D. N. Bezboruah
The word brand as verb has connotations that have always been deemed rather uncomplimentary in English. One is branded as criminal or traitor or philanderer or heretic - never anything complimentary. Cattle are branded on their behinds with red-hot branding irons just as prisoners used to be branded long long ago. All said and done, the associations with branding are ones that people would rather do without. Given this cultural and semantic backdrop, it is indeed ironical that people should be going out of their way to brand themselves in the 21st century — all for the benefit of multi-national companies (MNCs) that one has never set eyes on. Those in India who are so feverishly busy branding themselves often give the impression of getting themselves all worked up for a wrong cause. Is it possible that many who are so obsessed with brand labels imagine that they are the noble warriors of globalization? Well, globalization is certainly not an unmixed blessing, and there are many good reasons for countries like India to be wary of this First World gimmick. But then hasn’t India always evinced a knack for picking up the worst things from the West? We were ruled by the British for about two centuries. Did we learn their punctuality or their meticulous sense of order in their official work? Did we learn from them how to build up archives for posterity? Did we learn from
how to make the most of postings in out-of-the-way places to undertake research on the esoteric? Has a single officer of the IAS ever thought of the opportunities of working on the language or culture of different ethnic groups that postings in remote areas provide? Why has the IAS failed to produce one single officer capable of taking on the kind of monumental work that Grierson of the ICS did in an age when there were no computers? He produced the 14-volume Linguistic Survey of India. What did many Indians who rubbed shoulders with the British learn from them? They learnt the ways of Bacchus. They learnt how to drink. They learnt that the correct way to wear a waistcoat was to leave the lowermost button out of the buttonhole (probably because most of the British officers they emulated on matters sartorial were a bit too plump to be able to fasten all the buttons). But even with half-a-dozen watches, some of them never learned to be punctual. Today we have ministers and political leaders who believe that it is part of their privilege to keep hundreds of people waiting for them while they are over an hour late for their meeting. And now, some people in India are trying to learn very assiduously how to be good, conspicuous consumers in a way that will help the multinationals and serve the cause of mindless globalization that is already pushing hundreds of thousands of Indian farmers to commit suicide. They are learning the art of branding themselves.
This branding game is very different. In the first place, no red-hot branding irons are involved, and therefore, there is no physical pain. In fact, since this process of branding oneself involves frenzied shopping and ephemeral acquisitions all the time, there is only the pleasure of the gourmand. It is sheer enjoyment from start to finish unless, of course, the better half is doing all the buying and the dutiful spouse is doing the less pleasurable things like paying all the bills and carrying all the shopping bags.
We are not talking of such situations. We are talking of a situation where the man of the house has all the money in the world (hard-earned, soft- earned or just ill-gotten) and the malls and supermarkets are doing everything possible to lure him into the gaudy spider’s web. But there is no need to feel sorry for the fly that has fallen into the spider’s web. He hasn’t got there by accident. He is there on his own volition. He is there because he wanted to be there. He is there because he has equipped himself to be there with all the cash he may need to indulge himself and a few credit cards for good measure. And having got there, he is not buying what he and his family really need. He is out there to buy status symbols in the form of the right brands and labels. With his limited experience of supermarkets and shopping malls and his even more limited exposure to new brands and labels, how does he know what to buy? The task is easier than it seems. The first source of information is advertisements in the expensive glossies that are out of reach of the hoi polloi. Another clear indicator is the price tag. If one is paying more than what seems reasonable for something, the very ability to splurge is a status symbol. One only has to let one’s friends and relatives know how much one paid. People are always impressed by the fact that someone does not have to count his pennies and gets himself what he wants, even though it is often with someone else’s money or with public money neatly siphoned. The other way of getting to know the right labels and brands to acquire is by living up with the Joneses. One just buys what one’s peers are buying, be it cars, refrigerators, air-conditioners, washing machines, music systems, garments, sun glasses, cosmetics et cetera et cetera. That is good enough insurance that one is at least not out of fashion.
