My ass.
Since childhood, we have been asked to be proud of our country. We have grown up on patriotic songs, and the fact that Independence Day and Republic Day were both holidays, and that we were given laddoos and toffees after the flag hoisting, automatically meant that there was something to celebrate about.
We grew up with stories of ‘Sone ki chidiya’, and how India is the greatest country in the world. We cheered India in cricket matches and confused hating Pakistan, as patriotism. We were taught to revere and love our country, and be proud of it.
Every year, news papers and news channels bombard us with information about the growth of the country. Reports of India growing at 9% every year, the leading software exporter, and emerging superpower and all that. India is the best cricketing nation in the entire world, among the nine other nations that play it full time. In patriotic fervor, we bled blue and shat green.
Deep within, we all know the truth.
In reality, the common man in India has to make do with shitty conditions. Shitty facilities, shitty governments, and shitty policies, implemented by shitty officers. We have gotten used to sub-standard services and learnt to look past it. We have gotten used to dirty roads, delayed trains, lazy babus, and a thousand other things. When poorly planned roads are flooded due to heavy rains, we praise the ‘undying spirit’ of Mumbai when everyone goes to work the next day. We have learnt to look at an alternative.
When was the last time you went to a government hospital for a check up? When was the last time you saw a public toilet that was clean, or a train that didn’t have messages like “Want sex? Call me” written on them? Why are basic amenities of a city, like public transport, roads, and offices dirty? We have gotten used to inefficient services, corruptions scandals and other things going on, on and on.
Basic services like education, sanitation, public transport are terrible. Those of us who can afford it, avoid it. Thanks to liberalisation, we can now depend on private companies for everything that the government has failed to give us. We all know there are people who are without the basic facilities.
But guys like us. You and me. We escaped the shithole. We studied, or worked hard, or were born into families that were well off. But we escaped the mess.
We went to private schools and learnt English. We take flights to avoid trains, and we go to private hospitals instead of government dispensaries. We have managed to survive in spite of the system, and not because of the system.
We urban lot are not just mindless greedy people running after money, mind you. We are concerned. We are moved by stories of poverty. We forward mails about poor children. We argue about it and debate about it. We take sides when Arundhati Roy writes an article or the govt enforces a new policy.
But then, we have our own issues, na? We are stuck with a government that can shut us up by announcing a Bharat Ratna for Sachin Tendulkar. A government where the largest scam in the history of the country has coincided with the largest scam in sports, coupled with the largest scam by a corporate house. But what are we to do? The opposition is busy talking about how homosexuality is harmful to our culture. The government smiles at us, and spanks our ass. We enjoy it, and scream for more.
We pride ourselves on our ‘Indian culture’, on our religions, and our Gods. So possessive are we about our culture, that we enter pubs, pull out women, and beat them up, screaming ‘Jai Sri Ram’. We are intolerant about an artist and can only analyse his paintings of Hindu goddesses when they are juxtaposed next to paintings of Muslim women. We beat up people of other states if they open a stall in our states. We are proud of our country, and our state, and our culture, and our ability to make do.
So this August 15th , don’t fool yourself. News channels will try their best and bring in interesting shows about the country. Telecom companies will put up hoardings and there will be a few speeches. Autorickshaws and cars will have India flags on them, TV channels will show a few patriotic films, and a few videos will be circulated. There will be a few other things that will go on that day, desperate efforts to make you feel proud. Don’t fall for it.
Stock up on booze, take a trip somewhere for the extended weekend. Make this the best Monday of the year.
But don’t be proud. There’s nothing to be proud of.
Heartranjan's Blog 
Good. You didn’t leave a single aspect. You just thrashed the government and the system. Nice complaints. You have solutions too? What would be your take on Jan Lokpal? – karunakar
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It’s interesting you talk about solutions. I am regularly asked if I have solutions to problems. It’s almost as if you need to have solutions in order to point out the problems in a system. I do have suggestions, but that is beside the point.
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Great man…i hope every Indian reads this…
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nice dude..makes the reader feel so cool about not being proud..
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Amazing dude.. well written…
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I actually would like to differ.. See I’m proud of my Country but I’m ashamed of my countrymen/ women.. Though I agree that whatever you have said is true but I somehow feel that these are the side effects of a broken system.. All the anomalies we face in our day-to-day lives and in our country are the symptoms of this broken system. See there are policies and some very good ones as well but its the people who are responsible to implement them twist them and bend them to suit their convenience.. I know you’ll say that a country is made of its people so its the same thing but i feel there is a difference. It’s like blaming a man for having cancer. See the body functions smoothly with the synchrony of its various organs. But if one of them is diseased you can’t accuse or blame the man for harbouring the cancer that thrives inside of him.. I don’t know whether you’ll be able to understand what I am saying.. but anyways well written..
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I really like your analogy of a person being separate from his cancer. While the analogy is impressive, I am tired of people dissecting the country from its people. Laws are worthless if they are only on paper, right.
And it’s more than just the laws, it’s the general sense of hopelessness that has crept into our lives, when it comes to the government. I am trying to point that out.
