Welcome to an unprecedented ceremony, the only one of its kind
on the planet. This ceremony was necessitated due to the Mumbai blasts. The
triple bomb blasts in Mumbai on 14thJuly is proving to be a unique
event in more than one ways. This event has some distinctions that none other
has so far. For one, it happened on the birthday of the only surviving convict
of the earlier attack, His Ghastliness Mr. Ajamal Kasab. It, thus, appears to
be an assurance to Mr. Kasab that he is not alone. Next, now it is getting
increasingly clear that Mumbai is the target of many of world’s major international
terrorist groups. That is why, Mumbai now has the distinction of being attacked
the maximum number of times in last 20+ years. No other city in India has had
as many terrorist attacks as Mumbai. I am aware that in saying this, I am
leaving out north-eastern states and Jammu and Kashmir. But then they stand
apart from the rest of India for a long time now. To be real honest, we are
required to remind ourselves periodically that they still are parts of India.
Any way! What I see as the third distinction in this case is the ‘spirit’ of
Mumbai. It’s altogether a different matter that many people have now started suspecting
that this spirit, like many other spirits, is ‘denatured’. Even terrorist
organizations are more or less sure these days that after their acts, all that
they need is a hiding for a day or two. Immediately thereafter, Mumbai goes
into its spirit, gets normal like a regular alcoholic and they will again be able
to move around like common citizens. Mumbai that way is a very safe city. The
last but not the least, the blasts invoked the most stupid reactions that India
has ever seen. Well, let me elaborate on his point a little more since that is
the central theme of this speech and the ceremony.
The discredit of the very first nonsense reaction to the blasts
goes to His Madness Shri. Raj Purohit of the BJP. Without even an iota of
sensibility, he went to the hospital where the victims of blasts were being
admitted. There, the idea of helping the victims and their relatives did not even
touch him. He started shouting slogans against so called ‘Government antipathy’.
In the process, if government was not sensitive, Mr. Purohit proved himself to
be senseless and showed that he was also equally worthy of a place in the Indian
Hall of Shame.
Next to follow was Mr. Raj Thakare. (This first name Raj seems
to have something of a problem, isn’t it?) While everybody else was talking about
the role of Indian Mujahidin in the blasts, Mr. Thakare saw north Indians,
particularly Biharis responsible for the blasts. How? He did not elaborate,
probably because there was very little to. No one knows even today what the
connection is and I have no hopes of ever being able to make out one. That is
the special prerogative of politicians only.
If BJP began the story of nonsense reactions, how far could the Congress
be left behind? It took only a day for them to catch-up with the main
opposition party and then leave them far far behind. The displaced and
disgraced Chief Minister of Madhya Pradesh, Shri. Diggi Raja alias Digvijay
Singh (let me assure you that the sequence of names is right) made a fool of
his own ministers, government, police and other authorities to declare a RSS
role in the blasts. I am not very sure whether Indian Mujahidin is
contemplating a defamation suit against Rajaji in an international court for
having stolen the act which they did. But I will not be surprised if they do
that. (RSS could do well to join the suit as a party rather than taking any
action separately.)
I know friends, that the items we have submitted above can not
make it a complete or exhaustive list in any way. But for limitations of space
and time, we could include only those items which showed an utter
disregard of sensibility. Minor incidences like Home Minister Mr. Chidambaram’s
clean chit to the Intelligence machinery or his feel good factor for the
31-months-without-an-attack could not be considered simply because they were,
though ill-sensed and ill-timed, grossly inadequate to create a suspicion in the
minds of our panel about the sanity of the person making them. We found them to
have been made more with a feeling of guilt rather than anything else.
Similarly, senselessly irrelevant items have also not been considered. Here is
an example. While writing about the historical perspective of the blasts and
the communal conflict in the country, in Maharashtra Times of 19th July
2011, Shri. Pratap Asabe has related the 1993 bomb blasts to the destruction of
Babari Masjid once again. Even after showing a number of times by a number of
analysts on a number of occasions, that the preparation for such a catastrophic
attack can not take anything less than a year and therefore, the span of time
between the destruction of the disputed structure and the blasts is grossly
inadequate, if someone is repeating his baseless theory with the same
senselessness, what do you call it, if not stupidity? But these events and acts
did not deserve being counted here and so have been ignored.
