Less Indian More Human.

This is in response to a message I received, pointing out a major problem with India: criminals in politics:

I have long since moved beyond the concepts of "nation state" and "country" in my heart, mind and spirit.  To me, we are a species on this planet, and that's it.  Every equation we have with every other member of this species in my view, therefore, should not be tainted by our perceptions of identity based on invisible or visible lines drawn to separate us into various collectives.  Even more fundamentally, I tend to question the need for a sense of ownership, entitlement, and belonging.  And when did any of us agree to belong to any of these collectives?

I do take note however, that some of these collectives have flourished while others have failed, and I recognize that this collective called "India" is an idea just like the others. Some of us may have an exaggerated sense of belonging with this idea, and some of us may not.  I, personally, look upon it as an accident that I am "Indian", and hence, for reasons I have no interest in fighting against, I accept that fact.  It should suffice that I am a human with a name to boot, and apparently fingerprints and DNA that can identify me incredibly well, but for some reason, I am loaded with all these other definitions.  Whatever.

We have been conditioned to imagine that it is somehow important that we care for this country, or any country.  I simply ask "why"?  I mean, what in the essence of a human being makes us care for one country more than say, another one?  Why this divide amongst us?  Why this unquestioning signing up to belong to just ONE country?  Why do we need borders and divisions that no other species seems to need, and then argue for "open" borders that augment more co-operation between countries?  That sounds crazy to me.

In fact, by agreeing mutely to this bizarre alienation, and the ensuing sense of competition, we have all but forgotten everything about confluence and coexistence, and now, we have a direct interest in other countries being less well off than ours!  How much in tune can this possibly be with the journey of the human soul and our most natural existence as humans within humanity?  We are out of tune, and the enemy is patriotism which really is another word for separatism.  To hell with all the other 194 countries, I will wave ONLY my flag!

The result is that on many occasions, we have under the influence of an imagined need to belong to some country, and even worse, under the heady umbrella of patriotism, sworn to be proud of even what should be questioned, condemned, punished and put to shame for millions of reasons.  The problem with these fractionalized collectives is that our standards of performance, excellence and indeed development are limited by the best that we can do "within" this collective.  However, our perceptions need not be.

I don't think it is natural for us to care about an artificial concept.  "Country" is most definitely an artificial concept, brought upon by fear, the need to control, and the need to intimidate and deceive.  The time for all this may soon pass.  There are things we care about instinctively as human beings, and we genuinely care about the welfare of our species, so that we may survive within it and help proliferate it.  We can be in love with anyone, and would rush to help another human in distress regardless of what nationality that person is.  That is the essential nature of being a human.  This essential nature deserves a canvas much much bigger in scope than what a nation possibly can provide.

So, what does this "nation" provide?  If something threatens our survival, we will naturally defend ourselves.  But for the nation, we have the armed forces.  But within this artificially imposed border called India, we have no natural, instinctive, honest response to the decay of this collective from any other perspective.  We do not have to feel ashamed of this.  In the true sense, we are all the more human for not caring up until the point where our survival may be threatened.

This is where I see the biggest dichotomy.  Some human beings, namely, our ancestors, "chose" to define what is now called "India".  But many of us that are Indians today did not choose to be Indians.  So, why would we automatically want to belong to this club and work for its well being?  From a culture that has been around for thousands of years, somewhere, perhaps in our infinite wisdom, we choose not to take this artificial collective so seriously!  We have God to protect us from all the ills of the "world", which in many cases are the ills of just this very country!  But why is it suddenly God's job, when we proudly proclaim on the Vidhana Soudha, that "Government Work is God's Work!"?  So, it must be God doing a really bad job!

Jokes apart, our crisis within this collective is right now, is not one of having too few people to do good - we have millions of them, but one of having next to nobody to question and strongly fight all that is wrong.  Because when it comes to fighting wrong, our survival might be in jeopardy.  Evil has a way of hitting back in unpleasant ways when threatened!  We believe nonsense like "Satyameva Jayate" even when truth doesn't win!  But believing in it completely absolves us of the responsibility of having to fight against evil.

