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How accurately does this Indian version of "Ant and the Grasshopper" Story depict the situation in India?

  • Source : unknown The Ant and The Grasshopper - Indian Version The Ant works hard in the withering heat all summer building its house and laying up supplies for the winter. The Grasshopper thinks the Ant's a fool and laughs dances plays the summer away. Come winter, the shivering Grasshopper calls a press conference and demands to know why the Ant should be allowed to be warm and well fed while others are cold and starving. NDTV, BBC, CNN show up to provide pictures of the shivering Grasshopper next to a video of the Ant in his comfortable home with a table filled with food. The World is stunned by the sharp contrast. How can this be that this poor Grasshopper is allowed to suffer so? Arundhati Roy stages a demonstration in front of the Ant's house. Medha Patkar goes on a fast along with other Grasshoppers demanding that Grasshoppers be relocated to warmer climates during winter . Mayawati states this as 'injustice' done on Minorities. Amnesty International and Koffi Annan criticize the Indian Government for not upholding the fundamental rights of the Grasshopper. The Internet is flooded with online petitions seeking support to the Grasshopper (many promising Heaven & Everlasting Peace for prompt support as against the wrath of God for non-compliance) . Opposition MPs stage a walkout. Left parties call for 'Bengal Bandh' in West Bengal and Kerala demanding a Judicial Enquiry. CPM in Kerala immediately passes a law preventing Ants from working hard in the heat so as to bring about equality of poverty among Ants and Grasshoppers. Lalu Prasad allocates one free coach to Grasshoppers on all Indian Railway Trains, aptly named as the 'Grasshopper Rath'. Finally, the Judicial Committee drafts the 'Prevention of Terrorism Against Grasshoppers Act'[POTAGA] , with effect from the beginning of the winter.. Arjun Singh makes 'Special Reservation' for Grasshoppers in Educational Institutions in Government Services. The Ant is fined for failing to comply with POTAGA and having nothing left to pay his retroactive taxes, it's home is confiscated by the Government and handed over to the Grasshopper in a ceremony covered by NDTV, BBC, CNN. Arundhati Roy calls it 'A Triumph of Justice'. Lalu calls it 'Socialistic Justice'. CPM calls it the 'Revolutionary Resurgence of the Downtrodden' Koffi Annan invites the Grasshopper to address the UN General Assembly. Many years later... The Ant has since migrated to the US and set up a multi-billion dollar company in Silicon Valley , 100's of Grasshoppers still die of starvation despite reservation somewhere in India , ....AND As a result of losing lot of hard working Ants and feeding the grasshoppers, India is still a developing country..! ! !

  • Answer:

    I understand the plight and the meaning which the person was trying to convey. However, I think he/she got it wrong by simplifying a country as diverse as India into just two categories. This world is not binary. Coming to the poor and the oppressed, they  protest because they are discriminated against! What they demand for is an explanation to why a farmer who tills the fields to get us the rice we eat and worked as hard as any of us is wrong in demanding for a minimum amount of money which would allow him to feed his family and his kids to attain decent levels of education? More importantly, why does he have to necessarily commit suicide when there is a way for him to earn money?!!! Also, most of the people mentioned up there are hypocrites. They claim that they care for the poor but their policies don't just stop at getting the votes, they want the notes as well. Hence, the end results often see the poorer section not receiving its due. This enrages the working class as they see their money being wasted and (naturally) blame the poor for it, while the middlemen happily rake in the moolah. They are parasites which feed on an imperfect system, but the fact is that the poor suffer much much more than us. My point being, the day the upper castes of this country show some empathy towards the poor and start asking the government to implement the policies which it promised to and stop putting a gun on the country's head and saying "I will go to US if I don't get a seat here", that will be the day this country will progress. I don't like Gandhi and his peace talk, but I appreciate his Talisman and have my own version: Whenever you feel that a lower middle class, forward caste male gets less than what he deserves, imagine the plight of a lower class, lower caste female who forget being educated is forced to marry the person who raped her. Figure out whether the person who got what your friend deserved *actually* deserved it or not. If not, do you think that there are people who really deserve it? If yes, is it worth fighting for to help out the poor so that they can lead a better life? If not, what is? Ironically, the country which our ants want to move to allowed 365,000 white men to die so that one particular (enslaved) race from a completely different continent could get the basic rights which they thought that every HUMAN BEING DESERVES. So, what does that make us? Bloody opportunists? Food for thought, I would say.

