The modern thinking Indian

The drama over Raj Thackeray is reaching a new high. Raj Thackeray, once he split from the Shiv Sena had to make a separate image for himself. So, one of the ways to do this was to try to appeal to the parochial nature of people; blame outsiders for whatever is the economic poor condition and try to inflame their sentiments. He has managed to be somewhat successful in this quest, inflaming sentiments and overall leading to a situation where immigrants from North India have been attacked inside Mumbai and other parts of the state of Maharashtra. In the past, this led to panic and the temporary stoppage of many industrial units with many of their workers running away.
And how does the Chief Minister handle this whole situation. The Shiv Sena has long been a thorn in the side of the Congress in Maharashtra, with their more pro-Marathi position and higher propensity to appeal to populist sentiment. The Congress cannot afford take such positions, since it needs to appeal to all sections of people, and cannot afford to antagonize the voters of North Indian origin. And of course, taking a more extremist position in Maharashtra would expose them to a backlash elsewhere; and their chief Sonia Gandhi would be targeted for such positioning; so if you get a person all ready to be more extremist than the Shiv Sena, you can imagine the scenario of a Congress Chief Minister salivating over the prospect of the Sena's divided vote.
What this has resulted in is the Congress treating Raj Thackeray with kid gloves; they come out with empty soundbeats about 'The law will take its own course', 'We will protect everyone and not let violence happen', and so on. And yet, they allow the lumpen elements of the MNS to attack and do violence in broad daylight, they do token arrest of Raj Thackeray, keep him in absolute comfort and let him out by the next day (first time, they let him out within a few hours, and the next time overnight). The police officers claim that they have nothing against Raj Thackeray. And they can see the campaign working, the Shiv Sena is now unsure of how to behave and is trying to take credit for the campaign of the MNS. Read this report of the treatment of Raj:

Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) leader Raj Thackeray need not worry about being arrested during Diwali, at least in the case filed by the Kalyan railway police. A Kalyan sessions court on Friday extended its interim protection to Thackeray till the next date of hearing, which falls on November 11. Sessions judge K K Tantrapale, however, emphasised that one of the conditions for the interim protection was that Thackeray will have to refrain from giving provocative and inflammatory speeches.
The judge questioned whether the state would be able to ensure the smooth functioning of the court if Thackeray was ordered to remain present in court. ‘Is the state machinery ready to provide adequate bandobast in the court premises,’ the judge asked the prosecutor. The judge further told the prosecutor that on Tuesday MNS activists had managed to forcibly enter the court premises and shouted slogans and created a commotion. Salian assured the court that the police would put in place adequate security.

This whole situation has seen a woeful lack of an attempt by the State Government to try and prevent the violence, and the whole atmosphere of intimidation that is equally bad. Even after large scale condemnation by various parties (including allies of the Congress), there does not seem to be any clear attempt to show Raj Thackeray the violations of law that he has committed. Instead, after seeing the repeated
statements of Raj (followed by direct action of his partymen), I am reminded of the way that the militants expelled most of the pandits from the Kashmir Valley. It is like a 2 step process, where Raj does not directly state violence, but leaves nothing else to be desired, and then his partymen carry out the actual violence.

Labels: Community, Discrimination, Empowerment, Law, Morality, Politics, Protest, Punishment, Security, Separatist

Indian MP's and MLA's are the major supporters of our sovereign rights. All it takes is for somebody outside the country to talk about how India should behave, and you can have an uproar (if Parliament is in session, then suspension of the zero hour and demands to give a proper response) with all the politicians trying their best to portray themselves as the sole defender of the honour and self-respect of the country. You also have the media getting into the game, with editorials bemoaning the tendency of others to try to tell us what to do, and that our politicians have led us into such a place whereby anybody can tell us what to do.
And now, when the situation in Sri Lanka, where a terrorist group (that killed a former Indian Prime Minister along with numerous Sri Lankan politicians and others) is on the verge of losing an armed struggle with the legally constituted Government of the country, you have Indian politicians trying their best to stop this action so that they can be seen as supporters of the rights of the Tamils:

