The Brown Man's Burden

Just before the end of the ninteenth century, Rudyard Kipling penned a poem which is much lesser known than his legendary "If". This poem, originally intended to celebrate 75 years of the Victorian era, is titled "The White Man's Burden". In that insightful piece, Kipling laid bare the natural calling of the white race, to explore the world and to rule the lesser races, at the cost of its own peace and inner sanctum. Most critics of that age and this, rate that piece as a shining example of Kipling's disdain for all other races, even though he was born in dusty India. The legendary author carried that stigma with him even after he had gone back to the dust that he came from.

Ironically, just a little over a hundred years later, there's apparently a little storm raging in the teacup called Mumbai (most storms rage there nowadays). Nay! This storm has not been stirred by any Sena or any Khan, but by the ghost of Mr Kipling himself. The powers that be are toying with the idea of making a musem out of Kipling's infantile residence where he stayed till he was six. Some critics have panned this project, while some are considering it to be the final pardoning of Kipling by our magnanimous country.

But why am I telling you about something that you can read in a newspaper anyway?

The answer to that lies in the very phrase "The White Man's Burden". This phrase was the unspoken, redeeming motto of every imperialist that sailed out of Europe. The Portuguese, The French, the Spaniards, the Dutch and ofcourse, our favourite - the British, carried with them the innate sense of pride in bearing The White Man's Guilt. Thousands of them took on the stormy oceans and unknown worlds over hundreds of years in search of gold and greatness. Many of them had a one-way ticket to faraway lands, dying on the way from scurvy, pirates or mutiny. Many reached safe shores, but perished in battling hostile indigenous people. But those who survived and flourished on alien shores made the world smaller in countless ways. They went with the fear of falling off the face of the flat Earth, and collectively raised the flag of human adventure to a height where the benefits of modernisation and science benefited the rest of mankind. They sincerely believed that since they had the advantage of inventions and clever ideas on their side, it was their moral obligation to rule the savages, at the cost of their freedom and happiness.

No, this is not even an anthem to imperialism.

Today, on India's festival of colours, I would like to pay a tribute to the current tide that flows through each ocean - The Brown Man's Burden.

We, who come from the loins of the Indian landmass, are everywhere. Like unstoppable bullets, we have left the shores of the sub-continent and spread to every nook and cranny of the world. It's true that it started with pseudo-slaves being shipped off to the Caribbean and Africa. But in the twentieth century, it was the teeming mass of ambitious young men and women who went off out of their own volition. In just within a few decades, we have crossed all borders possible and been drenched in the rain from every sky on this planet. A survey last year revealed that there are registered Persons of Indian Origin (PIOs) in every inhabited nation in the world, including North Korea and Iceland.

Why is this significant?

There are three loads that have made us the new Atlas of the world, bearing the burden of this era.

The first load in the burden is the fact that we are the only civilisation that has a claim to ancient cultures and development, and which is now at the pinnacle of human advancement. The Incans vanished, the Mayans never got out of the central American jungles, the Egyptians went back to the shores of the Niles, the Romans and the Greeks fought so many wars that they eventually imploded, and the modern-day imperialists shut their shops and sailed back to their homes around the Prime Meridian. This leaves the Chinese, stuck in their stubborn view of Communism as the road to salvation and with a stranglehold on the world economy through a bullish grip on the throat of American consumerism. Inspite of their millions who struggle to make everything from mittens to motors, they will reach a bursting point in our lifetimes where their yoke on the world trade will become a flat curve. On the other hand, inspite of our own inner turmoil, we promote the equilibrium of a scientific temper and the chutzpah of capitalism in everything that we do. Whether I am a businessman in Guyana or a construction worker in Kuala Lumpur, a Nobel candidate in the US or a surgeon amputating limbs in Sierra Leone, this brown brain trains its grey cells to overcome its natural laziness and do better every single day.

Secondly, unlike our colonial predecessors, we are a peace-loving and a patient herd predominantly. Whether it has been inbuilt into our genes through years of being in the most difficult situations, is a theory up for debate. But the truth remains that we possess the capacity to laugh at every ourselves and at every bad card dealt to us. We may get beaten in Melbourne, but we will still continue to treat every Australian in India as an esteemed guest. We carry an unofficial burden of being the ambassador of "anything goes" throughout the world. Many of us cringe when we see our fellow countrymen behaving like idiots, but that still does not diminish the pride within us. What are we so proud of? Our uniquness, or our strangeness? The fact that we are still the flagbearer of mysticism in the world, or the fact that our collective IQ is higher than most races? Or the fact that most of us have infinite love for our parents, even when they are wrong? Or the fact that an India tabla player went to Afghanistan to perform and got blown to bits, when he had no real need to do so? Or the sight of multi-coloured faces on one day in spring every year when all virtual boundaries in life disappear in a country that is itself filled with racists? With a million questions, we doubt our own pride, and hear a hollow sound when we tap it. But it still continues to live, and that conflict is the burden.

The burden is complete with the third load - our own yearning to beat the adventurers at their own game. With millions inadequately fed and clothed, we are engaged in a race with our Chinese neighbours to reach the Moon, now that it's open for all. None of those imperialists achieved that, so there you go! The former USSR is dead, and even if the Americans wiggle their way out of their own problems now to refocus on the Moon, we would be having our fingers dirty in their pie as well. We will not rest in peace until we set foot on that soil.

This burden never let the white man rest in peace, and thus is the same story with us. We may think that we have crossed all limits of human glory, but for every one of us that is a tiny piece in this giant puzzle, the box is not yet quite ticked.

Either we carry this burden to Eternity, or we call it a day and hand it over to someone else. Who could that be?