Commentary/ Ashwin Mahesh
Return Of The Native
In August, I dashed off letters to several institutions in India asking if
I could find a job with them next year. The immediate and encouraging
responses I received have been instrumental in motivating me further. In
March, I will scout the places that offer the most potential and make a
concerted effort at finding a suitable position. I am hopeful that the
right opportunity will arise.
Each year, thousands of us face this question -- shall we make our fortunes
in the lands we have migrated to, or are we to heed the call of the dusty
brown streets of our youth and return to make our way in India? Everyone
who has lived away from India long enough is sure to have talked of it at
least once. And the entire gamut of pros and cons has been tossed about
often, I'm sure.
I couldn't take the heat and the dust.
My parents will die in a decade or two, I can't plan my life around them.
There's no appropriate outlet for my technical skills.
I could go back any time, I just don't feel ready to do that yet.
My kids are American, I have no choice.
The system is just too hard to beat.
Who wants to go back? You must be crazy
I wish I could get all things to mesh well
My wife is totally against it.
No doubt you can add to this. As my inter-generational cousin in
Chicago said recently, every situation is different. One considers the
choices, and tries to make the appropriate move.
For me, the first signs of this saga lay in E F Schumacher's Small is
Beautiful; Economics as if People Mattered. Speaking of the educational
system in India, he criticised the mindset of the educated elite, who
after acquiring a learning paid for, in each case, by approximately 30
man-years of farm labour per year of university education, decide to join
the mutual admiration society of fashionable clubs and good life. The
singular achievement of this "trade union of the privileged", as
Schumacher labeled it, is it has ensured that millions of our
countrymen never have a chance at the very things we acquired by the
sweat of their brow.
My first reaction was defence. Be reasonable, I imagined myself telling
the author, that's how society works. If I decide to go lend a hand to the
farm labourers, that will hardly improve their lot. I am better off doing
the technological and economic things that make business more competitive,
that's what I'm trained to do. And in the process, if I can facilitate the
building of a prosperous economy, such wealth may eventually trickle down
to the poor farmer who gave up so much so that I could go to
college. Reality check, Mr Schumacher.
As the months passed, I considered this more and more. Perhaps it is true
that my contributions to Indian society will never accomplish much,
perhaps the drop I can offer to the ocean of misery is too insignificant.
But can I be sure that such an argument is not just self-serving rhetoric?
Am I just trying to overcome the dissonance of my own cognition by wondering
what I can ever do that will count? Am I stroking my ego, trying to look
more concerned and caring than the next guy?
I haven't hit upon a way to find the answers, but I've stopped searching
now. The only way to tell is to try it, I've decided. One thing is for
sure, the mutual admiration society is no longer confined to the bars of
fashionable hotels in our metros or to the high rise offices of our major
corporations. It has become as much an export of our nation as cotton
shirts and gemstones, and is as prevalent in Silicon Valley as it is on
Marine Drive.
Many a time, we hear those who vow to themselves they will eventually
return, but must first make the fortunes necessary to live well in India.
Others talk or write whimsically that it is so easy to go back that they
would do it any time they felt the need to, speaking with both the
memories of a childhood long since past, and the forlorn longing for a
future that seems elusive. Perhaps they are right. Caught in the
half-space between the prosperity and openness of their new lives, yet
yearning for the easy familiarity of a society they understand
instinctively, they seem to vacillate between the two worlds.
I know I could never be satisfied with that. To wake each day and wonder
if the choices I have made reflect greed over gratitude would drive me
crazy. It seems easier to live with the burden of a failed attempt, than
with the onus of a debt not paid in full measure. If I never see the day
when the fruits of my labour have made life better for one person in India,
it may still be enough to know that I cared, and if nothing else, that I
tried.
The arm's length charity offered by a hundred different groups here is not
enough for me. Compassion is a gift of our hearts, and the charity of a
world that is far away can never replace one that I can feel with the
spirit of my self. The tangible joys of the people I can witness for
myself far exceed the worth of the tube wells I can fund or the schools I
can buy books for. These things are noble in themselves, no doubt, but
life, it seems, is best lived in person.
Truly, that is not an indictment of all those who make other choices.
Perhaps the memories and the ties that I so cherish are not so dear to
them as they are to me. Perhaps the opportunities they may find back home
are quite meaningless, and hold no appeal to them. Perhaps the prospect of
living at a much-reduced income level is too scary, who knows? Different
strokes for different folks, and I don't claim to understand them all.
At the same time, let us be careful that our personal choices do not
reflect an ongoing obsession with the self, and a callous disregard for
our social obligations. It is not unusual to find those who declare that
they owe nothing to India, that their achievements are entirely of their
own making. In a society where the privileges of the middle and upper
classes are founded on the uneven distribution of government resources in
education, this is an outright lie. Regardless of the intensity of one's
longing for India, the justifiable cry of unpaid debts rings loud.
The pursuit of happiness, however you may frame it, is inextricably
related to the pursuit of social and economic justice as well. Celebrating
the triumph of our own material ways, we have never paused to consider the
breach that is now exposed by the abandonment of the notions of social
justice. The socio-economic aspirations of the underprivileged hinge on
the voluntary concern of the successful and affluent; too many of us
have overlooked this obligation even as we climbed the rungs of the ladder
of prosperity.
My choices then are about a life I choose to live, a small recognition of
the sacrifices of those who have but little, and yet helped build all that
I have. Only time will tell if I have been wise. Perhaps I shall yet rue
this day, perhaps my greatest efforts shall all be in vain. To use that
whimsical Indian phrase that so typifies the identity I find familiar and
yet far, we'll see.
I am reminded of a movie I saw a long time ago -- the classic western film,
The Magnificent Seven. Gringos head south of the border to help Mexican
peasants fight off rampaging bandits. In the heat of battle, the humble
farmers decide they would rather not fight, even if it means handing
over most of their produce to the bandits. They have no stomach for the
guts and glory way of the gun. As one gunslinger wonders why he ever
agreed to help these cowardly peasants, Steve McQueen offers this poignant
rejoinder -- "At that time, it seemed like the right thing to do."
Whether our dreams for our country are to be bathed in the glowing light
of our efforts, or remain the pangs of guilt that tug at our hearts in
unguarded moments, will be determined by the choices we make individually.
Schumacher's analysis, made 20 years ago and still largely valid,
suggested the wide disparities between rich and poor in India are
derived "from an inbred, ingrained selfishness on the part of the people
who are quite prepared to receive, and not prepared to give". The choices
we continue to make give lie or credence to this suggestion.
Choose well.
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