Laying the foundations

(cover story in the February issue of Responsible Parenting)

It is a well documented fact that a happy home is the foundation for a happy child. Parenting experts, the world over, say that a child’s experiences in her first years are the foundation of her intelligence, personality and emotions. Children who are raised in loving and secure homes typically thrive, whereas if they are raised in environments that are deprived of positive experiences, learning disabilities and other cognitive delays might ensue. Thus, providing an emotionally stable and stimulating environment for children that would help ensure optimal cognitive development needs to be the first priority for all thinking parents who wish to raise balanced, happy and successful children.

 

Most parents today worry about their youngsters, and even small children, who are increasingly turning aggressive, dissatisfied, ill-conditioned and insecure. Cognitive delays such as learning disabilities and lack of concentration are fast becoming the norm rather than the exception, even in affluent, well-educated households. Clearly, something is wrong somewhere.

Besides behavioural issues such as abnormal aggression, objectionable behaviour or xenophobia, the incidence of dyslexia, ADHD and other learning and cognitive disorders is sharply on the increase in our society, especially in upper middle class and affluent families. While overexposure to electronic media and unhealthy lifestyles are, to some extent, responsible for this, psychiatrists attribute this trend largely to the erosion of the secure home base and a loving environment for children to grow.

A child’s personality and behaviour is the direct outcome of her learnings from the environment in which she grows up. Thus, the importance of a happy, secure home and growing environment assumes the utmost significance to ensure happy and emotionally stable children.

In this age of overburdened lifestyles and clashing egos, the first requirement o f a happy home is a relaxed, comforting and harmonious environment replete with calmness, warmth, mutual understanding and support between its members, and a sense of security. Material comforts pale into insignificance beside the importance of love and emotional stability in fostering the child’s healthy growth and development.

Starting on the right note

A happy home, however, does not happen overnight, or by the wave of a magic wand. Yes, it does require the magic of love, understanding and support, but these are not traits that can be brought into a home just before the child arrives, along with the bassinet and the baby clothes. The atmosphere and the attitude that creates a happy home has to be fostered from a very early stage, much before the baby arrives—in fact, right from the time a couple enters married life and plans to bring a baby into the family at some future date.

Urban lifestyles today are highly demanding and depleting. Work pressures, cut-throat competition, economic uncertainty, social pressures, even the daily work commute and domestic problems—all take their toll on the stamina, vitality, and ultimately, the temperament and behaviour of those struggling with it. Is it any wonder, then, that children born and brought up in such a home atmosphere are aggressive or insecure?

In fact, it is well known that cognitive development starts before actual birth and the newborn child recognizes the parents’ voices. Child experts say that children whose parents are anxious, stressed or negative during the gestation  phase come into the world feeling unwanted and unloved, and are cranky, insecure, sickly babies who are likely to grow into problem children. On the other hand, if parents interact in a happy, positive way with the child, right from the gestation phase itself, the child comes into the world with the assurance that it is wanted and loved.

Given the state of our society today, it is all the more important for young couples to understand the importance of creating a happy and secure home environment if they wish to become parents. They need to learn how to relax in the face of work pressures, resolve their mutual differences without conflict or hostility, and make time in the middle of their busy schedules which they can devote to their children when they arrive in their lives. It is unrealistic to think—as most young parents do today—that they will work as hard as they can for the time being and make time for the child when it arrives. This simply does not happen. Unless they begin as they mean to continue, most young parents find themselves trapped in punishing schedules that they are unable to modify even after the baby arrives. As a result, the baby is struck with absentee parents, replaced by care centers or caretakers, and a home environment totally lacking in warmth, comfort or security.

A child’s bond with the parent or caretaker is one of the most important factors affecting her development. These early bonds establish a child’s attachment patterns, which affect her interactions both during childhood as well as throughout her entire life. A child who grows up with little physical contact or sense that her parents are going to meet her physical and emotional needs may grow up to be anxious, apprehensive to interact with others, or may display physical aggression. Given the importance of personal relationships on child development, parents can play an important role in their child’s growth by fostering healthy, positive interactions in all domains of the child’s life.

Parental involvement is one of the strongest influences in a child’s life that enables her to develop to her full potential. Parents need to be sensitive to their child’s needs and respond quickly. A child needs plenty of hugging, kissing and snuggling to give her the feeling of being protected and cherished. Parents need to use kind words and a warm tone with the child and provide an enriching and stimulating environment in which they engage in activities such as reading, laughing, dancing, singing and playing with their child through her vital years. According to the National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC), positive stimulation from the time of birth is a crucial factor in children’s development for a lifetime.

 

Building firm foundations

Several factors contribute to the child’s development in the early years. Parents have a vital role to play by becoming an informed and active participant in their child’s life. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services reports that neglect in early childhood negatively affects brain and cognitive development in the early years and has repercussions that last into adolescence and adulthood. Experiences in a child’s first years are the foundation of his intelligence, personality and emotions. When a child suffers from neglect and abuse, these experiences often lead to learning disabilities, and behavioral and mental health issues that can haunt a child for the rest of his life.

A secure and organized environment

Providing a safe, clean, calm and comforting environment is essential for the child’s development.  An environment where the child is exposed to physical or verbal abuse will negatively affect her development since stressful situations cause the body to release elevated levels of the stress hormone cortisol. Extended periods of this hormone can make the brain vulnerable to processes that can destroy brain cells or lower the number of connections in the brain. Thus, unorganized homes and stressful lives that contribute to cognitive delays in their children.

So, parents need to be sensitive to the child’s needs and respond quickly. They should not hesitate to show the child affection by hugging, kissing and snuggling with her. This makes the child feels nurtured and loved and helps in her healthy development into an emotionally balanced, happy individual.

Positive and healthy stimulation

According to the World Health Organization, the amount of stimulation provided in a child’s environment can dramatically affect her brain and cognitive development. WHO states that this is especially important during the first three years of life because early childhood is the most intensive period of brain development during a person’s life. Parents need to take time out on a regular basis to do fun things with their children, such as playing board games, going for walks, picnics and other enjoyable outings, as well as watching good movies and reading together.

Proper nutrition

A child needs adequate, age-appropriate nutrition to allow her body and mind to develop properly. Fruits, veggies, whole grains, lean meats and water are all part of a well-balanced diet as the child gets older. Malnutrition due to excess of convenient junk foods, which are becoming a norm in today’s life, can lead to development issues and a failure to thrive. For this, the parents need to take a personal interest in the food habits of the family and ensure that the child is getting the right kind of nutrition. This will also make the child feel cared for and give her good habits for a lifetime.

Parental Bonding and behaviour modeling

A child’s bonds with her parents are her earliest link to life. Since the child’s very life springs from her parents, her relationship and interaction with her parents shapes her entire life patterns by establishing behavioural modes and reactions. It is thus crucial for the child to be brought up in a physically safe, mentally secure and emotionally cherishing environment to enable her to grow into a happy and stable human being.

