At the end of a decade

A year is about to end, and with it a decade as well. And it has been a very eventful one. If anything, this decade has been the decade of revolutions. This decade was also one with the biggest humanitarian crises, refugees on the rises and many civil wars. Virtually every country has a war ridden neighbor from where people fled; sometimes with other nations, sometimes with itself. This decade has also seen the worst form state sponsored terrorism and authoritarianism. This is the decade where I have learned about double tap strikes and poison gas attacks. This is the decade when we chose to ignore and look aside when people have been ruthlessly killed; we sent them thoughts and prayers from the comfort of our couch. 

This is the decade when fearmongers and dividers in chief came to power. This is the decade when information is weaponized; and propaganda was re-invented. This is the decade when we saw the meteoric rise of hate sellers to the most powerful positions in the world. This is the decade when the countries, which were the beacon of democracy and freedom, fell into fascism and intolerance, one way or another. This is the decade which gave power to far right thorughout the world. This decade saw the rise of anti-vaccine advocates. This is the decade when the right to privacy is an all-time low; this is the decade where police states took seat in our back porch. 

This is the decade when we have seen the worst climate crisis and disaster. There wasn’t a month that went by without a record breaking, never seen in our life kind of disaster striking some place in the world: Biggest floods, fiercest hurricanes, coldest winters, and hottest summers were seen in this decade. We have lost a lot of forests to corporate greed and some more to fires. Biggest cities in the world gasped for clean air. And we have also seen the worst contributors to this crisis flatly rejecting these facts. 

But it was not all bad. We have also seen a few sparkles of light here and there. Whistleblowers who risked everything, including life, to bring shady deeds of states to light. We had loudest voices championing sustainable development. We have seen kind hearts rushing to the rescue of people in the most dangerous corners of world. We had voices asking for good education, responsible governance, and ever-growing number of youths saying “enough is enough” and don’t hesitate to call a spade a spade. 

The next decade, and the particularly the next year could be the most significant one of our lives. This should be the year where we take definitive action on climate. This will be the year we have the fiercest battles with fascism. This will be the year of action against false propaganda and information warfare. This should be the year where we start paying attention to the politics, and identify the voices of truth and justice. This will be the year where we back the existing and new voices asking for these. This will be the year that we save humanity as we know it. But, most important of all, this is the year that we prove that humanity is still worth saving.

Lethal words

#LongPostAlert

But, please do read through.

Is it essential that we have an opinion on everything? More importantly, should we always express it?

A bit of a backstory which made me ponder this question:

There is this dubsmash type app which got quite a traction lately. It is becoming infamous for the mostly  unrestricted / uncensored content in there and became a discussion point for social media addicts (like me) when the it is found that the child killing illicit affair couple made a handful of dubsmashes in them before this incident. Coming back to the point, there was this boy, who made (conceivably) feminish dubsmashes in that. Apparently, he faced a lot of mockery, trolling and bullying in there. I have come across few of his videos and for some reasons, I did not like his videos either, but chose to ignore it and muted his profile so that I wont see that anymore. You should note here that I said “There WAS a boy”. Because he is no more. I came to know through several sources that he has committed suicide (seems he ran into a train). Also, it seems, that he has a physically challenged younger sister. Absolute cinematic tragedy, only it happened in real life.

Can I be sure that all the mockery happened in the app is the sole cause for his decision? No. No one can be sure of it. Seems he didn’t leave a note. But it cannot be ruled out either. What did he do wrong, actually? He failed to fit in to the social standards of a “man”. For all that we know, he could just be a feminish person, or he could be a Gay or Transwoman, who is on the painful process of gender and sexual self identification. Did he harm anyone? Did he deserve all the bullying he has faced? Did he deserve to face a such a tragic and painful death?

Why do we want to hate someone just because they chose (to be precise, had to) to do things in a different way? Are we even entitled to have an opinion that they should not be this way? A small, harsh comment in social media, a tease on the sidewalk, an insult from a friend - these can look like small things individually. But, consider the collective effect of this harshness on the victim. (Yes. VICTIM). No single person delivered the deadly blow. But, every single one of them, single one of us, is complicit in this murder.

It is not the first time I hear that a person has committed suicide because of bullying, trolling and social pressure. Honestly, it happened so many times around me, I kinda lost track of the count. I was part of an organisation which tracked and gave support to these kind of people, I happened to hear one suicide news at least per month. That is the data for one small subset of people in parts of Chennai. Cannot even imagine the scale of it happening around the country, especially in the rural areas where the resources available for suicide prevention is very little.

It is in my opinion that the suicides are inherently murders. Only, we cannot pin point the perpretors most of the time. Only, instead of finishing someone off with one lethal blow, we collectively continue to torture them for a long period of time without our knowledge and ultimately killing them someday. 

Next time, when we feel like shaming somebody, feel like passing comments or feel that someone is being abnormal (in our view), let us think for a moment before passing it. Is that opinion really necessary? Is it going to good for anyone? Does his / her action going to really affect me in anyway? If the answer is no, then we are not entitled to spread that kind of negativity. Let us take responsibility for all the blood that is already in our hands. It cannot be washed out easily. But we can decide to not add anymore in that.

Sabarimala Verdict

Long post alert: But I request you to read through.

I have been seeing a lot of discussions around the latest verdict on sabarimala case. ( Side note: Try searching for the mythological reason for the name "Sabari" mala). The underline of this case is this: women of menstruating age cannot enter the temple, as per the law enacted by Kerala government sometime by mid 60' s. The Kerala HC upheld it in early 90's on a petition by some activists. The SC turned it down and ruled it unconstitutional. And these are my concerns/questions about it:

1) The law, created by an elected government, discriminates against women. Traditions put aside, should a goverment be doing this?

2) It specifically mentions "menstruating" women, another extention of a rampant and equally traditional practice of shaming a regular biological thing. ( You can argue about Lord Iyappa's celibacy, the viradha, purity of the pilgrimage and stuff, but ain't it equally absurd? I mean, how many of the male "devotees" follow the brahmracharya viradha perfectly? Are we hearing equally loud voices on traditions in these cases?)

3) Even if we agree that the tradition is centuries old, shouldn't we ask "Is it fair?" We have asked this question and went against tradition before: Sati, Widow remarriage, polygyny etc. For instance, it is forbidden for a hindu to cross a sea or ocean, if I remember correctly. Didn't we break all this traditions at some point? And what did those " defenders of traditions" saying by then? The same thing they're saying right now.

To top all of that, some are asking if the apex Court has the guts to rule that women be allowed into Islamic places of worship. Pulling an irrelevant hindu-muslim conflict in this scenario itself tells what their agenda is. (Just reminds me of an old tamil movie comedy, involving cycles and dynamo lights.) And, as far as I know, they already are allowed to pray in mosques. If anyone knows better, they can clarify.