Non Resident Idiot?
The Indian economy is booming – soon to become one of the world’s biggest economic powerhouses to stand with the U.S.A. and China. The future is one of hope, beckoning investors into the country all hoping to cash in on the growth.
Amongst them are the erstwhile children of India. The “NRI’s” or non resident Indians, or as they are now sometimes called the “PIOs” (Persons of Indian origin) Over twenty million of them are sitting (some for many generations) all the way from the United Kingdom, to Canada to the islands of Fiji and beyond. Originating from all parts of the Indian subcontinent some are now eying the ancestral homeland for both material and spiritual gain.
March 6th, 2008 at 8:12 pm
There is, of course, no excuse for the kind of crass, disrespectful behaviour demonstrated by certain Indian-origin visitors to India. However, it should be pointed out that perhaps far worse than these are the many more middle to upper class Indians who display exactly the same, and often much worse, attitudes towards their actual homeland. A society that does not respect itself cannot possibly hope to be respected by anyone else.
March 7th, 2008 at 5:28 pm
Satya wrote-
“A society that does not respect itself cannot possibly hope to be respected by anyone else.”
Best comment of the new year.
March 9th, 2008 at 8:17 am
Sorry but I find this article biased against NRI’s. Yes you do get some idiots but it’s nothing compared to the attitude of the Indians to NRI’s. Just try going through the customs/immigration in Mumbai airport and see the Indian’s attitude towards NRI’s compared to their attitude towards white Westerners. Last time I went they blatantly formed a separate queue for their white masters and tried to fast track them untill I startied yelling at them. It’s the only way to make Indian’s treat NRI’s with any decency or respect.
March 10th, 2008 at 3:29 am
“Last time I went they blatantly formed a separate queue for their white masters and tried to fast track them untill I startied yelling at them”
We got hassled in Mumbai when we were flying from Australia, but not in Bangalore. Dont know what the deal is with Mumbaikers and NRI’s. As for the red carpet treatment of white people, it disgusting to say the least and if anything, we NRI’s will vouch that they definately do not deserve any kind of special treatment whatsoever!
-Muski
March 10th, 2008 at 11:31 am
I agree with Prahalad that there is often, in India, a palpable sensse of anti-Indian racism. Those with white skin are often quite obviously given preference and treated as if the Raj had never ended. This means that any brown-skinned individuals, whether at the airport, at a restaurant, at a hotel, or anywhere else, are effectively discriminated against, whether they be Indian nationals or foreigners. The frustration that this causes certainly makes it understandable why both some “NRIs” (what a horrible term!) and some Indians feel the need to vent their irritation, or even anger, at the second-class treatment they endure. Again, it comes back to the simple question of self-respect. During the Raj, as the British sahibs (and, of course, “brown sahibs”) drove off in their posh cars, Indians would run after them, hoping that the sahib would throw some money out to them - as they ran after the car, the mud, dust and dirt from the road would be thrown up by the tyres and plaster them; I have often heard it said in India that after 60-odd years of Independence, that dirt has still not washed off the Indian people. Politics and official sheets of paper notwithstanding, is India yet truly free of colonialism, or is it still little more than a slave of the white-skinned west?
March 11th, 2008 at 2:58 pm
The Greeks were known for their hospitality. So were the Indians. Part of hospitality is to treat the “other” better than one would treat oneself. As I have often seen in “white” (though I’ve never met a white person, some pink, some off white) parties, the new person, the brown person, is often welcomed particularly. (I’ve also seen the opposite though.)
There is a certain condescension we display to european visitors that they won’t get it, won’t tolerate the food, the water, the hustle/bustle etc of India. That is not good. But to treat others well is a good and should not be forgotten.
I certainly agree that a civil servant should be neutral (as should a government) as to a person’s background as to how to treat them but then that is certainly not what happens in India with discrimination institutionalized against itself with no reason other than appeasement.
