Skepticism Is the Mosquito Net
Acronyms and terms used below:
TV — Television; the old glowing box, now reborn as shouting panels, streaming clips, and short-video noise.
GDP — Gross Domestic Product; a broad measure of economic output, often waved like a trophy even when daily life still has potholes, unpaid bills, and bad drains.
UPI — Unified Payments Interface; India’s instant digital payment system, useful, impressive, and still not proof that every institution around it has become honest.
CCTV — Closed-Circuit Television; surveillance cameras, often treated as truth machines, though cameras record scenes, not motives, context, pressure, or power.
AI — Artificial Intelligence; software systems that can generate, classify, predict, or summarize, sometimes brilliantly, sometimes like a confident parrot with a law degree from a tea stall.
In India, skepticism is not a personality defect. It is mosquito netting. You do not sleep under a mosquito net because you hate nature. You sleep under it because nature, at 2:17 in the morning, has arrived near your ear with a business proposal.
That is how life works here too. Something is always buzzing.
A politician says sacrifice. A builder says almost ready. A cousin says trust me. A dashboard says success. A news anchor says nation. A godman says energy. A consultant says guaranteed. A relative says only for your good. A clerk says come tomorrow. A doctor says take these seven tablets. A coaching center says your child will become a planetary object of excellence.
And if you believe everything, you are not innocent. You are breakfast.
I am not saying this from an ivory tower. I am saying this from the sweaty lower-middle-class edge of Calcutta, where a 51-year-old single man can sit in a small room with an unpaid bill, a dodgy ceiling fan, a phone full of bad news, and enough education to know exactly how nonsense is being packaged for public consumption. This is not romance. This is not despair either. It is observation with the varnish removed.
India teaches skepticism the way summer teaches sweat.
You learn it first in small things. The milk packet is short. The plumber has vanished. The medicine shop says the cheaper strip is unavailable, though it reappears when you ask twice. The landlord becomes philosophical near repair time. The local leader’s nephew gets the contract. The polite man who calls you “dada” also adds an invisible service charge to existence.
Then you learn it in larger things. The report is glowing, but the ward smells of neglect. The road was inaugurated twice and repaired never. The hiring process was open, except everyone knew the chosen candidate before the advertisement put on its shoes. The school celebrates merit while parents whisper about donation, connection, surname, and “background,” that soft velvet word under which many hard little prejudices sleep.
Here is the trick. Corruption is not only money changing hands in a brown envelope. That is the cartoon version, the one we can all condemn while feeling morally freshly bathed.
The real corruption is the corruption of knowing.
You no longer know whether the number is a number or a decoration. You no longer know whether the promise is a promise or a sedative. You no longer know whether the expert is an expert or merely a man with a microphone and a stiff collar. You no longer know whether the patriotic speech is love of country or fear of questions wearing a flag.
This is why skepticism becomes the most important survival skill.
Not English. Not coding. Not networking. Not smiling. Not even UPI, though UPI is one of the few things in modern India that often works so well that one feels suspicious on principle.
Skepticism.
Proper skepticism asks: who benefits if I believe this?
That one question is a small torch. It does not solve everything, but it prevents you from walking straight into the open manhole of public language.
When a politician says development, ask: development for whom, measured how, paid by whom, and hidden at whose cost? When a TV panel says the nation is angry, ask: which nation, whose anger, and who booked the studio lights? When a family says we know what is best for you, ask: best for me, or best for the family’s reputation among people who will not pay my rent? When a boss says we are like family, ask why salary arrives like an orphan.
This is not negativity.
Negativity is sitting in the corner muttering that everything is finished and everyone is a thief. That is not skepticism. That is spoiled milk pretending to be philosophy.
Skepticism is sharper and kinder. It says people are mixed, systems bend, incentives matter, and truth usually arrives without a garland. It says verify before surrender. It says respect is fine, but evidence gets a chair at the table.
In India, this sounds rude because we are trained to confuse obedience with decency. Ask a question and suddenly you are arrogant. Ask for proof and you are Westernized. Ask about superstition and you are insulting culture. Ask about corruption and you are anti-national. Ask about caste and everyone becomes a historian of their own innocence. Ask about religion and someone will tell you his grandmother knew a miracle involving turmeric, a fever, and a railway ticket.
