Sunanda K Datta Ray: The power of money

WHERE MONEY TALKS

Reading about grand Delhi weddings recalls the controversy triggered off in Britain by Prince Charles's outspoken comments on class and culture.

Unlike his great great grandfather, Edward VII, who famously joked, "We are all socialists nowadays", the heir to the British throne blames "social utopianism" for maladjustments that are often reflected in vulgar ostentation.

What the prince said boils down to deploring the power of money at the expense of values. "Too often, much of the discussion focuses exclusively in terms of costs and benefits to the economy, as if human beings really ought to become better robots" he told an annual conference in Birmingham of the Association of Colleges.

People, including Britain's education secretary, Charles Clarke, took him roundly to task for daring to be so forthright. They said he was old-fashioned and blinkered by the privilege to which he was born, but I can understand his objection to treadmill education that imparts no learning.

My friends in Calcutta, especially the more prosperous business types, were aghast when my son enrolled at London's School of Oriental and African Studies for his first degree in History.

"What's he going to do afterwards?" they asked. "Teach?" one sneered in dripping scorn. Another "" a doctor who is far better known for his commercial acumen than his medical proficiency or ethics "" suggested that the only career open to a History graduate would be to "become a pen-pusher like his father."

Two replies were immediately forthcoming when I asked in turn what the boy should have done, both sounding like forceful versions of the British education secretary who thinks education for its own sake is "a bit dodgy".

They would not have sent their sons to Britain at all, they said, for Britain was played out. The United States was the land of hope and glory, the country of the future. Once there, he should have gone in for computer studies. The world would then have been his for the taking.

It is curious that Indians who are bitterly critical of American foreign policy and even values and lifestyle see no contradiction in seeking a fortune for themselves and their offspring in the US.

I have known Indian diplomats who make abrasive speeches about the US and then beg, plead, connive and conspire to extend their postings in Washington or New York long enough so that a son or daughter qualifies for a green card.

That obsession is not so far removed from the theme of this column because the denigration of History and of Britain and the yearning for computers and the US only confirm the high premium our supposedly spiritual society places on material success.

Prince Charles's observations on the purpose of education and the quality of life would have prompted more bewilderment than hostility in India.

It is different in the land over which his mother reigns because even Tony Blair's Cool Britannia is a hierarchically elitist society. Everybody knows his place (more or less) and however important money might be, it is not the only criterion of status. Birth, school, accent and connections count for just as much.

It's the oddball non-conformists who worry the prince. "What is wrong with everyone nowadays?" he asks. "Why do they all seem to think they are qualified to do things far beyond their technical capabilities?"

And again, "People think they can all be pop stars, High Court judges, brilliant TV personalities or infinitely more competent heads of state without putting in the necessary work or having natural abilities."

He blames social utopianism for spreading the illusion that "humanity can be genetically and socially engineered to contradict the lessons of history".

His lament would be incomprehensible here because political democracy and the modernising process have swept away so many traditional anchors that held society in place. Caste has not been replaced by class. Community and clan are fading concepts. Poverty rules out discernment and discrimination.

A student with ability but not means, for instance, will grab any entree to a university, regardless of preference. Universities exist only to issue meal tickets. Jobs are a means of livelihood, not a way of improving productivity. The absence of hierarchy means a free-for-all that goes far beyond a meritocracy.

Above all, erosion of the past magnifies the importance of money as the principal, if not only, social determinant. I am not necessarily extolling either the bandit chiefs who ruled the roost before the British came, or the bureaucrats who comprised India's colonial elite.

But only the absence of a conventional hierarchy allows here-today-gone-tomorrow sportsmen, film personalities and politicians to lap up a gullible public's adulation. As in all arriviste societies, the emphasis is on who can create the most dazzling spectacle.

Hence, the Rs 10,000-crore wedding industry with giraffes and Zulu dancers, exotic imported orchids and stellar guests, described in Ayswaria Venugopal's report in The Telegraph.

With Calcutta's Victoria Memorial appropriated for one wedding bash, ambitious parents might be casting covetous eyes on the Red Fort.

One-upmanship being the name of the game, my wife and I were told when we walked into a dinner party once that we were unashamed second rankers. First rankers had been flown to Lucknow for a wedding, and ashamed second rankers had stayed at home rather than broadcast the absence of an invitation to Lucknow.

Money creates such distortions. Education does not create money and money does not breed style. But money also pays for flamboyance. What other advertisement does success need?