Category Archives: Debates

Bad ideas, Debates, Left watch, Mirror Worlds, Movements, Politics

The People

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Not enough people are asking what is motivating people to go to Ramlila Maidan in such large numbers. People like Ghazala Jamil and Anish Ahluwalia are not asking this question because for them the whole thing is an elite, middle-class conspiracy that is anti-Dalit, anti-OBC, anti-Muslim, anti-justice, anti-equality, anti-peace, anti-love and anti-sex.

These saviours of the marginalised, the poor and the vulnerable make the point that Anna Hazare’s means are showing contempt for the people by not letting people’s chosen representatives delay anti-corruption measures. They are making the point that unless Anna Hazare’s movements takes up issues of land reforms and justice for Gujarat’s Muslims, he should not be supported.  Continue reading The People →

Bad ideas, Debates, Left watch, Mirror Worlds, Movements, Politics

Three Questions to Friends

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I have been taking my time to reflect on the positions that have emerged in the fairly polarised debate on the on-going anti-corruption struggle in Delhi. I take very seriously the questions raised by critics on the right-wing inclinations evident in the movement’s leadershi, but I think it is both a strategic mistake and a disawoval of responsibility on the part of those of us on the left of the political spectrum to stay out of it. We should engage with the movement from the inside, strategically and persistently, and this means thinking afresh on the means by which we may support the larger binding issue with clear awareness of the risks involved. In this connection, I want to raise three questions:

First, when did we start to be so reluctant to acknowledge the fact that any civil social movement is bound to be contaminated by regressive positions and ideologies and so we cannot avoid thinking of ways of participating in them guided by awareness of the risks? I have recently been trying to collect narratives remembering the fourth national conference of the Indian women’s movement held at Kozhikode, Kerala, in 1990. The participants who spoke to me often pointed to a contrast between the dominant left parties who opposed the conference from the outside, and many, many groups who participated in the conference fully, but raised sharp criticisms which were quite like those of the former. They remarked that these critics were listened to with considerable respect because they were inside, unlike the dominant left.The participant who mentioned this, a well-known radical activist here, still remembers their arguments vividly. Another participant remembered sharp disagreements between urban feminists and rural participants on the question of justice to rape victims. While the former were opposed to the ‘solution’ of marrying the victim off to the rapist, a senior participant from a rural area who spoke up approved of it. This was shocking and unexpected to the urban feminists, but then purity of positions wasn’t, apparently, an overwhelming concern then — and at that place.

Continue reading Three Questions to Friends →

Debates, Movements, Politics

Tired of Democracy? – Gail Omvedt

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This guest post comes from  GAIL OMVEDT

Why are such masses of people (apparently: in our village some came out for a morcha organized by the Maharashtra Navnirman Samiti) following Anna Hazre, when it is now clear that his Lokpal is an authoritarian, centralized and undemocratically pushed proposal?

Several articles, including those by Arundhati Roy and Aruna Roy, have made this clear by now.  I can find only one point to disagree with in the otherwise excellent article by Arundhati:  that, like the Maoists, the Jan Lokpal Bill seeks the overthrow of the state.  It does not.  The movement wants to keep the state, in an even more centralized form, but replace its current rulers with a new set.  And Ranjit Hoskote’s comment that “Anna Hazare’s agitation is not a triumph of democracy [but] a triumph of demagoguery” deserves to be remembered.  The increasingly authoritarian, even fascist forms of activities are disturbing even many of its supporters.

