Saturday, December 10, 2011

Human Rights in the Indian Context

By John Samuel

As important as civil and political rights in the Indian context are the rights of the marginalised -- women, tribals, Dalits or lower-castes, and the poor whose survival depends on access to natural resources. It is the rights of the marginalised and of the minorities in the country today that are in peril. The challenge is to empower the poor and marginalised to demand their rights and participate in the public sphere



The Constitution of India is one of the most rights-based constitutions in the world. Drafted around the same time as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948), the Indian Constitution captures the essence of human rights in its Preamble, and the sections on Fundamental Rights and the Directive Principles of State Policy.

The Constitution of India is based on the principles that guided India's struggle against a colonial regime that consistently violated the civil, political, social, economic and cultural rights of the people of India. The freedom struggle itself was informed by the many movements for social reform, against oppressive social practices like sati (the practice of the wife following her dead husband onto the funeral pyre), child marriage, untouchability etc. Thus by the mid-1920s, the Indian National Congress had already adopted most of the civil and political rights in its agenda. The movement led by Dr B R Ambedkar (one of the founding fathers of the Constitution) against discrimination against the Dalits (the erstwhile outcasts or so-called untouchables who formed the lowest strata of the caste hierarchy and who currently number more than 170 million or 16.5% of the total population of India) also had an impact on the Indian Constitution.

In spite of the fact that most of the human rights found clear expression in the Constitution of India, the independent Indian State carried forward many colonial tendencies and power structures, including those embedded in the elite Indian Civil Service. Though the Indian State under Jawaharlal Nehru took many proactive steps and followed a welfare state model, the police and bureaucracy remained largely colonial in their approach and sought to exert control and power over citizens. The casteist, feudal and communal characteristics of the Indian polity, coupled with a colonial bureaucracy, weighed against and dampened the spirit of freedom, rights and affirmative action enshrined in the Constitution.

In the first 15 years of the Indian republic, such inherent contradictions within the Indian polity were glossed over by the euphoria of 'nation-building', an agenda generally endorsed by political parties, the middle class and elite civil society. However, when the contradictions within the Indian polity and State came into the open in the late-'60s, the oppressive character of the State began to be challenged by student movements and ultra-left formations like the Naxalite movement. When the Indian State began to suppress such expressions of political dissent and mini-rebellions, the violation of human rights by the State began to command attention.

Over a period of 30 years, the articulation and assertion of human rights within civil society has grown into a much richer, more diverse and relatively more powerful discourse at multiple levels. A brief historical sketch of the different trajectories of human rights discourse will help us locate human rights in the historical context.

There are four specific trajectories of human rights discourse in the Indian context -- Civil and Political Rights, Rights of the Marginalised (such as women, dalits and adivasis), Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, and the Right to Transparent and Accountable Governance. Though each of these trajectories is interconnected, they were promoted by different sets of actors (often with varying ideological affiliations) at different points in time. There has always been tension and lack of mutual appreciation between those who promoted civil liberties and the left-oriented groups who worked towards the structural transformation of socio-economic conditions and consequently of the State. As the concept of human rights was perceived as a western idea to gloss over inequalities and as a means of legitimising the capitalist and imperialist projects of the west (particularly the US) the left-oriented groups were clearly sceptical about human rights, particularly as expressed by the civil liberties groups. Though in some quarters such scepticism still exits, there has been a greater recognition of the need to promote and protect human rights, in spite of the misuse of the human rights discourse by the new imperialist forces.

Civil and political rights

The growing disenchantment with the Indian State that was expressed in various movements and political formations in the late-'60s and early-'70s was not tolerated by Indira Gandhi's regime. It is in this context that the movement for civil liberties led by liberal middle class intellectuals and activists became relevant. Organisations like the People's Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL) played a significant role in initiating and promoting a new discourse on civil liberties. However, many of the mainstream left parties, influenced by the socialist pretensions of Mrs Gandhi's regime, viewed the middle class movement for civil liberties as the agenda of the bourgeoisie and mistrusted the liberal voices of human rights groups as part of the American agenda. As many liberal institutions that promoted civil and political rights received funding from international agencies, the pro-establishment conservative groups as well as the leftist groups began to mistrust any organisation that received foreign funds.

The insecurity of Mrs Gandhi's regime resulted in the suppression of all dissent and the ultimate suspension of most Civil and Political Rights during the Emergency (1975-77). Almost all political opponents and activists were imprisoned and democratic rights suspended. The forced eviction of slumdwellers in Delhi and forced mass sterilisations created a sense of fear and insecurity among the people. It was during the Emergency, when every civil and political right was violated by the State, that the need to promote and fight for human rights was accepted across political classes. The civil liberties movement highlighted and challenged arbitrary detention, custodial violence and police atrocities.

In the last 20 years, the movement for civil and political rights has become much more coherent and widespread. It has grown beyond a set of urban middle class liberal intellectuals to a wide and diverse socio-political base. With the increase of insurgencies in the 1980s and the consequent State suppression of separatist movements in different parts of the country, various kinds of human rights organisations -- some genuine and some fronts for underground groups -- began to appear. The massacre of the Sikh community following the assassination of Mrs Gandhi in 1984 raised serious questions about the role of the State in protecting the fundamental rights of citizens.

The rise of right-wing Hindu 'nationalist' forces, the biased stand of the State machinery, and the consequent communal violence all over the country in the last 15 years have given rise to a different set of actors who stress on the civil and political rights of the minorities. The complicity of the State in abetting and supporting the planned violence against the Muslim community in Gujarat in 2002, where more than 1,500 people were killed and hundreds of homes and shops destroyed and looted, brought out the contradictions inherent in the Indian polity and State. But the rise of fanatical and right-wing forces and their anti-human rights postures have, in a way, helped to bring together human rights activists across the political spectrum, including leftist groups and minority rights groups.

Public Interest Litigation and the judicial activism of the Supreme Court initiated by Justices V R Krishna Iyer and P N Bhagwati has played a major role in expanding the scope of human rights and giving it a much-needed legitimacy through some very important verdicts (on prisoners' rights, rights of landless labourers, release of bonded labourers, etc). Justice Krishna Iyer, the law minister of the first elected communist government in Kerala in 1956, was instrumental in building a new discourse that brought together the left-oriented groups and the civil liberties groups as part of the larger human rights community in India. Most of his judgements reiterated the obligation of the State to protect rights and equally, the participation of people in securing their rights and giving them meaning. The establishment of the National Commission of Human Rights under the Human Rights Act of 1993 provided a new impetus to civil and political rights in India.

Rights of the marginalised

While civil and political rights focused largely on the rights of the individual, in the mid-'70s a new human rights discourse, based on group rights, collective rights and people's rights, began to be articulated within the framework of social and political empowerment.

The emergence of the women's movement in the 1970s gave a new dimension to the rights discourse in India. In 1974, the Committee on the Status of Women in India submitted a report that highlighted the marginalisation of women in every sphere of life. The emergence of a number of women's groups such as Self Employed Women's Association (SEWA), Manushi, Joint Women's Forum etc raised a new consciousness and public debate on the issue of women's status, domestic violence, dowry, rape, custodial violence, trafficking and the invisible labour of women in the household. The women's movement not only critiqued the Indian patriarchy, casteism and feudalism, it also promoted a new awareness of women's rights. Though it began as a largely urban movement, over a period of 30 years, the women's movement has emerged as one of the most articulate and widespread movements in India, with new campaigns for women's political participation and rights. It is partly because of the pressure from the women's movement that the 73rd and 74th Constitutional Amendments to introduce local self-government provided 33% reservation for women in local self-government institutions. The women's movement has played a key role in ensuring the participation of women in the electoral process and governance.

In the post-Emergency period a number of political and social activists and public-spirited professionals opted out of party/electoral politics and focussed on the micro-level process of social mobilisation amongst marginalised communities. These social action groups working at the micro level began to highlight the historic and structural marginalisation of the Dalits (the so-called outcasts), Adivasis (more than 80 million tribal people who form around 8.3% of the Indian population) and landless labourers. The empowerment of the marginalised has been the key mission of such social action groups. However, when it came to the demand for entitlement for these communities, most of these groups began to use the rights language, particularly because of the constitutional guarantees. As many of these groups were sceptical of mainstream human rights discourse, they have used the term 'People's Rights' to emphasise the collective characteristics of rights and to focus on the political aspect of their rights.

Thus from the mid-'80s there has been a consistent effort to define and re-articulate Dalit rights, the rights of Adivasis, people's rights over natural resources, etc. This became more pronounced following the large-scale displacement caused by large dams, development projects, forestry projects, mining companies, etc. Most of the displaced people were Adivasis and Dalits. The Narmada Bachao Andolan (Save Narmada Movement), the Fishworkers Struggle and the Dalit Human Rights campaigns brought the issue of people's rights and rights of the marginalised communities into the mainstream political discourse of India. This trajectory of human rights discourse combined an integrated vision of human rights based on social justice, affirmative action, people's participation and economic justice. The adverse effects of neo-liberal globalisation helped to develop a pan-Indian discourse on people's rights and also helped to connect with similar movements in the global south.

