Some Hardtalk for Indians

Finally, something has pushed me into writing this article and I shall bulletize things. The whole article is on some faultlines that exist in the collective thinking of Indians and in the Indian society. Please be cautioned that there is some depressing hardtalk and I shall take the bull by horns by beginning with some popular myths, abuses, in India. To cool things, I shall include some sweet talk.

* Myth-1: INDIA IS AN IT-SUPERPOWER
While it is true that software, and services are making up a significant portion of our Gross Domestic product, India’s overall participation in software development in the world market is only between 2-3%. And this should be a pointer to things as they are. Though, it is only a measly 2-3% currently, one can only foresee a rise in this figure with time. Thanks to the only thing that the Chinese lack (their bad English), we are cashing on it, hopefully for long !

* Myth-2: ALL MYSTICISM LIES IN THE EAST (INDIA, TO BE SPECIFIC) AND THE WEST IS A DECADENT SOCIETY
This has been popularized by the westerners first and I guess, we were only happy to lap it up. The popular image of the western society in India is one ridden with all the bad in the world. This has proliferated through Hollywood movies and I guess is a classic example of the west shooting its own foot. The fact though is that, people here are so wonderful and naive, always to take our words at their face value. I have known some of our country folk display (feign is a better word) their self-righteousness in their encounters with westerners about how indifferent the western society is and how strong Indian morals are. We only have to know the western society better to appreciate how equally or more caring it is towards values. The sweet talk that I promised is that into buying this myth is our own naivete and perhaps so, we can be excused.

* Myth-3: IF THINGS ARE THE WAY THEY ARE, INDIA WILL BE A SUPERPOWER WITHIN NO TIME
While we already aced at certain things, for instance proving to be a good backoffice for other economies and businesses, some things are going wrong. The first one is our utter lack of planning in anticipation of something in future. The economy is like an engine, and has to have a strong frame to support its own growth. If we were to indeed be a developed nation, certain things like absolute presence of law and order, strong growth in infrastructure, good primary education are essential. To be point blank, I think we are regressing in all these three aspects. What sort of a nuclear armed country, with a standing army of one million is it, which cannot capture one single bandit who has killed around 1000 elephants! I have recently read an account of some people migrating FROM INDIA TO BANGLADESH for better living prospects !! And we have massacres taking place in Assam of migrants from Bihar just because they are taking up their jobs. Atleast the Americans are not killing us Indians because we are taking some of theirs !! We then have some people in Maharastra burn down an archive for historical records just because one of its members advised an American student in writing down an alternative thesis on the life of Shivaji. On the other hand we have Chief Minister Mulayam Singh Yadav toy with the idea of declaring half-working day for state-run schools on Fridays, so that Muslim students can pray. In any decently working democracy, in any other part of the world, both the above incidents do not even pass the laugh test, when told. Talking about education, while its true that we have the IITs and IIMs, and there have been talk shows (perhaps, too much!) even here in the U.S. on TVs about how world class they are and we may be rightfully proud about those to some degree. What is happening is out of a Billion plus people, around 3000-4000 are chosen into the IITs each year. Statistics tell that those few thousand are bound to perform. But for no smaller than Narayana Murthy of Infosys or other leading figures to cite this as an indication that they are better than the best of institutions like Cornell, MIT or Stanford, is taking it a little too far (We get carried away so easily!). But again, not to deny the fact that the IITs and IIMs did produce some good brains. Talking about the primary and secondary education, its so depressing. Emphasis is on rote learning, wide reading is not encouraged, and worst of all, interests are thrust upon students!! Whatever made people into believing that sociologists or anthropologists are a burden to society ?? Atleast in Andhra Pradesh, on a general note, a student has to become either a student of medicine or engineering (Is IT branch still there after the bubble burst?). He/She has to literally fight with the parents to pursue any other discipline. This more than ok emphasis on these two disciplines has led to a situation where we are lacking in the quality department but are excelling in quantity. Who knows, how brilliant a sociologist a child could be, only if he/she were let to be in the first place !

* Myth-4: ENGINEERING MEANS CODING
Let us be reminded that engineers have no business to be in engineering (I shall include myself) if our work does not relate to our immediate surroundings. Probably, these disciplines have branched out of Science based on this dimension alone. To cut it short, people are crying out loud for better things in life, and we should listen to them, identify opportunities, and create solutions.

* Myth-5: POOR ARE POOR, UNFORTUNATE, SINNED ONES IN THE PAST
Again, Karmic theories apart, it is just we who have to reach out to people, the depressed ones. It does not take much to bring out a smile on the faces of some of the most unlucky ones. A beggar-maid’s child is sad, and it only takes a peck on her cheek to make her smile.

