Indian democracy

 

It is election time in India. The Loksabha election is around the corner. I am excited for different reason. I am 38 years old and it is the first time I am going to vote.  Yes first time I am going to vote. I have had a reasons, I hate Indian politics and Indian politicians. I strongly believed I am not or my vote, is not going to determine who has to go to Loksabha. I know some of them are not truly qualified to occupy the chair. In some of the cases it is all criminals to occupy the chair.

 

In India, it is curious case. The majority in the loksabha is decided by the people, who don’t have proper education, don’t understand economics and don’t understand how a civil society has to function. This is majority of India. They always choose the wrong candidates and send him to Loksabha. The same people who voted them to power are always at the receiving end. You should not blame these poor people because they don’t have choices. The other candidates are also bad. It is choice between the devil and the deep blue sea.

 

The only time you can see the vibrancies of Indian democracy is at the time of election, at the time of State Assembly election and at the time of Central Loksabha election. The election will be held on time, the counting will be done as soon as possible. The list of winning candidates will be prepared and the party will get the invitation to form the Government over night. The new Government is sworn in with lightning speed. Stop!!. Stop there itself. After that every thing can wait. Every thing will move slowly. Every thing has to move through the ‘red tape’ and take it own time. Our Government machinery will grind slowly.

 

The state machineries move fast only at the time of declaring the election result and forming the Government. I want the Government machinery to function at the same speed in all other important issues. But so far in my life time I have seen the Government has failed miserably. May be some exceptions are there. Exception is not the rule of the game.

 

Sometimes, I even feel, we people have the ONLY right to vote. Beyond that we have limited rights. Indian democracy works differently for different people. Indian democracy is an “imperfect democracy”. I wish to call it as, democracy without “discipline’. A “disciplined dictatorship” is a better form of Governance than democracy without discipline. China is good example.

 

Even I can go to the extend and say, If any body say India is biggest democracy in the world it is the fraud of the 21^st century. Even we can still go down and criticise or come down heavily on any thing. But only on ‘GENERAL’ issues. The word ‘General’ is more important. The issue should not hurt any body – any groups sentiment, any religious sentiment, any state sentiment and list goes on. There are always people in India who do nothing but to criticise. Even some of my critixes say, ‘hay, you are saying also those things and still not get prosecuted because, it is sign of democracy, in India only you can do this not in any other country’. Even my critixe go to the extend and say, it is because of people like me, the country is lagging behind.

 

I know the unwritten rule of this country. I know I can write like this hundred times and get away with it scathe free. Only some, the so called patriotic people pass on some comment. Now imagine this case. This country has lot ‘goondas’, criminals of different size and shape at different levels are there. Law breakers are there in Police, corrupt officials are there in all levels at the Government offices, Politicians are there, there are lot of people with money power and muscle power are there. We are living in a civil society. Suppose a ‘common men’ have a problem with any of these people – police, lawyers, politicians, people with money power, people with muscle power and the ‘common men’ wants to settle the issue “fairly”, never ever think of in your favour, there you will find the true Indian democracy. As long as ‘common men’ don’t have to rub problems with this people, they have democracy beyond that it is a different story.  In India you can’t even take your local errant MLA to the Police station and get justice.  You can’t fight with your local corrupt Police men and get things right. Common men don’t have time and energy to take on people with money power and muscle power. Most of the time law and justice are for this ‘special people’. Indian democracy works differently for different people.

 

Mother Tounge is the best .

Many of my friends and training partners think and some many ask why ‘I always used to speak in Tamil. Why not in English? Although I was from one the India’s best business school. In Tamil Nadu people usually prefer to speak in English rather then in Tamil. Even some times my best intuition tells, people themselves have the feeling of inferiority complex if they speak in Tamil. They don’t feel confident.

 

I know why people feel that way.  This context is also applicable to our culture – Indian culture. Language and culture cannot be separated. They believe the language Tamil is not up to the mark of English. Tamil has failed to deliver the economic growth. Our culture had failed to bring  in Industrial revolution. Many people think the western culture has contributed to their growth and economic prosperity. It is totally a wrong idea.

 

It is not the Language and our culture had failed to deliver. It is the people who suppose to deliver had failed to do so. The wrong people happened to occupy the right position and messed up things. The unfortunate thing is, it was happened and it is happening now also.

