Desicritics Author: Sanat Mohanty

Join the National Campaign for RTI

Sanat Mohanty — Mon, 14 Aug 2006 15:03:31 EDT

The Parliament of India is scheduled to table amendments to the landmark Right to Information (RTI) act the week of August 14th. As we celebrate Independence Day, these amendments purport to significantly weaken the RTI law and take away most of the freedoms gained by the common people after 59 years of independence.

It is important for all citizens to act to protect democratic processes and accountability granted by the RTI. Citizens living in India can help by joining groups that are already active in our communities or working with these groups in running similar programs. Those living abroad can also join in this effort.

Several groups in India including, National Campaign for Peoples' Right to Information, Mazdoor Kisan Shakti Sangathan, Parivartan, Kabir, National Alliance for People's Movement, and Asha Parivar have decided to issue a Nationwide appeal through an advertisement and awareness strategy exhorting people to share their opinion on the proposed amendments with their representatives through democratic processes. A referendum is being conducted throughout India. Some suggested actions may include

1. Awareness building through pamphlets, street plays, hoardings (on auto rickshaws or cycle rickshaws are cheap and get wide coverage), etc. We have also attached an electronic copy of a pamphlet in English and in Hindi. Please feel free to use it or to translate it into languages prevalent in your communities.

2. Peaceful rallies and demonstrations outside DM's office, vidhan sabha, etc. Petitions to these offices by those demonstrating or rallying will also be present strong opposition. It would be an added strength to get children and college students involved in these efforts.

3. We are strongly recommending a referendum against this amendment. An electronic copy of the referendum is attached in English and in Hindi. Please feel free to use it or to translate it into languages prevalent in your communities. We suggest that ballot boxes be put up in public places all over the city and people be requested to sign the referendum. If you do a count of the referendum and contact Arvind Kejriwal (01120507339) or Faisal Khan (9313106745) with the results in your community, it will help build a national voice with regards to this amendment.

4. Please including local media coverage of all these events. In addition, if you contact us, we can help get other media cover your events as well.

5. Please also call MPs from your constituencies or from the parties that represent you and ask them to oppose the amendment. Irrespective of their party affiliation, surely you do not want them to support corruption and policies that encourage it?

There is an urgent need for all concerned citizens and NRIs to come forward and take united action. For citizens living abroad, under a "NRIs Campaign to Save RTI". This drive by concerned individuals stresses our endorsement of the advertisement efforts of the groups in India to oppose the amendments to RTI law.

This is a 48-hour drive to collect funds to support advertisement campaign through newsprint and other mediums. Our target is to raise $25,000 through this drive. Your generous and timely donation will help make millions of people aware of their right and the proposed amendments being rushed through the parliament. Some Members of Parliament we have called are not aware of the proposed drastic changes and have not heard from their constituents.

Details of the “NRIs Campaign to Save RTI”:

As part of a coordinated strategy, newsprint advertisements are planned for early next week. Street side hoardings and advertisements on vehicles are also planned. Estimates for newspaper ad space range from $2000 for half-page in a regional daily to $20,000 for a half-page in a National daily. Ads on the vehicles such as auto-rickshaws cost $1000 and cover large part of a city. The groups in India will decide how best to use the funds collected.

Contribution Details:

To contribute to this drive please click here or visit the website of Indians for Collective Action (ICA) and click on the “Make a Donation” on the toolbar at the top of the page. You can donate by using paypal, pay with a credit card or mail the check to ICA. Please make sure to mention “RTI” or “Right to Information” where it says “Payment For” on the website. ICA’s 501C3 number is listed at the bottom of their page.

You may also mail your check to Indians For Collective Action, 801 West El Camino Real, Box# 355, Mountain View, CA 94040-2511. Please mention “RTI” or “Right to Information” at the Memo on the check.

ICA will send these funds to Asha Trust in India

Please also send us an email at saverighttoinformation@gmail.com once you have made your donation so we can be up to date regarding the funds raised. We plan to publish your name, location and pledge amount (no contact information) on a public website (thesouthasian.org). Let us know if you wish to donate anonymously instead.

Endorsements:

These organizations listed below endorse the Right To Information act in its current form without amendments exempting file notings:

National Campaign for People's Right to Information: Nikhil Dey

Mazdoor Kisan Shakti Sangathan: Nikhil Dey

Parivartan: Arvind Kejriwal

Kabir

National Alliance for People's Movement: Sandeep Pandey

Asha Parivar: Sandeep Pandey

Urban Street Vendors Lokseva Kendra: Pervez

Indians for Collective Action: Lata Patil

Association for India's Development: Satindar Mohan Bhagat

India Friends Association: Prithvi Raj

TheSouthAsian.org: Sanat Mohanty

Asha for Education, DC, LA and Austin Chapters Sirish Agarwal

Book Review: Between Past and Future Collection of Ekbal Ahmad's Essays on South Asia

Sanat Mohanty — Sun, 6 Aug 2006 15:23:36 EDT

I had read about Eqbal Ahmad but this was my first opportunity to read his writings extensively. My first impression was related to the clarity and honesty of his writings. Clarity in the positions he takes, how they impact other issues and what the implications are in a wide area of affairs covering South Asia, the USA, Europe, in fact the whole world and including a variety of affairs including economics, local and global policies and politics, and international relationships. Honesty in being able to articulate these positions and their implications even when they are with respect to events he is tied with emotionally, for example, the killing of Biharis by the East Pakistani militia.

It is rather unfortunate Eqbal Ahmad continues to be rarely read or hardly recognized within much of South Asia. Unfortunate, not for Ahmad, for he was hardly looking at being the next public voice of South Asia, but for South Asians leaders and intellectuals who are trying hard to understand our pasts and design our futures and quickly running out of ideas that are coherent, and sustainable.

