The last couple of weeks have been an utter mess. Petrol prices went up a fuckload. The internet came under censorship, regulation and other assorted red tape. And at the moment, word is the lovely state of Maharashtra is looking to enforce an arcane law requiring you to be 25 years or above and acquire a drinking permit in order to guzzle down a cold beer.
Sure, there was and is outrage, drama and impassioned pleas from folk everywhere. Now I’m no political genius or master of governance to fathom the rationale behind such moves, but it seems that all the government is doing is exercising a fair bit of control (insert Captain Obvious remarks here). You know, the sort an overprotective mother indulges in. Instead of calling you a million times a day or forcing a curfew on you, you’re being told what to do and what not to do, in spite of well, being a democracy.
Which brings me to the crux of this blog post. We all crave control in some form or another. Be it snooping on your friend’s text messages, silently observing a family member’s online antics or simply being extremely overbearing to those around us. It’s human nature. A response to some warped insecurity or another. This isn’t wrong. It’s human nature which we’re perfectly fine with. Here’s why.
The government is just acting like that one alpha male/female in a group of friends who wants to control everything from where the gang go to eat to which cinema they watch The Avengers at. Being the civil polite people that we are, we rarely do tell Mr. or Ms. Bossypants to his or her or it’s face that his or her or it’s behaviour is appalling. We may however, bitch about said person on Twitter and move on.
What’s scary in this case is, we’re not doing anything about the scenario. We’re more than happy to be resigned to the fact that for the rest of our living, social existence, the terms and conditions of where we go and what we do is decided by someone else. We’re perfectly fine with it.
Having said that, we’re completely wrong, out of line and impolite for trying to tell our lovely PM and his friends anything. After all, we’ve been conditioned to deal with it in ways that don’t involve public outcries, petitions and other forms of protest. They’re just macro scaled a social aspect we’re used to. So deal with it, be nice and stay classy (read: shut up). Well, unless you want to be labelled a maoist.
