Ek Doctor Ki Maut

As the election mania grips the nation, every monday over 50 men and women from all walks of life, from all possible ideological camps court arrest in Raipur. Everyday in Bangalore, a journalists call up a minister enquiring about the fate of a certain doctor and humans rights activist locked up in a jail in Chattisgarh.

Yes, I am talking about Binayak Sen. The man ignored by the mainstream media and forgotten by the political parties (with the exception of CPI) , yet significant enough that the petition for his release is endorsed by over 20 Nobel Lauretes . His sole fault was that he chose to be a human rights defender for those who matter little to the state . He chose to campaign against the savagery of an illegal army called Salwa Judum. There is little that I can say about him that has already not been said.

Binayak Sen V/s State

For a Political take on it, there is Shivam’s article in Tehelka. For a more personal and heartfelt tribute to the man, there is Sudhir Mishra’s article in Tehelka. For the updates on his deteriorating health refer to the more recent article in Tehelka (again).

The question is not solely about Binayak Sen and his arrest or release . Nor is it only about those left cushy jobs to serve in the country side, because they had the option to do so in the first place. Its about state of human rights in a place , where even the most prominent of human rights defenders can be put behind the bars without a rhyme or reason. Its about the atmosphere of fear that state chooses to create by using Binayak as an example against those who dissent or side with the victims of state sponsored terror. As Tarun Tejpal once rightfully said of the Shankar sharma and Devika Mehra case ,

“..beneath the veneer of a just democracy we are still only a feudal-colonial apparatus. The beast of power rages without a conscience”.

Please be there in Raipur on May 13thr. On the second anniversary of his arrest. We will be there too. For justice. For civil rights. For humanity. And for the sake of all those who would never have a Binayak to fight for their rights again, if we fail.

Art of the State

Developments that do not inspire confidence in any one has been occurring with depressing regularity in Pakistan. The world had barely gotten over the shock of the ridiculous cease-fire with Taliban militants in Swat region (which allowed the Taliban to set up sharia-courts there) when the disturbing attack on the Sri Lankan cricket team occurred.

Pakistan has been one country in the news for all the wrong reasons. There is ground to suspect that remnants of the ISI-controlled militia plotted and executed the Mumbai terror attacks on 26th November. Islamic fundamentalism, which many supposed was tightly controlled by the Pakistani State through most parts of the 70s, has now started to bite the hands that fed them.

Pakistan is slipping into a major crisis (as if the current events were not sufficient enough to be termed a crisis). The Lal Masjid incident, the Marriot bombing, the assassination of Benazir Bhutto; all indicate towards a society increasingly being torn apart in a bloody battle between competing visions for the future of the country. Most observers thought that the massive people’s movements aimed directly at ousting President Musharaff and reinstating the dismissed judges of the Supreme Court heralded a new dawn in the country ruled by the military for large portions of its existence. Sadly, the once praised democratic government headed by Asif Zardari has trodden the same path followed by his military predecessors. He has refused to reinstate the former Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhury, and a Supreme Court, with a Chief Justice with close links to Zardari (and Musharaff), had declared Nawaz Sharif and his brother Shahbaz ineleigible to stand for elections and hold office. The resulting stand-off and protests, especially the march of lawyers and activists to Islamabad, bears an eerie resemblance to the wave of anti-Musharaff protests that eventually brought about the end of army rule. Lurking in the background of all the current chaos is the ever-present army; one hopes to high heaven that the civilian government is not overthrown and military rule does not come to pass.

Pakistan has witnessed enough history in the last two years to last it a century.

I believe that the situation Pakistan finds itself in has plenty to teach several States around the world. Since I do not have the exact facts with me right now, I make the following  assumption: that elements within the Pakistan administration, with the active consent of their higher authorities, deliberately fostered and encouraged fundamentalist forces in Pakistan and the surrounding areas.  A lot of Pakistan’s current ills can be traced back to the fact that fundamentalist forces object to the direction in which the Pakistani state is drifting.

(I am not bringing in their alliance with America in their crusade against Al-Qaeda; though it must be admitted that this has not helped its case much.)

A State secures the ‘consent’ of its subjects through two mechanisms. One is its coercive might, which is used to ensure that its laws and writs are agreed with. The other is the very idea of the State; greater consent can be secured if the citizens are convinced that the the State fulfils their idea of what a State should be. It might very well be that a State can persuade a tiny yet powerful minority that it does conform to their idea of an ideal State while using its coercive might to ensure that the majority remain in thrall to it.

