Humra Quraishi
If we are finally over cooing new-year greetings, it’s about time to open your eyes and stare at the dark beginnings of this new year. Foremost is the nationwide trucker’s strike, which, in turn, affects the daily lives of just about everybody; stinky rich or the hapless poor. Today (January 2, 2024, the day I’m filing this column) is the second day of the strike, and news reports are coming in detail that in Chandigarh, petrol will be sold along the rationed strain – not more than five litres per vehicle. In many locales, long queues can be seen at the petrol stations and also at the provision stores as there are apprehensions of the shortage of everyday commodities.
Serious build-ups as truckers are halting, if not abandoning, their vehicles in protest against the new penal law on hit-and-run accidents, which is part of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita. The law stipulates up to 10 years imprisonment or a fine of Rs 7 lakh for drivers causing serious road accidents and fleeing the scene… Mind you, if this strike goes on beyond day three, it will affect not just everyday survival, but it’s bound to have an adverse impact during the elections. The truckers are fuming, disgusted at the way this government is treating them.
“Though the three rapist men accused of raping a student of IIT Varanasi have been finally and formally arrested, why did the police force take 60 days to make the arrests? Why the delay when their whereabouts were well splashed? The accused men are said to be close to the top brass of the BJP.”
Students, academics, and activists are also fuming. They are asking: Though the three rapist men accused of raping a student of IIT Varanasi have been finally and formally arrested, why did the police force take 60 days to make the arrests? Why the delay when their whereabouts were well splashed? The accused men are said to be close to the top brass of the BJP. There’s ample photographic evidence of this, where they are seen posing with the rulers of the day… Today, the safety and security of women seem to be at the very lowest rung, where the mafia seems to be calling the shots. Not really surprising; with all-round degeneration, the vulnerable are not just targeted but ruined for times to come. Look at how very helpless are the likes of National and International level champs – Sakshi Malik and Vinesh Phogat and several others. Their careers are ruined because the tainted men have to be protected under various political guises.
And with the homes of our fellow citizens getting bulldozed, there’s bound to be increased vulnerability, as the homeless would be on the road. With winter peaking in the Northern states of the country, where are the day and night shelters where human forms can survive? Absolutely hitting the dismal situation for those whose homes are bulldozed or where the bulldozers are parked right in front of their lanes and by-lanes. Homeless, jobless, penniless is perhaps the worst combination for survival in these harsh times, but thousands are facing exactly this reality. Compounded by the fact that the all-powerful land and the political mafia keep an eye on them. As though the hawks are just awaiting to pounce on the property of any of the hapless vulnerable!
And with this year being the election year, apprehensions are also doing the rounds of the steady rise of communal polarization. Not that there’s been any relief from the communal tensions, but this year could only worsen the existing situation… And in these recent weeks whilst talking to several from the Awadhi belt, one could sense the same level of worry that one had felt during the autumn of 1992 when the rath yatra was making inroads into Uttar Pradesh, leaving imprints along the way.
KILLINGS OF THE PALESTINIANS BOUND TO HAVE FAR-REACHING CONSEQUENCES.
Even as news reports more than suggest that the Gaza stretch is more than devastated, there’s been no halt in the killings of the Palestinians by the Israeli forces. Already killed in thousands, with human disasters and tragedies spreading out, the basic question that’s coming up is this: wouldn’t these killings and rounds of destruction of the Palestinians leave imprints… with far-reaching consequences? Anger against the Israeli government is mounting in the Western world and also in the Arab world, as shots and videos of the killed Palestinian men and women and children are doing the rounds. Viewers are sitting crying and commenting: they can no longer hold back tears and emotions. Let me hasten to add that I’m not talking about the governments or the political rulers who seem completely blinded and cold-blooded in their reactions. I’m talking of the masses, the general public, who are lashing out at Israel, against the ongoing genocide and the war crimes. The general public is crying hoarse for an immediate ceasefire, for these killings and hounding and pounding of the Palestinians to halt. And news reports also state even a certain percentage of the Israeli citizens also want an immediate ceasefire. Perhaps, they realize that war and the connected killings can never bring along lasting peace.
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Ending this column with this verse of the Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish:
‘Pride and Fury
O Homeland! O Eagle,
Plunging, through the bars of my cell,
Your fiery beak in my eyes!
All I possess in the presence of death
Is pride and fury.
I have willed that my heart be planted as a tree,
That my forehead become an abode for skylarks.
O eagle,
I am unworthy of your lofty wing,
I prefer a crown of flame.
O homeland!
We were born and raised in your wound,
And ate the fruit of your trees,
To witness the birth of your daybreak.
O eagle unjustly languishing in chains,
O legendary death which once was sought,
Your fiery beak is still plunged in my eye.’
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