India Faking It

Dazzling images do not a shining nation make

Each year, since then, India has had a major visual presence at Davos through cleverly pitched campaigns designed by highly creative advertising agencies.

The India visible in the branding images primarily exists in the consciousness of the elite. It is a world of neat shopping malls, expensive branded products, happy, prosperous consumers, skilled scientists and engineers, white coats, headphones, smooth highways, high rise buildings, glass facades and green grass that paves one's vision. The images could be from anywhere in the world, while the Indian setting is presented through cultural icons such as bindis, colourfully decorated elephants, Gandhiji's spectacles and Taj Mahal. In short, India is transformed into a global place while still retaining its cultural authenticity and ethnic appeal.

While this vision is a powerful tool to attract investors and tourists, it is also its biggest weakness. The images conjure a world that does not really exist outside the limits of the visual frames. Absent from the frames is the “other” India — the poor, the untouchables, the minorities, and all that is un-beautiful — the ruptured body of the nation that has not only failed to “catch up” with the progress, but in fact is seen as holding the nation back in its journey towards prosperity and global power.

It is not uncommon to hear stories of shock and disappointment upon arrival from the very members of the privileged global class that the Indian state so wants to attract. 

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As the novelty of dazzling image campaigns levels out, India might need to rework its agenda — to focus on the actual production of a prosperous and equitable nation, rather than producing merely images of it.

Where Is The Shine Here?

From DH: Protesting Dalits smear themselves with human excreta.

For the past 70 years, four families of the Bhangi community, who work as night soil workers, have been living in huts built on land belonging to the Savanur Town Municipal Council (TMC).

At a meeting some time ago, the TMC decided to evict the families and build a commercial complex in its place. Ever since, the TMC has employed various devious ways to force the families out of their homes.

Starting with an oral directive, the TMC has resorted to cutting water connection to the families, dumping waste in front of their homes, barging into their homes, insulting their women and threatening them.

Instead of these devious ways, why not use the most straightfoward way to evict them: give them an alternative place to stay?  As the article asks: 

What can be said of a system that forces a community to inflict upon themselves the lowest form of humiliation, just so they are allowed to live in their own homes?

And the other question is: Why, when manual scavenging is constitutionally illegal in India, are people still being employed to do it?  Don't they deserve better?