Reasoning about reason

If unrest and demonstrations are anything to go by, there is profound disaffection among citizens about the democracies they are part of. Failure of neo-liberalism to provide an alternative has created further distress among the public. Neither have institutions been able to read reason for public anguish nor have the state created space for public reason in influencing public policy. The dozen essays written over past two decades by Harvard University Professor Sheila Jasanoff conclude that acknowledging public reason can shed surprisingly clear light on a world in turmoil.

Without doubt, the essays put together in the volume are work in immense scholarship. Picking on scientific controversies from Germany, England, the US and India, ranging from mad cow scare to silicone gel breast transplant, Jasanoff creates a mosaic of scientific controversies wherein interplay between science and public reasoning had led to influencing state policies to some extent. Yet, the power of words to compel action has remained a subject for philosophical and political analysis from Plato down to modern times. It is no wonder, therefore, that in majority of instances reason is achieved, not attained.

One reason why reason is not treated as a practice has to do with its implications on re-visioning democracy. The entrenched notion with which democracies have been governed all across, reason viewed as a social practice only undermines powers that be. Not surprising, therefore, that in a functioning democracy there is lack of systematic correspondence between what is offered as public justification and what actually gets acknowledged by the citizens. To overcome this mistrust, Jasanoff offers public reason as a response to the problem of trust in a society that is besieged with technological uncertainty, information excess and proliferating expertise.

In an era when modern governments have come to be regarded as oppressive and intrusive, excluding knowledge and perspectives of the public has only added to their woes. It is now widely reasoned that increased participation and interactive knowledge-making alone can improve accountability and alleviate democracy's discontents....Link

Science and Public Reason
by Sheila Jasanoff
Routledge, London
290 pages, US $ 145

The idea of Wal-Mart

There is an idea of Walmart that we all have dreamt about and then there is Walmart that we seemingly dread. Between dream and reality there is swathe of controversies that reach people’s doorsteps much before the retail store opens in any locality. The world shares a love-hate relationship with the biggest retail chain, and yet it keeps on going and growing.

Ironically, the retail chain store has been opposed tooth and nail in the country of its origin. Across the US, communities have fought their way to resist the opening of Walmart store in their neighborhood. Citizens have opposed the sprawl of Walmart stores for two compelling reasons: its negative impact on local economy and its adverse influence on their quality of life. Al Norman, who has been on the forefront of anti-sprawl activism and is the founder of the organization Sprawl-Busters, has chronicled the vulnerability of the retail major to community backlash in several cities in the US.

In India, the government is hoping to bail out a stressed economy through foreign direct investment in multi-brand retail. Against available international evidence to the contrary, the government has made audacious claims that 'retail therapy' will fix the unemployment crises by generating over 100 million jobs. Hidden beneath such tall promises, Norman elucidates, are hidden costs that will eventually get borne by the communities only. With Walmart having announced its plan to fan across the country within a year’s time, it is for the communities to see the dark side of growth behind the gloss.

Stories of resistance in the book have clearly observed that educated and activated consumers remain a dispersed force to begin with. Simply put, they view themselves as 'beneficiaries' first. It is only when they view the flip side of growth that they realise that 'if you don't define growth, it will define you'. It is an inspiring book that details out how community interests must be kept safe with campaigns that can go the distance. The longer the anti-sprawl campaign lasts its message gets retained by the community that much longer. The Indian edition is a timely publication of Al Norman's work, a must read for those who are yet to make up their mind on the market-made calamity that, in the name of growth, will soon be upon the consumers and the communities alike....Link

Slam-dunking Walmart
by Al Norman
Banyan Tree, Indore
280 pages, Rs.400

Money too has its limits!

Unlike many of us, Michael Sandel is worried about our having drifted from having a market economy to being a market society.  The drift is indeed discerning as people sucked into market economy are rarely conscious of the reasons for their behavior. Simply put, beyond a point market stops short of being freedom of choice and instead creates conditions which exert a kind of coercion on consumers! No wonder, therefore, people rely more on markets and less on morals in making a judgement. Else, why would we pay children to get good grades or pay people to donate organs or pay for lobbyists to favor decisions?

Our reluctance to engage in moral and spiritual argument, together with our embrace of markets, has apparently led markets into the spheres of life where they don’t belong. From prison cell upgrade in the US to hiring services of surrogate mothers in India and from the right to shoot an endangered black rhino in South Africa to renting out space on your forehead in New Zealand, each for a price, illustrate the manner in which even criminal justice, family life, environmental protection and personal privacy have been corrupted.

Without taking a moral high ground, the author argues that markets tend to crowd out morals and that there is serious case for us to rethink the role and reach of markets in our social practices, human relationships and everyday lives. In addition to raising moral and ethical issues, the question that marketisation of society widens the already existing divide between people of means and those without is equally crucial.

As market continues to explore new avenues for its expansion, the onus will be on us to analyze that putting a price tag on which things will undermine their function and relationship in society. Neither can friendship be bought nor are children sold, despite both being lucrative from a market perspective. Such transactions, even if feasible and acceptable, violate the moral ground of human relationships and neither is good for democracy.

