Amidst so-called civilized society

An uncommon narrative on the tribes' emotional conflict with changing reality

Presenting the lives of the members of six tribes with exquisite specificity and empathy, White as Milk and Rice places the discerning reader amid the Halakkis, Kanjars, Kurumbas, Marias, Khasis and the Konyaks. While some of these tribes are marginalized, none of them seems to be complaining, which makes you wonder if there is anything amiss in the way you have been looking at them, and by extension, at the world. Living within their traditional beliefs and distanced from supposedly “civilized society”, these tribes are oblivious of their anthropological worth.

With her ear firmly to the ground, the author Nidhi Dugar Kundalia constructs an uncommon narrative about their emotional conflict with changing reality. Today, these tribes continue to wage a silent battle for existence within their isolated pockets. In doing so, they pose existential questions: should tribes negotiate with a world that pays them no attention? Why have they not been allowed to develop along the lines of their own genius? White as Milk and Rice provides an insight into lives that an urbanite might consider less modern but can’t help but admire. This is especially so with those aspects of tribal lifestyles reflective of an organic bond with nature.

The book provides some excellent vignettes: not allowed to integrate with mainstream society, the Kanjars have persisted with their criminal lifestyle; holding sexual freedom valuable before marriage, the Marias have retained their dedicated space for conjugal experimentation; and, despite the pressures of a matrilineal society, Khasi women feel empowered by their traditional inheritance. Each story has sub-stories that reveal how livelihoods and lifestyles are negotiated. What comes out clearly is that the colorful lives of those who belong to tribes cannot be painted with one brush stroke. Indeed, their design of development varies even across households within the same tribe.

Kundalia lets characters speak for themselves and allows the reader to experience the complexity of engagements with the otherness of the “other”. You might despise the desire of the Konyak men to display animal heads as trophies of courage and strength, but it must also be known that the traditional practice of displaying human skulls has been done away with. For them, the display is about a sense of belonging and freedom inherent in such cultural practices. These beliefs challenge the reader to take a deep dive into the socio-cultural underpinnings that characterize the imperatives of tribal existence.

White as Milk and Rice is loaded with details about routines and practices. Take the Kurumbas who skillfully gather honey from hives that hang precariously on cliffs. Even while dangling between life and death, the Kurumba boy gently speaks to the hive. “Some for the forest, some for me,” he says treating the hives with almost familial care. Stories like these reflect empathy and make the reader more aware of the lives and thought processes of these people. Some tribes have no future tense in their conversation and rely on what nature has to offer on a daily basis. No wonder most tribal hamlets celebrate the end of each day as a mark of thanksgiving for the day gone by with an innate desire to welcome the next.

At a time when mankind has been pushed into forced seclusion and is plagued by shrinking resources, this book offers heart-warming narratives on connecting with the inner self and with the aspects of nature that remain bountiful.

White as Milk and Rice
by Nidhi Dugar Kundalia
Penguin, New Delhi
Extent: 244, Price: Rs. 399

First published in The Hindustan Times, on May 20, 2021.

When the Sky poured acid

Innocent people invariably bear the cost of being nature's custodians at the hands of the colonial design.

Towards the end of Imbolo Mbue’s self-professed grueling novel How Beautiful We Were, the unnamed narrator leaves the readers in a peculiar double bind as the familiar David-and-Goliath tale of tussle between a sociopathic oil company and a defiant forest community veers towards a nuanced exploration of self-interest. Capturing human predicament that germinates in the contaminated soil of such industrial crimes, Mbue delivers compelling vignette of resistance and compliance, neglect and exposure, surprise and provocation, and litigation and corruption that grinds down exploited people to lose their sense of purpose. 

Told through the perspectives of a generation that is willing to sacrifice everything for its people, Mbue allows the full range of human desirability to evolve amidst despair while seeking an answer to the moral indecisiveness that lets humans fight for the same things they all want. Like her award-winning debut Behold the Dreamers about an African immigrant struggling to become an American citizen, the story empathizes with the legal and constitutional inadequacy of people fighting for survival within their own country. 

In this world that is fast turning emotionless and timeless, a fictional place comes alive with people with emotional range unfolding disconnect between what is assumed to be going around them and what is actually happening within them. Not leaving much to chance, the story starts by presuming its own end ‘when the sky began to pour acid and rivers began to turn green, we should have known our land would soon be dead.’ Nuanced but somewhat predictable, the possibility of an inspiring defeat at the hands of an inevitable corporate victory turns out to be a familiar story on individual suffering that often gets conveniently dispensed en masse. Mbue’s rerunning the events and repeating the collective voice dilutes the impact of narration, though.  

