BJP Man Urinates on Tribal Labourer!
An alleged local aide of BJP MLA Kedarnath Shukla, the accused, 30-year oldPravesh Shukla was arrested for urinating on a Tribal man, Dashmat Rawat, a member of the Kol tribe, which is the largest tribal community in the state’s Vindhya region.
Pravesh physically assaulted the Tribal man. He was heavily intoxicated at that time when Rawat approached him to request his unpaid wages. The victim belongs to a “Minority Class” – his family didn’t have the courage to lodge a complaint over the incident. The accused Pravesh was arrested under National Security Act, and a part of his house constructed illegally was reported to have been demolished with bulldozers.
In this regard, Mr. Rahul Gandhi said that BJP’s anti-Dalit and anti-tribal face stands exposed with the urinating incident.
Chowdhry Nisar Ahmed
Noorullah pet, Ambur (Tamil Nadu)
Money Makes the World Work
In the present times, it’s money which makes the world go around, irrespective of language, nation and religion. Wars may cause widespread suffering and death, but are good for the arms manufacturing industry. Therefore, it is in the interests of those who benefit from war to keep nations in a permanent state of tension and fear of being attacked.
People are being manipulated under the guise of patriotism to spend more on weapons than on health and education.It is those with big money who are calling the shots and many politicians are mere pawns in their games to make more money. In all nations across the world, it is big business which decides on the course of action of the nation.
It is also necessary to redefine obscenity. There is nothing more obscene in the world than seeing common people killing each other in a war to the applause of those who are sending them there to fight. The current love for India stems from the fact that India is a huge market. We should not get carried away by this ‘buttering’ of world leaders and ‘I am a fan’ kind of comments from those whose only intention is to make money.
Look at the way the Adivasis and other tribal people are deprived of their lands by the corporates in trying to extract minerals. All kinds of reasons are given including national security for those indulging in mining operations to make money. Activists fighting for tribal rights are either accused of conversion or being urban Naxals and sent to prison without charge sheets being filed for a long period of time. Can we, the people, really afford to be silent?
Anthony Henriques
Mumbai, Maharashtra
More Unrest
In a desperate bid to reassert its authority, the Pakistan army has sacked three of its senior officers for their failure to protect key military installations during the violence that erupted on May 9 after the arrest of former Prime Minister Imran Khan. The violence, allegedly perpetrated by supporters of Imran’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party, has exposed disunity within the military, which has had a stranglehold on the country’s polity over decades. The fact that pro-Imran protesters managed to storm heavily guarded premises left no room for doubt that some insiders were in league with them. The thinly veiled warning by the army is that defence officers or their family members whose sympathies are with Imran will not be spared.
With the general election due later this year, the military and the Shehbaz Sharif government are going all out to defang Imran and his loyalists. Playing the victim card to the hilt, the ex-PM has alleged that he and other PTI leaders are being targeted. The military’s two-pronged strategy – a crackdown on the PTI top brass and a purge within its own ranks – could help it regain control.
Or else, the ploy may backfire and tilt the electoral scales in Imran’s way. In either case, the economically crippled Pakistan needs to brace itself for a long spell of political unrest.
- Sadhasiva Reddy
Everett, Washington