As to the NRIdiot - I suspect individuals have responsibility for their behavior beyond their group identity. Ahimsa is in word and deed.
hariaum
March 11th, 2008 at 9:07 pm
I say, slave. If it were possibly, people would swap bodies, if it was cheap.
March 26th, 2008 at 2:25 am
Namaste,
Let we don’t demean ourselves. By self-hating, we can’t correct this situation but only by positive thinking and practice. We must create in each of us good examples to be followed by others. I am sure, we can do that.
One typical habit we Bharatiya people, or Bharatiya origin people, fall into temptation to imitate others, blindly imitate others (particularly west). This is due to lack of self-respect and self-confidence. We must live and act as we are.
When every Hindu will read Bhagavad Gita, even a little, or writings of Swami Vivekananda and practice even a bit, that day they will liberate themselves from the mental slavery, the slavery of inferiority complex.
As Swami Vivekananda said: “We are responsible for what we are, and whatever we wish ourselves to be, we have the power to make ourselves. If what we are now has been the result of our own past actions, it certainly follows that whatever we wish to be in future can be produced by our present actions; so we have to know how to act.”
Bharat
====
March 31st, 2008 at 3:55 pm
All those who are in India or NRI’s visiting India may not have those Indian values. Today individual values have taken over social values. Now, the behaviour of an individual reflects his individual views, beliefs and interests. Earlier (at least in India) it wasn’t so because it had close knit social structure, and one had to follow those norms.
April 2nd, 2008 at 8:44 am
Indian:
Can you tell me what are the Indian values today in India except for money, money and money.
People do not behave like normal human being in India. I can understand because of the extreme heat and horrible dust, lack of public toilet, ugly buses and filthy trains people live almost like animals in most cases. Just look through the window when your plane will land in Bombay airport; you can only see sea of slums with creatures who do not look like human being but they are also human being. What values can they have?
April 4th, 2008 at 2:48 pm
I note Bharat’s views with which I do concur however, I inject a “controversial” diviation into his broader philosophy here, that which will be most unwelcome by many and could draw abuse too.
It is difficult to be diplomatic here because of the nature of the subject, and what I am about to say is likely to create a storm.
“..Let we don’t demean ourselves. By self-hating, we can’t correct this situation but only by positive thinking and practice. We must create in each of us good examples to be followed by others. I am sure, we can do that..”
Positive thinking and practice starts at home - what we call good sanskaars. The word “good” is being “re-defined” and “reinterpreted” by many an independent thinking British Indian woman for various if not obvious reasons.
There are various “Hindu” associations such as the Hindu Womens Association for eg. which is probably more of a social network/club whose membership is probably of a “certain social and financial class” of “very independent” Hindu women who are either fairly well, or very highly educated, and many being very “modern” mothers and wives to possibly more “traditional” thinking husbands and family members.
Para 2 - The “conflict” therefore in comparison to what Bharat refers to can be the “modern” mother .. modern being interpreted in this context as Bharat explains in relation to the Indian way of life and its subsequent (diverse or favourable is a matter for selective debate) impact on the upbringing of our children, and of what we consider to be the “acceptable” “code of behaviour” of the input of the “modern” Indian wife and mother; Not an easy task in the UK I admit with all the different influences being exerted on the “Indian way of life” and living in the generally wealthy UK lifestyle.
Contrary to the British Hindu wives and mothers, their relations and siblings beit male or female, living in Africa or India still maintain and live “within” the Indian lifestyle and do not “suffer” from the “conflict” of their sisters living in the UK. Their upbringing of their children in Africa still being that of the “traditional Indian mother and wife”.
I can hear screams of fury .. “Indian men’s expectations of their women are too high, and that must change. We are not your slaves.”
Unwise or not, thoughts and debate being what this is, I wonder if it is such smug modern thinking by those very few British Indians which contributes to the 5 star hotel lifestyle of the “Non Resident Idiot” when visiting India, insensitive towards Indians out of arrogant display of wealth?
