Saswat Blog

Today will be remarkable for its deep venality and outright disgust. To add to the tragedy, not that many will mind it a wee bit. But as people will rush to finish filing taxes to meet tomorrow’s deadlines, it is perhaps a time to candidly examine the system of taxation that defines capitalism to a great extent.

For whom the taxes toll?
Instead of a banal question that wonders if taxation is a good thing or a bad thing (which is as debatable as ethics of don Imus), lets ask if it serves the purpose –and more importantly, whose purpose. Logically, the taxation system must be serving some purpose—else, we would not be having the IRS at the first place emerging as the biggest bureaucratic makeup in the country. Now the critical question is whose purpose is it serving.

Surface answers are quite obvious: taxes serve the rich in a capitalist country. After all, the rich get richer, and the poor poorer as the economic gaps in the first world countries would indicate. But it is this extent of disparity that must force us to pause and rethink the strategies to make the taxation system work- for the majority. (And I am not talking about tax reforms here.)

Perhaps it would be fruitful to assume that the taxation system means differently for the power structure at various phases of history. At one point not so long ago, the landless alone paid the taxes. Slavery was the most visibly institutionalized taxation format in the world. Be it under the ruthless kings, the colonialists or the slaveowners, the sarbahara (dispossessed) was exploited beyond humane reasons. From this exclusively oppressive taxation limited to the poorest, to the current practice of universal taxation aimed at the larger population—the point to ponder is how much has changed ever since, and how much needs be replaced.

Capitalism as Charity:
Indeed, no one wrests for capitalism. There is never a revolution enacted with an aim to provide capitalism. Capitalism is the biggest antidote to revolution, because it is based on charities. Not only it thrives on charities, it in fact originates as one. As inherently mocking is charity towards its recipients, capitalism is doubly so. Doubly, because it transcends the hypocrisy of charity and even declares charity itself as a revolution.

If a car brand called Chevrolet amuses itself as the American Revolution or a TV producer Oprah Winfrey declares the push-up bras she gifts out to standardized women as the biggest revolution in the world, its because in an depressingly shell-shocked environment, only the most ignorant can be permitted to legitimize their views.

As the ancestral philosophies of these ribald declarations, charities have been equated with the “revolutionary” thoughts of capitalism. From the founding days of so-called revolutions in all the first world countries, one has only witnessed filthy “free” rules by the master class over their slave classes of subjects. It was not until the middle of last century that the oppressed class received some of the political rights, if at all. Why did the owner class of the “democracies”- Greek to American- call themselves free rulers of a subjugated people for hundreds of years? Because they thrived on their charities towards the “commoners”—at once, getting rid of the psychological guilt and financial burden.

Likewise, political power was granted in charities—indeed this continues to be the case, as we witness the perfect embodiments of rich capitalist class wielding political power in all the “modern democracies”. A system of taxation, thus was evolved to sustain the class character of charities.

Class Character of Charities:
Its rather simple to understand—the more we have, the more we can donate. In fact, many even go to the extent to justify why they need to have more: because they can donate more! In the perfect sense of reformism, the only way a human being can be useful to the world is by being able to donate more to the world. And the donation is not “empty” thoughts that might turn “dangerous” (and therefore the collective disdain at the Communists in this country, for example), but the donations have to be in form of goods, lotteries, charity shows –all forms of capitalistic exhibitionism.

Individual prerogatives:
Many reformists in the past and present argue for opposing the payment of taxes. Some pacifists argue, since a portion of it goes towards war purpose, it is rather not to be paid. By that logic, the absolutely illiterate celebrities (sounds like a redundant phrase here) protest they are paying way too much for (education of) the poor. Both are dangerous freedom frolics who would probably wish for both Imus and Hip-Hop lyrics to stay on, because they would want to have a piece at the dirt arena too. With all the cameras focused on Al Gore and Anna Nicole (these types are born immortal, after all), its rather a good idea for them to maintain the circus of abuses in the name of freedom! More money, more freedom. Add a pinch of Charity, Cause, or Commotion—and we will have another guilt-free year when we file the taxes.

So what is our role here? All of us—the majority of people- who want to pay honest taxes so that they will be spent for good cause? Should we merely refuse to pay taxes? Hell, no. So should we not apply for “deductions”? Yes? Sounds like a noble idea. This way at least we can make sure that our share of tax remains with the IRS, and not paid back. Sounds good.

But highly improbable. With the hundreds of thousands of tax consultants who are ready to swing the carrots of refunds on our face, and the perfectly “legal” clauses that ask for the Thrift Store receipts or Tuition Fee deductions, why would one refuse to claim the benefits? After all, do we ever insist that the discounts at JC Penney be just not applied to our counter purchases?

Ironically, the truth of charities is that it creates a society based on greed and competition. Both greed and competition promote lies, deceit and outright oppression. For an instance, as a student, perhaps one would say a deduction should be claimed on the textbook purchases. At the same length, a venture capitalist would claim deductions based on massive property. In fact while filling out the form yesterday I noticed one could claim deduction if one had provided shelter to a Katrina victim! On all the above three counts, the acts of deductions are absolutely dishonest. What thoughts go through our minds when pay the tax at the counter? Thoughts that we will have it partially back once the tax season comes? What then, remains of the usefulness of taxation system? Of course its dangerous redundancies are obvious from the continuing state of ill-health that the poorest sections continue to suffer at the hand of apathetic administration. But it also begs for a critical reflection over the concept of taxes, charities and their tunes of deductions.

Charities are inherently oppressive. First, the benefactors gain eminence over the recipients. It is so vulgar that the benefactors in fact name institutions after them for throwing in some illegitimate money that pays them tax dividends. At the same time, they weaken the spirits of the “benefited” who thrive on the charities of the rich—essentially, so that they can never revolt against their own state of dispossession. Charities in this sense merely perpetuate the cycles of oppression, hopelessly, ceaselessly. They do not address the causes of disparities, they work to maintain it in a more acceptable fashion. And so that charities do not cause harm to the donor, the flawed system of taxation comes to the rescue. As a trickled-down effect, this provision also comes to help some of us in the lower rung, and we gladly act on it in the manner we would if a ticket price is “discounted” for us (no matter if it merely means we pay 10% of our income for the discount, while the rich pay less than a percent of theirs at the full price). Why do we let this happen?

What should be done?
As long as we can ‘get away’, we will tend to let others ‘get away’ (even if getting away is a matter of vastly varying degrees). Unfortunately, this is still true for most part in the human society, no matter how much we blow the trumpets of individualistic freedoms, the social equality as a principle must always be aimed at curtailing individual liberties.

Taxation, like healthcare, needs to be truly effective, not figuratively universal. Tax reformers have been arguing that tax should be collected on a proportionate basis. That is, the rich will pay more tax, and the poor will pay less. This is an almost perfect argument. Why it is almost so, is because this is an incomplete argument. The point is collection of tax has something to do with deduction of it as well, because in the final analysis, the effects of collection are impacted by the amount of deductions.

For the taxation to be effective, the state needs to enforce the collection of proportionate taxes at a rate that may not be “convenient”, but maybe socially desirable. For those of us who whine at the relativity of “social desirability’ citing postmodern angst, all we have to do is to position ourselves in the lowest social class ladder to get a grasp of reality that is material, not philosophical.

Tax cuts and deductions must be revisited as a system of operation that may not sound very lucrative (as stated above, no one will give away their freedom to cash a check if the free check is around). And it is because of this temptation, this greed to hold onto our “hard-earned” money (because the poor apparently do not earn…and by this crude logic only the rest of us who pay taxes hard-earn), we need a system at place, not some good hearted individuals.

Deductions Depict Class Society:
Tax deductions are indeed the lifeline of a class society. So long as tax deductions are in place, what is important is not merely to grasp the gaps in deductions that people can afford to ‘get away’ with, but the fact that deductions are present so that they must be unequally applicable to people.

In other words, tax deductions are the biggest proof, and, the biggest security for the existence of a class society. If only all the people, irrespective of mental or physical labor, were employed at equitable income level, there would not be such a thing as ‘tax deductions’.

If only people had an equal stake in the maintenance of social structure, and their roles would not have to depend on their level of income, there would not be deductions in practice to promote acts of charity—whose purpose is to make a hero/heroine of the rich, and to silence the potential dissent by the masses who are fed the cakes thrown from tall balconies.

As a reminder, capitalism will never stop the system of deductions, because that is the manner in which it normalizes the income of the richest—those who own the structure and create its norms.

And if we do not question the system that is designed by the rich, of the rich and for the rich, we would be perhaps talking merely wishfully about social justice and peace and happiness. No amount of either personal charities or noble actions of paying “proportionate” taxes will be useful as a means, if the ends themselves are based on promoting a class society—one in which the poor people have nothing to claim as deductions, for they do not even pay the taxes, because they do not even work, and they do not even have healthcare, nor can afford education. And they are accused as the wretched of America—the “freeloaders”, the social security beggars and the charity-seekers. Give it a thought today: it is not they that are at fault.

Instead of “providing shelter to a Katrina survivor’ as a means of tax deduction, we should have engaged the victims of a massive administrative disaster in all the forms we could to snatch for them the rights to be treated equally by the state apparatus thus ensuring no administrative loopholes exist any longer. But then, in a “free” market economy, we have even sold the state’s responsibilities off, where individuals are left to fend for themselves.

On the “Tax Deduction Day”, lets resolve to take the “power” back from the free markets, and truly have a system that “enforces” equality.

[Originally published in
Radical Notes, 18 March 2007]

Vijay Prashad, The Darker Nations: A People’s History of the Third World, The New Press, New York, 2007. Hardcover, 384 pp. Amazon/NP

The Darker Nations is a critical historiography of the Third World. Vijay Prashad’s deeply instructive as well as occasionally mordant looks at events and processes that made up the history of oppressed peoples in the 20th century comprise this brilliant work. It is a book profound for being peremptory, and absolutely necessary for being so relevant today that it is imperative for activists and researchers alike.

For one, the various assumptions that form a dominant paradigm of Eurocentrism need radical reproving. Yet that would merely amount to a criticism of the thesis itself. Prashad goes beyond that and proposes an alternative narration to the history – not just of the Third World, but also through its lenses, the peoples’ history of the world during the last century. Darker Nations in some ways could be appositely used to speak for aspirations of the oppressed everywhere. In this sense, the book is a celebration of collective hope, even as it traces the demise of a grand project based on it.

I

The thesis of the book circles around the Third World as a unique project on its own. Even as there have been far too many usages of “First” and “Second” Worlds in contrasts, the reader is never lost darker nationsto the main point: that is, the Third World was not merely in response or reaction to the prevailing ‘cold war’ grand narration, but it was more importantly an independent culmination out of unique historical necessities to combat neocolonialism and to promote internationalist nationalism.

