15th Aug 2011, 64th Independence Day of our
country and as is the custom; people are sporting the tricolor in every street
and corner in every possible way. Social networking sites are abuzz with
comments like "Phir bhi dil hai hindustani", "India is the greatest country of
the world", "East or west India is the best", "Proud to be an Indian" so on and
so forth… All of which is very heart touching of course. However what I want to
know is, what ARE we proud of??!!
The corruption? The
population? Illiteracy? Broken Infrastructure?? Or The inflation?
We keep saying that India is
the greatest country in the world. Can anyone tell me, in what category? In our
country for every right thing, we have a million things that are wrong and still
we say we are proud of our country. Being optimistic is good; turning your back
on reality is foolish. We have set up an image of our country in our minds that
does not match with the reality at all. Let me tell you about the reality of our
great country.
Democratic India
A democratic country where
everyone has an EQUAL status except Hindus, Muslims, SC, ST, OBC, and Hindi
speaking community, Marathi speaking community, Tamil speaking community, the
elite, the poverty ridden, a girl child, and a boy child. Constitution gives us
equal rights and states very clearly that any kind of discrimination on the
basis of caste, creed, gender or any such thing is punishable under law. In
parallel we have reservation on the basis of caste, creed and gender under the
same constitution.
Secular
India
Hindu, Muslim, Sikh, Isai sab
hain bhai bhai. "Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs and Christians are all brothers". This
has to be the biggest lie ever told. We all know it and still we pretend that
everything is all right. You don't agree with me? Well ask yourself if any of
your relatives opted for an inter cast marriage, what will be your stand?
Anyways I will not write anything more on religion for two reasons. One,
Religion is a very sensitive topic and two, as I am an atheist my views on the
topic will be very biased. One thing that I would like to mention here is that
our country will become a secular country in the true sense of the word the day
when inter Caste marriages are not a taboo any more.
Politics – the gutter of
India
Politics by common consent is
considered the gutter of India. The amount of money laundered in the various
scams that have surfaced recently is thousand times more that what the British
took from us. People like Kalmadi, A Raja who we all know are the idols of
corruption are still roaming free. The people who were supposed to take care of
our country are the one’s who are ruining it and we are the spectators. Of the
two big parties Congress and BJP, who can run the central government? Congress
is functionally disabled and BJP is morally disabled and as far as a third
option is concerned, we don’t have one.
Developing
India
Stats will show that India has
progressed a lot in the last 64 years. Standard of living has increased many
folds. 64 years back we didn't have roads, today we have roads connecting all
major cities [with potholes of course]. Back then we did not have proper living
conditions; today we have air conditioned offices, buildings and hotels right
beside the biggest slums in the world!!!! We are progressing at a steady rate
of 8%. Yes we are crawling ahead like a snail when we could have flown like an
eagle. Lets take the e.g. of Mumbai, the economic capital of India. In the
ECONOMIC CAPITAL of India 80% of population lives in slums. [Source: Times of
India]. Every monsoon Mumbai turns into a gutter which we brave somehow and then
talk about the Unbeatable Spirit of Mumbai. Every now and again Mumbai is rapped
with terrorist attacks and the security forces unable to do anything to stop
them again give us the spirit of Mumbai jazz. We make illegal skyscrapers using
black money on the land reserved for the families of war victims and then we
even have the indecency to name it “Aadarsh” (Moral)!!!!
Young India
Whenever we start counting the
problems of our country, the commonly given solution is "The youth of India".
Youth of India has the capability to solve these problems. Their ideals will
save the day. I agree that youth of India have great ideals. But what happens
when the Idealistic youth is afraid to speak in front of his parents who are
Anti-Hindus or Anti-Muslims?
The idealist who is educated
but unemployed or doing a job that he doesn't like. The idealist who can not
get admission in his chosen stream because of reservation. The idealist who
works under a corrupt employer and has to support his family. The idealist who
thinks he is a proud Maharashtrian and every outsider is a lesser being. The
idealist who is a “bhaiya” and thinks it’s his right to do every wrong that he
can think of. The idealist who is frustrated because he can’t get a smoke. The
idealist who can’t walk straight cause he is drunk.
Will this Idealist be able to
speak for an entire nation?
Youth has ideals but youth is
not independent to act on those ideals. Ideals without independence are worth
for nothing. Our idealist youth is bound by their families and their so called
values, their frustration, Alcohol, Smoke, illogical ideologies, Problems that
they themselves do not know how to tackle.
Education System in
India
The most important tool to
shape the future of our country. India is the proud owner of the 2nd largest
work force in the world [source: Times of India]. Every year thousands of
engineers, doctors, pharmacists, Accountants pass out from various institutes
across the country, increasing that workforce. So shouldn't this mean we are
doing well in the field of education? Well think again. Nowadays, education is
the most happening business in India. The increasing commercialization of
education has shifted the focus from a student based organization to a money
making operation.
As if this was not enough we
have added a whole new dimension to the problem by introducing the concept of
reservation. We have a total of 47 % reservation for SC, ST and OBC in all
government colleges. Because of reservation almost 50 percent of the students
don’t have to prove their merit to get admission for a particular stream, which
in turn forces many eligible candidates to settle for lesser degrees. To top it
all this is being presented as the only reasonable path to establish social
equality. Reservation is nothing but a ploy to hide the gross incompetence of
the administration in providing primary education to each and every child and a
very successful propaganda to garner votes from SC, ST and OBC.
To understand the problem we
can look at the cut off percentages of IIT-JEE for admissions in the
16(including the 9 new ones) Indian Institute of Technology, the most
prestigious institutes for technical education in our country. Since the
introduction of reservation the cutoff marks for SC, ST and OBC students has
never been in double digits and the same for general category students is
usually around 60 to 70 marks in IIT-JEE. [Source: Times of India].
We, the People – Problem
of India
We are the people who live by a
very strict code. And what is that strict code... "Be Practical!", "Who doesn't
compromise these days", "Nobody can get more than what is written in his so
called kismat". We are the most practical people in the world. We break traffic
rules, we bribe our way out, we plant the seeds of corruption and then WE
complain about it!!!!! If we don’t get something that we want, we don't fight,
we compromise. Why? Because that is what we are taught all our lives. Any body
who tries to preach any sense is forced to shut up by the Practicality of the
situation. “Aise thode hi hota hai”! (Things don’t work like this!).
If someone told us that
government has put a fine on spitting in any public place, we will laugh and
spit in the first public place we go to and when somebody takes a stand against
any problem we are the first ones to say “Nothing is going to change so what’s
the point in ruffling the feathers”.
We have become so acclimatized
to our current socio-economic environment, that we have stopped distinguishing
things as RIGHT & WRONG and limited our choices to WRONG & NOT SO WRONG.
I can write a lot more on this
topic but I think this should be enough to give a picture of the reality of our
country. I am not saying that everything about our country is bad but many
things are, which we conveniently ignore. Problems never solve themselves;
Problems stay until we take notice of them and do something about them, So stop
saying “Proud to be an Indian” and start doing things that will make our country
proud of us.
Note: All facts and figures
used in the article are taken either from the Times of India website or the news
paper.