The child also tends to take her parents as role models  and replicate their thought and behaviour patterns in her own life. For instance, a parent’s personal relationships with her spouse or friends can also affect a child’s development. If a child grows up witnessing his parents handle interpersonal conflicts through yelling, passive-aggressive comments or aggressive behaviors, she may model these interactions in her own life. Further, in situations where a child witnesses domestic violence, she may experience persistent negative effects, even if the child witnesses the violence when she is young.

On the other hand, a child who grows up in an environment of mutual support, mature and non-conflicted resolution of differences, healthy interactions between the parents as well as with the extended family and the community, he is more likely to model these positive behaviour patterns and become a happy, healthy and balanced child.

Criminal Negligence?

The murder of fourteen year-old Arushi Talwar which sent shock waves through the nation four years ago, is said to have been solved. But despite the court’s verdict finding her father guilty, the air continues to be thick with claims, counter-claims, allegations and charges. Without presuming to pass judgement on who killed Arushi, we, today’s parents, nevertheless, need to take a good look at how we are bringing up our children.

What is, to most of us, a sensational newspaper case, or a shocking tragedy, is a living nightmare for the family of the child who was found brutally murdered in her bed a day before her fourteenth birthday. Whether, as the courts believe, it was her father, who murdered her in a fit of rage, having found her in an objectionable state with the family’s live-in male servant, or whether, as the family claims, it was someone else who has not been found, some aspects of the case are indisputable.

First, Adolescent Arushi was frequently left alone in the house with Hemant, the forty five year old live-in servant for extended periods of time.

 Second, her parents’ high profile professional and social lives usually kept them out of the home till very late at night.

Third, however much the Talwars may have loved and materially pampered their daughter, their chosen lifestyle left them little time to be with their only child.

The Talwars are, by no means, the only parents in our society today who have almost no face time with their children, largely due to the compulsions of their busy professional and social lives. The numbers and proportions of such ‘absentee’ parents are rising exponentially and throwing up undesirable consequences for both, their children and for society.

Ultimate benefits to children?

One of the standard arguments in such cases is that the high incomes resulting from the parents’ high profile lifestyles ultimately benefit the children—in the form of more luxury and facilities, higher levels of material gratification, access to better opportunities, etc. What is left out of account in this kind of justifications is, ‘What is the cost borne by the children of parents with such lifestyles?’

Children left largely to their own devices as a result of their parents’ busy lives and with no responsible family member to supervise their day-to-day upbringing, are exposed to numerous destructive influences. These may come from various avenues such as objectionable content on audio-visual and print media, and undesirable company, and find fertile ground in the minds of unsupervised children of affluent parents, who have access to such material and people, but no one to guide or shape their thoughts.

The infamous ‘DPS MMS Scandal’ that painted the pages of tabloids red in December 2004, and which formed the basis of the famous movie ‘Raagini MMS’, is a case in point. Although the details of the youngsters involved were later carefully concealed in view of their age, the seventeen year old girl from one of the most prestigious schools of the capital who participated in creating a sexually explicit video clip that went viral on mobile phones, was found to be the only child of high-profile parents, who was left unsupervised at home after school, till the time her parents came home, usually late at night. Surrounded with all the luxury of material possessions, a five-star lifestyle and servants, the youngster was yet insecure enough to seek importance and attention in such an objectionable and damaging form.

It might be argued in this context that even ‘supervised’ children go wrong all the time. They do, of course, but the point here is that of the right kind of supervision, that gives a child the security of being cared for, the check of being supervised as well as the nurturing that inculcates values—a tightrope to walk, but one that comes with the territory.

What of my own life?

The other argument often adduced in the case of unsupervised children is, ‘Don’t parents have a right to a life of their own too?’

Of course, they do. However, once having exercised the choice of parenthood, it is also imperative to strike a balance between the professional, social and recreational requirements of the parents on one hand and the physical, emotional and psychological needs of the children on the other. There are numberless instances of families where both parents are working and where the children are supervised by grandparents or other loving, responsible caregivers—usually trusted family members. In such cases, the oft-quoted concept of ‘quality time’ from parents becomes an enriching experience for the children.

Smita Shivli, a young professional mother of two (eight and ten year olds) in East Delhi, drops her children at her parents’ place while going to work and picks them up on her way back. She also drops off a young maid servant to help her parents with the ‘active’ part of looking after her children. Although this entails additional demands on her time and resources, as well as putting up with periodic bouts of unreasonable behaviour from her parents or the children, she does it willingly as part of bringing her children up in a secure environment while she is away.

The catch in such arrangements, however, is that it often requires the parents to adjust to the requirements, and sometimes, demands, of the caregivers, which they are often disinclined to do. The children then end up as collateral damage in such situations.

Rekha and Naveen Bakshi prefer to drop their five and six year old children off at the most economical crèche available near their South Delhi residence, so that they can save as much money as they can. “My parents are willing to relocate to Delhi and look after the children,” says Naveen, “but we don’t want to avail that option. It will hamper our lives to have them constantly on our backs, making demands and interfering in our lives. The cost of having them here will also be much more than what we are paying to keep the children at the crèche.”

Parenting as a choice

Sometime back a cousin visited Singapore on a work related tour. Having managed to throw in a weekend, he took along his wife and two children. This was just before the era of the ‘foreign travel boom’ in India. The couple came home highly amused because the husband’s Singaporean colleagues had assumed that the couple must be millionaires several times over since they could actually ‘afford’ two kids! It was unthinkable for them that anyone would ‘opt’ for parenthood unless they were in a position to provide their children with everything their society had to offer by way of living standards and everything they had to offer by way of personal inputs.

By contrast, in Indian society, married people are ‘required’ to have children, just like owning a television set—something you do, whether or not you have the time, space or inclination for it, just so that your family and friends don’t regard you as freaks. Result?

First: innumerable kids whose parents have no time for them and no inclination to spend any thought on raising them well or providing for any except their physical and material needs.

Second: innumerable couples forced into parenthood that doesn’t come naturally to them—forced to make sacrifices they have no inclination to make, just for the sake of ‘duty towards their kids’, in turn resulting in an army of frustrated, escapist adults.

Third: needless population explosion on the planet—an ominous proportion of frustrated individuals in society.

Fourth: the most tragic—the demeaning of parenthood, one of the purest, most exalted expressions of love in the world.

Destructive social attitudes

Unfortunately, in our society, it has become the ‘done thing’ today to be dismissive of children’s emotional and psychological needs. How often has one heard callous words like: “Oh! The kid will adjust: kids are very resilient”, or, “what’s the big deal about raising the kid? It has all the facilities it needs. Get on with ‘more important stuff'”!

This destructive mindset is often manifested in workplaces too, in the form of ridicule for professional women who demonstrate caring for their children. Ashlesha Sharma, a Senior Accounts Officer in a multinational company, consistently faces barbed comments from her colleagues (usually male) because she regularly calls up her daughter –from her own mobile phone, in her lunch break—to reassure herself and give the child a feeling of being connected to her mother. This has translated into a perception that even while at work, her mind is preoccupied with her child, and so, her professional worth comes under question. Ironically, it is okay for other colleagues to blatantly use the office phones to make personal calls at all hours of the day!