Continue reading Tired of Democracy? – Gail Omvedt →

Debates, Government, Law, Movements, Politics

The office of the Jan Lokpal and some thoughts on Nivedita Menon’s post: Anish Ahluwalia

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Guest post by ANISH AHLUWALIA

The Jan Lokpal

A problem lies at the very core of Anna Hazare’s anti corruption campaign. This campaign wishes to march ahead by defining ‘corruption’ in the narrowest possible sense. Monies illegally made by politicians, members of judiciary, babus while remaining dreadfully silent on corporations, upper middle classes, middle classes who form the bulk of bribe payers…

Continue reading The office of the Jan Lokpal and some thoughts on Nivedita Menon’s post: Anish Ahluwalia →

Debates, Law, Left watch, Movements, Scams

A Great Opportunity, A Serious Danger: A Statement

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A Statement Issued by some individuals and friends in social movements

The Anna Hazare situation invites two common reactions: many dismiss it as a middle class driven “urban picnic”; and others, notably the mainstream media, describe it as just short of a revolutionary movement to establish “people’s power.” The same divide exists among progressives and those concerned with social change. Strategies differ on the basis of where one stands on this divide. The problem, however, is that neither of these reactions fully reflects the reality of what is happening.

Continue reading A Great Opportunity, A Serious Danger: A Statement →

Bad ideas, Culture, Debates, Politics

Anna’s ‘Second Azadi Movement’ via Satyakam and Rang De Basanti

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At first Anna reminded me of this very unreasonable, uncompromising, ‘dry honest’ (a delicious Indianism, I guess) character of Satyakam in the eponymous film created by Hrishikesh Mukherjee in the late Sixties. He is so pathologically and pathetically honest that he does not even borrow the chair from the office downstairs when his boss, Sanjeev Kumar visits him. Dharmendra climbs stairs to meet Sanjeev Kumar at his residence only after having finished his work.

Transposed in the current scenario, the equation would be something like this:

Sanjeev Kumar = any one of us; Anna = Dharmendra. Historically of course we know that only Gandhi could be Gandhi, and not even Nehru could ever aspire to that special position in the people’s hearts even while we remind ourselves that a whole mass of little (good, bad, ugly) Gandhis contributed to the making of the one and only, most famous, Gandhi. Continue reading Anna’s ‘Second Azadi Movement’ via Satyakam and Rang De Basanti →

Bad ideas, Debates, Movements, Politics, Right watch, Theory, Violence/Conflict

Reading Ur-Fascism in our times

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When people are marching to barricades, I go back to my library . I know that streets across India are now re-educating many of us and we are keen to get enrolled in this university of action. Yet I want first to understand this moment of action we are being advised to be part of.

Continue reading Reading Ur-Fascism in our times →

Debates, Government, Identities, Law, Movements, Politics

Why Jai Karan supports Anna Hazare

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Jai Karan in The Times of India

My own feelings about the Anna Hazare movement are mixed, or you could say confused. I like the way the movement is bringing an arrogant government to its knees, and though I don’t know if their version of the Lokpal Bill is the best way to fight corruption, I appreciate how they have exposed the UPA’s farce of a bill. I get the point that fellow-travellers Nivedita Menon and Aditya Nigam are making about democracy and political movements, but as one unit of ‘the people’, I don’t see why I should support a movement just because it is popular. Perhaps it is my elitism and naivete and cynicism. Or perhaps I’m just confused by now. The taste of the pudding is in the eating, and I’d like to see where this takes us.

While I sort out my confusion, I see a message on Facebook, attributed to Anu Ramdas, that says:

Continue reading Why Jai Karan supports Anna Hazare →

Centre watch, Debates, Law, Left watch, Movements

If only there were no people, democracy would be fine…

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This post has been jointly written by Nivedita Menon and Aditya Nigam

At Ramlila Maidan

We went to Ramlila Maidan yesterday, the four of “us” considerably swelling the numbers of about a lakh and a half of people there by 6.30 pm, when we left. They were either sitting inside, milling about outside all around its walls, or pouring in having walked from India Gate.  (Is the media exaggerating the numbers? In our opinion it is underestimating them considerably).

Continue reading If only there were no people, democracy would be fine… →

Bad ideas, Centre watch, Debates

We should be there: The Left and the Anna moment

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My head has been in a whirl the past few days with a single question – how do we on ‘the Left’ manage so unerringly to be exactly where ‘the people’ are not, time after time?

