America at the Cross Roads

American Dream at the Cross Roads
John Samuel

The idea of American Dream- the US as the land of opportunity, education, technology, the cultural melting pot and freedom- is at the risk of fading away. The American boom , to a large extend, was driven by the American dream- its ability to attract some of the most motivated people, with ambition as well talent, across the world. This helped the USA to emerge as the global soft-power house, at the forefront of ideas, education, science, technology and communication. This created conditions for a vibrant market and booming economy.

The rise of neoconservative politics and the overwhelming dependence on unilateral military might as the primary source of American power seem to undermine the American Dream, multiculturalism, good will and economy. The US foreign policy is fast losing its ability to create consensus or peace and increasingly defined by its capacity to create confrontation, violence and war. The ongoing tendency to lead more by mighty muscles and less by contemplative mind will create more sense of security paranoia among different sections of people within the US. There is a possibility that the USA will be less and less of a global destination for some of the most motivated and talented people. This can trigger off very challenging economic consequences.

The USA is one of the most significant trading partners of many other economic powers, including India and China. The global economy to a largest extend depends on the demand in the USA. There is also a very strong link between the economic policies and the consequent political consequence in one country and its implications in other parts of the world.

Recently George Bush boasted that “economy is powerful, productive and prosperous”. It would be worthwhile to compare this with the message of President Calvin Coolidge to the congress on Dec 4, 1928: “Enlarging production is consumed by an increasing demand at home and expanding commerce abroad. The country can regard the present with satisfaction and anticipate the future with optimism”. Within less than a year of that statement, on 29th October 1929 the world felt the great crash at the New York Stock Exchange, arguably the most traumatic experience in the history of capitalism. The near universality of this economic crisis and its political implications are not too far to forget.

While Bush is busy fighting a shadow wars in Iraq and the ‘war on terror’ globally, the shape of the American economy is far from soothing. With an estimated growth of 3.5% this year, unemployment low at 4.6% and fat profits, the economy looks robust. However, if we look at other key indicators, then there is less space for any optimism.

The US trade deficit, both in absolute size and as a percentage of GDP, is unprecedented. It reached $ 800 billion (almost 7% of GDP) in 2005 and accumulated $ 4.5 trillion since 1990.Scrap metal and waste paper are two of the biggest export item. Former Federal reserve Chairman Paul Volcker predicts 75% chances of a major financial crisis within four years.

The biggest buyer in the global economy is the USA. Other key players such as Japan, EU and China are net sellers. The clear indicator of the credit based consumerism is the household spent. The USA as a nation consumed about $ 800 billion (around 7% of GDP) than it produced and the household spent $ 500 billion more than they earned. The USA has negative savings and low rate of investment and the substantial amount of savings and investment of global economy are in Asia. As a result, the net borrowing of the US every day, from the rest of the world, is a whopping $ 3 billion, largely by selling US treasury bonds. So buying and borrowing keep the economy of the USA apparently robust. But there is less chances for the show to survive at this rate.

There is a large chunk of US dollars outside the US. While Japan has around $ 1 trillion, China and Saudi Arabia are not far behind. To manage its increasing debt, there is an increasing chance that US will trigger dollar devaluation, along with raising interest rates in the US. This can have major impact on the global economy.

The ever increasing expenses to meet the war in Iraq, along with the expense of war on Terror would mean there will be less money for social sector expenditure. There has been consistent cut in the social sector expenditure, including that for education and health care. John F Kennedy’s adage that “rising tide lifts all boats” is not happening any more. When Hurricane had ripped through New Orleans the myth of American dream was exposed. The rising tide of economic growth has failed to lift the boats of the poor. There are an estimated 37 million poor (with less than $14,680 for a family of three) people, in a nation with a population of 300 million. The poverty rate of 12.7 percent is the highest in the developed world.

Poverty has both colure and gender. The majority of poor are people of colure, African American, American Indian and Hispanic form the vast majority of them. Soon after Katrina, Sen. Barak Obama said on the floor of the Senate: “They were abandoned long ago- to murder and mayhem in the streets- to substandard schools, to dilapidated housing, to inadequate health care, to pervasive sense of hopelessness”.

While the poor, with an identity of colour, gets alienated further from the mainstream economic and political process, the inequality is on the rise. Gini index (measure of income inequality on a scale of 0 to 100) of the US is 41, the highest in the developed world. The study by Emmanuel Saez shows that the share of aggregate income going to the highest earning one percent of American had doubled from 8% in 1980 to 16% in 2004. Now an American chief executive earns 300 times the average wage, tenfold more than 1970. Though the unemployment is relatively low at this point, other indicators such as the proportion of the people working, the stagnation of income levels of the middle class etc point towards the vulnerability of the situation. A possible hike in the oil price may exasperate the condition of the economy.

The sky rocketing budget deficit, trade deficit, increase of poverty and inequality are not signs of good omen. As a recent survey has pointed out that more than six out of ten are skeptical of free trade. The survey by the Foreign Affairs pointed out that nine out of ten American worry about their jobs going offshore. But the fact of the matter is the number of jobs that shifted offshore is not more than 1 million. However, such perceptions, coupled with an increasing sense of paranoia and insecurity, may signal the fading of the American dream and the seductive capacity of the land of opportunity.

The US is witnessing the rise of neo-conservative politics, neo-liberal economic policies, and the over dependence on the unilateral military hardware for power play. The alternative is an America that promotes equitable democracy and social- economic justice, real human rights and multilateral internationalism based on soft power and negotiated diplomacy- an enabling and supporting America which will create less wars and more good will. American Dream is at the cross roads.

# This is a piece written in 2006, predicting an economic down turn in 2008. This is published by Himal South Asia, The New Age, The News,Infochange and several other publications in West Asia

Rethinking Secularism: On Politics of Religion and Identity

A River called Religion
On Religion, Identity, Politics and State
John Samuel

The ongoing discussions and debates on issues related to secularism, pluralism and diversity need to be understood in the context of the emergence of an exclusive sectarianism, the homogenization trends of globalization and the ongoing efforts to subjugate and demolish shades of cultural, religious and political diversity. The discussions on secularism and pluralism need to be situated not only in the context of the present predominance of `Hindutva’ discourse but also in terms of the profound shift in the communicative, political and economic paradigms both at the global and community level.

While a rethinking on the ideas and institutions related to religion, identity, politics and state should be rooted in the social, historical and cultural context, it is all the more important to envision the future not merely as an ideal but as a justful tomorrow, organically growing out of today’s reality.

Power and communication are two significant factors implied in various arenas of religion, identity, politics and the state. We will discuss the notion of secularism in the context of globalization and an exclusive hegemonic sectarianism in the form of a majoritarian Hindutva ideology.

Religion is all about power, a power to communicate; a communication of power between individuals and the divine, between present and the eternity, and between helplessness and hope. Identity is also all about shades of power; and consistently to communicate those shades within communities and society at large. Politics is an interplay or dynamics of power relationships in a given time and space. There is no eternal politics. If at all there is one, it is in the arena of religion. State is the institutional manifestation of power for governance. The way power and communication is negotiated in these entirely different arenas is determined by history as well as socioeconomic context. Hence, time and place play a very important role in the way we perceive this phenomenon. The various `perceptions’ are very important to understand the interplay of power in these arenas.

The notion of secular actually emerged from the notion of time and place/context. The word secular comes from the Latin root `saeculam’, meaning a great span of time, spirit of age, belonging to time, etc. In the Indian sense, we can call it kalaatmak. The idea of saeculam was contrasted with the idea of eternity and to the idea of the other world. In other words, the idea of secularism emerged from the binary distinction between this world and the other world, present time and eternity. While the custodians of the other world and eternity were the religious institutions and hierarchies, the affairs of this world and contemporaneity is being perceived as the secular. Hence, the distinction between secular and sacred, secular and religious, and secular and divine emerged as the major points of demarcation to understand the interplay between the divinity and reality.

In the real sense of the word we need to take secular as an understanding of the here and now of power, communication, identities and perceptions. The problem begins when the notion of secular itself is being projected as an idealized abstract. Such idealized notion emerged out of the debris of enlightenment and the project of modernism.

During the enlightenment, secular and secularization were partly a reaction to the highly institutionalized Catholic Church and a mercantile state, subservient to the church. It was also very much a part of the discourse on individualism, free market capitalism and the shrinking of religious authority from the social sphere. Like many of the enlightenment concepts, such as civil society and culture, the notion of secular and secularism also ended up as a contesting ground for ideological debates. Such ideological assumptions made these concepts inherently ambivalent. Hence, secularism for the rightists is different from that of the leftists. Both talk about these concepts, from totally different perspectives.