What money can’t buy is all about moral and ethical question of what can be bought and sold in the market. However, it lets the reader ponder over the last question: Do we want a society where everything is up for sale?...Link

What Money Can’t Buy
by Michael Sandel
Allen Lane, UK
244 pages, UK£ 20.

Consistent inconsistencies

‘Why everyone else is a hypocrite’, with else prominently popping up, indicts the reader as the veritable point of reference. No offence therein because being ignorant, wrong, irrational and hypocritical can make one feel better off than being knowledgeable, correct, reasonable and consistent. No wonder, there are any number of people around us who died famous, wealthy, and wrong.

Teasing and amusing at the same time, ‘Why everyone else is a hypocrite’ is about mutually inconsistent contradictions in human brains. Using principles of evolutionary psychology, Robert Kurzban has cleverly confirmed the Greek definition of hypocrite as someone who ‘pretends to be better than he really is, virtuous without really being so.’ And there are reasons for people to have double take on matters because they desire to have the best of both worlds.

Mind is wired to generate behavioral inconsistencies. Explaining the functioning of modular mind through evolution, Kurzban reveals that the mind generates contradictory beliefs, vacillating behaviors and inflated egos at the same time. Our modular minds didn't evolve for consistency, but for patchwork multitasking such that at any given time we should think of ourselves not as ‘I’ but as ‘we’ – a set of interacting systems that are in constant conflict.

This might be one reason that politicians appear to be such hypocrites. In reality, however, politicians may not actually be much more hypocritical than the rest of us. It is just that the rest of us skate by without anyone noticing. Politicians, on the other hand, have to offer genuine sounding rationalization to wriggle out of it. For them, the ultimate rationalization is the phrase, ‘I just couldn't help myself.’

Loaded with humorous anecdotes, this book is an attempt to explain why we act the way we act, and, perhaps partly in our defense, to show that if we are wrong a lot, well, being right isn't everything. Explaining varied implications of our consistent minds, Robert Kurzban reveals why it is perfectly natural to believe that everyone else (including you yourself) is a hypocrite and will continue to be so whether or not anyone likes it....Link

Why everyone else is a hypocrite
by Robert Kurzban
Princeton University Press, New Jersey
274 pages, US $ 17.34

Smothering diversity

It may seem naive and simplistic but pluralism in classroom, as represented by cultural and economic background of the pupils, may have been compromised the day a uniform dress code was introduced for school children. While uniform dress reflects decor and discipline, lost within it are distinct identities that have further been smothered by a universalised teaching curriculum. To impart a uniform system of education across wide cultural diversity, the system eroded plurality by homogenising cultures and communities in the first place. It is only during recent years that question on a system of education that converts innocent pupils into mindless clones has been raised.

While the indigenous model rejected the colonial, the colonial was uni-dimensional and had ended up eliminating the indigenous. In both instances, it was the baby that got thrown with the bathwater. Far from liberating and transforming the underprivileged, it placed unrealistic heavy burden of education on children. Rather than equipping underprivileged children with skills and sensitization them towards their marginal status, the system of education sought to marginalize them further. Poor learning achievements, low retention, high dropout rates and indifferent attitudes of the parents and communities for the school have been reflective of the net impact.

In search for the answers to such questions, the editors of the volume have sought a way out of it by placing emphasis on ‘social inclusion and pluralism as the core principles of the pedagogic conceptual framework, practices and processes’. This however may be easier said than done. The basic trouble is that it may not always be easy to achieve the core values of social inclusion and pluralism simultaneously. But the book prisms the inner world of education through a wider lens on the world of education in offering solution-based approaches drawn from both the developed and the developing world.

The book has not only been able to diagnose the problem but suggest a solution-based approach as well. Though it appreciates the complexity of the problem at hand, the book remains optimistic in its approach because by only being positive about it can some distance in addressing the problem would get covered....Link

School Education, Pluralism & Marginality
by Christine Sleeter, Shashi Bhushan Upadhyay, Arvind Mishra & Sanjay Kumar (Eds)
Orient BlackSwan, Delhi
500 pages, Rs. 850

Idea of a universal solvent

Why people at times behave the most evil way, not counting others as humans but as mere object which can be tossed around like lifeless entities? Oblivious of grievous injury they cause to others, such persons remain unconcerned about any physical and emotional damage thus inflicted. Conditioned by what Prof. Simon Baron-Cohen calls ‘empathy erosion’, such people lack ability to identify what someone else is thinking or feeling. In simple terms, the language we can use to describe such a trait would be totally self-focused. Recent research now suggests that people’s position on the empathy spectrum can be affected by both genes and the environment that they live in.

Using real-life cases, Baron-Cohen talks us through a variety of conditions in which the ability to empathize is reduced, leading to the possibility of a violent behavior. In saying so, it is being sympathetically suggested that such so-called ‘evildoers’ are not necessarily irredeemable. This seems an important insight, given the fact that with ‘empathy’ we have a resource to resolve conflict, increase community cohesion and dissolve another person’s pain. Assessing empathy mechanism on both genetic and psychiatric scales, Baron-Cohen makes a compelling argument: ‘unless empathy is employed across conflicting situations across the world, from Washington to Baghdad, more lives are and will be lost’.

