This year marks a half way point in my life. I have spent exactly the same number of years in India as in the United States. Considering this blog has been going for years now, you know my views on India and the USA evolve over time, partly because of changes in the two countries and partly because of a change in my own perspective as I grow up and grow older.
In spite of all the changes accompanies with a lot of continued soul searching, there are some basic truths about what my perception of right and wrong are which have not changed over time. Think of it as the BIOS program that is written into my Hard Drive. Could be running Windows for a few years and switching to Mac OS for a few years but my dislike of Powerpoint may not have changed.. again, may not be the best analogy and I do like Powerpoint, not that there is anything wrong with it!
It does feel every now and then, that India and the USA are going through some kind of role reversal between the late eighties and now, especially with respect to big social norms.
Right now the "guys" (guessing this is a majority guy thing) in Kansas are coming up with a severe restriction on abortions. The odds against a woman from a poor community are now stacked up even higher. If she gets raped or is forced into a pregnancy by her husband, she cannot do anything about it. The state is not going to support her well to raise that kid either or improve her day to day life in anyway. Looks like it is a question of time before the Christian version of Shariah laws get passed as bills in some mid western states.
There is no middle ground. Most of these states have middle aged white males running the show (sorry for the racial profiling here, but it happens to be a theme) who seem to either be really ignorant (anti science, blind faith folks who believe the earth was created 7000 years ago!) or evil (they know what they are doing.. keep the people stupid so they can continue to get votes.. just like the ROmans had the folks high on wine with cheap tickets to watch the gladiators while the State of the State was degrading) with some powerful backers and the overall population doesn't get it.
On the other extreme we also have gun control laws that are going through which everyone agrees is not going to solve anything. The one thing that everyone agrees is a check to see who gets the guns and a restriction to take away guns from folks who have mental health issues. In all the debates I have seen and participated in, be it conversations in person or on the new debating platform called Facebook, this is the only thing folks agree on. Not restricting the number of bullets, not putting armed gunmen in schools etc.
Background checks and periodic registration checks to make sure your gun is still with you! However, that seems to not get traction across the board. It makes sense to hire more people (especially gun knowledgeble Veterans) and put them to work to do background checks and cross checks against medical conditions. Get all guns registered just like we treat cars.There seems to be an extreme position taken by pro and anti gun supporters with no middle ground!
Women have a raw deal in India. Even the few women in power seem to start taking an anti-woman stance the minute they get to power. Indian women never band together as a group. Have seen this all through my life. The older women seem to have an attitude that says "I suffered all through my life. Why make it better for the next generation!". It is heartening to see some of that change in recent times where women are challenging a Male dominated system.
Then again, a select subset of women seem to have it good. Thanks to female infanticide in the mid eighties in India when Ultrasounds came to India, there is a shortage of girls in a certain age group in certain communities and the guys outnumber girls 3-1 or 4-1. The girls in these communities get to do some kind of "natural selection" and are now demanding dowries before selecting a boy. So it gets interesting as this seems to be a demand and supply thing. However in other communities which are relatively poor, the same thing has led to frustrated male youth who cannot find a partner and resort to violence against women.
Then there is gay marriage. The hate and oppression against this segment of society in the US is mind boggling, now that it is out in the open. However, their fate seems to be a lot better here than in other countries. If gay folks in USA are living in a bedroom closet, in India they are in a closet that is located in an underground bunker. I do not forsee gay people in India having any rights or openly fight for their rights in my lifetime. Heterosexual widows are treated like outcasts to this day, so chances of gay rights? Slim to none.
Right now there is a belief system clash that is happening in both countries to the point where the average citizen has to take a one way or another stand on some of these issues.
The "American way of life" or the "American Dream", terms that meant something to me twenty years ago seem to have taken on muddled connotations. There seem to be two American ways of life and the dream seems to be taking on a bipolar character in itself.
All said and done, the only thing we can hope for is that there is constructive debate across the globe and people can resolve things with debates instead of extreme measures.
There is a lot of hate out there that needs to be changed to love.
Wish when our kids grow up to be our age, the world will be a better place, but my hopes of that keep dwindling, a little bit each day.
