Why don't politicians stand up against bully from their own party?

Political cult is not a new phenomenon. History has ample examples of political cults that not only rule any specific political party but also captivate an entire country with their charisma and rhetoric. Often, these political leaders develop a cult-like following, and they attain the status of messiah or become a divine figure for their followers, just like God. There are good examples like Gandhi, and there are bad examples like Hitler, but one thing is clear: political cult is not new, and it seems that we have not learned our lessons from the dangers of harboring political cult. No matter what its origin or intention is, a political cult ultimately turns into relentless bullying without exception. The leader who attains such a status doesn't like any dissent or alternative views; rather, any dissent or objection is treated as defiance or rebellion. Often, other leaders and supporters surrender to this political bullying. Such leaders have no need to be objective, accountable, or transparent, as no one, absolutely no one, from their support sphere is willing to stand up against any action taken by them or any word spoken by them. This begs a question: why don't politicians or supporters stand up against a bully from their own party? There can be only a few reasons for this; most politicians are scared of losing power, and are spineless and opportunistic, who want to cling to power at any cost. 

Advocating for their own vision and agenda is a prerogative of every leader, and there is nothing wrong with it. However, taking the entire administration hostage and stifling any dissent is not leadership or democracy; it is a dictatorship and bullying. This is what is happening in many countries, including the USA. There are just a couple of voices in each political party that dominate, and the rest all meekly surrender. If someone needs an endorsement of the Prime Minister or the President for a local election that should be centered only around local issues, there is a serious political cult problem that needs to be addressed. In any dictatorship, power is centralized, decision-making is centralized, and everything must go through the dictator or the dictator's coitre. One cannot displease the dictator and get away with it, but true democracy cannot and should not function like this. In any decentralized federal structure, every election serves a different purpose and addresses a different constituency. Presidential election is different than a ward election, which is different than a governor election, which is different than a senator or congressman election. The names and terminologies can differ, but this is how different democratic governments are structured, where there is a separation of powers, and independent institutions exist. However, if political cult and bullying dominate, these structures crumble, and one gets into a democratic dictatorship, where elections serve to fulfill the ego of one person who dominates the discourse. This is no longer a democracy but an authoritarian regime. 

Whenever and wherever political cult and bullying prevail, it illustrates the point that elected officials of that administration and party are a spineless and power-hungry bunch. When power is centralized, and one person's endorsement means everything, there is neither separation of powers nor individual accountability. But the main tragedy and worrisome part is that people are equally enabling this degradation. People are not only participating in this debacle but also actively making sure that this system becomes a new norm. Democracy is messy and imperfect, but this does not mean authoritarian or elected dictatorship is better. Any authoritarian regime is more harmful than a democratically elected government, as it stifles dissent, curbs fundamental rights, and encourages hate and resentment to harbor polarization. This is why it is dangerous when people and elected officials don't stand against political cult and bullying. It is dangerous when we allow narcissistic leaders to take center stage and control the narrative rather than working on our differences through discussions and constructive criticisms. People and politicians are trading dangerous waters in many parts of the world, and I hope they know what they are doing. I hope true democracy survives this political cult and bullying phase. If not, we all know what the consequences are, and I am not willing to go back to those dark days when the world witnessed immeasurable harm inflicted by democratically elected dictators. 

Thank you for reading, and please share your views on this topic. 

Courage is to speak when it's easy to keep mum

Bullying is a type of abuse, physical and mental abuse. It is also called ragging or many other names, but the fact is that it is a type of abuse and torture. Bullying is also different than many other types of abuse, it happens in the full public glare. It happens in schools, colleges, universities, neighborhoods, social media, families, locker rooms, and many other public places where others are present, but they either don't react or watch as mute spectators. It is also true that it is not easy to stand up against a bully or resist raging. When most don't resist. When most surrender, ignore it as a minor nuisance or a necessary evil and try to justify it as a junior-senior interaction or friendly banter. It is hard to resist it. It is hard to stand against it. Even people subjected to bullying or ragging try to downplay it as they feel resisting it is much more damaging than tolerating it.

