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Tuesday, July 23, 2013
David Brooks Wonders Why Men Can't Find Jobs: Comedy Ensues | Matt Taibbi | Rolling Stone
David Brooks Wonders Why Men Can't Find Jobs: Comedy Ensues | Matt Taibbi | Rolling Stone:
Read more: http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/blogs/taibblog/david-brooks-wonders-why-men-cant-find-jobs-comedy-ensues-20130716#ixzz2Ztk4K7ND
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David Brooks
William B. Plowman/NBC/NBC NewsWire via Getty Images
From a David Brooks column in The New York Times this morning:
In 1954, 96 percent of American men between 25 and 54 years old worked. Today, 80 percent do. One-fifth of men in their prime working ages are out of the labor force.
Brooks' point piece turns out to be a popular column topic among conservative writers: Why aren't people working? The twist in this one is that it's a gender-based thesis. Brooks got hold of some stats showing that men are having more trouble recovering the jobs lost in the recent recession than women. He cites a Floyd Norris column from this weekend, "Gender Gaps Appear as Employment Recovers From Recession," which provides all the relevant numbers.
Norris's piece actually offered a simple explanation for the gender gap. The jobs that are coming back, he says, are in the health care sector, where women hold four out of every five jobs. In fact, if you read Norris's piece carefully, you learn that women are actually losing ground in non-health-care related industries like manufacturing and financial services, that men are getting jobs back in those fields at a better rate than women. But, again, there's been more recovery in the health care sector for whatever reason, hence the stats.
Brooks takes all this data and decides that the real issue here is that men are not adaptable and can't bring themselves to make the changes needed to find work. He weaves an elaborate analogy involving the John Wayne movie The Seachers, which I guess is about the end of the cowboy era and how the rugged, violent men who tamed the West had trouble fitting in to the cushy, civilized world they helped create. (What David Brooks knows about any of this is anyone's guess). Brooks writes about Wayne's Ethan Edwards character as the hero who has made himself obsolete. "Once the western towns have been pacified," he notes, "there's no need for his capacity for violence, nor his righteous fury."
There's a famous scene in the film where Edwards brings an abducted girl home after a seven-year quest but, being the obsolete brute that he is, is unable to cross the threshold into her civilized home upon his return. To Brooks, this somehow is a metaphor for the men of modern times, who are unable to "cross the threshold into the new economy."
Anyone who's ever been unemployed knows that statistics like the ones Norris cites have everything to do with what kinds of jobs are available, and very little to do with the willingness of the population to work. Pretty much everyone who doesn't have a job will do just about anything short of organ donation to get a job. If you've got kids and you can't make rent, nobody needs to help you cross any freaking threshold into any new age. If it doesn't involve sucking on someone else's body parts, you'll do it.
Not according to Brooks, who thinks there's another explanation:
But, surely, there has been some ineffable shift in the definition of dignity. Many men were raised with a certain image of male dignity, which emphasized autonomy, reticence, ruggedness, invulnerability and the competitive virtues. Now, thanks to a communications economy, they find themselves in a world that values expressiveness, interpersonal ease, vulnerability and the cooperative virtues.Surely, part of the situation is that many men simply do not want to put themselves in positions they find humiliating. A high school student doesn't want to persist in a school where he feels looked down on. A guy in his 50s doesn't want to find work in a place where he'll be told what to do by savvy young things.
Hmm. Men don't want to be put in positions they find humiliating? How many men out there today are working as telemarketers? As collections agents? How many grown men are working in fast-food restaurants, getting yelled at by people like Brooks when they put the wrong McNugget sauce in the take-out bag?
And as for those 50-year-olds not wanting to work in a place where he'll be told what to do by savvy young things – it's the other way around. Usually, the savvy young things are turning down the older guy. If Brooks thinks there are 50-year-old men out there with families, people maybe facing foreclosure, who turn down jobs because they don't want to take orders from "savvy young things," he's crazy. All jobs involve taking humiliating orders from bosses and everyone who's ever had a job knows that. If you need a job badly enough, you'll take a job offered by Hermann Goering, Hannibal Lecter, Naomi Campbell, anyone.
It's not just Brooks. These days you can't throw a rock without hitting some muddle-headed affluent white dude who spends his nights stroking his multiple chins and pondering the question of the lazy poor, convinced as he is that there are plenty of jobs and the problem is that prideful or uncommitted or historically anachronistic (that's Brooks' take) folks just won't suck it up and take them.
Earlier this year, for instance, when Yale and Penn started suing their graduates for failing to pay back their student loans, Bloomberg asked a Cato Institute fellow named Neal McCluskey for comment. He replied:
You could take a job at Subway or wherever to pay the bills and that's something you need to do if you have agreed in taking a loan to pay it back . . . It seems like basic responsibility to me.
First of all, if you need to take a job at Subway after getting a degree from Yale, that's pathetic and 100 percent on Yale, not on the kid who mortgaged his future to pay for a Yale education. Secondly, it's pretty obvious Neal McCluskey has never tried to live on a Subway salary. He should probably give that a shot and see how much money is left over at the end of every month to pay off his Perkins loan. He'd be hooking in Union Station within a month.
It's amazing how many educated people really believe that the unemployed just don't like to work. I remember seeing Jon Voight, of all people, reading one of his infamous letters on Mike Huckabee's show, talking about the "very poor and needy, who live to be taken care of," who have been fed "poison" by our president, giving them the idea that they're "entitled to take from the wealthy, who have lived and worked in a democracy."
Here's a guy lucky enough to have a job in a fantasy-land business where people hurl money at him round the clock for a few hours of work a day, who somehow finds the time to work himself into creepily genuine anger towards a group of people who have to fight to get jobs cleaning toilets or working fry-o-lators. Talk about a guy who needs a new hobby, or a puppy, something!
Remember that scene in American Psycho where Christian Bale stabs Reg E. Cathey's homeless "Al" character? The part where he's like, "Get a job, Al – you've got a negative attitude, that's what's holding you back!" Fellas, Mssrs. Brooks and Voight, that was satire. About the last thing the millions of broke Americans out there need is someone like you telling them their problem is that they need a more positive attitude. Actually their problem is much more simple: not enough jobs. Really, that's pretty much it. It's not a mystery.
