These days democracy is at its best in India, we see different protests in different parts of the country. People are not hesitating at all, utilizing their rights provided by the constitution of India. By definition from Wikipedia “A protest is an expression of bearing witness on behalf of an express cause by words or actions with regard to particular events, policies or situations”. What have these so called “protests” or “demonstrations” achieved in India in the recent past? There is one thing for sure that they have achieved – “a country allegedly poorer by Millions”. I used the term allegedly as public property in India is not considered price worthy and is supposedly free. During almost all the protest in the recent past, a lot of public property like buses, trains etc. were damaged. Human beings are not Robots programmed using AI, so they will behave differently and unpredictably. It is highly unlikely to determine what they think and how they are going to react to different events. But should this mean that they should be allowed to do whatsoever they will in the name of democracy, protests and so on? I think there is a way to end this. I think we are not asking the right questions which matter, and if we are, we are not looking for the answers to those question.
Let’s start with the latest, the “Padmavat” issue and move in a reverse chronological order to cover a few more instances. The issue started when one of the actors in the movies said something that was supposedly a controversial scene which was hurting the sentiments of a religious group. I would not debate on why did they say something at all or why should somebody be hurt by what they said. I will ask only one simple question “Who is liable to pay for the loss incurred to the country’s wealth because of their differences?”. In order to find a solution to this question, shouldn’t there be an investigation on both the movie group and the religious group who were a direct party in all this mess. Since, the highlighted controversial scene was not there in the movie as seen after the release of the movie, shouldn’t the religious group be asked, “Where is the scene for which you were protesting?” And also at the same time, shouldn’t the movie group be asked “Were you aggravating the issue just for the publicity?” The escalating issue could have been and should have been de-escalated months ago and no losses would have incurred. Protesting and movie making are their fundamental rights but since something went terribly wrong and losses happen, questions must be and have to be asked.
This is not the only case; there is no paucity of the instances like this. There were other protests like dalit protest, jat quota protest and so on. Once again, I have no intentions of asking if they had a valid reason or not. I will also not repeat the questions asked above like who is liable to pay for the losses or if investigation is done or not. The reason I mention these protests here is because I see a pattern here and have a question about that. We see thousands and thousands of people in the protests. My question here is “What do these people do to earn their living when they are not protesting?” It is not difficult to be part of a social media protest or join a candle light march one odd evening or contribute financially towards a cause. But being physically present in a protest, and not for a day or two but for weeks and months is not possible for somebody who is employed somewhere else or has his own business however small or big it is. These protestors must have a source of income from somewhere for sure otherwise how are they feeding themselves and their families? Or is it their full time job; whenever somebody has to ignite a protest will hire these individuals?
Once we start looking in this direction we can develop a hypothesis. We know there are a lot of people (youth early twenties to early forties) in India who are unemployed and have nothing to do at all. Out of this complete lot there would be a lot of people who would be working hard and trying to gather essential skills so as to become employed or achieve whatever they want in their lives. But there are also people who are neither employed and are not engaged in any type of constructive activities. Some of these people might have some health issues, after excluding these people whatever is left can be called “Useless – As they are just surviving and doing nothing”. Now according to my hypothesis, some smart people are using these useless people to make their personal gains. These smart, skilled Users have mastered the skill of “Using the Useless to make Millions” On a general note Unemployment is considered a bane but for these Users it is proving to be a boon. They must be thinking “Unemployment is Good”.
We cannot afford this kind of behavior; India is not a “sone ki chidiya” any more. There is a tough competition in the globalized world and to make a lead in this era, we have to get the internals of our country straight. If we don’t try to change anything, we are and we will remain a developing country forever. I very well know, this is not an issue that could be solved overnight. But I am optimistic if the actions are taken in the right directions at least the damage to national property can be stopped in much less time. There should be stringent actions taken on who all are the reasons for creating this destruction. Damaging the national property in the name of protests need to stop right away. Once destructive process stops we could think about better and constructive ways of protests. Trust me protest can be constructive as well.