On 14 Apr, 2007, at 7:36 PM, Doug Henwood wrote:
On Apr 14, 2007, at 7:18 PM, Yoshie Furuhashi wrote:
On 4/14/07, Doug Henwood <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
So this means we can expect Roy to retire from writing and speaking
and traveling around the world, and retiring to the Indian
countryside to cultivate lentils?
Non sequitur.
Not at all. What is she? She is an international celebrity, a best-
selling author who no doubt books a healthy revenue. She has joined
the same class she criticizes in the quoted passage. She speaks and
writes in English, the global language, which is spoken by that
elite, but not by, what?, 90% of the Indian population. I can't blame
her for joining the global elite, but she should show more
understanding for those Indians who want to as well. Is a programmer
in Bangalore really "greedy"? That's a moralizing critique but not
much more.
So, who needs anything more than morals? A science like "dialectical
materialism"? Puh-lease, as they say ;-). This is a strange critique!
Either she is right or she is wrong. How does it matter if she is part
of the group she criticises? A fat lot better, methinks, than the
attitude I see among some US leftists, who shrug their shoulders "this
is not my war".
And are you really sure that she does not speak and write in Malayalam
or Bengali? Should I start posting in Tamil to PEN-L from here on? ;-)
I've really never gotten much sense of what kind of
economic policy she thinks India should follow, and how to get there.
I once asked her U.S. agent, very sophisticated fellow politically,
what her politics were, and he said he'd rather drink a beer.
Her politics seem pretty straightforward to me. Her prescriptions, on
the other hand, as you point out, are missing. Which, to me, does not
give cause to dismiss her analysis or description. As I write above,
either her description is right, or it isn't. If it is, perhaps others
can develop policies around these findings.
But yeah, I feel no need or urge whatsoever to show understanding for
the Indians who want to join, or have joined the global elite,
including myself. We are at best cowards, and at worst parasites.
--ravi
