"The Myth of the New India" - NY Times Op-ed

An excellent op-ed piece by Pankaj Mishra in today's New York Times (registration may be required). Calling out the foreign media, and sections of our own, for incessantly crowing about India's financial and economic success, Mishra points out that

"But the increasingly common, business-centric view of India suppresses more facts than it reveals. Recent accounts of the alleged rise of India barely mention the fact that the country's $728 per capita gross domestic product is just slightly higher than that of sub-Saharan Africa and that, as the 2005 United Nations Human Development Report puts it, even if it sustains its current high growth rates, India will not catch up with high-income countries until 2106 (emphasis added)

Nor is India rising very fast on the report's Human Development index, where it ranks 127, just two rungs above Myanmar and more than 70 below Cuba and Mexico. Despite a recent reduction in poverty levels, nearly 380 million Indians still live on less than a dollar a day."

Noting that democracy is the only truly effective redressal mechanism which the people (i.e. the majority of India) have at their disposal is the power of the vote, Mishra also reminds us that

"But the anti-India insurgency in Kashmir, which has claimed some 80,000 lives in the last decade and a half, and the strength of violent communist militants across India, hint that regular elections may not be enough to contain the frustration and rage of millions of have-nots, or to shield them from the temptations of religious and ideological extremism"

Go read it.

Visualizing Development

Google has brought out a new tool which allows you to look at how countries of the world perform on various development indices. It's available here. Once you're done fiddling around with the software (and I'm guaranteeing that you will mess about with it, it's very cool), do a comparative analysis of India, Mexico, South Africa, China and Brazil. Note that on almost all of the indices of development (except economic growth, where it's second, and life expectancy, second last after South Africa) India performs pathetically compared to these nations with whom we are supposedly similarly positioned.

Caste in the Indian Media

Siddharth Varadarajan writes about the upper caste bias in Indian English language media here. It tells a sad story, but I had two reservations (no pun intended) about the piece -

a. It limits its analysis to the English language press. It would be interesting to see if this is a pan-Indian media problem, or limited only to this segment of the journalistic community. While still unfortunate and deplorable, it would not strike me as surprising that the English language media reflected the biases of the majority of their viewers (urban, upper middle-class etc)

b. The bias in reportage could also be explained by the real fear of the media's hiring policies being affected by the government moves on private sector reservation. As it would seem hypocritical to protest against reservations in the private sector, yet represent voices in favour of reservations in education, a broad policy of representing anti-reservation views seems to make sense purely from a selfish perspective.

Go read the piece anyway, it makes a vitally interesting argument.

Reservations: A Civilized Debate

Here is Pratap Bhanu Mehta's letter of resignation from the Knowledge Commission, here's Yogendra Yadav's response, and Mehta's rejoinder. As Dilip D'Souza points out, the exchange is almost unique in the exceptionally polite manner in which it is carried out.

Both the letters agree on a single point - that the new reservations for OBCs are merely an extension of the politics of gimmickery which has come to symbolise affirmative action policy in India today. My position on reservations is here, and this latest drama has done little to change my views, except perhaps to strengthen my objection to reservations of all forms.

Is Calcutta Ugly?

A very strange article in the Telegraph, commenting on efforts to create beautified zones in certain sections of Calcutta. The author asks, first -

"What sort of an eye would find Calcutta beautiful? Some would argue that such a gaze would have to be blinded with love. Or else, foreign enough to find in bad taste and dreariness exotic forms of the postcolonial. There is a certain slant of light in which a garbage heap, a roadside urinal, clouds of exhaust, a shopping mall, NRI apartments, or even a flyover might become radiant with beauty."

Thereby suggesting that s/he has already pre-judged the question of Calcutta's "beauty". S/he then claims that -

"At the core of Bengali public culture lies a form of irredeemable bad taste. This is as evident in the heaped-up gaudiness of the Marble Palace as in the ridiculous statues of regional heroes that have replaced the city’s imperial pantheon."

I don't understand how the Marble Palace, originally conceived as a private pleasure house, rather than a facet of "Bengali public culture" proves the argument (later examples include the New Market, designed by a decidedly non-Bengali architect R Bayney of the East India Railway Company). While one may criticise Bengal (and Bengalis) for a roster of vices, poor cultural taste isn't usually high on that list. In the final paragraph -

"It is surely significant that there has evolved no “Bengal School” of architecture worth speaking of, apart from the still-born Tagorean whimsies in Santiniketan. So that beautifying Calcutta is merely an exercise in conserving its colonial buildings — architecturally, the only good things to have happened to it."

