The Brave Pedestrian

While singing the national anthem and saluting the Indian flag on Republic Day this year, let us stand in solidarity with the lakhs of citizens who are fighting and struggling to protect our Constitution and our citizenship. Those participating in the mass movement against CAA and NRC are not less courageous than our soldiers who fight enemy forces at the borders. The risks of injury, death, imprisonment etc. for those participating are grave -- perhaps physically less so than the hazards endured by soldiers. But they face grave social and political hazards -- the hazards of being singled out and punished with abuse of police powers and judicial machinery. Those of us who aren't braving the cold at Shaheen Bagh or Lucknow's Clock Tower like thousands of our brothers and sisters, must salute their sacrifice while singing the national anthem this year. #CAA #NRC #RepublicDay2020 #NationalAnthem IN SOLIDARITY Krishnaraj Rao 9821588114 and 8169471229 krish.kkphoto@gmail.c...

Every time someone tries to force you to respect an inanimate object, a dead person, an ideology or an institution, they indirectly steal your self-respect from you. By making you "respect" the dead and the non-living, they make you respect yourself less. And they make you respect other people less -- people who are alive. Respect is a currency in our social lives. It is a scarce and precious currency. This is a diversion of respect from those who are alive, to those who are dead, or those who were never alive in the first place. I object to such diversion. When I talk about respect, I talk about all the forms of respect.  Respect for the non-living and non-existent manifests itself in many forms. It manifests as worship and devotion. As fear and awe. As blind following and blind faith. As a refusal to think and question. As a refusal to act rightly, or speak out, when violence is being inflicted upon the living. Without thinking, without questioning, people say ...