This has been an interesting week. On Facebook, which is my primary social medium, i have unfriended one person and unfollowed i don't know how many.
As the election fever grips the nation and India can't make sense of Bharat bcs it is wearing the niqab of 1936 and imagined aggrievement, I have set some personal rules for unfollowing and unfriending:
1. If you post a Pappu joke or a Namo meme, or a joke that is on the person and not on the policy, i will unfollow you. Irrespective of where politics stoops, if you, as an educated voter, make personal jokes about a politician, you really should pay the country that subsidy back on your education. OR, if you are that cheap anyway, join politics.
2. If you present one side of a story, any story, and use that to prove a point, I will unfollow you. This is called Jingoism and i don't care whether the person doing it is an MBA or a farmer from Timbucktoo. If your conduct does not behove your position in life, the respect you get should not either. When presenting a news piece, investigate both sides of the story, read up enough, and then, if you think you know enough, only then, open your mouth. Tez lehar se baadh to ik johad mein bhi aa sakti hai. If you want to be respected for your education and awareness, earn that respect.
3. If I find you selectively enraged - like enraged for the minority girls in Pakistan but not for the family that was attacked as Pakistani near Gurgaon, like enraged for not being allowed to vote in Gurgaon, but accepting that for Mewat as "normal", I will unfollow you. Either people matter, or they don't. Only one kind of people cannot matter. What happened in Pakistan has also happened in India - with both communities. Find out the truth about your own country. What happened to that Muslim family was not even a fraction of what happens to Hindu families in Mewat, AMU and other areas. Have the emotional maturity to understand all the facts, absorb, and then open your mouth. The enemy is not one religion over another. The enemy is the idea that power can, and should be abused and people can get away with it. I don't care who is doing the abusing.
4. All armchair activists - OUT. Enough said. I am soooo done with people shouting platitudes or slogans or universal truths in life. SO, SO DONE WITH THAT BUNCH whose ignorance is exceeded only by their arrogance, or maybe its the other way round.
As the election fever grips the nation and India can't make sense of Bharat bcs it is wearing the niqab of 1936 and imagined aggrievement, I have set some personal rules for unfollowing and unfriending:
1. If you post a Pappu joke or a Namo meme, or a joke that is on the person and not on the policy, i will unfollow you. Irrespective of where politics stoops, if you, as an educated voter, make personal jokes about a politician, you really should pay the country that subsidy back on your education. OR, if you are that cheap anyway, join politics.
2. If you present one side of a story, any story, and use that to prove a point, I will unfollow you. This is called Jingoism and i don't care whether the person doing it is an MBA or a farmer from Timbucktoo. If your conduct does not behove your position in life, the respect you get should not either. When presenting a news piece, investigate both sides of the story, read up enough, and then, if you think you know enough, only then, open your mouth. Tez lehar se baadh to ik johad mein bhi aa sakti hai. If you want to be respected for your education and awareness, earn that respect.
3. If I find you selectively enraged - like enraged for the minority girls in Pakistan but not for the family that was attacked as Pakistani near Gurgaon, like enraged for not being allowed to vote in Gurgaon, but accepting that for Mewat as "normal", I will unfollow you. Either people matter, or they don't. Only one kind of people cannot matter. What happened in Pakistan has also happened in India - with both communities. Find out the truth about your own country. What happened to that Muslim family was not even a fraction of what happens to Hindu families in Mewat, AMU and other areas. Have the emotional maturity to understand all the facts, absorb, and then open your mouth. The enemy is not one religion over another. The enemy is the idea that power can, and should be abused and people can get away with it. I don't care who is doing the abusing.
4. All armchair activists - OUT. Enough said. I am soooo done with people shouting platitudes or slogans or universal truths in life. SO, SO DONE WITH THAT BUNCH whose ignorance is exceeded only by their arrogance, or maybe its the other way round.
2 comments:
You couldn't have said it better. Totally agree.
Thank you!
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