Helplessness

The current situation world over is one that can cause despair but a majority of people still have hope. In contrast the situation in India is one of helplessness. The average citizen has abandoned all hope because the belief in the powers that be, doesn’t exist any more. 

Got thinking about the reason why. One can argue about the political class and their reluctance to make course corrections etc. but that is not the core reason. 

The citizens of this country are experiencing a concept known as learned helplessness. To understand this concept let me explain using an animal analogy. When an animal is repeatedly subjected to an aversive stimulus that it cannot escape. Eventually, the animal will stop trying to avoid the stimulus and behave as if it is utterly helpless to change the situation. Even when opportunities to escape are presented,  the animal will not take any action. This is learned helplessness. 

Consider the citizen now; the last decade the citizen has been subject to numerous hardships, has learnt about corruption that runs into values that boggle the mind, tried electing someone else and now has reached a point where the mental argument is if not him then who ? The citizens are now experiencing learned helplessness. To be screwed over and over again and to fall in love with the captors is known as the Stockholm syndrome. 

To be able to escape this requires one to actively challenge the narrative, dispute thought patterns that are negative and to rekindle the belief in rational thought. The alternative way to escape is riddled with high physical and mental costs. 

We as humanity stand at a critical juncture. 1.5 billion people of a country (a fourth of humanity) being helpless is a problem for all of humanity. 

From the Gitanjali by Tagore 

“Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way into the dreary desert sand of dead habit;

Where the mind is led forward by thee into ever-widening thought and action 

Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake.”

C