[Reader-list] When will India see Bolivia's dynamic? (Fwd)

[Shivam Vij]

FYI. Interesting comments from Mayraj Fahim on urban local-self
government, though I have my doubts. He thinks democracy in India is
flawed whereas I think it is near perfect. He is right when he says
the lower castes are in majority, but then lower castes are not a
homogenous group. Dalits and OBC's are in conflict with each other in
north India, particularly in UP, and at the tehsil level this even
extends to violent conflict. This is why Maywati, a Dalit leader, is a
sworn enemy of Mulayam Singh Yadav, an OBC leader. (Muslims in UP have
found it easier to align with the OBC leader rather than the Dalit
leader.) This is nothwithsatnding a short-lived association that
Mayawati did have with Mulayam.

Anyways, as for local self-government, that is a utopian model.
Recently a panchayat in Haryana actually termed an inter-caste
marriage illegal and ordered that the couple 'become' 'brother and
sister'. They had to retract this after enormous media attention,
which was rare, considering that village panchayats all over India are
a tool of institutionalising conservatism. They can help with
development (but will devour all the money in corruption unless you
have the Right to Information!) but certainly not with eradicating
casteism.

Urban panchayats may behave in a similar manner, but perhaps I am
being presumptous. Urban panchayats may turn out to be more complex,
reflecting urban complexities. But may be not. Our courts sometimes
act as populist panchayats: a court judgement in response to a PIL
said that homosexuality cannot be 'legalised' because Indian society
was not 'ready' for it, that people didn't want it, and thus the
petitioners' arguments about what the West was doing did not stand. So
if the people of India thought murder was a done thing, would the
honourable court legalise murder?

My point is that democracy is not just the rule of the majority, but
is also accompanied by a set of institutions, such as the
Constitution. The majority is bound by Constitutional values, and it
is only in that sense that we can accuse democracy of having 'failed'
in India. And this is why we need reservations despite the great anger
that India's urban elites have against reservations as a form of
affirmative action.

Thanks and regards,
Shivam Vij


---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: fmayraj at cs.com <fmayraj at cs.com>


Dear Vij Sahab:
We are on the same webforum:AsiaPeace.
I want to say that I think your articles on the Dalit condition need to
become more widely distributed. A changed dynamic is long overdue;but, India is
still crawling a pace when it should be striding forward by now.
The articles prodded me to contact you as I thought I should air 2 matters
with you. Latin America, like India, has a system gamed by the elite. Now in
Latin America we are seeing a dynamic in Bolivia, that should have been seen in
India. Dalits are too accomodating of their misery. As democracy means
governance by the majority, which they and the OBCs are, India's
system should have
done much more for them if it really was a "democracy" in substance. But, India
is still crawling along to become one. Time perhaps to move things along a
little faster? If locals aren't upto it, as seems to be the case;they should
perhaps connect with the Bolivian to get inspired.

On the isse of urban plight, I would like to suggest you consider and perhaps
air the option of urban federated systems. This is long overdue in  India. In
this respect, India is highly retarded, as once was one of 3 primary regions
of methodology's implmentation(i.e. panchayat system framework);yet no
evolution in India whereas evolution in other countries that illustrates by the
difference how retatrded India is in evolving what it has.

India's Panchayat system of local governments, whose most productive
reflection is the West Begal system, is a powerful tool for improving
life of Dalits
and OBC within their environment.  Indians are blessed with  a local government
framework that if applied properly can alleviate their condition to some
degree. As expressed in its purest form in the West Bengal example  is the
methodology that UK unveiled for counties by 1894 (i.e. the county, district and
parish council framework).
This is the first British expression of a methodology actually first
implemented for a city system a hundred years before UK adaption (i.e.
the 1790 Paris
model). What the British did was to copy Paris model for London;and then graft
Paris model (a 2-tiered system) onto pre-existing parish councils (the
counterparts to India's gram panchayats) to create the 3-tiered
framework they later
implemented in stages in some parts of India.

For some strange reason, though long overdue, India has no framework for
cities. UK is implementing a 3-tier urban model right now for its 2d
city:Birmingham. The framework is England's first 3-tier model and is
in effect a
modernized reflection of the original county systemic framework later
exported to  the
Indian colony.

