Editor,
Each and every comment, write-up, or action must be judged according to the context, instead of blindly going by only the literal meaning.
So the demand for a ‘southern nation’ by a stray Congress MP must be seen in the context of his grievance against the interim budget, allocating merely 14 percent for the whole of south India, in contrast to Uttar Pradesh alone getting ‘rewarded’ with 18 percent of the state-wise allocations of tax revenues.
Still, if his comment gets treated as ‘divisive’, what adjective must be reserved for the unending series of antics by the who’s who of the saffron dispensation – “Ramzaade – *****zaade’, ‘Go to Pakistan’, Wayanad’s description as ‘mini-Pakistan’, or ‘where the majority is in the minority’, ‘shamshan-kabristan’, ‘We 5 Our 25’, call for identifying criminals through their dress, hurling of obscene expletives towards a Muslim MP of the BSP right on the floor of Parliament to the rabid Hindutva muscle-flexing in the name of Ayodhya and Gyanvapi.
What a classic example of the pot calling the kettle black!
Karnataka Deputy Chief Minister DK Shivakumar has rightly stressed: “You cannot look only at the Hindi belt… we feel like we have been let down. But the entire country is one.” Yes, it seems that the non-Hindi speaking regions of the country have performed an ‘unpardonable sin’ by engaging in progressive mindset of family planning and birth control. So, as a ‘reward’ for it, they are getting deprived of due share of national revenue with major section of the funds getting earmarked for north Indian states with ever-increasing population. The north Indian states are supposed to be ‘richer’ in terms of Lok Sabha seats (and thereby scheduled to gain more influence in Parliament and national affairs), as well, following census and delimitation.
Though Shivakumar aspires for the entire country to be one, the central state of affairs definitely suggest that the Hindi belt is a ‘special’ one with dominant share of revenues and other benefits reserved for it.
The less said about the ‘Hindi-Hindu-Hindustan’ muscle-flexing, which has received a renewed boost after 22 January 2024. This parochial, imperialist, divisive, dominant mindset should have no place in this diverse democratic country of all where no language, religion, or region is superior or inferior to each other.
Kajal Chatterjee
D-2/403,
Peerless Nagar,
Kolkata