The latest offering from India’s best known psychoanalyst and co-authored by his anthropologist-academician spouse, has an ambitious sub-title— ‘Portrait of a People’.

There are inputs from mythology, anthropology, literature, history, linguistics, sociology, religious scriptures, and of course, the all pervasive field of psychology, which the Kakars cogently link up to give us a reasonably fair and near complete picture of today’s Indian.

The depiction focuses largely on one prototype: the upper and middle caste (though not class) Hindu whose ilk form a sizable fraction of the country’s population. Many of the descriptions of family life and hierarchies as well as psychological tendencies and constitution could however, apply to most Indians irrespective of religion and location within this large country.

Considered in detail are— the hierarchical man, the inner experience of caste, Indian womanhood, sexuality, health and healing, religious and spiritual life and the tour-de-force of the volume, the Indian psyche. A seemingly idiosyncratic intrusion is a chapter on Hindu-Muslim discord, which might seem out of place in a portrait. However, this particular area of conflict is of such import in the shaping of most Hindus’ and Mohammedans’ mental make-up that I would accord it the place the authors have chosen to give it.

In India, family life is still a sacrosanct realm that the West largely pays lip-service to. The Kakars concentrate quite pointedly on this aspect through the various chapters. The role of the still dominant male in an overwhelmingly patriarchal society is changing. Many urban middle class fathers now participate in parenting with much greater psychological sensitivity to the child’s needs, rather than expecting and demanding traditional respect as was their wont.

Women often have to continue to be self-effacing even when they espouse the trappings of modernity. The stereotype of the cruel mother-in-law who covertly and overtly harasses the new, young daughter-in-law is analysed. The mother-in-law, it is contended, is but an agent of the family, working to ensure that the young groom does not abandon his role as a dutiful son, brother, nephew and so forth, ensnared as he might become by conjugal affection.

Fantasy and reality
Idealised romance in the mind of the average Indian female seldom finds fulfilment. The discrepancy between fantasy and reality cannot squarely be blamed on the ‘other’ gender, but the deeply woven importance of tradition that seldom sets great store by romantic love.

This would seem paradoxical in the land of ‘Kama Sutra’. This classic, the authors quote at length, to justify their averment that it is not merely a manual on erotic coupling, but a treatise on romantic love that also has its strictures, for example, against adultery.

Modern Indian sexuality is not given the detailed discussion it merits, especially in the light of prolific research in the past decade and a half. The authors’ observation, that sexuality as a subject is still an area of darkness in large tracts through the country, especially the rural quarter, is unfortunately still valid. Alternative sexuality, as the authors observe, is still cloaked in subterfuge except in some metropolitan domains.

Caste prejudice and the inner experience of the caste one is born into constitute quite a substantial influence on the average Indian’s way of thinking. The authors rate caste as second only to family as a determinant of identity. Caste prejudices are eroding, but at a tardy pace except in the ultra urban parts of India.

Concepts of dirt and contamination are sometimes deep-rooted and shape both, internalised self-perception of superiority, as well as of unattainable liberation, among different segments. Scant attention is paid, however, to the filth that is so common across the country. As the authors quote, “India is a dirty country of clean people.” 
Great emphasis has been placed on Ayurveda in the chapter on ‘Health and Healing’. This may seem unjustifiable as this indigenous system of healing is hardly the favourite of most Indians today. The Kakars contextualize this idiosyncratic focus skillfully. They expatiate on how the Indian thinks in simplistic terms that are more akin to any humoral system (including Ayurveda) than the technologically savvy modern biomedicine that finds greater favour with Indians. Indians, like anyone else, do want to live long, but on the whole, the widely accepted notion of punarjanma (re-incarnation) makes them far more stoic about death.

Sense and sensibility
Religious attitudes vary between the rigid— typified by the nationalist Hindu who veers towards fundamentalism— and the flexible. The rigid have continuously to battle between accommodating the flexible and drawing boundaries that disallow transgressions into permissiveness. Thus we have the outrage at the Richard Gere/Shilpa Shetty public osculation, which the visiting actor squarely blamed on the right wing, even as he apologised for offending local sensibilities.
The Indians details the spiritual quest for moksha (transcendent salvation) and the innate notions of dharma and karma. Modern gurus and the cults they have engendered are discussed. Famous Indian fetishes: mother fixation, fondness for a fair complexion and the ‘Paradise Lost’ lamentation over the slowly fragmenting joint family system, are all duly considered. The notorious national attribute of hypocrisy is recognised but no remedies are suggested, nor should they be in a portrait.

Surprising to me was the almost total absence of any reference to earlier portraits; Nirad Choudhari gets a passing nod, but Pavan Verma (The Great Indian Middle Class, Being Indian) is not even mentioned. Neither is Arun Shourie, Naipaul or Radhakrishnan. The most quoted author is Kakar himself, and the most mentioned Indian— Gandhi.
India’s morbid cricket mania is not given any reflection; nor is the national craving for personality cults across various fields. I would also have liked the scholarly authors to consider the diversity of local talents such as the Bengali predilection for things arty and the western Indian (Gujarati, Marwari, and Sindhi) mercantile prowess.
A character in Marquez says, “To the Europeans, South America is a man with a moustache, a guitar and a gun… they don’t understand the problem.” This incisive book defies such bigotry and succeeds in great measure in understanding and explaining the Indian character.

BOOK REVIEW:
The Indians: Portrait of a People
Kakar, Sudhir & Kakar, Katharina
Penguin/Viking India, New Delhi
Pp 226 Price Rs 395/-