Drawing room spiritualism

Like insurance, faith has become a matter of drawing room solicitation. Be it saffron robed Swami Ramdev or superstar evangelist Joel Osteen, faith of all hues are on display over the convenience of a television screen in the drawing room. The press of a remote button opens window to the world of emerging telefaith, a marketplace of spirituality of least resistance which is producing ‘consumer worshippers’ rather than worshippers ‘consumed with God’.

McDonaldisation, Masala McGospel and Om Economics looks at globalization from a cultural and religious standpoint. Backed by content analysis of two each of the Christian and the Hindu television channels, research for the book was followed by interviews with middle-level priests in Mumbai and Hyderabad. What emerges is a cutting edge research, providing insightful reading on the development of telefaith within India and around the world.

As mediated religions gain new foothold, faith is finding strange bedfellows in politics and the capitalist market. Not only does control over airwaves connect to the world of marketing and finance, the new links create political economies that support and sustain the religious media enterprises. High-profile televangelist, Ramdev who teaches and demonstrates his breath control techniques, has cashed in on television to build a huge religious enterprise.

But televangelism has reduced faith to a commodity for the calculating consumer. No wonder, the phenomenal following of some of the tele-gurus like Swami Ramdev and Sri Sri Ravi Shankar could be attributed to the medical bills that are impossibly high for the middle class in the event of an illness. It is no coincidence therefore that a large number of those taking part in healing crusades hope to be healed for free.

The growth of telefaith, the author asserts, may imply that the media will simply be a venue for the fragmentation of faiths, where multiple faiths are ‘narrow casted’ to specific interest groups, with various religions in a state of co-existence. However, the crucial question is whether global communication will co-create a world where multiple religions co-exist or will it create a world of homogenized global cultures?

As powerful generators of cultural meanings, religious media and mediatised religion have tremendous potential for generating strong identities that can have powerful implications for either understanding or misunderstanding, peace for conflict. If handled without care, the media could inadvertently become the venue for ‘clash of civilizations’, the book concludes.....Link

McDonalisation, Masala McGospel and Om Economics
by Jonathan D. James
Sage; 232 pages, Rs 595

Bridge those gaps

Epidemiologists Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett have gone under the skin to diagnose the disease that plagues the modern society. Crime is on the rise; mistrust amongst people is increasing; health is deteriorating by the day and self-esteem is at its lowest. Far from curtailing such trends, economic growth is indeed fuelling it further.

Sample this: America, one of the world's richest nations, has the lowest longevity and a high level of violence - murder, in particular. Add to it a growing mistrust amongst people and an increasing number of teenage pregnancies to get a picture of economic growth that belittles health and happiness of its people. Yet, economic growth is pursued as an antidote to social ills.

We know there is something wrong, and this book goes a long way towards explaining what and why. Pulling information from as much as 200 sets of data, the authors conclude that inequality is at the root of social crises. Inequality not only causes shorter, unhealthier and unhappier lives but destroys relationships between individuals born in the same society but into different classes.

The scale of economic inequality which exists today is less an expression of freedom and democracy as of their denial. If the cooperation of the masses was thought to be essential, the State would have reduced inequalities and flattened the pyramid of social stratification. But to persist with it seems deliberate, as it continues to generate illusion of hope in the State.

It is brave to write a book that questions the premise of economic growth. The speculative element in the cycles of economic boom and bust shift attention from environmental and social problems and make us worry about ‘how to get the economy moving again’. Whereas, in reality, reducing inequality would only make the economic system more stable.

Calling for our generation to make one of the biggest transformations in human history, The Spirit Level leaves on a note of optimism: ‘Greater equality will help us rein in consumerism and ease the introduction of policies to tackle global warming’. Unless progressive politics strengthen the concept of an equal society it will rarely provoke more than a yawn.

Anyone who believes that society is the result of what we do, rather than who we are, should read this book. Wilkinson and Pickett have backed their thesis with inarguable battery of evidence that ends with one of the simplest conclusion: we do better when we're equal.....Link

The Spirit Level: Why More Equal Societies Always Do Better
by Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett 
Penguin, London, 352 pages, $ 28

Outwardly firebrand, inwardly vulnerable

It is nine years since she was murdered but curiosity to learn more about her life hasn’t diminished. The sordid saga of atrocities committed on her and the tales of violence unleashed in retaliation provide limited narrative on her complex persona. Though Phoolan had become a legend of sorts in her short but vastly eventful existence, unsubstantiated conjectures continue to obscure the truth about her life.

Drawing on years of correspondence and personal interactions, Outlaw: India’s Bandit Queen and Me is a fresh attempt at unveiling the firebrand bandit by Roy Moxham. What began as a sympathetic gesture to cover her legal fees evolved into a brotherly relationship with the author following her release from jail. Outlaw is an intimate portrait of an angry woman and many faces of her vulnerable existence.