Not only mothers, but caring fathers too, often come in for their share of flak. Arun and Meera Bansal (names changed), both senior economists in prestigious government institutes, have never made it to the ‘high society’ crowd, simply because returning home to their only daughter (now twenty four, and supervised by Arun’s mother during her student years) was always their priority. Having passed by all the opportunities of cosy weekend get-togethers and evenings out with colleagues, they have yet risen in their professional lives through their diligence and obvious capability, but are regarded as ‘weird’ by their co-workers who have no doubt that their professional ambitions come first and that the rest should take care of itself. “We give a damn,” says Meera happily. “We chose to become parents, and our daughter has always been our first priority.”

The latest in this saga of Indian society’s destructive mindset towards the well-being of our youngsters is the trend for ‘day-and-night creches’ in urban areas, where children of working parents can be fostered out at as young as four months, for months, and even years on end, usually to let their parents ‘get on with their lives’.

Aping the West

In childrearing perceptions, as in other things, our society has, most unfortunately, fallen prey to blindly aping trends from western countries, without first putting in place the safeguards that exist there. In western countries there exist stringently enforced laws that require parents to provide for the physical, mental and emotional needs of their children, or else, surrender them to the care of the State.  Parents who party late have responsible and trusted babysitters taking care of their children. Childcare centres too are regularly monitored by the authorities. It is the state’s ultimate responsibility to take care of the children and it puts in place and enforces stringent rules where children are encouraged to report parental infringements to the authorities.

No such measures are enforced—or indeed, exist—in Indian society to protect children from parental negligence. In such a scenario, it becomes all the more important, to propagate the concept of parenthood as a conscious choice by people who are willing and prepared to nurture and care for the children they have brought into the world till such time that they are physically as well as mentally mature enough to fend for themselves. We really don’t need any more Arushis or Ragini MMSes to shame us!

Resolving Language Linked Identities

One of the reasons that Indian professionals have an edge in the international job markets is their ability to communicate effectively in English, the lingua franca of today’s world, as well as the international language of business, science and technology. However, this very advantage has led to English being perceived as the language of privilege, and the ability to speak English fluently as an automatic passport into ‘high society’, both, within India and among Indians the world over. The consequent obsession among non-English-speaking Indian parents to give their children the ‘English advantage’, often drives them to try to alienate their children from their mother-tongue in a bid to ‘make them equal’. The result is a growing population of confused youngsters who are intimidated by the dragon that is English, and resentful of those who were ‘born to it’. How can parents resolve these budding cases of identity crisis which can wreak permanent damage upon fragile young minds?

A few years ago, when we moved to the United States on an expatriate assignment for my husband’s office, my then four year old suddenly stopped speaking English—a language she had grown up with along with our native language, Hindi. Homesick for her grandparents—with whom she was used to communicating in her mother tongue—and confused by the different accent (at home we spoke English with the clipped Indian-Anglicised ‘convent school’ accent—a far cry from the American drawl), she found a sense of security and identity in her native language.

However, as she found her feet in her Montessori school, among children who were mostly of Indian origin, her Hindi-speaking was productive of mixed reactions from the parents of her classmates. While most welcomed the fact that their own children had started speaking their mother-tongue to communicate with her, there were some who clearly dismissed us as ‘hicks who didn’t even bother to teach their child English before bringing her to America’. The latter, as I realized over time, were those who had not had the ‘English advantage’ while growing up, and for whom the fact that their children spoke English was literally, a very big deal. They were completely unable to see why I would let my child speak Hindi, or why so many parents were pleased with their children speaking Hindi, ‘even now that they were in America’!

The ‘English Advantage’

This mindset is not limited to expatriate Indians from non English speaking backgrounds. Within India too, especially in urban centres, this tendency is becoming increasingly pronounced. With ‘ownership of the English language’ being perceived as a hallmark of success as well as a passport into the upper echelons of society, there is literally a stampede amongst the ‘newly urbanized middle class’ to convert their offspring into English-speaking snobs who wouldn’t stoop to speak their mother tongue if their life depended on it! The glut of ‘English speaking courses’ proliferating India’s urban centres bears witness to this mania, as do the legions of confused youngsters who refuse to communicate in their mother tongue for fear of being labeled as ‘hicks’ and are unable to speak English, the language of their aspirations, with any level of confidence or competence.

Another factor that further aggravates the issue is that most such parents don’t realize that a language has to be ‘absorbed’, and not learnt by rote. So, not only do they need to start their kids early, but also to allow them a few years to learn the language at one place. Getting disenchanted with a succession of ‘coaching centres’ and shunting their kids from one centre to another only confuses the already alienated children and prevents them from getting any gain out of the whole process.

In fact, research suggests that while non-native speakers may develop fluency in a targeted language after about two years of immersion, it can actually take between five to seven years for these children to be on the same working level as their native speaking counterparts.

Justice Sumant Jindal (name changed) lives is an upmarket Delhi neighbourhood and has a ten year old son, Sushant, who attends one of the capital’s prestigious schools. The child is a good student and talented at sports and music—a source of pride and joy for any parent, you would say. Not so for Justice Sumant Jindal and his wife. The biggest sorrow of their lives is that young Sushant does not speak English fluently, in spite of all the advantages he has. “We have put him in the best school. We have also put him in so many English speaking classes and courses, one after another, but no one is able to help him,” they lament.

Justice Jindal hails from a small town in North India where he received his elementary education in the vernacular medium. Excelling at studies and achieving a position of power and prestige on the basis of sheer grit and determination, he was yet left with a feeling of inadequacy about handling English, the language of his profession and social interaction, as a second language. He wants his only child not to be similarly hampered, hence his anxiety that Sushant be at ease with English.

Nine year old Amayra Sharma, a student of the famous Julia Gabriel Academy in the last one month, has been regularly shunted from one English course to another by her anxious mother, who wants her daughter to speak English fluently despite the fact that theirs is an entirely Punjabi-speaking household. “All the courses are equally hopeless,” she says. “Even after a month in a place like Julia Gabriel’s she’s still speaking Punjabi at home!”

The Cultural Disconnect

Placing such enormous emotional premium on a language that is not part of their home environment, parents from non English speaking backgrounds are often unable to understand the kind of psychological damage they inflict on the very  children for whom they are ‘trying to get the best’.

Language is a communicative tool, related to thought and an instrument of literary expression. It is also a social institution and all human communities recognize the mother tongue as a fundamental element that identifies and shapes the personality of the child. The cultural and geographic environments in which children grow inevitably become inseparable elements of their personality. Thus, the first language is part of their personal, social and cultural identity, as well as a means of reflection and of learning social patterns of behaviour and speech.

When the mother tongue and the official and socially desirable language are the same, there is no contradiction in a child’s growing environment. Problems begin when the mother tongue is different from the official language or the language of social aspiration. Scientists believe that by about the age of seven, children acquire about 70 per cent of their environmental and natural knowledge, and thus, possess a deep understanding of the social and cultural conditions around them. Children whose mother tongue is different from the language they are required to use as they grow up feel they are entering a different world when they go to school.

