Hope

Yesterdays news brought a some hope - for once I was not very sad to read the newspaper. It showed the world that in this country of 1.4 billion people,  there still few  people with spine and they may bring change to the country. 

And of course, after that I went to twitter to see what are they bickering  now. And what enraged me were the reactions of TV media and their debaters. The famous shouter Arnab was saying that these people were (the kids) threatening protests all over the country - by protest they mean violence - so there will be violence all over the country. And many commenters rightly told him to go to the field and see with your own eyes whether the protesters were violent or peaceful. (By the way did he talk about this violence when one minister shouted in a packed meeting "desh ke gaddaron ko" and the crowd answered "goli maro salon ko". Yes, by traitors he meant people of another religion and the crowd knew it.)

In fact many people who did visit the protest site, were praising the way these kids were helping others, providing medical supplies, providing water to everyone and were respectful and protective towards girls and women.

 I was so happy and proud to see the video of  a young girl opening her arms and blocking the police from attacking others in the group. I watched the video of boy being surrounded by cops and beaten by them and telling them "maaro, aur maaro, maar dalo". 

Yes, Arnab, I can understand you. We have become disillusioned and cynical and find it hard to believe that there are people who are doing some work while risking their own lives without any ulterior motive, without being paid huge sums. But now we see that there are such people left. Believe them Arnab, believe in the nation, the nation you invoke each evening. 

And Anand Ranganathan - professor who is present in most of TV debates and who vehemently supports the government and opposes the opposition parties was for once objecting to a government action. 

But his objection was unique. He was saying "Good people were protesting against paper leaks and also bad people. Government instead of listening to good people, chose to listen to bad people - the anarchists". Mr. Ranganathan you are a learned professor - you must know very well who and what anarchists are. Did you see anarchists in these protesting children from all over the country and their supporters who were sitting in Jantar Mantar for more than a month, risking police lathis, facing sun and rain? Not hitting any one, not turning over vehicles, not lynching any one. It is time you changed lenses of your glasses, Mr. Ranganathn. 

And I have seen multiple videos of people saying that suddenly a truck filled with stones appeared on the protest site out of no where. 

Ok, that is that. Now the change. The new education minister is said to have cheered the release of rapists of Bilkis Bano  and said to be a much stronger supporter of right wing. And we all know that this may not change anything at all - neither for the students, nor for the nation. 

But as I told you before, it has brought hope in all of us that not all is lost. Jai Hind.