Notes from Kerala (4)

Kerala Food Minister on the shortage of rice

For some days now, Kerala is facing problems in the supply of rice.
And hence there is an increase in the price and people are feeling the
heat. Now what is the solution to this problem? Here is what our food
minister C.K Divakaran has to say,

“Malayalees should change their food habits. They should start drinking more milk, eating eggs and eat more chicken dishes.”

I am still laughing my guts out. I wonder how PETA will react to C.K. Divakaran’s comment. I am sure he will need some additional
security [Tackling food shortage and traffic problems – kerala way]

Remember what Swami Vivekananda said about Kerala. It seems the Church wants to take us there as fast as possible.

A Church dignitary recently asked all Christians to send their children only to Christian schools. An explanation followed that the suggestion was aimed at ensuring that the new generation imbibed Christian values, and was unconnected with the issue of educational reform. What will happen if all caste and religious groups think along these lines? The Churches, which made possible the social renewal that rescued Kerala from darkness by establishing modern educational facilities, should not become instrumental for a return to the lunatic asylum.[..so we do not go back to the lunatic asylum]
The Communist Government does not allow private retail chains, but has plans to start their own.

It may be recalled that the Food and Civil Supplies Minister C.
Divakaran had announced one and a half years ago that State owned Civil Supplies Corporation (Supplyco) would start retail chains to take on the retail giants. This was a contradiction of sorts. The Minister was proposing to create a retail chain to compete with the retail chains instead of disallowing them, if the policy was to discourage them.

Anyway, that has not materialised so far. One cannot expect the Supplyco chains to actually take on the retail chains. Instead, one can expect more demonstrations from the CPI stable as its Minister rules the Supplyco.[CPI takes on retail chains]

Prakash Karat's history lesson

Recently CPI (M) General Secretary Prakash Karat called President George Bush a fool andsaid that he had a poor understanding of history. Mr. Karat was attending a function commemorating the 90th anniversary of the 1917 October Revolution was angry that President Bush had compared Lenin to Osama bin Laden and Adolf Hitler. But guess who has a poor understanding of history?

Following an assassination attempt on Lenin, Stalin wanted a policy of “open and systematic mass terror” to be enforced and Lenin agreed. Red Terror was announced as a policy on September 1, 1918.

“To dispose of our enemies, we will have to create our own socialist terror. For this we will have to train 90 million of the 100 million of Russians and have them all on our side. We have nothing to say to the other 10 million; we will have to get rid of them.”

Do not look in the file of incriminating evidence to see whether or not the accused rose up against the Soviets with arms or words. Ask him instead to which class he belongs, what is his background, his education, his profession. These are the questions that will determine the fate of the accused. That is the meaning and essence of the Red Terror.[Purpose of the Soviet Red Terror]

According to some historians between 1917 and 1922 about 280,000 people were killed through summary executions and supression of rebellions. The repression was against peasants, industrial workers and any one who did not agree with the revolutionaries. Still such brutality is not called holocaust by historians because that credit goes to Hitler alone.

The Sunday edition of New York Times had two stories related to that era and the first one is about the last Russian czar Nicholas II, and his family whom Lenin ordered to be killed in July 1918. Eleven people (czar,the czar’s wife, five children, doctor and three servants), were killed, but the remains of only nine were found. A bunch of amateur detectives have now found some bones and pieces of jars that held the acid used to disfigure the bodies and DNA tests will decide if they belong to Aleksei, 13 and his sister.

The second story is about the time of Stalin. In his book The Whisperers: Private Life in Stalin’s Russia, Orlando Figes writes about what happened to millions of ordinary people during the time of the great communist revolution.

Each story had its own disheartening logic. Stalin’s campaign to intimidate the population had no moral limits. Figes tells of Pavlik Morozov, a teenager said to have been killed by older family members because he had denounced his father for selling false papers to kulaks living in nearby “special settlements.” (The kulaks were a category of so-called richer peasants who were regarded as the principal obstacle to collectivization.) The father was sentenced to a labor camp and later shot. After the boy’s death, the Soviet press created “a propaganda cult” around his case. Maxim Gorky called for a monument to be erected because the boy had “understood that a relative by blood may also be an enemy of the spirit, and that such a person is not to be spared.”[Stalin’s Children]

Similar to how Jihadis around the world worship Osama bin Laden people like Prakash Karat worship mass murderers like Lenin and Stalin and they get offended when the truth about them is told. Mr. Karat may hate George Bush, but at least the latter has his history right.