I hope that humour will prevail when I get attacked here.
April 5th, 2008 at 4:47 pm
As a hindu, i have visited many countries where hindus either make up the majority or a large minority. I have been born and bred in the west. When i went to india, i visited many places of the hindu religion and states.to my astonishment, my knowledge of sanatan dharma and places associated with hindu warriors/heroes was much greater than that of the hindus born in India. Also for the N.R.I’s that come to india with a superiority complex, let them remember the following:1 india is the world’s oldest surviving civilization and it’s people are famous for their hospitality to outsiders, so UNCIVILIZED BRITISH STREET BEHAVIOUR AND ACTING AS A HOODY WILL NOT BE TOLERATED IN INDIA, WHERE RESPECT FOR ELDERS IS AN INGRAINED HINDU CONCEPT.ALSO IT IS THE N.R.I’S THAT GO TO INDIA,THE INDIAN’S DID NOT INVITE THEM. BEFORE THE BRITISH FIRST ARRIVED INDIA WAS THE RICHEST COUNTRY IN THE WORLD,WHEN THEY LEFT IT BECAME ONE OF THE POOREST,SO MUCH SO FOR THE CAANDIAN’S ASSERTION THAT THINGS WERE BETTER UNDER THE BRITISH. In 50 years time, India along with China and Brazil will be part of the new world order, even western cynics acknowledge this. Now, for the indians that lick the dust from the feet of westerners for a rupee tip, they are certainly not hindus though they maybe indians. They have this inferiority complex because because they follow the half naked and irational self declared beggar called GANDHI,WHO INSTRUCTED HIS FOLLOWERS TO WASH TOILETS and followed the jain way of life secretly,whilst in the garb of a hindu. Had these hindus follwed true hindus like Chanakya and Maharana Pratap, then i am sure that it would have been the westerners that would be licking their shoes by now. Choose to be a Gandhi follower and loose all selr-respect, choose to be an hindu and have historians look at you in awe, as they do the brave hindu warriors called the GURKHAS. HINDUS OF INDIA AND THE WEST, LEARN TO LIVE WITH RESPECT,DIGNITY LIKE THE GURKHAS OF NEPAL. THEY ARE EVEN PRAISED BY THEIR FORMER ENEMIES BECAUSE OF THEIR HINDUNESS AND HINDU FIGHTING SPIRIT, WHILST THOSES IN INDIA BOW THEIR HEADS DOWN TO MANMOHAN SINGH THE SIKH PRIME- MINISTER. THE REAL ISSUE HAS BEEN EXPLAINED HERE BY ME, CAN PEOPLE PLEASE RESPOD TO THIS COMMENT.
April 9th, 2008 at 12:46 pm
Prithiraj Chauhan:
(1) The issue is racist attitude of the Indian people towards the Indian, which the Indians cannot understand but the NRIs can feel always in India.
I recently went to India. In the Standard Chaterred Bank the cleark refused to cash my AmEx travellers cheque saying you need to go a money changer (and gave me a card) otherwise you have to pay Rs.200 extra. He has not said that to the German, Americans, British who were just in front of me in the queue.
Then I went to ICICI bank, they said you do not any account with us, so we cannot change your traveller’s cheque, although I have seen Americans or Australians cashing their cheques.
Then I went to City Bank, the cleark said straight that we donot cash travellers cheque, although it is written on the door they do and there is a special counter for it.
How can you explain that you Maharana Pratap??? If it is not racism what can it be. This is the reason I nerver use Air-India after having horrible experience twice.
(2) Gurkhas are not India, they are Nepalese. They are Hindu but don’t forget that in Jaliwanwala Bagh in 1919, they under the direction of two Irish O’Dweyer and O’Dyer have killed 3500 Indian. They are just hired killers. They took part in the 2nd World War and in 1857 war on behalf of the British against Indians. They are extremely violent people. Because of them tourist trade in Darjeeling had collapsed after their mass-arrival from 1955 onwards. Then they have also destroyed their own country Nepal, noone goes there any more.