Read more: http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/blogs/taibblog/david-brooks-wonders-why-men-cant-find-jobs-comedy-ensues-20130716#ixzz2Ztk4K7ND
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Communalism Watch: India: Nemesis of Narendra Modi? (Anand Teltumbde)
Communalism Watch: India: Nemesis of Narendra Modi? (Anand Teltumbde):
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July 22, 2013
India: Nemesis of Narendra Modi? (Anand Teltumbde)
From: Economic and Political Weekly, Vol - XLVIII No. 30, July 27, 2013
Nemesis of Narendra Modi?
by Anand Teltumbde
Will the Ishrat Jahan false encounter case thwart Narendra Modi's juggernaut or will it also go nowhere in the labyrinth of the Indian politico-judicial system?
Narendra Modi is already slated for the big job by his party, not an unremarkable feat for a man who ran a tea stall near Ahmedabad bus terminus before he became a full-time pracharak (propagator) of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS). His rise since then has been meteoric. After becoming the chief minister of Gujarat in 2001 he immediately transformed the state into a Hindutva laboratory by implementing the tacit dictum of his mentors in the RSS to build a Hindu nation by subordinating those whom they perceive as a threat to Hinduism, mainly Muslims and Christians. Within a year a shocking genocide of Muslims was executed as a “Newtonian” reaction to an unfortunate event of fire in a coach of the Sabarmati Express near Godhra station in which 58 people, including 25 women and 15 children, supposedly kar sevaks who were returning from Ayodhya, were burnt to death. He remained unrepentant, using the pogrom against Muslims to build up his image as a Hindutva hero, going on to enact fake encounters of innocent Muslims, painting them as Islamist terrorists who were out to assassinate him. With this image, he won successive elections with increasing margins and became the longest serving chief minister of Gujarat.
Modi has largely succeeded in his goal of consolidating the majority community behind him by “teaching a lesson” to Muslims. He has also almost weathered the legal storm that could incriminate him for the communal carnage with the Supreme Court-appointed Special Investigation Team (SIT) giving him a clean chit. The cases of fake encounters of Sohrabuddin, the murder of his wife Kaiser Bi, his friend Prajapati and many others have also slipped past him. His maintenance of strategic calm in the face of these favourable developments has further brightened his image as a no-nonsense statesman devoted to development of the state and catapulted him to the national centre stage as a possible candidate for the prime ministership. However, a case of an encounter killing, in which a teenaged college student from Mumbra (Ishrat Jahan) along with three others were projected as Lashkar-e-Taiba (LT) operatives out to kill Modi, appears to hold out some hope for justice. A recent statement of an accused police officer before a magistrate implicates Modi in this case. Whether the blood of this innocent girl from a lower middle class Muslim family will thwart Modi’s juggernaut or will it also go nowhere in the labyrinth of the great Indian politico-judicial system is yet to be seen.
A Fake Encounter
I was a part of the All India Fact-Finding Team that primarily investigated this case and concluded that it was a fake encounter.1 The incident took place on 15 June 2004 and we did the fact-finding on 24 and 27 June at Ahmedabad and Mumbai, respectively. Suddenly after Modi became the chief minister, there was a spate of incidents of “Islamist” attacks in Gujarat. Besides Godhra, there was Akshardham (24 September 2002, 25 dead, 77 injured) and a series of encounters of the alleged Islamist terrorists. On 23 October 2002, Samir Khan Pathan, arrested in connection with a “Modi murder plot” died in an “encounter” while in judicial custody. He was taken out one day and killed on the Usmanpura road in Ahmedabad. There was no evidence of the conspiracy except the alleged confession of Pathan himself. On 13 January 2003, Sadiq Jamal Mehttar was shot down in Naroda, allegedly when he opened fire on cops. According to the Crime Branch, he was a LT operator conspiring to target not only Modi but also L K Advani and Pravin Togadia. All these incidents had more than one similarity: they needed the shooting down of the “conspirators”. The operatives allegedly belonged to terrorist outfits like LT or Jaish and all the encounters remained shrouded in a cloud of doubts. Most of them looked so unreal that they evoked suspicion. The main thrust of our enquiry therefore was to see whether the incident, as narrated by the Gujarat Crime Branch, was real or not.
Our fact-finding report poked many holes in crime branch version on the basis of the facts on the ground. The body of a “terrorist” who was supposed to have come out of the car and fired upon the police lay prostrate on the road divider, with his AK-56 pointing in the opposite direction away from the police, and with his hand on the magazine of his AK-56 in such a position that the gun would not fire. Ishrat was in a sitting position while Javed (the driver) lay on her lap, which belied the police version that they fired on the police. As in any encounter, there were no injuries on the police although the latter claimed that the terrorists had fired 35 rounds from an AK-56 rifle and seven rounds from two pistols. Interestingly, in all the four post-Godhra encounters “the fingers on the trigger” belonged to the same set of people – Tarun Barot, Jai Singh Parmar, I A Sayeed and Kishore Singh Vaghela, all “star” inspectors of the Ahmedabad Crime Branch. Samir Khan Pathan had met his end at the hands of Vaghela; Sadiq Mehttar was killed by Parmar, Sayeed and Vaghela.
In the “encounter” before the rath yatra in June 2003, where the police had alleged a conspiracy to kill the Gujarat law minister and a member of legislative assembly, two persons, Ganesh Khunte and Mahendra Jadhav, were gunned down by Tarun Barot, Sayeed and Mahendra Parmar besides Mavani, and Goswami. These stars had performed in this encounter too. Taking cognisance of the contradictions in the Crime Branch version, information given by people, suspicions expressed by the media, and the general context of the case, we concluded that the encounter was a fake one. We had also anticipated what turned out to be the fact that the four deceased could have already been in police custody and were taken to the desolate place in the dead of night to be encountered.
