NCCSAS Blog

            There I was, winding my way through the narrow lanes of the Medina in Tangier, searching for the right storeowner to bargain with for a few packs of Moroccan mint tea. Seemingly all at once, five street vendors surrounded me, trying to get me to buy their (unwanted) wares. At first, you try to be polite. “No, I don’t want that, thanks.” But that just makes you a pushover. So what did I do? I figured if they thought we didn’t share a common language (they were trying to hustle me in English), they might just give up. So I tersely said something along the lines of, “No, I don’t want that,” in Hindi and hoped for the best. I figured, of all the languages I knew, they’d be the least likely to understand that one. And normally, I was right. But on this particular occasion I got the following:

“Naheen chahiye! Naheen chahiye! KUCH KUCH HOTA HAI!!! SHAHRUKH KHAN!!!”

 

            I had underestimated India’s soft power. Joseph Nye, who visited Duke for a lecture recently, is largely responsible for the development of soft power theory, which utilizes culture and values in a nation’s foreign policy in addition to the traditional tools of military engagement, brute force, economic sanctions, etc. Much is made today of the rise of China and how it rescued the world economy from the brink, but I doubt whether, had I said, “I don’t want that,” in Chinese, I would have heard:

 

“CHAIRMAN MAO!!! GREAT WALL!!! CULTURAL REVOLUTION!!!”

 

            Don’t get me wrong – I’m sure most Moroccans know at least something about China. But through the vehicle of Bollywood and dance, India has made itself infinitely more accessible. We might also include Pakistan in this argument, as there is an increasing amount of cooperation between Pakistani and Indian actors and musicians, although Bollywood is still firmly entrenched in Indian culture. India has managed to tap into world consciousness in a way that China seems to eschew at the moment – through the culturally beloved. From America to Morocco, we all know of Bollywood, Gandhi, and bhangra. And it doesn’t hurt that India has the more friendly façade of a liberal democracy compared with China’s more authoritarian, top-down Politburo. In short, India knows how to market itself well. China may be able to buy the world off, but India can capture its heart. This is an exaggeration, of course, but I can’t help but think that India is be doing itself a huge favor by exporting its national culture as opposed to ominous economic threats. I can’t say that I’m fascinated by Bollywood movies themselves, but their global implication for India has yet to be fully seen.

 

            Ironically, however, the Indian government hasn’t exactly made such great use of this cultural capital. Rarely do we see India taking the bull by the horns in the way that China has done with North Korea, or even Brazil with the Middle East (you can disagree with the outcomes, but you can’t say that these countries lacked initiative). Not even an Olympiad or a World Cup to speak of for Bharat Ma! Personally, if I had one word to describe Indian foreign policy, it would be “reactive.” We in the US are constantly trying to analyze the Indian “response” (read: “reaction”) to climate change, to the economic crisis, to our latest overtures in Pakistan. The last time India may have been a truly global player on the foreign policy stage was during the Cold War, when the US and Russia were vying for Indira Gandhi’s attention. The Cold War!? I mean, let’s think about that for a second. Because, for a nation that has been tapped along with China to be one of the “next big things,” that is…well it’s a damn long time. Even in its own sphere of influence, India keeps a relatively quiet profile. This can be a strategically beneficial choice at times, but, as with the Myanmar debacle a few years back, it can also come across as indicative of a  lack of moral fiber.

 

            So there’s the conundrum: all the resources, but none of the initiative. For my part, I’d love to see India become more assertive in foreign affairs. Given that China seems to be diametrically opposed to nearly any effort we undertake, I think India could be a useful voice of compromise and moderation. Meet me halfway, anyone? Also, I tend to view India as America’s cultural ally of sorts, if only because both are in certain ways liberal democratic products of British colonialism. There’s a level of trust America shares with India that will take years, if not decades, to build with China. The trick, however, is for India to resist the belligerent nationalism that has tarnished China’s rise, for it is this very characteristic that has made America so mistrustful of the Asian powerhouse. If China is the aggressor, the India is the (Pak aside) pacifist. Okay, okay, so there was that one time when India joined Club Nuke uninvited. But, hey, we got over that little hiccup because, gosh darn it, we like those Indians! However, joining the America-China tango as merely one more self-interested superpower will destroy the American goodwill India can use to propel it to that very same position. This is all my opinion, of course, but I don’t think I’m the only one who’s voicing something along these lines. So it’ll be interesting to see exactly what kind of path, if any, India chooses to blaze when it comes to international relations during the next few years. On the one hand, America has a frightening amount at stake which depends on India’s cooperation, but, on the other, we do all love a good wild card.

