Let’s get one thing clear. We all love hypocrisy. In fact, we absolutely cherish it. Whether its in the case of an adult telling the child to stay away from sweets while galloping on choicest of sweets, or in case of us cursing another driver on the road for not following the traffic rules while taking that prohibited U-turn as the specified one will be too far, or in case of a man advocating equality for women while ordering her own daughter to not go out in the night.
The thing is we knowingly or unknowingly exhibit hundreds of hypocritical behavior on a daily basis. When we do it knowingly or when someone points it out, we justify our behavior by giving a context to it, or a historical reason for it, or by total denial. Whatever way possible; which is not wrong as we are not living in a vacuum or in a jungle by on our own. We live in a society with a history of thousands of years.
When each one of us is a hypocrite then the question becomes what is the level of hypocrisy do we deem acceptable? If we do not call a father Patriarchal who does not allow his daughter to roam around in the middle of the night as there are real threats lurking all around because we do not live in a perfect society, then do we also not call a father hypocrite/criminal who teaches his kid to be honest while extorting money out of a poor man’s pocket.
Despite what the colonial apologists would want you to believe, the fact is when India won her freedom, our literacy rate was 12% and our life expectancy was 31 years. That means out of 100, 88 people could not even write their name in their mother tongue and people were not expected to live to see their kids getting married or even their childhood!
The challenges at the time were different, the priorities were different so we should not completely disregard the ecosystem that we were left with after 67 years of Independence when the autocrat Modi rose to the power back in 2014. However, we should not forget that despite the long strides we had taken in improving standard of life for every citizen, we were left with a political and governance system where Sainbari Incident was made acceptable for the ruling class, where a political party got the highest mandate which had just led the massacre of thousands of people belonging to the bravest community of India, where communal riots were made part and parcel of the society we lived in, where the suspicious death of a sitting Prime Minister is forgotten, where a whole community is killed, raped and thrown out from their homes for being born in their faith while the ‘Seculars’ blamed them for their plight, where scams of the humongous proportions were just another of the perks for being in power.
I can go on and on and on. The point is we had a broken political system, a non-functional governance system, a creaking law & order situation, a fragile five economy and a disillusioned society when the so-called ‘nikkardhari‘ came to power in 2014.
We cannot blame our previous generation for the state of affairs (whether due to fear, or greed, or compulsion, or laziness, or complicity, or lack of knowledge or complete disdain); they toiled hard to make their children self-sufficient in a society that was adverse to their teachings, their spirituality, their beliefs and their principles. They might not have taken the bull by their horns but they did enough for us to not forget the roots from we came from which was instrumental in bringing a ‘Hindu-Fascist’ to power in 2014.
Its easy to forget how India was 6 years back. Who would have thought that India would emerge as the Covid Vaccine gateway of the world or it would become the hub of the Space sector in the world, just a few years back? India has made gigantic strides in every field whether Infrastructure, Poverty alleviation, Basic amenities, Health, Defense, Foreign Policy, Fight against terrorism, or Economy. But one thing we have surely downgraded in is our Political discourse. Forget the terrible names given to the person sitting on the highest executive chair of the country, the general politics has stooped to such a level that the party which ruled independent India for more than 60 years is openly siding with Khalistanis, Islamists, Naxalites and foreign forces who want to constantly see India on the boil (if not breakup into pieces).
So is it just the hatred for one person or the frustration of not being able to come to power or sheer incompetence on the part of opposition which has led to such terrible circumstances? Well its a mix of all these factors and ONE MORE. They are banking on your patience and hypocrisy to change their fortunes! Confused??? Well, let me explain.
Nation building is a long arduous task which takes decades of right direction and effort. Nations are not built in 5 or 10 years specially the ones as huge and diverse as India. We all know its going to take sustained efforts of 2-3 decades to build a prosperous nation. But the elections are every 5 years! Or worse, every few months! Only a vigilant person would be able to see the strides being made in different fields as the TRP hungry media keeps you distracted with a new “doomsday” scenario every other day. So its easy to miss all the work being done specially when you have so many problems still to be fixed or addressed. Not everyone has the time, energy, interest or even intellect to see all that is being done so its easy to lie to people that nothing is being done and some of them would believe. Patience is not easy specially when the promise was of “Achche Din“!
Its easy to argue and justify anything in this world especially when you bring out the “whataboutery” argument. As I mentioned earlier, we all are hypocrites at certain level but most of us do have the basic intelligence level to differentiate between the hypocrisy of breaking a traffic rule ourselves while preaching others; and the hypocrisy of pointing fingers at others for a lynching while killing hundreds everyday. But that is the intelligence that is under constant scrutiny in these last 6.5 years.
For example, we are told that Farmer protests are by “gareeb annadatta” who are fighting for their survival but when you ask what are pizza counters, massage chairs, dish antennas, or big SUVs doing in these protests then you are termed as hypocrite. We are told that Shaheen Bagh protests are by “Dadis and Nanis” who are fighting for their citizenship rights but when you ask how CAA will take away their citizenship then you are a hypocrite. We are told that building Ram Mandir is unconstitutional as “Babri Masjid” was demolished in 1992 but when you ask about Gyanvapi Mosque or Sarnath Temple or Takshila university or Nalanda university or 1000s of other temples/universities then you are labelled as a hypocrite.
The point is all this is done to question your intelligence. You are being made to think whether “Hinduon se Aazadi” is the same as “Hindutva se Aazadi” or not, whether a farmer can speak English or not; when you should be asking an even more basic question why someone needs Aazadi in a free country at all, why nobody is able to point out the reason for protests when the farm laws do not do away with the old system that was already in place? You are being asked to think whether blocking major roads and highways is the right way to protest, when you could be thinking why there needs to be a protest at all?
And this has been done day in and day out on every single matter since last 6.5 years. You have limited energy and patience, they don’t. You get tired of finding out yourself whether every small decision taken by the govt is right or not which might require you to study a lot of historical context, huge statistical data, and what not. If you start relying on “Experts” for your own opinions then they have you where they want you to be as “Your expert” vs “My expert” game can be played and your inherent hypocrisy can be used against your own intelligence.
This is the game. Its not easy to keep defending each and every small decision of a Govt you might support and voted for without being labelled as a “Bhakt” and they know it. They are waiting for you to run out of patience, that’s why they keep opposing anything and everything under the sun.
But never forget the larger picture that is at stake here. Your previous generations have toiled hard to make you reach where you are. Don’t give up just because its too much noise or because you are not an “expert” or because no govt can be right all the time or because its embarrassing. That is what they want!
