current affairs newspaper analysis and summarry

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www.indiancivils.com An Online IAS Academy

Newspaper Analysis and Summarry– 22nd February 2015

NATIONAL

AAP protests Centre’s ‘anti-farmer’ ordinance on land acquisition – The Hindu

Senior Aam Aadmi Party leader Yogendra Yadav on Saturday said his party would not

allow the government to acquire even an acre of land in Haryana under the provisions of

the ordinance on land acquisition. He along with a large number of supporters pledged to

fight for farmers‟ rights in the State.

Mr. Yadav was addressing a meeting at Kamla Nehru Park here at the launch of his party‟s

State-wide “Jai Kisan Abhiyan” in Haryana. Under the campaign, the party would give

memorandums to all the ten Members of Parliament of Haryana and hold marches in

respective constituencies with a request to oppose the ordinance.

Stating that the ordinance was anti-farmer, Mr. Yadav said: “We would oppose in every

possible democratic manner the acquisition of land under the ordinance.”

Saying that the Modi Government had brought in a new law on land acquisition through

backdoor, Mr. Yadav demanded that Haryana MPs oppose it. He said the government had

changed the rules in awarding compensation for land acquisition thereby reducing the

amount being given to farmers by half. “We demand that the government ensures complete

compensation to the affected farmers and not leave them in the lurch.”

Mr. Yadav also raised the issue of scarcity of urea in the State and demanded to know as to

who was benefitting from it. He sought impartial probe into it. “In its Lok Sabha and

Vidhan Sabha manifestos the BJP had promised that the minimum support price would be

fixed at more than 50 per cent the cost of produce, but the two governments have not even

ensured that the MSP equals the cost of produce and even failed to lift some crops,” said

Mr. Yadav, demanding that the BJP governments at the Centre and the State keep their

words.

Later, Mr. Yadav along with a large number of farmers and partymen marched up to Sector

14 residence of Gurgaon MP and Union Minister of State for Defence Rao Inderjit Singh

and submitted a memorandum.

India’s coal-based thermal power plant most inefficient in the world: CSE

report – The Hindu

Indian coal-based thermal power plants are some of the most inefficient in the world, noted

a two-year-long research study by the Centre for Science and Environment (CSE).

Conducted under CSE‟s Green Rating Project (GRP), the study is the first of its kind done

for this industrial sector by evaluating its environmental performance and compliance.

Explaining the study released by M.S. Swaminathan, the „father‟ of India‟s Green

Revolution, here on Saturday, CSE director general Sunita Narain said: “The objective of

the study was to give a clear picture of the environmental performance of the sector.”

“Our finding is that in India, where the demand for power is increasing, power plants are

performing way below the global benchmarks. Given the rapid increase in coal-based

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power projected by the government, stress on precious resources like water and land will

increase and air and water pollution will worsen, unless corrective measures are taken by

the industry and policy-makers,” she noted.

Also present at the release was Union Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate

Change secretary Ashok Lavasa, and chief economic advisor Arvind Subramanian.

The plants were rated on around 60 parameters covering everything from coal and water

use and plant efficiency to air and water pollution and ash management. Local community

views and impact on them were given due weightage along with the plants‟ compliance

record and environment policies. The ratings involve comparing the performance of the

plants against the best practices.

Priyavrat Bhati, programme director of CSE‟s Sustainable Industrialisation team (which is

behind the project), said: “The most striking part of the ranking is that 20 plants did not get

a single leaf, which is a reflection of their particularly poor environmental performance.

Some of the plants did not want to participate. Yet, we assessed them on the basis of field-

level surveys and publicly available data.” He added: “We were encouraged by the

transparency showed by a number of State-owned plants that disclosed data despite being

inefficient and highly polluting.”

Govt.’s new approach on new education policy a non-starter – The Hindu

The Union Human Resource Development Ministry‟s effort to introduce a bottom-up

approach to generating a nation-wide discourse on a New Education Policy (NEP) remains

a bit of a non-starter nearly four weeks after it was launched on January 26.

All that the NEP Group on the Modi government‟s online portal „mygov.in‟ has attracted

since its Republic Day launch are random jottings though all stakeholders — people and

State governments included — have been invited to join it.

Though Union Human Resource Development Minister Smriti Irani has been asking the

States to give their suggestions on the portal so that the exercise can be wrapped up by

August, the State governments are still awaiting clear directives from the Ministry. Several

State Education Departments, including West Bengal, Kerala and Andhra Pradesh, when

contacted over the last couple of days said they had not received any communication in this

regard from the Ministry.

Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh were among the few States which had received letters from

the Ministry asking for inputs on 13 thematic areas in the School Education Department

and 20 in Higher Education. Madhya Pradesh officials said they got a letter directing them

to the website. As of Friday, they were unable to access it and, in turn, wanted to know

whether anyone was able to log on.

Naresh Pal Gangwar, Principal Secretary (Secondary Education, Rajasthan), said the State

government had been informed that the Ministry would be seeking suggestions from

stakeholders. “We have been told to have consultations, but the modalities are not very

clear. We will seek clarifications,” he told The Hindu .


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A cursory look at the 33 thematic areas listed in the NEP Group on „mygov.in‟ showed that

each had attracted less than 200 posts till date and most read like the chatter on any online

comments section.

