A new scary narrative – hate!
Folks, we are all guest on this planet. Let us conduct our business and our discussions on every matter under the sun in an amicable and collaboration manner. Is that too much to ask?
Last year, I was on a short flight between two domestic destinations in India and was seated sit just behind a swarthy gentleman who spoke non-stop in a loud voice to a group of friends in adjoining seats. As the plane landed, he was opening the luggage rack before the plane stopped and a large bag nearly fell on an old lady sitting in an aisle seat. In a fairly polite tone, I requested him to be careful. He glared at me and I forgot about the incident.
Then when we had got off the plane and I was walking to the exit, I felt a jarring blow on my ankles. The same person now stood behind me, ramming a baggage cart into me and asked me how dare I admonish him in the aircraft. And in full Bollywood style, he added, “Come out of the airport and I will show you who I am.” Not quite knowing what to do next, I asked an airport security person who had been watching the incident and his advice was “Stay inside the airport for half an hour and then leave”. I did and have survived to tell the tale.
In recent months, the hatred I evinced in that untoward incident has been multiplied manifold on television channels, the trolls of social media and even occasional e-mails and messages I get from college and work acquaintances. Everybody has a point of view and if they feel they have the might to ram it down people’s throats, they will and do. Some of our television anchors have decided that the easy way to maximising TRPs is to insult in a loud rhetoric way towards any panellist who dares to put forward a contrarian viewpoint to that espoused by the anchor and the channel. And it seems to work because their channel owners seem gratified and the insulted folk, very often from across the border, seem happy to keep coming back on these shows to get further insulted. Personal attacks have become the accepted norm in many political speeches and quite naturally, the followers of these politicians, on all sides of the spectrum feel free to vent on social media, the most explicit of curses at leaders of parties they despise.
Do any of you gentle readers of this column believe that shouting or using inappropriate allegations and language the only way to ‘be noticed’?
If these excesses were only happening in one part of the country, or even in a few countries that are struggling to find their place in the sun, it would be understandable, though, still not something one could overlook. The fire and brimstone of everyday communications have now become a global scourge. Witness the rants of the American President, the outrageous comments and questionable actions of the British Prime Minister and even the “How Dare You’ speech of young teenager Greta Thunberg at that hallowed temple of international deliberations, the United Nations. My discomfort at the words spoken by or maybe put into the mouth of the young lady has met with the usual comments accusing me of being part of the uncaring establishment and in one case talking about my age as being the reason why I cant understand that young people today have to shout to be noticed.
Seriously, do any of you gentle readers of this column believe that shouting or using inappropriate allegations and language the only way to ‘be noticed’? I was schooled in an era where even mixing Hindi and English in a sentence met with sharp rebuke and words like “nice” were seen as vulgar and more appropriate words were recommended. While not quite in the Tharoorian league of English language users, which has itself led to a series of social media sneering, many of us were taught to be respectful to elders and even disagree agreeably.
When I started my career, the best advice to handle loud objections was to first remove the tension from the objection and then address the real issues, not engage in shouting from the rooftops and use harsh language to make one’s point.
On young Greta’s campaign to make the world sit up and do something about climate change, there is no reason to doubt that precious little has been done so far. The Western world has been most guilty of ignoring climate change and China during its decade and more of double-digit growth often had dark clouds permanently hovering over Tianjin and parts of Beijing and Shanghai.
I recall speaking at an Asia Society event with late Mrs. Sheila Dikshit just a few months after she became Chief Minister of Delhi and she was very candid in saying “My priority is development for my people and I will do it in the most environment-sensitive way possible.” Giving the various stages that countries are in their development cycle, uniform policies may be difficult to implement, but surely a calibrated approach can be developed for every country to keep our planet safe for future generations without being guilty of total neglect which is the insinuation we are hearing.
We are all guest on this planet. Let us conduct our business and our discussions on every matter in an amicable and collaborative manner. Is that too much to ask?