INDIA: The Darkness Behind The Shining Story

India a destination suddenly everyone wants to be, a place which is the most happening for the worlds business class, well it has to be considering the fact our GDP is increasing at a rate of more than 8%, per capita has doubled in last decade and so, businesses have grown beyond imagination, the country finally seems to be coming of age.

But somewhere many of us have not been able to relate with this growth, because if you are able to see what is happening behind the rosy projections of numbers, bars and graphs of growth rate you will realize the depth of darkness which is slowly surrounding the country in the background. I would definitely agree with most of the economists that economic development brings about social development, but as far as India goes this has not happened social development still seems to be distinct phenomenon in Indian society. When you look around you realize that for every Sanand there is a Singur, for every TATA there is a Satyam, if there has been increase in sale of automobiles and luxury cars simultaneously there has been increase in farmer suicides, if the number of SEZ’ has gone up so has the number of children begging on streets, if our pay packages have risen so has inflation rates and at a much greater rate. Inspite of all economic growth and development projections India has constantly been ranking low on human development index, poverty index, corruption index any many such indices over the years.

These facts should be enough to awaken every Indian but somehow we get awakened and feel Indian only after cricket victories. We have been so indulged and immersed in those rosy pictures of growth projections and GDP that we have stopped looking around all we care about is the hefty pay which we can take home every month so that our living standard keeps on improving. Its ignorance which has bought us here, we just don’t care what is happening in the society , what troubles  the nation facing until there is a terrorist attack in our neighborhood, the pain and anguish of the nation has been lost in the screaming and shouting of  politicians and economists.

Recently I was amazed to see the public outcry against corruption in politics and bureaucracy. But one thing I have never understood why we blame only politicians, bureaucrats , and government officials for corruption are we not an equal partner in crime, its we who pay bribe to a hawladar when he catches us on signal without license or without helmet tell me why bribe him when you could have avoided the situation by obeying the law everytime you break the smallest of the laws you are encouraging corruption, why people forge there electricity meters to pay less bill, why we try to hide our income and after doing all this we complain of corruption. If you are so obsessed that politicians are corrupt and of no good then come out and vote for good candidates, in metros were most of the hue and cry can be heard the voting percentage is dismal instead shameful to say the least. We must remember the way we behave and perform people in power will also perform in the same manner because they have risen from the same society as us and somehow we are the reasons for them being there either by voting for them or their party or else by not voting at all. Corruption is not only in government and system but the whole society is corrupt and is unable to perform its function. Every single person is trying to make money in whatever manner he or she can in whichever position he or she, so calling only politicians and bureaucrats corrupt is a bit of injustice.

I don’t know where this will take us but one thing is for sure this is not the only problem we are facing, and all this because of lack of social awareness . There was a huge uproar in the nation when terrorist attack took place in Mumbai but such attacks take place daily in the bylanes of Kashmir and northeast but there is no uproar from the civil society of metros because this doesn’t concern the normal Indian as he is too far from it. The problem of Kashmir and north east has not been created by politicians, separatists, neighbors or anyone else these have been created by our ignorance to their problems and needs. Politicians, separatists and our neighbors have only exploited the anger against that ignorance. It amazes me how people believe people like Syed Ahmed Shah Gilani who moves around with government protection ,lives in Delhi for most the year and enjoy all facilities from the government and then say that this government is not ours because it is working according to the Indian Constitution and we don’t belong to India. Well when I think a bit deeper I realize that its not rally a hard work for him because of our ignorance to the society and people of Kashmir .Kashmir has become a problem which may take another 50 years but still remain unsolved. Same is the case with north east which is fighting its own demons and somehow we don’t even care. Marxists are spreading there wings and the government has no control over them but how does it matters to us because those people stay in jungles they can’t come to our metros and cities. What is more important because of our ignorance government has also been indifferent towards these problems and has never tried to solve them.

All we needed was to force the government to crush these insurgencies with a strong will. But due to our indifference to these issues we were unable to do so and today these problems have become monsters and somewhere I fear they will take all the  sheen away from the rosy pictures painted for the world about our country.

People have called for Egypt like revolution in India, But I feel that is never possible in India though some will be encouraged by the uproar for Mr. Anna Hazare but more than anything else it was support for an old man fighting a lone battle for the country, it was still far from the social uprising we witnessed in Egypt. The reason of my belief is again ignorance of the civil society. The back bone of the Egyptian revolution were the youth and what stood out was they were not fighting to remove a government but they were fighting to restore national pride, they were fighting for the glorious Egyptian history and culture, they were fighting to regain the place Egypt enjoyed in the Arab world. This is not possible in our country because the youth is simply ignorant towards the history and culture of the country. 3 out of 5 young people don’t know who wrote our national song , similarly most of them don’t know the who wrote Mahabharata and who wrote Ramayana, they are not even aware of the glorious maurya and gupta empire which unified the country , leave alone the past many will not be able to name the states in the country forget about their capitals. Maybe this doesn’t matters a lot, but don’t expect that we will rise like the Egyptians simply because we have to be aware of the country’s culture and history to fight for it then only we realize the importance of that fight which somehow our ancestors knew when they fought for our independence .We have lost that independence somewhere all we are interested is in to fight over regionalism, reservation, and castism we have forgotten the cause for which we fought of our freedom.

Somewhere our ignorance to society and country has to end otherwise India will be all bruised and battered. I don’t know how long these projections of economic growth and rosy pictures of high GDP will hide the darkness which is looming large but I am sure this will not be able to hide it forever and the day this darkness comes in open it will take all of us in its shadow and everything will collapse the only way to stop it is to end our ignorance towards the real causes and focus a bit towards the problems which are becoming monsters.