Understanding the Crisis - Markets, the State and Hypocrisy

February 18, 2009

By Noam Chomsky and Sameer Dossani

Source: Foreign Policy In Focus

February 10, 2009 -- Noam Chomsky is a noted linguist, author, and foreign policy expert. Sameer Dossani interviewed him about the global economic crisis and its roots.

 

SAMEER DOSSANI: In any first year economics class, we are taught that markets have their ups and downs, so the current recession is perhaps nothing out of the ordinary. But this particular downturn is interesting for two reasons: First, market deregulation in the 1980s and 1990s made the boom periods artificially high, so the bust period will be deeper than it would otherwise. Secondly, despite an economy that's boomed since 1980, the majority of working class U.S. residents have seen their incomes stagnate — while the rich have done well most of the country hasn't moved forward at all. Given the situation, my guess is that economic planners are likely to go back to some form of Keynesianism, perhaps not unlike the Bretton Woods system that was in place from 1948-1971. What are your thoughts?

 

NOAM CHOMSKY: Well I basically agree with your picture. In my view, the breakdown of the Bretton Woods system in the early 1970s is probably the major international event since 1945, much more significant in its implications than the collapse of the Soviet Union.

 

From roughly 1950 until the early 1970s there was a period of unprecedented economic growth and egalitarian economic growth. So the lowest quintile did as well — in fact they even did a little bit better — than the highest quintile. It was also a period of some limited but real form of benefits for the population. And in fact social indicators, measurements of the health of society, they very closely tracked growth. As growth went up social indicators went up, as you'd expect. Many economists called it the golden age of modern capitalism — they should call it state capitalism because government spending was a major engine of growth and development.

 

In the mid 1970s that changed. Bretton Woods restrictions on finance were dismantled, finance was freed, speculation boomed, huge amounts of capital started going into speculation against currencies and other paper manipulations, and the entire economy became financialized. The power of the economy shifted to the financial institutions, away from manufacturing. And since then, the majority of the population has had a very tough time; in fact it may be a unique period in American history. There's no other period where real wages — wages adjusted for inflation — have more or less stagnated for so long for a majority of the population and where living standards have stagnated or declined. If you look at social indicators, they track growth pretty closely until 1975, and at that point they started to decline, so much so that now we're pretty much back to the level of 1960. There was growth, but it was highly inegalitarian — it went into a very small number of pockets. There have been brief periods in which this shifted, so during the tech bubble, which was a bubble in the late Clinton years, wages improved and unemployment went down, but these are slight deviations in a steady tendency of stagnation and decline for the majority of the population.

 

Financial crises have increased during this period, as predicted by a number of international economists. Once financial markets were freed up, there was expected to be an increase in financial crises, and that's happened. This crisis happens to be exploding in the rich countries, so people are talking about it, but it's been happening regularly around the world — some of them very serious — and not only are they increasing in frequency but they're getting deeper. And it's been predicted and discussed and there are good reasons for it.

 

About 10 years ago there was an important book called Global Finance at Risk, by two well-known economists John Eatwell and Lance Taylor. In it they refer to the well-known fact that there are basic inefficiencies intrinsic to markets. In the case of financial markets, they under-price risk. They don't count in systemic risk — general social costs. So for example if you sell me a car, you and I may make a good bargain, but we don't count in the costs to the society — pollution, congestion and so on. In financial markets, this means that risks are under-priced, so there are more risks taken than would happen in an efficient system. And that of course leads to crashes. If you had adequate regulation, you could control and prevent market inefficiencies. If you deregulate, you're going to maximize market inefficiency.

 

This is pretty elementary economics. They happen to discuss it in this book; others have discussed it too. And that's what's happening. Risks were under-priced, therefore more risks were taken than should have been, and sooner or later it was going to crash. Nobody predicted exactly when, and the depth of the crash is a little surprising. That's in part because of the creation of exotic financial instruments which were deregulated, meaning that nobody really knew who owed what to whom. It was all split up in crazy ways. So the depth of the crisis is pretty severe — we're not to the bottom yet — and the architects of this are the people who are now designing Obama's economic policies.

 

Dean Baker, one of the few economists who saw what was coming all along, pointed out that it's almost like appointing Osama bin Laden to run the so-called war on terror. Robert Rubin and Lawrence Summers, Clinton's treasury secretaries, are among the main architects of the crisis. Summers intervened strongly to prevent any regulation of derivatives and other exotic instruments. Rubin, who preceded him, was right in the lead of undermining the Glass-Steagall act, all of which is pretty ironic. The Glass-Steagall Act protected commercial banks from risky investment firms, insurance firms, and so on, which kind of protected the core of the economy. That was broken up in 1999 largely under Rubin's influence. He immediately left the treasury department and became a director of Citigroup, which benefited from the breakdown of Glass-Steagall by expanding and becoming a "financial supermarket" as they called it. Just to increase the irony (or the tragedy if you like) Citigroup is now getting huge taxpayer subsidies to try to keep it together and just in the last few weeks announced that it's breaking up. It's going back to trying to protect its commercial banking from risky side investments. Rubin resigned in disgrace — he's largely responsible for this. But he's one of Obama's major economic advisors, Summers is another one; Summer's protégé Tim Geithner is the Treasury Secretary.

 

None of this is really unanticipated. There were very good economists like say David Felix, an international economist who's been writing about this for years. And the reasons are known: markets are inefficient; they under-price social costs. And financial institutions underprice systemic risk. So say you're a CEO of Goldman Sachs. If you're doing your job correctly, when you make a loan you ensure that the risk to you is low. So if it collapses, you'll be able to handle it. You do care about the risk to yourself, you price that in. But you don't price in systemic risk, the risk that the whole financial system will erode. That's not part of your calculation.

 

Well that's intrinsic to markets — they're inefficient. Robin Hahnel had a couple of very good articles about this recently in economics journals. But this is first year economics course stuff — markets are inefficient; these are some of their inefficiencies; there are many others. They can be controlled by some degree of regulation, but that was dismantled under religious fanaticism about efficient markets, which lacked empirical support and theoretical basis; it was just based on religious fanaticism. So now it's collapsing.

 

People talk about a return to Keynesianism, but that's because of a systematic refusal to pay attention to the way the economy works. There's a lot of wailing now about "socializing" the economy by bailing out financial institutions. Yeah, in a way we are, but that's icing on the cake. The whole economy's been socialized since — well actually forever, but certainly since the Second World War. This mythology that the economy is based on entrepreneurial initiative and consumer choice, well ok, to an extent it is. For example at the marketing end, you can choose one electronic device and not another. But the core of the economy relies very heavily on the state sector, and transparently so. So for example to take the last economic boom which was based on information technology — where did that come from? Computers and the Internet. Computers and the Internet were almost entirely within the state system for about 30 years — research, development, procurement, other devices — before they were finally handed over to private enterprise for profit-making. It wasn't an instantaneous switch, but that's roughly the picture. And that's the picture pretty much for the core of the economy.

 

The state sector is innovative and dynamic. It's true across the board from electronics to pharmaceuticals to the new biology-based industries. The idea is that the public is supposed to pay the costs and take the risks, and ultimately if there is any profit, you hand it over to private tyrannies, corporations. If you had to encapsulate the economy in one sentence, that would be the main theme. When you look at the details of course it's a more complex picture, but that's the major theme. So yes, socialization of risk and cost (but not profit) is partially new for the financial institutions, but it's just added on to what's been happening all along.

 

Double Standard

 

DOSSANI: As we consider the picture of the collapse of some of these major financial institutions we would do well to remember that some of these same market fundamentalist policies have already been exported around the globe. Specifically, the International Monetary Fund has forced an export-oriented growth model onto many countries, meaning that the current slowdown in U.S. consumption is going to have major impacts in other countries. At the same time, some regions of the world, particularly the Southern Cone region of South America, are working to repudiate the IMF's market fundamentalist policies and build up alternatives. Can you talk a little about the international implications of the financial crisis? And how is it that some of the institutions responsible for this mess, like the IMF, are using this as an opportunity to regain credibility on the world stage?

