Recently an Australian radio show host said, “I’m apologizing... anyone that’s Indian, that listens to this show, knows that I love Indians... I don’t discriminate. I love everyone. I don’t care where they are, where they are from, what colour they are. I just made the mistake that the river which, to me, looks polluted, I said it was a junkyard and I did not realise it was holy.”

This radio host Kyle Sandilands was apologizing for calling river Ganga a “junkyard”. The Council of Indian - Australians President Yadu Singh claimed that he received many e - mails and calls from Indian - Australians who were upset about Sandilands’ remarks and asked for an apology.

First, and most important fact is, what the Australian radio show host stated is a fact. May be the word used — “junkyard” — was inappropriate but the fact is our holiest river, our river that supports almost half of our population, the Ganga, is very polluted.

According to Swedish writer and journalist Roger Choate, 103 cities are believed to be dumping raw sewage directly into the Ganga. And at Tulsi Ghat in Varanasi, the faecal coliform (an anaerobic bacterium, the presence of which is used as indicator to measure human and animal waste in water) reading has been as high as 47,000 times the accepted Indian level for human bathing.

Finally Roger writes, “As an international campaigner, I hope you will permit me to speak bluntly. The Central Government of India, despite tragic blunders, does know how to clean the Ganga. It knows which towns and industrial areas generate exactly how much sewage and effluents. And it knows which industries are the culprits. And it knows that India's fresh water resources are likely to be exhausted by 2028 if present population trends persist. Yet?? Cleaning the Ganga is not on the political agenda of any party in India! The river, which alone supports almost half the population in India!”

This being the case, our “Aussidesis” instead of being outraged with the pollution of their beloved river, are busy nit - picking inappropriate usage of language. Why don’t they be pro - active and ask what happened to the government’s Ganga Action Plan supposedly executed in 29 Ganga Basin cities? Are the Indians living in Australia so unaware of the fact that Ganga in certain parts has become toxic? If so, then they do not have the right to ask for an apology.

If they are aware that the Ganga is polluted, then again they do not have the right to protest. What have they done to fix it? If they cared, they would know how a holy man Swami Nigamananda Saraswati fasted for 115 days to save the Ganga and died.

If they cared about what is happening in their mother India, they should have read the popular book about India “Inhaling the Mahatma” written by their adopted country’s citizen, Christopher Kremmer, who said: “In the upper reaches of the Ganga, where the forests come down to river’s edge and pristine sandy beaches line the shore, I have taken a dip. But downstream of any major town or city, the river was heavily polluted. No power on earth would make me dunk my head in the Ganges anywhere between Haridwar and the Indian Ocean.”

If our Aussidesis cared, they would have sent the poor Swami Nigamananda their powerful dollars to clean up the Ganga; if they cared, they would have sent volunteers or monetary aid to organisations fighting to clean the Ganga. But instead, they find a factual statement discriminatory as an inappropriate word was used! Looks like we may have left India, but the “petty ego” is still intact! Instead of seeing the bigger picture and doing something about the problem, our Aussidesis held free speech hostage in the guise of “racial or religious discrimination.” This small - minded myopia is why we are where we are, forever boasting about our past, and forever being a nation that is almost developed.

Ganga is the holiest river for the Hindus. So where are the lakhs of Ashrams and Swamijis of the country when it comes to cleaning the river? Why don’t they come out in full strength like they do in full regalia to perform political theatrics during elections? Of all the Swamijis, why did only one Swamiji fast? And only one ashram call for the banning of quarrying by the river Ganga? Why don’t these Australian - Indian lovers of the Ganga ask these holy ashrams, Swamijis and the Indian Environmental Ministry to explain and apologise?

Also it defies logic because one would assume, when something is holy, special care is taken to keep it in pristine condition. But in India, let alone the holy sites, even our holy cow is abused. Most holy places of almost all religions tend to be maintained in a wholly unholy manner. And so, while we dive into the Ganga to cleanse our sins, god knows what Ganga has to do to cleanse herself.

In modern media, sarcasm and humour are widely used to get across a message. It is done so that people don’t get bogged down by the seriousness of the message, yet it has a better impact and higher recall. Hence any form of criticism backed with facts should be consumed with a progressive attitude. But we Indians tend to be hypersensitive about criticism.

And because of this, sometimes, we lose sight of the bigger picture and spend too much time on petty ego - centricism. We do this even when it comes to a simple act such as crossing the road where some pedestrians think it is below them to cross the road quickly and instead unnecessarily take longer time by crossing slowly and with an “attitude”.

The same overly defiant attitude was seen in Digvijay Singh when he was asked about Anna Hazare’s fast against the government for introducing an inefficient and insufficient Lokpal Bill draft before the Parliament. He said, “Government kisise bhi nahi darthi” (The government is not scared of anyone).

Of course the government does not have to be scared of anyone, but for heaven’s sake, as a democratically elected government, at least have some “shame” and a sense of “guilt.” The idea of a fast is not to scare the government; it is to arouse the sympathy of the government towards its people. And so today we have a shameless, guilt - free government. When there is no sense of guilt, there is not going to be redemption.

An Australian radio host may have called Ganga a junkyard, but what right do we have to be insulted when we ourselves treat our nation like a junkyard by shitting, spitting, pissing, digging, looting and raping whatever we want, wherever we want and whenever we want? We get the right to ask for an apology when we first learn to treat our own motherland with respect.