Fathers Rejected as Inferior
So strong is the class and caste consciousness of most Indians that schooling constitutes absolute divisiveness in much of that country's society.
On one occasion while we were in India, a young man who was a university graduate told us: "I would not so much as light my father's cigarette, because he is uneducated and illiterate." Such is the attitude of many class-conscious educated Indians.
A young male schoolteacher said frankly: "A boy who has attended school up to the seventh or eighth classes and who, while with his friends, sees his father working in the field, tells his friends that, 'He is not my father.' He feels so ashamed of him."
This is a sad product of today's education in India. In order for India to make the technological, industrial, agricultural and social progress she so vitally needs, there must also be a drastic change in the basic attitude toward education. But this desperately needed change is not being effected rapidly enough. At any time India may explode in another paroxysm of famine and bitter social unrest.
Lack of Incentive
India's farmers, being uneducated, lack incentive — have an unwillingness to change the status quo. This makes true improvement and advancement virtually impossible!
Most people in the United States, Great Britain, Australia or other developed lands want to improve their capacity to feed, clothe and house their families. But not so in India.
Kusum Nair stated: "Planning in India is framed on the assumption that the desire for higher levels of living is inherent and more or less universal among the masses being planned for. According to this assumption, every prevailing standard of life becomes minimal as a base for further progress. From what I have seen and experienced, however, it would seem that a great majority of the rural communities do not share in this concept of an ever-rising standard of living."
How true. Lack of will to change was undoubtedly the deepest impression we gained wherever we went. The basic attitude is to produce barely what is required and no more. If a farmer feels he only needs to produce two bags of cereal grain a year, then that is what he works for and no more. Besides, he's hungry and tired, so why work harder than necessary. Government and educational leaders have not gotten through to him that if he were to work a little harder, produce more, eat better and feel healthier and stronger he wouldn't be so weary of life.
Before there can be real progress and improvement in India, there must be a complete revising of the standard of values. Life and its meaning must become more valuable. The proper support and well-being of each family must become so prized that it is worth striving and sacrificing for. Literacy and true education must become important as a means of improvement instead of becoming a stepping-stone to social prestige and feelings of superiority. There must be a will to progress — in morals, character and in material comforts.
Appalling Illiteracy
About 365 million — some sixty-eight percent — of India's population is illiterate.
This fact alone constitutes an enormous obstacle to the Indian Government's attempts to solve her mounting economic problems. Little progress and precious little national unity can be achieved while such a large percentage of the population cannot read or write.
As one Indian, one of the country's leading experts on land reform, said: "Nowhere in the world is there an illiterate people that is progressive. Nowhere is there a literate people that is not."
The ability to read taps the accumulated knowledge of mankind. India needs to be able to utilize that fund of experience and learning.
National Unity a Myth
Westerners may not realize it, but India today is one of the most divided nations on earth.
A united India — that is, a single Indian nation — simply did not exist before the arrival of the British! Instead, the subcontinent was governed from numerous regional power centers, some of which managed to gain the ascendency for varying periods of time. There was no national cohesion or unity. Under Britain, India began to achieve a measure of unity — but real unity is a far-off goal. The religious, language and racial riots which have flared up so frequently since the British left, conclusively demonstrate that real lasting unity is not just around the corner.
One of India's leaders warned in 1957: "India stands the risk of being split up into a number of totalitarian small nationalities." This was stated in an official Language Commission report.
In the past, conflicting regional interests had a centrifugal effect upon Indian politics and power, causing a concentration of power at three or four major centers — Calcutta, Bombay, Madras, Delhi. Today the same pattern can be seen developing.
But India's present position is more precarious than at any previous time. She has never before been faced by the threat of uncontrollable famine, simultaneous with the divisive forces of conflicting regional interests.
Another element in the lack of cohesion is the language riots. Feelings over regional language differences run deep in India. In fact, in Nehru's time Indian state boundaries were drawn up to coincide with the language boundaries that existed. Many Indians feel this was one of the biggest mistakes Nehru made as Prime Minister.
The current language riots the nation is experiencing principally result from the government's decision to establish Hindi as the official language. Many other lingual areas do not speak Hindi at all and feel that English should have been left as the common language, since more areas understand English than Hindi or any other single Indian dialect. It is interesting to realize that the venerated Gandhi, who is considered the "father" of India's independence from the British, had to use the English language as the most common and only effective means of rallying the Indian masses to achieve their "freedom."
Student rioting due to this language problem has resulted in the temporary closure of some universities. Many primary and secondary schools have also been closed, forcing numerous teachers out of work. This has saddled the government with the added expense of giving dole to the teachers — an expense it can ill afford.
