Today I woke up in the land of Taliban

You know there is something grossly wrong with a nation when it books a man on ‘sedition’ for demanding ‘freedom from casteism’, and books another man for ‘defacement of property’ for offering ‘reward to kill a real person’.

Today I woke up in the land of Taliban – the fear that I expressed many times over the last many years.  ‘Look, I said so!’ just doesn’t cut it anymore.

The fears that I expressed about this nation are slowly turning out to be true. 

Talibanization of this country is now picking up pace.   Nationalism is hijacked by one group, one ideology, who now portray every other group, and every other ideology as ‘anti-national’.

Long ago, I wrote (in 2007):

First they came for…

First they came for the Sikhs, and I didn’t speak up,

because I wasn’t a Sikh.

Then they came for the Muslims, and I didn’t speak up,

because I wasn’t a Muslim.

Then they came for the Christians, and I didn’t speak up,

because I wasn’t a Christian.

Then they came for the Communists, and I didn’t speak up,

because I wasn’t a Communist.

Then they came for the Liberal Hindus, and I didn’t speak up,

because I was a conservative Hindu.

Then they came for me, and by that time there was no one left

to speak up for me.