A UP Dalit writer, Kanwal Bharti, has filed a writ petition against the high profile UP minister Azam Khan in the Allahabad High Court complaining his arrest last month over opposing the IAS officer Durga Nagpal on the Facebook was against the freedom of expression as enshrined in the Indian Constitution. Mr. Bharti accused Mr. Khan for his arrest. There is nothing in the news catching the attraction of public and media. Nothing indeed, as such events are not rare in India, least in UP. But still it is a news item. The Times of India published it with the title, ‘Dalit writer moves court against Azam’. The advocates of Mr. Khan would say that Mr. Bharti was spoiling the communal stability of the state by expressing his views on social website and that is why he was arrested. That is perfectly normal, if true. Shouldn’t a Dalit be punished for violating any kind of law? Indeed yes. And should a senior Moslem minister be apologetic for ordering arrest of a person outside his community? Not at all. So what’s the fuss? The fact is not as simple as people may interpret. The fact is that even though I have not read the comments of Mr. Bharti neither I would like to, but it could not likely to have any effect on communal stability of the state. Few don’t matter, it is the statistics that counts. As far as Mr. Khan is concerned he did not act, if he at all acted, to protect the demographic balance but to prove that Moslems can be mainstreamers and executives and also that the lowest strata is the lowest strata, irrespective of religion. It was a class expression mixed with ‘caste’ values admitting that Mr. Bharti was a Hindu and a mainstreamer too. The fact is that except for the few, Moslems as a group don’t have much social problems with the upper caste Hindus. It is the lower castes, neo-castes and the outcastes who are their majorly competitors at this moment of time and having frictions among the competitors is nothing but natural. The situation is similar to that with the Democrats in the US: immigrants have maximum problems with Democrats and it is Democrats who support and promote immigration. That’s the irony of time. To be frank there just can’t be anything wrong that Mr. Bharti did without knowing it neither there is anything wrong in the executive order of Mr. Khan if he was just showing his authority. There is little that the High Court could offer to the plaintiff. One has to be consistent and should see that only comparables be compared. One shouldn’t ignore centimeters and meters and try to measure Angstroms by the same machine.
Posted on: Tue, 03 Sep 2013 10:26:35 +0000
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