An easier solution to American economic woes

So somewhere in November, when dear friend Vivek was visiting, I had an interesting idea about how to solve the economic crisis (at least thats when I think I had this idea). Since then, it has grown in my head and somewhere I even heard someone else discussing it! Here it is in a nutshell:

• Create a new category of immigrants -- wealthy entrepreneurs/professionals -- who would receive visas and work-permits conditional on bringing in significant assets and placing them in US financial institutions. This would bring capital-starved US banks some new sources of funds on their balance sheets.
  
• These individuals would then be required to use that capital towards buying some of the excess supply of houses (the government can "require" them to buy only sub-prime properties if they buy properties) and/or creating new businesses on US soil (and thus jobs for American workers).
  
• These wealthy entrepreneurs should be allowed a 2 year initial stay after which time they would have to demonstrate that they are adding value. These visas would then be renewed for 10 years once its clear that they are contributing.
  

It would have far more of an economic impact than the proposed stimulus and would also have some other beneficial effects: (a) The plan is cheap; (b) In the very short term, there would be significant favorable effects from a hiring spree by USCIS and a sudden improvement of bank balance sheets; (c) There would be an inflow of creative entrepreneurial ideas from other parts of the world, and finally; (d) Wealthy immigrants buying houses and establishing businesses would stimulate current demand and raise todays GDP growth rates, and also increase investment which will raise future GDP growth rates. Perfect!

Obama could use his unique oratory skills to help educate people about the merits of this approach. He could even give local communities the authority to oversee the activities of the new immigrants and ensure that they do not "take away" American jobs. So much is possible if this idea could only be given a chance!

I understand all the political reasons that make this impossible, but just think how effective it could be....

The Real Victory in Slumdog Millionaire and White Tiger

This is a good year for Indian arts! Earlier this year, Aravind Adiga’s “White Tiger” won the Booker Prize. And last night, Slumdog Millionaire bagged four Golden Globes. The winners of these prestigious awards are undoubtedly Aravind Adiga, Danny Boyle, A.R Rahman and others who made these pieces of art possible. But I think it is important to note that some of the light of victory also shines on the people that these stories are based on. The chauffeur in White Tiger, the children and slum-dwellers in Slumdog Millionaire are representative of millions and millions of Indians. They are largely invisible to India’s elite who are ecstatic about the recent 7-8 percent economic growth rates, the opening of Indian markets and the emergence of India as an international destination for certain types of business. They are also largely invisible to the global elite who are vociferously commenting on India’s recent economic performance. The chauffeur and the slum-dwellers however, inhabit a different India. For them, the world is not flat. It is hierarchical. They are at the bottom of this hierarchy. They live outside of air-conditioning, outside the functioning system of the law, and outside of the understanding of the middle and upper-classes. Their stories of joy and sorrow and their dreams of escaping and securing a better life lie outside the understanding or the imagination of the so-called "mainstream" Indian society.

Amongst other themes, White Tiger and Slumdog Millionaire are stories of the escape from poverty. They are tales of the experiences of determined individuals who follow unique paths to climb the ladder of Indian society. In White Tiger, the strategy of escape is crime. A chauffeur kills his master, and takes his money (don’t worry Aravind tells you that at the beginning of the book, so I haven’t spoiled it for you). In Slumdog Millionaire, the strategy of escape is participation in a TV show. Both stories highlight the differences in the experience of the law for the rich and poor. Both stories highlight the successes of Indian democracy, but also illustrate that some are left outside of its folds. Both stories acknowledge the growing economic opportunities, raise alarms about growing economic disparities and simultaneously illustrate that for some, the unique combination of luck, determination and even criminal action can get them to a better place.

It is of course wonderful that the success of forms of art like White Tiger and Slumdog Millionaire bring international recognition to some very talented people. But the most wonderful thing of all is that people everywhere may just look at the world around them a little differently. In India, people may look at children from the slums in a whole new way and may regard their chauffeurs, servants and maids in a whole new way. Outside of India, everyday conversations about India will (hopefully) shift away from loving Indian food, experiences of customer service and the great experiences of colorful Indian weddings. Thank you Aravind Adiga, and Thank you Danny Boyle!

India's reaction to the mumbai attacks

For the past three weeks, the American media has analyzed and interpreted the Mumbai attacks in the context of global war on terror. While this approach is valid and important, it misses some interesting and potentially important regional perspectives.