The normal process in law was not followed in the matter of investigation, which was carried out by the same officials who led the encounter. While the entire episode was based on the “assumed” intent of the deceased, the conduct of police who actually caused the deaths was ignored as no case was filed against them. We had demanded that a case for murder (IPC Section 302) be registered as per the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) guidelines of 1996 against the cops involved in the encounter and their immediate suspension pending an independent judicial enquiry headed by a retired Supreme Court judge. We also called for a thorough enquiry by some independent agency into all the earlier encounter killings by the Gujarat police which claimed there was a conspiracy to assassinate Narendra Modi, and that this investigation must be under the aegis of the NHRC to establish the truth and the identity of those killed, and that the enquiry report be made public.
A Pernicious Phenomenon
The Modi phenomenon is far more pernicious than the charge of having engineered the genocide of Muslims in 2002, levied against him by the secularist camp. Casualties on the minority side are always disproportionately high. In this context a dictum holds that no riot takes place without the backing of some political outfit and no riot will last for more than a few hours without the complicity of the state. In a recent article in Outlook (5 March 2012), an analysis of 58 major communal riots in 47 places since 1967 shows that communal riots have taken place everywhere, in all regions, under every party rule, and arguably with similar intensity as in 2002. Therefore, demonising Modi for one riot in 2002 alone may not hold much water. Contrarily, it provides the fodder for the Modi-camp to argue that doing so, despite the SIT absolving him of the charge of complicity, is unjustified. Evidence to the contrary that Gujarat has witnessed an entire riot-free post-2002 decade, that in successive elections in Gujarat the Muslim vote for the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has increased, and that increasing numbers of Muslims have been elected on BJP tickets in local body elections, all these go in the party’s favour.
It is not communalism, but the manner in which incidents were projected after Modi became the chief minister. Starting from the Godhra incident and the manner in which he let loose Hindutva goons on hapless Muslims, the way in which he thwarted the state machinery from acting, his defiance and use of the incident to his advantage to cynically allowing a series of fake encounters to build his image as the “Hindu Hriday Samrat”, forced the Gujarati Muslims to strike a truce with him in exchange of a riot-free future. Further, the creation of the euphoria around development in the state by offering all kinds of freebies to investors and endearing himself to the capitalists, the manner in which he unleashed a propaganda blitzkrieg with Gobbelesque lies to establish himself as a leader extraordinaire, all these measures place him in the class of Hitler and Mussolini. Modi belongs to a scarce breed of politicians with an acute understanding of the polity, ruthless strategic acumen and rare personal charisma. It is precisely this chemistry that portends danger of fascist rule if he gets to the top slot. The neo-liberal state in India has already been tending towards fascism. But it occasionally uses fig leafs of constitutional propriety. With Modi at the helm, this may not be necessary.
Truly, there is hardly any option left for ordinary people in the prevailing system than to meekly bear the tragedy that might unfold. The burgeoning middle class is still mesmerised by the glitter of the neo-liberal world despite the fact that its shiny layers are fast peeling off, baring its ugly reality. In such circumstances, even a slim hope could be consequential. It is hoped that the Ishrat case may thwart Modi’s fascist march.
Note
1“One More Encounter for Modi’s Sake?” at http://www.pucl.org/Topics/Religion-communalism/2004/ahmedabad-encounter...
Nemesis of Narendra Modi?
by Anand Teltumbde
Will the Ishrat Jahan false encounter case thwart Narendra Modi's juggernaut or will it also go nowhere in the labyrinth of the Indian politico-judicial system?
Narendra Modi is already slated for the big job by his party, not an unremarkable feat for a man who ran a tea stall near Ahmedabad bus terminus before he became a full-time pracharak (propagator) of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS). His rise since then has been meteoric. After becoming the chief minister of Gujarat in 2001 he immediately transformed the state into a Hindutva laboratory by implementing the tacit dictum of his mentors in the RSS to build a Hindu nation by subordinating those whom they perceive as a threat to Hinduism, mainly Muslims and Christians. Within a year a shocking genocide of Muslims was executed as a “Newtonian” reaction to an unfortunate event of fire in a coach of the Sabarmati Express near Godhra station in which 58 people, including 25 women and 15 children, supposedly kar sevaks who were returning from Ayodhya, were burnt to death. He remained unrepentant, using the pogrom against Muslims to build up his image as a Hindutva hero, going on to enact fake encounters of innocent Muslims, painting them as Islamist terrorists who were out to assassinate him. With this image, he won successive elections with increasing margins and became the longest serving chief minister of Gujarat.
Modi has largely succeeded in his goal of consolidating the majority community behind him by “teaching a lesson” to Muslims. He has also almost weathered the legal storm that could incriminate him for the communal carnage with the Supreme Court-appointed Special Investigation Team (SIT) giving him a clean chit. The cases of fake encounters of Sohrabuddin, the murder of his wife Kaiser Bi, his friend Prajapati and many others have also slipped past him. His maintenance of strategic calm in the face of these favourable developments has further brightened his image as a no-nonsense statesman devoted to development of the state and catapulted him to the national centre stage as a possible candidate for the prime ministership. However, a case of an encounter killing, in which a teenaged college student from Mumbra (Ishrat Jahan) along with three others were projected as Lashkar-e-Taiba (LT) operatives out to kill Modi, appears to hold out some hope for justice. A recent statement of an accused police officer before a magistrate implicates Modi in this case. Whether the blood of this innocent girl from a lower middle class Muslim family will thwart Modi’s juggernaut or will it also go nowhere in the labyrinth of the great Indian politico-judicial system is yet to be seen.
A Fake Encounter
I was a part of the All India Fact-Finding Team that primarily investigated this case and concluded that it was a fake encounter.1 The incident took place on 15 June 2004 and we did the fact-finding on 24 and 27 June at Ahmedabad and Mumbai, respectively. Suddenly after Modi became the chief minister, there was a spate of incidents of “Islamist” attacks in Gujarat. Besides Godhra, there was Akshardham (24 September 2002, 25 dead, 77 injured) and a series of encounters of the alleged Islamist terrorists. On 23 October 2002, Samir Khan Pathan, arrested in connection with a “Modi murder plot” died in an “encounter” while in judicial custody. He was taken out one day and killed on the Usmanpura road in Ahmedabad. There was no evidence of the conspiracy except the alleged confession of Pathan himself. On 13 January 2003, Sadiq Jamal Mehttar was shot down in Naroda, allegedly when he opened fire on cops. According to the Crime Branch, he was a LT operator conspiring to target not only Modi but also L K Advani and Pravin Togadia. All these incidents had more than one similarity: they needed the shooting down of the “conspirators”. The operatives allegedly belonged to terrorist outfits like LT or Jaish and all the encounters remained shrouded in a cloud of doubts. Most of them looked so unreal that they evoked suspicion. The main thrust of our enquiry therefore was to see whether the incident, as narrated by the Gujarat Crime Branch, was real or not.
