[Assam] Its all about the 'Lungi'

[Ram Sarangapani]

Here is an interesting take on the lungi - from the Sentinel!


*The Lungi Tamasha
*The so-called protest by the 10 MLAs of the Asom United Democratic Front
(AUDF), attired in lungi and kurta, on the floor of the Assam Assembly on
Tuesday against the harassment of Indian 'minorities' in the name of
detection and deportation of illegal Bangladeshis, was not only ridiculous
but also ugly. The lungi-kurta tamasha was to drive home the point that one
would not be a Bangladeshi by donning such attire and, therefore, the poor
Indian 'minorities' who have nothing else to wear but an ordinary
lungi-kurta could not just be branded as illegal Bangladeshis. But who is
branding whom? Why the AUDF defence mechanism? Because an ordinary
Bangladeshi national would be seen exactly in such attire, whether in India
or Bangladesh? We, however, understand that certain dresses cut across
national divides; more so when the nations have come out of the same entity
— Bharatvarsh. The AUDF need not teach us that, nor is it the business of
any legislators if they are responsible and decent enough. In fact it is the
other way round. The AUDF should begin by learning a simple lesson: the
lungis and kurtas that its MLAs wore last Tuesday to register a meaningless
protest, are not going to come to the aid of illegal Bangladeshis or those
'minorities' who are zealously called so because they are illegal
Bangladeshis and hence form a vote bank. And Mr Badruddin Ajmal and his
colleagues would do well to realize that their ugly protest was not just
divisive. It was meaningless because no lungi-kurta would protect genuine
Indian citizens. They are already protected in secular India. It is not
Bangladesh where the minority Hindu community has been tortured and reduced
to a nonentity.
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