Indian Society & Some Crucial Issues: Worm’s Eye view

Indian Society & Some Crucial Issues: Worm’s Eye view
By Remigius de Souza

Key words: society; institutions; nature-conservation; people-conservation; village-education.

People Energy

ANY EVENT that I notice /read makes me to introspect, watch what is burning under my feet and what is happening around, as far as my sight can reach... with whatever means available.

THE WHOLE PAST comes to my mind like a movie in a flash ...from the age I came to senses, the Four Worlds of India — the Third World (of peasants), the Fifth World (of the marginalized), the Fourth World (of Adivasis) and the First World (of Industrial Society) — where I lived, moved, worked and gained experience. Following few observations are based on this lifelong journey.

Society
WE generally use word 'society' that refers to all social collectives. However, there are some fine differences among the Indian social & cultural sub-groups. Some are civilized societies; some are aborigine communities and some ethnic communities.

India: Socio-Cultural sub-regions

Restore Languages to restore People’s Autonomy. There are as many languages as the cultural groups.

THE COLLECTIVES of the aborigines or Adivasis are better addressed as 'communities'. Because their social formation is not based on division of labour, caste and class, like civilized societies. Here, every individual is representative of whole community. A notable feature: there is no prostitution among Adivasis!

THERE ARE some ethnic communities. For example, there is matriarchal ethnic community in Kerala. Before Aryans came, there was matriarchal society in Karnataka (Bharatiya Sanskritikosha, editor: Pundit Mahadevashastri Joshi). There are also communities of Laman or Banjara (Romano), Dhangar (shepherd) etc.

Distribution of some major tribes of India

Adivasis come with the wealth of their ancient wisdom. The loss of their Forest habitat means assault on their existence and survival.

INDIA STILL HAS RICH BIODIVERSITY; hence, there is rich cultural diversity. The culture is the gift of Srishti, ‘Mother Nature’, to humans! It is, therefore, necessary in India, to include the subject of anthropology in all branches of higher education. It is necessary for the elite to learn about plural society of India. History of India, introduced by the British, is too narrow, mean and out of right context. It propagates feudalism, which is not good for democratic values, than “People History”.

Institutions
THE COLONIAL RULE brought here industrialization from Europe. It dominated entire educated and illiterate society, before anyone realized. It was not a revolution; it was borrowing; it was imposed. Industrialization came, along came many institutions and complex laws. They took over the private and public life of the collective and an individual. And both lost their autonomy of self-decision and self-reliance.

Social Work
BECAUSE OF INHUMAN SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC INEQUALITY IN INDIA, many institutions, movements, activists… committed to social work started during past 100 years. However, we speak from a public platform; we take for granted what is below the platform, the reality that is constantly changing. We say 'Chalata Hai – This goes on,’. And the work that remains for the experts, professionals, politicians is to find "curative measures" to save their skin.

IS THE WORK of a teacher, doctor, technocrat, engineer, architect, Govt/semi-government-employee, city planner, economist, scientist... police not "social work"? Aren't they the part of society? Of course, in a decadent society — whether Western or Eastern — this may not happen. We, however, caress our ego. That's all!

NGOs
THERE ARE NGOs from UN at global level to countless numbers in the bye-lanes of Delhi-Mumbai... These social institutions are started with noble aims and objectives. Some work within their specialized fields. Some of them face resource crunch; they have to struggle to collect funds to survive. Some disappear in the blue. Some show feudal / bureaucratic traits. Some of those working in rural areas think of illiterate peasants and the tribal as backward and "uneducated", and they have come to educate them. These professional social workers from cities find nothing worth "learning" from them.

Education (Learning)
AT THE BEGINNING OF 20TH CENTURY – the times of Ranade-Gokhale – there were two percent educated (not literate) people. Gokhale then was struggling to bring a bill of 'free and compulsory primary education' for India in the Privy Council. That was hundred years ago!

EDUCATION – Learning and Teaching – is now an occupation, no more a vocation. Educational Institutions prepare the highly educated, professional, specialist etc. candidates for employment- business. But our Public Education Institution has failed to impart literacy to large number of people in the past sixty years. Isn't it the "State-at-misfortune"?

Social commitment
WHAT IS SOCIAL COMMITMENT and whom does it apply? To give the last rites to a dead body, according to that person's faith (if known), may rank at the top on the part of society. Just imagine: if the dead is not disposed off in time, what problem would it cause to the society!

BUT THE SOCIETY, religion or person/s need not worry about it. Srishti is does it by ‘recycling’ a dead body. Millions of worms will be born in the dead body and finish it, and they too die and turn into soil.

An ordinary example of social commitment
IN MUMBAI at our home, an illiterate woman of untouchable caste was our maidservant. Once she brought a dispossessed sick old man about to die, at her home – a hut on the roadside pavement. She nursed him. She also gave him the last rites after a couple of days. Honestly, I couldn't have done this.

Reunion with Mother Nature

Conservation of Nature
VINOBA BHAVE, in his commentary on Gita, spoke of three-fold Yoga Actions, Sacrifices –Yajna, gift and penance – as I recall.
1. Yajna (sacrifice): whatever we take from Nature we must return back, for example, we take food grains from land; therefore, we restore it by putting manure, watering etc. That is Conservation of Nature.
2. Gift: society, parents, guru, kin-kith etc help us in many ways. Give them gift in gratitude and to restore their losses (this is not charity).
3. Penance: we use our body – mind, intelligence, limbs – in daily actions. We must restore the loss of energy and remove impurities etc.
Society and our body are not outside of Nature. Similarly, these three actions are Yajnas, Sacrifices. (Ref: Gita-Pravachane, Chapter 17). This interpretation of “Social Commitment”, on the part of an individual and the collective, may sound non-conventional to the believers of Gita.

A PYRAMID, TAJ MAHAL... To build these artefacts does the money come from a government mint? All the wealth that humans use basically comes from the Earth. We only process it. However, all the living-beings have equal rights to the Earth. The artefacts mentioned above indicate 'feudalism' of persons, caste or class. Unfortunately today this is repeated even by democratic nations.

THE LAND IS NOT ANYONE'S PROPERTY. None, neither the State nor a person, has ethical, moral right to own land. In its history of 5000 years, how the civilized society mutilated this land!

DEMOCRATIC GOVERNMENT'S OBJECTIVE must be “Janata”, the People: only the People are "Means & Goal". All planning, projects, laws… their making and implementation processes should be guided and materialized through the People. Government and other institutions are only facilitators and accountable to Janata.

GOVERNMENT and other institutions are merely tools, faceless entities. Their primary duty is to the People, to protect their primary autonomous functions — Work, Leisure, Health, Learning and Propagation — and according to changing situation prepare development projects and make them available to the People.

Need for right education
"FOOD-SHELTER-CLOTHING are basic needs", a million times they – expert, planner, politician – must have chewed this old dry bone on the public platform! These celebrities royally forget a fact: Even animals have this knowledge by intuition.

Leisure - Children exercise their autonomy

Peasants and Adivasis don’t Need Entertainment / Leisure Industry.

SRISHTI, MOTHER NATURE, gave all the living beings — plants and animals — an ability and autonomy to fulfil their needs for survival. For this purpose she also provided them with five autonomous functions: Work, Leisure, Health, Learning and Propagation. Srishti, also, does not give any authority to manipulate over these functions to any human or supernatural power or institution.