To that extent, the author has conducted painful researches and unearthed valuable and often less quoted documents. The book thus does justice to the Suez Canal nationalization controversy and credits Nasser for his motives beyond cold war considerations. It brings Nehru alive through his letter drafted for the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) that argued against nuclearism, appealing to both Kennedy and Khrushchev. The book researches Che Guevara’s UN speech that assumed a necessary political standpoint for all oppressed countries: “As Marxists, we maintain that peaceful co-existence does not include co-existence between exploiters and exploited, between oppressors and oppressed.”

What, then, was common to the Third World? For the nationalist leaders, the fact that they were all colonized. Prashad writes, “For them, the nation had to be constructed out of two elements: the history of their struggles against colonialism, and their program for the creation of justice….The Third World form of nationalism is thus better understood as an internationalist nationalism.” (p.12)

Prashad’s assessment of “neopatriarchy” and domestic capitalism in the third world is quite worthwhile. This book is clearly a critical document for collective introspection of the oppressed peoples than an empty glorification of a united umbrella. In this sense, it is a necessary and long awaited work, which while marking the sites of struggle does not lose sight of the continuing struggles.

The author has cleverly named the chapters after the various sites of significance. Clever, because the chapters (Paris, New Delhi, Bali etc.,) have less to do with specific descriptions of the cities of those times than they have to do with bringing these otherwise disparate places together in context – at times stretching the contexts well out of bounds of the chapter title; at times celebrating the specificity with a poem by Neruda. One would be tempted to verify the header of the page several times while going through the texts just to make sure that she is in the right page. Yet such deliberate discursions are wisely scheduled to make for chapters that elucidate points contextually, rendering Prashad into a master narrator.

Illustratively, the author makes clear the intent of the book at the end of “Paris” chapter and perhaps leading one to wonder how much of the chapter was actually devoted to Paris. Of course that’s the idea of a project, the professor would convince us: each section needs to have scope for a flow into the next without exhausting every specific reference. It’s a project after all. A process, not a few events.

The book covers all that it promises to: Brussels meeting of “League against Imperialism”, Afro-Asian gathering at Bandung, Women’s conference at Cairo, NAM at Belgrade and Tricontinental Conference at Havana.

Prashad unearths the role of international communists in formation of the Brussels conference – a landmark event patronized by Einstein and attended by 37 countries/colonies. He writes about Pan-Africanism, Pan-Americanism, and Pan-Asianism in the context of colonial dominations, along with deconstructing the Kuomintang massacres of communists that might have contributed to severance of the ties between the Comintern and several nationalist leaders.

Prashad quotes W.E.B. DuBois in relation to Pan-Africanism within the Brussels context, although he omits Paul Robeson’s solidarity with the colored peoples at Bandung. It was in 1955 that Robeson sent his famous greetings to Bandung: “...peoples come from the shores of the Ganges and the Nile, the Yangtse and the Niger. Nations of the vast Pacific waters, greetings on this historic occasion. It is my profound conviction that the very fact of the convening of the Conference of Asian and African nations at Bandung, Indonesia, in itself will be recorded as an historic turning point in all world affairs.” Heralding it as a history-making conference, Robeson expressed, “Indeed the fact that the Asian and African nations, possessing similar yet different cultures, have come together to solve their common problems must stand as a shining example to the rest of the world.”

Prashad aptly summarizes what Bandung achieved: “a format for what would eventually become Afro-Asian and then Afro-Asian-Latin American group in the UN.” He also takes a stab at the inherent weaknesses of the member countries that lost moral grounds because of several reasons, from murdering communists to hoarding weapons, despite agreeing on some basic precepts of “cultural cooperation”.

“Principle Problem” of Raul Prebisch is explained in context to economic policies, in the crucial introduction to the role of UNCTAD, of which he was the founding general secretary. If Buenos Aires is visited for economics, Tehran is the metaphoric site of cultural struggles. Khrushchev’s betrayal of cultural workers in face of opposition to Shah regime is well articulated in a chapter that describes “roots of the Third World intellectual’s quandary was how to create a new self in the new nations”, thus reinforcing nationalism, democracy and rationalism.

Prashad’s political argument that the relationship between Third World and Second turned tumultuous after the demise of Stalin may draw some criticisms, but he amply demonstrates its foundations. He argues that the “new leadership led by Khrushchev and Bulganin adopted peaceful co-existence and pledged their support to the bourgeois nationalist regimes (often against the domestic Communists). The unclear situation suggested that the USSR seemed keener to push its own national interests than those of the national Communist parties to which it pledged verbal fealty” (p. 97).

Prashad makes a point that is vital to understanding of the Third World formation and crisis. In the Soviet Union, the Second World indeed “had an attitude toward the former colonies that in some ways mimicked that of the First World.” But this did not necessarily require pitiful stance at the Third World recipients. Prashad argues quoting Sauvy and Nkrumah that the Third World was not “prone, silent or unable to speak” before the powers. It was an independent political platform on its own, which according to Nehru stood for “political independence, nonviolent international relations, and the cultivation of the UN as the principle institution for planetary justice.”

So he asks, “What about the two-thirds who remained outside the East-West circles; what of those 2 billion people?” The narration of the author is instructive in a poetic sense. As obviously gigantic is the scope of such an inquisitiveness, he offers a plethora of factors/voices that could have been representing this Third World.

The book analyzes the various complexities of state politics in the Third World countries. It correctly mentions the several betrayals of communist workers in the hands of Moscow and Peking leaderships in the aftermath of Stalin and Mao. The book describes accurately the growing militarization of the developing nations. Prashad, while upholding the vision of the Third World, well encapsulates the elements of utopianism inherently present in some of the documents.

As an instance, the Arusha Declaration validated the twin principles of liberty and equality, individual rights and collective well-being. Prashad argues, “The main problem with the Arusha-TANU project, however, came not in its goals but in its implementation.” Though defying academic limitations, he does not give away credence to neoliberal economists/politicians like Rajaratnam of Singapore. Even as he describes the feud between Singapore on one extreme and Cuba on another, Prashad instructs us wisely about the pitfalls of economic liberalization. “The abandonment of economic sovereignty lost the national liberation regimes one of their two principal pillars of legitimacy. When IMF-led globalization became the modus operandi, the elites of the postcolonial world adopted a hidebound and ruthless xenophobia that masqueraded as patriotism”, Prashad writes.

Succinctly enough, Prashad encapsulates the present scenario: “The mecca of IMF-driven globalization is therefore in the ability to open one’s economy to stateless, soulless corporations while blaming the failure of well-being on religious, ethnic, sexual, and other minorities. That is the mecca of the post-Third World era.”

II

Prashad’s ending of the book with an obituary to Third World would have perhaps perplexed the writer he invokes in the beginning of his work: Franz Fanon. He even quotes the prophetic statements from The Wretched of the Earth: “The Third World today faces Europe like a colossal mass whose project should be to try to resolve the problems to which Europe has not been able to find the answers.”

Prashad’s persistent declaration in the book about demise of the Third World may bring back nostalgic chords, but would not undermine Fanon’s question. Have the problems that bore out of colonialism been resolved? The answer is no. Has Europe or the USA been able to find the answers yet? The answer is no.

In that case, is it not too early to declare the Third World a dead project? Moreover, is the author at times tending to air the lost leaders’ voices over the struggling peoples’?

No doubt, Prashad’s book is unique in its stress on women’s movements in the Third World – an aspect that’s comfortably overlooked when such taxonomies are applied to political texts. In his Cairo chapter, Prashad examines the role of women in Third World liberation struggles – from Rameshwari Nehru to Aisha Abdul-Rahman. This is significantly noteworthy, as women have joined the guerrilla wars as well as street protests in almost all of the Third World countries. And yet many progressive forces have difficulties in understanding gender relations, thereby resulting in mere “state feminisms”. However, was this chapter written because Cairo had women members on its podium necessitating a mention/discussion, or because a tribute to women activists is necessary to understand the Third World project? In either way, the book does not employ a lens of the women to understand the movement, although does a commendable job at understanding women struggles through the lens of the Third World. Considering that only this chapter has a portion devoted to a few women activists in context to Cairo, while the rest of the book mostly quotes the three “titans” or famous “fives” in explaining the history, I would say there are quite a few questions unanswered still.

The chief criticism against this work would primarily come from two quarters: One, from a strictly Third Wave (interesting how the growth of Third Wave coincides with the recognition of the Third World) feminist critique: independent struggles by women could have been much better encompassed within this book, given its scope. Prashad does a cursory mention of the alternative movement (considering that third-world women had a movement within, and against the larger movement) limiting it to a chapter and focusing on a couple of eminent speakers. Would the Third World have been different had the precepts for it not written by the “titans” and “giants”, but by women comrades who were voices of resentments against the hierarchies of nationalist and communist parties? Prashad does not dwell on this aspect.

Two, the criticism may become more scathing from the perspectives of militant activists. Third World, like Rome, was not built in a day. And certainly not through some leaders of few countries. Prashad is arguably right in crediting the giants and bringing forth the canons, but at the same time, these very leaders certainly rode the wave of success utilizing the larger unrest that was recognized by the anti-status-quo forces, often united through guerrilla wars, and almost going unnoticed after making vital impacts. Would the Third World have been different had the precepts for it not written by the giants, but by the larger oppressed peoples engaged in organized and otherwise struggles? We do not know for sure, but it would have been worthwhile to ponder over that a bit more than the book does.

The more crucial question then, is if such precepts were actually already written (or worked on with) by the peoples who did not find mentions in the historical documents that Prashad cites towards the book’s end spanning 60 pages. The focus of the book, although is in continuance of Prashadisque tradition of Afro-Asian unity, is slightly away from Africa. In fact, Mandela is mentioned just once in the book (that too as a pure travesty – citing a Ruth First memorial). The truth is Third World texts had been written in South Africa as well as in Nepal. However, such underground struggles went largely amiss from the work. Sure, the book by the author’s admission is inexhaustive and merely illustrative, but even a 300-page work could have inculcated some unknown peoples’ movements than chronicling lesser known leaders’ engagements.

Ironically enough, before proceeding to Havana chapter, Prashad mentions “From the early 1960s to the late 1970s, the rhetorical denunciation of imperialism reached its apogee even as the Third World began to lose its voice”. This is a dangerous statement to make if one considers that indeed from the 1970s onwards, the peoples voice in the Third World had immensely proliferated. No doubt the leaders – those giants who we find exalted throughout the work – had fallen to deaths or arrests, but the period thereafter also signaled the end of dominant and diplomatic voices, and somewhere alongside highlighted the obscure and powerful ones.

