India’s unending journey

As the Indian nation celebrates its 61st year of independence from British colonial rule this month, it was Prime Minister Nehru’s “tryst with destiny” speech made on 15th August, 1947 which resonates in my mind. No speech in independent India’s history encapsulates the mood of a country, “long suppressed” as this one by Panditji.

One question I can't help asking every passing year is - six decades on, are we Indians really free? Has the great Indian experiment with democracy been a success or a failure? These are questions that have no conclusive answers. With hindsight, however, one can now look back at the events over the last six decades and judge as to where India stands among the comity of nations.

From being once called a “functional anarchy” by former US ambassador and economist John Kenneth Galbraith to being referred to, as an “emerging superpower” by observers today is an achievement of sorts. The predominant view amongst western analysts was that the Indian people lacked the ethos and values that are required to sustain a democracy – supposedly a “western concept”. After all it was the “white man’s burden” to educate people about democracy, wasn’t it?

Wrong. One only needs to look at the experience of other former colonies like Pakistan, Bangladesh and Myanmar with democracy to appreciate the resilience of Indian democracy. Despite its profound social, linguistic, religious and ethnic diversities, the fact is, the Indian nation has survived, instead of breaking into smaller fragments as most foreign observers predicted. We have managed to remain a functioning democracy despite all its faults, chaos and contradictions.

For cynics who call Indian democracy, a “sham”, they may look at countries like Russia, China and Saudi Arabia where the most brutal and repressive regimes govern in perpetuity. The case of Anna Politkovskaya, the Russian journalist allegedly exterminated at the behest of former Russian President and now Prime Minister Vladimir Putin for her criticism of his policies in Chechnya underscores the ugly nature of these systems. In stark contrast, the average Indian citizen not only has the right to vote out a government if he or she deems it fit but the press is also largely free and independent.

Also, Indian secularism makes for a stunning rebuttal of Samuel Huntington’s “Clash of Civilization” theory. At a time when the West is grappling with the issue of “Muslim integration”, (The European Union for example is deeply divided over Turkey's proposed inclusion in the grouping because of its 75 million strong Muslim population)India with a population of 175 million Muslims is a good example of a pluralistic society. Presently, India has a Hindu President, a Muslim Vice-President, a Sikh Prime Minister and a Christian leader of the ruling coalition. Yes, its a cliche that the Shashi Tharoors and the Ramchandra Guhas of the world trumpet time and again, but its overuse in no way undermines the fundamental reality of the statement, especially now that we may have a Dalit Prime Minister in the equation.

Economically, we are the world’s second fastest growing economy and are expected to become the third largest economy after China and the US by 2050 according to a Goldman Sachs report in 2004 titled, "Dreaming with the BRICS". The economic reforms of 1991 have lifted millions out of poverty. There are more economic choices today than we have ever had.

This is not an exercise in self-adulation. These successes notwithstanding, issues like abject poverty(with 400 million Indians below the poverty line); rising communalism(remember Gujarat 2002, anyone?) and corruption remain a blot on our nation. Gross human rights violations by the Indian state in Kashmir, Manipur(the government must repeal the Armed Forces Special Powers Act there) and other parts of the north-east harm India’s democratic credentials. The events of the past few weeks in Kashmir is a matter of serious concern. For our freedom fighters who wanted India to be anything but a "Hindu Pakistan", Kashmir forms the bedrock of Indian secularism - after all it is an anomaly, being the only Muslim-majority state in an otherwise predominantly Hindu nation. The deep polarisation that we see in J & K today is due to vote-bank politics of the political parties. At the same time it is also due to the excesses of the armed forces in Kashmir - the fake encounter killings in the Valley in the garb of fighting terrorism being a case in point. Let us understand one thing, we cannot "rule" a region by sheer force for we cannot afford to alienate the Kashmiris any further. Yes, the state of Jammu and Kashmir is an integral part of the Indian Union and the Pakistani National Security Advisor Mohammed Ali Durrani's recent statements that Pakistan is a stakeholder in the Kashmir issue amounts to a gross interference in India's internal affairs. but this really isn't about the "internationalization" of the issue as much as it is about the exposition of the deep religious faultlines in the state. The permanent shadow of the "Jammu and Kashmir" headache between India and Pakistan has now become the "Jammu vs Kashmir" cancer for India. The Indian government must begin to address the deep divisions among Muslim-dominated Kashmir, the Hindu-majority Jammu and Buddhist Ladakh instead of administering aspirin for both the headache and the cancer. While the "tumour" has been detected in its initial stages(read Kashmir), every effort should be made by us as a collective whole to stop the cancer from spreading to the rest of the country. The ongoing J & K crisis is not only the biggest threat to India's territorial integrity but also to our fragile social and religious fabric. Our leadership must shed its partisan policies and unite in the interest of the nation and its "peoples".

