Indians claim ne person remotely connected to India as "Indians". Please stop. Its infuriating. Laxmi Mittal is a Brit. Period.It turns out that Laxmi Mittal is in fact an Indian Citizen and a lot of people wrote back. Some people agreed, some didn't. I agree that I didn't verify it (how I could have is a separate thread) and I apologize for that. Now, I wish to go beyond that particular instance and try and convey my feelings on this matter. I am sure some would agree and some won't but that's fine.
I feel that every community and nations needs role models. These role models become more important, because our society, unlike many developed ones, tend to create many hurdles for its citizenry and hence trying to achieve anything becomes a matter of "despite of" rather than "because of". And in times when the hurdles tend to magnify, you want to have role models to indicate that if they could, so could you. Isn't this why we were all fed on the greatness of various achievers?
Nothing wrong in this approach, but we need to analyze who we want to keep as Indian role models. There are various kinds of achievers who come to mind (please don't get down to judging the examples I take, but look into the spirit of the categorization):
- Somebody who is an Indian Citizen, Indian resident and pretty much practiced their wares in India. e.g. Ratan Tata, Sachin Ramesh Tendulkar, Dr. A P J Abdul Kalam.
- Somebody who is an Indian Citizen and a resident abroad, but their success can be attributed back to having studied or worked in India, at least partially. e.g. Indra Nooyi.
- Somebody who gave away their Indian passport, but still has gained significantly from having been an Indian previously. e.g. M F Hussain.
- Somebody who is an Indian Citizen, but much of their success can be attributed to their living and practicing their profession abroad. e.g. Laxmi Mittal
- Somebody who is not an Indian, and their success cannot be associated with Indian Society or Indian past. e.g. Aravind Adiga
- Somebody who was never an Indian, but their parents or grandparents were. e.g. Bobby Jindal.
My personal feeling is that we should be creating our role models based on the first 2-3 categories. Fourth is a doubtful category, but fifth and sixth are definitely out of reach. Yet our media routinely includes role models from any category and portrays them all in one light.
For our nation to move forward, we need more victories of the first kind, not the fifth or the sixth kind. There will always be Aravind Adigas and Bobby Jindals who will succeed and lets wish them the best, but what we should aspire for, and inspire, should be Dr. APJs, SRTs and Ratan Tatas.
I hope I have managed to convey the spirit of my earlier tweet and I apologize once again for hurting people's feelings over Laxmi Mittal's citizenship.
3 comments:
As a people, we are quick to claim credit for anyone that has even a remote Indian connection. I've heard people talk about how Chanderpaul is an indian (I'm serious!!!). I agree with you that that is ridiculous. However, I don't see why we should restrict our role models to lists 1 to 3. I think people who break used the whole world as their stage, if anything, are better role models. I'd be happy if national boundaries become irrelevant except as a minor detail.
George Orwell was born in India, grew up in Burma, and probably lived in England for some time. All those are fascinating pieces of information. What really matters is that he wrote some masterpieces. What do we gain by arguing whether he is English or not?
In one sense I'm agreeing with you, that claiming the indians in the billionaire list is petty. On the other hand, I'm not sure I understand why you should be giving it so much importance.
Deppe: I have no problem with celebrating the success of anybody (George Orwell included), but just not as Indians. The whole patriotic fervor kicked up by calling somebody "Indian" has to stop.
A role model can be anybody, but if you want to connect them to India (An Indian this or that), then they must have something to do with India. That's all.
A society has to be judged by how right or wrong it is, and is willing to be. Claiming something thats not ours is immoral, even for the purpose of inspiration.
@Shreeni: Having someone as a role model is left to individuals. When media gives us the list of top ten richest people, its primarily showing us people who in some way are at the peak of success. I'd like to believe that mentioning their country and other details is to educate us with their identities and their stories of success. What inspires me the most is the way someone has achieved so much rather than his citizenship.
Yes,connecting them to our country and feeling proud unnecessarily is wrong. When you are talking about how someone has contributed for his own country, restricting to lists 1 to 3 would be fair but when I talk of role models, nothing can be a barrier!
Post a Comment