At this moment I don’t mean the organized Left, for the Left parties  have been cautious about criticizing  the current upsurge; they strongly defended the right to democratic protest when Anna Hazare and his colleagues were arrested, and now have launched a Third Front initiative on the issue of corruption and the Lokpal Bill; the students’ front of CPI (ML), AISA, has been organizing militantly on the issue for a very long time now, and is very much part of the campaign.

I mean the few hundreds who form my own community, the people with whom I have organized protests and run campaigns and sat on dharna and drafted petitions;  struggled against communal violence and sexual harassment,  for queer freedom and workers’ rights, against the nuclear bomb and nuclear energy, in support of reservations and against the moves in our universities to hold up appointments to reserved posts. Many of these people I know personally, some are among my closest friends, and many more I know as part of the broad Left/secular non-party tendency in the country’s politics, where I feel most at home.

Continue reading We should be there: The Left and the Anna moment →

Centre watch, Debates, Government, Law, Politics

NAPM Extends Support to Anti-Corruption Movement and Demand for an Effective Lokpal

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[The statement was issued by the National Alliance of People’s Movements on 14 August. Much has happened since then – the arrest of Anna Hazare – accopanied by silence and often ridicule poured by the radical elite, but in the face of what is perhaps one of the most widespread mass movements in India after Independence. Over the past few days, we have been witness to innumerable demnstrations and marches in almost every colony in Delhi – where no TV camera ever reached or was even expected to when the ‘real’ action is going in in central Delhi. Contrary to the general propaganda and even our own earlier impression, this is no more simply a middle class movement. I am reproducing it here, somewhat belatedly, because it still touches on some of the post important points at issue in the ongoing struggle. – AN]

Anna Hazare Ji and manyothers across India will be starting their fast from August 16th in Delhi demanding an effective Lokpal. NAPM supports the people’s movement for a corruption-free India and urges the citizens of the country to plunge into this struggle. NAPM, along with other organisations is holding relay fast, human chains, public meetings and other programmes, in Chennai, Pune, Mumbai, Narmada Valley, Hyderabad, Guwahati, Bhubaneshwar, Bangalore, Mysore, Mou, Balia, Allahabad, Muzzafarnagar and other places. We urge our members and supporters to join this call and challenge the corrupt and defensive governments at the Centre and the states.

We strongly disapprove of the way in which government has been trying to put severe restrictions on holding peaceful protests in the capital, and Delhi Police under the garb of implementing the Supreme Court’s Guidelines is imposing unnecessary conditions on protests, as it did early this month on SANGHARSH anti-land acquisition protest, AISA-DYF anti-corruption protest and others. For an independent democratic country like ours, imposition and insistence on police permission and strict guidelines for holding peaceful protests and Sataygraha seems completely contradictory and only shows shrinking spaces for democratic freedom of expression and curb on fundamental rights of its citizens.

Continue reading NAPM Extends Support to Anti-Corruption Movement and Demand for an Effective Lokpal →

Centre watch, Debates

The Lokpal- NCPRI approach: the right to differ

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In the midst of the overwhelming focus on Anna Hazare and the campaign around a bill that lacks consistency or clarity, both legal or ethical, below is a letter from Aruna Roy drawing our attention to an alternative approach to the Lokpal. It is an existing process for us to partake in, agree, disagree and/or rally behind.

Click here for more information on this alternative.

A letter from Aruna Roy

We write to you on a matter of mutual and common concern, the
Lokpal bill, now in Parliament. The context of this letter is
explained below.When the Joint Drafting Committee of the Lokpal was working on the Jan
Lokpal ,  the NCPRI had written to the Chair, Shri Pranab Mukherjee,
and the co-chair Shri Shanti Bhushan, enquiring about the TORs and the
process of and participation, in public consultation. Both assured us
that there would be formal public consultation. It did not happen.

When the government bill went to cabinet with the intention of placing
it in the monsoon session of parliament, the NCPRI decided to make its
position known. The NCPRI is continuing with its deliberations and
consultations and has  prepared an approach paper and a set of
principles for circulation. This is a work in progress.