If, in addition to this already fraught scenario, their mother tongue is banished from their lives—by parents wishing to give them a social leg-up, or by schools trying to mould them into the ‘English medium culture’—these children end up completely cut off from the environment in which they were born and had grown up so far. They face a new environment which is intangible to them. This absence of affinity with the new world doubles their stress because they feel cut off from their roots, adrift in a hostile world that frowns upon their accent and their very identity.

This childhood stress turns into a social problem for these children in later years and is often seen to develop into deep-seated discrimination issues that colour their social behaviour and even affect their personal lives in a negative way, turning them into oppressive, angry adults.

Parental Perceptions

For first generation English learners, the parents enter this ‘new world’ along with their children. As they witness the stresses and the socially disadvantaged status of their children, they often develop anger issues themselves. This further vitiates their children’s environment in this transformational phase of their lives, when they most need emotional stability and support at home.

My domestic helper has large aspirations for her children, Neelu, now aged twenty one and Rajan, eighteen. She and her husband have worked themselves to the bone all their lives to give their children the advantage of an ‘English medium’ private school education after their initial stint in municipal schools. The children too are extremely hard working and ambitious. However, despite their obvious capability and intelligence, they have been unable to land any but the most marginal jobs. Both good looking, well-groomed youngsters, in spite of having acquired the ‘right English accent’—thanks to television—have been repeatedly rejected at interviews for more prestigious jobs as their basic confidence issues come to the fore.

And then there are parents who have themselves experienced this phenomenon, having attended school and/or university in an environment that is far removed from their native environment and mother tongue. They themselves are among the angry people and try to vindicate their own social marginalization by raising their children according to the new world in which the children will find themselves when they grow up. They therefore engage in their own created alienation which, unfortunately, fosters misunderstandings between the generations and often results in distancing them from their children. Sushant Jindal and Amayra Sharma are classic cases in point.

Resolving the Conflict

There is no doubt that fluency in speaking and ease of understanding and writing English—the undisputed language of professional advantage the world over, and that of social advantage within most of the world’s communities—is a required skill in today’s world.

Further, balanced bilinguals perform significantly better in tasks that require flexibility and exhibit higher cognitive development and adaptability because they are more aware of the arbitrary nature of language and choose word associations based on logical rather than phonetic preferences.

However, the problem arises when children from non English speaking backgrounds are force-fed the ‘foreign language’ and alienated from their mother tongue, turning them into confused, emotionally uprooted misfits. The onus of easing their children into the second language and ensuring their healthy mental and emotional development is primarily on their parents.

Understanding the importance of mother tongue: These children, and even more importantly, their parents, need to be convinced that their mother tongue is as important in their lives as the official language that they are required to learn.

Integrating, not alienating: Parents need to get rid of their own insecurities and preconceived notions and help their children perceive English as something they need to master simply for broader social and official interaction in later life. Children who are not pressurized accept and learn new things much better. They have to be supported and helped to integrate English into their lives as an important skill, but not as something that overshadows every other aspect of their lives and alienates them from everything they have been born and grown up with.

Time and Acceptance: Expecting non-native children to master a new language, virtually overnight, is both unrealistic and unfair. Research suggests that children who have not been exposed to English at home from birth need to be given at least two years to be comfortable with it, and at least seven years to be at par with those who were ‘born to it’.

The ultimate need is to help these children develop into youngsters who can function comfortably in their academic and work environments using English, and are equally at ease in their family life and native social milieu using their mother tongues.

Are we pressure cooking our children?

My first article for ‘Responsible Parenting’ magazine (October 2013 issue)

Reblogged from ‘Being a Parent’:

http://parentingsite.wordpress.com/2013/10/12/are-we-pressure-cooking-our-children/

 

As access to good educational institutes and good jobs gets tougher and tougher, depression, anxiety and even suicidal tendencies in adolescent and young adults are rising at a rapid rate. How far are performance pressures responsible? Why do some youngsters thrive while others wilt in these circumstances? And what can parents do to bring out the best in their children in this scenario? The eternal debate of ‘guidance versus pressure’ rages on …

Last week a twelve year-old student from my language workshops snapped at his mother: “Why don’t you just put me in a pressure cooker and put it on the fire? Much better than being on my case all the time!”

The poor mother was aghast! She and her husband have both been high achievers since childhood, and as high-flying professionals – a surgeon and a corporate executive – they want their two highly intelligent children, twelve year old Madhav and nine year old Tanisha, to be even more successful than they are, especially since they have the means to provide them with the best facilities and opportunities.

On the other hand eleven year old Manya Sharma has her sights set high. She wants to be a successful corporate executive, and no amount of studying is too much for her. “We have never had any trouble with her,” say her parents thankfully. “She cheerfully attends all the extra classes we send her to because she feels they will help her succeed”.

Yet another instance is that of ten year old Ashmit Pahwa who is consistently one of the class toppers in studies and excels at sports. However, at the merest hint of performance pressure, he simply walks off in the opposite direction. “When his tennis coach and swimming instructor started pushing his limits because he was performing really well, he simply refused to set foot inside a tennis court or a swimming pool again,” says his mother despairingly!

Still another is the case of Sanya Agarwal, 17, who is rapidly losing her health ever since she started ‘the Board Exam Year’. “She has always been a topper in school,” says her mother Bhawana. “This year the college cut-offs were so high that all the kids are feeling very pressured.” So, what are the parents doing to help them cope with the pressure?

“What can we do?” demands Keshav Batra, a chartered accountant and father of a class 12 student Rishi. “People who have family businesses to hand over to their kids might be cool about it, but our children have to make it in life on their own. It’s a tough, competitive world out there. They have to learn to cope with the rat race. We, as parents have to keep giving them more and more pressure to keep their motivation levels high.”

Does Performance Pressure Really Translate into Motivation?

Not necessarily, say experts. In fact, it is often seen to have the opposite effect – that of making the students depressed and nervous, often with disturbing results like worsening performance, nervous breakdowns, or in extreme cases, adolescent suicides!

According to a 2008 survey report by a leading national daily, 5,857 students committed suicide in 2006 because of examination pressure. And things have got worse over time.

As per a January 2013 report by CNN-IBN, India has the highest suicide rate in the world, along with China. About 95 to 100 people commit suicide everyday, of which about 40 per cent are students, and their motive is invariably academic pressure! Data collected from 1,205 adolescents in New Delhi schools revealed that one in seven adolescents had thought about ending their lives!

Is Performance Pressure Always Negative?

Again, the answer is NOT NECESSARILY.

It is true that in most situations, stress responses cause performance to suffer. According to renowned psychologist Dr. Jerry Lynch, “Performance pressure, anxiety and tension are caused by mind-set of inflated expectations, fear of failure and an unhealthy attitude towards your competition”. A calm, rational, controlled and sensitive approach is called for in dealing with the constantly increasing load of studies, performance pressures and expectations.

Sometimes, however, the pressures and demands that may cause stress can be positive in their effect. One example of this is where sportsmen and women flood their bodies with fight-or-flight adrenaline to power an explosive performance. Another example is where deadlines are used to motivate people who seem bored or unmotivated.