All the seven DMK ministers in the UPA government are expected to submit their resignation letters to party leader and Tamil Nadu chief minister M Karunanidhi on Friday to mount pressure on the Manmohan Singh regime to intervene in Sri Lanka. Simultaneously, Karunanidhi on Thursday announced a human chain protest in Chennai on October 21 to ask the Centre to act on an 'all-party' meeting's call that India take steps to halt the war in the island and despatch humanitarian assistance to Tamil civilians affected by the conflict.
"We will have no option but to quit if the Centre fails to take strong measures to stop the killing of our brethren in the island. We will have no hesitation in stepping down to show our solidarity with the beleaguered Tamil people," the minister said. He added that the DMK chief would forward the letters after watching the developments.

This is sheer hyprocrisy. All of the parties in Tamil Nadu know that the LTTE is a massively brutal terrorist organization that is only interested in its own welfare. It has not discriminated between Sri Lankan non-Tamil and Tamil politicians. It is noteworthy to remember that this is the same organization that had an active role to play in killing Indian soldiers during the IPKF operation, and its killing of Rajiv Gandhi (and 19 others in the same blast) should have always put it beyond the pale of Indian support.
The LTTE had even forced another elected leader of the Sri Lankan Tamil majority regions to run away by threatening him, it has single-mindedly pursued a policy of decimating all those who stand in its path from within the community. It had been criticized severely due to its policy of brain washing people to become suicide bombers, as well as forcing children to become soldiers. It also has never been a serious votary of genuine talks and negotiations, with an objective of getting more rights for the Tamils other than an independent homeland.
The Indian Government cannot advise the Sri Lankans to stop this military operation, they have been thirsting for the ending of this terrorist organization in their country; equivalent to how Indians would feel if there was a major chance of getting rid of the Lashkar e-Toiba and SIMI in India. Putting pressure on them only forces them to get the support of other nations and move away from India. Any suggestions we could give them would to be make sure that human rights are not affected, and people do not suffer during this campaign.

Labels: India, Morality, Politics, Protest

Today, the 29th of May, 2008, was a day that a lot of people would have had a lot of worries about. Delhi and the whole NCR region has seen the effect of the Gujjar agitation when it last took place in 2007, and at that time, the lathi wielding and stone throwing members of the mob forced the major intersections of South and East Delhi to come to a standstill - traffic at major points such as the Noida Link road, Badarpur, Loni, etc was totally jammed, and demonstrators did pretty much what they liked. At that time, what was depicted in the media was that the police were essentially not taking any action and letting them burn buses and other public property.
Keeping this in mind, there was a lot of worry and concern about what the day would turn out like. The whole of Delhi and NCR region sees a lot of cross traffic with people moving on a daily basis from Delhi and other regions such as Faridabad / Gurgaon going to offices in Noida on a regular basis, and similar movement. For such people, the news of this Gujjar called bandh was a time for decision. Would you want to try this movement on this particular day and risk getting caught in violence, or stuck in a non-moving traffic jam for long periods of time. As a result, there were a large number of companies that actually declared a holiday today. Even where I worked, most people from places that were more than 10 Km away did not come, in many cases because their family persuaded them not to go.
The Government knows that this kind of demonstration will happen, and the long jams, violence and other such situations that afflict the regular commuters (as well as people who earn their living on a daily basis) are a reflection of the failure of Governance. Sample these reports from an article on Delhi shutting down:

Gujjars on Thursday had blocked road and rail traffic in the Capital and adjoining areas as part of their 'NCR rasta roko' agitation even as over 35,000 policemen fanned out across the National Capital Region to prevent any untoward incident. Earlier, all main highways leading to the Capital were blocked. There were also reports of stone pelting and effigies burning. At places the agitators broke windshields of cars and buses.
Protesters turned away vehicles from Noida and Gurgaon, home to scores of outsourcing and computer software firms. Many offices were also closed. Security personnel were deployed in strength in Gujjar strongholds like Mehrauli, Ghazipur, Patparganj, Badarpur, Khanpur, Ayanagar, Chilla village and Rampur, anticipating a strong showing by the community during the agitation.

