Stories of Fractured Freedom
By: thisindianlife
Category: social theory
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Harsh Mander writes stories about hunger, homelessness and children for the Hindu and the Hindustan Times. He challenges readers with what he thinks is wrong with the world we live in.
Mander has compassion for the disadvantaged and he experiences healing by writing about the difficult lives he sees. He highlights the humanity of the poor and their courage and triumph in the midst of injustice.
Mander publishes his stories in the mainstream media to touch the conscience of middle class people who would rather forget that the poor live close to their homes.
When asked what worries him, Mander said:
If 100 years from now historians describe India and the world today, they would define our times by the exile of the poor from our conscience and our consciousness.
The middle class in India is indifferent to the suffering around them. On a cold winter night we tuck our daughter into a warm bed in our comfortable home and we’re indifferent to the girl on the street one kilometer away who is cold and abused.
Our indifference comes from the idea of caste, that its fitting that some have more than others. It comes from a sense of class inherited from the British colonialists, that some families are good and some are bad and some poor are more worthy than others. It comes from an era of neo-liberalism, in which we have given up our socialist guilt and now celebrate consumption in a way that a previous generation would have called vulgar.
Mander believes in India. He is constructive while pointing out the problems at the margins of India’s democratic freedom. His purpose is to prod a complacent middle class to engage with the lives of disadvantaged people.
A selection of Mander’s stories that he wrote over 2004-11 are published in his 2012 book, Fractured Freedoms: Chronicles from India’s Margins.
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