What Birmingham has that is different is that it reflects also a new feature
of younger systems-i.e. common leadership between tiers. Birmingham's model is
top-down in representational formula;but, I think what India needs is a
bottom-up model unveiled in 2-tier formula in Canada's pioneering
urban system in
2002:i.e. Montreal and in 3-tier framework in the pioneering international
version that the Baghdad systemic framework  is first adaption of! So
ironically,
even though India was pioneering non- western region to experience
implementation of this system at all, it is Baghdad that gets ahead of
India, not only in
having an urban example;but, also a bottom-up 3-tier model to boot!!!! In all
the mayhem and terrible news that has come from Iraq, this is the only
positive news that I have heard emanating from Iraq. The bottom-up
feature enables
lower level recipients of policy developed at upper levels to have a say in
policymaking. That is why I prefer the bottom-up mode to either the formula that
India has (example of earlier approach of separate leaders between tiers;but,
also over a top-down formula like Birmingham's. Birmigham's model is actually
only partially integrated(i.e. with common leader's between tiers) as only
applies to levels 1-2;not to parish council level, where devolution
means getting
delegated powers--but, no active role in decisionmaking. However, since
Birmingham's model is based on a ward system as opposed to by district
or areawide
basis, local sensitivity is stil there to a degree--though it could be more as
I have illustrated.

Now why has the world seen an explostion of federated systems since India
first experienced it during colonial period;and then was unwise to allow to lie
fallow  until at least 20 years for West Bengal re-implementation during 1970s
and 40 years for nationwide policy implementation  after western nation
embrace beyond UK-France? The simple matter is that it was realized that this
methodology enables more even development across the spectrum of  an
encompassing
region rather than inequitable development. It also enables more integrated
regional planning and development. it also provides where it is achieved not by
integration via linking up of neighboring units;but, through devolution(i.e.
decentralization) a more grass roots oriented govt.

So India has a need to evolve this framnework in general;and Dalits and OBCs
have an even greater need to see that Indian examples live up to the potential
that has been realized elsewhere!
Cordially yours,
Mayraj Fahim



