लिखी पटकथा का आकस्मिक दुखांत
राजस्थान के दौसा जिले का एक राजपूत किसान गजेन्द्र सिंह जंतर -मंतर ,दिल्ली में आयोजित 'आप 'की रैली में फांसी पर झूल गया। ये फांसी स्वेच्छया थी अथवा उकसाने की प्रेरणा से ये जांच का विषय है। और जो लोग केज़रीवाल गिरोह को अच्छी तरह जानते हैं वे पक्के विश्वास से कह रहें हैं कि किसान की फाँसी की पटकथा (स्क्रिप्ट )'आप 'गिरोह ने पहले ही लिख दी थी क्योंकि अब ये बातें खुलकर सामने आ रहीं हैं कि दिल्ली सरकार के उप -मुख्यमंत्री मिस्टर सिसोदिया पहले से गजेन्द्र सिंह के सम्पर्क में थे और आप की प्रेरणा से वे इस विरोध सभा में शामिल हुए थे। ये तो माना जा सकता कि 'आप 'गिरोह ने फांसी की इस घटना के समापन अंश को इतना दुखांत न लिखा हो ,ये हो सकता है कि वे इसे एक बनावटी अभ्यास (मोक ड्रिल )तक ले जाना चाहतें हों। होने को ये भी हो सकता है और लोग ये कह रहें हैं कि इस बनावटी आत्महत्या को अंजाम देने के लिए आप गिरोह ने उन्हें अच्छाखासा पुरूस्कार देने का प्रलोभन दिया हो। क्योंकि जो तथ्य सामने आ रहें हैं कि गजेन्द्र सिंह एक अच्छा खासा कलाकार भी था। वह दो तीन मिनिट में ४० -५० व्यक्तियों को शानदार पगड़ी बाँध सकता था। वह खुशमिज़ाज आदमी था।
उसके पारिवारिक सूत्रों के अनुसार यह ठीक है कि इस बार की फसल की बरबादी से वह भी दुखी था पर परिवार की आर्थिक स्थिति और सामाजिक स्थिति सम्मानीय थी। १९-२० बीघे या इसके आसपास उनके पास अपनी ज़मीन थी। गाँव में अच्छा खासा मकान था। प्रकृति प्रकोप से वह खिन्न तो था पर जीवन को जीने की उसकी तमन्ना बहुत मज़बूत थी। सदा खुश रहने और अनेक सजधज की पगड़ियाँ बनाने में माहिर गजेन्द्र सिंह के चेहरे पर कभी दुःख की रेखा किसी ने नहीं देखी थी।यहां तक की अपनी खुश रहने की तबीयत के कारण वह लोगों में शौक़ीन मिज़ाज़ भी समझा जाता था। ऐसे दिलदार खुशमिज़ाज कलाकार दिलेर आदमी गजेन्द्र सिंह राजपूत को 'आप 'गिरोह के लोग खुली आँखों से फांसी लेते देखते रहे। शायद उसे विशवास था कि पेड़ के नीचे 'आप 'पार्टी कार्यकर्ता इस बनावटी दृश्य को असली दृश्य में परिवर्तित नहीं होने देंगे,पर वे तो उसे उकसाने के लिए तालियां बजा रहे थे। और मंच से कुमार विश्वास सहित दूसरे लोग भाषण ज़ारी रखे हुए थे।
आरोप तो यहां तक लगाया गया है कि कुमार विश्वास माइक से कह रहा था -लटक गया … लटक गया …
जैसे कोई पतंग के मेले में कटती पतंग देखकर उत्साहित होकर कह रहा है -वो काटा .... वो काटा ...
