Jhopadpatti Zindabad

Other day I remembered a Hindi song from my childhood where the lead actor dances to the tune of this song :

"JHOPADPATTI ZINDABAD,
MEHNAT WALLE ZINDABAD,
DAULAT WALLE MURDABAD".

meaning...

"Hail to our slums,
Hail to our hardworkers.
Hell to the rich folks."

I have no qualms about praising those who work hard. But there is hardly anything to be proud about living in slums. Also, nothing wrong in getting rich, as long as the wealth is acquired by healthy, honest means. This movie from 1980s depicts an era when it was fashionable to glamorize poverty back home in India as we were stuck in our vainglorious eulogization of socialism.  Politicians, media and many in Indian movie industry survived by selling poverty. When China and other South -East nations were chugging ahead with double digit growth and removing poverty in the process, we got stuck glorifying it, gloating in the reverie of socialism, demonizing the rich. A left leaning Bollywood industry shamelessly promoted the fashion of remaining poor.

Indira Gandhi's slogan "GARIBI HATAO" (remove poverty) gave her a big victory in 1971, but nothing tangible happened in that front until 20 years later in 1991  when the first to liberalize the economy set in to mitigate the imminent national bankruptcy. We could have achieved this much earlier, though thus far we have come a long way from the days of "Jhopadpatti Zindabad". Indira sans any vision for her nation held on to socialism and the Soviet model of centralized planned economy, as India's GDP grew by the classic Hindu rate of growth of 2 to 3%. Her son Rajiv Gandhi, a well travelled man with an Italian wife was expected to possess a progressive mindset. With a historic mandate under his belt which his mother would have dreamt of, he clung to his Mama's failed idea of socialism. Indian electorates had high hopes from him, but he squandered the mandate by dragging down the economy further into an abyss.

It wasn't until the Congress party liberated from the Gandhi family led by P.V. Narasimha Rao liberated the economy, freeing it from the bondage of the ever pervasive License - Permit Raj, an economy still in tatters and in shackles, breeding poverty & inefficiency. Currently Indian economy is galloping ahead with a 8% plus GDP growth. India now cynosure of all eyes, viewed globally as an emerging market. Consumerism has set its footsteps in India. As Deng Xiaoping, one of the architects of Chinese growth famously said, it's fun to get rich". He wasn't far from the truth. We Indians aren't just got rich, are now enjoying getting richer. Ironically it is BJP who is taking all credit for this growth. Yet it was the Congress party under Dr. Manmohan Singh as the Finance Minister and then as Prime Minister who played an important role by jump starting the process of liberalization and then sustaining its growth.

Socialism instead of sharing prosperity, shared poverty. Rich became poorer, so also poor became poorer. During my formative years in India we were constantly fed with utopia of socialism, though the ground reality was stark different. A common sight during our school days would be the huge pictures and billboards across Bhubaneswar of the "Hammer and Sickle" - iconic symbol of Communist Party of India (Marxist) extolling to join meetings addressed by Comrade Shivaji Patnaik (a Leftist MP) in then Parade Field of Bhubaneswar (now IG Park). Soviet Union and Cuba were  paradises on earth where every one had Bread to eat, Vodka to drink and Havana Cigar to smoke. America was the land Capitalist pigs. A staunch Communist whom I came across foresaw in his dreams Capitalism crumbling like a pack of cards. The Russian model of centralized planning would wipe out poverty from the face of the earth, he forecasted. The Soviet Union crumbled and our "Mausa" (Uncle) had no answer why close to 50 years since our independence poverty stubbornly persisted in India !

He wasn't alone. Many from that generation shared his socialist reverie. But I, a born skeptic, was one of the few who was far from being convinced or brainwashed. Somehow I was distrustful of these propaganda. Since childhood I used to listen religiously to BBC and the Voice of America and was impressed by the quality of their news compared to the drab broadcasts from our government owned All India Radio. Every evening I would drag the 3 feet long antenna of our "MURPHY" brand Radio and slowly scroll my thumb over the circular tuner carefully adjusting the bar slowly to my left and right, struggling to adjust the vertical bar to the exact location with intermittent bursts of stuttering farts from it, CHRRRRD... PRRRRRTT.., before I could finally manage to tune in to these foreign stations. Gradually I started trusting their news more than those from our All India Radio. (No wonder Rajiv Gandhi who was in Bengal when he heard the news of his mother being shot tuned into BBC to confirm it). 

