Modern Traitors
Both the Ishrat Jahan & Co case as well as the Naxalite issue are linked to each other at a very basic level.
Liberals in Hindusthan would like to tell us that there is something wrong with our nation-state that makes Muslims and Maoists turn away from it.
However, liberals would never speak in such plain terms. In their own special language they would say minorities and working and agrarian classes have turned away from the oppressive nation-state; thereby they try to make an ideological case for the so called under-dog.
The generally reductionist liberal in such circumstances, likes to look at everything in a holistic manner. Take a bird's eye view, if you like. So he will lump all minorities together and bracket them with terrorists and their supporters. He will lump all workers and farmers with Naxalites. That's the way the liberal gathers legitimacy for himself and his cause.
The miasma of an anti-state nation - ie, that all common folks stand against the state and its apparatus is the liberal propaganda. Per him, the only folks who do support the state are privileged upper castes.
The angst that the liberal is suffering from nowadays - and therefore the hysteria - is because he realises that a lot of us are not with him. A whole nation stands against him because he does not speak against the terrorist whilst supposedly speaking for the oppressed. He does not speak against Naxal killers whilst supposedly speaking for farm hands.
I wonder if all this will ever end? In the old days we had "traitors to the nation". Therefore there would be none who worked actively against the nation without incurring a severe penalty if caught. We now have traitors who work in the guise of "human rights" activists with access to huge funds. Treachery is an industry today.
Should we bring back some old values?
Well, my point was primarily this - The modern liberal state does not recognize the category of "traitors" to the nation in it's pristine sense. What it alternatively does is to simplify and reduce the meaning to something very meaningless and it says basically this - "A traitor is a spy or in any-case one who openly torments the nation". No more and no less.
The category "traitor" has ceased to include elements that are also otherwise inimical to the nation-state. Elements that would include ideological supporters of such *defined* traitors. Now this latter bunch are BIG in this country.
Look at all those who are openly speaking in favor of Kobad Ghandhy for instance.
I don't think talking about "'tradition', 'forefathers', 'country', 'religion', 'region', etc." is necessarily a negative. These are all very intrinsic to human beings. Their levels of importance in our lives is what makes them sacred.
If I as an individual don't care about "'tradition', 'forefathers', 'country', 'religion', 'region', etc." then these are obviously not sacred to me.
I would also disagree with your implication of "man-made". I think you mean this to be somewhat artificial and something that can be "re-made" of man so desired. In my view, these categories occur due to the very dynamics of human existence. These cannot be unmade or made per the whims of human likes and dislikes.
For instance; I cannot unmake the tradition of marriage simply because I somehow dislike it. I may not marry but if I ask another to follow me, then I should be prepared to be rebuked. Now, marriage itself was not a human "invention". It was more in the nature of "discovery" of the goodness of human companianship post the need for survival (through reproduction) was satsified. Man and woman realized their respective wants and strengths and felt they had to be there to protect their offspring.
The same is true of tradition and notions of society, nation etc.
Coming back to the point; One may carry an opinion but one becomes a traitor (at least in my view) to the nation as soon as one starts to support folks who actively engage in extinguishing the basis of nationhood and its protective structure. If a part of the nation is aggreived, then the levers of the State and it's institutions must be worked to address the grievance. No one can by-pass this system and hack away at the roots. This is what Islamists and Naxalites are doing. When such people are supported through whatever ideology or opinion, then the supporters become the fifth column of such traitors. They must be dealt with appropriately.
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