tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-376689692024-03-14T10:44:52.211-07:00Some Good articles...Sandip K. Dasvermahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03288589903537297131noreply@blogger.comBlogger859125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37668969.post-30780315624283377662013-07-12T12:32:00.001-07:002013-07-12T12:32:42.544-07:00When expedience trumps expertise - The Hindu<a href="http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/lead/when-expedience-trumps-expertise/article4902463.ece#.UeAQH-ulH2J.gmail">When expedience trumps expertise - The Hindu</a>: <br />
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<div class="detail-info" style="background-color: white; border-bottom-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); border-bottom-style: solid; border-width: 0px 0px 1px; color: #7f7f7f; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 18px; line-height: 18px; margin: 0px 0px 14px; outline: none; padding: 0px 0px 2px; position: relative; z-index: 5;"><div class="article-links" style="border: 0px; bottom: -1px; font-size: 12px; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px; position: absolute; right: 0px; text-align: right; text-transform: uppercase; width: 280px; z-index: 10;"><a href="http://www.blogger.com/blog-this.do?zx=18apz9bs24q3z" id="click" style="color: #1f57a5; outline: none;">SHARE</a> · <a href="http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/lead/when-expedience-trumps-expertise/article4902463.ece#comments" style="color: #1f57a5; outline: none; text-decoration: none;" title="Comment">COMMENT</a> <span class="countcomment" style="color: #1f57a5; outline: none;">(23)</span> · <a href="http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/lead/when-expedience-trumps-expertise/article4902463.ece?css=print" style="color: #1f57a5; outline: none; text-decoration: none;" title="Print">PRINT</a> · <a href="http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/lead/when-expedience-trumps-expertise/article4902463.ece#" id="inc" style="color: #1f57a5; outline: none; text-decoration: none;" title="Change Text Size">T+</a> </div></div><div id="article-block-vertical" style="background-color: white; border-top-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); border-top-style: solid; border-width: 1px 0px 0px; color: #3b3a39; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px; margin: -12px 0px 5px; outline: none; padding: 0px; position: relative;"><div class="article-text" style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px; position: relative;"><div class="text-embed" style="border: 0px; clear: both; float: left; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 15px 15px 5px 0px; position: relative; width: 318px; z-index: 1;"><img alt="" class="main-image" src="http://www.thehindu.com/multimedia/dynamic/01514/Lead_picture_1514201e.jpg" style="border: 1px solid rgb(235, 235, 235); margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 2px; vertical-align: bottom;" title="" /><br />
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font-size: 12px; font-weight: bold; margin: 0px 0px 3px; outline: none; padding: 0px 0px 3px; position: relative;">TOPICS</div><h3 class="cat" style="border: 0px; color: #373535; font-size: 13px; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 8px; outline: none; padding: 0px; text-transform: uppercase;"><a class="bold" href="http://www.thehindu.com/topics/?categoryId=81" style="color: #1f57a5; display: block; font-size: 12px; font-weight: bold; line-height: 15px; margin-bottom: 6px; margin-top: -2px; outline: none; text-decoration: none; text-transform: none;">India</a></h3><h3 class="cat" style="border: 0px; color: #373535; font-size: 13px; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 8px; outline: none; padding: 0px; text-transform: uppercase;"><a href="http://www.thehindu.com/topics/?categoryId=228" style="color: #1f57a5; display: block; font-size: 12px; line-height: 15px; margin-bottom: 6px; margin-top: -2px; outline: none; text-decoration: none; text-transform: none;">Uttarakhand</a></h3><br style="outline: none;" /> <h3 class="cat" style="border: 0px; color: #373535; font-size: 13px; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 8px; outline: none; padding: 0px; text-transform: uppercase;"><a class="bold" href="http://www.thehindu.com/topics/?categoryId=651" style="color: #1f57a5; display: block; font-size: 12px; font-weight: bold; line-height: 15px; margin-bottom: 6px; margin-top: -2px; outline: none; text-decoration: none; text-transform: none;">disaster and accident</a></h3><h3 class="cat" style="border: 0px; color: #373535; font-size: 13px; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 8px; outline: none; padding: 0px; text-transform: uppercase;"><a href="http://www.thehindu.com/topics/?categoryId=655" style="color: #1f57a5; display: block; font-size: 12px; line-height: 15px; margin-bottom: 6px; margin-top: -2px; outline: none; text-decoration: none; text-transform: none;">disaster management</a></h3><br style="outline: none;" /> <h3 class="cat" style="border: 0px; color: #373535; font-size: 13px; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 8px; outline: none; padding: 0px; text-transform: uppercase;"><a href="http://www.thehindu.com/topics/?categoryId=675" style="color: #1f57a5; display: block; font-size: 12px; line-height: 15px; margin-bottom: 6px; margin-top: -2px; outline: none; text-decoration: none; text-transform: none;">relief and aid organisation</a></h3><br style="outline: none;" /> <h3 class="cat" style="border: 0px; color: #373535; font-size: 13px; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 8px; outline: none; padding: 0px; text-transform: uppercase;"><a class="bold" href="http://www.thehindu.com/topics/?categoryId=993" style="color: #1f57a5; display: block; font-size: 12px; font-weight: bold; line-height: 15px; margin-bottom: 6px; margin-top: -2px; outline: none; text-decoration: none; text-transform: none;">environmental issues</a></h3><h3 class="cat" style="border: 0px; color: #373535; font-size: 13px; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 8px; outline: none; padding: 0px; text-transform: uppercase;"><a href="http://www.thehindu.com/topics/?categoryId=1015" style="color: #1f57a5; display: block; font-size: 12px; line-height: 15px; margin-bottom: 6px; margin-top: -2px; outline: none; text-decoration: none; text-transform: none;">environmental cleanup</a></h3><br style="outline: none;" /> <h3 class="cat" style="border: 0px; color: #373535; font-size: 13px; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 8px; outline: none; padding: 0px; text-transform: uppercase;"><a href="http://www.thehindu.com/topics/?categoryId=1019" style="color: #1f57a5; display: block; font-size: 12px; line-height: 15px; margin-bottom: 6px; margin-top: -2px; outline: none; text-decoration: none; text-transform: none;">environmental politics</a></h3><br style="outline: none;" /> <h3 class="cat" style="border: 0px; color: #373535; font-size: 13px; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 8px; outline: none; padding: 0px; text-transform: uppercase;"><a href="http://www.thehindu.com/topics/?categoryId=1022" style="color: #1f57a5; display: block; font-size: 12px; line-height: 15px; margin-bottom: 6px; margin-top: -2px; outline: none; text-decoration: none; text-transform: none;">environmental pollution</a></h3><br style="outline: none;" /> <h3 class="cat" style="border: 0px; color: #373535; font-size: 13px; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 8px; outline: none; padding: 0px; text-transform: uppercase;"><a class="bold" href="http://www.thehindu.com/topics/?categoryId=663" style="color: #1f57a5; display: block; font-size: 12px; font-weight: bold; line-height: 15px; margin-bottom: 6px; margin-top: -2px; outline: none; text-decoration: none; text-transform: none;">natural disasters</a></h3><h3 class="cat" style="border: 0px; color: #373535; font-size: 13px; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 8px; outline: none; padding: 0px; text-transform: uppercase;"><a href="http://www.thehindu.com/topics/?categoryId=669" style="color: #1f57a5; display: block; font-size: 12px; line-height: 15px; margin-bottom: 6px; margin-top: -2px; outline: none; text-decoration: none; text-transform: none;">flood</a></h3><br style="outline: none;" /> <h3 class="cat" style="border: 0px; color: #373535; font-size: 13px; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 8px; outline: none; padding: 0px; text-transform: uppercase;"><a href="http://www.thehindu.com/topics/?categoryId=993" style="color: #1f57a5; display: block; font-size: 12px; line-height: 15px; margin-bottom: 6px; margin-top: -2px; outline: none; text-decoration: none; text-transform: none;">environmental issues</a></h3></div></div></div><div class="article-body" style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px; position: relative;"><div class="articleLead" style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 15px 0px 0px; position: relative;"><h2 style="border: 0px; color: #999999; font-size: 16px; font-style: italic; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: none; padding: 0px;">Uttarakhand reiterates that our rulers have contemptuous disregard for the advice of the best scientists and would rather listen to contractors and builders to whom they are beholden for funds</h2></div><div class="body" style="outline: none;">In the early 1980s, while doing research on the environmental history of Uttarakhand, I sometimes visited the library of the Wadia Institute of Himalayan Geology in Dehradun. Most of the journals in the library dealt with geology and earth sciences, but there were a few on conservation policy relevant to my work. One day, the librarian pointed to a man with glasses leafing though some journals. ‘<i style="outline: none;">Valdiya Saheb ayé hain, Nainital sé</i>’, he said.</div><div class="body" style="outline: none;"><b style="outline: none;">World-class geologist</b></div><div class="body" style="outline: none;">The tone in the librarian’s voice conveyed respect, with a dash of local pride. Then in his early forties, K.S. Valdiya was already recognised as a world-class geologist. He grew up in rural Kumaon, in the border district of Pithoragarh, and studied in village schools before going on to Lucknow University, where he did his M.Sc. and PhD, the launching pad for a research career solid in substance and achievement. While the hills had produced many great lawyers, freedom fighters, soldiers, and poets, Professor Valdiya was then, and remains still, one of the few Uttarakhandis to have achieved distinction in the natural sciences. And while many ambitious Uttarakhandis have abandoned the hills in search of professional success, the geologist has remained closely connected to the region. He did much of his fieldwork in the interior Himalaya, and — at the height of his career — took up a job in Kumaun University in Nainital rather than in a more prestigious university elsewhere in India (see, for more details on his work and career, www.ksvaldiya.info).</div><div class="body" style="outline: none;">Back in 1981, I was too timid to go up to speak to Professor Valdiya. But now that I am older, and we both live in Bangalore, I sought his views on the devastating tragedy in a region he knew so well both as resident and as scientist. I asked, did the government of his native State consult him while designing development projects in the Uttarakhand Himalaya, a notoriously fragile environment prone to earthquakes, landslides, cloud bursts, and floods? His answer was that no, it never had. In the 15 years since Uttarakhand was formed, the politicians and administrators who ran the State had not once sought the inputs of this expert on Himalayan geology, who happened also to be a native of the State. What made the neglect even more striking is that for nine of those 15 years, Professor Valdiya had been the President of the Governing Body of the Wadia Institute of Himalayan Geology, itself located in Dehradun, the capital of Uttarakhand. The neglect continues — as the Director of the Wadia Institute informed me in response to an email query, the Uttarakhand government never consults them while framing their policies and programmes.</div><div class="body" style="outline: none;">I wonder — which is better, not being consulted at all, or being consulted and then having your report rejected? Consider the case of Madhav Gadgil, who in some respects is the K.S. Valdiya of the Western Ghats. He was born on the crest of the Ghats, and has spent his life doing research on its human and natural communities. No one alive knows more about a hill range that is the peninsular version of the Himalaya, home to many great rivers, and to a fantastic reservoir of biodiversity, on whose careful and sensitive treatment depends the livelihood of millions of people.</div><div class="body" style="outline: none;">In 2009, in a rare moment of sanity, the Union Ministry of Environment and Forests commissioned Professor Gadgil to write a report on an appropriate strategy for the region. He took his job seriously, involving younger scientists at the forefront of cutting-edge research, and holding a series of public hearings. After much fieldwork and consultation, a fact-filled and carefully argued report was submitted to the Ministry. The contents of the report so angered the Minister that she refused even to meet a man recognised as one of the world’s great ecologists, a recipient of medals and honours from the world’s finest universities.</div><div class="body" style="outline: none;">A key reason that State and national governments don’t consult qualified experts — or disregard their advice when it is offered to them — is expedience. K.S. Valdiya, for example, is known to be sceptical — on strictly scientific grounds — of the siting of large dams and construction projects in the Himalaya. Beholden as they often are to contractors and builders for funds, Ministers and MLAs would thus rather steer clear of such scientists. Or turn their back on them — which is what happened with the Gadgil report, whose call for protecting endangered landscapes stands in the way of the desire of politicians across parties to convert the ecologically fragile Western Ghats into a web of holiday homes, power plants, and the like.</div><div class="body" style="outline: none;"><b style="outline: none;">IAS hegemony</b></div><div class="body" style="outline: none;">A second reason for the lack of scientific input in public policy making is the hegemony of the Indian Administrative Service. Back in 1977, in a bid to break this stranglehold, the then Prime Minister, Morarji Desai, inducted several professionals as secretaries to government. Thus M.S. Swaminathan became the first scientist to be chosen as Agriculture Secretary, Manuel Menezes the first engineer to be appointed Secretary of Defence Production, Lovraj Kumar the first chemist to serve as Petroleum Secretary. These initiatives were welcome, if belated. The need now was to make them more widespread, so that other ministries could likewise be run by qualified experts rather than by generalists.</div><div class="body" style="outline: none;">In 1980 Indira Gandhi returned to power. One of her first acts was to start a new Department of Environment, and hire a first-rate botanist (T.N. Khooshoo) as its Secretary. But slowly the IAS began to fight back. It reclaimed possession of the ministries it had lost control of. In recent years, while continuing to protect its turf, the IAS has expanded into new areas. It has close to total domination (at both Central and State levels) over such institutions as the Election Commission and the Information Commission, which are run by retired IAS officers, although their jobs can be done just as well by well trained (and public spirited) lawyers or social scientists.</div><div class="body" style="outline: none;">To be sure, the IAS does have some outstandingly competent — and professionally upright — individuals, some of whom do excellent work as Secretaries to government. However, too many babus now spend their last years in service lobbying for post-retirement sinecures, assiduously cultivating their political bosses in the hope that this will assure them five more years with a house, car, and an army of flunkies in Lutyen’s New Delhi.</div><div class="body" style="outline: none;">The IAS has been slightly less successful in capturing an institution set up to prevent or mitigate tragedies such as the Uttarakhand floods, namely, the National Disaster Management Authority. Two of the eight members of the NDMA are retired IAS officers. Two others are retired officers of the Indian Police Service, yet another a retired Major General. Three members do have a scientific background, but two of them have spent the bulk of their career as administrators in government. Only one of the eight members, an earth scientist named Harsh Gupta, seems to be a scientist of real professional distinction.</div><div class="body" style="outline: none;">All the members of the NDMA are well past 60. Most have spent the past decade (or more) pushing files in the secretariat. How, one wonders, would they have the energy and commitment to actively direct or oversee rehabilitation operations? Or the necessary scientific expertise and foresight to prescribe how to avert such tragedies in the future? Why are there not more practising scientists in the NDMA? Surely at least one practising social worker can valuably serve as a member?</div><div class="body" style="outline: none;">In the better-run democracies of the world, expert knowledge is brought into governance and public policy in two distinct ways. First, scientists in universities and research laboratories are frequently called in to advise State and local governments. If the Government of British Columbia, for example, wishes to design an ecodevelopment plan for the Rockies, it shall certainly solicit — and most likely heed — the opinion of scientists in the State’s own universities.</div><div class="body" style="outline: none;">Second, there is much greater scope for the lateral entry of professionals into government — at middle as well as senior levels. Doctors, lawyers, scientists, engineers, economists, and managers can all enter the public sector after 10 or 15 years in the private sector, and — based on their competence alone — rise to the top of the ladder, assuming posts equivalent in their system to Secretaries to government in ours. Even senior Cabinet positions are often assigned to specialists. Thus President Obama got a Nobel-prize winning physicist, no less, to serve as his Secretary of Energy.</div><div class="body" style="outline: none;">The Indian state, on the other hand, displays — as its treatment of Professors Valdiya and Gadgil demonstrates — a contemptuous disregard for the practical advice of its best scientists. It chooses rather to go with the counsel of risk-averse retired babus or deal-making contractors and builders.</div><div class="body" style="outline: none;"><i style="outline: none;">(Ramachandra Guha’s books include India after Gandhi. He can be contacted at<a href="mailto:ramachandraguha@yahoo.in" style="color: #1f57a5; outline: none; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">ramachandraguha@yahoo.in</a>)</i></div></div></div></div><a href="https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/pengoopmcjnbflcjbmoeodbmoflcgjlk" style="font-size: 13px;">'via Blog this'</a>Sandip K. Dasvermahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03288589903537297131noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37668969.post-75004649567358762222013-06-18T17:26:00.001-07:002013-06-18T17:26:53.091-07:00OTL: Fauja Singh, the runner - ESPN<a href="http://espn.go.com/espn/story/_/page/Fauja-Singh/fauja-singh-runner">OTL: Fauja Singh, the runner - ESPN</a>: <br />
<div class="section main-header" id="s0" style="background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; border-bottom-style: none; border-width: 0px; color: #1d1d1d; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 16px; height: 1082px; line-height: 24px; margin: 42px auto 0px; max-width: 100%; outline: 0px; overflow: hidden; padding: 0px; position: relative; vertical-align: baseline;"><div id="main-header-image" style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; position: relative; text-align: center; vertical-align: baseline; width: 1349px;"><img class="h-bg" src="http://espn.go.com/i/eticket/20130222/images/h1.jpg" style="border: 0px; display: block; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; width: 1349px;" /><div class="header" style="border: 0px; margin: 0px auto 40px; max-width: 1000px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><h1 style="border-bottom-color: rgb(102, 102, 102); border-bottom-style: solid; border-width: 0px 0px 1px; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 78px; font-weight: normal; line-height: 80px; margin: 20px 20px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 20px; position: relative; vertical-align: baseline; word-spacing: -6px;">The Runner</h1><h2 style="border: 0px; color: #999999; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 22px; font-style: italic; font-weight: normal; line-height: 28px; margin: 0px 20px; outline: 0px; padding: 10px 20px 20px; vertical-align: baseline;">Fauja Singh ran his first marathon at age 89 and became an international sensation. Now 101 years old, he will run his final race on Sunday in Hong Kong -- and try to find peace with a Guinness World Records slight.</h2><div class="story-metadata-container" style="border: 0px; margin: 0px 20px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><div class="story-metadata" style="border-top-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); border-top-style: solid; border-width: 1px 0px 0px; display: table; font-family: georgia, serif; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; overflow: hidden; padding: 0px; position: relative; vertical-align: baseline; width: 960px;"><div class="sub-data first" style="border-right-color: rgb(102, 102, 102); border-right-style: solid; border-width: 0px 1px 0px 0px; bottom: 0px; display: table-cell; font-family: klavikalight, helvetica, arial, sans-serif; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; right: 0px; top: 0px; vertical-align: middle; visibility: visible; width: 191px;"><label style="border: 0px; font-size: 1em; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">ESPN The Magazine</label></div><cite style="border: 0px; display: table-cell; font-size: 1.688em; font-style: normal; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 10px 0px; vertical-align: middle; word-spacing: -2px;"><span style="border: 0px; font-style: italic; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">by</span> Jordan Conn<div class="artist" style="border: 0px; color: #999999; font-family: klavikalight, helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 0.5em; letter-spacing: 1px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; word-spacing: normal;">PORTRAITS BY LEVON BISS</div></cite><div class="sub-data" style="border-left-color: rgb(102, 102, 102); border-left-style: solid; border-width: 0px 0px 0px 1px; bottom: 0px; display: table-cell; font-family: klavikalight, helvetica, arial, sans-serif; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; right: 0px; top: 0px; vertical-align: middle; visibility: visible; width: 191px;"><time style="display: block; font-size: 1.125em; line-height: 1.35em; padding: 5px 0px;">02/22/13</time></div></div></div><div class="divider-line" style="background-color: black; border: 0px; clear: both; height: 30px; margin: 0px 20px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"></div></div></div></div><div id="main" style="border: 0px; color: #1d1d1d; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px; margin: 0px auto; max-width: 960px; outline: 0px; overflow: visible; padding: 0px 20px; vertical-align: baseline;"><div style="border: 0px; color: #444142; line-height: 25px; margin-bottom: 10px; max-width: 650px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><strong style="border: 0px; font-family: klavikalight, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 17px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">THE PARTY WOULD BEGIN</strong> just as soon as the race ended. And the race would end just after Fauja Singh crossed the line in 3,851st place. By finishing then -- by finishing <i style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">at all</i> -- Fauja would do what no man before him had ever done. Amid the bundled and cheering crowd in Toronto, underneath a distended but gracious sky, he would complete a marathon. And he would do so at 100 years old.</div><div style="border: 0px; color: #444142; line-height: 25px; margin-bottom: 10px; max-width: 650px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Was it pain he felt as he approached the end, just footsteps away from redefining the limits of human endurance? No, this wasn't pain. Fauja knew pain. Pain was death -- you see plenty of that when you live 100 years. Pain was bloody limbs and overtaxed joints -- you get too much of that when you insist on completing every race you ever start. This wasn't pain but exhaustion. And Fauja could handle exhaustion, because exhaustion foreshadowed euphoria. When Fauja got tired, it often meant a record would soon fall.</div><div class="mod-inline image floatright" style="border: 0px; clear: both; color: black; float: right; font-family: Klavika; font-size: 0.875em; margin: 10px 0px 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; position: relative; vertical-align: baseline; width: 295px;"><img alt="" src="http://assets.espn.go.com/i/eticket/20130222/photos/otl_fauja16_275.jpg" style="border: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 0px 20px; max-width: 100%; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;" width="275" /><div class="caption" style="border: 0px; margin: 10px 0px 0px 20px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><div style="border: 0px; color: #444142; font-size: 16px; line-height: 18px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Fauja Singh crosses the finish line in the Toronto Waterfront Marathon in Toronto on Oct. 16, 2011.</div><cite style="border: 0px; color: #b3b3b3; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 0.625em; font-style: normal; margin: 0px 0px 4px; outline: 0px; padding: 6px 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">David Cooper/The Toronto Star/Zuma Press</cite></div></div><div style="border: 0px; color: #444142; line-height: 25px; margin-bottom: 10px; max-width: 650px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">He'd already broken a few. Fastest to run a marathon (male, over age 90), fastest to run 5,000 meters (male, over age 100), fastest to run 3,000 meters (male, over age 100), and on and on they went. But those records didn't roll off the tongue the way this one would.<i style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Oldest person to complete a marathon (male): Fauja Singh.</i> The other feats had earned him recognition from the Masters Federation websites. This one would put him in the Guinness World Records. An official with the company had contacted Fauja's coach, Harmander Singh (no relation) several weeks earlier. Harmander told Fauja that Guinness would send representatives to watch Fauja run in the Toronto Waterfront Marathon, and as soon as he finished, they would award him the recognition he deserved.</div><div style="border: 0px; color: #444142; line-height: 25px; margin-bottom: 10px; max-width: 650px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">So Fauja ran in Toronto, arms swinging, yellow turban bobbing, chest-length Zeusian beard swaying in the wind. He was joined by other runners with roots in the Indian region of Punjab, their appearance in keeping with the traditions of their Sikh faith. Fauja trotted for the first three miles, until his coach encouraged him to slow to a jog. Speed was fleeting, the enemy of endurance. By mile 6, he'd downshifted to a toddle. After a break for a rubdown and some tea at mile 18, he settled into a walk.