Anjali Puri indulges in some very middle-class soul-searching (assuming middle incomers do have such things as souls) about Delhi in the latest Outlook.
"Political mecca, consumerist haven, now Metro chic... Delhi's all that. But it's also crass, crude and callous, a city sans a soul."
The arguments for this are based on oft-repeated standards -
1. The "maleness" inherent in Delhi's attitude to life, reflected in the treatment of the disabled, and of women
2. The power-hunger which plays out at every level in the city, and the culture of power agglomeration which everyone hates and indugles in at the same time -
"This world revolves on who you know and where you fit, and the disease has long spread to the rest of the capital, where name-dropping is both art form and survival skill. From chowkidars to builders, the city is adept at sorting out its occupants by income, social status and professional standing—to work out how they can be used. Yesterday's objects of desire are taken off guest lists within a day. (Ask Natwar Singh or Brajesh Mishra.) Name plates and visiting cards displaying self-generated titles such as Former Minister, Former MP, Former Principal, Former Chief Justice of India and Retired Ambassador abound. Loss of status is the Delhiite's ultimate nightmare, and he'll hang on to it with bleeding nails, if required"
3. The lack of "cultural manners" among Delhi-ites, and the general lack of sensitivity displayed to fellow users of common spaces
4. All this, combined with its nightmareish urban planning, make it a uniquely unliveable destination for most
"But the lasting image of the Delhi neighbourhood is not the park, but the street, clogged with the signs of the city's growing numbers and affluence...cars, chauffeurs, security guards baking under a summer sun...says writer Mukul Kesavan..."Delhi sometimes feels like a crude boom town—like Topsy, it has 'just growed', but with no settled norms for urban living." Would its citizens help each other, you wonder, if the city was submerged, Mumbai-like, by floods, or run for safety while their neighbours drowned?
The comparisons with other Indian cities are fascinating, of course. Compared to Bombay's significant slum population, for example, how many of Delhi's residents have to live above malfunctioning drains and drink contaminated water every day of their lives? Compared to Bangalore's "invisible" poor, how many Delhi-ites have to live a migrant shifting lifestyle, moving from construction site to site with their families in order to make a living? How many of the South's metropolises can lay claim to accommodating people from all over the country, each to his own greed, with equal opportunity? Once established in Delhi, how many inhabitants are in a mad rush to get out, like Calcutta, where only the dogs aren't potential exiles?
Having spent a significant portion of my life in the city of gin-drinkers, I can vouch for how difficult it all seems to the thresholder of India's elite, with our most valuable izzat being threatened and challenged at every stage. Yet, how much worse is Delhi than other Indian cities its size? Bombay, Chennai, Calcutta and Bangalore have spawned and inspired generations of homegrown creative elites, whose imagery has influenced our perception of these cities. Delhi, a city of permanent migrants, on the other hand has rarely been effectively chronicled by anyone native to it in the recent past. Is it fair to judge Delhi this harshly on our own ignorant biases, then?
Sunday, April 23, 2006
Friday, April 14, 2006
A tale of two Indias
Randeep Ramesh manages, on the whole, an excellent brief analysis of the impact of globalisation on India in this article in the Guardian. It is effective when he resorts to data to back up his conclusions
"Globalisation in India has been a broad and brutal process, creating a country in vital and vulgar flux. The bigger the gains in India from open markets, the bigger the disorientating changes. And the Indians who count themselves among the losers from this process easily outnumber the winners. More than 400 million farm workers each earn India just $375 (£230) a year in output. The comparable amount made by the million or so software engineers is $25,000 (£16,000)."
As also a comparison between the fate of the residents of Amby Valley and its surrounding villages
"Just a few hundred kilometres from Aamby Valley, in Vidarbha, the farming belt in eastern Maharashtra, are fields of black soil that once reaped a rich harvest of "white gold", as cotton was known. But the crop has lost its lustre in recent years. The arrival of new pesticides, genetically modified seeds and swanky tractors that soak up increasingly expensive petrol has pushed up the cost of the production. At the same time, India dismantled the wall of duties that kept out foreign cotton as part of its liberalisation drive.
