Fictional re-creation of reality - cerebral and the emotional texture of life

In reviewing ‘My name is Red’ by Orhan Pamuk, probably an ultimate compliment was paid by a reviewer when he wrote that Pamuk, in this book, has achieved almost the unattainable, i.e., a convincing juxtaposition of the cerebral, the emotional and the physical elements of the human life.

  

This is not the place to discuss ‘my name is Red’ and debate how (and if at all or how far) Pamuk had achieved such a feat. But the suggestion is at least thought provoking.

The ‘realistic’ representation of life around us is what one normally expects from stories and novels (perhaps in a more complex manner from the latter) as a basic requirement. However, more often than not, if the reader is not careful, this demand is sought to be satisfied by merely a ‘naturalistic’ (akin to a photographic) representation. This debate as to what is naturalistic and whether or not that is good enough to be called realistic is quite old, going back to French novelists of the nineteenth century and their critical assessment in the early or mid twentieth century by critiques like Lukacs and other Marxist writers. The best writers, novelists, they reckoned, came to be perceptive chroniclers of the society and the important economic, social and political changes of their times (often unconsciously and holding quite conservative and reactionary views about the changes) and these they ably reflected by creating immortal characters carrying forward these changes through their personal conflicts and destiny.

While this analytical view point was probably very useful in interpreting many significant fictional writings (especially novels) belonging to the nineteenth century, one may have been less comfortable dealing with European (in general western) writings in the same genres from the early and middle twentieth century with similar critical perspective. Of special importance were the great novels due to Kafka, Joyce, Camus and Sartre (to name a few among the most significant writers of the last century), bringing to focus an individual’s human predicament, agony, angst, difficult and conflicting choices and the responsibility for such choices providing the framework for the life represented. How far an individual’s characteristics and his choices are predicated to the social and economic changes is less definitively hinted in these fictions than their nineteenth century counterparts. Considering the momentous changes occurring during the early and middle part of the past century, it is inconceivable that the individual destinies are dissociated from those changes. But the writers, imbued with new philosophical outlooks like existentialism and the many artistic and literary styles it spawned, probably tried to create a new kind of representation of life where individual’s cerebral and emotional responses are sought to be more comprehensively catalogued and dichotomised. It was hoped that enmeshing such ‘peculiar’ individual destinies would create a more realistic representation of the texture of the life in the present complex times and fragmented societies.

     

Come to think of it individual characters of the earlier times had displayed impulses and went into actions in response to events or as a result of moments of emotional upheaval or goaded by inspiration, which could be traced to some conscious cerebral deliberations. But rarely, if ever, was the individual’s self-awareness so acute as to create almost a distinctly cerebral persona stepped out of a character’s flesh and blood and emotional contour. And it was as if this separate persona watches from outside the character and comments and tries to influence its action. Thus this literary device of variously juxtaposing the cerebral and the emotional had seen significant employment in the best of the twentieth century literature.

The key factor that probably propelled this paradigm shift in the fundamental style of the literary representation was the gradual demise (initially primarily in the western world, developed nations) of the religious-ethical-political moorings of the individuals to a perceived communal or social center, creating first a dissonance with and then almost an eclipse of the societal and the communal, and eventually a void beyond the individual.    

Danger of Do-gooding by capital

A new buzzword has been in vogue, for several years now, both in popular media and in more serious academic literature on management studies, namely, ‘philanthro-capitalism’. A closely related word ‘venture philanthropy’ has been used almost in the same breath. An book entitled ‘Philanthrocapitalism – how the giving can save the world’ was published in 2008 by Matthew Bishop and Michael Green summarizing the new avatar that capitalism is believed, by some, to have been in the process of morphing into, so as to be in sync with the social progress rather than be in antagonism with or be indifferent to it. Bishop, US business editor and New York bureau chief of The Economist, has ever since been propagating this marriage of capitalism and philanthropy with evangelist zeal as the source of a resurrection and a way forward for capitalism. The authors blog regularly on the subject at http://www.philanthrocapitalism.net/.

Predictably, there are detractors, though much fewer, of this starry-eyed and, some might say, naive and glib espousal of the capitalism in a modified form. Michael Edwards, director of governance and civil society at the Ford Foundation, wrote a book ‘Just another emperor : the myths and realities of philanthrocapitalism’ (2008) to point out the fundamental flaws in this new ‘ism’.

Debating on the ideology and the practical needs driving capitalism in its new mutations would be interesting. But we would postpone that to some other time. It is, however, noteworthy to find journals like Economist or Wall Street Journal publishing articles not just speculating about dark intents behind philanthrocapitalist endeavours but pointing out, what many independent activists on ground in areas of agriculture and health (the two areas to which significant investments have been made over the last several years by Gates Foundation in Africa and India as a part of their global humanitarian aid programmes), have called a very negative long term and insidious impact on the countries concerned and the world organizations like WHO, resulting from this ostensibly philanthropic effort.

A couple of issues need to be emphasized. The correlation between the investments of the philanthrocapitalists like the Gates Foundation with Monsanto and the foundation’s huge support in Africa to biotech research (through the AGRA programme) promoting GM food as an almost exclusive option veering towards effective future domination of agricultural development in third world countries by certain MNCs can not be wished away. In the same vein the ground level activists are concerned about the promotion of the vaccine programme by the same foundation in India being predicated to the profit motive of certain prominent pharmaceutical MNCs in not-so-hidden commercial relationships with the Gates Foundation.

The second issue is of even greater significance. Philanthrocapitalists like the Gates Foundation by their sheer monetary clout has come dangerously close to the interface of philanthropy, business and public policy. Especially in the poor third world countries starved of funds (even in developing countries like India). “Take the money, ‘save’ your people from hunger or diseases, but be a little nice and listen to what we suggest. Or else!”. Reminds one of IMF bailouts, doesn’t it ? The manipulation of policies, acts of omission and commissions (for instance, in the clinical trials) is done in persuasive and indirect manner, not in brutally upfront IMF style. But the deleterious effect on long term national interests in health issues should not be lost sight of. Same caution should be exercised in respect of tendentious promotion of GM food under the cover of philanthropy.    

