Mahatma Gandhi Remembered: Sid Harth
bademiyansubhanallah
Gandhi Jayanti: Birth Anniversary of Mahatma Gandhiji
by jjenet | October 1, 2009 at 11:35 pm
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Mahatma Gandhi's unseen interview given before indepence
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Mahatma Gandhiji | Photo 02
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Today is Gandhi Jayanti, celebrated as the birth anniversary of
Mahatma Gandhiji popularly known as the Father of the Nation. Mohandas
Karamchand Gandhi is officially honored in India as the Father of the
Nation and so 2nd Ocober, every year is celebrated as Gandhi Jayanti,
a national holiday, and the International Day of Non-Violence
worldwide. This day is marked by prayer services and tributes all over
India, especially at Raj Ghat, Gandhi’s memorial in New Delhi where he
was cremated.
He was the chief leader of India in its independence movement. He is
known for his invaluable contribution in India's freedom struggle. His
principles of truth, non-violence, peace and honesty are still
remembered today. Mahatma Gandhi's contribution towards bringing peace
and non-violence to this world is unparalleled.
His tireless endeavor to make people understand the basic happiness of
life is to be happy with whatever you have, thus showing the only way
to save the world. His teachings must be promoted to resolve current
conflicts, avoid violence, find peaceful solutions and to make our
world a better place to live. It is his philosophy and morals of life,
which will make keep alive in our minds forever.
Gandhi Jayanti (1869-1948)
Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, Mahatma Gandhi, the apostle of peace and
the father of the nation was born on 2 October 1869 at Porbandar in
Gujarat. In his autobiography My experiments with Truth Gandhi recalls
that his childhood and teen age years were characterised by education
in a local school, marriage to Kasturba at the age of 13 and an
intrinsic love for ‘truth’ and ‘duty’.
At the age of the eighteen, he went to England to study law. In 1891,
Gandhi returned to India and set up practice at Rajkot. In 1893, he
received an offer from an Indian firm in South Africa. With his two
minor sons and Kasturba, he went to South Africa at the age of twenty-
four. Colonial and racial discrimination showed its ugly colours in
the famous train incident, when he was thrown off the compartment
meant for the ‘Sahibs’. During his more than two decades of stay in
South Africa, Gandhi protested against the discriminating treatment
that was meted out to Indians. He protested against the Asiatic
(Black) Act and the Transvaal Immigration Act and started his non-
violent civil disobedience movement. A satyagrahis camp known as the
Tolstoy Farm was established at Lawley, 21 miles from Johannesburg, on
30 May 1910, in order to shelter the satyagrahis and their families.
The South African Government had to heed to the voice of reason and in
1914 repealed most of the obnoxious acts against the Indians. The
weekly Indian Opinion (1903) became Gandhiji chief organ of education
and propaganda.
Gandhi returned to India in 1915. After an interrupted stay in
Santiniketan in February-March, 1915, Gandhi collected his companions
of Phoenix and established the Satyagraha Ashram in Ahmedabad city.
This was shifted in June 1917 to the banks of the Sabarmati. This
Ashram became platform for carrying out his cherished social reforms
prime among which were Harijan welfare rehabilitation of lepers and
self-reliance through weaving Khadi.
Between 1917 and 1918 Gandhi participated in two peasant movements in
Champaran (Bihar) and Kaira (Gujarat) and in the labour dispute in
Ahmedabad itself. World War I ended on 11 November 1918; Gandhi
protested against the Rowlatt Bills and founded the Satyagraha Sabha
(28 February 1919). The end of the World war also saw the
dismemberment of the Khilafat (Caliphate). This hurt the Indian
Muslims deeply. Gandhi was approached for counsel; and in a meeting of
the All India Khilafat Conference on 24 November 1919, he proposed
that India should respond by non-violent non-cooperation.
For Gandhi ‘Non-violence’ and truth were two inalienable virtues. He
summed up the entire philosophy of his life as: "The only virtue I
want to claim is truth and non-violence. I lay no claim to super human
powers: I want none".
1926 was declared by Gandhi to be his year of silence. His famous
march to Dandi in March 1930 started a countrywide movement to violate
the Salt-Law. Gandhi was arrested on 4 May 1930, and the Government
struck hard to crush the movement, but failed. So Gandhi was set free
on 26 January 1931; and following a pact between him and the British
Viceroy, Lord Irwin (5 March 1931), he was prevailed upon to represent
the Congress at the second Round Table Conference in London. Gandhi
was completely disillusioned with the attitude of the British, which
had renewed its policy of ruthless repression. As a result the Civil
Disobedience Movement was resumed in January 1932.
Gandhi was in prison when the Communal Award was announced in August
1932, providing for the introduction of separate electorate for the
Depressed Classes. He opposed this attempt to divide the Hindu
community and threatened to fast unto death to prevent it. He started
his fast on 20 September 1932. It created consternation in the
country, but the situation was saved by the conclusion of the Poona
Pact, which provided for special reservation of seats for the
Depressed Classes in legislatures, but under joint electorate.
On 8 May 1933 he announced a fast for 21 days for the Harijan cause.
After coming out of prison Gandhi devoted himself exclusively to the
cause of the ‘Harijans’. The weekly Harijan now took the place of the
Young India, which had served the national cause from 1919 to 1932.
After 1934 Gandhi settled down in Sevagram near Wardha to form a new
Centre for his enlarged Constructive Programme, which included Basic
Education (1937), designed to bring about the universalisation of
education.
In 1942, his ‘Quit India" slogan was to serve as the final signal to
British dominion in India. The partition of India and Pakistan came as
a personal shock to Gandhi. When the nation was rejoicing independence
(1947), Gandhi went to Naokhali to ameliorate the conditions of the
communal riot victims. On 30 January 1948, Gandhi was assassinated in
New Delhi.
The man of the century had the courage of heart and spirit of the
unafraid. His life and teaching reflect the values of this country and
the values of humanity. He had been a beacon light to an army of
freedom fighters who practised non-violence in world and deed.
Source: http://www.rrtd.nic.in
A small message he conveyed to us through this meaningful hymn.
'Vaishnav Jan Toh Tene Kahiye' is a very popular Hindi bhajan which
was Mahatma Gandhi's favorite. It was composed by the Gujarati Poet-
Saint Narsinh Mehta from Gujarat in the 15th century.
A god like man is one,
Who feels another's pain,
Who shares another's sorrow,
And pride does disdain.
Who regards himself as the lowliest of the low,
Speaks not a word of evil against any one,
One who keeps himself steadfast in words, body and mind,
Blessed is the mother who gives birth to such a son.
Who looks upon everyone as his equal and has renounced lust,
And who honors women like he honors his mother,
Whose tongue knows not the taste of falsehood till his last breath,
Nor covets another's wordly goods.
He does not desire wordly things,
For he treads the path of renunciation,
Ever on his lips is Rama's holy name,
All places of pilgrimage are within him.
One who is not greedy and deceitful,
And has conquered lust and anger,
Through such a man Saint Narsaiyan has a godly vision,
Generations to come, of such a man, will attain salvation.
Noted Indian author and columnist Khushwant Singh had, in a column
written for The Hindustan Times, published his English rendering of
Bapu Gandhi's favorite hymn (bhajan) 'Vaishnav Jan Toh Tene Kahiye'
Comments (2)
0 reply
Paschen
at 02:42 on October 2nd, 2009
A remarkable man and certainly a model that our World leaders and each
of us would do well to follow.
0 reply
57danesller0127
at 05:16 on October 2nd, 2009
Mahatma Gandhi, A great leader... believed in non-violence and
simplicity, His simple attire became a subject of great contemplation
and ridicule in western nations...
...and I am Sid Harth
bademiyansubhanallah
"Foreign" Memorabilia Commemorates Swadeshi Gandhi
Share: by Mritunjay | October 1, 2009 at 01:00 pm
78 views | 8 Recommendations | 6 comments
Photos
Foreign Memorabilia Commemorates Swadeshi Gandhi
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As the world remembers Mahatma Gandhi on his 140th birth anniversary
today Mont Blanc GMBH decided to pay its homage to the Mahatma in its
own unique way. The premium pen manufacturer decided to launch a
limited edition pen valued at INR 11,80,950 (USD 24,763) this week.
The company announced that it will release just 241 pieces of this pen
to coincide with the number of miles Gandhi walked to protest the levy
of tax on salt by British in 1930.
As the nation which is projected as one of the major economic forces
of the 21st century still grapples with basic problems like health,
education and security launch of a luxury pen making Mahatma a sort of
“brand-ambassador” is not going down well with many people. Amit Modi
the Secretary of Sabarmati ashram which Gandhi started said, "If he
(Gandhi) had seen this, he would have thrown it away, I cannot imagine
why anybody has done this." Gandhi was a fierce supporter of locally
produced goods (Swadeshi) and used bare essentials I his life. It can
only be called an irony that to commemorate the birthday of the
Mahatma a luxury brand was launched. India’s per capita GDP is pegged
at INR 38, 084.
The pens are hand-made, adorned with Gandhi's signature and a saffron-
colored opal. They come with an eight-meter (26-foot) golden thread
that can be wound around the pen to invoke the spindle Gandhi used to
weave plain cotton cloth each day. Mont Blanc operates 16 boutiques
across India and said that the initial response was overwhelming in
the country where the demand for luxury brands has started to peak up.
While all the discussions are on, Oliver Goessler, Mont Blanc's
regional director for India, Africa and the Middle East, said that
it’s all been done with good intentions and a share of all the sales
proceedings go to charity. Goessler also noted that Mont Blanc Chief
Executive Lutz Bethge, on Tuesday handed over a check for € 100, 000
(USD1,45,666) to Gandhi's great grandson, Tushar Gandhi, for a
foundation that works to improve child nutrition and education. He
also announced that the foundation will get an additional INR 10, 000
to 50, 000 (USD210 - 1,050) for every piece of pen that gets sold. The
pen manufacturer also announced launching an economy version of 3,000
roller ball and fountain pens priced at INR 1,52,850 - 1,73,690
(USD3,205 - USD3,642) has also been launched.
Though the firm may feel good about the economy version being
“accessible” with over 450 Million Indians still earning less than INR
75 (USD 1.5) per day it’s anybody’s guess how affordable it is for an
average Indian.
The nation also payes homage to ex-Prime Minister Late Lal Bahadur
Shastri on his birthday today.
Comments (6)
1 reply
65a211423
at 13:27 on October 1st, 2009
I am reluctant to comment as an American because here not many famous
people are spared being marketed including those who are alive or
dead. I understand the concern of Ghandi's memory being trivialized
by selling pens to an elite class while so many Indians live below the
poverty line.
Here we can commermorate Ghandi's memory in remembering the powerful
impact he had in the U.S. by influencing the use of civil disobedience
in the causes for minorities and women. Perhaps they should use the
pens to write about the values and deeds of his life. He changed the
world, and that is his great gift and legacy.
0 reply
Mritunjay
at 15:00 on October 1st, 2009
a211423 I completely agree to your point and hope that today when
people are still dying of hunger and starvation around the world, we
will caring people who spare thought for the needy. Gandhi was more
than a man he was an ideology.
0 reply
65a211423
at 15:14 on October 1st, 2009
Gandhi was more than a man he was an ideology.
I echo your words.
0 reply
Mritunjay
at 17:32 on October 1st, 2009
Update:
Now an Indian Court has issued notices to the Indian Union Govt., Mont
Blanc International GmBH and other respondents in wake of a writ
petition filed by Dijo Kappen, managing trustee of the Centre for
Consumer Education at Pala in Kottayam, Kerala, India.
The petition alleges that the luxury pen which costs more than INR 13
Lakh is a derogation of national honor given the fact that Gandhi was
an idol of simplicity. A bench comprising of Chief Justice S.R.
Bannurmath and Justice A.K. Basheer at the Kerala High court issued
the notice.
- http://www.hindu.com/2009/10/02/stories/2009100261101000.htm
1 reply
Mritunjay
at 18:59 on October 1st, 2009
It's also nor widely known that on June 15, 2007, the United Nations
General Assembly declared October 2 (Mahatma Gandhi's birth
anniversary) as the International Day of Non-Violence.
The Mahatma's novel mode of mass mobilisation through non-violent
action brought down colonialism, strengthened the roots of popular
sovereignty, of civil, political and economic rights, and greatly
influenced many a freedom struggle and inspired leaders like Nelson
Mandela and Martin Luther King.
- Times of India
With terrorism and wars around the world non-violence seems to have
taken a backseat world over but the legacy of the Mahatma lives on.
0 reply
Vijit (not verified)
at 22:18 on October 1st, 2009
It's true that people forget what the man stood for while trying to
monetize every possible avenue. Even Gandhi's grandson recently was
crying hoarse when some of items belonging to Bapu were auctioned but
now that Mont Blanc has donated some money for his charity, he seems
to be OK with this pen issue.Height of hypocrisy!
bademiyansubhanallah
Montblanc's $25,000 Gandhi pen sparks controversy
By ERIKA KINETZ , 10.01.09, 11:34 AM EDT
MUMBAI, India -- An incongruous billboard has appeared high above
Mumbai's slums: A thin Mohandas Gandhi, the ascetic father of India's
independence, sits wrapped in simple white cloth above the image of a
fat Montblanc pen.
German luxury penmaker Montblanc International GMBH launched a limited-
edition commemorative fountain pen in honor of Gandhi this week, just
in time for the 140th anniversary of the birth of the Mahatma - or
"Great Soul" - on Friday.
The price? 17,000 euros ($24,763).
The decision to turn a man who shunned foreign-made products and
pushed simple living to new extremes into a "brand ambassador" - as
one local Web site put it - for a global luxury goods maker has left
some Indians puzzled and others angry.
"If he had seen this, he would have thrown it away," Amit Modi,
secretary of the Sabarmati Ashram, which Gandhi opened 92 years ago,
fumed to the Financial Times. "I cannot imagine why anybody has done
this."
A curious blogger for India's Mint newspaper peered at the engraving
of Gandhi, bamboo stave in hand, in the pen's rhodium-plated nib and
asked: "Where, really, was Gandhi in all this?"
Not a great news but people should move on. I don't think anyone will
expect such things from a world's leading brand. Ayushi ww
w.ShaadiSpice.com
Comment On This StoryOliver Goessler, Montblanc's regional director
for India, Africa and the Middle East, says the answer is: Everywhere.
"Whatever brings Gandhi and his ideas back to mind can only be good,"
he said by phone from Hamburg, Germany.
Just 241 commemorative fountain pens will be sold - a nod to the
number of miles Gandhi walked in his famous 1930 "salt march," a mass
protest against salt taxes levied by the British that dealt an early
blow to their control over the subcontinent.