The context of secularism is substantially different in the South Asia from that of the Western Europe. The character and the socio-cultural role of religion in South Asia are different. The process institutionalization and the character of ideological manipulation in the religious arenas in South Asia emerge from a different socio-historic and cultural stream. South Asia in one of the most heterogeneous regions in the world, in terms of linguistic, religious, racial and cultural diversity. This leads to a complex web of multiple identities that are negotiated and bridged by some commonly shared sense of socio-cultural belonging. There seems to be a perennial struggle to negotiate and renegotiate multiple identities, in terms of religion, region, ethnicity and politics. Such struggles of contesting and negotiating identities form the major under current in the politics of the region. In multi-religious, multi-ethnic, multi-cast and multi-racial social spectrum, the idea of secularism derives validity only in the context of pluralism and diversity. This means “secularism” is not merely a political doctrine to separate or disengage the institutions and symbols of religion and that of the state. In such a situation “secularism” can be seen as a moral principal necessary to synergies our society and cultural streams in an inclusive manner. Such an approach will not only resist “exclusive hegemonic sectarianism’ and homogenisation, but also build up inclusive reformist paradigms that integrate various ethical traditions within Hinduism, Islam, Buddhism, Sikh, Jainism and Christianity.

In India itself there are at least five major streams of thinking on secularism. The stream of leftist rationalists’ stresses secularism primarily to denote the complete separation between the State and religion. The Nehruvian rationalists see secularism as Dharma Nirapeksata or the equal distance of the State from all religions. The Gandhian approach of Sarva -Dharma –Sambahava understands secularism as the co-existence of and tolerance between all religions. The two recent debates and discussions emerge from positive secularists and anti-secularists. Positive secularists are the proponents of Hindutva ideology – they talk secularism “as justice to all and appeasement to none.” Such a position emerged from the perspective of majoritinism and the so-called cultural nationalism, devoid of any sense of social justice. Anti secularists are critics of modernism and enlightenment. They question the very validity of the concept of secularism out of the context of Western civilization. Primarily lead by scholar activists like Ashish Nandy and T.N. Madan, anti-secularists question, the idea of separation between state and religion. This stream can also be seen as the post modernist interpretations of the Gandhian legacy.

The idea of secularism and secularization cannot be understood without understanding of the idea, context and function of religion. G.L. Holyoake a British Scholar proposed the term secularism in the 19th century. By secularism he meant an ideology and a movement wherein social and individual moralities are primarily determined by reason and not by religious doctrines and sanctions. Though Holyoake was agnostic (i.e. Indifferent to religion) , the torchbearer of his legacy Charles Bradlaugh was an atheist, who adopted a more confrontational approach towards religions. Thus secularism began to be seen as anti religion; anti-religious establishment and anti-religious doctrine. Later on this resulted in the complete negation of religion from the public sphere and from political arena, primarily in the authoritarian communist regimes in the USSR and Eastern Europe. History has shown that theocracy as well as dogmatic secularism (negation and rejection of religion) both proved to be counter- productive for any kind social transformation.

Hence we need to reemphasize the notion of secular as Kalaatmak, as the spirit of age based on the principles of inclusiveness, diversity and equal respect for various ethical and spiritual traditions. The problem is the very spirit of this age is perplexed in the postmodern condition. There is a tendency to homogenize the world using economic and political coercion and cultural consent by the predominantly Western countries. This process of homogenization makes a large majority of people economically and politically vulnerable. As they feel more and more threatened by the impact of globalization, the large majority of people get solace in the traditional symbols and doctrines of religious identity. And the reaction to globalization and homogenization get expressed in terms of retaliatory violence against the immediate “other.”

Such a reaction of vulnerable societies and countries result in a sort of exclusive and oppressive sectarianism. Such sectarianism takes various forms such as Islamic Taliban, neo Nazis, Christian fundamentalism or Hindu fanaticism. In our context, Hindu fanaticism gets expressed in the liberal language of cultural nationalism but also in a more confrontational language of destructive sectarianism.

The term communalism is the discovery of the British in the early 20th century basically to describe the relations between Hindu and Muslim communities in the colonies. A response to exclusive sectarianism needs to both at the level of critiquing and changing the contours of globalization and at the level of building up solidarity of people across communities, religions caste and creed. In the Indian context what is important is not the negation of religion but the rediscovery of the liberating ethical traditions in each religion and reinforcement of such ethical traditions in a positive and harmonious way. It is much more than tolerance – it is a positive appreciation and a creative dialogue between religions and communities in search of peace, justice and rights. As moral principal secularism can be seen as Kaalatmaka dharma , ethical principles relevant to this time and context.

Religion is like a river. It brings various streams from various terrains; it has whirlpools of illusion, cleansing ethical streams, muddy waters of pollution, and ripples of change and waves of transformation. We can’t mistake water for river.
There is not just one kind of water in the river; there are different kinds of water, changing its contours from terrain to terrain. It has a social function of transforming the barren lands of existence into fertile soil of belonging, of relationships and of meaning. Identities, both positive and negative, bloom on the banks of the river called religion. Religion is not only a river of symbols; it is a river of meaning .It is a river of perennial search. It is a river that connects a small stream to the ocean. In other words, river of religion symbolizes the eternal search for shrishti, (creation), sthiti (sustenance) and samhara (destruction).

When religious institutions make dams across the river to channel water for few, it displaces so many people on the banks of the river. While religious institutions are in the business of making dams and displacing people, communities live with a symbiotic relationship with the multifarious manifestations of the river of religion.
The party politics take water from the river of religion and process it for capturing the state power and eject the polluted residues back to the river. This is precisely what is happening in India and elsewhere. To capture political power the symbols and images of religion are used to create an illusion and a sense of security and chivalry amongst people. Such cynical capitalization of people’s identity crisis and socio-economic insecurity by using religious symbols are at the root of exclusive sectarian discourse. The two-nation theory propounded by exclusive sectarianists, the Sangh Parivar and Muslim League, represented deep-seated insecurity and identity crisis of a society at the receiving end of political manipulations by the colonial masters.

Religion is both rhetoric and a reality in India. While the rhetoric of religion is being hijacked by the political class, both the Congress and BJP, the reality of religion is more and more subjugated to socio-economic tensions at the community level.

In India, the rupture in the process of socialization influences the negotiation between religion, identity politics and state. The primary socialization that happens at the level of family and intimate circle are very much enmeshed in symbols, meaning and rituals of religion. Thus the food habits (e.g. vegetarianism), the kinship ties and perceptions about the other are primarily molded in the arena of family. The secondary socialization, which happens in the society at the level of interrelationship between members of other communities and people, are primarily driven by principles of coexistence, sharing of social space and contesting perceptions. The tertiary socialization at the level of intellect in identifying with ideology and ideas happens at a much more micro level of historical and the global arena. In the Indian context, the three levels of socialization are based on often contesting ethical principal.

Hence, the organic linkage between primary, secondary and tertiary levels of socialization is lacking. As a result of such a “rupture” in socialization, the same individual who is very progressive and radical in public sphere or parliament can be very conservative and sectarian within the “safe” walls of family. Hence, we have sectarian-liberals, conservative-liberals, mock liberals, feudalistic-radicals and communal-secularists in our social and political leadership. This tension is primarily because of the way India negotiated with modernism, English language and multiple identities. This also shows the superficial character of the process of secularization in the Indian society. The world view and perspective of the urban middle class is almost like the salad-like or chutney-like languages used by the urban middle class; the Zee TV language of mixed-up semantics (neither Hindi nor English nor Marathi) and the fragmented symbols and language of the V channel. Indian middle class is in the flux of bewildering contradictions that create identity crisis and political paranoia.

The Indian Constitution is a typical product of the tertiary socialization of the intellectual class wherein their secondary and primary socialization are not in congruence with the ideals of the constitution. So we have a secular socialist Constitution and a highly religious and feudal civil society. The State is being sandwiched between the ideal Constitution and contradicting and contesting forces within the civil society. On the one hand the Indian State is a reflection of the ongoing contradictions and sectarian contests. And on the other hand it is the terrain that is being torn between an ideal Constitution and opportunistic political alliance.

Hence we need to trace back the liberative streams in various religious practices and history rather than creating hegemony through oppressive symbols and religious institutions. The institutions of religions often fossilize beliefs and faiths into doctrinal dogmas to provide semblance of emotional and spiritual security to people. Dogmas are authoritarian doctrines, devoid of the authenticity of real life experience. There has always been a creative dissent outside the institutions of religions, which sought to reform society and thinking. In India, such creative dissent for reform emerged through the legacy of the Buddha, Lokayata and Charvarka tradition, Bhakti and Sufi movements, and the legacy of Kabir, Dara Shukoh, Sayyid Ahmad Khan,Raja Ram Mohanroy, Vivekananda, Mahatma Phule, Narayana Guru, Pandita Rambai, and Gandhi. Such a liberative and reformist streak found an expression in various movements for socio-religious reforms.

The efforts of Dr. Sebastian Kappan and Dr. M. M.Thomas in developing a Christian liberation theology relevant to India; the ongoing efforts of Asghar Ali Engineer to discover the liberative and reformative streaks in Islam and the efforts of Swami Nitya Chaitanya Yathi, a disciple of Shri Narayana Guru, Swami Agnivesh and others to promote a liberative discourse within the Hindu tradition need to be emphasized in the ongoing discussion on secularism and pluralism in India.

We need to strive for building up new social solidarity by integrating liberative streaks of various religious and ethical traditions to build up a new ethic for social change. When Marx said, “Religion is the opium of the people” he was talking of religion as an ideology of oppression and delusion. But Marx also said that religion is “the expression of real distressed, the sigh of the oppressed creatures, the heart of the heartless world, and the spirit of a spiritless situation.” It is the second statement of Karl Marx that needs to be connected with the search for a liberation theology and a liberative ethics. Hence we need to celebrate the idea of pluralism and diversity from the perspective of secularism as a contemporary ethics, kalaatmak dharma, relevant to the present context. Such a liberative ethics should guide our journey towards a more just and humane co existence, irrespective of religion, region, caste and creed.