Economic, social and cultural rights

The explicit focus on Economic, Social and Cultural (ESC) Rights is relatively new compared to civil and political rights and group rights. The emergence of ESC rights in the mainstream development agenda is in consonance with the emergence of more institutionalised and funded initiatives for poverty eradication and social development. In the initial years, many such initiatives and institutions (commonly termed non-government organisations or NGOs) began with a welfarist approach, trying to supplement or substitute the welfare State. However, over a period of time there has been a widespread realisation of the limitations of micro-level development intervention and poverty eradication programmes that do not question the politics and policy frameworks that perpetuate deprivation. Most of the welfare/development NGOs, with foreign funding support, became either subcontractors of the dominant development models or well-meaning do-gooders who addressed the symptoms of poverty and not the socio-political conditions and structural inequalities that perpetuate poverty. It is in this context that the need to bridge the micro-level action and macro-level political and policy arenas became relevant. As a result, a number of grassroots action groups and mass movements working with women, Dalits, Adivasis and the landless poor began to draw from the fundamental rights and directive principles of the Indian Constitution to pressurise and persuade the State to meet its obligation to fulfil ESC rights.

An activist judiciary has also served to expand the scope of fundamental rights to incorporate economic and social rights as well. Progressive and creative judicial intervention expanded the scope of Article 21 of the Indian Constitution which guarantees the Right to Life. Justice Krishna Iyer and other activist judges, through a series of very significant judgements, drew extensively from human rights law, to conclude that the right to life means the right to live with dignity, and that the right to live with dignity includes the right to livelihood, right to education and right to health.

These progressive judicial pronouncements were in many ways a response to the social action groups and movements that sought judicial intervention to persuade and pressurise the government to protect and fulfil the rights of the most marginalised. Thus the emergence of ESC rights is the result of advocacy efforts by grassroots action groups and NGOs in India.

The series of World Summits, starting with the Vienna Summit on Human Rights in 1993, helped to bring ESC rights onto the agenda of many international development organisations. This in turn also resulted in many of the specialised groups taking up campaigns to promote specific rights. This includes the campaign for the fundamental right to education, which resulted in the 86th amendment to the Constitution, guaranteeing the fundamental right to education. There have been similar campaigns for the rights of self-employed women and unorganised workers, the right to universal healthcare and a number of other campaigns focussing on economic and social rights.

The emergence of the environmental and consumer movements in the1980s paved the way for a series of new legislations and policy interventions to protect the rights of consumers and people. The resurgence of the Adivasi (tribal) movement and the increased marginalisation of the minority communities by the right-wing Hindu nationalist government has brought cultural rights into public debate and policy discourse.

While the 1970s can be termed the decade of the emergence of the civil liberties movement, the 1980s witnessed the emergence of group rights and people's rights over resources and livelihoods. It is in the 1990s that ESC rights came centrestage. Various factors including rights-based reorientation by international development agencies and organisations, political compulsions on the ground and the increased visibility of the rights discourse provided the right conditions for advocating ESC rights.

However, it is ESC rights that are most elusive. This is because the rhetoric of economic and social rights is not necessarily reflected in policies, programmes and budgetary allocations. As a result, the State pretends to promote economic and social rights, while systematically undermining these rights following the dictums of the IMF, World Bank and WTO. This situation leads to a growing sense of disillusionment and cynicism about the so-called rights-based approach. As a result the political content and policy feasibility of the rights-based approach is increasingly questioned, particularly because it is more often used as a development strategy than a means for political empowerment of the people and policy transformation.


Right to transparent and accountable governance

The great expectations of India's welfare State began to recede after 20 years of hope and optimism. Over a period of time, the welfare State became too fat to be functional. The saturated State failed to either deliver welfare or protect and fulfil rights. The government apparatus and the government itself faced a credibility crisis. Political parties as the legitimising vehicle of parliamentary democracy suffered a lack of credibility due to the criminalisation of politics. The proliferation of career politicians and increasing instances of corruption in all aspects of governance brought the issues of accountability and transparency into the development discourse. The saturation of the State, coupled with the debt crisis, forced the government to seek financial and policy assistance from the Brettonwood institutions to make the failed welfare State work. However, the accompanying neo-liberal policy prescriptions of these institutions in the form of structural adjustments, privatisation and liberalisation further alienated the poor from the Indian State. That is how two clear tendencies in governance became clear by the mid-'90s.

The first set of actors, led by the World Bank, advocated 'good governance' to address resource leakage, misappropriation and mismanagement of the loans taken from the Bank and to ensure that there would be relatively less risk in credit management and repayment. This was more for strategic reasons than any commitment to the democratic principles of public accountability and transparency. The second set of proponents of transparent governance have been grassroots action groups (like the Mazdoor Kisaan Shakti Sangathan in Rajasthan) and advocacy organisations who sought government accountability as part of the citizen's right to know and the right to participate in governance.

The Jan Sunwais (public hearings) and social audits initiated by MKSS in Rajasthan are a well-known example of a process of mobilisation that combines a rights-based approach with people's participation. The people's planning process in local self-governance in Kerala promoted by the Kerala Shastra Sahitya Parishad (KSSP) is another example of participatory practices with a rights-based perspective. The Community Learning Movement for accountable governance, promoted by the National Centre for Advocacy Studies (NCAS), is an example of a rights-based praxis, based on the principles and practice of participation. Thus the new movements and institutions are working to advance the right to accountable governance and ensure that the peoples' right to participate in governance and development are the basic premises for people-centred governance and development.

In spite of the relatively greater visibility and legitimacy of the human rights discourse, the meaning and utility of rights is still a highly contested arena. Though India has ratified five of the six covenants (ICCPR, ICESCR, CEDAW, ICCRC, and CERD) and conventions that constitute the legally-binding international human rights treaties, the implementation of these rights is rather poor. Although the new policy papers and the documents of the Planning Commission of India increasingly use the rights language, in terms of real programmes and implementation the performance of the Government of India is far from satisfactory.

(For detailed information on the right to information and the campaign in India, click here)


Making human rights work: Linking rights with participation


If human rights are to have real meaning, they must be linked to public participation. And participation must be preceded by empowerment of the people. A sense of empowerment requires a sense of dignity, self-worth and the ability to ask questions. The sense of empowerment along with a sense of legal entitlements and constitutional guarantees gives rise to a political consciousness based on rights. A process of political empowerment and a sense of rights empowers citizens to participate in the public sphere.

Most mass movements in modern India (the All India Democratic Women's Association, Ragpickers Union etc) have emphasised the process of empowerment while they also 'struggled' for rights. The notion of 'struggle' was implicit in claiming and promoting rights. Most social action groups and people's organisations started by challenging and changing oppressive power structures that perpetuate patriarchy, casteism and poverty. Thus at the core of many such organisations was political transformation through people's empowerment wherein people can assert their rights and voices and demand justice. The process of social and political empowerment encompassed a sense of conscientisation based on dignity, rights and participation. That is why the slogans of the Shramajeevi Sanghatana, the union of erstwhile bonded labourers and Adivasis (tribals) in Thane district of Maharashtra assert that "We are not animals, but human beings", "We are not here to beg, but to demand justice".

People-centred advocacy is a possible link between rights and participation. People-centred advocacy seeks to connect social development, human rights and governance. It is about creating enabling conditions for socio-political empowerment and enhancing the capability of the marginalised to advocate for themselves so that they can claim their rights, seek public accountability and participate in the process of governance. People-centred advocacy seeks to go beyond changing public policies to changing people's attitudes, behaviour and unjust power relationships.

The Community Learning Movement (CLM) promoted by the National Centre for Advocacy Studies (NCAS) is an effort to empower grassroots communities so that they can seek accountability from the institutions of governance, demand their rights and participate in the political process. CLM takes a cluster of 10-25 villages. Four volunteers from each village participate in an action-learning cycle of 18 months, in six phases of three months each. Once in three months, the volunteers meet for two to three days to share experiences, learn new topics and build strategic plans for addressing local issues. The Learning Space or Open Notice Board maintained by the CLM local unit provides information (policy, budget, local government etc) that affects the villagers and the volunteers update the Board regularly. As a result of these initiatives, the CLM group in Karnataka has come up with its own community newspaper and wall magazine. Ordinary women, who have developed a sense of their rights and responsibility, have sought accountability from local government officials and exposed corrupt forest officials involved in illegal tree-felling and smuggling of timber from the forest.

People-centred advocacy can be an effective way to link rights and participation. However, the challenge is how to transform this linkage into an emancipatory politics that would help the poor emerge from the structural inequalities that perpetuate poverty.

Human rights are legtimised claims and the State has an obligation to respect, protect and fulfil these rights. However, rights become real only when people begin to realise their full potential as human beings and assert their rights in the private and public sphere.
InfoChange News & Features

Thursday, December 8, 2011

Seasons

Living is a feel of seasons
Sensing sights, sun, smell,
flow, moon and snow!

Snow, Snow, Snow
A sheet of white
Showering on earth
Naked trees
Leaf-less woods
Birds flew off!
River is freezing.