Vidarbha's farmers, unprotected by market controls and tariffs, have to compete with growers from the European Union and US who are subsidised to the tune of billions of dollars a year. The last vestiges of Indian government support were withdrawn a few months ago. The result is that Indian cotton farmers have become impoverished in a few short years. Many have borrowed to stay alive - first from banks and then from usurious moneylenders. Chained in poverty by debts they cannot pay, farmers began to sell first their carts, then their cattle, followed by land and homes. Some offer their kidneys for 100,000 rupees (£1,300).
Others have put up entire villages for sale. The 800 acres of Dorli village in Wardha district, complete with accommodation for 46 families, can be yours for 200m rupees (£2.5m), about the same as three plots in Aamby Valley. "I can negotiate," says Sujata Halule, the 27-year-old elected member of the village council who senses a sale in my questions. "We have no food, no clothes ... dogs live better here now." On the front page of the local newspaper there is a grisly running tally of farmers' suicides in the area: the six-month total on the day I arrive is 348."
Though it is perhaps less effective when it resorts to Arundhati Roy as an authority for its claims
"Roy likens the country's progress to two convoys of trucks: a small group that is on its way to a "glittering destination near the top of world", and a more massive pack that "melts into the darkness and disappears". "A section of India has seceded from the nation," she says. "This project of corporate globalisation has created a constituency of very rich people who are very thrilled about it. They do not care about the hawkers being cleared from the streets or the slums that are disappeared overnight." As she sees it, India is not coming together but coming apart because liberalisation has convulsed the country at an unprecedented, unacceptable velocity. In the cities, the hammer and bulldozer are, often, noisily demolishing slum block after slum block, making way for shiny new apartments. Nowhere is this shift more profoundly felt than in the country's villages where, Roy says, "India does not live. It dies"."
On the whole, definitely worth a read and a few comments.
"Globalisation in India has been a broad and brutal process, creating a country in vital and vulgar flux. The bigger the gains in India from open markets, the bigger the disorientating changes. And the Indians who count themselves among the losers from this process easily outnumber the winners. More than 400 million farm workers each earn India just $375 (£230) a year in output. The comparable amount made by the million or so software engineers is $25,000 (£16,000)."
As also a comparison between the fate of the residents of Amby Valley and its surrounding villages
"Just a few hundred kilometres from Aamby Valley, in Vidarbha, the farming belt in eastern Maharashtra, are fields of black soil that once reaped a rich harvest of "white gold", as cotton was known. But the crop has lost its lustre in recent years. The arrival of new pesticides, genetically modified seeds and swanky tractors that soak up increasingly expensive petrol has pushed up the cost of the production. At the same time, India dismantled the wall of duties that kept out foreign cotton as part of its liberalisation drive.
Vidarbha's farmers, unprotected by market controls and tariffs, have to compete with growers from the European Union and US who are subsidised to the tune of billions of dollars a year. The last vestiges of Indian government support were withdrawn a few months ago. The result is that Indian cotton farmers have become impoverished in a few short years. Many have borrowed to stay alive - first from banks and then from usurious moneylenders. Chained in poverty by debts they cannot pay, farmers began to sell first their carts, then their cattle, followed by land and homes. Some offer their kidneys for 100,000 rupees (£1,300).
Others have put up entire villages for sale. The 800 acres of Dorli village in Wardha district, complete with accommodation for 46 families, can be yours for 200m rupees (£2.5m), about the same as three plots in Aamby Valley. "I can negotiate," says Sujata Halule, the 27-year-old elected member of the village council who senses a sale in my questions. "We have no food, no clothes ... dogs live better here now." On the front page of the local newspaper there is a grisly running tally of farmers' suicides in the area: the six-month total on the day I arrive is 348."
Though it is perhaps less effective when it resorts to Arundhati Roy as an authority for its claims
"Roy likens the country's progress to two convoys of trucks: a small group that is on its way to a "glittering destination near the top of world", and a more massive pack that "melts into the darkness and disappears". "A section of India has seceded from the nation," she says. "This project of corporate globalisation has created a constituency of very rich people who are very thrilled about it. They do not care about the hawkers being cleared from the streets or the slums that are disappeared overnight." As she sees it, India is not coming together but coming apart because liberalisation has convulsed the country at an unprecedented, unacceptable velocity. In the cities, the hammer and bulldozer are, often, noisily demolishing slum block after slum block, making way for shiny new apartments. Nowhere is this shift more profoundly felt than in the country's villages where, Roy says, "India does not live. It dies"."
On the whole, definitely worth a read and a few comments.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Subscribe To
Posts
All Comments