India: Land of ‘Old Immigrants’

Last week, India celebrated Diwali, the festivals of lights. And the modern Indians flooded the social networking sites with posts related to the same festival. It’s a good way to make people across the world familiar with our festivals. This prompted an American friend to inquire about the significance of this festival. Hardest are the questions whose answers are sort of obvious. After a long pause, I explained to him that there are various beliefs behind celebrating this festival, depending on what part of the country one comes from. I knew the various beliefs simply because the state I grew up has different reason behind celebrating Diwali compared to the state I currently reside in. Probably the state where my ancestors came from has its own explanation as well. That’s when he asked me this question, to find an answer for it; I had to do a small research. The question was, “Most of you have the same religious background, similar culture yet varying definition of the same festival. Why?”

Had I known the right phrase to “google” I would have been able to answer this question quickly. So I started looking up for reasons why each part of our country has this subtle difference in culture. I was astonished by some of the findings. The best explanation I found was from an article by Justice Markandey Katju. Justice Katju is a person who immensely inspires me through his blunt talks and logical views. In fact his style often reminds me of my own father’s style.

A lot of us are familiar with the fact that the USA is called the land of immigrants with more than 60% of its population being descendents of Europeans immigrants. However this immigration was about 500 to 600 years back, which is fairly recent, compared to the immigration to India from north-west and to some extent from north-east, which began about 10,000 years ago. So this gives rise to the question, who are the true Indians? Many would be tempted to jump to the conclusion that it would be Dravidians. It would surprise many if I wrote that even Dravidians immigrated to the present day India from north-west part. The evidence of this is very interesting. Even today, there are more than two million speakers of a language called Brahui, in regions of Afghanistan. What makes it further interesting is that Brahui is a Dravidian language, which has a high degree of similarity with Tamil. Immigration from south to north-west seems counter-intuitive as north-west fits nowhere near south, in terms of human habitability index. Justice Katju further concludes that the true Indians in that case would be about 5% of today’s population, making India a country with 95% ‘old immigrants’.

This leaves little room to be surprised about the fact that even our religious scriptures have multiple versions. Take for example, the Ramayana, which has so many versions and no single of which could be claimed as the authentic version. Each is as authentic as the other is. I suppose this would be the only logical explanation behind such a diversified culture that we have in India today, in spite of similar religious beliefs. Probably, all immigrants adopted a common platform, with their own interpretation and spirit depending on the geography, which makes our country as multifaceted as it is today.

Two Poems

Sonnet 57: By William Shakespeare

Being your slave, what should I do but tend
Upon the hours and times of your desire?
I have no precious time at all to spend,
Nor services to do, till you require.
Nor dare I chide the world-without-end hour,
Whilst I, my sovereign, watch the clock for you,
Nor think the bitterness of absence sour
When you have bid your servant once adieu.
So true a fool is love that in your will,
Though you do anything, he thinks no ill.

Invictus: By William Ernest Henley

Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeoning of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds and shall find me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,

How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.

These two poems, written in two different contexts, by two different poets and in two different connotations, exhibit two different situations in life...

1) The mind of a heartbroken lover feels time trapped in the past. Even his best efforts may not do him/her enough good to overcome this condition.

2) A man on whom all have given up hope, due to harsh circumstances can fight back without letting his situations affect him and conquer the times.

Perhaps when we find that the sources of our hardships lie in someone else, it is hard to overcome it. If the source is within you, it’s lot easier to exhibit your strengths.

Guilty: Unless proven Innocent

“An intellect is someone whose mind watches itself“- Albert Camus

Recently the Planning Commission, a key decision making entity of Govt. of India, came up with some interesting numbers to define poverty. An income of Rs 32 or below per day and Rs 26 or below per day, respectively in urban and rural India could place an individual in the below poverty cap. Those of us have lived in India for long enough realized how little those numbers are to lead a life and came down all guns blazing on the Govt. Fair enough, if the Govt. commits a mistake, the society is not going to be a lame observer, was the clear message sent across. Of course this post is neither to bash the Govt. nor to support it. What I intend to convey here is, unless we have a fair understanding of the matter it makes all the sense to refrain from passing judgments.

Let us try to understand some facts, which I bet more than 90% of those passionate Govt. bashers don’t seem to consider. They say, statistics can be used to prove almost anything. Yes, it’s a very tricky discipline. Firstly, what does Rs 32 per day as per capita translate into? An average Indian family size is supposed to be made up of five people. In case of the lesser educated class, the average size seems to be slightly higher. Let us say six members per family. So for such a family to be placed in the below poverty category would be a case of their income below (32x6x30) = Rs 5760 per month. Ah, this doesn’t sound too bad, right?

Going further it’s important to understand, who fall into the below poverty category? These are the people most likely belonging to the unskilled labor, who earn their living working in the unorganized sector, say your domestic help. If the Govt. were to take the voice of the middle class, which is the most active on social media, seriously and overhaul their calculation as this: Monthly income below Rs 9000 would be categorized as below poverty line, which means the per capita cap now would be Rs 50 per day. Would the middle class be happy about it? The answer is simply NO. Why? The Govt. has limited resources and cannot lay itself open to extra expenses. The possible way would be to introduce a minimum wage act, like in the developed countries, and make sure the unorganized sector gets paid more from their employers. This means your domestic help would have legal rights for much higher salary than what he/she is making today. This would only affect the pockets of the middle class and I can safely say that if the middle class gets know this solution, they would be the first to support the Govt., in a desperate attempt to fight the current inflation.

Only if the middle class was less hypocritical, we wouldn’t have had a situation of being judged guilty unless proven innocent. What the semiliterate population needs to understand is that the media’s job is to supply raw data and expect the society to process it in such a way that there arises an ambiguity. That’s the beauty of journalism, creating sensation out of simple facts, which could just go unnoticed. The bottom line is, if you aren’t interested in making that extra effort of processing information, stop being judgmental. This holds good in any walk of life.