It is time for the ‘Middle’ class to stand up, speak up

Name just one issue that upsets you deeply that if you do not have a view on it, you feel foolish or left out

Year 2010. Name an issue which happened that year, which wasn’t directly to do with your family, your personal life or your career, but upset you so deeply that you had to tell the world how you felt.

Year 2022. Name just one issue that upsets you deeply. Not directly to do with your career or your family but feels so personal that if you do not have a view on it, you feel foolish or left out.

Let me do some guessing. For 2010, you struggled to recall one issue. And in 2022, you struggle to stop with one issue. Right?

Well, Right may not be the right word, as it is a word loaded. It is like a scanning machine that the moment you say a word the person opposite to you feels like she knows all about you. Of course, you must be pro-abrogation of Article 370 in J&K, pro-Temple, pro-industry, anti-minority rights, anti-Palestine, anti-Biden, pro-Triple Talaq law, pro-Russia in the Ukraine conflict.

What are we left with? Oops, did you say Left? Then you must be anti-Kashmiri Pandits on The Kashmir Files movie issue, anti-Modi, anti-development, pro-appeasement of minorities, anti-CAA, anti-Hindu, Periyarvadi, pro-hijab, anti-globalisation but pro-internationalism, anti-brahminical, anti-Indian Army, anti-national…

Why can’t we be free of tiring -isms?

Between the sharp scissors that cuts each of us as cloth to fall neatly into the Left side or the Right, what about the fabric that was India? This is a country that has had a culture of sitting down to talk to each other and share views by turns; a baithak in Hindi, patti mandram in Tamil, vedike in Kannada; where one person argues a point and you offer an absolutely opposite view -- yet both of you can walk off that stage together and share a meal and a laugh. In that India, today, you are an Unfriend-button away from even your best friend -- over your opinion.

Opinion is an onion.

It looks smooth, but has, and ought to have, many layers to it; each layer of it is formed in our minds with what we have read about an issue, what our peers or role models say about it, our biases and upbringing, and at the core of it -- our own thoughts and rationale. It is okay to have an opinion that is drastically different from your spouse’s, your company’s, your countrymen’s, but it is not okay to drive someone to rage or tears while you peel your O(pi)nion!

This hate and venom against another whose view -- or ideology, faith, caste, sexual preference, worldview -- is different from ours, has divided India faster in a decade than the British did over a century. Neither can see anything remotely good in the other side; neither will admit to flaws of one’s own. This oneside-ism is costing us perspective and progress. Media fuels this extremism, technology pays for the petrol. You view a few posts and videos, and next, the internet’s magic algorithms have pushed the next 10 videos to you of the same kind, that you share with your same friends, who hold the same dislikes. And the same media that sees every Indian issue through the same tiring lens, refusing to see or even engage with the other side, peddling the half story and doing more damage to social harmony.

In this absurd theatre of the extreme, it is the ‘Middle’ class that needs to shout ‘Cut’. Thus far, those who hold the middle ground have been thought of as weak, as fence-sitters. But the Centre too is a position of strength.

So those who have stopped speaking are those who ought to be heard without being trolled, mocked or whatabouted. Those who praise a great policy or slam a weak one, not worried by which party it is by or what the world thinks of them.

Those that say voted for BJP on economic policies but abhor the Muslim-hating stance some of its leaders take. Those who hate the way Nehru or past PMs are shamed in foul language but at the same time speak up about the harm Congress leaders did and do to the country.

If you are that ‘Middle’ person, do know that there are more words than just Left or Right -- a nationalist, communist, conservative, liberal, Left or Right libertarian that you can choose to be in different proportions and situations.

The next time anyone puts you in a box of Left wing or Right wing, fly away. Be wing-less and free.

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