This is a common question many of us Indians face. We often ask ourselves this question but the answers remain elusive. We see fellow Indians dirtying their living spaces or even damage public properties. We see drivers honking on the roads in a manner that is not seen in other countries. We see people spitting and wonder why people do such actions. We see people doing work through informal middlemen or breaking lines or cutting corners and often wonder why all of us do such actions. Such actions may or may not be illegal but they are certainly unpalatable for any decent society. So why is it that we see such actions in abundance within our own country? Are Indians genetically programmed to act in this manner?

Who can answer such a question? Economists may attribute any negative behaviour to poverty but we are aware that this absence of public etiquette spans across all classes. Are historians equipped to answer this question? Social Scientists? Politicians? Gurus? Or is it that only a person having knowledge on all these domains can provide sensible answers to this question? But do such people exist? If no expert has answers, why should my answers carry any weight? Maybe they do not. But I still do have an opinion and here it goes…… Enjoy!!!!!

Look at nations formed in early 20th century – majority of population in most nations have kinship with one another owing to the presence of a certain common criterion. So Japanese are homogeneous, South Koreans are homogeneous, Chinese are Han people, Germans have their kinship with teachings of St. Luther, Saudi Arabia has Arabs, etc. So building a common narrative using common behaviour idioms is far easier in such countries since most people identify with common history, shared culture, etc. And these shared identities are perpetuated through a common education that people within such a region had been going through for many decades or centuries. Much of German work ethic comes from the 500-year-old teachings of St Luther and much of Chinese pride comes from Confucian morals and these narratives are perpetuated in modern renditions to drive common themes through the population. Thus, leaders in such countries can use the shared emotional symbology to unite people whereby people then work with each other to follow empathetic norms of behaviour with one another. 

Equally interesting to note is that these very countries will struggle when the basis of their strength, viz. their shared common narrative, gets challenged or comes to question. So India got divided into three countries in 1947 with around a third of their nation converting to Islam. We therefore see certain countries either not allowing outsiders to their narrative not gaining entry into such countries or outside narratives not given political space (like Communism or Democracy is banned in a few countries). Saudi Arabia will not give citizen status to non-Arabs or Japanese will not grant citizen status to people who do not form part of the Japanese race. China continues to struggle to integrate non-Han minorities just as Germany and Sweden in recent times is having problems integrating people from Middle East, etc who moved into their geographies. Thus, absence of Unity makes implementation of common norms of behaviour much more difficult across the entire population, if not impossible. 

Coming to India, if we step back a few centuries, India was seen as one nation. Thus, the moment a Chinese traveller stepped into the mountains of Kashmir or Greeks into Afghanistan or Portuguese into Kerala or Marco Polo in Orissa, all of them expressed that they entered India. Though governed by different kings and inhabited by people following different practices, the whole land was referred to by a single name – why so? The reasons are not far to seek – it is the presence of a common educational heritage across the Indian geography. Till about 13th century, India had a common educational heritage and our Universities across the country were run on similar lines with a consistent curriculum.  People used to travel across the country (South Indians used to get education in Kashmir at Sharada Peeth or Biharis used to go to Gujarat or people from Varanasi to Chidambaram, etc). It was common for students across Asia to come to India for pursuit of studies. Much of the visible influence of India in countries like Thailand or Indonesia or China or even Japan happened till such time India had these Universities. Thus, day to day governance in terms of running of villages, tax system, etc was influenced by people who were educated in these Universities – one author Dharampal writes in his book “The Beautiful Tree” that village governance norms were consistent across the country. And one does not hear of accounts of travellers into India during the pre-Gupta and Gupta period complaining of lack of cleanliness or duplicitous businessmen. However, once these Universities collapsed thanks to invasions of Turks and Persians, the ability of Indians to perpetuate common norms across our land diminished. Every part of India ended up being governed by local kings who were only focussed on enhancing their revenues. Equally, Indian influence on other countries waned significantly though memories of earlier wisdom gained from India continues to be followed as local culture in these other countries even today.

Did ancient India have norms on cleanliness?

How did ancient Indians treat their rivers? We often see people bathing in our rivers  and defeacate our rivers and assume that this has been the practice since ancient times. A few verses from Manusmriti are reproduced below which should dispel this myth almost immediately:

नान्नमद्यादेकवासा न नग्नः स्नानमाचरेत् ।  न मूत्रं पथि कुर्वीत न भस्मनि न गोव्रजे ॥ ४५ ॥

He shall not eat food with only one piece of cloth on him; he shall not bathe naked; he shall not pass urine on the road, nor on ashes, nor on the haunts of cows.—(45)
न फालकृष्टे न जले न चित्यां न च पर्वते ।  न जीर्णदेवायतने न वल्मीके कदा चन ॥ ४६ ॥

Nor on ploughed land, nor in water, nor on an oven, nor on a mountain, nor in a ruined temple, nor on an ant-hill. (46)

