Please do. Sukla
On 9 August 2010 22:01, Kavita Krishnan <[email protected]> wrote: > 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]. > 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. > -- Peace Is Doable -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Green Youth Movement" group. 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