India: Beware of “Sakoolar Phorsej”

Before I start this blog, I would like to state that I consider myself an agnostic – I am not religious at all. I am also impartial in the great Indian Caste System Debate; you know, the one where many people insist that certain castes are “backward” and a few are “forward”. I also like to think myself as colour-blind, when it comes to judging people on the basis of the colour of their skin. I also believe that women are as capable and intelligent as men, if not more so. The only way I categorize myself is by stating that I am an Indian.

Unfortunately, not enough voters in rural India appear to think so. This is because our politicians insist on dividing people on many different criteria. The two main criteria for dividing Indians are caste and religion. So we have politicians who tell us that they hate Brahmins, because they are secular. We have politicians telling us that we should tolerate terrorism because we are secular. We have politicians telling us we should stop using computers and discard the English language; because use of the English language means that we are somehow “inferior” and have a colonial mindset. These last statements come from Mulayam Singh Yadav, India’s own answer to Zimbabwe’s Robert Mugabe. Yadav has much in common with the infamous Mugabe, who is a Robin Hood in reverse – he steals from the nation and makes himself rich.

Like Mugabe, Yadav also believes that everything in India that has gone wrong is because of “progressive forces”. The English language? It cannot be good, because it is a colonial hangover. All of us must communicate only in Bhojpuri Hindi, for the true glory of Indian civilization to return. Never mind the fact that English is the only truly common language that binds the entire nation. Never mind that English is the language of business, and is the main reason that India’s GDP has surged so remarkably in the last few years in a globalized economy. Never mind that Mulayam Singh Yadav’s own sons were educated in Lucknow’s finest English-medium schools and did their college education in Australia (where the last time I checked, they speak English and not Hindi).

Computers? Never mind that India’s software service providers are now among the best in the world. Customers the world over have heard and often worked with Infosys, Wipro and Tata Consultancy Services. Indians make good software engineers and millions of jobs in the information technology sector have given rise to a new breed of confident, educated, urban middle-class Indian; professionals who live and work all over the world. India’s software services are the envy of the world. But not for Mulayam Singh. He believes that the use of computers must be banned, because they create unemployment. He has no scientific basis for this statement, but who cares? Computers and the Internet are the libraries of the 21st century. And in Mulayam’s rulebook, education itself is a bad thing (except for his own family of course). His vision of India is one where all Indians are poor, illiterate, live in mud huts, commute in bullock carts and practice subsistence farming. All Indians except for him and his family of course. Everybody and everything must be reduced to the lowest common denominator. This is Mulayam Singh Yadav’s version of socialism.

His vision of “secularism” is equally frightening. It means doing vote-bank mathematics, and cynically pitting the so-called Other Backward Castes (OBCs) and Muslims against everybody else. Luckily, neither the OBCs nor the Muslims in Uttar Pradesh (India’s most populous state) bought his vision of “secularism” the last time assembly elections were held there two years ago. Mulayam Singh Yadav’s Samajwadi Party was wiped out. Like all Indians irrespective of caste, colour and creed, Muslims and OBCs also want jobs, education for their children, security and a shot at a decent life.

Secularism as it is defined in India, is used to divide, not unite. The definition of secularism means that all people are treated equal in the eyes of the law, irrespective of race, religion, gender or colour. Unfortunately, in India, secularism is used as a weapon to confer special status on groups of people in return for votes. This brand of secularism has been practiced by all our political parties, irrespective of ideology. It has caused a great deal of damage to the social fabric of India and it is time to say “Enough”.

Is it possible that the hundreds of millions of the rural poor in India’s hinterland are slowly waking up and realizing that they have been cheated time and again since independence with empty promises? Are they realizing that they have been betrayed time and again by the so-called “secular forces” they have voted into power? Will these millions finally stop voting on the basis of caste and religion, and vote based on good governance instead? Will we see a time in the next twenty years when politicians will have to work hard to actually deliver education, jobs, healthcare and security to the hundreds of millions who constitute India’s poor, instead of merely parroting that they represent secular forces, as if this was some sort of badge of honour?

I hope so. Until then, I hope that you, the educated, urban voter take this opportunity to hold your local politician accountable for good governance and not be fooled by him or her saying that they represent “sakoolar phorsej”.