Insolent India and the lack of grace

A columnist recently called the protest against the heinous rape in Delhi a manifestation of “insolent India.” Though his context was different, he is right: transforming from a subservient and feudal culture, the growing neo middle class India has chosen insolence as a response to the times. They have shunned all civil niceties to indulge in rhetorical curses and violent protest. 

One measure of this is the media’s propensity to refer to all public figures by their first name. Not even in the USA, where first-name familiarity is part of the culture, do media call the President, Barack or the Secretary of State, Hillary. Heck, even in Chicago, the mayor is called Mayor Emanuel and in New York, Mayor Bloomberg. You’ll never hear a print or broadcast journalist call them Rahm or Michael, never mind Mike. Just read the stories in the newspapers; watch the news shows on television. It is Sheila this, Manmohan that, Sonia, Rahul, Kapil, Salman and horror of horrors Chidu, for the finance minister. It is Rattan and Mukesh and Anil and Adi and Sachin and Saurav and Amitabh and Jaya and Kat and Kareena and what have you. It is amazing also to witness at soirees in Delhi, Bombay and elsewhere, the breezy familiarity with which people use first names. 

Such behavior seems to have originated in one-upmanship and is now an indicator of insolence. 

Just troll social media sites like Facebook and Twitter and the insolence is compounded to infinity. Even as we speak, some misbegotten people are circulating what purport to be photos of the young woman who was raped December 16 on a Delhi bus by ruthless criminals; such men seem to fester like sores at the margins of India’s ramshackle urbanization in the major metros and the Wild West style small towns. I am deeply aware of this because I live in a place surrounded by lawless but wealthy villages infested with illiterates, who threaten you with death and destruction if you challenge their scofflaw ways.

Coming back to the photos on Facebook, the circulation of these photos is not just distasteful but illegal. It betrays a lack of sober judgment and indicates an excitable mind that is easily carried away by emotions of the moment and is a prime candidate for hopping on cultish bandwagons.

This emergent neo middle class in India appears to lack civility and grace; plus, it seems to be infected with the virus of authoritarianism. The very word “civil” has been subverted by the likes of Anna Hazare and Arvind Kejriwal, who pass themselves off as “civil society” activists while using the foulest of rhetoric and crudest of means. Not that different than the rabid M S Golwalker, who wrote India’s “Mein Kampf.” Only he called it “We, Our Nation Defined.” 

Even the bald prejudice of Golwalker’s Hindutva, which reserves hate for minorities, takes a back seat in the face of the insolence of the neo middle class. This segment is much larger than the middle class of yore and its reckless rhetoric and behavior threaten long-held societal norms of tolerance and compassion, values have enabled Indian culture survive despite the Mughal and British conquests. Its modern-day avatar, India’s globally-admired constitutional democracy, with its adherence to the “due process” tradition of law, has held firm despite the onslaught of Hindu fundamentalists; anarchists with a Luddite agenda; votaries of Soviet-style socialism; poor human development indicators like persistent poverty, lingering illiteracy and preventable disease; now, inept governance The Sanskrit word kripa is worth understanding. In transliteration, it combines the meanings of several English words: grace and especially mercy. It was used in the liberal Bhakti tradition that arose as an alternative to the Vedic mainstream. It is a word we would do well to remember as the baying hordes call for all manner of capital punishment for the men who mercilessly raped and killed the young woman in Delhi. The horrendous crime set off protests all over India. One strand of the protest was valid in that it raised public consciousness about the plight of women in India. Even in America, there are of gender bias cases reported among Indian immigrants including one in which a woman forbade her son’s wife to enter the kitchen during her menstrual cycle or a family that insisted on a sex determination test or others who indulged in rampant gender prejudices. Back in India, there are uncounted cases of female infanticide, dowry deaths and honor killings.

Another strand, which includes the bulk of the protesters, is a vicious call for revenge. Capital punishment, torture, castration are bandied about as options. Sounding strangely medieval, the neo middle class protestors have directed their unfocused anger at the government, the easiest target given all its angularities. In the view of the neo middle class protestors, the government is venal. 