The sooner the unempathic acts are erased the better it is because the footprints of such acts can stay longer than desired. Back in 1542, Martin Luther wrote a pamphlet entitled On the Jews and their lies; wherein he had advocated (to the Christians) that synagogues should be burned and Jewish homes should be destroyed. Four hundred years later, the young Adolf Hitler quoted Martin Luther in Mein Kampf to give his own Nazi racist views some respectability, thereby ending the lives of 6 million Jews in the concentration camps. And in the absence of empathy, Hitler was bereft of any guilt for his dastardly actions.

Empathy, concludes Baron-Cohen, is like a universal solvent. From interpersonal problems to international conflicts and from family disputes to political deadlocks, any problem immersed in empathy becomes soluble. Since it is secular in nature, empathy, unlike religion, cannot oppress anyone. If such be it powers, why is empathy missing from most universal agendas?  Read this immensely compellingly book to find out!....Link

Zero Degrees of Empathy
by Simon Baron-Cohen
Penguin Books, UK
193 pages, UK£ 9.99.

Nothing is enough

As long as humans cover the three distinct stages of goods’ acquisitions, nothing would be enough because enough would always remain too little. From acquiring ‘bandwagon goods’, which others possess, to ‘snob goods’, that others do not have, is a long journey that most of us cover through the markets of want and desire. The journey ends at what theorist Thorstein Veblen described as ‘Veblen goods’, goods that act as advertisements of wealth.

The father-son duo of Robert and Edward Skidelsky go beyond the current debate about growing inequality to ask what we need money for? Without doubt, ‘insatiability’ is making people restless, craving for novelty to ride over restlessness. It is this restlessness that the world of advertising exploits to create the ‘organised creation of dissatisfaction’. However, the Skidelskys argue if making money could be the permanent business of humanity?

It may not have been had John Maynard Keynes’s prediction that people would become rational agents once their wants have been satisfied been proved correct. The Skidelsky’s have found two blockages to the fulfilment of Keynes’s prophecy: those rising from power relationships and those rising from insatiability of wants. Both work in combination to produce an ethic of acquisitiveness, which has become the essential driver of capitalism. Unless insatiability is addressed on intellectual, moral and political grounds, it may remain tough to exit from the rat race of market-driven world of consumption and production.

Markets, the Skidelsky’s argue, were made for man and not man for the markets. Economics, as reflected in gross domestic product, ought to be impregnated with purpose if markets have to work for man. For markets to remain obedient to human needs and not greed, the world would need to invent social and economic policies which reduce the amount of work necessary to achieve the material requisites of well-being. This may not be utopian proposition if we agree that the greatest waste now confronting mankind is not one of money but of human possibilities.

The Skidelsky’s end their scholarly work, which challenges the free market fundamentalism, by quoting Keynes: ‘Once we allow ourselves to be disobedient to the test of an accountant’s profit we would have begun to change our civilisation’. And the time for such a change is overdue....Link

How much is enough?
by Robert & Edward Skidelsky
Allen Lane, London
243 pages, £ 20

Shaman in the making

Mystics they are, the shamans are known to heal emotional distress, physical challenges and mental chatter using hallucinogens. Ayahuasca, one of the most potent hallucinogen, has helped people find themselves and, in doing so, to find peace. Like most ancient cultures, the dancing snakes that pop up (in the mind) during ayahuasca ceremony have helped shamans visualize, amongst other things, the structure of DNA several centuries before Watson and Crick could actually discover it. 

Making patients see with their heart and feel with their eyes, the shamans have been able to manipulate the energy blocks in human body, which are the cause of many health issues, such that the energy flows freely again. That the shamans are charismatic is known but that one of them could be disarmingly seductive is what celebrated journalist Anna Hunt came to realize from her adventure into the wilderness of the Amazon jungle. 

As a real page turner, The Shaman in Stilettos is a story about raging passion, mysterious obsession, compelling ritual and abject surrender. How a 29-year-old compromises her love for stilettos, chocolate, cars and a fast-paced job to the slow-paced rhythm of life in the unglamorous jungles of Peru makes for exhilarating reading. In the backdrop of her passionate affair with a charming shaman, the story of Anna Hunt is packed with nuggets of extraordinary wisdom. That anger and tears are just perspectives; neither of them is right nor wrong, is one of the several nuggets. Much of human weakness emerges from the innate fears we all carry within - the fear of the unknown, fear of not being in control, and fear of facing yourself as you really are.         