Betraying Buddhists Again

In 2002, when India and Pakistan appeared to be headed for a war, Colin Powell, the U.S. secretary of state played a key role in cooling down the tensions. Apparently a significant part was also played by India’s huge software and information technology industry which asked the government to tone down the rhetoric. No one could have put it better than the metaphor maestro, Tom Friedman who wrote, “That’s right — in the crunch, it was the influence of General Electric, not General Powell, that did the trick.”

While business interests can avert wars, it can also cause nations to support dictators and be mute spectators to genocide. In 2006, when United States and its European partners wanted United Nations to pass a resolution to allow UN peace keepers in Darfur, it was opposed by China. China has leverage with the Sudanese government due to the vast investments in Sudanese oil fields, but has always withstood putting pressure on them. Chinese oil purchases have supported the regime and Chinese made AK-47s are used as the murder weapon in Darfur.

It is not just China which behaves like this. The main opposition to the Iraq war came from Russia, France and Germany who all had lucrative deals with Saddam Hussein. Our own Natwar Singh took kick backs and faked a moral opposition to the war.

With the protest of the Burmese Buddhist monks getting attention from around the world, analysts have concluded that if there is one nation that can exert pressure on the military junta, it is China. China is Burma’s largest trading partner and has the leverage, but it is a foregone conclusion that China will do nothing to help the monks. A nation which suppressed the Tiananmen revolution and brutally murdered Buddhist monks in Tibet would be least interested in bringing democracy to Burma. When the issue was bought up before the United Nations, China protested, similar to the protest in Darfur case.

Occasionally there is a mention that India could do something about the issue in Burma, then it as hilarious as the suggestion by one of the callers on On Point Radio, who said that all Americans should write to Wal-Mart asking it to do something about the freedom struggle in Burma. While the world was watching, India chose to be as insensitive as possible by sending the petroleum minister Murli Deora for business talks. Pranab Mukherjee went one step further and requested the murderers to conduct an enquiry into their own activities which is like asking Veerappan do his own post mortem.

Both India and China are least bothered about the plight of the monks and the human tragedy in Burma. Out of this, India’s behavior is shameful as it is a democracy selling arms to a cruel dictatorship in return for access to oil and gas. When China brutalized Buddhists in Tibet, India kept quiet and now probably to show that the foreign policy is consistent, it is keeping quiet when the show is being repeated in Burma. This was an opportunity for India to take a moral stand and distinguish itself from China, but instead it has chosen to let General Electric run the show.

(Image via Free Burma)

Tags: Burma, China, India, Buddhism

Notes from Kerala (3)

Bhaskar writes about the Communist Government in Kerala

This government cannot be saved by saving the ministers concerned. So far no member of this administration has been able to gain recognition as a good minister. At the same time, the parties say they are satisfied with the ministers’ performance. Apparently, although the ministers have not been successful in addressing the people’s problems, they are meeting the party’s needs.

Akrami writes, again about the Communist Government in Kerala

Every hour passed with the comedy government in power will prove costly for the LDF and will soon see a coming back of the vicious minority lobbies. Atchuthanandan it seems has vowed to see the end of the LDF. Democracy itself needs changes that able people come to power, manage the state’s resources. But for now a better team needs to take charge. This small state with not a kilometre of normal roads, not a urinal around, not public transport, with only pety issues and petty politics cannot stand watching further. Before they are kicked out without grace let them leave and make way for better people.

Ratheesh writes how people of Kerala are resorting to Gandhigiri to stop hartals

From one of my relatives, I came to know about this Gandhian model campaign in Kerala against “Hartal”. Campaign for Peace is an NGO that plans to send a lakh postcards to the Chief Justice of the Kerala High Court requesting him to ensure safety of people during Hartal days. The plan is to send postcards on October 2, which is going to be observed as Hartal Viruddha Dinam (Anti-Hartal Day). Why not e-mails? I think it’s because e-mails are not frequently read in many Government organizations in India, and having an email flood in the Inbox would hardly have any impact anywhere. But making a lakh postcards pile up in the mail-room would be a more effective form of symbolic protest.

Dependence on Globalization

Define Irony: Malayalees opposing globalization.

The Kerala model of development, as an alternative to market economy has been touted by economists like Amartya Sen, but it turns out that the money order economy of Kerala is not practically applicable to any part of the world, including Kerala.

Plagued by chronic unemployment, more Keralites than ever work abroad, often at sun-scorched jobs in the Persian Gulf that pay about $1 an hour and keep them from their families for years. The cash flowing home now helps support nearly one Kerala resident in three. That has some local scholars rewriting the Kerala story: far from escaping capitalism, they say, this celebrated corner of the developing world is painfully dependent on it.

