I will start this article with an anecdote. It is an incident that happened a few days back. Vishwaroopam was banned because it had a few lines against a religion they say, I saw the film but didn’t fiund any word leave alone a line insulting any religion. Coming back to the topic, the film was banned and the medium which I think stands for expression of ideas were nipped in the bud and the director was asked to cut some scenes from the film so that it can be deemed alight for the public. I updated my status on Facebook that 65 years ago they killed the man who gave us freedom and today they killed freedom. One of my friends instantly commented “Freedom and Gandhi, no way man it sucks”. I replied, at least he tried and in his own way, we don’t even try to change what is wrong around us and talk of who gave us freedom. And that’s the question I am asking via this article of mine “What Kind of people are we Indian ????”. Are we funny, are we emotional or psychic et cetera?
There is a leader of ours who was once deemed as unfit to be said as human some 12 years ago because of some riots and today he is being touted as the next Prime Minister. We Indians have a short memory, one day we term someone as God and the next day if someone comes out and say that he did something wrong, we don’t even wait for the basis or the meaning of the statement but stand up in arms to take his life. Recently Mr. Ashish Nandy, asocial scientist and a person I really admire was made to leave the Jaipur literary fest in the mid of night just because he voiced what he thought. The Jaipur literary fest is a platform to express, isn’t it and the whole issue was blown out of proportion by the news channel who are the new dacoits of privacy of Indian people. I recently saw a news journalist asking the widow of a beheaded soldier how she is feeling after the incident. Isn’t that more criminal than what Mr. Nandy said, but nobody shouted at that act of insanity because it cannot be converted into votes.
Few lines were enough to ban a film but a full hate speech does not even led to an instant arrest but it took social platforms and people’s outrage to make the lawmakers understand that a hate speech is more dangerous to mankind than anything else. Few days later we are celebrating somebody’s hanging in one part of the country and in other part curfew is imposed because that state is mourning. Something is wrong somewhere because we are one nation and if somebody attacked our parliament than why some are rejoicing and some are mourning the same person’s death. We are still fighting over a piece of land in a state on whether it was Ram Mandir there or some Mosque and don’t pay heed that India is one of the five most unsafe countries for women.
We put 1000 likes on a deity’s photo on Facebook, but will not stop a boy harassing a girl in broad daylight on a nearby bus stand. One of my colleague shared with me recently that there is a family whom she knows well in which all are doctors but still they crave for a baby boy only. We go for a movie and shed tears for a child labour incident and then go to a restaurant and ask a 10 year old to clean the table. We celebrate mother’s day, father’s day but don’t have time for our parents on our birthday because we are busy with our friends at a disc because that shows coolness. We are the ones who don’t look for the level of thinking a person has, but if he/she has a good English accent than they are better than a positive thinking Hindi speaking person, and one of our official language is Hindi.
We Indians are funny people because we don’t believe what we think, we don’t believe what our culture says, we don’t believe what our parents say, we believe in Valentine’s day more than karva chauth, we think it’s cool to post our pics on Facebook in a disc with girls and boys surrounding us rather than touching our parents feet. We Indians do everything wrong and say it’s modern or it’s the need of the hour and we have an excuse ready for every act of ours.
We Indians are funny people.
