Is India the land of Followers?
I live in Delhi, the capital city of India which is the world's biggest democracy. So in a way I am one of lucky few who live in the centre of world's biggest democracy.
I was born in a Brahman Family and from my childhood I was exposed to the teaching of Holy Books like Ramayana, Mahabharata and others. My paternal grandfather was a businessman but he used to serve in the local Temple in Delhi and we were expected to follow what god has taught and to follow the dharma.
I was born in the 80's and it was the time when television in India was at its peak, in terms of content. I was exposed to TV serials like Ramayana and Mahabharata in my early childhood and also to movies which glorified various Indian Men, values, cultures, families and martyrs at different times.
As for an Indian lady in 80s it was expected to respect her husband and husband's Family, cook good food and take good care of kids at home. She has to take care of the house in the absence of her husband, who had to go out to work.
To me, my mother was the epitome of Indian values and motherhood. She always kept a low profile as against my father and always considered my father's decision as right, irrespective of the result. My mother was very similar to what they used to show in those advertisements of products like surf and maggi on TV in 80s. So for me my mother had everything that an ideal mother should have and for her everything was her husband.
I was told to respect my real brother, which i never did and play honestly with my cousins, which I always did. Sachin Tendulkar was our Idol and he still is. We want him to save us from the defeat that would humiliate us and make us more sad. And thankfully he does save us.
In school I was taught the basics of language and then I graduated to what I call as stories.
Stories about our Freedom Fighters, their heroics, their martyrdom, their struggle and our win. Stories of our History, which I disliked, geography, Science and Mathematics etc.
These stories were mostly about someone who did something that helped him in achieving something and that made us proud. Stories of Bravery, love of land, respect, loyalty, intelligence, cruelty, slavery, defeat, victory, grandeur and poverty were most common.
Invariably, these stories had a Villain and a Hero. Hero won at last and defeated the villain and we were expected to appreciate the deeds of the hero.
Hence In home, during play and in school; I was either looking up to someone or learning to look up to someone. Never was I told that I can become what they became, that I can better them, that I was special like them and achieve something big.
My mind was taught to always look for someone who can guide me, lead me and show me the way. I was made to be a follower.
But I am not alone. I have a huge number of people along with me, who were taught the same things in the same way and who saw the things as I saw them. This story isn't restricted to me, a lot of people are like me.
Look around, some people have ripped our lives apart and we are watching like dumbs. We have accepted corruption, terrorism and death as part of our lives. We know who did what and why, but we accept it. We know what is wrong and where, but we dont care and then there are those who do all this. They know that we have short memories and we would forget. Then they do it again and again and again.
Is this because we all are followers, the ones who are lost and who seek help?
I think Yes.
We Indians were shown that our Gods take avatars to save us from ills, so we wait for god's action. When we were shown that Lord Rama came to this earth to eradicate Ravana, so that the People of earth could live peacefully, we were made to think that we have to wait for our lord Rama to come and save us from evils in our times.
When we were taught history we were told how great Akbar and Bahadur Shah Zafar and how good their management was and not how we should manage in our times.
We were taught how Mahatma Gandhi fought Britishers with ahimsa and got us Freedom and we were made to think that again someone like Gandhi would come to this planet to save us from this corruption.
We depend on a Manmohan Singh, an Atal Bihari Vajpayee, a Baba Ramdev, an Anna to sail us through these evils because we see them as avatars of our gods who come to our rescue every now and then.
We are made to be followers, servants and the ones who look up to someone to take them forward and that is what is at the centre of most of the problems with our Youth. Those TV advertisements made us believe that our mother has to follow our father and that only people like Sachin Tendulkar are born once in a century and that Leaders like Mahatma Gandhi are no more and we have to wait for them to come again. We look up to Amitabh Bachchan or Shah Rukh Khan to solve our other problems and give us a message just like they do in the Hindi movies irrespective of their capabilities in real life, just because we see them as our heros. We like to watch in awe when a so called corporate honcho shamelessly announces his grand multi story house, in times when so many people cannot afford to eat meals 3 times a day. We compare them to our gods and heros of the past, to have achieved so much.
Our youth is directionless and suffers from Inferiority complex. Thinking of themselves as a nobody in the middle of all the chaos. They seek a sense of achievement in our so called Leaders. But in fact they themselves should be the strength of our country considering their numbers and India's future growth capability.
From 1947, we were treated like followers by our politicians, they made decisions for us and we were supposed to look up to them. We kept looking at them and after a point some thought that this country was their private property.
We must understand that all our teachings have to be tweaked to make us understand the right thing in the right sense, that our leaders were not magicians that they were mere mortals who did what they did due to their vision and effort. That we dont need a Mahatma or a Lord Rama to come and solve our problems in fact they are present in each one of us. Our Youth must be made confident to follow their dreams and achieve great feats for the motherland.
We should stop making gods out of our heros and start projecting them as mere mortals or otherwise we would end up as a plundered nation ripped into pieces by people acting as the Avatars of God, who have descended to solve our problems.
The time has come when we change our teachings and the way of our teachings. The Academia/ media/ entertainment has to be more encouraging in building Leaders and not followers. Historically, Our country is the land of Leaders. It is just wrong implication by some and taken the advantage of by some.
I await your comments, arguments and POVs.