People justify their lack of action as a choice of the lesser evil. They feel standing up for abuse is more damaging than tolerating it, they find obedience more convenient than resistance. They may have their own reasons for behaving like this. However, not everyone thinks and behaves that way. Not everyone tolerates abuse wrapped as friendly banter or a necessary evil. Some chose to speak while the rest chose to keep mum. They do it at the cost of their mental peace and without any support. It is not easy to stand up for something when you see everyone accepting the status quo and obliging. It is not easy to resist when people who should resist try to convince you to keep quiet and tolerate it. Despite all this, some show this courage, and they are heroes. They choose to speak up even when it is scary, even when they feel threatened and intimidated, even when there is no support from friends and colleagues, and even when they know that speaking up may have unfavorable consequences. 

It is not easy to stand up against a bully, but that's the choice we have to make. This bully can be anyone, it is not always a human. In many cases, it is a person or a group of persons, like your seniors or even your own family, but not always. The bully can be a religion or some age-old tradition that may force you to do something against your wish, or we may get ridiculed or heckled by society or the community just for raising our voice of dissent against such practices. We must stand, we must resist, and we must raise our voices against all forms of bullying. Why? Because that's the right thing to do. It may not be easy or convenient, but it is the right thing. Nothing may change even after we register our dissent. It doesn't matter. We must stand, not because we will see that change, but to initiate that change. Someone must initiate the process of resistance, it may take years or decades to bring that desired change after the initiation, but initiation is important. I stand in solidarity with all those who show this courage. The world may never recognize or appreciate our actions, but every place we speak up, it changes something, may be a trivial change considering the vastness of the problem, but still, it is a change. The change that is initiated by us. We did the right thing when others chose to ignore and that is what matters the most. This post is dedicated to all who chose to stand up when it is not convenient to stand; to all who speak up when it is convenient to ignore and keep mum; and who resist when it's easier to oblige and surrender. Be proud of your actions, tell your stories to kids, and inspire them to resist suppression and injustice in any form and size.  

Thank you for reading and please share your views on this topic. 

Vinay can be reached at thevinay2022@gmail.com

Civility- It's not too much to ask for

Civility is about respect and courteous behavior towards others. In today's world, it not only applies to our immediate surroundings like home, and office, but also to social media or the virtual world where most of us spend considerable time interacting with others. During any discussion or argument, all it takes just one person acting rudely to poison the atmosphere. If allowed to continue or ignored, bad behavior of one person could impact the behavior of an entire group which might result in bullying or harassment of certain individuals or groups. If you scan atmosphere on the social media or even some social gatherings where people are prone to discuss politics or religion you will realize that civility is becoming increasingly rare. People are not only becoming aggressive about pushing their own opinions on others but they are becoming rude and openly disrespectful towards each other. Is civility too much to ask for?

In any group, society, or country it is normal to have different opinions, some opinions can be radically different from each other. Some of these opinions might be against the beliefs of the majority, might even sound disgusting to some of us, or challenge some of our core beliefs but even after all this, such opinions need to be given space so that they can be a part of debates and discussions. Suppressing any opinion or view does not make it go away, rather, if suppressed, it can take the form of an underground movement and we may never know when it might end. Therefore, civility is important during any interaction, personal or public. Civility ensures a healthy environment for interaction, it allows for the exchange of ideas and a chance to understand each other without being judgemental from the beginning. Personally, I started pointing at people whenever they crossed the line and started acting like a bully during any discussion, many don't like it, but I feel the necessity of doing it. So, please remember whenever you are part of any discussion check if it is being conducted in a civil manner where each and every member is encouraged to share their view, whether proper space is provided for alternate views or they are shouted and shut down. Ask yourself, am I acting in a civil manner, please remember, rudeness is contagious, but so is civility.

Thanks for reading and please share your opinion about this topic. 

