What Stayed with Me After the Last Page

This time, it is another book that resonates so deeply in my soul that it took me days to fully process everything that it carries. The cases presented in the books really capture the injustice, the betrayal and the pain of the people. The cases not only moved me but also put me in the shoes of the victims. I felt every wound and the bitter truth presented in the book.

You are probably wondering, what is this person even talking about?

I am referring to a book I finished about a week ago, one I can now finally reflect on with a clearer mind. Why does it take me this long? It might probably because the subject being lighted on by the book is not light at all. It is heavy, scorching even. It speaks about modernisation, cultural erosion, environmental devastation and even systemic betrayal that are rooted in the harsh realities of mining exploitation.

Tere Liye's Teruslah Bodoh Jangan Pintar shook me. Truly. How do I even begin to describe a book that drags me into the mud of reality, not to dirt me but to show me the stains that have long been ignored?

This book doesn't simply tell the stories. It exposes the systems. It follows several real-life-inspired cases that revolve around mining and how these operations do not just extract the minerals from the earth but also extract the life of the communities. The land, the culture, the environment; all of it is being sacrificed at the altar of "progress".

And that's the question that haunts me:

What is modernization if it means pushing people off the land they have lived on for generations?

What kind of progress steps over people and leaves them worse than forgotten?

In one of the cases, despite firm rejection from local communities, the mining still proceeds. Why? Because a few decide to sell while the rest, who refused to give up their land, are left to suffer in the polluted environment. The water is no longer clean. The air is no longer breathable. Their health deteriorates, and their agricultural livelihood collapses. With no job to support them, how do they access healthcare and what kind of future is left for them?

Again, what is this freedom that we keep on glorifying if it is conditional and only benefits a select few?

Even more devastating is when the institutions that are supposed to protect the people use their power against them. Branding peaceful protest as disruption and silencing the oppressed in the name of order. These ordinary citizens did not hold weapons. All they have is dignity, and now, even that is under attack. When the systems meant to protect become the ones to fear, who is left to trust?

Yes, modernity can make life easier, but easier for whom?

When modernization demands the sacrifice of voices, lands and cultures, can we still call it progress?

When the government prioritizes industrial gain over the well-being of the people, then who does it truly serve?

There is another layer that is just as painful as the previous one I stated. It is the discrimination faced by people in the book based on the characteristics they never chose. Why do we still treat people differently just because of something ascribed to them, rather than who they are? In the book, a wealthy character justifies their dishonesty by saying they need to secure their descendants' future, but what kind of legacy are they building when it is laid on the suffering of others?

It shows something that they fail to see, which is that, one day, when there is no one left to be oppressed, the cycle will turn to them, and then, they too, might find themselves as hopeless as the oppressed.

This book changed me. Not like in the previous book, this one did not even offer comfort for me, nor did it make me feel relatable to that, but it shoved reality coldly into my hands and asked, "Now, what?".

It made me reflect on the world I live in, the things I take for granted and how fiction is sometimes, is not fictional at all.