Everyone is familiar with the colonial hangover. All things foreign (phoren) are automatically assumed to be superior, etc etc. No need to elaborate on this age old Indian Public Disease. It is beyond pandemic!

But how many realise that we Indians also apply this same syndrome in our every day life?! Maybe a minuscule percentage of the population!

So let me elaborate.

Isn’t the “BBMP Engineer” considered an Authority on local sewage flows when compared to the local retired engineer who lives in the locality after retirement, spending days on end studying the sewage overflow problem that engulf’s his own house?

Worse still, isn’t the Highly paid Consultant appointed by BBMP who makes a visit or two to the locality considered even superior to the BBMP Engineer, let alone the retired resident?

Ask how come flyovers are constructed with the wrong orientation? Experts from abroad, external construction consultants and, of course, the whole BBMP engineering hierarchy “planned and implemented” the project with incompetent contractors. All of these are a money making network, extending beyond them!

But lets get down to earth.

Every suburb in Bangalore at has a plethora of stored, ignored brains trust, with decades of experience. But the neighbourhood hardly pays any attention to their sharing – of the huge base of experience.

That starts with the lowest level of local governance called RWAs. These are hotbeds of local politics, instead of being the eternal spring of democracy, using this massive storage of experience. Youth is needed for the pro active implementation which the retired people find hard; not re-inventing the wheel! Just imagine how these lowest of local bodies can help drive the locality, ward, State and indeed the Nation to progress.

This is also the antithesis of atmanirbharta.

It only requires that each one of us recognises our true station in Life.

@jsvasan