The depth of winter
Touching the marrow
At minus 12!
Sun sulks at 10 am!
Days are short!
Snow yet to shine!

Time to fly!
To Gods of own Country
To embrace the joy of a sunlit morning
To feel the leaves of green grass
To dip the feet in to the warmth
Of a flowing spring
Wake up to the tune of a morning bird
Walk up to embrace the laughter of a
Little daughter!

Life revolves around seasons
In anticipation of
Sun, moon, snow, life
Leaves, flowers and people
Life is seasons.

Monday, December 5, 2011

Waiting in the Winter

Waiting in the winter
For the song of a bird
For a sun shine
For a smiling leaf
For the laughter
of kids on the playground
Smiles on the streets
For a warm hug!

Oslo- smiles
In summer
Sun never sleeps!
Sky bright-and blue.
Streets happy

Oslo Sulks
In winter
Sun ever sleeping
Everything cold
Everyone cold
Lonely streets
Moody sky
Covered bodies
Cold handshakes
Dark mornings

Waiting
For a velvet of snow
White Earth
White foot prints on the road
Waiting...
For the smile of the summer...
And flowers of the spring

Young Life!

Young Life-
A gift unfolding
Young
Is to create life
Is to celebrate living
To Imagine,
To inspire and illuminate

Being young
Is being in Love
Sing a song of living
Dancing with others
To hold hands
To hug
To make love
To feel poetry
To learn to live everyday
To sense the power within
To question
To challenge
Making change happen within
And beyond...
Learning to laugh
Lighting up the lamp
Within
Feeling life- every moment
In a billion moods and modes
Of colours, creed and flow
Living, loving and laughing

When dreams begin to unfold
Winds of change begin to blow
Making poetry flowering
Making...
Hopes real
Making world smile
Earth Green
Sky- the limit
Life-
the beauty revealed-.
Dignity discovered
Divinity realised
Refusing to die
Swimming forward
In the waves of the world
Winds of change
To the flow of history.

Saturday, December 3, 2011

The Dandi Diaspora

Cause and effect. Indian expertise in civil society problems gives them a global edge.
Sanjay Suri Text Size

http://www.outlookindia.com/article.aspx?240155

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Why Desis Lead In Civil Society Groups
•Indians have a better, first-hand experience of poverty. And also richer experience in combating it.
•Excellent at mobilising masses, in contrast to those in the west who are good only at lobbying.
•Indians groomed in the Gandhian tradition of working for the forgotten people and organising citizens for peaceful protests.
•India provides a democratic space for experimentation, in an environment not suppressive of innovative ideas. It helps produce well-trained leaders.
***

Of all those acronyms that crowd the communication space, there could hardly be another that sounds as dully inconsequential as 'NGO'. The yawn it inspires stretches right across 'civil society', defined as all those who organise themselves to pursue collective benefit. The persisting image of the 'civil society types' is badly dressed people who haven't showered for weeks just to make a political point, who live unwanted in a village somewhere except when they step into the city carrying posters to demand a better world, never mind how. Basically, the last reserve of someone with too much morality, or too little gumption, to be a proper scoundrel.

The trouble is that this no-proper-man's land is now beginning to matter worldwide in dramatic, even historic, ways. And Indians are right up there in leading that change, pushing governments and global giants like the World Bank into doing what they are convinced a lot of people want. These Indians are taking the street to meetings where decisions are taken over the lives of millions, even billions; and where necessary, in suit language.

It has the face of, say, Salil Shetty who heads the United Nations Millennium Campaign, whose job it is to hold governments to the promises made in 2000 to improve education and health, and reduce poverty. It's a campaign that could determine the quality of life of a couple of billion people, not forgetting that a few hundred million of them are in India. Shetty took up the position after taking over as the first non-Brit head of ActionAid, a charity with a once very British stamp.

It wasn't the expected way to go for someone who joined an MBA programme at the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad. "I went into the MBA programme kicking and screaming and pretty much stayed that way for the two years when I was there, asking why we need to study how to make rich people richer," Shetty told Outlook. And when after the MBA he also cleared the IPS exam, and then decided to join an NGO, "my friends thought I had gone bananas". Instead, he's gone places, in this un-smartest of callings.


Ashok Khosla, Development Alternatives, IUCN: IUCN is the world's biggest environmental grouping; research and field projects all over
Invisible to an uncaring media, these Indians have been stepping ahead in parallel with Indians taking space around the top in other fields; the many writers, businessmen like Laxmi Mittal. Now Ashok Khosla from the NGO Development Alternatives has come to head the IUCN (International Union for Conservation of Nature), the world's biggest environmental grouping that carries out research and field projects around the world, bringing together more than a thousand government and independent organisations. Then there's Dalip Mukarji, a doctor who worked at a leprosy centre in Andhra Pradesh and now heads Christian Aid, one of the largest charities in the world, supporting hundreds of millions of people. Ingrid Srinath heads Civicus, a hugely influential network of civil society groups around the world. John Samuel is international director of ActionAid.

These are not just Indians who happen to be there; they are there because they happen to be Indians. "In relation to social justice and poverty eradication questions, nobody can talk with greater legitimacy than an Indian," says Shetty. "We have both the largest number of poor people in the world and some of the most effective interventions to combat it. Take the Right to Information or Right to Food campaigns; they are at the leading edge of civil society action to combat poverty and discrimination."

In some ways, India has its problems working for it. Ingrid Srinath says, "The exposure to both, deep, structural injustices of the kind prevalent in India, and the multiplicity of successful civil society interventions there, makes it possible to relate to injustice and marginalisation around the world and to retain a sense of optimism and constructive engagement even in situations that seem utterly dire."


John Samuel, ActionAid: Global anti-poverty agency working with the world's poor everywhere

Indeed, India has a way of getting a lot of people together to make a lot of informed noise, then demand change—and achieve it as well. "People in the European Union and the United States are good at lobbying, not mobilising," says John Samuel. "In the West, advocacy meant experts hanging around in the corridors of power, and media-driven campaigns. In the last 10 years, global advocacy has been informed by India, Brazil and South Africa."

For instance, the mass protests over world trade talks apparently had a very Indian root. "The trade justice campaign arose from a workshop I did," says Samuel. This was some time before the explosive trade talks in Seattle 1999, when widespread rioting broke out against big corporations linking arms with rich governments to force deals profitable for them, but disastrous to too many others.

The protests were firstly a communication triumph. They began with a translation job, in decoding a negotiating language that was choking on jargon. "Civil society demystified the whole trade justice negotiations," says Samuel. "These highly technical agreements were brought to the people and ordinary political leaders." From conference rooms the discourse spilled on to the streets, and then flowed back to inform the negotiations. It sparked off a people's action that backed the likes of Kamal Nath in blocking an advance of EU and US business into markets like India that could have smothered much of local produce, and producers. In step with civil society, political positions by India, Brazil, South Africa and some others broke that Western habit that advanced nations must also be advancing nations, now into markets if not whole countries. No trade deal is better than a bad deal, civil society argued successfully. The lack of a wto agreement on this could well turn out to be one of history's more progressive indecisions.

Somehow, there is Gandhi somewhere in this Indian-led resistance. He believes in the outdated morality of working with the forgotten, he doesn't pursue the standard quest for the next smart thing to buy or new currency numbers to add to wealth accumulation. He has the ability to generate mass mobilisation, usually peaceful, and offers convincing arguments in the face of opponents who are as tough as they come. The Indian lead comes not just in mobilisation techniques that are learnt because there are so many of us; it comes by way of ideas that have been transforming.

Dr Rajanikant Shankarrao Arole and Mabelle Rajanikant Arole pioneered a system of preventive medication in hopeless situations in Maharashtra; the World Health Organisation picked that up and promoted it in other countries. Ela Bhatt's Self-Employed Women's Association (SEWA) has become a model in scores of countries. Anil Aggarwal's work on clean air long preceded the follow-up later on steps to limit climate change, and his techniques for decentralised water management are now integral to local water management in villages. Rajesh Tandon's models for what he called participatory research have been adopted as almost standard in work among the disadvantaged.


Rajesh Tandon, PRIA among others: Participatory research, building alliances among societal development agencies

Tandon, who began with an engineering degree from IIT Kanpur followed by an MBA at IIM Calcutta and a PhD in the US, abandoned managerial ambitions to work in Indian villages. "I saw a disconnect between quantitative, instrumental knowledge and local views of knowledge that were more intuitive, emotive, practical, experiential," he says. "That disconnect began to bother me. The knowledge system of the expert was undermining the more rooted knowledge system." And so he developed methodologies to blend the two, such as developing a literacy primer for specific groups of village women arising from their world and the daily issues they deal with. At the many international conferences on development in the '90s, starting with the Earth Summit in Rio in 1992, these ideas were rapidly, and widely picked up.

At least one simple reason that India has produced so many ideas for the world is that you name the problem, and we have it. But more because, says Tandon, "there is a democratic space available for experimentation, in an environment that is not suppressive, that is liberating in some way". And, talking Gandhi again, "India has a long tradition of people with all sorts of education and training coming to serve society", he adds.

