By the Editor: Siddharth Sehgal

This week a lot of examples were set in our country that’d be remembered for a long time to come. Supreme Court gave Muslim women their long overdue rights, privacy became a fundamental right and baba of bling was found guilty of assault and rape. But another example of blind faith was set by Dera followers who brought the state to it knees in defense of their “Pita ji” who forced himself on god knows how many innocent women.

Why do politicians and people follow such demagogues with such blind faith, why no neta showed the spine to call Ram Rahim what he is, a criminal, on the contrary some of the politicians are somehow trying to present a justification of this rapist and the chaos his followers created. I am surprised this is happening in 21^st century. It took handful of judges, activist and honest officers in law enforcement to challenge the authority of Dera and had it not been because of few brave men and women who followed the voice of their conscience baba might have raped many more. Why we didn’t support those two girls who showed courage against such odds. Why the family of reporter Ram Singh Chatrapati who in all possibility was murdered by Dera didn’t have justice till now. What happened yesterday was a total collapse of rationality and morality in the name of devotion.

The Hindu holy books say that Lord Parshurama took up arms against Shiva, his guru who tested his disciple by digressing from Dharma. For Dharma, Arjuna fought his teacher Drona in Kurukshetra. Anushansa Parva or “The Book of Instructions” Bhishma instructs Yudhishthira on the duties of a ruler of which the principal one is the well being and security of his people, he should use any means at his disposal to guard the life and property of his subjects. There are no exceptions in Ram Rajya, no one above the law. Guru and King should be blameless so why we forget all this when we pay homage to these false prophets.

Now coming to the government of Haryana, in fact I really don’t know what to say of them. Were they chose to stand at the sidelines or simply unprepared to face it or something else but the seething anger and resentment against them in public eyes doesn’t leave anything to say. This is the third time they have repeated the same mistake and until center intervenes Haryana will remain a tinder box. Imagine what will happen on Monday when court will give the sentence. No matter what the outcome, even in jail baba will live out in luxury, his followers will go scot free but its the ordinary citizen who will end up picking the pieces after the carnage.