[Hindu] A question of Indian pride

TABISH KHAIR

India's democratic experiment, with all its flaws, and the often-dismissed version of Nehru-Gandhian secularism are things Indians can be proud of. But these are seldom the things that Indians are asked to be proud of.

Who cares about farmer suicides now? Who cares about the children of immigrant workers? India is busy following the West, even when accusing it of racism, following It faithfully into the fast lane of neo-liberalist progress.

THE 60th year of independent India started with a fog that grounded most domestic flights and closed schools in North India throughout the first two weeks of January.

In Noida, the booming chaotic suburb of Delhi, which is actually in the adjoining state of Uttar Pradesh (UP), 2007 was also presaged by one of the biggest crime sensations of modern India. It was reported that a millionaire industrialist, who used to sip whiskey sprinkled with gold flakes, and his servant had killed at least 20 — and probably more — children over the past few years. Their modus operandi appeared to be simple: entice a child into the `farmhouse', used basically as a holiday `stud' resort by the millionaire, rape and murder him or her, cut him into pieces and dump the bag in the drain that ran behind the house.

Various theories

In spite of repeated complaints against the house and about the stink emanating from the drain, the local UP police had ignored the matter. It appeared that, apart from being rich, the culprit and his accomplice had concentrated on children of immigrant workers, not interfering with the children of local villagers or the many Delhi prostitutes who frequented the place. When the matter finally came to light, it was because the servant — behind his master's back — murdered a Delhi prostitute, whose father managed to be heard more than immigrant labourers from Bihar or Bangladesh tend to be. Since then, India has been discussing various theories: on the one side, that of cannibalism and sex murders, and on the other that of organ trade. Both have their supporters in the argumentative middle classes. As for the debates in those vast Delhi slums of immigrant and landless labourers from the agricultural hinterlands, well...


One news item that almost slipped past the argumentative middle classes in the first weeks of January was the promise by a state Chief Minister that he will be accessible to farmers overburdened with loans, advanced by banks rather than the traditional moneylender. He urged the farmers not to commit suicide.

Between 25,000 and 100,000 Indian farmers commit suicide every year, unable to cope with the loans and unforgiving conditions of a booming, liberalised economy. Unlike immigrant workers whose children were killed and cannibalised in Noida, most of these farmers do not come from places like Bihar. Places like Bihar are too backward to progress into modern versions of genocide. The farmers who commit suicide belong to the more progressive and affluent states of India.

Much to be proud of

India is booming. Doubt it not. Indians are also constantly told to be proud. Say with pride you are a Hindu, was one of the two slogans that launched the Hindu-nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on its path to electoral success in the late 1980s. Today, we Indians are urged to be proud in films, advertisements, editorials. We are urged to be proud of our nuclear capacity and the nuclear deal signed between India and George Bush (which critics like Chomsky insist is a well-aimed American nail in the coffin of an internationalised nuclear non-proliferation treaty). We are urged to be proud of our professional classes and booming national economy, which has been leapfrogging at a rate close to ten percent. We are even urged to be proud of our cricket team, which regularly flatters to deceive.


To be honest, there is much to be proud about in India. While the booming economy is only a mixed blessing, India is a working example of a democracy that has survived adverse conditions. In many ways, India's democratic experiment, with all its flaws, offers a better model to countries in Asia, Africa and South America than the much-touted and sanitised democracies of privileged North Europe. Again, India's distinctive and often-dismissed version of Nehru-Gandhian secularism might be a better model to follow today than the secularism of Europe, which is a supposedly atheistic superstructure reared on a solid but purposefully obscured Protestant base. These are things Indians can be proud of. But these are seldom things that Indians are asked to be proud of.

India poised

The Times of India launched January 1, 2007, with an ad-lib-type boxed item covering most of the front page. "India poised," it was called. It started with the reasonable observation that "there are two Indias in this country". Then it fitted these two Indias within an implicit neo-liberalist hierarchy: "One India is straining at the leash... The other India is the leash. One India wants. The other India hopes. And one India... is looking down at the bottom of the ravine and hesitating. The other India is looking up at the sky and saying, it's time to fly."