Don’t glirify them just because they are Hindus. Siva Sena people are also Hindu, but they are just racist criminals.
April 28th, 2008 at 8:14 am
Moron, I had many of your experiences whenever I have visited India. NRIs used to living within strict legal framework, established over hundred years ago, get disgusted by the behaviour of the Indians and treatment they get. NRIs do not expect any special treatment but feel good if treated fairly. I was discriminated even in Hotel like Taj Mahal in Mumbai. It boils down to one thing every time; ‘White skin worshipping’.
There is a long history behind our behaviour. And I insist it is the systematic brainwashing by the British by instilling the theory of invasion of India by Aryans who were whites from the Caucasian mountains. That made all whites superior. After Indian independence Hindu intellectuals should have corrected this situation and asked Indians to be proud of defeating the British, breaking the Empire and smashing the white supremacy all over the world.
The second reason being all these years of the Empire, the British had kept the technology out of reach of the ordinary Indians by denying industrialization to India. Again Hindu intellectuals failed to explain effects industrialization and its necessity to make the country rich. And technological superiority of the whites in the minds of the Indians remained intact. Many researches now have shown the British, the West and Mideast acquired the basic knowledge of later sciences from Hindu scriptures and works of Hindu scholars from 3rd cent. BC onward. It is still not late to pump some pride in the minds of the Hindus and converts to other faiths who, I am pained to see, licking the shoes of the whites in India.
April 29th, 2008 at 4:55 pm
FYI.
‘White tourists are served better than blacks, browns’
Thursday, 24 April , 2008, 05:27
Jaipur: Skin colour matters as far as visitors to India are concerned, says a fourth generation South African Indian who claims to have faced “racial discrimination” himself, particularly in the country’s northern parts.
Dinesh Naidoo, vice-president of the Association of Travel Agents in South Africa who was here to attend the first Great Indian Travel Bazaar, said white-skinned people are given better services and preference over browns or blacks.
“I have come from the country where we have seen what apartheid could do to a country and to its people,” he said.
Narrating an incident, Naidoo, who is managing director of Serendipity Tours in Durban and has visited India 42 times, said: “Once I entered a five-star hotel in New Delhi wearing a chappal and a T-shirt. The guard did not let me enter even though I was staying there.
“At the Jaipur airport, a porter bypassed me and took the luggage of a white-skinned tourist.”
“I don’t know why this mentality is seen here,” he said at the panel discussion on “Tourism as an engine for economic growth”, which was chaired by Leena Nandan, joint secretary for tourism.
The three-day travel mart has been jointly organised by the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI), the tourism ministry and Rajasthan Tourism.
Nandan said “Racial discrimination is not at all an issue in the country,” but Naidoo had a different story to tell.
“This is the first time I have raised the matter in the presence of government officials. We have to address the issue,” Naidoo, who first visited India in 1996 after he started the company, told IANS.
“How can one be judgmental? A customer is a customer. They consider brown-skinned people not worthy. I have got several requests from visitors to India to add Dr or professor in their names. When I asked them for the reason, they said just a mere Mr. does not assure them good services,” he added.
“This I have seen is more common in north India as compared to south India,” explained Naidoo, whose forefathers came from Andhra Pradesh.
“I annually send 5,000 to 6,000 tourists to India and have earned Rs.120 million revenue for India. If I face such a situation, what can I say to the other Indians who come from South Africa?
“In South Africa, the buying power of a black and brown person is more than the white-skinned. How can the industry shut its eyes to this fact?” he asked.
Naidoo said: “I have seen that no one talks about racial discrimination in India, though everyone acknowledges the fact, especially those who are affected. We have to discuss and tackle the issue seriously.”
