India
Are you proud to be an Indian?
If you had to substantiate in a 10-minute argument that India is a great country, what would you say?
I was frantically trying to finish my presentation for tomorrow, when my Polish colleague decided he needs to know more about India, and that too, NOW. The usually peace loving person that I am, I found myself entrapped in an argument and I don’t even remember how a friendly discourse had turned into a heated argument. Maybe it was because I was caught off-guard or because I was half distracted with my work or because it was well past my normal working hours, but I could manage no more than -
1) We are the country with the biggest and most successful democracy in the world.
2) We are the country which invented 0.
3) We are one of the earliest civilizations in the world, with unparalleled contributions to literature and philosophy such as the Vedas, Gita, Mahabharata and Ramayana.
4) Unity in Diversity - We are a land of diverse cultures, languages and traditions which co-exist peacefully and have a single nationalistic identity.
5) We are a country that has had many great scientists, philosophers, writers, artists such as Tagore, Ramanujan, Mother Teresa and so on.
6) We are the country that successfully overthrew the British empire through the novel, non-violent ‘Ahimsa’ movement.
When you are debating with a European, whose image of India is limited to a picture of poverty, colonisation and political instability, you need to do better than this.
How do you say the Vedas are unparalleled, if in the first place he has not even heard about the Vedas? How can you say with conviction that the political instability that is often associated with India cannot be attributed to the democracy we have? If someone thinks 0 is just a numeral, not a philosophical concept to represent the void, how do you convince him otherwise? If he thinks there are constant fights between different religions in India and has read about the Hindu-Muslim riots and Babri Masjid, how do you say that is not the norm? For a country of a billion people, is it only statistical that you have some great achievers. To make matters worse, I could not list an overwhelming concentration that defied the rules of pure statistics. In fact even statistics don’t seem to help much sometimes - Why don’t we win even a single Olympic gold for that matter? Why can’t we solve our ‘issues’ with Pakistan the non-violent way?
Call him ignorant, you sure can. But the best of teachers excel in teaching the worst of students. Call him annoying, I sure did. But all said and done, I am proud of my India and I wish I was better at expressing it. After half an hour, I decided that regardless of whether my Polish neighbour agreed with my views on India or not, getting back to my presentation was no more a matter of choice.
If there are any Indians reading this, did I miss anything? For the “debate” hasn’t ended.
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What’s unique about India perhaps is that we manage to assimilate everything that is thrown at us, and still retain our identity. Name any other country that has more than a thousand dialects, or a zillion different opinions (religious or otherwise), and still manage to be a democracy. Sure, we have our problems, but just the amount of national fervour that we have (evidenced by cricket matches) will show people that there is indeed somehting unique about India.
Frankly, the title of the post doesn’t mirror the content of the post.
Am I proud to be an Indian? Damn sure I am. Why? I just am, there is no need for a reason for being proud citizen of your motherland. If someone continues to ask for a reason, I will tell him/her that he/she does not understand human nature, human beings.
The post however deals with something different - what accomplishments or contributions of India (and Indians) are you proud of? Maybe these facts will help a bit - http://www.stephen-knapp.com/indian_contributions_to_american_progress.htm
Cricket sure brings out the unity in us,anytime!
The link sure helps..but whats gonna help even more is if u come down to office and tell Robert your first two arguements yourself. - then i can sit back, relax and watch a nice debate..=)
>> Frankly, the title of the post doesn’t mirror the content of the post.
..I couldn’t think of anything else.
Iam vishnu of VIII standard . actually
i had joined in essay competition.thanks for your information
Hi Vishnu of VIII standard,
I am glad that it helped you. All the best for your essay competition.
I had to present a speech on “Why Iam proud to be an Indian” and your information helped me a lot.Thanks a lot for it.
There is one important fact often forgotten, which is Black Gold (pepper)–this one spice led to explorations that eventually led to the sea route to India, and dicovery of the new world, and enventually the world not being flat. If it was not for pepper the present could have been something else.
thnks fer de info..i needed fer an essayy…neways canya gimme sum mre info abt wat makes u proud of india..?
hie.i m pranav….this helped mee a lot… can u give somemore info abt proud 2 b an Indian
Hi, I am Saurabh Soni. I need some more
information on How Proud I am to be an
Indian. Can u pls provide now.
of couse
thank you very much , not only because you helped me a lot in my essay competition but to argue with myself over this .
Hai I’m Nayana I need some more information on How Proud I am to be an Indian.Can to please provide more details about this and this is urgent pls send me now itself
Thanking you
Yours faithfully
Nayana
Interesting.yes,inspite of all the painful experiences I lived as a true INDIAN for 61 years. I am proud of it. Long live INDIA
hi me ena.i am a indian girl.i am proud to be an indin. i selut all army or polich or soldiers
surya,you can now go and hit that polish FUCKER
and say “india has managed 3 medals in the OLYMPICS”!