Supporting Sujata Patil

Going through the heading of this post, people might wonder who is this Sujata Patil? And seeing the increasing trend of crime against women across India, some might even think that she is a victim of some crime.

Professionally she is a police inspector with traffic police at Matunga, Mumbai. Though she is not a victim of any gender based crime, she is victim of pseudo-secular mindset of our politicians. Her crime, she had written and published a poem on the Azad Maidan riot which happened on 11 Aug 2012. The riots happened when a group of muslims gathered to protest against killings of Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar and Assam. These mob without any provocation became violent and within moments stone pelted BEST buses, police vehicles, media OB vans and later torched a few of them. They cornered the police, beat them and even molested the lady police vehicles and tried to rape few of them. They also broke vandalized the Amar Jawan Jyoti, a memorial dedicated to unknown Indian Soldier, who died on the line of duty.

So this lady officer, Sujata Patil wrote a poem and published it in the police magazine ’Samvaad’. The poem is titled as Azad Maidan and conveys the feeling of an agitated and frustrated police officer who was not allowed to act to save the honour of the force. The poetess compares the rioters with snakes, traitors and wants to cut hands of those rioters. The main argument put forward is that the rioters vandalized the Amar Jawan Jyoti. The sentiment expressed was shared by all the Indians and the news paper reports covering the incident also portrayed the same feeling. However some muslims felt that it is against the whole community and they started protesting. The government of Maharashtra also as anticipated immediately acted and issued a written apology. The Mumbai police chief and the author was also asked to tender a written apology. However, after reading the poem, I do not see any derogatory comments against the community as whole. Yes the remarks are made, but they are against the rioters and and hence there was no need to get so sensible. the rioters were Muslims, so they felt agitated. Applying the same logic, they should also feel ashamed of the acts of the talibanis and extremist muslims, but I have never seen such things happening in India. Also, the same community has never been opposing the hate speeches of likes of Owaisi or Zakir Naik. In fact the speeches receive public accolades and hurray. I wonder, where these secular loving people hide themselves then.

I am not a Anti-Muslim, but for me my country comes first, each and every time. Next comes the human rights, which are guaranteed in our constitution, which includes freedom of expression (with reasonable restrictions). And I want to support Sujata, because the right to express is being suppressed and this is happening quite too often, whether it be arresting of two girls on an innocent Facebook post, or arresting a young chap for his twitter accusations. The happenings in this country are wrong and will lead us to a police nation instead of welfare nation.

That’s the reason for supporting the likes of Sujata Patil, Shahin Dhada or Renu Srinivasan. But I am amazed by the reaction of the Indian Media houses who have willfully ignored this braveheart. Anyway that was anticipated.

P. S : Giving the poem of Ms Patil as published in the police magazine Samwaad and its translation in English.