Yesterday, I watched a video about the idea of India, partition and the history of Balochistan. It made me think more about something I've been pondering about, i.e. India as a nation versus India as a culture, and how I should deal with the two. However, there was an off-hand comment he made at the end which caught my attention - 'in the two months I have lived in India, I have seen every man who can shout at a poor man exercise his power.' This is something I have encountered repeatedly. The stereotype of Asian hierarchy apart, our society has so many layers - economic, caste, linguistic, racial - that slice and dice our population in different ways. There have been times when I have, in fact, felt castigated by my colleagues due to my refusal (or inability?) to exercise that power to shout at those 'poorer' than me. Not to say that I'm free of this ill - while I probably do not let economic status dictate my behaviour towards another individual, I probably let academic and intellectual differences (both a function of my parents' economic status) thrive. But the more I think about it, the more it seems to me that these are all excuses to protect status quo. To protect the privileges that we have come to accumulate.
This phenomenon can also be seen when we talk about racism. It is easy for us to say "we're not racist" when we are encountered with people who talk like us, wear clothes like we do, listen to the same music, think similarly about issues - basically they're our reflection in another skin. However, how many of us are willing to embrace the cultural and social differences between countries and races? How many are willing to un-learn what they've been taught so that they can fully understand another culture? How many are willing to display the level of humility required to engage in an honest conversation about things that cultures and races do not agree about?
Racism, to me, is born out of two primitive human needs - the self-preservation I talked about earlier, and ambiguity aversion. We tend to feel more comfortable around things that look and sound like us. Therefore, to an extent it is 'natural' and some may argue even 'justified.' After all, by increasing 'trust' between members of the same community/race, it may help increase economic opportunities within that group that then spill over to another group. However, the flipside is that people outside the group that started out with privileges will almost certainly have access to only a limited set of economic and social opportunities. The question I struggle with is this - do we spend our energy fighting something that is natural (and therefore requires more energy to keep away from this 'natural equilibrium') or do we use our energy to improve what is the second-best outcome in this context?
I tend to lean towards the second, because I view racism in this bigger context of the 'tyranny of the privileged.' Also, economic deprivation resonates more strongly with me than racial discrimination. I wrote my Rhodes application on the idea of 'equality of opportunities', and I still view that as something I need to work towards. Of course, race and other factors are correlated with access to opportunities, but I want to look at the structural problems causing accumulation within one group, rather than ascribing it to simply racism. I end by remembering Gandhi's talisman, which was the target of many jokes when we were in school. However, as one of Gandhi's last notes, it reflects the crystallisation of his thoughts. My actions need to be driven by how they affect the poor, because as the winner of a lottery, I see little reason to make decisions in a vacuum.
