"Unity in Diversity" was
the slogan chosen when India
celebrated fifty years of
Independence in 1997, a declaration
replete with as much optimism as
pride. Stretching from the frozen
barrier of the Himalayas to the
tropical greenery of Kerala, and
from the sacred Ganges to the sands
of the Thar desert, the country's
boundaries encompass incomparable
variety. Walk the streets of any
Indian city and you'll rub shoulders
with representatives of several of
the world's great faiths, a
multitude of castes and outcastes,
fair-skinned, turbanned Punjabis and
dark-skinned Tamils. You'll also
encounter temple rituals that have
been performed since the time of the
Egyptian Pharaohs, onion-domed
mosques erected centuries before the
Taj Mahal was ever dreamt of, and
quirky echoes of the British Raj on
virtually every corner.
That so much of India's past
remains discernible today is all the
more astonishing given the pace of
change since Independence in 1947.
Spurred by the free-market reforms
of the early 1990s, the economic
revolution started by Rajiv Gandhi
has transformed the country with new
consumer goods, technologies and
ways of life. Now the land where the
Buddha lived and taught, whose
religious festivals are as old as
the rivers that sustain them, is the
second-largest producer of computer
software in the world, with its own
satellites and nuclear weapons.
However, the presence in even the
most far-flung market towns of
internet cafés and Japanese
hatchbacks has thrown into sharp
relief the problems that have
bedevilled the subcontinent since
long before it became the world's
largest secular democracy. Rooted in
the monolithic hierarchy of caste,
poverty remains a harsh fact of life
for around forty percent of India's
inhabitants. No other nation on
earth has slum settlements on the
scale of those in Delhi, Mumbai and
Calcutta, nor so many malnourished
children, uneducated women and homes
without access to clean water and
waste disposal.
Many first-time visitors find
themselves unable to see past such
glaring disparities. Others come
expecting a timeless ascetic
wonderland and are surprised to
encounter one of the most
materialistic societies on the
planet. Still more find themselves
intimidated by what may seem,
initially, an incomprehensible and
bewildering continent. But for all
its jarring juxtapositions,
intractable paradoxes and
frustrations, India remains an
utterly compelling destination.
Intricate and worn, its distinctive
patina - the stream of life in its
crowded bazaars, the ubiquitous filmi
music, the pungent melange of beedi
smoke, cooking spices, dust and cow
dung - casts a spell that few forget
from the moment they step off a
plane. Love it or hate it - and most
travellers oscillate between the two
- India will shift the way you see
the world.
