I recently got in a lot of debate about nationalism, and in my previous blog post, I also talked about how India overcelebrated success of it's mars mission which is a clear sign of this nationalism. And the question again rose in my mind, answer to which I couldn't previously find and still cannot- Why do we feel proud and celebrate it when somebody accomplishes something and also happens to be born in the same geological area as us?
One of the possible answer to this question may be that we have some contribution to it. The same way parents feel proud when their child accomplishes something. But it cannot be compared that way. Parents have a contribution to the personality of their child, they do have some contribution in his life. And so do the teachers. And all those people have every right to feel proud about the success of a certain individual. However the whole country has no contribution to the success of certain individual or even in the team events like sending a probe to mars. Now one can say that Olympians or space agencies are financially supported by the government and the government takes the taxes from citizens so the whole country has a contribution, but that doesn't make much sense and that's also not the reason these people feel proud about. And thats why when a whole country celebrates an Olympic gold medal or feel proud about the fact that many of the people working in NASA have the same origins, it is a clear sign that something is terribly wrong with that particular country. I say so because when people celebrate what's primarily not their success, it means that they are not very successful. Which is true about India. Most of the people live ordinary lives and when somebody does something extraordinary, they feel happy for them. That is exactly how the superhero movies work. Ordinary people are fed up with living their boring lives and whenever they see a flying guy punishing people who are bad, they feel happy.
Now the other reason behind this is that we share happiness and we also feel happy about other people's success. And I agree that when you feel happy about someone else's success that's not necessarily because you aren't happy about your own life, although the opposite is true till some extent. I felt happy about the ISRO's success also, but that's because it is a new leap in scientific advancements of humanity, not because the people who did that happened to be born in the same country as I do. And that's why also felt happy when they discovered Higgs Boson or more recently the evidence of inflation. And I do think that when it comes to celebrating science we should not consider borders. Science has no borders.
Now about the sports, whenever an Indian athlete wins a medal, that's not because his country helped him to win it, like China, where they train athletes from a very young age, thats only because that athlete was exceptionally well in the sport he plays. He is just an exception to the national sports system which actually doesn't even exist in the form it should. That's why when we see an athlete winning a medal, we shouldn't be thinking that "wow! India won another medal", we should think that "wow! What a talented person, despite all the challenges, he did it".
This is true about the scientists also to some extent. Although our education system is well established, it is not aimed to make the scientists, actually it is aimed to kill a natural scientist that resides in every person. Here's a great quote by Austrian-British cosmologist and mathematician Sir Hermann Bondi-
"Sometimes I am a little unkind to all my many friends in education, by saying that from the time it learns to talk every child makes a dreadful nuisance of itself by asking 'Why?'. To stop this nuisance society has invented a marvelous system called education which, for the majority of people brings to an end their desire to ask that question. The few failures of this system are called scientists"
That is so true, and he said that about the western education system which is far better that the Indian one when it comes to science. Also there are much more obstacles for a person wanting to be a scientists in India like the problem of funding, and Indian society is more aggressive to killing the nuisance. That's why when we see an scientist, we should see him with utmost respect and remember how hard it is to be a scientist in India. And I am not saying that because one day I might be one.
Whenever people say that more Indians work at NASA and IBM than Americans I usually have two responses, the first being "Yeah, so? What are you trying to say?". I mean seriously what are they tryin to say? Is India a great country because of that? Does that prove that Indian are intelligent and as they are an Indian they are intelligent? Thats of course doesn't make any sense, according to me density of intelligence is same everywhere in the world. Same number of people of IQ equal to that of Einstein are born in any sample of 1000 people, regardless of whether it is chosen from US or India. What matters is how people in different regions are encouraged and helped to excel in their fields by the societies. And when somebody excels, we feel that our society is doing a great job which is not the case, and the reality is that our society is doing a bad job and these people who succeed are so excellent that they do it regardless of societal obstacles. Which is my second response to these people praising India," if India is so great why do they work in NASA and IBM? Why don't they start their own firms in India and excel? Why do they want to go abroad?"
In conclusion, when it comes to praising, celebrating success and feeling proud, we should learn to celebrate only what's ours, we should not be bound by the borders, we should think as humanity, not as Indians or Americans or Chinese. We should celebrate the fact that Malala won Nobel as much as we celebrate the fact that Kailash Satyarthi won Nobel prize. And whenever somebody says something which may favour the notion of superiority, we should ask them
"Yeah, So What?"
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