Buying into a new India?

Pritish Nandy
13 November 2012, 05:28 PM IST

When I was growing up I heard my father talk about the India he grew up in, where everyone celebrated everything. Hindus went to Eid celebrations and ate the wonderful sweets that were then the highlight of Eid get togethers, not the elaborate meat spreads of today. Muslims actively participated in Durga Puja and many of them were idol makers. Both Hindus and Muslims celebrated Christmas and New Year, joining Calcutta's tiny Christian population, many of them Anglo Indians, for midnight mass at St Paul's Cathedral. There were Sikhs and Buddhists, Chinese, Baghdadi Jews and Armenians who celebrated every festival, not just their own. Calcutta was an exciting melting pot of many cultures, many faiths.

My generation saw a sea change. After the post-Partition riots, Hindus became more Hindus. Muslims, more Muslims. Every riot drew them further apart, into two distinct vote banks. Seeing them gain politically by asserting their religious identity, others joined the fray. The smaller, more vulnerable communities, like the Anglo-Indians, Jews and Armenians, slowly disappeared overseas leaving behind their wonderful heritage. After the 1962 war, many Chinese families, who were heart broken when their neighbours began to question their loyalty, moved to other cities. The anti-Sikh riots of 1984 made even the Sikhs who were a happy go lucky lot sink into their own identity politics. Slowly the collective self of India began to split. The Mandal Commission made things worse. Caste became the new weapon to fight every real or imaginary historical wrong.

I watched this metamorphosis, even participated in it. Endless debates over what divides us became the main discourse of the nation. It threw up a new set of political leaders. It also managed to divide the intelligentsia, split the media, alter syllabi, make us think differently about most things around us. Inter-caste or inter-community marriages, so common in my youth, began to attract undue attention and even occasional hostility. People began to notice stuff they had not noticed before, particularly when it transgressed identity fault lines. We, who voted for the best candidates, began to choose candidates by religion and caste. Even the composition of the national cricket and football teams came into question while states and regions fought over representation. The politics of religion, caste, region, language became so dominant that we began to be identified not by who we were but where we came from, what language we spoke, who we worshipped and who our forefathers were.

In the process, India began to fall apart. We were so busy fighting for our own specific demands to remember that nation building was the first, most urgent task. Within less than forty years of chucking out the British, we were already talking about new uprisings and insurgency. Many among us felt lost and lonely, outsiders in our own country. This made them terribly angry. Anger led to violence. Some were even ready to separate from the idea of India itself.

But slowly things are changing again. Strangely, a new generation fired by new aspirations and a new (seemingly vulgar) consumerism is fuelling that change. At the heart of this change is, again, celebration. We are celebrating more and more every year. Pujas are multiplying. New festivals are being dug out of obscurity. Every community is finding new excuses to celebrate. So Durga Puja is no more exclusive to Kolkata. It's huge in Mumbai too. Every occasion is an opportunity to sell new dreams, new products. While brands may be agnostic, the market is not. Every festival outgrows the community which celebrates it and becomes a larger business opportunity.

Holidays have increased. So has buying, gifting, partying. A new consumerism has brought us all together. There are more iftaar parties every year, many of them thrown by non Muslims. Bigger and bigger blockbuster movies release in Diwali or Eid. Everyone heads to Goa in Christmas and New Year. Everyone buys gold during Dhanteras. Everyone waits for Dussera sales. And yes, everyone is celebrating everything once again. What politics divided, malls, multiplexes and brands seem to have brought together, with a new reason to rejoice.