 

CHOMSKY: It's rather striking to notice that the consensus on how to deal with the crisis in the rich countries is almost the opposite of the consensus on how the poor countries should deal with similar economic crises. So when so-called developing countries have a financial crisis, the IMF rules are: raise interest rates, cut down economic growth, tighten the belt, pay off your debts (to us), privatize, and so on. That's the opposite of what's prescribed here. What's prescribed here is lower interest rates, pour government money into stimulating the economy, nationalize (but don't use the word), and so on. So yes, there's one set of rules for the weak and a different set of rules for the powerful. There's nothing novel about that.

 

As for the IMF, it is not an independent institution. It's pretty much a branch of the U.S. Treasury Department — not officially, but that's pretty much the way it functions. The IMF was accurately described by a U.S. Executive Director as "the credit community's enforcer." If a loan or an investment from a rich country to a poor country goes bad, the IMF makes sure that the lenders will not suffer. If you had a capitalist system, which of course the wealthy and their protectors don't want, it wouldn't work like that.

 

For example, suppose I lend you money, and I know that you may not be able to pay it back. Therefore I impose very high interest rates, so that at least I'll get that in case you crash. Then suppose at some point you can't pay the debt. Well in a capitalist system it would be my problem. I made a risky loan, I made a lot of money from it by high interest rates and now you can't pay it back? Ok, tough for me. That's a capitalist system. But that's not the way our system works. If investors make risky loans to say Argentina and get high interest rates and then Argentina can't pay it back, well that's when the IMF steps in, the credit community's enforcer, and says that the people of Argentina, they have to pay it back. Now if you can't pay back a loan to me, I don't say that your neighbors have to pay it back. But that's what the IMF says. The IMF says the people of the country have to pay back the debt which they had nothing to do with, it was usually given to dictators, or rich elites, who sent it off to Switzerland or someplace, but you guys, the poor folks living in the country, you have to pay it back. And furthermore, if I lend money to you and you can't pay it back, in a capitalist system I can't ask my neighbors to pay me, but the IMF does, namely the US taxpayer. They help make sure that the lenders and investors are protected. So yes it's the credit community's enforcer. It's a radical attack on basic capitalist principles, just as the whole functioning of the economy based on the state sector is, but that doesn't change the rhetoric. It's kind of hidden in the woodwork.

 

What you said about the Southern Cone is exactly right. For the last several years they've been trying to extricate themselves from this whole neoliberal disaster. One of the ways was, for example Argentina simply didn't pay back its debts, or rather restructured them and bought some of it back. And folks like the President of Argentina said that "we're going to rid ourselves of the IMF" through these measures. Well, what was happening to the IMF? The IMF was in trouble. It was losing capital and losing borrowers, and therefore losing its ability to function as the credit community's enforcer. But this crisis is being used to restructure it and revitalize it.

 

It's also true that countries are driven to commodity export; that's the mode of development that's designed for them. Then they will be in trouble if commodity prices fall. It's not 100% the case, but in the Southern Cone, the countries that have been doing reasonably well do rely very heavily on commodity export, actually raw material export. That's even true of the most successful of them, Chile, which is considered the darling. The Chilean economy has been based very heavily on copper exports. The biggest copper company in the world is CODELCO, the nationalized copper company — nationalized by President Salvador Allende and nobody has tried to privatize it fully since because it's such a cash cow. It has been undermined, so it controls less of the copper export than it has in the past, but it still provides a large part of the tax base of the Chilean economy and is also a large income producer. It's an efficiently run nationalized copper company. But reliance on copper export means you're vulnerable to a decline in the price of commodities. The other Chilean exports like say, fruit and vegetables which are adapted to the U.S. market because of the seasonal differences — that's also vulnerable. And they haven't really done much in developing the economy beyond reliance on raw materials exports — a little, but not much. The same can be said for the other currently successful countries. You look at growth rates in Peru and Brazil, they're heavily dependent on soy and other agricultural exports or minerals; it's not a solid base for an economy.

 

One major exception to this is South Korea and Taiwan. They were very poor countries. South Korea in the late 1950s was probably about the level of Ghana today. But they developed by following the Japanese model - violating all the rules of the IMF and Western economists and developing pretty much the way the Western countries had developed, by substantial direction and involvement of the state sector. So South Korea, for example built a major steel industry, one of the most efficient in the world, by flatly violating the advice of the IMF and the World Bank, who said it was impossible. But they did it through state intervention, directing of resources, and also by restricting capital flight. Capital flight is a major problem for a developing country, and also for democracy. Capital flight could be controlled under Bretton Woods rules, but it was opened up in the last 30 years. In South Korea, you could get the death penalty for capital flight. So yes, they developed a pretty solid economy, as did Taiwan. China is a separate story, but they also radically violated the rules, and it's a complex story of how it's ending up. But these are major phenomena in the international economy.

 

Government Investment

 

DOSSANI: Do you think the current crisis will offer other countries the opportunity to follow the example of South Korean and Taiwan?

 

CHOMSKY: Well, you could say the example of the United States. During its major period of growth - late 19th century and early 20th century - the United States was probably the most protectionist country in the world. We had very high protective barriers, and it drew in investment, but private investment played only a supporting role. Take the steel industry. Andrew Carnegie built the first billion-dollar corporation by feeding off the state sector — building naval vessels and so on — this is Carnegie the great pacifist. The sharpest period of economic growth in U.S. history was during the Second World War, which was basically a semi-command economy and industrial production more than tripled. That model pulled us out of the depression, after which we became far and away the major economy in the world. After the Second World War, the substantial period of economic growth which I mentioned (1948-1971) was very largely based on the dynamic state sector and that remains true.

 

Let's take my own institution, MIT. I've been here since the 1950s, and you can see it first hand. In the 1950s and 1960s, MIT was largely financed by the Pentagon. There were labs that did classified war work, but the campus itself wasn't doing war work. It was developing the basis of the modern electronic economy: computers, the Internet, microelectronics, and so on. It was all developed under a Pentagon cover. IBM was here learning how to shift from punch-cards to electronic computers. It did get to a point by the 1960s that IBM was able to produce its own computers, but they were so expensive that nobody could buy them so therefore the government bought them. In fact, procurement is a major form of government intervention in the economy to develop the fundamental structure that will ultimately lead to profit. There have been good technical studies on this. From the 1970s until today, the funding of MIT has been shifting away from the Pentagon and toward the National Institute of Health and related government institutions. Why? Because the cutting edge of the economy is shifting from an electronics base to a biology base. So now the public has to pay the costs of the next phase of the economy through other state institutions. Now again, this is not the whole story, but it's a substantial part.

 

There will be a shift towards more regulation because of the current catastrophe, and how long they can maintain the paying off banks and financial institutions is not very clear. There will be more infrastructure spending, surely, because no matter where you are in the economic spectrum you realize that it's absolutely necessary. There will have to be some adjustment in the trade deficit, which is dramatic, meaning less consumption here, more export, and less borrowing.

 

And there's going to have to be some way to deal with the elephant in the closet, one of the major threats to the American economy, the increase in healthcare costs. That's often masked as "entitlements" so that they can wrap in Social Security, as part of an effort to undermine Social Security. But in fact Social Security is pretty sound; probably as sound as its ever been, and what problems there are could probably be addressed with small fixes. But Medicare is huge, and its costs are going way up, and that's primarily because of the privatized healthcare system which is highly inefficient. It's very costly and it has very poor outcomes. The U.S. has twice the per capita costs of other industrialized countries and it has some of the worst outcomes. The major difference between the U.S. system and others is that this one is so heavily privatized, leading to huge administrative costs, bureaucratization, surveillance costs and so on. Now that's going to have to be dealt with somehow because it's a growing burden on the economy and its huge; it'll dwarf the federal budget if current tendencies persist.

