When will the Armed Forces Special Power Act (AFSPA) be withdrawn from Manipur? When will this act leave us in peace? I would not mind leaving this evil world only if I could perform the last rites of my beloved daughter! My daughter was just a delicate girl. Why was she tortured so brutally? Why did they rape her and kill her? My sorrow swells up day after day as the innocent loving face of my daughter haunts me day and night. Such were the heart touching wail of the broken hearted mother of Thangjam Manorama (32) who was, after taken away from home, tortured, in all probability raped, and killed by the 17th Assam Rifles.
Thangjam Manorama , was the daughter of late Thangjam Birahari and Thangjam ongbi Khumanleima (60) of Bamon Kampu Mayai Leikai. When this writer met the family, the Khumanleima said with tear-filled eyes, “It was on the 10th of July 2004, just short of midnight that numerous vehicles of the 17th Assam Rifles parked around our gate. Some of the AR personnel entered our house where-in were only four of us-my daughter. Th. Manorama, my sons, Th. Dolendro and Th. Basu. The security men turned to my daughter and asked her if she was a member of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA). One of the ARs slapped my daughter for her negative reply. My sons Dolendro and Basu were also beaten seriously. I still remember the blood from the ear of my son. In addition, they turned to me, an old woman, and offered me kicks and punches. I lost my sense for some moments. After a short unhappy pause she added, “In front of my dimmed eyes, they charged on my daughter with the butts of their guns. Unsatisfied with that, they poured water from her head and continued to beat her black and blue. If all happened in front of our eyes.
“After the severe beating I assisted Dolendro, the Assam Rifles tried to take away our sister. At length, they began to prepare an arrest memo on which they wrote my sisters name and address. The memo was signed by hawaldar G.D. Sureshkumar (No. 173355) and counter signed by rifleman T. Lotha (No. 173916) and rifleman Ajetsing (No. 173491) of the 17th Assam Rifles.
“It was dearly written on the memo,” said Dolendro to this writer, “that nothing illegal was found from my sister at the time of the arrest. She was arrested in normal physical condition under the suspicion of being a member of the Peoples Liberation Army. It was also deceptively written on the memo that, while conducting the search inside the house of Manoram, the A.R. personnel neither destroyed any house hold materials nor tortured any family members. Though it was against the will of the family, the AR personnel forced us to sign a ‘No Claim Certificate” Then the ARs told us to come the following morning to the 17th AR camp at Kangla and to pick up our sister Th. Manorama . They left us at around 2:30 am.
“At dawn the 11th July 2004 at about 5:30 am,” Dolendro said, “the lifeless body of beloved sister was found at Thongngaibam Chingjel near Yaipharok Maring Village situated at the Yairipok Road (which is also known as Ngarian Road). Near the dead body my sister was one hand-grenade and a Kenwood set . In the arrest memo it was mentioned that nothing was with her at the time of arrest. Now, it is subtly proved that the security men purposely but foolishly put such things as to evidence their cock and bull report. Why did they do so?” Asked the brother helplessly, ‘There were not a single empty cartridge but we found some 3 or 4 bullet wounds at the back and navel of our sister.”
“We found severe bleeding from the vagina of our sister,” said sister Th. Inao adding to the heart shocking story, ‘She was stabbed on her right thigh and left arm probably after several torturing cuts. One of her nipples was also bruised and plucked off. Such an unexplainable inhumane act. The bleeding from her private part evidently shows that my helpless sister was repeatedly raped by the Assam Rifles, because there was no evidence of gunshot wounds or stab on her private part. Really , she was raped, raped repeatedly and shot brutally!” insisted Th. Inao.
‘Till now we are lamenting against the deaf ears, though fate has taken our sister, we have decided not to perform her rituals, which is a must for us, until and unless AFSPA is repealed .” Repressing her tears, she added,’ We can’t bear this. Leaving her necessary rites undone is really torturing us silently. Her soul may be wandering here and there, around us. Being her family, we in heart want to perform her rituals.”
“My daughter was a young delicate maiden”, added the bereaved mother who had been crying, “Why did they take her honour? Why did they spoil her virginity? For what reason did they torture her? Why? Why did they kill her?” She cried beating her breast, “I can’t forget the loving face of my daughter. Her smiles are still alive in my mind. Her memories enliven the burning sorrow in my heart. I cannot stop my tear when I see friends in their festive costumes. The photos of my daughter, P. Chittarajan, K. Memita and Jamkhoet Khongsai, which have been at our gate for four years, are now voicelessly praying in the midst of dust. Sometimes, may be contemptuous securitymen or mischievous drunk fellows displace the photos. Such things will go on if the rituals of my daughter is not performed. The only desire left in my broken heart is to perform her rites and leave this world peacefully following the unfortunate soul of my daughter.”
Thangjam Manorama (32 yrs) was born on 25th December 1971. She passed class ten (matric exam.) from Irillbung High School and further completed graduation (BA)from Kumbi College. She assisted her poor family by weaving silk. She earned a little from her hard toil and helped the family’s daily needs but many days were spent with empty stomach. Th. Modon is the eldest son. Manorama, being the second child, is succeeded by sister Inao, brother Dolendro, another sister Ibemcha and the youngest brother Basu. Against the cruel murder of Manorama many civil organisation of Manipur, altogether, launched a general strike through out the state. Manipur Forward Youth Front (MAFYF) called state wide general strike from the midnight of July 12 till the midnight of July 14. Other organizations, the All Manipur Women Social Reformation and Development Samaj, Macha Leima, HERICOUN etc. actively supported the state wide strike.
What happened on the next day after the end of the bandh, July 15,2004 surprised and shocked the world. In the morning at around 10:15 am, Twelve women out of nowhere, stormed at the western gate of the 17th Assam Rifles Kangla and in an unprecedented act, of protest shed their clothes and challenged the security forces to rape them. Facing the AR gate with their bare bodies, they shouted to the Assam Rifles, “If you really have the craze to rape, come rape us’ They raised banners where was written in bold letters, “INDIAN ARMY RAPE US,’ INDIAN ARMY TAKE OUR FLESH.”
That was an unexpected consequence of the custodial murder of Th. Manorama after rape. More than 50 women from different women’s organizations of Manipur came from G.M.Hall and among them, 12 naked bodies marched on to the Kangla gate and cried against the killing of Manorama , “You dogs of AR! Come rape us like you raped meitei chanu (women) Manorama”. They wailed. They shouted, “We are all mothers of Manorama. We stand for our daughter Manorama. Come fulfill your lust. Play on our body. Eat our flesh. Come Indian Army. They continued their complaint against AFSPA will slogans, GO BACK INDIAN ARMY. Withdraw the Armed Forces Special Power Act 1958 from Manipur! “
The protest of the women continued for about 45 minutes. Due to excessive emotion, more than half of them fell unconscious . Being surprised, some AR personnel watched the scene dumbfounded. They stood spell-bound. The scene broke the heart of the passers by. People even shed tears and closed their eyes.
There was no policeman when the women protesters sprang from no-where and staged their tear-provoking scene. Some minutes later, police officials along with Imphal west SP scolded the police officers for there were no women police. Disregarding the polices effort to carry the fainted women, the protesters used private vehicles to take them to hospitals. The women then tried to launch the same protest in front of the Chief Minister Bangaloo. Police arrested some of the protesters and dropped them at the gate of the office of the All Manipur Women Social Reformation and Development Samaj (AMWSRDS0 situated at the palace gate.
As precautionary measures to control the possible drastic situations, the Manipur Government imposed indefinite curfew from 11am of the same day in Imphal East and West district. The D.C. Imphal West also issued orders under section 19 of The Cable Television Network Regulation Act, 1995, prohibiting the transmission of any particular programme including news items. As a result of the unexpected announcement of curfew people in and around Imphal Bazar madly ran here and there Under Commission of Enquiry Act 1952 (60 of 1952) the state government appointed a team to investigate on the murder of Th. Manroama .
Normal life was severely affected by the general strike called by several civil organizations, which was again supplemented by curfew from the side of the government. Even though curfew was imposed by the state government at the 7 Assembly segment area of Imphal, mobs and serious protests raised in corners of Imphal and the greater Imphal area. Police fired thousands of rubber bullets and the sky was covered with dense smoke from the rain of tear gas shells used by the police to control the angry people. People also pelted stones and used catapults against the police. Sounds of rubber bullets, tear gas, mock bombs and blank fire turned Imphal city like a war field.
There were casualties on both sides. The protest continued for several days. Civil organizations held meira (torch) rallies. Nights were lit by numerous women holding meiras and shouting slogans. Anger rose as police stopped the rallies and lathi charged on those who came out on streets during curfews hours.
C. Upendra Singh, Retd. District and session Judge, Manipur was the president of the Commission of enquiry. The purpose of the COE was to identify the AR personals who were involved in the rape and murder of Th. Manorama and to take up steps to avoid such incidents in future. The enquiry team took a spot report from Yaipharok Maring Village, from where Manorama’s breathless bloody body was found. They have also repeatedly interrogated the family members of the deceased. But, in spite of all there, the commission failed to disclose the truth behind the case of Manorama. It is crystal clear that the government and the Army have intentionally kept the case under lock and key.
The Union Minister of India also made several efforts to lull the annoyed public of Manipur from Manipur, but so far no action has been taken up to satisfy the public. For the complete removal of this act, the civil organisations of Manipur re-organised themselves and formed the Working Committee of Apunba Lup. The representatives of this combined lup (Association) met the Prime Minister, Dr. Manmohan Singh and a positive response was given with a promise to replace AFSPA with another act.
On 30th July, people from all direction rose for a mass rally. Clashes between the police and protesters happened at different corners. Hundreds of protesters were hurt. The Mass rally, which was organized by Apunba Lup of 32 organisations, was blocked by the CRPF, RPF(Raped Action Force), Imphal West and East Commandos, IRB and Manipur Rifles. Many were taken hurt to RIMS and JN Hospital. Casualty departments were filled with injured protesters.
On August 15, at 10 am, Pebam Chittrarajan made another historic protest by burning himself at Bishnupur Bazar. His breath left him on 16th August in the hospital. K. Memita from Lamlai also died due to over bleeding as she was hit with bullet on the leg.
Following P. Chittaranjan’s incident, five members of MAFYF burnt their legs with kerosene oil at the gate of the Chief Minister’s bangalow. Commando buried themselves in driving away protesters who organized dharna (sit-in-protests) and rallies at local clubs. Not only this, the police entered the local colonics and shot tear gas and rubber bullets to threaten the public. In such incidents, one senior reporter of the Sanaleipak Daily Paper, Thiyam Richard Ranjan was beaten black and blue, right at the courtyard of his own house by 2nd MR men. Against the uncivilized act of the 2nd MR, journalist fraternity members, protested in front of the Chief Minister’s bungalow and demanded that the personnel who raised arms against a reporter should be terminated immediately. They added, in their complaint, that AFSPA which has made the security men wild animals should be removed.
The lifeless body of Manorama had been in the RIMS morgue for many days. After post-mortem, her body was cremated by the government at the Minuthong crematorium, declaring the body an unclaimed one. The cremation was without the consent of the family members. The district magistrate issued an order to the Irilbung police O.C. at 5:30 pm to turn the dead body to ashes. The cremation was done with stern security precautions around Minuthong area. But still, the family members are eagerly waiting for the complete removal of the AFSPA from Manipur for the necessary rituals of Manorama to allow the soul to race heaven peacefully. Who will hear the silent prayer of the heart broken mother? Who will stop the tears of bereaved brothers and sisters?
