विकास की भूख और भूखा विकास

- किशोर झा 

कार्टून: साभार जनसत्ता 

पिछले महीने एक जाने माने पत्रकार स्वामीनाथन एस अन्कलेसरिया का आर्थिक विकास और खाद्य सुरक्षा पर एक लेख पढ़ने को मिला। लेखक आर्थिक मामलों के प्रख्यात पत्रकार है और बहुत से प्रतिष्ठित और अग्रणी अख़बारों के संपादक रह चुके है। इनका मशहूर कालम “स्वमिनोमिक्स” हर हफ्ते देश के जाने माने अखबार में छपता है जिसमे देश की अर्थव्यवस्था से जुड़े मामलों की बारीकी से जाँच पड़ताल की जाती है। इस लेख में वह  पाठकों को यह समझाने की कोशिश करते हैं कि गरीबी रेखा से नीचे रह रही आवाम को भूखमरी से बचाने के लिए फ़ूड सिक्योरीटी बिल जैसे कार्यक्रम की नहीं बल्कि तेज आर्थिक विकास की जरूरत है।

स्वामीनाथन इस लेख में एक अन्य लेख के खिलाफ तर्क दे रहे थे जिसमे अमृत्य सेन ने कहा था कि संसद में फ़ूड सिक्योरिटी बिल पास ना होने के कारण हर रोज कितनी मौतें हो रही हैं। स्वामीनाथन के अनुसार इस तरह की गणनाए बेमानी है और फ़ूड सिक्योरिटी बिल जैसे कानूनों की जगह भारत अगर आर्थिक सुधारों और उदारीकरण की नीतियों की गति तेज करे तो आर्थिक विकास तेजी से होगा और भूखमरी की दर में गिरावट आएगी। उनके हिसाब से गरीबी और भुखमरी के लिए जिम्मेदार आर्थिक सुधारों की गति में बाधा पहुंचा रहे लोग हैं, न की फ़ूड सिक्योरिटी बिल को पास करने में देरी कर रही संसद।

स्वामीनाथन के अनुसार भारत में आर्थिक सुधार बहुत देर से शुरू हुए जिसके कारण आर्थिक विकास बहुत धीमा रहा. उनकी माने तो आर्थिक सुधारों में हुई देरी का मुख्य कारण नेहरु की समाजवादी विचारधारा पर आधारित अर्थव्यवस्था थी जिसने भारत के आर्थिक विकास में बाधा पहुंचाई। वह आगे लिखते है कि अगर आर्थिक सुधार 1991की जगह 1971 में शुरू हुए होते तो उन बहुत से लोगों को भुखमरी से बचाया जा सकता था जो इन दो दशकों में गरीबी और भूख के कारण मारे गए।

मोदी: तिलिस्म एवम यथार्थ

-सुभाष गाताडे

जुल्म , तशद्दुद , झूठ ,बग़ावत , आगजनी ,खूं  , कर्फ्यू  ,फायर .... हमने इन्हें बिरसे में दिए हैं  ,ये बच्चे  ,क्या देंगे हमको ???

                        (कविता: बच्चे - मुसाफ़िर पालनपुरी, ‘कुछ तो कहो यारों !’ सम्पादन, आयशा खान )

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नूरा कुश्ती की समाप्ति के बाद

सियासत में आपसी सत्तासंघर्ष अक्सर व्यक्तियों के इर्दगिर्द सिमटते दिखते हैं।

भाजपा के अन्दर भी मोदी बनाम आडवाणी का जो संक्षिप्त सा विवाद खड़ा हुआ दिखता था, उस पर अब आधिकारिक तौर पर पटाक्षेप हो चुका है। अब कमसे कम भाजपा के अन्दर नमो नाम का गुणगान शुरू हो चुका है। मालूम हो कि मुल्क की प्रमुख विपक्षी पार्टी भाजपा ने 2014 के आसन्न चुनावों के मद्देनज़र गुजरात के मुख्यमंत्री जनाब नरेन्द्र मोदी को चुनावी अभियान समिति का मुखिया बना कर एक तरह से अपना बिगुल फूंका है।

