It was blistering hot as I lay on the deckchair, in a beach somewhere in the country, and like all Indians, was happy to have the large umbrella protecting me from the harsh sun blazing overhead. But, not the middle-aged white couple next to me. They seemed to be enjoying the sun, albeit a little grumpily as I soon found out, when I turned to them, smiled and asked how they managed the heat so well.
The man scowled, the woman smirked and in a language I soon realized was Russian, said something and both laughed.
Very unfriendly, right here in my own country! Later I found, the Russians had their own community, own newspaper, and had made a mini-nation of their own, with their own rave parties, drug scenes and lifestyle in a country not theirs!
They cocked a snook at what the rest of us thought of them. The Russian-Ukrainian invasion reveals the same.
Hitler’s invasions and holocaust said the same. ‘We can’t be bothered what you think!’
And sadly, we in our country follow this insular method: Instead of visiting other nations to get to know their people and cultures, we travel in groups, mix with only ourselves, take our cook along to continue tasting our masalas, click hundreds of pictures before the Statue of Liberty, to tell our friends we’ve been there, without knowing what it stands for, and come back knowing nothing more about the world outside, then before we started off.
Our clever politicians have realized this, and are now cashing in on this attitude of ours; instead of raising our standards to shine to a world outside, they cater to our desi tastes and tell our people, ‘be what you are, how you are, it doesn’t matter!’
‘No, it doesn’t matter if we are ranked the 156th corrupt country. It doesn’t matter if they say journalists are being suppressed here. It doesn’t matter if they say fundamental rights are slowly disappearing as protestors are booked for sedition!”
But it does, as Germany soon found, and Russia will also find out.
Votes may come aplenty by assuaging our people to be as they are, and in North Korea and even in Russia, with people not knowing opinions of the world outside, they believe what is told to them.
Today, through the internet and certain bold media, we still have some freedom to see rights that are disappearing. That in a democracy, we need not be afraid to speak out, that the politician is not a ruler but a servant to his people, that the law and Constitution are more powerful than votes. That we can eat what we want. That data and facts should not be fudged.
But till we realise where we are headed, we like those tourists on the beach will look at each other and laugh, not realizing by being insular, we will soon be the laughing stock of the world…!

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