Author: Kanimozhi
Publication: My Voice
Date: March 2, 2016
URL:   http://linkis.com/myvoice.opindia.com/nHGdh

There are a number of open letters as well as, their counter letters that have been written after JNU Row. Out of all the letters that have been written recently, only three are my favorites, which have been listed below:

1. Open letter to Raj Deep – By Vivek Agnihotri
2. Open letter to Rahul Gandhi – By Mrinaal Prem
3. Open Letter to Barkha Dutt – By Vande Mataram
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Title: An open letter to Rajdeep “IAmAntiNational” Sardesai
Author: vivekagnihotri
Publication: Opindia.com
Date: February 19, 2016
URL:   http://www.opindia.com/2016/02/an-open-letter-to-rajdeep-iamantinational-sardesai/

Dear Rajdeep,

It seriously doesn’t matter to me what’s your self-image: Nationalist or anti-nationalist. I don’t even care what people think about you. I don’t even see a reason why an honest journalist needs to advocate his ideologies in a national newspaper’s op-ed page. I don’t even know how many honest journalists can get this opportunity of ‘self-promotion’ as most of them are vernacular, non-lutyens journalists, struggling to find news in scorching heat of India that exists outside of Delhi.

Since your article is based on an absolutely wrong premise, besides self-pity, I think, as a true nationalist, its my duty to correct it and put it in right perspective before your lie becomes the mainstream narrative.

You write:

“In the 1990s, the country’s polity was divided by secular versus pseudo secular faultlines; now, another divide, and frankly far more insidious, is sought to be created between ‘national’ and ‘anti-national’ forces.”

In the 1990s, the country was divided between haves and have-nots. That’s why the main theme was ‘Garibi Hatao’. As it still does. Then liberalization happened. With liberalization, India got divided on a new fault line. Ones who wanted to make a better livelihood by working hard and those who wanted to milk liberalization with corruption. Corruption requires middlemen, brokers, pimps and sycophants. Thus a group mushroomed, disguised in the garb of secularism and unfortunately you chose to become their voice. Indians have been secular for thousands of years. I hope you know, words like ‘religion’ and ‘secular’ did not even exist until the advent of Christianity. I am sure your grandfather must have told you that Hindu civilization existed even thousands of years before Jesus Christ.

‘Secularism’ was a tool that corrupt Congress and the beneficiaries of its corruption used to protect ‘the ecosystem’ from millions of hungry, unemployed, exploited, oppressed but honest, hard-working common citizens. Secularism was invented to consolidate minority votes without isolating Hindus and without appearing to be a minority appeaser. With liberalization, came new multi-national businesses who wanted to overcome red-tapism and needed licenses whereas the ruling parties needed funds. Coincidentally, at the same time English news channels were also in red so they also needed funds. So news channels with power to make or break images needed money and corrupt Congress with money needed image. Thus emerged a new group – The Secular group.

Anyone who disagreed with their ‘Idea of (corrupt) India’ was labelled non-intellectual and thus the middle class, vernacular Indian who did not have the privilege to study in St. Xaviers, Christchurch, Doon, Scindia, Oxford or Cambridge was made to feel inferior in his own country. They were typecast as illiberal, regressive Hindus. Supporting Pakistan was seen as intellectual. Rejecting Hindu customs and traditions became an intellectual exercise. People who take pride in Hindu philosophy were systematically labelled ‘illiberal’. You were seen protecting, promoting and nurturing such voices.

Rajdeep, your grandfather must have also told you that everything that is traditional isn’t illiberal. Similarly, everything that’s rebellious in nature isn’t liberal. But Secular India had silenced the grandfathers of India. On TV channels, for sure. That’s how India was divided between organized and funded club members of a ‘Secular India’ and unorganized, simple, honest and truly secular Indians. They were denied entry into mainstream narrative of India. Nobody was talking for them. Nobody was listening to them. It was by design. You were one of the designers.

Since you love old Hindi songs you must have heard ‘Jiska koi nahin uska to khuda hai yaaron…’ and khuda listened to this hapless mass. A technological innovation came as their rescue. Social media happened. Of course, the secular brigade tried to monopolize it but the entry was open to all. It wasn’t a club. It was a platform. When so-called ‘smart trolls’ started exposing your secular club members of their lies and sinister intents, your wife tried to humiliate them and create further divide by labelling them as ‘Internet Hindoos’.

They weren’t Hindoos. They were Indians. They wanted to take pride in India. And you wanted to crush that pride. For that pride would have been counter productive to thekedars of ‘idea of India’. Two ideas, two Indias came out in open. One who loved India. And another who loved ‘idea of India. That’s how ‘nationalist’ and ‘anti-nationalist’ debate started. Nobody called you anti-national. You decided to ridicule nationalists. You started calling Modi supporters as ‘sanghis’, bhakts, and pseudo patriots, without even realizing that these people love Modi for he is a India Bhakt. They will drop Modi the day they doubt his integrity.

