What you need to know:
- India has changed and so has its people. Is it still a tolerant country? The reader does not think so.
For someone who has been a love-struck patriot of their country, after the May 23 Indian elections, I think there has been a void within India.
Suddenly, there is nothing left to follow in the news or any positive hope to be nurtured. No longer can one boast of an inclusive and diverse country, because that is not what is happening.
One can keep consoling oneself that there must have been widespread rigging and the Indian polls brought this result upon themselves. But then I think about it more practically and realise that if that were the case, then why are the results not being challenged in court?
The rhetoric all through the elections was awful. The Indian media was not reporting the news correctly, and stooped to new lows of journalism. Was scrutinising the presence of liberals on Twitter enough? Social media videos were simmering with anti-establishment kind of content, and it catered to a wide audience.
There was visible outrage against the candidature of politician Pragya Thakur. All this made me and many others sure that people were upset with the ruling party, and were put off by them. There was no way they were going to come back to power. However, we were wrong. How did this happen? No one knows.
There was always subtle tension between the majority community and the minorities in India.
But when did this reach the level it is today, where people take this so seriously that nothing else matters? When did the secular majority turn into a submissive minority? When did the national interest get bowled over with regressive religious bickering? When did fixing one ‘community’ take centrestage?
In short, when did the people of the country cease to be ‘Indian’?
- The reader is a resident of Dubai.
