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Don't Speak the language,
Don't Know the Country: installments: The laughter flowed as easily as the wine and many of the goodbyes were emotional, but two months later I'm still holed-up in my apartment, hoping to avoid friends who probably assume I'm fluent in Hindi, have completed my first documentary, and can whip up the perfect Chicken Biryani. First rule of planning a year working abroad: Don't plan the farewell party until you're almost out-the-door. The reason for the delay was legitimate: Tensions between India and Pakistan had risen to such a level that the State Department had advised all Americans to avoid India until further notice, but it still felt bad having to explain to people that I hadn't made the whole trip up to appear adventurous, or stockpile 'good-bye' cards. But the extra time at home has allowed me an opportunity to chronicle the steps I've taken to get to India (fourteen days and counting) and, more importantly, to reexamine my reasons for going. I'm convinced this delay was the best thing that could have happened if only because I'm clearer about what I want from the next nine months. In two weeks I'll begin work with the Self-Employed Women's Association, an organization dedicated to women's rights based in the state of Gujurat. My six month planning process may provide pointers for others thinking of working for an NGO abroad. Before I committed to quitting my television job and looking for work abroad, I made sure I had good answers to two questions: (a) why go abroad, and (b) if i'm going, why work rather than travel? I've always been too curious to believe my education ended with my college graduation, and I've long been fascinated by the attitudes towards work and life in other countries, especially India. I recognized that to understand India I would have to go to India, meet Indians, learn Hindi, discuss and understand Indian issues, touch and feel India, and yes, fortunately, eat some Indian food. And choosing to work there--rather than travel-- was a natural byproduct of this desire. What better way to establish a relationship with a country than to do what one does when establishing a relationship with another person? Put myself in a position of providing and being dependent. I'm putting myself out there for this country and hoping that we'll fall for one another. If nothing else, I'll know I tried to invest more than a plane ticket. I'd worked in the media since college and knew that that was the area I could contribute most to. The hard part was leveraging that into a job in India. The lessons I learnt while trying to find a job in the NGO world are listed below. A few came pretty hard: 1. Research the development issues of the country. There are thousands of NGOs and you'll need a system for narrowing the scope of your search. One way is to target organizations that address a particular need. Are you most passionate about the environment? Civil society? Women's issues? Education? Health? Microcredit? 2. Decide if you're doing this for yourself, the organization, or both. If you're interested in working for an NGO, you probably believe in volunteerism and are willing to do menial work for a cause that matters to you. In my case, though, it was also very important that I use my television skills. I want to return to the States with a few Producer credits on my resume and be more employable than before I left. If you view your time abroad as a chance for professional, as well as personal growth, you and your employer should clarify your duties before you go. Since work habits are very different in other countries and since the NGO is probably not familiar with the ladder you want to climb back home, this is a delicate issue to address -- especially with someone from another culture who's probably never met you. I had lengthy e-mail discussions with three organizations before I found the right fit. 3. Think creatively about your skills. Corporate America doesn't usually make the needs of the world's poorest a top-priority, so you may never have had to think about your skills in the context of a developing country. But they are transferable. If my skills in packaging gory murder stories for Court TV are, so are yours in, say, marketing. If your field is accountancy, for example, ask a local not-for-profit about its business plan, or ask the organization you're applying to for its annual report. Then think about how your Western skills could help them improve on it. 4. Network everywhere. I asked cabbies and waiters for advice, and every Indian friend of a friend. I discovered that Indian professionals in the West are often very well-connected back home, and are usually impressed and touched by interest in their country. 5. Work out your finances early. From my limited experience, only employees of Western institutions like the World Bank or Ford Foundation, or recipients of an academic grant, will get their airfare paid. I'm being paid enough to cover room and board--about $100 a month. That may seem like nothing, but I think securing a wage of some sort is important. If the NGO is invested in you too, they are more likely to keep you busy. FYI: The visas, insurance, and shots in my case have totaled more than $600 and I started saving more than a year in advance. 