The Real Minority

a middle class Indian’s post delhi riots rant

Foreword

I am an Indian who has had the experience of living outside his native land for almost 7 years. My father has served in the public sector throughout his life. My mother is a homemaker despite having a Masters degree. My brother is a solutions architect. I am what I look to call as the real minority in India, educated, law abiding, middle class and tax paying citizen.

I have been really disturbed with the developments in our country and how the image of our country is taking a hit because of sponsored propaganda by our enemies, both within & outside India. One of the things I have identified is the lack of knowledge about our culture, civilization, history among our young. This is a serious issue which has to be dealt in a way that it inspires them to find out more & at the same time equip them with facts which they can then use to counter false narratives in schools & universities.

I wrote something which although speaks to everyone, also has a specific objective of appealing to the young in the aftermath of the Delhi riots. It will not please many, it is unapologetic, raw and includes profanity and it will never be edited for “blasphemy”. To get a better idea of its demand & relevance, I joined twitter in end of April. So far I have come across quite a few people who have addressed the issue of our young getting bullied & guilt tripping because of the dearth of knowledge which leaves them with no option but to give into the peer pressure online as well as offline.

I notice that there is an attempt to revive the CAA protests or recreate what is happening in the US here in India where we might see people kneeling in front of specific groups coupled with an attempt to stifle voices of publications which oppose the false narrative. This combined with platforms like twitter doing their bit by suspending accounts, I feel the more stuff we can put out there to counter this well-oiled machine the better it will be.

I am not a writer or a research scholar, I do write from time to time just to vent when I’m stressed out, but I realized that this time I was not writing simply for myself but it was more of an appeal. In any other circumstance, I would not bother but I feel that there are people out there who could possibly benefit from it, especially the young amongst us who are constantly fed a very carefully engineered diet of self-loathing & unwarranted altruism. I have only the interest of our community as my objective.

The strong have a duty towards the weak. The rich have a duty towards the poor. The wise have a duty towards the unwise. Those who know the truth have a duty to dispel lies.

There is a spectacular dearth of public knowledge to counter false narratives and sponsored information. Consequently we see the weak, the poor and the unwise falling prey to the poisonous designs of those with destructive attitudes. The incompetent among us, unable to deal with life adopt an outlook which allows them to overlook their incompetency and rather deflect it by criticizing the system and the various institutions for their failure and irrelevance. When ego is able to gain control, when arrogance leaves no room for debate, conflict is unavoidable.

Those who consider themselves as superior than others, the chosen ones, the righteous, bound for heaven and everyone else doomed and inferior, those who consider their ideals and theories as saviours of mankind without having the support of the very people they seemingly want to liberate, are enemies of the society as they are agents of conflict.

Those who proclaim to understand the society, talk of restructuring it by first abolishing the existing social structure and then create a new one, never do they mention the number of lives that will be lost. What guarantee is there that they will be able to create a new one after destroying the existing system, is a question nobody wants to ask nor is anybody willing to answer. Instead all we see is relentless efforts to create social tension.

The resulting loss of life and property while mere entertainment and an experiment for some, is lifelong suffering and pain for others.

                                                       DISCLAIMER

These days almost everything is claimed as factual and almost everything is discredited. There is no display of sportsmanship, nobody is willing to concede. Therefore, before you read this, I want to clarify a few things.

This is not a party sponsored work. I do not intend to campaign for any political party through this. My own political stand should not be seen as a fundamental aspect of what I have expressed.

Through the course of one’s life, you end up reading a lot of stuff and most of the time when you read the same thing more than five times from five different sources, it is true. Therefore I have not cited references for the historical events mentioned as this is not your usual library shelf deserving thing, this is straight from the heart and is also least concerned if it meets the literary standard of those who feel their opinion matters. Having said that, please feel free to fact check whatever you find worthy of it.

What definitely will be contested, as always, is what the Quran says. That’s why I want you to know that the Quranic verses inside come from the ClearQuran, which is an English translation of Quran done by Talal Itani. It was first published in 2012 as it says on the ClearQuran website and since then has been read by millions of people. I do not doubt it as it is the first result when you run a search on Google for Quran in English.