They have worked to develop a new democracy that goes beyond a vote every five years or so; it's a continuing campaign to give disregarded choices a chance and the dispossessed a voice, but by producing the doable and deliverable. And when you have that, you don't petition a government with problems; you confront it with solutions.


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Sunday, November 20, 2011

Where is Kerala going?

http://www.mathrubhumi.com/english/story.php?id=116880
Posted on: 21 Nov 2011

John Samuel




Context of Socio-economic Development of Kerala

Kerala is at a critical juncture of its history, political process and economy. Over the last fifty years, Kerala achieved significant achievements in the area of social development, democratisation and, to some extent, economic growth.

Over the last 100 years, many factors, including a relatively healthy political party process, robust mass media, deeper influence of social reform movement and better access to education, played an important role in achieving better social development indicators. This has created a relatively empowered middle class society (in comparison to other states of India) with better social and political consciousness. The progressive policy consensus among key political parties, with better investment in social sector, from 1957 onward served its purpose. However, the older policy framework is now more or less saturated and not good enough to help us to develop pathways to the future. Though it is important to have a sense of history, it is time not to get too much preoccupied with any past model so that we can look forward to the challenges and opportunities in the next fifty
years. Hence, it is important to have forward looking new political and policy consensus towards building the future of Kerala.

The relatively better performance of Kerala in social development and democratisation is a result of the cumulative process of social reform movements from the early 20th century, relatively better outreach of education and health facilities (initiated by the missionary and church network and later on by other community network organisations), the development of the mass media, the political process in the backdrop of freedom struggle and progressive movements and the relatively better cosmopolitan fabric of the society. The social democratic political and policy process from the 1950s also enabled to create conducive governance environment for achieving universal primary education, highest literacy rate, relatively better health care, and development and gender indicators. The investment in education and health in the 1950s to 1980s created a competent and skilled labour force that could negotiate in the global market. Kerala is one of the first and most successful states in India
in globalising its relatively skilled or semiskilled labour force, with waves of migrant workers to Gulf countries and other parts of the world. The economic boom in the Gulf States, due to the hike in the oil price also created demand for skilled labour force for the modernisation and socio-economic development of the oil producing countries. The skilled labour force from Kerala contributed significantly towards the socio-economic growth of India and the Gulf States. The export of labour force towards the development of secondary and tertiary sector to different parts of the world and the consequent expatriated income of migrant labours created a new wave of economic growth in Kerala from the late 1980s and early 1990s.

While the growth in expatriated income created new demands in service sector, it also paradoxically contributed to the decline of primary sector- particularly that of agriculture. The cost of land and labour increased very significantly and the hyper-unionisation and party politicisation also created less conducive atmosphere for the development of manufacturing and secondary sector. In spite very significant growth in service sector (particularly consumer, health, education, housing, transport,
travel and allied areas), there was no corollary growth in the capacity of infrastructure. The migration of skilled force also contributed towards cumulative bran-drain from all sectors, including that of political process. This has created the paradox of the development of Kerala: higher socio-economic development, high per-capita income, less infrastructural facilities, conservative social values, better gender indicators along with less women's empowerment, and a civil society divided on the basis of party political affiliation and community organisations.

Kerala society jumped from Semi- feudalism to Consumerism via Communist aspirations - all within a span of sixty years. Hence, our own social and political culture became a strange and confusing mix of feudal- left- and consumerist and conservative- all in one! We also jumped from a predominantly agriculture - (primary sector economy) - to service sector (Tertiary sector) economy within  40 years. We have moved rather fast from a rural based joint-family or networked-family social settings to nuclear and post-nuclear settings. A very significant section of our people moved from lower-middle class subsistence economy culture to a surplus bank balance - fueled by expatriated income

From the 1990s, there was also significant deficit in the quality of youth leadership both in political and social process of Kerala. The expatriated income, the tremendous growth of consumer market and the decline of the quality of higher education contributed towards a new vulgarisation of politics, society and culture. While Kerala successfully became a part of the globalisation of labour force in the 1970s and 1980s, Kerala has failed to negotiate with other aspects of economic and social
globalisation.
Though Kerala was well positioned to get the best possible opportunity out of the growth of IT sector in 1980s, the state missed the opportunity due to the lack of initiative to capture a significant opportunity to create at least a million more employment in the IT Sector. The lack of appreciation about the future potential of the sector and anti-entrepreneurial minds-set contributed towards the failure of the state to reap the benefits of the tremendous economic growth in the new sectors in the 1990s. The hyper-party politicisation of the development debate, the lack of long term vision in policy process and a deficit of creative imagination within the civil society led to a new stagnation of politics, society and economy of Kerala.
Though there is dynamism of pseudo- debates and discussion in the political process and seeming economic growth- propelled by consumer market and expatriated income, there is stagnation at the core of the society and politics in Kerala. There is in an increasingly trend of a rather cynical discussion and debates around the middle-class and even the quick rhetorical debates on the 24X 7 TV Channel tend to replace the substantive political discussions based on research, information and public discussions and debates. The term 'public' or 'civil society' or 'pothu-samooham' is increasingly substituted by the 'reality' show of predictable speakers, 'invited' audience and celebrity anchors. The Politics of TV Performance or street protest in front of TV Cameras unwittingly eclipsed and consequently eroded substantive political discussions and educations in the society.

This lack of real searches, dialogues and discussions between the real stakeholders and active organisations in requires serious exploration and discussion among all key stakeholders of the society to imagine a New Kerala: a Kerala that can help to nurture ideas, leadership, and innovation that can transform the state, India and the World. A more confident,optimistic and vibrant Kerala can make wonders in the society and the world itself.

More than ten percent of the people of Kerala now live and work outside the state. The migration culture of Malayalies in the last seventy years and the money and ideas they brought back to Kerala played a very key role in influencing the society and politics more ways than what is being generally being acknowledged. From the nineties onward, Kerala society is more in a post-nuclear family mode-where the members of a family are dispersed far and wide- and often virtually connected- or networked: rather than sharing a life or space. This also means a society of lots of elderly people and young people and nothing in between.

During the last ten years, there have been significant social and political churning in Kerala, resulting in new kinds of identity based assertions, increasing criminalization and violence in society and party-politicisation of issues to do with economic development of Kerala. There are many symptoms of a larger issue of social, cultural and political transition of Kerala in the context of new consumer materialism and neoconservative values and sectarianism - that came to define our society, culture
and politics in multiple ways.

Hence, the most important challenge for the political and policy leadership of Kerala is to challenge the stagnation that is settling in at the core of our society and to have a new movement for renewing the creative energies, recharging our potential and crating a passionate vision for the future of Kerala. Such a passionate vision and new creative movement for Kerala should create conditions for the renaissance of Kerala in 21st century. This means it is important re-imagine a new Kerala- with a long
term vision of the next fifty years, medium term vision for next 20 years and clear short-term policy and programme framework for the next five years.

Emerging Issues
Kerala is in the midst of a profound transition. It is important to understand the emerging issues that
will have a relevance to the people and governance of the state. It is important to consider few important issues and to develop viable and practical approach to those issues.

There are nine key issues that need to be addressed with a sense of urgency and clear plan of action.

1) Huge number of educated unemployed.

There are around 4.2 million registered unemployed in the state. This means around 12% of population of Kerala are unemployed or underemployed. The issue of unemployment in Kerala was addressed through the migration of skilled and semi-skilled and professional workers from Kerala to the rest of India and the world. Kerala has one of the highest rates of suicides in India and world. And one of the main reasons for high number of suicides is the lack of employment opportunities and the social pressure from a highly consumerist and conservative society.

As the labour market is getting increasingly saturated in many parts of India and the world, the biggest challenge is Kerala would be to create millions of new employment opportunities in a mission mode.

Issue of inequality and poverty can only be addressed if the causes and consequences of unemployment are addressed in a sustainable way.

2) Corruption in Governance and government
There is a wide spread discontent against corruption at various levels. The various allegations against government departments and ministers of this government and previous government created an
atmosphere of cynicism and anger among the common people of Kerala. There are various kinds of corruption- including the most obvious forms in appointment of teachers in the 'aided' schools and colleges, controlled by community-cast- networks across the state. Hence addressing corruption through pro-active policy framework and action programmes would be crucial to influence a larger cross section of people in Kerala.

3) The crisis of food production and agriculture

The migration of skilled and semiskilled labours to the gulf and other countries impacted the economy and agriculture of Kerala in a significant way. While this has created new employment opportunities in the construction sector and service sector, it also created deficit of labour in the agriculture sector. And the rapid shift to cash crops such as Rubber paradoxically increased the income of a section of middle class and at the same time adversely affected the food production in Kerala. Due to the
migration of semi-skilled labours to others states and gulf, and due to new employment opportunities in the construction sector, rubber plantations, and service sector, there has been an acute shortage in the agriculture and farm sector. This has increased the cost of labour very significantly, making the cost of agriculture production very high. As a result, Kerala is dependent on Tamil Nadu and other states for food. This has significantly increased the cost of food in Kerala. Such a situation along with
the inflation and fluctuating price of diesel and petrol created a steep price in the food price. This has created a new sense of discontent among the poor, lower middle class and government employees of Kerala.