Unlike Americans on 9/10/2001, Indians on 11/25/2008 were well-familiar with terrorism on their soil. This year alone, there have been attacks in four major cities. This is the fourth time that Mumbai has been attacked in the past 15 years, and each time the casualties have been as high (or almost) as this time. Indians are so used to terrorism that they distinguish between a variety of different forms of this phenomenon: there is terrorism driven by Naxalites (Maoist rebels), terrorism associated with separatist movements in the Northeast of the country, terrorism by right-wing Hindu groups, terrorism by Muslim groups, terrorism by Kashmiri groups, and then cross-border terrorism attributed to not only Pakistan, but also Sri Lanka and Bangladesh.

Even when viewed in this context however, the attacks of Mumbai were perceived as highly unusual. As others have already pointed out, they were extraordinarily well-planned, and this was the first time that terrorists had actively sought out foreigners on Indian soil in a high-profile attack. From the Indian standpoint however, the uniqueness of this attack also stems from the fact that it targeted upper-middle-class and affluent Indians. These citizens have seen incomes increase dramatically in the past 20 years and have typically tolerated government inefficiencies by relying on the growing private sector to meet almost every need. In secure homes, air-conditioned cars and new office buildings they successfully separated themselves from the realities of the majority and carved out a protected existence. This event was an awakening of sorts. This group was reminded that it only depends on the government for its security, but inadequate security could threaten its high-growth trajectory by wiping out the world’s confidence in India’s private markets.

This aspect of the attack shaped the events that followed in very interesting ways. Indians of all religions and socio-economic backgrounds have come together in a very public way to voice their frustration with a polarized political system and inadequate security systems. They have also demanded action against Pakistan. Cell-phones, social networking sites, newspaper advertisements, and networks of neighbors and relatives have all been tapped to mobilize people. The rich have heeded the call to action, stepped out of their cars, and marched on the streets with those who take public transportation. Indian Muslims have also participated in this process and vociferously condemned the attacks. Leaders from Muslim groups have refused to allow the bodies of the nine terrorists to be buried in Islamic cemeteries and made it clear that they do not see any religious convictions at the root of these attacks. They too are demanding tougher anti-terrorism laws. This, I believe, has gone against all predictions about the eruptions of Hindu-Muslim violence as was seen in 1993. It has strengthened the conviction that Pakistan is a failed state. The consensus seems to be that it is a failed political system, and not a religion, that may cause this form of terrorism.

The Indian public’s reaction has also shaken up domestic politics. There have been numerous political resignations. Leadership positions have been shuffled to ensure a strong foundation for a new security agency. The so-called right-wing national opposition party – the BJP --- used the few days between the attacks and the state elections to sharpen criticism against the government and tap into the prevailing mood of fear and insecurity. Unfortunately, they probably went too far. The use of scare-tactics and divisive propaganda to tap middle-class vote appears to have back-fired. They lost three out of five states. As a result of these developments it is likely that the left-leaning Congress government will need to act quickly to placate public demand for tighter security systems, but will do this without compromising civil liberties or taking extreme action against Pakistan.

There is much to be learned from this example. The strength of India’s internal diversity and democracy, together with its unique form of religious secularism, appear to not only be fending off a crisis in South Asia but are also proving important insights into alternative ways of dealing with security threats in a democratic society. The American media should not ignore the internal dynamics of Indian democracy. The lessons are relevant in modern-day America as well as the democracy that America is trying to establish in other parts of the world.

Hilarious Hindi Movie Titles

I have been so consumed with my job recently, that i have had little time to watch the trashy hindi movies that I normally love to watch! To catch up, I looked at a list of movies released this year and found some absolutely hilarious titles:

• MR. KHUJLI
• MR. HOT MR. KOOL
• BHOOT UNCLE
• MANORANJAN--THE ENTERTAINMENT
• PANGA NA LO
• ROCKY--THE REBEL
• DIL SE POOCH KIDHAR JAANA HAI
• GOOD BOY BAD BOY
• UNNS...MEANS LOVE
• HOT MONEY
• HUSN---LOVE AND BETRAYAL
• MOBILE PHONE
• LOVE KE CHAKKAR MEIN

Need I comment on how devoid of content these movies may be? Are we really that desperate for escape that we would watch any of these? :)

An opinion on the darker side of the Abhi-Ash wedding....

