Jinhe Naaz Hai

Bilquis (Jinhein Naaz Hai) is an awesome song from Rabbi Shergill's album, Avengi Ja Nahin. Part of the lyrics are based on a song with the same name from Guru Dutt's Pyaasa (1957)

Shergill's song speaks about the atrocities committed against people who raised their voice against corrupt practices in the system. It asks the obvious question, "jinhe naaz hai hind par woh kahan the, jinhe naaz hai hind par woh kahan hai." 3 of the 4 people mentioned in this song were murdered.

Translation of 'jinhe naaz...'
"Where were all those people who were proud of India (when this happened), where are the people who are proud of India?"

People mentioned in the song

[0:54] Bilkis Yaqoob Rasool aka Bilkis Bano
During the Gujarat riots of 2002, Bilkis Bano was raped and left for dead alongside 14 members of her family. In January 2008, 13 of the 20 accused in the case were convicted. Supreme Court lawyer Vrinda Grover pointed out, “For the first time in post-independence India, a communal riot-related rape case has seen conviction.

Read more on Tehelka

[1:32] Satyendra Dubey
Dubey was Project director at the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI). He was murdered while fighting corruption in the Golden Quadrilateral highway construction project.

Read more on Wikipedia

[2:20] Shanmugham Manjunath
Manjunath was murdered  for sealing a petrol station in Lakhimpur Kheri, Uttar Pradesh. The station was sealed for selling adulterated fuel.

Read more on Wikipedia

[3:32] Navleen Kumar
Navleen Kumar was a human rights activist who was murdered in 2002 in her apartment in Mumbai. She had been working for more than a decade to protect and restore the lands of Adivasis (indigenous people) in the Thane district through legal interventions at different courts.

Read more on Wikipedia


So, jinhe naaz hai Hind par woh kahan hai?

"Everyone just stood there and watched."

November 19, 2011. In a city bus in Pune. The young girl standing beside me in the bus starts yelling at a guy next to her. It was time the girl's patience had gone over board due to inappropriate advances the guy was making towards her, intruding her personal space. My friend & I had noticed the pranks of this guy from the time we had boarded the bus, which he had been doing since he was in the bus stop. Meanwhile, the guy tried to defend himself by blaming the girl for what was happening. She created commotion out of it and called out for the conductor to chuck this guy out of the bus. But like everyone else in the bus, the conductor just stood there and watched the tamasha. The bus and the commuters continued their journey as if nothing had happened.

What the girl told me, during the conversation later, is what this article is about. “I cannot tolerate such things” she said “Unfortunately, no one in the bus came to my help. Everyone just stood there and watched.”

“Everyone just stood there and watched.”

This is exactly the same thing what Priyanka Fernandes said a week back, “When my friends Keenan and Reuben were being stabbed repeatedly, mercilessly, I could see at least 50 eyewitnesses, who stood like stone, unmoving and unmoved, as we screamed for help. Not one came forward to join the fray, to help us fight against a reprehensible crime.” [Keenan & Reuben case: NDTV, Wikipedia ]

Not that I expected a mob justice for this girl, but I was hoping that, at least, the bus conductor would give a warning to the guy. The last time I witnessed something similar was in Chennai, when a guy was thrown out of the bus for making lewd remarks to a girl.

But unfortunately, people need a more empathetic factor to raise a voice against something bad happening to a person standing next to them. They don't care because it is not someone they know. And while we stand there watching indifferently, the number of Keenans & Reubens will only continue to increase in our country.

Thankfully, this time, I wasn't one of those who stood there and just watched.

[The above image is not an image from the scene]

Policeman attacks mentally challenged man with brute force. Jai Ho!

The ABC of Ayodhya

Source: The Internet