Truth Alone Prevails!

Wow, going by the hate barrage I'm subjected to and almost being deemed as a fanatic on facebook for voicing my dissent against capital punishment, I would say- We have such a long journey to make towards being a civil society. Two things I've understood clearly. One, that we hate minorities from the core of our heart, and two, we cannot tolerate being held inferior to other religions apart from our own. There are a lot of other issues too that I've started understanding better now. It's really tragic but also welcoming to finally see the true face of people concealing themselves with a 'progressive broadminded citizen' mask after all. When they talk of such hate spewed words for a religious minority group in India, they are really violating their Fundamental Duties accorded to them by the Constitution. But, of course, who really cares about fundamental duties as long as we have all the rights and the 'righteous' leaders seeking to right the wrong done by the previous rulers who raided this nation thousands of years ago?

It's sickening but not surprising considering the winds of change we're seeing for sometime now. It will be better for ourselves to be a part of the majority in any nation, than being a minority or second class citizens. Of course, we will all fight back vehemently when being subjected to racist behaviour/attacks abroad, but wouldn't really mind doing the same to our fellow Indians/minorities. All we need to do to prove our nationalistic pride is hold our head high and pump our chests with the false assurance of being proud citizens. It is seen through various incidents really in our day-to-day lives. We don't mind watching movies that are ruled by people of a certain religion, but we cannot tolerate common, poor people of that same religion. Our festival wishes are limited to our own religion. And then we cry foul when there's no response elicited for our religious festivities by these very minorities. We are in awe and such respect for Parsis and Christians because though being minorities they've carved themselves respectable lives from equally limited resources. It doesn't matter if they are prude to us or crinkle their noses on our participation or eagerness for their culture and acceptance. We go on throughout our lives living this lie that all religions are equal and they preach peace, when silently in our heads we always consider our 'own' religion the superior most among others. Children and generations are brought up and raised on religious discrimination and an apathy for religious doctrines other than our own. We teach kids to recognise the black veil and the colourful pardah system as being one of the markers of identification. We teach children in schools to pledge not their minds to the growth of our nation but invest their energies in hatred and bias towards each other in the form of caste, gender and religion. And in doing so we make sure we are churning out the best minds of our nation towards a narrowed sense of self unable to unfortunately use their potential as human beings who could perhaps create a change for good.

It's absolutely illogical to refute the many theories and examples these religion-obsessed fanatics use while being incapable of rational conversation. Its always best to voice our opinions, YES, even of dissent. It matters not if our number is small, truth alone prevails.