The problem with encouraging and emboldening religious fundamentalists and assorted chauvinists is that they do not recognize the authority of the State at all, especially one that is forced to integrate itself with the global capitalist order. Religious (and regional) fundamentalists have a very fixed version of what a State must be; and it is a version incompatible with a State that finds itself caught up in the capitalist system and one that is forced to move in tandem with the system. The fundamentalist factions also have the strength and the belief to be able to stand up to the coercive power the State might unleash on them. A modern State which, for whatever reason, has resorted to the encouragement of fundamentalists and/or fascist forces faces this dilemma in a particularly acute way today; it cannot ignore the demands of big capital (both domestic and international), yet it must confront the Frankenstein of fundamentalism it had actively encouraged in the past for whatever reason. This schism would become even more pronounced in a capitalist world reeling under the effects of a global crisis such as we face today, since aggrieved masses hurt by the vagaries of capitalism are more likely to fall under the sway of fascist rhetoric. Nazism, the rise of the Shiv Sena; both grew within a social context of unemployment and economic hardship.

In India, we have witnessed scores of incidents where the State has actively promoted and abetted the activities of fundamentalist fascist forces. The 1984 massacre, the Babri Masjid demolition and the resulting riots, Godhra, Kandhamal, the Ram Sene; we may not be heading down the same path as Pakistan, but we are committing the same mistakes.

Big Brother Is Watching You

Down with Sena.Shiv Sena is communal. It is trying to divide humanity on racial and religious line. So is L.K Advani.

Only if this tiny little blog floating in the web space was a tad famous, we could easily be sued for above.

For those without a clue.Supreme court finally decided to act the big brother to protect this image of the other big brother(s). Cause? A rather imaginative and completely untrue accusation against the otherwise tolerant and liberal Sena on a comment box of a blog.A complete censorship of internet and we will stay true to the ‘dreams of our founding father’.ala.Great firewall of India.

Great firewall of /China

Freedom of speech, has been one of those rare priviliges that did’nt exactly enjoy too many legal safeguards but for the inefficiency of the state. Its a scary scary world when Thackerays hate ridden rhetoric is left unnoticed and an obscure little bloggers opinion is held against him.

While the freedom of expression and right to protest of the computer literate-kind are under threat, its equally hard to ignore more fundamental manifestations of the rights which been suppressed under various guises of late by the Supreme court. In a way, this ruling is far from unprecedented and a part of the process where court finds itself allying with autocratic forces.

A few years back, In T.K. Rangarajan v. Government of Tamilnadu and Others (i), the Supreme Court bench stated, “Now coming to the question of right to strike – in our view no such right exists with the government employee.” Constitution never recognised the right to strike as albeit a fundamental right, but in the rare instance a legal right. Where the legal safeguards are skewed in the interest of ruling bureaucratic and capitalist classes. For instance, while the right to strike is enshrined, so is the right to lock out by the management in the section 22,23 and 24 of the Industrial disputes act 1947 . Job contracts which take away right to protest are recognised as perfectly valid legal documents. There were many a stalwart like Justice Krishna Iyer, who chose to interpret the constitution in its spirit and stated that “a strike could be legal or illegal and even an illegal strike could be a justified one”.

In a manner similar to above instances, the court in an Interim order asked the authorities to enforce the Lyngdoh commision report on campus politics. The report despite its best intentions ends up with the agenda of depoliticising campuses and taking away the fundamental right to protest. A rather dangerous trend though extremely symptomatic of the times when students are reduced to labour markets.

Any protest against this isolated judgement without taking into account the grand scheme is pointless. Its not just the freedom of expression at assault, but also the right to protest, dissent and opine.

1984 was’nt all unreal. IngSoc is’nt elsewhere in the world. Neither it spring out of the recent judgement. It was always there.Its just that we never bothered to notice.

ps:

If by any cosmic accident Sena plans to take this rather inconsequential blog to court, please spare Menon.He had nothing to do with this article.

Strangely enough, it was freedom of expression that Thackeray capitalised on (with more subtlety) during his years as a cartoonist for Marmik.

Methinks the ladies doth protest too much….

