[Reader-list] P. Sainath :Where India shining meetsgreatdepression (The Hindu)

[Faiz Ullah]

india shines at the dalal street and india shines at the campuses of the IIMs and the ISBs. As two of the students there opined at two very different instances..the murder of Manjunath and today's announcement by Arjun Singh to increase the the quota for people from the backward classes in central universities and other premier institutions.."that it'll adversely affect the palcements at the campus". Maybe the parameters have changed..success, competition, and the what education means to us.

I couldn't help but notice the way the divide between classes/castes has increased to the extent that we have even started to recognise the "otherness" of some of us, and refer to ourselves/the other very casually as "they".."they should compete on the the same ground..they should pull up their boots now..they should not have it so easily without any trace of merit". Reservation has its own problems but the schism is widening and visible now.


I'm also trying to figure out what is being dismantled and what is taking its place.


The stock exchange is climbing up a 100-200 points everyday, and what do these points represent? The health and the robustness of the indian economy and the fact that its fundamentals are sound? or they just go on to show the extent of risk people are willing to take on the belief/speculation that india is ready to deliver. Anchors toss back and forth between reporters present at jantar mantar and the "second-fashion-week".

I overheard a conversation between three airport employees on best route no.35 in bombay and they were wondering how much frenzy advani's rath yatra is going generate amidst slum demolitions and  the rocketing numbers at the stock exchange.basic material needs like housing and livelihood and the appeals of "people with capital" to the state to relax  labour laws, bring certain sectors out of regulation - in short demanding an unrestricted, unhindered run on the ramp-stand face to face. And while talking about the ramp, we'll have the report of the second enquiry commision set on the "wardrobe malfunction"at the "first-fashion-week", while 9 children have died of malnutrition in hathipada in Rural Thane.

when news channels take upon themselves to become the voice of the poor there's only precious little left for them to speak for themselves. criminalising poverty and the poor is a good way to preempt and crush the discontent and anger as and when it unfolds. 

Faiz


________________________________

From: reader-list-bounces at sarai.net on behalf of sayantoni datta
Sent: Thu 4/6/2006 1:46 PM
To: Reader List
Subject: Re: [Reader-list] P. Sainath :Where India shining meetsgreatdepression (The Hindu)


I remember a relative of mine visiting us from the States commenting that in India there is a sense of "pride" with the "poor". "People here", he said "are  proud to be poor" or "there is nothing really wrong with being poor." Is this sense of self confidence changing? 

 

These advertisements seem as if "you are not allowed to be poor or revel in it, poverty(in comparison) is not a celebration it's a joke, we need to "CLIMB", and look different, if we have to, and change our lifestyles!!! 

 

But wait a minute the world's winning solutions are not for you, in a market driven world some "consume"/"access" others "don't have access" forget "consumption", it might just "trickle down to you" if you are lucky or else just "move aside", you don't fit our agenda. 

 

What struck me most in the ad, was the word "tan". Is it an artificial tan we are manufacturing with "creams ", a natural tan because of days of "work/hard labour" in the sun(not all suns...a branded sun) without sunscreens, or JUST "my complexion"!!!!

 

The ad juxtaposes two polarised images ....I think it taps on the "initial discomfort" of breaking stereotypes with  the women dialoguing on "designer tans" and "monte carlo".Its confusing because in the picture "the image of the poor" stands contested with the "concerns of the poor"(the bubbles)!!!! 

 

The text below highlights a "misplaced sense of pride".....

  Thanks for the article and the debate....
  Sayantoni
On 05/04/06, Jeebesh Bagchi <jeebesh at sarai.net> wrote: 

	dear Shivam, Ravi and Lawrence,
	
	My desire for responses beyond the initial repulsion was from a
	position of confusion. These images definitely gesture towards a
	shift in ways of perceiving the world. And i am not sure what this is
	shift about.
	
	On the one hand the realities of increasing brutalities. Rising 
	counts of suicides, dislocations, and evictions. On the other, these
	images. I would think that slowly a new way of 'being' in highly in-
	equal social realities and arrangements is taking shape. A new
	psychological profile is emerging. Also, we are witnessing a 
	dismantling of some earlier held assumptions.
	
	I am trying to think what is getting dismantled and being replaced by
	what.
	
	Dislocation and violence have always accompanied great dreams of
	wealth and domination. Europe in 18th and 19th Century is a good 
	example of this. Thousands banished from within it's land to Americas
	and Australia. Thousands dislocated from other parts of the world to
	fulfill the search for labour, land and materials. The "Engine of
	Progress" record has been fairly bloody. In the 20th Century the
	record of this progress-travel has been more bizarre and bloody.
	
	I would think that we grew up with a psychological profile that
	somehow gave space to these `dislocations` and through various ways 
	admitted it as a violence that cannot be wished away. We co-inhabited
	the spaces of violence in our cities. From the popular cinema to
	documentary filmmakers - all found ways of talking about it. That
	mode of talking i would think reached a aesthetic and conceptual dead- 
	end by early nineties. Rarely could accounts move beyond the `heroic-
	resisting` subject or `victimised/traumatised` human objects. This
	binary did give rise to an image fatigue of the `poor` in the nineties.
	
	Also, the nineties saw the stress on what Partha Chaterjee calls the
	`the political society`. The modes by which people found a way to
	make claims using the forms of `electoral mobilisations` and `welfare
	administration`. The emergence of the courts as the central actor in 
	today's `evictions/ dislocations` is in a very definitive way a
	dismantling of these negotiations.
	
	The forms that we have at present - the courts' discourse and the
	image making sensibility of a new triumphal elite - open up for us 
	new questions about how to think this conjunction. What sensibility
	is being demanded of us to navigate the contemporary? I am trying to
	understand this from all your comments. What intrigues me is the
	`speech acts` given to the `poor`. These kind of images have existed 
	in many ads by industry (and also in welfare ads). But, the speech
	act of this one is something new.
	
	And our poor Raghu too existed in similar way in many ads. However he
	was never branded a `pick pocket`. Well the ground was laid down 
	about 5 years ago by an esteemed judge in the Supreme court. He
	uttered in his judgement - " Giving land to squatters is like giving
	money back to the pickpocket". That sensibility has taken deep roots 
	and circulatory force.
	
	I wonder, what will this harsh time-travel of capital (progress/
	development/ triumphal chest beating in nationalist competitions) do
	to millions who will not have Americas to go to. Both cities and 
	countryside are becoming a huge ejection machines, as was always
	under the sign of progress.
	
	How will we be able to make sense of this world? Authoritarian
	solutions of many kind will gain ground, so will deep solipsism. 
	
	Well in short, i am as confused as you guys are.
	
	warmly
	jeebesh
	
	On 05-Apr-06, at 6:35 PM, Shivam wrote:
	>
	> I am not sure if I am able to answer Jeebesh's question fully. Why
	> don't you tell us what you think? 
	>
	> S.
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