Pseudo Activism
April 1, 2012 Leave a comment
A lot has been written about activism and how people do their bit of shouting and slogan chanting and go back to their normal lives, soon forgetting what they had demanded while they were doing it. They were giving their 2 paise towards the cause. I would like to give my 2 paise worth of opinion on the same thing.
Yesterday, I ended up at India Gate, a monument which is worth a visit during the evenings for the sheer pleasure of sitting on the lawns and chill out, with a couple of colleagues and a good friend (was my client at one point of time) from Europe. It so happened that we ended up at the place at 8:25 pm. If someone didn’t know the significance of the time, it was a mere 5 minutes before a concept called Earth Hour. I was all excited about clicking the structure in all its splendour under the lights. However, as we moved towards it, we heard a count down. And kaboom! The lights went off. We heard slogans being chanted and a lot of news vans and journalists around it.
It didn’t take me a long time to realize that these people were observing Earth Hour. What I wanted my photo to be like was this
Image Courtesy : CC-by-sa PlaneMad/Wikipedia
What I ended up with, was this.
Image Courtesy : My SONY DSC H10
My angst is not because we missed out on some beautiful pics. What really annoys me is the self righteous stance that all these activists take. I think that it is a vocation for the jobless and the retired, who don’t find peace sitting in arm chairs. Agreed, all such movements are towards making the world a better place, but is that about it? Shouldn’t this be an ongoing process instead of simple spending a day of the year, in this case an hour.
I’m sure that the world could have done better without the slogans, which is as much a contributor to noise pollution as vehicles.
- Did the activists use public transport to come to the venue?
- Did they realize that there were burning fuel in the process?
- Did they know that candles released fumes which are harmful to the environment too?
- Were they trying to create awareness and not simply trying to be a part of the crowd?
- Were they doing their bit every day of the year to make the world a better place?
The pessimist in me thinks that the answer to all these questions is NO.
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