 

The world is vast and I happened to travel very little. I have seen very little places in this world. I have visited France, Germany and Japan. It is all my business visit. In France, although French people knows English, I have never seen during my stay any French people speak English in public. The funny thing is my business training partner knows English, but I spoke to him only in French. He refused to speak in English. OK then I say to myself, the French and English will not go together, because both of them are political rivals and want to have supremacy over Europe.

 

I moved on to meet my Germany training partner. He is also a Cross-cultural  management trainer. He trains German executives and managers about Indian culture and business practices. To my surprise, in his cabin, the book at the centre of the  display is “Bhagwat Gita”. The same book, the voice of Lord Krishna in the battle field of Kurashethra. He told me this book is his Guide. I thought it may be an extreme case and since he is training about India he may have this book. At that time his wife was admitted in the Berlin Maternity Hospital. I thought, I should meet her, because I spoke to her a couple of times over ‘skype’. We went to the hospital. A melodious music was going on through out the hospital. As soon as I heard that I was stunned and my feet got cold. The music is “Gayathri Manthram”. Gayathri Manthram in Germany maternity hospital. The doctor told me it is good for babies, even 3 month old foetus will respond positively to this marvellous wave frequency. The doctor surprised how in India thousand of years back you people have created this type of wave frequency. The world’s best and largest chemicals and drugs manufacturing country is using ‘GM’ ( not Genetically Modified) to produce better babies. Any Indians are there to listen ‘Gayathri Manthram’.

 

In Japan, the same story. Now a days more and more Japanese are studying management education in USA and Europe. Most of them knows English, although their English is poor. My training partner in Japan knows English. But for the first time we meet, he brought along with him a translator. I spoke to him in English, he understands, but to reply me he spoke in Japanese. The translator converts this Japanese into English. Only after 3 days, the business deal was successfully done, we went to O’chaya tea house for the night dinner, only over the ‘sake’ drinks he started speaking English.

 

I have learnt several lessons. After that who ever foreigners I meet for the business or for the friendship. I teach them at least 4 or 5 Tamil words. I am proud to say I wish to speak in my mother tongue. I don’t pretend and do in the class room and in the Training room also. I strongly believe there is nothing wrong in the language Tamil and the Indian culture. There is something basically wrong with the people (i.e us/we), who suppose has to deliver things but failed to do so.

 

We copy western culture along with English to shore up the shortfall. The result is India has lost lot of its originality. It is good or bad, the debate on the subject will never end. It is waste of time to debate.

 

If you take a close look, attitude is the first attribute (character) that made this Americans big. Rest of them is only a by product. We Indians copy rest of the things and not the American attitude. The driving force that is shaping the American attitude is their ‘Attitude Development Trainers’ (or you can call it ‘Personality Development Trainers). It is clear from the fact, Americans have largest pool of individual development trainers and authors. There is book for every body starting from Chicken soup to Fish, Seven Habits of Highly Effective people to Awaken the Giants, Rich dad and Poor dad to Think Big and the list of books is almost endless……….. Americans are the people have spent billions of dollars to listen to this speech and almost all the speaker have private jets to fly. These people are recession proof and always on demand.

 

Honestly, as a trainer I bought almost all the books and read it sincerely. It’s all excellent books and very well written. But it is not new to me. It is all already there in Tamil Culture and Tamil proverb. It is thought to me by my “Mother” as a quotes and proverbs in Tamil. I need not refer to “Athi Chudi” or “Thiru Kural” for this stuff.

I respect those American authors, but I am dared to challenge any body in this world, who have read those books to offer something new that is already not in Tamil Culture. The only difference is, in Tamil it is in ten lines and the same thing is in 500 pages in English. It is in the book and in the Newyork Times Best seller’s list.

 

For each and every attribute these authors give, I can give a matching or comparable or even better quote or proverb in Tamil. Take any concept, Principle of self Realization (know your strength & weakness), Attitude, Education or information…………… etc. The truth is we people let down our language and culture.

 

At last, before ending up I wish to quote an incident. One of my Japanese friend proudly told me about the concept behind the Japanese culture of ‘Bowing’. Bowing is called ‘Ojigi’ in Japan. Japanese prefer bowing rather than handshaking. Ojigi is an essential part of Japanese daily life. People bow when saying hello, thanking some one, apologizing etc. “Minoru hodo atama no tareru inaho kana” (It means, Young rice stalks stands upright, the mature grains bow low).

 

I told him………hara baba……..it is a Tamil proverb yyyyyyyyyyyaaaaaaaaaaaa!!!!!

 

It means ‘One gathers more knowledge in his head and mature, he lower his head because of humility’. It is in Tamil.