I've gone deaf
The blog sphere is flooded with sagacious advice, radical calls for action, screeching accusations of incompetence, Government officials to be sacked, people confessing this is the last straw and that India is a lost cause and overall, a mood of great depression, doom and intense brooding.
I am quite fed up with all this. No one is for a moment denying your right to mourn and remember those who died and those who laid their lives down. By all means, decry fascism and radicalism in all its forms. But please stop, in your oh-so-articulate ways trying to give incisive explanations and insights into what is wrong with the systems, how our politicians are the cause of all this, how our bureaucrats are another cause, how this and that and this again is done wrong in our country and the list goes on.
Of course everyone knows what the problems are. Of course we all accept our apparatus whether political or security related is pathetic. I won't go into the details of all that is wrong because so many thousands of you out there have already screamed it from the top of your roofs and made me deaf in the process. When I watched the attacks and the diabolical aftermath I was left numb. However I am now angry. Not at those 10 or 20 idiots who came here and randomly left death behind nor at the larger machinery responsible for these ideas. I am angry at the outbursts that I have seen, heard and read. All of civil society, all the articulate folks out there are on TV shows, in newspaper columns, on blogs all berating institutions of India. And now I don't want to hear any more of your theorizing and your suggestions. Stop it already.
All you folks out there who think you have a solution, why don't you have the intestinal fortitude to convert some of your zealotry into action? We all know what the problems are so instead of further underscoring what we already know, how about being part of a possible solution?
You think our politicians are inept and you are more capable?
You think our education system breeds mediocrity?
You think our hiring policies discriminate?
You think Muslims are disenfranchised and suppressed?
All of this is true. So how about you be part of a solution? Contribute your time, your money, your knowledge to root out these problems instead of turning all serious and pious , gloomy and worst of all intellectual when such events happen. It takes but a day's searching to know how you can work with educators, with NGOs reforming Muslim education, to work with unemployed youth support groups to increase employability. It takes but a day with Google and your mobile phone. That's it. No one's asking you to don combat gear and take a chopper ride to Baluchistan. You can contribute here. And the need is more urgent than ever. I have only listed a few and very random list of things that you could do to help. I honestly am not optimistic about it really happening you know because, this is our way the Indian way. We know best how to theorize. We know best how to device the most perfect solutions in our well-groomed, grammatically correct English. It seems actually, that we seem to know it all! Kudos to all you smart folks out there. I am sure many of you are going to take part in walks, protests, white shirt days, black band days et al. While I admire your awareness and sense of sharing your thoughts in this peaceful manner, do also remember that as important as symbolism is, by going for a protest and back to work the next week you are no better or no worse than the very politicians you derided so heavily for flying into Bombay to visit the sick and dying when the attacks were still on.
I know so many of you out there all of whom seem to have solutions for everything that's wrong with civil society. Now more so than ever, all of us has an opinion, something we want to change. Yet how many of us will act? I shall leave that to you to ponder upon.
But please, for now enough of your screaming. Enough of your shouting yourselves hoarse. Either act or go back to your cocoons, knowing now of course that no one really can cocoon themselves anymore.
I am quite fed up with all this. No one is for a moment denying your right to mourn and remember those who died and those who laid their lives down. By all means, decry fascism and radicalism in all its forms. But please stop, in your oh-so-articulate ways trying to give incisive explanations and insights into what is wrong with the systems, how our politicians are the cause of all this, how our bureaucrats are another cause, how this and that and this again is done wrong in our country and the list goes on.
Of course everyone knows what the problems are. Of course we all accept our apparatus whether political or security related is pathetic. I won't go into the details of all that is wrong because so many thousands of you out there have already screamed it from the top of your roofs and made me deaf in the process. When I watched the attacks and the diabolical aftermath I was left numb. However I am now angry. Not at those 10 or 20 idiots who came here and randomly left death behind nor at the larger machinery responsible for these ideas. I am angry at the outbursts that I have seen, heard and read. All of civil society, all the articulate folks out there are on TV shows, in newspaper columns, on blogs all berating institutions of India. And now I don't want to hear any more of your theorizing and your suggestions. Stop it already.
All you folks out there who think you have a solution, why don't you have the intestinal fortitude to convert some of your zealotry into action? We all know what the problems are so instead of further underscoring what we already know, how about being part of a possible solution?
You think our politicians are inept and you are more capable?