Fine. Grandmothers knew many things. They also did not have randomized trials, antibiotics, or waterproof electrical wiring.
I say this as an atheist, but not as a sneering one. Human beings are frightened animals with language. We invent stories because the universe is large and unpaid bills are personal. But there is a difference between comfort and truth. A lullaby may calm a child. It should not design a bridge.
Superstition becomes dangerous when it enters decisions. A patient delays treatment. A woman is blamed for bad luck. A student believes planets have more influence than preparation. A family consults a chart instead of a conversation. A country starts calling old guesses ancient science because pride is cheaper than laboratory work.
And then comes jingoism, wearing dark glasses and leaning against the gate like a club bouncer.
Jingoism is the cheapest form of dignity. It tells a poor, angry, humiliated citizen: you may have no job, no clean air, no functioning public hospital nearby, no justice without ten years of paperwork, but look at the map glowing on TV. Clap. Louder.
Patriotism can be decent. It can mean wanting the drains to work, the schools to teach, the police to behave, the courts to move, and the hungry to eat without someone first asking their religion. Jingoism is different. Jingoism is patriotism after it has eaten too much fried ego. It does not ask whether citizens live well. It asks whether they shout correctly.
You think propaganda is always dramatic. Actually, propaganda is often boring. That is its genius.
It comes as a chart. A slogan. A forwarded message from an uncle. A school assembly speech. A WhatsApp graphic with three colors and zero sources. A panel discussion where six men interrupt one woman and call it debate. A government advertisement smiling from a wall above an overflowing drain. A spiritual reel with flute music and terrible epistemology.
A lie in India does not always kick down the door. Sometimes it enters wearing sandals and says, “Just sharing, dada.”
This is where ordinary life becomes a test of attention.
Take the middle-aged man in the Calcutta outskirts. He wakes up badly because sleep has once again behaved like an unreliable contractor. The tea is not made. The tooth aches. The phone already contains five little tragedies, three bills, two ads for miracle investments, and one video explaining that all modern science was apparently discovered by someone’s ancestor during a thunderstorm in 4000 BCE. Outside, the vegetable seller is bargaining like a constitutional lawyer. A dog is asleep in the lane with the confidence of a retired judge. Somewhere, a loudspeaker is doing its best to reduce civilization to vibration.
In such a morning, skepticism is not abstract.
It is deciding not to believe the first emotion that arrives.
That matters too. We talk as if skepticism is only for politics, religion, media, systems, and crooked people. No. The first fraudster may be inside the skull. Depression says you are finished. Anxiety says disaster is certain. Anger says the whole species is a clerical error. Shame says hide. Loneliness says nobody will ever understand you.
These voices may feel true. Feeling true is not the same as being true.
A skeptical person must doubt even his own darkness. Not dismiss it. Not chant slogans at it. Doubt it, as one doubts a salesman who has arrived too early and is sweating too much.
That is why skepticism is not cold. It is a form of self-defense with a pulse.
In public life, it asks: is this claim backed by evidence?
In private life, it asks: is this fear a forecast or only weather?
In family life, it asks: is this love, or control wearing a shawl?
In work life, it asks: is this merit, or someone’s nephew in formal shoes?
Nepotism is perhaps India’s most delicate art form. It rarely says, “We prefer our own people because fairness is tiring.” It says culture fit. It says trusted background. It says recommendation. It says adjustment. It says known family. It says he is a good boy. It says she is from a respectable home. It says sir knows him. It says madam suggested her. It says nothing directly, because direct speech would ruin the embroidery.
The result is a country where talent spends half its life standing outside doors, while mediocrity enters through the kitchen.
And yet India is full of talent. That is the infuriating part. We have brilliant doctors, engineers, teachers, drivers, mechanics, nurses, coders, cooks, shopkeepers, scientists, and ordinary people who can repair a broken life with three tools, two jokes, and one cup of tea. The tragedy is not lack of intelligence. The tragedy is the way intelligence is trapped inside bad arrangements.
A good person in a bad system becomes a patch.
A patch can save the day. It cannot become the architecture.
That is why dashboards worry me. Modern India loves dashboards. Everything is now glowing in rectangles. Red, green, yellow, percentage, target, achievement, ranking, district, state, national average. Very impressive. Very digital. Very suitable for a speech.
But a dashboard is not truth. It is a mirror held up to whatever the system has been trained to report.
