What do you hate most about India and Indians?

Whatever is a distinctive feature of a community of people that will be turned into a political force. This happens all the time and everywhere in the world. Among the religious in the West, it is the church denomination that is converted into a political leverage. Caste was a social institution within Hinduism, which degenerated into exploitation and now has been turned into a political force. For the first 50 years Secularism and bending over backwards to appease minorities was the reality in India, in the Congress regime. This cannot be glossed over.We(our generation - period of schooling 1963-72) for instance were brought up to be secular. I thankfully remember my school who taught us not to distinguish on the basis of caste, creed, race, religion whatever. I can never forget this.Our school annual programmes were replete with Dramas, Tableaus, Dances that promoted mutual respect and regard for one and all. The same I find is the case in my son's(1993-2003, and my daughter's schooling(2002-ongoing). They are also filled values that instil a sense of equality of religions and castes. But there is one classic difference. I dreamed of learning Sanskrit and something about some of the exquisite documents of Hinduism in my school.This was not just possible. This was sropped during my school days after a weak start with THE BHAGAVAD GITA.But today my children have studied ina school which is self-financing yet considerate on the parents' wallets. My daughter is learning Sanskrit as her most important language from her Class I a dream of mine! This is because the school is established and managed by a Hindu family. In our days a partially aided school - aided by the Government of Andhra Pradesh- could not teach anything religious- forget about religion- even the possibility of learning Sanskrit was out of question; there is lot of "secular" literature in Sanskrit!I had to wait till I came to my Intermediate stage to have my first introduction to Sanskrit.What government is it that makes you a foreigner in your own land? While I am not at all in favor of electing a Peoples' representative on the basis of caste or religion, the simmering ire in the minds of the less educated is showing itself up in these manifestations. As for your feelings on Civic Responsibilities, I am with you.

Case is totally different.. there are more parties which favors the minority or pretend to do so to get there votes, then the Hindu political parties. Hope it would have been the case the way you mentioned. Ya it should be like that in country having more than 80% of the population. Its really unfortunate thats its not the case which you mentioned.

Many extremist Hindu political parties or some of them overtly or covertly turning fundamentalist is because of the way the minorities have been handled as a vote bank in this country. While I am also disturbed by the fundamentalist tenor of parties of the Hindu ilk, I accept it as a sort of a backlash.

You dont have a clue what you talking about. Its fancy for people to try to be intellectual and donning the mantel of secularism and labeling every one who questions the minority appeasement. India is much better than what you find so outrageous.Majority Hindu is secular and some are secular like you who are the reason which gave birth to this so called extremist Hindu. Frankly such parties been a boon which gave a reason to us to question this appeasement policy

Thanks for reminding.I will do my homework carefully before I go there.You are very kind.

Please follow this thread/discussion as also Tamildude's what do you love most about India. Like every other country and people India and Indians have their plusses and minuses. If you want to travel to India please learn about the dangers and pitfalls of travelling unaccompanied in this country, should you plan to do so.

Yes Raghul, I agree with you that we should be proud of our country but that must not deter us from taking a hard look at ourselves. On all points that you have pointed out I am with you.We must admit that our political leaders have at last started functioning instead of giving empty promises which is their wont. May be we must credit the democratic form of government that our founding fathers chose to have had a stable government. To check what would be the effect of giving too much place for the Army, one must only watch Pakistan. Democracy has made development happen slowly, but it has definitely made India a politically safe place to live. We need to only see how soon we could correct what you have listed. Thanks for your response.

The ghetto feeling is common among minorities. Numbers is great strength. Perhaps fears of being isolated and thrashed overrules the fact that they are in a civilized country! Fear has a strange capacity to multiply itself to a runaway situation. Recently I read [I]Kiran Desai's The Inheritence of Loss[/I] and happened to read about this statement of Indians being smelly esp. that they smell like curry. Now, I am not in a position to understand this... Does it mean that most of us aren't well-groomed in that we let our body odors be? Or is this statement on the Indian habit of oiling their hair even if the oil has an odor?

I pray you get the resources to reach India and we get to meet. Let's see then how we hit it together.

Moon, I was not asking about hating in the sense of holding grudge or enmity in general, it is more to know what abominable characteristics do we have. There must be introspection you see!