4. India through the lens of Bollywood; Pilot FGD and its results
4.3 Question of modernity, health hygiene, security
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foothold in aspects related to movies, music, and news. This perhaps is not the case with countries like India. In case of India the soft elements like Bollywood, Gandhi, Curry, Taj Mahal, and IT Industry predominates. Thus, giving rise to many misgivings.
My personal opinion
When I was in Mumbai, I visited the Dharavi, supposedly the biggest slum of Asia and one of the largest in the world. People around the world are familiar with it through the movie Slumdog Millionaire. This is the slum wherein Jamal (the main character of the movie) lived.
Also much of the movie was shot here. It is so densely populated that it feels like being in a city within a city. This slum is filled with narrow dirty alleys, open sewers and more trash than we can possibly imagine.
When one looks beyond the stereotypes attached to slums in general, and Dharavi in particular, we find that it is a successful settlement with a vibrant community, culture and economy. The residents are as hard-working, having hopes and aspirations. Life is not as bad as is generally assumed. The residents have developed ingenious and creative ways to negotiate with the identity which is attached to the residents and space, and the governments little or no welfare services in this locality.
4.3 Question of modernity, health hygiene, security
Sanitation is a big issue in India. A significant chunk of population does not have access to modern sanitation, such as toilets. Many go for open defecation. Problem of water supply further complicates the problem. Hence, in the recent years government has made sanitation its priority. Narendra Modi, India’s prime minister, in a popular speech said that building toilets should be priority over temples. The Narendra Modi led government came
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up with the program called ‘Swachh Bharat Abhiyan’ (Clean India Mission). It is a country wide campaign for a clean India. It was inaugurated by the Prime Minister himself, sometime in October 2014. This campaign aims to discourage the practice of open defecation and inculcate habits of cleanliness. A large chunk of money has been invested in sanitizing the populace through various forms of media. It further aims to provide all the Indians with access to toilets. The date set for achieving is 150th birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi, i.e. 2nd October 2019.
Presently, In India around 560 million people don’t have access to toilet. I have observed that even those who can afford to construct toilet don’t do it. Even if they have toilets they do rarely use it. Most of the people go for open defecation which has serious consequence for environment and water bodies, it further raises health issues. For example this rampant practice could lead to diarrhea. In India many die due to cases of diarrhea, specially the children.
Respondents’ opinion
During the FGD it was observed that the participants were giving details of their encounters with people of India. They also were discussing demographic components, such as sex ratio and language. Gloria, a 25 year old female participant doing her Masters is of the view that India is a diverse country, her views were based on her travels in states of southern India: ‘‘I think that India is very diverse, that’s what I experienced in India, actually I travelled only South India, but even there I found a lot of diversity.’’(Gloria)
Amy, a 22 year old female student doing her Bachelor degree and who had visited India three times found India colorful, “Colorful country… everything was so colorful
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there”(Amy). Similarly, Mark who was in India for several months, felt “that India is a country of many possibilities…that you can go into many directions, Chaotic as well peaceful, spiritual.’’
Gloria also shared concerns with regard to health and hygiene. She observed that people live in very dirty conditions: “Dirty, how can people live in such dirty and massy environment without thinking of improvement?”(Gloria)
Coming to observations about the people, Indians, one of the participants, Amy said that she observed that Indians are mostly thin. Mark, another participant who had been to southern Indian states too said that Indians have expressive big and beautiful eyes. Another participant found Indians to be friendly, and very talkative. Similar observations were made yet another participant name Sam, Indians are “very friendly and want to talk to, even when they could not understand what I was talking about, but they are tried to listen to” (Sam).
One of the FGD member, Amy, told that Indians are relaxed, or perhaps lazy. She felt that they do not live fast living life in small cities. This observation is based on her travels in Goa and Kolkata, India. Amy, who had been to India for volunteering, added her views more on her interaction with local people in India and shared her opinion that Indians give
“better treatment to Asian girl than western girl that’s what I observed when I was in India for volunteering”.(Amy)
A participant from Taipei doing his Bachelors found Indians to be friendly, and observed that English is widely spoken over there in India. He found Indians to be friendly.
Further, he found that shopkeepers, travel agent and cab drivers cheated foreign tourists a lot.
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They told that many a times they felt cheated by vendors. They are of the opinion that the foreign tourists are more regularly cheated by the vendors. The observation on cheating was shared by others as well, for instance Mark, a 22 year old male who went to India as an exchange student at ‘Indian Institute of Technology’, Kanpur, India. He finds that the vendors do cheat, although He finds them to be working hard.
Now we will discuss view of one of the participant named Joyce who had a different position to take as her earlier image, which may not be positive, got subverted. The participant told that before visiting India she was very apprehensive and more than him his parents were worried about him. She was concerned about safety, hygiene and food. She felt that once she was in India his apprehensions were suitably addressed:
Before going to India as a teaching volunteer, I was fearful of many things – food, safety, hygiene etc., but what amazed me that people were friendly and want to talk to, even when they could not understand what I was talking about, but they tried to listen and I had choices of non-spicy foods. (Joyce)
Interesting observations are to be made from the above. It could be observed, that the above participants interaction with individuals in India helped to form favorable image about India. Perhaps those personal encounters instilled confidence in a new place and foreign country with different language and culture. The familiarity and confidence he developed helped him negotiate with the complexities of encounter with new culture. Thus, it could be argued that personal encounters and familiarity have strong mediating influence.
Taking the above argument a little further a little attention needs to be paid to the discussions and opinions on India cuisine.
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My personal opinion
India is plagued with poverty, overpopulation, illiteracy, unplanned housing, and a lack of awareness of public hygiene. People assume that the responsibility of cleanliness resides solely with the government. The population do not participate in making public places neat and clean. I observed that the traditional emphasis of Indian religion is on rituals and not on public etiquette, whereas in China and other eastern Asian countries the influence of Confucius teaching is also on public etiquettes. For example, I observed that in Taipei, Taiwanese School students do sweeping and cleaning in their classrooms and schools, which is unheard of and unseen in Indian schools. I further believe that Indians’ little or no sensibility towards such etiquettes is because of caste. Caste is occupational division of the population and is determined by birth. In Indian society Dalits, the former “untouchables”, were entrusted with the task of cleanliness. Even in contemporary times it is observed that it is people of this caste only which engage in public sanitation activities. Even the government employees who do maintain sanitation in public places are mostly drawn from this caste.