Thursday, July 25, 2013
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Wednesday, July 24, 2013
dooriyan
दूरियों से फरक नहीं पड़ता
बात तो दिलों की नजदीकियों से होती है
दोस्ती हर उम्र के हिसाब जनाब होती है
वरना यहाँ बहुत लोगों से मुलाकात तो
रोजाना ही हम सब की बेहिसाब होती है
बात तो दिलों की नजदीकियों से होती है
दोस्ती हर उम्र के हिसाब जनाब होती है
वरना यहाँ बहुत लोगों से मुलाकात तो
रोजाना ही हम सब की बेहिसाब होती है
मिर्चपुर !
सहमे दलित नहीं लोटना चाहते
मिर्चपुर !
कहीं और बसाने को सरकार
तैयार नजर नहीं आती भला क्यों ?
गनमैन तैनात कर दिए सुरक्षा को
किस से किसकी सुरक्षा की बात
गाँव की गाँव में इंसानों के बीच
इतनी दूरियां आखिर क्यों बढीं ?
क्या गनमैन की सुरक्षा मात्र से
उन परिवारों की भूख मिट पायेगी
क्या उनके बच्चे कभी पढ़ पाएंगे ?
बीमारी का इलाज गनों के साये में
आखिर कब तक किया या करवाया
जा सकता है ?
सोचने की बात है एक तरफ तो
बर्गर और पिज्जा की भरमार है
दूजी तरफ जीने की ही दरकार है
गाँव में किसान का अकेला पण
खेत मजदूर का होता बिखराव
हम इसे देख ही नहीं पा रहे शायद
या ये संकट देखना ही नहीं चाहते
मगर ये देखना तो होगा ही जरूर
और कोई विकल्प नहीं तुम्हारे पास !
मिर्चपुर !
कहीं और बसाने को सरकार
तैयार नजर नहीं आती भला क्यों ?
गनमैन तैनात कर दिए सुरक्षा को
किस से किसकी सुरक्षा की बात
गाँव की गाँव में इंसानों के बीच
इतनी दूरियां आखिर क्यों बढीं ?
क्या गनमैन की सुरक्षा मात्र से
उन परिवारों की भूख मिट पायेगी
क्या उनके बच्चे कभी पढ़ पाएंगे ?
बीमारी का इलाज गनों के साये में
आखिर कब तक किया या करवाया
जा सकता है ?
सोचने की बात है एक तरफ तो
बर्गर और पिज्जा की भरमार है
दूजी तरफ जीने की ही दरकार है
गाँव में किसान का अकेला पण
खेत मजदूर का होता बिखराव
हम इसे देख ही नहीं पा रहे शायद
या ये संकट देखना ही नहीं चाहते
मगर ये देखना तो होगा ही जरूर
और कोई विकल्प नहीं तुम्हारे पास !
विज्ञानं का विद्यार्थी होने के नाते , मैंने प्राय महसूस किया है कि हमारे यहाँ विज्ञानं की शिक्षा सामाजिकता से कटी हुई है , अपनी मूल प्रकृति से हटकर तथा ऐतिहासिक सन्दर्भों से अलग थलग बना कर परोशी जाती है \ इसका परिणाम (अच्छा नहीं ) यही निकलता है कि यह न तो वैज्ञानिक दृष्टिकोण पैदा करती है, न ही स्वस्थ सामाजिकता पैदा करती है \ यह अनेक प्रकार के मिथक पैदा करती है \आइन्सटाइन ने एक बार कहा था -- यदि मेरा भौतिकी पढना किसी भी तरह स्वस्थ नागरिकता (Sociality) पैदा नहीं करता है तो मेरा पढना बेकार है , यदि पैसा कमाने की ही बात है तो मैं वायलिन बजा कर ज्यादा पैसा कम सकता हूँ \ यदि विज्ञानं अपनी मूल प्रकृति या संकल्पनाओं के तहत नहीं पढाया जा रहा है तो एक तरफ तो सैद्धान्तिक गलतफहमियां बंटी हैं , दूसरी तरफ हम विज्ञानवाद के शिकार होते हैं \ यह विज्ञानवाद , विज्ञानं की सीमा से बहार जाकर भटकावों में धकेल देता है \ इस भटकाव में हम यह भूल जाते हैं कि विज्ञानं का कार्य एक समाज नियंत्रित स्थिति है \ क्योंकि विज्ञानं केवल अपने संज्ञान मूल्यों में ही स्वतंत्र है , बाकी यह परिस्थिति जन्य है \------
सृजनात्मकता और कल्पनाशीलता मानव की मूल प्रकृति है \ वस्तुनिष्ठता के नाम पर हम विज्ञानं को बहुत ही यांत्रिक व प्रक्रियाबद्ध बना देते हैं \ हम यह समझने की भूल करते हैं कि विज्ञानं के सिद्धांतों के खोजने में भी कल्पनाशीलता और सृजनात्मकता की भी कोई भूमिका होती है \ विज्ञानं में भी फैंटेसी का एक आनंद होता है \ ऐसी अनेक बातें हैं जहाँ हमारी विज्ञानं शिक्षा मौन नजर आती है \ यहाँ संकलित लेखों के माध्यम से हमारा प्रयास है ,विज्ञानं की प्रकृति से परिचय करना \ इन लेखों में जो चर्चाएँ उठाई गयी हैं , उनमें हर बिंदु पर विस्तृत लेख हैं \ आपकी फीड बैक अपेक्षित है \
वेदप्रिय
सृजनात्मकता और कल्पनाशीलता मानव की मूल प्रकृति है \ वस्तुनिष्ठता के नाम पर हम विज्ञानं को बहुत ही यांत्रिक व प्रक्रियाबद्ध बना देते हैं \ हम यह समझने की भूल करते हैं कि विज्ञानं के सिद्धांतों के खोजने में भी कल्पनाशीलता और सृजनात्मकता की भी कोई भूमिका होती है \ विज्ञानं में भी फैंटेसी का एक आनंद होता है \ ऐसी अनेक बातें हैं जहाँ हमारी विज्ञानं शिक्षा मौन नजर आती है \ यहाँ संकलित लेखों के माध्यम से हमारा प्रयास है ,विज्ञानं की प्रकृति से परिचय करना \ इन लेखों में जो चर्चाएँ उठाई गयी हैं , उनमें हर बिंदु पर विस्तृत लेख हैं \ आपकी फीड बैक अपेक्षित है \
वेदप्रिय
Hindu Nationalism versus Indian Nationalism
Hindu Nationalism versus Indian Nationalism
By Ram Puniyani
By Ram Puniyani
24 July, 2013
Countercurrents.org
The debate around Hindu Nationalism and Indian Nationalism is not a new one. During colonial period, when the rising freedom movement was articulating the concept and values of Indian nationalism, the section of Hindus, keeping aloof from freedom movement asserted the concept of Hindu Nationalism. The debate has resurfaced again due to the one who is trying to project himself as the Prime-Ministerial candidate of BJP-NDA, Narendra Modi. In an interview recently (July 2013) said very ‘simply’ that he was born a Hindu, he is a nationalist, so he is a Hindu Nationalist! His Party President Rajnath Singh also buttressed the point and took it further to say that Muslims are Muslim nationalists, Christians are Christian Nationalists. So one has a variety of nationalisms to choose from!
Modi’s putting 2+2 together and claiming to be a Nationalist and a Hindu and so a Hindu nationalist is like putting the wool in others eyes. Hindu nationalism is a politics and a category with a specific meaning and agenda. This is the part of the ideology and practice of Modi’s parent organizations, BJP-RSS. During colonial period the rising classes of industrialists, businessmen, workers and educated classes came together and formed different organizations, Madras Mahajan Sabha, Pune Sarvajanik Sabha, Bombay Association etc.. These organizations felt for the need for an over arching political organization so went in to form Indian National Congress in 1885. The declining sections of society, Muslim and Hindu landlords and kings also decided to came together to oppose the all inclusive politics of Congress, which in due course became the major vehicle of the values of freedom movement. These declining sections were feeling threatened due to the social changes. To hide their social decline they projected as if their religion is in danger. They also did not like the standing up to the colonial masters by Congress, which had started putting forward the demands for different rising social groups and thereby for India. Congress saw this country as ‘India is a Nation in the making’.