न ससत्त्वेषु गर्तेषु न गच्छन्नपि न स्थितः ।  न नदीतीरमासाद्य न च पर्वतमस्तके ॥ ४७ ॥

Nor in holes inhabited by living creatures, nor walking, nor standing, nor on reaching the banks of a river, nor on the mountain-top.—(47)

वायुअग्निविप्रमादित्यमपः पश्यंस्तथैव गाः ।  न कदा चन कुर्वीत विण्मूत्रस्य विसर्जनम् ॥ ४८ ॥

One should never pass faeces or urine, while looking at the wind or fire, or a Brāhmaṇa, or the sun, or water, or cows.—(48)

तिरस्कृत्योच्चरेत् काष्ठलोष्ठपत्रतृणादिना ।  नियम्य प्रयतो वाचं संवीताङ्गोऽवगुण्ठितः ॥ ५० ॥

He shall pass it after placing a stick, or a clod, or leaves, or grass, or some such thing, restraining his speech, clean, his body wrapped and covered.—(50)

नाप्सु मूत्रं पुरीषं वा ष्ठीवनं वा समुत्सृजेत् ।  अमेध्यलिप्तमन्यद् वा लोहितं वा विषाणि वा ॥ ५६ ॥

He shall not throw into water urine, or faeces, or spitting, or anything else contaminated by unclean things, or blood or poisons.—(56).

The above is just a small summary. Even the Puranas have specific shlokas not to release urine or faeces into the rivers or on trees or public places. Even for taking a bath in a river like Ganga, people were explicitly told to take bath at home first and then take a dip in our rivers. Given this backdrop, it is not difficult to fathom that one will not find people washing their clothes in rivers or using soap in rivers since these will pollute the rivers. If rivers and trees are deemed as Devatas, how can people pollute them recklessly as we witness in modern India? It is evident that this ancient wisdom got lost and the people who were to enforce such laws could no longer do so. Why so? The invasions starting from the 11th century but had become more intense from around the 13th century changed the knowledge landscape of India significantly.

In one violent stroke, all our centuries-old Universities and their educational history collapsed within a few decades around 13^th century. Even today, can we imagine USA without its Universities? Its grandeur today and the pull that USA is able to attract comes from its Universities and nothing else. These Universities influence global thought, shape historical discussions, scientific developments as well as influence Hollywood. In a much deeper way, when Newspaper editorials provide their views on events of the world, the thought variables based on which world sees things can also be traced to education ecosystem driven by Universities in USA. Take these away and the USA narrative will collapse within a few decades. Thus, the commonality of India narrative that enabled India to work in an united manner across the country despite absence of a single king across the entire geography owing to presence of its Universities collapsed 700 years back.

So when we come to India of 1947 – what did we inherit? India had a population having a life expectancy of 26 and poverty rate of 90% with no education. And what were the experiences that Indians were carrying in their memory at this time? They probably remembered the famines in Bengal, Chennai, and other cities where it is said that in the 18th century, dead bodies used to be strewn across the city and no one disposing them off since they did not have money nor any civic amenities were present. When people see so much death, they become indifferent to basic etiquettes of life. Villages were drained of money and people were dying there too. And imagine death caused owing to lack of food at home!!! People were living in a state where they ate whatever probably came to them or they would be willing to snatch food from their neighbours too just to live. Dying out of hunger slowly must have been a horrible experience for people who were going through this and they may have heard similar such stories about their close ones. And this had not been an uncommon experience in India throughout the British rule. Some people escaped villages only to die a horrible death in the cities. And then Brits brought with them international diseases like Malaria which was unheard of in India (it came from Spain, I think).

So what do we have in India in 1947? We had a significant section of population living in a survival mode not sure of availability of food tomorrow, not sure of jobs and not sure of life itself. And each having memories of family history of poverty driven deaths or memories of deaths caused by diseases or hunger as well as having experiences of life of big fish eating small fish as our population jostles with other people who are equally in a survival mode. How does one unite Indians with a common narrative so that they can work together to form a great nation? It had been debated by our initial crop of leaders. Among other things, a key uniting factor that was coined was to inculcate an idea of dislike for Imperialism. Gandhi therefore came to be labelled as the father of the  Indian nation who led our freedom struggle against Imperialism. Clearly, for a country as old as India, to define a new father of the nation may sound unusual but it seemed a good idea to our leaders at that point of time. Common mission in terms of poverty alleviation ended up being pursued and goals like reduction of population through family planning became the definers of modern India (ironically, the population in 1947 was 1/4th of today’s population but family planning is not emphasised now as it used to be done earlier). If one notices closely, one will see absence of enforcement towards rule of law, ethical conduct as well as cleanliness. Why so? Maybe the situation was such that these aspects did not strike as necessary for the state of our country at that time. Or maybe our leaders were not wise enough.. who knows?