The shamans neither fear nor are they frightened of dying. They know that they go to the light – to the next level. Through a gripping narrative laced with romantic interludes, Anna unfolds the secret and complex world of the shamans and their mystics. For the shamans, the snake holds the key to the knowledge of the universe. Snake is best expressed in Spanish word ‘serpiente’, ‘Ser’ means ‘human’; ‘pi’ is the basic building block of ‘life’; and ‘ente’ means ‘universe’. No wonder, every shaman has to learn to work with the snake. This and much more, The Shaman in Stilettos is entertaining, engrossing and enlightening story about the ‘making of a shaman in stilettos’....Link 

The Shaman in Stilettos

by Anna Hunt

Penguin Books, UK

454 pages, £ 8.99

Myths and Narratives

Predicament of the present is all about failure of the dominant narratives of our times. Haven't inflated rhetoric of industrial agriculture, depicted as scientific and cutting-edge, been one such 'dominant narrative' that has been hard to criticize? Though the 'narrative' has been positioned around 'feed the world' logic, hunger and malnutrition has only continued to grow as a global problem. Without doubt, it may have served some purpose in feeding the teeming millions but not without destroying the 'alternative narratives' of organic or natural agriculture.

Narratives of industrial agriculture presume human control over and entitlements to the earth’s resources which must change if human societies have to survive and sustain future generations. A Whitney Sanford, a professor of religion at the University of Florida, presents the alternative narrative through the story of Balaram and the Yamuna river. Balaram has an interesting, if not paradoxical, relationship with the Yamuna river. While his forcible diversion of the river demonstrates his power over her, his moral duty to worship the river goddess reflects other aspect of their relationship. Balaram’s multiple obligations to the earth, his family and his subjects has been positioned as a ‘alternate narrative’ through which Sanford asks one of the central questions of this book: how can we balance the human need for agricultural production with the needs of the broader biotic community?

Using the moral tenants of the tale as commentary on contemporary society, Sanford emphasises the need for ‘alternate narrative’ that will help infuse responsible stewardship in agriculture. The trouble with ‘dominant narratives’ is that these are not only hegemonic but also, by virtue of being entrenched in dominant institutional spaces, do not allow alternative narratives to flourish. Myths and stories can dispel such narratives by providing the space through which ecological imagination in search of viable solutions can be expanded.

Insightful and scholarly at the same time, Sanford not only bridges cultural differences in agriculture but also shows how those differences hold the key to future sustainability. It is an important book that calls for paradigm shift in our current understanding on agriculture....Link

Growing Stories from India
by A Whitney Sanford
The University Press of Kentucky, USA
269 pages, US$ 40

Watch who is into the act!

Did you notice that we have plenty of it and yet it keeps coming! Since our attitude towards it is more benign, the television and the internet keeps on serving it endlessly. Without doubt, bullshit has become an essential component of modern culture. Bullshit, according to moral philosopher Harry Frankfurt, is defined as non-sense or some foolish exaggerated talk. Play your memory back by couple of hours or if possible by a few days and you realize how much of it you have voluntarily savored in recent times. 

In the absence of it being clearly defined, we tend to take it for granted although many among us will vouch that 'they have been able to recognize bullshit'. In reality, however, much before its existence gets realized it is already upon us. With philosophical acuity, Frankfurt argues that 'we have no clear understanding of what bullshit is, why there is so much of it, or what functions it serves'. 

From outrageous political debates to dubious cine awards, bullshit is relentlessly served through the day. If this isn't enough, the media-market nexus almost always chooses a glib ignoramus over an expert to further the concept of bullshit. These bullshitters seek to convey a certain impression of themselves without being concerned about whether anything at all is true. By virtue of serving bullshit 24x7,  some of the newspapers and television channels could be respectfully re-named Bullshit Times and Bullshit TV in that order. 

The contemporary proliferation of bullshit may have deeper sources, which not only restrict any reliable access to an objective reality but do reject the possibility of knowing how things truly are. Though most people pretend confidence in their ability to recognize bullshit, they lack collective courage to unmask the bullshitters. No wonder, bullshitters are gaining increased social recognition as a species. Unless, bullshit is put to sustained inquiry it is bound to grow in a society that cares less-and-less about more-and-more. 

Entertaining and outrageous at the same time, this powerful small book makes a big bold statement: bullshit is a greater enemy of the truth than lies are....Link    


On Bullshit 
by Harry G. Frankfurt 
Princeton University Press, Oxford 
63 pages, US$ 9.95.

Contentious Flow

How often has it been said that South Asia is the world’s water scarce region that has continued to squabble over its aquifers and rivers? How frequently have intra-state, inter-state and cross-border contentions been projected as new battleground in the region? And, yet none of the wars thus far in the region has ever been around ‘water’? The crucial question worth exploring from diverse perspectives is: does scarcity lead to conflict or encourages cooperation? While the Indus Treaty has withstood four wars, the Ganges Treaty has remained contentious despite any war being fought over it. But it cannot be said with any certainty that the region will show resilience should the countries fail to resolve their water conflicts.

All said, it will be fair to conclude that this region cannot escape the fact that it is part of the world devoid of any working institutions that can coordinate and integrate choices and that can collectively confront predicaments faced by states and governments – institutions able to sustain any degree of trust between neighboring states. In fact, in their absence, the sub-continent has remained vulnerable to the tyranny of geography.

