Desicritics Category: Politics: World

Book Review: The Reluctant Fundamentalist by Mohsin Hamid

Vinod Joseph — Sat, 5 Jul 2008 13:00:23 EDT

This monologue of a novel traces the journey of an upper class Pakistani-Punjabi youth from Lahore to Manhattan – and back. Changez, the protagonist, wins a scholarship to Princeton, lands a dream job at Underwood Samson, a very reputed valuation firm, dates Erica, a trophy WASP girl, rubs shoulders with the best of America, identifies with New York, and then gives it all up and returns to Pakistan.

Why does he do that? Because Changez realizes that he is a mercenary, not unlike the Janissary soldiers of the Ottoman Empire, trained from childhood to fight for the Sultan, even against their own homelands. Changez’s revolt starts after 9/11. When the World Trade Center towers fall, Changez is in Manila on work. Until then, Changez has nothing but admiration for Princeton, Samson Underwood and America in general. But when the twin towers fall, Changez is surprisingly happy. It takes him a bit of time to sort out his feelings, but soon he realizes that he identifies more with Pakistan and Muslims than with Americans or even New Yorkers. The antagonism towards Muslims post 9/11, America’s unwillingness to shield Pakistan when India threatens to invade Pakistan (in retaliation for terrorists attacking the Indian parliament) makes it easy for him to make the journey back to his roots.

The narration, addressed to a visiting American in a Lahori restaurant, is almost lyrical at times and is brilliant. Changez the protagonist does not make any attempt to understand the other side’s point of view. Not once does Changez find any fault with the Taliban or with Pakistani society, which is hardly egalitarian. While constantly blaming the US for not standing by Pakistan when threatened by India, the author does not for a moment pause to wonder whether Pakistan invited some of the trouble on itself by training the terrorists who attacked the Indian parliament. Until 9/11, Changez’s values are solidly rooted in the can-do liberal spirit of New York. But after the attack, he quickly slides into feudal values. Changez’s people have been attacked and he will have nothing more to do with the attackers. By staying on in New York and working for Samson Underwood, he will be helping America continue its attack on Afghanistan. So, even though he needs to hold on to his job very badly (so that he can help his once elite family stay on its feet), he quits his job and goes back to Lahore.

If Changez had lived in the US all his life instead of having moved there after finishing school in Pakistan, would he have behaved as he did? This is one of the numerous questions left unanswered. However, these gaps do not do the novel any harm as it unashamedly projects a single point of view in beautiful prose.

This novel is Mohsin Hamid’s second book. The first one, Moth Smoke was published eight years ago and won various awards and prizes, including the Betty Trask Award. The Reluctant Fundamentalist was (quite deservedly) shortlisted for the Booker Prize in 2007. I would recommend this book to anyone who wants to understand how a human being may react when his collective ego is hurt or his nationalistic feelings are bruised.

Stooges, Machismo-Driven Nationalism and Self-Reliance

Shantanu Dutta — Tue, 1 Jul 2008 15:03:27 EDT

One of the views that has been bandied about over the last months as we swing this way and that about the nuclear deal is that signing it will mean that the government would have sold itself as an American stooge and vassal. That is what the leftists are saying. Since then I have been ruminating on the words stooge and vassal – I mean is it such a bad thing after all, apart from the derogatory sounds of the words themselves. Now after listening to a Skype webcast, I am convinced that the nuances are far more complex and that provocative words hide much more than they reveal.

There are two kinds of stooges if we insist on using the word. The Skype webcast that I listened to was dominated by a man from Iraq - a very angry man indeed who is upset that his country is run by brown Americans masking as Iraqis. As a nation of immigrants, the United States has the advantage of producing individuals of every ethnicities and in an occupation situation as prevails in Iraq and Afghanistan, they come handy. They are their master’s voice and because they speak the language and some what understand the culture are useful viceroys. These are the real stooges that every one should be talking about.

Then there are those who believe that their national interests are best served by aligning to a particular power and therefore do so. After all the primary purpose of the government of any nation is to ensure peace and prosperity for their people and achieve it through globally acceptable legitimate means. In the Soviet era, the original Mrs. Gandhi, felt that India’s national interests at that time was best served by aligning with the Soviet block. Many sneered at her and called her a client state or pretty close to being one. But of course she didn’t give a damn and did what she considered right.

Come to think of it, India has its small share of stooges in the neighborhood though having not much to offer, it is losing them pretty rapidly. One of our concerns in Nepal is that the incoming government is likely to be more ambivalent in its relationship with India unlike the monarchy which was beholden to India. Arguably, it was a stooge Sikkim Assembly that passed the resolution to accede to India. Bhutan has no independent foreign policy independent of India and being a land locked country finds it to be in its national interest to remain so.

So what is the problem with being a stooge or a client state of the United States? Looking around, I see that they have done pretty well for some themselves, unless they are plagued by chronic bad governance like the Philippines. But that is an exception. For the prototype, look at Singapore. Look at Thailand. Look at South Korea—and just to compare, look too at North Korea. To look at an even bigger contrast, look at Japan, vanquished and brought to its knees by American nuclear bombs but today one of its strongest allies in Asia.

We need to get rid of a culture of machismo-driven nationalism that talks of self reliance, global domination and ideological neutrality; best exemplified by the so called non aligned movement in which every one right down to the last member was fully aligned. The government’s jobs is to ensure peace, prosperity and security for its people; that is why people it there. At one point of history ensuring peace for India meant being a Soviet stooge; today it might mean being an American stooge. And of course let us get words like stooge which sound so uncouth out of our vocabulary. Then we our self esteem and self respect would not be so badly wounded.

Elie Wiesel And The Kingdom of Night

Shantanu Dutta — Sat, 28 Jun 2008 13:58:50 EDT

Over the last week or so, I have been tracking several articles about the “outsiders” and the hostility surrounding them. Maharashtra of course has been of course very prominently covered, because of the ranting of the Thackerays. But of course Maharashtra is not the only state in the country plagued by xenophobia – it just so happens that every one has their correspondent stationed there and so what happens there gets around faster. But this trait of us vs them is every where. In Manipur. In parts of West Bengal. The rabidly ethnic Amra Bangali and Kannada Chalvali and many more of the kind.