But as reports by the media during the course of the day indicate, traffic was blocked for many hours and opened only around noon. During this time, people had to take side roads, or wait in long jams. And there is no point talking about the many hours lost, or the roadside vendors or people who are dependent on getting to their places of work for their daily earnings (who would travel by public transport, something that was directly attacked). This is something that the Government is directly responsible for, but one believes that the Government was just ensuring that the violence and disturbance does not cross a particular level. The other reaction by the Government was to cancel a number of trains running near Jaipur, Agra, and to the NCR region.

Labels: Caste, Community, Congress, Governance, Law, Police, Politics, Protest, Security, Transport

The Women's Reservation Bill is something that has been debated on and off for over a decade now, and no Government has been able to bring in this law due to the immense controversy over this issue. The BJP was unable to do so, and this Congress / UPA Government has not been able to do so. Each time, this is because of the blocking by the various OBC groups who are suspicious of the motivations behind bringing such a bill. They believe that the splintering of the electorate along caste lines is going to be moved back by such a law if it does not also have relevant reservations for OBC's and Muslims. In addition, the belief is that upper caste women will capture a large chunk of the seats under such a Bill.
I am ambivalent of most reservations since I believe that the proper strategy of bringing about change is to make more facilities, education, etc. available rather than reserve some of them for somebody who does not have the skill set needed for the seat / job for which the reservations is sought. The only exception that I can think of is the case of politics where I have not been able to understand the type of talent required (if any is required); and hence maybe reserving electoral seats for women may be permissible - anyhow, in a lot of cases, winning or losing depends on the party rather than the individual.
But the issue in this case is that the leading lights of this coalition, Manmohan Singh, Sonia Gandhi, the left parties (including Brinda Karat), as well as the main opposition, the BJP, all support such a Bill in public. Together, they are far more than the numbers required to pass such a bill, but no one is willing to take on the caste based political parties - they can be very strident in their opposition, and can easily threaten when necessary. So, the Government played a gambit by bringing the Bill in the Rajya Sabha when the Lok Sabha had already been progued, and when it was assured that the Bill would not get anywhere closer to becoming a law, but even that has brought out the opposition:

The women's reservation bill has triggered an OBC consolidation across party lines, threatening to strain political tie-ups and raising the prospect of realignment. The protests against the introduction of the bill in the Rajya Sabha, which saw RJD members joining hands with arch-rivals JD(U) and SP, extended outside Parliament with members of the OBC dominated outfits holding a meeting to scale up the resistance.
While the legislation has provided an impetus to normalization of ties between Yadav satraps Mulayam Singh and Lalu Prasad, it is proving to be the catalyst for the coming together of the Mandal forces more than a decade after they splintered, moving in separate ways. The resentment against the bill has the potential to introduce tension among allies such as Congress and RJD on the one hand and BJP and JD(U) on the other, besides becoming a point of discord between SP and Left.

One can be sure that neither the Left nor the Congress will move ahead with this Bill, given the vehement opposition - further, the Congress is no longer the leading party in many states, and it needs to maintain good relations with many of these parties, and it may be easier to let the Bill die a death rather than risk rupturing ties.

