Here is an interesting read by an indian author in response to the above ChinaSmack photos on india plus some of his experience, and also perhaps a lot of soul searching and admonition here:
http://blogs.timesofindia.indiatime...o-we-need-the-chinese-to-tell-us-we-are-dirty
Do we need the Chinese to tell us we are dirty?
Rajesh Kalra
23 July 2012,
There is this piece about how dirty India is that is raging across the social media Filthy India Photos Chinese Netizen Reactions. The website where it appears,
ChinaSmack, is a daily updated collection of news and content from the Chinese-language internet”. The post itself is from October, 2010, and is a “collection of photographs on the Chinese internet in 2008.
Before you go any further and click on the link, please be warned that some of the pictures that show up in the piece mentioned above are graphic and can cause nausea, and most certainly, if you are a ‘patriot’, anger too!
The piece, although it praises India for its many positive attributes, chiefly spiritual (what else?) has naturally created an outrage, for it portrays us as a dirty nation with no sense of hygiene. Netizens are calling it biased, a piece that is unmindful of the realities in India. Some are convinced these pictures are fake and others even calling it an attack on India and that it is a Chinese website and that Indianness has been tarnished. Some even say it is a piece to show Hindus in a poor light.
True, anyone going through the piece and the graphic pictures it contains cannot but feel disgusted with what one sees, and if one feels anger at what it shows against the Indian nation, that is justified too.
How dare someone raise such a stink about my beautiful ‘Incredible India’? But, sit back and reflect on what you see in that piece, and objectively and you’d realise it is nothing more than someone showing us a mirror.
I have travelled the world and have no hesitation in claiming that we are the dirtiest people on planet. I had always been told that Pakistan is very dirty, but there too I was proven wrong when I visited Lahore a few years ago and realised that not only was it cleaner than even the most pampered city in India, Delhi, it showed more discipline and was easily far more organised than the best we have. And please don’t launch into "we are a democracy and they are an apology for a democracy" argument here. I am not discussing that.
I am merely referring to the fact that Lahore was cleaner than the best we have in India.
We have grown up being told how important it is to be clean and that our places of worship need to be clean and that cleanliness is next to Godliness. But then look around and you’d know how we either never understood what we were taught, or somewhere we couldn’t care less. What could be the reason for this strange attitude where we don’t seem to notice the mess we are creating and how it is impacting ours as well as our nation’s health, in more ways than one, really.
There is a theory that we allow trash to lie around because apart from the formality of being told about cleanliness, in reality we have a system where cleaning up after we mess up is the job of only a ‘lower caste’ person. And despite all the progress we seem to be making elsewhere, this is one area where things have either remained where they were, or could be getting worse.
Let me share an anecdote. On a morning run near DC two months ago, I saw a man walk his dog. He not only picked up his dog’s poo, but even the bits and pieces of paper or anything that resembled trash that lay around. I got chatting with him and he said everyone does it and that helps in keeping the neighbourhood clean and presentable. Honestly, all this is utopian here, for we may have the most expensive homes, but we have no hesitation in chucking our junk as long as it is out of sight of our own dwelling units. Of course, when it is visible when we step out, we have somehow perfected the art of ignoring it all as if it does not exist.
A very senior journalist friend of mine from Chennai was quite upset with the piece and said “this selective focus from a Chinese website isn’t as unbiased as it ought to be. The stereotype about India being all about cows and faeces needs to be debunked”. While I know of friends who agree with her and say this happens all over and this and that, I disagreed with her and said the fact is we are actually dirtier than even this.
Another highly educated friend thought that although we cannot deny we are a filthy and disgusting nation and that she has met people who are in a state of shock after visiting our tourist spots, she still feels that “cleanliness is the first tool in building the walls of racism. All races that hate each other, accuse each other of being dirty.”To her, my response was here we are accusing ourselves, so does that mean we hate ourselves? Perhaps we do, why else would be do to ourselves what we do.
We urgently need to develop a will to tackle issues that have a bearing on our very survival.
Hygiene is one such issue. We need to get out of sloganeering and catch the bull by the horn. Education is a potent tool. As a senior banker friend in London says: That street vendor who carelessly disposes off that plastic bag does not know that is going to remain in the ecosystem forever and cause untold damage. To him, it is rubbish and he disposes it off the only way he knows. Ignorance (blind faith) also explains why some people float their dead down the river. They believe that the dead have gone to heaven. If they knew what actually happens, perhaps they will not do that.
There is no dearth of ideas and suggestions, but ultimately, it is we, the people, who need to introspect. Of course, education will play a big role, but there is some wisdom that also comes with experience. We have trained ourselves to ignore the filth around, so much so that we refuse to acknowledge its acceptance, or have reconciled to it. That is the easy way out.
We must stop taking the easy way out here, just like we do in a host of other issues that afflict us. Only then will the others stop taking pot-shots at us, and rightly so, if I may add
yuck
