Why has this small, distant and cold country been featuring so largely in the Indian consciousness lately? First, Norwegian firm Telenor dumps its Indian partner Unitech following cancellation of 2G spectrum licences, and the two are now locked in what the business press describes as “the most god-awful corporate divorce”. And now, the release of two tiny Bengali tots after several months in custody by Norwegian childcare authorities has raised a political and diplomatic storm worthy of an excruciating family melodrama by Ibsen.
How often does a senior foreign ministry official fly off to a foreign capital on a save-the-children rescue mission? Or distraught grandparents from Kolkata sit in dharna outside the Norwegian embassy in Delhi with politicians of every hue offering succour? Or Telenor’s CEO firmly snub India’s Telecom Minister Kapil Sibal at the World Mobile Congress, saying, “While the minister seems to grasp the gravity of the situation, I can’t say I feel secure about solving this issue yet, and all options in India are still open.”
In rumour-riddled New Delhi, the two incidents may even be connected, with the United Progressive Alliance government facing renewed flak from its troublesome ally, Mamata Banerjee, who made the release of the children a rallying point of Bengali pride, and the aggrieved Norwegian telecom major treating it as a pressure tactic for its sorry saga of financial loss and litigation in India. But a plainer reading of the controversies indicates the icy chasm between India and a Western nation with an advanced social welfare system and the highest human development index ranking in the world.
In the eyes of both countries, the other is a weird, way-out sort of place. It isn’t exactly clear what Norway’s child welfare department found objectionable in Abhigyan and Aishwarya Bhattacharya’s upbringing by their parents — it could have been anything from feeding them daal bhaat by hand, allowing them to sleep in their beds or giving a mild slap for being wayward. All of these would be a no-no in Norway, whereas most Indian parents by rights believe in inflicting corporal punishment on children, “spare the rod and spoil the child” being a dearly held middle class mantra.
The row also blew up because the kids belonged to a middle-class family. Given India’s horrific record in cruelty to children – starving, battering and engaging them in dreadful occupations and making them beg – how many would have cared if they were slum children?
India’s complex caste and class divisions may be virtually unknown in oil-rich, egalitarian Norway, with a population one-fourth the size of Delhi and strict norms in governance, judicial accountability and law enforcement. One reason it took so long to get the kids out is because their custody falls within the purview of a fiercely independent district court. Yet Telenor finds it incomprehensible that it can’t drop its corrupt Indian partner and choose a new one without a long entanglement in Indian courtrooms.
Its lofty standards and high moral tone do not necessarily exempt Norway from being a flawed and occasionally racist society. An extreme instance was the terrorist bombing and attack unleashed last July in Oslo and a nearby island by a 33-year-old fanatic who killed more than 70 and injured many more, mostly teenagers. Anders Behring Breivik, later declared criminally insane, put on a police uniform and conducted the carnage, he said, to save Norway and Norwegians from immigrants and an Islamic takeover. Some of the views expressed in his manifesto are echoed by supporters who denounce state policy on immigrants and multiculturalism.
The return of the Bhattacharya children after a long detention may not be the result of such prejudice. But Telenor’s indignation and India’s battle to bring the kids home speak of a loud clash of cultures.