 

South America

 

DOSSANI: Will the current crisis open up space for other countries to follow more meaningful development goals?

 

CHOMSKY: Well, it's been happening. One of the most exciting areas of the world is South America. For the last 10 years there have been quite interesting and significant moves towards independence, for the first time since the Spanish and Portuguese conquests. That includes steps towards unification, which is crucially important, and also beginning to address their huge internal problems. There's a new Bank of the South, based in Caracas, which hasn't really taken off yet, but it has prospects and is supported by other countries as well. MERCOSUR is a trading zone of the Southern cone. Just recently, six or eight months ago, a new integrated organization has developed, UNASUR, the Union of South American Republics, and it's already been effective. So effective that it's not reported in the United States, presumably because it's too dangerous.

 

So when the U.S. and the traditional ruling elites in Bolivia started moving towards a kind of secessionist movement to try to undermine the democratic revolution that's taken place there, and when it turned violent, as it did, there was a meeting of UNASUR last September in Santiago, where it issued a strong statement defending the elected president, Evo Morales, and condemning the violence and the efforts to undermine the democratic system. Morales responded thanking them for their support and also saying that this is the first time in 500 years that South America's beginning to take its fate into its own hands. That's significant; so significant that I don't even think it was reported here. Just how far these developments can go, both dealing with the internal problems and also the problems of unification and integration, we don't know, but the developments are taking place. There are also South-South relations developing, for example between Brazil and South Africa. This again breaks the imperial monopoly, the monopoly of U.S. and Western domination. China's a new element on the scene. Trade and investment are increasing, and this gives more options and possibilities to South America. The current financial crisis might offer opportunities for increasing this, but also it might go the other way. The financial crisis is of course harming — it must harm — the poor in the weaker countries and it may reduce their options. These are really matters which will depend on whether popular movements can take control of their own fate, to borrow Morales' phrase. If they can, yes there are opportunities.

 

 

Sameer Dossani, a Foreign Policy In Focus contributor, is the director of 50 Years is Enough and blogs at shirinandsameer.blogspot.com.

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Rethinking Pasmanda Movement

 

By Khalid Anis Ansari

18 February, 2009
Countercurrents.org

Pasmanda Movement refers to the contemporary caste/class movement among Indian Muslims. Though the history of caste movements among Muslims can be traced back to the commencement of the Momin Movement in the second decade of the twentieth century it is the Mandal decade (1990's) that saw it getting a fresh lease of life. This decade witnessed the formation of two frontline organisations in Bihar [All India United Muslim Morcha (1993) led by Dr. Ejaz Ali and the All India Pasmanda Muslim Mahaz (1998) led by Ali Anwar] and various other organisations elsewhere. Pasmanda, a word of Persian origin, literally means 'those who have fallen behind', 'broken' or 'oppressed'. For our purposes here it refers to the 'dalit' and 'backward' caste Indian Muslims which constitute, according to most estimates, 85% of Muslim population and about 10% of India's population.

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BY invoking the category of 'caste' Pasmanda Movement (PM) interrogates the notion of a monolithic Muslim identity and consequently much of 'mainstream' Muslim politics based on it. By and large, mainstream Muslim politics connotes to the elite-driven symbolic/emotive/identity politics (Babri Mosque, Uniform Civil Code, Urdu, AMU and so on) which thoroughly discounts the developmental concerns and aspirations of common Muslim masses. By emphasising that the Muslim identity is segmented into at least three caste/class blocks—namely, ashraf (elite upper-caste), ajlaf (middle caste or shudra) and arzal (lowest castes or dalit)—PM dislodges the commonplace assumption of any putative uniform community sentiment or interests of Indian Muslims. It suggests that just like any other community Muslims too are a divided house with different sections harbouring different interests. It stresses that the emotive issues raised by elite Muslims engineer a 'false consciousness' (to use a Marxian term) and that this euphoria around Muslim identity is often generated in order to bag benefits from the state as wages for the resultant de-politicisation of common Muslim masses. When PM raises the issue of social justice and proportional representation in power structures (both 'community' and 'state' controlled) for pasmanda Muslims it lends momentum to the process of democratisation of Muslim society in particular and Indian state and society in general. Besides, PM also takes the forces of religious communalism head on: one, by privileging caste over religious identity it crafts the ground for fomenting solidarities with corresponding caste/class blocks in other religious communities, and, two, by combating the notion of a monolithic Muslim identity it unsettles the symbiotic relationship between 'majority' and 'minority' fundamentalism. In short, PM holds the promise of bringing back Muslim politics from the abstract to the concrete, from the imaginary to the real, from the heavens to the earth!

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BUT despite these brave promises PM has been unable to make the impact that was expected of it. Any mass movement must strive to maintain a balance between the 'social' and 'political'. The pioneers of caste movements—Jotiba Phule, E. V. Periyar or B. R. Ambedkar—were quite alive to this notion. Apart from raising radical political demands like the demand for a separate electorate for depressed castes Ambedkar is also remembered for social campaigns like the 'Mahad Satyagraha' and also for raising labour and gender issues on more than one occasion. Periyar too accentuated the 'social question' when inspired by a rationalist worldview he put to fire religious texts (which he considered exploitative) on the streets of Madras. Phule too defied the standard conventions of his day when he decided to open a school for the education of girls. One can scarcely fail to notice the vigorous social and cultural critique of Indian society that they offered both in theoretical terms and in action. PM has unfortunately not taken this aspect seriously.

Right from the days of the All India Momin Conference (its preeminent leader being Abdul Qayyum Ansari) way back in the 1930's to its present post-Mandal avatars it has singularly concentrated on affirmative action (the politics around Article 341 now) and electoral politics at the expense of other pressing issues. It has been completely ineffective in developing a comprehensive alternative social/cultural/economic agenda and the corresponding institutions and mass mobilisation that it necessitates. As a result of this perennial weakness it has failed to preserve an independent outlook and has incessantly been subsumed by one political formation or another. If Momin Conference was assimilated by the Congress, both Ali Anwar and Dr. Ejaz Ali have been co-opted by Nitish Kumar's JD (U) in Bihar. Moreover, it has been lackadaisical in forging alliances with corresponding caste/class movements in other communities thereby shying away from the task of forming a broad coalition of suppressed communities across religious identities or the Bahujan alternative as Phule labelled it. Consequently, it remains captivated by its limited electoral agenda and has been transformed into an easy route for realising the petty political ambitions of the nascent middle-class elite in pasmanda communities. Thus, 'political correctness' often paves the way for the 'politics of desire' of these leaders thereby attenuating the libratory thrust that PM entails in principle.

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HOWEVER, if PM is to do justice to its potential it is imperative that it incorporates the 'social' into its agenda. I can think of at least three interventions in this regard as of now and all of them flow from the main features of caste system itself. The caste system is premised on three essential features: (a) the principle of hierarchy in accordance with the elaborate rules of purity-pollution as registered and legitimized in the canonical religious texts; (b) endogamy; and (c) hereditary occupational specialization. All these three features apply to the Muslim community too in varying degrees. While caste as a principle of social stratification is not acknowledged in the Holy Quran (the inclusion of a close category 'class' is a contentious issue though) but for all practical purposes it operates as a category in the Islamic juristic/legal corpus and interpretative tradition as it has evolved in India [See: Masood Alam Falahi, Hindustan Mein Zaat Paat Aur Musalman (in Urdu) (Delhi: Al Qazi Publishers, 2007)]. Moreover, there is some evidence to suggest that the process of Islamisation has only worked to reinforce rather than weaken or eliminate caste distinctions. Endogamy is still rampant in Indian Muslims as the various matrimonial columns in the newspapers/internet testify. As far as the link of caste with hereditary vocation is concerned the market economy has eroded it to some extent but still a large number of pasmanda Muslims find themselves engaged in caste-based callings.

