A Deeper Answer to India

Perhaps, all that is happening is still stemming from the insecurity that colonization had sowed. The past definitely has answers.

If only we take the trouble to look.

Some say we are tolerant, and others say no. 

But more than the fact that it could be a political agenda to defame Modi Government (of which I was and I still am a supporter of except the middle men who assume their power to interfere with ridiculous views), what makes me cringe is the names of people who are taking the respective stands.

If you take a stand, you need to prove that you have already applied or are applying that view practically in your actions.

But all we see is very wise manipulation of each one's personal conveniences.

Those who say one cant make a big deal out of singular events, are the very ones who are making a big deal of other singular events that do not sink with their views. 

Are you trying to say that if it is just one life it has no value?

Those who cry foul at sour grapes hardly get off their ass when the grapes are sweeter closer their own home.

Those who try to speak the truth for the betterment of all (optimistically assuming that is the agenda of everyone) are ridiculed as unpatriotic, and those who fake blind love are agreed with more.

How exactly is a country supposed to progress if you refuse to see its loopholes? 

Where is the question of defamation? 

Who else are we mass Indians conditioned to actually listen to, if not film stars?

What other form of protest can an artist take (taking into account the 'stand' that most of them have here.Yes. Face the truth), other than return awards? 

There is some bad in what those in power are doing, and there is good in what those that aren't in power are doing.

Accept the grays, instead of painting everything black and white.

Everything should not be 'OK', as long as it does not bang on your door or disturb your sleep.

And there is a much deeper answer as well, to everything, and it is in the past. 

No one likes what happened to us during colonization, but it is a fact that cant be erased. 

Yes it happened, and yes we are still dealing with both the negative and positive effects of it. 

And as you see beneath the skin, you see the actual wound. 

It is the killing of her self respect that India is still trying to deal with, which is why she erupts at small little incidents. 

She is still afraid of being robbed, of being burdened, which is why part of her is fiercely, and sometimes impractically, possessive of her 'identity' (culture/values/religion and everything else), and part of her is trying, probably way too hard, to shake everything off and find her place in the 'new' world.

The calm 'thinking' middle ground has not been stuck yet. 

Or of it is, it is painfully hidden and unacknowledged.

And at this point of extreme social and political upheaval, we have to find the common ground. Which is, quite simply, taking into account that in spite of all developments there are countless Indians who are hungry and homeless.

We maybe tolerant of many things, but we cant still be tolerant of hunger and poverty.

Unless every citizen is fed, unless every 'Indian' has a simple roof at least to stay in, I, as a common citizen, find it hard to accept the shallow patriotism raising its head everywhere, irrespective of what 'party' it is.

We need pride, not shallow ego.