All that useless uproar

Instead of taking up the metaphoric sense of ‘Talibanisation’, few people are raising an issue over the use of the term. This is what happening now while trying to drag Union Minister for Women and Child Development, Renuka Chowdhary, to court for her remark on those self-styled moral policing incidents in Karnataka.

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Viewing it narrowly, the critics of Renuka say that Taliban is a fundamentalist Islamic militia which took over Afghanistan in 1995 and a year later Kabul and set up an Islamic government, and hence it isn’t opt to designate the same for the recent cases. However, they failed to understand the very essence of Chowdhary’s Talibani remarks which was to demote the fundamentalist forces.

When a number of hooligans, belonging to the hardly-known Hindu hardliner group Sri Ram Sena, barged into the pub last month dragging girls out by hair, molesting publicly, treating them like dirt, and calling them whores, Renuka Chowdhary and many others dubbed the incident as “Talibanisation of India”, saying such practice can not be tolerated here.

What wrong she said? Anyone can understand what she wanted to say. She specifically meant to say ‘Talibani mentality people’ carried out the disgraceful act. Their deeds were Talibani in nature. She just wanted to focus on the fundamentalist character of the incident, nothing else.

Their disreputable act tarnished the image of the country, and not the use of the word “Talibanisation”. On one hand, we talk about the equality of women and men, and on the other hand, some Talibani-minded people wanted to treat women as an object to bear the brunt of their highhandedness silently. Such type of incidents, whenever occur, are needed to be crushed forthwith before get out of hand.

Mangalore City Corporation (MCC) mayor Ganesh Hosabettu and 14 others on Monday filed criminal case against Chowdhary for her statements inciting communal disharmony, assertions prejudicial to national integration and creating or promoting enmity and hatred between classes.

These people hardly condemned the pub-incident; they hardly raised voice to bring culprits to book, but they did not spend much time to lash out Chowdhary, who was vocal right form the incident.

“Why are they taking action against me? Why are they not doing anything to tackle the goons and lumpen elements and the rising fascism?" she reasonably asked.

Rightly, Leaders should desist from political rhetoric. They should think thousand times before speaking in public as their words have impact on people a lot. But this particular incident is not the case of using wrong expression rather desist people from anti-social behaviour in the name of moral policing.