Bharati Sanghavi, Nov 1, 2021

Nov 1: Day 1 of my fast, day 616 of our chain.

I am fasting to support the demand for the release of Sudha Bhardwaj who is languishing in jail without trial for almost three years. She is in jail because she helps most marginalised people My deepest reverence for this intellectual plus ethical genius!

#ChainFastingForPeace

#FastingAgainstFascism

#FreeSanjivBhatt

#ResignAmitShah

#ResignModi

Amit Dhawan, Oct 27 – Oct 31, 2021

Oct 27:

Today, day 611 of our chain, Amit Dhawan takes the lead again, with the following message:

Day 1 of my fast, day 611 of our chain.
अपने ही देश की बैंकों को चूना लगाने वाले इन देशद्रोहीयों को देश बेचते समय न तो सरकारों को शर्म आ रही है, न सरकारी अधिकारियों को और न ही खुद को देशभक्त मानने वाले लोगों को।

शर्म तो उन्हें भी नहीं आ रही जिन्होंने इनके शेयर ले रखे हैं, या इनकी कंपनी में नौकरी कर रहे हैं। लेकिन वैसे देशभक्ति के नाम पर किसी गरीब की नौकरी छीन लेंगे, किसी की मोबलिंचिंग कर देंगे बेशर्म लोग।

✍️~ विशुद्ध चैतन्य

ChainFastingForPeace

FastingAgainstFascism

FreeSanjivBhatt

ResignAmitShah

ResignModi

Oct 28: Day 2 of my fast, day 612 of our chain.

पेट्रोल डीजल की कीमतें मोदी सरकार अनाप शनाप रूप से बढ़ाए जा रही है 1 जनवरी 2021 से अभी तक यानी मात्र 10 महीनों में पेट्रोल में लगभग 23 रु प्रति लीटर का इजाफा हो चुका है, आज भी दाम 35 पैसे बढ़ाए गए हैं !….

आप मुझे किसी भी एक नोकरीपेशा व्यक्ति का नाम बता दीजिए जिसकी सेलेरी इसी अनुपात में बढ़ रही हो ?

इस मूल्यवृद्धि से देश मे मध्यम वर्ग और गरीब वर्ग बुरी तरह से प्रभावित हुआ है लेकिन सरकार इस विषय मे कुम्भकर्ण की नींद ले रही है, ऐसा नही है कि दुनिया के अन्य देशों में कच्चे तेल में हुई मूल्यवृद्धि का प्रभाव देखने को नही मिला पर उन्होंने अपनी जनता को राहत देने के लिए पर्याप्त प्रयास किये हैं

फ्रांस को ही ले लीजिए फ़्रांस में भी फ्यूल की कीमतें रिकॉर्ड स्तर पर पहुंच गई लेकिन वहाँ जनता में असंतोष न फैले इसलिए फ्रांस की सरकार ने कम आय वाले लोगों को 100 यूरो यानी करीब 9 हजार रुपए का महंगाई भत्ता (Inflation bonus) देने का वादा किया है. फ्रांस सरकार के प्रवक्ता गेब्रियल एट्टल ने कहा, “हम स्पष्ट रूप से फ्रांसीसी लोगों का ख्याल रखना चाहते हैं, जो कड़ी मेहनत करते हैं और इन बढ़ती कीमतों से प्रभावित हो रहे हैं.

