Open Forum
New Delhi, 10 May 2010
A Letter To Every
Indian
WHY ARE WE SO
NEGATIVE?
By Dr. A.P.J. Abdul
Kalam
(Former President of India)
Why is the media here so negative? Why are we in India so embarrassed
to recognize our own strengths, our achievements? We are such a great nation.
We have so many amazing success stories but we refuse to acknowledge them. Why?
We are the first in milk production. We are number one in
Remote sensing satellites. We are the second largest producer of wheat. We are
the second largest producer of rice. Look at Dr. Sudarshan, he has transformed
the tribal village into a self-sustaining, self-driving unit. There are
millions of such achievements but our media is only obsessed in the bad news
and failures and disasters.
I was in Tel Aviv and I was reading the Israeli newspaper.
It was the day after a lot of attacks, bombardments and deaths had taken place.
The Hamas had struck. But the front page of the newspaper had the picture of a
Jewish gentleman who in five years had transformed his desert into an orchid
and a granary. It was this inspiring picture that everyone woke up to. The gory
details of killings, bombardments, deaths, were inside in the newspaper, buried
among other news.
In India
we only read about death, sickness, terrorism, crime. Why are we so NEGATIVE?
Another question: Why are we, as a nation so obsessed with foreign things? We
want foreign TVs, we want foreign shirts. We want foreign technology.
Why this obsession with everything imported. Do we not realize
that self-respect comes with self-reliance? I was in Hyderabad giving this lecture, when a 14-year-old
girl asked me for my autograph. I asked her what her goal in life is. She
replied: I want to live in a developed India. For her, you and I will have
to build this developed India.
You must proclaim: India
is not an underdeveloped nation, it is a highly developed nation.
Do you have 10 minutes? Allow me to come back with a
vengeance. Got 10 minutes for your country? If yes, then read; otherwise, choice
is yours.
You say that our government is inefficient. You say that our
laws are too old. You say that the municipality does not pick up the garbage. You
say that the phones don’t work, the railways are a joke. The airline is the
worst in the world, mails never reach their destination. You say that our
country has been fed to the dogs and is the absolute pits. You say, say and
say. What do YOU do about it?
Take a person on his way to Singapore. Give him a name – ‘Yours’.
Give him a face – ‘Yours’. You walk out of the airport and you are at your
international best. In Singapore
you don’t throw cigarette butts on the roads or eat in the stores.
You are as proud of their underground links as they are. You
pay $5 (approx Rs 60) to drive through Orchard Road (equivalent of Mahim
Causeway or Pedder Road)
between 5 pm and 8pm. You come back to the parking lot to punch your parking
ticket if you have over stayed in a restaurant or a shopping mall irrespective
of your status identity…. In Singapore
you don’t say anything. Do you?
You wouldn’t dare to eat in public during Ramadan, in Dubai. You would not dare
to go out without your head covered in Jeddah. You would not dare to buy an
employee of the telephone exchange in London
at 10 pounds (Rs.650) a month to, ‘see to it that my STD and ISD calls are
billed to someone else’
You would not dare to speed beyond 55 mph (88km/h) in Washington and then tell
the traffic cop, ‘Jaanta hai main kaun
hoon (do you know who I am?). I am so and so’s son. Take your two bucks and
get lost.’
You wouldn’t chuck an empty coconut shell anywhere other
than the garbage pail on the beaches in Australia
and New Zealand.
Why don’t you spit Paan on the
streets of Tokyo?
Why don’t you use examination jockeys or buy fake certificates in Boston? We are still
talking of the same you.
You who can respect and conform to a foreign system in other
countries but cannot in your own. You who will throw papers and cigarettes on
the road the moment you touch Indian ground. If you can be an involved and
appreciative citizen in an alien country, why cannot you be the same here in India?
Once in an interview, the famous ex-municipal commissioner
of Bombay, Mr Tinaikar,
had a point to make. ‘Rich people’s dogs are walked on the streets to leave their
affluent droppings all over the place,’ he said. ‘And then the same people turn
around to criticize and blame the authorities for inefficiency and dirty
pavements. What do they expect the officers to do? Go down with a broom every
time their dog feels the pressure in his bowels?
In America
every dog owner has to clean up after his pet has done the job. Same in Japan.
Will the Indian citizen do that here? He’s right. We go to
the polls to choose a government and after that forfeit all responsibility.
We sit back wanting to be pampered and expect the government
to do everything for us whilst our contribution is totally negative. We expect
the government to clean up but we are not going to stop chucking garbage all
over the place nor are we going to stop to pick up a stray piece of paper and
throw it in the bin. We expect the railways to provide clean bathrooms but we
are not going to learn the proper use of bathrooms.
We want Indian Airlines and Air India to provide the best of food
and toiletries but we are not going to stop pilfering at the least opportunity.
This applies even to the staff, who is known not to pass on the service to the
public.
When it comes to burning social issues like those related to
women, dowry, girl child, and others, we
make loud drawing room protestations and continue to do the reverse at home.
Our excuse? ‘It’s the whole system which has to change, how will it matter if I
alone forego my sons’ rights to a dowry’. So who’s going to change the system?
What does a system consist of? Very conveniently for us it
consists of our neighbours, other households, other cities, other communities
and the government. But definitely not me and you. When it comes to us actually
making a positive contribution to the system we lock ourselves alongwith our
families into a safe cocoon and look into the distance at countries far away
and wait for a Mr Clean to come along & work miracles for us with a
majestic sweep of his hand or we leave the country and run away.
Like lazy cowards hounded by our fears we run to America to bask
in their glory and praise their system. When New York
becomes insecure we run to England.
When England
experiences unemployment, we take the next flight out to the Gulf. When the
Gulf is war struck, we demand to be rescued and brought home by the Indian
government. Everybody is out to abuse and rape the country. Nobody thinks of
feeding the system. Our conscience is mortgaged to money.
Dear Indians, the article is highly thought inductive, calls
for a great deal of introspection and pricks one’s conscience too. I am echoing
J.F. Kennedy’s words to his fellow Americans to relate to Indians. …‘Ask what
we can do for India and do
what has to be done to make India
what America
and other western countries are today’.
Let’s do what India needs from us.
Forward this to each Indian for a change instead of sending
jokes or junk mails.
Thank you, Abdul Kalam.
(Kalam’s lecture in Hyderabad reproduced by INFA)
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