Mann ki Baat

Never been political.

Not with Family, not with Friends, not with strangers. Never felt like taking sides.

Never felt the need.

Have always been patriotic. Dreamt of joining the army as a kid. Never had the physical requirements for it though. Still, never political.

Voted in a General Election twice, State Election twice. Was a Presiding Officer of a Polling Booth once; couldn’t vote normally. Still made sure I sent my Mail-In vote. Proud to.

Always voted Congress. Don’t blame me. I’m from Patiala. The Captain did a lot for this city when he was in Power, I saw it with my own juvenile eyes. Saw progress here. Liked it.

Selfish, yes. Always voted Congress.

Heard the accusations about the Centre when they were in Power. Believed them. Still believe them. Although young and immature, still felt disgusted and cheated. Considered Change when the time came. Re-considered. Voted the same way I always have, if only for loyalty to my city, and naught else. Although agreed that saffron felt like the right choice in the Centre.

Heard great things about Gujarat. Visited it a lot of times in the last three years. Saw good things. No lies, indeed. Solar Panels covering the canals and everything. Everything. Asked locals. Locals happy.

Reassured.

…

Subtle changes though.

Felt unnerving, but too little to register.

Subtle. Changes.

Each act, each occasion, is worse than the last, but only a little worse. You wait for the next and the next. You wait for one great shocking occasion, thinking that others, when such a shock comes, will join with you in resisting somehow.

No such shock came.

Subtle changes.

Shocks come in various forms though.

Apathy is weird. It comes as a shock when you realise you’re guilty of it.

Felt guilty one day. Don’t blame me though, I just saw a video of some guy accused by a mob of cow-slaughter being dragged naked through a rural U.P. street, happily escorted by the police.

Forgive me, I’m not used to these things, but I saw a video of some guy accused by a mob of cow-slaughter being lynched, to use the technically correct term, and then I felt conflicted. I questioned my stances and my motivations, and I felt slightly guilty.

Felt guilty because of my fucking apathy.

Never really felt like it before.

Maybe because I never had to. Maybe because not a lot like it had happened before.

Didn’t even take up a whole news cycle. Bit of an uproar but the nation doesn’t deser… want to know about it, really.

Subtle... fucking... changes.

And unnerving, now that it registers.

The News is the news as long as it doesn’t affect you. When it does affect you, it’s fucking catastrophic. For that one cattle trader, it was. It was, for his family, and for everyone like him.

Just because a piece of news isn’t shocking just because it is just a little bit of escalation in absurdity from yesterday’s news, does not mean it isn’t worth being shocked about.

It fucking is.

But the one great shocking occasion, when tens or hundreds or thousands will join with you, never comes. That’s the difficulty. If the last and worst act of the whole regime had come immediately after the first and smallest, thousands, yes, millions would have been sufficiently shocked — if, let us say, the gassing of the Jews in ’43 had come immediately after the ‘German Firm’ stickers on the windows of non-Jewish shops in ’33. But of course, this isn’t the way it happens. In between come all the hundreds of little steps, some of them imperceptible, each of them preparing you not to be shocked by the next. Step C is not so much worse than Step B, and, if you did not make a stand at Step B, why should you at Step C? And so on to Step D.

Never been political.

Not with Family, not with Friends, not with strangers. Never felt like taking sides.

Never felt the need.

Have always been patriotic.

Never took a stand at Step B, never took a stand at Step C. Don’t want to wait till Step E, and this recent Step D seemed surreal for my country.

Felt that it needed to be said.

The statements in bold italics above are from "They Thought They Were Free: The Germans, 1933-45" by Milton Mayer.