Our fact-finding report poked many holes in crime branch version on the basis of the facts on the ground. The body of a “terrorist” who was supposed to have come out of the car and fired upon the police lay prostrate on the road divider, with his AK-56 pointing in the opposite direction away from the police, and with his hand on the magazine of his AK-56 in such a position that the gun would not fire. Ishrat was in a sitting position while Javed (the driver) lay on her lap, which belied the police version that they fired on the police. As in any encounter, there were no injuries on the police although the latter claimed that the terrorists had fired 35 rounds from an AK-56 rifle and seven rounds from two pistols. Interestingly, in all the four post-Godhra encounters “the fingers on the trigger” belonged to the same set of people – Tarun Barot, Jai Singh Parmar, I A Sayeed and Kishore Singh Vaghela, all “star” inspectors of the Ahmedabad Crime Branch. Samir Khan Pathan had met his end at the hands of Vaghela; Sadiq Mehttar was killed by Parmar, Sayeed and Vaghela.
In the “encounter” before the rath yatra in June 2003, where the police had alleged a conspiracy to kill the Gujarat law minister and a member of legislative assembly, two persons, Ganesh Khunte and Mahendra Jadhav, were gunned down by Tarun Barot, Sayeed and Mahendra Parmar besides Mavani, and Goswami. These stars had performed in this encounter too. Taking cognisance of the contradictions in the Crime Branch version, information given by people, suspicions expressed by the media, and the general context of the case, we concluded that the encounter was a fake one. We had also anticipated what turned out to be the fact that the four deceased could have already been in police custody and were taken to the desolate place in the dead of night to be encountered.
The normal process in law was not followed in the matter of investigation, which was carried out by the same officials who led the encounter. While the entire episode was based on the “assumed” intent of the deceased, the conduct of police who actually caused the deaths was ignored as no case was filed against them. We had demanded that a case for murder (IPC Section 302) be registered as per the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) guidelines of 1996 against the cops involved in the encounter and their immediate suspension pending an independent judicial enquiry headed by a retired Supreme Court judge. We also called for a thorough enquiry by some independent agency into all the earlier encounter killings by the Gujarat police which claimed there was a conspiracy to assassinate Narendra Modi, and that this investigation must be under the aegis of the NHRC to establish the truth and the identity of those killed, and that the enquiry report be made public.
A Pernicious Phenomenon
The Modi phenomenon is far more pernicious than the charge of having engineered the genocide of Muslims in 2002, levied against him by the secularist camp. Casualties on the minority side are always disproportionately high. In this context a dictum holds that no riot takes place without the backing of some political outfit and no riot will last for more than a few hours without the complicity of the state. In a recent article in Outlook (5 March 2012), an analysis of 58 major communal riots in 47 places since 1967 shows that communal riots have taken place everywhere, in all regions, under every party rule, and arguably with similar intensity as in 2002. Therefore, demonising Modi for one riot in 2002 alone may not hold much water. Contrarily, it provides the fodder for the Modi-camp to argue that doing so, despite the SIT absolving him of the charge of complicity, is unjustified. Evidence to the contrary that Gujarat has witnessed an entire riot-free post-2002 decade, that in successive elections in Gujarat the Muslim vote for the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has increased, and that increasing numbers of Muslims have been elected on BJP tickets in local body elections, all these go in the party’s favour.
It is not communalism, but the manner in which incidents were projected after Modi became the chief minister. Starting from the Godhra incident and the manner in which he let loose Hindutva goons on hapless Muslims, the way in which he thwarted the state machinery from acting, his defiance and use of the incident to his advantage to cynically allowing a series of fake encounters to build his image as the “Hindu Hriday Samrat”, forced the Gujarati Muslims to strike a truce with him in exchange of a riot-free future. Further, the creation of the euphoria around development in the state by offering all kinds of freebies to investors and endearing himself to the capitalists, the manner in which he unleashed a propaganda blitzkrieg with Gobbelesque lies to establish himself as a leader extraordinaire, all these measures place him in the class of Hitler and Mussolini. Modi belongs to a scarce breed of politicians with an acute understanding of the polity, ruthless strategic acumen and rare personal charisma. It is precisely this chemistry that portends danger of fascist rule if he gets to the top slot. The neo-liberal state in India has already been tending towards fascism. But it occasionally uses fig leafs of constitutional propriety. With Modi at the helm, this may not be necessary.
Truly, there is hardly any option left for ordinary people in the prevailing system than to meekly bear the tragedy that might unfold. The burgeoning middle class is still mesmerised by the glitter of the neo-liberal world despite the fact that its shiny layers are fast peeling off, baring its ugly reality. In such circumstances, even a slim hope could be consequential. It is hoped that the Ishrat case may thwart Modi’s fascist march.
Note
1“One More Encounter for Modi’s Sake?” at http://www.pucl.org/Topics/Religion-communalism/2004/ahmedabad-encounter...
