VIBRANT INDIA
Major General P K Mallick, VSM (Retd)
The other day when we were discussing why there is so much of negativity in Indian
discourses, why everybody only talks of bad things and tend to criticise everything that is
Indian, forgetting so many good things that is happening in India, my good friend told me
it is Pizza effect.
Before World War I, Pizza was a hot wheat bread of the Sicilian and south Italian, staple
for the poor peasants of that area. In Rome and other areas of greater sophistication, the
pizza was regarded as the food of the poor and pizza eater was a mildly derogatory
synonym for a poor man. It was the poor from that region of Italy who emigrated to North
America, the pizza gradually changed from the simple substance to a fast food item of
much greater complexity and variation. By the early thirties it had become an all
American dish. Soon the Italian Americans who had done well in the USA brought it back
to Italy and within two more decade, it become a will respected dish in all part of Italy and
all over Europe.
[1],[2]
We only appreciate things Indian when American/ Europeans praise those, be it Yoga or
Indian Philosophy.
It is a matter of extreme pain and shame when in social media people quote, of all
people the racist Winston Churchill, and try to justify the present conditions of India.
Quotations like this regularly appear in social media.
Through the authenticity of some of the quotes is not verifiable, following is when
Churchill made a speech in the British Parliament House of Commons on March 6, 1947.
“Let the House remember this. The Indian political parties and political classes do not
represent the Indian masses. It is a delusion to believe that they do. I wish they did. They
are not as representative of them as the movements in Britain represent the surges and
impulses of the British nation. This has been proved in the war, and I can show the
House how it was proved. The Congress Party declared non-co-operation with Great
Britain and the Allies. The other great political party, to whom all main power is to be
given, the Muslim League, sought to make a bargain about it, but no bargain was made.
[1].
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pizza_effect]
[2].
Rajiv Malhotra, Indra's Net, HarperCollins, 2015, Page 6