People who spoke truth to power were the people on the streets that challenged the nationalist parties which came to power in the pretext of newfound freedom from the foreign rulers. The growth of domestic capitalist classes in comfortable alliance with these nationalist parties were indication enough that the new powers were no less different from the old ones, except in their make-up and “patriotism”. In fact, these illusive weapons of nationalism and patriotism helped strengthen exploitative capitalism on basis of trusts of the “own” people. Such betrayals of faiths, notwithstanding goodwill of the famous leaders, were also being fought against on a daily basis in the Third World. Beyond the conferences and meetings and gatherings of Third World leaders under different names, there were large-scale protests of poverty and unemployment. Beyond the famous rhetoric of anti-nuclearism (while proliferating conventional weapons domestically) and socialist development (while harassing voices of dissent at home), people had on their own formed two classes in the society. The haves went to the ruling elites that apparently “voiced” the Third World for few years, and the have-nots remained with the unknown millions of peoples whose only commonality was their resentment against the power-grabbers. Be it Nehru or Indira in India, Sukarno or Suharto in Indonesia, the popular imagination went beyond such leaders that treaded the careful path all the while claiming to be representing the Third World.

Third World was neither the name of a place nor merely a documented project. And certainly it did not die. Considering that its origin was a necessity in itself, a necessity borne of conditions of colonialism, about which Sartre (another contextually grand omission from the book except for one mention – his writings on neocolonialism were far more instructive) writes in the preface to Albert Memmi’s ‘The Colonizer and the Colonized’: “Colonialism denies human rights to people it has subjugated by violence, and whom it keeps in poverty and ignorance by force, therefore, as Marx would say, in a state of ‘sub-humanity’.” This sub-humanity does not see its history changing with the midnight bells of colonialist departures. It takes quite a while for the real freedom to be conquested for even after the colonialists are gone. This is why South Africa’s period of struggle just began after Mandela came to power. South Africa’s Third World status will not die anytime soon.

So the assumption that “the Third World began to lose its voice” may have been made a little too early. Keeping in line of the eloquent narration of events as Prashad has done (for example, referring to revived “armed struggle not only as a tactic of anticolonialism but significantly as a strategy in itself”), the book perhaps wished away the Third World before examining its overbearing presence today. Do we have a Second World? I have no answer to that. But if the name Third World was admittedly accepted by the oppressed people of several continents basing on their historical heritage, then the phrase is as relevant today as it was before. Perhaps some countries would want not a place in it. Earlier, China was a question. Today, Singapore is. All the same, for the rest of the countries, nothing much has changed, except that the capitalist exploitation has intensified and expanded manifold, the national regimes have lost faith and people are more politically conscious.

If the Third World was imagined out of former colonies and if the colonial problem was chiefly an economic one, then the Third World has become even all the more relevant today. Simplistic as it may sound, there is a greater need for Afro-Asian-Latin solidarity today in the world than ever before. And Prashad, a remarkably profound scholar who gave to us treasures of arguments through his previous works about the need for alliances of the oppressed, would be among the firsts to acknowledge the necessity of such unity.

III

However, apart from remaining in want of more comprehensive analysis of women’s movements and of peoples’ liberation movements (both-dually oppressed by former colonizers as well as the nationalist rulers, and more importantly conflicted between the both – male and female comrades), the book also offers cursory looks at the external roles played by the First World in maintaining indirect subjugation of the Third.

Prashad rightly critiques the predominant views held by leftists about the role of the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). He argues that such a minimalist assumption renders people of the Third World insignificant and often passive audience in the larger world stage. Whereas he is absolutely correct in this critique – largely identified by the radical feminist movements worldwide – there is no harm in going through the roles of the CIA that have been well documented in a work that does chronicle interactions of the Third World “leaders” with the First World instigators. Many conflicting situations have been initiated and fuelled through CIA interventions in the Third World politics and that should have found a deserved mention. For instance, a critique of the Nixon administration vis-à-vis the Third World (including the recently released notes with Kissinger) is found lacking.

One need not subscribe to conspiracy theories to gain insights about how the First World allies in the “neocolonial” period have acted towards the Third World: less through coercion, and more through lucrative measures such as economic aids, western education and religion. Prashad misses out on the role of the Catholic Church that was the first body to significantly recognize the Third World as an entity worth pondering over. The large money, the pool of debts that would crumble the economic backbone of the Third World came from the consent of the Vatican during the early 1960s.

Prashad mentions religion quite casually, when he describes how “Mother Teresa would soon get more positive airtime as the white savior of the dark hordes than would the self-directed projects of the Third World nationalist governments.” Immediately following this, he goes on to make references to military invasions and embargoes.

Here the book could have made a crucial connection between the recognition of the Third World by the First World through the Catholic Church decisions. Mother Teresa’s airtimes were neither incidental nor were to be seen only through a liberal critique. The missing piece is that Vatican Council II which was the 21st ecumenical (general) council of the Roman Catholic Church was crucial to recognition of the Third World in an official manner.

In fact this council brought the most far-reaching reforms within the Catholic Church in 1000 years. This most significant reform movement in the world’s leading religion was brought forth during its four sessions in Rome during (the first Council after its suspension in 1870). The idea was to aim for aggiornamento (renewal and updating of Catholic life and teaching). Such a vital step was taken by the Vatican as a result of emergence of the Third World. This council altered the nature of the church from being a European-centered institution to become a worldwide one so as to acknowledge the Third World countries, where it counted most of its followers. Mother Teresa and her likes were thus byproducts of this acceptance of the third force in the world.

Prashad says that Nehru, Sukarno and Nasser among other leaders did not use Third World to describe their domains, but does not corroborate their reasons, if any. For the framework of this book, the constant usages of “First World”, “Second World” and “Third World” is imperative, but considering that Prashad is eager to lash out against the “camp mentality” or “East-West” conflicts, he does avoid a critical exposition of the limitations that such three “Worlds” may bring for the readers.

One way to understand why the three “worlds” were not sufficient explanations (although necessary at many junctures) is to detail how the three worlds could not be thus compartmentalized either in degree or by their types. More importantly, the countries thus categorized under such headings definitely had uniquely different histories (colonial and otherwise), treated differently by their respective partners in their perceived specific worlds. On the one hand, Singapore had a different colonial experience than India. On the other, China’s Security Council membership put it on a unique platform, and there is no comparing between Soviet Union and Hungary. What is vital to this discussion is also the fact that there was not a yardstick that was used to specify categories either for the First, the Second or the Third. As much as the Third World was a movement against colonialism, such a usage of categories would still render it as a site affected by Eurocentric worldviews.

Prashad says Nehru et al., instead of calling themselves to be part of the Third World, “spoke of themselves” as the NAM, G-77 or the colonized continents. Although accurate, here the author’s own argument that kickstarts the book will be subject to questioning. Prashad says in the first line of the book, “The Third World was not a place. It was a project”. And yet he compares the project with some conferences and places (continents) to bring home the point that the leaders evaded “Third World”. Certainly there were other reasons why all Third World titans did not prefer the phrase (if at all). And that, we are still unsure of.

The author writes: “The phrase ‘East-West conflict’ distorts the history of the Cold War because it makes it seem as if the First and Second Worlds confronted each other in a condition of equality.” He contends that the USSR was socially and economically way behind due to its unique recent history. “The dominant classes in the First World used the shortages and repression in the USSR as an instructive tool to wield over the heads of their own working class, and so on both economic and political grounds the First World bore advantages over the Second.” Whereas this could be one truth, it does underscore the fact that more countries on the earth joined the Second World than they could be declared as the First World also because of the lacunae starkly evident in the First World. Whereas massive racism was predominant in the First World, economic depression and political censorships in the capitalist countries also contributed to popularity of the Second World.

A connection between the third world “project” and the United Nations (UN) is well established in the book. What perhaps amiss is a discussion on manners in which either of them might have contributed to the downfall of the other. Prashad says, “Today there is no such vehicle for local dreams”. The larger question then would be if the United Nations played a role in obliterating its dependant. On the other hand, a stark reality in the post-Iraq scene is the redundancy of a forum such as the United Nations today that effectively has no role either in shaping a collective conscience or implementing a pro-people agenda. Least of all, the UN has failed to safeguard the sovereign nations from external aggressions. It has failed to overcome the elitism of its Security Council, almost unquestionably letting the powerful countries to run their own little League of Nations inside the UN. Amidst such cynicism that the UN has contributed to, what responsibilities must the Third World project shoulder.

Amidst several responsibilities, the Third World still has to its credit a Non-Aligned News Agencies Pool (NANAP), a fact that is missing a mention in the book. Over 40 news agencies in non-aligned countries of Africa, Asia, Latin America and Europe have pooled their resources for the exchange of news reports and information to defy the vertical information flow of corporate media. The “Pool” was adopted at the Fourth Summit Conference of Non-Aligned Countries, held in Algiers in 1973. During that period, the New World Information and Communication Order was also proposed to democratize the knowledge domain of the world. No doubt, UNESCO was criticized by the American and European intellectuals, but the MacBride Commission succeeded in recognizing the divergent voices of the Third World in order to challenge the media hegemony world over. Responsibilities of the Third World still include an informed opposition to militarization, providing alternative channels to western corporate media, campaigning for need-based distribution of world resources, and most of all, representing the popular voices of dissent, opposition and celebrations. One wonders if the struggles to attain the above has waned any bit, if looked from the peoples’ perspectives. And in this context, the Third World still holds hopes, possibilities and victory. One is perhaps disappointed if the Third World is perceived to be voicing only a limited elite constituency – often opposed to the peoples’ dissents.

IV

Hence, finally, the book questions not the constitution of the Third World itself. If it was brought around through its various leaderships under certain historical period, what expectations should we have of this “project”? Were such leaders to be expected to play the truly internationalist roles, and to what avail? In the preliminary draft thesis on the National and the Colonial Questions, for the Second Congress of the Communist International, Lenin wrote: “Petty-bourgeois nationalism proclaims as internationalism the mere recognition of the equality of nations and nothing more. Quite apart from the fact that this recognition is purely verbal, petty-bourgeois nationalism preserves national self-interest intact, whereas proletarian internationalism demands, first, that the interests of the proletarian struggle in any one country should be subordinated to the interests of that struggle on a world-wide scale, and, second, that a nation which is achieving victory over the bourgeoisie should be able and willing to make the greatest national sacrifices for the overthrow of international capital.” Between the elite internationalism founded on peaceful co-existence and peoples’ internationalism based upon rejection of the international capitalist order, did the Third World got somewhere hijacked or we refuse to acknowledge its existence because we already defined its proponents?

Needless to state, the criticisms above demand for more literature for inclusion into the book, than specifically target the author’s works. Such a case arises only because the book is an extraordinarily brilliant effort that is bound to encourage readers to plunge more into the relevance of the subject. All of that credit goes to the humanely written, accessibly crafted work that shuns academic elitism and genuinely attempts at a peoples’ history of the oppressed world.

“Violence against women has yet to receive the priority attention and resources needed at all levels to tackle it with the seriousness and visibility necessary.”

UN Secretary-General’s in-depth study on violence against women (2006) (A/61/122/Add.1)

Before we reach another consensus on violence against women, let us examine the existing differences. For, whereas it is far easier (because it is pacifying) to share the knowledge that violence against women continues to exist, it is rather discomforting (because it is agitating) to throw lights on why it is so.

