vijay's posterous

making the journey home

A few things India should learn from the US Part II - Good stuff

When you first meet Americans, most folks make some observations - some of those may be true, some perceived. After staying in the country for 16 years, here are some of mine. These are the lessons India could learn from the US.
  • An American is an American, first and always. Perhaps after a while you notice that accents, customs and traditions differ region to region. But Americans, the vast majority are just Americans and are most proud of that fact. No body identifies themselves as a Kentuckian, a Missourian, a Seattle-er, or a New Yorker (ok that last one was a bad example), but they know what the differences are. There is something incredibly humbling and unifying in that notion. The individual good need not be sacrificed for the larger one. Why can't India think like this?
  • It is possible to be proud of your nationality, without being overly so. Americans personify this in most day-day interactions. India needs a way to be proud once again of its nationality, and citizens do as well. (I will be doing so, when I claim OCI or dual-citizenship status). India must be a union or a republic foremost, not a loose confederation bound by cricket, IT and movies.
  • America's language is English. You are required to speak it, read/write it when appearing for naturalization. Other languages are honored, interpreters are provided, but you have an obligation to speak the national language and there is nothing wrong with that. Hindi should be the Indian national language, and folks should get over it. There is no reason to not speak your mother tongue, to not speak in local dialects, to not practice your traditions, but never abuse another language or culture, for fear of losing your own. In India, speaking in Tamil or English in Maharashtra at one time, or English, Hindi in Tamil Nadu could have gotten you mortally injured. When did we begin exporting such hate towards fellow Indians?
  • When you get naturalized in the US, you are asked to recite an oath. Part of this oath goes something like this "I will bear arms on behalf of the United States when required by the law; that I will perform noncombatant service in the Armed Forces of the United States when required by the law; that I will perform work of national importance under civilian direction when required by the law; and that I take this obligation freely without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion". Citizenship of any country must be a privilege. You owe your country at least as much as it does you. All those countries in the far East and Europe that Indians shoot their movies and vacation in? They all have mandatory armed services requirements. Think about it. India's having a breakdown about citizens singing a national song or not, and other countries and their citizens have a pact to defend each other if required. Wow. When will we in India get to that point?
On a point of light-hearted hyperbole, at least anthropologists finally found something stronger than Chuck Norris' famed double jaw clench -> an Indian politician's loosely veiled threat (Chuck wasn't successful in calls for Texas to secede using the clench on Fox News, but the Indian politician was) and something weaker than the current US public healthcare option -> and thats the ability of the central Indian government to hold the country together. Missions accomplished. Guinness Book - change your records please.

 

Much for India to think about. But only after all the time, money and effort is spent in creating yet another state.

 

I'm off forming a coalition for a new yet-to-be named Indian Technology state. Someone will need to go on a hunger fast or Detox diet. Thinking a stretch of land between Mumbai, Goa and Pondicherry, only for technologists, geeks and people who care about each other, human rights, the environment and technology. Everything else that's important, we can practice in the confines of our homes, as it should be. I'm now learning the jaw clench.

 

A few things India should learn from the US Part I - The problem with new states

Recent developments in India prompt this naturalized-American-becoming-a dual citizen-Indian Desi to write about a few things India could learn from the US. These are in addition to, or ideally in lieu of, everything else it seems to be absorbing from the west like a sponge (needless consumerism, capitalism misconstrued as consumerism, defense spending, family values, increased use of recreational "substances" etcetera).

Since 2000, several new states have been 'created' out of existing states in India. These are Chattisgarh, Uttaranchal, Jharkhand, Delhi, Pudu/Pondicherry, the last two with the right to elect legislatures of their own. They all came about through some combination of peaceful, violent, arm-twisting, negotiated means. But they DID all came about. 

Further, on 9 Dec 2009, the national Congress government led by Sonia Gandhi and Manmohan Singh agreed to form a seperate state in Andhra Pradesh, called Telangana and this legislature sits with the state government. This is historical for several reasons:

 

  1. While not debating the merits of the argument or the plight of the Telangana people who have reason to think the system has disenfranchised them, India happens to be filled with such peoples and regions. We get upset when denied priority boarding ahead of a pregnant woman with 2 children. We're special. We're disillusioned by definition. The creation of Pakistan itself began with that very premise. Think about the precedent this sets. Other politicians in India sure are.
  2. The region itself even with two major rivers, Krishna and Godavari, flowing through the region is incredibly arid and infertile. With rural farming and urban services (IT, manufacturing etc.) forming the two primary occupations of the South, there isn't much else by way of revenue for the region to claim; the bulk of the argument will center therefore on Hyderabad.
  3. The importance of this cannot be overstated. After Bangalore, Hyderabad and Chennai control the lions' share of the IT services in India (read the world) and therefore the revenue as well. This amount was $63 Billion last year. Naturally, Telangana would want Hyderabad.
  4. At this time similar tensions exist or existed in Gorkhaland (Bengal), Singur, Koda, Bengal, Tamil Nadu (of course problems always exist in Tamil Nadu). And just today, the Times of India carried a front page article on politicians in UP wanting to split that up into THREE STATES (Harit Pradesh, Bundelkhand, UP) !! We haven't even gotten to the elephants in the room - Maoists, Naxals and Kashmir.
  5. Never before in the history of the country, have parts of the country been so developed, and others been so under-developed. The chasm is growing.
  6. Never before in its history, has the country been less united than it is now. Even during the feudal and aristocrat days, there was the notion that this was in India, in Bharat, in Hindustan. I'm not so sure that notion exists anywhere anymore.
  7. What assurances, negotiations, 2-way agreements have been formed between the "representation" of these movements and the Congress, which has been the dominant political party for the last five decades? Are we naive to assume that this is just about the people's movements?
  8. What each state gets is a seat, a representation at the cabinet level and ALL the benefits therein. With the Times running an article a few months ago about how ministers in Maharashtra have had declared net worth increase several crores during their parliamentary posting, its not difficult to see what a politicians motivations might be. And that's just the declared worth. Anyone else have a problem with that?
  9. What each new state gets is a new state obviously, and the need for new governing bodies, civic processes, bureaucracies, municipalities, elections, state-level funding etc. All that costs a lot of money. Wouldn't that money be better spent, removing those people out of poverty in the first place?
  10. Amartya Sen conducted land breaking research on famines and the nature of their being a direct outcome of a lack of democracy. Is the real need here for a representation of these peoples at the political levels? Was a new state really necessary?
  11. Elections, new school systems, lack of majority votes etc. all cost money. Where will this money come from? From all the IT revenue that Hyderabad has worked so hard to win? Is that fair?
  12. Mahatma Gandhi's legacy is equal parts national leader/civil-disobedience & non-violence pioneer, but also being at the political helm during partitioning of the country into India and Pakistan. How ironic that his party's, the Congress', legacy is also equal parts reform, a form of secularism, economic growth and also the partitioning of the country into further, feuding, economically bankrupt states. Is it just a zero-sum game?
  13. The straw that broke the back seemed to be a fast-unto-death attempt by an already unwell politician. Most places have judicial controls in place for threatened suicide. In India you get a state?
  14. Of course if the MNS had their way, they'd declare Maharashtra another country. But lets' stick to rational arguments.