Resisting nationalism’s seduction: When a Goan boy in Australia is attacked

Last week this column discussed the manner in which nationalism highjacks humanist causes that rise above the petty and parochial politics of nationalism. Sometime between that column and this one, there was another incident that seemed custom-made for highjack by nationalism. Some of the many responses to the incident demonstrate however the manner in which we can respond to the human element by building larger solidarities and side-stepping the seduction of nationalism.

On October 18, two boys attacked a 12 year old school boy of Goan origin at their school in Melbourne, Australia. This boy was so brutally beaten up that he has reportedly had to have a titanium plate inserted under his eye, and may possibly loose sight in that eye. Some of the reporting on the incident sought to colour the incident as yet another racial attack on ‘Indians’ in the continent. However rather than go down that road, some of the responses to the incident have had a warm, familial, concerned response that seem better suited to the trauma that the family has been expressing.

Responding to the incident, a Goan resident in Goa felt that there was a need to reach out to the family, writing, ‘when a father feels that there is no future in remaining in Australia anymore (due to this incident), it becomes a defeat of the dreams one nursed for the future of his children having giving up everything one had in one's own land for a future for one's off-springs.’ This letter placed concern very appropriately in the interests of a family that had already possibly sacrificed much to get to Australia. To go down the ‘Indians being attacked’ road would have possibly gotten international and governmental attention, but would such concern for the individual family necessarily have received attention? More importantly, would it have received such fraternal solidarity from individuals, unrelated by blood?

At a more systemic level, where one needs to make sure that such incidents do not get repeated, other Goans pointed out that there are high levels of violence in some schools, and that these need to be tackled at the level of the school. These observations did not rule out that there is a possible racial element to the attack, but seemed to refuse to get trapped in the ‘racist attacks on Indians’ formula. It seems to have helped that this particular Goan was particularly critical of the failings within India. To raise slogans against Australia, he felt, would only be a case of the pot calling the kettle black. Touché!

Yet another Goan pointed out that while he was raising the issue and not denying the possibility of a racist element to the attack, he also agreed that there needed to be a larger response to the incident. The Indian Government uses these incidents to boost its own international visibility, attempting to act like its role model, the U.S. State that reassures its citizens even when they are abroad. Rather than pull in the Indian state, perhaps one could reach out to existing organizations in Melbourne that seek to work against racial stereotyping and addressing the social problems that emerge in multi-racial and immigrant neighbourhoods like Noble Park where the school is located.

Speaking at the much maligned conference on Azaadi at the Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi a couple of days ago, Arundhati Roy made a powerful observation that we would do well to apply here. Kashmiri’s who want Azaadi for Kashmir, she said, would do well to forge solidarity with other movements for justice within India. Similarly, if we as Goans are concerned for the fate of this boy and his family’s continued residence in Australia, we would do well to work towards fostering bonds with groups that work on social harmony. The answer to the Indo-Pakistan conflict, some believe lies in person-to-person contact. There is no reason why we cannot manage such a contact, rather than engage in nationalist sloganeering.

Seeking alternatives to nationalism is imperative if we are to resolve a number of the problems we face. Very often nationalist thinking is so ingrained in our thoughts that we fail to see alternative ways of thinking. The responses to this Goan boy’s sad plight however shows the multiple levels at which we can respond to the issue.

(A version of this post was first published in the Gomantak Times 3 Nov 2010)

And the games people play...Reflections on the Commonwealth Games

A number of Indians, and unfortunately too small a number, were of the opinion that the only reason that the Commonwealth Games were being hosted by India, was to generate pride in the acquisition of a status symbol. This status symbol was to be the hosting of a ‘world class’ sporting event. It would demonstrate to the world that India was a super-power, an economic force that could be taken seriously. It could now hold a place among the leaders of the nations. While not grudging India this position, or its desire to be a leader among nations, a number of us felt that India had no business strutting around on the world stage in this manner when the country was beset by a variety of problems. These problems include a civil war that has been created by the Indian state not responding to the basic needs of its tribal and rural population. It includes the precarious economic conditions of peasants forced to commit suicide, children who are not given the chance of education but forced into labour. The problems are numerous, and the generation of pride was not going to help address any of these problems. On the contrary, the generation of pride would drop a veil over these problems and force us into a false sense of complacency.