Born in Bihar, as the book introduces him, to parents who were part of the freedom movement, he is said to have met both Gandhi and Tagore – two intellectual and activist leaders of the Indian freedom movement. When his father was murdered during the partition riots, he moved to Pakistan and grew up there. He later studied, lived and taught in the USA where he was also charged during the Vietnam era protests. Having been closely in touch with a wide set of global leaders, he was a true internationalist. And yet, his understanding of Pakistan and India – of South Asia – during the latter half of the 20^th century was detailed and insightful.

This book, containing letters and essays written during his life as he engaged on a number of issues – from demanding that Pakistan stop killing East Pakistanis and then later urging that East Pakistan be given autonomy, even independence despite being in complete disagreement with the ideology of the Bangladeshi leadership, his analysis of hostilities between India and Pakistan and its impact on rights and democracy within our countries, his scathing criticism of the nuclearization of South Asia and his analysis of breakdown of Pakistani civic society – highlight his commitment to democracy based on active participation by people.

As he analyzes the economies of both countries and critiques the praetorian bureaucracies – their traditions with the British and leanings for gentlemanly charity (I paraphrase) while opposing policies that encourage participative democracy – one cannot help wonder about the relevance to the current attempt by the Indian bureaucracy to scuttle the Right to Information Act. His analysis of the bureaucratic-military partnership and the consequent breakdown of civic society in Pakistan owing to ill-visioned strategies by politicians points to the state of democracy in Pakistan while at the same time reminding India how close its own democracy is to a state of anarchy driven by similar strategies.

One aspect of his analysis that I find incomplete – and that may be because this is not an exhaustive collection of his writings – is his construction of religions in South Asia. He briefly talks about it and its role in pre-Independence India as well as in Pakistan and India in the context of rising fundamentalism. However, this set of writings do not present a construction of what may be the role of religion in strengthening democracies, if any – or he merely presents a glimpse of that analysis in his presentation on Sufi traditions. I look for this aspect specifically in the context of his quote “No significant change occurs unless the new form is congruent with the old. It is only when a transplant is congenial to a soil that it works. Therefore, it is very important to know the transplant as well as the native soil.”

Perhaps, the most fascinating part of his writings is his clarity in urging democracy in South Asia and relating it to peace. On one hand, he is absolutely critical of the Pakistani state in its debilitation of democracy in Pakistan – tying it to its anti-people protocols vis-à-vis East Pakistan, first and then its interested meddling in Afghanistan and the rise of religious fundamentalism and its impact on Pakistan’s future. On the other hand, the clarity of this position are reflected in describing the bind alley into which India and Pakistan have walked vis-à-vis Kashmir and the absolute absence of democracy and rights of people in Kashmir, whether ruled by India or by Pakistan.

He also temporally correlates external policies of India vis-à-vis repression in Kashmir and stances with Pakistan with the democratic crises at home. In essence, it is a clear thesis on how peace in South Asia is tied to the destinies of all of these nations, their democracies and the welfare of its people. Based on this analysis, he urges new strategies for India and Pakistan to resolve their differences keeping Kashmiri sensitivities in mind. These new strategies (also described in the movie by Hoodbhoy and Mian on South Asia), while understanding of Pakistani and Indian realities are also radical in envisioning Kashmir as a start of an era of collaboration between India and Pakistan which might become one pillar of a framework for a strong South Asia.

At the very least, Ahmad's writings provoke – provoke angst at the short term vision and blinkered policies of our States and frustration at what might have been. Provoke ideas of what may be possible – even now necessary, going beyond the blame game of South Asian politics.

( Another review of the book by Justin Podur is also listed and I found it useful relating my experience with this review.)

How Peace Will Not Be Achieved: Urge Peace with India, But Kidnap Peace Activist in Pakistan

Sanat Mohanty — Tue, 25 Jul 2006 03:04:38 EDT

President Musharraf cannot have it both ways – he cannot claim to be working for peace with India on one hand and on the other hand intimidate grass root workers and intellectuals who are trying to establish an environment in Pakistan for peace with India.

A case in point is that of Asif Baladi.

On May 21st, the Pakistani newspaper The Dawn reported a press conference in Hyderabad where Asif Baladi announced an "International Paigham-e-Sindh Conference" in March 2007 at the shrine of Shah Abdul Latif Bhittai in Bhit Shah, saying that the purpose of the conference was to streamline Sindh's essential message of peace, love and harmony to the rest of the world that alone offers stability and co-existence in the region.

He said he believes in the unity in multiplicity of religions and equity of cultures, and is a follower of Ahinsa and that 100,000 earthen lamps would be lit at the shrine of the great Sufi poet Shah Abdul Latif Bhittai on the occasion of the conference.

Ardeshir Cowasjee reported in The Dawn "Soon after this announcement he was picked up by ISI men while he was on the way to a friend in Karachi's Defence area." He goes on to add that "A Constitutional Petition No.1019/2006 filled, today, by Mr. Noorulldin Sarki, Mr. Gulam Mustafa Lakho and Mr. Ghulam Shah, Advocates, in the High Court of Sindh at Karachi for knowing the whereabouts of Asif Baladi on behalf of his son Jibran, which is fixed on 13th day of July 2006 for orders at Serial Number 10 before the Division Bench consisting of Mr. Justice Anwar Zaheer Jamali & Mr. Justice Muhammad Afzal Soomro."

Leaders of the Sindh Nationalist Forum have threatened to launch a series of protest demonstrations if SNF chief Asif Baladi and other nationalist leaders were not released. They said that since the 80s state excesses had crossed all limits and many a leader of Sindh and Balochistan were being held incommunicado and subjected to torture.

They said that the kidnapping of Asif Baladi and other nationalist leaders by agencies was a flagrant violation of human rights and warned that the consequences would be disastrous.

They called upon the Sindhi nation, nationalist leaders, national and international human rights organisations to help secure the release of Asif Baladi and other nationalist leaders.

They called upon friends of Sindh to evolve a joint strategy for launching a struggle against the arrest of nationalist leaders. They said that Mr Baladi was arrested as he had announced to convene the “Pegham-i-Sindh Conference” at the shrine of Shah Latif in March 2007.

They said that his arrest was aimed at sabotaging the conference though its objectives were to promote peace, unity, mutual understanding and religious harmony.

