Missing the sweet spot

How do you feel when Saurav Ganguly charges down the pitch, only to miss the delivery. Frustrated? Annoyed ? This post by Rohit should be in that category,that of a expectation unfulfilled. The post in which he explains what is really wrong with Gangetic belt, is promising but ultimately is a bit of let down. Now before I go into detail, I would like to admit that even thought I have thought about what ails Gangetic belt, but haven't yet come up with a solution or even diagnosis, so in all probability this post is not going to be definitive on the issue.

Now the post starts promisingly, the tone of the post is set with the statement that the heartland suffers from a civilization crises, and hat it is the not leaders who have let down people, but the people themselves.

However after this we diverge, and I think I know the reason why. Before answering that however I think some corrections are in order.

To best of my knowledge there has never been any significant resentment against dakshina bhartiya, and as far as Gujaratis are concerned I would be surprised if there is any resentment at all for the simple reason that there hardly is any Gujarati population. Further even though Punjabis and to minor extent Sindhis, mostly migrants during partition, have a sizable presence in business, I doubt there ever has been any remarkable resentment against the groups.

Further it is true that Sikh migrants have been highly successful in Terai area, it is incorrect to infer that the inhabitants of Gangetic belt are shirkers or slouch. Indeed people from heartland contribute in workforce all over India. This is not restricted to menial labour, or even business or white collar professions.

Further it is erroneous to indict society of heartland for lack of individualism. In my opinion, success or failure in India is actually a function of group rather than individual. Gujaratis or Marwaris are successful businessmen, not because they are more "individualist", but because they have a long history of trade and entrepreneurship going back at least a couple of millennium*.

To summarize while the people from heartland are not perfect, they do not have any deep character flaws which will make the task of progress impossible. Also the follies of heartland are not unique to heartland, these follies can be observed to varying degrees in any part of India.


As the post says the problem indeed is with society, but what is the nature of the problem? First a bit of observation, isn't it remarkable that people from heartland perform well outside the heartland, people from Kerala or Bengal perform well outside those states, the ultimate twister being that Indians perform well outside India ! What explains the apparent paradox. Here my speculation start and explanation for the divergence between our (mine and Rohit's) position start.

In my post I wished to emphasize a simple fact,that in democracy the people are responsible for themselves. However Rohit has extended premise of democracy to understand that democracy is the starting point of civilization**, which in my opinion is far from true. Democracy, to employ well-worn (and hence comfy) cliche, is concerned with the counting the heads, civilization on the other hand goes beyond that, for it not merely the aggregate of the individual quirks, but an emergent characteristic arising from a complex interaction between entities including but not restricted to people, their history and their self-identification. It doesn't stop at this.
Any progress on scale of civilization depends on the play of the constituent subsystems. Consequently any deficiency of even one sub-system needs corrective measure from the remaining sub-systems.

One of the reasons that heartland lags is that any industrial base that it possessed was wiped out by trade unions and local thugs. This was due to the fact that historically heartland has been chaotic and disorderly place. The other reason that owing to social movements south and west invested heavily in education and human resource development, this never happened in heartland*** . Now why it occurred is somewhat of mystery to me, however one reason why disorder and a lack of civic progress based upon civic co-operation may be due to the fact that heartland was the one of the worst areas affected both by the Islamic conquest**** as well as British reprisal owing to 1857.

Thus it is my speculation that the malaise that heartland suffers, of apparent rigor mortis of society is of historical nature. Further in my opinion to resolve this dilemma a culture which promotes civic co-operation for mutual progress has to be cultivated. How to do this I am not sure, but it would most probably involve raising the self-awareness*****. May be it is my bias, but I do believe that heartland has potential, someone has to rouse it from slumber. One thing is certain, it is not going to be democratic, someone has to take initiative. Where is that Jambawant ?


PS: For what it is worth, please go through the series on civilization.

* A proper investigation requires some one with the skills of most honourable Jaffna or most venerable JK .

** In fact democracy is only naturally prevalent at tribal and pastoral level. On the other hand I do think that democracy should also be one of results of a civilization. Historically advanced civilization have not necessarily been democratic.

*** In fact long back this was topic of discussion between me and Rohit, in which Rohit correctly identified this problem.

**** Earlier mentioned in this post. (Sorry for the stupid title, I am a consistent stupid)

***** The question of self-identity is tricky. First self identity is a function of course history takes. Then it means that any project for improvement of society has no meaning if it ignores history, history has to be taken cognizance of and how the narrative is woven out of history is what ensure the success of undertaking. This is the reason that I am cultural nationalist and remain wary of rootless liberalism.

Second self identity is essential, but it must be tempered by a willingness to self-examine and to learn from any source, in short it should make a better person, a better society. The opposite of that is when the society goes in self-denial and victimhood mode. At best it can result in blaming others as in these comments, worst is of course what Jihadi are doing at present.