How Geelani gets to fly out and I, a patriotic Indian, am questioned

Last year I gave my passport back for renewal. A police officer came checking at my address. He checked on me with my neighbours. I was asked if there were any cases pending against me in any of the courts and my reply was sought in writing. All this was preceded by an interview at the passport office. So much, for a mere renewal, which was, perhaps, the fourth in the last 30 years. But I didn't resent it.

I do resent, however, Geelani getting his passport. He repudiates his nationality. He calls for secession. He supports a violent jihad. He is responsible, in a large measure, for the reign of murder and mayhem in Kashmir. He is, admittedly, an agent of Pakistan who we have been, repeatedly, at wars with for over half a century. Just watch this clip and you'll know what I mean by a Pakistani agent:

And to top it all, it was the 'Ab ki baar Modi sarkar' that gave him his passport.

One often hears an argument that such decisions are not taken on a whim or to placate a constituency. That there are far bigger issues and considerations at stake. All right. Let us, for now, forget the huge disappointment it brings to the patriots in India and Indophiles across the globe, if only to examine the plausible "compulsions" this government may have yielded to, in granting Geelani a passport. Let us ask ourselves a series of questions to understand this conundrum.

1) Does Geelani have an inalienable right to a passport, guaranteed to him under the Indian law? No! Nothing could be further from the truth. Section 6 of the Indian Passport Act deals with the government's right to refuse a passport for several reasons. Quite a few of those reasons apply to Geelani. And, strictly going by the law, Geelani has worked hard enough to deprive himself of an Indian passport. Any attempt by me to give details here, of what all Geelani has done, may amount to insulting your intelligence and I have no such intent.

2) Will doing Geelani such a favour, like giving him the Indian passport, earn the Indian government any gratitude from Geelani and soften his attitude and conduct? Huh, you have a hope. Geelani is the most inveterate India baiter born in a long long time. The intensity of his hatred for India is matched, if at all, only by his ingratitude, considering all that successive central and state governments have done for him over the decades. And it includes the sheer longevity he enjoys. As a violent secessionist, do you think he would have survived this long in any other country, anywhere else in the world? And, for how long as a secessionist under an Islamic dispensation that he so fondly envisages for Kashmir? Just asking. Democratically elected and then deposed, President Morsi, incidentally, is awaiting execution for sedition in Egypt. Besides longevity, do I also need to mention here all the state-sponsored largess, creature comforts, security, high status, free medical treatment and several favours to his kith and kin?

3) Let's examine the reverse. Will the denial of a passport enrage him, and his supporters, sufficiently enough to cause a big upheaval? And therefore, such a scenario is best avoided by throwing a passport at him? Wrong! The inherent naïveté in this presumption is that Geelani could be persuaded to choose not doing something that he otherwise would, as an IOU to accommodate India. Never forget point no 2. That apart, the hell Geelani has dragged Kashmir into, over the past three decades, has severely eroded his ability to achieve a meaningful scale of mass participation in any of his predictable endeavours. Geelani is, more or less, sorted. Besides, no nation, least of all India, can allow itself be coerced thus, or, survive fearing such a blackmail, by a person or a group.

4) Are we earning some brownie points with the world at large by being generous to Geelani? Here, we need to smell the coffee. The world, in fact, is amazed at our propensity to shoot ourselves in the foot. We have become an epitome of a pulp state. It isn't our ability to stay intact as a nation that is, anymore, in doubt. It is the sheer capacity for caprice in our leadership that often confounds the world. What causes this inconsistency? Is it guilt? Is it fear? Is it an inferiority complex? What is it? Nowhere else, and I do not mean just China or Russia, not even in the so called havens of freedoms and human rights do such criminals enjoy so much kid-glove attention.

5) Finally, is the present Modi sarkar going to benefit, politically or otherwise, by making such a concession? Even Rahul Gandhi knows the answer to this question. And, chances are, he also knows, that such a concession to Geelani is, actually, a direct concession to him. It is, indeed, yet another of the several times that the Modi government has lost an opportunity to distinguish itself, from the legacy represented by, to use the same metaphor, Rahul Gandhi. Ordinarily, squandering an opportunity to shine in sheer contrast, is a relatively minor loss. The bigger loss is, well, much bigger. India never expected any better from the likes of Rahul Gandhi. But, India, just in case Modi sarkar has forgotten, has been waiting in anticipation. For years. And, for the past one year, rightfully so.

What, then, is the reason for the volte face, ever so often? Why are we witnessing, in event after event, on issue after issue, and, over decision after decision, a descent into the same rut that we seem to have had shaken off a year ago?

I do not know if, lately, there is anybody around Modi to tell him this, that his bewildered bhakts, unlike Shri Krishna, do not have an inexhaustible supply of robes to keep him covered. More so, when he himself looks so eager to shed.