India Positive

by Chetan Bhagat

  A question that arises from all arguments around bans is this: should anything ever be banned? The answer is simple. Certain things that cause immediate and grave harm to society have to be banned or criminalised. A drug like heroin, for instance, can destroy families quickly. A perversion like child pornography, which by definition is criminal activity because it involves children below the age of consent, should clearly be banned.

  We need to grow up if we want the world to take us seriously. The key to becoming an awesome nation is to defend individual liberties. India needs to believe that its citizens are not stupid and can choose what is best for them in the right quantity. A republic of bans assumes people are inept and unable to choose, so the state has to decide for them. When a state doesn’t believe in its own people, what hope is there for the world to believe in us?

  Rather than policing the private lives of citizens, the government should invest its time in increasing our GDP, maintaining law and order, and improving basic education, healthcare and infrastructure in the country. Yes, protect us from crime and substances that will kill us or exploit our children. However, for the rest, believe that people have the right to choose. After all, it is the same right that brought this government to power. So believe in the power of that choice, not in bans.

  @chetan_bhagat

  If you are a true Indian citizen, make a choice during elections but then keep all parties accountable on real issues, even the one you voted for. If you are a troll, vote and side with one party and keep screaming in their defense all day long on twitter.

  193 replies/ 327 retweets/ 2,039 likes

  Anatomy of an Internet Troll

  How social media birthed a strange new phenomenon in India: the bhakts

  The rise of the internet and social media has led to a strange new discovery in India. It is the strong and distinctive presence of a cyber-species often referred to as ‘bhakts’. The term is used to refer to owners of right-wing user accounts who tend to be aggressive fans of all things Hindu.

  Politically, they often lend their support to BJP, seen as a somewhat pro-Hindu organisation. They are extremely protective of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. They also like old Hindu kings and conspiracy theories about how Hindus were short-changed in the past, often swapping such stories online.

  These bhakts would have been a truly interesting anthropological phenomenon, had it not been for the distress they cause from time to time on Twitter. A few years ago, journalist Sagarika Ghose coined the term ‘Internet Hindus’ to describe them when they attacked her online. Another instance was when the true bhakt species targeted outspoken women on Twitter who didn’t think much of the rather sweet and harmless ‘selfie with daughter’ campaign that was backed by the PM.

  So, who are these true bhakts? What drives them? And what can we do to calm them down? More importantly, what can they do? To answer this, it is important to try and understand them.

  For one thing, these true bhakts are not just all Hindu fanatics or VHP members. Some of them don’t even identify with the Hindu cause; they call themselves nationalists instead. Their stated aim, if you are to believe them, is nation-building and winning back for India its lost glory.

  In reality, they are neither Hindu warriors nor nationalists. Typically, and at the risk of stereotyping them, true bhakts have the following traits in common. First, they are almost all male. Second, they have weak communication skills, particularly in English. Such individuals often nurse an inferiority complex about not being cool or sophisticated enough in a fast-changing, globalising world.

  Third, they are generally not good at talking to women. As a result, they are unlikely to know how to behave with them or woo them. They fail to attract the women they desire. In other words, if I may say so, this type of individual tends to be sexually frustrated.

  Fourth, there is an overriding sense of shame about being Hindu, Hindi-speaking and/or Indian. Deep down, they know that Hindi-speaking Hindus are among India’s poorest. They also know that India is a Third World country with third-rate infrastructure and few achievements on the world stage in the fields of science, sports, military technology or art.

  To hide this shame, they overcompensate in terms of chest-thumping nationalism. Also, in their minds, the BJP leaders and Modi in particular are the highest aspirational figures. Modi unabashedly identifies with the Hindi/Hindu/modest-means background they belong to, and represents the best people like them can aspire to be.

  Modi’s success gives true bhakts a genuine reason to rejoice and feel that they too can rise to the top. Hence, protecting his image is of vital importance to them. So, you see true bhakts defending Modi’s silence on various scams and vigorously attacking anyone who questions or criticises the PM. Objectivity is lost when people see and worship a leader as an idealisation of their own kind.

  Hence, any inferiority-complex-ridden Indian male who is sexually frustrated, ashamed of his background and has poor ability to communicate in English is liable to transform into a true bhakt. And that’s why confident, English-speaking women who oppose Modi hit a raw nerve on all counts, getting the worst of the true bhakt treatment.

  Since social media offers anonymity, their anger often takes the form of the worst kind of personal abuse. Note that the BJP never invited these true bhakts to worship them. In fact, the PM had to tell them off, as even he seems to have had enough of their hyper-aggressive bhakti.

  Of course, at the end of the day, easy votes are welcome and the BJP doesn’t mind where they’re coming from. However, the party must distance itself from unrestrained testosterone. This kind of support makes it look pretty unsavoury and cements its hard-line image. Ultimately, the Indian voter will get scared and go back to their default party—the Congress. There’s a reason they ruled the country for sixty years and the BJP has just about made eight.