The immediate problems notwithstanding, let us not forget that 60 years is a very short time in a nation’s history, so let’s give it a chance to spread its wings and play a role commensurate its size. Let history be the judge of whether we have redeemed the pledges made by us in the past. Here's wishing the Republic of India a very happy birthday!

Random Thoughts of an Agitated Bastard - The Sequel

I am angry and upset. My angst is directed at the self-anointed protectors of “Bharatiya Sabhyata”, who like those Hindu fundamentalists who don on the role of spokesperson for all Hindus in the garb of protecting the Hindu faith against “Islamic terrorists”, end up doing everything that would put a true Hindu to shame. I like any other self-respecting Hindu have nothing else but disdain for such people. If my ilk and I are called pseudo-secularists in the process, then all I can say is “I don’t give a damn!”

People who know me well are aware of my strong views on religious fundamentalism, especially the rise of “Hindu nationalism”, but today I would like to address another issue, that being linguistic nationalism, more specifically the English-Hindi divide in India. Condescending statements like, “Angrez Bharat chod ke chale gaye lekin inko idhar chod diya,” to describe English-speaking Indians (not to be confused with Anglicised Indians) are quite common. Such jibes seek to portray speakers of English as less Indian when compared to others. This feeling was reinforced at a seminar I attended at a leading media institute recently where one of the speakers was the Managing Editor of a prominent Hindi news channel. Not only did he slam the English news media in the country, but he also took a dig at the “elitist and colonial mindset” of the English-speaking audiences who were more interested in news stories related to “pet-crèches” than on more “Indian” issues .If news stories related to jyotishis and mythology by the virtue of being more “Indian”, need to be given prime-time coverage, then god help Indian journalism! To be fair to the editor, the context of the discussion had nothing to do with this particular debate but on the issue of media regulation, but his choice of words smacked of linguistic jingoism. Much to my chagrin, the hindi journalism students in the audience lapped up the speech.

Though I cede that the English language is an "alien" language, a colonial legacy which continues to flourish to this day...the fact is, that this language with a pan-Indian presence is as Indian as any other Indian language despite its foreign roots. Sounds contradictory? Well, read on.

The prejudices notwithstanding, one has to understand how English was given a pride of place in a newly created nation by our founding fathers, so much so that the Indian Constitution is also written in the same language. A number of leaders in post-independence India debated whether English should continue as a medium of instruction in places of learning, and during official correspondence many including Lal Bahadur Shastri and Sardar Patel advocated dumping English and promoting Hindi and other regional languages. What it did was that it created a furore in the South, where Hindi had never been widely spoken either during 200 years of British rule or even before that. There was a feeling that the leaders from the so-called "northern belt" were trampling on southern sensitivities by imposing Hindi as the "national language".I'm not much of regionalist, and I hate invoking regional sentiments to air my concerns, but I do consider it a legitimate point because one cannot wish away the fact that even the division of Indian states is based on the question of language – a Punjab for Punjabis, a Tamil Nadu for Tamils, an Orissa for Oriyas, an Assam for the Assamese, a Maharashtra for Marathis and so on and so forth. Therefore language was an important and a sensitive issue. The unilateral imposition of Hindi as a "national language" could have promoted secessionist movements in the south. Leaders like Nehru and Ambedkar felt that despite the importance of vernacular languages, English was the "language of the future", and a language that would preserve the unity and integrity of the Indian Union. Hence in 1967 or thereabouts both Hindi and English were declared "official languages".

Today, India has the largest English-speaking population in the world (roughly 300 million), more than the entire population of the United States.It has placed us at the forefront of the Knowledge Revolution, the current BPO and IT boom have a lot to do with our knowledge of the English language. This is one area that China has still some catching up to do vis-à-vis India.