On the face of it, one can say that India is a country that offers one tremendous space to exercise their powers of dissent. The only problem is that most of them (Muttalik, Thackeray etc etc etc) choose to do it in unlawful and illegal ways. Apart from the protests most visibly caught by the news media (the post Mumbai terror attacks protests, the protests regarding the Jessica Lal case), there have been several protests across the country by citizens who have been handed a raw deal by the system and seek to change it. The protests against the Khairlanji massacre, the Gujjar agitation, the anti-SEZ protests in Nandigram and Singur, the anti-POSCO agitations, the list does go on. In fact, the problem of Naxalism is nothing but a form of protest by those agitating for a system change, and not just a resolution on an isolated issue.

This post is not about the relative efficacy of the above protests and whether the existence of mere protests or their success and resolution is a better testament to the democratic nature of our country. This post is about the mode of protest adopted by the urban middle-and-upper-classes (especially the youth) with regard to two specific incidents: the Mumbai terror attacks of 26th November and the attacks by the Shri Ram Sene.

While thinking about this topic, I started off with the idea that the middle-and-upper classes in India only take to the streets over issues that directly threatened them and their way of life, and do not bother about issues that affect the course of society as such. (This is illustrated by the fact that while thousands of protesters in the Arab world as well as countries like England have demonstrated against the utterly reprehensible actions of Israel in Gaza, there has not been the same kind of protest seen here). But this would be terribly unfair. All of the protest movements I have mentioned above have been carried out by people who felt their specific interests and ways of life threatened. Selfishness, defined in such a narrow way, is a common strain running through most protest movements worldwide.

However, there is another point which I think starkly differentiates the protests of the upper-and-middle class youth and the (to use a patronizing term) lower classes, and that lies in the recognition given to political processes. While protests in Nandigram, Singur etc etc wre not afraid of actively seeking the political route to realise their demands, the protests of Mumbai and Mangalore are remarkable more for their non-political character and complete rejection of politics (as seen in the Mumbai protests). The Mangalore attacks has prompted the innovative pink chaddi campaign, which is an attempt to stand up to and shame the fasicst elements of Mangalore into submission.

The democratic system we live in, for all its flaws, does offer us a suitable mechanism to achieve our demands: the power of the vote. Truckloads of pink chaddis will not make an iota of difference to the activists of the Shri Ram Sene; they survive thanks to a political process that has let them survive not just because the system is flawed, but also because right-minded citizens have not made best use of the system. This pink chaddi campaign served a valuable purpose in focussing attention onto the issue; but I doubt whether it would serve much purpose otherwise. Muthalik and his agenda are political creatures; they derive their legitimacy and strength from the political process, and not what sections of society think of them.

If the momentum started off by these symbolic demonstrations were to be supplanted by the power of the vote, I honestly think it would be much more effective in advancing and realising the demands of that class actively opposed to the fascist thugs of Mangalore. The present government in Karnataka needs to be defeated not just because of their links with ideological elements that share the views of hardliners like Muthalik, but also because they failed in their primary responsibility as a Government: to protect the people.

All symbolic protest is only means to and end, and the end is political resolution. Rosa Parks’ sit-in on the bus would have come to nothing if people like Martin Luther King Jr did not push the lawmakers of America to introduce changes in the system. In fact, violence is not even needed to oust a Government from power in present-day India. The electoral system works well enough.

(Whether violence is necessary to change the nature of the Indian State, is another matter!)

Like it or not, successful ends can only be gotten through the political route. Visibility in blogs and new media, publicity etc are only means to the end. The problem with the urban upper-and-middle classes (as seen in the Mumbai and pink chaddi protests) is that they seem to think that the means have become the end.

An eye for eye

1300 Palestenians and 13 Israelis were killed in the genocide that was euphemised as a war. The infuriating silence of International community disturbed me almost as much as Israels actions. Chavez had the balls, Hats off to Tayyip Ergodan, but much of the world resorted to token gestures which tantamounts to silence .

Sounds like a conspiracy theory enough, but the vested economic and military interests did have a role to play here. Nations like Iran, Venezuela, Syria and Turkey which expressed their dissent and took a more pro active stance are a lot less dependent on American consumption and military support than Saudi Arabia , U.A.E. or even India . While any outright action could lead to disastrous economic and military consequences for the later thanks to embryonic link between US and Israel,  any apparent lack of support to Palestenian cause would only leave their political constituencies dissatisfied.

This is precisely the reason why many of the Arab nations are quick to express their condemnation at such instances but when Iranian Revolutionary Guard asks Islamic nations to use crude oil as a weapon to exert pressure on western backers of Israel, the requests go unheeded. Silence at such instances coupled with the dictatorial nature of regimes and economic woes, led to the emergence and popularity of Islamic groups in these nations.

