Do we always need to be politically correct?


As I was watching an advertisement of some car tyre, this thought crossed my mind – do we always need to be politically correct? In that commercial a kid writes about his day out in his Dad’s car where he goes for an adventure and meets a monster that smiles at him. So far the visuals are fine. But in the next visual the monster is shown as a dead branch of a tree. That makes me ponder, do we need to kill imagination of kids in order to be politically correct. I ask this question because when I was a child I used to listen to stories and fables. In those stories the animals, birds and trees used to speak, there were giants and elves and gnomes and fairies and blood thirsty monsters. In tales of mythology there were Rakshasas and Asuras. Even a few years back there was the Harry Potter series with wizards and witches. But then some voices could be heard, some religious leaders on one hand and rationalists on the other opposed these books, though their reasons and domains were absolutely opposite. Over the past few years, this political correctness syndrome seems to have engulfed every one of us. We need to be politically correct everywhere, be it media or social media or in our day to day life. Politicians are made to justify or to apologize for the smallest of things they say. Every conversation, every sentence and every word has to be politically correct. Everything a person says in a social circles or writes about in social media is dissected, fragmented and analysed, and if any politically unsuitable term is found it is debated and further debated until it becomes an issue, to the extent that sometimes people go on hunger strike, agitation or rampages just because a particular word has been said. The news channels get flooded with tweets and facebook pages are filled with posts. The smallest of errors are circulated over whatsapp and then someone floats a petition in change.org. PILs are also filed in courts and the state assembly or the parliament is adjourned. But where are we heading to. Would our conversation in future be like –

Yesterday I met a person (I would not reveal name as it would be politically incorrect to show bias for a particular gender, religion or caste) at 36.7N latitude and 26.8 E longitude (I would not reveal the place as it would be politically incorrect to show bias for a particular state or region or country). The person (I would not use pronouns like he or she as it would be politically incorrect to show bias for a particular gender, and maybe the third gender would find it offensive) had just come out of an assignment (I would not reveal whether as some section may be heard if his job or assignment is known) and had a package (I would not reveal the package as it would be offensive to someone) in his hand. He was carrying this package for another person (Again I need to be politically correct, so no names or pronouns) along with a bundle of flowers of 51237 shade (Colours, I cannot mention because black makes me racist, white makes me elitist, green makes me Islamist, red makes me leftist, saffron makes me rightist, blue makes me BSP or TMC, pink make me gay, grey makes me dubious and so on). The other person was supposed to meet this person at some coordinated latitude and longitude. The person revealed some emotions (I cannot reveal emotions because emotions may be fake and that would make me politically incorrect) towards the other person as it happened to be a particular occasion (How on earth could I dare to say it was Valentine’s day).

Disclaimer: The black and red colours in this text have been used only for emphasis and does not reflect the bias of the author towards any particular political party, caste, creed religion, or any other affiliation. Readers are advised to read this piece at their own risk and the author will not take responsibility for anything political.            

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