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.