Indisciplined Indians

The other day I was surfing channels when I came across an interview of SRK. He was talking about what ails our society in general, what things we need to improve on. Among these were a few acts of indiscipline which we seem to revel in.

Have you ever seen Indians make a straight line unless ordered to do so? Everywhere you see double and triple lines. We also seem to take pride in breaking lines.

We keep our houses clean but throw anything and everything in public space as if it’s a dustbin. Mindlessly we spit on the road, on other people as well. Someone even spit paan in my lift. Yuck!!!

And our road manners are absolutely fantastic. We don’t mind going into a one-way road and justify it by saying there is no traffic from the other side so it is acceptable. We park anywhere we want. If someone has to get out of the car we stop it in the middle of the road without giving a damn about the person behind us. Autos and bikes change lanes at will without a worry in the world and the poor car drivers have to look out for them. As pedestrians we think the road belongs to us. I have seen people stopping traffic because they want to cross and have no patience to wait their turn.

We don’t mind being late for meetings. We joke that the meeting is at XX.XX IST which means it’s not sacrosanct. Deadlines don’t scare us. We think we can always get them extended. Well, the joke is on us.

We do all this without any guilt, without realizing it is wrong. Has it become ingrained in our collective psyche?

Are we a nation?

Tamil Nadu and Karnataka fight over the waters of the Cauvery, Maharashtra and Karnataka have a border dispute, there is violence in Mumbai against non-Maharashtrians (specifically North Indians) & violent protests in Bihar against the violence in Mumbai, Tamil MPs threaten to quit if Indian Govt does not ‘warn’ Sri Lanka against atrocities on Sri Lankan Tamils, terror reigns in Kashmir & the North-east in the name of the ‘struggle for independence’, the list can go on.

I wonder whether India deserves to be called a country. Each state has a different language, a different culture and in some cases they loathe each other. Many South Indians (rightly?) refuse to speak Hindi, which they say has been imposed upon them. People of many other states also do not readily accept Hindi as the ‘national’ language. So as a way to get around the language problem we use English, a foreign language, to communicate. In elections regional parties get a significant chunk of the vote, which means regional issues matter a lot. All states want job reservations for ‘locals’. And I see an increasing incidence of regionalism in the last few years.

A nation has something which binds it together – a common culture, religion, ethnic composition, a sense of brotherhood, etc. Yes, there will be some people who will still practice regionalism but as long as they are a minority kept in check the nation is safe. But from what I see the only thing that binds India together is being under British rule. What commonality did the British rule give us? A common administrative system & a common hatred of British rule. A majority of Indians practice Hinduism but I see a vast diversity in the way they practice it so I don’t see it as a glue 2hich can bind this nation we call India. The glue which the British gave us may wear off soon and we must find something else.

We used to proudly say we are a country with unity in diversity. But we have to ask ourselves whether this diversity is too diverse for us to call ourselves a nation. Is regionalism slowly triumphing over nationalism?

India – a good neighbour?

We have fought wars with Pakistan and China and count them among ‘enemy’ countries. Bangladesh, which we helped liberate, doesn’t trust us. Neither do Sri Lanka and Nepal. Tiny Bhutan is the only neighbour we have good relations with. Is there something wrong with India’s foreign policy or are we so unfortunate to have troublesome neighbours who won’t behave no matter how hard we try?