Indian Google Autocomplete (Why is India so…)

Introduction

So, how is that we form an opinion about something? Do we read books? Do we look in the newspaper? Do we listen to the radio to form an opinion? Well, no. We are the Gen-Z and like every other person of our age, we form an opinion by looking at the web and the immense information it harbors. So, what would happen if you were asked to develop an opinion about your own country, the place that you have probably been living in for the past two decades of your life? Would your opinion resonate with all the people around the globe or would it not? Let’s see what the Internet has to say about India! Why is India so …

Why is India so OVERPOPULATED?

India is home to 1.37 billion people and is about to be to another 230 million in the next 30 years. The growth rate of the Indian population has been slowing down nonetheless 2.1 children on average are born to every female in the country. At present, India hosts about 16% of the human population in only 2.45% of the habitable land and utilizes a meager 4% of the global water resources. This massive surge in the number of people calling themselves Indian puts a strain on economical, political, environmental, and healthcare agendas and facilities. To put the issue in political perspective, each Lok Sabha member resides with over 6 lakh citizens, and each Rajya Sabha member with over a whopping 15 lakh, displays how the Indian democracy has diluted down to a futile extent. It was only last year that the prime minister of India used the term “population explosion” in his Independence Day speech and exhibited having small families as an act of “respect” and “patriotism”. Population explosion will in the end lead to a total and complete exhaustion of natural resources for us and perhaps a mass extinction event of the majority human population on the Indian subcontinent. Although, the silver lining, India is on the right path to population stabilization however the debate on “population explosion” remains a political persona non grata.

Why is India so BACKWARD?

To begin with, India is a third-world nation and a developing economy, but does that mean we are “backward”? No, backwardness is something else entirely independent of the development of a country and its economy. If India is backward then we should not have a problem honestly answering the following questions! Are all of us allowed to marry the person we want to? Are all women allowed to roam out freely in Indian society, if they are then, is that without consequences? Is the Indian politics and bureaucracy free of corruption? Are all the people in India given the facility of using a toilet? The answer to all these questions is sad, no. It’s been 70 years since our Independence, and still, India sees the largest number of malnourished kids and the largest number of people who don’t have access to toilets. Every year India sees about 1.25 lakh cases of domestic violence and 3.38 lakh rape cases. In yesteryear, India was ranked 86th of 180 countries in the corruption perception index. No amount of economic development can hide the reality of the society we live in. Yes, we are backward and the internet is not lying about it. Nevertheless, India is home to the largest youth population and if nudged in the right direction we could change the face of the country and break all the stereotypes about India! Education is the way forward!

Why is India so POLLUTED?

When the country is facing issues such as economic downfall and pandemics, is pollution even that big of an issue? To answer honestly, yes it is and it has been this way for the past decade or two, but the government has been way too negligent of it and as a result, the country’s capital is choking on smog every winter. Did you know for a fact that 76.8% of us are exposed to higher than recommended levels of pollution in the air? And about 14 crore people are facing pollution as much as over 10 times the prescribed limit by WHO. The air pollution itself has hit India so drastically that if the pollution levels were to be brought down to the prescribed levels the national life expectancy would increase by 1.7 years instantly. Moreover, 21 of the 30 most polluted cities around the world are Indian cities. Over 2 million babies are born every year with defective lungs or some other respiratory illness, and over 1 million Indians die prematurely owing their deaths to air pollution air pollution has become the fifth largest killer in India. Most of the Indian rivers have become toxic drains, groundwater is depleting, and drinking water resources are getting wiped out of existence at a rapid pace. The situation in India is alarming, compared to its neighbors, India is far worse than what one could imagine. In comparison, India has become a chimney full of smoke. Better late than never, the government has come up with effective and reliable solutions to keep the pollution in check, one of them being the convening of the National Green Tribunal (NGT), which has no purpose but one, adjudicating environmental cases in the country. However effective the new policies may be, the blight caused by pollution and its negligence ought to have a lasting effect on the country and its people.

Why is India so UNHAPPY?

India, being celebrated as one of the fastest-growing economies should at least have its citizens contended if not euphoric, right? Unfortunately, that’s not the case and India ranks at the bottom of the pile in terms of the Happiness Index! What’s happening? Why are we not happy? To rub salt on the wound of reputation, our neighboring country Pakistan is at a respectable score on the same index, why? Well, the most obvious explanation seems to be that only the richest 1% of the Indian population is flourishing while the poorer section of society keeps on getting poorer and henceforth. On the contrary, the bottom 50% of the Pakistani population had a 25% increment in their incomes. The absence of political and business transparency continues to wound us further. The persistence of racism, casteism, regionalism, sexism, communal strife, savagery, hatred and public vanity narrow the light of hope furthermore. Mathematically speaking we far exceed other nations in GDP per capita and life expectancy but happen to fail pathetically in the public interview. And surprisingly it’s not much of an interview, it’s a point-blank question “Are you happy?”. And talking about the current scenario COVID-19 pandemic is here to take a massive hit on our happiness, people losing their family members, and their jobs, the pandemic has indeed hit us severely. It’s high time for India to divert its pinpoint-like attention from economical growth and broaden its spectrum to consider sustainability, social welfare, and the emotional and mental well-being of the people.

Consequences

So, in the end, anyone who looks up India on the web is going to find that India is either unhappy or backward or poor or polluted. Obviously, India is not all about it, India is the largest democracy, home to so many religions, cultures, and festivals. No doubt, part of what is written on the Internet is true, but the other part is just people from other countries stereotyping South Asia as a place where supposedly hard-working laborers, illiterate folks with large families, and “brown IT guys” belong. The stereotypes that have been created against South Asians are making them prone to mistreatment and crime all over the world. Stereotyping in any form is dehumanizing. One of the many initiatives to break stereotypes against a particular region or a nation comes from India. WHO’s chief scientist Dr. Soumya Swaminathan, put forward a scheme of nomenclature for Coronavirus variants which defocuses the nomenclature from the place of origin of the virus. The scheme suggests nomenclatures based on the same scheme as hurricanes so that no country feels de-incentivized, stigmatized, or responsible for the origin of the variant. Moreover, it makes the nomenclature easier to remember. Nevertheless, as more and more South Asians continue to assimilate, more positive perceptions start to prevail! Indians will blast past all and every stereotype that we face!