Photo Credit: Dave and Deb at ThePlanetD

Update: Since writing this, I’ve had a look at the population density figures in the countries with comparable or higher density population numbers than India and it occurs to me that these numbers tell only one part of the story. While the average population density might indeed be comparable, the actual population density in any given public facility in India is much much greater, because of the utter inadequacy of public infrastructure. That is, there are many many more people lining up for buses, at hospitals, or anywhere else where services are provided by private or public vendors, because of the vastness of the population. That means the situation in India is not strictly comparable to anywhere else.

_______________________

Dirty public urinals, animal waste, holes in the sidewalk, open sewers litter, stench, public defecation.

This is the norm in India.

The cause is not poverty.

Africans are poor, but they are not anywhere as dirty as Indians.

The cause is not crowding.

Tokyo, Amsterdam and many other big cities have high population densities, but are organized and clean. [Correction: However, their population densities are not as high as in India.]

The cause is not solely colonialism or exploitation by the West.

Vietnam, China and many other Asian and African countries have suffered as much under colonization but they are not as filthy.

[Correction: China until recently did suffer from a serious public hygiene problem in many areas.]

The cause   A major cause of India’s public filth is Indian attitudes.

1. Agamic (traditional)Hinduism stresses personal cleanliness and the insides of Indian homes are usually as clean as their owners can afford.

But Hinduism and the thousands of non-traditional and often traditionally proscribed local practices that range from superstition to witchcraft do not say much about civic virtue or public space.

Not In My Backyard is often the default Indian motto.

However, given that the Hindu golden ages produced some of the greatest cities of the world, the problem should not be seen as arising from Hinduism as such, but from the cultural accretions that have deformed its practice in the modern world.

Meanwhile, Muslim neighborhoods, some of the poorest and most congested in India, are also often as dirty.

It is almost always Christian areas or very Westernized ones that are cleaner than their surroundings.

2. Despite the Hindu Reformation of the 19th century, many Hindus still tend to look down on manual labor, and cleaning, especially cleaning human waste.

It is considered the lowest of the low, so no one wants to do it.

Christianity, on the other hand, has a social ethic that values the human being in every walk of life and values the physical body, which it believes will be resurrected.

It values manual work, since Jesus himself worked with his hands.

Out of this correct valuation of the real world and human relations springs the desire to clean and beautify.

In traditional Hinduism, sringara or beautification of the body and its surrounding is also central, but this aspect of the tradition has been lost to large masses of ordinary people, so it is no use invoking it.

Out of respect for physical creation arises respect for the other man and his property rights.

3. In India, property rights have long been eroded by a socialistic government (imposed by the pseudo-Christian, communistic Zionist Order) that encourages looting by the highest and the lowest class.

Between the two, the Indian middle class has become demoralized and dis-empowered.

4. The masses of ordinary Indians are anti-social toward groups larger than the family.

They do not  – and often cannot –  cooperate and organize to pursue their interests. They are too consumed with the rigors of surviving.

The average India does not not take part in civic organization unless he and his family are personally benefited.

5. Corruption and colonialism have encouraged a slave mentality that accepts things as they are without any serious attempt to change them.

6 The vast expansion of the government and welfare system has broken the connection between work and reward and encouraged criminality and corruption. Essential services are absent. It’s each man for himself.

7. Indians as a group are not self-critical but insecure, trying to ride on past (ancient) glories.

The post-Independence generation has been taught to blame everything on colonization, even when a large part of modern India’s problems is caused by Indians themselves.

8. Indians today are a distressing mixture of braggadocio, insecurity, and fawning, who ape the worst things in the West and ignore the best.

They disdain the best in their own culture and make excuses for the worst.