Views from the Bottom

The news trickles down. About 20,000 dead (as on 27 March, 7653 dead and 11746 missing), 4,50,000 rendered homeless, looming nuclear catastrophe, power breakdown, disrupted train schedules, lack of clean drinking water yet not a whimper of disgruntlement, a curse, or despair among the 13 crore Japanese people. What one hears is of one victim helping the other, sharing their food and bed, weeping on the shoulders of each other. The unbreakable-s are picking up the broken pieces to rebuild their lives again. The world when looks at the horrendous tragedy ponders: what makes the Japanese people resilient? Is it their Buddhist socio-cultural beliefs? Do they have some inbuilt genetic trait which others do not have? Or is it some other factor?

Ms. Nobuko Horibe, Director, United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), Asia-Pacific zone, says, “We Japanese live on about 20 per cent land; the rest being mountainous. This living environment necessitates us to be considerate to others and keep good harmony in a community. From kindergarten to elementary school and onward, your performance is measured by how your group performs; and if you are better than other members you are expected to help others, so that no one in the group is left out.” Explaining further, she says, “Japanese are not expressive people, they show restraint and are polite. Thinking of others and selflessness first is considered a virtue. In trouble, they look after each other. They also tend to internalise anger and sorrow. Yes, closely-knit social norms and systems may be stifling at times, but it works well in emergencies,”(B. Suri, “Dignity in the Face of Tragedy” The Hindu, march 26, 2011) This makes sense indeed. Amidst the thriving individualistic ethos, Japanese people kept alive and nurtured the sense of fraternity, human belongingness to each other and sense of one’s wellbeing is entwined with the wellbeing of the other. This is, according to positive psychologists, one of the primary indices of happiness and resilience.

When comparing Japanese attitude with that of Indian in similar situations, one wonders: what might be the Indian mindset? Indeed we saw people consoling each other, helping each other. But more than this what we saw in similar situations, is how people turned cruel to each other, robbing meagre help that dripped into hungry bowls, and even people going about unconcerned, even by the very people who professedly are social workers and political bigheads. We saw a pathological psyche at work. Doesn’t this make us ponder: What is it that by which we are nurturing ourselves? What values and convictions do our young imbibe?

The present social systems seem be nurturing an egoistic, narcissistic personality. An egoist is a person: who wants everything for him/herself; who gets pleasure in possessing and not in sharing; who is greedy because his aim is having, and in more he has more he feels he is worthwhile; who is antagonistic towards all others: his customers whom he wants to deceive, his workers whom he wants to exploit. He has no end to his wishes. He must be envious of those who have more and afraid of those who have less. These are repressed to feel good about oneself and good in front of others, and break forth in the face of human tragedies when humans are most vulnerable. This calls for a rethinking, a new way of nurturing in our families, educational institutions and other centres where our children learn to see other persons not objects for pleasure, a threat, but as extensions of ourselves.