We, Forgiving and Forgetting Indians!!!

3 years ago our company launched a product, since then it is facing some major quality and service issues and has nearly bombed in the market. This year with some significant changes in it we are trying to revive it; last week I was discussing with few of our major distributors about it. They were complaining about the bad performance, service and blah blah and were not ready to give it another shot. One of our regional managers then said “India mein toh logon ko bhoolna ka shauk, poorani batein bhool jayo” (in India people are fond of forgetting things, forget about past experiences); forgetting and forgiving is one of the major common traits that we Indians share.

As talked earlier in ‘We need to change’ cheating is a basic Indian character, and on similar lines so is forgetting and forgiving. It is not a good or bad trait, it’s just a characteristic and depending on where and how we put it to use, it makes it a good or bad quality.

It was just two weeks ago that Swami Ramdev was sitting on a peaceful fast, asking to bring back the black money stashed abroad. Thousands joined him in this battle against corruption; but even before the completion of first 24 hours of protest, the government took action and Delhi police with a brute force of 5000 strong forcefully evacuated him and his supporters from the Ramlila ground.

Next day saw mixed public reaction with majority condemning the action and few calling him a conmen, someone with political agenda, RSS’s poster boy and God knows what else. Various central ministers gave various explanations, justifying the police action. He didn’t keep his word to call off the fast by evening. Does that mean you will beat up the man and his innocent supporters? Is not sticking to promises a crime punishable by law? Some said he was trying to excite the gathering to unstablize the government. His supporters had turned to violence and hence police took action. Please do elaborate, at midnight when everyone was sleeping, how were they scheming and plotting against the government or which kind of violence they were resorting to that justified this police atrocity? The most absurd explanation came from the horse’s mouth; Delhi police in response to Supreme Court’s questioning, says that Baba’s life was at risk from terrorists and hence to save him they took the action. Is this some new anti terrorist policy of the government? They can’t take action against the terrorists, so instead they have started taking action on the targets. Can’t blame them for inactivity, stopping the terrorists is out of their hands, they are nationals of different country, but the targets are right here in India, and some action has to be taken and someone has to pay for it.

It doesn’t feel bad or sad anymore when the government does whatever they want to. They have the power, and it would be stupid to expect them not to use it. However what is sad to see is we let them abuse it and then we forget about it. Just merely two weeks into the action and we have already forgotten about everything. By the time elections will be due in three years, we would have forgiven them completely.

Those in the power take this forgiving and forgetting as our weakness and exploit us. We, the resilient beings gives them the guts to do whatever they want to, whoever they want to and whenever they want to, as soon all will be forgotten. To us it doesn’t matter what happened in the past. Let bygones be bygones and move on, is our mantra. Let’s forget about the past look towards the future is our driving motto. But what is there in the future to look forward to? Another scam in making, another government blunder waiting to happen; another administrative action against the innocent, this is all we get.

Everyday we suffer at the hands of few and the worst part is, we forgive them and let them to keep on doing this to us again and again. But all this is not our concern, as we progressive Bharatiyas only look towards future and past is clearly history which teaches us nothing.

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