Greed and governance

Greed is good, said Gordon Gekko, the archetypical suave corruptor of good and the budding, aspiration driven young hero in the movie ‘Wall Street’. That was when the Wall Street was going great guns, in the late 1980s and 1990s, and capitalism in the United States and elsewhere felt as if the sky could not limit it. Two decades down the line, try telling that to those who have ‘occupied’ the Wall Street. They are questioning that premise in a pretty articulate manner. Why should the greedy fat big boys of the Wall Street have all the fun, they question, when the US economy is in poor shape, industry stagnating, unemployment running close to the double-digit figure and the country mired in unwinable war in unfriendly distant countries (which has compounded the economic woes manifold).

Back in 2008-09, the culprit banks were bailed out with the tax-payer’s money and kept afloat even as the top executives did not, quite shamelessly, choose to take any significant cuts in their compensation and the perks. Nothing seems to have changed, no lesson learnt. If anything, despite the apparent congressional wrangling between the desperate and breathless democrats on a survival lease (under threat of government lock down due to budget cut or similar emergency measures) and the republicans on leash by their tea-party masters, who have tasted Obama’s blood, the primordial urges and the anxieties of the capitalism underlying the dominant economic and political structure of the United States finds balancing individual greed of a few ensconced in the high street, with the long overdue delivery of public good to the middle and poor America (like a half-hearted attempt at the health policy reform that would benefit all Americans) difficult if not well neigh impossible. Any talk of reinstating higher taxes for the rich is like showing a red rag to those claiming to monopolise the spirit of free enterprise in that country.

Chetan Bhagat writes well. Argues in a persuasive manner. He says (TOI, 7 NOV 2011) that there is nothing intrinsically wrong with greed, but it should be regulated ! One can make money, be innovative and not break the rules of the game. America practises this principle, India only talks about it but fails to enforce it. And out comes words like governance’, ‘regulation’. Only it is unlikely that those operating the nuts and bolts of capitalism will have any real sympathy for such high-minded but naïve liberal talk, especially if and when that becomes more than that, i.e., attempts to fashion economic policies. American system appears to starry-eyed Bhagat as a fine self-governing complex mechanism, called a 'free' market economy, which works on honour system, encourages boundless individual/private initiatives competing in a free and fair environment, handsomely reward those with merit and relentlessly and efficiently pursues and punishes those who dare break such an ideal arrangement, way of life.

Unfortunately, those intrepid Americans at the barricades and blockades in New York, and others in Madrid and London don’t seem to share such optimism. For them 'governance deficit' is a fact that is impacting on their daily life that cannot be rationalized satisfactorily any more. Interestingly, in respect of vast tracts of India that have come to be painted red (for better or worse), even the intelligent among the Indian government agree that there has been a persistent deficit of governance vis-à-vis the private greed of the mining and other industrial interests on development (read land acquisition and deforestation) spree. Which is why there is widespread disaffectation among the inhabitants of these areas and the Maoist militancy is able to thrive for such a long time. So the gap between the greed and the governance has not been easy to bridge. Neither here in India nor there in the Western countries, especially, the United States. Peaceful coexistence of the two may be difficult to achieve anytime soon.    

OOP health expenses of Indians growing alarmingly

Even before the regional advisor of WHO, Dr. Kathleen A Holloway, sounded alarm on the ballooning out-of-pocket (OOP) health expenses of the average Indians and the direct relation of that fact with the progressive/catastrophic pauperization of the Indian population, the planning commission has apparently acknowledged the scenario (TOI, 2 NOV 2011). The commission has admitted that about 39 million Indians are pushed to poverty (below or close to the poverty line is a matter of debate as there is no consensus in this country yet about this ‘imaginary’ line). A LANCET article estimated that as many as 30% of rural population and 20% of their urban counterparts could not access medical care, during the year 2004, due to financial constraints.

Analysing NSS data on morbidity and health-related expenditure from 1980s till about 2005 it has been shown (Selvaraj and Karan, EPW, 3 October, 2009) how the public expenditure has progressively dwindled significantly over the years. It was estimated by the authors that more than 80% of Indians end up with private cancer treatment facilities and of them more than 90% meet the expenditure for such treatment OUT OF THEIR OWN POCKET. The TOI article mentioned above cites a statistics that about 47% and 31% of hospital admissions in rural and urban India, respectively, were financed by loans and sale of assets. These figures are roughly consistent with the WHO estimate of about 70% Indians having to meet their health expenditure from their own funds (by beg-borrow-sale route, stealing and other similar means may not entirely remain in the realm of movies in future). The trend in progressive reduction in government spending on purchasing drugs and other support to the public health care system is borne by cold statistics (TOI article as above).

By a detailed survey (conducted during 2006-2007) of the economic cost burden on ‘poor’ people (average monthly per capita household income of Rs 1835/-) suffering from a critical illness like cancer and having accessed significantly ‘cheaper’ treatment in a government funded medical facility adjunct to AIIMS, New Delhi, Mohanti and others (EPW, 22 October, 2011) have found that the overall OOP expenditure for a typical 5-7 week radiation therapy was between 330-450 % of their monthly family income. This was apart from the expenses on diagnosis and other complementary treatments like surgery or chemotherapy. It is important to note that about 60% of these expenses were on transport and food (possibly including those required by the supporting family members and relatives). But still 40% of the expenses which are purely medical are not borne by the government but by patients and the families. With the ideological lurching   towards reducing the government support to all kinds of public services these expenses can only grow with potential penury and destitution looming large.

Drug prices escalation potential in India, senior citizens beware

Drug prices are of significant interest to the senior citizens everywhere including India. Being on the margin of the society especially in urban India, the old denizens cling desperately to the medicines prescribed by their doctors for continuing their tenuous toehold on life and thereby fighting off their shrinking sense of autonomy. That the expanding medical bill would be a fait accompli in their twlight years was clear to many since India became signatory to the TRIPS agreement and accepted product patent regime in the mid 1990s. Under this regime, Indian companies are no longer legally permitted to manufacture a drug whose main active component molecule or a combination thereof are being sold as a patented drug under a brand name. Not only the same molecule but even minor structural or compositional variants that may have remotely similar medicinal properties – the so called generic drugs – can not be made by indigenously developed manufacturing technology with a significant price advantage. The ‘reverse engineering’ credo employed by the protected Indian pharmaceutical companies pre-1990s which had allowed these Indian companies to produce a large number of generic drugs at affordable prices and make them available in the country as well as export profitably in the foreign markets (particularly in the third world countries), had to be discarded. Simultaneously, the price control exercised by the government was also relaxed to promote competition. From the 347 drugs in the list of essential medicines as in 1995, it had come down to about 37 as of now. As a result of these policy changes the prices of most medicines (for diseases spanning routine infections, ones related to lifestyle changes, as well as those for critical illnesses like cancer and HIV) in the retail market, where you and I buy medicines, have shot up appreciably.

