Thursday, December 24, 2009

Learning From the West/ Why does India suck ??

In a speech to students at a management institute NR Naryaran Murthy delivered a scathing attack on the Indian culture and its supposedly superiority. I've been critical on NRN on a few issues however here I tend to agree with him. All his points are extremely valid given the current context of business and political nexus in India. However I find it hard to believe that Infosys has acquired thousands of acres of land in Bangalore and Hyderbad without any special favors to the powers at hand. These speeches would be more useful if they were directed towards government beaurocrats and ministers as these folks are responsible for more damage to Indian society then anyone else in modern India. It is interesting he brings up the Milan subway example in Mumbai. I've travelled by that sub-way thousands of times and each time the traffic is more horrible then before.
To surmise Indians according to NR Narayana Murthy are
1. Irresponsible towards community
2. Corrupt
3. Tax evaders
4. Cheaters
5. Bribers
6. Apathetic in attitude
7. Arrogant about own intellect
8. Poor listeners
9. Responsibilty dodgers
10. Unaccountable for actions
11. Unprofessional
12. Thin-skinned
13. Feudal thinkers
14. Not independent
15. Dishonor contractual obligations
16. Intellectually dishonest
17. Lack of commitment.
18. Hypocrites
19. Prejudiced
20. Unpunctual

Learning From the West - N R Narayana Murthy

Download pdf file: web.iitd.ac.in/~mamidala/HTMLobj-142/LearningFromTheWest.pdf

Ladies and gentlemen:
It is a pleasure to be here at the Lal Bahadur Shastri Institute of Management.
Lal Bahadur Shastri was a man of strong values and he epitomized simple
living. He was a freedom fighter and innovative administrator who contributed
to nation building in full measure. It is indeed a matter of pride for me to be
chosen for the Lal Bahadur Shastri Award for Public Administration and
Management Sciences. I thank the jury for this honor.

When I got the invitation to speak here, I decided to speak on an important
topic on which I have pondered for years - the role of Western values in
contemporary Indian society. Coming from a company that is built on strong
values, the topic is close to my heart. Moreover, an organization is
representative of society, and some of the lessons that I have learnt are
applicable in the national context. In fact, values drive progress and define
quality of life in society.

The word community joins two Latin words com ("together" or "with") and unus
("one"). A community, then, is both one and many. It is a unified multitude and
not a mere group of people. As it is said in the Vedas: Man can live individually,
but can survive only collectively. Hence, the challenge is to form a progressive
community by balancing the interests of the individual and that of the society.
To meet this, we need to develop a value system where people accept modest
sacrifices for the common good.

What is a value system? It is the protocol for behavior that enhances the trust,
confidence and commitment of members of the community. It goes beyond the
domain of legality - it is about decent and desirable behavior. Further, it
includes putting the community interests ahead of your own. Thus, our
collective survival and progress is predicated on sound values.

There are two pillars of the cultural value system - loyalty to family and loyalty
to community. One should not be in isolation to the other, because, successful
societies are those which combine both harmoniously. It is in this context that I
will discuss the role of Western values in contemporary Indian society.

Some of you here might say that most of what I am going to discuss are actually
Indian values in old ages, and not Western values. I live in the present, not in
the bygone era. Therefore, I have seen these values practiced primarily in the
West and not in India. Hence, the title of the topic.

I am happy as long as we practice these values - whether we call it Western or
old Indian values. As an Indian, I am proud to be part of a culture, which has
deep-rooted family values. We have tremendous loyalty to the family. For
instance, parents make enormous sacrifices for their children. They support
them until they can stand on their own feet. On the other side, children
consider it their duty to take care of aged parents.
We believe: Mathru devo bhava - mother is God, and pithru devo bhava - father
is God. Further, brothers and sisters sacrifice for each other. In fact, the eldest
brother or sister is respected by all the other siblings. As for marriage, it is held
to be a sacred union - husband and wife are bonded, most often, for life. In joint
families, the entire family works towards the welfare of the family. There is so
much love and affection in our family life.

