Reality check - India

Time just seems to fly when you're reaching the end of a journey. Maybe it's just that you want time to stay, but in jest it makes a funny face at you and hops along saying "no, I will not.." Now that I found some time to take a breather, I thought I'd better upload more stuff on India, so that everybody can see what I have seen.

Till now I have shown you the beautiful side of things. Now, it's time for a reality check. We're going to touch on thorny issues persistent in India's society.

The content below come from a part of my report to MOE on this attachment, so the language could be a little "political" in nature. Nonetheless, try to see things with your heart. More importantly, relate them to Singapore, and see if you can discover our blind spots as an individual and as a nation.

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Multi-religion and Multiculturalism

Contrary to the widely perceived notion that equates “India” with “Hinduism” (possibly because majority of Indians in Singapore are Hindus), India is in fact multi-religious and multi-cultural. India is not cosmopolitan like Shanghai, but has a diversity of culture and religion deeply rooted in history. In fact, the architectural heritage left behind by the Mughals from the 14^th to 16^th century is distinctively Muslim. The Taj Mahal, India’s symbol of eternal love, has verses from the Quran inscribed on its white marble walls.

However, while I have seen how people with different religions identified themselves with the common Indian nationality, transcending differences to work and live in harmony, and I have encountered three people - an Indian Muslim, a Nepalese Hindu and an Indian Hindu – who have been best friends for more than a decade, the real problem with India today, according to friend, is that religion has been so regularly exploited by politics (not exactly sure to what extent the word “politics” covers, it just kept appearing in our conversations) that Hinduism has reached a stage of fundamentalism and protectionism. This, coupled with the global threat of Islamic extremism, as well as the historical enmity between India and Pakistan, has resulted in constant tension between Hindus and Muslims. Though I have not witnessed this myself, I was told that personal arguments between individuals from different religious communities are often exploited and turned into inter-religious conflicts.

Therefore, on one hand, there are Indians who are not overly-influenced by protectionist Hinduism, who see their religion as the “mother of religions” and are thus being able to overcome barriers and seek spiritual solace in other places of worship; on the other hand, many Indians are starting to build up walls between themselves and people of other religions, such as the Muslims. More interestingly, while enlightened intellectuals express indignation at the current state of religion, they have also expressed worry at their children marrying someone from another religion. I understood that this paradox has a lot to do with the way “outsiders” are perceived by people from another religion and the issue of social acceptance by the local community. For example, a non-Hindu convert is generally taken to be lower than the lowest caste in the Hindu religion.

This reminded me of my reflections after watching the film “Gandhi”. The power of non-violence was fascinating, as always, but what drew my attention more was that among three things stated by Gandhi in the film, India till today has only achieved the third – that is, to defy the British and gain independence (Well, to speak the truth, Indians have not walked out of this colonial mindset yet). The second point was to eliminate the “untouchables”, with which I associate to the elimination of the caste system. The first point was harmony between Hindus and Muslims, a point which the director had obviously wanted to highlight by Gandhi’s assassination. The film set me thinking about how often we have forgotten the ideals of those who’ve brought us our freedom (or worse, not bothering to learn about them), and what it takes to bridge the difference between religions. Certainly, it is worth pondering how assimilation can take place, and if oblivion was the key to harmony. The question of “racial / cultural determinism” once again hovered in my head. Less significantly, the issue of heroism and its relevance to the world today also surfaced in the process.

Towards the end of the trip, what took me by surprise was the revelation that two of my colleagues have been lovers for 7 years. It’s just amazing how well-kept this secret is all this while since I arrived. The thing was that the female was Hindu and the male, Muslim. At dinner I could tell from the way they looked at each other that there was true love, and knowing India’s culture the issue of religion will be a big stumbling block for this couple to tie the knots. It pained me to see couples being pulled apart because of reasons beyond their control.

The issue of religion is something I would want to explore further, because it was apparent that many of the young teachers were having the same thoughts as me, believing in a “God” while their religions and deities become mere kitsch. Perhaps this could be a start towards inter-religious and inter-cultural integration.

Gender Issues

I first came across the issue of India’s gender inequality in “The Argumentative Indian” by Amartya Sen, winner of the 1998 Nobel Prize for economics. At that time, possibly influenced by my knowledge of age-old Confucian Chinese societies, I did not think it was surprising to find dominance of one gender over the other, particularly the male over the female, in a developing country steeped in tradition as India. A month’s stint in India made me realize the severity of the problem, especially the possibility of it manifesting into an impediment of family planning and in turn leading to the vicious cycle of poverty.

