Arundhati Roy, a Ghost, has got it all wrong!!

I never expected this wonderful surprising commentary article by Aakar Patel who refutes on well grounded basis, the false propositions of cunning socialist and communist leaned Arundhati Roy. 


I must say that when I read Roy's article which was based on a lecture she gave in Mumbai some time ago, I was deeply worried about the false propositions against folly ideas of her.


Patel concludes that:

• When all’s said and done, the solution to such problems in dysfunctional societies like India is simple, though boring. Communities must start taking responsibility for themselves. They cannot wait for a revolution to come to their doorsteps and clean their neighbourhoods, or to care for their infants, or to teach hygiene to their women or to educate themselves. Nor can they entirely depend on the state either, though they must vote against those who fail to help them do this.

• Experience has also shown that in tribal areas where external influence has been allowed, it can be a force for good. The tribals of Mizoram have 90 per cent literacy because of work done by the Presbyterian church. Shielding tribals from the outside world keeps them just as they are. This might have aesthetic appeal for some, but most tribals don’t think so. That is why the Salwa Judam militia attacks those who are their brothers and sisters. Unfortunately, this isn’t the sort of thing we can blame the whole world for, and so it isn’t good material for belles lettres.

Not reforming is a bad idea

“This will only result in a feeling of disempowerment among the people and leave them disenchanted,”

Naxalites are good for nothing but local welfare!!

There is a new Survey by IMRB for ToI:

• The towns in which the poll was conducted were Kamareddy in Nizamabad district, Gudi Hathnoor in Adilabad, Sirsilla in Karimnagar, Mahbubabad in Warangal and Palwancha in Khammam. A total of 521 people were polled in these five towns, a statistically robust sample size.
• Almost 60% said the Naxalites were good for the area and only 34% felt life had improved since they were beaten back. As for whether exploitation has increased after the Naxalite influence waned, 48% said it had against 38% who said it hadn't, the rest offering no opinion.
• Equally importantly, 50% of the respondents felt the Naxalites had forced the government to focus on development work in the affected areas. What these responses show is just how negative the perception of the government is in these parts.

PS: By no means I support the cruelty of Naxalites and their activities.

Failed outsource

Home Minister P.Chidambaram said in an interview:

• They are well-trained, reasonably well-trained even in jungle warfare, but they are fighting in a terrain unfamiliar to them, whose culture, habits they have no knowledge of and they speak a language that is completely unfamiliar to the local people and their language is unfamiliar to them.

Where no one would be neglected?

…..the following quote from his speech on the Objectives Resolution in the Constituent Assembly on December 19, 1946:

• “Sir, if there is any group of Indian people that has been shabbily treated, it is my people. They have been disgracefully treated, neglected for the last 6,000 years. The history of the Indus Valley civilisation, a child of which I am, shows quite clearly that it is the new-comers — most of you here are intruders as far as I am concerned — it is the new comers who have driven away my people from the Indus Valley to the jungle fastness... The whole history of my people is one of continuous exploitation and dispossession by the non-aboriginals of India punctuated by rebellions and disorder, and yet I take Pandit Jawahar Lal Nehru at his word. I take you all at your word that now we are going to start a new chapter, a new chapter of Independent India where there is equality of opportunity, where no one would be neglected.”

Lesson still needs to be learned from classical economic doctrine

“It does in districts like Karimnagar of Andhra Pradesh for instance, where the state government has developed a unique set of employment plans for the village youth. The district has been the hotbed of Naxalite recruitment and to match those offers, the state has tied up with private sector companies as far afield as Mumbai, Delhi and Bangalore to recruit security guards for them or even to work as counter clerks at fast food joints. Those initiatives have paid off.

The same economic logic has worked in another way in the Sarguja district of Chhattisgarh. The northernmost district of the state has seen a sharp fall in numbers and a ruinous split within the Naxal ranks in the last few years. The brutal answer is the coal and transport mafia. The groups have been co-opted into the under belly of the coal business, competing and often cooperating with the local business for the same prize. This is, of course, an unstable peace. But it has created an avenue for the district administration to move into areas where there was no scope even a couple of years ago. Obviously the Andhra Pradesh model is replicable, the Sarguja one is not. But both have done the trick.”

Read the full article here

Flourishing retail corruption

K. Subrahmanyam argues:

• It is undeniable that the Maoists prevent developmental benefits from reaching the population in their areas and extort money from traders and contractors. The local population is forced to choose between the state authorities and the Maoists as different confrontation situations develop. They must be expected to align with those whose harassment and extortion are less and who are more likely to be effectively present in their midst. It is generally believed that there is widespread corruption in recruiting the police constables and lower-level administrative staff. Consequently those recruited to various state agencies by paying their way in are likely to have an ingrained administrative culture that does not differentiate corruption and harassment from the normal discharge of their duties. This is one of the basic aspects of the present day misgovernance at various levels of the administrative machinery in contact with the public, especially in the rural areas.

