Beijing Consensus

The days of 'Washington Consensus' are seemingly over, as the world drifts towards what is now being called the 'Beijing Consensus'. China's trade with the world had touched an all time high of US $2.97 trillion in 2010; between 2005 and 2012 Chinese companies invested US$ 460 billion across the globe; and China is biggest global lender (ahead of the World Bank) with a credit portfolio of US$110 billion. All of this occurred when the western world was reeling under severe economic recession.

So overwhelmed it is with a likely world leadership status that Beijing didn't think twice before refusing White House offer of creating a G-2, a Washington-Beijing axis to take the lead in world affairs. To unveil this somewhat mysterious spread of Chinese influence across the world, two-China based journalists flew across 235,000 kilometers; travelled 15,000 kilometers on dangerous roads; and crossed eleven land borders to bring the chilling and largely unknown reality of globalization. From Myanmar to Sudan and from Kazakhstan to Venezuela, around 35 million citizens of Chinese ethnicity have fanned across the world to not only make a future for them but keep the Chinese economy in perpetual motion.

For it to maintain social stability, China needs to achieve at least 8 per cent annual growth, and therefore a constant supply of raw materials is needed to keep the 'factory of the world' and its 'rapid urbanization' from stagnating. With the help of its silent army of millions spread across the globe, the authors reveal, the Chinese development juggernaut is ruthlessly violating political, economic and environment norms in the countries where it is making huge investments for appropriating raw materials of all kind. With a troubled track record in human rights violation, the emerging world order under China sends shivers down the spine. Behind the glitzy world of economic growth is the Chinese model of growth masked by secrecy and censorship.

Not only is it a work of immense courage, China's Silent Army is an amazing book that brings out the disturbing side of China’s growing global influence. A must read book!....Link

China's Silent Army 
by Juan Pablo Cardenal & Heriberto Araujo 
Allen Lane, UK
349 pages, £25.

The Inside Story

Could a toilet cast a shadow on the quality of a democracy? One may wish to flush it away as irrelevant; but improvement in sanitation and consequent reduction in parasite stress has helped in building democratic societies with liberal values. Researchers have gone further to assert that countries with high levels of parasite-borne diseases were much less likely than others to have a robust democracy, individual freedom, equitable distribution of economic resources and gender equality. It might seem an unsavoury and puerile topic but development of human behaviour has lot to do with the practice of excretion.

A Professor of Psychology at the University of Melbourne, Nick Haslam kicks down the bathroom door to unravel a wide range of behaviors that are linked to excretory function. ‘Our intestines are not just meaty drainpipes through which our waste flows. They are emotional organs whose nerves communicate with the brain and respond to what it thinks, desires and perceives.’ In many ways, our personalities are manifest in our excretory habits.

The toilet is a space that is private but shared, anonymous but intimate, and linked in the mind to our bodies, our gender and our sexuality. Examining the psychological dimensions of all that is walled off from public gaze, from constipation to diarrhoea and from incontinence to toilet graffiti, Haslam provides cutting-edge research on the science of elimination. Without doubt, the bowel is an irritable organ that influences the brain in fascinating ways.

Bathroom have also been seen as natural laboratories for studying gender difference in ways of thinking, preoccupations, language use and communication styles. Loaded with earthy humour and clinical research, Psychology in the Bathroom opens a compelling window to the human psyche from hitherto unexplored perspectives. The topics covered in this amazing book are both intriguing and amusing. It uncovers ‘the irritable bowel’; has sympathy for ‘the nervous bladder’; considers ‘flatulence’ as a source of amusement; and views ‘latrinalia’ as a work of art.

Rarely have such diverse aspects of our private lives been documented and brought into public domain. Nick Haslam’s wonderful work deserves to be read widely....Link

Psychology in the Bathroom
by Nick Haslam
Palgrave MacMillan, UK
174 pages, £47.50

With apologies to Valmiki

The story is familiar but the script is fresh, brought forward to the age of sprawling malls and expanding metros. Breathing new life into the epic, Samhita Arni has recast the characters of Ramayana entangled in today’s world. Packed with political overtures, it smells of dynastic politics, democracy conundrum, gender disparity and rising inequality. Life is not as clean and simple in modern-day Ayodhya.

The mythological retelling of Ramayana is stylishly written, exploring the human side of its incarnated characters. Not only do masses get to hear their revered king live on television, journalists raise discomforting questions to the simian military chief at the press conference. As the powers-that-be shrug to hide the truth, people question the mysterious disappearance of their queen.

