To Litter is my Birthright

It is all about pride in one’s country. Just as we have lot of pride in our culture, the same cannot be said about the country. Consequently when invaders  came and went, our culture stood unscathed (many cultures in the world were decimated by conquistadors) even though the country was enslaved and pinioned for more than a 1000 yrs.

In Shanghai I noticed, janitors standing by the side of spic span roads are not an uncommon sight. They are assigned a mile which they keep immaculately clean during the course of their duty. They pride in their work and make this small contribution to the country, in which they pride themselves too.

In India, cleaning is a relegated activity. Historically, the higher castes would never condescend to clear. Once the caste equations were upset by the modern economic equations, the higher castes were sometimes forced to clean to eke a living, but they would not do so near to their homes, but somewhere far from home incognito.

Cleaning is a shameful activity, conduct of which relegates your station to a lower one. But curiously enough, in India, personal hygiene is rated highly important. Ablutions are a part of culture. But that is again personal and a part of culture, not a social activity that would have a direct bearing on the country.

Lot of wannabes in the country have a acutely western orientation. That orientation makes them ape what they believe the western ways are. Their understanding of the western ways is sometimes extremely inept. If in their own perception, they have managed to ape the west, they feel elitist and superior to those who are have not yet managed to ape the west. Wearing skimpy dresses is one perception that Indian girls have about the west. I can tell you, educated women in the west dress with dignity. But that is not the Indian wannabe perception of the west. So there is a hot pant wearing elite driving around in Mercs and that is no less a litter-bug than a deprived harassed Indian struggling to have ends met.

Singapore is a favorite destination for Indians. There is not much to see their but for an immaculately clean and orderly city. And that obviously is an oddity for us. We spit, litter, urinate unhindered and then pay a fortune just to see a clean city. Let me call that “clean tourism”.

It is not about cleaning merely. It is about national character and psyche.

I don’t know how to describe our method of doing things. Our approach is always askance, never direct, vision nebulous, plan of action tentative and goals shifty. Explanations for failure always multiple, accountability never clear, and rationalization of failure always ready.