Recently at a rally in Freedom Park, Bangalore, 19 year old Amulya Leona was seen shouting ‘Pakistan Zindabad’ (Long Live Pakistan) twice and later also ‘Hindustan Zindabad’ (Long Live India). She was not allowed to complete her speech. AIMIM leader Asaduddin Owaisi, who was sharing the stage, rushed to her and shouted, ‘What are you saying? You cannot say this.’
Leona’s mike was grabbed and policemen appeared on stage from nowhere and arrested her. The DCP of Bangalore (West), B.Ramesh, said later that they had registered a suo moto case (i.e. without any complaint being received) against the 19-year-old woman under Sections 124A and 153A and B of the penal code (sedition, promoting enmity between different groups and imputations, assertion prejudicial to national integration).
While chief minister B.S.Yedurappa of the BJP quickly capitalised on the opportunity to condemn Leona and also “connect” her to Naxalites, other politicians limited their observations to condemning her statement. Her father Oswald Noronha was heckled by right-wing activists who forced him to chant ‘Bharat Mata ki Jai‘. Asked if he would seek bail, Noronha said, “I will not approach lawyers for her bail.”
Very few people went to study what the girl wanted to say.
On February 16, a week before this incident, Leona wrote a Facebook post which her friends claim was the content of her speech. The text of the post is given below:
“Hindustan Zindabad
Pakistan Zindabad
Bangladesh Zindabaad
Sri lanka Zindabad
Nepal Zindabad
Afghanistan Zindabad
China zindabad
Bhutan zindabad
Whichever country it is – zindabad to all countries.
You teach the children that nation is it’s soil. We children are telling you – nation means it is its people. All people should get their basic facilities. All of them should be able to avail their fundamental rights. Governments should take care of the people of these countries.
Zindabad to everyone who serve the people. I don’t become a part of a different nation just because I say zindabad to that nation. As per law, I am an Indian citizen. It is my duty to respect my nation and work for the people of the country. I will do that. Let us see what these RSS guys will do.”
Amulya Leona was about to speak about universal brotherhood, sisterhood. But she was not allowed to do so. Without studying the case, every political and media leader jumped onto the bandwagon, claiming here is somebody who is supporting the ‘enemy’.
Now, who created the ‘enemy’? Amulya Leona is not responsible for that. Both the Pakistani leadership and the leadership in India bear the responsibility for creating such ‘enmity’ over decades. It occurs to common sense that for large numbers of people, without ‘the enemy’ there could be no nationalism or patriotism.
Leona’s plea for peaceful coexistence was forcibly stopped after her first sentence itself, by none other than Owaisi. Pretensions of peace with Pakistan have been a regular exercise by every prime minister in India so far. In Pakistan, all rulers did the same thing against India. It was in this context, when the politics of hate was reaching a climax, that people-to-people forums emerged demanding peace between India and Pakistan.
There is nothing anti-national about Leona’s forcibly stopped speech. In another language, it was a statement for peace in south Asia. We need to condemn the reactions of Owaisi and other politicians, as well as the police.
Is there a law in this country that no Indian citizen should hail the people of any other country except India?
Some secular people are of the opinion that Leona should not have begun with Pakistan Zindabad, but ended with it, as a strategy. They feel the girl is stupid and immature. Does this justify the sedition charges levelled against her?
The question is not what she should have said or how. The question is, what did Amulya Leona do to deserve being charged under Sections 124A, 153A and B?
How is it that raising a slogan for the long life of another country becomes an act against Indian interests? When our government claims that it has a much better defence machinery than Pakistan, why are people so afraid of a slogan from a little girl, meant to strengthen peace and not war?
Human and civil rights activists have call the colonial-era sedition law draconian and have undertaken many campaigns demanding its removal. Incidentally, both Gandhi and Nehru were charged with sedition. They demanded the law be removed and condemned the draconian law itself. But the same law is being used in a game between crude nationalism and citizenship today.
A person who speaks for world peace is arrested on sedition charges, while the people who have truly been promoting enmity on religious grounds go scot-free. None of the organisations connected with the RSS, including some of the existing ministers who spread the politics of hate, are charged with 124A or 153A and B.
Union Minister for Animal Husbandry, Dairying and Fisheries Giriraj Singh recently stated that all Muslims should have been sent to Pakistan in 1947. Similar hate speeches by the Sangh Parivar and other ministers never came under legal sanction.
