We may well need a Twitter Penal Code!

(Published in The News Minute on 22 June 2014)

Aware, empowered and strong we all become because of the spread and the ease of access of the social media, especially Twitter. Right from the Prime Minister of the country to the person next door we get to know what people do and what they think, on a minute to minute basis. News – information (at times disinformation) and views – come so quick and in plentitude. 

I use the word ‘empowered’ because in Twitter, unlike the conventional information providing media, one can not only hear what one says but, also respond – second, argue and question. To our response comes another response, and to it another, and it goes on and on. It becomes a potpourri of views, to an extent empowering.

But, sadly, all is not so rosy in Twitter. There thrives a fervent section among the Twitterati, who mount vociferous abuse on those who speak something against their beliefs and faith. Criticism is fine and even necessary, but certainly not abuse in the guise of it. If one does not like a particular person’s views, he can very well not ‘follow’ that person on Twitter. But, far from doing that, there is a strange section among the Twitterati who ‘follow’ more carefully those with whom they have diagonally opposing viewpoints, wait for them to speak, and then pour abuse like molten lava in an indefatigable manner with an intention to stifle them. Among those tweeple on the receiving end; some do succumb, tweeting no more of that. Some are sangfroid, with a say-what-ever-you-want kind of attitude. Some, albeit very few, fight back. Many ignore; but not beyond a level. Indeed, the level of toleration needs to be too high, and if one wishes not to bow down and to keep tweeting their views, what they should develop is a thick skin. 

Here are some celeb Twitterati who get the most of it.

On 8 June Smt Sagarika Ghose of the CNN IBN tweeted ‘Why is press freedom in jeopardy across the globe? Delighted to be presenting India paper at global media women retreat!’ Not much time had passed when her tweeple ‘haters’ took her to task. ‘I swear I read that as ‘Global MediaWORM Retreat’ – a place better suited for you perhaps,’ tweeted one. Another tweeted, ‘Who will listen to you jeehadi brainless anchor who has been strip(ped) off from IBNLIVE? Keep tweeting bullshit Indian not interested.’ 

On 2 June when she tweeted ‘Its been a long and wearying election & its time for a break at last! Stay well and stay cool folks.:),’ a follower of hers replied ‘Come back soon… India needs journos with spine, now, more than ever!’ To this tweet came a reply, ‘Can’t say about the spine – but on FTN (Face The Nation, a show she hosts) one certainly saw the biceps :)’ Abuses in professional to personal front, such is the level to which some tweeple can stoop!

When Shri Shashi Tharoor tweeted yesterday ‘Someone needs to remind PM @narendramodi of these views of CM Narendra Modi..’ sharing a link where Shri Narendra Modi as Gujarat CM had asked Shri Manmohan Singh to withdraw the hike in freight charges, a tweeple replied thus: ‘Yes we have also reminded him about synonyms death of a lady…. Yaad bhi hain ki bhul gayein.’ It seems some tweeple do not even let free those who have ascended from earth. When there were abuses all along, Shri Tharoor, probably pained at what he was reading, did not bother to reply. A tweet came, ‘shashi ji do you ever read our tweets even,’ and Shashiji replied ‘sometimes!’ Alas, what else could be have said?

Politicians and journalists are not the only ones to be heaped with abuses. Academicians, too, get their share for voicing opinion on Twitter. On 7 June when Shri Ramchandra Guha, a pre-eminent historian tweeted that ‘The largest and most influential ‘foreign-funded NGOs’ in India are in fact BJP and the Congress..’ and shared a link of a newspaper article titled ‘Delhi HC finds BJP, Congress guilty of receiving foreign funding,’ an exasperated man replied thus: ‘MORONS 1st,this story is 25 years old..2nd political party is against India?U r true moron and invloved in anti national activites.’ 

Well, to who say that historians should stick to topics of History alone, here’s what happened. On 10 June when he tweeted ‘Gandhi, speaking in Madras, March 1919: ‘There is too much recrimination, innuendo and insinuation in our public life...’ the tweets in reply were ‘From our eminent distorian,’ ‘someone seems to be a fan of " Back to the future",’ ‘… there is not a single favorable comment on this joker's tweet’ and so on. 

This morning Shri Siddharth Varadarajan, former Editor of The Hindu tweeted ‘My twitter day usually starts with a bunch of Hindutva types copying me on some anti-Muslim rubbish and me then muting them. Score today: 18’ In less than a minute he got a tweet in reply, ‘wow. That’s all you are reduced to now. What a fall.’ 