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I'm not apologetic and will never be about the fact that I adore the English language. I would in fact go to the extent of saying that it is the most Indian of languages. Speak to Indians of different hues from different regions and no matter what their mother tongue is, you will find a smattering of English in their native written and spoken word. English has pervaded our lives and has become uniquely Indian because we've managed to add our own flavour to the "Queen's language". Indian English has evolved over the decades and is mighty different from its British counterpart so much so that the Oxford Dictionary has incorporated many Indian words. I dare say that we have become the biggest exporters of Indian English thanks to Indian writers in English like R.K.Narayan, Ruskin Bond, Amitav Ghosh, Vikram Seth, Arundhati Roy amongst others.

I don’t hesitate to say this: Why is the knowledge of Hindi considered to be a barometer of measuring a person's "Indianness"? If that person (I'm referring to myself here) can speak atleast three other Indian languages (Telugu, Oriya and Bengali) in varying degrees of fluency and prefers to use English instead of Hindi whilst conversing with people who do not speak these three languages, why is he branded as an "Anglicised Indian" who has forgotten his roots? Why does he have to bear patronizing remarks from the Hindi-speaking lot who consider Hindi the sole representation of being "Indian"?

I have to point out that unlike Germans who speak German, Spaniards who speak Spanish and Italians who speak Italian, Indians DO NOT SPEAK "Indian". They speak an assortment of languages including English, Hindi, Tamil, Kannada, Bengali, Assamese,Telugu, Gujarati, Marathi....a total of 18 languages and god knows how many dialects. Keeping this in mind, how on earth does anyone expect an Indian to stick to Hindi? Isn’t this an affront on India’s plurality and linguistic diversity?

So to people who would argue that a Ms India hailing from Uttar Pradesh or Madhya Pradesh should speak in Hindi, I would warmly welcome it but would add that she should every right to speak in Mizo during the acceptance speech if she hails from Mizoram without being looked down upon.

All of us have different “Ideas of India”, but we are all united in our objective to see an India that is united, an India that is a beacon of plurality and diversity in the region, an India that truly embodies the hopes and aspirations of the freedom movement, and finally an India that gets its “tryst with destiny”. So, while we might differ on how to get there, we must remember what Voltaire said about free speech – “I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to death your right to say it.”

I have made these remarks not with the intention of hurting anyone’s sentiments. To those whom I may have offended, I offer my sincere apologies...these comments shouldn’t be seen by anyone as a tirade against Hindi...that was not my intention...I have loved the Hindi language since my school days, and I shall continue to strive to improve my Hindi in the days and months to come :-)...but my imperfections in the department should not be held against me.

Signed, Sealed and Delivered,

In Liberty,

Pratyush

Give the Great Indian Babudom a Break

(This piece by me was first published in the March 2008 issue of the Tehelka magazine. I have reproduced it here on my blog with some additions.)

We Indians have always had something of a chequered relationship with our bureaucracy.An enduring legacy of our colonial past, the Great Indian Babudom has never really won over the people it administers. The term "sarkari" is now synonymous with being inefficient, bloated, opaque, corrupt and unaccountable.

So when Justice B.N. Srikrishna submitted the Sixth Pay Commission report to Finance Minister P.Chidambaram in March 2008 recommending a 40 per cent hike in the salaries of Central government employees, criticism came thick and fast. Seeing this as a ploy to garner the votes of 4.5 millon employees, critics point out that the bulk of salary increases recommended by the Pay Commission does not insist on any marked productivity improvement. Financial experts cited how the implementation of the Fifth Pay Commission's recommendations ravaged the finances of the central and state governments. Spending another 20,000 crore rupees on the babudom was therefore anathema for the Indian public who lap up everything modern India has to offer - efficient private banks, 24-hour customer-care for a range of services and prompt redressal mechanisms.

Who cares if inflation is at a 13-year high at over 12%, eating into the meagre salaries of government employees? Who cares if the starting basic salaries of college graduates are over 15,000 rupees a month, while that of public servants in service for over 20 years is a petty 8000 a month?How does it matter that, of the 4.5 million employed by the government, only 7 per cent are class I and II officers while 93 per cent consist of school teachers, peons, clerks and jawans? Who gives a damn, anyways!

