This post is not dedicated to the artistic genius of a movie, our Oscar entry this year, a completely insipid, tasteless and un-entertaining movie, Peepli Live!! But my real question is, Is Peepli actually LIVE???
Around 7-8 months back there were reports of some Indian students being beaten up to pulp in a nation way far off from India, Australia..The media hyped the incident to such an extent that we actually are still scared as to whether or not to fly off to the island nation for higher studies..We still are in a shock as to whether even visit Australia..When this incident happened in a foreign nation our country was full in rage as to why we Indians are always the victims of racial discrimination and similar stuff..Why does the feeling of Apartheid resurface itself time and again and show that it had not extinguished but rather was just dormant??Why??That was the question then..But mind you this post is again not about that question..This post is about an incident that occurred in my college premises and I, although not being an eye witness to it, got a vivid description from an eye witness and thus it earned its place to be talked about here..
The incident happened during one of the numerous departmental fests that our college (SRM University) feels proud to host..ICON, a national level MBA symposium..It so happened that for this event there were two prime organizers..One was a Tamil Localite guy and the other a North Indian gal, who we later on came to know was from Bengal..Both final year students..The event got successfully over and the gal was happy to socialize with her friends (both guys and gals) and joined them in posing for photos and enjoying the finishing off of the event in full gala..This pissed off the other Tamil guy and he text messaged the gal and used some abuse language to let her know that she was required for some work, lest enjoy with her friends..The gal ignored the text messages..Then the guy called her up and started abusing her in full flow..The gal heard him speak for some time and then cut the call..This even pissed the guy off to another level..Now the gal went to her friends and told that the other event organizer was bad mouthing her over the phone..So two of her friends, guys, went to report the incident to the staff assigned as the convenor of the event..The convenor gave a limpid glance to the incident and asked the guys to forget it..But the two guys were adamant in making that Tamil guy beg sorry in front of the hapless gal..So they both went ahead to talk to the Tamil guy and told him politely that what he did was wrong and he should not talk to gals using abuses..This infuriated the Tamil guy to such an extent that he said, “You want me to say sorry to her??Let me show you my power..”Saying this he called around 25-30 of his local Tamil friends and started slapping and clubbing the two North Indian guys..The matter had been still ok had this stopped till here..The guys went to the gal and tore off her sari and started slapping and clubbing her too..She was pushed down to the floor and the those Tamil guys continuously kicked her until she went out of her senses..God only knows where all their dirty hands must have fallen over the gal..There were scratch marks all over her body..She had to be immediately rushed to the hospital (Apollo) and the doctors said that she her spinal cord had been injured..
This whole incident happened in front of the faculty and staff..No one, mark my words NO ONE came forward to stop this heinous crime from being committed..When the next day the students of the class revolted and said that they won’t attend classes unless those 25-30 students were rusticated, the college management very calmly shelved the matter..The college management used their political minds to change the whole scenario..They kept two letters in front of the gal..Firstly, if she filed an FIR in the police station then she along with her 2 friends who came ahead to fight, plus those 25-30 students would be rusticated..Secondly, if she didn’t file an FIR then all will remain in the college and no one would be rusticated and the college would give guarantee that those guys would not harass the gal again..HAH..There is a famous saying in Hindi, “Chit bhi mera aur pat bhi mera”..Meaning heads is also mine and tails even..College played its nasty politics and thus all remained silent and the cat didn’t come out of the bag..The media personals that were called up by the students were also sent off with some bribing and the deadly skeleton didn’t come out of the cupboard..The college even went on to the extent of telling that the gal herself was a loose character and the those Tamil guys were drunk so none of her friends should have gone in front of those Tamil guys for asking them to say sorry..College took away the full blame from the heads of those 25-30 guilty..
My question rises here..Why did this incident happen to a North Indian only??I am pretty sure had the guy and gal been swapped the case would not have had occurred only..I mean had the guy been a North Indian and the gal a South Indian, am pretty sure the South Indian people would have created a huge ruckus for the same..There lies my next question..Why is there discrimination between North Indian students and South Indian students??I had heard of similar situations when students from Bihar were beaten up badly on the Victoria Terminus in Mumbai for coming to give some tests that was being conducted by the Maharashtra government..They were beaten up just because they were filling up seats that people from Maharashtra could have filled..There lies my third question..Why is there discrimination among us??There is a dialogue in the movie Khatta-Meetha of Akshay Kumar that says, “Madam if you go to America you’ll get Americans, if you go to England you’ll get Britisher’s, but if you come to India you’ll get only Punjabi’s, Marathi’s, Guajarati’s, Tamil’s, Bengali’s and so on..Where is Indians??”
Why do the media only hype racial discrimination incidents which happen in foreign nations??Why only do we get to hear about racial discrimination of Indian students in Australia or Shilpa Shetty in Bigg Boss??Why can’t we forget about this state wise discrimination and start thinking ourselves as INDIANS???
Jaishree Ram,
Prats..