They said that the Pegham-i-Sindh Conference would be held on schedule despite the harassment and obstacles. They said that a peaceful protest movement would be launched in Sindh including protest demonstrations, sit-ins and hunger strikes to secure the release of Asif Baladi and other nationalist leaders.

Meanwhile, the Sindh High Court issued notices to the federal and provincial attorneys for July 19 in a petition alleging illegal confinement of Sindh Nationalist Forum chairman and Jeay Sindh Tehrik activist Asif Baladi.

Asif Baladi’s son petitioned that while in custody, he contacted his sister in Hyderabad asking her to send his passport and national identity card through one Sarwar, who would be visiting his Gulistan-i-Jauhar residence. The petitioner said Sarwar came to his residence with three or four people in a vehicle numbered AKD-583 on July 2. He introduced himself as a servant of Brig Saleem of the ISI but the petitioner did not deliver him that passport and the NIC.

The petitioner said nothing was known about his father’s whereabouts since June 26 and no contact had been made by him after his phone call. He feared for the safety of the detainee and requested the court to order his recovery and production. The Gulistan-i-Jauhar police station had been informed of the disappearance but no case had been registered.

A division bench comprising Justices Anwar Zaheer Jamali and Mohammad Afzal Soomro asked the deputy attorney-general and the advocate-general to seek instructions from the authorities concerned to ascertain the whereabouts of the alleged detainee and inform the court by July 19, when the petition would again come up for hearing.

While various organizations are rallying for the release of a peace activist detained illegally by an arm of Musharraf’s government, the President himself contends to bring peace by making vacuous statements regarding the dynamics of South Asia, urging India to see long term beyond Mumbai blasts in its strategies.

The President must understand that peace does not exist in a vacuum and strategies often break down when the realities of ground take over. And the ground reality is that much work needs to be done to break down stereotypes in India and Pakistan so that peace can be possible and be sustained – peace beyond the gimmicks of handshakes and press conferences.

This is exactly what the ilk of Asif Baladi is working on in Pakistan – just like many of their counterparts in India. Creating a grass roots reality where people view their neightbors as friends, as co-inhabitants. Peace cannot be achieved by intimidating them.

But maybe, Musharraf is not looking for peace. Maybe he is interested in ‘managing’ the forces of fundamentalism so that he can remain the man USA wants in Pakistan. So that he can stay in power by presenting the stick of extremism to the Pakistani society.

That is the question Mr. Musharraf needs to answer to his own people and to the Indians. Is he truly for peace? In which case, he needs to prove that by his actions. Beginning with releasing Asif Baladi and supporting the Second Visa-free and Peaceful South Asia Convention, the International Paigham-e-Sindh Conference and other such grass roots efforts.

Right To Information: RTI Shows Ineffectiveness of Bureaucracy

Sanat Mohanty — Mon, 17 Jul 2006 12:17:57 EDT

Since the first of July, a concerted effort by Civic Society Organizations, Non Government Organizations, individuals and a prominent TV news channel - NDTV and leading national newspapers are coming together to launch a national campaign

During this 15-day campaign (July 1 to July 15, 2006), citizens will be guided on the use of the Right to Information and the making and filing of RTI applications by trained volunteers across the nation.

Covering over 40 cities around India, the campaign has been organizing workshops all across these cities. Seminars and hands on training of processes are being presented. In addition, volunteers are helping individuals find information about government processes and issues that are of concern to them. Thousands of volunteers are helping citizens find information about land deeds, land decisions, pensions, bank accounts, public distribution accounts, and status of complaints, some of them pending over decades. <

The campaign website has been carrying up to date information about events in these cities, statistics of applications, successes and failures, as well as news on Right to Information from around India. Success stories streaming in from around the country have highlighted the power of this act in making information accessible to citizens. These include:

CIC pulls up Rashtrapati Bhawan for unbecoming behaviour

MCD has fared worst in providing info, says CIC

1400 RTI applications in 14 days in Gujarat

Khetramani finally gets her land records through RTI

Court directs to implement RTI in Bihar

Anti Bribery Campaign Notes: Mumbai

Gujarat post-campaign plans

Anti-bribe campaign in Orissa is in full swing

People came on Road to protest bribe for transformer

Jharkhand RTI forum formed

At the same time, however, the campaign has highlighted the severe problems with governments. For example one applicant said that his mother had been waiting for her pension over 12 years and eventually died 4 years ago from illnesses she could not afford to treat. If she had her pension she would not be dead. The petition via RTI discovered that her papers had been misplaced!

A volunteer with RTI in UP described numerous examples of ineffectiveness. While a Public Information Officer (PIO) is now stationed at government offices, and by law is supposed to be accessible to citizens, that is never the case. In a bank, the PIO sitting in his A/C office behind an intimidating assistant who never let anyone in, and armed guards said that he had not received any complaints. One volunteer who went to interview him pointed out that the guards were redirecting people and the assistant was yelling them away. In addition, for most who are poor and often easily intimidated by offices, bureaucracy and English, they often do not know where to look.

Rs. 10 application fee is (by law) to be deposited with the form. In numerous cases, officers have ‘waived’ that fee. However, that is in fact illegal and in the absence of the fee the application is not binding and can be thrown away. Most people do not know this and offices are using this mechanism as a way to get around having to present information. Volunteers with the campaign are asking people to ensure that the fee is taken.

Some people presenting their applicant at a police station had their application torn. It was eventually accepted when campaign volunteers interceded. In another case campaign volunteers working at a courthouse to help applicants find papers were threatened with arrest. It was only when they argued that they were working as per the act and in fact doing the job that the court administration must be doing, and challenged arrest that the officials backed off.

This has resulted in numerous volunteers asking how empowered citizens will feel once this short campaign has ended. When ‘English speaking, educated volunteers are being threatened, will poor people pleading for their cases stand a chance at being listened to?’, was the question.

