Racism : Indian Style

Last few weeks have seen a lot of bad times for the well meaning Indians in the Australian continent. The media has been effectively portraying the tragic death and violence unleashed against the Indian students. In spite of open arms to invite people to the great land of the Kangaroos, we are not blind to the fact how the aborigines were and are treated in the same country and how the country is strict with its immigrant laws.

"While we discuss so much about the way our Indian students were ill treated, we also can not forget the fact about which economic background these students hail from. They certainly would (emphasis is mine) not have undergone such marginalization in our country, because they hail from socially, culturally and economically sound families. It is unwise to discuss these concerns when we speak of ill treatment done to us because we are Indians", says Fr. Nithiya Sagayam.

It is also time for us to reflect on the kind of racism we follow in India! And we must reflect, think and question ourselves and each other as to whether we are happy with the way we treat each other within India.

Why blame the Aussies? Look at how we do it. In our own country we cannot reject the fact that many choices are done based on color. Our films hail fair color. Our spot interviews prefer beauties (as additional qualification). Our TV reporters need to be fair skinned, even if their English or vernacular may not be accurate. Our flight attendants must be of "fairer" sex and color. Our brides need to be fairer. Our secretaries / receptionists in offices, hotels, clubs and any public place need to be fairer. Why, even our Cricketers must be fair skinned. Most of our advertisements focus only on fair skinned ones and neglect the darker skinned. This is a country that worships fair skin. This is country where you might win or lose jobs in interviews simply because of the color of your skin. Let us be honest. Fair skin has been raised on a pedestal that our young girls are mentally occupied with toning their skin in every kind of beauty parlor they find, and with every beauty tip they avail off. It simply is impossible to be dark in India and be a Miss India.

What ever happened to the dark skinned experts: in the field of Media? In our films? Among our Nurses, among our doctors? Educationists? Politicians? In sports? In jobs? If one has to take a census of the people employed in Higher strata, we are shocked to see that India is by and large racist towards her own people. We are simply color-blind ! And we are building a color-blind generation.

We have built up a culture of preference to fair skinned.

"This calls for the need of India to rededicate what Gandhi spoke on Antyodaya, the welfare of the last becoming our priority. This way, we would find special preference to the marginalized, the oppressed, and the poor. These are not only the Tribals and Dalits but darker skinned Indians at last." Indians like me! Until we, Indians give priority to the welfare of the least, we would not come to work for the welfare of all people. This is the way to give dignity to Humans as humans, by going beyond the color of the skin.

Till then, it is not only Australia, but any country would look down upon our country.... And if you count the number of dark-skinned Indians in Australia, you might be in for a surprise. You may not find many. You will only find a large group of rich upper middle class brigade of fair skinned Indian students and their families fighting for protection against racism, supported vehemently by a fair skinned media in our country, with many fair skinned people giving their very "valuable opinions", and more fair-skinned upper and middle class Indians out on the street protesting in front of the Parliament and Australian Embassy to stop racism in Australia.... and not to touch it in India! Long live fair skin!!

(With some inspirations and inputs from Nithiya Sagayam)

"AILA" - Massive Cyclonic Storm Hits West Bengal

At least 82 were killed and more than 1,000,000 people left homeless as a cyclone spawned by a deep depression in the Bay of Bengal pounded large parts of West Bengal and coastal Orissa on Monday leaving a trail of devastation and crippling normal life in the two states. Codenamed "Aila", the cyclonic storm broke open hundreds of man-made hedges, and let the sea water surge into thousands of homes in southern part of West Bengal. The highest number of 14 deaths in West Bengal was reported from South 24 Parganas district, followed by five in Kolkata.

As on 27 May, Aila has withered away but not before the beast worked its way up the spine of Bengal and wreaked havoc till the tip of the state in Darjeeling.

By 7.30pm on Tuesday, (2.00 p.m. GMT) all that was left of the remnant of the cyclone was a low-pressure formation in a trough over north Bengal. A low-pressure formation can cause scattered rain, not widespread destruction like a cyclone.

