Past masters: Losers pride, nobody’s envy

It's not rocket science (not the kind that is written about in the Vedas anyway), that we're in dire need of some national pride. We have been for the last ten years or more. And while that probably isn't the intention when home minister Rajnath Singh says that the Heisenberg Principle was "based on the Vedas" or the Prime Minister alleges that plastic surgery existed in the Mahabharata, it can be dismissed as information that may instil that sense of pride, even if false and excessively cringe worthy.

I remember wondering how ridiculous this argument seemed when someone asserted it to me. When I considered how outlandish I would in turn sound if I was to go around passing this nebulous rhetoric off as fact to someone who wasn't from this country. And then, I quickly realised that if this was my biggest concern, what someone from another country would think of me, a certain degree of appreciation for this country was in order.

It is a dangerous way to do it, no doubt, and I'm certain it can be done with fact, but we do as a nation need to hear something that can make us feel better about ourselves.

But digging through the leaflets of history, or in this case, just making things up, may or may not be the answer. It's quite another thing to let the problems of the present aggravate to a point that far exceed the very purpose of this bloated sense of self worth.

Assuming, I am to blindly believe that "lakhs of years ago, Sage Kanad had conducted a nuclear test" and swell up with pride, I still can't, as a woman in Delhi get from point A to point B without worrying that I may GET raped. If I were to applaud the decision that Sanskrit must be a compulsory subject in schools, I still wonder why a Muslim friend finds it so difficult to find an apartment in the country. And even if I were to consider that Karna could be born outside his mother's womb because genetic science existed back then, I cannot fathom why an NCAER survey reveals that 27 per cent of its respondents still practice untouchability in some form.

It's difficult to be proud of a country where the term "gharwapsi" is being thrown around with such a treacherous undertone. Or a country where on the one hand one reads of rape and the lack of safety in Delhi, and on the other, the discussion about it in Parliament is what Delhi should be renamed to. It's also difficult to be proud of a country where a conviction for murder happens 40 years after the commencement of a trial, or where politicians and people with influence get meagre sentencing and easy bail when ordinary citizens languish in jail for the better part of their lives, even without a conviction. This is a country where riots take place in what is practically the Prime Minister's backyard, Trilokpuri, and not one person in power thinks to even do the customary "I condemn this violence" jig.

And these are only my immediate concerns as a woman living in an urban set-up, someone who has the privilege of knowing that what is being said is hogwash, and without further reading and travel, the regrettable ignorance of the tribulations faced each day outside my bubble of comfort and angst.

There is a lot taking away the national pride that I even for a second considered could be instilled with sweeping statements about our glorious past. But it's unfortunate, I suppose, that we live in the present. And at this point, it seems just as unfortunate that we will live in the future.