Rahul Siddarthan had an interesting take on the popular right wing rhetoric of India emulating Israel.

There is a lot more than I want to talk about. In this regard. But maybe this poster that we made for the institute could do the talking for now.

Private money, recessions and associated conundrums

Well, immaterialism is back up again after a long hiatus, and this time we’ll try to be a little more regular! There has been a lot of important events that has happened in the interim, and the fact that we haven’t blogged on it is a failing we have to admit to. Apologies.

I was all set to write a post about Israel’s recent butchery orgy in Gaza, but I think there’s nothing new I can add right now to the debate. Prat (or Prathamesh, as his colleagues like to call him) will be coming out with a post on it soon. Let me just say that Israel’s actions blur the line between war crimes and State terrorism.

So on to something else. The financial crisis has been an event of importance for me simply because it has stimulated in me a huge interest in the field of economics, an interest that I can safely say motivates me to adopt a career in its pursuit. And now, I follow the world in looking at ways and means to tackle the effects of the crisis (Kaushik and I have had mucho debates on this already as regards the auto industry bailouts in the US). But here’s a nice article that really gets one thinking about alternative ways to solve the crisis. It comes from George Monbiot, a man better known for his views on the environmental crisis and a writer for the Guardian.

The idea behind the above article is the concept of alternative local currencies and how crucial their role could be in helping drag an economy out of crisis. Some earlier work in this regard had been done by Silvio Gesell, whose scheme for lifting a depression-hit economy out of the doldrums was outlined by Monbiot as follows:

But the projects that have proved most effective were those inspired by the German economist Silvio Gessell, who became finance minister in Gustav Landauer’s doomed Bavarian republic. He proposed that communities seeking to rescue themselves from economic collapse should issue their own currency. To discourage people from hoarding it, they should impose a fee (called demurrage), which has the same effect as negative interest. The back of each banknote would contain 12 boxes. For the note to remain valid, the owner had to buy a stamp every month and stick it in one of the boxes. It would be withdrawn from circulation after a year. Money of this kind is called stamp scrip: a privately issued currency that becomes less valuable the longer you hold on to it

The adoption of this scheme in an Austrian town in the 1930s was a huge success. The fact that there was a time limit on how long the value inherent in each unit of currency would remain valid stimulated spending:

Because they would soon lose their value, Wörgl’s own schillings circulated much faster than the official money, with the result that each unit of currency generated 12 to 14 times more employment. Scores of other towns sought to copy the scheme, at which point – in 1933 – the central bank stamped it out.

So is this a viable scheme? Please bear with me while I outline my thoughts on this, it involves a little bit of self-indulgent theorizing (which will end up making me seem smarter than I really am!)

Consider a situation wherein an economy is slipping into a depression with an associated deflation. Prices fall and consumers are reluctant to spend their money because they believe that prices will fall further and hence by hanging on to their currency, it will be worth a lot more tomorrow. Businessmen react to this drop in demand by cutting prices further.

In the event of a deflation, it makes sense to hoard money because the value of a unit of currency increases the more prices fall. A rupee goes a longer way the more prices fall. The problem stems from the fact that money is not just “an agreement within a community to use something as a medium of exchange”, it is also an indefinite store of value. Because one knows that money will very rarely fall to zero value (its value approaches zero only in times of hyperinflation, like in Germany in the mid 1920s and present day Zimbabwe), one holds on to money and thus arises an incentive to hoard money during times of deflation, and this reduction in demand further spurs the deflation.

That’s where Gesell’s currency idea helps. By making the value of the currency time-bound, it ensures that there is no incentive to hoard. The store-of-value function of money is rendered useless and it becomes purely a means-of-exchange. When you have a given stock of money that will lose its value at some later date, there is no alternative for you but to spend it all. And what an economy slipping into depression really needs is people spending their money, boosting demand and boosting confidence. The individual virtue of savingarge amounts of one’s income can work out to be a public vice if everyone saves too large a part of their incomes and no-one spends it.

Now if an entire country were to pull itself up out of a crisis, it would mean that every region in it (or at least a sizeable majority) had time-bound currencies. Its not enough if we had several alternative local currencies that were community-owned and not issued by greedy government and bankers; the moment one has a currency which serves a means-of-payment and a store-of-value, one is, in theory, succeptible to the risk of deflation and depression.

(There are seperate issues dealing with local currencies which I will not go into here, partly because too much space has been taken up already and also because I havent read enough on the topic.)

