Complaint against Rakesh Sinha: Having silenced her critics within Bengal, Mamata is spreading her tentacles outside the state

Rakesh Sinha

By Firoz Bakht Ahmed*
It left me aghast when I heard that at the Shakespeare Sarani Police Station, Kolkata, an FIR, at the behest of Mamata Bannerjee, Chief Minister of West Bengal, based on very flimsy and unfounded grounds was filed against my old time friend, Delhi University Political Science professor and RSS think tank/ spokesperson, Rakesh Sinha — truly, a man of letters and clear understanding on matters pertaining Hindu-Muslims relations, India’s secular credentials and communal harmony.
Why it actually traumatised me, was the fact that I have known Rakesh for almost two decades, even while he wasn’t the spokesperson of the RSS, as an erudite scholar and a very well-read intellectual. We have often sparred on the umpteen TV channels on a variety of topics ranging on a varied variety of topics, sometime on the opposing sides of the table and at others, on the same side! What impressed me was his deep-rooted knowledge of history and a holistic approach towards all aspects of politics and in fact, life in general.
In fact, the travesty of the entire misadventure is that in 1987, Sinha had interviewed Mamata Bannerjee who highlighted the excesses of the CPI-M government. Besides, he had not visited West Bengal for the last two years. Today she is doing exactly what she had criticised that time. Truth is that such act will lead her to nowhere other than ending up as a fascist.
Communal violence at Basirhat
Early this month communal violence swept through Basirhat in the North 24 Parganas district, which borders Bangladesh, after Muslim mobs went on a rampage, angered by a controversial Facebook post by a Hindu teenager. A man was killed and several homes, business and vehicles burnt in the violence that erupted and continued for days.
What actually happened was that being a journalist and writer, he has been tweeting on a variety of topics, including the Hindu-Muslim riots at Basirhat, 24-Parganas, Kolkata. What is inexplicable is that the tweets posted by him are all innocuous and have nothing to do with provoking the communal violence in Basirhat. The post that has been made the axis of complaint, is that of a picture with his mother offering prayers at the Mahakal Temple in Ujjain on July 9. 

Other harmless tweets included the President of India presenting an award to Sinha and the RSS chief, Mohan Bhagwat releasing a book on Narendra Modi. It seems that Mamata is phobic of Sinha’s research-oriented criticism of her dangerous design of dividing people on communal lines.
Ludicrous complaint
What is very ludicrous is that Sinha has been booked for this particular picture under various non-bail able IPC Sections, including, 120 (B), 153 (A1 and B) 295 and 505 — all claiming that Sinha tried to incite communal hatred and thus tried to spark communal conflagration in the already panicked state through his social media posts.
There can’t be a bigger absurdity that this! When contacted by this writer, a peeved Sinha stated that he was the last person to have annihilated the communal concord and that it was a malicious effort on the part of the Mamata brigade to throttle the freedom of expression.
“RSS is an organisation that firmly believes in cementing the amicable communal bonds between various communal cross sections, especially between Hindus and Muslims. Mamata has always misused Muslims as vote bank and hasn’t done anything to uplift their lot in the field of education, jobs and the pathetically low standard of life.”
Mamata phobia
Having silenced her critics with the state of West Bengal, Mamata, is now spreading her tentacles outside the state and the FIR against Rakesh Sinha is a similar strike in her hit list.
Rakesh Sinha was also upset about the fact that Mamata was exploiting state agencies for the gratification of her selfish ends to retain her power via nexus between the police, administration and other agencies to promote her vote bank politics.
In fact, the FIR has been lodged by one Manoj Kumar (perhaps at the behest of the repressive Mamata), a TMC stooge and cohort alleging Sinha’s posts to be “provocative”. According to Brajesh Jha, Sinha’s counsel, they have moved the court for anticipatory bail and in all probability, the FIR will be quashed as it has been registered with a diabolic design to crush the RSS activist, on insubstantial grounds without any annexures.
Many activists across the party lines and political allegiance and leanings, like — NDTV’s Vikram Chandra, Ravish and Vishnu Som, Maulana Athar Dehlvi, Ambar Zaidi (creative film director from Jamia) besides other umpteen eminent citizens – have openly voiced their support, in favour of Rakesh Sinha.
Opined Ambar Zaidi, “All the people believing in the voice of sanity condemn the FIR against Rakesh Sinha for exposing the involvement of communalist radicals of TMC in Basirhat/ Baduria riots. We are also planning a candle light march to support Rakesh Sinha.”
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*Columnist, educator and grandnephew of Maulana Abul Kalam Azad