How to find a Common Man or something

I remember Ojha Sir of Vajiram used to say in class, ‘Do you know how to recognize common men? Just ask them the solutions of the most impending problems of India. They will have the same answer. How to solve Kashmir? Send Army and kill all. How to tackle Maoists? Send Army and kill all. How to check growing militancy in North-East? Send Army and kill all. How to deal with Pakistan? Send Army and kill all.’

And then he used to pause, and announce little dramatically, ‘And when you find them, just do not debate. Because you cannot win. Just nod and leave.’

Whole class laughed. They liked it, because they knew it was true. Or, as it was an IAS preparation class, power-dreamy students pretended to understand with their temporary open-minds. Whatever.

Surfing Facebook is fun, because only here people can’t pretend for long. You open a person’s profile, don’t go for the ‘About’ section, rather look into his/her sharing patterns, you definitely get a hold of that person’s inside. And interestingly there, I found Ojha sir’s observation was perfectly applicable too.

Some guys continually share posts worshipping military, and how military is the only savior of this ill-fated country; whereas some others brilliantly associate military with religion and postulate the solutions, which are perfect to have a glorified India, ‘again’. Some go beyond that. They demand military should spill blood of those, who according to them are not suitable to live in this sacred country. They term them Traitors. And I know from Ojha sir’s teaching, these are those ‘common men’, who have only and only one solution, and like the frog in a well, you cannot debate them.

India is the only sane country in an insane neighborhood because it’s people, specially military believes democracy and worships peace rather than violence, which is weirdly the trait of its blind ‘Bhakts’. I never saw an Army-man throwing venomous hatred towards their critics or civilians or anyone, who dissent them. My trust on them restores everytime I watch the sheer restraints practiced by them, despite the mad provocations all around. They are doing their jobs like others; farmers, teachers, engineers, bureaucrats, doctors, writers etc. Attaching extra nationalism to Military, will eventually blind them to distrust civilians and critics and then the unthinkable can happen. India will become another Pakistan or Burma. 

But you can’t debate with ‘common men’. Sorry! Uncommon men. So better be silent.