Our attitude towards the civil services can best be exemplified by comparing our attitude towards the business sector. When a Lakshmi Mittal or a Kiran Mazumdar Shaw climb up the ladder of the Forbes wealth list, the mainstream media laps it up as a sign of India's growing prosperity. When a Mani Ratnam makes a Guru glorifying how the founder of India's largest private conglomerate, flouted every law in the rulebook on his way to success, he's celebrated as the man who challenged the license raj. So, at a time when money-making isn't seen as a bad thing and is almost a national obsession, why can't government employees get a "New Deal"? Or is it the nature of their work that prevents them from being paid market rates? After all, public service is not charity. For most employees, government jobs are a source of income and thus a livelihood issue. Devoid of any tangible performance-based incentives like regular promotions, which remain a tool of their political masters coupled with peanut salaries, our bureaucracy is prone to all the evil trappings, corruption being one of them.

And that is why the Sixth Pay Commission should be lauded. While hiking the pay, it has for the first time linked pay hikes to employee performance and has also advocated the abolition of gazetted holidays. The carrot and the stick approach may just go a long way in making the babudom deliver and make it more accountable. In the meantime, the Indian public might want to grab onto some other fad, other than being overly critical of the civil service.

The Shangri La: Rising from the Crypt or a Utopian Dream?

In a non-descript part of the Majnu Ka Tila area in north Delhi is the capital’s very own “Little Lhasa”. The narrow alleys leading up to a courtyard with a small monastery bears a deserted look. The ominous signs are for all to see. The walls of the otherwise serene monastery are adorned with gory photographs of slain people with messages like “state of human rights in Tibet”. The shops in an otherwise bustling locale are shut. The silence is almost deafening, yet in a dark corner under a canopy are four young Tibetan men engaged in stifled murmurs. These are after all heady days for the sizeable Tibetan population in Delhi.

What started as a peaceful protest on March 10 to mark the 49^th anniversary of the “Tibetan Uprising Day” has turned into the biggest challenge to Chinese rule in Tibet in over two decades. The People’s Liberation Army had first invaded Tibet in 1950 and this was followed by China forcing Tibet’s leaders to sign a 17-point agreement wherein it promised to grant autonomy to Tibet and respect the Buddhist religion and its practices. However most of these promises turned out to be hollow leading to a full-blown uprising in 1959, in which thousands of ethnic Tibetans were killed, as Chinese forces sought to quash the uprising, forcing the Dalai Lama to flee to India. The Tianenman Square massacre in 1989 once again raised the ugly spectre of China’s involvement in Tibet. That was a long time ago, when the Chinese leadership was still learning the rules of engagement with the international community. They had made a good start when in 1978; Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping sought to dismantle the “Bamboo Curtain” through a process of wide-ranging economic reforms that transformed the Chinese landscape. The reforms catapulted China into international stardom and heralded the shift of power from the West to the East as it accumulated both hard and soft power. As the west sought to mollycoddle the new superpower on the bloc, Tibet became a forgotten cause restricted to the Geres and Thurmans of the Hollywood fraternity. However, with the eyes of the world on China ahead of the 2008 Beijing Olympics, Tibetans saw an opportunity to divert international attention onto Beijing’s human rights record in Tibet.

As a result, Tibetans have attacked every symbol of Chinese power and influence in a bid to embarrass image-obsessed China. In response, the Chinese government has denounced what it calls the “secessionist activities by the Dalai clique” and has mobilised its military machinery. The Tibetan capital, Lhasa has become a virtual fortress and the Tibetan government-in-exile based in Dharamsala claims that over 100 people have been brutally murdered in the past few days as a result of Chinese repression. Tibet’s spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama has asked the world to recognise the “cultural genocide” being perpetrated by the Chinese and though a senior US politician has called the situation in Tibet a “challenge to the conscience of the world”, international reaction has largely been muted, to the extent of being pusillanimous.

