Loving and Hating India

Rhiannon Talbot

Hi all,
I don't want to start of a thread that seems negative but I was wondering if anyone else out there has a bit of love and hate relationship with India. I was reading a very funny thread earlier that said one reason NOT to go to India is that you will hate whilst you are there but miss when you are not. We have been living here in very rural northern India for a year. It has been a very difficult year and we have decided to leave. Everyone else seems to have a soul changing positive experiencs.
Whilst we have learnt a lot some our experiences have been less than good.

The think that finally drove us to leave was the underlying violence where we are. It seems like a good enough, if poor, place but...My husband is an engineer and builds heavy civils (road, railways etc). The corruption is so rampant that if the local thugs don't get paid they are violent. Officially company policy is not to pay bribes (but the police have been paid and I don't want to tell you how may crowe they dedmanded). Every head of department has been attacked, including my husband, when the local can't get the ex pats the beat up local workers (very badly). The last works manager we lost left afer a local goon threatened to stab him. This is just the tip of the iceburg of the problems we've had.

I won't even go into the mutaliated corpses of women that turn up from time to time in the town (victims of honour killings) or children begin openly sold into prostituion on the streets. This place is within the magic tourist triangle - we are not in a area that is supposed to be off limits.

Please tell me this is unusual?

shashank.aggarwal

OMG...this seems straight out of a UP gangster movie...

Which state are we talking about ?

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m.bhattacharya

Yeah, it all depends upon which state it is and the state government in charge. I cannot believe there cannot be better law and order if the ruling government so desires. Political rule unfortunately in India has got more and more criminalised. Is there a collective noun for rule by few powerful criminals?

Milan

ba9rn

Well if you check her first post from a year ago, you will get a strong clue... Living in Agra

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shashank.aggarwal

So UP it is...I had a strong clue once I read the details of the post..and this thread clears it all...

Two of the most backward and crimilasied states in India UP and Bihar..(Uttar Pradesh)..

capt_mahajan

The violence is, to an extent, greater where you are/were, than in most parts of the country. It is even worse as you go to the Eastern part of your State and beyond.
I also think you saw more of this because of the nature of your husband's work; civil engineering means contractors, goons backed by local politicians, contracts...

The rest is pretty much universal, some of it (eg child prostitution) even outside India.

I think you ran into and were living in a part of India which most Indians avoid, if possible.

birds

Hi RT,

I am very sorry to hear you are having these horrible experiences.

I used to have a friend who worked in the area around Chambal (not too far from Agra) and he had lots of problems too but no physical attacks, although there were kidnappings but after payment they always let the people go unharmed.

Here is Goa we also noticed unusual aggression often set off by the smallest of matters which get outrages reactions. Thankfully so far nothing personal.

There is no doubt that a certain group in India is becoming more aggressive possibly due to less social control and more information about inequality and what all is available in the world. Several studies claim that it is not the very poor who are involved but the ones who earn a bit, typically around INR 7,000 to 15,000. Enough to have a better live but not enough to afford, say, the latest mobile phone.

Rhiannon Talbot

Guys, you aren't going to believe this. Just as I sent off that first thread local villagers stromed into the office attacked a person with sticks and we were yet again in a hostage situation. This our fifth in a 12 month period. I gets to the point where although it is supposed to be scary it isn't really. It is at the point of laughing. We have only just got out and got home. off course the police aren't much good, after an hour of being held into the compound by a mob of villagers one car turned up!

I am actually in Rajasthan, on the border with UP. Now this is gong to be provactive but gossip tells me that this sort of thing has happened a lot here and big Indian companies like Tata used to be here but simply got feed up with the local 'activites' and left.

No one said anything about regularly ducking flying rooks on teh ex pat guides!

Tapestry

It sounds intolerable - how long do you have to be there?

Rhiannon Talbot

It was going to be next summer but we are moving out of India at the end of August. We have been offered a different location in India but we need a break from the country, if but for a little while. It is very likely that we will come back to India but maybe next time to travel rather than live.

The odd thing with the hostage situations is that there have been so many of them it hard to be really frightened, although the situation could turn on a penny.

Do many people face these problems? I hope not!

capt_mahajan

I hope the next location is in a better area, if you return to live.

Many people? Dunno, but too many do, for my liking.

Do be careful, meanwhile.

Nick-H

I hope they are paying you enough to put up with this --- except that is probably not possible .

There are many expats living and working and enjoying life in India. Seems to me that you just happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, and maybe in the wrong trade.

Violence is almost non-existent here. Well, being realistic, one reads of the violent thefts and even gang murders, but in a city this size it would be surprising if none of it happened. Mosty of the time if you see a scuffle on the street it is just a bit of pushing and shoving. Perhaps the real violence is unveiled in Chennai for election times (Democracy? I don't really think so.)

I do not have illusions about what may go on behind closed doors; bad enough stuff happens in some of the few families that I know.

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Nick-H

I think you could have a much better time in part of India. But I don't know the building trade, and I suspect those politicians' goons the Capt spoke of will be here too.

Rhiannon Talbot

Thanks, at least if we ever do come back to live we have a stronger idea of where to accept a post and where not to. You live and learn and we have learnt a lot! Not all of our experiences have been bad, far from it, but at the moment the overwhelming balance is on the less happy side.

The thing that is really unfortunate about the life here is tthat most people are living in crushing poverty and the goons and so on are driving buisness and money away adding to the difficulties of the poor. When I explain to my Indian friends in Delhi how some of their own people are living they seem genuinely shocked. I know India is predicted to become a huge world power in the coming century but from this rural spot it seems unlikely.

And yet, there is something strangely compelling about India as a whole if not the particular place I am in...

capt_mahajan

Do they? Genuinely surprised. Maybe they have never been out of the city.

India will become one of the world powers, I guess, sooner or later. Whether it will do so in an inclusive manner is debatable.
Or even without internal strife due to this inequality.