India: Caste – The Beginning of the End?

I am not religious. I was born a Hindu, and there are many aspects of Hinduism that I consider praiseworthy. Hindu philosophy (what little I have read of it) is profound and rational. At its best, Hinduism is a gentle way of life that preaches compassion and tolerance. There is room for speculation, discussion and debate. However, there are things about the way Hinduism is practiced that is truly detestable. The worst of these is caste. Caste (and the way casteism is practiced in certain parts of India) represents all those things about Hinduism I would rather forget.

Nowhere is casteism practiced more aggressively than in the Hindi-speaking heartland of North India, in the states of Uttar Pradesh and Bihar. Together, these two states are the most backward in India, on virtually any parameter you select – whether it is economic development, literacy, gender equality, infanticide, healthcare, crime or primary education. Together, Uttar Pradesh and Bihar form about 30% of India’s population, and unless there is significant positive change in these two states, India’s dream of becoming an economic superpower can be forgotten.

So-called “lower” castes were persecuted for millennia under the garb of religious sanction. After independence, every Indian government irrespective of political persuasion has found ways to develop and maintain caste-based “vote-banks”, playing off castes against each other to obtain votes and power. This political tactic of divide-and-rule is still very widely practiced all over India. In more progressive parts of India, education, literacy and economic development have made a significant dent in caste-based politics, and though caste is still important, it is no longer all-important. It is not easy to eliminate thousands of years of institutionalized prejudice and it will take time for things to change.

Many right thinking people had given up hope regarding any significant change in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar. Which is why the re-election of Nitish Kumar as the Chief Minister of Bihar is such a refreshing development. As Chief Minister of Bihar, Nitish Kumar has brought about much needed change in India’s most backward, benighted state. Instead of focusing on caste-based politics in a quest for power, Kumar has focused on economic development and security. The changes he has brought about in Bihar in the five years he has been Chief Minister would be considered modest in most other places. He has built roads and schools and put criminals in prison. He has provided modest livelihoods to the desperately poor. In Bihar, a state where there was no security, no roads, very little education and absolutely no economic development, these changes are truly revolutionary. There is still a long way for Bihar to go. It remains extremely poor and backward. But still, a beginning has been made.

Kumar’s shrewd tactic of focusing on security and economic development must have been a huge gamble, especially in a state where everybody assumed that the only way of obtaining power was propagating destructive caste and religion based politics. But against all odds, it has worked.

Does this mean the beginning of the end of destructive caste-based politics in India? I certainly hope so. It took thousands of years to build the destructive institution of caste. It may be too optimistic to think that it can be dismantled in twenty years. Can we dare hope that a start has been made?

Politics: Obama’s India Visit: No Good Deed Goes Unpunished

I am a big fan of the United States of America. I lived there for six years, and since then, have been back a few times. No other country in the world is freer, more diverse or tolerant. No other country in the world is more honest – Americans make no bones about the fact that you do need money to be happy, and a firm belief in capitalism is a cornerstone of the American way of life. It is a country that respects and encourages individualism, and believes that personal choices and not governmental intervention are the key to individual and societal happiness. I happen to agree with all these principles.

India and the US have had an indifferent, sometimes tense relationship over the last sixty years. During the Cold War, India was a Soviet ally and was in the ludicrous position of opposing the US ideologically, while being heavily dependent on US food aid to prevent mass starvation.

Over the last twenty years, however, the Indo-US relationship has thawed considerably. On the economic front, India’s economy has liberalized and the country has prospered. India views the US as the biggest market for its services and manufacturing exports. From the US perspective, the impressive purchasing power of India’s rapidly expanding middle class has resulted in US corporations making a beeline for India. On the political front, both the US and India view the rise of authoritarian China with increasing nervousness. India has an aggressive, authoritarian China as its immediate neighbour on its eastern border and crumbling, increasingly fundamentalist Pakistan on its western border. India and the US are both liberal, progressive, secular democracies and a strategic relationship between the two countries should be in the natural order of things. India needs the US to remain a superpower to guarantee its own future prosperity.

Under George W. Bush’s presidency, the Indo-US friendship improved considerably. Bush pushed aggressively for free trade as well as the Indo-US nuclear partnership. The Bush Administration agreed with India’s aspirations of becoming a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council. So, Indian hopes were running high when Barack Obama became US president.

However, Obama’s early pronouncements were not encouraging. He railed against jobs being outsourced to India (and probably invented the term“Bangalored”) to win cheap political brownie points, when any economist worth his salt would have told him that free trade is mutually beneficial. His administration’s message seemed to be – You must open your markets to our good and services, but our markets will remain closed to your goods and services.

Obama now wants India to buy billions of dollars worth military equipment. This will create jobs for American workers in a tough recession. I have no problem with that. But I do have a problem when he says that he also plans to give similar military equipment to Pakistan - FOR FREE. I find this mystifying.

Pakistan is indeed under attack from within, but I fail to see how providing it with the latest jet fighters and tanks will help it fight fundamentalists who live in caves in the mountains. The Obama Administration is also conspicuously quiet about China’s plans to supply Pakistan with nuclear technology, but at the same time, is pressing India to sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). India has been a responsible nuclear power for nearly forty years, and has never exported nuclear technology to pariah states such as North Korea or dubious Middle Eastern tyrants.

India’s foreign policy has never been aggressive or expansionist. India has contributed billions of dollars of developmental aid to the redevelopment of Afghanistan. India has contributed troops and money to many of the UN’s interventions around the world – from Kosovo to Rwanda.

Despite India being a model international citizen, the Obama Administration seems to be indifferent to India, at least when it comes to concrete benefits on the ground. Which just goes to prove the old adage – no good deed goes unpunished. And Obama’s constant refrain about how much he admires Mahatma Gandhi doesn’t count. We would prefer free trade and equal access to US markets, thank you very much.