Wednesday, December 9, 2009
Sunday, November 8, 2009
think again
you call it violence when impoverished tribals rise up to demand their entitlements from a state that has always oppressed them and doesnt even recognise them as human beings in the first place.
when the state kills it is called maintenance of law and order , when vast tracts of tribal land is taken over to make way for mining corporations and MNC's, it is termed as development.
you have a nation where 50 million people are internally displaced, uprooted and condemned by a nation that is so obsessed with becoming a super power that it has stripped people of the grace of peaceful protest as well,
and off course these 50 million people dont have any relatives in janpath or dont belong to the metros of the nation, they are tribals, indigenous populations and the like, who have been historically targetted and now are given special treatment by the state.....
what is salwa judum and what purification does it talk about...its pure ethnic cleansing and it is a marvellous plot....pitch tribal against tribal...tribal gets killed from either side...and this way an entire generation of able bodied men are removed from the society....its shockingly convenient...inject the poison of violence into the veins of society...put brother against brother...this would make even dalhousie shiver....such is the ingenuinity of the scheme.
for those people who still look at naxals as some gun totting terrorists killing innocents will do well to understand that when the state commits genocide against a section of people, people either get wiped off or decide to fight back....its time people who scoff at naxals come out of their air conditioned homes and visit the region...if they have the spine to do it that is....
think again
when the state kills it is called maintenance of law and order , when vast tracts of tribal land is taken over to make way for mining corporations and MNC's, it is termed as development.
you have a nation where 50 million people are internally displaced, uprooted and condemned by a nation that is so obsessed with becoming a super power that it has stripped people of the grace of peaceful protest as well,
and off course these 50 million people dont have any relatives in janpath or dont belong to the metros of the nation, they are tribals, indigenous populations and the like, who have been historically targetted and now are given special treatment by the state.....
what is salwa judum and what purification does it talk about...its pure ethnic cleansing and it is a marvellous plot....pitch tribal against tribal...tribal gets killed from either side...and this way an entire generation of able bodied men are removed from the society....its shockingly convenient...inject the poison of violence into the veins of society...put brother against brother...this would make even dalhousie shiver....such is the ingenuinity of the scheme.
for those people who still look at naxals as some gun totting terrorists killing innocents will do well to understand that when the state commits genocide against a section of people, people either get wiped off or decide to fight back....its time people who scoff at naxals come out of their air conditioned homes and visit the region...if they have the spine to do it that is....
think again
Saturday, November 7, 2009
liberating the sexes
Masculinity and femininity
On a perfunctory basis, both these terms seem to incorporate a lot of different meaning along with creating different identities as well. There are two ways of looking at this issue, one could personify the traits that are believed to be easily visible and we end up with the physical, morphological divisions.
Such an approach leads us into distinguishing these traits by projecting an image that appeals to some and is looked down upon by others, it is then followed by behavioural attributes that are then tossed around to assuage the wounded pride of some, caress the egos of others, we thus have an entire list of terms like male chauvinists, chivalry, male bashing, male ego and why not let me add the entire bandwagon of feminists to the list as well.
Also this is not meant to exclude the few bodies that are trying to champion the cause of men as well who have been at the receiving end of some female behaviour, which I don’t think would come under the ambit of femininity per se.
Masculinity or femininity is more abstract than what people make of it, it is more circumstantial, more invisible, more intangible than one would like to believe. It is said that circumstances bring out the true traits within us, how we react is more of a measure of the circumstances we have been exposed, at the end we feel comfortable with definitions that stereotype behaviour, it can then be controlled, manipulated and presented, this is classical human behaviour, not being able to define things makes us feel queasy and hence we have literature that tries to eke out a definition for both these ‘traits’.
I refer to them as traits as it is little more than an expression of the true self, the spirit within. For instance, bravery or for that matter sheer guts, risk taking/ entrepreneurial spirit is something that is associated with males or something that has to have a masculine element about it, let us look at the way we caricaturise brave females like Joan of arc or a Rani Laxmi Bai, they are referred to as people who fought as brave as a male, here the effect is to portray bravery as masculine and timidity as may be some feminine quality. Am not being a sexist when I say this, but it is yet again contexts that are defining the way we are made to look at things. Females can be as brave as males and even more than that as well, why are they benchmarked against them for that matter. Bravery or for that matter most attributable male features could as much be feminine as they are masculine.
We therefore need to deal with these themes on a more abstract level rather than subscribe to normative definitions that are arrived at as a measure of convenience or simply to typify certain behavioural traits as male or female. We need to understand that neither of these traits are patents of either sex. Let me take this one to another level , if masculinity or femininity as it is defined mostly morphologically and casually, I stand to subscribe to it for a minute, then where do I place trans-genders, bisexuals, gays and lesbians, we would need to evolve new jargons for them as well, come on that is the least we could do for the equality sake that we are so obsessed with.
If we are to speak about equality, then the first thing we need to do is to quash these very stereotypes that are based on perceptions rather than actualisations. Things that intend to define and constrain need to be addressed first, as these are the very things that form the basis of our arguments or respective positioning on these issues. Gender parity needs to be brought out from the world of definitions to the real world.
Rejection of the current mode of thought process that seeks to straitjacket observable behaviours and make it the birthright of a single sex need to be addressed, questioned before we go ahead with liberating the sexes. Liberation from these very definitions could indeed be a first step.
On a perfunctory basis, both these terms seem to incorporate a lot of different meaning along with creating different identities as well. There are two ways of looking at this issue, one could personify the traits that are believed to be easily visible and we end up with the physical, morphological divisions.
Such an approach leads us into distinguishing these traits by projecting an image that appeals to some and is looked down upon by others, it is then followed by behavioural attributes that are then tossed around to assuage the wounded pride of some, caress the egos of others, we thus have an entire list of terms like male chauvinists, chivalry, male bashing, male ego and why not let me add the entire bandwagon of feminists to the list as well.
Also this is not meant to exclude the few bodies that are trying to champion the cause of men as well who have been at the receiving end of some female behaviour, which I don’t think would come under the ambit of femininity per se.
Masculinity or femininity is more abstract than what people make of it, it is more circumstantial, more invisible, more intangible than one would like to believe. It is said that circumstances bring out the true traits within us, how we react is more of a measure of the circumstances we have been exposed, at the end we feel comfortable with definitions that stereotype behaviour, it can then be controlled, manipulated and presented, this is classical human behaviour, not being able to define things makes us feel queasy and hence we have literature that tries to eke out a definition for both these ‘traits’.
I refer to them as traits as it is little more than an expression of the true self, the spirit within. For instance, bravery or for that matter sheer guts, risk taking/ entrepreneurial spirit is something that is associated with males or something that has to have a masculine element about it, let us look at the way we caricaturise brave females like Joan of arc or a Rani Laxmi Bai, they are referred to as people who fought as brave as a male, here the effect is to portray bravery as masculine and timidity as may be some feminine quality. Am not being a sexist when I say this, but it is yet again contexts that are defining the way we are made to look at things. Females can be as brave as males and even more than that as well, why are they benchmarked against them for that matter. Bravery or for that matter most attributable male features could as much be feminine as they are masculine.
We therefore need to deal with these themes on a more abstract level rather than subscribe to normative definitions that are arrived at as a measure of convenience or simply to typify certain behavioural traits as male or female. We need to understand that neither of these traits are patents of either sex. Let me take this one to another level , if masculinity or femininity as it is defined mostly morphologically and casually, I stand to subscribe to it for a minute, then where do I place trans-genders, bisexuals, gays and lesbians, we would need to evolve new jargons for them as well, come on that is the least we could do for the equality sake that we are so obsessed with.
If we are to speak about equality, then the first thing we need to do is to quash these very stereotypes that are based on perceptions rather than actualisations. Things that intend to define and constrain need to be addressed first, as these are the very things that form the basis of our arguments or respective positioning on these issues. Gender parity needs to be brought out from the world of definitions to the real world.
Rejection of the current mode of thought process that seeks to straitjacket observable behaviours and make it the birthright of a single sex need to be addressed, questioned before we go ahead with liberating the sexes. Liberation from these very definitions could indeed be a first step.
rogue economics
“Let me begin by saying that if you were feeling a little depressed up to now, after my address you will be feeling totally flat!
Today is a special day, because in London, where anti-capitalism demonstrations have been going on all day, and The City in particular, where the majority of the demonstrations have been well attended, today has been named Financial Fools’ Day, or the April Fool’s day of the Financial World.
I think that this is quite an amusing way to describe the people’s anger and desperation regarding an economic crisis that was created by the banks, not only the Italian banks unfortunately, but also by other banks around the world, an epic crisis that no one seems to be able to handle in the first place. The members of the G20 will be meeting tomorrow in the hope that, in those few hours during which they will meet and take lots of photographs, they will be able to resolve all of the world’s problems, something that is highly unlikely to happen, and somehow these demonstrations in London are telling us that people are sick and tired of all these stories and no longer believe them.
I am an economist by profession and I can assure you that this is not a good time to be in this profession. When I deliver these addresses, many people expect me to haul out a turban and a crystal ball, because the truth is that economics and predicting the future are seen as one and the same. So today I thought that, instead of talking about the future, I would rather tell you a story about the past because I believe that in some way history must be our guide. This is something that we often forget and we have, in fact, completely lost our historic memory.
I would like to tell you about the phenomenon of economic interdependence, about how a piece of legislation introduced in one particular Country, and here we are talking specifically about the Patriot Act, which was a piece of legislation aimed at blocking the funding to terrorist organisations, eventually created a terrible and detrimental situation in other Countries, in this case Europe as a whole, turning Europe into the money laundering capital of the world, all of this between September 11 and now. This has occurred under our own eyes without us even realising what was going on.
The story begins with so-called deregulation, which the world leaders will be discussing tomorrow in the hope of reducing the damage done by deregulation. Many of the problems that you have heard about regarding the banks are precisely linked to deregulation, to the lack of legislation and to the fact that the banks were granted high levels of freedom with very little control by the State.
What happens with deregulation? In essence, it amounts to the removal of financial barriers and the removal of financial legislation and the controls between two countries. But who has benefited from this? As a matter of fact, it is not only organised crime that has benefited, but also the entire underground economy and the militant groups.
And so, the period between the early nineties and 2001 saw the establishment of a new economic system, which serves the interests of these groups, resulting in the establishment of joint ventures, such as the relationship that existed between the Columbian FARC movement and the drug traffickers, and associations are even formed by various militant groups and criminal organisations in order to exploit a number of financial channels in order to launder dirty money.
Prior to 11 September, the total value, the turnover, the GDP, or the cash production if you will, of this economic system amounted to some 1,500 billion Dollars, in other words approximately 5% of the global economy, almost all of it in Dollars, in fact about 90% of this cash production was in the form of Dollars. The Dollar was the currency of choice, specifically the 100 Dollar bill. Much of this flow of dirty money was laundered in the United States, in Dollars, via the financial havens in the Caribbean Islands.
In actual fact, this money laundering activity was beneficial for the American economy because it acted like a cash injection, which we discover when we analyse the data relating to the supply and demand for the American currency. From the mid-sixties through to 2001, a certain amount of new money, namely the bills printed annually by the Federal Reserve, was illegally taken out of circulation in America in suitcases or cardboard boxes that left the country in the form of boxes required for removals, etc, illegally in other words, and this money went towards satisfying the demand for cash, not only from criminal elements, but also from terrorist organisations and various other sectors of the underground economy.