No wonder, across borders there are joint river commissions to squabble over while provisions of the inter-state dispute redressal mechanism are enough to enrage states over their disputed share of river flows. Inventing new institutional mechanisms that can address the contentions from a regional perspective have been thwarted by the prevailing hydrocracy in the region. Under such a situation, would it not be prudent to draw river basin maps along linguistic lines to trigger a people-to-people engagement on the subject?

Given his background, Brahma Chellaney has viewed the potential water crises from a ‘battleground perspective’ whereas it is the paradox of common cultural lineage amidst mutual political mistrust that needs attention..

Water: Asia’s New Battleground
by Brahma Chellaney
Harper Collins, New Delhi
386 pages, Rs 699

Destructive growth

While growth and pollution swim in unholy alliance along all major rivers in the global south, consumerism triggered climate change is a way of life in the global north. Both are an act of delayed destruction dispersed across time and space that rarely get viewed as some form of ‘violence’ against nature. Violence, argues Rob Nixon, is highly visible act that is newsworthy because it is event focused, time bound and body bound. What often goes unobserved, undiagnosed and therefore untreated is the worst manifestation of violence. Yet, it does not get acknowledged at any level because our cultural moment is in thrall to speed and spectacle, which has the effect of distorting our perception of what counts as violence.

‘My central concern was to find a new way of drawing attention to the long dyings - the staggered and staggeringly discounted casualties, both human and ecological - that are underrepresented in strategic planning and official memory’, says Dixon.Slow Violence and the Environmentalism of the Poor is an innovative and passionate attempt at defining ‘violence’ that is subtle but part of our daily existence. It's a type of violence that is often bloodless and by the time the casualties are incurred, the original fatal actions have sunk into what is often called ‘the lagoon of oblivion.’ In the age of regulatory oversight, the perpetrators of ‘slow violence’ conveniently build forgetfulness into their economic strategy.

Be the dam builders or highway contractors, they invariably know that they won't have to pay. The book aims to help activists put their finger on such violators with the 'language' that can strengthen the widespread struggles against slow violence, struggles that ideally are preemptive but too often are ex post facto. Certainly, one of the most pressing challenges of our age is how to adjust rapidly eroding attention spans to the slow erosions of environmental justice among communities that have the least access to media power.

Written in inspiring prose, the book bridges the fields of eco-criticism and postcolonial studies. Without doubt, 'slow violence' is a phrase that is here to stay and for rightful reasons!....Link

Slow Violence and the Environmentalism of the Poor
by Rob Nixon
Harvard University Press, Massachusetts
353 pages, US$ 40

‘US’ versus `THEM’

When European settlers in America were encroaching upon the land of native Red Indians, the white man had asked the Red Indian King, ‘Does this land belong to you? The response was not only rooted but innocent, ingenious and reflective. The King had replied, ‘No Sir! This land does not belong to me, I belong to this land.’ Since that day, the colonial masters carefully reversed the concept of ownership such that it could be financially transacted.

The Politics of Belonging in the Himalayas is based on a conference proceeding which had drawn anthropologists, political scientists, historian and geographers to piece together many facets of societal formations through recorded history and capture its relevance in the context of changing contours of social and political development in the Himalayas. Organized in three sections, 14 papers in the book are an experience in commonality, connectedness and cohesion.

The concept of ‘belonging' is ephemeral in the present world, ‘economics’ having been the driver of ownership and control. ‘To belong is to be accepted as part of a community, to feel safe within it and to have a stake in the future of such a community of membership’ may have little bearing in real life. Belonging, as a reflection of identity, has long been bargained for material gains. No wonder, rehabilitation and resettlement have replaced the idea of belonging.

Packed with interesting case stories from across the Himalayas, the rich discourse offers interesting insights on addressing emerging conflicts by applying the idea of ‘belongingness’. The authors argue that belonging in many ways is a ‘thicker’ concept than of collective identities. While collective identities are often political in nature, belongingness makes apolitical distinction from the social perspective of inclusion and exclusion.

Without belonging, one suffers alienation and rootlessness. Across the Himalayas, such alienation of communities has been the trigger for social maladies and political conflicts. The Politics of Belonging in the Himalayas is an academic treatise but its messages are subtle and relevant to those who have viewed the ‘mountain crises’ from a ‘deficit development’ perspective alone. There is more to the Himalayas than just marginality, fragility and remoteness....Link

The Politics of Belonging in the Himalayas
by Joanna Pfaff-Czarnecka & Gerrad Toffin (Eds) 
Sage, New Delhi
346 pages, Rs 850

It’s a man’s world!

If the sex selective abortions were to continue, it will indeed be a man’s world in the next two decades. With 121 boys for 100 girls in China and corresponding 112 in India, the number of missing females from the region’s population would soon be a staggering 200 million. It will be an evolutionary chaos where millions of men would be unable to find local wives.

In many parts of the country bride search has indeed become frenetic, providing short-term relief from social ills like dowry. But ‘missing girls’ syndrome is more than temporary, stretching across areas like evolution, gender relations and geopolitics. ‘The implications of ‘surplus males’ have yet to fully fathomed,’ argues writer Maria Hvistendahl.