Without migrant earnings, critics say, the state’s luster could not be sustained. The $5 billion that Keralite migrants send home augment the state’s economic output by nearly 25 percent. Migrants’ families are three times as likely as those of nonmigrants to live in superior housing, and about twice as likely to have telephones, refrigerators and cars. Men seeking wives place newspaper ads, describing themselves as “handsome, teetotaler, foreign-employed” or “God-fearing and working in Dubai.” [Jobs Abroad Support ‘Model’ State in India (via email from Mohan)]

Tags: Kerala, Globalization, Amartya Sen

Notes from Kerala

Kerala Letter writes that Kerala is now a middle class society (via kuffir)

The proletariat that is constantly mentioned in our political discourse has been steadily shrinking for quite some time. As its strength declines, that of the middle class grows. In fact, Kerala is now a middle class society. Many people discuss contemporary political and economic developments without understanding this.

Marx saw the middle class a section without a future. He expected it to disappear gradually. He thought that a section of it would improve its condition and join the bourgeois and the rest, unable to do so, would end up as working class. Marxists who have accepted this line of thinking claim that the middle class is on the decline. However, statistical data shows that in many countries, including India and China, the middle class is expanding fast.

John Cheeran asks some why Kerala MPs are against the new Salem Railway division

In a federal structure what happens if a new Railway Division has been created? Are these MPs are championing the cause of some of the bureaucrats in the existing Palakkad Division? There no job losses, no trouble to passengers, so what’s the big fuss about?
As far as I know not a single Kerala railway passenger will be adversely affected by the creation of the new Salem Division. All trains that come to Kerala will still come, observing the same schedule, carrying the same passengers. There are no changes at the boarding and alighting points.
The quality of the service will be the same. So why Kerala’s MPs, mainly belonging to the CPI (M) fold, were hopping mad at the Parliament Hall?

Dog’s own country cannot believe his eyes when he sees something unusual in Kerala

And another sight I observed today was even more shocking! Malayalis standing in a queue! God! That’s one of the rarest sights you will ever see. I havent seen them stand in a line in banks, or cinema halls, or shops or..anywhere there is supposed to be a queue. Even in church they have to do a stampede, as though God will run away if they dont rush. But today, I saw almost over 50 malayali men stand in one long line, disciplined, quiet and looking very earnest. No points for guessing where: Kerala State Beverages Corporation Limited – Indian Made Foreign Liquor outlet.

Tags: Kerala

Sacrificed for "Secularism"

Lumbini was the place where Buddha was born, but Lumbini Park in Hyderabad is the place where 10 people were killed along with 32 others who died in another explosion near a popular eatery. Many others were saved, not because of any great work by Indian police, but due to the ineptness of the terrorists.

After the Mumbai terrorist attacks on the trains, Home Minister, Shivraj Patil told the media that he knew such an attack was going to happen, but since no one told him the time or place and so he could not prevent it. This time the intelligence agencies knew that explosives were delivered to terrorists in Hyderabad in March 2007.

The first page in an Indian passport has a request from the President of India to let the bearer to pass freely without let or hindrance and to afford him or her every assistance and protection of which he or she may stand in need. The Congress party seems to have requested such privileges for Harkat-ul-Jihad-e-Islami terrorists carrying eight kilograms of military-grade explosives within the country as well.

We say this because some aggressive policing would have protected the city, but the Congress Governments, both at the center and the state, chose not do so so because it would not have gone well with people who worship Gen. Musharraf and Osama bin Laden. Thus when the Government possibly could have prevented this incident, it did not, for fear of upsetting the vote bank.

Then the Congress party big wigs have to ask themselves, what good is a dead vote bank?

(Cross posted at INI Signal)

Tags: Terrorism, India, Hyderabad

Discovering common ground with Jews

Even though India had issues recognizing Israel, there were
no
second thoughts about asking Israel for help during the wars with China
and Pakistan. Even when the
Palestinians
had no issues with India recognizing Israel, we chose to be more catholic
than the pope. Fortunately people outside the country are establishing close
relationship with the Jews and learning quite a bit from them.

Much of that synergy is happening in the Bay Area, where Hindus and Jews
have been coming together to network, talk politics, share dance steps and,
yes, get married. Hindu and Jewish groups estimate there are about 300,000
Jews and upward of 200,000 Hindus living in the Bay Area. Community leaders
acknowledge the two groups have a lot in common: a shared emphasis on
family, faith and education; homelands that are young democracies with a
history of foreign occupations; and, especially in the Bay Area, high
visibility in the tech industry.

