Ashamed of India

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We are own worst enemies. `Ghoolam` mentality is what does it to us. `Ghooras` are our `maee baabs` and us guys nobodies.

However, it is upon us guys to change the system - one day at a time. Here`s my story about quasi affirmitive action.

My boss is a foreigner and was proceeding for X-mas. A week before, some key sycophant sent a departmental email to buy him a X-mas present ; from movies for his kids, to pakistani handicrafts to afghan carpets, we searched high and low for a befitting present for someone who`s motherland had already tricked us into submission for over hundred years.

i disagreed with the idea of a departmental gift and noted on the email that any personal gift should be given on a personal basis. My reasoning was simple. Would we have given a X-mas gift to a dark Christian boss living from Pakistan or would a similar Pakistani Muslim boss have got an Eid present from his Anglo Saxon subordinates abroad. If either answer was `no` then we need not continue with foolish traditions which can be misconstrued as an inferiority complex.

Incidentally, no gift was given.

re: OMAR

Just like Turk in the any English dictionary means cruel and barbaric. (always bothered me)

Come on...... now you know better with regards to Jat don`t you.
And this is a stereo type amongst Muslims. I could get into it from a historical perspective but it would be useless, since we have different histories !!

Re: Jats

THAT definition I gave below is the dictionary meaning of the term, Jat, in Salees Urdu. Thats all i meant, nothing more.

OMAR

MY QUESTION: Why won`t the Indians treat the WHITES better when the thousands of year old Hindu religion teaches them so?

CBS had a great piece on the victims of the caste system in India. Here`s what they say on the intro on their website:

The Untouchables

India may be the world’s largest democracy but it’s anything but that to the 200 million people there called ``untouchables,`` people so shunned that the upper classes literally won’t touch them or even share the same water source with them. Christiane Amanpour reports. Andrew Tkach is the producer.

http://www.cbs.com/prd1/now/display?p_who=network&p_section=3400

More info on the untouchables in India:

The so-called Dalits (Untouchables) are the most pitiable victims of the obnoxious and pernicious caste system. Manu has little to say about them. He affirms that the members of three castes, the Brahman (white Aryan), the Kshatriya, and the Vashya, are twice-born; the fourth, the Sudra, once-born; there is no fifth.` All others are outcastes. The common name Dasyas (slaves) is applied to them all.[ 1 ]

The treatment accorded to the Dalit is simply inhuman. According to Manu Smriti, `Outcasted persons have no share in inheritance.`[ 2 ] The orthodox Brahmans still believe, if the shadow of a Dalit falls on them, they are polluted and will have to purify them by sprinkling over themse1ves water from the holy river, the Ganges [ 3 ]. `You may breed cows and dogs in your house,` wrote Mr. M.C. Raja. `You may drink the urine of cows and swallow cowdung to expiate your sins, but you shall not approach an Adi Dravida [ 4 ]. These people are still denied the use of public wells and tanks and at the same time stigmatized as unclean. They are still kept out of schools and colleges maintained by public funds and at the same time despised as ignorant and illiterate. They are still Shut out from temples, and yet branded as ungodly and unfit to associate with. For access to public roads and even for spaces to bury the dead, they have to depend much on the capricious benevolence of their caste-Hindu neighbours.[ 5]

References

[1] Wilkins: Modern Hinduism, London: 1975, p. 263.

[2] John C. Oman, The Brahmans, Theists, and Muslims of India, Delhi, 1973, p. 47.

[3] F.M. Sandeela, Islam, Christianity and Hinduism, Delhi, 1990, pp. 69-70.

[4] i.e., original Indians: Dalits, Sudras, tribal people.

[5] Swami Dharma Theertha, History of Hindu Imperialism, (Madras: 1992), pp. 184-85, quoted from P. Chidambaram Pillai`s Right of Temple Entry, p. 150.

My account, went to a bank in Karachi last december 97 to get my draft for school here in the US, and despite my dad`s protest, wore khakis, and a T-shirt(60 degrees F was hot for my wisconsin climitization). Thirty minutes before bank closure timings, I was denied service as I didn`t look important. Wen`t back to daddy, made him call the bank manager, went to the bank after bank closure timings, got the draft made amongst apologetic comments:aap nay bataya he nahi kay aap ... sahab kay sahabzaday hain. Made me laugh later as how stupid of me to forget the tricks of the trade by jsut staying a few years in the US. I belive sardar jee whoever had spent enough time in the U.S. to forget most of the things that happen in our countries..

