[Reader-list] Ram Guha on Left+Right

[shivam]

WHERE LEFT MEETS RIGHT
An irrational fear of the foreigner

Politics and Play / RamaChandra Guha



Earlier this year, I was at the Jawaharlal Nehru University in New
Delhi, where I had been asked to give an after-dinner talk to the
students. I reached ten minutes before schedule, so my hosts took me
for a coffee while the audience was being rustled up. While we drank
the coffee, at a modest open-air outlet run by Nescafé, they explained
that their forum was wholly "non-political", unlike the other,
party-affiliated groups that dotted the campus. To get a sense of
their activities I asked how often they held these meetings. Once a
month, they answered. I then asked who the previous speaker was. They
named a Marxist economist. And what did she speak on, I enquired. On
how multinational outfits such as this one should not be allowed to
contaminate the purity of the JNU campus.

I reeled back in shock. The surprise was occasioned in part by the
triviality of the topic chosen by my predecessor. I was speaking on
"The Contribution of the Congress Party to the Nurturing and Degrading
of India's Democracy", and I had thought that those who had come
before me had spoken on similarly grave — not to say boring —
subjects. But the surprise was also caused by the topic being so much
at odds with the speaker's own biography. "Why does your professor
oppose this Nescafé outlet?" I asked. "Because she feels we should
encourage indigenous initiatives," they answered. "Do you know where
her own doctoral degree is from?" I asked. They didn't know, so I
supplied the answer — the University of Cambridge. "When you next meet
your professor," I said sarcastically, "ask her one question on my
behalf — when she travels by plane to international meetings, does she
carry a south Indian filter and Coorg coffee powder with her, or does
she quietly drink the beverage offered her on the flight?"



>> The rest of it is at
http://www.telegraphindia.com/1050430/asp/opinion/story_4681311.asp


Cheers
Shivam

-- 
http://mallroad.blogspot.com