यह अलग बात है कि खुद भाजपा अपने अन्दर की तमाम दरारों को पाटने में बुरी तरह असफल हुई दिखती है। फिर चाहे जनाब आडवाणी के इस्तीफे का प्रसंग हो, मोदी की इस ‘ताजपोशी’ के वक्त़ गोवा की बैठक में तमाम अन्य वरिष्ठ नेताओं की गैरमौजूदगी का मसला हो, या सत्रह साल से गठबन्धन में साथ रहे जनता दल यू की बिदाई हो। नीतिश कुमार के खिलाफ विश्वासमत को लेकर वोट डालने के बजाय सदन का बहिष्कार करके उसने फिलवक्त अपनी लाज बचा ली है, मगर दरारें अधिक स्पष्ट हुई है ; क्योंकि उसे डर था कि भाजपा के अपने विधायक नीतिश का साथ दे सकते हैं।

वैसे इस पूरी आपाधापी में इस खेल के असली विजेता की तरफ बहुत कम लोगों का ध्यान गया है, वही जिसने न केवल कोपभवन में पहुंचे आडवाणी को ‘सलाह’ दी की, वह अपना इस्तीफा वापस ले, वही जिसने पार्टी के तमाम वरिष्ठ नेताओं की असहमति, विरोध, नाराजगी को किनारे लगाते हुए यशस्वी कहे जानेवाले मुख्यमंत्री मोदी को इस अहम जिम्मेदारी सौंपने में अहम भूमिका निभायी, वही जो विगत कई सालों से इस कोशिश में मुब्तिला था कि पार्टी का नियंत्राण उसके विश्वासपात्रों के हाथ में रहे।

Protests in Turkey: Resistance to the Arbitrary Rule of the Elected

- Hanifi Barış

I will start with the answer of the most important question: no, what is happening in Turkey is not a revolution. I say that it has some revolutionary aspects to it, though.

It is not a revolution because the protestors are not organized left or right, they have no specific or shared political demands, they do not fit into a category of anti-government phenomenon which is trying to overthrow the government and seize political power, they do not put forward specific political demands regarding the change of regime or anything as such, and they do not demand radical change in current social, economic or political order; they are not the conservatives, they are not the nationalists – secular or Islamic, they are not labour unions, and they are not students. They are “no one”, but they are “everyone”; it has revolutionary aspects because of the same reasons that do not make it a revolution: they are simply “the people” fighting for more democracy: expanding civil and political freedoms such as freedom of speech and expression, freedom of association, freedom of assembly and demonstration (social and economic rights or demands are not articulated, for instance). The protests are a historic resistance to the police violence, the arrogance of the Prime Minister and the curtailment of freedoms.

As some of the commentators have also put, the protests are the kind of demonstrations that one would witness in economically “developed” parts of the world: it is not about bread, but about dignity. People are taking to the squares and streets because they want to see that their voice count. They are simply trying to tell the government that “everything is not money” and they will not let their freedoms be trumped in exchange of business and economic development.

Citizens Protest against John Kerry's Visit to New Delhi

Please join us at Jantar Mantar on 24th June 2013 (Monday)for a joint citizens' protest against the visit of US Secretary of State John Kerry for the 4th Annual Strategic Dialogue between India and the United States. The United States has been trying to subvert the Nuclear Liability Act, mandated by the Indian parliament, to ensure a liability-free playing field for the US nuclear corporates like Westinghouse and General Electric. Indian people have not forgotten the Bhopal experience where Union Carbide, now Dow Chemicals, got away with only meager compensation for the thousands of victims.

Pushing India further into the mes created by the US in Afghanistan will be another important agenda during John Kerry's visit, which must be opposed strongly.

The joint protest will also raise voice against the recently unearthed global surveillance by the US where even the allies are under close and constant watch of the NSA.