Like every year, academic and administrative reports of all kinds will be generated to commemorate March 8. After all, since we have a non-profit United Nations and we have corporate profiteers, we will eventually need to reach a consensus on issues such as violence against women. And amidst the thousands of articles and hundreds of televised tear-jerkers we will encounter in the coming month, the information overload would have done the damage, if we do not stay alert about few conditions that need addressing:

1.Suspect the Messengers: The kinds of messages about women may be misgivings. Indeed, most channels that provide news about women’s progress and violence are owned and controlled by men. Whereas it is undoubtedly true that many men are truly understanding of their gender positions and many women are too willing to play the assigned roles, it is still wise to suspect the men in the month of IWD message boards.

2.Women’s Rights are Universal Rights: Some will talk about women’s rights as a domain that applies to women only. Indeed, women’s rights are women’s prerogative only as a practice, but everyone’s concern as a scope. Just like they fool us by writing different history books for African-Americans, and the Americans as though American history does not include the minorities, it is highly suspect that women’s rights are not matter of concern for men.

3.Workplace for women vs Women for workplace: Most arguments about women’s rights focus on necessities to prepare the women for the workplace. Its like Amartya Sen saying that the question should not be if democracy is good for a country, but it should be directed towards making the country good for a democracy. Well, frankly speaking, he could be wrong. Just as JFK was while demanding that people give to the country without asking what the country can do for them. That’s the populist tone. The reality is women don’t need to be prepared for workplace. Workplaces need to be geared to serve women.

4.International Woman has a meaning: It means, women identify with each other across different boundaries. This identification has an undertone: that is, they accept the differences across cultures. To be truly international means understanding that there are differences across nations, and hence across women from different nations. There is no place for homogenization of women as one entity. So yes, White women are different from Black women are different from Asian women are different from Latina women are different from Muslim women are different from Hindu women are different from Swahili-speaking women who are different from Greek women. Women have different social locations among themselves, and hence understanding them holds the key. Let no one lead us into an essentialist notion of women’s problem. Different women face oppressions of different nature. The similarity is the most striking: that women are oppressed simply because they are women.

5.Are women human?: MacKinnon’s question is still valid. No amount of cultural excuses (from first world pornography to third world dowry) makes all women full human today. Ruling classes of the world still consider women as accessories to either their power ladder, or to their social justice tokenism. Their domestic adornment or cheap working class market value. Their television anchoring revenue system or their make-up kit industry. Just as Aishwarya Rai cannot be allowed to cry in public because Revlon will probably run into losses, Tamara MaidenName cannot challenge her greedy boss for uneven wages because he will merely retaliate.

International Women’s Day must not be allowed to promote card and gifts companies to indulge in exhibitionism of annual love to the mothers and sisters and wives and friends. It is rather a day to remind all of us in the world that a separate battle is on. This one is a battle of all. A battle that is waged by the true majority of the world, the women. A battle, that addresses the core inconsistencies of capitalism.

Originally written for Womens Rights Blog.

Ironies in the post Soviet days surpass those that characterized it. Despite longueurs of economic progress that “Tsar Putin” has made an exhibition out of, it must appear to be ironical that every publication worth its name declares there is more poverty and less equality in Russia these days than they ever were during Soviet days.

But what’s even more satirical are the suggestions from the concerned quarters that see this as an essential problem of the formerly controlled economy, than as an obvious aftermath of the presently capitalistic one. Considering that the crisis is evident (and multiplying) after the collapse of communism, it should come as no uncommon sense to perceive the root of disarrays. And yet the more populist and political correct accusations are aimed at the former era than the present regime.

Well, that’s not such a surprising finding if we traverse back at the hundreds of thousands of myths that the private capital masters have spread over past few decades about the merits of capitalism. In such ways the myths have been reinforced that even the biggest apostles of capitalism would have to pause awhile.

Its over 15 years since the USSR dissolved in its political form, and yet the only path that its economy has taken for the majority of people is downwards. This, despite absence of any capricious elements in an otherwise compromised economy. Apart from a few oligarchs who have been prosecuted, the country has seen one of the more stable forms of capitalistic expansions by business interests. Despite talks of nationalization or renationalization, only sectors affected thus far have been oil and gas. International currencies, free market and prosperous middle classes are characterizing the country in its free-est market condition in its entire history.

And yet, inequalities of wealth among the population are greater. Poverty, unemployment, crime, and prostitution are way higher. Social security is nearly absent and “terrorism” is at the highest. The country is struggling even to hold bilateral talks, its Nato membership pleas challenged by its own people.

Kremlin is gaining notoriety for “getting rid” of its enemies: Murders of eminent people include journalists (Anna Politkovskaya), research scholars (Indologist Grigory Bondarevsky), scientists (Alexander Krasovsky and Viktor Frantzuzov), security service agents (Alexander Litvinenko), and top officers (Andrei Kozlov- vice president of Central Bank, and Alexander Plokhin, director of Foreign Trade Bank), to mention only a few.

Chechnya crisis, high corruption rate, growth of the Russian “Mafia”, racism by “skinheads”, ban on Communists to conduct parades are not the only features that characterize a fragmented country unable to celebrate its national and cultural diversity. According to the Reporters Without Borders, Russia ranks below many African countries in terms of its press freedom ranking, indeed out of 168 countries, its rank is 147 (worse than Mugabe’s Zimbabwe)! In terms of corruption, Russia is the top most corrupt country in the world, according to Transparency International’s global corruption reports. Lets not even bring up the controversial but almost accurate Amnesty International which maintains horrific databases.

“The Road Ahead”:
And yet, most economists suggest that even greater private investments hold the key for a country like Russia to gain a foothold. Putin has been acclaimed on one hand for raising the nationalist level among the people so as to take back the country to the days of Tsarist glory (implying the biggest feudal society in the contemporary times where private capitals will be concentrated in the hands of selected domestic business houses). This is the more popular choice considering the general anti-Americanism prevailing among the people and unduly being milked by the Americanized leaders of Europe themselves to further their political (read: democratic) ambitions.

And on the other hand, from the critics’ quarters, he has been advised to opt for greater concentration on capitalistic expansion so as to make way for a truly “free market” (implying the establishment of a neo-American society where money will engage people as a commodity, and take away the human elements that are needed for any progressive dissent).

The third front is, alas an alternative, least explored. While visiting Borders book store, I usually chuckle at the sections such as History and Government & Politics. Several racks of books are collected under different sub-headings for easy perusal. It is there that one understands how silently, and effectively the alternatives are purged. You will surely find subheadings such as “Russian History”, and “Russian Government”, but under parenthesis they have carefully typed out phrase: “Non-Soviet”.

Somewhere between Tsarist oppressions and Capitalistic expansions, the Soviet intentions are conveniently buried. And it’s most ironically absent in Putin’s Russia.

In what could be the most visibly grotesque appraisal of monopolistic trends of capitalism, Jeffrey Nelson for Verizon Wireless says, the telecom industry of America is highly competitive. Washington Post quotes him as saying that consumers can choose among numerous handset models and four major providers of cellular services: Verizon, AT&T, Sprint Nextel and T-Mobile. “If you don’t like what one company enables,” he said, “find somebody else.”

Perhaps what’s lost on the corporate communicators is the fact that “four major providers” are signs of monopoly, and not of competition. American capitalism is on its path to perfection in the sense of its graduations. In the film production industry, six studios control over 90 percent of theater revenues. The newspaper industry is owned by only six major chains now. Book publishing industry is handled by seven firms and five largest groups account for all major music production in the country.

One may feel nostalgic about the good old days when the situation was not this drastic, and private families were free to own as much as they wanted to since there were communication regulations in place. One may even argue that after the deregulations bills were passed in 1996, things have started looking murkier with consolidations and clustering of firms at the forefront. But I will not debate at that forum.

The fact of the matter is then, and now, we have failed to understand the nature of capitalism to predict its inevitable trends. What the Washington Post article perhaps says could be a tribute to success of cell phone industries elsewhere in the world where more features are available for the users. But again, that’s a matter of relativity in discussion. What is crucial to understand here is neither the features and plans, nor the brand availabilities (although both these factors are attractive on the surface); but the true accessibility of the technology to all concerned.

In the race to have the best of the services limited to the few of us, is there a ceiling on the accessibility of technology? One would perhaps muse that contrary to my apprehensions, technology has become more accessible today than it was few decades back. But that would be to challenge the very nature of the collective course of human actions. Nothing will remain constant and progress is inevitable with collective endeavors at the research, training and development levels. A progress by default is merely a movement in propelled direction. Only a progress that inculcates struggles to uplift common aspirations is of any intrinsic value.

The gifts of technology, by and large have not been shared by the world populace. And in an era of abundant resources at our disposal and accompanying funds to realize many potentials, it should not come as a surprise as to why the distribution of technological assets has failed to earn commendable results.

The answer lies in the pattern of controlled and monopolized territories of technological know-hows and their ownerships. Even where there is an apparent distribution of access, it is owing to the “market demands”, not for human needs. Of course the phrase “market demands” is as elusive as one can get, considering that the market is as real as its proponents make it to be. The demands are “created” out of profit needs riding the waves of accompanying hypes (what they call in more civilized sense as ‘advertising’).

In this backdrop then it should come as no surprise to us when we see the entire media industry of America are dominated by three understanding, friendly (as long as they don’t consolidate further) mini empires called Time Warner, Disney and NewsCorp. There are scores of other rulers who are defined as new media monopolists by several research scholars and to avoid the academic traps I will not dwell on them. But just as a pointer to the issue than covering it comprehensively, I am deliberating here on the obvious questions we may need to scratch the surface for:

Cooperative economies have produced immense technological benefits. For instance, the erstwhile soviet system did produce the ultimate scientific progresses we have attained thus far: our exploration of the space. And yet we are ever so ready to dismiss the method while reaping the benefits claiming our consumerist society (where getting enslaved to market lures holds the key) as more conducive an environment for technological progress than the socialist society (where minimum standards defined lives of scientists and farmers alike—a notion entirely lost to the imagination of class society pundits).

However, without questioning the merits of competition and fairness—they are different concepts unfortunately, and no matter how soothing it may sound to some liberal economists, there is no such thing as ‘fair competition’ except in their utopian lexicon—one can safely preclude any form of competition from the capitalistic society.

Coming back to the Verizon staff, the four major telecom giants have a history of throttling competitions on their necks and emerging as “giants” than mere fellow traveling companies. The accompanying limitations of power-sharing are also mutually understood notions. The fact that they are monopolists fooling an entire country in a way Lincoln clearly knew—although he once said briefly you could not fool everyone all the time—is best paraphrased by Verizon’s best friend (in the press of course they are rivals and what-not) AT&T:

“This whole issue is a giant red herring. This is a fiercely competitive industry which has grown almost entirely through the force of competition in the marketplace, more innovative devices and services, and continually lower prices.” (AT&T spokesman Mark Siegel.)

If Verizon and AT&T are right, then the rest of us must be fools for sure. The question is for how long this grand Ayn Randian narrative of capitalism-as-citadel-of-competition will be believed? And for how long our media will report these as problems with “four major providers”, and not as inevitable consequence of capitalism?

