The Other Side of the Coin

I’m certainly not a right-winged Hindu fundamentalist but, I have no sympathy for the late Rizwanur Rahman. It is just that I cannot pity anyone who gets ensnared in any sort of a complicated situation brought about by that silly notion called “Love”. The media and the ideological youth have, needless to say, made a martyr of someone who didn’t do anything to deserve the accolades he’s getting after his death.

I’ve always wondered why we have such a fascination and anticipation for love triumphing against all odds. Maybe it is the effect of watching too many Bollywood movies glorifying “love”. Why can’t we accept that the odds can even out once in a while and the universal “bad guys’, the parents who disagree with their children’s love, also have their own point of view that may have an iota of prudence to it. “He has sacrificed his life for love and country. Its our turn to show it was not futile” – says the first post of a web site dedicated to Rizwanur. Would Rizwanur have sacrificed his life willingly for his love even if he had a prior inkling of the fame he has since achieved? Why do we then keep at it that he sacrificed his life for his love? I also fail to understand the connection between welfare of the country and his death. Do they mean to say that Rizwanur’s death is the next Jalianwala Bagh in the freedom struggle for love? Why does love require a sacrifice to establish its stamp of greatness and why does love make an educated man or woman lose their marbles so that they can’t take in the good from the bad or make judgements that may prove fatal?

The whole matter being sub-judice, it would be iniquitous to brand Ashok Todi as a murderer. It would also be totally unfair to completely ignore his side of the story. Any man wouldn’t want to see his daughter marry below his social standing and for a man said to be worth in excess of Rs.200 crores, who surely must have brought up his daughter in a comfortable if not lavish lifestyle, the mere idea of her marrying a socially insignificant person like Rizwanur would have been sacrilegious to say the least and he did try to wean him away from her with promises and threats. Why blame Todi, for I’m certain that all these “soldiers of love” crying for Rizwanur today, would do the same if they are in Todi’s position tomorrow. Rizwanur knew about the influence his father-in-law had in the corridors of power, but still went ahead with the marriage which makes it hard to believe that he was not just a gold-digger. Had Rizwanur had the sense to listen to his mind over his heart, he would have lived. Should I blame the person who knowingly & willingly put his hand into a snake-pit or should I blame the snake for biting him?

If Rizwanur had been just beaten up, or if Todi had been a Bengali this incident would have been relegated to some obscure column of the newspaper. Had Rizwanur not been from the minority community, would this episode have been politicised? Rizwanur had agreed to convert to Hinduism. Then, why is he hailed as a hero and a champion of the minority community who stood up for what he believed? Is this incident just a sad reminder of the generation gap between parents and their offspring? There are too many hypothetical questions. But, there is one thing I’m glad about - for obvious reasons - that, this incident did not happen in Gujarat.