Of Opium and Fire Water

Human history is replete with colonial expansions and military conquest of one nation over another. From cathartic events in the lives of the people of those times, and turning points in the course of world affairs, these expansions or military conquests have now been reduced to mere chapters in history textbooks, to be learnt by rote and reproduced in exams.

Unfortunately, our school colleges and universities, although good in making its students learn chapters, fail in making them see the underlying lesson, the moral in those chapters. And that is precisely why history gets a chance of repeating herself.

As I observe 21st century India around me - in her youth, in her new incarnation - I cannot help but remember two murky lessons of the past. One relates to fire-water. The other to Opium.

In the early 1700s the first British colonial expansion started in the Americas. Here was a vast, untamed, untouched (by the white) continent, rich in all kinds of resources required for the Industrial revolution. But there was a small problem. The Red Indians. America would never have been conquered by the British if the fierce, battle ready Red Indians had prevailed and won. But they lost - they lost their land, their culture and their identity - and are today reduced to a minority in their own homes.

However the point here is not that the natives lost to the British. The point is the manner in which this conquest was brought about. The victory, a gradual, bloody one, was brought about more by fire-water than by gunfire.

Alcohol or firewater as the Red Indians began to call it, brought about the slow but steady destruction of the socio-economic structure of the Indian tribal system. This led to a weakening of their military might. For the British, it was a systematic twin-pronged campaign. On one hand, in the name of friendship they made drunkards out of entire nation's youth. And their armies attacked and destroyed the drunk and dazed braves on the battlefield.

The second chapter that I mention is again about the British. It could be coincidence, but I like to think of it as an encore of a tried and tested formulae.

More than a century after the British expansion into Americas, a certain trading enterprise, by the name of the East India Company, started trading operations with China. Chinese tea was in great demand in Britain. But unfortunately Britain had nothing to offer China. This was a highly sophisticated, cultured civilization that had no use of the white man or anything that he had to offer. Until someone in the British camp thought about Opium.

And then began another systematic decay of an erstwhile well-organized, mature society. Trade imbalances swung the reverse way and demand for opium far outweighed the demand for tea. Chinese youth found themselves caught in a vicious cycle. Opium brought about their economic ruin. To escape mental trauma they indulged in more opium. Finally, the British used opium itself as a pretext to put the final nail into the coffin of the Chinese nation. The Opium Wars themselves are well documented in history.

In both these incidents, there are certain distinctly similar traits. A highly advanced, industrial, capitalist society, driven by its socio-economic urge for higher profits and larger markets or resources, approaches a society that is industrially less advanced but socio-economically mature and independent.

A full fledged armed conflict at the first instance is avoided. Rather the aggressor resorts to subversive ways of weakening the foundations of the society - by intoxicating (decapitating) the youth or making the society economically weak or unbalanced through artificial means.
For a long time, the incumbent society is not aware of the big picture. People react in knee jerk ways, lacking long term vision and trying to escape from the situation. There is both a lack of coordinated efforts and a willingness to take up responsible decisive actions for the entire society. By the time this subversion is uncovered and the aggressed society cries foul it is too late. Its youth are caught in a mire of apathy and intoxication. The social structure is crumbling. A small extra nudge from outside and the entire nation falls in front of the aggressors like a house of cards.

I know your are wondering by now that we are neither Red Indians nor Chinese. We have intoxication and drug addiction but neither is as widespread. We live in a much equitable world order where no nation aggresses another nation just like that - unless it is in the middle-east or is Afghanistan or Libya, Sudan. Then too, colonialism as such is a word of the past. And finally, India is an emerging economic superpower and our youth are anything but intoxicated on a mass scale like the red-Indians or the Chinese.

But this is not about opium or alcohol intoxication. Wish it were that simple. Then it would be much easier to fight. But this is much more subtle. So subtle that even though I can feel this aggression, I cannot identify the aggressor, cannot point out the subversion or the modus operandi.

I only see the symptoms - the early signs of the oncoming disease. A growing apathy of the youth for anything other than concerning themselves, an increasing desire to escape from the present, absolute unwillingness to confront issues, an inability to see the long term, lack of compassion for the society and vision.

I conclude by putting things into context. I live in Pune – christened as the Oxford of the East. A student city – its economy and social-ecosystem dictated by the youth. Pune is alive, happening, culturally active, politically aware. Or is it? I am trying hard to belive it is. I look around for symptoms of life.

In the pubs and bars of pune, amidst loud music and partying, I strain hard to hear someone planning something for the street children of the city. In the posh multiplexes I look hard for young boys and girls gathering to spread social awareness on AIDS. On college campuses and canteens I try to eavesdrop on discussions on trying out radical and brave new ideas or new technology.

But I hear nothing. The words that I am trying to hear, the ideas that I am trying to listen to, the awareness campaigns, students movements, cultural activities, that I am dying to see, are not there. In there stead is just plain apathy, mental languor and a desire to escape to reality by any means. It just reminds me of opium and fire-water. And I fear that history is about to repeat herself – albeit in a completely new way.