The pens are hand-made, adorned with Gandhi's signature and a saffron-
colored opal. They come with an eight-meter (26-foot) golden thread
that can be wound around the pen to invoke the spindle Gandhi used to
weave plain cotton cloth each day. The pens also come with a
commemorative booklet of inspiring Gandhi quotes.
"It's not an opulent pen. It's a writing instrument that's very pure,"
Goessler said.
Montblanc has 16 boutiques across India, but this is their first
product targeted at India's growing audience for luxury goods.
Goessler said he didn't have initial sales figures but that demand for
the pens in India has so far been "really spectacular."
He said the idea to commemorate Bapu ("Father"), as Gandhi is
affectionately known here, in a swish pen was born in India, not
Europe.
But, he added: "The name of Mahatma Gandhi, you have to be careful how
you use it. That's why we linked it to two different charity
initiatives."
On Tuesday, Montblanc chief executive Lutz Bethge handed over a check
for 100,000 euros ($145,666) to Gandhi's great grandson, Tushar
Gandhi, for a foundation that works to improve child nutrition and
education, Goessler said.
Earlier this year, Tushar protested the sale of his great-
grandfather's humble effects, including eyeglasses, worn sandals, and
simple brass bowl, saying it was "immoral."
The foundation will get an additional 10,000 to 50,000 rupees (($210
to $1,050) for each pen sold, Goessler said.
Montblanc also took the unprecedented step of launching more
affordable versions of the Gandhi pen.
"When we talk about Gandhi, there has to be an edition that's more
accessible," Goessler said.
The cheaper line of 3,000 roller ball and fountain pens retails for
2,200 to 2,500 euros ($3,205 to $3,642).
Even that is stratospherically out of reach for the vast majority of
Indians, many of whom have been left out of India's economic boom.
Over 450 million Indians struggle by on less than $1.25 a day.
Copyright 2009 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material
may not be published broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed
chhotemianinshallah
Govt gives NREGA the Mahatma Gandhi tag
STAFF WRITER 12:43 HRS IST
New Delhi, Oct 2 (PTI) Government today renamed its flagship rural job
guarantee programme - National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA)
- after Mahatma Gandhi.
"The Union cabinet has decided to rechristen NREGA as Mahatma Gandhi
Rural Employment Guarantee Act," Prime Minister Manmohan Singh told a
gathering of heads of villages to commemorate the 50th anniversary of
the launching of Panchayati Raj.
Singh said the scheme has been aptly named after the Father of the
Nation as he had always held the concept of Gram Swaraj in high
esteem.
The government's decision comes amid reports that several opposition
ruled states have been taking credit for the Central scheme.
"Several states have still not provided adequate funds, functions and
functionaries to Panchayati Raj Institutions (PRIs). This system needs
to be changed," Singh said in the presence of UPA chairperson Sonia
Gandhi.
Sid Harth
President Patil leads Gandhi Jayanti prayer meeting at Porbandar
October 2nd, 2009 SindhToday
Gandhinagar, Oct 2 (IANS) President Pratibha Patil Friday led a prayer
meeting to mark the 140th birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi in his
hometown Porbandar in Gujarat. A four-volume English translation of
the Mahatma’s biography was released at a function in the Sabarmati
Ashram at Ahmedabad.
The president, who is on a five-day visit to Gujarat, arrived Friday
morning by a special aircraft at Porbandar and led the prayer meeting
at Kirti Mandir in the port town.
She was accompanied by Chief Minister Narendra Modi. She also visited
the Arya Kanya Gurkul and Kasturbha Dham before leaving for Dwarka to
perform puja at the revered Dwarkadheesh temple.
The four-volume biography of the Mahatma was originally penned by
Narayan Desai, veteran Gandhian and son of the Mahatma’s secretary
Mahadev Desai, and chancellor of the Gujarat Vidyapith set up by the
apostle of peace and non-violence.
“Maru jivan ej mari vani” (My life is my message), the four-volume
text went into multiple reprints within months of its release. The
English version, translated by Gandhi scholar and Ahmedabad-based
academic Tridip Suhrid, was released by social scientist Ashish Nandy
Friday in the presence of Narayan Desai.
The occasion also marked the launch of the third phase of the Science
Express, a specially designed 16-coach AC train from state capital
Gandhinagar. The train, essentially an audio-visual exhibition
primarily targeted at high school and college students, will cover 56
locations and travel 18,000 km in the next seven months.
Carrying 300 large format visual images, 150 video clips and multi-
media exhibits, it attempts to develop scientific temper and encourage
students to pursue careers in science. It also strives to take modern
research out of the lab and show how relevant science is to everyday
life.
[LM1]
Sid Harth
Posted: Thu, Oct 1 2009. 11:47 PM IST
A century of Gandhian economics
Those who continue to champion Gandhian economics insist that his
ideas bear relevance even--or especially--today, some compromises to
the modern era notwithstanding
Samanth Subramanian
New Delhi: A hundred Dussehras ago, over a celebratory dinner at a
London restaurant called Nazimuddin’s, Mahatma Gandhi sat and listened
to a speech from V.D. Savarkar, the star pupil in what he called “the
Indian school of violence”. The echoes of that speech rang so
persistently in Gandhi’s ears that, when he sailed for South Africa a
few days later, he reacted by writing Hind Swaraj, a slim exposition
of his various philosophies, all of which would become immensely
familiar in India over the next four decades.
Symbol of self-reliance: Mahatma Gandhi working on a (spinning wheel).
In 1924, Gandhi had said: ‘What I object to is the craze for
machinery, not machinery as such.’ Dinodia
Among its ruminations on freedom and religion and passive resistance,
Hind Swaraj, which marks its centenary this November, contains
Gandhi’s ideas for economic prosperity —or, to be more precise, for
the economic prosperity of India. They sound, in a 2009 that is even
more avowedly capitalist and materialistic than 1909, quaint or
impractical. But those who continue to champion Gandhian economics
insist that his ideas bear relevance even—or especially—today, some
compromises to the modern era notwithstanding.
Most notably to our 21st-century eyes, Hind Swaraj inveighs against
machinery—not with any caveats, but absolutely and bluntly, as if the
further development of the idea could come later.
“It is necessary to realize that machinery is bad,” Gandhi wrote. “We
shall then be able gradually to do away with it.” On the subject of
railways, in particular, he was withering: “Railways accentuate the
evil nature of man.”
But these thoughts of Gandhi’s, says Pulin Nayak, a professor at the
Delhi School of Economics, should not be examined in isolation.
“Gandhi was too intelligent to insist on no machinery at all,” Nayak
says. “What he wanted was for machinery to not displace labour.” (And
indeed, to a question from a Shantiniketan student in 1924, Gandhi
would say: “What I object to is the craze for machinery, not machinery
as such. The craze is for what they call labour-saving machinery. Men
go on ‘saving labour’ till thousands are without work and thrown on
the open streets to die of starvation.”)
Nayak first “seriously” read Hind Swaraj eight years ago, although he
has been familiar with the precepts of Gandhian economics for far
longer. He is reluctant to call himself a Gandhian economist, although
he confesses that he agrees with much of what Gandhi says; where he
differs, oddly enough, is in Gandhi not being radical enough. “He
never considered any major changes in the ownership of the means of
production itself,” Nayak says. “He believed that capitalists could go
on holding factories and assets.”
Hind Swaraj is not an easily actionable document, as the Bharatiya
Agro Industries Foundation (Baif) in Pune has found out. Baif, a non-
profit that nonetheless encourages farmers to be as profitable as
possible, is a deeply Gandhian organization; it was, in fact, started
by Gandhi’s disciple Manibhai Desai, deputed by the Mahatma in 1946 to
work with the rural residents of the area. But its president, Girish
Sohani, has found that Baif has had to adhere to the spirit, and not
to the letter, of Gandhi’s various dicta.
“No tool or machine has an intrinsic value; it’s the application of
the tool that counts,” Sohani says. “So, we use genetic technologies
to produce better cattle, but if it’s done to produce a terminator
gene in crops, then you’re taking the control out of millions of hands
into your own, so that your seeds are the ones that are always in
demand.”
Sohani is similarly pragmatic about the motive of profit, which can so
easily be transmuted into the motive of greed that Gandhi detested.
“We have to accept that the market is all-pervading, and that your
livelihood status depends on how much you can participate in the
market,” he says. “So, we need to help farmers negotiate better with
the market. It isn’t always practical to stick to the letter of
Gandhi’s prescriptions. It’s more important to understand the basic
principle.”
Hind Swaraj is also dismissive of that other great linchpin of the
modern economy, international trade, and its allied model of
competitive advantage. Scoffing at the need to import machine-made
pins, Gandhi wrote: “As long as we cannot make pins without machinery
so long will we do without them.” So, also for glassware and machine-
made cloth.
Again, Nayak offers the gentle reminder that these words were written
in 1909. “Gandhi was never a person to close his mind, and if
confronted with the clear benefits of trade, I think he would have
accepted them,” he says. “But still, there is the view that the gains
of trade are skewed in favour of the already better-off, and that
further accentuates inequities. This was developed much later in the
work of Latin American economists.”
The biggest stroke of foresight in Hind Swaraj is what Nayak calls the
limitation of want—the notion that “you don’t need 200 types of
toothpaste, you only need two or three or five.” Rajni Bakshi, who
profiled 12 neo-Gandhians in her book Bapu Kuti, and whose birth-date
(coincidentally enough) is 2 October, identifies, in this limitation
of want, the ancestor of the modern, modish concept of sustainable
living.
“I watched a panel discussion a few years ago, and Anand Mahindra told
the panel the story of how, even back in the 1940s, Gandhi knew that
the planet could not sustain its entire population living the way the
West lived,” Bakshi says. “He knew so far in advance what is today a
no-brainer. If nothing else, the international red alert on climate
change is one incontrovertible piece of proof.”
Bakshi names a number of entrepreneurs shaped to varying degrees by
Gandhi’s thoughts on economics, among them Ela Bhatt and her Self-
Employed Women’s Association (Sewa) Bank, and Vijay Mahajan, founder
of the microfinance firm Basix.
Mahajan calls Hind Swaraj a “very important book”: “I had wanted to
plan a yatra across India in November, to celebrate its centenary. But
we called it off because we thought it would be too political.”
Bakshi’s ongoing dialogue with Mahajan, she says, involves questioning
the very way that money works in society, a point Nayak makes in a
different way.
“After Rawls (John Rawls, the American political and moral
philosopher), I think welfare economics has taken a course that forces
us to look at its ethical dimensions,” Nayak says. “A part of the
reason for the 2007 financial crash was just mindless greed.” The
subsequent crisis was, in a way, validation of a principle that Gandhi
held dear, one that he began to develop in Hind Swaraj. Nayak phrases
it simply: “You just cannot separate the ethics from the economics.”
bademiyansubhanallah
We must work on Gandhi Jayanti, says Shashi Tharoor
bademiyansubhanallah
Posted Friday, October 02, 2009 6:02 AM
Singh's Rural Employment Programs Lead to Inflation
Newsweek
By Jason Overdorf
Even as India's government pours $5 billion into a scheme to ease
rural unemployment, its plan may be contributing to an inflationary
spiral that's making the cost of living more burdensome for the
country's poor. According to a new report from the National Council of
Applied Economic Research, the rate of rural wage increases doubled to
nearly 8 percent after 2006, when Prime Minister Manmohan Singh
implemented his rural-employment guarantees. However, the rural poor
didn't benefit as much as expected, because the price of basic
commodities rose just as fast. Critics blame Singh's program for the
bout of inflation, while proponents argue that the total outlay
amounts to less than 1 percent of GDP--hardly enough to cause India's
inflation woes. Either way, the plight suggests that the rural poor
need not just more jobs but better ones. If they could produce more
with the same amount of labor, that would increase the amount of
basic goods available and bring down prices. But there's another
sticking point: the government has amassed mammoth food reserves,
which critics say has created an artificial shortage--and higher
prices. Singh is eager to help India's poor, but good will doesn't
guarantee good results.
chhotemianinshallah
03 Oct 2009, 18:43 HRS IST
Belarus capital mulling to install Gandhi's statue
STAFF WRITER 16:25 HRS IST
Vinay Shukla
Moscow, Oct 3 (PTI) The Belarus capital Minsk is mulling a monument to
Mahatma Gandhi as it finds his philosophy of tolerance and non-
violence "much relevant".
Addressing a function in Minsk yesterday on Gandhi's 140th birthday as
International Day of Non-violence, a senior Foreign Ministry official
promised all necessary help in setting a monument to Mahatma Gandhi.
"His philosophy of tolerance and non-violence was much relevant to
Belarus as it had been the victim of conflicts," Vladimir Lopato-
Zagorsky, Director of Asia & Africa Division of the Foreign Ministry
said.
"The Foreign Ministry of the Republic of Belarus would extend all
necessary help and facilitation in setting up an appropriate memorial
of Mahatma Gandhi in Minsk," Lopato-Zagorsky declared paying homage to
Mahatma Gandhi.
bademiyansubhanallah
Mangalore: Gandhigiri of a new kind - Officials work on 2nd Oct
MANGALORE, October 3, 2009: Father of the Nation Mahatma Gandhi is
known to have worked 18 hours everyday for most of his life time. On
his birthday the district revenue officials in Mangalore paid a
befitting tribute to him by working on Oct 2 which is a general
holiday.
The decision came after the Deputy Commissioner Mr. V.Ponnuraj had
enthused them to do their bit to the nation by going an extra mile.
About 500 officials of all ranks including clerks, village
accountants, gram sahayaks, revenue inspectors, deputy tahsildars and
assistant commissioners consented to the proposal and were present at
their desks. But they did not just do their regular work, they took up
a little more special work on today and cleaned the record room of the
district office.
The Record room which is over 210 years (formed in 1799) during the
time of Sir Thomas Munroe the first Deputy Commissioner of the Kanara
District, is now under a blanket of dust. The record room has
documents which belonged to the time when the district was formed. Due
to the moisture and dust many of the documents were in very bad shape
and they needed to be cleaned, recorded and preserved says Mr.
Ponnuraj.
The Gandhi Jayanthi special drive gave the district adminsitration an
additional work time of eight hours and they indexed over 13,000
files! According to the officials, however, there was no extra wages
to the officials but the district administration has made it sure that
they got afternoon lunch, evening tea and snacks!
Our Correspondent
bademiyansubhanallah
BJP Govt blamed for inaction
By Team Mangalorean Bangalore
Bangalore/Mysore Oct 2: Leader of Opposition in Karnataka Assembly
Siddaramiah today came down heavily on the BJP Government in the
State, blaming ministers for conducting the 'wasteful' Chintan Baithak
when people were reeling under floods.
Talking to newspersons here, he alleged that the Government had failed
to come to the people's rescue during rain havoc.