But before Aila transformed itself into a far less potent form, it had killed at least 82 people and rendered lakhs homeless. Aila’s trail bound the south Bengal coast to the northern hills in a serpentine ribbon of destruction with as many as 20 deaths reported in Darjeeling in landslides triggered by the cyclone.

Aila also accelerated the advance of the monsoon and forced the rainy season’s early arrival in Bengal last night, 14 days earlier than usual. But weather analysts said the monsoon could be weaker for the initial fortnight because the cyclone, which covered 950km in 48 hours since it formed on Sunday evening, could have devoured much of its energy.

Climatologists and weather analysts blamed the long life and ferocity of Aila on global warming.

The tropical seas pack more heat now, compared with 15 years ago, because of global warming. “That energy is absorbed by the moisture in the cyclone which has to spend it all before dissipation. Because of the increased heat, tropical cyclones like Aila will continue to last longer and be a lot more violent than even a decade or two ago,” said geographer Satyesh Chakraborty.

Calcutta, however, saw a more or less clear day with only 2mm of rain till 5.30pm. “We had anticipated heavy rainfall over south Bengal today as well. As it turned out, Aila dragged along with it most of the rain clouds over south Bengal and cleared the sky over Calcutta and the south Bengal districts,” said G.C. Debnath, the director of the Regional Meteorological Centre at Alipore.

Going by what happened today in south Bengal, weather officials held out hope of respite for north Bengal over the next 24 hours. However, heavy rain and thundershower have been forecast at many places in the Northeast.

(With inputs from Finacial Times and The Telegraph)

Reflections on Indian Democracy

Indian elections are over in five phases, within a month’s time. The largest democracy in the world has elected its leaders. All their names and votes are hidden in the electronic boxes that will reveal the number of votes each of the candidates belonging to different parties have got. Since the transit from the ballot based (paper votes) voting system to electronic voting machines, the Indian Election Commission has not seen even a single “bad” vote. No chad, no double imprint, no torn paper… All votes count, for one candidate or the other. In a democracy that is filled with illiterates and semi-literates, it is a remarkable achievement to get about 60% of entire electorate to vote. For the starters, Indian electorate (people with franchise) is above 670 million! Different States voted on different dates to elect 547 representatives from all over India, who will ultimately choose the Prime Minister and other Council of Ministers.

Recently, Indian democracy is showing signs of decline. That is only natural, because the Indian democratic system has many inherent flaws. To start with, how can one expect 600 million illiterates and semi-literates, who in any case are of average or low in intelligence to make intelligent decisions by choosing over 500 intelligent and knowledgable people? The second problem with Indian democracy is the quality of leadership that is promoted. Whereas even for a job of a peon in an office, there is a minimum educational standard prescribed, there are oral and written exams, with interviews and group-discussions…, people who are supposed to lead millions of people in their constituencies, people who are to take intelligent decisions that would affect the present and future of the country, the nations policies within and outside. No IQ tests. And we end up with more criminals, with lesser IQs, chosen on the basis of muscle power, man-power and money-power.

There is a third failure of the democratic process. Today, the Indian electorate chooses people with lesser emotional quotient (EQ), people who are not in touch with the real issues of the people, people who throw things into tantrums at their whims and fancies, and emotionally imbalanced enough to project trivial issues into major issues--putting temples ahead of poverty-alleviation, placing emotions before education, taking up communal issues before communication.  Simply to say, we cannot expect people of lower intelligence to take intelligent decisions. People of lower wisdom cannot be expected take wiser decisions. People of lesser understanding cannot distinguish people with higher level of understanding. Somewhere, someone needs to take a decision. Somewhere someone needs to rectify this process. Somewhere sometime soon we must make space for intelligent decisions. Or else, this democracy is bound to fail.

Finding Friends...

