Tuesday 20 August 2013

Indians at Manchester

My recent experience with some of my fellow countrymen:

Although many Indians could not attend the conference either because they did not get visas to travel to England or because they could not manage to get financial support, nearly a third of the participants at a conference that I recently attended in Manchester were Indians. Which meant that we were very visible (in our elegant colourful sarees and long flowing hair) and audible everywhere. I tried to get introduced to a few at the reception after the inauguration, but they seemed to be not too interested -- they were more interested in catching the eye of the waiters to get themselves some more to eat and drink.


Maybe they think they should be using the chance to get to know some real foreigners, I told myself. But the following days proved me wrong. For I soon found out that most of the Indian participants had come from India in groups (let me call this set of participants the first set), and that the members of these groups circulated only amongst themselves and talked only to each other.  If not all of them all the time, at least most of them, most of the time. I was baffled, because I could not see the point of their coming so far if they were only interested in talking to each other. And some of their comments in Hindi which I happened to overhear (perhaps because they imagined I would not understand) were nothing more than plain gossip. Woh kali waiter Neena Gupta ki beti jesi lagti he, he na? 

Those who spoke English spoke in the very characteristic style of our land... nothing against that, if only they would speak sense. But there was not much of that going around from what I saw and heard. For instance, one of them complained to me that the organisers had forgotten to put the Dr. in front of her name. The other introduced himself to me as the Head of Department at some University in India. He was feeling rather triumphant at that moment because he had just been convening a panel at which Dr. X was one of the speakers. He was aghast and quite indignant when I confessed to him that I had absolutely no idea  who Dr. X was! How can you be an anthropologist working in India and not know Dr. X? he scolded me. Please do enlighten me, I requested him again. But all that I could get from him about Dr. X and his greatness was that Dr. X was married to a French woman! I was not sure what to make of all this and decided to scoot when he then, rather large heartedly, invited me to join a group  photograph with Dr. X.

And on my way back, I met the whole University department again, walking back following proper protocol (as if they were part of a University Convocation Procession) -- first the HOD then the other professors followed by the Associates and so on. But there was one of them, who walked by himself, even though he was from the same university. I did not have the heart to ask him myself but someone else did, and was told that the others didn't mix with him because he was a Dalit! That was enough... I decided that I would not take any more of that nonsense. Although I had also taken with me some nice Indian salwars and dresses, I decided to dress only in dull western clothes most of the time and to keep my interaction with the first set of Indians to the bare minimum.  

Soon I found a second set of people who also looked vaguely Indian but were mostly alone by themselves, like I was. On the rebound, I tried to get to know some of them. These were mostly academics of Indian descent (where by Indian I mean the subcontinent) who had travelled from various parts of the world to participate in the conference.  Most of them lived and worked abroad -- but most of them were working on India and I was amazed by their depth of knowledge and engagement in their chosen field area and subject. I attended some of their talks -- they were really good, and that filled my heart with pride. There were some well known names too -- super stars with some Indian connection -- Veena Das, Amita Baviskar and others, who had been invited to speak at the plenary level -- and they were as good as anyone else in the world. Some of the young Indian researchers were also very good, most of them educated either in the West or in some front-ranking university in India.

However,  those in the second set described above numbered only a handful in that sea swarming with Indians, mostly belonging to the first. I made friends with quite a few of the second set and soon we found ourselves discussing the rather unacceptable behaviour of some of the Indians in the first group. [No doubt members of the first set must have also been commenting on my bad taste in clothes and perhaps my aloofness could have also been labelled as snobbishness, but there was nothing to be done about it.] I had begun to worry about my rather strong 'allergy' towards my fellow countrymen, and it was a relief to realise that it was not just me who was having trouble coping.