Monday, July 22, 2013
Maoist Violence A Threat To Secular Democratic Forces In India By Vidya Bhushan Rawat
Maoist Violence A Threat To Secular Democratic Forces In India By Vidya Bhushan Rawat:
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Maoist Violence A Threat To Secular Democratic Forces In India
By Vidya Bhushan Rawat
26 May, 2013
Countercurrents.org
Countercurrents.org
The top leadership of Congress party in Chhattishgarh came under a well-coordinated attack from the Maoists in Darba Ghati in Sukma in the southern part of Bastar district. The Congress leadership had been campaigning in the state as part of their ‘Parivartan Yatra’ as Chhattishgarh goes for polls during the year end with many other states. Those who were killed are leader of opposition and a well-known Aadivasi leader Mahendra Karma, president of Chhattishgarh Congress Committee Mr Nand Kumar Patel as well as his son, some other senior leaders of the party. Former Union Minister Mr Vidya Charan Shukla suffered from four bullets and is battling for life in a hospital in Delhi while Ajit Jogi too survived as he flew from Sukma to Raipur. The leaders after finishing their rally at Sukma were going to Jagdalpur when the Maoists ambushed their caravan resulting in killing of over 29 party workers including senior leaders of Congress Party. Let me explain here that when we condemn the attack on the political workers does not mean we condone all their acts of using the state administration to intimidate people. Many of these leaders were highly unpopular because of their action but they had their huge followers too.
The audacity of this attack has rightfully shocked the nation. The enormity of the assault on the political structure was so high that the top leadership of the Congress Party had to discuss the issue in an emergency meeting at the Prime Minister’s residence and their Vice President Rahul Gandhi reached Raipur in the late night and met those injured. The Prime Minister and Congress President has just visited the state capital and expressed solidarity with their party workers.
Now, there are two important aspects in the entire incident. One that those who were targeted were political people and not the paramilitary forces or the local police and hence it is an important issue of deliberation and must be discussed with candid way as why the Maoist did so and whether they want the same reaction from the security agencies to eliminate their top leadership? What Chhattishgarh and Baster in particular lacked was the politicization process in which aadivasis must be made part of the democratic structure. The state apparatus remained contemptuous towards the aadivasis and hence they went to Naxals for basic support like getting their issues resolved through the ‘Jan Adalaits’ . The government of Chhattishgarh remained in Raipur with read beacons and politicians using mining to fill their pockets and here Maoists were engaged in their propaganda of ‘state’ as people’s ‘enemy’. The fact is that Maoists have people’s support in those regions but whether this support is due to fear or love reamains to be seen. It only reflects that our governance structure is completely collapsed in Chhattishgarh and it needs special treatment. It need serious thought while violence must be handled with great caution, it is important that innocent people do not become victim of this ‘collateral damage’ as military ‘experts’ always claim.
It needs to be understood that Chhattishgarh still has high investment and mining giants are still functioning in the state in spite of the Naxals. Then we have religious gurus who have big ashrams in Chhattishgarh and no attempt have been made to respect the aadivasi identity. In fact the whole project of Hindutva is to ensure that Aadivasis remain as part of the Hindu system and there has been no efforts by the Maoists or Naxals against the oppression of aadivasis by both the religious thugs as well as economically powerful people. Chhattishgarh and Jharkhand today are dominated by outsiders. They have procured land and there is no stoppage to it.
It is also a well-known fact that aadivasi areas have been without any road links, hospitals, schools and other basic facilities. Our system has not reached them and there is no participation in administration and political structure. Bastar’s issues cannot be resolved from Raipur and it is important that an independent Bastar Zone should be created with assurance of aadivasi control over mining and other natural resources. If the government had taken proper care and helped aadivasis to acquire space and not strengthened aadivasi middlemen in the region, they would have not faced this scenario. Today, there is so much of mistrust that any action of the government is taken as an attempt to intrude in aadivasi zone. It was time for sincere thinking from the government and should have sought to talk with aadivasi leadership in the region. Who are the aadivasi leaders with whom government can start a dialogue? Did the government ever call for a meeting of Aadivasi social activists, academics, leaders, panchayat leaders from different part of the country including Chhattishgarh to discuss their issues? You do not do and the result is today aadivasi leadership in all these ‘revolutionary’ Zones is in the hands of non aadivasis and if we see their track record they have systematically eliminated all those leaders who differ with them and were a challenge to them.
Why the Maoists want to stop my choice to vote to politicians of our choice. If they were true to their beliefs, we should have seen the best politicians in Telangana, Andhra, Odisha, and Chhattishgarh but some of the most corrupted politicians who are hand in glove with business and corporates, who exploit poor, who amassed huge land and other natural resources, still hail from these regions. Why in these regions most of the people remain highly apolitical and no independent Dalit aadivasi leadership is allowed to develop so that it could contest elections. So, terming anyone who differ with you, stand in front of you become a state agent. And I have a simple question that in India extra state actors are more powerful. India is run through the constitution of Manu in reality. Here we see how the right wing Hindutva brigade targets the Dalits, Aadivasis and Muslims through administration, media images and social oppression. In 2002 Gujarat massacre happened and the murderers came to power and became ruthless in isolating the minorities particularly the Muslims. They got the benefit of communalization and nationalization through the Ayodhya movement too. Today the same leaders are having free time in Chhattishgarh, Maharastra, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh. It became their laboratory and we could not stop them. Big companies have come there and exploited people and we are witnessing the lethal cocktail of capitalism and brahmanism. Where are the revolutionaries? How many times they took on the right wing Hindutva nationalism which is a big threat to the country and today our corporate and business are ready to thrust those forces on us and such incidents only strengthen them.
Why the Maoists want to stop my choice to vote to politicians of our choice. If they were true to their beliefs, we should have seen the best politicians in Telangana, Andhra, Odisha, and Chhattishgarh but some of the most corrupted politicians who are hand in glove with business and corporates, who exploit poor, who amassed huge land and other natural resources, still hail from these regions. Why in these regions most of the people remain highly apolitical and no independent Dalit aadivasi leadership is allowed to develop so that it could contest elections. So, terming anyone who differ with you, stand in front of you become a state agent. And I have a simple question that in India extra state actors are more powerful. India is run through the constitution of Manu in reality. Here we see how the right wing Hindutva brigade targets the Dalits, Aadivasis and Muslims through administration, media images and social oppression. In 2002 Gujarat massacre happened and the murderers came to power and became ruthless in isolating the minorities particularly the Muslims. They got the benefit of communalization and nationalization through the Ayodhya movement too. Today the same leaders are having free time in Chhattishgarh, Maharastra, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh. It became their laboratory and we could not stop them. Big companies have come there and exploited people and we are witnessing the lethal cocktail of capitalism and brahmanism. Where are the revolutionaries? How many times they took on the right wing Hindutva nationalism which is a big threat to the country and today our corporate and business are ready to thrust those forces on us and such incidents only strengthen them.