Err, as anyone who's lived in North Calcutta would attest, there are some beautiful houses there, as also schools, University buildings and the like, which could do with some government upkeep, and are just as deserving of praise as the "colonial buildings". Perhaps the author should get out more often?

A Giant Falls

John Kenneth Galbraith is dead. Some of the best obituaries I found honouring him are here -

a. The NY Times' highly comprehensive account of his life
b. A students' perspective
c. A view from inside the Beltway
d. A look back at Galbraith's life
e. The Express on a "good man"

And to get a glimpse into his wonderful mind, see the KSG Forum's "The World According to Galbraith", recorded when he was 93.

The Devil in Delhi

Anjali Puri indulges in some very middle-class soul-searching (assuming middle incomers do have such things as souls) about Delhi in the latest Outlook.

"Political mecca, consumerist haven, now Metro chic... Delhi's all that. But it's also crass, crude and callous, a city sans a soul."

The arguments for this are based on oft-repeated standards -

1. The "maleness" inherent in Delhi's attitude to life, reflected in the treatment of the disabled, and of women
2. The power-hunger which plays out at every level in the city, and the culture of power agglomeration which everyone hates and indugles in at the same time -

"This world revolves on who you know and where you fit, and the disease has long spread to the rest of the capital, where name-dropping is both art form and survival skill. From chowkidars to builders, the city is adept at sorting out its occupants by income, social status and professional standing—to work out how they can be used. Yesterday's objects of desire are taken off guest lists within a day. (Ask Natwar Singh or Brajesh Mishra.) Name plates and visiting cards displaying self-generated titles such as Former Minister, Former MP, Former Principal, Former Chief Justice of India and Retired Ambassador abound. Loss of status is the Delhiite's ultimate nightmare, and he'll hang on to it with bleeding nails, if required"

3. The lack of "cultural manners" among Delhi-ites, and the general lack of sensitivity displayed to fellow users of common spaces

4. All this, combined with its nightmareish urban planning, make it a uniquely unliveable destination for most

"But the lasting image of the Delhi neighbourhood is not the park, but the street, clogged with the signs of the city's growing numbers and affluence...cars, chauffeurs, security guards baking under a summer sun...says writer Mukul Kesavan..."Delhi sometimes feels like a crude boom town—like Topsy, it has 'just growed', but with no settled norms for urban living." Would its citizens help each other, you wonder, if the city was submerged, Mumbai-like, by floods, or run for safety while their neighbours drowned?

The comparisons with other Indian cities are fascinating, of course. Compared to Bombay's significant slum population, for example, how many of Delhi's residents have to live above malfunctioning drains and drink contaminated water every day of their lives? Compared to Bangalore's "invisible" poor, how many Delhi-ites have to live a migrant shifting lifestyle, moving from construction site to site with their families in order to make a living? How many of the South's metropolises can lay claim to accommodating people from all over the country, each to his own greed, with equal opportunity? Once established in Delhi, how many inhabitants are in a mad rush to get out, like Calcutta, where only the dogs aren't potential exiles?

Having spent a significant portion of my life in the city of gin-drinkers, I can vouch for how difficult it all seems to the thresholder of India's elite, with our most valuable izzat being threatened and challenged at every stage. Yet, how much worse is Delhi than other Indian cities its size? Bombay, Chennai, Calcutta and Bangalore have spawned and inspired generations of homegrown creative elites, whose imagery has influenced our perception of these cities. Delhi, a city of permanent migrants, on the other hand has rarely been effectively chronicled by anyone native to it in the recent past. Is it fair to judge Delhi this harshly on our own ignorant biases, then?

A tale of two Indias

Randeep Ramesh manages, on the whole, an excellent brief analysis of the impact of globalisation on India in this article in the Guardian. It is effective when he resorts to data to back up his conclusions

"Globalisation in India has been a broad and brutal process, creating a country in vital and vulgar flux. The bigger the gains in India from open markets, the bigger the disorientating changes. And the Indians who count themselves among the losers from this process easily outnumber the winners. More than 400 million farm workers each earn India just $375 (£230) a year in output. The comparable amount made by the million or so software engineers is $25,000 (£16,000)."