6. Perseverance--I repeat: It took me six months to find a position with SEWA. On the upside, though, this was nothing like the headache that the usual job search is. Discovering that my television skills could help impoverished Indian women has made me proud of my career choice and given me a new burst of energy. And many of the NGO folks you'll be soliciting for work or contacts will amaze you. People who know there work is making a difference always do. These are lessons I learnt in my effort to work with an NGO in India, and I didn't even have to leave Manhattan. On September 1st, things will become significantly more difficult for me. I couldn't be more excited.
I want to share my experience in India with everyone who either inspired me, helped me, or simply listened to me fantasize and plan for hours on end. The internet cafe here has five computers on one dial-up modem, so writing to more than two or three people in one sitting is a trying experience. I arrived in India three weeks ago, on a fellowship program run by the America Indian Foundation. AIF sends twenty Americans a year to work with different NGOs scattered across India. We spent the first two weeks in Bombay on a training/orientation program, where we were lectured by professors on Indian development issues, and took field visits to various tribal, rural or slum communities. Last week I finally arrived in Ahmedabad, one of the bigger cities in India in the drought-ridden state of Gujurat which borders Pakistan, where I'll be spending nine months. This city has had a calamitous few years, with a disastrous earthquake in 2001 that was quickly followed by terrible flooding, and most recently by sectarian riots in which Hindu mobs killed perhaps 2000 Muslims. People want to know about New York and September 11th, but I keep telling them that in my opinion their city has suffered as much, if not more, trauma than mine has. But despite all the grimness, I'm new enough here that things like camels pulling carts through the streets still delight me. I'm working for the organization SEWA--the self-employed Women's Association. Thirty years ago, the organization's founder organized the poorest women in Ahmedabad into trade unions--a union of rag-pickers, of street vendors, of cigarette-rollers, of broom-makers, of trash collectors. One part of the organization fights the government to secure better working and living conditions for the members of those unions, while another teaches community groups to do for themselves what the government won't do for them. So SEWA members are trained as health workers, teachers, daycare providers, and even given technical skills in things like toilet repair or installing water pumps, so they don't have to wait for the government to bring them sewage or water systems. Finally, since SEWA is mostly working with women whose traditional source of employment--farming--was eroded when they moved with their husbands to the slums, SEWA gives them new income-generating skills. The women are trained in traditional crafts like embroidery, pottery or weaving. At my office, it's frowned upon to wear anything but SEWA-produced textiles, so I'm going to be amassing lots of the stuff--which is quite beautiful--and will have everyone's birthday present lined up for at least the next couple years. Though I am sure I will have many trying times over the next nine months, when the pollution, the traffic conditions, and the lack of toilet paper will drive me insane, right now I feel so lucky to be here. I'm working with a group of women that, according to the accepted wisdom, are among the most downtrodden on earth--the low-caste peasant and slum-dwelling women of India--and I'm encountering radicalism like I've never imagined. The SEWA members on average earn more than six times their husbands. SEWA has been providing them microcredit and banking services since its inception, and all the SEWA members save a little bit of money each month--on average, I think, the equivalent of 4 or 5 cents. The SEWA bank is the wildest place I've ever seen, and I try to spend a few minutes each day there, writing in my journal and taking in the scene. It's like a chaotic, all-woman train station or village bazaar. Hundreds of barefoot women in Saris with babies at their breasts push their way to the counters with a few precious rupees clutched in their handkerchiefs. The SEWA bank-tellers must be the most patient people on earth. Nearly all the depositors are illiterate, so identifying them is a painstaking process of taking and matching thumbprints. They are also innumerate, so lots of women never remember how much they have saved, and can argue with a teller for hours as to whether they have 20 or 22 rupees saved. Most of the women are saving so they can get a loan from SEWA rather than from the extortionate moneylenders, mostly for house repair. When the women open up a loan for their daughters' weddings