We - Victims of Self Proclaimed Ignorance

Just a few days from now and the great Indian election summers will reveal our new Prime Minister. Only time will tell us if he will be BJP’s PM Nominee, Sh. Narender Modi, UPA’s Rahul Gandhi or UPA backed up Third front leader Sh Mulayam Singh Yadav, Sh Nitish Kumar, Smt Mayawati, Smt Jayalalitha, Smt Mamta Banerjee or Sh. Naveen Patnayak. A hope for better future will run through our mind for few days. If they will be succeeded in matching our aspirations, we will take it as granted and if they won’t, we will shed out our frustration by criticizing the system and terming everyone the same. And it has been the way from last couple of decades with the emergence of smart technology that had changed our lifestyle upside down.

We, the common people of india are often left as victims of corruption, system, inflation and so many things. There is a no point of debate that our system comprising Politicians-Beaureaucrat-Corporate-Police as chief power centers has often failed us, deceived us and used us. It is another practical truth that not everyone amongst us can stand and fight alone against what we feel is wrong leaving winning a mirage.

But is that all which keep us in a state of victimhood? Is that all which comprise the convicts? Are we all ourselves so pure and perfect? Let’s pose some questions to ourselves to know us too.

How many of us actually go out and vote? How many of us actually apply for a leave to go to our hometown and vote as a large number of us are either studying or working other than our hometown? How many of us actually try to know our candidates before voting for them or against them? How many of us involve ourselves in seeing what government is doing and how their policies framed in their last tenure are affecting us or have affected us? How many of us even in current elections have chosen not to stretch ourselves a little bit and vote? How many of us actually have cared to give a thought to their answers to the problem poised to us? How many of us can claim that they have chosen the person basis a careful monitoring of events, past experience, track record, vision, solutions proposed by them instead of voting on the basis of biased, false and fabricated views carefully marketed to implant in our minds and becoming the victims of our own ignorance? How many of us have voted rising above orthodox fallacy fed to our mind and chose to use our own wisdom on the basis of proper and careful research? How many of us has fallen a prey into hands of ignorance by turning our mind away thinking all are same and nothing can change our misery or what a difference one vote can make? How many of us who always get time to discuss Virat’s century or a girl next door but hardly get time to discuss the candidates in our constituency or ignore it terming it cheap discussion and become a prey ourselves in the hands of ignorance? How many of us actually sit and analyze the candidates once like we do analyze fashion, clothes, accessories, jewellery, food joints or the way Sehwag got out again? We often keep ourselves away from political discussions citing bad nature of it but can we actually deny that politics doesn’t affect us? How can we ignore to discuss what affect us most? And ironically that’s politics which indirectly affects every part of our life. These were the questions of one context I wanted us to introspect with especially when most of us claim to be social intellects and EDUCATED. After seeing comparatively higher voter turn outs in rural, riot hits, terror hit areas and aged, handicapped, illiterate queuing outside polling booths and social media intellects busy on their smart phones sitting in AC rooms, I can say just one thing we middle class comprises those who know their right but don’t know their duties and those who know their duties but don’t know their rights.

In second set of questions let’s do another round of introspection and try to answer a few question which God’s presence inside me keep haunting me with. All of us must have seen a shopkeeper shouting on the kid working in his shop just after he had finished his morning prayers or a woman shouting on her maid for feeding her child while working just after feeding her own, or someone yelling on his peon. We crib about our bosses behaving with us as second rate citizens but don’t we ignore above cases happening in our own home, shops and offices when we ourselves do the same? All of us must have argued on MRP of the product to someone selling a water bottle or a magazine on a red light in 45 degree temperature but have happily paid three times the price on a burger or a cold drink in a multiplex. Haven’t we taken away the fruit of hard work from one deserving because we could and haven’t even thought of it where we couldn’t? Why we crib then when someone else uses his powers to deny us what we deserve? We all form that society where every one of us uses his powers to abuse someone and deny what he deserve. We are victims of our own ignorance to give others what they deserve. Sometimes we play as victims and sometimes as culprits.

Now let’s come to another set of questions on something which we think is the root cause of every problem we face in our daily lives, corruption. Here I will talk about corruption which is on smaller scale but in uncountable numbers and which affects us directly and up to large extent.  Not the one which is on large scale but lesser in numbers and which affects us indirectly and on comparatively lesser extent. I am talking about our routine life affairs right from an electricity connection to a license to run our business. We all have witnessed a corruption of one type and another everywhere. Sometimes it involves money and sometimes carelessness, irresponsibility or no accountability. An officer in bank not responding to my queries, being directed at counter to counter in an corporation office, nobody ready to tell the status of my form or file, a police officer not ready to register my FIR or keeping a blind eye on a girl being harassed on roadside, a PA not letting me in without a reference, a file not being signed without passing few currency bills.  Aren’t we ourselves are working in those offices? Aren’t we working in police department or Municipal Corporation? Who are the people whose lackluster approach or lust for money affects our routine life? Aren’t they common people like us? Isn’t my father, mother, brother or a friend working amongst them? Corruption which affects us most is there in the society by us only. Can we give an affirmative answer to ourselves that we do our work with hundred percent honesty and commitment? Can we deny the fact that we grab every single opportunity to get rid of the work in the office? Have we ever thought that the way we try to keep our comfort and benefit in the mind while working is the same way all other officers in the every other office work and it seems a corruption of one kind or another to us. Do we really want to change those settings while cribbing for corruption around and blaming it for our misery? For immediate benefits one of us is making a weak road, bridge or building and risking lives of many. One of us is worried for our private practice on the cost of duties assigned leaving many at their fate.  One of us is not letting a PF fie processed jeopardizing his only child’s marriage arrangements. We society of corrupts blames corruption for the conditions surrounding us.

Introspection in three different contexts I have cited above and an honest try to ask ourselves the same questions can put us on a position to choose the surroundings we wish to live in. I can’t change whole society but I have chosen to make the difference which a lot others haven’t yet.

SimplyArsh