What we really need to protest against.....

When I look back at 2012, I see a calendar of protests. From protesting against burning Qurans that marked the beginning of a disturbing year to the year being dragged through Russian, Walls Street, Catalan, Palestinian, Arab, Syrian, Egyptian and Greek protests against everything from governance to sustenance.

 

In India, we saw our share including a year-long anti-graft drama playing out on multiple fronts, to the Delhi centric anti-rape protests extending into the new year. I believe that protests are the healthiest form of expression of dissent, peaceful or otherwise. However, what I do not see is protests leading to tangible outcomes of betterment, especially close to home. The quality and value of life are no better or higher as an outcome of protests. What does that tell us about the state of affairs in our country as they manifest themselves?

 

I believe that we need to relook at how modernization and economic enrichment has affected the way life is valued in India. It is sad to see that with so much that has changed, nothing much has really changed. The gap of perception and reality between the ruling and ruled continues to widen and at a much faster pace every passing day. Regard and respect for law and order continues to diminish as the value to honesty continues to be defined in money terms. We continue to improve the outside while deteriorating as human beings from within. And I have come to conclude that we have indeed not learned from the lessons of the West where capitalism came at a dear cost of humanity.

 

That brings me to the crux of protests in India. Are we really protesting against what needs to be uprooted and discarded? Independent issues and occurrences fuel most of our angst at the external manifestations of a system that is gradually rusting towards an unsustainable future. This road that we are on has little to do with the politics of the nation or of the legal inefficiencies and enforcement corruption. These, in my mind, are symptoms of a much deeper degenerative gene. As human beings, if we take the time to look at the mirror, we have increasingly come to define ourselves with independent and material end objectives, almost always with a common trait of greed. Measuring ourselves in terms of money and material well-being has led us to forget that we live in a great nation forged from the blood and sweat of many thousands who dreamed of a common brighter future. As we go about our lives with our own selfish agenda painted and tainted by dreams of material acquisition, we forget the potential of collective growth. To suit our superficial moral angel (sitting and weeping on our shoulders), we react to outrage committed through protests and demonstrations of solidarity and yet, in the tone and nature of who we are, the hollow echo keeps getting louder every day.

 

Who do we blame? The Media? The Politicians? The System? What we need to take cognizance of, when pointing the proverbial finger, is the fact that the media, the politicians and not least of all, the system is comprised of you and me. The corruption and misdemeanor we see around us is just a manifestation of what has become of the human spirit. When pointing a finger we fail to see that the finger being pointed is really at a mirror of our collective. And, as long as we measure our successes by the steps we climb in an economically defined social staircase, no matter how hard we scream and shout offensives at the establishments around us, we shall make no progress.

 

I see people around me every day, pray to God, revolt against injustice and then return to conform to a system of convenience where everything is acceptable as long as their preferred way of life is not altered for the worse. How shall we dream and execute a luminous future if at the end of the journey we are standing alone; surrounded by wealth and well-being, with no one to share with? It is our greed and self-centered perspective, which we so readily conform to today, should be the object of our protests. Can we be slightly better as human beings tomorrow that we are today because we protested against how we do things? When we, as a people, begin to change individually for the better will we begin to see the society improve.

 

The alternative may be soothing to our conscience but that is all it shall be limited to till the day we die.