Stating that the Government had failed to take up any meaningful
development work and collect the taxes properly during its 16-month
rule, he said it was now trying to learn from the meeting sponsored by
the RSS. ''It is nothing but a wasteful exercise,'' he opined.
He alleged that the State Government had failed to utilise the funds
released by the Centre for relief works earlier, ignoring the safety
of people and their property.
''More than 100 people were killed and thousands of houses have been
damaged. Standing crops on hundreds of acres were destroyed, and what
this government is doing?'' he asked.
Congress workers led by Opposition leader Siddaramaiah stage a protest
against State Government in front of Gandhi statue in Mysore
Referring to former Prime Minister H D Devegowdas statement on the
'expressway project,' developed by a private company, connecting the
State capital and Mysore, he demanded a CBI inquiry into the entire
episode.
However, he condemned the JD(S) President' statement, saying that the
foundation for the project was laid by Mr Gowda during his tenure as
Chief Minister of the State. ''When his son Mr H D Kumaraswamy was the
Chief Minister, why did he fail to ask him to take back the lands
allotted to the private company ?'' he asked.
Meanwhile, as part of the Congress party's second phase agitation
against the BJP Government, Mr Siddaramiah, Lok Sabha member H
Vishwanath and other Congress leaders began agitation in front of the
Gandhi statue in the city today. Similar protests have been programmed
in all the district eadquarters. Later, the agitation would be staged
at the taluk level from October 12, he added.
Rich tributes to Mahatma
Political leaders and common people paid rich tributes to Father of
the Nation, Mahatma Gandhi, on his 141th birth anniversary in
Karnataka today.
Governor H R Bharadwaj, Chief Minister B S Yeddyurappa and Opposition
leader Siddaramaiah were among the leaders who garlanded the statues
of the Mahatma on +Gandhi Jayanti+, which is also observed as
international day of non-violence.
People also paid rich tributes to former Prime Minister Lal Bahadur
Shastri on his 105th birth anniversary today.
Prayer meetings were conducted by the people at many Gandhi Bhavans
and Satyagraha Soudhas in different parts of the state to remember the
services of the proponent of the non-violence.
Mr Yeddyurappa garlanded Mahatma's statue in Mysore along with Rural
Development Minister Shobha Karandlaje and legislator A Ramadas.
Union minister of Labour Mallikharjun Kharge garlanded the statue in
the city, in the company of opposition leader in Karnataka Legislative
Council Ugrappa and youth leader Dinesh Gundurao.
Janata Dal(S) party leaders partymen celebrated the birthday of the
Mahatma at its office in the city with Hemavati and her troupe singing
'Sadbhvana' songs. Former Prime Minister H D Deve Gowda and State unit
President and MP Kumaraswamy also attended the function.
bademiyansubhanallah
Cong protest with a tribute to Gandhi
By Violet Pereira, Team Mangalorean - Mangalore
Mangalore October 2, 2009: The District Congress Committee today
staged a protest against the failure of BJP Government. The
protestors gathered at the District Congress office to pay their
respect to Mahatma Gandhi. Mr. Ramanath Rai, President of District
Congress Committee along with Mr. Vijay Kumar Shetty, Ex. MLA, Mr.
Ivan D'Souza Vice President of D.C.C, Mr. B. Jagannath Shetty, Mr. K.
Ibhrahim, Mr. C.A Bava, Mr. N. Padmanabha, Mr. Suresh Ballal and other
members paid a floral tribute to the father of nation.
Speaking on this occasion Mr. Ivan D'Souza said that the BJP ruled
government was total failure in the state on every front. He alleged
that funds sanctioned by the central government towards various
schemes were not properly utilized and the benefits were not reaching
to the poor people in rural areas. The state was still reeling under
power shortage even after BJP govt’s promises to restore 24 hours
power supply during monsoon, which has affected many industries,
students and farmers in the state, he said.
The protestors marched from DCC office to the townhall, where they
paid a floral tribute to Gandhi's statue. Addressing the protestors he
said that BJP Government has failed to implement various scheme
mentioned in the state budget. Criticizing the arrest of congress
leaders who protested against government’s failure recently, Mr Rai
said BJP was ruling “Goonda Raaj” in the state by beating up the
protestors, farmers and minorities in the name of law and order, where
as the government had totally failed to control the real “goondas”
belonging to the fundamentalist groups, who had created havoc in the
state. He challenged the state government to come out with a
whitepaper on various schemes that were implemented in state and funds
received from the central government.
Vasanth Bangera said that when he was in the BJP Government,
Yeddyurappa had made many promises to the farmers in the state, but
after he took charge as a chief ministers, suicides by farmers in the
state has been on the rise like never before. Coming down heavily on
misusing the public money, Mr Bangera criticized the news papers
advertisements highlighting Yeddyurappa and Shobha Karandlaje's
photographs. Is it necessary to publish all such unwanted ads on news
papers? he questioned. “The state government has been cheating the
people of Karnataka with false promises,” he said adding that BJP
government has vitiated the atmosphere in Karnataka by creating fear
psychosis among the minorities and dividing people on religious lines.
Ever since BJP came to power in state, there has been no personal
freedom for common man, no progress and no development, Mr Bangera
alleged.
The protest continued till 2 p.m.
bademiyansubhanallah
Tharoor's Gandhi Jayanti tweet sparks blog debate
New Delhi, Oct 3 (IANS) Minister of State for External Affairs Shashi
Tharoor's tweet suggesting that Gandhi Jayanti be a working day has
sparked off much discussion and debate on the Internet.
"Why should Gandhi Jayanti, or for that matter the birth and death
anniversary of any leader be a holiday? In all the fuss, the very
reason for the holiday is lost. Most of my friends for instance saw
Gandhi Jayanti as a good excuse to take short vacations to nearby hill
stations," said Shavir Malik, an IT professional, on his blog.
Added Radhika Sharma: "Gandhi Jayanti made way to an extended weekend
and most people took the opportunity to enjoy a short vacation. Except
the politicians who made a beeline to Rajghat and gave speeches on TV,
and a handful of people doing the same, the masses were honestly not
bothered. This is definitely not a mark of respect for the father of
the nation."
"Who doesn't like holidays? We all do. But there are other ways of
marking your respect," Sharma said in her blog.
Tharoor tweeted on the popular networking site Friday, saying:
"Gandhiji said 'Work is Workship' and we enjoy a holiday on his
birthday."
Ujjwal Das, a high school teacher in Delhi, said: "A day before Gandhi
Jayanti I used my class time for a discussion on whether Gandhi's
principles hold good in today's world amongst my students, and it was
very fruitful.
"Probably if Gandhi Jayanti is made a half working day and more such
programmes can be arranged, Gandhiji will come alive to the youngsters
from being just another chapter in their books."
However, not everyone agreed with this sentiment.
Said Nitasha Sharma, a research assistant at the Indian Institute of
Science in Bangalore: "It's good that occasions like Mahatma Gandhi's
birth and death anniversary are national holidays. At least people
think about him on this pretext and remember all that he had said."
Tweeted Pinaki: "Let's be honest about it. How many of us actually
remember Gandhiji in our daily lives? At least a national holiday
marked on our calendars on this day (Gandhi Jayanti) reminds us of him
and (we) pay our tribute in whatever way."
IANS
Arindam Banerjee
very bad and ugly joke, ridiculous in an age where we shouild be using new
and marvellous technology to solve the world's problems and lead much
happier lives... That egomaniacal scoundrel had the chance to help get many
new and bright ideas from England, and have them implemented in India - but
as the learned judge who sentenced him said, he chose the foul and wrong
path.
Cheers to all, and let us forget that old perverted hypocrite and traitor,
who caused and through his miserable example is still causing untold harm
and misery to billions. By making our minds closed to new technology on the
one hand, and blindly continuing to follow and ape his Christian masters on
the other hand.
Arindam Banerjee.
bademiyansubhanallah
Cong leaders do a Rahul on Gandhi Jayanti
Maulshree-Seth
Posted: Sunday , Oct 04, 2009 at 0253 hrs
Lucknow: UPCC chief Rita Bahuguna Joshi lends a helping hand to a
Dalit family in Allahabad
.
Taking a cue from AICC General Secretary Rahul Gandhi, Union
ministers, MPs, senior state leaders and even district presidents in
Uttar Pradesh chose to spend Gandhi Jayanti in the Dalit-dominated
villages and bastis.
Congressmen organised chaupals to listen to the problems of people,
organised community feasts and spent the night with Dalits.
Some leaders, however, realised that pulling off the gesture was not
easy as it seemed. While there were reports of Azharuddin leaving mid-
way in Moradabad, a cook was called in for the feast organised by
Union Minister of Coal Sri Prakash Jaiswal in Kanpur, a mosquito net
was put in place for Congress Lesgislature Party (CLP) leader Pramod
Tiwari in Pratapgarh, while other leaders brought pillows and brand
new plates to eat with Dalits. The leaders, however, had their
clarifications ready.
As for calling a cook for the community feast, Mahesh Dixit, Congress
district president for Kanpur, said: “It was supposed to be a sehbhoj
in which we had invited Dalits. The cook was called in just to make
the preparations.”
Along Jaiswal, Dixit spent the night at Dwarikapuri, a Dalit basti in
Kanpur.
On Azharuddin’s stay being cut short, Congress leader from Moradabad
Sanjay Sharma said, “Azharuddinji was there till 3 am. He left as he
had some important engagement the following day.”
CLP leader Pramod Tiwari added, “Villagers were kind enough to put one
for me, but I asked them to remove it and then slept without it for
the entire night in the house of a Dalit pradhan, Devkali Pasi, in
Sangramgarh village of Pratapgarh.”
Tiwari organised a chaupal in Jahanabad Dalit basti in Pratapgarh.
“Three major problems were reported to me — poor electricity supply,
no employment under the NREGS, and no proper school in the area. I
have sanctioned a school for the area from my own quota.” said
Tiwari.
UPCC president Rita Bahuguna Joshi said: “The spirit was right. It is
a good beginning. As we continue with the trend, our leaders will
understand better on how to go about with things. Though the programme
was decided at the eleventh hour, thousands of Congress workers were
ready to be a part of it.”
Asked about the “small luxuries”, Joshi said, “In the future, we will
try to bring it down to simpler forms. I have asked all my district
presidents to spend at least one night every month in the backward
areas.”
Joshi herself chose Nayigarhi, a Dalit hamlet in Hardiya village that
borders Mirzapur and Allahabad. During the day, she organised a
chaupal and then ate lunch with villagers. She also spent the night in
the Dalit hamlet.
Describing her three-km-long walk to the hamlet, Joshi said: “There
were no proper roads and no electricity. The children here have never
been vaccinated and the nearest drinking water source is located 1.5
km away. People are yet to receive employment under the NREGS. We
could not find a proper place to stand because the entire hamlet had
become muddy following rains. And it is an Ambedkar Village, which is
supposed to be an ideal one.”
Union Minister of State for Petroleum and Natural Gas Jitin Prasada
spent the day in Dularia village in his constituency, Lakhimpur Kheri.
For spending the night, he chose a Dalit-dominated village in Gardsal
area of Shahjahanpur district. Prasada said, “The idea is to highlight
the plight of Dalits and create a positive sentiment among people to
not treat them as secondary. The village I visited did not have proper
roads or electricity and the schools did not have teachers.”
While MPs Jagdambika Pal and P L Punia spent their days in Kamalsagar
village of Mau district and Katurikala Dalit village of Barabanki
respectively, Union Minister of State for Rural Development, Pradeep
Jain, Annu Tandon, Nirmal Khatri and Ratna Singh followed suit in
their respective constituencies.
bademiyansubhanallah
India Express BuzzSunday, October 04, 2009 3:04 PM IST
Film on Gandhiji announced
File image
Express News Service
First Published : 04 Oct 2009 03:33:00 AM IST
Last Updated : 04 Oct 2009 09:54:39 AM IST
PORT BLAIR: On the occasion of Gandhi Jayanthi, Island Films has
announced that its next project would be a 40-minute film on Mahatma
Gandhi in the context of cosmo culture in the Andaman & Nicobar
Islands. The film is titled Kahin Yahi To Nahi.
“The film script is ready and will be shot in the beautiful location
of the Andaman & Nicobar Islands as well as at Sevagram (Wardha) in
the last week of January 2010,” Island Films owner Naresh Chander Lal
told Express on Saturday.
Ram Gopal Bajaj, senior professor in acting from NSD, New Delhi, and
Sanjay Swaraj of the Bollywood would be part of the film, which is
being written, produced and directed by Naresh. Besides, nearly 20
artistes from the Islands would be playing some major roles in the
film.
A documentary film on these far-flung islands, Amrit Jal, produced and
directed by Naresh, had bagged several awards at the national level.
chhotemianinshallah
October 2nd 2009
There aren’t many in this world who don’t know of Gandhi and his
triumphant legacy.
A champion of nonviolence, Mohandas Gandhi served as a political and
spiritual leader of India during the Indian independence movement.
Through his work, he proved the power of civil disobedience when
combined with the philosophy of ahimsa — a Sanskrit word meaning non-
violence and compassion towards all beings.
Gandhi was a passionate advocate for human and animal rights and even
lived in a self-sufficient residential community. What a green
rockstar, right?
On this second day of October, we honor the man with the plan as we
celebrate his life and the lessons he shared with the world. In loving
memory, here are a few of Gandhi’s most famous quotes:
“First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you,
then you win.”
“The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the
way its animals are treated”
“A small body of determined spirits fired by an unquenchable faith in
their mission can alter the course of history.”
“Anger is the enemy of non-violence and pride is a monster that
swallows it up.”
“The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of
others.”
“You must be the change that you want to see in the world.”
Happy Birthday, G!
Sid Harth
It’s the season for Gandhiana
Pranav Dixit, Hindustan Times
October 03, 2009
First Published: 02:41 IST(3/10/2009)
Last Updated: 02:47 IST(3/10/2009)
Forty years ago, illustrator Biman Mullick designed an image that has
been branded on India’s popular imagination indelibly. It was the
smiling face of an old Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi. The original work
was done for the British Post Office, which issued a stamp
commemorating Bapu’s birth centennary in 1969. Then the image made its
way to India.
Now, decades after Mullick’s work, the Father of the Nation, famous
for his frugal lifestyle, is also a bestselling ‘brand’. And at the
heart of the phenomenon is that image. Versions of Mullick’s rendition
are to be found everywhere today — from t-shirts and coffee mugs to
keychains and pens.
Take a stroll around the city and you will find Gandhi paraphernalia
all around. From roadside stores on Janpath to luxe brand stores in
tonier shopping districts, several shelves are filled with the image.
It’s perhaps not out of reverence for the Mahatma — but because
sporting Gandhi is cool.
