Comedian Kunal Kamra sat down with Madhukeshwar Desai, the Vice President of BJP’s youth wing, to discuss the current state of Indian politics. Honestly, the most surprising thing about this conversation was how civil it was. At a time when people with opposing ideologies regularly find themselves clawing at each other’s throats, this was pretty refreshing.
Over the course of this podcast, Kamra addressed the various burning issues of our country – beef ban, violence against minorities, hate speech, demonetisation – and Desai also addressed them, I suppose?
However, I have the vague feeling that we’ve walked away without any real answers. This man seems to have swallowed an entire PR manual!
Apart from the lack of answers (which Kamra frequently ‘lampshaded’ with creatively inserted videos), what was interesting on the lack of consensus on some basic issues, such as the freedom of speech, and the violence against minorities in India.
I know where I stand on these issues – and honestly, Desai’s answers didn’t really surprise me. They’re the same things I hear when I hold debates with people I know.
However, what I realised quite starkly was how different the perspective of the other side is – and how important it is that we gather the same table and lay our problems out now more than ever before. Because there are problems and that’s not a matter of perspective.
And as Kunal Kamra says, the most important conversation we should be having is about finding a solution. Because we have to be better than what we are right now!
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