Criticizing the Country

Letters to the Editor - Dawn
August 21, 2007

I agree entirely with Rajendra K. Aneja that India has a long way to go before it can claim to be a successful and prosperous nation. I also acknowledge the facts, with a degree of shame, which the writer stated.

Nevertheless I must also mention that a nation is not just a piece of land marked by boundaries. It’s the people who constitute a nation and define it. In other words all the people in a country are one family and the country is their home.

Even after 60 years of independence, people in the subcontinent, and India in particular, have not developed a sense of responsibility towards their nations.

We are quite fond of commenting about the pathetic state of affairs in our country but we rarely ask ourselves whether we can help overcome the country’s problems.

If the educated and well-informed had tried to work for the nation, then India would not be facing any of its problems that it faces today. Instead they decided to move to greener pastures and dedicate their spare time in criticising the nation. I don’t condemn their criticism but I do condemn their dereliction of duty.

Why didn’t these pessimists try to run the country? Why didn’t they enter the civil services and try to change the nation? Why didn’t they join politics and contest elections? If they had, then their criticism would be justified.