In fact, one of the key questions in a recent study on performance anxiety at the Johns Hopkins Center was: Are parents’ beliefs about achievement and success always translated into feelings of pressure for their children? The answer was ‘NO’ in a surprisingly large number of cases.

The Role of Parental Expectations: Guidance or Pressure?

A study recently undertaken by the Johns Hopkins Center, USA on the topic of ‘Parents’ Values and Children’s Perceived Pressures’ states that while most people would concede that parents play an important role in their children’s achievements, the growing instances of performance anxiety in adolescents and their terrible consequences have raised questions about whether parents of high-achieving students play a negative role by pressuring their children to achieve at unrealistically high levels or to satisfy the parents’ needs.

Parents of talented children have been accused of pushing their children to achieve at exceptional levels at younger and younger ages, thus depriving them of their right to a cherished childhood, free of cares and anxieties. And this is not happening solely in academics. With the spate of TV ‘reality shows’ featuring child prodigies for the entire world to gawk at, more and more competitive parents are seen to push their own children into the limelight to showcase any real or imagined talents so that they can live vicariously through their children, basking in their reflected glory.

To get at the core of what motivates parents to ‘guide versus pressure’ their children, parents’ values and beliefs about achievement were examined, to find out how important they think high achievement is, and how they visualize academic success and achievement goals for their children.

Parents’ Perceptions and Motivations: What is Success?

According to eminent psychologists and researchers, parents’ beliefs and conceptions of academic success colour their behavior and messages to their children about achievement, and have a critical impact on whether or not their children feel pressured.

For instance, in the Johns Hopkins study, parents were asked to define academic success, and 56 percent of all parents focused only on external standards like: performance beyond their peers, or achieving socially ‘prestigious’ goals such as college admission and employment in a high-status job.

In this regard, if a child is inherently competitive and ambitious, such emphasis on external standards may have its advantages, by encouraging these students towards high performance in school since it would result in good test scores, future college admission, and ultimately, employment in a prominent career. However, for children who are quieter, more laid back by nature, this kind of excessive or exclusive focus on external indicators often translates into pressure, sending the message that academic success is important, not for personal reasons, but to please others, thus making the child anxious and miserable.

However, the other side of the coin is that though many of the parents in this study evaluated academic success by external standards, almost one-half of this group also emphasized internal standards. In other words, they also defined academic success as relative to the individual: enjoyment, setting and attaining personal goals, motivation, working towards one’s potential, being curious and inquisitive, and trying one’s best.

By emphasizing both types of standards, such parents are able to convey to their children that outstanding performance is important to success, but personal satisfaction and trying one’s best are also equally, if not more important. Such a balanced approach on the part of such sensible parents helps to alleviate a child’s feelings of pressure whenever he or she is overwhelmed by expectations and fears about the future, and helps them to perform better and be happier.

What is More Important: Learning or Performance?

Another question that assumes great importance in this context, especially in today’s environment, is that of ‘learning versus performance’.

What exactly do parents expect of their children? By what yardstick do they measure their success – success in cracking the examination systems and getting top grades and scores, whether or not they have gained knowledge in the process; or success in gaining knowledge from what they have learnt?

Parents who focus on the ‘performance goal’, i.e., those who want their children to simply achieve prestigious degrees, grades and jobs, not caring whether there is any real skill and knowledge to hold them up, are building houses in the sand. Perhaps they do not realize that devoid of real skill and knowledge they can only hobble so far on the crutch of a degree, and will fall flat sooner or later.

On the other hand, parents who emphasize the ‘learning goal’, i.e., gaining of knowledge and acquiring of real skills, whether or not their children achieve top grades initially, are building a skyscraper upon a rock. Their children usually end up becoming able and skilled individuals who find success and work satisfaction throughout their lives, even if they don’t start with a bang.

Research shows that children for whom both parents have a performance goal are highly likely to have a combination of high concern about mistakes, doubts about their actions, parental expectations, and parental criticism. Because of high parental standards and criticism, these children are likely to experience feelings of pressure.

On the other hand, if even one of the parents also focuses on understanding of material and personal improvement, it can create a balance, especially when accompanied with support and guidance, and can go a long way in preventing feelings of pressure.

In the Indian context, however, the biggest problem that arises is that more and more parents are emphasizing the ‘performance criteria’, with no regard for the ‘learning criteria’ or the personality of their children, resulting in increasing pressure on our youngsters.

Creating a Positive Environment for Good Performance

Finally, one needs to remember that all parents want the best for their children. So, what they need to do is keep a few ground rules in mind while dealing with performance issues in their children.

Creating Realistic and Positive Expectations- Expectations with regard to outcomes and results translate into tightness, tentativeness and tension, because they cannot be controlled. Therefore, it is important to focus on how to create expectations about what can be controlled. This helps a child to gain confidence in his ability to perform and to relax and let his body and mind do what they have been trained to do.

Dealing with Fear of Failure: Children need to be taught from an early age to accept that failure is inevitable from time to time. The first step towards this would be not to overreact when a child fails or makes mistakes, because one of the essential qualities of a champion is the ability to tolerate failure. An old Zen saying teaches us “the arrow that hits the bull’s eye is the result of one hundred misses.”

Taking the Wide Angle Approach or Exploring Other Avenues: Let us not forget that we are fortunate to be raising our children in a world that offers scope for success in a wide multitude of areas. So what if a doctor’s child wants to be a musician or a professor’s child has a talent for photography? Let your child discover his true potential and encourage him to excel at whatever he does best.

Prioritizing Welfare and Happiness over Material Achievement: And let us not forget that as a parent, a child’s ultimate welfare and happiness is what is most important. Parents need to keep this ‘big picture’ in mind and guide their children to the best of their ability, while steering clear of the traps of negative performance pressures.

A Barbaric Society

Forty five year old constable Subhash Chand Tomar succumbs to injuries received in the line of duty trying to control unruly mobs at Vijay Chowk and is cremated with full State honour and much fanfare. The whole episode makes prominent headlines and the wailing and railing of the martyr’s family about the culpability of the mob is aired on all the news channels.

However, even as the common man’s heart reaches out to the family of the deceased, empathising as much with their grief as that of the brutalized girl whose plight drove the mobs in the first place, the rumour mills claim that he was ‘put away’ by the powers that be – a conveniently dispensable pawn on the chessboard of national politics – thus trying to kill two birds with one stone: defuse the situation by diverting the public’s attention, and as a bonus, settle a score with that thorn in the flesh, the AAP.

After all, this is what happens in C-grade Bollywood and Tollywood movies – the powerful baddies have a ‘sidey character’ finished off quietly by a stooge smuggled into the good guys’ territory (in jail, if the baddies are gangsters, or in a mob if they are evil politicians) to discredit the cause of the righteous and leverage the situation to their own benefit. And reality in this country of ours has lately become so much like the particularly bad C-grade movies that it makes a horrible kind of grotesque sense to the populace!

