'My India isn’t broken’

Harsha Bhogle shares a poignant piece

In the last decade or so, the voice of commentator Harsha Bhogle has been one of sanity in the cacophony that swirls around cricket.

Nonetheless, dissecting the nuances of cricket is one thing, plunging into the muddy waters of citizenship and yet sounding reasonable is quite another.

In his poignant piece, Bhogle writes, “So why are we creating fear? Why are we driving wedges into society? Instead of giving this generation wings to fly, why are we putting a weight on their backs? Why are we obsessed about our neighbours when, as an economic entity, they aren't even in the same book, let alone on the same page as us? We are shrinking our country by highlighting our differences and young India is telling us it isn't happy.”

It ends with an emotional appeal for the leaders of this country. Bhogle writes: "Winning elections isn't a good enough reason for highlighting differences between us. My naive view of the world tells me that creating opportunities through liberalisation and openness and togetherness could win more elections. So my appeal to people in power, to those my age and older, is simply this. We have played a very nice innings, we have been lucky to have been Indians for the last twenty five years. Let us not burden the next generation with talk of war and cultural differences. They are going to be better than we were. Let them be. In a happy, open, secular, liberal world, they can become the best in the world.” This led one Twitter user to delve into the internet’s darling online Nazi analogy. Twitter user DennisCricket wrote: “I can only applaud Harsha for this. His India is broken…On this issue, we all need to be Harsha. Except for @ GautamGambhir. He has chosen to be a figurehead for the party of division.”

This led to a sharp rebuke from Bhogle who wrote: “No Dennis, my India isn't broken. It is full of vibrant young people doing amazing things too. We are a fully functional, mature democracy. We might voice our dissent, our disappointment at times but we are fiercely Indian. That word you used in comparison ..... never.”

Twitter reactions

Bhogle’s post has garnered over 22K likes/reactions and has been shared over 7,800 times since Tuesday evening when Bhogle put it up on his Facebook page.

Congress MP Shashi Tharoor also applauded Bhogle's appeal and called it 'sincere' and 'thoughtful'.

"Applause for @bhogleharsha on his sincere & thoughtful appeal to our rulers not to destroy the optimism of India’s quarter-century after 1991 by stoking fear, hatred & division instead of growth, freedom & prosperity," Tharoor wrote.

Replying to @bhogleharsha, one user wrote: "Very disappointed with your post, Harsha. It seems you have picked up narratives and not facts. A simple Google search would have told you what's been happening on ground in education, infra and so on. Also clarity on the new law. No one is dividing anyone."

A user replied: "Googled about transforming education in India and got @AamAadmiParty's link instead. Yeah, but the BJP does feature in rewriting history books."

Another fan wrote to @bhogleharsha: "Sir, I have always held you in high regard but this response from you has raised the bar of respect even more. Just amazing how you have tackled the mentioned statement with such a clean and brilliant retort."

One user commented: "If only @DennisCricket_ understands what democracy is. No country comes even close to what India is in terms of its diversity and chaos, yet thriving in every way. When not even a single so called progressive country could think of universal adult suffrage, India gave it as a right."

One post read: "Looking at his timeline this is what one can expect him to write."