Sonorous words, these. And empty ones. For, if interpreted with generosity, they do not really account for the farmers who commit suicides or the slum children who are cannibalised for sex or organs. And if interpreted with scepticism, they are an attempt to condone — some might even claim endorse — the genocide that lies hidden in the heart of rampant neo-liberalism. For if that other India — the India of failed farmers and slum workers — is the leash, then perhaps the only way out is to look the other way while that leash is cut to pieces.


January 2007 was significant and revealing because this year will mark the 60th anniversary of India's independence. But already, as the first month of India's 60th year lumbered to a close, attention has shifted from the cannibalising or organ-trading millionaire of Noida. Instead, the media — and not just in India — were agog with discussions of a post-modern reality show. A vacant white ex-housewife vilified a vacant Indian starlet appearing on "Big Brother", perhaps in racist terms. Who cares about farmer suicides now? Who cares about the children of immigrant workers? India is busy following the West, even when accusing it of racism, following it faithfully into the fast lane of neo-liberalist progress. The luxury cars on this highway — of which at least 10 new models will be launched in India this year — do not pause for anyone down the rugged cline that leads to the ravaged fields of human endeavour. And why should they?

After all, what is happening in India is only one version of what has happened in the world: the history of progress and modernity in Europe or US or Australia is a testament to the `inevitability' of silent genocides, that of the displaced, minorities, Jews, gypsies, aborigines etc. Perhaps other kinds of progress and modernity are also possible. Perhaps Indian democracy and secularism, to take only two examples, are weak pointers in that untraced direction. But then, who stops to talk about democracy or secularism on the highways of global neo-liberalism? Who dares take pride in these brave but flawed experiments in India today?

The writer is Associate Professor, Department of English, University of Aarhus, Denmark.

IBNLive : 36 hrs, 8 suicides, a bitter harvest

IBNLive : 36 hrs, 8 suicides, a bitter harvest

In Vidharba, even today, farmers are committing suicides for sums as low as Rs. 10, 000/-!!! This is the real India... Rural micro-credit needs to take off in India....

Rohit Chandavarkar

CNN-IBN

Posted Wednesday, June 28, 2006 at 07:53Updated Wednesday, June 28, 2006 at 08:55

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Mumbai: There seems to be no end to farmers' plight in the Vidarbha region of Maharashtra. As many as eight farmers from three districts have committed suicide in the past 36 hours.

For the families of the victims, caught between political blame-game, the Rs 1-crore relief package announced by the state government comes a little too late.

Says Tara, wife of a farmer who committed suicide, “He had to repay the debt of Rs 10,000. Since he could not, he committed suicide,”

Meanwhile, the Opposition parties and farmer organisations have blamed the state government’s agricultural credit policies for the situation.

Office bearers of farmers’ organisations in Vidarbha say that while the crop failures in 1970s did not result in suicides, the moderns-ear globalisation policies have put the burden on farmers.

“Prices of fuel and everything else have gone up because of devaluation of rupee. The cost of living is rising but crop prices are falling. But the government is not helping the farmers and they are not getting the returns',” Vijaj Javandhia of Kisan Sangathan says.

However, the state government is satisfied with its performance and says it has reacted to the situation and is doing everything possible.

“Special package is being given for five districts of Vidarbha, this is mainly for the cotton growers, kisan credit scheme will also be launched, confiscation of farmers land by money lenders will not be allowed. The state government will support farmers in every possible way,” Maharashtra Chief Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh says.

However critics have written-off the government’s face-saving efforts saying they will serve no purpose as most of that amount comes from the advance bonus - which was to be paid to farmers – and has already been withdrawn.

IBNLive : Toxic curse for Kerala chemical city

IBNLive : Toxic curse for Kerala chemical city

Environmental disasters... the price for our growth? Or can we be more aware and prevent such things?

