#TheDailyToast: The big ban theory
Social media rumours are funny when they mistakenly kill off celebrities, or when whatsisname gets resurrected. Or when Rahul Gandhi in the mistaken belief that he is campaigning delivers a speech...
The ones Rahul Gandhi is coloring these days https://t.co/qyKjs5KrUC
— Rahul Roushan (@rahulroushan) October 7, 2015... When he is actually collecting one-liners to share over a scotch at the gymkhana that his cronies haven't yet gotten round to telling him are not funny...
#LIVE: After I called his government "suit-boot ki sarkar" Modi has stopped wearing suits altogether: Rahul Gandhi.
— Deccan Chronicle (@DeccanChronicle) October 7, 2015... 'Coz then they'd have to wear white kurtas instead of designer T-shirts, when overseas at non-conferences, or something...
Snapshots from a new media & international affairs conf in CO, USA with @OfficeOfRG, Iceland's President & @DMiliband pic.twitter.com/NEMFVYjmuY
— Milind Deora (@milinddeora) September 28, 2015But, like Rahulbabu, we digress....
... Social Media has taken to the "ban" like Rishi Kapoor to the internet
Meat ban,meat ban blaring from all corners and channels-so I have decided....... pic.twitter.com/gXjqxsk7r9
— rishi kapoor (@chintskap) October 6, 2015On the ground, for instance, when you go for your morning walks, stop and ask a neighbour what's banned in India and it is unlikely that he will know what on earth you are talking about. The four I met this morning suggested banning dogs that poop everywhere, Uncle 2 suggested the cable guy because his teenage son just won't listen to him and switch off the television and he is in 9th standard so when will he study... etc etc (this took half an hour)... and two aunties I spoke to were considering banning either one of the watchmen or one of the maids who keeps taking days off without prior notice. This conversation got so entirely derailed that we have called for a cooperative society meeting this weekend to thrash this all out. My son is of the belief that we must ban rickshaws, rickshawalas, their uniforms, their jalopies, their paan spitting, their lack of change, their Right to Freedom of Speech which causes them to say no for all distances... etc etc (you get the picture). My maid would like a ban on detergents that make her hands hard (moisturiser in dish washing liquid, she suggests - there's a marketing idea) and my cook would like a ban on Punjabis bhoonoing everything they eat in copious amounts of oil for hours together. I have suggested she also ask for a ban on Gujaratis who put sugar in everything they eat for no reason other than to increase India's diabetes count... (This is a global conspiracy to shame India, said the Congress). The watchman, when asked what he would like banned, asked for festival time bakhsheesh, but luckily the elevator appeared right at that moment, so I escaped with my pocket intact. We must never ban elevators.
But, like Rahulbabu, we digress...
We need a concerted ban policy to address this gap between what we think is banned, what we outrage about as banned, what is really banned and what we would like to ban... What there needs to be a ban on is this Indian propensity to exaggeration. The Shiv Sena is protesting against a Mumbai performance by Ghulam Ali, because it desperately needs to stay politically relevant, and they have not evolved beyond the "Go to Pakistan" as a primal insult, becomes the state's ban... never mind that the state, which the Shiv Sena acquires selective amnesia about being a part of...
Is vehemently in favour of the concert.
Spoke wid @Dev_Fadnavis who's assurd if orgnizrs hav all permisns legendry sngr #GhulamAli show will happen 1/3 pic.twitter.com/Yck1kjMDtd
— ShainaNC (@ShainaNC) October 7, 2015However, Twitter now clings to the rumour that Ghulam Ali sahab, like Salman Rushdie, is "banned".
Now that Ghulam Ali is banned in India, waiting for ghazal singers to be manufactured by Patanjali.
— Sambha (@sambha_bhilane) October 7, 2015In such a scenario, in which, the "ban" is now attributed to the explicit disallowing of activities, the Indian State has two options: either they clarify about all the bans that are not bans, all arrests which are not arrests, which, pragmatically, would take up all of the government's time, (and who would tour the Kingdom of Tavalora and get them to invest in us then? or we can simply expand the definition of "ban" to include all things that we believe, by rumour mill, the government may or may not go after, or is responsible for the going after of, due to the actions of lone wolves (terrorism)), what the Pakistani state calls "non-state actors", or khap panchayats, is uncomfortable with, and in all social media terms, can now be officially blamed for.
So, look, it's not like we are Saudi Arabia which shouts "off with his head" every time someone RTs an off-coloured joke.. Or, you know, women drive... or, TRY clothes on in a shopping trial room, we're not *that* bad (yet), but let's just get our bans sorted so we know what we're heading for... is clearly moving to ban leggings, and common decency along Chennai with it. In Karnataka, where they not only allow farmers to commit suicide, but also do a political dance on the remains of the few crops that grow, let's just say humanity is up for a ban. But let's not get in the way of Rahul Gandhi watching out for those suits. All literary dissent is clearly not appreciated in this bastion of conservative non-critical thinking... So the South is out. I suspect the government is moving to ban onions because there's definitely something smelly about the whole price-rigging business. The tiger is also clearly on the verge of being banned as the full-fledged conspiracy to declare the cow the national animal is unfolding. We need to also look into, now that we have tiger numbers up, look into whether we can now breed, export them and eat them instead of the cows. Have at, I say... If that won't bring in the tourists, increase foreign direct investment from China, and set this topsy turvy world right, what will?