Indian Born Confused Desi

I went to see another movie this Monday (it's one of the few ways left to while away time in the second year here at IIMA). While waiting for it to start, my friends and I stumbled into this rather upscale trinket shop inside FR, which sold earrings and amulets. While X was trying out some earrings for herself, I caught sight of a tray displaying the Holy Cross and Aum symbols. Suddenly, one of my long repressed impulses kicked in. You see, ever since I was around 10 (the time of the Babri Masjid riots), I wanted to demonstrate my commitment to the secular cause of the Indian Republic by wearing one amulet each of the 4 primary religions of India, Hinduism, Sikhism, Islam and Christianity. Later, as I grew up, I veered more and more to the God-less West and the atheistic, rational scientific ethos that it supposedly represented. However, much I would try to rationalise, I coould not sever my ties with the religious elements that had accompanied my upbringing as the son of middle class UP parents. I was still ashamed of sectarianism, of the communal hatred I saw my friends and family engage in and blamed religion for all the ills of the country and much of the world. Yet there was always a part of me that clung on to the idea of God, a God who is merciful and just, yet whose name is sometimes subverted by the forces of evil. Still, the conflict was difficult to resolve and for around 10 years, I kept my spiritual side in a state of suspended animation.
Then, in my third year at IIT Delhi, I got a chance to go to the US on an exchange program. I thought I wouldn't have many problems fitting in, after all, I was a typical westernised, private school educated Delhi boy, more familiar with Verne, Twain and Shakespeare than with Premchand and Ramdhari Singh Dinkar. Yet, every time I met someone there, the first questions they would ask me would be "where are you from? what religion are you? what does Hiinduism stand for?". I had never been made to think so consciously of my identity before. I started realizing that I had no clue what my religion is truly about, what is the richness of the culture of te nation to which I was born and to which I claim proud allegiance. I realised that all the taunts we used to tease the ABCDs over there come back to echo in our own ears and we would have no answers to them. At least I wouldn't. Thus, at the age of 20, I had an identity crisis. Which world did I really belong to? The conservative, agrarian Uttar Pradesh where I had never lived or the progressive, liberal west into whose ideology Ihad been ritually indoctrinated from the age of 5. No easy answers, but it became clear that a lot of who I am, my feelings, emotions, ideas and responses would be permanently shaped and influenced by a culture whose values had seeped into me stealthily, by proxy. It did not require a textbook or a school to shape me in this manner. Every moment I spent in this country from birth onwards had embedded deeper and deeper in me the values that have been passed on for generations. And now that I was outside, I missed not having that canvas for a background, everything felt alien, when there was no reason for it to.
After I came back to India, I started thinking a lot more about questions of identity and culture. Coincidentally, I also took a course in Classical Indian Philosophy, which was an eye-opener to the tremendous depth and merit of Indian thought through the ages. An ethos of which, I am ashemed to say now, I was embarassed becuase I considered it to be inferior to the West in terms of rationality and logic, was now suddenly overflowing with it. I realized how deep and impressive the 5000 year old culture into which I was born, is.
So now, 12 years after I had sworn off organized religion, I sport a cross, an Aum, a sikh amulet and a thread from the dargah of Moinuddin Chishti around my neck. I still retain a lot of faith in the Western ideals within which I was educated, but now I am no longer running towards it to deny my own "Orientalism".
I think that the pull of two seemingly conflicting worlds is felt by many ex-colonial societies. It's only a few remarkable people like Mahatma Gandhi, who has been my hero since childhood, who have managed to successfully make the "twain" meet. Here was a man who was born in a small town in India, received his education in England and was on his way to living a WOG's life when circumstances turned his life and consequently the course of history forever. He reverted back to the Indian ethos to which he was born, without renouncing the Western culture that he had experienced. He is the only leader of our independence movement who had any idea of what the reality of India was all about. I don't think Nehru, Subhash Chandra Bose and others like them had any idea of the real India anymore than the white imperialists they wanted to replace. They wanted to take over the system that the British had imposed on the country, not overthrow it. Hence, they also fought it with the tactics of the West, one with democratic representations to the government of England and another with a Western styled insurgency, using an army fighting in the tradition of the West. Could they have succeeded using the weapons of teh West itself? I doubt it. This is not to disparage their courage or commitment to the cause of Indian independence but only to bring a realist's perspective. I have often heard people say that the Mahatma's non-violent methods were an impediment to progress and Netaji's militia would have freed India much sooner by exploding a few crude bombs in the jungles of Nagaland and Manipur. I somehow doubt that. But the fact is that it was the only way that Netaji could have fought the British, it was the only way his westernised mind could think of.
On the other hand, Mahatma Gandhi made India's independence inevitable by making the struggle for India's independence the struggle of the common Indian, He could do this because he truly understood this nation, the way it's people thought and had lived for centuries before. There's a beautiful scene in the movie "Gandhi" where just after the young Mohandas' return to India, he is advised by Gokhale to travel all over the country and know it's people. I think it's the most striking scene of the movie, because that was when Mohandas became the Mahatma. The reverence he and his words got was not because he was percieved to be a God-send by the people of this nation. On the contrary, he was perceived by the common masses to be one of them.
I guess that in the "nature" versus "nurture" debate, it is nurture which wins out. The environment, values and culture to which you are exposed determines a great deal of who you turn out to be. And any attempts to deny that or tamper with that lead to a lot of dissatisfaction and frustration. It's a funny thing, but many of the Al-Qaeda, including Osama Bin Laden himself, were once thoroughly Westernised young men. I think a lot of his transformation can be traced to the clash of civilizations that must have gone on inside him, trying to live a Westernized life in the most conservative country of the world and one can imagine the accompanying frustrations.
Man, have we Indians a lot to be greatful for the fact that Mohandas became the Mahatma and not an Osama.