Sections of political punditry find Governor N.N. Vohra’s Independence Day address something outlandish. They argue that the Independence Day message has to be soft and soothing. A close reading between the lines will show that the Governor’s speech has been soft and soothing in real sense of the term. For whom has his speech to be soft and soothing? To whom is he addressing? Let us understand that. He was addressing the people of the State. He was addressing their sentiments, their expectations and their deprivations. Did not their elected representatives fail them squarely when in times of distress and unrest these representatives whiled away their time in secured and protected quarters oblivious of what had befallen their voters and their constituencies? Governor was speaking for those ordinary people of the State whose innocent youth were misled by insensible calls of detractors of the society who asked them to throw stones, burn schools, loot banks, kidnap innocent people and hurl bombs etc. Did not the Chief Minister make fervent appeals to the law makers and ministers to visit their constituencies and interact with the masses of the people? How come the Governor is not pained by this scenario and how come that he will not give vent to what he and the entire people of the State expect their elected representatives to do in an hour of crisis. People of the state still remember that twenty-seven years ago when armed insurgency erupted a Government in a shameful and cowardly move quit office and left the people who had elected them to power to their fate. When a school is burnt, when a bank is looted, when a fatal bomb is hurled who is the loser and whose loss it is?
Governor’s address is a word of warning and the organs of the State must take it in its stride. Time and tide wait for no one. Independence Day celebrations do not mean to sugar-coat the bitter and unpalatable pill and let the sore fester without a cure.
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