Due to the above mentioned trajectory of caste in Indian Muslims the task seems clearly cut-out for PM. One, it must offer a critique of the Islamic interpretative tradition as it has evolved in India and if possible construct an alternative Islamic hermeneutics from the perspective of the marginalised. The dalit/bahujan movement has often rejected Hindu religion in totality and located its philosophical and ideological roots in the Indian mode of dialectical-materialist discourse and in their day-to-day interaction with nature. Hence, their epistemology has had a strong material basis and also inclination to link itself to the production process of the Indian subcontinent as expressed historically in the discourses of Lokayats or Buddhism. PM, however, has correctly critiqued and protested the casteist interpretations of Islam forwarded by the Indian ulema and has reclaimed the strong emphasis of Islam on social equality. But what is its take on economic equality on which Islam is presumably silent? Is it willing to interrogate the interpretative methodologies of 'imperial' Islam which has been bequeathed us and is being constantly indoctrinated to pasmanda students via the obfuscating and unimaginative curriculum and pedagogical practises in Islamic seminaries (madrasas)? Is it willing to discover the rationalist and progressive trends in Islamic history (the Mutazila and Qaramita for instance)? How does it relate to the materialist tradition in Indian society as earlier mentioned? How does it relate to the liberation theology movements in contemporary Islam in other locations (in South Africa for instance)? Two, broad campaigns and effective social interventions need to be undertaken to encourage inter-caste marriages (and also love marriages!) in Muslim society. There is a strong link between caste and patriarchy in India. By resorting to these measures caste politics will be engendered and set on the libratory track. Three, a rigorous analysis of the Muslim working class is imperative and strategies must be designed accordingly. The entire politics of reservations concentrates on challenging the monopoly of upper-castes in the organised public sector which constitutes only a small—though privileged—segment of the job market. While this is essential it only affects society indirectly by democratising the state in the long run. A majority of pasmanda Muslims, however, work in adverse conditions and depressed wages in the unorganised sector (which constitutes about 90% of Indian employment) either as labourers in sectors where caste plays a minimal role (farms, brick kilns, construction industry, bidi manufacture etc.) or in caste determined vocations (as weavers, potters, oil-pressers and so on). PM would do well to make common cause with movements that are working towards compressing this huge gap between the 'organised' and 'unorganised' sector at a macro level and also think of organising caste based occupations in cooperatives or retraining those skilled workers whose traditional skills have dated and no longer generate an appropriate demand in the market. However, I must stress here that the above mentioned suggestions are provisional in nature and not well-formed intellectual positions as yet and I merely offer them here for a debate among individuals and groups who sympathise or are connected to the PM is some way. Also many more issues could be taken up and added to the list—for instance, education, health, environment, models of development, art, popular media et al immediately come to my mind.

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BESIDES, I also feel a need to reconsider the icons that have been selected by the PM because the semiotics of any movement arguably defines and circumscribes its politics. Three personalities have usually been celebrated by the movement: Baba-e-Qaum Abdul Qayyum Ansari, Veer Abdul Hameed and Ustad Bismillah Khan. Abdul Qayyum Ansari, who belonged to the julaha (weaver) community, challenged the 'two-nation theory' and Muslim League politics squarely but failed to see through the caste/class composition of the Congress politics and was ultimately subsumed by it. Abdul Hameed, who belonged to the darzi (tailor) community, was awarded with the highest gallantry award Paramveer Chakra posthumously for his bravery and martyrdom in the Indo-Pakistan war. Ustad Bismillah Khan, who belonged to the halalkhor (sweeper) community, as we all know, was a renowned musician. I do not intend to underestimate their achievements but it must be said that all these icons are problematic in terms of their libratory impact. While Abdul Qayyum Ansari's career ended in a political compromise and could not transcend the immediacy of electoral politics, Abdul Hameed's contribution on the other hand entails a danger of succumbing to apologetic nationalism (as was evident in the emotive slogans and songs inspired by his life that were rendered in the Pasmanda Waqaar Rally held in Patna recently on 1st July 2008). Moreover, Bismillah Khan's symbol is so innocuously apolitical as to make us speculate if it serves any purpose at all. Can PM move beyond these icons and rediscover more libratory figures in history? Can Kabir—with his working class background, his unflinching critique of both 'Hindu' and 'Muslim' religious pretensions and obscurantism and above all his explicit positioning against the caste system—be offered as a candidate here? Can other libratory symbols from Islamic and Indian history fit the bill?

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All in all, the crux of the argument submitted here is that PM needs to grow beyond quota politics and rethink its abnegation of the social/cultural/economic aspects of the movement. Along with its present accent on democratisation of the state it would do well to also consider the more far-reaching issue of the democratisation of society at large. PM needs to engage in a balancing act between the 'political' and 'social'. This will create the much desired synergy necessary for launching the libratory promise of PM on track.

[The author is a member of a research-activism group called The Patna Collective]

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Can slumdogs become millionaires in India?

 

By David Pilling
Published: February 18 2009 19:27 | Last updated: February 18 2009 19:27
 

The last film about India to collect an Oscar for best picture was Gandhi, the 1982 epic about how the country won independence. If Slumdog Millionaire wins on Sunday, viewers may ponder what India has done with its freedom. Danny Boyle's film is more a tale of rags than riches, a fact that has angered some – though by no means all – Indians. Here is a short quiz in the Millionaire format to help readers through the controversy. Starting with a question for:
 
Rs1,000: Is the term "slumdog" offensive? The film's title refers to "underdog", but in India it has evoked unflattering comparisons with wild canines. Several middle class Indians I consulted, most of whom enjoyed the film, thought people should worry more about the slums and less about the terminology.
 
Rs4,000: Are all Indian films escapist? Bollywood films, known for their song and dance, are famed for shunning social realism as vehemently as on-screen kisses. But there is a long, gritty tradition of Indian cinema. Bengali director Satyajit Ray's realist works also prompted criticism of peddling poverty. Rakeysh Om Prakash Mehra, whose 2006 film The Colour of Saffron is the biggest-selling DVD in Indian history, deals with edgy themes. "The era of musicals is over," he asserts. In his film, the heroes assassinate a venal and mendacious cabinet minister, so perhaps the age of fantastical wish-fulfillment is not dead after all.
 
Rs16,000: Where was the film shot? It was filmed in Mumbai's Dharavi slum, the largest in Asia with a reputed population of 1m. Sengeeta Dogi, an 18-year-old living there, told me: "I liked some parts [of the film] but I didn't like the bits where Dharavi was shown negatively." She particularly objected to a scene where the hero jumped through an open latrine to secure a film idol's autograph, though she could not help laughing at that point when the film was replayed. She also said it was untrue that children were deliberately mutilated so they could earn more as beggars. Other residents said it used to happen, but not any more.
 
Rs250,000: How bad is urban poverty? A recent report by the government and the United Nations Development Programme says urban poverty is growing along with the urban population. Nationally, poverty in cities is less severe than in villages, but the gap has narrowed. It estimates that 42.6m Indians live in city slums.
 
Rs1m: Do too many Indians live in cities? No, too few do. Nearly 60 per cent of India's labour force works in agriculture, producing just 17 per cent of national output. Even by 2030, according to the poverty report, only 41 per cent of the population will be urban. That compares with China, where 47 per cent of people are already city-dwellers, and rich nations where 80 per cent or above is normal. India's slums give the impression that urbanisation has reached saturation point. But no nation has achieved prosperity without a shift from farming to manufacturing. India's problem is lack of urban infrastructure and job opportunities, not city life itself.
 
Rs2.5m: Why are there no slums in China? China is better run than India, with more powerful city mayors who build basic infrastructure to support wealth-creating migrants. Indian politicians court the rural vote. Corruption corrodes infrastructure plans, though some states, such as Gujarat, are improving. China is authoritarian; when workers are no longer required, they can be shipped back to the countryside. A registration system maintains a strict distinction between urban and rural citizens. Democratic India must not go down this route. But it can learn from China by providing clean water, sewerage and basic housing.
 