Phoolan’s has been an extreme case of exploitation on gender, caste and economic grounds but the social subjugation she went through manifests itself in the predominant patriarchal society every so often. However, Moxham tries to defend her vindictive and mostly brutal actions by asking questions that if the rich could buy immunity from justice in a country where the police and judiciary are corrupt, why victims could not be excused from delivering justice on their own?

Though she was lionized by the underprivileged for her grit and determination, her rise to power invited skepticism and mistrust as well. No wonder, as a member of parliament she remained vulnerable to dubious designs of the politicians as much as to her own family members who were eyeing their share in her new-found prosperity.

As a book and paper conservator living in London, Moxham did not plan to write a biography on Phoolan. However, the exchange of letters and personal encounters brought to light many facets of Phoolan’s life which the previous two biographies – 'Devi –The Bandit Queen' and 'India’s Bandit Queen' - were not privy to. Outlaw is not a work of scholarship but a must-read narrative on the unusual friendship between two people.

For those who have read or not read either of the two biographies and for those who have seen or not seen Shekhar Kapoor’s controversial film Bandit Queen, Outlaw offers a refreshing take on the life of a modern-day Robin Hood. I am convinced that Phoolan’s story must be told and retold in a society that has yet to come to terms with its inherent contradictions on equality and justice.....Link

Outlaw: India’s Bandit Queen and me
by Roy Moxham
Rider, Random House, London; 214 pages, Rs 599

Making a case for ant watchers

There is a fascinating parallel between ubiquitous ants and urban traffic. Other than numbers, peak traffic flow is symbolic of collective behavior of ants, as at a critical concentration it bifurcates into a new branch where not only it pushes others but gets pushed by others too. In dilute traffic flows, however, much like ants you follow your inclination.

Not without reason is the use of ‘ant’ algorithms a thriving industry in computer science, artificial intelligence and robotics. Ants’ collective intelligence is now being used to encourage research leading to the development of vehicles that can navigate using moment-to-moment responses to their own sensors, without any need for remote control.

In her encounters with ants, Deborah Gordon, Professor of Biology at the Stanford University, has revealed that irrespective of its size an ant colony operates without a central control or hierarchy, as no ant directs another. It is amazing that unlike the bees, the queen is not in charge as the colony itself acts as a ‘superorganism’. She argues that ant society offers the choice of a system for the human society to organize itself without any distinct hierarchy.

Deborah Gordon's Ant Encounters is stimulating, erasing misconceptions that the Hollywood movies like Antz seek to portray. These movies show the ant colony as a corporation with more or less disgruntled workers. In contrast, ant colonies are anything but a totalitarian society where individual ants decide what to do based on the rate, rhythm and pattern of individual encounters and interactions - resulting in a dynamic network that coordinates the functions of the colony.

Varying in colors from red to black and from blue to orange there are over 11,000 species of ants that have been identified. These social insects are reported to be 140 million years old, having survived the last extinction that accounted for the mighty dinosaurs. It is even suggested that the mass of ants may be ten times that of humans on the planet.

Given their sheer numbers, it is tragic that only 50 species of ants have thus far been studied in detail. Had the English, in the nineteenth century, extended their obsessions with birds and wildflowers a bit further to ants, there would have been local ant-watchers club! Gordon's work is of historical significance as she connects evolutionary biology with political theory in making a case that ant societies are model systems for the study of collective behavior....Link

Ant Encounters: Interaction Networks & Colony Behavior 
by Deborah Gordon
Princeton University Press, Oxford; 167 pages, $ 19.95

Malleable but not pliable

School days memory of a chapter on malleable and ductile metal that is of critical significance to the aviation sector resonates like a romantic story on the marvels of science. That excavation of aluminium from bauxite sends the mountain crumbling down is a horror story one begins to learn later. The recent scrapping of environmental clearance for bauxite mining from the tribal-rich Niyamgiri hills in Odisha has pieced together two stories into an unpalatable saga of corporate-led environmental destruction and cultural genocide.

In their penetrating anthropological study, Felix Padel and Samarendra Das uncover an epic clash of ideologies that pits profit mongering metal traders against the forest dwelling tribal communities in Odisha. Out of this Earth is a courageous and compelling account of this vital encounter. The authors reveal that behind the ripping of bauxite out of the mountains is an elaborate financial structure which links the mining corporations, government deals, international banks and the military-industrial complex.

Aluminium’s vital importance to the global military-industrial complex offers it the cushion against market uncertainties. No wonder, the alumina scrip did not take any beating at the stock market despite the recent ban on bauxite mining. An American military expert had long warned: ‘No fighting is possible, and no war can be carried to a successful conclusion today, without using vast quantities of aluminium. Aluminium, and great quantities of it, spell the difference between victory and defeat’.

The life-threatening features of the white metal have gained additional potency through hidden subsidies on water and electricity. Refining a metric ton of aluminium requires an average of 250 kilowatt hours of electricity and smelting it consumes an additional 1,300 kwh. Over 1,378 tons of water sucked into the process returns as 4-8 tons of toxic red mud and 13 tons of carbon dioxide. In simple terms, this means that the negative impact of producing aluminium is around 85 times its positive value.

