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Rasheeda Bhagat

India has a tremendous advantage over other nations in terms of `general wisdom' in handling complicated issues pertaining to politics, religion, caste and language. It has the edge because of its `vibrant political democracy, rule of law and a modern, hi-tech economy.' Why do we lack this conviction about ourselves that an Australian has about us?

IN RESPONSE to an article, "Another blow to body politic" (Business Line, September 26) by this author, following the terrorist attack on the Swaminarayan temple in Gujarat, an Australian reader, Mr Joel Shepherd, who writes science fiction stories, has made some interesting and pertinent observations. The content of that article was a mix of anger and anguish at what we were allowing to happen to our country, and how our politicians were dividing us on the basis of religion, caste, region and the like, to grab and retain power.

Urging me not to "despair at the chaos in your country", Mr Shepherd, who has a deep interest in India, firmly believes that "India will one day be a superpower unrivalled in the world; though whether you or I live to see it is another question. Nations are like people — their greatest strengths are often also their greatest weaknesses. America's individualism and self-indulgence have achieved wonders, but also have their obvious downsides. India's flaws are so obvious; the divisions, the political bickering, the general state of chaos and complication, compared to most nations. But these can alsoemerge as tremendous Indian strengths. The 21st Century will favour nations that can think creatively and handle chaos."

An "outsider, who has the luxury of taking a very removed, long-term view of India," Mr Shepherd feels that it is "India's enormous internal complexity which is preventing extremists from taking over. There are so many more issues in play in Indian politics than just religion. An outsider might presume that Hindu fundamentalism was a cancer sweeping the entire nation," but the people in the south were more worried about their regional and linguistic, rather than religious, identity, he says.

"Apart from the regional factor and for all the horrors of the caste system, the one political positive is that it divides the Hindu vote even further, making it even more difficult for extremists to gather the entire Hindu vote. You also have the tribals, whose concerns are very different, and then you've the old Left versus Right political debate. India unquestionably has the most complicated politics on the planet!

"This complication will make it utterly impossible for any one group of extremists to gain the critical mass required to steer the country toward disaster...because it seems that in India, everyone is a minority of some description! They'll make a lot of noise, and cause a lot of short-term damage. I think India will go through periods where it flirts with each of these internal groups, as it has flirted with various in the past, then they'll fade away as people see the results and become disillusioned. Right now it is the Hindu nationalists' turn, but their turn will end. And if the new wave is the economic modernity preached by people like Chandrababu Naidu in Andhra Pradesh, there is bound to be a dramatic turnaround."

Arguing that "India has a tremendous advantage over other nations in terms of `general wisdom' in handling complicated issues pertaining to politics, religion, caste and language," he says, "if I wanted a sensible opinion on any of these issues, I'd favour an uneducated Indian farmer over most American Ph.Ds any day!" Comparing India and China, he feels that India has the edge because of its "vibrant political democracy, rule of law and a modern, high-tech economy. Change of that kind is not something that comes easily to Chinese culture, and I think they'll struggle."

He has an interesting conclusion to make on Indian journalists who have travelled abroad, returning home to "despair at the chaos in their country. As someone who lives in one of the dullest, most stable countries on earth, and has seen and despaired at the utter lack of intellectual vigour that can produce, I think they're seeing it wrong. I think that chaos could be India's greatest asset, the great driving force that propels the nation to great-power status. The only region in the world with similar chaos and complexity in recent centuries was Europe. That wasn't pleasant either, lots of wars and nasty things...but look where they ended up."

An interesting set of thoughts to chew on. Certainly, distance has its advantages and throws up a different perspective. But when an outsider has so much of hope and faith in our nation having a great future, the question is why do we, particularly those in the media, hit the despair, if not the panic, button so often? It is not as though we do not know our intrinsic strengths; our feistiness to fight against all odds and emerge at the top, our resilience, our patience and tonnes of other good qualities you can think of.

To a world that is so obsessed with extremism and how it can destroy nations, India's vibrant democracy and all its internal contradictions seem to be its biggest safeguards. But they also hold out the danger of glossing over or over-simplifying the dangers we face, not so much from the outside world as from within. For example, a couple of weeks after the attack on the WTC, The New York Times carried an article on why Indian Muslims "do not fly planes into buildings". Quite shockingly the article went on to paint a rosy picture of Indian Muslims, reeling out textbook examples of so many Indian Muslim Presidents and the like.

But, then, hardly five months later, the communal holocaust in Gujarat happened where, notwithstanding official figures, a couple of thousand Muslim men, women and children were killed, and thousands of others forced to live under the shadow of fear, a shadow which has not cleared even now.

Communal riots are not new to India; we have been living with them for over half a century. But that does not mean we should learn to live with them for another 50 years. More than our politicians dithering over economic reforms and derailing the divestment process, more than two neighbouring States coming to blows over a river's waters, as Tamil Nadu and Karnataka are doing, even more than the cancer of corruption eating away at the fabric of our civil society, the poison of communalism and the polarisation of our population along communal lines has to be tackled and stopped.

One major step towards this direction will be solving the Kashmir problem. Even New Delhi must be surprised at the voter turnout in the Jammu and Kashmir Assembly elections. In the third phase of voting, when polling was held for 27 Assembly seats on Tuesday, despite the low voter turnout in such militant-infested regions as Pulwama and Anantnag, the average turnout was 41 per cent, thanks to an impressive 59 per cent people turning out in Kathua and 56 per cent in Udhampur.

As the Prime Minister, Mr Atal Bihari Vajpayee, has pointed out, the people of the State deserve to be congratulated for risking their lives, immediately or later, by turning up to vote. The very fact that they have done so, despite heightened and desperate militant activity, shows they have decided to have a say in the nature and composition of the government that will rule them. This is a far cry from the times when many Kashmiris said, over the last 13 years, that they do not owe allegiance to the Indian Constitution, so why should they participate in any elections at all.

When so many people have dared to come out and vote, the next government that rules J&K will have that much more authenticity and, hopefully, clout with New Delhi, to make one more attempt at getting autonomy. Barring major surprises, it should be a National Conference or an NC-led government. Till now Mr Omar Abdullah, the NC's chief ministerial candidate, has spoken very sensibly. He seems to have his feet firmly on the ground and his own road map for providing a transparent, corruption-free and effective government. He is also open to holding talks with the Hurriyat and has said that dialogue with Pakistan is necessary to solve the Kashmir problem.

The ball is now in Delhi's court. Talks with the leaders of the Hurriyat and Shabbir Shah, and total co-operation and support to the new government will hold the key to peace returning to the Valley Once the Kashmir issue is resolved and Pakistan loses its pet whipping post in India, the healing touch can be provided to bridge the communal divide in the rest of the country.

Response can be sent to rasheeda@thehindu.co.in

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