Gripping till the end, it is a narrative that has sub-stories which have rarely been told. The Missing Queen pieces together the untold stories of the wounded whose sacrifices and sufferings go unnoticed in the creation of a glorious nation-state. Sugriva’s political ambition, Angad’s embedded frustration and Surpanakha’s raging anger seem as much part of the story now as it might have been when the epic was first written.

War, in many ways, is merciful to men,’ writes Arni. ‘It makes them heroes if they are the victors. If they are the vanquished - they do not live to see their homes taken, their wives widowed’. While the brutal war was fought around Sita, she was sacrificed for the sake of the empire. Wasn’t Sita the price that Ram has, unwittingly, paid to rule an empire? The Missing Queen speculates many such questions in weaving a thrilling story.

Credit goes to Valmiki for not only creating timeless characters but carefully editing the script for any controversies. Those who read between the lines rewrote their versions of the epic, bringing objectivity to the one-sided narrative. No wonder, we have three hundred versions of Ramayana. The strength of the epic and its characters lie in them being relevant even today, provoking us to use the backdrop of the script to raise uncomfortable questions to the powers that be. The fact that we can feel the characters of the epic in our lives is a tribute to the imagination of the writer.

Having written her first book, The Mahabharatha: A Child’s View, at the age of eight, mythological retelling seems to be flowing in Samhita Arni’s pen. Many of the questions she has sought to explore in the book have crossed many a minds. Yet, there are many sub-stories yet to be told. Urmila’s version of Ramayana surely tops the list, her anonymous existence during those fourteen years when her husband was away. And who will not want to read the supreme sacrifice of Vibhishana, whose character has been conveniently underplayed in the creation of the empire. Clearly, there is more to the epic than what has been told and re-told down the centuries. Revisiting the epic brings in fresh insights, a process that reinforces faith of the reader and the believer in the characters....Link

The Missing Queen

by Samhita Arni

Viking, New Delhi

192 pages, Rs 399

Invoking the past master

Invoking the greatest teacher and classical thinker to provide the ideological underpinnings for ‘a manifesto for change’ reflects deep concern of the author to remain optimist when bad policy and inept governance has reduced the democratic structure into an arena for political maneuvering by the corrupt and their henchmen.

Chanakya may have lived through similar times 2,300 years ago to devise unparalleled administrative strategy to overthrow one king, crown the deserving and pave the way for establishing one of the greatest empires in the east. Pavan Varma doesn’t harbor any such intentions and restricts his insightful narrative to articulate a new vision of governance with the innate hope that the country, with its rich past, can reinvent itself yet again. ‘Chanakya's New Manifesto: To Resolve Crisis Within India’ is both prescriptive and suggestive with an actionable agenda to streamline governance, hone the democracy apparatus to make it more inclusive, purge corruption and install foolproof security – five pillars that have been weakened to the core.

Though Pavan Varma has been nowhere close to the 6,000 shlokas and sutras that Chanakya could dish out in Arthashashtra, his painstaking call for action is nevertheless insightful and visionary. The solutions he proposes are substantive, achievable within the existing constitutional framework. Having been part of the bureaucracy for over a quarter of a century, Varma is both practical and pragmatic in prescribing a role for every one of us in forcing the government to act.

Former diplomat, accomplished writer and now budding politician Pavan Varma provokes the reader to question the pathetic quality of life a vast majority is leading in the country today. Can change be postponed or avoided? To expect that the government will act on its own could be one of the greatest dreams because governments rarely act of their own volition. Manifest within ‘Chanakya’s New Manifesto’ are ideas of engagement for people from all walks of life.

Though the author proclaims that the book is meant for discerning youngsters - aged between 15 and 35 – the first and foremost challenge would be to make them read the ambitious manifesto in the first place. It has right intent but converting intent into action could be daunting. Varma doesn’t resist saying that unless there is unflinching resolve, conviction and courage, the idea of ‘New India’ may remain an idea only.

Pavan Varma’s reform agenda is comprehensive but readable only in parts. It may appeal to those who have already propelled themselves to make a real tryst with destiny. However, it is indeed an opportunity for the author, who has now plunged himself into active public life, to take the ‘manifesto’ to the people. No less ambitious but ‘Chanakya’s New Manifesto’ could well be the modern-day Arthashastra for transforming what most of us consider a ‘given’ situation....Link

Chanakya’s New Manifesto
by Pavan K. Varma
Aleph, New Delhi
248 pages, Rs 295

Will ripples turn the tide?

