Dalai Lama’s visit to Tawang and China’s Reaction: Dalai Lama is the spiritual leader of numerous Tibetans. India received him warmly after his escape from Tibet. The Dalai Lama has clarified on numerous occasions that he is not advocating separation of Tibet from China. His concern is for preserving the cultural and spiritual rights of the Tibetan people. A series of religious discourses by the Dalai Lama will begin in Tawang on Saturday and he will leave on 11th April.
China’s tirade against India emanates from its stand that Arunachal Pradesh is Chinese territory. China took umbrage to minister Kiren Rijiju’s statement that “China should not object to the Dalai Lama’s visit and interfere in India’s internal affairs”. The Chinese tabloid Global Times threatened that Beijing could interfere in turbulent Kashmir in retaliation. It said in its editorial that if New Delhi chooses to play dirty, Beijing would not hesitate to answer blows with blows. India must not be cowed down by China’s intemperate and abusive reaction. It should be emphasised that Arunachal Pradesh is part of India and it is not China’s business who should visit that part of India.
Mental Make-up of MPs & MLAs: Shiv Sena member of Parliament Ravindra Gaikwad beat an Air India officer on duty with his slippers because he was not allowed a business class seat to which he was not entitled. Air India and five other airlines blacklisted Gaikwad and refused to fly him in their aircrafts. Thereafter good sense or pragmatism prevailed and Gaikwad expressed regret in a letter written to the Minister and described the incident as unfortunate. Meanwhile, MPs of Shiv Sena, which is an ally of the BJP in Maharashtra, created noisy scenes in Lok Sabha and threatened to boycott an NDA meeting on 10th April unless the ban on Gaikwad was lifted. Interestingly, the Air India employees’ unions had backed the carrier’s decision to ban the MP while the AI Cabin Crew Association on Friday morning stated that Gaikwad will continue to be a risk to flight safety and flight operations, and to cabin crew safety on board, and hence government must think long and hard about letting Gaikwad off.
The association further said that the MP’s actions were criminal acts of violence and for the Ministry or Parliament to allow such a person to get away without even a rap on his knuckles or even forcing an apology to all Air Indians and indeed all Indians, would be a crying shame. Unfortunately, Air India on Friday afternoon lifted the flight ban on Gaikwad, apparently following orders from the Ministry of Civil Aviation, which advised Air India and other private airlines to revoke the ban in view of the apology tendered and undertaking by Gaikwad of good conduct in future. It seems that the decision to lift the ban with immediate effect follows a meeting between Minister of State for Civil Aviation and Air India CMD on Thursday evening to resolve the impasse over the flight ban. It is indeed a crying shame that Gaikwad has got off lightly and a bad precedent has been set.
Forced Nationalism: The BJP government in Uttar Pradesh wants students to be filled with the sentiment of ‘nationalism’. The concerned minister said that from the coming academic session students and teaching staff will sing national anthem in the morning and national song in the noon before leaving college. According to the minister, youngsters need to learn the values of the society and enquired what’s wrong in requiring students to sing national anthem in colleges and universities. There is no doubt that national anthem is soul stirring. The moot question is whether by forcing students to sing is nationalism nurtured? National anthem can be played and sung in schools or colleges and also voluntarily by a group of students. That would preclude any controversy and protests about the singing of national anthem by Muslim organizations. It appears that recently Meerut Municipal Corporation decided to start its proceedings with singing Vande Mataram. No problem. But the tendency to impose any action should be checked. An instance is the dress code recently mooted for youngsters studying in various campuses across the state.
Soli J Sorabjee
Former Attorney-General of India
solisorabjee@gmail.com