क्या मोदी सरकार से आप ऐसे सेंसेबल डिसीजन लेने की उम्मीद कर सकते हैं ??? बिल्कुल नही कर सकते !…..क्योंकि भारत मे सरकार का पिठ्ठू बना मीडिया जनता को बढ़ती कीमतों के बजाए दिनरात हिन्दू मुस्लिम मुद्दे में उलझाए हुए हैं……वह तार्किक बात आपको करने ही नही देगा !……..✍️ Girish Malviya

#ChainFastingForPeace

#FastingAgainstFascism

#FreeSanjivBhatt

#ResignAmitShah

#ResignModi

Oct 29: Day 3 of my fast, day 613 of our chain.
दुनियाभर में झूठ, नफ़रत, हिंसा का बाजार परोसने के बाद अब फेसबुक ने अपना नाम बदल लिया है।

अमेरिकी सीनेट के सामने जब फेसबुक के कारनामों की पोल खुली थी, तभी जुकरू ने ठान लिया था कि जिस रास्ते पर वे चल पड़े हैं, उसे तो नहीं बदल सकते, पर प्लेटफार्म का नाम ज़रूर बदल सकते हैं।

फेसबुक यानी मेटा और मेटा यानी मेटावर्स। मेटावर्स यानी ऐसा वर्चुअल स्पेस, जिसे आप रच सकें और दूसरों से शेयर कर सकें, जिनके साथ आप मिल-बैठ नहीं पाते।

1992 में नील स्टीफेन्सन ने दुनिया को मेटावर्स नाम दिया। फिर यह नाम गेमिंग की दुनिया में छा गया।

हाल के वर्षों में मेटावर्स ब्लॉकचेन टेक्नोलॉजी का पर्याय बन चुका है, जहां आप प्रतिबंधित क्रिप्टो करेंसी खर्च कर वर्चुअल स्पेस में हर चीज़ खरीद सकते हैं।

कोविड के दौर में जब दुनिया दड़बों में कैद थी, तब इस वर्चुअल स्पेस का बाज़ार भाव जुकरू को समझ आया। हमारे यहां तब नाम बदलने वाले बाबाजी लाशें बहा रहे थे।

जुकरू ने मेटावर्स में अरबों डॉलर लगाए हैं। सिर्फ जुकरू ही नहीं, माइक्रोसॉफ्ट और सिलिकॉन वैली की दर्जनों कंपनियां इसी रास्ते पर हैं।

यानी अगले 9 साल में दुनिया मेटावर्स के आगोश में वर्चुअल स्पेस पर कपड़े बदलने से लेकर संगीत सुनने तक कई काम कर रही होगी।

वर्चुअल और ऑग्मेंटेड रियलिटी की दुनिया, यानी हम खुद अपने दायरे में जो चाहें करें। बाहर निकलकर वह नहीं कर सकेंगे।

घर और बाहर में यह फ़र्क़ अब शायद ही कभी बदले।

इसीलिए, शायद जुकरू ने रास्ता ही बदल लिया।✍️ Soumitra Roy Sir

#ChainFastingForPeace

#FastingAgainstFascism

#FreeSanjivBhatt

#ResignAmitShah

#ResignModi

Oct 30: Day 4 of my fast, day 614 of our chain.
अपने हिन्दू होने पर गर्व कीजिये, लेकिन सावधान….

▪️मूर्खतापूर्ण नोटबन्दी हिंदुत्व नहीं है
▪️पेट्रोल डीजल पर बेतहाशा टैक्स थोपना हिंदुत्व नहीं है।
▪️बिना सोचे थोपा गया GST हिंदुत्व नही है
▪️रसोई गैस महंगा करना, सब्सिडी गायब करना हिंदुत्व नही है।
▪️खराब आर्थिक नीतियों से अर्थव्यवस्था का बंटाधार हिंदुत्व नही है।
▪️बिना तैयारी के लॉक डाउन हिंदुत्व नही है
▪️ऑक्सीजन की कमी से हुई मौत हिंदुत्व नही है
▪️खराब कृषि कानून से जमाखोरी और खाद्य पदार्थ महंगा होना हिंदुत्व नही है
▪️फायदे वाले सरकारी उपक्रम बेचना हिंदुत्व नही है।
▪️बैंकों का निजीकरण, विलय और छंटनी हिंदुत्व नही है।
▪️सरकारी नौकरियों में कटौती, बेरोजगारी हिंदुत्व नही है।
▪️पीएम केयर जैसा निजी ट्रस्ट और उसमें वसूला गया पैसा हिंदुत्व नही है

🕉️🕉️🕉️ ✍️ Dimple Sharma

#ChainFastingForPeace

#FastingAgainstFascism

#FreeSanjivBhatt

#ResignAmitShah

#ResignModi

Oct 31: TBA

Suniti Sanghavi: Oct 12 – Oct 16, 2021

October 12:

Day 1 of my fast, day 596 of our chain.

