<exporting people is not the sign of achievement you make it out to be. maybe for Pakistan, which is increasingly a remittance economy. >
Lowest paid and most abused people in Gulf are 'maids' made to work 18 hours a day on 120$ a month, and do you know what you call 'it is only excess inventory' these humans are 80 percent from India, abused, raped and overworked, totally 80,000 in Kuwait only, Pakistan does not allow 'maids or underpaid workers out of the country', now that would be real surprising the minimum wage is 120 KD required by immigration equivalent to nearly 400$. So you can see although being very rich India makes no effort to stop that abuse of human rather encourages it and in Gulf the image of India is a country that produces labour that can be abused, your country stands on the sidelines watching all this. It is well known that Indians today in Saudi Arabia are the lowest paid workers, is that only excess baggage, no it is not it is still better than abject poverty that India in its might and greatness refuses to accept as cancer of the society like it refuses to accept to accord equality to those who live at the lowest wrung of the society.
<The Indian English writers are a cool thing to have but are of hardly greater significance than the local film producers, music directors, or any others who have made a name for themselves. >
Deewar is one example of a movie I will take and proceed, all others are not very far from them, a person is born poor, makes it big by taking local mafia ends up in love with a rich mans daughter, she finds her in his arms, this 'mental opium and recognised script' for every movie does no service to 2.4 million people who sleep on the streets of Bombay alone, the jhopar pattis are as much a stigma as fundamentalism is to Pakistan, one life made hell physically others made hell spiritually, poverty is biggest negative subtractors and you don't want to talk of that abject pitiful poverty that inflicts millions as non-event. Forget about Calcutta or other cosmopolitan cities. I call it ‘opium of mind for three hours’ where a street person sees a movie that gives him a high and makes him feel for that three hours what could be, that ‘high’ every week is now a very much part and parcel of our society. The film screened India is one thing and actual is other, for absolutely poor masses showing how Salman Khan lives in Switzerland or the false glorification of the 'life of rich and famous,' is joke that is played everyday. That false glorifcation cannot be compared with classics like 'Suitable Boy' or Naipul Nobel award, Bollywood I don't think can be called equivalent of man who continuously produce classic from Rabinder nath Tigore to Naipul. The collective increase of educational standards under 'Raj' have lot to do with all this higher productivity in literature although Rabinder nath was a Bengali poet but overall I see rich contributions that has taken Indians in the forefront of global literary circles.
<As for history, wonderful how it can be spun anyway you want to spin it. India did not coalesce into a single unit except under the British, because 'technology' had improved from the 1200-1700 to 1857-1947, the earlier invaders never completely conquered the whole country, at best everything was in a flux with different invaders coming and going. >
Its very inability to ‘coalesce into a single unit except under the British’ is the issue here, what kind of social dogma existed or social environment that could not bring us together where ‘gauls’ came up together or ‘Germanic tribes’ or ‘Norseman’ all had some resemblance of unity and they all resisted submission. That knack and aptitude to submit without question with associated tentativeness and now a new India that talks of pursuits of nations that harbours terrorists is a huge delightful change, what could not be achieved in thousands of years, the constitutional rights and freedom from 200 years of colonialism gave us the power to pursue strategic objectives with clear definition, I like that, nations have to protect their borders and have to resist submission, it is this dichotomy that encourages me to say that the thousand of years of submission after the colonial Raj gave India’s freedom a new paradigm of existence that to live with respect, as a secular independent peaceful big state. Others in the region who ruled India as minority now have to live with the new big India that has teeth and knows how to bite that is a big change but to see this change from independence is very soothing. That is a gigantic and enormous contribution from historical perspective of Raj.
. The ability of India to give to invaders and ruled by few thousands for so many centuries is not a spin but a fact that our forefathers gave into, I live with no false pretensions and have no need of over deification of what I know was a cess pool of ‘freedom of mind’ and ‘institutionalised division of man into classes’ former for more than 800 years under garb of timidity, peace and later for thousand of years under name of Hindu philosophy. If Islam brought militancy and dis-respect of life in name of Jihad the other philosophy by encouraging submission created those circumstance that today in sub-continent 550 m ex-Indians are Muslims, nothing bad about it but imagine most of these were those who decided that the caste system provided no relief to them hence the apparent egalitarianism was preferred.
