Right Responsibility

With every right comes a responsibility- It’s an age old principle.

The attack on senior advocate Prashant Bhushan has to be condemned in the harshest possible words. The organizations like “Shri Ram Sene” and “Bhagat Singh Kranti Sena” have no place in a civilized society and a vibrant democracy. But to me the issue here is not what Shri Ram Sene did. Even today there are people supporting overtly/covertly the ideas of Fascism and Nazism. These are social miscreants and its better that they are publicly condemned and socially boycotted. For them any publicity is a good publicity so its also better that they should not be given any publicity.

The issue to me is the statement of Prashant Bhushan. He is an erudite and intelligent lawyer. He has also been involved in social activism and famously been called “PIL Bhushan”. Bhushan along with Dr. Swami have been fighting the 2G scam in the courts. It’s almost impossible to defeat him in the arguments of wits. So if you argue with him about ‘freedom of expression with reasonable restrictions’, he will definitely convince you that he is well within ‘freedom of expression’ as guaranteed by the Constitution.

The problem here is Prashant Bhushan is no longer an ordinary Lawyer of Supreme Court/activist. In the fight against corruption, he has been one of the leading activists at the national level. The Team Anna is looking for mobilization of public voice against corruption. He has even represented Civil Society as a member of team of civil society representatives. If he has to represent ‘us’ then he must also understand and respect the sentiments of general public before voicing his “personal” opinions. This is the exactly what was warned about Team Anna. They are not merely an NGO, almost all the Indians look at them as the lost hope. The members of Team Anna must understand the gravity of responsibility now they are carrying. There are hounds waiting for slips like this and Prashant Bhushan has sadly provided them with fodder.

The statement becomes even more bizarre as right now there is no issue in Kashmir as such. The team of interlocutors has already been appointed (They have already submitted their report to the Government) and the people of Kashmir have been participating in the democratic process of our country. In our country we will find a lot of places which are seething with public outrage due to non-development. But the solutions for the same cannot be extreme. Telangana is demanding a separate state not a country. If we aspire to be a super power then we must take all the regions as well as different factions together and move ahead.

I must again mention that the cowardly attack on 56 year old man is condemnable in harshest possible words. But I do not attach much importance to anti-social elements. I would rather channelise my energies to support Prashant Bhushan in his noble works. All of us have many freedoms and rights as enshrined in our Constitution. But we must not stretch these privileges. Again not because we are afraid of some cowards but because it’s futile to get into arguments with these groups. When brain stops functioning we feel the necessity to resort to violence!

-N.D.K. Nikhil

14.10.2011