As per declining sections of landlords and kings; standing up to, not bowing in front of the ruler is against the teachings of ‘our’ religion so what is needed according to them is to promote the loyalty to the British. They, Hindu and Muslim feudal elements, came together and formed United India Patriotic Association in 1888. The lead was taken by Nawab of Dhaka and Raja of Kashi. Later due to British machinations the Muslim elite from this association separated and formed Muslim league in 1906, while in parallel to this the Hindu elite first formed Punjab Hindu Sabha in 1909 and then Hindu Mahasabha in 1915. These communal formations argued for Muslim Nationalism and Hindu nationalism. Hindu nationalists also developed the political ideology of Hindutva, articulated particularly by Savarkar in 1923 in his book ‘Hindutva or Who is a Hindu?’ This was an enviable situation for British as such groups would weaken the rising national movement. On one side they quietly supported the Muslim League and parallel to this they handled Hindu Mahasabha with velvet gloves.
Taking a cue from the ideology of Hindutva, RSS came up in 1925, with the path of Hindu Nationalism and goal of Hindu Nation. The values of rising classes embodied in the persona of Bhagat Singh, Ambedkar, Gandhi, Maulana Abul Kalam Azad and many others mainly revolved around Indian Nationalism, built around the principles of Liberty, Equality and Fraternity. The ideology of Muslim League selectively drew from some Muslim traditions to assert the caste and gender hierarchy of feudal society. While Hindu Mahasabha and RSS had tomes like Manusmriti to talk about similar graded hierarchies of caste and gender. Muslim and Hindu communalists were not part of freedom movement as freedom movement was all inclusive and aimed at secular democratic values. Muslim and Hindu communalists drew from glories of respective Kings of the past and kept aloof from anti British struggle, some exceptions are always there to show the evidence of their participation in the freedom struggle.
Gandhi’s attempt to draw the masses in to anti British struggle was the major point due to which the Constitutionalists like Jinnah; traditionalists of Muslim League and Hindu Mahasabha further drifted away and consolidated themselves after 1920s. The trajectory of Hindu Nationalism from the decade of 1920 becomes very clear, to be on the side of British to oppose the Muslim Nationalists. Same applies to Muslim League, as it regarded Congress as a Hindu party. The Freedom of the country and tragic partition led to Muslim Leaguers going to Pakistan while leaving sufficient backlog to sustain Muslim communalism here. Hindu Nationalists in the form of Hindu Mahasabha and RSS gradually started asserting themselves, beginning with murder of Mahatma Gandhi, who surely was amongst the best of the Hindus of that century and probably of many a centuries put together. Hindu Nationalists formed first Jan Sangh and later present BJP. The major issue taken up by these nationalists was opposition to cooperative farming, public sector and undertook a program called ‘Indianization of Muslims’.
The identity related issues have been the staple diet for religious nationalist tendencies. ‘Cow as our mother’, Ram Temple Ram Setu, Abolition of article 370 and Uniform civil code has been the foundation around which emotive hysterical movements have been built. While they keep bringing to our notice as to under whose rule more riots have taken place, one forgets that the root of communal violence lies in ‘Hate other’ ideology spread by communal streams. And most of the communal violence led to coming to power of communal party. Its major offshoot is polarization of communities along religious lines. Modi’s claim the democracy leads to polarization is misplaced wrong as in democratic politics the polarization is along social issues, like Republican-Democrat in America. Polarization around social policies-political issues is part of the process of democracy. The polarization brought about by the politics of Hindu nationalism or Muslim nationalism is around identity of religions. This is not comparable to the processes in US or UK. The polarization along religious lines is against the spirit of democracy, against Indian Constitutions’. Major pillar of democracy is Fraternity, cutting across identities of religion caste and region.
Modi himself, a dedicated RSS swayamsevak has been steeped in the ideology of Hindu nationalism. He glosses over the fact that the large masses of Indian people, Hindus never called and do not call themselves Hindu nationalists. Gandhi was not a Hindu nationalist despite being a Hindu in the moral and social sense. Maulana Abul Kalam Azad was not a Muslim nationalist, despite being a devout Muslim, being a Muslim scholar of highest caliber. During freedom movement also most of the people of all religions’ identified with Indian Nationalism and not with religious nationalism as being projected by Modi and company. Even today people of different religions identify with Indian nationalism and not with religious Nationalism on the lines of Modi and his ilk.
Hindu nationalism will require a Ram Temple; Indian nationalism requires schools, universities and factories for employing the youth. Hindu nationalism is exclusive and divisive, Indian Nationalism is inclusive; rooted in the issues of this world, and not the identity related ones. Unfortunately Hindu nationalists have been raising the pitch around identity issues undermining the issues of the poor and marginalized. The Indian Nationalism, the product of our freedom movement is being challenged by the Hindu nationalism in India, Buddhist Nationalism in Myanmar and Sri Lanka and is a major threat to the process of democratization in those countries, Muslim Nationalism has wrecked havoc in Pakistan, and many other places.
This is the dark tunnel of History, where such invocations of religion in the arena of politics take a semi respectful place, as being witnessed in many parts of the World and more so over in India. One hopes the distinction between religious nationalism and Indian nationalism will not be lost focus of!
Hindu nationalism, does not subscribe to the affirmative action, so the term appeasement of minorities has been floated. For Hindu nationalists, the proactive supportive action for vulnerable religious minorities is a strict no, while for democratic nationalism, this is the norm. One has to see the clever ploy of the Prime Minister aspirant, to call himself a Hindu nationalist. This is one more attempt to indulge in dividing the Indian society along religious lines.
Countercurrents.org
The debate around Hindu Nationalism and Indian Nationalism is not a new one. During colonial period, when the rising freedom movement was articulating the concept and values of Indian nationalism, the section of Hindus, keeping aloof from freedom movement asserted the concept of Hindu Nationalism. The debate has resurfaced again due to the one who is trying to project himself as the Prime-Ministerial candidate of BJP-NDA, Narendra Modi. In an interview recently (July 2013) said very ‘simply’ that he was born a Hindu, he is a nationalist, so he is a Hindu Nationalist! His Party President Rajnath Singh also buttressed the point and took it further to say that Muslims are Muslim nationalists, Christians are Christian Nationalists. So one has a variety of nationalisms to choose from!
Modi’s putting 2+2 together and claiming to be a Nationalist and a Hindu and so a Hindu nationalist is like putting the wool in others eyes. Hindu nationalism is a politics and a category with a specific meaning and agenda. This is the part of the ideology and practice of Modi’s parent organizations, BJP-RSS. During colonial period the rising classes of industrialists, businessmen, workers and educated classes came together and formed different organizations, Madras Mahajan Sabha, Pune Sarvajanik Sabha, Bombay Association etc.. These organizations felt for the need for an over arching political organization so went in to form Indian National Congress in 1885. The declining sections of society, Muslim and Hindu landlords and kings also decided to came together to oppose the all inclusive politics of Congress, which in due course became the major vehicle of the values of freedom movement. These declining sections were feeling threatened due to the social changes. To hide their social decline they projected as if their religion is in danger. They also did not like the standing up to the colonial masters by Congress, which had started putting forward the demands for different rising social groups and thereby for India. Congress saw this country as ‘India is a Nation in the making’.
As per declining sections of landlords and kings; standing up to, not bowing in front of the ruler is against the teachings of ‘our’ religion so what is needed according to them is to promote the loyalty to the British. They, Hindu and Muslim feudal elements, came together and formed United India Patriotic Association in 1888. The lead was taken by Nawab of Dhaka and Raja of Kashi. Later due to British machinations the Muslim elite from this association separated and formed Muslim league in 1906, while in parallel to this the Hindu elite first formed Punjab Hindu Sabha in 1909 and then Hindu Mahasabha in 1915. These communal formations argued for Muslim Nationalism and Hindu nationalism. Hindu nationalists also developed the political ideology of Hindutva, articulated particularly by Savarkar in 1923 in his book ‘Hindutva or Who is a Hindu?’ This was an enviable situation for British as such groups would weaken the rising national movement. On one side they quietly supported the Muslim League and parallel to this they handled Hindu Mahasabha with velvet gloves.
