Being Indian, page 24
In the surviving, struggling, seething mass of people that constitutes India, what has changed and what has not merges and coalesces into a kaleidoscope full of the most vibrant colours and the most persistent shadows. As the images move around in an unceasing swirl of noise and dust and colour and energy, some of them stand out, as pointers to the complexity of change in India. In July 2002, in Raipur, the capital of Chhattisgarh in the heart of India, a Dalit girl threw her slipper in anger at a judge who acquitted her alleged rapist;15 in the same month a hundred Dalit students, whose parents were forbidden to even hear a Sanskrit shloka, graduated as priests from the newly set up Uttar Pradesh Sanskrit Sansthan.16 In the burning summer of 2001, dozens of debt-trapped marginal farmers in Punjab and Andhra Pradesh committed suicide; in the same year as six million farmers became credit card holders—over 20 million farmers now use credit cards to finance their agricultural operations. In Pune, a tour company, Travel Designers, specializes in agro-tourism—its clients are thousands of farmers who travel to Israel and Europe to observe new agricultural techniques. Less than a hundred kilometres out of Delhi, in the prosperous village of Tigri, residents have no idea of what the Union Budget is, and confuse Prime Minister Manmohan Singh with film director Manmohan Desai;17 but, also on the outskirts of the capital, is the ultra-modern plant of Moser Baer, the third largest producer of optical media products in the world. Millions of Indians are only now discovering toothpaste in a tube; but an Indian firm, Essel Propack, has become the world’s largest producer of laminated tubes, supplying ‘all of P&G’s laminated tube requirements in the US, and 40 per cent of Unilever’s.’18 In Bihar, hundreds of government servants have not even received their salaries for months; but when the daughter of the chief minister was to be married, Hichhan Bigha, the village to which the groom belonged, was given 24-hour electricity supply, telephone connectivity, a new road and a renovated school in less than thirty days.
Indian television programmes show no kissing; censors still frown on the meeting of lips in films; and educated women employees giggle in embarrassment when asked about an automatic condom-dispensing machine—the first of its type to be installed in 2001 in a government office in New Delhi. But in Gujarat, during the festive season of the Navratras, when youngsters sway to the folk rhythms of the garba, chemists report a huge increase in the sale of condoms and contraceptives, and abortion clinics double their business. For months Gujarat was only associated with images of the horrific religious violence of 2002; but in 2003 another image broke out from the gloom of prejudice and anger—that of Muslims dancing the garba with Hindus in Ahmedabad, and refraining from cooking meat during the days of fasting in deference to their vegetarian neighbours. In a fertility clinic in Mumbai, women undergoing treatment with only a 30 to 35 per cent chance of success, still insist on a gender test if they conceive, and opt for abortion if the foetus is female. In Haryana, a state where the ratio of women to men is dismal, female foeticide is still surreptitiously advertised by slogans which announce: ‘Spend Rs 1,000 today: Save Rs 100,000 [in dowry] tomorrow!’ But more girls are going to school now, and those who pass out don’t want to end their education—they want an employment-oriented diploma, preferably in computers. The practice of dowry is far from being eradicated; but when in May 2003 Delhi engineering student Nisha Sharma telephoned the police to complain that her husband-to-be was demanding dowry, she became an overnight celebrity. Her story made headlines in the newspapers and on television; politicians thronged her home; the former vice-president’s wife came personally to convey her appreciation; a cartoon strip called Brave Girl was launched; and more than 1.7 million people logged on to BBC News Online in the space of 48 hours to register their support.
Indians are not an easy people to catalogue. In the welter of contradictions that define them, I have tried to highlight the traits that will most significantly influence their destiny in the twenty-first century. Public policy can only be successful if it is congruent with the behavioural patterns of a people. Policy planners need to keep this in mind, especially in India, where a great deal of planning has for too long been based on cherished but unproductive hypocrisies. As the legatees of a centuries-old system of hierarchy, Indians have a special weakness for status; power is coveted for the status it guarantees; the state is the highest repository of both status and power; and politics is the highest-yielding path to the resources of the state. For a great many people, therefore, the business of politics will remain irresistible. The bad and the ugly among them will not respond to moral exhortation since, in any case, as we have seen, to most Indians the ends are more important than the means. There is no alternative therefore to stringent and sustained electoral reform, which will enforce a system of punitive action against the corrupt and the unethical. Simultaneously, the powers and reach of the Election Commission must be strengthened. Indians respect those who exercise power effectively. They will obey laws that are implemented with firmness. When the hierarchy of power is coherent, and the chain of command clear-cut, they are amenable to discipline, and that is often why they do well abroad. Even if democracy has, improbably enough, become a way of life, the process of democracy needs to be consciously improved, for it is utopian to believe that Indians will reform themselves in this respect on their own. Moreover, since Indians do not believe in the principle of equality however much they speak of its merits, only the effective working of democracy can ensure a more rapid empowerment of the deprived against the elitist biases of the powerful.