</div><div style="border: 0px; color: #444142; line-height: 25px; margin-bottom: 10px; max-width: 650px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">The exhaustion took hold sometime around mile 20, but Harmander kept Fauja upbeat with white lies about the remaining distance. He'd tell Fauja there were four miles left when there were actually six, then two miles left when there were actually three, making Fauja believe he'd covered more ground than he actually had, until finally Fauja saw the only mile-marker he understood: the finish line.</div><div style="border: 0px; color: #444142; line-height: 25px; margin-bottom: 10px; max-width: 650px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">What had been silence between footsteps was now music and cheers. The slog to the finish reminded Fauja of his wedding day, of the joy that awaited at the end of the long aisle. He waved to the crowd as he walked across the line, then lifted his arms and accepted a medal. He'd finished in 8 hours, 25 minutes. There were smiles and handshakes and photos with friends and strangers, then a rambling news conference for Fauja to reflect on his record. Amid the chaos and congratulations, however, Fauja and Harmander never noticed the absence of one celebrant they'd expected.</div><div class="last-parg" style="border: 0px; color: #444142; line-height: 25px; margin-bottom: 10px; max-width: 650px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">They didn't realize that Guinness was nowhere to be found.</div><div class="mod-inline image full" style="border: 0px; clear: both; color: black; float: none; font-family: Klavika; font-size: 0.875em; left: 0px; margin: 10px 0px 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 30px; position: relative; vertical-align: baseline; width: auto;"><div class="caption" style="border: 0px; float: right; margin: 10px 0px 10px 20px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; width: 275px;"><div style="border: 0px; color: #444142; font-size: 16px; line-height: 18px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px 40px 0px 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Harmander Singh runs with Fauja in Valentines Park in Redbridge, London.</div><cite style="border: 0px; color: #b3b3b3; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 0.625em; font-style: normal; margin: 0px 0px 4px; outline: 0px; padding: 6px 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Levon Biss for ESPN The Magazine</cite></div><img alt="" src="http://assets.espn.go.com/i/eticket/20130222/photos/otl_fauja02_1226.jpg" style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; max-width: 100%; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;" /></div><div style="border: 0px; color: #444142; line-height: 25px; margin-bottom: 10px; max-width: 650px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><strong style="border: 0px; font-family: klavikalight, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 17px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">THE VILLAGE OF BEAS PIND</strong> sits in northwestern India, not too far from the Pakistani border, right along the Jalandhar Pathankhot road. It is quiet and nondescript, a place for farmers and their families, their daily routines dictated by the whims of the weather and the yield of the land.</div><div style="border: 0px; color: #444142; line-height: 25px; margin-bottom: 10px; max-width: 650px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">On one spring morning in Beas Pind, Bhago Kaur gave birth to a son. The women of the family decided to call him Fauja, meaning "army general," or "soldier." The year was 1911. At least, that is, if you believe Fauja Singh. The man has no birth certificate, because at that time, in that part of the world, there were no birth certificates. The British ruled India until 1947 and, according to Michelle Ercanbrack of Ancestry.com, the country did not begin registering births until 1964.</div><div class="mod-inline image floatright" style="border: 0px; clear: both; color: black; float: right; font-family: Klavika; font-size: 0.875em; margin: 10px 0px 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; position: relative; vertical-align: baseline; width: 295px;"><img alt="" src="http://assets.espn.go.com/i/eticket/20130222/photos/otl_fauja01_275.jpg" style="border: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 0px 20px; max-width: 100%; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;" width="275" /><div class="caption" style="border: 0px; margin: 10px 0px 0px 20px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><div style="border: 0px; color: #444142; font-size: 16px; line-height: 18px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">There is no record when this family photo was taken, but it is at Fauja's ancestral home in Punjab, India.</div><cite style="border: 0px; color: #b3b3b3; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 0.625em; font-style: normal; margin: 0px 0px 4px; outline: 0px; padding: 6px 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Courtesy Khushwant Singh</cite></div></div><div style="border: 0px; color: #444142; line-height: 25px; margin-bottom: 10px; max-width: 650px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">But none of that would matter for another century or so. In 1911, it mattered only that the boy was healthy and happy and loved. By his second birthday, however, Fauja's parents had cause for concern: He couldn't walk. The way Fauja tells it, his legs were short and spindly, capable of movement but too weak to support his body. He turned 3. No steps yet. Then 4. Still crawling. Children called him danda, Punjabi for "stick." Family members worried he might be crippled for life, so they consulted village doctors. Generally unfamiliar with Western medicine, the local health care providers were likely to concoct an herbal remedy for illness or prescribe human urine for injuries, but in Fauja's case, they saw nothing wrong. The boy was just weak, they said. Nothing could be done.</div><div style="border: 0px; color: #444142; line-height: 25px; margin-bottom: 10px; max-width: 650px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Finally, at age 5, he developed enough strength to hobble. Proper walking didn't come until around age 10. In the Punjab, schools were scarce and attended only by the upper classes, so as he grew, Fauja joined the village's other men on the farm. He fed the cattle. He worked the land, growing maize and wheat. When monsoon season brought rain and rain turned dirt to mud, Fauja returned home each day with his clothes soiled, ready to rest with a hot cup of tea. He subsisted on milk and yogurt and conversations that stretched from afternoon to night. It was a simple life, each day's monotonous pleasures carrying over to the next.</div><div style="border: 0px; color: #444142; line-height: 25px; margin-bottom: 10px; max-width: 650px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Years passed. Fauja married. His wife, Gian Kaur, had three boys and three girls. Years more passed. The children grew. By the 1960s, most had married and moved, one by one, to the West. One settled in Canada, the others in England. One stayed at home -- Kuldip, Fauja's fifth child and second son.</div><div style="border: 0px; color: #444142; line-height: 25px; margin-bottom: 10px; max-width: 650px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">In 1992, his wife died. Fauja grieved but felt thankful, celebrating a long life well lived. He was 81 now, surely approaching death himself, and he was happy to live out his remaining days at home with Kuldip. "I have always loved my children the same," he says, but there in the village, he could see and touch and smell only Kuldip every day. In the mornings, they worked the fields. In the afternoons, they laughed over tea. In the evenings, they retired to their roadside home. There was no favoritism, he'd say, only the intimacy of a life shared.</div><div style="border: 0px; color: #444142; line-height: 25px; margin-bottom: 10px; max-width: 650px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">In Punjab, the monsoons came each July. Hot air rose. Air pressure dropped. Rain fell and crops grew and farmers celebrated their windfall while seeking shelter from the spewing and malevolent sky. One night in 1994, Kuldip and Fauja walked outside to make some repairs to an irrigation channel that ran next to the site of their newest business venture, a roadside restaurant. Wind and rain whipped across the village, ripping a sheet of corrugated metal off the roof of the restaurant. This was typical in Punjab, where the violence of the weather patterns often overpowered the infrastructure of the villages.</div><div style="border: 0px; color: #444142; line-height: 25px; margin-bottom: 10px; max-width: 650px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Everything that would come later in life -- the records, the travel, the fame -- all of it was in response to that night. But when Fauja is asked to recount it, he lets his translator tell most of the story. He'd rather not say that he watched the sheet of metal fly at his son's skull, watched iron collide with flesh and his son's head fly off his body. He'd rather not remember the rain falling as Fauja screamed, looking on as his son lay on the ground, dead. Decapitated.</div><div style="border: 0px; color: #444142; line-height: 25px; margin-bottom: 10px; max-width: 650px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">He will, however, mention the thoughts the came next.</div><div class="last-parg" style="border: 0px; color: #444142; line-height: 25px; margin-bottom: 10px; max-width: 650px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">"Why, God? Why him? Why not me?"</div><div class="mod-inline image full" style="border: 0px; clear: both; color: black; float: none; font-family: Klavika; font-size: 0.875em; left: 0px; margin: 10px 0px 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 30px; position: relative; vertical-align: baseline; width: auto;"><div class="caption" style="border: 0px; float: right; margin: 10px 0px 10px 20px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; width: 275px;"><div style="border: 0px; color: #444142; font-size: 16px; line-height: 18px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px 40px 0px 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Fauja Singh at the Gurdwara Singh Sabha Seven Kings, a Sikh Temple, in London.</div><cite style="border: 0px; color: #b3b3b3; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 0.625em; font-style: normal; margin: 0px 0px 4px; outline: 0px; padding: 6px 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Levon Biss for ESPN The Magazine</cite></div><img alt="" src="http://assets.espn.go.com/i/eticket/20130222/photos/otl_fauja04_1226.jpg" style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; max-width: 100%; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;" /></div><div style="border: 0px; color: #444142; line-height: 25px; margin-bottom: 10px; max-width: 650px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><strong style="border: 0px; font-family: klavikalight, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 17px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">THE MONOTONOUS DAYS,</strong> once so benign, now trudged forward underneath the weight of loss. Fauja sat in his home or under the nearby trees, stone faced, waiting for each day to end. He picked fights. He lost friends. He wandered around the village, alone and aimless. He walked to the spot where his son's head had once rolled, and he stared and mumbled and cried.</div><div style="border: 0px; color: #444142; line-height: 25px; margin-bottom: 10px; max-width: 650px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">The villagers worried. They called Fauja's other children in London and told them, Your father's gone crazy. The children decided Fauja needed to be near them, so they asked him to move to England. He boarded a plane, leaving most of his possessions behind. He'd visited London over the years and found it "fantastic and different." But this time: "I was going only to forget."</div><div style="border: 0px; color: #444142; line-height: 25px; margin-bottom: 10px; max-width: 650px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">At first, the new setting was no better. Too old to work and illiterate besides, Fauja felt no purpose or responsibility. "My mind," he says, "was still in India." Yet his depression had come to London.</div><div class="mod-inline video-player floatright image" style="border: 0px; clear: both; color: black; float: right; font-family: Klavika; font-size: 0.875em; margin: 10px 0px 0px 40px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; position: relative; vertical-align: baseline; width: 478px;"><iframe frameborder="0" height="269" marginheight="0" marginwidth="0" scrolling="no" src="http://espn.go.com/videohub/video/iframe?id=8973717&width=478&height=269&hidePlaylist=true&autostart=false&player=iFrame_eTicket09" style="border-width: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;" width="478"></iframe><div class="caption" style="border: 0px; margin: 10px 0px 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><div style="border: 0px; color: #444142; font-size: 16px; line-height: 18px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">At 101, Fauja Singh is believed to be the world's oldest marathon runner.</div><cite style="border: 0px; color: #b3b3b3; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 0.625em; font-style: normal; margin: 0px 0px 4px; outline: 0px; padding: 6px 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"></cite></div></div><div style="border: 0px; color: #444142; line-height: 25px; margin-bottom: 10px; max-width: 650px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Looking to get out of the house, Fauja began running with fellow Punjabi expats at Sikh community gatherings. "I needed something to distract myself," he says. Nearly 85 years after Fauja had been too weak to walk, he found himself in decent physical shape. While his new expat friends had spent much of their lives enjoying London's conveniences, Fauja had spent his days laboring on the farm.</div><div style="border: 0px; color: #444142; line-height: 25px; margin-bottom: 10px; max-width: 650px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">He challenged fellow seniors to sprints. He won. When there was no one available to race, Fauja set off running by himself, and he built up his distance over time. When running, Fauja realized he thought only of his next step. After enough steps, his mind went blank, and with his feet pounding the pavement, Fauja says, "I felt connected to God." The anger evaporated. For at least a few moments, Fauja escaped his grief.</div><div style="border: 0px; color: #444142; line-height: 25px; margin-bottom: 10px; max-width: 650px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Fauja lived with his son, Sukhjinder, and his children took care of his expenses. He still collected a pension from the government, however (as do many of the UK's elderly residents), so he allowed himself to indulge in expensive clothing. After a lifetime in functional Punjabi garb, he took quickly to London's high-fashion aesthete. He couldn't speak the language or follow the customs, and his beard and his turban marked him clearly as a foreigner, but from the neck down, Fauja looked the part of a Londoner.</div><div class="last-parg" style="border: 0px; color: #444142; line-height: 25px; margin-bottom: 10px; max-width: 650px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">He had another indulgence, too: television. Fauja hadn't owned one in India, so now he passed hours flipping channels on the couch, and one afternoon, he saw a mass of people crowded together on the road, running along in T-shirts and shorts. Curious, Fauja asked around, What were they doing? Soon he found out it was an organized race. A marathon, they called it. Fauja decided that if the people on TV could run a marathon, then surely he could run one, too.</div><div class="mod-inline image full" style="border: 0px; clear: both; color: black; float: none; font-family: Klavika; font-size: 0.875em; left: 0px; margin: 10px 0px 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 30px; position: relative; vertical-align: baseline; width: auto;"><div class="caption" style="border: 0px; float: right; margin: 10px 0px 10px 20px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; width: 275px;"><div style="border: 0px; color: #444142; font-size: 16px; line-height: 18px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px 40px 0px 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Fauja Singh ran his first marathon at age 89.</div><cite style="border: 0px; color: #b3b3b3; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 0.625em; font-style: normal; margin: 0px 0px 4px; outline: 0px; padding: 6px 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Levon Biss for ESPN The Magazine</cite></div><img alt="" src="http://assets.espn.go.com/i/eticket/20130222/photos/otl_fauja03_1226.jpg" style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; max-width: 100%; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;" /></div><div style="border: 0px; color: #444142; line-height: 25px; margin-bottom: 10px; max-width: 650px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><strong style="border: 0px; font-family: klavikalight, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 17px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">THROUGH A MUTUAL ACQUAINTANCE,</strong> Fauja met Harmander Singh, an amateur marathoner who trained others in his spare time. Fauja told Harmander he wanted to run the London Marathon and needed a coach. It was February of 2000. The race was in April. Fauja had 10 weeks.</div><div style="border: 0px; color: #444142; line-height: 25px; margin-bottom: 10px; max-width: 650px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">On the first day of training, Fauja arrived limber and energetic and dressed, as he believed was perfectly appropriate, in a dazzling three-piece suit. Harmander told him he needed a wardrobe change. After adamant protests, Fauja relented, ditched the suit and bought running gear. He showed up every day after that, building his routine around his training schedule. His mileage increased as the weeks passed. Race day arrived. After 6 hours and 54 minutes, 4:48 behind winner Antonio Pinto, Fauja crossed the finish line. At age 89, he was a marathoner. Soon, he would be a star.</div><div class="divider" style="border: 0px; color: #cccccc; font-size: 35px; height: 40px; line-height: 25px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 10px; vertical-align: baseline;">...</div><div style="border: 0px; color: #444142; line-height: 25px; margin-bottom: 10px; max-width: 650px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><strong style="border: 0px; font-family: klavikalight, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 17px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">FAUJA ENTERED THE LONDON MARATHON</strong> again the next year, 2001, this time with a record at stake. He needed to beat 7:52 to be the fastest marathoner alive over age 90. He broke it by 57 minutes.</div><div style="border: 0px; color: #444142; line-height: 25px; margin-bottom: 10px; max-width: 650px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Now came the interviews, the photo ops and the requests for public appearances. Fauja became a staple at events held by the Punjabi diaspora, showing up to weddings and parties and school festivals, giving hugs and shaking hands. Fauja kept running, and his time kept dropping, and in 2004 adidas called, eager to include a turbaned nonagenarian marathoner in its "Impossible is Nothing" ad campaign. Fauja was featured alongside David Beckham, and his image was used in magazine ads, along with the tagline: <i style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">6:54 at age 89. 5:40 at age 92. The Kenyans better watch out for him when he hits 100.</i></div><div class="mod-inline image floatright" style="border: 0px; clear: both; color: black; float: right; font-family: Klavika; font-size: 0.875em; margin: 10px 0px 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; position: relative; vertical-align: baseline; width: 295px;"><img src="http://assets.espn.go.com/i/eticket/20130222/photos/otl_fauja17_275.jpg" style="border: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 0px 20px; max-width: 100%; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;" width="275" /><div class="caption" style="border: 0px; margin: 10px 0px 0px 20px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><div style="border: 0px; color: #444142; font-size: 16px; line-height: 18px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">"I felt connected to God," Fauja Singh says of his running.</div><cite style="border: 0px; color: #b3b3b3; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 0.625em; font-style: normal; margin: 0px 0px 4px; outline: 0px; padding: 6px 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Levon Biss for ESPN The Magazine</cite></div></div><div style="border: 0px; color: #444142; line-height: 25px; margin-bottom: 10px; max-width: 650px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">According to Harmander, Fauja gave all the money he received to charity. Many races paid for his travel expenses, but at home, he could live off his children and his pension. He raced in Scotland and Canada and all over England. "I had a new focus," he says. The more he ran and gave, the more he pushed back his grief. As he traveled, Fauja barely knew where he was from one day to the next. If you asked him about "adidas," he'd have no clue who you were talking about. He knew it only as the company that sponsored him, who brought him in for photo-shoots and events.</div><div style="border: 0px; color: #444142; line-height: 25px; margin-bottom: 10px; max-width: 650px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">The attention -- that's what Fauja loved. He may have donated the money, but the smiles and handshakes from friends and strangers alike, the hugs from blondes and the questions from reporters -- all of that was for Fauja and Fauja alone. He almost never turned down requests for appearances or photos, always eager to step into any room whose attention he could command. So when Fauja came to the United States for the New York City Marathon in 2003, he wanted all eyes on him. Specifically, on his head.</div><div style="border: 0px; color: #444142; line-height: 25px; margin-bottom: 10px; max-width: 650px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Post-9/11 America had become a difficult place for turban wearers. It mattered little that turbans were most common among Sikhs, and that Sikhs -- whose monotheistic faith originated in India in the 15th century -- played no role in the attacks on the twin towers. Sikhs wore turbans. And in 2003, turbans were bad.</div><div style="border: 0px; color: #444142; line-height: 25px; margin-bottom: 10px; max-width: 650px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Dozens of hate crimes against Sikhs had been reported across the country. In Phoenix, a Sikh truck driver was shot twice by men in a pickup truck, unprovoked. In Maryland, a Sikh family received threatening letters and had its home vandalized. In New York, a Sikh police officer resigned after his supervisors ordered him to shave his beard and remove his turban. For Sikhs, the turban is worn as a marker of never-ending accountability. Everywhere he goes, a Sikh man is marked by his religion. This is by design. It's a constant reminder -- a man doesn't represent only himself; he represents all who share his beliefs.</div><div style="border: 0px; color: #444142; line-height: 25px; margin-bottom: 10px; max-width: 650px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">So Fauja arrived in New York, dying to spark conversation over his turban and his faith. If he could run a good race, perhaps even break a record or two, that would help. By this point, however, Fauja was on his third marathon in less than seven months. The miles had taken a toll. He showed up for the race with the flu, jet lag and a bum ankle.</div><div style="border: 0px; color: #444142; line-height: 25px; margin-bottom: 10px; max-width: 650px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Once he got going, he had to listen to cries of "Osama!" and "Saddam!" from the crowd. The pack pulled away, and Fauja slipped behind, stopping every so often for rest and medical treatment. Blisters formed, and soon they burst, the blood filling Fauja's sock. His run became a walk; his walk became a hobble. With his foot throbbing, Fauja shouted in Punjabi to whoever could hear, "Just chop it off!" Paramedics trailed close behind, but whenever they asked whether he needed help, Fauja just waved them away. He would finish, and would show Americans what kind of men wore turbans atop their heads.</div><div style="border: 0px; color: #444142; line-height: 25px; margin-bottom: 10px; max-width: 650px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">After 7 hours and 34 minutes, more than half an hour slower than his previous slowest time, Fauja crossed the finish line. After he finished answering questions from reporters, he collapsed. Within moments, he was surrounded by paramedics and lifted into an ambulance. Cameras clicked, capturing the old man, frail and slow, with a turban wrapped tight around his head, looking closer to death than to ever finishing another marathon.</div><div style="border: 0px; color: #444142; line-height: 25px; margin-bottom: 10px; max-width: 650px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">He felt certain he'd failed to convince anyone of a Sikh man's strength and kindness. Never mind that cheers had far outweighed slurs, or that the next morning's papers would make only passing reference to his injuries. In Fauja's mind, he'd become a symbol of weakness, deserving of pity, not respect.</div><div class="last-parg" style="border: 0px; color: #444142; line-height: 25px; margin-bottom: 10px; max-width: 650px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">He made a vow: He'd never run again.</div><div class="divider" style="border: 0px; color: #cccccc; font-size: 35px; height: 40px; line-height: 25px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 10px; vertical-align: baseline;">...</div><div class="mod-inline image floatright" style="border: 0px; clear: both; color: black; float: right; font-family: Klavika; font-size: 0.875em; margin: 10px 0px 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; position: relative; vertical-align: baseline; width: 295px;"><img src="http://assets.espn.go.com/i/eticket/20130222/photos/otl_fauja08_275.jpg" style="border: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 0px 20px; max-width: 100%; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;" width="275" /><div class="caption" style="border: 0px; margin: 10px 0px 0px 20px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><div style="border: 0px; color: #444142; font-size: 16px; line-height: 18px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Harmander Singh would not let his student quit.</div><cite style="border: 0px; color: #b3b3b3; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 0.625em; font-style: normal; margin: 0px 0px 4px; outline: 0px; padding: 6px 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Levon Biss for ESPN The Magazine</cite></div></div><div style="border: 0px; color: #444142; line-height: 25px; margin-bottom: 10px; max-width: 650px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><strong style="border: 0px; font-family: klavikalight, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 17px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">ONE PROBLEM:</strong> Harmander wouldn't let him quit. "I was terrified," Harmander says. "He'd used running to pull himself out of the depression he fell into after his son died. What was he going to do without it?"</div><div style="border: 0px; color: #444142; line-height: 25px; margin-bottom: 10px; max-width: 650px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Harmander convinced Fauja to run one more race. New York had been too difficult, he said. Three marathons in six-and-a-half months is remarkable for a 30-year-old. At 92 it's insane. "So give it some time," Harmander told Fauja. "Let your body recover, then see how you feel."