Week 2

 Hello everyone! Welcome to Wild Wild Week.

Happy belated Republic Day.

Every year, as Republic Day starts coming closer, the same sets of topics come up for debate every time. It starts from the inclusion of the word secular in the constitution to caste reservation and eventually, it boils down to the “mistakes of Nehru” and Netaji vs Gandhiji. We will deal with these later on in this piece; let’s deal with some other issues which took place this week.

One of the most important news of this week was the students protests against the Railway Recruitment Board’s Non-Technical Popular categories exam’s pattern. The students said that they felt “cheated” as the exam, which was initially decided to be held in a single phase, was being held in two phases and also that the exam was designed to favour those with a higher qualification, even for jobs that required lesser qualification.

Around 1.25 crore candidates had applied for the exams for appointment to over 35,000 posts, from levels 2 to 6.

Of the total vacancies, 24,281 are open to graduates and 11,000 for under-graduates. These posts, segregated in groups based on 7^th CPC pay-scale levels from two to six, include that of station masters, train assistants, guards, junior clerks and timekeepers.

For a Level 2 job, the basic pay is about ₹19,000 and one requires to be have passed 12^th class, while for a level six post like station master, with a starting pay of about ₹35,000, graduation is a must.

In Prayagraj in Uttar Pradesh, a large number of students had gathered to protest on the railway track but were chased down by police. During this, some students allegedly pelted policemen with stones. In retaliation, which has been captured on camera, police allegedly stormed a nearby hostel and meted out brutal treatment to the residents there.

Bihar, home to a majority of the job aspirants, saw largescale protests for many days. A crowd stormed the Gaya Junction and set on fire the Bhabhua-Patna InterCity Express, in which, luckily, nobody was injured.

“The rakes were empty and parked inside the yard when miscreants set a coach on fire. It has not resulted in disruption of rail traffic,” East Central Railway CPRO Rajesh Kumar was quoted as saying by PTI.

Students’ protest is not new to India. One of the biggest protests of the post-independence period, the JP movement, was largely a students’ protest against the Indira Gandhi government, which eventually toppled the government at the centre. The movement created politicians like Lalu Prasad Yadav, Nitish Kumar, Ram Vilas Paswan and even Narendra Modi.

But the thing which has changed now is labelling the protestors as anti-nationals. There’s one thing we need to remember: protesting against the government doesn’t make you anti-national. The protestors don’t want to flee from India or necessarily divide India, but mostly try to bring some changes in the system of the country. So, one cannot label all protestors as anti-nationals.

On the other hand, protesting has become a kind of fashion these days, and hence, we see many protests on everything and anything, and maybe that’s the reason we don’t have a good student leader. The so-called student leaders of today are so involved in politics and in earning a name for themselves that they many-a-times tend to forget the issue that they are protesting for.

Protesting for vague reasons or including violence in protests decreases the essence of protests and defeats the whole purpose of the protests. It also gives the government more reasons to strike down on the protestors and label them as anti-national.

In other news, this week, the police pulled over an 84-year-old man in UK’s Bulwell for not having a valid license. On further inspection, it was found that the man had never had a license in the first place. The man drove without a license for 72 years.

Imagine how lucky do you have to be to drive without a license for 72 years! I forget to carry my helmet just for 2 days in a year, and turns out those are the only 2 days the police had thought to do inspections! And here is this guy driving without a license for 72 years, without anyone discovering it till now. This is the level of luck people need in their lives.

After the police discovered this, they released a statement, which read, “Thankfully he had never had an accident, caused anyone an injury, and never made to lose out financially, by hitting them whilst uninsured!”

Neither have I! But still whenever I forget to wear a helmet or carry my license, it turns out that those are the days the police decide to be strict. And imagine your bad luck when you are going just a kilometre away from your house to attend a marriage, and out of all days and places, the police decide to check helmets that day. And after reading the news, I don’t know if my luck is too bad or the man’s luck is too good!

Now let’s talk about the common debate that rages on: Bose vs Gandhi.

Here’s a fun fact: Did you know that it was Subhas Chandra Bose who first addressed Mahatma Gandhi as the Father of the nation? Bose did so in his condolence message to Gandhi after the death of Kasturba Gandhi.

How low can we stoop to pit two of the strongest pillars of the freedom struggle against each other?

It is common knowledge that their process of fighting for the freedom struggle was different, they sometimes had heated debates due to their different thought processes, but in the end of the day, they acknowledged and respected each other. They both fought for India’s independence in their own way. So, it is very silly to prove “who is the greatest freedom fighter?”

Being from the state where Bose was born, I do realize that Bose deserves better recognition and he is eventually getting it, but will building a statue and maybe just talking about his life give him the respect he deserves? Why do you think people from all over the world remember Gandhi? Is it for his statue or for his life? Or is it for the ideas that he spread and the thoughts he represented?

If we want to respect Netaji, we need to follow his ideas and the thoughts he stood for. Bose always stood for equality and unity, he wanted India to become a classless society.

If we can follow his ideals, then we can truly respect Bose and make him a global icon.

Let’s not organize a fight between Gandhi and Netaji. It would be as vague as pitting Malcolm X and Martin Luther King against each other.

Also, there’s a point to note that if you think the makers of the constitution, including Nehru, were wrong, then why do you think they had established a democracy?

Nehru had the complete authority to change the narrative and turn the country into an autocracy, giving all possible reasons, including the Cold war and the religious, language and regional diversity of the country. But instead, he stressed on democracy and even went on to call out lies and deceit being peddled by political parties before the elections.

“This elections business is making me lose my faith in Indian humanity,” Nehru said. He confessed to being “depressed”, as candidates ceaselessly calumniated each other and engaged in bitter internecine strife.

Nehru also wrote an essay titled Rashtrapati, under the pseudonym Chanakya. The essay was first published in 1937 in a Calcutta-based monthly journal Modern Review.

In the article, “Chanakya” describes Nehru as “some triumphant Caesar passing by,” who might turn dictator with “a little twist.” By writing about himself in this manner, Nehru stressed the importance of questioning the motives of leaders, and checking the power they hold.

And the people supporting the man who has not held a single press conference in 8 years and is known to strike down on dissidence are dismissing Nehru? Can there be anything more ironic than this?  

Well, that’s all for this time. See you again next week.

Cheers!!