It was a trend in India in the past to call people who had opinions contrary to theirs as Communists and agents of the CIA. Very recently Shri Sanjay Jha, national spokesperson of the Congress party had, following a dispatch authored by a US Department of State diplomat, in a tweet on 25 April, called Shri Subramanian Swamy a CIA agent. Swamyji, the maverick he is, took the issue head on by accusing the Congress spokesperson of libeling him and served a legal notice on him. Sanjayji replied to the notice saying that his ‘impugned tweet’ was an attempt by him ‘solely to invite discussions in the social media to seek perspectives…’ and tendered an ‘unconditional apology’ and also promised to ‘delete the said tweet forthwith.’ 

Seldom do instances like these happen. Very few people read such tweets that come in response to theirs, let alone take them seriously. However, abuse should be stopped. Without which, rather than being a beautiful platform for sharing information and views, Twitter would turn into an ugly place. The easiest way is to not ‘follow’ those whose views one never concurs. But the urge in you to know what they tweet does not let you to do so, you must not reply, or at least, reply with civility. No one likes to see abuses being piled when they enter the world of Twitter. If nothing of these works, perhaps, we may well need a TPC, a Twitter Penal Code! Let such a day never come. Happy Tweeting!

Why has the language debate been revoked? We need closure

(Published in The News Minute on 20 June 2014)

The Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi's taking oath in Hindi during the oath taking ceremony, and many of his ministers following suit had sparked a minor speculation about the re-emergence of the most dangerous, yet, for long subsided, language debate in our country. It was being said that there was a possibility that Hindi would be made the official language of the Union of India. The speculation received further mileage when the Prime Minister spoke in Hindi to the SAARC heads and also in the Bhutanese Parliament. His speaking in Hindi shouldn't have been given such a dimension given the simple fact that he is more comfortable and at ease in communicating in Hindi than English.

However, the development that has now taken place needs to be given some serious thinking. The central government has ordered its officials to use Hindi on social media accounts. Political reaction came immediately from the DMK head Shri Karunanidhi. "No one can deny it's (the central government) beginning to impose Hindi against one's wish. This would be seen as an attempt to treat non-Hindi speakers as second-class citizens," said the former Tamil screen play writer turned politician. 

To understand the language issue in perspective, one must turn back into the pages of history. The first opposition to Hindi came even before independence in 1937 when Madras was under the Congress ministry headed by Shri. C. Rajagopalachari. In order to equip the people of Madras to be 'employable all over India' he had made learning Hindi compulsory in government run schools. However, understanding the difficulty that would be faced by some to learn a 'foreign' language, he said that failing in the Hindi examination would not block the students' promotion to the higher class. He likened Hindi to 'chutney on the leaf,' asking people to 'taste it or leave it alone.' 

The issue was as simple as that but the opposition parties in general and the Justice Party (which would later become the Dravidar Kazhagham under Periyar E.V.R. and even later split to form the DMK under Shri Annadurai) in particular politicized the issue and saw it as an act of undermining the Tamil language. Hindi was viewed as Aryan and incorporating it in Dravidian Madras was something that the parties could not brook. Protests in large scale were organized under the leadership of Shri E.V.R. Naicker. Arrests, by the beginning of 1939, had reached a figure of 683. The policy was later dropped by the British when the Congress ministry resigned following the second world war. The protests took a toll on the popularity of the Congress party in Madras and strengthened the position of EVR (he was since then referred with reverence as Periyar, the Elder One) and his protege Shri Annadurai, fondly called Anna. 

The next major opposition came in 1965. Republic Day of that year was pregnant for it celebrated the fifteenth anniversary of our cherished Constitution and it was this date that was set by its makers to make Hindi the official language. Fifteen years 'grace period' had been given for all regions to learn Hindi. The makers of our Constitution had chosen Hindi as the official language, but not without opposition. The fact is that the motion was passed with a majority of just one single vote. However, when there were unending misgivings about Hindi being given such a status, the Official Languages Act of 1963, on the insistence of the then Prime Minister Shri Jawaharlal Nehru included a clause that English 'may' still be used along with Hindi in all official communications. But, sadly, Jawaharlalji would not live till 1965, the deadline. After his death, the Hindi zealots had tried their best to enforce what the Constitution had laid. Their main argument remained that Hindi was the most spoken language in India. Strongest reactions came from Madras. The ever articulate Anna, who was then the leader of DMK, replied with a ridicule. 'If we had to accept the principle of numerical superiority while selecting our national bird, the choice would have fallen not on the peacock but on the common crow.' The centre did not relent.

