Ubiquitous Reciprocal Affinity

Until a few years ago it had never occurred that there are other countries that struggle with racism. From news footage I of course knew of “ethnic cleansing” and from history I knew antisemitism and xenophobia as abstract concepts. but until a friend of mine lived for a year in a foreign country, and returned with stories of how the citizens thought about and treated people from the countries next-door (and who’s cultural differences I couldn’t name with a gun pointed to my head) I had never thought really hard about how and why racism exists as an Idea that can get lodged in the consciousness of a country.

In the run up to the “Commonwealth Games” scheduled for the second half of next month here in Delhi, there have been a number of editorials in the dailys on how playing host to a large multi-sport competition will make India look to the rest of the world: a lot of put your best face forward, and tackle corruption while the spotlight is on, sort of stuff. One magazine decided that it would handle things from a different angle. M, local competition to GQ-India and FHM, decided to present a series of essays and photos that discussed the zeitgeist of a striving for modernity yet exasperating republic.

Below the author tackles both his current predicament of feeling like a foreigner in what should be his homeland; but also touches on a not-so-uniquely-Indian problem of how to cobble together a national Identity.

Including the Excluded

By Pradip Phanjoubahm

Are you an Indian? Where was the last time I heard this thrown at me? Difficult to remember, for there have been too many occasions. Not too infrequently and painfully, this is also the experience of most others from the Northeast when they travel abroad, or to the so-called ‘mainland’ India. Mainland? Well, North—east India is almost an island, connected to the rest of the country by just a twenty—and-something kilometer ‘Siliguri Corridor’, or the ‘chicken’s neck’ as this narrow strip of land is more popularly known. Indeed, for most in the North—east, the existential question ‘Who am l?’ has to be renegotiated the day he or she crosses this corridor.

I am reminded of a classic story. Some years ago, one of our reporters was invited to Bangkok for a three—day workshop on climate reporting. He reached the hotel a day in advance, and with religious punctuality, arrived at the conference hall for the opening session, The meeting, however, did not begin for long after he completed the registration formalities. The organizers, it seemed, were waiting for another participant. When he inquired, one of them apologetic calmly told him that they were waiting for an Indian participant to reach the venue.

Ten minutes later, when the Indian man (or woman) still did not turn up, our reporter began to have a nagging suspicion that they could be waiting for somebody who may already be at the venue. He was not wrong. When he asked the organizers how many Indians were participating at the conference in the first place, it turned out there was only one. A look of surprise, a recheck of the attendance register and a hearty laugh later, the meet began. This happened in Bangkok, and therefore evoked nothing more than a hearty laugh. Had a similar thing happened in New Delhi, which is not an impossibility, the hurt and alienation caused would understandably have been much deeper.

The much talked about ghettoization of communities from the Northeast in New Delhi and other Indian metropolises is indeed not just a matter of the northeasterner preferring the security of a Northeast ghetto, but equally one of his or her being pushed into it. For many middle-class young men and women in Manipur, especially among the Hindu Meites who have grown up amidst a devout Vaishnav culture, the question ‘Who am I?’ normally begins troubling them at the college-going age - the time when their parents send them away in pursuit of higher studies to the better political and academic climes of other Indian states. Till then, most would have had no problem in believing themselves to be Indians, by definition as well as culture, without having ever felt the need to reflect on what it means to be an Indian.

They would hence cheer for the India an hockey and football teams without reservation. Cricket is a little alien, although its fan following is on the rise thanks to television and the game’s new packaging. They would celebrate Holi and Durga Puja and other Hindu festivals, and also know that they share these faiths with a lot of others in other parts of India, establishing, in this way, a sense of a loose national community. Unlike other ethnic groups in the region, a good majority of whom are Christians, their sense of a letdown when they discover there is more to the Indian identity then they believed, is peculiar. Needless to say, many end up embittered.