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Blame game is the easy solution …. bitter truth….well written again!
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Did u ever come across a muslim who talks shit about his religion? I haven’t so pardon me if I declare that you have to thank the gods you are not born into those religions, otherwise your post would be considered blasphemy of the highest order. Drawing an image of mother India semi-naked might be a happy sign for you but not for the majority. so just shut the fuck up.
why does not your post include that A.P. was the only state that banned Da Vinci Code from being screened in theaters. or about banning of satanic verses?
We, the people have to be blamed for less-than-perfect conditions of our country. we have the choice to raise our voice. we don’t. so ultimately this kind of living is our choice.
development should come from within us.
and while you say that there is a general sense of hopelessness that has crept into our lives, when it comes to the government, how are you reacting to the anna’s movement. it targets politicians and you have a problem with the that. there people should be the target huh? people make the country. Don’t go blaming the country. blame its citizens for we are lazy.
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Dear Brainless,
You are a laugh riot. I sincerely hope you didn’t expect to be taken seriously with this reply.
Nonetheless, I shall reply to your comment.
Firstly, can you please point out where I have spoken “shit” about any religion? Where have I said that Husain painting “mother India” semi-naked, is a “happy sign”, whatever that means?
Chalo, even considering I understand strains of what you are trying to say? How does the above have anything to do with AP being the only state to ban Da Vinci code? Does that make AP secular? Tolerant? Censorship of any kind is debatable, and the censorship in a few Islamic countries doesn’t make much sense in today’s world. You have been blinded by your patriotism, and gone about assuming that I am only criticising censorship by “Hindus”. For someone in media, censorship itself is a problematic issue.
And about my reaction to Anna Hazare’s campaign, of course I have a problem with the fact that politicians have been targetted. My post, about the shitty state of affairs, is as much about the common man, as well as the politician. And I am blaming the citizens as well, isn’t a country essentially its citizens?
I sincerely hope, dear Brainless, that this was some food for thought, as I’m sure you’re fasting as part of the movement, and fasting, I am told, is a sure-shot way to end corruption in the country! 🙂
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@ hriday : you at your best again. but i wanted to read more i mean more references and in detail.
@ brain less: why are you afraid of stating your name. dude talking secular is different from being secular. and you pls don’t explain now what secularism is the guy who wrote this is not dumb dick like you. stop having orgasms over fasts and feeling of psuedo patriotism. i don’t really understand why the fuck ppl separate country from citizens. ppl make countries not constitutions.
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wow…. the blog and the comments…. real food for the thought…. Thanks hriday for this!!!
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🙂
Actually, it’s you I need to thank.
Remember all those days when I used to write something and mail it across to you for your opinion? Your feedback, and all those hours-long bogus chat sessions, used to keep me sane!! 🙂
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What you have expressed here is sadly true, our pathetic tendency to ‘adjust’. However, I have come across a few stories over the last year that made me sit up and take notice too. Stories which show individuals who have done a lot of good for others in spite of this system. It is this >1% of the country that makes me feel human. If there is a dim light in the corner of a dark room, I’d like to look there. Perhaps it maybe a good idea to occasionally brainwash people who read your blogs with some similar stories when you come across them too, just like the news channels would be attempting to do today 🙂 What say?
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In the words of the late George Carlin, you have correctly stated, though in a different context – Be happy if you’re an Indian, why the fuck do you have to be proud? Because there is nothing to be proud about. The same land grabbing MLAs will hoist flags tomorrow in the neighbouring schools, whose kids will be made to stand for hours in the sun, and maybe sing and dance even, for the amusement of the minister and the country itself. While the minister will hoist the flag and cool off with a whisky on the rocks on a dry day.
Apparently a school girl from a Zilla Parishad school in AP died yesterday while running for an independence day event. A moment of silence for the poor soul.
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Before I plunge into an impolite criticism of the content, a ‘thumbs-up’ for the style, for it made the content sound reactionary enough to result in me writing the following:
1. If you hate your country so much, and can afford to fly from one city to another all the time, and have the brains to criticise all that you can neither change nor understand, why don’t you leave it?
2. I insist on leaving the country, because you seriously need to know how much better off India is than 50 other countries in the world, or that the US flourished in that precise decade when crime rate was at its highest or that 90% of a continent called Africa is poorer that the poorest in India. You remind me of Tagore’s famous poetic metaphor about the man who always thinks that the other bank of the river holds greener pastures.
3. Please find out the economics behind the scenes before you start talking like those emotional revolutionaries who are responsible for instilling the fake sense of patriotism that you complain about, because sincerely, you don’t sound any different than them.
4. Independence day is celebrated in the memory of what our forefathers achieved : free us of foreign rule. If we were still under the British, we would get all the ‘symptoms’ of development hand-delivered faster than we do now, yeah; at the expense of our freedom of speech.
