On Tuesday night senior journalist Gauri Lankesh was shot to death outside her home in Bangalore. Gauri was known for her radical opposition to communalism and her death has jolted the nation. It is time to contemplate on not just the assassination of a journalist but also the decadent socio-politics of our times.
On Tuesday night an extremely tragic incidence took place in Bangalaru when a senior journalist Gauri Lankesh was shot to death outside her home by unknown culprits. Gauri was the editor of the Kannada weekly magazine ‘Lankesh Patrike’.
The death of the journalist in such a brute manner has invoked severe protest from civil society organisations and associations of journalists all over the country. Lankesh was known for her staunch critique of the violence perpetrated by the right-wing organisations and how this was counterproductive for a country that called itself a democracy.
A close friend of the journalist said that Lankesh was killed because of her strong thoughts against the present regime and that though they had killed her physical body they can never destroy the ideas that she stood for.
The death of the journalist comes as a strong blow to the consciousness of India as a nation and tells us that not all is quite fine with our democratic culture and that there is somewhere a deep need to rethink what we call politics. In a time where dissent is seen as the enemy of civilization and any form of opposition is crushed under the boots of hegemonic state power it is crucial for people to question such a discourse and find for themselves why decadence has so rapidly occurred in the system.
The death of Gauri Lankesh is a clarion call for all those individuals in India who cherish their right to liberty of thought and expression and believe that a democratic society is built on the basis of multiple thoughts and ideologies, and that when we deny discussion and critique we turn into a totalitarian system which is stagnant and dangerous. Let us all take a moment of contemplation and probe into the future of our endangered democracy.