Taking a cue from the ideology of Hindutva, RSS came up in 1925, with the path of Hindu Nationalism and goal of Hindu Nation. The values of rising classes embodied in the persona of Bhagat Singh, Ambedkar, Gandhi, Maulana Abul Kalam Azad and many others mainly revolved around Indian Nationalism, built around the principles of Liberty, Equality and Fraternity. The ideology of Muslim League selectively drew from some Muslim traditions to assert the caste and gender hierarchy of feudal society. While Hindu Mahasabha and RSS had tomes like Manusmriti to talk about similar graded hierarchies of caste and gender. Muslim and Hindu communalists were not part of freedom movement as freedom movement was all inclusive and aimed at secular democratic values. Muslim and Hindu communalists drew from glories of respective Kings of the past and kept aloof from anti British struggle, some exceptions are always there to show the evidence of their participation in the freedom struggle.
Gandhi’s attempt to draw the masses in to anti British struggle was the major point due to which the Constitutionalists like Jinnah; traditionalists of Muslim League and Hindu Mahasabha further drifted away and consolidated themselves after 1920s. The trajectory of Hindu Nationalism from the decade of 1920 becomes very clear, to be on the side of British to oppose the Muslim Nationalists. Same applies to Muslim League, as it regarded Congress as a Hindu party. The Freedom of the country and tragic partition led to Muslim Leaguers going to Pakistan while leaving sufficient backlog to sustain Muslim communalism here. Hindu Nationalists in the form of Hindu Mahasabha and RSS gradually started asserting themselves, beginning with murder of Mahatma Gandhi, who surely was amongst the best of the Hindus of that century and probably of many a centuries put together. Hindu Nationalists formed first Jan Sangh and later present BJP. The major issue taken up by these nationalists was opposition to cooperative farming, public sector and undertook a program called ‘Indianization of Muslims’.
The identity related issues have been the staple diet for religious nationalist tendencies. ‘Cow as our mother’, Ram Temple Ram Setu, Abolition of article 370 and Uniform civil code has been the foundation around which emotive hysterical movements have been built. While they keep bringing to our notice as to under whose rule more riots have taken place, one forgets that the root of communal violence lies in ‘Hate other’ ideology spread by communal streams. And most of the communal violence led to coming to power of communal party. Its major offshoot is polarization of communities along religious lines. Modi’s claim the democracy leads to polarization is misplaced wrong as in democratic politics the polarization is along social issues, like Republican-Democrat in America. Polarization around social policies-political issues is part of the process of democracy. The polarization brought about by the politics of Hindu nationalism or Muslim nationalism is around identity of religions. This is not comparable to the processes in US or UK. The polarization along religious lines is against the spirit of democracy, against Indian Constitutions’. Major pillar of democracy is Fraternity, cutting across identities of religion caste and region.
Modi himself, a dedicated RSS swayamsevak has been steeped in the ideology of Hindu nationalism. He glosses over the fact that the large masses of Indian people, Hindus never called and do not call themselves Hindu nationalists. Gandhi was not a Hindu nationalist despite being a Hindu in the moral and social sense. Maulana Abul Kalam Azad was not a Muslim nationalist, despite being a devout Muslim, being a Muslim scholar of highest caliber. During freedom movement also most of the people of all religions’ identified with Indian Nationalism and not with religious nationalism as being projected by Modi and company. Even today people of different religions identify with Indian nationalism and not with religious Nationalism on the lines of Modi and his ilk.
Hindu nationalism will require a Ram Temple; Indian nationalism requires schools, universities and factories for employing the youth. Hindu nationalism is exclusive and divisive, Indian Nationalism is inclusive; rooted in the issues of this world, and not the identity related ones. Unfortunately Hindu nationalists have been raising the pitch around identity issues undermining the issues of the poor and marginalized. The Indian Nationalism, the product of our freedom movement is being challenged by the Hindu nationalism in India, Buddhist Nationalism in Myanmar and Sri Lanka and is a major threat to the process of democratization in those countries, Muslim Nationalism has wrecked havoc in Pakistan, and many other places.
This is the dark tunnel of History, where such invocations of religion in the arena of politics take a semi respectful place, as being witnessed in many parts of the World and more so over in India. One hopes the distinction between religious nationalism and Indian nationalism will not be lost focus of!
Hindu nationalism, does not subscribe to the affirmative action, so the term appeasement of minorities has been floated. For Hindu nationalists, the proactive supportive action for vulnerable religious minorities is a strict no, while for democratic nationalism, this is the norm. One has to see the clever ploy of the Prime Minister aspirant, to call himself a Hindu nationalist. This is one more attempt to indulge in dividing the Indian society along religious lines.
Ram Puniyani was a professor in
biomedical engineering at the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay, and
took voluntary retirement in December 2004 to work full time for
communal harmony in India. He is involved with human rights activities
from last two decades.He is associated with various secular and
democratic initiatives like All India Secular Forum, Center for Study of
Society and Secularism and ANHAD.
Full Employment Versus Jobless Growth
Full Employment Versus Jobless Growth
By Herman Daly
24 July, 2013
Dalynews.org
Dalynews.org
The Full Employment Act of
1946 declared full employment to be a major goal of U.S. policy.
Economic growth was then seen as the means to attain the end of full
employment. Today that relation has been inverted. Economic growth has
become the end, and if the means to attain that end — automation,
off-shoring, excessive immigration — result in unemployment, well that
is the price “we” just have to pay for the glorified goal of growth in
GDP. If we really want full employment we must reverse this inversion of
ends and means. We can serve the goal of full employment by restricting
automation, off-shoring, and easy immigration to periods of true
domestic labor shortage as indicated by high and rising wages. In
addition, full employment can also be served by reducing the length of
the working day, week, or year, in exchange for more leisure, rather
than more GDP.
Real wages have been falling for decades, yet our
corporations, hungry for cheaper labor, keep bleating about a labor
shortage. What the corporations really want is a surplus of labor. With
surplus labor, wages generally do not rise and therefore all the gains
from productivity increase will go to profit, not wages. Hence the
elitist support for automation, off-shoring, and lax enforcement of
democratically enacted immigration laws.
Traditional stimulus policies do little to reduce
unemployment, for several reasons. First, the jobs that workers would
have gone back to have largely been off-shored as employers sought cheap
foreign labor. Second, cheap foreign labor by way of illegal
immigration seems to have been welcomed by domestic employers trying to
fill the remaining jobs at home. Third, jobs have been “outsourced” to
automation — to robots in the factory and to the consumer, who is now
her own checkout clerk, travel agent, baggage handler, bank teller, gas
station attendant, etc. And fourth, quantitative easing has kept
interest rates low and bond prices high to the benefit of banks’ balance
sheets more than employment. The public benefits from lower mortgage
rates, but loses more from reduced interest earnings on savings, which
does not help employment.
These facts argue for a return to the original intent
of the Full Employment Act of 1946 — specifically that full employment,
not growth, should be the goal. Let us consider four further reasons for
this return.
First, off-shoring production and jobs cannot be
justified as “trade.” The good whose production has been off-shored is
sold in the U.S. to satisfy the same market that its domestic production
used to satisfy. Off-shoring increases U.S. imports, and since no
product has been exported in exchange, it also increases the U.S. trade
deficit. Because the production of the good now takes place abroad,
stimulus spending in the U.S. largely stimulates U.S. imports and
employment abroad. Demand for U.S. labor consequently declines, lowering
U.S. employment and/or wages. It is absurd that off-shoring should be
defended in the name of “free trade.” No goods are traded. The absurdity
is compounded by the fact that off-shoring entails moving capital
abroad, and international immobility of capital is one of the premises
on which the doctrine of comparative advantage rests — and the policy of
free trade is based on comparative advantage! If we really believe in
comparative advantage and free trade then we must place limits on
capital mobility and off-shoring.