Budget Accoutability

BUDGET ANALYSIS:

A Means Towards Transparent and Accountable Governance


John Samuel

Transparency and public accountability of governance are the hallmarks of a democratic polity. But that is precisely what is lacking in our political system. In many of the countries, polity is undergoing unprecedented changes — negative ones, of course — and the so-called welfare state is gradually abdicating its social responsibility. The moral authority and social legitimacy of the political class have sunk so low that they are no longer capable of guarding the basic tenets and spirit of democracy. Increasingly, the presiding deities of institutionalised corruption are secure and comfortable in the corridors of political power and in the backyards of a subservient bureaucracy.

At a time when party politics has come to signify arenas of vested interest, personality conflict, an ethical vacuum and reactionary trends, non-party social action and political processes must assume the critical role of sustaining the meaning and vitality of the process of democratization.. One of the most important roles of citizens and social action groups is to build up effective public arguments to advance transparent and accountable governance.


In the absence of a widespread pro-active social or political movement, public argument is the most effective means of involving citizens and democratic institutions in a more responsive and responsible government. Effective public argument is based on verifiable information, constitutional validity, a cohesive socio-political perspective and moral authority. But the first of those — information — is the key. To make public argument fruitful, one must go beyond the rhetoric of impressions and emotions. So the first step is to equip citizens groups and social action organisations with an adequate information base, an understanding of policy-making, of systems of implementation, and the impact of such systems at the grassroots level.

The best place to start is with the gathering of budgetary information. For the domain of governance is in many ways related to budgetary trends and priorities. Budgets reflect the policies and programmes of the government. So, for any realistic understanding of public policies one needs corresponding budgetary information. Policy arguments, substantiated with budgetary information, will be far more credible and effective. Budget analysis thus provides a critical value addition to public advocacy initiatives. It would enable citizens and social action groups to compel the government to be more alert to the needs and aspirations of the people in general and the deprived sections in particular. That is the first step towards an accountable and transparent system of governance.

Demystifying the Budget

Budgets are far removed from the people. In a country like India where almost 50 per cent of the people are illiterate and have never had occasion to see more than a couple of hundred rupees, the budget, and the millions of rupees shrouded under major or minor heads, make little sense. Even the middle class, which constitutes around 20 per cent of the population, understands the budget only through populist measures or budgetary gimmicks, flashed through the mass media. It is media images that often determine the public perception of the budget, not perceptive analysis and an understanding of the document. The demystification of the budget is therefore an important step towards the creation of a conducive environment for public advocacy.

The budget is prepared by specialists. Reading the budget requires a certain amount of expertise in finance and the ability to locate the figures corresponding to different expenditure. Because of this, one needs basic training in reading and understanding the budget. And helping the most deprived of people to read and understand it in such a way that it inspires them to question the manner in which they are governed.

The budget is an articulation of the existing power relations in society. While the mass media controlled by big business interests and the articulate urban upper-middle class may project a budget in the most positive light, the impact of such a budget on the lives of tribals, the unorganised, the rural poor and slumdwellers, is often ignored. Even when the budget’s impact on the poor is studied, it remains an academic exercise, scarcely ever reaching the common people. It’s no wonder then that the budget needs demystifying, so that ordinary people can participate in the process, questioning and changing the budget in favour of the most deprived.


The industrial and business class, of course, has a well-developed institutional mechanism to access budget data and even to influence the budget according to their vested interest, in ways that invariably make the rich richer and the poor poorer. Financial pundits, policy analysts and media commentators hired by FICCI or CII work earnestly to influence the budget as well as public perception of the budget, in accordance with their interests. of the rich and powerful.

How do we counter such motivated interpretations of the budget by the elite? This is where the work of DISHA (Development Initiative for Social and Human Action), a social action group working in Gujarat, becomes relevant. The effort of DISHA to translate budgetary information in a way that makes sense to the most deprived sections has made a qualitative difference in their public advocacy for the rights of tribals and unorganised labourers. The significance of DISHA’s budget analysis exercise lies not in its academic validity or methodological sophistication, but in its attempt to understand the budget in the light of grassroots experience and ground realities. This is what makes their budget analysis more communicative to the common people. Their efforts to bring out budgetary information and analysis in the local language, published in the form of readable booklets, has helped people see the budget as part of the reality of their lives.

A demystification of the budget involves translating the technical financial information it contains in a way that can be communicated to the people, helping them relate such information to their everyday lives. While demystification and budget analysis provide a critical value addition to the public argument, the budget exercise by itself may not help bring about an effective public argument. DISHA, for instance, was able to effectively integrate their budget exercise with their advocacy work, based on grassroots mobilisation and effective networking.

In the context of advocacy, budget analysis can serve three major functions. Namely:

(a) the creation of public argument for policy change
(b) pre-budget lobbying to ensure a more equitable distribution of resources and
(c) an increase in the bargaining power of social action groups

While the first two functions require distinct modes of analysis and a strategic use of information, the third function is more a by-product of the effective use of the other functions.

Public Argument

Public argument takes place in the arena of politics, and in terms of real or perceived power relations. Each policy takes shape and operates in a particular political environment. An effective public argument would go beyond a particular policy and would impact the entire ecology of that policy. Such a public argument derives its strength and vitality from the power of information and the power of people or of public opinion. Strategic use of budgetary information can be made to influence public perception and opinion. The success of a public argument should not be seen merely in terms of targeted policy change, but also in terms of attitudinal change among the people. This was very evident in the strategies used by CII (Confederation of Indian Industries) to create a favourable public environment for the ‘Chidambaram Budget’ of 1997.

It’s not as if public policies don’t find any financial expression in budget documents. They do. But in recent years, there is a widening gap between the policy rhetoric of the government and the budget outlays for programmes that actually come under such policies. This gap is most pronounced in the context of Structural Adjustment and the New Economic Policy. The repeated rhetoric of ‘Growth with Social Justice’ just doesn’t translate into budgetary outlays. Therefore, an understanding of budgetary information from the point of view of the most marginalised is essential to expose the doublespeak of the government and the political class.

Many other budget analysis initiatives were not as successful as DISHA’s precisely because they were not translated into public argument. DISHA has acquired institutional credibility and legitimacy for creating public argument. They were able to do this because they had a tangible mass base of tribals, a leadership with political experience and understanding, networks with social action groups, the bureaucracy and media, and a stable relationship with major politicians and policy-makers. In other words, DISHA was adept at making effective use of people’s power. What it achieved through budget analysis was an integration of the power of information with people’s power. Thus, budget analysis was a critical value addition to its earlier work. Organisations which did not have prior institutional experience or legitimacy could not make use of budget analysis because of the absence of the other factors required for public argument. If one undertakes budget analysis as the flavour of the month, it may not necessarily lead to effective public argument.

There is, however, a distinction between the budget as data, the budget as information and the budget as knowledge. Budgetary data — largely figures — does not by itself communicate much more than a vague impression about its quantitative aspects. An accountant may be more concerned about this aspect of the data. But when social action groups locate such data in the context of a particular policy or programme, it acquires the dimension of information. In other words, it is only when we contextualise the raw data within a comparative or chronological framework and in the light of a particular policy or programme, that we turn the aggregates of such data into meaningful information. A piece of budgetary information, for instance, will help us understand budgetary figures for health, in comparison to defence or education.

When we perceive such budgetary information in a socio-political or ideological perspective, it becomes a source of budgetary knowledge. And knowledge is power. To go beyond data and information and transform it to knowledge, one requires a socio-political perspective. This is another major difference between academic institutions and grassroots advocacy organisations. While academic institutions have the sophisticated analytical tools to transform data into accessible information packages, they often lack the socio-political perspective to transform such information into knowledge. A knowledge base is what gives momentum to a public argument.
Also important is the need to understand the budget not only in terms of the pattern of allocation, but also in terms of the pattern of expenditure and its impact on microlevel reality. If you have information about the performance budget, the planning process and the real impact, you would have a holistic picture of the implications of the budget. The data analysis of the budget should ideally be complemented by empirical research or grassroots case studies that would substantiate our knowledge about the budget. This would also make public argument sustainable and effective.


Pre-Budget Lobbying

At present, pre-budget lobbying remains the privilege of the few rich and powerful. With the help of a strong information base, professional expertise, powerful media strategies and powerful allies within the government, industrial houses and lobbies can substantially influence the budget. Though many social action groups have succeeded in creating much sound and fury about public policies, they have not been able, so far, to make any significant dent in the budget. This is largely because they don’t understand the relevance of the budget, and don’t have the professional skills or expertise to fathom public finance. In a fast-changing world, dominated by a very sophisticated persuasive mechanism, it is important that social action groups develop an adequate information base, skills and legitimacy, so that they will be heard when a budget is being formulated.