As they say all ‘good’ (for the foreign multinational companies) things come to an end, the patents have a seventeen-year life of monopoly protection. Many innocent thinkers (think tanks in the government, academia and industry) during the early years of this century dreamt of resurgence of manufacture of the generic versions of many drugs coming out of the shadow of patents by the indigenous companies vis-à-vis many common and critical diseases that would help reining in the escalation of costs of health services borne both by the government and the individuals/insurance companies. Indians wishfully propose, MNCs dispose with firmness and remarkable deliberateness. There was this famous case of Novartis a few years back, wherein the company tried (though unsuccessfully) to extend the patent protection for one of its branded drugs beyond the initial period by trying to secure a fresh patent on a replacement drug molecule obtained by a mere tinkering of the originally patented molecule. What is more recently being discerned as a notable trend is the spate of successful bids for take over of major pharmaceutical manufacturing companies by MNCs (The Hindu, 3 September 2011, knowledge@wharton Today, 24 August, 2011). This happened under the government’s liberalization policy over the years of allowing 100% FDI in the pharma sector. As it has been argued in the articles cited above, the indigenous manufacturing infrastructure having come under the MNC leash the priorities may be reconfigured to producing blockbuster patented drugs for the rich developed countries rather than manufacturing cheaper generic drugs for the multitudes in India and the poor third world countries.

It is in this context that the public discussion (TOI, 30 October 2011) of a new ‘possible’ policy of the concerned government to introduce price control on a large number of essential medicine, bringing out a new national list of essential medicines (NLEM) and revising the Drug Prices Control Order (DPCO), 1995 make interesting reading. DPCO, 1995 having pruned the original list from 347 items to 74 (further watered down to the current number 37). It is being proposed to revise list in the light of developments and availability of new drugs and increase this number to 348. There is apparently a proposal to redirect the FDI investments to ‘greenfield’ (new product manufacture in new facilities) from the tendency make the so-called ‘brownfield’ investments (i.e. acquiring existing companies).

This is only a draft proposal and first the cabinet and then the empowered group of ministers (EgoM) have to debate and approve it (in the teeth of resistance from the pharmaceutical industry bodies). It is well to remember that such government initiatives to lay down new policy had not been successful twice (challenged in court in 2002 and again stuck in the EgoM in 2006) without success.

Postcript to the left front debacle in West Bengal

 

Two residual questions :

(a)    LF still polled 41% of the popular votes in an election that everybody agreed has been conducted in a fair and acceptable manner. The overall vote percentage all over the state has significantly increased. As usually reticent and even cynical voters might have exercised their votes this time, young newly eligible voters, without either the ideological baggage or a political opportunism, hatred and vendetta, carried their weightage too in a critical balance flipping game, did the LF at all derive any benefit out of this surge ? If not, this 41%, not a small number by itself, represents a solid unwavering support base for the left parties. What do they expect from the parties they had supported even under these hostile conditions probably at great personal risks (validated by the daily events of bloody vendetta by the ruling party supporters) ? The left parties should humbly reach out to this natural resource if they have to survive politically or otherwise.

(b)   To say that the vote against LF played a bigger role than the vote for TMC/Congress combine is no-brainer. However, there must have been some key expectations of both the traditional anti-left constituencies in the state and the sizable ‘adjustable’ segment of voters (who played the arbiter of the election results) from a new government formed by an alliance of parties and colourful individuals who were so far known for their demagoguery, hate speech and pandering to perceived persecution and injustice rather than articulating a coherent policy for the economic renewal of all sectors of the state. What are the changes these sections expect the government to initiate ? Accelerating liberalisation and industrial development (and not touching the interests of the peasantry ) ? Rejig the land relations in favour of the dominant farmers with political clout at the cost of share croppers and labourers, especially those painted with a colour remotely resembling red ? Replacing your favourite cultural and educational elites with a set of mine ?

Such questions must await detailed unbiased analysis of the facts and trends to be unfolded in future.

Withering left front in West Bengal : maladies closing in

Endgame

In the mean time the Berlin wall had fallen. The sense of loss could not have been felt more keenly anywhere in the world. A decrepit regime had fallen after a lot of bravado and pretenses and belying expectations of generations. Was there an object lesson here, asked the more perceptive intelligentsia some still empathising with the left front (LF) government ? But the voice of reason emphasising the need for introspection and course correction did not find favour with the left establishment which more and more was being overrun by opportunists and gradually by people with corrupt and even criminal backgrounds, at various levels of the parties, having a stake in perpetuating themselves at the helm for any but altruistic reasons. The moral ascendancy of the left was seriously undermined in the eyes of a whole lot of left sympathisers. The natural immunity against political incumbency was all but lost.  

Finally, the centrally sponsored liberalization and the eventual globalisation agenda having won the day since 1991 West Bengal found itself in a perilous competition with the center and most states in the country for which the state was ill prepared. Being presented with an alternative path for economic growth and well being embraced by the country, with spectacular results at least in some states, regions and cities detailed daily in the print and the television media, the sense of being left out in this new growth scenario was unavoidable for most Bengalis, more so for the articulate middle class intelligentsia. Desertion of the ship began in right earnest. Looking for better opportunities (education, job, material gain) anywhere in the country or even abroad became the norm. With growing interaction with other places, people who ventured out brought new perspectives and these in turn provided further centrifugal pull against the inertia of the ungroomed. Most sections of Bengalis felt an urgency about acquiring material prosperity and a quality of life they felt they were entitled to, being enjoyed  by people elsewhere in the country and which they were long deprived of. How best they could compensate themselves and their children for the lost years was what occupied them more than the morality of the liberalisation and the naked exploitation that this would eventually entail and the lurking imperialist design behind the globalisation programme. No wonder Karat and co’s strident anti-American rant did not cut any ice with the voters during 2009 loksabha elections. This was a classic demonstration of the disconnect of the party from the people, though as a trend this was discernible earlier.        

It was only a matter of time that the left front had to fall like the Berlin wall twenty years ago.   

Roots of malady of the left rule in West Bengal (contd.)

