Just an Immigrant

India Nest, 10.02.2007

I am a migrant worker. Not illegal, but migrant enough to be vilified. So I contribute only 4p a week to Britain’s wealth – but at least I contribute something! I’m not sitting idle taking benefits like hundreds of thousands of domestic workers do. All political parties are falling over each other to restrict the numbers of people like me in the country. We steal away British jobs, they say.

My neighbor gets chased for rent by his estate agent. His neighbor gets council tax reminders. I know a few others who aren’t paying their utility bills on time. I don’t get paid more than them, but I clear all my dues on the 1st of the month. I’ve seen them break parking laws and live rent-free – I’ve stuck to every law of the land. But I am an immigrant.

My family paid more than £60,000 in the last 5 years to this country’s education system. So I send a few pounds back home (probably to buy British exports) – its still less than what I spend in the country. And what about the wealth I am generating at work for the economy? But I am an immigrant.

The Home Office doesn’t have any of my friends there. I need to be better than all European Union applicants to a job to get a work permit. And I am. Doesn’t that help the British company that hires me? You know why I got the job? Because Britain’s education system doesn’t churn out enough employable graduates. Record number of jobs are being advertised in the country, and yet they have to employ us foreigners. I guess the hours I spent studying while my classmates were busy binge drinking and ‘socialising’ are now proving to be of some worth, eh? But I am an immigrant.

So wake up Britain and listen to your Prime Minister and PM-to be. Messrs Blair and Brown have a point- get off your couch and get a degree or some training, or risk being unemployed forever. Your companies will not wait for you to be employable – they have sales targets to meet. Vilifying migrant workers will not get you anywhere. The system favors the ‘natives’ anyway. Make use of it!

But what do I know? I’m just an immigrant.

: 26 Feb 2007 13:02 |  Comments (2) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

The State of Britain

The Economist, 02.02.07

There are three important issues surrounding the globalisation discourse in Britain that have escaped your attention in your lead article “You’ve never had it so good”. First, it is all very fashionable to suggest ethnic minorities to accept equal treatment in front of the law, but what is often left unquestioned is the extent to which the law is neutral itself. A debate over whether a Sikh man should be allowed to drive a motorbike without a helmet is far from settled. Second, the ground reality is that sections of the so-called ethnic majority demand assimilation and not integration, something which is often unacceptable to the minorities. Third, the political parties may well be falling over each other in their efforts to reduce the number of foreign workers in the country, but it must be realised that Britain’s graduates are poorly equipped to deal with the demands of a globalised economy. As a former foreign student in England, I can testify to the fact that British students in general are far less interested in their studies than a Chinese or an Indian student.

: 15 Feb 2007 11:59 |  Comments (9) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Always an 'Other'

The Telegraph, 23.01.2007

“Do you have spoons in India?” A combined choking and giggling followed this question from the other side of the table. I was the 15-year old schoolboy expected to answer this question. My problem was not so much what I would answer — it was the fact that the answer had already been decided for me. No, we Indians didn’t have spoons, and ate with our hands from the floor since we didn’t have any furniture or crockery either.

Shocked? I’m not. And this is why I hardly turned a hair when Danielle Lloyd — a contestant on Celebrity Big Brother — wondered behind Shilpa Shetty’s back whether Indians were too thin because they ate undercooked food (and not because of poverty and malnutrition), or because they ate with their hands. The outcry among the protesters, largely Asian, here in the United Kingdom, and back home in India, is primarily because most of them haven’t experienced this sort of discrimination before. I have.

One of the ‘best’ questions I was asked was whether Indians never showered, since our hands are so much darker than the Europeans. Channel 4 made much of what they perceived as a ‘clash of cultures’ in response to the barrage of criticism that has now reached the Prime Minister’s Question Hour in the House of Commons. But you can hardly forgive those making fun of Shetty’s accent for being ignorant. Thanks to the spread of global information networks, ignorance is no longer a convenient excuse.

The r-word

And what exactly does ‘clash of cultures’ mean anyway? Perhaps it means that some people are prejudiced towards other cultures. Or perhaps, it means allowing people to make fun of others’ accents in a spiteful manner. For me, it is nothing but racism, plain and simple. Oh yes, I said the r-word.

