Karni Sena's violence is a stain on national pride: Organisation has signed its death warrant by attacking school bus

Republic Day was not about where Rahul Gandhi sat at the parade. Protocol was followed and he fit right into row 6. The former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh was right up front and that is where he should have been. It might be fine for Congress spokespersons like Randeep Surjewala to fling ripostes about ‘cheap politics.’ However, there has to be some reasoning and logic to such taunts. Why should the Congress president be catapulted to a front row? On what grounds? To be fair, Rahul Gandhi has not made a song and dance about it. However, if he intends to do so, he should remember that the issue is not even a blip on the public radar in the greater context of saluting our armed forces and the splendor that unfolded at Rajpath. Rahul would do well to choose his battles. [caption id=“attachment_4321793” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Protests by the Karni Sena. Representational image. PTI[/caption] If indeed there was a stain on national pride, it was this nonsense spread by the Karni Sena and the absurdity of the response to a movie of no great consequence. However, this lunatic group seems to have succeeded in writing its death warrant when its squad attacked a Gurugram school bus and pelted it with stones. In one fell swoop, India said enough, we will rise against you. No one cares if the Karni Sena national secretary Suraj Pal Amu has been arrested. In fact, it is about time. There is no reason to have even a drop of sympathy. Even as we saluted our forces in uniform as they displayed their discipline and their skills, one Colonel sat weeping in frustration. His grandchildren were on that school bus and he could not reconcile the pomp and splendour of the sena with the vile and disgusting behaviour of another so-called sena that attacked kids. Colonel Gurmeet Sethi is currently trying to come to terms with the incident, as his two grandchildren aged 4 and 6 were on that bus and suffered the trauma. Several other families too are in shock. “What do I tell these children as they cry in their restless sleep? They cannot understand why they were targets,” the Colonel was quoted as saying. The children on that bus in Gurugram have paid a price for sure, but they have also evaporated the public fear of the Karni Sena and its intimidatory tactics. Suddenly they are seen as the cowards they are and the people are not going to tolerate their violence anymore. Somewhere, the people are fed up. We cannot have parades like this and ten heads of state as chief guests on the one side, market ourselves as the future of this world and then endure the mockery of violence perpetrated by loonies like these. They won’t know why the organisation pelted stones at their school bus, but they will never forget the fear it has sown in them. The fear of going to school, the fear of being on the road, the fear of their fellow Indians. The incident took away the joy of school bus trips from their childhood memories. They feel weak and scared. Hear those bells Colonel. That’s the people ringing them…a death knell for the sena.