Whose business is it anyway?

We have opinions on everything that happens outside our borders, but refuse to extend others that courtesy

A chat show host who has spent decades trying and failing to become India’s version of Oprah Winfrey recently denounced Meghan Markle minutes after the latter’s record-breaking interview aired in the UK. She wrote off all her responses and said she didn’t believe a word of what the former princess had to say about racism, her mental health, or relationships with the British royal family. Naturally, these opinions were not based on facts, because they would only get in the way. Markle was not, to my knowledge, a close friend of the television personality. Yet, pronouncements were made with authority, and outraged tweets responded to with condescension.

Thousands of other Indians jumped in on the action, analysing the monarchy, sharing their views on Markle, her husband and child, and doing this in the unselfconscious manner that defines how millions of us engage with the world on social media. If there is something happening to someone, somewhere on Earth, we feel a strange obligation to comment on it irrespective of whether it affects us or not.

Part of this can be put down to human nature, of course, and the nature of technology that makes sharing so ubiquitous, but I find it strange how this need to be vocal isn’t appreciated when the tables are turned and people outside our borders decide to comment on what happens here. They are supposed to watch while women are raped, minorities murdered, and comedians arrested for jokes they didn’t make.

The trolls who now live permanently among us didn’t think twice about attacking Greta Thunberg a few weeks ago, all for daring to draw attention to Indians abandoned and ignored by their own government. Thunberg turned 18 this year, but that didn’t stop our keyboard warriors from casting aspersions on her character, all because she had the temerity to talk about something that was supposedly none of her business.

Pop star Rihanna was targeted not because she said something our own celebrities shied away from, but because she simply dared to ask why the rest of the world wasn’t paying attention to an issue that was clearly important. Millions of us chose to focus not on the question she posed, but on her choosing to ask it in the first place. She wanted us to look at something happening in our backyard, with serious implications for our future, but we opted to miss the wood for the trees instead, because hate comes easier to us than love and acceptance. We should have thanked her for doing what we ought to have done, but we attacked her instead, because that is the kind of response that is increasingly rewarded in this new, hateful version of India we call home.

Who creates these rules anyway? Why are they applied indiscriminately depending upon what is being said about India? How can foreigners who praise us be applauded, while those who question some of our undeniably barbaric habits be abused? To evaluate and welcome criticism is a healthy sign, and everything about our behaviour online reeks of something that is clearly unhealthy and rotten.

If we have a problem with foreigners expressing an opinion about India or the dubious practices that are carried out daily within our borders, we should refrain from butting our own noses into what is essentially their business. We should save our comments about which actor needs to be cast in the next Batman movie, which politician deserves to lose an election, and which football player should be benched before the next game.

We spend our free time shooting our mouths off on people and events that have little to do with us but refrain from taking too close a look at issues that have the power to shape the lives of those who come after us. Is this wilful short-sightedness, something we are trained to do, or a habit we adopt because it is a sign of who we are becoming?

What we fail to understand and accept is that communication is a two-way street, and the world growing smaller than before only highlights how we are all connected as a race. Something that takes place in a corner of Europe has the power to affect a community in Ludhiana, because we increasingly live interconnected lives. It is only when we accept other points of view, irrespective of whether we agree or disagree with them, that we can understand ourselves a little better. And God knows we need that more than ever.

When he isn’t ranting about all things Mumbai, Lindsay Pereira can be almost sweet. He tweets @lindsaypereira. Send your feedback to mailbag@mid-day.com

The views expressed in this column are the individual’s and don’t represent those of the paper.

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