In 2001, two thirds of the new supply of American currency, in other words the money printed in 2001, left the United States in this manner, a cash supply equivalent to 500 billion Dollars, which means that cash growth in the United States was lower, thereby increasing the internal demand for American currency and thus increasing the demand for money from outside the borders, which was satisfied by the currency provided by the criminals, the terrorists and the underground economy. However, there is yet another very interesting aspect of this inter-relationship, namely the fact that the Dollar is the global reserve currency, which means that the American Treasury can take out loans against the total number of Dollars in circulation worldwide, so the American national debt is equivalent to the number of Dollars in circulation in the entire world.
The Patriot Act and money laundering
Clearly then, if the underground economy demands an increasing number of Dollars every year, then the United States can get increasingly deeper in debt, but this only holds true for the United States because it is part of the so-called “seignorage”.
This does not occur in Europe, because, for example, the European Central Bank cannot issue bonds for any sums in excess of the number of Euro in circulation in the EU member Countries, even though there may well be a large amount of Euros in circulation in the United States or even in Asia, Africa, etc, so the United States are in an ideal position, or rather they were in an ideal position until September 11, but why is this? Because the situation changed radically after September 11.
As you are all well aware, the Patriot Act, which is a piece of anti-terrorist legislation, was introduced in November 2001 and it is the financial implications of the Patriot Act that is of interest to us. The objective of the Patriot Act was to limit the amount of funding destined for terrorist groups, however, clearly this objective was never actually achieved because, in fact, it is legislation against money laundering, as proven by the following two basic elements of the Patriot Act: 1) it prohibits American banks and foreign banks registered in the United States from having any business dealings with any banking institutions based in the Caribbean tax havens.
The second interesting element is that the Patriot Act allows the financial authorities to monitor all Dollar transactions worldwide and if any American bank or foreign bank operating in the United States fails to notify the authorities about any suspicious transaction, said bank is deemed to be criminally liable and we know of some very interesting cases including not only “Lloyds Bank”, which was one of the latest banks to be penalised and was forced to pay some significant fines, but also USB, etc. So what is actually going on? What is happening is that the Patriot Act was only introduced in the United States and is only applicable to the Dollar, so it has totally revolutionised the cash flows of the legal economy and the underground economy alike.
Let us firstly look at the legal cash flows. Clearly the international banks did not like this piece of legislation because, as we heard a little while ago, back in 2001, no one wanted any Patriot Act introduced in another country that would enable outsiders to scrutinise any dealings between a bank and its customers, so what happened next? What happened next was that the international banks advised their customers to abandon the Dollar Zone and switch to the Euro. The Euro was the new European currency that had just recently come into circulation, so it offered numerous opportunities and, above all, Europe did not have any legislation similar to the Patriot Act and indeed there were tax havens in existence in Europe that worked very well, with no one checking up on anything. Thus we see a flow of money away from the Dollar and into the Euro and it is very interesting to examine the correlation between the introduction of the Patriot Act, the start of the fall in the value of the Dollar and the beginning of a renaissance in the level of interest in Europe. A group of OECD economists did some research, looking for some correlation between the various data, which in essence revealed the following: the introduction of the Euro coincided with the end of era of the Dollar, but this does not relate solely to legal monetary flows and an important aspect of the switch to the Euro is also seen in the underground economy, where the criminal world found itself in a rather complex situation and began wondering where to go next. Money laundering was no longer possible in the United States and it was becoming increasingly difficult to repatriate their money, because the problem of money laundering is a twofold problem, namely, not only how to launder the money in the first place, but also how to get the proceeds of the criminal activities back into your hands. There were a number of potential schemes available, for example the “black pesos money exchange” scheme run by the Columbians, where the drug traffickers acted as veritable currency exchange agencies. How did the scheme actually work? Perhaps there was a Columbian businessman who wanted to go to the United States, without alerting the financial authorities that he would be taking money abroad and thereby having to pay taxes as well as having to convert the money at the official rate of exchange. He would go to one of these currency exchange agencies, hand over his Pesos and then, once he arrived in New York, someone would deliver a briefcase full of Dollars, which Dollars obviously originated from cocaine sales by the drug traffickers.
The alliance between the Columbian drug traffickers and the “ndrangheta”
The basic problem was actually a totally different one, namely that during the 90’s, thanks to globalisation, revenues from the sale of drugs had increased exponentially and the drug traffickers had to find new ways to launder these revenues on an industrial scale since the sums involved were enormous and I’m telling you that 80% of all money laundering is done by means of cash, so the “black pesos money exchange” scheme was physically unable to cope with this amount of money. It was at this point that an Italian emigrant to Columbia, a man by the name of Salvatore Mancuso, who had become the commander of the paramilitary unit of the AUC, had a brilliant idea and decided that the best thing to do would be to put his buddies in the “ndrangheta” in contact with the Columbian drug traffickers, and thus a fantastic alliance was born, in the sense that it represented a new start for the Columbians, and this is the truth!
Why a new start, you ask? Because it provided them with an opportunity to export cocaine to another continent, instead of simply a neighbouring continent that was rather limited in the sense that the cocaine simply moved from South to North into the United States. Now there was this new opportunity to bypass the restrictions imposed by the Patriot Act since Europe is a place where it is easy to launder money, as there is no legislation in place to control and punish these types of business activities.
So what happened next? A proper business is established to sell cocaine, where the cocaine exported from Columbia would initially arrive in Calabria and, from Calabria, the “ndrangheta” would proceed to distribute it via its own network, a network that it had built up for itself in Europe. Here we must pause for a moment to point out that all of this was only possible because the “ndrangheta” already had an existing European network, the only organisation with such a network at its disposal since neither the “Cosa nostra” nor the “Camorra” had any similar network in place. So the “ndragheta” had this widespread network, not only extending throughout Europe, but essentially worldwide, a network created by the dispersion of millions upon millions of people from Calabria who had moved abroad over the past 30/40 years as foreign immigrants, so the “ndrangheta” was not only in the right place at the right time, but also used its brains in that, instead of offering high-ticket services, they did the exact opposite, offering the drug traffickers a low-cost importation, sale and money laundering service through the network, because the network also included a number of attorneys, accountants and real estate agents who collected the money as soon as it came in and, thanks to the existence of the Euro, moved the funds from one Country to another, investing it in real estate because this network, working in conjunction with various real estate agencies, in essence launders money and generates profits, which are then legitimately repatriated to Columbia via the formal banking system.
The “ndrangheta” handles all of this for a 30% cut. In the United States, following the introduction of the Patriot Act, the laundering of drug revenues costs the drug traffickers around 60%, so the “ndragheta” offers a fantastic service. Furthermore, according to the available intelligence, the organisation is able to market the cocaine on the European market by selling it at a very low price, thereby competing with the so-called lighter drugs rather than with the more expensive drugs, and so we see that between 2001 and now there has been an exponential increase in the use of cocaine as the preferred recreational drug of the middle classes, so you see how easy it is? It is therefore true that all anyone needs is a brain and an established network. This is the current reality, namely, there are no laws and there are no controls in place. Just think that this money laundering is occurring via the real estate sector and it is thus very difficult to control because, for example, the Deeds Registry Office on the Costa del Sol has no way of communicating with the Deeds Registry Office in London, so they will never know whether the same company is busy making purchases in various locations in Europe, either simultaneously or at different times and, furthermore, there is no system in place to monitor the financial and cash transactions in Euro that may be taking place across European borders, there is no such thing!
A gang of delinquents
Therefore, the situation in Europe is currently ideal for the criminal element and that is why Europe has become the money laundering capital of the world. Now let’s examine the latest development before we all go home. The latest developments began in 2005. Demand for cocaine was increasing exponentially because the drug was cheap and fun, the “ndragheta” had done a marvellous job of marketing the drug and it was becoming increasingly difficult to keep up with the speed required in transporting the drugs, so what was decided? They decided to utilise Guinea Bissau as a trans-shipment point, the latter being a final destination point from where the drugs generally distributed. A smart idea because Guinea Bissau is easily reached within 3 to 4 hours by means of light aircraft and or tourist aircraft from Columbia or from Venezuela, because a lot of these drugs come through Venezuela. And so Guinea Bissau becomes a drug trafficking country and is promptly colonised by the drug traffickers, who then organise warehouses where the incoming drugs arrive, are stored and where the European buyers arrive the same day, buy the drugs and take it back with them to Europe either by means of light aircraft or small boats.
The truth is that currently, all it takes is one week for the drugs to get from the Columbian producer to the consumer in the European disco, and the majority of this trade is controlled by criminal organisations linked to none other than the Italian “ndrangheta”.
So what is lesson to be learned from this story? I can see that you are looking very dejected. The fact is that we need to accept that there is an economic interdependence between the official economy and the underground economy and it is useless for us to attempt to deny this. Many of the products that you buy inevitably contribute to making some or other delinquent very wealthy, not only drugs, and that is a fact. So if we truly want to do something about it, if we want to block this trade and if we want to resolve the current economic crisis, because in reality this crisis was created by the gang of delinquents that are the bankers that have caused the problems we are currently facing, we must firstly accept the fact that this interdependence exists and that we can only get ahead by preventing further cross-contamination of our legal economy by the criminal and underground economy, otherwise the situation I have described will only deteriorate and we will increasingly become the victims!”
Today is a special day, because in London, where anti-capitalism demonstrations have been going on all day, and The City in particular, where the majority of the demonstrations have been well attended, today has been named Financial Fools’ Day, or the April Fool’s day of the Financial World.
I think that this is quite an amusing way to describe the people’s anger and desperation regarding an economic crisis that was created by the banks, not only the Italian banks unfortunately, but also by other banks around the world, an epic crisis that no one seems to be able to handle in the first place. The members of the G20 will be meeting tomorrow in the hope that, in those few hours during which they will meet and take lots of photographs, they will be able to resolve all of the world’s problems, something that is highly unlikely to happen, and somehow these demonstrations in London are telling us that people are sick and tired of all these stories and no longer believe them.
I am an economist by profession and I can assure you that this is not a good time to be in this profession. When I deliver these addresses, many people expect me to haul out a turban and a crystal ball, because the truth is that economics and predicting the future are seen as one and the same. So today I thought that, instead of talking about the future, I would rather tell you a story about the past because I believe that in some way history must be our guide. This is something that we often forget and we have, in fact, completely lost our historic memory.
I would like to tell you about the phenomenon of economic interdependence, about how a piece of legislation introduced in one particular Country, and here we are talking specifically about the Patriot Act, which was a piece of legislation aimed at blocking the funding to terrorist organisations, eventually created a terrible and detrimental situation in other Countries, in this case Europe as a whole, turning Europe into the money laundering capital of the world, all of this between September 11 and now. This has occurred under our own eyes without us even realising what was going on.
The story begins with so-called deregulation, which the world leaders will be discussing tomorrow in the hope of reducing the damage done by deregulation. Many of the problems that you have heard about regarding the banks are precisely linked to deregulation, to the lack of legislation and to the fact that the banks were granted high levels of freedom with very little control by the State.
What happens with deregulation? In essence, it amounts to the removal of financial barriers and the removal of financial legislation and the controls between two countries. But who has benefited from this? As a matter of fact, it is not only organised crime that has benefited, but also the entire underground economy and the militant groups.