“What else can you expect from such an exercise?‟‟ said a senior bureaucrat from a State

Education Department, adding that briefs provided by the Ministry for each theme cannot

substitute for a broad policy outline.

Mamata relents on Teesta deal, LBA – The Hindu

West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee has told Bangladesh that breakthroughs will

be achieved in the Teesta water-sharing deal and the Land Boundary Agreement, which

have been hanging fire since she blocked them four years ago.

Meeting Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina exclusively for half an hour at the end of her three-

day visit here on Saturday, Ms. Banerjee said the Land Boundary Agreement was likely to

go through in the Rajya Sabha session beginning February-end.

Ms. Banerjee, who was served hilsa for lunch at the Prime Minister‟s official residence,

Ganabhaban, said the famed fish was now unavailable in West Bengal. “You give us water,

we will give you hilsa,” Ms. Hasina quipped.

The Prime Minister reminded her of the problems being faced by the people living in the

enclaves, referring to the delay in the ratification of the Land Boundary Agreement. Ms.

Banerjee said she had seen their problems.

In 2011, she stalled the two deals on the ground that West Bengal‟s interests would be

affected. The Bangladeshi leadership hopes Ms. Banerjee‟s visit will pave the way for a

solution.

On Friday, addressing a gathering in Dhaka, she asked the Bangladeshis to repose faith in

her to deliver a settlement to the Teesta issue. She said she wanted to act as “a bridge”

between the two countries. The Chief Minister visited Dhaka with 39 people, mostly from

West Bengal‟s cultural fraternity and including two Ministers and big businessmen.

Before visiting Ms. Hasina‟s residence, Ms. Banerjee paid tributes to the Bengali language

martyrs by placing a wreath at the Central Shaheed Minar in Dhaka.

High pollution cuts short Indian lives by 3 years – The Hindu

Over half of India‟s population is exposed to deadly air pollution and live in areas where

fine particulate matter pollution is above the country‟s standards for what is considered

safe.

Using a combination of ground-level in situ measurements and satellite-based remote

sensing data, a new study by economists from three U.S. universities — Chicago, Harvard

and Yale — has calculated that 660 million people live in areas that exceed the Indian

National Ambient Air Quality Standard (NAAQS) for fine particulate matter (PM 2.5)

pollution.


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The study „Lower Pollution Longer Lives, Life Expectancy Gains if India Reduced

Particulate Matter Pollution‟, by Michael Greenstone, Janhavi Nilekani, Rohini Pande,

Nicholas Ryan, Anant Sudarshan and Anish Sugathan was published in the Economic and

Political Weekly on Saturday. It shows that if India reverses this trend to meet its air quality

standards, those 660 million people would gain about 3.2 years onto their lives, and

compliance with Indian air quality standards would save 2.1 billion life-years.

It suggests improved monitoring, civil penalties and pricing scheme to reduce pollution.

Mr. Greenstone, an author of the study and director of the Energy Policy Institute at the

University of Chicago, told The Hindu on phone that all 600 districts were covered in India

and wherever available, direct measurements from the Central Pollution Control Board

(CPCB) monitoring stations were used and when that was not available, satellite data was

used.

He said air quality and economic growth do not have to be in conflict. The study draws

from an earlier study he carried out in China in which he and his co-authors compared

pollution in north China — where a policy subsidised coal use for home heating — with

south China.

High health costs

“We used the relationship between particulates and life expectancy estimated in the China

study and applied it to the Indian levels of air pollution to produce our central estimate of

about three years reduction in life expectancy. We also compared this to estimates from

other studies that say something about life expectancy reductions or infant mortality and

reported those results in the paper. The general message of high health costs remains

unchanged,” said Mr. Sudarshan, one of the authors, in an e-mail response to questions.

“Using only CPCB data, the highest air pollution levels on average have been recorded in

the National Capital Region of Delhi, followed closely by Gwalior,” he said.

India, Russia sort out differences on project – The Hindu

India and Russia have generally agreed upon the amount and division of work during the

research and development (R&D) stage of the fifth generation fighter aircraft (FGFA)

project.

A contract for the R&D phase is being prepared and expected to be signed this year, said

Yuli Slyusar, president and chairman of Russia‟s United Aircraft Corporation (UAC) at

Aero India 2015 in Bengaluru.

“The Russian and Indian parties have generally agreed on the work share of each,” said

company officials but refused to divulge specific details at this stage.

The work share of Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) has been a contentious issue as

the project will have equal investment between India and Russia and is likely to cost over

$30 billion for about 400 aircraft. India plans to induct 144 of them.


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But HAL‟s share in the work has been limited to a meagre 13 per cent so far which will not

build any critical technological gains. Both sides have been holding discussions to sort this

out before the final agreement.

FGFA is crucial for Indian Air Force‟s evolving structure as was recently acknowledged by

the air chief recently. The final announcement could come later this year with President

Pranab Mukherjee visiting Moscow in June, and Prime Minister Narendra Modi expected

to visit Russia twice.

Kolhapur bids farewell to Pansare – The Hindu

Thousands of mourners, Communist Party of India workers and activists gathered to bid an

emotional farewell to eminent party leader Govind Pansare in Kolhapur in western

Maharashtra on Saturday.

