I have just seen a documentary on genetically modified foods & read Next (by late Michael Crichton) again. Both talk about the inherent problem underlying patenting of living organisms or their genes / parts.
Now, we generally see our parliamentarians arguing about trivial issues & the media showing similar stupid issues all day interspersed with ads by large corporations. I used to wonder why somebody doesn't tell both these guys to go find something more sensible to do. Then again, after going through the above two items, it has dawned on me that maybe that is what the hidden agenda is: to keep the public at large running around their life & be bombarded by senseless issues rest of the time, so that the real & important issues are hidden behind the screens.
If one were to just read through the list of acts passed in the parliament without so much as an hour's discussion, one would understand. Increasingly, countries are passing laws that profits larger corporations. What is the largest source of money controlled by the least concerned people? It is inevitably the public funds. Any subsidy, grant, loan is provided from the public corpus and accountability is minimum - not just in India - but worldwide.
So what do large corporations do? They dont market products like consumer goods- they market items for public body consumption - health, arms, agriculture, public services, etc. What do the largest corporations sell us? They sell us fighter jets without accountability, vaccines & emergency medicine procured by the government without adequate tests or assurance, genetically modified food sold through government gene banks, public services like consultancy, water supply & waste management, electricity, etc that no person is able to question directly. It is simply the money that is taken from the public in form of taxes, and not given accountability of. The public is not in direct control of this money, and the people entrusted with this money can be easily bribed or provided stake in the corporations in order to gain access to the money.
If we see around, there are a million examples - Dabhol Power Project, Bhopal gas tragedy, Submarine scam, Bofors scam, etc etc...We are being systematically robbed (yes, that is the correct word) of our earnings, and the corporations are getting more powerful using the same money, and eventually even control what rules apply to them. Its a vicious circle that will end in the slavery of a general person to larger corporations - the future kings / dictators of the world.
This is where all the farce comes in - caste politics (a la Mayawati), regional politics (a la Thackereys), saas bahu serials, pointless arguments on news channels (both funded by ads of larger corporations, and hence dictating what should be shown), reality shows, and in extreme cases even acts of terrorism - in short anything that distracts or disrupts the normal persons life enough to take his or her attention away from what is happening to public funds, public rights and opinion on things that are actually affecting the world at large...
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soumya posted this:
In an age of fast tracked consumerism and blind sided sense of morality, conscience can be a liability. In fact, any diatribe on eroding values is actually frowned upon. The violation of the principles that advocate those old world shrines of love, peace, communion have become landmarks of achievement, a signpost of a society's progress.
-That's not faith, that's farce!
Small wonder that any and all media outlets resort to creating a matrix by dint of their sansanis and saas-bahus that shrouds the reality in a veil of instantaneous self-gratification. The contents may vary in concept, but not in purpose. They are designed and executed with the single minded objective of blindsiding a few to the pains of many (not to mention the big bucks that the media makes in the process).
Why does our country not know about Irom Sharmila (I didn't even know that an act so horrific as one that was described in that article even existed), or the massacres at North East (most people stay blissfully aware), or closer "home", the disenfranchised riot victims of Gujarat who for the last 8 years do not have a roof over there head.
-That's not Faith, its farce!
Because, we are a nation too obsessed with self progress, progress at the cost of society, at the cost of our fellow being. We are so wrapped in that disease called individualism, that any and all elements falling outside the lakshman rekha of our definition of the self immediately gets ostracized. Me Myself and I reign (Non Jim Carrey fans would never get this)!!
We hailed the advent of nuclear families, and yet we all resemble rudderless ships, gone haywire in an increasingly crowded, and yet (un)surprisingly lonely society. I'm one of those who never knew the joys of a festival spent enjoying with my cousins. What surprises me, is the myopic vision that I see replicated around. Joint families are increasingly becoming a museum caricature, a sign of the times gone by, a drawback, that the society has seemingly cured itself from. Yet, the joi de vivre of a quiet evening with a grandma will remain a matter of cosmic mystery for our generations to come. Of listening to old world wisdom from aged uncles, of helping our grandfathers walk upto the idol placed in a corner of the prayer room to aid him pay homage to his god, to his faith would draw sniggers for being uncool. But our nintedos and Samsung Pearls will never substitute for real companionship, leave alone offer guidance that can only be borne of experience and doled out of sheer altruistic sense of welfare. We turn our faces and scoff - "Big deal..."
-That's not faith, that's farce!
Our very sense of the holy Lord has been razed to a frenzied competition to assert by right of might, whose god is better. In times, when our inner voice has been deemed an "outsider", we have placed our confidence in our faith by the wealth poured in its edifice and the quantum of lives that the alleged heretics of that belief consumes.
- That's not faith, that's farce!
And then, I see a popular sportsman put his nation before his state, I hear an actor whose religion belongs to a minority community in my country proclaim that the community has been treated better than elsewhere (with room for improvement), I read of the likes of Irom Sharmila, Tukaram Omble and hundreds and thousands of nameless faceless identities who have risen above themselves and the prevailing constraints to give their life and society a meaning.
That's Faith, and not farce...
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