Many, including Shilpa Shetty, think that such intimidating screeching and abuse-hurling is owing to the insecurity of the perpetrator. I disagree. Jade Goody and Danielle Lloyd have no idea what Shetty’s credentials are. The person who threw a can of beer at me and my friend on a train (for which we were offered £2 compensation by the rail company) and called us “Pakis” didn’t have anything to feel insecure about. It was sheer malice and prejudice.

Now don’t try to pass this off as the behaviour of a microscopic-to-the-point-of-being-invisible minority. These people are a very visible chunk of the British and Western public. The whole façade that exists in Britain about multiculturalism being the country’s core belief is laughable. On the ground, you have to display certain characteristics to prevent being socially ostracized. Some of them include going to pubs and getting drunk, trying to get a girlfriend, and talking about ‘interesting’ topics such as football and ‘telly’.

No win situation

So you integrate and you’re safe? Hardly. First of all, it’s not integration. What Britain demands from outsiders is assimilation. Diversity is frowned upon — not on government white papers, but on the streets. But sometimes you can’t win. Shilpesh was a British-born Indian in my school. He had all the attributes to integrate — an Essex accent, a girlfriend, spiky hair, lots of knowledge about ‘footie’, love for night-outs and pubs. But when he got involved in an argument, I overheard someone scream, “You’re a Shit-pesh”, a rather clever pun on his name, hinting towards his complexion. He was always an ‘other.’

The one brilliant question asked by Shetty is — “Is this today’s UK?” I’m afraid it is. Ignorance definitely plays a part in some circles, but bigotry and intolerance are the main catalysts for this kind of aggressive behaviour. It is the failure of 21st-century Britain to accept that the sun that never used to set on her Empire, did so 60 years ago.

: 23 Jan 2007 10:17 |  Comments (1) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Big Disappointment

The Telegraph, 06.01.07

Shilpa Shetty appeared chuffed to be asked to do Channel 4’s popular reality show, Big Brother. She blushed and appeared coy, before asking all Indians to feel proud because of her presence in the house. Big Brother is the show whose clone is now being aired in India. What exactly do we have to feel proud about? Perhaps Shetty is suggesting that watching an Indian woman sleep in the same room as an alcoholic and rockstar is something to feel proud about. Or perhaps the fact that she will probably be asked to play the role of a dog or a cat (as MP George Galloway found out last year to his cost) and be ridiculed on British television. Or is it because she now has the opportunity to add ill-informed quips about Indian history and culture, both of which she is now supposed to represent? British television-shows like Big Brother, Strictly Come Dancing, Weakest Link and Who Wants to be a Millionaire already have their copies in India, speaking a lot about our originality. People in England have no idea who Shetty is. Indeed, all that the British make of Bollywood is that it is an industry that dishes out copies of Western movies with generous doses of dance and songs. Shetty will have plenty of opportunity to enlighten them perhaps, and be the object of laughter here in England. It is futile to attempt to explain to the curious public that she by no means represents India, but she is all we have got now. Instead of feeling proud, I am aghast and shocked at her presence in the show. If she pulls some “impressive” trick on Big Brother for the British public to mock, it would be us Indians on the streets facing the banter.

: 06 Jan 2007 11:27 |  Comments (7) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

All that Glitters is Very Expensive

The Telegraph, 19.12.2006

People in India largely think of non-resident Indians as a group of extremely privileged people soaking in all the comforts Western urban life has to offer. After all, we must be earning in millions and having no problems in life. Nothing could be further from the truth.

“We’re sorry to announce that the 18:24 train to Bournemouth has been delayed for 24 minutes.” This loudspeaker announcement at the Coventry railway station means that I’ll be late home from work, and reach only by 7:30 pm. Did I mention that I leave home at 6:30 in the morning each day for work? I take a bus to Leamington station, then a train to Coventry, then one to Nuneaton, then one to Leicester, then a bus to the city centre and then a bus to my office. And when the last leg of this journey is delayed by half-an-hour, you want to just give up and go away. But you can’t.