As also a comparison between the fate of the residents of Amby Valley and its surrounding villages

"Just a few hundred kilometres from Aamby Valley, in Vidarbha, the farming belt in eastern Maharashtra, are fields of black soil that once reaped a rich harvest of "white gold", as cotton was known. But the crop has lost its lustre in recent years. The arrival of new pesticides, genetically modified seeds and swanky tractors that soak up increasingly expensive petrol has pushed up the cost of the production. At the same time, India dismantled the wall of duties that kept out foreign cotton as part of its liberalisation drive.

Vidarbha's farmers, unprotected by market controls and tariffs, have to compete with growers from the European Union and US who are subsidised to the tune of billions of dollars a year. The last vestiges of Indian government support were withdrawn a few months ago. The result is that Indian cotton farmers have become impoverished in a few short years. Many have borrowed to stay alive - first from banks and then from usurious moneylenders. Chained in poverty by debts they cannot pay, farmers began to sell first their carts, then their cattle, followed by land and homes. Some offer their kidneys for 100,000 rupees (£1,300).

Others have put up entire villages for sale. The 800 acres of Dorli village in Wardha district, complete with accommodation for 46 families, can be yours for 200m rupees (£2.5m), about the same as three plots in Aamby Valley. "I can negotiate," says Sujata Halule, the 27-year-old elected member of the village council who senses a sale in my questions. "We have no food, no clothes ... dogs live better here now." On the front page of the local newspaper there is a grisly running tally of farmers' suicides in the area: the six-month total on the day I arrive is 348."

Though it is perhaps less effective when it resorts to Arundhati Roy as an authority for its claims

"Roy likens the country's progress to two convoys of trucks: a small group that is on its way to a "glittering destination near the top of world", and a more massive pack that "melts into the darkness and disappears". "A section of India has seceded from the nation," she says. "This project of corporate globalisation has created a constituency of very rich people who are very thrilled about it. They do not care about the hawkers being cleared from the streets or the slums that are disappeared overnight." As she sees it, India is not coming together but coming apart because liberalisation has convulsed the country at an unprecedented, unacceptable velocity. In the cities, the hammer and bulldozer are, often, noisily demolishing slum block after slum block, making way for shiny new apartments. Nowhere is this shift more profoundly felt than in the country's villages where, Roy says, "India does not live. It dies"."

On the whole, definitely worth a read and a few comments.

Forget about Ganguly, Save All India Radio

The true scandal in this Test series is not the omission of Sourav Ganguly, it is the exclusion of All India Radio from broadcasting cricket across the country. As David Hopps points out

'Briefly, the situation is this. When the Indian government allowed commercial radio stations, it gave All India Radio exclusive rights to news coverage. Cricket commentary is classified - dubiously - as news, so only All India Radio can bid for the rights. Nimbus wanted £10m over four years, All India Radio offered much less, so Nimbus has decided the airwaves must remain silent. "It is very sad," said Pradeep, "that the history of the first Sikh to play cricket for England cannot be aired to the far corners of the Punjab."'

'But in Nagpur, All India Radio has been reduced to occasional mock commentary because of a commercial dispute with Nimbus, holder of the rights to cricket in India. Rights-issue disputes are dusty affairs, but this is what the Indian parliament should have been debating yesterday instead of posturing over the comments of Greg Chappell, India's coach, about the former captain Sourav Ganguly in the Guardian.'

And not a word of this in the Indian press...

On the India-US Nuclear Deal

I was feeling quite ambivalent about the India-US nuclear deal. While a part of me was proud at America's recognition of India's unique position in the world, and the generally acceptable way in which we've conducted our foreign affairs, the other part of me wondered if encouraging India to make more use of nuclear energy was the right way to go about doing this. Rep Ed Markey's (D- MA) entry on Huffington Post has convinced me of the folly of the deal. The two most pertinent points of his article are that -

a. India does not need nuclear energy as a reward for good behaviour:

"There is absolutely no need for us to start exempting India from nuclear nonproliferation controls - and sell them nuclear reactors and nuclear fuel that can be made into bombs - under the guise of reducing their energy shortfalls when there are much better alternatives available."

