View From The Glasshouse

One of the most disconcerting characteristics of our vocal, jingoistic section is its tendency to aggressively dismiss or deny depressing realities of our nation. This section revels in the "feelgood syndrome", the modern opiate that blinds us to realities and dulls us to dangers. Then a catastrophe hits us that shocks and stuns. We struggle, recover and instead of learning lessons and erecting stronger and better building blocks that guard us from natural and man-made disasters, we are happily lured back to our pillbox of opiates.

Sure, there are a few things we can genuinely feel glad about 2003—we had a good monsoon and we can thank the heavens for that. Our economy grew and there is a release of entrepreneurial energy that can herald a brighter future. What actually make us even gladder are the catastrophes that didn't befall us—nuclear war, plague, Gujarat-type riots or earthquakes. It is necessary, even therapeutic, to rejoice about all that makes us glad, even though many of them are blessings that we can't take credit for.

What, however, is cruel, insensitive and dangerous is to blind ourselves to the tragic reality that more than half our population is completely excluded from this feelgood syndrome. What good is it to millions and millions of Indians that the stockmarket is booming after a long hiatus, or that British and American companies are outsourcing big time in India or that today our markets are flooded with anything that money can buy? It is no one's case that the well-off should not rejoice until all Indians are equal, above poverty line and have a chance to experience a teeny bit of this feelgood syndrome. But there would be more to rejoice if there was evidence to show that our establishment is making a serious effort to improve the lives of the unfortunate swathe of Indians who are still victims of illiteracy, poverty, curable diseases, injustice, inequality and exploitation.

It's worrisome that the foundations of our feelgood syndrome are far from firm. A few hard knocks, and we'll realise how quickly these "feelings" evaporate. Just as there ought to be a realisation that millions of Indians are excluded from this club that feels good, there ought to be a realisation that there are serious dangers that will knock the stuffing out of this syndrome. Systemic and endemic corruption, feudalism, judicial weakness threaten feelgood atmospherics, but the biggest and foremost danger is the lethal and deep-rooted divisions in our society that now lurk right below the surface. These divisions have always existed, but were usually benign, except when provoked by power-hungry political groupings for their diabolical ends.

But now tensions are rising to the surface organically. While a large number of Indians are lulled by the feelgood babble, there is a large and growing number that are angry, hostile and alienated, who feel they have no slice of the cake and no immediate or legitimate means of getting it. Poverty is much easier to bear than disparity. If we are all badly off, we can all live with it. But if a section of society is lording it over, making money in heaps, revelling in all the good things of life, while the rest cannot, then the rest will not rest. They will be restive, restless. Eventually they will resist. They will hit out whichever way they can. When a section of society has nothing to lose, then they are willing to go down, but will ensure they will take the better-off down with them. So it is not a wise pastime to sit in glasshouses and pontificate about feelgood factors. We are in peril if we believe our own propaganda about feelgood stuff and ignore the sharp realities that lap around the edges of our cocooned existence.

Divisions are deep and rife and they are all around us if we care to look, instead of stubbornly choosing to look through rose-tinted glasses.There are enough manifestations of these divisions to be alarmed, whether it is the Assam-Bihar clashes, Maharashtrians agitating to bag all-India jobs or Hindu-Muslim rioting in Hyderabad 11 years after the Babri mosque was demolished. Economic distress, injustice, alienation, inequality, joblessness and hopelessness have not only pushed our inherent divisions to the surface, they have also aggravated and widened our fault lines. These schisms can be rent apart easily—by our own politicians who play the dirtiest games for the sake of getting votes, totally unmindful of how treacherously anti-national they really are; or by the isi and jehadi terrorists who can only further their agenda of fomenting trouble and undermining India if they can fish in troubled waters.

If the feelgood syndrome is to have firm foundations, then our schisms have to be healed and sealed. India has to be one, united and solidly together. Demagogues who preach hatred and divisions, who seek to pit Hindus against Muslims, Assamese against Biharis, Maharashtrians against Tamilians, North against South, poor against rich, must be given no space in our political arena. The Indian establishment has to strictly enforce the oneness of our national entity. And there has to be a concerted effort to reach out to the poor, the less fortunate, the victims of our unfair, corrupt and exploitative socio-political system as it has come to be. The first step the well-off could take is to stop denying the reality that millions of Indians don't have anything to feel good about. Even if they can do nothing to improve the lives of these marginal men and women of India, they can at least use their influence and goodwill with the political class to force them to address the basic needs of the hapless. If the thin upper crust doesn't want to be dragged down by the underclass, then they should try and help raise the standard of living of India's large underbelly.