Second, the government needs to do all it can to encourage private enterprise. Indians are born entrepreneurs. They will respond to an environment which is conducive to this talent. Public policy needs to close the perennial debate on equity versus growth. State intervention in favour of the poor is needed in India, but realism requires us to distinguish between the desirable and the feasible. Indians suspect altruism, lack concern for the deprived, and work best in their personal interests. Any attempt to curb or restrict economic activity in response to notions of equity will lead to unimplemented plans and subverted schemes. The government’s efforts to redistribute the economic pie have inevitably fallen far short of targets. The only economic model that can work in India is a percolation of benefits consequent to an increase in the size of the pie. Since the poor are far too many, the pie needs to grow faster. The last ten years have seen India emerge as the fastest-growing economy among major democracies, with growth averaging over 5 per cent and touching 7 per cent in as many as four years. A growth rate of 8 per cent or more is feasible provided the process of economic reform is sustained and business is left to entrepreneurs. Obviously, the government needs to be engaged with issues of poverty alleviation, basic education, and primary health, but it would improve its ability to do so through a partnership with the corporate sector. Some corporate leaders realize that they must be more involved in such matters in their own self-interest, but they are in a minority. Unless the government devises a comprehensive scheme of financial incentives for the corporate sector to invest in these key sectors, the much-needed synergy between government and business in human resource development will remain over-discussed but under-subscribed.
Third, the menace of corruption must be handled by new policy initiatives. The moral relativism of Indians allows them to practise and condone corruption on a scale that has few parallels in other societies with pretensions to be called modern. Laws to handle the malaise work poorly, or not at all. Punitive provisions will find loopholes. Those assigned to keep a check will be checkmated or bought over. Convictions will be scandalously infrequent. The answer is not to waste more time on laws that are well meaning but ineffectual. India requires a different kind of remedy. Firstly, the government must drastically reduce its discretionary powers. To some extent this is already happening, but more needs to be done. Secondly, incorruptible technology must replace corruptible human beings much more rapidly. Even as IT is creating jobs and increasing revenue, it needs to be consciously harnessed to devise systems that eliminate or greatly reduce human intervention in the conduct of everyday life and the daily needs of individuals. An entire range of activities—the booking of rail tickets, allotments, payment of bills, tax calculations, the issuing of licenses, admissions to educational institutions—which normally incubate corruption, can be made transparent through the intervention of technology. The government must concentrate on enabling the Internet and computer technology to supersede human venality, and empower the ordinary person to access and monitor the availability of basic services directly. This will not be an easy task for a country the size of India. Innovation and ingenuity will be required, which the government should reward. For instance, it has been reported that an Indian team is developing the Simputer, a cheaper variation of the PC. The Simputer can run for eight hours on three small batteries, can convert text to speech in five languages, and even boasts a touch screen usable by those who cannot read or write.19 The use of technology to tackle the scourge of corruption must become a national goal.
Fourth, India must capitalize on the talent of its people in the knowledge industries. It is projected that until the year 2050 India will enjoy the advantage of a ‘demographic dividend’: the population of much of the developed world will be ageing rapidly, with a consequent shortage of young and skilled manpower, while ‘India, on the other hand, will have the highest number of people in the younger age group—700 million people out of 1.1 billion people are young’.20 Of utmost importance is the need to spread computer literacy among the broader public. China may be behind India in software exports, but it has a PC concentration of 21.6 per thousand against India’s 5.7. Again, while China’s per capita spending on IT is $8.90, India’s is roughly one-third at $2.4021. There is, therefore, no room for complacency. Indians need to move up the value chain. They need to become software innovators, not remain software coolies. The government needs to devise incentives to encourage the private sector to invest more in software research and development. One way of doing this is to attract Indians who have done well abroad and create the right environment for them to set up facilities in India. The fast-track development of the physical infrastructure for this industry should also become a national priority.
Fifth, India must deal with its problem of over-population with greater determination and aggression. Coercion cannot be the answer in a democracy, but given the pragmatic nature of the Indian people, there is no reason for a system of incentives and disincentives not to work. For too long policy makers have been mesmerized into passivity by the unfortunate experience of Sanjay Gandhi’s coercive methods during the Emergency. Ideally, of course, the spread of education and improved health services should be the best way for people to make informed choices about the size of their families. But if India wants to be a global power, as its people clearly want, it may have to hurry the pace through other means that are persuasive but not undemocratic. Indians respond remarkably to self-interest. They react quickly to incentives. They understand what is good for them. It is necessary for the message of family planning to be purveyed more aggressively, through the fullest and most creative use of the electronic media in particular. Some politicians may be squeamish about mentioning condoms and pills on television, but it is unlikely that the population at large will object to something they know is in their interest. The articulate middle class will certainly welcome an invigorated programme; most of its members are convinced that the unwashed poor are multiplying at an alarming rate and will soon swamp them; not surprisingly, many of them were the most ardent supporters of Sanjay Gandhi’s methods. In any case, a great deal has changed since 1977. Today, more Indians than ever before sense the possibility of change and, thanks to the spread of the media, are not unprepared to internalize and act upon a message that urges them to limit their family in order to increase their well-being.
