g a nsu

It is probably apt to describe the road to Gansu provinceapproximately 1,500 km

west of Beijingas a road less travelled. A far-flung province, Gansu is infamously
known amongst Indias China hands as Chinas Bihar, a region of backwardness and

poverty. The province is located on the fringes of Chinas north-western frontier,

squeezed between lesser known Inner Mongolia (an autonomous region), Qinghai

(the Dalai Lamas birthplace), as well as the equally forlorn Ningxia, ill-reputed as
a dumping ground for political prisoners and inglorious riff-raff. One can easily

agree that the famous anthropologist G. William Skinners description of Gansu as

periphery of the periphery is quite apropos.

Even in academic articles, the northwestern frontier has solicited precious

little attentiondescribed by the historian Jonathan Lipman as being a region of

rough wilderness, sparse population, lawlessness, distance from the affairs of the
greater society, or as a Chinese academic Zou Lan described it, as the lame leg of
the giant. Clich or otherwise, Gansu is as Bihar as can be.

Yet such sweeping generalisations completely gloss over the critical

historical value of this unique place. The westernmost terminus of the Great Wall
begins here in Gansu, winding its way across the swathe of Chinas northern steppes

and its expansive desert all the way north of the capital, Beijing, and finally ending
up at the easternmost frigid borderlands near Manchuria. Historically, Gansu was
also a critical stage on the famed Silk Route; the caravans had to pass through Gansu

to reach Central Asia. It was thus a critical passage out of (and into) China: the

famous Buddhist monks whom we are familiar with in India, such as Faxian (c. 337
c. 422 AD; A Record of the Buddhist Kingdoms) and Xuanzang (c. 620c. 645 AD; The
Records of the Western Regions Visited During the Great Tang Dynasty) braved the

overland routes crossing Gansu to come to present-day Bihar, though Yijing (635
713 AD; The Record of Buddhism As Practiced in India Sent Home from the Southern

Seas) took the maritime route starting from the eastern coast of China through the

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Malacca Straits to the Bay of Bengal.

Gansu somewhat qualifies as Indias Bihar because both are noted for the

prominent footprints of Faxian, Xuanzang and Buddhism. Historically, Bodhgaya,

Rajgir, and Nalanda in Bihar were ancient centres of Buddhism, with Nalanda once
a flourishing hub of Buddhist studies. Gansu, too, has the prominent markings of
Buddhism or the Indic world: the province tapers at a small desert town called

Dunhuang, noted for a large cave complex, Caves of the Thousand Buddhas with

frescos of heavenly apsaras, Buddhist divinities and stucco sculptures, an influence

which perhaps originated from India. Some say that the frescos are comparable to
ones in Ajanta and Ellora caves in western India.

Most Chinese love to tell you about how the cave-complex at Dunhuang

lost its treasures in the early twentieth centurya story somewhat connected

with India and the great explorer, Sir Marc Aurel Stein. Stein had felt the call of the

East and thus came to Lahore. Soon he discovered the sheer beauty and poetry of
Kashmir, where he found his dream retreat in a beloved mountain camp. Later,

he enlisted with the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) in 1904. During his first
expedition in 1901, with the sanction of Lord Curzon, he explored the region around
Khotan (resulting in the magnum opus, Sand-Buried Ruins of Khotan, 1903). His

second expedition (19061908) took him to Dunhuang on the 16th of March 1907.
There he realised the enormous value of the Dunhuang documents, paintings,
textiles.some of them dating from the first centuries of our era. He brought

back the important cache (these finds were listed and described in Auriel Steins

Serindia, 5 vols., 1921). Though he was no sinologist, spoke no Chinese and used
an interpreter, it is said that he charmed the guardian of the Dunhuang complex to

part with some of the treasures with his admission that Xuanzang (the 7th century
Buddhist monk) was his patron saint. Today, a majority of the manuscripts have
survived and are preserved at the British Museum in London, Delhis National

Museum and elsewhere, while a very small collection can still be found at the
Dunhuang Museum. As for Aurel Steinthe man who loved Kashmir so and whose

explorations opened a whole new window to China and Central Asiahe lies buried
in a marshy cemetery at Kabul, dank and desolate. Clearly, legacies outlive flesh
and blood.

