Living in a Democracy, Real World, Jokes & Few Other Paradoxes

Let me delve on few trends of recent days.                  

              Many alleged, including me, that these days and years democracy is taking a hit and dying a thousand deaths. Basically, democracy in simplest terms is a system in which government of a country is elected by the people. It is the government of the people, by the people and for the people. In other words, it is the majority opinion which has to prevail in the country. The opposite of this is the dictatorship or hegemony through autocratic form of governance. Democracy in its highest forms gives absolute freedom; control to the people and not vice versa – tyranny through suppressing the people and gaining control over them. It is based on the premise that the voice of the majority can never go wrong and the absolute power rests with the people; not their leaders.

              At its worst, autocracy brings suffocation to the people as they feel an oppressive oligarchy – and not the majority - is weighing over their neck making them unable to breath. Any good leader or regime should respect the opinion of majority in any situation and act accordingly. A leader may traverse through multiple phases but the ideal is always to mimic the majority of the common people. But, there has been acceptance in general that the democracy was hardly felt in the air since last year. Everyone felt suffocated, everyone felt vilified, and everyone felt tortured by some unknown enemy. This is not at all the ideal and a place to be as we march into the unknown.

              We need to follow which majority follows and accepts as the right thing to do. We need to implement which the society in general and majority in particular decides as the correct thing to take forward. Individual can be wrong but society as a whole can never be wrong. We need to always strive for acceptance among public and do that which is accepted by a larger spectrum. Those who spread the virtues of anti-democracy also bear the responsibility to mend their ways and become democratic. I can see the wind is blowing in the correct direction. The suffocation is easing, torture is giving way and everything is falling in place for a more democratic world. Things are happening as per the wishes of the majority.

              One of the tenets of my work is to make the mission which is accepted far and wide. You may have seen the lows of the acceptance but you will definitely see the highs of acceptance as well because a wave is bound to progress from nadir to peak. Let us hope the nadir is behind us and we are reaching the peak. The time for the ‘undemocratically’ ‘democratic’ world is here and it is for you to take a deep note of it.

              Another trend is the power of social media. This is the real topic of these days. Everyone thinks that social media lives in mobiles, PCs, bits, bytes and relegated to virtual world. If the person is restricted to just twitter, he has no influence in the real world is a common misconception. The capitol riots in U.S. were emanated largely from the nexus in social media; the riots in Delhi on the eve of Republic day are fuelled by Social media.

              Social media runs the alternate reality which profoundly impacts the real world even if not by conventional means. The time has come to take note of the real world impact by the social media. That which is neglected as little thing has grown to haunt in unimaginable ways. Time is here to take cognize of the fact that social media is real and its impact is also real. Social media has long grown to terrorise and shake up countries. The hash tag trends are by no means anything to take lightly. Their power will be coming from the people who mean it to who read it to socialising it for more support.

              Days are already here where the real governments are affected by social media being the platform for catalysts that churn out real world movements which shape our present and future. Remember the hash tags – they are restricted to mental space in the present but they are powerful themes, ideas which are collectively pushed across as a mass opinion. The common people had been given wings by the social media to push across their agenda and they are not irresponsible in their freedom to talk.

              The biggest example is me – I am an unknown person if not for the blog I started many years ago. I am a virtual person living under the backdrop of few articles to my name. I have become a parallel to the boom of social media which heavily impacts the real world outcomes both at personal and public fronts. The reason for all the above write up is to make everyone aware of the powerful weapon in their possession and everyone else who take it lightly to change their opinion. The time for the ‘virtually’ ‘real’ world has come and it is for you to take a deep note of it.

              Another trend which cannot be left unnoticed is the PM of the country has built the largest cricket stadium in the world and named after himself. I always take it as a joke when people name after themselves. He narrowly missed inaugurating his stadium by himself. Adding to the pun, what are the ends and why are they named after Reliance and Adani. What is the name of the stadium and what are the ends in the ground. I had never seen corporate biggies getting the names of ends in a cricket stadium. Why does a cricketer want to end up with a corporate club mix?

              Don’t they find any great yesteryear legend to name the stadium after or some cricketing legends to name the ends after? Adding to it, those who built the stadium must have laid the pitch with concrete as well in some over-enthusiasm. Otherwise, how come 2 test matches got completed in 2 to 3 days with ball skidding on like a concrete surface?  What happened to the ticket holders of the remaining three days.

              But jokes apart, let me put it straight – this entire exercise of building the stadium is a man-made megalomaniac creation through stretching the imagination of people. It is a no joke to built and inspire the fellow countrymen to build on some of the wonders and world’s largest structures. How he has inspired a set of people to express the prowess of the country is a matter of great pride. He has lead the people to conceive an idea, put into action and execute it with sheer brilliance in what is the display of great Indian tenor and grit. Even if not the entire country, he has inspired a part of country to excel by leaps and bounds.

              At least few regions are benefitted greatly and he has left a great legacy already in building megalomaniac structures to prepare the future and become the torchbearers of the nation. The time for the ‘jokingly’ ‘serious’ world has come and it is for you to take a deep note of it.

              Another fact which has passed by in recent times is China has done remarkable well in scoring a complete victory in its fight against poverty by lifting over 770 million people out of it in the last four decades. The president announced that absolute poverty has been eradicated in the world’s most populous country. All poor people in the rural areas have been lifted out of poverty. With this, China has achieved the U.N. goal of poverty eradication 10 years ahead of the 2030 deadline.

              With these achievements, China has created another miracle which will go down in the history. Complete eradication of poverty in China was the main goal announced by Mr. Xi when he came to power towards the end of 2012. And he achieved it in the next eight years. China has invested accumulative fiscal funds of nearly $246 billion into poverty alleviation over the past eight years. All the steps have paid off and the country is poverty-free which is a model to the poor regions of the world including India.

              These are staggering numbers and India should follow the suit as quickly as possible. Even the country lifted 300 million out of multidimensional poverty in the last decade and half. The situation is definitely optimistic but there are still hundreds of millions in the country who are affected by poverty.

              I had always pressed on the inclusivity and building the bridges between rich and poor. The East should meet the west, and the rich should meet the poor. There are no two countries – one for rich and one for poor, there is only one country for everyone. Then there will be peace, progress and harmony in the country. On my part, I recently held a crash course for students in Government school for a scholarship test. These provide good means to get the knowledge and funds the poor kids need for their higher education.  Such initiatives need to be encouraged at all levels to motivate and inspire the poor students to come good in their fields.

              Why I am stressing is I cannot forget my roots. I had been provided an opportunity to get myself up by one such great company. I am still working in it and making my living. I strongly believe that my organisation will work towards improving the lives of poor across the country by creating many more examples like me. The poverty in the country can be eradicated by organisations like this doing great work. They made us experience 5 star lives when we had nothing and we didn’t fade off but reaching there in our own lives. They build the bridges to join both worlds and we are fortunate to navigate through those places of work. With these strong set of ideals, we can work on improving the status quo and firmly believe in the same. The time for ‘exclusively’ ‘inclusive’ world has come and it is for you to take a deep note of the same.

              I had built four paradoxical sentences using oxymoron words - ‘undemocratically’ ‘democratic’, ‘virtually’ ‘real’, ‘jokingly’ ‘serious’, ‘exclusively’ ‘inclusive’. The fifth one is ‘Indianly’ ‘Pakistan’ in its PSL.