Image credits: Scroll.in

When Trojan intruded Apolitical & Constitutional Protests of JMI & others

by with No Comment BlogsPolitics

Jamia Millia Islamia University had maintained its ‘aim’ of staying away from political ground and away from the discussion of media. In the past couple of months starting from the protest of the students against the Israel’s collaboration with Jamia has brought another scope of lens to the university. The students are labelled as anti-nationals, Jihadists and else. The passing of the CAA in the parliament led to further penetration into the eye of media as it led to protests. The narrative is multidimensional, with blatant lies of the police and Modia and the atrocities landing on the students. So why are the students still in their strive?

The trend of being apolitical is growing in India; politics is corruption, it is a vice, a sin. Facing the other side, having the head in the sand, thinking that if one doesn’t know it, it doesn’t affect them. People who talk about politics are seen as weird, and “Jantar Mantar pe chillanai walai.” The one person’s words the nation almost unanimously trusts; its Father, he once said, “You must be the change you wish to see in the world.” We wish a lot and do little, almost everyone answers the question of what one thing would they wish upon the world as peace. We are dreamers, romantics, and so much more but humans, we hate conflict, stress, defeats, rejection – this is what it means to be political. Jamia has no student union, no political stand, but it took the side of it deemed right when it was needed, it stopped wishing and acted on the wish of all others. And with every action, as we know, follow consequences.

Policemen charge at the protestors.
Image credits: huffingtonpost.in

When we speak our truth with the people around us, we measure, we scale and we route in accordance of reality. Not sharing opinions makes one stuff their truth (which is truth according to them; could be false, could be misinformation) inside and work on it, without care. Jamia spoke its truth in the past week. When CAB was passed in Lok Sabha on 10th December, which was ironically the Human Rights Day and the birthday of Maulana Mohammad Ali Jauhar, students held a talk on Citizenship at 1pm at central canteen while CAB was in legislation in the Parliament. Following the next day was the nod of Rajya Sabha and the students of Hall of Boys residence JMI protested at the central canteen to Gate no. 7 to 13, through Girls Hostel and then continued till Gate no. 4. On 12th of December the Hall of Girls Residence started a flash march from Ansari Auditorium rejecting NRC and CAA, the protest was led by the female students of JMI. On the 13th the Jamia Teachers Association, Jamia Administration and Staff Association, SRK Association and Jamia School Teachers Association organised a long march from Jamia to Parliament which was blocked by the police at Gate no. 1. The blockade created a menace, the peaceful protest of the students was infiltrated by a nuisance of locals. The police barricades were being tried and jumped over by protesters and stone pelting was initiated by the locals. Tear gases were even shot all over campus, there is photo evidence of police shooting the tear gas shells inside the campus, were there were no protests going on. The weekend shot up the atrocities of police on the students and locals alike, the policemen even beat up the female students whilst cursing at them. Though Saturday was comparatively silent as the administration released a notice that called for winter vacations from 16 December to 5th January. Sunday had the residents of Okhla Vihar calling a protest on the police action that was laid on students and against CAB. Locals joined them, gundas with baseball bats were also witnessed facilitating violence. With this catalyst and the burning of buses (allegedly done by police) spiked the protest and it tuned it to physical aggression and then havoc.

Multiple policemen thrash a protester.
Image credits: scroll.in

Later that evening more police joined in with witnesses claiming that members of unlawful organisations were with the police in helmets beating students up. The police authority entered the university premises without permission, entered libraries and beat up students who weren’t even a part of the protests. Dozens of students were brutally beaten up, tear gas was shot inside the libraries and hostels, all through this, verbal assault and inhumane attitude towards the students was prevalent. “Sari blindness tumhari aaj hei nikaltai hai” were the exact words of the policemen while they beat up a blind student inside the library. There are videos of police open firing at protesters, mercilessly beating them up. The detained students were being denied medical care inside Kalkaji Station and a colossal damage was laid to university property. It was a sport of power projection for them. Even the mosque was destroyed and the Imam was beaten up, the guards of the university account for the violence of the police. One video surfaced in which even the guards were physically and verbally assaulted.