So today I learned that I came really, really close to winning a grant proposal to do research I have long yearned to. And didn’t. Disappointment weighs heavily on me today, and I wish for all the strength I need to not get boxed in by my external successes or failures, by my perceived strengths or weaknesses, and let myself still be able to look beyond the horizon for what is worthy. I wish for the strength, wisdom and grace to stick to what is right when it isn’t easy. I wish for the strength to unlearn habits that keep me from paying attention to things that really matter.

I think about Rohith Vemula, who truly dared to dream beyond his circumstances, and was crushed by a world that refused to heed the truth and beauty he had to offer.

And then I think about Modi, Shah and Mohan Bhagwat – each spouting comments that make it obvious that their worldview has nothing to do with truth or beauty, and everything to do with accumulating wealth and power in order to never have to confront their own limitations. Limitations that would actually take them to edge of what it means to exist, to a place where growth is meaningful and can be achieved only by being solidly grounded by reality and yet daring to dream beyond what is immediately possible.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rohith_Vemula

As he took leave of this world, Rohith wrote:

“I always wanted to be a writer. A writer of science, like Carl Sagan. At last, this is the only letter I am getting to write.

I loved Science, Stars, Nature, but then I loved people without knowing that people have long since divorced from nature. Our feelings are second handed. Our love is constructed. Our beliefs colored. Our originality valid through artificial art. It has become truly difficult to love without getting hurt.

The value of a man was reduced to his immediate identity and nearest possibility. To a vote. To a number. To a thing. Never was a man treated as a mind. As a glorious thing made up of star dust. In every field, in studies, in streets, in politics, and in dying and living.

I am writing this kind of letter for the first time. My first time of a final letter. Forgive me if I fail to make sense.

My birth is my fatal accident. I can never recover from my childhood loneliness. The unappreciated child from my past.

May be I was wrong, all the while, in understanding world. In understanding love, pain, life, death. There was no urgency. But I always was rushing. Desperate to start a life. All the while, some people, for them, life itself is curse. My birth is my fatal accident. I can never recover from my childhood loneliness. The unappreciated child from my past.

I am not hurt at this moment. I am not sad. I am just empty. Unconcerned about myself. That’s pathetic. And that’s why I am doing this.

People may dub me as a coward. And selfish, or stupid once I am gone. I am not bothered about what I am called. I don’t believe in after-death stories, ghosts, or spirits. If there is anything at all I believe, I believe that I can travel to the stars. And know about the other worlds.

If you, who is reading this letter can do anything for me, I have to get 7 months of my fellowship, one lakh and seventy five thousand rupees. Please see to it that my family is paid that. I have to give some 40 thousand to Ramji. He never asked them back. But please pay that to him from that.

Let my funeral be silent and smooth. Behave like I just appeared and gone. Do not shed tears for me. Know that I am happy dead than being alive.

“From shadows to the stars.””

(Copied with thanks from the wall of Sam Ish)

#ChainFastingForPeace

#FastingAgainstFascism

#FreeSanjivBhatt

#ResignAmitShah

#ResignModi

October 13: Day 2 of my fast, day 597 of our chain.