Felix and Das trace the history, science and sociology of aluminium extraction in re-creating a ‘metal colonialism’ that threatens to wipe out the traditional habitations of adivasis in the mineral endowed tribal regions of the country. It takes courage to publish an intensely engaging book of immense scholarship that unmasks the political-economy of growing metal capitalism, at a time when mining and growth seem synonymous.

You can avoid reading this book at your own risk!....Link

Out of this Earth: East India Adivasis & the Aluminium Cartel 
by Felix Padel and Samarendra Das 
Orient BlackSwan, New Delhi 752 pages, Rs 895

Love thy name is social change

What has ‘development’ got to do with ‘love’ and how does ‘power’ relate to ‘love’? Power without love produces ‘development’ that destroys everything we hold dear, argues Adam Kahane, as collision of immoral power with powerless morality constitutes the major crises of our time. Having worked around the world on a variety of challenges ranging from economic development to judicial reform and from food security to climate change, Kahane persuasively argues that a symbiosis of power and love alone can achieve lasting social change.

Kahane delves deeply in the dual nature of power and love, exploring their complex and intricate interplay, but mocks at the idea of applying ‘best practices’ solutions from the past to solve problems. Not only are the problems of our time generatively complex but the future is fundamentally unfamiliar and undetermined, that seeks new set of ‘next practice’ solutions. Waging war against problems may not offer solutions, creating space and scope for collective creation holds promise.

Highly relevant to the global challenges we face today, Power and Love is about the hope and possibility that comes from committing oneself to making a difference in the world. Drawing from his experience of conducting social change workshops across different continents, the author contends that our destruction of aboriginal societies worldwide and our headlong rush towards the destruction of the ecosystems arise from our disconnection from one another and from the earth.

Kahane argues that love connects and creates opening, potential and opportunity, but power is required for these to be tested and realized. However, dialogue that does not acknowledge and work with power therefore cannot create new social realities. In fact, each needs the other. As Martin Luther King put it, ‘Power without love is reckless and abusive, and love without power is sentimental and anemic.’

Power and Love should be read and re-read by leaders in the private, public and social sectors. In his extraordinarily insightful and powerful analysis, Kahane debunks George Bush’s doctrine that ‘if you’re not part of the solution, you’re part of the problem’ by presenting an alternative formulation: ‘if you’re not part of the problem, you can’t be part of the solution’. Moving from power to love enables us to see more clearly how we are part of the problem and therefore how we can be part of the solution.

It is an inspiring narrative that is immensely readable for those who are not only empathetic to social change but are looking at ways and means of co-creating new social realities....Link

Power and Love: A Theory & Practice of Social Change 
by Adam Kahane 
Tata McGraw Hill, New Delhi; 172 pages, Rs 250

Bathroom Safari

The harrowing tales of adventures with parasites of varying shapes and sizes makes disgusting but compelling reading. It's a paean on frightening parasites that may give psychogenic itch. What else can reading about leeches, tapeworms and flukes lead unto? Eugene Kaplan, distinguished professor of ecology and conservation (emeritus) at Hofstra University, stays comical as he narrates the bizarre tales of contracting every possible parasitic infection during his travels across continents.

What's Eating You is about thirty distinct parasites that have fed on the author. Kaplan describes how he 'gave birth' to a parasite the size and thickness of a pencil while working in Israel, and how drinking contaminated water caused a three-foot-long worm to burst from his arm. It is parasitology writing at its best: informative, beautifully illustrated and hugely entertaining guide through the many forms and relationships that parasites and hosts embody.

Kaplan has written a seriously scientific publication that is pacy but embodies a style of its own. Else, the section captions could not have been awfully smelly. 'A Peek into the Anus - of My Child' and 'The Defecating Scandinavian' could make one feel yuck but the author marvels at the biological ingenuity of the parasites as these infect humans. There is a fish tapeworm that can grow up to forty feet long, and specifically targets elderly Jewish women.

Without doubt, Kaplan is a master raconteur who makes a grisly subject engrossing as well as entertaining. If it were not Kaplan one would not have developed a fascination for blood-sucking leeches. One of the many reasons why the Americans lost the war in Vietnam had to do with leeches feasting on US soldiers. The book demonstrates how wonderfully compelling teacher Kaplan is, wandering 'through field and feces' to get infected for finding subjects to study....Link

What's Eating you? People and Parasitesby Eugene H. Kaplan 
Princeton University Press, Princeton & Oxford, 302 pages, US$26.95

Champagne for a pittance

News reports indicate that farmers in Parkejuli village in Assam pay Rs 21,000 to their counterparts across the border in Bhutan for using water from rivers flowing from the Himalayan Kingdom. The practice reportedly dates back to 1956 when the annual tax was just Rs 100. The rate of payment has since been revised several times. It seems there is an unwritten obligation on the part of the downstream users to pay their upstream counterparts for sustained supplies.

