JNU Crackdown and Sedition: I'm worried over what is happening in India, are you?

Can I ask you something? Will you listen to me without any prejudice or malice or a quick label for me? Will you? I'm feared where we are heading. Are you? Just tell me what sort of protests are allowed? What pranks are allowed? Can I make fun of the ruling class? I ask this for I'm feared and worried. If a student leader in JNU can be arrested, I too can and you too. Everyone one of us is potentially at risk. Do you realize this? Do you realize where we are heading? Do you know what differentiates a India from Pakistan or Arab countries? Is whats happening today point to that difference or are we becoming one of them? Everyday someone or the other comes with, if you had done/said it there, they would have done like that! Now, have we scooped such low to compare ourselves with them? Are they our yardsticks now? I'm worried. I'm worried for you and me. I'm worried for this nation of ours!

Leave everything aside, think. Think what is going wrong. JNU has always been a hotbed of politics. Why sudden crackdown? Why are we making them heroes out of nothing? Forget JNU, how do you believe one should protest? Am I even allowed to protest against the regime? What is right in a slogan, what is permitted, whom am I allowed to ridicule, whom can I not make fun of? Do you remember how British used to punish the people who speak against them? Are we doing any different now? This is not about the govt alone but largely about you and me - politicians will come and go. But what about us? We say India is so mighty, we are heading to becoming some Super-Power - do we really? And how? By crushing dissent? They issue fatwas - we thrust sedition charges! How are we different? Can't we just talk, debate and behave like the largest democracy that we claim we are? Are we even democratic - in paper we are but in practice? I'm worried. Are you?

Where are we heading? What do you see as future of India? I'm not suggesting other regime was any better - they had charged Aseem Trivedi with sedition for his cartoons! But many bought their arguments then and we continue to do so today. Why can't we think for ourselves, why can't we find our own truths. Why can't we listen more and talk less. Why are we set out to prove ourselves superior than others? Why is it necessary to be right always. Face it for once - you can be wrong, I can be wrong - we all are humans prone to errors. Today it's him, tomorrow it may be you or me for that matter. Why are you silent?

Remember governments come and go. What is right today may be wrong tomorrow. Someone from current regime on national channel said, Leftists are not Indians. They are not nationalists. Aren't they? Tomorrow someone will say same stuff for 'right'. Today you laugh and feel elated, tomorrow you'll weep and the one who weep today will giggle - this is an unending mess. The crowd you're in today will turn against you tomorrow - you never know. Crowd searches for its victim everyday - that's how it survives. Right to dissent, right to disagree is democracies' greatest virtue. How are you going to safeguard it? What is right and what is wrong can wait but to discover it, somebody needs to question, stir what is norm. Do you allow it?

Remember one thing, in a democracy, in India, not law, not courts but its people are Supreme. We are the rulers. Every setup you see is for us. They are our servants and we their masters. Pause and ask yourself - is it so? Am I wrong to be worried?