Stagnation in agrculture, lack of industrial development and the government policy lurching to the opposite extreme of potential expropriation of peasants of their land, disconnect with the Muslim vote base were all important causal factors in preparing for the ensuing electoral upheaval. But there was probably another little appreciated reason for the debacle.

Demise of Ideology

The Bengali intellectuals and the articulate elite have almost always taken to leftist ‘ideology’ as fish in water. Even if this ideological affinity has often been based on very superficial understanding, this used to be considered a given till possibly mid 1980s. A democratically elected left-oriented government was almost a popular expression of the ardent idealism of a large section of the urban intellectuals, artists, writers, theater and movie artists, singers and of course the general consumers of the cultural products. Many of them spent their youth and much of the adulthood in the fond hope of waking up in a city, a state which is ruled by people of supposedly socialist (if not communist) persuasion - a group of earnest people, who grew up within this milieu sharing the idea of uplifting the condition of the peasants, workers, urban poor significantly within their lifetime. There was a strong (pathetically naïve in the hindsight) moral underpinning to the Bengali intellectual’s sentimental and somewhat uncritical attachment to the ‘left’ ideology and all its baggage. Left’s was a righteous path. Also it had to happen in Bengal (“what Bengal thinks…” etc), with all its post-independence record of popular, secular and anti-establishment political agitations for all the right causes.    

The beginning was suitably spectacular : land-reforms (however limited) with at least a modicum of redistribution of land, release of political prisoners including the extremists who were bitter antagonists to the ruling parties not long ago, freedom of agitating for their economic demands for the industrial workers and so on.

But the plot was undergoing subversive changes even during the first decade of the LF rule. The strain of not living up to the claims of completing the unfinished task of bourgeois democratic revolution was telling. The task of catering to the practical needs (food, shelter, health, education, employment) of the broad populace within the confines of a state as a part of a federal structure (with an obviously indifferent if not partisan central government, itself mired in growing financial insolvency) was not getting any easier. Freedom to agitate, strike work was degenerating into labour indiscipline and diminishing work ethic and thereby leading to headline-grabbing flight of capital from the state. Government seemed nonplussed, had stock parrot like responses (like blaming the central government for all ills), offering, as far as possible, only blind eyes and ears to loss of work ethic among the vast army of government employees, police inaction and/or brutality, growing crimes (including significant rise in political murders), human rights violations. Left parties, CPM in particular, were more seriously engaged in perpetuating themselves, often by devious means not excluding outright bullying, even indulging in electoral malpractices in some areas, making disingenuous propaganda against the enemy without (often the central government, inimical foreign agents, media houses), rather than looking inward at the deficiencies at the party and the government levels and looking for an innovative way out of the growing mess. A broad section of the ordinary middle class people, many of them left sympathisers, educated and the urban elite, artists and intelligentsia came to be rubbed in a wrong way by the bulldozing party apparatchicks in the field of education and culture, the latter exercising an effective, almost ‘totalitarian’, control of many of the associations or organizations in these fields and dispensing selective partisan favours).

Pre-eminence of the party and the manufacture of the consent

Post 1977, the CPM, on its part, was largely content with entrenching itself in the new vote catchment areas (short shrift to the ideology at the alter of expediency gave ‘politics’ its dirtiest meaning), expanding membership in an indiscriminate manner. Using this growing political influence as the make or break in many aspects of their daily life the majority in the rural Bengal were gradually ‘won’ over forming a captive vote bank for many years to come.

To partly circumvent the stagnation in the economic growth and opportunities, both in rural and urban areas on governmental as well as non-governmental initiatives there was some spread of small scale informal economic activities (“informalisation of the economy”) in many parts of the state. Fruits of these initiatives were distributed, controlled at the lower working levels by the party and the distribution was based on the carrot/stick principle (patronage for those who would support the party, threat for those who wouldn’t). It is conceivable that for years this was probably one of the main mechanisms operative behind the subtle manipulation of the consent in favour of the government.

Roots of malady of the left rule in West Bengal

Agriculture : success/failure

From all accounts, the left front (LF) generated substantial goodwill in the early years (land reforms etc), though subsequently, government initiative in agriculture was not much more than a holding operation. The aspirations and the growing economic needs of the rural masses who were, ironically, unfettered by the early land reform related steps were held in check by the lack of follow up actions by the government in terms of massive agricultural development. Apart from fund crunch, lack of financial help from successive unfriendly/indifferent central governments, wasn’t there a positive lack of imagination at the government as well as at the party levels as to what the newly assertive peasantry, share croppers, landless labourers would need in order to sustain themselves and grow, given the reality of small and fragmented land holdings, high input costs, lack of markets for the produce.

Agricultural decline and LF’s lurch towards industrial revival via classic capitalist path

Despite limitations, West Bengal’s agricultural growth was possibly among the better ones in the country over the years, acknowledged by people like Swaminathan Ankleswaria Iyer (Time of India 22 May, 2011), not a great friend of LF or the Communist Party of India, Marxist (CPM). There were much fewer debt-related and starvation deaths (though the number of cases of under-nutrition was not necessarily miniscule) in West Bengal (WB) in comparison with Maharastra, Orissa or Andhra. But this growth story was clearly coming towards an end with the population growth and the dependence of the growing rural population on the land produce alone was becoming unsustainable. By 2006, some wise men in Bengal CPM must have realized this and wanted a way out : embracing massive industrial development, even at the cost of a prime agricultural asset, land, which, anyway, was appearing to become unremunerative. After a resounding electoral victory, feeling a little self righteous, this part of the leadership of the ruling party/parties including, most notably, the chief minister, decided to bite the bullet and chose a path that came to be associated with and portrayed by LF detractors as a new drive for the ‘primitive accumulation of capital’.

A government sworn to protect the interests of the working class and the peasantry was assailed by a growing popular perception of worst collusion with the industrialists/businessmen. The chief minister and his industry minister did not seem to appreciate the need to communicate the path forward to the rural masses who would be the most affected. The LF appeared confused and somewhat divided though outwardly the differences were papered over and went along with a chief minister who led it through a successful electoral process in 2006. After the start of the tailspin since the 2009 loksabha elections one has heard plenty of ‘sorry, made a mistake’ kind of perfunctory confessionals from many related quarters, but during 2006-2008 when the new ‘industrial policy’ was being experimented with not many contrary voices were heard. 

