Commentary/ Ashwin Mahesh

Return Of The Native

In August, I dashed off letters to several institutions in India asking if I could find a job with them next year. The immediate and encouraging responses I received have been instrumental in motivating me further. In March, I will scout the places that offer the most potential and make a concerted effort at finding a suitable position. I am hopeful that the right opportunity will arise.

Each year, thousands of us face this question -- shall we make our fortunes in the lands we have migrated to, or are we to heed the call of the dusty brown streets of our youth and return to make our way in India? Everyone who has lived away from India long enough is sure to have talked of it at least once. And the entire gamut of pros and cons has been tossed about often, I'm sure.

I couldn't take the heat and the dust. My parents will die in a decade or two, I can't plan my life around them. There's no appropriate outlet for my technical skills. I could go back any time, I just don't feel ready to do that yet. My kids are American, I have no choice. The system is just too hard to beat. Who wants to go back? You must be crazy I wish I could get all things to mesh well My wife is totally against it.

No doubt you can add to this. As my inter-generational cousin in Chicago said recently, every situation is different. One considers the choices, and tries to make the appropriate move.

For me, the first signs of this saga lay in E F Schumacher's Small is Beautiful; Economics as if People Mattered. Speaking of the educational system in India, he criticised the mindset of the educated elite, who after acquiring a learning paid for, in each case, by approximately 30 man-years of farm labour per year of university education, decide to join the mutual admiration society of fashionable clubs and good life. The singular achievement of this "trade union of the privileged", as Schumacher labeled it, is it has ensured that millions of our countrymen never have a chance at the very things we acquired by the sweat of their brow.

My first reaction was defence. Be reasonable, I imagined myself telling the author, that's how society works. If I decide to go lend a hand to the farm labourers, that will hardly improve their lot. I am better off doing the technological and economic things that make business more competitive, that's what I'm trained to do. And in the process, if I can facilitate the building of a prosperous economy, such wealth may eventually trickle down to the poor farmer who gave up so much so that I could go to college. Reality check, Mr Schumacher.

As the months passed, I considered this more and more. Perhaps it is true that my contributions to Indian society will never accomplish much, perhaps the drop I can offer to the ocean of misery is too insignificant. But can I be sure that such an argument is not just self-serving rhetoric? Am I just trying to overcome the dissonance of my own cognition by wondering what I can ever do that will count? Am I stroking my ego, trying to look more concerned and caring than the next guy?

I haven't hit upon a way to find the answers, but I've stopped searching now. The only way to tell is to try it, I've decided. One thing is for sure, the mutual admiration society is no longer confined to the bars of fashionable hotels in our metros or to the high rise offices of our major corporations. It has become as much an export of our nation as cotton shirts and gemstones, and is as prevalent in Silicon Valley as it is on Marine Drive.

Many a time, we hear those who vow to themselves they will eventually return, but must first make the fortunes necessary to live well in India. Others talk or write whimsically that it is so easy to go back that they would do it any time they felt the need to, speaking with both the memories of a childhood long since past, and the forlorn longing for a future that seems elusive. Perhaps they are right. Caught in the half-space between the prosperity and openness of their new lives, yet yearning for the easy familiarity of a society they understand instinctively, they seem to vacillate between the two worlds.

I know I could never be satisfied with that. To wake each day and wonder if the choices I have made reflect greed over gratitude would drive me crazy. It seems easier to live with the burden of a failed attempt, than with the onus of a debt not paid in full measure. If I never see the day when the fruits of my labour have made life better for one person in India, it may still be enough to know that I cared, and if nothing else, that I tried.

The arm's length charity offered by a hundred different groups here is not enough for me. Compassion is a gift of our hearts, and the charity of a world that is far away can never replace one that I can feel with the spirit of my self. The tangible joys of the people I can witness for myself far exceed the worth of the tube wells I can fund or the schools I can buy books for. These things are noble in themselves, no doubt, but life, it seems, is best lived in person.

Truly, that is not an indictment of all those who make other choices. Perhaps the memories and the ties that I so cherish are not so dear to them as they are to me. Perhaps the opportunities they may find back home are quite meaningless, and hold no appeal to them. Perhaps the prospect of living at a much-reduced income level is too scary, who knows? Different strokes for different folks, and I don't claim to understand them all.

At the same time, let us be careful that our personal choices do not reflect an ongoing obsession with the self, and a callous disregard for our social obligations. It is not unusual to find those who declare that they owe nothing to India, that their achievements are entirely of their own making. In a society where the privileges of the middle and upper classes are founded on the uneven distribution of government resources in education, this is an outright lie. Regardless of the intensity of one's longing for India, the justifiable cry of unpaid debts rings loud.

The pursuit of happiness, however you may frame it, is inextricably related to the pursuit of social and economic justice as well. Celebrating the triumph of our own material ways, we have never paused to consider the breach that is now exposed by the abandonment of the notions of social justice. The socio-economic aspirations of the underprivileged hinge on the voluntary concern of the successful and affluent; too many of us have overlooked this obligation even as we climbed the rungs of the ladder of prosperity.

My choices then are about a life I choose to live, a small recognition of the sacrifices of those who have but little, and yet helped build all that I have. Only time will tell if I have been wise. Perhaps I shall yet rue this day, perhaps my greatest efforts shall all be in vain. To use that whimsical Indian phrase that so typifies the identity I find familiar and yet far, we'll see.

I am reminded of a movie I saw a long time ago -- the classic western film, The Magnificent Seven. Gringos head south of the border to help Mexican peasants fight off rampaging bandits. In the heat of battle, the humble farmers decide they would rather not fight, even if it means handing over most of their produce to the bandits. They have no stomach for the guts and glory way of the gun. As one gunslinger wonders why he ever agreed to help these cowardly peasants, Steve McQueen offers this poignant rejoinder -- "At that time, it seemed like the right thing to do."

Whether our dreams for our country are to be bathed in the glowing light of our efforts, or remain the pangs of guilt that tug at our hearts in unguarded moments, will be determined by the choices we make individually. Schumacher's analysis, made 20 years ago and still largely valid, suggested the wide disparities between rich and poor in India are derived "from an inbred, ingrained selfishness on the part of the people who are quite prepared to receive, and not prepared to give". The choices we continue to make give lie or credence to this suggestion.

Choose well.

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