We are bombarded with lies, day in and day out.  But we accept some of these lies, purely because it takes too much effort to yell back, "Hey, that's a bunch of sh**!".  Evolution is essentially a search for truth, and all the truth that I have so far found is that we, as Indians, are all running from it all the time, sometimes just to stay sane!  The greatness of any society as I see it, is the ability of its members to live closest to the truths that guide them.  To this end, I dare say, we in India collectively live the most unspiritual, cowardly, selfish lives, and we have every justification for doing so, no doubt.  How else could we ruin so much in a mere 63 years?

We have also been fed this nonsense that we are a great country, but if only we stopped to understand that a great country doesn't automatically translate to a great nation, we would not have all these murderers and rapists and crooks and other shenanigans in Parliament!  Above them all still stands a meticulously maintained engraving screaming "Satyameva Jayate" isn't there?  What could be a bigger insult to our collective?  And for those of us who care - what are we going to do about it?  Can we atleast now, in all honesty, agree to change that to "Jhootameva Jayate" or whatever stands for "Untruth alone triumphs"?

I don't fall for any of the jingoistic feel good nonsense that people spew out on a daily basis either.  Like - "We stand in solidarity with the victims of this terrorist attack!".  What exactly does that mean?  The next time, we will jump in the line of fire and take the bullets?  Why're we so afraid to really say what goes on in our minds, like "Thank God that wasn't me!"?  This "feel good" nonsense is actually up to "no good".  This is not grace under pressure, it is lying under pressure to say something good, even if it is not true.  Our patriotism and the need to belong to this imagined collective force us to ugly places like this.

By subscribing to this incomplete and flawed idea of Country, we may also have voluntarily surrendered to this escapist notion that we in India live in a "beautiful chaos" that miraculously survives as a country, ably aided by the power of God.  This is the romantic notion that is pushed upon us, and many of us, including the dubious "Bollywood" film industry help promote it.  We're actually proud of this.

And then, despite having a government working under the Indian flag, consisting mostly of crooks with nothing but looting and pillaging on their minds, look at the number of flag waving ads. shamelessly promoting something as stupid as motorcycle sales!  Dhak Dhak Go!  India Go!  Go where?  To #143 on the Human Development Index?  That's where we are, and there aren't 10,000 countries on that list either.

I do not have hope in this idea called India.  I have some optimism for some elements of what constitutes India, but that is miniscule.  The search for reasons, and the blame game only serves to exacerbate the pain of existing on this land mass defined by the boundaries we have in our mind for this "nation" and "notion" called India.

Each time we invest ourselves in this idea called India or just about any other "nation", we limit ourselves and we limit the power of our potential.

However, I think some of us can apply ourselves to the uplifting of humanity as a whole, and hopefully, no nation will be left out.

I personally simply don't have to be less human to be more Indian.

BSK

Nationalism Misplaced

The nationalists are out in force, demanding a safer India, a stronger India, a more accountable India. The attacks in Mumbai have turned on a fervour that hasn't yet subsided. India is suddenly inflamed and angry, and want results. Our politicians are fair game, and a few heads have already rolled.

But what are our nationalists achieving now that they couldn't have fought for before a bunch of no good, gun toting terrorist pigs decided to attack Mumbai's soft targets? Surprise, surprise! By bringing out their patriotic emotions to the fore, they have given the terrorists exactly the satisfaction they would love to have - the feeling that they are fighting against an entire nation!

Imagine being part of a group that trains to kill and maim, destroy and burn - all in remote hiding places, under the tutelage of shadowy characters with no intellect to understand anything more than violence, and then suddenly being promoted to receive the attention of the world, and the reward of fighting againt a powerful "nation"! That should be a real high in their low lives. What is worse, it will induce them into a delusion of being equal to the task of fighting a nation, and spur them to greater and more spectacular attacks on an enemy that everybody knows is way too powerful, but now seems eligible for attack.

