The Kerala Floods Are Showcasing Indians’ Bigotry At Its Finest

Published on:

08 Jun 2021, 12:15 pm

4 min read

Once you accept that human beings are fascinating, often horrid beings, and view the general race with apathy, seeing the ugliness that festers in times of distress becomes quite a spectator sport. Even more so now considering those being afflicted are Keralites who top the list of public enemies for too many reasons for the ‘mainland’ residents. They eat beef; they’re commies, they hate Hindus, the government, the entire country and want to evangelise everyone that may stray into their line of sight. Sure, there are matters of contention for me as well with God’s own country, but whatever your issue is with someone, this is really not the time for it.

Watching people’s support and encouraging reaction to the Kerala floods and its survivors has been encouraging my faith in humanity. Immense support and aid have poured in from across regions, but of course, where there is a will, there’s a way, and hate, politics, bigotry, communalism and casual sexism has popped up through wonderful words of ‘wisdom’ and friendly ‘advice’ here as well.

It’s not just on social media either, as, on one hand, we have communities banding together – Temples opening up for Muslims to say their Eid prayers and Muslims coming together to help clean temple areas that were destroyed and providing shelter in mosques to all – but then there are also reports from on-ground camps where alleged caste discrimination is taking place. Fishermen volunteered to rescue those stranded in the floods, out of their own choice, goodwill and brotherhood, only to be turned away because a Brahmin Hindu family didn’t want to be rescued by a Christian – they would only board if the Christian doesn’t touch them. “Normally, their attitude is like this only. We just thought that in this situation, they would have changed,” commented one such fisherman in an interview.

If a massive flood and death of 300+ people don’t tug the heartstrings of any possible humanity left in people then I really don’t know what it will take for us to finally let go of our prejudices, even if just for a moment to lend someone a helping hand.

And the reasons that people have thrown around for what possibly caused so much destruction – not climate change or environmental degradation and human intervention, for sure – range from Lord Ayyappa’s rage at women entering the Sabarimala Temple shrine to the ‘cleansing’ of beef-eaters. We’ve seen posts by people saying not to donate to Kerala relief funds because they’re beef-eaters and deserve this. That they’re largely a non-Hindu population, so we need not worry too much.

For every negative voice there are 5 positive ones to drown them out and that seems to be the sentiment of most people when such negativity is brought to light – as was the response to the All India Hindu Mahasabha’s Swami Chakrapani Maharaj’s comment about Kerala and beef-eating. It is true, Keralites on-ground have come together in harmony to support one another, for the large part, as has the rest of the nation, but these voices of hate do matter. These voices are not just anonymous trolls online, many of them are people with thousands of followers and the power to influence others, such as Swami Maharaj.

We need to be aware of the dark realities of hate. Once those are recognised it can stop others from falling prey to the very same ignorance. Focusing on just the positive isn’t going to make the negative go away – in fact, not calling someone out for wrong-doing could be far worse in the long run. Instances of human tragedy are not for hate mongering and playing politics with opposing parties pointing fingers at each other. Be kind or be quiet. As Ragamalika Karthikeyan writes, it’s okay if you don’t like Kerala, it’s people and don’t want to help, the least you can do – try your hardest – is not spread hate.