Siddhartha Deb has a fine article in a special on India in the Observer. I found the concluding lines especially thoughtful:

This other India, complex, mutinous and often counter-intuitive to simple notions of progress, is likely to remain obscure even as affluent India dominates the headlines with its dream of global power. Ideas of unlimited expansion, infinite growth, perpetual consumption - all the fantasies of past gilded ages - may still exist in the west, but they come with at least a tinge of uneasiness. Indian extravagance, on the other hand, seems particularly attractive because it arrives with the apparent innocence of a latecomer to the party, someone who has woken up to the bounty of the world after a long Gandhian fast.

In contrast to this, the country where the majority live will demand a more thoughtful engagement from the west. This India will be revealed in times of natural disasters or sudden crises, and it will sometimes be depicted by individuals, Indians and others, unwilling to buy into the dominant myth of ‘feelgood’. Because this other India is large, populous and diverse, it will be worth paying attention to, and over the years people in the west may come to see a reflection of their own hopes and fears in the struggle between the two Indias. They will find all the unresolved problems that affect them - the environment, consumption, work, health, immigrants, the state, corporations, terrorism - displayed on a greater scale in India. The responses that will take shape will often be violent, but sometimes, I hope, they will also be creative and humane. In that sense, we are all Indians now.

My thanks to Brian Lukacher for bringing the piece to my attention. Photo by Raghu Rai.

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