The other issue that hinders the growth of tourism is the behaviour of taxi drivers and guides. “They are not paid well by the tour operators and so they depend on shopping commissions. I remember a group after visiting India told me that their driver did not talk to them as they were not shopping,” he said.
“As they are not paid (guides and drivers), it kills the services on the ground. The tour operator has to understand that they cannot help but train them and also pay them good money. This could lead to negative growth,” he stressed.
Naidoo also wants the government to promote the country through Bollywood and cricket. “This is the best way to showcase brand India. We can sell packages around the world through such mega events as is commonly seen in other countries.
“Why did no one announce packages around the Indian Premier League cricket matches? This was the best way to promote India.”
Talking about the impact of Hindi movies, he said there seemed to have been a rise in the number of Indian tourists visiting Durban after the movie “Race” was fully shot in the city. Naidoo also said the Indian officers posted at India Tourism Offices abroad should know the local languages and should aggressively market brand India.
Source: http://sify dot com/news/fullstory.php?id=14655289
April 30th, 2008 at 4:51 am
There are no British soldiers on Indian soil, but they live on in the colonial mentality. The fact that someone like Sonia Gandhi is Congress President attests to a part of this slavish, servile tendency.
May 2nd, 2008 at 7:19 am
I don’t think Indians have ever understood the British Government and its Constitution, neither have the Indian politicians.
There is the Queen at the top of the pyramid. She is the head of the Government, House of Lords, the Parliament, the Armed Forces, the Commonwealth and the Church of England. Every Government action needs Queen’s consent. The Church of England is an established Church and part and parcel of the British Government. That makes all the British working abroad, even not in uniform, soldier workers of the Queen and for the Queen. So this vast workforce includes the Embassy staff abroad, the Church staff including Priests abroad, the staff of British Councils and Libraries abroad. So always beware these workers uniformed, non uniformed and many wearing frocks of different designs and colours in India are soldier workers of the British Establishment and not as independent as man in the streets of India. When I told this to a C of E cleric in Mumbai, who was smarting his ‘dog collar’ and telling me how Jesus is going to save the poor in India, he was ashamed and looked almost suicidal.
Then of course there are people operating in public, people like Mark Tulley, Thapers, Shashi Tharoor and his entourage of black suited giggling converts smarting their Englishness. I was told , in one meeting in London Nehru Centre, Shashi Tharoor in the presence of Indian Ambassador and white British Council seniors was knocking Indian politicians especially Laloo Prasad Yadav so much that it made many cringe and uncomfortable. People like Tharoor who want to show off their Englishness outside India have not learnt one British golden rule, ‘never, never knock your own people, religious or political, in front of foreigners, even if they have committed crimes’. The British who ruled India for two hundred years never did it and still never do it. I cannot believe, even so called educated Indians can be brainwashed to this degree. Looks like they are no better than Maoists and Naxalites who delivered Nagaland, Mizoram, Manipur and Nepal to the British.
May 2nd, 2008 at 3:59 pm
If Nepal was fairly turned over to the maoists, which many observers had suggested was not the case, then it would be the fault of the hindu community to fail to offer a better set of candidates.
Likewise, elsewhere.
hariaum
May 10th, 2008 at 7:51 am
Who says Nepal was fairly turned over to Maoists? Maoists have done nothing but formed a group supporting foreign powers, obtaining up-to-date weapons and uniforms, getting trained by foreigners, killing its own Monarchy, threatening people making them to lose their loyalty to the country, and then selecting candidates of its own elections and turn over the administration to itself. Now the country will be Americanised and exploited. And one day Nepalese will find themselves working for producing everything for America and Britain with its own administration accepting missile base.
Fault of the Hindus is they have not woken up to International politics mainly played by the Americans and Britains under instructions from their fanatical religious organisations. In India they are carrying on with such programs under very noses of the Hindus. Only solution I can see for the Hindus is to reform, reform conduct and practise of its own religion, present Hinduism in its correct form, make themselves aware of the nature of the Varnas (not castes), bring uniformity in worshipping, clean up the ancient and new temples and ashrams and unite the Hindus for the defence of Hinduism and its homeland India with Hindu ethos.
