The horror that is Bharat

This plague was actually a boon, a divine warning. What did it show us? That in the Malabar Hill of Bombay, which has become one of the most expensive real estate property per square foot in the world, rich people still dump their garbage on the street, without a second thought. That wealthy Indians often pay very badly their servants and give them appalling quarters, hardly fit for a dog; that next to Malabar, there lies one of the worst slums of Bombay. That in Surat, one of the richest cities of India, thanks to the diamond trade, its citizens let the most filthiest filth accumulate, without thinking twice what it will do to those who live near it (a dynamic district collector has since then improved things).

That India is a vast dump of garbage, not because it is too poor to process it and store it properly, but because it does not care, because the inertia in this country is so vast, so deeply ingrained in the collective consciousness that nobody gives a damn for the other. And did India learn anything from the plague? Unfortunately, the answer is no. The country is still as filthy, everything is back as before and Indians have not understood that the wealth of the country has to be shared to avoid a human, social and ecological catastrophe.

Indians show very little civic sense in other domains of their life. Look how they drive. Truck and bus drivers in India, routinely overtake in curves endangering not only their passengers’ lives, but also those of incoming traffic. They park most of the time in the middle of the road when they have to stop, without any concern for those who are coming behind. They drive us deaf in Delhi with their constant blaring horns and generally have a total disregard for others. And does not the way one drive, show a nation’s vital soul? When an Israeli, who said that everything happens in his country with guts, asked his Indian counterpart how it was done in India, he was told: with luck! Look also how Indians are in the habit of pushing other people, whether it is to enter a bus, or exit a cinema. Or how they so innocently ignore those who have been queuing for hours at some railway counter, by jumping at the head of the queue. And it is not only the poor, but also the rich, who have this habit, witness thechecking-in at airports.

Dishonesty is also a lack of collective discipline. Glimpse how the Indian man is often cheating, whether it is the contractor mixing cement with ashes, the change not tendered exactly, or the affluent man (ex-cricketers) who swindles the income tax, by keeping crores of black money, gold and jewels in his house, when he could very well afford to pay a little more tax and put his money in his bank? It is said that in this way one-third of India’s wealth is in the black. For make no mistake, India is a wealthy country. The poverty is only because of the mismanagement, the dishonesty and the inheritance of wrong structures. For Indians must be, with the Jews, the best savers in the world. And they don’t save in abstract concepts; they go in for solid gold, land, cash. Where is all this money going? Again, lack of discipline, lack of concern for the nation, disregard for what one’s egoism will do to the country.

And what about politicians? Nowadays, Indian politicians have often become a caricature, which is made fun of by the whole country. They are frequently uneducated, gross people, elected on the strength of demagogic pledges, such as promising rice for Rs 3 a kilo, a folly which drained many states’ coffers, or of playing Muslims against Hindus, Dalits against Brahmins. Ministers have customarily no idea about the department they are overseeing. It is the civil servants who control matters, who know their subject thoroughly. You have to work hard to become a civil servant, study, pass exams, then slowly climb up the hierarchy, thereby gaining experience. The politician just jumps from being a lowly clerk, or some uneducated zamindar to become a powerful minister, lording over much more educated men. There should be exams to become a politician: a minimum of knowledge and skills should be required of the man who says he wants to serve the nation.

Dishonesty is a lack of collective discipline. Glimpse how the Indian man is often cheating