Hypocrisy is a big issue in most societies, but it's a particularly problematic one in India. We learn about civics and citizenship, and yet are often asked—and ask ourselves—why we have such a strong sense of family, but such a poor sense of a larger community: How can our homes be so clean, but our streets so littered with garbage?

Every day, in every sphere—business, politics, social work or sports—across the country, millions of Indians indulge in acts of hypocrisy and that collectively add up. Although we are told to treat women and men equally, an attitude of prejudice against women is still evident. Men are given more freedom with respect to how they behave and carry themselves, however women are forced to comply with social expectations.

Statement Of Problem
India is a country where the cow is a holy animal and is considered to be a sacred symbol of life and is associated with Aditi, the mother of all gods by the Hindus but at the same time India is one of the largest beef exporters in the world, it is a country where talking about sex is taboo but is also the country with the third highest porn viewers.

You are judged for buying a condom but has the second largest population, which makes up for 17.35% of the world's total population, the citizens of India worship female deities but kill the girl child and think of the girl child as a burden. Freedom of expression is a fundamental right but a cartoonist was jailed for making a cartoon which criticized the government and people are called anti-nationalists or terrorists if they say something remotely negative about the government.

In India an actress was sent to jail for providing her already addicted boyfriend weed but every year on March 7th the followers of lord shiva smoke weed in the name of Shiva as they believe that he did so himself, to help him focus and go into a deep state of meditation and the same narcotics department says nothing to them. India is a secular country, where the government tried making it a Hindu nation a few months back and went on the streets chanting “Mandir wahi banayega” on a land measuring 67 acres instead of building hospitals and schools and wanted to change the names of roads which had Muslim or non-Hindu names

Scope Of Research
This research paper aims to investigate the height of hypocrisy persisting in India surrounding less spoken about, sensitive topics like how India has a law which prohibits the export of beef and consumption of beef but at the same time we are one of the largest beef exporters in the world today, talking about things like sex as well as masturbation is considered taboo and buying a condom is frowned upon by society, how the female child is considered a burden and in rural areas female infanticide is prevalent but female deities are worshipped and how freedom of expression is a part of India's fundamental right but is ranked 142nd on the world press freedom index. Further on, this research paper expects to touch on sensitive topics like cannabis/weed/marijuana in India and how India is supposed to be a secular country but is slowly shifting to a Hindu raj.

Objective
The objectives of this research paper, which it aims to address are:

• What's the height of hypocrisy in India?
• Why is beef banned in “secular” India, if it only goes against Hindu sentiments?
• How is smoking weed okay when done in the name of lord shiva?
• Why is talking about things like sex a taboo TODAY, when it wasn't earlier?
• How can we overcome such hypocrisy and break the taboo?

Hypothesis
Hypocrisy mentioned in this research paper, ranges from beef export, weed, the killing of the girl child to the issue with religion in India and our fundamental right to freedom of expression. All of these fields are controlled by the government and not by the average man. Looking at the current situation in India there are two possible outcomes to this situation.

The first being that the government along with the people will find the solution to these problems, the second being that the media will receive a heavy bribe from the government or big business houses and will stop covering these issues surrounded by hypocrisy and the general public will eventually forget about it.

Seeing the way things are in India, the second possibility is most likely to happen. For example, when a person is pulled over by the police on the road or stopped at a red light for either driving to fast, not wearing a seat belt or talking on the phone while driving; he/she bribes the police and is let go with a warning and the incident is forgotten by both the police and the person who was pulled over. This evidently shows the lack of concern from both the public and the government. For a better democracy for our nation, change is the need of the hour, without which our country would fail to progress.

Literature Review
To solve the problem of hypocrisy in India surrounding export of beef, killing of the girl child, smoking weed in the name of religion, the issue with the word secular and the fact that freedom of speech and expression is our fundamental right but were 142nd on the world press freedom index, we as a country have to take very drastic steps.