The ransack and despoiling of our society by few before Raj, and the deception, deceit dishonesty and fraud of the ‘Mirs’ that resulted into Raj all show the inabilities of our social structure to exhibit independent free genes of thinking. That is what I take exception off. Why the life was so lifeless, why we did not exhibit will to resist and will to be free from invaders yoke, why it took 800 years and British constitutional educated leaders?
The emergence of East India Company within body politics was another shameful disgraceful act of our rich culture, within few years from Bengal to Sind, when Charles Napier wrote on conquer ‘I have sinned.’
East India Company as an corporate entity owned and established itself as a ruler of India, took the keys of India and literary gave it to the crown without any charge that was our social setting that allowed corporate entity to rule us. Now tell me which other nation of the world has been colonialised by a trading entity, a registered incorporation, lets put our facts before we become too proud and refuse to see the harsh realities those exist historically. The whole society watched without collectively realising that we can have some rights too. Even after mutiny who was restored to the thrown the Mogul emperor Bahadur Shah Zafar as if we were addicted to this mental slavery and 1857 mutiny or war of independence could only lead us back to the old masters, had it not been for the vision of Ghandi and his constitutional mind on liberties we could have been slave even well after 1947. Its very inability to ‘coalesce into a unit is the issue that I call failure of our social milieu that was more interested in building walls between human being as shudders, khatris Birhamins. Now I come to the ‘Talibanised structure’ of sati.. Sati was prevalent among certain sects of the society in ancient India, who either took the vow or deemed it a great honor to die on the funeral pyres of their husbands.
This was repression and lowness of our social structure at its lowest lows, any society that allowed our woman to be burned alive as late as 1980 could not be termed as rich and lets see who abolished it.. The British Government banned the ritual of sati in 1829. In 1980 case the Indian courts upholds the suicide as a social tradition, now you call Taliban as the tormentors of mankind lets look at our own backyard what we have been doing to our own women in garb of religion and tradition. Woman Commits Suicide on Funeral Pyre was a normal picture.Sati (Su-thi , a.k.a. suttee) is the traditional Hindu practice of a widow immolating herself on her husband's funeral pyre. Ibn Batuta (1333 A.D.) has observed that Sati was considered praiseworthy by the Hindus, without however being obligatory. There are not many instances of remarriage of widows in Indian history and it is believed that women preferred death to the cursed life a widow .
Although Indian leader Rajaram Mohan Roy, through his organization Brahmo Samaj was among the first who fought to eliminate Sati. However, it took a large scale social reforms by Dayananda Saraswati(of Arya Samaj), Mahatma Gandhi and the like to actually stop the practice . In the modern times, there was one instance of a Sati reported in Rajasthan (late 1980s), that caused a lot of controversy and social turmoil. Roop Kanwar, a young widow goes Sati in the state of Rajasthan, stirring a social debate on the topic. People who assisted her in suicide are arrested. But Roop Kanwar is idolized and attains a deity status. In 1996 The Indian Court upholds the suicide as a social tradition and frees the relatives who assisted Roop Kanwar.
If one reason that I had to be a slave for 200 years that can satisfy me now, that one reason alone can be abolishment of sati by British and Ghandi’s contributions to abolish this institutionalised murder, I am one of the foremost critics of Karo kari another style of killing of woman on vain honour. All these does not make me feel good about our social milieu and for me contributions of British are not restricted to cricket or spoons or English they gave us respect of human values and life, some time nation which cannot stands on their own feet needs external help, the difference is that you deny it in name of false Indian prominence and superiority I have none of that, I see Indian as mother but also India’s social structure that encouraged abuse of mankind to its extreme, the result is still exhibiting poverty that shock many when they visit today’s India too. False building of myths I leaned to reject, it for this reason I reject my own country’s position on many a issues but that does not make me a natural willing partner in vain glorification of systems which were equally pitiful and abject. |