We came into personal contact with the language riots when we drove to Bangalore in the southern state of Mysore. Tamil is the recognized language in this area. Our Indian driver insisted that we place a placard bearing the letters "DWH" (DOWN WITH HINDI) in our car window. He feared our car might be attacked and possibly stoned if we did not display the notice in a prominent position as all the local cars in the community were doing.
Rivalry and Divisiveness
Another major problem causing division is that of state rivalry. Surprising as it may sound, it is common for one state to refuse to help another state during times of drought and famine, or other calamities and crises.
In the resulting atmosphere of national division, suspicion and competition, laws are often not enforced as they should be. There is a widespread feeling of frustration and helplessness among the small, educated elite.
Because many of the educated and competent, thinking Indians recognize and readily admit that they see no solutions to the gigantic problems in their country, they are leaving — looking for opportunities elsewhere. There is a continual hemorrhaging of some of the nation's most precious lifeblood — the teachers, lawyers, engineers and other professional people — a "brain drain" the nation can ill afford.
Overpopulation a Mammoth Problem
You never get the feeling you are alone in India. Wherever you go at whatever time, there are people, people and more people.
India's government, ever ready to present a favorable picture of its accomplishments, talks in glowing terms of its birth control program. Yet the program is woefully inadequate.
At the start of the program in 1951, India's population increase rate was about 1.3% a year. Today it is climbing towards 3% per year. When the program began, the country's population was close to 370 million — now it is approximately 550 million. What has nearly 17 years of effort done to establish birth control? It is reliably estimated today that only two percent of the reproductive age couples systematically practice contraception.
Why is the program not succeeding? The main reasons are religious prejudices, sheer ignorance and the lack of any motivating desire to control birth.
"Villagers do not worry much about the number of children they have, no matter how poor they might be. Not to have any issue is considered to be a much greater disaster than to have too many" (Blossoms in the Dust, Kussum Nair). One of the big obstacles is the religious sentiment that it is the duty of the woman to bear children, so why try to control the birth?
India's Fatalism
India's mountainous, seemingly insoluble problems were not created by the British or other rulers. India's former glory and prosperity had been replaced by poverty long before the British arrived. Their problems, many knowledgeable Indians say, were created by the Indians themselves over many centuries. Her present-day problems stem from the attitude and outlook of her teeming hundreds of millions.
There is an almost universal fatalistic attitude that pervades India from the halls of Parliament House in New Delhi to the humblest hut in her thousands of villages.
This individual fatalism is a philosophical and unresisting acceptance of the present pitiful condition no matter where it is or what it might be. This fatalism is an integral part of an Indian's nature — his basic outlook on life.
The overwhelming majority of India's people bear allegiance to the Hindu religion. But whether Hindu, Muslim or Christian, Sikh or Parsee, no one in India escapes the ever-present, all-pervading effects of fatalism.
Fatalism provides the foundation for the "Caste System" which pervades all India. It has divided India into thousands of castes, sub-castes, and "out-castes," with no common interest or aspiration.
At birth, every Indian's die is cast — if you'll pardon the pun — in the mould of the oppressive caste system!
Indians want to rise to some higher caste in the next life. So, without complaint or protest, they accept their present plight, faithfully performing the duties of this life, even if it is in detachment and dejection, no matter how heavy its burdens might be. For this reason personal degradation is accepted without fuss, and many even take pride in poverty and illiteracy.
This acceptance of caste is so strong that no matter how unqualified or incompetent one may be for performing his duties, there must be no change.
Indian government officials are asking, How can "caste" be eradicated?
Attempts have been made since the days of Buddha to wipe it out, but with little or no avail.
The Indian Government has tried to weaken the hold "caste" has over the people by educating them, by granting them equality in the eyes of the law, and through new technological and economic influences.
Yet all these have so far been unable to make any appreciable dent in the problem. Unwillingness to change is still overwhelming. Many of the educated still refuse to work with their hands, even if it means going hungry and being unable to provide for an ever-increasing family.
And further, India's feeble attempts to lower the birth rate are not going to control India's population growth. Eventually it will be famine and disease that will check India's skyrocketing population. The problem is too many are producing children but not providing for them.
More and more Indian babies — over 12 million annually — are being born into this land of despair, hopelessness and disease. An ever-increasing number of them in families that cannot or do not provide for them. If foreign nations ship in food to stave off starvation, it just increases the number of children who are not provided for. And it adds to the number of parents who do not provide for their children.
This is the stark reality of India's overpopulation problem. Events in recent years have shown that instead of finding solutions, the problems are themselves becoming more and more insoluble.
What is going to happen in India? Where is India heading?
The combined efforts of India and her international friends have been unable to diminish the problem.
To solve the problem, each parent must be helped to see that it is his responsibility to provide for his own children by the work of his own hands and the training of his own mind.
It will take superhuman power — divine power — to accomplish such a task!