            So in my last entry, I promised to talk about notions of “charm” and “hospitality” in South Asia. I always tend to be wary of those terms, because I don’t know many cultures that wouldn’t describe themselves as hospitable, my own included. It’s like family values – every foreign culture under the sun seems to have them. Except America. But, then again, I think that has a lot more to do with the popularity of America-bashing than anything else.

 

Yet I digress.

            I’ve already written somewhat on how the things people typically find endearing (e.g. aunties relentlessly stuffing your face with [admittedly very tasty] food) aren’t necessarily so for me. I’m a bit of a control freak. Okay okay, I’m a HUGE control freak. So when someone doesn’t stop when I ask politely the first time, I can get…well…pissed off. But hey, that’s just me. I totally recognize that a lot of people, South Asians and outsiders alike, enjoy the mini-drama that we call “eating at your aunty’s.”

 

But I would agree that South Asia is a charming place in which to spend time. Putting aside the more disturbing issues I’ve written about lately, there are an infinite number of things I associate with the subcontinent that I dearly miss. For example, I miss the way people eat (not to be confused with the aforementioned drama that always surrounds it). As I’ve said many times before, I’m from the South, and my hands are my second favorite utensils after the standard fork and spoon. God bless South Asia for thinking the same. Whereas many foreigners are ambivalent about this particular custom, it took me all of two seconds observing people eating lunch at a Delhi restaurant before I put my hand-sani to good use and dived right in. Some say that food just tastes better when you eat with your hands. I’m not too sure about that, but anything that’s rewarded with a bowl of hot nimboo-pani afterwards is okay by me!

 

            One story on this matter that I would be remiss not to mention occurred not in India but on the sparking blue waters of the Caribbean. I happened to be on winter break, and my family decided a weeklong cruise would be a great idea. And it was, except the entrees at dinner weren’t exactly up to par with my discriminating palate (haaaaa….). Our waiter happened to be from Goa, so I asked if he could just have the chef make me Indian dishes instead. With all the vegetarian Gujjus on board, I’m sure I wasn’t the first person to have made this request. Regardless, he said yes. So the next night, I get a nice steaming plate of daal chaaval put in front of me with some roti. Normally, I think daal is incredibly bland, but I was desperate at this point. So I did the unthinkable. Or the usual. Depends on who you ask. I pulled my sleeves back and dug in! Now, cruise ship restaurants are generally rather nice, and my well-to-do mother was mortified. Mor-ti-fied. She berated me, unsuccessfully, for five minutes straight while everyone else’s conversations came to a grinding halt. However, I found an unlikely source of support in my grandfather, who thought it was hilarious that he had endured growing up on a poor, rural Georgia farm, painstakingly started his own vending company, and then watched that company flourish economically only to have things come full circle with his grandson. I suppose you could say that at least I was choosing to eat with my hands. Our waiter, meanwhile, walked around with a barely disguised smirk for the rest of the night. Maybe he felt vindicated when he put that finger bowl in front of me. Who knows? I just wanted to have some damn good food eaten right!

 

            But enough about eating with your hands, because there’s so much more I could talk about. I could talk about, for instance, how I loved it every time someone in Delhi said “double three” for “3-3” when giving out a telephone number. Or how just about every week brought a new mango variety into season. Or how my ethnicity became this intricate guessing game (Pathan? No. British? Definitely not. Australian? Sorry, mate.). Or, finally, how my ibuprofen and antibiotics were cheaper than the bottled water I carried around. Clearly, this was a region that shared my priorities. Well, maybe.