What’s admirable is the protests did galvanize the government to take action. Whether this citizen action can be sustained and actually makes cities safe for women or will it peter out is a question worth pondering. Soon, the media will move on; that’s when the logic of these protests will be tested. Late and slow, the government nevertheless responded; now it’s the turn of the citizen.

(An edited version of this post will appear in http://http://blogs.timesofindia.indiatimes.com, January 2, 2013.)

Christmas: The Mystery of Faith

Growing up as a child in Juhu’s Theosophical Colony, the beach was my front yard and I wandered on the sands, marveling at the mystery of the sea. My grandfather told me the sea is a connector and that on the other side was another country where some young guy like me was being told the same thing by his grandfather. I always wondered how the equivalent of me on the other side of the ocean lived. Did he eat the same food; did he speak English, Gujarati and a smattering of Hindi? Was there another Bombay on the other seashore?

Those days I was a student at the colony’s Besant Montessori, where I had many friends, also from the same exclusive (not about wealth) community. An older boy, Freddie, if I recall…it’s been too long and the memory may not be exact…used to take me for long walks on the beach to Versova with someone older. I cannot remember if the older person was his father or older brother or uncle. I do remember it was breathtakingly beautiful, like Goa’s Morjim beach today.

They used to catch crabs, bring them home, boil them in an aluminum container and that was dinner. I couldn't for the life of me understand how people could eat these horribly ugly creatures. But Versova was gorgeous. So when we said our morning prayer at the Besant Montessori: “Thank you God for the world so sweet…,” I always said “Thank you God for Versova.”

Freddie (and I’m not even sure if that was his name; it’s been so long) was a Roman Catholic from Goa, who used to go every Sunday with his family to Juhu Church for something called “Mass.” In Gujarati, the word refers to meat and having seen him eat the crabs, I figured that’s what it was all about. Later, when I was much older, when we went to live in Christ Church Lane in Byculla Bridge, most of my friends were Goan Catholic. I got to know the Catholic belief in Jesus, how he was born of a virgin and how he died for our sins. They too used to go Sunday to church to affirm the belief.

Much later, when I befriended a woman, a Goan Catholic, who became my wife, I went to Christmas Mass with her and have done so ever since. Knowing the Jesus story, I felt kind of cool with the whole ceremony. Each time, the priest said, “Let us proclaim the mystery of faith.””Faith?” Transcending reason? That was not in my vocabulary. Over the years, this “mystery of faith” concept lingered in my consciousness. I knew in the back of my mind that in the run-of-the-mill sense, faith has to do with superstition and human relationships.

What struck me at Christmas Mass today, where I held my granddaughter in the chapel at Delhi’s Vatican Embassy, the Apostolic Nunciature of the Holy See, was that she was the “mystery of faith.” It was her first Christmas and she looked upward and saw my wife, who was in the balcony, singing with her choir. She waved, yelled “oy” loudly, much to the embarrassment of her parents and her aunt and cousin; but when she blew her a kiss, almost everyone melted. It was like “Joy to the World.”

So what is this mystery of faith? We had no time to ponder these philosophical issues when our daughters came along. We just soldiered on, bringing them up the best way we could. Decades later, I am beginning to understand. The faith thing is about the continuation of the species in general and the family in particular. We don’t know, other than in the biological sense, how children attain consciousness. There is some sort of an app in the human genetic code that when the biology is done, the child develops a personality and asserts her individuality. 

This is the mystery of faith.

True, Maria Montessori studied this early childhood development by observing children from birth. True, there are biological explanations of how children learn and all that. But holding my granddaughter in church today and have the Nuncio (Ambassador) proclaim the “mystery of faith” while the choir sang “O Come All Ye Faithful,” I experienced an epiphany: faith is about unconditional love. My mind went back to my wedding day; the birth of my daughters. Yep: it is about love and it is boundless.

As the page of my life turns golden, I do think every now and then about mortality. When I held my granddaughter at the Mass tonight, I realized faith is also about eternity. It’s easy to love our own daughters and we did and do. Bringing them up was an existential challenge. To hold my post millennial granddaughter in my arms while listening to the proclamation of faith and its mystery was a spiritual experience

She just plain showed up in our life and gave me a glimpse of immortality.