No, they won’t speak against communalism as it is not their issue. They will call for poll boycott and what is the result of these poll boycotts. Jharkhand, Chhattishgarh are gone to non aadivasis and Hindutva forces? What have they done to put an end to this ? How can the top leadership of the Maoist speak against migrants’ leadership when their top leadership itself is exported from Andhra Pradesh? Speaking against Indian state is easier than challenging the brahmanical system which is the ‘extra state actor’ in India and root cause of our evils but then when the top echelon of the Maoist leadership hail from the brahmanical customs then what to expect from them.
If over 200 districts of India are under Maoist influence then who stops them to form a political party and contest elections. If they think they have the people’s support without the intimidation of their AK 47 then why not influence the political process. But once you pick up guns don’t expect the state to respond to you with roses. And this is the most troublesome part. In that they have killed a generation of tribals who should have grown to participate. Yes, the government is responsible, our political parties are responsible and like the tribals of Bastar we all are victim of this system and need to clean it. We need to do so but what way?
I have no sympathy with those in power. They have failed us. They have used the bogey and used the Naxals. The doublespeak of Hindutva gangs and their sympathizers in media is visible. Everybody is busy with the Indian Paisa league and the amount of corruption in it. Why has the loudmouth in the TV chat room kept quiet on the issue? Will he ask question to Chhattishgarh government and its abject failure to protect the political opponents? The ‘future’ of India tweeted that ‘we must fight this battle together’. The Ayodhya Sarathi said he is pained and we have to fight together. Everybody wants to fight against it. All of them will enjoy this in the forest but it is the common secularist who faces the intimidation from state. It is they who are victimized in their daily lives and human rights become dirty word.
Why are we silent? A few years back, I happened to meet a general in a conference who said that the Maoists are ‘our own people’. And that explain the things and mindset. What do you mean by ‘our own people’? Why are the Kashmiris not our ‘own people’. Yes, if this big operation was done by some Hizbul or any XYZ organization in the name of Islam, do you think, we should be watching or debating IPL or satta bazar on our TV? Do you think that we would have been these subdued responses? The entire country would have been tense and every Muslims would have been asked to show ‘Vandemataram’ on his chest. This is a reality. Since a majority of the leadership from Naxals are ‘well educated’ and hail from ‘good’ upper caste families hence they are our own. Their biggest certificate is that they are not ‘Muslims’ and their name is not ‘Khan’ hence the state apparatus in India protect them. It protects them for political purposes. Political leaders settle scores through them and therefore tribal or aadivasis are just a tool, they are sandwiched between the brahmanical Indian state and brahmanical Moists, both don’t want solution. Indian state want to handover tribal land to big industries and the Maoists want to continue with it.
If both are true to resolve the issue then the Indian state must begin with a complete moratorium on the land dealing or forest resources from Chhattishgarh first. Let the Maoist surrender with their arms and let the government promise to rehabilitate them and later let the government withdraw paramilitary forces from the region in the name of operation green hunt. Let all the tribal who are arrested in the name of being Maoists be released. Let Indian state show its sign of magnanimity by announcing some non-military measures in specific term and time bound programme. We have no issue with the issues raised by Maoists and there are people who are fighting for their rights, land and water all over the country and they still have faith in Indian constitution and its apparatus despite all our disappointments. The Muslims in India despite all victimization still believe in the constitution and fighting their battle politically. The Dalits who were the worst suffers of the brahmanical system are fighting for their rights and have got their space too. Our difference with them is purely on their methodology.
The left movement is weakening in this country because they failed to win over the heart of dalits, aadvasis, muslims and others. They did not allow the leadership from these sections of society and hence the space was occupied by the rightwing forces. It is a great challenge. India cannot be handed over to rightwing nationalist. It is battle for all of us to unite and organise politically. The secular space is under severe threat. The Maoist threat and violence will only strengthen the militarized minds in the bureaucracy who will make a war cry. It will strengthen the right wing agenda of political parties and the end result would be that situation would turn more difficult for all those whose rights are violated particularly the most marginalized sections of our society whether it is Dalits or Aadivasis or Muslims and other backward communities. The challenge is bigger and it need a comprehensive political response as the arms response will only give state a right to enter in those zones and kill people in the name of these ideologies. It has happened till date and it will further marginalized the people in these zones.
Vidya Bhushan Rawat is a social and human rights activist. He blogs at www.manukhsi.blogspot.com twitter : freetohumanity skype : vbrawat Facebook : Vidya Bhushan Rawat vbrawat@gmail.com
Friday, July 19, 2013
Modi epitomises what the other idea of India could look like | Shoma Chaudhury
Modi epitomises what the other idea of India could look like | Shoma Chaudhury:
July 18, 2013
'via Blog this'
Modi Epitomises What The Other Idea Of India Could Look Like
With his provocative comments, he is exacerbating the underlying prejudice against Indian Muslims
July 18, 2013
Print & EmailThomas Macaulay once famously described India as the “strangest of all political anomalies”. He may not have said that in the spirit of admiration it deserved but he wasn’t off the mark. Even 66 years after Independence, India continues to be that: a strange political anomaly: a miracle idea rather than a commonplace nation.
Ordinarily, nations form themselves around majoritarian impulses: either of religion, ethnicity or language. But unlike every other nation in the world, India dared to base its nationhood on the idea of plurality rather than homogeneity. It dared to believe it could transform itself overnight from a poor, feudal, illiterate, colonised society into a modern, progressive, liberal nation, with equal rights for all its citizens, and an avowed commitment to social justice. One only has to think of the continuing struggles of other post-colonial societies and recent emerging democracies to remind oneself just how miraculous the idea of India is.
But by no means is that idea a settled one. The fact is, India could as easily have conceived itself as another kind of nation. Lashed together by the idea of religious dominance rather than coexistence. And constantly vulnerable to the intensely divisive forces this would inevitably have unleashed. There is every possibility this version of India would not have survived 66 years without falling apart. But its temptation persists. The miracle of India therefore — the idea of unity in diversity — can endure only if one displays both a poetic and pragmatic commitment to it. It’s an idea that needs constant reiteration and reinforcement. Events this past week once again is proof of that.