or dowries, the bankers tell them about the mass weddings SEWA has started organizing, that are intended to cut down on the cost of a daughter's wedding, and thus make inroads into female infanticide or sex-selective abortions. I'm working as a producer for the organization's in-house video production company, which is unlike any video operation I could have ever imagined. Yesterday when I returned from a shoot at midnight (people work pretty hard here) I had to push aside a stray baby goat as I lugged a $5,000 beta cam into the office. The other producer is a 25-year old woman from Bombay who used to work at Indian MTV, who speaks perfect English and whom I'm helping prepare an application for NYU Film School. She's the most ideal partner I could imagine, because she understands TV and will encourage me to make suggestions, while helping me avoid something I was very worried about--namely, appearing the bossy American who thinks she knows everything. The other SEWA video women, however, are the ones who are truly amazing. The head camerawoman used to be illiterate and sold vegetables on the street. The head editor's story is the same too. When the women picked me up at 6am yesterday morning for our shoot in the villages, I groggily told them I wasn't used to waking up at 5:50 in the morning. One woman smiled and told me she'd been up since 3:30, gathering water, building the fire, and preparing breakfast, lunch and dinner for her husband and three kids. That'll teach me to complain about too much hard work or tiredness. The staff of five, who've all been trained to shoot and edit, are all SEWA members. Though I haven't gotten everyone's life story, most likely they were born in the villages, went to school till around age 12, and moved to the slums when land divisions meant they couldn't survive as farmers. One woman's husband is a rickshaw driver, yet her son is a neurologist in Miami. I cannot tell you how honored I feel to work with these women. On our drive back last night, I told them that even though I have worked in five different television stations in New York, on only one occasion have I met a female camera person. Darshana laughed and looked amazed, and then offered to lead a delegation of the poor self-employed women of Ahmedabad to organize the women television workers of New York! I want these women to know how inspired I am by them. Many of the people I've met in India have a sense that the only place with opportunity is America. But these women--and many other SEWA members, from the Union leaders, to the women who regularly lobby in Parliament here or speak at the UN--have bridged a greater divide than I, personally, have ever seen crossed in the US or Europe. Of course they are fully cognizant of how much they've achieved, but if I can make them realize how much I, as a 'liberated' woman from the West, can learn from their example, than I feel more comfortable telling them what little that I know about making documentaries. I think there's quite a bit I'll be able to contribute over the next nine months. I am going to give shooting lessons, so they start shooting in a more systematic way. I am going to help them write grants to get newer equipment, and will try to forge connections with the local news stations here, to get their support and guidance. My main job, though, is to write and produce films. Next year we will do one about conditions in the refugee camps where many of the Muslims of Ahmedabad have been living since the riots. But first we are doing a forty-five minute documentary for an international water conference, about how access to water is the primary concern of the women of Gujurat. Village women spend up to three or four hours a day collecting water if there is no village tank. If they don't have access to water, they don't have time to work for money, and often their daughters, who must help in the water collection, don't have time to go to school. That's the project we were shooting yesterday in the villages. What is amazing about SEWA video is that it makes films BY poor women, FOR poor women. Not only do the SEWA video women know their subjects inside out, but they also don't have to worry about issues of condescension or objectification. I've often felt guilty about the way the media manipulates the people we ask for interviews. But the SEWA camerawomen go to the villages in their saris, share the family's food, and are often invited to stay the night. Yesterday, one of the camerawomen shooed away the husband of a woman we wanted to interview. The woman was too timid to talk around her husband, but opened up once she was just with the SEWA women, even with their cameras, because they were just like her. I wonder if a foreign camera crew could have accomplished as much. I also wondered whether I ought to go away too, and hope that by learning some Gujurati I can I can begin relating to the women as well. I'm sorry for writing such a long email, and thank anyone who's still reading for plowing through. I don't have many people here to talk to about what I'm seeing, so writing to my friends helps me articulate things to myself. I also miss everyone, and sharing my experience helps me feel closer to home.