But by far, they said, the strongest force behind the friendship has been
the growing ties between India and Israel — two countries with a history of
hostile relations with their Muslim neighbors.

They’ve also been willing to rally to one another’s side. When protesters
disrupted the first-ever Hindu prayer to open the Senate’s daily session in
July, Jews stood alongside Indians in decrying the incident. And when Bay
Area Jews face off against protesters in San Francisco calling for people
and businesses to dump their Israeli assets, they’re not alone.

“When we stand out there counter-protesting, we found that members of the
Hindu-American community always stand shoulder to shoulder with us,” said
Lisa Cohen, who has taken part in a number of rallies and protests. That
friendship, she added, is just going to get stronger. “They have been there
with us through thick and thin,” she said, “and the more I’m around them,
the more I find that we have so much in common.”
[Jews,
Hindus in Bay Area discover common ground]

Understanding anti-Hindusim

When Rajan Zed, director of interfaith relations at a Hindu temple in Reno, Nev., gave the brief prayer that opens each day’s Senate session last month, his prayer was disrupted by some anti-abortion activists who shouted “No Lord but Jesus Christ“, “There’s only one true God,” and ”this is an abomination”. To understand the hatred of the hecklers, Rajiv Malhotra writes that one should understand that there is a systematic creation and distribution of misinformation by an army of “scholars”.

The denigration of Hinduism influences the way Americans relate to Indians. Andrew Rotter, an American historian, in his book on the US foreign policy’s tilt against India and towards Pakistan during the Nehru era, cites declassified documents revealing US presidents’ and diplomats’ suspicions of Hinduism. They regarded “Hindu India” as lacking morality and integrity, and its “grotesque images” reminded them of previous pagan faiths conquered by Christians, such as Native Americans. American ideas about India are intertwined with stereotypes about Hinduism.

There are domestic implications concerning the diaspora as well. The great American meritocracy has enabled us to succeed as individuals, and many Indians see American Jews as a role model. But it took the Jews over half a century of organized lobbying and litigation by organizations such as the Anti-Defamation League, to establish their religious identity in public life. The lesson Jews had learnt in the European Holocaust was that their individual success could easily be used against them if their civilizational identity was defamed. Indians also faced hate crimes in New Jersey when the Dotbusters targeted Hindus. Recent rants by Pat Buchanan and Lou Dobbs generate xenophobia against Indians for “stealing” jobs from “real” (i.e. white Judeo-Christian) Americans.

As Indian-Americans stand out for their individual success, while US economic standards deteriorate, we may one day regret having neglected the projection of a positive civilizational image. Unlike many other ethnic and religious groups, we have not adequately engaged US universities, schools, media and think-tanks deeper than the pop culture layer of cuisine, Bollywood and fashions. On the contrary, many Indian writers have fed the “caste, cows, curry” images of India. [Was the US Senate Attack on Hinduism an isolated Instance?]

Tags: Hinduism, Rajiv Malhotra

A Calligraphed Urdu Newspaper

Calligraphy, considered to be one of the highest art forms in Islamic world resulted in beautiful writings in mosques and various calligraphed Qurans. The practitioners of that art form are getting killed or not finding people to carry it forward.

In India, there is still one calligraphed Urdu daily newspaper, The Musalman, but it too faces an uncertain future.

Here in the shadow of the Wallajah Mosque, a team of six puts out this hand-penned paper. Four of them are katibs — writers dedicated to the ancient art of Urdu calligraphy. It takes three hours using a pen, ink and ruler to transform a sheet of paper into news and art.

In the meantime, the office is a center for the South Indian Muslim community and hosts a stream of renowned poets, religious leaders and royalty who contribute to the pages, or just hang out, drink chai and recite their most recent works to the staff. The Musalman publishes Urdu poetry and messages on devotion to God and communal harmony daily.

…

But the Musalman has survived and operates much as it has since it was founded in 1927. The biggest change came in the 1950s when Fazlulla unloaded a massive offset printer from a cargo ship. He salvaged the machine from a defunct American newspaper, and the paper has used it ever since.

Each katib is responsible for one page. If someone is sick, the others pull double shifts — there are no replacements anywhere in the city. When calligraphers make mistakes they rewrite everything from scratch. They earn 60 rupees (about $1.50) per page.

The final proofs are transferred onto a black and white negative, then pressed onto printing plates. The paper is sold for one cent on the streets of Chennai. [A Handwritten Daily Paper in India Faces the Digital Future]