I am an Indian first and everything else later. Feels good to say that. Am proud that I am an Indian. I am a nationalist, and love to be one. India is in my DNA.
Not everyone needs to say that, or feel that for sure. This is something very personal. Nationalism and a feel for the nation must not be thrust upon you. You must feel it, if at all. And you don’t need to feel it all the time as well. You don’t need to wear jingoism on your sleeve, do you?
Even as I write this, there is noise around Diljit Dosanjh. Dosanjh is a star who represents Punjabi culture to the Indian and global audiences. He does say, at every show, that he is a Punjabi. He represents the culture proudly. How is it a crime to represent your roots, then? He is the first Punjabi artist to perform at the Coachella fest in the US. The first to make an appearance on The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon. These and his recent appearance at the Met Gala in New York are all personal milestones that put Punjab on the world map, in his own words.
At the Met Gala, Dosanjh presented himself in an ivory-and-gold sherwani paired with a tehmat (draped bottoms) and a sweeping cape embroidered with the silhouetted map of Punjab—not of India. His turban completed the look and around his neck hung a copy of the famed Patiala necklace. What’s wrong with representing Punjab? What’s wrong with wearing Punjab on your cape? Is Diljit a Punjabi first and an Indian later? And is that a crime of omission or commission?
Think about yourself, then. Who do you think you really are? And who do you pretend you are? The answer is personal and is different to every individual Indian. Are you an Indian first or a Malayali? This reminds me of a film that was a hit in Kerala and among the Kerala diaspora worldwide: Malayali from India. I hear this title as a social introduction at the many meetings I attend in Dubai and the rest of the UAE all too frequently. The Malayali is proud to be a Malayali, just as a Kannadiga is proud to be a Kannadiga. But what are you first— a Kannadiga or an Indian? Are you a Bengali from India or an Indian from Bengal? And does it matter at all?
Some very patriotic folks feel it matters and are throwing memes and rocks at Dosanjh. Let me peel this a bit to make us all feel even more uncomfortable than we are already feeling reading all this on a Tuesday morning.
A recent sociological research into the mind and mood of Indians in rural and deep-rural markets is telling. As I study deep-rural markets (which are, really, markets very few of us know exist) I see and feel a very different India—one that lives at the level of the village and local community. People out here are that much more disconnected with national realities and come alive only to the most local realities that touch their lives and livelihoods. The nation is a very distant thought.
The closest thought is my home and the village I live in. To me, my world is my village. I know everyone in my village, and I spot every newcomer to the village like an aberration. I watch him and her carefully, with suspicion even. A lot of government folks come in on transfers. They are also watched carefully as temporary residents. I trust them less than my fellow-villagers. The villager owns the village; everyone else rents it. Ownership is the ultimate respect.
In the deep-rural markets of India that represent the gut of the country, villagers identity themselves differently. In the beginning, I am from Mayyadi, my village. To those who don’t understand what that means, I am from the area called Bijoor. And to those who do not identify with that bigger identity, I am from Coondapura. And to those who don’t understand even that, I am from the Greater Mangaluru area, if I may dub it that. I am from Karnataka, of course. And I am most certainly from India. I belong to Asia as well as to the world. Ultimately, I am a part of the cosmos at large.
What do you associate yourself with the most? The smallest unit of society is the individual. As you move from that to larger aggregations of the family, the locality, the community, the city, the state and the political boundaries of your country, do you move from the small to the big? Do you associate yourselves with the smallest of it all or the biggest of them all?
These are two mentalities at play. The deeper you probe the deep-rural markets, the local is that much more important than the global. Must we grudge them that? The local is less heterogeneous than the global. The comfort of most lies in the homogeneity of their immediate surroundings. All else is considered an intrusion and an aberration. Ouch!
My research within India also includes a study of distinctly aggregated and recognised business communities. I have studied as many as 28 different community-aggregations in the realm of business. The biggest of them is the Marwari and the Jain communities, and the smallest is the Saraswat community from the Konkan coast. Many of these communities find comfort with what unites them with homogeneity. It is language, a common deity, food, custom and worship patterns. Each of these communities, particularly the bigger aggregations, buy from one another, support one another and emote with one another as a family member would. Thinking local and thinking community help. Makes business sense as well.
At the end of it all, identity is a reality. Identity is a statement you make. Identity is a piece of politics as well. Identity politics is a reality in most of our states. At the end of it all, it’s all about your roots. Your roots are in the extremely local, even if your shoots look all grown up and global. All politically correct. All polished. And all opaque.
I think it’s alright to be totally local and vocal about it. We are all Indians. If most of the time you think you are a Gowd Saraswat Brahmin from Goa, so be it. In times of war, all of us think like Indians. As one. And at every India-Pakistan cricket match, all of us are nothing but one large and formidable mass of passionate Indians. That’s all that matters. Everything else is everything else.
Harish Bijoor | Brand guru & founder of Harish Bijoor Consults Inc
(Views are personal)
(harishbijoor@hotmail.com)