A letter to #AwardWapsi cadre!

Dear Members of #AwardWapsi cadre,

I sincerely appreciate your motive of showing fermentation towards the intolerance situation (whether really or remotely existing) in the country. It is your constitutional right to create this new trend with absolutely no doubt. It is indeed a creative way of inventing new form of national agitation. Good to go but not at ground level. I have below three incidental broad questions to you.

1. Why were you unable to bring these awards out of your drawing rooms and raise your voice along with the chorus when the country was agitating against corruption?
2. Were you dormant when there was a collective agitation towards increasing number of rape cases in the country?
3. Have you been very busy in your own businesses in ambitioning for more awards when the real Dalits of across all parts of the country in all means have been suppressed and not given deserved rights since the first republic day of the country?

I have cautiously listed the three radically diverse national issues of the country among the plenty so that you cannot claim that it was a personal preference towards any national agitation in the country. If you feel that any of the above three issues is unimportant in comparing with the current religious commentaries, I personally doubt your reasoning behind the decision of following this #AwardWapsi trend.

However, if your prime objective is to curb the ruling party's attitude towards the religious sentiments or the freedom of religion of the people of this humongous country, you should not encourage this kind of practices which would eventually keep the fire ON amongst the people to disturb our national secular health with unforeseen consequences. If you claim that you aren't motivated by the opposition, you needn't have involved in disrespecting the nation rather could have involved in disrespecting the ruling party who owns the blame. Awards are mere tokens of recognitions. Do you mean in any way to discourage the talent recognitions by creating the trend of returning the awards owing to trivial national disturbance? Oops, you are right! It isn't trivial in your personal court. Are you okay to dilute the quality of presenting awards to the real talents in the offing after this kind of protest?

If you try to show off that you prioritize secularism than anything else in the country, would that mean that your secularism principle de-scope the balanced recognitions of oppressed societies who have been suffering in the country since the inception of constitution? Would that mean that 'Right to Religion' tops the list of all other rights of the Indian constitution? Would that mean that the irritation of Government's involvement to your kitchen in advising what to cook is a bigger problem than the Government unable to pass Lokpal bill in  the parliament or a GST or a revised land acquisition bill? Would that mean, 55% of Dalit population who belong to all religions (who are 17% of India's population according to 2011 census) are still living below the poverty line even after 68 years of independence, is still a lower priority to protest than the above one to claim intolerance?

In spite of POA (Preventions of Atrocities) Act 1989, in every 18 minutes a Dalit is targeted for a crime, 3 women raped every day,  13 murdered every week, 27 various atrocities happens across the country every day, 6 kidnapped every week. This could be an ideal case of intolerance rather than your religious intention.

I would also want to highlight that in any case, I am not supporting the ongoing activities which are polluting the secular air in the country and I whole heartedly share my condolence to the ruling party by being the silent observer or in some cases, the root cause bearer of the reported cases. But, I strictly do not welcome this style of agitation by returning the tokens of recognitions which isn't a good direction to the forthcoming generations from the reputed personalities of the country. Also, the incumbent Government is relatively better in marching towards the national growth indicators both economically and politically, so let us not stop the pace by encouraging this kind of motives on its take off.

It is democracy, you are absolutely allowed to step into the street and make some noise on what you dislike. Why don't you try this rather polarizing the issue to the extreme? Chronologically, polarization is meant for the politicians but the public. Nobody is having right to claim that the state of India is 'Intolerant' and create a false perception among people. Do you really want to condemn or call for a bigger consequence? This selective patriotism is going to lead us nowhere. So, please rethink before you return the next one or get the next one!

Thanks to #AnupamKher to organize a protest against the false #AwardWapsi noise.

Faithfully,

A random common Indian man named Gurucharan.