* Myth-6: INDIA IS GIFTED WITH UNLIMITED NATURAL RESOURCES
Probably it is not even a myth, and does not even beg for our attention to the fact that our country is under a tremendous, ecological strain. Again, from what I read sometime back, if I am not wrong, much less than 13% of our country is green! What can we do ? Probably nothing, but the least we could do is, to learn this. Pollution of water, air, land is taking a good heavy toll, we only do not realize this. It does not help to call ourselves the tenth largest industrialized nation, when most of the lives in India are surrounded by filth, and stench.

* Abuse-1: FREEDOM OF SPEECH/FUNDAMENTAL RIGHTS
Given the neighbourhood which India is in, we need to appreciate our fortune for being a democratic country. While rights do come into picture in a working democracy, probably it is only rights which do so in India. How loud I play my music is upto me, one of my undeniable fundamental rights, which you are hell bent on taking away kind of mentality summarily defines sections of our society. There are issues which are not even issues once we start displaying sensitivity towards others. For student political organizations to come to our class rooms, pull people outside to ’celebrate’ the nation’s going nuclear, I am not wrong in saying that it is not their exercising their freedom of speech. They violated mine, and probably some of yours too. This is only one example, what bothers me is, neither are we passionate about our own rights when situations call for defending them nor do we care for recognizing others when they happen to be the victims.

* Abuse-2: RACISM and DISCRIMINATION
The multiracial society that we are, also makes us perpetuators, victims of racism, and discrimination. It need not be shown outwardly, all it takes for you to be discriminating is to view and/or treat the other person differently and often unfavourably based on things beyond his/her making and control. It can very safely be said that India is a highly class consicous society. I am not bringing caste into the discussion, given that many of us do not even care for it (I hope!). What I am referring to is the stratification of our minds, society, popularization and admiration of certain sub-cultures (could be economical too) at the expense of others. Only few days ago, I read of a killing that took place, because......... the victim was dark in complexion ! The level of display of dislike for dark complexion apart, can we honestly say that this is only an aberration in the Indian society ?? By the way, the last time I heard, there was a discussion on banning Fair and Lovely ad campaigning.. Has it been ? For someone to club all South Indians as Madrasis only forces South Indians to call all North Indians as Biharis. Here again, we are discriminating against the Biharis with a negative connotation that they are living in an uncivilized way. These are just some examples, and many such could be doled out.

* Abuse-3: STATE INDIFFERENCE TO ITS OWN CITIZENS
This is something that we all probably agree on, that the central and state governments cannot take care of our needs, forget protecting our lives. For someone to keep satelliting the water department, power, telephone (still?) departments endlessly to get the simplest of things done, is something that we grew up with and is such an inhumane account of the state response towards its own citizens. Imagine a parent displaying such indifference towards his/her own kid ! So, what can we do? We can only
speak out, bring pressure, on the state. One can be so tempted to emulate Bharateeyudu/Hindustani by going on a killing spree of the inept/corrupt officials, but please be cautioned that it is only a movie. So people who are working with the Government, please be reminded that many people are to benefit if only you are, again, sensitive to them.

* Abuse-4: OF TASTE
This is probably the most difficult one to address. We might not even see a reason to correct this. But, please pardon me, many of us Indians have a streak of indiscipline. It begins with childhood, and being a devil in childhood is sweet. But being so even in movie theatres, on the streets, in buses, in classrooms, when grown-up is uncivilized. People whistle, pass lewd comments, dehumanize others, shout, all without even worrying about their own image, forget the image of the society they belong to. Who is feeding whom, Bollywood more often than not with its crass songs, storylines, dialogue or the society it claims it is portraying ? So what we could we do ? We can discourage any leanings to such behaviour, and wish that those who are prone to performing all those antics realize that its not fun.

These are only few faultlines in our mentalities, in our society. There is nothing wrong in putting efforts in identifying them. India has always been open to people who migrated from Central and West Asia, and so should Indians be to ideas. A society always benefits to do sincere retrospection. Perhaps all of you are doing it, but I just felt it convenient to remind you all again, including myself in writing and through this article.

What made me write this is the movie "Kal Ho Na Ho" which I watched a couple of hours prior to writing. I do not know if it has been a hit or otherwise. But, for the movie to have Shah Rukh Khan say something to the effect that the Chinese restaurant people in the movie are idiots/bloody fellows/bloody fools is very offensive. I do not remember the exact insult he heaped, but insult it is for sure. What is more disturbing is I did not hear anywhere a criticism to this. Bollywood has a mass following, and calling the Chinese as fools and making fun of people of other nationalities, is simply in bad taste and is no fun. Afterall, we are proud in calling it our cultural bearer. Being racist, haughty, uncouth, should not form our culture.