Page 278 - Education World Nov-21 Low 81.6MB

Postscript

Obfuscated eminence ridicule and contempt for being too fat, dark, thin, tall,
whatever, and advises them to glory in and celebrate their
unique identities. Excellent, incontestible advice. Who
HERE’S SOMETHING DISQUIETING ABOUT the can possibly dispute it?
increasing number of US-based NRI academics,
But wait a minute. Until recently, wasn’t Dove toilet
Ttaking leave of absence from tenured professorships soap being advertised as the magic formula for reprehen-
in American universities to play advisory roles in the Cen- sibly dark non-caucasian women to transform into lily
tral government, enjoy public adulation and exaggerated white? And wasn’t it the Indian compradors of Unilever
respect for a few years in India before they scarper back Red Devils in London and Amsterdam who had been
to tolerance and condescension abroad. advertising a faux skin-lightening potion branded Fair &
These musings are the outcome of (incomplete, aban-
doned) reading of Polic y Mak er’ s J ournal: F rom N ew Lovely for decades, which gave the world’s most beautiful,
multi-hued women a massive inferiority complex?
Delhi to W ashington DC (2021), the diary-style journal Now after inflicting huge psychological damage upon
of Dr. Kaushik Basu, a professor of economics at Cornell India’s citizenry and brain-washing them to accept florid
University, USA who served a three-year-term (2009- visages and milk-bottle legs as standards of beauty, the
2012) as chief economic advisor to the scandals-tainted hand-wringing compradors of Hindustan Unilever (who
Congress-led UPA-II government. The predominant have blacklisted this publication for consistently criticis-
takeaway from this journal is the round of dinner parties ing Fair & Lovely) have become cloyingly politically cor-
and soirees attended by Basu and spouse, their first class rect. Fair & Lovely has been re-branded Glow & Lovely,
air travel in India and abroad and the splendid lakeside and Dove and Lux have become colour neutral.
resorts and restaurants — enumerated with exemplary Clearly this belated awakening is all to the good. But a
exactitude — at which they tarried and dined at public public mea c ulp a is necessary.
expense.
The no doubt brilliant economic growth and devel-
opment advice Dr. Basu rendered the government is Expanding ice-berg
somewhat shrouded in modest obfuscation. Indeed, Basu
admits awareness that his advice wouldn’t make much HERE’S CONSIDERABLE MERIT IN THE simile
difference because despite being an atheist, he believes that official corruption is like an ice-berg. Only
that everything is pre-destined, a conviction that gives Tone-tenth of it above the surface of water is visible
him mental peace and detachment. This Calvinist belief to the naked eye. The massive dangerous body of corrup-
in predestination enabled him to smoothly mingle and tion is invisible underwater. In the circumstances, one
fraternise with the biggest names in politics, industry wonders about the sheer scale of official corruption in
and even the film world. Curiously the great coal, telecom Maharashtra, India’s second most populous (115 million)
spectrum allotment and other scandals which doomed and industrialised state accounting for 25 percent of the
the UPA-II government and paved the way for the BJP’s country’s industrial production, and Mumbai, the state’s
electoral triumph of 2014, receive scant attention. admin and India’s commercial capital, in particular.
During the past decade not a few reputed NRI aca- In recent months, three major scandals have rocked
demics — Raghuram Rajan, Arvind Panagriya, Arvind India’s most industrially and financially productive state.
Subramanian — have been imported to aid and advise In February, an SUV automobile packed with explosives
the Central government and made media headlines and was detected outside the towering 28-storey residence
attracted public accolades they will never receive in their of Mukesh Ambani, India’s wealthiest business tycoon.
adopted countries. But the nation and economy continue Investigations into the subsequent murder of the owner
to stumble from crisis to crisis. Perhaps there is some- of the SUV, unearthed the involvement of a crooked
thing to be said for predestination, after all. cop, Sachin Waze, who had been suspended from the
state police for 12 years, but was re-inducted in dramatic
Belated hand-wringing circumstances by Shiv Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray soon
after he was appointed chief minister of Maharashtra’s
tripartite (Shiv Sena, NCP and Congress) coalition gov-
OR SHEER HYPOCRISY AND TWO-FACEDNESS, ernment in 2019.
the English are hard to beat. And to all intents and The next big scandal that has erupted in Maharashtra
Fpurposes, compradors vending their goods in this involved the home minister no less, Anil Deshmukh, who
country seem to have learned their lessons well. reportedly issued a directive to Mumbai police to extort
Take for example, the latest ad campaign for Dove Rs.100 crore per month from the city’s bars and restau-
soap manufactured and marketed by Hindustan Unilever, rants. As evidence against him has mounted, he has been
the India subsidiary of the London/Amsterdam FMCG arrested by CBI. To this list, add the arrest and 29-day de-
(fast moving consumer goods) multinational Unilever plc tention of Bollywood megastar Shah Rukh Khan’s son on
(annual revenue: €50.7 billion or Rs.436,020 crore). This flimsy drug possession and running charges. The asking
trendy, politically correct ad campaign exhorts women price for the Narcotics Control Bureau chief not opposing
of India to acknowledge and celebrate their rich and bail? Rs.25 crore!
varying diversity and skin tones and refrain from taking Quite clearly in India’s most industrialised state and
“the beauty test”, i.e, ignore standards of pulchritude set commercial capital where the Shiv Sena — a corrupt enter-
by society and media and the entertainment industry. It prise ab initio — steers government, the below waterline
recounts stories of women and girls who have suffered corruption ice-berg is growing exponentially.

278 EDUCATIONWORLD NOVEMBER 2021