Rs5m: Does the quiz show air in India? About a decade ago, Rupert Murdoch launched Kaun Banega Crorepati? – Who Wants to Win $225,000? – hosted by Amitabh Bachchan, Bollywood's most famous star. The jackpot of a crore, or Rs10m, had to be doubled to Rs20m in subsequent series.
 
Rs10m: Do Indians want to be millionaires? Observers of the first series said the audience was at once fascinated and repulsed by the show's naked avarice. This paper ran a piece discussing the "Brahmin-dominated caste system that reserves little honour for wealth creation" and the suspicion of money engendered by Mahatma Gandhi's idealisation of village life and Nehru's state capitalism. Fast growth since then has made many Indians more aspirational. The concept of social mobility is starting to challenge a previously fatalistic attitude to class and caste. Growth unleashed by market reforms has raised average per capita income from less than $400 (£282, €319) to about $1,000, still less than half China's. One critic of the film said it was "inconceivable" that a tea-boy from the slum would be allowed on to a television quiz show. Until that changes, India will only progress so far.
 
Rs20m: Should Slumdog win the Oscar? Ask the audience.

 

 

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Wedding bells to wedding hell in one generation

 

 Janet Street-Porter

Sunday, 15 February 2009

 

Marriage couldn't be more unattractive – the number of us getting hitched has slumped to the lowest level since records began, 150 years ago. By next year, it's predicted that singletons will be in the majority.
 

There are all sorts of reasons why we don't fancy tying the knot any more – and the biggest is undoubtedly cost. The average wedding now won't leave you any change from an astonishing £21,000 – twice as much as a decade ago. In a recession, anyone contemplating such financial lunacy needs to start saving years ahead, or embark on married life in debt. You could buck the trend and do it simply – but if you're participating in a dying ritual, then surely you'll want it to be memorable?
 
No wonder the age we get married has risen over the years, to 30 for women and 31 for men – about 10 years older than our parents. Another factor in the decline of marriage is the lack of tax incentives – why bother going through with it if you're no better off? Labour has been so anxious not to discriminate against single mothers and one-parent families, and so keen to provide financial assistance to the disadvantaged, that they've omitted to sufficiently reward those who are in a stable relationship, raising children within the framework of a marriage. The result? Young women who have kids and claim housing benefit without marrying, and who marginalise men.
 
A long-term partnership like marriage is not an attractive option; they want to live without the restrictions of a full-time, live-in partner. Instead, they have a series of relationships, producing children who treat a succession of men as temporary dads.
 
By contrast, a couple in their twenties contemplating marriage have almost no chance of finding a place to live that they can afford to buy. After school or college, young people are stuck at home for longer than any previous generation (their grandparents would have buggered off at 16 or 18). They're living in their childhood bedrooms – with a smaller living space than many prisoners – and thousands are crippled with massive student loans. Last week, graduates were told to set their sights low, if they wanted work, so what chance of ever affording the luxury of a wedding? It all begins to sound like something you only see in the movies. And if it takes you longer to leave home, get a job and finally taste independence, who'd want to chuck it all up to get hitched? Doesn't sound that appealing somehow.
 
The church can bleat on about marriage being a "life-time commitment" but that's not how people think these days. In an age of social networking, speed dating and internet chat-rooms, young people are genuinely confused about what constitutes a relationship, let alone one that's supposed to last more than a couple of months.
 
Peaches Geldof's short-lived marriage to New York musician Max Drummey is typical – it lasted only 186 days. Apparently her elder sister, Fifi, read they had decided to divorce on the internet, and was the family member who told father. But I don't blame Peaches; she's just 19, and Max 24. I went through a bonkers marriage to an unsuitable young man in Las Vegas which didn't last as long as they managed, and I was 49 at the time.
 
Another reason why we're shunning marriage is the expense of splitting up. If you make a mistake, or just get bored with each other, the only people who benefit are the lawyers. There's a lot to be said for Islamic law – sharia – and just saying "I divorce thee" three times; it would certainly have saved me many thousands of pounds. Are men being put off marriage because of the large settlements some high-profile wives such as Karen Parlour and Heather Mills McCartney have managed to win in recent years? I'm not sure, because the number of men who then go on and remarry a woman who just looks like a younger version of their first wife is definitely on the increase. In divorce, ultimately it's middle-aged women who suffer the most, because their chances of remarriage are very slim indeed.
 
Marriage is going out of fashion for a variety of reasons, and I don't think things will change. I just hope we don't all end up poor, single and alone in our old age, with only a load of old photos of the fun times along the way to keep us company, because that's the future for the me-generation.

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LEG SPIN - Abdul Qadir turns 50 -'I'm proud that I revived an art'

 

Abdul Qadir turns 50 -'I'm proud that I revived an art'

Osman Samiuddin

September 15, 2005

The wizard relaxes at home © Getty Images

Shane Warne will rightly be celebrated as the greatest legspinner of all time, especially after an individual performance in The Ashes that has few rivals. But if he is widely acknowledged to have made legspin fashionable again in the 1990s, one man - Abdul Qadir - took the first, necessary step of making it acceptable in the '80s. On his 50th birthday and nearly 28 years after he hopped, skipped and danced into cricket, we speak to the original modern-day legspinner about his career, his art and Warne.

You are 50 today. How would you look back at your time in cricket?

I am very thankful that I got to play in such a good era for the game and with so many great players. Obviously I am also proud that I revived an art like legspin, especially in a time when there were hardly any spinners who had any success. I am happy that I was involved in bringing alive an art that was so valuable but had become redundant. My time was dominated by fast bowlers and to have taken 236 Test wickets in that is something I am very proud of. Then, pitches wouldn't assist turn that much, especially not on the first or second day as they do now, and to have played and played well then is an achievement.

Why did you take up legspin in that time?

It just happened, starting off in the street matches we used to play. But legspin became like a love affair with me, like you would have with a woman. I used to sleep with the ball by my side at night. I picked up all the variations myself because I loved it so much, I wanted to discover more about the art, find out how it can work, what makes it tick, what makes it special, how it can succeed in different conditions.

What attributes do you need to be a good legspinner?

You need courage, above all. With the ball, you need to have complete control over line and length - this is absolutely crucial. So many legspinners can get good turn and bounce but just don't have any control and thus aren't successful. You also need to be a good thinker about the game, more than other bowlers I think. That is why Shane Warne is successful, because he really thinks about his game. Variation is crucial as well. Field placings and having an idea of what fields to bowl to is important; you can't just rely on the captain to set fields for you. Finally, an ability to use the crease well, although it is underrated, is very important.

What do you make of the state of legspin today?

This is the most fulfilling thing for me. When I started, it was unheard of to bowl legspin, especially in ODI matches. To bowl to batsmen like Ian Botham in a match and get their wickets with legspin - that didn't happen. And now, the highest wicket-taker in the world and one of the greatest bowlers of all time is Shane Warne. Close behind him is another great, Anil Kumble, and in Pakistan, we had Mushtaq (Ahmed) after me and now Danish Kaneria. This is vital for the game itself and for viewers because they get to see some really accomplished performers executing a rare art. After me, there has been a mela (festival) of legspinners and that is great for the game. It's just great to see bowlers like that in a game now and having so much success.

What did you think of Warne's performances in the Ashes series?

Absolutely amazing and full credit to him; 40 wickets in any series is an unbelievable haul. But I would like to point out that English players play legspin so badly that at times it is inevitable bowlers will succeed against them. I would go as far as to say that several club batsmen in the subcontinent would play legspin better than some of the English batsmen today. You wouldn't have batsmen being bowled around their legs like some English players were. They can't use their pads properly against balls pitching around leg stump and find it impossible to read from the hand. Above all, sweeping a legspin bowler is one of the worst ways of playing him. You can't account for the bounce or the turn so it becomes too dangerous.