There are other concerns too. Let’s take the model of time-bound currencies further. Assuming that even after such an economy using this currency pulls itself out of this crisis, it continues to use this currency. Now this rash of spending can easily push an economy into inflation and soon hyperinflation. Such a currency would have to be replaced by a more stable currency once the  economy recovers.

Moreover, currencies of this sort will tend to localize trade to fixed regions and inter-regional trade might not occur. Consider two regions, each with their own time-bound currency. A trader in region A wishing to do business in region B will put up some of his currency to exchange for region B’s currency. He can receive his cash and immediately purchase what he wishes in Region B and bring it back home. But why would anyone accept currency from Region A unless he wished to purchase something from Region A in a time period before the currency loses its value? The problem is akin to one in a barter economy; I can exchange the knife I made only when someone else is in need of a knife. Modern currency allows one to stagger purchase decisions.

The problem of exchanging these currencies can be solved by having an outside commodity such as gold, which has a certain intrinsic value in itself and retains this value for some time. Thus Trader A (from region A) can exchange his currency for gold, take it to Trader B (from region B), exchange this gold for region B’s currency and then carry out his purchases. Trader B can then take this gold to region A and use it at a later date, since the gold does not lose its inherent value. But the moment one has an outside commodity with an intrinsic value into which these currencies can be converted, a commodity whose value lasts over a long period of time, one is implicitly saying that the currencies themselves are no longer time-bound. Agents can now exchange their currency for gold and hoard it, leading to the same theoretical problems as outlined above. The hoard of the commodity would retain its value for as long as the commodity itself retains its value. The only way to solve the problem of exchange of time-bound currencies introduces the very same problem that led to the introduction of time-bound currencies in the first place.

Moreover, when there is no incentive to save, businesses would never save any of their profits to invest in capital goods and no-one would be able to save enough money to afford durable goods, houses etc.

The central idea that arises then is that a reduced desire to spend can push a depressed economy further into deflation, and an increased willingness to spend by agents can solve the problem. The issue is not so much an alternate currency free from the depradations of Big Bankers and Greedy Government. One does not need an alternate currency to stimulate recovery, one needs a plan wherein the desire to spend amongst consumers and businesses alike is restimulated. Keynesians put much stock in the Government to stimulate this recovery, and it is easy to see why. One needs an entity willing to undertake productive activity without expectations of profit to stimulate a depressed economy.

The exact methods by which a Government can push a deflating economy into an upswing has spawned literature enough to fill libraries. The point itself, that Government is necessary to pull an economy out of recession, is hotly debated within academics as well as within the public sphere. It is quite ironic however, to see private commentators urge the Government to increase spending in the economy whereas the private sphere was against the farmers’ bailout on the grounds that it put pressure on the fiscal deficit.

The reason why I wote so lengthy a piece was because I wished to illustrate an important point; the fallacy in separating the political from the economic. A stable national currency issued by a Central Bank does not necessarily imply that it will be misused by the financial and the political community. The current political system and the passiveness of agents within it have led to a state of affairs where the financial and political community have drawn advantages from it. A political defect has been interpreted as being an economic defect and the solution given therefore is an economic solution. Is this because one thinks that in the domain of theory, fields must not be allowed to intersect and economic problems can only have economic arguments? I don’t know if that’s the case, but my point is that there is nothing wrong in positing political solutions for economic problems. The economic issue of an economy blowing itself into a bubble till it bursts due to the actions of private, disaggregated individuals can be solved by a tough and responible Government held firmly in check by an active, intelligent, conscious citizenry. Of course it is not the only solution, but there is nothing wrong in pure theoretical terms to put this forward as a solution and explanation.

Economics, after all, did have its roots in “Political Economy”.

And the Yuppie shall inherit the earth

“Historically and politically, the petit-bourgeois is the key to the century. The bourgeois and proletariat classes have become abstractions: the petite-bourgeoisie, in contrast, is everywhere, you can see it everywhere, even in the areas of the bourgeois and the proletariat, what’s left of them.” -Baudrillard

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Maybe its Umberto Eco or Debraj Mookherji, But I found myself reading a little too much into the political underpinnings of commercial advertisements.
Or may the advertisements are actually getting political.

Sample this.