And this particular train has been late for 99.99 per cent of days since I started taking this route more than two months ago. So you see, trains are not just delayed in poor countries with shoddy infrastructure. And the waiting room in Nuneaton remains shut on most evenings, an inexplicable decision taken by the station management, given the freezing temperatures. And we’re not rich enough to afford a cup of coffee whenever we want — a cuppa at a station can cost more than £2 (or Rs 175). The whole ordeal is not made easy by crammed trains running to and from busy stations like Leicester in rush hour — and these people allow bicycles and dogs to be stuffed in the same compartment as men.

“So what, the money makes up for it.” Does it? Few realize that the living costs in the West, particularly in Britain, are sky-high compared to India. So the higher salary is easily cancelled out by the higher expenses. Not to mention the exorbitant rail fares (about to rise by 7 per cent), soaring utility bills (no free water here) and a hefty council tax bill (to rise very soon).

“You NRIs at least get value for money and have a comfortable lifestyle.” Sure. That is why I’ve been living in a flat without central heating for the past 20 days. I have to use a fan heater which eats up my electricity credit. When I ask the estate agent, he blames it on the electricity company. The company says it’s going to take 3 weeks to sort. If I ask them about compensation, they put my call on hold and wait for me to get bored of the music and hang up. The floorboards are coming off in the bathroom, the TV aerial doesn’t work, and the place was filthy when I moved in — I could go on and on.

Just the other day, the taxi driver took me on a longer route to get me to fork out £ 2.50 extra. And I would have walked had it not been 11 pm and the road wasn’t laden with three pubs with a high possibility of me being beaten up by a drunken and/or racist thug. If trains being delayed every day isn’t inefficiency of the system, then I don’t know what is.

Let me say here that not for a moment am I comparing my life to a subsistence farmer in rural Orissa who lives on $1 a day, hoping that a steel plant doesn’t encroach on his field, throwing him out of his land. I am speaking to the anglicized middle classes in metropolitan India who think that going to a foreign country will get them out of the daily slog of the third world. The grass is always, and there’s an accent on always, greener on the other side.

: 19 Dec 2006 10:18 |  Comments (4) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

The Price of Life

The Telegraph, 22.11.06

S.L. Rao makes a compelling case for an integrated water management system to be initiated in India. At present, there is ample scope for improving the management of water in India. It would be a good idea for the government to privatize water supply. This would ensure that the pipelines are maintained properly, wastage is minimized and that the quality of water supply improves.

However, the government should simultaneously create a regulatory body that would monitor the tariffs households are supposed to pay for the supply of water. This should be designed in the same way as taxation — the higher the income of the family, the higher the tariff band for that particular household. The government should also set up a subsidy structure and lower the tariff bands for the poors.

Such a system would combine the efficiency of the private sector in delivering public services and the resources of the state in ensuring that the poor and the needy are not neglected in the new system. Such a system can also be implemented in a number of other areas, including healthcare and education where the rich enjoy a lion’s share of the resources while the poor are left to survive without the basic necessities of life.

: 23 Nov 2006 10:27 |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

A Not So Welcome Homecoming

Asia Times, 03.11.2006

SHOUT, SOFT BORDERS!

Worryingly I went near the closed toilet door at Nuneaton railway station. On close examination, I discovered that the phrase had originally been “out of order”, referring to the toilet. I attributed the rather creative – albeit disturbing – additions to the supporters of the British Nationalist Party or the UK Independence Party, both of whom use xenophobia against immigration as a staple of their political propaganda.

The threat of terrorism, along with the resident fear of a deluge of immigrants flooding the country and the vexed issue of multiculturalism has dogged Britain of late. Just recently, the Church of England had been complaining about the supposed biased approach of the Labour government toward Muslim minorities. Jack Straw’s pot shot at the niqab (burqa) only added fuel to the fire. All three major political parties are falling over one another to appear tough on immigration.

