Discrimination - What are we talking about?

India Poised campaign has explored many avenues and brought to the front some facts that make us justifiably proud that we are Indians. Not only we have a rich culture, heritage and past but the achievements of Young India is not to be scoffed at. The Indian Youth have taken India places to such an extent that News Channels like the NDTV and BBC are debating on position of India and its future.

Some not so savory details have been re-lived too. The most talked about unpleasantness of the very recent past is "Shilpa Shetty and the Big Brother Show". It has sprung open an International debate. Goody was invited to India for "soul cleansing". As a proud Indian, I am disgusted by all this. The disgust also made me think. If I want to put it simply I would say that Discrimination Begets Discrimination. The Caucasians do discriminate, but so do the Indians. This is prooved by not only the annals of history but the present too.

The discrimination practiced in India is against the fellow Indians. The caste system is the one of the greatest discriminators and it is still followed. The caste system was originally proposed as a way of ordering society but it grew into something malicious and all this in the name of religion. Today the caste system still exists albeit in a very modified form. The British Raj saw the formation of Classes. The castes and the classes mixed up to form curious combinations. I came across a new term in reference to this - claste. I leave it up to the interest of the reader to discover the whole caste, class and claste debate. We still have people being classified as along the broad lines of castism. It becomes more defined during rites of passage, opportunities etc.

The urban Indians talk about equality of gender and it is largely true in broader visions. Discrimination against women is still rampant in Urban as well as rural India. The Rural statistics are there for us to see. There is a village in Rajasthan were they welcomed a "barat" after 100 years as they used to practice female feticide. A girl child in an MP village weighs only 3.5 kg as opposed to her younger brother who weighs 6.5 kgs - only severe threats of action against them made them feed the girl child. More recently, villages in Haryana have been in the news because of a barter system that they follow - trading of women - they bring women from West Bengal, Assam, Orissa, Bihar as their "wedded wives" and then trade them to settle loans, debts, etc. The sex ratio in some states in North India is 850:1000.

We don’t like being called colored people now do we? But is it not we practice ourselves too? Switch on any TV channel and 1 out of 5 advertisements would be endorsing a fairness cream. We are not ashamed to propagate the erroneous fact that white skin lends confidence, boosts ego, etc. The Caucasians have fascinated us in almost every aspect and we do tend to follow them, imitate them. For most of us, our likes and dislikes are also dictated by their likes and dislikes. Some things like yoga, meditation, ayurveda, saw a natural phasing out in India and came back only when the Western world turned India-ward for good living fundamentals and religion.

What are we actually talking about when we discuss just what happened to us when we go out of India? No matter what, Indians still prefer going abroad and settling down even if it means that they would have to clean toilets. The reverse brain drain and discriminating factors have not lessoned our zeal for going abroad. We desperately want the world to view us in a different light and gain acceptance in their foreign society. We cheerfully contribute the discrimination to the fact that we were slaves at one period. A voice like Shipa Shetty's does ring out but how often. She is not the only person who is discriminated against and she has gained from it. A commoner usually never does. Have we raised our voices enough to fight the discrimination? Have we molded our thought processes to avoid the discrimination practiced in our own society? Let us join hands and abolish the internal divisions that we ourselves practice before looking outwards for equality…. As they say, don’t expect anyone to follow your advice and ignore the example that you set.

India Rising - My Journey of discovery

In the past few blogs I have been writing quite a bit about Mera Bharat Mahaan and what makes it so. I have been in the process of doing a SWOT analysis of the social concerns which prevented humara bharat from being mahaan and came up with quite a few surprising and confused answers.

Instead of torturing you with my complex SWOT analysis, I thought it wise to just share some of the articles that have forced me to think, analyse and evaluate. I am not posting anything concrete here since most of these articles are open to very wide interpretations and I would like to give you the chance to draw your own interpretations on India Rising according to your own perceptions.

Lets start off with the Profile of India... and where else would you get such a comprehensive one ....

The BBC focussed its attention on a special feature they called as 'India Rising' for an entire week in February 2007. Of all the articles that were published, the ones that are notable are:

a) Will India make a breakthrough
b) Key facts: India Rising
c) India's vision of a digital biliion
d) Science can lift India's poor

And not to mention:

a) Rise of India's middle class
b) India Poised campaign by the TOI.