There was a strong undercurrent of anger as mourners demanded speedy justice for

Pansare, 82, who was shot at outside his home earlier this week. He died of bullet wounds

on Friday night.

Thousands of workers from various social strata gathered at Dasara Chowk to pay their last

respects to their beloved “Anna.”

Defiant cries of “We are all Dr. Dabholkar, We are all Comrade Pansare” rent the air as they

demanded an end to murderous attacks on prominent liberal intellectuals in the State.

Leaders from both sides of the spectrum were present.

Joining the CPI in 1952, Pansare transcended Communist politics by embracing a wide

array of issues, fighting for the eradication of superstition and taking on the toll mafia.

“It is painful to think that the spot where Pansare was to address the annual State CPI

convention would tragically transform into the place where people would pay their final

respects to him,” said Marathi writer Vidya Bal.

Bemoaning the slow death of the liberal tradition in the State, Ms. Bal said that while

Pansare fought for issues affecting the poor, it was Shiv Sena scion Aditya Thackeray‟s

proposal to extend Mumbai‟s nightlife that was being enthusiastically taken up by the State

government.

Swabhimani Paksha president Raju Shetti said that while Pansare had passed away, his

killers would never be able to efface his ideas.

Implying the hand of right-wing forces in Pansare‟s death, Mr. Shetti, whose party is an ally

of the BJP, warned that the Paksha would never support a government that subscribed to

views of Nathuram Godse.

Ordinary workers stressed Pansare‟s tireless efforts to educate them, recalling how his most

famous pamphlet, Shivaji kon hota? (Who was Shivaji?), did much to recast King Shivaji

as a social reformer.


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“His equanimity was remarkable. When his son Avinash passed away, Comrade Pansare

rhetorically asked, standing beside the body: „Who will complete his unfinished task?‟ —

„We will‟, he himself answered,” recalled a CPI activist.

Push for heritage cities in Tamil Nadu – The Hindu

The State is set to witness a renewed push for development of some of its heritage towns

soon with the Centre taking the lead by sanctioning about Rs. 45 crore for two cities,

Kancheepuram and Velankanni.

The two cities have been chosen under one of the flagship schemes of the present Union

government - the National Heritage Development and Augmentation Yojana (HRIDAY),

which has been billed as an initiative towards “reviving the soul of cities” that have a rich

heritage.

Though the inclusion of Kancheepuram and Velankanni under HRIDAY was announced at

the time of presentation of Union Budget last year, the Centre‟s sanction has come only

recently, official sources here say.

The detailed guidelines for the scheme have been made public. The allocation of funds has

been made on the basis of population, says a senior official, adding that the State is yet to

receive the funds.

Essentially to be carried out through the local bodies concerned, the scheme allows the

participation of reputed NGOs, besides government agencies of both the Centre and the

State. “It will fund projects which have a direct bearing on heritage,” says the official.

HRIDAY can support either restoration of heritage monuments or provision of basic

services or development of heritage walks/religious trails or GIS-based mapping of cultural

and natural heritage assets or promotion of local heritage industry, including cottage

industries managed by women. Most of the projects under the funding would be taken up in

the vicinity of heritage monuments, say officials.

In the weeks to come, the local bodies of Kancheepuram and Velankanni will be busy with

preparing heritage management plans (HMP). Subsequently, they will have to prepare

detailed project reports for specific projects. “Sooner the better,” responds the official to a

query whether any timeframe has been set by the Centre.

Even though two of Tamil Nadu‟s heritage cities have been included, the State has many

towns and cities that deserve to be brought under the scheme.

“The State government has already urged the Centre to include Srirangam. There are many

more,” says K.T. Narasimhan, former Superintending Archaeologist in the Archaeological

Survey of India (ASI) and now, Archaeological Consultant in the State government.

Tiruvannamalai, Madurai, Thanajvur and Kumbakonam can all easily fulfil the criteria of

the Centre. Each of these cities and towns has unique features and their antiquity is beyond

doubt, he asserts.


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Mystery continent holds key to mankind’s future – The Hindu

Earth‟s past, present and future come together here on the northern peninsula of Antarctica,

the wildest, most desolate and mysterious of its continents.

Clues to answering humanity‟s most basic questions are locked in this continental freezer

the size of the United States and half of Canada: where did we come from? Are we alone in

the universe? What‟s the fate of our warming planet? “It‟s a window out to the universe and

in time,” said Kelly Falkner, polar program chief for the U.S. National Science Foundation.

For a dozen days in January, in the middle of the chilly Antarctic summer, AP followed

scientists from different fields searching for alien-like creatures, hints of pollution trapped

in pristine ancient ice, leftovers from the Big Bang, biological quirks that potentially could

lead to better medical treatments, and perhaps most of all, signs of unstoppable melting.

Antarctica conjures up images of quiet mountains and white plateaus, but the coldest, driest

and remotest continent is far from dormant.

