Another face of racism
Owing to misuse of social media, truth is traveling at a snail’s pace. People are blind to truth now. Hence, people get to know rumours faster than the truth. Rumours are more attractive over truth. Rumours for their part, gain wings no sooner they are spread and people love them too. They easily fall prey to those rumours started by miscreants. People take law onto their own hands. In one such instance, people in Bengaluru’s Chamarajpet have beaten a labourer from Rajasthan to death owing to a rumour relating to child lifters. One rumour that was circulated regarding child kidnappers, had spread like wildfire and this claimed its victim.
The fact that the Rajasthani fellow spoke to a child as a friendly gesture itself was enough to decide he was children kidnapper. People came to that conclusion immediately. And when they come together in groups, they get major bouts of bravery and false valour. Even the weakest man in the group turns into massive fighter owing to the egging on that happens in the group atmosphere. The cold cruel shades become strong colours. According to police department, this rumour about child kidnappers has led to 81 cases of people getting beaten up in the last 25 days. In many places innocent people have been beaten to pulp. This rumour about children kidnappers has spread in Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh and other places. This virus spreads faster than Nipah virus. Some people have even beaten up beggars who were begging to save their lives. One of them even lost his life.
Though these are sporadic incidents, deep down these can be classified as racism at a different level. Such groups are common in North India. Women have been put to death in Haryana and Jharkhand mistaking them to ‘witches’. Mostly, men who have plans of usurping single women’s property have spread such rumours to get them killed by a mob so that their job becomes easier. A hungry young tribal was killed in Kerala’s Palakkad. That is the highest form of racist violence we have seen in recent days. All those attacks on muslims for transporting the cattle in Haryana and Jharkhand are similar too. Muslims are the most hated community today and are biggest victims of racist violence. Small violences have turned into big time hatred for a community. Sikh massacre turned into Gujarat massacre.
Various group violence instances in Karnataka have happened on those labourers who came looking for employment from Rajasthan, Bihar and other surrounding places. Why should they be seen as robbers or kidnappers? Because they wear torn clothes?
All those who have stolen thousands of crores, have close links with politicians who wear suit-boot, have close contacts with underworld mafias. They wear branded and costly clothes. Aren’t they robbers? Why there isn’t a single attack on them by general public? The common people who come to a conclusion no sooner does a poor man speak to a child, do we show the same presence of mind when a well-dressed man speaks to a child? He could be one too!
We see the same racist violence being exhibited towards labourers who come from North Karnataka to cities like Bengaluru and Mangaluru. The way the bus conductors address them and treat them are different faces of racism. That someone could be ‘kidnapper’ is just a pretext. We need to strengthen our laws so strong that even if a mob lynches someone, we need to get them punished for the crime of having killed an innocent man. Even if the dead man is a child kidnapper, he has to be produced before the court. And no one has the right to take law onto themselves. The lynch mob needs to be taught a lesson by way of being awarded life sentence. Only then, their unruly behavior may come to some sanity.
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Sonia Gandhi, Rahul eyed Rs 2000 cr properties without investing a penny: BJP
New Delhi (PTI): The BJP on Friday dared Congress leaders facing corruption charges to seek a quick and time-bound disposal of cases, as it slammed the party for citing politics as the reason for the ED's action against Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi in the National Herald case.
The ruling BJP kept the heat on the opposition party following the ED's chargesheet against the Gandhis and accused chief ministers from the Congress-ruled states of ploughing public money as advertisement into the weekly newspaper which few read.
Former Union minister Anurag Thakur alleged that the Congress used the newspaper as its ATM, claiming that Gandhis sought to acquire properties worth Rs 2,000 crores of the National Herald without investing a penny from their pocket.
Both Gandhis together owned 76 per cent of the Young Indian company which was, he said, given Rs 50 lakh loan by the Congress.
The company then took over the Associated Journals Limited, which owns the newspaper affiliated to the Congress, in lieu of Rs 90 crore it owed to the opposition party, he said.
Thakur asked if a political party can give a loan.
To a question about the allegation that the ED action was politically motivated, the BJP leader dared Congress leaders facing corruption charges to move courts to seek quick and time-bound trial in the cases against them.
"If they have guts, they should do it," he said, adding that in the "Congress model of corruption" the thieves make a lot of noises.
The National Herald case, he said, has stunned the Congress ecosystem into silence.
Thakur noted Gandhis have moved courts for quashing action against them for many times since a lower court took cognizance of the matter before the Modi government came to power.
The courts gave them no relief except that they are on bail, he said, adding that the judiciary did not intervene in the Enforcement Directorate's probe.
Turning to his home state Himachal Pradesh where the Congress is in power, Thakur accused the party of not fulfilling any of its 10 main promises but spending crores of rupees in advertisement in the National Herald.
"Does any Congress leader or member read it in Himachal," he asked, demanding that people should be given details of money spent by different Congress governments in advertisements in the newspaper, which is available digitally.
The Congress has been organising protests in different parts of the country against the ED action.
