Indians take great pride in assimilating with the locals - wherever they are. That is of course a great trait. It has proven to be extremely successful in establishing Indians as very successful across the globe. But the problem arises when this cultural adaptation morphs into a denial of your own greatness.
This "cultural grooming" sometimes metamorphoses into an acknowledgment of the superiority of the people that the Indians are adapting to. A simple examination of "American born desi kids" testifies to the veracity of this statement. Most kids of Indian origin in America take great pride in not knowing any other language except English. To add insult to injury, some of them great pride in learning "foreign" languages such as Spanish, French or German all the while oblivious to the glories of their own Indian mother tongue.
Nothing turns me off more than to see an America-settled Indian family with the kids coming in with their curt hellos, their insufferable loose Cargo shorts or Jeans that expose more body than they conceal. Many of them "tolerate" me pretty well but make no secret of their superiority. This is a typical western trait too. I was talking to a colleague at work in America the other day while we were traveling. She was quiet for a while. Then she got into a conversational mode and started inquiring whether I originally am from the middle east or India. She said that she likes different cultures because it improves her outlook. She is forced to become more global in today's outsourcing world. Of course without the outsourcing compulsion, there is no need to know about anyone else because she already has the best in her own country or probably even in her own gubernatorial neighborhood - she did not say those exact words but the implication was obvious. Why was it obvious? Because she kept using words such as quaint, "kinda cool and different", and euphemisms of that sort to cloak her feeling that it was all weird and not worth knowing but it is good to get that perspective so she can deal with her Indian cliente and understand their weird perceptions. The funny thing is that quite the opposite is true - Indians are the ones who understand Americans and are right at home with the American points of view even if they dissent from them. Anyways, I was wanting to tell this woman that her tolerance was more obnoxious than her ignorance would probably be.
But I guess that we have been trained well by our Feudal masters. Our history has been taught to us by the British. We learnt the ways of our forefathers from the Europeans. I goto a book shop and I see in the spiritual section all the great translations of Indian spiritual literature by Max Mueller. Max Mueller has been acknowledged as one of the greatest contributors to Indian spiritual tradition. But it has been forgotten that he was the one who said that “The Vedas are just a mixture of jumble-mumble”. Hence even our knowledge of ourselves has been taught to us by Westeners!! We learn their habits, ape them and feel superior as a consequence to our more native counterparts. This acknowledgment of Western objectivity as superior to the more Brahmanical spiriturality has thus been ingrained in us for a few generations now and it is hard to shake it.
The few people who questioned it such as the Great Aurobindo Ghosh have been relegated to the sidelights. It is more mainstream to negate our ancients and acknowledge the usurpers. I am definitely not a fanatic nor do I advocate violence for past deeds but I do believe that India can only raise and shine if she understands her own glory and takes pride in it.
We will talk about more in other articles.
