Waquar Ahmed, IndiaTomorrow.net,
New Delhi, April 9: Human rights activists, senior journalists, lawyers, academicians and students leaders have urged people to stand strongly for resistance against fascism.
“All efforts are being made to monitor what one is speaking and writing in order to find out something for which the person can be slapped with sedition charges. Pressure is being built up so that one cannot speak out his heart. Today you all are present here because you don’t accept this pressure,” said veteran journalist Siddharth Vardarajan while speaking at an event called Pratirodh at the Constitution Club here on Friday.
He stressed that people should stand strongly at their place.
“I think that those who want to put pressure they actually want to frighten people. They want that people stop writing, speaking and organizing such meetings. But the importance of resistance is that we should stand strongly at our place. If we stand strongly at our place, then I think that those who make pressure will have to move back,” said Vardarajan, former Editor of The Hindu who is currently heading popular news website The Wire.
Urging people to save democracy of the country from fascism, famous poet and scientist Gauhar Raza, said, “The signals we are getting today are not necessarily indicative of the commencement of fascism in the country but it is also not necessary that it won’t come. People like us are loser either way. If our efforts stop fascism, lots of intellectuals will tell us that you had just crated a bogey of fascism; there was no fascism at all. And if it comes then neither I nor you will be saved. Then the question is: Should we stop this fight? I think we can’t save democracy without waging this war against fascism.”
Eminent lawyer and rights activist Vrinda Grover said that law is being used to snatch people’s rights.
“Today Law is frequently being used to snatch the freedom of people from their life. This is true in Delhi as much as in Bastar and in Maruti and Honda factories. Law in itself has become a weapon for snatching people’s rights and destroying their life. The law which should have granted us freedom is functioning this way. There is a need for sharp criticism on this and judicial process,” she said.
Attacking on Sangh Parivar and BJP, Jawaharlal Nehru University’s student union president Kanhaiya Kumar said, “There is no fight within Hindustan. The fight is against attempts to create Sanghistan in India. This fight is Hindustan Vs Sanghistan. And we are fighting for Hindustan.”
He alleged that the whole issue on JNU and Hyderabad University has been diverted into another direction. He commented on Bharat Mata Ki Jai controversy in his own peculiar style.
“They now say nation is supreme; one will have to chant Bharat Mata Ki Jai. I am thinking that when I get married I will tell my wife to change her name and call herself Bharat Mata Ki Jai. I will name my children also Bharat Mata Ki Jai and I will also change my name as Bharat Mata Ki Jai. When my son will go to school and teacher will ask his name, his father’s name and mother’s name he would say Bharat Mata Ki Jai thrice and he will not asked for fees and he will get free education.”
Apart from them, eminent poet Ashok Vajpayi, Dalit intellectual Kancha Ilahia, Human rights activist and academician Apoorvanand Jha, Jawaharlal Nehru University student union vice president Shehla Rashid Shora and senior journalist Shoma Choudhry also addressed the gathering.
