Why are Indians self-centered?

WHY ARE WE SO SELF-CENTERED

• A few youngsters were travelling from Shirdi to Pune in an SUV. On the outskirts of Pune the vehicle overturned and careered out of the road. It caught fire. One man got out and dragged another man to safety. The second man started calling passing cars for help even as the first man continued his efforts to drag some more to safety. Not one vehicle stopped in response to cries for help. The driver and two others were charred to death.

WHY ARE WE SO SELF-CENTERED

• Radhika Tanwar’s murder has drawn national ire. When the police were under attack for their inability to protect the lives of people and to arrest the culprit the Delhi Chief Minister asked a simple question — How is it that the students who were with Radhika at the time of the murder just did nothing to alert others for help? How is it that days after this ghastly murder not one had come forward to describe the murderer? What she really meant that we as citizens have also failed in our duty to reach out to each other and assist the authorities.

One can cite any number of instances when we have exhibited a total unconcern for fellow humans in serious trouble and just chosen to look the other way. This tendency is so pervasive — with many honourable exceptions — that I could not help but smile when the papers told us that our Prime Minister ‘looked the other way’ when A. Raja did what he is alleged to have done.

When I discussed this tendency with a few other people including sociologists they attributed it to the fear that people have of getting involved with the police. ’Kaiko khali pili lafde mein fasna’ is the Mumbai style of expression. I agree – based on personal experience — that the police are more than likely to ensnare the complainant than address the crime. But I have a hypothesis — it is the Hindu ethos that may be at least partially responsible for this indifference to other people’s plight and the other reasons trotted out are just the excuse we need to salve our consciences.

Why do I take this stance? In my view, Hinduism is a rare religion that:

- does not require you to attend any congregation routinely unlike Islam [weekly prayers at a mosque] and Christianity [Sundays at the church]

- does not authoritatively ask you to do unto others as you would have them do unto you

- does not authoritatively ask you to spare a portion of your income for the poor [tithing in Christianity and zakat in Islam]

- stresses on individual salvation [whatever that might mean]

- stretches individualism to such an extent that you can invent your own personal god, even as your family may have a different ‘favourite’ god [ishta devata] and each member of the family may have a different god for passing exams,[There is a temple and god for passing CA exams, another god and temple for obtaining green cards to the US], for getting married, for buying property, for making money, for winning a cricket match, the list is virtually endless.

I do however agree that Hindu texts make references to every possible elevating human value — after you can’t have 108 Upanishads, the Gita, The Ramayana, etc., collectively running into tens of thousands of pages, without covering the entire gamut of emotions. But at the end of it all what does the average Hindu carry in his mind – How can I make money? How can I acquire a visa to go to the US, how can I attain salvation? Hhow can I escape this cycle of suffering [I know people who consider not getting a green card to qualify as ‘suffering’] that I will be subject to. Witness the stress on I. It is this egotistic stance that may be the reason for much of Indian behavior, including our inability to function in a group.

How many of us ask – what can I do to help someone else escape from daily misery, someone worse off than I am?

You might have noticed how the likes of Bill Gates and Warren Buffet [both atheists incidentally] and many other billionaires elsewhere in the world have bequeathed a large part of their wealth to charity. But our billionaires are busy building the costliest home in the world and what an ugly monstrosity it has turned out to be. Again some of these Indian billionaires are doing great work for the poor — one of them is a Muslim!

An interesting observation is this — the same Indians are team workers when in foreign lands specially in the US, they actively participate in collective civic activities in their countries, donate money to charity etc. Obviously the culture of the adopted homelands affects them positively.

Before you take out your poison arrows, let me qualify:

- I do not wish to generalize. There are many examples of charity in India and selfishness elsewhere

- that people of many religions exhibit selfishness/selflessness in many instances

- that practitioners of many faiths have been extremely violent at times

One more point — when the environment changes, our behaviour may change.

SERIOUS STATUTORY WARNING: I PROFESS NO FAITH.

NOT YET SERIOUS WARNING: I MAY START A NEW RELIGION! ONLINE APPLICATIONS TO JOIN ME WILL BE ISSUED SOON. ALL CREDIT CARDS WILL BE ACCEPTED

K.R.RAVI

WWW.KRRAVI.COM

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