The Red Queen of Indian Politics

Subramanian Swamy, the perpetual disruptor in Indian politics, is the protagonist of a certain way of public life that may be called ‘Swamyism’ in line with McCarthyism. He also bears an uncanny resemblance to the Red Queen in Through the Looking Glass, the “cause of all the mischief”, as Alice would put it. True to their common demeanor, Swamy is now repeating the Queen’s famous words” “Off with their heads” against anyone he personally dislikes. With the same haughtiness with which the Red Queen strutts on the chess board, Swamy seems to strutt Indian politics with exactly the same pompous claim: “All the ways about here belong to me”! Fortunately, nothing about Swamy would last long. He would rouse enough rabbles to bury himself sooner than later. The political fate that awaits Swamyism is the same as that of McCarthyism, which, in President Eisenhower’s famous words had become “McCarthywasm” by the late nineteen fifties. 

Vemula's suicide and our insensitivity.

Suicides are not new. But Rohith Vemula's was different. His suicide letter makes it uniquely poignant. See for yourself:

http://raiot.in/last-words-of-rohith-vemula/

Good morning,

I would not be around when you read this letter. Don’t get angry on me. I know some of you truly cared for me, loved me and treated me very well. I have no complaints on anyone. It was always with myself I had problems. I feel a growing gap between my soul and my body. And I have become a monster. I always wanted to be a writer. A writer of science, like Carl Sagan. At last, this is the only letter I am getting to write.

I always wanted to be a writer. A writer of science, like Carl Sagan.

I loved Science, Stars, Nature, but then I loved people without knowing that people have long since divorced from nature. Our feelings are second handed. Our love is constructed. Our beliefs colored. Our originality valid through artificial art. It has become truly difficult to love without getting hurt.

The value of a man was reduced to his immediate identity and nearest possibility. To a vote. To a number. To a thing. Never was a man treated as a mind. As a glorious thing made up of star dust. In very field, in studies, in streets, in politics, and in dying and living.

I am writing this kind of letter for the first time. My first time of a final letter. Forgive me if I fail to make sense.

My birth is my fatal accident. I can never recover from my childhood loneliness. The unappreciated child from my past.

May be I was wrong, all the while, in understanding world. In understanding love, pain, life, death. There was no urgency. But I always was rushing. Desperate to start a life. All the while, some people, for them, life itself is curse. My birth is my fatal accident. I can never recover from my childhood loneliness. The unappreciated child from my past.

I am not hurt at this moment. I am not sad. I am just empty. Unconcerned about myself. That’s pathetic. And that’s why I am doing this.

objects in mirror are (never) closer than they appear. (From Rohit’s Facebook Wall)

People may dub me as a coward. And selfish, or stupid once I am gone. I am not bothered about what I am called. I don’t believe in after-death stories, ghosts, or spirits. If there is anything at all I believe, I believe that I can travel to the stars. And know about the other worlds.

If you, who is reading this letter can do anything for me, I have to get 7 months of my fellowship, one lakh and seventy five thousand rupees. Please see to it that my family is paid that. I have to give some 40 thousand to Ramji. He never asked them back. But please pay that to him from that.

Let my funeral be silent and smooth. Behave like I just appeared and gone. Do not shed tears for me. Know that I am happy dead than being alive.

“From shadows to the stars.”

Uma anna, sorry for using your room for this thing.

To ASA family, sorry for disappointing all of you. You loved me very much. I wish all the very best for the future.

For one last time,

Jai Bheem

I forgot to write the formalities. No one is responsible for my this act of killing myself.
No one has instigated me, whether by their acts or by their words to this act.
This is my decision and I am the only one responsible for this.
Do not trouble my friends and enemies on this after I am gone.

The regular vultures among news channel analysts, ever watchful for salacious cadavers, swooped on Vemula and his letter, clawed and beaked into them and strewed around the blood-oozing shreds and bits gleefully, after, of course, not forgetting to bereave the loss of a promising young dalit. Unalloyed hypocrisy! They asked: Where does Vemula mention even once that he was committing suicide because he was a dalit! They would deliberately miss the wood! They also asked: Where does Vemula blame anyone for his decision? They would deliberately miss that also, the finesses of a suicide letter. We are all hypocrites - those who practice it,  those who miss it, and those who accept it. That means all of us! To distort the nobility in a suicide note that seeks forbearance from friends and exonerates the culpability of "enemies", one should be monstrously mean! That is what some of us have attempted to do. Resignation of a V C or the resignation of a minister might assuage the primitive passion for vengeance. Those functionaries are only the mindless agents of a rotten system. Reform is what is needed. Where shall we start it? I don't know the answer.     .