A contrast is also being implicitly drawn between the twenty three year old gang rape victim who is still alive (despite having been mercilessly brutalized to the extent of having had her intestines pulled out) and for whom the nation is out on the streets, and the forty five year old constable, the sole earning member of his family, who could not be saved. However, rumour also has it that the twenty three year old is not really expected to survive – that she is simply ‘not being allowed to die’ till the time the current explosive situation can be defused.

Even as one concedes that there are arguments for both sides; that the entire situation could very well be genuine, and not a smoke screen at all – the survival of the gang rape victim and the demise of the constable (as well as the involvement of a worker from AAP) might not really be fiendish moves on the political chessboard, despite the manipulative juxtaposition of these incidents as they are offered up for public consumption, there appear  ‘eyewitness reports’ (dismissed by the Police) of Constable Subhash Chand Tomar having collapsed while walking, of his having no external injuries when he was rushed to RML Hostpital, and of the police having interfered in recording the testimony of the gang rape victim. And whatever be the rights and wrongs of the case, it is symptomatic of the demoralization of the Indian people and their disenchantment with the machinery of governance that they choose to believe the worst.

Conditioned mindsets

Women, as the traditionally subjugated section of our patriarchal societies, have long been encountering resistance to their empowerment by male muscle-flexing. And yes, the movies, not to mention the scriptures in every religion across the world, assign to women the role of homemaker, helpmeet and general object of ornamentation as well as convenience – to be guarded and protected by their menfolk in return, but never an equal. Any endeavour to overset this arrangement constitutes a threat to ‘manhood’ and needs to be summarily dealt with.

In counterpoint, any woman who manages to break these shibboleths and dares to step outside the home without male escort, or demonstrates her independence of the male influence in any way, is a ‘loose woman’, and thus, fair game for ogling eyes, catcalls and sexual overtures.

However, this, though entirely despicable and unacceptable in a civilized society, is where the conditioning fostered by the scriptures and the movies stops. Nowhere do any scriptures or movies vindicate, or even condone actual assault and brutalization. All of them, without exception, culminate in justice to the aggressor. But we humans tend to pick and choose whatever suits our mindsets and ignore the rest.

Barbaric racial memories

Abusing women (the physically vulnerable section of the populace) sexually by way of revenge, or as an expression of victory, or simply as a vent for class-based or sexual frustration is probably a more deeply ingrained feature of our pre-civilization past, which resurfaces in societies that demonstrate tolerance for such barbarism.

One form of such tolerance, which we have been indignant witnesses to over the past few years, is tacit support from obsolete-minded, senile public figures laying down norms for an increasingly younger demographic, who situate the responsibility of such crimes on to the victims. Insensate, ridiculous statements such as ‘ninety per cent rapes are consensual’; ‘if women step out unescorted by males they should be prepared for this’; ‘why did she have to step out of the house after dark?’ ‘with her clothes and her body language she was probably asking for it’ and the like, have been thick on the ground, from those whose job it is to look to the safety and security of the people.

Failure of governance

The other is the criminals’ blithe confidence in the dysfunctionality of law and order enforcement and the entrenched apathy of governance in the country. The sheer impunity and barbarism of this and other such acts is a clear indication of what the people of the country think of its authorities. Their confidence is vindicated by the fact that one of the animals responsible for the crime, handed over to the police by the crowds, was let off on account of being a ‘minor’ – no doubt, the better to raise armies of ‘minor’ rapists in the future! The mob frenzy is an outpouring of anguish; an expression of the breaking of the camel’s back; of a people who feel they have nothing left to lose.

In no other society with even the most basic claim to civilization is such blatant brutality tolerated. Even as the current situation causes all such transgresses, past and present, to be aired, the authorities wake up enough to FINALLY express regret and sorrow, and throw half-baked sops to the public, in the form of Committees to be instituted – to look into the case for change in laws, to look into complaints against the functioning of the police. Past experience does not encourage the people to be very hopeful of positive outcomes from these Committees, but time will tell. The whole situation is rendered all the more ironic by the fact that the CM of Delhi as well as the head of the ruling party in government are women, and the Prime Minister, as well as apathetic, sanctimonious ministers and politicians across political parties have daughters of their own!

Meanwhile, what HAS happened is that where earlier a large proportion of NRIs with daughters used to make tracks for India as their kids grew up (to raise their daughters in a sanskaari society), today NRIs with daughters choose never to return, even if they want to, preferring to keep their daughters safe from the barbaric society of their motherland – from the sons of Bharat Mata, who do not deserve their women!

‘Celebrating’ the Girl Child?

posted on http://www.kiinjal.blogspot.com on 11th October 2011:

Today is October 11, 2012: The International Day of the Girl Child. A plea, rather than a celebration, against the backdrop of ever-increasing atrocities against women and the girl child.

An expression of shame for being a society where sons are perceived as assets for being members of the physically stronger, financially and socially empowered sex and daughters as financial liabilities and a potential source of social embarrassment and shame for their parents.

For being a bestial society where women, being disadvantaged solely in terms of sheer brute force, are perceived as fair game for myriad forms of molestation, be it against their dignity in the form of catcalls and ‘eve-teasing’ as they walk down a street or in a marketplace; or against their bodies and souls in the form of physical/ sexual abuse, both marital and non-marital; or against their self-esteem in the form of mental and emotional violence: in homes, in educational institutions, in workplaces.

For being a nation where the states with the highest levels of prosperity are also the ones with the most ludicrously skewed sex ratios.

For being a country where the affluent practice sex selection in conception of babies and sex conversion of their girl children.

For being a people who worship the Mother Goddess and simultaneously murder their daughters before birth and brutalize, humiliate, degrade, subjugate or commoditize them if they manage to be born.

For being a country of bigots and zealots who quote Manu and Tulsidas, shorn of their contexts, to form Khaps that bolster their fragile sense of superiority and give them a platform to validate and legitimize their power plays through abuse of women.

SCENARIO I: A highly educated professional from a ‘good family’ is physically abused by her ‘better half’ because she went for a cup of coffee with colleagues from office and his mom had to have her evening tea made by the domestic help.

SCENARIO II: A wealthy business tycoon’s trophy wife is not ‘allowed’ the time or space to recover fully from a hysterectomy because he needs his picture perfect hostess within a week of her surgery (those designer labels and jewels are, after all, investment, and his business socializing cannot wait upon the vagaries of something as trivial as her health!).

SCENARIO III: A perfectly sane, healthy, capable and self-supporting woman lies about visiting her parents or personal friends to avoid irrational showdowns at ‘home’.

SCENARIO IV: A highly qualified professional, who runs her home, works full-time at a high-profile job, and handles the wherewithal of raising her children single-handedly, is put down and constantly criticized by a spouse still steeped in the age-old myths about male superiority, whose fragile ago is bruised by her lack of dependence on him (which he would have resented, in any case).

SCENARIO V: A hitherto hardworking, responsible dhobi (washerman) takes to drink when his wife delivers their fourth girl child: the astrologer had assured him it would be a son, otherwise he would have had the damn thing aborted! The old ladies in the families he works for bless him as he helps them up from chairs or runs small errands for them: “May the next one be a son”.