It was for this reason that a couple of weeks ago, when the mess around the organization of the Commonwealth Games (CWG) first hit the international press stands, there were a number of us who were delighted. Our intense desire was to see the Games cancelled and the Indian government be shamed and taught a lesson. Our hope was that such a cancellation would shock the Indian socio-political system to sense, and force it to mend its ways. This shock we hoped would create the space for a developmental process that benefited all Indians, not just a small segment of elites, as is currently the case.

Recent events have intervened however to indicate just why the generation of this pride is such an issue for the Indian socio-political system. When the international media first focused on the CWG, by pointing out the filthy state of the Games Village, a number of us took this to be the gospel truth. Subsequently however, with other images becoming available we realized that this filth and incompleteness was only a part of a larger picture of competent attempts to meet ‘international standards’. Personally, it was when the Australian news crew tried to suggest that it had sneaked explosives into the Games village that a number of issues were made glaringly clear. It became clear that a good amount of international coverage on the incompetence of the Games authorities was not motivated by the same spirit in which some of us opposed the Games. This international coverage was motivated by an attempt to reinforce a global hierarchy, where white ‘developed’ nations are perfect, and can dictate to coloured ‘developing’ nations the norms for being civilized and developed. The focus on Indian poverty, the lack of a decent working environment for the labour involved, the child labour involved in producing the event; while in themselves valid, were merely ways in which India (and other countries like China, South Africa, and in future Brazil) could be ‘put in place’ within the global hierarchy.

It is partly for this reason, where countries of the South are constantly shamed, that pride and the acquisition of status symbols becomes an obsession. This desire to redress humiliation is understandable. What these countries (and India particularly) seem to fail to realize however is that by grasping for these status symbols they are setting themselves up for further humiliation. For those all giddy after the completion of the Opening Ceremony and the fact that the Games were not cancelled know this. This occurrence does not change the many valid critiques that were mounted against the Games by the international media. The validity of these critiques remain. The international media continues to mock India, even though the Indian population seems to have been induced to forget this fact in the euphoria subsequent to ‘successful completion’. It is because, despite the dishonesty of the motivations, the validity of the critique remains, that countries like India should realize that this mass spectacle route will never really give them the status they desire.

We should recognize that the Olympics and Commonwealth Games are parts of a larger model of development that were built on the colonial extraction of wealth, that continue today. There is no way the formerly colonized countries can ever manage to beat the inventors of the game, especially when the rules were and continue to be formulated by these former colonizers. The hope for these countries lies in changing the rules of the game. Indeed, the hope for these countries lies in formulating a new game, where the rules emphasize genuine equality. Part of the formula in rewriting the rules then, rests in rejecting the models of the existing game. Rejecting the wasteful expenditure of the Olympics and CWG is a critical part of the formula.

There was a time when, under what has come to be called Nehruvian socialism, there was a partial attempt to be different and reinvent the game. Though we did not succeed and eventually got sucked into this international game, the important fact is that we tried. The CWG attempt by India perhaps represents the final abandonment of this attempt to change the rules of the game. For this reason then, we should see the kind of derisive international media attention as our just and entirely expected rewards. We would be better served if we took note of the some of the valid critiques raised by both national and international media, and sought to work on setting the Indian house right, even as we set about to change the rules though which the international game of nations is played.

(First published in the Gomantak Times 6 October 2010)

Racist? In Australia? Of Indian Racism and International Ambitions

The Indian electronic media it appears, is doing its best to convince its audiences that ‘Indians’ in Australia are becoming the target of ‘racist attacks’. In this attempt, it has been highlighting episodes, a number from the city of Melbourne to justify this argument. While there can be no doubt that a number of persons of Indian nationality have been the target of physical assault, especially in the tragic case of Nitin Garg, these incidents do not necessarily add up to a case of ‘racist attacks on Indians’. On the contrary, if we read closely, what we see is evidence of an Indian racism, and its desire to be a globally recognized super power.