Labels: BJP, Congress, Empowerment, Law, Politics, Protest, Support, Women

There is this excellent article by Jug Suraiya in the Times of India that took on the Taslima Nasreen episode, namely the attack on her (including by elected representatives of the MIM), and subsequent silence by most of our liberal class. Called 'Taslima and the soft underbelly of liberalism', do read the article:

Where have all the liberals gone, now that Taslima Nasreen, the outspoken Bangladeshi novelist living in exile in India, has come under attack from Islamic fundamentalists? Barkha Dutt and a few other media people have questioned the scant protest the incident has provoked among the country's liberalati who are, rightly, very vocal in condemning any flexing of Hindu fundamentalist muscle.
This is not an isolated case. Time and again, acts of violence and intimidation by Hindu zealots have been pilloried while similar instances of Islamic bigotry and intolerance have been received with an embarrassed silence and an averting of eyes on the part of self-professed champions of freedom of expression.
All this, of course, is gleeful grist to Hindu fundamentalists who point to this blatant example of double-standards to show up the hypocrisy of what they call 'pseudo secularism'. And they're right. Bigotry is bigotry, whether it comes from the majority or a minority community. So what's the liberal justification of its selective righteousness in the face of religious fanaticism?

Jug Suraiya writes on comedy, but he must have been moved enough to write this. And this is not an isolated problem. There was a vast under-current of shock when there was the furore over the Danish cartoons, and when a UP Minister (mind you, an important politician in the most important state of the country) spoke about an award to whoever gets the head of the Danish cartoonist, there was some media coverage; but no major criticism on the incitement to murder and no police action. Imagine if some Hindu (you know who, the Bajrang Dal or the VHP) put a price on the head of M F Hussain over the nude statues of Hindu gods, then imagine the furore there will be.
But when this happens in the case of Islam, there are very few people who speak up. In previous occasions, it has been people like Shabana Azmi and Javed Akhtar who have spoken up to denounce this, but none of the customary liberal apologists such as the Left parties and the intellectuals. Maybe they don't realize this, but they lose an important amount of credibility when this happens.
And not to talk about election stuff. How much do you want to bet that the BJP will not try to use this, creating CD's of the release of Madani in Kerala and his courting by the various parties, and also this current threat. To top it all, the Andhra police released the politicians involved very quickly, and then filed a case against Taslima over the charge of insulting religious feelings.
This puts very clearly, the attempt of Y S Reddy (Andhra Chief Minister) to not do anything against Muslim interest. This will no doubt backfire on him. The MIM retains a hard core Muslim loyalty, and this gambit might lose his some Hindu votes. But then thinking ahead is not the strong point of the Congress. The biggest losers among all this are the liberals who have been pointed out as bigots by even mainline newspapers.

Labels: BJP, Community, Congress, Discrimination, Governance, Law, Left, Minority, Muslim, Politics, Protest, Responsibility, Security

The Congress may eventually have its candidate win the presidential poll, but they would have never thought that there will be this much amount of trouble over the election, that too, for a post mandated by the constitution to be mostly ceremonial. The only times when the President takes an independent decision 'without the advice of the council of ministers' is when he / she has to select a new Prime Minister. However, there are constraints even in this; the decision has to be based on the number of each party and its backers; and the Supreme Court is well on its way to curtail discretionary powers exercised in a unfair way.
For this post, the Congress played months of politics; first trying to get the Uttar Pradesh mandate delayed such that the election do not give powers to a party inmical to the Congress, then months of consulting its various supporters. The Left as usual gave the Congress a hard time, selecting the main trouble shooter for the Congress as worthy of support (which the Congress refused), refusing other candidates such as Karan Singh and Shivraj Patil (maybe we could have got a more effective Home Minister then), and Shinde was declared 'no' by Mayawati.
Finally, in a move of rank opportunism, the candidature of the Rajasthan Governor, Pratibha Patil was proposed (she was nowhere originally there in the race). The left could not object, and then the Congress started playing the advantages of having the first women candidate for the post of President. In their moment of triumph, the Congress would never have imagined the skeletons starting to fall out of her closet.
First, the widow of a Congress leader accused her of sheltering her brother, an accused in the case; then she was accused of defaulting on loans on a sugar mill; and then she opened her mouth and promptly offended more people by her comments on Purdah and Muslims (she made 2 statements directly contradicting each other, by which time the Congress told her not to open her mouth); too late, she next stated that she was told about a great chance this year by her Guru, who had dies ages ago and spoke to her out of another person (by which time the Left parties would be holding their head and wondering what to do); and now, a bank promoted by her had collapsed (accused of giving special loans to her relatives), the defense being that she was not involved with the bank since 1994 (proved to be a lie since she was given authority in 2002-2003 to select key people for the bank). Now the people who placed their hard earned money with the bank are wailing for their money:

Her UPA handlers may try to distance their Presidential nominee Pratibha Patil from the fraud in the bank she founded and its liquidation saying she didn’t sanction any loans when she was chairperson — but they should try telling that to angry and despairing depositors here.
An estimated 250 depositors, who had deposits of over Rs 1 lakh, now have little choice. They have got just the deposit insurance of Rs 1 lakh with no word on if and when they will get the balance. Most of them are uneducated — some don’t even know how much they are supposed to get — and their deposits were the savings they and their relatives had put away over several years.
As The Indian Express reported, an RBI inspection report alleged a slew of financial irregularities: loan waivers to her relatives and how six of the top ten defaulters were linked to Patil’s family. The RBI revoked the bank’s license in February 2003.

Reminds me of a small story. A financial analyst, when watching his recommended shares fall, wanted to seem strong, so he kept his recommendation live. In the process, he showed that he was stupid as well.
Seems like the Congress is like this. They want to show that they are strong, so they will stick with her as the candidate, and in the meantime, the new media, sensing blood, will open more stories about her till the time that she seems like a person who has sucked the life's savings of hundreds of people. But, the Congress will continue to support her.

Labels: Congress, Corruption, Election, Governance, India, Morality, Protest, Responsibility

This entire issue of the Gujjar protest to get Scheduled Tribe status now looks to blow away for a few months, till the time that the committee setup to look into the issue. But one thing is clear, that no one from the political arena anticipated that things will take such a turn. As the position currently stands, it is a lose-lose situation for politicians, and they realize that the reservation flame can burn all of them. Otherwise, if a fire was burning in a BJP ruled state, where elections are due in a short while, and there is some amount of internal dissension, would the Congress be mostly silent ?
I was listening to the news and reading the papers everyday, and the most important news was the one missing. The Congress President, spokesperson, and sundry other people from the Congress and the other non-BJP parties, none of them made the usual noises about the BJP not fulfilling an electoral promise, about the government not keeping violence in control, about dismissing the Government for an apparent collapse. Instead, when Sachin Pilot raised his voice once, that was the last time he raised his voice; and you had the Prime Minister down trying to keep things in control. At the same time, violence was tolerated so that a community does not get aggrieved against the political party.
And that brings us to our prime topic. The issue of reservation and politics in India has spun out of control. Reservations were seen as a way to get people who are down-trodden and crushed by other parts of society a leg-up. I can't disagree with that. However, over time, it has got so political that the original purpose is getting lost. Would somebody be willing to believe that a rural community, usually very proud of itself, would say that it wants to be classified as a Scheduled Tribe, the lowest in the ladder. Anybody looking at the situation from an honest angle would not classify the Gurjjar community as a ST community.
But reservations are now the best way to get government jobs; in the administration, in the police, and other groups that make a difference to society, especially so in a rural area. It is not anymore about social uplifting, the single point agenda being to get a better share of government jobs. And there is ample precedent in this case. The prime users of the ST label in Rajasthan is the Meena community, and they corner most of the offices reserved for ST's. The Gujjar community got added to the OBC list after an agitation some time back, but are now losing out to the Jats who they see as better in terms of economic and developmental models, and hence more likely to corner a share of the reservations. So, add the Gujjars to the ST list as they are demanding? Not so fast, if the Gujjars get added, the Meena community will start to feel that their domination of the ST seats is under threar, and that is not something that is going to be tolerated. Hence, the Meena community gathered as a large group, numbering more than 50,000 (as per the papers), gathered a huge quantity of weapons, and set out to have a peaceful non-violent discussion with the Gujjar villages. Only the army and police prevented these 2 extremely peace loving groups from meeting and creating a river of blood.
What is a poor, well intentioned politician likely to do ? Set up a committee and push the decision out. Taking a decision (either yes or no) would have large repercussions in terms of voter base, and with both the Meena and Gujjar community on the warpath, it would only have been a lose-lose decision.
This is something that is to be expected. Reservations, without any good targeting of the people needing this kind of help, will be seen as an entitlement, and something to be defended. What will happen now ? Politicians, especially of the Congress variety are starting to see that the reservation bandwagon that they are championing is not giving them any benefits. Political benefits are cornered by the specific caste focused parties, urban voters start punishing them, and the courts ask hard questions for which they have no answers. In addition, their supporting parties raise hell with them about not getting the reservations implemented.
One would like to say at this point that politicians deserve this, but this is bigger. It affects our country. These sort of agitations deepen caste divisions, create economic misery, ruin portions of the economy such as tourism, and affect the aam admi (daily wage earners). We need to bring people not getting the benefits of growth into a life of improvement, but not through short term measures. Targeted benefits to people in terms of more education, more facilities, and even reservation (but focused, else the creamy layer will skim it all away). Does one really believe that politicians will listen ?