• However, the home ministry concedes the core objective of the Maoists is not merely to subvert law and order in these tribal areas in these states, but to wage war against the Indian Republic and Indian Constitution. Under these circumstances will not this be a case where Article 355 of the Constitution needs to be invoked? Article 355 lays down, “It shall be the duty of the Union to protect every state against external aggression and internal disturbance and to ensure that the government of every state is carried on in accordance with the provisions of this Constitution.”

Whatever you do, they come and undo.

Sudha Pillai said in a interview to TOI:

It's accepted that lack of development triggered the Maoist problem. What went wrong?

• It's a fact that tribals have got a raw deal. State governments have acted in a colonial manner, disenfranchising tribals. Managing forest produce is a basic plank. Nobody can take the people's livelihood away. Tribals had a certain way of life in the forests, which need not be romanticized. But they had access to forest produce like honey, lac and resin, through which they earned a living. The biggest failure of state governments is that they denied them access to non-timber forest produce. We have suggested implementation of Panchayats Extension to Scheduled Areas (PESA) Act 1996, which recognizes the traditional rights of tribals over community resources. Even after 14 years, the 73rd Amendment which gives constitutional status to panchayati raj institutions has still not been implemented everywhere.

But the dangerous thing she said in the interview is:

Do the benefits from various schemes reach the people?

• ….When I was in the labour ministry, we started the Rashtriya Swasthya Bima Yojana to provide health insurance coverage for BPL families. Wherever it was implemented, I was told, money lenders had run away. That's the nicest thing I ever heard.

Political economics = boom boom shakalaka…..

Mani Shankar Aiyar on PESA: Government's sheathed weapon

Few excerpts:

• “To avoid making this an issue of Centre-state relations, all the National Development Council (NDC) has to do is take up the unanimous report of the Empowered Sub-Committee on Panchayati Raj submitted all of two years ago to an unbelieving Planning Commission which has refused these last 24 months to even bring the report to the NDC, largely because a sceptical deputy chairman cannot bring himself to believe that state governments would willingly commit themselves to the report's conclusions!

• Moreover, PESA had provided that within a year — that is, or was, by December 1997! — all legislation not in conformity with PESA be amended to bring it in line with PESA provisions (in letter, of course, but also in spirit).

• This could broadly be interpreted to mean that the two principal colonial causes of tribal disaffection — the failure to recognise community propriety rights over land of tribal communities in the Indian Forests Act, 1927 and the many glaring oppressive features of the 19th century Land Acquisition Act — could and should be amended to bring them in line with the letter and spirit of PESA which stresses the role of the tribal community in matters affecting the land they live on and the duty of gram sabhas in Fifth Schedule areas to ensure that tribal land is not alienated except with their consent.

• While “consultation” with gram sabhas is mandatory only with regard to “minor” mineral and forest produce, the right to prevent alienation of tribal land without due consent clearly means that POSCO, NDMC and other corporate predators cannot make free with other people's property and certainly not in collaboration with state agencies, as is clearly happening.”

A new consciousness among the tribal people about their rights over their resources

Before I say anything on naxalite thought of to quote two things from an article published recently in the HT by a professor (whom I also met more than once).

He argues:

• "Maoists have indulged in most reprehensible acts of violence, and this must be condemned. Currently the debates are squarely focused on issues that have pushed vast sections of tribal people in central India and elsewhere to armed struggle, mostly under the leadership of the Maoists. The fact that a number of such movements are taking place outside Maoist zones and are in defence of their livelihood rights has come to the centre of political discourse.
• The fact that the Naxalite movement has grown in strength during the past four decades is not because of the so-called laxity in police operations by the state. It is time to recognise that the movement has grown in the tribal areas because there is a new consciousness among the tribal people about their rights over their resources. Attitudes were one of compassion for the "primitive" tribals during the colonial period while plundering their forest products and minerals. Independent India sought to change that attitude to "tribal welfare" and had many schemes under that name. But it too continued the exploitation of the forest resources in the name of national interest. This process got a huge boost after India adopted the path of liberalisation and globalisation."

Just think of these words.

Guise of globalization

Ramachandra Guha on Indian Tribal’s:

• Viewed historically, a triple tragedy has been unfolding in central India, the unvarying feature of which is that it is always the adivasis who are the victims. The first tragedy began with the takeover of their forests by the British, and has continued since Independence with their further dispossession at the hands of both State and market. The second tragedy commenced with the onset of electoral democracy in India, where, as a powerless minority, the tribals have failed to activate the provisions of the Constitution designed to protect their rights and interests. The third tragedy commenced with the advent of the Maoists, whose path of armed struggle, while intensifying violence in the short-term, offers no hope of a long-term solution either.