To solve the problem of killing of the girl child but praying to female gods, we must break the stigma of dowry. Dowry is a certain amount of money or property a bride and her family give her husband on the day of their marriage. This common practice has led people to believe that a girl child is a burden and a boy child is an asset. Families started killing the girl child in order to avoid giving dowry and preferred having a boy child.

Gender discrimination still exists in India. Even today the boys are often encouraged to go to school and get an education to prepare for work, while girls carry heavy household responsibilities that keep them from school, increasing the odds of child marriage and pregnancy. A large percentage of girls experience physical or sexual violence in their lifetime, mostly at the hands of their partners. At the same time in India female Hindu deities like Sarasvati (the god of learning, arts and music), Lakshmi (the goddess of good fortune and wealth) and Parvati ((she is depicted as seated high in the Himalayas and represents the continuity of life) are worshipped.

Article 15(1) mandates the state to not segregate towards any person on the sole basis of sex, ethnicity, race, etc but as a society and as people we need to do our part to help reduce this gender discrimination by teaching the less privileged sections of society how wrong such beliefs and practices are.

The issue with beef is a religious issue, for Hindus living in north India killing a cow and eating beef hurts their religious believes but at the same time the Hindu brahmins living in south India eat beef. The supreme court of India, imposed a ban on beef in most states because it hurts the religious beliefs of the Hindu community and India is a country dominated by the Hindus.

The ban on beef should be removed as we are one of the largest beef exporters in the world. In the year 2015 India was the worlds largest beef export, exporting a total of 2.4 million tons of beef. This ban on beef needs to be lifted as it only goes against the religious sentiments of the Hindu community.

There are several thousand people in India who enjoy eating beef, but are afraid to do so because of extremist Hindus who will harm them for doing so. An incident took place a while back in Dankaur a village in the state of Uttar Pradesh when Sunil Gautam and his family who were residents of Atta (Noida) was stripped, beaten and paraded naked by the policy just for allegedly eating beef.

If we do not solve this issue of hypocrisy in the Indian government sooner or later the government or a big business house will bribe the media to stop covering these problems and the public will eventually forget about it. To prevent that from happening the people of this country should start social media campaigns to pressurise not just the government but also the media to address this situation, forcing the government to see that the people of this country are furious with this hypocrisy and demand a change.

Freedom of speech and expression is a part of our fundamental right but how is that we are 142nd on the world press freedom index and a case was filed in the Mumbai high court by a lawyer, stating that the cartoon made by Aseem Trivedi mocked national symbols.

Research Methodology
This research methodology adopted for this research paper is the doctrinal methodology (consulting books, journals, articles, etc. It also throws light on the list of study material, data and their sources, obtained by me (the researcher) as the instrument to conduct the research. I dug up articles on the net and in the newspaper to see what scholars and people who have a greater understanding about hypocritical India have written.

I used multiple websites for this research paper, such as NDTV's newspaper as well as their website, I even went through Times of India (T.O.I) website and newspaper, “save the children” website gave me more detailed information on the gender discrimination the women of this country face. For the Aseem Trivedi case I used “the guardian” (all the links are in the bibliography).

At times the media does twist and manipulate stories to hide the truth, so to analyse what is true and what is false I had to use multiple websites to cross check information but most of the information in this research paper is from what I have observed. I chose Times of India, NDTV, the guardian, save the children, eazydiner, scroll, etc as all of these websites are very popular websites and are trusted by thousands of people.

NDTV and Times of India are very big media houses which provide the whole country with day to day news updates whether that be through their respective newspapers, news channels, websites or even their mobile apps. The whole country majorly relies on both these media houses to provide them with accurate and honest news. But even information I gathered from their websites I cross checked with multiple other websites to get the most accurate information.

Hypocrisy In Indian Democracy

• Beef

  India is a country where the Hindu community is the majority community. In Hinduism the cow is not considered a god nor is it worshipped, but they consider it to be a sacred symbol of life and believe it should be protected. In the Vedas, the oldest of Hindu scriptures, the cow is associated with the mother of all gods i.e. Aditi. The Rig Vedas states that “the cows have come and have brought us good fortune.
  