4) Increasing criminalisation within the society.

The most evident form of criminalisation in Kerala is through the emergence of 'quotation-gangs'. These are group of young people living in a consumer society – with an urge to make quick money to meet the 'demands' of the market. They are primarily used by group vested interests with the covert support of local political leaders. They are involved in a) real estate mafia b) Illegal sand mining c) getting and selling spurious alcohol from other states and d) using force to get back loans or capture assets of those who defaulted on loans to the banks. They are also involved in planned and targeted murder, extortion and threatening. This has increased tremendously in the last five years- resulting in high profile murders, planned attack etc. Hence, addressing this issue would be crucial in the context of Kerala.

5) Rights, Safety, Security of women.

In spite of good gender-development Indicators, when it comes to women's rights, space and empowerment the track record of Kerala is not encouraging at all. In spite of the relatively high educational achievement of women, there are less number of women in political leadership and there is less spaces for women to assert their rights and space. This situation needs to change.

Recent attack against a young woman of twenty three in the train and her consequent death created a sense of anger among all cross section of society in Kerala. There is an increasing tendency of harassment of women in public as well as private spaces. Hence it is important to have concrete measures to address this issue in a proactive manner – with a sense of mission.

6) Environment degradation and vulnerability to natural disaster.

Due to the over exploitation of rivers (though illegal sand mining) and also the tendency to fill in the marshy- land (used for paddy cultivation) for construction purpose has created acute shortage of water in a state with relatively high rain fall. The new wave of urbanisation and the lack of clear programme of sanitation polluted the water sources. In the context of new urbanisation, based on the apartment-culture, scarcity of water will be an important issue. The pollution of water, lack of adequate sanitation, and breeding of mosquitoes everywhere, induced new communicable disease, killing so many people. The unprecedented pollution of rivers and water bodies lead to an environmental crisis, resulting in floods and other natural disasters. There is hardly any well planned programme or process to address the issue of environmental degradation, pollution,
scarcity of water and natural disaster.

7) Less quality of infrastructure

While Kerala has large quantity of roads and almost universal electrification, the bad condition of roads and regular power-cut created a sense of frustration among the people. The lack of regular maintenance of roads, along with rapid increase in the number of vehicles have created enabling environment for huge increase in road accidents in Kerala. The lack of good roads and the constant power-cuts have adversely affected the potential of the tourism sector in Kerala. This also proved to be a hindrance for creating new employment opportunities in Kerala.

8) The issues of marginalisation and Poverty

In spite of relatively better social development indicators, there are many communities and people still at the receiving end of poverty and marginalisation. A very significant number of people from Adivasies, dalits and fisher folks are still at the receiving end of poverty and marginalisation. Lack of land, productive resources and sustainable employment and income create seasonal as well as entrenched poverty among a section of the society. Hence it is important to have special focus to
address the causes and consequences of poverty and marginalisation in Kerala.

9) The vulnerability of Elderly People:

Due to intense migration of professional and skilled labour to different parts of India and the world, there is a real issue of the new vulnerability of elderly people, particularly those who have crossed seventy years. Many of them stay alone, and a large number of them do not have any health or psycho-social care. And Kerala will have very large number of elderly people and addressing their issue of health, security and developing support system would be crucial in the context of Kerala.

Kerala: Pathways to Future
It is important to have a paradigm shift in the socio-economic growth model of Kerala. The key challenge is how to build on the existing strengths of Kerala and at the same time going beyond the old policy paradigm to a transformative paradigm of socio-economic- and cultural renewal and renaissance of Kerala. On the one hand we need to address issues of poverty, marginalisation, and environmental degradation and on the other hand it is important to envision a socio-economic
paradigm appropriate for the making of a just, equitable, sustainable and prosperous Kerala.

Developing a robust and sustainable local economy that can negotiate with global economy – with high quality products and services- would be crucial for the future socio-economic viability of Kerala.

When there is high economic growth in the service sector, coupled with high unemployment rate, increasing sense of social or economic inequality- with identity connotations, and a new wave of consumerist materialism, there would be more chance for criminalisation, sectarian politics and communal tensions. So today the most important and challenging task is to create enabling policy and infrastructure conditions that can create millions of new jobs in the next ten years. While there will be significant opportunities for high-skilled professionals in the global labour market, there would be less opportunities for millions of semi-skilled and skilled labour force.

There is an estimated bank deposit more than 1.3 lakhs crore of rupees in Kerala and only 55% of this given as loan to be used. And even this is more often used n the consumer sector (like housing) rather than productive sectors. Here too most of the new investments are in the real estate, housing and retail sector. There is less significant investment in manufacturing or new knowledge economy sectors. Instead of inviting foreign investors, there is a very significant opportunity to create a new
entrepreneurial culture – by promoting locally and globally networked small and medium scale enterprises in select areas. It is also important to strengthen some of the traditional manufacturing sectors such as coir, cashew and hand loom- in a way that they are competitive, effective and economically viable. However, this also requires new infrastructure (road, power and water) facility and supportive investment climate. It is possible to create two million jobs in the networked enterprises in knowledge sector( R&D, IT, ) , Service sector( community tourism, health, education, ) and manufacturing sector( agro-industries and food processing,, garments, cosmetics ).

While all these require much detailed analysis, public discussions and master plan for the next ten years, it is also important to highlight few of the policy options in the context of the forthcoming elections in Kerala. It is important to begin to think about possible policy options, within the next five years. What follows is not a comprehensive policy framework, but more of an indicative framework that may help to address some of the issues to a certain extent.

Many of the potentially transformative initiative may not need more money, though it may require inspired, innovative and imaginative ideas and a leadership committed to long term development and renewal of Kerala. It is the present approach that needs to be revisited. It is time to talk about grassroots - and local level initiatives- of scale - to transform Kerala. It can create more than 1.5 million new job opportunities in the next five years. Creating strong and sustainable local economies
and linking with the global is the key. Now we are doing the opposite- linking global economy to the local- without any capacity or culture- and this create a completely false kind of service economy -based on consumerism rather than effective productive capability.

The key is developing productive capacity, vibrant local economies, grassroots entrepreneurial initiatives- public partnership, competitive local market that can negotiate with bigger market with niche comparative advantage. All these need enabling social, cultural, and infrastructural environment. We need a completely new different way of looking at things than the present mode of doing things- either old wine in new bottle or new wine in old bottle. We need to envision a new Kerala. We need a paradigm shift- nothing less than that. We need to renew and re-imagine society, economy and governance to create a sustainable, just, vibrant and peaceful Kerala for the coming generation. It is to time to invest in a new Kerala, laying the foundations for the future- Making Change Happen!!

Erosion of European economy?

The New Age, Dhaka.
19/11/2011 22:50:00
http://newagebd.com/newspaper1/editorial/40572.html

The economic crisis of Europe also needs to be understood in terms of the history of surplus economy created during the colonial era and the character and nature of economic growth and the political development of the region in the post-second world war era. Writes John Samuel



Greece is more than a country. It is a civilization that deeply influenced the culture, society and political process of the western and southern Europe. If the number of people marching on the streets and the increasing discontent of citizens in many countries of Europe is an indication, many of the European countries are getting in to a precarious phase of volatile economy and state. Though the economy of Greece does not make a big chunk of the economy of European Unions, the deeper economic and consequent political crisis of Greece is indicative of the shape of possible trajectories of the economy and politics of many countries in the European Union. In wake of the economic crisis of 2008, Greek economy suffered as the main contributors to the Greek economy, shipping and tourism, suffered, resulting in unemployment and decreased tax revenue of the government. The trouble is that more than five countries, including Ireland, Italy, Spain, Portugal, are dealing with a possible debt trap, and consequent economic recession. In spite of relatively stable economies of Germany, France or Netherlands, there is a likelihood of a more vulnerable Euro and possible economic recessions. This will have wider political and policy implications, in terms of new contestation at the national level and debates over the mutual responsibilities of countries within the European Union. The present financial crisis in Europe will also affect the quantity and quality of the international development aid of many countries, in the context of the new austerity measures.

In a way, the ongoing economic crisis in Europe is the phase two of the financial crisis that began to be evident with the crash of Lehman brothers in 2008. In a largely credit and consumerist driven advanced capitalist system, the greed of speculators in the financial capital market through new derivatives and bonds eventually resulted in to the fall of the speculative finance capitalism, driven by paper money and ‘fictitious’ capital movement on paper. European Banks exposed to the US market also got affected by the crisis. Within Europe, a low rate of interest and easy credit led to the increasing borrowing and consumption, fuelling more demand, which showed relative resilience in the wake of the financial crisis in the US in 2009. However, easy credit also increased the credit at the household and financial sector. The banking sector in Iceland collapsed in the first phase of the financial crisis in 2008. Though many countries such as Spain and Ireland had surplus budgets, the bailing out of the private banks and increasing public expenditure eventually increased the deficits. As the economic crisis began to unfold in many countries, many factories were closed, leading to unemployment and financial hardship at the household level, fuelling further the state expenditure for unemployment benefits and other welfare measures. The increasing instances of unemployment led to the default of the credit card repayment as well as decreasing of the revenue of the state from the tax. So the governments in many countries spent more when the tax receipts decreased significantly. This had a rather catastrophic effect particularly in countries with speculative real estate and property boom, driven by credit. This made the surging of interest rate and the credit rating of many individuals, firms and governments fell down precariously. As the cost of getting new credit increased, many countries including Greece, Ireland, Italy, Spain and Portugal got in to a debt trap of varying degrees.

