Ashamed of being an Indian

I feel dejected and ashamed of being an Indian as much India is ashamed of its more than seventy per cent impoverished population.

How elite organizers of the CWG are looting tax payers’ money has been widely discussed and it has jolted the conscience of even the more affluent and urban people.

A very urbane friend of mine, who always lived in Metro cities had foreign trips and is well placed financially, feels embarrassed about how marginalized pupation being driven away from East Delhi so that CWG rosy coatings are not distorted . She has never been to any village. What she knows about village life is through her friends from rural backgrounds. I tried to get her convinced about how CWG has exposed India expecting well polished contradictory arguments from her owing to her pure urbane background. To my utter surprise, she did not contradict me, and, for the first time, was in full agreement with what I had to say. As a human being she was hurt on the sight of policemen driving away rikshawallas, thelawallas and hawkers.

My point is that at personal level, we all human beings are concerned about plight of average poor fellow and would never want to drive them away and rob them of their daily earnings just for the sake of any elitist and corrupt Games show. This is basic human nature. Contrary to this, when we collect our egos in notion of patriotism, which has no virtue, we tend to forget to dissect our various issues and identities. India is primarily identified with its rural masses where majority of populations live in countryside, survive on agriculture.

We forget that these hawkers, rickshaw wallas, population living in bed of Yamuna represent more than seventy per cent of Indian population and their pride don’t lie in successful CWG. Driving them away from Games’ surrounding amounts to depriving them from rights of being Indian.

Here I find the concept of nationalism and essence of being Indian faltering. Precisely, nation is an imagined community which is very taxing and demanding. That’s why unknown taxpayers and marginalized will have to bear the expense of an elitist show which will never bring any change to their life anyway. Rather they are going to suffer.