Dec 10, 2024
Dec 10, 2024
Developmental neurology has extensive evidence that malnutrition in the pre and postnatal period lead to impaired mental abilities in children and resultant subnormal mental ability in adulthood. Nearly half of India's children suffer from this malady, exceeding even the sub-Saharan countries in numbers. A second equally important factor causing persistent poverty is that economic deprivation compels parents to put the children to work. They skip school and learn no marketable skills. This mires them to menial or bonded labor without hope of rising incomes throughout life.
Female children suffer disproportionately in this way. They are often fed less than male children as they leave the parental home at marriage and are considered economic liabilities. The social pressures of finding a husband in specific poor and backward castes makes an educated girl unmarriageable. Thus injustice, poverty and discrimination are perpetuated.
The abortion of female fetuses is another time-bomb awaiting explosion. Little do the proud parents of a hundred sons (the modern day Kauravas) realize that the rising deficit of females in India will in future lead to increased anti-social behavior and crime. Young males starved of female companionship and its moderating effects are susceptible to pornography, molesting behavior, rape and even violent crime. Such is the proclivity of an un-satiated male Y chromosome. Deprived minorities without hope often seek refuge in a living of crime as both India and America prove.
A third reason for stunted mental growth is religious brainwashing. Despite being taught that the sun is a relatively small star made up mostly of hydrogen and helium undergoing nuclear fusion reactions at its center due to gravitational mass and heat of compression, science graduates still persist in the unthinking ignorance of worshipping it like their ignorant forefathers of two to five thousand years ago. The barren spherical rock called the moon is still given the same exalted status nearly forty years after human beings landed on it. The obstinate clinging to a lunar calendar is another example of not wanting to be confused with facts and behaving like the frog in a well (Kupmanduka frame of mind). Thus independent thinking and rational analysis are stifled in most college educated Indians. In this they share the same idiocy as the bulk of American presidential contenders of the Republican party who affirmed their rejection of Darwin's evolution on national TV in public debate.
Even educated, better skilled and more moneyed Indian children reach adulthood in a vapid state. They are either brainwashed by religious dogma to pray to chimeric gods with animal heads or mesmerized by hip shaking Bollywood trash and infatuated with hero worship of good looking but talent-less actors and actresses or obsessed with cricket voyeurism. Others due to economic circumstances or the curse of money becoming an end instead of a means have time for little else. The high cost of books, the absence of decent libraries and the paucity of time leaves a majority of the population ignorant, apathetic and easily manipulable by crooked and indecent leaders with a lust for power. The uniformly pervasive obsession with money lives with a pride in Hindu Dharma which is practiced only in rituals and minor ways without any awareness of the hypocrisy or conflicting behavior. Offering to sundry gods are considered as legitimate bribes for the hope of even more munificent returns.
Last but not the least is the spreading American epidemic of a corrupt and conniving press. The need to make more money without offending the paying advertisers leads to sensationalism, tabloid and yellow journalism and avoidance of thoughtful discussion of issues and investigative journalism. The tired, ignorant, apathetic and stressed out public is lured into passive entertainment reminiscent of the bread and circuses of a declining Roman Empire. The only side effect of the wild pelvic gyrations that pass as art and dance will be better orgasms and a burgeoning population. They will then face a Malthusian disaster in a Hobbesian hell populated by fissiparous Indians of diverse ethnicity, language, religion with only ignorance and greed as the unifying factors.
Two recent shameful examples will illustrate the state of the media.
I have frequently pointed out the ignorance, misinformation and outright lying by the media and leaders regarding the nuclear deal.
One TV reporter to get his fifteen minutes of fame, broadcast a blatant lie accusing a female teacher of running a prostitution ring of her students. The teacher was beaten, fired and publicly humiliated until the truth came out. There was no remorse, contrition or public apology by the reporter. He claimed he did it to score a scoop and advance his career.
Another reporter tried to coerce a destitute family to commit mass suicide on camera which he wanted to record and profit from, by selling the footage.
A close parallel is what a witness said to McCarthy during a similar bad era in America ' "Sir, have you no sense of decency or shame".
Politicians enrich themselves by taking bribes from one and all, including government servants who are transferred to other cities to be shaken down for bribes. State and Federal legislators go on foreign junkets at public expense and switch parties for money and ministerships just as in USA. Advertisements and the media glorify conspicuous consumption. Celebrity worship leads to idiot fans building or dedicating temples to film stars whose religion forbids idol worship. They are elected to parliament even to the extent of dynastic rule. Film stars and politicians pass on their legislature seats to their progeny with the consent of a voting public of a so called democratic country.
Isn't the US presidency required to alternate between a Bush and a Clinton as written in the Constitution?
14-Oct-2007
More by : Gaurang Bhatt, MD