"I do old. My guts ache, and my back hurts, and I cough my chest apart every morning."
- American Gods
On Gandhi's assassination, Nehru in his speech that was broadcasted all over the nation on radio said "..the light has gone out of our lives and there is darkness everywhere..". Today, it makes me wonder if what was said 62 years ago was to be a premonition of what we have become today?
Yes, we are the seventh largest and the most populous democracy in the world. A pluralistic, multilingual and mulit-ethinic society. A country where a woman of catholic origin gave up the Prime Ministerial post for a sikh and where the sikh was sworn in as Prime Minister by a muslim President.
Yet, a country so giving that we worship politicians with a criminal record. A country so fragile that our hands shake when we have to hang a man who mercilessly killed innocents for his peronal beliefs. A country so advanced that we believe 'incest' may bring us good fortune. A country so politically correct that we punish not the criminals but the innocent. The land of Kamasutra where public displays of affection have moral police sweeping down on you like starved vultures. A country with its silicon valleys and yet we have terms like "item girls". A country with its feet firmly entrenched in "Forbes List of Billionaires" and yet the world sees us through Mr. Danny Boyle's " Slumdog Millionaire's" eyes.
Is this what Mr. Gandhi had in his vision when he fought for our independence or did we merely loose track of what we are as a nation? Was it worth laying down all those lives and forcing the Britishers out of the country where 62 years later we are still srtuggling with our inner demons?
Food for thought - what have we to call substantially our own which was not brought to our notice by non-indians? I am not addressing yoga or religion or our cuisine. Most of what we have today is what we have rebuild or added to what the imperial era left behind for us to salvage. My travels in Europe left me with one thought - the devastations witnessed by these countries makes our "Resident Evil Tsunami" and our very own ( still alive to some extent) hindu- muslim "Holocaust" seem like one of Beethoven's Symphony's. Agreed these nations had all the resources to bounce back on their feet and may not have been economically as molested as we might believe we were. Still, 62 years on - can they be truly compared?
Moreover, I beg the reader to not consider this as a "typical ABCD syndrome". No. I am proud of my navy blue passport. I am proud of my culture, my values, my heritage, my beliefs. I am proud of what we are as one of the biggest democracies. But I refuse to be conceited enough to not pay attention to the termites on the wall. I refuse to live by Gandhi's rules of "show him your other cheek" after you have been slapped on the first one.
Soccer has a goalie but that dosen't prevent you from scoring a goal. So, my Mocushla Land - what prevents you from being strong enough to stop sweeping under the carpet? We are proud of what we have made of ourselves in our 62 year old life. But how and why should that stop you from fighting the plague that strikes the common man? We improved as an economy in the last decade as a country of more than a billion people as compared to the other asian nations. But is it all, as Mr. Bush once famously said, "Smoke and Mirrors"? Let's not forget that anyone who has ever invested in India or has dealt with the Indian economy will completely agree that India's rise is almost depsite the government or the bureaucracy rather than because of it.
Do we have to wait for another turn of the century for a nation to be become a global power or can we have our own moment of opening the doors of the salon and say "Look, here we are."? And while we are at the Oscar of the Nations busy weighing ourselves in terms of power could you please remember to take of the moral politics blindfold with which we have fooled ourselves and the rest of the world.
As Peggy Lee once famously sang - " ....you had plenty money in 1922....you let other women make a fool out of you....why don't you do it right?....like some other men do...."
Jai Ho.