Labels: BJP, Caste, Community, Court, Development, Discrimination, Election, Governance, India, Minority, Police, Protest, Reservations

The present Government is in a pretty bad situation when it comes to trying to jump-start industrialization. Everybody quotes China to the Government when it comes to attracting investments to the country; policies followed by the Chinese Government include making massive investments in infrastructure; providing numerous incentives to industries including land, resources, cheap labour and preferential tax treatments.
A lot of these are of course possible because the political structure of China is dictatorial whereby decisions are taken in a jiffy, and then enforced. There is not much choice about whether to agree with these decisions are not, if you disagree, you mainly keep quiet.As an example, if a project on the scale of the Rail line to Tibet was being planned, one could be sure that such a project would never take off in India. It would involve large scale environmental impact, and varied other concerns. Similarly, a mega-project such as the Three Gorges Dam could never come up in India. The environmental impact of the Three Gorges project is truly on a massive scale, and most of the impact is not positive. In India, the Sardar Sarovar dam project (which is on a smaller scale) has undergone massive delays due to concern about the impact, and due to state indifference about resettling of the refugees. This is the price that we pay for democracy. However, I have always felt that India's policies have always been inclusive to a fair degree, giving people an outlet to express their opposition, and this has often been compared to a pressure cooker situation, whereby if you don't give an outlet, the pressure will explode.
This is akin to something that is happening in China on a regular level, with around 80,000 reported incidents of peasant and rural clashes with the authorities over land acquisition (and other policies) in the previous year.
The current situation in West Bengal is threatening to break this inclusive discussion habit that we in India have. In the violent incidents at Nandigram yesterday, there is an eruption of discontent. The whole evolution of the situation shows the wrong policies that have been followed. The West Bengal government wants to bring about industrialization of the state, and that can happen only when agricultural land is taken over for setting up industries. One common myth in this is that taking over agricultural land this way will reduce the agricultural output of India. The truth is that the amount of land sought for such purposes is a miniscule fraction of the total agricultural and (much less than 1%). It is also true that agriculture is at the bottom of the economic scale, and societal income only increases when industrialization happens, with the setting up of ancillary units and more employment.
The problem is, such land acquisition needs to be thought out and done on the basis of the land owners and tillers agreeing to provide the land. What should happen is that the policy of land acquisition should compensate people who will be affected by this move (which means that in addition to land owners, others such as the landless tillers and those getting employment off the land should also be compensated). It is also important that the state not get into this business of acquiring land, instead land acquisition should be done by the private party (subject to the above policy). This will ensure that land compensation is more fair market, and reduce the political pressure that the state faces when a political opposition decides to oppose the policy.
In West Bengal, the CPM has been in power for so long that it believes that it is always in the right (the arrogance of the just). Hence anybody opposing their policy is always politically inspired, and in the wrong. Even when having to buckle down, as the West Bengal CM did when facing tremendous pressure, it has been a very grudging climb-down, and the feeling always has been that the backing down is only short-term. Yesterday's incident, when police fired to prevent a mob from becoming violent, is a result of that fear. It would have been more prudent for the West Bengal Government to user their political organization to convince people of the benefits, instead the cadre has always given an impression of being set for a confrontation. I have always felt that Mamta banerjee's agitation has been politically inspired (refer my earlier post), but the West Bengal Government has made it so easy with their ham-handed tactics.
What will be the net result of this agitation? Political parties, ever so fearful of public pressure and impact on 'aam admi' will try to slow down push towards SEZ. There will be more curbs, SEZ's that are not impacted by such agitations and problems will also get caught in such traps and slowdowns, and will give the impression of another flip-flop. And for the people of Nandigram, in the long term, they will be losers, since the benefits of industrialization and economic growth will happen in another district.