Somehow in India things do not reach extremes – they get sorted out along the way but if any one wants to know the logical direction that these quasi fascist movements take, then they ought to pick up Ellie Wiesel’s riveting book Night. Of course, there are many, many books written on the holocaust – The Diary of Anne Frank being one of the most famous but Night is different because the author survived to not just retell a story but also be a prophetic voice into the future – for which he received the Nobel Peace prize in 1986.

Wiesel was first ghettoized and then deported along with his family from Hungary to Germany where he was separated from his mother and three sisters as men and women were separated. He and his father stayed together and survived for a while before age, deprivation and the sub human living conditions felled the father. Watching his father die before his eyes and watching other sons betray their fathers in a dog eat dog environment scarred him forever.

When the ethnic cleansing of the Jews began in Hungary, Wiesel and his family as well most other Jews are in denial that any thing more drastic than some minor harassment will ever take place. Wiesel remembers asking his father “Can this be true ? This is the twentieth century, not the middle ages. Who would allow such crimes to be committed ? How could the world remain silent ?”

Well the twentieth century came and went and many other episodes of ethnic cleansing and genocide came and went – Cambodia, Rwanda, Bosnia. These are of course the more well documented ones. There are numerous other hot spots of a smaller scale and many within our country. Although we have crossed the calendar into the twenty first century, it is still possible to ask in Wiesel’s child like fashion as to whether any acts spurred by anger or bitterness or hatred that make less than half a column’s worth of news will lead to any thing more.

Most of us believe that responding to what happens when a group of people in one part of the country act and believe that those others who are different from them are migrants and infiltrators or “unwanted” by one or the other name, the responsibility for action lies with the government and a bunch of professional human rights groups like PUCL. Such an attitude is common as most of us do not know what to do and how to get involved and some times as these issues are politically tinged, we want to be extra cautious.

In his acceptance speech for the Nobel Peace Prize, Elie Wiesel recounted how surviving the holocaust forever changed his view of life. He says that after the war was over and he was finally released, he swore never to be silent whenever and wherever human beings endure suffering and humiliation. He emphatically says that “ We must take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented….”

Looking at my own apathy and the apathy of most people around me, I wonder if the principal problem for most of us is that we have not been victims – yet and so we know nothing of the psyche of the wounded. The sufficiently insulated lives that we lead, kind of ensure that we remain protected. and as yet Elie Wiesel discovered, assurances can be misleading and walls and barricades can be broken.

'Mommy Dearest' - The Controversial Legacy of Mother Teresa

C R Sridhar — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 12:31:46 EDT

‘Saints, should always be judged guilty until they are proven innocent.’
-George Orwell.

Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu, also known as Mother Teresa, captured the media attention of the world for her pious service of the poor and abandoned children of Calcutta. Born in Skopje – now capital of Macedonia- on 26th of August, she was raised by her strict Albanian mother to be a staunch Roman Catholic .At the age of eighteen she joined the sisters of Loreto as a missionary and came to India in the year 1929. In the year 1950 the Vatican gave permission to Mother Teresa to start the diocesan congregation that would become the Missionaries of Charity. The mission of the charity was a noble one as it was to take care of the homeless, the destitute and the unwanted people. The order, Missionaries of Charity, had thirteen members, which grew to more than four thousand nuns running orphanages, hospices for the care terminally ill and Aids patients. In 1952 Teresa converted an abandoned Hindu temple into the Kalighat home for the dying. The order opened the Nirmala Shishu Bhavan, the Children's Home of the Immaculate Heart, as a haven for orphans and homeless youth. The charitable activities of the order established organisations in other parts of India and also worldwide, especially, in Venezuela, Asia, Africa, US and Europe.¹

The Extraordinary career of Mother Teresa

The brief curriculum vitae of Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu does not do adequate justice to the extraordinary career of Mother Teresa. In public and in the media, her wizened body and her wrinkled face radiated a quiet compassion, which could only be seen on saints' faces as they calmly served the wretched of the earth. The media revelled in showing photographs of starving babies in Mother Teresa’s hands. Other photos revealed Mother Teresa in a saintly light as she hugged the dying who were vulnerable in their last moments of life. She became an icon of service to humanity and international recognition poured in first as trickle and then as flood. She won Padma Shri (India), Order of Merit, Golden Honour of the Nation (Albania), culminating in the Nobel Peace Prize, which was awarded to her in 1979. As an international celebrity, Teresa became a brand ambassador of the Vatican espousing the controversial policies of the Roman Catholic Church with regard to abortion, divorce and contraception.

When she died in 1997 the Holy See began a process of beatification towards declaring Mother Teresa as a saint. For canonizing Mother Teresa it was necessary to establish two miracles unless the Pope dispensed it. The first miracle- the healing of a tumour in the abdomen of an Indian woman, Monica Besra, following the application of a locket containing Mother Teresa's picture- was mired in controversy as the medical doctors attending on her and her husband claimed that the tumour was cured by conventional medicine.

A devil’s advocate

Christopher Hitchens, an author and journalist, who declared Mother Teresa as a pious fraud, challenged the beatification and canonization of Mother Teresa. He said ‘her intention was not to help people’ but ‘she was working to expand the number of Catholics.’ His objections were overruled by the Roman Curia who saw no obstacle to the canonization of Mother Teresa. Hitchens alleged that there was no examination of the witnesses who claimed that Monica Besra was not cured by a miracle but by prescription medicine. It was also alleged that Monica Besra had tubercular cyst not malignant tumour as claimed by her order. All these claims were perfunctorily examined without critical scrutiny raising doubts that the standards were deliberately lowered to put the canonization of Mother Teresa on a fast track.²

But the Vatican was in a quandary - if the scrutiny process was diluted and divine intervention in human affairs is too promiscuously recognized, the church exposes itself to skeptical questions that if one leper can be cured by divine help then why not other lepers? Does the Lord show preference in not eradicating infant leukemia and mass poverty? If so, is such a God biased in saving some souls but not the others? Such questions relentlessly open the floodgates of critical challenge lowering the credibility of the Faith. This unease was reflected in some cardinals who objected to the fast track canonization of Mother Teresa. However the beatification of Mother Teresa took place on 19th October 2003 and the title ‘Blessed’ was conferred on her. This placed her firmly in the ante- room of sainthood.

