Lamentations of an old patriot!
During my school days I have been an ardent patriot greatly influenced by Gandhi and his auto-biography “My experiments with truth” and many other factors.Partially this spirit might have influenced my decision to stay back in this country and share/endure with fellow brethren rather than pursuing my first passion-pursing science/research.This feeling changed my life and profession.Now after completing more than 50 revolution around sun God my perspective about the country has greatly changed.This I penned down some time in July 2010(I am re-posting it here.Probably I may pen down present feeling sometime latter)
Very often we are told we should be proud of this country!!We have a rich ‘culture and heritage’!!This is the country of ShriRama who taught us “rajdharma” is above all.We are proud of Raja Harichandra who lost everything worth for the sake of truth.More recently we have seen Buddha and in the recent past we have seen Mahatma Gandhi.Our nation builders made one of the best constitutions in the democratic world.Then what is wrong with this country??
The comic tragedy of this country is that here everything exists in papers only starting with our constitution.Walls of almost all offices in India is decorated with Gandhij’s photo whereas we have forgotten his teachings.Long before our independence we have exported Buddha and his teachings to countries like Japan,Korea,Sri Lanka etc.Secularism one of the finest things this country can can boast off exist in papers and in high decibel speeches of our leaders and secularism has degenerated into appeasement of ‘majority’ and ‘minority’ communities depending on the political gains.We have created great institutions but often degenerating it into white elephants.In this country of Raja Harichandra truth is a casualty.We have a country where ‘genuine’ people are a rare species and if exist will finish their lives in moving from pillar to post.We have created great educational institutions for our youngsters but in practice neither the teachers nor the other officials involved has any time for genuine knowledge seekers.We have a great media supposed to be one of the main pillars of a democratic society but obsessed with TRP rating and often distorting truth by spreading ‘half truths’.We have judiciary which is a court of law rather than of justice and often proving the axiom “Justice delayed is justice denied”.The list goes on…
Should I be proud of this country??
PS:I am compelled to add a quote attributed to Mark Twain on media”If you do not read news paper you are uninformed but if you read you are misinformed” very true most of the media.
My greetings to my beloved Professor,
You have expressed your pain successful in these lines, i can understand you because i feel tha same. The magnitude of feeling may vary because of our different self life experiences, but thought’s direction is same.
So, you have pointed out successfully via various examples which convey a meaning deeply and point to point.
You have practical life examples which shows our country’s deep-in situation. And it is really true the problem exists here, but have your thought about the cause behind it. Have you thought ever that how a country having golden past time is in such a misery state in present.
Aisa kya galat hua is desh me jo ye desh raja se bhikari ban gaya, amir se garib ho gya, sach se juth ho gya, teacher se studend ho gya, golden past ironic present ban gaya, hum bimar, din-hin, juthe, besahara, gulam, follower ho gye..ho gye ye to sab mante hain, per kyu ye sochne wale bhut kam paida hote hai..aakhir kaisevhame is garib, bimar, pichdi hui jindgi ki aadat ho gai..
I hope you have surely thought about the reasons behind all these changes occured in our country. If you can point out some resaons which you think are responsible for this, it will be helpful in keeping our discussion in a direction. Only a directional discussion can have a solution.. Other discussions (like those of our news channel’s political debates) are wastage of time..they never come to any solution or any satisfactory end.
Thanks.
Yeah you are right.Empty discussions without concrete actions will not yield anything.channels are not keen to change the society.They have business interest at the top.I earnestly believe that all the problems/challenges we are facing have a solution.There is an expiry date for blaming foreign rule etc.We have rise above the narrow vision and work towards a common goal.I take the example of Japan.What all challenges they have to face.But they stand together as they understand divided we are perished.
As you have pointed out there are many reasons for deterioration in the situation here.But what is important is that what we can do now and rise upto that challenge and act.Action is what that is lacking.We all are good at talking (why blame TV channels we all do that!!)Talking is easy.We make very good laws but never implement it.(Just like we have very good syllabus in our institutions but neither the students nor the teachers are competent to follow it.)
You pointed out foreign ruling and that’s true we have loosed many things because of the salvation we have suffered a lot. But that a lot mostly include physical pain ( of that time) and economically poor ( in present also).
But about which our country’s mistakes i was asking they were not of just past 300-400 years. Even in my views we were also inferior 500 years ago..even 1000 years ago we were not having that golden time of our country about which we talk.
We were poor..weak..backward in technology so that we could be made slave. So one can not say that before slavery we were powerful and superior to rest world. Because if we were superior then how it would be possible for them to rule over us. So i say we are not weak because they ruled, infact i say opposite they ruled because we were weak.
So, the question is how it happened that a country whose religion and society are oldest of all, is only developing today. How it is possible that a country of golden past is converted into such a weak community that the other ruled it. America is a 350 year old country and they have developed far superior than us.
What were the reasons behind our destruction. How we loosed our golden past. There must be some wrong thinking, wrong arrangement of our society, wrong approach toward life responsible for this. What were those mistakes due to which india could not make its sons and daughters best of world even though we have best and oldest past from rest world. Why the son of a king is not a king, the king must have done some serious mistakes, then what are those mistakes..i think they should be some root mistakes of philosophy and psychology. Because they are the only kind of mistakes which can ultar the whole future.
Hope now you understand, what i am asking..
Thanks
We have to understand one thing before Britishers colonized India there was nothing called Bharat or India.We were ruled by different kings and India was formed because of Britishers as they were ruling all these kingdoms as one unit.Our approach to issues were also different.Oriental approach to Science and technology was quite different from western approach. Industrialization and mass production etc was not known to us.The traditional small scale cottage industries were destroyed by foreign invasion especially British rule.
Doesn’t intense Patriotic feelings towards one’s country damage the feeling of universal brotherhood? Probably I feel that Patriotism is very personal and should be felt within limits. In addition, to stand OR not-to-stand when the National Anthem is sung to me reveal hypocritism than constructive patriotism. LOL …