Getting Oriented

Daily life is a continual negotiation involving strange little bills and coins which we call money. We stop by the grocery store or bargain with a street vendor to buy our food. We stop by the office of the Hindi language school to pay our bill. We bargain again with the auto rickshaw drivers who take us to school. They absolutely refuse to use their meters when they see us foreigners.

Our Indian friends tell us we’re paying too much, but how long does one haggle over fifty cents. We know the amount means much more to those drivers than it does to us. Yet, we hate feeling like we’re being taken advantage of. And it doesn’t stop there. The delivery boys want a tip when they see us even though we’re told it’s not the normal custom in India. Some act very offended if the amount we give is deemed too small.

Another level of negotiation involves the beggars who approach us when our auto rickshaw stops at a traffic light or when we walk through the commercial center near our place. We can see the desperation beneath the theatrics thy use to try to win our sympathy. Yet we made the decision to not give the coins they want. It would hardly begin to address their needs and we would be continually swamped by street children seeking handouts as we go about our daily routines.

Still, we cannot help feeling guilty when a hungry child peers in the door of a lunch counter where we’re eating. I struggle to put such experiences into perspective. There are 50,000 homeless children in Delhi. They are at the bottom rung of the economic system and have fallen through every social safety net. I do not want to become hardened to that human misery but I also want to find appropriate ways to channel my compassion.

India has one of the world’s fastest growing economies and is home to more than one billion people. One third of the society is doing quite well in the new India fueled by information technology, science, and business. By many social indicators, India has done reasonably well since winning independence from Britain in 1947. There has been no repeat of the massive famines which wracked India when it was part of the British colonial system. By itself, that has been a huge success.

Rev. Asheervadam, an Indian Mennonite historian, recently told us that Mennonite missionaries from Russia and then North American first came to India in the end of the nineteenth century in response to a massive famine in central India. They began their ministry among the Dalit or untouchable castes who were the most disadvantaged part of Indian society at the time. Response to great social need has always been part of Mennonite work in India. Likewise, the Mennonite Central Committee (MCC) began working in Kolkata in 1942 in response to the Bengal famine.

Then thousands were killed or driven from their homes in the communal riots that accompanied the partition of India and Pakistan when the British left in 1947. While there has been no social calamity of that scale in recent history, those events continue to shape the perceptions of Indians today. Our MCC India staff members still tell stories about the things that happened to their families during the partition. Such memories fuel interfaith and social tensions in India.

Those memories are especially poignant for the two-thirds of Indians who live on two dollars a day or less. One of the biggest social challenges will be to find ways to enable them to participate in the recent economic prosperity. This is an absolute necessity if India wishes to avoid future catastrophic social upheavals. Most of the poor still live in rural communities where there is little opportunity for social advancement.

As we think of the role of MCC India in the coming years, it will certainly be focused on this social divide and find its expression in programs designed to address it. Global Family programs in elementary and vocational education will continue to be a significant ministry. There are exceptional universities and other academic centers in India, yet thirty percent of the society is still illiterate. The whole primary education system is inadequate and not up to the task. It will be a huge challenge to help address this need.

Education, however, cannot be an end in itself. People need opportunities to use their education in meaningful ways. Rural and urban development and livelihood programs are equal challenges that go hand-in-hand with better education. Additionally, interfaith and communal violence is always right beneath the surface. What can our Mennonite tradition contribute to interfaith understanding and peacebuilding? On one hand, we will want to learn from India’s rich and varied religions tapestry and, on the other hand, we will want to unabashedly bring what we have to contribute from our faith tradition.

As I study Hindi and as I meet street children begging for coins, I’m always aware that I’m an American Christian. Part of the struggle is to figure out how that relates to our work here. Surely, it will include being an advocate for India’s poor in American churches and in American society. As I write, US Treasury Secretary, Henry Paulson is touring India and urging Indians to further open up their economy to the global market. He’s certainly an advocate for American business interests but nothing he says indicates that he understands the challenge of raising the economic and social standing of poor people in India. Part of our task is to be that voice to Americans.

My prayer is that I will become a savvy negotiator for the reign of God as we serve in India. To that end, perhaps I can even borrow a page from the negotiation skills of those wily Indian auto rickshaw drivers.