You misunderstood that Modi bhakts are also BJP, RSS bhakt. Your fundamentals were wrong. That’s why it took one evening of prime time for one of your ex-colleagues to demolish your game. Today you have become a victim of your own game. You have sensed that being anti-Hindu, anti-India is not paying dividends and it’s too late for you to be called nationalist. You don’t have credibility, and now it’s a matter of survival for you. If your grandfather was alive, he would have warned you that the race you, Arvind Kejriwal, Rahul Gandhi and friends are running ends only in a dark well. Where even penance doesn’t help.

Nothing can be a more resounding proof than the fact that today you have to use an op-ed page to publicly justify your ideological defeat with a vicious hashtag #IAmAntiNationalist

 You write:

“Yes, I am anti-national because in a plural democracy I believe we must have a dialogue with Kashmiri separatists as we must with those in the North-East who seek autonomy. I will listen to student protestors in Srinagar or Imphal as I will to those in an FTII or a JNU.”

I would advise you have a dialogue with Arnab Goswami. With Subhash Chandra. Have a dialogue with Bhakts like me. With Internet Hindoos. Have a dialogue with the innocent Modi supporter who you had beaten up at MSG. But listening isn’t your agenda. If it were you, I would have listened to so-called trolls on twitter and understood why they are so angry with me. But you chose to whine all day about trolls and their abuse. If you can tolerate anti-India slogans I am sure you can also tolerate some abuse on your TL.

On your timeline thousands of ‘trolls’ keep screaming why you don’t show India’s growth story? Did you listen to them?

I want to have a dialogue with you. Listen to you. Understand you. But are you ready to invite me? To listen to my point of view?

Prosecute all those who break the law, incite violence, resort to terror but don’t lose the capacity to engage with those who dissent. The right to dissent is as fundamental as the right to free speech: shouting down alternative views, be they on prime time TV or on the street, is not my idea of India.

Forget Idea of India, first tell us what is India. Is Malda India? Are the states other than Delhi India? Are other CMs not Indian CMs? Is Ramchandra Guha the only Indian intellectual? Or the death of a journalist who was burnt for exposing corruption less secular than the lynching of Akhlaq? Or the turmoil, conflict, negativity, opposition, communalism, intolerance, awards wapsi… only themes of India?

Is Nemo the only dog in India?

If your channel is the only source of information, one would die believing India is Delhi. Modi its villain. Ramchandra Guha its Buddha. Kejriwal  its Christ plus Prophet. Those 5-6 panelists as Supreme Court. Regressive Hindus are killing innocent Christians, Muslims, Dalits, writers and now poor students. Rest of the population is starving without beef. And Sonia Gandhi never existed.

My grandfather told me a journalist’s only requirement is integrity. Integrity isn’t honesty. Integrity is the ability to tell the truth even when no one is listening. When was the last time you raised real issues of India? When was the last time you made your viewers hear a common man’s concerns. Hate Modi. Hate RSS. Hate Bhakts. Hate Hindus. But why this complete blackout of ‘Rest of India’. Do you work for ‘India Today’ or ‘Delhi Today’?

Yes, I am anti-national because I don’t believe in doublespeak on issues of nationalism. If support for Afzal Guru is to be seen as ‘sedition’, then at least half the erstwhile Cabinet in Jammu and Kashmir, where the BJP is in coalition with the PDP, would be held guilty.

I absolutely agree with your logic. And by that logic, and no doublespeak, you must also hold Arvind Kejriwal guilty for having partnered with Congress and Congress for partnering with Owaisi and Nitish for partnering with Lalu. Even you must be held guilty for partnering with corrupt and crony capitalist Ambani and your wife for partnering with your unethical enemy group: Times of India

What you have failed to understand is that ‘is hamam mein sab nange nahin hai, yeh nangon ka hamam hai’. You are one of them.

 If the Kashmiri youth today see Afzal as someone who was framed, they should be challenged to a legal and political debate but can they be branded as ‘jihadists’ simply because their views are repugnant to the rest of the country?

 You are again confusing issues. It’s not about Afzal. It’s about India. It’s about ‘India go back’. India ki barbadi’ ‘ India tere tukde honge’. It’s about that. Afzal, sedition law, FoE, Lawyers’ hooliganism etc are games journalists like you play to shift focus, confuse issues and keep the ‘ecosystem’ protected.

It’s about terrorism. It’s about alleged terror links of some students. It’s about supporting terror groups. It’s about terror funding. It’s about threat to India’s sovereignty. That’s why people are concerned. Leave sedition laws for the court. You tell us where do you stand? Without any buts. If you are seen protecting the rights of these allegedly terror-linked students, or seen spinning this news and covering them up, you won’t have to put any hashtag, because soon you will become a hashtag yourself – of all anti-nationals.

