Pride, prejudice and Mr Shantappa

It is usually during the early part of the year that Deccan Herald announces its Changemakers – an annual fixture that honours individuals in Karnataka who have made unique contributions to the betterment of society in the state. Take, for example, Sub-Inspector Shantappa Jademmanavar, one of the 2023 Changemakers. He was cited for mentoring migrant labourers’ children in Bengaluru and setting up a public toilet facility at his expense and having a transgender person inaugurate it. When Shantappa’s mother was on travel and needed to use a restroom, there wasn’t one for miles around. Recognising this as a common problem the local government would hardly care to fix, Shantappa decided to do something about it. Through his actions, he has shown how he is different from the rest of the crowd – he crossed the invisible red lines drawn by our time-worn social, cultural and economic practices – for example, an unwillingness to recognise the existence of marginalised groups in society or being blind to our mostly non-existent public toilet facilities. To really understand the import of Shantappa’s actions, we need to know who we are as a society.

We in India are a nation of insomniacs. Almost every one of us lives in communities surrounded by physical and virtual gates that we have erected, gates that we are unwilling to cross without realising that they are also keeping us penned in. A singular obsession with being polluted by the ‘other’ keeps us awake at night. Such communities have also existed in class-conscious England, less now than in the 18th and 19th centuries, communities so wonderfully described by Charlotte Bronte, the 19th century author. In her critique of Jane Austen’s famous novel Pride and Prejudice, she writes, “a carefully fenced, highly cultivated garden, with neat borders and delicate flowers; but... no open country, no fresh air, no blue hill, no bonny beck.”

We are a nation of sleepwalkers. Irrespective of where we live, we tend to ignore the open sewers, littered pavements and broken-up streets when we step outside our cocoons to go shopping or visit someone. In contrast, we clean our homes almost daily (the actual work is done by hired help) and insist on boiling the sometimes feces-infected tap water piped into our homes to ensure it doesn’t jeopardise our health. When the Swachh Bharat campaign was inaugurated, politicians and assorted celebrities were photographed sweeping the streets. When the cameras went away, so did the brooms. We readily recognise the iconic images of Ardhanarishvara but hardly acknowledge the transgenders in our midst.

We are a nation of hypocrites. We are quick to blame white countries, especially those in the west, for rampant discrimination based on skin colour or religion but condone our own attitudes on these factors. Here is a recent example of such schizophrenia. An Indian-American friend of mine and his white Canadian wife were denied entry to the Guruvayur Temple in Kerala because they could not produce any documents to verify that they were Hindus and that such a letter would need to be obtained from the Arya Samaj. Since when in secular India do we walk around with ‘Hindu’ stamped on our arms? My friend’s letter to the Chief Minister of Kerala and the temple’s administrators seeking an explanation remains unanswered.

Whenever we walk past public toilet facilities, be they at airports or rest areas on national highways, on trains or train stations, bus stations, and even schools and colleges, our visual and olfactory senses are assaulted. Despite being made aware, public health officials rarely bother to address the problem since, as government employees, their salaries and their positions are never threatened; citizen complaints go nowhere. We have come across reports of foreign visitors taking taxi cabs to the nearest McDonalds if only to use the franchise’s acceptable toilet facilities. Certain segments of our population avoid eating at certain local eateries because they are more concerned about who did the cooking than the state of the toilet facilities. We need to recognise that our priorities are warped, the creation of smart cities notwithstanding.

Society at large pays the price when there is a preternatural instinct to cling to a caste-based authoritarian hierarchy derived from traditional, paternalistic practices. We ignore the common good by foregrounding our ingrained prejudices and fundamentally debasing any notions of equality.

When the call of nature beckons, should we seek a five-star hotel or even a three-star hotel to avail of their facilities? Even if there is one in the vicinity, will we be let in?