‘Incredible India’ is the tagline or theme of India’s drive to attract tourism. It is a tag that has multiple uses of course. It is a call for pride in nation. It is also made for jingoistic hurrahs. What is ‘incredible’ though and what is incredible (or credible) about India, I wondered.
The word is derived from ‘credible’, i.e. ‘capable of being
believed’ or ‘plausible’. It refers to
things that are worthy of confidence; things that are reliable. Incredible, being the antonym, means ‘so
implausible as to elicit disbelief’ or ‘astonishing’. I think the impression that India is trying
to create is that it is an out-of-this-world kind of nation and experience and
therefore the most alluring tourist destination for those want to see and
experience something that’s sorely missing in their respective worlds.
I am sure that a country as vast as India is naturally
endowed with many treasures that people from different parts of the world would
never have seen and as such would be duly amazed by. It is a country that has a history, has
diversity of people, language, culture, literature, music and religious beliefs
and attendant customs and rituals, all of which are of the ‘out of the world’
kind as far as the random visitor is concerned.
There are other things ‘incredible’ about India.
India is essentially a product of a gelling that occurred
consequent to invasion and withdrawal by the invader. It is incredible that it has not broken into
its consequent parts, therefore, especially considering there are 123
secessionist movements. Peasant
insurgency is on the rise and various groups are now active in 220 districts in
20 states, covering almost 40% of the country’s geographical area. The Centre does not talk about such things,
but deals with these issues in ways as brutal as those practiced in Kashmir.
It is incredible that India, in the name of democracy, has
killed or tortured over 250,000 Sikhs over the past 14 years.
It is incredible that India, even while lobbying to obtain
permanent membership in a restructured UN Security Council, strutting around as
a ‘First World’ aspirant with a healthy growth rate and endowed with nuclear
capabilities, is saddled with close to 450 million people who are illiterate
(37% of the population), with more than a quarter of the people living in
abject poverty. Under 5 mortality stands
at close to 70 per 1000 live births.
It is incredible also that India, with so many skeletons in
its cupboard thinks fit to fish for non-existent skeletons in other people’s
cupboards. India, endowed with
traditional knowledge on a vast range of subjects including medicine, and
indeed having acquired the latest knowledge and technology in the matter of
treating illnesses, seems so reluctant to take the medicine it prescribes for
others, Sri Lanka for example.
It is incredible that India wants Sri Lanka to investigate alleged human rights abuses while
happily disregarding all protocols pertaining to dealing with dissent
(including protests and violence) and in treating detained suspects.
Can Manmohan Singh, Sonia Gandhi, S.M. Krishna, Shivshankar
Menon, Nirupama Rao et al honestly say they are not being two-tongued when it
comes to Sri Lanka? Are they not
tongue-tied in Geneva on the moves to destabilize Sri Lanka and turn back the
achievements with respect to separatism and terrorism, because they are worried
about regime change back home after the key ally of the Congress Party got
booted by Jayalalitha? Isn’t it true they have to make sure that the lady is
kept happy by pandering to the anti-Sri Lankan mafia, cajoled, hoodwinked
and/or purchased by the riffraff rump of the LTTE, a dreaded terrorist group
which by the way India armed, trained and funded? Or is it because India wants to be on the
good books of the USA, UK and the EU in light of Security Council
aspirations?
India is an incredible country for many reasons. It is
pretty pedestrian too, as countries go, when it comes to double standards,
double-speak, pointing fingers at the mote in someone else’s eye while doing
nothing about the beam that blocks its political vision.
India must do what’s best in India’s interest. If India
wants to remain a thug in the eyes of Sri Lanka and other countries in the
region and doesn’t really care for their opinion, that’s fine. The problem is that while such a course of
action would serve the Congress Party and its corrupt and self-serving
politicians, it will not automatically yield nation-resolve in that
country. The 123 secessionist struggles
will not end. The peasants will not stop revolting. Poverty will continue to
scar opulence, and roadsides will remain as lavatories even as visitors marvel
at all the other ‘incredible’ things that are part and parcel of ‘India’.
In credible Sri Lanka, we will cheered Sachin Tendulkar and were
sad the day he hung up his cricketing gear. In credible Sri Lanka, we are amused
by Sonia Gandhi’s ignorance and S.M. Krishna’s arrogance, amazed at India’s
‘friendship’ claims, and we suffer the consequences that those who have
integrity and self-respect must undergo when faced with storms beyond their
strength. I am certain we will not panic
as a nation, for we know that time is longer than life and a nation that was
self-made and not pieced together by an invader does not have to deal with the
burden of self-doubt.
The serendipitous don’t shout. They live. For
centuries. They don’t have to claim
incredibility. That’s for the arrogant
and arrogance, ladies and gentlemen is typical of the ignorant, the inferior
and those lacking in substance.
msenevira@gmail.com
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