Second, for those jobs that have not yet, or cannot
easily be off-shored (e.g., services such as bartending, waiting tables,
gardening, medical care, etc.), cheap foreign labor has become
available via illegal immigration. Many U.S. employers seem to welcome
illegal immigrants. Most are good and honest workers, willing to work
for little, and unable to complain about conditions given their illegal
status. What could be better for union busting and driving down wages of
the American working class, which, by the way, includes many legal
immigrants? The federal government, ever sensitive to the interests of
the employing class, has done an obligingly poor job of enforcing our
immigration laws.
Third, the automation of factory work, services of
bank tellers, gas station attendants, etc. is usually praised as
labor-saving technical progress. To some extent it is that, but it also
represents substitution of capital for labor and labor-shifting to the
consumer. The consumer does not even get the minimum wage for her extra
work, even considering the dubious claim that she enjoys lower prices in
return for her self-service. Ordinary human contacts are diminished and
commerce becomes more sterile and impersonally digitized. In particular
daily interaction between people of different socio-economic classes is
reduced.
Fourth, a “Tobin tax,” a small percentage tax on all
stock market, bond market, and foreign exchange transactions would slow
down the excessive trading, speculation, and gambling in the Wall Street
casino, and at the same time raise a lot of revenue to help close the
federal deficit. This could be enacted quickly. In the longer run we
should move to 100% reserve requirements on demand deposits and end the
commercial banks’ alchemy of creating money out of nothing and lending
it at interest. Every dollar loaned by a bank would be a dollar
previously saved by the owner of a time deposit, respecting the
classical economic balance between abstinence from consumption and new
investment. Most people mistakenly believe that this is how banks work
now. Our money supply would move from being mainly interest-bearing debt
of private banks, to being non interest-bearing government debt. Money
should be a public utility (a unit of account, a store of value, and a
medium of exchange), not an instrument by which banks extort unnecessary
interest payment from the public — like a private toll booth on a
public road.
Cheap labor and funny money policies in the name of
“growth and global competitiveness” are class-based and elitist. Even
when dressed in the emperor’s fashionable wardrobe of free trade,
globalization, open borders, financial innovation, and automation, they
remain policies of growth by cheap labor and financial delusion. And we
wonder why the U.S. distribution of income has become so unequal? We are
constantly told it is because growth is too slow — the single cause of
all our problems! That we would be better off if we were richer is a
definitional truism. The question is, does further growth in GDP really
make us richer, or is it making us poorer by increasing the uncounted
costs of growth faster than the measured benefits? That simple question
is taboo among economists and politicians, lest we discover that the
falling benefits of growth are all going to the top 1%, while the rising
costs are “shared” with the poor, the future, and other species.
Herman Daly
is an American ecological economist and professor at the School of
Public Policy of University of Maryland, College Park in the United
States. He was Senior Economist in the Environment Department of the
World Bank, where he helped to develop policy guidelines related to
sustainable development. He is closely associated with theories of a
Steady state economy. He is a recipient of the Right Livelihood Award
and the NCSE Lifetime Achievement AwardFOSSIL FUEL INDUSTRY
There is a robust debate
happening in university halls, around religious congregations, and at
individual kitchen tables nationwide. The driving question: Should we
divest from the fossil fuel industry?
Whether you are a college student, a trustee of a
religious or educational institution, or an individual with a retirement
fund, this is a relevant question for you.
Earlier this year, several community organizations in Boston, including the Institute for Policy Studies’ Jamaica Plain Forum,
held a community forum in Boston to discuss the moral and practical
issues of divesting from fossil fuel companies as a strategy to combat
climate change.
The forum, viewable here, brought together those with
expertise in finance, community organizing, social justice, and policy
to address questions surrounding the basic nature of fossil fuel
divestment as well as its implications for our investments and our
world. Some of the questions we debated were: Is divestment
meaningful? Can we exert leverage over energy companies by retaining the
leverage of ownership? Would divestment reduce the investment returns
required to sustain our institutions and income needs?
Our view is that our current economy, based on insatiable extraction and consumption, is simply unsustainable
– for the planet as well as for us. Powerful fossil fuel corporations
exercise an undue influence on environmental and economic policy,
thwarting our ability to adopt sane and far-sighted energy policies.
Here's what we found:
1. We Did the Climate Change Math: Now We Must Act
We must compel the 200 largest fossil fuel
corporations to keep 80% of their carbon assets “in the ground.”
Extracting and burning these reserves of oil, coal and gas would raise
the earth’s temperature over 2 degrees centigrade, unleashing climate
catastrophe. [Read: Rolling Stone, Bill McKibben, “Global Warming's Terrifying New Math”]
2. Time to Choose Sides: We Must Raise the Cost of Extracting and Burning Carbon
If we succeed in averting climate catastrophe, it will
be because we have succeeded in raising the cost of fossil fuels and
forcing the industry to internalize its real costs to society and the
environment. This will lower the profitability of the sector – and lower
returns for investors. Our cities, congregations, and universities
should not be in a position where we are rooting for the fossil fuel
industry to win. It isn’t right that the value of a sector doesn’t
reflect its impact on the earth and society. In the long-term,
destroying the planet doesn’t help us boost our investment returns.
3. We Are All Responsible for Carbon
Pollution, But the Fossil Fuel Industry Has a Disproportionate
Responsibility for Climate Change
While each of us should take personal responsibility
for reducing our individual carbon usage, the fossil fuel industry has
disproportionate responsibility for climate change. Many of us would
like to have lower carbon lifestyles, but we’re systemically blocked
from doing so via the lobbying power of the fossil fuel industry. The
fossil fuel industry uses their considerable financial and political
power to rig the rules to block regulation, block sane energy policy,
extract taxpayer subsidies, thwart renewables, and limit consumer
choice. They are writing government policies and fundamentally
distorting our democracy. The industry is institutionally caught in a
short-term system, where their economic interests are aligned with
destroying the planet. If we had a carbon tax, innovation and
development would be pushed towards energy efficiency. [See: Oil Change
International's Dirty Energy Money index.]
4. Fossil Fuel Profitability is Based on Rigging Our Political Systems
The profitability of the fossil fuel sector is based
on their ability to politically influence and rig the system and shift
the real costs associated with their industry onto society. The
externalities that they shift include: environmental pollution, worker
health and safety, cost of military deployment in oil-producing regions,
negative health impacts, global climate change, and political
corruption. If fossil fuel companies had to absorb the true costs of
these externalities, the industry would be transformed—and would
probably likely focus first on energy conservation and sustainable
energy sourcing before further extraction. Their dependence on political
rules makes them a risky and volatile sector as investments. When their
political clout diminishes, as we hope it will, they will become less
profitable. [See: Oil Change International]
5. Investment Returns in Fossil Fuels Will Inevitably Decline
Over the last 20 years, the fossil fuel energy sector
has been among the most profitable of all sectors. For a variety of
reasons, including those described above, this will not remain true. As
policy makers start pushing back, they will eliminate government
subsidies for fossil fuel, as President Obama has proposed. They will
pass laws requiring fossil fuel producers to be more responsible for
their negative environmental and social impacts. There is also growing
evidence that the assets of fossil fuel industries are greatly
over-valued. And, if we are successful, many fossil fuel companies will
have “stranded assets,” reserves that will not be tapped. When the real
value of carbon holdings is adjusted downward, billions in shareholder
wealth will evaporate. [See: Carbon Tracker]
6. Divesting from Fossil Fuels Will Not Negatively Impact Return
Investors are understandably concerned that their
investments will earn less money if they eliminate profitable fossil
fuel corporations. It may not be prudent to sell off securities with
large capital gains all at once; individuals and investors should get
professional advice on the best divestment strategy. Some institutions
have long-term relationships with trusted investment advisors who have
helped their investments grown. It is not ungrateful or unprofessional
to direct these advisors to gradually divest from dirty energy and
reinvest in socially responsible alternatives. Beware, however, of
advisors who tell you it can’t be done or predict huge losses overtime.
