We shout that rhetoric about 'Great India', 'India Shining', 'Mera Bharat Mahan', 'The great Indian Culture', 'The great Indian Legacy', 'Argumentative Indian' (and while saying so projecting Indians as having an inherently logical bent of mind and basing the reason of sustained democracy on this) , etc., yet most of us today want to emulate Americans. Why?
Perhaps rightly so. For the most prized virtues of humans. A free life, a liberal and tolerant society, for the largely unpretentious way of life of theirs, innovative and independent thinking and what not. You name an area of human behaviour where Indian are doing better than them today.
One problem, then, is with the rhetoric about priding ourselves on our false sense of greatness and morality. Patting ourselves on the age old legacy which can do nothing for us today. It's failing to even inspire us today. The problem is in deluding ourselves. And then, when I tried to brush this off by saying that the younger generation was being more practical about it, came the independence day and I was perplexed to see all those colorful handwritten slogans of Great India, Mera Bharat Mahan, and proud to be an Indian on big charts pasted everywhere in our office. And the people writing them were our young generation...the more practical one. I wondered if any of them ever gave it a serious thought that what exactly is it today that is an evidence of India being great? True I am born an Indian and I do love my country. But that for emotional reasons. My family is here. My sweetest childhood memories are associated with this land, with all those pit covered roads, and rural dust. I learned what life is in this country and from its point of view. My love is precisely because of this. But otherwise, for a moment, disregarding the emotional attachments and on any logical grounds, I flounder to find even a handful of good reasons for considering India a great country in today's perspective.
1. Look at our farmers committing suicides and what everyone is doing about it? What the ancient great India can do about it today?
Our governments are setting up panels to propose remedies only to be ill implemented either in the lack of funds or the lack of will or because of rampant corruption. And what are we doing? You and I? Cursing the government? Why don't we join some NGO and try to do something about it the way Arvind Kejriwal did for RTI ? He was just like you and I, an IIT engineer, not a tailor cut-out by birth for social causes and politics.
Then the noninclusive growth. What great is he who is content to see one of its hands starving and paralyzing while the other hand grows stronger. How powerful such an asymmetric person can be in crucial times is any body's guess. Those who have studied the growth of Japan, South Korea, Singapore and the likes would most obviously see the differences between their and India's path.
2. Look at the state of education in our country? and then look at the way we are trying to make it better...the reservations instead of emphasizing on primary education.
3. Look at the booming IT industry of India. Now that's one area which makes every Indian proud today..right? But not the people who reject anything based on mass opinion until it's logical to them. I'll tell u a model of mine to facilitate seeing the kind of work we are bringing from all over the world to our IT companies in proper perspective.
US is a rich household whose members work in big and quality firms and do quality work. When I say quality I mean some work which appeals to the unique human capability, it's brain. And when this household goes about its daily chores, it produces some waste, some garbage, some dirty dishes to be cleaned, some dirty floors. Here's where India comes in. We go knocking their door and offering to clean-up their mess, washing their dishes, sweeping their floors for much smaller amount than the person in their own area would ask for. What else would they have wanted ! They are in. When they earn 35000 a month and buy their child a laptop, an N73, a Skoda, we take home Rs. 1000 and buy our child a balloon, a Nokia1100, and a second hand Maruti 800. And despite this we happen to be better off than most of those living in our colony who are using their old bicycles and who were not fortunate enough to beg a work in the US households. That's the quality of work we do and that's the comparative amount we get paid for this. And then slowly when traders everywhere begin to see us being able to buy all those second hand Maruti 800s and Nokia 1100, they begin to see our rising prosperity (??), they hike the prices of everything for us too (read inflation and currency appreciation) and then we can not even buy a Maruti 800 because our wage remains the same (Why? If we ask for a higher wage they would be happy to kick us out altogether and bring someone by the name of Okawa Hounsos, an African, to do the same).
4. Look at the way our intellectuals are hostages to their language and everything associated with them. Of course I agree it's good to try to pick up everything good but then first for God sake we must accept our own weaknesses. We must drop this rhetoric about our sacred relationships when we know in the corners of our minds that a DPS MMS scandel is going on in every college and every senior school these days in all cities, big or small. The difference is just that these children are sensible enough not to send that MMS to their friends. I repeatedly write in my posts the use of English language between even the spouses in as private places as one's bedroom. Now this is something that need not be emulated. Whereas English is a great language, it by no means is a better way of attaining a better standard of living, or an even higher intellectual level or whatever such people might think it capable of doing for them than our Hindi is.
5. And then look at the extent to which we go copying them in their language. Our version of christ is our own God. Right? but look at so many of us saying 'For Christ sake' whenever we get chance. For God sake pal, you worship a God every morning. Use your mind a bit. Another one in this category is the word 'Christened'. In various news columns and from many people I hear the sentence like 'XYZ was christened as ABC'. Now what the mindless thing to say for us Indians that is. Their ceremony to name a child involves inducing it to Christianity from that day on. In our case a child belongs to its dad's religion from the day it is born. As with Western society, in India too the same applies to non living objects too. Whereas a Robotic Arm Software might have been christened as RoboArm by students at MIT, it would be named as RoboArm at IIT, how can you christen it if it belongs to the religion of the majority of Indians. But that would have been thought by us, had we applied our 'Argumentative Indian' philosophy to this sentence too. But who does. The Americans use it. I watched it in the latest hollywood blockbuster. It sounds urbane. Hats off to ya pal ! I bow to us INDIANS. India is great.