This is precisely what a sizeable majority of well-heeled Indians of at least two successive generations have been doing almost synchronously. For many of them, there is no worthwhile mode of living other than this conspicuous quest for labels and brand names. They have no use for studies, none for value systems or all that claptrap about service to one’s fellow beings. Service to anyone else involves tyaag of one kind or another. But that is downright Gandhian - quite passé. The credo of the day is bhog - enjoyment of everything in every form imaginable. So the two generations are busy serving themselves. Quite unwittingly many of them are serving the MNCs that produce all the wonderful stuff they buy at such great expense in a way to suggest that nothing worthwhile is ever made in this country called India except what is manufactured by franchise for some major multinational manufacturer. They are the real advertisers of the brands they wear, ride or carry. They have unwittingly branded themselves mindlessly in the cause of multinationals, globalization and the annihilation of everything that is Indian, down to corn flakes. They have branded themselves as the unpaid brokers of multinationals and mindless globalization. They have nothing noteworthy by which they can be known except the labels and brands they display.
Not surprisingly, the branded ones of the two generations who are unsure of themselves, who have given up their own language to stick only to the language of our former British rulers, who have given up reading and learning, who have inculcated in their progeny a disrespect for books and reading are also the ones who have no use for our age-old value systems. You will find among them the motorcycle rider always in a tearing hurry who knocks down an old man or a child crossing the street and does not stop. He is only thinking of his own miserable skin. You will find in this lot those who are not concerned about what will happen to the land of their birth, as long as they have managed to buy real estate outside their State. If anything, they will think up smarter ways of getting more for what is being sold - their home State. They are also the ones who are likely to break the laws of the land at the first available opportunity and to seek political intervention when they are facing a night in the police lock-up. They are the lot that have no respect for anything but themselves and the labels and brands they have acquired. They are an arrogant and self-seeking lot who have given themselves the punishment they deserved. They have branded themselves in an age when branding of animals is on its way out.
By contrast, there is another lot from the same generations who would like to stand by their country and what India produces. Give me any day the humble devotee of swadeshi who sticks to Indian labels and brands from cars to toothpaste. He buys imported stuff only when what he needs is not made in India. Things he has banned in his household are fizz drinks and potato chips made in India under foreign licence that drain a substantial amount of foreign exchange. He has banned them from his house also because they are downright harmful for children. He is proud of his own country and has no qualms about proclaiming his patriotism. He is not branding himself for multinationals. He is branding himself as a proud Indian. And there are so many of his ilk in Andhra Pradesh, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Maharashtra and Gujarat. They are also the ones who have upheld all the worthwhile values that will keep this country going. There is a time to salute the humble and the unfashionable ones who have faith in themselves and their country. That time is now. THE SENTINEL
The word brand as verb has connotations that have always been deemed rather uncomplimentary in English. One is branded as criminal or traitor or philanderer or heretic - never anything complimentary. Cattle are branded on their behinds with red-hot branding irons just as prisoners used to be branded long long ago. All said and done, the associations with branding are ones that people would rather do without. Given this cultural and semantic backdrop, it is indeed ironical that people should be going out of their way to brand themselves in the 21st century — all for the benefit of multi-national companies (MNCs) that one has never set eyes on. Those in India who are so feverishly busy branding themselves often give the impression of getting themselves all worked up for a wrong cause. Is it possible that many who are so obsessed with brand labels imagine that they are the noble warriors of globalization? Well, globalization is certainly not an unmixed blessing, and there are many good reasons for countries like India to be wary of this First World gimmick. But then hasn’t India always evinced a knack for picking up the worst things from the West? We were ruled by the British for about two centuries. Did we learn their punctuality or their meticulous sense of order in their official work? Did we learn from them how to build up archives for posterity? Did we learn from
how to make the most of postings in out-of-the-way places to undertake research on the esoteric? Has a single officer of the IAS ever thought of the opportunities of working on the language or culture of different ethnic groups that postings in remote areas provide? Why has the IAS failed to produce one single officer capable of taking on the kind of monumental work that Grierson of the ICS did in an age when there were no computers? He produced the 14-volume Linguistic Survey of India. What did many Indians who rubbed shoulders with the British learn from them? They learnt the ways of Bacchus. They learnt how to drink. They learnt that the correct way to wear a waistcoat was to leave the lowermost button out of the buttonhole (probably because most of the British officers they emulated on matters sartorial were a bit too plump to be able to fasten all the buttons). But even with half-a-dozen watches, some of them never learned to be punctual. Today we have ministers and political leaders who believe that it is part of their privilege to keep hundreds of people waiting for them while they are over an hour late for their meeting. And now, some people in India are trying to learn very assiduously how to be good, conspicuous consumers in a way that will help the multinationals and serve the cause of mindless globalization that is already pushing hundreds of thousands of Indian farmers to commit suicide. They are learning the art of branding themselves.
