Should also post Arundhati's rejoinder to Ram Guha On 9 August 2010 21:57, Sukla Sen <[email protected]> wrote:
> I/II. > http://www.hindu.com/2000/11/26/stories/13260411.htm > > <http://www.hindu.com/2000/11/26/stories/13260411.htm> The Arun Shourie of > the left > > Celebrity endorsement of social movements is fraught with hazards. In the > beginning, apart from inviting media attention, it may also draw to the > cause previously silent bystanders ... Much depends on the kind of > celebrity, says noted historian RAMACHANDRA GUHA. > > THE Narmada Bachao Andolan is only the last in a series of social movements > against large dams. True, the spectacular schemes of the 1950s and 1960s - > Bhakra, Hirakud, Tungabhadra and the like - came up with scarcely a sigh of > protest. Villages in the way of the reservoir were made to depart in the > name of "national interest". It took fully two decades for this national > interest to be revealed as the specific interests of the urban-industrial > elite. Thus the 1970s witnessed a series of popular struggles on behalf of > the to-be dispossessed. There were movements against the Koel-Karo project > in Bihar, the Subarnarekha project in Orissa and the Vishnuprayag and Tehri > projects in Garhwal. These varied movements and the questions they raised > inspired the editors of the Second Citizens' Report on the Indian > Environment, published in 1985, to dedicate their labours to the "dam- > displaced people of India". > > These movements were accompanied by intellectual critiques of the big dam > idea. In 1981, the Gandhi Peace Foundation published a seminal document > called Major Dams: A Second Look, based on a seminar held in Sirsi, in the > Western Ghats of Karnataka. Then, in 1984, two college students, Ashish > Kothari and Rajiv Bhartari, published a wide ranging critique of the Narmada > Valley projects in the Economic and Political Weekly. After reading this > essay, Medha Patkar was encouraged to move from social work in Mumbai to > mobilising adivasis in Madhya Pradesh. The following year, the Annual Number > of the Economic and Political Weekly printed an essay by Nirmal Sengupta > entitled "Irrigation: Traditional versus Modern", an empirically rich and > thoughtful analysis that made a strong case for the continuing relevance of > indigenous methods of water harvesting. Sengupta's work in English was > complemented by the superb field studies of water conservation published in > Hindi by Anupam Mishra. Meanwhile, Pune economist Vijay Paranjype was > conducting case studies of individual dams, which showed that the actual > costs incurred in their construction generally exceeded their putative > benefits. > > These precocious works raised the basic issues so spiritedly taken up by > the Narmada Bachao Andolan (NBA): social justice, environmental > sustainability, economic efficiency and cultural survival. The movement > brought to these old, and always relevant, issues, the vigour of a mass > popular movement and the appeal of a charismatic leader. Through the 1980s > and 1990s, the Andolan organised a series of strikes, fasts, processions, > padayatras and rasta rokos, these held in Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, > Gujarat and that continuing centre of imperial power, New Delhi. Inspired by > an exemplary leader and a devoted cadre of workers, it drew into its fold > adivasis and peasants as well as students and professionals from the cities. > > This widening of the support base was necessary because of the growing > pro-dam movement that confronted it. The Andolan's principal target, the > Sardar Sarovar project, is a curious scheme whose benefits will flow almost > wholly to one State, Gujarat, whereas its costs will be borne by upstream > villages in Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh. The Gujaratis, regardless of > ideology or political affiliation, stand as one behind the dam. The > unanimity is complete, and sinister. When the respected Ahmedabad dancer, > Mrinalini Sarabhai, asked about the rights of the displaced, she was told to > shut up or leave the State. > > Then, in the summer of 1999, the NBA secured the support of the novelist, > Arundhati Roy. Ms. Roy's involvement came at a time when the movement was at > a particularly low ebb. Its offices in Gujarat had been attacked. Years of > selfless activism were being answered with a barrage of criticism from the > pro-liberalisation press. Medha Patkar, in particular, had become a hate > figure for free-market columnists. The Andolan and its leader were accused > for holding up the dams that would power the factories that would make India > Singapore writ large. > > Arundhati Roy's essay on the Sardar Sarovar dam was published by Outlook > and Frontline magazines in May 1999. At the time, I had decidedly mixed > feelings about it. As a work of analysis, it was unoriginal: Kothari and > company had been there before her. As a piece of literary craftsmanship it > was self-indulgent and hyperbolic. Still, to criticise the essay would