The denizens of this country have recently been through a roller coaster ride, confusing them whole lot whether they are in for a boon or a bane. It started with India’s super show in the World Cup cricket, including a convincing win over the arch rivals Pakistan, till the team’s meek surrender to Kiwis in semifinal, ending the team’s WC campaign. In between, Dhoni, Shami, Kuldeep became heroes one day and villains the other! Jadeja shone after being categorised as a “bits and pieces cricketer”.
Then came the concerns around monsoon. From weak monsoon affected by El Niño to plentiful of rains in some parts causing unprecedented floods, deaths and miseries, has left the people floundering whether to celebrate rains or worry ! Of course, while some parts have received and are receiving record rainfall, including our Mumbai, the drought like situation in Marathwada hasn’t improved much with some of the dams reporting less than 1% water holding of their total capacity! If the rains don’t catch up in next few days and become more fairly distributed, it’s going to cause catastrophe in over watered as well as under watered areas!
Towards the May end Modi Government came back to power with overwhelming majority and the first statement made by our PM was in favour of the need to include all sections of society in the growth agenda. However, the nation again witnessed a couple of cases of mob lynching, enough to divide the intelligentsia into worriers and warriors with 49 writing to PM against this polarisation and 62 opposing those 49! Mob mentality is a very fearsome phenomenon and no amount of security and law enforcement can totally arrest this unless the society itself realises the perils of this! Mob lynching tantamount to people taking law in to their own hands and stray instances have the potential to flare up in to a full fledged civil unrest. India has largely remained a tolerant and peace loving society and both the sets of ideologies will do their best by working on the ground level to make a difference rather than this showy gesture of shooting out their mouths and pens! Euphoria over Modi’s inclusive policies or dangers of the polarisation of communities and societies – both are a bit confusing!
Social media celebrated the cold reception on Imran’s arrival in US, but his clever manoeuvring in eliciting Trump’s mediation offer for settling Kashmir issue and restoration of US aid towards the end of his visit shifted celebration to the other side of the border!
Indian cricket team, rains, Modi’s inclusion agenda or Imran- all these are to be seen as events that have some very serious messaging in store for us! Let’s not view these are booms to celebrate or banes to lament , but as learning to improve our future. Let’s adopt water harvesting and plant trees, look at cricket as a mere game and encourage other sports also, spread the message of unity to wrest the initiative from these intellectuals who have lost credibility and leave Imran to Pakistan and worry about our beloved nation and all these would become boons for us!
Arvind Arya blog 