From the response of volunteers during the early days of the Act, it is clear that this can be a tool that can empower people. However, a large section is so disempowered that much work also needs to be done to empower us to even use the tool. These processes of empowerment need much work and commitment and this is where thousands of volunteers around India have been mobilized.

From conversation with RTI campaign volunteers and from www.antibribery.org

How Should the Indian Democracy Address Naxalism?

Sanat Mohanty — Thu, 6 Jul 2006 03:02:30 EDT

Perhaps one of the most interesting newspaper articles this year was written in a Hindi publication by a journalist named Subhranshu Choudhary. Translated for southasian.org into English, it was titled " Who Will Win - Jayashankar or Naxals?"

The core questions it raises are those of development and empowerment. An increasing part of India today is finding itself unable to generate its livelihoods owing to lack of access to markets or to resources (water, land, low input seeds). Agrarian livelihoods are becoming difficult to sustain and is reflected in the increasing migration, as well as in farmer suicides.

At the same time, these large sections are also feeling disempowered. Between the obduracy and corruption of the bureaucracy, the insensitivity of its representatives and the policies of the government, it finds it has no voice. Examples abound including the weavers of Varanasi, the small agrarian communities in Jharkhand, Andhra, tribal communities dispossessed of their lands in Orissa and disempowered of forest rights and other rights in Chattisgarh and MP.

The Naxal movement presents itself as an alternative to a growing section of India and it increasingly looks like a feasible alternative to these sections, an alternative that claims to be more equal, more grass roots based and more sensitive to the needs of the farmers. The increasing role of caste dynamics as well as the oppression of the landless accentuates the attractiveness of Naxal movements.

It is in such a situation that large sections India find themselves. However, neither the mainstream media nor the government policy makers are willing to see the growing Naxal presence within this context. It is a mere pest (or perhaps more significant than a pest) that must be crushed. In fact, certain sections have even attributed the Naxal movement with being an extension of foreign forces intent on destabilizing India.

Be that as it may, as far as this growing community in India is concerned, with no voice or means to reach out to policy makers who are destroying their communities, they find Naxalism an option to empower themselves to live with dignity.

Unless the Indian State and the media recognize this context within which Naxalism is finding space to grow, government policies are in fact pushing more and more communities towards making that choice.

Perhaps, the choice of whether Jayshankar (representing social and civic movements based on nonviolence) will win or the Naxals is really in the hands of the Indian policy makers, the media and perhaps even the middle and upper classes.

A Bleak Perspective of Corporations

Sanat Mohanty — Thu, 6 Jul 2006 02:06:03 EDT

Corporations were chartered in England and other parts of modern Europe, growing out of large and powerful mercantile communities at the beginning of the Industrial Revolution.

As every person associated with the third world and any global history buff knows, at the very onset itself, they were the drivers of colonization globally, engaging in extreme cruelty and oppressive social and economic strategies to attain access to markets, resources and labor in colonies across Asia, Africa and South America.

However, it is important to recognize that all of these policies were first implemented in England (and some other parts of Europe) while these corporations were still large consolidations of mercantile communities.

As economist Karl Polanyi presents in The Great Transformation, the Industrial Revolution needed three key components - ready access to labor, ready access to markets, and ready access to resources. In the absence of all there components, production and sale would be intermittent and the mercantile community was unwilling to make investments without ensuring constant access to all three. While the colonies provided all three after colonization, the processes to gather these were in fact home grown. One of the most critical was the passage of Enclosure Laws.

Production in rural England was based on the labor of landless peasants who worked for the local manor and supplemented their income with access to the commons (common pastures or forests which helped sustain some animals). The Enclosure of the Commons were proposed and engineered by the mercantile community through the English Parliament ensuring that rural peasants would have no more access to these commons.

With the end of such access peasants could not sustain their lives in rural communities and flocked to the cities. Thus, the mercantile community socially engineered a glut of always available labor that the mills could access at whatever price they liked. On the other hand, the life of the peasants (now laborers) was worse than those of animals.

These were the same laws that were promulgated in the colonies including taking away all community ownership of forests, pastures, water bodies, and mines. In India, it affected the lives of millions. Tribal communities who mined and made metals found themselves engaged in illegal activities. Tribal and other communities living in and on the edge of forests were now criminals for living off the forests. Water bodies being maintained by communities fell into desuetude.

In addition, tariffs were passed that made economically unfeasible numerous livelihoods in the colonies, especially those engaged in textile industries, in salt manufacture, and in local trade.

Not only were corporations engaged in exploitative policies from the very onset, their precursors were also engaged in such practices. Thus, the idea of legalizing unethical policies or laws that would oppress were formulated and put to practice even before the charter of the first corporation by the same mercantile communities.

Today, corporations are ubiquitous in all aspects of ‘democratic’ processes. Media in the USA is almost completely owned by less than half dozen corporations. World over, the situation is slightly different. Thus, ‘news’ is completely managed, even produced, as Noam Chomsky argues. In Manufacturing Consent, he presents various filters through which news gets manufactured by the corporate sector. For one, news media in all forms is completely owned by corporations. Second, subscriptions have become an insignificant source of income for media houses - advertising is the big one. Hence, news media has to be sensitive to the needs of the corporate sector or lose out on profits.

Corporations also wield an inordinate amount of power on institutions of political power. With significant contributions to campaign funds and a ready accessibility to the corridors of power, corporations influence government and public policy almost entirely at the cost of diminishing influence of citizens of a country. The systematic bribing of Congressmen in United States was instituted by Mark Hanna, sugar trust magnate Henry O. Havemeyer, and Senator Nelson Aldrich and their associates as detailed in Jonathan Shepard Fast and Luzviminda Bartolome Francisco's, Conspiracy For Empire, Big Business, Corruption and the Politics of Imperialism in America, 1876-1907 (Quezon City, Foundation for Nationalist Studies, 1985), p. 92-97.

Through this influence, they control international policy, policies of financial institutions, etc. Thus, as IMF and World Bank driven structural adjustment programs have most benefited corporations, one cannot but make these connections. In his book, The Best Democracy Money Can Buy Greg Palast describes in great detail the influence corporations wield. Michael Moore also makes the case in his movies and the movie Corporation reinforces these arguments with more evidence.

