Finally…I get to write again!! In my introductory article I had made a promise – to keep this blog going for as long as I can. And today, after a break of a couple of months, I am here to gift “The Fourth Dimension” its 5th article!
Well, honestly, when I started writing this article, I did not have any particular topic in mind. In fact, being a proud citizen of a country as colorful and eventful as ours, I was never really worried about running into a crisis of subjects to write about. But over the last few months, the more I read about the right-wing elements and their tales of moral policing thoughout the country, the more I was convinced that this should indeed be the topic of my comeback article!!!
Well, it’s nothing new actually. Such cases could be heard even a few years back. In fact, the Shiv Sena and the VHP activists trying to spoil Valentine’s Day celebrations has been a pretty regular event since a decade or so. Today, I suppose, Valentine’s Day parties are incomplete without them!! But it is the sudden spurt in the frequency of such incidents that makes me write this article.
It will be an understatement to say that I was shocked when, during the World Cup, Mandira Bedi was criticized for showing disrespect to the national flag!! It was outrageous! Even I was watching the telecast, and not for a moment did I even think of trying to figure out where in Mandira’s sari was the Indian tricolor!!! I was there to watch the program, not Mandira’s sari!!! Whether an actress should host a cricket show, well that’s debatable! But accusing her of disrespecting the national flag was insensitive to say the least!
If you all remember, there was a similar flag controversy a couple of years back, and it was Sachin Tendulkar who was the culprit then!! For opting to keep the tricolor on his helmet! Accusing a person who has carried the hopes of millions of cricket fans for well over a decade, of showing contempt towards the national flag, is in itself an act of irreverence! Somebody questioning Tendulkar’s patriotism is simply unacceptable! What we should question instead, is the sanity of these protesters!!
If there really is a need for restricting the use of the national flag in order to prevent its disrespect, then probably it should start with our very lawmakers! Some of our MPs and MLAs shouldn’t even be allowed anywhere within the proximity of the tricolor! It is these politicians (a large fraction of whom already have criminal cases against them) who bring disgrace to the nation with their heinous acts!
And it’s not only about the tricolor. These highly moral friends of ours, try and play “Big Brother” in every possible situation. From attempting to block the release of certain films, to getting young art students arrested for objectionable and obscene paintings, they are everywhere! The way Chandramohan, a student at one of Baroda’s art colleges, got arrested for something that he painted as a part of his examination, defies sense! And what is surprising is that the government plays its part as well!
Rather than taking a strong stand on this issue, the government comes up with its own ludicrous and, at times even childish decisions in an attempt to protect our culture! What other adjectives can you use for the Indian government’s decision to ban television channels for telecasting allegedly obscene content! In this age of the world wide web, is there any rationale behind such a decision?
I don’t want to get into whether the telecast was indeed obscene. Or, should one watch these channels and whether it is right or wrong to do so. I even accept that the content telecast in these channels is probably not the kind of culture we Indians have grown up to. What I do not accept, however, is somebody telling me what to watch on t.v. and what not to! As an independent citizen of India, I believe, I have every right to select the kind of programs I would like to watch!
And as for the government, I will be only too happy to see them try and resolve the real problems that impede our country’s growth!
