Shiban Khaibri
In a famous poem captioned “Rotian” by Nazeer Akbarabadi, 18th century Indian poet, he says,” Jab aadmi ke pet main aati hai rotian, Phooli nahin badan main samati hai rotian……… Aankhen pari rukhun se ladati hain rotian…” which converted in simple English would mean as “When loaves fill a man’s stomach right to the brim , he feels puffed up with joy, makes a merry din……loaves or “chapaties” rouse romantic longings.” Every one makes a living primarily for earning bread. One must have bread or “chappaties” at least twice a day to keep body and soul together. Roti may be baked, fried, simple, buttered, stuffed, crisp, and soft and the like, it has the characteristics of satiating one’s hunger. We in India, as per our ancient culture, respect the bread and before eating it, usually remember God and while eating remain silent, serene, relaxed and humble. Showing or expressing anger while eating or readying to eat bread is medically, morally and even religiously an antithesis. Equally important is, not only in an idealistic situation, that any delay in getting it whether at home or outside should not lead to expression of any sort of anger and the saying that “a hungry man is an angry man” is no alibi under which vent to “hungry feelings” be expressed. Again, any level of its quality in making or infusing taste and crispness to it should not lead to a situation of losing one’s discretion and cool, more so by a public representative, read a public servant, who for getting elected to the seat of power and for a superb duty to make laws, getting in return all the respect, enviable position and status, contacts people with folded hands with “all the humility” for votes promising to making their lives all comfortable and magnificently livable. What a travesty that there have been occasions when we have watched leaders feeling psychologically elevated in getting their shoes dusted off by public servants holding responsible positions in full public and media view. We have seen leaders feeling at the top when their feet are touched not on account of reverence but either due to fear or as an act of cheap sycophancy. We have seen leaders trivializing heinous and unpardonable crimes like rape and promising changing of laws under IPC so that “boys are boys ” and that “they can commit mistakes like rape” should not be hanged.
It shall require reams of paper to illustrate various such disgusting examples of some leaders but coming again to the “Roti”, an MP can lose cool to this extent that he takes a chappati in hand and with anger, under protest tries to push it into the mouth of a catering employee to make him feel that the chappati was sub- standard or not fit to be eaten. The employee does not open his mouth and the bread falls down, the Honb’le MP picks it up again. There were many ways of lodging protest against the “bad food” like lodging peaceful protest with the management of the Maharashtra Sadan, or the best as taught to us by Mahatma Gandhi was not to eat and leave the eating place calmly. In other words, when we do not intend to eat due to any reason and abstain, we do it gracefully. Anger did not give the concerned MP as much of time to see or know that the victim of his wrath was observing a fast and he happened to be a Muslim. Take any conflict in the family, in the society and anywhere, it has in one form or the other, roots in anger. In chapter 2, verse 63 in the Holy Gita, people are cautioned against and directed to shun anger as “anger gives place to complete delusion and delusion leads to bewilderment of memory and bewildered memory leads to losing of intelligence and discretion and that leads to one’s downfall.” In such a situation, when unwarranted outbursts of anger should not only be condemned but as per law, action should also be taken instead of blown out of proportion in some sections of the media which is quite unfortunate. Wide publicity through long bouts of TV debates, accusations, casting aspersions, putting allegations, counter allegations lead us to nowhere excepting creating ill will and mistrust amongst the people. Every body’s duty is to contribute to and strengthen peace and confidence among all sections of the society. Besides whole of the world watches such hype of unwanted issues on some TV Channels stretched for long hours which puts the whole of the country in bad projection. What sort of a service is this and who benefits out of it all ?
In a post poll scenario when the vanquished have taken home the best spoils of the electoral fight, political scores seem to be settling through exploiting religious sentiments albeit such ugly incidents. Please stop it. Do we not, as a set precedence, avoid naming religions, religious places, arousing religious passions, and religious victims and even religious offenders in case of troubles with a noble aim to maintain and strengthen peace and trust in the society and do nothing to incite passions. Then why should there be avoidable irritating long debates and discussions on some private TV Channels punctuated with airing of the video clips of the incidents? In my view if the Shiv Sena MP allegedly broke law of the land by trying to force eat a catering employee the chappati who turned out to be on fast, thus unwittingly and perhaps unknowingly hurting his religious feelings and committing a crime, those in the political and media circles who hyped the matter too much, should introspect whether they did it right. Undoubtedly, they did not. The concerned MP is on record as having said that, “I did not know the person’s name, caste or community; I came to know that the employee was a Muslim only after seeing TV footage and I regret it.” Many reactions against the unwarranted act coming from many known political personalities should have been avoided as they should know that they can get counter reactions for many incidents similarly condemnable and which can only create a chain of countering accusations. These weaken us which we cannot afford. Take the recent case of Sania Mirza. The statement of a local BJP leader and mind you, not from any national leader, calling her “Bahu of Pakistan” but acclaiming the pride which she has brought to the country as a star Tennis player of world fame, should engage hours of frivolous TV debates and projection of victim hood on the basis of religion, all indulged in under freedom of media, is unacceptable especially after the Party disapproved of the statement of that local leader. Drawing an analogy with the iconic figure like Amitabh Bachhan as a brand ambassador of Gujarat is wrong as he did not accept a penny as against Sania taking or agreeing to take Rs.1 crore. She should either return the money or donate it for the welfare of the poor and needy women of the country.
The question again arises that some of our elected representatives think that they are a special category to be looked after very specially and to be treated very specially. Some perhaps think they are above law and could even publicly humiliate or even slap a senior public servant and perhaps go scot-free. Some think that they can speak any thing against any one, even against an exiled community as a whole, yet feign to be humane and “secular”. Why should these honourable people not think that they are just servants of the public and not their bosses like in colonial rule? Why should they have comfortable costly cars, spacious bungalows, fat salaries, cheap and highly subsidized food and other perks which all come from the tax money ordinary people dish out and that they should not care for these very ordinary peoples’ respect and prestige cannot go along any longer. Such netas need to change their mindset.
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