Sagar Sharma, a 26-year-old software engineer based in Noida, loves to
have in his wardrobe t-shirts with leaders’ faces emblazoned on them.
“I have one of Che, one of Martin Luther and a couple of Gandhi ones.”
And entrepreneurs have wisened up to the fad. Kaushal Saxena of People
Tree makes sure they stock up on Gandhi shirts. “They are in demand
all round the year, but we are usually overwhelmed around October 2,”
he says. Apart from shirts, you can buy hand-painted Gandhi greetings
and postcards with quotes by the Mahatma.
A short walk away on Janpath, S. Paul and Bros sells a variety of t-
shirts with sketched monochrome images printed on the front.
The National Gandhi Museum at Rajghat sells some novelty items such as
key-chains and figurines. There is also an intriguing mug that slowly
shows up the Mahatma’s face as you fill it up with any hot liquid.
“I’m buying a lot of books about Gandhiji,” says Lukas Meuller from
Berlin, a visitor at the museum. “But I’m taking a few key chains as
souvenirs for my two teens back home,” he smiles. “I hope to inspire
them by the life and thoughts of the Mahatma.”
Lukas is not the only German to be inspired by Bapu. Germany-based pen-
maker Mont Blanc has recently launched a set of premium ‘Mahatma
Gandhi Limited Edition 241’ pens at a princely price of Rs 11.3 lakh
each. The series commemorates Mahatma Gandhi’s Dandi march against the
British salt tax in 1930. The ‘241’ marks the miles Bapu covered in
the march from Ahmedabad to the Gujarat coast— and also the number of
pens to be produced globally.
The pen has a gold wire entwined around the middle of each pen that
represents the roughly-wound yarn on the spindle that Gandhi spun
everyday. It sports a hand-crafted rhodium-plated 18-carat gold nib
depicting Gandhiji holding his trademark lathi.
For those not feeling all that extravagant in these tough times,
there’s also the Mahatma Gandhi Limited Edition 3000, a series that
will sell 3,000 fountain pens at Rs 1.7 lakh each and 3,000
rollerballs for Rs 1.5 lakh each.
Other international brands, too, are cashing in. Lladro, the Spanish
manufacturer of high-quality porcelain figurines, has created an
astonishingly life-like one of Gandhiji. Standing 31 cm tall with his
lathi, it will set you back by Rs 40,000.
All this is quite ironic, considering what a Spartan lifestyle the man
himself chose to lead. But then, as someone once exclaimed: “You have
no idea what it costs to keep that old man in poverty!”
bademiyansubhanallah
Google pays tribute to Mahatma Gandhi
2 Oct 2009, 2058 hrs IST, AGENCIES
WASHINGTON: Internet search giant Google paid tribute to Mahatma
Gandhi on Friday on the 140th anniversary of his birth, replacing the
'G' in its colorful logo with his picture.
Clicking on the logo takes a reader to links in the Google search
engine to websites about Gandhi, who was born Mohandas Karamchand
Gandhi on October 2, 1869 and was assassinated on January 30, 1948.
Google frequently changes the colorful logo on its famously sparse
home page to mark holidays, anniversaries or significant events.
It added flying saucers last month to pay homage to British science
fiction writer H G Wells, author of the 1898 classic, "The War of the
Worlds."
Arindam Banerjee
"bademiyansubhanallah" <elcid...@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:89e50c0a-7306-4279...@l31g2000vbp.googlegroups.com...
Of course, dear Sid. Please explain why only
Christians/their_brown-nosed_brown-nosers and some Gujaratis are so fond of
Gandi. I could explain, but I have much better things to do, such as
enjoying a concert with BertieDoggie.
As for google - and other search engines - it is much more convenient for
them to suck up to gandi's memory than recognise my seminal work on "A new
method for partial match retrievals" which published in 1987, anticipated
all that google etc have done so far, and has a great deal more potential
than whatever google has shown so far...
Cheers, dear boy.
Arindam Banerjee.
bademiyansubhanallah
The relevance of Mahatma Gandhi today
M S Neelakantan
First Published : 05 Oct 2009 11:39:00 PM IST
Last Updated : 05 Oct 2009 12:06:27 AM IST
It’s a pity we know more about Einstein than M K Gandhi.
Today the Mahatma’s importance is relegated in the present times to a
mere snap on our currency notes and postal stamps with just a mention
of it in the context of the freedom struggle in school textbooks for
children to memorise and regurgitate for their annual examinations. He
deserves a lot more importance. The relevance of his life and
contribution for us is most important in the context of the ‘global
village’ concept and it will make a world of difference for us to
understand the relevance of his role in our daily lives more today
than during the freedom struggle.
When it is difficult for many who were born in the ’60’s to understand
Gandhi in the context of colonialism or imperialism; in other words,
unaware or unconcerned about being treated as slaves in our own
country, try explaining the same to the present generation.
In the present scenario, Generation Nxt needs to be enlightened on the
daily practices of the Father of the Nation. Especially, since many of
these ideas and concepts are thought of as originating in the West; a
misnomer.
Whenever Bapu received a letter, he would first slit the envelope and
make a fresh one. After reading the letter, he would proceed to reply
on the overleaf. Voila, recycled paper and envelope. He would use his
pencil till the time it was of utility, even if it was barely half an
inch in length. Using more pencils would mean cutting more trees and
in turn harm the environment.
Today’s ethnic, designer wear which sends out a chic fashion statement
is khadi which Bapu promoted as a means of livelihood for the millions
of villagers across the country besides providing the citizens with an
environment friendly attire. In addition, to the revenue it produced,
the daily use of the ‘charkha’ promoted, discipline, concentration and
total coordination of the body and mind.
Parents of children hooked onto pizzas need not despair. Instead they
could take them to the Amul pizza centres, which sell pizzas at half
the price of the MNCs with no danger of animal fat. But a much more
nutritious spread would be with pure cheese (almost double that of
those hyped big brands). Most important, the money spent here does not
go out of the country into an MNCs account; instead, it fills up the
coffers of the Kaira Milk Producer’s Cooperative Federation that
ushers in prosperity to this region whilst the grateful farmer floods
the nation with the milk of his cows.
Co-operative movement means empowering the aam aadmi, a concept dear
to Bapu’s heart. Today the Kaira Milk Producer’s Co-operative not only
ensures the livelihood of almost 11 million farmers in 90,000
villages, but also produces 84 million tones of milk annually —
empowering women in the process.
The ‘customer is the king’ is a much-heard statement from the West and
is echoed throughout our country. But how many of us have noticed and
read the ubiquitous board with Bapu’s photo and statement on the
importance of the customer on our premises; incidentally found in
every nationalised bank?
Today medical experts advise people to fast once a week to stay
healthy, a panacea the great man practised and preached. All this only
goes to prove the fact that his practices are only being repackaged
and sold to us, to whom he bequeathed his legacy.
Gandhi relevance is today stumbling so much Even people says that
Gandhi ideology is still working in modern days. The Gandhi ideology
holds good in books.however it will be come into our practical life i
cannot relate to it.Its difficult for me to adapt to the austere life
lead.
By vinodthakur
10/5/2009 11:52:00 PM
Gandhi relevance is today stumbling so much Even people says that
Gandhi ideology is still working in modern days. The Gandhi ideology
holds good in books.however it will be come into our practical life i
cannot relate to it.Its difficult for me to adapt to the austere life
lead.
By vinodthakur
10/5/2009 11:52:00 PM
bademiyansubhanallah
French company buys Gandhi's house in South Africa
STAFF WRITER 14:18 HRS IST
Fakir Hassen
Johannesburg, Oct 7 (PTI) Mahatma Gandhi's historic house here that
was his home almost a century ago has been snapped up by a French
tourism company for what is believed to be almost twice the asking
price of USD 377,029, outbidding other bidders including Indians.
The specialist touring company Voyageurs du Monde, which is listed on
the Paris Stock Exchange, plans to turn the property into a Gandhi
museum in line with its philosophy of investing in heritage properties
worldwide.
The then young lawyer Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi lived in the house
from 1908 to 1910. The thatched-roof rondavel- style house was
designed by Gandhi's confidant and architect Hermann Kallenbach.
The previous owners of the house, Nancy and Jarrod Ball, bought the
house for Rand 65,000 in 1981 and have sold it because they are
retiring to the coast.
Sid Harth
Media should lead where politicians have failed4 Comments
For nearly as long as I can remember, the prevailing consensus in
mainstream media has been that liberalization is a good thing. Way
back in the 1980s, when Dilip Thakore was the founding editor of
Businessworld, he always made it clear that his policy was to back the
corporate sector against government because there were too many
restrictions on doing business in India. Few editors went quite as far
as Malcolm Forbes who used to cheerfully describe his eponymous
magazine as a capitalist tool, but there was no doubt that few
socialists would ever make it to the top editorships.
Partly, this was because newspapers and magazines were owned by
corporate houses who had no interest in promoting the Marxist cause.
And partly this was because most journalists realized that India
needed desperately to liberalise.
In 1991, when Manmohan Singh opened up the economy, he did not have to
work very hard at finding supporters in the media. My old boss, Aveek
Sarkar, loudly declared, “Forget Mohandas, Manmohan is the true Father
of the Nation.” He was over-stating the case, of course, but all of
us, myself included, recognized that what Manmohan Singh was doing was
long overdue.
Since then, many of us have judged governments by how committed they
are to the reforms process. Our old impatience with socialism has been
transformed into a mass welcoming of all capitalist innovations and
enterprises. More important, we have come to identify liberalization
with globalization and have treated the big international financial
institutions as forces for the public good.
Over the last year, two events have occurred that could have caused us
to stop and change our minds. The first of these is the global
economic crisis. Nobody seriously disputes that this crisis was caused
by capitalism run amok, by Wall Street’s irresponsibility and by the
lack of accountability that international financial institutions
enjoyed.
The second event was the General Election. During the UPA’s first
term, the Prime Minister had to be persuaded by the Congress Party to
accept the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme. He also
bitterly opposed the loan write-off for farmers and only fell in line
when the Congress insisted.
His reluctance was matched by the press’ lack of enthusiasm for such
measures. Most newspapers regarded the National Rural Employment
Guarantee scheme as a joke and the write-off was violently opposed by
nearly every editorial writer and economic commentator.
We know now - judging by poll surveys - that the primary reason why
the UPA won a second term was because it pursued these measures and
policies. Even while we in the media were arguing in favour of the
market as a mechanism for allocating resources, the people of India
seemed to prefer a more direct transfer of wealth.
In the West, the economic crisis has led to the publication of scores
of books questioning the basic tenets of global capitalism. Such
distinguished economists as Paul Krugman, Jeffrey Sachs and Joe
Stiglitz have become media celebrities because of their trenchant
criticisms of modern capitalism.
But while the old economic consensus has broken down within Western
media, we in India seem entirely unmoved by the events of the last
year. Few of us have questioned whether our opposition to the UPA’s
social welfare measures was justified. And in all the economic
journalism that I read, there is rarely a questioning of the old
liberalization-is-terrific consensus. What’s more, we still support
globalization with the same enthusiasm.
It is not my case that we are wrong to do this: the jury is still out
on that one. My point is: why have we not had the same debate as the
West?
At a political level, the absence of the debate can be attributed to
the misplaced priorities of the two men who should have led it.
Manmohan Singh is our most respected politician and leading liberal
economic thinker. Prakash Karat is bright, articulate and entirely
committed to Marxist economics.
You would imagine that these two titans would have done battle over
the direction that Indian capitalism should now take. Instead, both
men got embroiled in a sideshow: a tussle over the nuclear deal. Both
invested their egos in this battle and allowed the major issue of the
crisis of capitalism to go undebated.
But what about us in the media? Should we now not be questioning our
faith in the market as the cure for all ills? Should we not wonder
whether it is right for us to oppose loan write-offs at a time when
the West is also talking of loan write-offs - for African debt, for
example.
The old socialism-is-bad assumptions may have made sense when our
economy was at a certain stage of development. But don’t these
assumptions need to be re-examined in the light of recent events.
I would argue that they do. What we miss in the Indian media is the
sort of debate that has gripped the West: about the nature and
direction of capitalism in the future.
The politicians have clearly failed us when it comes to a battle of
ideas. So journalists must now take over and debate these issues.
Posted by Vir Sanghvi on Tuesday, October 6, 2009 at 7:10 pm
Filed under Media · Tagged capitalism, economic journalism,
globalization, liberalization, modern capitalism
·
4 Responses to “Media should lead where politicians have failed”
Shikha Says:
October 6th, 2009 at 9:00 pm
Vir,
I have always admired your opinions and columns but I am somewhat
confused about this one. Your argument rests on the following premise
- What earns votes is good and since it is good, media should support
it.
Writing off loans is the easiest thing govt can do.. After all that
does not involve the personal funds of any politician, right?
Take for an example the loan write off and loan modification in USA
for defaulting home owners in USA. Anyone who has followed
foreclosures and mortgage default in USA would tell that Obama’s
remedies for these home owners is corrupt and tantamount to rewarding
bad behavior. Nevertheless, this program is popular amongst most
owners except those who are renters (because no one modifies their
rent) or the responsible home owners who make the mortgage payments on
time and bought the home that they could afford. Many in US media
(except the one who have special interests) have questioned such loan
write offs for irresponsible people at the expense of American tax
payers. In the end, however, this may earn Obama some votes if his
policies keep the owners in their homes.
A journalist is supposed to argue each issue based upon its merit and
not based upon what makes a politician popular.
Amazer Says:
October 7th, 2009 at 7:16 am
Great reply Shikha. Also Vir two things: NTR won the elections on his
Rs.2/kg rice scheme. This nearly bankrupted the AP economy and the
scheme had to be quietly shelved some time later. So vote winning
schemes are not necessarily good for the country. They really speak to
the appalling poverty in India and the systematic failure of the
political establishment for the past 60 years in doing anything
meaningful to get India out of this quagmire.
The second things is this: if you didn’t have a market economy, where
is the money for your NREGA or other populist schemes going to come
from?? Don’t forget that it is govt. revenues collected from
businesses and taxes that help fund these schemes. Don’t delude
yourself into thinking that some wrong-headed socialism will do the
trick. It hasn’t anywhere else in the world.
Dbzz Says:
October 7th, 2009 at 7:56 am
Vir
I agree with your point about debating loan wave offs but more from
efficiency in implementing point of view not really from economic
benefit to the society point of view.
For debate “whether market can cure all ills” I would say Indian media
is not capable of doing so. They simply do not have credentials. This
debate should be rather between economists
Arindam Banerjee
efficiency in implementing point of view not really from economic
benefit to the society point of view.
