I do know about, although of course do not fully understand, some of the reasons behind this. And whatever conclusions that can be drawn, frankly (and in my opinion) are highly skeptical of the rich and powerful in any country, including my own.
The lower classes/castes are always led to believe that in some way, their circumstances are due to fate, or their own fault, whether that be due to what they’ve done in past lives or current lives. I don’t care how these narratives came about, it seems to me that wht really goes on is that the rich and powerful will do and say anything in order to cling to that wealth and privilege. And pretty much everyone, everywhere, uses religion as the vehicle for that oppression.
Because there is no a priori reason to assume that sprituality should entirely preclude physical cleanliness. Visiting ancient but functioning temples was an “honour” because I am very visibly not a hindu, and religious chauvinism can sometimes run pretty high. However, the temples were certainly open to tourists – I had to purchase tickets from the ASI (archaeological society of India) – a government of India organisation – in order to make the visits.
In that case, try going there before you pull the Polite-westerner-trying-to-undestand-an-exotic-culture (is there a single word or phrase for it?) act. Such “politeness” is extremely condescending to the very few Indians who are honest enough to openly acknowledge the flaws of their country and are trying to force a change. Regrettably, none of them seem to be posting here!
India is filthy, period. If you did not expect it, you are in for a real eyeopener. I do not, and so am shocked.
Sure. But you can see the river ganges without stepping in to it to bathe. Try seeing the sculptures, bas reliefs and freizes inside the temples without entering them. Much of the really good stuff is to be found inside them – mostly inside the ones that no longer functioning, I must add.
truthseeker2, what say you join the few people in your land who want to force a change, instead of screeching patriotic platitudes every time your nation’s flaws are brought up, eh?
Dear StJoan
India is filthy but India is beautiful as well. Way more beautiful, way more spectacular than filthy in my view.
Sorry, but for me, you are an immature person with hate/prejudice filled in her heart. Ofcourse, you are free to have and express an equally bad or worse impression regarding me.
Maybe it doesn’t matter, but all I wish atm is there is no feeling of mutual resentment/bitterness between us, I can say there is none from my side:).
So essentially, you gobbled down every little myth that your wealthy, Indian, in-law fed you, without questioning anything, right? Ask the squatters who live those “messy, tragic lives” if they find it “vibrant and beautiful”, and they’ll laugh at you to your face. The rich live surrounded by poor because:
(a) The poor, who are often illegal squatters, have no where else to go, or they may have been scammed out of the very land on which the wealthy society was built. Google for cites – land scams in India are a dozen for a penny.
(b) The pool of cheap labour (maids, servants etc.) comes from the slums. Unskilled labourers often earn barely a living wage, and can’t afford travel costs.
(c) As for the beggars, they are professionals. The Indian poor who could desperately do with your charity actually spend most of their time either looking for a job, or toiling away at one that pays just a little less than what is required to keep soul, body, and bodily excretions in their proper places at all times.
(d) The CASTE SYSTEM. This is where the culture part comes in. No other group of people have been so throughly indoctrinated in to believing that there is someone else who will clean up their shite, or that they were only born to clean up shite. Even now, there are night-soil lifters in India, who will physically carry buckets full of human excreta (without the aide of any protective material) to the dumping ground. They are designated as a caste, and have difficulty finding any other job. Fancy housing societies will employ a “zamadar” (janitor) to clean the bathrooms and toilets (God knows why they cannot clean it themselves!). Needless to say, the cleaner is an untouchable, and will even believe that it is his karma to remain so.
Dear truthSeeker2, If filth is beautiful, then why aren’t you raking in money as a conceptual artist yet? Or are you? :dubious:
Attitude like yours is the reason why India remains dirty. Please don’t fret over my mental state – I only suffer from the peculiar ability to say it as I see it. Most kind of you not to start a riot over it on SDMB.
For sake of the few, honorable Indians, who do want to live in a physically clean environment, won’t you join them and clean up your land?
