Monday 28 September 2009


CAN INDIA TAME ITS INTRACTABLE CAPITAL?

Madhur Singh

Time, September 28, 2009

For a thriving, cosmopolitan capital, Delhi has remarkably low self-esteem. Indians generally agree, and those living in Delhi have no trouble admitting, that the nation's capital is the rudest of the country's metros. It's aggressive — just watch the motorists, cyclists and pedestrians fight it out on the roads, willing the other to give way with loud horns, murderous looks or outright elbowing. It's uncouth — no one even blinks at jumping queues, or spitting betel-juice, or urinating in public. It's loud and brash, and entirely unabashedly too.

Now, with the Commonwealth Games that are just a year away, the city's bad manners have upset a personage no less than the country's Home Minister, P. Chidambaram, who said on Sept. 22 that Delhiites needed an "attitude makeover" in order to "play good hosts." in 2010. Delhi's Chief Minister Shiela Dixit readily agreed, and said plans are afoot to teach Delhi folks to be "more caring and sharing." She indicated that a Beijing-style program of civic education, like the one rolled out before last year's Olympics, would be launched soon. It's only the third time a developing country will host the event. Last week week, they got pulled up for their tardy preparations by Commonwealth Games Federation chief Michael Fennel. In a letter to the local organizing committee, Fennel wrote that it was "reasonable to conclude that the current situation poses a serious risk to the Commonwealth Games in 2010."

Amazingly, in a polity so fraught with socio-economic tensions that films can cause riots — as the makers of Slumdog Millionaire learned when there were riots over the film's title, which some people found offensive — no one protested the high-level censure. No displays of injured pride, not even a pretense of offense taken. Even the Home Minister's tactless remarks blaming migrants for Delhi's civic woes — "People come to Delhi. This is the capital and we cannot stop them. But if they come to Delhi, they will have to adhere to the behavioral requirement, the discipline of the city" — went without remark. And that insouciance is exatly why it will be difficult to teach Delhi residents to say 'please' and 'thank you' and stop all those annoying behaviors in time for the event that will be India's graduation ball. "No one protested because they know Chidambaram is right," says Delhi-based writer Namita Gokhale, "And frankly, no one cares."

(...) [artículo aquí]

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