We all know of the overt moral police. Loonies who try and impose their notions of sexuality and decency on the rest of us by force. But since they’re out in the open, we have something to fight against. And since their arguments are stupid, we can find the weapons to put them down.
But there’s another moral police at work. They don’t get reported in the news media as the subject of headlines, but they’re there. And their biggest weapon is guilt. A blog post in the TOI by Shobhan Saxena is one such example. Here’s a passage:
“While you were glued to your flat screen, with your eyeballs popping out every time the ball was hit for a six….bunch of them surrounded a Dalit house and set it on fire…she and her father were engulfed and consumed by the fire”
And here’s another:
“Even as you were glued to TV, watching the IPL drama…more than 100 people died in the cow-belt areas as mercury touched 43 degree mark”
This post has attracted almost 200 comments, almost all of them agreeing with the author’s premise that India is going to the dogs because people are more interested in the IPL instead of…what? Feeling miserable that 100 people died because it was hot? Feeling miserable that caste violence still takes place?
Are we supposed to walk around with our heads hanging down and suffering due to events we have little or no power over? Do the people who watch the IPL cause the caste discrimination? Or cause the heat?
No one is insensitive to the difficult realities of a large part of India’s population. But does that mean the life of others is any less real? I’m sitting in my air conditioned room, with a full stomach and having quite a good time. Am I supposed to scorn it all because many others don’t have what I do? Will that help them a jot? Of course not. With all the misery in the world, one would think that people must snatch whatever little pleasures come their way – otherwise what’s the use of it all?
Trying to inject some sense into the debate, I left a comment on the post saying that not all is gloomy. A new UN report has shown that India and China have lifted 125 million people out of poverty in the last decade alone. In India, slum prevalence has fallen from over 40% to 28% in the last two decades.
I pointed out that we live in the most prosperous time in human history and in India, health indicators such as child mortality, life expectancy, purchasing power and those living below the poverty line have improved faster than any other country in the world barring China. Hans Rosling has presented an awesome picture of these developments in his TED talks.
Here was one response I got:
“This is definitely INCORRECT stats – here in India we don’t even have true figures of population, true poverty figures, true records of life & death, and true crime rates. How can western countries produce accurate analysis about us? The fact is in front of our eyes – millions are starving, and there is NO ABSOLUTE DEVELOPMENT in past 60 years, only an ILLUSION.
India is near a total internal collapse if this situation is unchecked.”
This response opened my eyes. It dawned on me that there are people in India and outside who don’t want to believe things are getting better. In spite of evidence to the contrary, they would like to be able to trash their country and praise the rest of the world. It’s like clutching an inferiority complex to their chests and refusing to let go.
And such people want to take the rest of us along with them and feel guilty over things we cannot directly influence. I don’t watch the IPL myself, but I can imagine the number of jobs it creates. Graphics designers, clothing manufacturers, security men, cleaners, advertising agents, television crews, commentators, lawn specialists, equipment manufacturers, stadium owners and so many more I can’t possibly list them all. And for a harmless activity of throwing and hitting balls. It’s difficult for me to imagine that anyone can possibly find anything wrong with this.
And yet they do. They want us to stop having fun and enjoying ourselves. Instead of realizing that in this world, you take the chance to snatch little pleasures yourself whenever you can since your life is short and limited, they try and guilt us into giving it all up and thinking of how horrible life can be for others.
Such people are eagerly listened to and agreed with by those who want to jump onto the “bashing India” bandwagon. Instead of actually coming out with solutions, they dictate what we should or shouldn’t feel good about. This is merely a disguised moral police masquerading as social commentary. Pessimistic people who always find fault and don’t see the good around them. It’s time we took these people to task as well, and show them that their reasoning is as loony as the traditional moral police who try and stuff their morals down our throats.
Hey, I agree with everything you've said…Many Indians are miserable themselves and want everybody else to be miserable too…
Sweetheart, IPL is not the end of the world. You want to see poverty then come out of your AC room. Roam around places, traffic signals, monuments tourist visits and you will see child labor, exploitation and the like. Our society is divided into people that have and people that don't. And this divide is becoming.
I am not denouncing my country, but I want people power. Until and unless, just becoz of a Biryani, some hundred rupees, a Saree, a Tea Set and like of them, people wont stop selling their vote, we will keep failing apart.
I love my country and very much bothered about it, but instead of IPL, I like watching someone helped; rather than enjoying beauty pageants, I would prefer helping orphans wear some good cloths; and rather then watching Swayamwar, I will try bonding people together. Because this is my country and before expecting from anyone else to do something, I should do these myself.
So when you are talking about moral policing, do think about those people too, who do things quietly at the end of the day.
In reply to Sajid
Sajid, the issue arises when you begin to tell other people what to do. By enjoying myself, I'm not making anyone's life worse am I?
