Chronicles Of The Return

I got an email from someone very upset with the things I have said about India. Here’s the email in question, my reply is below:

Mr Kelley: I would appreciate it if you could let me know how long you spent in India and if you made any friends there. Looking at the photos of your trip you obviously enjoyed it-Lions of Gir, Rajasthan an’ all that but your observations as per your subsequent writings showed that you did not really like India or Indians.. To me you are like the ‘alternate’ who goes to Kolkata, looks around for a hotel for $4 a night, eats at the roadside eatery, gets hash cheaply, dresses like an Indian with Kurta and/or Dhoti and then heads off to Benares or Rishikesh or wherever for a ‘Spiritual Experience’ After the great trip, which is duly notched up against a claim that will be made in the future “I have been ‘Everywhere’ etc” . On your return to America, after seeing emaciated rickshaw pullers, it would have been comforting to see the well fed obese compatriots and was time to jot down those memories, while still fresh, of observations like the ’shitty’ hotel you stayed in (no mention of room price) lack of hot water-rats-cockroaches-pavement dwellers-corruption - on and on and on ad nauseam.

You did mention that you stayed at the Taj-that would’ve set you back maybe $500 a night but you then said that you didn’t like ‘outside’ the Taj because of the rubbish, smells etc. I’m sure a well travelled man like you would be aware that if only one fifth of the third world’s population could enjoy the same sanitary conditions that we do that there would be no fresh water available for drinking. You, having travelled to 47 countries, no doubt are aware of the achievements and shortcomings of each of them. I note also that you tell us that you are a ‘good public speaker’ and are available for hire. During your India trip you would have picked up little gems for your talks like; a birth takes place every 1.25 seconds-20 people are killed in road accidents every hour-40 per week die in rail accidents-snakebites 4000 a year-43% of NASA staff are Indians-about the same at Microsoft-Indian input with the LHC considerable-have nuclear capability-and many people pee and shit in the streets.

India is not only Mumbai, Kolkata or Delhi-it is Leh, Ladakh, Arunachal, Nagaland, Assam Meghalaya-the great rivers, the Brahmaputra, Luhit,Siang, Bhorelli-places you haven’t been and as long as you have your narrow, negative views are as well being left off your travel itinerary. Stick to the poorer areas of the big cities, you seem to gather more material there for your ‘insights’ We are all aware of this country’s strengths and weaknesses-two minute wonders like yourself, Shand and others make observations are largely uninformed and negative. I’m tired spouting off on this subject-I hope that your last visit to India was literally just that.

Sincerely,

LB

LB,

I appreciate you taking the time to write me on a subject you obviously care very much about. I will do my best to answer your questions honestly and fully.

Time spent in India? I have visited India three times, for a total of about five months travel in the country. I’ve visited the majority of Indian States, but alas, never made it to Calcutta.

There is no doubt that I am hard on India in my criticisms. But the reason I am hard on India is because India is one of those countries that is larger than itself. In a sense, India is an idea, and that idea was born out of the Independence Struggle and Gandhi’s high ideals. I happen to think India is not living up to those ideals, not at home and not abroad. And that is why I am exceptionally hard on India. Of course, I am equally hard on America–as even the most cursory examination of my writings would reveal. I would encourage you to dig around in the archives and see for yourself.

As for being an ‘alternate’ there is certainly an element of truth to this. Although, I did not visited Benares or Rishikesh. I did not visit an Ashram whilst in India and I did not visit the country for a spiritual experience. That was never my intention. While in India, which again, even a cursory glance at my archives would reveal, I did make friends–and I had friends in India already before my visit, my travels were not solely limited to slumming. I spend time with a very wealthy family in Calicut and saw how both halves lived. I spent time with an MP on a previous trip–a MP from a reactionary Hindu party, I hasten to add. And I spent lots of time on my first two trips with Indian Muslims. I’ve sat in the sand with a Sadhu talking about Indian politics and conversed with an Indian Mulsim sufi on the meaning of life. I chatted with an Indian farmer about his crop and the faliing Monsoons and dined in a five star restaurant with a ‘gentleman farmer’ discussing the verities of the cardamom crop. And yes, I witnessed first hand the squalor and casual brutality of the urban poor, time and time again. All of these are the sum of India. Not its poverty and certainly not its squalor.

But the filfth and lack of infrastructure simply cannot be denied as a serious obstacle to economic growth. And my discussions with people and study of the Indian budget make it clear that large scale infrastructure development is not in the cards. This is a tremendous pity for India. It will also keep India underdeveloped.

I’m certain you are mistaken about me staying in the Taj. It would have set me back $500 a night and that was very clearly $500 a night I didn’t have to spend. I’ve seen the Taj in Bombay. And I probably wrote about seeing it, but I certainly never stayed in it. Not sure where you got that idea, again, look in my Indian archives and see for yourself.

I appreciate you sharing the ‘little gems’ such as: “a birth takes place every 1.25 seconds-20 people are killed in road accidents every hour-40 per week die in rail accidents-snakebites 4000 a year-43% of NASA staff are Indians-about the same at Microsoft.” I was roughly aware of these facts. The question I would put to you is this: what have all those educated Indians brought back to India? Again, this is one of my most severe beefs with India. Indians and India’s cheerleaders, love to throw quotes like these around. But never answer the quesiton that with all this education, all this international experience, why is India still one of the lowest countries when it comes to human development? Why hasn’t this changed? And why isn’t it changing?

India has a idea of itself. But like America it doesn’t live up to those ideals. And isn’t it right and good of we citizens of the world to hold nations of high ideals up to those selfsame principles? Is it not right to hold their feet to the fire, so to speak?

I eagerly await your response.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, February 3rd, 2010 at 10:27 am and is filed under India. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.