Unnatural Selection is a work of investigative writing; revealing and engaging. The population hysteria through the 1960s and 70’s had led agencies like the World Bank, the Rockefeller and the Ford Foundation to funnel grants into population control efforts – no less than a conspiracy that sex determination was promoted as an effective method of population control in the process.

It is however another matter that since then sex determination has popped up as a multibillion-dollar industry. In market-driven globalization gender selection has become a commodity for purchase - if you don’t like it, don’t buy it. Through emerging techniques like pre-implantation genetic diagnosis or PGD, parents can literally design ‘babies’ with choicest features.

Maria Hvistendahl raises questions on this disturbing trend of prioritizing the needs of one generation over other. A woman should have the right to terminate a pregnancy, she contends, but should not have the right to shape the individual represented by that pregnancy to her own whims. Surplus males can trigger a period of violence and instability.

Unnatural Selection is a must read book, a classical work on non-fiction story telling format on a subject that is not only compelling but should be morally binding as well....Link

Unnatural Selection
by Maria Hvistendahl
Public Affairs, USA
314 pages, US$ 27

Retail Therapy

Current debate on foreign direct investment in ‘big retail’ is driven by a conviction that large chain retailers boost employment and expand the economy. In growing economies like India, big retail is further tagged to lowering of inflation alongside remunerative prices for farmers by elimination of middlemen. It is one political stone that kills many dissenting birds.

The reality is far in contrast to the tunnel view that politicians and planners hold dear. Multi-brand retailers like Wal-Mart squeeze profit out of local communities and load them with numerous hidden societal costs. It is a colonization of the kind that impinges on local self-reliance and dispersed ownership. In broader sense, big retail undermines democratic self-governance.

Big-Box Swindle is by far the most authentic indictment of big retail. In her incisive analysis, Stacy Mitchell has laid bare hidden dimensions of mega-retail proliferation in the United States. Big-box retailers squeeze the middle-class, fuel suburban sprawl, undercut local businesses and strip citizens of an enriched community life.

Using real-life examples from 49 states, Mitchell contends that mega-retailers are fueling many of America’s most pressing social, environmental and economic problems. Studies reveal that communities, where a larger share of the economy is in the hands of locally owned businesses, have lower rates of crime, poverty and infant mortality.

While taking a well-researched dig at big retail, Mitchell also provides inspiring lessons from places that are turning the tide. ‘Buy Local’ and ‘Break the Chain Habit’ campaigns are encouraging local businesses in several states that, taken together, provide a detailed road map to a brighter, prosperous and sustainable future. Across US, two-hundred big retail projects have been halted by such groups since 2000.

Prodigiously researched and lucidly written, Big Box Swindle is a must read for those who draft public policy. Any policy decision that doesn’t take into account the arguments by Stacy Mitchell is likely to be unconvincing and inconclusive....Link

Big Box Swindle
by Stacy Mitchell
Beacon Press, Boston
318 pages, $15

Mimicry generation

Dead Ringers is somewhat disturbing as it chronicles the life of workforce in the outsourcing industry. This workforce represents globalization enthusiasts who have compromised their names, accents, habit and lifestyle because mimicry is their job requirement. That they are being trained to tell ‘lie’ to their (un)suspecting western clients neither concerns them nor their orthodox parents. What counts is the relatively high wages that they muster by mimicking.

The flipside to the otherwise great story of economic upturn is that global corporations view the outsourcing industry as a low-cost, often low-skill sector. Add poor labour conditions, graveyard shifts and accent neutralization to it and what you seem to get is a workplace that not only mentally stresses its inhabitants but helps them lose their sex drive as well. Behind the high rise world of luminous signage there is dark and dingy world of silent sufferers.

Shehzad Nadeem argues that these high wage earners of the new and emerging India are also subject to what Karl Marx called the ‘dull compulsion of economic relations’. They have bargained for high wages by mortgaging themselves, their freedom being caged to strict discipline and deft surveillance. That the educated middle-class youth are being colonized into hybrid lives is the price the society would need to pay in the long run. No one seems to care!

The promise of outsourcing-led development has seemingly been wildly oversold. Nadeem has drawn a wide canvas wherein the socio-cultural impact of outsourcing has been measured against many downsides of the globalised workforce. Through lively ethnographic detail and subtle analysis of interviews with workers, managers, and employers, Dead Ringers offers evidence-based picture on several hidden but disturbing facets of outsourcing industry.

Dead Ringers is riveting and engaging, peeling layers after layers of what goes on within the glitzy world of outsourcing. Most notable fact being that this industry is dependent upon the temporary condition of the global labour market. Should the demand collapse, the situation of these workers may no longer be as enviable. At the end, outsourcing industry has stressed its workforce by exposing them to ‘political economy of insecurity’....Link

Dead Ringers
by Shahzad Nadeem
Princeton University Press, Princeton
273 pages, US$ 35

Concerns about effects

For anyone struggling to comprehend what climate change might mean to life-support systems and policy arena in the sub-continent, Binayak Ray has a comprehensive and authoritative take on it. Not discounting the ideological underpinning of climate sceptics, mounting scientific evidence has guided the author to position ‘effects’ ahead of the possible ‘causes’. That climate change may add to existing mutual suspicion in enhancing regional vulnerability is stark and clear. The region is on a tipping point.