  Meanwhile, what can we do? The best strategy is to not take true bhakts too seriously. Of course, it is difficult to ignore personal abuse on social media. But try to understand their motivations. They are not Modi bhakts; they are simply Frustrated And Complex-ridden Indian Males (FACIMs, pronounced fai-kims, not to be confused with the curse word you may want to use on them). Of course FACIM doesn’t have the same ring to it as ‘bhakt’, but it is a more accurate descriptor.

  To FACIMs themselves, I would say only this. Smarten up, learn English and practise it. Make some female friends and ask their advice on how to talk to a girl. When you’re feeling confident enough, try to ask a woman out and date her like a gentleman. Who knows, you may get lucky soon. Once you do, trust me, you will have better things to do than abuse people on Twitter. Good luck!

  What the 2G Non-scam Tells Us About India’s Don’t-care Attitude to Corruption

  We need to focus on the real problems that afflict the nation, and resist media manipulation of non-issues into controversies

  The 2G-scam is now officially a 2G non-scam, according to the court. This article will address it as such, and try to figure out why we have so many ‘non-scams’ in our country.

  Spectrum, unlike cow fodder or artillery guns, does not physically exist. You can’t touch it, keep it in your pocket or lock it up in a safe. It exists in thin air, a range of invisible waves, and should be available for all to use. However, governments around the world restrict and sell spectrum use rights to telecom companies which transmit calls and data between millions of individual users like you and me.

  Selling mobile phone spectrum, hence, is a pretty neat way for the government to make money out of thin air. This is fine as long as the money is used for the welfare of the people. The problem arises when licences are granted to some at a friends-and-family discount, foregoing what a competitive auction would generate.

  Of course, no politician does this in a blatant manner. Friends and family are always favoured in subtle but effective ways. For instance, you can bring a licence application deadline forward and tell only your friends about it. Or, you can use a first-come-first-serv
e process instead of an auction. All this happened in the 2G non-scam.

  What also happened was that many such friends flipped and resold their licences (masking them as corporate Mergers & Acquisitions deals, of course) for five to ten times more than what they paid for them, within months. Many thought this was sufficient proof that favours were done.

  Hence, for a while, it did seem like a scam. The CAG went wild, stating a loss-to-exchequer figure so big it wouldn’t fit in a normal calculator. The Supreme Court found this family-and-friends-discount offer repulsive and cancelled all 122 licences. The media went crazy. Even the PM at the time softly called such events ‘coalition compromises’. Enraged people used their new smartphones, and the same tainted spectrum, to post their anger on social media. Some hit the streets. The government lost the next election. A chief minister became the new prime minister, and for many, a saviour who would rid India of all this corruption.

  However, the court has now said ‘there is no scam’. The accused have been acquitted. The new government-controlled CBI could not find evidence at all. Meanwhile, we Indians were left scratching our heads and wondering, ‘What happened? Are we idiots?’

  What happened was this. We stopped caring about corruption. We cared about it from 2010 to 2014, when we expressed it on social media, the streets and, finally, EVMs. After that, we had vented enough and we were done. Then we did what we do best—started worshipping or hating a leader, cared about irrelevant issues such as caste/cows/religion far more than governance, and stayed as divided as we can be.

  So, imagine you are a politician. And you know people care about silly issues like cows or a Padmavati release far more than difficult issues like how our courts handle scams. What would you do? Won’t it be simpler to let people discuss cows?

  This is the bitter truth about us Indians: we don’t care so much about corruption. Some politician stole some money a while back? Oh well, that’s what they do, who cares? Any random, irrelevant Hindu–Muslim issue? Oh yes, bring it on. Tell me about that love-jihad couple again?

  We get the governance we deserve. That is why we don’t have a good follow-through mechanism for scams (or non-scams). Sometimes, when corruption reaches crazy proportions, it does bother us. However, our worry is transient, like a sneeze. We express anger, and we are done. Now we can go back to ranting about cows being disrespected.

  It is the court that has decided 2G is a non-scam, not the government, some might argue. However, the task of providing evidence was in the hands of the CBI, a government entity. It was never going to be easy. Corruption is no longer blatant or overt, with clear money exchanges. It is increasingly done in a subtle manner. A rule bent here, a favour granted there, and the reward given at some later date in some other form. Only if public pressure is intense and sustained does any government keep corruption on top of the priority list. The 2G non-scam is a clear example of what happens when citizens don’t have their values and priorities in the right place.

  So what is more important to you? The resolution of a scam that cost your country billions, or the Muslim boy who ran away with a Hindu girl last week? Our collective answer will decide how many more non-scams we shall see in the near future in our country.

  @chetan_bhagat

  Screaming about corruption and proving it in court are two different things. #2GVerdict

  143 replies/ 308 retweets/ 1,950 likes

  @chetan_bhagat

  Modi haters be like: Hater: You are scared to speak on fuel prices in Modi regime

  Me: I just did that

  Hater: No u didn’t do it with as much anger

  Me: Ok, am really upset

  Hater: Ok abuse Modi now, like really badly

  Me: well why should I?

  Hater: see…bhakt bhakt bhakt!