And so, the period between the early nineties and 2001 saw the establishment of a new economic system, which serves the interests of these groups, resulting in the establishment of joint ventures, such as the relationship that existed between the Columbian FARC movement and the drug traffickers, and associations are even formed by various militant groups and criminal organisations in order to exploit a number of financial channels in order to launder dirty money.
Prior to 11 September, the total value, the turnover, the GDP, or the cash production if you will, of this economic system amounted to some 1,500 billion Dollars, in other words approximately 5% of the global economy, almost all of it in Dollars, in fact about 90% of this cash production was in the form of Dollars. The Dollar was the currency of choice, specifically the 100 Dollar bill. Much of this flow of dirty money was laundered in the United States, in Dollars, via the financial havens in the Caribbean Islands.
In actual fact, this money laundering activity was beneficial for the American economy because it acted like a cash injection, which we discover when we analyse the data relating to the supply and demand for the American currency. From the mid-sixties through to 2001, a certain amount of new money, namely the bills printed annually by the Federal Reserve, was illegally taken out of circulation in America in suitcases or cardboard boxes that left the country in the form of boxes required for removals, etc, illegally in other words, and this money went towards satisfying the demand for cash, not only from criminal elements, but also from terrorist organisations and various other sectors of the underground economy.
In 2001, two thirds of the new supply of American currency, in other words the money printed in 2001, left the United States in this manner, a cash supply equivalent to 500 billion Dollars, which means that cash growth in the United States was lower, thereby increasing the internal demand for American currency and thus increasing the demand for money from outside the borders, which was satisfied by the currency provided by the criminals, the terrorists and the underground economy. However, there is yet another very interesting aspect of this inter-relationship, namely the fact that the Dollar is the global reserve currency, which means that the American Treasury can take out loans against the total number of Dollars in circulation worldwide, so the American national debt is equivalent to the number of Dollars in circulation in the entire world.
The Patriot Act and money laundering
Clearly then, if the underground economy demands an increasing number of Dollars every year, then the United States can get increasingly deeper in debt, but this only holds true for the United States because it is part of the so-called “seignorage”.
This does not occur in Europe, because, for example, the European Central Bank cannot issue bonds for any sums in excess of the number of Euro in circulation in the EU member Countries, even though there may well be a large amount of Euros in circulation in the United States or even in Asia, Africa, etc, so the United States are in an ideal position, or rather they were in an ideal position until September 11, but why is this? Because the situation changed radically after September 11.
As you are all well aware, the Patriot Act, which is a piece of anti-terrorist legislation, was introduced in November 2001 and it is the financial implications of the Patriot Act that is of interest to us. The objective of the Patriot Act was to limit the amount of funding destined for terrorist groups, however, clearly this objective was never actually achieved because, in fact, it is legislation against money laundering, as proven by the following two basic elements of the Patriot Act: 1) it prohibits American banks and foreign banks registered in the United States from having any business dealings with any banking institutions based in the Caribbean tax havens.
The second interesting element is that the Patriot Act allows the financial authorities to monitor all Dollar transactions worldwide and if any American bank or foreign bank operating in the United States fails to notify the authorities about any suspicious transaction, said bank is deemed to be criminally liable and we know of some very interesting cases including not only “Lloyds Bank”, which was one of the latest banks to be penalised and was forced to pay some significant fines, but also USB, etc. So what is actually going on? What is happening is that the Patriot Act was only introduced in the United States and is only applicable to the Dollar, so it has totally revolutionised the cash flows of the legal economy and the underground economy alike.
Let us firstly look at the legal cash flows. Clearly the international banks did not like this piece of legislation because, as we heard a little while ago, back in 2001, no one wanted any Patriot Act introduced in another country that would enable outsiders to scrutinise any dealings between a bank and its customers, so what happened next? What happened next was that the international banks advised their customers to abandon the Dollar Zone and switch to the Euro. The Euro was the new European currency that had just recently come into circulation, so it offered numerous opportunities and, above all, Europe did not have any legislation similar to the Patriot Act and indeed there were tax havens in existence in Europe that worked very well, with no one checking up on anything. Thus we see a flow of money away from the Dollar and into the Euro and it is very interesting to examine the correlation between the introduction of the Patriot Act, the start of the fall in the value of the Dollar and the beginning of a renaissance in the level of interest in Europe. A group of OECD economists did some research, looking for some correlation between the various data, which in essence revealed the following: the introduction of the Euro coincided with the end of era of the Dollar, but this does not relate solely to legal monetary flows and an important aspect of the switch to the Euro is also seen in the underground economy, where the criminal world found itself in a rather complex situation and began wondering where to go next. Money laundering was no longer possible in the United States and it was becoming increasingly difficult to repatriate their money, because the problem of money laundering is a twofold problem, namely, not only how to launder the money in the first place, but also how to get the proceeds of the criminal activities back into your hands. There were a number of potential schemes available, for example the “black pesos money exchange” scheme run by the Columbians, where the drug traffickers acted as veritable currency exchange agencies. How did the scheme actually work? Perhaps there was a Columbian businessman who wanted to go to the United States, without alerting the financial authorities that he would be taking money abroad and thereby having to pay taxes as well as having to convert the money at the official rate of exchange. He would go to one of these currency exchange agencies, hand over his Pesos and then, once he arrived in New York, someone would deliver a briefcase full of Dollars, which Dollars obviously originated from cocaine sales by the drug traffickers.
The alliance between the Columbian drug traffickers and the “ndrangheta”
The basic problem was actually a totally different one, namely that during the 90’s, thanks to globalisation, revenues from the sale of drugs had increased exponentially and the drug traffickers had to find new ways to launder these revenues on an industrial scale since the sums involved were enormous and I’m telling you that 80% of all money laundering is done by means of cash, so the “black pesos money exchange” scheme was physically unable to cope with this amount of money. It was at this point that an Italian emigrant to Columbia, a man by the name of Salvatore Mancuso, who had become the commander of the paramilitary unit of the AUC, had a brilliant idea and decided that the best thing to do would be to put his buddies in the “ndrangheta” in contact with the Columbian drug traffickers, and thus a fantastic alliance was born, in the sense that it represented a new start for the Columbians, and this is the truth!
Why a new start, you ask? Because it provided them with an opportunity to export cocaine to another continent, instead of simply a neighbouring continent that was rather limited in the sense that the cocaine simply moved from South to North into the United States. Now there was this new opportunity to bypass the restrictions imposed by the Patriot Act since Europe is a place where it is easy to launder money, as there is no legislation in place to control and punish these types of business activities.
So what happened next? A proper business is established to sell cocaine, where the cocaine exported from Columbia would initially arrive in Calabria and, from Calabria, the “ndrangheta” would proceed to distribute it via its own network, a network that it had built up for itself in Europe. Here we must pause for a moment to point out that all of this was only possible because the “ndrangheta” already had an existing European network, the only organisation with such a network at its disposal since neither the “Cosa nostra” nor the “Camorra” had any similar network in place. So the “ndragheta” had this widespread network, not only extending throughout Europe, but essentially worldwide, a network created by the dispersion of millions upon millions of people from Calabria who had moved abroad over the past 30/40 years as foreign immigrants, so the “ndrangheta” was not only in the right place at the right time, but also used its brains in that, instead of offering high-ticket services, they did the exact opposite, offering the drug traffickers a low-cost importation, sale and money laundering service through the network, because the network also included a number of attorneys, accountants and real estate agents who collected the money as soon as it came in and, thanks to the existence of the Euro, moved the funds from one Country to another, investing it in real estate because this network, working in conjunction with various real estate agencies, in essence launders money and generates profits, which are then legitimately repatriated to Columbia via the formal banking system.
The “ndrangheta” handles all of this for a 30% cut. In the United States, following the introduction of the Patriot Act, the laundering of drug revenues costs the drug traffickers around 60%, so the “ndragheta” offers a fantastic service. Furthermore, according to the available intelligence, the organisation is able to market the cocaine on the European market by selling it at a very low price, thereby competing with the so-called lighter drugs rather than with the more expensive drugs, and so we see that between 2001 and now there has been an exponential increase in the use of cocaine as the preferred recreational drug of the middle classes, so you see how easy it is? It is therefore true that all anyone needs is a brain and an established network. This is the current reality, namely, there are no laws and there are no controls in place. Just think that this money laundering is occurring via the real estate sector and it is thus very difficult to control because, for example, the Deeds Registry Office on the Costa del Sol has no way of communicating with the Deeds Registry Office in London, so they will never know whether the same company is busy making purchases in various locations in Europe, either simultaneously or at different times and, furthermore, there is no system in place to monitor the financial and cash transactions in Euro that may be taking place across European borders, there is no such thing!
A gang of delinquents
Therefore, the situation in Europe is currently ideal for the criminal element and that is why Europe has become the money laundering capital of the world. Now let’s examine the latest development before we all go home. The latest developments began in 2005. Demand for cocaine was increasing exponentially because the drug was cheap and fun, the “ndragheta” had done a marvellous job of marketing the drug and it was becoming increasingly difficult to keep up with the speed required in transporting the drugs, so what was decided? They decided to utilise Guinea Bissau as a trans-shipment point, the latter being a final destination point from where the drugs generally distributed. A smart idea because Guinea Bissau is easily reached within 3 to 4 hours by means of light aircraft and or tourist aircraft from Columbia or from Venezuela, because a lot of these drugs come through Venezuela. And so Guinea Bissau becomes a drug trafficking country and is promptly colonised by the drug traffickers, who then organise warehouses where the incoming drugs arrive, are stored and where the European buyers arrive the same day, buy the drugs and take it back with them to Europe either by means of light aircraft or small boats.
The truth is that currently, all it takes is one week for the drugs to get from the Columbian producer to the consumer in the European disco, and the majority of this trade is controlled by criminal organisations linked to none other than the Italian “ndrangheta”.
So what is lesson to be learned from this story? I can see that you are looking very dejected. The fact is that we need to accept that there is an economic interdependence between the official economy and the underground economy and it is useless for us to attempt to deny this. Many of the products that you buy inevitably contribute to making some or other delinquent very wealthy, not only drugs, and that is a fact. So if we truly want to do something about it, if we want to block this trade and if we want to resolve the current economic crisis, because in reality this crisis was created by the gang of delinquents that are the bankers that have caused the problems we are currently facing, we must firstly accept the fact that this interdependence exists and that we can only get ahead by preventing further cross-contamination of our legal economy by the criminal and underground economy, otherwise the situation I have described will only deteriorate and we will increasingly become the victims!”
Sunday, October 25, 2009
down and dirty
down, under and dirty....life on the eastern seaboard
before you read any further, this is not something driven by vengeance but something that is a result of careful observation of how things have been progressing (er progressing...naah going downhill) over the last year and a half.
over this time period i have seen how academic standards have gone below nadir, how merits dont count anymore, how flattery gets you to places and how caressing egos is more important than even knowing nothing about anything.
I am writing this to simply put in words what I have seen in this reputed B school that advertises itself as an educational institution but is comparable to a east european brothel, the only difference is that the stakes are different and the end result is 'socially desirable and acceptable'. what i had expected to see was meritocracy, instead what i found here was flatterocracy......the better you are at that, the better your grade sheet looks, i had expected a place that would ensure free debate, what i found instead were strictures on what one could say, do or write...everything needs to be sanctioned....some freedom of free speech.....free expression.....naah that aint here....sorry wrong address....