A spanner in the hagiography

In a cynical age such as ours, where the highest form of human endeavour are self-seeking individuals working for the maximization of personal advantage, it is not surprising that tales of personal sacrifice bring tears to the eyes. The reputation of Mother Teresa as a saviour of the poor received a turbo boost when Malcolm Muggeridge filmed Mother Teresa’s work in Calcutta titled Something Beautiful for God, which was shown on BBC. He wrote a book with the same title, which sold more than 300,000 copies sold, reprinted 20 times and translated into 13 languages. There was no looking back for the obscure Albanian Nun who catapulted to world celebrity. The hagiography industry churned out books with titles helper of the poor, protector of the sick, and friend of the friendless, which established the icon status of Mother Teresa as a living example of a saint.

It must be said to the credit of Hitchens that he initiated the critical process of challenging the status of Teresa and the hagiography industry devoted to the sanctimonious humbug of deifying Teresa. In 1994 he produced a documentary film called Hell’s Angel, which was broadcast on Channel 4. The film was vilified and the author was subjected to abuse. Undeterred, Hitchens meticulously researched the life of Mother Teresa and published a book called The Missionary Position. In this book, Hitchens rakes up controversial issues about Teresa and calls into question the credulous nonsense written about the saviour of the poor.

In bad company

In a broadside delivered against the uncritical adulation of Mother Teresa, Hitchens asks inconvenient questions- what was Mother Teresa of Calcutta doing in the presence of the hated family of Baby Doc Duvalier who was the ruthless dictator of Haiti? The event referred to by Hitchens was the visit of Mother Teresa to Haiti in 1981 to accept the Legion d'Honneur. In a magazine called L’Assaut, a propaganda organ for the Duvalier family, there are photos of Mother Teresa holding the bangled hand of Michele Duvalier (wife of Baby Doc) and gazing at her with respect and reverence. The magazine quotes Teresa as having said, ‘Madame President is someone who feels, who knows, who wishes to demonstrate her love not only with words but also with concrete and tangible actions.’ Whether the oppressed people of Haiti who were murdered, raped and pillaged by the Duvalier family for generations, echoed her sentiments is not known, as they were not quoted in the magazine. Her pious endorsement of the Duvalier family was in line with the extreme Right wing and conservative faction of the Vatican hierarchy supporting the Duvalier oligarchy.³

While it would be tempting to view Mother Teresa’s Haiti visit as a social faux pas not worthy of criticism, there is overwhelming evidence that she supported repressive dictators and regimes in Central and South America. She gave support to the Reagan administration by her participation in the Presidential Medal of Freedom, which was awarded to her inside the White House in 1985, when right wing death squads embroiled the administration in a scandal relating to the murder of four American nuns and the Archbishop of San Salvador in Central America. Her admonition of the Sandinista Revolutionary Party gave support to the contras, a vicious mercenary army actively funded by the Reagan government to bomb schools and hospitals in Nicaragua, raised serious doubts about her political neutrality.

During the suspension of civil liberties in India by Indira Gandhi in 1975, the Mother uttered no words of criticism. She purred beatifically-‘ People are happier. There are more jobs. There are no strikes.’ Her friendly relationship with Mrs Gandhi and the Congress party played an important role in silencing the criticism. ‘Mother Teresa’ says Michael Parenti, ‘is a paramount example of the kind of acceptably conservative icon propagated by an elite-dominated culture, a saint who uttered not a critical word against social injustice, and maintained cosy relations with the rich, corrupt, and powerful.’⁴

Money has no smell

Other controversies dogged Mother Teresa. One of the most serious scandals to affect her reputation was her financial involvement with one of the biggest frauds known in American history - Charles Keating. The savings and loan scam of Keating swindled $252 million, mainly from small and poor depositors. A staunch Catholic he gave Teresa $1,250,000 in cash and the use of a private jet. In return Mother Teresa gave a glowing character certificate and pleaded for his clemency during the trial. The Deputy District Attorney for LA, Paul Turley in a tersely worded letter addressed to Teresa asked her to return the money stolen by Keating. Mother Teresa did not return the money. No action was taken by the court for its recovery. It appears that saints are immune from coercive proceedings.⁵

The theology of suffering

At the heart of suffering lies a deception, which must be examined rationally to understand the theory and practice of Mother Teresa. At a 1981 press conference she was asked: "Do you teach the poor to endure their lot?" She replied: ‘I think it is very beautiful for the poor to accept their lot, to share it with the passion of Christ. I think the world is being much helped by the suffering of the poor people.’⁶ Her reply made her critics accuse her of loving suffering more than the sufferers. The spectacle of suffering was beneficial for faith as only in pain one thought of the Lord. The alleviation of pain of dying patients was not an important objective.

There is a memorable anecdote about her attitude to suffering. A patient was approached by Mother Teresa who dished out theological platitudes instead of providing painkillers to the patient. ‘You are suffering like Christ on the cross,’ Mother Teresa allegedly told the patient. ‘So Jesus must be kissing you.’ The patient is said to have replied, ‘Then please tell him to stop kissing me.’⁷

This bizarre attitude to suffering was reflected in her hospices and orphanages. ‘In 1991, Dr. Robin Fox, then editor of the British medical journal The Lancet, visited the Home for Dying Destitute in Calcutta and described the medical care the patients received as "haphazard". He observed that sisters and volunteers, some of whom had no medical knowledge, had to make decisions about patient care, because of the lack of doctors in the hospice. Dr. Fox specifically held Teresa responsible for conditions in this home, and observed that her order did not distinguish between curable and incurable patients, so that people who could otherwise survive would be at risk of dying from infections and lack of treatment.’⁸

Moreover, the formulary at the facility Fox visited lacked strong analgesics. Fox also wrote that needles were rinsed with warm water, which left them inadequately sterilised, and the facility did not isolate patients with infectious diseases. There have been a series of other reports documenting inattention to medical care in the order's facilities. Some former volunteers who worked for Teresa’s order have also expressed similar points of view. Mother Teresa herself referred to the facilities as "Houses of the Dying”

The orphanages where abandoned children were housed showed shocking lapses of care so strongly advertised in the media all over the world. Donal MacIntyre - a reporter and documentary-maker for Channel 5 Television who worked undercover was astonished at what he saw-

