Thursday 13 December 2012

Ambiguity of being an Indian



Mr. Markandeya Katju’s (former Judge of Supreme Court and present Chairman of Press Council of India) statement that 90% Indians are fools and can be taken for a ride, created a furor in the entire nation. His statement goes,” Ninety per cent of Indians are "idiots" who can easily be misled by mischievous elements in the name of religion. He further says that a communal riot could be incited in Delhi for as meagre an amount as Rs 2000. All somebody has to do is make a mischievous gesture of disrespect to a place of worship and people start fighting each other”.

You can’t dismiss the statement right away, yet 90% figure can be a point of debate. And if we agree to the statement then the term “Intelligent Indian” is soon going to be an oxymoron!

His statement didn’t come particularly as a shocker, we may or may not utter it on a public platform but we all know the reality. We may adjust the percentage figure to suit our guess and exclude ourselves from that 90% (as I am sure Mr. Katju also might have done).  But what totally evades me, is how he concluded that this epiphany will actually become a moment of enlightenment for Indians.

We are community divided and subdivided into so many groups that keeping count of all the identities a person is attached to is a herculean task. Our divisions are based on religion, economic status, caste, gender (by gender we do not mean only male or female), language, region, education, colour, states, occupation, political views, even the sports or film star we like and so on. The list can never be all inclusive. (I here recommend a thought-provoking article written by a very versatile writer, Siddharth Gupta at his blog ‘Standing Coin’). Among all these identities, identity of being an Indian never simply occurs, ironically! 

Many social reformers, spiritual and social leaders heralded the scene with greater promise to infuse oneness into the society. They did stir up common people’s interest but failed to change the basic mentality. They were followed for their promises of never-land but with a closed mindset.  Nothing ever really altered the thought process. They ended up creating more sects among the already divided society. In our classrooms, we were taught ‘Unity in diversity’ being the hallmark of our great land. What an innocent eyewash that proved to be!

Every Indian, you and me, must be falling in a division which feels oppressed by the other groups. For example I, as a female feel oppressed by men folk. I feel disgusted at the reports of domestic violence, rapes and exploitation of women and lack of equal respect and opportunities. You may also figure out at least one such subjugated group that has been wronged, you fall in. We are incessantly pushed towards identifying ourselves with one or more of such groups and hence pitted against each other. It just needs a tiny spark and dynamite of hatred lurking just beneath the surface goes boom.

Add to it our common intolerance towards truth (yes! this one thing is common). Anybody who dares to hold up the mirror is pelted at mercilessly. Be it the case of Mr. J Ramesh saying that India has more temples than toilets or the two girls lamenting the shut-down of the city due to demise of a local leader.

Unfortunately, this all had nothing to do with the level of education a person has received. The hooligans that we see on TV or in print flashing their sticks and blazing torches, running about razing public property or worse committing genocide, are not all illiterates. Education or rationalism that comes with education is too toothless to leave any mark on the rigid conditioning we receive since our childhood. Difference of sensibilities, education, intellect all dissolves behind the mask of mob. For a common cause of hatred, all other rationales are thrown behind and the gory task at hand becomes the only religion. Even in our day to day lives we all display some degree of favouritism and factionalism that shows division of minds. ‘Equal opportunities for every one’ is a distant dream. De-tangling of minds, ideals, motives will take long to become a reality. Till then, the struggle to shed multiple identities to gain a single badge of being Indian is on…

Picture taken from: healthtap.com



22 comments:

  1. Its always good to read your blog!!

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  2. well I agree with the judge.. we think its the uneducated who create chaos and all in our nation but NO its the intelligent ones who plan it all

    I personally feel that religion shud be banned , more than half the problems will get solved .. and the other half can be solved by getting rid of the leaders and khadi wearing dacoits ..

    Bikram's

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    1. hahaha....well put, khadi wearing decoits! But can we really get rid of the leaders, what is the replacement? We have created these decoits and we give them power to plunder.

      People get the government they deserve!

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    2. That is true to , its all our fault .. so its us who have to get together and get rid of these people...

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    3. One thing I have observed Bikram, It is not easy to fight the inner monsters. I don't know if we become leaders, what kind of situation we find ourselves in. Politics is a dirty game and there are no easy answers to these problems. We need a paradigm shift in common people's psyche. But how would that happen! Who will bring about that change. We saw Anna Hazare's movement die its own death. Do you really think, people will vote for Arvind Kejriwal. Do we really need democracy that allows a party being formed everyday and people with their vested interest taking full advantage of winning even a couple of seats from such parties. Do we really need democracy at all....There are no easy answers.

