How to pick a side these days

I canrsquot speak for everyone obviously but this has been a tricky period for much of the world given how many political and other issues we are all trying to make sense of I have been trying to figure out where I should voice my support because that is what we are all called upon to do these days We canrsquot just sit and watch television or interact with people without commenting on some situation or eventWe have smartphones now so we are all compelled and coerced into taking a stand and into being vocal about what we believe This more often than not involves supporting something denouncing something else or voicing outrage and calling for some sort of boycott Itrsquos just the times we live inThe one good thing in my favour is that I have no social media profiles and havenrsquot had any for more than half a decade now This makes my life just a little easier to manage because whenever I choose to declare support for someone or some cause I have to do it on WhatsApp alone I can simply update my status there informing the small number of family and friends on my list of contacts that I have picked a side I know this is harder for most other people because their declarations have to be well thought out and posted after a great deal of effort Celebrities for instance presumably have to sit through multiple meetings with publicists and PR teams before crafting some kind of supportive postHere is a rule of thumb I have begun to follow based on what film stars and members of Indiarsquos cricket team do I simply wait for a Hollywood star or pop singer to voice support for something before adding my vote in agreement This has worked very well for so many Indian celebrities which makes me believe it is a solution to all our problems The alternative approach is to wait for the government of India to tweet so we all receive clues on what can and canrsquot be supportedConsider the past few weeks alone I didnrsquot know which country to support given the number of skirmishes reported in Pakistan Afghanistan Syria Somalia Israel and Palestine I had already voiced support for Ukraine a year ago so it didnrsquot make sense to proclaim how much I disliked Russia The Prime Minister hadnrsquot tweeted against Putin either so I decided to put aside that yearlong war and look at events closer to home that probably required more attention There wasManipur of course but it was obviously not as important as Israel so I quickly went with the latter This was justified by the presence of television anchors masquerading as journalists too many of whom began filming themselves in the streets of Jerusalem None of them had managed to reach Manipur so I knew I was doing the right thing and supporting people who genuinely needed thoughts and prayers on TwitterI believe it is the governmentrsquos duty to step in and point us in the right direction because we have such little access to information these days There may be pensioners protesting in Delhi wrestlers begging for justice and farmers killing themselves even as I type this but none of us may know it because reporters are covering some election rally Given this scenario and our proclivity to support things and people abroad it is only the government that can act as a beacon of light in this dark world of misinformation It is only our highly educated and unbiased ministers we can turn to for the truthWhere the next conflict will take place is anyonersquos guess Itrsquos also impossible to predict how long Israel and Palestine will take to resolve their differences Maybe the government can simply issue a set of guidelines for us to follow until it can come up with more concrete resolutions Perhaps it can set a limit based on distance for example allowing us to voice support only for events that occur over 1000 kilometres away from our borders Or perhaps we can simply take cues from the Prime Ministerrsquos Twitter handle and do what he does It took him a few hours to voice support for Israel but often takes him months to comment on atrocities protests or riots within our borders Maybe thatrsquos what we are all supposed to do If we pretend something isnrsquot happening it will probably just go awayWhen he isnrsquot ranting about all things Mumbai Lindsay Pereira can be almost sweet He tweets lindsaypereiraSend your feedback to mailbagmiddaycomThe views expressed in this column are the individualrsquos and donrsquot represent those of the paper