Editor,
So Mani Shankar Aiyar and his daughter Suranya should have to apologise for the latter’s act of fasting at home against the triumphalism that accompanied the inauguration of Ayodhya’s Ram temple or ‘move out’ from the area?
So who would privately fast (or not fast) within the confines of their residence, and who can/cannot fast on any particular issue will be determined by the saffron ecosystem and votaries of ‘good days’ basking in the ‘pride’ of ‘New India’ or ‘Ram Rajya’?
Hadn’t a BJP MP categorically declared that “Prime Minister Narendra Modi has declared India’s support to Israel and every Indian must follow it” while supporting the registration of an FIR against four students of the Aligarh Muslim University for their ‘antinational’ act of participating in a peaceful march within the campus, holding placards bearing slogan reading ‘Support Palestine’ during the early days of the Israel-Palestine flare-up in October 2023?
If every Indian will have to support Israel just because Modi supports that nation, isn’t it natural that the ‘sickulars’ will have to rejoice over the Ram temple, which has been constructed at the very site where Babri Masjid had stood for centuries prior to its barbaric demolition by making a mockery of all norms of Constitution and law and vitiating the environment forever, any deviation from which should make oneself prepared to issue unconditional apology or ‘move out’ from residence/colony?
Indeed what a fall of freedom of expression in this constitutionally democratic country.
Kajal Chatterjee,
D-2/403 Peerles Nagar,
Kolkata