He [Warne] is simply one of the greatest bowlers ever. His record speaks for itself. The best thing about him, what sets him apart, is his heart and bravery

How would you rate Shane Warne?

There is no rating - he is simply one of the greatest bowlers ever. His record speaks for itself. The best thing about him, what sets him apart, is his heart and bravery. Legspin is mostly about being brave. You know you might get torn apart, you know, occasionally, you might bowl a loose delivery but you also know you will take wickets and to keep that attitude is the most important thing. Also he has tremendous control. He can do pretty much what he wants with the ball, the amount of spin he wants to impart, where he wants to land it. If you have control as a legspinner, then you have a basic ingredient to be successful. It also helps if you have a reputation like he does. So many batsmen are already lost before they even step out on the pitch against him that even when he does bowl a loose delivery they still end up either getting out to it or not scoring off it.

What do you think of Danish Kaneria?

He is an excellent bowler but the only thing I worry about is his attitude and just how aggressive he gets. It's good to have aggression but when you have just gotten rid of Justin Langer after he has almost scored a double century and you celebrate like you have won and give him a send-off, that is not good. You have to have respect for good players and especially those who have dominated you. He should worry that he got him out after such a huge score and not early on. Brian Lara really hit Kaneria everywhere and dominated him but when Danish got him, with a poor ball as well, he celebrated like no tomorrow. As a bowler he doesn't really have many weaknesses - good action, variety and control but it is his attitude that is a concern I think. You have to respect your opponent, especially players of calibre. Also he is playing so much county cricket, he has exposed himself to batsmen. I avoided it because I didn't want to sell my art, I didn't want batsmen to know my tricks. But with Danish, they might have a better idea of how to play him now, having seen him play at county level so often. He should be a matchwinner against England in this series and I hope he will be.

Qadir's batting had plenty of nuisance value © Getty Images

It was always said that you had a lot of variety, which was the key to your success. Nowadays it can be argued that bowlers like Kumble and Warne may be don't possess the variety you did but are still so successful. How important then is variety in a legspinner's armoury?

This is a good question. See today, the performances of Warne and Kumble are there. Nobody can or should doubt their achievements. But there is no fun there in the bowling. Partially, I guess it is due to a decline in the quality of batsmanship today. Because it has gone down, that variety is not actually needed because you can get them out repeatedly with one or two types of balls - they are unable to cope with it. When I was playing, you used to have batsmen like Imran (Khan), Kapil (Dev) and Hadlee coming so low down the order and they were quality players. It is an indication of how strong top orders were then. Now because batting is not of the standard it used to be, you don't need to have too much variety to succeed.

You said that you had three deliveries: the googly, legbreak and the flipper. Where did your variety come from?

These are all part of the art. This is what makes it what it is, the building blocks. The variety comes from how you use them. So you use the crease, approach it from different angles, get different amounts of turn. I developed two googlies, one that came from the back of the hand and the other that was a finger-spinning googly delivered with a conventional legbreak action. If you bowl from close to stumps, you get more spin but from wider it spins less. I used to do all sorts of things not just different types of balls. Going wide of the crease, coming closer to the stumps, bowling from behind the crease, dropping your shoulders a little, bowling the same ball but with different grips or actions; all of it should be part of the package of a legspinner.

You had a very distinct, unique action and you once said it was a construction.

Yes, it was an artificial action. As I became more experienced, I started realising the importance of uncovering the psyche of batsmen and playing on it. The action was for show really, to create a physical aura, to give them that feeling of `wow, who and what is this coming in to bowl?' and work on their minds even before I bowled to them. My natural action was very different, quite beautiful. It was like Wasim Raja's action only right-arm. It was also designed for deception, to shield the ball from batsmen. It is important with legspin to not allow batsmen to read from your hand because those who can will play you really well. Our whole job is about deceiving batsmen and so hiding your grip is important. So the action worked in that way as well. Actually, that is one thing about Warne - he doesn't hide his hand too much and good batsmen should be able to read him fairly easily because he has such an open action. My first advice to any budding spinner: you should hide your hand as much as is possible from batsmen. Obviously though, 600 wickets later, we can't really say to Warne that he should change his action!

You also had a successful one-day career - not many legspin bowlers used to play in ODIs.

I thought it was a great injustice when I wasn't picked early in my career as an ODI player. I could bat handily as well at times so I used to get very annoyed. I actually fought with Imran Khan to be picked for the ODI squad. I asked him, as a captain, what do you want from me? He said, any bowler who gives away roughly 40 runs in ten overs and not more I will pick. I said to him the day I give 41 runs you drop me from the team. Like this I fought to get into the side. And in my first match I took 4-21 against New Zealand at the World Cup.

Did you go in with a different attitude to a one-day match?

See, it depends on the situation of the match. If you are defending a small total, then I find it best to attack, go all out, and crowd the batsman with fielders. If you have been dismissed for 150 runs, then you just have to bowl them out so you take a chance and attack as much as you can. That is something you don't always see from bowlers, any bowlers, today. The whole game has gone so much in favour of batsmen that it is difficult for bowlers to attack.

Who was the most difficult batsmen you bowled to?

You know it all depended with me on how I was feeling. If I didn't have any rhythm then even tailenders used to frighten me. But if I had some rhythm then nobody could scare me. I remember one Test where I had to bowl to Geoff Lawson and I was in such low confidence and poor rhythm that I spent an evening worrying about how badly he could hit me and how he would sweep a legbreak from outside off-stump to the fine leg boundary. But if I was in the mood and feeling good, then nobody scared me. It is part of my psyche, whether at Test level or club level. If you can conquer me do so, but if you can't, then I will be all over you. All or nothing, do or die. If I got a wicket early then I would run through but if I didn't then I could go for over a hundred runs for none.

The wizard's top 5

9 for 56 vs England, Lahore, 1987-88
Unfortunately remembered more for umpire Shakeel Khan's itchy finger than Qadir's wrists, this was nevertheless vintage. He came on after only 10 overs and began by deceiving fully Graham Gooch with a googly. He continued for another 37overs, teasing, taunting, appealing, bemusing and getting the occasional dodgy one from umpire Khan to end with the best bowling figures by a Pakistani.

6 for 16 vs West Indies, Faisalabad, 1986-7
The genesis of Qadir's torment of the West Indies. Chasing 240 to take the series lead, the visitors crashed to 53 all out in just over 25 overs. Qadir bowled nine of them and in a twinkling of googlies, legbreaks and the occasional flipper, deceived six batsmen, including the batting heart - Richie Richardson, Larry Gomes and Sir Viv Richards.

7 for 96 vs England, The Oval, 1987
The pitch, according to Qadir, offered nothing but runs. The other spinners - John Emburey, Phil Edmonds and Tauseef Ahmed bowled 162.3 overs between them for three wickets; Qadir bowled 97.4 overs for ten wickets, thus proving Qadir's own theorem-where no one else can succeed, legspin can find a way. His 7-96 in the first innings set up the chance for a win and only dropped catches and stodgy rearguard from Mike Gatting and Ian Botham in the second prevented it.

5 for 44 vs Sri Lanka, Leeds, 1983 (World Cup)
In 1983, playing a legspinner in an ODI was cricketing taboo. Qadir fought with Imran for his selection, Imran fought with the selectors and on his debut Qadir befuddled New Zealand with 4 for 21 and the match award. Two matches later, with Sri Lanka cruising at 162-2 in pursuit of 236, Qadir removed Roy Dias, Duleep Mendis and Arjuna Ranatunga to induce a startling collapse. He finished with five and Pakistan squeaked home by 11 runs.

