Saturday, January 23, 2016

Intolerance - My viewpoint

Recently there has been a lot of hullabaloo about the so called word Intolerance. On a lighter side, maybe during the last few months apart from politicians, celebrities, and sports-persons I believe this keyword was the most searched on Google.

Politicians, media-persons, independent bloggers, writers and last but not least tinsel town people also had a say about Intolerance.

So, whether India is an intolerant country?

According to me the answer is a big NO.

So when and where actually it began?

How much I have followed the news channels and read about it, I can say that, it began when elections were held in Bihar. It coincided that phase. Add to this the Dadri incident. This was like adding ghee to the burning fire. Dadri, a small town in the neighboring state of Uttar Pradesh became the centre of attraction albeit in a wrong manner. Politicians started rushing there, media-persons hounded the family, writers and scholars returned their awards. Suddenly in all the news channels there was only one discussion going on, that is Intolerance.

Caste and Religion are powerful but equally dangerous weapons. Maybe the political parties who were not in a position to win the election resorted to these weapons to swing the tide in their favor and I believe it worked. After the Dadri incident, I believe the tide swung totally in favor of them.

Intolerance was no longer a mere word appearing in dictionaries, it became a powerful weapon. It became a weapon which was used by politicians, media-persons, writers in order to protest against the ruling government. Meanwhile they did not understand that they were maligning the nation’s image. It was the name of our country which was associated with the word Intolerance. But they never thought. The people who were in need of some votes in their favor systematically used these weapons and won the battle.

Once the elections were over, there was no mention of this word. Suddenly everyone became mum and India became tolerant again for them. The major role in this entire episode was played by the Media. They highlighted this issue by repetitively running bits, taking interviews, and debates and made Intolerance a trend. Celebrities also were not spared; in fact they were dragged in to this issue. They were asked questions about intolerance during their movie promotions. Few who did not bother to answer escaped but few who did had to pay a price.

Finally, stray incidents do not make India an intolerant nation. There are people of different religions and castes living together in harmony. But due to the vested interests of few power-hungry and money-hungry sharks the common people have to suffer and also the entire country gets a bad name. It hampers the development and growth of India and Indian people on a global scale.


Alas, they never care and it is us who have to bear the brunt!!!

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