The angry controversy over Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi evoking theaccidental death of a “kutte ka bachcha” in the context of the horrific killing of Muslims under his watch in 2002; his assertion of being a “Hindu nationalist” and his mockery of the Congress as a party that hides behind the “burqa of secularism” is a symptom of this continuing faultline. Those who speak against Modi and his positions are automatically billed by his supporters as “Muslim lovers” and sycophants of the Congress. But that is a peculiarly blinkered view. Opposition to Modi does not equal a devotion to the Congress or blindness to its frailties. Nor is this merely about the competitive politics between two parties. The dismay about Modi taps far deeper.
It is a clash between two essential ideas of India. Modi epitomises what that other idea of India could look like. This image is intensified by the toxic armies who defend him on social media. To voice a contrary view on him is to invite not reasoned argument but an ugly, atavistic hate that is unparallelled. A barrage of lies, insults and vile misogynistic and religious abuse; an intellectual mindset that equates Kandahar’s terrorists with an entire community. The Taliban with the Indian Muslim. The trouble is, when Modi speaks of “hum paanch, hamare pachees”, and mocks the “burqa of secularism”, he knows he’s giving gleeful voice to this constituency. That is what makes him such a dangerously polarising figure in Indian politics. That is what drives opposition to him.
As this tussle for India’s soul continues, it’s important to remember that one can never be vigilant enough. There are some in the media who feel too much is made of the majority-minority debate. But scratch just the skin of things, and the unfinished project of India becomes apparent. The truth is, Muslims in India still find it hard to find jobs, rent homes, get equal access. It is true both the inwardness of the community itself and the Congress — as the party that has been in the saddle for maximum number of years — have much to answer for. But the underlying prejudice is terribly daunting.
Senior Editor Rana Ayyub has been having a close taste of this in recent weeks. Over the past three years, Rana — one of TEHELKA’s most sterling and fearless journalists — has doggedly chased the story of fake encounters in Gujarat. Her journalism has been driven by a keen sense of justice and constitutional values. Yet, as her scoops on the Ishrat Jahan case began to make national headlines, she has had to face the humiliating experience of being assessed not as a professional but as a “Muslim journalist”. Equally dismaying, a despicable slander campaign has been unleashed against her — shadowy whispers about a CD involving her and CBI officers that have absolutely no basis in truth.
India is an imperfect experiment. But if we abandon the poetic idea that underpins it, this is what we will get: “Hindu nationalists”, “Muslim journalists”, and women professionals we try to defang with scurrilous lies.
Surprise over World Food Prize for GMO scientists - The Hindu
Surprise over World Food Prize for GMO scientists - The Hindu:
NEW DELHI, July 1, 2013
'via Blog this'
TODAY'S PAPER » NATIONAL
NEW DELHI, July 1, 2013Surprise over World Food Prize for GMO scientists
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It is a prize from Monsanto to Monsanto, says one NGO
A selection committee chaired by M.S. Swaminathan awarding the World Food Prize for 2013 to three scientists including American multinational agricultural biotechnology corporation Monsanto’s chief technology officer, despite prevalent controversies and concerns over the technology of genetically modified organisms, has added fuel to the worldwide GMO debate.
The honour and cash prize of $250,000 is shared by Robert T. Fraley, Monsanto’s executive vice-president and chief technology officer, Marc Van Montagu, founder of Institute of Plant Biotechnology Outreach in Belgium, and Mary-Dell Chilton, Founder and Fellow of Syngenta Biotechnology.
In a written statement issued during a ceremony to announce the prize in Washington, Professor Swaminathan said the award was especially fitting this year. “The World Food Prize is awarded this year to some of the pioneers of the New Genetics who have opened up opportunities for achieving a balance between human numbers and the human capacity to produce adequate food.”
The World Food Prize Foundation said the work of the three scientists in biotechnological research (involving insertion of foreign genes into plants) had led to the development of a host of high yielding and pest-resistant GM crops.
Reactions
Non-governmental organisations, however, say that despite claims that genetically engineered crops can feed a projected nine billion people by 2050, in 17 years GM seed companies have not gone beyond a 4 per cent area globally. Even this has been in cash crops like cotton, corn, canola and soybean which predominantly only have non-food uses and do not contribute to food security.
In India, several civil society and farmers groups expressed dismay at the selection. Said Navdanya’s Vandana Shiva: “It is a prize from Monsanto to Monsanto because they are one of the sponsors of the award, as also is Syngenta. It comes at a time when genetic engineering as a tool for improving yields and reducing chemical use has failed and there is empirical evidence that there is no increase in yields but rise in superpests and superweeds. Data has shown that non-chemical ecological farming is producing more food and better nutrition.’’
Aruna Rodrigues, lead petitioner in a pending public interest litigation petition in the Supreme Court on GMOs, said: “The conflict of interest betrays an increasing confidence that genetic engineering companies can do what they like, cocking a snook at the science and official statistics which tell the real story — about Intellectual Property Rights, access to food by those who need it most, its production, distribution and sovereignty. In short, food security that is separated by a deep gulf from GMOs.”
Suman Sahai of the Gene Campaign said the World Food Prize is meant to encourage efforts to enhance the productivity of small farmers with the overall goal of achieving a better level of global food security. “It is not meant to reward aggressive promoters of biotechnology, which everybody recognises is not the answer to food security.”
“This mockery of the World Food Prize being given to corporate-sponsored biotech scientists shows a concerted effort to ensure that farmer-controlled sustainable alternatives remain invisible and unsupported,” said Kavitha Kuruganti, national convener of the Alliance for Sustainable and Holistic Agriculture.
“This is like mortgaging farming to MNCs,” said Yudhvir Singh of the Bhartiya Kisan Union. “Has the father of the Green Revolution in India lost faith in established agricultural research and is now promoting genetically engineered crops?” he asked, referring to Professor Swaminathan.