 Yes, I am anti-national because while I am a proud Hindu who wakes up to the Gayatri mantra, I also like a well done beef steak, which, according to BJP minister Mukhtar Naqvi, is a treasonous act, enough to pack me off to Pakistan. I celebrate the rich diversity of my country through food: Korma on Eid, pork sorpotel with my Catholic neighbours in Goa during Christmas and shrikhand during Diwali is my preferred diet. The right to food of my choice is again a freedom which I cherish and am unwilling to cede.

Unfortunately, your understanding and definition of Hinduism is limited to Gayatri Mantra, beef steak and shrikhand.  The day you will understand Hinduism you will regret that you had to waste all your productive life to learn secularism, tolerance, inclusiveness, nationalism etc. when all this wisdom was available in your grandfather’s diaries.

 Post-script: Last week, at the Delhi Gymkhana litfest, I suggested that the right to free speech must include the right to offend so long as it doesn’t incite violence. A former army officer angrily got up and shouted, “You are an anti-national who should be lynched right here!” When even the genteel environs of the Gymkhana club echo to such strains, we should all be very worried.

I don’t know much about club culture but I know one thing for sure: when journalists stop travelling beyond their studios to reporting facts, fighting over TRPs instead of truth, and using media to further their agenda or to defend and justify themselves, we should all be not just very worried but take time out to introspect.

The other day I was invited to a Times Now panel for an Arnab Goswami show where he was exposing the hypocrisy of Indian seculars and liberals. My views about Indian Secular gang are well-known and I expressed them frankly. Next morning, while walking in my park without a dog, a gentleman called me ‘bhakt’. Exactly like you do. Do you know, in Hindu philosophy, Bhakti is a human quality, attained only by honest people. He accused me of being critical of award wapsi gang who hate intolerant Hindus who support Modi and that too on a Arnab Goswami show who is exposing those who hate India and Modi who loves India and who has the support of Hindus who love India which is also loved by Modi…

If supporting India means supporting Modi and vice versa then I’d rather be called a ‘bhakt’ than being seen exchanging notes with terror support groups.

Yes, #IAmABhakt, of India

Vivek Agnihotri is a filmmaker, writer and columnist. His next film ‘Buddha In A Traffic Jam’ deals with Naxalism at India’s premier institutes.

Vivek tweets at @vivekagnihotri
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Title:  An open letter to Rahul Gandhi from an Indian
Author: mrinaalprem
Publication: Opindia.com
Date: February 25, 2016
URL:   http://www.opindia.com/2016/02/an-open-letter-to-rahul-gandhi-from-an-indian/

Dear Mr. Rahul Gandhi

We could’ve begun this in a thousand other ways. But remembering your IQ from “politics is even in your shirt and pants”, we would just like to ask, “Do you even know what has happened in JNU? Do you have any idea who has been arrested, or why? Or are you just parroting some generic rants taught to you after May, 2014?”
 We know that your loyal supporters (rabid, illogical NaMo-haters, more like) would be enraged by now. But who cares?? By supporting you, they haven’t left too IITian of their own impressions either!

Coming to the topic, why are you supporting people who want to defragment this country?? Why is it that the person at your right hand-Jyotiraditya Scindia-both figuratively and literally, dared to say; “Only shouting slogans is not sedition”?

Has the Congress party lost all the sense of history?

In Cambridge, in a house on 3-Hambstern Road, Pakistan was conceived in the form of one slogan, one pamphlet; by one Rahmat Ali, on 28th January, 1933. Congress party laughed it off at that time also! Why are you hell-bent to commit the same mistake twice?

Or is it deliberate? Has the Congress decided to ‘punish’ the country for electing Narendra Modi and ousting you out of the power so unceremoniously by throwing in their weight behind the people who want to destroy India?

Mr. Gandhi, not just the party, but you personally claimed exclusive intellectual property right over the ‘Idea of India’, since it was supposedly first coined by the ancestor of both you and your party, Jawaharlal Nehru! Is this the Idea of India by Nehru?

India wants to know the official stance of you and your party on the JNU issue. On one hand, Jyotiraditya Scindia advocates turning a blind eye to the slogans and marches calling for India’s total annihilation. He says that calling for ‘freedom, from India, at gunpoint’ is not sedition.

On the other hand, one Akhilesh Pratap Singh- who claims to be the official spokesperson of your party slams the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Delhi Police for not being able to rope in all the perpetrators of such an anti-national crime.

And now you have your former Home Minister, expressing “grave doubts about the extent of Afzal Guru’s involvement” in the Parliament attack case. This after the Courts gave him more than a fair trial, with multiple appeals and petitions, and after your own Government hanged him.

Which person do you stand with?

More than that, we, the people of India, would like to know your own thoughts and stand on the matter first.

