I disagree
Within 24 hours I have disagreed with at least 3 people online, nothing new, I usually withdraw from such scenarios, but this is important to me. So, why do I not buy the well argued posts in support of Mayavati’s actions by Kuffir, RW and Prabin, not because I don’t value, the in the face attitude and literally in their lives -life size statues reminding the upper castes that times are a changing, no not at all, I love it. I just happen to want more, much much more from her.
Consider the bahujans as an ecosystem. All links within this system are important. We are feeding both from our weakest life stories and from our strongest, as a leverage to break free from the ecological niches that were not our natural choices as free humans. How do the actions of the strongest influence the rest? Undoubtedly, Mayavati is the most powerful factor -the energy source for the ecosystem. The energy has to sustain a large family over a long period, it has to be utilized effectively and creatively. If certain activities seem to use up energy that should and could be better utilized then that has to be considered. Even the minutest amount in the fragile system could mean a possible strengthening of weak links. Arguments of, it is comparatively little energy as against energy spent for similar activities by forces outside of this ecosystem are null. They can afford it, we cannot. This is the only source we have. Agreed, she has earned her place to decide how she will dispense her resources. But can I not worry about it? Surely I don’t have to justify against what I essentially see as better spent elsewhere even to enforce symbolism?
I have a long wish list for her. But for starters, a Mayavati’ TV channel would be nice – an employment generating resource, symbolic to boot, can be used for elections, for development projects, will have the reach to touch every dalit in the country, get the bahujan the media slice that we need so bad. This may be more energy requiring but this is useful yet symbolic model that has the potential for reproduction, by not so strong energy providers along the system, another minister might aspire for a radio station, another for a newspaper to give voice to the silenced. Sure, this will not have the irritation value for the upper caste that a statue has, but they are outside this ecosystem. One needs to strengthen the links within the system, our energies should be directed towards this, and not be allowed to dissipate trying to weaken the links of the external factors. This is the need of the hour. When all the internal links are strengthened sufficiently the synergy of the ecosystem will force the external links to regroup in different, more acceptable forms without us expending much energy on that. IMHO
PS: I am totally grateful that a large number of artisans have benefitted from Mayavati’s statue building exercise, but I want to dream about their children as TV executives, media people, journalists and other professionals and NOT as artisans building endless stone and plaster dalit iconic structures.
E3 network
From the Seed.
Four years ago in Santa Monica, California, a group of economists, philanthropists, and NGO representatives gathered to discuss the state of the environmental movement. What they found was that while environmental advocates were able to make arguments on scientific and legal grounds, they were missing the third leg of the stool: economics. As more and more environmental decisions were being made on the basis of economics, this expert gap was turning into a severe hindrance.
In the Indian context, I always wonder about think tanks, what could they be? Anyway, people who are interested to know that the poor in the US sometimes figure in these ‘thoughts’ please read the Seed Magazine’s interview of the E3 network chief, an excerpt is here:
Seed: What makes this different from a traditional think tank?
KS: If we modeled ourselves as an environmental think tank, we’d be doing a lot of in-house research and publishing under a brand name. But we see ourselves as an organizer and a catalyst for research. Almost everyone in the network has a “day job”—many are academics, some work for think tanks, some have government positions. We thought our economists would have more of an impact if they represented different institutions across the country, whereas think tanks tend to become associated with a particular ideological bent—“Of course they said that, that’s the American Enterprise Institute.” With the network, we’re bringing 100 different economists to bear on different issues. And they don’t always agree. More.
mist and mountain tops
Trekking through Adirondack Mountains dotted with pristine lakes innocuously named; round lake, long lake, I am one of those visitors who sparsely people these mountains along with researchers, fishermen, bikers, campers, deer and moose antler hunters. The gadgets that get us to the mountaintop and on our persons could fund small businesses in cost. Each and every one of us know the laws; natural and human, and none will trespass or need reminders, we are in sync with nature here, in awe we tip toe. Should an accident happen, a rescue team would fly in with a response time of a few minutes to save life and limb! We are all insured!