THERE IS NO NEED TO REPEAT HISTORY time and again. History is before us by its litter everywhere. Question is, is there any remedy to the problems created by the history? Whether we correct root cause/s of mistakes, or find new technology, or carry on status quo policy to make superficial changes, or import a readymade foreign technology? What for creativity / originality then?

People-conservation and Social balance
INDIAN FARMERS continue to commit suicides. About 300 million people are bellow poverty line (BPL). There is no reliable count of how many are living in sub-human conditions in the slums in cities. In the 21st Century of Gregorian calendar, there are 400 million illiterate Indians in the Age of Computer-literacy. How could this 'Janata' face the forthcoming annihilation from 'technocracy'?

Learning by Sharing

The urchins here give a Fundamental Lesson in Learning. By this indigenous method the whole India will be literate in five years. People's Need is Access to Resources.

New Education for Six Lakhs Villages
HOW TO DECIDE WHAT IS RIGHT EDUCATION FOR 900 PLUS MILLION PEASANTS? Who should be given priority, between Industry and Trade (organised sector), and peasants (unorganized sector)? About 90 crore people (not population) live in six lakhs villages. Which institution or media can give reliable facts about their despair in areas of food, water, education, health, agro-produce... and income? For this reason “Decentralization of Power” is an urgent need.

PREVAILING EDUCATION SYSTEM is being run for 60 years by making superficial adjustments time to time. There is no fundamental change. To bring a change following points must be attended and documented in details.

Survey of local conditions in six lakhs villages
THE SURVEY must be carried with villagers' participation at local level. Such a survey, not only becomes a part of people's education, but there is essential transparency. This must not be a sample surveys done by statisticians. The Census Surveys are insufficient.
1. Environment: natural, social, economic, educational, political etc. all aspects of environment;
2. Ecology: local language and vernacular, and their mnemonic knowledge, folk arts, the life-supporting skills in practice, traditional knowledge and tools used for living;
3. Energy: Climate, human-energy, animal-energy, bio-energy, mineral wealth, plant wealth, such as food, plants for oil-insecticide-medicine-aroma-building-colours & dyes-fibres-spices & condiments etc. Plants from land and waters, from algae-grasses to vines to giant trees;
4. Geography: location and regional linkages

Subjects for Rural Education
SUBJECTS AND TOPICS should cover all related areas that influence, affect, help that are relevant in the present situation of villages.
1. Water and land conservation, Farming & related topics, Animal husbandry, Biotechnology: (Remember that rice was domesticated 10,000 years ago, when civilised societies, cities, nations, and the word, biotechnology did not then exist.)
2. Development of Alternative Energy Sources that are used by the peasants, marketing, commerce;
3. Local self-government, land revenue, Land Acquisitions Act(?) etc. related laws;
4. This education should have field orientation;
5. Access to young and adult of all ages, genders, timings & batches suitable for peasants.
Buildings – Schools buildings – should be built in local vernacular technologies, using local materials, maintained and repaired by the locals, and not by the Public Works Departments (PWD) or third party such as contractors.

Epilogue
HOW MANY OF OUR 'CITIZENS', though they may have migrated from rural area in the past, know intimately any 'village' and its ‘Janata’? Many may be well versed in world geography, yet their personal world remains flat – two dimensional. The Sun and the Moon, however, move tirelessly around the Earth and meet each of our godforsaken villages, day and night.

THE VILLAGES must have their rightful share of resources of the nation. Their major stumbling block is education. If this is not restored to the People, the so-called 'progress', praised by others, mostly by the vested interests, may prove merely a 'pseudo-progress'.
* * *
Related Posts
1. Politics of Literacy in India : Challenges of 21st Century
2. Farming: Politics of Education in India
3. Letters and Numbers, plus ‘Things to Make'
4. Work-Leisure-Health-Learning-Propagation

© 2011 Remigius de Souza | Mumbai

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©Remigius de Souza, all rights reserved.

Indian Schooling

In the year 1947 India's population was about 400 millions, and 60% to 70% persons were illiterate. Presently there are 400 millions illiterate persons. What at the beginning of 20th century G. K. Gokhale attempted, to bring 'free and compulsory education to all, is still not fulfilled.

Indian Schooling

I HAD AN OPPORTUNITY to watch a short play on Door Darshan (DD), India's State TV channel, on 21-09-1989, in the afternoon transmission. It was on the occasion of International Year of Literacy. The play was about schooling. Now I, sort of, admire its main actors, Sulabha Deshpande and A. K. Hangal. I consider them to be respectable artists in the Indian cinema, TV and theater.

The play is obviously propaganda for the good cause of the spread of education by schooling. In the play an old lady (Sulabha Deshpande) wants the little boy to go to school so that he does not remain stupid like her old man (A. K. Hangal).

The boy looks after the goats and does not want to go to school. At last the old lady sells the goats. But the boy is upset. He refuses to go to school. He even attacks the other boys who come to take him bodily to school.

I wondered if Hangal and Sulabha pondered for a while over the treatment of the theme!
Here the goats are projected as the pets in the affluent families like pedigree dogs, horses, cats etc. For a villager a goat, cow, buffalo or hen is a means of livelihood.

Why then is the old man said to be stupid? Is it because he is poor? He is poor perhaps because he has been exploited first by British rulers and now by the industrialized society in India?

Why is schooling so important that one should give up the very means of livelihood – goats? Why is the rearing of animal so inferior? (Well. Some people consider that the goat is an enemy of forestation. Forestation means left over — whatever that is left after modern man — has eaten away the forest. Otherwise the goat is a sturdy animal which can live in the deserts as well as mountains, in hot as well as cold climate and is most economical to maintain for the poor. Its milk is medicinal.)

I wondered, couldn’t a goat, a tree, a paddy field, the making of an earthen pot, or moving of a plough in the field be part of schooling in India?

Why can’t actual cooking or preparing food, treating the sick, growing a kitchen garden, Milking a goat or a cow (the method of milking is different for each of these animals), making a toilet, urinal, treating garbage in the village, potatoes and onions, water and washing, sand dunes and ravines, cyclones and floods be part of schooling — actually, not merely verbally — not merely on the blackboard — either inside or outside the school building?

But the system the British started is so powerful that there is not much change except in nomenclature and timings.The so-called educationalists are still in the grip of the system started by the British. The play that was shown on DD is typical of the way the educated, the urban elite project schooling and education.

What if 5.57 lakhs of villages in India gave up rearing animals?

What if every family of 557 thousand households brings up graduates, masters and doctorates? Then, perhaps, those sitting in the chairs will lose the power game, of musical chairs; they play with lives of poor people. Finally, what is the relevance of present day English-made schooling in the eyes of these villages where 70% of the population is still illiterate?

This English-made system of education has not much changed since it started in this vast country made up of villages having a variety of landscapes, regions, climates, dresses, tongues, topography.

I take a little time off to ponder meanwhile this ‘natak’ (play or Tamasha) of Door Darshan brings insult and humiliation to realities of living in an Indian village!

For further reading: 1. Politics of Literacy in India; 2. Farming and the Politics of Education in India; 3. One Step Quantum Jump in Education; 4. Letters and Numbers, plus ‘Things to Make': Restructuring (Indian) Education 

Note: After twenty years I find this note is still valid. It has not changed the situation other than few numbers, while the population is growing. I republish it.