Perhaps when our media wont be corporate themselves anymore. Well, that’s the point!

New York Times is as liberal as one can get. Dutifully criticizing the intelligence of Bush administration, it venerates the need of White House warnings. Elitism be dead. Long live the elites!

Regarding the much touted North Korean nuclear programs, the most trusted Daily editorializes:

“The North Koreans had and have an illicit nuclear arms program….. If that’s not bad enough, consider some frightening truths. There is no doubt that Iran is moving ever closer to mastering the skills it will need to produce the fuel for a nuclear weapon — and blithely defying the Security Council’s demand that it stop. But even America’s closest European allies have little stomach for a showdown with Tehran, while Russia and China have strong economic incentives to look the other way. Which means that Washington is the only one left out there to warn the world about the dangers of a nuclear-capable Iran. Make no mistake: there are real and present dangers out there. But who still believes warnings from this White House?”

Ooops…did we read that right? Of the liberal press claims about the need for warning from Washington. Yes, there are “real and present dangers” as NYT suggests, but a cursory look at current international relations would suffice to hand over the warrants to “in here” before warning us of dangers “out there”.

Iraq, Iran, North Korea are apparently the insane, mad, barbaric, and dangerous countries because they have a nuclear agenda where they do not seek blessings of the western powers, rendering their programs to be of some unproven sort. So unproven that, when CIA’s lies gets caught. the national media then treat it as a side story of no consequence, performing its role as fourth estate accomplice. And yet, America and the big powers of Europe are clearly the divine lots in the nuclear club since they are the pronounced pundits of nuclearism!

Along with the McDonaldization of hegemonic ideas, other normalizing factors numbing one’s intelligence at this juncture relates to this all-illusive nuclear club. What exactly is this holy alliance all about? What would lead a smart, informed team of editors at newspapers like NYT not to mention for once that, whereas it is highly deplorable that we underestimate the nuclear agenda of potential N-club members, it is equally imperative that the founding members and board members of this club first be warned about their aggrandizing status as unchecked war-mongers. That, there is no such thing as “illicit” nuclear program, and “legal” nuclear program, and the press has a certain sense of responsibility to uphold fairness before reinforcing such stereotypes that apply the western countries in one manner and the uncouth ones in another (illicit) way. Had United Nations given permission to the existing club members to build nuclear weapons, let alone go to war against sovereign countries?

That, the “real and present dangers” are not so much in suspected quarters of ravished Iraq, enraged Iran or taunted North Korea, as they are in evident military business operations of the very country houses New York Times, and that unashamedly continues to harass occupied territories, whose officers are charged with countless rapes on hapless and innocent citizens, and which refuses to even lower its defense budget in view of its utter failure to prove its legality, claims and whose intents to warn countries before invading them is by itself malapropos.

Its not a “Suddenly Convenient Truth” regarding North Korea that rattles NYT. Indeed, quite the contrary. Such criticism of Bush administrations are suddenly convenient perspectives taken for sake of partisan comforts in an opportunistic parliamentary democracy. The inconvenient truth perhaps was uttered by Albert Camus decades back: “I would like to love my country and still love justice”.

“On his last day in CIA custody, Marwan Jabour, an accused al-Qaeda paymaster, was stripped naked, seated in a chair and videotaped by agency officers. Afterward, he was shackled and blindfolded, headphones were put over his ears, and he was given an injection that made him groggy. Jabour, 30, was laid down in the back of a van, driven to an airstrip and put on a plane with at least one other prisoner.
His release from a secret facility in Afghanistan on June 30, 2006, was a surprise to Jabour—and came just after the Supreme Court rejected the Bush administration’s assertion that the Geneva Conventions do not apply to prisoners like him.
Jabour had spent two years in “black sites”—a network of secret internment facilities the CIA operated around the world. His account of life in that system, which he described in three interviews with The Washington Post, offers an inside view of a clandestine world that held far more prisoners than the 14 men President Bush acknowledged and had transferred out of CIA custody in September.”

Washington Post’s scathing analysis of CIA operatives and its secret prisons has not gone without notice. Definitely worthwhile attempts have been made to uncover the scandals after human rights commissions of all shapes and sizes and conventions of all possible dimensions have forwarded their resentments at the torture camps. However the irony lies therein. Is this as groundbreaking a story as it is being made out to be? Should it come as a shock? Or even much less, a surprise?

The Pax Americana Syndrome:
CIA’s activities are neither recent nor surprising. In fact CIA or any other such organization functioning on behalf of any ruling government in the world is meant to be a secret agency. They are supposed to be kept confidential, in large cases unaccountable, and they are required to report to few authorities, if at all. Not only in the functions of the secret agencies, in their nature of origin as well, intelligence agencies are created for the very reason to maintain the status quo of the government they serve and interfere in the business of those that they are meant to.

The idealistically driven would perhaps imagine of a world where there would be secret services that function without interfering with anyone, howsoever illusive such a possibility may sound, considering that this would then invalidate the purpose of having such organization, to begin with. From policing to maintain internal order (which is to say, to repress freedom of people on their own land), to conducting internal intelligence activities (which is to say, to create organizations like FBI that have historically been of the most terrifying nature for people that make up the land), to infiltrating external lands for the sake of maintaining supremacy (which is to say to facilitate formation of international secret services like CIA)—the system of power depends on its system of coercions.

Condemnation of President Bush on grounds of secret prisons is as naïve and uncritical as expecting that prisoners at secret prisons be subjected to some form of equal treatment with domestic prisoners. Only a lack of foresight and political wisdom can lead to such demands that are nothing but a bunch of wishful and/or populist thoughts. These presuppose, of course, the following:
1.That, Geneva Convention is the just world order
2.That, CIA is guilty of the crimes against the prisoners

Nothing could be farther from the truth. In fact, putting forth such arguments only stand to strengthen the conservative foothold on issues of terrorism. If United Nations and the existing international laws had any value worth a dime, there would have been no aggression and war on sovereign peoples to begin with. And this is not to indicate some recent flaws in the hands of the present world supremo, rather one can sketch back to the cold war period to trace the saga of “hot wars” on hapless people despite the existing norms. The sad reality is the convention to protect the interests of the war victims hardly enjoys punitive jurisdictions that can enforce its strictures. At the worst, it can be used to teach the warring African nations a lesson.

A just world order is not established through formation of norms of human rights that do not address the root cause of violations of those rights. That would tantamount to hypocrisy of the order that can be observed when one notes how big business houses conduct charity. This would mean that we would tend to the victims after causing the havoc. Nothing is more sarcastic than such a thought, and when such thoughts apply to human sufferings at a massive scale, it ceases to be merely sarcastic.

The forces of capitalism that reinforce war and military supremacism must be checked with due action plans. Then only a world order that is a larger dream of working people can be established. Until then Geneva or no Geneva, we will have a series of League of Nations to heed to a plethora of CIAs in their collaborative efforts at interfering with lives after damages have been done. That is the current pathetic saga. Its not a single news article. It’s a historical pattern validated by realities.

Secondly, one must acknowledge that some CIA officers are not the party that is guilty. We assumed the same when we looked in disgust at Hoover, some FBI officers and McCarthy during the Red Scare last century. It was as though these fallen guys were the crux of the problem and that following their ouster, we will have a safer world where people will be able to think freely without being followed.

What followed instead was that, this country, once a great site for labor union activism and farmers parties and international communists was reduced to a numbed down version where few “liberals” would substitute for alternative thoughts and become televised celebrities. This was possible because these liberals themselves contributed in furthering the notion that America had ultimately been rid of the vices of Red Scare after America became finally democratized (so from 1776 to 1976, admittedly there was no such thing as democracy) with the ouster of officers.

Let such illusive and sympathique understanding of international relations not dupe us one more time. It’s not the bad guys we need to be after. The problem is with the structural settings. As long as there is market economy, there will be need for security by the monopolists to safeguard their laundered money. To imagine a capitalist world without their lethal defendants would be commit to historical idiocy as guiding spirits of collective inactions.

AsianWeek controversy has been quite an upset. For one, it claims to be the voice of the Asian Americans, and then goes on to publish an article written by a racist bigot who has absolutely no knowledge of his own history, and then the paper goes on to apologize while refusing to single out editors.

If only Kenneth Eng would have been the problem of it, the problem would have been solved by now, considering that he has been fired and even his article has been withdrawn from the AsianWeek website. On the contrary, bloggers are highlighting how immensely published is Eng and how his arguments might have some merit or how disgusted they are at this character. Now we have his photographs appearing on several sites and discussions on his student days in a New York film school. For someone who loves limelight (and any PR charmer can tell you any publicity is good publicity), Eng is having a field day. Amidst all this diplomatic efforts to showcase how not-so-racists we are in comparison to Kenneth Eng, the question must be redirected at the holier of the factions.

The truth of the matter is Kenneth Eng is a product of our system, not a creator of it. Just as Michael Richards was. Has Richards’ apologies helped any bit more than would Eng’s? Or did Mel Gibson really lose out all that deal after his apologies? Such politics of apologies are aimed at individual ‘atonement’s, not at social remedies.

Eng/Gibson/Kramer are trying to say something. And so also those who bear with these bunch. And again those of us readers who comment at the end of the blog entries reinforcing their myopic views. Now, deleting their comments and their articles and apologizing for the same is not the solution. Far from it, such responses are what I would say constitute the “Crash” actions. Remember that movie which won Oscar last year and promised everything was fine on the racial front and that Dubois was inherently wrong.

No, Dubois was not wrong. In fact he is more relevant today than ever before. America, the metamorphosed country of illusions lulling its “diverse” people to sound amnesia by preaching “equality and liberty” is condemned to grapple with its color-lines. Any amount of diplomatic legerdemain by community “leaders” and public figures, college professors and filmmakers cannot hide this reality. The problem of 21st century America is the problem of Capitalism that thrives on inequalities based on several of its social locations. How else does one justify the continued consolidation of most wealth and power in the hands of a few white men in this country? How does one justify the saga of discriminations against people of color in the workplace? How does one justify the annual raise of bonuses to the tune of two hundred percent for the owning class while the workers beg for a five percent up?

Individualism leading to Community-ism
In hostile situations of cut throat capitalistic competitions, everyone is up for the battle of interests. In place of individual rights that this country so proudly enshrined in its constitution that merely focussed on the wealthy and powerful (only the truly free enjoyed the rights, not those they enslaved), the group rights started forming impressions following several reformist movements last century.

Group reformist movements, just like the individual rights movements, engage in competing to garner support from those from whom the rights flow. The ruling classes who devise and define individual rights to their interests (for example it is alright to be a Christian, but not alright to be a Communist; its your right to have family, but not to have it if you are not heterosexual) also describe the scope of group rights. However just as illusive are individual rights, so are the group rights, in a capitalistic setup where the romance of rights are not inherent, but gifted.