Sai Deepak Bhimaraju at Quora Visit the source

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I think this story, if not an accurate depiction of the Indian situation (obviously, since it is a simplified parallel), has immense value as an analogy that provides insight into at least one aspect of what is holding India back. The idea conveyed by the story is that we should have a system of equal opportunity in which merit is rewarded. So citing counter examples such as the plight of poor farmers to attack this view does not make any sense at all. Middlemen who rob farmers of their rightful share to the profit from their produce are bad, and so are rules which deprive meritorious students from "forward castes" of their rightful place in prestigious institutions. And our system has rotten to such an extent that we have people who think it is okay to have caste-based reservation even for promotions in Government service. This is not to say that the meritorious ones are better off escaping to other countries that provide equal opportunity. In my opinion, it would be ideal for them to stay back and fight to correct the system, or find a higher paying private job in India itself (thankfully there's no reservation there) or start up a company to give opportunity to others victims of this institutionalized discrimination.

Raman Divakaran

Today, I read a recently re-circulated, Indian version of the ants and grasshopper story. Somebody, probably in the US, had done a “modern” version of the story in the previous century. That was adapted to the Indian context. Read it here: I got this on two or three different internet mediums. Ignored, while others shared on. But this time, with ample time to churn, I decided to reply. Ofcourse I don’t like this adaptation. Firstly, it is the generalization that creeps me out. Characteristics of a species can not and probably should not be slapped on to names of communities, castes, races or professions. The second peeve is about how easily the rich and powerful of yesteryears cry foul when the underdogs succeed. Why succeed, if the underdogs even get a voice today. Discrimination just never goes away. We get easily swayed by media. Paid media. People who just recently won a fighting chance to equality are made to feel sorry for it. Such loose jokes and generalization are the modern means of discrimination. All those “open category” ones who are resenting my writing should walk in the shoes of the minorities. Feel their insecurities. Just as an experiment, in the “caste” section of your college forms, tick the SC/ST box. Stand in that line to submit your form, and see the resultant behavior for a few days. Dress as a girl one evening and visit ISBT in Delhi. Cover your face with a ghunghat or burqua, to mask your gender, if needed. Every time a new aunty or uncle asks “what’s your surname?”, or “kaun jaat ho?”, or “tamaari atak su che?”, just say a Muslim surname, or a caste surname that they would deem “low”. Oh come on, these aren’t just innocent introductory small-talk questions. The fact that we still need this kind of identification to “get to know” a new person, is sickening. You won’t know how discrimination feels unless you have been subjected to it. Watch Jane Ellliot’s “A Class Divided”, if you doubt my resentment. Blanket discriminatory generalization is not the only thing wrong with the Ant and grasshopper adaptation, though. Those who seriously think that people like Medha Patkar or Arundhati Roy are fickle media spectacles should know about infrastructure projects in China (the three-gorges dam , for example). Or that many expats fled from Japan after they feared that the press wasn’t reporting the real situation after nuclear leaks in Fukushima. NGOs, activists, media … and , dare I say, politicians, have a very important role to play. Lets not underrate it by such sideways jibes. Also, lets not generalize.

Tanya Vegad

In reality ., A normal grasshopper will be able to live, including the time of both the nymph and adult state, from about 2 months and up to 3 months old. Then why should it have to bother for the next seasons.

Anil Ram

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