A lot has been made of Modi's 'Hindu Nationalist' remark. Presenting and demonstrating one's own interpretation(more often than not in the wrong context) of whatever Modi says has become a fashion now. News channels are having the time of their life, enjoying the so called 'Honey Moon' period to the fullest, covering everything from Raj Babbar's ridiculous 12Rs meal remark to Digvijay's laughable gibberish. BJP and Congress have left no stone unturned in taking barbs at each other.
Naturally, amidst all this chaos and commotion, the hot topic in the recent times has been Secularism, which leads us to a more sensitive issue of Minorities. It has become a Cliche that "Minorities have always been an oppressed and a subjugated lot". It has now reached a point, where you begin to ask - Is this assertion based on plausible facts and arguments, or is it a baseless rhetoric? More often than not, it has been found that any debate on this subject is constructed more out of mere assumptions than indisputable facts. One is led to believe that minorities suffer hardships and agony merely because they belong to the Minority. The few convenient cases are used by the zealots to prove their point, while ignoring the larger part of the same community which is reaping the fruits of success! A deeper analysis shows that the successful lot of the minorities who tried to better themselves have enjoyed the fruits of prosperity as much as anybody else. Those who were left behind, help make the point for these zealots. The fact that who stopped these people from bettering themselves, or the reason for their perceived backwardness, is a question that is never asked.
Quite naturally, the next argument in the sequence is the demand for justice - In the form of reservations. The enthusiasts of the notion of having reservations, are usually community leaders and fanatics who take leadership of such small backward groups of minorities. They have a vested interest in keeping such groups away from the mainstream bunch of minorities - to pursue personal gains. The mantra is simple - This small section of people, which usually prefers lazing around and expecting spoon fed help out of their self imposed oppression to a self motivated exercise out of indigence, is made a case for demanding rights and benefits in the form of reservations by these community leaders, in turn realizing their personal gains. And, as can be seen, it is quite obvious that the condition of these so called minorities never seems to improve!
Reservations, quotas, relief packages have been offered to minorities for ages now; the situation never seems to come out of hopelessness! The desired outcomes still elude us! Whose failure is this? Shouldn't we stop and re-evaluate this? Could the reason for failure be something else? Those claiming victim hood can be found blaming everyone else but themselves. It is quite evident that they refuse to take any responsibility for their own destiny, for their own plight. Their own dogged refusal to move with the times is blamed on others. There is no cure for this mindset. All the reservations, all the packages in the world are doomed to fail when the minority communities refuse to take any responsibility for their own condition.
All those who claim to take responsibility of these people and speak for their rights can do well to pause and reflect for the moment. They need to ask themselves if their actions are helping the minorities or pushing them further into the abyss! The media is also at fault, helping these zealots carve a gullible and seemingly victimized image for themselves. This would keep continuing on and on for years together, till the time such enthusiasts continue to be guests on popular TV debates. The day this stops will be the day when we can actually stop and retrospect on the extent of damage minorities have inflicted on themselves and the nation.