The Sangh Parivar has created a major change in the public consciousness, such that even ordinary people are afraid to say anything in favour of Pakistan. Their hate speeches have generated a climate in the popular consciousness, by creating a cage for even human and civil rights activists, on what they can say and what they cannot. All political parties today are scared to say anything that goes beyond the boundaries of this artificially created popular consciousness.
And the boundaries for this “popular” consciousness are shrinking every day, with all the major institutions helmed and appropriated by the Hindutva lobby. In this sense the Hindu Rashtra (state) has already emerged in Indian popular consciousness. Fascism has not just reached our doorsteps, it has crossed the door of mainstream psyche. The real takeover may only be a matter of time.
The Sri Ram Sena has publicly offered Rs.10 lakh for murdering Amulya.
There is still no arrest of its leader Sanjeev Maradi for issuing such a statement. Such organisations that spread the politics of hate are rarely touched by those who are responsible for enforcing the law in India. What we should be concerned is about the safety of this little girl today. Indo-Pak peace forums, women’s groups, human and civil rights groups and secular forces should be taking up the issue.
It is also time, before making judgments on Amulya Leona, that we make some self-critical assessments of ourselves. Writings and speeches filled with hate have been going on in both India and Pakistan for several decades. Though there have been various attempts in the past to strengthen peace between the people of Pakistan and India, these efforts do not seem to be adequate to counter the politics of hate.
What Amulya said was only a biblical statement: ‘Thou Shalt Love Thy Neighbour as Thyself’. Therefore, she was not strengthening any enmity, but was promoting peace. And it is absolutely ‘sane’ and ‘normal’ to speak about peace within the spirits of justice and harmony enshrined in the Indian Constitution. The cases against her must be immediately withdrawn.
In March 2017 the Hindustan Times reported an RSS leader’s statement that Pakistan is our brother and the government must work to improve ties. Dattatreya Hosabale shrugged off the acrimony between the two governments, saying such things happen ‘in a family between brothers and one should move on and improve relationships.’
The day after police arrested Leona, godman Sri Sri Ravishankar stated that ‘Pakistan and India and all countries, we should all remember that we are all human, we are all a part of this planet, we are sons of Ishwar, and we should come together with love... Pakistan, Hindustan should move forward with friendship. Jai Hind aur Pakistan Zindabad saath saath chalein (Long live India and long live Pakistan should go hand in hand)’.
Are these statements anti-national too, and do Shankar and Hosabale deserve to be charged with sedition like Amulya?
The real violators of the Constitution are those who suppressed Leona’s freedom of expression on stage. Owaisi was seen rushing to prevent her from speaking, as other men grabbed her mike. Perhaps Owaisi forgot that he was only another speaker at the meeting and not its chairperson.
Even if he had been chair, such behaviour of manhandling a little girl was crude. He should have tried to uphold democratic traditions in a public meeting, rather than dragging the girl to male police. Anyone who sees the video will be able to understand the undemocratic behaviour of such a leader. Even if Owaisi was scared of being branded an anti-national, since he comes from a Muslim community, it does not give him space to forget the boundaries of democracy.
The real violators are also the policemen who arrested Leone from on stage and brought her down. There were no woman police personnel present when she was being arrested. The behaviour of the police needs to be condemned since there was a blatant violation of women’s rights on stage.
The need of the hour is to act before it’s too late. Women’s groups must expose the anti-woman behaviour of the police and the others responsible. We must take the cue from Amulya Leona and campaign for peace, so people in Pakistan and India can live in harmony.
Amulya’s safety is our responsibility. After his visit to Pakistan, Narendra Modi stated in a television programme that his visit provided a reassurance to ordinary Pakistanis that India does not mean any harm to Pakistan. But what has happened is a matter of national shame.
We can only hope that sanity, wisdom and peaceful existence prevail sometime in future, when we get rid of our own fears and regulate those who create fear for their own personal and political ends.
The time may come, perhaps after a lot of trouble, pain and bloodshed, when the people of south Asia will be proud of each other, expressing compassion for one another rather than limiting their thoughts within prescribed artificial boundaries. The time will come!
K.P.Sasi is an Indian film director and Cartoonist from Bengaluru.