About 98 per cent of it is covered by ice, and that ice is constantly moving. Temperatures

can range from above zero in the South Shetlands and Antarctic Peninsula to the unbearable

frozen lands near the South Pole. As an active volcano, Deception Island is a pot of extreme

conditions. There are spots where the sea boils at 100 degrees Celsius, while in others it can

be freezing at below0 degrees Celsius. And while the sun rarely shines on the long, dark

Antarctic winters, night-time never seems to fall on summer days.

While tourists come to Antarctica for its beauty and remoteness, scientists are all business.

What they find could affect the lives of people thousands of miles away; if experts are

right, and the West Antarctic ice sheet has started melting irreversibly, what happens here

will determine if cities such as Miami, New York, New Orleans, Guangzhou, Mumbai,

London and Osaka will have to regularly battle flooding from rising seas.

Antarctica “is big and it‟s changing and it affects the rest of the planet and we can‟t afford

to ignore what‟s going on down there,” said David Vaughan, science director of the British

Antarctic.

About 4,000 scientists come to Antarctica for research during the summer and 1,000 stay in

the more forbidding winter. There are also about 1,000 non-scientists — chefs, divers,

mechanics, janitors and the priest of the world‟s southernmost Eastern Orthodox Church on

top of a rocky hill at the Russian Bellinghausen station. But the church on the hill is an

exception, a glimmer of the world to the north. For scientists, what makes this place is the

world below, which provides a window into mankind‟s past and future. — AP

INTERNATIONAL Deal cancels out austerity: Tsipras - The Hindu

Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras said on Saturday a deal with EU leaders to extend the

country‟s huge debt bailout would end hated austerity measures, but his government faced

scaling back its leftist agenda.

In a national address after Greece was given a crucial four-month extension to its bailout in

negotiations late Friday, Mr. Tsipras said “this deal cancels out austerity.”


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But the bailout extension came at the cost of concessions including a commitment to spell

out reforms within two days.

The reforms would be aimed at persuading its European creditors to extend further loans.

Athens received no immediate loan assistance.

Mr. Tsipras however argued that his government had foiled a plan by “blind conservative

forces” in Greece and abroad to bankrupt the country at the end of the month, when its

European bailout had been scheduled to expire.

At the same time, the 40-year-old Prime Minister warned that the “real difficulties” lie

ahead. He said his government would now focus on negotiating a new reform blueprint

with Greece‟s creditors by June.

The new leftist Greek government, which came to power last month pledging to end deeply

unpopular austerity measures, had asked for six-month loan assistance until it can submit

its four-year reform plans. The government said it had averted threatened cuts to pensions

and tax hikes, and had persuaded its European creditors to drop unrealistic budget demands.

To win the hard-fought deal, Athens agreed to submit a list of economic and other reforms

by Monday.

The government pledged to refrain from one-sided measures that could compromise

existing fiscal targets, and had to abandon plans to use some €11 billion in leftover

European bank support funds to help restart the Greek economy.

On Tuesday, the hated “troika” of creditors will decide whether to proceed with Friday‟s

agreement, with the chance that the compromise could be scrapped if they are not satisfied.

— AFP

War on terror: France seeks Silicon Valley support – The Hindu

French Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve met on Friday with Apple, Facebook, Google

and Twitter to discuss ways to thwart terrorists from using the platforms as stages for

propaganda.

“We had frank, rich, deep discussion,” Mr. Cazeneuve said during a press conference at the

French consulate in San Francisco.

He said his mission was to foster closer relationships with the Silicon Valley titans so

online terrorist propaganda could be more swiftly removed or countered with opposing

viewpoints.

Apple, Facebook, Google and Twitter executives were invited to a follow-up meeting in

Paris in April to delve deeper into the issue and collaborate on a proper code of conduct.

“We are clear there is no place for terrorists on Facebook,” the leading social network told

AFP after meeting with Mr. Cazeneuve.


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Mr. Cazeneuve said he wanted to work together with Internet firms in the fight against

terrorism and that regulation alone wasn‟t the solution to the problem.

While he did not call for Internet firms to take on the burden of automatically censoring

photos, posts, video or other digital content uploaded to websites, Mr. Cazeneuve urged

rapid cooperation when it comes to removing terrorist propaganda reported to the services.

— AFP

Pakistan’s plutonium plant ‘operational’ – The Hindu

Pakistan may now be on the fast track to weaponising spent nuclear fuel through its

plutonium reprocessing plant in Chashma in Punjab, according to recent satellite imagery,

which indicates that all the ongoing construction around a tall building, suspected to be the

reprocessing facility in question, has been completed.

Increased capability

In its report, the Institute for Science and International Security (ISIS), a think tank here,

said that while the operational status of this reprocessing plant was yet to be confirmed,

“satellite imagery signatures suggest it may have recently become operational, [a

development that] would significantly increase Pakistan‟s plutonium separation capability

and ability to make nuclear weapons.”

Speaking to The Hindu one of the report‟s authors, Serena Vergantini, said that ISIS had

determined from open source information that there was a plan to build a reprocessing plant

at Chashma several years ago although it was difficult to know which building was the

reprocessing facility.

However, in 2007, ISIS located a tall building in a site southwest of the Chashma Nuclear

Power Complex, which incidentally hosts Chinese-supplied nuclear power reactors, where

“a considerable amount of construction” had taken place between 2002 and 2005, including

ponds nearby excavated, roads paved and a potential plutonium management building and

waste facility built nearby.