To preserve the gifts (‘scope of rights’ that come with charity, although rights themselves may have been fought for, within limits set by the capitalists), groups often tend to resort to squabble, mud-slings and outright racism. People like Kenneth Eng are products of such society divided into groups competing to attract favors from charity masters. Even as the Engs hate racism targeted against them, they rarely stop to find out the true reasons behind the same.

Its utter ignorance of some people about their own history that leads to culmination and growth of racism in our world. Are young students like Kenneth Eng taught in their school about the role of black people in shaping the free America? Are young black students taught about the systematic biases that continue circulating against Asian-Americans in mainstream entertainment industry? Are young south asian students told of the role of black Muslims in enlightening the conscience of this country when it was deep asleep in evil contentment? Are young white students taught of the role of Latino working class in wealth creation of the superpower at the cost of their own exploitation over debates surrounding minimum wage? Are the minority students taught about how majority of white workers indeed are at receiving end of en exploitative economic system?

Need of the hour:
What needs to be done at this juncture is not for black commentators attacking Asian press or South Asian commentators condemning Kenneth Eng. For all we know, Eng could well become a celebrity in a few months. The root cause of racism is not one bigoted mind. Its capitalism that we largely let go unchecked for in its practice. We must address the manner in which private capital creation safeguards specific group interests rather than working for the betterment of the world. The racial tensions in the US are economic in nature. There is no place for moral preachings here. No place for Crash finale!

Lets admit and accept that as long as we refrain from critiquing the capitalist causes (private monopolies) we will have to accept racism as part and parcel of the deal. Till now, people other than white are being called in their suffixes. American history is differently noted than African-American history! How will we expect Engs of the world to even feel grateful for immense sufferings of generations of black people that must be acknowledged at every mention of America even as an idea? How will we expect white people to understand that Columbus was not after all some hero and that this land was indeed “made for you and me”, and not just for the English speaking elites. Such expectations will bear fruit only if people are treated equally irrespective of race in this country and elsewhere. However that would mean perhaps to quote Paul Robeson, “adopting the nature and politics of Soviet Union where people are treated as people, not as black or white”. Even adopting one-tenth of former Soviet policies would entail the reversal of centuries-old capital accumulation policies that are in place in a flourishing capitalism. As long as a society is built on bedrock of money as the only thing that matters—to buy health insurance to higher education—people will always be treated as secondary subjects. And where people need to be treated as secondary subjects, to refrain those very people from fomenting a revolution against their secondary status, it becomes imperative for the capital masters to wage a divide and rule policy that keeps people ignorant about their collective struggles in everyday lives. While at it, the economic system goes unchecked in its biases against working class by deliberately playing one group against another when it comes to economic parity, share holding and accountability. No wonder, thousands of discrimination cases at the workplace are filed every week based on racial disparities.

We need to shed our racialisms and embrace the collective history of struggles of working class people of this country and the world against their class antagonists in our everyday observations. Careful and conscious efforts must be made towards deconstructing problems such as Eng’s while observing the need for such racism not to take place again.

One thing is to condemn racism, which is all good, but entirely useless. Since we know no one can feel unscathed from racist attacks under capitalism which bases itself on human inequality, today’s condemned group will become the condemner tomorrow. The other thing is to actually ensure that we do not produce a new generation of racists in our own households. There would be no end to this Ghettopoly-Tsunami saga, if we did not really address the issues critically. That some Blacks despise some Asians, some Asians despise some Blacks, and some Whites despise some immigrants and vice versa is a well known fact. How many Indian families actually encourage their doting daughters to make friends with Blacks and Muslims? How many of us actually stop thinking about people beyond their colors the moment we fail to receive our due share? How long will the “good” people refuse to acknowledge that? How long we will keep condemning Kenneth Eng?

We must make every efforts to acknowledge collective contributions to working class struggles. White people should be educated about Whiteness history that must detail not the struggle of black people alone, but also the struggle of good white people while dealing with slavery and racism. Neither slavery nor racism should be treated as subjects of the past, for both are going to remain in full function as long as there is an owning class of minority people—those that traditionally were slaveowners and who own us mentally now with their monopoly media misinformation tirades.

South Asian Journalist Association (SAJA) which is composed of really nice people some of whom I have had the opportunity to have interacted with, must make every effort to include black people on its editorial board. No issues of journalism that pertains to people of South Asian origin precludes people of other races. Likewise good Asian folks at the AsianWeek should include Latino people on their boards. The black television programs that have been accused of making fun of some Asians should include some enlightened Asians in their team. And together all of them should include some white people in their efforts to understand and strengthen collective efforts to uproot racism from this country.

Although racism, like sexism, is a byproduct of capitalism, capitalism will not vanish as long as we do not treat these diseases on a preventive manner. If we really wish to eradicate racism, and not merely talk about it, we must look beyond our own group interests and then we shall be able to address racism among our own communities in a more informed manner. Accusing the ‘other’ becomes easier when we are refusing to look outside our ‘own’ comforted walls. It is perhaps more true when we are dealing with a subject such as race—one that will not go away, but one we must deal with.

Time has come to look beyond our own races, and look for commonalities with the others in order to find the links that have been deliberately kept missing. Until then, we will be demanding an apology, not the solidarity. Because until then we are perhaps intending to let capitalism succeed at any cost in enslaving us while giving us an illusion of freedom, because we refuse to look beyond the windows to understand why some of us out in the rain will continue to suffer at the hand of the same system that can turn us against each other. For racism to go, we need to embrace human beings, not private wealth monopolists. For that to happen, we need to address issues of capitalism at its systematic level, not at its symptomatic level.

Death penalty for Ronell Wilson is unfortunate. In fact, death penalty itself is an unfortunate decree. Majority of the world population do not want such a punishment. A huge majority of capital punishment cases have been proved to be unsuccessful after being taken up. And again in the majority of capital punishment cases, entirely innocent people have been framed, and discharged with all honor.

Yet, since New York—that last bastion of liberal America—has decided death sentence for Wilson, the underlying spasms defining a gap between New York and the New Yorkers have come to the fore. Since reinstatement of death penalty in 1995, New Yorkers have spent $170 million of their tax money unwillingly, and perhaps unknowingly, to the cause of finding a scapegoat.

And Wilson, it seems was worth that money.

I will not enter into the moralist debates here. Certainly not to uphold the human lives as more valuable than any other animal’s in order to condemn death penalty. Indeed, to claim that human life is, lets say, more precious than that of animals, would be only to condone the vast parallel that can be drawn regarding the relative life value of an African-American (black) as opposed to an European-American (white) in the Unites States.

Neither will I advance the much discussed theory of how United States happens to be the only developed country in the world where death penalty still exists. Indeed, to claim that the European nations that have banned death penalty are civilized, would be to acknowledge deliberate omission of facts related to history of genocides caused by, perpetrated through, and resulted due to those very powers.

But amidst these superficial larger moral rationale that are usually hyped against each other in the public space (of human life or democracy model), the issue that should not go amiss is the specificity of the cases involved. Since death penalty is not awarded to a society, but to an individual (as opposed to a system of governance like electoral democracy or communism), it is imperative for us to be able to deconstruct the power equations involved in death penalty (racism, political decisions etc), but without neglecting the individual cases under observation.

To make a sweeping claim such as death penalty must be banned everywhere (although basing on statistics of their success, that’s a valid claim) would be to get entrapped inside the ethical dilemmas (are we to then passively watch imperialist wars or actually declare the war against the imperialists). Just as not all wars are indeed to be banned, banning of death penalty need not be a necessary discourse of our times.

In my personal opinion (shaped by my desire to uphold an ideal), wars and death penalties should be gotten rid of. However, considering this is an idealistic assumption, such an opinion looks not at the reality, but at possibility alone. In matters that affect our superconscious (to borrow from Freud), it is desirable that we go beyond the possibilities. And to embrace segments of reality, however painful that may be, however hard it may further our dissonance.

If we do not need to take a stand on death penalty as yet, are we then to bear with the penalties now? And to that, thankfully there is a heartening answer. The short answer is “no”.

Death penalty is usually handed over as a solution to a problem. Almost in all the cases, it is assumed that a killer is to be put to rest through lethal injection/gunshot/electric chair/hanging. It is this method of solution that needs to be analyzed. What problem is exactly being dealt with here? Crime?

We all know that society prepares the crime and the criminal commits it. In other words, crime is a social phenomenon and not a personal one. As Priestley’s “An Inspector Calls” reminds us at the end of the play, all of us are responsible for the death of the working class girl. Or at least that’s how the conscience posing as the inspector reminds the business family under self-denial. Need we resort to eliminating the “criminal” or address the grounds that scientifically gives birth to what we call crime?

The jurors in death penalty cases, notwithstanding their decisions, often fail to acknowledge a need to overhaul the societal system to contain the crime. For all the glorious trumpets of capitalism, the capitalist society has “produced” the largest number of undertrials in the world history. In fact, this should not come as a surprise, considering that capitalism thrives on inequality; it shines on the premise that only a few can consolidate.

When only a few monopolists consolidate the best of earthly resources, the rest of us have two ways to deal with this reality. One, which is usually the most preferred path: that is, we decide to serve the interests of the monopolists so that we can be benefited by the trickles of ill-gotten fortune. To that extent, we serve them well. The better we serve the capitalists, the better lives we live. Better, meaning hassle-free, crime-free, interference-free. We do our “own things”, which translates into: ‘we serve our bosses exactly the way we are told to’. Huge majority of human beings either willfully, or coaxed into, or even grudgingly carry out such a life. We learn to obey the commands, act in the directed manner, read the book we are told, watch the televisions they permit, even play the games, use computers, share music –in an ‘order’ly fashion.

Some of these, just as the laws of probability goes, are actually good. For example, standing in a line to buy grocery is a good thing to do, because it allows us to understand priorities. In fact, it also allows for those who need special attention to go before us. Not only because there is a rule, but because we as human beings share an understanding that some of us need more than the rest of us. Hence its actually good if we obey the rule that says, women, children and people with special needs get priority on this counter and so forth.

But most of the rules are debatable. In fact, quite debatable. Who gets to own a gun? Who deserves the most luxurious cars? Who needs to live in palatial houses? Who decides on our behalf to go on a war? Who decides whose life is more precious?

Here is where the rest of us come into picture. A minority (and some would say, fortunately so) among us will at times refuse to serve. We will protest against the capitalists. We will disobey some laws (remember we may still agree to obey the law that has affirmative benefits for disadvantaged groups).