This is the essence of Indian values and one of our key strengths. Our families
act as a critical support mechanism for us. In fact, the credit to the success of
Infosys goes, as much to the founders as to their families, for supporting them
through the tough times. Unfortunately, our attitude towards family life is not
reflected in our attitude towards community behavior. From littering the streets
to corruption to breaking of contractual obligations, we are apathetic to the
common good. In the West - the US, Canada, Europe, Australia, New Zealand -
individuals understand that they have to be responsible towards their
community.

The primary difference between the West and us is that, there, people have a
much better societal orientation. They care more for the society than we do.
Further, they generally sacrifice more for the society than us. Quality of life is
enhanced because of this. This is where we need to learn from the West.
I will talk about some of the lessons that we, Indians, can learn from the West.
In the West, there is respect for the public good. For instance, parks free of
litter, clean streets, public toilets free of graffiti - all these are instances of care
for the public good. On the contrary, in India, we keep our houses clean and
water our gardens everyday - but, when we go to a park, we do not think twice
before littering the place.

Corruption, as we see in India, is another example of putting the interest of
oneself, and at best that of one's family, above that of the society. Society is
relatively corruption free in the West. For instance, it is very difficult to bribe a
police officer into avoiding a speeding ticket.

This is because of the individual's responsible behavior towards the community
as a whole On the contrary, in India, corruption, tax evasion, cheating and
bribery have eaten into our vitals. For instance, contractors bribe officials, and
construct low-quality roads and bridges. The result is that society loses in the
form of substandard defence equipment and infrastructure, and low-quality
recruitment, just to name a few impediments. Unfortunately, this behavior is
condoned by almost everyone.

Apathy in solving community matters has held us back from making progress,
which is otherwise within our reach. We see serious problems around us but do
not try to solve them. We behave as if the problems do not exist or is somebody
else's. On the other hand, in the West, people solve societal problems
proactively. There are several examples of our apathetic attitude. For instance,
all of us are aware of the problem of drought in India.
More than 40 years ago, Dr. K. L. Rao - an irrigation expert, suggested creation
of a water grid connecting all the rivers in North and South India, to solve this
problem. Unfortunately, nothing has been done about this. The story of power
shortage in Bangalore is another instance. In 1983, it was decided to build a
thermal power plant to meet Bangalore's power requirements. Unfortunately,
we have still not started it. Further, the Milan subway in Bombay is in a
deplorable state for the last 40 years, and no action has been taken.
To quote another example, considering the constant travel required in the
software industry; five years ago, I had suggested a 240-page passport. This
would eliminate frequent visits to the passport office. In fact, we are ready to
pay for it. However, I am yet to hear from the Ministry of External Affairs on
this.

We, Indians, would do well to remember Thomas Hunter's words: Idleness
travels very slowly, and poverty soon overtakes it. What could be the reason for
all this? We were ruled by foreigners for over thousand years. Thus, we have
always believed that public issues belonged to some foreign ruler and that we
have no role in solving them.

Moreover, we have lost the will to proactively solve our own problems. Thus, we
have got used to just executing someone else's orders. Borrowing Aristotle's
words: We are what we repeatedly do. Thus, having done this over the years,
the decision-makers in our society are not trained for solving problems. Our
decision-makers look to somebody else to take decisions. Unfortunately, there
is nobody to look up to, and this is the tragedy.

Our intellectual arrogance has also not helped our society. I have traveled
extensively, and in my experience, have not come across another society where
people are as contemptuous of better societies as we are, with as little progress
as we have achieved. Remember that arrogance breeds hypocrisy. No other
society gloats so much about the past as we do, with as little current
accomplishment.