[Published in (1) GOGRAS, publishers Akhil Bharat Krishi Goseva Sangh, Vardha, India 442001, March 1990, year 14, issue 5, p. 236-7; (2) FOURTH WORLD REVIEW, Issue 44, p 14, The Close, 26 High Street, Purton, Wiltshire SN5 9AE, UK. 1990]
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©Remigius de Souza, all rights reserved.

Cow dung, Rice and Amartya Sen (a critique)

Cow dung, Rice and Amartya Sen (a critique):
Challenges of 21st Century

“Everything, in this world, exists in order to culminate in a book.”

—Mallarmé (1842 – 1898)

“The evil that is in the world almost always comes of ignorance, and good intentions

may do as much harm as malevolence if they lack understanding”
– Albert Camus

Illustration 1: Cow dung and Paddy Waste Recycled

(Key words: Land (with waters) is the source of Life and the sustenance to all living beings, and culture to humans. Peasants – the landless and the landholder alike, the artisans known as twelve ‘Balutadars’, and the forest dwellers or the tribal, which amount to 800 millions including those languish in the city-slums. Development is an ongoing process and not an abstract economic theory. When means and goals are same then there is possibility of development: here land is the means and goals, so also the peasants. Environmental-Ecological-Energy Cost (E-E-E Cost): It is not enough to count cost-price-profit (loss) in currency any more; it is already an outdated mode the economists have been following.)

I am browsing Amartya Sen’s book, ‘Resources, Values and Development’ (1984), a selection of his essays from 1961 to 1984, republished in paperback in 1999 (OUP), after about fifteen years. Perhaps the author and the publisher did not see any need to include subsequent essays, if any, a sequel to the theme of this book, perhaps due to the restraints of economy.

At the start of the introduction, Professor Sen declares, ‘Much of economics is neat and elegant; but some of it is not. The essays included in this volume belong to the later category (p.1).’ It is because, I think, they are holistic. They relate mainly to development economics that take into account many aspects. I, of course, skip theories, equations, diagrams, tables etc., as I am not equipped to comprehend; I look for fiction. I, however, find something amiss, something desirable to the heart of a peasant. Hence, without defining or theorising I straight go to an example: In the Chapter 13: Rights and Capabilities, Section 3: Capabilities, I notice:

"Consider a good, e.g. rice. The utilitarian will be concerned with the fact that the good in question creates utility through its consumption. … But that is not the only thing it does (p.315)." he further writes, "Four different notions need in this context. There is a notion of a good (in this case, rice); that of a characteristic of a good (e.g. giving calories and nutrition); that of functioning of a person (in this case, living without calorie deficiency); that of a utility (in this case, pleasure or desire fulfillment from the functioning in question, or for some other functioning related to the characteristic of ice) (p. 316)."

AS I READ THIS PART, I wander away from the book into the realms of my perceptions, experience, information and impressions that I gathered during my journey through places, events and time. It is also keeping in with an idiom in my native tongue, Konkani, “you need not check every grain of ‘rice’ in pot if cooked.”

Sometime around 6500 – 5800 BC, the archaeologists say, people in the Fertile Crescent in South-east Asia domesticated rice. That included a part that we now call India, Bharat, or Hindustan as per our convenience. However, even to this day the tribal, in the backyard of Mumbai, cultivate wild Jowar – millet – and use it for various purposes: grains for food, its stocks that grow 7-8 feet for fodder and in housing.

I take the example of Konkan, a rice-producing region on the western coast, where I was born, and grew up on paddy farms during my formative years. For a peasant, her homestead is the yard around her adobe abode with plants, fields, groves, grassland, hills, and of course, the community well, a stream, water reservoir if any; and a cow, goat, chickens, cat, dog or bullocks join her kinship.

During all the dry days, besides other chores, she collects cow dung, brushwood, dry leaves, which go for fuel and/or manure in a compost pit. She collects even the ashes from ‘Chulha’ – cooking hearth, and ashes from the burnt leaves and spread in the farms. For the peasants this is ‘conventional’ agriculture, which continues in many places. The western and the westernised call it ‘non-conventional’ or ‘organic’ agriculture.

In between, there are four months of monsoon that witness hectic activity at home and the fields – transport, process, sowing and caring paddy, other grains and vegetables.

The harvest brings the work that involves transport, process and storage. For example, there is a process for parboiled rice. Until few decades ago, they used the wooden grinding wheels (Ghirat) at home to remove husk, similar to stone-mill (Jaate) for flour. Now they take paddy to rice mills. They take home even the husk of the ground paddy. They feed the finer husk after boiling to the chicken / cattle. They mix the course husk in cow dung to make ‘govari’ – a flat cow dung disk – for fuel. Paddy straw is stacked in a mound (Koodi) around a wooden bully 10 – 15 feet high. It is stored for cattle feed during dry days, as green fodder is available during monsoon.

The seeds, paddy, parboiled rice and rice are stored according to the quantity in a bamboo mat silos, or in paddy straw bundles (Moodi). Silos are covered from outside with cow dung wash. The bundles look like huge pumpkins of about three feet in diameter. The paddy straw cover is about three inches thick when compacted. They use a hand-made paddy-straw rope to tie around the bundle, compacted by using a wooden batten. The vertically tied rope looks like altitudes on a map of the globe. Indeed, it was a beauty, a work of art (or craft!) now perhaps lost forever. Paddy straw is also used for roofing in some cases, as may be seen near salt pans to cover and protect the non-disposed stock of salt in the open, during monsoon.

This is a very brief description of few details of peasants’ actions related to rice in the example above. Simple and ordinary as they may seem, there is a complex interrelationship between resources, values and development, which modern economics may not have fully explored. There is much more: besides skills, tools, processes and products related to rice, so also number of other “utilities”, not only for livelihood, but also culture/s of peasants. This has been going on for generations, for ages.

“Consider a good, e.g. rice”, again. A few hundred miles north of my birthplace is Riagad District. Here, for example, in the coastal plains, the peasants don’t plough the paddy farm, but directly broadcast the seeds. They also use water-flooded paddy terraces to farm favourite local specie of fish, ‘Jitada’, by digging pits that retain water for few months after monsoon. People have used diversity and adversity both to their advantage discovered by ‘collective creativity’ and not by theories. In the land of great diversity that is India, what variety and wealth of knowledge, skills and practices must there be.

However there is no time or will among the ruling minority, which is obsessed with western-style ‘development’ of capitalism with a benevolent name ‘duel economy’, hence, no records of “Intellectual Property Rights”, which may come up or be ignored in future; every time there may not be cases like Basmati rice, Neem and turmeric. The theft and smuggling of plants and herbs out of the country that is taking place is apart! While the elite enjoy a status of neo-Brahmanism, the 900 million peasants are like Shudras, or second-class citizens, or an underclass; that’s ‘duel economy’! Without right empowerment how would the peasants care for the vanishing precious biodiversity?

With industrialization, and without appropriate rehabilitation, it is not only the loss of the people’s knowledge, tools, and skills and the indigenous seeds, but also the loss of environment of the natural habitat. The ground water is going lower or is getting poisoned. We do not hear the chorus of frogs during monsoon nights any more. We were shocked to hear a hundred peasants died at a stroke in Karnataka by consuming crabs that had concentrated pesticides in their bodies. What will be the fate of the land, waters and the people when the SEZs (Special Economic Zones) devised recently to take over agricultural farms in India) will become operative in near future?

