There is no "Good Extremism"

Learn from the mistakes of others. You can't live long enough to make them all yourself.

I didn't find any better quote to start this blog. There are many lessons as a country we can learn from History or from other nations. Specially, we can learn many things from Pakistan. Yes, you read it write, we can learn many things from Pakistan's mistakes.


We remember when Pakistan was encouraging their agenda against India, in form of Good Taliban & Bad Taliban. Over the years, as a Nation & society, Pakistan has internalized the "good Taliban, bad Taliban " policy, which later affected them in terms of their own security, peace, and economic(all in negative ways).




Image Source: Google


Sadly, the Indian state and society seem to have embarked on the course of internalizing ‘good extremist, bad extremist’. Things have reached a point where even a neutral remark or comment against extremists can cause a huge loss, there may be an attack on you/your product/your image/your business/your home. Even while writing this, I am trying to avoid any name or cast/religion/party, because I already got several intimations for my opinions already.


We got lots of time to blame the TV/News channel. Yes, we can have a discussion on that. But don't you think what is happening on our TV screens is just a demonstration of our opinions, our opinions as a society?


For example, if you speak against Jihadist terror, it's assumed you are anti-Muslim, speaking against Nathu Ram, can make you anti-Hindu. Speaking against NaMo, will make you "chamcha" and speaking in favor of NaMo, will make you "andh-Bhakat".


The point is that as a society we are losing the ability to think logically to form our opinions on any issue. We are losing the ability to accept different opinions and in a mode of self-declared righteousness, we already started demeaning someone else's faith/opinion/belief system. And all political parties are part of this, all are using the momentum of society for their personal gain.


As per the Global Peace Index (GPI) 2019, India stands at 141st position, among 163 countries, and a fifth in the South Asian region. The GPI takes into account parameters like numbers of deaths due to internal disturbances, level of perceived criminality in society, level of respect for human rights, terrorist activities, number of imprisoned persons, numbers of violent demonstrations, and access to small arms, and so on.


I often heard from a few of my friends that Some extreme attitudes and emotions are quite appropriate. There is not necessarily an association between extremism and violence or extremism. And I also agree with this, but how you will define that boundary? How will you stop when this extremism will become an outrage, violent outrage. We can see many lynching cases in which so-called peaceful extremism turned into violence and people lost their lives.


In this, forget about the government, civil society can play a major role. Being locally rooted, civil societies have extensive knowledge of local dynamics & trends. Undoubtedly, there are other important stake-holders too, like teachers, researchers, media, IT & Social Media, police, etc. But all these will be derived from civil society only.


Before appreciating any extremist's action, just think twice, what will be its next step, and what will be its impact. There is a very famous proverb in Hinduism, " while selecting from Good & Right, always select Right". So, just be honest to yourself while choosing the right. Sometime, it may not be that good for you, but its result will always be good.


Any extremist action will have a negative impact in the long term, you may survive, but the generations need to pay, as Pakistan is paying for their "Good Taliban, Bad Taliban" policy. Let's support each other instead of waiting for some law or government.


Jai Hind!!