ये कुमार विश्वास किस विषय के प्रोफेसर रहें है लोगों को नहीं पता .पर अनुमान ये है कि वे हिंदी के लेक्चरर रहे होंगे। वे खुद को प्रोफेसर कहते हैं इस पर भी किसी को एतराज नहीं है। राहुल गांधी के विरुद्ध इलेक्शन लड़ने पर भी उन्होंने जनसमाज की वाहवाही बटोरी थी। उन्हें अपने कवि होने पर भी बहुत नाज़ है पर साहित्य के गहरे अध्येयता ये जानते हैं कि नै पुरानी लयों के सहारे और पहले से कहे गए काव्यात्मक जुमलों को जोड़कर वे मौलिक कवि होने का भ्रम पैदा करते हैं। इन तथ्यों से भी समाज को कुछ नहीं लेना देना पर 'आप 'गिरोह के इन छोटे मोटे कारिंदों ने एक निर्दोष किसान की जान लेकर राजनीतिक रोटियां सेंकने की जो वीभत्स कथा लिखी थी वह हर संवेदनशील व्यक्ति के हृदय के अंदर छुरी की तरह चली है।
ये भी हो सकता है लोगों का आक्रोश उन्हें इस तरह सोचने पर मजबूर कर रहा हो पर 'आप ' गिरोह की अविश्वश्नीयता लोगों के मनों में इतनी गहरी है कि ९० -९५ % वोट पाकर भी ये संदिग्ध बने हुए हैं। ये अराजक तो हैं पर इतने क्रूर निकलेंगे यह सब सोचते कहते हुए लब थरथरा उठते हैं।
हम तो कामना करते हैं उनका उद्देश्य ऐसा नहीं रहा होगा पर लोकमन विश्वास ही न करे तो 'आप 'कहलाने वाले केज़रीवाल ,मनीष सिसोदिया ,सुरेन्द्र सिंह ,कुमार विश्वास ,सोमनाथ भारती और कभी पत्रकार रहे आशुतोष को अपने हृदय के अंदर झांककर देखना चाहिए कि लोगों के मन में शातिर अविश्वास की फसल बोने के लिए क्या वे जिम्मेवार नहीं हैं ?
जांच तो अपना काम करेगी पर लोगों की मलामत और अंतरात्मा की अपनी फटकार से वे बच नहीं सकते। शायद ऐसे हालात को देखकर किसी शायर ने कहा था -
किसी से इस सियासत का हाल क्या कहिये ,
घिरी हुई है तवायफ तमाशबीनों से।
लोग कह रहें हैं ये वही केज़रीवाल हैं जो सारे खतरे उठाकर १५ -२० फुट ऊंचे बिजली के खम्भे पे चढ़कर लाइव बिजली की ताराें को काटने की महारत रखते हैं वह बहुत ही कम दूरी पर खड़े उस टेढ़े वृक्ष की आठ दस फुट ऊंचाई पर फांसी लेने वाले किसान तक नहीं पहुँच सके। हिरन की तरह कूदने फांदने वाली उनकी टांगें जड़ हो गईं और किसान की फांसी घट जाने के बाद भी वे १७ मिनिट तक भाषण देते रहे। केंद्र सरकार को गालियां देते हुए दिल्ली पुलिस को अपने अधीन करने की परोक्ष धमकी देते रहे।
हमने जो कुछ लिखा है यह आम आदमी की प्रतिक्रियाओं पर आधारित है। गजेन्द्र सिंह को फांसी पर लटकने के समय देखते हुए केज़रीवाल और मनीष सिसोदिया में क्या खुसर पुसर हो रही थी ये भी जांच का विषय होना चाहिए, क्योंकि उस समय इनके चेहरे पर दुःख संताप और पीड़ा का भाव नहीं था बल्कि लिखी गई पटकथा के अनुकूल होती घटनाओं का संतोष उनके चहरे से झलक रहा था।
जयश्रीकृष्णा।
Farmer
who killed himself at
AAP rally had contested
election
New Delhi: Gajendra Singh the farmer who committed suicide at a rally conducted by the Aam Admi Party on Wednesday had tried everything to bring his life under order. He had visited several pro farmer rallies in the past and even tried his hand at politics ten years ago, say reports.
A leading daily reports that Gajendra Singh’s attempt to enter the state Assembly on Samajwadi Party ticket nearly a decade ago.
“He lost the elections by a huge margin, but the party appointed him as its district president,”Deccan Herald quoted Suraj Singh, one of Gajendra’s neighbours, as saying.
However a year back he quit the Samajwadi Party and joined the Aam Admi Party.
According to a Hindustan Timesreport, the family of Singh owns some 10 acres of land, including a gooseberry orchard and a teak plantation. After his failed forays into politics, Gajendra tried his hand at making a living out of tying colourful, Rajasthani turbans on tourists at hotels, the report adds.
