After this video has shown the scene of the murder, it went on to talk about the economy in India. We can see from the video, how people are full of unhappiness with the unequal distribution of wealth in the country- that the rich keeps getting richer, and the poor, poorer.
This is a great contributing factor to the discord in India as the rich and poor are distinctly worlds apart!
As we also learn from Communications, Group Communication is very important. Relating to the context of a country, a country needs to be united as a group to be effective. If people scatter themselves into ranks and classes, wouldn't everyone be disconnected with each other? Similarly, in India, when their is distinction amongst people (here, in terms of wealth), the country is unable to function effectively as a whole as not everyone benefits. India adopts the caste system right up to the present, in which status clearly separates people from one another.
Not too long before the murder happened, from an article in CNN, religious discord between Hindus and Christians have caused violence, resulting in many deaths. Violence like Hindu vandals attacking 14 churches in an hour, Christian gunmen barging into Hindu-schools shooting, and fires occurred. A group creates its own identity and belief- just like the Hindus and Christians.Their shared behavioural standards have caused them to be bonded together and react the same way to any agitation. They are very much influenced by one another in the group that thy drive each other to cause destruction to their opponents!
Personally, I feel sympathetic towards the Indians, not only are they separated by wealth, but they are torn apart by different beliefs distance them further. I feel that for many of them, it just could not be helped, especially in terms of their wealth. If you begin poor in a mass society like India, you do not get richer when the country improves, but you only struggle to keep up. And most of the time, the poor just gets poorer as the rich pile up their increasing assets.
A group as a whole(India) is effective but when within a group, division occurs (different statuses, conflicting beliefs), the group becomes disharmonious and conflicts happen,resulting in greater ineffectiveness till a solution happens (but where?).
Thus, India is a country that has come to my attention and my heart reaches out to them, especially the poor that live in squatters. What can we do to this society of vastly different people that need help?
Here, this video warms my heart (also set in India).
If you notice, the various statuses of people are brought together by the fallen tree.
Perhaps, sometimes, we need a deprivation that could bring everyone to the same level so that we can all work together to solve that same pressing problem (of discord).
5 comments:
You also have to wonder -when talking about India's growing divide, whether there's any point in Indians staying in India. There's an increasing trend of Indians flocking to more developed countries to take on labourous jobs whilst studying. You undoubtedly have noticed the number of migrant workers in Singapore working on construction sites and in Melbourne you see Indians aplenty carrying out the most menial of tasks.
However, unlike Singapore, the labourers in Melbourne earn a damn sight more. They are able to save up to AUD1,000 after paying for rent, food etc on just a part-time job. This is the equivalent of approximately 18-19,000 rupees and can last a family for an entire month.
Just to add to the shock value, you ought to know that the 18-19,000 rupees is also the average wage for an employee with a Masters! All these 20-40 somethings leave India the moment they can take a degree and scrimp and save to make enough money to take home, buy a house and live comfortably for a few years until they run out of money and have to rely on their children who are now overseas and repeating the cycle.
But that is if you can afford the cost of the aeroplane ticket...
nice analysis. you should fly to India and get a job in governance there =D
Your article moved my heart. In Singapore, the income gap between rich and poor is not vastly different as compared to other countries. The Singapore government takes care of the poor and the needy, no one is left behind. Moreover, in this racial harmony society, we are able to accept one another differences and enjoy each other unique cultures. Sometimes, I felt that I took Singapore for granted. I assumed that all these things come naturally but is not… I remember that the Maria Hertogh riots in 1950 where 18 were killed & 173 injured and 1964 Race Riots where 36 were killed & 556 injured. Racial discrimination existed in Singapore and the government had come this far to ensure that this situation doesn’t occur again. As a teacher, I believe Education plays an important role in building this wonderful environment that we are living right now. This video that you have posted is probably one of the ways that India is trying to educate and promote harmonious multi-racial and religious society.
Thanks Fiona! I have learnt much from your post!
A very Proud Singaporean,
Alfred
To Kel. :
There are also Chinese migrant workers, but as far as we know, things are not as bad as in India. How does social inequality account for the Chinese influx? Ans: it DOESN'T. People just in it for the money, that's all. Indians don't all migrate because the living's shit over there; Indian tech support outsorced by Western companies, for example, have become an easy target for comedians now, it's so prevalent; the techies STAY in India.
Disenchanted lower classes + frightened upper classes does not = migration. It's migration to WORK, anyway, not to LIVE. The better number want to go BACK to India once their nest egg is hatched. You've seen Indian workers; have you seen the FAMILIES? No? Then they're not coming here FOR GOOD; apparently there is a POINT in staying in India. But perhaps you have no idea about what we humans call "family."
