The hate politics is looming large in the Indian political landscape. Our so called representatives are hell bent on adding fuel to the fire and thereby keeping their vote-bank intact. Parochialism seems to be the convenient path to secure the political future and nationalism appears to be a thing of the past. The politicians are on a competitive spree to divide the people on every possible ground a human ingenuity can devise –religion, region, caste, language, region, culture, creed, gender and what not.
However, isn’t it very convenient way to bash only the politicians for all the evils? It is naïve to assume India as a country of innocent people being ruled by tyrant politicians. Politicians are no doubt making inferno out of spark. But the truth is that there exists a spark in the civil society. The spark exists in the form of ‘We are good, they are bad’ attitude. While there is nothing wrong in taking legitimate pride in ones nation, ones religion, ones culture etc. things start taking wrong turn when sense of pride is stretched to the feeling of superiority. Such and attitude convinces the people that their religion is the only way to salvation, their culture is the best culture, their community is superior over all others etc. The politicians only widen the already existing schism between the communities and spread hatred through their propaganda machinery.
So, it does not absolve us of any guilt to single out politicians as demon and treat ourselves as paragon of virtues. We citizens also need to do introspection why there is more hatred and intolerance in the country than ever before. Isn’t it ironic that in the land of Gandhi, the non-violence and tolerance are appearing to succumb to hatred?
It is the historical obligation of the current generation of Indians to keep intact the ideals and values for which our freedom fighters sacrificed their lives. In order to stop the social fabric to rip apart, each of us need to fight the divisive and sectarian forces prevalent in the country by emphasizing on our national identity over all sub-national, regional and parochial identities. It also requires to do away with ‘We vs They’ attitude and internalize the fact that all the citizens of the country have equal rights irrespective of their region, religion, caste or creed as guaranteed by our Constitution. If this attitudinal transformation is not brought about among the people, the existence of our nation will be in peril. Somebody rightly said, “People get the government they deserve”.
Poverty,Starvation,War,Terror etc. puncture the claim of human species being the most superior one.Human species can justify its most evolved status only if it can create a society free of exploitation of its own species.This requires a scientific temper to understand everything that exists and change everything that is required.
About Me
- Anand Singh
- Delhi, India
- An evolving human species making a conscious effort to influence the surrounding more than getting influenced by it and in the process contribute towards making a better world to live.
5 comments:
Very true Anand! Reminds me of a line in the movie "Aamir".. the protagonist says that in place of questioning what others are doing, and how they are doing it, if everyone takes care of self, and carries out responsibilities sincerely, the entire country would progress.
Ofcourse this was said in a slightly different context but the underlying message applies everywhere..
That's correct!
Dear Anand,
The attitudinal transformation can only be made by availing opportunities for the masses and thus instilling confidence in them specially in those people who are under the specter of inferiority complex. The image projection of such people is the responsibility of their respective leaders, who should understand that its high time that they should use development as the key to realise their political aspirations rather than giving air to the parochial tendencies which act as the fertile ground for them to achive political milages.
Lav
Lav,
I beg to differ with you in this respect.I think that we depend too much on the leaders to bring about transformation.In a democracy,the masses should be more much more informed and empowered than what they are at present in India.The ideas,policies and power should also flow from masses to the leaders and not only the other way round. It is my strong belief that in the 21st century India of information age, the people are well equipped to force the leaders to change the way the politics is being handled in the country at this moment.
Dear Anand,
I do understand the power of masses and have never underestimated that, but you know to make a concerted effort one has to be organised. Masses has to show some kind of organisational pattern to put forward any step, to realise the strong desire for change. Masses not organised is a mob, and we also cant deny the fact of that everyone is capable in different spheres, so to allocate and delegate the right task to the right people and to bring in the change, we need to have someone who actually has more proficiency and capability in comparison to others as a leader. Otherwise, without a proper organised structure the efforts to bring in any change would be futile and misdirectional.
Lav
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