Jaago Re campaign is stale news. The Tata Tea ad is our yuppie mans idea of political utopia. Average voter here is a twenty something ,Urban, Sophisticated and reasonably well to do corporate employee. The male politician (definitely north indian) surrounded by safari suits ,on the other hand is uncouth, most possibly rural, lower middle class in demeanor. Stuff that constitutes the average yuppies image of a politician. And his understanding too. The desired selection procedure is an interview. Corporate style with qualification and work experience thrown in. The ad ends with the flabbergasted politico being offered a tea and rejected by the young man. Implicit here is a view of political leadership as a managerial position rather than a seat of representation. Implicit are the caste and class prejudices. Explicit is the annoyingly simplistic perception of the present set of parliamentary politicians with their supposed lack of formal education or professional experience being projected as the source of their apparent ineptitude . Let alone any serious understanding of parliamentary politics. Ratan Tata for Prime Minister.

All would have been fine if it stopped with the Ad . But then what started off as a promotional campaign for a Tea company ended up as nationwide(north east aint India, mind you.) campaign to get the youth to vote.Youth in everyday media parlance is now a synedoche for strictly upper middle class, urban educated youth. Like all good corporate campaigns, the television ad here is the mainstay of their campaign. The ad (again) involves a twenty something addressing urban, upper middle class et al( now draped in fab india to lend an intellectual appeal) issuing a wake up call to a bunch of yuppies in a movie hall on an election day. Waking up is not used in the sense of recognizing the grim eco-political situation of the nation, but to their own political rights which would enable them to address their petit bourgeois political concerns better. If we ignore the subliminal ad for Tea, Implicit here is a view that reduces political participation to the mere act of voting. Implicit also is the view that yuppie participation in the electoral process is the panacea of all evils in the democratic system. Its the middle class clamouring for its own political space.Even though sound political judgement and numbers hinted otherwise. While it seemed perfectly harmless,naive and ideologically callous to begin with, the Mumbai attacks legitimized the campaign in way and made it a rather channel to vent the Urban middle class frustration. And all its ends up achieving is a platform for the yuppie desire for the tough state whose mechanism resembles the internal fascism of corporations.

As the assembly polls results suggest, thankfully enough the people who electorally matter don’t care much about the terrorists. Nor do they need to consume Tata Tea to feel political. Meanwhile you can scream your apolitical goobledygook like Enough is Enough, more vital issues like legalisation of slums concern the voterkind.

While the new Idea ad does in no way call for dismantling capitalism and its politics remains that of reforming capitalism, It definitely signals an acceptance of the collapse of India Shining narrative by India Inc. Which in more ways than one marks a paradigm shift in India advertising , especially since the days when development was capitalist development complete with tall buildings and patriotic techies . The ad involves a local women politician who conducts a referendum on constructing a mall on agricultural land at the advice for her secretary(played by Abhishek Bachchan).The public unanimously rejects the mall. Politically it calls for a direct democracy combined allied with technology(Idea cell phones here) creating a regulatory framework for the capitalist mode of development. While working as a means of product promotion within the same system. Implicitly it heralds the neo liberal economic model which made cell phone cheap enough for upper crust of the low income groups to posses, it acknowledges the vitality of a regulatory framework to prevent the excesses of capitalism.

To quote Jeffrey Keedy,

” Resistance is a very successful advertising strategy. The advertising world co-opted our desire for resistance and has been refining it in pop culture since the 60s.“

A ‘fresh’ chapter on corporate retail and agriculture

You have to admire Reliance’s balls. While the whole question of big business in agricultural sourcing and retailing is sure to stir up a hornet’s nest, Reliance has gone right ahead and consolidated its position right in the middle of the freaking beehive; namely Kerala.

Frontline has carried out an article on the astonishing extent of Reliance’s sourcing operations in Kerala. In one year, it has ensured a regular supply of fruits and vegetables to its 18 outlets. In true Reliance style, it has set a target of opening 120 outlets in the state and a dozen collection centres. Most farmers are happy to get on board the Reliance juggernaut; the company offers them higher prices than they would receive at normal markets, and even in the lean season when demand slacks off, they are assured of guaranteed purchases at Reliance collection centres. The assurance of regular purchases can go a long way in making life a lot less easier for farmers, and ensuring a loyal, faithful supply chain for Reliance. Win-win situation.

And not only that, the company also offers guaranteed assistance in the shape of inputs and technical knowledge to cultivators if they grow crops suited to urban demand and suited to the company’s tastes. But they don’t extend this largesse to all farmers though; due to its present small scale of operations, Reliance only selects a group of farmres to source from and extend assistance to. Those left out can only pray for the success of the company and hope that they get invited to the party next year.