I just got off a ten-hour train ride, and the monotony of the landscape and lack of company got me thinking again. So here goes another one... As a city, Ahmedabad, where I am based, is all about industry and commerce. If I had to stay here continuously, choking on the pollution and bracing myself against the traffic, all I'd see of India would be the crises and hurdles of development--and working in the "development" field would only reinforce that. Luckily, though, there is amazing natural and historical beauty only an overnight train ride away, in Rajasthan. I spent the first three days of last week with friends from the America India Foundation in Udaipur , this romantic lakeside city in the middle of the mountains, overlooking a floating palace. I was so thrilled to be with people whose jokes I found funny that all I really wanted to do was sit in the lovely rooftop bars and chat, and was satisfied to just look at the city. Still, though, the surfaces of things can be revealing, especially when they stimulate unlikely comparisons. Udaipur looks surprisingly like Greece--only, the Rajputs of a few hundred years ago were capable of a far more refined and delicate architecture than the Greeks of that time were. An Indian historian I spoke to said that after going all the way to Greece he felt just like he was back home in Jodhpur. He said that Greece made him understand that India is also a decayed and ancient civilization, and that it hurt him that the average Indian villager, like the goat-herders on Santorini, had no real understanding of his ancient surroundings and so therefore couldn't draw any ä¸ìmoral sustenance丶 from them. It probably is true that today, in the old princely cities like Udaipur, most citizens draw sustenance from the tourists--and tourists who, in turn, are most interested in Udaipur as the setting of "Octopussy" (which you can watch nightly in all the hotels) than as the setting of the old rajput glories. But life in the villages is a different story. After Udaipur, i went to Jodhpur to visit fifteen of the surrounding villages, where a wonderful Swiss woman named Jacqueline do Chollet started the Veerni Project, an organization dedicated to women's empowerment and maternal health. My friend Elizabeth, whom many of you know, is starting an arts program in Jacqueline's villages, and I jumped at the chance to come spend a few days with them. At first glance, what struck me in the villages is the vibrancy of the ancient art and dance and song, especially in contrast to the state's decaying cities. I had never before been in a place where the creation of art is part of most people's daily routine and where it serves an actual purpose-- even an arcane purpose that I can only guess at. As I walked around admiring the beautiful wall paintings, sand-drawings on the floor, and henna drawings on the women's hands, I indulged myself in the fantasy that finally, here was a culture so strong and healthy that it had withstood the forces of change. I felt a huge amount of respect for the care the women took with their elegant attire and for how gracefully they danced, and felt like an oafish slob in comparison. I imagined, when we smiled at each other, that we were connecting. I knew it is wrong to romanticize village life in India, but was finding it hard to resist. By the end of four days, however, I could barely stand to be there anymore. Jacqueline's organization has courageously taken on a fight that few Indians care to tackle, since nearly everyone views population as the greater problem--the fight against female infanticide. Her workers have collected one horrifying piece of data: in one of the villages where she works, there are 135 little boys under a certain age and only 65 girls. More than half of the little girls that should be there have either been aborted, killed at birth, or so neglected that they've died. In one village, we found a beautiful little seven year old girl whose hair was falling out from malnutrition. Her younger brother was perfectly well-fed and looked healthy and happy. When we finally found the mother, who was very reluctant to talk to us, the doctor grilled her for half an hour on what the girl was being fed. By the end, we think that at least the mother understood that her daughter had to be present at school the next day--for the first time in her life. Nonetheless, her bold-faced lying (she tried to convince us she'd taken the girl to the hospital for some special shampoos) made it clear she saw a doctor who wanted to save her daughter's life as her adversary, not her friend. On another day, the doctor visited a young woman of 25, whose two year old daughter was suffering from severe malnutrition. For months the doctor had been monitoring the baby's weight change and pleading with the mother to start feeding her better, but all that this careful surveillance amounted to was watching the baby be slowly starved to death. Her weight hadn't changed at all in the past month, and she couldn't do anything a child that age