You think our education system breeds mediocrity?
You think our hiring policies discriminate?
You think Muslims are disenfranchised and suppressed?
All of this is true. So how about you be part of a solution? Contribute your time, your money, your knowledge to root out these problems instead of turning all serious and pious , gloomy and worst of all intellectual when such events happen. It takes but a day's searching to know how you can work with educators, with NGOs reforming Muslim education, to work with unemployed youth support groups to increase employability. It takes but a day with Google and your mobile phone. That's it. No one's asking you to don combat gear and take a chopper ride to Baluchistan. You can contribute here. And the need is more urgent than ever. I have only listed a few and very random list of things that you could do to help. I honestly am not optimistic about it really happening you know because, this is our way the Indian way. We know best how to theorize. We know best how to device the most perfect solutions in our well-groomed, grammatically correct English. It seems actually, that we seem to know it all! Kudos to all you smart folks out there. I am sure many of you are going to take part in walks, protests, white shirt days, black band days et al. While I admire your awareness and sense of sharing your thoughts in this peaceful manner, do also remember that as important as symbolism is, by going for a protest and back to work the next week you are no better or no worse than the very politicians you derided so heavily for flying into Bombay to visit the sick and dying when the attacks were still on.
I know so many of you out there all of whom seem to have solutions for everything that's wrong with civil society. Now more so than ever, all of us has an opinion, something we want to change. Yet how many of us will act? I shall leave that to you to ponder upon.
But please, for now enough of your screaming. Enough of your shouting yourselves hoarse. Either act or go back to your cocoons, knowing now of course that no one really can cocoon themselves anymore.
Labels: education, radical islam, rantings, terrorism
posted by Abs @ 12/01/2008 01:41:00 PM
6 comments
6 Comments:
Abhi - one of your better blogs. Knowing you, I am not sure how you made so much sense?
Can Toral Varia, George Varghese, Barkha Dutt, Sagarika bullshit and whoever else who spewed further terror through their telecast be but on trial please?
Abhi! Thanks for putting these thoughts on paper in such an articulate way!
Thank you for sharing an opinion that is so important and yet is given such little thought!
I wish they hear you Abhi and that they stop adding deafness to one of their many handicaps!
Bhattu: I consider this high praise from you.
Pani: thanks. And yes let's hope...sometimes hope is all we have.
Hey dude...Agree with what you've written, more so since you are one who has gone ahead and done it..
All the same, let me ask you this..Why is it that we do not hear similar cries in places lets say like the US or the UK..They are well running democarcies as well..Is it expected of each and every citizen to take the reins of the government? Is it not fine for us to comment on the state of our country the way we see it? Are we doing something wrong in working in regular corporate jobs, creating jobs, increasing the GDP of our country, making it more and more economically progrossive etc. etc.. Do we necessarily have to do more than exercise our right to vote?
My point is simple...We do our jobs, the government should do its own...For too long we have been using arguments such as this to forgive the state of affairs.
Pranav: thanks for your comment. My answer would be yes. For too many years we have voted and forgotten. And then berate those whom we have elected. This is only one small area where we can improve. Of course it is not going to stop men from blowing up our cities. Nothing can do that. But by becoming a participatory democracy, we can hold those in government accountable on a regular basis rather than baying for their blood in times of strife.
One of our jobs as citizens is to be involved not only in electing but also in holding those whom we elect accountable. By participating, by criticizing, my helping when possible.
Of course like I said, this is a long term solution. The reason why things work in the US and UK as you mention is because for example the US has had over 250 years to figure out how good governance works. And their citizens in general are more enterprising when it comes to participatory democracy. When we start seeing that here, maybe the top post in this country could be held more regularly by someone who does not have Nehru's genes in their blood.
Abhi..I fail to see what prevents us from holding these people accountable now. Why is that, as you say, possible only after we become a participatory democracy? Why can't we demand accountability now?? The way I see it, participation and accountability are two separate issues.
On your other point...why they took 250 years is precisely the reason why we should take 25. That's the benefit of hindsight. Thats the reason why,lets say, a Singapore is where it is today, in a fraction of the time taken by anyone else. In this day and age of convergence, there is nothing which prevents our country to be where the US is...But there needs to be will, which is lacking and which needs to be demanded..
About their citizens being more enterprising, I have serious doubts given their record of voter turnouts..
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