The stern immigration officer at the end of the usual mile-long line at London’s Heathrow airport was something new. Compared with a Chinese-American officer who took terrible offense because I couldn’t understand his accent at New York’s John F Kennedy Airport, I had found British immigration officials generally friendly enough. This time, though, I was curtly asked a few questions about my trip and then asked to go stand in another enormous line, apparently for a health checkup.

I could see where our bureaucratic babus in India got their lethargy from. I had no chest-X-ray plates (probably because the visa-issuing office never told me I needed any) and no doctor’s report. I walked up and I handed her my passport. Instead of hustling me to the adjacent medical room, I was just let through. What a checkup!

For this hour-long exercise, I missed my bus. When asked at the counter the reason for my delay, I mentioned the excesses at immigration. “About time too!” guffawed the man behind the counter. If only these security procedures were actually implemented, and then targeted not at the mundane traveler, my world as an average individual would be so much more hassle-free.

Nowhere have I seen security stickers being stuck at the keyholes of suitcases. But it happens at Kolkata’s Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose Airport. Who dare tell these people that they’re a nightmare to take off later, and are not effective in any case? I guess they’re better than the plastic rope they used to tie up the luggage with, though.

Oh, and how irritating is it for us Indians to fill out lengthy arrival and departure cards in our own country. Is it not enough that we’re being blacklisted overseas? All this information going into the immigration system in India’s airports can be safely labeled in computer lingo as GIGO (garbage in, garbage out).

I paid Rs16,000 (US$357) for 10 kilograms of excess luggage while taking the flight to London. For any average middle-class Joe like me, that’s gotta pinch! There were a few American girls in front of me at the check-in counter. I could tell that their luggage was hopelessly overweight.

To my bewilderment (I was too shocked to be angry), they casually ripped off their security tags (the precious security tags!), opened their suitcases, took out some of their stuff, weighed it (and it came under the allowance level), opened them again, shoved in the stuff they had taken out, and threw it on the conveyer belt. No one raised an eyebrow.

“The next stop is Leicester,” called the train driver, and I realized I had dozed off. Feeling the apprehensive gaze of an elderly white woman, I got off the train and headed to work.

: 16 Nov 2006 13:44 |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

For the Sake of Quality

The Telegraph, 30.08.2006

Here is a trivia for readers. Let us say that there is an academic institution ‘A’. Its admission criteria for post–graduation courses states that “applicants require a high 2:1 or a first class at BA level, but admission is at the discretion of the degree committee, which judges each case on its own merits”. For those not acquainted with the nuances of British classification of undergraduate degrees, a 2:1 implies an upper second class honours degree — a perfectly respectable and often a very good result if you are studying the humanities or social sciences. Now let us assume that another institution (‘B’), has this unambiguous one liner— all graduates from “other universities” require a “First Class Honours”. Note the capitalization, possibly to underline the inflexibility of the stringent requirement.

Now for the question. Which of these two institutions would you guess is the more esteemed centre of higher education? My guess is that you would vote for ‘B’, given that it requires applicants to be of a supposedly higher academic calibre. So would I, had I not known their actual identities. For ‘B’ is the University of Calcutta, while ‘A’ is the Cambridge University.

A parochial individual might conclude that Cambridge has dropped its high standards, while CU has somehow leapfrogged ahead of it. Hardly. If you glance at the latest university rankings published by The Times, Cambridge ranks at the top while CU is nowhere to be seen.

New rules

This particular admission criterion of CU is proof of how excellence is barred from Indian institutions. This may sound strange at first, but not if you consider the following factors. First, institutions of repute never install an academic criterion that discriminates against ‘outsiders’. Graduates who come from colleges affiliated to CU with much lower marks have no problems in applying for the post–graduate courses. Also, the argument that CU examiners are strict when it comes to doling out marks is preposterous. Getting high marks in world class British universities is no cakewalk either.

Second, different universities have different cut off points. For example, 60 per cent is enough for a student to secure a first class at CU. But that becomes 70 per cent in most British universities. So someone with 68 per cent from Oxford cannot even apply to CU, but a CU graduate can apply even with 50 per cent.

Making a difference

Third, the difference in the quality of these two institutions is ignored by the admission criteria. A degree from a top class institution is often more challenging than that from a lowly ranked one. Thus, someone with a first class from a poorer university can stroll into CU at the expense of a hard–working student from a top university who misses a first class by a whisker.

