PM and BCL
We are very happy to read editorials of three major English dailies on the same day ( April 5, 2010) about the concern of the prime minister regarding the point that the student wing belonging to the ruling party would not be allowed to nullify her government's achievements. Now she has again spoken out over the activities of an associate body of the ruling party. Months ago, she publicly dissociated herself from the student organisation perhaps in the hope that it would send the right message to the student body to rectify itself. Unfortunately, it did not have the desired impact on the student wing. The student organisation has continued to defy appeals made to it to shun violence, tender snatching, extortion and pursuance of illegal ways for making money. In fact, it has made blaring headlines for its misdeeds on a regular basis with no sign of abatement. Her assertion that the student wing cannot be led by individuals who cannot be called students any more is a hint at how student politics may have become captive in the hands of what she calls 'adu bhai'. The statement is in itself a warning that unless such bodies as the student wing are led back to the old idealism which marked their coming into existence, student politics will continue to be on a slide. And that will mean the sort of unruly behaviour citizens have seen coming from BCL activists in these past many months. One does not have to tolerate such behaviour, as the prime minister has explicitly stated, or expect that it will end through a mere sounding of warnings. Only an application of the law can have a salutary effect on such behaviour. It is clear the blame must lie with the party leadership.
If the prime minister is serious about reining in the student wing, she needs to ensure that the offenders are not only disciplined organisationally but punished legally as well. We've to wait for the better outcome. Time is a companion that goes with us on a journey. It reminds us to cherish each moment, because it will never come again. What we leave behind is not as important as how we have lived. Time and tide wait for no human. A pompous and self-satisfied proverb, and was true for a billion years; but in our day of electric wires and water-ballast we turn it around: Humans wait not for time, nor tide.
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