The most evident phenomenon of gender discrimination is probably the large number of female infants abandoned by parents with little or no education. News of these infants have become so common in the local newspapers that I suspect not many people really think twice about them after browsing through the reports. I also heard that in some parts of India, especially the villages, there is a practice of drowning new-born female infants in milk. Official reports also show that girls are disappearing at an alarming rate, and nobody has been able to provide a satisfactory explanation for that. In addition, I was told that gender discrimination is a social trend also applicable to educated upper and middle classes. This group of Indians typically chooses the route of abortion after illegally getting doctors to determine the sex of the foetus. Such a social mentality has resulted in the ratio of women to men in some cities to fall drastically, and in turn some communities resort to “buying” women from nearby villages or cities to produce offspring for them. A Hindi film entitled “A nation without women”, an excellent film in my opinion, was made on the basis of these issues, but I was told that it only lasted a week in the cinemas as Indians were not willing or unable to face up to the reality of their society.

These happenings show that there is a lot of room for consideration in terms of gender issues. One question I discussed with some Indian friends was whether a “one-child policy” akin to China would work in this country whose population is projected to exceed China’s in a few decades. Our consensus was that it could be difficult, considering the difference in political landscape and ideologies between the two nations. Moreover, it could cause the practices mentioned above to intensify, with unthinkable repercussions.

What intrigued me more, however, is the reason(s) behind the above practices. Indian friends constantly highlighted the general opinion most Indians have: boys carry on the family line, and only sons can guarantee their parents protection and care at old age. Moreover, females require dowry if they were to get married. Yet, if the Chinese have a similar mindset but do not have such massive killing of females, there has to be something deeper worth pondering.

I soon found out that there is the issue of the inability of Indian females to adopt proper birth control and family planning measures. This arises from the upbringing of the traditional Indian girl, who is taught from young that once she gets married, her husband becomes her “God”. The result is that even though contraceptives are distributed for free, many women refuse to use them as taking contraceptives or refusing to have sex is seen as an act of unloyalty towards their spouses. Moreover, women are subjected to the authority of their mother-in-laws after marriage, and approval has to be sought from the latter, seen as the head of domestic affairs, for almost everything. Deeply ingrained mindsets result in the passivity of traditional women (lower to middle classes), thus unwanted pregnancies, big families and poverty ensue. Abandoning, killing or aborting females may be extreme measures taken out of desperation, but what’s important is to appreciate that such trends are but a small piece of the puzzle.

Therefore, the root solution lies in the abolishment of the servility of women in a society that remains largely steeped in gender differentiation. Intellectuals with Western knowledge and experience, as well as law-makers, know this very well. Hence, intellectuals are doing their part to empower women. Laws have also been put in place to protect women, one of which Mdm. Anou likes to quote is the law against abuse towards married women. This law states that if any woman were to report to the police that she has been abused physically, verbally or mentally by her husband, mother-in-law or anyone in the household, the latter will be immediately detained, and bailing is not allowed. However, as pointed out by Mdm. Anou, this law has ended up being misused by some who were not actually abused, while most women who are true victims of family abuse, especially the less educated or those from lower social classes, tend to continue suffering in silence as they do not want to cause disruption to the family fabric or “bring dishonour” to the family name. In addition, society also takes an ostracizing attitude towards divorced women, and they face difficulties in renting houses or finding jobs.

Gender issues are truly reflective of the power that social norms and collective psychology have on the individual. Improved laws cannot solve gender problems fully because many people don’t make use of them. Schools are not able to deal with these issues openly because there will be pressure from parents who are still relatively conservative in thinking. As it is, through separate dialogues with the older girls and boys at Project Why, I have found out that many of them have inherited their parents’ opinions on gender. That is, for the boys, they think men are above women after marriage; for the girls, they perceive their roles after marriage to be an obedient wife and a deserving mother. The only comfort, probably, is that neither the boys nor the girls want big families. Most prefer to stop at two children. Nonetheless, as my Indian friend pointed out, nobody can say for sure if they will keep to what they say now when they grow up. It would thus be interesting to see how India deals with the gender problem, especially how voices and actions from the ground change the current state of things. At the same time, the impact of globalization and the influx of Western values, such as human rights and equality of gender, on traditional Indian thinking, practices and customs also remain to be seen.

