Bharat is a land of strange people. It always was. When someone does anything wrong, we usually say, “jaane do, maaf kar do, next time se nahi karega” (Ignore it, forgive him/her, he/she will not do it from the next time). We say this because we want to avoid conflicts as much as possible. We love forgiving people, howsoever bad they may be. We don’t believe in showing ourselves as victims; instead we prefer to show ourselves as a large-hearted person who forgives the faults of others.

If you don’t believe me, check out our history books. There will be no mention of the lakhs of Hindus and Sikhs raped, tortured and murdered during Partition, by the Pakistanis. They will only mention how the Partition caused the death of many. No, no, we don’t mention how Hindus who left everything behind in Pakistan were killed and train after train entered the stations on the Indian side with thousands of dead bodies in it. Nah. And then when they refused to return our POWs even after we returned 93,000 of theirs, we did not make any noise about it. Nah. “Jaane do, maaf kar do, next time se nahi karega” our politicians said. (It is another story that they tortured our soldiers again and again.)

There is no mention in our history books about how grains grown in our country were transported to Britain to feed their soldiers and people during the World Wars and how this caused a wide-spread Famine in our country. None of our freedom fighters like Gandhi and Nehru fought for the emaciated millions who didn’t have a morsel to eat. Freedom struggle was more important. And after we won it, keeping quiet about the atrocities of the British was more important. “Jaane do, maaf kar do, next time se nahi karega” we said about the British. (It is another story that they and our own politicians looted us in various ways even later.)

Our esteemed Leftist politicians and our Marxist & Naxal supporters were even better when it came to killing. They openly killed anyone who opposed them. Very simple and straight. What Jyoti Basu and CPM did in West Bengal, Tripura, interiors of Telangana, Odisha, Maharashtra, Kerala and more is known to everyone. But our Newspaper Moguls said, “Jaane do, maaf kar do, next time se nahi karega” and hid all the news from our purview for many years, in fact right to the turn of the century. (It is another story that the Marxists, Leftists and Naxalites still revel in their killing fields, especially in Kerala.)

Godhra riots happened and we got vivid news about how the Muslims were ruthlessly killed by Hindus. Such atrocities… terrible. We got the news right from 2002 till 2018 at regular intervals. But strangely no one seemed to mention about why the riots happened in the first place. When people got agitated and started blaming the Muslims for the carnage, our esteemed TV channels said, “Jaane do, maaf kar do, next time se nahi karega”. (It is another story that Muslims have set off the bloodiest of riots right upto 2020 in various States, including the Capital city of Delhi.)

Rahul Gandhi, the heir apparent of the Congress Party has perpetually been speaking gibberish and spouting allegations on the BJP Government without an iota of proof. Everytime he is castigated, leaders of the Congress and their favourite journalists say, “Jaane do, maaf kar do, next time se nahi karega”. (It is another story that we would like to “Jaane do” him but the Congress themselves are confused as to what is to be done.)

Today something fabulous happened in the Supreme Court, the Highest court of our land. While hearing the contempt case against Advocate Prashant Bhushan over allegations made by him in an interview against former Chief Justices of India SH Kapadia and KG Balakrishnan, the Attorney General, speaking on behalf of the Government actually said, “Jaane do, maaf kar do, next time se nahi karega” in so many words … (Please remember that in the same interview, Prashant Bhushan allegedly said that half of the preceding 16 Chief Justices of India were also corrupt. As expected, Bhushan also said that he had no proof of the allegations. Since these are allegations showing our Judiciary in bad light, Supreme Court took suo moto notice of the issue after a complaint to this effect was filed by Senior Advocate Harish Salve.)

The Attorney General further said, “We have serious statements made by former judges about Supreme Court having failed democracy. I also have a complete list of former SC judges making comments about corruption in judiciary” and advised the SC that “This a case where your lordships should forgive him (Bhushan) or perhaps warn him.” An incredulous Justice Mishra asked the AG, “What can be done if he thinks he(Bhushan) has done no wrong … How can they (Prashant Bhushan’s remarks) be taken off the record when Bhushan himself says they are his bona fide belief?” In the meantime Prashant Bhushan has been comparing himself to Mahatma Gandhi and his supporters have been stating that Veer Savarkar would have been proud of him (?).

Also in the meantime, excuses are being floated that the Government through its AG has said all this because they do not want to raise Prashant Bhushan to the status of a Hero and therefore will not jail him for his comments, and that they also want to show that they believe in Freedom of Expression.

As I said earlier Bharat is a strange land where Governments and citizens believe that by forgiving and forgetting a crime, a criminal will stop committing further crimes. We believe in what our modern Mahatma said about non-violence, which means that we now believe that allowing violent crimes to take place is okay as long as we don’t hit the perpetrator of violence back and we don’t stop him by law either. We now believe that supporting Anarchy is fine as long as we remember that forgiving the Anarchist is what gives us scope for a rosy future where when we don’t get news about any crime, it means that no crime has taken place. And still some people say, “I miss my India of before, with the Ganga-Jamuni tehzeeb intact.” (Tears are streaming down my eyes, I’m overwhelmed by our innocent, forgiving nature.)

DISCLAIMER: The author is solely responsible for the views expressed in this article. The author carries the responsibility for citing and/or licensing of images utilized within the text.