I had expected academic engagement with a practical interface and a strong social concern as the course advertises itself, instead what i received here was empty rhetoric, lip sympathy, empty words, callousness, apathy, pathological sense of helplessness and unwillingness to do anything...not even debate....nothing....infact
what i did receive was a smirk as much from the academic elites, the self professed experts as i did from students here....truely a bussiness school indeed, where people are schooled into thinking that life is all about ROI....so here we have it....every action is driven by a strong monetary consideration....everything that one does has to have a placement related interface....courses are floated not for academic fulfillment but to get placed....soon enough people are going to question the rationale of going to the bathroom without any incentive or farting without incentive.....its all about the undying craze for mammon and then off course there is one word that describes the experience.....'hypocrisy'
so despite all the talk and the acts that have nothing to do with morality or ethics, once you give either of these people a stage and a camera flashing on them, most of them have an orgasm the moment they hear about media publicity and when they start speaking, they would even give malcomm x a run for his money....very suave and articulate when it comes to 'talking' about social responsibility..one must listen these guys and gals speaking.....they would actually make a sarah palin look much brighter by all standards....flat out....people here could sell their mothers if it promised an ROI in the form of better grades or better pakage deals....
its all about grades....how you get it is immaterial....but dont be fooled by relying on merits alone....they wont get you far here...you may even end up at the bottom of the charts....you may be the butt of ridicule for speaking the truth here....but then its a wrong setting you choose to speak on any issue of social concern....'social concern' what the fuck...people are bothered only about themselves....and yes if speaking on this topic gets me grades...they would beat even a deep joshi comprehensively.....tell you something...most of them are class A machiavellians but would present themselves as nothing less than a dalai lama, but then dont go by first impressions....never do....ever....i did that sometime back and learnt the hardway around....these people hide behind their vulgar suites to hide their nudity but it just takes a sincere look into their eye sockets to understand how blank they really here and how sold out these people really are....
if you belong to this clan of 'people', (sorry, i didnt want to insult the animal kingdom by calling them as 'animals'). nevertheless in case you feel that am exaggerating...come over...burn money like candle wick (just 5.5 lacs) and feel the experience yourself....i promise you would never forget it....you would have nightmares that would keep things afresh....come over and commit professional, personal, moral, social, ethical suicide....at only 5.5 lacs for 2 years...its an unbeatable package deal....good ROI..isnt it...lose your humanity and become a mammon slave here...or should i call yet another pathological hydra....ready to suck other people dry.....
before you read any further, this is not something driven by vengeance but something that is a result of careful observation of how things have been progressing (er progressing...naah going downhill) over the last year and a half.
over this time period i have seen how academic standards have gone below nadir, how merits dont count anymore, how flattery gets you to places and how caressing egos is more important than even knowing nothing about anything.
I am writing this to simply put in words what I have seen in this reputed B school that advertises itself as an educational institution but is comparable to a east european brothel, the only difference is that the stakes are different and the end result is 'socially desirable and acceptable'. what i had expected to see was meritocracy, instead what i found here was flatterocracy......the better you are at that, the better your grade sheet looks, i had expected a place that would ensure free debate, what i found instead were strictures on what one could say, do or write...everything needs to be sanctioned....some freedom of free speech.....free expression.....naah that aint here....sorry wrong address....
I had expected academic engagement with a practical interface and a strong social concern as the course advertises itself, instead what i received here was empty rhetoric, lip sympathy, empty words, callousness, apathy, pathological sense of helplessness and unwillingness to do anything...not even debate....nothing....infact
what i did receive was a smirk as much from the academic elites, the self professed experts as i did from students here....truely a bussiness school indeed, where people are schooled into thinking that life is all about ROI....so here we have it....every action is driven by a strong monetary consideration....everything that one does has to have a placement related interface....courses are floated not for academic fulfillment but to get placed....soon enough people are going to question the rationale of going to the bathroom without any incentive or farting without incentive.....its all about the undying craze for mammon and then off course there is one word that describes the experience.....'hypocrisy'
so despite all the talk and the acts that have nothing to do with morality or ethics, once you give either of these people a stage and a camera flashing on them, most of them have an orgasm the moment they hear about media publicity and when they start speaking, they would even give malcomm x a run for his money....very suave and articulate when it comes to 'talking' about social responsibility..one must listen these guys and gals speaking.....they would actually make a sarah palin look much brighter by all standards....flat out....people here could sell their mothers if it promised an ROI in the form of better grades or better pakage deals....
its all about grades....how you get it is immaterial....but dont be fooled by relying on merits alone....they wont get you far here...you may even end up at the bottom of the charts....you may be the butt of ridicule for speaking the truth here....but then its a wrong setting you choose to speak on any issue of social concern....'social concern' what the fuck...people are bothered only about themselves....and yes if speaking on this topic gets me grades...they would beat even a deep joshi comprehensively.....tell you something...most of them are class A machiavellians but would present themselves as nothing less than a dalai lama, but then dont go by first impressions....never do....ever....i did that sometime back and learnt the hardway around....these people hide behind their vulgar suites to hide their nudity but it just takes a sincere look into their eye sockets to understand how blank they really here and how sold out these people really are....
if you belong to this clan of 'people', (sorry, i didnt want to insult the animal kingdom by calling them as 'animals'). nevertheless in case you feel that am exaggerating...come over...burn money like candle wick (just 5.5 lacs) and feel the experience yourself....i promise you would never forget it....you would have nightmares that would keep things afresh....come over and commit professional, personal, moral, social, ethical suicide....at only 5.5 lacs for 2 years...its an unbeatable package deal....good ROI..isnt it...lose your humanity and become a mammon slave here...or should i call yet another pathological hydra....ready to suck other people dry.....
WITHIN THE WALL....
I havent lost any land nor have i been displaced this far by a govt project or by a
private entity but then I can still understand what the word sacrifice means. I cannot be forced to make a sacrifice, can I, if that is the case then will it be termed as a sacrifice in the first place.
sacrifice is when I am ready to lose something for a future gain, but then when I end
up losing everything, my land, my house, my birthplace, my village....is there some
cause so great that I could sacrifice it all....and that too happily...when am not even sure of what benefits shall accrue, either to me or the nation...
as a fairly educated person and someone still with a heart that beats for the people
of this nation, I dont intend to take the moral highground in this regard, just that
there has been little or no precedence of 'amicably displaced people' and people who
have happily decided to 'sacrifice' their fertile double or triple productive land for some wads of cash...
am not here taking sides on this issue, because i feel there is no side other than
heeding to my conscience. there also exists no side because the role the govt was
supposed to play was abdicated by it to some corporation or the development mafia as
people refer to it these days. asking people to leave their homes, farmlands and their villages tantamounts to crime, it is criminal to do so and more so to expect people to leave without as much as a protest.
the academia is of the opinion that adequate policy measures, their strengthening and
better implementation would result in amicable displacement and no protests. the
arguement looks wrethched even before i can put in any more clearer words.
let us take an example, something that is now the fate of people in villages in india. say a mining project comes up, land needs to be acquired, by some sheer sinister statistic all these projects come up in areas that have fertile land and well entrenched means of production and survival for the local communities.
as per the trend and the fundamentals of the LAA, 1894 the state has the right to
acquire land at will under the clause of the eminent domain and give some kind of
monetary compensation in return. the problem however is there is no method to
monetise a productive land, neither are people informed or given a choice..its classical top down bureacratic decisions being shovelled down the throats of the people.
before i just make my battle a little bigger, let me finish the saga of deprivation. so the people are asked to move away from the area which on records has been sold to
the company concerned and people have no right to live on that land anymore, some
money is offered which is a case of peanuts for monkeys anyway. some people are
given employment in the factory that comes up, but not as permanent employees but
as temporary labourers, these people do the shovelling, mining work, working in deep
mines all day, up and down the shafts of a mine and come out when the sun has gone
down. in a year or two the people who have been 'employed' are no longer medically fit and end up dead with cancer or whooping cough on account of working in these very mines with no gear or protection that is offered.....
so isnt this the recipe for death.....mass murder....genocide....mix state apathy
with corporate megalomania for more profits, more cost cutting, more optimisation,
maximum control, no regulation, scant disregard for people.....what do you have....a
nation that is broken....a nation with broken knees can never stand up....
the academia still believes that better regulations will work, it will only help in
ensuring a more pleasant death....or does such a notion exist...'pleasant death'
ahem...sounds like CSR or the same as 'collateral damage'....wonderful PR jargns
that can sell anything. you can sell anyone's soul as well through it, we have excellent people to do that.
the academia and the elite still feel that regulations would save the day, ensure
better practises and there is nothing as wrong as the people who are protesting
against the state managed negligence say it is. they still feel proper procedures would help, the point is asking someone to leave his house/farm/livelihood even
respectfully..(honorable eviction)....what is the recourse the concerned person have
for his livelihood and his socio-economic status...will the state support him...(well the Indian govt is a "wel" "fare" state....but who pays the 'fare')
state managed negligence....now that is the paradigm that has been in place ever
since nehru laid the foundation for the so called 'modern temples' of progress. the
model of development that was followed had no element of socialism in it but had a
very strong stalinist element about it.
so instead of debating the very core assumptions of the model of development being
shovelled down the throats of the people of this nation, we are busy evolving ways
and means to make this system work in as painless a manner as possible but then it
doesnt work that way....or does it???!!!
people are still happy riding the juggernaut totally oblivious of the cries of the people being smashed to smitherens and rather why should they not be...the elites stay unaffected and protected within their high walls, the electricity comes to them from some power plant that may have displaced lakhs of people, water would be coming
through the pipelines through some dams that would have broken the back of
countless local economies, their furniture comes by shredding millions of hectares of
pristine forests (oops, forests have animals, birds, insects as well), so may be they
will have to end up as pets in those homes or a zoo would be made for them all, as
for the insects, they would be fed insecticides and are not welcome, this is also true for most not so good looking animals....i forgot about tribals and other local populations who incidentally happen to depend on nature for their survival...so may be these people will be rehabilitated in some tin sheds and brick homes and provide cheap labor and security guards for the people within the wall.....may be....naah that is the norm.....
so meanwhile we continue to stay within our walls...truly that's a wall ...much
stronger and stable than the berlin wall...its a wall that feeds on the carcass of
conscience, morality and the human spirit. soon however there would be none left to
feed on for these walls and will then the wall turn itself on what is left of these
people.....turn them into zombies may be or something like what was left of men
when the T virus attacked them and turned them into something that wouldnt die but
would feed on whatever that could move.....(RESIDENT EVIL EXTINCTION STYLE)
private entity but then I can still understand what the word sacrifice means. I cannot be forced to make a sacrifice, can I, if that is the case then will it be termed as a sacrifice in the first place.
sacrifice is when I am ready to lose something for a future gain, but then when I end
up losing everything, my land, my house, my birthplace, my village....is there some
cause so great that I could sacrifice it all....and that too happily...when am not even sure of what benefits shall accrue, either to me or the nation...
as a fairly educated person and someone still with a heart that beats for the people
of this nation, I dont intend to take the moral highground in this regard, just that
there has been little or no precedence of 'amicably displaced people' and people who
have happily decided to 'sacrifice' their fertile double or triple productive land for some wads of cash...
am not here taking sides on this issue, because i feel there is no side other than
heeding to my conscience. there also exists no side because the role the govt was
supposed to play was abdicated by it to some corporation or the development mafia as
people refer to it these days. asking people to leave their homes, farmlands and their villages tantamounts to crime, it is criminal to do so and more so to expect people to leave without as much as a protest.
