Society in Patrick French’s “India: A Portrait”
Returning home from university has reunited me to many unfinished books I had left behind in my room. Patrick French’s India: A Portrait is one of them. Yesterday, I decided to read the section I had not previously read on समाज/Samaj (Society). In this segment, French glides over some overarching themes of Indian society – the caste system, the cultural difference between the highly-educated emerging middle classes and the lesser-educated, semi-rural rural folk (captured in a detailed description of Aarushi Talwar’s murder case, how different Indias saw it, how we reacted to it, how it was dealt with – an idea resonating with Arvind Adiga’s acclaimed The White Tiger), and of course, religion and elements of Hindu philosophy. As promised by the title, French paints a portrait of his subject enough to capture the general observer. It is then left upto the observer to independently explore the complexity of the subject’s facets. Yet, there are some aspects I wish he had expanded or tied in better.
For example, after a chapter titled Outcastes’ Revenge detailing the preservation of caste in Indian society, French moves on to capturing the master-servant relationship (modern middle-class Indian households with poorer domestic help to make-beds, cook, clean and so on), he does not connect the two. It would be interesting to explore the relationship between caste and these pervasive relations in Indian society. Are people in general prone to caste-consciousness when hiring domestic help? Could the ever-increasing demand for domestic help lower caste restrictions? Or could the increase in suspicion about the motives of domestic help make such restrictions more stringent?
As another example, in the last chapter titled Only in India, French mentions various aspects of Indian philosophy and civilisation – its feat in astronomy and mathematics, and philosophical abstractions such as the non-existence of the beginning or end of time, the non-existence of the duality between the Self and ब्रमहान (the universe), and the development of the concept of nothingness.
He traces the successes of various Indians, particularly in the fields of science, and emphasises their inspirations from Hindu philosophy either direct (like one connecting Intel chips to माया – worldly illusions) or implied (as these pioneers come from Indian traditions). But I do wonder, and I wished he had expanded this a bit more, what is the relationship the various sects of society share with our philosophical wealth? Is it only supposed to be accessible to upper-caste Hindus, for example? Should thoughts of such liberation be the highest truths in our religion, how do we view the lower-castes accessing such knowledge? As I grow, I see Hinduism more and more as a religion of freedom and liberation, and so I wonder, how can we prize such thoughts and yet have an enduring power-structure of social division and hierarchy?
I understand that French’s motive is only to paint the subject to capture enough interest. It is to offer an account and some explanation. He does this well, by vividly representing stories of Indians, selected snapshot historical events, scholarly work, and even his perspective. What he does not do is pose questions to his subject who graciously agreed to pose (which reminds me there is little on India’s tradition of debate). In reading this account of India, it is thus the reader who must ask, such is the nature of the work.
As I am left with these questions, I intend to re-read the other parts to find some more.