SCENARIO VI: A group of girls coming home from the school bus stop are accosted by a stranger who ‘flashes’ at them and calls out obscenities. They dare not mention this to their parents out of consideration for their trauma and fear of paranoid parental supervision. They carry large safety pins and their grandmothers’ knitting needles to ‘dissuade’ anyone who gets ideas about coming closer. Then, one day, four out of the five happen to be absent from school and the one who was present falls prey to the flasher and his cronies, who perceive the fact of her walking alone on the street as an invitation.

SCENARIO VII: A middle class professional is at the end of his tether because he has two professionally qualifies, good-looking, well-earning daughters of ‘marriageable age’ and the ‘going rate’ for halfway ‘decent’ grooms in his community is way beyond his reach. He wishes his daughters had been more ‘proactive’ and found partners for themselves. Odium from the community would have died out in time, after all!

SCENARIO VIII: The middle class parents of a girl married into a middle class family have lost their sleep and appetite because they know their daughter is miserable. She is constantly subjugated, derided and physically abused by her marital family. However, they are not in a position to do anything. They are financially unable to feed the avarice of her in-laws to induce them to let up on her. They have another daughter to be married off, so, bringing the first one back home from that hell hole is out of the question as well. They simply can’t afford it. Besides, what respectable family will consent to accept the younger one if the elder sister leaves her marital home? Further, even after the younger one is married off, how can they bring their abused daughter home? Their sons would not be willing to have a married sister foisted on them for life! The abused daughter holds on to life till her younger sister is married off. Three months later she hangs herself to escape her miserable existence.

SCENARIO IX: Two daughters-in-law in an extremely wealthy family are mentally and emotionally abused on the occasion of every festival as the ‘gifts’ from their parents are held up to ridicule and scorn. The girls’ parents get regular anxiety attacks weeks before every festival and celebration, trying to live up to expectations from their daughters’ families, which, of course, can never be met. It is a game of one-upmanship, after all. It is their due for having birthed sons, and those who have been cursed with daughters (no doubt, as a result of sins committed in previous births) deserve to be put down and penalized!

SCENARIO X: Just a few days ago, a highly educated, professional young woman in my neighbourhood watched fondly as her nine year old brat vandalized an elderly neighbour’s lovingly cultivated plants. As a friend and I request her to stop her son, she turns and rends us: “You won’t understand, because you don’t have a son. Daughters listen when you tell them something. Sons are different. You need to let them do exactly as they please. These are only plants, after all!”

It would seem that those who wish to avoid the ‘burden’ of the girl child have reason, after all! How many people would see a ravening beast heading their way and not try to side-step it? How many would actually choose to lock horns with it?

And violence against women and the aversion for the girl child it is not really about men as aggressors and women as victim at all. Members of a society behave in ways that society rewards them for. In that sense, it is more about unacceptable societal mindsets springing from patriarchal systems that defined such roles for women as to place them in a position of subjugation as the contexts changed.

Is this perhaps why women in our society suffer from low self-esteem and spend a large part of their lives apologizing for being women? But we need to realize that times have changed. The contexts of societal systems have changed. It is high time our mindsets too changed in tandem.

Along with the need for men to be sensitized, there is also need for women to come to a realization of their own strength and potential; to empower themselves on the mental and emotional levels. Else, conformity to the anachronistic expectations of traditional patriarchal societal norms will, as always, set the tone for our daughters’ conditioning and psychological patterns that would haunt them all the lives.

Of ‘Personal’ and ‘Institutionalized’ Corruption

posted on http://www.kiinjal.blogspot.com on

Saturday, August 20, 2011

India is up in arms. The populace is out on the streets in large numbers to unite under a 74 year-old satyagrahi who wants a ‘Jan Lokpal’, or an Ombudsman with teeth, as against the government proposed milk and water one. Of the protesting crowds few really know anything about the ‘Lokpal’ or the ‘Jan Lokpal’, under which banner they gave been united. So, it is natural to ask whether all of this is one gigantic farce.

To any thinking person the validity, or indeed, the rationale of a fourth body of government, or a Lokpal (‘Jan’ or otherwise) who would necessarily come from our own corrupt society is a matter of the gravest doubt. And even if the ‘Jan Lokpal’ were to materialize, history stands witness to the corrupting proclivities of ‘power’, and it is not unrealistic to say that it would not be long before there is a demand for a fifth body of government!

However, that having been said, it cannot be denied that the angst and the frustration of the people out on the streets and those expressing their support to the movement in various ways, is very real. And if one cares to listen carefully, one realizes that only a select few are actually talking about the Lokpal. The populace of the country en masse is voicing their support ‘against corruption by politicians’.

Why only politicians?

A thinking person, at this juncture, is bound to ask, what about corruption at the grassroots? Why pitch on politicians alone? Why not clean your own fingers before pointing at others’ spots?

What about people pulling strings or paying money to avoid a traffic ticket; to square the police in a hit-and-run; to get their child admitted into schools, colleges and professional institutes; to avoid a municipality challan for littering or for mosquito-infested water around the house; to get a ration card, a PAN card, a passport or a driving licence? What about the tacit consent, and even encouragement to corruption implicit in the high level of matrimonial eligibility of those who have a good proportion of unaccounted income, be it a tax-evading entrepreneur or a bribe-taking government employee?

What about milkmen diluting milk; vegetable vendors tipping the scales or palming off bad produce; shopkeepers short-changing the public and maintaining false bills; government employees presenting false tickets and bills to claim LTC and other payments that are realizable on actuals, misappropriating perks like transportation and various cash allowances for personal use; media persons accepting ‘gifts’ from industrialists and other vested interests in lieu of favourable stories that gloss over unpleasant facts? Let he who has never sinned cast the first stone!

Corruption at the micro and macro levels

The answer is yes, there has always been corruption—in our very fibre. It is not right or justified by any means. As the older generation says, ‘It’s always been there like a pinch of salt in the dough … a sort of leaven.’ And yes, we need to address it, primarily through self discipline, and a determination not to give in to convenience and take the easy way out by greasing the wheels of government machinery. The laws that can bring this about are in place, but it needs the will of the people to make sure that they are enforced. It can be done, and is, indeed, being done by determined individuals who make it their priority. However, the fact remains, that even though it is regrettable and needs to be redressed, it is, nevertheless, corruption at a ‘personal’ or ‘micro’ level, each instance of which affects a handful of people. Micro level corruption very much exists, and is not right, but it is limited in its scope.

For the past few decades, however, the citizens of the country have been facing a steadily increasing level of ‘institutionalized’ or ‘macro level’ corruption that originates in high places. And this form of corruption is anything but limited in its scope.

The kickbacks in national and international deals, the misappropriation of public funds for various schemes, the blatant disregard for the law of the land exhibited by those holding positions of public trust and their families— it all happens on a mammoth scale and diverts public money from public spending to the secret accounts of a select few: Money that should have been used for the welfare of the citizens. Money that should have boosted subsidies to regulate the astronomical rise of fuel and food prices in the wake of the global economic downturn. Money that might have regulated the out-of-control spiral of inflation that is sucking the common man in like a cyclone.