Really? So have you found an Indian national doing his/her B.A. or B.Sc as a construction worker/maid/etc menial? Good grief, are you crazy? People who can make it as high up as B.A./B.Sc. DON'T do menial work. They do clerical. Desk work. You expect a person to work ten-twelve hours of HARD LABOR and then come home to a treatise on how Hitler's Kampf distorted Nietzche, or something equally esoteric? Menials are menials because they have NO OTHER PROSPECT. Unless, of course, like Orwell they are working under cover for some nostalgie de la boue enterprise...
To Fio. : You made a later entry about singing along to the media, yes? Then you won't mind me singing Sweeney Todd at you:
The world is a hole like a great black pit,
And it's filled with people who are full of shit
And the vermin of the world inhabit it.
At the top of this hole sit a priviledged few,
Making mock of the vermin in the lower zoo
We ALL deserve to die,
Even you, don't you know it, even I.
Because the lives of the wicked should be made BRIEF
For the rest of us death will be a RELIEF
We ALL deserve to DIE! This is the trouble with the popular media: it gies you a musical vocabulary only of lovesongs and summertime tunes in Singapore. Hard luck for the heartbroken, the cuckholded, the betrayed, who wish most to say "hey DJ, this song ("Love, I hate you" by the Degenerates) dedication is going out to Joyce Han: HOW ARE YOU, YOU ***ing CUNT! You slatternly WHORE! Did you like it in the locker room with my BOSS you cretinous OFFAL?" I call this Sam Kinison therapy. Youtube that shit.
I say that this lawlessness is not wholly due to class segragation or religion, but to the Law in India as being as uncontrollable as a herd of cats. Secular Law is supposedly applicable to all; because it is not, people have to resort to their own laws. The Muslim hardliners will take "strike them with the face of the sword until they submit," and the Christians will take "thou shalt not suffer the witch to live" in a country with easily a THOUSAND gods.
And, before you point out that Christianity is all warm and cozy and LOVE, lemme show you something about the old Jewish Law: Mamonaides, a rabbitical scholar, quoted in the book the Science of Good and Evil by Michael Shermer, shows the "Chosen People" mentality in the hebrew religion (which can be applied to all religions, because somehow every race is in it's own mythology DESCENDED from GODS): "if a resident alien slays an Israelite, he must be put to death in spite of his inadvertance." So. We have one group of people who claim to be Christ's spiritual descendents, and another group whose ancestors (the Jains) worshipped root vegetables (oh yeah, lol-ness, you know Lingam actually means phallus? Such a common name, too. I can see why they worshipped root vegetables, yeah...). Hardly surprising, since they're both Chosen People. It's not about man's inhumanity to man any more. It's about man's inhumanity to walking root vegetables. Their opponents are not peers; they're inhuman. Michael Shermer calls it in-group / outgroup something. Love to all men, yes: problem. Hindus and Christians are apparently not men to each other. They're heathen.
"We need a deprivation..." this much I can agree to. That's why I'm always praying for armageddon.
They ALL deserve to DIE.
-H
To Alfred:
"No one is left behind"? Are you blind? Maybe you live in the wrong place. Come live around Haig Road, near the islamic bookshop, or the market square next to Lion City Hotel. You'll see people who sleep on park benches, who beg from 10 am onwards at the overhead bridge. And don't call them exceptional cases: the Bendemeer area, St. George, they're everywhere. Meritocracy! That insuprable LIE! Wake up man: what does CPF spell? Lemme crash course you through the H School of Spelling: if you don't work (not if you CAN'T; some of these people got no LEGS) you don't EAT. So. We have a bunch of people whose only lifeskill is selling tissue paper. Oh sure, meritocracy is the crowning jewel of the civilised world. These people can bloody subsist on tissue paper then. Pissant.
"Moreover, in this racial harmony society"- Screw you. My friends who work at a petrol pump have observed that Singaporean Chinese seem to despise PRCs who aren't top scholars. Upturned noses, downturned mouths, etc. The REASON you got a "racial harmony society" (your English needs work, by the way) isbecause Singaporean LAW is STRONGER than your base instincts, not because of some innate/instilled virtue.
"I believe Education plays an important role in building this wonderful environment that we are living right now." 'Course you do. The education system teaches the students to respect teachers, to practically WORSHIP teachers, like little animals doing tricks for bait. The little animals, in the main, don't think for themselves; always spoon fed. Not even that! I correct myself: intravenous education all the way, for some specimens. I, however, am not a little animal. I am a rogue male. Of course you'll think that education helps: you're a teacher. Advocating your own vocation as the remedy to problems seems a little cheap to me. If I took any other job, policing (because people won't DARE do wrong things) or medicine (we'll dope them into submission) or social scientists (let's put them in mazes with little bits of cheese at the end and see them fight) we'll eventually get to this precious Peace. "Peace? Peace? I hate the word, as I hate Hell, all Montagues, and Thee. Have at Thee, Teacher" Romeo and Juliet.
See that? That's Shakespeare. I am the result of your education system. What do you think now? Can you handle a Hyde, a Frankenstudent, a perfect malcontent as yours truly? Even if you can, can you still advocate education as your final answer?
-H
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