Musing of a verbose mind. It borders on all that takes a skeptical and highly critical view of whatever is happening or has happened in our world..... do read it and post your comments..... discourse is welcome.....

Superpowers???

Posted on Saturday, June 13, 2009 | By Gautam | In ,

Two incidents yesterday made me sit up and ponder over what is happening in India.
  • Incident 1: The crowd at Lord's erupted at the instance of "Jai Hey" when our national anthem was being sung. I felt immensely proud and almost skipped a heartbeat sitting in front of the tv (even felt that England may very well be on its way to become the 29th Indian state).
  • Incident 2: While listening to the radio, a person was asked to choose between Brian Lara and another celebrity. Her choice- the other celebrity. The grounds- Lara is black. This incident becomes all the more pertinent in these times given that we are charging people down under as racists.
The two incidents may not be connected to each other, but deep down inside they do pose questions for us, as the citizens, as to how we perceive us in these times, how do we handle the tag of an emerging superpower. One does feel great to be a citizen of an emerging superpower but I feel overtly overwhelmed with all the problems that we have brushed under the carpet. Here are some of the points that trouble me:
  • It feels good when you are considered as a superpower but its disgusting when the jingoistic rhetoric compares us with China. I'd rather be in a developing country than in a totalitarian, iron fisted, soul-less country like china. Surely we've misplaced our priorities.
  • Accept it, we are a racist people. Calling people black, our brothers from the north east as chinkis and the list goes on.
  • I hardly find ourselves a sensitive nation. Handicapped people are still a butt of many a jokes, there are no special provisions like ramps and all for these people (a pattern highly unbecoming of a superpower).
  • Reservation for SCs, STs and OBCs is fine but talk about giving 1/3rd reservation to women in parliament and our MPs (the male ones) threaten to commit suicide. Some way of displaying male chauvinism.
  • Instead of sensitising the male youth and curbing eve teasing, girls are advised to carry themselves in a 'certain manner' or simply jeans are banned in colleges for girls!!!
  • Civic sense is something we can borrow from countries like Japan. Indiscriminate honking on the roads, not paying for our water utility bills to name a few.
Surely we are a better nation than this. We can either aspire to be a nation to be looked up to or with our immensely indifferent attitude be looked down upon. Our hour has come. Its been more than 60 years since we had a tryst with the destiny. We just cannot continue to live in the shadow of being a great assimilating civilization. Something more needs to be done. And by the looks of it, we aren't equipped.....

Comments (1)

Divya Said on June 13, 2009 at 1:51 PM

wow.. this is gr8... keep up the good work gauti... :)

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