should be able to; she couldn't even sit up. This woman was pregnant again, for the fifth time. She had given birth to five girls already (though I think only a couple of them were still alive,) and said that if this one was also a girl, she would keep trying until she had a boy. Most chilling was a woman and her baby girl who we saw on my final day. Last year Jacqueline had had this woman's previous daughter hospitalized because she was on the point of death. The parents were so resistant to the baby being hospitalized that Jacqueline had to tell the hospital that she would call the police if they released the baby before it was better. A week after the baby was returned home, Jacqueline went to see her only to discover that she had died during the night, of a "chill." Apparently the easiest way to get rid of an unwanted baby girl is to leave it naked outside in the desert during the w inter--it has no chance of making it through the night. Now here was this young woman standing in front of Jacqueline, who had lifted up the woman's veil in order to confront her, with another little girl in her arms. The mother stood there with this defiant grin on her face, and finally thrust the baby towards us saying, ä¸ìyou take her if you want her so badly. The murder of girls happens all of over India. There is a saying that "raising a girl is like watering a flower in somebody else's garden," and it goes part of the way to explaining the neglect of the girls. If she is going to 'belong' to her in-laws, then she won't be there to care for her parents in their old age, and any investment in her education will only benefit her in-laws. But it is a particularly acute problem in Rajasthan, and that is one of the main reasons Jacqueline has chosen to work here--and maybe one of the main reasons I hadn't seen this before with SEWA. My reaction to the SEWA women has been conviction that they are the vehicles for enormous success and social strengthening, and so to stand in front of these village women and feel I was present to barbarism was a new sensation. When I stood back, I knew, of course, that these women were not barbarians and they were acting not out of cruelty but out of what they considered necessity. Yet when I heard that woman tell us that we should "take the baby if we cared about her that much," the lovelessness hit me like a ton of bricks. Visiting the Veerni Project was a tremendous experience for me because I saw some of what it takes to start an organization on one's own, especially from Jacqueline but also from Elizabeth, who is dedicating her time and energy to creating an arts program for the women. I chose to work this year for a big organization like SEWA because I felt there was so much to learn. I see now, though, that one can just jump in--that the same qualities that make someone a successful leader back home will probably mean that anything one tries abroad will also be a success. Jacqueline, I believe, is guided by conviction--that girls deserve to live, even in an overpopulated country; by compassion, by a thorough understanding of the issues, and finally, by those key American abilities to make things happen, and trust one's instincts. She says she got the idea for the Veerni project in a village about ten years ago, when she was buying a textile from a village woman. As she left the village, she saw the woman's husband come and take the money from her, and she was so incensed at the woman's lack of power that she decided to act. She set out learning what the villager's most pressing problems were and what services were already being provided by the government (none, like in 90% of Indian villages,) and then decided to focus on those that she felt the keenest intuitive connection to--women's health and empowerment. This story inspires me because this could happen to any of us while we are traveling, if we are open to the possibility of it. I have many fears that have stopped me from believing I could start my own small organization to address something that made me really angry, or really sad. Meeting Jacqueline, however, made me realize that many of these fears--I discuss three of them below--are really just misconceptions. For one, you don't need to have all the answers. What makes Jacqueline's organization so alive is that it's really a search for a solution to a question: "how can we make these villagers care whether their girls live or die?" Because she's trying to find out an answer, she listens and adapts and is always willing to try new things. You don't even need to know what kind of project you want to do. All you need to do is go to the villages or slums, and the ideas will come to you. I was in the field for four days and four ideas came to me: one event made me think of an adoption agency, another of a program to send some girls to excellent private schools, another of creating incentives for the parents to invest in their girls, another of a hospital to train rural health workers. Most likely none of these would turn out to be the intelligent solution. The point is simply that when you are in the field, you'll have no shortage of