Although 2020 has been regarded as one of the worst year owing to so many bad story and sad news people came across, it is for the same reason that India could not enjoy the Chaitra Navratri (called with different names in different parts of the country), Baisakhi, Eid or Easter's day. But, on 15th August, India witnesses a festival that does not ask the name of our religion. It was on this day 73 years ago, India gained it's complete independence from foreign invasions and after long struggle Indians got it's full freedom. It is to commemorate the day, let us all have a delight to our national festival and at the same time celebrate and try for a better progress of the nation.
Address the Current issue in its roots :
There are tremendous issues in India that need to be urgently addressed. But, here are some of them which ask us to change our mentality and revoke to think where we are wrong.
1. Face the issues not the politics.
There are various problems in India, today, be it poverty, population explosion, socio-economic, environmental issues and so on. But, the youths today seem to have more interest in which political party is doing what. A naked truth to accept, but in times of fast growing technology and speedy news reach, the media that is supposed to be the fourth pillar of democracy actually have become a puppet of what can be sold instead of what should be told. Much of the media today speaks in the interests of some target communities, no matter how deviated it remains from the actual story. But, things don't stop, the youth that are full of vigour is also busy in judging rather than doing. Criticism of now develops into hatred later and this makes the youth less energized to work for the nation.
Solution : The first thing that India needs is the requirement of those vital youth who have strength to work and not mentality to judge others, this also applies to our individual lives while the nation needs more of such. We must start contributing for the betterment of the society and the nation no matter how small the contribution is. Only then we can achieve what we criticize.
2.Lack of support to our country's men.
As already explained in our A Hero in Need is Hero in Indeed article, of who could be our real heroes, we always fail to support the real heroes. Fighting among which so-called star is better than the other is still gossip. While stories of many heroes remain unsung, the contribution of many scientists and scholars remain unknown both at national and international level, Indians don't show the interest to tribute the real heroes. This is the prime reason of the psychology of Indians being unhappy for being born here. Even while we talk about movies, what population of India actually chooses a better movie in Indian cinema(of any language) over ostentatious content ?
Solution : At our level we may or not be able to achieve something but when we find somebody being extremely talented then it becomes our responsibility to help them and stand for the external and mental support that they need, instead of pulling them down because of jealousy. The more we support our own country men the greater the talents that India will blossom.
3. Mediocrity.
In general words, people call it an average mindset but in real sense, mediocrity is about inconsistent. People thinks that it is in the roots of Indian culture but they fail to notice how Bhagwad Geeta preaches us to do our karma faithfully, योग: कर्मसु कौशलम् explains that do your karma efficiently and with great devotion. Guru Basaveshwara taught that work is worship, highlighting how necessary is to do our duty and that is our real dharma. Shri Krishna says to do whatever you are supposed to, is the real yogi and not everyone becoming a Sanayasi. The height of the mediocrity is such that, we also change the context of our scriptures, our scriptures only caution us to not to have materialistic possessions for happiness but it never ask to not to struggle for progress in whatever form.
Therefore, there are two conclusions, one that our culture in many ways preaches us to do our deeds and have a life to explore supreme truth and rise above to find our hidden potential. The second being that mediocrity is something that came from misunderstandings of our own ideologies. Either way mediocrity is not in our culture and it has over time become our culture.
The genuine point is that it is not that we are happy being labelled as mediocre rather we did not see the other versions of ourselves. We hesitate to start a new exploration either being scared of society or lack of confidence.
India is a fertile land for agriculture and majority of population still relies on agriculture but Indians are more behind being engineers. There are 422 agriculture colleges in India as against to 3325 engineering colleges. India is known to have incredible art and crafts as already discussed in the article in Saving the droplets of India economy of how such a indigenous good would benefit India but we are still struggling into multiple attempts of competitive exams. We do need good engineers, C.A.s and all of such but not in the way that envelopes our real talent. When we talk about achieving or exploring something fresh we will be already threatened in our society, as a waste of time & energy. Being behind a particular field and getting into the rat race is a fine example of the average mindset of Indian society.
Solution : The solution for mediocrity therefore starts from our individual level and reaches to society and then is assembled into our nation. The first thing is to start having the Aatma-Vishwas (self confidence). Secondly, we have to move forward to do what we want to do, no matter where the resistance comes from. As Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam rightly remarked,
As a young citizen of India, armed with technology, knowledge and love for my nation, I realize, small aim is a crime.
4. Stop disharmony that hampers public peace.
Nobody can imagine a progressive nation with the everyday riots. India is the only nation where different communities, having internal fights among themselves, literally live together. The unnecessary fights of Hindu-Muslim (the biggest one), has always caused a chaos. It is usually expected for all the communities to have tolerance towards other communities, and is stressed more oftenly. It may sound annoying but how will it sound when you are asked to tolerate your friend or your spouse? Tolerance is, in real sense, actually derogatory and we are expected to do that. By tolerance, it means you do not like them and you will bear the people or their actions. Logically speaking such a thing would actually lead to riots one day.