It is conventional investment wisdom that if you
narrow the breadth of your investments—and fossil fuel securities are
approximately 10 percent of the public equities market—that you increase
risk. But there is plenty of expertise in the “socially responsible
investment” field as to how to divest and design an investment portfolio
that will still earn comparable returns. Industry professionals are
working now to design “fossil fuel free” investment portfolios and
mutual funds.
7. The Fossil Fuel Sector Will Not Reform Itself
The fossil fuel industry will only reform when we
change the rules that shape their marketplace and operations. This can
be accomplished through regulation and taxation. Instituting a robust
carbon tax, phased in over several years and with offsets to address its
regressivity, would signal huge market shifts. Many thoughtful people
believe we should stay invested in fossil fuel corporations to have
leverage with them and engage with them. This has not worked.
8. Support the Movement and an 'Outside Strategy'
Selling stocks in fossil fuel companies may not drive
down stock prices or even devalue the industry since other buyers will
purchase those stocks. Regardless, the goal of the dirty energy
divestment fight is to change public dialogue and society’s lifestyle,
not stock prices. A traditional approach has been inside: engaging with
the company and using our ownership stake to press the company to
reform. This hasn’t worked. To send a strong message, we need to sever
our ties to this sector and make these companies moral pariahs, similar
to how the public treated tobacco companies.
Thankfully, there is a radical edge emerging to avert
climate catastrophe. The “inside” strategy of working with the fossil
fuel industry to reform itself is not moving fast enough. The new
“outside strategy” activists are calling out the historic environmental groups who have compromised themselves into irrelevance.
They are calling out Wall Street—those interested in only their own
private gain at the expense of society and the earth. They are upping
the ante in terms of direct action, civil disobedience along with
traditional organizing and electoral politics. The call for divestment is part of this movement. [See: 350.org]
9. Engaged Shareholder: You Can Still Work the "Inside Strategy" If You Want
Some institutional investors argue that they can
change the behavior of the fossil fuel industry by retaining ownership
of corporate shares and being engaged investors. Institutions or
individuals that want to actively engage in shareholder
activism—introducing social issue resolutions— should retain the $2,000
of stock that enables them to introduce resolutions, as Greenpeace and
the Institute for Policy Studies do. Ownership is only one source of
leverage, however. We should engage as full stakeholders—citizens,
employees, consumers, communities, and moral actors.
10. The Moral Question Is Why Should Any Institution or Individual Stay Invested: This Is an Abolitionist Cause
Divestment is not primarily simply an economic
strategy, but also a moral and political one. If slavery is wrong, is it
wrong to make a profit from it? If Apartheid is wrong, is it wrong to
make a profit from it? “If it is wrong to wreck the planet, then it is
wrong to profit from it.” [See: The Boston Phoenix, Wen Stephenson, “The New Abolitionists”]
11. We Can Divest from Fossil Fuels and Invest in the New Economy
The next 20 years will be unlike the last 50 years. We
are entering a stage of discontinuity thanks to ecological and economic
change. We are in a transition to a new economy—based on an entirely
different set of assumptions about energy and the future source of
livelihoods. We need to shift capital investment away from the dinosaur
economy and towards the sustainable and just new economy. Compared to
the limited, risky, corrupt and unethical fossil fuel sector, there is a
wide range of socially responsible investment opportunities with
comparable returns for individuals, religious institutions, and other
institutions. [See: New Economy Working Group]
Conclusion: We Should Divest from Fossil Fuels and Invest in the New Economy
There is no good reason why we should remain invested
in the fossil fuel industries, not when we can continue to powerfully
advocate with corporations and maintain sufficient returns. We can and
should find ways to shift our investment capital to the socially and
environmentally attuned institutions and enterprises of the new economy.
Written with assistance from Jonah Reider.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License
Chuck Collins is a senior scholar at the Institute for Policy Studies where he directs the Program on Inequality and the Common Good (www.inequality.org), and the author of the new book, 99 to 1: How Wealth Inequality Is Wrecking the World and What We Can Do about It. Chuck is also a co-founder of Wealth for the Common Good,
a network of business leaders, high-income households and partners
working together to promote shared prosperity and fair taxation.He is
co-author of The Moral Measure of the Economy and with Bill Gates Sr. of
Wealth and Our Commonwealth: Why America Should Tax Accumulated Fortunes
Towards Lok Sabha 2014: Putting The Concerns Of
People's Movements Back In The Frame
People's Movements Back In The Frame
By Kavita Krishnan
24 July, 2013
Countercurrents.org
Countercurrents.org
The recent years have been
years of sustained democratic struggles, intense people’s movements and
people’s assertion. There were massive waves of protest against
corruption, corporate plunder and the policies that promote it, against
rape and rape culture and for women’s freedom. Pitched battles have been
waged at Nagri near Ranchi and against the Koodankulam, Jaitapur,
POSCO, Vedanta projects, that threaten to grab land and livelihood and
endanger safety. Workers have held unprecedentedly successful mass scale
all-India strikes, and have struggled against crackdowns on labour laws
and industrial democracy, most notably at the Maruti’s Manesar factory.
Firing by police or Army/paramilitary on peaceful protests have claimed
lives in several parts of the country – everywhere, people have
struggled for justice. The struggle to free Binayak Sen spurred the
widespread demand for abolition of the sedition law.
Sustained campaigns to expose and demand justice in
fake encounter and custodial torture and custodial death cases and
against witch-hunt of Muslim youth are taking place – in the Batla
House, Ishrat Jahan, Malegaon and Mecca Masjid cases, at Azamgarh and
Darbhanga, to name just a few. Efforts of activists have yielded results
in exposing extrajudicial killings under cover of the AFSPA in Kashmir
and Manipur, and Irom Sharmila’s heroic fast has drawn enormous support
in her crusade against the AFSPA. Even as perpetrators of Dalit
massacres in Bihar were set free, campaigns against the judicial
massacres have emerged with new determination. We have seen the
struggles of adivasis for justice against massacres masquerading as fake
encounters in Odisha and Chhattisgarh, and against the atrocities of
the Salwa Judum. And in the face of all odds, brave women like Zakia
Jafri (wife of Ehsan Jafri, butchered during the Gujarat 2002 massacre)
and Bibi Jagdish Kaur and other women who survived the Sikh massacre of
1984, are keeping the struggle for justice alive.
Will these people’s movements find any political voice
in the forthcoming Lok Sabha polls of 2014? As the Lok Sabha elections
draw closer, the ruling parties and the mainstream media try to narrow
the focus and define the agenda in a way that leaves almost all of the
above movements and concerns out of the frame.
The discourse of the ruling parties and the mainstream media offers the voter – the Indian citizen – a choice between ‘governance’ and ‘secularism’. It is implied that if we want ‘governance’, we should concede that communal violence or fake encounters or corporate land grab are irrelevant questions. And it is implied that if we want ‘secularism’, we must likewise agree to overlook massive corruption, open plunder, opportunism, and outright repression. Must we resign ourselves to this ‘choice’? Or must we assert that such a ‘choice’ is an affront to the tough questions posed by the people’s movements?
The discourse of the ruling parties and the mainstream media offers the voter – the Indian citizen – a choice between ‘governance’ and ‘secularism’. It is implied that if we want ‘governance’, we should concede that communal violence or fake encounters or corporate land grab are irrelevant questions. And it is implied that if we want ‘secularism’, we must likewise agree to overlook massive corruption, open plunder, opportunism, and outright repression. Must we resign ourselves to this ‘choice’? Or must we assert that such a ‘choice’ is an affront to the tough questions posed by the people’s movements?
What we urgently need to do, is to unpack the
official, superficial discourse of ‘governance’ and ‘secularism’, which
empties these terms of any democratic content – and define it in terms
that are compatible with the highest, most consistent democratic norms,
with the goals for which people’s movements are striving.
‘Governance’, Democracy and Accountability
In the corporate media’s newspeak, ‘governance’ and
‘development’ have always meant neoliberal, pro-corporate policies
(supposedly ‘good for the economy’), insulated from the compulsions of
‘populism’ (newspeak for democracy). And if people protest against
what’s ‘good for the economy’ but bad for their rights to land,
livelihood, labour rights etc, ‘good governance’ is supposed to be the
ability to control and suppress protests.
