As someone who has lived half her life abroad and visited over 75 countries representing India and engaging in global diplomacy at the United Nations, the recent attacks in some western countries on the alleged uncivil behaviour of Indians are both painful and familiar. Nothing is more agonising than representing the oldest continuous civilisation, the largest democracy, the most populous and diverse country and a rising economy, and seeing it mocked for its warts rather than admired for its striving towards perfection as a paragon of all that is best in humanity.
Throughout my travels, I have heard foreigners — Indophiles or not — praise Indians for their warmth, hospitality, and generosity. Like Bill Clinton, they see India as one of the world’s greatest and most consequential civilisations, rich in art, architecture, music, dance, literature, cinema, cuisine, festivals with spirituality, harmony with nature, and the world-as-one-family ethos. The diaspora is admired for peaceful citizenship, adaptability, brilliance, technological smarts, hard work and invaluable contribution to countries of adoption.
Equally, I have received valid criticism about uncivil behaviour; Japanese journalists I had sent from Tokyo returned from India admiring almost everything except the dirt — kitanai desu, they said. That is why, when Prime Minister Narendra Modi made swachhta (cleanliness) a national mission and aimed to make India open-defecation free, I applauded. But much of the recent put-down is neither fair nor innocent. Some of it is colonial hangover; some racism, envy at India’s rise and the success of overseas Indians; and, in some instances, motivated information manipulation originating in foreign shores. It gives us reason to introspect, correct where we err, and fight for our civilisation’s good name. This assault on our soft power must be repulsed — not with malice towards all, but by showing the mirror to ourselves as to them.
Civilisation is tested not only by what it builds, but by what it shares. A monument reveals ambition; a pavement reveals habit. A queue reveals whether citizenship has entered daily life. In many spaces and states, Indians pass civilisation’s test. The disciplined queue of over 50,000 bhakts waiting for Tirupati Balaji’s darshan is as awe-inspiring as the deity. The North-Eastern states and cities such as Indore are lighthouses of cleanliness. Citizens also lead cleanliness drives and anti-plastic movements around India’s beaches.
Every viral image of Indians littering, damaging public property, crowding, speaking loudly, carrying homemade food abroad, or misreading another society’s codes is quickly turned into a verdict: “Indians lack civic sense.” Often, it is cultural contempt dressed as civic concern. Earlier, Indians were patronised with “Indians will be Indians.” Today, that has hardened into “Indians are like that only!”
Indians must introspect on this. But self-improvement need not become self-abasement. India is not a monolith. Indians are mocked for carrying homemade food while travelling — theplas, khakhras, pickles, dry snacks, or vegetarian meals. Food is identity. A French traveller may look for baguettes, an Italian for pasta, a Japanese traveller may carry nori and umeboshi, and a British traveller tea. But when Indians, especially vegetarians, carry food from home, it is treated as embarrassment rather than necessity or attachment.
Before our first diplomatic posting to Geneva, we read George Mikes’s Switzerland for Beginners. Mikes punctured Switzerland’s perfection with the joke that when God gave the Swiss every blessing and the world complained, God replied: “Wait until you meet the Swiss.” Switzerland, which I love and where I spent some 14 years, is also stereotyped as rigid, stingy, and rule-bound. Oddity is often distance wearing spectacles.
Our Geneva years offered gentler images: Gujarati tourists on Swiss Alps, women in cotton sarees and Kolhapuri chappals in deep snow, sipping brandy from hip flasks for warmth while preserving vegetarian habits and carrying khakhras from home. With mockery, it becomes caricature; with compassion, it is a civilisation carrying its kitchen, faith, and humour into the cold.
No civilisation has a monopoly on eccentricity or civic virtue. Europe offers its own mirror: Football hooliganism in England and Wales, Ajax-Maccabi violence in Amsterdam, and PSG celebration riots in France show how quickly polished boulevards can turn into theatres of beer, flares and broken glass. The UK battles fly-tipping on a vast scale. New York’s subway has struggled with fare evasion, vandalism and anti-social behaviour; authorities responded with redesigned gates and police deployment. Civic order is engineered.
Asia tells the same story. Singapore’s cleanliness rests on fines and Corrective Work Orders. Japan cultivates civic responsibility from childhood. China has had to campaign against “uncivilised behaviour” by tourists — littering, queue-jumping, vandalism, feeding animals improperly and damaging heritage sites. Errant visitors have been blacklisted or banned. Clearly, people saying Indians are uncivil have never shared space with Chinese tour groups at breakfast buffets or on flights either.
Public behaviour must be trained, regulated and tied to national reputation. India proves the same principle. The Delhi Metro shows that millions of Indians can use a shared system with discipline when rules are clear. PM Modi’s Swachh Survekshan has made cleanliness a civic competition. Mahakumbh 2025 required massive sanitation planning for one of history’s largest human gatherings of 600 million. These examples do not deny India’s problems; they reveal India’s capacity.
The question is whether systems invite, reward and enforce civic behaviour. A clean street proves reliable waste collection. A usable public toilet proves maintenance. Orderly traffic depends on roads, signals, policing and penalties. Civic virtue needs civic architecture. Conversely, the public too must rise to its duty of respect and care.
India must reject the old “White Man’s Burden” in a new digital avatar — the assumption that the West exists to civilise the East. The answer to prejudice is perspective; the answer to civic failure is institution-building and discipline. India need not prove faultlessness; it must reject the lie that its faults are uniquely Indian. Civic sense is not a birthmark. Our families, schools, cities, laws and institutions must inculcate it. The attack must awaken us to prove to them that the myth of the uncivil Indian is theirs to own, not ours. It diminishes them not us.
Lakshmi Puri is a former ambassador and assistant secretary general, United Nations, and an author. The views expressed are personal