Indians and even some non-Indians worldover are gripped with excitement over the wedding of Aishwarya Rai and Abhishek Bachchan. She is a former Miss World, top Bollywood actress and one of the faces of international cosmetics firm L'Oreal. She has featured on the cover of Time magazine, and is one of the few Indian actors to have successfully crossed over into western cinema. She has been on Oprah Winfrey show, and the David Letterman show. Her wax statue has even been placed in Madame Tussaud's in London.

She comes from an educated middle-class family, excelled at academics, but chose modeling and then films because it is hard not to when you are regarded as the most beautiful woman in the world. Despite all her fame, fortune and success, she has remained deeply traditional, maintained her closeness to her family, and guarded her privacy. With all these accomplishments, she has won the respect and admiration of millions of women and girls in India today. She stands for what is possible for today’s Indian woman: beauty, education, independence, financial freedom, strength and respect on the world stage.

Unsurprisingly, sometime last year, Aishwarya Rai decided that it was time to get married. She set her sights on the best that Bollywood or rather, India had to offer. Her hard-earned social, political and economic capital landed her a match with Abhishek Bachchan, son of Bollywood’s first family. What followed that decision however, has been rather shocking. She and her in-laws---perhaps the most famous and well-regarded family in all of India---appear to have regressed heavily into a world of strong patriarchal traditions and deep-rooted superstition.

When Aishwarya was found to be “manglik” (born under mars, which is considered a sign of bad luck in India) she joined the Bachchans in a series of superstitious acts that were intended to protect them from her bad influence. She is said to have visited the Sankat Mochan temple in Varanasi in the dead of the night and had married to a tree (under the hope that any bad luck would befall the tree instead of Abhishek Bachchan). In a further display of superstition and blind-faith, her father-in-law Amitabh Bachchan and his confidants, industrialist Anil Ambani and Amar Singh, visited the Tirupati temple and offered Rs.5 million each to the temple trust, one of the richest in the country. Amitabh has also donated 100 kg of gold and placed a card for his son’s wedding at the deity’s feet. The pictures from these events show that his fingers were adorned with stones of many different types, all presumably to ward off the evil eye that may be brought by a manglik daughter-in-law.

Who Aishwarya Rai marries, and how she goes about it is her private business. Yet, I find her transformation from an independent-minded international superstar to a demure and quiet daughter-in-law who touches her husband’s feet (I believe she did that at her wedding) rather disappointing. It seems to suggest that all said and done, an Indian woman’s worth is still ultimately determined by the man she marries and the family she marries into. Worse, I think the very public displays of superstition, and the flagrant use of wealth and power to deal with superstition have undoubtedly setback the millions of so-called “manglik” girls of India. Besides legitimizing a rather dubious concept that is damaging to a woman, Aishwarya Rai and the Bachchans together seem to have legitimized the idea that bad horoscopes for a woman should matter, and worse, that they are best dealt with by paying and praying in the right temples of India.

Amitabh Bachchan’s role in all this has been as surprising as Aishwarya’s. He is aware of how well respected he is in India. He has been hugely successful in making a dent in the campaign against polio simply because he has such a huge following and people believe in him. To put his superstitions and put strong patriarchal values on public display seems to be a rather surprising.

I should wrap this up here! I don’t want to be guilty of participating in the frenzy surrounding this wedding for too much longer. I hope that Aishwarya Rai doesn’t lose her identity in her new marriage, or allow her career to be dominated by her in-laws. That would be most unfortunate for a woman who was capable of attaining so much on her own, and setting new examples of what is possible for Indian women today.

A confusing night

Last night was a Wednesday night in Washington DC. It was also the first warm night of the year. I was headed to the Science Club—a lovely club off of M street---to sing at an Indian open microphone event. My office mate, an accomplished tabla player, had put me in touch with a group of people who were bringing together artists and aspiring artists of Indian origin in the DC area and this was our first event. I was so excited. For a person who sings Indian music, and that too classical and semi-classical music from North India, it is rare to have the opportunity to share it.

The experience turned out to be something far beyond what I could have imagined. Barring a couple of acts, the open-microphone was basically a forum for presenting poetry, comedy and music that vented many different types of confusions: Who am I? What do I do if “I am too white to be black and too black to be white”? Arranged marriages “suck”. People who my sister is meeting through the arranged marriage circuit are “losers”, “liars” and “child molesters”. India is what you see in Bollywood. Bollywood is basically porn. That explains why you see so many people when you go to India. What does my white boyfriend think of me? What do I think of my white boyfriend? “My people” and “his people”. How do we get along?

