Can't we change, at least a bit?

    If someone can read what I write in this post, I can count them in the privileged people who got access to education in this country. They may have qualifications and degrees too. Ok, it’s an expectation. I believe that Education is the most powerful thing a person can possess in this country, which help them to stay out of any form of exploitation. But, sometimes I feel quite disappointed about how people crib and crib and crib. So, I’m just randomly thinking. It may go off tangent sometimes, but I’m just digging into our usual mental state when we crib and feel cynical about our nation and our own people.

    Like someone said, if a hungry person or a poor person cribs, I can understand, because they are being exploited or they don’t know how to manage their finances or because of the information asymmetry or for whatever reason. But what’s the problem with an educated person? Yes, we have limitations. But, can’t we do something about following very basic laws and rules and normal norms, which would help a lot in making our society better? Why do we become so impatient and cynical about the whole system as such? I really don’t get it.

    Who does corruption? Everyone corrupts and practices it. Then why do we blame others when we are also doing it? When you jump signal and don’t’ follow even any simple traffic rules, it’s corruption. When you bribe, that’s corruption. When we show less prices for our assets to evade taxes, that’s corruption too. I have heard about a facilities manager of a reputed company in Bangalore, who looted crores of money during a new campus construction and he was caught and fired and currently he runs a resort outside Bangalore. What I really don’t get it is, why don’t we think that I’m responsible to the society even if you have got no help from it? When people like you and me use our privileges to corrupt, who else can save the system? What’s the point in cribbing about all these, when we are also part of it? Why so always blame government and keep off doing our part? It’s because we want the easy way out.

    Our religious and caste identities are very much significant in the scheme of things. I think about a 10-15 years back, our society was not as polarized as it is now. This is happening along with our supposedly high growth story. May be it’s now in the open because of many forms of open media. I have seen the caste and religious identities coming into play even during the official matters n companies and educational institutions. Here, I’m not quite sure how can a person with less administrative power can influence a higher authority. The onus is on that person to change. But we don’t that too. And we crib about reservation and caste based census and like. About following religions, it’s one’s personal choice. But, why should it influence one’s work, which surely doesn’t have any religious or caste biases? A higher authority in aviation sector in the past denied a person entry to the pilot training course based on the claim, “How do we travel in the carriers flown by ‘clobbers’ like you? ”. What’s the point of education in our country?

    There are some practices, especially against women. Our society is still highly patriarchal and I don’t’ think it will go away soon. Manual jobs of the past have restricted women inside our homes. But, education and the flourishing services industry has given women many opportunities which is now spilling over to other sectors, which is helping a more inclusive participation from women. But, the main issue is that we don’t value our women. I remember a friend during my graduation asking, “Why is she studying so much? Isn’t she supposed to get married soon?”. She got married soon. But she is studying in a Top 10 university in the world now.

    The important thing here is the mindset. The status of women is still of the second grade citizens. Attaching activities like eve teasing to the macho acts, even from the personality formation stages, even now many men consider women to be inferior to them. Again, how much we practice ourselves to avert these inequalities? Why don’t we respect a woman’s mind and body, considering her as another individual? Yeah, the male ego is highly inflated in our country. Even women support it because of the patriarchal compulsions. But why don’t we take initiative ourselves and try to change at least what we are now? Why can’t we tell young boys that, girls too are normal individuals like them and they should respect and consider them equals than falling into the same trap as their previous generations? It may take many generations, I know. But still can’t each of us try our own part?

    When we come to marriages, we have the same old stories of dowry and the ‘girl should stay with husband’ norms. I have heard from some people that, there were instances where the guy was ready to take no dowry and said this directly to the girl’s family. The girl and the family felt insulted and they claimed that they are giving it because they are capable of and it’s according to their ‘status’. I appreciate women walking out of marriage when groom-to-be’s family asks for high amounts of money. Likewise, I was thinking, should he have walked out of this marriage? I have no answer. The status in Indian context is always “false pride”, to flaunt you money and wealth and your family lineage and may be your caste too. Then there is this mother-in-law vs daughter-in-law angle of marriage, which is relevant still in our country. For a change, I had a first-hand experience of seeing a father-in-law getting into same mode recently. There are many families which were left financially devastated because of this practice. For me, the appalling thing was about the level of this practice in families with highly educated people. Is conservatism highly pursued more eagerly and aggressively in affluent families now than before?

    Coming to education, we passed a “Right To Education (RTE)” only now after 67 years of independence. I strongly doubt that there were conspiracies before, to ensure that we spend very less in education because an educated and thus liberated society will think and become conscious about their rights and we won’t be able to play the dirty caste and parochial politics and practices. The people at the helm of affairs of industries would never want people to be highly skilled and educated at the bottom of the pyramid because, it may bring out the levels of exploitation. Here too, I’m quite not sure of how much we took our own initiatives in our country, of course except in Kerala and a few north east states such as Mizoram, to ensure that education reached even to the lowest level of the society. It may be related to our caste politics. Still, I should say that, only in this case, the political will power was not there.

    So, my point is pretty simple. We follow high standards of activities if we go outside our country, especially to western societies. I don’t understand what the incentives are where everyone follows it.  Why can’t we follow such discipline and norms like punctuality, respecting an individual irrespective of his/her qualifications/positions/designations, here inside our country too? Actually, isn’t here we have the incentive to do well and get noticed and show ourselves as examples to others too? Why don’t we do it? Is it because of our family, religious, caste-based background or are we being just cynical? I don’t know. I have no idea. As we end everything, “we are like this only”, but it’s better to “be the change that we want to see” than cribbing and feeling cynical. And it’s hard to practice. But, from my own experience, get your hands dirty, it’s worth it.