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The Misery & The Oppression:
Noam Chomsky on India
An Interview of NOAM CHOMSKY by PRIYANKA BORPUJARI
Noam Chomsky is a leading American philosopher, linguist, logician, political critic, cognitive scientist, and activist. At 84, he remains the sharpest, most acute, most unrelenting critic of abuse of power. The following is an extract from a recent interview wherein he speaks about the disconnect between the misery he sees on the streets of India, and the hollow pride of chest-thumping Indians.
I have followed India carefully, and have been there a number of times. It is an exciting country in many ways with its rich culture.
But what is really striking to me about India, much more than most other countries I have been to, is the indifference of privileged sectors to the misery of others.
You walk through Delhi and cannot miss it, but people just don’t seem to see it. Everyone is talking about ‘Shining India’ and yet people are starving.
I had an interesting experience with this once. I was in a car in Delhi and with me was (activist) Aruna Roy, and we were driving towards a demonstration. And I noticed that she wasn’t looking outside the window of the car. I asked her why. She said, “If you live in India, you just can’t look outside the window. Because if you do, you’d rather commit suicide. It’s too horrible. So you just don’t look.”
So people don’t look, they put themselves in a bubble and then don’t see it. And those words are from somebody who has devoted her life to the lives of the poor, and you can see why she said that -- the misery and the oppression are so striking, much worse than in any country I have ever seen.
And it is so dramatic.
There is a lot of talk about how India is slated to be a major power, and I can’t believe it, with all its internal problems; China too for that matter, but less so.
When my wife and I went to India a couple of years ago, my friend Iqbal Ahmed had told me that I would discover that the press in Pakistan is much more open and free than the press in India. I did not believe him first but when I looked into it, he explained, “The English language press in Pakistan is for you and your friends, and the government just lets them say whatever they want, because there are so few of them to cater to, just a couple of hundred thousand people.”
Q: You have hailed the Mexican newspaper La Jornada as “maybe the only real independent newspaper in the hemisphere”. Do you think something similar can be founded in India?
It could. The interesting thing about La Jornada is that the business world hates it. They don’t give it any ads. It is the second largest newspaper in the country with a very high level of journalistic acumen and very smart people, and they are all over the country. You see people reading this newspaper on the streets.
Actually, I noticed that in Kerala, the only part of India where you can see people reading on the streets.
In the recent past, India witnessed a scam that exposed the deep nexus between journalists and businessmen, but nothing happened …
[Courtesy: Tehelka. Edited for sikhchic.com]
July 3, 2013
Conversation about this article
1: Baldev Singh (Bradford, United Kingdom), July 03, 2013, 4:21 AM.
India is all about the Hindu blight of caste and its disease of arrogance and hate. The misery and oppression is created by the Brahmins. Eradicate casteism in the country before it infects everybody, and you'll have the beginnings of a real civilization.
2: Sangat Singh (Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia), July 03, 2013, 4:15 PM.
Noam Chomsky is one of the rare breed who remain an unparalleled resource for anyone seeking to understand our world today. India remains a paradox and what Chomsky has to say is indeed very telling.
3: Devinder Pal Singh (New Delhi, India), July 09, 2013, 3:17 AM.
Self praise never serves any purpose. The indulger is isolated sooner or later. The divide in the Indian social fabric is growing boosted by the gap between the haves and have-not. For those that have the maxi-ma in material riches (how they have accumulated these is a different matter) preach to the lower strata all the virtues that need to be practiced and idolized, as for themselves, they break the rules and do what ever to gain for themselves. This has happened in every area, in administration, political circles, industrial investors and what not. Unless morality survives in India becoming a world power without internal self-discipline and virtue would be inviting its own perils. The commoner has been brutally subjugated to oppression by the elite and this does not seem to wane in the near future. It would be tremendous effort on part of the masses to survive this peril and make India a country that is looked upon for its virtues enshrined in its ancient culture.