Gumma

Let us look at a hypothetical situation. Let us say - Your toddler is not sleeping. He is jumping around and playing and only thing you want is him to sleep so that you can catch few winks of sleep.

You are exhausted beyond limits. Then you tell him about “gumma” (monster) Tell him that if the he does not sleep, gumma will kidnap him.

Child is quiet now. He closes his eyes fearfully and slowly falls asleep. Probably having nightmares about gumma.

I am not being judgemental here. I have told my share of gumma stories to my son  too when he was a baby.

What if we adults are  victims of this gumma fear.

Our gumma will be different - he may be a neighboring country like Mexico or Pakistan. He may be an  outsider who will ultimately out number us and take our jobs and wives and daughters. Like immigrants or other religionists.( Basically he is some one who is different from us.)

So we are constantly told stories about gumma and are being subdued and are made to “behave”.

By who? By our "leaders". Why?  You can guess!

But then there are some among us who do think clearly and understand some thing fishy in this story.  They read, analyze and understand that, these gummas are similar to us and not dangerous at all.

Those who realize this truth are intellectuals, writers, activists etc. And they not only understand that the gumma is not real. They also speak or write about this. And as they are respected for their knowledge, people start listening to them.

Now they pose a real danger to the leaders. When people are not always afraid, they get time to question rulers, ask for their rights.

Rulers see their plan failing because of these intellectuals. So they  arrest them, punish them on some flimsy grounds. That's what happens in China, and that's what happens in many countries.

Some rulers use another smarter method - they level all kinds of allegations on these intellectuals and destroy their credibility.  So that people don’t listen to them any more. 

 And it works very well and now ruling class earns people’s love and affection instead of hatred.