Just to give a sense of Manipur’s demographic profile, the Meiteis are one of three major ethnic groups of the state; They are predominantly Hindus, although seven percent of them are Muslims and an unspecified percentage follows the original pre-Hindu animistic faith of Sanamahi, now given new life by a strong revivalist movement in the 1960s and ’7os. (The percentage of Sanamahi followers will be known after the current Indian census exercise, which has allowed them to enter ‘Sanamahi’ as their religion, although today, it must be said, this faith has become somewhat an extension of Hinduism. The fact that Hinduism is not a structured religion has helped in this.) The other two major groups are the Nagas and Kukis, who are today almost a hundred percent Christian. (This followed the proselytizing path opened

115 years ago by the pioneering and revered American Baptist missionary William Pettigrew.) Their sense of aleinatiation to the idea of India is (or at least was) a substantially different equation. politic secular, is culturally still predominantly the land of the Hindus, or Hindustani. In modern times, Hindu nationalist political parties.,by trying to give this cultural identity a political use, have only accentuated this belief.

Not so much In Mipur, but a good majority of the Nagas in Nagaland, for instance, would even today say they are not Indians. But then there would have to be finer distinction made here. The ‘Indian’ that the Nagers in Nagaland say they are not Las an imagined ethnic category and not a citizenship status. So when a Nagger says he is not an Indian, more than citizenship, he means he is not a non-mongoloid, Dravldo—Aryan, generally dark-skinned plainsman, which he believes is the ethnic profile of an Indian. In Manipur, there is a separate category for the plainsman Indian - Mayan. A Meitei, Kuki or Naga from Manipur hence wll say he is not a Mayang (obviously), but wall have less trouble calling himself an Indian, for Indian here signifies citizenship. This is also true of th other Northeastern states. In Mizoram, the word for Mayang is Val, In Meghalaya it is Dkhar etc. So am I, a Meitei from the Indian state of Manipur, an Indian? On the face of it, yes. I am a citizen of the secular republic called India. I fulfill all the obligations of being an Indian citizen and, in turn, enjoy all the benefits (although with some hiccups such as the Armed Forces Special Powers Act, AFSPA—1958) the Indian state guarantees its citizens. But the trouble is, being an Indian does not end here.

In fact, it only begins at this point. Quite to the contrary of what the republican Constitution of India says, ‘lndianmesn’ is often quite intuitively also projected as the state of belonging to a civilizational, historical and cultural stream. By this definition, to be Indian is a primordial state of being: Anybody can become an Indian citizen, but he cannot become an Indian, he has to be born as one. The case of the wide opposition some years ago amongst a good section of Indians to Sonia Gandhi emerging as a Prime Ministerial candidate is just one alibi. Quite ironically, even former Lok Sabha Speaker Puma Sangria, from Meghalaya, was one of the staunchest campaigners against this possibility, and he had even resigned from the Congress party on this count. This was, perhaps, a demonstration of the psychological phenomenon of self-hate that Frantz Fanon explained in Wretched of the Earth, in which the oppressed identifies his own degradation in others in a similar predicament, and despises that image.

This 5ooo-year-old historical mainstream of Indian culture is what the Northeast has never belonged to. The image oft Indian man projected both abroad as well as in the country has little of the northeast, which is why our reporter in Bangkok and other overseas travelers from the region are called upon to apologetically qualify their claims of being Indians every time they hold out their Indian passports. This may be just another unfortunate fact that the North-east man has to get used to and not be too sensitive about, but he cannot also prevent the hardening of the deep sense that he is a different Indian, The North—east has always belonged to historical stream that have flowed separately, and if there has been a forced confluence it is thanks to British colonialism. which yoked them together for its own ends. Under such circumstances, and especially when the boundary between ‘Indianness’ and ‘Hinduness’ is sought to be thinned down through political overtones such as ‘Hindutva’, the North-east finds itself recoiling.

This fact of the northeast being distant from the ‘mainstream’ is evident in the familiar appeal to it, to ’join the mainstream’. The question is, how about widening the Indian mainstream so that Northeasters do not have to leave their streams to join the ‘mainstream’? They can then remain in their old streams and still be part oft ‘mainstream’. To be a proud Indian, politically and culturally, then would only mean to be proud of what you actually are. And to this there would be no dispute, there would be no resistance, for then there would be nothing to resist. Nation building would then not involve either leaving any stream or joining another ‘mainstream’. In one stroke, the excluded would have automatically become included.

(The author is editor of Impala Free Press)

So far this week we’ve I’ve had two nights (8:30 pm - 5:30am local) with my new team. The six guys all seem very intelligent and they look to have a very diverse ethnic backgrounds. All of them have come to delhi to get jobs that were not avaliable in their home regions. We asked a “favorite place question as an “icebreaker” and got a slew of “my hometown” answers — even from my colleague who was having an admittedly heavy bout of homesick.