Experience has shown that fatigue of the mundane always takes fancy to creative ideas, howsoever small. Many such innovative ventures, be it an experimental school or a community bank, are conveniently put into 'game changing' category, with the hope that the world would be a better place should these get scaled up. It is another matter that the world is fast sinking into social, economic and political abyss, lacking moral and ethical courage to pull itself out of it. Will ripples caused by small initiatives turn the wave of destruction away? Moving from the corporate sector into the world of social entrepreneurs, Beverly Schwartz could only have been overwhelmed by it after meeting eighteen diverse social entrepreneurs from across the globe.

Combined with the depth of observations and analysis, Schwartz makes a compelling case for the need to build a supportive ecosystem for the system-changing ideas to bring about 'big picture' change. It means that the reach of small-scale innovation can only be expanded provided political and institutional capacities are conducive. Given the complex world we all live in, rarely does ecosystem allow fresh ideas to flourish. The odds are always stacked against 'change maker'.

At times, social entrepreneurs have been criticized for not acknowledging people as the drivers of change but for insisting upon ‘change’ to drive communities instead. The latter approach undermines local wisdom and traditional institutions at the cost of external intervention. Unless communities absorb the change, the change is unlikely to last long. It is here that social entrepreneurs have often got it wrong: far from being the catalysts of change they insist on themselves being the 'change'.

Despite being part of the Ashoka's global marketing team, Schwartz has tried to remain objective in her analysis. Predictably, she picked up successful social entrepreneurs whose ideas could withstand the test of success in the market. That successful social innovation must fit within the prevailing market structure is somewhat contentious. Far from being cure-all, markets have remained at the root of most ills affecting the society today. Unless social entrepreneurs succeed in creating ‘another world’, the ripples are quite unlikely to turn the tide....Link

Rippling 
by Beverly Schwartz
Jossey-Bass, John Wiley Imprint, USA
269 pages, US $ 27.95

Designed to last!

Rarely do present-day designs last - be it of a refrigerator, a washing machine, a laptop or a smart phone. Conversely, present-day designs are designed (not to last) to propel a consumptive pattern that is conducive for economic growth. In a world obsessed with ‘growth’, designers have been working overtime to churn out designs that can spurn profits, expand markets, reduce costs and increase sales. The relative cheapness of new designs entice a large population to fit into the clinical definition of ‘compulsive shopper’, oblivious of the fact that the lower prices do not include human and environmental costs.

Ann Thorpe, well known design strategist, provides intriguing insights to help the world transit from consumer-driven economic growth on to the path of sustainable consumption. Though she considers this book to be a 'work in progress', in reality it offers a contextualized toolkit for new generation of designers to research into the viability of ‘steady state’ economy.

'Our societal narratives about consumption need to change, argues Thorpe. Her book is loaded with interesting design innovations aimed at cutting down consumptive patterns in the developed world by a factor of 3-5, crucial to attain relative climate stability. Given the challenges of unsustainable economic growth, designers need to encounter the constraints of the real in search for scalable but sustainable solutions to practical problems. The idea of a ‘steady state economy’ may seem somewhat unreal but recent social activism across the world has prompted designers to play a role in weaving the status of well-being into experiences of daily life.

Thorpe cites working examples to prove that designers can indeed help slow the pace of consumerism by devising goods and spaces that offer alternative societal narratives about ownership and sharing. From barge-mountain floating swimming pool to lunar-resonant street light and from adaptive public reuse projects to parking-cum-temporary playground, there are range of design options that can not only confront economic growth but can build and strengthen social infrastructure for collective sharing and use. It is a book of the future, surely a 'brain-opener'....Link

Architecture & Design versus Consumerism
by Ann Thorpe
Earthscan, UK
242 pages, $39.95

Triumph of the Will

Guru Dutt not only viewed his life through camera but had perhaps scripted his end under arc lights too. The work and philosophy of enigmatic master craftsman of all times has been brought to life by Arun Khopkar in his scholarly work Guru Dutt: A Tragedy in Three Acts. The short but immensely reflective essays on three of his best films - Pyassa, Kagaz Ke Phool and Sahib, Bibi aur Gulam - cast light on this vastly talented writer, director and actor.   

Guru Dutt was an eternal romantic who, in his constant search for change feared 'success'. For him, success was the receipt for the sale of one's soul. The ultimate expression of self, Guru Dutt felt was to save oneself from the contagion of a rotten society. Else, one would need to compromise and embrace success. In Kagaz Ke Phool, the character in Suresh Sinha demonstrates what it meant not to compromise, even at the cost of destroying oneself. 

The conflict between man and society has engaged art in all forms through the ages. The films under reference bring the might, size and numbers of this faceless society, which crushes man, to light. The beetle crushed underfoot in Pyassa symbolizes this conflicting relationship between man and society. The artist in Guru Dutt used symbols to evoke a diversity of reflections of a situation, because he felt that a symbol could be suggestive of several shades of meanings, experiences and feelings. 

