HERE, in Malaysia, we are used to having stereotypes dished out based on races. Anyone brought up here might alredy be familiar to such stereotypes- such as ‘Malays are lazy’ and ‘Chinese are stingy- kiasu to be exact’. Not that I subscribe to such stereotypes. One day, over a coffee table conversation, a friend of mine was branding each race with a tag, but seemed stuck when trying to describe the Indian community. “Pride,” I answered nonchalantly.
You see, pride isn’t actually a bad thing- since the previous stereotypes had negative connotations for the other races. But in the case of Indians, ‘pride’ is actually a very, very endemic and epidemic problem. It is the core of all evil as far as an Indian is concerned.
This includes various levels of self-appeasing pride- such as pride of mother tongue which turns into a separatist obsession, pride of class and status which turns one into an discriminating person, and the pride of being the archetypal Indian man that naturally leads to unrivalled, stupid, chaotic chauvisnism.
Not to forget the pride of self that leads to god-knows-how-many political parties, families not seeing eye to eye over one ‘THAT’ word which was uttered during a conversation, and of course the cultural knowledge pride that makes almost every other traditional marriage a complete mess thanks too many individuals who say ‘I know the tradition’.
My list can go on- to put it simple- this pride has resulted in racist individuals, had destroyed love stories, lives even at some stage, and above all had given absolute license to be ignorant- a disease which I personally think is worse than cancer.
For an example, let’s take 7aam Arivu.
Make no mistake, I’m not criticizing the quality of the movie, though on a personal note, I have not even watched the movie in full. But 7aam Arivu is an excellent example of the ‘Indian pride’.
Every other individual who had watched the movie and later loved it normally boasted about the fact that Bodhidharma is a ‘Tamilian’.
Exactly, totally, besides the point. The movie takes pains to point out to the audience in a laborious fashion for two odd hours- that we have forgotten our history and do not realize our own inheritance. But instead of letting that realization sting them- all I see on social networks are endless boasting about how the Chinese inherited an art founded and preached by an Indian. Big deal. Are Indians practicing Shaolin today? No matter how much we boast about it, the Chinese are still better at it than we are- just because we conveniently returned to our ignorant, proud selves after watching the movie.
If that’s not enough, 7aam Arivu itself misses a very quintessential question- why did Bodhidharma choose to teach Shaolin in a Chinese village and not in India? Could it not be that Indians back then were unappreciative of what he was teaching and he found the Chinese to be more open to receive his knowledge? Did anyone bother asking this question?
As far as I’m concerned, whether you are born as an Indian or Chinese is irrelevant. How would you feel if the mother of a kid you adopted comes back 25 years later and claims the child for her own? Not very pleasant, isn’t it?
The same applies here. Indians do not have the right to claim Damo as their own especially because he had flourished with his teachings in China, and not in India. Why are we claiming him as our own now, so many decades later, that too thanks to one averagely-made movie?
But all we do after watching the movie is to feel ‘proud’, when we should feel ashamed of ourselves not to have appreciated our own history before.
If that’s not bad enough, the film’s director AR Murugadoss also committed a cardinal sin by choosing a rather eloquent villain for his movie- the Chinese government itself. Why we allow such movies that can spoil diplomatic relations is beyond me? Why brand the Chinese as villains? Why that typical ignorant approach, assuming that if someone else apart from ‘us’ possesses our art, they would ‘misuse’ it against us or to conquer the world?
Because we are holier-than-thou?
Another recent example is Canadian MP Radhika Sitsabesan. Of course, it’s a matter of great pride to have a Tamilian helm a Parliamentary seat in Canada, that too someone as young as 29 years old. And rightfully we took pride in that matter. But we also took pride in the fact that she spoke Tamil in the Canadian Parliament while introducing herself. Now that’s where we have again prodded into ignorant, overtly-proud territories.
Canada has two official languages- English and French. It is only professional and fair if she had communicated in those two languages alone during her speech, instead of speaking Tamil, a language that a large majority of those in the Parliament could not understand.
It is insulting and disrespectful of the Parliament and the Speaker to have done something to that effect. I’m pretty sure that Canada, due to its multi-ethnic fabric, had other MPs from non-Canadian backgrounds. But we don’t see people speaking Chinese and Latin in the Canadian Parliament don’t they?
Again- a blinding sense of pride that eventually leads to us going in rounds and ending up nowhere, mainly due to our ignorance. It’s okay to be proud, but it’s also recommended to spend a minute to think before choosing to feel proud.