Friends, this is not a new phenomenon, but at least a thousand years old. For
instance, Al Barouni, the famous Arabic logician and traveler of the 10th
century, who spent about 30 years in India from 997 AD to around 1027 AD,
referred to this trait of Indians. According to him, during his visit, most Indian
pundits considered it below their dignity even to hold arguments with him. In
fact, on a few occasions when a pundit was willing to listen to him, and found
his arguments to be very sound, he invariably asked Barouni: which Indian
pundit taught these smart things!

The most important attribute of a progressive society is respect for others who
have accomplished more than they themselves have, and learn from them.
Contrary to this, our leaders make us believe that other societies do not know
anything! At the same time, everyday, in the newspapers, you will find
numerous claims from our leaders that ours is the greatest nation. These
people would do well to remember Thomas Carlyle's words: The greatest of
faults is to be conscious of none.

If we have to progress, we have to change this attitude, listen to people who
have performed better than us, learn from them and perform better than them.
Infosys is a good example of such an attitude. We continue to rationalize our
failures. No other society has mastered this part as well as we have. Obviously,
this is an excuse to justify our incompetence, corruption, and apathy. This
attitude has to change. As Sir Josiah Stamp has said: It is easy to dodge our
responsibilities, but we cannot dodge the consequences of dodging our
responsibilities.

Another interesting attribute, which we Indians can learn from the West, is
their accountability. Irrespective of your position, in the West, you are held
accountable for what you do. However, in India, the more 'important' you are,
the less answerable you are. For instance, a senior politician once declared that
he 'forgot' to file his tax returns for 10 consecutive years - and he got away with
it. To quote another instance, there are over 100 loss making public sector
units (central) in India. Nevertheless, I have not seen action taken for bad
performance against top managers in these organizations.

Dignity of labor is an integral part of the Western value system. In the West,
each person is proud about his or her labor that raises honest sweat. On the
other hand, in India, we tend to overlook the significance of those who are not
in professional jobs. We have a mind set that reveres only supposedly
intellectual work.
For instance, I have seen many engineers, fresh from college, who only want to
do cutting-edge work and not work that is of relevance to business and the
country. However, be it an organization or society, there are different people
performing different roles. For success, all these people are required to
discharge their duties. This includes everyone from the CEO to the person who
serves tea - every role is important. Hence, we need a mind set that reveres
everyone who puts in honest work.

Indians become intimate even without being friendly. They ask favors of
strangers without any hesitation. For instance, the other day, while I was
traveling from Bangalore to Mantralaya, I met a fellow traveler on the train.
Hardly 5 minutes into the conversation he requested me to speak to his MD
about removing him from the bottom 10% list in his company, earmarked for
disciplinary action. I was reminded of what Rudyard Kipling once said: A
westerner can be friendly without being intimate while an easterner tends to be
intimate without being friendly.

Yet another lesson to be learnt from the West is about their professionalism in
dealings. The common good being more important than personal equations,
people do not let personal relations interfere with their professional dealings.
For instance, they don't hesitate to chastise a colleague, even if he is a personal
friend, for incompetent work.

In India, I have seen that we tend to view even work interactions from a
personal perspective. Further, we are the most 'thin-skinned' society in the
world - we see insults where none is meant. This may be because we were not
free for most of the last thousand years. Further, we seem to extend this lack of
professionalism to our sense of punctuality. We do not seem to respect the
other person's time.

The Indian Standard Time somehow seems to be always running late. Moreover,
deadlines are typically not met. How many public projects are completed on
time? The disheartening aspect is that we have accepted this as the norm
rather than the exception. In the West, they show professionalism by embracing
meritocracy. Meritocracy by definition means that we cannot let personal
prejudices affect our evaluation of an individual's performance. As we
increasingly start to benchmark ourselves with global standards, we have to
embrace meritocracy.

In the West, right from a very young age, parents teach their children to be
independent in thinking. Thus, they grow up to be strong, confident
individuals. In India, we still suffer from feudal thinking. I have seen people,
who are otherwise bright, refusing to show independence and preferring to be
told what to do by their boss. We need to overcome this attitude if we have to
succeed globally.

