[Reader-list] Shahidul Alam detained by Indian Border Security Force

[Rakesh Iyer]

Dear all

The first problem comes here with viewing things as Indians alone without
thinking of repercussions in the world. Since some members of this forum
keep on cribbing that we don't look at things as Indians, let me remind them
of Gandhi, the Father of the Nation and Tagore, the man who wrote our
national anthem.

Tagore was totally against nationalism. Infact, when he advised Japan too
about being careful of nationalism, he was asked to go away and probably
must have received similar kind of comments given on our forum. Similarly,
while Gandhi asked to finally reach internationalism from nationalism, we
have a situation where people are just willing to look at things from an
Indian perspective.

I am not saying that we shouldn't look at things from an Indian perspective.
We should also look at things from other perspectives as well.

And when it comes for a rape, a murder, or cases like Palestine, Sri Lanka
or even Salwa Judum, we should look at things from the humanitarian angle
also, not just the Indian angle or the Indian state angle. And we should
finally take that stand which is good or beneficial for all. At least we
should understand that if we were exposed to the same treatment, we would
also accept it, and then only should we recommend it to others.

As Anupam jee said, if an Indian citizen were to be caught like this in
Afghanistan or Bangladesh, we would be making a hue and cry about it. But
not now. My point is that we should not equally object to a hue and cry
being made about a Bangladeshi citizen being caught on this side of the
border. What's the harm?

Please stop looking at things as Indian, Pakistani, American, Chinese and so
on. We are humans first, and we are not slaves of the Indian state
certainly.

And nobody says that terrorists have more human rights than those who get
killed in blasts. Both have equal human rights. Those who keep on cribbing
about death sentences to terrorists, should invest their energy in bringing
police and judicial reforms so that blasts don't take 16-17 years to solve,
like the 1993 Mumbai blasts, neither is the enquiry conducted flawed as in
the Parliament case attack.

Regards

Rakesh