4 for 83 vs West Indies, Trinidad, 1988
Qadir left his mark not only on the fiercest rivalry of the 80s, but also one of the decade's best series. Although his role with the bat - permanently undervalued - was crucial in eventually scrapping a draw, he feasted on a strong middle order in the first innings, getting rid of Gus Logie and Carl Hooper. But his dismissal of Richards, chewing gum and swinging bat, both threateningly, for 49 runs that kept West Indies to a controllable 174 was essential. Richards' violent century in the second confirmed the form he was in. The pitch and umpiring, says Qadir, could only be defied by his legspin and Imran's reverse.

Osman Samiuddin is Pakistan editor of Cricinfo

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The Largest Wave Of Suicides In History

 

February 14, 2009

By P. Sainath

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The number of farmers who have committed suicide in India between 1997 and 2007 now stands at a staggering 182,936. Close to two-thirds of these suicides have occurred in five states (India has 28 states and seven union territories). The Big 5 - Maharashtra, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh and Chattisgarh- account for just about a third of the country's population but two-thirds of farmers' suicides. The rate at which farmers are killing themselves in these states is far higher than suicide rates among non-farmers. Farm suicides have also been rising in some other states of the country.

 

It is significant that the count of farmers taking their lives is rising even as the numbers of farmers diminishes, that is, on a shrinking farmer base. As many as 8 million people quit farming between the two censuses of 1991 and 2001. The rate of people leaving farming has only risen since then, but we'll only have the updated figure of farmers in the census of 2011.

 

These suicide data are official and tend to be huge underestimates, but they're bad enough. Suicide data in India are collated by the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB), a wing of the Ministry of Home Affairs, government of India. The NCRB itself seems to do little harm to the data. But the states where these are gathered leave out thousands from the definition of "farmer" and, thus, massage the numbers downward. For instance, women farmers are not normally accepted as farmers (by custom, land is almost never in their names). They do the bulk of work in agriculture - but are just "farmers' wives." This classification enables governments to exclude countless women farmer suicides. They will be recorded as suicide deaths - but not as "farmers' suicides." Likewise, many other groups, too, have been excluded from that list.

 

The spate of farm suicides - the largest sustained wave of such deaths recorded in history - accompanies India's embrace of the brave new world of neoliberalism. Many reports on that process and how it has affected agriculture have been featured right here, on the Counterpunch site. The rate of farmers' suicides has worsened particularly after 2001, by which time India was well down the WTO garden path in agriculture. The number of farmers' suicides in the five years - 1997-2001 - was 78,737 (or 15,747 a year on average). The same figure for the five years 2002-06 was 87,567 (or 17,513 a year on average). That is, in the next five years after 2001, one farmer took his or her life every 30 minutes on average. The 2007 figures (detailed below) place that year, too, in the higher trend.

 

What do the farm suicides have in common? Those who have taken their lives were deep in debt - peasant households in debt doubled in the first decade of the neoliberal "economic reforms," from 26 per cent of farm households to 48.6 per cent. We know that from National Sample Survey data. But in the worst states, the percentage of such households is far higher. For instance, 82 per cent of all farm households in Andhra Pradesh were in debt by 2001-02. Those who killed themselves were overwhelmingly cash crop farmers - growers of cotton, coffee, sugarcane, groundnut, pepper, vanilla. (Suicides are fewer among food crop farmers - that is, growers of rice, wheat, maize, pulses.) The brave new world philosophy mandated countless millions of Third World farmers forced to move from food crop cultivation to cash crop (the mantra of "export-led growth"). For millions of subsistence farmers in India, this meant much higher cultivation costs, far greater loans, much higher debt, and being locked into the volatility of global commodity prices. That's a sector dominated by a handful of multinational corporations. The extent to which the switch to cash crops impacts on the farmer can be seen in this: it used to cost Rs.8,000 ?($165 today) roughly to grow an acre of paddy in Kerala. When many switched to vanilla, the cost per acre was (in 2003-04) almost Rs.150,000 ($3,000) an acre. (The dollar equals about 50 rupees.)

 

With giant seed companies displacing cheap hybrids and far cheaper and hardier traditional varieties with their own products, a cotton farmer in Monsanto's net would be paying far more for seed than he or she ever dreamed they would. Local varieties and hybrids were squeezed out with enthusiastic state support. In 1991, you could buy a kilogram of local seed for as little as Rs.7 or Rs.9 in today's worst affected region of Vidarbha. By 2003, you would pay Rs.350 -- ($7) -- for a bag with 450 grams of hybrid seed. By 2004, Monsanto's partners in India were marketing a bag of 450 grams of Bt cotton seed for between Rs.1,650 and Rs.1,800 ($33 to $36). This price was brought down dramatically overnight due to strong governmental intervention in Andhra Pradesh, where the government changed after the 2004 elections. The price fell to around Rs.900 ($18) - still many times higher than 1991 or even 2003.

 

Meanwhile, inequality was the great man-eater among?the "Emerging Tiger" nations of the developing world. The predatory commercialization of the countryside devastated all other aspects of life for peasant farmer and landless workers. Health costs, for instance, skyrocketed. Many thousands of youngsters dropped out of both school and college to work on their parents' farms (including many on scholarships). The average monthly per capita expenditure of the Indian farm household was just Rs.503 (ten dollars) by early this decade. Of that, 60 per cent roughly was spent on food and another 18 per cent on fuel, clothing and footwear.

 

Farmers, spending so much on food? To begin with, millions of small and marginal Indian farmers are net purchasers of food grain. They cannot produce enough to feed their families and have to work on the fields of others and elsewhere to meet the gap. Having to buy some of the grain they need on the market, they are profoundly affected by hikes in food prices, as has happened since 1991, and particularly sharply earlier this year. Hunger among those who produce food is a very real thing. Add to this the fact that the "per capita net availability" of food grain has fallen dramatically among Indians since the "reforms" began: from 510 grams per Indian in 1991, to 422 grams by 2005. (That's not a drop of 88 grams. It's a fall of 88 multiplied by 365 and then by one billion Indians.) As prof. Utsa Patnaik, India's top economist on agriculture, has been constantly pointing out, the average poor family has about 100 kg less today than it did just ten years ago - while the elite eat like it's going out of style. For many, the shift from food crop to cash crop makes it worse. At the end of the day, you can still eat your paddy. It's tough, digesting cotton. Meanwhile, even the food crop sector is coming steadily under corporate price-rigging control. Speculation in the futures markets pushed up grain prices across the globe earlier this year.

 

Meanwhile, the neoliberal model that pushed growth through one kind of consumption also meant re-directing huge amounts of money away from rural credit to fuel the lifestyles of the aspiring elites of the cities (and countryside, too). Thousands of rural bank branches shut down during the 15 years from 1993-2007.

 

Even as incomes of the farmers crashed, so did the price they got for their cash crops, thanks to obscene subsidies to corporate and rich farmers in the West, from the U.S. and EU. Their battle over cotton subsidies alone (worth billions of dollars) destroyed cotton farmers not merely in India but in African nations such as Burkina Faso, Benin, Mali, and Chad. Meanwhile, all along, India kept reducing investment in agriculture (standard neoliberal procedure). Life was being made more and more impossible for small farmers.

 

As costs rose, credit dried up. Debt went out of control. Subsidies destroyed their prices. Starving agriculture of investment (worth billions of dollars each year) smashed the countryside. India even cut most of the few, pathetic life supports she had for her farmers. The mess was complete. From the late-'90s, the suicides began to occur at what then seemed a brisk rate.

 

In fact, India's agrarian crisis can be summed up in five words (call it Ag Crisis 101): the drive toward corporate farming. The route (in five words): predatory commercialization of the countryside. The result: The biggest displacement in our history.

 

Corporations do not as yet have direct control of Indian farming land and do not carry out day-to-day operations directly. But they have sewn up every other sector, inputs, outlets, marketing, prices, and are heading for control of water as well (which states in India are busy privatizing in one guise or another).

