And you thought English colonial rule was behind us. Well over a century and a half ago, Lord Macaulay had sought to create a nation of people who were ?English in education, in taste, in opinions, in morals, and in intellect?. Well, the policy has succeeded astoundingly, undermining our own culture, says India?s ambassador to Bhutan, Pavan K Varma, who, besides being a career diplomat, is also a prolific writer and a man of varied interests. He makes his point in his latest book, Becoming Indian: The Unfinished Revolution of Culture and Identity, through a series of evocative examples and passionate arguments that display how Indians still continue to be slavish and emulate their former political masters. This can stymie India?s aspirations for a more enhanced political role. Suman Tarafdar heard out the author?s passionate plea for reappropriation of an authentic Indian cultural identity. Excerpts:
The title for this book is close to that of your former book, Being Indian. Is that argument taken forward here?
Being Indian was about who we are, a post-colonial catharsis in a sense, to be honest about our real persona. This book is about introspecting upon the state of our culture and identity today, which includes a rigorous analysis of the impact of colonialism. Colonialism is about the colonisation of the mind, and that is one of the most neglected aspects of post-colonised society. A political audit is done, an economic audit is done, but in the field of culture, in the euphoria of political freedom, people forget the extent to which the impact of colonialism continues to persist in our everyday lives. And that needs to be taken into account. Photocopies are a convenience. You have to be who you are in terms of an authentic voice that is rooted in your own culture. Therefore, one of the biggest projects today is the reappropriation of your cultural space in authentic terms, without chauvinism.
Do you see this happening?
There is no aspect of creative endeavour in India where the mutilating process of the recent past does not still cast its shadow. I am afraid my prognosis is far from being upbeat, as mentally we have lowered the threshold of our satisfaction and self-congratulation to a point where it?s quite funny. An accolade from outside creates excessive euphoria, and slightest criticism creates excessive indignation. That santulan, or equilibrium, the sign of a mature civilisation, is missing. This debate is all the more significant, as at one point India was the benchmark. It is one of the few civilisations that goes back 5,000 years and is marked by antiquity, continuity, peaks of refinement, assimilation, diversity and underlying that diversity, an unmistakable unity. When you have that as a backdrop and then you make an assessment of where we are today in terms of our culture, it is a reason for us to greatly introspect.
For most Indians, knowing English is seen as the ticket to a world of opportunities?
I have nothing against English. There is a language of communication, and in a globalising world, we have to learn how to integrate with that world. I am concerned about the substitution of a language of communication with a language of culture. Language is not only about communication. It is a window to your culture, mythology, idioms, you think in it and the one in which you, quintessentially, are the most creative. English has a certain superiority, attached to it, which has made us neglect our own languages and look upon them as inferior. English has a disproportionately larger sway across our country, and has led to a neglect of our languages. You cannot have badly spoken English as lingua franca of a nation as linguistically rich as India. When my book, The Great Indian Middle Class, had come out, a Russian woman had asked me whether I also wrote in English. Russians write in their own language, Orhan Pamuk writes in his. Wangari Mathai told me that the first thing the coloniser takes from you is your language. You are not aware, not aware to the extent to which you have become a caricature to foreigners by your transparent attempts to be like them and being transparently adrift from your own country. People respect authenticity, not photocopies.
You mention the impact of globalisation.
There are no watertight compartments of culture. Culture merges with politics and economics and ultimately in a globalised world you have to be a credible spokesman from a certain milieu. The other danger is, with globalisation, some parts are good, some parts bad, but in the field of culture, it has proved significant. It is not a level playing field. The success in the field of globalisation is co-option, and co-option happens incipiently, irrevocably, and the victim is usually the last to know. It will happen all the more to the educated class?adrift from its cultural roots and, therefore, that much more capable of being co-opted.
Irrespective of our world view and our GDP, you want to be rooted first of all in your culture. You cannot have clones who are hanging on the coattails of approval of an outside power. You have to reappropriate that space.
Who should be the torchbearers in the project of reclaiming our roots?
The project of becoming Indian applies all the more so to those who are beyond the creative community, to all those who are interlocutors of India with the world. They include the corporate world. Because original thinking shows, as does derivative thinking. If you aspire to sit on the high table of the world, as India does and as India can, it can do so with credibility and in a manner that can win respect only when you are an authentic spokesperson of your culture.
India has arrived is a common refrain currently. Would you agree to India?s enhanced position globally?
This whole business of ?India has arrived? is a complete delusion of the educated elite. If one of our painters sells at $1 million, we are euphoric. So much of Bollywood today is derivative. As many as 70% of our films are straight lift-offs. Look at the state of art and music, our monuments, libraries. It pervades our national fabric. Look at the fact that Delhi has hardly any auditoriums. NGMA has 30,000 visitors annually, Louvre has 2.5 million. We cannot be satisfied with such a low threshold of cultural achievement. We must be able to understand the processes that have created this. From that assessment must arise a genuine desire to reappropriate our roots.
Ultimately, a country which is doing well economically, but is culturally impoverished, dilutes its impact. Despite the impact of the Cultural Revolution, and not everything about culture in China is good, but Beijing has 150 galleries, Shanghai has 100 and they are building 83 new museums.
How much does absence of interrogation disturb you?
In the intellectual forum of this country, there is no dialogue of significance. It?s a barren wasteland. In the UK, on weekends, there are 40 pages only on books. That?s the colonising power. I cannot be silent witness to the intellectual emasculation of a great civilisation.