I am Exposed...Heeehhehe- Don't see(X-Rated)
Some of the Excerpts from Arundhati Roy' Aug 22, 2005 Interveiw. This exposes our democracy very well.
My commets
* You can compare the situation mentioned in Orissa with Thamirabarani. Yet the situation in thamirabarani didn't went to that extent. But it will go when people struggling relentlessly.
* You can compare the situation mentioned in Orissa with Thamirabarani. Yet the situation in thamirabarani didn't went to that extent. But it will go when people struggling relentlessly.
* Please keep in mind the things mentioned about Rural unrest and Internal Diaspora of rural people to cities. There is going to be an article about these things soon. This is one of very very very important scenario that needs elaborate investigation. So keep this in mind.
* People very often use to ask me unbelievably everytime after I explain them the nexus of our political system and Imperialism. The question is "why our politicians are doing things that is not good for the country?"
For them the informations about P.chidambaram and other politicians given in this piece of article is the answer.
Those who want the full version.
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Excerpts from Interveiw:
Right now, for example, there’s a lot in the news about the scandalous Enron contract being "re-negotiated" for the third time—the contract that resulted in MSEB having to pay Enron millions of dollars not to produce electricity. The renegotiation is all very secret (like the initial Enron negotiation). The nodal ministry involved in the re-re-negotiation is the finance ministry headed by P. Chidambaram who, until the day he became finance minister, was Enron’s lawyer. The other members on the committee are Montek Ahluwalia and Sharad Pawar—the two who were instrumental in signing the disastrous contract in the first place. It’s like asking an accused in a criminal case to investigate the crimes he’s been accused of.
What did you make of the PM’s Oxford address?
Timing is everything, it was an unambiguous political statement. Right now, Western powers and several right-wing academics, like the historian Niall Ferguson, have embarked on a project of valorising Imperialism. This is the argument they use to justify the invasion and occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan and all the ones still to come. At this point in history, for the Indian PM to publicly and officially declare himself an apologist for the British Empire is pretty devastating. After a few cautious caveats in his speech, Manmohan Singh thanked British Imperialism for everything India is today. Ironically, at the top of his list was all the machinery of repression put in place by a colonial regime—the bureaucracy, the judiciary, the police, Rule of Law. He then went on to express gratitude for the gift of the English language—the language that separates India’s elite from its fellow countrymen and binds its imagination to the western world. Macaulay couldn’t have asked for a more dedicated disciple. The only people who might have a valid reason to view the British Empire with less anger than the rest of us are Dalits. Since to the white man all of us were just natives, Dalits were not especially singled out for the bestial treatment meted out to them by caste Hindus. But somehow, I can’t imagine Manmohan Singh bringing a Dalit perspective to colonialism while receiving an honorary PhD in Oxford.
What does it mean to be independent today? Has Independence Day become a mere annual ritual?
As corporatisation and privatisation proceed APACE and more and more people are rendered jobless, homeless, and have no access to natural resources, anger and unrest will build. The central function of the State will increasingly be to oversee the repression of an unemployed, dispossessed population on behalf of the corporates. The State will have to evolve into an elaborate tyranny which retains all the rhetoric of democracy. Look at what’s happening in Orissa—the new crucible of corporate globalisation. Multinational mining companies—Sterlite, Vedanta, Alcan—are devastating Orissa’s hills and forests for bauxite. They say Kashmir is like Palestine. True. But Orissa is getting there too. Orissa is a police state now. For some years now, there has been a resilient, feisty, anti-mining movement in Kashipur. You ask what independence means to most Indians—visit Kuchaipadar, the extraordinary little Adivasi village at the heart of the Kashipur struggle, and you will have your answer. Kuchaipadar is surrounded by police. People cannot move from one village to the next. Cannot hold meetings, rallies or protests. Over the last two years, they have been shot, beaten, lathicharged, jailed and several have been killed. Last year, on Independence Day, Kuchaipadar’s villagers hoisted a black flag. That’s what independence means to them.
Oh, and who’s on the board of directors of Vedanta, one of the biggest mining companies prospecting in Orissa? P. Chidambaram, who resigned on the day he was appointed FM; David Gore-Booth, former UK high commissioner in India; Naresh Chandra, former cabinet secretary and ex-Indian ambassador to the US, and former chairman of the Foreign Investment Promotion Bureau. It’s a bedroom farce with blood on the tracks.
State repression, religious fundamentalism and corporate globalisation seem interconnected. But hasn’t resistance to this nexus become symbolic, tokenist, NGO-ised and even a career for some professionals, including some would say for you?
It’s true. Sometimes NGOs wreck real political resistance more effectively than outright repression does. And yes, it could be argued that I’m yet another commodity on the shelves of the Empire’s supermarket, along with Chinese cabbages and freeze-dried prawns. Buy Roy, get two human rights free! But between the NGOs and Al Qaeda—frankly, I’m with the many millions who are looking for the Third Way.
State repression, religious fundamentalism and corporate globalisation seem interconnected. But hasn’t resistance to this nexus become symbolic, tokenist, NGO-ised and even a career for some professionals, including some would say for you?
It’s true. Sometimes NGOs wreck real political resistance more effectively than outright repression does. And yes, it could be argued that I’m yet another commodity on the shelves of the Empire’s supermarket, along with Chinese cabbages and freeze-dried prawns. Buy Roy, get two human rights free! But between the NGOs and Al Qaeda—frankly, I’m with the many millions who are looking for the Third Way.
