Disclaimer: This post is inspired by some recent incidents. Ashamed to be writing this but has to be written nevertheless. What follows might sound like blabber and ranting at points because that’s what it is somewhat. Then I figured I have stopped myself from writing just to, you know, wait for the day I “structure my thoughts properly”. And then realised, to my bitter dismay, that no such day comes. So here I am, putting some thoughts on paper, coherent or not you be the judge of that.

Introduction

India, as of 2026, seems to be suffering from a lot of problems. I don’t know if this was the usual amount of problems that we have faced as a nation – a devalued currency, social unrest, a radical nationalist destabilising force threatening societal peace, global insults, violence, societal evils, corruption, broken food system, broken education system – it almost feels like the more I grow, the more I acutely become aware of these issues and as a whole, I am sure perceptive people have felt it weighing down on them for what is our fault? We just want a respectable life.

The premise

Anyways, we suffer from issues. Then, we should try to solve them. But how do we even start thinking about them, classifying them, prioritising them? What is the most effective lever to tune for the maximum effect? I have been struggling with this question for quite some time and this is one way I think about it. The core premise is (as the eponymously named title): “Indians are really bad at picking opponents”. We don’t know who to pick fights with and what values to struggle for. Let me explain now.

Our opponents are uncles who have tried to overtake us at the airplane boarding line (who also in their head think of us as their opponent). Our opponents are farmers at sabzi mandis where we fight to bargain 10 rupees off the poor soul’s back, declare victory if we do or leave if we don’t. Our opponents are faceless bots in purposefully instigated hate posts on Instagram. As Indians, we are the most gullible of all humanity.

Who should be our opponents?

I remember last year (and in fact, every year’s distribe) of how Delhites go bonkers over polluted air during Sep-Oct. Rallies, protests, abuses hurled at whoever the CM is, and then Dec comes, down goes the AQI levels and everybody literally forgets that air pollution is still an issue. Ironically, the best time to combat air pollution is when there is no air pollution. This is exactly what Beijing did when their President literally “declared war on polluted air” and aligned people’s expectations and duties to nothing sort of a war. That is the kind of sustained mobilization that we lack as Indians. We are opportunists and egoist who love to blame and lament and sigh when things go wrong but are embarrasingly wrong at picking what to fight.

Our opponents should be the outflux of basic necessities like a reliable foundational AI stack, food security and rising energy and real estate cost. Our opponents should be fighting for clean food and clean water and clean air – the literaly bare minimums of a dignified life. I can only attribute to a lack of imagination.

Our “Rich” Cultural Heritage

The saddest part is that India is a rich enough country to provide for all but it is greed that has corrupted people’s soul. Our opponents are not vices but our own countrymen. I have observed it more often than not. For example, the coffee serving person refused to serve coffee to my colleague at the India AI summit saying its for white-skinned folks. This is literally free, open to all coffee. Another incident at a five star hotel where we faced racism. Yes, racism in 2026. In. My. Own. Fucking. Country. (where I pay taxes). Unfortunately, the post-colonial mindset is intact and thriving. People who say otherwise are delusional.

The last generation of Indians have never been affleunt economically and it shows in their psychological trait. The most interesting is the case study of the idea of “free”. Slap the “free” label on anything and watch Indians hoard over it like hungry zombies. There is something so hypnotically alluring about free things that Indians love. I recently came across this news where people were caught smuggling food from airport lounge. Yes, you read that right. Day after day, Indians export their manners to foreign countries and keep getting insulted and abhorred. For example, news of people stealing food from supermarkets in first world countries abound. I myself had a similar experience at Paris and I honestly just sadly conceded with my fate because that is the kind of impression those people chose to leave for their posterity. For us. To suffer and be humiliated. There are Indian students who make tutorials teaching other Indians how to get free food from food banks in foreign countries which are benevolent charities for homeless people. People are scamming welfare programs in India and abroad. What does all of it tell us?

I still come back to the idea that as Indians we lack imagination. Welfare programs are for folks who really cannot afford those basic necessities that we enjoy. As humans, as decent humans, we are the best judge of whether we truly need those welfare support or not. For 99% of us, we do not and yet we apply. We lack discipline, we lack empathy, and most importantly, we lack basic humanity, man. News of government run programs being gamed and thousands of crores of rupees being siphoned off, for example, recently the thousand crors fund setup for Startup India scam came into the light where the people who were the custodians of the fund were the one approving funds for their own startup. Day after day, Indians hit new bottoms. Indians continue to suffer from a lack of imagination.