The Western value system teaches respect to contractual obligation. In the
West, contractual obligations are seldom dishonored. This is important -
enforceability of legal rights and contracts is the most important factor in the
enhancement of credibility of our people and nation.

In India, we consider our marriage vows as sacred. We are willing to sacrifice in
order to respect our marriage vows. However, we do not extend this to the
public domain. For instance, India had an unfavorable contract with Enron.
Instead of punishing the people responsible for negotiating this, we reneged on
the contract - this was much before we came to know about the illegal activities
at Enron.

To quote another instance, I had given recommendations to several students for
the national scholarship for higher studies in US universities. Most of them did
not return to India even though contractually they were obliged to spend five
years after their degree in India.

In fact, according to a professor at a reputed US university, the maximum
default rate for student loans is among Indians - all of these students pass out
in flying colors and land lucrative jobs, yet they refuse to pay back their loans.
Thus, their action has made it difficult for the students after them, from India,
to obtain loans. We have to change this attitude.

Further, we Indians do not display intellectual honesty. For example, our
political leaders use mobile phones to tell journalists on the other side that they
do not believe in technology! If we want our youngsters to progress, such
hypocrisy must be stopped. We are all aware of our rights as citizens.
Nevertheless, we often fail to acknowledge the duty that accompanies every
right. To borrow Dwight Eisenhower's words: People that value its privileges
above its principles soon loses both. Our duty is towards the community as a
whole, as much as it is towards our families.

We have to remember that fundamental social problems grow out of a lack of
commitment to the common good. To quote Henry Beecher: Culture is that
which helps us to work for the betterment of all. Hence, friends, I do believe
that we can make our society even better by assimilating these Western values
into our own culture - we will be stronger for it.

Most of our behavior comes from greed, lack of self-confidence, lack of
confidence in the nation, and lack of respect for the society. To borrow Gandhi's
words: There is enough in this world for everyone's need, but not enough for
everyone's greed. Let us work towards a society where we would do unto others
what we would have others do unto us. Let us all be responsible citizens who
make our country a great place to live. In the words of Churchill: Responsibility
is the price of greatness. We have to extend our family values beyond the
boundaries of our home.

Finally, let us work towards maximum welfare of the maximum people -
Samasta janaanaam sukhino bhavantu. Thus, let us - people of this generation,
conduct ourselves as great citizens rather than just good people so that we can
serve as good examples for our younger generation.
Speaker : N R Narayana Murthy

26 comments:

Anonymous said...

Indians will not learn easily. They can preach but not practice. It is a land of thieves.

Anonymous said...

""Society is
relatively corruption free in the West""

This is news to me..while corruption may not be endemic like india, it exists in verious forms.

Anonymous said...

Corruption in US is high as higher levels. Like lobbying is nothing but corruption to change laws for interest groups.

In India, the mindset of people at all levels is about show off. Indians have very strong ego and think very highly of themselves without even knowing the reality and where they really stand as per world standards.

Anonymous said...

Above some replies are nothing but the same thing...hesitation to accept the reality through comparison and pointing...
It may be there but I have stayed in US for some time..the public infrastructure, other govt departments like driving license, traffic policing, issuing license to shops and its necessary requirements, shopping areas, free ways, ring roads to name a few are much better and will take yrs to see here in India. Why are you looking at dot in a white board. can't u see the white board? yeah..phir bhi MERA Bharat mahan and meri sanskriti mahaan. out of those so called cultural rich customs are age old many of them have nothing to do with current time and we don't have courage or guts to change and hence we keep telling the same things

Anonymous said...

Indians have a mindset to make things double triple and what not in very short time. He chose all available means to achieve that. What irony is he does not think others are also thinking just like him. For the same reason he thinks he is a super smart investor as soon as some minister anounces some scheme like new Airtport , metro rail projects, highways.. etc. Problem is our mind set, not the corruption. California is most expensive place in USA today why? obviously people form the settled old trading commercial places like NYC, Dallas, Chicago, Boston, Memphis moved there to start new colonies. We do not leave our towns and ready to pay whatever builder is demanding. Builders are not at fault it is us to be blamed.

