I returned from my biennial vacation to the Old Country last week and the one thought that kept running through my mind was that misplaced nationalism, bordering on jingoism was alive and well and doing better than ever. I could be biased - after all, I am an avowed liberal living in the US, who visits India only once every few years and my perspectives are limited, at best. But there is a shrillness that runs through the rhetoric that harkens back to McCartyism even, which is more than a little ironic - historically India's political class has always railed against all things Western, but the country appears willing to borrow all the worst of modern American life and unfortunately very little that is good.
To be honest, there were some changes that were positive and unexpected - my (once-beloved) hometown has acquired a pub culture and love for microbreweries, and I could actually get a very good Hefewiessen at an Irish pub - words that I would never have dreamed of, much less been able to say when I lived in India some sixteen odd years ago. There is a new interest in fitness and state-of-the art modern gyms have sprung up across the more affluent sections of the city, a welcome change from the eighties when there were only a couple of antiquated weight rooms in a city of millions and even the colleges lacked any general fitness culture. For the first time, there were modern buses plying some of the routes and the city has introduced exclusive rapid transit lanes along some of the busiest roads.
But as in all things in my homeland, every step forward is accompanied by not just a step and half backwards but also a couple of giant dance steps sideways for good measure. Now this progress so reminiscent of a drunken ant would be mildly amusing if India had retained it's relaxed attitudes. But today India has awoken to it's potential position in the world and has decided to adopt the language and attitude of a regional power, even if its glittering facepaint hides its feet of clay - middle class India has convinced itself that the country is a superpower and is willing to talk the talk, even as hundreds of millions of its people remain trapped in a hopeless life. It is not that millions have not risen out of poverty, for they have - in fact that is one of the great and positive changes over the last quarter century. But the millions have risen out of a life of abject poverty only to find that all that awaits is air unfit to breathe and water unfit to drink (when one is lucky enough to get any) in cities choked and bursting with hundreds of shiny cars on streets too narrow to accommodate one tenth the number. And all the while the rural poor slide ever further back, left behind in India's rush to modernity and that feeling festers and feeds a huge (and generally non-discussed) class war (Naxalism) that threatens the very existence of India to a degree that her avowed enemy, Pakistan, could never hope to approach.
India has forever been a land of contradictions, and today's juxtaposition of wealthy yuppies side by side with starving farmers would not be cause for alarm - sadness and determination for change, perhaps but not fear and alarm, for India's citizens still retains a positive belief that they can provide a better tomorrow for their children and would rather build towards that future than tear down the upper classes. The cause for fear and alarm is the attitude of those who have and their blind attitude of extreme chauvinism and jingoism. They refuse to acknowledge the shortcomings of their country and instead wrap themselves in the tri-color and declare that any criticism of the way things are is unpatriotic. To be honest, they mostly focus on criticism of security and foreign policy more than domestic, but by creating an environment where nothing but praise for the country is acceptable, they stifle all freedom of expression and damp down very legitimate criticism of economic policy and the deep class divides.
Worse yet, the Modi government has conflated criticism of itself and government policy with criticism of the country as a whole. Somehow, it is now considered unacceptable to disagree with decisions of the Supreme Court; as though a court comprised of very human judges is incapable of error and should be treated with the same reverence usually reserved for gods. Whether one agrees or disagrees with a death penalty handed down by the court to a man accused of involvement in a terrorist attack on the Indian Parliament, every Indian should have freedom to express his opinion. But today, a vocal and aggressive faction of India's educated middle class has taken it upon itself to wage a social media campaign against anyone who disagrees with the current government. Back in the post-Bangladesh War heyday, the prime minister who led India to victory was hailed as the personification of righteous wrath, the Goddess Durga and a slogan was coined that "India is Indira and Indira is India", essentially conflating the entire nation with Mrs. Gandhi and launching the country down a path of sycophantic excess that culminated in the once great Indian National Congress party believing that policy and actions meant nothing so long as their prime ministerial candidate was named Gandhi. The resounding defeat of the Congress party and the overwhelming mandate to Mr. Modi to change the economic outlook and help Indians realize their dream of improving their lives momentarily suggested that India had moved past empty political theater and was embracing the politics of policy. Alas! that lasted only as long as the positive economic news and now India is back in a world where cheap emotion trumps substantial debate.