‘ I saw children with their mouths gagged open to be given medicine, their hands flaying in distress, visible testimony to the pain they were in. Tiny babies were bound with cloths at feeding time. Rough hands wrenched heads into position for feeding. Some of the children retched and coughed as rushed staff crammed food into their mouths. Boys and girls were abandoned on open toilets for up to 20 minutes at a time. Slumped, untended, some dribbling, some sleeping, they were a pathetic sight. Their treatment was an affront to their dignity, and dangerously unhygienic.’9

The donations, which poured from all parts of the world, were not invested in buying drugs and medical equipment for the care of the sick and dying. Instead, it was diverted to the Vatican Bank for general use. But when it came to her own treatment ‘Teresa checked into some of the costliest hospitals and recovery care units in the world for state-of-the-art treatment.’¹⁰

Conservative agenda

The Vatican under Pope Paul II used the popularity of Mother Teresa to support controversial issues on abortion, divorce, and contraception. The Roman church remained implacably hostile to abortion even if was necessary to save the life of the mother or in instances where women were raped and requested abortion. Its views on divorce and contraception were steeped in medieval values. The dogma of the Roman Catholic Church with respect to contraception is well known and has invited protests from all over the world.

Mother Teresa lobbied hard on the referendum to lift the constitutional ban divorce in Ireland in 1995. Her position was that of a hardliner opposing the removal of the ban on divorce. In her meeting with Margaret Thatcher in the year 1988 the main discussion centred on Abortion instead of the plight of the city’s homeless. In Spain she lobbied hard on behalf the clerical forces to prevent legislation liberalising abortion, divorce and birth control. At a open- air mass in Knock (Ireland) in 1992, she addressed the devout with the following words-‘Let us promise Our Lady who loves Ireland so much that we will never allow in this country a single abortion. And no contraceptives.’¹¹

In her Nobel Peace Prize speech in 1979, Mother Teresa famously said -‘ I think that today peace is threatened by abortion, too, which is a true war, a direct killing of a child by its own mother. Today, abortion is the worst evil, and the greatest enemy of peace. Because if a mother can kill her own child, what will prevent us from killing ourselves, or one another? Nothing.’¹²

Sums up Susan Jacoby,‘Teresa never showed any concern, in India or elsewhere, about the root causes of poverty -- including lack of education, corrupt dictatorships, inequitable distribution of wealth, bigotry against social, ethnic, or religious under classes, and contempt for women.’¹³

Selecting Saints

Any Institution such as the Roman Catholic Church, which has a relationship of trust with its devotees, must maintain high standards of moral probity to retain the trust and confidence of its members. Such confidence should not be diluted in the name of political expediency. In the past, the Church crushed dissent and heresy through the office of the Inquisition to retain power. In modern times, such powers do not exist. Its legitimacy lies in moral persuasion, which is exercised through the proper selection of saints who epitomise all that is best and pure about the Church.

During the 26-year papacy of Paul II, the Pope had canonised 483 individuals to sainthood. Among the less savoury individuals selected for the honour of beatification was the reactionary Msgr. José María Escrivá de Balaguer, supporter of fascist regimes in Spain and elsewhere, and founder of Opus Dei, a powerful secretive ultra-conservative movement feared by many as a sinister sect within the Catholic Church. Other selections for beatification, which raised eyebrows, were Pius IX, who reigned as pontiff from 1846 to 1878, and who referred to Jews as dogs and Cardinal Aloysius Stepinac, the leading Croatian cleric who welcomed the Nazi and fascist Ustashi takeover of Croatia during World War II and openly supported the Croatian fascist regime that exterminated hundreds of thousands of Serbs, Jews, and Roma. ¹⁴

Mother Teresa was a mild reactionary when compared to the egregious examples of Msgr. José María Escrivá de Balaguer, Cardinal Aloysius Stepinac, and Pius IX but certainly not an inspiring example for the Church. More worthy persons such as Archbishop Oscar Romero who spoke against Right wing death squads for oppressing the people of El Salvador received shabby treatment at the hands of Pope Paul II. The death squad murdered the Archbishop for speaking out his mind against tyranny and oppression. The people of El Salvador venerated him as a saint. But Pope Paul II used his authority to ban any discussion for his beatification for a period of 50 years. No protests were made by the Pope to condemn the murder. The Pope merely murmured –‘Tragic’ when asked for his comments. The ground swell of support for the martyred priest made the Pope to relent: the ban was cut down to 25 years. The Archbishop was put on a slow boat to sainthood.

The Byzantine intrigue of the Vatican in selecting its saints would make a cynic say in mock wonder, ‘The ways of the Vatican are indeed mysterious.’ And that sense of mystery only deepens when one considers the extraordinary beatification of an Albanian nun called Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu.

--------------
1 Wikipedia- Mother Teresa.
2 The fanatic, fraudulent Mother Teresa- Christopher Hitchens- Slate Magazine.
3 The Missionary Position- Christopher Hitchens- Verso- pages 3-6.
4 Mother Teresa, John Paul II, and the Fast-Track Saints- Micheal Parenti.
5 The Missionary Position, Christopher Hitchens- Verso- pages- 68-70.
6 The Missionary Position, Christopher Hitchens- Verso- page- 11.
7 Mother Teresa and her order come under criticism- By Clark Morphew / Knight-Ridder Newspapers.
8 Dr Robin Fox- Lancet 17th September 1994- extracts published in The Missionary Position, Christopher Hitchens- Verso- pages- 38-39.
9 "The squalid truth behind the legacy of Mother Teresa" - Donal MacIntyre- New Statesman- 22 August 2005.
10 "Mother Teresa, John Paul II, and the Fast-Track Saints"- Micheal Parenti
11 "The Missionary Position"- Christopher Hitchens- Verso- page- 58
12 The illusory Vs Real Mother Teresa- Dr. Michael Hakeem- free thought today- August 1996.
13 Road to Sainthood Paved with Good Publicity- Susan Jacoby- On faith.
14 Mother Teresa, John Paul II, and the Fast-Track Saints- Micheal Parenti.

