The growing divide in our country and the way forward.

In the recent times one would see that there is a sharp divide that is emerging in our country. The one between the Majority and the Minorities. Be it the Muslims, Christians or the Dalits and Adivasis, who indeed are Hindus. There have been incidents of mob lynching, which has led to the death of people. While most of these seem to have the newly emerged “Cow Vigilantism” some of them have no such connections. These have been for random reasons ranging from watching a Navratri event to keeping a Horse.

Some of the rapes and atrocities reported of late also need to be seen in connection to this, as those seem to come more out of hate to some community/communities than a heinous attempt to quench sexual desire.

The underlying factor to these incidents is the hate. The hate towards a religion, cast, sect or a class. Our love towards self, family, community, state, language, culture etc., was indeed love towards one or all of these until recent times; but now the amount of love is judged by the hate, that we have towards the someone or something else. So, if I had to be a good Hindu, then I need to hate all other religions. This is a dangerous situation. Our young minds are being trained to hate. They hate or rather are made to hate other religions first and then the backward classes. The reason could be anything, starting from ISIS to Reservation or sometimes some unscrupulous concepts like “Love Jihad”.

We should learn to question any such illogical theorems thrown at us. Why should I hate Muslims, should perhaps be questioned by thinking about 10 random friends or acquaintances that we have from that community, and thinking of what harm have they done to us. Most often than not, they would have helped us with something than troubling us. Still we hate them, because we are conditioned to do so, by people, party, ideology or leaders whom we like to follow.  

The political fraternity, irrespective of the party name or the ideology they represent have reasons to divide us based on our Religion, Cast, Colour, Beliefs, Language etc., as for them, we are a Vote Bank and nothing more. It is for us to realise this. We should refuse to be treated as commodities.

Why does this happen? are we not intelligent?

Well, I feel this happens because we, as a country have (with exceptions though) become too lazy to think. We have chosen to outsource our thinking to Politicians, Parties, Ideologies, Gurus, Babas or God-men/God-Women. It is easy; follow one of them and believe what they say is sole truth. We are selling our intellect to these elements. They decide what we think, what our stand on an issue is, what is the extent of our nationality to what we eat, what we wear, when do we sleep, when do we wake up etc. At times, they even decide whether we need to watch a movie or not, yes! they act as a super-sensor board.

There is a growing “Binary”. There are self-appointed Judges and Juries who decide on How true a Hindu/Muslim/Christian (or any region for that matter) we are, they decide the level of our nationality; based on how much do we support their view. People fear these labels. They are mentally forced to follow all views of their Gurus, Leaders, Baba’s or Parties as they fear unless they do that; they may be labelled an outcast or an anti-national.

What do we do then?

Ours is a young nation. 65% of our population is below the age of 35. These people are being misled into hatred. Hatred, that will suit different political parties. We need to rise above this and use our intellect to our advantage. We need to acquire knowledge to empower our own intellect, rather than pledging it with someone, who only wants to drive us to his advantage.

The power of our youth needs to be directed well, and if that is done well we will rise as a global power. The time and energy that we waste in finding faults with our friends, neighbors and acquaintances, just because they follow a different religion or ideology, if spent positively; can make us a Superpower! Instead of echoing the voices of our “Intellectual Masters” if we find our own chord, then we will do a world of good to ourselves, our families, our society and thereby our country.