India has problems enough to debate from now until the twelfth of never, from out of control pollution, woefully inadequate infrastructure, income disparity and above all pervasive corruption. Instead, all discourse is focused on a handful of students who may have abetted some Kashmiri students raising slogans praising the above mentioned terrorist and some anti-India chants for good measure. One would hope that a strong nation would have nothing to fear from such behavior, little as one may agree with the slogans. Yet India's government has reacted with a bustle that would make Kim Jong Un proud, charging the bystander students with sedition (an old Colonial law that should never be invoked in a democracy). Worse yet, its supporters have reacted, violently against anyone who would support the students in some cases, and in general viciously against any and everyone who would oppose their action. The legion of social media warriors have manned the walls, flooding the forums with doctored video purporting to prove the seditious nature of the students and links to videos of speeches that support the government. The social media warriors would be acceptable, if they had eschewed false proofs and if they had shown just a little more tolerance to opposing views. But criticism of any government action is seen as an attack on India itself and the media warriors fly to thwart it with all the patriotic fervor as if they were defending Parliament from the terrorists. Greater fervor perhaps since they are generally happy to sit back in well paid civilian jobs while lauding the bravery and selflessness of the Indian armed forces.
And so, while the many real problems remain, as difficult and crushing as they were a year ago, India's elites close their eyes to the suffering of those with less, and seemingly oblivious of the very real issues that go beyond quality of life and threaten the health and life of hundreds of millions who cannot afford air-conditioned living spaces and bottled water instead tilt at the windmills of Fifth Columnists and traitors within the walls. They lambaste liberals for daring to question national policy and demand that students and institutions with socialist leanings be stripped of their privileges (there is a striking similarity in tone to the Tea Party rhetoric in the US). In nearly every way, by offering a smokescreen of outraged nationalism to obscure the very real issues at hand, they prove Dr. Samuel Johnson's famous words that "patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel".
To be honest, there were some changes that were positive and unexpected - my (once-beloved) hometown has acquired a pub culture and love for microbreweries, and I could actually get a very good Hefewiessen at an Irish pub - words that I would never have dreamed of, much less been able to say when I lived in India some sixteen odd years ago. There is a new interest in fitness and state-of-the art modern gyms have sprung up across the more affluent sections of the city, a welcome change from the eighties when there were only a couple of antiquated weight rooms in a city of millions and even the colleges lacked any general fitness culture. For the first time, there were modern buses plying some of the routes and the city has introduced exclusive rapid transit lanes along some of the busiest roads.
But as in all things in my homeland, every step forward is accompanied by not just a step and half backwards but also a couple of giant dance steps sideways for good measure. Now this progress so reminiscent of a drunken ant would be mildly amusing if India had retained it's relaxed attitudes. But today India has awoken to it's potential position in the world and has decided to adopt the language and attitude of a regional power, even if its glittering facepaint hides its feet of clay - middle class India has convinced itself that the country is a superpower and is willing to talk the talk, even as hundreds of millions of its people remain trapped in a hopeless life. It is not that millions have not risen out of poverty, for they have - in fact that is one of the great and positive changes over the last quarter century. But the millions have risen out of a life of abject poverty only to find that all that awaits is air unfit to breathe and water unfit to drink (when one is lucky enough to get any) in cities choked and bursting with hundreds of shiny cars on streets too narrow to accommodate one tenth the number. And all the while the rural poor slide ever further back, left behind in India's rush to modernity and that feeling festers and feeds a huge (and generally non-discussed) class war (Naxalism) that threatens the very existence of India to a degree that her avowed enemy, Pakistan, could never hope to approach.