Cyber bullying - a cruel side of digital revolution

The digital revolution brought many changes in our lives. In the last two decades or so digital technology has changed how people interact with each other, it has revolutionized information generation and information sharing. At the same time, it has also created a parallel universe like our real universe, which is called the cyber or virtual world where many good and bad things happen like they happen in our real world. Cyberbullying is one such ugly phenomenon that is spreading rapidly in this virtual world. Because of the immense popularity of social networking sites and the easy accessibility of the internet and gadgets, many people spend a lot of time in this virtual world. They make many friends in this world and interact with many known and unknown people which is not possible in the real world. Bullying is a common incident even in the real world and in the cyber world, it is even more common due to the option of remaining anonymous. People get bullied for so many things, they get bullied for their appearance, expressing their thoughts, or sometimes bullying is in the form of sharing some derogatory material about them. The point is bullying happens in many forms and they all have detrimental effects to various degrees on people who are the victims of bullying. The major difference between bullying in the cyber and the real world is that in the cyber world, it spreads very rapidly, and mass bullying is very common. It really takes a few minutes or hours to make a video, photo, or post viral. People not at all related to that person or issue can comment and harass that person without revealing their identity. These cyberbullies are more aggressive and brutal as many of them think they cannot be caught, so they can say anything to anyone. It is also very difficult to design any effective laws to curb this behavior which makes it a very complex and difficult problem to handle.

I consider cyberbullying comparatively more dangerous because often it happens in a virtual world where the environment doesn't offer any protection to victims. The victim suffers in isolation as virtual world interactions are through a personal device like a smartphone, there are no physical bystanders who can intervene. It is very difficult to detect this problem, many times by the time people close to the victim know that something like this is going on it is too late as the damage has already been done. People who go through this hesitate to talk about this for the same reasons that people who get bullied in real life don't like to talk about it. But in real life, there is the possibility that some bystanders might inform authorities or even intervene to stop it or the victim might try to relocate to some other place to avoid facing those bullies but in the cyber world, both things are not that easy. It is really easy for bullies to chase the victim and intimidate them in the cyber world. This is why we need to educate our kids about cyberbullying and teach them ways to deal with it. If we don't counter this evil, then it will spread very rapidly. Any form of bullying should not be tolerated and if we all stand together against it then only we can put any brakes to these incidents. I hope no more lives are lost because of bullying, we already have enough pressure and problems in real life, and we should not make it more difficult by adding cyberbullying to that list. 

Thanks for reading and please share your views on this topic.

[Copyright: Vinay Thakur. Please contact the author for re-posting or publishing]

Leave aside religion from this incident, lets focus on main issue: BULLYING

News of Shiv Sena MP force-feeding one of the employees of a catering company that supplies food to Maharashtra Sadan (a state guest house in Delhi for VIPs/ State dignitaries/officials of the State Government visiting Delhi) is getting a lot of media attention. The news created a lot of controversy because of the people involved in this incident, MPs (members of parliament) belonging to Shiv Sena (which is a right-wing party) tried to force-feed an employee who was from a Muslim community and was fasting during Ramadan month. So it was really easy to give a communal angle to this news and as expected there was an uproar in the media with so-called secular parties objecting to this incident and others who are sympathetic to Shiv Sena downplayed it as expected. Everything happened as expected, every party directly or indirectly tried to reap some political benefit from this issue.

This is a classic case of bullying, an employee was bullied by MPs who think they are powerful and the law cannot do anything to them. That employee's religion or whether he was fasting or not, whether it was some religious fast or not is really not important here. These public representatives, who are supposed to serve people and respect the law are seen doing such rouge behavior. They could have registered their displeasure about the quality or type of food served to them by using peaceful means. There was absolutely no need to bully an employee by intimidating him and forcefully feeding him the food. For some reason, the main focus of all this debate is that this particular employee was a Muslim, and Shiv Sena is a pro-Hindu party. It seems if this employee had been a Hindu or atheist fasting for health reasons then this action would have been acceptable as no religious sentiments would have been hurt. Religion a person getting bullied should not be an issue, bullying is bad no matter who is the perpetrator and who is the victim. 

Shiv Sena MPs are claiming that they were unaware of the concerned employee's religion when they did this act, it is quite possible that they were unaware of his religion but how does it matter? Does it make this act acceptable if these MPs were not aware of this person's religious affiliation? Obviously, the religious sentiments of the employee were hurt as he was fasting but the whole focus in this issue is wrongly focused on a communal angle leaving aside the broader issue of bullying and misuse of power. When public representatives engage in such shameless and blatant acts of bullying and don't even regret that it sends a wrong message to people. It seems it's okay to bully people if their religious sentiments are not hurt, it's fine to humiliate someone if they make a mistake. Bullying is a social evil and it should not be tolerated under any circumstances. Shiv Sena MPs should unconditionally apologize for this incident not just for hurting that person's religious sentiments but for bullying him. They should accept that whatever they did was wrong irrespective of that person's religion or fast.

