Saturday, September 15, 2012

The Great Indian Dream II - Our Society and Culture


As a child, I had read in my history books about how our primitive society was divided into 4 castes – Brahmins, Kshatriyas, Vaishyas and Shudras; that children were branded based on their caste right from the moment they were born. I got to know mine, though after 15 years of my birth, while filling out my senior secondary examination forms. And I am thankful to my parents for that. It was only later on that I got know how much important it is in the 21st century India...

This topic is heavily clichéd and I am sure that many prolific writers would have already done justice to it, but I touch this issue in my 3 part article, because it is by far the most important aspect to be addressed in the hope of a ‘great India’. In an article for TOI, Chetan Bhagat had rightly pointed out that ‘For any lasting change to happen in a country, its society has to change in terms of its behavior, attitudes and values. We can blame our politicians for every wrong in the nation. However, politicians only reflect what society thinks.’ He may write quirky novels for the masses, with zero literary value, but through his editorials, he manages to make his ideas more clear than he ever could through his stories. If some part of us burns today when we see injustice being meted out to someone because of his or her lack of powerful connections, or say, the repeated broadcast of the video of a poor girl being publicly molested, or public property being vandalized in the name of religion, we ourselves are to blame for some of these problems; and it is time we start taking responsibility for the socials ills that are prevalent around us.

I sometimes wonder that maybe we take our caste, religion and mother tongue more seriously than our forefathers ever did. We have made our social divisiveness official after independence under the garb of development. Divisiveness is not new to us, because we learn it at our homes itself, through our family and relatives. We are told about how to differentiate between people, not based on their values, but based on their religion, caste and language. Our religion, caste and language is often depicted as being superior and celebrated within the family. We accept such divisiveness right from the childhood, leading to a lifetime of bias against people from other communities. And therein lies the root of our problems – our mindsets! However educated we are, most of us still are prejudiced in their decision making, based on such petty considerations like language, religion or caste. It is 2012, but we still vote on the basis of caste, marry on the basis of caste and religion, be friends with people who speak the same language, thinking that by doing so we are continuing our so called ‘traditions’. I wish to ask my countrymen just one question; when you go to choose a car, do you see whether the makers are from high caste or low caste, or do you make your selection based on the quality and value of it? 

Carrying forward our millennia old societal values in the name of ‘culture’, we Indians are a confused set of people with varying set of values. I have never got a concrete answer whenever I asked people to define ‘culture’. Is it our food, arts, personal values like family, religion, etc. or just plain traditions that we have followed blindly from centuries? We need to know exactly how it is defined because today, ‘preserving’ our precious Indian culture has become a politically motivated issue. I have read many books, and always ended up with conflicting ideas. Scholars, unable to explain such conflicts, make romanticized statements like ‘Many India’s within India’ and ‘the beauty of India’. I call it sheer perplexity! Indian society has lived with such muddled set of values for a long time now. And if this continues, our society cannot exist for long, because social harmony can only be achieved when the people think alike and know their roles in the society.

When we speak of people living in developed nations like America, we associate wealth, freedom, competitiveness, religion and fairness as the values with which they live. That is the essence of heir society. When we think of our society, there exists no such consistency. Do we value wealth more or education? Do we value our local communities or value being a part of India? Do we really believe in democracy, because if we do, then why have we left power in the hands of a select few? These are uncomfortable questions that we need to ask ourselves, because it is only after clarification of these questions that we will have a generation who, with their clear set of ‘Indian values’, would know the purpose of their lives and be part of a bound society. We may brand Americans as greedy and materialistic, but we cannot take away the fact from them that they have created a system in which wealth is created with hard work, innovation and enterprise rather than nepotism and corruption. Anyone who tries to rise up the ladder using unfair means is severely punished in America,  where as in India, we do not have good laws to even nail down the blatantly corrupt! We are tuned to be numb to injustice, because somewhere deep down we are also a little bit corrupt, be it copying assignments or giving a bribe to the traffic policeman after breaking the signal, since we have accepted that it is the way of life here.


My parents feel that aiming to get rich fast is a bad thing. So do most other Indians think and many would even blame such ambitions as an ill-effect of the ‘westernization’ of our generation. Our older generation takes the moral high ground to defend their point – slowness in work is termed as being patient, non-stop discussions and taking no or late actions is termed as being cautious and lack of change in their standard of living is countered with the claims to lead a simple life! Are aspirations to become rich and see my country become rich ‘un-Indian’? Do we fear change? Is progress bad? The dream of a developed and rich India can be realized only if we kill this enemy – the old school of thought! It is not a clear enemy, hence the battle becomes difficult. Our regressive ideologies in the name of culture are the greatest roadblocks in the path of development. And to fight this faceless enemy, we need role models, who could show us the way ahead, like Mahatma Gandhi did during our struggle for independence. Our role models or the so called ‘youth icons’ today are usually business tycoons who are or cricketers, who flaunt their wealth publicly whenever given a chance, be it a birthday party or a wedding. In stark contrast, the top 50 billionaires of USA pledged half their wealth in charity (including Zuckerberg)!

I have ranted on and on about the shortcomings of our society in this article. As an engineer, I will try to come out with solutions to counter these problems in my last article of the series. But my intention here was point out the ironies existing in our society presently. We consider aspirations to become rich as a westernized concept, and are content to live our lives as the great Indian middle class. On the other hand, we hero worship rich people and brand them as role models, ignoring all their shortcomings.  They live in multi crore houses, shop abroad and spend crores on trivial issues at the drop of their hat, where as more than 40% of our people don’t have access to proper healthcare and live in poverty. Our corrupt politicians loot us and display their wealth unashamedly, but we don’t find it vulgar. But if a girl wears jeans and chooses her life-partner, we term it as vulgar. We say that we are religious people, yet we exploit people without power, be it raping women, killing unborn girl child or torturing the poor. We are a land of contrasts and contradictions, true, but I would like to believe that it will change gradually…and all it needs is a push!

3 comments:

  1. Again a very pertinent article..however on one hand you say that we don't to change the old school of thought and on the other hand you are disapproving of the fact that today's 'youth icons' are business tycoons or cricketers who flaunt their wealth!! well..flaunting wealth or opting for philanthropy is a personal choice and characters of both shades are found in every society. Not to forget many of these cricketers and business tycoons of today were not born with a silver spoon and have worked to reach where they are today!

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  2. most of todays business tycoons are inherited princes who have done nothing but to exploit the system for their personal gains..i m not speaking of the new age entrepreneurs, whom a very small fraction of people know, but of the established business houses which we have been hearing off from last 4-5 decades...its not a personal comment because there are people like Ratan Tata who do charity without much fanfare, but a collective statement about the entire fraternity who believe in milking a corrupt system and unashamedly flaunting their wealth

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  3. Liked yor post.. :)

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