India In Anguish
BY R.K.MISRA India today is a sitting duck. Like a turkey voting for an early Christmas. Let’s sample a recent day’s national headlines. It no longer informs. It screams. Hatred in Mumbai. Violence in New Delhi. Fanaticism in Bengaluru. Punjab on the boil. Protests in Kashmir. Trucker killed in Udhampur over rumours of cow slaughter. The reference is to the storming of the Cricket Control Board meeting discussing an Indo-Pak cricket series by the Shiv Sainiks in Mumbai, Hindu Sena workers smearing black paint on the face of J&K legislator Abdul Rashid for ‘disrespecting’ the cow, in Delhi and BJP activists harassing an Australian couple for sporting a tattoo of a goddess in Bengaluru. For Rashid this is his second experience of violence. The first time over he was assaulted within the august Jammu and Kashmir Assembly by ruling BJP legislators themselves. The Shiv Sainiks have already done the smearing act with former L.K. Advani aide, Sudheendra Kulkarni. Re-wind by two