Is it a crime to speak in favour of the country? Today this stands as an important question and in its analysis on the DNA show on Monday, we will try to understand the meaning of the question. The Maharashtra government has decided that those tweets by Sachin Tendulkar, known as Lord of Cricket, Lata Mangeshkar, popularly known as the nightingale, actor Akshay Kumar and Indian cricket team captain Virat Kohli will be investigated in response to an international conspiracy that aims to defame India. Is this the reward of patriotism?
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Maharashtra currently has a coalition government of Shiv Sena, Congress and NCP and from this quota of NCP in this government, state Home Minister Anil Deshmukh has ordered this inquiry and most importantly, this step was taken after the complaint of Congress leaders. Imagine where the party whose role is repeatedly remembered in India’s independence stands today and today the Indian National Congress has become an Anti-National Congress.
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It seems so because there is no objection when Rihanna, Greta Thunberg and Mia Khalifa when they campaign against India under the guise of the farmers’ protests. But when Bharat Ratna Sachin Tendulkar and Lata Mangeshkar present their side against this propaganda, the Congress immediately starts getting into trouble and this problem becomes the subject of investigation in its ruled state.
In DNA, we want you to understand the mindset that is hidden behind this investigation, which also seeks politics in the nation’s love. The entire investigation is related to the hashtag given by the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) and these hashtags were India Together and India Against Propaganda. There were lakhs of tweets in India on this hashtag and among those tweeting were Bharat Ratna Sachin Tendulkar and Lata Mangeshkar.
In their tweets, they opposed the interference of outsiders in India’s internal affairs and spoke of solidarity writing that India can resolve its own issues. But it is unfortunate that the Congress found politics in these tweets in favour of the country and the result of this politics is that the Maharashtra government will now check whether there was any pressure from the Central Government behind these tweets.
Two big things that come out of this decision are that the Maharashtra government had two options in this matter. Either they would have supported Rihanna and Greta Thunberg, who were propagating against India, or they would have supported the views of Bharat Ratna Sachin Tendulkar and Lata Mangeshkar in the interest of the country. It is unfortunate that the Maharashtra government has gone against the country by supporting Rihanna and Greta and not Sachin Tendulkar and Lata Mangeshkar, who have raised the value of India around the world. They would not have even imagined that a state government of the country which considered him a gem would start an investigation against him to talk about national unity and integrity.
The Maharashtra government argues that the same language and words have been used in all these tweets. But how much truth is there in these allegations, you must also understand. ‘Resolved’ and ‘Amicable’ are the two words that were in the tweets of Lata Mangeshkar, Virat Kohli, Akshay Kumar, Saina Nehwal and Indian cricket team head coach Ravi Shastri.
The first word in Hindi means to solve and the second word means amicable. Based on these two words, the Maharashtra government decided to investigate. However, the thing to understand here is that all these tweets were in support of the hashtags India Together and India Against Propaganda.
Our question is, how can it be a crime to give a message to the people of the country to remain united and to raise voice against propaganda being run against the country? Was it Lata Mangeshkar’s mistake that she supported the country instead of Rihanna? And was it wrong for Sachin Tendulkar to think that the people of India are united and our country is capable of solving internal issues?
The decision taken in Maharashtra leads us to these questions and we feel that Maharashtra has set a wrong example for India by doing this. It also shows that the ‘tukde tukde’ gang we talk about has not broken India, but it has laid the foundation of breaking up India ideologically.
The principle of “one India” is challenged in West Bengal and the government there changes the rules according to its convenience. In Maharashtra, the rules change for the citizens of the country and where the Congress governments are there, such laws are brought, which give serious consideration to the ideological differences that flourish in India and this shows that the dismembered gang is still working in active mode.
Looking at these conditions, it would not be wrong to say that if Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose, the hero of India’s independence, had given his popular slogan today, ‘Give me blood, I will give you freedom’, then perhaps investigation would have started against him. Maybe in the states ruled by the opposition party, many FIRs would be filed against him and Twitter would also have suspended his account.