Indian parliament also should show some courage and try to punish its misbehaving members setting an example to follow. It seems that parliament has no control over the behavior of its members, it has no power to take any disciplinary action, especially if perpetrators are from parties in power. The real issues always get sidelined or take a back seat in all political drama, finger-pointing, and mud-sledding. Sadly this happens after every incident like this, so far no MP, especially from the ruling party, has been disqualified or even suspended for any rude public behavior or making a derogatory statement. It seems people and institutions seem to base their reactions only on the people involved in it, based on their religion or political affiliation, and not on the severity of the incident. This post is an attempt from my side to request people to look at the real issues and not be carried away by emotions or religious sentiments which all political parties want us to do. Let's use our own minds to decide what is right and what is wrong and then act accordingly.

Thanks for reading and please share your views on this topic.

[Copyright: Vinay Thakur. Please contact the author for re-posting or publishing]

Links:
1. Uproar in LS over Sena MPs forcing man to break fast

Stop bullying - it's a social evil

Recently, Amanda Todd, a Canadian girl committed suicide after relentless bullying on the internet and in her schools. A life lost for no reason. She was just 16 years old and this is not the first death, that resulted because of bullying. How serious is this issue of bullying? How to deal with it? As parents, what role we can play in helping our kids deal with bullying? There are many questions like this and this recent tragedy has brought the issue of bullying in the limelight and there is a lot of discussion going on about this topic in the media and online forums. Because of the widespread use of the internet, there is this big issue of cyberbullying. Physical as well as mental bullying (especially via the internet) both are very dangerous and affect many kids (or even adults), shattering their confidence, making them feel unwanted, and in extreme cases life is lost. 

The first thing we can do is wherever we see bullying we should speak up and try our best to stop it. Often people try to ignore it because they feel it's not their business to interfere in others' personal matters. But bullying is not a personal matter. It's a crime and we should not hesitate to tackle it wherever we come across it. It's a social evil and just because most kids are involved in this it should not be taken lightly. Many think that it's part of student life and to some extent it's true but the question is if students don't realize when they cross the limit and something like suicide results because of this then there is some big problem for sure. This problem has been there for years and keeps on coming up for debates and discussions whenever some tragedy like this happens but it never really got seriously addressed. In some form or other, it always persisted. People can get bullied for so many reasons, their looks, the way they dress, religion, race, color, sexual orientation, etc. Some people make some mistakes in their lives and bullies try to take advantage of those mistakes to bully them (blackmailing is also a type of bullying).

We need to educate kids on how to handle any form of bullying, they need to be emotionally strong and confident to confront bullies. We need to discuss these issues regularly with them and provide all emotional support. People make mistakes in their life, some time mess up big time but everyone needs a second chance. There are rules and laws to punish criminals but no one has the right to trouble or torture anyone for some of their mistakes or just because they are different than the majority, that's wrong. Both kids who bully others and get bullied need training and counseling. We should make them understand that people have different tastes and choices and we need to respect each other and give space. We need to be more tolerant towards each other. These are simple and very basic things that we can teach our kids to make them better citizens of this world. We try to teach them many things to make them devoted Christians or Muslims or Hindus but don't make much effort to make them better and responsible citizens of this world, we need to start doing this. Parents and teachers need to play a key role to solve this type of problem, it's our collective responsibility. We all need to spread the message of love, which is the greatest quality of human beings. Hate and violence only spread negative energy and emotions. I hope people try to understand each other before judging and feel love and kindness towards each other rather than hate. We need to realize that we all are different but still can live together and this is the fun part of being human, this understanding will alone help us to fight this monster of hate and violence.

Thanks for reading and please share your views on this topic. 

(Copyright: Vinay Thakur. Please contact the author for re-posting or publishing) 

Further reading:

1. Mom and Dad -- Do You Have Five Minutes?