All this makes a mockery of the concept of neutrality. Some would argue that any admission criterion is exclusive in nature for it invariably discriminates against a certain group of students. But the importance of merit in making an institution a centre of excellence is undeniable. And the door is being firmly shut on the face of merit by criteria such as these. If rules like these stay in place, the handful of Indian students who decide to come back and contribute at home would also not return.

So what is the way out of this mess? The admission criteria should be made more subjective and sensitive to individual applicants. It might mean that the application process will have to begin earlier but then that may well have to be the case. A choice has to be made — whether we vouch for mediocrity or whether we become more selective and promote excellence, at least in some institutions in India.

: 30 Aug 2006 04:32 |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

The Real Problem with Globalisation

India Nest, 20.08.2006

If you utter the word ‘globalization’ among educated circles these days, you get a overtly enthusiastic response– either making sweeping statements about the possible environmental degradations and inequities that it precipitates, or listing its boost to entrepreneurship and upward social mobility in developing countries. Both these arguments miss the key issue. The most potent and long–lasting effect of globalization as it stands today has been on the realm of ideas that has been straitjacketed into a certain mould, which reduces options for weaker countries to devise their own solutions to the various perplexing problems that they face.

Stephen Gill has defined knowledge as “the principle form of production and power resource”. Following on, it can be argued that particular ideas which have been privileged in the globalization discourse must hold sway over the policy processes in poorer countries which increasingly look for models to emulate from the developed world. Being in possession of most of the knowledge circulating in the public policy realm, the developed countries on the whole are in a unique position to control the ideologies and mentalities of the global ideational system.

We are often fooled by the façade of relative power. China, we are told, exports a humungous amount of goods to the world, and it is a developing country. However, it is not the export of toys and machines that make a state fundamentally powerful. The World Trade Organization is the agency that exports transnational regulatory institutions to its member states. We know that the WTO is dominated by a narrow set of ideas and attitudes. The world economic system is set up in such a manner that to maximize gains from trade, a state has to go via the WTO policy regime. And therein lies the “structural power” of supposedly global– but in fact ideationally very local– institutions like the WTO.

The ideological reach of this predatory globalization is not limited to concrete policy propositions between states alone. There are what many label “soft transfers” between non–state actors such as multinational corporations and non–governmental organizations. Therefore, the various management models and corporate structures that are being emulated by companies in the developing world are equally part of this hegemonic discourse as the ideological imports of the NGOs that protest against these very companies. The power of the British Broadcasting Corporation and Cable News Network should not be ignored too.

In other words, your laptop may have a “Made in China” label on it, but the various technologies that have been mastered to manufacture it, and the production techniques and management structures followed by the manufacturing company are invariably “Made in USA” or “Made in Japan”. The undisputed status of English as the lingua franca of the world is also part of this standardization process. Linguistic theory since the 1980s has argued that the language we use can shape the structure of our thought and the terms that we debate in. This power of globalization goes largely unnoticed.

The antithesis to this argument has been pointed out by Samuel Huntington who has pointed out that “drinking Coca Cola does not make Russians think like Americans.” Similarly, it is often said that globalization in reality leads to ‘glocalisation’. For example, multinational companies often have to alter their marketing strategies according to the cultural tastes of a particular country. However, this ignores the fact that the hegemonic presence of Western brands not only homogenizes the structure of the market globally, but also creates an illusion of superiority for such products. The newfound consumer culture in China and India and the hankering for foreign goods is a good example of this tendency.

The state as the monopoly of political power within defined borders is undergoing broadly similar transformations across the world as a result of globalization, and this reduces space for individual states to shape their own political systems. For example, austerity programs of the International Monetary Fund often forces states to adjust their political and economic system to a neo–liberal model in order to receive financial aid in a crisis situation. Prior to the Asian Financial Crisis, the IMF forced the countries in the region to liberalize their financial systems, despite savings rates being 20–22% higher in these countries vis–àvis Western Europe and the United States. On the other hand, the developed world through the WTO– often influences the trade policies of developing countries that have few choices but to join the global system. China and India were markedly different– both economically as well as politically– prior to their enmeshing in the global economic system. Now both China and India have a broadly similar economic system, and they are converging even further.

