India’s “Filthy Photos” and Nationalism

My answer to India’s “filthy photos” and Nationalism



For the past few many weeks, I have seen pictures of India’s Ganges floating around the internet. The pictures I have attached below are ridiculed by Chinese and Pakistanis as “India’s filth”. The original article was written by a Chinese tourist who went on to India on a two months holiday. Interestingly on his North-à-South trip, he was only able to capture pictures of decomposing bodies, and toilets. Although the article has been translated, the tone of the article is extremely biased. My argument is that such articles promote a sense of nationalism and its arrogance.

Here are pictures from the blog and a link to the article:

http://www.chinasmack.com/2010/pictures/filthy-india-photos-chinese-netizen-reactions.html

I saw a fellow Pakistani (taking a huge pride) shared the article by saying “after all it is not at all shining”. Well of course, we all know “India is shining” is just as good of a propaganda as “Colgate whitens your teeth”. I was surprised to see the sheer amount of joy Pakistanis and Chinese citizens felt sharing the article on Facebook, Twitter and other social media websites. William Ralph Inge was once quoted as saying,  “A nation is a society united by delusion about its ancestry and by common hatred for its neighbors”. The ingrained hatred for Indians by Pakistanis is generation long, and the same can be felt vica versa. We, the Pakistanis, should just take a prowl around the banks of Ravi River for a quick session of our re-enlightenment towards cleanliness. Perhaps, that would make us feel a bit more modest towards the health and hygiene superiority we have been flaunting. Below are some of the pictures: 

For the record, I personally visited the Ravi River a few months back and found a sea of pink plastic bags around the banks. 

As for China, there are pictures that I have attached below showing the poor situation of public toilets, as well as general pollution in the suburbia. I have also included the pictures of how animals are brutally murdered in some parts of China. The animals I am talking about are dogs, cats and pangolins.

I have not written this blog to support the pollution around the Ganges (as an excuse for a religious ritual). In an ideal situation, the Chinese would like you to visit Shanghai, Beijing or Hong Kong just as the Indians would like you to visit Ladakh, Goa or Delhi. I also do not dispute the fact that India is “dirty” (for a use of a better word) neither do I deny that Indians aren’t nationalists. As a matter of fact, I have met some of the most radically-nationalistic-Indians over the years. However, I do want to point out to the fact that how nationalism promotes unnecessary “arrogance”. 

Nationalism is a very knotty idea. In philosophy it is well determined that “Utopia” is just an ideal philosophical place, and will always be (i.e it could never be achieved). Encountering nationalists, I see a trend of people who are usually poorly travelled and if they are travelled they have not lived long enough outside their own cultures i.e. forming (own) sub-groups in a foreign country. They generate self-fulfilling theories that serve them with, thinking that they made the right “choice” of being born in that country. Ironic as it may sound, but we do not choose to be born where we are born. 

Since the internet has brought us all closer. I hope that one day it will also make us realize that if we really want to help this world, We need to start from home just as the charity (starts at home). 

Written By Fahad Sher Hussain