So then, are all lawbreakers coming from the disadvantaged section of society? Hardly so. When people start disobeying some laws that is because they fall into one of the two categories below:
a.When we are highly privileged not to obey. That is, when we are members of the economically elite section of society. In a way, we make the laws. So we believe we can break it whenever we want. Take for example, when this minority among us declares war on innocent people of Middle East. That’s the group. Or the feudal elements of democratic powers whose nepotism runs high among such political configurations. This group bungles in all ways possible to reinforce its sway. It does financial corruption of highest disorder. It awards itself tax benefits. It establishes factories that damages and kills millions of people over the years, all the while earning itself unaccounted wealth. Since it really does not “need” to kill anyone (although they kill each other in family feuds, extramarital affairs and property disputes), this group merely directs the killings indirectly. Worse, it projects its own private wealth—the killer of society—as its shield, a very acceptable, nay, desirable shield. It bathes itself on the glory of its power, which it calls legitimate.

b.The second category of minorities is from the disadvantaged group. This class of people has refused to emulate its fellow members, majority of whom are those have-nots that have chosen to work for the privileged, so as to earn some leftovers. At times such refusal is organized, contemplated over and borne out of knowledge. But at most times, refusal to obey the masters and their laws, are borne out of ignorance, and disorganized irresponsible actions. Irrespective of the method, the action is usually one of dissent. The dissent, when organized, is directed towards positive furtherance of societal welfare. In this case, they form a band of radicals to envisage revolutionary goals of majority emancipation. And when not quite organized, these dissenters often end up emulating the first category (the rich filthy legitimate elites). The idea is to climb the ladder. But the reality is, more often than not (some get away: those rags-to-riches business profiles will vouch), they get entrapped.

Once trapped, the have-not is usually left at the mercy of the same law of the land against which it had dissented. This is the law of the land that awards its owners a huge leverage. Indeed it builds up courtrooms, a thick law book, and a plethora of liars who study the law just so they can play around with the manipulative words.

Yes, lawyers do not manipulate the law: the words are manipulative on purpose. The words are left in vagueness because only then they can be interpreted differently by the lawmakers to suit their interests. When it would come to displacement of poor people from their lands, the law can be twisted to suit its masters. And again, when the poor rise up to commit a small theft at a rich landgrabber’s mansion, the same law can award this ‘criminal’ a life sentence, only after years of undertrial experience inside inhuman cells the masters have created called prisons.

Little wonder, almost all undertrials and prisoners in basic jails hail from the second category. And again, little wonder then, that almost all the masters of the land that make the laws (congressmen, senators, parliament members, and their corporate partners) hail from the first category.

Laws of the lands where capitalism prevails are designed largely to benefit the affluent and influential. They are not meant to award death penalty to industry giants who encroach African lands and pollute the poor lives through poisonous gas that cripple the generations there. Most people on earth still die prematurely only because of environmental pollution. Worse than death is the lives they lead in want, in hunger, in deprivation of utilization of their own lands that have been grabbed and colonized and exploited by the elites. Most people on earth till date are without access to safe drinking water, because the corporate elites with mutual help of their lawmakers make sure that the distribution of water resources—those natural resources that are supposed to be belonging to the whole of human race, and if not so, then none of us should be having anything to do with each other, let alone decreeing death penalties—is made in a way to support factories and plants and bank balance, not the poor peoples’ lives. Every day we are bombarded with fact finding missions that discover how every private corporate entity, irrespective of their brand names, and their funded political parties, irrespective of their fame, have been trampling down peoples’ lives and aspirations under the capitalist system. Indeed, individual murder of a person may or may not carry with it an evil intent of larger consequence. But the manner in which instruments of capitalism continue to ruin peoples’ prospects to live a life of dignity (because dying is better than slaving), it is high time that we revisited the crucial questions.

Who commits the crimes? Is it the one who commits it, or the one who creates the condition?

Its not death penalty per se which is problematic. It is who receives it, that should be a bother.

Additional readings:
NYCLU: http://www.nyclu.org/leg_aa_dp1_060602.html
HRW: http://hrw.org/english/docs/2005/04/18/usdom10503.htm
Gothamist: http://www.gothamist.com/archives/2006/12/21/guilty_verdict_1.php
The Nation: http://www.thenation.com/doc/20050307/hatchmiller
NYADP: http://www.nyadp.org/main/60823ronell
DPI: http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/article.php?scid=38&did=1066
BBC: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/6317089.stm

Here is a classic case of manufactured consent.

News is agog that India will have its Harvard University in next two years. Even Forbes Magazine testifies to that. The corporate media hails a proposed university in India to be the greatest hope of reified vision where huge mass of people will be educated for betterment of India’s economy; and, its poor state Orissa’s. It is being hailed as the institute that’s receiving the single largest donation ever worldwide: $1 billion, and yes its going to be the university with largest real estate holdings ever. So welcome to capitalism that apparently does good, through capitalists that claim to be philanthropists of great cause.

Are there any protests against the university? Hardly any. Who would protest establishment of a first world standard university in a third world standard country? Instead, there is huge celebration of this proposal, of a one billion dollar charity. It’s a poor peoples’ world, and free money counts. The donor, Anil Agarwal is being hailed as a messiah of sort whose generosity is redefining cannons of capitalism. ‘Let them eat cake’ is after all being replaced by ‘Let us serve them’!

The esteemed Chronicle of Higher Education has been publishing features to highlight Vedanta, and last week, it has advertised the vacancy positions, including that of a Provost and Chief Academic Officer. US-based Ayers/Saint/Gross Architects have been hired to design the Harvard clone. 8,000-acres of land are being earmarked for this gigantic project (Harvard has only 4,938 acres). In other words, the largest ever education project in the world is underway already.

Why?

The Corporate Charity for Profits Syndrome:
Last week, a LA Times investigation excavated how the richest man in the world Bill Gates evades taxes through his philanthropies. In fact, worse, his Gates Foundation invests 95% of its worth on industries that defeat the purpose of its 5% charity causes.

How much does Anil Agarwal, the 245th richest person in the world emulate the club chair? Totally. It appears, he fails to escape the capitalistic dictums: the crude greed in sophisticated pill. Proponent of the later stage of feudalism, landgrabbing capitalists have been targeting Africa and Asia for their wealth accumulation. And ironically, they have been employing causes such as AIDS and education as excuses to divert the public attention from the real issues: exploitation of resources, harassment of indigenous peoples, and murders of activists.

Behind the euphoria that outlines a $1-billion charity of Agarwal for the proposed university, lies the three years of vehement protests of thousands of indigenous/tribal people who are being inhumanly displaced a little distant away for a much larger corporate project that shall hamper the ecology and destroy livelihoods of local poor for the profits of the same bunch of profit mongers living in Britain.

The man who has promised to donate for university to educate people also happen to be the one who has been investing in nearby landmines to displace people and stake private ownership over public resources through suspect means. Only that, the dreams of furthering his landmining business would not advance if attempts are not made to eliminate the long prevailing popular resentments. And for that, the corporate house has taken shelter in some upper class intelligentsia that profits directly from a world-class educational institute in bargain. And this group of abettors comprises some high-profile educators inside India and outside of it, who have been impressing upon the media agencies to glorify this business house that funds their future abode.

The nexus between profiteering capitalists and kingpin professors also has complete consent from some political bigwigs and media business houses. All of them stand to benefit from a university that’s advertised as catering to upper class, upper caste youths of India who have had a remarkable private school education already, considering that the Vedanta University is to be based on “need-blind admissions”. So yes, in the most backward of states in India, only students with so-called ‘merit’ (implying most filtered students from urban school education) will benefit.

The Casualties of University:
I recently spoke with some activists participating in protests movements in Orissa against the Sterlite business expansions. The resentments are taking place at both the urban hotspots like Puri (near which the university is proposed) as well as in rural heartlands of Lanjigarh, Kalahandi (where the alumina project is underway).

Activists told me that at the university site, at least 20,000 people are affected by the project, whereas nearly a thousand are getting evicted. And yet, the business house is conducting press meets to send falsified numbers that the media are readily savoring. As per Ajit Kumar Samal, vice-president of the project, rehab packages are assured for all those going to be displaced. “The willing and educated persons of about 80 families, likely to be displaced, would be imparted capacity building training to absorb them in the project. We are ready to provide compensation amount as soon as the Government appoints a committee to fix the quantum” (The Pioneer, January 6, 2007). So, the number estimated by the Vedanta University stands at 80, from whom chosen few will be given compensation only after bureaucratic clearance. Of course, when it comes to affected people, the industries face bureaucratic hassles as well.

Adding more to the irony is the fact that with such billion-dollar promise quotes, the industry/government has succeeded in diverting the center of focus from Lanjigarh land scams to Puri as education site.

Smooth Operation:
For a business baron who, according to Forbes Magazine, “built his London-listed Vedanta Resources by acquiring state-owned mining and metal assets in India where main operations are located,” it was imperative that the protests of environmentalists and other activists be dismissed as routine hindrances in “developmental” path whereas the mass looting of home country resources for individual profit accumulation is planned out. Its as though, the onus on protecting the mother nature lies only with some professional environmentalists who need to be chided for receiving money from non-governmental organizations, whereas the greedy corporate houses’ demands be hailed all the while, for their skillful trampling down of peoples’ aspirations to hold onto their forest lands for their meager livelihood!

Vedanta Resources has already completed its 1.4 million tonne alumina project in Orissa’s Kalahandi district despite resistance. But the protest movements against its further plans to take siege of Niryamgiri Hill is continuing without much support of media or political outfits. Following the West Bengal model, even the state’s official communist parties have not reacted much apart from scantily registering protests against governmental repression. Only the Marxist-Leninist front of the left wing have come out to support the peoples’ causes. Lanjigarh at the first stage has already witnessed the $874 million project, but is unwilling to part with more of its sacred hills.

What’s shocking in the entire process is that in spite of mammoth popular opposition to the mining projects in Orissa, Agarwal’s Sterlite has managed to sign an agreement with the state Government under Naveen Patnaik to set up both the alumina refinery in Kalahandi as well as aluminum smelter and power plant in Jharsuguda. Subsequently it reached agreement with the Orissa Mining Corporation to jointly operate the Niyamgiri bauxite mines. The refinery is almost completed and the importing of bauxite through Vizag port has already started.

Not just that the majority people have no say in a plutocracy such as India, where the rich landgrabbers still rule the destiny of its poor, the private corporate houses also flout the laws of the lands to go to such extremes as displacing people and terming them as encroachers on their own lands. Not just the fact that such lands are illegal to be sold to non-tribals, but also the fact that Supreme Court appointed environment-empowered-committee has strongly disapproved of the project location, has not dissuaded the state government from its unholy alliance with the foreign firm.

Apart from its obvious anti-people repercussions leading to displacement of tribal groups, Lanjigarh has attracted ire of the Supreme Court of India and subsequently many environmentalists. As a result, Ministry of Environment & Forest has also recently issued directives to the Wildlife Institute of India to undertake studies related to the impacts of mining on biodiversity including wildlife and its habitat in the proposed Bauxite Mining area at Lanjigarh, Kalahandi as per the recommendations of the Forest Advisory Committee.

The findings, among other things suggested the following:

A) Bauxite from the Niyamgiri plateaus is proposed to be extracted through open cast operations. Various kinds environmental degradations and impacts are associated with this kind of mining. These are : geomorphologic changes, landscape changes, loss of forests; land degradation; loss of flora and fauna; loss of habitat; geo-hydrological and drainage changes; land vibration, shocks, blasting and noise; air quality reduction, water quality reduction; disruption of socio-economic dependencies and public health hazards etc.

