In 2009, India went into a core upgrade. It looked the same but was fundamentally changed. The year brought good cheer for people who are convinced of India’s manifest destiny. In the climate talks in Copenhagen, we quickly jettisoned the G77 and aligned with the interests of the big powers. It was crassly done, like marrying above your station and then pretending that your natal family does not exist. But, on the other hand, there’s no stopping progress. One of the two nations of India has actually become First World. When your weekly grocery bill is bigger than your monthly internet bill, that’s progress. When poky flats cost what bungalows used to, that’s very First World. Enjoy, as the microwave said when it was done.
But hang on. The picture of two Indias divided by the poverty line has served us well, but it looks distorted now. Middle India used to rise in revolt and topple governments on the issue of inflation. It’s eerily quiet now, though the price of potatoes has risen by 150 per cent. But even the poor are silent about food prices, though they are hit hardest because food is about all they buy. The election in Jharkhand, where the poor predominate, was expected to be a referendum on inflation, but it turned out to be an irrelevant issue.
So what’s going on? Has the urban middle class prospered so much that it can absorb a sharp blow to the pocket? It seems unlikely. Has the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme improved rural fortunes so much that a 17 per cent inflation rate is small change? Maybe in some areas, but I hear of places in the Chhotanagpur region where people don’t get to eat dal for weeks at a time. So, is this reluctance to take to the streets a symptom of Orientalist fatalism? Have we lost our voice?
Not at all. Some of us have become quite voluble on other issues like impunity, which we once accepted with fatalistic Oriental grace. When S.P.S. Rathore walked triumphantly out of court this week with the minimum sentence for multiple serious offences — and instant bail to boot — the smirk on his face set off an explosion like a bomb in a pressure cooker. Within hours, ‘Justice for Jessica’ had been adapted to ‘Justice for Ruchika’. The candle-light march, once disparaged as a namby-pamby hobby, was back on the street and powerful people who had helped Rathore were on the run.
{{/usCountry}}Not at all. Some of us have become quite voluble on other issues like impunity, which we once accepted with fatalistic Oriental grace. When S.P.S. Rathore walked triumphantly out of court this week with the minimum sentence for multiple serious offences — and instant bail to boot — the smirk on his face set off an explosion like a bomb in a pressure cooker. Within hours, ‘Justice for Jessica’ had been adapted to ‘Justice for Ruchika’. The candle-light march, once disparaged as a namby-pamby hobby, was back on the street and powerful people who had helped Rathore were on the run.
{{/usCountry}}In the Jessica Lall case, civil society had demonstrated the power of public opinion without political backing, and it is now a serious force in the polity. In recent months, it has forced the home ministry to stop asking for gunship support for Operation Green Hunt and start pretending that the operation was never conceived. Earlier, the Sri Ram Sene’s assault on women who drink was similarly checkmated by the pink chaddi campaign.
Insistence on justice and respect for the individual — these are First World traits too. It’s a small beginning restricted to the middle class. To some extent, it offsets the collateral damage our grocers are inflicting on us. But I’m still wondering why no one is protesting about prices. Maybe we’ll find out why in 2010. Meanwhile, have a great New Year.
Pratik Kanjilal is publisher of The Little Magazine.
The views expressed by the author are personal.