One India?

Some months ago a leading newsweekly of the country reported how more and more of India’s young were building their support systems outside the family. The phenomenon is catching on like wildfire all over the place. Networking and support systems have turned a full circle in India today.

While we read gory stories of the unscrupulous landlord from Howrah, (the ex-Sheffield of India), dispersing tenants through Liquefied Petroleum gas; there is another, confident, young India emerging and working on a whole new value system. You will see this young India in departmental stores, malls, and multiplexes… and even on the road. Are we seeing two Indias then making a satire of the much-touted “official” one liner: One India?

I noted with amazement the predicament of a family wherein first cousins (all aged below 25) working with blue-chip companies or into some successful entrepreneurial activity networking among each other while their 50+ fathers tearing each other apart over property issues and sundry.

Again, I know of a “heritage” family of Kolkata with property valued at several hundred crores where one of the guys who went to school with me is refreshingly, not sitting on “Income from Property” and running a successful export business since the past 10 years.

And then there is another instance of a superrich 60+ father who actually wants to see from heaven his two sons “fight it out” for his long list of movable and immovable assets! One of the sons, in his early 30s (and an acquaintance) and his lovely wife (working with a private financial institution and whom he married against the consent of his folks five years back) is going on his own trying to make a mark in real estate business.

As the proportion of the ageing workforce increases by the day and the demand for younger people with new age skills on the rise (in fact the demand is even more because a small section of the young has the requisite skills) intellectual clashes between the redundant oldie versus new skills acquiesced rookie (mind you I am not just talking about IT skills…in the new economy skills like PR and Gab are in as much demand) are growing. The retired and retiring sections are casting aspersions at the fast changing lifestyles of the “knowledge” workforce.

Intellectual alignment with senior members of the family is hard to come by these days. In this changing scenario, India’s young is holding on to friends, peers and colleagues and interestingly…ladies and gentlemen in their age group from the extended family/relative circuit who a decade ago were “out of bounds” in terms of the whereabouts of a person.

There are cries of “injustice/unfair” from sections of the ageing workforce. They are through with their prime- an age where moneymaking was sacrilege both by government and society. It is therefore natural that they would view the spending spree or the lifestyles of the younger folk with contempt. The idea is not to universalize; many are actually coming to terms with demands of the new world order. My hair rose up when a relative (in his late 50s) expressed vehement interest to work in a call center after his retirement, in under two years but such cases are a rarity.

There’s intellectual clash with regards to how warring sections view (even on) compliance to matters of taxation and issues of black and white money. There’s the “corrupt” 40 or 50 something trader in the locality; (interestingly, he too gets benefited by the real estate boom), takes up, “promoting” as a side business, albeit mostly with unaccounted money. His potential customers are of course also products of the old economy who would again buy mostly with unaccounted money.

The professional of new India would instead approach a credible project and seek suitable home loan or put up in company housing.

The confident young man or woman is again sinned for “obnoxious” display of affluence or “opulence”.

How would the 2020 nation reconcile these two Indias finally? Is it like Test Cricket vs One Day vs 2020; or ICL vs IPL? In Bangalore there are two kinds of prices for the oldie and rookie for buying fruits and vegetables from the market. Nobody seems to be complaining.

And where does the concept of “One India” in letter and spirit go from here?

As I was adding final touches to this write up I get a whole new dimension to complicate the analysis further: the techie from one of India’s top IT companies killing his wife suspecting her of having an extra marital affair…Reconciling events and issues is becoming tougher by the day in India today with new dimensions being added every other day. Analyses have just begun.

(Rajib Kumar, Offline Vol 5, Issue-1, March 2008)