FRANCOIS GAUTIER
Democracy in India has been hijacked. It takes a fortune to be elected. Politicians, elected by and for the people, once they are locked in the ivory tower that is Delhi, forget all about the people.
What is it that which India is fast losing as you read this article? Its culture. Entire patches in the northeast are being converted to Christianity. Missionaries tell tribals that it is sinful to enter a temple, women are asked not to wear bindis, and children are taught to look down on their culture as animist or heathen.
India is fast losing communal harmony. Today, even the Sikh community feels it wants to separate from its Hindu brothers, and Christians and Muslims are encouraged to look down upon Hindus.
In the Indian media, there is a witch hunt against gurus, a deriding and mocking of Indian spirituality, a marginalizing of Hinduism and Hindus, who constitute the immense majority in India and are a billion worldwide, one of the most law-abiding, religious, educated, affluent communities in the world.
More and more, Indian television particularly, but also newspapers and magazines, are casting a look on India that is not only very critical (if you open any newspaper nowadays, you can only end up depressed), but which in its very nature is a Western look -- which judges India according to Western standards.
India's intellectuals defend an artist who paints one of the most revered ancient Hindu gods doing unmentionable things to a Hindu goddess. Someone who is part of a diabolical plot to kill Indian leaders and storm Parliament gets the benefit of the doubt from the same intelligentsia in the vision particularly, but also newspapers and magazines, are casting a look on India that is not only very critical (if you open any newspaper nowadays, you can only end up depressed), but which in its very nature is a Western look -- which judges India according to Western standards.
India's intellectuals defend an artist who paints one of the most revered ancient Hindu gods doing unmentionable things to a Hindu goddess. Someone who is part of a diabolical plot to kill Indian leaders and storm Parliament gets the benefit of the doubt from the same intelligentsia in the name of judicial correctness. Some Indians are more and more divided. Instead of feeling first Indians, they feel they are first Muslims and then Indians, first Dalits and then Indians, first Christian and then Indians. This is a dangerous trend and it spells the death of the minimum unified nationalistic pride that can take a country forward. Instead, Indians today take pride in melting abroad, or adopting a 'secular' creed, which basically makes them soul-less and identity-less, however brilliantly they ape the West.
As a foreigner who loves India, I feel that this blind copying of the West's ignorant and doubting mind, the aping of whatever is has proved wrong in the West - wild consumerism, or savage capitalism - will be a tragedy for India. The Westernization of India must not be at the cost of her culture and spirituality. Yet, there are signs that it is already happening here.
What is it that which India is fast losing as you read this article? Its culture. Entire patches in the northeast are being converted to Christianity. Missionaries tell tribals that it is sinful to enter a temple, women are asked not to wear bindis, and children are taught to look down on their culture as animist or heathen.
India is fast losing communal harmony. Today, even the Sikh community feels it wants to separate from its Hindu brothers, and Christians and Muslims are encouraged to look down upon Hindus.
In the Indian media, there is a witch hunt against gurus, a deriding and mocking of Indian spirituality, a marginalizing of Hinduism and Hindus, who constitute the immense majority in India and are a billion worldwide, one of the most law-abiding, religious, educated, affluent communities in the world.
More and more, Indian television particularly, but also newspapers and magazines, are casting a look on India that is not only very critical (if you open any newspaper nowadays, you can only end up depressed), but which in its very nature is a Western look -- which judges India according to Western standards.
India's intellectuals defend an artist who paints one of the most revered ancient Hindu gods doing unmentionable things to a Hindu goddess. Someone who is part of a diabolical plot to kill Indian leaders and storm Parliament gets the benefit of the doubt from the same intelligentsia in the vision particularly, but also newspapers and magazines, are casting a look on India that is not only very critical (if you open any newspaper nowadays, you can only end up depressed), but which in its very nature is a Western look -- which judges India according to Western standards.
India's intellectuals defend an artist who paints one of the most revered ancient Hindu gods doing unmentionable things to a Hindu goddess. Someone who is part of a diabolical plot to kill Indian leaders and storm Parliament gets the benefit of the doubt from the same intelligentsia in the name of judicial correctness. Some Indians are more and more divided. Instead of feeling first Indians, they feel they are first Muslims and then Indians, first Dalits and then Indians, first Christian and then Indians. This is a dangerous trend and it spells the death of the minimum unified nationalistic pride that can take a country forward. Instead, Indians today take pride in melting abroad, or adopting a 'secular' creed, which basically makes them soul-less and identity-less, however brilliantly they ape the West.
As a foreigner who loves India, I feel that this blind copying of the West's ignorant and doubting mind, the aping of whatever is has proved wrong in the West - wild consumerism, or savage capitalism - will be a tragedy for India. The Westernization of India must not be at the cost of her culture and spirituality. Yet, there are signs that it is already happening here.
