Todays headlines Intolerance.

If there is one word that occupies headlines in India today, it is intolerance. Pick up any newspaper; switch on any news channel, and the country is debating about it.

Unfortunately, the media has over simplified this. Intolerance is but only one of the many reasons why our community is distressed today. And not everyone returning an award is protesting against intolerance. Many are unhappy over other issues as well. Increasing violence, stifling of  expression,  bans, the insecurity of minorities, murder of rationalist thinkers, rapes: these are but a few of the concerns.Over the last couple of weeks, several incidents have taken place that reinforce the perception that India’s vaunted secularism is under siege. These include continued attacks on Muslims in the name of cow protection in different parts of the country and the justification of killing in the name of protection by Panchjanya Magazine, a known mouthpiece of extremists. All these incidents portray India as an increasingly intolerant society. I do not think the blame for all these can be left at Modi’s door. But it is important for him to stop the decline. A Governor who thinks Hindustan is only for Hindus should be asked to step down. A minister who thinks APJ was a good President even though he was a Muslim deserves a slap on the face. And then, there are the familiar motor mouths constantly out to create mayhem wherever possible. Only Prime minister Modi can tell them to shut up.

For all this is vitiating the atmosphere. Thinking people are unhappy. No, it’s not political. It’s not against the current dispensation. If anything, it is the voice of a new India trying to be heard over the raucous. The frustration comes from the fact that the illiberalism of the past has now been replaced by a new illiberalism, in some ways more ferocious. It is not what we expected from the new regime. Those who are returning their awards are sad, disappointed people. And they are sadder because their motives are being misconstrued.

I have seen some of them trying to explain themselves on news TV and failing. It’s not always easy to explain or justify one’s disappointment and journalists are eager to capture conflict. So they ask questions that force people, even thinking people, on the back foot. Most of them have no convincing answers to give when they were asked why they did not protest earlier, during the Congress years, when equally wrong things happened. Why didn’t you return your awards then? Such questions have no real answers. Protests are seldom timed to perfection. They happen.

The fact is: It’s a long time since we expected anything from our politicians. The Congress killed all our hope, particularly during its second UPA tenure. It was Modi who gave us hope with his high pitched election campaign. We suddenly began to believe in the possibility of change, real change. That is exactly why we are so disappointed today. The mandate for change was also a mandate for hope. And that hope has been buried. That’s all. Modi’s minders are reading too much politics into it.

If the same things had happened during a Congress regime, no one would have felt so anguished. They are anguished today because they expected far better from Modi. Modi had promised them that he would change India. He had not promised them crackpot bans or lynch mobs. He had promised hope and change. So, in their heads, Modi (and no, not the BJP) has a personal responsibility to put things right. When Modi chooses to keep quiet or look away people are even more frustrated.

The award returnees are not lemmings resorting to mass suicide. They are just few people, intelligent people, thinking people trying to express a view. This is no vile conspiracy. This is just a simple warning sign. And the current government should notice it and try to build the consensus PM Modi had promised us during his election campaign.

No one is asking for a change in government. (Not as yet.) What we want is a change in the quality of governance. Is that too much to ask for?

I say no.

NOT FOR SALE # Human Trafficking.

When the word slavery comes to mind in the present day most people think of it as something that has passed, a long and tragic historical event that involved the capture and exportation and exploitation of human beings as forced labor with no freedom of movement or choice. Slavery brings to mind the forcible deportation of Africans into the new world, associated with colonization and empirical money making ventures, like sugar, coffee and cotton. Yet, the reality of the situation is that slavery exists today, and on an even greater scale than it did during the empirical era.
Human trafficking is one of today's most egregious human rights violations. Traffickers prey on the most vulnerable members of society: people burdened with poverty, disabilities and discrimination. Trafficking in persons refer to the illegal trade or "sale" of human beings for sexual exploitation or forced labor through abduction, the use or threat of force, deception and fraud. It knows no gender, race, age, or even boundaries (due to globalization). 

Slavery today is often called by other names, like human trafficking and undocumented immigration as well as many other like savory monikers but it is still slavery and people are still stripped of human dignity, choice and human rights on a grand scale. Women and children smuggled across national or international borders are made to forcibly participate in the shady sex trade or work in unsanitary and even dangerous conditions  for little or no compensation. There are even many known cases where women and children have been taken to other countries as forced domestic servants or nannies, with coercion and fraud as a tactic for the voluntary immigration of unknowing victims and families who often believe they have done their child a favor sending them somewhere to get an education and live in a nice house. Families often do not find out until it is to late, if they ever do, that they have put their child or their sister or wife in harms way by allowing them to leave the home to help someone cook, clean or care for their children.

 The slavery of today is subtler, as there is no official government recognition of its existence in many nations, there is a great deal of governmental inaction as millions of individuals in groups or alone are smuggled into other countries to provide labor for industries which cannot hire their own workers due to pa scale, conditions and pure greed. The problem is often born of rural poverty as the people, who are given at least a minimal choice are usually made promises that are never kept and often end up in circumstances even more dire than those they are fleeing.

 At least 700,000 persons annually, primarily women and children, are trafficked within or across international borders. Many of these persons are trafficked into the international sex trade, often by force, fraud, or coercion. Traffickers primarily target women and girls, who are disproportionately affected by poverty, the lack of access to education, chronic unemployment, discrimination, and the
lack of economic opportunities in countries of origin.

 Human Trafficking has turned into a major world crisis and needs to be known about. Something needs to happen around the whole world so that human trafficking can end, what that might be nobody knows. People are doing everything in their power to try to help, and they are upgrading everyday. Even though there are lot of programs already helping to stop human trafficking, there needs to be a lot more, there can never be enough. People just need to be aware of the problem so they know what they can do to prevent it from growing and happening. If there were more people who helped and understand human trafficking then it wouldn’t be the second biggest and fastest growing crime rate in the world. “You can only sell a drug once, but you can sell a human being over and over”.