India currently has a population of 1.3 billion+ people. 400-450 million of this figure is on the internet. 201 million of this figure is supposedly an active Facebook user base. 50% of that user base, if not more is spending time discussing, debating, commenting or making a lot of noise on supposed matters of India’s current and future.
I belong to 50% of the other online population of India. I don’t discuss, I don’t debate and I rarely make any noise. Not because I don’t care. But because I do, and earnestly think about what India needs more of:
1. Opinionated action, where opinions don’t mean sending a person with another opinion to Pakistan and actions do not mean removing her/him with a separate opinion from the face of mother earth altogether. Opinionated action is about how we can grow as people and the nation grows as a country with actions driven by our opinion not the other way around wherein we beat up our own countrymen or our own countrymen beat us up because that was the interpretation of opinionated action for us.
2. Love: Love for people and animals alike. Just because you love one, shouldn’t mean that you lynch the other.
3. More of social than social networks: Let’s face it. Not the entire population of India has the opportunity to be empowered by the internet or make use of it. Not the entire population of India has the privilege of education which enables us, the 400-450 million internet users able enough to go zoom up on technology. Which is why this privileged mass of people has the responsibility to go social, dig up issues, solve them. Because, we are empowered.
4. More constructive criticism, encouragement than chest thumping on what the other did wrong.
5. Crackdown on actual crime, rather than that meme which will be ignored/laughed at (as is generally intended) by anyone with a brain.
6. More of society and less of what society says: Let’s be clear on this one. The attention to log kya kahenge has never stopped the log from discussing your next move anyways. But the next positive move no matter the log, has definitely left the world a better place to live in, and the log silenced for good.
7. More of the masses than mass hysteria: Currently we are a country of mass hysteria. Cities & people burn because of this. The mass has the power to make a change, mass hysteria has the power to stop change altogether, and get us back to the dark ages.
8. More of India than states: Whoever said that Indians are more Indian in the USA or anywhere else for that matter has said it truly. India has more discussions of north India, south India, east India, North east India, north Indians in South India, south Indians in North India than how do we grow India as a whole. The geographical directions are merely cartography principles and ease of administration mechanisms. We took them too seriously I guess.
9. Happiness: I read in the recent world happiness report that we are a bunch of really sad people (122nd globally if you want facts and figures). No surprises there. Because every dent in our vehicle has us fighting to put a dent in some one else’s car or face. Because the last time we smiled at a person unknown was a long way back and the last time that a smile from an unknown person was treated as anything less than creepy, even more way back. Happiness in one’s existence and being makes a lot of what India needs more of possible. So why not start with it.
10. Hope & belief: Last but not the least, India needs more of hope. We need more of hope that the first 9 points here are/will be. And we need belief in ourselves to be the people who can make it so.
Am I sitting on a pedestal, and writing this because it’s easier to do so?
Maybe I am, or maybe I am not. I am just an everyday Indian trying to do things which I believe in with the hope that there is a lot to be redeemed here and a lot more to hope for.
So I wouldn’t know if I am on the pedestal or I am off it, down out here. ?