There will always be the gap between the rich and the poor. In fact, that gap is the largest in the US out of a benchmark of 30 countries! Some people will always have more than others by virtue of luck or hard work. I don't see anything wrong with that.
I know everything about poverty in India even though my life is comfortable. Everything you say about children at traffic signals, beggars, poverty at monuments etc – I know. But why should I deprive myself of comforts then? It's not as if those people are poor because of me!
Those who can enjoy themselves, must do so. No point thinking of how bad other people's lives are since it won't make any difference to those people whether you have a good time or not.
In reply to bhagwad
Bhagwad,
One of the biggest reasons I like Ayn Rand is because she precisely said what you said in this post. :)
Anyway, a few points.
1. Some people have this stupid idea that if the rich people give up their wealth and distribute it to poors, “everyone will be happy”, and that is the reason they hate affluence. This kind of ‘analysis’ is in total contradiction to any idea of statistics as well as the fact that money just has arbitrary value which as an outcome of ‘how much’ money exists v/s how many resources exist. Poverty is eventually largely because of lack of resources and unequal distribution does have some role to play.
2. People like Arundhati Roy do try to point out that it is indeed urban consumerist lifestyle that is responsible for the bad plight of tribes in the Maoist areas. And she’s partly right. E.g., if we were to lead a more ‘nature-friendly’ life, then there would be lesser need for steel, aluminum, polymers, etc. If this demand would decrease then there would be fewer industrialists wanting to start factories/mining in the tribal belt and would not try to displace them, and then the tribes would live happily ever after (which is Arundhati’s insinuation, and something that I find laughable).
However, there is another convoluted way in which our consumerist lifestyle (and economic inequality) leads to poverty and deprivation for those less privileged. The idea is analogous to that of cash crops v/s food crops. If let us say, there is a circle of very affluent people who start coveting a certain brand of coffee – either because they like its taste or because it is some sort of ‘status symbol’. And let’s say, the corresponding coffee beans sell for Rs. 5,000 per kg. Then, more and more farmers will start growing coffee beans in anticipation of the profits. Also, the people who could have otherwise been engaged in growing rice and carrying it to the poorer people will now be engaged in grinding, roasting, packing, transporting of coffee, etc. There would be people who will make ceramic glasses for drinking the coffee. Yes, at each and every stage of production of coffee and its associated ‘paraphernalia’, poorer people would earn ‘money’ to be able to pay for rice, but the fact is means of production of rice itself would decrease. (While this would not necessarily hold true for India) Consequently, the amount of rice produced would decrease and rice would become costlier. The ones most affected because of this ‘earmarking of resources for coffee drinking’ would be the ones who were any way least able to buy rice. A few more of them would die of starvation than would have otherwise died had that coffee not been drunk and coveted.
Same holds true for many of our indulgences like watching movies in multiplexes, driving cars, flying in places, etc. Just like agricultural land and humans (as a resource) even these pursuits get a very vital and scarce resource ‘earmarked’, i.e., energy. I do not know how much energy in absolute and percentage terms do these activities meant for amusement take up, but if they are substantial portion of industrial energy consumption, then surely, it could otherwise have been diverted to use in farming and production of cheaper clothes, medicines, etc. – which are sort of more ‘basic’ requirements for life.
3. You’re quite right that my getting worried or sad about any kind of victims is not going to make any difference to their lives, unless and until I get motivated to sacrifice my own career and happiness and actually go out there to help them. And even then, the difference I would be able to make would be very minor compared to the scale of sacrifice I would be making. Hence, it’s inane to diss IPL or any other thing that people indulge in that makes people happy.
4. I don’t think simply any issue getting highlighted in newspapers improves things. If media makes lot of noise about some misery and if funds get allocated to the alleviation of that misery, some other misery would not be alleviated which otherwise could have been alleviated.
5. Apart from the fact that nowadays I’m trying to emotionally dissociate myself from the ‘we’ in context of India, I must say that yes, India has done well. However, I still crib in this matter. :D Perhaps, because I hate socialism and see it as root cause for many problems in India. And yes, there is a saying in Hindi Ghar ki murgi daal baraabar (loosely put, one does not appreciate what one actually has). :D But after reading a few of your assertions, I have been cribbing less. But I still am not optimistic as you about India’s future, because of one simple reason – India’s fertility rate. As population density increases, the problems Indians will face will actually grow exponentially. And unfortunately there is no sign in immediate future of India’s population plateauing and then actually decreasing. Some people tend to point out that our ‘youth’ is going to be our asset. I sort of disagree. For our youth to be our asset two conditions need to be fulfilled at least – there should be demand for their labor from outside India (because India’s employment provision capacity is supersaturated, example being so much disguised unemployment) and second, for these people to be useful to the outside world, they have to be trained better than the youth of other countries. With increasing automation and lesser need for unskilled labor in global job market, India’s youth actually stand poorer chance of being gainfully employed. And unemployment directly results in poverty, which in turn (especially in villages) leads to lack of awareness and greater fertility rates. The vicious cycle continues.
