Balajee and I stayed at the Omkarananda Ganga Sadan Ashram while we were in Rishikesh. The Ashram is situated on the banks of the River Ganga offering great views of the Ram Jhula bridge, the Ganga in all its fury,the temples on the other bank, green hills in the background etc. I spent hours and hours on the banks reading Shashi Tharoor's "The Elephant, The Tiger and The Cellphone". The self proclaimed rightist's views on urban development in India left me fuming.
Shashi Tharoor bluntly says Calcutta is finally on the path to development because "people are now dining in affluent restaurants". He is very happy with the model of development urban India is following. He should know that annual family holidays and visits for conferences do not suffice as enough experience to comment on the path the Indian Cities are taking. As an urban Indian from Bangalore, I can see the cultural denigration happening in the city. By culture I of course don't mean the traditional Hindu/Indian culture. Every city has a character, a soul and a depth which we seem to be continuously ignoring in out blind pursuit of economic 'progress'. To give a simple example - shopping malls and commercial complexes are becoming the only public or community spaces in Bangalore. The city is drowning itself in the gaudy of consumerism while happily ignoring (and even burdening with higher costs of living and real estate) the economically lower sections of the city. But Shashi Tharoor wouldn't mind as long as people are "dining in affluent restaurants."
He waxes eloquent about the great infrastructure at Bangalore's infosys Campus and says Infoscions have the best work environment. Does working 12 hours or more in a day qualify as the best work environment? An environment where a big part of the urban young seems to be living just for the weekends. An environment where the IT generation thinks taking kids to McDonald's on weekends is spending quality time with them. (Of course it is not just Infosys but most Indian and Multinational IT/ITES / BPO/KPO and the like companies.)
It has been rightly said the greater the materialistic choices in a society, lesser the rights. So as long as there are "18 restaurants" to choose your lunch from and "a world-class gym" (that you don't have time to use) in your office, don't bother about asking for labour rights like fixed working hours and fair Overtime allowances. Few argue that we can't complain about these things as we are a third world country and we need to be happy with the jobs (which give disposable income too!!) we have. But why should we let ourselves be slaves of the time in history and follow a "beggars can't be choosers" attitude? Why should we give up our lives in working, shopping and watching TV? But more and more people do not seem to understand this as , more and more people have made their jobs and incomes their lives.
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2 comments:
the point is it is not that all the consumerism is imposed by the developed world or the imperialist nations. when we see the labour laws of our country with respect to wto our governments assert infact not only indian govt all the so called developing nations like china brazil and others are against mainataining laboour standards and against the trade marking or certification as they feel that the developed world will use this against the developing countries to curb their imports. so it is very complex you know. offlate after a long time we get to hear that wto meeting was disrupted or it came to a standstill as the bigwigs like india opposed or was in complete disagreement as we felt that the cut in farm subsidies were not enough. so it is a move ahead. so world politics is a tricky thing you no.............
but da i am too j for the kind of food u have been trying out now a days.. it is very interesting to read your blogs and i feel that you are on some anthropological study or something.. want to meet you as soon as possible. long live liberation!!!!!!!! continue ur exploration
sorry it is not imports it is exports
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