Rana, India is where I`ve heard the stereotype, and quite often. Jats were described categorically as rude, crude and uncouth. People would talk of not wanting their daughters to marry jats, etc. We are really good at ascribing stereotypes in India, and as a U.P bhaiya (or behani?), I guess I know where I am coming from.

et tu Jawahara

I must admit I have never heard of this so called stereotype, at least in India. IN fact, I have always seen just the opposite and felt that they are a very respected community. Jats and Rajputs are always glorified.
These opposing stereo-types of the same community are very interesting though. hmmmmm......

Not a surprise, lot of people are like me and Amer Dev Omar1974

Well a little offended by intellectuals of this forum, just want to mention a few jat names crossing my mind from my elder`s talk.

Dr. Abdus Salam

Mustanser Hassain Tarar(If someone remembers 50/50)

Col. Muhammad Khan(Bajang Amad, and this is noon without dot)

Name famous in bad sense and i agree,

Molla Jat

Sadar Pakistan: Mulvi Rafiq Tarar etc

Point is every so called caste in pakistans has ganwars and not-ganwars, ignorant and educated, uncouth and refined. We have to think out of this caste system, regard a community as human as anyohter is.

This very hatred between UP`ins and punjabias is root cause of trouble in Karachi.

How can we blame uneducated awam of Pakistan when our elite and intellectuals have racist views.

Omar, I believe you are referring to the all too common jat *stereotype. * As an ethnicity jats have as much reason to be proud of theirs, as does anyone else of their heritage. Your categorical statements were rather harsh.

re: tqs
Jat is not just a caste of Punjab. THey are also in Haryana, Rajasthan, UP, Madhya Pradesh, Himachal Pradesh, Jammu, Delhi

Never really understood how ANYONE could be proud of being called a JAT. To me the term signifies an uncouth person, a ganwar, nothing more.

I recommend the movie ``Bombay Boys`` about three expat Indians (one British, one Australian, one American) who come back to Indi

Lat year, I took a British Airways flight from Chennai to London.

The flight had a lot of stewardess who were Indian. They did not say a word to any white person from the economy class who used the rest room in the business class. However, the same Indian Air Hostess prevented any Indian from going anywhere the business class section.

re: Jawahara

Actually we are saying the same thing, almost. I am putting myself in his place. I travel a lot and swear by queues. I have seen such scenes created by Indians all over the world. That is what I meant by when we enter our cultural pens we go into the no-queue-we-r-Indian mode. The article here is incomplete. It would be pointless to go into who should have done what in this case. However, I have seen extremely harassed officials who deal with crowds who do not believe in queueing up. Again the biggest problem is that in India we are scared of the law enforcer and not the law itself. SO the enforcer ends up enforcing it (a la the AI official making her point !)
An Air India carrier, a state run enterprise. Employees have no incentive to do anything, let alone be `polite` and based on one such incident you want to label an entire country and its people as impolite. If that was the case I would be labelling pretty much everybody in the world impolite.
Have you ever travelled on a local Indian private flight. Compare that to a domestic US flight.
All I am pointing out that the authors own views on his position in this world is playing tricks on his mind. His afterthoughts give us a very good insight into exactly what he expects !!
Judging by your response it seems that you don`t deal with queues every day in your life.
Politeness is a very relative term. You are judging a people by what your standards of politeness are now based on your current surroundings. Even if you would compare politeness standards between suburbs in America and cities you would see drastic differences within 20 miles !!. People all over the world have different social etiquette and rules which govern crowd behaviour. Most of the times the `perceived rudeness` is about misunderstanding. In a suburb in America, it is very common for a person to flip you off, if you make a small driving `mistake`, yet in the city it is accepatbale to roll down your window, hurl a few abuses and flip you off. Non Americans are appalled by this very acceptable behaviour.
Likewise if you work and interact with all kinds of international people you will see that `rudeness` and `politeness` are very different for different people.

I agree with all that you said Rana, but I was not talking of interpersonal politeness, but rather service industry politeness. Just plain and simple courtesy. And yes, even if Indian Airlines, etc. are government held organizations, the difference between how they deal with Indians and with ``white`` travellers is palpable. So they are capable of politeness and courtesy (and know what it is),they just don`t apply it to their compatriots.

Do some NRIs expect to be feted as soon as they set foot on Indian soil? Yes. Does this mean they do not deserve common courtesy? No.

As always, these are broad strokes and I am sure Air India and Indian Airlines have many commendable employees. It`s just that I`ve of too many of these experiences to just dismiss them.