 

Muslim vote

Another important factor in the last election was the Muslim vote, which represents a significant share in the electoral pie. Traditionally, Muslims have been staunch supporters of LF and these relationships of mutual trust and friendship grew over years of secular support that left parties have provided for the Muslims. The secular credential of the left parties was testified by the fact that West Bengal had not had any communal clashes worth mentioning in all these decades of LF rule even while many parts of the country convulsed in communal tension during and after 1992 Ayodha kand. However, in terms of the economic progress as a group, vis-à-vis other groups or communities, Muslims in West Bengal have fared worse than they have in most parts of the country, if the Sachar Committee’s findings are to be believed. Despite feeble protestations and some contrary figures, these observations had struck a cord with the popular Muslim perception.

Many commentators have routinely mentioned about the LF government’s open alignment with the clergy and the conservatives among the Muslims in the case of the externment of Taslima Nasreen from Bengal (which became an emotive issue with many Kolkatans and other liberal intelligentsia). Add to it the shabby treatment (bullying) of Rizwanur, an upcoming Muslim youth trying to break the glass ceiling, by the state police (in collusion with a businessman/industrialist with some clout with the administration) leading to his tragic death/suicide. These events no doubt were construed by Muslim voters to indicate growing indifference of the LF government towards the sensibilities (intellectual and emotional) of one of its important constituencies.

Finally, perhaps the potential threat of expropriation of land in Singur and the proposed land acquisition elsewhere for fast-track industrial development was taken very seriously by the Muslim peasants in some parts of West Bengal (especially in Nandigram making it the flashpoint), active inciting by the TMC, the Maoists and the fundamentalist groups notwithstanding. There was an inevitable perception of the state acting with unseemly haste as a facilitator for the thinly disguised land grab on behalf of the big industry.  This was considered as an additional evidence for the growing disconnect between the ground level needs and aspirations of the Muslim peasants and the insensitive LF government who were plotting to take away their primary assets by outdated edicts and without adequate compensation.

The spectacular demise of the left rule in West Bengal (India)

Like many others concerned about West Bengal (WB), one could not, in the context of the resounding loss of the left front (LF) in the May 2011 assembly elections, avoid pondering about the key factors that undermined the long standing left rule in WB.

Trinamul Congress (TMC)/Congress leaders, sympathisers as well as a host of commentators in the media have had a clear prognosis about the endgame since 2009 parliamentary elections. Nobody other than die-hard LF supporters was left in doubt about the rot and debility in the government administration and the despondency enveloping the party organization at various levels.

What were the roots of this malady and the trajectory of its growth ? Was it a post 2006 election development or rather a work-in-progress over the three decades of the LF rule ? Many commentators (e.g., Sumanta Banerjee, EPW June 4 2011) have pointed in that direction. But then how did they manage to stay in power this long despite growing anti-incumbancy ? Beyond TMC’s hell raising claims about electoral malpractice by CPM/LF, vote splitting due to non-alignment of non-left forces there must be some substantial reason for the remarkable electoral success of the left all these years and the spectacular failure this time. 

Urban votes were probably always more evenly partitioned between LF and non-LF categories. When and how did the rural vote banks of LF collapse ? If the rural masses (and even a decent section of urban voters) were ‘solidly’ behind LF even at the time of 2006 elections (their vote share was a little over 50%), what happened during the next 2-3 years to cause a tectonic shift in this support base (2008 Panchayat elections were the early evidence of this shift). Is it possible that the misadventure, mismanagement and miscommunication at Nandigram and Singur were like straws on the camel’s back pulling down this illusory and waning support base like a pack of cards ?

Have been thinking about the roots of the malady and the spectacular demise. Watch this space for more on this subject ...

Team Anna beware of self righteousness and haste

Recent announcements and actions by Anna Hazare and some of the other leaders of the anti-corruption movement have come in for a lot of criticism for valid reasons. No doubt passing Jan Lokpal bill in the winter session of the parliament was and is the central focus of the movement. The parliamentary resolution passed during last session containng some sort of a commitment by all the political parties to craft the final bill, so as to contain the three basic demands from Anna and his team is expected to be discussed threadbare in the standing committee currently. The committee is also supposed to reconcile these elements with representations and blue prints about the same institution received from other sections of the civil society, government institutions like CVC, CBI (those that might have felt the most threatened in terms of restructuring and operational redeployment). The committee will also hear from political parties, pressure groups representing sections of populations (SC/ST, dalits, muslims) some of whom might have felt apprehensive of aspects of the proposed bill that appeared not sufficiently inclusive. Clearly, though the clarion call for the movement was given by Anna and his immediate supporting organizations, e.g., India Against Corruption, it can not surely be a case of simple rewording of the Jan Lokpal bill as visualized by the team Anna before being placed in the parliament as a fait accompli to be debated and passed like a routine bill.

When the team Anna decided to directly campaign during the Hisar election, many people including many staunch Anna supporters were genuinely dismayed. Not just because this direct involvement in the electoral politics may tend to rob the moral superiority of a movement that was essentially perceived to be apolitical. But the argument provided by some prominent team Anna members like Kejriwal, Bedi and even Anna himself was not very convincing and indicated confusion in thinking. It sounded quite disingenuous for the team Anna to claim that their anti-congress campaign was a simple fall out of the Congress party (through its president) not publicly intimating by a letter to team Anna (as BJP and some other parties involved in the electoral fray had apparently done) or publicly pledging otherwise the party’s commitment to pass the bill during the winter session. And it was rather naïve for them to believe that Congress being the major party within UPA that is in power in the Center, a simple commitment given by Sonia Gandhi or Rahul Gandhi would have been a sufficient guarantee for the successful  passage of the bill. The weakness of this position becomes exposed when, well into the Hisar campaign, Anna acknowledged the receipt of the letter from the prime minister assuring him of the passage of a strong Lokpal bill in the coming session and announced his ‘faith’ in the word of the prime minister. It is not clear what would have been their campaign objective or strategy if this letter would come a few days earlier that is before the election campaign.