Anonymous said...

Just because you made so much money from west businesses, doesn't means west is the best. Success & money doesn't means you can start giving sermons to every body. Let me tell what the hell you did to improve this thing in India? You set up a body shop who is exploiting millions of Indian under the banner of Infosys & what you offered peanuts? Where was the transparency? Have you ever told that how much you are charging to client to each resource & how much profit you are swindling. Yeah, you are also Indian so how you will differ.

After getting kicked out from Infosys you can do this kind of activities only.

Anonymous said...

1:41 PM Comment is for Narayan Murty.

Anonymous said...

I think Narayan Murthy needed to balance his viewpoint. If he is pointing out the fallacies and follies of Indians, then -
1> Point out the good things in India too..or is India good for nothing?

2> Point out the bad things in the west too..or is the west perfect and there is nothing wrong with the westerners.

3> Lastly, balance it out. Tell us that the west is good for scientific research but maybe India still is good for spiritual research..

Because, unless you balance it out and if you are so negative about India and things Indian, why is Murthy staying in India. He is welcome to shift lock, stock and barrel to the US...

After all he left Infosys and that has made no difference to Infosys, as far as all of us can see...

One more question for Vik - what does Murthy have to do with the "Indian Housing Bubble" ?

Venkatesh Babu K R said...

NRN please answer why BIAL is not on par with other international airports? What exactly happened with the project, please enlighten the public.

Anonymous said...

As an Indian, the replies so far on this thread are very disappointing. I hope it is not a reflection of both the current thinking in India and/or the kind of folks who visit this forum.

Anonymous said...

Therefore, I have seen these values practiced primarily in the West and not in India.

This is because of the individual's responsible behavior towards the community as a whole On the contrary, in India, corruption, tax evasion, cheating and bribery have eaten into our vitals.

I request him to spend 2/3 hrs and watch the below two video clips free of cost to know western values / how the middle class of the West (USA) has been robbed off from their hard work and wealth legally.

The Coming Collapse of the Middle Class 57 Minutes


Warning of the potential for economic meltdown in the late 1990s


It’s not only the working middle class but also the pensioners, the child yet to be born (the debt to be paid back for future and unfunded obligations) have been looted in the financial chicanery. The people are in the survival mode struggling with various types of loans and financial obligations i.e. home mortgages, medical bills, tuition and college fees, car/health insurance etc. Now the people are slowly waking up to this intelligently orchestrated fraud over the years.

Of course he will not enlighten the audience about these legalized western virtues. Under every pretext just beat the India. Take the case of corruption e.g. traffic policeman taking bribe....Go and ask him for how long does he stand in the heat, dust, pollution while risking his life? What is his monthly salary ? Can he afford providing good education to his kids? Why are the policemen dying due to stress (heart attack/cardiac arrest) while performing long hour duties e.g. during bandobast for mantri, immersion procession and what is the monthly pension? Has his parents or teachers preached him about the virtues of the corruption?

In no way I am justifying the corruption but fist we have to dig out the reasons as to why we make a system which forces the honest individuals to shun the long treasured values. It is very easy to start shouting about lowering of standards in the society.


Another interesting attribute, which we Indians can learn from the West, is
their accountability


First check, are you accountable to your own employees? You have allowed the major banks and housing finance companies to set up the shops in your campuses. Also the free hand is given to these cheaters to intrude the mailbox of your employees with thousands of teaser offers. Please check the average debt each employee is carrying in his tender age. Your employee is not financially literate because he is toiling 9hrs a day believing in a phony wealth. Isn’t it the responsibility of your Chief Financial Office to build a system which educates and cautions the resources ( human beings) about the financial risk they are taking. Instead of that you are feeding the suckers to the unholy nexus of bankers and real estate developers. The life of a common person has become hell.