You accuse Narendra Modi of being the harbinger of gusse ki raajneeti (politics of anger and discord) and nafrat ki raajneeti (politics of hatred). Please tell me how does “Bharat ki barbadi tak jung rahegi” translate into anything but that!

You seem to be too fond of political tourism, Rahul Ji! You were seen at UP Dalit’s home; you make flying-squad like visits to the people creating ruckus in various parts of the country. And yet, no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t find you at the funeral of any soldiers who had died for this country!

You could go to Hyderabad to show solidarity towards a  student, who considered the terrorist Yakub Memon a role model, and wanted a thousand more like him to be born! But you never visited the home of Hanumanthappa Koppad, who died in Siachin, after being buried for days in snow, trying to cling to last threads of his life to defend the country. Why?

You can visit the same JNU campus which didn’t let your own Prime Minister address them peacefully, which celebrated the cowardly murder of 76 CRPF soldiers, and where the serving officers of the Indian Army were beaten up for saying “Bharat Mata ki Jai”. But, in the same Delhi, you never visited the corpses of nine other valiant colleagues of Hanumanthappa, whose bodies were there to be paid homage to.

Your NSUI roughed up ABVP workers for showing you black flags. Remember Lala Lajpat Rai, an illustrious member of your very own Congress? He was also beaten up by the British for showing the black flags to Sir John Simon. Result? Every blow to his body became a nail in the coffin of British Raj.

And yet you have the audacity to call this government anti-democratic, quelling the voice of difference of opinion??

You champion for human rights, freedom of speech and liberty of those who chant “India go back! Indian army go back!”

Do you have any idea what would happen if army retreats even for fifteen minutes? Kashmiris will slaughter each other; and the survivors, if any, would be swallowed by Pakistan, along with the state.

There are a lot of people who might not agree with the hanging of Afzal, even though he was indeed a terrorist. We call them overly-humane people; and it’s okay to be one, or even try convincing others to see their viewpoint. That’s what a democracy does, as a society- preserving different opinions. But to call him martyr? Completely unacceptable!

And who hanged Afzal in the first place, Rahul Gandhi?? YOUR government! The Home Minister, at that time, was one Sushil Shinde; who, on public record, owed his ministerial berth to your mother Sonia Gandhi. So doesn’t it mean that it was your mom who ‘killed’ the innocent soul Afzal Guru- by the same logic that RSS is controlling Narendra Modi??

Are you also ‘sharminda’ for the continued survival of your mother, as implied by the slogan, “Afzal hum sharminda hain, tere katil zinda hain!”?

You think that every single time, you and your party can get away with these anti-national acts, under the name of democracy and difference of opinion. But here’s where you have gone most wrong! You cannot. This country has stopped taking any more shit from you.

And you will see it. If the last LS elections were your decimation, the forthcoming ones will be your party’s political butchering. Your party shall be uprooted, destroyed and left to nothing by the voters.

Please go back to Chhota Bheem and your ‘sabbatical retreats’ in the sex-havens of Thailand, Rahul Gandhi. A person like you doesn’t deserve a place among us.

We addressed this letter to you not as a person yourself, Rahul Gandhi. As a person, we’re not sure if we may even WhatsApp you, even if we had your super-secret SPG-protected number (which, for the record, we have paid for, through our taxes).We write it to the chair that you hold- Vice-President, and heir-apparent to the Presidency, of the oldest party of this country.

You and your party are already beyond redemption. So kindly remove yourself from the path of all the further destruction by the common voters. That’s the best you can hope for.

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Title: Open Letter to Barkha Dutt from a Social Media Sanghi communal troll
Author: unsubtledesi
Publication: Opindia.com
Date: February 23, 2016
URL:   http://www.opindia.com/2016/02/open-letter-to-barkha-dutt-from-a-social-media-sanghi-communal-troll-2/

Dear Barkha Dutt,

I write to you because like so many fellow citizens, I am both angry and anguished. I am aware that a missive from someone like me – “Internet Hindu”, “Social Media troll” , “hyper nationalist communal sanghi” and worst of all, “Modi toadie” – will be most likely junked by you as not worthy of your time.

While I read through your open letter, I struggled to understand why you felt the need to quote your “illustrious career” trying to prove your patriotism. Something against which, your entire article is based. However, the career milestones stated by you, have been countered time and again. From 26/11 coverage, to Kargil to Pathankot. I wouldn’t go on as I’m but an ordinary citizen and I certainly wouldn’t want you to get offended enough to pull a Chaitanya Kunte on me.

You write :

‘The Home Minister went so far as to link students to the dreaded Lashkar terrorist Hafiz Saeed, based on a police endorsement of a fake Twitter account”.