Without doubt, Guru Dutt was ahead of his time in content, style and technique. Using light and shade, Guru Dutt captured some of the finest images of loneliness on screen. Each image evokes multitudes of reflections, producing a set of imagined characters. Arun Khopkar details out how Guru Dutt uses the image of Christ, crucified, in many forms and on many levels in Pyassa. The character in Vijay is none other than the resurrected Christ, who presents himself at the function held to mark his first death anniversary.  

Guru Dutt went beyond the box office of success; the genius in him was in search for understanding each layer of the society as we (may) have known it. The characters that he created on the screen were from real life that would reject the idea that 'every man has a price' and instead project the 'value of individual existence’. Through such powerful images, Guru Dutt not only sharpens our sensibilities but leaves indelible mark on viewers' psyche. 

One cannot get to the depth of Guru Dutt's rich exposition of cinematic skills without reading Arun Khopkar's layered portrait of the troubled genius. I have considered Guru Dutt to be a mystic, a maverick filmmaker for whom art was more than just a thing of beauty. Far from it, as the book shows, Guru Dutt combined intricacies of the medium to bring his deep humanism and compassion for life on screen. Guru Dutt created a parallel reality through his films. 

It was a chance that I picked up 'Guru Dutt – A Tragedy in Three Acts'. It is a sheer delight to read Arun Khopkar's rich analysis of the genius and his work - raw and brilliant....Link 


Guru Dutt: A Tragedy in Three Acts
by Arun Khopkar
Penguin Books, India
153 pages, Rs 250

Easy to print, hard to deliver

Paper money has not been able to deliver on its promise. Ever since its link to gold was severed in 1971, paper money has been created at will or decree. It is therefore a claim on someone else, whether a bank or a government. Modern money is debt and debt is money. From unsuspecting individuals to national governments and from financial institutions to commercial banks, everyone seems to be under severe debt. While our parents still consider holding debt akin to sin, for individuals and governments it is a basic fact of modern life. Simply put, spending more than what has been earned is more of a norm than exception. 

How long will this trend continue? Philip Coggan argues that economic history has been a never-ending battle between borrowers and lenders. Ironically, it is the borrowers who have always won out in the end. Indeed that is the case as total global debt, held by governments, corporations and individuals has reached a whopping $190 trillion at the end of 2010 – more than 3.5 times the size of the total global economy. The trouble is, proposed solution to the issue of debt comes with side effects: devalued currency, trade barriers, and the risk of countries being reduced to a barter economy.  No surprise, therefore, that leading banks and governments are back to building ‘gold’ reserve as an asset to fall back upon. Seems the world is returning to its reliance on gold. Will it glitter yet again may turn out to be one of the greatest riddles of the 21st century!

One may not be a student of economics to read Philip Coggan’s illuminating account of the history of financial crises. There is nothing about money that cannot be understood by the person of reasonable curiosity, diligence and intelligence. Largest creditors have set the rules of the global economic game in the past. If it was Britain and the USA in the past, speculation is rife that it may well be China designing the new monetary system in near future. Spread over thirteen chapters, the book provides comprehensive understanding on money, its rapidly changing nature and the bubble economy it nurtures. 

Paper Promises is informative, thought-provoking and engaging. This is one book that deserves to be read because we are all victim of the financial system of which we are an integral part but seem to know woefully little about it....Link 

Paper Promises: Money, Debt and the New World Order 

by Philip Coggan 

Penguin Books, UK

302 pages, UK£ 10

Overcoming fear of living in fear

Every religion advocates ‘tolerance’ and yet religious intolerance has been on the rise. The undercurrent of religious intolerance is seemingly so strong to even challenge the prevailing religious symbols and practices. Banning of burqa in France, Belgium and Italy; regulation on headscarf in Germany, Holland and Spain; and restriction on constructing minarets with mosques in Switzerland are indicative of the manner in which islamophobia has gripped the world post 9/11. At times there might be real security issues but the fact that people have started fearing those who dress differently or who look strangers is something worth worrying about.

Martha C Nussbaum who is Professor of Law and Ethics at the University of Chicago argues the culture of fear threatens the constitutional and ethical foundations of liberal democracy. Fear is also somewhat of a political construct, targeting Muslims as its scapegoat. In reality, they have become scapegoats for people's economic insecurities. Failure of education to acquaint children with the world’s major religions at an early age has added to the prevailing anxiety.

