The other day my boss, the UN Special Rapporteur on the right to health, told me that he believes the main difference between the developed nations of the west and India is that in the west people treat others with dignity, whereas in India, they don't. Well, the first thing my mind flashed to was those selfies taken by idiotic American teenagers posing with homeless people behind them and I was inclined to disagree with my boss--but the more I thought about it the more I think he has a point (though I am still not sure if I agree with him completely).
Whether or not some jerks do it, it is socially unacceptable to treat domestic servants, waiters, janitors and other folk with low status jobs (or no jobs) in the USA rudely. But even more than that, I think very few people in the USA would stand by a person who had truly violated another's dignity, by forcing a person who keeps certain religious dietary restrictions to eat taboo foods, for example. But I've heard examples of this happening in India and, depending on the status of the transgressor, s/he is not always castigated in the court of public opinion for his or her actions.
The most obvious example of this was the hullabaloo that erupted last year when the USA arrested an Indian diplomat for trafficking her domestic servant. The Indian government and much of the Indian population freaked out about the apparent disrespect paid to their high status diplomat and there was, in fact, real diplomatic retaliation. (All Indian guards were withdrawn from protection of the American Embassy, the American Embassy School lost some of its privileges, and it became harder for American citizens to get visas.) There was very little attention paid here, however, to whether these charges were actually true and the plight of the Indian diplomat's domestic servant. Everyone was talking about the dignity of the diplomat, but no one mentioned the dignity of the servant.
I've seen quite a few interactions here between high and low status individuals that strike me as totally disrespectful--I've seen those sort of interactions in the USA too, of course, but not with quite the same frequency or with the high status individual's assumption that his/her behavior will be condoned by all of the other high status individuals around him/her. I've seen customers erupt at cashiers, heard about friends-of-friends who have fired their drivers for keeping the AC on while the driver waited in 100+ degree heat for their passengers' return, and so on and so forth.
But the interesting flip side of the coin is that I've also seen lots of behavior from low status individuals which strikes me as uncomfortably subservient--though in fact what I'm observing might just be different cultural norms here. For example, traditionally youngsters touch the feet of elders here to show respect, which tradition is kept up in more conservative households. I often have my feet touched by beggars, which really, really makes me feel uncomfortable.
So yeah, I think in India the right of low status person to live a life with dignity is very much under assault because of the relationship between different classes of persons is often marked by disrespect. I suspect this is a legacy of the caste system, where untouchables were literally considered lower forms of life, and I hope this is changing with the advent of India's new middle class, and greater social mobility generally.
Basically, what I think India needs is for a dignity revolution to occur--and let's be honest, it wouldn't be such a bad thing if such revolutionary fervor ignited every country in the world. But in the meantime I'll just aim not to piss off any Indian diplomats.
Whether or not some jerks do it, it is socially unacceptable to treat domestic servants, waiters, janitors and other folk with low status jobs (or no jobs) in the USA rudely. But even more than that, I think very few people in the USA would stand by a person who had truly violated another's dignity, by forcing a person who keeps certain religious dietary restrictions to eat taboo foods, for example. But I've heard examples of this happening in India and, depending on the status of the transgressor, s/he is not always castigated in the court of public opinion for his or her actions.
The most obvious example of this was the hullabaloo that erupted last year when the USA arrested an Indian diplomat for trafficking her domestic servant. The Indian government and much of the Indian population freaked out about the apparent disrespect paid to their high status diplomat and there was, in fact, real diplomatic retaliation. (All Indian guards were withdrawn from protection of the American Embassy, the American Embassy School lost some of its privileges, and it became harder for American citizens to get visas.) There was very little attention paid here, however, to whether these charges were actually true and the plight of the Indian diplomat's domestic servant. Everyone was talking about the dignity of the diplomat, but no one mentioned the dignity of the servant.
I've seen quite a few interactions here between high and low status individuals that strike me as totally disrespectful--I've seen those sort of interactions in the USA too, of course, but not with quite the same frequency or with the high status individual's assumption that his/her behavior will be condoned by all of the other high status individuals around him/her. I've seen customers erupt at cashiers, heard about friends-of-friends who have fired their drivers for keeping the AC on while the driver waited in 100+ degree heat for their passengers' return, and so on and so forth.
But the interesting flip side of the coin is that I've also seen lots of behavior from low status individuals which strikes me as uncomfortably subservient--though in fact what I'm observing might just be different cultural norms here. For example, traditionally youngsters touch the feet of elders here to show respect, which tradition is kept up in more conservative households. I often have my feet touched by beggars, which really, really makes me feel uncomfortable.
So yeah, I think in India the right of low status person to live a life with dignity is very much under assault because of the relationship between different classes of persons is often marked by disrespect. I suspect this is a legacy of the caste system, where untouchables were literally considered lower forms of life, and I hope this is changing with the advent of India's new middle class, and greater social mobility generally.
Basically, what I think India needs is for a dignity revolution to occur--and let's be honest, it wouldn't be such a bad thing if such revolutionary fervor ignited every country in the world. But in the meantime I'll just aim not to piss off any Indian diplomats.
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