The work of DISHA provides hope in this direction. They have proved that the budget can be read and understood by common people, without any conventional academic expertise. Their work is testimony to the fact that budgetary knowledge is a powerful tool in the hands of activists. Hence, it is important to develop a network of social action groups that would be able to use budget analysis as a critical value addition in their public advocacy. Effective networking should ideally lead to a working group on a people-centred budget analysis and policy change. Such a working group would be able to initiate a process of pre-budget lobbying to ensure that resources are distributed in consonance with policy pronouncements and in the interests of the most deprived sections of society.

Increasing the Bargaining Power

The economic and industrial elites have the bargaining power of money, proximity to the policy-making and implementing system and the media, and the ability to twist information in their favour. Political parties maintain large votebanks to sustain their bargaining capacity in electoral powerplay. Social action groups have neither electoral power nor money power. Most of these groups are too scattered to make any cohesive or far-reaching impact on the political system. While many of them are effective at the micro level, their bargaining power at the macro level is very low. But many microlevel organisations with an adequate mass base and strong information base on macrolevel policies and other indicators have proved that they can have substantial bargaining power at the macro level, particularly in influencing state-level policies.

Most legislators and officials do not have an adequate understanding of the budget. By judiciously using budget information, social action groups can increase their bargaining power, especially when they deal with the government. What they would be doing is compelling bureaucrats, legislators and media persons to respect their arguments and positions. But as we have discussed earlier, bargaining power does not arise in isolation. It is a by-product of the simultaneous and strategic use of various functions.

Government is distinct from governance. While government is really fuelled by the budget, governance often suffers because of a lack of transparency and accountability. In our 51 years of independence, the government has increased quantitatively, in size and magnitude, but the quality of governance has sunk very low. So-called economic reform has not made any difference to the lives of around 400 million people who are still under the poverty line. These ‘reforms’ have helped to project the quantity of economic transactions, but they have done nothing in terms of the sub-structures of the Indian economy that would make a qualitative difference in the lives of the poorest. These reforms have never addressed questions related to the justice delivery system, law enforcement, the functioning of parliament or state legislatures, audit and accountability. The assumptions behind many such functions and institutions will have to be questioned in the light of increasing inequality, poverty, unemployment and overall deprivation. It is erroneous to measure growth merely in terms of economic volumes or per capita income, which conceal the gross inequality in the distribution of economic and natural resources.

The budget should not escape the scrutiny of the people. Unlocking the budget and opening the floodgates of information is the historical and political task of social action groups. So, budget analysis should be perceived as a means towards transparent and accountable governance that would ensure equity and justice to the marginalised millions of this country.


*This article has been taken from the book "Understanding the Budget: As if people mattered", Edited by : John Samuel. Published by National Centre for Advocacy Studies in 1998.

Medium In Search of a Message

Medium in Search of a Message

John Samuel


An ideal act of communication is a sort of communion. Communion is a state of sharing or exchanging the same set of thoughts, feelings and attitude. Communion happens within communities and communion is the result of a voluntary and participatory process. Creativity, communication and communities are the three major factors that make human beings distinct from the rest of the living species. Language and symbols are the binding force that consistently make an organic and dynamic interplay between human creativity , a primordial urge to communicate and the need for community living. One of the crisis of post modern condition is that the organic linkages between creativity, communication and communities have broken down . Language and symbols have become subservient to highly mechanised tools of exchange or communication. Hence there are entirely different set of languages and set of symbols for V channel, MTV, Star New, Zee TV, BBC, Doordarshan, Internet etc. When tools of communication determine the content of message, the act of communication increasingly get alienated from real communities and often give rise to imagined communities who are mechanically connected to each other through Newspaper, TV or Internet, but organically alienated from each other. When communication cease to have organic linkages with communities, that become a dehumanised set of information or entertainment dissemination rather than an act of true communication. In the absence of a set of dynamic symbols and language that connect communities and communication, human creativity, particularly aesthetic creativity, suffers substantially. The bewildering perplexity and anarchy of many of the new ‘music albums’ disseminated through MTV or V channels are telling comments on our present predicament. Fragmented and frozen images stare and laugh at you in the cacophony of lots of sound and fury. Where does this leave us? How do we, social change communicators, locate ourselves in this jungle of sound and fury? Why is that we manage to inform people but somehow fail to change their attitude and beliefs?

Social change communication is a continuous process of changing peoples attitude to facilitate a more just and human society. The purpose of social change communication is to inform and educate large number of people in a way that would help them to change or redefine their attitudes and values and enable them to become more socially responsible and empowered citizens. In the last twenty years, there has been concerted efforts to build effective communication strategies on various issues related to human rights, women’s rights, development, ecology etc. While such communication strategies helped to increase the outreach and efficiency of information dissemination, the effectiveness of such communication in terms attitudinal change remains a big question mark. One of the recent examples for this ‘mal-communication’ is the AIDS awareness campaigns to educate people and to change their attitude. The international development organisations and UN agencies imported sophisticated communication framework and mandarins to develop communication strategies and implementation channels. Millions of dollars were spent on five-star workshops and five-star consultants. But towards the end of the day, the exercise created more sound and fury about AIDS rather changing the attitude of people towards the socio-political implication of HIV positive or for that matter an informed attitude towards sexual choices. Even among the better run communication campaigns on Environmental Protection or Women’s right, the level information reception increased without much change in the attitude. Partly, this is due to the predicament of post modern communication as explained earlier; the inability of dehumanised communication modes to touch the heart of the people. In the proliferation of information dissemination, values, feelings and cultural ethos get completely marginalised or abandoned. Another important reason is that even the best of modern communication strategies fail to go beyond the middle class audience; even if the information goes beyond the middle class to relatively marginalised people in urban slums or rural areas the message often received without being digested. In the case of India, this means that the vast majority of people are either alienated or far away from the post-modern communication tools and strategies. The present predicament is that we are often more clear about the tools and strategies and less clear about the message to be communicated. The lack of ethical clarity or political positions tend to create ambiguous messages about the same theme from various institutions. So on HIV positive, WHO has one stand and UNDP has a different stand . And both of them are in the business of communicating the issue to people. The result is that ambiguous messages get lost in the labyrinth of tools and strategies.

Many of the social change organisations are like a medium in search of a message. This get more complicated when all the process of communications are mediated by institutional interests or the project priorities than the conviction in the message. In our enthusiasm to develop innovative medium and tools, somehow we lost the conviction in and clarity of the message for social change. One of the major hindrance for communication for attitudinal change is due to the big gap between the mechanically mediated communication and socially mediated communication. In a mechanically mediated mass communication people are treated as ‘targets’ and ‘objects’ that can be influenced or acted upon. In a socially mediated or community oriented communication people are participants in the process of communication. Hence, they themselves become a sort medium and own up the process. When they own a process, they can not remain indifferent to the messages involved. In mechanically mediated communication message is being treated like a ‘product’ to be delivered to a ‘target’. It is almost like ‘shooting at a target’- focused information dissemination. And communication strategies for mechanically mediated communication focus more on ‘packaging’ the ‘product’ to make it more saleable. In socially mediated and community oriented communication, it is the interactive process that matters. Such an interactive process involve the entire community or the ‘opinion makers’ within communities. Interactive communication process will not only help to receive a message, but enables to analyse and interpret the messages with the language and cultural ethos that determine the very identity of communities. Socially mediated and community oriented communication lead to internalised interpretative process that is capable of changing people’s attitude. The tool based on modern communication is an efficient means for broad-casting or mass information dissemination but the socially mediated folk communication methods are rather slow process best suited for narrow-cast or community based communication. The advantage of the folk methods of communication is that it is a creative, community based process of humanisation. While the modern multi-media communication is excellent to disseminate a set of information, it is relatively more dehumanised. Hence, it hardly helps to change peoples attitude.

The above observations are based on my own experience as a practitioner of communication. I have experienced the effectiveness of socially mediated and community oriented communication in the social change campaigns initiated by Kerala Sasthra Sahitya Parishat (KSSP) in the early eighties. Through a series of cost-effective, community oriented communication process, involving thousands of young people, KSSP was able to change people’s attitude in a very significant way. The best example is that of the Campaign against the Hydroelectric Project in the Silent Valley; popularly known as Silent Valley Campaign. In the late seventies when the campaign began, almost all political parties, trade unions and news papers were either against the campaigns or indifferent to the cause. People were by and large indifferent to the environmental cause. But the situation dramatically changed over a period of two years, as large number of common people began to support the campaign. There were processions and peoples participation in almost all parts of Kerala. The campaign triggered off a debated on the effectiveness of the development models and paradigms. It emerged as one of the most effective people-centred advocacy campaign for environmental protection and sustainable development.

There was no imported frame-work or communication mandarins, there was no ‘swadeshi’ or ‘videshi’ funding, there was no big institution. What made the difference was people’s participation in a communicative process and communicative action; socially mediated , community oriented folk communication methods clicked; it drew people into debates and discussions; it did not give people much of a space for indifference. Communication was organic debates at grassroots level. The issue was discussed and debated in the local tea shops with the morning cup of tea and newspaper. Newspapers could not afford to ignore the issue as it became topical at the grassroots level. As student activists, we used to make posters, write songs or perform street plays to build up a public debate and discourse. No one told us what was the strategy. But we knew what was the message. We were emotionally and intellectually involved. We had a language and a song on our tongues. We grew up with the folklore’s and local symbols. We were from the people. Many of us were at our creative best. We were the grassroots. Without learning any theory of communication, I instantly realised the organic linkages between creativity, community and communication .

