India suffers from a congenital disease: it is about the bigness of our smallness: when it comes to anything, it is almost always self interest before national interest; when it comes to establishing things for the future, our horizon will be as long as we live whereas the Americans will plant seeds for many lifetimes. In politics, the situation is no different: we as an electorate are as small-minded as any can be: given the vagaries of our country, we will elect people on the most trivial of reasons rather than listen to any reasoned logic from that candidate as to why he or she wishes to be in public office: the state of our media is the same as well. Most editors and journalists are not keen on reporting the news: they wish to be the news themselves: look at most of our talk shows? The interviewer speaks more than the interviewee. And what is put on the table is again reflective of the small mindedness of our nation.
Any sociological study of this country will tell you the fundamental problem lies elsewhere. The problem is that there is so much of self-interest floating around that people just don?t care about what happens to the country. It is I for the individual and not I for India any more. Is this a common phenomenon around the world? Not at all. There are more Americans who dream the American Dream or for that matter more Israelis with each passing day who would die than give up Gaza whereas the situation here is slightly different. I just heard that Suresh Kalmadi stormed out of Rashtrapati Bhavan when he was not offered the appropriate chair during the felicitation of the our Olympic medal winners: now this is what I mean about the small-mindedness. He would be more concerned about this than getting India a seat on the high-table of medal winners across the world.
Bihar has been ravaged by floods thanks to the breaching of river Kosi so when the Prime Minister goes for an aerial survey along with Sonia Gandhi he needs to be accompanied not just by the state Chief Minister (whose every business it is to be there) but also by Lalu Yadav and his silly wife. Now this is what I call the small mindedness of our politicians: it is all about tokenism: showing they care when in reality they care two hoots. It was more important for the Lalu Yadavs of this world to be seen rather than actually do something about the floods.
Take a look at what has been happening in Kashmir: yet another example of our small-mindedness: we will prefer to have a month-long violent agitation over some silly tract of land rather than peacefully resolve matters: the grand-standing that our small-mindedness encourages is baffling to say the least. There is no question in my mind that it is the same brand of small-mindedness that we can see in a Mamata Banerjee in Singur. She is not fighting for the farmers. She is fighting the communists and in the process destroying all hope of any industrial revival in that state. But do you think she cares about the state at all? Not at all: for her winning the 2011 Assembly elections is more critical.
And examples such as these are not restricted to the media or the political world alone. Corporate India, which often pretends to be as holy as the driven snow, is no exception: they would all like to dominate Rich Lists but ask even one of them for some money for charity, and they will balk. India still does not have the heart to produce a Give List where we can see examples of philanthropy and large-heartedness and one Tata or an Infosys will not change the world alone. We need corporate India out in droves in this domain.
If you take the way we think; the manner in which we plan or for that matter the way we implement things, there is an underpinning of small-mindedness. We will build an airport and by the time it is ready, it will be short of capacity. We had the Delhi-Gurgaon connector which took forever to build and today, it is a testimony to our small-mindedness: chaos reigns and the traffic is an enduring mess. The Bandra-Worli Sealink in Bombay remains incomplete to this day and that is a private venture.
So the next time you want to brag about India?s new growth trajectory and its GDP and its new-found place in the comity of nations, try and give our small-mindedness a thought as well: very little will change for all of India if we don?t get rid of the smallness with which we look at life and our role in it. The bigness of our smallness needs to be wiped away rather than the millions of homes that sit beside river Kosi. That is the purging India truly needs.
?The writer is Managing Partner, Counselage