India is the world’s largest democracy. It is a nuclear power. Soon it is bound to join the even more exclusive club of manned flights into space. A report by Goldman Sachs in October 2003 projects that by the year 2050 India will be the third largest economy in the world, after the United States and China. Undoubtedly it will be the second largest market in the world. At present rates of growth, the burgeoning market in the country ‘would be adding nearly one France every 3.5 years and one Australia every year’.22 The twenty-first century should see the dream of every Indian—500 million of whom are not yet 35—to see their country as a major world power come true. But a potential global power must understand what makes its people tick. This book will have served its purpose if it contributes to that end.
NOTES
Chapter 1: Introduction
1. Mark Twain, More Tramps Abroad, London: Chatto & Windus, 1897, the revised British edition of Following the Equator: A Journey Around the World.
2. F. Max Müller, India: What Can It Teach Us?, New Delhi: Penguin Books India, 2000, p. 58.
3. ‘It was India’s good fortune to be a British colony’, The man who once called India a functioning anarchy, John Kenneth Galbraith, in conversation with Arun Venugopal, Outlook, 20 August 2001, p. 46.
4. Francis Fukuyama, Trust: The Social Virtues and the Creation of Prosperity, New York: Free Press, 1995, pp. 33-34.
5. Ibid., p. 13.
6. Ibid., p. 26.
7. Samuel P. Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order, New York: Simon & Schuster, 1996, p. 22.
8. Ibid., p. 29
9. Henry Kissinger, Diplomacy, New York: Touchstone, 1995, pp. 23-24.
10. Clifford Geertz, The Interpretation of Cultures: Selected Essays, New York: Basic Books, 1973.
Chapter 2: Power
1. Sudhir Kakar, The Indian Psyche: The Inner World; Shamans, Mystics and Doctors; Tales of Love, Sex and Danger, New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1996, p. 138.
2. Pratap Bhanu Mehta, ‘How to fight corruption’, Indian Express, 19 August 2002.
3. Kakar, The Indian Psyche, (see note 1 above), p. 119.
4. A.K. Ramanujan, The Collected Essays of A.K. Ramanujan, general editor, Vinay Dharwadker, New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1999, pp. 46-47.
5. Pavan K. Varma, Krishna: The Playful Divine, New Delhi: Viking/Penguin, 1993, p. 163.
6. Ibid., p. 168.
7. Richard Lannoy, The Speaking Tree: A Study of Indian Culture and Society, New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1971, p. 294.
8. Prof. F.H. Bailey, cited in Lannoy, The Speaking Tree, (see note 7 above), p. 294.
9. Nirad C. Chaudhuri, The Autobiography of an Unknown Indian, Delhi: Jaico Publishing House, 1976, sixth impression, p. 422.
10. M.N. Srinivas, The Remembered Village, New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1988, fourth impression 1997, p. 266.
11. S.P. Singh, ‘Badal Jr has a son, Akalis are over the moon’, Indian Express, 6 November 2001.
12. Srinivas, The Remembered Village, (see note 10 above), pp. 281-83.
13. Ramanujan, The Collected Essays, (see note 4 above), p. 23.
14. See Kautilya, The Arthashastra, edited, rearranged, translated and introduced by L.N. Rangarajan, New Delhi: Penguin Books India, 1992.
15. Prakash N. Desai, ‘Personality Politics: A Psychoanalytic Perspective’, in Crisis and Change in Contemporary India, edited by Upendra Baxi and Bhikhu Parekh, New Delhi: Sage Publications in association with The Book Review Literary Trust, New Delhi, 1995, p. 253.
16. Kakar, The Indian Psyche, (see note 1 above), p. 128.
17. Dom Moraes, Indira Gandhi, Boston: Little Brown, 1980, p. 226.
18. R. Bhagwan Singh, ‘11 kill selves, 2 die of shock over Jaya ruling’, Asian Age, 25 September 2001.
19. Desai, ‘Personality Politics’, (see note 15 above), p. 256.
20. Sankarshan Thakur, ‘Farewell to Scindia with one eye to the camera’, Indian Express, 4 October 2001.
21. Stephen P. Cohen, India: Emerging Power, New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2001, p. 28.
22. Dipankar Gupta, Mistaken Modernity: India Between Worlds, New Delhi: HarperCollins India, 2000, p. 115.
23. Ibid., p. 118.
24. Paul R. Brass, The Politics of India Since Independence, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994, p. 14.
25. Vandita Mishra, ‘The Sukh Ram Katha’, Indian Express, 17 July 2002.
26. Vir Sanghvi, ‘The Politicians We Deserve’, Sunday Hindustan Times, 21 July 2002.
27. Ibid.
28. Pranab Bardhan, The Political Economy of Development in India, New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1989, fourth impression 1994, p. 78.
29. ‘Laddoos of Maya’, Times of India, 16 January 2003.
30. Bardhan, The Political Economy of Development in India, (see note 28 above), p. 77.
31. Cohen, India: Emerging Power, (see note 21 above), p. 3.
32. Kanwal Sibal, ‘Understanding India’, Indian Horizons, vol. 48, no. 4, 2001 and vol. 49, no. 1, 2002 (combined issue), pp. 1-6, New Delhi: Indian Council for Cultural Relations.
