By Abdul Rashid Agwan,MM News,
It is still fresh to our memory how the most popular president of India, Dr APJ Abdul Kalam, received whole-hearted homage of people and the establishment, just after his death on 27th July this year. At least for the central government, the high tide of enthusiasm to remember lofty contributions of the man and to follow his shining footprints has perhaps ebbed since then.
The family of the ‘people’s president’ is chasing officials of the central and state governments to get built the promised memorial of Dr Kalam on an early date. Presently, a makeshift shelter protects his grave, with animals loitering around even as unmanageable crowds turn up over the weekend to pay him their tribute. The family of Dr Kalam and hundreds of thousands of his fans are gradually becoming restive on seeing that nothing has moved during the last five months towards this end.
After much persuasion, Public Works Department officials have finally paid a visit to Rameswaram last week to envisage due plan for the desired memorial on the grave site. But, there are yet miles to go towards any real act.
The grand nephew of the deceased president, APJ MJ Sheikh Dawood, let media know about this inching progress and said, “We request the government to fast-track the process of building the memorial.”
Even Kalam’s brother APJ M Maraikayar has initiated a public petition asking for people’s help to pressurize the government for undertaking the work in the desired manner. “I am 99 years old and cannot run after them to make this happen. I need your support. This is the wish of every Indian,” he wrote in his petition.
Not less than an authority as Prime Minister Narendra Modi has announced on 16 October for the construction of a befitting memorial on the site. Tamil Nadu government has allotted 1.5 acres for the plan but Rameswaram has to feel sad with the treatment meted out to its beloved son, who gave the country its rich set of defensive missiles.
Social media is fraught with campaigns asking the government to do justice to memoirs of the great scientist, educator and statesman of the country.
The Facebook page #Justice4GuruKalam registers remark of a fan-friend who retorts “I think if Govt. is not coming forward for building it, then we, people of India can donate to build such a memorial…I suggest to start donation campaign and public will build the memorial far earlier than the govt. files moves.” The administer of the page declares, “Our only request is a befitting memorial built at ?#?GuruKalam’s resting place in Pei Karumbu in Rameswaram (Tamil Nadu) at the earliest.”
The ongoing neglect of people’s sentiments by the establishment reminds of the treatment which the burial site of another great son of the country and its first education minister Maulana Abul Kalam Azad has been offered by the government machinery during the last six decades. His grave site in the precincts of Jama Masjid area in the national capital speaks volumes in this regard. From one Kalam to another Kalam, attitude of the political class of the country remains all the same.
One can see this discriminatory mind-set between maintaining the memorials of great Dalit leader Jagjivan Ram at Samta Sthala and of all sorts of Gandhis around Rajghat.
It is really pathetic that the country’s leaders are belittling themselves by making a case of communal and casteist patterns in paying homage even to great national leaders of the country.
[Contributor is a social activist, analyst and author of several books including the recent one “Islam in 21st Century: The Dynamics of Change and Future-making”.]