Politics
Held back by Hindu gods?
Published 04 December 1998
India has no modern roads, chronic power shortages and a middle class that throws rubbish into the street. Who's to blame, asks John Elliott
What is it that prevents India being successful and stops it pulling its vast population of almost one billion out of the rut of widespread poverty, illiteracy and general non-achievement? Is it, as is usually assumed, the size of the country and the enormity of its problems, plus natural characteristics such as the grinding heat and the dust and the devastating rains and floods? Is the scale of these challenges and the depth of the disadvantages so great that India is doomed to grow slowly and, more often than not, to fail to achieve?
Or are these the symptoms of something more, something rooted in the country's all-embracing Hindu religion - a religion and a mindset that provides followers with the relatively soft, unambitious option of taking things as they come, hoping for something better in the next reincarnated life, plus a caste system that defies ambition with a rigid hierarchical, and often feudal, class structure?
Certainly India is unsuccessful by almost any yardstick. Ever since independence 51 years ago, India has failed to tackle its basic problems on a macro level. More than 30 per cent of the population are still below the poverty line, 50 per cent are illiterate, while woefully inadequate education and healthcare systems perpetuate the misery. The infrastructure is one of the worst in the world, with virtually no modern highways or efficient ports. Power shortages rise to 25-30 per cent of demand, and the huge public sector is mired in self-perpetuating over-manned inefficiency that defies reform. Basically, little in India seems to work effectively and, to cap it all, no one expects it to be any different.
Decades, if not centuries, of shortages and economic stagnation have led to an acceptance of failure. "It is not available" is a phrase that rings in all shoppers' ears - and it is rarely questioned. "Our annual Republic Day parade and the Beating of the Retreat ceremony are the only things that work in India to the minute - and, even there, pigeons disrupt the parade's fly-past," jokes one of the country's top civil servants. Such resignation to fate is not surprising; but it is so widespread that it is logical to suspect that there must be something more fundamental than simply that people and governments are overwhelmed by the scale and apparent unsolvability of the problems they face.
Hindu fundamentalists have argued since a revival movement was started at the end of the last century (to fend off Christian and other western influences) that it is not the religion that is the problem. They say that India's national pride and confidence were crippled by a thousand years of being pushed around by Islamic Mogul and British rulers.
As a result, people are incapacitated when it comes to taking decisions and implementing them efficiently. Now the fundamentalists want the Hindu-nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which leads India's current government, to develop Hindutva - "Indian-ness" built around Hindu religion and culture - as a positive force that will cure the country's ills by rebuilding that lost pride and confidence.
"Right through the Mogul invasions to the British time in the 19th century, Hindu civilisation was stunned and traumatised. Hence the lack of activity and ambition," says Prafull Goradia, a BJP member of the Rajya Sabha (the upper house of India's parliament). "To this day we haven't come out of the slavery complex - that I do not expect to be a master, but I have an ego which I satisfy by being the super slave and by keeping the other slave down. This is the major reason why we don't make the progress we have the ability to make - and we need a heavy dose of nationalism to develop national and communal self-confidence so that we get over this."
That may be the BJP's dream for the future, but the reality up to now is that the dominant Hindu religion underlies, and is at least partly to blame for, India's problems. It covers more than 80 per cent of the population, and the teachings of the gods culturally influences the mindset of many of the Muslims, Christians and others who make up the rest. It is important not only because of the way it dampens ambition but because it also encourages acceptance of poor performance over a wide range of activities.
If Hindu immigrants have had great successes working abroad - excelling in areas such as electronics, software, banking and academia - it is because they are propelled into different behaviour patterns by local cultures and the need to survive in a competitive environment. At home in India, there are few such positive pressures.
Though there are many interpretations of Hindu teachings, in essence Hinduism promotes a fatalistic acceptance of a person's lot in life, performance of duty (rather than ambition to improve), and reincarnation (which holds out the prospect of a better life next time around if you do nothing much wrong this time). One of the original revivalist leaders, Swami Vivekananda, justified Hinduism's limitations on ambition and success by saying that India's "bedrock" was its "spiritual genius" and added: "Let others talk of . . . the glory of acquisition or of the power and spread of commercialism . . . religion is the one consideration in India."