On the Republic Day two men in Madras self immolated in protest. I sacrifice my life at the altar of Tamil, one wrote before committing the act. Madras was in a fury. There was rioting, a police station was set on fire, boards displaying names in Hindi were blackened, arrests crossed thousands and two central ministers from Madras resigned. The centre then bowed. Prime Minister Shri Lal Bahadur Shastri announced that Jawaharlalji's promise would be kept, notwithstanding what the Constitution had laid. 

Since 1965, there hasn't been much of the language debate. But, the issue remains far from being fully settled. It is like a sleeping volcano, the lava of which has gained more heat and vigour because of Modiji and his government's order. 

Shri Mulayam Singh Yadav of the SP has demanded a ban on use of English in Parliament. "We are ready to speak in Hindi if Mulayam Singh is ready to talk in Tamil. Let him learn Tamil, and we will learn Hindi," Shri T.K.S. Elangovan of the DMK is reported to have said some days back in response. More recently, yesterday, he said that if the 'government respects the Parliament it will respect Nehru's words.' The ruling party in Tamil Nadu, the AIADMK had issued an order that only Tamil shall be taught upto class tenth. It says that the students, if interested, can learn other languages later. It would be detrimental if politicians and political parties make such demands and issues such orders. They should be more accommodative and act as statesmen than politicians. 'The bane of India,' said Shri Nani Palkhiwala 'is the plethora of politicians and the paucity of statesmen.' Imposition will never help the language cause. Debates and consensus alone will prove fruitful and lasting.  

The three language formula that had been advocated should be put to practice. What Shri Robin Sharma said is true that 'what makes relationships, communities and countries great are not the things that we have in common but the differences that make us unique.' Of course as a sub continent, we are diverse, but, it is good to have as an official language one that has its origin in our own land, than having’foreign’ English. Whether it should be Hindi, or Tamil, or some other language can be debated. Hindi may be numerically superior but the concerns of every language should be taken into account. Politicians issuing statements that are contradictory to each other from every corner of the country can affect the existence of our country. 

The government at the centre should put an end to this debate once and for all. It has a clear mandate to take a decision. It should immediately convene a conference of states and find a concrete solution for the problem lest it pave way for riots and unnecessary animus between people speaking different languages. For the sake of its existence, the central government should not sink responsibility and yet again leave the issue hanging. It is a difficult decision to be made, but, imperative. 

'Those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything,' Mr George Bernard Shaw had said. May those who take part in the language debate do so with ideas in their minds that can accommodate change.

Jai Hind!

Love the ones who hate you

Even the best and the most beautiful of all people have had people who hated them. Lord Jesus Christ, Mahatma Gandhi and Sir Abraham Lincoln had haters. Then how can you and me not have our share of them!

From great or extraordinary lives to special to ordinary lives, the number of haters normally increases. Why is this so? It is because extraordinary people are great, their thoughts transcend all sorts of physical and mental boundaries, their mind not myopic, their deeds never destructive and their love always limitless. As we become less great or shift from extraordinary to ordinary, we see many of these traits evanesce and observe more people hating us. Making our lives great could take much time and will require a great deal of effort but winning over our haters can be easily done and would be a step in the right direction to be happy and successful.

Haters are ubiquitous and we can neither run away from them nor can we avoid them. All what we can do is to engage with them. But how? By giving them the taste of the same medicine they give us? Oh, no! Love them, love them as much as they hate you.

Hatred comes easily, it is a shallow feeling and it does not come from the bottom of our hearts. Those who rely on the weapon of hate, do not actually rely on their hearts. They turn into slaves of their own momentary feeling of hatred.

Loving your hater does not mean that you have to submit to his wrongs. Oppose him with all your might, says Gandhiji, but patiently and without resentment suffer all the hardships that he may subject you to. This simple rule itself can mend your hater's mind. The hardship you face will definitely melt the hatred of the greatest of your haters.

Next we need to be kind to all, more so to our haters. Kindness, says the leadership guru Mr. Robin Sharma, quite simply is the rent we must pay for the space we occupy in this planet. Being extraordinarily kind to your hater gives him a humbling experience which would reform him.

Haters are not always filled with hatred alone. They, too, have goodness in them. We should remember what the great orator and Tamil politician Shri. Annadurai succinctly said to his partymen, 'The rival garden's jasmine is also fragrant.' Our task remains primarily to explore the goodness in the people who hate us. And once we get to know that, we start to think about their goodness and then slowly become appreciative of them. The great Leo Tolstoy asks people to be like the spider that spreads out in all directions its web, the web of love, and to catch in all that comes.

To be successful is everyone's wish and to be so one must win over most, if not all, of his haters. The successful person, said E.N. Gray, has the habit of doing things failures don't like to do. Develop the habit of loving your haters as much as they hate you, not all can do this, but, if you do you will soon see yourself becoming happy and successful.