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The ordinary as icon

A tour of the Norman Rockwell exhibit at the Corcoran Gallery in Washington last month presented an opportunity to glimpse an America around which the ethos of assertiveness and pride were developed in the middle of the twentieth century. As an illustrator of the average, far more than of the sublime, and as man who by his own admission portrayed America as he wished it to be more than she really was at that time, Rockwell carved an image that has survived his time. Indeed, in this nation, with its repeated and unabashed public celebrations of the "average American", the slighting he received from his fellow artists possibly did more to establish him as an American icon.

Interesting, or maybe per force, the America his illustrations for The Saturday Evening Post portrayed existed more as fiction than in reality. The "ordinariness" rarely captured anything but white society, and the few glances cast outside this domain were more in reference to conflicts between white America and the unchronicled other. Yet, perhaps because of the times, the pretense of the glory years created the ideal, of a country powerfully emerging from the war, and taking its "rightful" place at the head of the world's family of nations. In the various hues in which the many decades are painted, the 50s became the decade of the ideal America, prosperous, proud, entrepreneurial, wholesome, and much more. Even today, it isn't uncommon to find editorials that lament the passing of this nation that never was.

Some of the spirit of that time has served this country well, there is no denying that. The image of patriotic, hardworking individuals, who were well rewarded for their courage in war, and their willingness to take on the challenge of building a whole new America established not merely a standard to judge those of that time, but others as well. If the United States today regards those who make it through the door of opportunity and into enormous wealth as having rightfully earned their places and no more, it is because the institutional underpinnings of progress, as defined then, were never challenged very much. It wasn't tumultuous by any measure, but calm has its virtues, especially when obtained away from the fury of unseen storms.

One might ask, then, if the imagined nation of those times was necessary or inevitable, something that every newly emerging power is bound to pass through. We have seen shades of this in China as well, where a section of the population is allowed unprecedented growth prospects, and any suggestion that this is improper is met with the answer that it is nevertheless necessary. At a time when the notion of an awakening India is widespread, this is an appropriate interjection. Awakening to what? If progress continues along current trends, what can we expect to see in the decades to come?

The first of the answers that come to mind is a professed homogeneity. The department store and the public works administration probably did as much to create American notions of uniformity in the 50s as any other institution. The uniformity of individual behavior, as portrayed in the media and nominally seen to be real within white society, are the hallmarks of the decade. The 60s have had their social rebels, the 70s had the revellers, the 80s saw the advent of pluralist commercialism, and the 90s have cemented that in the information age. Diversity as a prominent notion of the American identity has been a post-1950s event, urged on by popular dissent with the establishment and stunningly unexpected judicial participation in determining social mores.

Homogeneity, then, will be the first dawn of an emerging India. Already, in the material world this is true. The affluent upper and upper middle classes in the nation travel the land and beyond speaking in familiar tongues, bonded instead by similarities in profession, possessions, travel and entertainment. The linguistic divides one would obtain from among the main thoroughfares of Indian towns and villages simply aren't on Cuffe Parade or El Camino Real, or in shopping centres in the various metros. We eat more or less the same ice cream, wear more or less the same clothes, entertain ourselves in very predictable ways, and so on. Under this spotlight, the borders exist only as cumbersome hurdles to otherwise very similar objectives, and it is really is a small world.

To our individual financial securities, this material homogeneity, predictable or not, is probably a good thing. Put simply, everybody wants the good stuff, and the pursuit of it necessarily engenders uniformity; there is no mystery to it. The more intriguing aspect of development, which is only faintly upon us, is the notion of an Indian uniformity clearly separated from the rest of the world. Once the material aspects of the oft-quoted 200 million consumers with buying power are dealt with, we will still have social and political scenarios of uniformity, and how deeply these become entrenched will determine the evolution of India in the next 50 years.

With increasing economic power, political power will not be far behind. Already, the largely service-oriented Indian emigre is rapidly being replaced by an assertive and confident persona, more inclined to make comparisons in global terms than in native ones. The H-1B visa, a veritable trophy of this evolution, is slowly morphing into product development and research centers in the subcontinent, with the mighty General Electric Company making its foray this past week. In a competitive world, what we can do becomes the measure of who we are, and Indians are learning, accidentally or otherwise, that the significant part of embracing that is to promote a consistent vision of who we are. And so we have embarked on a journey of many embraces.

The major visages of India over the last few years have all been of those who strove to define themselves uniformly to the entire nation, and not merely within their regional origins. Sport, the movies, even political parties, have all thrived by semitizing diversity within the nation and moulding it into a uniformity of the mind. Whether this leads to the famed tyranny of the majority de Tocqueville feared remains to be seen, but for now, the pillars of this uniformity are being cast. Intelligent, entrepreneurial, educated, talented, Hindu, connected, whatever be the die that is cast, its tangles now span the entire nation, rewarding those who promote or accept it.

Along this path, the Azim Premjis and Arun Jaitleys, the Shah Rukh Khans and the Rahul Dravids, all blend into same mosaic. It is a bit like watching a movie on video, and reading the words "this movie has been modified from its original form to fit your screen". The difference is a mustered one, born of advertisers, producers, and experts of every other kind, translating diversity into homogeneity for material gain. We ourselves can little imagine the actual differences between original and copy; indeed, after a few runs in modified form along the length and breadth of the land, there is no separating the two. Shared and similar experiences among the affluent now define India, for this is the one that sells. The Indian people, more than half a century after independence, are about to be.

Ashwin Mahesh