I am aware of points A, B, and D. I didn’t launch into a sociological discussion because I’m not qualified to interpret what I’ve experienced, as a tourist, and for a very brief period of time.
I assume that most reasonable people would understand my use of the term “beautiful” to encompass the landscape, as in, “Wow, the Taj Mahal is spectacular” and not “look at the beauty of that man taking a dump in the corner over there.” If this was NOT generally understood, then my bad, and my sincere apology.
I am aware of point C, and understand that this happens, but am EXTREMELY skeptical that it is as widespread as my rich relatives would like to believe. I saw kids with stick thin appendages and bloated bellies, and though I am not a doctor, can be reasonably certain that this is a hallmark of extreme starvation. I may perhaps believe the widespread “syndicate” stories if they weren’t being told by people with full bellies and with obvious contempt.
My own contempt is not aimed at India, or Malaysia (where my husband is actually from, and where the rich relative I described above lives), or Japan, or Canada, or the U.S., etc. It was aimed at the narratives that often spring up from religion/spiritualism. The explanation for poverty in India varies by large degrees than what we believe in the U.S., for example. But scratch beneath the surface of ‘CASTE’ or rub the polish from “BOOT STRAP ETHICS” and arrive at a similar conclusion: The poor are poor because it is their fault.
Finally, yes, I am privileged and would be viewed as obscenely wealthy by a squatter, slum dwellar, beggar; and given that space is not a premium luxury where I live, my home is by comparison a mansion. I even understand your contempt, though I am not sure what your angle is.
But spare me any explanation like #C as residing in any kind of reality for why poor people beg. And don’t bother with expanding on #D if it results in anything other than an excuse for the rich to stay rich and comfortably so while watching, literally watching, small children sleeping by themselves in gutters. And acknowledge that although you may not agree with one damn thing I may have to say about the subject (and that’s fine), I am allowed to have an INFORMED opinion, with the disclaimer that I’ve acknowledged about not being immersed in the culture, and as such, I don’t deserve the vitriol.
There is absolutely no disputing that the children in question are malnourished. Nearly 50% of Indian children are underweight, if not outright malnourished. But if you are labouring under the illusion that a coin (or even an unopened packet of biscuits) dropped in to their hands will fill their bellies, think again. It will go to their gang masters, and the kid will stay malnourished. Otherwise, who will take pity on him the next time? If you want to do them any good, then make sure that they actually eat that food. Or better still, grab one by the hand and take him/her to the nearest balwadi, or its equivalent.
Good grief! Drop this pretentious umbrage, will you? It is you who were making excuses for India (vibrant and messy and beautiful and tragic lives – what a romantic view of soul-wrenching poverty!) not me. The caste system is convenient religious conditioning for the rich, and a ludicrous, unrelenting, demand of unconditional piety for the poor – just like the church in the middle ages, except that was then and this is now – no excuse at all!
Acknowledge that yours is an OPINION (informed or otherwise), and that others are allowed NOT TO AGREE with it – especially if they can repudiate the statements made therein with facts. If my response seemed “vitrolic”, that is unfortunate, but then, in your OP, you come across as an apologist for the absolute pathos that the lives of very many Indians are, and I find that quite offensive.
[QUOTE=StJoan]
In that case, try going there before you pull the Polite-westerner-trying-to-undestand-an-exotic-culture (is there a single word or phrase for it?) act. Such “politeness” is extremely condescending to the very few Indians who are honest enough to openly acknowledge the flaws of their country and are trying to force a change. Regrettably, none of them seem to be posting here!
India is filthy, period. If you did not expect it, you are in for a real eyeopener. I do not, and so am shocked.
[/QUOTE]
Haha, I found your problem! You think being a polite Westerner trying to understand someone else’s culture is an ACT that one puts on, instead of just common sense.
I missed an op to go to India. I got fired from the job that was going to send me. But when I THOUGHT I was going, I damn sure educated myself on the place. Claiming the excuse of “if you don’t expect it, you are in for a real eye opener. I did not” doesn’t cut it.
