Cartoon by Ayan Chakraborty (You'll find his link on the right)The solidarity for Tibet – the ‘in’ thing this summer. Everyone is crying hoarse at the plight of the ‘poor Tibetans’. And what are they doing? Stopping the Olympic torch! As if putting out the Olympic flame will magically restore Tibet as a free region…
Do not for a moment think that I am siding with China on the Tibet issue. Far from it… And I am not even a CPI activist, who are quick to switch their loyalties from India to China as we have seen in the past. I don’t blame them… after all; they need to justify the funding they receive.
I am puzzled at Indians jumping into this juggernaut. Don’t we have enough issues at home to handle? Let me give you some:
- The plight of ‘North’ Indians in Maharashtra.
- The Hogenakkal issue.
- Staying the death sentence of the ’93 blasts accused.
- Sanjay Leela Bhansali making a new movie.
And what’s this talk about boycotting the Olympics? Our boycotting the Olympics would make a difference other than to the occupancy at the Olympic village. We send about twice (nearly thrice) the number of officials compared to athletes. A better plan would be to force China into bankruptcy by winning all the Gold, Silver , and Bronze in the nation. Evan that seems far-fetched looking at past performances… In 2004, we were 65th among 74 countries that finally got medals. The only time you get to hear about countries like Belarus and Lithuania are when they are placed above (much above) India in the medals tally. And those calling for a boycott sound as if the Chinese are sweating bullets over the prospect of India pulling out.
You need to clean your house before telling your neighbor to be tidy. So, for now, the Tibetans have my empathy and a silent prayer. I do empathize with Tibetans. It is wrong for a country to displace ethnic groups and undermine their rights. But isn’t that the same with Kashmiri Pundits? And how many of our ‘celebrities’ endorse the Kashmiris and their plight?
“Kashmir? Its so passe’ dahlin… Tibet is hot this summer!”
But for me, until the Kashmiris are given justice and an Indian has equal rights all over India, the Tibet issue will not give me sleepless nights.
1 comment:
hey walker, who knows how long it will take for certain indian groups to gain the rights that they deserve...u know things run way behind their time in India, in the meanwhile if we wanna empathise will those poor tibetans, i think we can. no?
Also, tibet is a smaller country with only one big issue to deal with right now so maybe fighting one big issue with support from world groups vs fixing multiple 'khich khichs' going on in our country... success rate seems higher in the first case i think.
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