The Two Indias

John Edwards may have spent the last few years talking about the "two Americas" but I can't help feeling that the notion of two divergent nations yoked together for all eternity is as true of India as it is anywhere else in the world. There is what is often termed "India Inc" here (that miniscule Westernized and wealthy elite -- the "aam admi" (man on the street, literally) but generally meaning the rest of the nation, where most everyone is a farmer or farm labourer and lives at or below the poverty line.

The nuclear deal that the Indian government and the US was pushing for has come through and India has been granted an exemption (though I don't understand on what grounds) for the purposes of trading in civilian nuclear energy supplies though it will not sign either the non-proliferation treaty or the CTBT. And there is a large part of India that is ecstatic about this news. Again, I don't quite understand how this obscure piece of legislation affects the average Indian but so many of its younger citizens seem to have overdosed on nationalism and patriotism that they signify any kind of national event with such sentiments.

The interest in this is seen as a part of globalization and also, contradictorily, as a rallying point for those from the left (and far right) who would reject mass-produced commercial and corporate globalization but it's just kinda weird to see. And I'm opposed to the deal anyway. What's even weirder is that the Communist led "Left" parties who broke with the ruling Congress party over this issue are also casting their refusal to condone the deal as a macho, nationalist thing. They don't object to this deal on the grounds that India should be focussing on developing safer sources of alternative energy (or if they do, this is at the tail end of their platform). The main point that Prakash Karatand his buddies in the Left have been making is that this deal is a loss of Indian sovereignity, where this is solely determined by India's right (and ability) to keep testing nuclear weapons without suffering any international consequences. Am I just not getting something here or is this simply bad politics, for a so-called "progressive" party?

The contradictions are endless -- the world's largest democracy, which actually regularly elects a number of Communists to federal government is going ga-ga over the legalization of nuclear energy trading. This, in a place wherein the federal government has just mandated that anyone standing for any village or panchayat (rural) election must own a toilet! Yes, you read that right -- you don't need to be educated to any particular level or not have criminal convictions or anything like that in order to qualify to run for these small-time positions but you do need to have a built lav. This in an effort to promote sanitation in the vast swathes of rural India wherein it has not yet caught on or is beyond the reach of the people. What price nuclear energy there?

In other news, that Tata Nano project I wrote about is more or less going to go ahead although there are negotiations and negotiations-about-negotiations going on.

The aftermath of the floods in Bihar (and surrounding areas) are still devastating. As I watch saturation coverage of Hurricane Ike, I can't help thinking of the 2-3 million who have been left homeless (no accurate number of dead can yet be reported though eye-witness accounts say it will be in the tens of thousands) by the Kosi River's catastrophic flooding. There are those who make the news and those who will never merit a mention. Globalization doesn't mean a damn thing here.