For debate �whether market can cure all ills� I would say Indian media
is not capable of doing so. They simply do not have credentials. This
debate should be rather between economists
AB: or rather, between economists and novelists, two types of liars held in
very high regards these days, with media and celebs - the stupider the
better - thrown in of course. Keep engineers well away from any organised
and decisive decision making, and we will continue to remain a poor country,
fodder for the evangelists who will point out the poverty continuously and
relentlessly.
...and I am Sid Harth
AB: And am I not right, dear Sid. Yours charmingly,
Arindam Banerjee.
anal...@hotmail.com
> "bademiyansubhanallah" <elcidha...@gmail.com> wrote in message
>
> news:89e50c0a-7306-4279...@l31g2000vbp.googlegroups.com...
>
>
>
>
>
> >http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/politics/nation/Google-pays-...
>
> > Google pays tribute to Mahatma Gandhi
>
> > 2 Oct 2009, 2058 hrs IST, AGENCIES
>
> > WASHINGTON: Internet search giant Google paid tribute to Mahatma
> > Gandhi on Friday on the 140th anniversary of his birth, replacing the
> > 'G' in its colorful logo with his picture.
>
> > Clicking on the logo takes a reader to links in the Google search
> > engine to websites about Gandhi, who was born Mohandas Karamchand
> > Gandhi on October 2, 1869 and was assassinated on January 30, 1948.
>
> > Google frequently changes the colorful logo on its famously sparse
> > home page to mark holidays, anniversaries or significant events.
>
> > It added flying saucers last month to pay homage to British science
> > fiction writer H G Wells, author of the 1898 classic, "The War of the
> > Worlds."
>
> > ...and I am Sid Harth
>
> Of course, dear Sid. Please explain why only
> Christians/their_brown-nosed_brown-nosers and some Gujaratis are so fond of
> Gandi. I could explain, but I have much better things to do, such as
> enjoying a concert with BertieDoggie.
>
Can it be said that the MB from PB understood Sanatana Dharma only
through the lens of Christianity?
> As for google - and other search engines - it is much more convenient for
> them to suck up to gandi's memory than recognise my seminal work on "A new
> method for partial match retrievals" which published in 1987, anticipated
> all that google etc have done so far, and has a great deal more potential
> than whatever google has shown so far...
Don't tell me that you are a practitioner of the dismal science or art
of "data mining". But still, a reference tp the above work would be
appreciated.
>
> Cheers, dear boy.
>
> Arindam Banerjee.- Hide quoted text -
>
> - Show quoted text -
chhotemianinshallah
Love the drought
Hindustan Times
August 23, 2009
First Published: 23:37 IST(23/8/2009)
Last Updated: 16:00 IST(5/10/2009)
You have only to have a conversation in south Mumbai to realise how
far away it is from India. Much passion is expended in packed — what
was that about a downturn? — restaurants over the latest prices of
(already overpriced) flats and the latest cars (imported, not Indian).
Over the past week that I have been here, I’ve gathered that very few
of India’s richest and brightest have heard of the NREGA.
That’s the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, the world’s
largest attempt to create a modest social security network in a
democracy where the rural poor are mostly ignored till the end of
their short lives. It guarantees one member from each rural family 100
days of work every year in exchange for their sweat and toil. More
than 40 million of India’s poorest rural families have thus been given
a livelihood of sorts. If you take an average of five people to a
family, that’s more than 200 million people.
The two knee-jerk reactions you hear in India’s islands of affluence
like south Mumbai (or south Delhi for that matter) are these:
That’s my money being spent on these handouts!
It will all end up in the hands of corrupt officials and politicians.
First, let’s understand this clearly: It is not likely to be your
money. No more than 13.6 per cent of the Indian government’s Rs 9
trillion ($184 billion) expenditure in 2008-09 came from personal
income tax. The estimates for next year show that income tax is likely
to comprise no more than 11 per cent of state spending. No more than
31 million Indians, or less than 3 per cent of the population, pay
tax.
Second, of course there is corruption. Fake payrolls and ghost workers
have long bedevilled the NREGA. Corruption is a part of Indian life —
so, when did you last slip a Rs 50-note to the constable who pulled
you over? — not just the government.
Despite the leaks and the programme’s inability to provide, on
average, more than 48 days of work, there is strong evidence that it
keeps the worst deprivation at bay. Indeed, on the vast plains of
northern India, the NREGA has become a common noun: “Narega”.
With the drought imperiling millions of livelihoods, the government is
going to spend much more money on Narega in the coming months. It’s
critical that the splurge is impeccably planned and directed.
We have till the end of September to see if things change, but if
present meteorological estimates hold good — let’s pray they don’t —
India may be facing its worst drought since 1918, the year since when
records are available. That’s the conclusion drawn by Himanshu, a
columnist at Mint and a Jawaharlal Nehru University professor, who
analysed records of annual summer monsoon rainfall since 1918.
As I write this column, the monsoon rainfall of 2009 is 29 per cent
short of normal. Last week, worried state governments started
emergency spending. Gujarat, a state that has invested more than Rs
27,372 crore (Rs 273 billion) in irrigation over the last decade, has
more than doubled power supply to farmers, from eight hours a day to
19, so that water can be pumped to save crops. Gujarat’s farm
subsidies of Rs 3,000 crore will immediately increase by up to Rs 15
crore. Maharashtra — faced with withering fields and an election — has
upped the money it pays each rural labourer under Narega from between
Rs 66 and Rs 80 a day to Rs 120.
Such Band-Aids may not be avoidable, but they cannot be substitutes
for a surgical operation. Fattened by four good years, Indian
agriculture has managed to hide the terminal decline that affects its
vital organs. The drought is a great opportunity — adversity always is
— to make some radical lifestyle changes.
Narega’s predecessor, and arguably its inspiration, was Maharashtra’s
Employment Guarantee Scheme. It was launched in May 1972, the result
of some innovative thinking by state officials who realised that once
its mighty capital city (then Bombay) was removed from the economic
equation, India’s most industrial state was no better than darkest
Bihar. Narega itself was created after the drought of 2002, and
India’s biggest advance in agriculture, the Green Revolution, was
launched after crippling droughts swept India in the 1960s.
There is much that can be done today, from grand national projects to
a village initiative. There are warehouses to be built, dams and
canals to be completed, new crops and practices to be tried.
You will find thousands of farm innovations across India’s vast
plains. They are run by dreamers, agronomists, workers, visionaries
and, of course, ordinary farmers. It is impossible to list them here,
but you will read about them soon in this newspaper.
It is time, then, to launch a thousand new revolutions. It is time to
address the weaknesses of a system that keeps India dependent on the
vagaries of the rains — especially in a world beset by the
meteorological uncertainties forced by global warming. It is also time
to find someone to lead this grand agricultural overhaul.
With his attention divided between cricket and crops, Agriculture
Minister Sharad Pawar is unlikely to be the man for the job. The Prime
Minister picked flat-world pioneer Nandan Nilekani to lead the project
to provide all Indians with an identity card. Surely he can find
someone to begin the transformation of the livelihoods of more than
600 million Indians?
chhotemianinshallah
In for a peasant surprise?
Rajdeep Sardesai
March 06, 2008
First Published: 21:27 IST(6/3/2008)
Last Updated: 16:05 IST(2/4/2008)
For someone who had finally been embraced by his party and anointed
its new poster boy, Finance Minister P Chidambaram seemed awfully
truculent a day after the Union Budget. Perhaps, it was the economist
in him who was worried about abandoning fiscal responsibility at the
altar of hand-outs. Maybe, it was the lawyer in him who was tired of
making out a case as to why he had decided on a Rs 60,000 crore farm
loan waiver to be written off in just four months. Or maybe, the
politician in him was aware that historically election budgets don’t
always bring in votes. Or maybe, he was just fatigued of pesky
journalists asking him where he was going to get the money to fund his
sop machine. Finally, in a moment of candour, the Finance Minister
admitted that he would rather not face election pressures every year
when delivering a Budget, and that state and general elections should
be held once every five years at the same time.
More than just playing kisan politics is required for the UPA to win
elections.Contrast the discomfort of Chidambaram with the euphoria
that his Budget seems to have generated within the ruling alliance.
The queues of party workers waiting to get a darshan at 10 Janpath
have lengthened, with farmers from Haryana leading the way in
genuflecting before the Congress leadership. Posters announcing Rahul
Gandhi as the ‘kisan ka neta’ have sprung up. Tired of their leader
being accused of spending too much time on the cricket field, Sharad
Pawar’s NCP has also joined the chorus, with full page ads lavishing
praise on the Agriculture Minister. In Parliament, there is a spring
in the step of the treasury benches, almost as if the chill of a
nuclear winter has now been magically transformed into a possible
monsoon of contentment.
To an extent, the celebratory air around the UPA leadership is
justified. After facing a mauling in state elections in 2007 (the
tally reads UPA 0, Opposition 5), the central government has been
desperately looking for an issue that could spur a momentum shift. The
original hope had been that an aggressive pro-reservation agenda would
effect the change. But in an environment of competitive reservation
politics, the Congress can hardly claim proprietorial rights on
reservations. An Arjun Singh may have used it to build his identity,
but the party was less inclined to follow suit. The Sachar Committee’s
recommendations on minorities were seen as another attempt at
recapturing a traditional Congress vote-bank. But here too, there has
been some hesitancy in allowing the Opposition to revive the plank of
minority appeasement. An 8 per cent-plus economic growth rate was a
possible calling card, but the fear of a ‘India Shining’-like campaign
boomeranging on the government was enough to spark off a defensive
reaction.
Enter the kisan: the traditional, ubiquitous symbol of the aam aadmi.
Much like the Indian soldier, the farmer is seen as a conscience-
keeper of a nation; agriculture is seen as an occupation that is part
of India’s moral core, the true grit of its people. Such are the
romantic notions that are still attached to land and farming that,
even in multiplex India, a Do Bigha Zameen can continue to evoke a
strong emotional connect. The ‘rural areas’ are a mantra to be chanted
whenever a moral point needs to be made. The backward-forward
reservation debate can be divisive, as can the majority-minority
equation, or the ‘India Shining’ slogan. But who would dare question
the right of the Indian farmer to demand more, especially when farmer
suicides are no longer just statistical data, but a grim reminder of
the failures of the State to build a more humane society? Any attempt
to question a loan waiver to farmers can be politically disastrous in
an agrarian society.
Contrast ‘farmer-first’ politics with national security and terrorism
— the BJP’s pet project — and it seems that the terms of political
engagement are heavily weighed in favour of the UPA leadership. The
fear of the terrorist is real, and there is growing evidence of the
dangers of ‘home-grown’ terrorism, and of the rising clout of Naxal
groups. But while the ‘soft on terror’ propaganda may appeal to the
BJP’s core middle-class constituency, it does not resonate with the
same vigour across the country. By contrast, farmers’ issues cut
across geographical barriers, with the result that they offer a
political party an opportunity to set the national agenda by appealing
to the bulk of the rural populace.
And yet, if the UPA believes it has found the mantra to electoral
success, it could well be guilty of premature celebration. If farm
loan waivers were enough to pile up the votes, then the likes of Devi
Lal, Charan Singh and Deve Gowda would have had permanent access to
power. Kisan politics can be a dangerous double-edged sword: while it
can provide opportunity, it can also quickly become a source of
despair. One of the biggest dangers that confronts political parties
at election time is the principle of rising expectations, with failure
to deliver resulting in what is now universally condemned as ‘anti-
incumbency’. By promising to complete the entire loan waiver scheme by
June 30, the government is setting itself up for the possibility of
encouraging a wave of unrealistic expectations among farmers, and then
finding itself trapped when it is unable to deliver on deadlines and
demands. And what of those thousands of indebted farmers who will
lose out because they remain outside the institutional credit system?
To understand just what can go wrong, look no further than the UPA’s
original Rs 12,000 crore flagship programme: the National Rural
Employment Guarantee (NREG) scheme. The first reality check done by
the Comptroller and Auditor General shows that barely 3.2 per cent of
the registered households could avail of the 100 days of employment in
the first year of the programme. The average employment provided under
the scheme was just 18 days as against the promised 100 days.
Ironically, the data on financial assistance under the NREG Act
(NREGA) showed that the performance of non-Congress ruled states in
implementing the programme was better than of the Congress-ruled
states. A recent television story exposed how even in the Gandhi
family bastion of Amethi and Rae Bareli, the NREGA projects were
caught in a web of bureaucracy and corruption. Will an even more
extensive loan waiver scheme also become a victim of its own ambition?
A morally acceptable idea if badly implemented can be a recipe for
disaster.
Moreover, the reality of contemporary electoral politics is such that
it requires more than just the announcement of farmer-friendly schemes
to translate intention into votes. While eyeing a 2008 election, the
UPA needs to ask itself: does it have the organisational muscle to
translate the Chidambaram Budget into an electoral victory? Can a
Rahul Gandhi’s ‘Discovery of India’ yatra be enough to galvanise a
dormant political organisation? Is there any evidence on the ground
that the party is on the comeback trail in politically influential
states like UP and Bihar? In the 2004 elections, in the 12 largest
states of the country, the Congress won just 100 of the 440 seats on
offer. Can the Congress claim with any conviction that there is at
least one large state where it is guaranteed a sweeping victory in the
polls? And are key allies like the DMK and the RJD confident of
repeating their 2004 performance this time round?
Perhaps, no one knows this uncertain political roulette better than
the Finance Minister who comes from a state where the Congress
organisation is decaying. With J Jayalalithaa threatening another
potential comeback, Chidambaram should be aware that his future, and
that of his party, could be determined by political forces that have
little connection with the Budget. The momentum in Parliament may have
shifted to the UPA after the kisan chemistry in the Budget. But in the
dusty tracks of Sivaganga, it could well be alliance arithmetic, not
budgetary chemistry, that will determine the fate of the next Lok
Sabha.
Editor-in-Chief, CNN-IBN
chhotemianinshallah
Two-timing icons
Indrajit Hazra, Hindustan Times
October 04, 2009
First Published: 02:16 IST(4/10/2009)
Last Updated: 02:21 IST(4/10/2009)
Jawaharlal Nehru and Edwina Mountbatten smooching on the settee. If
those nine words haven’t already burnt a hole in your (now suddenly
ex-, eh?) favourite newspaper, read on.
In the early 90s, when the net had holes and the sky was blue and
your (now suddenly ex-, eh?) favourite incomprehensible Sunday
columnist was working in a chummy Calcutta newspaper, there was a big
kerfuffle when a Bengali daily published extracts of letters written
by Subhas Chandra Bose to a woman named Emilie Schenkl.
