metadata metadata is an independent and
nonpartisan of service a new service
that is focusing on indian politics and
policy and i think of metadata is
addressing one of three problems right
now we’re focusing on what politicians
do because a lot of the media is
focusing always on what politicians say
and the subject of today’s conversation
is a thought box and this addresses a
second problem that nate errata is
trying to solve which is that there
aren’t enough safe spaces so indians in
the public sphere for having saved
conversations about some of the most
contentious issues and the third problem
that we are addressing with anita data
is that is the media itself it has a
crisis of credibility and there’s an
absence of transparency so what’s the
thought box for the thinking indian it’s
like a box of tools a tool box and
similarly a thought box is a box of
thoughts or some principles that I
believe that we need to address some of
the most contentious issues in our
politics I’ll get to that in a moment
but first I’m going to tell you a small
story as it happens this is a story of
my own impulsive pneus and it’s a story
of my own impulsive pneus on social
media on 29th of sep tember i wrote a
facebook post and this is what i wrote i
said well done india it reminds me this
reminds me that I to need a surgical
strike against the tone cartilage in my
left knee which has been carrying out
proxy warfare in my body for the last
ten years I repeat it’s kind of a long
ish status update I said well done India
this reminds me that I do need a
surgical strike against the tone
cartilage in my left knee that has been
conducting proxy warfare on my body for
the last ten years now when i wrote this
update people didn’t really know how to
react you know i have many friends on
facebook some of them put likes or place
likes click on the like button some
people commented a few friends of mine
were very angry one friend in particular
was very very angry and she thought I
was making fun of the Indian Armed
Forces and another friend of mine
thought that I was being sarcastic and
that I was actually standing up for all
the talk of war mongering that we’d been
hearing in that month and just to
refresh our memories a few days earlier
the Indian Army had announced that they
carried out a surgical strike across the
line of control in retaliation for the
deaths of 18 indian army personnel a few
days earlier so these were very few
times and i wrote that facebook post and
the truth is I was neither trying to
make fun of anybody I wasn’t I was very
proud of the Indian Army and I still AM
and I was also not trying to be
sarcastic it just simply occurred to me
that having myself suffered from a knee
condition for about 10 years and an
orthopedic surgeon 10 years ago at asked
me to undergo surgery and it was an
option that I felt not comfortable in
choosing and therefore I thought you
know well the knees conducting proxy
warfare on my body maybe it’s funny
maybe I should put it off maybe I should
put it up on facebook people will think
it’s funny and of course it was anything
but it ended up hurting a lot of people
because my question is why am i bringing
this up right now the fact of the matter
is at any given point of time there are
a number of status updates on social
media there’s a lot of chatter on
Twitter there’s a lot of chatter on
whatsapp groups outside or offline as
well in dinner party conversations in
conversations with friends when we have
conversations at work there are heated
conversations about the challenges of
our times and a lot of the contentious
issues that we face as a nation II and
the truth of the matter is we live in
polarized times and what I mean by this
is very simply pretty much anything we
say or do sometimes it subscribe to
either one of do polls if we say
something we seen as either leftist
sometimes you seen as rightist sometimes
our people ballers secular sometimes
they say communal if you say something
against the government we call
Andy national if we say something for
the government we have a lot of chatter
and people calling us you know words
like butts so the fact of the matter is
this is not an atmosphere in which we
can actually have a sustained and
reasonable dialogue and as a political
journalist it is that that obsesses me a
lot the need to have the reasonable
dialogue what are the conditions under
which we can have reasonable dialogue
these are questions that I obsess over
and I believe that there is a way
forward and the way forward is to have
you know an atmosphere good will the
best way to have good dialogue is good
will the thing is because of a complex
mix of historical sociological and
cultural and political factors that kind
of atmosphere of goodwill is simply not
available and it’s not there for us and
therefore we have to discuss some of the
most contentious issues using other
tactics and this is where I come to the
idea of a top box a top box which i
believe is a new language for our times
and some new principles or guidelines
when it comes to addressing some of the
most contentious issues at this point in
time you might be wondering well all
this is very well this is for
journalists this is for people like
politicians who people are people who
were in the public sphere why does it
appear applied to me after all an odd
working person I go to school or go to
office I come back I do my I carry out
my other duties relax in the evening
with loved ones or by myself why should
I worry about all of this and to that my
answer would be well we live in an age
which is fueled by technology social
media is not far off maybe just a click
away from making our own opinions known
to the entire world in such a scenario
we all become public figures and even if