Three points need be made about these recent confused peregrinations of some of those associated with this movement. First of all, the team including Anna probably has not fully grasped the momentous nature of the achievement of the movement. It was indeed rare in the history of independent India that such a spontaneous, largely non-political response of the common people was on display to a politically significant (legislative) issue. As a result a high level of awareness has been generated about the issues involved across the length and breadth of the country. But this popular support should not be construed by anybody to assume that a referendum has already been conducted (the apparent display of public support notwithstanding) and the results are already overwhelmingly in their favour. No silly pronouncement should have been made, meaningless or harmful actions taken so as to dissipate the momentum, the positive vibe the movement has generated, and open dissentions (not merely disagreements) among the members of the team Anna should not have been paraded. Secondly, Jan Lokpal bill is one among many proposals and it was in the interest of everybody to engage in debates, discussions in appropriate forum (media, parliamentary committees, etc) to find out how much of the positive aspects of their proposals could be retained while augmenting them with other good suggestions from other concerned individuals, groups, political parties (while trying to defeat, in a democratic manner, the bulwark of reactionary thinking holding the parties back). Thirdly, street level politicking (electoral campaign, dharna, hunger strike) has to be held in abeyance at least till the draft bill gets to be debated in the parliament. That stage, if required again, should await its turn. 

Thoughts on the international day for the elderly

International day for the elderly is celebrated (1st October) with familiar vivaciousness, as is the wont with the articulate segment of our elite.

Functions are organized by voluntary organizations, felicitations offered to some senior citizens who happen to be zoomed in by the organizers. Statements emanate from the pulpit dispelling the gloom supposed to have been condensing like mist during the evening of the life of elderly. Indian society at large, one is assured, has not really lost its conscience, despite the claims by those given to contrarian thinking. After all

○       children (many) are accommodating their parents in cramped small urban dwellings despite loss of privacy and adjusting to other inconveniences (it is not as if children always or as a rule have been leaving their old parents in the lurch), some showing due concern about their deteriorating health and managing many acute or chronic health problems providing financial and physical help;

○       children (quite a few settled abroad or dislocated from parental home due to job or career compulsions) are supporting their parents with generous outstation financial helps for them to live a life of dignity and conveniences or opt to live as a community in some of the better or new-age old age homes sporting facilities, gadgets, environs displaying considerable geriatric sensitivity;

○       government is seriously cogitating about bringing out a well thought out policy (National Programme for Health Care of Elderly or NPHCE) for the senior citizens, funds being sanctioned to medical institutions for starting geriatric wards, training and sensitizing of doctors and nurses and other medicare providers about the special needs of elderly patients and appropriate treatment protocols;

○       helplines, advocacy groups and blogs are mushrooming, volunteering useful information for the elderly – the dos and don’ts, financial and medical advice (practice of Yoga and alternative medicine), psychological and semi-philosophical inputs about dealing with hostile situations at home and elsewhere, helps in the pursuit of hobbies, social networking on internet (if nowhere else), etc;

○       gerontology is slowly and surely on the way to become recognized as a serious subject of study and research in the universities.

All of these sincere efforts of the concerned relatives, citizens and the government are commendable and are, hopefully, going to gather momentum in days to come. There were about 76 million 60-plus people at the time of 2001 census constituting about 7.7% of the total population and at this rate the absolute number may grow to about 133 million by 2021 and 179 million by 2031. The rate at which the numbers are growing always look like overwhelming whatever timid ameliorating steps that NGOs and the government may be taking, amid their hundreds of other pressing commitments. This is especially true about the gaps characteristic of the government policies and their implementation through various levels of government. The ever-present corruption might eventually, like in the case of many other government programmes, leave little resources at the service delivery points (think of geriatric wards in government nominated hospitals with few trained doctors or other medicare professionals, lack of supply or pilferage of specially recommended medicines for geriatric patients).

The targeting of the sections of senior citizen population deserving subsidized medical services (including medicines) is likely, sooner than later, to be mired in the usual sterile ideological debate on the entitlement of the poor and the weaker sections vis-à-vis government fiscal deficit that we are witnessing in the case of food and/or fuel. This country has developed a critical mass of reform-clad politicians, bureaucrats, corporate honchos, liberalization-fundamentalists whose animal entrepreneurial spirit (hence India’s famed growth sense), the prime minister often fears, might be dampened if offer of free lunch (of even rotting grains inside or outside of FCI warehouses) is so much as conceptualized let alone put into practice.

There is no denying that useful services are reaching at least some old and infirm people, lifting them from penury and destitution, providing them with food and shelter thanks to the initiatives taken by NGOs (many funded as a result of private effusions of kindness, tax-saving wisdom and, dare one say in today’s morally ambiguous world, laundering of some sort or other ulterior motives). Perhaps it is not always easy to strike a balance between the noble ends and dubious means.

Some issues about the anti-corruption movement

Some comments have appeared in the media to the effect that the moral underpinning of corruption is being underplayed in the zeal of fashioning a legal broom to clean the body politick of the grime of corruption. While one may not hope to cure the propensity to steal or cheat or other crimes by law, effective policing, good legal framework to deal with these crimes and dispense suitable deterrent punishment for these crimes can control them. In the same way, while the propensity to corrupt practices can not be rooted out by law, a comprehensive law and a suitable enforcement machinery should deter those who otherwise indulge in such practices with impunity and encourage a lot many more along the same path as one of least resistance.

A more relevant and deeper social issue that may have a bearing on corruption is the stake one has in active perpetuation and/or passive acceptance of inequity as a fact of life, as indeed an important basis on which all progress (most importantly economic) is constructed. The stratification in our society has invariably brought about a fast moving resourceful India of private enterprise distinguished from the large slothful sarkari India of millions whose lives have not been much illuminated by the magic wand of liberalisation. Corruption will inevitably result in such a scenario.

Middle classes and the anti-corruption movement

Corruption affects most people, from all walks of life. How is it that the middle classes responded to the movement with alacrity though poorer classes bear greater brunt of the malaise of corruption ? How is it that they come to champion the cause ? Is corruption free India more in sync with their growing self image of hard working, honest individuals not having to indulge in corrupt practices (both at the government and the private interfaces) in matters of urgency in their daily life : residential property purchase, school admissions, utility connections, hospital admissions and medical treatments and so on ? Does having middle classes leading a global ‘anti-corruption’ campaign (where no-sectional interests are highlighted, say, not specifically dealing with or highlighting specific problems faced by minorities or dalits) detract from the movement ?