On the face of it, it seems like its an arrangement that works for everyone. the farmers get rid of the pernicious influence of middlemen, thereby netting higher prices and assured purchases. Reliance’s economies of scale could help translate their operational efficiency at the sourcing end into lower prices for the consumer. Reliance captures a very sizeable market, grows, profits, creates jobs in the economy and brings about world peace.

One of the major features of this relationship that immediately struck me was the guaranteeing of purchases by Reliance. This is practically a godsend for many of the small farmers of the state, especially when it involves normally perishable commodities like certain fruits and vegetables. An arrangement that guarantees this as well as more remunerative prices for produce scores a 10 on 10 in my book.

But will this relationship last? Once the company’s operations in the rural sector strengthen and they become a more powerful monopoly buyer, there is every possibility that they will depress prices paid for produce in order to maintain margins and profits. The Walmartization of the trade is a potent possibility. Retail in agricultural produce is all set to be the next big corporate battleground, and the dangers of cartelization can be seen amongst the coffe-growing region of Wayanad. The buying of coffee is controlled by a few major buying houses and trans-national corporations, and they have the power to depress producer prices in order to protect (and inflate) margins. The margins are ridiculous: in 2005 (the date on which the article was written), fresh coffee powder could be bought for about Rs 90 a kg directly from producers, but instant coffee from Nestle sells for about Rs 900 to Rs 1400 a kg. The full article about this phenomenon deserves careful reading, if only to warn us against the dangers of allowing unrestricted corporate entry into such a sensitive field such as agricultural produce.

Of course, the facts are different in the two cases. Despite being grown in Kerala, coffee does not have a large domestic market in the state. It is easy, on the other hand, to find alternate markets for such a differentiated and heterogenous product such as agricultural produce. The fears of cartelization and/or monopolization of this market may be unjustified, it must be said. But I do think that food security is too major a concern to trust to corporate interests, no matter how efficient they may be in the short run. Moreover, it does seem disturbing to me that farmers are changing cultivation patterns in response to perceived urban demand and urgings by Reliance (as outlined in the frontline article). Being clued in to the demands of the market will no doubt benefit the individual producer, but it can have an impact on food security. Moreover, what of the environmental concerns when one sees that Reliance was getting farmers to grow input-heavy varieties of tomatoes and the like? And when Reliance has enough clout to pick and choose amongst sellers, would they still subsidise inputs for the farmers? Its all very well to expect cultivators in developed nations to indulge in economic competition; but I do not feel that the Indian agricultural producers are strong enough to indulge in this kind of competition.

(It may be true that retail companies may never be able to exercise such monopolistic control over large swarthes of the rural landscape given the extent of the agricultural sector, but it is conceivable that certain companies may be able to acheive monopoly-like status in fixed specific areas, like amongst rice farmers in a certain district, or tomato growers in another district).

Maybe i’m being unnecessarily pessimistic. The full impact – whether beneficial or not – of this move can only be ascertained in time. There are plenty of hypothetical arguments both in favour of and against this move that can be thrown at both camps, without any side settling the issue to anybody’s satisfaction.

But one thing I do know for sure. The major impact of agricultural retail will be felt on urban employment. Urban hawkers, roadside vegetable sellers and neighbourhood vegetable shopowners will definitely be made worse off by the expansion of agricultural retail shops. Workers in the unorganised sector, those who eke out earnings by selling vegetables or dealing in agricultural produce, might find themselves out of a job when big retail chains open. And yes, the expansion of retail chains will lead to employment opportunities. But I doubt whether the 50 year old mother of four who used to sell you vegetables is going to find a place at that shiny new Reliance outlet.

Chaos

Spectacular would be the adjective if I had to describe Ran in a word. Maybe Ran was’nt Kurosawa’s best, but it was definitely a magnificient statement of his philosophy.

While Rashomon dwelled on the sense of despair,the loss of absolute and the faint glimmer of hope that characterised the post hiroshima times, Ran was about the death of last vestige of hope in humanity which mirrored the condition of modern man in the nuclear race -cold war period .Aptly summed up in the picture of a lone blind man on the edge of a precipice at the twilight hour, who could’nt prevent the scroll of Amida Buddha from slipping away.

