May 19, 2024

“If a hardly literate player or a wrestler troll a pacifist daughter of a martyr its understandable but whats wrong with some educated folks.”

Javed Akhtar’s above tweet in the context of the Gurmeher Kaur controversy and the subsequent reactions of cricketer Virendra Sehwag and wrestler Yogeshwar Dutt clearly prove that he is a snob and full of himself.

If we analyze the tweet, it seems Akhtar considers a player who is hardly literate and a wrestler incapable of contributing anything to a discussion. This is a highly snobbish view that consigns a majority of the Indian people to the sidelines of society. As an aside, Javed Akhtar should be reminded that there is no minimum educational qualification requirement to be a lawmaker in India and we are ruled by people who Akhtar will call “hardly literate.” Further, literature and art has been enriched by people who were hardly literate as per Akhtar’s definition. The dohas of Kabir are timeless and have held meaning for every generation. Finally, as wrestler Mahavir Pogat very succinctly put it, a sportsperson spends a lifetime toiling to get a medal for the country and in the end snobs like Javed Akhtar insult them by making them feel like the lowest form of human beings. Also, by questioning why educated people are opposing Gurmeher, Akhtar equates education with leftist thinking. So, according to him, all educated people should support pacifists. How full of oneself can one get to be!

But apart from this, the other line that Akhtar, and others like him, have taken is more dangerous. To these people what Gurmeher has done is freedom of speech and expression but what Sehwag and Dutt have done is trolling. Why have different rules for different people? If someone has the courage to speak his or her mind, he or she should also have the courage to absorb the criticism. It is not as if what Gurmeher said was the closing argument in a debate. She raised a point. Thousands supported her view. Thousands also disapproved. Those who supported sent the bouquets in their own way. Those who disapproved sent the brickbats in their preferred way. So how are the bouquets good and the brickbats bad? Just because Gurmeher espouses Leftist thinking on war and freedom of speech and the so-called “thinking” establishment in India is full of Left leaning liberals, will they take umbrage at any criticism directed at her? If they do so, they are acting like the very people who are disapproving of Gurmeher’s stand on war.

This writer does not and has never supported strong arm tactics of any group – be it ABVP now or the SFI in West Bengal in the past, or any other group for that matter – in silencing those who dared to oppose them. But I also strongly condemn people like Javed Akhtar who try to insult and belittle people who oppose those who are the darlings of the Left intelligentsia.