May 23rd, 2008 at 12:44 pm
Greetings all,
Thanks for enlightening perspectives. There seems to be many possible explanations among your comments as to why NRI’s are discriminated by Indians, but what do you believe has caused this corruption and self-hatred as some of you describe it? Is it based purely materialistic grounds, as Moron has suggested or does other things lie behind it, I’m wondering…
May 27th, 2008 at 3:38 pm
I just read Vivekachudamani of Shankara. He comments that an infinite number of works will not help. If we believe this then renunciation is the only path. (I realize this is a simplification of shankara’s position but bear with me.) If renunciation is the only way then action is demeaned. If action is demeaned than self awareness is not pursued and good acts are not pursued. As such a people become hollowed out. They become prey to those who would tell them do this or do that for somebody else’s material gain because you don’t care about material things. Without good leadership (since they are all busy renouncing the world) the people collapse and become political pawns of external forces. Indeed this is what happens to Arjuna, et al. Until the Gita is taught and they realize that action must be engaged in.
So, on the one hand we have a great person of spiritual achievement that says don’t worry about action, on the other we have a scripture that says renounce the results of the action but act. Yet further, add in the universal condition of libertarianism that runs deep in Hinduism - you do your thing I’ll do mine. Then add in the universal human condition of discrimination (or fear of loss of self), add in the worship of power, wealth, and pleasure, add in a foreign ideology that conquest and suppression of ideological freedom is a good…. and you’ve got your answer. -Multiple variables, complex environment, compounded by ignorance and ill intent. Hm, sounds like reality.
hariaum
May 29th, 2008 at 12:23 pm
Thnx, I appreciate your perspective.
So, in my reading of your reply, the Indians who discriminate are no different from other people who carry out acts of discrimination, because we all navigate in the excact same pond of multiple ideologies, desires and ignorances, but then why target NRI’s in particular and not just everyone? (why are rich white people not discriminated in that same way, then - as an example)
May 29th, 2008 at 7:58 pm
Once one becomes prey to the desires of others, the other’s objective will remain self affirmation. This will then cause the other (colonialism, sexism,…), that has a differentiating identity, to differentiate then attack the one’s self (indigenous peoples, women, disabled, heathen, etc). The penultimate act of ego is to oppress the ego of another (and thereby to attempt to become as gods).
The application of this varies in specifics throughout the world but the source remains ego identity, ego fear, and ego agrandisement. Thus the most challenging ego fear of a group is another group very much like itself but different. Ergo, christians hating jews, shite v suni, Indian national v NRI. The proximity but clear differentiation of the other is a great challenge for the ego and it lashes out - a rajasic response for tamasic ego identity. This challenge is enhanced by historical oppressive forces (white male) and the ego that has struggled to assimilate the oppressor (”we should be oppressed by the superior white male”), must forcibly disengage from the reminder of incomplete assimilation (”we can be better than the white male”).
The more free ego, that has reduced borders of identity (often seen in people who fluidly go between cultural and social roles) is unhindered by historical and regional/cultural ego assimilation - accretions or prakriti onto purusha. Such an ego has much less fear. Thus the more free ego, that identifies with the greater totality of reality, becomes free and all things lose differentiation.
If that is too abstract, I apologize. I’m trying to be rigorous.
hariaum
May 30th, 2008 at 1:14 am
The answer is obvious Indians/Hindus believe that non_Hindus/Non_Indians are superior to Hindus/Indians. Why do you think they allow themselves to be ruled by an European Catholic despite 50+ years of independence from European countries?
May 30th, 2008 at 1:26 am
What is also interesting is that if a Hindu of Indian origin says that Hindu culture goes back 5000+ of years or that Hindu culture was found worldwide then they are dismissed as crackpots but if a white person says something similar then they are not.