The latest satellite imagery obtained by ISIS through Digital Global indicates that all such

construction work appears complete, which makes it most likely that the reprocessing

facility is “close to complete,” and “possibly operational,” Ms. Vergantini noted.

Last month, another ISIS report had hinted that Pakistan may have accelerated its covert

nuclear weapons development programme and rendered operational a nuclear reactor

structure located at its Khushab plant, some 120 km by road from the Chashma site.

However given the plutonium output from the Khushab reactors‟, Islamabad, needed to

find a way to chemically separate it from the irradiated reactor fuel, a complex process

requiring plutonium reprocessing plants. When its contract to receive such a plant from

France was cancelled by suppliers in France in the mid-1970s, Pakistan constructed a small

indigenous facility near Rawalpindi.

Although it came online to reprocess plutonium after Pakistan brought into operation its

first Khushab reactor in 1998, the three additional reactors there were possibly producing


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more irradiated fuel than the Rawalpindi plant could handle, prompting the “secret”

construction of the Chashma plutonium separation plant.

ECONOMY Bimal Jalan endorses higher deficit to bolster Indian growth - The Hindu

The man who Prime Minister Narendra Modi appointed to fix public spending has some

plain advice as the Government prepares its first full-year Budget — do not be so dogmatic

about trimming the fiscal deficit that you crimp economic growth.

Bimal Jalan, a 73-year-old former Governor of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), heads a

panel tasked with suggesting measures to reduce India‟s subsidy bill and create space for

capital spending without compromising fiscal discipline.

In an interview with Reuters, Mr. Jalan said Modi should not shy away from loosening the

deficit target to ramp up public investment.

“What I am trying to get at is that nothing should be cast in stone,” he said. “Your policy

should be in tune with the changing economic dynamics.”

Finance Minister Arun Jaitley has vowed to stick to strict deficit targets inherited from the

previous government, despite opinions expressed by several top government advisers that

the economy would be better served by stimulus spending focused on relieving

infrastructure bottlenecks that constrain growth.

With debt servicing devouring 42 per cent of federal revenues, a higher deficit could delay

further interest rate cuts by the RBI and revive threats from global credit rating agencies

who have urged New Delhi to invest more without increasing borrowing.

Higher deficits, the agencies warn, would pressure India‟s credit rating, which is now just a

notch above „junk‟ status. Mr. Jalan did not reveal what recommendations he has made in

his report but he said the government needed to identify high priority areas and spend

accordingly.

Economic reality

While a change in the methodology to measure India‟s national output has made it the

fastest growing major economy in the world, economists say it needs to expand annually by

8 or 9 per cent for decades to create jobs for a burgeoning workforce.

The new growth numbers have confounded policymakers who say the real economy does

not appear so rosy.

Mr. Jalan said with corporate investment showing little sign of recovery, merchandise

exports falling, rural demand floundering, and inflation tumbling to a multi-year low, India

can afford to use fiscal policy to lift economic growth.

“I don't think with changing economic environment, both domestic as well as international,

we should keep our eyes shut,” he said.


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“My personal view is that we should take into account the ground reality rather than go by

a target.”

Mr. Jaitley has committed to trimming the fiscal deficit to an eight-year low of 3.6 per cent

of gross domestic product (GDP) in the year that begins in April and 3 per cent the

following year.

He has promised to honour his commitment, and has been given more space by lower oil

prices that allowed him to end diesel subsidies and save money on other fuel subsidies.

Even so, depressed tax revenues, at just 10 per cent of GDP, compared to a peak of 11.9 per

cent in 2007-08, have left him hard pressed to provide funds for new roads, rail lines and

ports.

“Obviously, you can‟t say instead of 3.6 per cent, it should be 6.8 per cent," said Mr. Jalan,

who as the RBI chief in 1997 played a key role in shielding India‟s economy from the

aftermath of the East Asian financial crisis.

“But if it is 3.8 or 3.9 per cent, instead of 3.6 per cent, obviously that could be done,” Mr.

Jalan said, referring to the fiscal deficit.

FEATURES A question of hegemony - The Hindu

Women are not allowed to enter some or all Muslim graveyards in my hometown any more.

This is new; while women could not participate in funeral processions in the past, they

were free to visit graves until very recently. I have heard of camels being sacrificed for Eid

in Bihar, a state where camels are not seen and where, until recently, Muslims would

consume camel meat with great reluctance. A recent Facebook debate about the legitimacy

of celebrating Prophet Mohammad‟s birthday was dominated by voices from South Asia

asking if the Arabs celebrated the occasion, for, in that case, it would be justified. Also,

during festivals in India or Pakistan, you increasingly find some Muslims dressed in Arab

garb. Until two decades ago, this was unheard of, except in fancy dress parties in

metropolitan circles. I will not say anything about what Muslim women have started

encumbering themselves with in recent decades.

The list is long. Behind it lies a number of factors, all of them associated with notions —

correct or not — of the authenticity of Arab culture and practices in an „Islamic‟ context.

