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The one RSS advice all Indians should take
The one RSS advice all Indians should take
Indians barely agree on anything; they definitely do not on politics. Their minds are tuned to register what they don’t like. What they like pops up as afterthought.
This is perhaps why no one has built on what Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) head Mohan Bhagwat said about Indians and Japanese. In early November Bhagwat told hundreds of students – at an event in Agra – that India can only grow when Indians do as the Japanese.
There is nothing violently disagreeable about this. The people of Japan have consistently set benchmarks for human excellence. They have even known life as a superpower – in electronics.
There is much the Japanese do that Indians may adopt. This is not to say that the Japanese are free of blemish. Homo sapiens are not, which is what makes them human. But there is plenty to learn from the land of the rising sun.
The Japanese concept of religion is flexible. Most Japanese engage in rituals and customs from several religions. They will do Shinto and Buddhism at the same time, even Hinduism and Christianity. It doesn’t matter to the state; it doesn’t matter in public spaces.
In India this is so with Hinduism. It is more a way of life rather than religion. It doesn’t have a religious text [like, say, the Bible, the Quran or the Guru Granth Sahib]. There is mention of over three crore gods, which is different from a single figure of authority in Christianity and Islam.
Since India is principally Hindu, it must follow that religion is no big deal. Sense of identity does not have to come from religion. It is so with the Japanese and it was so with Indians. It isn’t so now. I’m not sure if this is what Bhagwat meant although he could help by guiding his followers afresh.
The Japanese have an evolved sense of fitness. Japan has a strict waist policy where men are allowed a maximum of 33.5 inches waistline and women 35.4 inches. Persons with wider waists have to pay fat tax unless they are trained to be fat, like sumo wrestlers.
Indians have a diminished sense of fitness. Policemen across the country are routinely ridiculed for their fat bellies. Children, increasingly, have bellies which is a shocking sight. Many families have at least one member who overeats and underworks. They are paunchy.
The people of Japan work hard. Their sense of productivity is well established. There has been at least one instance of Japanese workers going on strike by working without a break until they shamed the management.
Indians are allergic to hard work. They prefer to delegate. Indians barely do their own chores. They’d rather that things are half-done or deferred than having to do them at their end. The Japanese consider workspaces holy. Indians tend to loathe them.
The basic instinct of Japanese is positive. Not even a tsunami can get them down. After the devastation in 2011, the Japanese were calm – there wasn’t a single visual of chest-beating or wild grief. There were disciplined queues for water and groceries, without rough word or crude gesture.
People bought only what they needed for one time, so everybody could get something. There was no looting in shops, no honking and no overtaking on the roads. Restaurants cut prices. Unguarded ATMs were left alone.
They put up signboards saying no one needs to adopt children orphaned by the tsunami as the residents would care for them. At times of power cuts, people put things back on the shelves of stores and left quietly.
The core instinct of Indians is negative. They’ll be down at the slightest sign of trouble. When nature gets severe, Indians get chaotic. They grab and hoard. There are never queues. There is plenty of coarse behaviour. They complain all the time.
The people of Japan have a fine sense of cleanliness and hygiene. They don’t need prime ministers to remind them to be clean and maintain clean surroundings. Indians can’t be bothered. They litter and dirty public spaces. India has laws against it. They are ignored.
The people of Japan have superior skill, as Indians once did. A powerful earthquake doesn’t bring buildings down in Japan. They sway but don’t fall.
Even a mild quake can bring everything crashing down in India. India has regulations on erecting quakeproof structures, which Indian architects barely implement.
Japan lives by nonviolence, as India once did. India and Japan basically do not wage war. The greatest modern Indian, Mahatma Gandhi, was a global symbol of nonviolence.
Indians, however, are violent in thought, word and deed.
Maybe Bhagwat could work to help revive the spirit of ahimsa.
The Japanese have high self-esteem. They worked their way to economic supremacy and dominated the American market for a long time. Indians have low self-esteem. They readily cede their markets to others – USA, Japan, China and even South Korea.
The Japanese have a great sense of Japan. Indians have a poor sense of India. Agreed, the relatively small size of Japan helps but size alone doesn’t explain the indifference of Indians to India.
NRIs rarely refer to India when speaking of place of origin. They say Punjab, Gujarat, Kashmir and so on; never India. Even within India, many Indians don’t understand India. They know caste, money, land and religion; not nation.
The people of Japan display discipline and selflessness in daily conduct. You might never, for instance, hear of an aged person from Japan advocating abuse and greed. You would hear so in seven of ten aged Indians, especially in north India where many old people set poor examples.
The Japanese come up with a dazzling array of parking options; often high-tech. Indians are embarrassing. They kill over parking. They are reluctant to use modern options – even when functional – because they have to walk a few metres more.
The parents of Japan line up to escort children safely to school – a short distance from each other outside school. You can leave your child at the nearest parent who would then reach them to the next parent and so on until the children enter the school gates.
Indian parents drive children to school, or get them on buses. Economic status is a big factor in how children reach and leave school. It is an early lesson in wealth discrimination that Indians learn.
At Agra Bhagwat asked students to learn from a book called The Incredible Japanese. It is a short book – brought out by Macmillan Publishers India – that describes how Japanese made the rise of Japan possible.
Honest Indians can make India happen too. It would be nice if the RSS chief got his people to change. But let’s not get stuck on the RSS. India is a bigger story.
