In Indian English we say, "We are like this only". This one line summarises all that is wrong with Indian mentality. It could be a culture shock for any person from an European or North American or even Asian background that Indians justify all their fault lines with one classic line "Hum to aise hi hain bhaiyya". This does not have to be inane habits like free loading, hard bargaining or even curious food habits, we Indians justify even many illegal activities (some criminal too) with this classic line. Apparently, this "sab chalta hain" attitude is not just unique to common citizens, it runs all through the power corridors; all through to grass root levels. Its shocking that sometimes we come across as very callous and inhuman because of this attitude, yet we happily harp on this "carefree" nature.
There are several examples I could state here to hammer in my point but I would stick to 4-5 points that affect us on a day to day basis. Firstly, we Indians suffer from a superiority complex that is very strange. Strange because at one end we pride ourselves calling our country among the poor countries and pass off all our failings with the following, ".... after all we are a poor country"; but at the same time we want the world to salute our cultural richness and we want to show that we are the only country rich with customs and traditions that go back 3000 years from today. We feel that this one argument (our cultural richness) should win us the crown of being the best country in the world. The fact being, most of the cultural richness has been lost in the past few centuries and we are left with being just brash prudes. We Indians, just want to be holier than thou and just do not see our own failings. Our Khap panchayats, caste system, untouchability, religious fanaticism, racism are legendary; but we pass them off as "..this is our custom for thousands of years". Fact being we are one of the most intolerant class of people to people different from us. We, in 2011 still live in ghettos and do not have a community system. We, still believe in killing our children and young adults who refuse to follow the archaic tradition of caste system and call it "honor killing". Even though we want to pass off as a modern society, we still treat our women as commodity and property. With so many failings, we still want to brag about our cultural richness.
Indians, along with Pakistanis and Bangladeshis are a select group of people who have very low respect for the rule of law. Everyone living in the subcontinent thinks he or she should be exempt from the rule of law. Most of us want to cut lines and processes put in place to expedite our work. To get this done, we are ready to pay off the authorities and/or politicians. We subvert the rules so often and in such high frequency that subversion of rules becomes a rule and compliance starts to look an exception.
Ex1: We are so used to eve-teasing and groping females on our transport system that if some woman stands up to the offender, she is asked not to make a "big fuss". Even her family asks her to change her routine or dress habits or to avoid taking public transport. We seem to have accepted eve teasing as a way of life rather than an offense.
Ex2: We are so used to corruption that if we find a police officer/ bureaucrat /politician who is upright, he stands out among the lot when in reality, it should be the other way around. We should have so many honest people in government service that the corrupt should stand out like a nail waiting to be hammered.
We like to spit on our roads; piss on our walls; be disrespectful to women; misuse public properties and if stopped we have the guts to ask "tere baap ka kya jata hain"... in other words, we have no sense of ownership of our country and are okay with our country going to the dogs as long as we are doing fine, making money and living a peaceful life.
We Indians, have never got out of the feudal mindset. We were ruled by kings and foreigners for so long that even with the advent of democracy, each authority has a feudal touch and every government organization is run like a personal fief. Very few regard that they are simply discharging the constitutional obligations of the chair or post they are holding and the authority they command is due to the chair and not to them personally. Long after demitting office, people continue to exert influence and want to remain drunk in power. This creates a VVIP culture that is unique to India, we continue to use official perks even after retirement, we hate to relinquish powers and always hang around the power corridors for bragging rights and influence. We have so many exceptions to the rules that it becomes impossible to implement any kind of security establishment without loop holes. Indians are unique in a way where a person breaking laws continuously is a sought after person for "jugaad" or his range of influence rather than being treated as a felon who should be behind bars.
Freeloading is another bad habit I hate in us Indians, we simply do not want to pay for the facilities we use. We want free goodies on the stuff we buy, we want tax benefits on the loans we take, we want cheap power, we want cheap fuels and the worst, we want a share in the social schemes meant for the poor and downtrodden. People wonder how after 64 years of independence we have so many poor in India. The reason is very simple. We have no qualms in using up the resources meant for the poor to become richer when they are dying by the hundreds everyday. Government of India provides for subsidized fuel, food grains, loans and even college education for the poor and downtrodden. In fact, no other country spends as much on upliftment of poor and on social schemes as the Government of India, and yet we are a poor country. That is because most of the subsidized fuel is used to drive the gas guzzling SUVs or is used by mafia to pilfering. The middle class, uses the food grains meant for use of the poor to cut their household costs; restaurant owners use the subsidized fuels and grains to cut operating costs, people use fake income certificates to usurp the rights of poor students to a decent college education. The result, the Government budget for social schemes keep inscreasing and the poor don't get an ounce of the proceeds. Its a viscious cycle and everyone is onto it. The lack of moral fibre in our society appals me. I feel sorry that we as a society have grown to be a bunch of free loaders who would rather use up some one else's resources for a better tomorrow than provide it to a poor and needy person who needs it today. We do all these things and then have the guts to be self righteous and preach morals and ethics to others.
Actually, Indians are one of the most industrious and smart people. We are good with numbers, we are agile to changes in the world and very very adaptive. We have so many qualities that help us win and most of these qualities come naturally to us. We just have to be little more civilized and little more in-tune to needs of others as compared to ourselves. We should stop using our rich culture as a shield to cover our failings as its amply clear, there are many aspects of our culture and tradition that would shame many a societies. We must be grounded with the thought that like most civilizations we have our pluses and minuses and with an eye to improve on our minuses, we have to keep making best use of our plus points. We should be Indians first and religion must take a back-seat always on your identity. Lets stop being proud of "hum to aise hi hain" and try and improve our society.
So long...
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