Pic source : livemint.com
Solution : Be it India or worldwide, the word tolerance for all the communities to co-exist is actually not tolerable. What we need instead is "Mutual Respect" towards the other communities. Mutual respect implies whether you like the belief, practices, ideology of the other communities or not, we shall respect it internally and externally. By respect it means that we should not have a negative feeling of any kind of the personal belief or practices of the other community and should never oppose or attack in physical or mental way. Clearly implying that a Hindu should not interfere with the worship of Jesus and Allah. A Muslim should not interfere with kind and way of practices of other communities and the same rule applies for all the sects and communities. Like if Hindus want to do idol worship or feminine form of worship then with mutual respect, it is the duty of other communities to not to interfere with it in any form. If Christian and Muslim wants to practice their kind of worship and with mutual respect, their way should not be disturbed. Even there is a disputes of issues that can be negotiated to solve the matters rather than triggering a riot that creates disturbances.
5. The undivided India
During the independence, the then India was divided into India and Pakistan. Yet, in today's time there is a feeling of division almost everywhere. Due to striking difference between northern and southern parts of India, the people start calling themselves as North Indian and South Indian respectively. The triggering question is when did the India divide between north and South. ? As the Aryan-Dravidian theory is already disproved enough and seems to be political issue to divide us now can be ignored for we are one.
The divided mindset of India is also witnessing the discrimination of Indians from North-Eastern side with the rest of India. Gopinath Bordoloi challenged Britishers that Assam will be a part of India after Independence and he rose up to the first chief minister of Assam. Could our attitude towards those North Eastern states justify their sincerity towards India ? Our history textbooks also make least mention of North eastern states while they too had made adequate contribution for 'India's freedom struggle'. Hence, we must understand who we are, collectively as a India. When we know who are Indians, only then we can say we are proud of such territory.
Having an have overview to some of the major issues in a subtle way let us understand more of one of the biggest problems we have in our minds that is hindering our growth.
The inferiority Complex
“Intelligence arouses fear and respect, the lack of it keeps one on the narrow minded road of disrespect, stupidity and inferiority complex.” said
Our education system is on the same patterns as of before independence. The colonial rulers designed to degrade us through their created loopholes about us. The school books embedded the highness of the British Raj, as India do not have any science and therefore, Indians need to be directed by the west. Students embodied that the maximum we had was primitive farming and textiles. While they deliberately make no mention of metallurgy, chemicals, mechanics, Ayurveda and much more. The history that we read consciously do not emphasize the great architecture, glory, peacefulness of Indian kingdoms. Nor does it stress much about real freedom struggle of many great warriors and hardly a mention of our Gurus. For example, we say that we are proud that India has given yoga to the world. Now, forget about teaching yoga in schools, the schools barely makes a mention of rishis who contribute and their Samhitas, the knowledge as basic as these is known to only who give special interest to history and heritage, so what kind of pride we have about our culture when we do not know it. To compound this, the practices of Indian culture which were supposed to be something else is intentionally shown in negative way. The bigger question is therefore, why are we still reading what our colonial rulers wanted us to read, does all of us want to spew on our culture and have mental slavery towards them ? Are we not vulnerable to learn about our own culture from foreigner's or some random distorted writings even after these many years of independence.?
difference between being illiterate & uneducated. The people without having gone to educational institute have shown to have done wonders, while in present day India, many of educated pass-outs still lacks the basic ethics. So how much has degree to do with wisdom, especially with current MacCulay's education that was meant to make us slaves? Also, our education system fills in our mind that Indians who do not study are illiterate, clearly the vast majority being in villagers indirectly making us feel low towards villagers and we don't visualize them in terms of hard work or other skills. In line with this, we shamefully, label them as illiterate while, they might be wiser than us. They perhaps might not be acquainted with present day progress, but whether or not having a degree should never be the criteria for someone's wisdom while many a times the case is otherwise. Moreover, we utter that our culture is great but how much have we overcome the 'uncivilized' label about us that British gave to suppress us. Are/were we really uncivilized or we fairly had better way of doing things ?
2. The battle of languages and inferiority
History was that when Britishers came here they started giving jobs to only those who learned English, adopted English culture and therefore, they became rich while the high class indigenous good was intentionally replaced with fast producing industrial end. End result was the people with English adoption became richer while the poor became poorer. Surprisingly the same trend is seen today. Most of the high paid private jobs in India selects English speaking people. That makes English speaking people rich and non-english speaking poor. The inferiority complex is a double edge sword, on one hand it leads to discrimination between English and non-English and on other hand it degrades the native languages. It is worth noting that countries like china, Germany do not mandates English to teach coding or so, while we have to struggle to first prove our foreign language skills and only then learn subjects like geometry, calculus or thermodynamics.
