“I have no colour prejudices nor caste prejudices nor creed prejudices. All I care to know is that a man is a human being, and that is enough for me; he can’t be any worse.”
~ Mark Twain
It is easy for a man to be called as a human being, but difficult to act like one. It is said that a slave wants to be like his master. This ideology has been embedded so deep into the systems of the Indians that we are obsessed with the fairness of the masters those who did rule us for 200 years. We feel proud of our generation for waging a “war” against the untouchability, inter caste marriages, sexism and many more social evils, and even winning some of those. But what about the devil rooted deep inside our hearts, racism? Problem with racism is that if humanity is a super hero, racism is its alter ego. We just wear the masks of humanity, kindness and honor; and act like the superhero called “Human Being” at most of the times. But when no one’s looking, deep down in our hearts, we are the ultimate devils. If racism was humanity’s arch-villain, it could’ve been terminated long time ago. But being its alter ego, it can’t be ended without ending the life of the super hero too. One solution is to keep wearing the mask.
We admire Morgan Freeman a lot, but fail to show the same compassion towards a black person we encounter, in reality. He might be our friend, but we don’t fail to crack a joke or two at his back. We are preoccupied by the idea that “Fair is beautiful”. Every time the advertisement of a fairness product is aired, stereotyping women as the replicas of fairness and promoting idea that one is beautiful and respected only if one is fair, humanity degrades a bit more. At first, they were promoting the idea of attracting the opposite sex by looking fair. But over the time, ideologies deteriorated more and more until those advertisements even started planting the ideas of confidence being equal to the amount of fairness a person has! That is the rock bottom of the principles of advertising. Cosmetics were shifted from the category of “luxuries” to “accessories” and now to “basic needs”, and this does apply to the gentlemen out there too. It’s not that only looks are admired in our country. But it took Dhanush a world popular song and a two hour film to be admired by the people in the North, but just a video song of five minutes from Saawariya to admire Ranbir. It’s not just about the colour, it’s not about the assaults on the students of North Eastern states and it’s definitely not about the silly jokes cracked on South Indians and addressing them as “Madraasis”. It’s all about the mentality of an Indian, which is ugly, crippled and needs immediate mending.
Why are we so repelled to the dark skin? Is this what we have learnt from THE Great British rule, to discriminate people by color? When in mythology it is clearly stated that the Lord Krishna is a dark skinned person, why is he portrayed in Hindi TV series and movies as a fair colored guy? Is it true that viewers can’t stand the sight of a dark colored god? Are our minds so degraded that the inner beauty no longer matters to us? What kind of people are we, giving importance to the darkness of the skin and neglecting the darkness in the hearts?!
On this wonderful day of 12th of February, on which a person who changed the face of humanity had come to earth, let’s remember his principles and ideologies. Some of his opinions may be indifferent and hurting, but everyone has their share of negativity in them! His name may be erased from the history over the time, but if we change our mentality, his positive ideologies are going to live for ever.
euphoricwrites 