09-29-2009, 05:33 AM
<b>New Delhi residents told to improve manners ahead of Commonwealth Games</b>
<i>Residents of New Delhi, long regarded as India's rudest and most vulgar citizens, have been ordered improve their manners before the city hosts the Commonwealth Games next year</i>
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->His outburst, which has the support of the city's chief minister, confirmed what most Indians beyond the capital have long known and regarded as a source of national shame: <b>their capital's streets are lined with men spitting, urinating, defecating, pushing, shoving, leering at young women</b>.
Other common complaints against <b>"Dilliwallahs" include pushing to the front of queues, boasting loudly of one's political or civil service connections, taking seats from disabled or elderly passengers on trains and tossing household rubbish onto the streets.</b>
Mr Chidambaram singled out the<b> city's motorists who dangerously weave in and out of lines and cut up fellow motorists, while seasonal wedding parties jam the roads with elephants, horses and brass bands without a care for their fellow residents.
He appeared to blame the hundreds of thousands of rural migrants who flood into the city everyday from backward provinces like Uttar Pradesh and Bihar for the malaise, and warned that if newcomers wanted to live in a "mega-city" they would have to change.</b>
<b>"People come to Delhi. This is the capital and we cannot stop them. But if they come to Delhi, they will have to adhere to the behavioural requirement, the discipline of the city,</b>" he said.
Delhi's chief minister, Sheila Dikshit, supported his comments and promised to launch a campaign to tame the city's wilder habits and builder a greater sense of civic pride before the Commonwealth Games open in October 2010.
<b>Indian commentators suggested the city's rude and aggressive culture had developed over decades and would be difficult to change in one year.</b>
<b>"The basic fact is that all Indians, by and large, lack civic sense. We keep our own yard clean but don't give a damn about outside or the park next door. It's the individualistic nature of Indians,"</b> said Pavane K. Varma, a senior Indian diplomat and the author of Being Indian.
<b>He said partition at Independence had brought a flood of people from Pakistan who had lost everything and had rode roughshod over others to claw back their wealth.
"People have had to fight for what they have and be aggressive to retain what they have. That brash culture has remained with Delhi," </b>he said.
<b>R V Smith, the celebrated Anglo-Indian chronicler of Delhi's transformation since he first moved to its old city shortly after Independence, said in those days Delhi was a courtly city with a refined etiquette. "In the winter, people would offer you a cup of tea, free of charge, and in the summer, they would give you a [cold] sherbet. In parts of Old Delhi that still exists,</b>" he said.
<b>He blamed rising wealth and the city's rapid population growth for the decline. "Now people have no manners. I remember when we used to visit Connaught Place in the 1950s, we used to wear our best suits. It was mannerly and dignified. But the more developed it has become the ruder people are,</b>" he said.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I fully agree.
<i>Residents of New Delhi, long regarded as India's rudest and most vulgar citizens, have been ordered improve their manners before the city hosts the Commonwealth Games next year</i>
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->His outburst, which has the support of the city's chief minister, confirmed what most Indians beyond the capital have long known and regarded as a source of national shame: <b>their capital's streets are lined with men spitting, urinating, defecating, pushing, shoving, leering at young women</b>.
Other common complaints against <b>"Dilliwallahs" include pushing to the front of queues, boasting loudly of one's political or civil service connections, taking seats from disabled or elderly passengers on trains and tossing household rubbish onto the streets.</b>
Mr Chidambaram singled out the<b> city's motorists who dangerously weave in and out of lines and cut up fellow motorists, while seasonal wedding parties jam the roads with elephants, horses and brass bands without a care for their fellow residents.
He appeared to blame the hundreds of thousands of rural migrants who flood into the city everyday from backward provinces like Uttar Pradesh and Bihar for the malaise, and warned that if newcomers wanted to live in a "mega-city" they would have to change.</b>
<b>"People come to Delhi. This is the capital and we cannot stop them. But if they come to Delhi, they will have to adhere to the behavioural requirement, the discipline of the city,</b>" he said.
Delhi's chief minister, Sheila Dikshit, supported his comments and promised to launch a campaign to tame the city's wilder habits and builder a greater sense of civic pride before the Commonwealth Games open in October 2010.
<b>Indian commentators suggested the city's rude and aggressive culture had developed over decades and would be difficult to change in one year.</b>
<b>"The basic fact is that all Indians, by and large, lack civic sense. We keep our own yard clean but don't give a damn about outside or the park next door. It's the individualistic nature of Indians,"</b> said Pavane K. Varma, a senior Indian diplomat and the author of Being Indian.
<b>He said partition at Independence had brought a flood of people from Pakistan who had lost everything and had rode roughshod over others to claw back their wealth.
"People have had to fight for what they have and be aggressive to retain what they have. That brash culture has remained with Delhi," </b>he said.
<b>R V Smith, the celebrated Anglo-Indian chronicler of Delhi's transformation since he first moved to its old city shortly after Independence, said in those days Delhi was a courtly city with a refined etiquette. "In the winter, people would offer you a cup of tea, free of charge, and in the summer, they would give you a [cold] sherbet. In parts of Old Delhi that still exists,</b>" he said.
<b>He blamed rising wealth and the city's rapid population growth for the decline. "Now people have no manners. I remember when we used to visit Connaught Place in the 1950s, we used to wear our best suits. It was mannerly and dignified. But the more developed it has become the ruder people are,</b>" he said.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I fully agree.