Hindutva Terror in Karnataka: Malleswaram or Was It Hubli 2.0

- Subhash Gatade

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BANGALORE (April 17)—A bomb blast rocked the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) office near Malleswaram 11th Cross around 10:30 a.m. Wednesday, injuring 11 police officers and four civilians, police said. The explosion in the north-central area of the city initially was reported to have been caused by a gas cylinder, but the police later said it was caused by a bomb.

The right-wing Hindu nationalist BJP is the ruling party in Karnataka. Elections for the state assembly are to be held on May 5.

R. Ashok, Karnataka’s deputy chief minister and home minister, said the blast was “a clear act of terror” targeted at the BJP.

..Congress national spokesman Shakeel Ahmad tweeted: “Karnataka HM R Ashok says blast near our office was aimed to kill BJP leaders due to elections. This will also generate some sympathy.”

                                                                                                                 (The Soft Copy)

Imagine a bomb blast in a lane near the ruling party's office just before the elections which is immediately attributed to an ubiquitous terrorist group by the powers that be. As expected the incident comes in handy not only for the newshungry 24 7 TV channels but helps the beleaguered ruling dispensation gain little breathing space bit far away from its internal squabbles and growing frustration of the people over cases of corruption and policies which have benefitted only a few.

This 'terrorist activity' - as claimed by the home minister - propells the police machinery into action which promptly nabs within record time few of the alleged perpetrators alongwith the 'mastermind' who according to the police executed the cowardly act. Perhaps the matter should have ended their 'happily' with justice being done to the accused after a longwinding judicial process.

Site of the blast near BJP office at Malleswaram in Bangalore. (PTI)

But a spate of fresh questions has put the whole probe in jeopardy.

On The Limits of Middle-Class Radicalism

- Malay Firoz

Student politics in the university seems to face a strange problem these days. No sooner does someone announce a fledgling commitment to a cause than he is accosted by all sorts of questions: how deep does his commitment go, what price is he willing to pay for it, has he paid that price yet, and if not, to what extent can he regard himself as ‘really’ committed? The matter at hand, it seems, is an issue of representation: can the person claim to represent a form of politics? Most middle-class students who proclaim a broadly ‘radical Left’ view, have at some point, whether in public forums or informal conversations, been challenged by the contention that they are not suitable representatives of the causes they espouse, either because the privileges they enjoy are willfully at odds with their stated ideals or because their class location, despite their best intentions, somehow disqualifies them at the very outset. The former concern alleges hypocrisy, the latter raises the problem of identity, but both are ways of saying the same thing: that the political agent has somehow failed a particular standard of representational adequacy as a bearer of radical politics. This piece is an attempt to think through some of these contentions. In using the word ‘radical’, our concern is not to define what radicalism is or to specify who can claim to be radical, but to explore the dilemmas of taking a position broadly critical of the mainstream. Part hypothetical and part biographical, it is a story that describes a political coming of age and a story of confronting the difficulties therein.

The accusation of hypocrisy tends to be issued from outside politically organised circles. It’s a familiar theme. Neoliberal India offers a stunning array of consumer choices that was, till the ‘90s, the stuff of postcards and presents from non-resident relatives. For those who can afford it, it is today possible to enjoy our very own First World utopia of conspicuous consumption, unrecognisable to an earlier generation raised on principles of sustainability and responsible saving. Indeed, scholars have begun speaking of First and Third Worlds no longer as territorially determined distinctions, but as social indices that constitute an enduring architecture of inequality within and across national borders. Of course, these Faustian ambitions have their price, and the dark underside of liberalisation has been the subject of much critique. What then, of a supposedly radical activist who happens to own expensive gadgets, happens to wear branded clothes, to frequent multinational restaurants, to turn westward for higher education, or in general found luxuriating in the trappings of bourgeois affluence? Often these indulgences have been treated as incriminating instances of complicity with a vague notion of capitalism (and its implied system of exploitative relationships) that most radicals claim to oppose in one way or another.