B) Bauxite mining at Niyamgiri will bring several changes due to blasting and disturbances to the forested habitat over a period of 25 years. The mining plan proposes to have 3 working shifts of 8 h3rs each per day and 6 days per week. Working of the mine during night shifts would induce disturbances due to illumination of the Niyamgiri plateau area and pose disturbance to wildlife species more specifically the nocturnal animal. The illumination may restrict movement and habitat use and reduce occupancy and utilization by several species. This situation eventually will reduce elephant movements across Niyamgiri massif to Karlapath and Kotagarh Wildlife Sanctuaries and ultimately effect the population structure and there by its genetic diversity. Exodus of human population to mining site will enhance conflict with wildlife so to their losses in long run. Bauxite mining in Niyamgiri plateau will destroy a specialized kind of wildlife habitat, dominated by grasslands and sparse tree communities. These kinds of sites are breeding habitat of many herbivores such as barking deer and four horned antelopes.

The manufactured euphoria over the richest proposed university in the world is as illusive as the concept itself. A business house employing power tactics, first tries to set up an ecologically disastrous mining project to exploit Orissa’s indigenous areas for private gains. Facing stiff opposition from people and environmentalists alike, it struggles to gain a foothold for almost three years. And finally, wins the corridors of powers as predicted, with a side dish, a dream university: one that has allured the intelligentsia and educated section of the state, to create a normalization that can facilitate corporate hegemony over a land’s soul—its peoples.

People’s Movements in Orissa face Political Repression

One year ago, on January 2, 2006, I was in Orissa covering the most barbaric and shameful epoch in the aftermath of Kalinga Nagar incidents. 12 tribals were murdered by the Orissa state police, because they were protesting against the illegal, and inhuman encroachment of their sweet little homes by a profit-mongering private industry giant. As many as 13 industrial plants had been declared to be set up in Kalinga Nagar itself, resulting in evacuation of thousands of indigenous people from their own lands, sans adequate compensations, relocation benefits, education or healthcare assurances, let alone alternative residences. Countless people were left in the lurch because one private company got greedier and bought the conscience of few dozens of political opportunists. And when the people were told that their villages were going to be leveled—meaning, their carefully worshiped houses were to be razed off the grounds without seeking any of their approvals, some tribals thought they should protest.

After all, it was through constant revolutionary struggles of the common masses, that Orissa had been wrested from its kings and the colonialists to emerge as the first independent province formed on linguistic basis in modern India’s history.

Right to self-determination has been inherent in Orissa’s history—from the ages of the Kalinga War to the days of Kalinga Nagar. Just the way, the Kalinga War was fought with bloodbath, Kalinga Nagar met the similar fate. Entirely innocent people, yet valiant and brave, unarmed to fight the ancient and modern emperors, protested for sure, and paid the price.

It has been an annual ritual in Orissa, economically one of the poorest states of India. Its working class people doubly oppressed – by the military-industrial nexus of the government in power, and by the educated and elite section of its own population that dance to the tunes of opportunism and betray the poor people’s causes.

Despite the odds, when tribals staged a non-violent protest, the police state, under obligation from industry pimps, opened fire and murdered them mercilessly. And this, despite the very fresh memories of killings of tribals in Rayagada done under the same BJP-BJD regime led by Naveen Patnaik.

Sitting pretty on his father and Orissa’s ex-Chief Minister Biju Patnaik’s land-grabbing anti-people legacies, Naveen has been the most ruthless curse on a peaceful people. Enacting personality politics to project Biju as a savior, the current CM has been turning massive onslaughts on every form of criticism that exists in the state today, with an inherited arrogance that has rare parallel. He completes his troika of misfortunes, after Kashipur and Kalinga Nagar, with his approval of Vedanta Alumina Project at Lanjigarh.

Troika of exploitations and how they happened:
Kashipur, Kalinga Nagar and Lanjigarh

When Naveen regime sold off Kashipur to their friends in the Aditya Birla Group and Canadian ALCAN, they had to struggle quite a bit. Months of endured protests by thousands of people organized under different banners were not an easy task to encounter. Along with several activist comrades, I was involved in raising consciousness about Kashipur and found many people showing solidarity with the displaced. In late 2000, the protest movements against Birla Group was gaining consensus among the larger progressive circles. However, the government committed its first blunder by ordering to shoot the completely unarmed tribals Abhilas Jhodia, Raghu Jhodia and Damodar Jhodia in December of that year. Dozens of tribals were critically injured and shot at. Hundreds were arrested illegally.

Arun Shourie, the infamous disinvestment minister had set the trend on behalf of BJP to legalize the most shameful of trades: selling off people’s lands to land-grabbers. Orissa government, the ally of BJP, went one step further. It sold them at dirt cheap prices so that the kickbacks would at least be good. As a result, Kashipur project displaced more than 20,000 people with immediate effect, whereas making mere promises to secure jobs for 1000 people for 20 years. All bauxite resources were put on ransom in this 4,500-cr project that involved few top bureaucrats, politicians and the private industries. They had round tables at Orissa Secretariat and had a feast on the murdered tribals.

This project, part of Utkal Alumina International Limited, forced its way in, despite protests, and widespread discontentment. It even violated the law of land that denied sale of tribal lands to non-tribals for mining purpose. However, the project is on, and the lawmakers and their judiciary colleagues are bedfellows. And unitedly, the ruling class of Orissa bribed by the industrial houses has conveniently shoved aside the people’s demands, and when needed have shot some commoners to silence.

When it came to Kalinga Nagar, the government thought better than to tolerate any flak. No demonstrations, no protests, no opposition – the government decided – it won’t accept any remaining cannons of political democracy. Shoot on sight, Naveen’s style of functioning worked with even greater vigor this time. If democracy meant people’s mandate, the politicians thought they had got the mandate to kill the people. In the most shocking case of mass murder in the recent history of world, Kalinga Nagar resulted in deaths of 12 tribals (and subsequent mutilation of their bodies inside the police station to obstruct post-mortem/identification). All along, in place of health centers and schools – the most needed facilities in the tribal districts, the Orissa government had been building police stations since last four years. Of course the police stations were being constructed near the project sites, so as to provide protection to the business barons, while killing some locales here and there.

Beyond descriptions and doubts, Kalinga Nagar incident was smartly buried. In a plutocracy, the government works for the rich, and so, Orissa government this time too, made all paths clear for its partner in crime: TISCO. The Tata venture in Kalinga Nagar, was done in collaboration with the Orissa Industrial Infrastructure Development Corporation (IDCO). Of course this deal was as corrupt and backhanded as possible.

Biju Patnaik was the epitome of corruption in the post-independent India, and during his last tenure at office, he had acquired the lands of Kalinga Nagar at the cost of Rs 35,000 per acre. His son amassed even larger profits by making a business out of this. He sold the public property to TISCO at Rs 3,50,000 per acre. In return, he paid the people: zilch. Ooops, with some bullets. But to be fair, the families of those who were killed were offered Rs 50,000 as price of the human life. And the compensation for building houses: 10 decimal of land!

Of course, the benevolent Tata loves the power tactics of letting its compliances kill off people when they protest, and it suits its inroads to further the business. Same goes with other steel companies that have been also setting up their firms in the tribal heartlands by evicting the people out, including Neelachal Ispat Nigam Ltd, Jindal Steels, Mesco Steels etc. All of them together have been keeping the political circle happy, and vice versa, in a tradition of tragedies.

The tradition has now extended to an aluminum refinery near our most current focus, Lanjigarh. Very similar to Kashipur developments, the Lanjigarh project has already launched its thumping notes of oppression. The UK-based Sterlite Industries has been excitedly razing off adivasi villages, including Borobhota, Kinari, Kothduar, Sindhabahili, and their agricultural fields in Kalahandi district. In the process, thousands of villagers have been forced to leave their lands.

But this time, the tactics of the government – already being heavily criticized for its high-handedness – are slightly different. It has adopted a two-pronged approach to gain consensus for the Lanjigarh project. Before we go there, let’s assess what’s the worth of this project.

Vedanta and Capitalistic Expansions:

Vedanta which sounds Indian, even Brahminical, is meant to be so. Although based in England, the company has its eyes set only on former British colony India. Not just on a country that was being ripped off by the Empire until few decades back, but also on the poorest state of India. Again, not just on Orissa, but on the poorest district of Orissa.

Gandhi once said in his Talisman about how before we take a step, we should think of the welfare of the poorest of the poor. Now his country has another policy in power: before you take a step, make sure to trample the poorest of the poor to oblivion.

BJP, the party of domestic business houses and NRI investors, had this brilliant idea of disinvesting the existing industries of India which would render millions jobless, and without backbone to protest the injustices. Worse, they had Lord Ram legends to divert the people into becoming communalist monsters. And during those times of Vajpayee, they put BALCO (Bharat Aluminum) on sale. Sterlite comfortably offered a meager $121 million for it. Even Balco labor union had no clue that the company was sold out for this cheap. The union declared strike. Supreme Court of India in its worst of wisdom had declared strikes as illegal (in a country that gained independence through strikes of workers as a major force) and Anil Agarwal got the approval. Again easy. He went ahead and cut off 30% of jobs. Of course without a problem. One of the largest public trusts was now his mansion.

BJP, a party that surprised us all when it splashed every newspaper with full page ads on the very first term of its election campaign, was always funded by Hindu extremists living abroad. The proverbial NRIs always looked forward to their bastion of moneymaking once the command/mixed economy of India took a beating. And for this, they needed the right wing in India to come to power. Even for just one term. Because all one needs to sell the country is a seal.

During Vajpayee’s regime, people like Agarwal made fortunes. Not just Balco. Sterlite got its sweet deals in Hindustan Zinc too – three lead-zinc mines and three smelters! More job cuts, pay cuts. Less labor force, more work, more profits. In business texts, they call it efficiency. To us, possibly it sounds draconic.

Gradually after stabilizing the sale process of India, Agarwal aimed at Vedanta’s mining operations. His stake in Vedanta being $1 billion, it attracted attention of London Stock Exchange, since it happened to be the first Indian mining operation to be listed there. Not to be outwitted, Agarwal had the face of Australian mining magnate Brian Gilbertson to certify the resources of Orissa were good enough. Gilbertson, one of the wealthiest miners in the world, absolutely amazed by the resources said they were heavily undervalued. He said they were way better than any international standard and did not resemble any third world produce.

And so the deal was approved. It had been already struck. Now, everybody’s a winner. Except those that rightfully deserved to win. Those that love their little thatched roofs as much as the bigwigs love their palaces. Those poor that refuse to give up their collective lands and community rivers as much as the rich that would guard to their life their safeguarded mansions and exclusive swimming pools.

Originally published:
Radical Notes: Orissa: Throttled Dissent, Overstepped Laws, Displaced People
Radical Notes: People’s Movements in Orissa face Political Repression
CounterCurrents: People’s Movements in Orissa face Political Repression
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