?Are these shopping malls going to be the new temples of India?? I asked the current flamboyant finance minister. ?What?s wrong?? He replied.?Don?t we know that consumption leads to production and production leads to employment?? ?Yes,? I said. ?But I can?t help wondering when I see these palaces of enchantment coming up in the outskirts of Mumbai city right next to the humble dwellings of adivasis, how you are going to deal with the aspirations which you are whipping up in those people who don?t have the means to purchase these tantalising goods?? I countered. ?Well, that?s another issue altogether and a complex one,? he said, bringing our brief conversation to an abrupt end, since he had another meeting to attend.
Poverty and affluence have co-existed for a long time, and will continue to do so, and not many seem to have a problem dealing with that. But what gets me, and many like me, going these days is this clear unabashed display of wealth, this treadmill of continuous consumption which is making the social divide more and more conspicuous in our society.
Since time immemorial, it has been possible to live in an India where foreign goods and gizmos have been available to a select few, just as it has been equally possible to live in the same India where the basic necessities of life, like water and food, have been denied to many.
Though there are parts of India where kidnapping is virtually a cottage industry, what has surprised the world is that in most of India, including the cities, where enormous and striking destitution co-exists alongside the display of incredible affluence, there isn?t as much crime as there should be. But with the advertising explosion, luxury products?not merely edible food, but gourmet delights and fashionable clothing, are being aggressively marketed to create new needs in people. The want-makers are creating this obsession with lifestyles that is reflected in their television programmes of fashion shows, books and magazines which tell us how to achieve happiness by adopting a certain kind of lifestyle.
The ?spiritual gurus? who used to tutor us in the art of soul-shaping and give us sermons to deal with our poverty, have now been replaced by ?lifestyle gurus,? who educate us to how to want, and therefore buy, the ?right? things. This is the growing middle-class that American economic interests are now focused on.
? The `want-makers? have brainwashed us into an obsession with lifestyles ? Our ability for luxury spending is thanks to the credit system swamping our lives ? Govt must tax conspicuous consumption and spend the money on social welfare |
The democratisation of luxury has been the single most important marketing phenomenon of our times. And it has profound social and political implications.
Materialism is now crowding our spiritual space or perhaps just giving it a bloody nose…Spiritualism for years has been a substitute for materialism in luxury deprived nations such as India. Those who believed that they were suffering destitution and poverty because of some past life misdeeds, have moved on, and are looking for gratification and happiness in this life itself, through fair means if possible, and foul means, if necessary.
I personally have no quarrel with the line of thinking that suggests it?s better to achieve happiness on earth and in this lifetime, than to tolerate unhappiness and even misery in the pursuit of an imagined afterlife. This ability to purchase goods from cars to houses to holidays has really been made possible by the credit system which has recently swamped our lives. Loans for housing, cars and even jewelry or weddings are being made available to credit card users today.
It?s heartening to see the average Indian take advantage of the opportunities which were once rese-rved for the wealthy few. In the India I was born in, sending one son abroad for studies was a sign of great wealth. Today, it?s becoming increasingly common even for the not-so-rich Indian to aspire to all this.
What worries me is that there is an India which is being hurled onto the treadmill of constant consumption. It needs to be warned that the people who are part of it are being brainwashed to believe it is necessary to consume the unnecessary. These are the people who actively seek and enjoy the status they acquire by purchasing particular labels and objects. The youth are particularly susceptible to this phenomenon.
This leads to a kind of consumption treadmill, similar to the ?arms race? syndrome of nations, where it becomes obvious that the more arms a nation possesses, the more insecure it becomes and subsequently, the more it spends on further arms. Similarly, the consumer, has to keep spending to prove his self worth, but never really reaches the goal post simply because there isn?t one. The more you have, the more you want, and the emptier you get.
I?m not for a moment arguing that money can?t buy happiness. What matters is not what people spend, but what they buy. What needs to be avoided is ?conspicuous consumption,? where spending exists more to show off rather than for a need or for a feeling of well being. People who buy luxury goods to practically terrorise or belittle the rest of the community, thereby showing they are almost kings and queens, and setting a kind of benchmark of luxury, are inflicting inadvertent harm on the rest of society, by creating envy in the millions of have-nots in a country like India.
The vulgar display of wealth through certain weddings alone tantamount, in my eyes, to an almost criminal act in a country where so many of its people don?t have one square meal a day. These are the people to ignite the thirst in the young to commit crime, in order to be able to afford this lifestyle. Urban terrorism is a by-product of this hunger. The government ought to respond strongly by taxing them heavily and using that money for social welfare.
I?m reminded of my mother telling me as a child not to eat my sweetmeats in front of the poor servants child, and if I had to do so, then to share it. That is what the FM needs to do, if he wants to keep a revolution in this country at bay.
The writer is a Mumbai-based film maker
