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Correspondent

23 August 2024 at 4:29:04 pm

Nordic Narcissism

There is something uniquely comical about a tiny, insulated European Scandinavian country like Norway lecturing a rich civilisation like India on morality. The latest specimen comes from Helle Lyng, a purported journalist from an obscure Oslo-based daily Dagsavisen, who interrupted a tightly choreographed bilateral media interaction during Narendra Modi’s visit to Norway to shout about India’s allegedly dismal human rights record and low press freedom index. It was crude theatre masquerading...

Nordic Narcissism

There is something uniquely comical about a tiny, insulated European Scandinavian country like Norway lecturing a rich civilisation like India on morality. The latest specimen comes from Helle Lyng, a purported journalist from an obscure Oslo-based daily Dagsavisen, who interrupted a tightly choreographed bilateral media interaction during Narendra Modi’s visit to Norway to shout about India’s allegedly dismal human rights record and low press freedom index. It was crude theatre masquerading as journalism. The Indian and Norwegian Prime Ministers were not scheduled to take questions to begin with. Yet Lyng behaved less like a reporter seeking answers than an activist seeking virality. Within hours, India’s Opposition ecosystem and professional Modi-baiters within Indian media elevated Lyng into a democratic Joan of Arc. Her social-media footprint, dormant for months, burst into life. Whether coordinated or merely opportunistic, the spectacle had all the subtlety of a pre-packaged outrage campaign. Then, Aftenposten, Norway’s largest broadsheet, went one better with a crude illustration straight from the attic of colonial caricature when it rendered Modi as a snake charmer beneath the sneering caption, “A sneaky and slightly annoying man.” This is no satire but a stale racial cliché embalmed in Scandinavian self-righteousness. The affair revealed not just the shallowness of a section of Norwegian journalism, but also the extraordinary moral vanity of modern northern Europe. Norway is a country of 5.6 million people whose most enduring contribution to the political lexicon remains the surname of Vidkun Quisling, the traitor whose collaboration with Adolf Hitler during the Nazi occupation of Norway was so notorious that “quisling” entered the English language as shorthand for traitor and collaborator. Yet, contemporary Norway today floats about the world dispensing ethical report cards to postcolonial democracies infinitely more diverse and politically complicated than anything it has ever governed. Norway’s moral vanity would be easier to tolerate if its own recent history were not stained by horrors of its own. In 2011, right-wing racist Anders Behring Breivik murdered 77 people in one of Europe’s worst modern massacres. Norway, like every Western society, has grappled with extremism, racism and democratic tensions. Yet somehow these complexities never seem to invalidate its standing in the fashionable “freedom indices” endlessly weaponised against countries such as India. India, a deafeningly argumentative democracy of 1.4 billion people with thousands of newspapers, television channels and digital platforms attacking the government daily, is routinely portrayed as ‘authoritarian’ by opaque Western metrics. But countries inflicting chronic violence against journalists somehow fare better. This bizarre methodology reflects a closed loop of Western NGOs, advocacy networks and self-certifying liberal institutions validating one another’s prejudices. The real story was not Norway’s predictable condescension, but the speed with which sections of India’s own elite genuflected before it. The Scandinavian sneer found eager amplification from India’s own salon of professional Modi-baiters, whose instinctive reflex is to applaud any foreign sneer at India so long as it embarrasses the man they loathe.

Bharat’s Jetson Cities, Light-years Away from Nature

Updated: Jan 20, 2025

Jetson Cities

One thing is for certain: our Bharatiya cities, the big metros and towns, are fast becoming like the ‘Jetson’ cities. For those who are unaware of Jetson cities, these were first shown in the famous Hanna-Barbera cartoon series, the Jetsons, set in the 2100s, where cities are air-tight glass globules tethered to the ground, and the only way to get in and out are the flying cars. Yes, we, the city-dwellers, aspire to tall skyscrapers, spectacular bridges, world-class tunnels, swooshing metro trains, and we are building Jetson-like flying cars. A few HD drone images here and there, during the day and at night and around twilight, and we are content that our cities have become the cynosure of our own eyes. We want our cities to be brightly lit, with neon signs, laser shows, and large billboard videos. We would then fulfil our inner desire to have a city on par with Tokyo, New York, and Shanghai.


Our buildings, designed for the next 30 years, are well air-conditioned, shielding occupants from a soupy dust bowl of brown smog, soot, particulate matter, and fine dust. It is said that most new home buyers invest at least 10% of their property’s price in enhancing the interiors, soundproofing their homes, using air purifiers and conditioners, and disconnecting from the outside world for that much-needed solace. Indeed, large builders promote their projects as close to nature amidst tranquillity. However, there is always another builder eager to get one plot of land ahead of yours to enjoy that nature. To be truthful, access to nature now comes at a premium - even the skies.


