We are very outspoken, about almost everything. This is not just limited to things that happen to us, but we are outspoken about anything happening to anyone. We tend to make decisions, form opinions, maybe blame someone, make fun of someone. But the truth remains that we are extremely outspoken.

This is also a really good thing about us [humans] if you really think about it. This is what has made us what we are, this has formed our societies, this has formed our governance policies (Mind you, I am not referring to policies made by elected government) and this has made our so called overly intelligent and dominant species progress.

Speaking the truth

We always are speaking the truth, isn’t it? And not just us, the person disagreeing to us is also speaking the truth. No one ever speaks something which is pure, plain, white lie! We always say and write things that are 100% true. And we take pride in it. But do we ever think that the truth is not conditional? The truth is not subjective. Truth is truth. No matter how much someone is outspoken about something, a lie does not become a truth.

Judgementalism

Frankly, I don’t know if the word “Judgementalism” even exists. But anyone with a fair idea of where this article is going will surely understand the meaning. We judge a person / organization so early and with so less data and research that we start believing that everything that bad happens is because of them. And yes, all the popular gods, and godly figures face the same issue. We start blaming the entity without even thinking about personal mistakes, personal errors. We blame them so badly that we forget that as a human, even we can make a mistake. If something bad happens to us, we usually never even try to consider that we have any role to play in that. It always is and probably always will be the mistake of one person / organization.

Hey you! Enough blaming others for everything. Step up, do something. If you don’t have the power to do the right thing, go and goddamn earn it.

Where’s the devil?

Sometimes we tend to forget that it is us who make the mistakes, the police officer who is corrupt, the corrupt bank officials who made the whole demonetization unsuccessful, the municipal corporation officer who is not on their duty at office hours, the shopkeepers who charge more than MRP, the businessman hoarding essential items like N95 Masks and sanitizer are actually all middle class citizens of this beautiful country of India. They are dads and moms of people like you and me. They do not control the government.

These are all common people, who are critisizing the acts of government like crazy. Now by this I do not mean that the government is always right and never makes any mistake. They sure as hell do! And they sure as hell deserve a strong criticism when they do so. Because it’s their job to do everything right, isn’t it?

We found the devil

when you want to find the devil, go an look into a mirror

We expect everyone else but ourselves to do their jobs 100% right. We never ask our parents where they earned so much money. A lot of us actually live a very good and lavish life, we complain that our government is not doing good for poor. We complain that our government is not putting in enough financial resources to fight COVID19 Outbreak. What we do not complain is, why our parents are not paying income tax?

India has a total of 269 Million [1] people living below poverty line. India has a nominal per capita income of $1670 per year which is around ₹120,000. Now if you look at it, that means, a lot of people in India have income in lakhs of rupees. Now even if we consider that the income distribution in India is very much skewed and there is a huge inequality in income distribution. Still, in a country of 130 Crore people, is it possible that only 1.5 Crore people are actually paying income tax? (That is 1%) [2]. Now the problem is real. We definitely have people earning enough money to pay taxes. Now what do we do? What do you think thw society does? Do we find a solution? NO!

We blame the government, we blame them for us not paying taxes [3]. Now even if I believe that it is Modi’s mistake by changing the tax slab to 5 lakhs, why do we fail to realise that it is also our fault for not paying the income tax.

And it is not just the tax, we complain about everything. We complain that the government is not giving us proper roads. We complain about how dirty is India, we complain about the low wages of daily workers. When it comes to us, we never do anything. What we rather do is, purchase potatos from a poor vegetable seller at ₹12 rather than ₹15. We put in so much efforts to bargain for the price. And for what? To save the money which will later create a fortune? No! We do it because it gives us a sense of superiority over the poor person. A feeling that we can still supress them. And what happens? The poor seller meets 100 such people like you and looses ₹300 in a day. Now ₹3 a day certainly doesn’t matter to us but ₹300 a day sure as hell matters to the poor vegetable seller. Kids of that poor person could have gone to school if they made ₹9000 extra per month.

The devil is no where else, but inside you, me and each one of those people who keep complaining about their failures or anything bad happening with them.

open your eyes oh sailor! the boat will sink because of a nail in your own shoe!

If you would like to have a conversation about this, maybe complain about anything (:p), drop me an email (hello@shreyasb.com) and we can talk. Thanks for reading, I hope I made a point and made yourself question some obvious things. Now I tried to make it as apolitical as possible. At the end, I beg you, and I literally do, to not argue with poor hardworking people about a few paisas/rupees. Of course, do argue if you feel the person is dishonest and charging more than the actual price :)