  In our stalls, contended, may they stay! May they bring forth calves for us, many-colored, giving milk for Indra each day” but Hindus in ancient India did eat beef even when the custom of vegetarianism spread. During the period of Rig Veda according to the oldest Hindu holy literature, beef was eaten by many people and other pieces of literature such as dharma that showed religious obligation and other texts such as Brahmana stated that cow or bull should be put to death to eat when guests arrive, it also states that cows and bulls are considered sustenance or food.
  
  As consumption of beef hurts the religious sentiments of the Hindu community, India implemented a ban on beef. Under the current trade laws of India, the export and import of meat of cow, oxen and calf is prohibited.
  
  In the year 2015, India was the largest beef exporter in the world, exporting a total of 14,75,540 metric tones making up for 4.5% of the country's GDP in 2015-16. Forbes has stated that India exports beef worth $4 billion annually even today. India's prime minister, Narendra Modi is an extremist Hindu, but under his government India's beef exports has increased. In India there are several cases where a Muslim man along with his family have been beaten to death by Hindus for allegedly eating beef.
  
  In Dadri, Gautam Budh Nagar a district in Uttar Pradesh, Mohammad Akhlaq a 50-year-old man was beaten to death for allegedly eating and storing beef. His 22-year-old son was also severely beaten. An announcement was made by district magistrate NP Singh saying “Some locals have spread rumours that Akhlaq had cow meat at his home and is engaged in cow-slaughtering. Following this rumour, tension ignited and some locals attacked his home in Bisara village.”
  
  If all lives including animal lives are important according to Hinduism, then why are people being publicly humiliated, stripped naked and beaten to death just for eating beef?
   

• Sex & Masturbation

  India is a country where peeing on the road is considered okay by both society and the police but kissing in public is not allowed, even for a married couple kissing in public is considered to against Indian culture.
  
  Sex and masturbation are considered a taboo in India but at the same time India's total population is 1,384,660,352 with 500+ people per.sq.km.
  
  Vir das is a famous Indian stand up comedian, in one of his shows he said and I quote:
  “According to section 377 oral and anal sex are illegal, with a population of 1,384,660,352+ we should be advertising it on billboards across the country, we should be promoting it non-stop instead of deeming it illegal”
  
  People in todays “modern times” are still scared to say things like sex, masturbation, condoms, etc in public as they feel it goes against society values. Anything merely related to sex comes up in conversation the elders say “this is against Indian Culture” but that's not true India made the Kamasutra, a book showing and teaching different sex positions. India is the land of Kamasutra, Khujarao's sex temple worship “Shivalings” however on Sunday, national secretary Gaurav Tiwari of BJYM filed a complaint, demanding an apology from Netflix and the makers of the series “A Suitable Boy” as they showed a boy and a girl kissing inside a temple. Gaurav Tiwari also said that this scene hurts religious sentiments of the Hindus and encourages “love jihad”.
  
  India is the country with the worlds second highest population, it is also the country with the highest growth rate and it also has the highest rate of sexual abuse, teen pregnancy, HIV/AIDS, etc.
  India has 7 sex temples which idolise sex through erotic sculptures, which have also been declared world heritage sites by UNESCO. The 7 temples:
  
  1. Khajuraho temple in Madhya Pradesh
     (a group of 25 temples in total, showing both homosexuality and bisexuality
  2. Sun temple, konark in Orissa
  3. Virupaksha temple in Karnataka
     (the walls have sculptures of couples in sexual poses)
  4. Jain temples in Rajasthan
     (the walls of the temples are carved with seductive sculptures of dancing nymphs)
  5. Sun temple in Gujarat
     (has sculptures of Hindu gods & goddesses as well as erotic figures on each wall)
  6. Sathyaamurthi Permual Temple, Tamil Nadu
  7. Lingaraj Temple, Bhubaneshwar Orissa
     (the sculptures in this temple have been inspired by Kamasutra, the worlds original guide on sex)
     Yet sex and masturbation are considered a taboo.
      

