Pondering over the current situation in India, one can only think that this is a Bollywood movie that’s happening in real life. Right now, I feel that India is in a sorry state of affairs. There are too many insane voices that have the most foolish ideas possible. A sane voice in such an environment is often targeted.
Leave alone demanding any logic behind any action, thinking about certain issues seems to become a sin. You must accept, believe and support whatever the master says and not think with your own head.
Jingoism is a new religion in India that all the people have to accept without any question. The practices and principles of a religion can be questioned here but this new religion can’t be. You have the freedom to file a case against Lord Ram for cruelty towards Sita and you have the right to discuss and debate triple talaq but you can’t challenge anything that comes out from the mouth of a self-proclaimed patriot like Sakshi Maharaj and Sadhvi Prachi. They have their followers who are entrusted to convey their message to the nation and label all those who question them, as ‘anti-nationals’ or by telling them to go to Pakistan.
India is a country where even your dream can make the government work at a huge expense, even if that dream won’t be true. In 2013, the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) was made to dig for a treasure of 1,000 tonnes of gold at Daudiakala village in Uttar Pradesh’s Unnao district. This happened because Swami Shoban Sarkar dreamt that the gold was buried under the ruins of a 19th-century fort belonging to former king Raja Rao Ram Bux Singh, who appeared in his dream and told the seer to guard the treasure. The seer convinced the Union Minister of State, Charan Das Mahant to get the site excavated. ASI left the site empty handed after 11 days of work. People had even started fighting over who was going to take the treasure. Villagers were demanding their own share, while the descendants of the king were all set to claim the gold and the then Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh, Akhilesh Yadav, wished that the seer’s dream came true and that such treasures could be found in all villages so that people could live happily.
In the 102nd Indian Science Congress, a retired pilot was allowed to present a paper which claimed that the aircraft was invented in the Vedic age in India. In this paper, they claimed that the planes invented here were huge with 40 small engines. At the Congress, even the credit for discovering Pythagorean theorem was taken.
We aren’t able to contain life on this planet, but we wish to find out if life could exist there by wasting billions of dollars. Mangalyan and Chandrayan – these kinds of experiments suit a country where no one is poor. A country like India where the majority live in poverty shouldn’t try to come into the limelight while its people die of hunger and have no roof over their heads. Poverty is a root cause of almost all the evils in the society. It is a poison. It degrades the quality of society.
All this needs attention. We can’t allow people to rape women as a punishment for eating beef. The people that shout on TV channels and exaggerate border issues and terrorism forget the real issues, the issues that concern the common man. It is high time that all the political discussions be dominated by real issues.
People must not allow anyone to present facts in a distorted manner, as it was being done when Nathuram Godse was presented as a patriot, while Tipu Sultan’s contribution was rejected and he was presented as an ‘anti-national’.
The new religion of jingoism is being forced and should be rejected with all might. The seeds of this new religion have been sown long ago. I feel that India is too tolerant towards intolerance. The time has come that people must wake up and take some responsibility.