India

 

Subject: India.





What is the essence of this place we call India. Is it a place where a nation integrates and socially flourishes, or a place where society, for the many is left to disintegrate through a lack of attention and care. Where the individual hangs on to life by his fingernail. It’s such a hotch potch of religiosity and caste disbarment, they do not seem to even recognise each other as a collective, as citizens with equal rights. Does this social disconnect through a many tiered construct of ‘social separation’ make each Indian’s suffering  opaque to another Indian.

Does the hierarchical structure in India make the Indian only look up and not down and fail to see the misery all around, steeling themselves instead to the plight of the other.

It’s a cornucopia of values rooted in centuries old tradition, a hierarchical formality which is strictly observed especially by the poorest in the society. It survives by the observance of caste, a construct plucked out of a religious past, governed by mythical gods, serviced by colourful festivals leaving millions of people to live in centuries old structural poverty

Why in the 21st century do Indians defecate openly and everywhere in a country which prides itself on its personal hygiene. The Gita’s rules on hygiene make the westerners attitude to hygiene look uncivilised. The process of meticulously cleansing oneself, the rules concerning which hand does what, the rules governing hygiene after intercourse are all strictly implemented yet their blindness to the act of defecation is unique. People of all castes simply defecate where ever and whenever the need arises, by the side of the road or  railway track, on the river bank and even in the alleyway, natures needs come first. No one comments about it or considers it strange that this most basic act, which in most societies we seek total privacy, to Indian people the act is ghosted from their comprehensive imagination, it happens but it’s not accommodated in the daily ritual of observable events. Perhaps the proximity of people in this overcrowded country, with caste and religious  structures guiding your relevance within society this need to provide a guide to where and when to defecate was missed off the curriculum and missed the rule makers, defecation after all has its own rules as I’m sure anyone who has been ‘caught short’ will testify.