Farmer's suicide: 'Gajendra
was financially sound,
had 8 bighas of land'
Dausa: The family of Gajendra Singh, the man who on Wednesday committed suicide at an AAP rally in Delhi, claims that he took the extreme step due to the “unexpected loss” of his crops.
41-year-old Gajendra Singh, a resident of Dausa district and father of three, took his life by hanging himself from a tree, while Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal was addressing a farmers rally on the issue of Land Acquisition Ordinance.
Gopal Singh, the victim’s uncle, said, “Gajendra was under stress and disturbed because unseasonal rain had destroyed his crop. He earned his livelihood through farming.”
The Dausa district administration, however, has countered the family’s claim, saying, loss of crop “does not appear to be the reason” behind it.
Also, Sub-Divisional Officer Bandikui, Dayanand Sharma, has claimed that “Gajendra never approached the authority to demand any compensation.”
According to Bandikui SHO Laxmikant Sharma, “Gajendra Singh had 8 bighas of land and had cultivated wheat.”
Unmindful of the appeals from AAP leaders and workers to climb down from a tree at Jantar Mantar, the rally venue, Gajendra put his towel around his neck and hanged himself. Dausa district is about 60 kms from Jaipur.
Even as they paint a picture, almost cynically, of a farmer “not badly” hit by crop loss, the local administration fails to explain why Gajendra Singh found the need to travel out of Dausa and commit suicide at a farmer protest in distant Delhi.
There was a time when Arvind Kejriwal was the darling of the media, especially of Twitter, where his every move was hailed and tracked. There was a small stumble when he resigned but his resurgence in Delhi seemed to elevate him to god-like proportion. Especially since he seemed like the only one capable of taking on Modi.
Not any more though. The shocking suicide of the farmer at Jantar Mantar even as AAP leaders, including Kejriwal, continued their speeches seems to have finally turned the medium against him.
Farmer suicide at AAP rally:
Relatives allege Manish
Sisodia involvement
New Delhi: Relatives of Gajendra Singh, the farmer who committed suicide during an Aam Aadmi Party rally in the national capital, on Thursday alleged that their family member had met Delhi Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia before the public gathering, further speculating that crop damage due to the recent unseasonal rains may have forced him to take the extreme step.
"I was shocked when I got to know about the incident. I have a close friend in the AAP; I gave him a call and was told that Gajendra has expired," said Rajendra Singh, a cousin told ANI.
"I later got to know that Gajendra had visited Manish Sisodia before the rally begun. He did participate in rallies occasionally, but I don't know what provoked him to hang himself," he added.
Jaibeer Singh, a relative said that Gajendra had been upset after the unseasonal rains had destroyed their crops.
"I got a call from the SHO of the Tughlaq Road Police Station to inform me of the incident, who somehow got my number and called me. Gajendra was upset because of the crop damage due to the recent rains. He was given a call by Manish Sisodia, inviting him to the rally and to help him out," he said.
"He had a lot of hopes when he went for the AAP rally. It is shameful that when a person is dying, people are trying to politicise the situation," he added.
Another relative, Giridhari Singh, alleged that his family had received no compensation after the rains had destroyed the crops.
"The rains which took place 15-20 days back destroyed the crops. No one got any compensation from the government. Gajendra must have gone to the rally to represent the farmers," he said.
"We got to know of the incident via media reports. So far, we have not received any message from the AAP. They weren't able to save Gajendra in the rally, why will they call us?" he added.
Meanwhile, Vinod Singh, another relative, claimed that nobody had tried to save Gajendra while he was attempting suicide.
"Gajendra was very hard working and was active in social activities. I think he could have been saved, but no one tried to stop him when he was climbing the tree. Even after he hanged himself, the rally continued," he said.
Gajendra's relatives have also said that there is a wedding taking place in the family house. Once the wedding ceremonies conclude, family members will go and bring Gajendra's body back to their village.
Earlier on Wednesday, Gajendra, a farmer from Rajasthan, committed suicide in full public view during an AAP rally against the Centre's Land Acquisition Bill in presence of Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal and Sisodia
Gajendra Singh's Sucide
shows up the emptiness of
CM Kejrival's brand of politics .
The tragic death of a Rajasthani farmer at an Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) rally in Delhi against the NDA's Land Acquisition Bill should tell the party's leader Arvind Kejriwal one thing: his brand of theatrics-driven politics is rapidly losing traction.
