Womanly Tales

Gosh – It seems like an eternity since I last blogged. It’s been a rocky year thus far and by the nature and volume of jyotish readings I’ve been doing – it seems like there are far more out there going through the same in different areas of their life.
A few weeks back Deepan (It’s unnerving how early on he can pick on the pulse of what’s going to be hot..) told me that David Cameron and what seemed like ‘everybody who’s somebody’ in the British government are due to go to India. This time has come and the BBC has been chronicling the foreign trip. Despite the fact that he visited the US and then Turkey, the media reports have all but ignored these visits and instead focused largely on the third visit – that to India.
It certainly is an interesting time for this visit and the different media reports are a fabulous fiest for a budding (albeit ingenue) sociopath like myself [I've been watching the new series - Sherlock and it is bloody fantastic! Catch it on BBC iPlayer if possible]
The main question (as reported in the media) of course is this: What has the United Kingdom got to offer India?
If you are not somebody who has any interest in things English, you might approach this question objectively. You might say: UK has an economic growth rate of just about 1% while India is looking to steadily grow at 8% through 2020. From a labor point of view, the current UK government won it’s mandate by being openly critical of the immigration of ‘Highly skilled’ migrants – a bulk of them coming in from the sub-continent. Tax payers in the UK can pay up to 40% income tax while their Indian conterparts are discussing ways to reduce the income tax (to about 25%) for their citizens.
This question however is not merely an objective one. There are many shades of meaning that become more clear if you are a bit more tuned to both cultures. This is the space that interests me. Instead of looking at the mere objective facts, we need to understand the cultural tones to assess the quality of this relationship. Facts and numbers in itself are not as compelling as beliefs.
The British believe they are no good – this is a country that love to underestimate themselves. Be it sport (Andy Murray in Wimbledon) or films (in the shadow of Hollywood) or even politics (hijacked in an All-American train – was akin to what a former UN official testified to yesterday in the Iraq Enquiries) it’s the same story of poor self-esteem on one hand and crass underestimation on the other.
Indians on the other hand find it very easy to over-estimate themselves. Both the current government and the opposition have run political campaigns based on declaring India a super power (under the India rising campaign) – The difference however is that the current government won the mandate of the people on their campaign while the opposition lost.
This trip thus is fascinating to watch unravel because both parties are clearly on opposite ends of the spectrum — though I don’t believe in linearity — so if we take the two opposite ends and form a circle — these are are bound together albeit with their backs in contact. So for all the hand shaking that will be going on — another interesting topic to discuss…in a bit… to me this is a case of two cultures forced to interact because they’ve no more to back up against.. If I were a cartoonist I would draw both Cameron and Singh back to back against one another…with an old ship’s anchor binding Cameron’s left and Singh’s right leg on one side and a more shiny fiberoptic cable loosely binding the rest of their bodies while they twist their heads to say hello. Here too, I would imagine Singh’s face twisted to the left with a smile that reflects our ‘Athithi devo bhava’ (Guests are like god) philosophy whilst Cameron is turning to his right in the opposite direction to Singh’s with a smile and tikka on his forehead which absolutely says nothing about his real intentions. As I am an Indian, I am tempted to add that Cameron’s nose would be just slightly turned up…but then that would just be my cultural bias.
The biggest problem for the British that stems from this deep rooted ‘We’re not good enough’ belief is that this means they are going to be thinking about what this relationship means to them to death. All the media reports here reflect this obsession — What have we got to offer? [followed by a snigger or an odd shake of the head]. The problem is not the belief itself – Instead it’s the behavior that it encourages that is very self-indulgent and ruminative. The British are only thinking of themselves — what does this mean to us? The result of this is that they tend to perceived as being ‘preachy’ or even ‘sly’. From a negotiation perspective, all the British can think up is their ‘Win’ — they completely blind themselves to what their counterparts define as their ‘Win’. In order to reach any agreement, the Indians will need to thus be indulgent — is that possible?
The Indians tend to easily over-estimate themselves. Our history is glorious and we take this to heart. So regardless of the poverty figures or the health issues we face, every Indian is genuinely secure in ourselves. Things aren’t of course all that rosey — Our belief tends to make us lynch onto what others are saying about us — and so emotionally we’re hostage to our opponents. For example, look at the media reports about this visit. By and large the English media are reporting verbatum what the foreign press is saying this trip. There’re taking the British under-stated quality and translating that to feed their need to over-state their role.
Of course I don’t imply in any way here that Mr. Cameron and Dr. Singh (who I think is a fabulous leader) are not serious about business — I just question the beliefs behind these two men and their people and wonder if it isn’t a case of history repeating itself. There was a previous time when the British came in to do business and it ended in them violating our dignity and peace. The esteemed first leader of Tanzania said of the whites – They came to our country, gave us bibles and taught us how to pray with our eyes closed. When we opened our eyes, we had their bibles, and they had our land.
The differing economic growth rates have not changed our beliefs – - Indians will do well to treat our guests well but not indulge them without clearly defining our own priorities.
This brings me to the hand shake comment. Indians do not shake hands – we bring our palms together to greet other people. By this we mean we are greeting the soul in you and establishing that we are both equal despite our inequalities (wealth,education etc).
We’ve learnt this hand-shaking business from our ‘guests’ and we do it because we want to be seen as welcoming. However history has taught us to distrust the hand shake — so we do it with utmost disrespect for the gesture itself. To us shaking hands is an endorcement that the whites will break that trust that they like to prematurely impose on every relationship before it is ready to trust.
For the British contingent, this will be a trip where they will be well cared for – if they are only thinking of themselves however, this is perhaps all that this trip will mean. For the Indian contingent, they will need to be more consultative of their private and public enterprises to define what their ‘win’ is and do that at the cost of going overboard welcoming and indulging our guests.
This meeting is not going to be about politics or global ‘security’ – instead it is going to be about business. The British are exemplary middle men and this is the core strength that they are playing to. The Indians on the other hand have a full plate and if history is anything to go by, will be most generous (even at their own peril) to share what they have. This meeting has the potential of something very special and that is exactly why it is equally vulnerable and fragile.
The world needs India and India can either leverage the best middle men out there to bridge the gap or simply ignore the lot.