After fifteen years, when I studied Silent Valley Campaign from the point of public advocacy, I was keen to know what exactly changed the public perception. Then I realised it is the active involvement of four poets and five poems that played a major role in drawing lot of young people to the campaign. Poetry, Sanmskarika Jathas (cultural procession), street plays, indigenous and spontaneous poster campaigns, village level debates and pamphlets were used extensively. But the major difference was the conviction in and clarity of the main message. Message preceded the medium, tools and strategies. There was no institutional interest, or communication framework to mediate between the people and the message. People became the medium and the message travelled across drawing rooms, to backyards, to tea shops to schools and colleges to the country side and city streets. There was no television or newspaper advertisement. But there was a lot of poetry and lots of people. It played a major role in my own and many others, formative years of convictions and activism.

I have also seen and experienced the power of socially mediated communication in the villages of Mizoram. Mizoram has a unique newspaper culture; there are scores of news papers in different size and shapes. There is a culture of discussion and debate on issues of social importance. The Young Mizo Association (YMA) makes use of socially mediated and community oriented communication process, particularly through songs, community level discussions and communicative action. When communication gives rise to action, it gives rise a social momentum. Such social momentum has a power to influence people’s attitude. Hence for any effective social change communication, we need to build up organic linkages between the process of socially mediated communication with streams of peoples action. Communication without action potential is a passive exercise. The best examples of the linkages between the socially mediated communication and collective peoples action can be seen in the communication strategies adopted by Buddha, Jesus Christ and reformers like Thukkaram and Kabir. The parables told by Jesus and the Jataka Kathas were powerful ways communicating to the people. Here the message was clear, simple and straight forward. Messages were for action . That changed attitude of people. That changed history. The songs of Kabir do not need an ‘extra’ music; they straight away go and touch the heart of the people. We need to go back to the people to learn the language, symbols and ethos. We need to become equal participants in the socially mediated communication, rather than playing the role of highly paid experts moving around with tools kits and framework for best communication medicine. We need to become more humble to look at our own backyards and indigenous traditions to learn from illiterate wise men and women in our villages.

We need to reclaim the organic linkages between creativity, communication and communities. We need to learn to bridge the vast gap between mechanically mediated communications and socially mediated communication. We need to be more clear and convinced about the social change message. If we ourselves don’t believe in what we say, people are not going to listen in spite of the best of strategies and tools. Let us create the message and let us become the medium; a medium for inspiring and rejuvenating the barren lands of imagination and social action.

Thailand in Transition

In the Name of Democracy: Thailand in transition.

Times of India. Sept 21.2006

John Samuel



Bangkok, the city of smile, looked rather quite and grave. There were hushed talks about a coup. The TV channel suddenly started playing national anthem and the video clippings of King and all the international TV channels disappeared. Military vehicles were moving around the city. On Sept 19th at around 10 in the night, the taxi driver confirmed that there was a coup and advised me to rush home as there could be a fight between different factions of army. Thailand saw 18nth military coup since the first military coup happened in 1932. It seems the Coup was rather smooth and there was hardly any inconvenience to the people of Bangkok.

This military coup is significant because it happened after fifteen years of experiments with democratic governance. This coup is in the name of ‘restoring’ democracy by capturing power from the ‘democratically’ elected care taker Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra. Though there are voice of protest from civil society and democratic activists, the people of Bangkok seem to be happy with the departure of Thaksin, the key protagonist at the centre stage of Thai politics. There is a mix of quite celebration and untold anxiety among the people. There is a strange sense of silence in Bangkok symbolizing the ambivalence of democratic process in Thailand.

Thailand is once again torn between the military power on the one hand democratic aspirations on the other. This Coup is also interesting as the leader of the Administrative Reform Council that lead the coup, is Gen. Sonthi Boonyaratklin, the first Muslim Chief of the Army in a predominantly Buddhist country. Though Constitution and Parliament have been terminated, it is also noteworthy that the Privy Council headed by Gen. Prem Tinsulanonda, an advisor to the King and who was in power from 1980 to 88, is playing a significant role in the new political context. Thailand’s experiments with democracy is entering again a rather uncertain and turbulent phase.


The politics and society of Thailand have been shaped by the stable and highly revered monarchy, military and religion. Even when there were spells of democratic government, these political forces shaped the discourse and sustained the power base. In fact, even after fifteen years of democratic experiments most of the TV channels and radio networks are still controlled by the Military.

Thailand, with a population 64.1 million, emerged as one of the most significant countries in South East Asia, with a relatively stable democracy and economic recovery, after the financial crisis in 1997. The main protagonist in Thai politics during this phase has been Thaksin Shinawatra. Thaksin symbolized the strength and limitations of the Thailand’s experiments with Democracy.

The corporitisation of Thai politics happened with the advent of Thaksin. He is a third generation Chinese- Thai, born in 1949, in the northern city of Chiangmai. Starting his career as a Police Officer in 1970 , he went on do a PhD in Criminology in the USA, on a government Scholarship in 1973. On his return , he became one of the most successful businessmen and became a billionaire within a span of just fifteen years! He started his first computer dealership in 1987 and went on the build a Shin Corporation, one of the biggest business conglomerates in South East Asia.. He founded Thai Rak Thai( Thai loves Thai) almost like a corporate venture, with its headquarters in one of the big towers owned by the Shin Corporation.

Like an intelligent investor he invested money and got many rich Thai corporate magnets as the shareholders in his new political venture. Thai Rak Thai was neither right nor left; it was more of corporate venture, using communication, technology , mobilization tactics and media , making use of the insecurity after the financial crisis of 1997, selling dreams of nationalism as well as economic recovery. Within a span of three years of launching the corporate venture of a political party, Thaksin became the Prime Minister in 2001.

During one of his interviews, Thaksin said “ democracy is just a means to get power ”. In many ways, this exposed his rhetorical commitment to democracy and his real efforts to run the country like the CEO of a business corporation. In the process, Thaksin ended up subverting every institution and process of democracy. He not only corprotised his party, he attempted to corportise the state as well. He used populist poverty eradication programmes and pro-poor rhetoric and on the other hand he increasingly favoured big corporations, including his own, and went on to privatize everything. He did not like criticism and fancied him self following the foot steps Mahateer Mohammed of Malaysia or developing Thailand in the form of a “democracy” like Singapore. In the process he ended up as a populist authoritarian corporate leader, using democracy as a means and as rhetoric to legitimize his power.. That is why he failed to provide political solution for the political unrest in Southern Thailand, caused by the Muslim minority population. More than 1000 people were killed within a span of months. Apart from this, he has been accused of rampant violation of human rights, especially because of extra judicial the killing of an estimated 2500 suspected drug peddlers in 2003.

Through clever political management as well as media campaign, Thaksin won his second term with land slide majority ( 377 seats out of 500 parliament seat) in the election in February 2005. However, during his second term he became increasingly unpopular among the civil society, political class as well as middle class in Bangkok. The perceived subversion of law and institutions to sell off his family stake in Shin Corporation for a whopping 1.9 billion US Dollars, without paying any tax, to a powerful investor in Singapore, created huge political backlash. This resulted in unprecedented political mobilization against Thaksin. As a part of his “put up or shut up” policy he dissolved the parliament , and declared snap poll in April 2006. Though the main opposition Democratic Party and others boycotted the election, Thaksin won 57% of the vote. However, the constitutional court declared the election null and void and asked the government to conduct fresh election. Thaksin decided to continue as the caretaker prime minister, in spite of the widespread protest against him.

Thaksin is a hero, villain and victim of the new democratic experiments in Thailand. He used democracy as means, with his corporate investments and new found wealth, to capture power for its own sake. He ended up as a victim of his own unprecedented success of being the only elected Prime Minister, successfully completing a term and reelected. He also became a victim of his own sense of invisibility and a democratic rhetoric and pretensions. So not many people are shedding tears for Thaksin and his brand of democracy.


In the political landscape of Thailand, the unifying and stabilizing force is the highly revered King Bhumbol Adulyadej. He is the head of the state for the last sixty years, the longest serving monarch in the world. He commands a unique sense of moral authority. In spite of several political coups, the gentle manner and rare interventions of the King helped to stabilize the polity and political process in Thailand. In the present political impasse, the ordinary people of Thailand hope that King will help to restore the process of democracy, in spite of the Coup. It is yet to be seen the promised restoration of democracy will help to create genuine democratic political process and space in Thailand, “ the land of Free”.

Demanding Corporate Accountability

Call for Corporate Accountability

John Samuel


In a liberal democratic framework, the sovereignty of the state is derived from the sovereignty of citizens and human rights of the people. The citizens are expected to define the boundaries of the state and the state is expected define the boundaries of the market.

In the context of the ever increasing power of the transnational corporations and the free market missionaries, market increasingly reshapes the boundaries of the state and the state in turn restrict the boundaries of the citizens.

This process of corporitisation of the state, politics and media tend to undermine the very ethics and substantive value of democracy. Citizens and the Sate have become less powerful than the big transnational corporations. Citizens are being increasing defined as consumers and the primacy of the nation state is increasing replaced by the power of the market, driven by finance capital market, powerful transnational corporations, elite policy makers and powerful media empires.