be to > let down the side. Might not her name and her fame attract to the "cause" > the undecided upper class, men and women who would read Ms. Roy in Outlook > but who had never heard of Nirmal Sengupta or the Economic and Political > Weekly? > > To suppress my reservations was not easy, for I had been intensely > irritated by Ms. Roy's previous venture into public interest journalism: her > polemic against the nuclear tests in 1998. There too, I was on her side, > "objectively" speaking. Yet her vanity was unreal. Ms. Roy quoted, without > irony, the judgment of her friend that after having written one successful > novel she had seen it all, that a barren stretch of life lay before her > until the final meeting with her Maker. She spoke of how she had disregarded > the advice of those who insisted that the tax man would come chasing her > were she to write against the bomb. A month before Ms. Roy sat down to write > her piece, 4,00,000 adults had marched through the streets of Calcutta in > protest against the Pokharan blasts. Were their homes all raided by the > Income Tax Department? > > The anti-dam essay had its signs of self-absorption too. Its opening scene, > of Ms. Roy laughing on the top of a hill, seemed a straight lift from the > first lines of that monument to egotism, Ayn Rand's The Fountainhead. The > essay was marked throughout by a conspicuous lack of proportion. To compare > dams to nuclear weapons was absurd. To demonise technology was > irresponsible. The scientists, K. J. Roy and Suhas Parajpye, had worked out > an innovative compromise, a reduction in the projected height of the Sardar > Sarovar dam which would reduce submergence while allowing the construction > of "overflow" canals to the water-scarce areas of Kutch and Saurashtra. This > scheme would minimise human suffering while creatively redeeming the > thousands of crores already spent on the project. Ms. Roy wanted, however, > for the dam to be made a museum for failed technologies. Altogether, this > was an essay written with passion but without care. In her > stream-of-consciousness style, the arguments were served up in a jumble of > images and exclamations with the odd number thrown in. The most serious > objections to the dam, on grounds of social justice, ecological prudence and > economic efficiency, were lost in the presentation. What struck one most > forcibly was her atavistic hatred of science and a romantic celebration of > adivasi lifestyles. > > It is tempting to see Arundhati Roy as the Arun Shourie of the left. The > super-patriot and the anti-patriot use much the same methods. Both think > exclusively in black and white. Both choose to use a 100 words when 10 will > do. Both arrogate to themselves the right to hand out moral certificates. > Those who criticise Shourie are characterised as anti-national, those who > dare take on Roy are made out to be agents of the State. In either case, an > excess of emotion and indignation drowns out the facts. > > One must grant that Arundhati Roy is a courageous woman. Other novelists > like to shut themselves away from the world, but she has sought engagement > with it. She followed her printed blasts with long, tiring journeys in > inhospitable terrain, to show her solidarity with the anti-nuclear and > anti-dam protesters. Most writers have been individualists and careerists. > An all-too-small minority has shown an awareness of public issues. Where do > we place Ms. Roy in this line of honourable dissenters? > > Perhaps the greatest of activist-novelists was George Orwell. Out of Eton > and the Indian Police Service, he chose to work as a dishwasher in Paris and > to live with miners in the north of England. Later, he fought with the > Republican forces in the Spanish Civil War. His engagements with poverty and > fascism inspired his novels Animal Farm and 1984 and a series of > imperishable essays on political subjects. In the great battles of the > modern world, he took the brave, but intellectually unfashionable, stand of > being for democracy but for socialism as well. > > Orwell I know only through his books, but I had the honour of knowing, in > flesh-and-blood, the finest novelist-activist of modern India, Kota Shivram > Karanth. In a long life, Karanth helped revive Yakshagana, promote widow > remarriage, transform the Kannada novel and pioneer the environmental > movement in Karnataka. He translated and published the first Citizens' > Reports on the Indian Environment. He led movements against the pollution of > the Tungabhadra and against the Kaiga nuclear plant. These were all in the > 1980s, when he was himself in his nineties. A decade previously he had > inspired the successful campaign against the Bedthi power project in the > district of Uttara Kannada. > > Arundhati Roy might very well equal Orwell and Karanth in her bravery. But > she lacks their intellectual probity and judgment. Those men wrote with a > proper sense of gravitas, in a prose that was lucid but understated, each > word weighed before it was uttered. Perhaps