Can the corruption in the Indian public life be correlated to the urge of the new ‘liberated’ entrepreneurial India, the ‘financially’ successful and impatient Indian middle classes to ‘get things done quickly’, ‘get what they want and feel they deserve’ by any means, fair or foul ? They wouldn’t mind breaking or bending a few rules, which, according to some of them, are archaic and deserve to be broken or bent. And in this endeavour, they are being ably helped and led by corrupt government officials and indeed the entire system of governance. Some people have seen in the impatience displayed by those associated with the Jan Lokpal movement about the parliamentary procedures a reflection of the same contempt shown by a lot of the youth and the upwardly mobile middle classes for the government systems and procedures they have to encounter in their daily life. Will this energetic upwardly mobile, aspiration driven middle classes forego their propensity to bypass rules, legal framework in their impatient urge to succeed against competitors ? Will they abide by rule of law even if others around them seem to be breaking the same ? It is there that their moral graduation will be put to test.

Demise of Soviet Union, sweep out of Left Front in West Bengal, India : some parallels ?

Found an interesting article in EPW trying a post-mortem analysis of the demise of Soviet Socialism in terms of a Marxian framework. The key point is that the soviet system, as it perpetuated itself over decades in a hostile international environment, gradually came to a saturation of the economic growth, stagnation, which worsened due to the arms race it was partly forced into due to the war and later soviet occupation in Afganistan. Within this worsening economic scenario, a segment of people, especially those wielding power in the government (the bureaucracy) and the communist party (central and regional leaders close to those running the government at various levels) have gradually come to acquire privileges that they found it legally and constitutionally perpetuate among their offsprings/relatives. Thus those saddled with the power and responsibility of the state – or at least a significant number of them – felt constricted in exercising their ‘liberty’, ‘freedom’ in bourgeois/capitalist individualist sense (creating and amassing wealth in their private capacity and by extension ‘legally’ controlling the means of production) by the existing legal, economic and political structure. Though whether and when these masses of privileged people formed a ‘class’ is not clear, the author argues that it is this nascent ‘class’ of people who were the real gravedigger of the soviet socialist structure with generous moral, material support from the west.

An important parallel arises in the context of the electoral whitewash (May 2011) of the long running (perhaps the longest running, democratically elected) left front (LF) government in the state of West Bengal, India. In both cases the rhetoric of the opponents of the regimes concerned are about the same : ‘communism’, ‘Marxism’, those professing these ideologies have thwarted the basic economic, political freedom of the populace. Beyond the demagoguery, one needs to identify the real issues, real actors in an evolving historical perspective. There may be a case for the thesis that the LF government, in the first decade of its rule, did devolve significant economic power to the rural poor, but the development of the agriculture, though among the better ones achieved by several Indian states, was not keeping pace with the rising aspirations among the rural masses who were, ironically, unshackled by the half-steps of land reforms initiated by the LF. Add to this the issue of failure to evolve an appropriate dynamic political structure that could feel the pulse and mobilize the dynamism of the rural masses in a direction that would have benefited the left’s cause (if there ever was any) in the long run rather than pushing them to become abject followers by threats and patronage. A rare insight was provided by one commentator in a TV discussion before the elections. He talked about the stagnation in the economic growth and opportunities, both in rural and urban areas. To partly circumvent this situation on both governmental and non-governmental initiatives there was some spread of informal economies (“informalisation of the economy”) in many part of the state. Fruits of these initiatives were distributed, controlled at the lower working levels by the party and the distribution was based on the carrot/stick principle (patronage for those who would support the party, threat for those who wouldn’t). It was argued that for years this was one of the mechanisms behind the manufacture of the consent that sustained the government this long.

Aravind Adiga's tour de force

Finished reading Last man in tower. Much impressed. Almost as much by the tour de force in plot making, precision in description, subtlety and psychological insight in  characterization as by the novel’s ability to raise some intriguing questions about the predilections of the middle class in the era of liberalisation-globalisation that has been holding sway in the present day India.

Comparison with his earlier novel ‘White Tiger’ is not at all out of place. The White tiger is not only alive and kicking and has metamorphosed into almost a mythical proponent of an early brutal version of capitalism but he is shown to revel in coaching and leading a  cross section of the dithering middle class to the ways and means of the primitive accumulation of capital and thereby creating new and promising cubs to make even bigger leaps in Sanghai, India (of the future). Many reviewers have seen Dickensian ambience, surprisingly nobody mentioned Macbeth (and the character of Mrs Puri as an incarnation of Lady Macbeth) in the final denoument. 

But on another plane, through a very clever plot and dramatic treatment the novel poses some very pertinent questions of our time : how is a critical conflict between an individual’s position, however quixotic that is, and the aspirations of a larger group of people/social segment driven (often actively instigated) by the agents of apparently inevitable progress of a capitalist economy going to be resolved. This conflict has echoes in the violent confrontation that we see today in India regarding acquisition of farm-lands for industrial exploitation, expropriation of tribal and forest lands for mining and other industrial explorations, or in the environment vs development debates.

The hallmark of a good literary work, irrespective of the personal opinion and the predilections of the author, is its ability to unflinchingly hold a mirror to society and expose the real social dynamics as they play out in all their complexity. Last man in tower, perhaps better than White tiger, does that.

Rekindling embers of fate

Read a wonderful article ‘Beyond the scars’ in The Hindu Magazine (23^rd October 2011). This is about certain impressions retained by a Tamil musician from Chennai from his recent concert visit to a few towns in northern Sri Lanka, Jaffna, Kilinochchi, Vavuniya. Names that automatically evoke tragic images of a people caught in the apparently interminable crossfire between two implacably hostile political opponents fighting a brutal war in the name of the same ‘people’.

The savage scars the war left on the geography almost everywhere in these parts could not be glossed over even in an officially sponsored visit. Perhaps more important is the  psychological mauling suffered by the Sri Lankan Tamils in terms of their linguistic, cultural and even religious identity. As if being a Tamil, speaking the language, loving and yearning for the rich cultural heritage seemed almost outlawed not long ago.

It is in this backdrop that the enthusiasm, serious intent of the appreciative audience of a Carnatic music recital in Jaffna was so moving, somewhat like an awakening from a long nightmare. The accompanying picture of a large relaxed young audience at the Ramanathan Academy of Fine Arts, Jaffna (“the faces, the laughter, the curiosity, questioning, smart answers”) enhances this feeling.

One cannot agree more with the author for tasking the Indians (particularly the Tamilians) to rebuild the tattered emotional fabric using many coloured threads of culture and history in that shell-shocked island. And one hopes strident competitive politics in the mainland would not snuff out the candle the intrepid cultural ambassadors might  manage to rekindle.