I would agree with this, creating the nuclear option for energy production in India may not be the best way to meet our rising energy needs, especially since there has been so little debate and investigation about the feasibility of safe widespread nuclear power in India, and the efficiency of the production methods available to us.

b. While it may be tempting to reward India with this, violating the internationally recognised goal of non-proliferation, though in an ostensible good cause, may lead to far more chaotic results:

"We cannot expect countries like Iran and North Korea to comply with the rules when we help India break them. If we adopt special rules for our friends, we can expect Russia and China to adopt special rules for their friends. "Bilateral Special Exemptions" will replace the standards of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty and the Nuclear Suppliers Group, and a nuclear chaos of no rules at all will be the end result."

This too is true. The reason why we have certain international rules (and non-proliferation is not just a treaty-based rule, but also a customary norm in international law) is that a certain order be maintained. Violating these rules, even for a good cause, would lead to unintended disorder (Iraq, anyone?)

Go read it here.

Goan Sunset

Probably the best holiday I ever took was a family trip to Goa in late 2002. The bridge to the north had opened just a couple of months before we visited, so it was really easy for us to cross over to visit Arambol and Tiracol since we no longer had to take the ferry. This bridge was built ostensibly to provide access for the villagers of North Goa to the mainland, and also to help tourism in this part.

David Jenkins touches a bit upon the effects of easy access to north Goa's beaches in the Travel Guardian -

"Well, in Morjim, there's an eyesore of a resort, and the Russian presence is large and rowdy - two sad-eyed ladies from Norway, who were seemingly born to tolerate, told me they found the noise intolerable. (The Russian mafia, incidentally, is said to be moving in on western-owned businesses in Goa; one restaurateur is alleged to have been slapped around; another had a gun shown to him on his premises. Let's hope they don't target the 3rd Eye, whose sign declares its owners to be Shiva and Sharon.) As for Arambol - for all the romance of its lagoon, it has a touch of the Costas about it."

Later -

"most people go to Goa for a two-week holiday. And all of them want (like Alex Garland) to find The Beach. That concept doesn't exist in Goa any more - not at Mandrem, nor even at Kerim in the far north, where a blank-eyed ex-roadie sat in a lean-to cafe, chugging Kingfisher beer after Kingfisher beer as two gaunt Russians chopped onions and tomatoes to make their lunch."

Jenkins does find one pristine spot, what would have once been called the "Real Goa". Where? Go read the article to find out.

The Cartoon Riots: Premodernism or Postcolonialism?

Neely Tucker at the WaPo makes an interesting point in this piece about the history of blasphemy law in America, and attempts to put the reactions to the cartoons in the Islamic world in perspective. Quoting Sayyid M Syeed, Secretary General of the Islamic Society of North America, the article notes that -

"While millions of Muslims may think of America as a pro-Israeli invader of Iraq, it is still true that much of that knowledge is not based on personal experience. European affronts, through a long history of colonialism and exploitation, are more visceral. They've left scars. They've created a different psychological relationship.

"European countries were colonial masters of several Muslim lands, and the psychological aspects of that relationship have lived on and on," Syeed says. "It's difficult for the Belgians, the Danes, the French -- it's difficult for them to believe that these former colonies have a religion that is of consequence. They get a kick out of insulting them." '

The point is subsequently emphasised by Yvonne Haddad, professor of the history of Islam and of Christian-Muslim relations at Georgetown University, who says -

"Of the 57 nations that belong to the Organization of the Islamic Conference, 54 have been colonized by Europe," she says. "That history is well known in Islamic countries, you've got the current war in Iraq. . . . Those things form the context for this sort of response. Devout Muslims are offended by the cartoons, but this is not just a religious affront. It's also political."

This puts an interesting spin on the controversy, and pushes it beyond the scope of the traditional debate on free speech. Assuming that the reaction is motivated not just by religious reasons, but also by patriotic, nationalistic reasons, are we still right to condemn it the way we would if it were purely a religious reaction? Analogising to the 1857 revolt, which many claim was sparked off by the grease used on the Enfield cartridges, does the affront caused to the religious feelings de-legitimise the action finally undertaken?

Hope to hear more about this.

Let's please talk about sex...

