Tuesday, June 7, 2011

Baba Ramdev's rhetorics or truth?





The night yoga guru Ramdev was evicted from the Ramlila Maidan, the site of his 'satyagraha' against corruption, was the night that made him a bigger persona than he actually is.

I respect the man for his contribution to yoga and ayurveda and his significant efforts to make the two accessible to and popular among the masses. Even if they were accompanied by statements such as homosexuality is a disease that can be treated with yoga.  

But his actions on the night of June 4 are beyond comprehension and what cast doubt on his dauntless persona. Why did Baba Ramdev sprint off from the stage and hide among his followers when the police came charging? 

Baba's claims are that government/police intentions were not saintly and they had orders to either arrest him or kill him in an encounter or take him to an undisclosed location.

Getting arrested should not be a cause of concern for the guru who didn't think much of standing against the most powerful in the country. Politically, it would have strengthened his campaign and there wasn't any charge he could have been booked under, anyway.

Could the police then have dared to kill him in front of thousands of his followers or taken him to an undisclosed location, done the deed and gotten away with it? It wouldn't be too surprising, given the lengths the police went to, to remove people from the ground in an operation being planned for three days.
"Such kind of cruelty was not even seen in Jallianwala Bagh," Baba describes the events of the night in a press conference
Is he comparing British General Dyer's machine-gun massacre that killed thousand unarmed Indians who had no route of escape to this? Another hyperbole.
He also added, "I am not scared of death. But, I didn't want to die in such a barbaric act."
No hyperbole there though. The police was barbaric in its actions. Beating up of children and manhandling of the aged and women could not have possibly been among the Centre's orders for the crackdown. Was the police blind not see where its lathis landed? 

CCTV footage of the horrific night could have answered some of these questions but unsurprisingly, it was confiscated by the Delhi police. 

So, is the baba being his rhetorical self again or has our State turned rogue? Both sides have shown enough antics in their careers for us to safely conclude - a lot of both.

5 comments:

  1. Jallianwala Bagh, really? And as for the govt, too threatened by new competition?

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  2. He said it was worse than the Emergency or the Jallianwala Bagh incident. It's not a great thing to compare two tragedies where people died, anyway. He needs to put in more thought before saying things.

    Do you think Ramdev is so powerful or has so many followers that the government should feel threatened?

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  3. Why the lathi charge if they're not threatened?

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  4. I think they're more foolish and unthoughtful than feeling threatened :P

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  5. The truth is somewhat else and lies deep beneath the tantrum. Both neta's and baba's have crippled our nation and its the time to wake up or get bullied down again in the name of religion and patriotism.

    Weakest Link
    News nOt Making News

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