Disclaimer: No offence meant to any culture here. I have the greatest respect for all cultures and what I'm trying to argue here is something that is entirely human, and to which just about anyone can be susceptible.
About 60 years ago when India was born, two states bore the brunt of partition-related riots: Punjab and Bengal. It is interesting to see how each coped in the subsequent years.
Bengal was known at that time for its intellectual leadership. It was home to illustrious scientists and literary giants. There were sayings like "What Bengal thinks today, India thinks tomorrow," and so on.
On the other hand, Punjab was primarily known to be boisterous and loud. People across the country even made jokes about "sardarjis" which primarily depicted them as dim-witted.
60 years later, the tables have turned. We are talking about Punjabisation of India. No matter how much one would like to deny it, it is there for all to see. Punjabi cultural motifs is perhaps next only to Western (European/American) cultural motifs that much of our youth dutifully adopt.
With being a state that was afflicted with major violence as recently as the 1980s, Punjab today is one of the most affluent states in India. In contrast, Bengal has successfully driven industries out of the state, with Tata's Nano plant being the latest much-publicized victim. This, despite the fact that Bengalis are very active intellectually -- in research labs, academia, arts, etc.
At the risk of being repetitive, let me reiterate that as people and cultures, I have utmost respect for both. The way I see it, many other cultures in India today is at crossroads due to major changes happening from the opening up of our economy and globalization. They could go either of these ways.
I think this is no chance occurrence. It is what I call, nature's humbling blow to the intellectual. The moment we start believing that we are somehow intellectually elevated, and pursue intellectual goals at the neglect of solving practical problems, or by trivializing pragmatism -- nature drives us a heavy blow. It is nature's way of saying who really is the boss.
This is not to say that intellectual pursuit is futile. Intellectual pursuit helps vastly reduce the complexity of pragmatic issues. But when we start believing in ourselves as intellectually superior; or pursue intellectual purity at the risk of neglecting pragmatic issues, that is where where the danger lies.
Interestingly there was an interview with Narayana Murthy on Rediff recently, where he makes a quote that: "In India, articulation is often seen as accomplishment." "How true," I found myself saying. A number of "celebrities" are basically seen as "accomplished" because of things like their: blog posts, books, Sunday newspaper columns, etc. No doubt they are all good in articulation, but talk to most of them about some practical problem, you'd most likely get snubbed or the problem would get trivialized.
In our quest for intellectual purity, we often overlook the complexity of just getting things done, or even "wordly" issues like how to just live, in a world of uncertainty and pressure.
PS: Closer to home, this "intellectual posturing" is what I find most irritating in my family circles and the local culture, including some programs on regional TV. And heaven knows that I have the best interests of the people in mind, when I snub their intellectual posturing. But as with any society of "intellectuals": you either agree with them, or you are wrong (in this case, westernized, urbanized, etc. in other words, morally inferior). Just loosen up, folks. Be a good person. Think hard. Work hard. Solve problems. And most importantly, get a life.
Tuesday, April 28, 2009
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"No matter how much one would like to deny it, it is there for all to see. Punjabi cultural motifs is perhaps next only to Western (European/American) cultural motifs that much of our youth dutifully adopt."
It's certainly not obvious to me. Much of the youth does not live in big cities where these effects (Western/Punjabi etc.) occur the most. In a place like Chitradurga, most young people derive their pop culture references from watching Kannada movies and channels, which youth in Bangalore might not be aware of. They don't care about Western or Punjabi pop culture. Belgaum is "Bombay-ised", in the sense that the language that youth speaks, or the style they adopt, is that of Bombay. Sure, they also sing and dance to Punjabi (and probably English) songs in college gatherings. But when they gang up in campuses, Internet cafes, etc., it's like Bombay.
Also, there are a lot more young people in non-professional courses, who hardly even come across students from other regions.
One can think of several examples from other regions also. The point of these examples though is that, locality matters a lot. Local interactions and exchanges are bidirectional (or multi-directional), and are much stronger than the one-way airing of cinema or TV.
Take a set of people X drawn from as wide a net across India as possible -- Assam to Gujarat and Kashmir to Kanyakumari.
Let M(x) be the set of all cultural motifs (the kind of clothes they wear, the food they eat, the music they hear, etc.)
Now take the intersection of these Ms across the entire population. I can bet that the Ms having the largest intersection across the X's in India would be Punjabi.
Sure there are a lot many cultural interactions; but they are mostly localized to regions. Andhra food may be popular in Bangalore, but is certainly not so in Bikaner.
If there is any set of cultural motifs that have a pan-Indian recognizability, then I would bet they are Punjabi.
The set M(x) would have to be constructed with sufficient number of qualifiers. For example, food: what would a set of friends who go out on a weekend like to eat for lunch or dinner? Probably, Punjabi > Pizza > South Indian.