  8. Secularism And Freedom Of Speech

     The 42nd amendment of the constitution added the word “SECULAR” into the preamble thus making India a “secular” country on paper. The word secular in context to India does not mean separation of religion from state instead it means that the state is neutral to all religious groups. We are secular on paper, a prime example being an unnamed political party which promotes Hindu sentiments changed the name of several roads across Delhi as they were non-Hindu names.
     
     If India was a truly secular country all the citizens irrespective of religion would be covered by a single set of laws. India however has different set of laws for people of different religions, while Hindus, Sikhs and Buddhists are covered by the Hindu marriage act, Hindu succession act, etc Muslims are covered by Muslim personal laws and Christians are covered by their own laws.
     
     Many people believe that we are in fact a truly secular country but if we truly are then how do justify the Gujarat communal riots 1969, the Anti-Sikh genocide of 1984, killing of Kashmiri pundits 1989-1990, the infamous Babri Masjid demolition in 1992, Mumbai riots 1992-93, Gujarat riots 2002 and the NRC riots which took place in New Delhi the state capital or how the citizen amendment included the Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains and Christians but excluded the Muslims. The only time the minorities matter or are taken into account is around election time, for political parties the minority community has become nothing but a vote bank.
     
     Freedom of speech and expression is a part of India's fundamental rights, yet India ranks 142nd on the world press freedom index.
     
     Earlier this year, AIB was slapped with a defamation case for sharing a meme about the prime minister, Narendra Modi. AIB shared a picture of a man who looked like Narendra Modi after it was already viral on several social networking sites. The meme was allegedly reported to the authorities after it showed the PM's face with the dog filter from Snapchat.
     
     AIB was still a group of adults, a class 11 student was arrested for criticizing Mr. Azam Khan.
     
     In the case the student was jailed for a period of 11 days for sharing a post about the minister of Urban Development, at such a tender age where children are still understanding and developing, being arrested not only curbs the freedom of the child but also sets an example where all the students become scared enough to the extent that they never voice their opinion.
     
     Shahin and Renus are 2 girls from Maharashtra who were rightfully questioning the shut down of an entire city but were kept in a 14-day judicial custody. Shahin was the one who posted the tweet, but Renu was arrested for simply liking the tweet.
      

  9. Are Opression & Upliftment Of Women Synonms To Society?

     India is a country where females gods are worshipped in temples but at the same time the girl child is considered a burden. We consider ourselves to be developing nation but are far from that when it comes to gender equality, people in India celebrate when a boy is born but if it is a girl no celebration takes place.
     
     Love for a male child is so much that the girl child is killed at birth or even before birth and if fortunately, she is not killed society finds various ways to suppress her through out her life. Even though the Hindu religious beliefs make women goddesses, we fail to recognize her as a human being. India, specially the country capital New Delhi is the most unsafe place for a girl, they constantly live with the fear of being kidnapped, raped, having men constantly ogling at them and being sexualized by men.
     
     But it isn't an issue which has started recently, its been there since ancient times. For instance, as per ancient Hindu law “women are the property of their father when they are children, the property of their husband after marriage and the property her son in old age or as widows. In no circumstance is she allowed to assert her independence.”
     
     Many believe that education of the girl child is a bad investment as she is bound to get married and will have to live as a house wife doing chores around the house be it cooking food, cleaning the house, washing the dishes, etc.
     But the government has launched several programmes to uplift the women of this country like:
     
     
     1. Beti Bachao, Beti Padhao
     2. Sukanya Samriddhi Account
     3. Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana
     4. Mahila Haat
        
        At the same time many politicians are facing rape cases, to name a few:
        
        1. Anoop Sanda (2010)
        2. Bikram Singh Brahma (2013)
        3. Shantilal Solanki, Govind Parumalni, Govind Parumalani, Ajit Ramvani (2017) (Gang-Raped The Woman And Recorded It)
        4. M Vincent (2017)
            

  10. Cannabis In India

      Cannabis has a long history in India, the earliest mention of cannabis has been found in the sacred Hindu texts or the Vedas. The writings have been compiled as early as 2000 to 1400 B.C. According to the Vedas, cannabis or weed was one of the five sacred plants, there was also a common belief that a guardian angel lived in its leaves. The Vedas call cannabis a source of happiness and joy, it also says that it releases us from a state of anxiety. In India. Cannabis has been in use for millennia in various forms including ganja, bhang. Hashish and other variants.
      
