A march in the name of “March For India” was organised by a group led by Anupam Kher and his team on 7th of November to express their views to the world that India is still a tolerant nation and has not grown intolerant in the past eighteen months.
They were representing a large section of society that believes that Indians are tolerant and people should not draw conclusion from a couple of incidents that they have started growing intolerant.
The march saw a massive surge of common men and women, from all sections of the society and all walks of life thronging to the venue at Rajpath to show their solidarity for the cause.
People as old as ninety two years old and as young as six years old children with banners in their hands came to the venue. No affiliated political party was involved and people voluntarily came forward to participate in the march.
The venue echoed with the deafening slogans of “Bharat Mata ki Jai” and “Vande Mataram” along with the regular slogans of “March for India”. The march started with the shanknaad of a conch shell and people from the Rajpath headed towards the Rashtrapati Bhawan.
Strength of more than five thousands of participants was reported. It was worth noticing that no invitation was given and no advertisements were printed. People came out to know about it through the social media and a huge number of youth joined the march. Incidentally #MarchForIndia trended on top that day on social networking websites.
The main theme of the march was to show that the #AwardWapasi campaign started by the leftist and congress oriented intellectuals in the name of intolerance was a campaign motivated by the political intolerance of these people. The common Indian was, is and will always remain tolerant.
There were no political leaders involved in the march. I too had gone to the march to see if RSS or VHP was involved in the campaign. But my observation was otherwise. The congregation was of the like-minded nationalists.
A lot of national award winners from different fields participated in the march. People from film fraternity of the likes of Madhur Bhandarkar, Priyadarshan, Abhijeet and Manoj Joshi also participated in the march. A section of veteran writers who have won Sahitya Academy Awards and National Awards also came out in support.
People from arts background, of the likes of National Awards winner and renowned flutist Pt. Hari Prasad Chaurasia and veteran singer and brand ambassador of Election Commission’s UP unit Malini Awasthi also accompanied the delegation to the President and the PM.
The event was organised in opposition to the act of returning of awards by a section of writers who allegedly have started calling India an intolerant nation. It is worth noting that this section of writers have returned awards taking into account the murder of Mr. Kalburgi in Karnataka, a congress ruled state and the infamous Dadri incident of UP which is ruled by the father-son duo of Samajwadi Party.
Incidentally they have accused the Central Government of being intolerant where there was no role of the central government. Both the cases showed the failure of state machinery in controlling the incidents. The irrelevant accusations made on the Nerendra Modi government had made people think of something fishy going on in the country to defame the country and its elected government.
All the awards that were returned followed a pattern and it can be clearly seen that the whole episode was done in an organised way. A lot of reasons were given for this act. Some of the accusations made on the #AwardWapasi gang are-
- Congress was accused of playing dirty politics by making the writers affiliated to them, return the awards to create a scenario which would depict intolerance in the society caused because of the emergence of the right wing affiliates.
- Most of the writers who returned the awards were accused of getting the awards because of their political connections and not because of their contribution in literature. Now it was time for them to pay back the dues to their political maestros.
- Some of the awardees run NGOs and their NGOs were banned due to financial irregularities and thus causing loss to the state exchequer. In order to pressurise the government to roll it back, they are accused of returning the awards.
- Some people accused the Ford Foundation and Greenpeace of indirectly funding some and create pressure on Indian Government.
- Some went on to accuse like-minded anti-Indian forces (allegedly China and Pakistan) to create a civil war like situation in India so that its bid for the UN Security Council permanent seat could be foiled.
- Congress is accused of being intolerant against its oust from power and emergence of a strong nationalist like Narendra Modi at centre. It is accused of not being able to accept the fact that a person of humble background has barged in the Lutyens’ Zone.
- Congress is also accused of manufacturing this intolerance by these writers and keep the Modi Government involved in these conflicts and keep him away from his actual agenda of development because if Modi takes India towards development, their shop would close and their tally from 44 may even diminish to 4.
- The left is also accused of creating a negative atmosphere in their bid for survival as they are becoming almost irrelevant in the national politics as of now.
It cannot be said right now whether any or all of these accusations are right. But it can definitely be said that this incident of #AwardWapasi has brought a bad name to the country worldwide. It is because of this reason that Anupam Kher and his team is protesting. He said that people are not angry with the writers returning awards but are angry with the way they are protesting. They should have met the PM and intimated him their grievances. Instead they chose of a path of defaming the country and create an atmosphere of unwanted disharmony.
Is India really an intolerant nation? Not really. India is a place which has taught the whole world to live in peace. It has given the slogan of Vasudhaiv Kutumbakam to this world which means the whole earth is a family and we should love and respect all. From time immortal, India has taught the world to be kind and accomodate all living beings. If this is the case, how can our society be called an intolerant one?
Has India grown intolerant in the last eighteen months? Not exactly. There had been cases of intolerance in the past in India and abroad. There are cases of intolerance reported everyday throughout the world. All incidents occurring because of intolerance should be condemned and it should be worth noting that these are not required in our society. But if a nation is called intolerant because of a few incidents, this is grave injustice done to the tolerant population living in the country.
Let us all stand in solidarity with the nation and convey to the world that we are a tolerant nation in the greater interest of the country. Let us portray our country of being a tolerant one which it has been from the very past. Let us not deviate from our social responsibility of being kind and show compassion towards all the sections of the society irrespective of caste, creed, region or religion.