The list of violations by large corporations is long and cites not just financial innovativeness but includes cruel exploitation, union busting through assassinations, deliberate destruction of communities, inhuman work conditions and fatal negligence. While many of these continue to be fought in various courts of law, often those making these charges are doing so under grave threat to life and in the absence of the amount of financial spending that can afford to keep these cases going.

These include allegations against Exxon, Chevron and Shell of using militia and violence to bring down opposition from local communities in Africa and Asia to their plans of expansion, to influencing governments, allegations against Dole of using militia to break up unions and terrorizing its laborers, of making its laborers in South America work in slave like conditions, allegations against Dow of deliberately marketing dangerous chemicals in markets outside US and Europe where they are banned, allegations against a host of companies including Dow, Lever, and Aventis of dumping toxic pollutants instead of treating them to keep costs low, allegations of sexual harassment and discrimination, of inappropriate compensations and of influencing laws and lawmakers in various countries to continue to act in this fashion against numerous companies. And we have not even spoken of Walmart.

In numerous cases, allegations were proven but neither does the mainstream media carry such news, nor does the corporation always comply. For example, the Supreme Court Monitoring Committee (SCMC) of India found that Aventis India had formed a subsidiary that dumped toxic waste into landfills inside the plant. While the SCMC has asked for action, local administration has been unwilling to comply and the media has not carried any report on this. Similarly, a local court in India has held Coke responsible for innovative accounts resulting in tax evasion - the company has yet to pay the amount three years since the verdict and the Indian media is quite unwilling to anger Coke and risk ads that Coke places in these newspapers.

In Nigeria, Shell was found guilty and the Nigerian Senate fined the company $1.5 Billion for its excesses in the Niger Delta. The company has ignored the verdict and it has the political and financial clout not to care. Meanwhile, none of these transgressions have been reported in US media.

Most communities find it difficult to challenge exploitation of large corporations. Their financial clout often ensures that political representatives are favorable to corporate interests. Even when cases are filed, communities usually do not have the finances nor the ability to keep up with an army of lawyers and millions of dollars available to corporations.

Perhaps, the biggest twist in democratic processes is the establishment of Corporate Personhood. Through a process of incremental changes in laws and interpretations using numerous attorneys and judges, corporations have now claimed access to a large set of rights that belong to a citizen. Thus, corporations now claim the ability to present laws, amendments and bills just like a citizen.

Thus, in California, for example, a consortium of industries introduced a motion that was put to vote in the county election. Once such a motion is put on the ballot, a company spends over half a million dollars in that county running a media campaign for that motion. In a recent case bordering on ridiculousness, Walmart has claimed that a class action suits should be thrown out because it violates the ‘civil rights’ of the organization. Increasingly, then, corporations are successfully hijacking democratic processes.

This vignette, using but a few examples, presents the menace that corporations have become vis-à-vis democratic processes and ethical social functioning. Their access to funds, often more than the GDP of most host nations, allows them to significantly influence the processes of these nations subverting wishes of people in democratic processes.

In a globalized world, the menace of transnational companies operating through a variety of countries is even more threatening. On one hand, they are often not accountable to any one community or country. Thus, Shell is unwilling to be accountable to political processes or efforts in Niger. Similarly, Union Carbide was unwilling to be accountable to judicial processes in India with its CEO ‘absconding’ from Indian courts while living in one of the most expensive communities in the USA. On the other hand, they are able to use laws of the country of convenience. Thus, Bechtel, with merely an office in the Netherlands was able to use Dutch treaties with Bolivia as a basis to sue the Bolivian government for throwing Bechtel out owing to unethical pricing of water.

One can argue that despite all evidence of unethical practices against numerous companies, any generalization that ‘Corporations are Evil’ is unfair. That would be as true as arguing that Monarchies are Evil. Surely there were monarchs and kings who were benevolent and just. However, the reason human civilization eventually rejected monarchies was owing to the immense injustice and exploitation possible with such acute concentration of power. That argument is even truer for corporations. The power they wield through the resources they control is often orders of magnitude more than kings of the past. And they use that power to make unjust decisions, to exploit, and to oppress when necessary for them to profit. It is for these reasons that the influence of corporations must be checked.

This can be achieved through the following processes,

Ending corporate personhood;
Ensuring that corporations cannot profit through dumping externalities and in the even to externalities being dumped, all assets of the corporation becoming owned by the community till the impact of the externalities has been resolved; and
Making corporations accountable to local communities within which they operate.

After all, corporations are only tools for the welfare of human civilization. They must therefore exist in a way where they are accountable to the larger society, not to a few who own the corporation. Laws must also ensure that individuals cannot use laws that are special to corporations to perpetrate violence and injustice in ways that they could not as individuals. A mode of development that does not make the processes and institutions accountable for the ‘undevelopment’ they cause and the cost that they thrust on communities for this development is unjust – no rhetoric can right that, no period can accept it as ethical.

Ruminations On Reservations

Sanat Mohanty — Mon, 22 May 2006 03:27:38 EDT

The reservation issue in fashion again and many suggest that it is merely political manipulation, vote bank scheming before the elections. There are, perhaps, serious questions that we - as a nation - must think about. Questions that have impact beyond ourselves, our families but on the fabric of a democratic nation.

The Question of Merit
Perhaps the biggest question always begins with merit. People who have merit should have the job. Or the opportunity to be trained for the job. There is validity to that criterion. If I need medical advice, I surely need someone who has the skills to give me that advice. Surely, I would not ask a lawyer with no experience or skill in healthcare for advice! Or if I want to learn mathematics, I want a teacher who understands mathematics and can teach it.

So clearly, seats in colleges and institutions should go to individuals with merit - those who have the prerequisites training necessary to be a physician, an engineer or a teacher.