The belief in consultations and discussion is the reason why we write to you. Continue reading The Lokpal- NCPRI approach: the right to differ →

Centre watch, Debates, Government, Law, Movements, Scams

Onwards to the Independence of the Corrupt!

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Let us pledge this 15th of August, that we will tirelessly work towards the independence – nay dictatorship – of the corrupt. We must tirelessly fight every attempt to raise  corruption as an issue – by gullible people who do not understand that corruption is not a real issue. We will not allow such people to be misled by demagogues and fascists who are  interested only in power – even if they do not show their hunger for power by contesting elections. Indeed, precisely because they do not contest elections.

Is the new mantra of democracy? How else do we understand the deafening silence on the series of dictatorial measures adopted by the government, on the part of all those who have been vocal, indeed strident, in their attack on the Anna Hazare movement? It is one thing to be opposed to the Anna Hazare movement but the silence – from parties as well as intellectuals, democratic rights groups and self-righteous editorial commentators of the Indian Express – on the desperate measures being adopted by one of the most corrupt governments ever, is inexplicable. It is as if the only threat to democracy today comes from a group of people who want to raise their voice in civil disobedience against public money being looted by elected representatives acting at the behest of powerful corporate interests.

First the Delhi Police simply refused permission to Anna Hazare and the India Against Corruption fast. Then they asked them to hold their protest in Burari! That is to say on the border of Haryana. This was but another way of disallowing it. Then they came out with a novel idea – a set of preconditions that include an undertaking that there will not be more than 5000 people and that the fast will be wound up in three days. Clearly, no self-respecting set of protestors will agree to such conditions and so ‘Team Anna’ refused to sign the undertaking.

Continue reading Onwards to the Independence of the Corrupt! →

Debates, Government, Law, Media politics, Mirror Worlds, Politics

In Defence of Asif Ali Zardari: Abdullah Zaidi

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Guest post by ABDULLAH ZAIDI

What comes to your mind with the mention of Asif Ali Zardari? “A cunning, vile, and corrupt man,” said my 19 year old cousin. This was a good summation of what the urban middle-class thinks of him. The more I hear people talking about him the more I am convinced of the power of propaganda. “Give the dog a bad name and hang him,” Zardai once said about himself. That is what is at work here.

Despite what has been said about him, Zardari did have a political background. His father Hakim Ali Zardari entered politics well before Partition and was a member of the Khaksaar Tehreek in 1931. He was first elected to the National Assembly in 1970s. All this talk of Zardari as a political orphan who hogged the Bhutto dynasty upon marriage with Benazir, is a non-starter. In Benazir’s husband, the Bhutto family wanted someone who would remain loyal to her. That is exactly what they got in him. For Zardari, family would always come first. This was the case at the time of Benazir’s death, when he kept the family together. Benazir would often tell close aides that despite his failings, Zardari always remained loyal to the family. Continue reading In Defence of Asif Ali Zardari: Abdullah Zaidi →

Centre watch, Culture, Debates, Law, Movements, Politics

Parliamentary Sovereignty or an Active Citizenry? V. Krishna Ananth

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Guest post by V. KRISHNA ANANTH*

The political class, cutting across the spectrum, is now being haunted by a spectre. Anna Hazare has captured the imagination of a cross section of the people and his campaign is certainly gathering support. It remains to be seen if this support translates into a movement on the streets and more so against the state machinery that is threatening to pull all the stops. The people have shown such courage in the past. That is another matter.

Team Anna’s decision to go ahead with protests against the draft Lok Pal Bill, as approved by the Union cabinet, has spurred a debate. The proponents of the draft bill as well as sections in the political arena who claim to oppose the Government are united against another round of fast by Anna Hazare; they call it blackmail and an attempt to usurp Parliament’s power to legislate. They also claim that the principles of democracy shall not be sacrificed.