The whiplash of inflation

With the misappropriation of money meant for public spending, the government is forced to resort to highly inflationary neo-liberal economic policies, which render the day-to-day lives of the populace hideous. The ‘people’s representatives’, with their cars running on fuel funded by the government (read taxpayers’ money), their canteens scandalously subsidized and their every wish for luxuries fulfilled by lobbying sycophants, remain insulated from the lash of inflation. Plus, of course, they have their loot in their secret foreign accounts to fall back upon: money that, as recent events have shown us, no one can make them disgorge, even if they are prosecuted and have to spend some time in discomfort. The ‘representatives of the people’ avail regular foreign junkets while the common man, intimidated by the expense, cuts down on the quantity of vegetables and fruits his family consumes and even the middle class debates how to avoid attending a dear cousin’s wedding.

With the common man writhing under the whiplash of inflation, which is, to a large extent, a direct outcome of this increasing ‘macro-level corruption’, the gap between the ‘haves’ and the ‘have-nots’ has been widening rapidly. The crime rate has burgeoned as frustration, born out of highly divergent standards of living, brings out the worst in those existing on the fringes of society. And the people of India, so far acquiescent, have been forced against the ropes, as they feel totally stripped by their ‘elected representatives’ of all financial, physical and moral security.

And so, when an Anna Hazare, with his track record of successful social activism (water harvesting and anti-liquor drive in his own village, RTI activism at the national level, etc.) comes along and suggests a ‘Jan Lokpal’ as a panacea for corruption in high places, the people are bound to follow—not for the Lokpal, but against ‘macro-level’ corruption, because they have reached a pitch where they have very little to lose. His agitation has the right mix of populism, media savvy and a Gandhian reference to find a connect with the people.

One needs to read one’s history and remember that Queen Marie Antionette’s reported remark ‘let them eat cakes if they have no bread’ was the igniting spark for the French Revolution!

A Nation on the Warpath

posted on http://www.kiinjal.blogspot.com on

Thursday, August 18, 2011

The entirely unprecedented and unexpected countrywide uprising of the populace in protest against Anna Hazare’s arrest has been a resounding slap on the government’s face, indeed. And although Anna’s manifesto explicitly states that they are not opposing any particular political party, but corruption in the country as a whole, the fact remains, that the central government, by virtue of being the entity in power, has ended up with egg on its face!

Having got away with their heavy-handed tactics with the Saffron Baba a couple of months ago, (as well as with an unending list of scams) they seem to have expected to literally ‘get away with murder’ in perpetuity. And so, the turning of the worm, that is the long-suffering, so-far-acquiescent Indian public, was the last thing they anticipated, or indeed, were prepared for!

The drama continues on multiple levels: the various factions of the opposition have been rendered temporary bedfellows, as the saying is, for the purpose of reviling the government; the Baba has not been slow to rush in to grab a piece of the limelight. And in perhaps one of the most farcical twists in the entire imbroglio, the populace, having offered arrestsen masse and bundled into Chhatrasal Stadium, has been reportedly demanding that the overflow be accommodated in Nehru Stadium ‘to get some value out of the public’s money squandered in the name of the Commonwealth Games’!

Now, pacifists and ivory tower intellectuals have been heard to condemn fasts-unto-death as blackmail and thus, undemocratic—no less a personage than Dr. Ambedkar being quoted ad nauseam to this effect over the past months. However, the point that has been missed here is that desperate situations call for desperate measures. And for the common man, writhing under the twin whiplashes of corruption and inflation, the situation is desperate indeed!

As scams upon scams surface with increasing frequency, and as no facet of public life is left untarnished by corruption and graft, the common man has, for the past decades, stood by helplessly, watching the gap between the ‘haves’ and the ‘have-nots’ getting wider and wider, bearing mute witness to ‘his elected representatives’ stripping the country of its dignity, the public of its hard-earned money and the citizens of security at all levels, be it physical, financial, emotional or moral!

The way politicians deal ‘democratically’ with swindlers and with rampant and unabashed corruption in public life is no secret. Given such blatant failure of the democratic machinery to effect checks, and the consequently worsening plight of the citizens of the country, if it takes a ‘fast-unto-death’ by a 74 year-old idealist to spur the youth of the nation into a definitive stance against injustice, so be it!

‘Anarchy!’ scream the pacifists. Really? And what would they call the prevailing state of lawlessness, complete lack of accountability by the people’s representatives and the comprehensive denuding of the citizens’ security? Why is it anarchy only when the people raise their voice, and not when the establishment fails them on all fronts?

And this is no tirade against the ruling party—as the Anna says, almost everyone in the political arena is equally culpable! ‘Why doesn’t Anna contest the elections?’ is hardly a valid argument. Those who did contest the election and were voted to power chose to do so themselves, and if they have abused the people’s trust and the responsibility reposed in them, the civil society has the right to call them to book. If they feel it is unfair, it would, perhaps, be better for them to step down from the public arena.

A Fresh Start

This is a call to all those who have let their own ambitions and aspirations take a back seat to the claims of family, spouse’s career, children, or whatever. Take some time out for yourselves too …

For about a decade my passion for writing took a back seat to domesticity and overwhelming family circumstances. I was freelancing sporadically, yes, but was not able to make the mindspace or the time to get down to serious writing (actually writing humour is what I enjoyed most, but even writing humour is a serious business)!

Well, the circumstances haven’t really changed all that much; it’s just that somewhere along the line I ceased to be overwhelmed by them (and I must admit, my better half’s support had a big role to play), and was fortunate enough to be able to make a fresh start by rediscovering my joy in the written word.I know there are millions of people like me, who have had to subordinate their passion in life to the claims of family, economics, or whatever. Perhaps those who are fortunate enough, or maybe single-minded /aggressive enough to have pursued their dreams successfully, are unable to understand this. I have often faced (and I’m sure all those kindred spirits out there have too) allegations of ‘laziness’, of not having the ‘drive’ or the ‘killer instinct’, of making excuses for not getting on in life, etc., etc., etc. Ironically enough, it is usually the very persons to whose ‘well-being’ you have subordinated your own dreams, who ‘turn and rend you’.I have no complaints against these detractors, even though, when they include people close to you, they can really hurt. They have a right to their opinion, and from their point of view, they are perfectly justified in making these allegations. After all, it’s concrete results that are visible for all to see, not the efforts that went into those results. It’s the skyscrapers that catch everyone’s eye, and not the foundation stones.

I have only this to say to all my kindred spirits: if I am strong enough to be the foundation of a skyscraper, let me not doubt my ability to be a skyscraper in my own right. This goes for all of you non-aggressive people out there who are taking a backseat to the ambitions of your spouses/ children and the needs of family, and are getting abuse for it. Get up and chase your dream–reach out for your piece of the sky. Don’t be afraid of failures – they are part of life, and to use a cliche, they really ARE the stepping stones to success, provided you don’t lose heart.

So, let all of us, laid back, non-aggressive folk rediscover our inner strength and channelize it to carve out our own niche, however small.