india dreams....my 2 cents....
a response to one of the threads started on orkut about india.....
bravo NC to get ure thoughts out in the open....
but as one of the thousands who keep thinkin about the different ways
to get our country back on track, i really want to know whether our country is ailing in the first place. do we really have problems or are we imagining these problems just to be the ones to solve them. does india even need these efforts to get itself structured or r we happiest when we r messy.
i have a few points here that ive realised over a long time,
1. we as a population are probably the laziest in the world when it comes to pushin ourselves in the pursuit of perfection. this is bcos we r in general a population who are instead interested in the pursuit of happiness and happiness is always a relative term. for us, havin a decent secure lifestyle, a 9 to 5er , with benefits that will see us thru the times we see daylite is much more than anythin anyone could want. we dont see the sense in pushin ourselves to be perfect, we dont see the sense in workin nites to achieve a few bucks more and in normal terms we dont compete with peers as far as careers go. this in the eyes of the west is a failed state, a state with a huge population goin nowhere. what they dont understand is that we indians dont want to go anywhere. this could be bcos of the really comfy environment we have in our backyard and a great climate to live in. we need not forget that for a long time, the west wanted to be like india.
2. in my attempt to play my part, be the saviour or to listen to my higher soul, did make quite an effort to join the NGOs and their kind to see how they were even goin to change things in india. and every time they prepared reports, every time they made an announcement to the public here, its always on how things were bad in india before they came, and how things have improved. isnt that like Benny Hinn and we blame him bcos he is a quack. The amount of time that I got plain depressed in listening to their stories made me quit many of them, bcos I dont see India as a weak nation, i just see india as an indifferent nation. There was this time when a so called self styled activist came to houston for a talk on how she changed things in india, on how she saved villages from the brink of disaster. everythin agreed, i started admirin her. but then i listen to my friend tell me, she was the daughter of the ACP of the state and so whereever she went , there were 150 armed policemen along with her in her efforts. so the only reason she gets the support of 150 men is bcos of her contacts, and not bcos she had the conviction to get these men on her side. Now i agree her efforts are great, and at least she is down there doin somethin. But i dont see her solvin anythin when she fights her personal battles using the same system which we see as the problem. this is just my opinion.
3. on another note, this indifference is what makes organizations like the world bank and the IMF to start howling on how things are not workin in our country. When i interacted with activists who dealt with these economic deals handed over to india from the WB or the IMF, the first thing they told me was, IMF and the WB are waitin for opportunities to give loans for development project not bcos they actually want to see development in our country, but thats what justifies their existence in playin down the economic progress of our country. they also gave me some facts on how the WB works and how they lower a country's rating everytime they fund any developement project and what happens to the money they give is not their problem. they dont make sure these development projects actually work, which usually ends up goin nowhere. I thus see the WB being one of the causes for our problems instead of a solution.
4. one more observation ( more of a reaction to NC's point of the govt searchin for victims) is that u can expect the govt to step in when the population is in no position to help itself. But you can never expect the govt to step in when the population doesnt want to help itself. and the reason we see the problems in india is bcos there is a very large population in this group. I would categorise this group to be higher than the threshold population that cannot help itself, and lower than the achiever group where the population actually helps itself. what do u do to them? I dont know.
5. another observation i made when i was readin Shashi Tharoor's India: Midnight to Millenium was that political boundaries make no sense in the quagmire of southern asia. A punjabi from punjab would have more in common with a punjabi from punjab in pakistan than a mallu from india, a bengali from west bengal would have more in common with a bengali from bangladesh than a tamilian from india. this is but natural. so i totally agree to NC's comment about the disintegration of our country but also see an integration since there r two ways things could go as far as South Asia is concerned. The prudent ones would aim at the the disintegration, the idealists would aim the integration.
6. the despicable political conditions in the region only reflect the senseless state of leadership in every country includin india. i actually think the smartest leader in the region today is Musharaff. Imagine a guy responsible for actually startin a war with India to be invited to watch a cricket match. Is this a show of his strength or our lack of spine. my blood boils everytime we pretend as if nothin ever happened all these years. I dont want india to go to war with pakistan, but why are we so eager to appease it? Ignoring Pakistan wont result in the region goin to nuclear war if thats what the whole world is bothered about. Can someone fill my head with any logic as to y we do the things we do? is pakistan in any size and shape a threat to our existence? ( they do have better rock bands, that i accept)
7. one thing that NC mentioned takes the cake on the fundamental question posed in these threads. We should concentrate more on the means, rather than the ends. Instead of tryin hard to be a superpower, we should try harder to get our sense back, our logic in place, and our leadership with spine. Who knows, we might even reach greater heights than what a super power is defined by. Is that possible?
i shall add to other things that i feel strongly about as this thread progresses.
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