A number of them are on record that the draft proposals are subject to amendments and that the power to propose amendments and decide on them shall rest with the elected representatives of the people. It is another matter that the Prime Minister, who heads the cabinet, qualifies as a representative of the people only because membership of the Rajya Sabha is considered as good as being a member of the Lok Sabha to remain a minister under Article 75(5) of the Constitution. In any case, the fact is that Dr. Manmohan Singh has claimed, in an affidavit, that he is ordinarily a resident of Assam! We all know the truth but that too is besides the point.

Continue reading Parliamentary Sovereignty or an Active Citizenry? V. Krishna Ananth →

Centre watch, Debates, Government, Politics

Deconstructing The NAC : Ruchi Gupta

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Guest post by RUCHI GUPTA

The past couple of months have seen a renewed attack on the National Advisory Council (NAC). The NAC has been decried as an unconstitutional, undemocratic, “super-cabinet” where unaccountable “jholawalas” hatch harebrained schemes guaranteed to run the government aground. Another line of criticism has focused on the process of the formation of the NAC, its space within the Indian Constitution, and its capacity to influence policy. The two criticisms merge with the demand to disband the NAC on the count that the NAC does not have to face the outcome of its recommendations, and by virtue of it being chaired by the head of the ruling Alliance, can arbitrarily force the implementation of its recommendations.

There is however, a need to examine how the NAC has functioned, what it has done, as well as understand the space it occupies in the policy-making paradigm of the country. While the concerns about the legitimacy of the NAC relate to important issues of Constitutionality, the criticism about the nature of its policy recommendations is motivated by ideology and is of much less relevance to its impact on democratic processes.

It is true that the NAC is an entity created to give the leader of the ruling alliance a role in policy making. Nevertheless, partly through the kind of members chosen, and the norms of functioning it has evolved, it has opened up the otherwise closed and secretive processes of formulation of law and policy, beyond its own membership to citizens groups and people with expertise. It can, in fact with some effort become a platform to further a more just and participative democracy. In this essay, we deconstruct the NAC and situate it in its political context to understand both its pitfalls and potential.

Continue reading Deconstructing The NAC : Ruchi Gupta →

Bad ideas, Centre watch, Countryside, Debates

Dear Manmohan Singh: BPL households don’t think cash transfers will be better than the PDS

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Given below is the text of a letter written by research scholars and student volunteers to the Prime Minister of India. Given below the letter is a table listing the findings of the survey that the letter speaks about.

21 July 2011

Dr. Manmohan Singh
Prime Minister of India

Respected Prime Minister,

We are a group of research scholars and student volunteers who have just spent three weeks surveying the Public Distribution System (PDS) around the country. We are writing to share a few thoughts on the National Food Security Act in the light of this experience.  Continue reading Dear Manmohan Singh: BPL households don’t think cash transfers will be better than the PDS →

Debates, Government, Movements, Politics

New Phase in Struggle for Release of Political Prisoners in West Bengal: Biswajit Roy

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Guest post by BISWAJIT ROY

Civil society, including human rights groups, in Bengal are now divided on Mamata Banerjee government’s ‘open and hidden’ conditions regarding the release of political prisoners who have been jailed during the Left front rule as well as talks with Maoists and Maoist-backed Peoples Committee against Police Atrocities in Bengal’s tribal hinterland, known as Junglemahal.

Mamata and her ministers have rejected the demands for unconditional release of all political prisoners, immediate withdrawal of joint forces from Junglemahal and public announcement on non-enforcement of the draconian central law, the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act. Maoists and PCPA have accused Mamata of eating up her pre-poll words on those demands. A large section in the human rights movement including the intellectuals and activists who actively joined the Mamata-led campaign for regime-change now supported these demands. But some of their fellow travellers have differed on political and legal grounds.