Thoughts Inspired By A Sack

Uma Ranganathan — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 10:20:43 EDT

A funny thing happened a couple of days back. Our cook A, who pulls out a story a day for me from her never ending bag of tales, and sometimes more than one, told me about a sack being discovered in a side street where she works. The sack, lying on the ground by an old well at the top of the lane, was discovered by a sweeper who looks after one of the buildings where A too, has a part time job. The bundle smelled really bad. I asked A, what do you think it was? She shrugged. Could it have been a corpse, my fanciful mind wondered aloud and she said, who knows, perhaps it was.

I say, how come the police didn’t find it and take it away? She explains, oh, it wasn’t on the main road, it was somewhere at the back of a steep narrow alley and the police wouldn’t think of coming there to look for anything.

I said, why didn’t the cleaning woman inform the police and A says, you crazy? Who would want to have anything to do with the police? You think you’re obliging them but if that thing in the sack were to really turn out to be a corpse or something else suspicious, they’d be after your blood for months. And you know how it is. The poorer you are the more they harass you.

A says, I did think of telling my employer about it, I thought he could inform the police but then I said to myself, if the police were to ask him how he found out, he might mention my name and then I’d get roped into something I really have no time for! So I finally decided to keep mum.

A couple of hours later a friend from Germany calls up to chat. She happens to be working on a movie script which involves child abuse and the question arises, as to how to react to a story which is not strictly speaking your own but which nonetheless affects you in some way. Good question. How would you react to a case of a little boy whom you had nothing to do with really, but whom you knew was being brutally ill treated by his parents? How do you react to stories of violence and cruelty happening far removed from where you are but in which you feel anyway emotionally involved? People getting killed in Iraq, children starving in Africa. A suspicious looking sack lying in a back alley somewhere which you've only heard about but not seen yourself?

To my mind, two possibilities arise. In the first case you feel directly called upon to “do something”. There are those who feel compelled to go “out there” and take an active part in the proceedings, people who help to keep an issue alive, thanks to whom we know what is happening in the world and because of whom it also becomes more difficult for the rest of us to look away, completely. Journalists, photographers, social workers.

There is another way to deal with the external situation, which is more difficult to grasp because it is more low key and at first sight it seems to have no direct connection with people who are starving or brutalized in the world. And that is for each of us to take a ruthless look at how we might be contributing to the general sense of violence and insecurity “out there.” This way involves examining every corner of our minds and looking at our own relationships, at how we react to those we don’t understand, people with whom we disagree or those who are much worse off than ourselves. It is to look at how fairly and with how much respect we treat the people we work and live with.

I have a sneaky suspicion that the first option might be easier. It is easier to make a noise about something outside, no matter how difficult or dangerous the task might seem and I think this is why more people in the world opt for social work and start organizations to support the downtrodden than people who feel called upon to examine their own souls. Because your time and energy in this case is occupied in so-called noble acts and you don’t really have to come into contact with the dirt in your own life and relationships.

Wasn’t it Krishnamurti who said though, that real change will come about only when we stop generating violence and injustice at the personal level? When we as individuals become generators of peace, instead of perpetrators of violence and deceit. And will this not happen when we understand how we, with our own petty and conflict ridden minds contribute to the general atmosphere of decay? Will change not come about when we as individuals, overcome the violent streak in our own psyche? It is so much easier to allow oneself to be swayed into action by external happenings because even that brings visible returns at some level. At least you get a pat on the back from someone or a medal for your efforts which a spot of quiet soul searching is unlikely to bring you.

So is this piece an excuse for not getting involved in what happens in the outside world? No. I think that when you truly listen to yourself, the right answers do surface and they are not always comfortable to follow. The answer for one person might indeed be to step into another person’s story because that is what is needed at a particular point. For another individual the truth might be simply to use an external incident to become aware of unresolved feelings of anger or violence in his personal life and to try and understand those feelings better.

The difficult thing always, is to follow the truth because no matter what you do you will be offending someone or other. And this is what makes it hard for us to accept and to act according to what we really see, hear and feel because there is always someone in our lives whom we are afraid of offending or hurting.

When I put the phone down after chatting with my friend in Germany it was clear to me that in her own discreet way she was persuading me to do something which I in no way felt called upon to do. To inform the police about a suspicious looking sack in a back alley beyond the fringes of my own immediate neighborhood, which I had not even personally seen. Not to do what I felt she would have liked me to, made me feel I might lose her approval and for a moment I felt the muscles in my stomach tightening with discomfort. But then her opinion was not mine. Given the circumstances and the red tape in India, I felt in no way obliged to spend my time and energy following up a task which did not seem to involve me.

However what I did was to chase up that first chat with A, the following morning, which threw up a possible solution to the question of the stinking sack in the back alley. I’ll tell my employer about it, A said, and he can go take a look himself. If he actually sees it he doesn’t have to mention my name because then he can tell the police he discovered the bundle on his own while walking up the lane. So when she turned up for work this morning I put the question to her once more. The sack? Oh, she said, the boss wasn’t home today so I couldn’t speak to him. The sack is still there, only today it wasn’t smelling at all. I went close to it and I couldn’t get even a whiff of anything.

Of course we couldn’t help wondering what the hell really was in the sack but for the time being I’m going to let the matter rest.

Kashmir Protests - The Federation of the Indian State

Aaman Lamba — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 13:06:10 EDT

The Indian federal experiment has been highly successful, and one might believe that there is a fluid cohesion between the states and cultures that presages true unity, our oft-stated 'unity in diversity'. While this is indeed true in the sense of a melange of people who still retain their roots, post-Independence, there has been a wide oscillation between unitary and federal tendencies, ranging at times to outright secession and at the other extreme to authoritarian centralization.

In the Indira Gandhi era, most states were governed by puppet governments and the lack of strong economic zones meant political power was derived from the centre. Despite its obvious failings, the centralized model served to distribute development largesse across the subcontinent, with the usual lumpiness. As a result, the great industrial experiments undertaken by Nehru continued in their slow plodding pace. Insurrection and secession were seen as extremist tendencies, and the Punjab malaise or the Tamil/Dravida danger did not affect the general fabric of polity. Kashmir was always treated as a special case, and much like the monster chained in the basement, grew ever more dangerous, and its isolation bred neuroses and violence.

The nineties brought a measure of economic independence, a strengthening of local political identity, and the concurrent weakening of the central government. Coalition politics began to take hold, with its rent-seeking model of needing to satisfy multiple vested interests. Much like the U.S. Democratic and Republican parties are an agglomeration of special interests, local power-brokers, and ideologies, the Indian model has moved towards a few groupings of local and national parties, united by a patina of common interest.