The governments, at the centre or states, have shown total apathy for the past six decades to organize and implement rehabilitation of the peasants, while bringing in and supporting industrialization with their ad-hock policies, projects and the laws. Why is this apathy? It is only because the peasants and the farming communities in six lakh villages is not an organized sector like commerce, trade and industry, which can twist government’s arm at a single call. Are the peasants on their way out to annihilation? It is as mute a question as the peasants.

Perhaps the plain reason for this failure of the government is that the British Raj did not leave any formula as their legacy while parting; or it failed to invent any on its own; or it failed to imitate others. It failed because it failed to do necessary fieldwork. It is easier to produce nuclear weapons or space ships, at any cost. How could anyone invent a theory or an equation or a formula for application for such a great diversity and the great disparity?

Certainly, Sen must be aware of many examples as one cited above, and the anomaly thereby, as may be guessed from his writing. However, what will happen to economics, if it has to take into account the above example? It will have to count also the “Environment–Ecology–Energy Cost” (EEE Cost) of the conventional agriculture of the peasants, here and now, at least in the Twenty First Century, and revise all its equations and formulae, hypotheses and rationale. It will have to re-write the equations after assessing the “EEE Cost” of all the industrial products.

The example cited above clearly shows the practice is labour intensive, uses local resources, and conserves the soil regularly by its rehabilitation, and so far it is a model of sustainability. The capitalist society and its culture of production and consumerism beyond needs, and the waste thereby, do not envisage this aspect. Even by conventional system the peasants do not get a fair deal, even by the governments. The experts, even those rebellious against the system, are recognized by awards not by action. But who could guarantee the theories work? As Paul Valéry says, ‘there is no theory that is not a fragment.’

Definition of Non-working Population

See, for example, the Census Survey of India 1991 (Census 2001 is not yet printed). It defines, “persons engaged in household duties, students, dependents, retired persons, renters, beggars are some of the categories grouped as non-workers” (Section 10, part 10.2). This seems to be applied to both urban and rural populations. How crude? Among peasants, the women share major responsibility at farms as well as home; the help comes from the aged and the children – students, dropouts, or those never enrolled. The peasants, even if aged, never retire unless invalid. The village data, if checked, will show substantial number of non-workers. See also the number of inhabited villages in the Census data. How do the people survive? Where do people go?

How reliable are such data that may be extensively used by economists, other experts and planners to shape the fate of the people, but never reach the peasants? The amazing fact is the government may approve to send a man on the moon, but never sends complimentary copies of the Census Survey to the Gram Panchayats so they can scrutinize its work: only the peasants are qualified to do it, but they are languishing in illiteracy – innumeracy.

The peasants are not aware of their status recorded by the government every ten years. And now Census 2001 is available only in electronic form. What would be the response of the peasants, particularly women, who feed not only their families but also the nation, to their status of ‘non- workers’ along the beggars, in the country that is so rich in resources? Whosoever may be responsible, the hypocrisy is unprecedented, it has no match anywhere.

Having, of course, a will, in the modern times, and by hard work, the government can open many new avenues and areas to the peasants to elevate their skills, knowledge, livelihood, sustenance and self-reliance. Taking the example of rice, we name a few options as a reminder:

Farmers' options for ancillary products and by-products from paddy farming

Rice husk: cement; Paddy straw: cattle feed Paper; Rice bran: bran oil; Defatted bran: Agricultural farm;

Animal waste and farm residue: methane gas, manure;
Waste water: filtration plant --- algae pond (nitrogen-rich manure) / fish pond;
Recycled water: farm/ kitchen garden; Plantation: fruits / fibres / spices and condiments / medicinal plants / aromatic plants / colours and dyes / gums and resins /paper / timber / and conservation of vanishing species; and now bio diesel (e.g. Jatropha); Land: conservation, restoration, use of soil testing kit, and as the subcontinent now is known to be earthquake prone, to be prepared for self-help; Waters: conservation, recycling, aquaculture, health, recreation, use of water testing kit, and water management in the times of floods and draughts by self-help, having known that the government help does not reach in time to save life and property. Market: (1) arithmetic to derive the price-cost-value-benefit of their actions and input into their work, sustenance and the way of living; (2) idea of modern ‘economic developments that are conducive to a proliferation of middle-men, where commodities take over things, even humans, and prices from values; (3) work to master the market, neither to serve it or patronise it. (See the enclosed illustrations.)

These options should be the focus of education and main part of the curriculum for 900 millions peasants and 600,000 villages in the country, and not the British-made schooling, which is being followed by the authorities and the departments.

Having a will and courage, the government, as it has vast infrastructure, it turn every village into a Special Agro-tech Parks (SAPs) across the country. Taking a clue, if need be, from the West that sent the youth to the armed forces, or China’s example of ‘Cultural Revolution’, India too can develop on an indigenous tool, which is partially in operation.

Introduce a compulsory ‘internship’ of six months for all the candidates who go for Diplomas, Degrees, Masters and Doctorates from every discipline of higher education, without reservations. They must go to the villages and work with peasants and SAP, without any stipend. They should support themselves by using, and also testing, their learning of 15 / 17 / 20 years of formal education. (The likely fallout that there may be a countrywide wave of ‘bribery and corruption’ to escape the internship, or otherwise we trust the Response-Ability of the younger generation, irrespective of all the prevailing waves in the country!)

Deliver the “Pro-poor” products, not the promises.
Give them the ‘fishing-hook’, not the fish.
Be the facilitator, being democratic government, not a ruler.
Return the land to the peasants, by their ancestral right, don’t sale to the corporate.
Start six lakhs Special Agro-Technology Parks (SAPs) for six lakhs Villages of India on war footing. 

Illustration 2: Methane Generation by recycling organic waste

Traditional or conventional paddy farming is holistic. There the cycle of Environment and Ecology and Energy is complete, therefore, there is no waste of energy i.e. energy is changed in to other forms.
The Illustrations here may look contemporary, but the elements have been there for millennia.

Illustration 3: Rice production in Konkan Region and Some New Directions

It becomes necessity in the changing global situations that the peasants are well informed of the characteristics of Industrial Civilization and its mentality to colonize other societies and communities under the new tools of power and profiteering: So that the peasants could maintain and guard their autonomy.

Illustration 4: Cow dung cakes are labor-intensive energy option

Cow dung: The Industrial Societies are accustomed being less populated are mass producing, even beyond their needs.
Typically, we have heard that in UK there is a plant that recycles cow dung at a mass scale, may be about thousands of tonnes, imported from several farms.

Modern technology has failed to evolve forms for decentralization of recycling, building, or processes that are possible at family level.

Illustration 5:  Paddy Farms

Paddy farming is round the year action unlike industrial products. Man, Animals, and Plants, all receive sustenance.

Modern Industrialized Farming is detrimental to LIFE, though it may benefit the capitalist society, which creates enormous wealth as well as enormous waste at the cost of LIFE.

