A nation of banias….by Pritish Nandy

The much maligned caste system, complex and inscrutable as it may appear to us, once had deep roots in our society. The Brahmins pursued knowledge and statecraft. Kshatriyas fought and protected our honour and sense of nationhood. Banias ran business and trade. The sub castes (which ran into many hundreds) played their own roles. It all worked perfectly well till the lower castes, who got the rough end of the deal, began to protest. They refused to do the jobs assigned to them by history (many of which were demeaning) and sought a new status in the emerging India. This was but natural and ended up largely dismantling the edifice of caste. Merit became the new yardstick.

But the triumph of merit created its own problems. We see fewer people today doing what their forefathers did so amazingly well. Many have migrated to new jobs, without the skills required to back them. Others have become what can be best described as caste refugees. And, funnily, everyone wants to do the Bania’s job. So, however skilled they may be at what they do, most people now want to be in business, make lots of money. So from a great nation of many castes, many skills we are slowly becoming, like the US, a country where everyone, from teachers to healers to rock stars believe that God sent them to this planet with the sole mission of making money. The scramble for lucre has become so obsessive, so obscene that the dignity of many professions has simply vanished.

Where have the great thinkers gone? The legendary healers? The great musicians, painters, philosophers, teachers, leaders of change? Everyone seems to have joined the Gold Rush today. Painters talk more about the price of their canvases than the magic of their craft. Authors discuss sales graphs more than what they write about. Doctors spend more time arguing over their fees than the treatment. Teachers don’t talk about acquiring knowledge. They talk about coaching classes to help you pass exams, find lucrative jobs. Even fortune tellers blindside you to love and tell you how you can make more money by wearing some silly gemstone.

Cricketers have long ceased to be sportsmen. They are like cattle, valued by how much they fetch at slave auctions. So you write off a Saurav or a Brian Lara simply because no one bid for them at the IPL. A politician’s power is assessed not by what he does for India but by how much he stashes away in Switzerland. This country has become just another bazaar where everything’s bought or sold, from spectrum to wakf property to pretty underage brides to seats in Parliament. Everyone’s a Bania today. Everyone’s trading. No one buys art to hang it on their walls. They stash it away in vaults. Over 50% of flats sold in Mumbai, possibly the world’s most expensive real estate, are bought by investors or by politicians and Government officers to park their ill gotten cash. This ensures that prices stay at a level where actual home makers can’t afford it.

There was a time when artists did their best work for fun. Jatin Das drew the living area of my Kolkata flat in stunning black and white, over one drunken night. It was the only reason why I never rented nor sold the flat for 26 years, even after leaving Kolkata. Friends like Husain, Manu Parekh, Samir Mondal, Manjit Bawa drew for my books of poems. No one asked for money. No one offered it. It was love, admiration, friendship that brought us together. I remember, years ago, buying a hundred Sunil Das drawings at the Kolkata art fair for ten bucks each. I gave them away to my friends. Souza gifted me so many drawings. I gave them away too. That’s what art is for. My entire library of books came from authors, publishers and friends. None of my dogs were ever bought. They strolled into my home and stayed.

Life is not transactional. Nor is friendship, love, marriage, jobs. Poor as I was, I never did a job, any job for money. I came to Mumbai for a fraction of what I earned in Kolkata just because I wanted to be a journalist. I went to Parliament because I thought I could make a difference. I make movies because I enjoy it. At times we succeed. Often we fail. But money does not determine either. The questions asked are always: Did we have fun making it? Will it endure?

All around me today I see this bustling marketplace where everyone’s transacting, I understand now why our forefathers created the caste system. For all its faults, it allowed our society to have currencies other than cash. There was knowledge, skill, wisdom. There was courage, honour, pride. There was art, craft, music, the mysterious science of healing. There were so many things that made life magical. Now there’s just one currency driving us: Money. We have become a nation of Banias. Or, as the Americans would proudly say, entrepreneurs.