The battle of languages has also become the battle of culture, people holds that English language is better than Indian languages and accordingly, they believe that English and other westerners are superior to Indians furthermore, they suppose that western culture is stronger than Indian culture.
The point is very clear that the English is exaggerated for it's importance and it's has gained tendency to dominate. Therefore, it is urgent need to re-evaluate our priorities. If the debate is the requirement of English for better communication in professional world, then seemingly though, it should never overtake it's position more than communication. In other words, it should never overtake it's position to destroy the integrity of any Indian languages, per se, as we know with the destruction of languages, we will not only destroy the culture and our glory but also our basic identity.
3. Skin Complexion and substandard.
“The true color of one person is not determined by skin, but by the behavior in it.” remarked, Giovannie de Sadeleer.
4. Validation from our ex-masters..
It's a proud moment if a foreigner praises us, but not when an Indian praises, do they really have more intellect than us? Even the world’s best movies need our Indian technicians, lot of scientists have done tremendous contribution to the science research, so much enough that without our contribution the Science would not have been where it is today. Our ISRO sends spectacular space missions at a fraction of the expense of their foreign equivalents. Some of our sports representatives have give even the best in the world. Forget about history (our ancient Gurus), even today we proved that we do not lack anything yet we want all sorts of validity from them, be it in medicine, technology or anything else. They might be ahead from us and they would have the parameters to guage progress. Despite this, we cannot accept something only if westerners tell us and not Indians, which becomes the root of our mental slavery otherwise.
It is now necessary to consider that inferiority complex leads to low confidence and this accompanies to the lack of achievements and by having meagre accomplishments, we may fall short of enthusiasm to pursue our dreams further. This again make us subjected to mediocrity. Therefore, mediocrity and inferiority complex are inter related and either of it leads to vicious cycle of the other.
Before we conclude, let us refresh some knowledge of India :
1. India's culture is thousands of years old and nonetheless pliable enough to adopt the new ways of life
2. India's constitution promotes every religion and acknowledge even those people who do not follow any religion. India is the only place where you can spot large number of temples, churches and mosques. Such a scene is hardly seen elsewhere and this is real secularism.
3. Indian family values are solid even in the modern times. We still have esteem to our elders and concern to our children.
4. India welcomes guest very wholeheartedly, and treat them next to god. Being kind to Jews in the ancient times while rest of the world showed anti-semitism and kindness and prosperity towards to Zoroastrian (Parsis) when they were threatened by Islamic conquest in the 7th century and they did not allow anyone harm them are probably the best examples of our graciousness.
5. Ever since there is a record of India, it is known to be a peaceful country and it becomes a responsibility to hold the same culture to the future generations.
6. The forest and biodiversity, although declining owing to negligence, is incredible and exceptional.
It is also noteworthy that today, we cannot blame Britishers or anybody else for it has been 73 years of freedom and thus, we had ample time to improve ourselves. Also, it is not that we have to blame west because they too have goodness in their culture nor did the westerners ask us to follow their culture, as we were independent. It is that our culture has been shaped according to our geography, and it validates to our identity Therefore, we have to ensure to shape our future with a balance of the western ideas, technology, etc without hampering our real identity and taking the essence of the real India.
Conclusion :
When we don’t know much about our culture, traditions and our history, when we fail to appreciate it and compare ourselves with other countries that possess wealth and power alone, we are likely to have inferiority complex. Rather than striving for progress, merely criticising our own people and our values, merely playing the blame game and allowing westerners to degrade us would not make the dreams of our great freedom strugglers to come true. We might not achieve in one day, but without effort we will never be able to achieve it.
How long we shall be talking about our past rich culture and wealth and when are we gonna achieve the same today in current atmosphere ? Indians have individually made great contributions but the collective work is insignificant. The greatness of that India, which was before invasions and relevant to today's changes is just a dream. The pollution free environment, technological advancements, R & D, good economy, cannot come with lack of ethics and lack of struggle.
image source : facebook.com/Progressive India
Last but not the least, why cannot we be what we are? When we know well of our condition, our real India, only then we will be ready to compete with the best. Let us not be a mere attention seeker in the land that was known for knowledge and spiritual seekers. Our ancestors gave us a free-India. It is our time to give our upcoming generations a progressive and a better India.
References and worth reading : 1. 10 unsung heroes of North-Eastern states of India
2. Why do Indians have a inferiority complex ?
3. Tolerance isn't good enough : The need for mutual respect in interfaith relations.
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Finally something 💥
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