Anyway, returning to the ideas inherent in the post. Do I feel guilty about certain people being so unprivileged that they have to live like second-tier citizens in service of first-tier citizens like myself? Actually yes. Because they never had the opportunity to get for themselves the kind of education that I got myself. Except for a few ‘inspirational stories’ we read about in newspapers, it is next to impossible for vast majority of children to become a doctor the way I could. It is not that my prosperity directly deprived them of those opportunities, but it makes me feel that I had it easier than them, and that thus in a way it was ‘undeserved’. And to enjoy fruits of anything ‘undeserved’ would induce some kind of shame, if not guilt. And I occasionally do experience that kind of guilt.
But how do I reconcile with that kind of guilt?
First, just like how there were children compared to whom I had it much easier to get myself this secure lifestyle, there are a few children (mostly in western countries and also some of the affluent pockets in India) who had it much easier than myself. So, there are indeed some people who are enjoying things more ‘undeserved’ than I am.
Second, (just like how you pointed out) it is not that if I stop enjoying or start feeling guilty the plight of these people would drastically improve.
Third, even if I devote my entire life to the cause of making others’ happy, the impact would be much less compared to the unhappiness I myself would be incurring and the potential happiness that I would be sacrificing. Hence, in terms of risk-benefit ratio, this kind of sacrifice would also not serve much purpose.
In reply to Ketan
Thanks for the thoughts Ketan. I think you have some valid points about energy production, but I have to disagree with your coffee rice example. Here are a few reasons:
1. When a lot of people start producing the expensive coffee, output would increase and prices would fall, thereby stabilizing the production. Also, if it’s really profitable then entities other than farmers would also take up growing it and might purchase new assets in order to make coffee.
2. There’s a lot of scope (I think) in Indian agriculture for improving the efficiency of agricultural output. So though the absolute amount of land is fixed I think we can still go a long way towards increasing the amount of crop from the land.
3. When rice becomes more expensive, more people will automatically start producing rice than there were before because of the increased profits.
Of course, in truly limited resources like energy your point blossoms and the free market then leads to a degradation of lifestyle for everyone.
Your point about people in the US leading a better lifestyle without having to work for it important too. I don’t feel jealous of other people better off than me. So I don’t expect others to feel the same way either…
'If I am not having fun (for whatever reasons), you shouldn't either' – seems to be the logic here. It's good to be concerned and it's great to do something about that concern but that does not justify demanding that others do the same.
I thought only politicians might talk like this, because they love the power but resent the burden of showing concern for their voters…
1. Can we eat sumtuous food in home and enjoy when someone in the near neighbourhood dies, I don't do this and i believe any human doesn't do this..
2. Can we fell like eating an icecream at the street and enjoy if a begging child is behind us,; usually we try to buy an icecream / give some money to the begging kid.
I read the article in the TOI and i feel like there are many things in the country to be given importance than IPL, the point here is entire media, people are frenzy about IPL happenings and they never bother or tune to the real world. In my example it is like media only focuses on the icecream eating guys and not on the begging kid.
In reply to Annonymous
Do you know why newspapers stopped reporting on serious issues and starting having more pop-news? Because that helped sell the paper.. which means more people read and like to watch lifestyle news, not reality.
Just cos a people are suffering doesn’t mean everyone else should mourn, also I don’t see a point in comparing two events (IPL and caste issues) which are totally unrelated.
In reply to Annonymous
Don’t you feel the IPL is giving jobs to the same poor people you’re feeling sorry for? Cleaners, security guards, stadium attendants, ticket handlers etc? Or would you rather that the government just shower money on these people without them having to work?
Remember that money making businesses create jobs for everyone else including poor people.
And even so, by my not enjoying myself no one is benefiting. So I should have as much fun as I can as long as no one gets hurt. Can you tell me who the IPL is robbing of money? It’s only creating more of it.
Loved this post Bhagwad. It's so true that we're made to feel guilty for every little pleasure we enjoy. And GAWD! Those people who can't look at what is indeed going well.
I'm sick of the bad news. I seriously believe that if we keep moaning and groaning, we'll get nowhere. Our media focuses only on the tragedies and inequalities and inadequacies. Very few words are written or spoken about where it's going right, about the people and politicians who ARE doing good, about the amazing achievements of governments…nah…sob stories sell better, and guilt and shame and self-sacrifice are essential, because we might forget the poverty around us. Gah!
In reply to starry eyed
I think I found a new role for my blog – I'll be the country's unofficial optimist!