Transnational corporations have become powerful to make and unmake governments, laws and public policies. They are playing a key role in making and selling arms, perpetuating inequality, facilitating corruption, militarization and conflict. The root cause of instability and conflict in many regions and countries of the world is the aggressive quest to capture oil, natural resources and market of many countries.

Most of such transnational corporations, supported by the power governments in the North, neither show as sense of ethical, environmental or social responsibility to the people or communities nor make any substantive contribution to the long term development of the countries where they work.


One of the hallmarks of the last one hundred years of history is the unprecedented growth and influence of the transnational corporations. Transnational corporations, ever hungry for new markets, have become the key drivers of economic globalization and shaping up the agenda of the neo-liberal free market economic paradigm. While these powerful corporations, in search for profit and power, play an alarming role in shaping the economic and trade policies of most of the countries in the developing world, there is hardly any sense of corporate accountability to people, consumers or even shareholders. Such lack of corporate accountability, coupled with the immense money and power of advertising, have reached alarming dimension in terms of undermining the human rights of the people and economic sovereignty of many poor countries. The gross domestic product of most of the poor countries is less than the income of many powerful transnational corporations.

While neo-liberal orthodoxy stress on the economic growth, it also created an unprecedented growth of inequality in most of the countries in the world. The growth of transnational corporations and their subsequent strategy to create market across the world shape not only the taste of billions of people and but also create new ‘brand desires”. This has created a culture of consumerism, based on ‘credit’. The consumerist culture, perpetuated by corporate driven media and the advertising industry created a false sense of economic development and opportunities.

While a very miniscule minority of urban, articulate, upper cast and upper class derived better economic opportunities and enhanced their consumerist capacity, a vast majority of small traders, self employed, poor and excluded people lost their ability to bargain in the market and their purchasing power. Such unequal distribution of wealth, along with the new consumerist culture and growing sense of inequality and injustice are at the roots of increasing social and political conflicts in many of the countries, including India.

The unbridled thirst for market and profit at the cost of people, communities and environment pose a serious threat to social stability of many poor countries. This is because of the fact that the ruling elite and the urban middle class get a better deal and the urban poor, excluded and millions of people in rural deprivation get a bad deal.

Many mining companies in search minerals and profits displaced millions of poor, marginalized and indigenous people from the livelihood and lives. The story of deprivation, displacement and alienation is more or less same in Asia, Africa and Latin America. Such a situation of unequal and unjust power relations perpetuate poverty, inequality, social disintegration and resultant alienation. The increasing trend of privatizing basic services like water, health and education further deny the social, economic and cultural rights of people.

However, there is a new myth about “India Rising” or “India Shining”. Such myths are created by the new axis of economic policy makers, media empires and a political class, who are direct or indirect beneficiaries of the powerful transnational corporations. Using the support of such powerful axis, in many countries Transnational Corporations undermine the law of the land, economic sovereignty of a country and facilitate corruption at high places.


Though companies like the Union Carbide, responsible for the death of thousands of people during the Bhopal gas tragedy and Enron Corporation, which ended up cheating its own shareholders show the underbelly of the transnational corporations, still there is hardly an effort to seek or demand corporate accountability or a transparent governance of such huge corporations.

As most of the big Transnational Corporations are based in and driven in the powerful and rich countries in the North, there is an increasing pressure by the rich countries, international financial institutions and the strategic use of trade rules to force the countries to rip open their economies and policy frame work. In many ways, one can see the politics of extractive economic and trade relationship, perpetuating the legacies of the English East India Company and other colonial legacies.

Thousands of farmers who committed suicide are in many ways victims of such unethical economic globalization. But they can also be considered as “martyrs” expressing their protest against an unjust and exploitative condition, by sacrificing their lives. This aspect of martyrdom is most eloquently expressed by the Korean Farmer who decided to commit suicide in front of the whole world, during the farmers protest against World Trade Organisation, in Cancun, Mexico.

We do need responsible enterprises and companies to strengthen the productivity, employment opportunities, quality services and economic growth. However, this requires a robust regulatory framework, and accountable corporate governance and transparency of business.

Economic growth with out a sense of ethics, with out sense of fairness, will not be sustainable in the long run. Growth with inequality and unemployment is a sure recipe for political conflict based on identity, cast and class. Most of the people at the receiving end of powerful transnational corporations are poor and the excluded people, particularly women. The litmus test of the ethics of an economic growth is whether the economic growth improves the lives and livelihood of the poorest and marginalized people and communities. If such an economic growth, driven by the transnational corporations and consumerist culture, further alienate and exclude poor people, then such growth models are immoral and unethical.

We need to develop an informed perspective and social action to counter the onslaught by big and powerful corporations. Such an analysis will help us to launch a campaign for corporate accountability and responsible and transparent governance of such powerful corporations. There is a need for more accessible information to educate, enable and empower poor and marginalized people to claim their rights and assert their voice, so that they can challenge and change unjust and unequal power relationship. That is an important step towards creating a world without poverty and injustice where everyone can live with a sense of dignity.

Marching for Democracy

LEADER ARTICLE: The Monks Go Marching

29 Sep 2007, 0010 hrs IST , Times of India

John Samuel






YANGON: The city airport can be deceptive. It looks swanky, a brand new gateway to MYANMAR: the new-age airport in a forgotten country. Outside the departure hall another world unfolds — old Toyota cars, very old Ford trucks, and everything else that reminds one of the early fifties. While most of the people in Myanmar are at the receiving end of a society and economy stuck in the 1950s, a few hundred privileged fly every other day to Singapore for shopping, entertainment and to visit their children in elite schools. While the few rich, mostly relatives of the ruling mili-tary junta, drive imported SUVs, most Myanmarese struggle to make enough money to buy food. The New Light of Myanmar is the most 'popular' English newspaper in the country. It too looks like a relic from the 1950s. Everyone subscribes to the New Light because the scrap value of the paper has more worth than the news. The opening line of a recent editorial said a lot about the situation in Myanmar: "Now the nation is in the process of transition to democracy with flourishing discipline..." In the same newspaper, the lead story on September 11 this year was that of General Than Shew felicitating Kim Jong Il of North Korea. The editorial asks every citizen to respect the law and uphold the good habits of a citizen, and live within the framework of community, social and national discipline. A crude piece of propaganda journalism, the New Light exhorts the people to "crush the internal and external destructive elements as the common enemy". The marching monks of Mandalay seem to have violated the "people's desire" and the government is in the business of crushing the "destructive elements". The marching monks of Mandalay signify a new milestone in the history of the struggle for freedom in Myanmar. A new generation of youngsters, who have discovered cyberspace, is getting restless. Government monitors cyber cafes and many websites are blocked. But cyber cafes are full of young people, subverting government controls, learning about and linking with a world outside. There is a sense of suppressed anger among most of them, beneath their courteous smiles. "I no longer have a dream. I want to somehow get out of this place", says a young tourist guide who offered his services for $3 for three hours. He has completed an MBA, speaks impeccable English with a tinge of British accent and earns $80 in a month. His family of three survives on his income. He also has three blogs under three different names. He explains that Buddhism is supposed to be peaceful. "But our patience is running out", he says. He is the representative of a new generation. He does not belong to the older democracy movement; he also does not think that anything will change because of Aung San Suu Kyi or the other politicians. I met a group of young women who exuded a sense of confidence and a resolve that situation will change. None of them seem to be organised by any one leader or party. There is indeed a subterranean current of discontent and seething anger in Yangon, Mandalay and other smaller towns. The present wave of protest is in many ways qualitatively different from the earlier demo-cracy movement. In spite of the heavy censorship, there is a wide and informal network of communication through the Internet, temples and, of course, the monks. Young people seem to be angry about the fact that economic opportunities are denied to them. While Suu Kyi is the most visible symbol of democracy in Myanmar, within the country most young people are disappointed with the old democracy activists as well as with government. A young journalist says, "We need to go beyond these two outdated forces of conformist and useless political parties and that of the oppressive government". The brand new capital at Nei Pi Taw near Yangon, being built at a cost of $4 billion, is out of bounds for common people. A taxi driver tells me that no one can go in or come out without a permit. "The new capital is swanky. They use Chinese money to construct airports and houses by selling our forests and gas to them", he says angrily. He too has a blog. A senior economist tells me at one of the many new restaurants, "We are heading for a crash. This economy cannot simply be maintained. We do not have any data. The market exchange rate for one dollar is 60 times more than the government exchange rate". And 90 per cent of the economy is informal. One of the Indian streets in Yangon is full of people selling and buying dollars. At a dinner invitation, an academic who spent 11 years in jail says, "A political tsunami is on the way. It could destroy the edifice of the generals, shake its foundations and eventually it will fall down". He believes China is more interested in Myanmar's market, forests and gas and not in its people. He adds that India is not bothered about freedom or democracy in Myanmar though the two countries have more than two thousand years of cultural and economic ties. Everyone is waiting for change. But it won't come easily.

The writer is a political commentator.

The Tyranny of Empty Bellies

The tyranny of empty bellies


Fifty thousand people die every day of poverty-related causes in this world of plenty. Eight hundred million go to bed hungry. What are we doing about it, asked John Samuel in his keynote address at the World Social Forum 2005

I stand here with a deep sense of agony and anger. Because I bear bad news; news that will make you angry. Imagine someone very close to you is dead; it could have been your little child who was playing in the field, it could have been your beloved partner, mother or father. Imagine that I had to convey the news of his or her death and also tell you that he/she actually died of unnatural causes.

