Even I became intolerant !!!

Social media has evolved so much in recent days and has an unbelievable impact on all of us. Everything appears to be driven by social media applications such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and WhatsApp. These applications are playing major roles and consuming much of our precious time. In many ways, advancement of social media is an advantage and being the great admirer of this technological trend, I have some reservations about the way we use these social media applications. Few of the recent encounters and arguments with my friends  are really  causing little worries to me.

Some days ago, I had a kind of weird experiences in Facebook and WhatsApp groups.I am not sure whether I am right or wrong but felt somehow different. I had been part of that WhatsApp group formed my former colleagues for many days. We used to send each other everyday wishes, fun messages and it was a nice place to talk to friends we hardly meet. we were so harmonious  until we started using this group to discuss politics and religion issues. 

After few days , I started noticing that our discussion about politics and religion arose to the extent where we used to take the positions on issues, started criticising each other views. These discussions turned into wild debates also. It is absolutely fine that social media gives us the good platform to discuss all these sensitive issues. But personally speaking that group was not originally started for this. It was meant for friendly discussions,  it was a group of friends who had come from different religion, different backgrounds and with different political inclinations. Obviously, many of our debates were not suitable for the whole group. Some of our comments and messages in some debates might hurt others sentiments and their views. That was really great cause for concern at that time. Even though other group members were not interested in these discussions , we would  broadcast our comments to them.

When understood this,  I raised this issue with our group debaters, interestingly they were not ready to agree on this my point and labelled me as intolerant. I was intolerant according to them because I tried to caution them to not to discuss some of the religious and politically sensitive issues on WhatsApp group. Instead,  i suggested them to discuss and raise these issues in the platforms where these supposed to be discussed and debated.We have many such intellectual and credible platforms  for these issues.

Of course, I understand, it is  their wish to discuss what they want and It is totally up to me to decide what discussions I should take part in and how to react. But as a responsible group member, I should also have the responsibility to caution them about such sensitive issues which would hurt the people around us even they are are not interested in. But some of my group members were so adamant that they were not ready to accept this basic common sense of  sensitivity and continued to debate such issues in an aggressive way and I gracefully exited from those groups.

In my personal view, Social media is the great way to get connected to the world. We need to use them sensibly to enjoy the essence of this technology. But in wrong platforms with wrong people by wrong interpretations sending a wrong message to whole groups might affect the harmony among friends groups. 

Regards

Niranjan

Which is right ?

         
                                           Nationalism vs Anti nationalism ....                             

It has been few days now, debates of nationalism and anti-nationalism are all over the media and other platforms. Even after all these discussions we still need to understand the real meaning of nationalism. Many people have their own opinions and definitions of nationalism and they entitled to have their own, no arguments on that. If somebody's opinion is not inline to ours , we can't say they are anti-nationals.

From few days , we are witnessing some debates on these issue.People are not only defining their thoughts on nationalism but they are calling other people anti-nationals if their opinion differs from  others. Is this a good development ? should not we concerned about this ? Is it necessary that everybody should prove their patriotism and accepts any views of others. India is democratic country, each and everyone has their own thought process, we should learn to respect them instead of arguing and attacking them blindly. 

Patriotism is not only sloganeering for India and against the others, its something else. How can someone accusing and abusing, beating innocents, harassing in the name of patriotism be nationalist. Taking law into our hands , leveling false allegations,  disrespecting other people views, judging someone without evidence, labeling someone guilty even before court trail, behaving like  goons can never be either patriots or responsible citizens traits. If someone is really guilty, the nation's law or concerned institution would take its own course. We should learn to respect this process. Instead if we over react to allegations based on unverified evidence , we will end up nowhere.

Niranjan

Politics on death

                                                                   Politicizing the unfortunate death ............

Few days ago, the death of Rohit, issues revolving around that death engulfed whole India. It was completely unfortunate incident that could ever happen. whatever the reasons, this death was not necessary and the young man  should not have given up his life.

We should hold our heads down for  events which unfolded later on.Demeaning his credentials, suspecting his motives and plying politics round his dead body was the most disrespect we shown. The loss of any young lives not justified for any reasons. We as society be held responsible for all which happens around us. Did we hear his voice ? did we understand his concerns ? at least , did we ever try to introspect instead of politicizing the issue. Why students today getting involved in this kind of controversies, was he alone responsible for that deadly fate ? . The institutions, students , politicians all should behave in their own limits. They should understand the views of others and behave responsibly. 

Instead of retrospecting the events which engender this egregious incident, we kept fighting hard to prove which caste and religion he belongs to, whom he used to interact, what was his opinion on current ruling establishment, which political party he had recognized with . Even though had done few mistakes , he should have given some opportunity. Society should have listened to him, if he was wrong it was our responsibility to rectify it.  But we as a society have failed miserably  in addressing thousands of such young men who have lost their life. Instead of blaming people who are no more around us,we should feel ashamed of what has happend to him.

We have to be cautious before someone else take this kind of extreme steps. The influence of politicians and political parties directly or indirectly on educational institutions might adversely effect the student groups and results in this kind of unfortunate incidents.  

Niranjan