………….this goes on

Please put the things in the proper context and then embark on the journey of so called preaching. Clean up your own house first.

Anonymous said...

Dear Anon@10:41

It's very disappointing that you should be so judgmental and ambiguous..I hope this is not an indication of the type of person you are or the kind of comments you usually make.

Venkat said...

I agree with most of Narayana Murthy's points. He has been, in fact, polite and included much which is flattering to Indians, which is not true.

For example, our average life span of 65 years means we dont have any old people to care for. Looking after old is meaningless. In West, a lot of people live upto 90. If they are in old age homes, it is because they are well looked after there, not because their children dont care.

Also, much of our so called family values include dowry deaths, female infanticide, selling girls due to poverty (why have children you cannot bring up?), telling lies for getting your child admitted in school, college, jobs. Also, systematic rapes in the country side, especially caste based and by soldiers sent to be peace keepers.

We are an unclean race. We spit everywhere, piss everywhere, shit everywhere. On a recent visit to Himachal, I would keep seeing beautiful streams and rivers. The moment I went near, there will be susu-potty all over. We have desecrated our natural heritage. We are a tatti-pisab ka desh.

Spirituality? Indians are the most un-spiritual and most materialistic race I have ever seen. We are so spiritually poor that we profess to be spiritual without realising that we are only making ourselves the object of ridicule by claiming to be what we are completely ignorant about.

Having a few ancient spiritual scriptures doesnt make us spiritual - Indians are too ignorant to realise that.

Similarly, we dont realise that we are uncivilized. Having a 5000 year old civilization does not mean that we are considered civilized today. We are dirty, loud, boorish, insensitive and do not have any law and order, with widespread corruption, violence, dacoity, rapes, looting etc - all the characteristics of uncivilized people.

India is an uncivilized land, where people are so uncivilized they dont realize what their status is.

Good things in India? Close to nothing.

Except that we feel better congregating with our equals rather than our betters. So we keep saying Bhrat is Mahan.

The way out? Learn from the west, as Murthy suggests. And stop denial of our faults. Accepting a fault is the only way to correct it.

What about bad things in West? I see quite a few. Top of the list is telling lies to and cheating on their wives/husbands and girl/boy friends. It is unfortunate that we are learning this from them. Strange that they dont practice cheating and corruption on a large scale in public life, but practice cheating and corruption on a large scale when it comes to relationships. Cant understand this.

Other faults? Organised crime. Severe violence against women (date rapes).High level corporate greed and systematised corruption at the highest level.

I am happy that techies are going abroad, seeing how civilized people live and bringing their superior culture back to India. We owe this to Narayanamurthy's body shops with H1B armies (who are well known for writing the buggiest software of all and are given the meanest and menialest tasks in software, which no self respecting software specialist from abroad will touch. Even in techie land, we are the cyber coolies).

I also agree with Murthy's reason - we have attained slave mentality after 3000 years of slave rule (first Aryans, then Greeks, then Parthians, then Kushans, then Scythians, then Muslim Afghans in various waves of invasion and then British.

We have much to learn and progress. Right now we are around the development stage of 1900 AD in USA, 1870 in England. Another 100-150 years are needed to equal the rest of the world.

Venkat ND

Anonymous said...

Venkat,
You are funny and somewhat true in what you say. People go to toilets on streets not because of lack of civic sense, but because they don't have toilets at home. It is poverty and overpopulation that is the cause.

Indians are very money minded and power hungry because they have never seen too much money or power. They still want it because they never had it. It is like the first generation of Indians in US work hard to get more and more money and their second generation doesn't care that much for it as they had seen so much while growing up.

Similarly, once Indians have seen wealth, greed would go away especially when everyone is wealthy and happy.

Culturally, in all societies either US or India or anywhere in the world, people try to do well and they showoff their riches among family. It is very common and natural. India goes a step further to have very lavish marriages even if people can't afford to show their family/friends how good they are.

Anonymous said...