Unlike most city dwellers, Parkejuli inhabitants do not take the water that flows downstream for granted. In most cities across India water is ferried from distant watersheds to meet the growing demand. Quite often, neither is consent sought from local inhabitants for such transaction nor is payments made for the services they render. The crucial question is whether robbing Peter to pay Paul is justified in a market-driven economy?

Based on multi-location studies in eight countries the book has attempted to examine the issue of payment for watershed services from social, economic, legal and institutional perspectives. There are mixed evidences though. Payment for hitherto unrealized ecosystem services brings into the open the potential winners and the likely losers, setting the stage for a negotiated settlement to create a win-win situation. Without doubt, the payment schemes seem difficult to set up.

However, the Catskills-Delware watershed has sustained a large chunk of the 4.5 billion litres of daily supply of water to 9 billion people in the New York City on 'payment for ecosystem services' principle. Considered 'champagne' of drinking waters, the quality started deteriorating in the early 1980's due to intensification of farm activities in the watershed. It was estimated that to maintain water quality, the city would need to invest $ 6 billion in setting up a treatment plant.

The New York city instead struck a deal with the farmers, paying for pollution control investments on each farm. Between 1990 and 1993, 93 per cent of landholders in the Cat-Del watershed had signed up the program at a cost equivalent of about 11 per cent of the proposed treatment plant. New Yorkers have retained their champagne drinking water at a fraction of the cost of treatment. Curiously, exceptional cases like these have yet to inspire replication.

The case of New York city indicates that ensuring buyers alone may not be sufficient to set the system rolling. What the buyer pays for and what the seller gets may not be enough, the challenge is to ensure that watersheds get a fair deal....Link

Fair deals for watershed servicesby Ivan Bond & James Mayers 
IIED, London, 112 pages, $ 18

Charity begins at home

At about the time when Indian government had shut door on some of the leading development donor agencies, philanthrocapitalists of all hues had mushroomed to fill the gap. Driven by corporate profits, such foundations promise to save the world by bringing the magic of the market to philanthropy. That business-is-best philosophy has been seductively presented to remove the messiness of social change. And no one seems to be complaining.

But Michael Edwards considers it an attractive proposition that is also a dangerous mirage. After all, if business wants to save the world, there are plenty of opportunities to do so at the heart of their operations: pay taxes; pay decent wages; don't produce goods that kill; and follow government regulations. Ironically, businesses evade $385 billion a year of corporate tax in developing countries, far more than what flows as foreign aid.

Small Change is a tiny volume filled with incredible insights on philanthropy, civil society and social change. A must read for all those engaged in the business of social change, the book argues that solutions to complex social and political problems have to be fought for and negotiated - not produced, packaged and sold. Unless a social space free of external influences is preserved, people cannot hold government and business accountable for their action.

The non-profit sector may be getting larger, but it is becoming weaker due to increasing corporatization of non-profit groups. By reducing non-profits to the role of service providers, businesses have not only avoided areas that are essentially unprofitable for them but have also distanced the non-profits from their prime role of addressing inequality and individual alienation, which has essentially been the creation of capitalism.

Having spent three decades in the nonprofit sector, Edward backs up his argument with some clear logic that holds one's attention with a lot of interesting stories. The metrics-driven methodologies of the business world have failed more than once. For instance, the Gates Foundation has admitted that its $258 million investment in AIDS control in India has achieved none of its goals and is too expensive to be handed over to the government.

However, the story doesn't end here. A World Health Organization official had complained in 2008 that it was no longer possible to find independent reviewers for research proposals because they were all on the payroll of the Gates Foundation. It is no accident but part of a deeper conspiracy. By violating regulations and evading taxes the capitalists amass wealth, a portion of which is directed for social causes that in turn helps appropriate policies. A win-win scenario!

Digging deeper into the world of corporate philanthropy, Edwards contests the dubious claims of the 'philanthrocapitalism' espoused by Michael Bishop, the so-called 'creative capitalism' offered by Bill Gates, the 'fortune at the bottom of the pyramid' of C K Prahalad as guises to legitimise window dressing by corporate social responsibility and social entrepreneurship that address symptoms rather than root causes.

If you wish to get insights on how businesses are corrupting governments and the civil society, Small Change could make a thoughtful beginning.....Link

Small Change: Why Business Won't Save the World
by Michael Edwards 
Tata McGraw Hill Edition, New Delhi, 125 pages, Rs 299.

Ignorant armies clashing by night

A computer kiosk program for the poor had failed to work because there was completely unreliable electricity and internet connectivity in the places where they were trying to set it up. Yet, the World Bank's 'empowerment sourcebook' recorded it as a successful initiative. A bank official defended the program saying that it had facilitated greater empowerment. How do silent computers lead to greater empowerment?

Empowerment, it is said, is one such word which is used when no other excuses exist. It seems the apex bank is not unduly bothered about the absurdity of its approach, as one study had noted that 'despite the billions of dollars spent on development assistance each year, there is still very little known about the actual impact of projects on the poor'. Not without reason has eminent economist Lant Pritchett phrased the phenomenon as 'ignorant armies clashing by night'.