When I say „Arab‟, I need to apologise to my Arab acquaintances, all of whom would find

it difficult to relate to such manifestations of „Arabness.‟ Just as many Americas are

contained within the rubric „USA‟ and many Indias under the rubric „India,‟ there are many

versions of Arabness. And still, one can talk of a kind of Arab cultural imperialism; an

increasingly muscular and hegemonic version of being „Muslim like an Arab‟ rooted in the

official Wahhabism of Saudi Arabia and exported, with petro-dollars, elsewhere for at least

three generations now.

The legitimate leftist critique of western imperialism in India has unfortunately failed to

address the even more damaging element of Arab cultural imperialism among Muslims in

the sub-continent. Metropolitan leftist scholars in India can never cease talking back to the

defunct or totally metamorphosed „colonial empire‟, a fact partly predicated by their


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education as well as the greater inroads (positive and negative) of western imperialism on

their daily existence. But it is time to address Arab cultural imperialism, because it is far

more dangerous today at least in the sub-continent.

There are various reasons why it poses a greater danger to us in India. First, let us be honest

about „Western imperialism‟: much of it is largely due to the dominance of western nations

in the world of capitalism, partly due to the colonial past and partly due to various

hegemonic factors (including institutions like IMF) today. But, despite this, the common

leftist belief that somehow nations, and in particular the U.S., should play Mother Teresa in

the world is simply ridiculous. Nations and people and even individuals look after their

own interests first. This does not mean that they are selfish; it just means that they protect

themselves first, in most cases, before lending a helping hand to someone else. Sometimes

this bid to protect their economy or society might be misplaced, even xenophobic, but it is

naive or dishonest to blame Western nations for successfully doing what every other nation

in the world tries to do or would do.

Moreover, despite the various problems of Western imperialism, Western nations are

largely democratic and secular, and pay at least lip-service to democracy internationally.

This enables them to create some space for difference internally and internationally, despite

what radical leftists or religious fundamentalists (Hindutva or Islamist) might claim. This is

not the case with what I have referred to as Arab cultural imperialism: its purest form is the

draconian, undemocratic, sexist and discriminatory monarchy of Saudi Arabia, and what it

spawns, even as „opposition‟, is an organisation like ISIS! Moreover, under global

capitalism, at least large consumer/producer countries, like China and India, have a degree

of leverage with Western imperialism, which can only be frittered away by bad leadership

and corruption.

However, there are other reasons why Arab cultural imperialism poses a greater danger in

India. For one, it erases and destroys the traces of a rich and distinctive history of Muslim

cultures in India: the great Muslim empires of India, such as the Mughals, were not

culturally „Arab‟. Even the narrowly „Islamic‟ Aurangzeb was far from being a Wahabbi.

Subcontinental Muslims have a rich, syncretic and diverse heritage; it should not be

destroyed by a narrow form of „20th century‟ Arab cultural imperialism, rooted in the petro-

wealth of a handful of Arab states, and percolating into the subcontinent for three to four

generations now in the shape of Gulf jobs as well as madrassa and related funding.

We are not talking of terrorism here, which is another matter altogether and should not be

associated solely with either Muslims or Arabs — actually, according to Europol statistics,

less than three per cent of all acts of terror in Europe in recent years have been committed

by „Islamists‟. But we are talking of cultural hegemony, and I consider this far more

dangerous in the longer run. Moreover, the kind of Arab cultural imperialism that I am

alluding to is intellectually and morally hollow to an extent that cannot be indicated in

words.

Unfortunately, I doubt that the Hindutva forces currently running India can distinguish

between Muslims in India, who are part and parcel of the Indian heritage, and the creeping

influence of Arab cultural imperialism. Their more vicious ideologues tend to paint all

Muslims with the same brush, unable or unwilling to see the historical variety of Muslim

and other cultures, practices and identities in the sub-continent. This, finally, is another


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reason why Arab cultural imperialism is more dangerous than western imperialism in India.

It can become a self-fulfilling prophecy on the part of Hindutva fanatics by erasing the

distinctiveness of Indian Muslims.

Lost livelihood – The Hindu

The even greater tragedy of the coordinated murderous December 23, 2014, attack on

unarmed Adivasi forest dwellers in Assam, which left dead more than 70 people including

children and women, is that the assault targeted one of the most oppressed and dispossessed

communities in that entire region.

A meticulously researched paper titled “„Lazy‟ Natives, Coolie Labour, and the Assam Tea

Industry” by Jayeeta Sharma recounts the grim history of their settlement as indentured

labour in Assam since the mid-19th century as an element of the great colonial capitalist

enterprise. The discovery that Chinese tea flourished in the hills and plains of Assam led to

the clearance of vast forest tracts for tea plantations. They originally relied briefly on labour

imported from China, but they were found unequal to the hard labour required for clearing

the thick jungle undergrowth.

This gave way to employment of workers from indigenous tribal communities like the

Nagas, who they found sturdy and hard-working and often willing to work in return for as

little as some rice, shells and beads. But they worked when they chose, and refused to be

regimented and controlled. They experimented with other local tribes, but the problem of

their resistance to the iron discipline of the tea gardens led them to search for outside

workers.