However, Udit Raj, the chairman of the All-India Confederation of the Scheduled Caste/Scheduled Tribe Federations, counters by asking that if merit is the criterion why hunger strikes are not held against colleges that admit significant percentage of their students based on 'capitation' - the ability to pay large amounts. Surely, the ability to pay does not correlate with skills.

And Dr. Raj does have a point in that the percentage of seats available for payment engineering or medical degrees is comparable to reserved seats. Of course, one can argue that most of these colleges are 'private' colleges. But really, even private colleges are run with significant public subsidies. Besides, the 'private' college argument does not address the question of merit.

In fact, more significant aspects of the argument for merit have been swept under the carpet. That is, the measure of merit itself can be questioned. For example, consider the business schools in India - or anywhere for that matter. Do the exams measure anything beyond ones ability for basic math and practice is solving a certain kind of riddles? Is that the prerequisite to managing businesses?

A child who has grown in with lots of toys and puzzles - such as mastermind, or scrabble, or sudoku (please trademark where appropriate) - will have an easier time solving these problems compared to a child who has grown up helping her father convenience store, understanding accounts, credit, etc. The former has a higher chance of getting into business school than the latter and may even do well there. However, would the latter have done badly? The success of the founder of Reliance Industries suggests otherwise. Similar examples can be applied to JEE, PMT or other engineering and medical exams.

So what is this measure of merit and how skewed is it? Is there any truly unbiased measure of merit? While research has already placed in doubt IQ metrics that were the rage a few decades ago, even tests such as SAT, GRE, etc are also being shown to be biased on cultural and other grounds (and these are not intentional biases). CAT is based on such tests while we have no idea what biases exist in the other exams; however, given the similar background of the faculty who set up those exams, biases must be researched.

A third component also exists. While I am in need of medical advice I want someone who has the skill. That has been the basis of defining merit. However, I also need someone who is willing to give me that advice. Unfortunately, that is not considered.

Thus, we have large sections of our population without access to medical advice, engineering advice, technical advice, educational advice, etc. Much of these sections are indeed tribal, dalit and lower caste communities. None of these individuals who 'merited' their seats in publicly paid for training programs have any interest in working with these sections.

Why then, as someone who cares about the overall development of my people, my nation, be worried about this merit when the advantages of this merit do not reach the nation? That is another question that must be ruminated.

The Question of Equality and Opportunity
Anti-reservationists have raised the flag of equality. Why should people be treated differently based on their castes? Everyone should have an equal opportunity to get those seats based on an examination. Why should 50% of seats be reserved for the lower castes?

Again, Dr Udit Raj responds by asking why 15% of the upper castes take 50% of the seats! While this may seem rhetoric, a large fraction of dalit and tribal communities believe that is the case. In essence, they are asking a larger question from our democracy - why does our democracy have nothing for us?

While the constitution demands opportunities for education for all, the state has constantly ignore that demand and when it has provided schools - they are structures that can hardly be called schools. It would be quite unlikely that students would get their skills to be ready for entrance exams for engineering or medicine or business or finance coming from such a structure.

While these communities have constantly demanded better education, political powers have not listened. Fraction of money allocated to primary education is among the lowest in the world. But we have not gone on hunger strike that these children get proper education. Children from dalit or tribal or OBC communities have had neither an opportunity for equal facilities, learning, training or even time to study. Often under stress of labor - frequently, indentured labor - education is not even a possibility.

So our demanding equality in entrance exams when we have not asked equality for them at other times is rather cruel if not ridiculous.

On the other hand, much of the dalit or tribal or OBC community has come to believe that there will be no opportunities for them without them becoming part of decision making processes - bureaucrats, doctors, engineers, teachers. And there is validity to that. After all, even with the reservation policies, a very small fraction of senior bureaucrats are from these communities.

And yet, there is truth that children from 'our families' are finding fewer opportunities in engineering, medicine, management, finance or other processes that can help provide employment opportunities.

However, the fault lies not with dalit or tribal communities demanding seats but with an education system that can provide no jobs and an employment system that is uni-dimensional in the nature of jobs it dignifies. Thus, even if reservations are removed, a thousand more medical seats will do nothing for our country. Nor will hundreds of thousands of unemployed engineers find jobs.

Unfortunately, we are barking up the wrong tree. We need to figure out how we can bring dignity to a broader range of jobs as well as train people in skills that India is crying out for and help trained individuals with those jobs through appropriate remuneration. It is not just a question of a market - it is also a social question.

At the same time, none of these arguments are addressed by the reservation policy today. A significant portion of the reserved seats are taken up by students who come from families that have enjoyed generations of these benefits - often well to do with access to good education, and other social opportunities.

Many have argued - and I add my voice - that the reservation policies need reform. They need something for lower economic class. And they need a generational cut-off clause where an individual from a family that has enjoyed these benefits for two generations cannot apply in the reserved class (or some variation there-of). In addition, there also need to be considerations of hierarchies that are quite prominent even within the reserved castes - are the more oppressed among them able to access these benefits.

The Question of Participation in Democratic Processes
Large sections of our nation are feeling completely left out of the democratic process. Their voices are not being heard and their needs are being marginalized. Tribal communities are facing the brunt of many policies. They are being displaced without any compensation or choice. With democratic processes failing them, they are vulnerable to forces that are often violent. Through these policies and processes, where there basic human rights have often been violated, neither the mainstream media nor our own middle class communities have shown compassion for their condition - and that has been unfortunate.

Unfortunate, since a viable democracy requires that all people be part of democratic processes. Else, the state can fail. It is in this context of development that we have to ask how communities that have been socially and economically marginalized can continue to participate in the development process and the democracy. It is a question that impacts our own future.

Thus, the question of reservation is a question of the nation. We cannot afford to answer it from within the narrow confines of insecurity driven by our own personal situation. The question has to be answered with an understanding of the lives of those who have not had equal opportunities, and understanding for many in India who have been consistently marginalized.

We as a nation have to have dialogue - for we have stopped even listening to the other. We do not understand the needs of the other, or why they make demands we find preposterous. We as a civic society have to answer these questions with an awareness of the state of the other even as we grapple with our own needs. Without that, this will become another political gimmick to be brought out of the closet depending on the time of the year, pitching one faction against another in this politics of vote banks.