I tried extremely hard to find a reason as to why the said twitter account of Hafiz Saeed was fake. I found none, except that account no longer existed and that the dreaded terrorist, Hafiz Saeed (who also denies his roles in the 26/11 terrorist attack) said he made no such statement. I find it quite staggering how you, as a journalist, are more inclined to believing the explanation provided by a Pakistani terrorist and not your own police force. However, since I personally don’t have any proof as to whether that account was fake or real, let us assume your premise is true and that the account quoted by the police force was fake.

Is it so unbelievable that a terrorist who orchestrated a deadly terrorist attack on Indian soil would agree, even endorse “Bharat ke tukde honge, Inshallah Inshallah” slogans raised at JNU? Well, if it is unbelievable to you Barkha, you should perhaps watch the statement issued by Pakistan Foreign Office spokesperson Mr. Muhammad Nafees Zakria who said extended his support the sloganeering JNU students by saying “Kashmiris never accepted the unfair trial of Afzal Guru”.

Further, Rajnath Singh never mentioned that his statement was based on a tweet, and later the HMO even clarified saying that his statement was based not on the tweet plugged by the police, but on specific intel inputs. I wonder if you didn’t know about his clarification, or you just chose to ignore it.

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Manak Gupta @manakgupta . Feb 15
"Rajnath's Hafiz remark on JNU was based on agencies'  inputs and not fake tweet." ( Home ministry) timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Rajnaths...

Rajnath's remark based on agencies' inputs, says home ministry as...
"Statement of the home minister is based on the inputs available from different agencies," a home ministry spokesperson said without elaborati...

timesofindia.indiatimes.com
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You wrote :

“Not just have we not seen any evidence of terror links, but it now appears that the video used to slap sedition charge on Kanhaiya Kumar, the JNU student leader, has been doctored, with the audio spliced onto images from a different day”.

Now here is where my admiration lies for your skills of obfuscation and how brilliantly you weave two lies into one to make it sound like an irrefutable truth.

When you talk of “No terror links”, you conveniently forget to speak about Umar Khalid and focus on Kanhaiya Kumar so as to paint the entire crackdown on JNU elements as not only unsympathetic and motivated, but fascist. Umar Khalid is said to have links to the JeM. He reportedly called Bangladesh, Kashmir and the Gulf countries several times in the week preceding the 9th February events. There was even a UPA report about how DSU is the front organization for Maoists and it was discussed extensively on the “hyper nationalist” channel, Times Now. Umars father was the ex chief of SIMI who had said “Taliban was attacked without evidence” and “If there exists an outfit called LeT, I have not come across it”. Umar himself had written about how the ban on SIMI (Students Islamic movement of India) should be lifted. (SIMIs stated objective is “Liberation of India from western materialistic cultural influence and to convert its Muslim Society to live according to the Muslim code”).

There are many such IB inputs regarding Umar Khalid’s terror links that other “hyper nationalist” channels have been talking about incessantly. So for you to say “We have seen no evidence of terror links” with respect to Kanhaiya Kumar, and to complete ignore the terror links of Umar Khalid reeks of either unimaginable ignorance, or a desperation to prove your misplaced point with regards to the JNU crackdown by muddying the pool of truth. In any case, why are you so desperate to conduct a media-trial and exonerate all the accused?

The second part of the blatant lie is that the sedition charges that were slapped on Kanhaiya, are based on the doctored video that emerged later. The only statement that was made by Mr. Bhim Bassi is that Kanhaiya Kumar is guilty of sedition and that the police has enough proof. Hence, your assumption, is baseless and seems extremely motivated to garble the entire debate around the JNU issue.
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CNN-IBN news @ibnlive
#BassiOnThe HotSeat| Kanhaiya Kumar is guilty of sedition, we have enough proof: Bassi to @bhupendrachaube
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Somewhere in that consortium of lies that you call an article, Barkha, you write that in a country like ours, where even Kasab got a fair trial, Kanhaiya was slapped around in court in the presence of police that failed or perhaps refused to protect him.

Again, I applaud your remarkable talent to intertwine an established fact with a blatant lie to present a half baked fallacious statement that at best, only serves your personal agenda and skewed narrative.

Yes. Kasab was hanged to death after a fair trial. A fair trial that began after he was arrested by the police and the charges were framed based on evidence available. That, Barkha, is the standard procedure. It’s funny how you talk as if Kanhaiya has already been convicted without a trial, when right now, he has only been arrested based on evidence with the trial yet to commence.

The second, ridiculous lie in that statement of yours, is that the police refused to protect him in court.

What you and your channel NDTV called “dragged and kicked by lawyers” was actually super cop Rajendra Singh escorting Kanhaiya to court safely. To jog your memory, Rajendra Singh is the same super cop who solved the Nirbhaya case. You refused to report facts even after Mr. Bassi issued a clarification. You still choose to peddle the same lies after Kanhaiya’s statement lauding the Delhi police.