Still, before believing blindly as those who read the Quran do, I read another English translation on the quran.com which is the second search result and that one was almost identical.

That is more than proof for me to believe in what I read and interpret it according to my reasoning. You may not have the same dialectical bandwidth and that is fine.

Lastly, this is not Hindu propaganda. Nowhere will you find deliberate or subtle endorsement of Hinduism.

Introducing Us. The Real Minority.

It’s not an easy thing to do. I get it. Take out time from our lives and think about stuff. Stuff like life, death, our purpose here, how we should go about it. Especially those of us born post 1980.

Defining us – Who are we?

We are children of working people. Mostly working Fathers. Sometimes Mothers too, but mostly Fathers. Most of us are children of a Father who was a government employee but as we get into the 90’s even private sector employees. Most of us are from tier 2 & tier 3 cities. Some from tier 1 as well. Almost all of us studied in English medium private schools with considerable amount of fees which are fathers worked their asses off for. We wear branded clothes, have a heavy western influence on our life, have many relatives who have moved abroad including siblings, quite a few of us have travelled abroad too, we believe in a relaxed and fun life by taking road trips and spend time regularly at pubs and cafés in our respective cities. We are private individuals. We value our privacy and liberty. Now, most of us are fairly unreligious. We don’t pray, actually let’s be honest, we have very little space and time in our lives for religion. The family that we are born into, for sure has a religion, our parents pray and observe religious practices, but even they have dialled it down quite a lot. So obviously we don’t feel the burden to drag it along as well. So, does that qualify us as liberals? Maybe, maybe not. We are the people who have broken many taboos, distanced ourselves from casteist thinking, have married outside our communities and religion too in some cases, we do not hold religion as a parameter for friendship, we truly are the great Indian middle class that is talked about so much. We are the ones for whom great advertising campaigns are designed, our hard earned disposable incomes fuel the economy.

So, we have an idea of who we are talking about when I mean “us”. Furthermore, we are tech savvy, we are updated with stuff around the world, we are law abiding and want to live in a society governed by law and most importantly, WE PAY TAXES.

Oops! You know where I’m going with this now don’t you? You scared? Don’t be. It’s too late for that now.

So, in our country, it’s a bitch to pay income tax isn’t it? Only 1% of the total population does it.

Now if the country is something like Tuvalu which is going to disappear soon or Wakanda for that matter which apparently has enough resources to take care of itself and watch the world wither and die and still be safe, I’d say it’s ok. Let the 1% pay the tax let the other 99% just have balls out fun and kick back. But in India, really are we going to go on like this?

And what have we got in return for that? We, by the time we grew up we were faced with a herculean task of becoming self-reliant by competing with a million others and then study hard and get a job and finally own around 1200 sq.ft of space and even less in most of the cases, in one of our major cities where every single communicable disease known to man is at our disposal. If that wasn’t enough pay high utility bills, breathe poisonous air, risk brain hemorrhage every day in traffic and still be okay with it. Wait, it gets better. Put our kids through school. Yeah, isn’t that great? Shelling out tons of money for that. Car payments, house payments, thanks to ‘JAI KISAN’ pay haunting electrical bills. Our contemporaries in other countries have no idea what it’s like to lead the kind of life we do. And we do it. Day in and day out. Over and over again, lose hair, get fat but we still do it. We come home and just when you think you’ve been through the shit enough, you turn on the news……

Now this is what I want “us” to start to think about a little bit. The life that I just described, shitty and suicide inspiring as it may be, is still a life. And like all life, it must be cherished. No question about it. But what we have today is assholes threatening our very lives with their assholeness. Now, they might say that, “well you lead a shitty life and I’m helping you by destroying it”, but we must say it back loud and clear, “ITS MY LIFE. IT’S MY SHIT. I WILL EAT IT, MAKE LOVE TO IT WHATEVER THE FUCK I WANT TO DO TO IT, IT’S GOING TO BE ME! NOT YOU MOTHERFUCKER! ME!”