And now, ladies and gentlemen, I present you the most stupid
reaction to the Bomb blasts in Mumbai and the person behind it. This reaction
is the one which is the prime purpose of this ceremony because the ceremony is
for conferring an award. As you are all aware, our esteemed organization has
set up an award called “Mulla Nasaruddin Shekhchilli Award” which is the only
award of its kind. We confer this award on a person who makes himself the
biggest fool by his or her own utterances and remarks. The two major criteria
for conferring this award are making a fool of self only without implicating
others and the person should make it big enough. As it is, the current trend is
for making it big. Whether one has made it big is the key question in many
areas – this award is no exception. So in view of the spirit behind this most
dubious award of the country, this time we have chosen one of the youngest and
smartest politicians. As it stands today, other than politicians, who can
achieve the feat of winning this kind of an award? But even among the
politicians, this reaction easily has taken the cake. Ladies and gentlemen,
please put your hands together to receive the winner, Shri. Rahul Gandhi.
Before I go ahead and reach Shri. Gandhi to present the award to
him, please allow me to say a few words on why he was chosen for the award. For
our panel of experts, it was understandable if Shri. Gandhi wanted to support
the Government at the Centre, which is run by the party of which he is one of
the General Secretaries. He wanted to defend government of his party. But, at
the same time, he didn’t want to look unreasonable. So he chose to make it
statistical. As per his view, even if we try 100% to stop terrorist attacks,
the success rate could not be 100%. At best it could be 99%. Some attacks will
still materialize and will count in the remaining 1%. Till this point he could
not have been chosen here. But then, he made it big. To explain his point, he
went on to say that even the Americans are not able to stop terrorist attacks
100%. To explain the point, he went on to say, that, there may not have
happened an attack on the American mainland after 9/11. However, everywhere
else, like Afghanistan and Iraq its citizens are being attacked day in and day
out. So his point stands proved’ or so he thought. The logic of his thinking
and the conviction of his argument was enough for our expert panel to choose
his name for the award. Let me assure you that it was a unanimous choice.
In justifying their choice, the expert panel has specifically
said that the comparison entered into by Shri. Gandhi was hilariously stupid. What
the panel has elaborated, goes something like this. On one hand, he accepted
that after 9/11, no attack could be perpetrated on American mainland. The
attacks he is talking about are on the American forces in Afghanistan and Iraq.
The attacks are all being heralded on the forces fighting in the enemy territory
for a purpose. And the cause that they are fighting for is the security of
their homeland. Obviously, they are protecting interests of the US mainland.
Going by the result they are achieving in the US, it’s clear that they are totally
successful. In the circumstances, a comparison of these attacks, which have been
on the operation that has achieved its aim, with the attacks on Indian cities, where
the authorities could not protect Indian citizens on Indian land, is absolutely
nonsense.
In the daily Loksatta of 19th July 2011 again,
Shri. Santosh Prdhan, has opined that the remark of Shri. Gandhi was ‘objective’
(वस्तुनिष्ठ). Our
panel felt that this is a clear example of what the Vedas called like producing like, ‘पूर्णात पूर्णमुदच्यते’. Anything that is born from complete is complete as per this Vedic
philosophy. Obviously then, what is generated out of complete stupidity is
bound to be equally stupid. India has been involved in the peace-keeping
operations all over the world for many years now. Some of them, like the one in
Sri Lanka, have resulted in a lot of cost to the nation including loss of human
lives. Some of them have resulted in severe attacks on the force. Jammu and
Kashmir is a testimony, even today, of the risks security forces all over the
world face while operating in unknown territories. Nobody ever asked questions on
the capability of the Government, like what are being asked today. If Shri.
Gandhi had to compare those operations of Indian peace-keeping forces with the
one being taken up by the Americans in Afghanistan and Iraq nobody could have
found any fault with it. The actual comparison, however, was between two
nonsensically dissimilar Operations and that eventually won Shri. Gandhi the
award.
I will
be awfully short of fulfilling my duties if I do not concede with gratitude,
that this award, named ‘Mulla Nasaruddin Shekhchilli Award’, is inspired by the
Golden Raspberry Award instituted in the USA. I express our sincere and
heartfelt appreciation of the organizers of that award for the idea as well as
the generosity of not bringing it under the Intellectual Property Rights. Thank
you, ladies and gentlemen. Now I move ahead to present the award to Shri.
Rahulji. I invite you to show your appreciation.