Unfortunately, the nature of coalition politics has meant that the center has begun to fall apart and concede power to the edges, especially in regions where the alliance members or supporters hold sway. Gujarat during the NDA was not the first, and definitely not the last, instance of partisan politics being put ahead of the national interest.

The polarization of economic power has further accelerated power distribution away from the centre, the most recent and egregious example being the offer/challenge by Gujarat to stop payments/grants to and from the Centre, unconstitutional as it might be. The neo-liberal benefits experienced by the southern states have extended their allure to most of the country, with every government bending over backwards for corporations. They no longer even need to pay for the benefits they receive - the promise of near limitless jobs and investment are good enough for most governments, and the anti-capitalist protests are tolerated up to a point.

Emboldened regional interests are now able to push the limits ever further, knowing that the Centre will likely not stifle the protest or address the issue forcefully, for fear of going against coalition partners, stated social goals, or for fear of being seen as too authoritarian. This translates down to the states themselves. Entire cities can be shut down by protests and bandhs.We have the Gujjar protests and now the Kashmir reactions against land grants. The first warning of the PDP is to the Central government warning they would withdraw support to the UPA if their interests are not assuaged. The Centre takes the usual 'wait and watch' attitude, and the vacuum is filled by contra-interests, themselves none too interested in a national identity unless its their own.

India is not unique in dealing with these challenges. Vladimir Putin has acknowledged the distortion and flawed nature of the Confederation of Independent States. The brief stasis of Yugoslavia has reverted to the archetypal Balkanization that seems the natural state of the region. Iraq is a basket case, not entirely due to the American invasion.

Is this the fate of all large societies? Is there a way to resolve the inevitable centripetal forces in society without authoritarianism?

Book Review : Speaking of Empire and Resistance by Tariq Ali

Shantanu Dutta — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 07:07:11 EDT

Tariq Ali is one of the most articulate leftist and secularist thinkers to have come out of Pakistan and has been living in exile in London since the 1960s when he began to speak out against the country’s first military dictators. Nearly fifty years later, he has lost none of his fire and has consistently spoken out against imperialism, colonialism, religious fundamentalism. In his book Speaking of Empire and Resistance conducted as a series of interviews with dissident thinker, David Barsamanian, the focus is on Anglo – American engagement in Iraq, Afghanistan and the Arab world.

In this extremely readable and extremely articulate book, Tariq Ali, reaches way back into history to recreate the history of imperialist involvement in the world- both the overt, in your face British imperialism, and the comparatively overt American imperialism. For instance Tariq talks about the nature of British imperialism – viceroys and governors ET all all imported from the mother country – and the American version where they simply bought off purchasable allies willing to do their bidding. King Hussein of Jordan, Suharto, the Pakistani generals, the Shah of Iran, the several Gulf Sheikhs Emirs is cited as examples.

There are also examples from India too – Tariq for instance mentions that except for World War II, when the country served as a transit point for Allied troops headed East, at no point did the British ever have more than 36,000 troops of their own in the huge territory of undivided India; yet they were able to retain control, by buying off the allegiance of the rulers of the princely states as well as the landed gentry and aristocracy. The Americans refined the process and bought off the leadership of countries en masse.

Some observations in the book are quite poignant. Citing numerous instances, Tariq Ali establishes how during the cold war era, in the name of suppressing communism, the secular elements of the polity of many nations were either weakened or completely eliminated. Indonesia which once had the world’s largest communist party outside the socialist countries is one example where Suharto’s brutal repression wiped the nation of a secular, non sectarian voiced. Afghanistan is another example cited where a secular government was first destabilized prompting Soviet intervention and then once the Red Army moved in, reactionary Islamic fundamentalists were intentionally marshaled, trained and then coaxed to fight the godless infidels. The vacuum left by the destruction of these secular forces has now been filled by the rabidly religious, for which the US and its allies alone are to blame.

The book has been written in the context of 9/11 and the subsequent interventions in Iraq and Afghanistan and has that anti war focus, but surprisingly enough does not appear to be biased. Tariq Ali traces out the many failings in the early communist states – particularly the Soviet Union and points out that their own failings were also largely responsible for socialism losing popular support and subsequently collapsing.

Tariq Ali’s consistently anti American stand may not be popular with those who support the American foreign policy and the actions of the current Bush Administration in particular; but so potent and well researched are his arguments going far back into history and tracing many of today’s burning issues to their very roots, that it would take back breaking research to counter his extremely logically argued point of view. And ultimately of one thing we can be sure; no matter what view point we hold- this book will make the reader sit up and take note that there is another way to go- even if it is a path hardly ever trodden.

Book Review: Mountains Beyond Mountains

Shantanu Dutta — Fri, 13 Jun 2008 13:12:30 EDT

The story of Dr Paul Farmer, an unconventional American doctor, medical anthropologist and ethnographer as recorded in Mountains beyond Mountains by Tracy Kidder is a riveting piece of work; considering it is after all classified as a biography and describes the life and work of an infectious disease specialist dabbling in TB, HIV & AIDS, human rights, international health and a myriad other things.

Twenty years ago, Paul Farmer, then a young doctor met Ophelia Dahl, the daughter of the renowned British author, Roald Dahl, then on a volunteering trip to Haiti. He was 23 and she was 18. Their initial romance did not last but their friendship did and together they founded a rather unconventional charity called Partners in Health.(PIH) Mountains beyond Mountains is as much the story of this charity as much as that of Paul Farmer, Ophelia Dahl and Jim Yong Kim and their large hearted benefactor Tom White, a unique millionaire with the determination to die practically penniless, giving away his entire fortune way along the way. Now in his eighties, he has largely succeeded in doing this.