Water is the centrepiece around which Ray builds his political hypothesis of mistrust and suspicion, reminiscent of the cold war era. Will climate change not aggravate internal squabbles and external hostilities against India? Water poverty, manifest within and across the borders, is the emotional trigger that can fuel a million mutinies. At a 2001 Karachi seminar, an emotionally charged delegate had commented that ‘any conflict over water would see Pakistan using its nuclear weapons’.

Such a scenario may be far-fetched but evidence suggests that regional implications of climate change may have serious consequences. The intertwining of water crises with religious diversity, ethnic fragmentation and politically sensitivity makes climate change too hot an issue to handle in isolation. Without resolving trans-boundary issues around water sharing, the impact of climate change in the region would not be easy to fathom. Cumulative impact of climate change on glacial meltdown, river flow regimes and groundwater overdraft could be catastrophic.

The implications of climate crises on social and regional security in the sub-continent are seemingly profound. No other region might be as vulnerable. Climate Change is aptly timed and well researched, nuanced with policy challenges that lie ahead. Ray has grasped the subject to its last digit, producing an important review that uses scientific evidence to build political argument. This book should not only be an essential reading for policy makers but must engage all those concerned with the peaceful co-existences of countries in the region....Link


Climate Change
by Binayak Ray
Lexington Books, Maryland
234 pages, $45

The business of unending demand

A television producer recently accosted me with an uncomfortable question: Isn’t bottled water a reliable source in water-stressed situations? Loaded as the query was, the answer could well be both ‘yes’ and ‘no’. It is a non-issue for those who can afford to pay for it but for 884 million Indians who lack access to safe water supplies a ‘no’ could only be at the cost of their lives.

It makes a perfect case for a business strategy on water, where demand is pledged much before supplies get ensured. Since water as a resource is available to everyone but owned by none, it does create an economic disincentive for stewardship on one hand by simultaneously opening a business incentive for controlling it on the other.

Corporate control on water is a reality that has percolated in our lives; bottled water being one of its many variants. Curiously, however, corporate strategies on water are often flawed on account of over-exploitation of a natural resource that for all practical purposes is in public domain. The much publicized Coca Cola case has set up tension between the public and private sectors.

William Sarni has produced a virtual who’s who on corporate water, enumerating the potential risks by some of the leading water corporations across the world. Corporate Water Strategies is a call to action for every company to move toward water stewardship and constructively engage all stakeholders in crafting 21st century solutions to sustainably managing water.

Citing the example of Singapore, that has been officially classified as ‘water stressed’, Sarni emphasizes how diversified water sources, water reuse, water pricing and water efficiency have been integrated to develop an enlightened water stewardship for the next century. The driving principle for water stewardship rests on it being considered a ‘local’ resource, whose risks and opportunities must be assessed by corporations within the prevailing conditions. Only then can corporate water strategies be effective in managing our limited resource. In the conflicting world of corporate water control, the book is reassuring of a better future.....Link

Corporate Water Strategies
by William Sarni
Earthscan, London
262 pages, $40

No single Gandhi

Boat ride in the Sundarbans is an exhilarating experience, large canvas on which innumerable canals packed with nature’s amazing creation pour their riches into the sea. The sea returns the favors through backwaters that carry a cache of invaluable gifts for those who depend on it. ‘You have Gandhi to return the favors in time of moral crises, we have none,’ a young Bangadeshi had caught me unaware with his reflective query.

My spontaneous response then echoes in Understanding Gandhi now. Gandhi constitutes the moral capital of humanity, and persons as well as societies all over the world (must) draw strength from his ideas and work especially during crises. Gandhi belonged to an era and not to any nation, he is part of humanity’s collective history and would continue to be so. Close associate

J B Kripalani had wondered if one lifetime was enough to understand Gandhi.
Understanding Gandhi through the minds of those who spent valuable time with the apostle of peace and non-violence only reflects that there is ‘no single Gandhi’. Fred Blum – an academician with a life-long commitment to understanding the socio, economic and spiritual dimensions of non-violence, had conversation with six of Gandhi’s close associates in unfolding Gandhi as they had perceived. The narrative conversation is insightfully enriching.

Kripalani, who taught history, had once questioned Gandhi: ‘No where in history could regimes be toppled through non-violence.’ In his impeccable style, Gandhi had responded: ‘Professor, you teach history but I’m writing history.’

Understanding Gandhi captures that bit of history which can assist readers and researchers in drawing their version of Gandhi. Without doubt, it is a valuable addition to the Gandhi literature.....Link

Understanding Gandhiby Usha Thakkar and Jayshree Mehta
Sage, New Delhi
550 pages, Rs 550

Mother Nature or Father Greed

In challenging the widespread notion that the billions of people in Asia should aspire to an American way of life, Chandran Nair admits that Consumptionomics may not have all the answers to the question the book poses on consumption-led capitalism. Yet, it convincingly argues that Asia cannot have its cake and eat it too!