 

            So, yeah, South Asia is charming. But, unlike for many other people, it was only charming for me when it let its guard down. The planned dinner parties I attended were lovely and hospitable, to be sure, but there was always this tension about them. This tension over whether or not I, the white American guest of honor, would be okay with everything. I have to admit that this really only made me uncomfortable, as did sitting on a couch opposite that of aunties and uncles politely interrogating me about my studies (although I usually brought up the hijras to throw them a curveball – bet they weren’t expecting THAT one!). And I know I’m speaking in complete generalizations here, as there were definitely a few instances where I immediately felt at home upon entering someone else’s house in India. But I still would have preferred to be in some seedy outdoor café, the jalebi-wala outside hustling like a pro, the man next to me yelling “DOUBLE-FIVE, DOUBLE-SEVEN!” into his Tata phone, and the family behind me digging a hole to China in the middle of their daal makhni. It was only then that I forgot about where I came from, why I was there, and when I would leave, and instead finally felt comfortable. And the food poisoning? Eh, that’s a small price to pay. Besides, remember those cheap antibiotics I was telling you about…?

            Perhaps some of you took a look at my undergraduate thesis website a while back (if not, go here: http://lisa.cs.duke.edu/~john/finalproject). In it, I discuss the uniqueness and problems of a community in India called “hijra.”. I never quite tire of talking about them, so I decided I would use them as the topic for this particular entry.

 

            First, a bit of background on sexuality and gender in South Asia. As with many other things in the subcontinent, it’s a study in contradictions. From the land where we get the Kama Sutra (in which there are hijras!), we also get the culture of purdah (literally means “curtain,” but refers to strict gender segregation), ascetics, and the oft-cited anxiety over semen loss. I still haven’t wrapped my brain around that last one, but they say it still has consequences for certain South Asia-specific psychological disorders, so we’ll go with it for now. However, if we do want to make any sort of generalization, we can say that South Asia still falls on the conservative side of things when it comes to sex-related issues.

 

            Enter the hijras. And what, you might ask, is a hijra? It’s actually a bit more difficult to answer than most people realize, but there are a few characteristics that are associated with this special group of people. I should preface all this by saying that, if you want the American equivalent, it would be male-to-female transgender. But this comparison belies fundamental cultural differences based on millennia of history. Hijras are, by and large, individuals who are born biologically male but who come to identify with the female gender, typically during late childhood and early adolescence. There are some hijras who are born intersexed (i.e. ambiguous genitalia), but these are far outnumbered by those biological males who experience what we would term “gender dysphoria.”

 

            Hijras have, according to myth, been around since the dawn of time. They are mentioned in Ramayana, one of Hinduism’s beloved epics, as being blessed by the deity Rama. Other Hindu stories and literature are known to feature characters that undergo sex changes via magical curses – perhaps Arjuna in the Mahabharata is the best example of this. In short, gender-bending in South Asia has a history that blows “enlightened” gender discourse in the West completely out of the water. Indeed, it is due to this lengthy history that hijras, who traditionally dress as women and request to be addressed using feminine terms, perform badhai. The concept of badhai is a bit difficult to explain, but you can think of it as song-and-dance routines that bestow blessings on auspicious occasions. For example, hijras will often perform badhai at the birth of a male infant (sorry girls…better luck next time). During badhai performances, the hijras will grant fertility blessings to the infant, for hijras are thought to have the power to bless and curse others. This power is said to come from both asceticism and the castration operation that hijras frequently endure.

 

            I could go on and on about hijra subculture, as well as the work I did with them in New Delhi, but that’s what the website I listed above is for. At this point, I’d like to pose a question that struck me long ago. How is it that I am not supposed to see a man and a woman kiss in a Bollywood film (this is still largely a no-no, for those of you that don’t know), but when I exit the theater I do see a group of transsexuals clapping and dancing for what is essentially good luck? Perhaps South Asians don’t see it this way. Perhaps I wonder this because we in the West have a particularly nasty history with sexual and gender minorities, but are okay with the fact that “sex sells.” But I would have to qualify this relativist explanation by saying that hijras by no means enjoy widespread acceptance in India. At best, they’re tolerated. At worst, despised. People often pay them not for their singing and dancing, but just to get them to leave weddings and birth ceremonies. Many people consider them to be dangerous, disgusting (I hesitate to say “polluting” because that has religious connotations, but I think it would also be applicable here) – basically any negative adjective you would use for a group of people you dislike. Then there’s the fact that a large number of hijras are prostitutes for male clients, so it’s not like there’s no element of sexuality involved here. In the end, I feel that it’s less an issue of what South Asia does and does not “allow,” per se, but rather what has had a place in its history. For, even if most individuals in South Asia do hold a negative opinion of hijras, the fact remains that hijras have been in South Asia for thousands of years. Public kissing has decidedly not been (as far as I can tell).

