We must be Stupid

On Corruption, The Media -Social & Un-social, Religion and Politics - a Nexus?

Have been in India for a far longer duration than I've been before, and the more I try to follow the news and trends of Indian politics, the more I'm convinced that we, the people are plain Stupid, Dumb or CRAZY. Scroll down on your Social media app and try to peep into the world of politics and news, and it gets worse. 

We get 'stupider..if that's a word I can use. 

This is not about being pro BJP, pro or anti Modi, pro or anti the Congress or for that matter the AAP. 

This is about our being gullible enough to swallow all that's being spewed out by our politicians and our television channels.

I try and scavenge some logic with my old mates, and I find that were polarized too!! Extremely, at that. The debates among friends have become toxic. Quite often, the toxicity and depth of discussion, breaks up very old friendships!!

The politics in Tamil Nadu have always been cinematic, and that's the least one can say. But reality today is far more sinister and melodramatic than our script writers of yesteryear ever did script!! M N Nambiar and M R Radha seem like the fore-tellers, Nostradamus' warning us, in their celluloid days, of today.

The heights of blatant corruption that our politicians have risen to would make the Everest seem a molehill!

Scams of "Lakhs of Crores of Rupees" have literally become catch-phrases of the magnitude of corruption we have learnt to become numb to. How much is one Lakh Crore Rupees? 
1,00,000 x 100,00,000 gives me a figure of 10,00,00,00,00,000 Rupees.
I don't even know where to fix the commas(separators) anymore!! 

Maybe a conversion into the more conventional will help! 
1,000,000,000,000 Rupees is One Thousand Billion Rupees. 
If we do convert this astronomical figure into an international currency (No, the Rupee isn't there as yet, even though we claim we are among them!!), it gives us a figure of US$150,000,000,000 (150 Billion US Dollars).

150 BILLION US DOLLARS!! 

And that's 1(ONE) Lakh Crore Rupees!!! 

With several scams  in our country, each qualifying easily, with several hundreds or thousands of crores Rupees,  and a few close to or even surpassing the magical ONE Lakh Crore, we, the people, must be really crazy to imagine that our politicians will ever let go without a slice of the cake.

We're the Worlds largest growing Democracy. This cloak of democracy encourages us to believe that we have chosen these leaders and thus they work for our ideals. The old adage that you get the leaders you deserve, resigns us to this, almost like Karma, that mystic future that you're destined to bear because of an even more mysterious past life!! We accept anything if a mystic spiritual explanation is offered. Just as we take bribing gods for favours to the next level when we do the same in our daily life.

This very ridiculous presumption that any political leader actually gets to perform only as his constituency wants is a dream that we will only dream about and never see in reality. If we believe that todays crop of politicians are our karmic payback, I or we must have had a very "sinful" or colourful past life!!

Where are we heading? 

Vote Banks? Note Banks! Reservation Cards!! Reservations were meant to uplift the downtrodden by giving them an opportunity to get on par with the rest of the country. The Opportunists (our political masters) have not only twisted the whole raison-d'etre of reservations into a monopoly of political and monetary gain, but have not just extended the duration of this Reservation, year after year , the scope of reservation, increasingly covers more and more communities, that very soon those not covered under reservation will become a minority.. All this while our nation regresses. 

We're literally watching as one of India's most affluent communities is fighting for reservation too, on the accepted pretext of having been marginalized for many years. The Patels, one of our most wealthy communities, with amazing financial success the world over, have recently joined the fray and fight for reservation in India. And the political bosses have immediately, jumped on the bandwagon, realizing that they command an affluent vote bank. Successfully disrupting lives and infrastructure, they are led on to fight for a cause that was created to bring those who didn't have, to par. 

Were lowering the bar to bring par down. Lowering the standard to accommodate. 

There seems to be a complete lack of innovation. Jugaad has become a national heritage rather than a drive to improve and create. 

Make in India will remain a slogan , just as Garibi Hatao only helped move the poor away than move poverty away.

The Minorities have become vote bank majorities. The Backward Castes and Classes have grown being fed by vote seeking politicians. The poor have become a larger group, the middle class is mesmerized and continues to grow. Our billionaires have only gotten further away. 

When will we wake up from this? How can we wake up and correct this ?

A paradigm shift is required.. in thought,, in politics.. and thus mass media is required  - but what does one do when the mass media itself is mired in this mess. Where media is a part or even possibly the root cause of the problem itself. 

Does Social media have the possibility to rally the common man? It may be too late. Social media started off as a watch dog on the main stream media. But ever since the idea to use Fake media to discredit legitimate social media has caught on, thanks to Donald Trump, social media has proven to be effectively disruptive and worse, un-controllable.

Raise an issue and you're trolled and in no time. You're the perpetrator. The publicity shy common man either is bought or is shoved out, hounded out until the movement is stifled in its path.Take the current debate on Television. On fake nationalism debates being virtually fabricated by the television channels. And the channel is now trying to make it a debate inviting radicals from all sides to make slanderous comments. The comments are then edited or carefully chosen to incite and scrolled as Breaking news segments flashing discotheque like on the screen...the debate turns into an argument. Voices raised, barbs are spewed out, and the negative comments then are highlighted by the same media as anti national comments. Violence spills out from the studios to the streets, giving them more fodder for the ever TRP hungry channels. 

A vicious cycle indeed. 

A political party. The laws say must have no criminal record. Yet one finds that come elections, rules are twisted and tickets given to tainted thugs. 

The Election Commission says No Sops before elections. Yet giving sops before elections is the national pastime. blatant misuse of state machinery for political mileage. And this is not just the current political dispensation. This has been a mutually accepted practice executed to perfection by every political party to some extent or the other. This has become worse than the doping scandal in cycling. Everyone cheats. 

And I wonder why, the moment I say 'çheat', I think of  religion!! Godmen have been in our news. for the deceit, sleaze and everything else that we were taught were the evils of social and civil behavior. And yet they thrive. The blind faith by multitudes, despite the exposes, is quite frightening, and is why I wonder if we're stupid.

We have learnt well from our British colonizers. Divide and rule was what we were taught was the manner in which the British kept us fighting among ourselves, hoping that we would forget about the colonizers and this ploy almost succeeded. 

Gandhi brought about a paradigm shift in the manner we reacted and thus we were able to achieve freedom. But no longer than our Colonizers left, did our politicians get rid of Gandhi and his influence dwindled. Overtaken by greed for power and money, we have once again sunk into the depths of the trap.

Will we find another Gandhi? Not one just in name (for heavens sake), but one in Principle. 

Until then, we remain regressive, puppet-like and stupid.

Ram Mohan

Depressed on the state of media and politics.

Chennai October 2017