— Remigius de Souza
~~~~~~
© Remigius de Souza, all rights reserved.

Inflation here – Inflation there

Inflation here – Inflation there

Inflation does not happen: It is not a Natural calamity. Inflation is created by humans, their lifestyles and the market forces. It is created by the misplaced priorities by the dominance of institutions, including the State, that take over the personal and the collective domain of an individual, family, and the society at large. For example: War (in the name of peace) and movies (in the name of entertainment where energy dissipates into smoke).

For ages the Indic peasants have been self-supporting and self-reliant for their needs, and could exercise their autonomy in their personal and collective living. By the standards of contemporary developed societies in the West, they may seem to be poor. Their poverty has been due to the exploitation by the rulers, and the dominant casts and classes, for centuries. Yet they were fairly free in their personal domain.

With the entry of white angles from the West – the East India Company and the British Rule (also read French – Dutch – Portuguese) – their remaining freedom came to an end. Perhaps the final stamp of this end was placed by the Cadastral Surveys the British carried out in the entire country. It also sealed peasants’ autonomy. Thus came into force a new tenure – government land.

It helped the British to consolidate further the centralised power, which was dependant on their military power. Now they had an added tool of power – Revenue Department – the Indian Civil Service (ICS). What is the cultural impact on the agrarian society must also be taken into account, not only economic and administration. The tribal – adivasis – the aborigines – escaped this cultural onslaught, may be to some extent, but they lost the land rights of their habitat – the forest – that went to the Department of Forest


On achieving the Independence, the government of Indian Republic and the provincial governments took over the ready infrastructure and the laws, and followed the foot steps of the past colonial masters. The struggle for Independence thus ended, instead of, now, continuing to investigate, scrutinise and to revamp the established system.

Also there came an end to the pioneering efforts in education, women’s uplift, science, and social reforms etc. that were going along the movement for political independence. The slave mentality of centuries took over again.

Whatever changes that may have taken place during the subsequent years were mostly effected by changing nomenclature – ICS became IAS, writing of the Constitution (which underwent more than 100 amendments. Isn’t it commendable that we learn from the mistakes) and some adjustments and readjustments. But the dragnet of centralised power continued to tighten the peasants – the second class citizens if India.

Free market – liberalisation – globalisation – economic growth – Club Nuke – blah-blah-blah, and very recent one – the Special Economic Zones (SEZs) are the pretty pet programmes and policies of the modern First World India, which goes on popping poppy pills of progress that come with consumerism mantra.

Now listen to the music of the perils of the peasants in the Third World India, who produce food for all, are being displaced, marginalised, starving, driven to suicide, while Public Distribution System of essential commodities falter or fail now and then. The food production comes down; the food prices go up.

What would the elevated bureaucrats and the leaders to be the modern-feudal-masters, the Mai-Bap Sarkar, taking the role of Provider, now do? Distribute the dole in cash. The cash though has no tangible value, particularly when the inflation strikes, one after another, by the consumerism mantra, which never comes down in decades. But when the problem is so large and widespread, who could guarantee the dole or development reach to the needy?

The peasants produce food for all: It’s a NEED. None, however, can produce oil – the fossil fuel. They can only extract it from the Earth and process it: It is a WANT of the privileged few; it is not for all. What is the point in shouting green slogans?

‘We must carry our own burden', that’s what my grandma – an illiterate peasant woman – said fifty years ago.

Who does WANT Nuke or Nano? Who doesn't NEED food?
Tell the bright brains of IITs and IIMs to find how to use the billion-people-strong human energy! This is a challenge of 21st Century and the Democracy.
~~~~~
Remigius de Souza
20-06-2008


© Remigius de Souza, all rights reserved.

Grandma's Legacy: a Last or Lost Link? (Comment)

Image Source: Hindustan Times

Grandma's Legacy: A Last or a Lost Link? Thankfully not yet. There is much to savour the legacy my grandmother left for me - for us.
Grandma’s legacy is not a lost link. They found some in Andhra Pradesh – it is everywhere in India – provided you look for it.
They should show these movies to the ruling minority – politicians, bureaucrats, experts, specialists, planners, the educationists and the self-proclaimed leaders, and the urban elite – before showing them to the world.
This “Soil Unrecognized Indian” is now being seen…

More on Grandma's Legacy >>
1. She Lived Her Living Doctrine
2. We must carry our own burden

~ ~ ~ ~ ~
© Remigius de Souza, all rights reserved.

TERRA INCOGNITA INDICA

INDICA: I deliberately use the word ‘Indica’, a biological term, instead of ‘India’. It is precisely to indicate a ‘region’ and not political boundaries that associate with the State. In the historical time political boundaries have been subjected to change, anywhere.

TERRA: literally ‘soil’, which I refer to ‘Land and Waters and People, and Biotic and Abiotic Nature’. The biotic and abiotic nature is intrinsic in the life, therefore also in their culture, of the people – the daughters and the sons of the soil.

INCOGNITA: the literal meaning is ‘unknown – unexplored – unrecognised’ alike the medieval (European) map showed the known world encircled by ‘terra incognita’ where monsters roam.

Indeed even in the twenty-first century, the ‘soil’, in my way of comprehensive meaning, still remains ‘unknown (to the world) – unexplored (by the pundits) – unrecognised (by the so-called Authority or the State)’, whom I fondly call my ‘anonymous’ kin, from whatever glimpse I have had through my six decade journey in the Third World India and the Fourth World India.

INDIA has almost a continental size. Broadly there are about 50 – 60 cultural and social sub-groups (as illustrated….). No. We are not referring to the castes or cults or the creeds. We are not taking of, in American lingo, of the Class or the classless society. We are speaking of the ethnic and adivasi – tribal – communities (that is the cohesive collectives), not the civilised advance societies (that is the fragmented collectives in the modern times).

She indeed is a thousand-petal lotus, our national flower. There have been as many topographic and climatic regions – bioregions – that have great hand in shaping the culture, expressed in food, clothing, shelter (or architecture!), visual and performing arts and crafts, languages an folklore… and thus as a result a superior quality of sustainable living. I call it a model for the modern world, a world heritage, now facing a wipe-out.

Unfortunately in the global race to make India an industrial power by the petty imitators – the ruling minority – comes at cross-purposes with the survival of the agrarian society and the diverse bioregions. The petty imitators are out to homogenise them with monoculture of industrial civilisation. The industrialisation here, so far, only helps the power mongers and profiteers through their invisible tentacles.

Indeed one lifetime is not enough to see and to assimilate and to understand this phenomenon for any person or even a group of persons. Any documentation, even a fraction, would reveal great treasures of wisdom and knowledge and skills, across these diverse bioregions, accumulated over generations of anonymous People of India.

India is such a vast country with diversity that it is impossible to manage even the welfare of the people (for the lack of understanding) for any centralised power, even with an iron hand. This is true of any region in the world which has been proved time to time. Decentralisation of powers, down to earth in practice, (power in the hands of peasants) is the only answer to this malady; M. K. Gandhi came very close to it in his concept of Panchayati Raj – power to village self-rule.

See LINK (TERRA INCOGNITA INDICA)
10-05-2009


© Remigius de Souza, all rights reserved.

She Lived Her Living Doctrine

She Lived Her Living Doctrine
 Remigius de Souza

My Grandma

Mai, my grandma, was a peasant. She worked round the year like millions of peasant women across India. Round the 365 days a year her daily chores also involved writing on the earth – preparing for the monsoon, the season for paddy and vegetable farming that depended on rain. (Of course, Mai’s literacy and education has no official recognition in India of Democratic Socialism.)

And like all other peasant women, Mai would carry her daily household work, which extended beyond the family members. It involved keeping, rearing, caring a couple of cows, a dog, chickens, a cat, plants – coconut, mango, chikoo, jackfruit, banana… and the helpers, women and men, who worked on paddy farm during the season – all of them a vital part of the household, of economy; they were active participants in balancing the environment, ecology and energy (the much hyped terms today), thereby sustenance. Indeed a larger family. (That keeps with universal definition of Sant Jnaneshwar.)

