India Poised campaign has explored many avenues and brought to the front some facts that make us justifiably proud that we are Indians. Not only we have a rich culture, heritage and past but the achievements of Young India is not to be scoffed at. The Indian Youth have taken India places to such an extent that News Channels like the NDTV and BBC are debating on position of India and its future.
Some not so savory details have been re-lived too. The most talked about unpleasantness of the very recent past is "Shilpa Shetty and the Big Brother Show". It has sprung open an International debate. Goody was invited to India for "soul cleansing". As a proud Indian, I am disgusted by all this. The disgust also made me think. If I want to put it simply I would say that Discrimination Begets Discrimination. The Caucasians do discriminate, but so do the Indians. This is prooved by not only the annals of history but the present too.
The discrimination practiced in India is against the fellow Indians. The caste system is the one of the greatest discriminators and it is still followed. The caste system was originally proposed as a way of ordering society but it grew into something malicious and all this in the name of religion. Today the caste system still exists albeit in a very modified form. The British Raj saw the formation of Classes. The castes and the classes mixed up to form curious combinations. I came across a new term in reference to this - claste. I leave it up to the interest of the reader to discover the whole caste, class and claste debate. We still have people being classified as along the broad lines of castism. It becomes more defined during rites of passage, opportunities etc.
The urban Indians talk about equality of gender and it is largely true in broader visions. Discrimination against women is still rampant in Urban as well as rural India. The Rural statistics are there for us to see. There is a village in Rajasthan were they welcomed a "barat" after 100 years as they used to practice female feticide. A girl child in an MP village weighs only 3.5 kg as opposed to her younger brother who weighs 6.5 kgs - only severe threats of action against them made them feed the girl child. More recently, villages in Haryana have been in the news because of a barter system that they follow - trading of women - they bring women from West Bengal, Assam, Orissa, Bihar as their "wedded wives" and then trade them to settle loans, debts, etc. The sex ratio in some states in North India is 850:1000.
We don’t like being called colored people now do we? But is it not we practice ourselves too? Switch on any TV channel and 1 out of 5 advertisements would be endorsing a fairness cream. We are not ashamed to propagate the erroneous fact that white skin lends confidence, boosts ego, etc. The Caucasians have fascinated us in almost every aspect and we do tend to follow them, imitate them. For most of us, our likes and dislikes are also dictated by their likes and dislikes. Some things like yoga, meditation, ayurveda, saw a natural phasing out in India and came back only when the Western world turned India-ward for good living fundamentals and religion.
What are we actually talking about when we discuss just what happened to us when we go out of India? No matter what, Indians still prefer going abroad and settling down even if it means that they would have to clean toilets. The reverse brain drain and discriminating factors have not lessoned our zeal for going abroad. We desperately want the world to view us in a different light and gain acceptance in their foreign society. We cheerfully contribute the discrimination to the fact that we were slaves at one period. A voice like Shipa Shetty's does ring out but how often. She is not the only person who is discriminated against and she has gained from it. A commoner usually never does. Have we raised our voices enough to fight the discrimination? Have we molded our thought processes to avoid the discrimination practiced in our own society? Let us join hands and abolish the internal divisions that we ourselves practice before looking outwards for equality…. As they say, don’t expect anyone to follow your advice and ignore the example that you set.
Some not so savory details have been re-lived too. The most talked about unpleasantness of the very recent past is "Shilpa Shetty and the Big Brother Show". It has sprung open an International debate. Goody was invited to India for "soul cleansing". As a proud Indian, I am disgusted by all this. The disgust also made me think. If I want to put it simply I would say that Discrimination Begets Discrimination. The Caucasians do discriminate, but so do the Indians. This is prooved by not only the annals of history but the present too.
The discrimination practiced in India is against the fellow Indians. The caste system is the one of the greatest discriminators and it is still followed. The caste system was originally proposed as a way of ordering society but it grew into something malicious and all this in the name of religion. Today the caste system still exists albeit in a very modified form. The British Raj saw the formation of Classes. The castes and the classes mixed up to form curious combinations. I came across a new term in reference to this - claste. I leave it up to the interest of the reader to discover the whole caste, class and claste debate. We still have people being classified as along the broad lines of castism. It becomes more defined during rites of passage, opportunities etc.
The urban Indians talk about equality of gender and it is largely true in broader visions. Discrimination against women is still rampant in Urban as well as rural India. The Rural statistics are there for us to see. There is a village in Rajasthan were they welcomed a "barat" after 100 years as they used to practice female feticide. A girl child in an MP village weighs only 3.5 kg as opposed to her younger brother who weighs 6.5 kgs - only severe threats of action against them made them feed the girl child. More recently, villages in Haryana have been in the news because of a barter system that they follow - trading of women - they bring women from West Bengal, Assam, Orissa, Bihar as their "wedded wives" and then trade them to settle loans, debts, etc. The sex ratio in some states in North India is 850:1000.
We don’t like being called colored people now do we? But is it not we practice ourselves too? Switch on any TV channel and 1 out of 5 advertisements would be endorsing a fairness cream. We are not ashamed to propagate the erroneous fact that white skin lends confidence, boosts ego, etc. The Caucasians have fascinated us in almost every aspect and we do tend to follow them, imitate them. For most of us, our likes and dislikes are also dictated by their likes and dislikes. Some things like yoga, meditation, ayurveda, saw a natural phasing out in India and came back only when the Western world turned India-ward for good living fundamentals and religion.
What are we actually talking about when we discuss just what happened to us when we go out of India? No matter what, Indians still prefer going abroad and settling down even if it means that they would have to clean toilets. The reverse brain drain and discriminating factors have not lessoned our zeal for going abroad. We desperately want the world to view us in a different light and gain acceptance in their foreign society. We cheerfully contribute the discrimination to the fact that we were slaves at one period. A voice like Shipa Shetty's does ring out but how often. She is not the only person who is discriminated against and she has gained from it. A commoner usually never does. Have we raised our voices enough to fight the discrimination? Have we molded our thought processes to avoid the discrimination practiced in our own society? Let us join hands and abolish the internal divisions that we ourselves practice before looking outwards for equality…. As they say, don’t expect anyone to follow your advice and ignore the example that you set.
2 comments:
Its a very well written article by Ms. Shikha Dey. Article raises many questions for various people, specially for so called educated bunch in our urban society. They are educated and morally are supposed to spread education around them. If they won't be awakened towards these issue, how they will enlight other. Future of India is heavily depends on Youth, an educated one. So first of all they need to ponder about these issues which are still alive even after ages of activities to get rid of these. Good job done Shikha, keep it up.
A fabulous way of penning down (or shall i say typing :-)) the thoughts which i think is going through the minds of every conscious Indian citizen. We do think sometimes the way things are progressing. We are the first to unite and raise fingers on others when any Indian is discriminated but fail to question ourself and fail to unite for the causes that effect our country. Examples are already well quoted in this article so no point discussing them here again. Bottom line is we should improve as an individual first, then try to change friends, family, society, city, nation and world as whole.
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