Winds Of Change

Yesterday I went to watch the opening night performances at WOMAD Singapore. The Mahotella Queens were great. It was delightful to watch three young ladies in their early sixties sing and twirl with joyous abandon. Shiela Chandra pulled a sickie, citing a sore throat as the reason for her non-appearance. Shooglenifty did a lively turn with a set of Scottish folk rock. But the band I had really come to watch was the Asian Dub Foundation.

ADF is a British band formed of immigrants, mostly from the Indian sub-continent. They've been on the fringes of the mainstream for several years now. They've got a unique mix of hard rhythms that are almost - but not quite - drum 'n' bass, plenty of loops and samples of Indian rhythms, layers of reggae, and politically aware lyrics. Last night they totally lived up to my expectations. They were loud and fast and forthright and they were bloody good fun to dance to.


But the highlight of the set actually came in an interlude between songs. Guitarist Chandrasonic (he's the guy in the orange t-shirt on the right) had the microphone and commented that "They say that India is going to be the next superpower". There were lusty cheers from sections of the crowd, presumably those sections that had Indians in them. Chandrasonic quelled them with a dirty look and the observation that "that's not necessarily something to be proud of. No more superpowers," he went on to suggest as the chastened cheerers quitened down, "equal powers". The rest of the band took up the chant "Equal powers, equal powers" and launched into their next song, sending the crowd into another bout of frenzied heel-thumping on the lawns of Fort Canning Green.

And so it went for another hour or so. But the comment that being a superpower isn't all it's cracked up to be stayed in my head for much longer.

The rise of India has been cover-page material in all sorts of magazines for a few years now. It is an obvious matter of pride for many Indians. The conspicuous exception are the Indian communist party who presumably still think India's golden age was the 1960s when we were friends with the Soviet Union and everyone was slightly hungry.

I'm beginning to realize that it is possible to think the commies are idiots, to be deeply appreciative of the way that a healthy economy has improved the lives of millions, and still be disturbed by the social consequences of that economic growth. In the course of my work I've had conversations with many people in India over the past year. I'm struck by how materialistic people suddenly seem to have become. In conversation after conversation I hear a repetitive litany: I want to become rich fast because everyone else is getting rich fast and I don't want to be the loser who got left behind. I've asked people about their hopes and dreams and all they can speak about is the money they will make and the homes and cars they will by with it. And I have had as much as I can take of people trading stories of the killing they've made on the real estate market.

I remember when I was growing up in Delhi in the nineties. The Soviet Union had just collapsed and America was now the only superpower. We knew that China was progressing in giant leaps while the Indian economy remained shackled. We used to take grim comfort by telling ourselves that Americans were rich but unhappy. We were acutely aware of the breakdown of the American family, of high divorce rates and other social ills.

Well, lately I've noticed a disturbing increase in the number of divorces among the Indians that I know. I now count a couple of dozen divorcees among family, friends and colleagues. All of their marriages have broken in the past ten years. Every single couple was a dual income couple - that social emblem of a modern, growing economy. I think it is impossible to escape the conclusion that India is exchanging old ills for new ones.

Don't get me wrong. I am all for economic development. Far better to be rich and unhappy than to be poor and miserable. As Ogden Nash pointed out,
Certainly there are lots of things in life that money won't buy, but it's very funny
Have you ever tried to buy them without money?
Ironically he wrote that bit of doggerel back in 1933, when the United States was about to begin a period of economic growth and social change similar to that in India today.

I'm aware that it may seem unpatriotic of me to have misgivings about the changes in India. I guess I am a bit sceptical about patriotism. I think it is admirable to be proud of where you came from, but dangerous to be arrogant about it. And I am not proud of the arrogance I am beginning to see among my fellow Indians.