Members of Hindu Vahini were manhandled and detained by the Guntur police when they attempted to hoist the tricolor at the Jinnah Circle’s tower named after Mohammad Ali Jinnah in Guntur on the occasion of Republic Day.
Hindu Vahini had announced that it would raise the Bharatiya national flag atop the tower. However, the police thwarted their attempts even as some members of the group tried to climb the tower. They were manhandled and taken away by the police who put up more barricades around the tower in addition to the huge fence raised by the corporation.
The video of the incident went viral on social media (SM) inviting sharp reactions from netizens. Citizens questioned the action of the Guntur police and demanded to know as to why there was a place named after the man who got Bharat divided on communal lines.
Journalist Swati Goel Sharma also exposed the hypocrisy of the media which described the raising of the tricolor as ‘ugly scenes’ and to citizens as ‘right-wing activists’.
It has been a long-standing demand of Andhra Pradesh and Telangana BJP members to rename the circle after freedom fighters rather than after Jinnah who got the nation divided. Furthermore, the police action against citizens for celebrating the nation’s Republic Day by hoisting the national flag is both deplorable and insensitive.
That ‘secularism’ would trump nationalism is certainly not the sign of a healthy democracy. It also highlights the need to overhaul the bureaucracy and the need for police reforms. There is an urgent need to delink politics from policing, judiciary, and bureaucracy.
(Featured Image Source: OpIndia)