So why should we, us go through this? This shit. Our cars, our roads, our metro stations, our fuckin fire brigades, our soldiers not able to use the weapons that we fuckin paid for. Why? The constitution? Fuck you asshole. Who’re you trying to con bitch? You never carried a school bag full of 8 books and 8 copies for 8 periods of the day on your shoulders and eat parantha and achaar during recess for 12 fuckin years, study political science and actually have any idea of what the constitution says. So fuck off with your placards and sloganeering and attention seeking activism.

The system we see today, was achieved after a lot of bloodshed. The modern, post-war democratic system, platforms for nations to clear their differences, this was paid for in blood. Millions of people died in the first half of the twentieth century so that we, us, we could have a life. Somewhere, somehow, we seem to have forgotten that. Maybe it’s our inherent nature to seek conflict which leads us to such junctures as the one we here in India are at. Or, the more simple and less philosophical view, the fact that even as the world was getting back on its feet, there were those who simply did not believe in the concept of a nation or state. Make no mistakes about it, we’re here. It’s happening. While we continue our daily pride swallowing, self-destructive, highly predictable, spectacularly unproductive journey, a whole bunch of people who outnumber us 100 to 1 are out there, with an agenda, with resources, with leadership, whose singular aim and its success will result into us, no longer having the time to do anything anymore. We might as well stop right now if we are to go on like this.

Most of the stuff that’s going on, we are beyond it. At least for the time being. The “life” that we went for, made sure that we will not have to face or get affected by the more serious issues that the country faces, has been facing and is likely to keep facing in the years to come. Issues such as poor health care, being dependent on government welfare schemes and the endless forms and queues that come along with those schemes. We do not face that frustration. The banking system also has ensured our convenience and we don’t have to go there anymore either. Get stuff delivered at your doorstep, entertainment at your fingertips, the works. We live in a cocoon. Oblivious to so much. And in order to stay oblivious, enjoy this bliss, we keep working to make sure this lasts. Our kids also follow and we get us, the real minority. The tax paying, hardworking, law abiding citizens of India. We are the real minority. The only minority.

Don’t get me wrong many people work hard. The farmer, hell yes. I come from an agricultural background, live in a city which is agricultural produce’s destination and trans-shipment point. So I know how hard the farmer works and gets shit in return.

The labourers. You will be surprised just how many of them exist in our country. It’s become a norm these days for all members of the family to earn. Half of the family is into agriculture the other half are daily wage labourers who will do anything ranging from carrying loads to showing up at political rallies. You need to see them work in the heat and hazardous surroundings to know just how hard they work. Many more deserve to be mentioned. In a country where poverty has engulfed its masses and leaves them with next to nothing, you can bet your ass the only way to survive is by working. Working so much and from so early on in life that you really do not have time for anything else in life, education, recreation, spirituality, opinions and religion, they are all a luxury for these poor bastards.

But there’s a difference between us and the poor bastards I just mentioned. They earn so little, and work in the great unorganised sector of our country, that there is no way in hell, these people will ever pay taxes. Our hard work, and the tax we pay, funds the welfare schemes aimed at our poor brothers and sisters. In essence, we, us, the real minority is the most benevolent group of people on this planet. And all of them hate us, despise us, see us as thieves and dishonest people, and thanks to Bollywood view us as characterless city people who sleep with the wives of their best friends. Still, they are our brothers, sisters, and we care about them.

But even still, there is another class of people, let’s call them the Urban Poor. The Urban Poor, are even more hostile. They share the same roads and space with us and always have that sadness which emanates from a feeling of inferiority complex topped up with a sense of victimhood. That’s some cocktail. These Urban Poor, love to see us, get our asses kicked. When we are made to feel vulnerable, they enjoy it. These Urban Poor are also especially skilled in one particular activity, it is an organic thing with them, they can do it at 3 A.M in the morning if need be, and that is to transform into a MOB. The rural poor and the urban poor, should be a concern for all of us as they make almost 85% of the people of our country and this potential must be used and channelised towards betterment of the nation but instead, they have been left to wallow in their poverty stricken hostile state of mind by those who grabbed the power soon after Independence and realized that this wallowing of these masses is exactly what is needed to stay in power.