www.counterpunch.org
November 12, 2004
The Roots of Rebellion
Insurgent Bolivia
By FORREST HYLTON
and SINCLAIR THOMSON
The great anti-colonial indigenous insurrection of 1781 has haunted
republican Bolivia since its founding in 1825. From their military
encampment in El
Alto overlooking the colonial city of La Paz, Aymara leaders Túpaj Katari and
Bartolina Sisa laid siege to the ruling Spanish elite from March to
October 1781.
Lacking urban allies, they were ultimately unable to seize the city, yet the
aspirations of that uprising have taken on new life at the beginning of the
21st century.
In October 2003, popular classes of Aymara descent living in El Alto
spearheaded what became a broad-based movement to overthrow the increasingly
repressive and illegitimate regime of then-President Gonzalo Sánchez
de Lozada. They
too laid siege to the capital and brought it to a virtual standstill. Unlike
Katari and Sisa, the latest insurgents successfully overtook the urban center,
occupying all but a few blocks around Plaza Murillo where the Presidential
Palace is located. Waving the Aymara flag (the wiphala) and the
Bolivian flag side
by side, the crowds swelled to as many as 500,000 on October 17, the day a
heavily guarded Sánchez de Lozada fled to Miami. The stunning turn of
events-dubbed by journalists the "gas war"-brought to an end the era
of neoliberal
domination in the country. It also confirmed that Bolivia has entered a new
revolutionary moment in which indigenous actors have acquired the
leading role. It is
a time of great promise, but one whose outcome remains unforeseeable.
A powerful tradition of popular urban mobilization has been evident in
earlier historical moments, as when "national-popular" forces overthrew the
dictatorship of Col. Alberto Natusch Busch in 1979 or brought the
Democratic Popular
Unity (UDP) government to power in 1982. Yet the profile and organization of
these previous mobilizations were different. In the 1970s and 1980s, workers,
students and members of the progressive middle classes organized themselves
through left parties and the national Bolivian Workers' Confederation (COB). The
politically emergent indigenous peasantry mobilized as well during this period,
but almost entirely at the behest of the COB and as a junior partner in the
national-popular bloc.
However, in October 2003 the progressive middle classes stirred only
belatedly and the COB was a relatively minor player. More importantly,
these groups
were essentially backing demands previously launched by Aymara insurgents,
organized mainly through their community, union and neighborhood organizations.
Ultimately, though, all sectors converged around the same demands: the
resignation of Sánchez de Lozada and his ministers, a trial to punish
those responsible
for state violence against the unarmed civilian population, a national
referendum on how to develop the country's natural gas reserves, the
formulation of a
new Hydrocarbons Law and the convening of a Constitutional Assembly.
In contrast to the proletarian character of the national-popular struggles
that ended the phase of military and narco-dictatorships in the early 1980s, the
powerful movement in 2003 displayed an indigenous centrality in synch with
the current demographic, sociocultural and political realities of Bolivia, where
62% of the population claims indigenous identity, according to the 2001
census.
If we are to understand the October insurrection, however, it is not enough
to point out Aymaras' currently assertive historical agency. We must first note
that the keen sense of Aymara identity is itself a product of recent
political struggle, and that the entire context for the revolutionary cycle that
opened in 2000 has been shaped by forceful and fluid processes of
ethnic formation.
The galvanization of indigenous identity is especially striking among the
subaltern actors of October's events.
Members of mobilized rural communities on the altiplano (highland plateau)
have gradually adopted a self-conscious cultural and political identity as
"Aymaras" since the late 1970s. The rise of militant peasant unionism and the
emergence of radical indigenous leaders criticizing ongoing forms of colonial
hierarchy and racism within the country are largely responsible for this ethnic
affirmation.[1] The trajectory of Aymara leader Felipe Quispe-known as "El
Mallku," an Aymara term meaning both condor and traditional
authority-reflects this
process.
One of the most arresting features of the 2003 uprising was the expression of
Aymara ethnic identity and solidarity among the urban residents-especially
young protestors-of El Alto, an impoverished yet dynamic city of 900,000 outside
La Paz. According to the 2001 census, 82% of alteños, as the city's residents
are known, identify as indigenous. In La Paz, laborers from the hillside
neighborhoods of Munaypata and Villa Victoria, a proletarian
stronghold during the
Revolution of 1952, actively supported the insurgent alteños. Although not
all these neighborhood residents would overtly identify themselves as Aymaras,
they share with alteños a history of multi-generational migration from the
Aymara countryside and insertion into the ethnically segmented urban social
hierarchy.
Bolivian miners have traditionally identified and organized themselves on a
class basis. When mineworkers traveled from the mining center of Huanuni to
join the protests in El Alto, they revived the memory and symbolic power of
earlier proletarian struggle in the national-popular tradition. However, on this
occasion they also surprisingly affirmed their own indigenous roots.
Cocaleros (coca growers), another important sector in the contemporary
popular movement, and agrarian colonizers from the Yungas recognize
their own Aymara
origins, although their collective identity is more closely tied to
grassroots union organizations than to the traditional Andean
community, or ayllu. In
the Chapare, the country's principal coca-growing region, the majority of
residents are from the Quechua-speaking regions of the Cochabamba
valleys. Others,
like cocalero leader Evo Morales, are Aymara migrants from the highlands or
Quechua-speaking former miners.
The regantes (small-scale coordinators of regional water distribution) who
are best known for their role in the 2000 "water war" in Cochabamba also played
their part in the "gas war." They have their roots in the region's
Quechua-speaking mestizo peasant culture. Other actors in the
uprising, like the peasant
communities from Potosí and Chuquisaca, are organized through ayllus and are
of mixed Quechua-Aymara background. All of these groups contributed to the
