Sedition in High Gear

There can be no doubt whatsoever that the eviction drive of last Thursday to free Mathura’s Jawahar Bagh illegally occupied by cult leader Ram Briksh Yadav and his 3,000 followers should have really come on January 12, 2014—a day after it was illegally occupied by Ram Briksh Yadav and his followers who declared it a “free tion”. Ram Briksh’s action should have been opposed with the most determined efforts to evict the traitors from their so-called “free tion” and the tion should have decorated the district collector and the superintendent of police with the highest civilian awards for having done their sacred duty by the country without waiting for orders from their higher-ups. Instead, what do we have? We have letters going back and forth within the State hierarchy for over two years without anyone having the courage to take stern action against such a serious act of sedition. Last Friday, a day after the eviction operation which led to several deaths (including that of Ram Briksh Yadav), a police officer said that whenever an attempt was made to remove Ram Briksh from the park, there would be a telephone call from Lucknow to go slow against him. Was this only because Ram Briksh had assembled deadly weapons and explosives or was it because Ram Briksh knew he had all the support he would need from the high-ups in government? Those in the administration who failed to do their sacred duty to the country must have been the victims of two kinds of fear: the fear of their own lives in the context of the reputation that Ram Briksh had acquired for being able to kill, and the fear of proving braver than their bosses in Lucknow by taking the required action despite tacit words of caution to dissuade them from their duty.