Nice guys, I ve not replied to this topic as yet because I knew I would go on and on..and the given time constraints..
Indeed a very interesting topic. I've lived in India for most of my life and have come to a certain conclusion.
This is how its logistics goes:
1897-1947
-Indian population not well educated.
-India has all raw sources which were plundered. With the help of all this natural wealth, once educated, the indian population could have used these resources more efficiently.
-Resources, Energy and Skills of learned people were spent in fighting the British, which could have been used instead for making people aware of the importance of education at the same time educate them and thereby fight poverty. We were fighting constantly for 50 years.
-Even before the British came to India, efforts were being made to encourage woman-education, so imagine how well that could have worked if it was not for the British.
-Our leaders like jawaharlal Nehru, Shubhash chandra Bose, et al knew english so I think spreading education in english wouldn't have been a problem, if people think that had it not been for the british rule we would not have been able to communicate in english.
-Okay, assuming we never started and starved as such poor people for 50 years we would have been richer in 1947 itself, but we were poorer then because we were looted.
-Its 2004 right now, we can only imagine how much progress we could have made.
-There would be less poverty, more education. RIght now we are the # 1 country to which tech labor is outsourced.
-Unfortunately some part of the population has not got a chance to educate themselves since the British Rule ended, because the Government does not direct its economy in the right manner.
-For example, taking the simplest case for that matter- when a donation is made to the indian government, it does not reach the appropriate places. Its eaten away by the middle men.
- Its not a new problem in India that the richer get richer and the poorer get poorer. The middle class is the working people who somehow managed to educate themselves and get themselves jobs.
- For all these reasons, I have had this thought in my mind that when the NRI doctors from the US think of making a donation, I think they should themselves go to the poor population and help them out by actually what they need. Indian poor population (slum people) have a bad tendency of using that money for anything, but buying themselves clothes, food or house. SO they prefer to live like that.
- For example, when the construction people want to build a building in a certain place which is occupied by slums, the builders offer to offer those people a house in their newly constructed building so that they can get the slums out of the place. nevertheless, those people prefer to take money then live in a nice house and hygiene.
- So the problem is not as simple as it may seem. Sometimes it feels like the problems are going to be stagnant unless and until each person is educated. COnsidering that the population of india is increasing at a sky rocketing rate I am not sure how successfully this grass root problem can be solved.
- There's one solution, If all the NRIs themselves and by appointing volunteers educate the people basically first of all about protected sex and HIV( they hardly care about HIV, because they might prefer to die after having thier share of pleasures rather than starving away without HIV + supporting kids for the rest of their lives..)
- One thing is for sure...NRIs should , "NEVER DONATE TO AN ORGANIZATION" because there is a lot of controversy going on and you never know that your money is actually doing good, you basically just wasted your money and did you feel that your purpose of "donating" is achieved but it reallly isnt.
According to me, since I belong to Indian culture and born there, it is my moral responsibility to do everything for India that I can. Its just like, with all the good you recieve from the culture, it feels nice to give back something too...
I
India
