While his sporadic rants against the nation were always hard to miss, one could pass them off as frustrated outbursts of a ‘foreign returned’ Punjabi; a clique whose only apparent source of survival is the dream to go to the UK and Canada (no offences, Punjus are gregarious, hilarious, hardworking people, make no mistake). However, a night long discussion with my good friend’s brother, a few days back changed my perception forever. No, it wasn’t a frustrated outburst anymore, it was a deep rooted fanatical bundle of ticking bomb that kept imploding and exploding till the dark ran out,.
This nation is of losers, for losers. All the politicians are corrupt and the solitary voice of truth, if ever arises is conveniently crushed in this country. Whatever development you see is because of foreign multinationals, the governments are inept and worthless…The angry young man went on, even as I murmured the classic Rang De Basanti
line that no nation is perfect; it’s upon the people to make it perfect.Needlesss to say, my effete attempts to assert and reassert my patriotism fell flat as the rant ran on.
This one was the runaway classic.
As the discussion veered towards the Annans and the Babas, he suddenly announced with a sarcasm that was hard to let go “What to say of a country where stray terrorists attack its Parliament?” A few unmentionables followed, even as I wondered if the boy knew anything at all about our economy, our democracy and the fact that the nations he claimed offer better standards of living do so because their population is one – fifth of ours and that 50% of their doctors and engineers are from the country he so willfully detested.
I wondered if he knew that 200 years of tyranny by the country he so passionately vouched for has devoured a major chunk of our countless resources and pushed us back by a couple of light years. From that , to be the strongest emerging superpower, to enjoy the position it does in BRICS,to stake its claim to the permanent membership of UNSC,to employ the unique NREGA and striving for a successful PDS,to achieve a consistent growth in literacy rate ,we indeed have come a long way.
Undoubtedly, its still far from perfect, but its good enough to feel good about. Advocating capital punishment for corrupt, like in Middle East, while ignoring its imploding landscape due to government’s heavy handedness isn’t just a case of poor foresight, but of blinkered optimism. For those who flout rule of law as phlegmatically as they curse the lack of living standards, for those whose liking for the West, and for that matter anything foreign assumes the proportions of an obsessive compulsive disorder, it would only be remedial to revisit their History textbooks to overcome their state of blissful ignorance. Probably it would give ‘them’ a chance to be ‘us’.
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