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India Today

By Noam Chomsky at Jun 10, 2004

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It's important to bear in mind that there are two quite different Indias. There is the high tech India in Hyderabad, which Thomas Friedman raves about in his odes to "globalization" -- meaning, the neoliberal version of investor-rights-based international economic integration.. I've been there in the scientific research centers too, and what he says is not false. Same with the consumer culture. That's one India. If one takes the trouble to look at Hyderabad, and certainly to go a few miles beyond to the rest of the state of Andhra Pradesh, of which Hyderabad is the capital, one sees a very different India. For a view of that, I'd suggest a look at the July 2 issue of the fine Indian weeklyFrontline, which I think is internet-accessible. Its lead story is about the very sharp rise in suicides of peasants in Andhra Pradesh since Congress took office in May, about 300 they estimate. The official reason is drought, but the real reason is that under the neoliberal regime, the state has withdrawn from providing basic services such as water, credit, seed, etc., and poor farmers are being driven to export crops, which vary wildly on international markets. The result is that peasants, tenants, landless rural workers are driven to a cycle of indebtedness at usurious rates, and when they have no more bodily organs to sell, and cannot provide for their families, they take their lives in desperation. The plague extends beyond, but is dramatic in this pearl of India, its exciting high tech center. India is incidentally producing plenty of food, much of it rotting because starving people can't afford to buy it -- though Friedman's friends are doing fine. You can find more about the background of peasant suicides in Andhra Pradesh in Robert Pollin's excellent book, Contours of Descent-- mainly about the real story of the Clinton economy that also inspires great awe (and in the current period of worship of the PR-created image of Reagan, is attributed to that divine figure. If you're interested in a more general picture, I'd suggest a fine book by the Oxford development economist and India specialist Barbara Harriss-White, India Working, based on her own extensive field work and many other sources. Her book is about the part of the population of India that is in the informal or black economy, outside of official statistics and the starry-eyed gaze of those awed by the successes of "globalization": close to 90% of the population. You can learn more in depth about particular regions in such studies as Jean Dreze and Amartya Sen, Indian Development: Selected Regional Perspectives, for example the study there by Dreze and Gazdar of Uttar Pradesh, a state of about 160 million people with one of the lowest female to male ratios in the world, not because of female infanticide but because of the miserable treatment of women, reminiscent of the Taliban but of no more concern than their fate was under the Taliban until they became an official enemy, and the hideous conditions of life generally. There are exceptions in India, notably Kerala and to an extent West Bengal, which have a somewhat different history, including long period of Communist Party government and influence. It's possible that Congress will smooth some of the rough edges slightly, but not much. The new Prime Minister is the architect of the neoliberal reforms, and these conditions developed under Congress Party rule. Congress will also presumably try to rein in some of the fanatic Hindu fundamentalism that was encouraged and supported by BJP. But the problems are much deeper.

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Re: India Today

By Maahaadave, Gurudave at Sep 30, 2004 04:08 AM
The popular propaganda is that the BJP and their "fundamentalist" brethren are the bad guys. This is not the actual truth. Trying to blame politicians who pander to the religious sentiments of the masses is missing the real picture. It is propaganda put out vociferously by the self proclaimed "intellectual" class in India. They are fiercely anti religion, and tend to be fanatically hyperbolic and try and make every issue they can into a harangue against relgious voices and beliefs. The anti religious voices in the west are totally mute compared to the hysteria the "intellectuals" in India stir up. Religion has affected policy, zero percent. Except for history taught in public schools, not exactly a pertinent crisis, and it was pandering to the mass of voters who wanted it, anyways. The real problems are corruption at every level of government and business. The BJP and Congress have both the same backers and the same agenda, like the U.S. The BJP, like the Republicans, make religious noises to gain votes, but are realy sold out to their own corporate concerns. [url=http://www.infinityfoundation.com/mandala/s_es/s_es_rosse_puzzle.htm]Academic Gestapo[/url]

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Re: India Today

By Maahaadave, Gurudave at Sep 30, 2004 03:47 AM
I disagree with the Taliban comparison. Thats overblown hyperbole. Women have full legal rights, they don't have to cover themselves, they are not second class citizens. The problem is nothing like the Taliban. The women problem has to do with money usually, it is not endemic as Chomsky suggests. You can find women who live lives exactly as women do in the west, and their neighbor might be being abused by here relatives. It is not like the Taliban regime where all women were subject to tyranny, as state policy. It is familial abuse, dowry abuse, sexual abuse due to repressed social norms etc. And it is not endemic, it is looked down upon, and it is not acceptable by social mores, as it was under the Taliban. You can find females in leadership positions all over India, in both the business and political realms. Women in general are not as liberated as in the west, but it is hardly like the Taliban. The political problems are the root cause of the economic problems. Corruption is endemic. cont.

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By N_bhowmick, Nilanjan at Aug 25, 2004 11:40 AM
your views on India are quite on the mark...there are two Indias and the distance between the two is widening...one of the great gifts of the integration with the world economy is the sudden dissapearence of the poor from the cities...in Delhi, the capital of India, in the 80s the poor were as miserably visible as the rich...today only the rich remain...the poor have suddenly disappeared...i guess they have been literally trampled out of sight or have been pushed into oblivion...or people have stopped looking...the farmers' suicides are merrily on not only in Andhra Pradesh but also in Maharashtra, where the situation is quite frightening, inspite of wide Media coverage...the reasons are the same...though drought and goverment apathy add a new dimension to an already sorry tale...and India (the other India) is actually well on what looks like an irreversible path towards greater integration with the world economy...more mobiles, more of the net, more pepsi, more coke...and more government bureaucrats coming back from postings in WTO and the IMF getting appointed to crucial positions in the Ministries...

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