It is almost as though real issues such as social justice, governance, pollution, corruption, staggering inequality and price rise don’t exist in our country! Examine the way that the words of a standup comic before a largely NRI audience in the USA have dominated social media discourse. So Vir Das said what he did, his video went viral, there were calls for him to be booked under terror laws and soon he was slapped with FIRs as well. Chetan Bhagat offered his view, people reacted and satirist, Rajeev Nigam made his point:
The bestselling author Chetan Bhagat creates an analogy between his mother and country. He says he wouldn’t criticise his mother’s faults in his neighbour’s house so he would publicly speak about the things wrong in his country on an international stage.
There are many who believe in the ‘don’t wash dirty linen in public’ dictum, who agree with Bhagat and feel that Das is just an attention seeker.
This tweet points out why Bhagat’s point of view is the reason why so many family problems are hidden away, women are forced to stay in abusive marriages. It is this attitude that thinks of some mythical ‘family honour’ as more important than the wellbeing of its members.
According to this tweet, accepting our own flaws is a sign of caring. Das's words come from a place of concern that is willing to admit problems rather than to deny their existence.
This commentator asks us to look at things from this point of view – what if one’s mother is under attack – would we still be silent then? Wouldn’t we want to help our loved ones instead?
As journalist Nidhi Razdan points out, Bhagat’s reaction is like all the people who would rather not acknowledge domestic abuse and other family problems. In today’s globalised world the problems of any one country aren't hidden from the rest of the world, she adds.
Journalist Ravi Nair says drawing parallels between mother and motherland is ridiculous. It is important to hold accountable those who govern the country and to question how they allocate and use public money.
Activist Darshan Mondkar points out that this is a wrong analogy because it doesn’t seem to care about a mother who is being abused and reveals a victim-blaming mindset.
….Other instances of criticism such as this.
Bhagat himself has been known to acknowledge and admit our flaws in public (as he should). It smacks of hypocrisy to criticise others who do the same.
Bhagat faced significant backlash for the tweet hyphenating mother-motherland. He spoke of people becoming ‘intolerant’.
This response from journalist Rohini Singh points out how recent instances of intolerance have resulted in outrage, bans, vile abuse, vandalism, cases being filed, ad recalls and more. Disagreement is not intolerance, she avers.
Nigam mocks all the people who seem to think that talking about a problem is worse than the problem itself. He offers hard-hitting instances of ways in which so-called ‘sanskar’ is used paper over our hypocrisy. He offers tongue-in-cheek ‘criticism’ of Vir Das and his video and advises him to ‘learn’ from others such as Kapil Sharma.
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