Brexit – Revelations to a Commoner

Since last two-weeks, like every other ‘civilised’ human being of the globalised world, I too became a follower of the historic (or hysteric?) ‘Brexit’ samachar. In the ‘Globalised’ world, one needs to be aware of the important incidents taking place 10000\20000 kilometre away in order to be called as ‘knowledgeable’. So I did – who does not want to be adorned with such an attractive title like ‘knowledgeable’? Even though like many of “Bong middle class” panellists, I also do not have a first-hand knowledge about England or Great Britain or UK – but won the right to contribute in their decision making process by knowing some people of the geography as friends \relatives or by feeling attached to them through our ancestral professional association with the once rulers.

Every one of us is well aware of the recent developments in global politics. Everyone knows that global politics, same like all other global trends, is not a static phenomenon – it never was. Only thing constant about global politics is ‘Change’. And everyone is aware of Newton’s Third Law (or an idiomatic expression?)  - “For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.” What then, made most of us imagine that 1) global politics will become static after the concept of ‘globalisation’ evolved and accepted by most of the counties in 1990s? And 2) the very much action-oriented ‘Globalisation’ will never face a ‘reaction’?

I remember meeting a friend in western region of India. This time I was staying at her home. This was my third visit to the city.  At that time, some uproar broke out against the unfriendly approach of people of that city to migrant labourers from another state. I obviously was eager to discuss the issue with my liberal friend. I asked her how the situation was. And she started, as usual – “see these are poor people having no work in their own state; that is reason they are migrating – we should always have our sympathy with them. We are all Indians after all...” I received an answer which could make peace-preaching religious leaders happy but I am not a religious leader – was not satisfied at all.  So I continued, “But migrant labourers bring lot of troubles too – even if you tell that influx has nothing to do with increasing criminal activities, you cannot avoid seeing shanties mushrooming everywhere. Is your city infrastructure ready to take the load? Do you find there is no social impact?” Few of my lines were enough to make her open up – beyond my expectation! She took the queue – “You know what a mess is this!  The whole city is getting dirty...they use streets as public toilet. Footpaths are being encroached – and if you and me tell them to develop clean habit – they are going to call you intolerant! You know it’s us who are responsible for all these. Every builder - contractor wants to recruit the cheapest labourer possible and its only people from your region who are ready to work at that rate.”

  - I knew where the discussion was heading towards. Who are responsible for all those “mess”? Wild development plans – to which we all “experts” are directly or indirectly attached, money-yielding economy, without which “we” are jobless and, job-creation machinery which tries to recruit all of a growing population as ‘resource’ (whereas we cannot think of surviving without being a resource) – both of us knew we cannot get rid of any of the development options – even thinking of returning to the standard of living practiced three hundred years back is impossible. So, on the one hand we will continue attracting cheap migrant labourers to fulfil our dream of Globalised development and on the other, once the migrant labourers we import reach a sizable number – they will try to influence and if possible change our cultural vision so that it suits them the best. And “we” won’t be able to accept ‘other’ people propose ‘our’ girls to cover from head to foot because their culture wants it - conflict remains never ending.

Our very optimistic Globalisation plans never thought of side-effects. Probably none of the optimistic plans do. When the side effects come – we search for a remedy. Interesting is, in case of a global problem in a globalised world, even one’s searching for own remedy makes his\her neighbour feel threatened. The new medicine one is trying may work or fail – but neighbours become more concerned about the experiment.

We have already developed a habit of thinking global - there should not be any difference between Gujarat and Assam, we should be able to speak the same language in USA and France; everything should be standardised (remembering some of my USA-returned superior’s remarks for being forced to recruit a German\French language professional :D) ...what will happen if the concept we have developed does not work for ever?  What if some of the places\ people\ country tries to look for some other option? A plan’s not working eternally is threatening – Very threatening!