This branding game is very different. In the first place, no red-hot branding irons are involved, and therefore, there is no physical pain. In fact, since this process of branding oneself involves frenzied shopping and ephemeral acquisitions all the time, there is only the pleasure of the gourmand. It is sheer enjoyment from start to finish unless, of course, the better half is doing all the buying and the dutiful spouse is doing the less pleasurable things like paying all the bills and carrying all the shopping bags.
We are not talking of such situations. We are talking of a situation where the man of the house has all the money in the world (hard-earned, soft- earned or just ill-gotten) and the malls and supermarkets are doing everything possible to lure him into the gaudy spider’s web. But there is no need to feel sorry for the fly that has fallen into the spider’s web. He hasn’t got there by accident. He is there on his own volition. He is there because he wanted to be there. He is there because he has equipped himself to be there with all the cash he may need to indulge himself and a few credit cards for good measure. And having got there, he is not buying what he and his family really need. He is out there to buy status symbols in the form of the right brands and labels. With his limited experience of supermarkets and shopping malls and his even more limited exposure to new brands and labels, how does he know what to buy? The task is easier than it seems. The first source of information is advertisements in the expensive glossies that are out of reach of the hoi polloi. Another clear indicator is the price tag. If one is paying more than what seems reasonable for something, the very ability to splurge is a status symbol. One only has to let one’s friends and relatives know how much one paid. People are always impressed by the fact that someone does not have to count his pennies and gets himself what he wants, even though it is often with someone else’s money or with public money neatly siphoned. The other way of getting to know the right labels and brands to acquire is by living up with the Joneses. One just buys what one’s peers are buying, be it cars, refrigerators, air-conditioners, washing machines, music systems, garments, sun glasses, cosmetics et cetera et cetera. That is good enough insurance that one is at least not out of fashion.
This is precisely what a sizeable majority of well-heeled Indians of at least two successive generations have been doing almost synchronously. For many of them, there is no worthwhile mode of living other than this conspicuous quest for labels and brand names. They have no use for studies, none for value systems or all that claptrap about service to one’s fellow beings. Service to anyone else involves tyaag of one kind or another. But that is downright Gandhian - quite passé. The credo of the day is bhog - enjoyment of everything in every form imaginable. So the two generations are busy serving themselves. Quite unwittingly many of them are serving the MNCs that produce all the wonderful stuff they buy at such great expense in a way to suggest that nothing worthwhile is ever made in this country called India except what is manufactured by franchise for some major multinational manufacturer. They are the real advertisers of the brands they wear, ride or carry. They have unwittingly branded themselves mindlessly in the cause of multinationals, globalization and the annihilation of everything that is Indian, down to corn flakes. They have branded themselves as the unpaid brokers of multinationals and mindless globalization. They have nothing noteworthy by which they can be known except the labels and brands they display.
Not surprisingly, the branded ones of the two generations who are unsure of themselves, who have given up their own language to stick only to the language of our former British rulers, who have given up reading and learning, who have inculcated in their progeny a disrespect for books and reading are also the ones who have no use for our age-old value systems. You will find among them the motorcycle rider always in a tearing hurry who knocks down an old man or a child crossing the street and does not stop. He is only thinking of his own miserable skin. You will find in this lot those who are not concerned about what will happen to the land of their birth, as long as they have managed to buy real estate outside their State. If anything, they will think up smarter ways of getting more for what is being sold - their home State. They are also the ones who are likely to break the laws of the land at the first available opportunity and to seek political intervention when they are facing a night in the police lock-up. They are the lot that have no respect for anything but themselves and the labels and brands they have acquired. They are an arrogant and self-seeking lot who have given themselves the punishment they deserved. They have branded themselves in an age when branding of animals is on its way out.
By contrast, there is another lot from the same generations who would like to stand by their country and what India produces. Give me any day the humble devotee of swadeshi who sticks to Indian labels and brands from cars to toothpaste. He buys imported stuff only when what he needs is not made in India. Things he has banned in his household are fizz drinks and potato chips made in India under foreign licence that drain a substantial amount of foreign exchange. He has banned them from his house also because they are downright harmful for children. He is proud of his own country and has no qualms about proclaiming his patriotism. He is not branding himself for multinationals. He is branding himself as a proud Indian. And there are so many of his ilk in Andhra Pradesh, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Maharashtra and Gujarat. They are also the ones who have upheld all the worthwhile values that will keep this country going. There is a time to salute the humble and the unfashionable ones who have faith in themselves and their country. That time is now. THE SENTINEL
No comments:
Post a Comment