The latest fiasco at the Vidhan Soudha involving certain "XXX" ministers opened a floodgate of criticism. And a serious matter it is too. There is a place and time for everything. But surprisingly, the emphasis of all the criticism seems to be the video in question rather than the unabashed display of contempt towards the proceedings in the House. It just makes me wonder whether they would have gotten away with watching a movie or a cricket match.
In my view, sleeping during proceedings (a favorite pass-time of namma ex PM), vulgar language etc are just as serious. Only in India can we ignore everything negative that is prevalent in our society and take a very hard stand on the vices that we're not familiar with. Pornography is as real a component in our society today as smoking and drinking and we very conveniently turn a blind eye to the latter two.
Are we becoming a nation of hypocrites? We, who in microcosm live quite amicably with our choice vices, fall on certain things alien to us and brand it "Anti-Indian Culture".
Modern India is facing a race-culture issue.
It will be fun to see the subtle developments in our society in the coming years.
Is it essential to continue our rigid stand or should we just accept what our society is becoming (the positives and the negatives)? Can we possibly turn our backs to and stop the tide of (the quite stupidly tagged) western influence and preserve the (quite unbelievable and apparently) Utopian society of the India of the past ages?
One thing is for sure. Our outlook on society is as outdated as the textbooks our school-kids study. Both need some serious updation.
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The biggest handicap of us Indians is that we fall back on our history too easily. So in the end, while the Americans and Japanese are working hard and churning out research papers, many of us Indians are busy being proud of our "Indian culture". What is important to note is that culture is constantly evolving; What happens today becomes part of tomorrow's culture.
ReplyDeleteAbout the scandal itself, there was a column by Chetan Bhagat in TOI today, in which he writes that the more the establishment criminalizes anything and everything enjoyable (in which Bhagat includes Alcohol, Porn, etc), the more ways people find to circumvent the restrictions. Liquor is banned in Gujarat, illegal liquor business is flourishing there. Heavy taxes are imposed on movie tickets: people download pirated versions. I don't mean to suggest there's some complex reverse psychology at work, its just plain economics. In the end, the nation becomes a country of liars and hypocrites. That's what Bhagat says
All in all it all sums up to the fact that those proceedings cost! so watching porn at our cost is not justified!
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