Beggars can't be!

How does the current crisis impact, democracy, democratic values and shape our attitude as citizens.

Personal liberty, freedom of expression, rights as guaranteed under constitution?

To be able to be a fully functional citizen who is not only aware of their rights but also have the agency to raise voice about it, protest when violation happen, criticize, condemn!

When the government makes a bagger out of you, gasping for oxygen how much of a citizen are you? What happens to your agency, your esteem, your self worth? To be in the state of helplessness, being out of control, out of choices, leaves you in what state of mind?

Knowing how our schooling system and our culture and traditions work in tandem to deny us agency, make us subservient to power and authority, how democratic we are anyway in our values and practices?

It's only now that we have started waking up to 'social emotional learning' and it will be some time before we have young people coming out of our education system who are in better place to seal with emotional storms and are more self assured. It's a long road considering how we are still stuck in our conservative approach and more deeply now with regressive forces at the helm. Yes, some international schools have started talking about it, not for profit organizations have started looking at it. Yet a large (huge) majority of our teachers have not yet heard about it, there are practically zero training efforts to make it actionable.

Having worked in rural areas, urban slums or even with elite school in the area of education, I know there is very little educators do to shape democratic values. Constitution maybe a mere subject if at all and in the hierarchy of what's important to learn (yes! hierarchy, it is all pervasive in a culture that only perceives things as upper and lower) Civics is way down the ladder. A stark example of it is seen in the way children and their parents from SC/ST community are forced to realize that entitlements are charity and not constitutional rights. 

The increasing nationalistic fervor in last few decades has lead to collective and individual decline in critical thinking. The questions you see are parroted and many a times there intent is not to raise voices but to silence them. You can see it in whatsapp groups, national television debates, in curated press conferences. Collective dumbing down is another epidemic that some have started to see and worry about.

So, I am begging, begging for oxygen, falling on the feet of anyone we see having power to help us, begging for medicines, for beds, for admissions to hospitals, doing it through days and whether you get help or not, in the end you are left a bagger! 

By the way numbers are looking there would be millions of us who begged our way through this epidemic. Millions more who suffered in silence as they just didn't have access to begging! The just didn't have anyone to beg from! 

What agency these millions have? Are they going to rise as one angry nation? Or the overwhelming lesson is you are not in the count? Will they be angry voters or people who have learned it doesn't really matter in long run or in critical times? Migrant labor, anybody?

So how will they value their votes? Wouldn't they look for instant gratification for their votes?

Go and talk to them about democratic values and practices? Power of their one vote? 

For millions who have experienced powerlessness, completely and utterly, how does it shape their attitude and behavior? 

Anyone in the rights moment will tell you how big a struggle it is to get people together and go, "get up, stand up! stand up for your rights!" It's not something you can 'Tell' or 'Sell'.

Of course! we have seen many new voices emerge, courageous questions asked and in that power of one is the spark of hope. Yet, these are individuals, few and far apart. Democracy is a game of numbers and right now the numbers don't look in its favor!