ceasersvault

Is it fair to be critical of the situation in India?

Every time two Indians meet up, at some point in their conversation the discussion ends up in the state of affairs in India. Sometimes it ends up in an optimistic beat. But more often it ends up with a sigh of disgust of how corrupt, unfair and desperate the state of affairs are. So the question I am trying to ponder today is, is it fair for us to be critical and, for lack of better words, bitch about the state of the nation?

The greatest argument that comes up in my mind and I am sure I have heard from many quarters is why the person who is so vocal in his or her disapproval of the way things are doesn't even raise a finger to act to do anything about it. Since I am one of those mentioned above I guess it becomes of ever greater interest to me to ponder over this.

In school we were taught to be be constructive critics, which meant that when you criticize the way something is, you should also suggest what would have been the appropriate act that would have remedied the situation. The classic example always quoted is the democratic house of representatives, which in India is the parliament at the national level and the state legislature at the state level. Most days proceedings get disrupted or come to a premature end as a result of the opposition crying out endless arguments and many a times abuses criticizing the ruling party for inefficiency and inadequacy. The irony here is that almost all these allegations get repeated by the current ruling party the next time they became an opposition.

So the question is, is it natural human tendency to be critical of the other. I guess it is so. The curse of self righteousness is ingrained in all of us, and it takes great effort and discipline to break out of the shell and learn to appreciate the point of view and the thought process of another person especially when the other person subscribes to a different school of thoughts. So coming back to my original question, is it natural and normal for persons to be critical of the state of the nation even when they have shown no interest in involving in any actions to do anything about it. The answer would be yes, its normal.

So let me venture to ponder over the more complex question. Is it fair or is it morally right for a person to do so? The answer sounds straight forward enough, its wrong to do so. I guess a simple litmus test for this would be to answer the question what does these discussions often result in. Does it help improve anything? Does it hold anyone accountable to make improvements? In most instances if not all the answer is no. so what does it lead to then? A lower national pride among Indians, an even lesser engaged group of citizens who have lost belief in the opportunities that nationhood and concerted efforts can bring. It mars the hope of change and spreads the sickening feeling and evil of disappointment and disenfranchisement. The most outrageous part of all this is these are people who do this consider themselves extremely patriotic and feel they do great good talking about all this.

So what should one do about this? Well to answer this question I would go back to the answer to the first question where I talked about. One should come out of their aura of self righteous egos and try to think in the shoes of the players who they are criticizing. Many a times its true that individuals in the system deserve to be blamed and condemned, but if your individual condemnation in your living room wouldn't make an iota difference in the state of affairs I would guess you are doing more harm that good by discussing this. The other aspect to think is our nature to generalize based on a few bad apples, or may be a few baskets of bad apples. But the good news is that a bunch a really good apples still happen to exist even in the midst of all these bad apples and still continue to be untarnished by all the infection around them. I believe this is what each one of us should concentrate on. The act of concentrating on the good boosts our morale, makes each of us feel good, makes us feel like emulating some of them, reaffirms our belief in all the good in the world and inspires the spirit of nationhood and patriotism that is probably at the lowest in all of us. And if sufficient momentum is attains in this movement, who knows the bad apples might realize they are starting to get ignored and might decide to follow the the bandwagon and make amendments to their attitudes and actions. Good events have as much a tendency to snowball itself as bad events do.

posted by Mahesh Vijayamohanan @ 7:27 PM