There are times when I am proud to be an Indian but there are many more times when I’m ashamed to be one. These occasions arise when I encounter (or read about) my fellow countrymen and women behaving like uncouth, loud junglis, particularly when they travel.Whether this is in India when they drive on the wrong side or bully other people on the road to give them way and hurl abuses when not allowed, or when they come across pedestrians. Then there are those who spit and blow their noses without a care for anyone who may be blessed with their offensive ‘gifts’. What about those who toss out empty chips or gutka packets or those who relieve themselves in full public view? I could go on and remember those who leap up in a plane as soon as they land and open the overhead storage before it is safe to stand, or those who leave public toilets littered with paper and water. Or those who speak loudly on their mobile phones and watch something on their laptops without earphones.The list is endless and I am sure you have encountered such people when you step out even to a shop or wait to board a train or bus. It’s fine to blame the government for many of the ills that beset our country, but have you ever seen any person standing patiently in a queue or giving up his seat to a senior citizen or a woman? For many of us, freedom from foreign rule granted us the right to shrug off all the rules the colonial government had imposed, which includes behaving as if public property belongs to us. The recent revelation about crores worth of linen the Railways lose to passengers who take home bedsheets, blankets, pillows and even face towels provided in air-conditioned coaches was an eye-opener. And who was made to reimburse the loss? The poor attendant of the coach.Similarly, an Indian family on a foreign holiday was publicly shamed when their luggage was searched and the hotel recovered stuff they had slyly purloined. As for the loud singing and dancing when travelling on a plane, especially by a wedding party, the less said the better. Who does one blame then? The government, parents, the school or certain Indians of a geographical area north of the Vindhyas? Look within yourself and let me know.Moving on, I recently attended a lecture by a very eminent academic, who now teaches in a prestigious US university, on the history and politics of Indian democracy. The room was full to overflowing and some of our most well-known scholars, public intellectuals and social scientists stood throughout the presentation as the room had run out of seats. The lecture was excellent as expected and covered the earliest manifestations of democratic impulses to make the point that we evolved into a democracy not because we learnt it from the West, but because we have a long and proud history of living harmoniously together. This point is often made by others as well, but what I was amused to see was that the scholar (who comes from UP and speaks impeccable Hindi) chose to deliver this lecture in English. Naturally, Ambedkar and Gandhi were invoked with the respect they deserve, and Nehru valorised for setting up all those institutions that have strengthened our democracy and made it into an article of faith.He regretted that Gandhi’s infusion of Hindu gods into his version of democracy has now been totally betrayed by the present government’s aggressive promotion of Hindutva. He forgot to mention that Gandhi wrote and spoke in simple Hindi so that even the unlettered villagers absorbed his thoughts.There is no denying that English is now regarded as the language of serious intellectual communication. Rare is the public intellectual who cares to write in Hindi (or any language other than English) and it follows that such wisdom is shared only amongst like-minded people. There is now a determined effort to widen the outreach of TV news by inviting guests and appointing anchors who can speak in other languages, but go to any public lecture by a known scholar and you will find the room full of like-minded people like us. Sitting in libraries and in think tanks, their faith in data collected by their assistants is of more value than visiting the hinterland of India to see the truth for themselves.We value Gandhi and Nehru for many remarkable changes that helped deepen the roots of our democratic system, but increasingly we have forgotten that they were such compelling speakers because they effortlessly spoke in the lingua franca that always comes from the heart. As Peggy Mohan has put it, mother tongue and fatherland are related in ways that we are slowly forgetting. Caste was bad enough as a social segregator, but is class any better? Why does even the most disadvantaged Indian want his children to speak English and not the language he speaks with his parents?There is no point in preaching to the converted. If we are to strengthen the roots of our democracy and widen its appeal, we must learn to respect the wisdom of the common Indian. In election after election, it is this wisdom that has saved our democracy.— The writer is a social commentator