Pallavi Aiyar's new book, Punjabi Parmesan, looks at Europe from an Asian point of view. The author told Iknoor Kaur that the continent is on the verge of becoming an ossified museum
When Pallavi Aiyar landed in Brussels for the first time, she almost got a culture shock. Being an Indian who lived in China for six and a half years, one thing that she had always been sure of was the availability of services. However, now she had stepped into a land where at five in the evening, even if she was willing to spend a 1,000 Euros on an item at a shop, the shopkeeper would look at his watch reluctantly and say, ‘Sorry ma’am, we are closed for the day.’ This is what Aiyar describes in a very tongue-in-cheek manner in the first chapter of her latest book Punjabi Parmesan (Penguin). As Amitav Ghosh puts it and Aiyar seconds, the book is the second part of her journalistic autobiography after Smoke & Mirrors and talks about a Europe in crisis. In that context, the name seems a little out of place. She explains, “It refers to one of the themes in my book which is immigration. In the book, I have profiled different kinds of immigrants that came to Europe. I divided them into two categories. Economic immigrants and under this category fall different kinds of Indian and Chinese immigrants in particular. These are the kinds of immigrants against whom a certain kind of charge is levelled by Europeans — that charge being that they work too hard and steal their jobs. Then there are political immigrants who are accused of not working hard enough or being a welfare sponger. Now in one of the chapters in my book, I look at the first kind of economic immigrants and profile two sets of Indian immigrants up and down the value chain. High up on the value chain I look at Gujarati merchants and lower down I look at the Punjabi agricultural labour in Italy. Now it is said that if Punjabi agricultural labour in Italy were to go on strike tomorrow, the production of cheeses like parmesan would cease because they are such a vital part of the dairy industry in Italy today. So the name Punjabi Parmesan really comes from that theme of Indian immigration in Europe. However, we do have a subtitle which says Dispatches from a Europe in Crisis and that tells you the broader scheme of it.”
Talking about the Indian immigrants Aiyar narrates an incident where she went to Rome to interview a first secretary in the Indian embassy and he used words like ‘docile’ and ‘reliable’ to describe Indian workers which are the exact words that British colonial officials used to describe these workers in the 19th century. How did that feelIJ “It leapt out at me immediately which is why I used it in the book. I think it’s quite amazing how frank people are. From my point of view, it is so politically incorrect when people talk about such issues in this way but from their point of view it seems to be something perfectly natural. When I spoke to such people, they told me that these Indians are so docile, not like the Muslims. I was just taken aback. There are many Indians who happen to be Muslims as well, so making this dichotomy is ridiculous. The language with which Indians talk is unreflexive and racist, but this is the stereotype. I think what this man was trying to point out was that in Italy there have been a lot of clashes among certain kinds of immigrants and the local Italian force. Particularly with the North African immigrants, some of whom come from Muslim countries like Morocco where they have been involved in riots and physical conflicts with the local population. This has not been the case with the Indian population which is hidden away and low profile. Whether this is because of ‘docility’ or ‘other factors’ is not particularly clear. But what he was referring to was that there has not been any violent confrontation as far as the Indian immigrants are concerned,” she shares.
The manner with which Aiyar has described Europe changes the rosy picture that everyone has of the continent. She elaborates, “Europe for a lot of people is like a picture postcard for holidays and I think Europe is great at holidays. However, it is in great danger of becoming an ossified museum — a place which is very pretty, has cobble stones, beautiful cafes and museums but in itself is turning into a museum. In today’s economic environment it needs to be dynamic and adapt to the raw economic realities of the 21st century. That is one of the major challenges it is facing today and we are seeing that the response has not been optimal so far. Everybody who has lived in Europe has understood this at some point of time, particularly in Southern Europe. In the book I quote this one instance of a tea seller who said that he couldn’t understand why for three months in the summer the soup disappeared from his canteen until he discovered that the soup guy goes on a holiday every summer for three months. It’s just a part of life in Europe and anyone living there is going to find out that this continent has to change in fundamental ways if it has to compete globally in the future.”
The book is a journey through the European crisis and as Aiyar points out in her introduction itself, it is not one crises that she talks about but a bunch of crises. She says, “I look at different aspects of multiple European crises which I think are a compound of internal, domestic and external crises. One of the crises facing Europe is demographic. Essentially its workforce is shrinking due to major skills shortage. So in order to compete globally it needs immigrants. But how does it deal with immigrantsIJ It has the challenge of integrating economic immigrants and the immigrants who came in the early 50s and 60 largely from Muslim countries and who even today have new people coming in from their families. This is completely changing the demographic make up of many European cities. So how do they deal with this completely new demographic because the social contracts that they made between the people and government were based on a more homogeneous population. That population is not homogeneous anymore. They need to deal with these issues of diversity. On the other hand we have to look at how Europe deals with the rise of countries like India and China, economically. At the same time see how it changes with the changing role of Germany within the European Union which was earlier a lap dog to the Europe. EU was first created to channel and contain Germany after the First World War and now Germany is leading from the front. So can Europe deal with this aggressive shift in leadershipIJ Another concern lies on how it deals with its North and South divide. Now all of these challenges were highlighted by the Euro crisis. So there are several strands and each chapter deals with one of these strands.”
Aiyar’s book looks at a lot of angles while narrating the decline of Europe. She runs parallels to the functioning of Europe with India and China constantly. In the introduction to her book she says that the rise of China and the decline of Europe are like the flipside of the same coin. Thus, she sums up her book in few simple lines, “I have picked some very crucial aspects of the crises and have tried to show how all of them are interlinked. I have looked at diverse set of issues and have made clear linkages between them. In between, I tell my personal story. In fact, I make it a point to let people know that this is what it looks to me with my set of assumptions.”