the academia is of the opinion that adequate policy measures, their strengthening and
better implementation would result in amicable displacement and no protests. the
arguement looks wrethched even before i can put in any more clearer words.
let us take an example, something that is now the fate of people in villages in india. say a mining project comes up, land needs to be acquired, by some sheer sinister statistic all these projects come up in areas that have fertile land and well entrenched means of production and survival for the local communities.
as per the trend and the fundamentals of the LAA, 1894 the state has the right to
acquire land at will under the clause of the eminent domain and give some kind of
monetary compensation in return. the problem however is there is no method to
monetise a productive land, neither are people informed or given a choice..its classical top down bureacratic decisions being shovelled down the throats of the people.
before i just make my battle a little bigger, let me finish the saga of deprivation. so the people are asked to move away from the area which on records has been sold to
the company concerned and people have no right to live on that land anymore, some
money is offered which is a case of peanuts for monkeys anyway. some people are
given employment in the factory that comes up, but not as permanent employees but
as temporary labourers, these people do the shovelling, mining work, working in deep
mines all day, up and down the shafts of a mine and come out when the sun has gone
down. in a year or two the people who have been 'employed' are no longer medically fit and end up dead with cancer or whooping cough on account of working in these very mines with no gear or protection that is offered.....
so isnt this the recipe for death.....mass murder....genocide....mix state apathy
with corporate megalomania for more profits, more cost cutting, more optimisation,
maximum control, no regulation, scant disregard for people.....what do you have....a
nation that is broken....a nation with broken knees can never stand up....
the academia still believes that better regulations will work, it will only help in
ensuring a more pleasant death....or does such a notion exist...'pleasant death'
ahem...sounds like CSR or the same as 'collateral damage'....wonderful PR jargns
that can sell anything. you can sell anyone's soul as well through it, we have excellent people to do that.
the academia and the elite still feel that regulations would save the day, ensure
better practises and there is nothing as wrong as the people who are protesting
against the state managed negligence say it is. they still feel proper procedures would help, the point is asking someone to leave his house/farm/livelihood even
respectfully..(honorable eviction)....what is the recourse the concerned person have
for his livelihood and his socio-economic status...will the state support him...(well the Indian govt is a "wel" "fare" state....but who pays the 'fare')
state managed negligence....now that is the paradigm that has been in place ever
since nehru laid the foundation for the so called 'modern temples' of progress. the
model of development that was followed had no element of socialism in it but had a
very strong stalinist element about it.
so instead of debating the very core assumptions of the model of development being
shovelled down the throats of the people of this nation, we are busy evolving ways
and means to make this system work in as painless a manner as possible but then it
doesnt work that way....or does it???!!!
people are still happy riding the juggernaut totally oblivious of the cries of the people being smashed to smitherens and rather why should they not be...the elites stay unaffected and protected within their high walls, the electricity comes to them from some power plant that may have displaced lakhs of people, water would be coming
through the pipelines through some dams that would have broken the back of
countless local economies, their furniture comes by shredding millions of hectares of
pristine forests (oops, forests have animals, birds, insects as well), so may be they
will have to end up as pets in those homes or a zoo would be made for them all, as
for the insects, they would be fed insecticides and are not welcome, this is also true for most not so good looking animals....i forgot about tribals and other local populations who incidentally happen to depend on nature for their survival...so may be these people will be rehabilitated in some tin sheds and brick homes and provide cheap labor and security guards for the people within the wall.....may be....naah that is the norm.....
so meanwhile we continue to stay within our walls...truly that's a wall ...much
stronger and stable than the berlin wall...its a wall that feeds on the carcass of
conscience, morality and the human spirit. soon however there would be none left to
feed on for these walls and will then the wall turn itself on what is left of these
people.....turn them into zombies may be or something like what was left of men
when the T virus attacked them and turned them into something that wouldnt die but
would feed on whatever that could move.....(RESIDENT EVIL EXTINCTION STYLE)
Wednesday, October 21, 2009
THE PARADOX OF EDUCATION...
my moral awakening was never an issue of concern for me before i realised that i had a certain gift which others woefully lacked or had seen its careful conversion into a vestige.
it is in this light that I sit down to write this piece today. the education system that we all have been exposed has been considered by generations now, to be an extremely sancrosanct subject, one that merits no debate even if one doesnt know how he or she benefits by it or what it does to a person's moral and social dimension.
I shall therefore refrain from calling what I have received this far as education or an intellectual acheivement or the fact that in a few days from now, I shall be a post graduate.
The education that I have so diligently received and followed is woefully inadequate both morally and otherwise when it comes to application.
for instance, let us look at economics per se, it assumes everything that happens is under ceteris paribas or everything staying constant, but then how many things are constant in this world is something that doesnt mandate any research.
then we have this talk of economy of scale that optimises the factors of production and aims at harnessing maximum work by employing the least number of people, while this may make sense in a nation where the mode of work is capital intensive and the population is low, it has been unleashing misery ever since its inception in the indian context where processes have always been labor intensive and very productive too.
we have all been growing up learning how dams are engineering marvels and how the then prime minister of the nation, Mr.Nehru, said that they were the temples of modern india, how many of us today know that the entire damming bussiness has damned the lives of some 50 million indians who have lost homes, fields, entire villages...this is something that our education system doesnt do or may be cant do.
it is accepted without question that whatever the CBSE or the UGC says has to be true but then the essence of any education system is that the current assumptions need to be questioned, in the absence of that what results is that education ends up herding people like cattle who end up belching with every piece that comes their way and hence no growth results.
why would then not people end up being insenstive to the cause of rural india, poor people, malnourished children, sexually abused children, raped women, displaced indigeneous population, submerged villages, custodial deaths of innocent youth, forced disapperances of people whp question the system...... that is a direct outcome of what has been discussed so far
even arundhati roy raises this issue though in a very different tone altogether and this piece doesnt match her angst in any way and rather should be seen as a tactical analysis piece. it is also not that people have absolutely no idea that such problems plague india but then they have faith on the current scheme of events and the academia to settle everything that is going wrong. it is this very faith that needs to be questioned....
people are still stuck and look at the constitution and its preamble with starstruck eyes and are so happy with the very idea of being part of a democracy as the national media and all those endless chapters on civics have taught each one of us. the grandest propaganda and misinformation campaign that is being done lies in our own nation. people are being made to believe that everything is fine with the nation and that there are only a small bunch of miserable people in this country who are so useless that even with free markets they can do nothing and are poor by choice rather than anything else.
slowly instead of citizens of a free nation, we are now only subjects who are being herded and shielded from all that is happening around us, encouraged to conform to the system, the marginalised sections are asked to either shape in or ship out (ship out but where???)
the same education and the way it is presented in front of us since the time we begin this journey is one that lacks objectivity and focus and is aimed at solely finishing off the individuality and the spontaniety amongst us all (most dont realise the process, that's the sinister beauty of the system, it robs your soul yet one feels complete with a paper degree in hand..)
am sounding cynical, am i not, even paranoid but then atleast i know what it is all about or what I am in the first place, i can sense my soul sucked out of my system everyday, the more am a part of it , the more am not a part of myself...its a mortgage all throughout, report cards that tell you what you are capable of, grades that tell you what you are and what not....always a deal, some kind of a barter...
an education that preaches but doesnt have the guts to let children experiment, it binds you down, ties you up and then you are expected to change things....easy said than done, almost 16 years of your life you feel you are getting education, plain and simple but no when it hits you it was nothing but a farce...a deception..some long game which you were always supposed to hide.....a game in which emerging from your hiding place would cost you everything that you thought was yours.....
just give a thought..is it education we receive or indoctrination....
it is in this light that I sit down to write this piece today. the education system that we all have been exposed has been considered by generations now, to be an extremely sancrosanct subject, one that merits no debate even if one doesnt know how he or she benefits by it or what it does to a person's moral and social dimension.
I shall therefore refrain from calling what I have received this far as education or an intellectual acheivement or the fact that in a few days from now, I shall be a post graduate.
The education that I have so diligently received and followed is woefully inadequate both morally and otherwise when it comes to application.
for instance, let us look at economics per se, it assumes everything that happens is under ceteris paribas or everything staying constant, but then how many things are constant in this world is something that doesnt mandate any research.
then we have this talk of economy of scale that optimises the factors of production and aims at harnessing maximum work by employing the least number of people, while this may make sense in a nation where the mode of work is capital intensive and the population is low, it has been unleashing misery ever since its inception in the indian context where processes have always been labor intensive and very productive too.
we have all been growing up learning how dams are engineering marvels and how the then prime minister of the nation, Mr.Nehru, said that they were the temples of modern india, how many of us today know that the entire damming bussiness has damned the lives of some 50 million indians who have lost homes, fields, entire villages...this is something that our education system doesnt do or may be cant do.
it is accepted without question that whatever the CBSE or the UGC says has to be true but then the essence of any education system is that the current assumptions need to be questioned, in the absence of that what results is that education ends up herding people like cattle who end up belching with every piece that comes their way and hence no growth results.
why would then not people end up being insenstive to the cause of rural india, poor people, malnourished children, sexually abused children, raped women, displaced indigeneous population, submerged villages, custodial deaths of innocent youth, forced disapperances of people whp question the system...... that is a direct outcome of what has been discussed so far
even arundhati roy raises this issue though in a very different tone altogether and this piece doesnt match her angst in any way and rather should be seen as a tactical analysis piece. it is also not that people have absolutely no idea that such problems plague india but then they have faith on the current scheme of events and the academia to settle everything that is going wrong. it is this very faith that needs to be questioned....
people are still stuck and look at the constitution and its preamble with starstruck eyes and are so happy with the very idea of being part of a democracy as the national media and all those endless chapters on civics have taught each one of us. the grandest propaganda and misinformation campaign that is being done lies in our own nation. people are being made to believe that everything is fine with the nation and that there are only a small bunch of miserable people in this country who are so useless that even with free markets they can do nothing and are poor by choice rather than anything else.
slowly instead of citizens of a free nation, we are now only subjects who are being herded and shielded from all that is happening around us, encouraged to conform to the system, the marginalised sections are asked to either shape in or ship out (ship out but where???)
the same education and the way it is presented in front of us since the time we begin this journey is one that lacks objectivity and focus and is aimed at solely finishing off the individuality and the spontaniety amongst us all (most dont realise the process, that's the sinister beauty of the system, it robs your soul yet one feels complete with a paper degree in hand..)
am sounding cynical, am i not, even paranoid but then atleast i know what it is all about or what I am in the first place, i can sense my soul sucked out of my system everyday, the more am a part of it , the more am not a part of myself...its a mortgage all throughout, report cards that tell you what you are capable of, grades that tell you what you are and what not....always a deal, some kind of a barter...
an education that preaches but doesnt have the guts to let children experiment, it binds you down, ties you up and then you are expected to change things....easy said than done, almost 16 years of your life you feel you are getting education, plain and simple but no when it hits you it was nothing but a farce...a deception..some long game which you were always supposed to hide.....a game in which emerging from your hiding place would cost you everything that you thought was yours.....
just give a thought..is it education we receive or indoctrination....