If a hospital is punished for reporting infections, infections will become shy. If a school is rewarded for pass rates, failure will take tuition from invisibility. If a police station is praised for low crime, complaints may die politely at the gate. If a department is judged by disposal numbers, files will move in circles and call it progress.
The data is not always fake. Sometimes it is worse. It is obedient.
This is the sort of thing a skeptical citizen must understand. Not because he is a data scientist. Because he lives under the consequences. A bad number becomes a good speech. A good speech becomes a policy. A policy becomes a budget. A budget becomes a contract. A contract becomes a road that floods every July and is repaired every March, like a religious festival for contractors.
Round and round we go.
The official villain is often laziness. The real villain is incentive. People do what the system rewards, hides, forgives, or fears. This is true in offices, hospitals, schools, families, politics, media, and housing societies where retired men in shorts become the Roman Senate because someone misplaced a parking sticker.
Kakistocracy does not always look foolish. That is why it survives.
Sometimes rule by the least suitable comes with a podium, a degree, a security convoy, a committee, a blazer, a spreadsheet, and a tone of grave concern. The incompetent have learned manners. They say stakeholder. They say ecosystem. They say holistic. They say robust mechanism. They say many things, and by the time they finish, the original problem has aged into a pensioner.
Skepticism listens for fog.
Where did the noun go? Who will do the work? By what date? With whose money? What happens if it fails? Who is accountable? What would change your mind?
These questions are not fashionable. They are useful. Fashionable questions get applause. Useful questions get silence.
Silence is information.
Of course, one cannot live forever with one eyebrow raised. The face becomes tired. Also, people stop inviting you to weddings, which may be a loss or a public health benefit depending on the catering.
Trust is necessary. Friendship is necessary. Love is necessary. Some officials are honest. Some believers are gentle. Some patriots are sincere. Some families are protective without being possessive. Some teachers still light lamps in the brain without charging an entrance fee. Some journalists still chase facts through mud. Some doctors still explain before prescribing. Some neighbors still help because decency has not been entirely privatized.
But trust must be earned. That is the small rule. Earned by action. Earned by consistency. Earned by evidence. Earned when words and behavior walk in the same direction without needing a police escort.
India trains us to trust status. Skepticism trains us to trust patterns.
That is the difference between being polite and being available for plucking.
The great danger is that skepticism can curdle into contempt. One must guard against that. If you begin by doubting propaganda and end by despising people, the propaganda has still damaged you. The goal is not to become a bitter little CCTV camera mounted on your own forehead. The goal is to remain human without becoming gullible.
Hard thing.
Very hard.
Especially when money is short, the room is hot, the career has gone sideways, and every confident fool on the internet appears to be doing better than you by selling certainty in packets. But perhaps that is exactly when skepticism matters most. Desperation makes people delicious to predators. They can smell it. The job scammer, the political recruiter, the miracle healer, the fake guru, the investment genius, the romance manipulator, the family negotiator, the employer with “exposure” instead of payment—each arrives with a spoon.
Do not climb into the pot.
Ask one more question. Read one more clause. Wait one more day before sending money. Check one more source. Notice who gets angry when you slow down. Notice who benefits from your panic. Notice who demands trust before earning it.
That pause is power.
It is small, yes. But small powers matter in a country where large powers are often busy giving speeches near garlanded photographs.
Skepticism will not make India honest overnight. It will not fix the courts, drains, schools, hospitals, media, or family WhatsApp group, that eternal museum of forwarded madness. It will not remove superstition from the bloodstream or nepotism from the appointment letter. It will not turn every loud patriot into a quiet citizen who reads budgets.
But it can save your mind from being rented.
That is not a small thing.
A person who cannot doubt becomes public property. Anyone can plant a flag in him. Family, party, market, priest, boss, influencer, anchor, algorithm, astrologer, consultant, lover, relative, nation, neighborhood, nostalgia—everyone arrives with a claim. The self becomes a cheap room with no lock.
Skepticism is the lock.
Not a prison lock. A door lock. The kind that lets you decide who enters.
And in India, where the theatre is always open, the actors are always shouting, the tickets are never fully explained, and the man selling popcorn may also be writing policy, one must learn to sit slightly away from the stage.
Watch carefully.
Laugh when needed.
Pay only after checking the bill.