A man of Paul Farmer’s eminence as a clinician and an infectious disease specialist with a particular affinity initially for tuberculosis and then for HIV & AIDS would be expected to confine himself to the technicalities of disease control and international public health. But Farmer’s vocabulary includes terms like redistributive justice, preferential options for the poor and published works like Infections and Inequities : The Modern Plague(University of California Press, 2001) and Pathologies of Power : Health, Human Rights and the New War on the Poor ( University of California Press, 2002). Continuing in the same vein, Paul Farmer could then go on to write erudite articles in the Lancet, International Journal of TB and Lung Disease or the Medical Anthropology Quarterly

The PIH vision says it all “At its root, our mission is both medical and moral. It is based on solidarity, rather than charity alone. When a person in Peru, or Siberia, or rural Haiti falls ill, PIH uses all of the means at our disposal to make them well—from pressuring drug manufacturers, to lobbying policy makers, to providing medical care and social services. Whatever it takes. Just as we would do if a member of our own family—or we ourselves—were ill”

This is best illustrated by the story of John, a little boy from Haiti, who was discovered to be suffering from naso pharyngeal cancer and could not be treated in the country. Incurring a cost of close to 20,000 $, the boy was airlifted to the Massachusetts General Hospital for treatment under the world’s best pediatric oncologists. When the boy eventually died, one of his younger staff members brought up the classic cost effectiveness question- the money spent on that one boy who any way died could have saved many other lives. But for Partners in Health, Paul Farmer and his friends, conventional number crunching was not important – saving every life and treating every one who crossed their path was the driver… as Paul Farmer would explain to Tracy Kidder…. People were not numbers and every life was important.

Perhaps the most disturbing element of the book is where Paul Farmer’s philosophy of life – and it is profoundly provoking. As Farmer puts it …… “What we are really trying to do is to make common cause with the losers. We want to be on the winning team, but t the risk of turning our backs on the losers, no, it is not worth it…… I am not going to stop because we stop losing…..”

The question stares at us … in a culture, society and time where success is every thing and winning every battle counts and tabs are kept of every loss, how many of us can stand up and say that we want to be on the winning team…… but not by selling our souls. Paul Farmer, Ophelia Dahl and Jim Kim, Tom White and their bunch come through as incredible people who will be an inspiration in any generation. Unlike many charities of this nature, which grow cash rich over the years’ Partners’ in Health hasn’t. Ophelia Dahl, the long time Director reports in her web site that for the first time in twenty years, Partners in Health was not able to raise enough funds to cover the budget for the twelve months ending December 2006. for those looking for a charity to donate, here is a worthy cause.

Book Review: The Post-American World - Fareed Zakaria

Ms. Anona — Tue, 20 May 2008 11:58:51 EDT

One of the most common complaints about the media is that many journalists do not have the appropriate background to comment on economics and complex political issues in detail. Those who believe this, however, have probably not encountered the likes of Fareed Zakaria, a Harvard grad and well-known American journalist. Lately Zakaria has been stirring up a lot of attention and can be seen shaking hands with Henry Kissinger and other dignitaries as he rapidly rises the ranks from journalist to political advisor. With his latest book, The Post-American World, Zakaria delivers a new twist on a common and slightly menacing message, that America’s hegemony is waning.

'The Post-American World is not a story about America’s fall, but instead about the rise of ‘the rest’, states Zakaria. Countries like China, India, Brazil, Singapore and Indonesia have been ‘catching up’ to the economic status of the United States and for the last twenty or so years America’s status as a sole superpower has been challenged. The innovation and growth coming out of Asian countries has been somewhat surprising and has left America’s monotheistic approach toward globalization and capital in the dust. In a way, the United States can be seen as victim of its own success. America has been forcing open the doors and vexing the constraints of open market forces in untapped economies all over the world since it’s inception, but somehow America has forgotten to globalize itself and allow for the multitude of cultures to penetrate its core.

The new global economy looks more like Bollywood, Zakaria writes, and the United States may be left to grapple for depleting market shares. Surprisingly, Bollywood’s total revenue and number of tickets sold worldwide has actually surpassed that of its counterpart, Hollywood. The film industry is just one of many that signifies the changes in a new world approach to business that is more multi-faceted and not solely dictated by American ideals. Traditional developing nations, in general, no longer feel it is necessary for the West to act as an intermediary in their commerce. Smaller countries in Asia and Africa, for example, have of late formed their own connections unilaterally. This has allowed for profits in these countries to soar. The newly affirmed capitalistic powers of China and India have been the most successful in this way and are most prominently laid out in Zakaria’s book. China has one of the most booming economies in the world with growth that is unsurpassed and India is not far behind. “Indians easily speaks the language of globalization”, Zakaria writes. India is able to prosper in this age because they understand what it means to thrive in the new market economy.

Zakaria’s book offers a historical analysis at the rise and fall of world powers and the reasoning behind each and suggests that the United States acting as the last remaining superpower may go the way of Great Britain in the last century. Britain found itself bankrupt and stretched thin after World War II that resulted in the ceding of its colonies financially, while still regaining political control remotely. America may have the opposite problem, but with the same consequence. Due to its recent preemptions in Afghanistan and Iraq, the world has mostly turned away politically but there is something intrinsically valuable in the message it offers to the world in an economic sense. The world can’t rally behind China’s economy the way it can that of the US, Zakaria writes, but these economies are overall threatening America’s long-term viscosity. In any event, the state of the world will not change overnight. “Great world powers are like divas”, Zakaria exclaims. They don’t enter or exit the international stage without great tumult.

Ordinary Americans aren’t normally accustomed to analyzing the world in the way Zakaria has laid out for them here. Americans tend to take for granted their superpower status as inherited and everlasting and are surprised at the towering rate of development seen in places like Dubai or Malaysia when they become aware of it. Zakaria’s book is not meant to alarm, but ends with almost a plea to the American people asking them in essence not to use fear and lack of world knowledge to persuade them from creating the “inviting and exciting” world as it once seemed to Zakaria as a young and emerging foreign student from India.

The state of affairs of the current world is not an easy ground to walk on and writing about it can make even the most conscience writer feel without adequate footing in a land where nothing is ever nearly as cut and dry as it seems. Zakaria is able to explain these things and more with ease. The result is a piece of literature that will shape even the most expansive worldviews while creating a palpable and interesting mosaic of global influences that shape the present state of the world and show us a glimpse of the future as well.

Book Review: The Global Food Economy by Tony Weis

C R Sridhar — Mon, 19 May 2008 08:28:57 EDT

The corporate images of the food economy are full of deceptive advertisements of a mythical cornucopia of contented animals waiting for their disposal as someone else’s meal. The other images, which reinforce the intrinsic ‘fun and plenty’ of the food economy, are of supermarkets catering to the affluent sections of society, with food products stacked in shelves procured from far off places.

