Intolerance: What, Why and Whose?

#Intolerance: What, Why and Whose?

#Pakistan was created because the #Muslim #elite  feared that in the Independent democratic India,  the #Hindu #majority might #avenge the rape, murder & humiliation heaped on them for centuries by #MuslimRulers.
Post-partition this fear found a symbiotic connection with the psyche of the Muslims of #Bihar, #UP and #WB most of whom were all for Pakistan but couldn't manage to migrate to the Holy Land (Pakistan) for various reasons including unsafe travel.
The #Congress, on the other hand, encashed the guilt-fed #MuslimFears by turning them into a #VoteBank and adopted double speak on various issues such as #UniformCivilCode ,  #Article370 on #Kashmir #EthnicCleansingOfHindus in Kashmir, #BabriDemolition and #ShahbanoCase.

Today it is the expose of the
#CongressDoubleSpeak on #Muslims triggering open #PublicDebate, to which neither the Indian intelligentsia in general nor the Muslim elite in particular is accustomed to, that is being branded as #intolerance by #AwardWapsi gang or their fellow travellers knowingly or unknowingly.

Thus this whole hullabaloo of intolerance is more about the gestational discomfort of the self-professed #secular elite used to dishing out their Double Speak as The Plural Liberal Core Values for nearly seven decades and less about any intolerance on the ground.
Does it mean that there is no change in the ground level #PublicDiscourse? The answer is NO.
There is, for sure, a sea change in terms of the #diversity of opinions and so also the numbers involved. Earlier, you had only the 'Secular' Public with less of facts and more of minority-centric ideology whereas today you have
'Publics' with more of facts and
'#BasketOfPerspectives' rather than any particular #ideology.
Is all this because of the right-wing government at the Center? The answer is No as well as Yes.
It is NO because the prime mover is #Technology , not politics.
The technology mediated
#InteractiveCommunication has taken in its embrace the defining factors of today's India:
#Democracy, #Demography and #Demand.
Let's have a look at the numbers:
105 crore (1050 million) mobile connections;
35 crore (350 million) Net connections;
25 crore (250 million) smart phones; and
93 crore (930 million) youth.

With all this to boot, should one be in doubt about who is driving whom? Actually the young are talking to each other like never before. Upto the end of the last century, a student's choice of  ideology was not an informed decision but largely inspired by his favorite teacher who, generally, in a metro would be a #Leftist and in a small town a #Rightist. But today it is the plethora of sources of information leading to as many perspectives on the idea-platter of a college going student who, instead of being over-awed by his teacher, goes for an informed choice.
Thus it is the change in the nature of the mediating technology that has led to a very rich and informed public discourse that is mostly unaffected by what goes on in the traditional media of #TV and #Newspapers. In this sense,   what is being portrayed as 'intolerance' is actually the expression of real diversity which this country has always stood for but which was stymied by the microscopic 'secular' elite for nearly seven decades and which now is democratically replaced by a more accommodating political coalition symbolized by #NDA which is more a consequence of the said demographic and technological changes and less a driver of the same.
However this is only one,  dominant though, part of the story the other part of which is the reverse impact that the new Modi-led regime has on the mobile-wielding youth which now feel inspired to speak their mind without much inhibition that earlier was the hallmark of the ideology-driven #anti_intellectual and #monolithic Indian #intelligentsia.
No wonder, people fed by one-way TV news and newspapers are shaken by the talks of intolerance all-around while those in communication through the interactive social media and mobile are full of hope and aspirations.