How Beautiful We Were is about life lived closer to nature, and the cost innocent people invariably bear for being its custodians while contesting the nefarious designs of colonialism. Polemic in structure, the novel peels layers of assertive human behavior that is thrust upon people whether they like it or not. Set in a fictional village, the story is as close to reality as it gets with complexities of human nature colliding in shaded spaces of existence. Allowing her characters the full range of decency and selfishness, Mbue excels in unraveling dichotomies of existence with panache, wisdom, and courage. Such powerful novels rekindle human spirit for redemption.

How Beautiful We Were 
by Imbolo Mbue
CanonGate/Penguin RandomHouse, New Delhi 
Extent: 364, Price: Rs. 699.

First published in The Hindu, issue dated May 16, 2021.

Raging towards a new light

Whether public anger as righteous indignation gets addressed by timely policies or continues to get weaponized by populist politics as tribal energy will determine the future course of the society.  

In this world that is fast turning emotionless and timeless, a serious disconnect between what is assumed to be going around us and what is actually happening within us is intensifying the pressures on life. Anger is the undesired outcome, both at a personal as well as at the level of public. While personal and public anger manifests itself differently in the social and political spheres, there are compelling reasons for this powerful human emotion to pepper our lives without disdain. A hedge-fund manager and an economics professor engage in a series of Socratic dialogues to unravel why the vast majority is feeling increasingly uncertain, consistently unhappy and inadvertently angry despite on an upward swing on the economic ladder of unstinting capitalist growth. That we all live in an angry world is just one part of the gravest reality, the crucial other is to take a deep dive to rid ourselves of this expanding anomaly. 

Angrynomics is an emerging social phenomenon borne out of an economy of heightened uncertainty and powerlessness, as faith in the workings of both politics and markets has been undermined. Brewing anger in society is as much private as public, varying in intensity and manifestation. Whilst private anger needs counseling to calm personal anxiety and stress, public anger becomes fodder for manipulation for political ends by populist politicians. In their free-wheeling conversation, Eric Lonargan raises his concern on the political motivation of capitalizing public anger as neo-nationalism to deflect attention from failings by the leadership.‘Nationalism is a political technology that is used instrumentally by societal elites to secure their privileges’. Whether it is Trump in America, Modi in India, or Johnson in the UK. 

The dialogical approach in the book acts as a primer on why the world is the way it is today, and what can be done to make it different. Perhaps the common mistake we all make is to think that democracy is a majority rule. Conversely, majoritarian electoral systems are actually ruled by minority which not only hijacks genuine political debate but deflects the majority from the issues that really matter – rising unemployment, shrinking wages, increasing inequality, and economic stagnation. Spread over five chapters, the conversations suggest need for veering away from politically-motivated tribal instincts that obscure our judgement on being manipulated by media and politicians who are motivated by vested interests.

Lonergan and Blyth are convinced that at the core of the crises is the system of capitalism that is akin to a repeatedly crashing computer, in need of urgent rebooting. Wage stagnation, asset bubbles, excessive bank leverage, and rising inequality have already bugged the system. However, the trouble is that the political elites don’t see anything wrong with the system as they conveniently ride the populist bandwagon of nationalism. Can public anger be channelized to bring back deliberative democracy to accept new economic policy ideas? Need it be said that the quality of an idea and the chances of it being adopted by politicians are two different things.

However, in the interest of making our economics sustainable and our politics functional the co-discussants take the risk of presenting their list of policy proposals. Tougher bank regulation, a dual interest rates, and a national wealth fund (for writing everybody a cheque) are proposals for wider consideration. These are ambitious proposals to end recessions by sharing our collective capital in building household incomes, however, the chances of their adoption rest on restoring institutions of civil society that give anger a legitimacy towards collective purpose. ‘Anger can be a positive motivating political and social force’. 

More than the economic proposals, Angrynomics provides a good lens to understand the current political events in a broader context. The consequences of not resetting the system has produced deep bout of anger, which populist politics has temporarily neutralized by polarization. By failing to make fundamental changes to a political system that has become a stress generator, private and public anger has been allowed to gain momentum. Lonergan and Blyth contend that unless diffused in right earnest, anger will continue to bubble up ominously. Whether public anger as righteous indignation gets addressed by timely policies or continues to get weaponized by populist politics as tribal energy will determine the future course of the society.      

In Ellen Hopkins’ words ‘Anger is a valid emotion. It is only bad when its takes control and makes you do things you don’t want to do.’ The co-discussants argue that only through the lens of moral legitimacy can anger be seen as a positive energy towards collective response for a shared future. It is a valid proposition. Angrynomics is a timely call for course correction to address the underlying fissures and frailties in our societies. With global pandemic having ripped the world apart, nothing could be more compelling than addressing the micro stressors on top of emerging macro challenges.

Angrynomics 
by Eric Lonergan & Mark Blyth
Agenda Publishing, UK 
Extent: 194, Price: Rs. 1,691.

First published in Outlook magazine on May 2, 2021.