Dharna Against Coke Continues Past 50th Day

Sanat Mohanty — Mon, 22 May 2006 02:33:38 EDT

The Mehdiganj dharna against the continued withdrawal of water by Coke continues past its 50th day even as the local administration has announced that water table has dropped past critical levels. On the other hand, Coca Cola company continues to spin as Times of India reports that Coke pays money to retailers to suppress reports of dirt and insects in the drinks.

The morale of the local community continues to be high as everyday women from different villages take turns sitting at the protest against the Coke bottling plant and its continual withdrawal of over half a million liters of water every day.

As individuals from around the country - including some eminent personalities such as Rajendra Singh - drop by in solidarity, the morale continues to be high. In addition, documentary film makers and social activists have visited the dharna from around the world including Canada, Germany, and USA.

The success of the protests is perhaps best documented in the reaction of Coke. Even as the protests began about 2 months ago, a senior public relations manager of the company came down from Delhi to talk the people from starting the dharna. Now, the company has taken to using other tactics.

On the 50th day of the protests, about 30 women came and sat opposite the ongoing protests with placards in English. The placards included slogans such as "We do not have scarcity of water", "We need jobs, Coke gives us jobs" and "We want Coke".

Nandlal Master, one of the members of the dharna spoke with some of the people even as the entire interaction was visually documented. It came to light that the women holding the placards had no idea what the placards said and had been paid about Rs. 100 by Coke for sitting with those placards. 7 women, on learning that the placards said that there was no water problem in the area, threw away the placards and immediately left the group. The others said that since they had accepted money to sit, they would continue to sit for the rest of the day though they would not join such an exercise again.

The administration of Coke has also started a smear campaign against Nandlal and Lok Samiti - the group of local community members that is heading the protests. It has distributed pamphlets that Nandlal has accepted over Rs. 5.7 million from various sources including foreign funds to run this campaign against Coke and that the community should demand that Nandlal present his accounts. The government should also investigate these funds. They have also alleged that Nandlal built his home from these funds.

In response Nandlal has presented his accounts at a public meeting pointing out that his home was built in 2000, 3 years before the campaign against Coke began. In addition, Lok Samiti has also formed a self help group - a cooperative - that runs a tent house. The accounts for the tent house show initial funds of Rs. 0.17 million of which 70,000 came as bank loans and Rs. 0.1 million was given to the cooperative as a loan from Prof Deepak Gupta from IIT Kanpur. There was no evidence of Rs 5.7million that Coke claims to have come to Nandlal.

It is ironic that Coke has started such a campaign against Nandlal and the protests even as it argues that there is no protest in Mehdiganj. Perhaps, the protests are beginning to hurt Coke. The local communities certainly continue to support the protests as is evident from their participation.

While it presents innuendoes against the Mehdiganj protests, it continue to run publicity campaigns against two court verdicts holding it liable for insects, iron and other junk found in sealed bottles of its beverages.

This has now taken an even more serious turn with the Times of India reporting an internal memo of Coca Cola that suggests that insects, tobacco pouches, dirt and fungus are frequently found in its products and the practice of giving complimentary products to vendors to keep quiet when substances such as show up in its beverages is routine.

In response, Coca Cola has attempted to pass the buck to its vendors and to saboteurs - charges that various consumer court verdicts have rejected.

U.P. - Food, Corruption And Courts: Public Hearings on Food Distribution

Sanat Mohanty — Sun, 21 May 2006 14:14:33 EDT

About a 1000 people from 20 panchayats came to Varanasi - in carts, in tractors and in trucks - to publicly present their stories to the Food Commission set up by the Supreme Court and demand justice. They were stories of pain, of deception, of a callous corrupt oppressive system. But this was also a story of democracy.

Following starvation deaths and the collapse of the Public Distribution System with rampant corruption, the Supreme Court had nominated two commissioners to monitor distribution of food in Uttar Pradesh.

Public hearings have been organized by the commissioners in various blocks of UP so that village communities have an opportunity to share their experiences and present problems they face to a jury of civic society members.

In mid March, 2006, I was fortunate to attend one such public hearing which was organized in Varanasi with the help of Lok Samiti and Lillyben, a nun and a social rights activist from Sarnath. The jury included the food commissioner Arundhati Dhuru, economist Jean Dreze, Allahabad High Court Advocate Sheba Ben, Dr. Sandeep Pandey, Prof. Dilip Mullick, Nity Bhai, and the district officer for supplies, among others.

The organizers provided a summary of survey conducted in these panchayats including:
1. 77% of ration stores charged excess prices
2. Commodities were being entered in account books without being given to people
3. Grain given was not edible
4. Ration cards were being canceled arbitrarily
5. In winters, when kerosene is in high demand, ration stores stop giving kerosene

The survey also spoke with store owners whose complaints included
1. Warehouses gave them less quantity than they entered
2. They had to give bribes to bureaucrats to get commodities
3. Had to pay partially for logistics from their own pockets

In the presence of the district officer for supplies and the members of the hearing committee, individuals from these villages presented their stories. It was easy to feel anger at the injustice, at the dehumanization of people.

One middle-aged man spoke of the ration store owner giving 2 liters of kerosene for the entire winter and jeering when he pleaded for more - for what was his by right. When the man complained, his home was burnt. The police was unwilling to take action against the criminals.

Another woman said that even though she had a BPL (Below Poverty Line) card, the ration store would not give her what was due. And the grains she did get were inedible - they were rotten.

The District Supplies Officer countered that he knew that everyone with a BPL card was given food. At this a long line of men and women came up with their cards. These cards were either empty or had clearly fake entries where sometimes even dates did not match. At this, the DSO made a long speech saying that he had just joined this department and that he will do all that he can to ensure that people get what is due to them. He offered to give out his mobile number and that people could contact him and he would do what was necessary.