Labels: Development, Governance, India, Police, Protest, Reform

So Mamta Banerjee claims to have achieved something. She sat on a long fast to do something about the acquisition of land for the Singur project. For those unaware, the Singur project is the plan by the Tata group to setup a plant in West Bengal for building their dream Rs. 1 lakh car. This will happen by acquiring land from farmers to setup a plant. Mamta Banerjee is protesting against this proposal, or is she claiming that farmers have not been compensated accordingly? The entire media coverage does not make this distinction, but it makes a fair amount of difference as to what her goals have been. That is, if we accept that her goal in terms of this fast has been on some principle, but it is hard to get away from the thought that the only objective of this entire drama has been to portray herself as a champion of the farmers and to oppose the left; maybe this will convert her from being a spent force to somebody who starts getting public support again.
If her objection is to acquiring land from farmers for setting up a industrial plant, then it is sheer lunacy to support her in any way. The only way that a country advances economically is by moving up the value chain, and agriculture is the lowest element on the value chain. Land is a limited commodity, and if we get too romantic about land being used only for farming, then we might as well condemn our country to having a major segment of the population living in a poor sustenance type farming. Setting up industries after a due cost benefit analysis has a positive effect on the local economy, promoting ancillary industries, making the area more better off and raising the local purchasing power. This is the target of all industrialization. I believe that the current West Bengal chief Minister realizes this better than most politicians, which is why he is in the forefront of trying to bring more companies to invest in the region. But it is funny to see a Communist government being called as anti-farmer.
If Mamta's objection is to make sure that farmers are getting due compensation, then it is a sorry state of affairs that a political leader has to go on a long protest to make sure that compensation is happening properly. It has been the bane of a number of big projects (including mega-dams) that there have been consistent questions raised in the past about compensation not reaching the affected party. We need to avoid becoming another China where there are frequent protests about compensation not reaching the targeted citizens. We need to have a system in place that ensures compensation reaches the targeted party, which is
where having communists in the government should have helped since it is their ideology to ensure that farmers get their due. There must be at least one benefit of having a communist party in power.
There is one question that remains unanswered; does India really need a 1 lakh car? Given the state of our roads and wide-spread congestion, we should instead be moving to a system whereby public transport is the main means of getting around and owning a big means of transport such as a car becomes more expensive. This is a system that a number of countries have tried out with some success to control traffic congestion. Getting a 1 lakh car will instead mean a movement in the directly opposite direction.

Labels: Development, India, Protest, Reform