Intolerance

You might be wondering why I have posted this article a few days after the controversy began and not immediately. I have been ruminating over SRK’s statement and the reactions he has been getting.
One thing people have not realised. SRK’s statement was not specific to his community or India. It was global. With the Syrian conflict and other incidents, there is unrest the world over.
Closer home, Hardik Patel raised the issue of reservation for the Patidar Community in the Other Backward Class Category and there were conflicts connected to that.
Is SRK being targeted just because he is a Muslim? The derogatory comments that were made against his statements came from the Hindu political fraternity.
But SRK bro, let me tell you that you are not alone. Being South Indian Brahmins, we are being targeted in the area we live! The king pin of this whole drama in our building is a Gujarati woman living next door to us. She has brought into her influence people in the entire building. Her problem with us? We are South Indians, my parents do not have a son and I am not married. Yes this is happening in the 21st century.
It all started when I refused to give tuitions to her children free of cost and declined their insistence to use my computer for free. If I had agreed, the woman wanted her children to practically stay at our home the whole day. Forget my work as a journalist (I being the only earning member at home); I would not even have had the freedom to live my own life the way I want. Even now the woman is teaching me how to live!
She is compelling us to live as her slave or leave the place. We are just the 3 of us, my parents and me. I wonder how long we will be able to hold our ground with the absence of the police support, as well. The police asked us to bring the building secretary. Our society has not been registered. Thus there is no secretary. The woman’s husband is the chosen one to represent our building by the builder. So you understand her arrogance.
SRK was told to leave India and go to Pakistan. Does that mean we go and live in the South after establishing our entire careers in Mumbai? There are many Gujaratis in the South. Shouldn’t they go back to where they belong? Shouldn’t our tormentor herself go back to Gujarat?

Though my problem differs from the global and Indian issues, being targeted is the common phenomenon in it.
I would place my bet on the issue of reservation as the root cause of the Indian situation. I and my friend, Yashaswini have thought about it and in one of her articles, she has even mentioned the solution. The only way to resolve the caste crisis is to completely do away with it in the reservation system and bring in the class system into it.
Revamping the whole system is the right way to go. This is because even there are poor people in the so-called open category and they do not get the educational course or job they would deserve and are proficient in, just because they belong to the open category. At the same time, a mere caste certificate helps many well-to-do people to access what they want. I wouldn’t want to go into the fact that they might be inefficient in it. I leave that to the authorities to judge that provided that they are efficient to judge those qualities. A revamping of the reservation system will give equal opportunities to all.
So SRK bro, I am happy that your statement garnered support from your own Bollywood community. I support you too wholeheartedly, because despite the fact that I am proud of my caste, I prefer to be an Indian first and then anything else. I have been brought up by my Mom in a secular way.

And a word for people like Barkha Dutt: You are right. People, who are not true to their country and their conscience do not deserve SRK. But good human beings like SRK belong to true human beings and true Indians like us.