Most foreigners who travel to india face love and respect much beyond their expectations – Vineet Raj Kapoor
This is an uncomfortable article that I loathe to write, but then many so called experts write a lot of ill-informed stuff about what is going on in India. So let me address, what some people think is wrong with India (even though you find the same problems in all part of the world). Sometimes the protest on the streets disturb normal life or sometimes a crime happens.
However, we should not be misled by the public protests that happen in India and assume that the people is up in arms. No social war is being waged in India. It doesn’t happen as public protests are on in India at every moment somewhere or the other. That’s a way they’ve learnt from Gandhi – to protest peacefully (sometimes this can go wrong without a Gandhian leader but the intent is what you must look at) and then go back to work. Work is done. It’s now the Government’s turn. People do not bring changes – Governments do. People only need to let Governments know what they feel. Obviously, since people don’t trust the official means of doing so – like filing a case, bring up through media, and stuff. These methods often bend the direction of the causes, so the best is to let the government know what you feel. That doesn’t mean that all which happens is justified. It also doesn’t mean all that happens belongs to the protesters. Like everywhere else in the world, many thieves and rapist would carry on their office work under the shadow of the protest and give the protest an undesired color.
People are also concerned about certain Rape cases that happen and paint a gruesome pictures about India. Even some countries may declare India as a concern zone for travel due to same. You must ask tourists travelling in India about this. And they find it safer or no different from many other countries. Sure they (rape crime) are shameful, whichever way you look at it. Sure you may find repression of male sexuality. However, isn’t it everywhere in the world? What an armyman stationed in another country does and behaves is a clear sample of the male psychology of that nation. And we’ve heard a lot of those coming out of the most developed nation. What a person does when he’s free of bondage of his country’s law is what shows the thought process of a nation. And all men across the world come out as repressed. Regional, gender, religious – all biases continue to exist around the world and you can’t easily “Trump that”.
And here the similarity ends.
India surely allows their media unbridled freedom, unlike many other parts of the developed world in the way they report anything, so sensationalism becomes a collateral damage that has to happen. This complete freedom and sensationalism makes India look like it’s in continuous turmoil. Sensationalism does highlight the issue as well as numb back the populace in place. A wonderful anticlimax.
Yes, in the bargain it may send a wrong message to the outside world, but then a society’s first commitment is towards themselves. So this highlighting does improve one’s sensitivity towards the subject – it is immaterial that I may not approve of sensationalism, but then I am already a sensitive person. I would surely recommend that other countries must also find their own ways to tackle the issues.
In fact, this has a lot of learning (in the way India handles it’s issues by enlarging them and bringing them frontstage) to offer to countries like South Africa, Sweden, USA, England, and even Canada, New Zealand and Australia. All these countries (and many others) are either in the same bracket as India or even above. in the number of rape incidents (I am quoting form http://www.wonderslist.com/top-10-countries-with-maximum-rape-crimes/ ) but prefer not to have that in their news.
Also, to understand the issue, and acknowledge that it stems from most basic need of man as designed by nature and the suppression of the same through legal and enforcement routes. That does not mean that we throw away these options. But yes a Gandhian approach is surely required. We must look at how this society got designed and why it makes life so difficult. So a total relook is desired, especially by nations which seem to have suppressed the coverage of such crimes, since the crimes are not going away by that. India, I am sure would deal better with this in the long run, given the open approach they have taken on such issues, preferring to bring them centrestage and tackling them there. Finally crime would never get wiped out unless we wipe out society. So humanity lives with it and manages it to their best.
Crime would never get wiped out unless we wipe out the society.
– Vineet Raj Kapoor
I also believe that the malaise talked about is correct, but the suggestion of it being an Indian issue is wrong.
These are all biases of society and not country specific. we can only handle them once we acknowledge it so. There are usually lesser issues (in India) of the racial and gender prejudices than you may see even in many urban areas of developed countries. So let’s accept these problems as world problems and then only can we address them.
If you check with foreigners who have stayed long in India, and they would let you know that a woman is as safe in India as they could be anywhere else in the world including their home city.
If you want to see and understand a country look at it’s beggars. In India, you’d see them as a community, laughing and sharing, whereas at some other places they are alone and lonely.
Repression is already built in the rules that we live by. You want to change the nature or the rules?
– Vineet Raj Kapoor
Maybe India can use it’s chaos to give another Gandhi to this world. One who’s going to address these issues of “Rules vs Nature”. Oh yes, the person can come from anywhere, but would have the courage to ask the right questions and calmly inhale all the dust that this rakes without rattling up rage. A very peaceful but argumentative discussion is required – the one which would test the patience of this world. A chaotic society has more possibility of such a child being nurtured into a responsible but questioning adult. Maybe a better way could be that this person would show us another better way to live than questioning the current ways of living.
Sure, lives are lost in a chaos based evolution. Many many more lives are lost in a civil war. So to avoid the same, it is better to let some chaos in a society. Yes, you need wise people in control of this chaos. Ideally someone who’s renounced the material world. Someone like Gandhi.
Strife is not killing India! It is creating antibodies in it’s blood. – Vineet Raj Kapoor