Somewhere in the middle of all this, I sang a meera bhajan. My music stuck out like a sore thumb because it was Indian. Meera bai was a queen from Rajasthan who lived around 1500 AD and was widely known all over India for her devotion to Lord Krishna. Her longing to unite with Lord Krishna ultimately led her to renounce the world and wander around Rajasthan, preaching of his powers, and gaining followers. The bhajan I sang was composed in a classical raga (Shankara). I think it went over okay: people whistled and clapped and applauded. But…. I know that I could have just as well sung in Swahili. Nobody there had any understanding of the music, or the history, geography or culture that generated it. It was “kinda cool” and I was told that I had a “nice voice”. The words, the history, the Indian bhakti tradition, the ambience of the desert of Rajasthan was utterly and totally lost.

The experience left me rather shaken. To see aspiring Indian artists talking about dual identities in America, and yet not be able to comprehend a basic song from India, left me taken aback. The American side of most of the performers seemed quite complete and quite secure. Their thoughts and experiences of America were truly their own and their opinions about America were grounded in experiences of friends, schools, jobs, careers, and just about every other aspect of life. Their Indian side however, was severely stunted. Opinions on India and Indian culture were basically based on only their interactions to their family and family-friends. Very few people who came to the microphone last night seemed to have any independent experiences in India or of India. Many people at the microphone talked about growing up in suburbs of American cities. For them, India is what their family tells them it is. Any identity issues are not really confusions about what it means to be “Indian Americans”, but rather, what it means to be “American members of that particular family”.

To me, it seems that when a person says that they have a dual cultural identity, they need to have experiences in two cultures. Hanging out with a handful of Indian families in the US and hanging out with family in India once in a few years is not enough of an inroad into another culture. Learning the language, reading literature, studying a country’s history, understanding its cultural evolution, and most important of all, spending time with people who live there who are your own age, and understanding their lives and experiences gives you the authority to talk about India. I was very impressed with one particular person who came to the microphone to talk about violence against women in India. He had spent a year in India working for an NGO in Gujrat. He didn’t need to address issues of identity. In working with the poor and the disadvantaged, he had found more to think about and more to say.

As I drove home from my rather traumatic experience, I arrived at an interesting realization. In my view, those American-born-Indians who truly push themselves to experience modern-day India either by traveling there without family, or volunteering there, or making their own friends there, or by just spending time there, typically do not have confused identities or frustrations. People who don’t do this tend to confuse their family’s culture for a nation’s culture. They have confused identities not because of a clash of cultures, but because of the normal clash of generations that can be found in every family. I would advise every Indian born in America who feels confused to travel to get to know India on their own terms., and find their own India. Else it makes sense to embrace the reality of being American. This country gives all its citizens millions of ways to define themselves that have little to do with India. That road will lead to a better place than the road of trying to find India without knowing India.

Interpreting Gandhi's Teachings in a Modern India

Yesterday was the 137^th birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi. According to the Times of India, places like Rajghat were more crowded than on any on any October 2^nd in the recent past. They attribute the increase in attendance, and indeed the enormous enthusiasm for celebrating Gandhi Jayanti, to a recent blockbuster Bollywood comedy called “Lagey Raho Munnabhai”. In Gujarat, I believe Congress leaders paid tribute to the Mahatma by screening the movie for free! After reading this, I found it rather interesting to contemplate on a modern Indian’s relationship to this important leader.

The relationship of modern India to Gandhiji is rather complex. On the one hand, his beliefs and ideals continue to be an important part of every Indian child’s upbringing. His face on Indian currency, his many statues around Indian cities and his photo in most government offices combine to ensure that everyone (almost) knows who he is. Furthermore, his presence in textbooks, patriotic songs and almost any discussion about the freedom movement, combine to give every Indian an awareness of his existence and his importance to the creation of India itself. At a deeper level however, some of Gandhi’s core beliefs--- strong faith in the power of economic self-sufficiency of India as a nation, a determination to alleviate poverty, the belief in the importance of brotherhood amongst diverse communities, and the condemnation of the system of untouchability and caste discrimination---have been challenged by the modern political and economic forces.