you are not the kind of people who like
social media or call online very much be
surely know people who are on social
media and we’re also just a click away
from
in public personalities and yet another
thought along these lines is you know
someday there might be a cause that you
deeply care about that we will need you
to stand up and fight for instance
people in the national capital region
they have to deal with evolution which
is a big problem right now it is perhaps
something they did not think about five
years ago and what happens is people end
up becoming activists they ask
government of questions people who
didn’t think of them as activists of
political political personalities end up
taking political positions and for such
a scenario we need a thought foss like
I’m talking about well so far I’ve only
my story about my status update told you
how it backfired I’ve spoken about the
need for reasonable dialogue I’ve spoken
about the need for a new thought box a
set of guiding principles but before I
get to that there’s one thing that
remains to be said which is a word on
free speech what is free speech we all
know this it’s basically a person’s
right to say whatever they think or feel
or publish whatever they think or feel
without government sanction without
censorship and without social or
societal sanction and there are very
good reasons as to why we need free
speech in our society there are four
reasons that I can take off right now
the first is progress without the Frank
and fearless exchange of ideas we cannot
contest existing ideas without
contesting existing ideas we cannot have
progress and I’ll give you a few
examples think about the theory that the
earth moves around the Sun or revolves
around the Sun the theory of natural
selection or Darwinian survival of the
fittest the theory of women being equal
to men the theory of all races being
equal the theory of all costs being
equal these are all theories which five
years ago 10 years ago 50 100 500 years
ago if you had these theories and you
average them or you spoke about them it
could put you in real danger it would
even give you a sentence for death but
somehow we as a society and we as a race
they’ve come across and we fought
through
and because of the ability of the
expression in free speech we managed to
contest old ideas and we’ve had
progressed a couple of other reasons why
we need free speech one is if you don’t
have these free speech you end up
self-censoring and you end up thought
censoring what I mean by this is if some
sense you’re on social media and you say
something and somebody doesn’t like what
you said and 100 people start up using
you and you go offline and then you
start getting dreads the whole deal is
you end up not expressing yourself in
the future and sometimes you end up not
thinking about the idea that made you
want to express them either and that is
thought censorship and just one more
reason for why we need free speech it’s
the best defense against poor government
if you don’t like what the government is
going whether it’s the local government
the state government the central
government you have the right to
question the government’s decisions and
so these are reasons why we need free
speech and because we have free speech
more or less in our country and now come
to what I wanted to discuss the six
principles or the thought box that we
need to focus to address of the biggest
challenges first I would say we must
accept and learn that everybody has a
valid point of view and that we should
take everybody seriously a quick example
the American elections the Democratic
Party had they listened to the
supporters of Donald Trump and had they
not dismissed them as racists or
missiles misogynists you know they might
have won the second we have to accept
that we have our own biases and even the
most unbiased of us is judgmental a
quick example again I’m a journalist I’m
interviewing someone I’d be given 20
minutes suddenly I’m told I just have
five minutes I have 20 questions I have
to cut that out and just got time to ask
five questions which questions do they
do i do i do i include which questions
do I leave out that is an editorial
choice and even if I’m non-judgmental
I’m bringing my own biases into this and
number three we must resist the urge to
label others through language and
through labels and jargon that makes us
blind for instance calling somebody
conservative calling
somebody or fastest calling somebody you
know there are other more rude names
what happens is when you do that there
isn’t enough space the sufficient
dialogue the fourth set of guidelines in
this thought box I would say is we must
all remember that having an opinion all
the time about everything is not always
desirable and opinion is a thought stop
that’s what a professor of mine once
told me and I realized it’s true when we
have an opinion about something it also
means we’ve stopped engaging about that
particular idea and finally last couple
of sorts in this short box it’s
perfectly fine to attack ideas but we
must always remember that we must not
attack the person holding those ideas
and this is an important distinction
that we must all learn to make and most
important of all the sixth guideline
would be simply assume goodwill what
this means is you think the best of
anybody when you come into a
conversation and what happens is you
start appealing to the best in that
person and when you start doing that you
don’t appeal to the worst in that person
and you can actually have a good
conversation so here’s to having many
important and good conversations about
most pressing issues of our times
conversations with our friends our
family conversations in school in office
in public life in speeches in mahalo Saba’s so on and so forth thanks