There was a time when I used to hear “Hindu khatre mein hain” (translation: “Hindus are in danger“) quite often in India. Now, I hear it from other communities – that they are in trouble.
Most of our fears stem from what the media selectively shows us. They put sensationalist headlines, which can scare even the most courageous. However, if you do more research, you realize there is always another side to the story.
Just now, I read a post on social media that minorities are in trouble. A line read, “Time to pack our bags and leave.” Most of us might not have faced any discrimination ourselves, but we will still choose to believe a piece of news we cannot personally verify. Unfortunately, the media is not the best place to get reliable news from nowadays. Everyone is so biased that you cannot know the actual truth unless you’re on the ground to witness everything with your own eyes.
Media often leaves the “before” and “after,” so we cannot always trust it to show the complete picture. Instead of blindly believing every negative news we are subjected to, our default emotion should be skepticism – “Are you telling the truth? Or do you have an agenda?” How do you know if they have an agenda? It is easy. Someone exclusively blaming the left or right, without ever mentioning their plus points, can be considered unreliable. They could be too brainwashed to look at the positives, not the type of people you should be getting the complete picture from.
Please note almost every news platform (and journalist) has an agenda nowadays. They consistently choose the negative news to highlight and then try to manipulate the information in such a way that you end up believing there is no other side to the story.
Election time is nearing. The left will try to project the right as communal, and the right will accuse the left of caste-based divisive politics. It’s up to us, the citizens, to be wary of hatemongering and fearmongering. If we have to choose between fear and peace, choose peace. If we have to pick between empathy or anger, choose empathy. This can only happen if we consider each other as a part of one big family – India – and not as separate entities.
No political party should be allowed to divide us on the basis of religion, caste, region, and other factors. Our aim should be to work towards the development of the country. This can only happen if we are empathetic to each other. We should be strictly against any extremist entities that can disrupt the peace and harmony of our nation and be careful not to spread more hatred or fear.
If we hate a party, we can show our disagreement using the most powerful tool in our possession – our votes. We can also take the legal route. However, resorting to fearmongering online can polarize us further. This is one of the several banes of a world increasingly becoming digital. We are becoming more informed, more than required sometimes, and also becoming increasingly polarized.
Once we accept the fact that “we are one,” political parties and media will stop playing such hatemongering politics. They will realize that every attempt to divide us will only end in failure. We should reach that point one day. For that to happen, a collective, conscious effort toward peace and harmony is needed.
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Photo by Lucky Trips
The Monkey Dilemma 
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