BIGOTRY

‘Adgula Madgula’ was the closing film at the Marathi film fest held last weekend in Goa. The title refers to a traditional lullaby and obviously the film is about a baby. The first part shows a quixotic but well knit family awaiting the birth of a baby. The second part shows their stunned reactions when they discover the baby is dark skinned, unlike anyone in their families. They shun the one who they so eagerly awaited!

The story brings to the fore the irony of racism. We Indians, who suffer racist attacks elsewhere, are quite often full of ridiculous bias towards dark skinned people. Bigotry is the bane of humanism and yet it is so prevalent due to the constant social stereotyping of persons based on colour, religion, language and other irrelevant factors.

Abraham Heschel referred to racism as the maximum of hatred for the minimum of reason. We have to examine whether we harbour such irrational instincts of hate. It is not enough to argue that our prejudice does not result in the outright rejection of human beings. Luke warm acceptance is more bewildering, like Martin Luther King said.

The test of our humaneness is the character and the consistency in our response to others. To be better human beings we must unlearn the negative conditioning of chauvinistic bigotry. It is not enough to declare our open mindedness; our every action should move beyond intolerance and accept the true spirit of humanism, without a trace of discrimination.

It is only humanism that will set us free
Let’s BE BETTER at shunning bigotry...

- Pravin K. Sabnis