(OTOH, snacks are all Maharashtrian etc..)
If we make a lot of such qualifications, chances are there that Punjabi motifs are dominant all over. But I am talking in a more general day to day sense. People spend more time working and with families. When we consider all aspects of an individual's life, does Punjabi culture take the major portion? I am not convinced.
Am I saying that there is no Punjabi influence? No. Of course, there is. I am also not contending the point that Punjabi motifs are more spread out more than others which are more local. It is probably also the pan Indian identity *outside* of India (mainly in US and UK), due to the early migrations of Punjabis, and bollywood movies.
(Incidentally, I am not sure if some other countries such as, say Saudi Arabia or Singapore think Punjabi as soon as they think of Indian.)
My contention is about the "punjabi-isation" of India (as perceived from within India), which is a rather strong claim.
Even when we consider family lives, I'm willing to contend that Punjabi motifs are visible (salwaar-kameez for example) across the country.
Note that the contention is not about whether Punjabi motifs take up a major portion of *any one person's life*; but whether it is the most *widely distributed* set of motifs across the country.
Anyway, any further digging into this assertion will require a more scientific survey. (Which I'd be interested in getting done if someone is willing to fund, just to get some cool numbers for research.. ;-)
In any case, the main objective of this post is not whether India is becoming Punjabised or not. But of how a troubled society with a violent past, and which was not taken seriously by the rest of the country, has managed to capture the national imagination. And without being pretentitious about it.
One may want to scoff and say, this is just "pop" culture. But popular culture is popular for a reason. And usually what become classics in a generation were usually "pop" in some previous generation. This is true even of music or arts or literature or even in scientific theories.
We are a very interesting country, I must say!
I think the differences in perception are mostly about finer points, which is okay. I don't have a problem with a pan-Indian identity or a homogenization as long as it is an overlay. My only problem is about reducing everything to a small bunch of stereotypes, especially in these times. If someone funds me, I too woulnd't mind travelling all over India (and eating), in search of motifs. ;)
Anyway, that aside I can come to my main objection to this post. In this post, it is not immediately apparent to me how the different issues such as prosperity, intellectual pursuit, pragmatism, superiority etc. are connected. Even the title seems a bit misleading. Probably you mean "intellectually dogmatic". I am not sure why a society that pursues intellectual superiority and a problem solving society disjoint. In fact, I would imagine, they are in a positive feedback loop.
OTOH, a society that is not open to different/new thoughts, that is stuck in local optima, is the one that cannot solve problems.
I think states like Punjab and Gujarat achieved a much higher prosperity than the rest of the country pretty soon after independence. In Punjab, apart from being naturally rich (water, fertile lands), probably farmers were early adopters of mechanization in agriculture. Probably also larger size of land holdings.
In case of Bengal, the permanent government (or the opposition) has ensured that no new ideas can be adopted. It is rather a case of nobody taking on intellectual pursuit.
It is the same with many other states. You might remember that recently the agenda of one of these parties was under discussion, in which they were talking about the ill effects of computers or anything that has got to do with technology. What scares me is not such agenda, but the fact that more educated people than we imagine subscribe to it! It's never been possible for me to talk with people in my close circles, who are well educated, about, say, what a farce govt. subsidy is, without getting branded immediately as being pro-America or being under 'Bangalore effect' or whatever. That's how much we are stuck and we are not even ready to think that there might be an alternate way, a better optimum. I am really not sure when and how we understand that we are stuck, let alone trying to move.
Well in a sense, you have answered your question in your comment itself. The question is:
I am not sure why a society that pursues intellectual superiority and a problem solving society disjoint. In fact, I would imagine, they are in a positive feedback loop.They are not disjoint at all. And that is the point -- about how pursuit of intellectual often artificially disjoints the two.
You've in some sense, made the point yourself in the comment:
...but the fact that more educated people than we imagine subscribe to it![the futility of technology theory]Pursuing intellectual heights is not a simple pursuit at all. It is fraught with all kinds of pitfalls and local optima that we never realize that we are in.
If we start seriously believing that we are a society of superior intellect, it makes it that much harder to realize the loops that we are stuck in.
Usually, realization of being in a local optima comes from an external stimuli. In some cases, it also comes from internal saturation, leading to desperate situations. In either case, if we think of ourseleves as an intellectually superior society, (and are pretentitious about it, by scoffing at things that are hoi-polloi, "popular", etc.) it makes it that much more difficult for the society to realize the local optima that it is in.
That's the paradox of intellectual pursuit by societies. We should pursue higher intellect, but the moment we start believing that we are intellectually superior, we are not.
