The Candle Light Hipster!

A movie of a major movie star has been banned in one of the Southern States in India and suddenly there is an uproar everywhere that this is trampling of “Freedom of Speech”. I can only find this amusing. Did we really have “Freedom of Speech” in the first place?

Last year during the Jaipur Literature Festival, Salman Rushdie was banned from attending as the state government said they cannot protect him while a few religious organizations were openly threatening him. The state was ruled by a party which is also in power in the central and this party is known for its secular values but the same party decided to work on vote bank politics as elections was nearing in a neighbouring state where caste & religious factors always play a major role. Keeping this in mind Salman Rushdie did not attend the festival. Had a different party been in power then this “Secular” party would have said this was “Anti-Minority”. 

While Salman Rushdie did not have “Freedom of Speech” and was banned from attending an event, the religious bodies which were making threats had their freedom of speech. While a living man’s life is threatened, Rushdie’s controversial comments against a prophet who existed a few thousand years old are heretical.   

The meaning of Secular State is “A secular state is a concept of secularism, whereby a state or country purports to be officially neutral in matters of religion, supporting neither religion nor irreligion] A secular state also claims to treat all its citizens equally regardless of religion, and claims to avoid preferential treatment for a citizen from a particular religion/nonreligion over other religions/nonreligion. Secular states do not have a state religion or equivalent, although the absence of a state religion does not guarantee that a state is secular.”

India states in its preamble that India is a sovereign, socialist, secular, democratic republic. And the world secular is also used by almost a majority of political parties.

If a country is truly secular than all citizens must be treated equally but then we have a “Quota” system where as in members of certain sections gets privilege which others do not get. If the nation is truly secular as it claims to be where it should treat all citizens equally then why alone this particular section of the society should get the benefits? While the readymade explanation for this is that there has been centuries of discrimination against the societies which are currently flavoured. While on one hand, the constitution says everyone is equal but on the other hand the government says a few people are inferior to others and hence they need the extra privileges.  

Recently there has been massive debate online over the ban of this movie because a few people got offended. Well if people are to be offended then anything and everything has to be banned and life as we know it have to stop. Now that this movie is banned because it affects the sentiments of a few people and suddenly everyone is rising up saying this is a violation of “Freedom of Speech”. Where were the same people when many social media websites where blocked? Just because one movie which was distributed by a major industrial house wanted to stop the leakage of the movie on the internet, many torrents and other streaming websites were blocked. Ironically the movie was very bad and it took the government weeks to unblock the webpage. Also we need to realize this, though the ban was in place, there was still other ways to active these websites.

“Freedom of Speech” is as good as utopia in a country which despite claiming to be Secular still has an anarchic system where everything is about vote bank politics. It has become cool to protest for all this and sort of hippie too.

This quote comes in Fight Club: “Man, I see in Fight Club the strongest and smartest men who've ever lived. I see all this potential and I see it squandered. God damn it, an entire generation pumping gas, waiting tables – slaves with white collars. Advertising has us chasing cars and clothes, working jobs we hate so we can buy shit we don't need. We're the middle children of history, man. No purpose or place. We have no Great War. No Great Depression. Our great war is a spiritual war. Our great depression is our lives. We've all been raised on television to believe that one day we'd all be millionaires, and movie gods, and rock stars, but we won't. We're slowly learning that fact. And we're very, very pissed off.”

All we have seen is the great Recession which could have been avoided if not for the greed of Governments and Banks. Now the common man suffers for all this. Unemployment rates are high, Inflation is high, all prices are high, Property is impossible to buy, Lack of infrastructure even in major cities, Goondas who act as Cops, Women getting raped, Banks robbed, Corruption for anything & everything, and fuel getting expensive by the minute, the list is endless.

Will we ever have a color revolution? No nothing will happen. Life goes on. Corporates continue to enslave employees while Government continue to rape people. Everything will be ok once IPL starts!