insurgent movement that expressed itself so boldly, and with such a strongly
indigenous accent, in 2003.
The point to emphasize, however, is that the insurrectionary energy of the
2003 uprising stemmed initially from the Aymara heartland of Omasuyos, on the
altiplano around Lake Titicaca, and later from the Aymara city of El Alto.
Likewise, indigenous communities and neighborhoods were the first to
put forth the
basic demands around which so many others eventually converged in October.
Historically, indigenous movements have sought to build ties with other
popular and middle class opposition forces in cities and mining districts. Such
tentative efforts took place during the indigenous mobilizations against Spanish
rule in 1780-1781, the insurgent federalist movement led by Pablo Zárate
Villca in 1899, the regional revolutionary movement led by Manuel
Michel in 1927,
the uprisings that began in Ayopaya in 1946 and the general strike of 1979. But
relations between indigenous movements and their potential national-popular
allies have generally been marred by mutual suspicion, misunderstanding or
plain racism.
Political theorist René Zavaleta Mercado pioneered the idea of
"national-popular" forces in Bolivian history. Zavaleta posited that
the insurrectionary
"multitude" opposing oligarchic elites and their foreign, imperialist allies was
formed through the political unification of normally divided subaltern
subjects.[2] National-popular struggles of this sort can conceivably
be traced back
to the wars of independence against Spain. The active consolidation of this
mode of struggle on the national political stage, however, began
during the Chaco
War (1932-1935) and culminated in the Revolution of 1952.
National-popular struggles were behind the nationalization of Gulf Oil under
Gen. Alfredo Ovando Candia in 1969, the Popular Assembly government of Gen.
Juan José Torres in 1971, as well as the overthrow of the Col. Alberto Natusch
Busch and Gen. Luis García Meza dictatorships and the rise to power of the
center-left UDP between 1979 and 1982. Throughout this period the left and the
union movement held, at best, a condescending view of indigenous
participation in
national political organization. These groups privileged a schematic vision
of class consciousness over cultural identity as the basis for political
action. They also shared with elites a "whitening" ideology of national progress
through mestizaje.
More recently, however, this began to change. The political fortunes of the
left and the COB went into decline with the onset of neoliberalism in 1985, but
indigenous political and cultural organization gained increasing momentum in
the 1980s and 1990s. During this same period, coca producers acquired a
strategically crucial political importance through their opposition to U.S.
militarized drug intervention. Then in 2000, a new revolutionary cycle
was ushered in
with indigenous protests on the altiplano and the water war in the Cochabamba
valley. Finally, the events of October 2003 revived the tradition of Aymara
community insurrection in one of Latin America's largest indigenous cities. The
latest insurgency constitutes a major challenge to Bolivian society's internal
colonialism and may lead to the formation of a new national-popular bloc
representing the social majority.
The national revolutionary tradition, symbolized by the overthrow of
oligarchic rule in 1952, seemed definitively vanquished by neoliberal
ideology as
structural adjustment reached its apogee during Sánchez de Lozada's first term
(1993-1997). The regime set out to privatize state tin mines and to "relocate"
mining families to the outskirts of Oruro, Cochabamba, El Alto and the lowland
frontiers of the Chapare. The union movement, which the government deemed an
outmoded corporatist institution, came under relentless attack. Technocrats,
ideologues and mainstream party functionaries-former middle class dissidents
prominent among them-recited neoliberal mantras: competitivity, governability,
efficiency, deregulation, decentralization, direct foreign investment.
Globalization, they argued, afforded unprecedented opportunities for
indigenous peoples
to reap the benefits of modern capitalist democracy.
Though economic growth was sluggish and state revenues plummeted as a result
of privatization, the discourse of neoliberalism appeared hegemonic. During
Sánchez de Lozada's first administration, international financial institutions
signaled Bolivia as a model of "reform" and democratization for other
developing countries. Harvard economist Jeffrey Sachs, an architect of
Bolivia's free
market "shock treatment" in 1985, hailed Sánchez de Lozada as one of the most
creative politicians of the era. The southern Andean nation became a shining
star in the neoliberal firmament, and its militant popular movements appeared to
have suffered a historic defeat.
As part of the wave of privatizations, Sánchez de Lozada drafted a
Hydrocarbons Law in 1996 that dismantled YPFB, the state energy firm,
setting the stage
for the transnational takeover of Bolivia's rich oil and natural gas
resources. A year later, just two days before the end of his first
term, he signed
another decree effectively forfeiting constitutional sovereignty over the
reserves. An official report released by the Bolivian government in
December 2003
revealed that the Bolivia-based operations of British-owned BP Amoco and Spain's
Repsol YPF enjoy the lowest operating costs for oil and gas production and
exploration in the world.
The sweetheart arrangement for these oil corporations was an eerie-and not
unnoticed-repetition of the oligarchy's sell-off of Bolivia's mineral reserves
to Anglo-Chilean capital following the War of the Pacific in the late 1800s.
Bolivians have had a long and bitter experience with the expropriation of their
mineral wealth for the benefit of oligarchs connected to foreign capital. The
monetary system in early modern Europe thrived on the export of Bolivian
silver from Potosí, now one of the country's poorest, most desolate
regions. In the
19th and 20th centuries, tin extracted from the area near Oruro was smelted
in the U.S. and Britain. Today, the working conditions and technology in most
of Potosí's mines recall those of the colonial era, while Oruro is a landscape
of post-industrial devastation where residents make superhuman efforts to
survive. The protestors in the gas war were unwilling to see the old pattern
repeated with natural gas since, according to many, only sovereign control over
Bolivia's gas reserves-the second-largest in Latin America-could underpin a
