In my recent visit to India, I found repulsive the conduct of those who were consensually considered economically better off than the otherwise hoi polloi. This group is under the delusion of having hit the jackpot of knowledge and of everything and anything worth knowing. A sense of self righteousness pervades their being.Lodged in their brains is a conveniently conjured up representation of the Western world fed through their biased filters of judgement, and far removed from reality. They act as if they know whatever there is to know about the lifestyle in North America and Europe. They feel they have discovered the dirty secrets of the West, which they had wrongfully glorified in the past out of ignorance and now they are entitled to celebrate their own superiority. As they would assume: Isn’t America, and the whole western civilization, all about permissiveness, moral corruption and ignorance?
Ironically though, these same people religiously ape what they perceive to be representative of a Western lifestyle. They are preoccupied by the fashion, music, food and American slang, which is bolted out in fake American or English accents and smacks of hinglish in every respect. They unashamedly use, as if it were their birthright, Western inventions of gizmos and gadgets that had long eluded them, but are now theirs to call their own because of their sudden prosperity. In their minds the availability of the Internet, American TV programs and channels, latest and expensive cars and other technical contraptions they had been deprived from for a long time are now the tools to feed their ego. They all exhibit an overwhelming sense of ecstasy in feeling superior than those living in the western world, especially North America.
Paradoxically this group while it copies everything they perceive as western is inebriated with a sense of patriotism that it feels need not now be in the closet as India, according to them, has proven to the world that it has advanced in every field. After all, all they were lacking was material goods for spirituality was always their invention.The constant hammering by the media in pointing toward the rising GNP/GDP of India is enough ammunition for these miserable lost souls in hailing the successes of India as being legendary. The purported economic gains of India, and hence its standard of living is enough to convince this group that the gap in the standard of living between India and the West hemisphere, including America, is now negligible. The reality though as everyone blessed with even an iota of brain ought to know is very different.
To me, all these strange assumptions of the mostly nouveau riche seemed glaringly in contrast with the reality. I could see the hunger, the misery, the hardship, the ill health and the hopeless state of the majority of the population around me to which these lotus eaters are oblivious. I could not even imagine how these somewhat well-heeled people could not see what I could; how myopic can they be I thought.
Then it occurred to me that the mindset of these people, who have economically gained ground, and who are now part of a minuscule group of those who can pursue a lavish, comfortable and an even extravagant lifestyle, are all callous and self serving. For them, the economically challenged majority has become invisible and is of little or no consequence. For this minuscule community, the only humans are those with economic clout and wealth, a prerequisite to belong to the club of those deemed human. The majority, well, they might as well be animals.