Bengalis have a special relationship with Netaji Subhas Bose© and it
was wonderful, many of us thought, that a publisher had finally
brought to light, outside the table lamps of academia, these personal
letters that made the icon so touchingly human. “I have been longing
to write to you for some time past — but you can easily understand how
difficult it was to write to you about my feelings... Not a single day
passes that I do not think of you, You are with me all the time. I
cannot possibly think of anyone else in the world,” read one such
missive, showing Bose yearning for the lady he loved.
The published letters struck me as a wonderful antidote to the stiff,
iconic, uniform-ed ‘Netaji’ whose tacky pictures (elevated to ‘kitsch’
collectibles these days) adorned many a calendar on the wall. His
words actually elevated the figure of Bose in my ranking of historical
heroes.
Well, try telling that to the Forward Bloc blokes who were up in arms
the same day, burning copies of the ‘lascivious’ newspaper that had
published ‘scurrilous’ extracts of their party founder’s letters. They
seemed confused about whether they were angry because Bose’s private
letters had been made public, or because he had been exposed as a
flesh’n’blood’n’hormones man. What they didn’t seem confused about at
all was that every copy of the newspaper had to be destroyed.
It’s true that Bose secretly married Schenkl, an Austrian, on December
26, 1937. Schenkl later explained that any public announcement would
have caused “unnecessary upheaval,” especially at a time when Bose
knew that he would become president of the Indian National Congress in
1938. But more than 50 years later, was it such a cataclysmic thing
for people, including admirers of Bose, to know that the great man
loved his wife? Nein, meine dumme Kumpel!
The latest noise over a feature film on the ‘relationship’ between
Jawaharlal Nehru and Edwina Mountbatten is thankfully less cacophonic.
Alex Von Tunzelmann’s Indian Summer (on which the proposed Nehru-
Edwina film’s script is based on) isn’t the only book that talks about
the ‘private’ affair. The fact that the two loved each other is well-
documented.
But popular reaction doesn’t stem from document-reading. It comes from
things like a ‘film version’ or a ‘media report’. (Which explains why
I haven’t become a household name even after suggesting in a novel
that freedom-fighter Kshudiram Bose and his fellow bomb-throwing boys
were rather hopeless at getting the right targets.)
But the rather moronic objections to the film’s script from the
Information and Broadcasting Ministry are on the old, well, moronic
lines of ‘Arrey baba, how can you show Chacha Nehru loving a woman,
and another man’s wife at that?’ One history-type even suggested that
a film on the relationship between two historical figures can only be
made if the relationship impacts “the course of events”.
I have a theory about why we flinch each time a national icon is
shown possessing human qualities. We find it horrific to consider
that such a ‘parental figure’ could have had an erotic, psychosexual
relationship with anyone else but the nation. Essentially, we want our
icons to only sleep with us.
chhotemianinshallah
Oye Gandhi, Gandhi oye
Mrinal Pande,
October 07, 2009
First Published: 21:18 IST(7/10/2009)
Last Updated: 01:48 IST(8/10/2009)
Once again the silly season is upon us. This festival season, and like
the hero in Oye Lucky, Lucky Oye, we Indians have begun to chant,
“Mainu chaida, chaida, chaida” (I want, want, want). So dear reader,
if you live in Delhi’s high society and are considered one of its
‘Lukky’ (read: VIP) members, this Diwali you may receive the much
talked about white gold Gandhi pen from the house of Montblanc as a
corporate (tax deductible?) gift.
Each of these limited edition pens (241 pieces only, to mark the
number of days Gandhi spent on the Dandi march) has a Gandhi etched on
its 18-karat solid gold rhodium-plated nib, khadi chadar, bamboo lathi
and all. The 925 sterling silver mountings on its cap and cone are
shaped to resemble Gandhi’s humble spindle, and the silver has been
treated specially to make the texture look like handwoven khadi.
Price: Rs 11.3 lakh only. Nice.
As the landless daily wage workers in rural and urban areas of India
begin to use mobiles, and as knowledge and information expand as never
before even into the tiniest hamlets, Indians seem to have decided
that desire deserves to be encouraged rather than controlled.
Greed is good. As is stained clothes — ‘daag achhe hain’ — because
both will help sell products. Not self-control but the morning after
pill; not goat’s milk but a fortified commercially bottled yogurt
drink; not khadi but designer khadi are must-haves. Mainu chaida
chaida chaida!
As neo-converts, Indians are fast relearning what they want and how to
get it — not just at home but also in schools and the IITs and IIMs,
at the paanwallah who also sells sim cards, at the chai shop that also
keeps condoms, at malls and multiplexes where the government has
opened licensed vends for selling booze.
During the last general elections, while all major political parties
were busy co-opting Gandhi by making him speak for their manifestoes,
some forecasters — most of them advertisers and political publicists —
began feeding the media with the kind of stories about the 10 (or 20,
or 50) most powerful, best dressed, most iconic women in India.
There was soon going to be, we were told, a new emergence of ‘Woman
Power’ in India’s political firmament. What they meant by this was not
quite clear though. Were they ‘divining’ the arrival of yet another
pantheon of new market-friendly deities, or just inventing another
clever cover story (like ‘India’s Best B Schools’) to rake in
advertising for various goods and services?
Were they suggesting that the numbers of women parliamentarians were
going to swell dramatically and create the critical mass Gandhi and
feminists had been dreaming of? Or were they simply taking us for
suckers and suggesting we buy Sonia-Priyanka-like clothes, Jayanti
Natrajan-Sushma Swaraj-like traditional jewellery, and, of course,
diamonds that are being touted as reflective of a woman’s true self-
image by film stars?
In any event, as soon as journalists set out to look up hard facts and
gather evidence, it became clear that the answer was a clear ‘no’. No
political party was risking allocating 33 per cent tickets to women,
not even those headed by women supremos.
The size of party funds and profiles of fund-givers remained unchanged
— and male. The lists of candidates for the soon-to-be-held assembly
elections in Maharashtra and Haryana confirm this trend yet once
again. Why should you, Tharoor sahib, mourn the vanished power of the
usual Gandhi?
Mrinal Pande is the former Editor of Hindustan
bademiyansubhanallah
The truth is, Gandhi is less of a draw than Jinnah
M J Akbar Sunday October 11, 2009
It is curious that six decades after 1947 a debate on Jinnah can pack
halls in Delhi and Mumbai but a discussion on Gandhi might not fill a
front row. Is this because Jinnah offers the drama of a court trial,
the speakers being advocates for defense or prosecution, and the
audience a silent, but ultimately decisive, jury? Jinnah, one of the
great barristers of his age, would have relished the metaphor.
Has Gandhi become, in our subconscious, an irritating nuisance, a
mirror before our guilty conscience? Who wants to be measured by the
yardstick of a saint who was so disconcertingly honest that he turned
his autobiography into a confessional? Jinnah, on the other hand, was
so private, and even secretive in life that, in death, he is
vulnerable to endless post-mortem dissection. Gandhi has become as
ephemeral as an ideal. We can disturb the memory of Jinnah. Gandhi’s
memory disturbs us.
Where would Gandhi have been on his 140th birthday, October 2, 2009,
if he were not safely dead? He would have been on a fast in
Maharashtra. Why? The state police has slipped into the public space a
statistic made even more astonishing by the indifference with which it
has been received: there has been, on an average, a riot every 20 days
in Maharashtra during the last five years. Print media consigned it to
a couple of statutory paragraphs inside. Television, crowded with high-
decibel celebrities, ignored this completely. It seems that our
innumerable guardians of secularism need familiar villains for their
rage. Faceless violence is not attractive enough.
Gandhi placed the facts of violence above the politics of conflict. He
would have been an inconvenient presence for those who profess to live
by his creed today. As for the heroes of modern India: they would not
recognize him. There is no way to reinvent Gandhi as a happy symbol of
a rising sensex, checking out the value of an investment portfolio at
five every evening. It makes sense on every side to convert Gandhi
into a token portrait on the wall of a government office.
Jinnah’s problem, conversely, has been that he has been appropriated,
or misappropriated, by a range of vested interests, each determined to
resurrect him in its own image, to serve its agenda. Pakistan’s
political elite, forced to compromise with the culture of theocracy,
has converted the natty, lean, handsome owner of 200-odd London-
tailored suits into a shalwar-and-cap chameleon. If, instead of being
clean-shaven, Jinnah had sported a slight, fashionable beard, they
would have extended the beard by six inches in official portraits.
Most Pakistanis would be shocked today to discover that Jinnah did not
know Urdu, never fasted during Ramzan, had little interest in the
rituals of religion, and that his concept of spiritual sustenance was
very worldly indeed. Jinnah sent out invitations for a formal lunch-
banquet in honour of the visiting Mountbattens for August 14, 1947,
the day the new nation was born. The meal had to be cancelled when
someone realized that they were in the middle of Ramzan. Jinnah had
been oblivious of the fact that observant Muslims had been fasting for
three weeks.
Indian politicians have restructured Jinnah more subtly. Contemporary
Congressmen needed a cardboard Jinnah as the all-purpose villain who
could soak up all the guilt of Partition. An obstinate, communal hate
figure was planted into Indian schoolbook history. This was then
morphed into something more insidious.
When Jinnah’s utility as the father of Pakistan receded, he was
transformed, surreptitiously, into the symbol of the guilt of Indian
Muslims, who became the whipping boys of Indian nationalism as
practiced on all sides of the spectrum. The Bharatiya Jana Sangh,
forerunner of the BJP, latched on to this projection with great glee,
since it perpetuated the politics of isolation and accusation. Indian
Muslims, in this construct, were genetically unpatriotic and
therefore, deservedly condemned to the status of second-class
citizens. When Jaswant Singh challenged this single-dimension
mythology by lifting the record from the private domain of academic
archives and flinging it into public discourse, he had to be expelled.
He had spread the guilt to others, who were Hindus, and disturbed the
equanimity of a half-truth.
The secular parties, whose expertise in the dynamics of electoral
behaviour has always been more astute, quickly understood that fear is
the easiest route to the Indian Muslim vote. Fear of the past,
Partition, was compounded by fear of its future consequences. Muslims
had to choose between the communal cage and the secular trap. One
offered a diet of gruel, and the other a scrap of cheese. After six
decades, Indian Muslims are beginning to bang on the door of both the
cage and the trap.
Mahatma Gandhi would have heard the clamour.
Comments(3)
Rated 4.2/5 (28 Votes)12345
Comments:
Agree (10)
Disagree (2)
Vats says:
October 11, 2009 at 09:08 AM IST
In does not matter how many suits Jinnah had, how many cigaretts he
smoked a day, how many women he slept with liberally, how much Urdu he
knew or did not. What matters is that he displayed the obsessive
complusive disorder vis a vis Islamic identity and violence to satisfy
his revengefulness. At some private moment, this highly literate but
selfish man who cunningly passed himself as liberal, must have decided
that violence (direct action) was more acceptable to him than peace,
that the idea of Muslim majority Pakistan was more acceptable to him
than pluristic India. More over, himself once married to a parsee
woman, when Jinnah's daughter wanted to marry her Parsee lover,
Jinah's Islamic pride ensured that she remained unmarried for the rest
of her life than have a parsee man as the father of her children
(dilution of islam was not acceptable to this liberal). It is these
choices of Jinah that make him communal, divisive, contrived, short
sighted, and a man full of hatred and revenge. Let Akbar not indulge
in trying to project Jinah otherwise by saying how little Urdu he
spoke, how many western suits he had, and how he threw a dinner
invitation during ramazan.
Agree (9)
Disagree (2)
Nasir Khan says:
October 11, 2009 at 09:46 AM IST
It is the fact that Indian muslims paying a very heavy price of Indian
sub-continent partition. Need much more efforts from esteem patriatic
personnel to eridicate rebel label from Muslims and put them in nation
main stream.
Agree (5)
Disagree (2)
sam says:
October 11, 2009 at 09:59 AM IST
Gandhi and Jinnah are two different school of thoughts.You have to
judge the people based on what they do rather than what they eat or
wear.
There are two popular views for the creation of Pakistan.Jinnah's two
nation theory in the context of South asia is identical to Samuel
Huntington's clash of civilisation in the global context.
The difference is Huntington only floated his theory but Jinnah
actually implemented his theory and millions died.
There is another view which is believed by hardline clerics in Pakitan
which states that creation of Pakistan has nothing to do with
Jinnah.Pakistan was created on the day when bin Qasim attacked Sindh.
The slogan is "The day first hindu became a muslim, the day
Pakistan was born". Hardliner beleive that Jinnah only
facilitated the process.
Arindam Banerjee
<anal...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:94797f23-8dd6-4b48...@j9g2000vbp.googlegroups.com...
AB: He was surrounded by "Christian" missionaries, and was highly feted by
the "Christian" US media. I don't see which genuine Indian-Hindu writer made
any real impact upon him, but Christian writers like Tolstoy and sort-of
Christians like Thoreau made a great impact. See, in those days the
Christians were very much against technology, which admittedly was raw and
exploitative, far more than it is today. They were also upset because the
British in Indians were more and more taking to Indian-Hindu ways. This was
a great problem and a headache too for the Western "Christians" - this
Indianising/Hinduising of the whites. It is still a problem. So they
needed closet-Christians anti-Hindus like the egomaniacal gandi, to disrupt
matters and slow down progress. His killing was a great windfall for them,
for it allowed the demonisation of Hindus in general and Brahmins in
particular, which I think has now gone a bit too far and may perhaps
backfire - at least with the middle and lower classes who still have not
given up on Hinduism. Then, their Hindu-name pets are too eager to take the
money and name/fame the "Christians" can and do give, but unlike gandi, they
are not getting bumped off! One Godse was apparently enough, no longer are
the Hindu fanatics that "considerate". Except for the most regrettable
Staines incident, that is.
> As for google - and other search engines - it is much more convenient for
> them to suck up to gandi's memory than recognise my seminal work on "A new
> method for partial match retrievals" which published in 1987, anticipated
> all that google etc have done so far, and has a great deal more potential
> than whatever google has shown so far...
Don't tell me that you are a practitioner of the dismal science or art
of "data mining".
AB: My dear man, a man must live. We must pay for the sins of this and our
past lives, must we not? So, whatever that is reasonably honest has to be
done for economic gain as well as possible, to get the money to pay the
bills and fulfil our duties and hopefully there will be a wee bit left over
to indulge certain whims...
But still, a reference tp the above work would be
appreciated.
AB: "A new method for partial-match retrieval" Arindam Banerjee, Dev and
Engg Communication Division, Bharat Electronics Ltd. Ghaziabad, 201008,
India. Vol 3 pp 194-202, Proc. of the Second International Conference on
Supercomputing, Santa Clara May 1987, published by the International
Supercomputing Institute, Inc. 1987. My company very kindly sponsored me to
attend and present the paper. I present the abstract. If you find it very
trite then all I can say is that it was written in 1987 as I have mentioned
twice before. Relational approaches to database issues was still rather
dicey those days - I did anticipate modern searching techniques, where
indexing is of such crucial importance. Of course, there were many others
working in this field in those days, they all had different approaches. In
brief, by no means were practically all databases relational in the 80s.