India has forever been a land of contradictions, and today's juxtaposition of wealthy yuppies side by side with starving farmers would not be cause for alarm - sadness and determination for change, perhaps but not fear and alarm, for India's citizens still retains a positive belief that they can provide a better tomorrow for their children and would rather build towards that future than tear down the upper classes. The cause for fear and alarm is the attitude of those who have and their blind attitude of extreme chauvinism and jingoism. They refuse to acknowledge the shortcomings of their country and instead wrap themselves in the tri-color and declare that any criticism of the way things are is unpatriotic. To be honest, they mostly focus on criticism of security and foreign policy more than domestic, but by creating an environment where nothing but praise for the country is acceptable, they stifle all freedom of expression and damp down very legitimate criticism of economic policy and the deep class divides.
Worse yet, the Modi government has conflated criticism of itself and government policy with criticism of the country as a whole. Somehow, it is now considered unacceptable to disagree with decisions of the Supreme Court; as though a court comprised of very human judges is incapable of error and should be treated with the same reverence usually reserved for gods. Whether one agrees or disagrees with a death penalty handed down by the court to a man accused of involvement in a terrorist attack on the Indian Parliament, every Indian should have freedom to express his opinion. But today, a vocal and aggressive faction of India's educated middle class has taken it upon itself to wage a social media campaign against anyone who disagrees with the current government. Back in the post-Bangladesh War heyday, the prime minister who led India to victory was hailed as the personification of righteous wrath, the Goddess Durga and a slogan was coined that "India is Indira and Indira is India", essentially conflating the entire nation with Mrs. Gandhi and launching the country down a path of sycophantic excess that culminated in the once great Indian National Congress party believing that policy and actions meant nothing so long as their prime ministerial candidate was named Gandhi. The resounding defeat of the Congress party and the overwhelming mandate to Mr. Modi to change the economic outlook and help Indians realize their dream of improving their lives momentarily suggested that India had moved past empty political theater and was embracing the politics of policy. Alas! that lasted only as long as the positive economic news and now India is back in a world where cheap emotion trumps substantial debate.
India has problems enough to debate from now until the twelfth of never, from out of control pollution, woefully inadequate infrastructure, income disparity and above all pervasive corruption. Instead, all discourse is focused on a handful of students who may have abetted some Kashmiri students raising slogans praising the above mentioned terrorist and some anti-India chants for good measure. One would hope that a strong nation would have nothing to fear from such behavior, little as one may agree with the slogans. Yet India's government has reacted with a bustle that would make Kim Jong Un proud, charging the bystander students with sedition (an old Colonial law that should never be invoked in a democracy). Worse yet, its supporters have reacted, violently against anyone who would support the students in some cases, and in general viciously against any and everyone who would oppose their action. The legion of social media warriors have manned the walls, flooding the forums with doctored video purporting to prove the seditious nature of the students and links to videos of speeches that support the government. The social media warriors would be acceptable, if they had eschewed false proofs and if they had shown just a little more tolerance to opposing views. But criticism of any government action is seen as an attack on India itself and the media warriors fly to thwart it with all the patriotic fervor as if they were defending Parliament from the terrorists. Greater fervor perhaps since they are generally happy to sit back in well paid civilian jobs while lauding the bravery and selflessness of the Indian armed forces.
And so, while the many real problems remain, as difficult and crushing as they were a year ago, India's elites close their eyes to the suffering of those with less, and seemingly oblivious of the very real issues that go beyond quality of life and threaten the health and life of hundreds of millions who cannot afford air-conditioned living spaces and bottled water instead tilt at the windmills of Fifth Columnists and traitors within the walls. They lambaste liberals for daring to question national policy and demand that students and institutions with socialist leanings be stripped of their privileges (there is a striking similarity in tone to the Tea Party rhetoric in the US). In nearly every way, by offering a smokescreen of outraged nationalism to obscure the very real issues at hand, they prove Dr. Samuel Johnson's famous words that "patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel".
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