And my mind is filled with thoughts and visions of my life long love affair with the Western Ghats, except Gujarat, I have trekked in forests trails in every state that the Ghats guard. The columns of women in Kotagiri nipping tea leaves, misty morning run-in’s with families picking eucalyptus leaves in Coonoor, young girls selling peanut chikis in Lonavla, hearing the sound of woodcutters axes in Karwar, men weeding coffee plantations in Mercara, the lambhadi women from whom I bought multicolored bead chains in Katraj, and so much more fills my heart.
Misty heights with
Round, long, blue
Placid and Mirror
Lakes.
Earth’s own story
Chiseled in mysterious depths
A mammoth come and gone
Known only in bones
A sanguine note
Here ‘the forest never dies’
Over there,
Muddy rivulets for parched
Throats and roots,
Hastening
The undressing of mountains.
Slipping memories of Ghatis.
Bundled upon their dark heads
Twigs, barks, gums, tubers and
Leaves stitched with sticks.
No buyers.
Yet. A silent cry
‘This forest is ours’
Ghatis: a derogatory term in Marathi that refers to ‘uncultured’ mountain people of Western Ghats.
How does one reconcile conservation of nature over here and over there? At what cost does the civilized world protect nature’s beauty and wealth? The remnants of the original inhabitants of the Adirondacks are now visible in a few name placards; Iroquois lane, Pale face mountain, a fraudulent treaty in 1797, is supposed to have robbed the Iroquois of 60,000,000 acres, that now form a conserved park. Even this courtesy of name placards will not be accorded over there, should the fight for forests in all the developing countries be finally lost to ‘cultured’ people over there and here.
These thoughts apart, breathing the clean mountain air remains the most exhilarating experience ever and makes me homesick to the core, I am going to grab a song that I used to play in my hostel room – borrowed from a friend with a lovely voice, it would be better still if I could find the thumri she used to sing for me on rainy days, while we sat on the doorstep with our feet in the pouring rain, dreaming of treks and camps and waiting for the rain to give just a little, so we could walk over to the outdoor canteen for some hot chai and dream some more.
Who is seeing red?
And why? read here

I guess at some future time a few write ups will appear in academic journals, maybe even a Ph.D thesis, with Lalgarh as an example, having plenty of explanations of how women’s movements never get recognized. First, will this be considered as an expression of resistance by Indian women? Will this get the tag of a feminist struggle? Will it get anchored as a turning point in the history of women’s movements in India? Or does this need a facebook group for educated non-tribal women warriors to attempt understanding this moment, to celebrate this expression of resistance? Or does this not have any bearing to the rest of the Indian women? Whatever, it does not matter to these adivasi women what academcians, media and bloggers like me think about it. But I desperately want this to be recorded for the present and future generations of women; the dalits, the adivasis, lower castes and women around the world. This is the first time I feel a deep regret for opting to study natural science and not the social sciences.
————-
Dealing with bow and arrow
June 20, 2009. By Latha Jishnu, Business Standard
The views of the Lalgarh siege are largely determined by what the media considers the essence of the confrontation. We have seen pictures of torched CPI(M) buildings with the trademark hammer and sickle going up in flames, Maoists (angry villagers?) on the rampage, a chilling shot of a corpse outside the party office, the paramilitary forces in action — in combat positions and clean-up operations (men being dragged out of homes and taken into custody). Fundamentally, these tell a story of an uprising that is being brought under control by the heavy hand of the security forces nearly eight months after it started, a small battle that may be won in the many insurgencies that shake India.
But there is a more striking image that merits closer attention — of a huge rally of peasant women on November 7, 2008. They are dressed in colourful saris, hair neatly pulled back in buns, their dark faces determined and unsmiling. Most of them are wielding bow and arrow, a few with arrows at the ready. Others have axes slung across their shoulders, as is the wont of tribal folk, as they march on the Lalgarh police station.
Who are these women? Yes, we know these are women from Lalgarh who were incensed when men of their village were arrested randomly after Maoists had ambushed a convoy of the West Bengal chief minister just a few days earlier. Most of the angry villagers have banded themselves under the banner of the Lalgarh People’s Committee against Police Atrocities, which seems a fairly straightforward description of their cause. But they have all been dubbed Maoists now by officialdom and the media, even if ideology is far from being the spur that drove them to take on the state.