</div><div style="border: 0px; color: #444142; line-height: 25px; margin-bottom: 10px; max-width: 650px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Fauja agreed to run the London Marathon again the next spring. He ran his third-fastest time ever, 6:07. He was back. Now Haramander approached Fauja with another proposal. "You've already set every marathon record you possibly can. There's only one left to break, the record for the oldest marathoner ever." At the time, that record was held by Dimitrion Yordanidis, who ran the original marathon course, from Marathon, Greece, to Athens, in 1976. Yordanidis had been 98. Fauja was 93. "You can't break that record now," Harmander said. "All you can do is wait."</div><div style="border: 0px; color: #444142; line-height: 25px; margin-bottom: 10px; max-width: 650px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">So Fauja waited, running shorter races to fill his time. Then, in April 2011, his 100th birthday arrived, and with it, an opportunity to break the record. Soon he received an invitation from the Toronto Waterfront Marathon, where years ago Fauja had run his fastest time. He accepted.</div><div style="border: 0px; color: #444142; line-height: 25px; margin-bottom: 10px; max-width: 650px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">The race was set for October. In September, Harmander received an email from Vin Sharma, a London-based Global Talent Manager at Guinness. "What would be great," Sharma wrote, "is to start by acknowledging 'Oldest Marathon Runner' title which rightfully belongs to Fauja-ji." (Ji is an honorific suffix used in Indian languages.)</div><div class="pullquote" style="border-left-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); border-left-style: solid; border-width: 0px 0px 0px 1px; float: right; font-family: KlavikaLight; margin: 0px auto 0px 40px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 100px; vertical-align: baseline; width: 275px;"><div style="border: 0px; color: #999999; font-size: 1.25em; line-height: 1.25em; outline: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 0px 20px; vertical-align: baseline; width: 151.25px;">“He'd used running to pull himself out of the depression he fell into after his son died. What was he going to do without it? ”</div><cite style="border: 0px; color: #666666; font-size: 0.875em; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 0px 20px; vertical-align: baseline;">- Harmander Singh</cite></div><div style="border: 0px; color: #444142; line-height: 25px; margin-bottom: 10px; max-width: 650px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">The email from Sharma continued: "Birth certificate or passport to verify his age would also be useful." Fauja, of course, did not have a birth certificate. But he did have a passport. He'd gotten his first when he visited his children abroad, decades prior. On that passport, and on each one he'd received since, there was listed the same date of birth: April 1, 1911.</div><div style="border: 0px; color: #444142; line-height: 25px; margin-bottom: 10px; max-width: 650px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Sharma attached a document with official guidelines for the record. "Where a birth certificate is not available," it said, "a copy of a relevant ID should be submitted."</div><div class="last-parg" style="border: 0px; color: #444142; line-height: 25px; margin-bottom: 10px; max-width: 650px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">They submitted the documents, and weeks later they flew to Toronto. Fauja finished in 8:25. In his mind, and in the minds of everyone present at the race, Fauja had done what no man had done before.</div><div class="divider" style="border: 0px; color: #cccccc; font-size: 35px; height: 40px; line-height: 25px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 10px; vertical-align: baseline;">...</div><div style="border: 0px; color: #444142; line-height: 25px; margin-bottom: 10px; max-width: 650px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><strong style="border: 0px; font-family: klavikalight, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 17px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">"100-YEAR-OLD MARATHON RUNNER</strong> not recognised by Guinness," read the BBC News headline after the event. In an interview with the network, Guinness editor-in-chief Craig Glenday said, "We would love to give him the record. We'd love to say this is a true Guinness World Record, but the problem is there is just no evidence."</div><div style="border: 0px; color: #444142; line-height: 25px; margin-bottom: 10px; max-width: 650px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">By no evidence, Glenday meant that there was no birth certificate. "We can only accept official birth documents created in the year of the birth," Glenday told the BBC. "Anything else is really not very useful to us." In September, a Guinness representative had sent guidelines suggesting a passport would be sufficient. Now in October, the company said only a birth certificate would do. It didn't matter that Fauja had received his first passport before he began running, negating any significant possibility of a plot to break the record. Nor did it matter what the Guinness official had told Harmander.</div><div class="mod-inline image floatright" style="border: 0px; clear: both; color: black; float: right; font-family: Klavika; font-size: 0.875em; margin: 10px 0px 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; position: relative; vertical-align: baseline; width: 295px;"><img src="http://assets.espn.go.com/i/eticket/20130222/photos/otl_fauja13_275.jpg" style="border: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 0px 20px; max-width: 100%; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;" width="275" /><div class="caption" style="border: 0px; margin: 10px 0px 0px 20px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><div style="border: 0px; color: #444142; font-size: 16px; line-height: 18px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Cara Kilbey, Fauja Singh, Billi Mucklow and their friend Lulu pose for a photo during the London Marathon in April 2012.</div><cite style="border: 0px; color: #b3b3b3; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 0.625em; font-style: normal; margin: 0px 0px 4px; outline: 0px; padding: 6px 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Christopher Lee/Getty Images</cite></div></div><div style="border: 0px; color: #444142; line-height: 25px; margin-bottom: 10px; max-width: 650px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">"This is a case of institutional racism," Harmander said, after learning of the news. The thinking was simple. Guinness had decided its age records could be held only by people with birth certificates. The vast majority of people with birth certificates in the early 20th century came from Europe or North America. Fauja could not have the record. And for that matter, neither could most anyone else from Asia or Africa or other parts of the developing world.</div><div style="border: 0px; color: #444142; line-height: 25px; margin-bottom: 10px; max-width: 650px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Now came the follow-up stories. "Marathon man Fauja Singh runs into racism row," said the headline in London's conservative paper, The Daily Telegraph. Members of the Sikh community, both at home in Punjab and across the diaspora, signed a petition and set the Internet aflame with angry comments. "BROWN PEOPLE OF TUMBLR," one person wrote on the popular blogging platform about Singh, "I SUMMON YOU TO RIGHT THE WRONGS. TO BRING JUSTICE TO THE INJUSTICES."</div><div style="border: 0px; color: #444142; line-height: 25px; margin-bottom: 10px; max-width: 650px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Yet it would do no good. Guinness remained firm. "Passports may be used as proof of identification, NOT of birth. …" Guinness spokeswoman Jamie Panas wrote to ESPN The Magazine in an email. " … Passports and other mid-to-late-life representations of age are notoriously unreliable when unaccompanied by original proofs of birth." Panas emphasized that Guinness never guaranteed that a passport would be sufficient. She also said that Sharma, the Guinness talent manager who advised Harmander, is no longer with the company. Sharma could not be reached for comment. His personal website says he left Guinness at some point last year.</div><div class="mod-inline image full" style="border: 0px; clear: both; color: black; float: none; font-family: Klavika; font-size: 0.875em; left: 0px; margin: 10px 0px 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 30px; position: relative; vertical-align: baseline; width: auto;"><div class="caption" style="border: 0px; float: right; margin: 10px 0px 10px 20px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; width: 275px;"><div style="border: 0px; color: #444142; font-size: 16px; line-height: 18px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px 40px 0px 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Fauja Singh wanted the world to watch him run.</div><cite style="border: 0px; color: #b3b3b3; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 0.625em; font-style: normal; margin: 0px 0px 4px; outline: 0px; padding: 6px 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images</cite></div><img alt="" src="http://assets.espn.go.com/i/eticket/20130222/photos/otl_fauja05_1226.jpg" style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; max-width: 100%; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;" /></div><div style="border: 0px; color: #444142; line-height: 25px; margin-bottom: 10px; max-width: 650px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><strong style="border: 0px; font-family: klavikalight, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 17px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">JULY, 2012.</strong> It's late on a Monday morning, one of those London summer days that barely feel like summer at all -- the sky dark, a cold drizzle just moments away. At Valentines Park in the outer borough of Redbridge, there are joggers and dog-walkers and morning strollers, all walking past ponds and trees and cricket grounds before returning to their nearby homes.</div><div class="aside" style="border: 0px; float: right; margin: 0px 0px 20px 30px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><h2 style="border: 0px; font-size: 16px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">GALLERY</h2><div class="aside-outline" style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><a href="http://espn.go.com/espn/photos/gallery/_/id/8972047/image/1/fauja-singh-100-year-old-marathoner" style="border: 0px; color: #871d00; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank"><img src="http://espn.go.com/i/eticket/20130222/photos/otl_runner_203.jpg" style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;" width="255" /></a><div style="border: 0px; color: #444142; line-height: 25px; margin-bottom: 20px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><a href="http://espn.go.com/espn/photos/gallery/_/id/8972047/image/1/fauja-singh-100-year-old-marathoner" style="border: 0px; color: #871d00; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank">The Runner: Fauja Singh</a> <img alt="Photo Gallery" border="0" height="10" src="http://assets.espn.go.com/icons/photo.png" style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;" width="12" /></div></div></div><div style="border: 0px; color: #444142; line-height: 25px; margin-bottom: 10px; max-width: 650px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Up the path walks Fauja Singh, his yellow turban matching his yellow sneakers and accented by the yellow in his black adidas shirt. He is, Fauja will have you know, the oldest man to ever run a marathon. He doesn't care what Guinness says, barely knows who Guinness is. He and Harmander have taken to minimizing the slight. "They're in the business of trivia," Harmander says. "What does it matter if Fauja's name is in the same book as the lady with the longest fingernails in the world?"</div><div style="border: 0px; color: #444142; line-height: 25px; margin-bottom: 10px; max-width: 650px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Fauja insists the book means nothing, but it's clear that recognition matters. "Look at this," he'll say, showing off his certificates and awards. Then he'll ask someone to read them aloud. He may be illiterate, but he understands the weight carried by words written down.</div><div style="border: 0px; color: #444142; line-height: 25px; margin-bottom: 10px; max-width: 650px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">He will retire soon. His last race will be a 10K in Hong Kong on Feb. 24, just before his 102nd birthday. This, he will admit, is difficult to accept. Yet he is tired; the racing and travel have taken their toll.</div><div style="border: 0px; color: #444142; line-height: 25px; margin-bottom: 10px; max-width: 650px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">He will still run, though. "The day I stop running," he says, "will be the day that I die."</div><div style="border: 0px; color: #444142; line-height: 25px; margin-bottom: 10px; max-width: 650px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">What began as a means of distraction from that stormy night in his village so long ago is now a joy unto itself, a path toward God.</div><div style="border: 0px; color: #444142; line-height: 25px; margin-bottom: 10px; max-width: 650px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">So each day he comes here, or he goes to other nearby parks or to a route that winds through town, and he ties his sneakers and begins to stretch. He rolls his head and his arms, then leans forward to touch his toes. In a moment he is off, the wrinkles in his face contorting into something between a grimace and a smile. There is no crowd, no finish line, no record at stake.</div><div style="border: 0px; color: #444142; line-height: 25px; margin-bottom: 10px; max-width: 650px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">There is only the shuffling sound of his feet, one moving in front of the other, then again, and then again and again until he rounds the bend and he's gone.</div><div style="border: 0px; color: #444142; line-height: 25px; margin-bottom: 10px; max-width: 650px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><i style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Jordan Conn (<a href="https://twitter.com/jordanconn" style="border: 0px; color: #871d00; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank">@jordanconn</a>) wrote "The Defender: Manute Bol's Journey from Sudan to the NBA and Back Again," a multimedia e-book published by The Atavist..</i></div><i style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><div style="border: 0px; color: #444142; line-height: 25px; margin-bottom: 20px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><i style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Follow ESPN_Reader on Twitter: <a href="http://twitter.com/ESPN_Reader" style="border: 0px; color: #871d00; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank">@ESPN_Reader</a>. Follow the Mag on Twitter: <a href="http://twitter.com/#!/ESPNmag" style="border: 0px; color: #871d00; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;" target="new">@ESPNmag</a></i></div><div style="border: 0px; color: #444142; line-height: 25px; margin-bottom: 20px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><i style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><a href="http://myespn.go.com/s/conversations/show/story/8973919" style="border: 0px; color: #871d00; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Join the conversation</a> about "The Runner."</i></div></i></div><a href="https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/pengoopmcjnbflcjbmoeodbmoflcgjlk" style="font-size: 13px;">'via Blog this'</a>Sandip K. Dasvermahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03288589903537297131noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37668969.post-76631710281132094572013-06-08T14:43:00.001-07:002013-06-08T14:43:45.876-07:00Who Milks This Cow? | Ramachandra Guha<a href="http://www.outlookindia.com/article.aspx?282904#.UKnZzRS9lPk.gmail">Who Milks This Cow? | Ramachandra Guha</a>: <br />
<div class="fspphotocredit" id="ctl00_cphpagemiddle_reparticle_ctl00_divartpiccredit" style="color: #999999; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 9px; text-align: right; text-transform: uppercase;">NARENDRA BISHT</div><div class="divseperator" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12px; padding-top: 10px;"><div class="fspchannelhome" id="ctl00_cphpagemiddle_reparticle_ctl00_divfspchannelhome" style="font-size: 7pt; text-transform: uppercase;">BOOK EXCERPTS</div><div class="fspheading" id="ctl00_cphpagemiddle_reparticle_ctl00_divfspheading" style="color: #af0e25; font-family: 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 24px; font-weight: bold; padding-bottom: 5px;">Who Milks This Cow?</div><div class="fspintro" id="ctl00_cphpagemiddle_reparticle_ctl00_divfspintro" style="color: #666666; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; padding-bottom: 5px;">Tracking that species of Hindutvawadi, obsessively trolling the Net, looking for slights to the faith</div><div class="fspauthor" id="ctl00_cphpagemiddle_reparticle_ctl00_divartbyline" style="color: #af0e25; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; text-transform: uppercase;"><a class="fspprintsavelinks2" href="http://www.outlookindia.com/peoplefnl.aspx?pid=3952&author=Ramachandra+Guha" style="color: #af0e25; text-decoration: none;">RAMACHANDRA GUHA</a><span style="color: black;"></span></div><div class="divseperator" style="padding-top: 10px;"></div><div class="divseperator" style="padding-top: 10px;"></div><div><table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" style="width: 100%px;"><tbody>
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<tr><td><div style="background-color: #efefef; margin-right: 10px; padding: 10px; text-align: center;"><img alt="Patriots And Partisans" src="http://images.outlookindia.com/images/reviews/guha_cover_20121119.jpg" /><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: xx-small;">PATRIOTS AND PARTISANS</span><br />
<a href="http://www.outlookindia.com/peoplefnl.aspx?pid=3952&author=Ramachandra+Guha" style="color: #af0e25; text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: xx-small;"><span style="color: black;">BY</span><br />
RAMACHANDRA GUHA</span></a><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: xx-small;">PUBLISHED BY PENGUIN INDIA | PAGES: 352 | RS. 699</span></div></td></tr>
</tbody></table><div>I was born in a home of broad-minded Hindus. My father, though by caste a Brahmin, never wore a thread. His own father’s brother was a lifelong opponent of the caste system; a hostel he opened for Dalit students still functions in Bangalore city. My mother went from time to time to a temple, but was happy to eat with or make food for humans of any background or creed. Two of her brothers had married out of caste; a third had married a German.<br />
When, in 1984, I got my first job, at the Centre for Social Studies in Calcutta, I had to fill in a questionnaire which, among other things, asked me to denote my religion. I wrote ‘Hindu’, immediately attracting the ire of a friend who worked at the same centre. He felt that a secular state had no business asking for a person’s religion, and thus I should have left the answer blank. This friend was a Marxist, so (although he would not then recognise or admit it) he actually subscribed to a faith of his own.<br />
As I saw it, I was brought up, if loosely, in the Hindu tradition. One could still be a Hindu and not believe in—indeed, militantly oppose—caste discrimination and the subjection of women. One could be a Hindu and still be respectful of other faiths and traditions. That is what my reading of Gandhi had taught me. And if Gandhi, who in adult life did not enter a temple, and who was vilified by sants and sankaracharyas, could yet call himself a Hindu, so—when pushed—could I.<br />
Five years after this debate with a Marxist, I encountered a rather more direct challenge to my Hindu faith. I had been with a team of scholars to investigate a communal conflict in and around the town of Bhagalpur, in Bihar. The riot was sparked off by the brick worship ceremonies connected with the plans to build a Ram temple on the site of the Babri Masjid in Ayodhya. The ceremonies clashed with a Muslim festival, and violence broke out between young men of the two religions. The conflict spread outwards from the town into the countryside.<br />
<br />
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<tr><td width="20"></td><td><span class="fspblurbtext" style="font-size: 12px; font-weight: bold;">It’s brought me into contact with a certain kind of Indian who gets up before dawn, has a glass of cow’s milk, prays to the sun god, and begins scanning cyberspace for the day’s secular heresies.<span class="fspblurbsource" style="color: #666666; font-size: 11px; font-weight: normal; padding-left: 2px; text-transform: capitalize;"></span></span></td><td width="20"></td></tr>
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</tbody></table><a href="http://www.blogger.com/blog-this.do?zx=18pawc5xr86up" name="Blurb1" style="color: #af0e25;"></a>Nearly two thousand people died in the Bhagalpur riots. Many more were rendered homeless. Although Muslims were less than 20 per cent of the population, they constituted more than 70 per cent of those who had been killed or displaced. We visited a once-flourishing village of Muslim weavers, or julahas, whose homes and looms had been totally destroyed by a mob of Hindus. The survivors were being taken care of by a prosperous Muslim weaver in Bhagalpur town, who had laid out tents in his garden. Other refugees were being provided food and shelter by a Muslim religious organisation. Of government work in the resettlement and rehabilitation of the refugees there was not a sign.<br />
I was shaken to see that my fellow Hindus would willingly partake of such savagery, and that my government would take no responsibility for the victims. Till then, the politics of religion had no place in my scholarly work or writing. My principal field of research was the environment. I had just published a book on the social history of the Himalayan forests, and had written scholarly essays on environmental conflicts in Asia and North America. However, I was now provoked to write an essay on the Bhagalpur riots for the <em>Sunday Observer</em>. That newspaper collapsed soon afterwards, but I remain grateful to it for publishing the first article I wrote on the bloody crossroads where religion and politics meet in modern India.<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">II</div>In the 1990s and beyond, as the religious right gained in strength and importance across the country, I was making the move from academics to becoming a full-time writer. I now published fortnightly columns in two different newspapers. My brief, in each case, was very broad; I could, and did, write on history and sport apart from politics. But since these were the years in which the Sangh parivar moved from the margins to the centre of public life in India, naturally I wrote about their activities as well.<br />
<div style="text-align: center;"><img alt="" height="355" src="http://photogallery.outlookindia.com/images/gallery/20121108/rss_activists_20121119.jpg" width="550" /><br />
<span class="fsppicturecaption" style="color: #666666; font-size: 11px; padding-bottom: 20px; padding-top: 5px; text-align: left;">RSS cadre at one of the outfit’s functions in north Delhi. (Photograph by Narendra Bisht)</span></div>In the past two decades, I must have published some forty articles that have dealt with the politics or policies of the Bharatiya Janata Party and the Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh, or of state and central governments led or directed by them. This constitutes somewhat less than 10 per cent of my total output—that is to say, at least nine in ten of my articles have dealt with other subjects. However, it is always articles that touch on the philosophy and practice of Hindutva that attract the most attention (and anger). They have brought me into contact with a certain kind of Indian who gets up before dawn, has a glass of cow’s milk, prays to the sun god, and begins scanning cyberspace for that day’s secular heresies. If a column I write touches in any way on faith, Hinduism, Hindutva, Guru Golwalkar, Gujarat, or Ayodhya, by breakfast I have had deposited, in my inbox—or perhaps in the ‘Comments’ section of the newspaper’s own website—mails which are hurt, complaining, angry, or downright abusive. A representative sample follows:<br />
<blockquote>I think you are living on other planet. As historian, if India’s integrity is at stake from terrorist Islamic Shaitan Pakistan you are quiblling on small matters. ...so called pseudo historians like you besmirch India in Western media from whom you get sinecures and royalty.<br />
Ramachandra is very much a Hindu name. Please dont insult that name, and show your secularism by changing your name to rahim or rehaman. anyway... sanatana dharma does not want cowards like you!!! especially cowards who rape their own mother(land)!!!<br />
It would be to your advantage if you get mentally treated before it is too late if you are suffering from a mental problem of distortions and if it is treatable and can be cured. Good luck. When muslims got a land to live out of the land that belongs to hindus of india since 2000 BC where is the need for muslims to continue to live in India and if they cannot go to there to the land given to them they should keep quiet and vote in Pakisthan elections not in India. You too can go with them to pakisthan and live there...I will be the most happiest man if a poison like you is not exist in this world. If so our country will be more safe with less one enemy.</blockquote>Sometimes the mails are sent as letters to the editor of the journals where I write, with a copy mailed to me. These ostensibly impersonal rejoinders tend to be rather forceful as well. Consider these examples, where the historian is characterised as, respectively, a Naxalite sympathiser (but simultaneously a Nehru-Gandhi family loyalist), a newspaper sales agent, a covert Christian missionary, and as akin to a Swiss bank:<br />
<blockquote>India has been one country not in the westophilian sense but in a dharmic sense for the last thousands of years. He might not have heard about Adi Sankara who was born in Kaladi but established Mutts in the four corners of India. For him Indian spiritual unity does not exist. Guha who is a Naxalite sympathiser has got permission from Sonia (Gandhi) to use the archives at Nehru Museum to write his book and so sing the songs of the Sonia Dynasty.<br />
What your news paper want cheap publicity I can understand. Actually you want to increase sell of news paper that’s why you published this type of anti India and anti RSS article because at least RSS people will buy your newspaper. I vow not to buy your news paper and will try to convince more and more people. The egoist people like Guha will be punished by masses along with you.<br />
Any criminal in India can get his stupid views on every thing under the son published in any so called secular publication and even earn a very comfortable living provided he invariably starts his piece with a lamentation about the untold suffering the Christians have been undergoing in India since independence. But still, how could somewhat decent people like Mr Vinod Mehta (then editor of<em>Outlook</em> magazine) tolerate these fake intellectuals? It is advertisement income, stupid. The controlling share of almost all multinationals are held by church groups.<br />