Protests continue on 8th day
Image Credits: Milan Poudel for TJR

After all the violence, on Monday the university witnessed a silent protest, traffic was easily passed through, ambulances faced no hindrances. At the Ghalib Statue of Gate no. 7 the students sung the national anthem and there was conducted a reading of the Preamble and the tricolour was placed all around. The protests still continue, silent, shaken but determined, the trojan got in because the students had trust in the authority, it was exploited, it was used to feed an ideology. Jamia spoke up and trojan has made them realise that it’s time to speak up, the time that they’ll embark either as victims or as perpetrators in someone’s eye, neither of which will stop them from sailing.

On Tuesday, saw more people joining the MMAJ Marg with Tricolor all over the place, Lawyers, Bureaucrats & many other organizations supported the protesters that included students & general public. Bollywood Actor, Mohd. Zeeshan Ayyub also joined the dissent demonstrations.

Zeeshan Ayyub with the Protestors

This Wednesday we witnessed Social Activist Medha Patkar at the Protest site, following which student leader Kanhaiya Kumar also joined the protesters against the police actions & unconstitutional bill.

The protests have found a pan India presence with leading personalities, academic intellectual & eminent institutions of the country expressing the resentment against the government and it’s actions.

This is surely one of the darkest hours of Indian Democracy with the most visible voicing ever since 70s.

Original post from The Jamia Review, link for this post - When Trojan intruded Apolitical & Constitutional Protests of JMI & others
Excuse me

Why do we hate excuses?

by with No Comment BlogsThoughts on stuff

We have heard the phrase, “I will not tolerate any excuse…” all our lives, be it our teachers, your senior in the corporate world or perhaps your spouse. But why is it so frowned upon, why the disinclination towards an excuse. I wonder if you have ever thought about the phrase “Excuse me” deeply, have you? Today we look into it…

I remember when somebody used to forget completing their homework and as the reasons were coming out of their mouth the teacher would interrupt and tell the student to shut up and ‘stop making excuses’. It would always trouble me, so much so that even having a reason like being sick wouldn’t calm my brain against the forth coming rage of my teacher.

The literal meaning of excuse is ‘trying to justify’ or ‘seek to attach the blame’. But the thing that is fascinating to me is the fact that it’s the best defence of someone in authority to attach blame, justifying his/her lack in results (let say) to the higher authority. Let me elaborate…

Blame-game and excuses are somewhat synonyms, but we know that some blames are correct as well, or rather justifiable. Now, reason of a particular scenario is a blame-game as well, per-say. Why is it hot? It’s summer. Why don’t you know about Dostoyevsky? Because I’m in 2nd grade. These cases seem plain enough to recognise the sense of clarification/reason/blame/excuse towards a fault (that also depends to the perception of the other side). But where does all this fit into the narrative of excuses, as in excuses made to change/hide the reality. Believe it or not, hating excuses is to a high degree dependant on individuals and their temperament and or the stakes for a mistake. 

Let’s take an ordinary example of an argument between couples: They have planned a dinner tonight and the husband had already cleared his schedule for the day, but, something came up and he was called by his boss, the wife clearly understands the situation and just calmly asks him to return early, so that they can enjoy the night-out. The dinner is scheduled at 8pm and the guy is stuck in traffic at 7:30pm. He reaches home at 8:30pm and returns to an angry wife ready in her dress that she saved for this special occasion. She’s disappointed and he is tired and you know the rest, no dinner. The husband starts making excuses and she doesn’t like it, the mood goes off and they sleep with anger spiralling in their heads. 

