john mage
...This shift in upper class Indian ethos has an inevitability of its own. It is difficult to stay away from the lure of the integrated market. The elite-based development model has strategic patrons. Its more negative features, such as the progressive intensification of assets and income inequalities, can, it is argued, be taken care of by special anti-poverty measures of the kind suggested by the World Bank. In any case, they are not bothered too much; they have a tryst with destiny.
Clouds of doubt nonetheless gather. Half a century ago, the Leila Sundarayyas and the Shanti Sadiq Alis wanted to spread the message of their commitment to national integration all over the country. They were only partly successful: whatever they achieved, some would even say, was only ephemeral, huge landslides of prejudice have meanwhile buried their hopes and aspirations. For the metropolitan-based integrated Indians, the country has ceased to be a relevant category. It is therefore a clash of mind, almost a clash of civilisations. The new generation ensconced in urban caves have dropped national integration from the agenda. Why, they are already integrated, they talk alike, they think alike, they dress alike. The rest of the agenda should concentrate on integration across oceans and time zones; for example, mulling over the prospect of a youngster enjoying dual citizenship of India and the US, and marrying a Guatemalan of mixed Greek-Slav extraction.
Wishful or not, speculation takes further flight. Just another half-a-dozen decades or thereabouts, the chosen people in the six continents will write the same script, speak the same language, dream identical dreams. The problem, however, lies elsewhere. Consider the Indian dilemma. The Indian oligarchs have taken care of themselves. They are already integrated nationally. The next milestone is transit to international integration. But this does not impress those left behind in morose mufassil towns and distant villages – in the north, the south, the east and the west. These savages have their more proximate problems, whether imaginary or real, problems concerning allegedly discriminatory behaviour towards them by the centre or the neighbouring state, or economic and social exploitation of this group by that one or of this religious sect by another one. While our elite integrate with the rest of the world, our subaltern constituents – the nation’s overwhelming majority – tear one another apart. Assam refuses to allow candidates from Bihar to sit for a regional competitive examination from a Guwahati centre, Bihar responds by plundering a train laden with passengers from Assam. Carnage follows. Even more frightening,the Khasis threaten Karbis and vice versa, the Nagas look askance at the Kukis and vice versa; Kasergod and Cannanore explode in fury over this or that supposedly grave non-issue; Gujarat has its perennial communal riots even as some dalits are burned regularly by the landowning thakurs in Unnao or Samastipur. All these provide a brilliant opportunity for police and military lobbies to swing budgetary allocations further in their favour. It also creates an opening for dirty little linguistic caste and ethnic wars. A situation might soon arrive where at one end our decision-makers will be absorbed in playing optimum-making games over global integration, at the other end the national market starts disintegrating. At the level of grass roots, only the Nepalese and the Bangladeshis were till now suspect and not allowed entry into the informal markets in West Bengal. Come yesterday or the day after, it could be the turn of the Biharis or the Assamese, and the compliment would be duly re- turned. The philosophy of Bal Thackeray will triumph all the way, the jobs will be reserved one hundred per cent for the ‘bhumiputras’, in every nook and corner of the country. The domestic market will be increasingly subdivided and fragmented, even as our elite will be busy passing one benchmark after another in their quest for full-scale international integration.
Nobody is bothered, or bothered too much. Fun and games are wonderful divertissements, such as occasional elections in this or that state or seasonal videotapes of ministers taking bribes while invoking the holy name of Mahatma Gandhi.