Go beyond the hype that prevents a rational analysis of the events and one realizes that the ‘racist attacks’ in Australia are a result of dishonest and partial representation of facts by the Indian media. Indian audiences have not been presented details of the larger crime levels and patterns involved in the cases where Indians have been attacked. If one reads the attacks on Indians within this larger framework, one realizes that the Indians are merely a part of a much larger collection of crime statistics. Further, in many of these cases, the attackers have invariably not been identified, especially in the case of Nitin Garg who died after being stabbed repeatedly. Read closely, and from within Indian reporting itself, and one sees that the possible explanations for his death include revenge killing, either for loans not repaid, or for not supporting this crazy campaign of racist attacks.

When one does not know the identity (racial or otherwise) or motivations of these attackers, or the larger context within which these attacks occur, it seems a little premature to brand these attacks racist. However, if one knows the psyche of Indian nationalists, one begins to gain a glimmer into what exactly is going on.

Let us preface this attempt to figure out what is going on by referring to an observation of the rather noted postcolonial theorist Dipesh Chakrabarthy. Chakarbarthy observes that, “Within India, …racism is thought of as something that the white people do to us”. With this observation before us we begin to see the various components of the equation. There are two actors in this equation, the white person, and the Indian. Read history into this equation and more is revealed. The Indian obsession with the white person and their racist behaviour towards ‘us’ stems from the colonial experience when the British-Indian elite desperately desired (as they were entitled to) Imperial citizen status. Unfortunately for them, this status was denied them, reducing them to equality with other Imperial subjects like the black African. Realizing at some point that they would never achieve this coveted status, they began the demand for independence. As should be clear for any keen observer of international affairs however, this desire for recognition by the ‘white’ person did not go away with Independence, it persists. The Indian elite are persistent with their demand for equal status with the ‘white man’. It is not a mere coincidence that the country we today call India bears this name. India was the creation of the British Raj, and each segment that resulted from its liberation gained different names, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Bharat (that is India). The name India was retained for Bharat (a distasteful Hindu rightwing name in any case) so as to appear to the world as the successor state to the British Raj. The imperial and global desires of India’s elite should be clear from this choice.

Even in the reporting on the Australian incidents, what is interesting to note is that all of the episodes involve Indian nationals or those with Indian origin. What of the others with South Asian origins in Australia? Are they being attacked too? If not, then the implication is that there is a hunt-down-and-destroy Indians operation on in Australia. Since this is clearly too bizarre a possibility to be believed, we would have to fall back to the proposition being suggested here, that the incidents are the product of Indian racism and the international ambitions of its elite.

To cast the Australian episodes as racist attacks on Indians reduces Australia to a country with two racial players, the ‘Indian’ and the ‘white’. This equation erases the various other actors from multiple ‘racial’ types that could attack ‘Indians’. The equation also constructs Indian nationals as being of the Indian race, and it erases other South Asians in Australia, who if the reporting is true, are also being attacked but are not being given any coverage. This erasure is typical of the elite Indian world-view, obsessed with gaining the respect of the white man. However there is another angle to this, which is the continuation of imperial ambitions by the elite Indian.

By casting the Australian episodes as ‘racist attacks’ on Indians, and through their shrill reporting and demands, the electronic media is forcing the Indian government to react and respond. While it is only natural that a Government should be concerned if its nationals are the butt of attacks in a foreign country, the media seems to be demanding more than this. They are demanding action. This form of action is one that has been made familiar by superpowers, notably America, and popularized by Hollywood. These are the marks of a globally recognized superpower, an international player, and this is exactly what the Indian state is being maneuvered to doing.

One could perhaps justify action and response by a State if its nationals are being attacked, but what the media is demanding and laying the groundwork for goes beyond this. With this creation of the Indian ‘race’, and some sort of legal framework for this, though the constitution of the Person of Indian Origin (PIO) status, and Overseas Citizenship of India (OCI), what is being prepared is for an Indian state response whenever the interests from this racial category are threatened or challenged. This kind of global leadership based on championing an essentially racially based, and exclusive cause, seems terribly regressive, if not downright scary!

The ‘Indian’ seems congenitally blinded to its own racism and the Australian episodes are a perfect example of this racism. This is not to suggest that Australia is not a highly racialized society. It is, but that should not blind us from seeing the racism that continually operates within Indian minds, and that seems to be at the basis, or is a tool at any rate, for its elites’ international ambitions.

(Scheduled for publication in the Gomantak Times, 27 Jan 2010)