The ongoing debt crisis in significant number of countries in the European Union will have possibly long term implications for the economy and politics of many countries and the region as a whole. While it is important to understand the present economic crisis in the context of the larger crisis of a credit driven speculative finance capitalism, it is also important to situate the present economic crisis in the larger history of economy, society and culture of Western Europe. It is possible to argue that the cumulative economic, social and cultural factors in the last twenty years led to saturation of market, labour force, resulting in the ongoing economic crisis. The relatively low birth rate, in the context of high individualism and dysfunctional families also resulted in the significant decrease in the younger work force that could fuel innovation, push forward new technology, increase the efficiency of production. The cumulative socio-economic factors also led to the erosion of ‘comparative advantage’ of Europe, particularly in the area of manufacturing, in the world. And in the last ten years, those born out of the baby boom in the post second world war phase got retired, with increasing cost for pension and social welfare. So Europe got in to a peculiar predicament of aging population, less availability of highly skilled work force, more cost of social welfare and less comparative advantage in terms of cost of producing goods and services in a highly competitive global market.

Ageing population with better life expectancy increased cost of social welfare and pension. Less young and inspired work force in many countries of Europe pushed comparative advantage of manufacturing sector and technology sector in favour of those countries with availability of cheaper and higher skilled work force, with more technological innovation. Less availability of high skilled labour can also lead to competition in the labour market, pushing the cost of labour high; pushing the cost of production high, and pushing the cost of living high. All these decreased the global comparative advantage in terms of quality, and price of services and goods, in a highly competitive global market. The importing of the cheap migrant labour created new political and social tension due to the fact most of the migrant labours in Europe happened to be Muslims. In the post 9/11 context of increasing socio-cultural paranoia , the trust between the ‘local’ population and migrant communities eroded and got compromised, resulting in new forms of violence in many countries, including France, UK, Germany, Sweden, Denmark and even in a rather peaceful Norway. The increasing oil price also affected European economy more than US economy. The decrease in younger workforce, the decrees in the average number of working hours and better social security also created an economic complacence in many countries in Europe. The economic crisis of Europe also needs to be understood in terms of the history of surplus economy created during the colonial era and the character and nature of economic growth and the political development of the region in the post-second world war era.


(These are the personal views of the author and do not reflect the views or positions of any of the organisations with which he is associated)

Friday, October 28, 2011

Politics of Corruption

John Samuel


Corruption is primarily about abuse or misuse of power for personal aggrandisement or vested interests in society or institutions; from local to the global. Hence, the practice and process of corruption is deeply political. The word ‘corrupt’ is derived from the Latin root ‘corruptus’, past participle of’ corrumpere-’ to mean abuse or destroy and when used as an adjective it denotes means ‘utterly broken’.

The subversion, misuse and abuse of power have systemic and socio-historical manifestations in different contexts. This has to do with the way power is institutionalised and internalised in a given society, with a particular cultural and political history. For example, the political elite of South Asia often demonstrate the embedded feudalism and cumulative hierarchies (through cast system) internalised within the collective memory of the society. So the one common defining political aspect of South Asia is that all power-elites in most of the South Asian Countries (India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Bhutan, and Afghanistan) operate through family network and, cast/identity networks to acquire and maintain power. Such internalised ‘order of power’ tends to undermine the process and content of democratic process itself. Though political parties play a cardinal role in the democratic process of a country, the irony is that political parties themselves have least of internal democracy or accountability. And in many cases, political parties are reduced to institutionalised forms of ‘interest’ network to capture and control the power of the state. In many countries in Africa, the use and abuse of power can also linked to the internalisation of power in the form of ‘tribal’ hierarchies and identities.

So it is important to understand the causes and consequence of ‘corruption’ within the history of the institutionalisation and internalisation power, the nature and character of the power elites and in terms of social and economic inequalities within a given society. The political economy of corruption is primarily about the nexus between the economic, social and political elites in a given society to subvert, misuse, abuse or misappropriates institutions, policies and systems for the vested interests or, private gains of a privileged group or set of individuals embedded in the dominant power-structure of a country. The unholy nexus between the business elites, political elites and media elites in managing the economic, political and natural resources of a given country is a global trend across the world; from the richest country to the poorest country. Various studies indicate that the worldwide bribery alone is estimated to involve over 1 trillion US dollars annually.


The ongoing economic crisis exposed the depth and breadth of the role of corporate elites and the missionaries of finance capitalism in shaping the policy and political agenda even in the so-called democracies of the world. When the cyclone hit the Wall Street in 2008, it exposed the unholy nexus between the capital fund managers of the Wall Street and the mandarins in the corridors of political power: the entrenched ‘partnership’ between the rich and those who are ‘democratically’ elected to ‘run’ the government. Such unholy systemic power nexus between the economic and political elites of a country is at the root of entrenched political and institutional corruption in many countries. A state of unbridled political and economic corruption is known as a ‘kleptocracy’, literally meaning "rule by thieves". The cumulative impact of such unholy nexus of corrupt practices and instances is the erosion of the legitimacy of the state. The rather spontaneous mobilization of ordinary people across the world from New York to New Delhi, from London to Lisbon, from Rome to Rio and on the streets of Egypt, Tunis, Yemen, Syria, and India and all over the world has one thing in common: all of them questioned the legitimacy of the governments and in many cases the character of the state and all of them demand accountability from the leaders, the state as well as market.

Though corruption does have a moral, theological and philosophic connotations, it is important to analyse and address corruption in relation to political system, dominant economic power relations and culture of internalised power. The manifestations and forms of corruption may include bribery, extortion, cronyism, nepotism, patronage, graft, and embezzlement. While corruption may facilitate criminal enterprise such as drug trafficking, money laundering, and human trafficking, it is not restricted to these activities. The legality and illegality of a particular act of corruption or abuse of power may differ depending on the ‘jurisdiction’ of a country. In some countries, certain political funding practices are legal, but may be illegal in another country. In many countries, government officials have broad or poorly defined powers, which make it difficult to distinguish between legal and illegal actions.

While the cause of corruption is to do with misuse and abuse of political and systemic power, the consequences of corruption are many. Corruption undermines the effectiveness, legitimacy and accountability of institutions and governments. Corruption does siphon off money meant for social and economic development of a country. Corruption breeds on entrenched socio-economic inequality and further increase the gap between the rich and the poor, and the powerful and the marginalized. In the political arena, it undermines democracy and governance by flouting or even subverting formal processes. Corruption in elections and in legislative bodies undermines accountability and distorts the representation in policymaking; corruption in the judiciary undermines the rule of law; and corruption in administration results in the inefficient provision of services. Corruption violates a basic principle of centrality of civic virtue. The net result is that corruption undermines the value of democratic governance and erodes the institutional legitimacy and capacity of government to deliver services, ensure security of citizens and to deliver socio-economic development.

In the last twenty years, anti-corruption initiatives have become a part of the governance and development discourse across the world. With the paradigm shift in the information and communication technology, it has become impossible to keep corrupt practices under the veil of secrecy and silence, either in the form of a controlled state media or suppressing the voices of dissent. The neo-liberal economic paradigm of free market capitalism and the economic globalization unleashed new power matrix in many of the countries, particularly those countries with a big market size( like India, China) or those countries with big natural resources( Nigeria, Sudan etc). Such corrupt nexus has a dimension of geo-politics as well as political economy of aid, trade and debt. It is not an accident of history most of the conflicts in Africa or Asia are fought with small weapons illegally exported by the big companies in Europe. It is also not an accident of history that most of the entrenched conflicts happen in countries with rich natural resources.

It is not an accident of history that the companies and the banks that benefit from the illicit flow of finance happened to be in some of the richest countries in the world. Illicit financial flows indicate the transfer of money earned through illegal activities such as corruption, transactions involving contraband goods, criminal activities, and efforts to shelter wealth from a country’s tax authorities. It is estimated that at an average more than US$ 1 trillion is transferred from the poor countries to rich countries in the form of illicit flow of funds. Illicit flow of finance from African countries is estimated to be around US$ 25 billion per year. It is also pointed out that for every dollar received as economic assistance or aid, around ten dollar is transferred from the poor countries to rich countries in the form of illicit financial flow. It is irony of our times that the very same countries that host the big companies and banks that benefit from the illicit flow of finance also preach to the ‘third world’ about the need to ‘fight’ corruption. So corruption has its local, national and international ramifications.
Reducing corruption to petty bribery without challenging the extremely corrupt system at the heart of the political economy at the national and international level would be equivalent to consuming aspirin tablet to fight a heart disease. However, the globalization of information and technology also helped to expose corruption in an unprecedented way. The social networks and new media could expose corrupt practices conveniently put under the carpet by the media and market elites in connivance with the political elites.

