Can The Idea Of India Pass The Thackeray Test?, Current affairs, NewAgeIslam.com

Current affairs

Can The Idea Of India Pass The Thackeray Test?

By Siddharth Varadarajan

The Centre and the Maharashtra government must make it clear to the Shiv Sena that they will not be allowed to threaten Shah Rukh Khan with violence.

Now that he has come up with a radical plan for overhauling the country’s capacity to deal with terrorism and other threats to its national security, P. Chidambaram must turn his attention to a problem that none of his predecessors in the Union Home Ministry ever had the courage to deal with: putting goondas in their place.

The task is urgent and brooks no delay. After sparring with Shah Rukh Khan for several days over the Bollywood actor’s statement regretting the absence of Pakistani players in the forthcoming IPL cricket tournament and declaring that Mumbai belongs to all Indians and not just Maharashtrians, the Shiv Sena has now come up with an ultimatum: Mr. Khan must apologise or else the party will not allow his films to be shown in the city, India’s commercial capital.

For me, this contest is as nerve-wracking and stomach churning as any the IPL could throw up. Will this political tournament end with the jailing and prosecution of the Shiv Sena’s leaders and goons who are conspiring to vandalise cinema halls and beat up those who defy this ban? Or will it end with the desolate spectacle of an isolated Shah Rukh being forced to surrender before the ridiculous diktat of the Shiv Sainiks — the way dozens of artists, actors, musicians and politicians have done over the past two decades in the face of the cowardice of policemen, ministers and judges who refused to defend the rule of law?

http://newageislam.com/can-the-idea-of-india-pass-the-thackeray-test?/current-affairs/d/2447

Terrorists And Traitors: Why Is Home Minister Chidambaram Under Attack From Saffronists?, Current affairs,

Current affairs

Terrorists And Traitors: Why Is Home Minister Chidambaram Under Attack From Saffronists?

by Sujata Anandan

Never having been in power at the time, the Shiv Sena had no idea what was being accomplished by the Union and state governments, both ruled by the Congress at the time, so that when they came to power a few years later in 1995, they discovered that all their sympathisers had disappeared from the police force in Bombay. There was little they could do then to restore the pre-riots status quo for the Congress was now on vigil – and peace was maintained throughout the state with no room for riots at all, while cops now routinely arrested extortionists and others from among the Shiv Sainiks even as the state continued to be ruled by the saffron alliance.

But the Shiv Sena always dealt with only the small fry. With the BJP the scale was always larger and more sinister.

http://www.newageislam.com/current-affairs/sujata-anandan/terrorists-and-traitors--why-is-home-minister-chidambaram-under-attack-from-saffronists?/d/7301