It is reported that members of Popular front of india member had been associated with chopping hand of Prof T.J. Jacob in kerala , and such acts have to be condemned by all without considering their political or religious affiliations , we are believers of humanity , just include the name of this organisation also in the proposed Ban list.
--- In rti_india@yahoogroups.com, Chitta Behera <chittabehera1@...> wrote:
>
> Attack
> on Advocate Prashant Bhushan must be squarely and unequivocally condemned,
> without using any diluting ‘if’ or ‘but’
>
> (Download Oriya article from http://www.box.net/shared/l13nrptros3lpb8vr0tv)
>
> Though
> most of parties, civil society groups and rights activists have condemned the
> brutal attack on senior advocate Prashant Bhushan, an overwhelming majority of
> them including Congress at one extreme and RSS at another have carefully chosen
> to dilute the tenor of their condemnation by adding an uncalled-for qualifying proviso
> to their respective statements. The said proviso, though differently worded by
> different groups, says that Mr.Prashant Bhushan shouldn’t have spoken on the
> Kashmir issue the way he did a few days prior to the tragic incident. It was
> disturbing to notice that such commentators were overly concerned with the
> Kashmir issue at the moment, and not with the dirty violence perpetrated on
> Prashant Bhushan in his chamber in the premises of Supreme Court. It seemed, as
> if a plebiscite was being undertaken right under their nose in mainland India
> at that point of time and each of them asked to convey their opinion in the
> public domain for solving the much tangled Kashmir issue once and for all. On
> another plane it appeared as if Mr.Prashant Bhushan being the President or
> Prime Minister of India issued some unacceptable statement which if not shouted
> down instantly would plunge the whole nation into an irretrievable loss or
> ignominy. As a matter of fact, nothing of the sort happened. Mr.Bhushan in
> capacity of a citizen of India expressed certain views on Kashmir, which may
> not be acceptable to the Government, most political parties or quite many social
> outfits. But as guaranteed by his fundamental right to freedom of speech and
> expression under Article 19(1) of the Constitution, Mr.Bhushan or for that
> matter any citizen of the country is absolutely entitled to air his/her views on
> any matter if not explicitly subject to reasonable restrictions on the exercise
> of the said right to freedom as may be required under Article 19 (2) of the
> Constitution. Has the Government, legislature or judiciary of the country ever
> imposed any such restriction on the citizens’ freedom of expression in respect
> of Kashmir issue? To our knowledge no and never ever. Then, the moot question arises,
> as the moment for squarely condemning a physical attack on a citizen’s freedom
> of expression comes, why should one dilute his/her statement of condemnation by
> issuing an uncalled-for sermon as to what the victim shouldn’t have said while
> exercising the freedom of expression? The real point at issue was whether the violent
> attack on Mr.Bhushan on the ground of his espousal of certain views on Kashmir
> was justified at all? Here the question relating to merit or demerit of his views
> didn’t arise at all. Because, the Constitution by virtue of its Article 19(1)
> has empowered every citizen to speak on the merit or demerit of any position,
> irrespective of the consideration as to whether it conflicted with or was in
> sync with the official line or for that matter with any other line. It is a
> matter of great agony and anguish that even a highly learned veteran of Indian
> judiciary and the newly inducted Chairman of Press Council Justice Markandey
> Katzu in course of his recent walk-the-talk interview with Editor Indian
> Express did also qualify his condemnation of violence against Prashant Bhushan
> with an advisory that the latter shouldn’t have spoken the way he did on
> Kashmir issue. Such qualifying remarks by Mr.Katzu against Prashant’s
> observations on Kashmir did certainly dilute the tenor of his condemnation
> against the physical attack on Prashant Bhushan perpetrated by the goons in the
> guise of self-appointed patriots allegedly to curb his freedom of speech. It’s
> painful to recall that such dastardly attacks undertaken by the muscle-flexing goons
> at the instance of fundamentalists on the citizens’ freedom of speech around
> this or that issue, have taken place intermittently in last two decades.
> Attacks on the house of Arundhati Roy for her out-of-box remarks on Kashmir, on
> that of MF Hussain for his iconoclastic creations of art and the attack on
> Binayak Sen for his anti-Salwa Jhudum observations are a few recent instances
> of vicarious persecution by the civil society goons in connivance with the
> powers-that-be. The net result of such attacks on the great free thinkers of
> our country is a slow, but steady erosion of the very legitimacy of the
> constitutionally guaranteed freedom of speech and expression, on account of
> which India is slipping off into the murderous clutches of diehard
> fundamentalist and obscurantist forces. To safeguard India’s destiny as a pluralist
> democracy, what is required at the moment is to give a try to Mr.Prashant
> Bhushan’s proposal to ban and boycott those very outfits which in the name of
> ‘nation’ or ‘religion’ hold to ransom the citizens’ freedom of expression, the
> foundational principle of any democracy worth the name.
>
> Chitta
> Behera, Cuttack
> 17
> October 2011
>
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