What does your India look like?

I am the Voice of Indian Women and I ask you, “If India was a person, what will she look like?”

When I close my eyes and think about what my India would look like…I imagine…

She will be OBESE: With a weight of one billion plus population, she would be getting crushed under her own weight. India has 16.8% of the world’s population but only 2.42% of the land area, 4% of water resources, 1.4% of world coal reserves and less than 1% of world oil reserves.* I wonder, how she is going to support herself, if there is no stopping…no slowing down.

She will be AMPUTED: With parts of her taken away, she will be incomplete and crippled. There are still several separatist movements going on in India trying to divide her further. Foreign powers have been fueling these movements while her children are busy trying to divide what is left instead of standing up and defending her.

She will be SICK: With her internal organs fighting amongst each other for their own selfish interests, she is falling apart. With amass corruption and dirty politics releasing toxic waste throughout her, she is being poisoned. It is estimated that US$1.4 trillion of her wealth has been stashed away in foreign banks. On the corruption index India has been doing worse each year.

She will be POOR and HUNGRY: With over 200 million of her children sleeping hungry every night and over 836 million living below poverty line, she is a weeping mother. India has the largest number of malnourished children in the world. So much that some call her “The Hungry Republic”.**

She will be BEAUTIFUL but BRUISED: With the crown of Himalayas sitting proudly on her head, with Ganga & Brahmaputra running through her veins, with the green fields of Punjab, the grand deserts of Rajasthan and the monsoon forests of Kerala draped around her, she is the most beautiful. BUT, she is bruised and bleeding with her forests burnt down and chopped, her rivers polluted and her vast fertile planes defaced to build apartments. It is predicted that almost 5.3 million hectares of forests have been destroyed since the Independence! It is said that the river Ganga is so polluted that it is almost 3000 times over the limit suggested by the WHO as ‘safe’.***

However, despite of all these miseries, she is HOPEFUL: She is optimistic about the future. She is positive her children will wake up some day and help her get better. She is hopeful that once again she will be beautiful and at peace like before.

Tell me, what does your India look like?

* http://indiaredefined.wordpress.com/2009/10/12/a-billion-is-enough-indias-population-problem-a-way-out/
** http://www.bhookh.com/hunger_facts.php
*** http://www.all-about-india.com/Ganges-River-Pollution.html