viable political and economic future for later generations.
A deal to export gas through a Chilean port to California was negotiated
between San Diego-based Sempra Energy and the Spanish-British-U.S. energy
consortium Pacific LNG under the watch of one-time dictator and
then-President Hugo
Bánzer. During his administration (1997-2001), Bolivia ranked as one of the most
corrupt countries in the world. With state violence and social protest on the
rise, and the legitimacy of neoliberal political parties eroded, Sánchez de
Lozada narrowly won the 2002 elections. His attempt to close the gas deal in
2003 sparked massive opposition to which he responded with blunt force. On
September 20, the day after some 500,000 people marched throughout the
country to
defend national economic sovereignty, security forces killed three civilians in
Warisata and one in Ilayata as part of an effort to "liberate" a group of
tourists stranded by a road blockade. The center of conflict spread to
El Alto on
October 8 when the Federation of Neighborhood Associations (FEJUVE) and the
Regional Workers' Federation (COR-El Alto) declared a general strike. Members
of the insurgent communities of Warisata and Achacachi, like their kinfolk in
the alteño neighborhood of Villa Ingenio, conceived of themselves as patriots
and their rulers as traitors to the Bolivian nation.
Once the massacres began, first in the countryside and then in the city, the
relatives and friends of the deceased dubbed their dead "martyrs fallen in the
defense of gas." The repression intensified and 31 died on October 12, the
anniversary of Columbus' incursion into the Caribbean. Simultaneously, urban
Aymara insurgents and their allies in the neighborhood of relocated miners known
as Santiago II began to develop autonomous institutions for self-government
similar to those developed in Warisata after September 20. More than 150,000
people marched from El Alto to downtown La Paz on October 13. After several days
of mourning, and once the insurgent communities from Omasuyos arrived, rebels
set out to overrun the capital. Prominent middle class personalities and
politicians organized hunger strikes on October 15 that spread with remarkable
speed to every major city in the republic. But by that point what had
once seemed
impossible had already become likely: Sánchez de Lozada-also known as "El
gringo" because of his heavily accented Spanish (he was raised in the United
States)-would have to go.
In retrospect, the ideological hegemony of the Washington Consensus, embodied
in Bolivia by Sánchez de Lozada, appears to have been a mirage. Contrary to
neoliberal common sense, Bolivia's revolutionary past was not obliterated after
1985, but rather reconfigured. Contemporary indigenous radicalism grows out
of a long, largely underground history, yet its irradiating effects since 2000
have reanimated aspirations for social and political change, harkening back to
earlier moments of interethnic, interregional and cross-class alliance.[3]
The October insurrection thus represents an exceptionally deep and powerful,
though not unprecedented, convergence between two traditions of
struggle-indigenous and national-popular. Earlier mobilizations, and
some of their
gains-notably the nationalization of mines in 1952 or petroleum in
1969-left a more
enduring legacy than had been supposed. Self-consciously building on earlier
revolutionary cycles, especially those of 1780-1781, 1899 and 1952, the current
cycle of 2000-2003 will leave its own legacy. The upcoming Constitutional
Assembly, demanded by indigenous peoples since 2000 and secured by the
revolutionary
intervention of popular forces, offers the most immediate possibility for
social reform, or even national transformation.
The Assembly could help redraw state-society relations to reflect Bolivia's
new historical conditions. It could recognize the enduring non-liberal forms of
collective political, economic and territorial association by which most
rural and urban Bolivians organize their lives. It could democratize
the political
relations that throughout the republican era have limited the participation
of indigenous peoples in national political life, forcing them to resort to
costly insurrectionary struggles. It could also redirect the future exploitation
of the country's coveted resources in a way that benefits most Bolivians.
Political and economic elites will undoubtedly attempt to divert the current
process. However, as long as they have no alternative agenda to offer, their
attempts to stonewall the process are likely to only further radicalize the
opposition. These elites may try to construct a more visionary new hegemonic
project but there are no signs of this as yet.
Meanwhile, popular sectors are engaged in effervescent debate and are
formulating their own visions of the future. What would Bolivia look like with
sovereign control over its territory and natural resources, with forms
of regional
and ethnic self-determination, with meaningful national political
representation for popular movements or with true majority rule?
Whatever the future
brings, there will be no going backwards. The current conjuncture in Bolivia is
marked by seasoned political skepticism, yet also measured hope, and it may well
carry implications for other struggles in the Andes and Latin America more
broadly. As indigenous insurgents of previous centuries proclaimed in moments of
anti-colonial and autonomist insurrection: "Ya es otro tiempo el presente"
("The present is a new time").
Forrest Hylton is conducting doctoral research in history in Bolivia. He can
be reached at forresthylton at hotmail.com.
Sinclair Thomson teaches Latin American history at NYU and is author of We
Alone Will Rule: Native Andean Politics in the Age of Insurgency (University of
Wisconsin, 2003). They are coeditors of Ya es otro tiempo el presente: Cuatro
momentos de insurgencia indígena (La Paz, 2003).
NOTES
1. See Silvia Rivera Cusicanqui, "Aymara Past, Aymara Future," NACLA Report
on the Americas, Vol. 25, No. 3, December 1991, pp. 18-23; and Rivera's article
in this issue.
2. See René Zavaleta Mercado, Las masas en noviembre (La Paz: Juventud, 1983,
Lo nacional-popular en Bolivia (Mexico: Siglo XXI, 1986); and Luis Tapia's,
La producción del conocimiento local: historia y política en la obra de René
Zavaleta (La Paz: Muela del Diablo, 2002).
3. See Rivera, this volume; Forrest Hylton, Felix Patzi, Sergio Serulnikov,
and Sinclair Thomson, Ya es otro tiempo el presente. Cuatro momentos de
insurgencia indígena (La Paz: Muela del Diablo, 2003).
This article was originally published by the North American Congress on Latin
America.

