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The RSS hasn't grasped the new optimism driving today's India

By Swapan Dasgupta

Like most big countries there's A perennial search for the absurd in India. The Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) -- an affiliate of the RSS -- took the biscuit last week when its activists went on an anti-Valentine's Day rampage in Kanpur. To the army of RSS-baiters, forever willing to bandy the term fascism, this was yet another example of the Sangh Parivar assuming the mantle of a moral police. There may be some percentage in that belief but it would be more appropriate to view the Kanpur farce as a feeble replica of the disruption witnessed in Seattle during the WTO summit. In Kanpur, the protestors directed their flak against the creeping Americanisation of Indian society and in Seattle the target was globalisation. Both groups of protestors were targeting change and both attracted the same lot of people -- those who nurture a grievance about being left out.

It won't help to be either dismissive or take a paranoiac view of the Kanpur protests. The past year has witnessed a revolution in the way Indians perceive their future. With the most business-friendly government for the past 50 years at the helm in Delhi, the mood of despondency that marked the late-'90s has given way to a new hope. It's a hope that is particularly evident in the youthful rush to discard the ideological baggage of the past and embrace new skills and new technologies. India still remains far removed from the Information Technology (IT)-linked exuberance of the West but for the first time there is a belief that we can catch up, that we too can do it. The computer was a term of ridicule when Rajiv Gandhi first invoked it in 1984; now it has become the symbol of opportunity.

But there is a flip side. For every two that wants to ride the crest of a global revolution, there is one totally disoriented by it. If the achiever wants to acquire global skills, which includes a degree of familiarity with the English language and cosmopolitan social niceties, the plodder resents the iniquity of a process that can't reward his obsolescence. Unfamiliar with the ramifications of the emerging knowledge-based order, he becomes a fully paid-up member of the flat earth society, imbibing incredible conspiracy theories. The danger, of course, is that it isn't some fringe Marxist party that is in the forefront of a Fortress India approach. Leading the charge is the RSS, a body that, according to L.K. Advani, exercises "moral authority" on the Government. The apparent contradiction between a reformist BJP and an antediluvian RSS is ominous.

As globalisation becomes a reality, the BJP leadership must address this dichotomy. It won't do to practise reforms by stealth and hope that full-throated assurances to keep Indian unity intact will placate the ultra-nationalists. More than ever before, it has become necessary for the political class to become missionaries and explain the opportunities presented by the new order. With intellectual capital now at a premium, globalisation presents the greatest test of Indian ingenuity. Brain power is our greatest asset and India must embrace the challenge.

Plus, there will be cultural returns from success. A resurgent India won't be hankering each February after some hand-me-down Valentine's Day party; it will be a smug spectator to up-market restaurants across the Silicon Valley serving authentic masala dosas. It's already happening, much to the chagrin of Americans who want to preserve Yankee culture.

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