You ain't no friend of mine!!

When I was younger, so much younger than today, a place of worship was brought down. 

What ensued, meant for the first time I was checking who my friends were. Till then, they were friends. Thereafter they had an adjective before the "friend" attached. A religious adjective. Up until then, religion was mostly defined by who went for Catechism and who took Moral Science. But then it became some much more. 

It became political. 

However, even with all the politics around, I was always told that politics shouldn't come between friends. 

At some levels, it felt right. Every strain of political thought goes with some things that are said, and most that are unsaid. You may say that markets are the solution to economic worries, or that the government is the panacea to things that markets are incapable of handling. You could disagree whether the biggest threat to the nation was the neighbor to the West, or the one to the North East. You could discuss whether the Nuclear Test was worth the sanctions that the rest of the world put upon the nation and have differing views on it. 

But what was unsaid, yet plainly understood, was that there was a common destination for all, but the route we took to get there was a matter of disagreement. 

Up until now, that is. 

I could go on and on about how manipulative the whole set up is, but there are people who are better at me in putting words to the anguish. 

Like Prem Panicker here in this masterful post in a style that only he can: In the beginning was the word

The manipulation is so detailed, and so deliberate, to demonize people who are just asking to be heard. Not only are they now people who "will enter “your homes” to “rape, kill, your wives and daughters”, they are also people who will do anything for money because some opposition parties are offering 500 bucks per attendee at these protests. (Makes you wonder though, if a political party can actually fund a few thousand people every day for over 50 days, and claim political benefit out of it, you'd assume that this party would have a budget beyond belief.. Now which party would that be??) 

But anyway, I digress. 

It's becoming very clear (to me at least) that forget the route, there is fundamental disagreement in the direction in which the country should be headed. I was the fool who thought that a developed country was not an insecure one. I was the idiot who felt that giving people the opportunity to shine, is more important than blockading an entire state for months together in the name of integrating them with the rest of the nation. 

Apparently, when we were promised development, this development is what everyone wanted. 

Politics shouldn't come between friends.. But if that's the development you want, then you are no friend of mine.. You can keep your country, but you are no-one to me.. We might be cordial, but to me you are a perpetrator. If you believe that a million people, braving the cold, waiting patiently for someone to come and talk to them, are traitorous mercenaries, then it is you that is despicable, not them. 

There is still time though.. Mere andar ke jaanwar ko mat jagao..