On August 23, 2023, India’s Chandrayaan-3 spacecraft efficiently landed on the moon, making India the fourth nation on this planet, after the US, the USSR and China, to realize such a feat. It was a proud second for a younger, post-colonial nation simply 75 years into her freedom. Tragically, it was additionally India’s very personal “Whitey on the moon” second.
In 1970, quickly after the US turned the primary nation in historical past to land on the moon, African-American jazz poet Gil Scott-Heron launched his well-known spoken phrase poem “Whitey on the moon”, criticising the Apollo house programme as a white man’s vainness challenge accomplished at nice expense and with full disregard for the deep poverty and exploitation being skilled by Black People on the time.
“The person jus’ upped my hire las’ night time.
‘trigger Whitey’s on the moon
No scorching water, no bathrooms, no lights.
however Whitey’s on the moon
I ponder why he’s uppi’ me?
‘trigger Whitey’s on the moon?
I used to be already payin’ ‘im fifty every week.
with Whitey on the moon”, sang Scott-Heron, accompanied by conga drums.
The poem shortly turned a success amongst Black People, who had been indignant that their nation had invested in – and was shamelessly celebrating the completion of – an costly house programme that didn’t contain or profit their communities, whereas they had been scuffling with medical debt, excessive taxes, underemployment, city decay, excessive charges of incarceration, and racial discrimination amongst different elementary issues.
The parallels between the US society on the time of the Apollo mission described on this poem and modern-day India within the aftermath of its personal landmark moon mission are tough to disregard.
As Indian scientists – largely higher caste, affluent and safe of their place within the nation – had been celebrating the moon touchdown, tens of millions of marginalised, disfranchised, impoverished Indians had been struggling immensely.
All through the month-long journey of the Chandrayaan-3 spacecraft in direction of the moon, within the southeastern Indian state of Manipur, an ethnic cleaning effort was underneath method. Complete villages had been burned to the bottom, dozens had been killed, and tens of 1000’s had been left with out properties.
Simply earlier than the start of the spacecraft’s journey, the federal government had gifted itself a model new parliament constructing, which value $120m to assemble – a excessive value, particularly at a time when, throughout the nation, numerous underprivileged Indians are scuffling with hunger and unemployment. The controversial constructing was additionally inaugurated on a controversial date – the a hundred and fortieth start anniversary of the daddy of Hindu nationalist ideology, VD Savarkar, who’s a divisive determine because of his connection to the 1948 assassination of Mahatma Gandhi.
A six-time parliamentarian from the ruling Bharatiya Janata Occasion (BJP) and the outgoing Wrestling Federation of India chief, Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh, who’s accused of sexually abusing feminine wrestlers, was additionally current on the inauguration ceremony. Delhi police manhandled Indian wrestlers, a lot of them Olympians, who needed to march to the parliament constructing to protest his actions.
Inside six months of the eventful inauguration, the brand new parliament constructing was attacked, with two males coming into the inside chambers, shouting slogans and setting off canisters of colored gasoline. This was adopted by an much more historic low, as 141 parliamentarians – all from opposition events – had been suspended for demanding an announcement from the prime minister on the safety breach. With out opposition, the Modi administration bulldozed three new items of legislation to India’s felony justice system that enable the federal government to censor information content material, imperil encrypted communication, shut down the web, and intercept communications with minimal accountability.
Sadly, none of that is extraordinary in India as we speak. The identical nation that efficiently despatched a craft all the best way to the moon has turned abuse and oppression of its most marginalised and underprivileged members into an off-the-cuff pastime. Daily, Indian newspapers lay naked the bones of some damaged minority. Headlines are miserable, scary. “Man rapes eight-year-old”; “Muslim lynched over beef”; “Dalit man urinated upon, crushed”…
Minorities, sitting geese with no energy to guard themselves, endure abuse, humiliation and violence with no expectation of justice. They’re left to stew in their very own grief, the best way uncooked mangoes are fermented in their very own brine. In the meantime, the wealthy and the privileged, the “whiteys” of India, have fun the rising economic system, the brand new temples, the spectacular new parliament, and landmark journeys to the moon.
There may be such little fraternity – real solidarity amongst residents – in India. It’s baffling to me that we proceed to name ourselves one nation, the world’s largest democracy.
The US-based non-profit Freedom Home already downgraded India’s democracy from “free” to “partially free,” whereas the Sweden-based V-Dem Institute has deemed it an “electoral autocracy.” Democracy, from its lengthy misuse, now exists solely in our previous. That is the one cheap conclusion as each social contract underpinning regulation and order breaks down. Reality is, India is now a state of regulatory seize, and, as we enter one other election yr, the minorities of India have developed a collective knowledge distinctive to the oppressed: they know they’re on their very own.
So right here we’re. India made it to the moon, however Indian individuals are nonetheless poor, nonetheless hungry. Indian ladies are nonetheless unsafe. No scientific triumph can obscure the degradation of human life in our nation. A journey to the moon can’t cover the ever-deepening inequality and seemingly countless injustices devastating minorities.
India’s all the time camera-friendly, attention-loving Prime Minister Narendra Modi who wasted no time basking within the glory of Indian scientists who took India to the moon, has but to say a phrase on the violence in Manipur. Modi’s House Minister Amit Shah instantly hailed the profitable touchdown of Chandrayaan-3 – emphasising that it made India the primary nation to “contact the South Pole of the moon”. Nonetheless, he has but to elucidate to the residents why a BJP member had invited the 2 miscreants who attacked the parliament constructing. He has additionally not defined why sexual predators are welcomed to the Parliament and why he has not finished a single press convention within the ten years he has been in workplace.
Simply because the Apollo mission was a challenge for white America, Chandrayaan-3 was a challenge for educated, affluent, upper-caste Indians.
With our many sensible scientists and more and more highly effective applied sciences, I’ve little question India will quickly put a person on the moon, and from there go on to Mars, Jupiter and the heavens past. None of it modifications that we stay a rustic that has no cash to feed the hungry, home the homeless, and have a tendency to the sick – a rustic the place, as “Whitey’s on the moon”, others have, as Scott-Heron mentioned, “No scorching water, no bathrooms, no lights.”
The views expressed on this article are the writer’s personal and don’t essentially replicate Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.