It is in recognition of the widespread instances of corruption across the world, the United Nations Convention against Corruption (UNCAC) was adopted on 31st October 2003. UNCAC is the first legally binding international anti-corruption instrument. In its 8 Chapters and 71 Articles, the UNCAC obliges its States Parties to implement a wide and detailed range of anti-corruption measures affecting their laws, institutions and practices. These measures aim to promote the prevention, criminalization and law enforcement, international cooperation, asset recovery, technical assistance and information exchange, and mechanisms for implementation. The UNCAC is ratified or approved by 154 countries and European Union. In spite of the approval or ratification of UNCAC, the biggest challenge is that lack of implementation of the principles and provisions of UNCAS in the national context due to absence of effective laws or independent anti-corruption commissions to make them work.
In the context of the political economy of aid and governance, there has been effort to export a successful model of anti-corruption from western liberal democratic context to other countries in Asia and Africa. However, such measures did not work due to the fact that context of the internalization; institutionalization and culture of power are very different from the European context. In a recent book ‘Making the State Responsive’ (UNDP w 2011): Goran Hyden and John Samuel) we have made the following observation:
“Institutional innovations have typically come from external sources in the form of transfers from societies in which these institutions have evolved over long time. The Ombudsman institution found in the Nordic countries is one of these exports. It has been adopted quite successfully in countries that already have a tradition of rule of law, and where independent scrutiny of those in power is taken for granted. It has been much less successful in countries where particularistic values still prevail and the notion of universal norms is only weakly institutionalized. Transfers to these countries have typically ended as half-measures, for example when the ombudsman institution reports to the Presidency rather than the Parliament, rendering checks on the executive ineffective. The establishment of these institutions may not have been wholly unsuccessful, as the possibility exists in the future that groups of citizens will demand their independence and accountability from the legislature rather than the executive, but it is questionable whether these half-measures qualify as ‘good enough’ governance. There is evidence from a number of countries – Brazil, India, Mongolia, and South Africa – that institutional innovations spring out of hardship. Learning how to achieve something comes with the urge to change the status quo. Claiming the state, therefore, is very much a matter of challenging public institutions, whether national or sub-national, from below or within, to ensure adherence to norms and principles of equity in service delivering. Institutional innovations that help citizens to better monitor and measure government performance are important, but there are no shortcuts. Evolving such institutions, as the case study on India convincingly shows, are associated with political battles. Not all are won”



While a strong anti-corruption law, to a certain extent , can control or reduce the petty corruption or instances of bribery or ‘speed money’ /‘protection money’ at the lower level of bureaucracy( particularly police, land registration, public works departments), the real cancer of corruption operate at the heart of the political system in India and elsewhere.

In the South Asian context, one of the major systemic causes of corruption is the subversion of the political party system and electoral process. In the post independence era, the legitimacy of the political party system and that of the state was relatively higher. Hence, it was relatively easier to collect individual contributions from the ordinary members of the party or general public. However, in the last thirty years, the political party system itself got corpotorised, often controlled by the family or cast/identity network. While the cadre of the political parties got dissolved from below, the visibility and the ‘out-reach’ mechanism of the political parties were outsourced through costly advertising campaign, media ‘management’ and ‘image’ mangers from the public relations companies. When the cadre got dwindled on the ground, the institutional structures of political parties took precedence over the mass politics. ‘Mass’ was to ‘demonstrate’- in rallies ‘outsourced’ to the local leaders- with money and muscles. The degeneration of the political party systems in terms of the erosion of democratic values within and in terms of the instrumental use of ‘mass’ as the ‘muscle’ to ‘demonstrate’ or as ‘vote’ banks coincided with the increasing corporate control of the political parties.

When it has become difficult to raise financial resources from the cadre of the political parties, the new fund-managers of the political parties build new nexus with the new corporate elites in the neo-liberal era. The new corporate elites of multinational corporations and big Indian companies scrambling for ‘market share’ – also took ‘political share’ by ‘investing’ in various political parties and leaders. A percentage of the corporate budget as ‘miscellaneous’ items or ‘charity’ found their way to the coffers of political parties and leaders. They have in turn provided tax rebates, new policies helpful for one or other companies, or helping them to acquire land and resources. The new economic elites ‘invested’ in political parties, political leaders, elections as well as media. The Nira Radia tapes dramatically exposed this unholy nexus at the heart of the political and policies process in the so-called largest democracy in the world. Political Parties in turn ‘invested’ in ‘media companies and campaigns’ and market research groups to get ‘favourable’ poll result.

The media-market nexus of subverting electoral process has become complete through the ‘outsourced’ poll- using the methods of market survey to determine the ‘mood’ of the country or ‘legitimacy’ of its leaders. As a result media became the midwife to strengthen the unholy nexus of the political, policy and corporate elites in a country. In the absence of real mass politics and erosion of cadre party politics, the political leaders resorts to new tactics like ‘Radha Yathra’ to attract the attention of the media and the masses. The very term ‘Radham’- or chariot denotes ‘power’ of the King. When the political leaders began to think and act like ‘Kings’- they can at best be benevolent patrons and at worst be corrupts pimps in the corridors of power.

The health of political Parties and electoral process are the most important markers of healthy democracy. Hence it is crucial to maintain the health of these two necessary factors in sustaining a democratic process. The cancer of corruption is actually eating in to the heart of a democratic political system. And erosion of the legitimacy of such a system can be detrimental to the very viability and sustainability of democracy itself. This was evident in the context of Bangladesh, when Army stepped in with ‘appointed’ civil government to ‘fight corruption’ at the cost of democracy.

The political parties and electoral systems need to be more transparent and accountable. The decoupling of the interests of business elites and political parties are imperative for the sustainability of democracy in India and elsewhere. The funding for political parties and elections need to be transparent and accountable. At the heart of the problem is increasing lack of accountability in political system, media, big corporation and even NGOs. The Right to Accountability should be an integral part of the Right to democratic Governance.

Tuesday, September 20, 2011

The New Age column.
http://newagebd.com/newspaper1/editorial/33438.html
The New Age column.
http://newagebd.com/newspaper1/editorial/33438.html

Sunday, August 28, 2011

Politics as Performance and spectacle : The relevance and irrelevance of the Anna mode of advocacy

John Samuel


One of the positive outcomes of the recent mobilisation for the Lokpal-bill to challenge corruption at various levels of government is that it has revitalised the political debates in India, particularly among the 'apolitical' class. Though in terms of substantive demands, the Anna-team did not achieve anything new (as they simply changed the goal post, climbing down from their earlier demands); they succeeded in putting 'corruption' at the centre of political discourse. They also showed the possibilities for new politics.

The ongoing debates and discussions in the cyber space, in media, in the drawing rooms and in public spaces in a way signify the relevance of social mobilisations- in support of the campaign against corruption. It is the political debates about the nature and character of 'representative democracy', the new modes of mobilisation and the relevance( or irrelevance) of the 'old' left in new India etc that are more interesting than the advocacy campaign itself.

It is indicative of a political trend- beyond a mere 'storm in urban tea-cup'. Here are ten broad observations on some of the aspects of the changing trends.

1) There is less space for politically aware middle class to join a political party or mainstream political process- as the political parties are still in the old mode with less space for horizontal entry beyond the usual feeder mechanism. Even now in most of the political parties (except for the Left Parties) the lineage matters more than the political vision or commitment or grassroots experience. One in every six of MPs is there because of his/her family connections rather the political experience or commitment.

2) Software of Indian politics is changing though the hardware has not changed. The political and policy process in India has changed significantly in the last fifteen years. There is a new middle class with more access to knowledge, technology, social networking, income and global exposure. The modes of power, social legitimation and leadership have changed significantly in the last twenty years. However, the structural character of the Indian political party system is still based on a model that emerged in the early 1980s; in the post-emergency period in of the Indian politics.

3) The modes of communications determine the modes of mobilisation and modes of politics in many ways. Look at how the profile of the political leaders changed during the televised modes of political communications. Hardly anyone of them have worked directly with people or mobilised them at the grassroots. They walked to the political central stage through the TV studios. They have been telegenic- articulate – and their core communicative competence was more evident in the Television studios; they derived their political legitimacy in the television studios or they came ‘live’ in front of active TV cameras, though they may not be at ease with the dust and sweat of the road or the noises of the masses . Many of them have been lawyers or relatively better educated from the urban upper middle class and cast. The emergence of Kapil Sibal, Manu Abishek Singhvi, Chidambaram, Jayaram Ramesh, Arun Jetly, Sushma swaraj, Sitaram Yetchury or Brinda Karat- is indicative of the faces of the 'telegenic' phase of the Indian politics. In the telgenic phase of politics, journalism itself became an instant ‘performance’ of mono-act or drama on the TV studios or on the road, rather than the old modes of analytical journalism or nuanced critique.