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  3. It's really is a struggle to gain a single badge of being Indian ... there are so many ugly factors that affect this sensibility of people ... perhaps it's time we stand united and fight against all evils !!!

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    1. I agree, if we refuse to give in to communal and separatist forces, we can see above the petty issues and stand united.

      Thanks for reading!

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  4. Well, first i would like to appreciate you for this thought provoking post. It stirred me.

    While writing the comment, it became so lengthy that in the end I had to post it on my blog as an article.

    So the comments are on this link..
    http://theoriginalpoetry.blogspot.in/2012/12/disabled-intelligence.html

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    1. Thank you so much for your encouraging words, I am glad my post stirred you to lift your pen. Given the amazing writer you are, It would be a delight to read...........off to your post.....

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  5. You have voiced out some very powerful thoughts here Meenakshi.
    As for the "Intelligent Indian", you need to be Indian first, by that I mean most of us say we are Indian but the spirit seems to be missing. How many of us take pride in performing our duties as Indians before demanding our rights? When we are in Europe or America we dispose trash very diligently but when we return to India why do most of us forget to continue what we practised all that while? The feeling of "Yeh India hai, yahaan sab chalta hai" needs to change.
    As proud as I am of India's multi-cultural heritage, I feel ashamed of the fact that in all the hullabaloo we forget what "Indian" truly means...As you rightly concluded, its a long struggle to give the multiple identities the respect they deserve and allow the feeling of being Indian supersede all other feelings.

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    1. Thank you so much for reading this post and keeping my spirits high. I honestly thought not many will read such a boring post:P

      You rightly pointed out that Indians suddenly start displaying heightened sense of discipline, once the step onto foreign shores but back home show off 'chalta hai attitude to the hilt. We must figure out what it taken to discipline us.

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  6. Who said foolishness has got anything to do with one's education? I am happy to fall in the 90% bracket of Reverend Katju! When you are fool you have a certain license to do whatever you like, go berserk or things like that, you know. There is one thing for sure though, although I am a droplet compared to the oceans that Mr Katju is, 90% of Indians are insensitive and callous. But then maybe I am simply paraphrasing him! Now, wasn't he right then? :D

    Thanks for the enlightenment, but remember, fools have thick skins.

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    1. :D, sometime media showers accolades on how a city still moves even after a deadly bomb explosion, calling it their resilience. But that is only making virtue of necessity or plain insensitivity as you pointed out. Insensitivity and callousness are hard to crack.

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  7. Marvellous post-it has stirred so many sentiments-thank you Meenakshi.
    I think all the 90% belong to the politicians.

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    1. Thanks for reading Ma'am! Only politicians??? Where would all the big business houses and bureaucrats go, who actually lobby around to get policies made that suit them. It is them who actually run the governments behind the curtains.

      Thanks for appreciating!!

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  8. Thanks for a nice post. I remembered an incident while I visited Essel World. Due to some delays, there was a huge rush of people and a person with a baby in his hand was trying to sneak between the queue followed by his family. When we tried stopping him, we found 8-10 people from his family coming ready to thrash us even. That was the day when I realised, literacy is what we have achieved while Education is left far behind in the woods to languish... I feel to certain extent that the division among people runs so deep that it is now difficult to even assert we all belong to the same nation.

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    1. You nailed it. We might have achieved e certain literacy rate, but real education has still not dawned. I am glad I was able to drive home my point.

      Thanks for reading and appreciating!

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  9. this is a thought provoking post which demonstrates your ability to think rationally.

    yes, the 'so called' education has nothing to do with the way we conduct ourselves. that guwahati high court judge who granted bail to that molester is an educated person. perhaps, education helps us justify our action.

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    1. I agree, education sometimes helps to justify our actions.

      Thanks for visiting and liking this post!

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  10. The Act of insanity be it division among religions or castes...doesn't go with one's social status and yes i totally agree with you... this discrimination which erupts our nation at times has no role on people's education as an educated person is as much vulnerable to an uneducated one...!!!

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    1. Thanks Anjan for reading rather insipid post:) I am glad my views find favour with you!

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