The others had also seen and heard some unflattering stories. A few Indians were routinely making fools of themselves by loudly insisting on asking silly, irrelevant questions which made it amply clear that they had missed the point altogether (so much so that my heart sank every time I saw an Indian wanting to make a comment).  The majority of them however, seemed to be taking the whole conference a bit too casually, strolling in fifteen minutes late, if at all, for the plenary lectures and disrupting the proceedings,  and showing interest only in shopping, sightseeing and taking photos of each other. What is more,  a few of the men had actually started ogling young women. I got proof of that one day when one of them came up to me during a coffee break and started to chat me up;  I understood his sudden surge of interest in me and my work only when I realised that a pretty and young female researcher was also standing near me!

Just to make sure that I was not being unnecessarily biased, I did honestly try to attend at least a couple of  'Indian' panels -- these were panels which were convened by Indians on some Indian topic and in which all the paper presenters were also Indian, often friends and collaborators of the convenor.  And there were many such panels. How such panels can be accepted at a world congress in the first place is a mystery to me.   But  given that many Indians finally did not make it to Manchester, some of these large 'Indian' panels shrank drastically to just a few papers. [I was also scheduled to be presenting in one such panel, but that panel too deconstructed, of its own accord, like many of the others.]

And some panels were over before one could even arrive at the venue. Or so it seemed, for when I finally found the room where one such a panel was supposedly going on one morning, I found a whole bunch of them  sitting around the lecture room, laughing and chatting informally. The atmosphere was not one of a serious academic discussion. When I asked about the panel, they told me rather brusquely that it was over, also making it clear that I was interrupting their flow of conversation by standing at the door. I thought it best to leave them alone. But I did hear from other participants, who did attend such 'Indian' panels that either they were really poor or that well-meaning questions or suggestions coming from senior foreign academics who had worked in India for many years were more often than not met either with extreme servility (because foreigners must be right) or with aggression -- how dare you foreigners tell us what to do in our own country?

Given the huge numbers of bad papers that were presented by Indians at the conference, by the time my turn came to present my paper on the penultimate day of the conference, I had the strong feeling that the general expectation from me in my panel was quite low. But I  might well be imagining things here. But it is really hard for me to imagine what will happen if the next World Congress happens in India -- two of the three bids were from Indian institutions, so the chances of that happening cannot be ruled out. On my part, I've probably have had enough of world congresses for the moment to safely give the next one a miss.

Everything considered, it was a learning experience for me in Manchester, both in terms of my subject and in terms of getting to know my fellow countrymen a little better. But will we ever learn? 

15 comments:

  1. but it is sad :( so many things... an Ao friend of mine had come too. not sure if you met her at all.

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    1. The engineer lady, you mean? But I am still guessing who you are, please help...

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    1. Of course, I should have guessed. what a great name you have found for yourself...was your Ao friend an engineer? Wish I had met her...

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  3. Thank you for this interesting write-up on IUAES, which I must confess left me a little disheartened. The problem with this meeting(and many other international conferences) is that they have an inclusive policy, especially when it comes to academics from areas that traditionally are less well represented on the international circuit. Of course this has the potential to encourage fresh debate and bring fresh ideas, which is something that I would like to encourage, but it also has the potential to generate substandard panels. That said, I greatly enjoyed the conference and heard several wonderful papers by NRIs and resident Indians - I agree that Veena Das was outstanding in the plenary. For sure, not every panel I went to was great and much of what you said above resonates my own experience, but it is also worth pointing out that South Asians do not have a monopoly on less than stimulating sessions. I am thinking of being a bit proactive and putting together a panel for EASA 2014 that selectively blends together contributions from NRIs, resident Indians and non-Indian academics with an attachment to the region. Let me know if this is something that you might be interested in co-convening and we can kick around some ideas.

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    1. Thanks very much for the detailed comment -- yes, it would be great if one could preempt such disasters -- let's talk more over e-mail, also regarding EASA 2014.

