The Free Voice: On Democracy, Culture and the Nation

The act of speaking out makes you alone.

The reason for their silence was simple. They understood, ‘If the mob can do this to these people, it can do the same to me.’ People joined the mob to silence others; what they did not realize was that they had also learnt to become and remain silent.

Youngsters who do not know what it is to be in love and marry the person of their choice remain cowards forever, timid for life.

Be a film star's fan, or cricketer's, but never be a politician's fan.

The young no longer want to understand why a system made them spend lakhs of rupees studying to be engineers when at the end of it all they could not find jobs that would pay them even ten thousand. They took loans to gain admission and study in colleges that promised them training and placements. Those colleges don't exist anymore, but the loans are still being repaid.

If politics transforms society to such an extent that it calls the dissenter a traitor, putting a barbed wire of intimidation between itself and citizens, then that is a form of violence too.

The way things are in India, couples invariably find little love and far more hatred in the course of their love. That they still dare to love is worthy of our salutations.

Those of us who do not learn lessons from history will become assassins for the history that is yet to be recorded.

Citizen or robot; democracy or tyranny - the choice is ours.

Fake news engenders fake debates, and fake debates result in fake politics. It is a means to take the focus far away from the real problems that affect people.

To have faith is a good thing, no doubt. But that faith should rest on the foundation of facts, not emotions.

Who knows which case one will be embroiled in, and then one will be forced to make the rounds of the courts for years. This is very easily done in India.

While a ribbon awaits Usain Bolt at the finishing line, for people like us, there is a concrete wall. When you reach the finishing line, you run straight into that wall. Everything, your job, your credibility, your life itself, is at stake.

We must also strive to understand the nature of mobs. A mob has its own constitution. It has its own country. It drafts its own orders and directives, and identifies its own prey.

News channels have worked tirelessly to kill India's democratic ideals, with the result that vast numbers of the Indian people follow channels that ask no questions of the government. These channels have trained their viewers to watch only a particular kind of TV where nothing is demanded of them, except a willing and complete suspension of belief. And absolute amorality. Elected representatives can garland killers, ministers can lie, news anchors can read out government press releases as news. It bothers no one enough.

In Jharkhand, on 17 June 2019, a young man called Tabrez Ansari was tied to a pole sometime around midnight and beaten by a mob till six in the morning. As he was being battered, Tabrez Ansari was asked to say 'Jai Shri Ram'. He did. It did not save him. He died four days later.

These exhortations to keep safe have made people cowards.

Religion and caste have always condemned us to a lifetime of fear. In a customary moment of love we may sing a note or two about taking wing like birds, but the truth is we continue to be trapped in the cage of religion and caste. The way things are in India, couples invariably find little love and far more hatred in the course of their love. That they still dare to love is worthy of our salutations.

Honour killing is a cocktail made of prejudice, hate and misogyny to which the colour red is contributed by religion, caste, father or brother as the occasion may demand.

If I were a neta, I would have built a love park in every city and would have happily lost the next election. Naturally, society would not have approved.

In India, there is no love without a wall. Love may be possible without a mehboob, the lover-beloved, but it is not possible without a wall!

Truth be told, if you say you are not an objector, you are ranged against democracy. If you have a different point of view, say you are a dissenter. Post ten things on Facebook daily and say openly, 'Yes, I have a difference of opinion.' Being an objector is no crime.

If any of the big fish still want to file a defamation suit against me, I have a small request to make: please do not slap a lawsuit of Rs. 100 crore on me. By all means file a suit, but let it be in the range of sawa rupaya - one and a quarter rupee - after all, an offering of sawa rupaya is enough to please our gods.

You cannot put yours and yourself in danger just to overcome your fear.

The Indian government’s own draft education policy tells us that the National Assessment and Accreditation Council (NAAC) rates sixty-eight per cent of our universities as average or below average. Ninety-one per cent of colleges are rated average or below average. These second- and third-rate colleges would have produced generations of average or below average students and scholars.