For example PN Oak is considered a crackpot but David Frawley who in the programme “Flooded kingdoms of the ice age” suggested that the Rig Veda goes back to the ice ages is not.
Also Stephan Knapp says the same thing as PN Oak and quotes him constantly in his book “Proof of Vedic cultures global existance”. Yet he’s not considered a crackpot.
This just shows that most Hindus whether they are NRI’s or RI’s suffer from the “it is not true untill the white man says so” syndrome.
June 1st, 2008 at 4:41 pm
Actually Prahalad I do consider Stephen Knapp to be a crackpot also, so i don’t know where u got the idea that goras are let off the hook.
Coming to Frawley, if he does say so, i am sure he cites his reasons, the Vedas are certainly a lot older than 1500 BCE if we go by the astronomical dating.
PN Oak’s etymological fantasies are laughable, like i said before it is sad to see that the inheritors of Panini’s legacy in linguistics don’t even seem to know basic linguistic rules, and serious scholars like Shrikant Talageri r ignored while crackpots r worshipped.
June 4th, 2008 at 12:14 pm
Wow, many issues are in play here, I appreciate your various perspectives.
Prahalad, do you consider the, quote:
““it is not true until the white man says so” syndrome”
to be a question related to an inferiority complex or is it a product of colonial intrusion of the mind. I know the two are not necessarily
mutually exclusive, but they’re also not necessarily connected, as you say, quote: “they allow themselves to be ruled” -or is that colonialism to you? If not, it would seem a mere stupid, ignorant act on behalf on these Indians/Hindus, which it can certainly be seen as, but why then, are whites considered superior by these Indians/Hindus?
And how are the NRIs different?
It seems to me that more general observation made by Navin regarding
mechanisms of identity formations, the construction of images of the enemy, would possibly collide with the idea of mind controlling colonial determinism, because historical forces determine these relationships that applies to other group identities as well. It is also implied that NRIs have come to represent the former oppressive forces, which is why they are discriminated against, as a sign that colonialism is no longer ruling the minds of the RIs. -That reluctance towards NRIs is an act of resistance towards (former?)oppressive forces, however out of place one might consider it - or is it so?
June 6th, 2008 at 3:52 pm
NRI, to those angry with them- not all RIs, represent a rejection of the investment that a formerly oppressed person has made in his/her construct of social and ego place.
Whenever someone is angry with another it is because of ego affrontation. The priest who has spent 70 years believing in the bible who then discovers that the bible is false must either reject the new finding out of faith or reject the life he has lived thus far. Both are difficult. If another priest who has rejected the bible keeps showing up and reminding the first of his ego failure to accept the truth, the first priest blames the second for impudence - what does he know, he’s just and ABCD.
I’m not sure what Rheka means by mind controlling colonial determinism. Certainly colonialism is linked to hegemony and the west (also China, Islam, and by negation Buddhism) are proficient in this.
I don’t want to imply NRIs represent the colonial regime. I mean to state that the RI who accepts an inferiority to the colonial masters (thus avoiding the complacency of his/her and their ancestors with regard to the colonialist) is affronted by the NRI who rejects the notion of servitude (and thus is loud and obnoxious to the RI who accepts it). Of course both the RI and the NRI has static constructs of what it means to be Indian and thus the colonial aspect is merely historical baggage. It still comes down to ego, ergo individual.
I don’t think this is unique to the Indian brain/mind. My comments as to Shakaracharya, though, raise a concern that the ideological source for a significant part of Hinduism - S - is in part to blame for the emphasis on personal realization of TRUTH, as opposed to the social responsibility of KARMA. Thus, what is going on around you, and how you react to it, is less important than your efforts to self realization (S is in contrast to the Gita). This creates an ideological opening to those who would oppress you - Duryodhana, the muslims, the christians, the multinationals… Where S says sit down and renounce, the Gita says renounce and get up.
hariaum