The visit to home was coming to an end. There was the baptism of my nephew Kutty's child. Then I went on a day's visit to Fr. Sarto's home town. Since he has been greatly encouraging me on various counts, and that he was at the same time at home, and that he extended this invitation warmly, I accepted. And I visited his parents, sister, brother, and their children... It is time to return back to Bengal. On the way back I stopped for three more days in Chennai to be with another nephew who is a computer engineer, and has kindly consented to help me with the database that we are building for the Disaster Preparedness project. Although I had booked my return ticket from Chennai to Kolkata in advance by the middle of April itself, my ticket did not get confirmed due to heavy rush of travelers. And so, I had to take a flight. On arrival at the airport I saw two "whites" were wandering around. Looking at them I understood that they are in need of help! I went to them, introduced myself, and they even agreed to come with me and stay at Seva Kendra in Kolkata, where I normally stay. They stayed with us for a day and then they left for Darjeeling. These were two students : Christopher from England and Jane from Wales. As were chatting for sometime on the next day, there were really surprised to know about the knowledge I had of some great British writers. They were really amiable and willing to take hardship. I liked it in them. Wherever you are, Christo and Jane, have safe time!

35 Kilos of Rice to the Poor

It is already just over a week in Tamilnadu. I visited some villages in the last couple of days, including my own. I came to know a very interesting difference between the Public Distribution System (PDS) of Tamilnadu and West Bengal. The Tamilnadu PDS system gives more variety of food materials than West Bengal. It includes rice, kerosine, sugar, wheat (the four items available in W. Bengal), soaps, refined palm oil, spices, tea, shampoo, maida, pulses, spice powder, mustard ... the list goes long, and provided at cheaper rate... with some of the consumer items at market price. Most importantly, rice, the main source of food for people comes with some real big benefits. The families living below poverty line (less than $1 income per day) can buy upto 35 kilograms (77 pounds) at a rate of one rupee per kilo, and all other families can get upto 20 kilograms at one rupee per kilo.

I also noticed something else. The number of beggars is minimal, in comparison to what I used to see 10 years ago. Although I saw some child beggars on the streets, in bus stations and in railway stations, (a good number of them from North of India, and not original Tamil population!), I did not see even a single child worker in any shop till now. That's really amazing, how many governments and people have taken up pro-active steps to ensure eradication of some of these social evils. Today is a break day for me. I plan to take good rest....spending at least 12 hours in bed!

Surprises All Around

I was traveling from Erode Bus Stand... which is just a district headquarters in Tamil Nadu, with much larger and a lot better organized Bus Terminus than that of Kolkata (Calcutta) on Saturday 25 April to a suburb of the town to meet some of my relatives. The bus was pretty crowded and I had to stand. When the Bus Conductor (In India the driver of a bus does not disburse tickets as in the case of many other Western countries.) came to me, I asked for a ticket to "Agrahaaram", my destination, and asked him how much it was. He said, "Two". I said, "Pardon! You mean it is two rupees." He replied, "Yes, it is two". I got a shock. Some of the governments in India...specially my own state West Bengal boasts of dropping the tickets by even 50 paise (100 paise = 1 rupee; 50 rupees = $ 1) and make big announcements. And there the lowest rate in a bus is 4 rupees. But here, in another Indian state the cost of travel is as less as 2 rupees. May I know who eats up two more rupees in West Bengal?

I have traveled sufficiently in the last seven days all over Tamil Nadu. I noticed something very important. Most shops had list of items available in their shop (even the street stalls had this), and the cost of each item on a large display board. If India thinks of "Right to Information", efforts like these must be promoted, supported and copied in all other places. This tells the customer even before getting into the shop what he or she will have to pay for a particular item. So, the customer has the right to choose!

Practically every evening I have been eating in smaller hotels in Madurai town or elsewhere. I have also visited tens of shops in the last week. In some of the shops I found a display board which read, "We do not employ and Child labourers". That is quite interesting. With so much of emphasis on eradication of child labour in India unless Governments insist on displays and actual implementation of such eradication, things cannot improve, and the dream "Education for All", will just remain a dream.  I have not seen any child labourers till now. I enquired my nephews if shops employ children as labourers. They replied that it is very rare and it involves so much of fine imposed on shops that people are afraid. But, still in many places domestic child labourers are prevalent, and commercial child labourers do exist if the police in a particular police station area is corrupt.  However, they opined, "it may not be as much as in West Bengal or many other north Indian states."