Tuesday, October 20, 2009
scorched earth policy, india style of development
what the govt of india has been doing in the name of development would make even a stalin very proud. the scorched earth policy has been given a new and more sinister form by the govt of our nation that has no idea of what the term development means.
genocide is not always gassing people to death or locking them up in concentration camps, cutting people off from their factors of production is also tantamount to crime. it is criminal to take away the lands of people and then speak of compensating them with useless wads of cash that most people especially the indigenous people have no use for.
this needs to be seen in the manner the displacement is so strategically planned and executed with such ruthless efficiency, wherein the wails of people counts for nothing and lost in the entire cacophony of the development war cries sponsored and managed by the govt of our vibrant democracy.....some sort of vibrancy for sure....
as soon as the notification for displacing an area comes up, the area is virtually suffocated in terms of resources and infrastructure development. it is almost as if the area is prepared physically for its systematic annihilation. the stripping of the area and its people becomes a story of untold and unimaginable misery for the people there.
this is classical scorched earth policy where even the basic services are cut off, schools closed, PHC's closed, it is the final nail in the coffin of that area, so when you leave the people with no access, no electricity, no roads, no medical services, seal the handpumps...
So in a way the people are left with no choice but to leave that place for as the prime minister and bharat ratna awardees in our nation speak, for the greater common good of the nation... a nation that abandons them ,takes their home, land away and gifts to some entity, some corporation....
some nation...some democracy....some human rights....some notion of welfare state....
the scale at which this is happening is horrible and it could happen in only an as morally vacous nation and as insensitive and crass a nation like India....
so when the state displaces people, people dont even have the grace of opposition or protesting when they have lost everything....the govt expects them to pose as poster boys and pin up dolls for the project....expected to smile when their lands have been pillaged, houses bulldozed, livestock killed or driven away.....
this is the true price of development, something that would never be covered by the national media that calls displacement as collateral losses in the march to progress, legalises genocide, govt reports that reduce people to nothing but meaningless numbers....
just an after thought....so when the govt displaces, kills and maims...it is termed as development and when the displaced people retort back, they are called as anti development junkies, anti nationalists and terrorists.....and they receive no compensation ...only bullets.....
genocide is not always gassing people to death or locking them up in concentration camps, cutting people off from their factors of production is also tantamount to crime. it is criminal to take away the lands of people and then speak of compensating them with useless wads of cash that most people especially the indigenous people have no use for.
this needs to be seen in the manner the displacement is so strategically planned and executed with such ruthless efficiency, wherein the wails of people counts for nothing and lost in the entire cacophony of the development war cries sponsored and managed by the govt of our vibrant democracy.....some sort of vibrancy for sure....
as soon as the notification for displacing an area comes up, the area is virtually suffocated in terms of resources and infrastructure development. it is almost as if the area is prepared physically for its systematic annihilation. the stripping of the area and its people becomes a story of untold and unimaginable misery for the people there.
this is classical scorched earth policy where even the basic services are cut off, schools closed, PHC's closed, it is the final nail in the coffin of that area, so when you leave the people with no access, no electricity, no roads, no medical services, seal the handpumps...
So in a way the people are left with no choice but to leave that place for as the prime minister and bharat ratna awardees in our nation speak, for the greater common good of the nation... a nation that abandons them ,takes their home, land away and gifts to some entity, some corporation....
some nation...some democracy....some human rights....some notion of welfare state....
the scale at which this is happening is horrible and it could happen in only an as morally vacous nation and as insensitive and crass a nation like India....
so when the state displaces people, people dont even have the grace of opposition or protesting when they have lost everything....the govt expects them to pose as poster boys and pin up dolls for the project....expected to smile when their lands have been pillaged, houses bulldozed, livestock killed or driven away.....
this is the true price of development, something that would never be covered by the national media that calls displacement as collateral losses in the march to progress, legalises genocide, govt reports that reduce people to nothing but meaningless numbers....
just an after thought....so when the govt displaces, kills and maims...it is termed as development and when the displaced people retort back, they are called as anti development junkies, anti nationalists and terrorists.....and they receive no compensation ...only bullets.....
Thursday, October 15, 2009
case studies on genocide....
some cases of state sponsored violence that will always go unreported....
SPOs killed Madvi Deva of village Gachhanpalli at a rivulet on September 17. Another village’s Patel claimed seeing Deva being buried in the Chintagupha police station compound.
• CRPF men and SPOs cut off the breasts of 70-year-old Dudhi Muye, an invalid who could not walk, and stabbed her to death on September 17.
• CRPF and SPOs caught Madkami Muke of village Gachhanpalli and tied her up with her own sari. They beat, stabbed and shot her husband in front of her. Muke saw the attackers stab and shoot Madvi Joga, 60, in his field. She saw them strip 35-year-old Madvi Hidma, stab and shoot her.
• Also in Gompad village, four of a family — Madvi Bajar, 45, his wife Madvi Subbi, his married daughter, Kartam Kanni, 20, and younger daughter Madvi Mutti, 15 — were killed by SPOs. The attackers cut off the tongue and fingers of Kartam Kanni’s two-year-old son.
• Muchaki Aanda of Bhandarpadar village and his nephew, Madvi Deva, were returning from Andhra Pradesh when the police caught them. They were hacked to death with axes and knives, their bodies dumped near corn fields. Two villagers informed Deva’s mother, Madvi Joge, of their killing.
SPOs killed Madvi Deva of village Gachhanpalli at a rivulet on September 17. Another village’s Patel claimed seeing Deva being buried in the Chintagupha police station compound.
• CRPF men and SPOs cut off the breasts of 70-year-old Dudhi Muye, an invalid who could not walk, and stabbed her to death on September 17.
• CRPF and SPOs caught Madkami Muke of village Gachhanpalli and tied her up with her own sari. They beat, stabbed and shot her husband in front of her. Muke saw the attackers stab and shoot Madvi Joga, 60, in his field. She saw them strip 35-year-old Madvi Hidma, stab and shoot her.
• Also in Gompad village, four of a family — Madvi Bajar, 45, his wife Madvi Subbi, his married daughter, Kartam Kanni, 20, and younger daughter Madvi Mutti, 15 — were killed by SPOs. The attackers cut off the tongue and fingers of Kartam Kanni’s two-year-old son.
• Muchaki Aanda of Bhandarpadar village and his nephew, Madvi Deva, were returning from Andhra Pradesh when the police caught them. They were hacked to death with axes and knives, their bodies dumped near corn fields. Two villagers informed Deva’s mother, Madvi Joge, of their killing.
GEN X..the road ahead..????
I would be accused of being a cynic as people draw towards the end of this piece but then atleast I dont have fanciful flawed notions of misplaced optimism that are dreams of a future that shall not reach if structural re adjustments dont happen.....
the power of youth is a myth, the point is the youth has been neutered as well. the power that is talked about as the youth being the fountain head of progress and bulwark of the nation has been reduced to empty talk as the current gen x has nothing to do with the state of affairs of the nation.
they are happy with status quo and all they do or react is a classical knee jerk reaction, some thing of the model of what a rang de basanti advertised. the youth is too happy with simplistic assessments of what is being done to the nation, they have been brought up to read and memorise the national anthem without understanding what it means, they have no idea of the national song and its meaning, they have no idea what questioning is and they are too happy to live under the utopic idea that they are a part of a vibrant democracy, when in effect they are nothing but poster pieces or pin up dolls to sell and advertise ideas, products of corporations.
the problem is we have two india's today...one india that has receeded into outer space and looks down upon the other india and asks a very simple question, what are these poor people, tribals doing with our furniture lying in those forests, our aluminium, our iron and steel...thye have to be removed..... the nation today has two classes of people, the self proclaimed humans or the neo human race and the marginalised class of sub humans..... the problem with gen x is that it has fallen prey to the wonderful smokescreen that corporations have managed to string up using the very youth power.
the marketing strategy followed uses the youth and their shoulders to hold the smokescreen as well.... the spirit of questioning has to sharpen and become more critical of the system that is in place, only then will the govt of the nation fear the common man, that very common man who is talked about in every speech but is stripped and paraded on the streets, displaced, kicked around at will.....
the questioning culture relating to confusion is a thought that has been bothering here but then as i told him some time back, its not the culture that is creating confusion but what we are asking is....we are yet to begin asking the right kind of questions, till then lets duel with our lances out, the fight has got to be taken to the streets and strengthen the hands of the people feeling the heat of this horribly fallacy called development.... entrepreneurs can come and are most welcome but then operating under constraints that cripple is not a very useful alternative, this is not a 'do nothing' that people should think it is. change happens when you question the very assumptions on which these grand edifices have been built. real change happens when you work with the real people at the grassroots and then feel india and not what the govt tell you it is or the media tells you it is...
go out, reach out and feel india.... time is a constraint...always has been....gandhiji is mocked at, ridiculed but then one question we all must ask ourselves....how could he unite such a diverse nation behind him.....behind this question lies the strength of his idea....one of civil disobedience.... but for that to happen....the corporate cum govt juggernaut has to be stopped in its tracks.....
the power of youth is a myth, the point is the youth has been neutered as well. the power that is talked about as the youth being the fountain head of progress and bulwark of the nation has been reduced to empty talk as the current gen x has nothing to do with the state of affairs of the nation.
they are happy with status quo and all they do or react is a classical knee jerk reaction, some thing of the model of what a rang de basanti advertised. the youth is too happy with simplistic assessments of what is being done to the nation, they have been brought up to read and memorise the national anthem without understanding what it means, they have no idea of the national song and its meaning, they have no idea what questioning is and they are too happy to live under the utopic idea that they are a part of a vibrant democracy, when in effect they are nothing but poster pieces or pin up dolls to sell and advertise ideas, products of corporations.
the problem is we have two india's today...one india that has receeded into outer space and looks down upon the other india and asks a very simple question, what are these poor people, tribals doing with our furniture lying in those forests, our aluminium, our iron and steel...thye have to be removed..... the nation today has two classes of people, the self proclaimed humans or the neo human race and the marginalised class of sub humans..... the problem with gen x is that it has fallen prey to the wonderful smokescreen that corporations have managed to string up using the very youth power.
the marketing strategy followed uses the youth and their shoulders to hold the smokescreen as well.... the spirit of questioning has to sharpen and become more critical of the system that is in place, only then will the govt of the nation fear the common man, that very common man who is talked about in every speech but is stripped and paraded on the streets, displaced, kicked around at will.....
the questioning culture relating to confusion is a thought that has been bothering here but then as i told him some time back, its not the culture that is creating confusion but what we are asking is....we are yet to begin asking the right kind of questions, till then lets duel with our lances out, the fight has got to be taken to the streets and strengthen the hands of the people feeling the heat of this horribly fallacy called development.... entrepreneurs can come and are most welcome but then operating under constraints that cripple is not a very useful alternative, this is not a 'do nothing' that people should think it is. change happens when you question the very assumptions on which these grand edifices have been built. real change happens when you work with the real people at the grassroots and then feel india and not what the govt tell you it is or the media tells you it is...
go out, reach out and feel india.... time is a constraint...always has been....gandhiji is mocked at, ridiculed but then one question we all must ask ourselves....how could he unite such a diverse nation behind him.....behind this question lies the strength of his idea....one of civil disobedience.... but for that to happen....the corporate cum govt juggernaut has to be stopped in its tracks.....
Wednesday, October 14, 2009
Page 3 social work...the new 'in' thing
ever wondered what has suddenly happened in the entire social sector, what is the new buzz all about, why is everyone suddenly talking about social work as if the world is nearing the end or something......NO...
In case one hasnt let me take you into this world of social development that is nothing as what it looks like and definitely nothing like what the media tells you it is like.