So–called ‘international norms’ play a major role in states across the world altering their policies to the ‘global’ practices of governance. The Heritage Foundation publishes an annual Index of Economic Freedom, while Freedom House publishes an annual Freedom in the World survey. Rating agencies like Standard & Poor and Moody’s ‘mark’ individual countries on their policies. The criteria for judging the policies of all these markedly different countries is rather inflexible, and no country would want to risk bad press, since they are falling over each other to attract foreign direct investment.

There have been some suggestions– notably by Randall Germain– that the developing states had re–instated themselves in lieu of the Asian Financial Crisis of 1997, and that in turn has forced the transnational forces acting on them to adjust to their changed stance. As an example we can look at the increasingly assertive stance of the Group of 20 (G–20) countries at the WTO negotiations. Moreover, the World Bank has been forced to amend its Comprehensive Development Framework after the crisis to be more sensitive to social needs of countries. This power shift, however, is relative merely. The “decision–making structures of the global economy” have not changed significantly, and the developing countries operate within the framework set for them by transnational commercial interests and international institutions which are heavily influenced by developed countries.

Immanuel Kant once spoke of the “moral unity of mankind”. However, unity is achieved through the equal consent of all participants and their equal contribution. Globalization – in its current avatar – does not offer developing countries the chance to make their own choices about major economic and political policies. Ardent neo–liberals would counter the above–mentioned argument by suggesting that poor labor standards and inadequate environmental regulations are in fact a source of negative marketing for countries, and hence they would not do it. Marxist critiques, on the other hand, would present a diametrically opposite argument.

What is forgotten in this quibble is that the poor countries have no say in this ideational battle– they are obliged to accept the dominant ethos of the time– in our case neo–liberalism. Orthodox Marxists often espouse Antonio Gramsci and argue for a counter–hegemonic discourse to be launched against neo–liberal structures of knowledge. The problem for them is that they too are working within a Foucauldian discourse. In other words, inexplicitly they are part of the very discourse they are trying to wriggle out of. The terminologies used to criticize neo–liberalism have nothing to do with the ideologies of the developing countries. They are stuck between two world views– the neo–liberal and the Marxist/radical. Their policy processes, in the meantime, get continuously compromised due to influences by the all–encompassing globalization process that brings the dominant ideology with it.

: 23 Aug 2006 02:53 |  Comments (2) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Confused About Identity

India Nest, 06.08.2006

The most attractive feature of this latest work by Sen – as with his other writings – is its extremely accessibility and lucidity. Written concisely, Sen illustrates his thesis remarkably well in this book which seeks to argue that sectarian violence often occurs with both sides being led by an illusion of what constitutes the ‘other’s’ identity. In other words, the “dreadful conflicts” that have taken place in our world, be it in Rwanda or Sudan or the Indian subcontinent, are often successors to “periods of terrible confusion” in the minds of the perpetrators of the brutalities against humanity.

Sen offers a primary explanation of such confusions. He argues that the essence of our existence as human beings is essentially shared by various aspects of humanity itself. To put it simply, we may have several identities which compete for our attention. However, the very nature of the ‘othering’ process involves the construction of “a singular and overarching system” of classifying groups of individuals in order to effectively present a target for the wrath that erupts as violence.

Sen offers two methods which are adopted– deliberately or unconsciously– to achieve this “miniaturisation” of human beings. The first he terms “identity disregard”. This has been used classically in theories concerning the economic man, and more recently in various game theories where an assumed motivation (e.g., rational self–interest) overshadows all other identities that an individual may adhere to.

Following on from this, his second classification is called “singular affiliation”, whereby only one facet of an individual’s overall identity is privileged to caricaturize his entire self. Such reductionism is most commonly found in instances of communal violence, whereby a person may just be a Hindu or a Muslim, but not an Indian, a middle class professional, or a father.

