WINDS OF CHANGE, NEW IS WELCOME BUT NOT AT THE COST OF OLD

As India comes out of her past, it faces un-surmountable social challenges. While technology proliferates and living standards increase, resulting in cultural modernization and depletion of tradition, society now faces the risk of massive degradation as it neither has developed the  ‘scientific civility’ which is a boon of the west, nor it is in touch with it’s own roots, that has so richly nourished it for ages.

It is popularly believed that one should have the best of both the worlds. One must always possess the good points of both the extremes and simultaneously try to eschew their negatives. That’s the desired standard parameter. However Indian society seems to be heading in a diametrically opposite direction. It has neither acquired the rational intellectualism of the west, nor is it holding on to it’s own traditional socio-cultural roots that had been the fundamental cause of it’s sustained existence for several millennia.

Taking the more convenient route is always easier. That’s what the Indian new generation seems to be obeying these days. The spurt in the number of fast food joints ;  the breakdown of the joint family system and emergence of nuclear families ; the substantial increase in the number of anti-social crimes such as murder, rape, etc ; the ever increasing incidence of divorce cases reflect the direction of socio-cultural flow of our nation.

India has grown economically but the social psyche of it’s people has deteriorated even faster. Thus resources have increased, but distribution is much improper and human tendencies of greed and unethical practices have grown the most. It is a fallacy of the highest order. People now want everything faster, more easily, without any hard work or efforts and worst of all by hook or by crook.

The increase in vices among Indians is a fallout of their mental split. India seems to suffer from a social schizophrenia today. They seem to be mad after wealth and ape the rich and the famous. They want to go up in life without making any efforts.

Indians today by and large want to achieve the success of the developed western world. However they refuse to imbibe their work culture, punctuality, honesty, commitment- and all that makes up the a healthy social character. Religion and spirituality are taboos for the rich, upwardly mobile and young Indians. Nor do they practice science or the spirit of enquiry. Traditions are to be despised just because these come from past and not because of any rational enquiry.  They live mindlessly without any social responsibilities, and without any care and concern for the other.

If one quality were to sum up the nature of most modern Indians it is gross greed. Rich and poor, urbans and rurals, literates and illiterates, men and women, all are suffused with huge greed. The condition of life has turned very bad in rural India, property disputes are common household happenings wherein use of swords and guns to ‘settle scores’ is turning more common each day.

India has a long way to go in developing it’s people. It is an irony of the highest order that this country which has been the progenitor of some of the finest religions of the world is completely bereft of any moral quotient today. Politics is often said to be the last resort of the scoundrel. However in reality politics is a part of society. Even our leaders are immensely corrupt, no doubt then that common people here are loosing faith in goodness and righteousness.

Indians seem to be fastly loosing their touch with traditions. While it is true that traditions are at times regressive, however these have also sustained us for millennia. These can’t be dumped altogether.  

India presents an utterly gloomy social picture today. The people in power are filling their coffers, those who are not high up there are protesting not as a matter of principle but simply because they are being denied that opportunity. The reasons for this moral bankruptcy are not far to seek. Unlike the Europeans and the Americans, we have made no efforts  to build a new modern social paradigm suited to our local realities to sustain us. We got democracy and fundamental rights, on the platter, very easily. We don’t realize their value. In countries like France they have fought for centuries to get these rights.

For Indians, Democracy and the righteous order were synonymous to attaining freedom from British clutches. As soon as the Britishers were removed, it did not matter to them how were the Indian rulers ruling the country.  Indians are unhappy today because they have rejected the good of the old but accepted only bad of the new.

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