Most people are jingoistic about this question and tend to come up with an emphatic “YES!! We are the greatest nation in the world…..” ask them to explain or substantiate their claim and the immediate answer is “our culture… it’s the best in the world!!” I feel its foolish to compare cultures of different countries or eras. Undoubtedly, we have a culture that is thousands of years old. It has withstood the test of time. But, somewhere it became stagnant. It has to be flowing like a river. If its dammed, it becomes still and gets corrupt over a period of time. That is probably what happened when we were busy with driving the british out of our motherland. The colonial rule made us to stick to our way of life, more than what was required. In the process we were averse to change and came up with rules as to what was right and what is not! We did not let things change in a natural process. The resistance to change is still evident in our day-to-day life. People blindly want to follow things just coz their forefathers did so. This resistance to change is probably the single and most important reason for ALL the problems that
We have started taking many of these as a way of life. Infact, the problems have become so deep rooted that we have been taking them in our stride and accept it as a part of everyday life. People below the poverty line without basic comforts (or shall we call them necessities) still make up a sizeable chunk of our population. Nearly half of our countrymen (and women and children) are illiterate. We are still divided and united based on caste, religion and language. Ignorance and corruption are evils that are still rampant. To cap it all we are extremely emotional and sentimental about most things. These problems have become a part of our system. People going against the system are mocked at, threatened or are just plain emotionally blackmailed. All this has in turn led a lot of people to say “this country would never change…” infact, this attitude has forced many to look elsewhere and move out of the country for good.
With all of this the future looks really bleak. It seems like we are doomed. But, but, but, hope is eternal and we are a nation who survives on hope. Hoping that this would change, hoping that things will get better. I sometimes feel that this hope is futile and that the hope is just giving us a false sense of achievement and a chance to being jingoistic. Nevertheless, even I am hopeful. Hopeful that in the recent years there has been some change, that there has been a start. Hopeful that this would continue, or even chug along at a decent pace. This needs a lot of sacrifice from many of us. We should not become escapists and run away from our problems and difficulties. The logical thing is to be in the system and try to make a difference. It might cause a lot of pain, it might end up in a lot of failures. But, I guess we owe it to the future generations of our country. I probably would not have been able to write all of this if our forefathers had not made sacrifices, so that WE could live in an independent nation. We need to be in the system, face the reality, go thru the grind, the pain, the frustration and the failures. Like in the case of many of our freedom fighters, we might not be alive to enjoy the fruits. But, that is the only way to make my country a better place to live in.
These thoughts made me come to the conclusion that
JAI HIND!!
