A nation of mediocrity

Following up on my previous post that referred to the "Republic of apathy", comes another article that talks about how India (and Indians) has become a nation that has learned to live with lowered expectations and mediocrity.

Our nation is awash with mediocrity; we need a national campaign to induce excellence in all fields, writes Ramesh Ramanathan.

My comment in response to the article is below. (I am Sanjeev, not the Sanjiv, who coincidentally posted a comment right below mine!). I could have written a lot more - it was not thought out to cover everything I would have liked to say but was a spontaneous outpouring.

A nation of mediocrity indeed - we have learned to live with "average expectations and even poorer delivery" despite all the "progress" made in the last 2 decades. Traveling with a western colleague of mine, I was asked why everything was so dirty. I made some lame excuse about poverty and such. He immediately cut me short - rightly making the argument that cleanliness is not related to how much money we have. It is a matter of culture. It does not take any major effort (or a nation-wide campaign or rhetoric & hollow sloganeering like "Garibi Hatao" or "India Shining") for people to use a dust-bin to throw trash. And yet, not just trash, but spit and even human waste plague many of the nation's top cities. Agreed that I have not traveled to many of the world's poorest nations but I think one will find it very difficult to find people answering nature's call on the sides of many major metropolitan cities, as one sees on Eastern Express highway (near Sion/Kurla/Chembur) in Mumbai. Does this not shame us? Have we lost all sense of shame and decency? Why do we live with this? There are many other examples one could quote to reflect this malaise that inflicts Indian society but I shall desist since merely discussing them in forums like this is as good as the suggested "national campaign" for excellence!