Between change and futurism

THE last day of the old century, as also the first day of the new one, have both come and gone. And while the issue of this year being the beginning of the new millennium is still a debatable one; journalism seems to have transformed itself into a vast quiz-show-cum list makers' workshop. Here each participant must submit a list (or lists) of the five 10, 100 or 1,000 best and worst people/incidents/disasters. They are also simultaneously egged on to predict what the new year/decade/century/ millennium has in store for mankind/womankind. And surprise, surprise, all kinds of generally sensible and level-headed colleagues seem to have suddenly flipped under this onslaught of The Future. Most have obligingly churned out ponderous (and mostly humourless) predictions about what life will be like for friends, citizens, nerds and netizens in the coming age of technology. Few have cared to admit that most of us hacks, with our usual attention deficit disorders exaggerated even more by the chaotic age we have passed through, cannot even remember the political scandals and scams of last year.

History is not laid out within the human mind as it is in museums: each empire, each period, each great personality carefully separated and logged. Our imaginations are constantly haunted by ghosts of times departed and times present. And human freedom remains not just a matter of legal rights, but also the need to decide, to consult and to be guided by noble ideas. One of the most attractive promises democracy still has, is that it will provide respect for everybody. (Athens ensured this by giving the vote to all citizens, and also by rotating offices by lot).

Let us see how the incidents of times past and times present have affected and shaped this particular aspect of our individual and collective lives. Inspite of all the giant steps mankind has taken in the 20th Century, the basic human needs - love, justice and honour - remain an integral part of the concept of democracy. These ideals will still be shaping democracies in the 21st Century and will not be changed in any fundamental way, by the newest bio-technological finds or latest in Microsoft Windows. Fundamental changes will continue to be ushered in the world not by machines, but ideas. Real and lasting challenges to colonialism, casteism, racism, sexism and Marxism in the last century emerged, not from the steam locomotives, steel furnaces, penicillin or the Internet, but from our basic yearning for respect and self-rule. Respect cannot be achieved by the same methods as power, otherwise Dawood Ibrahim and Colombian druglord Escobar would have had shrines erected for them. The search for genuine respect follows an atavistic, ethical map and requires mediators, like Medha Patkar and Ambedkar. It also requires encouragers and counsellors like Gandhiji and Freud and Marx.

Despite all our debates and public discussions, we Indians have entered the 21st Century with our colonial and feudal biases, political and bureaucratic corruption, more or less intact. Can we hope that in the coming years, satellite phones, Microsoft Windows, the Web and the Internet and medical techniques such as amniocentesis, organ and embryo transplants, will wash out all this debris? In the absence of clear ethical guidelines and the right mediators and counsellors, amniocentesis is being used blatantly to abort female foetuses and strengthen patriarchal biases. Cell-phones are not connecting societies, but helping jailed mafia-dons to run their criminal empires and to arrange murders and kidnappings. And brilliant organ-transplant techniques have generated a huge and clandestine market in the buying and selling of organs of the poor to save and prolong the lives of the rich. All our recent media stories and images prove that women and the poor are still conspicuous by their absence in national security councils, as wars become more and more costly and localised.

Interestingly, the corporate managerial world has been quicker to realise the need for acquiring new ideas and ideals rather than brandishing power for transforming societies. The aggressive workaholic hero-manager who terrified his employees is fast becoming passe. Though aggression, as a virtue, still retains a niche in corporate vocabulary, the concept of power in the boardroom has been given a newer form by the nerds. Management in the corporate world is now a casual, focussed and liberal game- playing, in which everyone who works hard but takes care to look free of stress, has a chance of winning a sweat-equity option. The new psychiatry and feminist scholarship have also revealed the power-hungry control freaks as sick and suffering from an allergy to disagreement. True, at the moment the Indian corporate scene is still divided between the old work-ethic and the new democratisation of the work place, but pressures of globalisation are fast removing age-old barriers to alternate work practices and in the humanisation of the market place.

The other promising area is the "Mandalisation" of our democracy. The first wave of "Mandalised" elections may have thrown up backward leaders of dubious to despicable merits in the North; but in the South, where the gestation period for the idea has been twice as long; we are witnessing the simultaneous rise of leaders with potential, and a deepening and broadening of democracy among the masses. As a result, even the world of women in the four Southern States, is now displaying positive signs like increased literacy, decreased infant and maternal mortality rates and greater and a better rate of participation in the institutions of democracy such as the gram panchayats.

Time and again, the major changes in history, we will do well to remember, have resulted not from bloody wars and boardroom coups, but from individuals sidestepping the world of the autocrats and placing their allegiance in higher democratic and spiritual values that satisfy the basic hunger for love, honour and justice. The movements for human rights, women's equality and sanctity of the environment may be in their infancy in India, but they spring from the same hunger among ordinary people.

It is this desire that shall usher in lasting change in the 21st Century, much as it did in the First, when the meek were told they shall inherit the earth.

MRINAL PANDE

The author writes in Hindi and English and is a freelance journalist.

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