Around that time, tribal communities from the Chotanagpur plateau of Central India were

recruited in large numbers to labour at dirt wages in sugar factories, indigo plantations and

railway construction. These workers abundantly met the standards of tough, resilient and

acquiescent labour that the plantation owners were seeking. Sharma recounts, “Men,

women, and children were sent from Central India; a long, difficult journey by steamers,

roads, and later railways, into the jungles and gardens of Upper Assam.”

These indentured workers and their families were housed in cramped and poorly serviced

workers‟ lines. Sharma records: “Flight was almost impossible since ignorance of the

terrain, coupled with bounties offered to hill people to track runaways with dogs ensured

that the plantation existence had to be borne against all provocation.” To make matters

worse, British planters were armed with private penal powers to arrest workers who tried to

leave before their indenture contracts were completed.

The availability of large forest tracts attracted workers to remain in Assam even after their

contracts ended. They cleared forests to carve out paddy fields, and were also available as

contract labour, called faltus , during peak plantation seasons. Gradually settlements grew

in erstwhile forests in which indigenous tribal communities like the Bodos, former „coolie‟

Adivasis, caste Hindu Assamese, and Nepali and East Bengali new settlers lived side by

side. Their links with their original homelands gradually snapped; although they spoke their

original Adivasi tongues, they learnt Assamese and often Hindi.

The system of virtual slave labour continued right up to the 1920s, when a nationalist

agitation led by Gandhi and C.F. Andrews finally resulted in the ending of the indenture


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system. But even though they were now nominally free, these workers remained

submissive and severely exploited, and continued to work under near-colonial conditions of

employment and housing long after Independence.

It is estimated that the so-called „tea-tribes‟ constitute between 15 to 20 per cent of the

population of Assam today, but they survive with the poorest human development

indicators in the state. The tea-tribes are not notified as Scheduled Tribes in Assam;

therefore they are deprived of the benefits of reservations. Labour economist B. Saikia

reports in 2008 that tea-garden labourers are typically paid wages lower than the minimum

and even paid partly in kind. Tea-garden labour lines have been always kept

underdeveloped and dependent for their basic survival needs of the tea-garden

management, so that they can procure cheap labour.

The misfortunes of this oppressed and deprived people were compounded following the

creation of the Bodoland Autonomous Council in 1993. In this region, indigenous tribal

Bodos, the Bengali Muslims and the tea tribes each constituted roughly 30 per cent of the

population. Waves of violence successively targeting Bengali Muslims and Adivasis were

unleashed by armed Bodo militants. Some of the most brutal attacks on Adivasis were

mounted in 1996 and 1997, at the peak of which three lakh Adivasis escaped to relief

camps. Some of these camps have not been disbanded even nearly two decades later.

Indentured labour from the same regions, who were transported to countries like Fiji and

Mauritius, have today acquired education, economic strength and on occasion risen to

positions like the Prime Minister. It is a dishonour to India‟s democracy that in their own

country, this gentle and industrious people still remain exiled to the outer margins of

survival, exploited, malnourished, uneducated, and defenceless before wave after wave of

targeted violence.

Oceans of fantasy – The Hindu

Awhale with airplane landing gear. A giant lobster with gear wheels; another with machine-

clamp claws. A swordfish loaded for a very bloody war. A whale shark with a reading light

scanning arch-punctuated walls. These images could be from a potentially terrifying future,

a deadly dream, or perhaps just a mind rich in imagination and adept at creating adventures

in an alternate universe. This is the supra-imaginative creativity of artist Preetha Kannan.

Some years ago, Kannan spoke of her plans to focus on the elements: soil, water, air, fire

and sky (ether). This passion for the environment and its preservation was given fillip by

her stint with Baba Amte many years ago, her involvement with the anti-Narmada dam

campaigns, and her work with organisations dealing with women‟s issues and the basic

amenities for slum dwellers in Chennai.

She uses a method of laying on strata of paint with little dots, almost like pointillism,

colours set one atop the other to create depth and shade that could be straight out of a

digitally manipulated photograph. Her latest collection, which includes just seven paintings

and two installations, takes her audience underwater to a strange new world that holds

surprises around every marine rock. “It is a complete change from my older work; my last

show was more ideal and balanced,” Kannan explains. This time she focuses on “facets of

contemporary activity that pollute the air and water”, from industries to automobiles. “The

great oceans are being negatively impacted by human activity and that led me to a very


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surreal speculation. Perhaps one day the destruction of the habitat will be so far gone that

life will have to adapt to survive a new environment!”

Gaia Reloaded is Kannan‟s vision of the oceans “with the environment degraded and a new

form of life populating the depths”. And in the bizarrely predicative paintings she has tried

to show “familiar forms melded with elements of plane tyres, circuitry, night lamps,

pulleys, pianos and robotic hands, machine parts, bullets, missiles, war machinery, and

more, merged with the aquatic creatures.” These surreal beings are recreated in two resin

installations. One is an eight-foot-long shark with objects within its transparent body.

“Look inside and you can see all those day-to-day bits and pieces, from pistons and cycle

chains to elements of gas stoves, all completely rusted, as if they have been in the ocean for

so long” that they have lost their original form and gloss. Included are skeins of electrical

wires that would bring power to these internal elements, almost like veins would in a live

fish. The other installation is a group of 30 fish, each about seven inches long; a school

swimming along suspended on fishing wire. “Each contains plastic of some kind,” Kannan

says, “a portion of a single-use toothpaste tube, a fragment of a quick-fix noodles packet, a

little segment of detergent wrapping, a bit of a cola can…basically everyday plastic that we

all use. These things are polluting the seas. I placed them inside the fish as I cast each one.”