 

            But the real reason I chose to devote this entry to the hijras is because…well…I think they’re so fantastic! I come from a relatively laidback society where social norms are often malleable, if not ignored entirely. I consider myself to be a polite person (thank you, Southern culture), but I never really worry too much about if what I’m saying is taboo, not in line with “decorum,” or too informal. I mean, let’s face it, if it’s before 10am, I’ve been known to wear my pajamas to class. Somehow, I cannot see this flying at a university in South Asia. When I first arrived in India and began to meet the locals, I constantly had all these behavioral codes floating around in my head: “Nope, don’t hug your fellow Dukie from the States, because she’s a girl and you’re a guy!” “Definitely don’t bring up such and such a topic in front of an auntie!” “Saying you don’t want more food is no good – you’ll need to vocalize it at least three times before they slow down the kheer train!”

 

            A lot of people find the things I just listed to be part of South Asia’s charm. I don’t. To be honest, I just find them really annoying (pardon the judgment). I’ll get into the things that I do find charming in a later entry, but my point in saying all this is that, with the hijras, the rules just really fly out the window. I could hug anyone I wanted, say pretty much anything I felt like, was listened to when I said I was full…Actually no, the hijras were just as bad at trying to stuff me full of sweets and chai. Although it seemed like harmless hospitality at the time, my scale back home ultimately disagreed. But, anyways, can you imagine the relief and freedom I felt?! It was like this great burden had been lifted, and I was no longer censoring myself. It’s a shame this was only the case because hijras are total outcasts in South Asia and, as such, aren’t really expected to follow certain mainstream social norms. Whatever. Give me a societal aberration any day.

 

            I worry about them, though. I worry that progress isn’t always guaranteed with the passage of time. With the advent of LGBT rights in India and elsewhere, I’m hopeful that the community will become better integrated into society and not necessarily have to rely upon badhai, begging, and prostitution (khanjura) to earn a living. But I worry because I’m afraid that any significant push to really improve their lot will just be seen as some sort of neocolonial advocation of Westernized rights. In reality, the democratic and liberal principles set forth during the South Asian independence movement should have made certain social inequalities a thing of the past. Yet too often, we have seen the zealots of traditionalism claiming that granting groups like the hijras any semblance of humanity would constitute moral degradation and the perversion of South Asian culture. Apparently it’s okay to oppress someone as long as it’s tradition. To be perfectly honest, if South Asia has a tradition of anything, it’s flexibility and tolerance. The question is when it will be extended to sexuality and gender. The hijras are waiting, and they have a right to know.

The Race Question

“So…are there race issues in India?”

A professor of mine was asked this question in a class on contemporary South Asia that I took two semesters ago. I don’t really remember her answer, because I immediately thought “Oh Lord – there aren’t nearly enough instructional hours in the semester to adequately address this topic.” But here I am, trying to do it in a blog entry. Hey, I never said I wasn’t a hypocrite!

So why would I choose to write my first entry about this particular issue? Simply put, race is the 500 pound gorilla in the room when discussing South Asia. Or at least it’s one of them. You know, those things that everyone implicitly deals with but never openly talks about? Caste, Hindu-Muslim riots, poverty – these are the favorite Western discourse topics for India and elsewhere in South Asia. But it has always seemed to me that we have (falsely) assumed that race and racism come up solely in our own civilization, as “Our problems are not your problems!” has become everyone’s favorite cultural relativist answer these days.

