In an ideal world, people would put aside all differences and help each other out, especially when faced with a man-made pandemic, the magnitude of which we don’t know! We really don’t want to know the magnitude of the Chinese Corona virus! We hope this will be over soon, but estimates by health officials put the possible culmination of this disease around the months of August 2020. Whether this holds good, or not, one is going to see sporadic cases well into next year! Given this as the backdrop, would it be too much to ask people to put aside their differences, cultural, political, religious or otherwise, till we all get back on our feet? After all, who’ll be there to have these differences with if no one is around? But that’s in an ideal world and, we don’t live in one! Far from it, ideals are lost upon us and we look at petty politics to score points!
Law Enforcement Officers(LEO) are putting their lives on the line, everyday of their professional lives, and the only thing they expect in return is that we adhere to civic norms and follow the law.
For some, that has become a little too much to ask! Be it the Tablighi Muslims, the Hindus in Kalburagi or the former CM of Karnataka, who was hellbent on celebrating is son’s wedding, we just don’t seem to understand the issue on hand. The surprising thing is that the current CM was one of the people participating in this wedding! Even more surprising: none of them had a mask on nor was their any social distancing! Where the common person is held to certain standards, the political figures got away! God forbid, some one dies, we can then say they got away with murder! With all this, we still expect the Law & Order machinery to function without a glitch! The police(men and women) have nothing to lose if someone’s walking the streets with no mask on nor any gloves! After all, it definitely is the individual’s choice.
As long as these brave hearts are safe, why should they care? And yet, they do! If something were to go wrong, we first question the lack of LEOs, but when they are doing their job, we resist and throw stones at them? Or spit at them?
The medical profession is one that demands way more than one can imagine. Late hours, unexpected calls in the middle of the night and now, ungrateful patients! The Hippocratic oath they take precludes them from taking any sides, and doing their job as one with humanity. The nurses and other personnel who assist these god sent people are no less worthy of mention.
They also put their lives on the line, ensuring our wellbeing! Picking up litter, feces and making sure the environment is as pure as possible, that’s a thankless job! What do they get in return? Lewd behavior from patients who refuse to wear masks in the hospital, urinate where they feel like and walking around naked!
The sanitation workers are the least appreciated of all people. Be it picking up litter on the crowded streets, emptying the trash cans we fill up with regularity or sweeping the streets so they look good, this is a job that no one wants to do; we sweep the insides of our residence and empty that dirt into the gutters in front of our house! These blessed souls are expected to pick up what we couldn’t empty in our trash cans as that would stink up the house! Nary a thought about how offensive this must be to these brave hearts! Not a thank you nor any sort of appreciation! When they don’t do their jobs, we are the first to criticize them! What is it about this profession that we can’t give them an ounce of respect, but expect respect from them?
Respect is a two way street and yet, we think of ourselves first and foremost!
The media has never played fair! They have showed the irresponsible and volatile people in fair light but have never showed the people mentioned above in any way or form as human beings! The Tablighi Jamat’s leader is still not named in any news channel nor the papers, but these same outlets were at the forefront when the Kanchi Shankaracharya was wrongfully arrested! They ran his pictures on all channels but are still playing coy when the Tablighi maulvi has to be named! The Government of Delhi has even gone so far as to name this as Special Operstions! How’s it special, Kejriwal? Because it has Muslims involved? Why are we soft-footing around any particular community, be it Muslims or Christians? The same didn’t apply when the 1984 Sikh Massacre happened! Please don’t tell me that was not a massacre because the whole world knows this WAS A MASSACRE! The people who perpetrated that genocide never went to jail till Narendra Modi became Prime Minister! In fact, one of those people that should have been in jail is now the Chief Minister of MP!
The people that arrested the Shankaracharya are still walking around with no one ready to arrest them.
Just two days ago, in the state of Maharashtra, two Hindu saints were beaten to death, supposedly mistaken for child abductors! Apart from Republic and another channel, not one media house picked up this story. This makes it abundantly clear that Hindus are treated as merely cash cows and nothing else. If two Muslim saints had faced this situation, this would have led the news on EVERY SINGLE CHANNEL! The sad part in this whole situation is that the apologetic Hindus will find a thousand reasons to forgive the media houses and other outlets but will not accept the real truth! Hindus have become used to the step motherly treatment, and shy away when given any kind of attention! Who’s to blame in this sad situation? The media will always placate the one minority community because they raise their collective voice, when it doesn’t! The Hindus can’t do that as they DO NOT have a collective voice!
As an example, many Hindus have started boycotting the Muslim vendors, as many of them have refused to wear any kind of face masks nor gloves. This, when the country faces a threat of high magnitude. Rather than take arms against these vendors, the media outlets are outraged against the consumers! Why? This is still a democracy! The right to choose who I will buy, and not buy from, is totally my choice! To go and complain to the police that they’re not getting fairly treated by the consumers is nothing but nonsense! People have the right to buy food from those that they’re comfortable with! No one can dictate to me or to my brethren who I should or shouldn’t buy from.
Situations sometimes demand the use of common sense rather than heart! One can safely say the media houses play to one’s emotions rather than intellect. This is NOT because the media doesn’t have any intellect but because they don’t want people to use their own intellect. Mobs can be incited only by playing on their emotions, not intellect! Unfortunately, most mobs that have been incited have followed their leaders and emotions and never their intellect, and this is not going to change soon! For those of us that count on intellect, emotions trump logic and intellect any day ! As a result, we need to start thinking with our hearts!
Can we do that? Let’s hope so, although I have my own doubts! Till the next week, God Bless the USA. उत्तिष्ठभारत। जय माँ भारती
Disclaimer: The views expressed are personal to the author
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