According to oxford dictionary, woke means ‘Alert to injustice in society, especially racism.’ The term might have gained popularity recently but the term has been around for quite some time. If one uses social media they probably are very much aware of what ‘woke culture’ is and how some people absolutely love it while some hate it, either way its one of the trending terms these days. As the ‘woke’ is gaining popularity, it is somehow losing its true meaning. From young women ruining Van Gogh’s artwork to the big corporate celebrating pride month despite of no visible changes other than their profile pictures. Woke culture which started as noble cause during Vietnam war, it has somehow lost it’s true essence and is now going in the opposite direction.
India is a secular country which gives equal rights and opportunities to each and every person regardless of their religion. Every one is equal according to the constitution, but what exactly is the ground reality? India seems to secular for all religious minorities but not for the one religion which makes up most of it’s population, Hinduism. Hindus are being trolled, being canceled ,being called out by the so called ‘WOKE’ crowd of the social media. Apparantely, if you are a hindu supporting other religion then you are a secular person but if you stand for your own religion then suddenly you are an ‘anti secular’. If a political party supports other religion then we become an example for the world as a secular and tolerate country but if a party speaks for the Hindus then all of the sudden our country is ‘Intolerant’ and doesn’t respect human rights. Go to any social media platform and you can see the Hindus getting trolled. They are being called ‘bhagva terrorists’ for wearing the color saffron which is symbol of the Hindu religion. Even in Bollywood industry, it seems like they are keen to humiliate Hinduism and make a satire or comedy around it. In almost every Bollywood, the Hindu pandit is shown as a comedic character who knows nothing about his religion and everything that he does is a way of making audience laugh. Bollywood portrays an image that the characters are ashamed of going to the temples and other religious gathering. And how can one ignore Bollywood degrading Hindu lords in their music, for instance take the “Radha” song from “Student of the year” or the Shiva chasing scene from “PK”.The youth of our country is being brainwashed into believing that being Hindu is ‘uncool.’ And that’s how the youth stands for every religion’s rights but they forget about theirs, because suddenly they are not Hindu, they are secular. Hindus are being abducted, killed, women are getting raped and forcefully converted and the whole country is acting as if it’s another Monday morning with nothing serious going on. I wonder what would happen if any other religion was treated in the same way Hindus are being treated. I m very sure that the whole country, if not the whole world would have came crashing down, as it should, but why it is not so for Hindus?
In terms of the modern world, this is what being WOKE is. According to the elite and educated classes of our country, you are just being alert about the injustice towards the religious minorities but you can disrespect Hinduism because it’s not a minority. Does being WOKE really means this? In the name of WOKE, you respect other religions but demean your own?