I am really not sure when and how we understand that we are stuck, let alone trying to move.I don't think there is one way to realize that we are stuck. But the more pretentitious we are, the more difficult it is for us to realize that we are stuck. (Which incidentally, is one of my biggest grouses against some "intellectual" serials on regional TV that claim to portray societal issues.)
Maybe they (West Bengal) got so involved in intellectuality that they forgot everything else :)
Maybe the trouble with being 'too' intelligent is that no matter how bad the situation, the person can always convince himself of the futility of every attempt to change it.
Well I don't want to pass any judgement on what went wrong in one case and right in another.
I'm just pointing out how tables have turned over the past decades.
Sure, it may be coincidence and correlation may not imply causation, but it sure does "waggle its eyebrows furtively and says, 'look over there!'" :-)
http://www.xkcd.com/552
i think the sardarji jokes were a result of the whole bhindranwale khalistan nonsense. it was said that sikhs all have "khaali staan" in their minds.. etc etc. no long-standing historical basis.
isn't it a bit too generic and naive to perceive all bongs as intellectuals and all punjus as doers or boisterous buffoons?
bengal was teeming with intellectuals even before this great decline began. and bengalis haven't been only thinkers. there have been enough doers. naxalbari is a fine example. as is the whole underground revolutionary folks, like khudiram bose and aurobindo ghosh. satyajit ray is yet another. the first iit was established in bengal.
most bongs explain this decline with the advent of marxism. it wasn't the intellectuality that brought about this decline, it was the pseudointellectualism. the blind faith of people in people they perceived to be better thinkers than themselves is a huge factor. now if everyone was an intellectual in bengal, atleast by consensus, they would have agreed on atleast experimenting to find the right path to development. not like the past sixty years when people were a slave to a single philosophy without once questioning it.
pragmatism is like knowing the equations, and intellectualism is like deriving the equations from scratch to solve the same problem. being an intellectual is time-consuming, but pragmatism doesn't necessarily work when your cheatsheet doesn't have the formula. the job of an intellectual is to derive such formulae which others can use so commonly that it'll be called 'common sense'.
as for 'punjabization', in the '70s, it was the other way 'round. Messrs Ray, Ghosh and Ghatak had colonized the west with their award-winning movies. theirs were the movies which were syllabus in film schools and the like.
punjus hooked up to bollywood because of a lack of a market for their own film industry. quite unlike bongs who had, and still have a market for their own films. and punjabi words and motifs are gently embedded in the movies... if the only way i was exposed to punjabi culture was through punjabi language movies, i sure as hell wouldn't have cared enough to know what 'shava' is or 'hai main mar jaanvaan' is supposed to mean.
the punjabization you speak of, if at all it exists, is just a phase. maybe in a couple of years it'll be a tam-brahm invasion of bollywood, who knows.
it wasn't the intellectuality that brought about this decline, it was the pseudointellectualism. the blind faith of people in people they perceived to be better thinkers than themselves is a huge factor.Well this is basically the point of this post. And that the transition from an intellectual society to a pseudo-intellectual society is subtle and fast, if we are not careful. By not careful, I mean, neglecting pragmatism.
In terms of the 'sardarji' jokes, they were only there because they had a different identity from the majority-Hindu media, i.e. the turban. Had nothing to do with intellectuality.
Sardarji is primarily a religious, not a regional identity. In that, only Sikh Punjabis were ridiculed, not the Hindu Punjabis or Muslim Punjabis.
Are Sikh Punjabis less intelligent than Hindu or Muslim Punjabis? Of course not. Then why this religious difference? Because of their distinct identity (i.e. turban) which did not gel well with a predominantly Hindu and Muslim India.
Are Hindus more 'intelligent' than the average Sikh? Well, there was a poll done a few years ago, that concluded that literacy rates in India were lowest among Muslims, second lowest amongst Hindus, and highest among Sikhs, Christians, and Jains. I do not discredit the Hindus or Muslims however, as they have a large population to deal with.
I can see Punjab as a go-getter state. For example, its predominance in the freedom struggle (60% of those in Bose's army were Sikhs, 70% of those sent to Andamans for life imprisonment were Sikhs). Also Punjabis were the first Indians to migrate out of the country on a large scale (to the UK, and Canada especially).
But we can't ignore the intellectual people that have come out of Punjab. One being Dr. Manmohan Singh, a child of the early 20th century. Dr. Ravinder singh kapany, now known as the father of fiber optics. Dr. Hargobind Khurana, who won a Nobel Prize in Medicine for India. The Governor of Louisiana, the former premier of British Columbia province of Canada, Canadian Fisheries Minister, former US Captain of the Army, etc. all being Punjabis.
I don't feel I can comment on the Bengali culture, as I have never stepped inside of Bengal. There is a stereotype of Bengalis being very gentle, feminine, literally inclined and political.
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