Politics
Haters Inc
India hates this and India hates that, has already brought us a lot of shame and signals a drift towards its neighbor Pakistan, where almost every freely uttered syllable is liable to be hate worthy.
India hates Valentines Day celebrations.
India hates smoke-filled Diwali.
Peta-friendly India hates brutal bloodied Bakr-Eid.
India hates rustic uncivilized molester-friendly Holi celebrations.
India also hates economists since we see them as either too-far left or too-far right and we hate writers since they are too insensitive to our culture/religion/national luminaries.
We also hate scientists, socialists, rationalists; we hate politicians, we also hate having to vote for them; we hate feminists, we even hate activists. India also hates western culture, vulgar foreign TV shows, 24-hour news channels and their God-reincarnate, holier-than-thou anchors.
We Indians also hate foreign direct investments; we hate our toll nakas, we hate the rich (the minority who does not pay enough taxes) and the extremely poor (the “masses,” the approx 62% of the population who don’t pay any taxes) and the wanna-be middle-class, all at different times.
We hate reality TV shows, regressive soaps, Ekta Kapoor, and women commoditizing item numbers from Bollywood.
We hate commercial, make-believe cinema of Bollywood and at the sam time we also hate boring art/parallel cinema. We also hate cheer-leaders at IPL, drug fuelled rave parties, out-of-parents-reach rock concerts, bold artists, musicians, abnormal human beings, such as gays and lesbians. We also hate sportsmen, be it inconsistent performing cricketers and out-of-reckoning hockey players. Above all, we hate being hated.
Are we becoming a country of haters?
Or have we forever been like this? Whether it was the former defense minister, the late George Fernandes hating Coca-Cola’s entry to India in the bygone era, or the moral brigade hating Richard Gere for his supposed kiss of India’s shy, baby bounce girl Shilpa Shetty, or the Indian parliament going up in arms against TV shows like Sach kaa Saamna (India’s version of Moment of Truth) or the cultural brigade hating a TV channel for roping in an adult film actress Sunny Leone on a family viewing prime time TV show, Big Boss (Indian version of Big Brother).
Have things really changed since the 1970s or is this simply the trickle-down effect. The objects of hatred have, at times, graduated from people to ideas. We might not hate a Rahul Gandhi, but we certainly hate his corrupt Congress Party.
Agreed, that it is always a minority that raises the hate, but what is consistent is that this minority exists across the country ,evenly spread across socio-economic zones, age-groups, the educated and the uneducated the elitists and the others, each one with its own set of hate issues.
With each passing incident, we are sharpening our hate knives, not so much for the game, but for the players, overlooking the message and shooting the poor messenger.
Why are we becoming a country of haters? Ssome are issuing fatwas, some are filing Public Interest Litigations, others prefer to stall road traffic with dharnas or just make noise. Where is all this hate coming from? Is this the outcome of the freedom of speech, or the abandonment of freedom to think rationally, or the result of rising frustrations over every conceivable issue under the sun?
From unemployment to price rises, to failing law and order, unimaginable corruption or the ever present demon of comparison — comparing oneself to the rest of the world and inevitably coming up short. Those who fail as parasites turn predators.
Another theory suggests that we are more hate-oriented now because of the growing gap between the two worlds that represents contemporary India. What was, and still is a taboo for a major part of India, is simply passé for the new India and there lies the root cause of the problem. It is reflected in many different ways — the fight between the educated and the uneducated, the rural and the urban, the weak and the mighty, the conservatives and the progressives, the haves and the have nots.
A political party in Maharashtra managed to withdraw a book (Such a Long Journey) from Mumbai University’s syllabus, written by an Indian-born, Mumbai educated Canadian writer (Rohinton Mistry) on the grounds that it voiced derogatory remarks about Maharasthrians and publicly burnt copies of the book.
In a TV interview, the leader of this movement warned, “The author is lucky he lives in Canada, if he were here we would burn him as well.”
Of course, this was not the only time that hate spilled onto words of action. The world-renowned artist MF Hussain faced death threats and never ever returned to India, breathing his last in London in 2011.
India hates this and India hates that, has already brought us a lot of shame and signals a drift towards its neighbor Pakistan, where almost every freely uttered syllable is liable to be hate worthy.
What earlier was merely an itch has now become an allergy, burning in the process, the peaceful social fabric of the country and muzzling its free voices.