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The joys of fieldwork

I travelled to Gansu several times beginning in 2001 because the remote Dingxi
county, apparently the poorest county in China with nine droughts in ten years,

was identified by a senior Indophile in Beijing as my field area for research on

poverty (my Beijinger and Shanghainese friends feign surprise, saying they have
never ever heard of the place; today due to administrative reorganisation, Dingxi is
a prefecture-level city and Anding is the district).

Poverty in China and India has been defined in so many different ways

(caloric count, literacy, income, entitlements) that comparisons become problematic.

Going by the numbers, Chinas State Statistical Bureau claims that the number of
poorover 250 million in 1978, or 31% of the rural population thenfell to 26.88
million in 2010 using the official Chinese poverty line of US$0.53 a day. Figures from
the World Bank are at variance (using a poverty line of US$1.25 a day), but no less
laudatory. China claims to have lifted 620 million people out of poverty since then;

the World Bank claims the number is closer to 500 million. That aside, the singular
fact that China accomplished to lift millions (and millions) out of poverty in a

short time has caught world-wide attentionand is of particular relevance for India
which has long battled the so-called Hindu rate of growth (roughly 34%, which

just barely keeps pace with population growth). Despite a break with the dismal
rate of growth in the 1980s, 2632% of the Indian population by 2010 still remains
under the poverty line.

Gansu is generally considered luanan oft-used Chinese word which

narrowly means chaoticread thieves, marauders, pickpockets and unconfirmed

danger. Of course, it does not help that the average Chinese categorises India as luan,
toodisordered, chaotic and not given to easy navigation.

I did not know that the provincial capital of Gansu, Lanzhou, was located

at the geographic centre of China and on the banks of the famed Yellow River,
considered Chinas Mother River and cradle of civilisation. My memories of
Lanzhou are of giant billboards that lined the main street from the train station

to the city. Back then, in 2001, Party-sponsored billboards depicting Party leaders

were not so common in Shanghai, but it seemed different in faraway Lanzhou. I

quickly realised that these billboards were a proclamation of (then President) Jiang
Zemins grand strategy to Open up the West. The Open up the West strategy,
launched in 2000, held the promise that things would change in the Western

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regions or interior China. Interior China is Chinas proverbial ugly duckling, what

with its cursed geography of arid deserts and barren mountains. The promise was
that heavy investment would turn the West into the beautiful swan.

I came to understand the rhetoric. Lanzhou was a sprawling grey mass

of a city seemingly choked by a thick cloud of noxious smog. In the distant skyline,

factories billowed smoke and a putrid stench of rotting flesh wafted in the air.

Lanzhou seemed to be stuck in a weird Stalinist time-warp, much more than any

other city I had come across in central provinces such as Anhui or Henan, which
while poorer than the eastern provinces had remnants of both the old (such as

socialist-style squat housing) and the new (gleaming skyscrapers). And then the

eastern provinces of Jiangsu with its peach orchards and Zhejiang with its ricepaddies had given way to break-neck developmentwhich meant a soaring skyline.

(A few coastal cities such as Shanghai and Hangzhou bore fewer architectural scars
of Communism for various reasons. Shanghais case was always different because
the Opium War in the nineteenth century made it an open city, which resulted

in foreign settlements such as the French Concession. Hangzhou was largely left
untouched as the Geneva of the East.)

Perhaps Lanzhous distance from Beijing made its case a little different.

The humongous brick-red Lanzhou Hotel sat like an old matron on the University

Square. The main Dongfanghong square (which literally means the East is Red
Square) could have been transplanted from the heyday of Communist Russia.

