Seventy Three Years of Freedom, without Independence of Thought

To look forward with clarity, we must sometimes glance backward.  For a moment, let us disconnect ourselves from our self and observe objectively, what all has been happening around us, with us and by us. Irrationality has been peddled as rationality and unfortunately, it has been winning.  Intolerance has been promoted in the name of tolerance, conformity has been sponsored as diversity, violence has been tolerated and ignored in the name of peace, history has been destroyed to preserve it, and lack of intellectual curiosity has been served as education; and all this and much more has brought us to where we are.

 

Television anchors and too many modern educators – often unable to think logically themselves – are afraid of differentness.  They urge diversity as long as “differentness” is the same as what they think.

 

Sadly, suppression of independent thought is the hallmark of a sick, unthinking society – one increasingly unsure in its underpinnings, ignorant of how it got to where it is, afraid of history and the future. Deep conversations get superficial, as citizens are unable to defend ideas.

 

Organized educators promote those “different like them,” while seeking to silence anyone different “not like them.”  The hypocrisy is, of course, transparent.  It is also coercive, anti-democratic, anti-free speech, and pits the “collective” against the individual.

 

Our media are corrupt, our youth unfamiliar with logic, ignorant of Indian and world history, blind to critical thinking. Why? Because we have somehow evolved into a society where “group think” is rewarded, sameness and conformity enforced, independent thought increasingly condemned.

 

In the case of politics, media, and left-lurching educational institutions, such behaviour suggests a society dangerously leaning toward socialism, communism, fascism, and centralisation of power; at the expense of independent thought and individual liberty.

 

Leftist groups and administrators ban intellectual discourse, labelling traditional, historical, different, and diverse ideas as anti-social, unsafe, emotionally violent, triggering, or – sweet irony – intolerant.  Likewise, University teachers’ unions insist on idea suppression and socialism. 

 

How did we get here? Until the Muslim invasions, Indians and Hindus were synonyms.1200 years of non-Hindu rule may have failed to convert majority of Hindus into non-Hindus, because faith is more deeply rooted in the conscience of a society, this regime of non-Indians succeeded in eroding our education and thought. How did they do it? They did it by instructing our youth to hold in higher esteem those who think alike than those who think differently.

 

Integrity, liberty, and truth leaked from our society because we failed to defend them. The consequence is for us to see - dishonest government, educators, and media.

 

Needed is more honest thinking, blunt talks, and restored capacity to listen; a desire to learn and seek truth; not suppress it.  Needed is courage to accept that humans see the world differently, and that is good. By listening, reading, and thinking, we inform each other. That is rational thought. The opposite is dishonest thinking, and the end of integrity.

 

(First published 21 July 2020)

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