Why we are like this? Why they are like that?

Swadeque EK

When I saw the assignment topic, my mind was glands through my graduation period. I was staying with many of the foreign students there. We used to make debate on various topics which related with the same. Why Indians are like this? Why you are like that? Why you are not trying to be so and so? Why you are feeling these silly things are very valuable? Why you are not thinking these big issues are very silly? Some time it leads to became fight between some emotional guys. But it gave more impact on me to listen and understand the present situation and compare with other mode of expression. I felt that, some of them are very funny. Hear I like to discuss on various aspects of this issue like, what is the position of our culture? What are others stand? What are the reason for those differentiations and a comparison between east and west cultural conflicts?

India has very long history of value and cultural transformation. Some time we act as a cultural customer role and some time as a seller role. Unfortunately one among the cultural transformation forced us cultural hierarchy on our life. Really all of our activities have very close relationship with this hierarchy. According to Indian grate social writer Dipanger Guptha (2008) wrote in his book and one of the best sellers in Indian sociological books; Social stratification that, this hierarchy (like caste system) changes the way and values of our people. It puts non valuable thing as valuable and valuable to non-valuable. It was not a choice or selection but it was compulsion with non-reliable social criterion. Gupta told in the same book that, because of this non required hierarchy leads the people to think common as others. It has very close relation. Because, common properties are restricted to use only for the top level people. But the most of the people are not belongs to the top level. This condition compel them to think the common thing as the “others property”. Many of the issues of the article “why are we the way we are?” have link with this mentality. People, who are come out of this mentality, are not doing what the author discussed in the article. To have a change from this will take time. Gupta argued this activity as the questioning habit of the people. It means, they took spoiling public properties as revenge to the top levels. It is continuing in our country.

Another reason is simplifying mentality of the people. We have some rules and regulations to control and protect the public area. But the execution parts of those activities are the problem. We have zebra line on the road. People all know that the zebra line is to cross the road. Then, why the people from India are cutting the road in other place? Why the same person is not cutting the rode in gulf countries or Europe? This is the matter of roles are its execution. They have very good systems to execute the roles. Our political system is corrupted and same time supportive against taking action for guilt person. You can see our political leaders (who are the leaders and have very good participation in decision making) are smoking in public places. Much time they are the role models of the braking roles and regulations.

Education is another reason for these kinds of activities. The question of author, “How the Asian and Western think differently?” is not that much valuable. We can change this into “why the educated and non-educated think differently? Everywhere the educated people and others are different. We can take the examples of the east or west for good and bad. Restricting good for one part and bad for rest is worthless. We have the example of many western American countries are very poor, very hygienic, non-educated and whatever the author described we could see there also. One more thing we can add to this that the difference of education level of people. In India people who have more educated and non-educated are not having this kinds of issues. People who don’t have any education like tribal are protecting the common place as god. In India we have less educated people. They are not aware about the issues of this kind of mentality. So the comparison of the author on east and west is not proper to understand the issue.

I think we don’t want to restrict the question of the author with these issues. There are many think which we are thinking badly which they are doing. For example we can take relationship of the westerners towards the family and other people. Lora Blair (sister of Tony Blair and well known journalist) made a speech in Washington City in 2011 on this topic. She told that, “There is no any single family in Britain which I met in my life like an eastern family”. Why the people from the western are not very much close as we see in east context? Why the exploiting mechanism is more in western countries? Hear we can see the difference of our way of thinking and others way of thinking. Many of the western countries (now also) having the exploitation mentality. They are doing many things which affect the nature and all humanity at all. I am not telling we are right. We have to change a little to make beauty. But some of our writers are treating west as a modal. (I will discuss later what is there thinking). I have one example from my life. Once I went to my neighbour home to see him when he came back from hospital. I told this to my friend of USA. He laughs at me. Really they do not taste the psychological effects of those discussions on our heart. When we discussed and he understood the reality he likes our structure. In short we have our own mentality and they have their own mentality. Some of us are good and some of them are not good.

Hear the discussion of value conflict will come. It means some of us are thinking we are good. And others are treating others are good and modal for us. The same psychological phenomenon is going in all part of the world. The author suggested 12 points as the reason for Indian way of thinking. They are as follows. 1.Low trustworthiness, 2.Being privately smart and publicly dumb, 3.Fatalist outlook, 4.Being too intelligent for our own good, 5.Abysmal sense of public hygiene, 6.Lack of self-regulation and sense of fairness, 7.Reluctance to penalize wrong conduct in others, 8.Mistaking talk for action, 9.Deep-rooted corruption and a flair for free riding, 10.Inability to follow or implement systems, 11.A sense of self-worth that is massaged only if we have the 'authority' to break rules and 12.Propensity to look for loop holes in laws”. I did not think this are the problem of Indians only. But these are common for all. I heard many time the speech of many western and eastern people. They are thinking their way of life, politics, habits and norms and values are good and others are bad. This mentality of people are not good; whether they are from east of west. The mentality of acceptance is good than the mentality of ignorance and mentality of examining is better than the mentality of rejection.