Mr Guha was one of the historical cartels in India who brainwashed the young and impressionable students in India about how worthless ancient Indian heritage was.... I think Ramachandra Guha’s assets are liable to be proceeded against in a Class Action law suit either in India or the USA like the Swiss Banks’ role in profiting from the Holocaust victims under Hitler by laundering the sufferings of Hitler’s Jewish victims. The Swiss Banks received the gold from Hitler’s Germany including those melted from the tooth fillings of his Jewish victims. I believe the Colonial victims of India and their descendants including those victimised by Mr.Guha censorship of ancient Indian Heritage for ideological reasons are on a similar standing to the Holocaust victims and their descendants!!!</blockquote>Not all letters are angry or abusive. Some are written in a civil tone, yet reflect the same anxieties and (dare one say) paranoias of a certain kind of modern Hindu. A letter I received from an elderly gentleman now based in El Cerrito, California, feared that India was becoming a Muslim nation. In the 1940s, the leaders of what this man called a ‘rogue religion’ had intrigued with the British to create Pakistan; now, they sought by demographic means to convert the already balkanised motherland into another Islamic state. “Afghanistan,” wrote my Californian correspondent, “was once a 100 per cent Bodth (Buddhist) Country and entire poplation was converted to Islam by the terroristic tactics in the past many centuries. Now, the Madarsas of India are too churning out terrorists like Pakistan at the expense of Hindu taxpayers. ...Soon the population explosion of Muslims will make them in Majority and the fate of Indian Temples will be the same as Bamyan Budha had faced.... You may not be able to give such thoughts to the Indian Press because of certain reasons but these fears are real and felt thousands of miles away by Hindus who are living in United States....”<br />
Sometimes, the chastisement is gentle, offered in sorrow rather than anger, and outlining the hope that, despite my past errors and misdemeanours, I might yet come to respect and even represent the cause of the vulnerable and aggrieved Hindu. A correspondent with whom I had an extended exchange, asked:<br />
<blockquote>I beg, please do a favour. Do not use every single opportunity to offend those who speak for Hindus. We have no where to go. This is our fatherland/motherland our spiritual land. The land of our gods. And we have only welcomed every persecuted race on earth and given space here. Helped them to flourish and now we are paying the price. There are bigger monsters to fight. Please use your energy there. We need bright intellectuals like you there, sir. For our great nation and its great civilisation. And like it or not, the Hindu Civiilsation is the only glue that keeps our great nation together. And if it dies we have no identity and India would not exist.</blockquote><div style="text-align: center;">III</div>This was a selective but not unrepresentative sample of the mails I have received over the years from the intensely chauvinistic tribe of Internet Hindus. I have replied, as courteously as I possibly could, to each e-mail I received (a practice I still maintain), but discontinued the correspondence if (as was often the case) the mailer proved incapable of reasoned discussion or debate.<br />
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<tr><td width="20"></td><td><span class="fspblurbtext" style="font-size: 12px; font-weight: bold;">But for all this love of the motherland, it’s striking how, while this particular heretic lives in India, so many of his orthodox opponents are based overseas, in decidedly un-Hindu Europe and the US.<span class="fspblurbsource" style="color: #666666; font-size: 11px; font-weight: normal; padding-left: 2px; text-transform: capitalize;"></span></span></td><td width="20"></td></tr>
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</tbody></table><a href="http://www.blogger.com/blog-this.do?zx=18pawc5xr86up" name="Blurb2" style="color: #af0e25;"></a>I have withheld the names of my correspondents. Notably, they were all male. I do have one Hindutva-oriented mailer who is a woman—but she is an exception, the only one I have encountered in some fifteen years of such correspondence. Along with the gender bias is a caste bias. Sharma, Shukla, Rao, Iyer, Gupta—these kinds of surnames recur with regularity in my inbox. These are typically dwija names, denoting ‘twice-born’ castes who, according to the tenets of orthodox Hinduism, can wear the sacred thread. (My experience in this regard tends to confirm the characterisation of the BJP as a ‘Brahmin-Bania’ party.) Other names I recognise are of Kayasth or Rajput origin, that is to say, also upper-caste. The age profile is harder to construct. It appears that a large proportion of my mailers are in their twenties and thirties, but there is a significant sprinkling of senior citizens as well. The former tend to be impatient, seeking to overcome India’s manifest weakness as a nation and a state with an infusion of the right kind of dharmic energy. The latter tend to be anguished or bitter, believing that India threw away its chances of becoming a great and powerful nation because of the reliance of its leaders on the pernicious Western ideology of secularism. Had India followed the example of Israel, they argue, and based its national unity on a shared religion, language and sacred text (Hinduism, Sanskrit and the Vedas, in this case), it would have stood tall among its neighbours, and in the world. For these despairing, defeatist nationalists, the one true moment of national pride was when India defeated Pakistan in the war of 1971, for them both revenge and consolation for centuries of humiliation at the hands of Muslim and Christian invaders.<br />
<div style="text-align: center;"><img alt="" height="375" src="http://photogallery.outlookindia.com/images/gallery/20121108/babri_demolition_20121119.jpg" width="550" /><br />
<span class="fsppicturecaption" style="color: #666666; font-size: 11px; padding-bottom: 20px; padding-top: 5px; text-align: left;">VHP men moments before the Babri Masjid came down, 1992</span></div>The young profess to detest the West too. But for all this love of the motherland and the ancestral faith, it is striking how, while this particular heretic lives in India, so many of his orthodox opponents are based overseas, in the prosperous and decidedly un-Hindu nations of Europe and North America. One of my regular mailers writes from his home in 1650 Voyager Avenue, Simi Valley, CA, USA. A second, who chooses rather to address the editors of the journals I write for, signs his name and then adds, by way of further identification, ‘Out West, USA’. A third (the only woman in the pile) writes from Canada and always reminds me that she is a ‘Ph D, Western Ontario’. A fourth, who likewise combines an admiration of indigenous culture with an almost unreasoning hatred of the modern West, nonetheless never fails to mention that he is the possessor of those very Western certifications, ‘M. D., Ph D’. A fifth ended a long and very angry mail with these oddly defensive sentences: “I risk of being dismissed as a unemployed ‘Hindu fundamentalist’ and would not be surprised at all if this mail is put in trash can. Hence I think it is appropriate that I introduce to you that I am a experienced Senior Management professional working with a MNC in India’s sunshine industry.” A sixth first asked: “Who cares about your opinion, man? You speak as if you are representing a billion plus Hindus! Dimwits and slaves like you sit in a corner of your dimly lit houses and pontificate to others”; and then offered his own, rather, better qualifications for speaking about the subject at hand: “I am educated, young, well read (with 3 masters degrees) and residing in the west. Yet I have great pride and respect for my country, its culture, my Hindu religion, its Heroes, God and philosophies.”<br />
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<tr><td width="20"></td><td><span class="fspblurbtext" style="font-size: 12px; font-weight: bold;">The fundamentalist is convinced he will be victorious. Like the Marxist, the evangelical Christian, the Islamic fanatic, the Hindutvawadi needs to constantly reassure himself that he’ll win in the end.<span class="fspblurbsource" style="color: #666666; font-size: 11px; font-weight: normal; padding-left: 2px; text-transform: capitalize;"></span></span></td><td width="20"></td></tr>
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</tbody></table><a href="http://www.blogger.com/blog-this.do?zx=18pawc5xr86up" name="Blurb3" style="color: #af0e25;"></a>The sociological background of the Hindutva hate-mailer can be partially reconstructed from his name and background. His ideology is more directly manifested in his mails. This rests on a deep suspicion of and hostility towards those Indians who are not Hindus by religious background. Christians and especially Muslims come in for special animosity. And yet, as the historian Dharma Kumar once pointed out, the philosophy of Hindutva only mimics and reproduces the ideology of its major adversary. Its unacknowledged model is the Islamic state, where those who do not belong to the ruling faith are tolerated if they are obedient and subservient, but attacked if they seek to assert the rights of equal citizenship.<br />
Hindutvawadis thus want to construct what Dharma Kumar described as ‘an Islamic state for Hindus’. In medieval Muslim states, there was a category known as dhimmi, consisting of Jews and Christians, who, as people of the book, were treated somewhat more leniently than the kafirs, the unbelievers. The dhimmi were barred from the top positions in the state and in the army. However, so long as they paid their taxes and did not challenge the ruler, they could live in peace and security. The kafirs, on the other hand, were seen always and invariably as adversaries. In the same manner, if the RSS were to get its way, Muslims and Christians in modern India would live undisturbed, so long as they acknowledged their theological and political inferiority to the dominant Hindus. But if they sought equal rights of citizenship they would be punished as the kafirs had once been.<br />
Like all fanatics, the Hindutva hate-mailer thinks in black-and-white. Although I am a liberal who has consistently stood against left-wing as well as right-wing extremism, the default reaction to my criticisms of Hindutva is that I must be a communist. The mail that follows is characteristic:<br />
<blockquote>If the communist journalists thinking they can distroy an organization by writing few words against them, you are wrong sir. There was a time people forced to belive what you wrote. But today there is mass Communication between people. Unlike earlier there are people now to respond against communist journalists immediately.<br />
Today even your own media can not survive without supporting Hindutva. You see today your CPM channel in Kerala is live coverage (though it was sponsored) of a Mahayagam at Thirivananthapuram. 90% of the participants are Sangh Parivar leaders. I pity your CPM channel, they have no other alternative but to telecast the live coverage. Remember that our work is already spreads each and every corner of the country. Now we are engaged to increase our activitis more powerful. It is our challange we will dismantle Communist party in India. You wait and see what is going to happen in the coming time.</blockquote>The extremist only recognises other extremists. Since I carry a Hindu name, yet have distanced myself from the bigotry and chauvinism of the Hindutvawadi, I must be a crypto-communist.<br />
<div style="text-align: center;"><img alt="" height="384" src="http://photogallery.outlookindia.com/images/gallery/20121108/taj_mahal_hotel_20121119.jpg" width="550" /><br />
<span class="fsppicturecaption" style="color: #666666; font-size: 11px; padding-bottom: 20px; padding-top: 5px; text-align: left;">The Taj Mahal Palace, Mumbai, under attack during 26/11. (Photograph by Reuters, From Outlook 19 November 2012)</span></div>Apart from thinking in black-and-white, the fundamentalist is convinced that he will, in the end, be victorious. This triumphalist rhetoric, however, is actually a product of paranoia and insecurity. Like the Marxist, like the evangelical Christian, like the Islamic fanatic, the Hindutvawadi needs constantly to reassure himself that he will win in the end. This mail I received from a young man of Gujarati extraction is both typical as well as rather sad:<br />
<blockquote>Narendra Modi is the Chief Minster of my great state Gujarat. He is without doubt the greatest Chief Minster in the history of India. One day in the near future he may become the Prime Minster of India. You all third rate parasitical dhimmi toads who do nothing all your lives except lecture others and contribute not an ioata to the Indian economy can then take a permenant sabbitical to your natural abode Paki Stan. You can bark you can rant and you can use every conceviable weapon to villify and demonise Narendra Modi and us Gujaratis and every time we will show you envious scums of the earth two fingers and treat you like one treats sewage. We Gujus are no 1 and will always remain no 1 whether you like it or not and continue to contribute the highest to the Indian economy. ...You third rate filth we Gujus have nothing but contempt and disdain for your types. you can continue barking and ranting against my State, its Chief Minster and her people and everytime we will say Up yours!</blockquote>To this deep suspicion of diversity and pluralism, this tendency to think in black-and-white, this insistent (if ultimately unconvincing) claim that they are history’s inevitable winners, let me add one final characteristic of the Hindutva hate- mailer—an utter lack of humour. The mails already quoted illustrate this in abundance, but consider also some responses to an essay I wrote criticising the Ministry for Human Resources Development for proposing that the wife of the richest man in India be made a ‘brand ambassador’ for their adult literacy campaigns. I had pointed out that “if one is thinking of a name to motivate poor women or men to learn their letters, no name could be more spectacularly inappropriate than Nita Ambani’s. She is soon to be the resident of a 4,00,000 square feet house; she is already the recipient of a Boeing aircraft as a birthday gift. If this exhibitionism does not run contrary to our constitutional commitment to socialism and equality, I don’t know what does. As for our other national commitment to secularism and the scientific temper—which I presume the HRD ministry shares—how does one square that with Mrs Ambani’s periodic visits to a Southern hill-top to pray for, of all things, a cricket team?”<br />
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<tr><td width="20"></td><td><span class="fspblurbtext" style="font-size: 12px; font-weight: bold;">Hate mails increase at particular moments...before the 1999, 2004, 2009 general elections, I got a flood of mails warning that I’d be put in my place once the party of the faithful came to power.<span class="fspblurbsource" style="color: #666666; font-size: 11px; font-weight: normal; padding-left: 2px; text-transform: capitalize;"></span></span></td><td width="20"></td></tr>
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</tbody></table><a href="http://www.blogger.com/blog-this.do?zx=18pawc5xr86up" name="Blurb4" style="color: #af0e25;"></a>The article was published in a paper that does not have an edition in Bangalore. Downloading it the morning it appeared, I noticed that the boys weaned on cow’s milk had come sniffing already. One mailer complained that “the ‘Southern Hilltop’ the journalist so callously refers to here is the much revered Lord Balaji’s temple. Where do these people get the nerve?? Will he say ‘People running to middle eastern desert’ for Haj pilgrimage?? This is called ‘Proving one’s secular credentials’ by putting down the most revered Lord in India.” Another angrily asked: “Would Mr. Guha have taken a swipe at a Muslim person, worthy or worthless in her own right, for praying five times a day or for doing Haz? Why this step-motherly treatment for visiting temples?”<br />
Fortunately, these mailers had been put in their place by an Indian with a sense of proportion, who responded to their screeds as follows: “There we go again, just drag religious sentiments into it, and finish off with a Hindu-Muslim comparison to highlight a perceived bias. (Guha) was commenting on (Nita Ambani’s) visits to pray ‘for, of all things, a cricket team’... The point being she was praying not for literacy, not for end of poverty, not for benefit of fellow man, country or world but her commercial interests in a cricket franchise.”<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">IV</div>The number and intensity of Hindutva hate mails in my inbox has varied over the past two decades. They have increased and become more abusive at particular moments—after the Gujarat riots of 2002, for example, or after the terror attack in Mumbai of 2008. Before the general elections of 1999, 2004 and 2009 I also got a flood of mails warning me that I would be put in my place once the party of the faithful would be elected or re-elected to power. The mails fly thick and fast in times of political controversy, but they by no means dry up in quieter periods in-between. For the hard-core fundamentalist, the hunt for heretics is a full-time business.<br />
I shall end this essay by quoting five very special mails that, in their individual and distinctive ways, illustrate the peculiarities and pathologies of the Homo Indicus Hindutvawadi.<br />
The first mail offers this apparently careful and close definition of Hinduism:<br />
<blockquote>A Hindu is someone who believes in the native and natural traditions of India. These traditions include a lifestyle that is compatible with the natural bounties and limits of India. A belief in the multiple facets of spirituality and tolerance of diverse concepts of god(s) (incl. that it is Man who created god(s) - not the other way around!). By this token some Moslems or Christians may be better Hindus than those who were born Hindus. But in general Hindus are the backbone of India and give it its true character. Minority communities, no matter how large, are the unfortunate remnants of past invasions. Westernized seculars like Ramachandra Guha are mere third rate stool pigeons who could not move to the richer West on their own but would say anything to harm the core of India for a few dollars as baksheesh!</blockquote>The definition was however undermined by the address of the writer (‘out west, United States’)—although, as a patriotic Hindu, perhaps he had demanded of his employer that he be paid in (saffron-coloured and lotus-shaped?) rupees.<br />
<div style="text-align: center;"><img alt="" height="375" src="http://photogallery.outlookindia.com/images/gallery/20121108/kandhamal_riot_20121119.jpg" width="550" /><br />
<span class="fsppicturecaption" style="color: #666666; font-size: 11px; padding-bottom: 20px; padding-top: 5px; text-align: left;">A ransacked church in Kandhamal in 2008, Orissa</span></div>My second example, coming also from a non-resident Indian, is notable for its capacious demonology, which included Muslims and Englishmen but privileged above all the Muslim-loving and English-loving renegade Hindu, Jawaharlal Nehru:<br />
<blockquote>Dear Mr. Guha,<br />
I have read some of your articles, the headings of your articles have nothing to do with body of your articles, every article is BJP/RSS and Hindu bashing.<br />
But if you care to answer two questions which are asked by large number of Indians, the questions are:-<br />
1. After British left India, all British invaders had left India, why Muslim invaders were not evicted? What right Nehru and Gandhi had to keep tens of millions of Muslims after giving them “homeland” (read Hindu land)?<br />
2. If there are 150 million Muslims in India then why Pakistan was created and if Pakistan was created then why there are 150 million Muslims in India ?<br />
Are you denying that before British took over Hindus were not fighting to get rid of Muslims? It seems all the “historians” are on Saudi pay roll.<br />
When I come to India I talk to rickshaw wallas, rail coolies, waiters and other real Indians, all ask the same questions. They talk to me because they know I live overseas and I am not a danger to them like journalists and people like you who immediately declare Hindus “anti-Muslim”, “anti-secular”, “chauvinists” etc and also let police and Congress goons let on them....<br />
Nehru was a loafer, thug and a ruffian, he was only interested in Lady Mountbatten, can’t you see the damage done by Nehru? Kashmir, Tibet, Aksai Chin and decimation of Hindu society? About Gandhi, less said the better.<br />
But coming back to my two question, do you have the courage, guts, IQ to detach yourself from white skinned lady and answer truthfully, not your general doble-de-gook....</blockquote>The third example illustrates the hectoring and bullying typical of a certain strain of Hindutva. It was written from Maharashtra, after I had published an article in <em>The Telegraph</em> of Calcutta on the Maoist threat to Indian democracy. I here recalled a similar threat from the extreme right in the early days of Indian independence, and mentioned in passing that Gandhi’s murderer, Nathuram Godse, had once been a member of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh. An angry mailer claimed that my article “has nothing to do with facts and history also equating RSS with Maoist is sheer lie and hence court suit is inevitable against you if you doesn’t tenders straightaway apology to RSS.<br />
<div style="text-align: center;"><img alt="" height="604" src="http://photogallery.outlookindia.com/images/gallery/20121108/bajrang_dal_20121119.jpg" width="550" /><br />
<span class="fsppicturecaption" style="color: #666666; font-size: 11px; padding-bottom: 20px; padding-top: 5px; text-align: left;">A Bajrang Dal activist during the Gujarat riots, 2002. (Photograph by AFP, From Outlook 19 November 2012)</span></div>We have successfully countered such type of blasphemous propaganda against RSS through court battle.... So I am hereby demanding immediate apology from you and <em>The Telegraph</em> for the report or be prepared for legal battle, In case legal battle starts it is sure that your career as journalist would end abruptly, so it is not in your personal interest hence better to tender apology and end the matter here before reaching to the Court premises.”<br />
No apology was offered either by myself or <em>The Telegraph</em>—a libel suit is yet awaited.<br />
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<tr><td width="20"></td><td><span class="fspblurbtext" style="font-size: 12px; font-weight: bold;">To be fair, the criticisms also allowed for a benign interpretation of the words that appeared under my name—namely, that I was suffering from some kind of mental sickness.<span class="fspblurbsource" style="color: #666666; font-size: 11px; font-weight: normal; padding-left: 2px; text-transform: capitalize;"></span></span></td><td width="20"></td></tr>
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</tbody></table><a href="http://www.blogger.com/blog-this.do?zx=18pawc5xr86up" name="Blurb5" style="color: #af0e25;"></a>My fourth example illustrates the streak of paranoid triumphalism I spoke of earlier. After I had published a long essay explaining why, given the social and political fault-lines within, India would not and should not become a superpower, a reader wrote in to say that “India is bound 2 be worldpower. Take my words. People like Mr Guha are agents of China and they also go to temple (though in the dark of night)”.<br />
Of all the hate mails that, over the years, have popped into my inbox, my personal favourite came from a man (with a resoundingly Brahmin name, as it happens), living in the town of Ghaziabad, in Uttar Pradesh. This, in one single sentence, encapsulated the sentiments of his fellow fanatics and ideologues. “It is suspected,” said my correspondent, “that you are getting money through Hawala (the black market) from antiIndia forces or your mindset is communist or you are psychologically weak requiring treatment or modern time ‘Asura’ (demon) wishing to destroy motherland.” I think of myself as a patriot, who loves his country, and lives and works in it. I also think of myself as a moderate, middle-of-the-road, liberal democrat. But by the definitions of right-wing Hindus I was something else altogether. Since I found flaws in Hindutva thought, it was self-evident that I could not be a patriot. Since I criticised the practice of Hindu fundamentalist groups, I must be an extremist on the other side, that is to say, a communist. Since I made these criticisms repeatedly, it was overwhelmingly likely that I was in the pay of foreign powers. And since I was published in a well-circulated Indian newspaper I was probably a demon in disguise, too. To be fair, the criticisms also allowed for a more benign interpretation of the words that appeared under my name—namely, that I was suffering from some kind of mental illness. If only I could see the right doctor, who would then prescribe me the correct medicines, the motherland would be saved.<br />
<hr color="#CCCCCC" size="1px" />Excerpted from <em>Patriots and Partisans </em>by Ramachandra Guha. Publishing date: November 20, 2012.</div></div></div></div><a href="https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/pengoopmcjnbflcjbmoeodbmoflcgjlk" style="font-size: 13px;">'via Blog this'</a>Sandip K. Dasvermahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03288589903537297131noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37668969.post-53711256257755404692013-02-22T13:33:00.001-08:002013-02-22T13:33:34.752-08:00The Hindu : Opinion / Lead : The man who would rule India<a href="http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/lead/the-man-who-would-rule-india/article4390286.ece#.USGyotK5nzQ.gmail">The Hindu : Opinion / Lead : The man who would rule India</a>: <br />
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<a href="http://www.thehindu.com/topics/?categoryId=1375" style="color: #1f57a5; display: block; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 6px; margin-top: -2px; outline: none; text-decoration: initial;">political candidates</a><br />
<a href="http://www.thehindu.com/topics/?categoryId=1376" style="color: #1f57a5; display: block; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 6px; margin-top: -2px; outline: none; text-decoration: initial;">poll</a><br />