It is widely acknowledged that a major hurdle in aid effectiveness is lack of mechanisms for efficiency and accountability. While for-profit world has markets and competition towards accountability, foreign aid has been failing and wasting much of its resources because it's not accountable and that the existing evaluations are almost entirely self-evaluations. The book is about using randomization as a technique for assessing effectiveness of developmental projects.

The book, a collection of six authoritative papers followed by two equally scholarly comments on each paper, delves deeper into the enigma called 'development'. However, the debate between thinking big and thinking small remains inconclusive because objective analysis is obstructed by the lengthening list of factors and conditions that makes either of the two types of development achieve some degree of effectiveness, but without impacting poverty significantly.

Some of the world-renowned development analysts have contributed to addressing the crises in fighting global poverty. But what unites them is larger than what divides them. Oscillating between macro development (growth, trade & fiscal policies) and micro development (education, health & social programs), the contributors offer wealth of insights on what policy is likely to work in the future. A scholarly contribution towards making development work, hopefully!....Link

What Works in Development: Thinking Big and Thinking Small
by Jessica Cohen and William Easterly
Brookings Institution Press, Washington, D.C. 245 pages, US$16.82

The Good, the Bad and the....

Contested existence notwithstanding, the overwhelming presence of businesses and the inevitable existence of non-governmental organizations have made dramatic inroads into our lives. Love them or hate them, both are here to stay in the pursuit of meeting their ambitious goals. Often working at cross purposes to each other, there exists an opportunity for businesses and NGOs to galvanize collective action for resolving environmental issues around the world though.

Good Cop Bad Cop is a splendid attempt that weaves multi-disciplinary insights for mapping areas for NGOs to engage with businesses. With contributions from sociologists, political scientists and economists, Thomas P. Lyon concludes that it is for the NGOs to understand whether they can effectively play either or both the role of a good cop (corporate partner) and bad cop (corporate critic). This typecast may, however, be discomforting for the NGOs.

It is easy to typecast NGOs because there is little systematic evidence that environmental NGOs are consistently effective. In fact, the authors have used aquatic mammals to categorize an incredible diversity of NGOs and NGO-like activity. Sea lion, Orca, Shark and Dolphin have been identified to reflect the nature of the NGOs. Sea lions are deemed to be very conscious of their funding sources and very unlikely to act contrary to the interests of their funders.

In contrast, sharks symbolize a considerable number of groups within the broader anti-globalization movement who consider violence legitimate against a broad range of targets. On the other hand, orcas carefully select their targets but can be unpredictable and at times confrontational. Dolphins are adaptive, willing to negotiate with businesses to encourage them to change their environmental stands. Will such characterization ease in building collaborations?

Contributors to the volume admit that there are numerous theories that deal with the behavior of economic agents, but none explains NGOs because they are often outside the logic of profitability and traditional politics. The growing recognition that environmental NGOs have moved from the fringes of power to the inside and are now able to exert more influence than ever before has led researchers to develop an understanding on their growing sphere of influence.

Good Cop Bad Cop makes a valuable and timely contribution to the emerging domain of private politics - in which private citizens and institutions aim at changing legislative practices and culture without being part of the electoral process. Using case studies of selected international NGOs, the book takes a critical look at their internal dynamics in making a case for emerging cooperation between NGOs and business for environmental change....Link

Good Cop Bad Cop: Environmental NGOs and their Strategies toward Business
by Thomas P Lyon (Ed) 
RFF Press, Washington/London, 282 pages, US$ 39.95.

Poverty is history, not yet!

The Aid Trap shatters the well-entrenched myth that development aid will erase global poverty. Conversely, it argues that aid helps keep the poor alive to confirm the biblical certainty that 'the poor you always have with you'. Else, the trillions of dollars spent in development aid since the 1960s would have made a dent in poverty. Paradoxically, poverty has been perpetuated without any decline in the flow of development aid.

In the three decades that I've spent in the development sector, I haven't come across anything more clear, concise and incisive as The Aid Trap. It conclusively proves that the current systems of development aid and the nonprofit sector in the developing countries keep the poor poor. Neither does top-down aid that is often delivered to governments work, nor the bottom-up charity through non-profit system affect the poor.

Authors R. Glenn Hubbard and William Duggan, both of Columbia University's Business School, present a radical prescription to end poverty. 'Enhancing local businesses alone can generate jobs to tackle poverty', they suggest. The authors are seized of the fact that 'business is a very imperfect system' but leaf the history books to reveal evidences that give credence to their prescription that favors 'business' over 'charity'.

But if current economic crisis is any indication, should business be projected as a panacea? The authors favor local businesses over stronger foreign-owned businesses, though it will always be hard to draw a line between foreign and domestic firms. Rather then getting bogged down into the specifics, the crucial question worth addressing would be: 'what is the effect of your business on the domestic business sector'?