One of the bosses that went to India on a regular bases was a great friend of mine. He was originally from Israel, and raised in the poorest part of Argentina. When the other bosses tried to tell me about India, it sounded just like your post. When my friend told me, he managed to brace me for the differences in cultures in a way that did NOT make him sound like a pompous asshole. I really find it funny that one thinks it is condescending to realize and understand that other countries have a very DIFFERENT set of problems than we do, without letting stuff like “...Poverty may force millions to defecate in the fields, or on the road side. But what prevents them from at least digging a hole and filling it up as they go, instead of leaving out their stools to dry in the sun, or to disintegrate in the monsoon waters (and swirl around the feet of hapless pedestrians during the inevitable waterlogging)? ?” rattle off my clean, sanitary laptop. Get outta here with that. I don’t have to go to India to know I would never come back here to speculate such a thing, not knowing a damn thing about what it’s like to live there in those conditions.
“Romantic view of soul-wrenching poverty” … Who the bloody HELL do you think you are? Where do you get off, you judgmental fool? What you presume to know about me is certainly NOT to be found in what I’ve written here, which were general observations about the country AND about the ever-present poverty, AND everything that I’ve written is factually correct to the point of being outright pedestrian. Pick up a “Travel India” pamphlet, my words are probably written right in there.
I do not share my feelings, not personally, and not even on an anonymous message board, about how I am still at times HAUNTED by things I have seen, not just in India but across Southeast Asia, and I do not share those feelings in part because I am very much aware that I am an outsider, and that many insiders can and do confuse these feelings with apologism and ignorance.
It is a disgrace that India does not take care of Indians. It is an atrocity that signs of development and progress and new classes of wealth and privilege are springing forth everywhere you look, but within that very same vision are children sleeping on sidewalks, elderly and disabled people huddled in stairwells and on busy streets, gaunt mothers stumbling around with glassy-eyed babies and starvation-bloated toddlers clinging to their saris. And they are just … ignored! Slapped away by locals, if they dare venture too closely. I knew better than to give money. It broke my heart not to, to see such need, and to keep my eyes carefully averted and to walk quickly away. I knew that I would be flocked, and that even if I emptied my entire bank account, it wouldn’t be enough, not even for a day in the endless parade of days and masses of needy. And I know that poor Indians exploit poorer Indians, that syndicates exist, that some shrewd women rent babies to lug around. I just do not believe that this is anywhere close to the whole truth, and is mostly just stories that wealthy Indians in a position to actually, you know, HELP… will tell each other so they can remain comfortably entitled.
Finally, if you don’t welcome outside opinions, perhaps you should close your borders to tourists and our tourism dollars.
I have been married to an Indian man for 20 years, and we have an adopted 6-year-old Indian son. I am not uninvested or misinformed. I do make a concerted effort to inform myself, even if these are for purely selfish reasons, in that I love my husband and my son, and to get to this 20+ year point of our rather successful intercultural relationship, it is no stretch to imagine that I am curious without the morbidity, invested in learning, and able to flex and compromise around the worldviews and the uniquely American values that I grew up with.
In the rush to be super aware of all the horrors of India, I would hope that people realize that many Indians have times of joy and happiness. It is human nature to find a way not matter what, to adapt to fucked up situations, and to try to have the best life you can regardless of circumstances. Yes, even the poor aren’t constantly just miserable.
I spent a few years living in the Philippines, and many of my neighbors lived on only
$1 or $2 a day, and their homes were made out of trash.
But, on a day to day basis, they sometimes seemed happier than many people in wealthier Western countries.
Sorry, Simple Homer. I was taking a snide aim at StJoan, having nothing to do with your post (which is something I have observed too).
And as for happy … well, I’m content. Watching my son play “Monsters vs Aliens”; he insists that I sit and watch and checks to ensure that I am every now and then. Bored, and thankful for my discreetly small phone and an Internet connection One day soon he will be altogether indifferent to my presence, so I try to enjoy these little moments.
One day soon he will be altogether indifferent to my presence, so I try to enjoy these little moments.