India is now just black or white, there are no shades of grey.
An 11-year-old girl died recently of beating and torture at a New Delhi municipal school. Her crime? She couldn’t get her alphabet right. All who read the news must have felt bad at that particular moment — so I’d like to believe — but ask them if they think it’s a shameful tragedy, and arguments for and against will immediately start to fly.
An American student in Mumbai was gang-raped by half a dozen other students young enough to have just come out of their mothers’ laps. Is it a shame? Yes and no. Fault-pickers will be ready to pounce from both sides of the divide at once.
Is Gujarat 2002 a shame? Yes and no, depending on one’s political affiliation. Is Kandhamal? Yes and no. Is Varun Gandhi? Yes and no.
We seem to have lost the yardstick to measure outright good and outright bad. It’s all so mixed up that we can’t tell one from the other anymore. There’s no moral common ground to stand on, no moral position to take, no common standard of judgment, no common opinion on anything, only countless belligerent voices shouting in the wilderness trying to beat each other down.
And one begins to wonder, as we go towards the finish line of the world’s biggest exercise of democratic elections, if we have anything in common at all, between one person and another, between social segments, even as a nation. Our politics is mercilessly fractured. Petty partisan issues have overtaken national concerns. Civility has disappeared from public life. Hate is the predominant passion. The other side can’t be right. The other view is always wrong. Where’s the one soul our poets and philosophers talk about? The ideals of justice, equality, and fraternity that our Constitution proclaims? The only unity we have is that imposed by our geographical boundaries, within which we live and die as prisoners of our individual prejudices.
These are strange prejudices. A well-educated electrical engineer I know thinks Mondals, a backward Hindu community, and Muslims are no different. A Hindu painter can draw a naked Saraswati, a Muslim Husain cannot. I had an argument over this with a friend of mine, who is a Vaishnavite. I thought Vaishnavites are non-violent liberals, but every time I tried to explain to my friend that Husain was above all an artist, he shouted back Husain was above all a Muslim and had no right to paint a Hindu goddess. After a while I simply gave up, as I have often given up trying to argue what’s wrong for the tribal villagers of Kandhamal, victims of social neglect and condemned for generations to poverty and deprivation, to want to become Christians if that earns them economic benefits and at least some dignity in life?
We believe in democracy but not in its process. We want elections but won’t accept their outcome. We want the rule of law as long as it remains in our hands. We preach tolerance but will be selective in its practice. The Constitution gives us equal rights but everybody can’t be equally equal. Decency is always to be expected and never to be given.
I find it increasingly difficult to have a decent conversation with anybody anymore. People have become strangely judgmental. The colours of India seem to have been reduced only to two, black and white. There’s no scope for shades and tones, doubts and reflections. No question of compromises. No respect for reason. The other day I asked someone who lives in Hyderabad if he had visited the Charminar. He said he did once and wouldn’t go there again. I asked why. His reply was straight and simple: It’s a poor neighbourhood, dirty and smelly. And, as an afterthought, he added: A poor Muslim neighbourhood.
I couldn’t budge him from his prejudice. There’s no way one can dislodge anyone these days from anything. Nobody listens. Everybody argues. Sometimes I wonder why TV debates are held at all. Has any TV panellist ever agreed on screen with any other panellist? They come pre-set. Nobody budges an inch from his or her declared positions. Who benefits from such displays of mutual hatred and arrogance? People who watch? Hardly. Viewers have their opinions, too, in pure black and white. They watch only to be proven right, not to understand or learn or change.
Probably I’m not entirely right. India today isn’t just black and white. It’s red, too, the red of blood. From Gujarat to Orissa to Assam to Bihar, the blood trails are getting longer and longer. You’re killed for your views, you’re killed to settle scores, or to send a message of warning, or simply to prove a point. Just like that, because killing is handy and offers an immediate solution. As unity fractures into local divides, blood flows to fill up the crevices.
Dear Mr Roy, you're not the only one whose feeling it, sir. There are some of us left who feel the same. There is hope yet. We will not allow our country to continue in this way. Articles like yours will at least cause people to think and evaluate their own thoughts instead of being fed by mass opinion and fear. Truth will prevail and justice will come through. There is hope yet.
This guy Barun whatever is quite a specimen and a liar too. He wants to portray Charminar as a poor muslim neighborhood. What a dorky notion. Ninety percent of all pearl dealers in the country have shops here, all the big multi-million gold/diamond jewelery shops originate from here. Almost all Hindus (who are fifty percent of the population) live within a stone's throw from here. The joke that the author is playing on the readers is to characterize that muslims live in poor neighborhoods, whereas Hindus live in rich ones. With such clown tricks up his sleeve, the author should join the nearest circus. Btw, I hail from the old city of Hyderabad and am a Hindu.
Dear Sir,
Very well said. We have become hardliners and are not willing to even consider the views of other side. I really look forward to such high quality editorials.
regards,
Kislay
Barun Roy lists the symptoms, but appears to be unable to make the diagnosis. Morality cannot be taught by arguments, our leaders have to live it for others to see. We are not allowed to pick our leaders, the party bosses do. So, we are forced to accept their goondas as our leaders. IN an ideal world, media hold the leaders accountable. Unfortunately, we are cursed with a secularist media that really is anti-Hindu and pro minority. They do not report the abuses by the minorities and hype up anything the Hindu goondas do or are thinking of doing. Mediapeople have resisted every attempt for accountability. We must force them to be overseen by ordinary citizens, social and religious leaders. This is the first jobe we have to do to achieve true democracy.
A VERY DECENT ARTICLE. YES IN INDIA WE LOOK ONLY AS SELF AND NOT THE PEOPLE AS ALL. HOWEVER I THINK EVEN THE AUTHOR HAS HIS OWN BIASED VIEWS. WHEN THE REFERENCE TO GUJARAT IS MADE IT SHOULD BE MANADTORY TO REFER THE GODHRA BURNING AND HENCE MISSING THAT OUT SHOWS THE BIAS OF THE AUTHOR. A SAYING PRACTISE BEFORE PREACHING SHOULD NOT BE FORGOTTEN
The real reason is that there is no respect of law, and the reason behind that is that there is no internal democracy.
Don't worry it will change sooner than expected.
One of the best editorials I've read for a long time. Accurately articulates the feelings I'm sure a lot of us share. Provokes thought and initiates introspection.
This is the first article that I have read from this columnist.
I was curious to know wats written abt India by an Indian. I totally agree with the article, somewhere we have lost track.
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