By Kollengode S Venkataraman… Written in October 1997
Note: A version of the following article appeared in the Pittsburgh Post Gazette on October 17, 1997. We publish the article for our readers living outside the Pittsburgh metro area.
In the last issue, we discussed illiteracy, overpopulation and overcrowded urban centers, lack of public health amenities, and corruption, and lawlessness. Even in the midst of these dismal realities, Free India did bring about fundamental changes in society. For this, India deserves credit for playing as good a game with as bad a set of cards as it was dealt. Here is the concluding part of India’s accomplishments.
Women’s Education. The education of women. Which started among the upper class first and is now percolating down, has changed India irreversibly. Much the same way women going to work in factories during Second World War did in the US. Women are working in large numbers in banking, medicine, light manufacturing, in low and middle levels, sometimes outnumbering men. Teaching in schools is pretty much a woman’s domain, partly because of the lack of growth opportunities in teaching.
The economic independence working women now have is something they never had. This alone is changing man-woman relationships, family size, and the relationship among members of extended families that is important social stability in India.
In cities, educated men and women are marrying across caste and language boundaries, in many cases with parental approval, casting by the wayside old social paradigms.
Grassroot level women run organizations are addressing problems related to women. Examples: 1. The public outcry that forced the government to ban tests for amniocentesis done primarily for aborting female fetuses. 2. Media coverage that criminalized what was known as bride burnings and dowry deaths.
With the obvious multifaceted benefits that educated population brings to society, India has to make literacy, public education, and vocational training national priorities so that its youngsters, in the next century at least, will be positive social contributors instead of being a social burden.
Democratic ideas taking roots. Indian democracy has many faults. Indian leaders, instead of compensating for the difficulty in transplanting Western style democracy into the caste ridden nation, weakened the institutions of by corrupting them in immediate ways, as politicians everywhere do. Therefore, Indian elections are always opportunities for the people for throwing their rascals out. In the last 15 years, India ended the hegemony of the Congress Party and the dynastic rule of the Nehru family through elections instead of through social upheavals and executions. In spite of all its faults and awful choices before the electorate, the idea of representative government has taken roots in India. With a more educated people and socially responsible leadership, India has the potential to become a self-correcting mature democracy. But it will not be anytime soon.
Economic reform. As can be ascertained from Sanskrit, Pali and Tamil literature from pre-Christian times, India has a long tradition of craftsmanship and domestic and overseas trade with ancient Greece and Egypt and other parts of Asia. Thus, entrepreneurship is not something India learned from the Europeans during their colonial occupation in the last three centuries or from the Persian centuries before.
Today we see the Indian enterprising instance, vibrantly active even among the ordinary people, selling fruits, flowers, vegetables, and bazaars, shining shoes along downtown streets, scalping cinema tickets or for the matter, dealing in contraband. Contraband in shady parts of towns. And among the tycoons running large corporations as well.
Take the Indian film industry. More number of films are made in India than in Hollywood. If Hollywood has its formula films, India has its masala films. The Indian film industry has nurtured wide-ranging skills and talents in people, offering tens of thousands of jobs nationwide, almost exclusively with private enterprise, often with black money loaned at usurious interest rates.
This being the case, after independence, the Indian government did not fully exploit the native entrepreneurship to its own advantage. Instead, India under Jawaharlal Nehru and his daughter Indira Gandhi followed the socialist model till the collapse of the Soviet empire. Billions of taxpayer money, and more importantly, precious time that could have been put to better use were squandered in creating huge government-owned companies run by bureaucrats, worse still, political appointees. A majority of them have been losing money since the day of their inception. After the Cold War, the Congress party that ruled the country for more than 45 out 50 years loosened its long grip on the economy. Everyone praised the party for its bold move taken so belatedly, however. With the collapse of the Soviet Union, India had no other option.
Not many care to remember that in the 60s and 70’s the same Congress party vilified as capitalist stooges several patriotic citizens. Among them were Piloo Modi, N G Ranga Morarji Desai, J P Kriplani and C Rajagopalachari, who were pleading for less government control on the economy? And less of what they called permit-license-quota Raj of the Congress party. Their crime was that they were ahead of their time by at least three decades.
