Sitars play while humanity burns

Vijay Prashad is a historian, author and the director of Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research, an inter-movement research organisation based in Buenos Aires, Johannesburg, New Delhi and São Paulo. He is also the Chief Editor of LeftWord Books and a fellow at the Independent Media Institute. As a journalist, he writes for Frontline, the Hindu, and Turkey’s BirGün. He has been associated with Himal Southasian since its inception.

Published on:

01 Mar 2001, 5:43 am

A desi entrepreneur in Silicon Valley promises an Internet gurukul—for a fee of course. Online is the assembly line of the New Age, and the Indian-NRI bourgeoisie could not be happier.

All the men are computer pro grammers, all the women are beauty queens, and some of us are humourless. So it seems in the land of Silicon India. Bill Gates says that Indians are the second smartest people on the planet, and the international consortium of beauty contests deems Indian women to be the most beautiful. Gates wants us to work in his computer monopoly, so he flatters us with technical complements. The magnates that salivate before the Indian market (the size of France, we are told eagerly) complement the Indians by saying that we too should overconsume nonsense. The H1B visa quota has been increased to 300,000 per year, to encourage more of us to apply to work as cyber-coolies. Simultaneously, Lara Dutta won the Miss Universe title (May 2000), Priyanka Chopra won the Miss World crown (November), and Diya Mirza took home the Miss Asia Pacific honours (December).

Loading content, please wait...

United States