It is important to recall that, until the Radia Tapes
and revelations of multiple scams spoilt the story, Manmohan Singh too
was feted by the corporate media as a model leader representing ‘good
governance,’ because he supposedly stood for what was ‘good for the
economy,’ overriding people’s protests!
Similarly, we can recall that until very recently,
Bihar CM Nitish Kumar was the media darling, hailed for changing the old
‘feel-bad’ Bihar script, and ushering in an agenda of ‘development’ and
‘growth.’ It has taken the recent Mid-day Meal tragedy, and the
shocking toll of 27 children’s lives, to burst that bubble, and expose
the fact that corporate pats-on-the-back and neoliberal policies have
absolutely nothing to do with people-friendly development even on the
most basic fronts of education and health.
Today, the new corporate-backed superman of
‘governance’ is supposed to be Narendra Modi. The corruption, corporate
plunder, and sorry social indicators of India under Manmohan Singh and
Bihar under Nitish Kumar have, over time, become more widely recognised.
Today, we can take some time to examine the claims being made on behalf
of Gujarat under Modi – by those who are suggesting that Modi-fying
India is a panacea for all the ills of the corruption and failures of
the Congress regime.
The Modi ‘Development’ Myth
The Modi ‘Development’ Myth
What, if anything, is special about the development model of Gujarat under Modi?
As we sift the facts from the hype, we can see that
Gujarat’s performance on all criteria has not been in any way better
than that of other states, and moreover, Gujarat’s neoliberal
development model has displayed all the distressing effects on people’s
lives and the economy that have been felt in the rest of the country.
Even on the count of economic growth rate, Gujarat in
the past five years was outstripped by Maharashtra, Haryana,
Chhattisgarh, Bihar and Odisha. In terms of per capita income, in 2011,
Gujarat ranked 6th among major states, and has higher per capita debt
than UP or Bihar. And, Gujarat’s social indicators too tell the same
sorry story that has marked the neoliberal model in the rest of India.
Jobless growth has been the norm - NSSO data shows growth in employment
for the period 1993-94 to 2004-05 was 2.69 percentage per annum, whereas
for 2004-05 to 2009-10 it came down to zero. In 2011, Gujarat ranked
11th in the Human Development Index. When it comes to crucial indicators
like education and health, Gujarat has witnessed a decline in ranking
to 9th and 10th positions respectively in a group of 19 major states.
Education, health and nutrition indicators are dismal, especially for
women and children. In the Global Hunger index, Gujarat is part of the
bottom 5 states in India, and globally, performs worse even than states
like Haiti. 80% of children below 4 years and 60% of pregnant women are
anaemic in Gujarat (a virtual anaemia epidemic that Modi laughs off as a
case of ‘beauty conscious girls’ starving themselves!).
45% of urban children and 60% of rural children are
not immunized, and in rural areas, 60% of child deliveries do not happen
in institutional conditions. What about the Gujarat Government’s
priorities? In social sector spending as a proportion of public
expenditure, Gujarat ranks a lowly 19th among India’s 21 major states.
What about corruption and corporate plunder? A CAG
audit reveals that Modi’s Government has done in Gujarat what Manmohan
Singh’s did at the Centre: extend undue benefits to corporations at huge
costs to the public exchequer and loss of livelihoods.
So, the ‘Modi model’ is no different in its economic
essentials than the Manmohan model. Why, then, is Gujarat a preferred
destination for the corporations? When faced with peasants’ protest in W
Bengal or workers’ protests in Haryana, why do corporations threaten to
take their business to Gujarat instead?
Is it because working class unrest is less in a state
governed by Modi? Atul Sood, in a recent collection of him, Poverty
Amidst Prosperity: Essays on the Trajectory of Development in Gujarat,
notes that Gujarat “witnessed not merely jobless growth but also the
lowest share of wage income in total income, one of the highest use of
contract workers in organized manufacturing and rising trends of
casualisation of workforce. Not surprisingly, Gujarat topped the list as
the ‘worst state’ for labour unrest in the Economic Survey 2011,
witnessing the maximum incidences of strikes, lockouts and other forms
of unrest on various financial and disciplinary grounds (wage and
allowances, bonus, personnel, discipline and violence) at a time when
these were actually declining in the rest of the country.” (from a
review of Atul Sood’s volume of essays, Shipra Nigam, May 23, 2013,
Kafila)
The corporations’ preference for the Modi model,
argues Sood, rests on his authoritarianism. We could qualify this to say
that the Modi ‘magic’ lies precisely in the mix of pro-corporate
policies, authoritarian governance, and ‘consent’ manufactured on a
communal plank. It is this mixture that is the specific form of
communal- corporate fascism represented by Modi.
Hatred and violence against minorities is a key
ingredient of the ‘consent’ Modi has achieved for his pro-corporate,
repressive governance model. Modi’s success lay in his ability to craft a
‘Hindu’ political constituency (as different from voters who happen to
be Hindu), by setting up the straw figure of Muslim ‘enemies’ to Gujarat
and the nation, and then by enacting the spectacular defeat and
subordination of the ‘enemy’. The communal pogrom of 2002 was planned
and enacted to achieve precisely this effect. The series of fake
encounters in Modi’s Gujarat were different from equally heinous fake
encounters in other states. In most other states, the ‘encounters’ are
faked by trigger-happy cops, to falsely claim to have ‘solved’ a blast
case or to achieve a promotion or a medal, rather than being knit
together by a political design. In Gujarat, a series of fake encounters
were scripted to build up Modi’s image as a ‘Hindu nationalist’ hero
being targeted by Muslim terrorists. Each fake encounter reinforced the
idea of Muslims as the supreme threat to the social/national order, who
are ritually vanquished by Modi’s police force, over and over again.
Communal violence and hate-speech, then, is not an
embarrassing aberration, it is at the heart of the Modi model of
governance. When he uses the analogy of ‘kutte ka baccha’ (the English
‘puppy’ cannot convey the abusive connotation of this Hindi phrase, a
more apt translation would be ‘sons of bitches’) for victims of the
communal pogrom of 2002, or derides secularism as a ‘burqa,’ it is not a
‘gaffe’ as some of his corporate media apologists have claimed. This is
the language he has always used: recall his infamous speeches equating
Muslims with five wives and overpopulation (‘ham paanch hamare
pachchees’); attacking the Election Commissioner with taunting reference
to his Christian name (‘James Michael Lyngdoh’); and brazenly
celebrating custodial killing by asking an audience “What should be done
with a man like Sohrabuddin?” and hearing the response: “Kill him.”
Modi’s image-managers claim he is a hero of ‘development’, far above any
communal politics. But Modi has brazenly affirmed that contempt,
hatred, and violence towards the Muslim minorities is inextricable from
his imagery, his metaphors, and his politics.
What the corporations hope is that this model would be
able to avert the kind of popular mass protests that the Manmohan
regime has, much to their dismay, failed to avert. The ‘authority’
conferred by the US bosses on Manmohan Singh failed to insulate him from
outraged people’s protests, and a public unraveling of the sordid story
of the nexus of corporations and politics that led to a haemorrhaging
of the country’s resources and assets. It is in moments of crisis that
capitalism seeks a fascist resolution, exemplified by an authoritarian
leader and a ‘hard’ state. And so the corporations hope that Modi’s
‘Hindutva hero’ image combined with the ‘governance superman’ image
crafted by the media, will suffice to get him to power and to diffuse
the political crisis of a State beleaguered by people’s protest
movements.
Secularism and Democracy: Essential Components of Pro-People ‘Governance’
The prevailing mainstream discourse on secularism also calls for urgent challenge.
Modi’s Open Derision for Secularism
On the one hand, we have Modi’s offensive, derisive
usage of communal imagery and explicit equation of ‘nationalism’ with
the Hindu religion. Modi has openly affirmed that the question of
justice in communal violence is of no importance whatsoever, and the
Gujarat 2002 massacre can be trivialised by comparing its victims to
‘kutthe ka baccha’ under the wheels of a car.
