By Swapan Dasgupta
There are many Indians who take every word written
or said about the country in media overseas a shade too seriously. The same lot
that peers at the global media through a microscope is equally inclined to
treat every positive remark as a testimonial and every unfavourable review as a
conspiracy of hate. Just as Mahatma Gandhi over-reacted to Katherine Mayo’s
infamous Mother India, and Indira
Gandhi went apoplectic over an episode of Louis Malle’s documentary Phantom India, Indian nationalists in
particular tend to confer an extra touch of authenticity to foreign writers on
the motherland. At the grave risk of sounding flippant, I would argue that had
the now-controversial Wendy Doniger written under a suitably Indian pseudonym,
her pronouncements on Hindu traditions would not have generated the same amount
of heat. It was her foreign-ness that acted like a magnet, inviting the
exacting scrutiny of all those who see themselves as custodians of the faith.
Anecdotal evidence suggests that this overall lack
of equilibrium has a great deal to do with a larger sense of national
inadequacy. This is most marked among those who use national sovereignty and,
by implication, the defences of Fortress India to shore up a measure of
astonishing mediocrity. When it comes to prickliness—an attribute that was
elevated to the level of a foreign policy principle by, first, the irascible
V.K. Krishna Menon and then, with greater effect by Indira Gandhi—there are few
who can equal either the lesser bureaucracy or Indian academia. The biggest
threat to their assured positions stem from the imposition of exacting global
standards to measure performance. Consequently, they invariably fall back on a
form of protectionism that involves acceptance of venal shoddiness.
For example, I was slightly taken aback at the venom
that was recently poured on the writer William Dalrymple, who I like to
describe as Delhi’s ‘White Moghul’. Apart from the familiar charges of
racism—an occupational hazard for anyone who is a co-organiser of the Jaipur
literary jamborree—and being anti-Hindu, which too is becoming distressingly
routine, Dalrymple’s histories have been debunked by those Arun Shourie taunted
as the “eminent historians.” The reasons for their hatred of this genial Scot
are three-fold: Dalrymple writes readable narrative history; his books sell and
has made him a celebrity; and in burrowing through dusty archives for untapped
sources, he has exposed the inadequacies of the tenured cretins.
This is not to suggest that everything that
originates from outside the national boundaries of India is necessarily more
robust and virtuous than the home-grown variety. Over the past year, as the
UPA-2 government increasingly ran out of steam, there was an exaggerated
attention paid to the coverage of India overseas. It began with a local edition
of Time magazine, a publication whose
best days are behind it, putting Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi on its
cover. The scrutiny continued as more serious publications such as Economist proceeded to dissect the BJP
prime ministerial candidate. In an editorial that seemed comically pompous to
the uninitiated but seemed a matter of course to its editors, Economist wrote in December last year:
“In the next five months Mr Modi needs to show that his idea of a pure India is
no longer a wholly Hindu one…, that he
abhors violence and discrimination against Muslims… Otherwise, this newspaper
will not back him.”
With barely 70 days to go before the verdict of the
electorate is known, Modi hasn’t demanded that the Constitution be changed to
make India a Hindu Republic. Nor for that matter has he even mentioned pre-existing
religious faultlines in his many, widely publicised speeches. Will the editors
of Economist now do the unthinkable and ask its readers—at least those who have
a vote in India—to vote for the BJP?
Not only is that unlikely but it is not even expected.
For a start, the foreign media in India—like foreign correspondents in most
parts of the world—live in a ghetto. The Embassy or High Commission, the
Foreign Correspondents Club and, in January, the Jaipur Literature Festival
constitute their happy hunting ground. Their information on India is principally
culled from three sources—the local English-language media, the expatriates
working outside government and a small handful of well-connected individuals in
Delhi and Mumbai who are inclined to apply the liberal parameters set by The Guardian and New York Times to India. And, of course, there is the ubiquitous
taxi driver without whose earthy wisdom no despatch from the native quarters is
ever complete. No wonder they very often fail to grasp emerging trends.
True, there are the exceptions. The business and
financial journalists do end up meeting people beyond Nandan Nilekani and
Montek Singh Ahluwalia, and often have a good feel of what is either driving or
stalling India. And, of course, there are those who have gone ‘native’ like Sir
Mark Tully of Nizamuddin, Ian Jack and John Elliot.
That all those I have named are nominally British
isn’t exactly a coincidence. Call it a colonial hangover or Anglophilia but, as
a rule, I have found Britons better able to get under the Indian skin far
better than continental Europeans and Americans. Last week, for example, I read
Delhi: Mostly Harmless, a vastly
amusing account of life in Delhi by a young Oxford academic Elizabeth
Chatterjee. Many Indians, however, are likely to find her cruel irreverence
very patronising. But that would be missing the point. When we read an
outsider’s account of India, we don’t necessarily expect to see the country as
we see it. We seek to understand how India appears to people with a different
set of cultural assumptions. A legitimate point of exasperation would be if the
account was uninformed, superficial and needlessly judgmental.
There are many silly accounts of Indian happenings
and Indian life. Like most things, the insightful blends with the banal and the
jaundiced. But it prompts a very different set of questions. Why don’t Indians
write about other lands and other societies, as Pallavi Aiyar has done on
China? Is it because we are incapable of transcending India? Or is it because
we too are incapable of understanding the foreigner?
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