Mumbai:
The imagination of the young of South Asia has been seized by a fresh
hope, which has come upon them with the force of a revelation. Wherever
you go, from Delhi to Dhaka, you meet hundreds of youthful aspirants to
the possession of a Master's in Business Administration, a degree in
Marketing, and hosts of diplomas, certificates and qualifications - some
of them of doubtful accreditation - in Business Studies.
You meet
them on the buses going to and from college; in clusters in the public
parks; sitting on the walls of shopping centres. They carry textbooks,
mostly from the United States, and of impenetrable style, in an English
which itself suggests the study of hermeneutics rather than the prosaic
and practical realities of business. Their enthusiasm and eagerness are
deeply touching; as is their faith that the aim of their studies - the
possession of a certificate - will magically open doors for them, and
provide them with the key to a world which will furnish them with
wealth, security and work for life.
It is the
more poignant, since many of them are from families of modest means,
some of them even from the poorest urban groups. Many have come from
distant villages and small towns, since to study in Delhi or Dhaka
enhances prestige; distance from the home-place adds value, no matter
how basic, how academically thin the object of study.
This
business culture has swept through India and Bangladesh, and has taken
root with the tenacity of any irrational cult. For it is quite clear
that the vast majority of these hopeful young people will find no place
in the global culture to which they aspire. Most are victims of the
latest fad to reach the Third World, a reach-me-down version of forms of
study which have been devised and formulated in the West, and exported
without any regard for their appropriateness to the countries in which
they are taken up with such zeal.
Global
business culture is the latest version of a colonialism designed to keep
yet another generation pacified, filled with hope and commitment to jobs
which will certainly never exist for them, to an income that will rarely
lift their families out of poverty.
The truth
is that India and Bangladesh are full of unemployed graduates. Twenty
years ago, their counterparts would have been studying politics and
sociology; 40 years ago, liberation and neo-colonialism. At that time,
they would have been quoting from Marx or Fanon, and they would have
been consumed by a shining-eyed conviction that they would inherit the
earth. In the event, most of these settled for whatever they could get.
Their destiny has been to struggle in obscure government posts, in small
shops and offices, trying to earn enough to send their children to
private English-medium schools - in which the language of instruction is
often unintelligible.
It is
these same children now who are dreaming dreams of business success, and
lifestyles fed by an imagery of ancient TV films of The Bold and the
Beautiful and Dynasty, nourished by the advertising industry, urged on
by a pervasive Western iconography of luxury and a mixture of the Hindi
or Bengali film industry. Their fantasies are nourished by imagined
lives of ruthless tycoons, whose power is limitless, who fly in their
private jets from ranch to city rooftop, from the beaches of California
to mountain retreats in Europe.
Most of
these students of business have devoted themselves to a learning which
is as remote from their experience as the study of Tudor History or the
geography of Europe was during the colonial period. This business
culture is an arid attenuated thing. 'The market exists to bring
together buyers and sellers.' 'To provide what people want at the price
they will pay is the essence of marketing.' They intone their lessons
like mantras; their English is a poor and uncommunicative version of an
alien tongue. At the same time, they are learning to despise the culture
and values of their heritage.
The
propagation of the business gospel has been going on long enough now for
us to be able to perceive some of its further effects. It is already
clear that many of its adherents have become bitterly disappointed by
the promises implicit in their study, but which have not been translated
into any tangible reward. There are simply no jobs. The qualifications
do not enable them to pick up the prizes.
Two
responses emerge quite clearly in reaction to the rage and
disappointment which follow the dawning realisation that yet another
generation has been cheated, its idealism undermined, its hopes
cancelled. First of all, there is the desire to escape India or
Bangladesh, to do anything to move out. A job in the Gulf, any job,
driving, domestic service, factory labour, security guard. The coveted
qualifications are discarded: they will settle for anything that
provides an adequate income. It is already clear to most that their
chances of reaching the US or Europe are slender, although Australia and
Canada still appear to beckon to some.
But they
will attach themselves to foreigners, offer themselves as houseboys,
cooks and cleaners to anyone who will take them to the West. A whole
generation has been disturbed in the sense of being who they are, where
they are, by this alien culture; but since it belongs to the realm of
fantasy, they cannot even migrate to the places of which it is
supposedly an emanation and expression.
This
leads to the second response. Many able young men, incapable of finding
a place in the job market, are recruited by criminal gangs. A world of
extortion, blackmail, protection money, exists in every slum area in
Delhi, Mumbai and Calcutta. Many of these are attached to political
parties, especially to the Shiv Sena in Mumbai, to the BJP and Congress,
even the Leftist parties in Bengal. Gang wars, the fall-out from the
corruption and extortion which the occupants of real jobs - especially
in the areas like Customs and Excise, the police, the Port Authorities,
importers and exporters - are in a position to practise. Equally,
property speculation, real estate, the film and popular entertainment
industries, offer rich pickings for criminal activities.
Money is
also to be made in the trade in human beings - women from Nepal for the
brothels of Mumbai, indentors of domestic labour and of workers in the
Gulf, many of whose families will mortgage their land in order to pay
middlemen to secure jobs which do not exist. The application of business
studies does not always correspond to the theory; yet it may still have
its uses in the lengthening shadow-world cast by legitimate business.
Some of
the criminal gangs are utterly pitiless: kidnappings, extortion, the
murder of rivals. Bodies are found on garbage dumps, following some
dispute over who has the right to a share of this or that consignment of
smuggled goods. The police are engaged in perpetual low-intensity war,
sometimes killing small-time crooks at random to persuade the public
that they have indeed eliminated some desperadoes, occasionally gunning
down known criminals in the street.
But for
the moment, the majority of young men studying at their sometimes seedy
colleges retain the hope that the riches - not promised, yet somehow
inscribed in all the associations of business and its wealth-generating
power - will fall into their lap. Their faith and a curious innocence,
an artlessness which has made them embrace this latest craze without
reserve, continue to animate them.
The
rulers of the sub-continent - the real wheelers and dealers who do
indeed enjoy fabulous fortunes - have no concern for the fate of these
young men (for it is almost exclusively a male preserve); and do not
care to wonder on what murderous rage and violence their future and
easily predictable disappointment will expend itself. For they have no
choice but to make their way in the ravaged and ruined places in which
the alien implant of mythical business fortunes are indeed made, but by
outsiders, by the mysterious processes that continue, world-wide, to
filter wealth from poor to rich. Pity the young, the inheritors of
future broken hopes and idle dreams.
(Source: Third World Network Features)
Jeremy
Seabrook
is an author and freelance journalist based in London