Let’s assume the working-age population is occupied in the leisure of our Jetson cities, but how many of their young school and college-going kids have seen the long arm of the Milky Way galaxy from their cities? How many have witnessed a comet zooming by? How many know about endemic plants with medicinal properties? When did they last see a chirping house sparrow? How many know that the nearest sewage drain was once a freshwater stream? When did they last find their suburban beach prettier than the resort beaches of Maldives?


The intent to ask these questions is simple: Bharat is currently at a crossroads. Pundits are enthusiastic about a cultural renaissance on the horizon. Corporate leaders, on the other hand, want us to invest hundreds of hours each week to pay our dues to the growth of the national GDP. But no one asks, if a cultural renaissance is to occur, who will generate the new understandings and insights of nature that arise typically during such a period of human advancement? No one is actually asking, for whom are we building the nation if there is no time for children, or worse, if there is no time or intent to have children. In the process of growing rich, we are about to become old. By 2047, 65% of the population under the age of 35 will grow beyond 35 all at once, and we’d have an enormous population in advanced ages with a tapering young population, a graph that looks like a banyan tree. Unfortunately, that young population will have no access to the knowledge that nature has to offer, neither flora and fauna nor the seas and the skies.


Our urbane lifestyles need tempering. Such tempering can occur only if we ensure the revival of natural sciences during this period of cultural renaissance and nation-building. Let’s not rely solely on the educational system. With Indian Knowledge Systems, constructive changes are underway, and academic curricula are poised to improve for the greater good. However, true knowledge arises only when parents and grandparents introduce children to nature. Genuine understanding also develops from extracurricular activities in schools and colleges that encourage kids to observe, journal, and act on their discoveries. On the positive side, our country’s forest cover is increasing, as announced by the government. However, efforts must be made to ensure that every school or college, whether in Mumbai, Vijayawada, Gorakhpur, Ratlam, Thrissur, Bhuj, Faridabad, Imphal, Manali, Cuttack, or Ajmer, guarantees that their students are well aware of the endemic nature of their surroundings and are regularly observing and recording data on whatever interests them. Let kids observe rivers and understand the volume of water that flows through them. Let children learn about the decline of house sparrows in their cities and what steps should be taken to revive their populations. Let them study the bees in their nearby groves and recognise the vital role these bees play in nature.


Of course, you need to learn AI, robotics, fintech, the next generation of management courses, and all the engineering bells and whistles. However, we must not leave the next generation with inadequate comprehension and skills for understanding nature. We must ensure that nature conservation is not merely lip service or a tool for politicised green activists. This can be achieved if natural sciences are given the respect they deserve at the school, undergraduate, and postgraduate levels.


Indeed, I am a plebeian, and you might feel that you, too, could write a rant about the plight of our urban lives. Urban development and municipal experts have many solutions to propose, but few are willing to take action. However, that is not the issue I wish to highlight. I aim to illustrate a much larger concern—that Indian city dwellers are disoriented and devoid of nature, lacking a guiding star to lead them toward a brighter future. Our cities of Mumbai, Delhi, Bengaluru, Ahmedabad, Kolkata, and Chennai have taken on characteristics reminiscent of Jetson-like cities. We show little regard for the Nagar Devata, Gram Devata, and Van Devata, who have protected the cities, towns, and forests that once surrounded us. We wait for formal governance to clean up our beaches, rivers, and ponds without making sufficient efforts to prevent pollution in the first place.


For those striving to grasp spirituality not through the Puranas and Aadi-Granth but through new-age podcasts, I recommend watching Vinay Varanasi’s podcast on Bhagavan Vishnu’s Dashavatar. If it is clear that Bhagavan Vishnu does not tolerate disregard for Bhudevi or Mother Earth, why do we, the devotees of Bhagavan Vishnu, continue to pollute our Mother Earth—her air, soil, waters, and sounds? Or have we taken Elon Musk's words at face value, assuming our next destination is Mars after destroying Earth, only to ruin Mars later, even worse than its current clinically sterile state? If that is the case, then bear with me when I say this: these Jetson cities stand on precarious pillars of ego, victimhood, apathy, and consumerism, waiting to be toppled either by the true harbingers of order or by false prophets. Therefore, teach the next generations to observe nature, appreciate our coexistence with other species, and venerate the forces of nature. By doing so, we humans will be good, at least for the next thousand years. If not, prepare for a bleak future by the end of this century.


(The author is a Space and Emerging Technology Fellow at the Centre for Security, Strategy and Technology, Observer Research Foundation, Mumbai. Views personal.)

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