HOW CAN YOU HATE SOMEONE ENDLESSLY?

Regardless of how you feel about Savarkar, Nehru or Modi they are not as bad as their detractors would like us to believe. They were/are ordinary human beings with extraordinary conviction to rise to the occasion of their time. Just hating them 24/7 for the rest of your life, accusing them of things they didn’t actually do or say and of being things they weren’t / aren’t, blaming them for things they weren’t / aren’t responsible for, and bringing them up constantly in contexts that have nothing to do with them makes the one who does it look very petty deranged and maniac. It’s the same kind of obnoxious, obsessive, angry and mean-spirited behavior that certain atheists exhibit toward anyone who mentions or believes in God or certain religious fanatics exhibit towards those who believe in God other than their own.

 

It’s normal to dislike people because of their politics, character or behavior. It’s not normal to be obsessed with everything someone you have disdain or distaste for does and says, or use every opportunity you can find to mention them, find fault with them, and make derisive remarks about them, and to blame them for everything that is wrong in the world. Honestly, no one has that kind of power, sorry.

 

Such hateful preoccupation/compulsion smacks of mental and spiritual illness and a lack of critical thinking skills, emotional maturity, and personal happiness and fulfillment in life. It makes other people uncomfortable and embarrassed for the one who demonstrates it, because that individual does not see his or her own behavior the way other people are seeing it: Pitiful, mean and angry. Legitimate criticisms based on facts are one thing; speculation and slander and death wishes are another.

 

Social media has helped us to fuel such anger and spread such hatred and far from being informative such hateful posts are easily picked up as propaganda by the knowledgeable. But the harm it does to the innocent and not so well read is outright dangerous. It can spread venom and enmity in a heterogeneous society and split it right down the middle. Was our country a tolerant, peaceful, progressive and blissful land of milk and honey despite the Emergency, the repeated terror attacks and the cesspool of corruption before 2014? And after the appearance of Modi has everything gone wrong? Did we suddenly become intolerant, rabid, uprooting the traditions and destabilizing the constitution because of Modi?  Nehru may have been an over-ambitious politician dying to be the first Prime Minister of independent India after sidelining more deserving compatriots but was he solely responsible for the partition of the country, the debacle in Kashmir, the loss of 1964 war with China and the dynastic politics in our country? How far do we intend to take this hateful rant and madness?

 

Unfortunately this is a phenomenon not typical to our country. You can see it in our neighbourhood – in Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh. Who so ever is in power blames the opposition for all their social, political and financial woes and the opposition pays it back in the same currency. The Sharif government blames Imran Khan for the financial mess in Pakistan and social media is busy painting him as evil, dangerous, disgruntled and a traitor. Imran supporters think that Sharifs and Bhuttos are thieves and have looted the country for long and that is the cause of their empty coffers. Rajapaksas are the divisive force in Sri Lanka and social media generated anger shooed the President away from home for two months.

 

U.S has its own favourite hate target – Donald Trump and even after 2 years of leaving office the ‘Blame it on Trump’ syndrome has not died and America today is anything but united. They hold him accountable for the Jan6th insurrection, selling national defense secrets, and getting U.S foreign agents killed and what not. Europe has invented a new villain – Putin. He is responsible for all their woes and crises. He is the poisonous snake in their paradise……as if we do not know how peaceful they have been historically and how benevolent they have been in the past towards their colonies in Africa and Asia.

 

It might be convenient and emotionally gratifying to pin all of one’s angst and dissatisfaction with the state of society and the world on one individual and pretend that if he or she would just die, the government wouldn’t be corrupt and inept, human nature wouldn’t be flawed, wars would cease, the environment would be clean, the climate wouldn’t change, and all the people in the world would join hands and sing ‘we shall overcome…..’ living in some kind of socialist paradise. However, it should be obvious to the rational individual that that is as ridiculous and fanciful a notion to cherish as certain angry atheist’s delusion that getting rid of God and religion will somehow solve all of the world’s most grievous problems.

 

Hate speech online has been linked to a global increase in violence toward minorities, including mass shootings, lynchings, and ethnic cleansing. This is particularly common across our subcontinent. It is worth reflecting on the broad similarities between populist politicians and social media companies that make them such natural bedfellows. The former’s politics thrive on catalysing feelings of unfounded fear, anger, resentment and victimhood. The amplification of these emotions, amongst others, is precisely what social media thrives on.

 

The Internet has fundamentally reshaped the manner in which people engage with the world around them. In most parts of the world, a large percentage of the population enters the virtual world of the Internet without any tools to understand the nature of the beast. We quite literally ‘hold infinity in the palm of our hand’ but do we have the means to discern what is true from what is false or differentiate between what is beneficial and what is harmful? Most social media actually thrives on entrenching ethnic, religious, nationalist, sectarian or other tribal identities. The people or organisations that define the measure of this tribalism ‒ what it means to “authentically” be Muslim, American or Indian ‒ are those with the means and money to influence social media. Thus, many people instinctively end up inhabiting echo chambers of their primary online identity. Social media induces us into feeling we are permanently in a state of crisis. Anger, fear and resentment generated from social media give us an adrenalin rush as we leap to conclusions, lap up conspiracy theories and get furious about social, cultural, political or religious issues that we feel are under threat. And if we can blame all this on one person – Modi, Trump, Putin, Nehru, Savarker we have an easy answer to all our problems! Believe me, none of them are / were all that powerful.

 

So what is the take home message? Read all that is out there in the social media, question it, critique it, read relevant literature from authentic source, appreciate the contrarian point of view and then come to your own decision. Do not believe the other guy is a villain just because your social media paints him as one. Don’t let the social media make you angry, hateful and disturbed. Come out of the echo-chamber into the real world. It is disturbing behaviour to be obsessively hateful towards any individual.  Ask yourself does the target deserve your emotional energy to hate him/her? Often your head will say ‘NO”!