Apathy,Activism,Apoliticalness and Aam Adami

It has been more than a decade now that Congress has been glorifying the Aam Adami. In the mean time, old leaders died, new ones came to power, political map of country became more and more volatile, Modi alarmingly emerged as a brand, First woman president of India retired, Laden was killed, country's growth rate dwindled down, and Rahul Gandhi finally got rid of his hypnotic smile. And still, Aam adami is fairly where he was. In terms of inflation, natural calamities, terrorist attacks, craze of western countries, and most importantly apathy, and a-politicalness.

Let me elaborate. Say, Roads are frequently dug in your area. Mandir in the neighborhood puts on loudspeakers till much later than 10 pm.  Your rightful water supply was diverted to some other colony. The rickshaw/taxi driver frequently refuses to take you where you want to go. Hawaldar caught you and holding you up because you jumped the lights. There is a friend of you who is experiencing sexual harassment at her office. In short, things are not exactly looking very bright. Now tell me, what are your normal responses to this? 

You will look for another taxi/rick, you will probably give that 50 rs bill to hawaldar so that he does not waste your time, you will close the window and keep cursing the temple,  you will ask your friend to ignore/settle matter, and you will definitely curse the 'sarkaar' and the 'system' for the water diversion and road digging.

Here comes the apathy I talk about. apathy,defined by wikipedia, is is a state of indifference, or the suppression of emotions such as concern, excitement, motivation and passion. Nothing that happens, on varying scale, that causes trouble, pushes you towards action. It is most surprising, that we take no action, even to issues that are bothering us, let alone others. Asking the friend to settle the matter, is not as much of an apathy, as closing the window and taking another auto is. This sort of apathetic action intrigues me most, where no effort is directed towards gaining what is rightfully ours. 

Same goes with  cursing the sarkaar and the system. Digging the roads or diverting the water supply is not a whim of government, it can not be. There are plans and reasons behind digging the roads, say for pipe gas or water pipeline. If water is diverted, there is a reason needed to be given before that diversion takes place. How much ever we like to believe, governance is not a whimsical activity, where no rule abides. How many of us have bothered to stop when we find labor happily digging away, and ask the reason behind that digging? How many of us go to the zonal office and ask the reason behind? 

I am sure, probably only 1%. It is foolish to curse and blame system and sarkaar for petty issues like this, and not doing even 1 bit about it. IF it bothers us, by all means we have to go and ask for the reason/permission. But sadly, we prefer ignoring it, passing sideways, cursing them and generally adding up to our collective unhappiness. If at all somebody says, we push them down, saying "why get into those issues and that  politics? it is better to stay away."

That is sheer a-politicalness I am talking about. There is a big aversion to anything remotely political in nature. It is not 'non-political'. Non political guys do what they want to do, without believing in politics. A-political are us who just stay apathetic to politics, at the cost of our own convenience. We do not even care who  our corporator is and what has he done for us in last five years. Dynastic politics, religious terrorism and political insurgencies are just far far away, way out of scope. We stay away. 
If you feel like staying away, do that by all means. But then do not come and complain about how rotten the civic affairs are and how nothing can be done. Things can be done. remember.

Here comes another problem. The moment we say it can be done, and it is our right, comes in the activism. Just because I am conscious about my rights, and I do something, I do not become activist. Voicing my thought or even having thoughts, is not activism. Calling it activism is in fact an insult to the word. But the moment somebody like me starts a conversation about something as day- to-day as above mentioned situations, I immediately am shut up by friends/relatives, saying "hey, lets not discuss politics, just stay away from that".

Apathy and apoliticalness is not going to lead aam adami to any better world. If we want better world, we have to be at least conscious of what happens, why does it happen, what do we want and how can we do it. Else we become sheep and be hoarded. For the in-between, there is always an 'activisty' entertainment like liking FB comments and wearing Aam adami caps.