There is always a story behind the sensational headlines. What we conventional journalists would call a build up to an attack. And attack it was when it took place at 8.10 p.m. outside Gauri Lankesh’s home in Bengaluru
Gauri Lankesh at JNU
We all do love a sensation, a sob story, blood and gore and then of course the protests. I feel raw anger and a deep sorrow. Would Gauri Lankesh, a senior activist-journalist be alive today if the media had done its job? If we had told the story behind the headlines of the corrosion and poison being perpetrated by men and women in high places as they violate the Constitutional Oath? To equality and non-discrimination?
Her brute killing was not an act of random violence. As bullets were emptied into her frail body last night, any and all could see that it was not a random act of violence by contract killers, hired to kill. It was a physical manifestation of the poison in the air, a poison that threatens to sink into our very roots. Her death raises serious questions of the shadows and selective silences of those in authority and the messages this sends down. It is these selective silences that often encourage a culture of complete and utter impunity. Apart from muzzling criticism and dissent.
We have in the past three years and more – the bench mark should be placed at 2014 – the squeezing out of robust questioning in the media, national and regional, individual writers and editors being pressured to pull down a particular story. Though the Karnataka Komu Souharda Vedike (KKSV)’s demand for a judicially monitored probe into Gauri’s death is necessary and valid, this is simply not enough. Political will, of the ruling party benches and political voices, from a fearless Opposition need to make this happen. Why is the Opposition not on the streets commandeering protests as our Constitution is hijacked, every single day?
How is this poison and hatred being spread? Minutes after the murder last night, we saw celebratory tweets on social media. A citizen asked of India’s prime minister on Facebok, “At least four handles you follow have expressed joy at #gaurilankesh’s murder the only way they know — by tweeting abuses. You won’t condemn the murder. We get that. But will you at least stop following vile, abusive, sadists?” Will he, the macho prime minister of over a billion people, ‘un-follow’ these harbingers of hate and venom?
What are the answers we have got into the murders of M.M. Kalburgi, Govind Pansare and Narendra Dabholkar? Are we still really looking for their killers? Should the investigative agencies and the officers in charge of these particular investigations answer?
The Bombay High Court has –more than once—‘pulled up’ the CBI for their laxity into the probe. Megha Pansare, daughter in law of Govind Pansare had taken on MOS Home, Kiren Rijju for his irresponsible statements on the killing in Parliament (December 2015)
“The murder of Lankesh has eerie resemblances with those of scholars Kalburgi, Pansare and Dabholkar. All the three rationalists were assassinated in a similar fashion with the CID revealing that the weapon they were shot with was also the same. The Bombay high court had also on August this year, observed that the modus operandi in the murder of Dabholkar and Pansare were similar and that it was indeed a ‘well planned’ act,” the weekly Outlook comments. Yet interrogations into the Sanatan Sanshtha, its ideology and thinking are insipid. Killers are out on bail. They roam free.
Besides these gun-shot killings, India has, over the last three-and-a-half years, witnessed murderous mobs being allowed to lynch, strip and kill—we conveniently describe them as ‘non-state actors’. These criminals are protected by the law and the State, they operate as self-appointed guardians (vigilantes) of a Hindu state, in the name of cow protection. Mob rule has overtaken the rule of law under the present dispensation. In response the outage as a collective body has been spontaneous but sporadic and muted at best.
Why was Gauri Lankesh, a free thinker and free spirit, killed?
Gauri, 55 year old with the spirit and zeal and energy of a person in her 30s robustly questioned all power structures and refused to succumb to the dominant muted theme. She wrote in Kannada, her weekly Lankesh Patrike following in the footsteps of her renowned father. Till the last day she wrote about what makes most uncomfortable– plight of Rohingya Muslims who have failed to get an assurance from the Narendra Modi government that they will not be deported to Myanmar – to likely imprisonment or death – before their court hearing in India is over. She was vocal on gay rights, and on the deaths of children in a Gorakhpur hospital.
She fought, attended to court cases, both on behalf of the KSSV and those against her. She wrote, she danced, she celebrated and she feared what would become of her and all of us, who stoically stand for what we believe in.
Should national television and investigative sleuths have tracked the collapse of the case against Sanatan Sanstha better? Should questions have been asked on why sections of Maharahtra’s Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) full of senior police officers, recommended to the High Court that the organisation be banned?
Should lengthy and weighty editorials and Op-Eds questioned the dangers attendant when ideologies who perperuated armed violent attacks on dissenters in the name of the ‘Hindu Rashtra’ infiltrate, through legitimisation, into the wings of governance?
Yesterday, five hours before her death, in cold blood she celebrated the non sectarian celebration of Onam by the people of Kerala:
“KERALITES celebrating Onam. religious differences be damned!!!!! this is the reason why they call their `country’ (i call it country, did you notice cheddis??) as `Gods own country’. please, my mallu friends, please keep up your spirit of secularism. (PS: hopefully next time i am in God’s own country, someone will get me nice Kerala beef dish!!!! And cheddis be damned!!!!)”
She encouraged the young, the courageous the political and the jocular. Here is another post by Gauri on comedien, Abhijit Ganguly’s ridicule of Narendra Modi: “seriously, i think these stand up comics are successfully doing more than most of us to destroy the Modi Myth. More strength and support to them. Keep is going folks!! we are all with you. together we shall reclaim our secular India”
Gauri, wherever you are, your smile and sheer raw courage will shine upon us all.
A Guiding Star.
With Tears that refuse to fall…Adieu