Central to Hinduism are the concepts of dharma (duty) and karma (actions or deeds). Every individual evolves his or her own dharma, or moral code, which leads to conflicting and confusing social and ethical values. This confusion is compounded by the law of karma which requires a Hindu to accept that his caste and economic position are the result of deeds performed in a previous life, which can be improved if nothing bad is done in this one. The progression and retrogression of a Hindu's soul goes on through repeated reincarnations until it attains nirvana (salvation) and frees itself from the cycle of birth and rebirth. Significantly, nirvana is mainly achieved by introspective achievements of religious devotion and self-realisation rather than by western concepts of public and community achievements.
"Religion has always been used as an escape mechanism," says Suhel Seth, a go-getting banker turned advertising entrepreneur. "The lack of success is because Hinduism teaches us to be accountable only to God, not to anyone else, so no one in India regards themselves as accountable as politicians, economists or businessmen to anyone but themselves."
Hindu teachings impact on the basic needs of daily Indian life as well as on business and development in many visible ways. The ideal of tolerance is highly regarded, and allows for largely indolent, corrupt politicians (who use Hinduism for their own ends), a decrepit spread of laws that date back more than 50 years, Indian navy ships that are marooned in port and air force jets that are grounded (or crash) because of poor maintenance and a lack of spares, pot-holed roads that feed even major business districts, power cuts that plague everyone, and polluted water that can never be drunk from the tap.
Linked with that is a requirement to do one's duty without seeking excellence, or monetary or other reward or advancement. That does not stop beggars begging or politicians and public servants extorting bribes for what they do; but it does lead to an acceptance of one's place in society, negating enthusiasm and the wish to earn merit by performing services well. Thus an electrician will fix your wiring faults but care little if they break again the next day; a public servant will demand bribes and then fail to perform services properly; and companies will produce goods they know are below standard (until they face competition).
Another central factor is Hindus' primary concern for their own relationship with their god, which focuses attention on individuals themselves and little else. This encourages great personal cleanliness (sometimes extending to a clean home) but a total lack of concern for what happens outside - which leads to a lack of community responsibility and civic pride. So, for example, rubbish is thrown out into the street by even the smartest middle-class families; people spit betel nut juice on office staircase walls; there is no collective effort to improve the state of the roads; and a top industrialist like Rahul Bajaj, who controls one of the world's largest and most successful scooter manufacturers, sees no contradiction in being a pillar of the business establishment while at the same time polluting cities with fume-emitting scooters and three-wheelers.
Without doubt, though, the debilitating and cruel caste system is the most negative aspect of Hinduism. It combines the rigours of apartheid with the worst snobbishness of the British class system. For generations it has segregated people in a status-conscious society which has blocked advancement for hundreds of millions of people, deterring ambition and stifling initiative.
Today, though, the balance of social and economic influences in India is changing, reducing the impact of the Hindu mindset. The changes started in a small way 20 years ago, when agricultural revolutions began in the state of Punjab, generating new economic energy and consumer demand. In the 1990s economic liberalisation has opened up new horizons and ambitions, increasing competition and consumerism, and releasing a great surge of entrepreneurship. The impact has been enormously boosted by satellite TV beaming western images and consumer advertising into homes in rural as well as urban India.
This is causing significant changes in social attitudes. "The Brahmanical [top caste] grip on India is receding, which is both for the better and the worse. Some of the fatalism induced by a rigid caste hierarchy will certainly yield to the energy and optimism of the masses," says Namita Gokhale, a Brahmin novelist.
India's problems, though man-made, have developed in an environment set primarily by Hindu gods. Those gods will continue to provide safe reference points and benchmarks in the future, but increasingly other, more materialistic forces are helping to shape the country's destiny. With their advent, India will be successful.
Formerly with the "Financial Times", John Elliott now writes from New Delhi for "Fortune" magazine
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