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The mall culture By Chandrabhan Prasad Catch any member of the CPI(M), or a Bajrang Dal activist, and say one good thing about the mall-culture, and see the look that comes with it. It feels as if a predator is going to pounce on you. Why are the two traditionalists - the former carrying the baggage of caste-Hindu spirituality, and the latter, the baggage of the caste-Hindu rituals, feel so threatened by the mall culture? For the past one month I have been visiting a shopping mall in east Delhi. It's a part of my ongoing research on globalisation and its impact on the caste order. What I have observed so far is that the mall on an average employ 40 sweepers. Of these only 12 were Dalits, the other 28 were Brahmins and Kshatriyas. Needless to say, all the sweepers irrespective of their caste, gender, colour, and age, work together on the same wage and employment conditions. One could see them laughing, smoking, and drinking tea together. There is also an American restaurant serving fast food in the mall. During the course of my research, of the 60 workers the food chain employs, 42 workers have studies in English medium school. I was a bit stunned one day when I saw the duty manager sweeping the floor. "All the people in the restaurant are trained to do all the work. We all can cook and we do, we all can serve at the counter and we do, we all can sweep floor and we do," he said. At first he was reluctant to speak with me because he was not allowed to speak with the Press. However, after much coaxing he opened up. He said that he was a Bharadwas Brahmin - superior to other Brahmins. "What if you have a Dalit guest in your restaurant - may be your garbage collector who accidentally came to your restaurant?" I asked. "I am paid more than an IAS officer. I have a job to perform and that is to serve each and every customer who comes to the restaurant even if he was my garbage collector. What times are you living in sir?" I let lose the caste-society bomb. "Will you serve food to the garbage collector who comes to your house in your locality?" I asked him. For this he had no answer. So what we have is two set of people living in the society - those who live the mall culture and then there are those who live outside it. With my limited exposure to Europe and the US, I find cultures and societies inside the malls as the same as outside malls. If given a choice what kind of a society would India choose - the traditional society or the society as that is slowly evolving inside the malls. Can Brahmins, Kshatriyas/Bhumihars, Reddys/ Kanmmas, Jats/Yadavs, Gaudas/Lingayats, Thewars/Vanniyars, Marathas/Kunbs, Patels, Patnaiks, Jat- Sikhs, Nairs, and Basus sweep streets outside malls? Can any member of CPM, CPI, CPI(M), Bajrang Dal, RSS, VHP show us one instance where Dalits and non-Dalits clean toilets together for the same pay scale and working arrangements outside the mall society? Well, Sulabh is an exception, and Sulabh is part of the new culture. Here is what a mall culture does to a society: It provides a Europe like climate - centrally air-conditioned environment. There is a rare combination where the mall workers and the customers are treated alike. A mall deploys machines to redefine occupations. The cleaning staff are given uniform, shoes and socks, a cap, and modern tools to sweep. With such changes, the mall culture liberates traditional occupation from their caste identities. Additionally, they are paid well. The English speaking workers in the American food chain are trained to receive each visitor as their guest. Workers in the American food company are also consumers and must earn enough to shine individually. To them, caste arrogance becomes a liability. Despite the caste pressures, the mall culture is creating a tradition-neutral society. In other words, howsoever, unintended that may be, malls are creating a new society, an anti-thesis to the caste society. Forget what the traditionalists - the CPM the RSS aspire for, Dalits will have to make a choice - between the caste society and that of a mall society.