Consider for example, Gandhi’s ideal of self-sufficiency. Gandhiji believed in sarvodaya, full employment and the use of a communities own resources as an engine of economic development. He advocated the development of rural economies with the development of agriculture and village industries. He advised Indians to boycott foreign goods, foreign companies, and foreign capital. Clearly, these ideals have been seriously challenged by the forces of modern day politics and economics. Though Gandhi’s policies were never put into actual practice, the idea of “self-reliance” dominated Indian politics and economics for four decades after Independence. Around 1991, India broke with this past and has promoted trade with the rest of the world, embraced foreign investment (at least more than ever before), and taken great steps to integrate into the world economy. The Indian middle class appears to be rather jubilant about these changes, have embraced the capitalism as an engine of economic growth. In this new economic era, Gandhi’s values are not entirely forgotten, but I think there is a huge number of Indians who don’t believe in the policies of the past and feel that the changes to economic policy should have been made far earlier.

Gandhi’s ideals on poverty alleviation died even earlier than his belief in self-reliance. After Independence, both Gandhi and Nehru agreed that the eradication of inequality in India was an important goal. While Gandhi highlighted the role of each individual Indian in attaining this goal (by condemning the caste system, and encouraging Indians to play a role in the process of uplifting poorer Indians), Nehru believed in that the government should address these issues. Ultimately, Nehru’s methods prevailed. In the years that followed, the Indian government became the agent through which the ideals of social justice, fairness and equality were to be attained. The state controlled most resources, restricted private sector activities, and established massive anti-poverty programs. Unfortunately, both Gandhi and Nehru did not envision that as the government became bigger and more powerful, each individual Indian would pull away from his/her responsibilities. Corruption became rampant, attitudes towards poverty hardened (“Why doesn’t the government do something about these people in the slums?” was a common line at dinner parties in the 1970s and 1980s.) This loss of a sense of social responsibility in India after independence was one of the most tragic losses in modern day India. It doesn’t help that at its core, Hinduism generally does not cultivate a sense of social responsibility in its believers. Unlike a Christian or a Muslim, a Hindu’s quest for salvation is deeply individualistic and does not depend on his treatment of people worse of than he/she. The loss of the Gandhian ideology of taking personal responsibility for improving the lot of those who are worse off, compounded with the creation of a corrupt and inefficient state bureaucracy had horrible consequences for India: a staggering number of poor people and an elite that is unconcerned with these realities.

A third ideal that has been significantly challenged in recent times is belief in the unity despite the differences of caste or religion. For reasons that are probably too complicated to go into here, the past 20 years has been marked by the rise of regional electoral parties in India. While India is still secular, religion and religious conservatism and in some cases even fundamentalism has become central to politics. Caste identities have also strengthened. The issue of “reservations” has been a crucial issue in almost every election. While the reservations system definitely attempts to improve the lot of individuals of lower castes, it highlights caste divisions among young people in society and creates frictions. This is not to say that Indians are not united, and do not have things in common with each other. In some respects, Indians are uniting like never before. The take-off of Indian economic growth, the explosion of consumer culture, the unification of aspirations through national advertising campaigns, Bollywood and television that is today cutting through people’s divisions and developing a kind of “Indian” identity even while regional politics and caste politics create mayhem in many places at election time. It is strange to me that today’s unification is taking place through economics rather than through values, cultural beliefs and a belief in secularism. To see the Gandhian ideal of unification be replaced by economic forces (most of which Gandhi disapproved of) is rather startling!

Whether Indians realize it or not, I think most of us cherish Gandhiji’s memory and respect his ideals enormously, but don’t know exactly how to implement them in the modern economic, cultural and political environment we live in. This new Munna Bhai movie may have been phenomenally successful because it provided simple answers to deeply troubling questions. It ignored everything about Gandhi’s teachings that is unattainable in the modern day (like self-reliance) and focused on those teachings that are still attainable….Speaking the truth, being non-violent, being “nice” to people less fortunate than yourself, judging a person by how they interact with a person poorer than themselves, etc. Personally, I think it is rather sad that it takes a Bollywood movie to make this rather simple point, specially considering that Gandhi was a man who believed that the means is as important as the end! I just hope that it sets all of us thinking and more aware of what we believed in 60 years ago and what we believe in today….