Curiously, there are no easy answers to global poverty yet. May be, a mix of strategies will contribute crucial pieces to the enduring poverty puzzle. However, by conclusively proving that development aid doesn't work, Hubbard and Duggan have set the pigeon out-of-the-hat. In doing so, they have reiterated the commonly-held adage which suggests that 'aid cannot be the answer if growth is the question'. But who decides what 'growth' is?....Link

The Aid Trap: Hard Truths about Ending Poverty
by R Glenn Hubbard & William Duggan
Columbia University Press, New York, 198 pages, $ 22.95

Will the real criminal stand up?

Try asking a simple question to a heterogeneous group: who is the free-roaming criminal in our society? Even before the question gets completed, the answer starts floating in the air. One is surprised if it would not be a 'politician'? One of the highly protected tribes that is rarely hounded by the forces of law even though records confirm that a sizeable number of honorable members of the legislative have consistent criminal records.

At the other end, there are tribes whose children are condemned 'criminals' much before they are born. For their failure to understand nomadic lifestyles, the imperial rulers assumed such communities to be thieves and dacoits and dubbed them criminals under the Criminal Tribes Act of 1871. Freedom from the British didn't change much for such 150 tribes; these were hounded by the police under the Habitual Offender's Act of 1952.


Words may have changed but the text remained much the same as the new piece of legislation continued to negate the universally proclaimed principle that 'all human beings are born free and equal' and gave the police wide powers to not only arrest them but to control and monitor their movements too. No wonder, the economic upturn in the recent past has meant little for such tribes as they continue to languish at the lower end of the growth spectrum.


Criminal Tribes of Punjab provides insights into the socio-anthropological existence of seven criminal tribes in Punjab, which bear close resemblance to the condemned existence of similar tribes in the country. The book critically discusses the issue of criminality as also it captures the brewing resentment of exclusion amidst them.


Using development as an indicator, the book argues in favor of repealing the Habitual Offenders Act for affectively rehabilitating such ostracized communities. The book is a timely narrative on a rather neglected section of the society which, contrary to Macaulay's assessment, has a rich cultural legacy....Link

Criminal Tribes of Punjab: A Socio-Anthropological Inquiry
by Birinder Pal Singh (Ed)                                                                                                               
Routledge, 151 pages, Rs 595

The State by, of and for the Elite

This book could easily go un-noticed until one stumbles upon its descriptive second title i.e., how the wealthy use the government to stay rich and get richer? It is a brutal truth that manifests itself in the manner in which governments increasingly work under the influence of corporations. There is conspicuous similarity in which the state has been appropriated by the wealthy, be they conservatives or the liberals.

Drawing parallel between conservatives and liberals, economist Dean Baker contends that it is a myth that conservatives trusts the market and liberals want the government. Conversely, many of the key forms of corporate welfare involve not just the handout of public funds, but interventions in the economy to benefit corporations. How true is the formulation in the Indian context where divergent political ideologies have demonstrated remarkable consistency in favoring the rich?

Not without reason Bill Gates has become incredibly rich. Thanks to state-granted copyright monopoly, all doors of copying were closed on Windows. Any number of examples exists where corporations are completely dependent for their profits on the nanny state's protection from competition. No wonder, the country that is riding the crest of the economy wave has a sizeable populace fighting to just stay afloat!

The poor would be worse off if the rich continue to actively use the power of the government to shape market outcomes in ways that redistribute income upward. There are reasons for doctors to draw higher wages - to force everyone in the country pay more for health care. Salaries of the top executives have soared in recent years at the cost of wage stagnation of ordinary workers. Simply put, the nanny state is increasingly favoring the wealthy.

Through incisive economic insights, Baker argues that it's time for the rules to change. Unless economic policy harnesses the market in ways that produces desirable social outcome, the brewing social discontent will give a severe jolt to the nanny state.....Link

The Conservative Nanny State by Dean Baker,
Center for Economic & Policy Research,

Washington, 113 pages, $ 7.90

Vulnerable, for sure

Sometime I get a feeling that India's incredibility lies in it being vulnerable. Hasn't it become increasingly turbulent, awash with diversity of social, economic, political and geographical disruptions? Not a day passes without disaster of a kind being recorded, be it natural or purely human construct. From a freak tornado that accounted for some hundred lives in Bihar to deliberate dumping of radioactive waste that claimed one victim in Delhi, disasters have registered their democratic omnipresence across the country.

Not long ago, a senior official of the prestigious National Institute of Disaster Management (NIDM) took pride in proclaiming that effective flood management had resulted in less than anticipated loss of lives during the Kosi floods of 2008. The claim revealed a disturbing fact - given the inevitability of floods the challenge lie in staking claims through unsubstantiated data on the so-called effectiveness of the response mechanism. Simply stated, the policy prescription is to 'manage' disasters after these have occurred.


In Vulnerable India, author Anu Kapur makes a bold attempt to chronicle the inadequacies in the system that has not only propelled natural disasters but has made several human-induced disasters to look 'natural'. No wonder, for a corrupt leadership, indifferent bureaucracy and a complacent civil society each disaster opens a fresh opportunity for appropriating generous relief supplies. It may not be an over-statement that 'disaster' has indeed become an industry with its well-entrenched stakeholders at all levels.