The situation calls to mind the timeless visualization by Tolstoy in his masterpiece ‘War and peace’, of Natasha’s subtle awakening to life and new love from the devastation suffered by death of her betrothed Andrei in the 1812 Franco-Russian war. In a remarkably perceptive dialogue between Pierre and Natasha almost towards the end of the novel, both the characters realized through a catharsis of emotional maelstrom of grief and the new enchantment that there is more to life than death, that one can’t help feeling glad, being happy and hoping for new life while feeling sad, occasionally even somewhat guilty of leaving the past in favour of the future.

Art and the artist : profane and the profound

The provocation for this piece is two accidental inputs. On reading Orhan Pamuk’s novel My name is Red one came across the trials and tribulations, political intrigues, murder, personal ambitions, artistic aspirations involving a milieu of book illustration artists in the late 16^th century Turkey. On a casual perusal of a tourist guide/information booklet on Khajuraho, India, one found comments by some western writers on the extensive erotic sculptures found on the site, some of which did not praise the tastes of the artists, while others found the prevailing tantrik traditions behind their apparently degraded taste. 

The points that I was provoked to ponder are somewhat different :

1.      How is the specific tension of uniting the profound and the profane common enough in the Indian artistic (especially in sculptural masterpieces) traditions rationalized, if at all, by art historians, writers who wrote about Indian art ?

2.      Secondly, as was most likely, these works of art must have had long gestation periods in the making and the artists would have to spend good parts of their lives secluded mostly in same-sex artist villages/communities for long periods, probably without contact with their families. Even when they were living with their families the long preoccupation with their art must have weighed on their mind as they went about their daily normal human lives over substantially long periods of time. How did they manage to dissociate the issues relating to the technical problems of their art from their appreciation of the explicit eroticism in their artistic subject ? Given the presumed education level of average artisans, workmen, was it possible that the majority of them were led in some way by their artist leaders to conjure some sort of rationalization for the same tension of uniting the profound and the profane ?

3.      It is important to bear in mind that artists are not a monolith, also they are normal human beings. In most cultures, like most ordinary people, they are steeped in tradition and normally not in a position to question spiritual concepts, divinity, the purity and the sacrosanct nature of these concepts. Thus it is somewhat remarkable that so many of these artisans/workmen, who must have been fully aware of the erotic nature of their artististic depiction on the one hand and the divine subjects or at least proximity to these subjects (within the same temple precincts) on the other, managed to create masterpieces that held the viewers over centuries in thrall. 

Parliament and the ‘civil society’ – why they may remain at cross purposes

Much as the moral stance assumed by the middle classes spearheading the anti-corruption agitation give an impression of an universal malaise of the present Indian society and polity, there are many deep fault lines in the latter (inequity, poverty and hunger, expropriation of the majority of Indians, destruction of the habitats and environment vis-à-vis rapid economic development benefiting much fewer smarter Indians), associated with the demands of growth-obsessed country (is it 8% or 9%, the argument continues), where from the prime minister down to many in the government and major political parties take pride in the liberated ‘animal’ entrepreneurial energies of certain sections of our people. If this inequity is not bridged, the parliament elected by the majority of the dispossessed or marginalized Indians may come to perceive the ‘civil society’ spearheading such anti-corruption movements inimical to its interest in the long term. The next call from Anna regarding electoral reforms (right to reject, right to recall) could be interpreted as a potential hijacking of the political rights of the majority who might be sidelined by the liberation-globalisation agenda ?

Did the movement really project an individual, his moral superiority competing with not-so-perfect individual players in the political space ? Is disaffectation against the politicians and ways and means adopted by the political parties a danger to democracy ? (ref. the ‘grammar of anarchy’ speech by Ambedkar, democracy incompatible with the mass adulation of an individual, howsoever saintly or commanding a great moral stature he may seem to possess). By asking for a greater scrutiny of the MP’s actions and speeches inside the parliament amount to undermining the supremacy of the parliament ?

On Anna Hazare movement

Among some of the  currents of thoughts provoked by Anna Hazare movement were

·       The movement has challenged the notion of representative democracy practised in India, apprehensions expressed about undermining of democratic procedures and structures and established traditions. India unlike many other underdeveloped and developing countries, armed with a greatly admired Constitution, has been successfully conducting a democratic exercise of universal, free and fair (relatively speaking) elections and has a great many functioning democratic institutions, fairly proactive judicial checks and balances, legal framework, has a number of progressive laws (like RTI) ironed out through these democratic processes. There is this discomfort, mainly among the politicians but also many among intellectuals and others within the broad sections of civil society, that a movement that openly casts aspersion on the parliament and the parliamentarians, shows contempt for the parliamentary procedures, in reality, is trying to destroy these institutions. [As an aside, sections of the polity that has acquired prominence over the years championing the positive caste discrimination issues that had mainly benefited and enriched the top/creamy layer of many in backward/SC/ST caste people, have displayed apprehension that devaluing parliamentary procedures, holding in contempt some politicians of these groups/caste formations may eventually lead to marginalisation of their vital interests.]. The movement openly voiced a doubt whether the so-called “people’s representatives do represent the people who voted them to the law making body. Having elected them once in five years, should people remain unconcerned about how these “representative” conduct themselves in or out of the legislative bodies, what kind of laws they make, especially if the a law holds vital interests of the people at stake ?

·        Another strand of thought involved raising doubt if the corruption is not a larger social and ethical issue and is a merely legal response (in terms a law and another cumbersome institution of controversial structure) adequate to deal with it ? This strand primarily brings into focus the inequity in our society and the economic order that perpetuates and exacerbates it and the interests of the proponents of liberalization, the corporate world and their implicit and explicit supporters in government bureaucracy indulging in crafting policies for expropriating large section of people of their livelihood, destroying biodiversity and the environment (at the alter of a ‘development’ model prescription by the liberalization reformers and the globalisation fundamentalists), misuse of power and driving nepotism and crony capitalism and the conception of a permanent and built-in fountain-head of corruption associated with it. To thwart this hydra of corruption we need radical restructuring of social and economic priorities (may be even economic order) and a mere law to oversee financial corruption of government bureaucracy, legislators and ministers (and leaving out the corporates and the captains of Industries from its purview) will not serve the purpose of eradicating corruption.

·        An interesting  issue that came up for some inquisition was why media was so enamoured with this movement. There were oblique hints on the class character of this movement, their source of funding and moral support. There were questions about the real motivation of the media to single out this movement for such an exclusive and misson-mode support.