ASYLUM FOR ASSANGE

SUNNY THOMAS

Long at last, Julian Assange found a home! The celebrated Leak Journalist was hounded out of his own homeland and country after country slamming the door on him till Ecuador decided to grant him asylum. Some of his leaks were earth-shaking, contributing to transparency, while some were politically-motivated and suspect.

Assange is not a saint; nor is he considered for beatification. Driven by vain glory and self-aggrandizement, he became the self-appointed crusader on Mission Destruction – creative destruction if you may call so. The establishment of the capitalist world hated and feared him, and would have loved to get him fixed on charges fictitious or real. But the masses that have nothing to lose or nothing to hide look up to him as a messiah.

To believe or not to believe? This is the dilemma Wiki Leaks poses to its readers. Just because nine expose were found true, it does not logically follow that the tenth is true as well. Technology has not yet discovered a gadget to sift falsehood from truth – one of the original dilemmas of philosophers.

Just imagine all Assamese are given asylum in Bangalore and Mysore, after they are displaced from their homeland by the migrant Bangladeshis! Bangladesh has virtually annexed Assam by proxy, which is an eye-opener to the Chinese who failed to do so. The tide of sub-nationalism started in the late 1960s with Shiv Sena claimed that Maharashtra is for Maharashtrians! There was a sense of injury among Maharashtrians when they saw their girls were molested by immigrant youth in search of jobs. The cosmopolitan culture of Bombay (now Mumbai) bred Street Romeos, who are just freed from parental control. This led Marathi editor Atre suggesting a cultural organization to protect Maharashtrian girls from their predators. 

Balashib Thackeray, a brilliant cartoonist with political ambition, hijacked the idea. His musclemen intimidated the `outsiders’  by running riots in the early 1970s and finally settled down for what is rumoured as `protection money’ from hoteliers and business establishments of `outside’ origin. No one complained because the profit margins were still high in Bombay. It is well known that Bollywood actors have security network with connections to the underworld. But no one complained.

In Assam, with the emergence of ULFA, the story was repeated. 

`Outsiders’ (not just business establishments as in Maharashrta) paid protection money for the safety of their life and limbs. So there were parallel governments, one run by the duly elected, and the other run by the unduly elected mafia, both taxing the people.  

Mafia rule and fundamentalism thrive because they enjoy political patronage. The present Assam crisis is fundamentalist-engineered and hence one spectrum of politicians maintains an undignified silence. The same politicians will cry hoarse if the rival fundamentalist groups are fermenting trouble.  The net result is Bharat Mata is living in Refugee Camps!    

      

Jinnah died broken-hearted because Pakistan turned out to be the antithesis of what he had envisioned. What pierced Gandhiji’s soul was not Nathuram Godse’s bullet but India’s partition. No two men could empathise with each other better than Gandhi and Jinnah.

For a breed of brainless politicians, anybody who creates commotion is a leader. Look at the rousing reception that yoga guru Baba Ramdev got, as if they are pleading `Lead us kindly light!’ both Anna Hazare and Baba Ramdev were enacting scripts written by others but with a political plot. A handful of corrupt people trying to eliminate corruption and people linked to black money wanting the Prime Minister to eliminate it are nothing more than television comedy shows! 

  

Either Advani is joking, or he is dead serious. A non-BJP PM to lead NDA, on the face value, is a cruel joke on Nitish Kumar, the most eligible bachelor to tie the knot. But when no party or alliance come anywhere near the stability mark, parliamentarians will have to look for a leader acceptable to both Congress and BJP, and UPA and NDA. Perhaps, the only one who qualifies the test is Nitish, who has the credential and credibility. 

Maybe Advani is playing the spoil sport, because Narendra Modi’s enemies are within the party more than without. The shrewd gamesman knows BJP’s chances are as bleak as that of Congress, at least for now. Maybe BJP would like to project Nitish as PM till the election and upset the apple cart later.    

In the ring are Nitish, however much he denies, and Modi who constantly attacks Manmohan Singh in the hope of turning it into an American model Presidential election. And of course Rahul Gandhi, because India is not UP. The outcome of a lawless state need not be a pointer to 2014. If C Chidambaram restores the confidence of the investors and take the economy to its buoyancy, there is no doubt that the voters will not look for an alternative.  

NOTE: Julian Paul Assange is an Australian editor, activist, political talk show host, computer programmer, publisher and journalist.