The differences revealed contradictions between the pre-poll and post-poll positions of Mamata as well as chinks in the armour of human rights groups on the attitude to the new government, Maoists and PCPA. Tension among all the stakeholders in the process— Mamata, Maoists, human rights groups and individuals— was well-known within the concerned circles for quite some time. But none of the stakeholders dwelt on it in public before the assembly polls when they had made common cause against the CPM, particularly, the atrocities by CPM-joint forces combine.

I would like to dwell on post-poll dilemmas and fissures in the pro-Paribartan civil society in Bengal later. But this piece is primarily aimed at reporting the increasing manifestations of the hitherto latent tension.

Continue reading New Phase in Struggle for Release of Political Prisoners in West Bengal: Biswajit Roy →

Capitalism, Debates, Government, Politics

The Values of Property

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The recently announced Rajiv Awaas Yojana (RAY) has brought back an old ghost to debates on how to allow the urban poor a foothold into the city and the possibility of upward mobility. The central policy initiative of the Ministry of Housing and Urban Poverty Alleviation is the most significant contemporary attempt to address urban poverty through providing housing to the urban poor. The “slum-free city” is back. Now more than ever, then, it is time to ask: what is a “slum-free city”?

Continue reading The Values of Property →

Debates

Can Kingly Mortals Donate to the Gods?

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Our fair but humble town of Thiruvananthapuram has been in a tizzy since it was discovered that our benign presiding deity, Lord Sree Padmanabha, had been resting on a huge treasure-trove, so fantastic that no one has been able to stop talking of it since then. This seems to have changed drastically the way we have perceived our past — or rather, the historical amnesia which we have been suffering from has been drastically accelerated. In the decades after independence, very few people, except the upper caste retainers of the Travancore royal family and the accolytes of the regime, thought that rajabharanam was a good thing. There were stories about the days immediately following the accession of Travancore to India, of how people gathered outside the Padmanabhaswamy temple, and when the Travancore Maharajah, Chithira Tirunal Balarama Varma arrived there for his daily visit, reminded him of their equality with him as citizens of India, addressing him personally and intimately … ‘Hey, Balaa’! That seems to have gone for a toss and we are back to His Golden Majesty, Ponnutampuran, though such a tampuran has no place in our political system. Continue reading Can Kingly Mortals Donate to the Gods? →

Bad ideas, Capitalism, Centre watch, Debates, Empire/ Imperialism, Excavation

The Lord’s riches are not the Lord’s riches

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Photo credit: Press Trust of India

Giving a historical background of why the Sree Ananta Padmanabha Swamy temple in Thiruvananthapuram came to have these riches, Malavika Velayanikal writes in DNA:

True, the bags of gold coins, diamonds, precious stones, 18-feet-long gold necklaces, jewellery weighing many kilograms, and solid-gold statues of gods and goddesses landed in the vault via the king. But in reality, the temple treasury was nourished by the sweat and blood of the masses as well.

One of the main sources of the royal income was taxes. They were incredibly high for the lower castes, with marriages, childbirth and even death being taxed. Country boats, ploughs, carts, umbrellas, headscarves, why, even a moustache, were taxed. Mothers were allowed to breastfeed their newborns only after they paid the ‘mulakaram’ (breast-tax) to the local lord, who would then grant permission. [Must read]

But you won’t hear this said too often because, as Appu Esthose Suresh reports in Mint:

“If the government makes any move, then the believers will protest and BJP will support the people,” he (a temple staff member) was quoted as saying by news agency PTI.

It is precisely the fear of antagonizing a section of the Hindus that is forcing the state government to be cautious.

“This government does not have the courage to go against Hindu sentiments,” said P.R.P. Bhaskar, a political observer. “It will move in a direction which will accommodate the royal palace.”

“The Left Front gained Hindu votes for two reasons. Firstly, its traditional vote base consists of Hindus and a perception that Christian and Muslim votes are moving towards the Congress and its allies had led to a consolidation of Hindu votes. This might help the government change that perception a bit,” he added. [Link]

Hindu appeasement. That’s what will come in the way of a just, fair, pro-people decision about what should be done wit the temple wealth.