<a class="bold" href="http://www.thehindu.com/topics/?categoryId=1349" style="color: #1f57a5; display: block; font-size: 12px; font-weight: bold; margin-bottom: 6px; margin-top: -2px; outline: none; text-decoration: initial;">politics</a><a href="http://www.thehindu.com/topics/?categoryId=1369" style="color: #1f57a5; display: block; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 6px; margin-top: -2px; outline: none; text-decoration: initial;">election</a></div></div></div><div class="article-body" style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px; position: relative;"><div class="articleLead" style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #999999; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 16px; font-style: italic; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 15px 0px 0px; position: relative;"><div style="outline: none; padding-bottom: 1em;">Like Indira Gandhi once did, Narendra Modi seeks to make his party,his government, his administration and his country into an extension of his personality.</div></div><div class="body" style="background-color: white; color: #3b3a39; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px; outline: none;">A journalist who recently interviewed Narendra Modi reported their conversation as follows: “Gujarat, he told me, merely has a seafront. It has no raw materials — no iron ore for steel, no coal for power and no diamond mines. Yet it has made huge strides in these fields. Imagine, he added, if we had the natural resources of an Assam, a Jharkhand and a West Bengal: I would have changed the face of India.”(see <i style="outline: none;">The Telegraph</i>, January 18, 2013).</div><div class="body" style="background-color: white; color: #3b3a39; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px; outline: none;"><b style="outline: none;">Tall claims</b></div><div class="body" style="background-color: white; color: #3b3a39; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px; outline: none;">This conversation (and that claim) underlines much of what Narendra Modi has sought to do these past five years — remake himself as a man who gets things done, a man who gets the economy moving. With Mr. Modi in power in New Delhi, says or suggests Mr. Modi, India will be placed smoothly on the 8 per cent to 10 per cent growth trajectory, bureaucrats will clear files overnight, there will be no administrative and political corruption, poverty levels will sink rapidly towards zero and — lest we forget — trains and aeroplanes shall run on time. These claims are taken at face value by his admirers, who include sundry CEOs, owner-capitalists, western ambassadors and —lest we forget — columnists in the pink papers, the white papers, and (above all) cyber-space.</div><div class="body" style="background-color: white; color: #3b3a39; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px; outline: none;">Mr. Modi’s detractors — who too are very numerous, and very vocal — seek to puncture these claims in two different ways. The unreconstructed Nehruvians and Congress apologists (not always the same thing) say he will forever be marked by the pogrom against Muslims in 2002, which was enabled and orchestrated by the State government. Even if his personal culpability remains unproven, the fact that as the head of the administration he bears ultimate responsibility for the pogrom, and the further fact that he has shown no remorse whatsoever, marks Mr. Modi out as unfit to lead the country.</div><div class="body" style="background-color: white; color: #3b3a39; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px; outline: none;">The secularist case against Mr. Modi always had one flaw — namely, that what happened in Gujarat in 2002 was preceded in all fundamental respects by what happened in Delhi in 1984. Successive Congress governments have done nothing to bring justice to the survivors, while retaining in powerful positions (as Cabinet Ministers even) Congress MPs manifestly involved in those riots.</div><div class="body" style="background-color: white; color: #3b3a39; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px; outline: none;">With every passing year, the charge that Mr. Modi is communal has lost some intensity — because with every passing year it is one more year that the Sikhs of Delhi and other North Indian cities have been denied justice. (They have now waited 28 years, the Muslims of Gujarat a mere 11.) More recently, the burden of the criticism against Mr. Modi has shifted — on to his own terrain of economic development. It has been shown that the development model of Gujarat is uneven, with some districts (in the south, especially) doing very well, but the dryer parts of the State (inland Saurashtra for example) languishing. Environmental degradation is rising, and educational standards are falling, with malnutrition among children abnormally high for a State at this level of GDP per capita.</div><div class="body" style="background-color: white; color: #3b3a39; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px; outline: none;">As a sociologist who treats the aggregate data of economists with scepticism, I myself do not believe that Gujarat is the best developed State in the country. Shortly after Mr. Modi was sworn in for his third full term, I travelled through Saurashtra, whose polluted and arid lands spoke of a hard grind for survival. In the towns, water, sewage, road and transport facilities were in a pathetic state; in the countryside, the scarcity of natural resources was apparent, as pastoralists walked miles and miles in search of stubble for their goats. Both hard numbers and on-the-ground soundings suggest that in terms of social and economic development, Gujarat is better than average, but not among the best. In a lifetime of travel through the States of the Union, my sense is that Kerala, Himachal Pradesh and (despite the corruption) Tamil Nadu are the three States which provide a dignified living to a decent percentage of their population.</div><div class="body" style="background-color: white; color: #3b3a39; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px; outline: none;">To be sure, Mr. Modi is not solely responsible for the unbalanced development. Previous Chief Ministers did not do enough to nurture good schools and hospitals, or enough to prevent the Patels of southern Gujarat from monopolising public resources. Besides, Mr. Modi does have some clear, identifiable achievements — among them a largely corruption-free government, an active search for new investment into Gujarat, some impressive infrastructural projects, and a brave attempt to do away with power subsidies for rich farmers.</div><div class="body" style="background-color: white; color: #3b3a39; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px; outline: none;">Both the secularist case and the welfarist case against Mr. Modi have some merit — as well as some drawbacks. In my view, the real reason that Narendra Modi is unfit to be Prime Minister of India is that he is instinctively and aggressively authoritarian. Consider that line quoted in my first paragraph: “I would have changed the face of India.” Not ‘we,’ but ‘I’. In Mr. Modi’s Gujarat, there are no collaborators, no co-workers. He has a <i style="outline: none;">chappan</i> inch <i style="outline: none;">chaati</i> — a 56-inch chest — as he loudly boasts, and therefore all other men (if not women) in Gujarat must bow down to his power and his authority.</div><div class="body" style="background-color: white; color: #3b3a39; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px; outline: none;">Mr. Modi’s desire to dominate is manifest in his manner of speaking. Social scientists don’t tend to analyse auditory affect, but you have only to listen to the Gujarat Chief Minister for 15 minutes to know that this is a man who will push aside anyone who comes in his way. The intent of his voice is to force his audience into following him on account of fearing him.</div><div class="body" style="background-color: white; color: #3b3a39; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px; outline: none;">The proclamation of his physical masculinity is not the sole example of Mr. Modi’s authoritarianism. Like all political bullies he despises free speech and artistic creativity — thus he has banned books and films he thinks Gujaratis should not read or watch (characteristically, without reading or viewing these books and films himself). He has harassed independent-minded writers, intellectuals and artists (leading to the veritable destruction of India’s greatest school of art, in Vadodara). His refusal to the spontaneous offer of a skull cap during his so-called ‘Sadbhavana Yatra,’ while read as an example of his congenital communalism, could also be seen as illustrating his congenital arrogance.</div><div class="body" style="background-color: white; color: #3b3a39; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px; outline: none;">The most revealing public display of Mr. Modi’s character, however, may have been a yoga camp he once held for the IAS officers of his State. They all lined up in front of him — DMs, DCs, Secretaries, Under-Secretaries, of various sizes, shapes, ages, and genders — and followed the exercise routine he had laid down for them. <i style="outline: none;">Utthak-baithak</i>, <i style="outline: none;">utthak-baithak</i>, 10 or perhaps 20 times, before a diverting Surya Namaskar was thrown in by the Master.</div><div class="body" style="background-color: white; color: #3b3a39; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px; outline: none;">I do not know whether that yoga camp was held again (it was supposed to be an annual show), and do not know either how Mr. Modi appears to these IAS officers when they confront him one-on-one. But that the event was held, and that the Chief Minister’s office sought proudly to broadcast it to the world, tells us rather more than we would rather wish to know about this man who wishes to rule India.</div><div class="body" style="background-color: white; color: #3b3a39; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px; outline: none;">To be sure, Mr. Modi is not the only authoritarian around in Indian politics. Mamata Banerjee, J. Jayalalithaa, and Mayawati (when she is Chief Minister) also run their States in a somewhat overbearing manner. Naveen Patnaik and Nitish Kumar are intolerant of criticism too. However, the authoritarianism of these other State leaders is erratic and capricious, not focused or dogmatic. This, and the further fact that Mr. Modi has made his national ambitions far more explicit, makes them lesser devils when it comes to the future of our country.</div><div class="body" style="background-color: white; color: #3b3a39; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px; outline: none;"><b style="outline: none;">Resemblance to Indira Gandhi</b></div><div class="body" style="background-color: white; color: #3b3a39; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px; outline: none;">Neither Mr. Modi’s admirers nor his critics may like this, but the truth is that of all Indian politicians past and present, the person Gujarat Chief Minister most resembles is Indira Gandhi of the period 1971-77. Like Mrs. Gandhi once did, Mr. Modi seeks to make his party, his government, his administration and his country an extension of his personality. The political practice of both demonstrates the psychological truth that inside every political authoritarian lies a desperately paranoid human being. Mr. Modi talks, in a frenetic and fearful way, of ‘Rome Raj’ and ‘Mian Musharraf’ (lately modified to ‘Mian Ahmed Patel’); Mrs Gandhi spoke in likewise shrill tones of the ‘foreign hand’ and of ‘my enemies.’</div><div class="body" style="background-color: white; color: #3b3a39; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px; outline: none;">There is something of Indira Gandhi in Narendra Modi, and perhaps just a touch of Sanjay Gandhi too — as in the brash, bullying, hyper-masculine style, the suspicion (and occasional targeting) of Muslims. Either way, Mr. Modi is conspicuously unfitted to be the reconciling, accommodating, plural, democratic Prime Minister that India needs and deserves. He loves power far too much. On the other hand, his presumed rival, Rahul Gandhi, shirks responsibility entirely (as in his reluctance, even now, to assume a ministerial position). Indian democracy must, and shall in time, see off both.</div><div class="body" style="background-color: white; color: #3b3a39; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px; outline: none;"><i style="outline: none;">(The writer is a historian. Email: <a href="mailto:ramachandraguha@yahoo.in" style="color: #1f57a5; outline: none; text-decoration: initial;" target="_blank">ramachandraguha@yahoo.in</a>)</i></div><div id="articleKeywords" style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #3b3a39; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px; position: relative;"><div style="outline: none;">Keywords: <a href="http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/lead/the-man-who-would-rule-india/article4390286.ece#" style="color: #1f57a5; outline: none; text-decoration: initial;">Narendra Modi</a>, <a href="http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/lead/the-man-who-would-rule-india/article4390286.ece#" style="color: #1f57a5; outline: none; text-decoration: initial;">Rahul Gandhi</a>, <a href="http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/lead/the-man-who-would-rule-india/article4390286.ece#" style="color: #1f57a5; outline: none; text-decoration: initial;">Prime Ministerial candidate</a>, <a href="http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/lead/the-man-who-would-rule-india/article4390286.ece#" style="color: #1f57a5; outline: none; text-decoration: initial;">Indian democracy</a>, <a href="http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/lead/the-man-who-would-rule-india/article4390286.ece#" style="color: #1f57a5; outline: none; text-decoration: initial;">Indira Gandhi</a>, <a href="http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/lead/the-man-who-would-rule-india/article4390286.ece#" style="color: #1f57a5; outline: none; text-decoration: initial;">Gujarat government</a>, <a href="http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/lead/the-man-who-would-rule-india/article4390286.ece#" style="color: #1f57a5; outline: none; text-decoration: initial;">Lok Sabha 2014</a>, <a href="http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/lead/the-man-who-would-rule-india/article4390286.ece#" style="color: #1f57a5; outline: none; text-decoration: initial;">Lok Sabha elections</a>, <a href="http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/lead/the-man-who-would-rule-india/article4390286.ece#" style="color: #1f57a5; outline: none; text-decoration: initial;">growth trajectory</a></div><div><br />
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<a href="https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/pengoopmcjnbflcjbmoeodbmoflcgjlk" style="font-size: 13px;">'via Blog this'</a>Sandip K. Dasvermahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03288589903537297131noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37668969.post-22120402885185574622013-02-01T21:31:00.001-08:002013-02-01T21:31:34.289-08:00M.J. Akbar - The Sunday Guardian<a href="http://mjakbarblog.blogspot.com/">M.J. Akbar - The Sunday Guardian</a>: <br />
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<h2 class="date-header" style="background-color: #111111; color: #888888; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; margin: 0.5em 0px; min-height: 0px; position: relative; text-transform: uppercase;"><span style="color: #333333;">SATURDAY, JANUARY 26, 2013</span></h2><div class="date-posts" style="background-color: #111111; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;"><div class="post-outer" style="background-color: white; border-bottom-left-radius: 5px; border-bottom-right-radius: 5px; border-top-left-radius: 5px; border-top-right-radius: 5px; border: 1px solid rgb(221, 221, 221); margin: 0px -20px 20px; padding: 15px 20px;"><div class="post hentry uncustomized-post-template" itemprop="blogPost" itemscope="itemscope" itemtype="http://schema.org/BlogPosting" style="min-height: 0px; position: relative;"><a href="" name="3578237171339223663"></a><h3 class="post-title entry-title" itemprop="name" style="font-size: 18px; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; position: relative;"><a href="http://mjakbarblog.blogspot.com/2013/01/why-was-bose-diminished-on-republic-day.html" style="color: #6699cc; text-decoration: initial;">Why was Bose diminished on Republic Day?</a></h3><div class="post-header" style="color: #999999; line-height: 1.6; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em;"><div class="post-header-line-1"></div></div><div class="post-body entry-content" id="post-body-3578237171339223663" itemprop="description articleBody" style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.4; position: relative; width: 578px;"><div dir="ltr" trbidi="on"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;">Byline</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 21px;">Why was Bose diminished on Republic Day?</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 21px;">M.J. Akbar</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 21px;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 21px;">We measure power through size. Check any political poster. The boss gets the biggest face. Others in the pecking order descend till the miniature at the end.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 21px;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 21px;">Why was Subhas Chandra Bose struggling among the also-rans in the Bengal Republic Day tableau? Swami Vivekananda, understandably, had pride of place. But it might have been better to keep Bose out of the jumble rather than literally reduce his stature. If Bengal forgets, how long will India remember the only Indian to head a government of united India?</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 21px;">Bose declared independence before the British gave it in 1947. His government in exile did not have Gandhi's sanction. It fought on the wrong side of the Second World War: but it was a proud and free government whose contribution to our freedom has been reduced by the domestic political forces he challenged.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 21px;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 21px;">Bose is an embarrassment to Congress because he challenged Gandhi, and was a powerful parallel icon to Nehru. Bose asked Indians to give him their blood, and he would give them freedom. Gandhi promised freedom without violence. Gandhi refused to join the British war effort in 1939; Bose went a step further, and led Indian troops on the side of the Germany-Italy-Japan axis. However, their horizon, freedom, was the same.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 21px;">More than six decades later the argument might seem pedantic, and yet it is worth revisiting. Invaluable Indian blood and treasure helped Britain win the first world war. After victory, Britain reneged on its commitment to Indian self-rule within the empire without batting an eyelid. Instead of dominion status, Indians got vicious brutality at Jallianwala Bagh and the pernicious Rowlatt Act.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 21px;">It is not generally known that Gandhi was not a pacifist: he served on British frontlines in the Boer and Zulu wars in South Africa, and was very eager to lead a medical unit to the killing fields of France in 1914, at the onset of the first world war. In 1918, Gandhi worked so hard as a recruiting agent for the British army, urging Gujaratis to prove they were not "effeminate" by picking up a gun, that he almost died of exhaustion. Farewell bhajans began to be sugn before he recovered. Gandhi lost hope in Britain only he felt betrayed. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 21px;">Britain had as much to protect in 1945 as in 1918. London knew that its empire would unravel at the point where it had begun, in India, once India became independent. What pushed Britain towards the exit gate? Of course there was the irresistible momentum of Gandhi's nationwide struggle. But the British had faced this challenge before, in the non-cooperation movement 25 years before. The significant difference was the nationalist sentiment unleashed by Bose among Indians in uniform. Bose's Indian National Army [INA] showed them where their national loyalties should lie. Bose's war also inspired the young to surge beyond the confines of Congress.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 21px;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 21px;">Even Gandhi, who only had faint praise for Bose in a 1945 obituary ["Subhas Bose has died well. He was undoubtedly a patriot though misguided"], had to admit in an article published on 15 February 1946, "The hypnotism of the Indian National Army has cast its spell on us...[Netaji's] patriotism is second to none...He aimed high but failed. Who has not failed?...The lesson that Netaji and his army brings to us is one of self-sacrifice, unity irrespective of class and community, and discipline..." When the British put three INA officers - Shah Nawaz, a Muslim, Sahgal, a Hindu, and Dhillon, a Sikh - on trial for sedition, India exploded in wrath. Nehru said on 24 December 1945, "The INA trial has created a mass upheaval."</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 21px;">Bose broke the backbone of British rule when he destroyed trust between the British Raj and its armed forces. The eminently sensible Sir Claude Auchinleck, commander in chief, accepted that any extreme punishment for INA officers would make governance impossible, because Indians adored them as national heroes. This, he said, was the "general opinion held in India, not only by the public, but...by quite a considerable part of the Indian Army as well".</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 21px;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 21px;">Subhas Bose's contribution to the formation of a Republic of India was no less than that of the very greatest of our founding fathers. Bose proved in practice was an Indian secular state would be. At a time when the Muslim League was in ascendant, he had the love and trust of Muslims. He lived his dream of gender equality when he set up the Rani of Jhansi regiment, under the fiery and beautiful Lakshmi Swaminathan. When Bose told the Japanese he was setting up a women's-only force, they thought he was joking. I do not believe Bose could have fought alongside Hitler, who advised the British to shoot Gandhi dead, and resented the Japanese advance because he thought Asia was being lost to white Europeans. Hitler was an undisguised racist, as were all Nazis.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 21px;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 21px;">Perhaps India can survive without Bose. But such amnesia will only diminish India. </span></div></div></div></div></div></div><br />
<a href="https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/pengoopmcjnbflcjbmoeodbmoflcgjlk" style="font-size: 13px;">'via Blog this'</a>Sandip K. Dasvermahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03288589903537297131noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37668969.post-77712854866930573722012-11-21T17:22:00.001-08:002012-11-21T17:22:37.869-08:00Bal Thackeray and Bombay - Livemint<a href="http://www.livemint.com/Opinion/pDEuFMHE0tyLzmXS57cJoJ/Bal-Thackeray-and-Bombay.html">Bal Thackeray and Bombay - Livemint</a>: <br />
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<h2 class="sub_sty_head_38" style="background-color: white; border: 0px; font-family: Unna, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 38px; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: -1px; line-height: 38px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 10px; vertical-align: baseline;">Bal Thackeray and Bombay</h2><div class="sty_summary_18" style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #6f6a2f; font-family: Unna, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 18px; line-height: 22px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 10px; vertical-align: baseline;">Everyone needed Thackeray. The Congress, to divide opponents; the BJP, to consolidate the Hindu vote</div><div class="author" style="background-color: white; border: 0px; font-family: Unna, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 16px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><a href="http://www.livemint.com/Search/Link/Author/Salil%20Tripathi" style="color: #aa6015; text-decoration: initial;">Salil Tripathi</a> <a href="mailto:salil@livemint.com?subject=Bal%20Thackeray%20and%20Bombay" style="color: #aa6015; text-decoration: initial;"><img alt="Mail Me" height="12" src="http://www.livemint.com/rw/SysConfig/WebPortal/LiveMint/static_content/images/icon/email-icon.gif" style="background-color: transparent; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; border: none; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px 5px; vertical-align: baseline;" width="16" /></a></div><div class="posted" style="background-color: white; border-bottom-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); border-bottom-style: solid; border-width: 0px 0px 1px; clear: left; font-family: Unna, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 30px; margin: 4px 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><div class="post_icons" style="background-color: transparent; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; border: 0px; float: right; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><a href="http://www.livemint.com/Opinion/pDEuFMHE0tyLzmXS57cJoJ/Bal-Thackeray-and-Bombay.html#comments_box" style="color: #aa6015; text-decoration: initial;"><img alt="Comment" height="14" src="http://www.livemint.com/rw/SysConfig/WebPortal/LiveMint/static_content/images/icon/comment-icon.gif" style="background-color: transparent; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; border: none; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px 10px; vertical-align: baseline;" width="15" /> </a><a href="http://www.livemint.com/SendStory/2.0.456606723" style="color: #aa6015; text-decoration: initial;"><img alt="E-mail" height="12" src="http://www.livemint.com/rw/SysConfig/WebPortal/LiveMint/static_content/images/icon/email-icon.gif" style="background-color: transparent; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; border: none; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px 10px; vertical-align: baseline;" width="16" /> </a><a href="http://www.livemint.com/Opinion/pDEuFMHE0tyLzmXS57cJoJ/Bal-Thackeray-and-Bombay.html?facet=print" style="color: #aa6015; text-decoration: initial;"><img alt="Print" height="15" src="http://www.livemint.com/rw/SysConfig/WebPortal/LiveMint/static_content/images/icon/print-icon.gif" style="background-color: transparent; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; border: none; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px 10px; vertical-align: baseline;" width="16" /> </a><img class="pad_both" height="26" src="http://www.livemint.com/rw/SysConfig/WebPortal/LiveMint/static_content/images/separator/blu_dot_line.gif" style="background-color: transparent; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px 2px; vertical-align: baseline;" width="1" /> <iframe allowtransparency="true" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" src="http://www.facebook.com/plugins/like.php?href=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.livemint.com/Opinion/pDEuFMHE0tyLzmXS57cJoJ/Bal-Thackeray-and-Bombay.html&send=false&layout=button_count&width=90&show_faces=false&action=like&colorscheme=light&font=arial&height=21" style="background-color: transparent; border-style: none; height: 20px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; overflow: hidden; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; width: 45px;"></iframe> <iframe allowtransparency="true" class="twitter-share-button twitter-count-none" data-twttr-rendered="true" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" src="http://platform.twitter.com/widgets/tweet_button.1352365724.html#_=1353543174790&count=none&id=twitter-widget-0&lang=en&original_referer=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.livemint.com%2FOpinion%2FpDEuFMHE0tyLzmXS57cJoJ%2FBal-Thackeray-and-Bombay.html&size=m&text=Bal%20Thackeray%20and%20Bombay%20-%20Livemint&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.livemint.com%2FOpinion%2FpDEuFMHE0tyLzmXS57cJoJ%2FBal-Thackeray-and-Bombay.html" style="background-color: transparent; border-width: 0px; height: 20px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; width: 59px;" title="Twitter Tweet Button"></iframe></div>First Published: Wed, Nov 21 2012. 07 41 PM IST</div><div class="sty_main_pic" style="background-color: #f8f6e8; border: 0px; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, 'sans serif'; font-size: 12px; line-height: 17px; margin: 0px 0px 1px; outline: 0px; padding: 20px 19px 5px 20px; vertical-align: baseline; width: 621px;"><img alt="A file photo of Shiv Sena chief Bal Thackeray. Photo: HT