they were lucky to work in a > pre-television and pre-colour supplement era, when the principle would take > precedence over the personality. > > Perhaps we should blame the time we live in for Arundhati Roy's > carelessness. That she is careless is beyond dispute. She made disparaging > remarks about the judges of the Supreme Court while that Court was hearing a > case filed by the organisation she sought to support. Late in 1999, the > National Law School in Bangalore convened a meeting on the Narmada issue. > One of the NBA's leaders was present, as was its lawyer. At this meeting, > the eminent legal scholar Upendra Baxi, a man who has written books on the > functioning of the Supreme Court, gently suggested that it would be wise for > the Andolan to disassociate itself from Arundhati Roy. > > Now, in the light of the recent judgment sanctioning the elevation of the > dam, five metres at a time, Ms. Roy has erupted again. The judges and > judgment, she says, show that we are living in a "banana republic". She has > suggested that the judges are ignorant and insensitive. Speaking to a > foreign journalist, she has compared the judgment to the North Atlantic > Treaty Organisation's (NATO) bombing of Yugoslavia. These opinions were > offered as the Andolan prepares to file a review petition in the Supreme > Court. > > Celebrity endorsement of social movements is always fraught with hazard. In > the beginning, it may attract media attention, and draw to the cause > previously silent bystanders. However, the media will soon abandon the cause > for the star, and the converts will soon return to their humdrum lives. Much > depends on the kind of celebrity. A film star will wave and flash a smile: > do little good but no harm either. But celebrity writers will write and > speak. And the natural bent of this particular celebrity is towards > hyperbole and hysteria. "When NATO bombed Yugoslavia," says Ms. Roy, "a > tiger in the Belgrade zoo got so terrified that it started eating its own > limbs. The people of the Narmada valley will soon start eating their own > limbs." (quoted in the Asian Age, October 30). > > I am told that Arundhati Roy has written a very good novel. Perhaps she > should begin another. Her retreat from activism would - to use a term from > economics - be a "Paretto optimum": good for literature, and good for the > Indian environmental movement. > > Postscript: As this article was going to press, the latest Outlook arrived, > with Ms. Roy's latest venture into social science. It is like the others: > self-regarding and self- indulgent. The essay is also self-contradictory, a > jeremiad against the market and globalisation by one who is placed in the > heart of the global market for celebrity-hood. > > Among the targets singled out for attack this time is the Rashtriya > Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS). This is a curious choice, for so far as one can > make sense of her arguement, Ms. Roy seems to share the RSS's understanding > of politics. > > After reading Ms. Roy's most recent essay, I see no reason to revise my > judgment: that we would all be better off were she to revert to fiction. > > E-mail the writer at [email protected] > > II. > http://www.hindu.com/2000/12/17/stories/1317061b.htm > > <http://www.hindu.com/2000/12/17/stories/1317061b.htm> Perils of extremism > > Ramachandra Guha writes: (in response to letters on his article 'The Arun > Shourie of the left' carried on December 10) > > I have received some letters in response to my essay "The Arun Shourie of > the Left', along with some letters sent directly to The Hindu. I need not > dwell unduly on the encouraging ones. But I must address the critics. These > suggest that I am an anxious, territorial academic male, who resents > Arundhati Roy because she writes for a general, non-specialist audience, and > because she is a woman. > > As it happens, I have spent much of the past decade celebrating the work of > two popular writers: Verrier Elwin and Madhaviah Krishnan. One wrote on > tribals, the other on the environment: that is on subjects that Ms. Roy has > chosen to make her own. Neither was dry or objective, and neither wrote for > an academic audience. Both were passionate, but their passion was focussed > and directed. > > The example of Elwin is particularly relevant here. He wrote, as Ms. Roy > does, about tribal cultures at the receiving end of the modern world. He was > polemical, but also empathetic. His forte was reportage, allowing the > tribals to speak in their own voices about their own dilemmas. Consider, by > way of contrast, Arundhati Roy's essay on globalisation, published in the > Outlook of November 27. As one letter writer, M. K. Venu, remarks, the essay > displays a lamentable ignorance of economics. Ms. Roy gives up pages and > pages of generalised outrage. Analysis is not her strong suit; still, one > would expect a creative writer to seek out individual experiences, to tell > stories of the changes in peoples' lives and emotions wrought by wider > historical