Q for Questioning - Within and Outside

Analysis and questioning – these are two aspects for an open mind and it has to start from one’s within. While second-guessing your own self on a continuous basis may not be good for the confidence, it is indeed needed to put a mirror in front of you and face a tough question or two to stay on course.

Outside - in quite a few situations, we just accept things lying down with a mindset that there won’t or can’t be any change by raising any voice or question.  Someone somewhere might gather courage to stand up against the atrocities and things might get changed. We, then, would end up thinking that we also thought about it but did not do anything to effect the change. A feeling of guilt encompasses but, it is too late, by then.

The point I am raising here is twofold. 

First, regarding the parenting and education system, do we really encourage our children to analyze and ask questions? It has been often seen that a question is not appreciated at home or by the teachers and an environment gets created where children just listen, and learn by rote.  There is hardly any effort to spark the light in their mind to analyze and ask – in the process, making them ready for future where they are required to address the unknowns faced in life. As we cannot make them prepared beforehand to face each and every situation in life, inculcating this ability is very important for them to confront the world on their own. I am not generalizing all parents, teachers and institutions here but hope you would agree that this is not very uncommon.

Secondly, it is related to standing up against the issues in our professional or social circles and even in the four corners of our home. While it is true we are forced to ignore a lot of misdeeds done to us or to the system, with a fear for life or name of ours and our near and dear ones, there are cases where we should have taken steps but just gave it a pass. There are ample cases where we just close our eyes without raising a single question and accept the things as it is. Can we not come out of shell and take small steps to change the course in such cases?

I do agree that people who have tread these steps, have paid the price with their lives. None of us have forgotten the whistle-blowing cases in relation to construction work for golden quadrilateral project in Uttar Pradesh. The brave man who could muster courage to raise his voice against malpractices was ruthlessly killed. While the Indian Government has decided to act on this by passing an act to protect such whistle-blowers, we do not feel safe and shy away from such scenarios. Knowing fully well the repercussions, yes, we need to have the line drawn in a pragmatic way and ask questions before leaving everything only to fate.