.... I saw it on a poster at the entrance to the show-piece Dilli Haat Market in New Delhi, the Indian Tourist Board's own market, ensuring that tourists leave with a bit of marketable India to take home with them.
The Staff and Students we met at Gurukul Theological Seminary cited "Incredible India" as an appropriate slogan for the Government and the Tourist Board to use. Through Indian eyes, India is indeed incredible. Development in India has most-certainly arrived, but it has come at great cost for most, benefiting only a few.
The Government is most-certainly incredible in the depths it has plummeted in corruption. We found out at Karigiri how the government had "massaged" statistics regarding leprosy, giving the impression that the disease had been eradicated, so justifying a "no spend" on leprosy care and research, when the reality is that leprosy is more-prevalent in India than anywhere else in the world, with more cases each year.
Perhaps even-more disturbing was the Government pronouncement that hardly-any wage-earners in India fall below the minimum. That India has a complex system of minimum wages,which are not applicable to all workers and set up often arbitrarily by different authorities, making it difficult to monitor and enforce, makes a farce of it all.
It has been said that the Government minimum -wage figure is as low as 24 rupees a day. Not even the lowest of the lowly-paid worker in India is likely to fall beneath that level. That is not to say that the average wage for the majority is actually an adequate amount for people to ensure a basic standard of living including health-care, dignity, comfort and education, and to provide for any necessary contingency that might arise.Bearing in mind that a litre of petrol now costs 72 rupees, then a worker on the minimum wage will have to work about three months to fill a tank with petrol! "Incredible India" - where the rich are becoming much, much richer, and the poor, of course, the vast majority of Indian citizens, are not. India is incredible only for a few.
The challenge to today's Indian Christians? To set an example of integrity, where there is no place for corruption, and where such corruption in high places is bravely and courageously questioned and brought to account. Indian Christians are called to be "Good Samaritans" - people on the margins of Indian Society ministering where they can with whatever resources they can find to become good neighbours. We ourselves were challenged to look after our own neighbours, and not to feel we had to "do good" out of a sense of guilt (because we have so much, or because of former colonial ties).
When we asked, for what should we pray as far as the Church of today in India is concerned, the answer was "for honesty" - at government level, and even in the Church; and "for human rights" -for Dalits, for women (again, even in the Church women find it hard to feel that equality exists), and for the many, many poor in "Incredible India".
The Staff and Students we met at Gurukul Theological Seminary cited "Incredible India" as an appropriate slogan for the Government and the Tourist Board to use. Through Indian eyes, India is indeed incredible. Development in India has most-certainly arrived, but it has come at great cost for most, benefiting only a few.
The Government is most-certainly incredible in the depths it has plummeted in corruption. We found out at Karigiri how the government had "massaged" statistics regarding leprosy, giving the impression that the disease had been eradicated, so justifying a "no spend" on leprosy care and research, when the reality is that leprosy is more-prevalent in India than anywhere else in the world, with more cases each year.
Perhaps even-more disturbing was the Government pronouncement that hardly-any wage-earners in India fall below the minimum. That India has a complex system of minimum wages,which are not applicable to all workers and set up often arbitrarily by different authorities, making it difficult to monitor and enforce, makes a farce of it all.
It has been said that the Government minimum -wage figure is as low as 24 rupees a day. Not even the lowest of the lowly-paid worker in India is likely to fall beneath that level. That is not to say that the average wage for the majority is actually an adequate amount for people to ensure a basic standard of living including health-care, dignity, comfort and education, and to provide for any necessary contingency that might arise.Bearing in mind that a litre of petrol now costs 72 rupees, then a worker on the minimum wage will have to work about three months to fill a tank with petrol! "Incredible India" - where the rich are becoming much, much richer, and the poor, of course, the vast majority of Indian citizens, are not. India is incredible only for a few.
The challenge to today's Indian Christians? To set an example of integrity, where there is no place for corruption, and where such corruption in high places is bravely and courageously questioned and brought to account. Indian Christians are called to be "Good Samaritans" - people on the margins of Indian Society ministering where they can with whatever resources they can find to become good neighbours. We ourselves were challenged to look after our own neighbours, and not to feel we had to "do good" out of a sense of guilt (because we have so much, or because of former colonial ties).
When we asked, for what should we pray as far as the Church of today in India is concerned, the answer was "for honesty" - at government level, and even in the Church; and "for human rights" -for Dalits, for women (again, even in the Church women find it hard to feel that equality exists), and for the many, many poor in "Incredible India".
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