„Just seven paintings‟ is a deceptive statement. Each work is astonishing in its intricacy,

stunning in its complexity. It is amazing to find that it is all done with paint, not using

computer imagery or photography. Kannan describes her work as having “details like

pixilation, with constantly changing hues, suggesting abstract harmony of colour. It is from

far away that this becomes obvious. It is all just paint, done with a brush, with gradients of

colour.”

Each painting took her about two-and-a-half months to complete. According to Kannan,

“This series is more surreal. I‟ve been wondering how to depict what is happening today in

my small way. I live near the ocean and have mangroves in front; they are dying out slowly,

being replaced by roads and buildings and the coastline is slowly moving. We hardly have

anything planted to save it. We also know that the fish are suddenly disappearing. These are

simple concerns that made me think of the whole thing in a very dynamic way.” And maybe

with this representation of a possible future, we as inhabitants of this planet will also share

Preetha Kannan‟s concerns some day.

Saga of the Shaman’s Stone – The Hindu

It was the setting for a grey, gritty, Scandinavian myth. Out of Finland‟s Lusoto we drove,

through an icy drizzle, to a bleak and rocky hill. Ari, our driver-guide, geared into his four-

wheel drive and we ground, groaned and churned shards of slate from our wheels before

reaching the top. Dark wooden shacks loomed out of a rubble-strewn field and a few

ghostly conifers stood like spectral sentinels. The only spot of colour was a tall man in a red

parka. He strode up to us, crunching rubble and frost under his sturdy boots, and said, “I‟m

Fred. Welcome to the Arctic Amethyst mine of Lampivaara!”

Both his voice and his handshake were warm and his accent had a slight Afrikaans ring. We

didn‟t dwell on that, preferring to hurry into a log hut where a fire blazed in a stove. It was

warm and there was a faint fragrance of resin. Fred hung up his parka, gave us a hot berry

drink and wove the Saga of the Shaman‟s Stone. While a knife-edged Lappish wind keened

outside, we fled back four milliard — four thousand million — years when the world was


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very young and very violent. Deep below the surface of the earth, two great tectonic plates,

churning on their oceans of molten magma, collided. “It pushed up mountains four to five

kilometres high,” Fred‟s voice was suitably hushed at the enormity of it all. The berry juice

was sweet and tart and we unzipped our anoraks. “Now, 10 Ice Ages followed covering all

this where we are sitting, under two or three kilometres of ice. It wore down the high

mountains till, today, Lampivaara is only 400m high.”

The warmth and the berry juice, fermented perhaps, had made us feel a bit drowsy. “Now,

the amethysts began to form!” Our drowsiness vanished. “The melting ice had minerals in

it. Silica in the water crystallised into quartz, often called Mountain Crystal. It‟s used in TV

sets, watches and solar panels. In the 1800s they made spectacles of it.” This is probably

why spectacle lenses are sometimes referred to as „pebbles‟.

Fred refreshed our mugs. We sipped warily. He reached behind him and held out chunks of

rock. “When the radiation is high, the quartz turns black and is known as Smoky Quartz.”

The quartz sat in our palms, winking in the light. Sci-fi tales created ET beings of crystal.

We recalled reading that when viruses are dormant, they are crystalline waiting for a living

host to propagate. In our flights of fantasy we had lost some of his words. He was now

saying “When the spirit doctors, the Shamans, discovered that sparks fly when crystal is

rubbed and that there is a smell like the odour of a thunderstorm, they said such crystals

were a gift of the Thunder God, Ukko.”

Fred‟s words wove magic. “Traditionally” he said. “Bishops wear amethyst rings to guard

against temptation!” He grinned, finished his drink and said “Come, we will see the mine”

We stepped out. The berry juice must have worked its spell; we didn‟t feel so cold now,

though it still seemed like a setting from Macbeth . The stones and slivers of rock moved

under our feet, as we trudged across the exposed crest of Lampivaara to a wooden arch

leading into a corridor built into the side of a quarry. Wooden stairs, rafters, led down the

rocky hillside. We turned into a narrow passage and saw an uncovered spot where visitors

toiled to find their own amethysts. A basin sat on a table, a chipping hammer beside it.

There were rough lumps of matrix looking like glistening chunks of nutty toffee: the

mother rock holding amethysts in its grasp.

That‟s when it dawned on us. The owners of this mine did not have to employ miners to dig

out the magical stones of the shamans. There were hordes of tourists eager to flock in and

pay to work in the mine. We were in Lapland, after all: legendary home of Santa Claus.

Things here are not always what they seem to be as we recorded in our travel diaries.

The tall guide stood framed in the door as we walked away, his figure blurred by drifting

veils of mist. He said, “I must let you into a secret. I‟m not Finn. I‟m from the

Netherlands.”

“What made you come here?”

“What makes many men come here: beautiful, blonde, Finnish girls!”

Amethysts were supposed to save senior prelates from temptation. Clearly, they had not

affected Fred.


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