It is often seen that in some important sacrifices go unmentioned or to say the least unappreciated in the wake of something which becomes a fad too soon. Between the lines of the rumpus generated over the showdown involving a crooked Government at the Center and the apple in the eyes of the media- Baba Ramdev, the hushed struggle of Swami Nigamanand did not come up to scratch to catch the fancy of the civil society.
It requires due mention that the late swami and his patron ashram, Matri Sadan, have been involved in many confrontations in opposition to the reckless devastation of the sacred river Ganga all the way through illegitimate mining on the riverbed in Uttarakhand for a very long period of time.
Even the most oblivious can not fail to see that the mining companies must have had some associations with the government, which has given them a free pass to continue on with their transgressions leading to substantial to environmental wreckage.
This is so abysmal and yet they don’t flinch before turning a blind eye. The environment minister goes on in his discourse against the Multinational Corporations and their belligerence but he isn’t far removed from the apex of the storm, leaving behind his imitative orations.
The only reason this issue has raised some eyeballs is because the cultivation in the provinces of Uttarakhand are for the most part- greatly reliant on the river. Apart from that a chief source of the state’s income comes from the tourism and pilgrimage enterprises that have bloomed in the basin of the famous river Ganga.
Swami Nigamanand passed away after stubbornly fasting for about 114 days, insisting that the state government of Uttarakhand,run by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP),keep the Ganga basin from being illegitimately mined. The chief minister of the state , Mr. Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank, did not take into account the Swami’s desperate pleas.
At this point it is not out of place to mention the fact that, he (CM) had called on Baba Ramdev on a regular basis to ask for the latter to stop his fast despite the fact that he did not give swami Nigamanand the consideration due to him, who was coincidentally admitted in critical condition in the same Hospital as the one in which Ramdev was squatting to his heart’s content , with a lot of media attention.
While jumping the bandwagon is nothing new to our country , in a desperate hue for ratification of their abominable actions over their term – many eager members of Congress have taken advantage of the state of affairs to lay blame on the BJP of placing its own concerns above the concerns of the people who put them at the office ; lit my fuse.
The aftermath of the incident is yet to fully materialize but the Honchos of Congress have tried to make the most of it by condemning the Bharatiya Janata Party led Uttarakhand government. This is a turnaround to what went down under in the Baba Ramdev case , which was brought into play by the BJP in opposition to the United Progressive Alliance administration – vide various demonstrations all over the country. In the volley that resulted from all this fiasco , the most important issue of the Ganga basin’s interests has been forgotten. I could not help but doubt whether our country is really worthy of the tremendous sacrifice made by the youthful and sincere swami.
Pokhriyal’s disregard of Nigamanand is without a doubt a significant case in point of the Opposition’s rough and ready approach to get ahead of all and sundry, while holding the solemn belief in their petty minds that BJP’s lack of lucidity in dealing with Nigamanand and Ramdev has bounced back on the predominantly Hinduist outfit and helped the Congress gather the salvage in the ruins. If anyone was keeping the tally of the impropriety of their actions, I bet he would be dead tired by now.
At this moment when the swami has expired , while the swami’s in India are keeping them busy this year (first Sai , then Ramdev) ; the media have come to terms with the facts of the issue at hand. Inklings of a assassination scheme are doing the rounds. According to the news channel which have caught up, it is foreseeable that there are demands for an investigation by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) on the credibility of the rumour mills.
The unsung fast-unto-death of Swami Nigamanand in the Dehradun hospital is a depressing aide memoire of the capriciousness of the media houses in our country. Conventional media barely ever drew attention to his fast while they had gone in mass numbers over to the grand vanity fair in Jantar Mantar and more recently the Ramlila grounds.
Who knows if the Nigamanand’s fast had got media attention, the procrastinating Uttarakhand government may have been obliged to take action on the problem of illegitimate mining. It will be a heart-rending state of affairs for the people relying on them for every tiny bit of information and for our country at large if its press only gave attention to the matters at the capital and ignores its spirited people from other corners.