I can understand how someone born or raised in North America would be unaware of Indian culture & heritage. But when a Hindu who moved to the US as a 25 year old, pretends that they don’t know the name of the “elephant God” or says they’ve forgotten their mother tongue – after spending 10 years abroad, I feel like puking.

Luckily, such people are not a majority.

What you say about people realizing their duties, thru goading (instead of coercion) from the govt, thru education, thru a better standard of living – this is what has happened in many of the developed nations. And it is totally understandable that all decent people want to pursue this course.

I asked a friend of mine this question: In Western countries, the culture of people grew alongside their economy, slowly & steadily. In parallel, their political systems grew. Asian countries have been mired in the dark ages. So, naturally they are not mature enough to understand democracy or their rights & duties in the changed world. So, how long should we wait for the East to pick up steam?

Now, should we wait for people to grow up slowly & steadily to understand that they can’t – to give a simple example – litter the streets or spit on them? Trickle down culture is as bad as trickle down economics. It works, but takes hell lot of time.

What if we are in a hurry? I have no patience. Should I wait for 100 more years for Indians to slowly get it that they should be responsible? Or, tell them that I’ll fire them & throw them in jail if they take even a 10 Rupee bribe? That way, I may see a changed India in 10 years.

Maybe I admire Lee Kuan Yew & Mustafa Kemal Ataturk because I’m iron-fisted myself. Granted, I’m nowhere near as capable or as brilliant as them. But I’m blunt, irreverent & mercilessly no-nonsense – so their fast-track plan truly appeals to me.

Granted, one cannot equate China and Singapore. However, I was intent on talking about HR and the balance with “progress”.

As for realisation of ones duties, it is something that must come from within. In a scenario where people are free to do anything, unless each one does his/her duty, society will collapse into anarchy. It either rights itself or topples. The duty of the people who are willing to ensure that society builds on itself and doesn’t descend into chaos, is to ensure that the government does what is required. Goad, not coerce is the ideal motto but its upto the people to take it up and ensure that their way of life is continued. If they are not concerned about looking beyond their own noses, then not much can be done. You may argue that as someone who is a part of the whole thing, I do not wish it to end up that way, then its upto you to make others realise their fault. How you do that, be it by mass education or whatever other means.

If you take a look at recent election results, it might have some co-relation. However, they are in general a result of multitudes of concurrent issues. As general literacy grows and exposure is gained by the people, they tend to demand more of their own representatives and start looking beyond their immediate needs and constraints such as caste/religion etc. Now as this grows, you’d have better representatives and hence better progress. This would come about when the people have no other distraction in their daily lives, be it interference by the govt or terrorism!

Think i’ve gone off on a tangent here. Anyway, read it fwiw.

In India, the bigger problem is not imposing the laws that we already have. Its a dysfunctional anarchy. I’ll be very glad if punishments are meted out without undue delays in the creaking law & order machinery in our country.

And I’m sorry – I didn’t strip you off your Indian citizenship I thought you were either an American citizen or a resident. And as a person living in a developed nation, you focus more on human rights – a noble thing to do, but still a pipe dream in the developing world.