Hallelujah!

PS: When the Mass was done, there was really no “Silent Night,” the granddaughter was all over the place, long past her bedtime, hanging with other kids like a party animal, using her limited vocabulary and her limitless cuteness to stir things up. Finally, when her mother picked her up to take her home, she protested. The cry of a future yet to unravel! A glimpse of immortality. The mystery of faith!

The Last Word: Have Oppn MPs misunderstood the nature of lobbying?

Have Opposition MPs misunderstood the nature of lobbying as well as its legal status?

Debate: BJP's Walmart attack

The issue of Wal-Mart lobbying on Monday (December 10) led to a political storm with Opposition creating pandemonium in the Rajya Sabha and promising to create further trouble tomorrow by pressing its demand for a probe and a statement by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. In a debate moderated by TIMES NOW's Editor-in-Chief Arnab Goswami, panelists -- Renuka Chaudhary, Natl. Spokesperson & MP, Rajya Sabha Congress; Swaminathan Aiyar, Consulting Editor, Economic Times; Venkaiah Naidu, Senior leader & MP, Rajya Sabha, BJP; Derek O Brien, Chief Whip & MP, TMC; Rajiv Desai, Chairman & CEO, Comma Consulting debate the issue.

Advocacy of interest or corporate bribery?

"...to secure the public interest, it is vital that the government shine a light on the power brokerages and influences peddlers in Delhi and other states."

Though the BJP's noisemakers may not appreciate it, through their hysterical outbursts against Wal-Mart, they may have unwittingly sponsored a major reform in pursuit of good governance. In its misbegotten campaign against the American firm, the BJP threatened to disrupt Parliament again, as it has done repeatedly for the past nine years. This prompted Parliamentary Affairs minister Kamal Nath to agree to a public inquiry into the company’s lobbying activities in India. Though a spectacularly ignorant BJP spokesman suggested that the minister’s assent to an inquiry proved their point, the truth is that the UPA’s quick response saved the day and it appears that much overdue legislation will now be enacted.

The BJP’s empty-vessel strategy to corner the government on lobbying by Wal-Mart boomeranged in Parliament because of Mr Nath’s finesse. Reports say the government will appoint a retired judge to conduct the inquiry. Most likely, the exercise will stretch out and will hold no more sensation value; the BJP will find some other dubious platform from which to rant against the UPA government. As such, the inquiry will join the long list of commissions that have provided not much more than sinecures for superannuated law officers.

On the other hand, the government could actually use the inquiry to clean up the murk that surrounds lobbying in India. To secure the public interest, it is vital that the government shine a light on power brokerages and influence peddlers in Delhi and in the various states.

A thoughtful judge at the helm of the inquiry might recommend the establishment of a Parliamentary registry that provides credentials to lobbyists, individual as well as firms. In accepting such credentials, lobbyists would be required to disclose their clients and fees received. The registry could go a step further and demand from various government ministries, departments and agencies periodic reports on any contacts they may have had with lobbyists.

Recommendations of this nature could bring much needed transparency to the conduct of public affairs; you won’t have a BJP president Bangaru Laxman accepting bribes or a DMK minister A Raja playing fast and loose with the allocation of telecom spectrum. A whole horde of middlemen, the kind you see at power lunches in The Taj or cocktail parties at The Oberoi, will stand exposed. The business of lobbying could become professional and cleansed of the stain of corruption.

Lobbying is a time-honored practice that dates at least as far back as the signing of the Magna Carta in 13th-century England, from whence sprang the right of association and the right to petition authority, the cornerstones of the lobbying profession.

Closer to home and to the age, lobbying has had many beneficial outcomes. These include campaigns for universal primary education, against sex trafficking, to lower taxes on toiletries and cosmetics, to amend laws governing the business of financial services, courier firms and cable operators, among others. They have been successful and have benefited the public interest as much as the interests of those who sponsored them.

This article appeared in Hindustan Times on December 16, 2012.

Advocacy of interest or corporate bribery?