Position in India
In India, a Supreme Court-appointed Technical Expert Committee (TEC) has recommended a 10-year moratorium on open field trials of transgenic food crops until adequate regulatory mechanisms and safety standards are put in place. There is also opposition to the proposed Biotechnology Regulatory Authority Bill that calls for a single-window clearance to GM crops as well monitoring by the same agency.
Activists demand probe in matters associated with ex-CJI Altamas Kabir - Moneylife
Activists demand probe in matters associated with ex-CJI Altamas Kabir - Moneylife:
Lucknow-based activists, Dr Nutan Thakur and Asok Pande have demanded a probe by independent body into various allegations associated with outgoing Chief Justice Altamas
Kabir. The allegations include, leakage of an order passed on his last day, allegations of not promoting Bhaskar Bhattacharya, former Chief Justice of Gujarat High Court for vested reasons and exerting undue pressure on Supreme Court Collegium to elevate a Judge to the Supreme Court.
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Activists demand probe in matters associated with ex-CJI Altamas Kabir
| 19/07/2013 05:45 PM | 
Lucknow-based activists have prayed Chief Justice Sathasivam for an independent enquiry into various allegations associated with outgoing Chief Justice Altamas Kabir, including alleged leak of an order on medical entrance test passed on his last day
Lucknow-based activists, Dr Nutan Thakur and Asok Pande have demanded a probe by independent body into various allegations associated with outgoing Chief Justice Altamas
Kabir. The allegations include, leakage of an order passed on his last day, allegations of not promoting Bhaskar Bhattacharya, former Chief Justice of Gujarat High Court for vested reasons and exerting undue pressure on Supreme Court Collegium to elevate a Judge to the Supreme Court.In a letter sent to Chief Justice P Sathasivam, the activists said, at 8.36am on 18th July, Gopal Sankaranarayanan, a lawyer from the Supreme Court published an article 'Into the Darkness' on a website 'Bar and Bench'. The article stated, "In a little while, on his last day in office, the Chief Justice's court will deliver the much awaited judgment concerning the validity of the national medical entrance test to be conducted by the Medical Council of India. For the better part of the last week, senior counsel and junior advocates alike have without compunction shared a story that the appeals by the private colleges will be allowed with a declaration that the MCI has no jurisdiction, and that Justice Dave will dissent from this view. The judgment, it is confidently touted, runs into more than 190 pages and in excess of 300 paragraphs. It is my fervent hope that this tale is false - a figment of some perverse and destructive mind. In a few hours, we will know the truth."
On the same day at 11am, the three Judge bench including the then Chief Justice Altamas Kabir, Justice Vikramajit Sen and Justice AR Dave quashed the Medical Council of India’s (MCI) notification for holding common entrance tests for Bachelor of Medicine and Bachelor of Surgery (MBBS), Bachelor of dental surgery (BDS) and post-graduate medical courses.
Calling the pronouncement of almost same kind of judgement by the Bench headed by the ex-CJI, the activists have an independent enquiry preferably by Committee consisting ofretired Chief Justice or Justice of Supreme Court, eminent advocate like Prashant Bhushan, Fali Nariman and social activist like Anna Hazare or Aruna Roy.
Dr Thakur and Mr Pande also cited articles from Times of India, Hindustan Times and Bar and Bench.
Here is what the report from the Hindustan Times, says...
"Meanwhile, CJI Kabir was caught unawares when informed that an article by SC advocate Gopal Sankaranarayanan - uploaded on a website two hours before the verdict - had leaked the judgment and even mentioned that Justice Dave's would be the dissenting vote. The article talked about "gossip" within court circles that the appeals by privatecolleges against the NEET would be allowed. When questioned about the 'leak', Justice Kabir said he was surprised and shocked. "What can I say about it?" he said. The outgoing CJI was on his way to his farewell party when media persons questioned him."
An article published by Times of India on 19th July titled "Collegium stalls outgoing CJI's attempt to push judge's appointment to SC" also talks about former CJI Kabir's meeting with the Collegium. It says...
In an unprecedented step, Chief Justice of India (CJI) Altamas Kabir had - a fortnight before his retirement - proposed before the Collegium of four senior-most Supreme Court Judges for recommending to the Centre to appoint a high court Chief Justice as Judge of the apex court. The CJI had on July 2 requisitioned a meeting of the Collegium comprising himself and justices P Sathasivam, GS Singhvi, RM Lodha and HL Dattu. Once they assembled, the Collegium members were told by the CJI about the proposal. But, the CJI was told that the President has signed the warrant of appointment designating justice Sathasivam as the next CJI and fixed July 19 for administering oath to him. Since, the warrant of appointment had come, it would be against precedents and tradition for the outgoing Chief Justice of India to push for appointment of Judges to the high courts or the Supreme Court.
Not convinced, Justice Kabir sought individual opinions of each member of the Collegium on the tradition and precedent thrown at him to stall his last proposal as the head of the judiciary. All four senior-most judges concurred that it would not be proper for the outgoing CJI to push for an appointment to the Supreme Court especially when his successor had been issued warrant of appointment. He was told that in the past, the outgoing Chief Justices had in fact requisitioned the meeting of Collegium but it was only to address an emergency, like an ad-hoc Judge's tenure in a high court coming to an end prior to the new CJI taking oath warranting extension or denial thereof. Unconvinced by the logic presented to scuttle his proposal, the CJI, it is learnt, flared up accusing the Collegium members of "ganging up" against him. With the overwhelming majority in the Collegium not favouring breaching the tradition and precedent, the CJI had no option but to drop his proposal.
Another article published on 12 July 2013 on the Bar and Bench site, claimed that Bhattacharya, former CJ of Gujarat HC alleged that the real reason for him not being denied a place in SC was opposition to elevation of (ex-CJI) Kabir's sister Shukla Kabir Sinha, to the Calcutta High Court.
The activists requested CJI Sathasivam, to get all the facts mentioned in their petition enquired by a completely independent body and take all possible measures, including criminal and administrative measures on extremely critical issues raised in the petition as well as published in various news articles and as leveled by a person of the stature of acting Chief Justice of the Gujarat HC.
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