Because of this economic liberalization, oversea business travel, once the privilege of the rich and the powerful, is common now with a larger number of middle class people and skilled workers seeing the real world. These influential segments of population look at India differently. This firsthand experience tends to change the distorted image of the West and their own self-image piped into home. By the overseas cable TV and people are beginning to see India dispassionately. When an increasing proportion of this influential section of population sees the need for change, it will put pressure on the other segment of society and India will respond to this internal pressure.
But if India focuses only on consumer goods catering to the middle class cravings and not expand the base of manufacturing durable goods and the necessary Technical Support service with private capital, one more opportunity will be lost.
Freer and bolder press and active judiciary. In the absence of strong opposition in Parliament and widespread corruption among political parties of all stripes, the press became the watchdog of the nation during and after Indira Gandhi’s time. For the first time in India’s history, prominent politicians are facing corruption charges in court with possible jail sentence. Daringly, investigative journalists routinely expose social and political evils at considerable risk to themselves and their families. On another front, high courts in India are increasingly asserting their independence, often putting elected officials, bureaucrats and big businesses on the defensive. These have the potential to slowly change the way India governs itself.
Communication. Increasingly large number of people have the opportunity for instant and inexpensive direct communication on a global scale through Internet, beyond the audiovisual media controlled by government and the print media owned by powerful businesses. This makes it difficult for political and economic establishments to control news for their own self-interest. In India, the government-controlled radio and TV are becoming irrelevant and find it difficult to hide its commissions, omissions and sins, something they did with gay abandoned in the past.
Performing arts. Performing arts native to India are undergoing a renaissance. With the migration of people from one part of the country to every other region, the country is becoming consolidated as a single economic, intellectual and spiritual unit. Consequently, a synthesis is taking place in performing arts, particularly classical music and dance. Artists trained in one tradition incorporate ideas and styles and literary works and techniques from another similar and even dissimilar art form, creatively bringing about refreshing changes. Examples Bharatanatyam, originally belonging to Tamil Nadu and performed only to Tamil lyrics as late as late as in the 1950s, now has become a national treasure nowadays performed in lyrics not only in other South Indian languages but also in Sanskrit, Hindi, Abadi, Bhojpuri. Creative new artists choreograph dance recitals incorporating Kathak, Odissi, Bharatanatyam, Kathakali, and Kuchipudi styles performed to the same lyrics, ragam and talam.
The popularizing of Karnatic and Hindustani music and vice versa is another example. Jugalbandis with Karnataka and Hindustani musicians and percussionists participating with large number of youngsters in the audience are common sights in many cities. The impact of these on the Indian psyche in recognizing what binds India together is perhaps not quantifiable, but is significant, nevertheless.
It is noteworthy that despite the educated Indians fascination with the West, India is unique in one way. As far as performing arts are concerned, Western influence on Indian classical music and dance is barely noticeable. Indian artists and the audiences took the violin, clarinet, Mandarin, guitar and even saxophone, but adapt adapted them to completely to the Indian traditions based on ragas and talas. These, among others, are the indicators that hold that hold considerable promise for India in the next Millennium if only it is harnessed correctly.
Wanted a spiritual awakening: 50 years ago, India was not politically free, but the leadership was free in spirit. Using the spiritual freedom as the weapon, India got its political freedom. After independence, the Indian collective consciousness has put its spiritual freedom into sleep. One can even say, India’s collective consciousness is now a spiritual slave, not to the Western ethos, but to Western consumerism.
Maybe, when India undergoes another spiritual renewal, using the word spirit in a nonsectarian and transreligious sense of the term, India will define itself for others. And not let others define it, as has been the case. Then India will no longer seek or care for approval from people outside. Instead, India will listen to voices from within crying out for what changes it desperately needs.
Already some affluent Indians recognize that living in gated and guarded communities with squalor all around is nothing to be happy about. Also, in pockets, grassroots-level people are organizing communities to take care of themselves. These are good signs.
As with our personal lives in society too, lasting changes are possible only when brought about from within. India is on the threshold of bringing about changes from within. When this happens, the changes will last a lot longer. More importantly, India will also have the social will to correct itself as it adapts to changes. ∎