The extent of corruption was disappointing. Even more saddening was the caste dimension. Yadavs today form the dominant caste in large rural parts of Eastern UP. They control the panchayats and inevitably the ration store. Often, the ration store in charge is a relative of the sarpanch. The mechanism works well to control the village. Those who vote for the sarpanch get slightly better treatment from the ration store in charge. On the other hand, the ration store in charge - which is a democratic appointment - is usually with the sarpanch.

The state of the dalits in this situation is appalling. They have no voice and no way to redress the injustice. Even the Schedule Castes commission which is supposed to redress caste based injustices is unwilling to act. The police is often unwilling to file FIRs against the panchayats. With 2 liters of kerosene it is impossible to last through winter. Instead of 20 kgs of rice that is their right, they are given 6kgs, sometimes less. Sugar is almost never given - even if it is available.

Often the ration store does not give ration to dalit communities the first few days after they receive their goods. They are just intimidated and turned away.

The panchayat even controls how many BPL cards are given out. The below poverty line card is supposed to be given to all families below the poverty line. However, the block officers arbitrarily set a number for a panchayat and then the panchayat often decides who gets them. As various people also pointed out, these cards are also often arbitrarily canceled or confiscated.

There is nothing as humbling or nothing that provokes anger as an old woman pleading for help - for any kind of help - so that she can get what is hers by law. It makes ones heart cry. There were just too many such stories.

The public hearing will make a record of these stories and present it to the Supreme Court. Maybe the powers that be may get the local administration to act for a couple of months. Maybe a couple of officers will be transferred. Beyond that...

And yet, the public hearing was empowering. It was empowering for people who are beaten up and whose houses are burnt for even raising this issue, to come and present their stories. It was empowering for them to connect with others who were similarly affected. It was empowering for them to declare that they were willing to come to the streets if nothing happened soon - they did not have a choice. For that is where the hopes of the Indian democracy continues to live. Not in Kalam's speeches, in Manmohan Singh's policies or in Narayanmurthy's dollars.

It was empowering for a nation. For a democracy. One that lives and breathes, not in the elite colonies of Bangalore or Delhi but in the heart of the nation's million farmers.

Mandala, Mumbai: New Strategy - Let Us Burn Slums

Sanat Mohanty — Sun, 21 May 2006 13:59:04 EDT

A brutal demolition drive was undertaken in which local authorities have destroyed 5,000 houses in Mandala, Mankurd in Mumbai, and set fire to an entire slum on 9 May 2006.

A police force of 500-700 along with Mumbai Collectorate officials and 6-7 bulldozers demolished about 5,000 houses in the slum communities of Indira Nagar and Janata Nagar in Mandala, near Mankurd in Mumbai. The police came to the site around noon and were confronted by women and men. All of a sudden, people saw smoke rising from the back of the site and rushed there to quell the fire. Meanwhile, the police easily gained entry into the slum and demolished most of the houses and burned the rest, wiping out the entire community.

The fire continued burning for several hours, while fire brigade personnel looked on passively, doing nothing to extinguish the fire. Furthermore, the police engaged in a massive brutal "lathi charge" (assault with batons) in Mandala, beating and dragging residents from the demolished site, and destroying their personal belongings.

Police officials also put water in the food being cooked in the community kitchen and confiscated grain stores. The police assault badly injured three people, who then were admitted to the Satabti Hospital. One of them remains in hospital. Shamin Banu suffered a miscarriage after women police hit her in the stomach. She is recovering in the Sion Hospital, having suffered severe bleeding lost consciousness after being beaten. In all, forty persons received injuries during the demolition and fire.

The police, however, ordered the nearby government hospitals, including Satabti Hospital, not to admit anyone from the slum and not to give the injured persons any medical records, as those documents might be used as proof of injury due to police violence. The lack of cooperation from hospital staff only reveals the tyranny of the police.

Mumbai Collectorate gave the residents of Indira Nagar only a 12-hour notice of the demolition. Those evictees living in Janata Nagar had no prior information of the demolition and were taken completely unawares. In its assault, the police arrested five men and three women from the site.

Police arrested Aisha Bi, an activist from Mandala, was arrested from inside her house. The police took the activists to the Govandi Police station where they abused and beat them, while handcuffing some of them, and charging them with attempted murder under Section 307 of the Indian Penal Code, which is a non-bailable offence. The activists are currently in jail.

A delegation of 15 people from social movements, people's organisations and concerned citizens finally managed to arrange a meeting with the Deputy Collector, Mr. Jhande, on 12 May. In front of the deputy collector, police denied they used lathis or other form of violence against people in the slum. However, an independent team from the Tata Institute of Social Sciences has first-hand evidence of the events and will be releasing its report shortly.

A large police force is still present at the site and people face constant threats of arrest and further eviction. People are out in the open with the belongings that they managed to salvage from the demolished site. From latest reports received, the police have fenced the demolition site with barbed wire, and have removed all those people who had set up temporary structures for shade. Women and children are now sitting under the scorching sun with no place to go and no provision for shelter.

The authorities have still not provided any resettlement options to the evicted. Police officials are also patrolling in nearby slums and threatening people not to give food or shelter to the evicted people. Instances of abuse by intoxicated policemen at night have also been reported.

It is being reported that the Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority (MMRDA) is planning to resettle people whose houses were demolished as part of the Mithi River Development plan in Mandala. This attempt would pit the poor and displaced against one another. The demolition is completely illegal, as the government clearly has stated in its affidavit to the High Court that Mandala is reserved for people whose homes were demolished during the 2004-2005 slum-clearance drive.

It is noteworthy that illegal construction worth crores of Rupees consisting of malls, shopping complexes and homes are not being demolished despite court orders with CMs and the national cabinet finding excuses to stop such drives. Is the law of a different kind for the poor?

It is also significant that national newspapers like Indian Express or The Hindu have barely covered this while Times of India has missed out on the extent of violence used in demolition.

Mankhurd.blogspot.com provides more details and photographs documenting the demolition and its impact.

This note was put together from reviews by Evictionwatch, the Housing and Land Rights Network of Habitat International Coalition and YUVA