Our current climate of fear shows that people are all too easily turned away from good values in a time of crises and invariably target minorities. Christians will not target Christians even while knowing that one amongst them murdered 76 in Norway, because they only have fantasies about Muslims being dangerous. Nusssbaum is convinced that countries most threatened by the economic crisis will see the most alarming growth of intolerant politics towards minorities.

Part philosophical and part persuasive The New Religious Intolerance advocates tackling the root cause of religious hatred through compassion and imagination. How often has this been said without tangible shift in the politics of hatred? That entire Europe has become less tolerant of religious heterogeneity may have strong bearing on the deep economic crises it is currently passing through. But will economic security alone lead to religious tolerance is a matter of deep conjecture? Whether dissociating politics from religion help us rise above the politics of fear?  Without doubt there are forces that see power in sustaining fear amongst communities, not allowing the fear of living in fear disappear from our lives!...Link

The New Religious Intolerance
by Martha C Nussbaum
Belknap/Harvard University Press, London
285 pages, US $ 26.95

Unquiet flows the Bagmati

The resolute perseverance with which Dinesh Kumar Mishra has chronicled major rivers, flowing through the flood plains of Bihar, during past three decades makes one realise if this civil engineer could have been anything but a ‘river biographer’. Meticulous with details, ranging from mythology to hydrology, the narrative weaves people as victims of hydrological madness. Multiple voices and divergent perspectives only testify what Voltaire had long said: ‘The progress of river to the ocean is not as rapid as that of man to error.’ The story of Bagmati is no different!

While the river has preserved its status of a free-flowing drain in Nepal, caging it between embankments has forced the river to roar occasionally in Bihar. Largely unnoticed, the embankments have breached no less than 58 times over last 35 years. Notable aspect of this rather familiar story across major river basins in the sub-continent is that ‘neither have lessons been learnt nor are there any intentions.’ Not surprising, therefore, that the narrative reflects author’s pain and anguish in equal measures.

Mishra’s relentless documentation on rivers may not have gone unnoticed but it has not been able to capture popular imagination as yet. Bereft of detailed prescription, the diagnostic narrative has seemingly remained restricted to researchers and academics. Being critical of structural development along river course and the consequences thereof, his books have remained on the periphery of political discourse on flood plain management. Like his previous biographies, River Bagmati may not be a game changer yet but has essential elements to challenge history.

One may well argue that the world is not at the tipping point for a change in managing our rivers yet. Should that be so, these river biographies have surely been written ahead of their times. However, the time is not far for the ‘business-as-usual’ scenario of (mis)managing the rivers to transform. It is then that wise, witty, patient, persistent and persuasive anthology by Dinesh Kumar Mishra will merit serious consideration....Link

River Bagmati: Bounties Become A Curse
by Dinesh Kumar Mishra 
PSI/SANDRP, Dehradun/Delhi
208 pages, Rs.595

Story of half-truths and self-serving myths

Were it not for over-hyped half-truths, micro-credit would have pulled Sufiya Begum out of poverty. The very first client of Grameen Bank died in abject poverty in 1998 after all her income-generating projects came to nothing. If accumulated evidence from Bangladesh to Bolivia and from Cambodia to Mexico are anything to go by, micro-finance has proved nothing but a powerful ‘poverty trap’. Contrary to commonly held belief that it can pull people out of poverty, micro-finance has instead been a major contributory factor in the destruction of the positive economic and social development trajectories.

Milford Bateman wonders if the net impact of micro-finance could have been any different as it is now clear that a few individual ‘success stories’ were carefully promoted to give the world an impression that much progress in fighting poverty has been achieved. In reality, it has been a politically suspect model of poverty alleviation that the international development community sought to legitimize and perpetuate across the poverty-ridden developing world.

Backed by few ‘success stories’, the popular narrative on microfinance focused on its successful operational aspects, such as achieving high repayment rates, increasing the number of clients and expanding the volume of microfinance disbursed. It was automatically assumed that since the model was operationally sustainable it would have led to poverty reduction. Subsumed under this euphoria were stories of debt-ridden clients, many of whom ended up taking their own lives.

Spread over eight chapters, the book explores the depth and dimensions of micro-finance in exposing the ‘business of fighting poverty’. Through provocative reasoning, Bateman argues why micro-finance is not the solution to poverty and underdevelopment that we were originally led to believe it would be. In fact, it is an ‘anti-development policy’ that has outlived its social relevance. Why doesn’t microfinance work forcefully argues that the role of micro-finance in development policy should be urgently reconsidered?

It is a readable critique on micro-finance that should not be read by those who are overwhelmed by the myths attached to micro-finance....Link

Why Doesn’t Microfinance Work? 
by Milford Bateman
Zed Books, UK
262 pages, US$ 35.

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