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It is comforting to note the voices of growing concern at the disgusting
display of virulent communalism and hatred being allowed to grab the
cultural space of the Kala Academy. Under the guise of shedding
crocodile tears for the Kashmiri Pundits, they are trying to create a
false persecution complex in the minds of the majority community and
instigating it to teach a "befitting lesson" to the minority community.
Okay, that event is over. But now they are moving to Shiroda and Margao
and then elsewhere. They are broadcasting the films "asking Hindus to
pick up the gauntlet" on the local cable networks. We have to shed our
attitude of careless indifference. Ignorance in this case will be the
death knell of bliss.
Some have suggested protesting to the government and the police. The CM
has himself visited the exhibition, so he cannot feign ignorance. The
inaction on the part of the Goa government and the police does not give
much confidence that
they will act.
Protest is needed on every front. And pressure has to be brought to bear
on the government to live up to its secular credentials. This has to be
a citizens' protest, in which each one of us is leader.
There are no easy answers as to how to best proceed towards this goal.
But this has to be a people's thing. Each person has to be figure out
how best they can contribute to the people's effort and act upon it.
Some possible courses of action are suggested below:
1. Draw up a petition condemning this in the strongest terms, and get
the maximum number of signatures possible within a short time. Submit
the petition to the CM, the CS and the Home Minister and ask them to
stop conniving with communal agendas.
2. Organise public meetings on this matter. Condemn it in the strongest
terms and demand action.
3. Write in the media about the exhibition and its communal agenda, as
Jason has done.
4. Use every nook of cyberspace you can to express your views: Goanet,
all goa mailgroups, all blogs.
There will be many, many citizens of Goa who will have other ideas.
Whatever we can think of, let each of us do.
Let this 'secular' government understand that protecting secular values
does not mean winning an election and then sitting around watching Goa
being communalised under their very eyes.
Let them know that the usually silent majority will not sit quiet while
this goes on.
--
"Those who profess to favor freedom, and yet deprecate agitation, are
men who want rain without thunder and lightning. They want the ocean
without the roar of its many waters...Power concedes nothing without a
demand. It never did and it never will." — Frederick Douglass
