From Pity To Fear
By RAMACHANDRA GUHA The Times of India | AUGUST 15, 2005 http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/1200723.cms How western perceptions of India have changed? In November 1961, Aldous Huxley came to India for a conference in memory of that other great novelist and polymath, Rabindranath Tagore. Afterwards, he was profoundly pessimistic about the prospects for democracy in this country. "India is almost infinitely depressing", wrote Huxley to a friend, "for there seems to be no solution to its problems in any way that any of us would regard as acceptable, the prospect of overpopulation, unemployment, growing unrest, social breakdown, followed by the imposition of a military or communistic dictatorship". Huxley was known for the ori-ginality of his views, but in this matter at least he was depressingly representative. Before and after him, an array of western writers visited India and concluded that its chances of survival were bleak. Some said the forces of secession based on language and ethnicity would make India 'balkanise'. Others agreed with Huxley that the only means to contain this diversity was through the force of arms and of the army. Still others claimed that India would be the clinching proof of Thomas Malthus's theory: Here, if nowhere else, population growth would outstrip the growth in food production, leading to mass famine. As a long-time student of our culture, Huxley wrote with concern. Other prophets wrote with pity and contempt. In the 40s and 50s, these doomsayers tended to be old Raj hands. The last commander-in-chief of the British Army in India, Field Marshal Claude Auchinlek, believed that 1947 marked only the first of many Partitions of India. He thought that sooner rather than later, "India will split into several states or countries as it was before the British intervention". As the Republic of India moved into its second decade, the doomsayers were more likely to be Americans. These focused on the food scarcities then current, which seemed to show that India was beyond redemption. The brothers Paddock, biologists both, wrote in 1967 that "India is the first of the hungry nations to stand at the brink of famine and disaster". By 1975, "civil disorder, anarchy, military dictatorships, runaway inflation, transportation breakdowns and chaotic unrest will be the order of the day..." At about the same time, Time magazine ran a long story on 'India: A Huge Country on the Verge of Collapse'. This spoke of the apparently insoluble conflicts of religion, language and region, and of "a continuing population explosion (which) impedes all progress". Time felt that "there will be a general descent into chaotic conditions affecting the whole Indian society". The Green Revolution soon quietened the Malthusians. But then Indira Gandhi's Emergency prompted a fresh round of obituaries. India, mourned the Sydney Morning Herald in September 1976, has "relapsed into traditional Asian autocracy"; this ending "the main hope of democracy in Asia, indeed in the developing world". The Observer of London thought that were the Emergency to end, "the most likely successor to Congress remains the Army". India relapsed into demo-cracy in 1977. At periodical intervals, however, those old dark scenarios were dusted out for display. The assassination of Indira Gandhi in 1984, and the destruction of the Babri masjid in 1992, prompted fears that India would indeed (or at last) break up into many parts, or come to be ruled by men in uniform. In the last decade, however, there has been a striking change in the conventional western wisdom about India. The likes of Time and Newsweek once wrote stories of India's imminent descent into chaos. They now write of India in altogether different ways, seeing in its recent economic surge a challenge to American jobs and American prosperity. True, in these accounts India is generally seen as a junior partner to China. Still, it is noteworthy that it is not Shanghai but my hometown, Bangalore, that has come to symbolise the threat posed to the overpaid and lazy American by the ambitious and energetic Asian. Once, western predictions about India's descent into anarchy or army rule prompted anger or embarrassment among educated Indians. These newer predictions, however, have led to a rising tide of self-congratulation. Our own answer to Time, India Today, carries cover stories with titles like 'Housekeepers to the World' and 'Global Champs'. And this morning's newspaper tells me that 'India is moving fast to become global economic power No. 1'. Those older anticipations of India's demise were greatly exaggerated. For the Constitution forged by our founding fathers allowed cultural heterogeneity to flourish within the ambit of a single (and democratic) nation state. However, these celebrations of India's imminent rise to power are premature as well. Despite the manifest successes of the new economy there remain large areas of poverty and deprivation. Only purposive state intervention can correct these imbalances; and the state as it exists now is too corroded and corrupted to act with much purpose. It was mistaken, then, to see India as swiftly going down the tube; and it is mistaken, now, to see it as soon taking its place among the elect of the earth. India will merely muddle along in the middle as it has always done. The writer is working on a history of independent India. ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor --------------------~--> <font face=arial size=-1><a href="http://us.ard.yahoo.com/SIG=12h75p4ap/M=362335.6886444.7839734.2575449/D=groups/S=1705796846:TM/Y=YAHOO/EXP=1124098878/A=2894362/R=0/SIG=138c78jl6/*http://www.networkforgood.org/topics/arts_culture/?source=YAHOO&cmpgn=GRP&RTP=http://groups.yahoo.com/";>What would our lives be like without music, dance, and theater?Donate or volunteer in the arts today at Network for Good</a>.</font> --------------------------------------------------------------------~-> -- This is ZESTGlobal. Post articles on international affairs to [email protected] If you got this mail as a forward, subscribe to ZESTGlobal by sending a blank mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] OR, if you have a Yahoo! ID, by visiting http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ZESTGlobal/join/ Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ZESTGlobal/ <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
