A Critical Defence of Kancha Ilaiah’s Voice

In these achhe din when the Hindutva bullet trail has killed people with impunity for speaking what it does not like, the recent threats against Kancha Ilaiah Shepherd should not be taken lightly. Of course, the Hindutva brigade is not known to warn its victims. Narendra Dabholkar, Comrade Govind Pansare, M M Kalburgi, Santanu Bhowmik, and recently Gauri Lankesh were not forewarned. In this case, both Ilaiah Shepherd as well as the representatives of the Arya–Vaisya community filed police complaints against each other. It does not mean that because the threat was publicly issued, the issuer would be marked if something untoward were to take place.

The Sanatan Prabhat, the mouthpiece of the Sanatan Sanstha, has issued a standing threat to all rationalists whom it wants to have killed as demons to establish the kingdom of god. When Dabholkar was gunned down, it had the temerity to justify the act in a celebratory tone, with no legal consequence. Contrast it with thousands of Dalits and Adivasis incarcerated for years just under the suspicion of being connected with Maoists!