So who is an Indian? The answer, my friend, is on your thaali

The first reference to us as a nation came in a book written 2,458 years ago. On page 187 of his work ‘The Histories’, Herodotus begins his inquiry of Indians (‘Indon’ in Greek) many centuries before we called our land India. A diligent fellow who reported first hand where he could — he visits and describes accurately the Great Pyramid of Giza — Herodotus’s facts are broadly accurate. India is “the most populous nation in the known world”.

He says that we are the easternmost nation — “they dwell nearest to the sun” — but we can forgive him this ignorance of geography. Even Alexander the Great, who rode into Punjab a century after Herodotus and was tutored by Aristotle himself, knew nothing of the existence of China and Japan.

Herodotus also reports that India has giant ants — “larger than foxes but smaller than dogs” — that are trained to dig up gold. Astonishingly, this claim is repeated by Duryodhan in the Mahabharata’s Sabha Parva, chapter 51. Of our physiques, Herodotus writes: “The Thracians (Bulgarians) are the most powerful people in the world, except, of course, the Indians.” (Perhaps he saw that fitness challenge video.)
He adds: “And if they were of one mind, it is my belief that their match could not be found anywhere, and that they would very far surpass all other nations.”

And Herodotus then says something crucial: “There are many Indian nations, none speaking the same language.” I found this disturbing and unacceptable and, indeed, anti-national because we are of course only one nation. We may speak many languages but surely we know we are all Indians, don’t we?

But who or what is an Indian? Ideally it should be: Indians are all who say they are Indians. But we live in a time when there is an insistence on sharpening identities.

And so I thought I should try to see if we can arrive at a definition. This should be relatively easy, since we have been around for so long. All right, let’s do this.

First, look at it from the perspective of the state. How the state would recognise Indians is obviously through citizenship. So how does one define it? Passports are owned by only 6% of Indians so they cannot be the primary marker of Indian identity. Voter IDs are held by many more but exclude our children. Aadhaar cards and ration cards are wider spread still but not universal, and even birth certificates are not possessed by all.

Perhaps we could define Indians as those who live in India. But that includes many Nepalis, Tibetans, Bangladeshis and the Rohingya, whom we definitely don’t consider Indian and perhaps not even human.

How about those who are born here? This excludes two fine citizens I know: Soniaji and Advaniji. It also leaves out the millions of Indian Americans and those who want to, quite understandably, own some element of ancestral identity.

Maybe it is better if we set aside the government’s task and come up with something ourselves, requiring only common sense. Surely Indians have a common culture? Let’s look there.

Linguistic identity is out as even Herodotus knew. Unlike the French, we cannot define our nation through one language (does Bad English count? If it does, we are through). Religion is also not helpful unfortunately. We have a couple of hundred million Indians who are not from the faith of the majority. In addition, we have millions who will reject the identity that their religion gives them. It’s something you don’t want but is thrust on you anyway, like an Aadhaar card.

Geographically, we have a hiccup. We claim India comes from Indus but those astride the Indus today don’t want to be called Indians. Among us, we have South Indians and North Indians and, if you are Gujarati, I suppose West Indians (though we are still awaiting our fast bowlers).

The problem is that any cultural definition seems to leave people out. ‘Bollywood-watchers’ excludes Tamilians, and those uninterested in that sort of thing. Even ‘cricket-lovers’ does not capture all of us and, on the night of an Indian defeat, might actually not include most of us. We could say it is those who choose to fly the Indian flag, but that leaves out our friends in the RSS.

Clearly, this is a difficult problem. I have given it a lot of thought (at least 40 minutes) during the writing of this column. Even if it did not capture everyone, what definition would include most of us? I was chewing this over and then I had it. The answer lay in food. In a substance that is used liberally today in everything from sai bhaji to salan and from beef curry to baingan bharta.

Indians are the people who eat garam masala. Yes, that is it. The definition excludes those who don’t cook with the substance, like Kashmiris and Northeast wallahs. But don’t we exclude them anyway?