 

The largest number of farm suicides is in the state of Maharashtra, home to the Mumbai Stock Exchange and with its capital Mumbai being home to 21 of India's 51 dollar billionaires and over a fourth of the country's 100,000 dollar millionaires. Mumbai shot to global attention when terrorists massacred 180 people in the city in a grisly strike in November. In the state of which Mumbai is capital, there have been 40,666 farmers' suicides since 1995, with very little media attention.

 

Farmers' suicides in Maharashtra crossed the 4,000-mark again in 2007, for the third time in four years, according to the National Crime Records Bureau. As many as 4,238 farmers took their lives in the state that year, the latest for which data are available,?accounting?for a fourth of all the 16,632 farmers' suicides in the country. That national total represents a slight fall from the 17,060 farm suicides of 2006. But the broad trends of the past decade seem unshaken. Farm suicides in the country since 1997 now total 182,936.

 

To repeat, the five worst affected states?- Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh and Chattisgarh?- account for two-thirds of all farmers' suicides in India. Together, they saw 11,026 in 2007. Of these, Maharashtra alone accounted for?over 38 per cent. Of the Big 5, Andhra Pradesh saw a decline of 810 suicides against its 2006 total. Karnataka saw a rise of 415 over the same period. Madhya Pradesh (1,375) posted a decline of 112. But Chattisgarh's 1,593 farm suicides mean an increase of 110 over 2006. Specific factors in these states nourish the problem. These are zones of highly diversified, commercialized agriculture where cash crops dominate. Water stress has been a common feature, and gets worse with the use of technologies such as Bt seed that demand huge amounts of water. High external inputs and input costs are also common, as also the use of chemicals and pesticides. Mindless deregulation dug a lot of graves, lit a lot of pyres.

 

Maharashtra registered a fall of 215 farm suicides in 2007. However, no other state even touches the 3,000 mark. And AP (with 1,797) and Karnataka (2,135) - the next two worst hit states - together do not cross Maharashtra's 4,000-plus mark. A one-year dip of 221 occurred in 2005 too, in Maharashtra, only to be followed by an all-time high of 4,453 suicides in 2006. The state's trend shows no turnaround and remains dismal.

 

Maharashtra's 2007 figure of 4,238 follows one and a half years of farm "relief packages" worth around Rs.5,000 crore ($1 billion) and a prime ministerial visit in mid-2006 to the distressed Vidharbha region. The state has also seen a plethora of official reports, studies and commissions of inquiry over 2005-07, aimed at tackling the problem. However, the 12,617 farm suicides in the same years is its worst ever total for any three-year period since the state began recording such data in 1995. Indeed, farm suicides in Maharashtra since that year have crossed the 40,000 mark. The structural causes of that crisis seem untouched.

 

Nationally, farmers' suicides between 2002-07 were worse than for the years 1997-2001. NCRB data for the whole country now exists from 1997-2007. In the five years till 2001, there were 15,747 farmers' suicides a year on average. For the six years from 2002, that average is 17,366 farmers' suicides each year. The increase is distressingly higher in the main crisis states.

 

P. Sainath is the rural affairs editor of The Hindu and is the author of Everybody Loves a Good Drought. A regular contributor to CounterPunch, he can be reached at psainath@vsnl.com.

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Slumdog Communists

 
By Chan Akya

The film Slumdog Millionaire is billed as the feel-good film of the year, enjoying both critical acclaim and commercial success in English-speaking countries around the world.

Almost comically, the film about an Indian orphan who chances on millionaire-success while appearing on a quiz show modelled on Who Wants to Be a Millionaire has only just been released in Asia to what would be termed "mixed" critical reviews in the region. The fact that Asians do not like foreigners making their points for them has been brought out by the plethora of film reviews sent to me by my Indian and other Asian friends.

In the spirit of the film itself, and to make the viewing decisions more dramatic if not compelling, I present below a list of multiple-choice questions for the benefit of Asia Times Online readers.

1. The protagonist of the film Slumdog Millionaire is:

a. An orphan working as a tea boy
b. A Caste-based politician
c. An Indian criminal leading a mafia group
d. A hardworking educated Indian
 

2. The preferred method of torture in Indian police stations as per the film:

a. Electrocution
b. Attacked by mad dogs
c. Being forced to dance on broken glass
d. Watching a typical Bollywood film
 

3. The brother of the film's hero becomes what after growing up:

a. A rapist mafia underling
b. A violent psychopath
c. Hardworking and self-effacing coolie
d. A local politician

 
4. The little boy with the hero is blinded because:

a. Blind beggars earn more than sighted ones
b. He cannot then escape the beggar mafia
c. He was eyeing the don's daughter
d. His eyes are needed to give sight to a rich Indian

 
5. The female lead in the movie becomes what in order to survive:

a. Prostitute
b. Homemaker
c. Exotic but virginal dancer
d. Female suicide bomber

 
6. When the hero as a child jumps into his own fecess in order to get an autograph from a movie star, what social observation is being made:

a. India's poor are desperate to take every chance they can get
b. Muslims have to denigrate themselves to live in India
c. It is actually cow dung and therefore good for Indians to bathe in
d. Indians have no toilets

 
7. The American tourist taken in by the hero's guile at Agra does what after discovering the tires of his car have been stolen:

a. Gives the hero a hundred dollars
b. Sends him to Guantanomo Bay
c. Bombs Iraq and Afghanistan
d. Shrugs and walks away

 
8. The call center that the hero works in has staff serving customers in which foreign country:

a. The UK
b. Germany
c. United States of America
d. China

 
9. What particular sport is shown as the favorite of Indians:

a. Cricket
b. Field Hockey
c. Golf
d. Football

 
10. The seminal one-liner in the film relates to the death of the hero's mother. He says: "But for X and Y, my mother would still be alive." X and Y are:

a. Ram and Allah
b. Gandhi and Jinnah
c. Destiny and luck
d. Marx and Nehru

 
Spoiler alert: To avoid the suspense, the correct answer is (a) in all cases; (c) would be the answer in a Bollywood film while (d) is the answer I would have gone for or created should such a venture ever come under my purview.

Notes: Despite living in one of the world's poorest countries by many measures, Indian middle classes love to fantasize about a beautiful and peaceful country all around them that is growing at much the same breakneck pace as the Indian economy itself was until very recently. Mention the millions of destitute peasants and their eyes usually glaze over: you will be beseeched to look at the dynamic information technology corridors of the country, the blazing economic growth and ballooning savings across the corporate and individual sectors.

As a general rule, I detest Indian films ("Bollywood" in the vernacular), my golden rule remains that watching any five minutes of the usually sorry 200-minute sagas is enough to provide all the necessary plot and acting details that one would want to glean out of sheer intellectual curiosity. To the reel, these films are poorly scripted, awfully directed and acted out even worse; as if a retinue of 17th-century Shakespeare actors from the theater had suddenly been resurrected.

Thus it is almost poetic justice that when an "Indian" film comes along to critical acclaim one discovers all too quickly that the main parts - production and direction - were helmed by foreigners and even the acting was left to people of Indian descent rather than "true" Indians, by and large.

There is much to hate in this film, and it certainly doesn't appear as a "feel-good" venture by a long shot. Still what it brings to the table in terms of realism as well as presenting vast vignettes of unintended comedy through the use of mixed metaphors makes the experience worthwhile. In particular, I heartily recommend the film to the Indian middle classes and in particular to anyone still harboring communist sympathies in the country.

For what it shows above all else is that the most important ingredient of any emerging economy is the dynamics of development. Political and religious differences matter little when the basic impetus to growth and progress is missing. This is precisely the case in India today where the government gets away with making welfare payments but without infrastructure investments; where communist sympathizers monopolize the distribution of government funds to the point where waste is a national pastime and the frustrations of the underclass are ever increasing.

It is not a big exaggeration to highlight the importance of this film for Indians. That said, it is highly likely that Indians would themselves like to pretend that the film was never made, particularly if it fails to win any further accolades. For that reason alone, perhaps this film deserves to secure an Academy Award. For how many other times can these awards actually claim to have to reset the course of a billion people?

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