processes, not simply to state, and at such excessive length, her > own opinions. Novelists who have written insightfully about social issues - > V. S. Naipaul and Mahasweta Devi come to mind - have also been listerners. > On the evidence of her essays Arundhati Roy does not belong in their > company. > > Information - particularly new information - understanding, coherence, > readability: these are the criteria by which one judges good non-fiction. > Mere passion, in the absence of those other virtues, too easily becomes > shrill indignation. It is now being suggested that those who set store by > these criteria are male chauvinists. The suggestion is insulting not to this > particular male, but rather to Arundhati Roy herself. Unlike the > professional feminist, she has never waved her gender before and after she > speaks or writes. > > In his rejoinder, Smitu Kothari worries that my article is badly timed and > will fall into the wrong hands. Even if I had disagreements with the style > and content of Arundhati Roy's writing, he suggests, I should have avoided > the topic in the interests of the "movement". > > This is an old argument, that the end must take precedence over the means. > Through the 20th Century it was used most effectively by Communist parties > to suppress dissent. Insecure intellectuals too easily capitulate to such > pressures, preferring to stay silent rather than risk censure from the party > or the movement. Thus is critical, independent thought silenced. > > I have no doubt as to Ms. Roy's courage and commitment - I praise these > myself - or that her support and its visibility has attracted to the Narmada > valley dozens of young people. Her contribution to the Narmada debate, > however, has to be seriously qualified in view of the irresponsible remarks > she has made about the Supreme Court. As Pratap Mehta and Sashi Deshpande > point out, those comments display a basic disrespect for the institutions > and procedures of democracy. They were particularly unwise because it was > the Narmada Bachao Andolan, and not the Gujarat Government, that had filed > the case in the Court. > > In private and in public the Andolan's own spokespeople have stood by Roy. > That is admirably loyal. But the responses that followed my article suggest > that many knowledgeable analysts of the Narmada debate agree with me. An > anthropologist and a legal scholar who have both done outstanding work on > the resettlement of dam oustees; two journalists who are intimately involved > with the movement; an economist who has edited a book on the movement; an > economist who has edited a book on the politics of the dam - all wrote to > endorse my criticisms of Ms. Roy's writing - although they might have put > them differently, or confined their reservations to the private realm. I > treasure, too, the letter of an activist who lived for years with the > adivasis of the Narmada valley. "I have been waiting a long time for someone > to write something like this," says this activist: "And a lot of others have > also been waiting. No one is writing because 'It would betray the cause', so > to speak. This is a brave effort, if I may say so." The letter continues: > "The articles (written by Ms. Roy) are points on her learning curve. She is > just doing publicly what I learned in a small group 15 years ago. I can't > hold those 15 years against her but I do object to such a public spectacle > being made out of her education." > > It is easy enough to attack the errors of the right; more difficult, but > perhaps more necessary, to criticise the indiscretions of one's own side. It > is my belief, and certainly not mine alone, that Ms. Roy's tendency to > exaggerate and simplify, her Manichean view of the world, and her shrill > hectoring tone, have given a bad name to environmental analysis. My > reservations on this score were confirmed by her globalisation essay, which > came too late for me to account of in my original critique. This essay > presented a portrait of contemporary India as subtle as that of the Swadeshi > Jagran Manch: Government Bad, Market Worse, Multinational Corporation Worst > of All. > > Six years ago, in our book Ecology and Equity, Madhav Gadgil and I thus > described the central dilemma of Indian environmentalism: "In their own, > undoubtedly sincere, opposition to large projects, environmental groups have > not thus far spelt out any concrete alternatives to processes of destruction > and deprivation. This might only be consistent with the defensive, almost > siege-like position they find themselves in, but environmentalists have not > always helped their cause by appearing to Just Say No to everything - be it > eucalyptus, large dams or modern science. It has thus been easy for their > opponents to dub them as anti- development, as backward-looking, retrograde > rabble-rousers." > > Alas, since those words were written Arundhati Roy has given a new meaning > to environmental extremism. The essays she writes are unredeemingly > negative. Her demonology is