A recent example of a blatantly reductionist theory is espoused in Samuel Huntington’s now–famous The Clash of Civilizations, a work that is subjected to seething criticism by Sen in his book. In this, he carries on from where he left of in his The Argumentative Indian. The biggest problem with Huntington’s thesis is the complete ignoring of the often–marked diversities in these various civilisational blocs.

In the “Hindu civilization” ala India, there exist minorities who are either numerically substantial or culturally influential in shaping the history of the subcontinent, such as the Muslims, Sikhs, Jains, Buddhists, among others. There has been a lot of intercultural influences between these communities which deny Hinduism any singular identity which can be associated with today’s India. Added to that are the striking diversities within Hinduism itself. Such intra–cultural diversities can also be found in the Middle East, where the Shia–Sunni divide comes instantaneously to mind. Indeed, given the mutual suspicion that existed between the Arab world and Iran as recently as the 1980s, along with the various intra–Arab disputes, it is doubtful how far a monolithic Islamic civilization is a reality.

Sen also notes the tendency to create an arbitrary–often historically inaccurate– identity of the ‘self’ in order to differentiate it from the ‘other’. Here he criticizes the notion of the “Western mind” whereby certain ideas (e.g., democracy) are claimed to be the sole property of the Occident. Citing examples of Buddhist councils during the reign of Emperor Ashoka (3rd Century BC) and tracts on religious freedom during that of the Mughal Emperor Akbar (16th Century AD), Sen attempts to illustrate how such an identity can be readily disputed.

Neither does Western multiculturalism escape Sen’s criticism. While attempting to accommodate various interests in increasingly diverse societies, these theories invariably associate the interests of the minority individuals and/or communities based on their religion, castigating all other forms of identities to the background. Even scholars who attempt reconciliation between the West and Islam (supposing that such homogenized monoliths do in fact exist) often search for a ‘moderate Muslim’, thus giving disproportionate importance to religion in determining the ‘other’s’ identity.

Sen points out that one’s perception of their own identity may change over time. He points out that East Pakistan was formed in 1947 primarily because of a religious motivation. Yet, in 1971 this motivation was grossly inadequate in keeping it together with West Pakistan, as Bengalis asserted their language and culture as their primary form of identity vis–à–vis their religion, which they still shared with the West Pakistanis. However, Sen also notes that the primary cause for violence despite changing identities is the incapability of the victims to convince the aggressors of this shift. Perceived identity, therefore, proves stronger than actual identity.

Here post–modernism can pose a perplexing question for Sen. From the works of Michel Foucault in philosophy to some recent work in psychology, we know that perceptions can often be formed subconsciously or even unconsciously, determined by the various pressures of societal environment and the dominating discourse. How does Sen then assert that the ‘actual identity’ of an individual is any more real than the ‘perceived identity’, when the choice made by individuals itself may be automated by other, often–invisible forces? If Edward Said were alive, he would surely have a word or two to say about the ways in which Orientalism often forces ‘other’ people to assume certain identities.

On one occasion Sen himself has failed to remain neutral towards identities. On page 171 of the book he narrates the harrowing tale of a certain Kader Mia being stabbed to death by “vicious Hindu thugs” during the 1947 partition riots. Subsequently he also criticizes Muslim gangs for similar deeds. But if Kader Mia was incorrectly taken to be just a Muslim, should his murderers be represented as just Hindus, and not as criminals, revenge–seeking individuals, or misguided youth? Sen could have escaped with his description, had he clarified that the description “Hindu gangs” would probably have been used during the time to narrate the incident.

Sen spends a lot of time emphasizing the role of “choice and reasoning” behind an individual giving primacy to one among the various competing identities within him. While stating that individuals often stumble upon their identities– or “discover” them– Sen readily concedes that often individuals make conscious decisions about their identities– “Life is not mere destiny”. However, individuals can only choose from the available options in the social decision making function, which may not be optimal under practical circumstances.

To be fair to Sen, perhaps he is merely arguing for chosen identity to be given preference over given identity. But there may be less difference between the two than he has accounted for.

: 09 Aug 2006 16:06 |  Tags: Book Review |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem