It's pretty sad, watching the news these days.
I am apalled at the regularity with which minister after minister, bureaucrat after bureaucrat, and panelist after panelist comes on news shows, and appeals for Mumbai to stay calm, for the Mumbaikars and the Marathi Maanoos to remain in harmony, and to not be taken in by the hate-agenda of the Shiv Sena.
Isn't it so sad and shameful that we have to be told to do so?
In the course of the hate speeches that the Shiv Sena has continuously been spewing, I was struck by a thought. I wonder who exactly is it that I should hate, detest, loathe more - the Thackerays..Bal, Uddhav and Raj, for trying to incite hatred?
Or, the mob, the herd, the complete nincompoops, the ones who do not seem to be equipped with even an iota of brain - the ones who get incited by the Thackerays and their ilk?
In another instance, the Andhra sports minister has called for an IPL boycott, in the name of intensifying the Telangana stir.
Yes, ofcourse the people who incite communal/regional/parochial passions are anyway condemnable and deserve to rot alive, but what is beyond comprehension is how we as a people fail, when it comes to applying common sense and not getting swayed at the slightest pretext.
The fact that the incitement shouldn't be tolerated or even brought up/started is ofcourse acknowledged. But the bigger issue is that we need to ruminate over why and how this incitement gains even a semblance of credence in anyone's mind.
If we ever stop believing/buying into the theories and hate-propaganda that such hate-mongers patronise, would any Thackeray have the temerity to spread such schmuck around? Even if they do, with no takers, wouldn't it die down on its own?
I have a problem when people need to be told to stay in their wits, to not believe the bullshit that is being dished out. Why? For who?
Who is the bigger sinner then?
It is we, the people, who give legitimacy to such a goonda and extra-constitutional authority as a Thackeray. Pray, tell me, what business does a senior politician have, to kowtow at Matoshree to guarantee security for IPL, when his colleague and the Home Minister of the country is the man incharge for this? If there's an issue to be addressed, Mr. Pawar should suggest/speak to Mr. Home Minister and none else. If the country's Cabinet minister is not sure of the nation's security without this extra-consitutional authority's blessings, what assurance does a common man have?
The politician is a rotten creature anyway. No better than the guy who takes a poor person's kidneys and sells them off to someone else without the poor fellow's knowledge/consent. They are too busy, happily eating, actually scavenging away, from the lives and even corpses of the janta through internal bickerings, issues out of non-entities and apathy towards actual national concerns.
The politician will create his agenda from anything, get publicity through anything - good or bad be damned. It is our responsibility to ensure that we, as responsible citizens do not fall prey to their designs and we should be ashamed that we need to be told to stay in our senses and not buy the hate-agenda.
Shame on us, because it's we who are the bigger buggers.
Unless we acknowledge our faults and reach a stage where we do not need a directive to remain sane, we shall continue to give more power to such venom-spewing, invective-ridden buggers.
Here's to retaining our sanity, sense and brotherhood so that we completely obliterate the utter crap that has been going on for far too long in our midst.