I live in Delhi, the capital city of India which is the world's biggest democracy. So in a way I am one of lucky few who live in the centre of world's biggest democracy.
I was born in a Brahman Family and from my childhood I was exposed to the teaching of Holy Books like Ramayana, Mahabharata and others. My paternal grandfather was a businessman but he used to serve in the local Temple in Delhi and we were expected to follow what god has taught and to follow the dharma.
I was born in the 80's and it was the time when television in India was at its peak, in terms of content. I was exposed to TV serials like Ramayana and Mahabharata in my early childhood and also to movies which glorified various Indian Men, values, cultures, families and martyrs at different times.
As for an Indian lady in 80s it was expected to respect her husband and husband's Family, cook good food and take good care of kids at home. She has to take care of the house in the absence of her husband, who had to go out to work.
To me, my mother was the epitome of Indian values and motherhood. She always kept a low profile as against my father and always considered my father's decision as right, irrespective of the result. My mother was very similar to what they used to show in those advertisements of products like surf and maggi on TV in 80s. So for me my mother had everything that an ideal mother should have and for her everything was her husband.
I was told to respect my real brother, which i never did and play honestly with my cousins, which I always did. Sachin Tendulkar was our Idol and he still is. We want him to save us from the defeat that would humiliate us and make us more sad. And thankfully he does save us.
In school I was taught the basics of language and then I graduated to what I call as stories.
Stories about our Freedom Fighters, their heroics, their martyrdom, their struggle and our win. Stories of our History, which I disliked, geography, Science and Mathematics etc.
These stories were mostly about someone who did something that helped him in achieving something and that made us proud. Stories of Bravery, love of land, respect, loyalty, intelligence, cruelty, slavery, defeat, victory, grandeur and poverty were most common.
Invariably, these stories had a Villain and a Hero. Hero won at last and defeated the villain and we were expected to appreciate the deeds of the hero.
Hence In home, during play and in school; I was either looking up to someone or learning to look up to someone. Never was I told that I can become what they became, that I can better them, that I was special like them and achieve something big.
My mind was taught to always look for someone who can guide me, lead me and show me the way. I was made to be a follower.
But I am not alone. I have a huge number of people along with me, who were taught the same things in the same way and who saw the things as I saw them. This story isn't restricted to me, a lot of people are like me.
Look around, some people have ripped our lives apart and we are watching like dumbs. We have accepted corruption, terrorism and death as part of our lives. We know who did what and why, but we accept it. We know what is wrong and where, but we dont care and then there are those who do all this. They know that we have short memories and we would forget. Then they do it again and again and again.
Is this because we all are followers, the ones who are lost and who seek help?
I think Yes.
We Indians were shown that our Gods take avatars to save us from ills, so we wait for god's action. When we were shown that Lord Rama came to this earth to eradicate Ravana, so that the People of earth could live peacefully, we were made to think that we have to wait for our lord Rama to come and save us from evils in our times.
When we were taught history we were told how great Akbar and Bahadur Shah Zafar and how good their management was and not how we should manage in our times.
We were taught how Mahatma Gandhi fought Britishers with ahimsa and got us Freedom and we were made to think that again someone like Gandhi would come to this planet to save us from this corruption.
We depend on a Manmohan Singh, an Atal Bihari Vajpayee, a Baba Ramdev, an Anna to sail us through these evils because we see them as avatars of our gods who come to our rescue every now and then.
We are made to be followers, servants and the ones who look up to someone to take them forward and that is what is at the centre of most of the problems with our Youth. Those TV advertisements made us believe that our mother has to follow our father and that only people like Sachin Tendulkar are born once in a century and that Leaders like Mahatma Gandhi are no more and we have to wait for them to come again. We look up to Amitabh Bachchan or Shah Rukh Khan to solve our other problems and give us a message just like they do in the Hindi movies irrespective of their capabilities in real life, just because we see them as our heros. We like to watch in awe when a so called corporate honcho shamelessly announces his grand multi story house, in times when so many people cannot afford to eat meals 3 times a day. We compare them to our gods and heros of the past, to have achieved so much.
Our youth is directionless and suffers from Inferiority complex. Thinking of themselves as a nobody in the middle of all the chaos. They seek a sense of achievement in our so called Leaders. But in fact they themselves should be the strength of our country considering their numbers and India's future growth capability.
From 1947, we were treated like followers by our politicians, they made decisions for us and we were supposed to look up to them. We kept looking at them and after a point some thought that this country was their private property.
We must understand that all our teachings have to be tweaked to make us understand the right thing in the right sense, that our leaders were not magicians that they were mere mortals who did what they did due to their vision and effort. That we dont need a Mahatma or a Lord Rama to come and solve our problems in fact they are present in each one of us. Our Youth must be made confident to follow their dreams and achieve great feats for the motherland.
We should stop making gods out of our heros and start projecting them as mere mortals or otherwise we would end up as a plundered nation ripped into pieces by people acting as the Avatars of God, who have descended to solve our problems.
The time has come when we change our teachings and the way of our teachings. The Academia/ media/ entertainment has to be more encouraging in building Leaders and not followers. Historically, Our country is the land of Leaders. It is just wrong implication by some and taken the advantage of by some.
I await your comments, arguments and POVs.