Her family was better-off economically than most. However they had no servants. Helpers were called in during the monsoon, and for occasional errands. For example, the south wall of the house needed protection from rains, so also the eaves also were extended prior to monsoon. For this they used they used wooden bullies (in stock) and bamboo that grew in the compound hedge. For the cladding they used mats made from coconut leaves. Grandpa himself used to weave the half-coconut-leaf mats. I took opportunity to participate in many of the actions, whenever possible.

Mai was no workaholic. During the afternoons, while others were taking siesta, Mai also had her break. She would squat on the cow dung washed mud floor in the shaded veranda facing the east. She would silently say her Rosary – all fifteen mysteries. Her rosary was made of blue glass beads for all the fifteen mysteries, homemade.

She had short prayers while getting up in the mornings and going to bed at nights, and angelus in the evening with the family. She would go only once in a year to the village chapel. That was on the feast day of the patron saint – St. Joseph. Others – the young and the old – would go to the chapel on Sundays to say Rosary in the community, and on Good Friday to join Way of the Cross.

A priest used to visit the village three or four times in a year. Meanwhile the faithful would conduct the rituals to Baptize the newborn or to burry the dead. During his visits the priest used to celebrate the Mass in Latin. Later Latin was replaced by Konkani, our mother tongue.

Mai occasionally used to smoke bidis taken from grandpa’s stock. Grandpa made his own bidis and would not buy from the market. Mai stitched he own long-sleeved blouses by hand. Only at latter age she got them made by a local tailor. Her bed was a homemade quilt from recycled sarees, spread over a bamboo mat, on the mud floor.

I never saw Mai wearing gold ornaments, except, perhaps, earrings, not that she had no gold. She used a couple of pairs of glass bangles, a traditional symbol of a married woman whose husband is living. Silver ornaments were meant for Catholic widows, who could afford.

Mai used to tell me true stories of real people and real places, not about kings-queens-princes-princesses-fairies, without malice and taboos; she did not subscribe to Victorian values like the elite. Her stories had been as real s her work…

WORK! Her work wan not an occupation or a profession that is marked by a bottom line. Whatever she did was her vocation – her living doctrine higher than one prescribed by Church. Her work had contemplative value, and never was mechanical. She must have surely enjoyed it: Work became Leisure, Education and Health simultaneously (hence no bottom-line). Her work had arrested entropy, simply put.

Mai, also, was never, never affected by boredom, the malady that so common among the so-called advanced-elite-urbanite – rich or poor – who look for excitement 27x7. I never heard any complain from her about whatever work she did. Each day, each action had been new, though seemingly same. Work and Reward were no different from each other. Means and goal were same – one was not separate or different from the other.

Work, now, is a much abused word, much abused action. As I type this, a word on a sheet or screen, I call it my work (duly attached with copyright, as if the whole world depends on my writing)! We tend to ignore that ‘word’ (spoken, written, or in print) and a ‘picture’ (drawn, painted, or moving) are ‘virtual reality’ that takes us away from reality, which depends on depth and breath of our perception. Does it nourish any one, even me, other than my inflated ego? It constantly dissipate enormous amount of energy.

I never saw her sick or lying down by illness or fatigue. She was small, thin, frail looking, with wrinkles and dark complexion. She seemed to have arisen from the earth. Mai was daughter of the soil like millions of them across India, and elsewhere too. Whenever I travelled the countryside, over decades, I witnessed her silent presence everywhere. She reminds me of Sita Mai of epic Ramayana, whom the peasant women revere and have composed many poems (in Marathi) in her honour.

The establishment – Agency – does not recognise their education, intelligence, wisdom, skills, labour…, not even their presence, except in electoral rolls. No economist, no statesman, no self-ordained leader – in social, political, religious or any other fields – would ever be able to comprehend the universal – primal phenomena of Mai.

They – egocentric hypocrites with their blinkered view of the world, in the frenzy of development and desire for coveted rewards – have failed to discover any political, economic, scientific, social formula (theory) to understand them, or to discover any tool (technology) to elevate them. Their creative potency has hit the lowest. In the development-mad world the drudgery of this universal – primal Mai has rocketed down to the bottom of the pit.

Ironically, the legend of Sita Mai is now taken over by Nano–Maruti (Maruti is one of the names of Hanuman in epic Ramayana. Tiger and Tiger-god of the tribal have vanished with the vanishing forests and now taken over by the modern legend of Jaguar-the-sick. Such is the economic (money) power of India. Of course, we don’t deny the social responsibility of the ruling minority that is the Fist World India and the Corporate: Neither the farm land nor the forest nor the tiger is society!