Even before I finish the next sentence, hundreds of people, who could have been your brothers or sisters or girl-friend or children, are dead. They are forced to die. Right now 50,000 such funerals are happening across the world. One million people must be standing in graveyards attending the funerals of their loved ones as I speak. All of them will share my agony and anger.

Yes, 50,000 people die every single day due to poverty or poverty-related causes in this world of plenty. The blood of our brothers and sisters are screaming from the earth- screaming for justice, peace and rights in this world. Their bones in the dirty graveyards tell thousands of tales of deprivation and deceit; stories of broken promises, stories of charred dreams, and stories of empty stomachs.

Let’s face it! There are at least 1 billion people who have such stories to tell you and me. They are in our own neighborhoods. Do you care? Even by conservative estimates, 800 million people go to bed hungry. Would you allow this to happen if they were your own children? Yes, 30,000 children die every single day before they reach the age of five -- just because they do not have enough food or medicine. Every 3.6 seconds another person dies of starvation. They are made to die. Is it the kind of world we want to pass on to our children and grandchildren?


At the same time the world spends $ 1 trillion a year to make bombs and guns and to prepare for war. This is obscene. This is criminal, and this is sin. Is this the kind of world we want to live in?
I come from India. I came here from the midst of the tsunami. I do not have words to describe it. I can still feel the stench of death and destruction that I have seen in different countries of Asia. People across the world showed solidarity by extending all the support they could. Can we show such solidarity to the millions dying in Africa, Asia and Latin America?

Nature has an ironic way of dealing with people. In this tsunami, the rich from rich countries holidaying in the five-star resorts of Thailand and the fisherfolk of Sri Lanka died. Nature did not discriminate on the basis of caste or class or gender. We do.

But a man-made – and I mean man-made, not woman-made -- tsunami is happening every single day in this world: women are raped, children are killed, and 6,000 people are allowed to die every day of HIV/AIDS. Poverty has colour, gender and smell: the smell of tears and blood. They are broken people -- dalits, women, Africans… How can we afford to keep quiet? The media is too busy to notice such tsunamis in Congo or Rwanda or in Sub-Saharan countries. The world’s most powerful countries are in the business of making, selling and dropping bombs and parachuting ‘freedom’ -- wholesale and retail. When poverty is exported wholesale from the ports of rich countries to Africa, Asia and Latin America, what are we supposed to do? Watch CNN and have our dinner and go to sleep?

The Global Call to Action Against Poverty is a wake-up call; a wake-up call to people like you and me. Awake from your slumber and act: act for justice, peace and rights. It is also a wake-up call to the presidents and prime ministers to tell them they are sleeping on their jobs. The Global Call to Action Against Poverty is one of the largest coalitions of organisations working across the world; from the grassroots and community-based organisations to international trade unions , hundreds of human rights and development organizations and global networks. Global Call to Action Against Poverty has emerged through various campaigns like the Make Poverty History campaign in the UK, Global Campaign on Education, Trade Justice Movement, and from the experience of the Jubilee campaign against unjust debt. Around 100 people involved in these campaigns met in Johannesburg in September 2004 to build a global platform for joint action, the Global Call to Action Against Poverty. Hundreds of participating organisations and key campaigns across the world have agreed to work together on four key issues:

1. Trade justice: Rich nations must stop dumping and stop the unjust agricultural subsidies that deprive millions of people in poor countries of their lives and livelihood. The unjust trade regime of WTO and unequal trade rules pushed onto countries in Africa, Latin America and Asia must be stopped.
2. Debt cancellation. Every day poor countries are paying rich countries and their cronies like the IMF and World Bank more than 100 million US dollars. This must be stopped: cancel the unjust debt immediately.
3. A major increase in the quality and quantity of aid, without unjust conditional ties: The agreed upon 7% of GNP for development by the rich countries.
4. National and international efforts to eliminate poverty from the face of the earth and to achieve the Millennium Declaration and Development Goals in a democratic and accountable way. Stop the enforced liberalisation and privatisation of public services like water, health and education.

There will be peoples’ action from New Delhi to New York, Lanka to London, Brazil to Belgium and Mombassa to Melbourne, in hundreds of thousands of villages and cities across the world. Every single person anywhere in the world can join this movement by a single act -- by wearing a white band. By wearing the white band you are in solidarity with a global movement to fight poverty. By wearing a white band you are committed to questioning injustice; by wearing a white band you are saying that you would like to make a difference and that you support this global movement. The white band is a symbol of solidarity, justice and peace.

Together we can move mountains: mountains of poverty and deprivation, mountains of debt, mountains of dumped materials in our ports. Mountains of injustice and inequity that stand in the way of freedom: freedom from fear and freedom from want!

In 2005, you and I will have major opportunities to tell the world that we do care, and we will ask uncomfortable questions. We will ask how come 1 trillion dollars are spent every year to make bombs and to prepare for war and yet you do not have a few billions to eliminate poverty? The rich countries and the big, fat and unaccountable MNCs, the undemocratic and unaccountable institutions like the IMF and World Bank must change! The policymakers in Washington and Brussels seem to be keener to eliminate poor people than to eliminate poverty. This cheating cannot go on. We stand in the dirty graveyard of broken promises, promises made without blinking at summits at Rio, Vienna, Beijing.... So when 189 heads of state met at the dawn of this millennium in September 2000 to adopt the Millennium Declaration and then the United Nations came out with eight clear Millennium Development Goals, the poor and marginalised were not excited, because of the unbeatable track record of governments in breaking promises.

Actually, the Millennium Development Goals may not be the best; may not be good enough; may not be the magic bullets that would erase injustice and inequality. However, at a time when poverty is pushed under the carpet, at a time when the security of the rich and powerful dominates the scene and a seat in the Security Council becomes the preoccupation of many countries, even the MDGs acquire unprecedented significance. Because there is nothing else on poverty and rights in the international policy priorities. In the context of rising neo-conservatism and unilateralism, the war on terror has taken the front seat and poverty is conveniently put on the backburner! We need to ensure that these promises are not broken; we need to ensure that women’s rights are part and parcel of any development agenda.

In 2005, there will be three milestones that will impact the issue of poverty in the world: the G8 meeting on July 5 in UK, the Millennium+5 summit of the UN in September and the WTO ministerial from December 13-18 in Hong Kong. Millions of people across the world will be wearing white bands to express solidarity and join the movement for justice in July, September and during the WTO ministerial in December. There will be concerted efforts across the world in 2005.

Poverty is not a historical accident. Poverty is created every day by unequal and unjust power relations between and within countries and societies. Poverty is created by the cynical few or the rich and powerful countries which are in the business of extracting resources and exploiting natural resources in the poorer countries of the world.

We still dare to dream: of a world without poverty where every person can live with freedom and dignity. But we have to make the world move in that direction. Because policymakers cannot sit in an ivory tower forever; they will have to come to the street; they have to listen to the millions. Wake up friends! Join the movement and make a difference.

As Martin Luther King said, injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. The biggest terror in the world is the tyranny of an empty stomach. How can we even think of the security of the few when 800 millions of people live with the tyranny of empty stomachs?

Liberty is not the prerogative of the few. Equality is not something that will come through television channels and empty promises. Bombs cannot bring freedom and democracy whether in Iraq or elsewhere.

And we will not keep quiet till the last person on the face of the earth can realise his or her sense of freedom: freedom from fear and freedom from want.

We will not allow this injustice to go on. If we keep quit we will be part of the criminal culture of silence in the massacre of thousands every day. We demand accountability, we demand justice, and we will assert these rights.

On behalf of this emerging global movement I call upon each and every one of you and all organisations to join the movement to end poverty now. Let us Make Change Happen.

(The Global Call to Action Against Poverty was launched on January 27, 2005 during the World Social Forum in Porto Alegre. This is the transcript of the speech delivered by John Samuel, one of the founding members of the Global Call to Action Against Poverty, International Director of ActionAid International, and editor of this website, InfoChange News & Features. President Luís Inácio Lula da Silva of Brazil and more than ten cabinet ministers of Brazil attended the launch.)

The Sensex of Alienation

Analysis

The sensex of alienation

Two of the suspects from the terror attack on Glasgow airport are highly-educated youth from globalising, booming Bangalore. Why are young people like them increasingly drawn to destruction and not creation? Why does culture no longer give us a sense of community? Why does it fail to counter alienation, discontent and discrimination?

By John Samuel


“Dying is an art, I do it exceptionally well” wrote Sylvia Plath. How do people discover a new aesthetic of the self by erasing the self? Why do young people with gushing blood and bright eyes literally blow themselves up in fire and fury? There must be something deeply intimate about these acts of violence to oneself and others. There must be some unspeakable sense of agony and anger -- beyond the conventional modes of communication or language. When some young people feel that life has failed to make any statements or life itself becomes an unbearable burden, do they choose death as a communicative act? Does death become their medium of communication, not life or language? Is it an act of protest or an act of self-realisation, of self-denial or sheer helplessness? Or is it a mix of all these?