ideas. You don't need to have a lot of money. In the villages I visited, there is as much need for a donation of school books as there is for a well-funded school. I could easily imagine a friend visiting this area and deciding to fund an extra after-school teacher in one village. Wouldn't there be so much more satisfaction in knowing your money was funding something you'd thought up yourself? Even a contribution of only your time and your presence is worthwhile to the villagers. For when you tell them that you have come all the way from America to see them, it lets them know that somebody actually cares about them. For all my friends who would like to help but don't know how, I want to suggest one way a person can contribute. Be open to the idea that the affection and concern that we feel for the people we meet traveling in developing countries might be more than just interest, it might be a calling. If we follow that voice and find ourselves in a village, the ways we can help will rapidly become clear. The needs are so great, but at least they are obvious, because they are basically the same needs as we have: for health, education and employment, but also for intangibles, like the self-expression that Elizabeth's art project will address, or the self-confidence that Jacqueline fosters when she gets a roomful of village men to clap for the illiterate village health-worker. I suppose the approach I'm suggesting sounds a bit like, "adopt a village," but why not? Villages are so small and so isolated, and their needs so basic, that an outsider can quickly develop an understanding of the people's problems. But more significant than understanding the issues is that you'll understand the people. If you spend time in the villages, the people will work their way into your hearts. And listening to your heart is surely the best way to discover what specifically you can do to help.
Brace yourselves for more stories from Ahmedabad--this time about last month's elections. You've probably read something about the recent victory of the right-wing Hindu nationalist BJP party in Gujarat. Gujaratis reelected Chief Minister Narendra Modi by a huge margin, even though most voters freely admit he played an active role in instigating the anti-Muslim rioting here last March, which left more than 1,000 dead. Though I had met riot victims with SEWA, only around election time did I hear a lot of people talk politics. Many people here, I learned, would rather India be a Hindu state than a secular, democratic one. But there is one group in particular whose stance on the riots has disillusioned me: The NGOs. Many groups, like SEWA, have done incredible work for the victims. But in many others, their leaders voted BJP, and have done nothing to support the relief effort. They spend their days supposedly trying to lift some of the burdens of poverty, but then exercise their franchise in favor of forces that have destroyed the lives of thousands of the slum dwellers here. It makes you wonder, frankly, whose side they're on. I had my first personal experience of what a hostile city this is after about two weeks when some Muslim terrorists opened fire in a temple in a nearby city, killing more than 70 people. The next morning--after anxiously awaiting a blackout all night, because we'd been told the Municipal Authority would cut the electricity if there was an emergency--I was told I had the day off work. The government had called a strike. It seemed only natural to me that that the government would try to keep people safely in their homes in case there was any rioting. But I had got it wrong. The family I live with told me the strike was probably called for precisely the opposite reason--to create violence in the streets. If people sat at home all day seething about the Muslims who had killed their Hindu brethren at worship, eventually they would take to the streets in the kind of communal frenzy that plays nicely into the hands of the ruling BJP government. That day was the only time I've sat around an apartment waiting for a government to unleash chaos in streets where I happen to be living, and it was a disturbing sensation--for me and for everyone else I spoke to around that time, many of whom seemed to be reliving their riot experiences. The riots had clearly affected even the middle class in Ahmedabad, and I thought about that when I saw everyone go vote a few months later. Even if you could ignore the atrocities they'd committed in the slums, why would you vote for a party that threw your own life into that kind of disruption every few months? One reason, I suppose, would be that you'd fallen prey to all the anti-Muslim propaganda. The gulf between the two communities here is enormous. There are very few middle class Muslims in Ahmedabad, and the ones that there are don't live in neighborhoods with middle class Hindus. For example, among the forty families living in my building, there's not one Muslim. During the riots, a woman I know gave shelter to a Muslim friend (the same Muslim friend who for years has only been traveling under a Hindu name on trains,) but had to instruct her