I wasn't planning on writing on this page today. In fact it wasn't even on my mind. Browsing through FB i caught hold of some blog by a girl and started reading it (I don't know anything about the girl). After reading her article which i found to be quite inflammatory, i thought i'd comment but then I looked at the 227 comments already there. I again thought that this must be an old article that's why the high no of comments but then i see that the first comment was posted only 2 days ago. So i started reading a few comments and they were people expressing their views either towards the author or a community or others. To be very frank i wanted to comment on how i feel that what has been written is all wrong and how could anybody post something like that and that the author should go check out her own backyard before commenting on others etc. etc. But then being me i couldn't bring myself to write something that's just gonna get washed away in the barrage of comments the page is getting.
However, i couldn't stop myself from posting my 2 cents on the discussion (though i didn't take names or any sides). This prompted me to take a look at my own blog and what's going on and i see that my last entry got only 1 comment :(. Now i know that there are other biases at play and yeah probably my writing or for that matter my choice of topics is not as impressive. So i read my last 2-3 articles and came across one that i wrote on hate. I had mentioned how people in general usually don't hate stuff (though they might say so) but they tend to highly dislike it. I had built my prose on the promise that hate is a very strong feeling and you need to be hurt really bad to hate somebody or something. But going through the webpage and the comments mentioned on that webpage i realized that what i wrote was from my perspective and it would be folly to generalize it.
The content was highly degrading, immature and self centered to say the least and it made me sad to know that a literate (not educated mind you) girl could have expressed such ostentatious comments which clearly reek of high levels of irresponsibility. At this point i would like to mention that we say we are one nation and that everyone is a proud Indian, but I don't think that's true. We are a nation as recognized by the world and tried to accomplish by the Britishers during their reign but sadly we are still a lot of small pockets of people following a particular theme or way of life secluded from everything else. The only point perhaps we can say we are one nation and that we stand together in unity is an India-Pakistan cricket match. Makes you feel sad doesn't it. Many would call this as unity in diversity but my friends we do not have unity. Cracking jokes and taking potshots in a good humorous manner are all acceptable but that is not the case when you go talk to people about such stuff.
What you get if you have the courage to dig deeper is complete sense of ignorance, condescension, disregard and at many times, pure hate. Be it how people from north term anything below Maharashtra as south or people from the southern states calling everybody above Maharashtra as Punjabis, we have to acknowledge the fact that there is hardly any respect these days among people for each other. This divide based on region, caste, religion, social status etc is really appalling and it then makes me sad to hear the words one nation, one country from the same people who practice all this. Yes i'm talking about stereotypes and eliminating them from our lives might be impractical if not impossible, agreed. But do we really need to hate somebody just because they come from a particular region or speak in a particular way? These issues have existed with us even before the Mughal rule. India then too was conglomeration of small kingdoms fighting among themselves to gain few pieces of land and it still is.
Now, is there someone to blame for the mess we are currently? Yes lots and lots of people, but how do you individually attribute the cause to them? I mean, how can you tell Aurangzeb that he ruined the good work done by Akbar (in some respects though) in soothing out Hindu-Muslim relations? Or for that matter, today's political bigwigs for failing to address this rot. Fact is, you know things could be better and you want them to be but nobody is willing to take the next step. Status-quo is what people want and don't want to be bothered with anything although it seems a fairly decent discussion topic over tea and chips. People seem to have lost hope in the system and just want to live as per their own wishes. Coming back to the article in question, i feel that the author acted irresponsibly in allowing her post which might be considered inflammatory to be spread around like a media campaign. Motives can be questioned and failure to take any notice of the deterioration in the discussion on the topic is unpardonable.
So this reinforces my point that we live in a divided India with people not ready to accept other people's existence and always following regionalism, casteism, communalism etc. Words can't begin to describe the dismay i feel right now. We talk about inclusive growth and growing economy and growing literacy rates but what good is all that if we don't get educated? By educated i mean learning to know what is right and what is wrong. This concept if applied to all aspects of our life can transform an entire generation if not the nation and that would be a huge achievement. I know i'm being idealistic here and being a professor of practicality it goes against my nature but seeing the woeful condition of affairs i am begging for it all to at least slow down and take a break. After all where will this hatred take us? Will we in 20 years time end up as 30 odd independent nations? A frightful thought but a possibility nonetheless. Is there anything we can/must do?
