This article in Our Identity series is essentially in response to the following comment we received in one of our earlier posts.
Comment:”The reason why foreigner’s hate about India is still we have typical traditional image. Most of the foreigners complins about overcrowding and dirty places. There are hardly clean places over India. When you go metro cities like Mumbai, Delhi or Bengalore, first you come across with beggers and pollution. Even though we are progressing very fast these things still keep our ‘Typical Indian’ image. ”
Well, this was not the main focus of the topic our article was addressing. But the points raised in this comment are partially true and of great concern. First of all what is our traditional image? Dirty cities? Dirty people? Forget about image, what is our tradition? If you are considering dirty and crowded places as our tradition then it is wrong. So let us deal with them in two different accounts. First our traditional image and our traditions. If the outside people think our tradition is dirty places then it is not their fault, they simply do not know. But it will be our fault if we do not know our tradition. Let me give an example. No body has damaged English language more than Americans did. But we in our country consider speaking US English is being modern. Can you imagine an announcement in say, Delhi station in bhojpuri or Maithili (mind that they are dialects of Hindi not distortions). Most of us will say… ”Kis ganwaar ko laakar announcer bana diya”. Shall we say the same in Los Angles airport for an American English announcement. Traditions do not fall from sky. We make them. What we do today is the tradition tomorrow. And what the rest of the world accepts about us is what we are proud of and not just proud of but the things we practice. A person walking in to flight from Mumbai to Frankfurt wearing a dhoti will be looked upon as a clown by Indians more than foreigners. But at the same time a person walking in the same flight in Bermuda is considered ”Hep”. Ever thought why? Do we ever talk in Hindi or in any regional language when we go to shopping malls in India or places like Westside, Reebok, Nike? People working there, are all Indians and I am sure they talk to their , doodhwallas, sabji wallas, dhobi etc in Hindi or in their regional languages. No, we think if we talk in Hindi across the counter it will be sign of backwardness. We, the people of our beloved India talk to each other in a foreign language. Not because it is better than the Indian language just because we are worried about our image! But just imagine if most of the customers start talking in Indian languages, in few days all the toilets in these shops will have boards in Indian languages instead of ”Ladies” and ”Gents”. When our children see us using an Indian language they will consider it more important and have a affection for it. This is how traditions are formed.
Now about out external image…. dirty and polluted cities. Just try to imagine what we are attempting. Have you seen how the crowded European cities are? Paris, Frankfurt, Berlin, Brussels…..go on… Where on this earth do you have suburban train system taking more than 6 million people every day from one place to another? That to above ground meaning dealing with people encroaching, crossing tracks etc. Paris metro does less than 4 million per day though most of it is under ground. We have problem, nobody denies. Look at Paris metro station they are as dirty as any of the Mumbai suburban station, why? just because number of people. Go to about 200 km north in France place called Caen it is so beautiful, neat and clean, you will hate Paris. I have been to many European cities and the kind of crowd they handle, Indian system is doing much much better. Pollution, it is the price paid by all the big cities around the world. Question is what are we doing about it? Aren‘t we the one who first take a holiday on the election day and then just shout against the government for not doing anything (Or choose an inexperienced film actor or actress over and experienced politician?)? Aren‘t we the one who throw the garbage anywhere we want? Aren’t we the one who, while traveling in the trains throw garbage in the train? We have problems, many problems but we have one most serious problem. Do you know which one? We sit on the problem and shout about it! How many of us will shout anti government slogans if an extra tax is imposed on the private vehicle owners of the city or say the toll rate for the city flyovers is increased. Have you ever thought how much amount of tax the so called developed country population pays?
Development comes at its cost, we should be ready to pay it. Again I must stress, that what Indian is attempting is near impossible, no country attempted this and more importantly with in 60 years of autonomy. Which developed country have a history like us, with over 150 years of exploitation, torture, oppression and then so called freedom garnished with partition, injection of the poison of the religious hatred in the society, poverty for a huge population and the famous and the most potent slow poison of bureaucracy as icing on the cake? Now to make it happen we all have to push from all the fronts. We have enough people crying over the spilt milk, way too many to actually push the cart. What we need is more and more people being positive about things, because this attitude just gives us a reason and encouragement to fight, fight for a good future. For us and for our next generation. At this moment I can’t see better example than this years Nobel Peace prize winner Muhammad Yunus who opted to fight rather than sit in the sofa in front of a 29 inch televisions and shout about poverty in Bangladesh. Finally, we are up to making history or I can say we are going to be history of the far future and to achieve this we need all hands. And as the President says we can and we will.
