Ancient civilisations are people, places, events and ideas wrapped in fables. An outsider sees only the fables; the truth being securely hidden behind the translucent film enveloping it. Fables are written by the smartest people living in an age: smart people never speak the whole truth; it is too dangerous at that time. They never tell a complete lie to stay credible and marketable. So, the fable comes handy; smart readers and listeners know how to peel the envelope; others find comfort in the romantic half-truths that make their difficult lives bearable. Fables make them laugh without personal happiness, cry without personal pain. Fables give them hope of sudden strokes of fortune and the fear of unexpected misfortune makes them prudent.

China is an ancient civilisation; India is even more ancient. There is one important difference; in India, dissidence led to excommunication. If the dissident evolved as a credible fable-writer, he was called a Maharshi, a great sage, as was Charvak when he preached that there is no rebirth, this body shall be reduced to ashes and therefore one should live a life of pleasures and luxury even on borrowed money. In China, dissidence was always punished. The Confucian way of life that says that the highest virtue is obedience and subjugation to authority existed in Chinese society even before the birth of Confucius. Like all smart people, he enveloped this moral norm in fables, credible and saleable. That calls the lie about originality and inventions; all knowledge is pre-existing, though some of it may escape recognition. A “writer” or “inventor” is merely a discoverer who smartly conceals it in the translucent fable called original work or invention. Indians avoided this pitfall by a clever stratagem; no ancient writing was claimed by an author; the writer claimed that it was narrated to him by a celestial composer. We do not know who composed the Vedas and the Upanishads. Ramayana was narrated by Shiva to Parvati. Buddhakaushik Rishi says that Ramarakshastotra was narrated in his dream by Shiva and on waking up, he wrote it exactly as narrated. Consequently, Indians have always been on a path of discovery, not only in the outside world, but also in the inner world. That gave us the reputation of being a contemplative people who come to diverse conclusions and debate and argue endlessly, making for Amartya Sen’s “Argumentative Indian”.

Let us go to the Chinese woman and her fable. This is not an ancient one, it is a new fable about continuity in an ancient society. Her fable appeared in November 2024 on the page “Dissidents and Activists” on a mainly dissident-run website from outside China. The woman, like all honest thinkers, is neither a hard-core dissident nor an activist though she says she has the “freedom of tank tops” in the US; she is somewhat lost and confused. She writes her name only as An’an, unusual for a Chinese, whose names invariably have two words. Maybe, it is to protect her and her family from antagonism that the fable was bound to raise in the Chinese Communist Party. She titles her fable as “What Happened, Mama? In 1989, Were you Just Like Me?” 1989 refers to the massacre at the Tiananmen Square. An’an was born in China and went to the US in 2021 to study journalism because she “believed in the fourth estate and … knew China had no space for truth to power.” She returned in 2023 in a gap year and at the Beijing airport she saw a gigantic (everything is huge in China) billboard with “Prosperity, Democracy, Civility, Harmony, Freedom, Equality, Justice, Rule of Law, Patriotism, Dedication, Integrity, Friendship” in huge red characters with an image of the Chinese flag in the background. Her parents were there to receive her; her mother had a fresh wound on her face, the result of “being knocked over by a bike”. At a press conference held by the State Council Information Office, Qi Yanjun, vice minister of public security, in July 2025 noted that the number of such accidents has dropped by 34 percent compared to the 2016-2020 period. Irrespective of actual incidents, official reports will always show a decline. During the ride home, the parents were arguing, with the father hoping she “can still get used to life in China” and the mother insisting “Our daughter is going to stay in America. No one wants to come back to China”.

At dinner her mother complains, “The censorship at our publishing house has gotten insane. We’re not even allowed to mention privilege, class difference, or totalitarianism anymore.” An’an suggests pushing back and her mother, after initially throwing a self-righteous tantrum, concedes, “I’m just a regular person trying to get by, and I’m in shackles. My colleagues and I are all cowards.” Worked up, she adds in good measure, “We’re nothing but slaves, contented slaves, slaves who are afraid of not being able to be slaves. We are so good at being slaves, we don’t know how not to be slaves.” When our fable-writer expresses her disgust at such cynicism, her mother says, “If I had kicked you around a little more, you wouldn’t have the energy to philosophize about freedom and democracy.” In her childhood, it was usual for her mother to slap her and shout at her for hours. In recent surveys, two-third of Chinese parents admitted to using physical violence on their children and this practice is deeply rooted in traditional Confucian values and patriarchal culture.

A taxi driver from Inner Mongolia tells An’an, “Every day I spend 14 hours in this car and only earn less than 200 yuan. … You can’t earn any money unless you work yourself to death.” Going back in time, An’an’s grandmother, who was in elementary school during the Cultural Revolution, had described how she was forced to denounce her father, who was a well-known teacher. The principal had told her that he will “borrow” her father for a demonstration saying, “You must show your political awareness aligns with the Communist Party and enthusiastically lead the rally against your father.” She delivered her speech in front of her father with his hands tied behind his back. The father later praised her, “I was glad to see you condemn me… At least you are sane enough to protect yourself.” Based on her “testimony”, her father was imprisoned for three years.

In the long fable, An’an reminisces about putting up posters in the US against zero-Covid lockdowns in China, her friends’ families in China running out of food, pets killed by health workers after their owners tested positive and Foxconn workers walking long distances to escape the lockdown. There were initial lockdowns in India too and suddenly unemployed migrant workers trudged long distances to reach their villages. Yet, India was giving free food to 800 million people and apartment doors were not welded shut. More importantly, criticism was rampant in Indian papers. China, when it finally and suddenly removed the lockdowns and millions died, had instructed doctors not to record Covid as cause of death.

China and India are two different civilisations and have different fables for people, places and events. Whatever regime may be there in China in future, we shall not be on the same page. Those who think that recent geopolitical events have brought India and China closer, confuse trade with closeness. We have always traded with China and will continue to do so in future and yet, China will remain a closed society fearful of the world beyond its borders and India will remain open for a two-way exchange of ideas from anywhere. As the Rigveda says, “Aa no badra krtavo yantu Vishvatah,” let noble thoughts come to us from all sides. There is no such wish in Confucian thought.