Why nationalist sentiments come out in the wake of a terrorist attack is beyond me. Attack on India? Please! These are rogues and freak murderers on the loose, causing mayhem. Should these elements really call for anything in reaction that is nationalistic? Do they deserve that exalted emotion in reaction to their ugly schemes? I don't think so, and I don't think our fashionable nationalists who woke up in Mumbai and other cities quite realize how many things there are to fight for that will actually make our lives better and make our nation progress faster.

The reason is - this kind of incident is simple enough for a lot of people to come out of their indifferent existences, and easy enough to collect groups to go let off some steam and have some impassioned conversations. The incidents we have on a daily basis that are highly anti-national like bribery, extortion, corruption, pollution, rank incompetence, rape, and murder are definitely more within touching distance of the common Indian and most certainly within the powers of politicians to fix, but these aren't "sexy" enough for our nationalists. We want bombs, fire, media attention, foreigners talking of support, comparisons to other events worldwide - spectacle! Without these, our nationalism is confined to accepting status quo as "normal". The truth is bribery, extortion, corruption, pollution, rank incompetence, rape and murder aren't bloody normal either, but they happen often enough that we have accepted them as such.

The monotony in statements that come out of Mumbai's residents in massive numbers is numbing. Everybody wants to stand united, everybody thinks this is not just an attack on Mumbai, and everybody thinks our politicians are responsible. We all know our politicians have never been responsible. The rest of the world has sung the same tune, that they must stand shoulder to shoulder with India in this hour of crisis. So, we stand shoulder to shoulder and do what? Watch over the dead bodies? Give the terrorists more to cheer about?

The worst insult to Mother India was Sanjay Dutt on TV saying he was angry! Isn't this the son of a thrice born b&^%h who bought weapons from the underworld? And now, suddenly he is a nationalist? I am all for reformation, and I am proud of this rank idiot for shedding some of his stupidity over the years, but has he earned the right to talk for a nation? Come on, India. Surely we can do better than this.

How about the crisis of character that we have all been marinated in? From the fools who ignore no smoking signs, to the politician who sneers and sniggers when cornered with a straight question, from the trader who demands a price well above maximum retail price to the teacher who doesn't know his subject, we know we have failed as a nation and are decaying on the inside faster than we are shining on the outside. Do we really need a tea company telling us to wake up and vote, when we should be lynching the rascals we voted for the last time who haven't delivered anything they were supposed to?

We have been dumbed down, and we are loving it. We are coccooned in the constant barrage of hype and commercialism that tells us we are doing great when we are not. Being sensitive about our country is not a good substitute for being ignorant and indifferent about what we should be doing as citizens. We are being led like sheep by the "system" that allows a few people to take advantage of weaknesses, loopholes, and distractions, all leading to enormous gain, while the welfare of the nation is systematically destroyed.

The "bulletproof" vests supplied to the men in uniform at the Chatrapati Shivaji Station allowed bullets to pass through them. That is how some of our "heroes" died. Further investigation on dummies with the same vests ended up with smashed dummies - categorically showing that these vests did not do the job they were supposed to! Shouldn't this be big on TV? What a symbolic example of how India has been let down for many, many years and exploited and raped and pillaged by our own selfish people. This won't make news because we don't have the conscience to think of this as being important or sexy enough to be nationalistic.

On the ground, the reality is that we have a failure on many fronts. We were not a great nation to start with and we are not getting there in a hurry. A great nation has people who do their duty as citizens, on all fronts, at all times, not just people who wake up when politically attractive. A great nation does not put up with mediocre performance. A great nation has conscientious people, with a highly developed sense of duty and compassion. We do not have any of the above, and most Indians I know would never put the cause of the nation above a cause of personal betterment. A great nation would never have bowed to the will of hijackers and turned over prisoners to secure the release of an aeroplane and its passengers. India did. So, what the bloody hell are we suddenly so nationalistic about? It really took a bunch of terrorists to wake us up? We should be ashamed of that very fact.