The Strange Turn of Events.

It all began with the Murders of Activists and Writers of the likes of M.M. Kalburgi, Govind Pansare and Narendra Dabholkar, (the former two dying more recently). Apart from the similarity in how they died, another similarity among them was that two of them were Anti-Superstition activists and one quoted something about idol worship. Yes, apparently the stuff they supported was deemed as Anti-Hindu.

Their murders triggered the "Award Returning Trend".(Yes! it wasn't just an impulsive frustrated call for gaining popularity... (initially at least.)).

Coincidentally, when all this was going on, there was another act of brutality, where a man (a muslim person) from Dadari was lynched for allegedly killing a cow. This again was deemed as Anti- Hindu.

(Just to be precise... Killing the poor Cow... and unfortunately not the Man! :| )

This was the exact point when things started getting Communal, and intolerance got mixed up with communal intolerance.

Meanwhile, gripped in unrest, many of the Artists and writers and Scientists kept returning their awards as a mark of protest against the happenings and against the ways of the Government (and Sahitya Akademi too) who did not condemn these murders, allegedly spreading a sense of insecurity among the people, who apparently wanted to be " reassured" that everything will be fine, and there's nothing to worry about.

And then all of this was continued with playing one-sided "Ink holi" with people whose views were not much appreciated by the "side".

Then this fire was given some Political oxygen for efficient Combustion during the Bihar Elections because by now, the whole attention got focussed against the Hon'ble PM of India, who was deemed as the symbol of intolerance and his party, a promoter of Intolerance.
This fire just got way too much Oxygen resulting to a majority of the Carbon-di-oxide of Bihar, getting exhaled into the Legislative Assembly.

And this brings us to the Present day. Where many are urging to boycott Aamir's movies and the goods that he Endorses.(I know right.. Way too Strange turn of Events :P ).

People feel that he said that all the people in the country are intolerant. Everyone has something to say to him(Well, Not to try to prove that they are tolerant, instead that they are not Intolerant (P.S. Yes These are different.!!!)). And things got so much heated up that a hashtag called #BuildRamMandir creeped up from nowhere and got trending.... preposterous isn't it?(Again.... Way too Strange turn of events).

This strange turn of events is nothing more than Attenuation of thoughts.

Some people started by saying that Aamir says India is intolerant and he says his wife wants to leave the country. Others added some more things to make him sound more like a traitor and forwarded the new version of the "view". And some took out some of their precious time to make a Graphical Comparison between a Martyr's widow and Aamir's wife. And then there were the remaining people... Who just saw the things, felt something (maybe :P (can't deny that... India Feels too much you know..)), and then shared the view everywhere, making misconceptions prevalent and spreading strange unrest. Very few actually bothered to go through a simple authenticity check of what was actually said. (Yes! a simple video that could be simply used to simplify the issues that were being raised.)

The main substance drifted far away from where it should have been, and the reason are the people who are ready to believe in everything that they are "told" blindly, without checking the authenticity or the reason behind it. Sounds familiar? relates to Superstitions? Doesn't it? yeah! infact it does.

So in a nutshell, right now what we are doing is something unreasonable to prove that we do not do unreasonable things, and it is exactly the "something unreasonable" which was opposed by some people who were then murdered for opposing it as according to some other people, what they were doing was something unreasonable!! peculiar.(Too big a Nutshell that was :P)

This is a really Strong Example of why literacy should just not only be about reading words and being able to operate a smartphone. Rather it should be something that enables a person to think in some direction that is actually relevant. The right to speech and freedom of expression are all disastrous unless we really understand our Responsibilities with them.

We are still in the denial phase, thinking that nothing is wrong. But actually a lot needs to be worked upon. And to start with, the least that we could do is be a bit more "Tolerant".

-Aishwariy