The Ban Psychosis

What is the one thing that defines most of us Indians and still is inherently devoid of any logic?

You may well be tempted to mention our quest for getting our children enrolled in an Engineering/Medical college (irrespective of their abilities and aptitude, of course. Where is the fun otherwise?), but no.

The one thing that connects us all, that one trait fostering our unity in diversity is our inability to not get offended or simple ignore things that really don’t matter to us (and about the things that truly matter; well who has the time for that! More on that later) and consequentially ban things arbitrarily.

Take for example the recent controversy surrounding a video by comedian Tanmay Bhat, impersonating Bharat Ratan Sachin Tendulkar and Bharat Ratan Lata Mangeshkar. Now the video may seem a bit derogatory and in bad humour to many (including me) but why can’t we simply ignore a comedian who is just doing his job. He may not be up to our expected standards (although I doubt if any exist et al.) but does that mean our politicians should issue threats like “We will beat him in public” etc.

Now I know that you may well be thinking that you don’t support such political parties so why should you be answerable, but in maintaining our killer silence are we not emboldening these goons-turned-policy-makers. What gives them a right to issue threats to people on national television while we still around watching like zombies, doing nothing.

Why not simply ignore the dude, just like you ignored him and his associates when they were talking about stuff that had nothing to do with our lives (like lack of awareness about Fire Safety, Whistle Blowers Protection Act, Comprehensive Sex-Ed etc.). They did not materialize into some ‘Twitter trend’ or a ‘Facebook Trending

Now’ topic then why now. We watched all that, laughed on their jokes and went on with our lives like nothing need to be done.

If we really are this sensitive and our banning instinct are so active why do we shut up when talking about LGBT rights is offending and our MPs & MLAs can’t push amendments to correct these wrongs, but the bill for increasing their salaries get passed in a single go. India still follows the Police Act of 1861, framed by British to crush dissent and no government has the time to take up police reforms & make the police more people-centric while Reservation Bills are constantly updated to include more and more electorate to boost vote bank. Crime in our cities & states is on the rise and human rights abuses are rampant but our media channels (yes media channels not news channels, they don’t deserve to be called news channels) are busy showing us how some random Bahu in some random daily soap transformed into a fly to save her ‘Sasural’ from an evil spirit. Is this really a 21st century country hoping to become a super-power?

But wait all these issues don’t disturb us. We are more concerned with authors writing books with narratives that differ from popular beliefs, comedians making fun, Bollywood making movies about topics that we don’t feel comfortable about, so rather than discussing these issues we let our politicians ban these things so that they don’t concern us anymore. So that now when all these issues are out our way, we can ease up, watch a stupid daily soap or let comedians like Kapil or Krushna make cheap double meaning joke while we laugh and forget after a tiresome day working like slaves to earn a salary only to be taxed by the Government which most probably will be composed of such politicians (who have taken great care of you by freeing up you of these trivialities of democracy) to pay for these politicians.

So don’t stand up for anyone’s rights. Don’t stop people from issuing death threats, why should you? Tomorrow if these goons do beat up that comedian, we will take out a candle vigil, talking about the rising intolerance and deteriorating law and order. We may take out a candle march or discuss it over a round of drinks but what more can we do? (Apne kaam se kaam rakhte hai na?) Is it our fault that he thought that India was a free country where mature people resided? (Uski galti vo bhukhtey, humsey matlab!)

P.S:
Things Banned in India:
  • ·        Books (52 books including Satanic Verses, Da Vinci Code, The Price of Power:    Kissinger & Nixon in the White House – for reasons ranging from ‘containing blasphemous remarks’ to ‘for alleging Morarji Desai to be a CIA informant’)
  • ·        Movies (72 movies banned nationally or regionally or both)
  • ·        Food (Beef, Foie Gras etc.)
  • ·        Documentaries
  • ·        NGOs
  • ·  Misc. (Public Display of Affection (PDA), Porn, Homosexuality, Sex-ed, Advertising Alcohol (ahem ahem), Alcohol, Marijuana etc.)

Things not Banned in India:
  • ·        Stereotypical (and mindless) daily soaps and channels broadcasting them,
  • ·        Racist jokes/movies,
  • ·        Sexual Abuse,
  • ·        Marital Rape,
  • ·        Corruption,
  • ·        Human Rights abuse,
  • ·        ‘News’ channels that air partisan/biased news and are frequently exposed,
  • ·        Politicians who do have being involved in most of the above.

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