We drove through bush land, a tiger reserve, through acres of teak trees, then eucalyptus trees, then bushes concealing the tigers of our imaginations. A mother elephant swayed while chewing grass, waving it’s trunk around and unconsciously sheltering her young infant at her side.
In the towns and cities meanwhile there is busy-ness, hustle bustle, the spitfire regularity of the sound of car horns, rickshaw horns and motorbike horns. Everyone is jostling for position while the elephant like buses can just move forward knowing no one can stand in the way of their behemoth presence. Cows wander down alleys and across main roads, the only things a bus will stop for. Their slow moving sacredness a bizarre interruption in such a kaleidoscope of noise, colour and movement.
The sheer size of India, to a foreigner like me, can make individuals appear to be just a mass of inconsequential lives. Yet their significance is proportional to the vastness of this wild and beautiful land. It’s mountains, wildlife, vast cities and villages sitting incognito in the landscape of rain forests, rice paddies, deserts and coastline.
India for me was a curiosity as a young lad. I ate specially cooked curry for us at my Primary school in New Zealand. Our teachers were trying to introduce this far off country to us. I was shown maps, documentary film and photos of a people and a place so removed from my boyish imagination. Yet India is asleep to the world no more. It’s economy is being driven forward by globalisation and the omnipresence of cheap labour. We are watching a mighty economy emerge.
The 21st century belongs to India if it wants it. The big brother China peers over it’s shoulder inspecting India’s progress and reluctant to cede ground to it’s rival. The question is whether India will try to mimic their Cold War superiors of Russia and the US. Or will India imagine a new way of exercising power. The power of transforming relationships from scapegoats and bullies to a commonality of people’s on this planet. Its founding father was a man who stood against the might of the British army with nothing but the power of nonviolence.
Gandhi’s weak power was shown to be stronger than all of the military might of Khrushchev and Eisenhower, Truman and Stalin. Whereas these superpower leaders saw tit for tat as the status quo and saw some hidden significance in an infantile race to the moon, Gandhi realised that fighting fire with fire just magnified the power of violence. Instead he chose nonviolence and in so doing opened a door to India that they could still choose to walk through in their relationships with western nations. This doorway leads to leadership, but leadership in vulnerability, in the championing of human solidarity.
The West, used only to the language of power, may be won by the gentle leaders. I pray India will resist the temptation to succumb to nationalism and force. I pray it will find it’s place in the world as a leader through the gentle hand and the kind heart, through the power of forgiveness and reconciliation.
The sordid temptation entrancing the world is to cling to nativism and ethnic barriers that exclude rather than include. Beauty is found in diversity of colour and not in dull uniformity. India’s current champion, Narendra Modi is dabbling in these dark arts of Trump, Putin, Le Pen and Farage. A narrow ethnic Hindu ascendancy is not the road to take. Excluding Muslims and Christians from the Dining Room table of India will lead to an every increasing momentum of hurt and disenfranchisement. Lead gently at home and lead gently abroad. The future belongs to the generous. Live generously India.
These are some reflections on our time in India in July 2016. It was hastily written at the time. We have beautiful friends who live and serve lavishly in this breathtaking country who can write with much more authenticity than myself. These are the reflections of a tourist. My conclusions are meandering thoughts, I’m no expert on this wondrous land of colour, voices and smells.
Jonny Clark 