  1,671 replies/ 7,606 retweets/ 28,731 likes

  ‘Look, I’m So Secular!’: The Rise of Virtue Signallers on Social Media

  The rising trend of virtue signalling on social media risks distorting rational public debate on a range of important issues

  The rise of social media in the past few years has meant that public opinion is debated, discussed and shaped on forums like Twitter and Facebook, as well as thousands of local WhatsApp groups. One would imagine these powerful tools that connect millions enable us to distil the best opinions on an issue, which in turn shape our response to them.

  However, there is a huge problem. These discussion forums are public. And in public, a lot of people are fake. They want to be seen as good, proper, balanced, modern and progressive. Most of all, they want to be seen as virtuous. In other words, if I can come across as a person who has these wonderful qualities to my 200-odd Facebook, Twitter or WhatsApp friends, it is more valuable than actually saying what I feel on the issue.

  In this context, a term called ‘virtue signalling’ has become popular on the internet recently, although it was first used in a few articles that appeared several years ago. But it is only now that you see virtue signalling on full display.

  Try this. Mention that ‘I don’t feel safe sending my parents on the Amarnath Yatra after Muslim terrorists killed Hindu pilgrims.’ Chances are that several people out there will scream ‘Communal! Communal!’ at your statement before you even understand what on earth happened.

  Of course, there is nothing wrong in your original statement, which expresses a fear based on an actual incident that has occurred. You see, these people have to show that they are so virtuous, so noble and so good that they sense communal intolerance in a statement even when others don’t.

  This virtuous lot on the internet will demand a) that you don’t mention any religion at all, b) that Hindus, being a majority, must never raise an issue that affects Hindus because that makes us majoritarians, and c) that a truly virtuous person will not see this as an act against Hindus, but merely as a matter of some bad people trying to hurt good people, and that is all that needs to be said.

  Of course, that is not how the human mind works or thinks. The fact remains that many Hindus will now think twice about sending their elderly parents to pilgrimage sites, particularly in Kashmir. Unsavoury though this fact may be, it needs to be discussed. How can we live in a country where people feel unsafe about going to their places of worship? Does discussing this issue in order to come up with solutions spread communal hatred?

  According to the virtue signallers, it does. Your mentioning the word ‘Hindu’, let alone talking about an issue that affects only Hindus, will brand you as a communalist. And by labelling you as such, they come across as virtuous. And when they attack you online, they are saying, ‘Look, I am such a secular person that the mere mention of the word “Hindu” makes me mad. Look, I am so good and secular that any hint of a Hindu issue makes me seethe with anger. And now that I have shown I am more virtuous, I have the right to attack others. My goodness gives me sanction to abuse, insult and be rude to anyone else who isn’t that virtuous.’

  We sometimes mistakenly refer to these people in India as fake-liberals, pseudo-seculars or elitists. In fact, all they are doing is virtue signalling, showing how modern and progressive they are—so that they look good to their virtual peers.

  Take a statement like, ‘Although we must have laws to protect women, some men suffer due to fake domestic violence or harassment charges because these laws can be abused (something any lawyer or policeman dealing with such cases will attest to).’ Virtue signallers will pounce on this and feast all day, calling it ‘sexist, anti-women, backward’ or whatever else, because they have to show that they are more conscious of gender equality than anyone else.

  Virtue signallers operate in many other arenas. They show support for women’s cricket in their social media feed though chances are that they have never watched a women’s cricket match on TV in their lives. They also want to promote independent cinema over commercial cinema, though in all likelihood they have never watched an independent film in a theatre. Virtue signallers want to demonstrate that they care ab
out Dalits and Muslims, not because they actually care about Dalits and Muslims or do anything about their issues, but because saying so makes you look good on social media.

  Beware of such utterly fake people, and avoid engaging in debate with them. They will tire and bore you to death with statements that don’t respond to the issue at hand, merely to boost their own image.

  When we feel judged by a lot of people, we hide our true selves and try to look good. This is why virtue signalling is such a pervasive reality in today’s social media. It’s just noise on the internet and, like trolls, must be ignored. We must debate issues by saying things as they are, for only then can solutions be found.

  Official India Hates Fun

  We need to think consequences and global standards before we ban something outright

  For some reason, Indians are officially supposed to hate fun. Small wonder then that our politicians or courts don’t spare a moment to reconsider a decision that will kill someone else’s enjoyment. As long as the intention is good, we don’t mind crushing anything that is good fun, even though the decision might not really achieve anything worthwhile.

  In our country, one of the biggest casualties of this mentality is alcohol. We see it as a sinful form of self-indulgence. We believe that the state should regulate its sale and consumption as strictly as possible, even if it means banning it altogether or making bizarre rules that lead to 5-star hotels emptying their minibars overnight.

  The recent Supreme Court order prohibiting the sale of alcohol within 500 metres of a state highway is the latest such rule. Overnight, it has rendered thousands of businesses unviable, and has cost lakhs of people their jobs. This, when these businesses had invested huge sums of money, stupidly believing that (a) India is a country where rules cannot be changed overnight; (b) if you have the right licences, nobody can stop you from doing business; and (c) India is a good place to invest.