We welcome bans; we are argumentative Indians

It is a normal thing with all of us to talk incessantly about ourselves even if there is just one captive listener, though ideally we are at our best when there are a whole lot of listeners. It is also a normal thing that we always take the moral high ground seeking a sense of superiority- often false and unjustified-  to prove that in all our encounters with  ‘the other’, we  are fair and just and are the  unfortunate victims of the indefensible and illegitimate manipulations of ‘the other’. If you do not suffer from auditory problems, and listen to any talk between two or more persons on the street, you cannot but notice the voice of wounded pride of a victim who is at the centre of the conversation. Often in parks, I have heard maids vying with each other to speak about the unjust and harsh treatment they experience everyday from their “mem sahebs”, from their incessant fights with their neighbours, from the taunts they receive from their in-laws, from their quotidian conflicts(without which life does not exist nor move) with  X,Y.Z etc. This is not just maids’ talk, it is also that of the mem sahebs( except for the change of venue from the street corners  to the clubs),  of  men’s talk of all categories  and in all these , the querulousness of the complainants cannot be missed. “I just gave it back to him/her” will always remain the climactic refrain at the end to affirm one’s uprightness and deny the other’s attempt to usurp it.

 “We are right and there can be no two opinions about it” is a common stand with all of us. It is the source of all conflict and is the source of the relentless cacophony that we hear on the TV debates every evening.  The spokespersons of the different political parties whose  difference is between tweedledum and tweedledee and who all claim to be the champions of the  marginalized, downtrodden and subaltern groups, proclaim this sameness of being right  loudly and simultaneously on the TV channels so that the listeners can hardly discern who says what except for the certainty that everyone seems to be wronged.

The present Government’s numerous diktats – or can we say bans – as to what we should read and not read, what we should eat and not eat, what we should see and not see, what we should watch and not watch on the TV and in the cinema halls, what we should and should not listen to, what we should do and not do even in the privacy of our homes- in short, what we should and should not do with ourselves everyday- have come in for heated debates on the TV channels. In the din created by a million voices represented by five or six spokespersons, the debates peter out to all sound and fury signifying nothing.

Surprisingly this present government of ‘bans’ has not yet banned debate on TV channels though it has issued notice to four channels including the soft and mild mannered NDTV for airing views contrary to the Government’s decisions. The present government started its second innings ( a decade after the ending of its first innings under the balanced and benign leadership of Vajpayee) with  a slogan of “Congress mukht Bharat”, almost its first ban on the 140 year old Congress party. Then there was the ban on all the septuagenarians at 75 and 75+ from holding any office in the government,  scotching the ambitions of Lal Krishna Advani,Murali Manohar Joshi, Yashwant Singh  and others.  The Modi party rose to power with the ambitious slogan of banning corruption and in less than a year it has banned all the voices that press the resignations of its tainted leaders at the Centre and in the states. The diminished Congress party (yet to be completely wiped off the face of India) that was mewing for nearly a year suddenly started roaring inside and outside Parliament and immediately incurred a ban on 25 of its members for five days from entering the sacred portals of the temple of democracy. Both the ruling majority and the prime opposition minority with its around one-tenth of seats in the Lok Sabha have put on a holier than thou art attitude and claim to righteous indignation over their concept of morality in political affairs.  Like the maids with their brooms, the principal opposition party had the placards on their hands seeking the resignations of three top functionaries- the female RSS-Raje,Sushma and Smriti besides that of Vyapam tainted Chief Minister Of Madhya Pradesh. Somewhere in the din the corruption scam of Pankaj Munde of the Maharashtra ministry was forgotten. The obstruction stalled the passing of two important ‘modi’fied  bills- the  Land acquisition bill and the GST bill  though when the same bills without the ‘modi’fication were initially the infant bills of the erstwhile ruling Congress party. Like the fights in the fish market and on the streets, the two national parties indulged in  ‘tu tu mein mein’ ( ‘you -you, I- I ‘squabble)that led to an unofficial ban on parliament functioning.

In this melee all other bans that needed full throated shouting was missed out. The government had set high moral standards to tell its immature children :

Johnny,Johnny, yes papa,

Eating beef , no papa

Freedom of speech, no papa

Private affairs, no papa

Right to privacy, no papa

Criticism of govt, no papa

Cuss words in films, no papa

Left historians, no papa

RSS historians , yes papa

German study, no papa

Sanskrit study, yes papa

Invasion of privacy, yes papa,

Ban on porn, yes papa

Valentine's day, no papa

What is right is what government does and what government does not do. What is not right is what it bans and what the opposition protests. What is right for the government is what is wrong for the opposition. What is wrong for the government is what is right for the opposition. Our politicians are like anyone of us- the aam admis and therefore they will speak as we do-affirming our superiority and decrying that of the other.  Bans of different kinds unite us together. We welcome bans;  we are argumentative Indians.