How did we reach here?

Something about hometowns makes you want to write.

It isn’t the same with cities we choose to settle in. It takes months, often years or decades – to belong. And the reason for our moving wasn’t always to create great art, or document our priceless thoughts. It was to earn organic brown bread.

But as I was surfing through my hometown on a white Activa, my bloodstream flush with bhang and bhog and the last remaining assets of Vijay Mallya, I noticed something peculiar. The Odisha government had put up a huge hoarding of large, willful defaulters. Names along with their organisation and the amount defaulted. For some reason, it brought a smile to my face. These willful defaulters had done me no harm. And yet, I seemed to gloat in their public humiliation.

Won’t it be wonderful if this was done all over the country, I thought. When I reached home, I found that the Yogi government in UP has put up names of anti-CAA protesters on large hoardings in Lucknow.

Those who had protested against the CAA have their names, photograph and addresses in large, bold letters for everybody to read. Not after a court ruling or arrest warrant, but because they protested. I mean, what the fuck? Why not just go full Taliban, then? Come in blue robes and execute people on open streets already.

What is even more shocking is that nearly 40 people died in the riots that took place last week. And yet, it doesn’t seem to affect us. Other news items that have taken over – India playing Australia in the Women’s World Cup finals, Yes Bank putting the ‘No’ in nosediving. The annual hollow celebration of Women’s Day so brands and business conglomerates can make more money. And Coronavirus.

The death of 40 people a little over a week ago seems to have vanished from our memories.

But how did we reach here? A decade ago, as a Journalism student, we were asked to track and collate news items. I remember if there was a riot or a death caused by mob violence, it would remain in the news cycles for at least a week. Rewind the clock further back to 20 years as a school student. When the Gujarat riots occurred, news and opinions ran for nearly two weeks. The photograph of the tailor who’d lost his shop troubled me at night. And yet, the death of 40 people doesn’t seem to bother us anymore.

How did we reach here?

I remember when Yogi Adityanath was appointed as the Chief Minister. I found it absurd and shocking. This was a person who had openly instigated violence and riots. Someone who had promised to install statues of gods and goddesses in mosques. Someone who dressed in saffron robes and was the head-priest in a temple. Imagine if a bearded, topi-wearing mullah asshole became the Chief Minister of one of India’s states. We would all collectively lose our minds. But nobody batted an eyelid when Yogi was made the Chief Minister. ‘‘Yogi’ is just a name, man’, one of my friends said. Sure! And diarrhea is just over-processed food! But we didn’t reach here due to Yogi Adityanath.

The journey began years ago, when terms like ‘Anti-national’ and ‘Presstitude’ were formed. Back then, the words seemed like idiotic creations of Twitter trolls. But what we failed to notice was that these were ways to undermine any criticism against the government. How do you ridicule the credibility of criticism? Completely rob the critic of any ethics first. These terms slowly became mainstream, spreading into the country’s veins like slow-acting heroin.

The journey began years ago when we realised we needed a Prime Minister with good oratory skills. Look at the US, man! Have you seen their Presidential debates? It looks professional, man. Not like our sad, fucking debates. We lost the plot when we as a nation decided that oratory skills featured among the key skills required by the most powerful man in our country. It’s another matter that the same man stopped giving Press Conferences or interviews shortly after coming to power. It also didn’t matter to us that there wasn’t anybody of significance in the Cabinet. With Arun Jaitley and Sushma Swaraj gone, the government is a throwback to 90s cricket when an entire team of nobodys worked around Sachin Tendulkar.

The journey began when we stopped digging deeper; when we stopped expecting more from our leaders. What option do we have, yaar? Would you rather want Congress in power? Rahul Gandhi? That clowning glory of embarassment? When instead of looking for higher and more, we started comparing our future with the most hollow, shallow, ass-licking dementor of our past – the Congress party.

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But it is foolish to only blame the Right-wing for this mess. Like they say in hinterlands, ek wing se taali nahi bajti. The Left in India is also responsible for the mess that we are in.

The Indian Left is the most obtuse, idiotic assortment of half-ass intellectuals there is in the world. The group of people who go by the generic tag of the ‘Indian Left’ have no ideology or common ground. While some are staunch atheists, the others openly wear their Muslim identity on their sleeves. That the two stances are at odds with each other doesn’t seem to bother anyone. It is celebrated as ‘diversity’.

The Indian Left is so bereft of ideas and leadership that Swara Bhaskar is now the face of the Left. Really? Swara Bhaskar?? Of all the people you could have chosen to represent you – you chose this actress whom nobody knows. Whose body of work – Ranjhana and Veere di Wedding – is an embarrassment to cinema and taste?

The Indian Left is so bereft of ideas that there is practically no difference between a Congress politician and a Leftist public intellectual. That you could be forgiven for confusing a Congress political scion with a Leftist journalist who spent their entire careers with their tongues on the rectums of politicians.

But the biggest blow by the Indian Left to Indian citizenry is to blow away their credibility. To weaken their own words by crying wolf over stupid issues, by indulging in hyperbole and reducing the impact of their own words. When liberals use words like ‘fascist’ loosely, they are doing two very important things.

1. They are insulting the memory and lives of people who went through actual fascism. By randomly throwing comparisons between Modi and Hitler, you are selfishly using the death of millions of people to make a political point on Twitter. No matter what Modi does, it will never be the same as putting millions of Jews in Auschwitz.

2. The second and far bigger danger is that of desensitisation. When you use words like ‘Dictator’ and ‘mass-murderer’ loosely, you’re essentially reducing the impact of the words. Gradually, people become immune and desensitised to the words. To a point where nothing seems scary or dystopian enough. It is something even a kid playing Trump cards will tell you – don’t use up your Trump cards in the beginning, for you’ll have nothing else to show later.

It is something that can be seen in public political discourse today. When liberals use terms like ‘Hitler’ or ‘Fascist’ – the words don’t mean anything anymore. The words have been de-fanged, the public have become numb to such statements. Today, no matter what Indian Liberals say, they will never be taken seriously. For all its intellectual heft, the Indian Left has a brain with a cleft.

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So, where was I all along?

For the last four years, I was wearing noise-cancellation earphones. I didn’t bother putting my opinion out. On one hand, I was unsure if it would make any difference. On the other hand, I constantly wondered which side of the debate I was feeding into.

Both the Left and the Right in India comprise of fuckwits who cannot see beyond their own bigotry and ideological myopia. To truly stay sane in India, one must realise that Buddha was right all those hundreds of years ago – Follow the Middle Path. Fuck the Right, Fuck the Left.

It took me all this time to realise that there is no real difference between the Left and the Right in India. They are both petty, ideologically hollow echo-chambers that consider themselves superior than the other.

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And that is how, dear friends, we reached this point in our nation’s history. When the Right is too complacent to care. And members of the Left are bumping into each while sleepwalking.