Part of the problem, I think, is that there admittedly is no perfect word for “race” in Hindi, or any other Indic language (although please leave a comment and correct me if I’m wrong on this point). You can talk about your jaati, but that refers more to your historical caste group than anything else. I suppose the closest we can come is varn ka rang, which literally means the color of your skin. But, again, there exists considerable color differentiation among people we in America would consider of the same race. I’m sure there’s also some word out there that denotes “ancestry,” but even that doesn’t completely capture what we mean when we use the term “race.” Heck, even we aren’t too sure ourselves, sometimes. So, if I’ve ever heard of anything in the way of racism being discussed in Hindi, people have invariably used the English word. Perhaps this is why people are so reluctant to tackle how race manifests itself in India – from the start, you are already forced to rely on foreign (i.e. Western) terminology.

I have no doubt that that race, as we understand it, does not necessarily appear in exactly the same form as it does in the West. But the fact remains that it (and its sister concept, ethnicity) do matter in India. Let’s start a few thousand years ago with the commonly cited theory of the Aryans invading the subcontinent and pushing the Dravidians southward. Not only does this establish the linguistic divide between North and South, but many argue that the value placed on fair skin began around this time. It’s unknown exactly what the Aryans looked like (same with the Dravidians, if we go along with the theory), but most assume they were probably lighter skinned than the Dravidians and hailed from…the Caucasus? Europe? Who knows, really? This is all based on North Indian languages being distantly related to those spoken in Europe today. Dravidian languages in the South, however, bear no relation to North Indian languages other than the expected lexical borrowings. Important to note is that, in many popular (although by no means universally accepted) renderings of Indian history, the Aryans are portrayed as the ones who populated the ranks of the upper caste Brahmins – that is, the caste that has historically enjoyed the most social capital.

Switching gears a bit, to the British-endorsed, victorious, fair-skinned, holier-than-thou Aryan stereotype we can safely add the basic fact that, the longer you stay out working in the fields, the darker your skin will become. Given the temperatures in many parts of the subcontinent, you can think of the outdoors as tanning bed on crack. There’s a reason that many Indians today will say, “Don’t go outside! There’s too much dhoop (sunlight)!” But, back to my point, a very large part of South Asia remains agricultural, and farming remains a steadfast way of life. So, what exactly does having darker skin mean in this context? It means you stay out in the fields longer. It means you do more manual labor. It means you can’t hire your own help to do the work. It means, oftentimes, that you’re less well off than the fair-skinned family up the road that owns its land, has other people tend to it, and consequently spends a greater amount of time indoors. There’s nothing all that scientific here, just the reality that the color of your skin (as well as a slew of other variables) can, to a certain extent, be a function of your socioeconomic status in rural South Asia. Given that, for over two centuries, the people at the top of the social ladder were the uber-white Brits probably didn’t help matters that much.

Here we seem to have at least some of the historical and economic reasons behind the preference for fairer skin in India. Bridal advertisements often specifically request a girl who is gori (fair-skinned), and the skin lightening industry in South Asia is worth an amount that probably could have financed the US bailout. Let’s not even get started on how the lion’s share of Bollywood film stars currently employed would chromatically fit better in MY family photo album than in most Indians’ – this is particularly so with the actresses, perhaps reflecting the intersection of sexism and color preference. Regardless, the basic message here is rather obvious: Fairer is more beautiful, more attractive, and more successful.

It is through this paradigm that I’ve been told in India that, “America will never reach its full potential as long as it has the blacks and Hispanics.” Then there’s the lovely adjective chinky, which I’ve heard employed in no small frequency to refer to people with East Asian features. No, I’m not making this up. I mean, what do I say to these people – that the Jim Crow era just called and wants its drama back? While I’m sure these ideas were spread in no small part by colonial zealots, I’ve met too many individuals in South Asia who cannot stop pointing to the British boogeyman and saying, “It’s all because of them! They started all this!” Not only is this borderline neocolonialist, but it doesn’t solve the basic problem – you’re perpetuating it!

