment asking for the status of Afzal Guru from the parliament attacks. Yes, the government played its game, firstly by advising the President on Kasab's case before Afzal Guru's or the other people whose petitions are piled up on Raisina Hill. Yes, they might have hurried on this as the Parliament is reconvening tomorrow. But, don't forget that this is the land where the Buddha walked and no one has a right to seek another's life. This execution happened because the statute allowed (and still allows) capital punishment. But talking of lynching him or shooting him in public are jingoistic and uncalled for. I would want to end this post by quoting Anna Hazaare, the 'super hero' of the urban middle class and asking a question to the reader if it is correct to say "Kasab should have been hanged publicly"? I certainly feel it is not the right mindset and proves the immaturity of the people who say that.

Remember, the difference between a terrorist and a state is that the terrorist can choose a place, time and mode of carrying out menace, but, the state needs to prove the guilt however evident it is lest it becomes another terrorist state. This execution can utmost get a sense of completion to the kin of the victims, but, it is not something that should lead to joy and celebration.

Satyameva Jayate... Truth Prevails! Long live Indian Constitution.