LinkBack URL
About LinkBacks
Why we Indians fail the nation Incredible India celebrates. Maybe the ugly, boastful Indian celebrates, too. Feel not exasperated for I intend not to hit you below the belt. It's an apt and truthful description of a typical Indian mindset — which believes in self-aggrandisement, not self-deprecation — of which I am an indispensable part. Please do not interpret ugly as a pejorative or something demeaning, for if you prove to the contrary you stand out as an ugly duckling. And, that is the only saving grace.
As a rule, an Indian is self-centred to the extent that society at large doesn't either exist for him, and if it does it simply doesn't bother him. It just doesn't prick his conscience Which is precisely why he sticks out like a sore thumb.
Here is a lowdown on why, and how, we Indians — with the sole exception of the ugly duckling — qualify to be the butt of ridicule and a pariah in the international community. One may find it hard to swallow but one will have to nod in agreement because it is all too factual and real to be ignored. Sample this:
* Charity begins at home, so we keep our home spanking clean but dump all litter that originates from our dwelling unit into the adjoining lane, least bothering about the health hazard it poses to our unsuspecting neighbours. And we are the first to cry wolf blaming it all on the civic agencies when endemics like dengue or plague stare us in the face. In the west, even the First Citizen of the country disposes of his household garbage in the nearest community bin, no errand needed.
* We routinely employ children below 14 years of age as domestic help or in jobs of hazardous nature though expressly banned by law. Are we not apathetic and callous to these poor souls when they ought to be learning the 3Rs in the school just like our own children? The very idea of employing a maid violates the principle of justice and fairplay. One hardly finds a maid doing the household chores in the west. Here again, Indians settled abroad earn the dubious distinction by inviting their aging parents or in-laws to act as babysitters for the new-born.
* Could we imagine a wealthy person being treated in a state-of-the-art hospital at the same ward and operation theatre as his servant, assuming both suffer from the same affliction? Presumably not. Cost, not conviction, is the deterrent, one would speciously argue. Simply put, it's more a matter of conviction for a society that is just and fair. In developed societies, treatment for an affliction is standard and qualitative irrespective of the patient's material status.
* Apathy and callousness mark our attitude towards victims of road mishaps. Every one of us must have daily witnessed scores of people, motionless as they lie on the roadside, probably half-dead, maybe following a heat-stroke or a hit by a speeding vehicle or a tumble in a state of drunkenness. We pass by unmoved, immune as we are to the daily regularity of such a hapless sight. Elsewhere in the world, the nation would come to a standstill.
Alas, in India it is commonplace.
* Corporate avarice is nowhere as rampant as in India. At a private hospital you are fleeced to the last penny, no matter how heavily you are medically insured. Unless you clear the bills on the spot, the patient is held to ransom; they simply wouldn't let you go. Ghosh, what a flagrant violation of the Hippocratic oath! Private hospitals if allowed to test and treat patients for swine flu may successfully do so but with the caveat: if H1N1 virus doesn't kill you, the bill will. What a shame!
* Now the hyperbole of Indian services' sector which is touted to be one of the world's best. For instance, if you are an Airtel Bharti subscriber you will invariably be at your wit's end figuring out the devil in the details when handed the bill. The hidden cost of the services provided takes you by surprise when you find you've been overcharged for a service you used or charged unnecessarily for a value-added service you never asked for. In India, the best way to woo and win a customer is to feed him with the pros of a scheme while the bill will take care of the cons. And if you complain you bear the burden of the cross.
* The institutes of learning, which routinely mushroom across the country overnight, may or may not provide you with quality education which they promise but will perpetually burn a hole in your pocket by means unscrupulous. The deserving and the meritorious will be left out only to accommodate those who can afford to buy education as a commodity. A crass commercialisation of the first order where quotas within quotas are allowed to flourish with gay abandon.
* Traders in India make hay while the sun shines. Be it a looming drought, famine or flood, hoarding is the moolah-mantra for them. Tens of thousands may perish due to hunger, heat or cold, but the hoarder and the blackmarketeer will cash in on the misery and penury of the famished and the hapless. They are the real vampires who rise from the grave called India.
* And, of the law-enforcement agencies, the less said the better. In the process of "enforcement", they breach the law with impunity. The common man fears them while a criminal endears them. Whether it is a traffic, civil or criminal offence, you got to grease their palms lest you invite their wrath. More often than not, one finds them to be partners in crime: they are part of the problem, not the solution which they ought to be.
The list is episodic and seemingly endless. The good news is that the malady, howsoever deadly, is curable. And the only cure for the illness we suffer from lies in ethics — be it home, workplace or society at large, we have got to be meticulously ethical in our dealings — which in turn builds the matrix, the national character.
The story does not end here. It is just the beginning. To realise the true potential of India as a nation on the rise, and one to reckon with in the international arena, we need internally as well as externally to build on, among other things, our ethical core. And there lies our insurmountable strength and power. Let us redeem the pledge this Independence Day.
Source:TIMES OF INDIA
Reply With Quote
Originally Posted by 18lama 