Don’t get me wrong, there were plenty of people I met in South Asia who despised racism in all its forms – in fact, I would say these people made up the majority of my acquaintances. The NGO where I worked in New Delhi employed people of African, Anglo, Indian (North and South), and East Asian descent. In many ways, it reminded me of being in America. The India of today is an indisputably multiethnic nation. Even if we dispute ethnic differences between North and South, hundreds of thousands of international refugees and migrants now call many of India’s urban centers home because of the nation’s relative stability and tolerance. This is something Indians should take great pride in, just as I take pride in my own country when it is viewed in this light. Yet the clear preference for fairer skin among many sectors of the Indian populace (notably among younger girls) is disturbing, and ultimately cheapens the ideals of equality and inclusiveness set out at India’s independence.

And there are encouraging signs, too. As racial discourse makes its way into the subcontinent, many are questioning the current state of affairs (please see the NDTV clip I’ve provided the link for below). Dark-skinned actors landing major roles are no longer considered a liability. The South, long known for its “darker” people, has experienced a technological boom that has in many ways surpassed the development seen in the North. Finally, the hip-hop movement originating in African-American culture has found a highly receptive audience in many members of India’s urban youth. So, are there racial issues in India? You bet. But, in the best sense of the phrase, nothing lasts forever. The subcontinent is many things, but static is not one of them.

NDTV clip discussing racism against Indians from the northeastern states (i.e. those who frequently have more East Asian physical features): http://www.ndtv.com/news/videos/video_player.php?id=1116912

THANTIRAYANKUPPAM, India — Five years ago, I woke up on a Sunday morning, checked the news online and saw that a tsunami had hit my part of the world. Early reports were sketchy. I read about just a few casualties (in Sri Lanka, as I recall), and I remember thinking that the whole thing sounded exciting. Read the full article at: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/03/weekinreview/03kapur.html?ref=world

In 1950, the first Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) was founded in a former detention camp at Kharagpur, West Bengal. A pet project of Jawaharlal Nehru, the goal was to replicate the institutions of higher educational excellence in the West, with focus on engineering, mathematics and the physical sciences. The idea was to develop scientific minds required to drive India’s economic development as the young democracy matured.

The government invested in the IIT concept, opening several more in a short time. But the initial outcome was not to its liking when graduates started leaving India for the West. This, critics claimed, illustrated that the system did not work. Read the article at: http://www.hindustantimes.com/StoryPage/Print/487398.aspx

John Stokes, a senior at Duke University explores the identity and psychological characteristics of Hijra Community in India:
http://lisa.cs.duke.edu/~john/finalproject/index.html

He's like the John Henry of India!

An Indian villager burrowed for 14 years with a hammer and chisel to cut a tunnel through a mountain so that his neighbours could reach nearby fields and he could park his truck outside his home.

Ramchandra Das, 53, who lives in eastern Bihar state, carved a 10m-long, 4m-wide tunnel through the hill range from his village of Kewati. Das took up the Herculean task after villagers found the 7km trek over the mountain increasingly arduous.

When the authorities refused to help to cut the journey time, Das began carving his way through the earth in the direction of the nearest big town, Atri. The job became more pressing when Das became the first man to own a truck in the village and was unable to drive it to his home.

"I could not park my truck near my house since the mountain blocked my path," he told Reuters. Das said he was also afraid of bandits stealing his truck. "I had to leave my truck miles away, so I decided to do something about it myself," Das said by telephone.

Local villagers, who previously had to trek around the mountain, are now using the tunnel to get to work.

Das was inspired by another Bihari villager, Dasharath Manjhi, who cut a 120m-long, 10m-wide and 8m-high passage so that villagers could reach a local hospital.

Manjhi's labour, which lasted 22 years, began after his wife died when she was unable to get to the hospital. He was feted by the Delhi government for his work and died two years ago.

Indra Sinha, who was Booker-nominated for his book on the Bhopal disaster, explains why the gas leak that killed 20,000 people 25 years ago – and continues to create health problems for countless more – is still a national scandal

Bhopal: 25 Years of Poison -- The Guardian

Vivek Wadhwa talks with Rick Smith on the blog "Local Tech Wire"

http://localtechwire.com/business/local_tech_wire/opinion/blogpost/6493508/