Bhupendra Chaubey

CNN-IBN

Posted Tuesday , June 27, 2006 at 08:59Updated Tuesday , June 27, 2006 at 09:24

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Eloor: Located near the industrial city of Kochi, Eloor is the biggest industrial belt in the state and is well known for its chemical factories.

However, the industrial estate – home to 240 factories and once the state’s pride - has become a curse for people living there.

Sixty-year-old Lakshmikutty, a resident of Eloor, suffers from eye cancer. Doctors say years of smoke and pollutants spit out by chemical factories in the area are responsible for this.

Till now she has undergone four sessions of radiation therapy to cure her eye cancer. However, due to financial crunch, she has to stop her treatment midway.

"I had to even mortgage my house and property to conduct the operation. But it has been of little use. Now I have given up all hope," Lakshmikutty said.

Lakshmi is not alone. There are 51 others like her in Eloor Panchayat suffering various forms of cancer. In fact, 13 people have succumbed to air-borne diseases in the last 10 years.

"We found that lot of diseases were increasing at an alarming pace in the area. Cancer, asthma and bronchitis have risen to an alarming level," Eco activist of GreenPeace, V J Jose says.

Eloor's plight was first highlighted in 1999, when a study by environment NGO GreenPeace revealed the extent of pollution in the area.

Even after the Supreme Court Monitoring Committee called Eloor a flashpoint in 2002, there has been little action.

"Untreated effluents from industries which are situated on the either banks of the river Periar have been dumping industrial waste in to the river. There has been absolutely no control over these industries," Eco Activist P K Ibrahim says.

Meanwhile, for Laksmikutty and others, life is a painful reality and justice just a mirage.

(With inputs from Naveen Nair)

RIP. The end of activism

An excellent article that I keep reading again and again. Shows the apathy, actually the lack of empathy that we have for those who "subsidise" the 8% GDP growth...

http://in.rediff.com/news/2005/may/19sai.htm

RIP. The end of activism

Saisuresh Sivaswamy

May 19, 2005

Her photograph stared at me from the newspaper, which had relegated the issue to the inside pages. Medha Patkar, carrying the dust of India on her visage and the hopes of millions on her back, her hair unkempt as always, was surrounded by throngs of slum-dwellers at one of Mumbai's maidans used for a show of strength.

Only, here there was no strength on show. There was numbers, yes, but no strength in them. Let no one fool you into believing that democracy is all about numbers. If it really was -- for at any given time, in free and democratic India the dishoused, the dispossessed outnumber the haves, the have-mores and the want-mores -- that rally being led by Medha Patkar would have been a triumphant one, not one that beseeched.

And what were the crowds beseeching? Not clean air or clean water, two simple things our cities are unable to provide almost 60 years after we freed ourselves from foreign rule. Not free health, free power or free education, or any of those luxuries reserved for voting blocs. This crowd wanted to not be dishoused by the city they chose to make a home in.

They were not seeking to live in one of those high-tech townships that builders are planning all over the city. They lived in shanties before the bulldozers came roaring down, and they would be perfectly happy to live in shanties again. But the prettification of Mumbai perforce demands that those who do the city's dirty jobs should not be visible. Ideally they should not even be living within the city limits.

And most of these families that were brought to the streets did have a vote, and they did vote, for they were told before the election that they will not be touched in the city's drive to look like a megapolis, not an over-grown slum. So trusting in democracy, they voted in a government that today has no qualms about forgetting them.

It is people like these that Medha was campaigning for. Sure, she doesn't make it to the front-pages of newspapers anymore, the television cameras may not find her, or the cause she espouses, attractive anymore, but she carries on. And somewhere, drives a pang of guilt home in the likes of me who have turned away.

How different the situation is from what it was 15, 20 years ago! Those were the days when Mumbai had a heart; more importantly, it had a voice too, and made sure it was heard. Activism was alive and kicking then, in your face if you want to use a more current term. You couldn't lay a finger on a slum-dweller without the likes of Shabana Azmi raising a protest, going on hunger strike at Flora Fountain (Hutatma Chowk for today's crowd), and making sure no wrong was done. Remember the Nivara Hakk Suraksha Samiti, anyone? There were strident voices that spoke up for the city in the media as well. Remember Darryl D'Monte, Pritish Nandy, Nikhil Wagle, anyone?