Kejriwal and his party faced media hostility and political criticism (1) for continuing with the rally even after the farmer's death, (2) for needlessly blaming the Delhi police for not rescuing the man as he swung to his death, and (3) for making insensitive comments once Gajendra Singh's death was confirmed.
The spokesman has since apologised for his insensitive comments, but loose talk is not AAP’s real problem: the fact is the public is now tired of the Kejriwal brand of politics that seems to need sensational posturing, regular mud-slinging and dramatic manoeuvres to obtain media oxygen.
The public - and the media - have now come to believe that they should not take AAP and Kejriwal at face value. For a party that built its entire electoral profile by drilling holes in the credibility of mainstream political parties, that is saying something. Few people still believe AAP is straight as an arrow.
On social media yesterday (22 April), the chatter was almost wholly anti-AAP, with a few tweeters more than willing to buy the theory that the farmer's suicide may well have been plotted by the party itself. It is not a stretch to believe that AAP needed some distraction to shift the media narrative away from the recent split in the party, and to gain traction for its own anti-land bill posture, where
Rahul Gandhi has taken centre-stage.
However uncharitable and unwarranted these conspiracy theories sound, what should worry Kejriwal is the serious loss of credibility he and his party have suffered. His actions since December 2013 have been wayward and contradictory, and even as he has tried to recover from one setback, his personality leads him to fall into another. Today, not too many of his own voluble supporters seem eager to take up cudgels on his behalf.
Kejriwal's two-year CV as a politician is now hardly worth flaunting, considering how many times he has let his core constituency down. Some of his misadventures since December 2013 are well known, but others have done equal damage. Many of his utterances and tactical moves have boomeranged, if not shown him in bad light.
Consider the following instances:
For a man who professed a deep commitment to inner party democracy, the nasty way in which two major dissenters – Yogendra Yadav and Prashant Bhushan – were booted out of the party suggests that AAP’s top leadership is no different from the Congress’, except for the very public washing of dirty linen.
For a man who openly advocated stings by the “aam aadmi” to bring the corrupt to book, the series of stings organised by his own former colleagues ended up devaluing the whole business of stings. Now, no one takes sting-related news seriously any more. It just makes for good TV, but then goes out of public memory.
Before the December 2013 assembly elections (and even after it), Kejriwal made the targeting of big politicians and big business his route to political one-upmanship. He got a lot of wah-wahs for naming and attempting to shame big politicians and businessmen as corrupt. But today none of that David Versus Goliath positioning is working for him.
He talked loudly about the Lokpal bill and even made the Congress-BJP attempt to prevent its introduction in the Delhi assembly in February 2014 a reason for quitting as CM. But this time we are hearing nothing about the bill, even though it has been more than three months after AAP was elected. Maybe it will come later, but it stands in sharp contrast to the extreme urgency he showed earlier.
Having got his comeuppance in Varanasi, where he took on
Narendra Modi and lost miserably, Kejriwal made amends in Delhi by apologising for abandoning the voters and taking them for granted. Delhi forgave him when his banner ads promised
“Paanch Saal Kejriwal”. But soon after being elected with a thumping majority, the first thing he did was make his close associate, Manish Sisodia, Deputy CM – something totally unnecessary when the people elected him as the city’s CEO. Kejriwal himself holds no portfolio.
He loudly claimed that power and office were not his party’s aim, but as soon as he was given 67 MLAs to work with, he realised that expectations of office were high in his party too. The law did not allow him to have more than seven ministers, so
he made 21 MLAs parliamentary secretaries, each with ministerial status but without pay.
In his last stint as CM, he made a big show of consulting his people before taking up the job of CM with Congress support. But when it came to quitting, no consultations were needed.
“Meri aukaat kya hai?”, he asked rhetorically to suggest that leaders are created by popular movements and the public. But every decision of AAP has Kejriwal’s imprint on it. The aam aadmi is merely there for the choreography.
It is not my case that Kejriwal cannot recover from his setbacks – he has shown great resilience in the past – but he has to grow up. If he does not, he will soon be facing the dungheap of history. Worse, he will have destroyed the public's faith in the possibility of honest politics.
How did Kejriwal, while on stage,
know that the farmer was from Dausa?
Vijender Gupta