I am really happy on the one side that some states in India are taking very pro-active steps to curtail social evils, while I am really sad on the other hand to see that many states remain blind enough to let such evils grow into deep cancerous wounds.

Amazing Temple Town

I have traveled upteen number of times to Madurai, the second largest city in the state of Tamilnadu, south of India. Each time this city seem to unravel new opportunities to people who come in, open up new charm in the way traffic is managed, and the way municipalities and corporations function. With very poor local administrative systems in West Bengal, it is really nice to see relatively clean roads, people with habits to dispose of waste more hygienically, and traffic moving at a much better speed with commuters and drivers apparently respecting each other, with just one or two policemen to control traffic even on busiest junctions (as everyone seems to obey the traffic signal), and the number of bye-pass roads that take you quickly out of the town to put you on the highways. Still the area surrounding the famous Meenakshi temple is crowded, but you do not get to see too many shops and stalls that clog the pavements in Kolkata or other towns in Bengal. I am also told that in this state no one would die of hunger in spite of the fact that there is very little food production in relation to the States that live on Gangetic plains. The reason : the government provides 20 kilos of rice to every family (irrespective of whether they are below poverty line or not) at a cost of just one rupee per kilo! Many people told me that the quality of rice is good, and still not many people buy it from the regulated shops, because people have enough! And still more, some of them buy it and give it to the poorest families absolutely free so that the poorest can have enough to eat throughout the month; or they just do not lift the rice simply because it is availble on the reason that, if they take what they do not need, that only adds to the burden of the government that subsidises the food grains for the poor. My own sister's family bargains on that, as they cultivate two crops of rice each year.  You can also see local buses taking passengers in the middle of the night all over the city. I have seen it almost all over Tamilnadu, making travel safer, faster and need-based. One final touch... the government gives houses to the poor, worth rupees 100,000 rupees absolutely free, provided you have some means to advance part of it to begin construction. A footnote : people had one complaint -- inspite of the fact that the Central government has made many rules governing the banks asking them to provide credit, the banks are not giving, and thus creating artificial credit crunch. Will the governments look at the problems of the people?

Meetings in Kolkata

The week after Easter ended with lots of accomplishments. On Easter Monday was the discussion in ABCD office on preparing a project to be sent to European Union specially for Skill Development for economic improvement. Tuesday, was not very bad, as I spent time in working on understanding further the EU application procedures, and even managed to get ABCD registered. That is a lot for the day, as EU requires quite a lot of details. In the evening traveled to meet an old friend who used to work in Raiganj and now works for the Government of India in a nearby town. I stayed with him the next day, and traveled back to Kolkata on Thursday, 16 April.  The next two days (Thursday and Friday) were extremely busy days with training and discussions with the District Coordinators and Block Supervisors of Disaster Preparedness program supported by Caritas India and CRS in West Bengal.  On 17 night, I traveled to Chennai by flight, thanks to ABCD, and was received by cousin Arul Anban. The whole night we discussed the software project which we plan to build for MIS of the Disaster Preparedness project. And the next day, we worked on preliminaries, prepared some Masters, and then I traveled by bus to Madurai, the temple town, about which I shall speak in the next post.

Easter and Liberative Action

Easter is definitely after the long period of lent that calls upon us to reflect upon the darker side of human living, pain of carrying the burdens for others, and the cross that lies heavily on the poor who cannot raise their voices. Yet, it is time to say "Happy Easter", because it brings us reasons to live in hope, break the shackles of death and causes of oppression, to be liberated in the true sense, to be beyond the boundaries of exploitative structures of society. It is Spring. It is time for new life to begin.