If the Tibetans in Delhi had thought that the Indian government would provide some succour, they would only be writing the epitaph on the grave of the Tibetan cause. Let alone supporting the cause, New Delhi has done everything to rein in the protestors so as not to embarrass its “Chinese friends” – from stopping the peace march to Tibet from Dharamsala to reprimanding the protestors, asking them to “behave like how guests are expected to behave.” The Indian government has maintained that Tibet is an internal problem of China's and that any comment on how it should be resolved would be deemed as interference in its internal affairs by Beijing. China’s nuanced position on the Kashmir issue in recent years too is a reason why New Delhi has refrained from overtly criticising Beijing’s actions in Tibet.

India's relations with China have grown by leaps and bounds in recent years, covering many more areas than the contentious border dispute and China’s “all-weather partnership” with Pakistan. The two Asian giants upgraded their relationship to a “strategic” level in 2005 during Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao’s India visit.

China has also emerged as India's largest trading partner, with two-way trade crossing $38 billion, an increase of 56% over the past year. These developments have warranted a sea change in the way New Delhi deals with its northern neighbour, and India has had to walk the diplomatic tightrope on the Tibetan issue. This policy has come for much criticism among not only human rights activists but also opposition parties in India, which have lambasted India’s Tibet policy.

NDA Convenor George Fernandes in a recent interview to Karan Thapar on CNN-IBN attacked the UPA government for allowing itself to be "bullied" on the question of Tibet and described as an "error" the National Democratic Alliance government’s decision to re-endorse Tibet as a part of China. "It was not a mistake but an error. It should not have been done," he said about India’s decision to reiterate its recognition of Tibet as a part of China during the previous Atal Behari Vajpayee government, in which he was defence minister.

Ridiculing the UPA government’s response to the recent incident of Indian ambassador Nirupama Rao being summoned to the Chinese foreign ministry past midnight, Mr Fernandes said New Delhi had "surrendered" over the issue.

"Well, our government allowed it. It has no shame," he said, adding that the government should have advised its ambassador to wait till the next day. "Elsewhere, that’s what would have happened."

He said India’s attitude towards China was because of the 1962 war. "I have a feeling that what happened in 1962 is still affecting people’s minds, and they can’t get out of it," he said. He also lent his voice to the growing calls for an Indian boycott of the Beijing Olympics. That seems improbable, as India would do little to earn the ire of the Chinese dragon.

Though there is a palpable sense of dejection amongst the Tibetan youth at Majnu Ka Tila at India’s aloofness, the steely determination and resolve to end the Chinese occupation of their motherland is hard to miss. Many members of the Tibetan exile community in Delhi want independence as opposed to the Dalai Lama’s call for “meaningful autonomy within the People’s Republic of China”.

“Before the Chinese invasion, Tibet was an independent country. To say that we would want autonomy within Chinese territory would be to dilute the aspirations of the Tibetan people,” says Kelsong, a young Tibetan born and brought up in India. He also expressed frustration at the Indian government’s feeble response to the latest developments in Tibet calling it “timid”. 

“The Indian elephant does not want to annoy the Chinese dragon. As the land of the Mahatma, it should lend political support to our just and rightful cause. India has the power of morality to do so," he says.

And do the Tibetan exile community approve of the large-scale violence in Tibet and other provinces like Gansu and Sichuan?

“China does not understand the language of non-violence. The Chinese leadership needs a dose of its own medicine,” adds Kelsong.

Pasang, a young Tibetan student from Bangalore says, “Though the Dalai Lama is our param-pujari and we respect him as our leader, the Tibetan cause is too emotional an issue for us. If alternative methods have to be employed to rattle the Chinese, so be it.” When asked as to what Tibet means to him, Pasang’s voice trails off. “I have only seen Tibet in the photographs. I wish to return to the land of my fellow Tibetan brethren. I want to shed the refugee status and be a free citizen of a free country. That’s my earnest desire.”

As his voice breaks off, his three friends Dorjee, Norbu and Lopsang nod their heads in silence.

This is not just a tale of Delhi’s Tibetan population living as “refugees” but a tale of six million Tibetans who are bereft of a national identity, their sense of “self” hijacked by a regime that seems determined to decimate Tibetan culture and its ethos. And would non-violence be the way to achieve their ends? Well, don’t count on it. Don’t forget that it is Tibetan self-respect, which is at the altar of Tibet’s current masters. Patience is running out. And fast.