K R Meera has expressed her anguish against the brutal killing of journalist-writer Gauri Lankesh outside her home in Bangalore by unidentified assailants on Tuesday night in an emotion packed post on facebook. Edited Excerpts:
“This night stand testimony for how hollow and ineffective is our 70 years of freedom (from the colonial rule) is, Meera started her post on social media with these introductory remarks. “If bullets pierced the throat, can it silence anybody?” she asks. When the seminal literary work `Bhagawan’s Death’ was translated into Kannada by Dr KS Baghavan it was first published by Gauri Lankesh. After reading the work, an enthralled Gauri Lankesh expressed her regret that why such a work was not written in Kannada by anybody and when I heard this from Dr Bhagavan it was my cherished dream to meet her.
But i could not meet the author-jouranalist when i went to Bangalore Book Festival due to a busy schedule. It is no longer possible since Gauri Lankesh is no more. She was assassinated the same way Dr Kalburgi was killed.
She was brutally murdered in cold blood when she returned to her home early from her office by three motor cycle borne assassins. They fired seven rounds from a pistol at her and one hit her on head, one on neck and one on chest and the rest four bullets missed the target and were found from the wall of her house.
Incidentally, days before her killing Gauri Lankesh wrote about the freedom enjoyed by the critics of the establishment who never faced physical threats from the then powers that be. “In this land, UR Ananthamoorthy, Kalburgi and my father P Lankesh and Poorna Chandra Tejaswini were all lived. They all lambasted Jawaharlal Nehru, Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi without mincing words. But they were never been physically harmed nor they received any death threats and calls”, she wrote recently.
“My country’s constitution teaches me to be a secular citizen and be tolerant to all religions and not to become a religious bigot. Therefore, I consider it as my fundamental duty to oppose communal forces”, Gauri used to say without any fear. We now see one more lifeless thin body lying in a pool of blood with bullet holes on the throat, heart and head.
So what?
But that bullet holes can’t silence her. Bullets can pierce throats, but can’t silence voices, words or their meanings. Those who were assassinated live longer than the assassins.
So resurrect forever Gauri Lankesh.
DISCLAIMER : The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official policy of the GLF Circle.