The Guardian
Indian, Peasant Groups Win Bolivia Races

Monday December 6, 2004 4:31 AM
AP Photo LPZ102
By ALVARO ZUAZO
Associated Press Writer
LA PAZ, Bolivia (AP) - Indian and peasant organizations promising better
access to health care and education won every major Bolivian city in local
elections Sunday, trouncing long-dominant parties in a reshuffling of
the political
map in South America's poorest country, unofficial results showed.
The Electoral Court did not issue official results, saying it has until Dec.
31 to do so, but unofficial results by Equipos Mori, a respected opinion poll
company, said traditional parties failed to win a single large city. The
results were based on an estimated 80 percent of the votes cast.
``These results are tantamount to the sinking of the traditional political
parties,'' political analyst Jorge Lazarte said.
While voting at a La Paz school, President Carolos Mesa said: ``We will
probably see a reshuffle of our political map.''
The elections were for mayors and councilors in 327 cities and towns. Voting
is mandatory for the country's 4 million eligible voters.
In La Paz, the small Fearless Movement was a clear winner. In neighboring El
Alto, Bolivia's fastest-growing city, a group called Progress Plan had a clear
lead, the poll showed.
The new groups, including United Citizens, campaigned for cleaner streets,
better access to education and health care and improved public transportation.
They also oppose globalization and the trade policies of the United States.
The campaigns attracted voters frustrated with traditional parties,
especially after last year's dispute over a government plan to export
natural gas ended
in bloody street demonstrations that killed 56 people and toppled President
Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada.
The gas issue is highly sensitive because tension between the poor Indian
majority and the ruling elite runs high.
The October uprising was set off by Sanchez de Lozada's plan to export gas to
Mexico and California. Opponents said the financial benefits would not reach
the poor, while proponents say the money was needed to help South America's
poorest country develop.
Sanchez de Lozada fled to the United States and his party, the Nationalist
Revolutionary Party, was among those predicted to lose political strength.



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