I request all the readers of this article to think over this thought and ponder on where we are heading. If in anyway you agree with me, please spread the word and try to be a countryman first before being a region/religion/caste strong man. Please lets change the way we think.....................
However, i couldn't stop myself from posting my 2 cents on the discussion (though i didn't take names or any sides). This prompted me to take a look at my own blog and what's going on and i see that my last entry got only 1 comment :(. Now i know that there are other biases at play and yeah probably my writing or for that matter my choice of topics is not as impressive. So i read my last 2-3 articles and came across one that i wrote on hate. I had mentioned how people in general usually don't hate stuff (though they might say so) but they tend to highly dislike it. I had built my prose on the promise that hate is a very strong feeling and you need to be hurt really bad to hate somebody or something. But going through the webpage and the comments mentioned on that webpage i realized that what i wrote was from my perspective and it would be folly to generalize it.
The content was highly degrading, immature and self centered to say the least and it made me sad to know that a literate (not educated mind you) girl could have expressed such ostentatious comments which clearly reek of high levels of irresponsibility. At this point i would like to mention that we say we are one nation and that everyone is a proud Indian, but I don't think that's true. We are a nation as recognized by the world and tried to accomplish by the Britishers during their reign but sadly we are still a lot of small pockets of people following a particular theme or way of life secluded from everything else. The only point perhaps we can say we are one nation and that we stand together in unity is an India-Pakistan cricket match. Makes you feel sad doesn't it. Many would call this as unity in diversity but my friends we do not have unity. Cracking jokes and taking potshots in a good humorous manner are all acceptable but that is not the case when you go talk to people about such stuff.
What you get if you have the courage to dig deeper is complete sense of ignorance, condescension, disregard and at many times, pure hate. Be it how people from north term anything below Maharashtra as south or people from the southern states calling everybody above Maharashtra as Punjabis, we have to acknowledge the fact that there is hardly any respect these days among people for each other. This divide based on region, caste, religion, social status etc is really appalling and it then makes me sad to hear the words one nation, one country from the same people who practice all this. Yes i'm talking about stereotypes and eliminating them from our lives might be impractical if not impossible, agreed. But do we really need to hate somebody just because they come from a particular region or speak in a particular way? These issues have existed with us even before the Mughal rule. India then too was conglomeration of small kingdoms fighting among themselves to gain few pieces of land and it still is.
Now, is there someone to blame for the mess we are currently? Yes lots and lots of people, but how do you individually attribute the cause to them? I mean, how can you tell Aurangzeb that he ruined the good work done by Akbar (in some respects though) in soothing out Hindu-Muslim relations? Or for that matter, today's political bigwigs for failing to address this rot. Fact is, you know things could be better and you want them to be but nobody is willing to take the next step. Status-quo is what people want and don't want to be bothered with anything although it seems a fairly decent discussion topic over tea and chips. People seem to have lost hope in the system and just want to live as per their own wishes. Coming back to the article in question, i feel that the author acted irresponsibly in allowing her post which might be considered inflammatory to be spread around like a media campaign. Motives can be questioned and failure to take any notice of the deterioration in the discussion on the topic is unpardonable.
So this reinforces my point that we live in a divided India with people not ready to accept other people's existence and always following regionalism, casteism, communalism etc. Words can't begin to describe the dismay i feel right now. We talk about inclusive growth and growing economy and growing literacy rates but what good is all that if we don't get educated? By educated i mean learning to know what is right and what is wrong. This concept if applied to all aspects of our life can transform an entire generation if not the nation and that would be a huge achievement. I know i'm being idealistic here and being a professor of practicality it goes against my nature but seeing the woeful condition of affairs i am begging for it all to at least slow down and take a break. After all where will this hatred take us? Will we in 20 years time end up as 30 odd independent nations? A frightful thought but a possibility nonetheless. Is there anything we can/must do?
I request all the readers of this article to think over this thought and ponder on where we are heading. If in anyway you agree with me, please spread the word and try to be a countryman first before being a region/religion/caste strong man. Please lets change the way we think.....................