I had to make the trip to the romanticised bank of the Yellow River. It was

late evening and the atmospheric old iron bridgethe first bridge across the Yellow

Riverwas beginning to twinkle with gaudy lights. Contrary to my expectations

of grandeur and inspiration in the dappling waves of the Yellow River (I had even

envisioned myself wading into its waves), I was met with a snaking brown mass
that slithered off into the distance. I trailed the locals who haggled hard for yellow
melons with the fruit vendors squatting by the bank. The plump and sweet melons

(made sweeter by the Yellow River, it is said) were to die for. The generous slices
of Lanzhous famous melons sold for a pittance. I joined the crowd slurping on the

juicy flesh, keeping an eye on my wallet, lest I be accosted by the citys other wellknown specialtypickpockets.

Taking a chance, I caught the last cable car. As I swung on the rickety

coil above, I could see that the pace of the city had settled into a languid flow, and
fortuitously the city could almost be described as pretty. The evening sky hid the grey

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grime of the city as lights glimmered, and moving cars created a sense of warmth
in the twilight. There was the unmistakable presence of sprouting skyscrapers and

furiously ambitious roads cut east to west, north to south. With a twinge of regret,

I felt even the Lanzhou laggard had left PatnaDelhis unloved poor provincial
cousinfar, far behind.

Lanzhou University guesthouse

The Lanzhou University guesthouse inside the university campus was another old-

timer which lay deserted and quiet as though it were the prime setting for a classic
Ramsay Brothers Indian horror flick. The large communal kitchen and the musty

laundry room on the first floor lay abandoned; so deathly quiet was it that I found
a saving grace in the din from the university kindergarten housed next door, which
began sharp at 7 am. It was a cacophony that I began to eagerly anticipate.

The university campus itself was fairly run down, but it had a nice, laidback

air with plenty of pine trees, a large sundial, gardens and basketball courts. The area

around the back gate was boisterously lined with sundry warehouses, bicycle shops,
Sichuan hot-pot, fruits and vegetables, rat-traps and snacks.

Around the corner from the guesthouse and still very much inside the

campus were two dingy little Xerox stores patronised by Chinese students, who like

their counterparts in India had to cram notes closer to examination time. A shabby
run-down garage that smelled of engine oil and an old cafeteria with less than
appetising fare made up the small world.

I waited to meet Vice-Chancellor Su Rong, an Indophile known to Indias

Lanzhou was a city so unlike Patna, in a good way: broad boulevards,

well-known sinologist Prof. Mohanty, for clearance. Prof. Mohanty was far away and
Su Rong was too busy, which fortunately gave me plenty time to kill.

pavements, allotted vending and parking zones. I had imagined poverty and
deprivation in the slums of Lanzhou much like the notorious Tondo slums (in Manila)

or Dharavi slums (in Bombay) or perhaps even Chinese versions of Rio de Janeiros
favelas: poor thatched squatters squeezed along railway tracks, along pavements,
between skyscrapersbut I found none. Certainly, extreme deprivation of the
Indian kind that hit and humbled yoube it in the streets of Bombay or the streets

of Patnawas missing; poverty in China was of a different entitlement kind. It

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was not about whether China was better than India or vice-versa. Chinese state
philanthropy had come to an end in the late 1970s: survival was about making ends

meet by working. Socialism had done some good; it was a combination of the firm
hand and socialist pride in work that had resulted in begging being considered the

lowest abomination. Beggars, it was rumoured, had few human rights as they were
carted off to distant corners, including Xinjiang. A few Muslim beggars (distinctly

Muslim because of their caps and beards) discreetly came asking for alms; I dished
out my camera to take their pictures, but they ran away.

Among others, the demographer Judith Bannister has famously chronicled

the fruits of Maos compulsive campaigns in health care and literacy: for a
developing country, there was little garbage on the streets, no open gutters and

certainly very few instances of people defecating or urinating on the streets (though

many Chinese liked to cough up a dollop of spit, among other things). No graffiti on

the walls, no movie posters, no stray animals eitherdogs and cows go straight into
Chinese cooking pots, as some of us liked to joke. The city lacked its own personality,
subsumed and unmistakably marked by the signature red Communist touch.