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NDTV @ndtv
JNU student anhaiya kumar dragged, kicked by lawyers at Delhi court
Ndtv.com/india-news/jnu..
2:22 PM - 17 Feb 2016
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Aditya Raj kaul @AdityaRajKaul
JNUSu president kanhiya kumar taken inside court by Delhi police Supercop Rajendra Singh who cracked Nirbhaya case.
3:06 PM - 17 Feb 2016
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ANI @ANI_news
I don't think you can call that situation has went out of hand, I don't think he (kanhaiya kumar) was beaten up_BS Bassi, Delhi police Comm
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ANI @ANI_news
My info is that there was very jostling when he was brought to court, he was escorted by police officers and was taken care of-BS Bassi
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ANI @ANI_news
During jostling our police officers were covering him (kanhaiya) from behind & front with intention of protecting him from assault-BS Bassi
4:26 PM - 17 Feb 2016
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ABP News @abpnewstv
#Kanhaiyakumar tells court that he was saved by.@DelhiPolice officers from being attacked by lawyers#JNUrow
4:34 PM - 17 Feb 2016
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Right after you write about how since the slogans were against “Mother India” and mothers are benign and forgiving, the state shouldn’t be heartless towards seditious elements and forgive her children, you go on and on about how goons at the Patiala court house assaulted journalists and that the state did not take action.

My only concern here, Barkha, is how easily you expect the state to be forgiving and empathetic towards elements that show solidarity with a terrorist who orchestrated the attacked the symbol of Mother India’s sovereignty, the Parliament, but in the same breath demand the sternest action by the state against a handful of out of control lawyers who evidently assaulted journalists.

The law should take its course in both cases. Which it is by summoning the lawyers and by arresting Kanhaiya Kumar and looking for Umar Khalid (who is on the run) for their respective crimes in accordance with the law. You however, demand leniency and forgiveness for one (Anti state elements) and stern action against the other (out of control goons). The “heartlessness and hypocrisy” you lament, dear Barkha, is yours. Not the state’s.

There is a point in your “article” where you talk about how the “rowdy in robes are free” while the innocent students are being questioned about the whereabouts of Umar Khalid, calling the acts of the lawyers “anti constitutionalism”.

Barkha, the acts of hooliganism of the lawyers is certainly against the law, and action in accordance with the Indian Penal Code must be taken. But you fail to realize that it is within the ambit of the law for the police to try and find an absconding criminal wanted by the law agencies. The fact that the police is questioning Umar Khalid’s friends, is also standard procedure as per the law. Of course, it’s not a trolls business to teach the law to Varishth Patrakars like yourself, but when the keepers of facts start blurring the lines between truth and fiction, it becomes necessary.

You wrote :

“Might it not have been wiser and more mature to let the university administration tackle the issue”

Barkha, on 16th February, the “hyper nationalist” channels reported how a high powered enquiry panel of JNU had found Kanhaiya Kumar guilty in the anti-India event case of February 9th. A Times Now report said how 8 students had been suspended and 5 students are still on the run.

Now, considering you trust panels constituted by the varsity more than evidence collected by the police, if the panel constituted by the varsity itself had found Kanhaiya guilty, your entire premise falls flat and your demands for the cases against Kanhaiya being withdrawn are rendered useless.

Your entire article, Barkha, is a maze of misrepresentations and contradictions. It is a conundrum as to whether you want the state to follow the law or be benevolent. You seem to advocate state action when it suits your narrative and propagate benevolence and forgiveness when it doesn’t.

You wanted the state to leave it up to the university to take action against the students who threaten the sovereignty of the state, but propagate heavy handed action by the state against rogue lawyers who turned rowdy outside Patiala Court. You seem to hail the “peaceful march” held by other JNU students in support of fellow students charged with sedition, but black out March For unity by citizens and condemn a peaceful march held by lawyers in support of some other lawyers charged with causing hurt.

You lament how PM Narendra Modi maintained his silence on Dadri (a state law and order issue), and Rohit Vemula suicide (a university issue) and equate it with his silence on the JNU issue where your initial premise is that the state shouldn’t be involved at all. If you think the state shouldn’t be involved in the JNU sedition issue, then why would the PM speak, Barkha? And if you thought the state should have got involved in Dadri and Rohit Vemula suicide, why would you propagate that the state should not get involved in a much more serious issue like sedition?

You write, Barkha, that thought cannot be policed. Yet, you held the state responsible for a suicide, an extreme action which is a product of one’s extreme thoughts. You say that Nationalism cannot be regimented and that it’s for every Indian to define for herself. You said you were ashamed as an Indian at the Patiala Court incident. Yet, you insult citizens like me as “hyper nationalists” when we take severe offense to a bunch of seditionist goons demand “bandook ke dum par azaadi”, “bharat tere tukde honge, Inshallah” and “Afzal tere armano ko manzil tak pahuchayenge”. You went hammer and tongs against the lawyers when they questioned the nationalism of journalists. Yet, you suggest that citizens like me taking offense to anti national illegal slogans that call for the destruction of India’s sovereignty fall under the purview of freedom of expression. You suggest the state follows the law and takes action against rogue lawyers, even for slogans raised, But conveniently forget limitations to freedom of speech that rescind the freedom when it comes to protection of the sovereignty and integrity of the country.

