“Our politicians are just a microcosm of the general population. It is not that they are just the bunch of us who are the most corrupt, ignorant, unethical and abusive. Just that their position, power and public scrutiny amplifies everything. So what am saying is we are as sick as our nation and our nation is sick because of us. Let’s come to terms with it. (And create a cultural revolution in the country being the change ourselves in every small way possible)”
That was my observation a few months ago as a status message on Facebook. And to me it seems more appropriate now than ever with such anarchy in administration of this country. Though a few friends liked it then, I have had vehement opposition to this ideology by some who hold their nation so close to their hearts that calling it sick is very taboo. To them and all who may have a similar feeling a good answer is my friend’s comment then, who said:
“Good thought Aravind. until we realize, accept and improve our own moral standards and principles we shouldn’t talk (bad) about politicians. Indeed they just reflect our own culture in a magnified way as you rightly said.
I think it is very evident the nation is sick. Calling it sick and feeling sick are entirely different. It is feeling sick or the health of the nation that we are talking about and definitely our nation is sick because of each one of us.”
I feel it is high time we the educated and the elite come to terms that our ethics and culture have degraded. Our sense of apathy is alarming. Ignoring everything except what is self-fulfilling has become a staple of our modern Indian society. Mutual respect, regard for rules and a value for even another life seems non-existent. Just stepping outside our homes, we litter the roads with right, violate traffic rules without regard and pass obliviously open drainages and popping power cables that take young lives away.
This is not the case in just my city but every city, town and village across India. As an educated individual reading this you may never want to associate yourself with the culture that am talking about taking shape in India and may probably want to advise me to look at myself before complaining. You may take it too personally and loose perspective as has happened with my friends. But all you can do in your support is throw in irrelevant examples from history and mythology to show how great a culture we are for just another fallacy of argument. And this is the worst you can do given the ground reality.
Just look outside right now and why is it that your road is littered while your home is clean? Why is that somewhere in your city an open drainage is over flowing while vehicles and buses full of people pass right by it? Why is that in every traffic signal you see someone jumping the red light and scores of others following? Why do you see people drunk, diseased or probably dead lying on the streets while people just pass by? Why do whole communities of poor people seem to live in extremely unhygienic conditions by a river side which is more of a very polluted drainage? Why do you see kids working at grocery shops, mechanic shops and restaurants if you and everyone you know never does business with such establishments?
I have seen this all. You know you have. So why do such conditions prevail and continue to get worse by the day? The answer is it is not because there are just a few of us who are unethical, culture-less and flout laws that we are seeing such a society. It is not because just the Govt. is apathetic and corrupt we have such chaos. And it is not that people are so poor and powerless in this democracy that they have no option but to live in such conditions. It is just that we are all the same, without strong ethics, flouting rules to varying extents and turning a blind eye to the anarchy and underdevelopment around us being too lazy to do something about anything. Apathy, ignorance and laziness have become the fabric of our culture.
If you see some common man litter the road today just know that tomorrow the same person when in power will have no hesitation to let an industry pollute an entire river. Especially when he can get a kickback for not enforcing effluent treatment. And the industry pollutes because it doesn’t have the ethics and not one employee in the entire company cares about the health of his society. The people who are affected don’t care because they are ignorant and most importantly indifferent to what the pollution can do to them and their children over time. All they care is the freebies thrown by the Govt. during elections who they blindly vote to be corrupt and keep them in a state of ignorance and underdevelopment. The judiciary and law enforcement (Police) is silent because it is made of the same fabric the Govt. is and the society is.
Our society urgently needs to be rid of this cultural disease. It is not the Anna Hazare or Ramdev revolution that is going to help. They are only spreading more anarchy in the already weak democracy and republic our country has become. Such activism rising in itself is a symptom of a wasting disease our nation has acquired. If X and Y with a few lakh followers can stage mass protests against our own democratically elected Govt. and we support it, we are only making a mockery of our own parliamentary and judiciary systems. Instead of strengthening our democracy we are spreading antipathy towards it creating and feeding forces outside the parliamentary democracy.
Change can happen only when common people like us come to terms with the degraded culture and morality of our society and choose to change ourselves in every small way for common good and take action spreading the revolution. The cultural and moral fabric of our society needs to be cleansed at an individual level. We can have a Lokpal bill to empower everyone to take action but before that we need enlightenment in everyone that we really don’t need a Lok Pala, an ombudsman, an overseer. What we need is a culture where each individual oversees himself to high standards of integrity, accountability and morality. Every individual, the “I”, the Indian, needs to be a Pala, a protector – of himself, his country and its people.
“Our politicians are just a microcosm of the general population. It is not that they are just the bunch of us who are the most corrupt, ignorant, unethical and abusive. Just that their position, power and public scrutiny amplifies everything. So what am saying is we are as sick as our nation and our nation is sick because of us. Let’s come to terms with it. (And create a cultural revolution in the country being the change ourselves in every small way possible)”
“Good thought Aravind. until we realize, accept and improve our own moral standards and principles we shouldn’t talk (bad) about politicians. Indeed they just reflect our own culture in a magnified way as you rightly said.
I think it is very evident the nation is sick. Calling it sick and feeling sick are entirely different. It is feeling sick or the health of the nation that we are talking about and definitely our nation is sick because of each one of us.”
