Wednesday, December 3, 2008

How will protest marches and candle-lighting sessions help?

I think protest marches, lighting candles and peaceful demonstrations might just prove detrimental to the health of Mumbai.

As it is we don’t give a damn about the state of the country. If you don’t believe me go ask those women, who are angry at Naqvi’s ‘lipstick’ statement, who Naqvi is. Most of them have no clue. People who are protesting against ‘that rude Kerala CM’ don’t even know his name.

Worse, there exist people who can’t sing the complete national anthem and who don’t know the name of the current president of India. The only news most people are aware of is what is circulated on campus, office and facebook. Which is only the sensational stuff.

People, we are not a politically aware nation. And definitely not a politically conscious city.

“Stupid politicians ki wajah se we can’t guard our coasts,” is the general consensus. How many know that this is a difficult task even if we had the most righteous politicians.

Today Mumbai is angry. India is furious. We have woken up after so long and at such a huge cost. I don’t know about the rest of the country. But Mumbaikars will find a catharsis in the peace march and get back to work.

People will light a candle and think they’ve done their bit. Now back to office. That’s just what we don’t need right now.

It’s just now that people are registering to vote. The thinking people are yet not convinced that they need to quit office and get into politics if this country has to be managed. We have barely started finding out what’s happening and who’s doing what. We’ve just gotten to know the politicians by their names. We’ve just gotten sensitive to the fact that the army makes far less money than the cricket team. This was always the case. But nobody championed it.

We’re mounting so much pressure that people like Vilasrao Deshmukh are being asked to leave. This pressure, this fire remains to be alive for us to demand action in the country.

I somehow feel these silent protests will pacify us. And we’ll be back to our daily lives the very next day.

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