Pseudo-nationalism and the seeds of poison

So the pseudo-nationalists are nurturing hate. They are sowing its seeds in young minds. In big volume and at an alarming rate. The seeds are sprinkled on the fertile soil of social media. Youngsters are conveniently taking bites. It’s exciting like having pizza and girl/boy-friend. They are mixing it with post-modern popular culture. Quit strangely, in the pot on boil, where differences are expected to melt to a integrated mass, differences are burning at different temperatures. Hate is a convenient tool to blind one to logic and sanity. Consumed by hate one is just a part of the human being he/she is otherwise. It combusts the basic moisture of being a humane. Some core of goodness evaporates. Before dividing communities and individuals, it fractionalizes the carrier of hate itself. As the rhetorical juggernaut carried by the agents of pseudo-nationalism—as funny, quirky and politically self-seeking as the pseudo-secularists—moves on, divisions in the Indian society take even more dangerous turns. People beating those not ready to stand up to the national anthem, mobs lynching the rumored beef carriers, ABVP members attacking a literary gathering at Ramjas college where somebody might have expressed a different point of view. These are as petty and self-seeking pills of intoxication, as are the mild dose of self-gratifying sips popped in by pseudo-secularists. The sky-high stack of the fodder of division in the Indian society is always pining for the matchlock of somebody’s ambition. It then bursts forth. It explodes. People suffer, but someone gets power. Hate has been the instrument of Indian political system, as much as it was responsible for partition at the time of independence. Hate as a power-grabbing instrument has been the favorite tool of ruling aspirants. Jinnah stroked the division on religious grounds and ran away with a new country itself. Political parties have ruled the roost over decades just by stamping caste, creed, communal and regional identities through pandering divisiveness, by boosting hate, by augmenting distrust. The famed Indian diversity is always a cache of ammunition. It’s a pile of divisions lying there to catch fire and blast. Waiting for some power aspirant’s matchbox of ambition. To fuel divisions. To pamper insecurities. To turn people blind and crazy. Much as Hindu pseudo-nationalists try to sow seeds of distrust into the fiery souls of the younger generation, they hardly realize cultivation of hate cannot be compartmentalized for a particular community only. Grooming of hate in an individual changes the character over all. Its repercussions are not just limited to the targeted community. It crosses the immediate object to seep over into life generally, into interpersonal relationships, views on life. It breeds an insecure, selfish persona, who isn’t just apt in spewing out angry rhetoric against the targeted community, but who is equally bitter in dealing with people of his own community. Division by hate is a chain reaction. It consumes all. It doesn’t just stop at the first line of the targeted community. It spreads further to gobble up all at the next stages. The identity-based political parties of India but just take interest in the immediate line of division. It gets them votes. It perpetuates their goal of sticking to power. Little do they realize that by breeding a culture of hate, division and distrust they are letting loose a fire that consumes the ethos of a healthy society. It eats the basics of a strong social system. It lets loose an ever-smoldering fire that takes its toll over decades. It kills dreams. It stifles the openness and exuberance of character capable of doing good to others as much as it means for the self. Building roads, boosting infrastructure, strengthening manufacturing are as much important as a healthy society. The former are for the latter, and not vice versa. It’s high time that pseudo-nationalists realize the futility of rabble rousing in a divided house. If they really want a strong India, they should sow the seeds of love, receptivity and accommodation. Hate-mongering is terribly counter-productive. It’s as good as just to put the ruling seat under your bum. After that it evil effects go across the society, where the divisions of caste, class and creed do not matter. All suffer.