Where have good manners gone?

Starting with rudely corrupt government officials and the uncaring accumulative instincts of Indian businessmen, all the way down the social pecking order the ordinary citizen experiences the law’s delay, the proud man’s contumely and the insolence of office on a daily basis. Dilip Thakore reports For a nation of incorrigible me-first shovers and pushers with seldom a care for the aged, women and children, India’s post-independence generation tends to be extraordinarily sensitive about any accusation of bad manners. Thus when a few months ago (July) the US-based mass circulation monthly Readers Digest published the results of a transnational survey which indicated that Mumbai aka Bombay, the commercial capital of the nation is the world’s rudest city, a howl of protest went up across the country. Although typically the best-selling Digest — a compilation of condensed news stories and features for folksy American mid-westerners which claims over 80 million readers worldwide — gauged civic good manners according to superficial American mores (whether people said ‘please’, ‘thank you’ and/or held doors open for strangers), the accusation of blanket bad manners aroused the wrath of Mumbai’s bourgeoisie which has become thoroughly accustomed to the ubiquitous rudeness of its bus conductors, taxi drivers and government servants, not to speak of the city’s shopkeepers and traders. “In Mumbai people don’t have the time to be chivalrous, but that doesn’t mean we aren’t courteous. Stuff like shopkeepers saying ‘thank you’ and men opening doors for women is not part of our culture. The (Digest) survey should have had different parameters in accordance with the inherent culture of each city. People in London might help you pick up fallen books, but will they accommodate you in an overcrowded train? The city has evolved beyond these superficialities. It is more casual and when it matters most, you always have a helping hand readily waiting for you,” wrote a representatively irate citizen (Dinesh Parab) to Daily News & Analysis, a recently (2005) launched newspaper in Mumbai. Yet like most Indians, this representative Mumbai citizen seems to have misinterpreted manners which is essentially everyday — not “when it matters most” — behaviour which makes life easier and more pleasant all around. Which is perhaps why great poets and thinkers placed a high premium on routine good manners and courtesy. “For manners,” wrote Britain’s poet laureate Alfred Lord Tennyson (1809-92) “are not idle, but the fruit of loyal nature and noble mind”. Likewise, another great man of letters, the Earl of Chesterfield (1694-1773) advised that “manners must adorn knowledge, and smooth its way through the world”. It’s not known whether ancient India’s great thinkers and savants placed as high a premium on good manners as westerners but the Hindu epics — the Ramayana and Mahabharata — testify to the temperate speech, noble conduct and exemplary virtues of their legendary protagonists. And many centuries later the leaders of India’s freedom movement — Mahatma Gandhi, Tagore, Rajaji and Nehru (although the latter had a short temper) were soft of speech and thoroughly civil even when confronted with racial insults and the often cruel excesses of…