On Delhi culture

Published : Oct 23, 2009 00:00 IST

Inside A delhi Transport Corporation bus. After Home Minister P. Chidambarams call to Delhi citizens to behave better, the media came up with a host of obnoxious traits to be encountered in the city.-RAJEEV BHATT

Inside A delhi Transport Corporation bus. After Home Minister P. Chidambarams call to Delhi citizens to behave better, the media came up with a host of obnoxious traits to be encountered in the city.-RAJEEV BHATT

NOT so long ago, Union Home Minister P. Chidambaram spoke of the need for the residents of Delhi to behave better, with the Commonwealth Games just about a year away. He specifically mentioned some of the unpleasant traits with which all those who live in or have visited Delhi are only too familiar jumping red lights, driving without licence plates, excessive honking and some others, mainly to do with the chaotic conditions of the traffic in the capital city.

The media instantly came up with a host of other obnoxious traits to be encountered in the city: urinating and spitting in the open, talking loudly and aggressively in public, shoving and pushing in crowded areas, and a host of others. To be fair, a number of these traits can be found in all Indian cities, but there are some that are more noticeable in Delhi. Chief among these are the excessive use of obscenities when conversing in public, which is usually done in a loud pitch and punctuated with shrill laughter; and aggressive behaviour in public areas and on the road, by swerving, braking suddenly or overtaking from the wrong side, or shoving and pushing in buses to get to seats, frequently seats reserved for women, and others which we are all too familiar with.

In residential areas, affluent residential areas, where there is not enough parking space, neighbours come to blows, often inflicting serious injury on one another, and in some cases even killing, just to be able to park their car in what they perceive as their parking space. There have been cases of drivers deliberately ramming into other cars because they were parked in spaces not meant for them. Fisticuffs and brutal physical violence are not uncommon in public parking areas.

Eve-teasing has become a fine art, ranging from wolf whistles and catcalls to feeling up the hapless victims, and anyone trying to stop this is beaten savagely. And in Delhi there are people who actually try to defend this.

They argue that the fault is often that of the women who wear provocative clothes. It is as if wearing some types of clothes unleashes an uncontrollable urge in men to make sexual advances, and if their attempts are thwarted their fury results in the kind of behaviour that is kindly called eve-teasing. It does not seem to occur to these apologists that one has to be some kind of an animal perpetually in heat to react in that manner when they see provocative clothes on women. But then the apologists themselves are, in all probability, not very different from these oversexed louts who swagger outside womens colleges or get into buses hoping to get a chance for a feel-up. The point is that in Delhi this is an issue that is considered suitable for debate: should women dress in a particular way, given the fact that testosterone levels in the average Delhi man is abnormally high?

Some analysts put this down to the fact that, unlike other cities, the Delhiite has not yet acquired an identity. Residents of Mumbai, Chennai, and Kolkata seem to have a discernible identity, an image. Much though one may joke about the visible evidence of distinctive traits the Kolkata citizens love affair with the roshogolla and pheesh phry and his love of that strange pastime called adda they, and other such traits add up to an identity.

This identity or image problem can be addressed through the media and other means of communication and, in theory at least, an unpleasant trait can be highlighted. The chances are that it may help in its reduction.

There is an integrity to this image of the Kolkatan, the Mumbaikar and the Chennaiite. I hesitate to add Bangalore to this list as I have little knowledge of that city. Some of this has been undoubtedly created by the media and is as fictitious as Aesops fables. But some of it is not, because in all these metropolitan cities there is an undeniable awareness that they share something in common. It is not just a language, but certain other things as well.

Chennai is very aware of its season in December, when a large number of sabhas organise a series of concerts, of vocal and instrumental music and of dance, and all artistes, aspiring and eminent, converge to perform at these sabhas. Crowds move from sabha to sabha, and many citizens of the city spend days listening to, or watching, artistes perform.

This is the kind of identity and the awareness of the identity that Delhi must have had once, before the great revolt of 1857. In his book The Last Mughal, William Dalrymple indicates that this identity was deliberately and systematically destroyed by the British once they regained control of the city. Writers, poets and artistes fled, the great families of Shahjahanabad were scattered, and in their place traders and merchants, shopkeepers and the like, were encouraged to move in. Over a few years, Delhi lost its identity, as the British had intended it to.

Its growth as the capital of independent India did not result in the emergence of a new identity. In fact, quite the opposite happened. Over the years, particularly after Partition, as the city prospered and attracted jobseekers and the impoverished from other States, it became and still is a city with large numbers from all over the country.

Bengalis came in large numbers when the capital shifted from Calcutta to Delhi, and later its economic growth brought people from other States. There is a thriving Tamil community, a growing Telugu community, a Marathi community and, of course, people from adjoining States Haryana, Punjab, Himachal Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh and Bihar.

But what seems to have happened is that they have stayed essentially community-oriented. Public intercourse has been at basic levels and developed little by way of courtesy, polite behaviour or consideration for others. One hears visitors say so very often that shopkeepers on Janpath talk to them as if they were engaged in a quarrel, whereas those who have lived in Delhi for many years know that it is merely the way they speak. They think it is perfectly normal. Those trying to be kind call their haggling colourful. Others find it intimidating, even threatening.

The point is that an essentially Delhi identity or culture, or image, has not emerged. It does not exist now, and it may well be a century before something of the kind does. Because, remember, Delhi as a metropolis has already spilled over into Haryana and Uttar Pradesh, where there are distinct and not-very-pleasant characteristics that surface even as bucolic, placid regions are changed to a mass of expressways, flyovers, slums and mushrooming buildings, all of them compounded by a shortage of water and power, and hopelessly inadequate sanitation and drainage.

It remains a city of carpetbaggers, except that carpetbaggers usually make their money and move on. Here, they make their money and stay to make more. They never see Delhi as anything other than a place where they do just that, and they give it nothing in return. The few who do stay and who are concerned about the city are incapable of doing anything except rail at all this in newspapers and journals. It has no effect whatsoever.

It has been brave of Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit to say that she will take steps to change the way people behave. She will, given her past record, certainly take steps to do so, but sadly, they will almost certainly amount to little. Simply because those whose behaviour needs changing will never identify themselves with the obnoxious characteristics one has mentioned. They will think someone else is committing nuisance in public even as they line up to urinate against the wall of a protected monument.

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