I draw your attention to the fact that this is a publicly accessible RTI group.
A complaint has been sent to me that your post below was previously
published on a private RTI group [RTI4empowerment] and has caused some
inconvenience to our members by clogging their email inboxes with "junk".
This group has exhaustively discussed the issue of junkmail / cross-posting
and has overwhelmingly voted that "Cross Posting" should be prohibited.
Accordingly, kindly modify your email program protcols to ensure that only
unique content is posted to this group.
BTW,
1) The quote you attribute to Pastor Niemoller is of dubious provenance
(as dubious as your claim to be President of your self constituted National RTI
forum). The so called Pastor Niemoller was a German naval officer responsible
for the killing of hundreds of people and decorated with the Iron Cross for it.
He then (like you) set up his own "church" and became a self-appointed "pastor"
and flip-flopped between supporting Nazism and opposing it as was politically
expedient. The quote you refer to is a hoax and was only concocted in the US
in the 1960's during the McCarthy era.
2) Similarly, Mr Kartikeyan, in his own autobiography (Rajiv Gandhi
Assassination)
describes how, he and his SIT systematically murdered in cold blood (without
following due process) civilians like Tiruchy Santhan (?? from memory, I dont
have the book with me now) and illegally administered high power experimental
truth serum drugs to illegally detained suspects which killed them). You must
be very proud to be sharing the stage with such an eminent person and holding
up people like Niemoller and Kartikeyan as examples to be emulated..
Sarbajit
On 8/2/10, Amitabh Thakur <amitabhth@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> Friends,
>
> Recently I had gone to Pune
> for a Seminar organized by Sadhana Management Institute of an impressive
> personality Sri M S Pillai. I was invited there as the President of the
> National RTI forum and the students were quite curious about the facts,
> figures
> and aspects related with RTI. There incidentally I and Sri D R Karthikeyan,
> the
> IPS officer whom we all know not only as the ex-Director of CBI but also as
> the
> head of the SIT team that investigated into the Rajiv Gandhi murder case got
> placed in the same session. Here along with other things, he also presented
> one
> famous quotation by German Pastor Martin Niemöller, an avid anti-Nazi
> theologian, which has become a bye-word of public conscience. I had possibly
> heard this before but somehow that day this quote made a great impact upon
> me
> and hugely affected my thinking process. The present the quote (despite
> knowing
> that for many it would be nothing more than a repetition)-
>
> "THEY CAME FIRST for the Communists,
>
> and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Communist.
>
> THEN THEY CAME for the trade unionists,
>
> and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a trade unionist.
>
>
>
> THEN THEY CAME for the Jews,
>
> and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew.
>
>
>
> THEN THEY CAME for me
>
> and by that time no one was left to speak up."
>
>
>
> In my own speech, I gave a live example, which I would like to present
> before
> you as well. It is related to a police officer Mr A (who considers himself a
> right-thinking officer) when he was posted in a district. During those days
> police officers were being transferred at a very rapid pace, so much so that
> there were even instances of an officer posted in the morning having got
> his/her transfer order by the day's end. In the same circumstances, one fine
> day an officer in an adjacent district of mine got transferred. He had
> barely
> come a week or a fortnight before. Mr A, during his talks to his immediate
> supervisory officer, who was this transferred officer's boss as well tried
> to
> show his dissent to this kind of rampant transfers giving his own set of
> logic
> and arguments for this being detrimental both for the state and the affected
> individual. To this A's supervisory officer gave a brief sermon where he not
> only tried to justify such acts as being necessary for an efficient
> administration but also being a result of close performance based
> evaluation.
> He even warned Mr A of the same, if he didn't improve his performance to the
> desired level. Mr A got the message and intelligently turned the topic.
>
>
>
> As luck would have it, barely a week would have passed when the same
> supervisory officer got transferred. And now Mr A again phoned this officer,
> but the moment A said that such transfers are not good for the health of
> state's administration, this officer's tone and language was completely
> changed. This time he not only completely agreed but also added a few more
> facts and figures to show how such rampant transfers were producing such an
> adverse impact impact on law and order. His final verdict was that if the
> same
> situation prevailed, the day was not far away when the State would get
> completely out of control. Mr A nodded and apparently agreed to this once
> more,
> albeit very well understanding everything.
>
>
>
> The same situation we face each and every day, in all walks of life. We are
> being averse and unaffected to other's problems. "Mujhse kya matlab?", "What
> is
> my concern?" and "Why shall I poke my nose" are the usual refrains and the
> usual reactions to all such situations. But then, are we assured that such
> things are not going to happen to me and you. And hence after the Communist,
> the trade-unionist and the "Jew', it might very well be the turn of a decent
> person. Sadly, by that time there would be no one left to defend that decent
> person.
>
>
>
> It was a pleasure and privilege listening to Sri Karthikeyan but at the same
> time, I must say with a bit of pride that he also seems to have smiled (if
> not
> laughed) not less than a dozen times along with the large number of students
> when the undersigned was delivering his impromptu speech.
>
>
>
> Amitabh Thakur
>
> IPS,
>
> Currently at IIM Lucknow
>
> # 94155-34526
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
------------------------------------
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