Abstract: The paper presents and analyses a new method for a simple, direct
and fast solution of the partial-match problem. An algorithm is developed
to derive a pointer for every partial-match query; this pointer is locates a
block in this address directory which gives a sequence of relative addresses
in this only relatively-ordered database. Extra information in the query,
making it a "tuning" one, will arrange such records in an ascending or
descending order of desirability. Investigation is done about the size of
the address directory, which depends upon the total number of allowable
queries (a function of the cardinalities of the domains of every
partial-match attribute) and also the average number of record addresses per
query.
I never had much chance of working on this in detail again, it was part of
my M.Tech thesis. But I think this could be the other half of a nervous
system of a highly capable robot - the other half being very fast messaging
(and on that too I have done some work). Who knows, maybe one day I will
design this sort of machine to pilot FTL craft...
Arindam Banerjee.
anal...@hotmail.com
> <analys...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
>
>
> Can it be said that the MB from PB understood Sanatana Dharma only
> through the lens of Christianity?
>
> AB: He was surrounded by "Christian" missionaries, and was highly feted by
> the "Christian" US media. I don't see which genuine Indian-Hindu writer made
> any real impact upon him, but Christian writers like Tolstoy and sort-of
> Christians like Thoreau made a great impact. See, in those days the
> Christians were very much against technology, which admittedly was raw and
> exploitative, far more than it is today. They were also upset because the
> British in Indians were more and more taking to Indian-Hindu ways. This was
> a great problem and a headache too for the Western "Christians" - this
> Indianising/Hinduising of the whites. It is still a problem. So they
> needed closet-Christians anti-Hindus like the egomaniacal gandi, to disrupt
> matters and slow down progress. His killing was a great windfall for them,
> for it allowed the demonisation of Hindus in general and Brahmins in
> particular, which I think has now gone a bit too far and may perhaps
> backfire - at least with the middle and lower classes who still have not
> given up on Hinduism. Then, their Hindu-name pets are too eager to take the
> money and name/fame the "Christians" can and do give, but unlike gandi, they
> are not getting bumped off! One Godse was apparently enough, no longer are
> the Hindu fanatics that "considerate". Except for the most regrettable
> Staines incident, that is.
I was also thinking about whether his teachings were really based on
Sanatana Dharma or some kind of diluted mix with Christianity. Not
that anything is wrong with some of the maxims of Christianity such
as
"love thy neighbor" (some Christian-haters in this ng. would say that
only applies to Christians - but in the New Testament it isn't
qualified in any way) - but somehow his idiom wasn't quite Hindu and
perhaps that explains why he is forgotten except on ritual occasions
such as his birth or death anniversary.
yes - you DID aniticipate Google. Their claim to fame was of course
adding scores of attributes including who refers to your page to
determine relevance.
I'd like your opinion on the India-China-West question:
(1) Japan, South Korea and Taiwan made the frst assault on Westren
manufacturing and captured large markets such as consumer
electronics. It threw a scare into the West but then things somehow
equilibriated.
(2) China which is much larger has now essentially taken over low-cost
(as of now, low quality) manufacturing.
(3) India now has the potential to simlarly take over "knowledge work"
- Business Intelligence, Analytical work etc. I heard from a
youngster that Indian outsourcing giants are now taking in talent from
all over the world (Eastern Europe, Latin America etc.) - Indians seem
to have the critical mass of English and management skills - so the
source of the raw brainpower doesn't see to matter (The omnivorous
Chinese embarked on a project to muscle India out, teaching English to
a whole generation - but it went nowhere. India BPO companies have
blithely opened offices in China and are employing Chinese talent).
Where is it all going to end? what are your thoughts?
The reason I am asking is that Ameicans have now beem pushed into
purely abstract work such as matching Search Engine queries to
"content" (and a lot of even that work is happening in India). But
everybody can't be analyzing somebody else's data - basic
manufacturing still has to take place. And if they automate it all,
then then there will be massive unemployment.
The world today is very unstable - your take on it all would be
appreciated.
chhotemianinshallah
Mainstream, Vol XLVII, No 43, October 10, 2009
Unfinished Agenda of Gandhi’s Gram Swaraj: Fifty Years of Panchayati
Raj
Sunday 11 October 2009, by Ranbir Singh
Although the Father of Nation, Mahatma Gandhi, advocated for ‘a
village based political formation fostered by a stateless, classless
society’ for the creation of Gram Swaraj, the idea of Panchayati Raj
did not find a place in the Draft Constitution of India. This happened
because the Congress Constitution Committee rejected the idea
‘believing that the Congress could neither forgo its political role
nor become so utterly decentralised’ as envisaged in the Gandhian
concept of Gram Swaraj. (Granville Austin, The Indian Constitution:
Cornerstone of a Nation, 1966 p. 29) So much so that the Chairman of
the Drafting Committee of the Indian Constitution and the Minister of
Law, Dr B.R. Ambedkar, did not care to reply to the letter dated May
10, 1948 from Dr Rajendra Prasad, the President of the Constituent
Assembly, as to why the Draft he had circulated did not even use the
two words ‘Panchayati Raj’. Instead, the reply came four months later
in September 1948 from the Secretary of the Law Ministry saying that
the Draft had already been circulated and that it was far too late to
make any changes and if any amendments were desired, the same could be
moved on the floor of the House.
Not only this, Ambedkar’s response to the criticism by Gandhians like
H.V. Kamath, Arun Chandra Guha, T. Prakasam, K. Santhanam, Shibban Lal
Saxena, Alladi Krishnaswamy Ayyar, N.G. Ranga, M. Anathsayanam
Ayyangar, Mahavir Tyagi, K.T. Shah and others was: Village Republics
(Panchayats of Village Communities) were a cause of the “ruination of
India”. They were nothing but “sink of localism and of ignorance and
communalism” and “I am glad that the Draft Constitution has discarded
the village and adopted the individual as its unit”. His stance on
Panchayats was perhaps based on his apprehension that the Panchayats
shall be dominated by upper castes and exploit and repress the
Scheduled Castes. But, the then Prime Minister of India and the leader
the Congress Parliamentary Party, Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, chose to
remain silent on this issue; perhaps, he favoured a centralised polity
for making India a modern and developed state.
But, the passionate pleas of the Gandhians like Prof N. G. Ranga and
others virtually forced Ambedkar to accept an amendment moved by K.
Santhanam which later on got incorporated into Article-40 of the
Directive Principles of State Policy in the Constitution of India. It
directed the state to set up Village Panchayats and endow them with
the authority to function as units of self-government.¨
This did lead to the enactment of Gram Panchayat Acts by various
States; these were no more than half-hearted attempts for the creation
of rural local government institutions. But the failure of the
Community Development Programme, which had been launched for bringing
a silent revolution in rural society by awakening the dormant forces
of progress, led to the appointment of Balwantray Mehta Study Team. It
was the scheme of democratic decen-tralisation suggested by this Team
(1957) that led to the creation of the Panchayati Raj which was
inaugurated by the then Prime Minister of India, Pandit Jawaharlal
Nehru, at Nagaur in Rajasthan on October 2, 1959.
It was the Panchayati Raj that set up local democracy at the district,
block and village levels in the form of Gram Panchayats, Pan-chayat
Samitis and Zila Parishads respectively. However, the Panchayati Raj
proved to be the proverbial God that failed on account of several
reasons. The main among these was the hostility of political leaders
and the bureaucracy. Consequently, the Panchayati Raj, developed
during 1959-1964, became stagnant during 1964-1971 and the decade
thereafter. The attempt of the Ashoka Mehta Committee (1978) failed to
revitalise the Panchayati Raj Institutions. However, the States of
West Bengal, Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh did take the lead in this
direction.
But the real rejuvenation process started as a result of the moving of
the 64th Amendment Bill in Lok Sabha in 1989 by then Prime Minister of
India, late Rajiv Gandhi, who appears to have been inspired by Mahatma
Gandhi’s vision of Gra0m Swaraj. It was passed by the Lok Sabha by a
two-thirds majority but failed to get the same in the Rajya Sabha and
was rejected in the Upper House. This vision was, however,
subsequently institutionalised in the form of the 73rd Constitutional
Amendment Act (1992). This led to the establishment of the new system
of the Panchayati Raj in the States in 1994 through the enactment of
conformity legislations.
But the studies of several distinguished scholars on the working of
the Panchayati Raj in different States and the Status Report of the
Ministry of Panchayati Raj (1996) lead us to the inference that the
Gandhian ideal of Gram Swaraj remains an unfinished agenda even after
fifty years of the implementation of the Panchayati Raj on the
recommendation of the Balwantray Mehta Study Team on October 2, 1959
at Nagaur in Rajasthan and even 17 years after the enactment of the
73rd Amendment and 15 years after its implementation by various States
in 1994 through conformity legislations for several reasons. The
foremost among them is the lack of political will in most of the
governments of the States. Even the concerted efforts of the former
Union Minister of Panchayati Raj, Mani Shankar Iyer (2004-09), have
failed to make much difference. Therefore, concerted, systematic and
sustained endeavours are needed on the part of those for whom Gram
Swaraj remains a cherished dream for the empowerment of people and for
making India a participatory democracy.
The author is a retired Professor of Political Science, Kurukshetra
University, Kurukshetra, and presently a Consultant, HIRD, Nilokheri.
bademiyansubhanallah
Perspective
Hind Swaraj: Gandhiji's vision and Congress practice
By MD Kini
October18, 2009
Mahatma Gandhi’s views on modern civilisation are rational and
logical. However, many today may not accept them as they are addicted
to the comforts and luxuries of modern life. According to him ‘people
living in it (civilisation) make bodily welfare the object of life’
and then, he gives some examples.
“If a good system of agriculture, unrivalled manufacturing skill, a
capacity to produce whatever can contribute to convenience or luxury;
schools established in every village, for teaching, reading, writing
and arithmetic; the general practice of hospitality and charity among
each other; and above all, a treatment of the female sex, full of
confidence, respect and delicacy, are among the signs which denote a
civilized people...” (Colonel Thomas Munro who served in India for 32
years)
"Before I leave you, I will take the liberty of repeating:
1. Real home-rule is self-rule or self-control.
2. The way to it is passive resistance: that is soul-force or love-
force.
3. In order to exert this force, Swadeshi in every sense is
necessary.
4. What we want to do should be done, not because we object to the
English or because we want to retaliate but because it is our duty to
do so…
In my opinion, we have used the term “Swaraj” without understanding
its real significance. I have endeavoured to explain it as I
understand it, and my conscience testifies that my life henceforth is
dedicated to its attainment.”
This is the last para of the book, Hind Swaraj or Indian Home Rule,
written by Mahatma Gandhi in 1908, 101 years ago. The book contains
his thoughts on the Indian struggle for Independence and the modern
civilisation.
Non-violence and passive resistance
While non-cooperation movement in 1921 was withdrawn after Chowri-
Chowra violence, it was successful in 1930 when Gandhiji started his
Salt Satyagraha. There were some violent incidents during the “Quit
India” movement. However, his non-violent agitations not merely
mobilised Indian people for swaraj but threatened the British throne
like no other violent struggle could. Mahatma's non-violence was not
merely practical but ethical as well.
While admiring the courage of freedom fighters like Madanlal Dinghra
and Bhagat Singh, Gandhiji disapproved their methods as he firmly
believed in the efficacy of non-violence and passive resistance. He
was more concerned about the ethics of not merely the ends (freedom)
but also the means (struggle for freedom). “The means may be likened
to a seed, and the end to a tree; and there is just the inviolable
connection between the means and the end as there is between the seed
and the tree. ...We reap exactly what we sow,” he observed. He also
said that those who take the sword shall perish by the sword. We all
know how the bloody revolutions have failed to create a new man and a
new society.
Explaining the method of passive resistance, Gandhiji said, “Passive
resistance is a method of securing rights by personal suffering; it is
reverse of resistance by arms. When I refuse to do a thing that is
repugnant to my conscience, I use soul-force….If I do not obey the law
and accept the penalty for its breach, I use soul-force. It involves
sacrifice of self.” He maintained that non-violence and passive
resistance is a weapon of the brave and not that of the coward. A
coward can never disobey a law that he dislikes. “If man will only
realize that,” he said, “it is unmanly to obey laws that are unjust,
no man’s tyranny will enslave him. This is the key to self-rule or
home-rule.”
No wonder, Gandhiji’s agitations based on these two principles, were
emulated by Nelson Mandela for the freedom of South Africa and by
Martin Luther King for equal rights of African-Americans in USA. In a
recent interview US President Barack Obama expressed his wish to have
a talk with Gandhiji over a lunch when he was asked whom he would
choose among the great of the past and the present.
Modern civilisation
Mahatma Gandhi’s views on modern civilisation are rational and
logical. However, many today may not accept them as they are addicted
to the comforts and luxuries of modern life. According to him ‘people
living in it (civilisation) make bodily welfare the object of life’
and then, he gives some examples. People in Europe live in better-
built houses than they did hundred years ago. “This is considered an
emblem of civilization”. Hundred years ago people wore skins and used
spears as their weapons, and now they use long trousers and carry
revolvers. Earlier, people ploughed their lands manually (or used
horses), now steam engines (or tractors) are used to amass great
wealth. “Formerly, men were made slaves under physical compulsion. Now
they are enslaved by temptation of money and the luxuries that money
can buy.”
Gandhiji has been misunderstood on the issue of machinery. He
clarified, “What I object to is the craze for machinery, not machinery
as such.” He said, “The supreme consideration is man. The machine
should not tend to atrophy the limbs of man. For instance, I would
make intelligent exceptions. Take the case of Singer’s sewing machine.
It is one of the few useful things ever invented, and there is a
romance about the device itself.” In this machine age, man has become
a cog in the wheel of the modern civilisation and Gandhiji was
pointing out the dehumanising quality of machinery and the resultant
alienation of man from his work.
Gandhiji is a great critic of the modern institutions such as
parliament, the press, the railways, professions such as doctors and
lawyers. His insights on them are acutely penetrating.
His observations on the British Parliament are not very flattering.
“...it is generally acknowledged that the members are hypocritical and
selfish. When the greatest questions are debated, its members have
been seen to stretch themselves and to doze. Carlyle has called it the
‘talking shop of the world’. Members vote for their party without a
thought….Parliament is a costly toy to the nation.” Do we find a
reflection of our own parliament and assemblies in these remarks of
Mahatma Gandhi?