You label the JNU protests as rebellious, non-conformist and anti-establishment. If you truly believe the premise you have spelt, it is tragic how misinformed you are. If you don’t, I applaud your insatiable capacity for motivated and dangerous propaganda. You fail to draw a difference between the lack of action against anti-establishment protests (however despicable) and anti-state intentions.

Afzal Guru was a terrorist, tried and hanged to death for the attack on Indian Parliament. The parliament, is the symbol of democracy and sovereignty of any country. When Afzal Guru attacked the Parliament, he attacked the very existence of our great democracy. When students want to fulfill the wishes of “martyr Afzal Guru”, they essentially want to the sovereignty and integrity of the nation to be reduced to dust. THAT, Barkha, isn’t rebellious or anti establishment.

You said :

“As long as this sloganeering is not accompanied by an incitement to violence, surely we need not use the sledgehammer of sedition against young people”

Thank you for this informed and balanced opinion after a long and tedious spider web of lies and false equivalences. Yes. Sedition charges are valid only when the sloganeering is accompanied by an incitement to violence. I’m sure as a reasonable person, you would agree that slogans like “bandook ke dum par azadi” and “Afzal tere armano ko manzil tak pahuchayenge” certainly, incite violence.

Subhash Chandra Bose, the man who paid with his life the country he lived for said :

Nationalism is inspired by the highest ideals of the human race, satyam [the true], shivam [the god], sundaram [the beautiful]. Nationalism in India has … roused the creative faculties which for centuries had been lying dormant in our people.

I urge you Barkha, to pursue the principles of satyam, shivam, sundaram in your journalism. I urge you, to report facts. I urge you to not malign the glorious sentiment of nationalism. I urge you, to not blur the lines between immorality and illegality.

Barkha, India belongs to its citizens who love her dearly. The tricolor is in our hands. And so is our future.
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After I had seen numerous open letters, I realized that I am the only person that has not only, not written an open letter but has also not responded to any of the unlimited open letters available. It is probable that none of the letters was addressed to me, but normally those responding to such open letters are not exactly the people the letter was directed to, but third parties.

Today, many are writing open letters, as if they are sending a “whatsapp” forwarded joke message to the Prime Minister of country like India, which is known for its laid back bureaucracy and red-tapism. Since it costs them nothing, they write open letters and expect immediate responses to their open letters; possibly with the assumption that even if the prime minister does not respond to such open letters written, at least, he will send a smiley or a pictorial message as a rejoinder to their letter.

As a response to the open letters addressed to the Prime Minister of the nation with the population of 1.2billion people, third parties write counter open letters who somehow assume the role of the prime minister. I, therefore, decided never to write an open letter nor to assume that a particular letter is addressed to me and respond.

But still, my enormous desire for open letters could not stop. To quench my desire for open letters, I started rehearsing and reading all those letters again with the decision that I will not write an open letter which is long; with the intention that a busy person like the prime minister may be able to read and respond at least in the form of smiley or pictorial message.

Consequently, I decided to decode and simplify one of the letters addressed to the Prime Minister by Ms. Barkha Dutt, who seems to be the best journalist as per to the major opposition parties in the country. She, generically, seems to be representing the hundreds of opposition parties but also the 1.2 billion people.

The actual Barkha Dutt’s letter to the prime minister can be read from here.

We now get down to “Decoding Barkha’s Dutt Letter addressed to the Prime Minister” to make it easy for all those who are reading the letter, including the Prime Minister himself if he at all he decides to read her letter.

For this, I use the dictionary from my favorite, R. Jaganathan. As I consider him the master of decoding speeches and open letters too, other than providing financial advice day & night to the Government of the day. I mean, the advice in the night will be 100% different from what he provided in the day. I love to call him as my Guruji, but ever since the Congress’s innovation of Afzal Guru ji, I stopped using Ji. And we are again distracted from the “decoding process.”

Actual Headline of her letter is as follows:

 “A letter to PM Modi from Anti -National Sickular pressitute”.

Deciphering the Headline:

This is a clever distortion, a thorough attempt to narrow down the argument by painting positive things which is obvious and which everybody can agree on. This is what others refer to as anti-national, since the issue you tabled is different from the main topic. Those few who are against JNU slogans are against the fundamental right of “speech”.

Example: “I am for a uniform civil code and if that makes me communal, I accept”

Having decoded the subject of the letter, we now Decode the Letter in one go.