Perhaps rightly so. For the most prized virtues of humans. A free life, a liberal and tolerant society, for the largely unpretentious way of life of theirs, innovative and independent thinking and what not. You name an area of human behaviour where Indian are doing better than them today.
One problem, then, is with the rhetoric about priding ourselves on our false sense of greatness and morality. Patting ourselves on the age old legacy which can do nothing for us today. It's failing to even inspire us today. The problem is in deluding ourselves. And then, when I tried to brush this off by saying that the younger generation was being more practical about it, came the independence day and I was perplexed to see all those colorful handwritten slogans of Great India, Mera Bharat Mahan, and proud to be an Indian on big charts pasted everywhere in our office. And the people writing them were our young generation...the more practical one. I wondered if any of them ever gave it a serious thought that what exactly is it today that is an evidence of India being great? True I am born an Indian and I do love my country. But that for emotional reasons. My family is here. My sweetest childhood memories are associated with this land, with all those pit covered roads, and rural dust. I learned what life is in this country and from its point of view. My love is precisely because of this. But otherwise, for a moment, disregarding the emotional attachments and on any logical grounds, I flounder to find even a handful of good reasons for considering India a great country in today's perspective.
1. Look at our farmers committing suicides and what everyone is doing about it? What the ancient great India can do about it today?
Our governments are setting up panels to propose remedies only to be ill implemented either in the lack of funds or the lack of will or because of rampant corruption. And what are we doing? You and I? Cursing the government? Why don't we join some NGO and try to do something about it the way Arvind Kejriwal did for RTI ? He was just like you and I, an IIT engineer, not a tailor cut-out by birth for social causes and politics.
Then the noninclusive growth. What great is he who is content to see one of its hands starving and paralyzing while the other hand grows stronger. How powerful such an asymmetric person can be in crucial times is any body's guess. Those who have studied the growth of Japan, South Korea, Singapore and the likes would most obviously see the differences between their and India's path.
2. Look at the state of education in our country? and then look at the way we are trying to make it better...the reservations instead of emphasizing on primary education.
3. Look at the booming IT industry of India. Now that's one area which makes every Indian proud today..right? But not the people who reject anything based on mass opinion until it's logical to them. I'll tell u a model of mine to facilitate seeing the kind of work we are bringing from all over the world to our IT companies in proper perspective.
US is a rich household whose members work in big and quality firms and do quality work. When I say quality I mean some work which appeals to the unique human capability, it's brain. And when this household goes about its daily chores, it produces some waste, some garbage, some dirty dishes to be cleaned, some dirty floors. Here's where India comes in. We go knocking their door and offering to clean-up their mess, washing their dishes, sweeping their floors for much smaller amount than the person in their own area would ask for. What else would they have wanted ! They are in. When they earn 35000 a month and buy their child a laptop, an N73, a Skoda, we take home Rs. 1000 and buy our child a balloon, a Nokia1100, and a second hand Maruti 800. And despite this we happen to be better off than most of those living in our colony who are using their old bicycles and who were not fortunate enough to beg a work in the US households. That's the quality of work we do and that's the comparative amount we get paid for this. And then slowly when traders everywhere begin to see us being able to buy all those second hand Maruti 800s and Nokia 1100, they begin to see our rising prosperity (??), they hike the prices of everything for us too (read inflation and currency appreciation) and then we can not even buy a Maruti 800 because our wage remains the same (Why? If we ask for a higher wage they would be happy to kick us out altogether and bring someone by the name of Okawa Hounsos, an African, to do the same).
4. Look at the way our intellectuals are hostages to their language and everything associated with them. Of course I agree it's good to try to pick up everything good but then first for God sake we must accept our own weaknesses. We must drop this rhetoric about our sacred relationships when we know in the corners of our minds that a DPS MMS scandel is going on in every college and every senior school these days in all cities, big or small. The difference is just that these children are sensible enough not to send that MMS to their friends. I repeatedly write in my posts the use of English language between even the spouses in as private places as one's bedroom. Now this is something that need not be emulated. Whereas English is a great language, it by no means is a better way of attaining a better standard of living, or an even higher intellectual level or whatever such people might think it capable of doing for them than our Hindi is.
5. And then look at the extent to which we go copying them in their language. Our version of christ is our own God. Right? but look at so many of us saying 'For Christ sake' whenever we get chance. For God sake pal, you worship a God every morning. Use your mind a bit. Another one in this category is the word 'Christened'. In various news columns and from many people I hear the sentence like 'XYZ was christened as ABC'. Now what the mindless thing to say for us Indians that is. Their ceremony to name a child involves inducing it to Christianity from that day on. In our case a child belongs to its dad's religion from the day it is born. As with Western society, in India too the same applies to non living objects too. Whereas a Robotic Arm Software might have been christened as RoboArm by students at MIT, it would be named as RoboArm at IIT, how can you christen it if it belongs to the religion of the majority of Indians. But that would have been thought by us, had we applied our 'Argumentative Indian' philosophy to this sentence too. But who does. The Americans use it. I watched it in the latest hollywood blockbuster. It sounds urbane. Hats off to ya pal ! I bow to us INDIANS. India is great.
