I am sure the people of the country are now feeling tired of the word "Intolerance". Extensive television debates, news articles and stories practically in all the news papers and flood of messages from both the sides on social media has really now started ridiculing a common man.
For all these days it has been amazing to see the tolerance of some and intolerance of others. Sometimes it becomes hard to understand that what yardstick and which hue of philosophy is appropriate for describing this term. People who have been lecturing one another even can not do justice to this term if it is to be seen from two different lenses.
If we start to analyse this whole issue then first we have to address the concerns of the people who started this whole movement about one and a half month back. It was interesting to see that the moment Mr. Modi returned from US and Bihar election campaign took a full swing, our age old liberals suddenly started feeling suffocated. Dadri lynching was made the fulcrum around which every statement of liberals was revolving and the awards were being returned as icing on the cake. During whole process there were so many mediocres who returned their awards just to get some name in the media because they had received those awards for the work, which perhaps were given to them for the reasons other than their merit. They did not hesitate to jump on the bandwagon and this was no doubt an opportune moment for them. All such people were living a happy and comfortable time during the rule of earlier political dispensations and cozy influence of the leftists. These are a typical kind of elites or I would prefer to call them cultural and intellectual czars of the country which did not see any threat to their intellectual hegemony during previous governments. This feeling of concern for India and its people shown by these intellectual czars was a manifestation of deep rooted hate and negativity they had been nurturing all these years for Modi and BJP as it is quite evident that most of the educated middle class and youth of India has drifted towards Modi and BJP during last 3 or 4 odd years. In fact it was next to impossible for this particular class to tolerate Modi as PM and BJP as a ruling party. Practically every education or cultural institution of India had become a fiefdom of these cultural czars and they did never want anybody to challenge their views on Indian history, culture and sociology.In this process of protests and resentment against government these people got overboard and forgot to realize that the country and its people have changed dramatically during last decade. In the age of social media and aggressive electronic media, the other side of the issue was largely appreciated and a strong backlash from most of the Indians against these czars had to be acknowledged by the media.
While debating the non existent intolerance issue the intellectual czars came up with so many theories in exquisite english and media hyped that as freedom of speech and expression of liberals. But a common man comes with criticism against these liberals and obviously that would be a raw expression of thoughts and feelings which a common man vents through so many social sites. This was branded as intolerance again. Why? If a common man does not endorse the views of self esteemed liberals then one can not deny him of his right of free speech and expression. I would like to ask our liberals how can you brand a common Indian as intolerant if he is in disagreement with your views and perceptions?
I view the present time as a great time of transition in terms of perceptions of a common man. It has become mandatory to redefine the liberalism. It had become very important for our cultural and educational institutes to receive the light of wisdom from other windows as well. For almost last 60 years we have been teaching our generation with a certain view point. Wisdom and intellect is not anybody's personal property. If someone insulates his intelligence and capability from the new and fresh and divergent ideas then that intelligence takes the form of dogmas. Obviously dogmatism proves to be regressive always and becomes highly detrimental to societies and generations to come. Exactly this has happened with our left leaning and Nehruvian intelligentsia.These intellectuals can not tolerate any other view point to be discussed. Whenever this happens, they come up against majoritarian view and place themselves as messiah of oppressed. They forget to divulge further and close their eye and window of brain towards the other side of the coin.
Need of the hour is to follow an unbiased and non partisan approach and walking along the changing face of societies. All these left leaning and Nehruvian liberals who have enjoyed political patronage and favours for all these years should stand up and reset their goals by setting and formatting their frozen intelligence. These gentlemen can prove to be an asset to the country if they sincerely shed their egos, inhibitions and assimilate the divergent ideas to gel with the modern and resurgent India.
For all these days it has been amazing to see the tolerance of some and intolerance of others. Sometimes it becomes hard to understand that what yardstick and which hue of philosophy is appropriate for describing this term. People who have been lecturing one another even can not do justice to this term if it is to be seen from two different lenses.
If we start to analyse this whole issue then first we have to address the concerns of the people who started this whole movement about one and a half month back. It was interesting to see that the moment Mr. Modi returned from US and Bihar election campaign took a full swing, our age old liberals suddenly started feeling suffocated. Dadri lynching was made the fulcrum around which every statement of liberals was revolving and the awards were being returned as icing on the cake. During whole process there were so many mediocres who returned their awards just to get some name in the media because they had received those awards for the work, which perhaps were given to them for the reasons other than their merit. They did not hesitate to jump on the bandwagon and this was no doubt an opportune moment for them. All such people were living a happy and comfortable time during the rule of earlier political dispensations and cozy influence of the leftists. These are a typical kind of elites or I would prefer to call them cultural and intellectual czars of the country which did not see any threat to their intellectual hegemony during previous governments. This feeling of concern for India and its people shown by these intellectual czars was a manifestation of deep rooted hate and negativity they had been nurturing all these years for Modi and BJP as it is quite evident that most of the educated middle class and youth of India has drifted towards Modi and BJP during last 3 or 4 odd years. In fact it was next to impossible for this particular class to tolerate Modi as PM and BJP as a ruling party. Practically every education or cultural institution of India had become a fiefdom of these cultural czars and they did never want anybody to challenge their views on Indian history, culture and sociology.In this process of protests and resentment against government these people got overboard and forgot to realize that the country and its people have changed dramatically during last decade. In the age of social media and aggressive electronic media, the other side of the issue was largely appreciated and a strong backlash from most of the Indians against these czars had to be acknowledged by the media.
While debating the non existent intolerance issue the intellectual czars came up with so many theories in exquisite english and media hyped that as freedom of speech and expression of liberals. But a common man comes with criticism against these liberals and obviously that would be a raw expression of thoughts and feelings which a common man vents through so many social sites. This was branded as intolerance again. Why? If a common man does not endorse the views of self esteemed liberals then one can not deny him of his right of free speech and expression. I would like to ask our liberals how can you brand a common Indian as intolerant if he is in disagreement with your views and perceptions?
I view the present time as a great time of transition in terms of perceptions of a common man. It has become mandatory to redefine the liberalism. It had become very important for our cultural and educational institutes to receive the light of wisdom from other windows as well. For almost last 60 years we have been teaching our generation with a certain view point. Wisdom and intellect is not anybody's personal property. If someone insulates his intelligence and capability from the new and fresh and divergent ideas then that intelligence takes the form of dogmas. Obviously dogmatism proves to be regressive always and becomes highly detrimental to societies and generations to come. Exactly this has happened with our left leaning and Nehruvian intelligentsia.These intellectuals can not tolerate any other view point to be discussed. Whenever this happens, they come up against majoritarian view and place themselves as messiah of oppressed. They forget to divulge further and close their eye and window of brain towards the other side of the coin.
Need of the hour is to follow an unbiased and non partisan approach and walking along the changing face of societies. All these left leaning and Nehruvian liberals who have enjoyed political patronage and favours for all these years should stand up and reset their goals by setting and formatting their frozen intelligence. These gentlemen can prove to be an asset to the country if they sincerely shed their egos, inhibitions and assimilate the divergent ideas to gel with the modern and resurgent India.