Following on the Khushboo saga, the Prime Minister has spoken out about the need to talk openly about safe sex, to prevent an AIDS epidemic in India. So far no legal action has been threatened against him for defaming members of his community or of the country at large.

But if this gives cause for hope, there are more depressing indicators that things continue to be more of the same with our dynamic and proactive babus at the Ministry of Health. According to NACO's latest figures, there are 5.1 million HIV positive persons in India, which is a decline in the rate of infections from last year. This figure has been slammed by almost every other agency involved in AIDS relief in India, most put the figure at upwards of 6 million infections (see here, here and here), which makes India the country with the largest number of HIV positive persons in the world. The Health Minister himself conceded that data may have been faulty, especially with regard to the Northeast and Bihar, and NACO's analysis reveals another significant problem - that the epidemic is spreading quickly into rural areas.

It is estimated that over 80% of infections arise through unsafe sex, most of this heterosexual. While the patriarchal nature of sexual practices in India may well have something to do with this, what is unescapable is the low rate of awareness about sexual health in India. And the only way we can do anything about this is to talk about AIDS. It's free, it's easy and it saves lives. So please let's talk about it.

The Stinky Politics of the Khushboo Saga

For those of you seriously concerned about the bizarre reactions to the safe premarital sex comment, the Indian Express runs an analysis of the politics behind the anti-Khushboo madness here.

Kyunki Dilli Dur Hai

Rakesh Sinha has a very sensible column in the Express today, in response to the Jehanabad jail break. His argument is that the Red Menace can be combatted most effectively by an efficient police network with local intelligence, rather than by Central efforts to send in troops with no ground coordination. A must read for those interested in the strategic aspects of counter-terrorism in India.

More of the Same?

Just when reports of Pakistan's acceptance of Indian aid made you think that this was an epochal moment in the relationship between the countries, here's indication that it's back to business for our new found friends (see also BBC's Why the Dispute over Indian army help)

Wisely, though, the Indian army is seeking to downplay the incident after initially publicising it, thereby avoiding some responsibility for the squandering of goodwill generated by Indian assistance towards the general relief effort.

There also appears to be some controversy over the Indian relief effort in Kashmir. While the BBC calls it a "cruel joke", Indian news sources appear to give the Army high points for its efforts to bring relief to the devastated regions (see this and this). Given that this is an opportunity to show the people of Kashmir that the rest of India cares about them, it would be a shame if apathy and the usual approach to disaster relief were allowed to prevail.

Quake Relief

There appears to have been a massive spike in visits to this blog in the last 2 or 3 days, the total number of visits is more than a thousand now. Let me take this opportunity to mention that for those seeking updated information on the quake relief efforts, or wondering which organisations to donate to, the erstwhile tsunami relief blog is now the Quake Help blog and provides details on both.

Also I'd be interested in knowing how you're making contributions to quake relief, and how you contributed to the tsunami relief effort. I had a quirky system during the tsunami - I desisted from drinking for a whole term and instead donated the money I would have spent on drinking to Oxfam's tsunami appeal at the end of term. I'm planning to do the same for the quake, but I'm not sure this is the most efficient way of achieving the relief objective so I'm hoping to get some better ideas for this from your comments.

Is India free?

I'm often in a minority of one when I tell friends that I believe free speech is too easily restricted in India, and our expressive civil liberties are too often taken for granted by the system and by citizens. The latest controversy to hit the Indian blogosphere just strengthens my conviction - see this and this for the lowdown on the IIPM-Gaurav Sabnis-JAM Mag face-off. The post which was targetted is here, linking to an article in JAM Magazine here.

Here's the irony - a man comments on what appears to be a scam, and is threatened by an institution for doing this. Rather than having his speech rights protected, he loses his job, and no action is taken against the institution. Too much free speech?

Happiness Olympics

Apparently Indians are the world's 4th happiest people. Australia, the US and Egypt take the podium positions. We beat out Canada and Britain which share 5th place, and Hungarians are the world's most miserable people (perhaps because they're always hung(a)ry...)

Is there something I'm missing here?

Prithvi.

Bloggers without Borders

This deserves publicity. Please pick it up and feel free to run it on your blogs. Also check out the Handbook for Bloggers and Cyber-dissidents and the Electronic Frontier Foundation's "How to Blog Safely" Guide.

Prithvi.