There are big changes happening in the world along with the mind of the people. People are ready to change also. Many of the western people are interesting the eastern values. And many of the eastern are like western value. It means, people are ready to receive others in to some extent. But the transformation good to good will be good. Once we were heard of old care centre from the western part. Now we realized it. This value transformation is not good. We have to exchange good for good, not bad for bad. One more question is very suitable hear to ask. That is, why people are not ready to change the small kinds of things when they are ready to change big things; for example, the queue system, waste management and respect to the common and simple norms. We can go to some of the specific area. In our country many people are working for distributing the newspaper. But many of the gulf countries are not selling this directly. They will put one bundle of the newspaper with one coin box. People will take that and put the money on that box. Just imagine what will happen, if we put the same thing in our place. Queue system is another example. We could not see this system in many places where it is required like bus stop, hospital and shops. I am remembering the word of Sukumar Azhekode (one of the well-known speaker and he is treated as the Socrates of Kerala) “you will not see Indian in queue except two places; wine shop and cinema hall”. This is the concept which brought up. I am not ignoring the situation of our nation like railway station. Two of our general bogies of train are carrying more people than all other 15 bogies. If somebody is in queue he may not able to go. But this problem also can solve with a collective movement.

The answer for the question “why we are like this?” sometime goes to the development level and status of the country. In the same country the common practices in developed area will be different from the no developed area. People will respond at the aggressiveness of the development. Some of the cities which made by some industrialist for the commercial purpose is treated as good area and people are following local norms very carefully.

Many miss concepts are bonded in the heart of people is only because of lack of awareness. For instance, open defecation is very common in our places. Many of the people are thinking that making toilet nearby mess is (in home) is bad. That may be Pab (sin). But the same people will eat food from the hotel where toilet and kitchen will be nearby. These kinds of miss concepts are highly rooted with our community. Again it connected with the level of education of people.

Overall country’s development is also a matter for determining the value. Automatically people will think according to that. For example, one country has very neat and good road facility. Government is wiping and cleaning it regularly. Automatically people also will contribute that cleanliness. If the road is like our local road, people will not think it as a valuable thing. They will continue what others are doing. All of these factors and activities are highly connected with the psychology of the people. If we compel some people to do according to what we wish the result will not come. Along with making rules and regulations, we have to motivate people psychologically.

The following paragraph has to modify. “Cut to India. Impressive as the completion of the Konkan Railway or the Delhi Metro Railway have been, they pale in comparison to the Chinese projects, especially where implementation skills and political will are concerned. Consider the statistics. It took seven to ten years to complete the 760-kilometre Konkan Railway. As for the Delhi Metro, between 1950 and 1990, some thirty feasibility studies were carried out by various bodies to evaluate an alternative transportation system for Delhi. The final go-ahead came in 1990. Delhi Metro Rail Corporation Limited was established in 1995 and the first phase of eleven kilometres was completed in 2004. The eighteen-kilometre Calcutta Metro took a good twenty-four years to complete, from 1971 to 1995. In Bangalore, a flyover near the airport has been three years in the making, and is still going strong because the underlying soil was found to be shifty. Our new expressways, the Golden Quadrilateral included, are perennially in a state of half-finish. One or the other side of the throughways is being laid or else under litigation at any given time. It is common for us to see a part of a road dug up one fine morning. And it is equally common to see that road in exactly the same state even after we return from our summer vacation, when in most other countries such works are carried out practically overnight. Now that is what we mean by the 'Hindu rate' of doing things.

Naipaul puts it with some finesse when he says, 'Hindu morality, cantered on the self and self-realization, has its own social corruptions...' Is this special corruption then the answer to that 'Why'? I wish the genetic argument was the answer, for then we could wash our hands off any responsibility towards the way we are. If there is anything wrong with us, it is not our fault. We are simply like that only—genetically”.

It is very difficult to me to understand that, what is the relation between ‘Hindu rate’ and the topic. I hope he is also supporting the concept of the genetic transferring of the values. It is not an obstacle for the changing and receiving good things. We have different culture and alternatives.

The political system of our country is another problem of our nation. Political leaders are the paradigm for the corruption for others. This condition will make very aggressive negative impact on people on believing the values. Presently people are started to think that whatever impossible things are possible with bribery. This mentality should change. In my opinion everybody should ready to change. But that should be good for entire world.