I have been a regular reader of articles by Swaminathan S Ankleshwar Aiyar in TOI. This love started from my student days certainly a couple of decades earlier. Earlier it was intellectually stimulating which appealed to my unsure young mind. In later years I found him opinionated and with the BJP government in place securely he seemed to be a bit in unknown waters. Two articles particularly made me feel as if he is reevaluating his prism of seeing things when he apologised for guessing it wrong that the BJP will not come back in 2019 because of UP results not going on expected lines and secondly when he acknowledged being wrong in supporting Medha Patkar.
It dawned upon me it is the mind which is the real culprit in painting a picture which is not there. It creates a prism through which we not only project falsehood but very often do not realise the structural defect in doing so. This creates divisions, animosity and non-reconciable positions in society. Not only that the real people who bring positive changes in society such as Anil Patel, Ambrish Mehta and Truputi Parekh of ARCH as stated by Aiyar, do not get glory and awards for what great they have done for society. The power of articulation without noble character is a curse as it seems in the case of Medha Patkar. One must ask what is the real motive behind these so-called public good-doers actions. Also, are they doing it out of impersonal service attitude or just intellectual superiority with hidden agenda? Such people have come to be known as urban Naxals. A label which I am not comfortable with but I understand that such people are essentially violent but have hidden behind the facade of intellectualism. I wanted to add a dishonest adjective before intellectualism but realised intellectualism is dishonest.
Let us start bringing to light our prism through we project a so-called reality and understand the real motivation behind them. I certainly do not want to encourage people who speak well but intentions are suspect and this includes me.
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