Impatient India: From dictating terms to fleeing borders, is India turning into impatient's capital?

An odd 'like' on Facebook and you are on door of a shadowy police lock-up, an odd tweet and you are beaten on a ghastly night-street. A fire-ball comment over some old-but-always-in-news-issue and you're slapped in your own office! The largest democracy of world, the one that taught non-violence and peace to wider audience has travelled all this far to a gleam position where it's all about 'them' and 'us'. In India of today, you are no more allowed to have a opinion of yours nor are you allowed to not have any opinion and be a fence-sitter either! Impatience and intolerance have become keys that define our lives. The vicious 'them vs. us' attitude has plagued the very conscience of India that once gave call for eternal harmony of one and all. We have started to overlook the ideas 'they' have or the 'solutions' they possess. Be it Prashant Bhushan who is facing public ire today over his comment in 2011 where he suggested that a referendum should be carried out in Kashmir to decide on deployment of the army to deal with security threats in the valley or Jairam Ramesh and Narendra Modi who put forth the much talked and debated Toilets before Temples' issue. We, over time, have acted in a way that nowhere in democracy should one have acted any day. Bhushan was in fact beaten in his office of apex court by some sena which called itself patriotic and its acts in the interest of the nation. Those senas and people behind them really need to re-look and re-read the books that taught them such absurd definitions.

The idea that Bhushan put forward was no new nor was the favor he argued towards lifting Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA) in J&K. Iron lady as she is called, Irom Sharmila has been on fast since 14 years for the same! Bhushan is just a recent addition to what is a long list of beaten-and-made-to-flee-their-homes. Dabholkar paid with his life for going against superstition, Sanal Edamaruku had to flee his motherland for proving 'holy' water of Mumbai as seepage from a nearby drainage. Their common crime was to express their point of view (or truth in most instances) which unexpectedly didn't echo the perception of majority.

Okay. You and I don't agree by their opinion. It stirs our conscience; it in fact irritates us even just to think of keeping Kashmir out of a picture of India. But then, do we have right to go beat or shoot the one who draw it so or just attempted to say something similar? Can't things coexist? What is intelligence-and-utter-sensible to me may be no-intelligence-utter-nonsense to the other. It's good if other one holds same opinion as ours but not necessary that he should hold one. An opinion of mine may stir you and yours may stir me as well but that should never call for a fight between two. Constitution has given every citizen his right to express things but in same breath Article 19 states what we are not meant to express. We know it. But even then we turn intolerant to others opinion. We take it upon ourselves to suppress the idea that we don't believe in, we take it in our hands to decide who speaks what! We forget that we have police, courts to deal with what is objectionable to you. Yes, it takes time, courts take time; but that's how it's meant to be in democracy. If you want to change that system itself, even then you are meant to approach that change being in the boundaries of that system.

You have your right to call one Feku and the other Pappu but you don't have any right to go shoot the one who voiced what your ears couldn't have hold on. Those hoodlums who shattered a newsroom of a channel over a news-piece critical of them or the cowards who vehemently warn and dictate terms on what we shall wear or speak, have no right as such to call themselves patriotic.

India isn't your (nor mine) private property to put a signboard, 'Beware of Dogs. They bite the moment you don't bark like them!' India is a nation that loves peace, the land that taught the world about more mature ways of protest with non-violence and peace.

Its okay if you don't like what he expressed but then may be someone else somewhere too don't likes what you feel yourself is right! Is he then meant to arrive and slap you like Bhushan was slapped in his office? Intolerance is not the way forward. As Amish Tripathi said, “There is your truth and there is my truth. As for the universal truth, it does not exist.”

 Let us respect the merry duality the nature is born with. Let us not pave way for hegemony of any kind. Let us all coexist with pure harmony amidst myriad differences we have. Let us learn to listen and respect others point of view. There is no need for anyone to buy every opinion that he hears but one can listen; in case you agree, its fine. If you disagree, put the thought (and not person who said it!) into trash, try listen to something that appeases you. If you feel like protesting, protest, but, in a more matured, democratic way and by not resorting to hooliganism. Let him have his opinion, let you have yours. As SriSri of Art of Living tweeted, “Intolerance to others viewpoint is terrorism & harmful to democracy. Must be condemned by every sane person whatever be their ideology.”