Delhi is shrouded in fog and the great ceremonial building, Hyderabad House, is shrouded in endless metres of white cloth! It looks bizarre when you drive past, all in the name of security. It has to be the most absurd and primitive way of isolating a building from public eye because what it, in fact, does is to make the property stand out like a sore thumb. The grand gates are hidden and the facade of the building distorted. This is our VIP venue. If only the VIPs themselves disappeared from public eye, India would be far more appealing. As one drives past, there is a huge traffic snarl because some stupid VIP with a light on top of his car and a siren blaring is desperately breaking road rules. What low egos and deep insecurity must envelop these people if they have to fall back on sirens and flashing lights to assert their importance.
At the next roundabout large banners welcome all those men and women who fled from India because this country did not give them the opportunities they were looking for. They were the renegades who abandoned this country with their energy and skills. They are now back, hailed by the government, for having made it good in another country instead of in their ?motherland?!
Those who remained and slogged it out despite the horrors of working in this country, are treated with scorn. There are no grand celebratory days planned for us Indians; there is no attempt to encourage entrepreneurship; no attempt to alleviate the trauma of having to deal with rapacious bureaucrats; no desire to remove the archaic rules and regulations that govern our everyday lives; no intention to get corruption that stems from political and governmental organisations off our backs…And we are expected to deliver the goods in this pathetic environment.
We ignore our own and applaud those that ran away from the sordid and untenable arena that India has become. I would like to see one major person of Indian origin set up business here, from scratch, specially in the service sector. They will go balmy within weeks, cut their losses and run.
When Dhirubhai Ambani broke all records and set up an international business in India, brought buoyancy to the Indian markets, he was attacked, abused and god knows what else by his fraternity to start with. I would rather celebrate those men and women of India who broke new ground here, worked hard for their success in the most trying and difficult of situations, than these PIOs/NRIs we are honouring today with all the accompanying tamasha.
They, having made it overseas, are now looking for their ?roots? and more importantly for fresh pastures to exploit, pastures that have not run dry. Their special status bequeathed to them by our rulers should make ordinary Indians in India realise that to run away is far better than to slog it out.
Is that not the signal?
Then, what is this ?nationalism? cry? Is it to garner vote banks that wallow in the mire that is India today? Is it a disrespect for the vulnerable and an attempt at trying to capture their imagination and support through this kind of jingoism? Have our leaders been convinced that since they failed miserably to deliver, honestly and with integrity, the only option is to pull their constituents together with neo-nationalism? An easy and hugely dangerous exploitative option.
So, the capital city is in the throes of welcoming the new ?brown? colonialist! For those who gave up their nationality, we are now giving them a prize ? dual nationality. Some are being applauded for sticking a tubewell in their ancestral village and covering a few open drains in the name of their forefathers. But what of those who left their ancestral homes and went to the villages of India to do the same and much more? Our desi poor sods are not hurrying back to New York and London with their additional passports and lucrative deals. They are here to roost. And, they are a forgotten lot.
Once this jamboree is over and the PIOs go home to their functioning habitats, we will be overwhelmed by our priorities of fending off the power cuts, the horrendous traffic and the corruption that destroyed our lives.