more capacious than that of the Ramayana. It > includes impersonal forces like the State, the Market, and Science; > institutions such as the World Bank; and individuals such as the President > of the United States. There are no alternatives and no solutions: only rage, > and more rage. Her arguments seemingly confirm what the gung-ho modernizers > have been saying all along: that Greens shall Just Say No to everything. > > This is unfortunate, for there are other and more constructive traditions > of Indian environmental thought. Biologists like P. Pushpangadan have shown > how indigenous knowledge can be creatively combined with modern science to > enhance the income of tribal communities. Bureaucrats in the West Bengal > forest service have crafted non-centrist, participatory and sustainable > models of natural resource management that are widely admired and emulated. > > I have indicated the creative possibilities of a responsive science and a > reformed state. What about the market? Some Greens hate it, but the plain > truth is that markets can help enforce efficiency and economy in the use of > natural resources. There is no turning back on globalization. Rather, we > must come to terms with it, and bend it as best we can to our own interests. > If we do not want to become a "banana republic", if indeed we wish to hold > our own against foreign capital, we must encourage innovation by our > technologists and entrepreneurs, not mock them. Arundhati Roy, however, > writes that "when the history of India's miraculous leap to the forefront of > the Information Revolution is written, let it be said that 56 million > Indians (and their children and their children and their children's > children) paid for it with everything they ever had. Their homes, their > lands, their languages, their histories." > > This is typically hyperbolic, and also grossly slanderous. One it tempted > to reply in the Royist mode: "Are you suggesting that this number should be > divided up among the Indian software giants? Fifteen million displaced > people on the conscience of Tata Consultancy Services, shall we say, ten > million accounted for by WIPRO, another ten million by Infosys, with > twenty-one million shared around among the rest?" As anyone except Ms. Roy > knows, the IT industry uses a fraction of the energy that conventional > factories do. With this tiny fraction they have generated jobs, income, > foreign exchange and social equity. > > The IT billionaires are, in comparison with Indian industralists of other > times and stripes, more ethical and more innovative. They have given back a > great deal more to society than they have taken out of it. Instead of > attacking them in this ill-informed way, Ms. Roy could more fruitfully have > studied how their success might be complemented by necessary reforms in > other spheres of our economic and political life. > > Public discourse in India is crippled by the disease of extremism. It is a > disease encouraged and spread by television and colour magazines, which > demand simple-minded positions on all topics, these positions then > personalised in the shape of two prominent individuals with extreme and > opposed views. In the latest issue of Outlook, the magazine's editor, Mr. > Vinod Mehta, candidly writes: "All of us who write on day-to-day public > affairs deal in hyperbole; we tend to create drama where none exists." A > debate on conversion, did you say? Then we have, on the one side, Mr. Ashok > Singhal, who insists that all Christians are at bottom American agents, and > on the other, Mr. John Dayal, who says that Jesus has commanded him to take > his Superior Gospel to the infidel. > > Secularism, globalisation, the environment: on these subjects of vital > importance the media, or at least large swathes of it, tends to offer only > the extreme positions. > > Politicians and propagandists are comfortable enough with this > black-and-white view of the world. The task of the writer, and scholar, is > to resist it. > > That, at any rate, is how I understand the task of the writer, and that is > why I wrote my original critique. Smitu Kothari now speaks of the "damage > that he [Guha] potentially does to the fragile struggles for justice and > social sanity in our country". This, if true, is a counsel of despair. > > A writer (or struggle) that cannot withstand a single critical analysis is > not worth defending at all. > > Fortunately, the Indian environmental movement is more robust than that. > -- > Peace Is Doable > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "Green Youth Movement" group. > To post to this group, send an email to [email protected]. > To unsubscribe from this group, send email to > [email protected]<greenyouth%[email protected]> > . > For more options, visit this group at > http://groups.google.com/group/greenyouth?hl=en-GB. > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Green Youth Movement" group. To post to this group, send an email to [email protected]. 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