The book argues in favor of an approach that positions socio-economic vulnerability against the vagaries of natural disasters. Though slow paced in presenting a rather gloomy scenario, the book covers fresh ground for interdisciplinary studies to ascertain the hidden causes behind the recurrence of natural disasters in our country. The book shows that the rigor of academic work can pave the foundations for practical action by policy makers and decision-makers. Aesthetically designed and attractively printed, Vulnerable India is worth its price....Link

Vulnerable India: A Geographical Study of Disasters
by Anu Kapur 
Sage Books, New Delhi, 279 pages, Rs 850.

Forget, if you can

In Delete, Viktor Mayer-Schonberger traces the important role that forgetting has played throughout human history and analyses the manner in which this virtue has been undermined by digital technology. The trouble, argues Viktor, is that cheap storage and easy retrieval do not allow outdated information and compromising pictures to fade away. The past is ever present, ready to be called up at the click of a mouse.

In reality, however, forgetting is central to human experience whereas the difficulty of remembering is an implicit result of the second law of thermodynamics. Viktor has philosophical take on his work of extraordinary breadth and erudition, delving into new dilemma of `privacy’ created by extensive documentation of our daily lives. Bill Clinton had introduced e-mail to the White House only to be embarrassed later as some of his intimate e-mails resurfaced in public.

Delete broadens the `privacy’ debate to encompass the dimensions of time. It provides well-balanced account of the challenges we face in a world where our digital traces are saved for life....more (the link will appear soon)

Method in madness

It is only during the last five decades that groundwater has become the mainstay of Indian economy, over 85 per cent of drinking water and 60 per cent of irrigation supplies are now dependant on it. Wide availability of affordable water extraction devices triggered this dramatic turnabout from a canal-based irrigation economy of the colonial era. However, it helped poor farmers break free of the hydraulic limits imposed by gravity and open channel flow.

The technology that helped rural poor from droughts and famines has become its nemesis, threatening already depleted aquifers through over-draft and pollution. In the absence of effective legislation, unregulated groundwater extraction has created unprecedented groundwater anarchy. The situation is far more serious than it may seem, the social and economic consequences of shrinking groundwater reserves could be devastating.

Tushar Shah prisms the groundwater anarchy from economic, political and historical perspectives to argue that the state and the water bureaucracy have become mute spectators to the crises that is fast unfolding. The book lists a series of out-of-box solutions that may only help transform inhumane anarchy into humane anarchy provided the out-of-sync water bureaucracy is willing to shed its colonial civil engineering mindset.

Taming the Anarchy is an authoritative treatise on groundwater governance that offers incisive insights and powerful ideas for planners and policymakers to rid the region of its groundwater madness. The book warrants wider readership, should a popular version be available....Link

Taming the Anarchy                                                                                                                                     by Tushar Shah                                                                                                                                Routledge, New Delhi                                                                                                                                    310 pages, Rs 695

The Penny Wise

Ever wondered how your maid survives on her earnings? Like a billion others across the world, your maid too manages with less than $2 (around Rs90) a day. How would you eat two meals, educate your children, afford a home, fight emergencies and plan for old age? For her, these are everyday questions to grapple with.

But it turns out she does not live hand-to-mouth. She applies a complex combination of financial strategies to keep afloat. It is often hard work, and it can carry high costs—some of which are social and psychological, not just economic. Collecting year-long financial diaries of households in Bangladesh, India and South Africa, Daryl Collins, Jonathan Morduch, Stuart Rutherford and Orlanda Ruthven weave the complexities of the financial lives of the poor into a readable narrative in their book Portfolios of the Poor....more

A world tour of hydrological madness

If ever I were to write a book on water, this could be the one. When the Rivers Run Dry seems an unfinished title for an unflinching look at the current water crises across the world. Fred Pearce, an accomplished science writer, elucidates the remaining half of the title in ten riveting sections to the book. Based on author's travels across thirty countries, the book provides most complete portrait of growing hydrological crises and its widespread ramifications for us all.

Pearce contends that the West is committing hydrological suicide with its water 'footprint'. One ton of water for drinking, about 50 to 100 tons around the home and as much as 2,000 tons to grow the crops that feed and clothe a person during a year cannot sustain humanity for long. And if you buy a t-shirt made of Pakistani cotton, eat Thai rice or drink coffee from Costa Rica, you may be helping reduce flow in the Indus, the Mekong and in the Amazon. Called 'virtual water trade', it uses about 1,000 cubic kilometers of water annually or the equivalent of 20 River Niles.

It really is as stark as that. Pearce has gone to great lengths to show the reader what has gone wrong with our civic and personal attitude to water use the world over, and by highlighting some of these diminishing or dried up water sources, we must rethink our actions. The immensely readable prose is no simple manual for the consumer to be less wasteful in the home; it is about such compelling facts that make the case for a new water ethos. Pearce takes the reader to often unheard of places to pepper his text with reflection, often presenting both the micro and the macro picture at the same time.

