Jingoism?..pure stupidity ?...or both?

" You've got a new message " reiterated the unknown person living in my cell phone for the umpteenth time that night. it was the same night that india has won the world cup. every new message seemed like a predictable sequel to its predecessor. The first one read " bolo bharat mata ki jai " this was followed by " jai bolo bharat mata ki " which was succeeded by " Bharat mata ki jai ". All of a sudden bharat mata was dancing on every indian lip like a long forgotten model who has hit the limelight again with a skimpy bikini shoot. and then came this message which made me a bit uneasy. " Now the whole world is at the feet of india ". For a moment the world cup win eluded me and i wondered if the sender misplaced the words " India " and the " World ". So, i looked again and read it twice before realizing that the sender has really meant what he typed. and then i sympathized with his delirium. This might be the first time that he was actually watching an Indian captain lift the world cup apart from you tubing the glorious moment from 1983.

If i had been what i was a few years ago I'd have hit back at him with an equally stupid message like " Hamara paav ke neeche yeh duniya " ( The world is underneath our feet ). Over the years i developed a rationale process of thinking.


What hit me hard in that message is its sheer arrogance in proclaiming ourselves supreme. and this would be an irritant to the ears of a person with even an ephemeral knowledge of our growth over the years. India in the 17th century accounted for 23 percent of the worlds income which was just 0.3 percent less than that of europe. and in the 50's it had come down to lees than 3.8 percent..Plundering of our wealth by the british might be one of the foremost reasons for this but these figures doesn't bring to mind someone with the world at her feet. do they??.

Let us restrict our argument to the post independent india. With the departure of british from india. people thought that would be the last anyone would ever hear of the word poverty in india. we switched to socialism and condemned the export orientation policy of the british branding it as being anti- indian. our policy makers have actually mocked neo-colonial puppets like korea, singapore and taiwan for encouraging a export oriented market and where did all this get us today?. India today has more than 320 million ( with this number increasing faster than the molecules produced in nuclear fission ) people below the poverty line which is higher than the entire population in 1947. our per capita income today is 340$. that of singapore is 27000$, korea 13000$ and taiwan 9000$. this is just the tip of the ice berg.

" So the next time you type out messages like these. stop to think twice before you hit the " send ". Not that this is an unpardonable sin but lying to ourselves about ourselves would only exacerbate the situation....