Now tiger only will be seen in memorials in the Natural History Museums and in the idols of Kali Mai!!
~~~~
Remigius de Souza
23-03-2008


© Remigius de Souza, all rights reserved.

Budget India ’08: A grand cover-up act

Budget India ’08: A grand cover-up act:
India’s Budget – A commoner’s View

by Remigius de Souza

Episode: India’s Finance Budget 2008, │ Main Cast: Finance Minister (Fin-Min) P. Chidambaram │ Date: Friday 29 February 2008

India’s Budget – A commoner’s View

The first World India has harnessed so much wealth that it (not she, not Mother India: note it) can waive 60K crore rupees bank-debts to the farmers: indeed a great cover-up. Very, very sexy! As expected it created a great buzz in the media.

The dead-by-suicide farmers and those had paid their loans, and those dying by hunger and malnutrition (reported / unreported) – the second-class citizens, the Third World India (and the Fourth World India) – are redundant.

The peasants and adivasis, displaced due to development euphoria, e.g. special economic zones (SEZs), dump themselves in the slums in metropolises, cities and towns to earn their daily bread with dignity rather than begging, in the past sixty years that still continues, are redundant.

This is apart from atrocities by the ranks and files the fundamentalist, the extremist, the regional/ provincial chauvinist of many colours and shades, the law and order lapses, the black money economy, the scams, rampant bribery and corruption – the man-made calamities that affect the poor most. When there are natural calamities we need foreign aid.


By waiving 60,000 crore rupees debt, the government has not really given the farmers anything tangible. Fin-Min says, it is ‘the accumulated dust’ (Interview, Times of India, March 2, 2008, p.15), perhaps, in the files or the system! No one really knows how many farmers, and where they are? They begin the count now, not when the calamities started.

Engines to uplift the poor

To uplift the poor (they are in great majority) the rulers have devised many engines, in the past and now, of course, with benevolent intentions. The engines, Bharat Nirman (literally Bharat Creation. They conveniently change India to Bharat on occasions: here it actually means the Third World India that also includes the Fourth World India, who are beneficiaries.), Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan, National Rural Health Mission… to mention a few are from the long list. Several thousand crores of rupees are provided in the budget. But no one knows how these will be managed, who will manage them, and when would they materialise? This is sixty-one years old story. Time now flies faster.

It took sixty years for the rulers of the Republic of India to wake up to the fact (though not fully yet) that neither the great trickle down development/ prosperity nor the great engines, mentioned above, succour the poor (there are about 200 – 300 million persons below poverty line (BPL); their numbers, however, fluctuate with new definitions of BPL devised by the Planning Commission of India, time to time). The great engines remain promises if they fail to deliver results in time bound frame.

They are now devising yet another engine, Monitoring and Evaluation (Ref: Fin-Min’s Budget Speech, 115 and 116) that I quote below:

Monitoring and Evaluation
115. Robust economic growth has thrown up many new challenges, among them the need to put in place effective monitoring, evaluation and accounting systems for the large sums of money that are disbursed by the Central Government to State Governments, district level agencies and other implementing agencies. I think we do not pay enough attention to outcomes as we do to outlays; or to physical targets as we do to financial targets; or to quality as we do to quantity. Government therefore proposes to put in place a
Central Plan Schemes Monitoring System (CPSMS) that will be implemented as a Plan scheme of the Planning Commission. A comprehensive Decision Support System and Management Information System will also be established. The intended outcome is to generate and monitor scheme-wise and State-wise releases for about 1,000 Central Plan and centrally sponsored schemes in 2008-09.

116. Government also intends to strengthen evaluation. Some ministries have started concurrent evaluation. This needs to be supplemented by independent evaluations conducted by research institutions. The Planning Commission will authorise such evaluations of the major schemes and complete the task by the time of the mid-term review of the Eleventh Plan.

For the last sixty years the same stories repeat. The Five Year Plans are not implemented to the end; thousands of court cases remain pending and get accumulated; budgetary provisions are not fully utilized – either because of ignorance of the people or apathy of the executive bodies, or both; money and resources meant for the people do not reach the remote places (not by distance and time). Besides how much, what proportion of the money, provided to make engines work, goes for the executive personnel, and how much is hijacked by the undeserving persons is not known?

But why, why does this happen? Any sane person can tell that there are not enough persons – educated or even literate – motivated / rewarded persons to work in the rural areas.

The second reason: There is no scientific, economic and environmental evaluation of peasants’ work and their form produce. None of the social and natural scientists has done this study in the last hundred years from the late Justice M. G. Ranade to this date (I am ignorant if there is any). We are speaking of organic, labour intensive traditional faming, not mechanised farming with chemical fertilizers and pesticides. Instead the feudal practices of yesteryear to treat peasants as subjects- now called beneficiaries continue. Are there any exception/s in foreign countries?

The third reason: The ‘haves’ do not want to share with the ‘have not’, their work, knowledge, education, skills and resources, which they monopolize, and which ethically should belong to all: occasionally they give out dole and charities. Why otherwise the planners, experts, policymakers, the creators of great engines to uplift the 80 percent people should fail to deliver?

The reason: They, in the first place, are the products (or victims?) of the great engine of education (that gives them the blinkers of compartments / departments) devised by the British rule. Hence, they continue to copy, collaborate and borrow from the West, and compare with the West, and ironically, also, want to compete with the West on borrowed technologies.

They don’t meet the 80 percent people on equal ground, on one plane. They utterly lack any sense of community participation – the millennia old ancient tradition that still prevails. It could have opened them to many time tested vital aspects of the people’s wisdom, knowledge and skills. The government could learn from the farmer’s action of watering the farms how to save money/resources during their distribution from pilferage and waste.

Even the street vendors (migrated from the hinterland) are better economists and planners; they sustain with right and affordable tools and right place, and don’t miss an opportunity to upgrade. Even a spider knows where and how big or small web it should place. Even a weaver bird (male), knows what resources to use, and where to place his nests; in fact all birds know.

To this date more than 60 percent people are illiterate; in some places, in any of the regions, up to 100 percent illiteracy prevails. This amounts to politics of literacy and politics of education of the First World India by denying the peasants and adivasis the right to education and the right education. Whatever model education they are receiving, if continues, will do more harm to them and the country, both.

The changing times demand appropriate education to all in all 600,000 villages and habitats in India.

"By the direct proportion to places and people in rural India (and the migrants in urban areas), the managers of country’s affairs should have started farming schools, colleges and universities, by the rule of majority then, and now.

As the count goes, the anticipated 600,000 schools should lead to 60,000 colleges and 6,000 universities spread over entire country, all of them from primary to higher education in the farming discipline to enhance the farming skills, knowledge understanding and practices of the people of India’s agrarian society; these must be added with non-formal education. To supplement these, the Farming Training Institutes (FTIs) similar to Industrial Training Institutes (ITIs) and polytechnics should be started for the adults and the school dropouts." (Farming and the Politics of Education in India: Challenges of 21st Century)

This must be stupendous job! The present rulers are not even mentally equipped even to think of it because it doesn’t fit their departmental protocol. It demands many disciplines to come together and above all the decentralization of power.

This is only a glimpse into one part of the budget, which is meant for peasants – the unorganized sector the Third World India. There are many aspects besides education that are ailing the peasant in India. The great promises will never work without the people’s participation; but here again the first requisite is the decentralization of power.

The other part of the budget is the reality management of the great realty bazaar of the First world India – the organized sector.

The two parts expose the Bharat – India dichotomy, the promises and the reality – the great Indian divide. Fin-Min’s great cover up act exposes the naked truth. Any half-naked, illiterate, the so-called backward peasant could tell you that, if he could even the text in any language.

The peasants have sustained themselves with their education and within their limited local resources – land and waters – for more than ten thousand years. This place then had no name – India or Hindustan or Bharat, there was no boundaries, and was no civilized society. They had then (as the scientists say) domesticated plants and animals (biotechnology), without any laboratory.

They, we, don’t need either Nuke-deal with the US, or we don’ need to go on the Moon.

We are 1100 million people strong human energy spread over 3,287,263 square kilometers land.

The first step is to put to creative work this immense human energy, and to reach the realities Down to Earth.
Remigius de Souza (06-03-2008)
~~~~~

© Remigius de Souza, all rights reserved.

The Great Indian (Realty) Bazaar -3

The Great Indian (Realty) Bazaar -3

Bharat Ratna Award Race

ByRemigius de Souza

BHARAT RATNA AWARD, for which some political parties fielded their leaders for its claim. The highest award thus became a commodity for the high profile. Of course, the Time or the Future would be the better judge of their credibility.

NDTV news channel quickly invited the viewers to poll for the candidates claiming Bharat Ratna Award 2008, added some famous personalities in different fields to the list. In retaliation, a religious organization, having objection to some names, attacked and ransacked NDTV’s Ahmedabad office.

Who are these attackers? They gave some name of the organization. As we know any organization, from a school to a government, is a faceless entity, some persons head it. The attackers came from lower rank and file in the hierarchy. They are manipulated capitalising their grouse for their plight in their ‘ordinary’ life. It is doubtful how many of they are familiar with the work of the listed. The have to simply follow the orders of the higher ups. Perhaps they may have some impressions, not information.

Whoever polled in the NDTV to choose awardees by spending their own money for SMSs, emails, and phone calls at a premium rate, did so, perhaps, for their favourite idols / heroes in various fields. How did they compare the others’ work? Again by impressions rather than information.

But the moment the stakes for the position and polls come in the picture, the entire episode turns into a realty bazaar – may it be parliament or Bharat Ratna election. In one the people have stakes, in the other the sponsors.

We have heard that during the elections for parliament, assemblies etc, the voters’ palms are greased by cash or kind, or punched by extortion, openly or privately.

However the so-called masses are intelligent, not fools, when election matters. They don’t go by impression, even in the remote places where media don’t reach. They are also sensitive to environment like plants and animals, unlike urban elite. They can smell “Rain is coming” though there no cloud.

No wonder, for decades now, we notice the ‘caretaker’ governments at the Centre and states, which the politicians popularly call ‘coalition’ government to fool them, and the people, as long as it may last. (In the case of recent, better wait till the next election results.)

