You cannot escape hearing these days about the talks/seminars on economic progress being achieved by India at 9 percent aggregate growth in GDP for last 4 years and the loud signing off that India would soon be a global power. But the same people could be seen struggling on the chocked roads fuming to reach home. Well that could be sign of ‘enormous’ wealth expressed in terms of auto sales.
Well whom are we benchmarking ourselves with? Europe, eastern I suppose or the America, south may be or the nearer home like Shanghai (Mr Prime minister please), Taiwan, Bangkok, KL, Hong Kong…..or perhaps Chengdu that relatively unknown place in Sichuan province of PRC.
When I was in Chengdu, China I experienced a world that’s pretty different from my hometown Chandigarh, and the home state Punjab. It was a completely pleasant surprise. Though Punjab is almost the state where fellows Indians from several states come to work and live, and Chandigarh is still hawked as the greenest city, an epitome of modern living. Certainly I do not want to compare any Indian city with Hong Kong,, Shanghai or Kuala Lumpur. But these die-hard optimists would not compromise their harangue on how great is it live in India.
Why can we not have an opinion about the house, land, planet and the world we are living in?
How would we clean up the environment unless we agree that things are not normal? Why should we shut up and wait for ages & centuries for a miracle, that new world order, which would emerge and India would become a place that you could be feel proud of? We Indians have to recognize the problems with India and work…..work honestly to make India a country that other people on the globe would prefer to talk about and admire. Please excuse me for wishing for admiration from others. Perhaps that’s the way I perceive of attaining the Nirvana!
Whenever ‘India eulogizing’ rhetoric begins anywhere on our land it strangely starts projecting our most dangerous problems as opportunities. Population problem is repackaged as an opportunity to earn foreign currency! The pathetic logic goes like since India would have 90 crore youthful working population therefore all the developed countries with stagnant population would be dependent upon us for labor.
Whew! How could a country be called a super power if its citizens toil in foreign lands doing menial jobs?
India would be a super power the day all Indians can live securely and find work on our land. Otherwise please name a country that could be called a super power and its citizens have to go and work abroad in droves. Well except the poor USA! Its citizens are ‘working’ in Iraq, Afghanistan and few other places. Well incidentally me and President Bush has lots in common besides our education, birth month and of course the popularity. I am almost matching his popularity ratings in our respective work areas.
When India figures high in surveys on happiness it must be a matter of concern for our leaders. Complacency kills! More so when Germans, Japanese do not think that they are happy.
Happiness is a state of mind. It may mean different things for different people. In war zone one may be happy to be just alive, but the same person may not be happy lying in bed in a super luxury suite. If you are a person who wishes to be an achiever then you may not be ‘happy’ with little success. But if you do not have well defined goals in your life then perhaps you may remain happy just like that. India needs to work very hard to climb up economically. Therefore ‘just like that’ or a ‘chalta hai’ attitude may not be useful for us to achieve recognition and acceptance.
Let us change our attitude and do not rest on our past achievements and strive continuously to achieve a reasonable standard of living in India for all of us. Lets be happy only if India produces great Books, products, athletes, scientists, businesspersons, teachers and politicians. I am trying my bit and believe me I would not be happy without a concrete achievement. I am available for work 24X7.
1 comment:
great article sir...I m all with u on this issue sir...Complacency does kill..why do u think that most of the Indians are happy..is it their lack of appetite for success or they are jus satisfied wth wtever they have in their basket..??? I also blame media for this somewhere...they keep on raising the hoopla abt India achieving 9% growth whereas on the other side 77% of India still lives under less than Rs. 30 a day...so where's the 9% growth for these 77 crore people...all our news channels blew the issue of U.S recession out of proportion( what the F***) when it was not much a Recession..but sir how do we make people realize that we should not be tht happy.??? how do we achieve all that has been highlighted by you...??? I guess we need to drive our people out of the politicians web to let them know the real situation.....
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