Now obviously it could’ve been the other way around, but the point is that here the justification that the guy makes can be looked at as excuse and reason simultaneously. The reason why we hate excuses has more to do with predisposed perspective that excuse means he/she is lying and the human psychology than mere situation. Even when we say ‘excuse me’ we are implying to a reason that others trust us enough, for us to leave the group momentarily or not. The problem I have with situations in which the expectation is high and everything is propounded to be perfect is that when something bad happens, the mere act of calling him/her out for being an excuse-maker is that we nullify everything he/she may say in defence that actually is a reason than a blame point to hide their faults. 

All this reminds me of pygmalion effect, but anyway, what we need to remember is that being aware of our presuppositions towards minute things like excuses and stuff can go a long way in solving situations where even when one is to blame, all the time is used to recover and not to shame. 

Systematic

Systematic desensitisation for the hurdles of life. #27

by with No Comment Blogs

What is it? Why desensitise yourself? God the auto-correct is killing me, are you sure web that its ‘s’ and not ‘z’ in desensitis(z)ation. Anyway, I recently heard Dr. Oz say that turmeric, which is obviously widely used in India, is actually distasteful for others and people just can’t take it, interesting enough is the fact that taking turmeric as India has been for centuries is a valid explanation to why India doesn’t have Alzheimer as much as non-turmeric-eating countries; it clears some toxins in brain and stuff. The taste buds of people who don’t take turmeric haven’t developed for the taste. Now aside from this little health nugget I actually wanted to talk about systematic desensitisation in our world that has been creeping in where it shouldn’t. There doesn’t pass a single day when I don’t have an unfortunate article or news pop up stating a rape of a minor, theft, lynching, murder et cetera. It has been going on for a long time now, sadly I see people reacting to these things to a lesser degree as days pass by. I literally heard one person saying that its just as is and who cares. Seriously!? 

Now I’m not here to talk about criminal stats and stuff like that in this blog, I wanted this to be first to give a slight sense to how this psychological therapy has creeped in unnoticed as a vice. But how can one use this method in a good way that has been hovering for all the wrong reasons? 

First I want to tell you a real example of a patient I read about: John(alias) went to a clinical psychologist to get rid of his phobia of syringes (aichmophobia). He had a dental surgery without anaesthesia when he was 8, nurses held him as the knife and syringes charged at his gums, quite horrific. Now, the psychologist showed him a picture of a syringe, poor John couldn’t even look at that for long lengths of time, but slowly, after some days he was fine with the photo. After that the psychologist placed the photo on the table and said to him that he’ll bring a syringe next week and he will have to look at it, though he will have a choice to look at it all or not and for how long. So the following week he was introduced to the syringe and he freaked out and asked for it to be thrown away, and the request was fully acted. After days he started to look at it well, slowly he could touch it and after weeks of training he was fine with it, his phobia was gone. 

This is how systematic desensitisation works, though its a lot harder than it might seem. Now maybe you don’t have phobias which hinder your life progress, but it can be used or rather used to explain how to be better at tackling the problems we face in life. 

Whenever I see people trying to solve something they expect to do it or be done with it. But there’s something most people know however never apply; you’ll suck at first. See when you screw up a research paper and it was your first, it’ll be bad, your hard work in the bin and perhaps your next chance will be months later. All those months you’ll grieve at how you could’ve done it better and believe me, I perfectly know how it feels to have screwed up something first time, when it counted as the first time. The simple tact to follow in the head is that all the problems you face will come again and again, if the field you are in demands roughly the same procedures but as you go on, the probability of you failing at it decreases, it may seem obvious but I want you to look at it from the therapy standpoint. Keep in mind though that “systematic” isn’t there for nothing, you have note how you failed, why, and how next time is shouldn’t be the same way you failed if in case you fail. 

Now, next time you think something is as is analyse if its because you have been desensitised of it or not, there’s a good chance it could be the case. And use the technique to get off of your fears and remember life is full of problems, as you go on you’ll get better as solving them. See ya!

