An insecure world

It is proposed that persons of Asian origin be identified as Indian-British, Pakistani-British, etc. A girl of Indian origin, but whose family has lived in Britain for the past 100 years asked, does that mean they will tattoo us with that moniker? What is happening to the world? Why are we all growing more and more paranoid, more and more insecure, more and more intolerant, destructive? Has the world really progressed much since the dark ages? What is true progress? Internet shopping? Mass production?

We are hurling our planet towards sure destruction. We are blatantly abusing nature in every way possible. Sure, we are heeding what the environmentalists say and are replacing wood with steel and glass. But for that, we are gouging out mountains instead of forests. And we are replacing them with mountains of rubbish. Why do we no longer find simple things appealing? We are getting more and more alienated from nature. Successive generations of children are seeing fewer and fewer flora and fauna in their natural setting. Few of us have seen a river as nature meant it to be.

As the years go by, people are supposed to be more tolerant of one another. But it is not happening in reality. Intolerance remains, but it has taken on a different shape. Earlier the reasons for intolerance were simpler to define: colour, sex, class. Today, it takes more than a word or two to describe the reasons for prejudice. Intolerance no longer shouts out loud. It has become diplomatic. Justice and peace are the mandatory tags attached to it. Intolerance is more scheming and plotting now. Everyone has their own ideas of how to run the world and they want all else to fall in line with them. Earlier there was mere mistrust of people who are “different” from you. As long as there was a clear demarcation, there was relative peace. Today, the rules have been issued. This is the definition of freedom and if you don’t follow it, you are a threat to the world. Everything is absolute today. Soon Einstein’s theory too will no longer be allowed to stay relative.

I am not saying that we will soon meet doomsday. Life has an amazing capacity of sustaining itself. No matter how bad things are, it will be many a day before our planet decides to call it quits. But is the current state of affairs worth it? Is this the quality of life we deserve? Will we ever be able to go back to the basics and live the simple life?