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A file photo of Shiv Sena chief Bal Thackeray. Photo: HT</div><div class="sty_kicker" style="background-color: white; border: 0px; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, 'sans serif'; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22px; margin: 15px 0px 20px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><div class="col_6" style="background-color: transparent; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; border: 0px; float: left; margin: 0px 20px 15px 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; width: 210px;"><h1 class="chunk_head_20" style="background-color: transparent; border-bottom-color: rgb(202, 108, 24); border-bottom-style: solid; border-width: 0px 0px 2px; color: #ca6c18; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 20px; letter-spacing: -0.2px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-transform: uppercase; vertical-align: baseline;">RELATED</h1><div class="sty_related" style="background-color: transparent; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; border: 0px; color: #696427; font-family: Unna, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 18px; line-height: 20px !important; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><ul style="background-color: transparent; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; border: 0px; list-style-type: none; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><li style="background-image: url(http://www.livemint.com/rw/SysConfig/WebPortal/LiveMint/static_content/images/bg/red-dot.gif); background-position: 50% 100%; background-repeat: repeat no-repeat; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 8px 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><a href="http://www.livemint.com/Politics/FhKxpzh2BKfItzi8w7t7KK/PM-invites-BJP-leaders-for-dinner-on-Thursday.html" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0) !important; text-decoration: initial;">PM invites BJP leaders for dinner on Thursday</a></li>
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<li style="background-image: url(http://www.livemint.com/rw/SysConfig/WebPortal/LiveMint/static_content/images/bg/red-dot.gif); background-position: 50% 100%; background-repeat: repeat no-repeat; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 8px 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><a href="http://www.livemint.com/Opinion/pjEelk4TY9idQZPzmn03CK/Brute-force-in-Mumbai.html" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0) !important; text-decoration: initial;">Brute force in Mumbai</a></li>
</ul></div></div><div channel="BP Web,LiveMint" class="text" id="U19040348334417x" style="background-color: transparent; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><div class="p" style="background-color: transparent; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; border: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 17px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">The first time I attended a press conference of Bal Thackeray was in 1988. I was senior correspondent at the India Today magazine. Thackeray had threatened the boycott of Sikh-owned businesses, unless the city’s Sikhs did something to stop Khalistani violence.</div><div class="p" style="background-color: transparent; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; border: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 17px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">We went to the Ritz Hotel near Churchgate, and had expected the announcement of a truce of sorts, as we saw prominent Sikh businessmen and politicians arrive. It turned unpleasant quickly when Thackeray converted the news conference into an inquisition, pointedly asking the Sikhs what they had done to stop terrorism in Punjab. The Sikh leaders were taken aback. They tried to explain the obvious—that they had no links, nor any control over the militants. But Thackeray kept up the pressure. Go to the Golden Temple and tell the extremists to stop violence, he told Mumbai’s Sikhs, his face sardonic and deadpan, betraying no emotion.</div><div class="p" style="background-color: transparent; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; border: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 17px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">The implication, that the city’s Sikhs had some authority over the militants, or that they were responsible for what other Sikhs did elsewhere, was preposterous. But being outrageous was his style: to browbeat the other, to force him into surrender and to secure submission. I asked Thackeray: How would you react if Marathi shopkeepers in Belgaum were held to account for attacks on Kannada-speakers in Maharashtra? A couple of reporters from Marathi dailies asked me abruptly to keep quiet, and Thackeray asked: “Who is that funny fellow?” Two journalists—Bharat Kumar Raut and Ashok Jain—diffused matters. Meanwhile, the Sikhs asked for time to reflect; Thackeray gave them a short deadline.</div><div class="p" style="background-color: transparent; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; border: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 17px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">A few days later, the Sikhs requested Thackeray to come with them to Amritsar, and they would together appeal to the extremists. Thackeray was smart—he would have none of it. (Another time, he similarly turned down a call to go to Kashmir). He quickly moved to another controversy. Like businessmen, movie stars and politicians, the Sikhs accepted his unelected authority, mainly because of Shiv Sena’s destructive potential, which commanded attention based on fear.</div><div class="p" style="background-color: transparent; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; border: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 17px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">The same fear was at the heart of the arrest of two young women in Palghar on Monday. Later released on bail, one of them expressed her frustration over the informal bandh that accompanied Thackeray’s funeral on Facebook, and her friend liked what she said. They were charged under laws that go way beyond constitutional restrictions on free speech. It was a clear abuse of power, but it served its purpose, of silencing criticism.</div><div class="p" style="background-color: transparent; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; border: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 17px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">And yet, many of the hundreds of thousands who turned out on Sunday for Thackeray’s funeral didn’t do so out of fear. Many (including Muslims) were genuinely grief-stricken. The part of the city which lies south of Haji Ali (or, for that matter, the Sea Link), which many of its inhabitants continue to call Bombay (as against Thackeray’s preference Mumbai, now the city’s official name) finds it hard to understand Thackeray’s hold over the Marathi mind. Observing the violence, they think Thackeray’s support came mainly from the lumpen. But educated, middle-class families too felt he spoke for them, even if his crude vocabulary often made them cringe. Many Marathis bristled when their men and women were stereotyped as clerks at Mantralaya or nationalized banks. Theirs is the culture of Pu La Deshpande, Jayant Narlikar, Bhimsen Joshi, Vijay Tendulkar, Durga Khote and Kishori Amonkar, but in a city where no single language or culture dominates. Marathi was hardly marginalized in Mumbai, but some of the cosmopolitan elite, “the outsiders”, looked down upon the language and its culture.</div><div class="p" style="background-color: transparent; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; border: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 17px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Thackeray stiffened the Marathi spine, but by demanding that billboards be written in Marathi, terrifying Hindi-speaking cab drivers, threatening Gujarati and Marwari seths, frightening south Indians at Udupi restaurants and humiliating and intimidating Muslims. Many have died in violence unleashed by Shiv Sainiks over the years.</div><div class="p" style="background-color: transparent; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; border: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 17px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Politicians did little to restrain him. Once in 1989, Murli Deora, then member of Parliament from my constituency—South Bombay—had invited the city’s business leaders and journalists to meet Shankarrao Chavan, at that time finance minister in Rajiv Gandhi’s cabinet. Some of Thackeray’s recent speeches against Muslims were considered incendiary. Many demanded his arrest. That evening, I was the only one to defend Thackeray’s right to speak, while disagreeing with his politics. Suppress his voice, I said, and you send him underground, making him more seductive. “No, no,” Chavan told me, his eyes widening as he spoke. “This is very dangerous speech, it must be stopped.” A few days later, when I met Thackeray for an interview and asked him about his possible arrest, he looked at me, a faint smile on his lips, and said: “Nobody will arrest me.” And nobody did.</div><div class="p" style="background-color: transparent; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; border: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 17px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Everyone needed him. The Congress, to divide opponents; the Bharatiya Janata Party, to consolidate the Hindu vote; businesses, to ensure industrial peace; movie stars, so that their films would get released without any problem; property owners, to evict recalcitrant tenants.</div><div class="p" style="background-color: transparent; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; border: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 17px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">The vulnerable became the scapegoats. Most politicians acquiesced, undermining many groups. Most of us watched, only a few dared to speak up.</div><div class="p" style="background-color: transparent; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; border: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 17px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><i style="background-color: transparent; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Salil Tripathi is a writer based in London.</i></div><div class="p" style="background-color: transparent; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; border: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 17px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><i style="background-color: transparent; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">To read Salil Tripathi’s previous columns, go to</i> <a href="http://www.livemint.com/saliltripathi" style="color: #aa6015; text-decoration: initial;">www.livemint.com/saliltripathi</a></div></div></div><br />
<a href="https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/pengoopmcjnbflcjbmoeodbmoflcgjlk" style="font-size: 13px;">'via Blog this'</a>Sandip K. Dasvermahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03288589903537297131noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37668969.post-85775793757692189542012-09-30T18:56:00.001-07:002012-09-30T18:56:01.823-07:00State of connivance - Indian Express - P. R. Rao<a href="http://www.indianexpress.com/news/state-of-connivance/998930/0">State of connivance - Indian Express</a>: <br />
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width: 16px;"><span class="at_a11y" style="height: 1px !important; left: -10000px !important; margin: 0px; overflow: hidden !important; padding: 0px; position: absolute !important; top: auto !important; width: 1px !important;">Share on email</span></span></a><a class="prnt" href="http://www.indianexpress.com/story-print/998930/" style="color: #01446b; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;"><img alt="Print" border="0" src="http://static.indianexpress.com/frontend/iep/images/print_icon.gif" style="border: 0px; margin: 0px 10px 0px 0px; padding: 0px;" title="Print" /></a><div class="atclear" style="clear: both; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"></div></div></div></div><div class="datecont" style="color: #4b4b4b; font-size: 11px; margin: 0px 0px -15px; padding: 0px;"><a href="http://www.indianexpress.com/columnist/pprao/" style="color: #01446b; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;">P P Rao</a> : Fri Sep 07 2012, 02:22 hrs</div></div><div class="contentMidsmallstory" style="background-color: white; float: left; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 13px; margin: 0px; overflow: hidden; padding: 0px; width: 180px;"><div class="block" style="margin: 0px 0px 20px; padding: 0px; width: 170px;"><img alt="" class="story" src="http://static.indianexpress.com/frontend/iep/images/timage.jpg" style="border: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 20px; padding: 0px;" title="" width="170" /><br style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" /><div style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><img src="http://static.indianexpress.com/frontend/iep/images/dot.jpg" style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" /></div><iframe frameborder="0" height="1100" scrolling="no" src="http://www.indianexpress.com/moreFromIE.php" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" width="180"></iframe></div></div><div class="contentLeftbigstory" style="background-color: white; border-left-color: rgb(223, 222, 222); border-left-style: solid; border-left-width: 1px; float: left; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px; overflow: hidden; padding: 0px 0px 0px 9px; width: 470px;"><div style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 23px; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-top: 5px; padding: 0px; text-align: justify;">The most disturbing finding in the judgment of the trial court in the Naroda Patiya mass murder case is not only the active involvement of a prominent senior BJP leader, Mayaben Surendrabhai Kodnani, who hatched the conspiracy and instigated the rioters to commit the crime, but the fact that she was sought to be shielded by the state investigating agency by making every effort to see that her involvement did not come on record. Two questions arise here: first, can the leaders of a ruling political party be allowed to indulge in crime against members of another religion? And, second, what is the role assigned to the investigating agency of the state when a serious, cognisable offence takes place?</div><div style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 23px; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-top: 5px; padding: 0px; text-align: justify;">Under the Representation of the People Act, 1951, every political party in its application to the Election Commission (EC) for registration immediately gives a solemn undertaking that it shall bear true faith and allegiance to the Constitution of India as by law established, and to the principles of socialism, secularism and democracy, and would uphold the sovereignty, unity and integrity of India and on that basis obtain registration and the allotment of a symbol. The Supreme Court (SC), while upholding the imposition of President’s Rule in the four BJP-ruled states — Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Himachal Pradesh — following the demolition of the Babri Masjid, on the ground that the state governments had acted against secularism, declared that political parties should not mix religion with politics, religious tolerance and fraternity being the basic postulates of the Constitution. A few fanatic groups, masquerading as political parties, continue to incite and indulge in communal violence. A decade back, the court declared that, as the law stands, the EC has no power to cancel the registration of a political party for breach of the solemn undertaking given by it. Parliament has not empowered the EC to cancel the registration of an erring political party.</div><div style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 23px; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-top: 5px; padding: 0px; text-align: justify;">Under the scheme of the Constitution, the state is the custodian of law-and-order and the protector of people’s right to life, liberty and property. Prevention and detection of crime and prosecution of offenders are its primary duties. The Code of Criminal Procedure contemplates independent, swift and objective investigation by the police of any crime, of which it has information. If the investigating agency of the state, forsaking its duty, shields the accused, how can the prosecution succeed? This has happened in case of almost all post-Godhra killings. In fact, soon after the chain of mass murders in Gujarat, Justice J.S. Verma, the then chairman, National Human Rights Commission (NHRC), identified the cases which needed investigation by the CBI, but the state government did not agree. The law does not permit the CBI to take up investigation of an offence in a state outside Delhi without the consent of the state government.</div><div style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 23px; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-top: 5px; padding: 0px; text-align: justify;">The NHRC approached the NDA government to intervene, but it declined. The result is, as rightly anticipated by the NHRC, investigation undertaken by the Gujarat police has been found to be unfair, partisan and a farce. In the Best Bakery case, people were burnt alive in the presence of a crowd. For want of a proper investigation, the prosecution failed. While acquitting all the accused, the fast-track court (FTC) passed strictures for the state police. The nation was shocked. The NHRC moved the SC directly, challenging the acquittals. The court intervened, set aside the judgment and reopened the case, observing: “Large number of people had lost their lives. Whether the accused persons were really assailants or not could have been established by a fair and impartial investigation. The modern-day ‘Neros’ were looking elsewhere when Best Bakery and innocent children and helpless women were burning, and were probably deliberating how the perpetrators of the crime can be saved or protected.”</div><div style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 23px; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-top: 5px; padding: 0px; text-align: justify;">Zahira Habibulla H. Sheikh, the main eyewitness, who lost her family members, complained to the NHRC that she was threatened by powerful politicians not to depose as a prosecution witness. The SC constituted a Special Investigation Team (SIT) to conduct investigations into seven other cases, including the Naroda Patiya murders. But for this order, the conviction of the accused would not have been possible. Tacit connivance of state machinery in the crime and its deliberate attempt to protect the culprits are matters of national concern which Parliament has failed to address. It should be made mandatory for the Central government to entrust the investigation of such sensitive cases to the CBI, if so directed by the NHRC.</div><div style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 23px; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-top: 5px; padding: 0px; text-align: justify;">The sentences of life imprisonment, with conditions, awarded to the convicts in this case may prima facie appear unusual, but are not unprecedented. The SC has held that a court, while awarding life sentence instead of death penalty, may direct that the convict must not be released from prison for the rest of his life or for the term specified in its order. The general impression that imprisonment for life means only 14 years is not correct. “Life” sentence means till the last breath, subject to remissions. Further, the law gives discretion to the court to direct whether the sentences awarded should run concurrently or consecutively. The sentences awarded in this case are neither excessive nor illegal.</div><div style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 23px; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-top: 5px; padding: 0px; text-align: justify;">The country has always suffered on account of politically motivated communal riots before Partition, during Partition and thereafter. Riots happened following the assassination of Indira Gandhi in 1984 when Sikhs were killed, but all the culprits have not been brought to book. Again, it happened in Mumbai following the demolition of the Babri Masjid. The Justice Srikrishna Commission found the involvement of leaders of the Shiv Sena in the organised attack on Muslims, but the law is yet to take its course. The rule of law is a basic feature of the Constitution. It requires that every criminal be punished after a speedy trial.</div><div style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 23px; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-top: 5px; padding: 0px; text-align: justify;"></div><div style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 23px; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-top: 5px; padding: 0px; text-align: justify;"><i style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">The writer is a senior advocate in the Supreme Court, and an expert in constitutional law</i></div></div><br />
<a href="https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/pengoopmcjnbflcjbmoeodbmoflcgjlk" style="font-size: 13px;">'via Blog this'</a>Sandip K. Dasvermahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03288589903537297131noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37668969.post-18925318057661381902012-07-29T13:15:00.001-07:002012-07-29T13:15:38.498-07:00The insider story<a href="http://www.telegraphindia.com/1120729/jsp/graphiti/story_15782827.jsp#.UBWLQrRDy6V">The insider story</a>: <br />
<br />
<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><tbody>
<tr><td class="articleheader" style="font-size: 12pt; font-weight: bold;"><h1 class="articleheader" id="hd" style="font-size: 12pt;">The insider story</h1></td></tr>
<tr><td class="articleauthor" style="font-size: 8pt;">Shashi Tharoor’s latest book is an authoritative take on Indian foreign policy, says <strong>Samita Bhatia</strong></td></tr>
<tr><td align="left" class="story" style="font-size: 9pt;"><table align="left" border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0"><tbody>
<tr><td><img align="left" alt="" src="http://www.telegraphindia.com/1120729/images/29sec5.jpg" style="max-width: 100%;" /></td></tr>
<tr><td class="caption" style="font-size: 8pt;">Pic by Jagan Negi</td></tr>
</tbody></table><div align="left" class="story" style="font-size: 9pt;">It’s been a busy year for Shashi Tharoor. He’s been juggling politics with Parliament, jetting between Delhi and his constituency, Thiruvananthapuram, and burning the midnight oil to complete his newest book,<i>Pax Indica</i>, <i>India and the World of the 21st Century</i>.</div><div align="left" class="story" style="font-size: 9pt;"><i>Pax Indica</i>’s power launch in Delhi was followed by another high-profile launch in Kerala. “Being a good MP, I launched it in Thiruvananthapuram,” he says, as he settles down for a chat in his sprawling MP’s bungalow in Delhi’s Lodhi Estate. The pace will only get hotter over the next few weeks as he takes the book — a clear-eyed view on India’s foreign policy and his 13th book — to Calcutta, Mumbai, Bangalore and Chennai.</div><div align="left" class="story" style="font-size: 9pt;">The former United Nations diplomat isn’t a government minister any longer but he’s still a highly visible figure and receives about 400 invitations in a year to speak at universities, colleges and at functions. “I have invitations from practically every place — from Guwahati to Kanyakumari,” he says. But he can squeeze in just four or five such events annually.</div><div align="left" class="story" style="font-size: 9pt;">A self-confessed workaholic, the parliamentarian, 56, doesn’t allow himself much rest. “I’m probably not spending enough time with my friends, going out, watching movies or enjoying myself,” he says flatly.</div><table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0"><tbody>
<tr><td><img align="left" src="http://www.telegraphindia.com/1120729/images/29sec6.jpg" style="max-width: 100%;" /></td></tr>
<tr><td align="left" class="caption" style="font-size: 8pt;">(From left) Jaswant Singh, Salman Khurshid, Vice-President Mohd Hamid Ansari who released the book, and Karan Singh shared the stage with Shashi Tharoor at the launch of Pax Indica</td></tr>
</tbody></table><div align="left" class="story" style="font-size: 9pt;">But he tweets — from the car, in-between appointments or while driving from Parliament to home. He was the first celebrity in India to notch up one lakh followers on Twitter and the number has swelled to over 14 lakh today. “Bollywood stars have overtaken me and I’m no longer at the top in India,” he says.</div><div align="left" class="story" style="font-size: 9pt;">Stealing time from his schedule to write <i>Pax Indica</i> (Penguin India, Allen Lane) was a grind. A birthday present for his wife, Sunanda, it was written between January and June this year. “In January, Sunanda told me that she wanted it for her birthday on June 27,” he says. He was rushed to meet his deadline as he wrote only in the early mornings and late at night — sometimes till 3am. Add the fact that he does his own research rather than employ a researcher. But fortunately he writes “reasonably rapidly,” he says.</div><div align="left" class="story" style="font-size: 9pt;">Tharoor has written on foreign policy before. His first book — written much before <i>The Great Indian Novel</i> (1989) —was <i>Reasons of State </i>(1982). A rehash of his PhD thesis, it talked about Indian foreign policy-making under Indira Gandhi. So, after he resigned as minister of state for external affairs in 2010, he thought of returning to the subject.</div><table align="right" border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" style="width: 172px;"><tbody>
<tr><td><img align="left" src="http://www.telegraphindia.com/1120729/images/29SecB.jpg" style="max-width: 100%;" /></td></tr>
<tr><td><img align="left" alt="" src="http://www.telegraphindia.com/1120729/images/29secA.jpg" style="max-width: 100%;" /></td></tr>
<tr><td><img align="left" alt="" src="http://www.telegraphindia.com/1120729/images/29secC.jpg" style="max-width: 100%;" /></td></tr>
</tbody></table><div align="left" class="story" style="font-size: 9pt;">Egging him on was the fact that no substantive book on the subject existed for the general reader. “This is not a scholarly book on foreign policy matters but targets educated newspaper readers in India and can animate living room conversations,” he says.</div><div align="left" class="story" style="font-size: 9pt;">Tharoor points out that there was a major change in our foreign policy in the early ’90s. The Look East policy, the opening up of the US and recognition of Israel — all happened then. “But no Indian author had done a book on the subject,” he says.</div><div align="left" class="story" style="font-size: 9pt;">In <i>Pax Indica</i> he has surveyed India’s major international relationships, has evoked our soft power options and urged us to go from non-alignment to multi-alignment. He explains his coinage of the term, multi-alignment: “We can belong both to the non-aligned movement and the community of democracies. We can belong to the G-77 which has 120 countries, and the G-20. We can pursue different objectives with different allies and partners.”</div><div align="left" class="story" style="font-size: 9pt;">He says that it’s important for India to have a foreign policy that also serves the ends of our development objectives. “Our neighbourhood too is our challenge in itself,” he says.</div><div align="left" class="story" style="font-size: 9pt;">Tharoor always had a keen interest in international relations — even as a history student at St. Stephen’s College in Delhi. He would have taken the IFS exams if it hadn’t been for the Emergency. “That completely disillusioned me,” he says.</div><div align="left" class="story" style="font-size: 9pt;">He even wrote about it in his book <i>India</i>: <i>From Midnight to the Millennium </i>(1997). With the IFS ruled out, his says his next best option was to study at The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University in the US from where he earned a PhD in 1978. His career at UN was a natural progression.</div><div align="left" class="story" style="font-size: 9pt;">Tharoor may have spent a better part of his life abroad but he’s glad to be back. He doesn’t miss his UN days where he served for 29 years. He looks back at his tenure as under- secretary general with a pang of nostalgia but not in the sense of wanting to go back. “I prefer to go with the ‘been there, done that’ attitude,” he says.</div><div align="left" class="story" style="font-size: 9pt;">After his career at the UN — he resigned after losing the 2007 election for Secretary-General — he returned to India for good the same year. Coming back he says has given him a satisfaction that he never got at UN — of speaking for his country. “One has a sense of relevance here, of being plugged into their own society,” he says.</div><div align="left" class="story" style="font-size: 9pt;">As minister of state for external affairs in 2009, Tharoor was given supervision of relations with the Arab world, Latin America and Africa. He says that his prime contribution was transforming relationships with some African nations. And because he was a French-speaking minister, he was able to cultivate warm relations with Francophone countries (French-speaking countries). He also became the first Indian minister to set foot in Haiti.</div><div align="left" class="story" style="font-size: 9pt;">Today, Tharoor divides his time equally between Thiruvananthapuram and Delhi. Occasionally, he accepts overseas invitations as he did recently for a function in New York because his twin sons are based there. “I accepted just to be able to see them,” he smiles. “One’s a journalist and the other a writer working on a novel,” he says with fatherly pride.</div><div align="left" class="story" style="font-size: 9pt;">Tharoor’s first four books were fiction and last eight have been non- fiction and he hopes to redress that balance. “I’m going back to fiction in my next book,” he promises.</div><div align="left" class="story" style="font-size: 9pt;">Ideas are bubbling away in his head but he has other priorities for now: he’s hands-on in Thiruvananthapuram attending functions, giving speeches and interacting with the public. He says firmly: “That’s my focus now and it has to be if I want to be re-elected — and I do.”</div></td></tr>
