The best-selling gimmick our nation’s political leaders have is progress, or at least the promise of it. A few honestly have tried to bring our ancient land into this marvelous age where blackholes are photographed and tweets have the power to shake economies. But it was akin to dragging a stubborn ox away from the mound of his stale droppings: he is too attached to his excretions to ever bear parting.
The lure of meatier salaries, grander houses, sleeker cars, lusher clothing tempts all and our population is no exception. But we could not manage to fulfill this temptation even halfway for most people. The deepest well of potential human resource on the planet, with a penchant of producing overachievers and geniuses annually, yet our nation places disturbingly low on every conceivable index of human development. When the people of a country reject science, when superstition is chosen over reason and knowledge, when ancient ignorance triumphs over the human quest for truth, the consequences spell stagnation, obsolescence, and insignificance.
I must bow in admirable salute to the rational few who have pioneered our country’s scientific advent in spite of the pan-Indian collusion to stamp out every candle lit with knowledge’s flame. And to think, had we as a nation supported every whim and instinct that thirsts for truth, for understanding, we could have been global leaders for change and innovation. Now, we are just the semi-primitive inhabitants of a peninsular patch in South Asia who are obsessed with temples and mosques, bovine dung and urine, regulating everything from the content of media to the attire of students. In a global crisis, no one ever says, “What is India doing about this? When will they manifest the miracle which will be our salvation?”
India lost its ancient and medieval sheen due to a plethora of reasons, as did many other lands across the world. India simply failed to recover, which most other lands managed. Our country is more renowned for what it was and what its people have done instead of what it is and what Indians do today. The cause for that is straightforward: enough noteworthy events don’t happen in India today for the global population to pay attention to, except maybe the alarming decline of free democracy in past few years.
Religion alone does not carry the blame. In fact, it carries just a small part of it. For, in the end, it is but a tool and some people use it to become gems of human beings, people who live such great lives that all who come in their contact are improved by it while others wield this tool for furthering their own tyrannical and oppressive agendas, to enact their despotic will on others and revel in the aftermath of that violent glory. We are simply a nation where far more people want to rule others rather than help others. It should then come as no surprise that going on the course we are, unless radical, revolutionary change for the better isn’t struck, our fate as a nation is the decimation of our national identity. Being Indian will soon stand for nothing meaningful, nothing positive.
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