At the outset, I must compliment Sandeep for his very spirited defence of Santosh. After all, that's for friends are for. Even Ram Jethmalani would have been impressed and proud of him:-) If he seeks an alternative career other than medicine, he and law are made for each other:-)
Sandeep Heble: A fair assessment would have been one done by placing all the records on the table and not selectively placing some passages and interpreting a couple of lines out of context.Santosh did not justify the riots in Orissa. He condemned them on more than one occasion. Response: Sandeep, while I agree with you that Santosh did condemn the violence, his condemnation was not unequivocal. First he tried to downplay the extent of violence which also drew protests from Selma. Then he insensitively posted an article by Ingrid Albuquerque which called the protests against the violence as an 'unnecessary furore'. He then welcomed an article by Gurumurthy (of RSS) which was trying to whitewash the violence as 'a broad perspective'. Then he assertively supported the RSS inspired news item in Indian Express trying to nail R K Nayak as the kingpin and mastermind behind the swami's killing, all the while thrashing articles by Julio Ribeiro, Khushwant Singh, Karan Thapar, George Menezes, Shashi Tharoor, Vir Sanghvi, Maxwell Pereira and many others as partisan propaganda. This was followed by his assertive statement that the violence was a retaliation for the killing of the swami. The word retaliation has very serious connotations. Taken together with the above examples, can one conclude otherwise? You are free to derive your own conclusions. Sandeep: What Santosh stated, about the retaliatory nature of the riots, is a matter of fact and is not an opinion. The rioters believed that they were taking revenge for the murder of the Swami. Their minds were conditioned to think in that way. Ditto in Gujarat and Delhi where the rioters believed that they were taking revenge for the Godhra Carnage and Indira Gandhi?s assassination. Response: Sandeep, I am sorry, I cannot agree with you. One, the dictionary meaning of retaliation is reprisal, revenge, vengence, retribution. Killing innocent people can NEVER ever be called retaliation. Let us not even attempt to put a spin on the word to suit our convenience or support our argument. It is just not on.What happened in Delhi in 1984, in Gujarat in 2002 and in Orissa in 2008 were not acts of retaliation but pure goondaism and vandalism. The aggressors in all cases were goaded on by their leaders to kill and destroy innocent people supported by a pliable administration for political gain. One cannot retaliate against a party who has done you no harm in the first place. And secondly, if we consider ourselves a civil society, there is a legal process for every grievance. Taking law into one's own hands can never be condoned or justified. Let us not legitimise the word retaliation. Regards, Marshall