The facts and narrative create powerful imagery that is backed by penetrating analyses and passionate advocacy. It is investigative journalism at its best, advising the world's governments to stop focusing on the money and instead look at the best interests of the world's rivers, wetlands and aquifers. Pearce' dogged research and writing teaches the reader something 'new' on a subject that may be grossly known. And he is not a doomsayer because he highlights the efforts being made the world over to reclaim fresh water too. Just read it!

Whose money is it, honey?

Despite foreign direct investment driving the stock market, the issue of foreign funding to the civil society organizations is seen at a tangent. Not long ago, foreign funding was used as the basis to question the credibility of Narmada Bacchao Andolan. In effect, the petitioner's hidden intention has been to tarnish the pro-public image of the two-decade old social movement, with an aim to establish that NBA's anti-dam agenda was driven by the donors. NBA had come out unscathed but popular perception about foreign funding was nevertheless reiterated.

With three decades of experience in the field of development, Pushpa Sundar traces the history of developmental assistance and the emergence of civil society as its formidable exponent. Interestingly, over the years the levels of overseas development assistance to the government has become insignificant while the amounts going to the civil society has increased significantly. The recipients of foreign funds may have come under the home ministry's scanner; the quantum of development assistance remains miniscule in comparison to government's development portfolio.

Why does the government feel threatened and why is popular perception on foreign funded organizations' tainted? The answers to such questions are hard to come by because there are shades of grey in the developmental picture. The lure for foreign funds is of government's own making; its support mechanism smells of nepotism and its monitoring mechanism is increasingly laced with corruption. If the government's development support mechanism to civil society could clear itself of such ambiguities and be more liberal in its outlook, there is little doubt that the dependence on foreign funds and the ideological baggage it brings along would decline....more

Economics as if people matter

New Economics makes fascinating reading. It is must read book for anyone dismayed by the way market economics has driven us to the wall. Authors David Boyle and Andrew Simms begin by arguing that the financial markets are the epicentre of a massive system, the main purpose of which is to make its key players unimaginably rich. Further, it forgives the powerful their mistakes, and cushions them against hard times, but exhausts the rest of us and punishes and corrodes the lives of the poorer two thirds of the world.

It compares sheer diversity of the immediate crises - in credit, climate and energy - to ecological, human and spiritual crises. According to the authors, these are not usually understood as economic problems, but that is exactly what they are: a byproduct of faulty measurement and misleading values pedaled by ill-directed economic system. New economics is an approach that 'values real, rather than illusory wealth, and puts people and planet first.' It puts individuals, equality and opportunity ahead of economic activity and growth....more

Quantum of solace

Hind Swaraj, Gandhi’s seminal work, was written in 9 days between 13 and 22 November 1909 on broad the Kildonan Castle during Gandhi’s return trip from England to South Africa. The century old easy-to-read conversation between a reader and an editor is more relevant now than ever before, providing quantum of solace to the world that has increasingly been torn apart by moral decline, social strife and climate change. Interestingly, however, for fear of sedition the book was banned by then government in March 1910.

Gandhi was clear in his perception about `swaraj’, and made a distinction between swaraj as self-government and swaraj for self-improvement. Gandhi was anxious to teach the Indians that `modern civilisation’ posed a greater threat to them than did colonialism, because colonialism itself was a product of modern civilization. Ironically, the country has learnt little from the prophetic words of Gandhi. Treading on the path of modernity, colonialism has been perpetuated within the country that has led to alienation of the poor and the vulnerable.

Published by the Cambridge University, Prof Anthony Parel’s analysis on Hind Swaraj is a work of scholarship that not only locates Gandhi’s vision in the historical context of the early 20th century but seeks its relevance in the 21st century too. Amongst the available interpretations on Hind Swaraj, this book stands out as it presents the original text and examines the intellectual cross-currents from East and West that affected the formation of the mind and character of one of the twentieth century’s truly outstanding figures. Without doubt, Hind Swaraj remains a universal manifesto for human deliverance from violence, injustice and domination.
(for another view, click)

Through the green lens

The red sweat of a hippopotamus offers UV protection. The fuzzy side of a leaf can retain water. Purple leaves may be sunscreen for new growth or an adaptation to harvest low light near the forest floor. A seabird known as the Brown Booby has something called a 'gular patch' at its throat that it can move without using any muscles - inspiration for an energy-efficient ventilation device? "Nature's pattern book is endless", says Dayna Baumeister. "She has been around for four billion years and has figured out few things first." In writing Women in Green, the authors have drawn from conversations with nearly 200 women architects, designers, activists, writers, educators and students - Baumeister being one amongst them.

The outcome is amazing: a transformative, inspiring and thoughtful book. In their ground-breaking work, authors Kira Gould and Lance Hosey have spent hours conversing with women of substance in outlining the fact that future of sustainability will depend on women and the perspectives they bring to the field....more