children never to call out his name, in case someone in the building would alert the rioters that there was a Muslim living there. And this in one of the nicest buildings in the city. The people who chose to bring aid to the riot victims were also divided along religious lines. One SEWA leader visited a riot-effected area recently and had a woman run sobbing into her arms: "you are the first Hindu to come to our neighborhood since the riots." Even the people running the government's relief program express surprise at seeing a Hindu. Another NGO leader was asked recently by a government official, "but what are you doing working on this project? You are not a minority." "I am a minority," he said. "I am a secularist." I asked a lot of people to explain why they voted BJP. Though some of their arguments must be legitimate, there are huge misconceptions about Muslim society. And I often sense that their explanations for the violence are really justifications. Here's some of what's being said: "Most Muslims want to be part of Pakistan, and I don't understand why they don't just go there." "All Muslims root for Pakistan at cricket matches, and fly the Pakistani flag in their neighborhoods." "Muslim men are always harassing our Hindu daughters, and we Hindus needed to do something to put a stop to this." "Until Hindus decided to 'fight back,' it was always the Muslims who caused riots." "With Congress in power the Muslims were always getting special attention. But this is a Hindu country and we're not going to be ruled by a minority any more." Some points were tailor-made for an American like me: "but Muslim culture is so bad--they are polygamists. How can a feminist like you sympathize with them?" "Look what Muslims did in your country on September eleventh. If we believe they are doing the same thing in our country, why aren't we allowed to stop them also?" I never heard anything that, to me, justified supporting a man who had come to power through instigating the deaths of a thousand people. Should murder on that scale actually be rewarded rather than punished? Wasn't the communal harmony and secularism advocated by Gandhi and Nehru the better path for India than the the one of a religious state that Pakistan chose? Isn't India far more likely to achieve prosperity through focusing on development, rather than creating societal havoc and causing people to destroy property? But even the NRIs--the Indians living in the West--don't see it that way. They moved to America and Europe for exactly those benefits of a secular government that follows the rule of law, yet they bankroll the BJP. The NRIs can't even use economic arguments to justify their support of Modi, because his party didn't do much of anything for the state. And anyhow, development isn't the priority. A friend and I followed a BJP candidate campaigning in the slums one day, and when I asked him what the primary concerns of his constituents were, he told us "terrorism." I said I had spent a little time in the slums, and that his constituents probably had other concerns too--livelihood, housing and water access, for instance. As for secularism, many people think it's had its day. They are so fed up by Congress--the party representing secularism--that yes, they would rather vote BJP. Though Congress is guilty of corruption and nepotism, it's clear that few are committed to even the ideal of secularism. This is particularly depressing in Ahmedabad, the town where Gandhi built his ashram and started his movement after returning from South Africa. I met a family in which the Brahmin grandfather had been so inspired by Gandhi's ideals of equality that he took an Untouchable's last name. Now, though, the family supports the local BJP party, and I don't mention politics. All I can do is congratulate them on their wonderful family history when I see the old photos of Gandhian rallies around the house. Since Hindus and Muslims have lived together peacefully for centuries, it's hard to say how much damage the BJP can do. But the party is using the schools to mould a whole generation to their thinking. And if they succeed, then these days may one day be viewed as the turning point, when the country abandoned its Gandhian roots--which anyhow only grandparents can remember now. The BJP is rewriting the history textbooks to suggest, among other things, that the Moghuls did everything in their power to destroy the Hindu religion--implying Muslims today are still as great a threat. One 25-year old friend hears her seven-year old cousin say things like, "oh, you know Muslims, always committing crimes." She says when she was that age, no such messages were transmitted to her. But now, the schools have gotten so bad in Gujarat that one mother I know has sent her 12-year old to boarding school, to get her away from classmates who taunt her for defending Muslims. Often I try to discuss European Fascism. It would be hypocritical to expect a country three times the size of the US to immerse itself in European history, when American schools also ignore the rest of the world. But the parallels are so great and the ignorance