FASHIONABLE DISSENT

This is the age of dissent. I don’t mean to imply that people have not expressed discontent before. They have and there have been several revolutions that have been successful enough to bring us to this point. Where for one, everyone has relative freedom to express disagreement and even more importantly, it’s so easy to do this and broadcast one’s opinion without too much personal effort or risk.

One does not have to be a Julian Assange and paint a target on oneself for the superpowers of the world to aim at or be an Anna Hazaare and endanger one’s life to get attention to one’s cause. One does not even have to leave the house. A simple ‘like’ on Facebook is all it takes to have an opinion and declare it. Twitter and status updates, online petitions and blogs – technology has made it easy to participate, so even the lazy and politically disinclined can create the illusion of a political stand.

It seems as if everyone is for or against something today. And the canvas spreads all the way from the larger issues like environmental concern to the seemingly trivial like the appropriate age for drinking. Today nothing is trivial anymore. Nothing is small enough to brush aside. Every issue is important because it seems to have enough passion both for and against it. A political stance is the must-have accessory for the fashionable and the unfashionable alike. And having one doesn’t mean that you have to really care to be consistent with it.

I happened to be on D N Road when Sunday’s protest turned violent and my brush with the incident was nothing like I might have expected. There was little anger or fear emanating from the people around and the people fleeing. Instead there was a palpable excitement. A thrill to be part of something so out of the ordinary. Rather than seek safety, many were clicking away on camera phones and composing their versions of the incident to be shared and dispersed.

It seems as if we don’t know how to protest without adding to the problem. We protest a riot with a riot, an economic slowdown with a bandh that leads to further loss of productivity, lack of political action with an opposition movement that only serves to further distract the government from the real issues at hand.

It’s time to question our own motives – do we really want something to be done or do we just want to act out and ensure that we will always have something to dissent against? Do we want India to emerge victorious and claim its place as one of the leaders of the world economy? Or do we want to bask in the prospect of it, while making sure that we get something out of the process even if it is got by standing in the way?

Dissent has become so important to the political process in India that it seems to be all that has survived from the legacy of Gandhi. We forget his self-discipline and commitment to getting things right. So let’s participate in a rally, add a Facebook like to our profile and tweet our opinions to the world. Let the Baba Ramdev’s come out and exploit our boredom to bring down the government. It will be replaced by another of our choice and that one too will be stuck in the quicksand of our dissent till another self-serving politician comes along to manipulate us into bringing that down too.

The freedom that previous generations fought so hard for is actually the freedom of choice. To have the ability to make a choice on anything that concerns us – from the choice of religion and political views to the choice of clothes and lifestyle. Even the choice of which soap or shampoo we want to use. This is the part that we all celebrate and support. But we forget that with a choice, also come consequences which belong as much to us as the choice that led to it. If we buy a soap we don’t like, we made the wrong purchase decision and are quick to correct it the next time we shop. But if we choose the wrong politician, we don’t accept responsibility. If we choose an expression of dissent that actually compounds the problem, we don’t see that.

There is an important role that dissent has played in our history. But we need to face the fact that we have things pretty good despite our pettiness. Now it’s time to do some hard work if we really want to move forward. And this calls from some real introspection when we choose a political stance. Why do we want one? Is it to make a difference to the country or just to have something to say? When we disagree, is it to solve the problem or compound it?

UNCOMMON COURTESY

Bob Biswas (from Kahaani) has become a cult figure. As the media notices this trend they also seem puzzled by it. He is neither young nor styled to be good-looking. Badly-fitting obvious wigs are not the latest fashion trend. The 6-pack abs, tough guy stance and smart stunts are missing. So what gives? How does a character become this popular without the obvious ingredients required for popularity, as defined by Bollywood pundits?

Notice the popularity of Dexter and there seems to a parallel trend on TV. Dexter Morgan’s vigilante status and better looks aside, he seems a kindred spirit to Bob Biswas. Both are unassuming, not likely to stand out in a crowd. Yet the simmering undercurrent of violence is easy for the common man (or woman) to identify with. The likelihood of being overlooked, underestimated or dismissed that might enrage the rest of us is what these men use to their advantage. Rather than make them feel ordinary it reinforces their sense of being different, and therefore special.

Bob & Dexter deal with everyday insults and onslaughts with humble ease because they have an outlet for the anger and impatience engendered by the stress of modern living. The rest of us seem incapable of shutting off the frustrations of daily toil in overcrowded, polluted, high speed cities. Few of us have opportunity to vent in the right direction. So rage at being overlooked for a promotion is taken out on a hapless domestic employee or family frustrations are relieved by aggressiveness at the grocery store. For those who drive, the most common outlet are the roads – dangerous maneuvers to get ahead of everyone, honking irrationally at the slightest delay and refusing to ever give way to another driver, a pedestrian or even a red light.

Perhaps the fact that we are not psychopaths is excuse enough. Or is it?

While Bob & Dexter are the kind of people we might not want to encounter in an isolated setting, the adulation we feel for them suggests we do not fear them. They do not fit with our conventional beliefs on what makes someone a villain. Violence itself is not sufficient to determine villainy. Bob & Dexter bring us that rare quality which is increasingly disappearing from our daily interactions – courtesy. If someone treats us with unfailing politeness we’re ready to forgive them almost anything. Villains are branded as such by their failure to be polite. The lady who elbows past you in a queue, the driver who cuts you off on the road, the retailer who is unnecessarily rude – these are the real villains in our lives.

That’s why we love characters like Bob Biswas or Dexter Morgan. Even if they do kill us, at least it will be done with kindness.