Neither Ram, nor Ganga -

Rough translation of a poem of Nirendranath Chakravarty, a contemporary Bengali poet:

He knows neither Ram, nor Ganga –

Acquainted with neither the soil nor its folks.

To him Constituency is the soil and –

Voters are the folks.

The news of the village of Rampur's -

Lying under seven feet water -

Could not disturb his sleep;

Since Rampur is not included in his Constituency.

But the news of about three kid’s and -

A few age-shaken old folk's washing away in Ganganagar

Forced him take help of sleeping pills.

Nevertheless after getting up,

He felt refreshed.

He knows that -

Kids are not entitled to cast vote and -

The nearest polling booth is -

At least two and half kilometers away from village;

Old folks do not walk to cast votes in general.

Written in 1977-78

Hindu-ism? – A brief Observation

Defining Hinduism has been an issue of debate among friends since last few years. And even in this case, I am puzzled by the suffix ‘ism’ attached to it, as always I have when I see an effort to ‘mix ‘en match’ in very Indian concepts with those originated in some other part of the globe.

Remembering one of my Professors whom I found looking furious one day as he was sitting in our college staffroom. I was little shocked seeing the angry face of the usually calm person. I kind of poked him – “Sir, you told you would give us a lesson Vasa (a Sanskrit playwright from centuries back) and the professor burst! – “I am in no mood of teaching you anything! What are you students learning these days – go learn from your American Gurudevs! Anyway you will learn what you intend to learn!” I was at a loss, but knew there would be some interesting story behind. So I kept on waiting there. As expected, he continued after some time, “You know what they (some students union affiliated by particular political party, who used to run a magazine) have told me? They told me to write an article to prove that Ram was a historical character who was alive twenty thousand years back!.....”  That was my first lesson on how history is used to prove of disapprove things – how politicians use historical theories for political benefit….of course not all politicians are Ram-worshipers but almost everyone use one or other (mythical?) character to prove the sanctity of their politics. Here comes the scope of ‘ism’. To catch people’s attention, one needs to be a follower of some or other ‘ism’.

Does ‘ism’ go with the concept of ‘Hindu’? Is there any preacher who started preaching the ‘ism’ of Hindus on a particular day of a particular month or year? Is there any particular god or prophet whom one has to follow to become or remain a Hindu? The answer to all of these are no, no  and no.  Who tells what the core idea of the ‘ism’ is? – Answer is “many” and “none” – but the polytheistic concept is developed through thousands of years. Did those “many” speak of the same moral to be preached universally? Answer is “no” – but this a collection of different and sometimes contradictory ideas developed by many ‘sages’. (We define all our poets, philosophers, political theorists, playwrights, grammarians and even physicians and architects as “sages”. Bengali Ramayan refers even King Janak, father of Sita as “Sage”). Can there be any ‘ism’ without a universally accepted moral at the core? I did not get any reply from the “ism” preachers till date and still waiting.

Then came another group of ‘ism’ followers with an idea that what ‘The Vedas’ preach is Hinduism and what is not in Vedas  cannot be accepted as part of “Hinduism”.  I would humbly request these “followers” to go through Veda texts available - these are no preacher’s material like testament anyway! Yes, these include poems addressing many gods starting from Fire to Hiranyagarbha, (also the ‘Dice’-god!), but there is no reference of the gods called Ram or Krishna or Kali or Shiva – presumably none are part of ‘Hinduism”? Vedas speak of only “Yagna” – no reference to Puja.  Puja not allowed in Hinduism? The major chunk of Hindu festivals organized today will not get ‘approval’ from Vedas we see!

What is Hindu-ism then?

