Western disturbance vs Indianness

In the 1974 Hindi film Sagina, about a worker who fights against tyrannical British tea estate owners, the main character, Dilip Kumar sings, Sala main to sahab ban gaya. It is an obvious parody of a bumpkin trying to be a “sahab”, i.e. a Britisher, wearing a “suit and boot” which makes him a “gora koi London ka” (a white from London).

Making fun of those who try to become English, i.e. Western, has a long tradition in Hindi cinema, our foremost form of popular culture. From the early, Aana meri jaan Sunday ke Sunday, which gently sets up the desi, traditional types — dharam karam ki naari as the counterpoint to the smart, but un-Indian Westernised girl to the bowler-hatted Mehmood telling his rustic girlfriend Aruna Irani to throw away her clothes and wear Western ones because she looks like a “monkey”, the conflict between the Indian and the foreign has been a staple in Hindi films.

The treatment in mostly such cases is comedic. An Indian pretending to be Western is a joke and we can all have a hearty laugh at the expense of over-Anglicised types. In the early years after Independence, the Western-oriented gentleman with a colonial hangover was still around, but over the years, he faded away. Today, we laugh — or sneer — at the non-resident Indian (NRI) who wants to assimilate with his host country to such an extent that he dismisses any connection with the mother country. Bobby Jindal is a good example.

The ground reality is a bit more complex. Indians, and not just in urban centres, are now quite Westernised, without even knowing it. We may think we have become “globalised”, but the clothes we wear, the language we speak, the shows we watch and the junk food we consume are all American and to a much smaller extent, British. Young Indians think of themselves as no different from their counterparts in New York; our rom-com films are heavily inspired from Hollywood productions; the malls are full of American brands. Naturally, Western attitudes and value systems too creep into our behaviour. We are, thus, more Western than ever before.

This is what displeases people like Union home minister Rajnath Singh. He says we must all be “Bharatiya”, not “angrez”. “English bolne se gyan nahi hota (one doesn’t acquire knowledge by speaking in English only),” said the country’s home minister, speaking to students at a private institute in Noida, near Delhi.
No one can argue with that — no language is the repository of all wisdom and certainly speaking in one’s mother tongue is never a bad idea. But then Mr Singh and those like him don’t stop there. They are not just against English, but against all that it brings with it, i.e. attitudes that are somehow “un-Indian”.
According to a report about his speech,

Mr Singh also expressed his dismay at the casual manner in which the Indian children talk to their parents. Instead of saying “hi or bye” they should touch their parents’ feet and take their blessings. “If a child is blessed by parents, no one can stop him from reaching the greatest heights in life.” How quickly Mr Singh moves from the language to the culture; the introduction of a homily at this stage seamlessly connects speaking in Hindi to Indian values to eventual personal progress and success.

This is a familiar tactic of the Sangh Parivar, which is constantly preaching a certain idealistic “Indianness” to which we must all aspire. The propagation of Hindi, is not without the larger objective of creating the “adarsh Bharat” which approximates the mythical golden age of this nation where everyone is mutually respectful, knows their place in the family and in the larger social structure, a land where women are demure, the children obedient and the patriarch is the final authority on everything. That is the Indian, or more accurately, the Hindu way of life. Apparently, learning Hindi and speaking it can take us there to that gilded age; speaking in English will inevitably lead to disaster.

The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, the Bharatiya Jana Sangh and now the Bharatiya Janata Party are great votaries of this notion, since they have taken it upon themselves to drive away evil, foreign influences, whether English or lefty ideas, or, as they put it, both Macaulay and Marx. Gi-ven that everything great — in philosophy, mathematics, science and warfare — was produced in this nation, they only see it as returning to the natural order of things. At any other time this wouldn’t matter — everyone is allowed to think whatever they like, it’s a free country after all — but now, these are the people in-charge, which means they can put their ideas into practice.

It is quite likely that the students he was addressing will not follow his sage advice. Parents all over the country and from all strata of society are keen to send their children to English-medium scho-ols, because they know that it leads to greater employability. (At this point one recalls the BJP’s Pramod Mahajan once saying that it was fortunate that India was ruled by the British, because they left us with the English language that has given us an advantage in the software industry.)

The “hi and bye” culture may provoke anxieties among traditional Indian parents and among NRIs, but it is here to stay. Cultures evolve, maybe not for the better all the time, but that’s how it is. Saying “hi” to one’s father or mother does not in any way reduce respect for them; at the same time, the idea that grey hair should automatically be given respect is being challenged more and more. Women will not meekly say yes to everything because the lord and master of the house has so commanded, and nor will the growing children.

Traditions can be wonderful but they can often be stultifying. Mr Singh and his colleagues should stop wagging their fingers at the country. Telling us what to eat, who to love and even what to speak in the manner of a wise old grandfather is not the government’s job. At one time Hindi films made fun of the wannabe angrez, but Mr Singh is not laughing and neither should we. This is no longer a joke.