2022 : A Challenge To Upbringing

Today we are into the year 2022.  Let us see how our level of cordiality towards others has been in the last 1 year.  There is no doubt that today's era is an attempt to be recorded in a different way in the history of India.  We have seen situations before 2014 and are seeing it even today.  A lot that has changed or that is changing or what we understand in the context of the changes that have to be faced is how do sensitive people like us keep ourselves apart from this difference or face this change from ourselves. A big question in itself!!!  Relationships are deteriorating due to blind devotion.  The atmosphere changed in such a way that it is not hidden.  People with whom we had a lot of friendships, good family and very close relations, there was a very cordial atmosphere in kinship, used to chat for hours together, there was no politics anywhere between intimate relationships and each other's favorite political interests and thinking.  Neither any kind of mutual animosity was created about it. Today neither the situation nor the atmosphere is like that. The whole environment is becoming toxic.

The debate used to happen earlier too, but without any bitterness.  Differences of opinion were not expressed through religion and hate debate or prejudices. The real reason why there was no bitterness in the relationship was that everyone's views were respected. The administration and power were put to sharp questions by common people even then and with complete impunity.  Today, due to social media, fancy and facebook knowledge, all kinds of bitterness, communal hatred are inundated with messages and videos.  Instigating trolls are sent.  And people justify all this.  Even in our interactions, people like us are identified because they dislike our tendency to question our administration or the ruling leaders.  As a result, relationships are getting sour.  If someone is not a supporter of power, not a staunch devotee of Modi, then he is considered anti national.  He is a traitor, a Pakistani, an urban naxal, a terrorist.  For Modi bhakts, Modi ji is the country, Modi ji is the constitution, Modi ji is the law and the country's four walls are limited to Modi's thinking!!!

As before, the democratic freedom to express opinion in debate and the respect given to it, there was less place for stubbornness, passion and hatred.  I can say with certainty that today we all must have come face to face with the hatred in schools, colleges, mohallas, offices and workplaces.  It has even been seen that the reason for the absence of your close ones on the funeral rituals of your loved ones is only because you always put Modi in the dock.  Nowadays, not only in social media but in family gatherings or rituals and even in marriages, the plate gets thrown while discussing or arguing on Modi, Yogi and Shah.

When the farmers protested, they were also called Khalistani.  They were bashed up with lathis, trampled and mowed under SUVs and put to death. Later the three black laws are withdrawn in favor of these "Khalistanis" and "terrorists".

Now one after the other, saffron-clad sadhu groups are organizing Dharma Sansad, in which they are using  abusive and infuriating language of communal violence -- abusing Mahatma Gandhi to glorify Godse, Gandhi's killer from this open platform!!! Slogans of "Godse Zindabad" are made openly and with full audacity.  The administration does not take any legal action on them, whether it is Haridwar of Uttarakhand or the disputed Dharma Sansad of Chhattisgarh. It seems that now in this country no one is going to listen. The mightier and the powerful can only speak and dictate now.

I am repeating, we have now entered 2022.  We are still in that environment where the listener is afraid.  Whoever raises his reaction or questions, the bhakt speaker abuses, uses fowl, insulting and intimidating language and goon behavior, threatens rape, violence and death.  So how do we keep ourselves away from this type of pressure in this changing environment to cope with it because fanaticism has made a difference in the disagreement of views.  The one who earlier took pride in being a Hindu, today gives the definition of Hindutva and is trying to force it on us.  There is an attempt to pressurize our citizenship for an idea.  Instead of getting distracted by this pressure, we should fearlessly put the reverse pressure of good, equal, inclusive and humanistic ideas apart from caste and religion on them.

History is being interpreted in such a way that Godse is great, Savarkar is great, Modi is great, Yogi is great and all those Mahamandaleshwar gathered in the Dharma Sansad in Haridwar and who were advocating murder and killing are the saviour of Hindutva. Such narratives and such thoughts are being created and when there is the support of the authority and administration in creating such situations, then our responsibility increases even more that we speak and guide the coming generation on how to wade through the hate storm.  

In this new year, it is very important to think that what kind of thinking and upbringing we have to give to our children, what kind of environment we have to give, what kind of books they should read, how to understand the history of the country to appreciate the contribution of the great men of the country, who have sacrificed their all in the country's freedom movement, and understand them in every way; and above all, understand the constitution of the country.  This country will run by the constitution, it will not run by the declaration of that saffron-clad religious parliament but by the constitution that Babasaheb Ambedkar prepared for India;  The Constitution that Prime Minister Modi often refers to;  The constitution whose oath is taken in the parliament - from taking the oath to the discharge of its function.  But such a religious parliament of Haridwar and Chhattisgarh flaunts the constitution.  When slogans of crematoriums and graveyards will be raised in the speeches of Modi and Yogi, then you will start realising that never judge a book by its cover as appearances are conspicuously deceptive.  So you should get involved and in the new year of 2022, you should take a resolution that how you should teach your children that even in this disturbed environment, their heart and mind should remain open and they have their own ability to make decisions