Happy reading.....

No Roadside Cooking by Vendors - Its Impact

In the week that TOI is celebrating the soul and essence of Delhi as a part of the India Poised campaign with a series of spicy food festivals, music concerts, dance and drama; the Supreme Court has decided to pull out another rabbit from its hat and announced the ban on street side food vendors who cook on the spot and sell their wares hot to the hungry Delhites. They are the essence of the culture as it exists in Delhi today and all Delhites irrespective of their social status have enjoyed exercising their social networking skills over a plate of hot samosas and tea. From office gossip to dating to de-stressing everything happens over a plate of street side hot and spicy fast food. So, enjoying a plate of hot choley bathurey with your friends while enjoying the sun-shine in a bitterly cold day will not be as common a site in the future as it is today. So, Delhites will face a cultural shock. Imagine the North Delhi University devoid of its sumptuous food stalls and Paranthey-wala gali without its paranthas and jalebis. The impact of the shock is something that only time will tell.

The reason for the decision is easy to see. With its decision to seal the un-authorised and illegal business establishments it had started the process of cleaning Delhi of its various maladies. With the high profile people being hit by the now in-famous sealing drive it comes as no surprise that the hawkers who have their business establishments on a wooden table or a wooden cart will be the next target. Looking at the sequence of events that have taken place the Supreme Court has very neatly robbed the people in the lower economic group to raise their voices in protest. They have seen that the higher economic group had been hit before they had been hit and therefore that argument of partiality becomes null and void. They have also witnessed the un-relenting stance that the SC has taken with respect to the sealing drive and therefore are forewarned that there is a very high possibility their protests will also fall on deaf ears. This would force them probably to tackle the new ruling in a positive manner than a negative one.

The impact on cleanliness and health will be a very positive one. Gone would street corners piled with used dishes, plates, cups which more often than not attract a multitude of pests and prove to be a death knell for the drainage system contributing towards the high levels of pollution. The entire populations of rats, flies, cockroaches have to give up the luxury of going to their brand of 5-star hotels. Health concerns arising out of eating in greasy plates, eating food cooked in oil of dubious quality, eating food cooked and served with un-clean hands, eating food which is made tastier by the dust of the road settling on it would be reduced. This would also ensure that the general health factors governing the overall health of the Delhites will also improve since these delicacies would prove to a little more difficult to purchase and hence see a decline in the consumption frequency. So the early morning walks will suddenly start having a better impact on the health and the fat around the bellies will start melting with a little less effort than what it requires currently.

Amidst all the good that is being done because of the decision, there are a lot of concerns too. Suddenly, a man who makes a decent, honest living by cooking and selling his wares in a road-side cart will be without a job. He has to spend quite some money to re-establish himself in the alternative places that would be allocated to them by MCD/NDMC provided they do keep their promise of doing so. The time required to do it and the additional cost of bribing the officials for having the right to earn a living might as well prove to be a death knell for his intentions of earning a living by honest means. It might as well prove to be a major factor in deciding whether the man is able to continue sending his children to school or does he have to pull them out of school and put them to work; whether he is able to pay the doctors' fees for illness of a family member. So a family that might be just on the margin that defines poverty in India might be pushed below that line. So the whole vicious circle of maladies like poverty, lack of child education and lack of proper health care for the family will be fuelled further. And the gap between the rich and the poor will widen a little more.

So, the fine balancing act that has was being done between the wellness of a citizen vs. the wellness of the state as a whole gains a more sensitive dimension. The businessmen in the higher strata of the society were able to withstand the toughness of the Supreme Court albeit with a lot of loud protests. It remains to be seen what the impact of this decision will have on the lives of the people who have been at the helm of defining the 'Delhi Culture'. Only time will tell.

Read the viewpoints of a BBC correspondent here.

PS: This article is in response to an article published in the TOI. To read the article in TOI click here.

India Poised....

In my previous article I had made a sarcastic comment on what is India Poised considered as by its originators.

