To be honest, that B V Srinivas (a man who deserves, at the very least, a Padma award for being the saviour of thousands of people during the recent pandemic. Read about it here, here, here, and here, amongst many such news articles about his untiring efforts to save lives in UP and around the country when even governments were helpless) was manhandled by UP police isn’t news any more than that BJP won UP convincingly after their ‘performance’ during the second wave of Covid. It’s more in the ‘dog bites man’ category than ‘man bites dog’ in UP now.
You know what, some of the smarter folks on my friend list who’ve thrown their hands up may just be right. There will come a day when fatigue will set into those that are fighting for the oppressed and the downtrodden when those very people keep turning around and kicking in the balls those that are putting their lives & livelihoods, social & financial capital, and time & energy on the line to help them. Perhaps that day is near. Perhaps it is already here.
How long will one keep championing say, those that were run over by a minister’s son, if the same people, when it is time to vote, go back and vote back those that did the running over and not those that stood with them?
Now, to the other side of the argument. I understand that the truly empathetic and the genuinely committed never give up the fight, for they are fighting not for individuals but for a principle, an idea, and the future collective. I am also aware that to claim that the ungrateful rescuee does not want to be saved even when I’m trying to help them also reeks of savarna saviour complex and noblesse oblige, which is, to say the least, pretentious, patronising, despicable at the very least. And that even a drowning person will try to kick and hit and grab their rescuer and attempt to pull them down under the water and they need to be restrained by holding them in a literal headlock to be pulled out, and this is when they know that the rescuer is trying to save them. So, I shall not quit. But I do surely retain the right to wail. To complain. To rant. Which is what I am doing right now.
And then, I shall go right back to work. Standing with the oppressed and doing all I can, which in my case is writing, financially supporting those that are doing groundwork (as well as writing), and influencing others, with the hope that I am moving the needle somewhere, somehow, and for someone, even if it is in a place that’s not on my map, through a far-fetched butterfly-flapping-its-wings effect, and for a person I’ve never met or likely to ever meet.
Why? Because I realise that it isn’t for them that I do this. It is for me. It is so that I can convince myself that I am still human. It is indeed for my redemption. I am saving no one but my own soul in the process.
So, upwards. And onwards. Get up, dust off. And march ahead. Karmanyevadhikaraste… and all that. You can keep doing you, even stuff that I may not agree with, or is indeed against all that I stand for and am working towards.
Meanwhile, I’ll continue to do me. I think B V Srinivas will agree.
I hear them saying, “You’ll never change things. And no matter what you do it’s still the same thing.” But it’s not the world that I am changing. I do this so this world will know that it will not change me.
― Garth Brooks, Garth Brooks — Fresh Horses: Authentic Guitar Tab
