Indians - Hypocrisy at its best!!!
Whenever i go back to India, it throws my life into rather harsh perspective.On one hand living in the comforting and convenient life which Europe offers is good but on the other seeing the misery of the 'have-nots' in India is very disheartening.so much for the talks of India developing and incredible India, it doesn't show for a lot of people. India is developing, but there is so much which is left to be desired.
What i want to write about though is not the misery, but how in my opinion Indians are topping the charts in hypocrisies. if there was a hypocrisy index, we certainly would be numero uno.
1. before i moved to Europe, i heard a lot about racism here, and how the world is racist against 'brown skin'. fair enough, i have experienced it here. But looking back at my own country... it gives us no right to cry foul, as we are racist too
- The Caste System which is very much existent today is the biggest example of this.
- People from one state are racist against people in other states. recently in Maharastra, a certain gentleman launched a campaign to drive all north Indians from the state
- we love white people... white is always right, and thus we go to every extent to make sure when we advertise weddings, we clearly specify "looking for a fair person"
- we are extremely racist against Africans and Asians in India. Even within India - the north east state of India which is near the china border is still technically not integrated into India, not because they don't want to but because we see them as 'Chinese' owning to their eye shapes and color
2. Most Indians would give an impression that they are very patriotic. we are, but for a lot of us this is superficial. for instance, we hate speaking our own language - Hindi, and thats because speaking in English is so much more cooler. its unbelievable how many Indians these days cannot speak and /or understand Hindi.
3. In Europe we love to be clean and not litter, but the same people, when in India, don't bother at all using the bin. we will say thank you for everything here... but would not do so in India, even for the cheap/free service available.
4. Whenever an Indian sees other Indian at the airport, or in another country, the first reaction is not to smile but "How the hell did you reach here" or "they must be a Punjabi". its a reaction of competition. Indians behave more sophisticated at the airport than they actually are.and yes they will never speak to you in Hindi.
5. At the airport in India, the immigration officer asked me, "so what is your qualification" and i said MBA, and he seemingly looked satisfied, then i said i am kidding, i have a masters in economics, and that was followed with a 10 minute Q&A round. his point was "how can you work abroad without an MBA..."
6.Indians who have been abroad, or live abroad, upon coming back start disliking India. its dirty, its smelly, bad traffic etc. question to be asked... what have they done to change it?
7. Working as a little shop owner in India is uncool, but in england.. most corner shops are owned by Indians and the same people when they go back to India pretend as if they are in diamond trade. pound rules but its still the same job.
8. Often in India, people talk about how culturally rich/religious and India is. but we don't really care for it too much, it is just to defend the country and show how proud we are as Indians. An Eiffel tower is always cooler than Qutub Minar, a random fort in UK is always better than 5000 year old gems in India...
I can go on, the list is endless. India is a great country, but greatness lies in appreciating what we have and valuing it, and sometimes i feel we are loosing that touch.

1 Comments:
Manish. While a lot of what you say is true about Pakistanis true, I do wonder about an additional phenomenon I felt myself having experienced.
Growing up outside Pakistan, I was let's say.. not too proud. But at the same time when you eventually do get a chance to interact with your country of origin, it tends to help break a number of pre-held perceptions. That itself tends to be a more powerful tool which can potentially make you more patriotic and connected than someone that lived and grew up in India itself.
But your analysis of some of those scene was hilarious!
Post a Comment
<< Home