I read an article on the BBC which outlines the achievements of 3 children in a village in Andhra Pradesh. This is what I would term as India Poised and wanted to share this with everyone. Here is the link to the article on the site. Wont you too call it the same?

Soft Power: What message are we conveying????

Despite the myriad problems that India is facing in the current times it is as un-deniable fact that India is well on its way to consolidate it’s position in the world map as a powerful country. The super powers are sitting up and taking notice of the power of India.

Shashi Tharoor, Under Secretary General of United Nations has been writing a lot about two interlinked concepts of Brand India and Soft Power in the Times of India since the beginning of January 2007. Tharoor has acknowledged the strides that India is making in making its presence felt across the globe and has underlined the fact that India needs to consolidate its position and promote Brand India only through the use of Soft Power.

The term Brand India is self explanatory. The term Soft Power needs to be defined a little more for this article to be understood. Wikipedia lists the following definition of Soft Power:

“Soft power is a term used in international relations theory to describe the ability of a political body, such as a state, to indirectly influence the behavior or interests of other political bodies through cultural or ideological means. The term was first coined by Harvard University professor Joseph Nye. Soft power has since entered popular political discourse as a way of distinguishing the subtle effects of culture, values and ideas on others' behavior from more direct coercive measures, such as military action (hard power) or economic incentives. The resources from which soft power behavior is derived are culture (when it is attractive to others), values (when there is no hypocrisy in their application) and foreign policies (when they are seen as legitimate in the eyes of others). Unless these conditions are present, culture and ideas do not necessarily produce the attraction that is essential for soft power behavior. Popular culture and media is regularly identified as a source of soft power, as is the spread of a national language, or a particular set of normative structures; a nation with a large amount of soft power and the good will that engenders it inspire others to acculturate, avoiding the need for expensive hard power expenditures.”

Tharoor has given quite a few accolades to the Indian media for promoting the image of India as it is today. It is an acceptable fact that media plays an important role in shaping the psyche of not only the citizens of India but also that of the rest of the world. The term media encompasses not only the print media but also the small as well as the big screen, the internet etc.

As a very ordinary Indian citizen I am compelled to ask the kind of message that the media is passing to the world citizens. Does it show the true picture of Indians? In an article titled ‘Making the most of India’s Soft Power’ which was penned by Shashi Tharoor for the Sunday Times on January 28, 2007 there is a huge surprise in store. Kyunki Saas bhi Kabhie Bahu Thi has been lauded by him as one of the daily soaps which has grabbed the attention of many around the world. Two of the major resources of soft power are culture and values. So, does it mean that we are merrily conveying the fact that it is normal for Indians to get married 3-4 times in their lifetime; it is normal for Indians to deal with in-numerable look alike; it is normal for Indians to battle death for in-consequential reasons; it is normal for Indian married girls to wear only sarees; …… Are Tulsi and Parvati a true representation of mothers of India today? I guess the world thinks that all the above set of ‘culture and values’ are normal to Indians as Shashi Tharoor ends that particular article by saying ‘Tulsi Zindabad’. That is the kind of image that Balaji Telefilms has given about Indians to the world.

The print media does not lag too behind in promoting Brand India. For a newspaper that has launched the ‘India Poised’ campaign it is quite sad to note that the front page of the Sunday Newspaper dated January 28, 2007 is occupied by huge colored photographs of cine stars – one of whom is poised to marry the son of a film legend and another who is poised to win the controversial Big Brother show in UK. I guess that is what it means by saying ‘India Poised’. The good work done by Monojit Dutta in bringing the street kids back to school gets a mention only in the second page since I guess his contribution in shaping the lives of young Indians does not fit into the scheme of India Poised campaign. That is why probably media sites like BBC and NDTV are like a cool breeze.

Apart from this what the world perhaps would find attractive about India are probably high literacy rates, abolish of poverty, decrease in corruption in the politico-judicial systems etc etc. Once developed these will weild a considerable amount of soft power over the world citizens.

Irrespective of what the media is projecting and looking at the waves of change that are being generated by the Urban Indians I would like to say ‘Indians Zindabad’. Lets all toil together and be justified in saying ‘Mera Bharat Mahaan’.