In one such socialist summer in 1979, legendary Odia singer Akshay Mohanty who just back from America was quoted in the popular vernacular newspaper SAMAJA that even cats and dogs were better off in America. He also composed a song based on his American experience,

AMERICA RE PREMA HUE BEECH ROAD UPARE,
AAU CUTTACK RE PREMA HUE RASTHA PACHHARE".

(In America love happens in middle of the road, 
in Cuttack love happens behind Rickshaw) 
and so on...

India has come a long way since 1979, now a $4 trillion economy chugging ahead in full speed. Visiting America is no big deal to get publicized in local newspapers. But those were the days of Socialism when getting rich was a poor choice. Living in a socialist India where anything foreign was cursed as "Haraam" (forbidden). In order to quench our curiosity we sneaked away to watch Hollywood movies during noon shows in SHRIYA talkies of Bhubaneswar. Later in my teens we prefered NISHAMANI, a movie hall in Cuttack which showed varieties of Hollywood movies, enough for me to get a crush on Brooke Shields. I used to read over and over the letters written to my father by his friends and students from USA on glossy paper, far cry from the "Utkala Lipi" paper I was accustomed to. I made sure to tear off the American stamps from top of the letters to show off to my school friends. 

Some of our guests from England and America would land up at our home in summer with Foreign brand Chocolates in semi-melting state due to local heat and humidity. I would wrap around my lips on them as soon as I get a chance,  rolling my tongue over and over again on the wrapper till the last trace of its melting residue was left. As we did not have a refrigerator (still a luxury then), my mother would carefully cover the chocolates with wet cloth and keep in an over head compartment above a bowl of water. This preferential treatment to Western chocolates was her creative way of keeping those cherished stuff cool and safe from ants. I would keep the chocolate wrappers as souvenirs to show it to my jealous friends. They would gape at it with eyes wide open, frantically trying to prevent their saliva drooling over lips, wiping it off using tongue and taking a couple of gulps to get it inside. Now all "Phoein" brands are available across India, thanks for Mr. Rao's opening of India's economy.

One of the most fascinating experiences was us siblings glued to the first hand narration of American life by someone visiting India in the summer of 1980, followed by a photographic session using a Polaroid camera. We would wait till mid morning until we had enough sunlight. Then our guest would take our pictures in front of our flat and deliver them to us almost instantly in front of the numerous prying eyes from the surrounding buildings peeing thorough iron railings. A few vegetable and fish vendors on bicycles passing by would stop to take a peek, their legs and baggage tilted to one side of the bicycle, head tilted towards us with mouth wide open.

It was an exhilarating experience for someone whose experience in photography until then was snaps taken at social functions or family portraits taken in a studio at RAJ MAHAL CHOWK (the best one in the city at that time). I always wondered if Soviet Union was such a paradise, why I never saw anyone from Moscow with similar stuff and getting similar attention. Now I still wonder what communism has ever achieved except producing international pariahs and poverty stricken nations like North Korea. The myth of socialism was debunked beyond redemption, limited to four walls of the left leaning academics.

In this context, hats off to the duo of PVN Rao and Dr. Manmohan Singh for reforming India's economy by freeing it from the clutch of socialism and poverty. Other leaders who followed the duo had no other option but to follow the trend of liberalization which is irreversible. It has produced a new breed of entrepreneurs generating wealth and employment, boosting consumer confidence, putting money in public's pocket to fuel more consumerism. Stagnantion leads to less spending and more unsold inventory, which is a businessman's worst nightmare. No wonder our ancient Sanskrit scholars aptly named money as CHANCHALAA (The moving one), which should circulate around, never stay static. If the Congressmen duo didn't liberalize Indian economy in 1991, we still would be dancing to the tune of "Jhopadpatti Zindabad", stuck forever building world class Bullock carts in the era of Bullet Trains.