If you still have the appetite…another review of ‘India in 2010′

Pushed by recent posts on my favourite blogs and hashtags on my twitter timeline, I finally decided to pen down the year end review for 2010. Year end reviews are a great way to categorize people: one category of people are vigilant throughout the year to read and record ‘important’ events, people in the second category are simply smart enough to read the reviews while drafting ‘happy new year’ mails for friends and colleagues. There is also a third category, people like me who were not vigilant enough but feel compelled to write the review because they desire to follow the conventions of the blogging community. This review focuses on events in India during 2010 that surprised, shocked and impressed me (a convenient way to appear smart yet conceal my lack of knowledge about ‘important’ events across the globe).

This post is written with the assumption that the readers have already read more informed reviews and thus explanatory notes on events/people are avoided.

1. Greatest Disappointment of 2010: I am not friends with Niira Radia, Barkha Dutt and Vir Shanghvi. And I think presence of Dutt and Sanghvi on my twitter list makes me a ‘follower’ and not a friend.
2. Most Enjoyable Read of 2010: Rohinton Mistry’s Such a Long Journey. I confess that the book appeared on my reading list only after Mumbai University removed it from the English course syllabus for containing controversial reference to Shiv Sena.
3. One man’s hero is another man’s villain: Arundhati Roy and Binayak Sen have felt me totally confused. If you support them you are anti-national or left leaning and if you oppose them you are an elitist who has no knowledge of ‘real’ India.
4. My ‘faith’ has been upheld by the Judiciary: The Allahabad High Court succeeded where my parents had failed. The Court ‘found evidence’ that the central dome in the disputed Ayodhya temple complex was the birthplace of Lord Ram. Perhaps referring to Lord Ram as a mythological figure may now constitute contempt of court.
5. I am a ‘Brahmin Indian’: The Unique Identification (U.I.D.) program is an attempt to reassert my identity as an Indian national when the caste based census seeks to record my caste.
6. Growing citizen-state interaction in India: Apart from election campaign and visits to bureaucracy, the Indian citizen interacted with the state in diverse ways. You can protest against the state as the Kashmiri youth did; appeal to the state as the victims of Bhopal gas tragedy did; attack the state symbols as the Naxals did in killing 72 personnel of the CRPF; blackmail the state as the Gujjars did by stalling transport.
7. India is a world power: President Barack Obama said so and we proved it by successfully pulling off the Commonwealth Games and getting elected as non-permanent member of the United Nations Security Council. Moreover, isn’t it a great achievement that Heads of State/Government of the P5 visited India in 2010?
8. Person of the Year: How can a year end review be complete without identifying the person of the year? In India it was the ‘aam aadmi’. The ‘aam aadmi’ featured in Rahul Gandhi’s speeches, in Nitish Kumar’s electoral success, in Bollywood hit Peepli Live, in protests against hike in onion prices, in the need to make media credible and in Tata Nano’s ‘aapki khushiyon ki chaabi’ ad. Though the term ‘aam aadmi’, has been occasionally used in India over the years, it now offers the midas touch for any marketing strategy, political protest, economic decision or election campaign. Even though it is unlikely that much will happen to the ‘aam aadmi’ in 2011 but the ‘aam aadmi’ narrative will continue to dominate the social, political and economic discourse in India.