Take the case of the Dongria Khonds who managed to make their way to the Belamba village in Kalahandi district of Orissa for a public hearing in April on Vedanta’s plans to expand their aluminum refinery to the world’s largest such facility. Most of them were not allowed to speak — the brute force of the state aligned with corporate power, managed to keep them out. The Adivasis are fighting to retain their sacred mountain, and the source of amazing natural bounty that keeps them from the hungry maws of the bulldozers seeking the rich bauxite deposits in Niyamgiri. The clashes began six years ago and are set to become more confrontational when the mining work starts. Soon, the Maoists/Naxalites will come to their aid, or the tribal people will themselves be dubbed Maoists.
The point here is, does 21st-century India, determinedly pushing for higher and higher growth rates, understand the women with the bows and arrows, or the hill people with a radically different perspective on life? Does Lalgarh provide some pointers to what fuels the Naxalite/Maoist insurgencies across 125 districts of the country? The answer is yes and no. Although such struggles are fuelled by different causes, there are some fairly well-known reasons why the extremist movement is burgeoning. They draw their support from the deprived and dispossessed. To start with, one can be fairly certain that the Lalgarh women who are said to be Maoist supporters if not Maoists themselves, are predominantly Dalit or Adivasi. As such they are likely to have faced various forms of oppression, and been denied justice along with social, legal and political rights. They are also likely to be among the poorest strata.
This is the analysis of the report of an expert group set up by the Planning Commission in 2006 which submitted its report in April 2008. ‘Development Challenges in Extremist-Affected Areas’, a 95-page report prepared by a group of administrators with experience of dealing with extremism, social scientists and human rights activists, is an excellent delineation of the causes of alienation, some well-known and others that give a fresh perspective on the issue. The report says it found some common aspects in its study of the 125 Naxal-influenced districts.
The main support for the Naxalite movement, it points out, comes from Dalits and Adivasis, who comprise about a fourth of India’s population and usually in areas where there are high levels of rural distress among SCs and STs. And predictably, the report listed land issues, internal displacement from industrialisation, the growing hordes of the project-affected, as other contributory factors. But it also touched upon the class divide that makes even the best policy prescriptions futile.
“It is a matter of common observation that the inequalities between classes, between town and country, and between the upper castes and the underprivileged communities are increasing. That this has potential for tremendous unrest is recognised by all. But somehow policy prescriptions presume otherwise. As the responsibility of the state for providing equal social rights recedes in the sphere of policymaking, we have two worlds of education, two worlds of health, two worlds of transport and two worlds of housing, with a gaping divide in between.”
It’s a stark truth that the newly-enlightened government of Manmohan Singh, which harps on inclusive growth, should not ignore. Clearly, it would be extremely difficult for the largely urban and Western-educated ruling class—the current UPA government has the largest number of MPs who studied in American and British universities — who are also among the richest in the country (300 crorepatis in the Lok Sabha, mostly businessmen) to relate to axe-wielding women who seek justice and honour in the rough backwoods of the country. And it matters little what the political persuasion of the rulers is. States ruled by parties as different from each other (or perhaps not) as the Congress, the BJP, the CPI(M) or the BJD are all struggling with the problem of alienation and extremism.
All of them ought to take the dust off the report which offers some excellent administrative suggestions for coping with the Naxalite challenge. What the report does not offer is a political solution that is at the heart of the problem. It was not the brief of the group; for the government though, it must be the guiding core. It needs to put forward a vision of development that addresses the concerns of the millions who do not feel part of the changing India. Politics has to change before anything else can.
Image: From the Sanhati website.
At the table

for the Indians who feign ignorance
for Indians who are cleverly in denial
for Indian do-gooders who are blind
for genteel sophisticated Indians
for rich Indians who flaunt their connections
for Indian academics who pass off privilege as merit
for Indians who are not at that table
for Indians who are at different tables at different times
for Indians on whom the camera did not focus
for internet accessing Indians who stumble on this blog and wonder what it is all about
for Indians who feel comfortable seeing this child under the table

This is the reason you feign ignorance, and court denial but mostly some of you are seeking out these images, if not, how would you feel superior, kind, generous and continue doing the myriad good deeds to save the world?
While enjoying the rush of satisfaction on seeing this image, you can go ahead and forget that some of those under the table types have moved out, who know exactly how learned and kind you are. And they know how different you are from those two men at the table. But do keep in mind they have better things to do than educate you out of your real ignorance.