They asked us what our degrees were in and were surprised to learn that neither of their trainers had a degree in business/finance - although they seemed to perk up when it was mentioned that their other trainer was in school for MBA (we didn’t mention that his first class wont be till he gets back in Sept). These guys had studied computer programing, and marketing at their various institutions, but in a down economy had thought that getting time in with a global-outsourcing firm would look good on their CV’s and give them a leg up on competition when internal management positions become available. It sounds a lot like how I started at the Job almost 7 years ago.

I’m more amazed at the similarities in the cultures than at the differences, and if it’s not to patronizing a thing to say — looking a out at Delhi (I know I’m in a suburb but out trip into the city Sunday revealed not so different a landscape from the one outside my balcony) I see the US 120 years ago, perhapse the mash of social classes, climbers, entreprenuers, migrants, visionaries, and those just struggling to get by, that existed in the New York City at the turn of the 19th century.

Another telling answer to our icebreaker questions was the what would you do if you won the lottery — although lotteries have been banned here recently for reasons having to do with fixing and corruption, they all knew what we meant. (I suspect though that in his description of American lottery, my colleague made us all seem like wastrel gambling addicts - but no matter.) 5 out of the six had in mind a sort of charitable foundation to assist all their countrymen & women that the upheavals of the last decades seem to have left behind.

I doubt than American group would answer so selflessly, either out of cynicsm at the effects of charity; or because of a lack of knowledge on the full extent of the domestic needs. Conversely I think it noble but perhapse futile to think that one lottery winning will have an impact on the fortunes of an entire country. (It’s hard enough to coordinate the schedules/motivations of my family so hundreds of millions seems impossible.) Maybe I’m wrong (and a part of me hopes I am) but “poor” is a relative state and there will always be some among us that are less advantaged, our efforts at charity do more to help the giver feel good than it does the situation of the recipient.

The other thing that makes this group of trainees amusing is the degree of camaraderie that they show toward each other. I learned that these guys have been mentoring with the firm’s new business teams for the last month while we were delayed in getting here (damned visa issue) and so they seem already pretty familiar with each other. The first night of training we accompanied them to the the small food stand/pavilion that had been set up in the vacant lot next to the office tower, they offered to buy us food - as if we were paying for our food ourselves anyway.

The degree of back slapping, hand holding, horsing around and general physical affection on display would be unthinkable in the American workplace, it made my colleague wonder about the idea of “sexual orientation” in Indian culture. From my limited knowledge there is no such thing as a homosexual-Hindi (although if there were they would no longer be considered criminal by national law). I explained that it was typical in most gender separated societies (as most of the non-G8 countries are) the assumption of marriage and child rearing are so strong that any activity short of being caught by the paparazzi in a man-on-man-on-man orgy wouldn’t lead to suspicion. Not that I’ll be picking up boys at a bar while I’m here — sorry Brett & Paul.

Again I think back to the mores of 19th century America, where the future president could share a bed/house with his law partner and nobody would assume that they were “life-partners”. The question remains as to how this may develop as the country grows more affluent. Will they loose this expression of friendship as trying to out-macho each other becomes a symptom of competetion, or will the strides toward gay-rights in the US and elsewhere allow them to leapfrog past that stage in their economic growth.

More later. Tomorrow afternoon we visit the India division of the corporation.

