Leave things better than you found them, start now

The TV in the background as I write this is alive with our worthy parliamentarians speaking eloquently and passionately on the occasion of Constitution Day (whatever that means). I am reminded of an episode from a favourite film, Lage Raho Munna Bhai, where ‘Gandhiji’ tells Munna Bhai, ‘Mujhe to bahut pehle maar diya tha…  ab har saal meri tasveer ko mala pehna kar, mujhe ek din yaad kar lete hain.’ 

We have seen several attempts to murder our Constitution by successive governments and almost every political party: and yet, it does not strike our MPs as even vaguely ironic that they stand up in our Parliament now, giving the people of India homilies on what the Constitution stands for. I think it is time someone tells these hypocrites that it is We, the People of India, who have saved the Constitution from certain death. Look at the way even the most illiterate and backward state votes (ummm, forget the victory of Lalu’s party as I say this), and pause to think of how deeply Indians understand a respect for all faiths and all forms of life (even plants and stones).

So, bring on the Yogi Adityanaths and other loonies from the right and left: our electorate will uphold the idea of India. (By the way, there are certain words and phrases that have started to pall on us: paradigm, narrative, secularism, tolerance, the idea of India, unity in diversity… there must be more but these are seriously in need of retirement now.)

I fear political correctness has reached a unique level of idiocy everywhere and — what is worse — has actually begun to harm and subvert the very reasons for which it is used and encouraged. It is worth reflecting why the two European countries that are upheld the world over as shining examples of secularism and social justice (France and England) are today in danger of being destroyed by the very concepts they hold most dear. The same goes for the capital of the European Union, Brussels (representing the coming together of a multi-ethnic community for mutual economic welfare), which was locked down for almost a week. The common folk of these countries are now wondering whether liberty, equality, fraternity mean the same to the rest of the world. This is almost the same as the common people here who have started to question whether the time has come to consider bringing in a common civil code and why economic reservation makes more sense than one based on caste. Even in the US, the Republican Party’s most probable candidate for the coming presidential election next year speaks openly of creating a database for Muslims. And this in a country that has just finished celebrating the victory of the Allied forces over Hitler!

I am no student of history but this I do know that history moves in cycles and that the same human conditions affect the West as the East. Mighty empires and solid republics have tumbled when they failed to listen to the voice of the common man. In our own country, we have the recent example of the Delhi elections where the Aam Aadmi Party swept out the two most powerful political parties because it had captured the voice and imagination of the common man. It is a different matter that many now feel they have failed to bring the change they had promised, but one wonders whether our political parties have realised that the old buzzwords and slogans are no longer enough to fool the electorate. In the age of social media and instant answers, with the attempts to sow doubts and hate by interested parties (and our media, I’m sorry to say, has played a very irresponsible role here), the possibility of mischief is multiplied. Let us not forget the Arab Spring that promised people a better, more egalitarian political order in certain Islamic states long held by cruel despots and look what they got: the Boko Haram and the ISIS. Today, more people live in fear of their lives than ever before and are streaming out of their own homelands to seek refuge in hostile and unwelcoming environments. It does not need an astrologer to predict that a few decades down, their anger against the suspicion and contempt of their new homelands may turn them into dangerous men who kill innocent people to wreak revenge against a country they despise.

A poisoned and bitter generation of hopeful young men and women, bred in ghettoes and denied the dignity that they crave, may lose all those happy memories of a free and open society when they grow up into angry young men and women. The tools of the Internet are both a blessing and a curse as more and more are seduced by faceless recruiters who distort facts and religious messages. I tremble in fear at the world that will come after us and regret that our children and grandchildren will live in times that are fraught with problems that have no rational solutions. If as responsible citizens we can somehow reverse the tide of hatred, we will have made a small beginning. So please love thy neighbour as thyself and remind yourself everyday that the world you leave behind you must be a better place than the world you inherited.