Pseudo-somethings and the Seeds of Poison

 

Charles de Gaulle: “Patriotism is when love of your own people comes first; nationalism, when hate for people other than your own comes first.”

There is a very restless breed in our society. Its blood boils like in a revolution. It firmly wants to believe that they are up for an uprising. Gone are the days of blinding fury that engulfed society in fire and fury. The fire now smolders slowly at a temperature where thankfully there is less blood, but more battles of words, opinions and fake wars.

I call them pseudo-somethings. And mind you, they are not the prerogative of one political party. All national and regional parties have their fair share of pseudo-somethings. So we have pseudo-secularists, pseudo-nationalists, pseudo-liberals, pseudo-idealists, etc., etc. Put any positive, healthy ism into political waters and it will turn into pseudo-something.

Pseudo-centrists, pseudo-leftists, pseudo-nationalists and all other pseudo-somethings nurture 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 an integrated mass, differences are burning at different temperatures making a very weird concoction.

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 humane. The 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-X—as funny, quirky and politically self-seeking as the pseudo-antiX—moves on, divisions in the Indian society take even more dangerous turns.

Pseudo-nationalists beating those not ready to stand up to the national anthem, mobs lynching the rumored beef carriers, and student organisation members attacking a literary gathering at a Delhi 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 the ruler aspirants. Jinnah stroked the division on religious grounds and ran away with a new country itself. Political parties have ruled the roost over the decades just by stamping caste, creed, communal and regional identities through pandering divisiveness, boosting hate and 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, pamper insecurities, and turn people blind and crazy.

Much as pseudo-nationalists try to sow seeds of distrust into the fiery souls of the younger generation, they hardly realize that 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 and the overall philosophy of 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 the people of his own community. Fire and hate hardly differentiate among caste, creed, community and religion after a point. They just start from one specific target to eat into a person’s character like termites eat a healthy tree’s roots.

Division by hate is a chain reaction. It consumes all. It doesn’t simply 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 merely 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 and strengthening manufacturing are as much important as a healthy society. The former are for the latter, not vice versa. It’s high time that pseudo-somethings 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. And fight elections on real issues related to the well being of the commonest of the common. Hate-mongering is terribly counter-productive. It’s as good as merely putting the ruling seat under your bum, completely ignoring its evil effects that go across the society, where the divisions of caste, class and creed do not matter. All suffer.