“You spilled an ocean of blood. You showed no mercy, no pity. We too are children of this age… weaned on strife and chaos. We are your sons, yet you count on our fidelity. In my eyes, that makes you a fool. A senile old fool!“

While Ran derives its basic premise revolving around the destruction of a family from King Lear, Kurosawa vests it with an added metaphor for the perharps imminent destruction human race. Unlike Lear , Hideotara’s folly does not lie solely in the judeo-christian vice of arrogance, but in attachment, power and the inherent violence . Nor are Kurosawa’s humans at the mercy of a monotheistic God, but men who through their choices and attachments define their fate. God’s are at the very best, silent spectators or empathisers , if not victims.Ideas which could be better understood from a shinto-buddhist framework.

“[The gods] can’t save us from ourselves.”

On cinematic grounds, the aesthete is awe inspiring. Visuals are layered with metaphor without losing out on the visceral impact.Battlefield scenes evoke more awe than horror in a manner reminiscent of Apocalypse now. Acting which draws from the Japanese noh tradition does border on melodrama, but does not have a tendency to distract like in Kurosawa’s earlier films.Music is minimal but brilliantly used. The distracting appeal of images make second viewing a necessity to get a better insight into the technical subtleties.

The final conversation between Fool and Tango , more than sums up the essence of the film . And the half a century spanning career of Kurosawa.

Fool : Are there no gods,no Buddha?“

Fool : “If you exist, hear me! You are cruel.Is it such fun to see a man weep?“

Tango : “It is the gods who weep.Don’t cry. It’s how the world is made. Men prefer sorrow over joy, suffering over peace.“

Left, right and centre

While reading an article (“Peasants, the State and Civil Society” by Tom Brass) which dealt mainly with the relationship between the State and civil society, I came across a section which dealt with the idea of a political ‘third way’, a call for a political discourse that rejected and transcended that traditional dichotomy of capitalism and socialism.

There’s no denying that this sounds like a wonderful idea; where capitalism and socialism has led to some of the most acrimonious and bitter conflicts in recent history (on the political and the physical battlefields of the world), a new third way could perhaps help in ushering a new philosophy that could rid our political dialogues of the bitter partisanship that characterizes most of it today. Granted, the world we live in today is too complex to be strait-jacketed into narrow descriptions of ‘left’ and ‘right’, but this concept of a third way speaks  of a need to develop a political philosophy that would bring people closer together instead of tearing them apart.

The author, however, has rightly noted that a ‘third way’ has been developing for some time now, and its development has in fact been nothing less than divisive. One can trace the workings of a third way in the development of fascism and rabid nationalism/communalism, ideas we have been exposed to quite frequently in the past few years. It would be futile to think that all political movements owe their allegiance in some manner to leftist or right-wing thinking; nationalism and identity politics can be seen as being inspired by the worst of both worlds. The vast income differentials and free flow of culture and ideas caused by global capitalism and the presence of vested interests which would not find any measure of private property abolition palatable has led to the emergence of a political movement that stresses on the national character and emphasizes communal identity as a referring point. 

It is within this framework that we can place events like the rise of Hindutva politics or the rise of the Thakerays. Global capitalism not only tends to aggravate inequalities in income distributions, it also brings cross-border cultures into close contact, the results of which are not always assimilative or enriching. Moreover, this is not a movement based on the traditional foe of capitalism i.e socialism, perhaps because those who preach the glory of local cultures would feel most threatened by any movement that would abolish private property rights. A movement built on identity would find many takers amongst rich landlords; these same landlords would be averse to any movement that requires giving up one’s claims to private property as a requirement to fight the identity-diluting forces of global capitalism. 

(Perhaps one reason – and mind you, this might be a stretch – is that ideas of culture and belonging are expressively tied to ideas of ownership of land. You are one with your culture when you are one with your land, when you are tied to your homeland. The rallying point is “the motherland”, “the sons of the soil” etc. Ideas of regionalism and communal identity probably cannot work too well when the concept of a land to which one is tied to and belongs to no longer exists. Socialism – even weak socialism, seen mostly as a counterpoint to global capitalism – can probably not co-exist with any movement that stresses the supremacy of regional identity.)

It is in this light that one can analyze the emergence of the Shiv Sena and the recent controversies surrounding Raj Thakeray and the MNS. It is in this context that one can study the rise of Hindu nationalism, where entities like the ABVP scream “No to commercialization of education” on the one hand and “Hail Narendra Modi” on the other. It is probably in this context that one can understand Osama Bin Laden’s call to view Islam as a suitable alternative to capitalism. A global capital movement which ensures that most of the jobs (at either end of the payscale) go to those from outside a state or region, unequal regional development that enriches certain regions and pauperizes others, are just some of the factors that has led to a politics based more on identity. This is a third way that is more divisive than inclusive