The one RSS advice all Indians should take
Indians barely agree on anything; they definitely do not on politics. Their minds are tuned to register what they don’t like. What they like pops up as afterthought.
This is perhaps why no one has built on what Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) head Mohan Bhagwat said about Indians and Japanese. In early November Bhagwat told hundreds of students – at an event in Agra – that India can only grow when Indians do as the Japanese.
There is nothing violently disagreeable about this. The people of Japan have consistently set benchmarks for human excellence. They have even known life as a superpower – in electronics.
There is much the Japanese do that Indians may adopt. This is not to say that the Japanese are free of blemish. Homo sapiens are not, which is what makes them human. But there is plenty to learn from the land of the rising sun.
The Japanese concept of religion is flexible. Most Japanese engage in rituals and customs from several religions. They will do Shinto and Buddhism at the same time, even Hinduism and Christianity. It doesn’t matter to the state; it doesn’t matter in public spaces.
In India this is so with Hinduism. It is more a way of life rather than religion. It doesn’t have a religious text [like, say, the Bible, the Quran or the Guru Granth Sahib]. There is mention of over three crore gods, which is different from a single figure of authority in Christianity and Islam.
Since India is principally Hindu, it must follow that religion is no big deal. Sense of identity does not have to come from religion. It is so with the Japanese and it was so with Indians. It isn’t so now. I’m not sure if this is what Bhagwat meant although he could help by guiding his followers afresh.
The Japanese have an evolved sense of fitness. Japan has a strict waist policy where men are allowed a maximum of 33.5 inches waistline and women 35.4 inches. Persons with wider waists have to pay fat tax unless they are trained to be fat, like sumo wrestlers.
Indians have a diminished sense of fitness. Policemen across the country are routinely ridiculed for their fat bellies. Children, increasingly, have bellies which is a shocking sight. Many families have at least one member who overeats and underworks. They are paunchy.
The people of Japan work hard. Their sense of productivity is well established. There has been at least one instance of Japanese workers going on strike by working without a break until they shamed the management.
Indians are allergic to hard work. They prefer to delegate. Indians barely do their own chores. They’d rather that things are half-done or deferred than having to do them at their end. The Japanese consider workspaces holy. Indians tend to loathe them.
The basic instinct of Japanese is positive. Not even a tsunami can get them down. After the devastation in 2011, the Japanese were calm – there wasn’t a single visual of chest-beating or wild grief. There were disciplined queues for water and groceries, without rough word or crude gesture.
People bought only what they needed for one time, so everybody could get something. There was no looting in shops, no honking and no overtaking on the roads. Restaurants cut prices. Unguarded ATMs were left alone.
They put up signboards saying no one needs to adopt children orphaned by the tsunami as the residents would care for them. At times of power cuts, people put things back on the shelves of stores and left quietly.
The core instinct of Indians is negative. They’ll be down at the slightest sign of trouble. When nature gets severe, Indians get chaotic. They grab and hoard. There are never queues. There is plenty of coarse behaviour. They complain all the time.
The people of Japan have a fine sense of cleanliness and hygiene. They don’t need prime ministers to remind them to be clean and maintain clean surroundings. Indians can’t be bothered. They litter and dirty public spaces. India has laws against it. They are ignored.
The people of Japan have superior skill, as Indians once did. A powerful earthquake doesn’t bring buildings down in Japan. They sway but don’t fall.
Even a mild quake can bring everything crashing down in India. India has regulations on erecting quakeproof structures, which Indian architects barely implement.
Japan lives by nonviolence, as India once did. India and Japan basically do not wage war. The greatest modern Indian, Mahatma Gandhi, was a global symbol of nonviolence.
Indians, however, are violent in thought, word and deed.
Maybe Bhagwat could work to help revive the spirit of ahimsa.
The Japanese have high self-esteem. They worked their way to economic supremacy and dominated the American market for a long time. Indians have low self-esteem. They readily cede their markets to others – USA, Japan, China and even South Korea.
The Japanese have a great sense of Japan. Indians have a poor sense of India. Agreed, the relatively small size of Japan helps but size alone doesn’t explain the indifference of Indians to India.
NRIs rarely refer to India when speaking of place of origin. They say Punjab, Gujarat, Kashmir and so on; never India. Even within India, many Indians don’t understand India. They know caste, money, land and religion; not nation.
The people of Japan display discipline and selflessness in daily conduct. You might never, for instance, hear of an aged person from Japan advocating abuse and greed. You would hear so in seven of ten aged Indians, especially in north India where many old people set poor examples.
The Japanese come up with a dazzling array of parking options; often high-tech. Indians are embarrassing. They kill over parking. They are reluctant to use modern options – even when functional – because they have to walk a few metres more.
The parents of Japan line up to escort children safely to school – a short distance from each other outside school. You can leave your child at the nearest parent who would then reach them to the next parent and so on until the children enter the school gates.
Indian parents drive children to school, or get them on buses. Economic status is a big factor in how children reach and leave school. It is an early lesson in wealth discrimination that Indians learn.
At Agra Bhagwat asked students to learn from a book called The Incredible Japanese. It is a short book – brought out by Macmillan Publishers India – that describes how Japanese made the rise of Japan possible.
Honest Indians can make India happen too. It would be nice if the RSS chief got his people to change. But let’s not get stuck on the RSS. India is a bigger story.
