[Reader-list] ARUNDHATI ROY'S SINCERITY AND INTELLECTUALITY EXPOSED IN SAGARIKA GHOSE INTERVIEW

[Rakesh Iyer]

Dear Bipin

Let me state a few clarifications and views on what you have written in your
mail:

1) Everybody seems to state that Maoists are blowing up schools and bridges.
Firstly, as far as schools are concerned, Maoists have been blowing up
schools after the government started using these schools as barracks. Before
this was done, not a single school building can be reported to have been
blown up.

Stop using the schools as barracks, and automatically this blowing up will
stop.

Moreover, the schools in question are not being used for educating children
but for housing soldiers. How does that benefit the local people? Is that
development? Which fool on this forum would like to call this development?
And can't the CRPF have its' own barracks rather than residing in schools
and panchayat buildings?

2) Everybody here seems to say that AK-47's are used by Naxals. It's strange
then that the Maoists simply snatch away the police armoury which is
absolutely ineffective compared to AK-47's.

To the best of my knowledge, not a single AK-47 has been used by Naxals in
their ambushes or encounters with police or armed forces. If it's there,
pleaes bring it to our notice, and here I mean a live incident, not a debate
or discussion by some policy maker.

3) You should read the essay carefully instead of blabbering in anger. In
the interview, Arundhati Roy states that India is a working democracy when
it comes to the rich and the upper middle classes, but when it comes to the
tribals, it's a fake democracy. Remember, conducting elections is not
democracy, for democracy means hearing all kinds of views and giving people
the respect they deserve.

Have the tribals even once been asked on what they want to do, or what is
their perception of development? No. The tribals should leave their land and
just go and settle themselves and leave their lands on which they lived for
us, so that we can mine them and get resources and continue with the process
of economic growth. This is crap theory and should be thrown away in the
dustbin.

Development is meant for all people, not for Gods or for people like you
alone. First go and understand the meaning of what constitutes development,
rather than blabbering the term everywhere and anywhere in that essay.

And this message is for all those who keep shouting development on this
forum without even understanding what it's meaning is. And if you want a
source, go and read Amartya Sen's 'Development As Freedom'.

4) Indeed there is no hope in the current democratic framework, the way it
works, for any solution which can be beneficial for the tribals, or the
local inhabitants, to emerge. This is because you are only interested in the
mines and minerals for your own development. You are hardly bothered about
the tribals and what happens to them. And this you doesn't include Bipin
alone, it includes lakhs and lakhs of those whose sole concern is growth in
life at the cost of others.

You are only bothered with growth, even if it comes at the cost of
environment (as Gujarat is the prime example of this), or at the cost of the
poor (as Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh through their MOU's testify).

None of the information about a single MOU signed by the govt. and the
companies is available either to the local inhabitants or to us. Is it a
crime to ask for this information to be made public?

5) It's not Arundhati Roy but the Planning Commission has asked for the rate
of iron ore or other mines to be increased per tonne (I mean the royalty),
including for coal. Your arguments are petty nonsense compared to the
Planning Commission arguments which have repeatedly stated that this price
needs to be increased to ensure that only sustainable mining has been
undertaken.

The prices are low only because of political interference to allow illegal
mining and profiteering, as is seen in the case of Bellary. What expertise
do you have in the field of mining, may I know that?

6) The mining industry provides employment in the form of informal sector to
many people who are paid pittance as wages and dont' have any social
security net to fall back upon. They will actually benefit if the industry
is regularized, social security nets are introduced for them, NREGA is
extended to the entire country, and most importantly, the Right to food and
Right to health are made universal and effective for all citizens.

But then, you being a worshipper of market and capitalism and development
for yourself (as opposed to development for the entire human race) would not
understand the significance. May be you can try living like a poor for one
year. That may tell you how it's useful.

7) The whole of India doesn't hate her. A large section of the people don't
even know about her since they are not that well educated. As for you and
cohorts who hate her, you just constitute a miniscule percentage of the
population. If you have the confidence to believe that a majority of India
hates her, at least petition the govt. and the SC to conduct a referendum
for the same.

8) The biggest myth you and your cohorts have is the idea that tribals want
to remain backward. Neither do the tribals want to remain backward, nor from
what I have read of Arundhati, does she want them to remain backward.

The tribals want the Forest Rights Bill to be implemented properly so that
their rights on the forest property can be secured. They want to secure
their livelihoods and forest products as they have been living with them for
centuries. They want their culture to be protected and passed over across
centuries rather than learning languages like Hindi and English at the cost
of their cultures, dialects and languages.

But they also want education. They want employment opportunities through
NREGA. They want the Right to food so that they are not forced to remain
impoverished and suffer from chronic under-nutrition which is debilitating
in itself. They want the Right to health so that they can access health
facilities at the cheapest rates and thereby able to save themselves from
diseases.

They want development. They want roads as well. But they want rights on
their land. And they don't want their land and livelihoods to be sacrificed
at the altar of India's development.

So if you want development, go and sacrifice your own house and own land and
tell India's govt to build over it.

And ask your Modi, your Ambani and TATA to gift their land as well so that
we can have development process on their land as well in the form of some
other industry. Let me see if they are willing to do so or not.

Yes, the tone of this mail is out of anger, but it's as much out of
frustration at those in the forum who have not an iota of understanding the
problem. Continuous rabble rousing is done and any person who has the
opposite views is simply questioned or ridiculed.

Those who ask question of mining must know that mining must be sustainable
and should accompany all kinds of safety measures and equipment as well,
plus it shouldn't harm the environment. But instead, they dont' care. For
them, India should become a superpower, so that it can behave like America
and bomb other countries or nuke them when and where it feels to.

I am not ashamed that you people can't understand the views, but I am
ashamed of the fact that India has so much inequality today that the rich
are not even able to understand what it means to be poor, and are simply
suggesting arbitrary solutions. Even I don't understand, but the others like
me with their atrocious ideas are only going to lead to further disasters.

And it is appalling to see you Bipin in particular just going about with
your completely arbitrary ideas of development.

And this is why I would like, even before a discussion on Naxalism, a
request to all members to please debate and discuss this question:

What is development?

May be it's time members of this forum get their arbitrary and useless ideas
clarified and corrected for once and for all.


Rakesh