Same goes for newspapers. “To the English voters their newspaper is
their Bible. They take their cue from their newspapers which are often
dishonest. The same fact is differently interpreted by different
newspapers, according to the party in whose interests they are edited…
What must be the condition of the people whose newspapers are of this
type?” How true even today in India and now we have to add TV news as
well. No wonder the so-called ‘fourth estate’ can distort peoples’
mandate.
The railways have enabled the British to send their troops from one
end of India to another and they also spread bubonic plague, increased
the frequency of famines as food grains are sent to distant places to
get more money. Lawyers promote quarrels instead of solving them. “The
parties alone know who is right. We, in our simplicity and ignorance,
imagine that a stranger, by taking money, gives us justice.”
The doctors do not cure but help people to indulge, says Gandhiji...
“I overeat, I have indigestion, I go to a doctor, he gives medicine, I
am cured. I overeat again. I take his pills again. Had I not taken the
pills in the first instance, I would have suffered the punishment
deserved by me and I would not have overeaten again…my mind became
weakened.”
Of course, there is a positive side to all these professions. They
have enormous power to help people and they also have the power to
perpetuate strife or promote indulgence among the people. However,
there is no mechanism to ensure that all these people do their job
responsibly. That comes only from restraint on desire and greed. That
is what all religions preach but the acquisitive society that is built
in the world over in last few centuries does not promote it.
The modern civilisation emphasises the freedom of man (human rights)
but not the obligations of man to society. It makes him an automaton
that has no time for reflection. He wants to satisfy his wants, not
needs. In pursuit of his desires, he forgets values of life. Man is
born free but finds himself in chains – of wants and desires.
Indian Civilisation
Writing on Indian civilisation, Gnadhiji points out that Roman and
Greek civilisations were annihilated, the might of Pharaohs was
broken, Japan was westernised and nothing could be said about China,
but “India is still, somehow or other, sound at the foundation”.
Nothing can equal the seeds sown by our ancestors, he observes.
“Civilization is that mode of conduct which points out to man the path
of duty. Performance of duty and observance of morality are
convertible terms. To observe morality is to attain mastery over our
mind and our passions. So doing, we know ourselves. The Gujarati
equivalent for civilisation means ‘good conduct’.”
Gandhiji says that the mind is a restless bird, more it gets, more it
wants and still remains unsatisfied. “Our ancestors, therefore, set a
limit to our indulgences. They saw that happiness was largely a mental
condition. A man is not necessarily happy because he is rich, or
unhappy because he is poor.”
Mahatma Gandhi was all praise for the Indian way of life which
consisted of the same kind of plough, same cottages, same education
system that existed for thousands of years. “We have had no life
corroding competition. Each followed his own occupation or trade and
charged a regulation wage… This nation had courts, lawyers and
doctors, but they were all within bounds. Everybody knew that these
professions were not particularly superior; moreover, these vakils and
vaids did not rob people; they were considered people’s dependents,
not their masters….They enjoyed true Home Rule.”
In the appendix to the book, Gandhiji has quoted some appreciative
comments on the quality of Indian life made by Englishmen who were in
India during his time.
“The civilization was not perfunctory, but universal and all-pervading
– furnishing the country not only with political systems, but with
social and domestic institutions of the most ramified description. The
beneficent nature of these institutions as a whole may be judged from
their effects on the character of the Hindu race. Perhaps there are no
other people in the whole world who show so much in their character
the advantageous effects of their own civilization. They are shrewd in
business, acute in reasoning, thrifty, religious, sober, charitable,
obedient to parents, reverential to old age, amiable, law-abiding,
compassionate towards the helpless and patient under suffering.” (J.
Seymore Keay, M.P., Banker in India and India Agent, writing in
1883).
“If a good system of agriculture, unrivalled manufacturing skill, a
capacity to produce whatever can contribute to convenience or luxury;
schools established in every village, for teaching, reading, writing
and arithmetic; the general practice of hospitality and charity among
each other; and above all, a treatment of the female sex, full of
confidence, respect and delicacy, are among the signs which denote a
civilized people...” (Colonel Thomas Munro who served in India for 32
years)
“The Indian village has thus for centuries remained a bulwark against
political disorder and the home of the simple domestic and social
virtues. No wonder, therefore, that philosophers and the historians
have always dwelt lovingly on this ancient institution which is the
natural social unit and the best type of rural life; self-contained,
industrious, peace-loving, conservative in the best sense of the
word.” (Sir William Wedderburn, Bart).
Mahatma Gandhi was just drawing attention of Indians to their great
civilisation and the heritage of village republics. Gandhiji with his
charkha and village industries sought to re-capture the spirit of the
rural life in our villages and the country to suit the present
scientific age.
India is one nation
Gandhiji dismissed the idea propagated by the British that India was
not one nation before the British established their rule in India. “We
were one nation before they came to India. One thought inspired us.
Our mode of life was the same. It was because we were one nation that
they were able to establish one kingdom. Subsequently, they divided
us.”
“What do you think could have been the intention of those farseeing
ancestors of ours who established Setubandha (Rameshwar) in the South,
Jagannath in the East and Hardwar in the North as the places of
pilgrimage? You will admit they were no fools…..they saw that India
was one undivided land so made by the nature. They, therefore, argued
that it must be one nation. Arguing thus, they established holy places
in various parts of India, and fired the people with an idea of
nationality in a manner unknown in other parts of the world.”
Mahatma Gandhi also believed that the differences between Hindus and
Muslims were of no consequence for living together. “Should we not
remember that many Hindus and Mahomedans own the same ancestors and
the same blood runs through their veins? Do people become enemies
because they change their religion? Is the God of the Mohamedan
different from the God of the Hindu? Religions are different roads
converging to the same point. What does it matter that we take
different roads so long as we reach the same goal? Wherein is the
cause or quarrelling?” The followers of Shiva and those of Vishnu
disagree but still they belong to the same nation. The Vedic religion
is different from Jainism but they do not belong to two different
nations. Further, he states, “Those who do not wish to misunderstand
things may read up the Koran, and they will find therein hundreds of
passages acceptable to the Hindus; and the Bhagawadgita contains
passages to which not a Mahomedan can take objection.”
The Mahatma’s Vision
Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi became Mahatma Gandhi when he identified
himself with the poor and illiterate peasants of India and offered
them swaraj or self-rule based on their own tradition and heritage –
Ram Rajya. He made them aware of their own strength when he mobilised
them through satyagraha. As he repeatedly stated the weapon of non-
violence and passive resistance can be used only brave men.
Though educated in England, he was not enamoured by the wealth and
life in that country. He saw alienation of the factory workers and
hypocrisy of the elite. He found in the Indian rural life a life of
hard work, culture and dignity. In spite of many wars in India, Indian
villages had survived with their agriculture and handicrafts organised
by the village panchayats. He did not wish India to be a carbon copy
of the West. He promoted khadi and village industries even during the
freedom struggle. His ideal was sarvodaya—welfare of all—and he wanted
to reach the last man—unto the last.
Eminent economists such as JC Kumarappa prepared a blue-print for the
revival of villages. Later in 1973, another economist EF Schumacher,
offered a similar scheme in his book, Small is Beautiful – Economics
As If People Mattered. He also highlighted dehumanising effect of
single-minded pursuit of gross domestic product. He advocated
‘sustainable development’ and ‘appropriate technology’ which are in
tune with the Gandhian philosophy. The latest to join the Gandhian
view is Joseph Stiglitz, Nobel-prize winning economist, who headed the
panel of economists appointed by Nicolas Sarkozy, the French
President, to measure the well-being of people as the GDP (Gross
Domestic Product) does not represent the true well-being.
Sustainability of economy, happiness and natural resources are to be
included in the measurement of progress. “Man does not live by GDP
alone,” says the Economist of London.
However, Independent India did not follow his vision of village
republics but adopted the western model not merely in political system
but also in the economic system. Today, after 62 years of
Independence, at least 30 crore people out of about 120 crore are
below the poverty line; half the population in the cities live in
slums and shanties; water is a scarcity both in towns and cities,
though India gets one of highest rainfalls in the world and has many
perennial rivers. Only 40 per cent of the land is irrigated while 60
per cent of the population depends on agriculture and contributes just
20 per cent to the GDP. In our pursuit of industrialisation,
agriculture has been neglected except during the Green Revolution.
Provide our farmers with water, they will produce enough and more of
food-grains, fruits and vegetables. Our former President Abdul Kalam
Azad has mooted a new model of village development which updates the
vision of Mahatma Gandhi to suit the needs of the 21st century, and it
is called PURA – Providing Urban amenities in Rural Areas through
physical connectivity (roads & power), electronic connectivity
(communications network), knowledge connectivity (professional and
vocations training), and economic connectivity (providing best value
for rural products and services).
Let us change our priorities. Let villages be the focus of
development. Let decentralisation of power empower the people and let
us make every one take part in the development—economic, social and
political. This would be the true tribute to the vision of Mahatma
Gandhi.
(The writer can be contacted at B-203, Accord CHS, Dr Charat Singh
Colony, MV Road, Andheri (E), Mumbai-400 093.)
Arindam Banerjee
<anal...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:e79db5ba-12da-41fb...@c3g2000yqd.googlegroups.com...
AB: I have not found anything original about his teachings. Gandi made use
of his natural advantages to the limit - his vegetarianism, frugality, good
command over English - to the most. His philosophy was Luddite Buddhism
mixed with bucolic romanticism. This is appealing no doubt, especially to
poor, weak and defeated peoples, so Gandi could become a very successful
populist in British India. I don't see where he had the faintest clue about
Sanatan Dharma. He wore some external trappings of the Hindu, but
religiously speaking he can be best described as closet "Christian" who
served foreign "Christian" interests very faithfully, as they boosted his
ego, just as they boost his memory now. "Christian" meaning a small-minded,
completely selfish person out for his personal salvation alone, and mindless
of all other factors. "Christian" and Christian are antonyms.
Not
that anything is wrong with some of the maxims of Christianity such
as
"love thy neighbor" (some Christian-haters in this ng. would say that
only applies to Christians - but in the New Testament it isn't
qualified in any way) - but somehow his idiom wasn't quite Hindu and
perhaps that explains why he is forgotten except on ritual occasions
such as his birth or death anniversary.
AB: Unfortunately the anti-Hindu govts. we got and get, won't let him be
forgotten. He takes precedence in the official mind, way way over the great
and wonderful Hindu kings and queens of the past; the sages, the warriors,
the poets and scientists, the philosophers, story-tellers and
mathematicians, the inventors and the artists, the skilled workmen, farmers
and businessmen, the pious and wonderfully talented Indian womanhood, the
completely unique spiritual outlook that Indians used to have.... One would
think from their antics that Gandi is Hindu and Hindu is Gandi, just as the
Congressi sycophant Barooah surpassed all in sycophancy when he proclaimed
that India is Indira and Indira is India. To forget Gandi is the second
best thing the 21st century person should do - the first is to forget
Einstein.
AB: Thanks a lot! All I can do is point out the date of my published paper,
and leave any judging to others. I have found from experience that apart
from purely personal concerns certain racial, geographical and cultural
factors relate to who quotes who. Personally, I am not bothered. I got my
M.Tech in CS from IIT-D, a trip to US to attend the conference, and a nice
fat cushy long-lasting research job in Australia as a result of all that -
so I do not complain. My needs, unlike my goals, are easily met.
I'd like your opinion on the India-China-West question:
AB: Thanks again! Wow, you make me feel like some celebrity!
(1) Japan, South Korea and Taiwan made the frst assault on Westren
manufacturing and captured large markets such as consumer
electronics. It threw a scare into the West but then things somehow
equilibriated.
AB: Well yes, they had initial advantages like low cost of manpower, cheap
local prices, etc. Once things became too mechanized, these advantages were
not that obvious any more and what with rising wages there had to be
equilibrium as you say.
(2) China which is much larger has now essentially taken over low-cost
(as of now, low quality) manufacturing.
AB: True.
(3) India now has the potential to simlarly take over "knowledge work"
- Business Intelligence, Analytical work etc. I heard from a
youngster that Indian outsourcing giants are now taking in talent from
all over the world (Eastern Europe, Latin America etc.) - Indians seem
to have the critical mass of English and management skills - so the
source of the raw brainpower doesn't see to matter (The omnivorous
Chinese embarked on a project to muscle India out, teaching English to
a whole generation - but it went nowhere. India BPO companies have
blithely opened offices in China and are employing Chinese talent).
AB: I don't know much about all this. I think there is far too much hype.
As far as I can see, it is only on the cost factor that Indian software
companies are outing the competition, much as the East Asians did in
manufacturing. And as you say the English language factor is of great help
here. But as Indian wages rise, they will start to become less competitive -
just as what happened in the examples you have given.
Where is it all going to end? what are your thoughts?
AB: There is a great deal of artificiality in all this. See, globalisation
depends upon greedy capitalists/managers who want to make money by
outsourcing, and are heartless enough to sack the local people ruthlessly.
On the other hand the locals with unionisation can get too uppity and
demanding, so outsourcing may happen out of frustration (but this is
pre-Thatcher stuff, unions even in Australia are practically dead). So if
there is too much unemployment and misery, there will be rise in socialism,
meaning protectionism and that means outing globalisation. See, there is no
end as you say, there are only cycles. After all the nationalisation craze
in the late60s-80s, we had privatisation phase in the 80s to now, with
globalisation being the latest show. The pendulum can easily swing back to
the other side - what with Govts in the West printing money like crazy,
effectively nationalising enterprises that failed... there is socialism of a
kind, which is not acknowledged. Let there be more inflation or shall we
say stagflation, then the hawa will get out of globalisation quickly enough.
With globalisation gone, then hopefully the people of India will get down to
the basics and do same properly... And that is another story...
The reason I am asking is that Ameicans have now beem pushed into
purely abstract work such as matching Search Engine queries to
"content" (and a lot of even that work is happening in India). But
everybody can't be analyzing somebody else's data - basic
manufacturing still has to take place. And if they automate it all,
then then there will be massive unemployment.
The world today is very unstable - your take on it all would be
appreciated.
AB: I see the world as an excellent place to live well, and happily, even
with the current technology if that is properly used and managed. And with
the new technology I have in mind, we can have truly wonderful lives, that
cannot be imagined today, even by all those influential einsteinian
scoundrels who have only use for "imagination" as a far more worthy
alternative to facts and correct theories. There can be plenty of very
useful work for all who are interested, provided we do not base our
existence upon lies, and depend upon liars. Note: lies, liars relate to
half-truths, exaggerations, put-downs, calculated indifference to better
alternatives, etc. So what can I do, I can only set an example, by living as
well and as happily as possible, and extending that to all those around me.
And that's my "take". Thanks again, for this opportunity to mount the
soap-box!
Cheers,
Arindam Banerjee.