Is dying an ‘art’ or a deeply political statement, is it an act of courage or cowardice? Why is it that some young people choose a gun or bomb, instead of writing a poem or falling in love? When people express deeply personal grief, hurt, alienation or anger in terms of dying and killing for a cause, what do you call them -- revolutionaries, martyrs or terrorists? Do people kill and die for a dream because they cannot sing their dreams?

These questions stare us in the face, they challenge us about our validity as human beings. These are questions without straight and simple answers -- stark reminders of the tragedy of our times. Everyday in the inside pages of newspapers, we read about one suicide bomber or other in the killing fields of Iraq or somewhere else. The easiest thing is to dismiss them, label them ‘terrorists’ and legislate them out of our lives and concerns. Easier still is to paint them as dangerous people to be captured, tortured and eliminated at any cost. The more difficult thing is to discover the deep psychology, sociology, economics and politics that manufacture alienation and blazing angers. A metal detector can recognise neither anger nor alienation. Prisons cannot contain discontents. Armies cannot lock up an idea or a cause. Missiles or submarines cannot fight a war within the self, a war deep inside our minds, a war of identities, personal histories and collective memories of discontent and discrimination. How have we reached this predicament, in spite of unprecedented economic growth in many parts of the world and in spite of the breathtaking progress of science and technology?

Every suicide bomber signifies the new sensex of alienation. ‘Sensex’ is not only the barometer of finance capital markets; it has become the barometer of war and peace, politics and protest, prosperity and survival in the ever-growing marketplace. The ongoing economic and technological growth is accompanied by a sense of inequality, a perceived sense of discrimination and injustice, and resultant alienation. If the sensex of growth is the thesis, then the sensex of alienation is the counter-thesis. Two of the suspects from the terror attack at the recent Glasgow airport are from Bangalore -- symbol of the sensex of growth. It seems the world is flat for both kinds of sensex – they’re both about virtual realities, imagined communities, and constructed causes.

While Thomas Friedman discovered the flat world in globalised Infosys in Bangalore, Kafeel Ahmed, who could have been a top technocrat in the flat world, chose to give an entirely different meaning to the flat world -- by recklessly driving into destruction in another corner of the world. The suicide attack on Glasgow airport and the charges against a few highly educated professionals are a new landmark in the sensex of alienation. It is no longer the uneducated or half-literate, different-looking ‘other’ in the wastelands of wartorn Afghanistan or Iraq who is willing to send a message out with his death. Unless we address the causes and consequences of growing discontent and alienation, we will not be able to address the growing tendency of people to kill themselves and others for a perceived cause, dream or promised life after death. There is a deeper problem -- in the way we learn history, in the way we use language and symbols and in the way the notion of the ‘other’ is constructed as a suspect or an enemy.

What makes human beings distinct is our ability to create and communicate. When a deeper sense of cultural, social, economic and political alienation happens, our ability to communicate, convince and create is affected. When we cannot be creative, the unbridled energy of anger that comes from deep alienation is transformed into the power of destruction. All of human history can be seen as a constant tension between these two eternal ‘power plays’ within our mind -- the power to create and the power to destroy. The entire history of human civilisation can be seen as the power to communicate the creative or destructive urges of people, communities and countries. Our major predicament is that we and our children largely learn history through war and the heroic acts of destruction, not through the poetic action of creation. So we know more about the Mughal emperor Aurangzeb -- the man of war -- and less about Dara Shikoh -- who bridged people and civilisations through poetry and translation. Most monuments of great civilisations are built on the destruction of the ‘other’ or victory over the ‘other’. It is the Alexanders, Genghis Khans, Napoleons and other great war heroes who stand out in our history books -- where the power to destruct and power through war were legitimate enterprises of history and civilisation. The heroes or heroines in our history books are not poets, visionaries or creators. We learn less about those who unite human beings through their creative urges.

This ‘heroism’ of destruction is in many ways at the core of the notion of ‘martyrdom’ – the urge to die for a cause (or a perceived cause) larger than life itself, the struggle to derive a sense of worth by using the power to destroy oneself and others. Such death requires the sanctity of a metanarrative. They become stepping stones to immortality and sainthood in a political group or religious institution. Both Catholicism and Communism thrived on it. The idea of the Crusade was built on this aspect of heroism for a larger cause -- for another world. Each religion came into being as a grand universal narrative for liberation and freedom and ended up as a ‘civilisation’ of symbols, rituals and dogmas, based on destruction, control and counter-narratives. In many ways what Marx said about religion -- religion is the opium of the people -- is true of all metanarratives promising freedom and joy. Metanarratives are often a mental escape from the agonies and predicaments of the present, and the perceived oppressions of the past and present. The bigger the metanarrative, and the bigger the promise of a heaven of freedom, the more we are likely to mortgage our ability to dream and imagine. That escapism from our imagination, dreams, creative sensibilities and poetic urges is what makes religion (as the mother of metanarratives) the opium of the people.

The dissolution or disillusionment with metanarratives is a postmodern predicament. In the absence of metanarrative, grand theory or big dreams about change, dispersed and disintegrated ideologies are expressed in the form of fragmented political processes. We no longer have big dreams beyond the urges to gratify desires constructed by the marketplace. The sensex has become the barometer of our own security and of the stability of nations. If the sensex of growth is on track, we tend to think we are secure. It is in this ultimate illusion of the Sensex of Growth that we tend to forget the counter-sensex -- the Sensex of Alienation. In the absence of metanarratives or grand promises of heaven, and in the presence of a growing sense of inequality, injustice, doubletalk and discrimination, young people no longer have a dream to dream, a cause to live for, a purpose larger than themselves, a sense of mission that captures the gush of blood from within.

When you do not have enough ideas around you, and when you feel you are pushed to the wall, what do you do? You fall into the trap of primary identity (religion, language or race) -- the easiest escape route. Through that primary identity you can construct a metanarrative for another world -- a world after death, a heaven awaiting – and thus find the perfect political opium to escape. Jihad and the universal pan-Islamic ideology is emerging as a powerful metanarrative for young Muslims who are alienated and angry. It is important to note that the pan-Islamic ideology is on the one hand a critique of new imperialism and on the other an assertion of a reactionary politics based on exclusion. Such a metanarrative uses the left critique of advanced capitalism to rationalise an entirely fundamentalist and patriarchal agenda based on a religious identity. The power of such a metanarrative gives a sense of purpose to people who are at the receiving end of alienation. When people fail to see a purpose in living, they discover the purpose in dying -- in search of another world, a world of peace, joy and reward.

When people lose trust in their own creativity, and when people lose trust in others, a sense of terror is born in the mind of the alienated. The terror within is often more torturous than the terror outside. In many ways killing themselves and others is an escape from alienation, an act of exorcising the demon of the defeated self and the bitterness and anger that accompanies that defeat. So suicide becomes an act of redeeming self-worth by destroying the self itself. When you fail to use the power of creativity, people end up using the power of destruction. When individuals do this, having no weapons other than their anger, we call it suicide. When countries do it, we call it war -- a ‘legitimate’ enterprise of history, civilisations and state!

When we cease to trust each other as human beings, a tragedy unfolds somewhere deep within. When we cease to trust, we lose a part of ourselves. When trust disappears from our lives and times, insecurity creeps into the innermost part of our being. Insecurity breeds fear and fear breeds insecurity. Fear and insecurity together create the ground for alienation. Alienation erodes trust. Alienation erodes hope. Alienation like a cancer kills creativity. Thus begins the cycle of human tragedy in the 21st century. One of the biggest human tragedies of the 21st century is the emergence of identity as a marker of alienation, fear, insecurity and mistrust.

This could happen to individuals, communities and societies. At every point of transit such as airports, we confront suspicious eyes, probing questions, sniffing dogs. This challenges our sense of dignity and identity. At every airport, we carry our name, colour, language and appearance like heavy baggage to be scanned to ensure the veracity of our being; we are reminded that our own identities are heavy baggage under constant scrutiny of hidden cameras, security agents, media and other peeping toms.

We tend to get so alienated that we need Harry Potters and new fantasies in the marketplace to escape the growing insecurity within and around ourselves. This explains the unprecedented sales of Harry Potter books and the revival of new spiritual and religious movements across the world. The more we feel secure economically, the more insecure we become from within.

In the good old days, the more you traveled the more tolerant and liberal you were supposed to become. But now the situation is being reversed: the more you travel the more you are reminded of your identity and how alien you are in a new place. It seems the more we get connected the less we trust each other because our identities and sensibilities are increasingly shaped by the globalisation of stereotypes and images.

The present predicament of increasing mistrust, alienation and anger can only be addressed through long-term political, economic and cultural processes. How can we ensure that the young people of tomorrow choose to write poems, fall in love, discover new things, and celebrate their creative urges, instead of falling victim to the destructive urge? We need a whole new understanding to counter stereotypes based on identity, religion and race. We may have to invest in a new generation to get out of this cycle of terror, counterterror, violence and counterviolence across the world. We need to build new bridges and pull down the walls created around monolithic notions of culture and civilisation. Culture should give us a sense of belonging to humanity -- a means of redeeming our sense of trust, creativity and human community. We need to create a new history of creativity, a new aesthetic of being to counter alienation, discontent and discrimination.

InfoChange News & Features, July 2007