The prospect of a prosperous Asia is nonetheless exciting; however, it is this part of the world that has the greatest potential to impose stress on our planet if it decides to opt for a consumption-driven model of growth. Sample this: if Asia were to consume as much electricity as Europe – 150 kilowatt hours/ person/ day – it would use nine times energy as America consumes now.

There is no reason why Asians should not attain the living standards of their American counterparts but that can in no way be at the risk of earth’s annihilation! Nair proposes that Asia is perhaps now, given its stage of development and the harsh realities it faces, most suited to freeing capitalism from being the captive it has become of free market fundamentalists and ideologues.

Consumption-driven capitalism has driven countries in the region to a situation wherein people have mobile phones and falling water tables as well as broadband internet and rising level of greenhouse gas emissions. Without question, the growth-obsessed model has delivered short-term wealth to a minority; with a long term misery to all.

Nair calls it the intellectual dishonesty at the heart of the model the West has pedaled to Asia. Such a perception, howsoever incisive, will be contested by business and its cheerleaders. Unless the policymakers and academia rise to the occasion, the radical shift Consumptionomics proposes will be trivialized by the vested interests to defend their short-term agendas.

If that all sounds a bit far-fetched, so be it! Unless Asia chooses local development rather than urbanization, the mother earth will be at the mercy of father greed argues Nair. Overtly provocative, the strength of the book lies in it helping readers ask the ‘right questions’....Link

Consumptionomics
by Chandran Nair
Infinite Ideas, UK
206 pages, US$ 25

Permanence in a transient world

There are still bits of history in Wardha, the district town in Vidharbha, Maharashtra. There is an air of optimism as one strolls across the sleepy streets, sensing a whiff of peace and non-violence as people go about their daily chores. Modernity has yet to take full control on peoples’ life; the creative genius has an environment to flourish here.

Magan Sanghralaya, in the middle of the town, is a repository of non-violent tools and techniques for building an ‘economy of permanence’. It houses what Joseph Cornelius Kumarappa, whom Gandhi called the ‘doctor of village industries’, stood for in giving constructive shape to Gandhi’s revolutionary ideas.

Published over 65 years ago, Economy of Permanence is seemingly more relevant today then during the period it was written. Even as early as in 1945, Kumarappa had given a call to shun the use of non-renewable resources which he proclaimed belonged to a ‘bucket economy’ (where the water gets depleted) and exhorted that we need a ‘river economy’ instead (one that replenishes).

Partly experiential, the non-violent way of life is based on author’s own transformation from a Europeanized lifestyle. In detailing out the inter-related facets of life, lifestyle and livelihoods, Kumarappa builds his thesis on the premise that the life of man is transient in comparison with that of Nature, which is relatively permanent.

In his foreword to Economy of Permanence, Gandhi had observed that ‘it needs careful reading twice or thrice if it is to be fully appreciated’. Kumarappa was clearly ahead of his times, talking of moral values and cooperative banking in the same breath. With equal ease, he could relate standard of living to the idea of democracy as well.

Despite the book been written more than half a century ago, many of Kumarappa’s ideas are still being effectively pursued in and around Wardha. Economy of Permanence is a work of practical philosophy, insightful and inspiring at the same time.....Link

Economy of Permanence
by J C Kumarappa
Magan Sangrahalaya Samiti, Wardha
186 pages, Rs 200

Ignorance may not be bliss

At about the time when the Bhakra Dam was being built in the early 1960’s, a little known political movement was simultaneously gaining ground. Oblivious to the technology of generating power from flowing water, the proponents of the movement argued instead that power extracted from water will render the fluid sterile. Though the argument couldn’t stand the test of time, it did create some ripples in the corridors of power in Punjab.

The time may have changed but our ignorance of technology persists, in fact it has grown with each new gadget hitting the stores. The mobile phones and iPods bear testimony to the growing ignorance; only miniscule users are conversant with the myriad applications these gadgets come loaded with. While access to technology in itself is empowering, alienation from the same may have serious consequences especially when a tool is supposed to offer life saving results.

Alien Technology explores the intriguing levels of technology alienation, which is leading to the creation of a new kind of class system based on technology literacy. The pace with which corporations are rolling out new gadgets, a sense of inadequacy grips those who lack the ability to get a better sense of the technology. A vast majority may survive technological alienation and it indeed does but at the cost of being socially tagged as ‘less intelligent’.

Has technological sophistication made humans lesser intelligent? It indeed has, as child-like instinct of playing with new equipments using simply a screw driver is no longer possible. No wonder, our incessant obsession of technology has grown alongside our persistent ignorance of it. Using real-life examples, author Ananda Mitra engages the readers on a subject that has yet to catch the imagination of a vast majority, for whom ignorance is bliss.

Written in lucid language, Alien Technology is a timely introduction to a subject that has far reaching social and psychological implications. Ignorance and alienation can work against the masses in a variety of ways. Aren’t there computer users who still use predictable passwords, readily download any application or share details online, holding themselves vulnerable to computer hackers?....Link

Alien Technology
by Anand Mitra
Sage, New Delhi
224 pages, Rs 295