India might have gained independence in 1947, but the bane of ‘mental slavery’ still persists. The problem of inferiority complex continues to exist in most of the Indians even today, as we need foreigners to validate our content, as well as our achievements. A recent example of this mental slavery is undoubtedly our fascination towards the foreign reactions over random events in India, be it the launch of Chandrayaan II or the release of any recent movie trailer.
Ever since the Internet revolution officially entered India in 2011, our presence on social media has increased by leaps and bounds. Be it in terms of active users or content creation, Indians have carved a significant place of their own. One of the biggest examples of this is the success of the T Series, which is now the most subscribed Youtube channel throughout the world.
Into this scenario stepped in foreign reaction channels. These are simple reactionary channels, who react randomly to every Indian event, be it the release of a movie, or the performance of India in a world championship, or even something as recent as the launch of Chandrayaan 2. Following are such some examples –
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T78C1OPyhyc
However, what is worrying is the excessive adulation of such channels by Indians. Most of the comments on such channels represent the problem that still persists amongst the Indians, that of inferiority complex. We consider ourselves so inferior that we still need the validation of foreigners for our content. What’s worse, we’re also increasing the amount of mediocrity on YouTube by mindlessly liking such videos and giving it millions to views. If you don’t believe us, see this for yourself:
The question still persists – what is the need of such foreign validation? Are we not capable enough to judge our own content? What is the need to exhibit such mental slavery even now? If foreigners don’t validate our content, will that be the end of the world?
What’s worse, this is just not limited to foreign reactions. Whenever Indian tourists visit any place abroad, they desperately seek a foreigner to click selfies with them. Most of them, the foreigners do not even care about the Indians, and drive them away, if need be. Yet, we don’t learn from these examples and continue to exhibit our mental slavery. On the other hand, if someone from India tries to do something different, and open avenues of innovation, we shall do everything to discourage him, even humiliate him and ostracize him if need be.
The problem lies somewhere with the self-hating brigade of Indians, who have for long controlled the narrative. These are the same folks who would continue bashing PM Modi for even the slightest of their mistakes, while they would blindly believe the President of the United States, even if he lies blatantly. If we need to get over this inferiority complex, we need to first boycott such reaction channels, and we need to accept that we are not pushovers anymore.
Even the world’s best movies need our Indian technicians, our ISRO sends mind-boggling space missions at a fraction of the cost of their foreign counterparts, and some of our sports icons can give even the best in the world a run for their money. We need to move on and become a proud Indian, ready to compete with the best, not a mere attention seeker who needs foreign validation to do anything fruitful.