He was hauled to a police station on suspicion that he wanted to set the country on fire. By his Uber driver. In this appeal to the PM, poet Bappadittya Sarkar says the narrative of hate must stop. ️
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00:00Dear Prime Minister, on the 5th of February I was taken to the police station by an Uber
00:04driver who overheard my conversation about anti-CAA protests.
00:10I was travelling from Juhu to Kurla where I was staying and on the way he asked me if
00:15he could withdraw some money from the ATM.
00:17I said yes and he came back with two policemen instead, who asked me what my name was, what
00:22I was doing in Bombay and why I was carrying a duffel bag.
00:25I was asked to step out of the car and as soon as I stepped out, the Uber driver pointed
00:30to the policeman and said that I must be thrown behind bars because I was talking about burning
00:36the country.
00:39When I challenged that and I said I didn't say anything on those lines, he said that
00:43he has a recording of that conversation and that I should be grateful that he got me to
00:47a police station and did not take me somewhere else.
00:50He threatened me in front of the cops, he threatened me with life in front of the cops
00:54and the cops did not do anything about that.
00:56When I was taken inside the police station, I was asked redundant and unnecessary questions
01:00like who are the people I read, what is my ideology and how much my father earns and
01:06how I sustain myself while protesting.
01:10After two and a half hours of questioning, I was let go and was given a piece of advice
01:16that I should not be wearing kurtas or red scarves and carrying a duffel.
01:22Later, BJP MLA, MP Lodha felicitated the Uber driver, giving him the Alert Citizen
01:31Award and this is where my concern starts.
01:35This makes me believe that we are living in a fascist state where civilians are rewarded
01:41and incentivised for turning anybody in who is anti-party.
01:47This is what happened in Germany, this is what happened in Spain and these are recurrent
01:52patterns in fascist regimes.
01:55We are no alien to the fact that the killers of Pehlu were garlanded, the rapists in the
02:01Katwa case were celebrated and now this.
02:06You are trying to create an atmosphere of fear and fear is the most dangerous kind of
02:12captivity and we refuse to be held captive in this country where you are growing trees
02:20of fear.
02:21We want oxygen but we don't have it.
02:25We can't be wearing masks all the time to save our faces from these facial recognition
02:30technology where we are profiled.
02:33A few weeks back you had said that people and these anti, these protesters can be identified
02:39by the clothes that they wear and I'll tell you that your narrative has trickled down
02:45to the masses and I know that's what you wanted.
02:48The Uber driver in a statement to the police said that he saw me in a kurta and a red scarf
02:52and a ruffly and he identified the kind of person I was.
02:57He thought there was definitely something fishy.
02:59Please don't do that.
03:01Please don't propagate a narrative that is so dangerous for the people, where people
03:06are profiled, where it trickles down to rape culture where somebody can one day say that
03:12you know a characterless woman can be identified by the clothes that she wears.
03:16Do not do that.