In a continuation of outrageous, easily disprovable claims made by the staunch nationalists that make up the Indian government today, our defense minister Rajnath Singh said, “Lies were spread about Savarkar” and that it was on Mahatma Gandhi’s advice that he wrote mercy petitions to the British.

https://www.indiatoday.in/india/story/mahatma-gandhi-asked-savarkar-file-mercy-petitions-rajnath-singh-1864238-2021-10-13

https://www.thequint.com/news/india/did-mahatma-gandhi-ask-savarkar-to-file-mercy-petitions

What is troubling about this wishful revisionism is not so much the anguish (more honestly nuisance) it creates for most of us who are lucky enough to be old/informed/aware enough to see through such nonsense. The true cost is the toxic relationship with reality that such behavior at the highest public levels creates for our young, growing minds who are naturally given to trusting authority unquestioningly. Do these leaders realize how deeply they are impairing our youth in their ability to function in the increasingly more complex, intermeshed world we are heading towards?

#ChainFastingForPeace

#FastingAgainstFascism

#FreeSanjivBhatt

#ResignAmitShah

#ResignModi

October 14: Day 3 of my fast, day 598 of our chain.

The best thing I like about Germany is the normalcy, the respect for the ordinary, and the general lack of sensationalism that pervades social behavior. It is different from the US and India (my other main reference points) in that the absence of too many social smokescreens creates a baseline which makes the laws of nature – both physical and social – very easy and natural to perceive. Is it any wonder then that Germany has produced so many thinkers whose legacy will remain indelible?

India today, on the other hand, wants to rush progress and grab glory by force, under the unifying populistic garb of Hindutva. And by doing so, it is actually receding from its dream of glory at least as quickly as it hopes to achieve it.

We have become a hotbed of injustice instead. The religiously motivated slandering of high profile Bollywood star Shah Rukh Khan‘s son (while Ashish Mishra slips out of the spotlight) is merely the tip of the iceberg. Religious bigotry has penetrated so deep into our society that school kids end up internalizing and acting on the hatred our politicians are manufacturing for nothing more than their own narrow political gains.

What’s happening in the submerged part of this iceberg of hate and bigotry is evidenced by sickening examples like this (see attached picture, with thanks to Arshiya Qureshi for sharing it).

How wretched can one be to think this is an India to be proud of?

#ChainFastingForPeace

#FastingAgainstFascism

#FreeSanjivBhatt

#ResignAmitShah

#ResignModi

October 15:

Day 4 of my fast, day 599 of our chain.

Was out with German friends this evening. It is nice to be able to sit at a table at a restaurant with a glass of diluted rhubarb juice and not feel any pain or temptation while seven other people feasted.

Of course, my fasting also brought up questions of why we’re doing this, and it takes no time for Germans to figure out that India is going the way of Nazi Germany. One wistful remark was:
“Does history have to be repeated to learn its lessons?”

They wish our chain well, and hope we can touch enough minds and hearts to help correct the course we’re on before too much damage is done.

#ChainFastingForPeace

#FastingAgainstFascism

#FreeSanjivBhatt

#ResignAmitShah

#ResignModi

October 16:

Day 5 of my fast, day 600 of our chain.

Today I have the honor and privilege of carrying our chain to its 600th day.

I would have been incredulous if anyone had told me on day 1 that we’d come so far, developing a whole community organically, with no plan to stop before our primary goals are met. The main goal being to touch as many hearts and minds with love, empathy and truth in the hope of reverting our beautiful country from its current self-destructive course of hate and bigotry.

None of this would have been possible without each and every member and well-wisher of our chain, all of whom are shining beacons of inspiration, strength, and persistence, who set aside their physical and emotional comforts to fight for humanity, staying doggedly on course even on the darkest days with no signs of immediate change.

At the end of this long journey, our chain will show to posterity that the children of India, and of this Earth, have it in them stand in solidarity for the common good, to love, to care, and to grow together meaningfully, regardless of their many differences.

Giving up is not an option.

#ChainFastingForPeace

#FastingAgainstFascism

#FreeSanjivBhatt

#ResignAmitShah

#ResignModi