“Valor is stability, not of legs and arms, but of courage and the soul.” – Michel de Montaigne 

Judgement

Don’t judge yourself; the judgement of others. #26

by with No Comment BlogsThoughts on stuff

Let me start by saying that this one is going to be kind of a juxtaposition. We see a lot of posts surfacing around either telling us to not judge others or pitying and cautioning us from judging ourselves. Its a mess that is gold for anyone with a problem that they themselves created. Let me elaborate…

The idea of “God is the only judge” seems to me a bit stretched; it would be the best defence of a convict in a society where most people are religious. Well you might be soliloquising that God did create rules for us to be regulated by, well you would be right then. The same could be applied to judging yourself and judging others. If someone has a shady history, perhaps a burglary charge or a kidnapping case that is still in process (yeah I know, innocent until proven guilty), we still and I can guarantee you this, would not allow the person in our home or near our children. But why is that? Why the innocent until proven guilty thing doesn’t work in our minds i.e outside of the sphere, of ironically, judgement? It could well be related to our tendency to be negative than positive, the statement works well in sense of the court of law, but not human mind, or rather I should say, emotions. It actually reminds me of the movie “The State VS Jolly LLB 2” where Sachin Mathur (played by Annu Kapoor), makes the point that though the charges aren’t proved yet and the court is still in process, newspapers and media have already let out the popular statement of Suryaveer Singh (played by Kumud Mishra) and others being guilty. 

So why am I elaborating on the point of innocent until proven guilty? Well, because I have a question for you as well. Are you innocent? Now that’s a question pretty much relating to existentialism or perhaps too complex to comprehend and condense in a single blog, but the question remains in context. What are you being accused of? Or maybe the question is, is the prosecutor, that is your own conscience, right? See all I can do is give you a lantern in the cold hard wind, you have to find the path yourself, I want you to get into a frame of mind for the question of judgement and the following Breaking Bad clip is bloody brilliant for that, don’t worry, its spoiler free, I’m not that cruel. 

 

 

The law judges us, we can’t bully, rape, murder, take bribes, breach privacy, kidnap and all the other crimes without being prosecuted. Or can we? The laws may differ in degree and definitely the way its perceived in society but the crime remains. Its so crazy but just think how horrifying it would be if I just change the names of the said crimes assuming the acts are no longer crimes because they haven’t being comprehended as such. I don’t even want to name them, its just too much weight. The point is that its an axiom that at least the said acts are crimes and the person will be punished for acting in that way. 

Now think about the judgement you are putting on yourself, is it punishable by law? Yes? Then you have your answer. No? Well, now comes the hard part, perhaps its a judgement on why you scored 80/100 when you were supposed to have a full score. Every law that comes into place in based on how it might effect the common interest on human species; survival. Almost all the laws are based on that or can be tracked back to it. Now if you were going for a job that required minimum of 90/100 to apply, well then you won’t get a job paying you six figures, perhaps that soon. You can apply for that job next year, or go find another job for the time being but if an economic depression hits, you probably will suffer more than you would have if you had that six figure job. Now also keep in mind that economic depression doesn’t hit on a regular basis so you have to be wary of the judgement you put on yourself. Maybe be more optimistic about future, get a job and study at the same time. I’m presenting this example as a shadow blueprint as to how to judge yourself (hold yourself accountable) for the faults you make. 

Now what about the judgement others stamp on you? It depends if its either by law or by opinion. You know about the former one, but the latter is debatable, a little bit with them, but most of all with yourself. That’s where the idea of intent matters more than action comes in. Nope, it doesn’t mean you don’t act, but its handy when you screw up the action, the first two words are going to calm you and keep you level headed so that you know your judgement. Now if you have a problem of being too self-conscience and judgemental, here’s a simple trick to fix it; stop judging others, it works. Have a great day!

“Look beneath the surface so you can judge correctly.” – Bible