Imagine if Mahatma Gandhi were alive today and gave a slogan of ‘Do or Die’ then what action would have been taken against him. For this slogan, Gandhi would have been charged with serious charges like inciting people to commit suicide because something like this is happening today.
Today is also the day to understand that when people who talk about national unity and integrity in a country are intimidated by the legal inquiry, then how are we building a country where citizens express their patriotism? We also feel afraid to do so and when this happens, it is actually the biggest attack on democracy.
It is important to understand the true character of the Maharashtra government as in 2020 when the country was battling the coronavirus pandemic, Maharashtra was the first among the affected states and then a campaign was launched on Twitter in support of the government and Maharashtra Police. As part of this campaign, Indian cricket team captain Virat Kohli, former cricketers Zaheer Khan and Surya Kumar Yadav changed their profile picture on Twitter and put the logo of Maharashtra Police and then all these players tweeted the same. But then the Maharashtra government did not conduct any investigation and Maharashtra Home Minister Anil Deshmukh was thanking these players at the time on Twitter.
This shows that everything happens in the name of politics in our country and some leaders also compromise with the self-respect of their country for this.
It is also important to understand how the decision of the Maharashtra government to investigate is against the Constitution. Firstly, this kind of investigation is completely unconstitutional and it is a violation of the fundamental rights of the people against whom the investigation is done.
Secondly, the Supreme Court has clarified that Right to Privacy is a Fundamental Right, to whom anyone tweets and takes advice, it is within the right of Right to Privacy. That is, no government has the right to know who the citizens of the country are tweeting and on whose advice. This is their fundamental right and the Maharashtra government has violated the decision by investigating it.
Thirdly it is the right to express the views and opinions of all citizens, written and orally, under Article 19 of the Constitution. However, it is also mentioned in Section 2 to Section 6 of Article 19 that the right of freedom of the accused is not absolute i.e. it is not unlimited. It also has some limitations and citizens have many responsibilities towards it but nowhere did they write that supporting the country is not within the scope of freedom of expression. The Constitution gives complete freedom of patriotism to 135 crore people of India, but politics hollows out this right and when it happens, the country has to go through unconstitutional decisions, as it has done in Maharashtra.
Such decisions also show that if some of the leaders of our country want, they can also award Bharat Ratna to people like Rihanna and Greta Thunberg. Today there has also been a response from the central government on this subject. Apart from this, many opposition parties have also given their opinion on this and the Maharashtra government has also defended the decision of the investigation.
This hurt nationalism in the minds of the people of India from another aspect and this aspect is related to the freedom hero Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose. Responding to his vote of thanks on President Ram Nath Kovind’s address to the Rajya Sabha on February 8, Prime Minister Narendra Modi referred to Netaji and described him as the first Prime Minister of the first government of Azad Hind Fauj.
Zee News has been raising this topic again and again. We told you that Netaji Subhash Chandra should have been given the status of the first Prime Minister of the country instead of Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, but his ideological confrontation with Mahatma Gandhi and then later the alliance of Gandhi and Nehru weakened Bose’s roots. So today when Prime Minister Narendra Modi used the first Prime Minister for Netaji in the Rajya Sabha, it was his greatest honour.
Today when there is a layer of scepticism on patriotism and nationalism in India, we should not forget Netaji’s view that India’s nationalism is neither narrow nor selfish nor aggressive. It is inspired by the values of Satyam Shivam Sundaram. The alliance between Gandhi and Nehru, weakening Netaji’s roots. It was said that during the freedom movement, Bose was not given the respect for which he was entitled.
Today we want to ask one more question here, when Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose had established the Indian government in Singapore before independence on 21 October 1943, why was it rejected in India at that time? At that time, 11 countries gave their consent to this pledge of Netaji..in which Japan, Thailand, China, Burma, Italy, Germany and the Philippines were prominent.
That is why we are saying that when Prime Minister Narendra Modi described Netaji as the first Prime Minister of the first government of Azad Hind Fauj, it was his greatest honour, which the Congress deprived him for many decades.
