The Phony Cacophony of Our Hashtag Morality

Political correctness is shrill these days.  The faux morality on display is created by media.  Media, which wants attention, even when there is not enough merit, plays up sides and two positions.  This or That.  There are no greys and there are no go-betweens.  There is no such thing as a “Complicated situation”.  In the world of hashtag moral stands of public, we have everything complicated.  From relationships to jobs to pets.  But our stands are stark.

General VK Singh recently said – using a colloquial way of speaking to explain his point of how something that was an issue between two families had been transformed by the media into a “Caste War” and blamed the Central Government for it.  How can any random incident – however gruesome – can be just shoved down the Central Government’s throat?  This is what he said –

“Kabhi sthaniya ghatnaon ka sarkar se talluk mat rakhiye. Uske upar inquiry chal rahi hain. Parivaron ke beech mathbhed tha.. voh mathbhed kis roop mein parivartit hua, kahan par intazamiyan ka failure hain, administration ka? Uske bad voh sarkar ke upar aata hain (Never associate local incidents with the Central Government. There is an inquiry going on. There was a dispute between families. The dispute…how did it turn out…where did the arrangements fail, the administration? After all this, it falls upon the Central Government).  To har cheez par, ki wahan par pathar maar diya kutte ko to, sarkar jimmewaar hai. Aisa nahi hai. (For everything…like if somebody throws a stone at a dog, then the Central Government is responsible…it is not like that)”

For this remark – there is a hue and cry in India.  Suddenly, the political parties want the Union Minister to resign.  Over what?  A remark that is simply colloquial in nature.  Yes, it can be construed anyway including the one that these politically correct folks are suggesting.  But isn’t it upon the intelligent and the educated who know the person uttering these remarks has been the chief of the one of finest institutions that India has today and would hardly have been a bigot himself – to assuage the issues that some vested folks may rake up?

We are all human beings and all have our moments and lapses.  If we have to latch onto everything that a person says and play that up to a point  where it covers the whole days news cycle and the activists – who pretend they are in their vocation out of conviction of their personal morality – keep shouting hoarse knowing the truth fully well, then something is terribly wrong.

Outrage is not justice.  Shouting has nothing to do with facts.  And, a twitter trend can be manufactured!

In a country where someone like Netaji had his life and death completely falsified with no question whatsoever.  Where someone like Lal Bahadur Shastri – the Prime Minister of the country – was assassinated on a foreign soil without any investigation or question from any quarter.  In that country, we have morality of people getting all riled up.  Why?  Because an ex-Army Chief uses a colloquial manner of speaking.

Have we lost it?  Honestly.  In this day and age of fast lives, where the deadlines cannot be met at work, where the kaam-wali bai at home is a constant problem, where roads aren’t exactly easy to drive back and forth on, where relationships are becoming more and more complex.  In that society, we have time for making national issues out of a “manner of speak”?

Sometimes I do wonder if the amplification of our voices that betray raw and tribal emotions by social media has just created a society of chaotic noise?  Are we now defined by our noise or our sagacity?  For, the cacophony of faux morality by the activist lay man and woman has no time for contemplation.  It wants to feed the next twitter trend and define the daily news cycle.