Now we, most of us are between 25-40 years of age. The 2016 life expectancy figure for India was 68.56 years. So we got not a whole lot, but yeah a considerable amount of time left. Did we know back then when we were busting our asses in school, tuition and coaching classes, college and orientation sessions that while we hope to get to a place where we can actually start to live the life that we worked so hard for, that very soon we will be facing a situation where so much of what we achieve and strive to achieve can be taken away from us just like that? You wake up one day and you can’t step down to stop people from burning your car? And what makes it great is, you know there is no way in hell that shit is justified, but you can’t do anything about it. The brother, for whose benefit YOU, WE, US, have been shelling out money is standing there, face covered, wearing skinny pants, sporting an undercut he got in an alley somewhere, with a fuckin petrol bomb, abusing your mother and lighting your shit on fire! That’s some fraternity, equality and all the other banalities for your ass.

How did it get so bad? We want to believe like we did not see this coming, but deep down we know, we had a feeling that this might happen. We are ashamed to admit the fact that all of us, all along we have known that this could happen because we saw things, we heard things, we could see through lies, hypocrisy, discrimination and appeasement. But we simply figured that well, “I’m not involved in any what way so whatever happens its not going to get to me you know. What do I care? Yes he’s bullshitting, she has no idea what she’s saying but let it be, how does it matter, let’s just focus on our thing. Why should I ruin my day by arguing with that dumb motherfucker?” We’ve all been there. But now I think its safe to admit and almost compulsory to not look the other way and start fuckin watching Nat Geo Primal Survivor because we are going to need those skills now, IF, that’s a big one, IF, we want to ensure our physical safety.

I may have gone overboard but you get my point.

Right about now, that shame and fear of embarrassment wants you to eject and fuckin parachute down while saying, “well you know this is all due to irresponsible politicians and this is all politics and this is all because of social media and this is due to lack of education and this is because of poverty and because people have been left outside the development program and blah and blah and on and on. STOP IT! SLAP YOURSELF IN THE FACE AND WAKE THE FUCK UP! Visualize your car getting burnt and your house on fire and your wife or daughter raped and then tell me, if this is all politics.

Its too much. We, us, we have allowed this shit to go on for far too long. We, us, we have every fuckin thing at our disposal and we choose to do nothing. And I am one of us. I know its hard to do this. I started this fuckin thing by admitting that. We’re just too busy and comfortable and tired for anything else in our lives but I got news for you buddy, for us, when this fuckin thing collapses, many of us will perish, and that would be a great tragedy. THE tragedy. Of the more than a billion people, if the working, educated, tax payer gets crushed then the country will go to the dogs. There might not be a country left altogether. We are the ones who man the offices, buy shit we don’t really need and allow people who make that shit to remain in business, we, us, spend several thousands of rupees on our weddings, our children’s education, travel in cabs, just pull back for a while and imagine just how much employment is there just because we, us, lead the kind of lives we do. Restaurants, hotels, resorts, malls, maintenance, security. All of that, all those people you just thought about, who work those jobs, are either the rural poor or the urban poor. We are just the tiny 1%.

So what happens when WE, cease to exist? It can happen in a number of ways. A mass exodus. A low intensity exodus has been going on for a while now. Ever wonder why everywhere our cricketers go Indians outnumber the locals in the stadium? Because they have been getting the fuck out of dodge!

Another way we could cease to exist is if India becomes a communist state. But we know thats not gonna happen. It’s a lie. Communism is bullshit. It defies human nature. The nature to compete and get better. Even China isn’t what Marx wanted.

And finally, the last way we could cease to exist is, we die fighting. Die trying to safeguard our way of life, the tremendous hard work of 3 generations. And with us so many other things will cease to exist. And that will be the day, when India will also die.

And they are after us. We are being hunted. Who exactly wants to kill us? You don’t know?

We live in a country where very few people actually work and do their job right. The rest, just waste away. The value of life in our country is shockingly low. People die every day in the most senseless ways you can know about and still nothing gets done. So when life isn’t that important, what is? If your family and job isn’t enough to hold you together then what is? The answer unsurprisingly is religion. It’s the easy thing to do. Its like a getaway.

Keep reading to understand how things have gone so bad.

DISCLAIMER: The author is solely responsible for the views expressed in this article. The author carries the responsibility for citing and/or licensing of images utilized within the text.