What I found inside the recesses of the city instead were areas that looked

like a war zonelarge areas being demolished for beautification or modernisation.

Bulldozed land lay strewn with plastic and garbage, the dirty and tired remains that

were making way for Chinas development frenzy. Development from the top was
Lanzhous ultimate destiny.

Gansu was Chinas frontier province thanks to its location on the western

periphery. Yet I had forgotten what a huge country China is: Lanzhou the provincial
capital was Chinas geographic centre! As the province abuts Xinjiang and Mongolia,

Gansu was a tacit melting point for different ethnicities, amounting to roughly 8%

of the total population. As I navigated the city I learnt by chance to differentiate

between ethnic groups. I met one old gentleman who was blue-eyed and paleskinned; he said he was a Salar (Turkic) Muslim. Then there were the Dongxiang

Muslims. According to scholars, the ancestors of the Salar Muslims left Samarkand

and settled in Gansus Linxia county (a county being comparable to a district in

India), commonly known as Little Mecca.

The Tibetan population in the city was sizeable, too. The Tibetan monk at

the monastery in Lanzhou knew no Hindi, yet not only did he give a shy smile but
also gently waived the entrance fee. The Chinese hardly let go of a penny, but here

was gentle acknowledgement, a moving token from a Tibetan so far away from India

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who recognised that India had granted the Tibetan spiritual and temporal leader,
the XIV Dalai Lama, Tenzin Gyatso, along with an estimated 100,000 Tibetans-in-

exile, a home in Dharamsala (on the foothills of the Himalayas in the Indian state
of Himachal Pradesh, some 500 km away from Indias capital Delhi). The presence
of Tibetans drew my attention to the dismemberment of historic Tibet (U-Tsang,
Amdo and Kham). U-Tsang made up most of the Tibetan Autonomous Region (TAR)
in 1965. Amdo became annexed into the neighbouring provinces of Qinghai and

Gansu, while Kham was divided between TAR and the neighbouring provinces of
Sichuan and Yunnan.

Not surprisingly, revered monasteries are not just located in TAR but other

provinces in China. The Labrang monastery (founded in 1709), one of the most
influential centres of the Yellow Hat sect (or the Gelugpa Sect, to which the Dalai
Lama belongs), was just four hours away from Lanzhou in the town of Xiahe.

At the tail end of the week, I met Su Rong. By this time, I had acquired three

friends: two budding physicists whom I had met at the university had lent me their
bike, showed me the short-cuts around campus and proved more than amicable

companions, introducing me to local foods such as the exquisite lily bulb (usually
stir-fried with chicken or vegetables) and giving me the heads-up on provincial

politics. They were fans of the Indian flying pancakewhatever on earth that was.
Bewildered about my ignorance, they carted me to the best place in town to taste
the Indian treat. It turned out to be a cute little place which boasted a Taj Mahal

poster in the background, manned by a charming Hui Muslim chef. The young chef

swirled the dough in the air a couple of times (much to the delight of the audience)
before going on to slather it with a generous dose of margarine, stuffing with sliced

bananas, nuts and honey. This was a hipper, cooler version of my mothers delicious
fluffy roti, only that she never quite twirled it in the air.

The other friend who made a lasting impression was the grungy, chain-

smoking owner of one of the two Xerox shops. I made use of his services sitting
around in his tiny shop in the late evenings when the crowd of students had thinned,

his shop conveniently located ten minutes away on foot from the guesthouse. He
often offered me a smoke, loved to talk about how nasty the Communists were
razing this and thatand how life in China or India and elsewhere was often about

a similar bottom-linemoney and success. The universality of dreams and desires

unites us, he said. But more on this enigmatic friend later.

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