</tbody></table><br />
<a href="https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/pengoopmcjnbflcjbmoeodbmoflcgjlk" style="font-size: 13px;">'via Blog this'</a>Sandip K. Dasvermahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03288589903537297131noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37668969.post-60920730134391159822012-07-27T12:54:00.001-07:002012-07-27T12:54:46.568-07:00Oof! Rashtropoti Bhobon! - Hindustan Times<a href="http://www.hindustantimes.com/News-Feed/IndrajitHazra/Oof-Rashtropoti-Bhobon/Article1-894451.aspx">Oof! Rashtropoti Bhobon! - Hindustan Times</a>: <br />
<br />
<div class="bot_margin" style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Verdana; font-size: 12px; margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px;"><div class="stry_heading" id="ctl00_ContentPlaceHolder1_HTStoryPageControl_strShortHeadline" style="font-family: Georgia, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 30px; letter-spacing: -1px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Oof! Rashtropoti Bhobon!</div></div><div class="stry-date" id="ctl00_ContentPlaceHolder1_HTStoryPageControl_ShowInfoBoxDiv" style="background-color: white; float: left; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Verdana; font-size: 13px; font-weight: 700; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; width: 293px;"><b style="color: #676c6f; font-size: 12px;"><a href="http://www.hindustantimes.com/Search/search.aspx?q=Indrajit%20Hazra&op=Story" style="color: #0066b3; text-decoration: none;">Indrajit Hazra</a>, Hindustan Times</b><br />
July 23, 2012</div><div style="background-color: white; float: left; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Verdana; font-size: 12px; margin: 7px 0px 0px; padding: 0px; width: 83px;"><div id="content" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><div id="___plusone_0" style="background-color: transparent; border-style: none; display: inline-block; float: none; font-size: 1px; height: 24px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; width: 106px;"><iframe allowtransparency="true" frameborder="0" hspace="0" id="I1_1343418181006" marginheight="0" marginwidth="0" name="I1_1343418181006" scrolling="no" src="https://plusone.google.com/_/+1/fastbutton?bsv=pr&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.hindustantimes.com%2FNews-Feed%2FIndrajitHazra%2FOof-Rashtropoti-Bhobon%2FArticle1-894451.aspx&size=standard&count=true&origin=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.hindustantimes.com&hl=en-US&jsh=m%3B%2F_%2Fapps-static%2F_%2Fjs%2Fgapi%2F__features__%2Frt%3Dj%2Fver%3Df1dQbJn8NOg.en.%2Fsv%3D1%2Fam%3D!uU4J5St5scCYCF_kSw%2Fd%3D1%2Frs%3DAItRSTMipBsCFsDM-maYsECYe-cWc7SRyg#id=I1_1343418181006&parent=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.hindustantimes.com&rpctoken=143817806&_methods=onPlusOne%2C_ready%2C_close%2C_open%2C_resizeMe%2C_renderstart" style="border-style: none; height: 24px; left: 0px; margin: 0px; position: static; top: 0px; visibility: visible; width: 106px;" tabindex="0" title="+1" vspace="0" width="100%"></iframe></div></div></div><div id="ctl00_ContentPlaceHolder1_HTStoryPageControl_authordiv" style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Verdana; font-size: 12px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"></div><div class="publish" id="ctl00_ContentPlaceHolder1_HTStoryPageControl_Div1" style="background-color: white; color: #8e8e8e; float: right; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Verdana; font-size: 11px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"></div><div class="publish" id="ctl00_ContentPlaceHolder1_HTStoryPageControl_strDates" style="background-color: white; color: #8e8e8e; float: right; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Verdana; font-size: 11px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">First Published: 23:09 IST(23/7/2012)<br />
Last Updated: 08:58 IST(24/7/2012)</div><div class="clr_both" style="background-color: white; clear: both; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Verdana; font-size: 12px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"></div><div class="gry-line" style="background-color: white; border-top-color: rgb(229, 229, 229); border-top-style: solid; border-top-width: 1px; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Verdana; font-size: 12px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"></div><table style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Verdana; font-size: 12px;"><tbody>
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</tbody></table><div class="bot-margin1" style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Verdana; font-size: 12px; margin: 0px 0px 5px; padding: 0px;"></div><div style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Verdana; font-size: 12px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><div class="body_txt" style="color: #1d1d1d; font-size: 14px; letter-spacing: 0.1px; line-height: 19px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; word-spacing: 0.3px;"><div class="bot-margin1" style="margin: 0px 0px 5px; padding: 0px;"></div>No one’s really noticed, but the Oriyas are really upset. Again. There was a chance that one of their own would finally become the president of India this time round. But no one from Orissa even made the grade as any political party’s presidential candidate. To add insult to injury, the 13th <div class="story_lft_wid" style="float: left; margin: 10px 12px 0px 0px; padding: 0px; width: 200px;"><div id="google_ads_div_ht_story_top_lhs_200x200_ad_wrapper" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><div id="google_ads_div_ht_story_top_lhs_200x200_ad_container" style="display: inline-block; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><ins style="border: 0px; display: inline-table; height: 200px; position: relative; width: 200px;"><ins style="border: 0px; display: block; height: 200px; position: relative; width: 200px;"><iframe frameborder="0" height="200" id="google_ads_iframe_ht_story_top_lhs_200x200" marginheight="0" marginwidth="0" name="google_ads_iframe_ht_story_top_lhs_200x200" scrolling="no" style="border-width: 0px; left: 0px; position: absolute; top: 0px;" width="200"></iframe></ins></ins></div></div><div class="gry-line" style="border-top-color: rgb(229, 229, 229); border-top-style: solid; border-top-width: 1px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"></div><div class="stry-bot-margin" style="margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px;"></div><div class="stry-bot-margin" style="margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px;"></div><div id="ctl00_ContentPlaceHolder1_HTStoryPageControl_related" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><div class="related-stry-head-bg" style="background-color: #c9d7ef; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; height: 27px; margin: 0px; padding: 2px 0px 0px 5px;"><h2 class="stry-head" style="color: #0066b3; float: left; font-size: 20px; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: -1px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-transform: lowercase;">related stories</h2></div><div class="relatd-bg" style="background-color: #e9eff9; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; margin: 0px; padding: 0px 5px 5px 0px;"><div class="related-story1" style="color: #0066b3; font-size: 12px; margin: 0px; padding: 5px 5px 5px 3px;"><ul style="list-style: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><li style="line-height: 15px; list-style-image: url(http://www.hindustantimes.com/SectionPage/images/icon2.gif); list-style-type: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 14px; padding: 0px 0px 5px;"><a href="http://www.hindustantimes.com/News-Feed/Chunk-HT-UI-Presidentialpolljuly2012-TopStories/Pranab-assumes-office-as-Prez-pledges-to-protect-Constitution/Article1-895262.aspx" style="color: #0066b3; text-decoration: none;">Pranab assumes office as Prez, pledges to protect Constitution</a></li>
</ul></div></div></div><div class="stry-bot-margin" style="margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px;"></div></div>President is a Bengali and the outbreak of celebrations in the state next door has been keeping neighbours in Orissa awake at night.<br />
<br />
There had been some confusion in the past when Varahagiri Venkata Giri became the fourth president of India in the late 60s. Many Oriyas had reckoned that at last one of their own had entered Rashtrapati Bhavan. But it soon came to light that this Giri was from Berhampur in the old Madras presidency, and even though Berhampur is now part of Orissa, Giri was a member of a Telugu-speaking family. So to consider him as an ‘Oriya president’ would be as pointless for ethnic chest-thumping purposes as claiming Subhas Chandra <a class="skimwords-link" data-group-id="0" data-skim-creative="10003" data-skim-product="0" data-skimwords-id="815286" data-skimwords-word="bose" href="http://shop.ebay.com/?&_nkw=bose" style="color: #0066b3; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank" title="Shopping link added by SkimWords">Bose</a><span style="position: absolute;"></span><span style="position: absolute;"></span> as ‘one of us’ just because he was born in Cuttack, Orissa (then within the Bengal presidency).<div style="margin-bottom: 15px; padding: 0px;"></div><div style="margin-bottom: 15px; padding: 0px;">In the meantime, Pranab Mukherjee’s ascension to Raisina Hill — and not as a presidential horse as he once wished to be reincarnated as, but as the main resident of Rashtrapati Bhavan — has resulted in Bengalis busting a button or two of their punjabi (Bengali for ‘kurta’ and what in Punjabi should be called ‘bengali’) with unalloyed pride. The Bengali, whether in Kolkata or in the other industrial ghost towns like Detroit or anywhere else, sees Pranab-da’s presidency as not so much a vindication of Mukherjee’s political prowess and of him being the perfect commander-in-chief of India, but as ethnic justice finally being delivered.</div><div style="margin-bottom: 15px; padding: 0px;">The perception of being kept down in the national scheme of things for ages has finally ended for Bengalis. With Pranab-da becoming president, the ghosts of Subhas Bose’s expulsion from the Indian National Congress in 1939, Jyoti Basu’s ‘Himalayan blunder’ of being denied prime ministership in 1996, and Sourav Ganguly being dropped from the national cricket squad in 2006 have been exorcised. The transfer of the capital from Calcutta to Delhi in 1911, too, has finally been avenged — and Mamata Banerjee can put a lid on her ‘We demand respect from Delhi’ whine.</div><div style="margin-bottom: 15px; padding: 0px;">This isn’t the right time to remind fellow Bengalis what Mukherjee’s original destination was. (Clue: A Punjabi occupies that space now.) But as Bengalis will now ensure that everyone knows, being the president of India is a far greater honour than being a mere prime minister. The house is bigger, the entertainment allowance along with other perks more, and one doesn’t have to report to any non-Bengali party boss.</div><div style="margin-bottom: 15px; padding: 0px;">The 21st century has already seen long-pending ethnic-, religious- and gender-based biases being reversed. Barack Obama became the first African-American president of America. Pratibha Patil became the first table tennis player to become president of a cricket-loving nation. (A few people’s attempt to make her becoming president a matter of ‘Marathi pride’ fizzled out as soon as the Shiv Sena agreed to support her candidature.) Karan Johar became the first Indian to win a Best Director Oscar. OK, so that hasn’t happened yet because of the American Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences continuing to be an anti-India, racist institution.</div><div style="margin-bottom: 15px; padding: 0px;">But in the general spirit of our times being so pro-active in reversing old, fest-ering biases, Mukherjee will be sworn in tomorrow as India’s first ex-pipe-smoking, under-5 feet 6 inches, Durga-worshipping, non-Oriya Kulin Brahmin alumnus from Suri Vidyasagar College. Fellow Bengalis, at last our moment has come!</div></div></div><br />
<a href="https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/pengoopmcjnbflcjbmoeodbmoflcgjlk" style="font-size: 13px;">'via Blog this'</a>Sandip K. Dasvermahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03288589903537297131noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37668969.post-44953433683532206652012-06-21T21:41:00.001-07:002012-06-21T21:41:32.569-07:00Capitalism: A Ghost Story | Arundhati Roy<a href="http://www.outlookindia.com/article.aspx?280234">Capitalism: A Ghost Story | Arundhati Roy</a><br />
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<tr> <td style="width: 70%;"> <a class="fsptopbartext" href="http://www.outlookindia.com/sectionhome.aspx?secid=19&name=National"> National </a> / <a class="fsptopbartext" href="http://www.outlookindia.com/sectionhome.aspx?secid=18&name=Business"> Business </a> / <a class="fsptopbartext" href="http://www.outlookindia.com/subsection.aspx?subsecid=2&name=Cover%20Stories"> Cover Stories </a> / <a class="fsptopbartext" href="http://www.outlookindia.com/subsection.aspx?subsecid=3&name=Essays"> Essays </a> </td> <td align="right" style="width: 30%;"> <a class="fsptopbartext2" href="http://www.outlookindia.com/content.aspx?issue=10849">Magazine | Mar 26, 2012 </a> </td> </tr>
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</td> <td style="overflow: hidden; padding-bottom: 10px; padding-top: 10px; vertical-align: top; width: 550px;"> <div> <div id="ctl00_cphpagemiddle_reparticle_ctl00_divartpic" style="overflow: hidden; text-align: center; width: 550px;"> <a href="http://photo.outlookindia.com/images/gallery/20120314/antalia_20120326.jpg" id="ctl00_cphpagemiddle_reparticle_ctl00_hlimglarge" target="_blank"><img border="0" id="ctl00_cphpagemiddle_reparticle_ctl00_imglarge" src="http://photo.outlookindia.com/images/gallery/20120314/antalia_20120326.jpg" style="border-width: 0px;" /></a> </div><div class="fspphotocredit" id="ctl00_cphpagemiddle_reparticle_ctl00_divartpiccredit">Corbis (From Outlook, March 26, 2012)</div><div class="fsppicturecaption" id="ctl00_cphpagemiddle_reparticle_ctl00_divartpiccaption"><b>Antilla the Hun</b> Mukesh Ambani’s 27-storey home on Altamont Road. Its bright lights, say the neighbours, have stolen the night.</div><div class="divseperator"> <div class="fspchannelhome" id="ctl00_cphpagemiddle_reparticle_ctl00_divfspchannelhome"> capitalism </div><div class="fspheading" id="ctl00_cphpagemiddle_reparticle_ctl00_divfspheading"> Capitalism: A Ghost Story </div><div class="fspintro" id="ctl00_cphpagemiddle_reparticle_ctl00_divfspintro"> Rockefeller to Mandela, Vedanta to Anna Hazare.... How long can the cardinals of corporate gospel buy up our protests? </div><div class="fspauthor" id="ctl00_cphpagemiddle_reparticle_ctl00_divartbyline"> <a class="fspprintsavelinks2" href="http://www.outlookindia.com/peoplefnl.aspx?pid=4112&author=Arundhati+Roy">Arundhati Roy</a> </div><div class="divseperator"> </div><div class="divseperator"> </div><div> <table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0"><tbody>
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</tbody></table></div><div class="fsptext" id="divouterfullstorytext"> <div id="ctl00_cphpagemiddle_reparticle_ctl00_divfullstorytext" style="border: solid 0px #cccccc; margin-right: 3px; vertical-align: top;"><div><span style="font-family: Arial;">I</span>s it a house or a home? A temple to the new India, or a warehouse for its ghosts? Ever since Antilla arrived on Altamont Road in Mumbai, exuding mystery and quiet menace, things have not been the same. “Here we are,” the friend who took me there said, “Pay your respects to our new Ruler.”<br />
Antilla belongs to India’s richest man, Mukesh Ambani. I had read about this most expensive dwelling ever built, the twenty-seven floors, three helipads, nine lifts, hanging gardens, ballrooms, weather rooms, gymnasiums, six floors of parking, and the six hundred servants. Nothing had prepared me for the vertical lawn—a soaring, 27-storey-high wall of grass attached to a vast metal grid. The grass was dry in patches; bits had fallen off in neat rectangles. Clearly, Trickledown hadn’t worked.<br />
But Gush-Up certainly has. That’s why in a nation of 1.2 billion, India’s 100 richest people own assets equivalent to one-fourth of the GDP.<br />
The word on the street (and in the <em>New York Times</em>) is, or at least was, that after all that effort and gardening, the Ambanis don’t live in Antilla. No one knows for sure. People still whisper about ghosts and bad luck, Vaastu and Feng Shui. Maybe it’s all Karl Marx’s fault. (All that cussing.) Capitalism, he said, “has conjured up such gigantic means of production and of exchange, that it is like the sorcerer who is no longer able to control the powers of the nether world whom he has called up by his spells”.<br />
In India, the 300 million of us who belong to the new, post-IMF “reforms” middle class—the market—live side by side with spirits of the nether world, the poltergeists of dead rivers, dry wells, bald mountains and denuded forests; the ghosts of 2,50,000 debt-ridden farmers who have killed themselves, and of the 800 million who have been impoverished and dispossessed to make way for us. And who survive on less than twenty rupees a day.<br />
Mukesh Ambani is personally worth $20 billion. He holds a majority controlling share in Reliance Industries Limited (RIL), a company with a market capitalisation of $47 billion and global business interests that include petrochemicals, oil, natural gas, polyester fibre, Special Economic Zones, fresh food retail, high schools, life sciences research and stem cell storage services. RIL recently bought 95 per cent shares in Infotel, a TV consortium that controls 27 TV news and entertainment channels, including CNN-IBN, IBN Live, CNBC, IBN Lokmat, and ETV in almost every regional language. Infotel owns the only nationwide licence for 4G Broadband, a high-speed “information pipeline” which, if the technology works, could be the future of information exchange. Mr Ambani also owns a cricket team.<br />
RIL is one of a handful of corporations that run India. Some of the others are the Tatas, Jindals, Vedanta, Mittals, Infosys, Essar and the other Reliance (ADAG), owned by Mukesh’s brother Anil. Their race for growth has spilled across Europe, Central Asia, Africa and Latin America. Their nets are cast wide; they are visible and invisible, over-ground as well as underground. The Tatas, for example, run more than 100 companies in 80 countries. They are one of India’s oldest and largest private sector power companies. They own mines, gas fields, steel plants, telephone, cable TV and broadband networks, and run whole townships. They manufacture cars and trucks, own the Taj Hotel chain, Jaguar, Land Rover, Daewoo, Tetley Tea, a publishing company, a chain of bookstores, a major brand of iodised salt and the cosmetics giant Lakme. Their advertising tagline could easily be: You Can’t Live Without Us.<br />
According to the rules of the Gush-Up Gospel, the more you have, the more you can have.<br />
The era of the Privatisation of Everything has made the Indian economy one of the fastest growing in the world. However, like any good old-fashioned colony, one of its main exports is its minerals. India’s new mega-corporations—Tatas, Jindals, Essar, Reliance, Sterlite—are those who have managed to muscle their way to the head of the spigot that is spewing money extracted from deep inside the earth. It’s a dream come true for businessmen—to be able to sell what they don’t have to buy.<br />
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<span class="fsppicturecaption"><strong>A whole spectrum of corruption</strong> A. Raja being led to jail in connection with the 2G scandal. (Photograph by Sanjay Rawat)</span></div><span style="font-family: Arial;">T</span>he other major source of corporate wealth comes from their land-banks. All over the world, weak, corrupt local governments have helped Wall Street brokers, agro-business corporations and Chinese billionaires to amass huge tracts of land. (Of course, this entails commandeering water too.) In India, the land of millions of people is being acquired and made over to private corporations for “public interest”—for Special Economic Zones, infrastructure projects, dams, highways, car manufacture, chemical hubs and Formula One racing. (The sanctity of private property never applies to the poor.) As always, local people are promised that their displacement from their land and the expropriation of everything they ever had is actually part of employment generation. But by now we know that the connection between GDP growth and jobs is a myth. After 20 years of “growth”, 60 per cent of India’s workforce is self-employed, 90 per cent of India’s labour force works in the unorganised sector.<br />
Post-Independence, right up to the ’80s, people’s movements, ranging from the Naxalites to Jayaprakash Narayan’s Sampoorna Kranti, were fighting for land reforms, for the redistribution of land from feudal landlords to landless peasants. Today any talk of redistribution of land or wealth would be considered not just undemocratic, but lunatic. Even the most militant movements have been reduced to a fight to hold on to what little land people still have. The millions of landless people, the majority of them Dalits and adivasis, driven from their villages, living in slums and shanty colonies in small towns and mega cities, do not figure even in the radical discourse.<br />
As Gush-Up concentrates wealth on to the tip of a shining pin on which our billionaires pirouette, tidal waves of money crash through the institutions of democracy—the courts, Parliament as well as the media, seriously compromising their ability to function in the ways they are meant to. The noisier the carnival around elections, the less sure we are that democracy really exists.<br />
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</td><td><span class="fspblurbtext">India’s new megacorps—Tatas, Jindals, Essar, Reliance—are those who’ve moved to the head of the spigot that’s spewing money extracted from inside the earth.</span></td><td width="20"><br />
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</tbody></table><a href="" name="Blurb1"></a>Each new corruption scandal that surfaces in India makes the last one look tame. In the summer of 2011, the 2G spectrum scandal broke. We learnt that corporations had siphoned away $40 billion of public money by installing a friendly soul as the Union minister of telecommunication who grossly underpriced the licences for 2G telecom spectrum and illegally parcelled it out to his buddies. The taped telephone conversations leaked to the press showed how a network of industrialists and their front companies, ministers, senior journalists and a TV anchor were involved in facilitating this daylight robbery. The tapes were just an MRI that confirmed a diagnosis that people had made long ago. The privatisation and illegal sale of telecom spectrum does not involve war, displacement and ecological devastation. The privatisation of India’s mountains, rivers and forests does. Perhaps because it does not have the uncomplicated clarity of a straightforward, out-and-out accounting scandal, or perhaps because it is all being done in the name of India’s “progress”, it does not have the same resonance with the middle classes.<br />
In 2005, the state governments of Chhattisgarh, Orissa and Jharkhand signed hundreds of Memorandums of Understanding (MoUs) with a number of private corporations turning over trillions of dollars of bauxite, iron ore and other minerals for a pittance, defying even the warped logic of the free market. (Royalties to the government ranged between 0.5 per cent and 7 per cent.)<br />
Only days after the Chhattisgarh government signed an MoU for the construction of an integrated steel plant in Bastar with Tata Steel, the Salwa Judum, a vigilante militia, was inaugurated. The government said it was a spontaneous uprising of local people who were fed up of the “repression” by Maoist guerrillas in the forest. It turned out to be a ground-clearing operation, funded and armed by the government and subsidised by mining corporations. In the other states, similar militias were created, with other names. The prime minister announced the Maoists were the “single-largest security challenge in India”. It was a declaration of war.<br />
On January 2, 2006, in Kalinganagar, in the neighbouring state of Orissa, perhaps to signal the seriousness of the government’s intention, ten platoons of police arrived at the site of another Tata Steel plant and opened fire on villagers who had gathered there to protest what they felt was inadequate compensation for their land. Thirteen people, including one policeman, were killed, and 37 injured. Six years have gone by and though the villages remain under siege by armed policemen, the protest has not died.<br />
Meanwhile in Chhattisgarh, the Salwa Judum burned, raped and murdered its way through hundreds of forest villages, evacuating 600 villages, forcing 50,000 people to come out into police camps and 3,50,000 people to flee. The chief minister announced that those who did not come out of the forests would be considered to be ‘Maoist terrorists’. In this way, in parts of modern India, ploughing fields and sowing seed came to be defined as terrorist activity. Eventually, the Salwa Judum’s atrocities only succeeded in strengthening the resistance and swelling the ranks of the Maoist guerrilla army. In 2009, the government announced what it called Operation Green Hunt. Two lakh paramilitary troops were deployed across Chhattisgarh, Orissa, Jharkhand and West Bengal.<br />
After three years of “low-intensity conflict” that has not managed to “flush” the rebels out of the forest, the central government has declared that it will deploy the Indian army and air force. In India, we don’t call this war. We call it “creating a good investment climate”. Thousands of soldiers have already moved in. A brigade headquarters and air bases are being readied. One of the biggest armies in the world is now preparing its Terms of Engagement to “defend” itself against the poorest, hungriest, most malnourished people in the world. We only await the declaration of the Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA), which will give the army legal immunity and the right to kill “on suspicion”. Going by the tens of thousands of unmarked graves and anonymous cremation pyres in Kashmir, Manipur and Nagaland, it has shown itself to be a very suspicious army indeed.<br />