India was seen as a basket case at that time. It was not seen as a country that will survive beyond the sixties. Interestingly, it appears that Pakistan with one religion viz Islam, one language viz Urdu was seen as a better model and in fact, till even till early 1990s, Pakistan had better growth parameters than India. Worse followed for India with wars in 1962 and 1965, severe food shortages in the sixties pushing us towards green revolution, oil crisis of early seventies, etc. So what must have been the narrative inside homes of all people at these times? Snatch whatever you get, save whatever you have, live a frugal life to pay for costs of family, etc. Till even mid-nineties, people  in most parts of our country were used to getting grain and Kerosene after standing in ration shops for hours and even then were not sure if they would get the ration at all. Also, the quality of ration was not really upto mark. Our early leaders never talked about cleanliness, rule of law, etc because clearly the ecosystem had been in such a mode of survival that no one probably had guts to tell people to focus on these. So we lost an initial opportunity. Education was pursued by people only for a Government job that promised some semblance of security or as a businessperson, one was able to make money only by cutting corners or breaking rules. Thus, the Indian ecosystem continued to see public disorder throughout this period – corruption, poor quality of goods, etc and India remained prey to fixers or middlemen who used to get things done for people especially in an era when practically everything was in shortage.

And then came the nineties. A few people who had certain educational parameters suddenly struck gold. Their situation became akin to a monkey suddenly given a taste of nectar. And the people who struck gold suddenly had access to many things that their parents or fellow citizens could not even dream of. And these guys are able to see the world, see the human behaviour in other countries and for the first time questioning why Indians are different from normal people in other countries in terms of cleanliness or following the rule of law. These guys struggle to balance the clamour of their parents for a frugal lifestyle with their own situation of excess in everything – food, entertainment, etc. It is interesting that a national movement of स्वच्छ भारत or construction of toilets got wide acceptance only in 2014 – it is not that such a call for public cleanliness were made earlier. This was not possible in the 60s-80s as the ecosystem was not conducive but this narrative got easy acceptability now since a big middle class has developed which has gone beyond living off in a survival mode. Notice also the change in movies when the emphasis throughout the 60s to mid 90s was on “angry young man” upset with the system while the movies made from the year 2000 onwards did not have angry young men upset with the system.

Conclusions

Key element to note is that bulk of human behaviour outside is shaped by narratives inside homes. And the narrative inside many homes in India had been on a survival mode for many centuries. And when one stepped out of homes, the uniting factor for Indians had only been dislike for Imperialism which has been sub-optimal in making people orient themselves towards maintaining good public etiquette. In the 21st century, thanks to some level of prosperity seen by a few Indians, the narrative has shifted to aspirational levels about living life to make dreams come true. But for a long time, due focus had not been given to orderly public behaviour that rests on empathy for the other. Equally, we have this problem of wrong working practices developed over the past century or so that become entrenched in the minds of people – thus even while some Indians no longer operate in survival mode and are sure that food will never fall short for them, such Indians too continue to operate in this mode. And therefore the home narrative together with India uniting narrative is taking time to change.

There is nothing intrinsically unique about Indians that explains why people spit on roads or keep their roads dirty. As more and more people move out of the basic survival mode, aspects like cleanliness that had seemed non-essential till now are already taking centre-stage. Campaigns like “all should pay tax” may not have made sense when taxes were over 50% but GST has acceptance today even from all kinds of businessmen, whether rich or poor. I have come to realize that Indians will progressively improve their work ethic much better as we are a much more confident nation that what our state had been for many centuries. A good leadership will get resonance from people if the need for following rule of law is communicated.

We missed an earlier opportunity to make this happen in 1947 but things seem to be changing quite rapidly. Singapore could radically transform human behaviour under a strong leader within a few decades. Since many millennia, the uniting narrative of Indians was a search for Truth. Whether one is a king or a Guru or a businessperson or a humble charioteer, each of them in their own way were clear that life is all about pursuit of Truth. Such Truth, the Sat-Chit-Ananda Reality exists everywhere and is the basis of both the Universe as well as all individual selves. Life is meant to merely be an opportunity to seek for and live this Truth within ourselves. Time has come to make its Adhyatmic identity as the Unity narrative of India. And once the leadership seizes this and drives this, aspects like morality, empathy for the other, etc will fall in place within no time. Simple pursuit of material prosperity as a uniting narrative may last only for a few decades but will not have the power to sustain itself beyond a point. Such leadership may not mean a strong Prime Minister or a Political Party only and could take the shape of grounded intellectuals or Gurus who can take lead in rising the behaviour of people to make them live life in pursuit of Truth. For far too long, India has taken a back seat owing to chaotic intervention of foreign powers aided in no small measure by our own ineptitude. Once the new unity narrative takes shape, we will progressively see that not only will the lingering bad habits of yesteryears get addressed, the entire population will get enthused to do all activities in whichever vocation they pursue in line with Dharma. And if this enthused India works slightly harder to re-create the University ecosystem that was prevalent till around 13th century where the content is based on the unique Indian Dharmic Drishti that arose from its own wisdom, questions like the one which have been haunting today’s Indians can be possibly taken up as a historical case study in such Universities.

OM TAT SAT