In today’s world, the maritime technology has become immensely progressive, which results in all-time, all-weather voyages with much ease. This was not same with the medieval periods when the ships had to depend much on the wind. In European medieval maritime history, the sailors were afraid of what were called the Doldrums, a low-pressure area around the equator where the prevailing winds are calm. These Doldrums were noted for calm periods where winds would disappear altogether, leaving the sailing ships trapped in the region for several days until some strong wind would come again to give mobility to the ship. The left-wing ideological camp, which consists of intellectuals, liberals and self-righteous wise people, often needs such strong winds to move their ships out of the political doldrums. The murder of Gauri Lankesh was a similar political wind.
The current government has been doing a good job, if not the best- at least far better than the last UPA-2 government, which even went to the extent of blaming the opposition party BJP, its mentor RSS and the other Hindu organizations for the 26/11 terror attack instead of Pakistan and LeT. The opposition parties are trying hard to come up with strong issues to target the government. Among these groups, the leftist camp suffers the most with insecurity because the common people rejected it for its utmost hypocrisy and anti-national attitudes. Apart from Kerala and Tripura, the greatest leftist force- the CPIM has crumbled into dust, literally. This leftist camp needed a strong subject so that it could gain momentum in politics and the corpse of Gauri Lankesh brought that opportunity.
Gauri Lankesh was a hardcore leftist whose prime targets were the right wing groups, the Hindu organizations and lastly, Hinduism itself. In 2012, she participated in a protest event, which demanded ban on Hindu organizations like RSS. In that protest, she stated that Hinduism was not a religion but a “system of hierarchy in society” in which “women are treated as second-class creatures”. Gauri Lankesh even advocated for a minority religion tag for the Lingayat community. In various accounts, she criticized Hinduism vehemently in a distasteful language. Her animosity towards the Hindu groups and organizations are evident from her social media posts like the one given below, where she used disrespectful and abusive language:-
Gauri Lankesh herself was a loud figure from the educated leftist camp who once shared a link that called PM Modi a gay groom.
Due to her baseless allegations and false accusations, two BJP leaders filed defamation cases against her in which she was proven guilty and was sentenced for 6 years imprisonment. Due to these defamation cases, she claimed in an interview published in NewsLaundry that Modi-bhakts and Hindutva forces want her jailed.
As soon as the news of Gauri Lankesh’s murder came out, the leftist camp did not waste any time to accuse the Hindu organizations for her death. As with Kalburgi, the murder of Gauri Lankesh was also hijacked by the leftist groups, which were fast in pronouncing verdict and blaming the Hindu organizations for the murder. Her lawyer, B.T. Venkatesh clearly accused BJP, RSS and other Hindu organizations for the murder of Lankesh. “Let us say it loud and clear. Hindu terror units killed Gauri Lankesh. She opposed the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), the BJP and these Hindutva forces and this killing is the silencing of that voice against hate politics. It had nothing to do with all the defamation cases filed against her”, said advocate Venkatesh in his statement. Even Bollywood, which never spoke out regarding the riots of Dhulagarh, Kaliachowk and Malda; the same Bollywood which was vocal about the death of Ikhlaq but silent about the death of Prashant Poojary, came out to protest against the murder of Gauri Lankesh. Shabana Azmi spearheaded the protest rallies.
People saw nation-wide protest regarding Gauri Lankesh’s murder until recently, the organizers of the protest suddenly became silent because some other sides of the story resurfaced, which had put them in utmost discomfort. Some of the last tweets from Gauri Lankesh hinted that she was aware of some voices of disagreement within the followers of same ideology like hers.
The protest gang became silent when Gauri Lankesh’s brother revealed some shocking facts. According to Indrajit Lankesh, Gauri received numerous hate messages and death threats from Naxalite groups and there is a great chance that some Naxalite groups bore grudge against her. Her above tweets were also hinting the same. Gauri Lankesh was part of a group that was working to bring people from Naxalism back to the mainstream and it was natural that some Naxalites would have become hostile to her. After all, which group would want its foot-soldiers to reduce in number?
However, Gauri’s sister Kavitha Lankesh- an eminent Film maker gave a statement that she does not believe Naxalites killed Gauri Lankesh. The difference of opinion proved that the family itself was split in different political ideologies.
However, soon there were some more revelations, which pushed the leftist group backward. The SIT, which was designed to probe Lankesh’s murder, interrogated a jailed Maoist in Bangalore Central Jail who claimed that his group had grudge against Gauri Lankesh. According to the report, the Maoist leaders were particularly unhappy with Gauri Lankesh for urging them to surrender.
Here are the hard facts on the #GauriProbeDisclosure twist pic.twitter.com/59XnhCXJVZ
— TIMES NOW (@TimesNow) September 19, 2017
Though the seculars, liberals, intellectuals and media wasted no time in convicting the BJP, RSS and the Hindu organizations for Gauri Lankesh’s murder, other groups too had motive for killing her. According to an interview published in Reddif, she even investigated about the corrupted means and activities of Minister DK Shivakumar. Such ministers and politicians also have a strong reason to silence her voice.
Recently, the Gauri Lankesh protest gang found a new point to target the Hindu groups. According to a report published in IndianExpress, Forensic team found the pistol used to kill Gauri Lankesh was the same gun that was used to kill M.M. Kalburgi. However, the news reported by the HindustanTimes revealed something more. Instead of claiming that the gun was same, Forensic claimed that the guns in both the murders were similar, 7.65 mm country-made pistol were used to kill both Kalburgi and Gauri Lankesh. This type of gun was also used in the murder of Pansare, another activist. Since the guns were same and Kalburgi’s murderers are thought to belong to any Hindu organizations, the leftist camp was quick to connect the dots to blame the Hindu outfits for Lankesh’s murders.
However, there are more facts to resurface. In 2014, a joint operation by CRPF and Police busted a Naxal arms factory in Munger, Bihar. The team recovered 16 sophisticated automatic country-made pistols of 7.65 mm and 70 magazines. The DeccanChronicle claimed that the Naxals and Maoists prefer the 7.65 mm country-made pistols. As soon as the ballistic report established a Naxalite connection, the protestors seemed like having lost the eagerness to demand justice for Gauri. Many Naxal groups have their dedicated arms factories in Bihar and West Bengal and a 7.65 mm pistol is easily available.