too, that I keep coming back to it. One very bright seventeen year-old asked me if the Holocaust was when Hitler killed all of Europe's Muslims. The Gujarati tenth standard History textbook presents Hitler as an efficient ruler who united his people and made the trains run on time--exactly how the current Chief Minister presents himself. The inevitable result is a poll in the India Times last month, asking college students all over their country, "What kind of leader does India need today?" The Answer: 1) Gandhi; 2) Vajpayee; 3) Adolph Hitler. This is obviously deeply shocking to a Westerner. But, as the editorial page of that paper said later, this doesn't mean those college students are bloodthirsty wannabe-despots. It says more about their education. Though it's good their curriculum makes them so qualified for high-tech jobs, this is a republic, and the government should teach them about exercising their franchise responsibly. I've harped on about politics because I was genuinely surprised at how many educated Indians view secularism as just another Western import, to be weighed and evaluated like our music, our consumer culture, or our standards for nudity in the cinema. Still, it's a shame I'm only able to describe the situation from the perspective of an outraged westerner, or at the most, of a small liberal Indian elite. And it may have been a waste of time too. Because it's important to be outraged about the same things as the people on whose behalf you want to cause some changes, and in this case, while the liberal activists are crying "justice," most of the victims are crying "work." And at least a few of the female victims I've met seem a lot more willing to move on than the liberal editorialists are. SEWA has been put in charge of the rehabilitation of all the widows and children of the riots, and I attended the widows' first SEWA meeting a few months ago. The SEWA leader began by promising the women that in a matter of months, each woman would have her own trade. And though SEWA couldn't bring their husbands back, the women themselves could replace them as the family's sole breadwinners. She firmly believed that work would bring them a sense of purpose, and that self-sufficiency and security would be the keys to the healing process. She then invited the women to come to the mic and say whatever they wanted. The meeting had begun with a prayer, and many of the women were still sobbing quietly, so I expected a succession of horror stories at the microphone. Instead, the women did exactly what the staff had predicted: they began articulating a future for themselves, and told us what they needed to get back on their feet. For one woman, it was money to start a telephone exchange, for another, it was a cart to sell vegetables, for a third, a buffalo so she could sell milk. Instead of watching things grind to a halt in front of broken down, paralyzed victims, I witnessed for the tenth time SEWA's methodical, case-by-case approach to empowering women by creating livelihood. They began with the fifty women in that room, and now, three months later, every riot widow has a livelihood goal that she will achieve in less than a year. Most of Ahmedebad's secularists despaired after the election, saying the healing process can't begun until there is justice, but that the only hope for justice--a change in government--had just been dashed. Yes, there was anger in the Muslim communities at the result. But the overriding emotion was one of relief--that thank god there had been no more violence. The SEWA field workers I've spoken to have said it's mostly the child victims--the ones who watched their parents be murdered--who rage against whichever community harmed their family. Their parents--or at least the women SEWA works with--are proving themselves strong enough to move beyond blame. I've seen no greater example of this than something I saw today. For our riot film, I was interviewing a woman who is just starting off in SEWA's livelihood program. Chamaben's husband died in the Godhra train. In this incident, Muslims attacked a train car carrying militant Hindus returning from a religious protest, and burnt every single person alive. Chamaben's stepfather must therefore himself have been an active supporter of the Hindu movement--as well as being as much of a patriarch as most other Indian stepfathers, since all of us women sat on the floor while he alone was on a chair. Despite this, though, he turned to his inaudible daughter-in-law hiding tearfully behind her veil, and told her that the family must move on. "I have no son anymore," he said. "You must cease to be my daughter-in-law and instead become my son. You must work like a man to bring us food. You are our only hope." Jessica Mayberry has worked as an associate producer in news and documentaries since graduating from college in 1999. She's begun a nine month job with an Indian NGO making documentaries about the organization's work. Discovering what skills she could bring to a developing country, and convincing Indian employers to take her on, was quite a challenge. But the challenges didn't stop there. |