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    2. Meenaxi, enjoyed this observation. Jonathan, I second you. It is interesting and what a coincidence that I am reading your comment here. As you will hearing from me soon about a summer school on religion that I am planning with a colleague in Germany before the 2013 ECSAS. best regards, Vibha

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  4. This is what Sanjib Baruah had to say after reading thhis blog:

    Why were you surprised? There are many Indias. Globalization brings them together in places and events that were probably unlikely a few years ago. So one has to be choosy about conferences one attends, and panels that one goes to. That's all.

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  5. This is funny in an interesting sort of way :-)
    You are right about there being many Indians, and my experiences with them were two fold. First, I felt uncomfortable with their picked-up accents, and their flashy ‘cards’ [official designations and published books]. Second, I did meet a couple or so Indians who were like me :-) on the quieter side, but of course who had done tremendous works in their chosen fields, and I did learn a lot from them.
    But rather than going to Indian panels, I was hopping from one venue to another based on the panel topics and paper topics. That’s how I landed up in the room where you were presenting your talk on the Tangsas :-) I knew how many papers were originally slotted for your panel, so was a little surprised to see it ‘deconstructed’ as you put it…
    There’s this one incident I should narrate though… I was sitting in front of the Nomad IT table waiting my turn, when one man jumped the queue, and the instant reaction this generated was, “She has been waiting for a long time. Please wait for your turn. This in not India!”.
    I will remember Manchester fondly though - heard some new things, traded stories with each other, academically I mean :-) and met some very old friends.

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    1. Thanks for your thoughts, also for reminding me about the visiting cards -- yes, they did get me too. And your experience at the computer table is very telling. Thanks for sharing.

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  6. My young friend from Sri Lanka has asked me to post her comments below:

    You know what i thought this morning about this thing about Indians. (When i say Indians it is everyone who come from the same subcontinent). What i feel is that there is something to do with the sort of personality between those who come from diasporas and those who come from the native lands. because people from diasporas have been put in the deep end of foreign societies previously and know the unspoken cultural rules about how to mix with others mainly westerners they are more open to new people and new conversations of new topics and networking. Hence their willingness to mix and get to know new people at a venue as mentioned above.

    But as how the natural human tendency goes we all like predictability of things. Naturally i feel that it was this predictability that they were inclining more towards. So they stuck to one another and only came out and spoke to those who resembled indians to them. Perhaps the limited time frame of the conference too provided to this lack of need to mingle.

    What i think is that Sri Lankans Indians Pakistanis and everyone from the subcontinent has to go a long way in terms of venturing out. Being a Sri Lankan and being educated at a Sri Lankan university too I feel that the repressive South Asian culture has a major part to play in this way of moulding of personalities including those of academics. I feel angry and helplessly sad at ourselves and our own compatriots.

    And i would love to contribute to organising a panel along these lines as Jonathan has suggested in an EASA in the coming years.

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    1. I think Jonathan is talking about an inclusive panel-- which has participants from different parts of the world. And yes we shouldn't forget the big wigs who are speaking at world anthropology congress are supposedly the sociologists from India (Baviskar and Das). Within India it self there is a massive divide between 'anthropologists' and 'sociologists'... it goes back to the historical roots of these disciplines in India. Read the book 'Anthropology in the east ' and you will get my drift.

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  7. Thank you for your observations about the forum I missed. You are describing a group of people whom you can find at any major international conference. For some people going to conferences is not a work but a touristic entertainment, a prize for one's success in administration and may-be teaching; obviously also a matter of great prestige - hence the need for thorough documentation by making photos, etc. The same tendency of gathering into ethnically and nationally determined groups I have observed among East European scholars - especially among those from Russia, Balkan and the Slavonic speaking countries, where Russian seems to be the first language of international communication. Probably it is not the shared language only but cultural background that makes it difficult to cross boundaries of communication.

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  8. This is by far the most honest account of Indians that i have read. "There are many Indias" how appropriate! In the few discussions that i have been to I have only found Indians who would rather be else where but are present because it is either an obligation or a compulsion. The type two is not so easy to come by. But when you do, it is quite a delightful day.

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