Sure, there were jeers, roars of derision, but people like Shabana carried on. They made waving the jhola a fashion statement, and not just reflective of one's bank statement. It is not wrong to say that Mumbai has now sold out to Mammon over Marx, leading to the end of activism; Mumbai has always run after moolah, but through the gold rush it did pause to listen to voices of reason.

Not anymore. Today the government can order adult women to stop dancing in beer bars and find alternative employment, too bad if they can't; it can send in the bulldozers anytime anyplace to raze unwanted constructions, it can do just about anything in the knowledge there may be one or two like Medha Patkar bravely soldiering on, but for the rest, the city has ceased to care.

How and when did it happen? Was it because of the city's changing character, with its mills getting squeezed out and finally selling out, the employees forced into other avenues?

The city was always closely associated with its textile mills, and the activism that permeated the environment stemmed largely from its trade unions. It was a time when the working community mattered, and had a voice.

The mills dying out by itself may not have taken the sting out of the activism, if it did not coincide with another development: economic liberalisation. Suddenly poverty, which was always considered a virtue in India and to be worn on the sleeve, became a 4-letter word. The middle class, which lent its ears to the Cause, suddenly realised that with a bit of effort it could break out into a higher strata. It was not merely the force of consumerism, it was also the pressure of suppressed individual aspiration that was suddenly liberated.

And the youth, finally the youth. A child born in the first flush of economic liberalisation in Mumbai would be a teenager today. Who could blame the activist for opting to provide his offspring a better life in circumstances vastly removed from what they were in his own childhood. Heck, it could happen to you and me.

But the discomfort remains, as nagging as a pebble in your shoe. I see the dishoused by the roadside almost everyday, rubble standing where their one-room shanties were the previous night. Sunfilm on the windows does little to keep away the sullen stares, for it is to ease the ride of the likes of me that their homes have been flattened. Sure, the city needs good roads and other facilities, it needs to become a world-class conurbation, but it needn't trample on others dreams to do so. Absence of protest does not mean absence of resentment.

I believe so much... so much that I am ashamed of...

Sometimes I feel that I have been unlucky (or maybe even unfortunate) to have been born and brought up in a big urban setting. There are so many things that I do not know, I do not know the feeling of going around and playing in fields... I do not know the difference between the cities and villages... at least I cannot appreciate the infrastructure and facilities available in a city.

I do not know what it means to be educated in the best school/college in the country... because I have not seen the educational facilities in small towns and villages. I cannot connect to the rural India... I read and hear about the issues that plague them, but I cannot feel it since I have never been in a place where I see any such thing... in cities, we all learn to ignore the poor people on the streets... to us "they kill the aesthetic beauty"... Little do we realise that through our ignorance we are killing them each day...

• I cannot connect to the pain of the families fighting for survival in the Narmada valley...
• I cannot connect to the anguish of the tribals in Orissa who were fired upon for demanding a proper rehabilitation... More Info
  
• I believe that setting up on plush shopping malls (which waste huge amounts of electricity) by acquiring fertile agricultural land is the way to move forward for India...
• I believe so much... so much that I am ashamed of...

-Mohit

"Zameen se juda hua insaan"

Many times I have confronted myself with questions like...

Who am I?
What do I aim for in life?
What do I stand for?
What are my roots?

There are also times when I feel myself to be too far away from the ground realities of my nation. In short, as we say in Hindi "Zameen se juda hua insaan" .

Then again, I have heard, felt and have seen the difference in the villages and cities in India. Poles apart is one phrase that describes it. This difference hurts something inside me...

It is these feelings and questions which I am trying to collate in this blog. I hope, I will be able to sustain this into something useful...

"India lives in its villages" -- Mahatma Gandhi

-Mohit