going gaga over a certain God’s “achievement” of accomplishing the statistical jargon of “Century of Centuries” with some matinee “megastar” tweeting that from now onwards “Indians can go to sleep peacefully at night”, bullet trains, zealous promotion/protection of Ganga-Sanskrit-Gita-Hindi-Yoga-Gomata and what not! And now this demand of returning the Koh-i-Noor diamond!
Have all acute problems of India ceased to exist that the State and its “progressive” “enlightened” “patriotic” citizens are immersing in the luxury of going all-out to immerse in such silly absurdities and trivialities?
Instead of playing to the cheap rhetorical gallery, when will the “nationalist” Indians learn to accept the hard fact that Koh-i-Noor was surrendered to the British according to the treaty marking the end of Anglo-Sikh war? Still if they insist on return of the diamond by ignoring the hard fact of treaty, then are they ready to accept the demands of Kashmiri separatists who hardly care about the Instrument of Accession signed by the Government of India and Hari Singh, Maharaja of Kashmir?
According to the zealot “patriots”, the “national pride” of India and Indians hangs on the mere Koh-i-Noor! Firstly, this atrocious story of “national pride” gets sponsored by that set of Indians who are nouveau-riche and do not have to worry about money and other perennial problems faced by the not-so-fortunate lot.
Secondly, what “national pride”? Millions of Indians are leading a hell-like existence plagued by rampant poverty, hunger, malnutrition, child as well as bonded labour, illiteracy, joblessness, injustice, terrorism, militancy, disease, lack of medicines and health care and what not. The menace of rape and other sexual atrocities upon vulnerable women and girls and child trafficking are also increasingly steadily.
Despite heavy bombings in Tikrit, Baghdad or Mosul; the Indian nurses employed in the hospitals located there just refuse to return to Kerala. A war-torn nation is more preferable for such nurses than the “peace” at their own backyard i.e. India or Kerala. Perhaps the exact state of affairs of India get blatantly exposed through such instances.
It is a matter of immense shame and disgust that none other than the State is indulging in such rhetorical exercise of bringing back the Koh-i-Noor, perhaps to divert the attention of the common Indians from the absolute bankruptcy of that shrill rhetoric of “Good Days”.
If the concerned authorities are indeed concerned about India and desire to make it a progressive proud nation; then they should immediately stop catering to the lowest common denominator, eradicate all thoughts of Koh-i-Noor and other insignificant issues from their consciousness and instead devote all their energy, time and resource for the uplift of the downtrodden and eradication of all social ills so as to make the society a bit civilised and a better place to live in.