The BJP’s defence – that this analogy actually affirms
Modi’s compassion and concern for all living creatures – is rather
laughable. After all, would Modi have gone to Uttarakhand and referred
to the flood victims in similar terms, as dogs crushed under cars? Modi
has proclaimed that he is a Hindu nationalist; and this, he claims,
follows from being a Hindu and a nationalist. This is a complete
fallacy. In the history of India’s freedom struggle and since, there
have been many Hindus who have been Indian nationalists to the core, but
have expressly rejected any notion of ‘Hindu nation.’ The ‘Hindu
nation’ was always a figment of the fascist imagination of the Rashtriya
Swayamsevak Sangh, of which Modi is a proud product. And the RSS’ model
of political action from its inception was against anti-colonial
nationalism, and only obsessed with fanning up hatred against Muslims.
On the heels of his ‘puppy’ analogy, Modi used the
‘burqa’ metaphor in a speech, saying that the Congress is hiding its
failures behind the ‘burqa’ of secularism. Again, the use of the ‘burqa’
(rather than the word ‘purdah’ which is used by Hindus and Muslims
alike, or ‘ghoonghat’) metaphor is a very deliberate jibe aimed at the
Muslim minority. It is a metaphor calculated to provoke contempt for
‘secularism’ by equating it with Muslims. Modi’s ‘sadbhavna’ and ‘India
First’ posturing just can’t hide the fact that for him, the very thought
of ‘Muslims’ and ‘secularism’ are associated with ‘kutte ka baccha’ and
‘burqa.’
In Modi’s model of ‘Hindu nationalism,’ it is
anti-national to demand justice for victims of fake encounters and
communal violence – if those victims are from the Muslim (or Christian)
minorities. To even demand the truth of what happened to Ishrat Jahan is
to be anti-national.
Clearly Modi considers secularism to be a dispensable
veil, but India needs it as an essential ingredient for survival and
progress.
‘Secular’ Must Mean More Than ‘Not Nakedly Communal’
In response to Modi’s ‘burqa’ barb, the Congress said
the ‘burqa’ of secularism is preferable to naked communalism. The
Congress thus concurs with the BJP that secularism belongs to the realm
of form and not essence. For all democratic people, however, secularism
must be a non-negotiable aspect of the essence of modern India.
For Congress, Nitish Kumar, for Mulayam Singh,
Mayawati, or Mamata Banerjee and for most other ruling class formations,
‘secularism’ has become nothing much more than rank opportunism,
whereby the goalposts of ‘secular’ and ‘communal’ can be changed
according to convenience. The Congress claims to be ‘secular’ on the
strength that its politics does not require its leaders to compare
Muslims to ‘kutthe ka baccha.’ But when it comes to a positive
atmosphere of ensuring equality, dignity and security of minorities, the
Congress’ record is a dismal one (as it that of the other non-BJP
ruling class parties).
Manmohan Singh himself has, offensively, equated
anti-imperialism with ‘Muslim communalism’, accusing opposition to his
Government’s anti-Iran vote under US pressure at the IAEA of being an
attempt to ‘communalise foreign policy’! Rahul Gandhi’s father Rajiv
himself tried to cash in on the ‘Ram Mandir’ sentiment by opening the
locks of the Babri Masjid and starting his election campaign from
Faizabad (twin town of Ayodhya) with the slogan of ‘Ram Rajya’. The
failure to implement the recommendations of the Sachar Committee, the
complete betrayal of the efforts to secure justice against perpetrators
of communal violence (ignoring the Sri Krishna Commission or the
Liberhans Commission) are just a few more of the Congress’ opportunist
compromises with communal forces.
Rajiv Gandhi’s ‘When a big tree falls, the earth
shakes’ metaphor for the anti-Sikh pogrom following Mrs. Gandhi’s
killing isn’t much better than Modi’s ‘Newton’s laws of motion,’ as a
shameless attempt at justifying a Congress-sponsored communal pogrom.
And the ‘secular/democratic’ claims of Congress and
other ruling class parties crumble entirely when it comes to fake
encounters, custodial killings, police firing and witch-hunt of Muslim
youth in the name of ‘fighting terror’.
Should We Vote for Killers of Innocent Citizens?
Atif and Sajid (killed by police in fake encounter at
Batla House), Khalid Mujahid in custody of UP police, 19-year-old Ishrat
Jahan, political science teacher Manzoor Ahmad Shan (among those shot
dead by BSF at Ramban in Kashmir), Khumbongmayum Orsonjit (killed by
Army in fake encounter in Manipur)... should the murder of these
innocent citizens not be a political issue?
The ‘normalisation’ of custodial/extrajudicial torture
and killing is frightening. Not only the BJP, but most ruling class
parties and the mainstream media discourse tells us that in ‘real’
politics, when we cast our votes, the cold-blooded murder of citizens by
men in uniform ought to be kept out of consideration, and even condoned
as a necessary price to pay for ‘national security.’
Fake encounters claim the lives of petty criminals,
police informers, adivasis branded as Maoists, Manipuris and Kashmiris,
Muslims said to be ‘terrorists.’ And when the Indian rulers’ campaign of
fake charges of terror and fake encounters combines with the US
imperialist agenda of ‘war on terror’, it is a huge boost in the arm for
the ideological climate of communal fascism. This is all the more so
because it isn’t linked to one party – the BJP – alone. In most Indian
states, regardless of which party rules, Muslims (and any other section
of people – adivasis/’Maoists’, Manipuris, Kashmiris - painted as
‘enemies of the nation’) can be arrested, tortured and eliminated at
will - no questions asked – in the guise of ‘national security’ and ‘war
on terror.’
Communal violence per se does not command the degree
of acceptance in the popular imagination that the witch-hunt of Muslims
dubbed as ‘terrorists’ does. Modi’s ‘kutthe ka baccha’ comment may meet
with outrage, but when prominent and respected media commentators argue
that ‘law’ should be sacrificed for ‘order’; that the Indian spy
agencies should be allowed to conduct ‘controlled killings’; and that
the IB and national security cannot survive unless exempted from
obligations to the Constitution and the various sections of criminal
law; there are fewer outraged cries, and these opinions are not
described as ‘fascist.’ But these are the insidious ways in which the
fascist consensus is created.
When ruling class parties do raise these issues of
custodial killings, there is often a cynical opportunism involved,
whereby positions vary depending on the constituency being addressed.
Salman Khursheed will shed tears for Batla House at Azamgarh during an
election meeting, or will apologise - in Kashmir - for the Kunan
Poshpora mass rape by the Army – at the same advising Kashmiris to
forgive, forget and move on. But the UPA Government will resist any
judicial probe into the Batla House encounter, and has consistently
protected Army personnel accused of rape, be it in Kashmir or Manipur!
The JD(U), between 2004 and 2013, never once recalled that Ishrat Jahan
was ‘a daughter of Bihar’ nor was concerned about any of the sons of
Bihar (Darbhanga) who have been falsely implicated in flimsy charges of
terrorism! Their crocodile tears for Ishrat were shed only after they
broke up their long alliance with BJP.
In Delhi, as the newly formed Aam Aadmi Party’s
election campaign unfolds, similar concerns arise. The AAP did issue a
statement on the Ishrat Jahan fake encounter. A letter by Arvind
Kejriwal addressed to Muslims in Delhi raises the issue of the
witch-hunt of Muslims in false terror charges, and reminds them that AAP
leader Prashant Bhushan is an advocate active in the struggle for
justice in the Gujarat 2002 pogrom, Ishrat Jahan and Batla House cases.
Faced, then, with a Sangh offensive and opposition even from many of his
supporters about ‘appeasement of Muslims’, Kejriwal issued a
clarification, defending the party’s stance of initiating dialogue with
various sections of society.
But simultaneously, AAP leader Kumar Vishwas, a singer
with a considerable following, has been taking public positions
pandering to quite another – right-wing, chauvinist - constituency.
