Voices Heard and Unheard
This week, the Indian Supreme court struck down section 377 of the Constitution, essentially rendering homosexuality legal. Excerpts from the judgment that I’ve come across are pure poetry. At some point in the judgment, there also appeared beautiful lyrics from a Leonard Cohen song about democracy. My social media was overwhelmingly flooded with so much love and happiness. I could not remember the last time I had seen so much positivity on social media. The reactions to the same-sex marriage law that the US passed might have been close. I continue to remain amazed by the amount of pure joy that the LGBTQ community throws in the world.
In the midst of this outpour of joy and positivity, everything seemed fine in the world, albeit temporarily. Of course, my entire exposure was limited to the extremely educated and liberal set of friends I hold and people I follow, who don’t even count as majority — something I find so hard to believe given my limited concentrated horizons. My wake up call to reality in this case rang when I came across a Quint video, where they interviewed Dharavi folk about the 377 Judgment. There is a whole rainbow of reactions that Dharavi produced. First thing that struck me is that no one knew that same sex relationships were a thing, let alone have an opinion about them. The rawness of these opinions is what struck me next. This rawness was accompanied by many things — blatantly offensive remarks, inspiringly liberal thoughts and pretty uninformed questions. Nonetheless, what made it so strikingly raw was that it was not driven by any agenda — political or religious.
There is so much to learn from this population whose voice, at least by my ears, goes unheard more often than not. They don’t need to read in the paper what new subsidy the government passed for farmers, they learn about it by walking up to the ration store. I’d argue that they would bring more value to a policymaking table than most politicians and academics would. Their research is much more evidence-based than that conducted by academia. They might not be able to model the way an interest rate lever will affect their crop, but if you spend a couple minutes explaining the lever to them, they’ll probably have answers that are pretty accurate in practical reality.
One day I was cribbing about the false marketing that certain political parties indulged in and was worried how less informed people might not be able to tell false from reality, especially those in remote areas. My dad abruptly corrected my ignorant self, explaining to me that these ‘less informed’ individuals did not need marketing to tell them which party they should vote for. They are much smarter than we give them credit for, he said. Their litmus test for administration actions lies in their livelihoods, and so it is incredibly strong and powerful. They, not we, elect the political parties that sit in the parliament, and so we should have a little more faith in and respect for them. I am writing this more as a constant reminder for myself than anyone else: always seek out the voice of the unheard before you try to make noise about what’s right for them.