The Deeper Problem

I think a deeper problems is a chronic inability to understand the idea of money and the concept of value. Our Indian minds are unable to comprehend the fact that value is unbounded, it is truly unlimited and it is human ingenuity and hardwork that creates value. We are not competing for the same slice of pie that we fear someone’s getting more pie means less for us. It is not a zero sum game. Ironically, value is created in a cooperative society, not an adversarial one. There is no limited buy. We can literally stretch and make the pie bigger. What stops us, again, is a lack of imagination.

This simple fact is lost from the top IAS officer scamming the latest PM whatever yojana - money to serve the poor, feed the poor, or educate the poor to pot bellied uncles sitting in the clerk level 1 of the govt bureaucracy whose job is to move files from one table to the next.

My hatred is not for the bureaucracy, it is the underlying metastructure that has precipitated the set of incentives that are in the absence of checks and balances. I was shaped by these early experiences with the bureaucracy since I was a child. I remember heading out to get a signature for some scholarship and I saw people in uniform, in broad daylight asking for bribe, just to move my file across the table. I was ten or eleven, I think.

The Dick Measuring Contest

Another peculiar thing I notice is what I call the dick measuring contest. A new disease that affects the educated and half-educated. The manner of conversation is as follows: Someone posts about X group facing Y disadvantage. Instead of trying to understand and solve the problem, these folks revert back with “Oh, didn’t group A also face B disadvantage?” Comparing apples to oranges, disrupting the flow of the conversation, effective stifling any chances of a meaningful way to reach a conclusion. It’s a way to nullify all attempts at arriving at the truth by diverting the flow of conversation to something inconsequential. To all these big heads all I want to say is it’s not a dick measuring contest.

Who Should Be Our Opponents?

Let me invert the question I asked earlier - Indians suffer from a lack of imagination. What happens if we let our imagination fly beyond our wildest dreams?

Wealth is the cornerstone of power in modern society (not really modern, of all society of all times). And yet as India, once the resource center of the world, 25% of Indians (roughly 350M in absolute numbers) live in poverty. These are folks who cannot afford basic healthcare, transport, education, food, and water. This blogpost is unreachable to them just as is unreachable almost 99% of the Internet and all of human knowledge, sealed in a language unknown to them, in an untoched ethereal medium. Think of mothers leaving their kid because she cannot feed her, think of kids with dreamy eyes as they try to sell toys at road crossing, think of that father who goes to bed hungry and battered by the sun. This is the country that some nationalists beat drums about, speak in superlatives of the greatness that was. This is my major qualm with this line of thinking. A nation that has lost its moral and philosophical vigour to arise and awake rests upon its laurel of its past and is complacent in the present. It is the spiritual duty of each nation to march forward or be forgotten as is evident in history.

Where did we lose it? I once read that one of the explanations for the lose of ambition and embracing of austerity has to do with our spiritual texts which are also really the foundational philosophical basis guiding the quality and way of life (Most likely it was Gurcharan Das’ India Unbound) Maybe, maybe not but seems like a good explanation to glue into my premise building narrative.

But also in those scriptures are mention of unparalleled abstract thinking - of invention of statecraft and politics (Think of Kautilya’s state policies and Shankarcharya’s magnificent debates), of invention of the concept of nothing, of astrology and astronomy and such a rich heritage of cultural philosophy (there’s a challenging philosophy to any.philosophy that you name) - what does it mean? What were these people trying to do? Prove each other wrong, boast of their “bigger” brain? No, something more profound. These people were curious and questions troubled them. It didn’t make them sleep. It made them wake up in the middle of the night and wonder. Wonder about the movement of stars and their own bodies. Questions of their very existence troubled them. Not how to fraud your brother of their rightful portion of the property. They had imagination.

Forget that, look closer home. Look at the string of global intellectuals we produce, people with strong world view altering thoughts and philosophies. We are not less than anyone - our likes compete with the likes of Kant and Nietzsche, heck, even Aristotle and Plato. We don’t shy away from complex ideas, we relish them. Once again, when did we lose that edge? When will we raise a Vivekananda again in every household? Not for seeking glory but for the simple pleasure of pondering existence. For picking better opponents.

Parting thoughts

Recently, I had a outburst kind of a moment on Instagram. It was related to news from past few months. Everyday news of how the food I am eating is actually. It’s almost like there’s a state of hopelessness amongst people. Like there’s no hope that an attempt to escape the matrix may be successful. Each time someone tries someelse puts them back into the rotting pot. And for a people, they maybe defeated but they must never be hopeless.