I think a lot of Indians live in false ego. They think a lot about themselves and are proudy bastards. Like one of the film stars who was held at NJ airport, his ego was shattered when he was questioned for a few hours. Why he can't think like a normal person that is is just an ordinary person for all immigration officials. He wants to be respected and admired by all.

Similarly, I've seen a lot of IAS folks in the US in the last 4-5 years whose ego has been shattered by living in the US. They realize human values only after living in US. Indians who have never visited US have very high egos and can't think rationally. India is an ignorant community with very less values for their own fellow Indians.

Venkat said...

@anon 7.24

Couldnt agree more. Being poor is not good for spitituality or civilization. Those are indulgences of the rich! Once people get rich, they will get better. Getting rich is the priority.

Wohi tho nahi karne deta politician (basically Congress).

Unfortunately, instead of us getting rich, the Americans are getting poor!

Maybe they will start acquiring Indian ways!

See, the Aryans, Scythians, Parthians, Muslims and all the rest - they became Indian after coming into contact with us.

Now the whites will also become like Indians soon :-)

Anonymous said...

Kudos to Venkat for an excellent note. We really need to wake up and look around ourselves. Get rid of false pride and look at things as they are. It makes me laugh whenever someone lifts the Spirituality flag whenever India's shortcomings are discussed. The interesting thing about spirituality is that is is so subjective to measure to even say we are somehow ahead in any shape or form, Besides infrastructure, India is really behind in many core values that we profess to be dear to us. Also, irrespective of how we view NRN , there is no point in killing the messenger if the message makes sense. I care as much about NRN as any other business tycoon, but the messenger need not be perfect to deliver the message. His shortcomings (real or imaginary) reduce the relevancy of his comments.

Anonymous said...

I meant - His shortcomings (real or imaginary) do NOT reduce the relevancy of his comments.

Anonymous said...

What the hell this post supposed to do with your imaganry housing price fall?

Anonymous said...

Why do Indians clean inside their home and throw the garbage around their home?. If everyone learn the answer for this then India will be clean inside and out.

btw., The best job indians want to do is "giving advice".

Anonymous said...

Kudos to Venkat and sir Naryaran Murthy. We need more people like you for progress of India. I am very disappointed from comments by some other fellow posters. I understand, there is shortage of toilets which force people to piss on walls etc., but as a society who is to blame? its we have to blame because the person who piss on the wall due to shortage of toilets in city never visit municipal office in the city and submit his written complain about shortage of toilets. I bet, if only 10,000 people go and submit their written complains about shortage of toilets in city and meet officials and mayor it will bring lot of change. I mean, for how long people should be allowed to piss on walls provided there is shortage of toilets? there has to be end some where for all this insanity, which exactly what Sir Naryan Murthy is trying to say, which some of the posters fail to understand.

Just my Rs.1 comments.
Jay

Anonymous said...

Very annoyed that Narayan Murty found it necessary to quote a non-Indian in each point. There is no need to quote anyone else when you are speaking the truth.

Anonymous said...

I agree on all the points. I believe that the first step towards any change is to accept our faults. I live in the west, apart from many bad things in the society; people here have a civic sense that we lack completely. Even who come here and work, are not able to pick up on these qualities mainly because we do not recognize them. We are selfish to the n’th degree. We talk the talk cannot walk the walk. We all are hypocrites we need to change that. Above all we should start seeing things in perspective and not get offended for everything. So I would suggest let us accept who we are and try to change for the better as a society. Better late than never.

Anonymous said...

Why do Indians clean inside their home and throw the garbage around their home?. If everyone learn the answer for this then India will be clean inside and out.

btw., The best job indians want to do is "giving advice".

Anonymous said...

Apart from corruption, Indian people have very high level of regional bias. In Western countries everyone is treated & respected equally irrespective of cast, race & gender which is not really true in India. People would give you alien look the moment they realize that you are not localite.

rajni said...
This comment has been removed by the author.