Did i confuse you...or did i hit a cord, nevertheless i shall continue with my scuba diving mission today...
there has been a sudden revival of the urban conscience for the poor of this nation, suddenly airwaves are abuzz with rich wives of major corporate households doing some kind of charity or the other, opening foundations and the like. several of these foundations have come into existence over a very short period of time. nothing wrong with philantrophy per se, but what bothers me is the sudden interest in the welfare of the poor, the very poor who are at the receiving end of those very corporations policies who have now opened a new shop of returning things to society. once you have a talk with the people heading these charities, one immediately realises that it is all about the image of self righteousness that is at the crux of the entire exercise, some sort of a brand building by doling some freebies to the poor, some clothes for the poor, some peanuts thrown here and there that is lapped up by a media that these people control nevertheless. there is no motivation or clarity on what should be done or even realisation of what is the problem in the first place.
social work is today being run by the wives of bureacrats or those of major corporate households. people who have never even felt what poverty is or what is its true face are infact writing books, quoting from schumpeter and the likes to put forward their points or idea which in any case are hijacked from some book or the other. point is these books become best sellers and these people get covered by the media extensively. as i said the media is anyway controlled by these very people, so their works or should i call them fabrications end up getting the attention of the media that offlate resembles a hungry street dog running after every passing car and grabbing anything that comes its way as news....some kind of 4th estate.
the relevance of the 4th estate today doesnt stand questioned, in fact there is nothing to question, no body questions dead bodies that would want to pass of as vigorous entities. a better question would be, does the 4th estate or for that matter any estate exist independently in this nation that is marketed as an ideal democracy in the world arena but has neither an honest media, accountable judiciary, at best a blind executive and a horrible bureacratic machinery. together these work in close confluence with major corporations and serve as extensions of that nebulous hydra headed monster that is so pervasive yet invisible, with all these estates serving as the eyes and ears for the master that they serve.
this enslavement is complete once when the oppressor tries to get into the garb of a protector, and believe me a benevolent beast is a dangerous one as at the end of the day he could very well deny it all saying that it was never his job anyway in the first place and that he was simply trying to play a small role while it should have been the role of the state in the first place. this is at the same time a self serving and a highly misleading statement as well. self serving as it absolves them of any mistake that would and will happen, and misleading because there is nothing like a state or a welfare state anymore. it has been sold, bought and re sold several times over by the very free market forces that these corporations and now their version of benevolent capitalism owes itself their existence.
these half baked attempts at throwing crumbs to a society that has been systematically pillaged by these very corporations and now want to hide amidst the entire garb of sustainable development and Corporate social responsibility. with empty talks of the triple bottom line taking precedence and helping these corporations get hold of effective media,
THE TROIKA OF POWER, POLEMICS AND POLARISATION APPEARS TO BE COMPLETE.
In case one hasnt let me take you into this world of social development that is nothing as what it looks like and definitely nothing like what the media tells you it is like.
Did i confuse you...or did i hit a cord, nevertheless i shall continue with my scuba diving mission today...
there has been a sudden revival of the urban conscience for the poor of this nation, suddenly airwaves are abuzz with rich wives of major corporate households doing some kind of charity or the other, opening foundations and the like. several of these foundations have come into existence over a very short period of time. nothing wrong with philantrophy per se, but what bothers me is the sudden interest in the welfare of the poor, the very poor who are at the receiving end of those very corporations policies who have now opened a new shop of returning things to society. once you have a talk with the people heading these charities, one immediately realises that it is all about the image of self righteousness that is at the crux of the entire exercise, some sort of a brand building by doling some freebies to the poor, some clothes for the poor, some peanuts thrown here and there that is lapped up by a media that these people control nevertheless. there is no motivation or clarity on what should be done or even realisation of what is the problem in the first place.
social work is today being run by the wives of bureacrats or those of major corporate households. people who have never even felt what poverty is or what is its true face are infact writing books, quoting from schumpeter and the likes to put forward their points or idea which in any case are hijacked from some book or the other. point is these books become best sellers and these people get covered by the media extensively. as i said the media is anyway controlled by these very people, so their works or should i call them fabrications end up getting the attention of the media that offlate resembles a hungry street dog running after every passing car and grabbing anything that comes its way as news....some kind of 4th estate.
the relevance of the 4th estate today doesnt stand questioned, in fact there is nothing to question, no body questions dead bodies that would want to pass of as vigorous entities. a better question would be, does the 4th estate or for that matter any estate exist independently in this nation that is marketed as an ideal democracy in the world arena but has neither an honest media, accountable judiciary, at best a blind executive and a horrible bureacratic machinery. together these work in close confluence with major corporations and serve as extensions of that nebulous hydra headed monster that is so pervasive yet invisible, with all these estates serving as the eyes and ears for the master that they serve.
this enslavement is complete once when the oppressor tries to get into the garb of a protector, and believe me a benevolent beast is a dangerous one as at the end of the day he could very well deny it all saying that it was never his job anyway in the first place and that he was simply trying to play a small role while it should have been the role of the state in the first place. this is at the same time a self serving and a highly misleading statement as well. self serving as it absolves them of any mistake that would and will happen, and misleading because there is nothing like a state or a welfare state anymore. it has been sold, bought and re sold several times over by the very free market forces that these corporations and now their version of benevolent capitalism owes itself their existence.
these half baked attempts at throwing crumbs to a society that has been systematically pillaged by these very corporations and now want to hide amidst the entire garb of sustainable development and Corporate social responsibility. with empty talks of the triple bottom line taking precedence and helping these corporations get hold of effective media,
THE TROIKA OF POWER, POLEMICS AND POLARISATION APPEARS TO BE COMPLETE.
Saturday, October 3, 2009
where art thou
Here i am sitting within these walls that have been stifling my creativity, forcing me to question every night before I call it a day here, what is it that I am actually doing here. it is a question on which am not even allowed to delve upon courtesy the baggage of redundancy that I have been made to carry ever since I stepped into these erstwhile hallowed gates.
it is said that the grass looks green on the other side but in my case the grass on either side is rotten, the only difference being that it stinks on one side and its made to look fragrant on the other side by the PR machinery, a powerful tool especially in the hands of bigots and ambivalent institutes that are ruthlessly vacous when it comes to issues pertaining to practising ethics but are most vocal when it comes to talking about them.
it is but the dream of every student who is academically driven and wants to carve a niche for himself or herself to be a part of an elite instutute that is supposed to add on to what the person knows, feels or atleast give him an orientation, something thta would decide the future course of his life, unlike what several people sitting out of these elite institutes believe, there exists an elite vaccum over here, one that is camoflauged very well indeed, something these institutes have become experts at, the art of manipulation, coercion of free thought and truth.
these academic institutes are the new forms of manipulation and coercion that are using education as cover for indoctrination and re engineering, systematically stifling the free souls who enter these places and either aim at burning them out or turn them into automatons, the vast army of unthinking, self serving brats that are being manufactured by institutes all across. these automatons are desired by corporations who anyway dont need people who would question but people who would follow and keep their spirits chained for the monetary figure that is thrown at them. just like dogs are happy to have a piece of a bone after a hard day, in the same way these automatons are happy and too grateful to their masters for the generous pay check they receive each month.
ever wondered why people no longer even talk about issues that are plaguing the country, the answer is simple, they are not allowed to think or question, people who question are either silenced forever or the spirit within them killed with so much inertia that is added on them with each passing day. people today have seceded themselves from what is happening to the nation and this is a direct by product of a system that has sold its central tenets to the corporate capitalism mafia.
the role of education was always to facilitate and nurture, teachers were always expected to act as mentors and not as iron clad instructors. that is the sad reality of the teaching fraternity as well who have consigned themselves to a world of utopia where all that matters is writing more thesis papers, presentations and awards. academic involvement seems to have emerged as a substitute for not doing anything punitive or realistic. i would take the privilege of calling them as the new fat cats of the society, the aspiring and media hungry noveau elite. there is a difference in these new academic stalwarts as they project themselves and the academic wizards of the earlier times.
the latter were statesmen as well and were media shy, they wanted their work to speak for themselves and they never wanted the media around and become their mouth piece. their works inspired an entire generation and exhorted people to action and even these academicians were at the forefront of proposing new interventions and willing to take it up further as well. we thus have examples of a kalam or a kasturirangan , a vikram sarabhai and others....what we have as of now as our dear professors are nothing but moth balls, worms who have decided never to come out of the cocoon they have weaved around themselves. their notion of the world is something utopic, an ideal world where everyone exists in peace. what they actually forget is that peace has a price and are they willing to even understand what peace means and what the price for peace means in the first place....
high time they do and stop branding institutions without delving on the content that these institutes offer in the first place
it is said that the grass looks green on the other side but in my case the grass on either side is rotten, the only difference being that it stinks on one side and its made to look fragrant on the other side by the PR machinery, a powerful tool especially in the hands of bigots and ambivalent institutes that are ruthlessly vacous when it comes to issues pertaining to practising ethics but are most vocal when it comes to talking about them.
it is but the dream of every student who is academically driven and wants to carve a niche for himself or herself to be a part of an elite instutute that is supposed to add on to what the person knows, feels or atleast give him an orientation, something thta would decide the future course of his life, unlike what several people sitting out of these elite institutes believe, there exists an elite vaccum over here, one that is camoflauged very well indeed, something these institutes have become experts at, the art of manipulation, coercion of free thought and truth.
these academic institutes are the new forms of manipulation and coercion that are using education as cover for indoctrination and re engineering, systematically stifling the free souls who enter these places and either aim at burning them out or turn them into automatons, the vast army of unthinking, self serving brats that are being manufactured by institutes all across. these automatons are desired by corporations who anyway dont need people who would question but people who would follow and keep their spirits chained for the monetary figure that is thrown at them. just like dogs are happy to have a piece of a bone after a hard day, in the same way these automatons are happy and too grateful to their masters for the generous pay check they receive each month.
ever wondered why people no longer even talk about issues that are plaguing the country, the answer is simple, they are not allowed to think or question, people who question are either silenced forever or the spirit within them killed with so much inertia that is added on them with each passing day. people today have seceded themselves from what is happening to the nation and this is a direct by product of a system that has sold its central tenets to the corporate capitalism mafia.
the role of education was always to facilitate and nurture, teachers were always expected to act as mentors and not as iron clad instructors. that is the sad reality of the teaching fraternity as well who have consigned themselves to a world of utopia where all that matters is writing more thesis papers, presentations and awards. academic involvement seems to have emerged as a substitute for not doing anything punitive or realistic. i would take the privilege of calling them as the new fat cats of the society, the aspiring and media hungry noveau elite. there is a difference in these new academic stalwarts as they project themselves and the academic wizards of the earlier times.
the latter were statesmen as well and were media shy, they wanted their work to speak for themselves and they never wanted the media around and become their mouth piece. their works inspired an entire generation and exhorted people to action and even these academicians were at the forefront of proposing new interventions and willing to take it up further as well. we thus have examples of a kalam or a kasturirangan , a vikram sarabhai and others....what we have as of now as our dear professors are nothing but moth balls, worms who have decided never to come out of the cocoon they have weaved around themselves. their notion of the world is something utopic, an ideal world where everyone exists in peace. what they actually forget is that peace has a price and are they willing to even understand what peace means and what the price for peace means in the first place....
high time they do and stop branding institutions without delving on the content that these institutes offer in the first place
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