In my opinion, symbolic solidarity should be community-driven events. The government shouldn’t get involved in it. People should show solidarity with the government by following the rules and regulations enforced by it to mitigate a situation. Any symbolism, they should be sceptical.
In any dire situation, you could be one of the three players. A person in power, who needs to make decisions and come up with plans to mitigate the situation. A person not directly affected by it but also has no say in anything. A person who is directly affected by the situation. I would consider the issue of manual scavenging as an example here.
Mr Modi in his book(now withdrawn) ‘Karmayog’ wrote that manual scavenging could have been a “spiritual experience” for some of the Dalit castes. It is one of the positivity that the caste apologists routinely dispense of.
Manual scavenging is a problem. Wishing away the problem by viewing it in a positive light as a spiritual experience means different things to all those three players.
For a person in power, it’s just shirking responsibility under the guise of hoodwinking positivity. For an unaffected person, it’s a way to feel good about themself by reinterpreting the guilty feeling and imagining it non-existent. For the person affected, that kind of thought is unthinkable(the statement angered many Dalits) or if they are forced to accept that, it shows the total breakdown of their life or total hopelessness of their situation.
That is an extreme example. Normal people might not think in that way. But there are other situations, where people try to channelize positivity in the name of solidarity. But the difference, between the people who have power and the people who don’t, remains the same as in the above example. Italians showing regular solidarity during the crisis which is organized through social media messages or we holding candlelight vigils for our fallen soldiers within our own communities are like second or third group people with no actual power. But if a government does it, it’s a different matter.
We need to show solidarity with the government by being obedient to the laws it enacts to mitigate the situation but we need to be sceptical if the government itself indulges in symbolic solidarity. It’s basically shielding itself from any kind of criticism by equating its inadequacy even with all the power to the common people’s guilt feeling borne out of the helplessness or lack of power. It’s also very evident from the previous solidarity symbolism that people tend to misunderstand it and make the matters worse. The community-wise spontaneous solidarity gestures are still welcome as it doesn’t give additional work to government organizations to clear up other mess that might arise.
In any dire situation, you could be one of the three players. A person in power, who needs to make decisions and come up with plans to mitigate the situation. A person not directly affected by it but also has no say in anything. A person who is directly affected by the situation. I would consider the issue of manual scavenging as an example here.
Mr Modi in his book(now withdrawn) ‘Karmayog’ wrote that manual scavenging could have been a “spiritual experience” for some of the Dalit castes. It is one of the positivity that the caste apologists routinely dispense of.
Manual scavenging is a problem. Wishing away the problem by viewing it in a positive light as a spiritual experience means different things to all those three players.
For a person in power, it’s just shirking responsibility under the guise of hoodwinking positivity. For an unaffected person, it’s a way to feel good about themself by reinterpreting the guilty feeling and imagining it non-existent. For the person affected, that kind of thought is unthinkable(the statement angered many Dalits) or if they are forced to accept that, it shows the total breakdown of their life or total hopelessness of their situation.
That is an extreme example. Normal people might not think in that way. But there are other situations, where people try to channelize positivity in the name of solidarity. But the difference, between the people who have power and the people who don’t, remains the same as in the above example. Italians showing regular solidarity during the crisis which is organized through social media messages or we holding candlelight vigils for our fallen soldiers within our own communities are like second or third group people with no actual power. But if a government does it, it’s a different matter.
We need to show solidarity with the government by being obedient to the laws it enacts to mitigate the situation but we need to be sceptical if the government itself indulges in symbolic solidarity. It’s basically shielding itself from any kind of criticism by equating its inadequacy even with all the power to the common people’s guilt feeling borne out of the helplessness or lack of power. It’s also very evident from the previous solidarity symbolism that people tend to misunderstand it and make the matters worse. The community-wise spontaneous solidarity gestures are still welcome as it doesn’t give additional work to government organizations to clear up other mess that might arise.
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