As a nation we take pride in our freedom and the tag world's biggest democracy. Hell we have survived 70 odd years with all the diversity which can put a continent to shame ( Case in point Europe was the melting pot for world wars). But sadly with the advent of social media we have plumbed the depths which we thought can't be reached. Social media gave a voice to one and all. We as a society felt no matter how small we will make our voice heard and if you posted the right things the media people would pick it up and make you the hero and villain at the same time.
The latest storm to hit India was stirred by none other than a 20 year old girl, Gurmehar Kaur, who lost her father to a war caused by the misadventures of Pakistan. Till now all good and now she featured in a video in which she is seen holding placards amongst which is one which caused the maximum controversy and it read ' Pakistan Didn't kill my dada but war did' The other people jumped in against her put up their defenses by saying that since she dared to post he thoughts she should be prepared from the backlash who didn't like her post, fair enough Right. No this is the modern worl and all hell broke loose. People started calling her names and even questioned her credentials and said she should denounce her father's pension and awards , threatened with rape and what not. She literally was being trolled. Oh I forgot the context It was an event at Ramjas college where Kanhaiya kumar of the now famous for the first national/anti-national skirmish exactly a year back was invited to speak. The nationalist ABVP took it upon themselves to make sure that this time no anti-India slogans are raised and decided to gatecrash the party and have a healthy fight to safeguard our nation against the anti-national forces.
This my friend wasn't the real story some celebs jumped in and tweeted but without tagging her which was also fair and they put in their opinion but lo behold our graceful media, the so-called fourth pillar of democracy, they linked up everything and started the age old debate about freedom , liberalism and the war against right wing activists. Virender Sehwag tweeted out a pic which to me was pretty harmless way of taking a jibe at the 20 year old but no our media had to hype it up. Randeep Hooda jumped in and i was like OK and then the wrestler yogeshwar Dutt frankly tweeted out a whatsapp forward which was sarcastic, funny and quite healthy I would say in isolation. But then the celebs without the exception of Sehwag started adding context to the jibes and our media lapped it up and built it into a fire.
The story is yet to end. The left leaning liberals were frothing at their mouths by the audacity of the right leaning pro-govt forces and they bought out the heavy artillery. The celebs joined in and they as usual started tweeting in a more uncouth manner. It became the story of' Who can be the filthiest of all?'. Javed akhtar derided the sports-persons as uneducated while a reporter from a news organization i like Akash Bannerjee questioned the actor Randeep Hooda because he acted with 'Bimbettes'. The name calling kept on going from both the sides with bwoyblunder, bhaksala , union minister Karen Riiju leading the charge from the right while major media organizations like NDTV etc took the mantle from the left.
It saddens me that debate has fallen to name calling and discrediting individuals. Even U.S.A with President Donald Trump hasn't resorted to calling anyone (Read 80%) of the population opposing him anti-nationals but here in india the line has become very clear that if you speak against the govt you are anti-national. That tells us a story we can claim to be the biggest democracy but we aren't the BEST democracy .By the way the 20 year old girl I was talking about she has withdrawn from the campaign against war in general as she has been quite traumatised by the events as @bwoyblunder on twitter put it 'Acts vulnerable and played the victim ', I believe the girl in question just put a thought where she wanted nobody else to ever lose a near and dear one and grow up without a parent. Wars are human creation and nationalisties again are a human creation. When the girl says war killed her father she just meant let there be peace and resolve all our disputes, The disputes are nothing but a result of human greed and the lack of intiative to solve the problem because that's what keeps our politicians going so that they can exploit it in elections after elections and fooling us 'THEPEOPLE' in the name of nationalism.
The latest storm to hit India was stirred by none other than a 20 year old girl, Gurmehar Kaur, who lost her father to a war caused by the misadventures of Pakistan. Till now all good and now she featured in a video in which she is seen holding placards amongst which is one which caused the maximum controversy and it read ' Pakistan Didn't kill my dada but war did' The other people jumped in against her put up their defenses by saying that since she dared to post he thoughts she should be prepared from the backlash who didn't like her post, fair enough Right. No this is the modern worl and all hell broke loose. People started calling her names and even questioned her credentials and said she should denounce her father's pension and awards , threatened with rape and what not. She literally was being trolled. Oh I forgot the context It was an event at Ramjas college where Kanhaiya kumar of the now famous for the first national/anti-national skirmish exactly a year back was invited to speak. The nationalist ABVP took it upon themselves to make sure that this time no anti-India slogans are raised and decided to gatecrash the party and have a healthy fight to safeguard our nation against the anti-national forces.
This my friend wasn't the real story some celebs jumped in and tweeted but without tagging her which was also fair and they put in their opinion but lo behold our graceful media, the so-called fourth pillar of democracy, they linked up everything and started the age old debate about freedom , liberalism and the war against right wing activists. Virender Sehwag tweeted out a pic which to me was pretty harmless way of taking a jibe at the 20 year old but no our media had to hype it up. Randeep Hooda jumped in and i was like OK and then the wrestler yogeshwar Dutt frankly tweeted out a whatsapp forward which was sarcastic, funny and quite healthy I would say in isolation. But then the celebs without the exception of Sehwag started adding context to the jibes and our media lapped it up and built it into a fire.
The story is yet to end. The left leaning liberals were frothing at their mouths by the audacity of the right leaning pro-govt forces and they bought out the heavy artillery. The celebs joined in and they as usual started tweeting in a more uncouth manner. It became the story of' Who can be the filthiest of all?'. Javed akhtar derided the sports-persons as uneducated while a reporter from a news organization i like Akash Bannerjee questioned the actor Randeep Hooda because he acted with 'Bimbettes'. The name calling kept on going from both the sides with bwoyblunder, bhaksala , union minister Karen Riiju leading the charge from the right while major media organizations like NDTV etc took the mantle from the left.
It saddens me that debate has fallen to name calling and discrediting individuals. Even U.S.A with President Donald Trump hasn't resorted to calling anyone (Read 80%) of the population opposing him anti-nationals but here in india the line has become very clear that if you speak against the govt you are anti-national. That tells us a story we can claim to be the biggest democracy but we aren't the BEST democracy .By the way the 20 year old girl I was talking about she has withdrawn from the campaign against war in general as she has been quite traumatised by the events as @bwoyblunder on twitter put it 'Acts vulnerable and played the victim ', I believe the girl in question just put a thought where she wanted nobody else to ever lose a near and dear one and grow up without a parent. Wars are human creation and nationalisties again are a human creation. When the girl says war killed her father she just meant let there be peace and resolve all our disputes, The disputes are nothing but a result of human greed and the lack of intiative to solve the problem because that's what keeps our politicians going so that they can exploit it in elections after elections and fooling us 'THEPEOPLE' in the name of nationalism.