Beneath the illusion of plenty, there are other contradictory images of starved babies with distended bellies in famine stricken Africa, coexisting obscenely with obese people from the developed world. Starved farmers in agriculturally dependent economies who eke out a miserable living out of cash crop economy offer a harsh contrast to the bon vivant life style of CEOs of Transnational Corporations.

Tony Weis, an Assistant Professor of Geography teaching at the University of Western Ontario- Canada, has written a book called The Global Food Economy, which is a searing indictment of Big Agri-businesses destroying small farmers and the delicate eco-systems devastated by modern capital-intensive modes of production. Going beyond the platitudes of corporate PR, the author ‘examines the human and the ecological cost of what we eat.’

At the heart of the problem, the author argues, lies the role of TNC agribusiness, especially the grain-livestock complex, in adopting industrial methods, which are inimical to the eco-systems and the condition of human beings in general.

Ecological footprint

The ecological footprint left by Industrial Agriculture is a negative one and exacts a mounting toxic burden. In the past the long-term viability of farms depended on a sensitive relationship with respect to the ecological limits of growing food. It was recognized that there must be functional diversity in crops, soil species, trees, animals and insects to maintain ecological balance and nutrient cycles. This was maintained in traditional farming methods by multi-cropping, rotational patterns, green manure, fallowing land, careful seed selection and the integration of small animal populations.

In contrast modern farming transformed by capitalism and industralisation represented ‘a movement toward the radical simplification of the natural ecological order in the number of species found in an area and the intricacy of their interconnections’. This was made possible by the development and rising use of synthetic fertilizers, agro-chemicals, enhanced seed varieties/genetically modified seeds, farm machinery, concentrated feedstuffs, animal antibiotics and hormones, and the expansion of irrigation systems, which allowed industrial techniques to override previous ecological constraints. Moreover, embedded in industrialized farming is the new dependence upon fossil fuel consumption in the twentieth century, not only on transportation costs involved in bringing the food from the place where it is grown to the plate of the consumer and the demands of the machinery used for agriculture instead of animals, but with the petroleum demands of proliferating synthetic fertilizers and agro-chemicals. With the price of oil reaching $120 per barrel (expecting to touch $200 per barrel) it is certain that food prices would shoot upwards.

Rejecting simplistic notions that the industrial transformation in agriculture has resulted in high yielding crops, which are also yield stable, the author points out the inconvenient truth that it leads to chronic toxicity. This is evident as crops grown in industrial monocultures are prone to pest infections- a threat that is suppressed by the use of pesticides leading to greater pest resistance to the pesticides and involving greater use of pesticides in a never-ending cycle. The excessive use of pesticides results in pesticide poisoning which afflicts nearly three million suffering every year leading to 2,50,000 deaths. The other problems that arise with mechanized tillage are that the soil is drained off its nutritive power. The quick fix in the form of technology is a mere illusion as more and more use of inputs serves to mask the problems while creating fresh ones, one of which is the increasing use of fresh water for agricultural purposes, which is becoming scarce and a flash point of conflict.

Hoof prints left by livestock

The increased meatification of diet offers fresh challenges to the eco-systems as the increased demand for consumption of meat products leads to large-scale supply from feedlots. There are also health problems associated with increased meat intake as it increases the risk of strokes and cardio-vascular diseases.

In the factory, the dense livestock population is the major consumer and polluter of water. It is calculated that in excess of 3000 litres of water go into producing a single kilogram of US beef while a factory farmed pig requires about 132 litres of water for drinking and flushing of its wastes. A typical slaughterhouse in US uses in a day the water used by 25000 people.

The faecal matter of the cattle and pigs creates problems of waste disposal, as it is a gigantic task to get rid of 1.4 billon tons of animal manure (US) without polluting the rivers and streams. Added to the problems of sink function, there are health hazards arising out of over crowding of poultry birds in production factories which exposes the public to the dangers of a virulent strain of H5N1 which is capable of mutating and jumping the species barrier to human beings. The WHO warning led to hundreds of millions of birds getting culled in China, Thailand, Vietnam and Indonesia. The feeding of neural tissues, bone meal and blood from cattle carcass to essentially herbivorous cattle created the mad cow disease (BSE), which could transmit to humans when they eat the infected meat. Thus the hoof prints left by livestock production leaves an intolerable burden on eco-systems and public health.

An Uneven Playing field

The human cost of the food economy is a heavy burden disproportionately resting on developing countries- where overwhelmingly large sections of the rural people depend on agriculture for livelihood. TNC Agri-businesses, which are subsidised by rich developed countries (especially US) flood the world market with cheap grains/ cereals, driving the poor farmers of the developing world out of the market leading to destitution and poverty. They are driven to cities in search of jobs in Urban areas, where they constitute the under class found in Urban ghettos living in abject poverty and filth. Most of the poorer countries are still trapped in neo-colonial relationship with centers of Metropolitan capital as they increasingly depend on cash crops grown for export to the affluent people of the world and face the daunting prospect of not able to feed themselves out of their dwindling export earnings. The producing countries simply do not control the international price for their commodities- they take what they get. The export earnings are insufficient to buy finished goods from the developed countries and they face the dreary prospect of increasing the volume of export of cash crops without increasing the value, which is just not enough to pay for the imports.

The author’s book is a sane and compassionate plea to reorder the global food economy to serve human needs and not the diktat of corporate agriculture with its obsession of profit maximization. In the last chapter of his book called the future of farming, he passionately calls for moving agricultural systems off the chemical and fossil energy treadmill and towards lower-input, labour-centered intensification and more bio-diverse agriculture. That this vision is not that of a Luddite who wants to turn the clock back to a romantic past, is borne out by the fact that there is an urgent need for agro-science to be shaped by more scientific research for more humane ends like empowering the small farmer and not for mindlessly enriching the corporate coffers of the few.

For people of India, especially the middle class, who are enthralled by the IT service economy, it may be a wake up call to know that even today two-thirds of its one billion plus population still depend on agriculture as source of income. The author’s book, which pleads for a socially just, ecologically rational and humane food economy, should find a place in our bookshelf.