      In 1985, India passed the Narcotics Drugs and Psychotropic Substances act which criminalised cannabis in the form of buds or resin while allowing the sale of bhang(a by product of cannabis that is heavily consumed on Holi and Shivratri).
      
      But in the year 1961, United Nations Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs banned all forms of drugs, clubbing cannabis products like ganja and charas with hard drugs, giving India 25 years to phase them out.
      
      However in 2018 the countries two biggest cities New Delhi and Mumbai, consumed 38.2 tonnes and 32.4 tonnes of cannabis respectively. In the list of top 120 cities of consumption of weed, Delhi ranked third and Mumbai ranked sixth.
      
      If the ban on consumption of weed is lifted New Delhi alone could raise up to Rs 725 crore( $101.2 million) annually while Mumbai can raise Rs641 crore if weed is taxed at the same rate as cigarettes.
      
      India alone accounted for 6% of the worlds highest amount of weed consumed in 2016, which is 300 tonnes and even higher quantities in 2017 i.e. 353 tonnes(a 20% increase compared to 2016).
       

Conclusion
The research paper proves and concludes that the second possibility of the hypothesis will be the outcome i.e. the media will receive a bribe to not talk about these controversial topics and soon the general public will forget about it but there is a solution to overcome the hypocrisy in Indian democracy.

The new generation who are still in school and colleges will have to step up and show the government that the youth of this country is angry with the current situation be it through social media campaigns or by protesting on the streets at the end of the day we need to make sure that our voices are heard.

We need to break the toxic masculinity and the old school way of thinking that women cannot do what men can do, in fact women can do what men do and they can do it far better. We need to break the stigma of feeling embarrassed while buying condoms or sanitary pads and telling the shop keeper to wrap it up in a black polyethene bag. At the end of the day the question still remains “Are we really progressing or are we regressing as a society?”

Biblography:

• https://www.latestlaws.com/articles/beef-ban-in-india-legal-perspective-by-aayush-akar/
• https://theprint.in/economy/indias-beef-exports-rise-under-modi-govt-despite-hindu-vigilante-campaign-at-home/210164/
• https://www.thejakartapost.com/life/2020/11/23/temple-kissing-scenes-stir-trouble-for-netflix-india.html#:~:text=An%20Indian%20state%20on%20Sunday%20asked%20police%20to,boy%20against%20the%20backdrop%20of%20a%20Hindu%20temple.
• https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/politics-and-nation/why-india-is-not-a-secular-state/articleshow/50072294.cms
• https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/readersblog/bloggernishapasari/sex-education-still-a-taboo-in-india-5207/
• https://www.studymode.com/essays/Is-India-Really-Secular-67335619.html
• https://legaldesire.com/top-cases-which-prove-the-lack-of-freedom-of-speech-and-expression-and-the-fading-right-to-criticize-the-government-in-our-country/
• https://www.womensweb.in/2017/07/government-schemes-for-upliftment-of-women-in-india/
• https://hillpost.in/2013/11/top-7-politicians-charged-with-attempt-to-rape/96834/
• https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/bjp-preparing-ground-for-hindu-rashtra-gehlot/article30322916.ece
• https://www.msn.com/en-in/news/offbeat/did-you-know-weed-was-legal-in-india-till-1985-a-look-at-indias-long-history-with-cannabis/ar-BB18KDzp
• https://qz.com/india/1705970/delhi-mumbai-among-worlds-biggest-consumers-of-weed/
  
  Award Winning Article Is Written By: Mr.Fatehh SIngh Majithia
  

  Authentication No: MA106466006047-5-3221