Between Rich and Poor

Urban slums in Delhi are located in industrial areas, in the midst of rubbish dumps or even near city areas. Take a tour and you’ll immediately understand what is meant by “the two Indias”. On one hand you have huge shopping centres for the affluent; on the other hand people are roaming the streets for food. Or, while some people get all the water they need by just the turn of a tap, slum occupants arm themselves with water containers and rubber tubes twice every single day, climbing on top of the water van as if it’s wartime to obtain their storage of water.

Perhaps, as foreign observers, our hearts go out to these fellow humans, and it’s never difficult for us to pull out 10 rupees from our wallets for the kid or old lady wandering through the traffic jam, begging for money from car to car. At the same time, we start questioning how the rich can spend all their money on manicure and golf, and lament their cruelty and cold-bloodedness. I have been thinking about the issue of economic divide, and somehow I have come to understand that what we need to reflect on is not the fragility of humanity but the incapacity to overcome our own blind spots. Yes, you may say that with so many slums - congregations of people in abject poverty that set up their shelters in unoccupied urban areas such as outside the walls of an institute, in the midst of a rubbish dump, among the foliage by the road, under a fly-over, almost everywhere in the city, how can anyone miss them? Well, this is no different from the posters we hang on the walls at home. As soon as we’ve got used to them, unless we make a purposeful effort to acknowledge their existence, they become transparent to the eyes. While concrete efforts to change things always proceed in small steps, the key issue in the long run is awareness, and a constant effort to champion causes that we believe in.

Humans forget too easily. The greatest danger is turning a blind eye to our fellow men and not feeling guilty in the conscience. Yet, this seems to be the state in China and India today. Thus, there has to be a group of people who remind their fellow people of India’s realities. This brings me to the role of the Indian intelligentsia in their society.

The Indian Intelligentsia

While India is a developing nation that has deep-seeded issues which can take generations to solve, its historical developments and political ideals have nurtured a group of intellectuals who understand that many problems cannot be simply wished away. They too understand that while the government has a fundamental role to play, it is not possible and not enough to rely purely on policy changes – not possible, because bureaucracy and corruption are still inherent problems of the political process; not enough, because many problems require immediate actions and due to their close association with social mentalities, require early education so as to bring about mindset changes in the younger generations. Compared to China, this is a nation where young generations never forgot how hard their ancestors fought for independence and where some intellectuals are still see themselves as “nobels in spirit” leading their fellow men to liberation from poverty and suffering. In trying to bring two worlds within a country together, people have come together from different worlds and produced positive synergy in work and life. Action on the ground is self-initiated, presumably because the government cannot be counted on.

Of course, challenges ahead are aplenty. One of them is that undeniably, there are many more intellectuals out there who are disconnected from reality. There is also a need to increase this pool of talent and intellectuals through macro-changes to the education landscape. Moreover, it seems to me that the affluent/ intelligent/ higher castes/ those with better luck all seem set to take flight. The moment India catches up with China in its economic reforms, coupled with sustainability (and probably greater will) in its political arena, higher-educated intellectuals who speak better English than PRCs and who are more in-tune with the outside world may not be willing to stay. Loss of talent may decrease the base pool of enlightened individuals who dedicate themselves to greater causes than their own successes. At the same time, though India can draw some lessons from China’s present development, it lacks the latter’s long history of “one-idol worship” from politics to religion. Thus, while ill Chinese cultural practices have been eradicated by the communists from the late 1940s through the Cultural Revolution, and social classes from the revolutionary communism era were easily forgotten after 1979 and replaced with “financial classes” that have be managed with strong political will, big question marks remain on how India will deal with its deep-seeded culture, rich-poor gaps that are likely to widen, and the possible evolution of its political process.

Nevertheless, only time will tell of mindset changes to the people of India, especially when the world becomes increasingly barrier-less. For now, like some intellectuals whom I met told me, the important thing is to constantly challenge thorny issues and make sure people do not turn a blind eye to things. This means that every little incident that seems questionable has to be raised through the press, public debates and by fully utilizing the Right to Information (RTI) department directed by the central government.