I would prefer the drop the suffix –“ism”.  There is no harm to do some brainstorming if the suffixes like “view” or “concept” seems inadequate.  But Hindu philosophy speaks of a concept which does not need the followers to visit a particular god’s temple or worship a particular god or listen to a particular prophet. Therefore different members in the same family enjoy the privilege of worshipping or not worshipping a god of own choice. This is a concept which does not impose dress-code on followers; neither imposes any restriction on food.  (Our Neo-Hindu friends perhaps do not have any idea that eggs and fish and chicken and mutton and beef are food for a number of Hindus, only thing is they are scattered in different parts of the country, instead of concentrating themselves in particular areas – in fact non-vegetarians outnumber vegetarians in ‘Hindustan’.). Well, you have a right to starve too, if you want to prove yourself to be pious in some regions. (remember how I found it amazing that people in some states have rice boiled with ghee as food on ‘day of fasting’, whereas ‘fasting’ in Eastern region of the country means going without food and water for at least twenty-four hours.!). As a whole, Hindu thought process celebrates inclusivity – includes all of monotheism, polytheism, atheism, violence, non-violence, heterosexuality, homosexuality, desire, abstinence, formed, formless and what not – one can follow any principle of own choice and still remain a ‘Hindu’.  In my opinion, its thought process that vouch for ‘liberty’; ‘Liberty’ that encourages followers to think and decide on their own.

Yagnabalkya took a method of “netibad” to explain the nature of Brahma in Brihadaranyak-upanishad. His answer to every question ending with “is that Brahman?” is “it is not.” (na- iti). This way, when every entity in the world fails to qualify as “Brahman” - what is left out of the scope is defined as “Brahman”. I think Hindu-view of life can be defined perfectly only by this method of Yagnabalkya’s. What do not come under the scope of any other religion or philosophic concept can be regarded as ‘Hindu” thought process, the incomparable one - Is the definition adequate? 

But what is the Scope of natural languages in Business?

Friends accuse me of being too lengthy while explaining things. Hence a summary of the article on translation activities on India:

Natural Language is integral part of people’s culture in any particular geography. Natural Language does not express people’s IQ or coding skill but their cultural identity, existence, choices and aspirations. That was reason the most successful Mogul emperors as well as the British translated most of the literary texts, scriptures, legal and all others kinds of texts available in their colonies – we know of the extensive work British rulers had done in translating texts (18\19th century) in the fields of Arabic, Persian, Sanskrit. Among many other supporting factors, “Reading” the subjects and native employees through their language and literature helped them to succeed.

Let’s look at the resemblance of a business administration in a global enterprise to that of an imperial Government. Business these days runs in a world where globalization is, more than a choice. It is only option for growth of an enterprise, irrespective of whichever part of the world the enterprise comes from. Global business does recruit people from different parts of the world same way a colonial Govt did. They have to manage people from different cultural backgrounds from different geographies. They have to sell goods and services in different parts of the world. Analyzing customer’s requirement becomes the first step in the steep road of global sales same way as creating own acceptability was a challenge to Moguls or East India Company. Is it possible to define what kind of service of product would perfectly suit to customer’s need without understanding customer’s cultural existence which is best expressed through their language and literature?

The world of business unequivocally takes the shape of a Mogul empire to some extent where number of decision makers is many, leading to a joint decision making portfolio instead of one emperor show – but at the core of it resides the idea of managing many people from different cultural existence – sometimes numerous, depending on the nature of the industry. If scenario is similar, can we completely avoid deploying similar applications (with modifications, of course) and still win?

I remember - once I was discussing the importance of developing the habit of practicing couple of languages in global business environment with one colleague. My point was - this could serve both the purposes of 1) understanding and communicating with customer and 2) in-house need of creating a comfort zone for new joiners from different countries. His first question to me was –“Why do we need to learn foreign languages other than English? I speak English – why don’t the French and German and Japanese learn English like us?” My next 10 minute’s lecture on impact of colonialism on Indian languages worked some or other way I guess, while his next words were, “See, if English could do it, we will also do it! See some day you will translate SAP into Hindi; none of your Badshahs and Sahibs exists anymore.” 

I could not continue the same discussion with my young colleague any longer - seeing his face glowing with pride in having one language of his own -  dreaming of establishing own empire where he could make non-Hindi speakers translate technical documents into his language……………….