The telegenic media politics and the ‘instant’ journalism of performing actors was all about playing for the ‘moment’ and performing for an ‘imagined’ community. Mass politics was submerged under the ‘media politics’ – like the fast food chains that provided ‘instant’ gratification. Market and media collided to create instant ‘sensex’ of politics. It is here that the new age advocacy actors from the non-party political-civil space began to ‘outsmart’ the old politicians by performing the media politics and network modes of mobilisation. They were the telegenic ‘civil society’ counter-parts to the ‘smart’ politicians who walked to the centre stage through the television performance. They belonged to the same class: articulate urban upper cast middle class. People were largely ‘means’ to them rather than the ‘end’ of democracy. Rhetoric often preceded the reality of a billion people. In a world where market, media and telegenic performance determined the political ‘clout’, the new ‘civil society’ too learned the art of playing to ‘instant’ politics as performance: competing for the TRP rating in the market place of the media mediation of manufactoring perceptions.

But now in the age of social media - and new possibilities of communications, the name of the game is changing again. Here, the ‘civil society’ actors are ahead of the old political class in terms of the ‘communication’ game of shaping perception of power. Power of influencing perception became more important than the real power of the people on the ground. Politics itself was reduced to ‘virtual’ game in the market place of perceptions.

4) When mainstream political parties get reduced to electoral network to merely win or lose elections, other actors take the political spaces beyond the periodic winning or losing elections. That is precisely the reasons for the relevance and space of new advocacy networks and organisations: from KSSP, to Narmada Bachao, to RTI movement, to Right to work( NREGA) campaign to the present anti-corruption campaigns. Look at all the key legislations (including the campaign for political participation of women) in the last fifteen years. None of them came from the mainstream political parties Most of the demand first emerged in the political-civil space beyond the political parties and then political parties 'responded' by absorbing them in to the policy agenda. And this happens when the sole preoccupation of political parties end up as 'winning or losing ' an election.

Ideology took a back seat - except in the empty slogans and rhetoric. Interest of the leaders (in capturing power of the state) often took a front seat. Politics of electoral convenience often replaced the politics of conviction. Political opportunism itself was elevated in to 'smart' politics- hiring 'media' experts, advertising professionals, 'campaign' managers- and slogans often coined by the copy-writers of the ad-firms in charge of 'designing' the best 'campaigns' to earn more seats( by hook or crook). This is a far cry from the politics of the ideals and ideas of the Nehruvian phase in the post independent India.

When ideology (or political vision or mission) gets replaced by a mix of identity (cast, creed, language ) and 'interest' based electoral arithmetic, the real politics of transformation simply fail to go beyond the 'pressure' politics and redundant rhetoric played for the moment. It is in such spaces that civil society activism find its relevance and influence in the mainstream political landscape of India.

5) Whether one likes it or not, middle class always shaped the broader political discourse in India or elsewhere- from communism to capitalism to fascism to Hindutva. So the role of middle class in the Indian politics is nothing new. Most of the ideologues and political leaders came from the ‘great’ Indian middle class- and largely from the upper cast.

Anna Hazare happened to be simply a signifier: here the old symbols of 'ideals' met with new modes of mobilisation- beyond the usual institutional network of political parties. There is also a message: those in government or power can no longer simply take people for granted. And in the age of social networking- mobilisation and public opinions can also be shaped beyond the mainstream media and mainstream politics. There is the possibility of a new politics beyond ‘winning’ elections every five years and enjoying the stay in the corridors of the state power.

6) The rural-urban divide has political implications in India. In the post-independent India, there has been four major political transitions- (towards the end of 60s the end of Nehruvian era-; the end 70s- the end of congress period- and one party rule in post-emergency phase ; the end 80s- the emergence of the telegenic politics in the age of globalisation, and assertive Hindutva competing for vote bank. All these periods were marked by various degrees of political expressions and modes of mobilisation. Almost all of them had an urban middle class link- even in the case of Naxals- in shaping the discourse.


7) However, it would be rather simplistic to compare the new social- network based mobilisation of the urban middle class to the Gandhian mode of political struggles for freedom against colonialism and imperialism. Politics against injustice, oppression and domination preceded the methods of Gandhi. Gandhian methods did not define his politics. His politics and ethics shaped his choice of methods and communication. Gandhi’s politics was the politics of the masses- and not the politics of the mass media. Gandhi worked and lived with people, listened to them, educated and empowered them- and spent a life time experimenting with his ideas and methods, without compromising the ideals for transformation. Gandhi sought to transform politics and not to transcend politics.

Here, in the case of the media –driven performance of the Anna team, method preceded the politics. It was more of the politics of instant performance, seeking to influence perceptions of a particular class, rather than a mass politics to challenge and change the situation. It sought to ‘transcend’ politics rather than transforming politics. It sought to create symbols devoid of substance. It is interesting to note that how Anna team sought to play around with symbols of ‘convenience’ playing to the need of the media market. The performance of protest began in the backdrop the ‘bharat-matha’ ( mother India), appealing to the upper cast ‘Hindu’ sentiments- and then shifted to the use of an elegantly designed photograph of Gandhi with ‘Charkha’ and waving the tri-coloure national flag to ‘nationalise’ and ‘secularise’ the performance of a fast. A colourful performance of protest, where Kiran Bidi played the Cheer leader on the ‘stage’ and Anna pretended to be Gandhi was a spectacle of a performance as an instant politics meant for the media. Masses became simply a means to ‘show off’ the power- rather than the real source of power. Hence, it was a mockery of Gandhian principles, practise and methods of politics. In Gandhian case, media followed his politics. In this case, the politics of performance followed the media.

9) Anna was more of symbol in a campaign- primarily promoted by the Delhi-centric upper cast and middle class-actors. The anomaly of Anna ( an ex-army man from rural India of ‘jai-jawan- jai kisan variety, with a bit of Gandhian touch and grassroots NGO background) in the urban-back drop and mass media provided the combination of a seeming ‘ideal’ with combination of instant networking. Anna symbolised the ‘old’ India, and the young India was performed by the ‘youth’ on the street- all televised instantly as the performance of a spectacle, with the corallarly drama created in the TV studios. Kiran Bedi performed for the media- the spectacle of the elite post-retirement ‘civil servant’ transiting in to ‘civil society’'activist' in search of the TV cameras. ‘Civil society’ itself became a residual space for the new elites to find their space within the media mediations. The Bollywood and the ‘Lagan’ fame Amir Khan added a celebrity flavour to the new ‘civil society’ celebrities manufactured by the media.

It was indeed a smart experiment in the new mode of advocacy campaign - making strategic use of symbols ( Anna too was one), media and networking. And it was not a 'political struggle'- or a Satyagraha of Gandhian politics. It was an example of smart urban-based advocacy campaign. Though there are many interesting lessons to learn from it - it can't be compared with a political struggle of salt sataygraha or even the anti-emergency campaign.

How can a bill made by a team of four or five people, making a rather tall claim of a 'people's (or Jan) Lokpal bill? They hardly consulted or discussed with people on the ground in a diverse country of more than a billion people. They sought to connect with people through media, rather than the other way around. And of course, there were also characters in the Anna team (from soft saffron to those who were looking for 'celebrity' spot on the TV) who got them excited by their voice and sight in the TV- and them performed-waving the national flag- for the TV crew, ever hungry for the next spectacle. Their protest was indeed significant and it is indicative of the transition, even though it is of instant transitory type of politics of protest.

10) While I think the mobilisation is indicative of a trend, I do not agree with the content and modes of Anna team- particularly its tall claim of ‘second freedom struggle’ or mass-based politics. Bringing thousands of people on the few streets of few cities of India, through media and networking- is not a substitute for the substantive politics in a country of more than 1.2 billion of people.
In a parliamentary democracy, the role of parliament is cardinal. Political parties are the main political force in the country that sustains the health of a representative system of democracy. I also think there are a large number of committed and aware politicians with a sense of integrity. Just because a section of politicians and political party system is corrupt - does not mean that the political class - as a whole - is corrupt.

While it may be important to challenge and influence those who hold power- of the state, it is also important to recognise the limitations of 'quick-fix' seven day wonders of televised mobilisation. Because such advocacy campaign can simply create illusions of politics when actually such 'televised' quick-fix mobilisation can undermine the real political or democratic struggles on the ground. And the campaign for the so-called 'Jan' lokpal bill was an example of a relatively successful advocacy campaign for a policy change, and not an example of a political struggle for freedom or against injustice. )

The ongoing phase of politics is indicative of a political transition. The politics in India in the next ten years may be dramatically different - in terms of modes of mobilisation, composition of leadership and the issues that would come up. So the mode of mobilisation of those who are born in the eighties is indicative of a bigger shift. The anti-corruption campaign just happened to be a space to voice a discontent with the mainstream political party process in India- where the lineage matters more than the real politics. If the political parties do not change their hardware and present modes of operation, many of them would not be able to mobilise people beyond the elction season,in the years to come