5. You should leave the liquid crystal display for a while and experience being on the ‘field’ for longer. If you think you’re more intelligent and honest than the people who are in charge of running our country, go ahead prove it instead of sulking about it, you know? It would not hurt India to have one more politician who conveniently resorts to emotion when economics gets too complex, and I say this because trust me there would not be any dearth of angry young bloggers who would be too eager to only ‘point out the problems in a system’ and gladly shove your efforts up his ass at the mention of ‘mera bharat mahaan’.
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Hi Priyanka Mukherjee.. please read it if you have time.. Hop it may help to boost your nationalistic feelings, which have enough arrogance to tell somebody to leave the country if he express his opinion on our nation !
follow the link pls
http://kafila.org/2010/11/23/anti-national-thoughts/
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Hello RAFK,
I don’t have the right to ask someone to leave the country, and I’m sure that the one whom I’ve addressed understands that I had written it to use “exaggeration” as a linguistic tool to add more impact to whatever I expressed. I’m sorry if I hurt your sentiments by implying that I actually mean it; because really I don’t. As for you mocking my ‘patriotism’, I was merely defending the bloodline that withstood political and social partition,those who sacrificed their lives or careers to give us freedom from a Western power, those who have had enough faith to believe that development would come indigenously, even if slowly, from within. and, those who have lived 75 years to watch a generation evolve out of the fallacy of this day. My point being, complaining gets you nowhere.
That article has no relevance whatsoever, but a tad too extremist for my taste, as usual.
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I’m surprised you chose to give such an elaborate comment, and yet seem to have completely missed the point of the article.
The crux of the article is that there is nothing to be proud of. Why don’t you tell me one thing that makes you proud of, as an Indian?
Ironically, your comment in itself points to the laughable things that we need to be happy about. That we are better than 50 other countries of the world, that there are some African countries worse than us. Wow! Pardon me for seeming like a pessimist, but I cannot celebrate that we are at least better off than other counties. That is comparison, and with the worst available. Would you call that pride?
The other point you make about solutions is as old as it is juvenile. So if one doesn’t have a solution, one shouldn’t be cribbing? Answers emerge when questions are asked.
All the freedom fighters you exalt first asked questions, sought answers, and then worked towards solutions. Gandhi, in fact, wrote more than 300 articles in different newspapers, and even ran one of his own – questioning, criticising, critiquing.
And the weakest of all rebuttals is the common “If you are so critical, why don’t you do something about it?”
May be I will. Sadly, in the world we live in, one needs to have huge resources to bring about a change. May be it will work, may be it won’t work. Only time will tell.
So what do I do till then? Twiddle my thumbs at home and celebrate that we are better than Ethiopia and Namibia?
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1. The point of the article might have been (I mean, is) that there is nothing to be proud about in being an Indian. But the point of the opening paragraph and my comment’s 4th point was the Independence Day. The day is celebrated in memory of those who made a sacrifice to make us free. The day might also be used by the nation for self-evaluation, given it’s impartial and a factual measure of what we have achieved, and what we haven’t. Your evaluation here, is not impartial.
2. My reasons to be proud of being an Indian are similar to the reasons of being proud of my parents: more about how much has been achieved despite the shortcomings, and less about the shortcomings themselves.
3. If being better off than 50 other countries isn’t worth pride, then what is? I cannot dare to compare my country with European countries since they were never colonised (and robbed). America and Australlia were colonised by them, like our own country. America and Australia hardly have any natives left, unlike our own country. Africa was colonised, and so I observed aloud that we are better off than African nations. Surely, you can’t allow me to compare us with Arab countries. The countries to our South-East too should not be comparable, since their history isn’t. India survived multiple invasions and inter-regional, inter-dynasty clashes even before the British came. Find me another country with such unstable history, which is economically better off than us.
4. About asking questions, or criticism as a method, our personal opinions won’t converge. What you are doing is what the communists did in Russia or the freedom fighters did in the Pre-Independence period. Point one, the criticism-asking questions is the pre-requisite for a revolution. If you say that you want to bring about a revolution, I would ask why. When I was born, my father didn’t have a car. When I have my first child, I will have at least one car, I bet. That is progress. That happens naturally, obeying laws of economics. You don’t need a revolution for that. Point two, the ones who ask questions usually have answers, provided you are talking about the likes of Gandhi or Marx. What are the others who ask questions or criticise without having answers or solutions doing? They resort to emotions to agitate the masses and make society and progress come to a standstill, supposedly in protest of whatever is going around; and once they’re popular enough, they leave the scene, leaving the ones in the power to deal with the mess. They are the intellectuals, not the doers. Only the ones with the solutions are the doers; they never complain, they create change to effect. What I would really like is a similar post on your blog about the solution to this spiraling mess.
5. Our ‘healthy debate’ won’t bring about any change.
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I have heard a lot of people saying if u cant bring the change then dont talk.But like heartranjan said unless we talk and discuss there wont be thought of changing.May be 1,00,000 pepl will talk and may be 10 pepl will try to work towards it and then may b 1 will be successful.
But we stop discussing and turn a blind eye towards things and keep thinking we are mahaan then change will never come.
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