Olympian envy

Yes, it almost certainly could not. And that is a very good thing. We should be proud. Let me explain.

What China8217;s leaders have pulled off is remarkable, but not astonishing. Beijing has been transformed, we are told, it looks a modern city now. True, but Chinese cities have always looked different from ours 8212; not as much of an achievement in a country in which hukou permits to live in urban areas have traditionally cost as much as three times the annual rural wage, and are snared in bureaucratic complexity besides. Beijing8217;s densely populated, historically significant and iconic hutongs 8212; areas featuring long, winding roads and old tenement houses with courtyards 8212; have been decimated by Games-related demolitions: almost a million and half of their residents have been turned out, many with pitiful amounts of compensation. As everywhere in China, corruption was endemic if unspoken, so it is unknown how much of the demolition was really necessary. Judging by the number of petitions to high Beijing officials complaining of dispossession by local party leaders turned property developers, nowhere near as much was necessary as was carried out.

Pause for a moment to consider what it would take to have such an event in Delhi. When even something which is as much of a non-event as the Commonwealth Games with due apology to all three people who take the Commonwealth seriously causes our city planners to break out in a sweat; when slum demolitions cause concerned members of civil society to take action; when unregularised colonies are the bread-and-butter of local politics. And the very aesthetic which we look at Beijing and admire, the walled-off poor districts, the forcibly-constructed, uneconomically distant economy housing, are precisely antithetical to a free society, one that respects individual rights, one that is modern in the truest sense. Theme parks of modernity are not worth admiring; modernity evolves, it is not copied, it is a state of mind and not an office park. Sometimes, as in the average Indian city, modernity is literally not the most pleasant prospect.

Still, further away from our old, crowded cities, there is perhaps an opportunity. If we could build a Gurgaon in a few short years, it is tempting to think that an Olympic village might be possible. But who would pay for the land? What price would the owners be paid? Would they be angry enough to raid police stations, as farmers in Noida did last week? Would the state government demand a share of revenues? Politics-as-usual in India is messy enough 8212; or, truthfully, vibrant enough 8212; that these are real questions, and one that Hu Jintao8217;s handpicked men do not have to consider. We should be thankful that their hypothetical equivalents here would be tearing their hair out in frustration.

It is, after all, not just the farmer, the city migrant, the slum-dweller that is powerless when faced with such a system. The decision to outlaw almost all private vehicle traffic thus overloading the Beijing metro demonstrates that the middle class is powerless as well. No dissent was permitted, on that issue, or on any other. The quashing of dissent is as much a part of the Olympics8217; bill in a country at China8217;s or India8217;s stage of development as fortunes paid to visionary architects.

Indeed, it is less a question of admiring the People8217;s Republic8217;s efficiency and more a question of what this envy of the Faustian bargain that their populace has made says about us. It may no longer be respectable to articulate our Indira-era wondering about dictatorship 8212; the Indira era put paid to that 8212; but perhaps the Indian middle and upper classes8217; open disdain for politicians and politics, and their quiet admiration of Singapore8217;s clean streets and China8217;s regimented preparations demonstrate that it isn8217;t as distant as we may like.

After all, we have a fairly good sense of where the Chinese are coming from. India doesn8217;t necessarily have in full measure that nation8217;s sense of historical victimisation, but we do believe that our spot on the world stage is denied us. The overwhelming reaction to Abhinav Bindra8217;s gold medal had a bit of relief in there as well: at last a billion people had produced a gold medallist. The truth is, of course, that the number of people doesn8217;t matter if the society they live in doesn8217;t privilege sport 8212; and unless they live in a rich country that prizes it, like Australia, or a poorer country using it to demand recognition, like China, they will not produce many gold medallists. Which is why we should be happy about each gold medal we win, because they will reflect genuine individual achievement, with no trace of the heavy hand of the aspirational state. Our winners will have pushed themselves, made many more difficult choices; and we will not associate with them the slight tinge of exploitation, as we do with underage gymnasts trained in a state-run system since the age of four.

So, as we recall the tremendous, awe-inspiring spectacle that was the opening ceremony, let us remember that the one thing authoritarian regimes can always do is put on a hell of a show, as Kim Jong Il and his stadiums of perfectly co-ordinated schoolchildren will tell you. We cannot know for certain, but it is possible that the Chinese people may think that reversing their age-old myth of humiliation is worth their grand Faustian bargain. We will never, perhaps, be in a position to make that sort of grand bargain, but we should always be on guard against the temptation to make, for the sake of a false modernity or the possibility of the world8217;s momentary admiration, a thousand little ones.

mihir.sharmaexpressindia.com