8:11 — Tall Skinny Guys should rule the world.
8:15 — Welcome to the House: President Change!
8:16 — You’re very welcome.
8:19 — stronger than the last 8 years.
8:21 — Come on lay Blame, we all know where it rests
8:23 — short term gains made possible by the low capital gains rates, encouraging speculation in many markets.
8:24 — Glad it passed, even if it doesn’t have enough infrastructure money and to many tax cuts for businesses.
8:25 — home town mention !!!
8:26 — now how bout a cram-down on my student loan?
8:27 — credit crisis - re-cap interest rates
8: new loan fund from the
29 — responsible home owners = employed people
32 — continuity of institutions is less important than responsibility for bad decisions — I say let the bugges fail. To Big to Fail = just to damn big.
34 — Solving the problem can only occur after you figure out what the problem is. BTW here’s a clue it was the unregulated/unaudited CDO and MBS’s pushed into the market as ticking toxic bombs.
36: More Rail!
37: New term for the Recession/Depression should be Economic reset.
38: New World Order — Clean Energy, can be American Energy.
39: Science is a good thing yes, siree.
40: Better late than never to Carbon rationing.
41: We must now unionize all automobile factories.
42: Bankrupcy from health casre costs implies a morality bankruptcy pending if not here.
43: Nancy is really proud of s-chip.
45: can we have a presidential work out video? I’d aerobicise with Barak. Lets fight Obesity like we fought the Nazi’s.
46: So we need to out teach them by valuing teachers.
48: Let’s get smart America. “Quitting School is quitting on your country” there’s a take away line.
50: Americorp on Steroids?
51: Parental responsibility is the paramount - and then
52: “Inherited” has never been so pointed.
53: No earmarks = nothing to run on but your policy.
54: dropping agri-subsidy, KBR’nt going to get any more of my money,
55: Don’t outsource my bail-out
56: 5% of the population should have control of 5% of the national wealth.
57: No more will we hide it’s price. Can we get cameras into Dover AFB?
58: Longest applause for Armed service members (even the gay ones?)
9:00 : GitMo going down — now if only we can prosecute the ones who authorized torture.
9:02: Hope is found in unlikely places - just around the corner
9:04 if only al bankers were as altruistic
05: gotta love the 8th grade simplicity — from the mouths of babes the saying goes
07: agreement? Bi-partisanship? Ha! I say steam-roll the failure of the Republican ideology.

I haven’t seen a good idiot beat-down in a while so I enjoyed this one more than usual.

The Best Speech from Pres. Obama Thus Far (Part 1)

The best speech from Pres. Obama thus far (part 2)

This week I got notice of my 2008 performance bonus and raise. It was disappointing to say the least. Not surprising, but disappointing none the less. A 1.08% raise and a “Bonus” about 36% of last year’s - Citibank, my job is not.

It’s not like I am struggling on my current salary, and with everything that’s happened with the economy I am happy to have a job. But with the pending “Stimulus Bill”, all the talk about people being “upside down” on their mortgages, and the supposed “foreclosure crisis”, I think that there is a demographic that seems to have been forgotten: student debtors. It seems that with the dramatic increases in cost of a College diploma, and the declining value of all but the highest graduate degrees, the sheepskin that once would have seemed a ticket to prosperity is more and more a type of indentured servitude. Is it time to rethink the position of the student loan on the good debit - bad debit spectrum. 

At least it is time to start looking at the trade offs more individually, and in personal contexts. For instance: how is it possible to take a job in the non-profit sector, or even in education when the service on your debit is approaching the recommended savings allotment? For myself I find that if it weren’t for my second job my social life would consist of treating myself to an Applebees dinner once a month. (I will admit that I did live outside my budget while dating Dale because I felt guilty if I ever let him pay for something. And while I loved the grand canyon trip I’m not sure we would have gone if price had been an object for him. I don’t recommend dating one of the Joneses.) 

The way I see things is that if we were really looking toward stimulating the economy that there should be some thought given to the debit that so many of my peer group have incurred in the pursuit of higher learning. Maybe it it is we who should be considered as deserving of a bail out. How many good ideas could the next generation think up if they had enough time to spend thinking them up. How many new and innovative products could be brought to market if the “we” of indentured servitude could spend our time living our lives and not making money for other people.

Perhaps I exaggerated a bit and maybe I should just sign up for some American Volunteer Service program. But I know that if I didn’t have my student loan payment in my bi-weekly budget I could get $2500 a month closer to my retirement goals — to my gorgous condo/work space on which to work on my media empire (chuckle). JUST SOMETHING TO THINK ABOUT.

Suggestion for the next stuff white people like entry: An afternoon reading the Atlantic in a coffee shop. I would like to have this amusing contradiction of my dying culture documented before it goes the way of the dodo. Because lord knows I’m not having any white kids to pass my mores along to — I’ll leave that to my brother and his wife. I’m one of those deck-chairs on the Titanic people I suppose, facing the inevitable with a sense of calm dignity rather than running around like a Huhn ohne Kopf. 

Of course this is absurd - anything defined as “white culture” is. The cover article is intriguing in that it points out that the demographics, they are a changing, and that by the time my niece and nephews (however many of them there turn out to be) are running the world, America will likely not be THE dominant actor on the world stage. But what that means for American culture is not by any means easily predicted. (more…)