[Film Review] Songs of the Unequals

- Anupama Ramakrishnan

On the face of it, Jai Bhim Comrade is an intense introduction to the music and poetry of Dalit political resistance in Maharashtra. Songs of protest and hope, and injustice and inequality, filmed almost entirely during live performances, occur throughout the film, reminders of the spirit of subaltern protest. But the film is also as much about Dalit politics in contemporary Maharashtra.

Beginning with the unprovoked police firing that killed eleven people in Ramabai Nagar, Mumbai, in 1997 and the subsequent suicide of Dalit poet and singer Vilas Ghogre, Jai Bhim Comrade is a wonderfully layered film that strings together elements as diverse as the desperate factionalism of mainstream Dalit political parties and the utter incomprehension of a mother who waits for her daughter, driven underground by an intolerant state, to return home. The film has been feted in several festivals and in a rather surprising move, contrary to the fate of many of Patwardhan’s documentaries, has been passed by the censor board without any cuts. All the more reason to watch this film.

Shot over fourteen years, the 198 minutes of Jai Bhim Comrade takes viewers through, among other places, slums in Ghatkopar and Mulund, the primarily upper caste and very elite Shivaji Park, a hot, dusty village in Beed district and the streets of Pune. And everywhere, a most fascinating range of people appear. In Mulund, we meet Vilas Ghogre’s son trying to find normalcy. In Shivaji Park, we meet a perplexed jogger unable to quite place B.R. Ambedkar. In a garbage dump somewhere in Mumbai, we meet a contract worker who calls himself a ‘Jai Bhimwala’ and who tells us that he cannot understand why the municipal corporation can pay a lawyer to fight him and his co-workers in court, but can’t pay minimum wages or provide boots and gloves for them. In Beed, we meet an elderly lady whose fortitude and faith in a better future are only matched by the tragedy of her husband’s brutal murder. In a press conference, we see a senior police official justifying the transfer to a hospital, rather than to a jail, of Sub-Inspector Kadam, who was convicted in the Ramabai firing case … and these are just a few of the many people who appear in the film.

The film does not lay out any easy answers for the viewer by building up to a climactic finish. Rather, it meanders through people’s lives, and gives the viewer a sense of the complexity of the issue. Beginning with an enquiry into the protest-suicide of his friend, Vilas Ghogre, Patwardhan introduces us to the inter-related histories of the Dalit and left movements and their failure to form a coherent political force. As in most democratic coalitions, the Ambedkarites and Marxists have had a very contentious relationship.

[Book Review] Self-Righteous Republic

- Rochelle Pinto

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I doubt that Ananya Vajpeyi's Righteous Republic is the 'ground-breaking assessment of Indian political thought' that some scholars have claimed it is. The preface is a revisionist primer on Indian nationalism, written perhaps for a western audience entirely unfamiliar with any aspect of Indian political thought. The opening lines of this text resonate with tired normative phrases from the trite history textbooks students are prescribed year after year by the Indian government - swaraj is self-rule - and all nationalist leaders were supposedly absorbed and united in this one endeavour.

Righteous Republic by Ananya Vajpeyi.

A few political theorists and several historians of national history have, over the last six decades, pulled themselves away from these formulaic enforced accounts of Indian history, pointing instead to the different and often contradictory approaches to political life in India and to colonialism. As a result, Indian political history and political theory is at the very least a contested ground.

The preface reads like a panacea for the country's different elites who have the ground of Indian history restored to them by the brutish repetition of that schoolbook mantra - swaraj is 'self-rule'. Despite reams of political contestation that would make this assumption difficult for any honest writer, the preface assumes that anti-colonial movements began in 1885, incidentally the date of the formation of the Indian National Congress, the date that has effortlessly helped the Congress segue anti-colonial movements into their less glorious post-1947 futures seamlessly.

It is difficult to tell which is more frightening - that these assumptions are reproduced out of ignorance - an impossible ignorance we would think for a PhD student from a prominent university in the US, for a book from Harvard University Press - or that with their refusal to acknowledge anything that has ever been said or written to the contrary, the book works as a reassertion of the past and present of Indian elites.