While pondering upon few names that I know I linger at Anand Kentish Coomaraswamy (1877-1947). He was truly a world citizen, keeping in Indian maxim “Vasidhaiva kutumbakum” – the earth – my family. Like Prince Dara Shiko, he made known India – her culture, her ethos to the whole world. He wished to die on the Indian soil. But when the Time arrived, in peace he went the garden of his home, lied down on the soil, and breathed his last. (Not that I write this to propose his name for Bharat Ratna.)

I don’t know, and don’t want to know the process and basis of selecting the awardees: I am indifferent. It is certainly a legacy borrowed from the feudal powers of yesteryears. (Perhaps from past our colonial masters – Britain, which could hardly be called a democracy. Otherwise how could they establish the colonies?) It certainly is not in the Spirit of Democracy.
~ ~ ~ ~
Remigius de Souza

28-01-2008



© Remigius de Souza, all rights reserved.

The Great Indian (Realty) Bazaar -2

The Great Indian (Realty) Bazaar -2
By Remigius de Souza

The kidney transplant racket by the doctors is one too many. How many and what other professions / occupations do indulge in such a black trades to make money at the cost of the poor, helpless, hapless, illiterate, the ignorant of the elite ways people?

How many do indulge in legal as well as illegal means market ― flesh and souls, land and waters, minerals and fossil fuels, plants and animals, to name a few ― at the cost of large anonymous majority people to mint money? It’s just for their unsuitable greed for power, profit and pleasure.

By claiming India an underdeveloped / developing country, it is the First World India thrives at the cost of the people in the Third World and the Fourth World ( of adivasi – aborigine people), by whatever means: beg, borrow or rob.

The words, ‘Democracy’ and the latter added ‘Socialism’ (why add such a tag? Isn’t democracy enough?), which remain dormant in the constitution, or are talked about to have an intellectual kick? The status quo is maintained to keep the social – economic – political disparity by denying, in the first place, equitable distribution of relevant education and the resources – tangible and non-tangible or natural and economic – to the large majority.

The kidney transplant racket is one of the many, reported or not reported, instances in this vast nation; a steps to annihilation of the poor. It is typical of militarily and economically advanced societies worldwide; the history is witness to it in other times and other continents.

However, they now notice the great lies, hollow slogans of development and progress, the glaring disparity (at that compares with that displayed in Bollywood / Tellywood exhibition of extravaganza and violence, in virtual reality, though with limited accessibility) maintained by the status quo of the Agency.

Yet, Democracy is rising; its sparks are flashing. The great uprising is due sooner or later. The People (not the population numbers favourite of statisticians) shall prevail, not only in India, but all over the world is history is witness. They shall come like a tsunami.

Sri Krishna says: “… Sambhavami yuge – yuge” – I shall reincarnate in ages after ages. In this age, however, a billion reincarnations!

~~~~~
Remigius de Souza
27-01-2008

© Remigius de Souza, all rights reserved.

The Great Indian (Realty) Bazaar

Illustration: Great stone sculptures at Easter Island

The Great Indian (Realty) Bazaar
By Remigius de Souza

ON THE EVE OF REPUBLIC DAY –2008, the Great Indian (Realty) Bazaar is a reality taking shape in various ways. Bravo! A few decades ago, India was eyed by the prosperous western countries as a ‘great untapped market’. The First world India has made it accessible. See the rising (dropping at a sneeze by the great economies in the West) Sensex in Mumbai, the financial capital of India!

KIDNEY TRANSPLANT RACKET by the doctors busted in Gurgaon, near New Delhi, was flashed by TV media; along with the President’s address (I was not interested to hear her). It is reported that about 500 kidneys of some poor labourers/unemployed were bought at Rs 50-80 thousand and were sold at Rs 10-15 lakhs to foreigners (and Indians). There are several different atrocities which also now come to light.

BHARAT RATNA AWARD, for which some political parties fielded their leaders for its claim. The highest award thus became a commodity for the high profile. Of course, the Time or the Future would be the better judge of their credibility.

The irony is, we address sadhus–fakirs –sanyasis–Sufis–Bavals–saints as ‘swami’ – Master; they are not only on our tongues but also in our hearts, while kings, emperors, sultans, warmongers, money mongers, plunderers/squanderers of the land’s resources, either coming from foreign countries or at home, may find place in the history (text) books.

We have heard a story of beloved saint-poet Tukaram. Poor though he was in material possessions, he promptly returns the gifts that king Shivaji sent to help him. Like many others such as, Lalla, Meera, Janabai, Kabir, Chaitanya, Raidas, Jnaneshwar…, he doesn’t need media promotion or the State pension.

INDIA PREMIER LEAGUE materialised after hectic multimillion dollar bids, fashioned after soccer – football – basketball leagues of foreign countries. The cricketers, like horses, will run, be replaced, be rested, be shunted, come and go. The great Indian Cricket Realty show must go on, even if our children may not have playgrounds or afford to play or have one-time meal. We are indeed great patriotic people.

SINGUR: NANO PRINT – FAT WAD. ‘Tatas to pay Rs 1k cr for Singur land’ in a phased manner for lease of 90 years, to West Bengal Industries Development Corporation (8cm x 4 cm size news, Times of India, Mumbai ed., 23 August 2007, p. 21). I am ignorant of how this money shall be disbursed. What fraction will the peasant receive, once the money is in the hands of the agency? How much money shall be sucked by the administration in its pipeline?

Special Economic Zones (SEZs) materialised in knee-jerk action to quick-fix economic development. No second thought was given to rehabilitation of the peasants, not even a thought to the fertile agricultural lands. No field work. No environmental (social-political-natural environment) assessment.

Industries shall come, go defunct in time as usual, or change hands / products. But the living soil and the wild life which are important parts of ecology will be killed perhaps forever when, sooner or later, the industries are abandoned. It may take decades/centuries to restore.

Remember the great prosperous metropolis, Angkor, that collapsed by its own strength and overtaken by the forest! Remember the Easter Island that turned into desert by a civilised society! India, too, turning land into desert, soil and waters toxic. For radiation, wait until the Nuke deal materialises. And finally the annihilation of her second class citizens. Thanks to the First World India for its craze of development by aping the West. Remove the departmental blinkers that would open up ‘holistic vision’.

LEAD INDIA, a realty show, initiated by Times of India, is coming to close. Leadership is a buzzword in circulation; a frantic effort by the industrial society to hold powers over the masses which is slipping from their grip as democracy is taking deeper roots. Lead India episodes reminded us of the story of “Elephant and seven blind men”. Here, six men and one woman relishing their ego flights, along with the sponsors and judges, in the contest to chose ‘Mahanayak’ – great leader, as one after another are eliminated. What is India? Is it a palm-size map? Perhaps you could read better your fate-lines. Only Akshay Kumar, a film hero commented, “we need only leaders, no followers”.

MISSION USTAD, another realty show, to promote “End Poverty by 2015”, a slogan by the UN. It reminds us another slogan: “Garibi Hatao” – Eliminate Poverty – by the late PM Indira Gandhi; people on the street aptly converted to “Garib Hatao” – Eliminate the Poor. People are not fools. Like Bollywood/ Indipop songs, those by the Ustad – maestro – also shall come and go. Could anyone take the place of Meera, Kabir, Tukaram…? Safdar Hashmi, who sang on the streets, was murdered in broad daylight, in our times. Who is ready to face that fate? No. Not me, never, being a first class hypocrite, even though I write poetry.
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Remigius de Souza
26-01-2008

© Remigius de Souza, all rights reserved.