Proud To Be An Indian!

I am not proud to be an Indian! The lady on the news channel kept repeating this throughout the debate. This lady was the distressed wife of a sailor whose ship has been hijacked by Somalian pirates and she was irate and blamed the government for not doing anything to save her husband.

Another girl recounted her sad story of the search for her father who was kidnapped by the Naxals. She mentioned that the government had given up on her father and that she was in the process of collecting one crore rupees to fund a private search for her father. She said that at that point in time, she was ashamed to call herself an Indian and sung praises of how the governments of other nations look after its' citizens.

While these were just two isolated cases, there were the usual killings, bomb blasts and political allegations. The news broadcast was done; I shrugged and then changed the channel. I'm sure most of us would have done that. How is it that people like us get the right to go on national television and proclaim that you are not proud of being an Indian? The awakening does not happen till someone close to home gets hurt. It is never our fight till it involves us.

I am proud of the resilience of our country. I am extremely proud of the zeal and the enthusiasm shown by the youngsters of our country in coming out and supporting the causes of others like it were their own. I am proud of those few policies our political parties pursue which are actually of use to us. I am proud of my local police team who worked tirelessly to locate a missing child a week ago. I am proud of those ads on the TV telling people to go and vote.

I am also proud of the spirit of our people who bounce back each time there is a bombing. People, who pick themselves up and move on with their lives like nothing happened. I'm proud of my country and my people. I am proud to be an Indian.

With so many good things on one side of the scale, how can anyone possibly find the other side weighing more?