We live in a world with 7 billion people and 14 billion faces. Simply put, everyone is a hypocrite. Now, what is being a hypocrite? You know what I’m getting at. 7 billion people and 14 billion faces. A very common phrase everyone has heard. But what it reflects about our society & way of living. Let’s take this shot and find out.
PS – this shot is filled mostly with examples of our hypocrisy as a society. I hope you find it interesting.
The author
I want to change this country but don’t want to get into the gutter of politics. Want no gender bias but I also don’t allow my daughter to come late at night. I want to achieve success but don’t wanna work for it. I want to fight for my passion but I’m too lazy about it. Who am I? A normal person. An Indian or an American. Maybe a Japanese. I’m just human. Probably now you must be getting a rough idea about what I’m talking about. People – what they say but what they do.
We are a society of hypocrites. I’m a hypocrite, you are a hypocrite, everyone’s a hypocrite. No exceptions there. We all know half the world is dying from starvation, yet we are here filling our bellies. This mostly comes in the form of criticism. How?
Criticism by a hypocrite
You read a newspaper and get disgusted by how politics is ruining our country. But what do you do? You call politics an unethical gutter and move on. You criticize the system and it’s working but at the same time don’t want to get involved. I wonder, then what gives us the right to question those in power.
I am walking down a road & fell over a pothole which is obviously the result of bad construction. What’d I do? I curse the government for their lack of responsibility and move on. It doesn’t even occur to me to cover the pothole so that someone else doesn’t fall over it, or at the very least inform the concerned authorities. You see, I don’t even realize what I did. I subconsciously just moved on without a care in the world. This is the state our society is in today.
We preach ideals and peace sitting in our homes, where at the same time half the world is falling into chaos. The middle east is tearing itself apart. Countries like Cambodia are going through brutal civil wars. But, DO WE CARE? Obviously not.
A real-life example/ Media – the true hypocrite
Newspapers and news broadcasters. Well, sort of our only source of reliable information. They are supposed to just deliver the news, not judge it. These so-called successful news networks have now become the judge, jury & executioner, conducting media trials instead of legal ones. Almost laughable.
Do read this
I live in India. We have a diverse society, needless to say. So here’s what happened. Recently a girl was shot dead outside her college. What was her fault? She was being forced to convert to Islam and marry a guy. The guy couldn’t stand the girl saying no and shot her to death. Here come the news reporters and broadcasters.
The headline said – ‘A 21-year-old woman was shot dead outside her college in Haryana’s Faridabad district on Monday by a man against whom her family had filed a complaint in 2018.’
Now, see the height of hypocrisy here. A few months back a Dalit woman was raped and murdered and I saw all the headlines stating in bold, the obvious fact, that she was Dalit. She was a woman & an Indian first, wasn’t she? But why will it matter? That won’t do for publicity. Let’s incite communal violence.
For those of you who don’t know, Dalit is a minority community in India. Let’s take another example, I’ve been observing for quite a while now. Whenever crimes are committed against a minority community like Dalits or Muslims, it becomes a political issue. The news channels all around will try to bite the head of the snake and just focus on the tail.
What if
Same example, just imagine it with a twist. What if the girl was Muslim and the boy was a Hindu. What would’ve happened then? Same headlines and propaganda as now or something different? I’ll tell you what. News headlines would be highlighting the religion and community of the victim. The city of Faridabad would have been burned to the ground by now because of communal riots. The false violence incited in the name of religion and whatnot by some intellectuals would blind us. We will stop using our own minds and let others decide for us.
See, we all are hypocrites. As a society even more so. We know what’s right and wrong but we let others deceive us.
What am I trying to say
We, as a society, are failing at so many levels it’s not enough to count. What time are we living in? 21st Century. We live in an age and day where the law is above everything else. A time where human life is placed above everything else. Yet we make exceptions in the name of religion, caste, and community.
We want changes around us, but don’t wanna change ourselves.
What should we do
How to deal with a hypocrite? Or mainly our own hypocrisy?
From the pothole on the road to a crime committed in society, it’s our duty to differentiate between right & wrong. We need to think for ourselves & not let others do it. If we want to change, we have to bring it ourselves. No one else is gonna do it for us.
Be the change you wish to see in the world.
Mahatma Gandhi
The guy sitting next to you on a bus isn’t Muslim, Hindu or Christian. He’s a human being just as much as you are. And the day we all realize that, will be the day of the dawn of change that we all want but are not able to have.
That’s what I think, at least.