Nation and Me

Being born in a lower middle class of a small town in Bihar has its own perks. You can witness the difficulties of life from close quarters without actually going through them. After the closing of the gun factory, which I am told was one of the oldest in the country and had been running since Mir Qasim, people involved in gun manufacturing lost all their hope. Though the factory had been defunct for a long time before it was formally closed, gun-makers had some faith that it would start functioning and hence when it was closed, it hit people hard- so hard that many left the city in search of employment only to return and live the trauma again and again because they had been stripped off the only skill they possessed- the art of gun making. Most of them started doing odd jobs. Some sold vegetables on a cart moving from one street to another. Some opened tea stalls. And some who were too proud ended up making illegal guns. Now, Munger is the hotspot for cheap and quality guns. I am lucky that my father is a government teacher and he is able to provide for me. But my own cousins are not that lucky and even though my uncle works hard, he is barely able to keep them fed and clothed; sending them to a school is a distant dream for him. Millions of families in India have similar stories. Problems of unemployment, illiteracy and poverty reek our country. The distribution of resources is too uneven; allowing rich to become richer and forcing poor to become poorer. In these dark times, the concept of nation seems vague to me.

I think the concept of nation took hold in me when I was in the eighth grade because then we were taught about modern India. To know how a small English company began to rule a country of a million people was beyond the imagination of the young brain of mine. It was saddening and frustrating to imagine being ruled by foreigners. The British were always in my mind. The atrocities they incurred on the people of India were beginning to affect me. I could feel my heart raging when I came across the incidents of Jalian Wala Bagh and hanging of Bhagat Singh. Childish it may sound, I used to blame Mahatma Gandhi for prolonging our independence struggle. Gradually I learned that if not for the British, India as the nation we know would not never have emerged for we were a bunch of states always fighting for petty issues. The British brought us together. In spite of the fact that we are a country of many religions and, even more, sects, thousands of languages, cultures and traditions, the stories of how we stood united against the most powerful empire of the world, where the sun literally never set, can bring tears to any living person.  

As I grew up, I begin to understand things, things which were previously oblivious to me. I had my first-hand experience of the caste system; the depth to which it is penetrated in our society. Being a country of over a billion people and lack of resources combine to create n number of problems; unemployment being the numero uno problem. From unemployment arises poverty, illiteracy, migration and finally forcing the people to take weapons against supposedly their own government. One side of the city has skyrocketing buildings equipped with most advanced facilities and technologies and the other side of the city has slums which lack even the most basic necessities of drinking water, sanitation, and electricity. Naxalism and Maoism have their roots in poor and illiterate India desperately trying to make up for the uneven distribution of resources and unjust government which takes care of only rich and powerful. Corruption has its hold in every organization, be it a government or private sector organization. Incidents of communal violence occur every now and then. No sane person can ever justify Gujrat riots of 2002, ethnic cleansing of Kashmiri pandits, Sikh Massacre of 1984; still they happened and we forgot them in no time. After 60 years of independence, English is still the official language of communication and those who cannot speak English are looked down upon. We continuously face militant activities on the borders- in regions of Jammu and Kashmir, Punjab and Arunachal Pradesh.

All is not lost in the country of ours. After our independence, we have achieved a great number of things. We proved our worth in space and nuclear sciences. Since 1998 explosion in Pokhran, India has slowly got recognized as a nuclear power. In spite of budgetary constraints, Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) has given us reasons to celebrate on a number of occasions. Chandrayanam and Mangalyanam are two its recent success stories. The growth of Indian economy has been consistent. IT sector is growing at a tremendous rate; it has grown almost 100 times in the last 20 years. Indian railways is one of largest in the world, in terms of railway networks and number of employees. These are just a few of the milestones we have achieved after independence. India has a small window of opportunities right now. The majority of its population is young and ready to work and if utilized properly, India can be a workforce to reckon with. However, if we fail to provide opportunities to the growing young population, it can push India into an oblivion, darker than the atrocious British raj.

Reviews

[Jonathan Lee]

It would be nice if this site had a category for "Essay." I was initially confused, as I saw it listed as "Story." I went back and found you did indeed mark it as an essay in the forum post I saw. This would be a truly intriguing opening prologue to a work of fiction, btw.

As a standard essay, it lacks a clear thesis, but nevertheless as a bit of personal reflection and musing it comes across as very heartfelt and interesting. I would love to see this developed into either an op-ed piece on one or more proposals for specific action, or (as I mentioned earlier) an epic prologue to a fictional story set in India.

You might also want to tighten up the proofreading here and there--such as where you wrote "off" when it was clear you probably meant "of" and other little things here and there. On the whole, however, your spelling and grammar is excellent and your use of the English language exceeds many native speakers here in the US.

As it stands, this makes an excellent blog post, but could use some more development for something more. I'm not sure what your intended audience is, but if you're looking to reach people outside of India (like myself), you might spend some words on some short explanations on terminology. I have to admit ignorance regarding "Bihar," "Mir Qasim," as well as the stories of "Chandrayanam" and "Mangalyanam." These terms and their significance is easy enough to look up (which I did), but your writing would be more accessible to a foreign audience with some explanation. And in doing so, you would really help to educate ignorant Americans like myself on the plight of your people.

Thanks for sharing.

[Devashish Kumar]

Could you explain what you meant by "this could be developed into either an op-ed piece on one or more proposals for specific?" Thank you, by the way for this review. I shall try to rectify the mistakes you pointed out.

[Jonathan Lee]

As in an editorial, opinion piece, etc. Presently you give a good overview of your country and its history from your perspective, but it's all a bit vague and doesn't develop a solid thesis.

You end by saying that it will be bad "if we fail to provide opportunities to the growing young population." But how do you propose that gets done? Do you have specific legislation in mind? Do you want to encourage the reader to become an entrepreneur and hire young people? Is there a specific cultural issue that needs to be addressed?

If you took what you have now and then launched into a specific proposal, argued for that proposal, and then concluded with a restatement of that proposal, you could have a powerful persuasive essay. It would require a bit of restructuring, reworking, and additional writing, but you could use what you have now and expand on it to that.

That's, of course, assuming you were looking to write something like that. This piece is interesting as-is, but it's a bit up in the air and seems incomplete. Again, perfectly fine for a bit of musing as part of a random blog post, but it has the potential of being something more solid than that.

[Jonathan Lee]

s/to that/to do that*

[Solar]

'militant activities on the borders- in regions of Jammu and Kashmir, Punjab and Arunachal Pradesh.'

Serious issues.

[Sandra Nair]

Wonderful.

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