While wandering the interwebs on a holiday, I chanced upon a NRI white-collar memoir whose author decided to leave India after he had returned Swades-ishtyle akin to the NASA engineer of said filmy representation. As time goes by realization dawns up on him that the metamorphosis happening to him isn't what was bargained for.
When you do move into the 2nd most populous country in the world, of course it rubs off on you, some unwelcome traits and hopefully some pleasant ones. The present selfish conditioning meted out to citizens invariably skews balance in favour of generating more unwelcome traits than its counterpart though.With 70% of its population spread out in rural centres, the author of that unfortunate memoir hasn't even come in contact with majority of India. Selfishness is so ingrained in behavioural memes, it is up for inspection in the corruption practiced in beaurocratic processes that remain as limp placeholders of our former British Raj.
The much touted India who is bathed in diversity, has survived in its unitary form through some freak of nature. Impending splits are evident when you consider rebels are making a stand in North-East India, political heavyweight of a Southern state deciding to free himself from central governance or the situation where two factions of a large state are fighting over Hyderabad, which just happens to be an economic powerhouse(goose laying the golden egg et al).
Hell visited Earth as the Partition that was carried out in nascent India which began as fore-play before Imperial British withdrawal. The founding fathers had a vision of United India in order to spread universal brotherhood but somewhere along the way our nation started to 'belong' to certain sections of our vastly diverse population. This notion of 'My India' or popularly 'Incredible India', is just a conditioning tool employed by politicians holding power to juice out every penny available through tax and other benefits of office. I bet this notion is lost out on thousands of under-trials languishing for decades in prisons, along the length and breadth of their India, awaiting justice.
When you do move into the 2nd most populous country in the world, of course it rubs off on you, some unwelcome traits and hopefully some pleasant ones. The present selfish conditioning meted out to citizens invariably skews balance in favour of generating more unwelcome traits than its counterpart though.With 70% of its population spread out in rural centres, the author of that unfortunate memoir hasn't even come in contact with majority of India. Selfishness is so ingrained in behavioural memes, it is up for inspection in the corruption practiced in beaurocratic processes that remain as limp placeholders of our former British Raj.
The much touted India who is bathed in diversity, has survived in its unitary form through some freak of nature. Impending splits are evident when you consider rebels are making a stand in North-East India, political heavyweight of a Southern state deciding to free himself from central governance or the situation where two factions of a large state are fighting over Hyderabad, which just happens to be an economic powerhouse(goose laying the golden egg et al).
Hell visited Earth as the Partition that was carried out in nascent India which began as fore-play before Imperial British withdrawal. The founding fathers had a vision of United India in order to spread universal brotherhood but somewhere along the way our nation started to 'belong' to certain sections of our vastly diverse population. This notion of 'My India' or popularly 'Incredible India', is just a conditioning tool employed by politicians holding power to juice out every penny available through tax and other benefits of office. I bet this notion is lost out on thousands of under-trials languishing for decades in prisons, along the length and breadth of their India, awaiting justice.
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2 comments:
Firstly, thank you for the link. It was an insightful read, and I couldn't agree more. Its not what we face here thats tha problem - its what we've become because of all this.
Profound post.
I'm having a tiny problem I can't seem to be able to subscribe your feed, I'm using google reader by the way.
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