I HAPPENED to come across a news item in one of the newspapers, which showed Maneka Gandhi protesting against the so-called moral brigade. It did surprise me and made me happy at the same time because the protest comes from the very house where the ‘moral goons’ are based. What are the Congress and Left parties doing these days? Sitting on the CMP (Common Minimum Program), which has been forgotten long back by us, the common folks? Anyways artists do not figure in the CMP, so why meddle with unnecessary issues when there are pressing matters mentioned in CMP. Nobody should look beyond the CMP is the diktat.

 

Freedom of expression is meant only for the press. As far as presswallahs are kept happy there is no trouble for partywallahs. The Left and the Congress do not care about artists like M.F.Hussain, who has been driven out of the country and still our secular forces at the centre are hoodwinking. If Husain is one high profile artist who cannot live in his own country, and that too when secular forces are ruling, what about other struggling artists? Should artists be asked to put their freedom of expression on the back burner? The Left and the Congress are mum because for them, artists do not come under CMP.

 

We all know that the Left does not like artists, because communists are ideology driven and they only align with people who use their party symbol for livelihood or those who know communist manifesto by heart, else they will have to change their party symbol to paint and brush. But these artists are only handful in numbers and a party cannot survive on them. What about the Congress, they are pro-freedom. A party which came to power for the first time on the foundation laid by freedom fighters. Oh! After enjoying the power for almost five decades, they have become our desi colonial leaders. And now the Congress thinks ‘let us chuck freedom. After all we have been slaves of dynastic politics for so long. Since we have no freedom why should we cry for a bunch of people called artists.’ Rahul Gandhi or Sonia Gandhi will not utter word about ‘freedom’, and if they do so they will be giving a wakeup call to their subaltern so-called leaders who have forgotten all about freedom and also have to deal with the Left who does not know a thing about freedom.

 

On a serious note, it is time for us to raise our voice. Media, please standup and use your freedom against atrocities towards artists. Hurray to Maneka Gandhi for protesting against villains in her own house.

 

It makes me happy to know that we have few leaders who have not forgotten about freedom. And we, ‘common folks’, for whom common minimum program was created by some uncommon people, it is time to wake up and show that we will not succumb to any chains.