A scene repeated many times during my time in India went something like this. After a lecture, at a cocktail party or simply in the middle of a distant assignment, someone would approach me with a diffident smile on their face. Most recently, it was a young, attractive and clearly intelligent young lady at a careers workshop at Jawaharlal Nehru University.
"My family and I watch you on bbc all the time," was her well-chosen opening. It had the desired effect, stimulating both forced modesty and the unsavoury simpering of the middle-aged male praised by youth and/or beauty, preferably both. "Oh yes, that's nice," I stuttered. "But we have a complaint," she continued, not at all to my surprise, for I had been here many times before. I resisted the temptation to speak her next words in unison with her. "Why do you always show India in a negative light?" Then she added a new twist to the usual refrain. "Why do you show bullock carts in every one of your reports? That's not India," she declared. "We are an information technology superpower and our people are running more and more of the world's economy. We're not about bullock carts."
Now that was one I hadn't heard before. I was temporarily disarmed. My usual explanation in these circumstances just would not suffice; that news was the unexpected, not paeans of one-sided praise of the ordinary; that news needed to show the negative to expose the perfidy of authority or the hypocrisy of rulers. Clearly, neither was up to this task. Nor could I adequately explain this one away with a glib reference to the daily and weekly fare of the Indian print and television media. Where, for example, was the good news in Outlook or The Indian Express - buried well behind the bad, where it belongs. No, this was a special case and a more serious presentation of the facts was called for. Especially now that I'm thousands of kilometres away from Indian soil, cynics might add, and have had time to concoct a timely reply.
Anyway, to return to my young lady and her bullock carts. The first thing to say, not in defence or mitigation mind you, is that I have never knowingly featured in any of my reports anything resembling a bullock cart. I wish I had. It is a superb vehicle - a marvellous and appropriate technological response to the needs of the Indian farmer in most parts of the country. What use, I ask, is the bullock in a country that (wisely) doesn't eat him? If he is not a beast of burden, he is a layabout and this is a not a land that can afford such things, though the antics of many male members of Parliament may belay such a notion. As for the cart, it's a masterpiece of craftsmanship and an inspired use of local materials. There must be few places left in this globalised blancmange economy where the wheelwright still plies his trade. What a wonderful thing it is for a man to turn a tree into a wheel! How woefully inadequate are farm carts that travel on converted truck wheels with rubber tyres! A society that values its wheelwrights as well as its rocket scientists is one to admire and treasure.
Of course, I fear my young friend, her family and all that they represent have little respect for the wheelwright or his efforts. Her section of middle-class urban India is busy cutting itself adrift from the essence of this country. Respect for artisans; small-scale rural technologies that have served for thousands of years; useful and appropriate methods of achieving crucial tasks; these things all matter, whatever the IT-obsessed elite may think. For me, the refusal by young, middle-class India to see the value in bullock carts goes a long way towards explaining why this country is slowly allowing itself to be choked, starved and parched in a headlong rush towards someone else's model of consumer paradise.
Dawdling bullock carts slow down your bmw, water harvesting is boring and requires community cooperation - anathema to the gouging, tax-dodging businessman, or the local political fixer who believes in divide and rule to keep his votebank in line. Cooperating with your neighbours to demand improvements in local services is all right in a village but it draws the wrong kind of attention in a middle-class enclave full of encroachments and pumps that suck municipal water and leave everyone else short. A crusading local collector or magistrate is just the ticket in distant parts of Bihar or Maharashtra. But if such a creature starts demanding an end to middle-class power theft or tax cheating in our very own city, well then, they must be transferred, mustn't they?
I apologise to my young friend for all of this but she did rather lance a boil on my conscience with her mistaken observations about my television reporting. My thoughts over the past three years have frequently revolved around the paradox presented by the urban middle class in this country. They are, we're frequently assured, the largest body of consumers anywhere and, as such, a beacon of hope for future prosperity on a wide scale. Their IT skills are lauded from Silicon Valley to Cyberabad. The Indian print media bulges with articles and advertising aimed at honing their consumptive habits and a certain breed of columnist has taken to deploring their excesses while counselling them in the subtleties of selective improvement of the species. Perhaps this is as it should be. These are certainly the same sort of people whose aspirations shape economic and political trends in the US and its many carbon copies. If people want America, then they must have it. But I find myself returning again and again to the almost offensive thought: just how Indian are these people?
The measuring of racial or ethnic purity is a dangerous business indeed, as bigoted despots throughout history have shown us time and again. I prefer to ask if people are happy with what they are. And if they are not, are they working together to change things in a positive manner? Do they pay attention to the seemingly obvious measures of quality of life that confront them everyday; the aesthetics of their surroundings, the condition of their fellow countrymen and women, the air they breathe, the lot of the downtrodden, the effect of their consumption upon all these things? Can middle-class society in India answer all these points with a resounding "yes" or do they prefer to lash out at a foreign correspondent for a "negative portrayal of India"? By this measure, Young Middle Class India is not happy here. The first choice for self-improvement seems to be the green card, or at least a foreign pied a terre. The second is to believe that all is well, save for the flawed imagery and stereotypes held by foreigners. Very few talk about joining ngos or raising money to help others. As for paying taxes, ask the aspirational young what they think about such a radical notion and don't expect much.
Ignorance is another reason that I have faced so many challenges about stereotyping India through television imagery, whether with bullock carts, snake charmers (never) or the poor (often and without apology). My friend at jnu was certainly unaware that she was factually mistaken and she was not willing to be convinced otherwise. Like so many of her age and economic class, she was full of post-Kargil predigested patriotism that refused to face up to hard questions about India and, equally, left out much about the country that was beautiful, inspiring and important. I am aware that I run many risks in this line of argument. I fully expect to hear scornful accusations that I am old, a pre-Luddite, proto-Gandhian and worst of all, a foreigner who doesn't know what he's about. Perhaps, but to the young student and careers seminar and all her friends, can I at least suggest a ride on a bullock cart. Even if they have to use the bmw to reach the countryside. It's a start towards a more thorough understanding of India, and the least they can do.
