The Kangaroo Land (Australia) – Economically Developed, Culturally Impoverished

No matter how much economic development a country may have achieved, it does not necessarily guarantee that the country enjoys a truly refined and cultured society. This extremely unpleasant fact was again proved by the recent spate of racial attacks on the Indian students in Australia. Every Indian is shocked and disturbed to know about how our children are being thrashed by the raw and rustic Australian youths, simply for having the “wrong” skin colour. Ultra-outrageous! That is the only word that fittingly describes what is happening in the Kangaroo Land.

So this is the true character of the people of Australia, a country that prides itself in being in the league of the so-called “developed nations”? On one hand the Australians are so proud of the economic status of their “first world country”, and the high quality of life that they enjoy. And on the other hand they are so narrow-minded that they cannot accept a foreigner as their equal, simply because that person does not have the “correct” ethnicity and skin colour.

Actually there is nothing surprising about this rustic mentality of the Australians. The nature of a nation is mainly shaped by its origin, i.e. the types of forefathers it had. Australians might be proud that today they are a developed nation. But what is their origin? A huge chunk of their forefathers were criminals and anti-socials from England, who were banished by the English government to Australia (which was then a penal island). Another major chunk of their forefathers was constituted of the illiterate (and naturally uncultured) gold prospectors from various parts of Europe. With such a “genealogy”, it is little surprising that Australians have such an uncultured and ruffian attitude. In fact, rudeness is seemingly part and parcel of the Australian life. A case in point is the on-the-field behaviour of the Australian cricketers, the ones “credited” with the import of “sledging culture” in the “Gentleman’s game”.

It is heartening to see that the Indian government has already launched a strong protest with its Australian counterpart. The latter must be pursued not only to save the Indian students from further racial attacks, but also to take strict action against the culprits of the racial attacks that have taken place so far.

The Indian government is also well advised to bar the Australian universities from holding promotional and marketing campaigns in India, aimed at Indian students eyeing foreign education. India is today a very lucrative market for the education sectors of all the developed countries – the USA, the UK, Australia, Singapore, etc. The moment the Australian education sector will find itself on the verge of losing a huge market, it will create immense pressure on its government to take corrective measures.

The West is never tired of criticizing the various draw backs that the Indian society suffers from – caste system, communal divide, dowry system, etc. All these are certainly disgraceful, and we, the educated Indians, are always keen to shed them off. But has West ever realized that the social disease that it suffers from – the racial prejudice and bias – is as shameful as the social diseases that we have? Rather, in India we are at least aware of the deplorability of those social problems. But our friends in the West seem to be even lacking this realization in the first place.

Photo Courtesy - www.theage.com.au

It Is Time We Thought About “Automobile Explosion”

First, some background. Around 2 months back I was passing through Nehru Place in south Delhi with my friend Sourabh, in his Tata Indica. We were discussing several topics, when our discussion took a turn towards the topic of “Nano” car. I enthusiastically said, “Sourabh, after Nano is launched, every Tom, Dick and Harry will be able to buy a car. So nice, isn’t it?”

“Well, I do not think so dear.” Said Sourabh, while struggling to move forward our car through the heavy traffic that was plaguing the road. “You can see the condition of the traffic, what a mess it has become already. The huge number of cars on the road has made the traffic so slow in all the Indian metro cities. Crossing a half an hour distance now takes almost 1 hour. Now with Nano there will be a huge increase in the number of cars overnight. And you can pretty well understand what type of situation it will usher in”.

Sourabh’s words were ringing in my ears other day while going to my office in Gurgaon. Since I have no direct bus to Gurgaon from Noida (where I stay), therefore while going to office everyday first I have to go to Dhaula Kuan, from where I catch a DTC bus of Dhaula Kuan-Gurgaon route. And everyday what I face, apart from huge crowd (inside the bus) and heat, is extreme jam. The bus takes around 50 minutes to get me at the Udyog Vihar Phase 5 (the stop is “Shankar Chowk”), where my office is located. Whereas, it is actually a distance of just 30 minutes.

But other day it was just an extreme case. We had almost reached the Shankar Chowk stop (i.e. my stop), when suddenly my bus got stuck in a huge jam. And what a jam it was! For 20-25 minutes my bus stood still, without being able to move an inch. Terribly impatient, I was constantly peeping outside through the window. And what could I see? A huge ocean of cars – Santro, Hyundai, Tata Indica, Maruti, Bolero, blah blah blah! And it was at that time when I could fully realize the substance of what Sourabh had said other day. That day I got 15 minutes late in reaching my office, ironically for getting stuck up for 20 minutes virtually at the “doorstop” of the office.

What I strongly feel is that there should be immediately some restrictions on the number of cars on the roads. Till 10-15 years back only a certain section of people could afford to buy cars, thus automatically keeping a control on the number of cars on the roads. But now the situation has changed. The purchasing power of common people has increased a lot. Moreover, now there have been various facilities like Car Loans, etc., which have facilitated the purchasing of cars to great extent. Therefore, at the end of the day, there has been an increase in the number of car buyers, thereby further resulting in an increase in the number of cars on the roads. And the ultimate result is for all of us to see.

So far we have judged the ill effects of the increase in the number of cars precisely in the context of environment, i.e., more cars = more environmental pollution. And that is certainly a very crucial issue. But what I feel to be more alarming is the way the number of cars is affecting the speed of traffic. If it continues, then can you imagine what the situation will be after just 5-6 years? And we must realize that no matter how many flyovers we construct, that can only partially (and not fully) address the problem of increasing number of cars.

So, what I feel is that the government must do something immediately about it. One option can be to ban the use of personal cars in the weekdays. It must be made a rule that people can use only public transport in the weekdays, and can use their personal cars only on Saturdays and Sundays, when in any case the offices are generally closed, and usually people are not in a hurry to go somewhere. Yes, special exemption may be offered to people whose offices are far away from their residences. If a person makes any such application that his office is far away from his home, and he finds it very difficult to reach office in time if he is using public transport, then the government can consider his case, and permit him to use his personal car while going to office in the weekdays. There can be some fixed parameters (in terms of distance, etc.) to consider such cases. But otherwise, the government must be strict about using personal cars in the weekdays.

Of course I am not saying that the suggestion I am making is the only way available to address this problem. It was just a suggestion made by a layman. I know for sure that the experienced government officials can come up with much better plans, more feasible and effective. I am only trying to highlight the seriousness of the problem, and the urgency of doing something to restraint the problem.

Lots of discussions have been made on “population explosion”. It is time we spared some thought for the problem of “automobile explosion”.

Photo Courtesy - borgawker.com