What happens when we start treating politics like our religion and start defending it like a fanatic? Its equivalent of taking an express train to hell on tracks paved by lives lost in riots with history bearing witness.
This article is for everyone who considers their favorite political leader to be the saving grace from heaven or their political party to be the most radical one in the world.
This article is to remind you that you are just ‘strongly politically opinionated’ and not infallible.
You have to understand and remember that being a ranthoneous dogmatist doesn’t make you right.
When someone starts a conversation with a fact that doesn’t align with your political view or general awareness, don’t take it personally or as an attempt to undermine your sense of identity because the parties are smart enough to not recruit the likes of you. Furthermore, there is nothing better than an educated moron who has been successfully brainwashed by the party’s propaganda and is doing their petty and dirty work of adding momentum to their latest stunt. Promoting bigotry through social media isn’t a service to this nation especially when you are just another pawn in their narcissist game.
As liberal democrats, we have the right to express our thoughts however biased and prejudiced. Essentially this freedom to speech is what keeps us from turning into a fascist nation. Sadly, somewhere down the line, we have forgotten that our responsibility to point out the shortcomings is not an instrument to express and promote hatred but something to learn from as a nation. This can’t be emphasized enough to everyone with hot blood and a big mouth on social media. All the party conformists need to remember that their debates are supposed to yield solutions and not instigate violence among the communities or on a smaller scale hostility.
Moreover if you are one of those people who are posting thirty news bullets a day to prove their party is right and have started idealizing the party as the supreme and the single best thing that has happened to the nation, now might be a good time to step back and google why we are one of the unhappiest nations in the world .We have an exponentially falling graph for growth so if your party somehow stumbled into doing one right thing, don’t boast about it on your feed to stroke your egos rather think like a citizen who is paying taxes but is still becoming poorer, hungrier and unhappier. I can make spreadsheets about how each party individually failed to bring prosperity to the nation.
According to Dunning Kruger effect, we perceive our self-inflated images which are further distorted in case of our morality, such as in how principled and fair we think we are. So, when a leader is painted as the harbinger of all things fortunate for the nation, we should it take it with a grain of salt because affirmatively that ride is not the one to our Utopian heaven.
In fact, even jailed criminals think they are kinder and more trustworthy and honest than the average member of the public. The chances are that preachers who are quickest and loudest in condemning failings of others are guilty themselves but take a far lighter view of their own transgressions.
Unlike the social media posts, this article is not about proving a point but to show the bigger picture. Debates in the comment section is not a place to exhibit obscene vocabulary but a great platform to find solutions and think of ways to unite the ruling and opposition to successfully and effectively serve us.
‘The government is of the people, by the people and for the people’ and ‘not of political parties, by purchased voters, for stashing Swiss accounts’
Rabindranath Tagore dreamed of a nation where it was not broken into fragments by narrow domestic walls and ‘where the clear stream of reason had not lost its way into the dreary desert sand of dead habit’. With every partisan social media post, we are moving farther away from the goal.
This article is not about seeking asylum in political Switzerland or advocating political neutrality but to redirect the fervent crossfire towards building our nation and not tearing it down by being a party zealot. As George Orwell said “ In our age there is no such thing as ‘keeping out of politics’. All issues are political issues, and politics itself is a mass of lies, evasions, folly, hatred, and schizophrenia.”
Consider for example, a game of ‘Tug of war’ is announced between two provinces and the winning team will be rewarded greatly in terms of wealth, respect and recognition. As audience, we observe and actively cheer for our elected team, debate about who we elected and how well they are performing and representing us but we cannot start wrestling with each other out of spite.
What if the audience gets too excited, blindsided by their devotion to the team, joins the players on the field? It would positively cause an upheaval, mismanagement and promote hatred in the general public.
This is exactly what happens when we start treating politics like our religion and start defending it like a fanatic. We lose our discretion and our lives in communal riots, engage in toasty wars online creating an atmosphere of distrust, hatred and violence. We have to remember that we are the audience and it’s not our job to tug in the war even if we feel the urge to join the game.
I hope people reading this reevaluate what being political means.
Contemplate their goal of being political and reflect on who benefits from it.
I hope you choose to not be a moron and understand that the party you are strongly opinionated about and associate yourself with, is not perfect.
Remember they are as flawed, prejudiced, ignorant, bigoted, arrogant and greedy as anyone.
Next time you strong mouth someone on social media, remember that you are an Indian first, a party supporter next and collectively our goal is growth and not hatred.
You are not correct, just opinionated!
