I do not believe any human will swallow mouthful of flood water on the road unless one is drowning. Further, I do not believe the story about your brother-in-law. Even if the flood water spilled on his lips or mouth, I am pretty much sure, he would have gone home and gargled his mouth. Currently in cities of India, just about any middle class family has access to a car, they have access to full vaccination schedule which would include one for infectious hepatitis, and they seldom drink tap water, almost always buying mineral water while traveling or boiling water at home.

People in cities, who are exposed to such GI infections are mostly low income people such as construction laborers. If you had said that your dhobi, electrician, plumber, or roadside vegetable vendor developed GI infection such as jaundice, I would believe your story, not if you say that happened to your brother-in-law. Someone who writes for New York Times would not have a brother in law who drives a scooter, and even if you had, you would habe been estranged from him long time ago.

As you rightly point out, at least 40% of the waste generated in the country remains strewn around. Moreover, the waste generated is going to double in volume in the coming two decades.To keep the citizens healthy, country clean and on the path of development we have to find a sustainable solution to this problem. Converting waste to energy will help in effective management of waste as well as production of much needed energy for our cities and industry. I do agree that scams of the past do not inspire much confidence but some one in the spirit of social enterprenureship or even a purely business opportunity will eventually seize this chance.

Meanwhile, communities can take some steps. Some colonies in Delhi have organised garabge collection from their residents with help from NGO ’s working in the field of waste management. The garbage after collection is segregated in organic and non-organic waste. The non-organic waste which includes paper, plastic, packaging materials , glass, metals etc is all taken away by a “kabariwala” and the rest is deposited in the municipal dump to be carried away by the municipal truck.
At least this ensures that large amount of non-organic waste is not thrown in the landfill.

The role of citizens in any effort is crucial. Each one of us has to adopt sustainable actions in our daily lives. Eliminate use of all plastic bags. Phase out the usage of plastic products to the extent possible. Especially, stop using plastic containers and products in the kitchen as they have ramifications for our health.Decrease in use of plastic products will, hopefully lead to less of plastic waste. Dispose off used electronic products sensibly.
In addition to this every individual must do his or her share in inculcating awareness about the problem in their community. Not only neighbours and freinds, but househelps , dhobis , chowkidars and any other service providers. Keeping in mind the scope and extent of the problem we have to get everybody on board. Each act of ours either takes way, or adds to the susatainability of our city, our country or our world. Every act is significant. Lets make it count.

I’m curious what S suggests as alternatives, practical solutions to the myriad issues she presents. Let me rephrase my question in a different way. Given the context India finds itself around (geographical, historic, political, cultural…):

a) how can one go about enabling women to be more independent and the equal power and presence that you’d find in a healthy society? Since that is an ideal not quite reached by any society today, where would S rank India (compared to the leaders, compared to its neighbors…) and what needs to be done next?
b) how can what needs to be done next be done so it isn’t seen as patronizing? After all even well-meaning gestures and actions backed by the best of intentions can be perceived as patronizing by those still simmering with resentments and anger.
c) violence isn’t the monopoly of any gender and it’d be a very biased person to blame any one gender for societal problems. We hear of violence done women by men. Attempts to address that problem (by those well-intentioned) only seem to produce more dogma, ideology, and bias. A better approach, one befitting the situation, is to address violence in the community be it women (victims)-men (perpetrators), women-women, men-men, and men-women. Surely S can’t be denying the innumerable acts of violence perpetrated on women by women in India? what’s being done about that?
d) Virtually all women of Indian origin I’ve met claim to be the maintainers, conveyors, holders, representatives of “Indian culture.” They also claim to be the ones most involved in passing that on to the next generation (male or female). You can hear that, and see it practiced too, in India and elsewhere. So, if that culture has all of those “intolerant” practices S refers to in her comments, why is it that she is not referring to the role of women in perpetuating what is pernicious? Women surely can’t have it both ways: claim the culture is hostile to them, and yet represent themselves as the embodiment of that culture responsible for transmitting it to the next generation.

I look forward to hearing S’s response.

India’s multiculturalism, its “unity within diversity” label was used and deployed by a mostly male, upper-caste nationalist government in the mid 20th century to naturalize a range of serious disparities in the country and to claim to be able to represent a coherent whole.

Calling it tolerant or multicultural, and essentializing the image of the poor working farmer and romanticizing it, has long been a nationalist euphemism of sorts for enormous inequality between regions and peoples.

I agree with you that tolerance exists sometimes in striking ways. This is true of Auroville and of the Jewish community in Kochi. But I suspect that each of those instances need to be studied at a local level before being anecdotally strung together to claim a unified tradition of ‘tolerance’. In India, tolerance comes and goes, now you see it, now you dont.

Nowhere is the lack of tolerance in India more evident, than in the continued misogyny, sexism and inequality faced by Indian women.

Since the early 20th century, the nationalist ideology began to identify itself as “middle class”; that is to say, closer to ‘the masses’ than the British and closer to ’self governance’ than the ‘masses’. Part of their ideology was a patronizing attitude towards ‘helping poor people along’ to development.

Another key part of nationalist ideology since this time was the characterizaton of Indian women as the “bearers of national culture”, virginal, pure and chaste, with an innate drive towards motherhood and towards rearing nationalistic sons.

This ideology has serious consequences in courts, where marital rape is not recognized as an issue. It has serious consequences for those of us young educated girls who live in cities alone, and have to restrict our movements for fear of police harrassment, and who get called ‘whores’ by our neighbours. It has consequences for women who try to get abortions (sneaking out of home when their abusive husbands are at work) and being told by government officials to “bring their husband”. Its not uncommon for officials to chide the woman in an incredibly disrespectful and disempowering manner, “Why are you doing this ma? Do you want to spoil your marriage?”

It is no coincedence that many government programs aimed at empowering women are implemented by mid level bureaucrats who believe that a too-empowered woman “will make a bad wife.”

(Some especially insightful researchers have recently studied marriage as a source of violence. This is not to say women dont love the abusive and sexist husbands they have to settle for. Some of them do. But a lot of them have resentment lurking…others may hate him outright.)

I would caution us against employing the language and metaphors used by Indian nationalist discourse…like nationalist discourse everywhere, it conceals and subsumes some key contradictions that are mainatined by daily practice across the country. ‘Unity within diversity’ gives us warm fuzzy feelings, allowing us to ignore the trafficking, the transgender and female rape, the police violence, the unequal and forced marriages that take place everyday.

Given our laws and sexist judiciary, I think the only way forward is for all of us to support each other and build self esteem and knowledge…until we can begin to say “f*** you” to the city and go about our lives.

These issues have daily significance for those of us girls who grew up here. I went to the US for college, on a scholarship, and returned 2 years ago. I work with sexual minorities and girls in Chennai, around issues of gender and sexuality. I would be happy to provide references for the arguments I have made.

The reason Narendra Modi is so popular in Gujarat is not because of his anti-Muslim stance but because of his stance against religious preferences. As far as Modi supporters are concerned, Muslims should adhere to the same civil marriage laws as Hindus, Sikhs, Christians, etc. and the Hajj subsidies should be eliminated. All preferential treatment towards the Muslims and Christians should be eliminated. In other words, Modi wants India to be more like the United States with equal rights for all and no special treatment for certain religions.

To say that India is intolerant because of Modi is akin to saying that the United States is intolerant because of Governor George Wallace.