Superb analysis. Frequently people in India take this negative publicity as 'deserving' by India. They say that things pointed out by such publicity are actually true. What they miss is that the focus is almost always exclusively on the negatives of India. If someone forms his opinions on the basis of this kind of repoting, then he will surely see Indians the way Paul Henry-or-whatever sees it.
Yes, India has several negatives. But which country doesnt? If we have the intent to find negatives, then we can find them in every country and use them to portray the country unfairly. If the reporting is not balanced(for whatever reasons, be it routine scourn for Indians, be it agenda driven, or be it just ignorance), then such reporting needs to be taken to task. China does it quite effectively. Of course, it goes to extremes some times. But we have gone to the other extreme and are allowing every tom, ****, and HENRY to malign our nation.
Well, it is the job of Indians to point out these mistakes. If some foreigner is doing it for us, then we should work towards making at least one dirty road intersection clean, cleaning at least one wall in the city or painting at least one ramshakle bus-stop in our neighbourhood. It doesn't cost too much if the people in a locality come together to do that.
Do we do things like that? I haven't seen this among Indians. I have seen many Americans using a few hours of their weekends picking up litter from their neighbourhood.
We have every
right to be proud of our cricket team, our space program, our rich culture. Similarly, it is our
duty to be ashamed of our negatives as well.
Whatever China is doing, they are doing. However, simply hiding the harsh reality of China isn't really going to remove the reality.
The reality is a reality and it will remains so; albeit hidden from global cognisance.
If Paul Henry called Sheila Dixit as '
D*p-S**t', he was totally wrong and has shown that he himself is uncultured. However, if he were to say that '
Indian trains travel on s**t' (yes, we
deserve it), I will be one of the first persons to stand up and support him, because it is my (and everyone's) duty to stand up for the truth.
Let us not get carried away by
patriotic jingoism but be patriotic enough to
clean up our own mess,
if we truly love our country.