When the new criminal laws were recently passed by the Indian Parliament, a frequent refrain was that these laws were framed to do away with the colonial criminal jurisprudence of the nineteenth century. But, in fact, the new laws reinforce the colonial view of a huge population as fundamentally untrustworthy, hence the need for a wide range of offences that are punishable with stiff terms of imprisonment or death. This set me thinking: have Indians really, as a people, shed the colonial complex that was inherited from the British?
Actually, it would be more appropriate to categorise the mindset that dominates Indian thought as neocolonial. This is because, after World War II, the axis of power and influence shifted across the Atlantic from the UK to the USA. The UK has attempted some military forays since 1945, in the Suez (1956, with disastrous results) and in the Falkland Islands (1982, with a somewhat better result). Otherwise, the UK has been very much an understudy to the USA, in Iraq, Afghanistan and Syria. It is the USA that has colonised the global (including Indian) weltanschauung over the last 70 years, apart from meddling in the politics of innumerable countries across Latin America, Africa and Asia, at great cost to and human suffering in these countries.
As one born in the 1950s, my generation was exposed to propaganda from the USA & the UK (and countries allied to them), in the impressionable early years of our lives. Our young minds were filled with a surfeit of Enid Blyton (Famous Five, Mallory Towers) and Frank Richards (Billy Bunter). Apart from exposing us to life in good old Blighty, there was also a subtle racial stereotyping of the “natives” from India and other Asian-African countries. Fiction by the likes of Leon Uris painted Israel as a country with a divine right to get its Promised Land. The USA had, by the 1960s, stepped into the quagmire of Vietnam. Magazines like Reader’s Digest, Time and Newsweek printed rubbish week after week, detailing the atrocities of the Vietcong and artfully evading the horrors of the My Lai massacre and the carpet bombing of civilian populations in Cambodia and Laos. Other magazines like Playboy, Life and Vogue catered to the prurient tastes of the younger generation, awakening in them desires to partake of the bounty that Uncle Sam could offer.
Unsurprisingly, many of us, especially those educated in elite missionary/public schools, were ashamed to claim what was truly our heritage. As a participant in the Bournvita Quiz Contest, I informed our Quiz Master, Hamid Sayani, of my interest in Hindi film music, to find my response drawing derisive titters from our opponents, the girls from a prominent Delhi convent school. At university festivals, western music competitions drew crowds that the Hindi music competitions never did. Come 2023, I am most happy and gratified that my friend and college mate, Ajay Mankotia, has come out with Bollywood Odyssey, an ode to the Hindi film music industry. Hindi popular music has, in recent times, acquired a massive fan following, as mobile phone technology has penetrated large sections of the population. Bollywood has spread its wings internationally, thanks to the Indian diaspora.
To some extent, the shedding of the Indian inferiority complex vis-à-vis the West began with the liberalisation of the Indian economy in 1991. Freed somewhat from the shackles of a pseudo-socialist economy, the Indian economy accelerated away from its hitherto sluggish growth rate. Positive state policies in a number of sectors, ranging from infrastructure to energy, finance and telecommunications, have propelled the country to a different growth trajectory. At the same time, the need to step up job creation, improve social development indicators, make governance efficient and facilitate the explosion of entrepreneurial talent by removing bureaucratic hurdles faced by the citizen are still works in progress.
It is here that the Indian government (and domestic public opinion) still remain overly sensitive to studies and surveys emanating largely from the western world. Like Rome, India cannot be built in a day. It will take time for indicators, especially in the social sectors, to register dramatic improvements. Nor is it necessarily the case that figures for other countries (especially those under authoritarian leadership) are accurate. So, there is no need for government spokespersons and proudly nationalist commentators to launch into a denunciation of such reports. What is important, however, in the interest of meaningful policy making is that data gathered for different sectors be accurate and open to the public (and experts) for critical examination. If there are serious reservations about the applicability of international standards to Indian conditions, appropriate indicators can be developed for application in the Indian context. Take the example of the child nutrition measurement indicators used in India till 2008. Since the child nutrition indicators used in the USA would probably have overstated the percentage of underweight and stunted under-6 children in India, an underweight measure devised by the Indian Academy of Pediatrics (IAP) was used in the ICDS to assess the numbers of children who were very severely/severely/moderately underweight and normal as compared to the weight of the reference child population. Post-2008, India has moved to the universally used WHO growth standards. There is now a debate on whether India should adopt its own child growth standard indicators. Even if this is developed and officially adopted, there still needs to be a sound theoretical basis for the standards and ongoing progress in reducing child undernutrition should be measured by the same yardstick over time, without shifting goalposts to show achievement. Nor should data be withheld from public view. Unfortunately, there is a growing tendency in respect of various economic and social indicators to either modify baselines to show better results or to just stop publication of crucial data. Third party evaluations that differ from officially published figures are debunked. Not only do these reveal a deep sense of insecurity in official circles, they also impact effective policy making based on reasonably accurate data. There will always be some gap between the desired and actual outcomes: the shortcomings in implementation and the ground-level realities need to be analysed to effect mid-course policy corrections.
The neocolonial complex also has its reflection in the “neoliberal” economic policies followed in most nations (India included). These are based on a preoccupation with gross domestic product, with a corresponding sidelining of concerns relating to the environment and unequal income and wealth distribution. Manmade natural disasters and frustration and a growing sense of grievance in marginalised, deprived populations are the consequences that society has to face. Unless economic policies are fashioned to keep harmony among the four elements — the market, state, households and nature — that constitute the modern economy, imbalances are sure to develop over time. Glitzy malls, superhighways, high-speed transport and luxury products are no indicators of a healthy society, especially when the state has to repeatedly step in to alleviate large-scale misery.
Governments in India need to focus on economic and social policies that lay stress on job and income creation for the mass of people. Reducing income and wealth disparities without destroying the entrepreneurial spirit or the environment should be the guiding principle in this context. Unless a new direction is forged with a people-centric focus, we can only rehash the prescient words of George Santayana “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”
V. Ramani's web 