India very rightly, and really righteously, condemned the apartheid regime which obtained in South Africa until the early Nineties and which segregated the nation on traces of the color of 1’s pores and skin, white, black and brown.

However is an identical type of apartheid making a backdoor entry in at present’s India within the type of political and social separation which is dividing the nation not by the color of 1’s pores and skin however by one’s ideological complexion?

India is widely known as being probably the most vibrant nations on the earth, a riotous splash of rainbow hues, from the emerald inexperienced of Kerala paddy fields to the sapphire blue of Rajasthani skies, from the golden seashores of Goa to the flaming purple of the ever present gulmohar.

However in stark distinction to this dazzling array of colors is the more and more black-and-white world of our nation’s political and social realm. Or, relatively, two separate and divided realms, one belonging to those that endorse the insurance policies of the present political dispensation on the Centre and those that oppose it, with every claiming to be the nice guys within the white hats and casting their opponents within the function of the unhealthy guys within the black hats.

Those that help the Modi authorities, on something and every little thing – from demonetisation to the brand new agri legal guidelines, from CAA to the scrapping of Article 370 in Kashmir – are dubbed as ‘saffronites’ and ‘bhakts’ by those that oppose the federal government, on something and every little thing, and who in flip are known as ‘anti-nationals’ and ‘seditionists’ by the pro-government camp.

As in South Africa’s apartheid, in our apartheid we’re not allowed to modify sides. In South African apartheid blacks couldn’t generally select to be whites, and whites couldn’t generally select to be blacks. Equally, in our apartheid we can’t elect to be generally pro-sarkar and generally anti-sarkar.

We will’t say, OK, I typically disagree with the federal government’s insurance policies however I’m all for the farm reforms it’s proposed. Nor are you able to say, Proper, I concur with a lot of the authorities’s views however I’m in opposition to CAA.

We’ve acquired to be a 100% professional or anti, in a black-and-white divide. A divide which makes us misremember that the various shades of multihued India are all equal beneath the tricolour of the Republic.

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