Dear Prime minister,

We both are equal, we both started our career together – you as the General Secretary and I as the Reporter. While you were trying to manage the affairs of the party even without being fluent in English, I mastered the art of managing the entire military. I have not only given input to the past government to solve all the problems of the Indian military, but also have the solutions to the problems which you personally could not solve, be it OROP or Defense Procurement. This signifies that I am the most patriotic person in the entire universe.

Also, I am the best, be it in my part-time job of reporting or full-time job as a consultant to the government. I can be an adviser or critic from The South of Tamil Nadu to Kashmir. Don’t trust my competitors, my service is readily available for you to always see and hence collect. Irrespective of the fact that my friends are teasing me and telling me that I should not provide you any advice. Yet, I am still willing to offer my services.

Additionally, I have always been thinking that you are more inclined towards the center instead of left leaning like the past government, which was my assumption. But with the action your government has taken at JNU, I am totally convinced. Since all your men are completely under your control, we could in no way influence them, unlike previous NDA government headed by Atal Bihari Vajpayee, yours made our lives miserable.

Even during 26/11, when several people were killed by Ajmal Kasab and his friends from Pakistan, the previous UPA government was so accommodating. Not only that they allowed us to access to all their data, but also, the ministers of UPA were accommodating. The interesting part was that each of them was speaking in different languages which enabled us to create so many conspiracies and interesting stories which also led to an increase in our TRP coupled with a mount in my salary too. Your government, on the other hand, has made my job quite difficult. Interestingly, they all speak a single language, leaving us with lesser opportunities to create interesting stories or conspiracy theories and hence, the downward slope in our TRP.

Furthermore, our TRP has come down to 3%.This is because your government does not have a conscience. It only concentrates on filing cases against us and sending us notices.  Since there is no support from the government, we – the like-minded people – tried to lobby, so that our TRP could go up. But to our greatest surprise, your government rejected it. My friends refused to support me in pretention because you told them not to help me in increasing my TRP. I came with the idea of taking support from the lawyers to increase our rating, yet they refused to accept my proposal. But your refusal to support our business as well as your refusal to increase our influence with the corporate, our business almost liquidated. To me, this is against our channel.

We assume, Mr. Prime Minister, which you are aware of our hardship and therefore, you need to do something. It is not only my channel that has this problem, but also other channels except “Times Now” that broadcasts exclusive Dogs barking shows and government-funded channels. All the others channels will be forced to close, if your government refuses to support, just like previous ones. Then again you did not inform us about your visit to Pakistan, due to which we could not get the advantage of 24/7 coverage. It was only a Pakistan TV channel that milked your entire visit. Same with the case of your visit to Kashmir several times, only Pakistani viewers are interested in Kashmir related news so their TRP increased.

After our best efforts we are able to convince some motor mouthed members of your party, all that news they could create for us are about Beef and Demons. Do you agree that news on “cooking beef” and “worshipping demons” is not something people are interested in? When we report news on those subjects, no one views it. We need news that people will watch and a situation whereby our TRP increases. Even when Kanhaya Kumar was being dragged and pulled, our cameraman was not given proper access to show whether he was bleeding or had broken legs or hands.

What kind of police force do you have Mr. PM? … could not even break his leg. Our TRP would have gone up not only locally, but the image would have made both national and international headlines. We need to be reporting the abuse of power so that we can get donations through NGO route. In the previous UPA government, we had a Prime Minister Mr. Manmohan Singh who was not able to give us an exclusive interview as he can’t speak at all. But even now, we do not have hope on Prime Minister – a one to one interview as we know that for sure, will not be given by you. Help us Mr. PM … Support an increase in our TRP.

We know your love for the nation; we also love the nation and also want the nation to become richer so that, we can improve our business by numerous blackmail options we routinely do. But, to our disappointment Mr.  Prime minister, all those news coming from your government is not TRP worthy. After persuading for long, your party members were willing to help us, but all that they could do is to hit a couple in Maharashtra in Mumbai. What can we do with this kind of stupid news? We need news like that of CWG or 2G.

During the previous government, not only did we get all the support to increase our TRP, but also support to make additional income through Ms. Radia and many others.  The previous UPA government allowed us to make enough money, honored me by giving several awards but even asked all the school going students to study about me. But to my dismay, I was told that you will be removing even those lessons about me from the Syllabus.

I am getting older, so before my retirement, I need to make a reasonable amount of money. I also intend to start my own business up. I also published a book that only very few have purchased. Please be kind enough, help us! If you help us, I will try my best to support you. I don’t have money to buy diamonds for you though. If you make up your mind that you are not helping me after reading this letter, well, God help you. I pray to God and I believe that the government that will support me will be in power in 2019.

Dear Prime Minister, India belongs to people like us, not you. People like me have built this country over a period of 50 years of hard work, and we have built a strong eco system. Whatever you may try, our eco system will fail you, and 2019 will be ours.

Yours truly,
Anti-national Presstitute Barkha Dutt.
Post Script (This is from me, not Ms. Barkha Dutt):