As part of this reflection, I present before you a part of the homily given by Archbishop Romero, at the fifth Sunday of Lent, the last Sunday mass he celebrated before he was brutally murdered on the altar just days later :

Easter is a shout of victory! No one can extinguish that life that Christ resurrected. Not even death and hatred against Him and against his Church will be able to overcome it. He is the victor! Just as he will flourish in an Easter of unending resurrection, so it is necessary to also accompany him in Lent, in a Holy Week that is cross, sacrifice, martyrdom… Happy are those who do not become offended by their cross!

Lent, then, is a call to celebrate our redemption in that difficult complex of cross and victory. Our people are very qualified… to preach to us of the cross; but all who have Christian faith and hope know that behind this Calvary is our Easter, our resurrection, and that is the hope of the Christian people.

Today, as diverse historical projects emerge for our people, we can be sure that victory will be had by the one that best reflects the plan of God. And this is the mission of the Church… to see how the plan of God is being reflected or disdained in our midst…

That is why I ask the Lord during the week, as I gather the cry of the people, the aches of so much crime, and the ignominy of so much violence, that He give me the suitable word to console, to denounce, to call for repentance; and even though I may continue to be a voice crying in the desert, I know that the Church is making the effort to fulfill its mission.

How easy it is to denounce structural injustice, institutionalized violence, social sin! And it is true, this sin is everywhere, but where are the roots of this social sin? In the heart of every human being. Present-day society is a sort of anonymous world in which no one is willing to admit guilt, and everyone is responsible. We are all sinners, and we have all contributed to this massive crime and violence in our country. Salvation begins with the human person, with human dignity, with saving every person from sin. And in Lent this is God’s call: Be converted!

Today our nation is living its own Exodus. Today we, too, are journeying to our liberation through the desert, where cadavers and anguished pain are devastating us, and where many suffer the temptation of those who were walking with Moses and who wanted to turn back… God desires to save the people making a new history… What is not repeated are the circumstances, the opportunities to which we are witnesses.

The true solution has to fit into the definitive plan of God. Every solution we seek-a better land distribution, a better administration and distribution of wealth, a political organization structured around the common good of citizens-these must be sought always within the context of definitive liberation… Without God, there can be no true concept of liberation. Temporary liberations, yes; but definitive, solid liberations-only people of faith can reach them.

I would like to appeal in a special way to the men of the Army, and in particular to the troops of the National Guard, the Police, and the garrisons. Brothers, you belong to our own people. You kill your own brother peasants; and in the face of an order to kill that is given by a man, the law of God should prevail that says: “Do not kill!” No soldier is obliged to obey an order counter to the law of God. No one has to comply with an immoral law. It is time now that you recover your conscience and obey its dictates rather than the command of sin.

The Church, the defender of the rights of God, of the law of God, of the dignity of the human person, cannot remain silent before so much abomination. We want the government to seriously consider that reforms mean nothing when they come bathed in so much blood. Therefore, in the name of God, and in the name of this long-suffering people, whose laments rise to heaven every day more tumultuous, I beseech you, I beg you, I command you in the name of God: “Cease the repression!

The Dying River - Lack of Water in the Ganges affects Electricity Production !

The Ganges and Brahmaputra are called the "living" rivers because they are never supposed to die, as they flow from the melting glaciers of the Himalayas. The rivers are also life-giving to millions of small farmers who live and work along the thousands of kilometers these rivers and their innumerable branches inundate. The State of West Bengal in the eastern part of India is reeling under severe power shortage due to deficit in production of electricity which is directly related to lack of water that is available on the Ganges which is the largest feeder for the number of thermal power stations that lie across the state. So, the number of hours of power-cuts is increasing each day with temperature soaring high. 

The depleting Gangetic glaciers which is losing about two sq.km. (1.3 sq.mile) each year is clearly due to global warming and environmental degradation. If we do not save the planet soon, the days of Gangetic desert may not be far away. I would not like to be apocalyptic. It is just a warning bell for all of us.