Indians are fi nally feeling good about themselves, says Indian author Shobhaa De

AFTER SHOBHAA DE PUBLISHED her second novel about sex and hijinks in Bollywood in 1991, Time magazine described her as “the Jackie Collins of India.” De detested the label. To bury it, the former fashion model and magazine editor wrote 12 more books, most of them nonfi ction investigations of a range of issues confronting India. De’s latest, Superstar India – From Incredible to Unstoppable, is a personal examination of her homeland’s progress on the 60th anniversary of its independence from Britain. De is a product of Mumbai, the big, bad, boomtown where poor Indians migrate to escape their pasts and forge better destinies. De is like a walking, talking, proselytizing Mumbai, representing progress, modernity – the hope for change. Those hopes have never been higher as India becomes an economic power, and De has been pointing the way forward for decades. De agreed to an email interview with POWER editor Anthony Spaeth on the importance of ideas in her fast-changing nation. It was a novel experience for the 60-year-old author: to compose her books and columns, De normally writes longhand on legal pads.

It’s a clich? that the US is a country founded on ideas, while other countries are simply geography, language and culture. How about India? What’s the power of ideas in Indian civilization?
India itself is an idea! It exists because we believe it does. India is too vast, diversifi ed and complex to be a conventional nation or eve a society. Our identity as Indians hinges on our need to belong to some sort of an identifi able entity. We feel Indian, therefore we are Indian. Our differences are far too overt and the famous (or notorious!) Indian individualism often comes in the way.

Having said that, it is equally important to see India in a historical/mythological context. It was never a united mass with a specifi c identity. No one ruler controlled what is considered India today. In a way, it was the British who “united” us. And it was Mahatma Gandhi who created a country from a cluster of loosely connected individual states controlled by Maharajahs and zamindars [feudal landowners].

The power of ideas, as interpreted by Western thinkers, is a new – even alien – concept in our ancient land. Hinduism is again about individualism – more a philosophy than an organized religion. It is about an individual seeking moksha [nirvana] rather than a society joined by a common belief. Personal salvation and self-knowledge are placed above all else. That is the key difference. In India’s case, all the conventional factors that determine nationhood become irrelevant. It was never about geography, language or even a shared culture.

Do you consider India a fundamentally religious civilization?
Spiritual, not religious. Remember 80 percent of one billion-plus Indians are Hindus. Hinduism is not an organized or revealed religion. There are no rules to be followed. The rituals have been created by Brahmins over time. Religion in this context is a personal expression of belief. But yes, spirituality dominates every aspect of our lives.

How do you think India thinks of itself in the world now? How does that contrast to when you were young?
When I was growing up, wealth was a bad word. There was a great deal of guilt attached to it. My father’s idealistic generation actually believed in socialism – believed it would work! How wrong they were. Today’s young Indian would scoff at the idea. My own generation was confused, torn between Nehruvian dreams of a more equal society and the desire to lead a hedonistic life ? la the West. No such dilemma for young India – and over 50 percent of one billion Indians are below 30 years of age. Who wants to be a millionaire? Everyone! With our economy being rated as one of the fastest growing in the world, there is defi nitely a sense of buoyancy and optimism in India at present. There is a newfound sense of aggression and assertiveness that is pretty evident in the way India is negotiating with and engaging the world. We are less eager to please, seek approval. I like that! For the fi rst time in the history of independent India, our self-worth is riding high. Indians are fi nally feeling good about themselves, their future and their role in a global scenario.

You and independent India are both 60 years old. How have the ideas that guide Indians changed in your lifetime?
Radically. Dramatically. And I fear, irrevocably. The single biggest change has been in family structure. The day the Indian woman stepped out of her home and into the workplace, everything changed. With the two-income family becoming the urban story, nearly every aspect of life as Indians had experienced it altered virtually overnight. More social change has taken place in the last two decades than in the past few centuries. The breakdown of the extended family began around 20 years ago. Today, the nuclear family is under threat. Rapid globalization has lead to a major rethink of priorities. “Lifestyle” is the new mantra.

For me, this has been the most distressing aspect of life in India. I grew up with the sort of emotional securities that a stable family provides. I did not take money for granted. But I defi nitely took my parents’ love for granted! These comforting assurances hardly exist anymore. Kids can only take money for granted. It is the one thing they count on. Money is their security blanket. I fi nd that scary and deeply disturbing.

How exactly have Indians’ ideas of money and wealth changed?
To continue the argument, money is considered sexy. Very sexy. We are watching the fi rst generation of millionaires and billionaires dealing with vast amounts of wealth. There is little difference between these guys and the feudal maharajahs of old. They have it – and they fl aunt it.

As I watch Baby Bentleys gliding into the driveways of glitzy fi ve-star hotels, and observe 20-somethings popping vintage Dom, something in me says, “Hey, wait a minute. Look around you!” I don’t mean to sound judgmental or preachy, but in a society in which the contrasts between the haves and the havenots are startling and stark, a little restraint may not be such a bad thing. Plastic rules. Debt is taken for granted. Excess is everything.

On the “Jackie Collins of India” label, I read an interview with you recently in which you said you wanted to punch that Time writer in the nose.
That’s correct.

Who was that person?
It was you. And you’re lucky we’re doing this by email, darling.