Vijay Nambisan comments on uncouth India and the shambolic state of public health in the country —
“Spitting in public has certainly increased since I was a child. Those were the great socialist days, when ‘public health’ had a meaning. The government invested in it. There were posters, films and mass education programmes about the dangers of spitting: ‘You sow the seeds of TB!’ In the ’60s, you could admonish a fellow citizen for spitting or urinating in the open and shame him. Now spitting is the social phenomenon (well ahead of Facebook even in the cities). In Maharashtra, it seems to be an expression of manhood. Even in Kerala, a rare state where the socialist model actually achieved something of its potential, there are no longer any dry months.
“We are a big, brawling, dirty nation and there’s no incentive to change. The Indian, by and large, remains uncouth because he sees no percentage in being couth.”
Click here to read the entire article (‘Why Are We Like This Only?’) on the Deccan Herald web site.
