by Bijesh Krishnadas
[box]For most Indians, India is more than just a country. We share a certain connect with our nation that extends beyond just nationality. The feeling ‘My country’ is one that exists at an emotional level. Having said that, is the Great Indian Middle Class that’s at the heart of India’s economic boom also the one that cribs about India’s supposed ills? What do they think of India? Bijesh Krishnadas shares his opinion.[/box]
The Great Indian Middle Class(GIMC) has been often characterised as the driving force behind India’s rise. The GIMC has caught the imagination and attention of the marketing wheels of the business world. The spending power of this socio-economic class has been making massive strides and the market has been keeping up with this, creating products and services that cater to the fancies of the middle-class Indian.
What we don’t hear about is the cynicism of the GIMC. The GIMC grumbles and groans about the ills of India – the lacklustre governance, the crumbling infrastructure and the corruption. All this while lapping up their new-found luxuries. The same ones that complain about the traffic on the road are the ones that are driving their single-occupant cars to work and back. These are the same people that feed the bribe-mongers because they don’t want to spend a few hours to get something done.
During the recent series of disasters in Japan, the Internet was overflowing with comments and observations that hypothesised the state of India if a disaster of this scale had occurred here. Yes, while a country and its people were suffering the worst, the GIMC sat in their armchairs and dished out their views of how India would’ve coped with this. Links were copy-pasted on how the Japanese waited patiently for rations with the counter point that it would’ve been chaos in India. There were no known reports of looting in Japan. India, of course, would’ve become one big mosh pit of plundering and theft. No one remembered the camaraderie that the common man showed during the Mumbai floods in 2005 or, for that matter, during the Tsunami of December 2004.
For all the great work that the Japanese agencies showed, it was conveniently ignored that the Fukushima power plant was at its end-of-life but the government had “controversially” approved a life-extension of 10 more years. It was also ignored that the head of the power company had gone underground instead of facing uneasy questions.
Agreed that most times, disaster recovery operations in India are tripped up because of the red tape and corruption but India has recovered from disasters before. While we don’t have the prowess to rebuild a highway in seven days (unsubstantiated if I may add), we have made massive strides in the last decade in our infrastructure. The Border Roads Organisation rebuilds roads in the treacherous Himalayan ranges every few months and enables those far flung communities to remain connected.
There really wasn’t any reason to have compared the two countries. Japan, a hotbed of earthquakes, was forced to be always ready for a new earthquake and that readiness showed in their response to the disaster. It’s as simple as that.
The middle-class Indian is quick to blame the government and the politicians for everything that is wrong with the country. They are quick to lament about the destruction and the ills. What they don’t notice is that some of their peers have been working in the background to cure these maladies. There is a tirelessly labouring community that tries its best to rid India of its social issues. There are young stalwarts who are giving up their lucrative careers to make their country a better place. It doesn’t matter how many of them succeed in making a difference. What matters is that they are trying. While they do, all that the GIMC does is sit in armchairs and predict how and when they will fail in their endeavour and tell tales of how India is like a dog’s tail that can never be straightened.
There have been many successes in bringing reform to various aspects of India. The RTI act is one that has made a very big difference. People are using RTI to bring awareness about corruption in the government. It is a powerful tool to bring government workers to book and “encourage” them to do the jobs they are paid to do. Then, there are the organisations that have been slowly but steadily gnawing away at issues like poverty, domestic violence and child abuse.
For every negative that one can think of, there is one positive that is overlooked. Unless the average Indian believes that change is possible and that the country can still be redeemed, the efforts of those that are making a difference may never see the success they deserve. It’s time we leave our cynicism behind and appreciate the small victories that are being won every day.
[box type=”info”]DID YOU KNOW? The post you just read is also a part of a PDF that can be downloaded! Don’t miss the colourful edition and also the chance of reading it all in one place! To download the May 2011 issue as PDF or to flip and read it like a magazine on the e-reader, please use the buttons below.[/box] [button link=”https://sparkthemagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/spark-may-2011.pdf” color=”red”]click here to download the May 2011 issue as a PDF[/button] [button link=”http://issuu.com/sparkeditor/docs/spark-may-2011?mode=embed&layout=http%3A%2F%2Fskin.issuu.com%2Fv%2Fcolor%2Flayout.xml&backgroundColor=000000&showFlipBtn=true” color=”green”]click here to flip and read the May 2011 issue like a magazine[/button] [facebook]share[/facebook] [retweet]tweet[/retweet]