These positions are shared literally by thousands on Facebook and
Twitter. On the Ishrat Jahan case, he commented on Facebook: “Is Ishrat
Jahan’s death bigger than the death of 50000 innocents of Uttarakhand?”,
going on to lament the “conscience-less politics that slyly knots up
the country’s major problems in irrelevant questions to pit people
against each other.” Unmoved by the AAP’s statement on Ishrat Jahan fake
encounter that was subsequently issued, he again went on to weigh
Ishrat Jahan against the children killed in the Mid-day Meal massacre in
Bihar. Referring to the JD(U)’s ‘Bihar ki beti’ remark about Ishrat, he
tweeted, “Any takers for the 27 ‘Bihar ke Bete n Betiyan’ killed by
midday poison, who were ‘unfortunately’ not a part of ‘communal’ nor
‘secular’ politics?”
On Twitter, Kumar Vishwas was asked, “would (you) like
to have Ram mandir at the site or not?? My question is to Kumar not AAP
member”, and Kumar Vishwas replied, “Every Indian wants Ram Mandir at
its site except BJP because then they will lose an issue of making
people fool”. Again, the notion that ‘every Indian’ wants a Ram Mandir
where the Babri Masjid stood at Ayodhya is a communally loaded one, but
Vishwas seems free to pander to these sentiments without being
contradicted by the AAP party.
If one believes that a 19-year-old girl drugged and killed in cold blood by police is an ‘irrelevant’ issue, and that, because she is a Muslim girl accused in death of being a terrorist, she should be contrasted as the ‘guilty’ and ‘irrelevant’ Other of the ‘innocents’ of Uttarakhand and children of Bihar, one should not presume to speak of ‘democracy’, where the life and freedom of each citizen is of equal value irrespective of their identity.
If one believes that a 19-year-old girl drugged and killed in cold blood by police is an ‘irrelevant’ issue, and that, because she is a Muslim girl accused in death of being a terrorist, she should be contrasted as the ‘guilty’ and ‘irrelevant’ Other of the ‘innocents’ of Uttarakhand and children of Bihar, one should not presume to speak of ‘democracy’, where the life and freedom of each citizen is of equal value irrespective of their identity.
Kejriwal’s letter to Muslims, and his letter of
clarification to sceptics, strangely, mentions Kashmir only in the
context of the ‘Hindus’ (Pandits) who faced atrocities there. There is
complete silence on the custodial killings and mass graves in Kashmir,
and on the firings on peaceful protesters by Army/paramilitary that take
place with monotonous regularity. At Ramban in Kashmir, peaceful
protesters were killed in BSF firing just a few days ago. When
protesters face lathicharge or water cannons in Delhi, we all, including
the AAP, rightly describe it as police brutality. How come bullets that
take the lives of peaceful protesters in Kashmir don’t even merit a
mention in Kejriwal’s letters or AAP’s statements? We wonder – why,
indeed, should the Batla House issue figure only in the AAP’s letter to
Muslims? Isn’t it even more important to sensitise the non-Muslims on
these issues? Wouldn’t a letter by AAP to its own leader Kumar Vishwas
himself be more in order, to correct his outrageous positions that are
pandering to communal and chauvinist sentiment?
For the forces of people’s movements, the challenge
has to be to challenge the ruling class terms of the debate, and to
ensure that each and every issue of people’s movements – issues at the
heart and soul of democracy – are raised loud and clear in the
elections, just as loudly as we raise them on the streets.
Those who defend scams, corporate plunder, destruction of people’s livelihood to appease imperialist economic policies, fake encounters and custodial killings; those who violate labour laws and trample on industrial democracy, those who defend rape and prescribe Lakshman Rekhas for women, those who protect perpetrators of massacres of Dalits, minorities, and adivasis, those who justify impunity for Army personnel who rape and kill in the North East and Kashmir – all must face the music in the elections and be forced to recognise that there’s no reprieve. Votes are about democracy – and questions of democracy cannot be suppressed and shunted aside when votes are cast.
Kavita Krishnan is Polit Bureau member of CPI(ML) and Editor, Liberation. She tweets @kavita_krishnan
Tuesday, July 23, 2013
कई साल के बाद मामा के गाँव नया बांस जा पाया । पाँच मामा मेरे पाँचों चल बसे । सबसे बड़ी मामी जीवित हैं । तीसरे व् पांचवें नंबर की मामी ठीक बसर कर रही हैं । सभी के परिवारों से मिलकर बहुत शकून मिला ।
बड़ी मामी मिसेज बजे सिंह
तीजी मामी मिसेज करतार सिंह
भाई मुख्तयार सिंह
भाई मुख्तयार सिंह
नानाजी
मामा बजे सिंह
मामा करतार सिंह
बड़ी मामी मिसेज बजे सिंह
तीजी मामी मिसेज करतार सिंह
भाई मुख्तयार सिंह
भाई मुख्तयार सिंह
नानाजी
मामा बजे सिंह
मामा करतार सिंह
विज्ञानं की प्रकृति एवम मूल्य
विज्ञानं की प्रकृति एवम मूल्य
विज्ञानं के महत्व की स्वीकार्यता आज जग जाहिर है अपने कथन के औचत्य के लिए ऐसे वाक्य प्राय दोहराए जाते हैं -- यह बात वैज्ञानिक है , विज्ञानं इसे मानता है , इसके पीछे वैज्ञानिक सबूत है ,आदि आदि
इसका आशय इस प्रकार ले लिया जाता है कि यदि विज्ञानं ही ऐसा कहता है तो यह सत्य तो है ही , अर्थात इस पर किन्तु परन्तु नहीं किये जा सकते \ इसे यूं भी समझ लिया जाता है कि जैसे यह कोई अंतिम सत्य है , पूरी तरह वस्तुनिष्ठ है आदि आदि \ कुछ तो अतिरंजना में यह भी कह देते हैं किविज्ञानं चाहे तो न जाने क्या कर दे \दूसरी और ऐसे लोगों की भी कमी नहीं जो विज्ञानं को ही सारी समस्याओं की जड़ मानते हैं (अर्थात विज्ञानं की भूमिका को तो स्वीकारते ही है ) उनका कहना है कि असली ज्ञान तो कुछ्ह और ही है और वह शुरू ही तब होता है जहाँ विज्ञानं ख़त्म हो जाता है \ विज्ञानं चाहे कुछ भी है , इतना जरूर है कि यह महत्वपूर्ण है \
विज्ञानं की प्रकृति एवं मूल्य (पुस्तक)
प्रकाशक
हरयाणा विज्ञानं मंच
विज्ञानं के महत्व की स्वीकार्यता आज जग जाहिर है अपने कथन के औचत्य के लिए ऐसे वाक्य प्राय दोहराए जाते हैं -- यह बात वैज्ञानिक है , विज्ञानं इसे मानता है , इसके पीछे वैज्ञानिक सबूत है ,आदि आदि
इसका आशय इस प्रकार ले लिया जाता है कि यदि विज्ञानं ही ऐसा कहता है तो यह सत्य तो है ही , अर्थात इस पर किन्तु परन्तु नहीं किये जा सकते \ इसे यूं भी समझ लिया जाता है कि जैसे यह कोई अंतिम सत्य है , पूरी तरह वस्तुनिष्ठ है आदि आदि \ कुछ तो अतिरंजना में यह भी कह देते हैं किविज्ञानं चाहे तो न जाने क्या कर दे \दूसरी और ऐसे लोगों की भी कमी नहीं जो विज्ञानं को ही सारी समस्याओं की जड़ मानते हैं (अर्थात विज्ञानं की भूमिका को तो स्वीकारते ही है ) उनका कहना है कि असली ज्ञान तो कुछ्ह और ही है और वह शुरू ही तब होता है जहाँ विज्ञानं ख़त्म हो जाता है \ विज्ञानं चाहे कुछ भी है , इतना जरूर है कि यह महत्वपूर्ण है \
विज्ञानं की प्रकृति एवं मूल्य (पुस्तक)
प्रकाशक
हरयाणा विज्ञानं मंच
Saturday, July 20, 2013
Milkha Singh
भाग मिल्खा भाग देखतें आंसूं कई बरियाँ आये रै
फ़्लाइंग सिख के बाहनै असली खाते खोल दिखाए रै
फ़्लाइंग सिख के बाहनै असली खाते खोल दिखाए रै
Friday, July 19, 2013
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