While the preparations for deployment are being made, the jungles of Central India continue to remain under siege, with villagers frightened to come out, or go to the market for food or medicine. Hundreds of people have been jailed, charged for being Maoists under draconian, undemocratic laws. Prisons are crowded with adivasi people, many of whom have no idea what their crime is. Recently, Soni Sori, an adivasi school-teacher from Bastar, was arrested and tortured in police custody. Stones were pushed up her vagina to get her to “confess” that she was a Maoist courier. The stones were removed from her body at a hospital in Calcutta, where, after a public outcry, she was sent for a medical check-up. At a recent Supreme Court hearing, activists presented the judges with the stones in a plastic bag. The only outcome of their efforts has been that Soni Sori remains in jail while Ankit Garg, the Superintendent of Police who conducted the interrogation, was conferred with the President’s Police Medal for Gallantry on Republic Day.<br />
We hear about the ecological and social re-engineering of Central India only because of the mass insurrection and the war. The government gives out no information. The Memorandums of Understanding are all secret. Some sections of the media have done what they could to bring public attention to what is happening in Central India. However, most of the Indian mass media is made vulnerable by the fact that the major share of its revenues come from corporate advertisements. If that is not bad enough, now the line between the media and big business has begun to blur dangerously. As we have seen, RIL virtually owns 27 TV channels. But the reverse is also true. Some media houses now have direct business and corporate interests. For example, one of the major daily newspapers in the region—<em>Dainik Bhaskar</em> (and it is only one example)—has 17.5 million readers in four languages, including English and Hindi, across 13 states. It also owns 69 companies with interests in mining, power generation, real estate and textiles. A recent writ petition filed in the Chhattisgarh High Court accuses DB Power Ltd (one of the group’s companies) of using “deliberate, illegal and manipulative measures” through company-owned newspapers to influence the outcome of a public hearing over an open cast coal mine. Whether or not it has attempted to influence the outcome is not germane. The point is that media houses are in a position to do so. They have the power to do so. The laws of the land allow them to be in a position that lends itself to a serious conflict of interest.<br />
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<span class="fsppicturecaption"><strong>The litfests</strong> Along with film, art installations, they have replaced the 1990s obsession with beauty contests. (Photograph by Tribhuvan Tiwari)</span></div><span style="font-family: Arial;">T</span>here are other parts of the country from which no news comes. In the sparsely populated but militarised northeastern state of Arunachal Pradesh, 168 big dams are being constructed, most of them privately owned. High dams that will submerge whole districts are being constructed in Manipur and Kashmir, both highly militarised states where people can be killed merely for protesting power cuts. (That happened a few weeks ago in Kashmir.) How can they stop a dam?<br />
The most delusional dam of all is Kalpasar in Gujarat. It is being planned as a 34-km-long dam across the Gulf of Khambhat with a 10-lane highway and a railway line running on top of it. By keeping the sea water out, the idea is to create a sweet water reservoir of Gujarat’s rivers. (Never mind that these rivers have already been dammed to a trickle and poisoned with chemical effluent.) The Kalpasar dam, which would raise the sea level and alter the ecology of hundreds of kilometres of coastline, had been dismissed as a bad idea 10 years ago. It has made a sudden comeback in order to supply water to the Dholera Special Investment Region (SIR) in one of the most water-stressed zones not just in India, but in the world. SIR is another name for an SEZ, a self-governed corporate dystopia of “industrial parks, townships and mega-cities”. The Dholera SIR is going to be connected to Gujarat’s other cities by a network of 10-lane highways. Where will the money for all this come from?<br />
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</td><td><span class="fspblurbtext">After three years of trying to flush out the rebels, the Centre’s said it’ll deploy the armed forces. In India, this is not war, it’s ‘Creating a Good Investment Climate’.</span></td><td width="20"><br />
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</tbody></table><a href="" name="Blurb2"></a>In January 2011, in the Mahatma (Gandhi) Mandir, Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi presided over a meeting of 10,000 international businessmen from 100 countries. According to media reports, they pledged to invest $450 billion in Gujarat. The meeting was scheduled to take place at the onset of the 10th anniversary year of the massacre of 2,000 Muslims in February-March 2002. Modi stands accused of not just condoning, but actively abetting, the killing. People who watched their loved ones being raped, eviscerated and burned alive, the tens of thousands who were driven from their homes, still wait for a gesture towards justice. But Modi has traded in his saffron scarf and vermilion forehead for a sharp business suit, and hopes that a 450-billion-dollar investment will work as blood money, and square the books. Perhaps it will. Big Business is backing him enthusiastically. The algebra of infinite justice works in mysterious ways. The Dholera SIR is only one of the smaller Matryoshka dolls, one of the inner ones in the dystopia that is being planned. It will be connected to the Delhi Mumbai Industrial Corridor (DMIC), a 1,500-km-long and 300-km-wide industrial corridor, with nine mega-industrial zones, a high-speed freight line, three seaports and six airports, a six-lane intersection-free expressway and a 4,000 MW power plant. The DMIC is a collaborative venture between the governments of India and Japan, and their respective corporate partners, and has been proposed by the McKinsey Global Institute.<br />
The DMIC website says that approximately 180 million people will be “affected” by the project. Exactly how, it doesn’t say. It envisages the building of several new cities and estimates that the population in the region will grow from the current 231 million to 314 million by 2019. That’s in seven years’ time. When was the last time a state, despot or dictator carried out a population transfer of millions of people? Can it possibly be a peaceful process?<br />
The Indian army might need to go on a recruitment drive so that it’s not taken unawares when it’s ordered to deploy all over India. In preparation for its role in Central India, it publicly released its updated doctrine on Military Psychological Operations, which outlines “a planned process of conveying a message to a select target audience, to promote particular themes that result in desired attitudes and behaviour, which affect the achievement of political and military objectives of the country”. This process of “perception management”, it said, would be conducted by “using media available to the services”.<br />
The army is experienced enough to know that coercive force alone cannot carry out or manage social engineering on the scale that is envisaged by India’s planners. War against the poor is one thing. But for the rest of us—the middle class, white-collar workers, intellectuals, “opinion-makers”—it has to be “perception management”. And for this we must turn our attention to the exquisite art of Corporate Philanthropy.<br />
Of late, the main mining conglomerates have embraced the Arts—film, art installations and the rush of literary festivals that have replaced the ’90s obsession with beauty contests. Vedanta, currently mining the heart out of the homelands of the ancient Dongria Kondh tribe for bauxite, is sponsoring a ‘Creating Happiness’ film competition for young film students whom they have commissioned to make films on sustainable development. Vedanta’s tagline is ‘Mining Happiness’. The Jindal Group brings out a contemporary art magazine and supports some of India’s major artists (who naturally work with stainless steel). Essar was the principal sponsor of the Tehelka Newsweek <em>Think</em> Fest that promised “high-octane debates” by the foremost thinkers from around the world, which included major writers, activists and even the architect Frank Gehry. (All this in Goa, where activists and journalists were uncovering massive illegal mining scandals, and Essar’s part in the war unfolding in Bastar was emerging.) Tata Steel and Rio Tinto (which has a sordid track record of its own) were among the chief sponsors of the Jaipur Literary Festival (Latin name: Darshan Singh Construction Jaipur Literary Festival) that is advertised by the cognoscenti as ‘The Greatest Literary Show on Earth’. Counselage, the Tatas’ “strategic brand manager”, sponsored the festival’s press tent. Many of the world’s best and brightest writers gathered in Jaipur to discuss love, literature, politics and Sufi poetry. Some tried to defend Salman Rushdie’s right to free speech by reading from his proscribed book, <em>The Satanic Verses</em>. In every TV frame and newspaper photograph, the logo of Tata Steel (and its tagline—Values Stronger than Steel) loomed behind them, a benign, benevolent host. The enemies of Free Speech were the supposedly murderous Muslim mobs, who, the festival organisers told us, could have even harmed the school-children gathered there. (We are witness to how helpless the Indian government and the police can be when it comes to Muslims.) Yes, the hardline Darul-Uloom Deobandi Islamic seminary did protest Rushdie being invited to the festival. Yes, some Islamists did gather at the festival venue to protest and yes, outrageously, the state government did nothing to protect the venue. That’s because the whole episode had as much to do with democracy, votebanks and the Uttar Pradesh elections as it did with Islamist fundamentalism. But the battle for Free Speech against Islamist Fundamentalism made it to the world’s newspapers. It is important that it did. But there were hardly any reports about the festival sponsors’ role in the war in the forests, the bodies piling up, the prisons filling up. Or about the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act and the Chhattisgarh Special Public Security Act, which make even <em>thinking</em> an anti-government thought a cognisable offence. Or about the mandatory public hearing for the Tata Steel plant in Lohandiguda which local people complained actually took place hundreds of miles away in Jagdalpur, in the collector’s office compound, with a hired audience of fifty people, under armed guard. Where was Free Speech then? No one mentioned Kalinganagar. No one mentioned that journalists, academics and filmmakers working on subjects unpopular with the Indian government—like the surreptitious part it played in the genocide of Tamils in the war in Sri Lanka or the recently discovered unmarked graves in Kashmir—were being denied visas or deported straight from the airport.<br />
But which of us sinners was going to cast the first stone? Not me, who lives off royalties from corporate publishing houses. We all watch Tata Sky, we surf the net with Tata Photon, we ride in Tata taxis, we stay in Tata Hotels, we sip our Tata tea in Tata bone china and stir it with teaspoons made of Tata Steel. We buy Tata books in Tata bookshops. <em>Hum Tata ka namak khate hain</em>. We’re under siege.<br />
If the sledgehammer of moral purity is to be the criterion for stone-throwing, then the only people who qualify are those who have been silenced already. Those who live outside the system; the outlaws in the forests or those whose protests are never covered by the press, or the well-behaved dispossessed, who go from tribunal to tribunal, bearing witness, giving testimony.<br />
But the Litfest gave us our Aha! Moment. Oprah came. She said she <em>loved</em> India, that she would come <em>again</em> and <em>again</em>. It made us proud.<br />
This is only the burlesque end of the Exquisite Art.<br />
Though the Tatas have been involved with corporate philanthropy for almost a hundred years now, endowing scholarships and running some excellent educational institutes and hospitals, Indian corporations have only recently been invited into the Star Chamber, the <em>Camera stellata</em>, the brightly lit world of global corporate government, deadly for its adversaries, but otherwise so artful that you barely know it’s there.<br />
<span style="font-family: Arial;">W</span>hat follows in this essay might appear to some to be a somewhat harsh critique. On the other hand, in the tradition of honouring one’s adversaries, it could be read as an acknowledgement of the vision, flexibility, the sophistication and unwavering determination of those who have dedicated their lives to keep the world safe for capitalism.<br />
Their enthralling history, which has faded from contemporary memory, began in the US in the early 20th century when, kitted out legally in the form of endowed foundations, corporate philanthropy began to replace missionary activity as Capitalism’s (and Imperialism’s) road opening and systems maintenance patrol. Among the first foundations to be set up in the United States were the Carnegie Corporation, endowed in 1911 by profits from the Carnegie Steel Company; and the Rockefeller Foundation, endowed in 1914 by J.D. Rockefeller, founder of <em>Standard Oil Company</em>. The Tatas and Ambanis of their time.<br />
Some of the institutions financed, given seed money or supported by the Rockefeller Foundation are the UN, the CIA, the Council on Foreign Relations, New York’s most fabulous Museum of Modern Art, and, of course, the Rockefeller Center in New York (where Diego Riviera’s mural had to be blasted off the wall because it mischievously depicted reprobate capitalists and a valiant Lenin. Free Speech had taken the day off.)<br />
J.D. Rockefeller was America’s first billionaire and the world’s richest man. He was an abolitionist, a supporter of Abraham Lincoln and a teetotaller. He believed his money was given to him by God, which must have been nice for him.<br />
Here’s an excerpt from one of Pablo Neruda’s early poems called Standard Oil Company:<br />
<blockquote> Their obese emperors from New York<br />
are suave smiling assassins<br />
who buy silk, nylon, cigars<br />
petty tyrants and dictators.<br />
They buy countries, people, seas, police, county councils,<br />
distant regions where the poor hoard their corn<br />
like misers their gold:<br />
Standard Oil awakens them,<br />
clothes them in uniforms, designates<br />
which brother is the enemy.<br />
the Paraguayan fights its war,<br />
and the Bolivian wastes away<br />
in the jungle with its machine gun.<br />
A President assassinated for a drop of petroleum,<br />
a million-acre mortgage,<br />
a swift execution on a morning mortal with light, petrified,<br />
a new prison camp for subversives,<br />
in Patagonia, a betrayal, scattered shots<br />
beneath a petroliferous moon,<br />
a subtle change of ministers<br />
in the capital, a whisper<br />
like an oil tide,<br />
and zap, you’ll see<br />
how Standard Oil’s letters shine above the clouds,<br />
above the seas, in your home,<br />
illuminating their dominions.<br />
</blockquote>When corporate-endowed foundations first made their appearance in the US, there was a fierce debate about their provenance, legality and lack of accountability. People suggested that if companies had so much surplus money, they should raise the wages of their workers. (People made these outrageous suggestions in those days, even in America.) The idea of these foundations, so ordinary now, was in fact a leap of the business imagination. Non-tax-paying legal entities with massive resources and an almost unlimited brief—wholly unaccountable, wholly non-transparent—what better way to parlay economic wealth into political, social and cultural capital, to turn money into power? What better way for usurers to use a minuscule percentage of their profits to run the world? How else would Bill Gates, who admittedly knows a thing or two about computers, find himself designing education, health and agriculture policies, not just for the US government, but for governments all over the world?<br />
Over the years, as people witnessed some of the genuinely good the foundations did (running public libraries, eradicating diseases)—the direct connection between corporations and the foundations they endowed began to blur. Eventually, it faded altogether. Now even those who consider themselves left-wing are not shy to accept their largesse.<br />
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</td><td><span class="fspblurbtext">RIL owns 27 TV channels. But the reverse is also true. Dainik Bhaskar owns 69 companies with interests in mining, power generation, real estate and textiles.</span></td><td width="20"><br />
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</tbody></table><a href="" name="Blurb3"></a>By the 1920s, US capitalism had begun to look outwards, for raw materials and overseas markets. Foundations began to formulate the idea of global corporate governance. In 1924, the Rockefeller and Carnegie foundations jointly created what is today the most powerful foreign policy pressure group in the world—the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), which later came to be funded by the Ford Foundation as well. By 1947, the newly created CIA was supported by and working closely with the CFR. Over the years, the CFR’s membership has included 22 US secretaries of state. There were five CFR members in the 1943 steering committee that planned the UN, and an $8.5 million grant from J.D. Rockefeller bought the land on which the UN’s New York headquarters stands. All eleven of the World Bank’s presidents since 1946—men who have presented themselves as missionaries of the poor—have been members of the CFR. (The exception was George Woods. And he was a trustee of the Rockefeller Foundation and vice-president of Chase-Manhattan Bank.)<br />
<span style="font-family: Arial;">A</span>t Bretton Woods, the World Bank and IMF decided that the US dollar should be the reserve currency of the world, and that in order to enhance the penetration of global capital, it would be necessary to universalise and standardise business practices in an open marketplace. It is towards that end that they spend a large amount of money promoting Good Governance (as long as they control the strings), the concept of the Rule of Law (provided they have a say in making the laws) and hundreds of anti-corruption programmes (to streamline the system they have put in place.) Two of the most opaque, unaccountable organisations in the world go about demanding transparency and accountability from the governments of poorer countries.<br />
Given that the World Bank has more or less directed the economic policies of the Third World, coercing and cracking open the markets of country after country for global finance, you could say that corporate philanthropy has turned out to be the most visionary business of all time.<br />
Corporate-endowed foundations administer, trade and channelise their power and place their chessmen on the chessboard, through a system of elite clubs and think-tanks, whose members overlap and move in and out through the revolving doors. Contrary to the various conspiracy theories in circulation, particularly among left-wing groups, there is nothing secret, satanic, or Freemason-like about this arrangement. It is not very different from the way corporations use shell companies and offshore accounts to transfer and administer their money—except that the currency is power, not money.<br />
The transnational equivalent of the CFR is the Trilateral Commission, set up in 1973 by David Rockefeller, the former US National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski (founder-member of the Afghan Mujahideen, forefathers of the Taliban), the Chase-Manhattan Bank and some other private eminences. Its purpose was to create an enduring bond of friendship and cooperation between the elites of North America, Europe and Japan. It has now become a penta-lateral commission, because it includes members from China and India. (Tarun Das of the CII; N.R. Narayanamurthy, ex-CEO, Infosys; Jamsheyd N. Godrej, managing director, Godrej; Jamshed J. Irani, director, Tata Sons; and Gautam Thapar, CEO, Avantha Group).<br />
The Aspen Institute is an international club of local elites, businessmen, bureaucrats, politicians, with franchises in several countries. Tarun Das is the president of the Aspen Institute, India. Gautam Thapar is chairman. Several senior officers of the McKinsey Global Institute (proposer of the Delhi Mumbai Industrial Corridor) are members of the CFR, the Trilateral Commission and the Aspen Institute.<br />
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</td><td><span class="fspblurbtext">Coercing a woman out of a burqa is not about liberating her, but about unclothing her. Coercing a woman out of a burqa is as bad as coercing her into one.</span></td><td width="20"><br />
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</tbody></table><a href="" name="Blurb4"></a>The Ford Foundation (liberal foil to the more conservative Rockefeller Foundation, though the two work together constantly) was set up in 1936. Though it is often underplayed, the Ford Foundation has a very clear, well-defined ideology and works extremely closely with the US state department. Its project of deepening democracy and “good governance” are very much part of the Bretton Woods scheme of standardising business practice and promoting efficiency in the free market. After the Second World War, when Communists replaced Fascists as the US government’s enemy number one, new kinds of institutions were needed to deal with the Cold War. Ford funded RAND (Research and Development Corporation), a military think-tank that began with weapons research for the US defense services. In 1952, to thwart “the persistent Communist effort to penetrate and disrupt free nations”, it established the Fund for the Republic, which then morphed into the Center for the Study of Democratic Institutions whose brief was to wage the cold war intelligently without McCarthyite excesses. It is through this lens that we need to view the work Ford Foundation is doing, with the millions of dollars it has invested in India—its funding of artists, filmmakers and activists, its generous endowment of university courses and scholarships. The Ford Foundation’s declared “goals for the future of mankind” include interventions in grassroots political movements locally and internationally. In the US, it provided millions in grants and loans to support the Credit Union Movement that was pioneered by the department store owner, Edward Filene, in 1919. Filene believed in creating a mass consumption society of consumer goods by giving workers affordable access to credit—a radical idea at the time. Actually, only half of a radical idea, because the other half of what Filene believed in was the more equitable distribution of national income. Capitalists seized on the first half of Filene’s suggestion, and by disbursing “affordable” loans of tens of millions of dollars to working people, turned the US working class into people who are permanently in debt, running to catch up with their lifestyles.<br />
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<span class="fsppicturecaption"><b>Embracing death</b> Microcredit has been the bane of many a farmer. Many have been forced to commit suicide.</span></div>Many years later, this idea has trickled down to the impoverished countryside of Bangladesh when Mohammed Yunus and the Grameen Bank brought microcredit to starving peasants with disastrous consequences. Microfinance companies in India are responsible for hundreds of suicides—200 people in Andhra Pradesh in 2010 alone. A national daily recently published a suicide note by an 18-year-old girl who was forced to hand over her last Rs 150, her school fees, to bullying employees of the microfinance company. The note said, “Work hard and earn money. Do not take loans.”<br />
There’s a lot of money in poverty, and a few Nobel Prizes too.<br />
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</td><td><span class="fspblurbtext">But which of us sinners was going to cast the first stone? We watch Tata Sky, surf the net with Tata Photon, sip Tata Tea. <i>Hum Tata ka namak khate hain</i>!</span></td><td width="20"><br />
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</tbody></table><a href="" name="Blurb5"></a>By the 1950s, the Rockefeller and Ford foundations, funding several NGOs and international educational institutions, began to work as quasi-extensions of the US government that was at the time toppling democratically elected governments in Latin America, Iran and Indonesia. (That was also around the time they made their entry into India, then non-aligned, but clearly tilting towards the Soviet Union.) The Ford Foundation established a US-style economics course at the Indonesian University. Elite Indonesian students, trained in counter-insurgency by US army officers, played a crucial part in the 1965 CIA-backed coup in Indonesia that brought General Suharto to power. Gen Suharto repaid his mentors by slaughtering hundreds of thousands of Communist rebels. Eight years later, young Chilean students, who came to be known as the Chicago Boys, were taken to the US to be trained in neo-liberal economics by Milton Friedman at the University of Chicago (endowed by J.D. Rockefeller), in preparation for the 1973 CIA-backed coup that killed Salvador Allende, and brought in General Pinochet and a reign of death squads, disappearances and terror that lasted for seventeen years. (Allende’s crime was being a democratically elected socialist and nationalising Chile’s mines.)<br />
In 1957, the Rockefeller Foundation established the Ramon Magsaysay Prize for community leaders in Asia. It was named after Ramon Magsaysay, president of the Philippines, a crucial ally in the US campaign against Communism in Southeast Asia. In 2000, the Ford Foundation established the Ramon Magsaysay Emergent Leadership Award. The Magsaysay Award is considered a prestigious award among artists, activists and community workers in India. M.S. Subbulakshmi and Satyajit Ray won it, so did Jayaprakash Narayan and one of India’s finest journalists, P. Sainath. But they did more for the Magsaysay award than it did for them. In general, it has become a gentle arbiter of what kind of activism is “acceptable” and what is not.<br />
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<span class="fsppicturecaption"><strong>Team Anna</strong> Whose voice are they, really?. (Photograph by Sanjay Rawat)</span></div>Interestingly, Anna Hazare’s anti-corruption movement last summer was spearheaded by three Magsaysay Award winners—Anna Hazare, Arvind Kejriwal and Kiran Bedi. One of Arvind Kejriwal’s many NGOs is generously funded by Ford Foundation. Kiran Bedi’s NGO is funded by Coca Cola and Lehman Brothers.<br />
Though Anna Hazare calls himself a Gandhian, the law he called for—the Jan Lokpal Bill—was un-Gandhian, elitist and dangerous. A round-the-clock corporate media campaign proclaimed him to be the voice of “the people”. Unlike the Occupy Wall Street movement in the US, the Hazare movement did not breathe a word against privatisation, corporate power or economic “reforms”. On the contrary, its principal media backers successfully turned the spotlight away from massive corporate corruption scandals (which had exposed high-profile journalists too) and used the public mauling of politicians to call for the further withdrawal of discretionary powers from government, for more reforms, more privatisation. (In 2008, Anna Hazare received a World Bank award for outstanding public service). The World Bank issued a statement from Washington saying the movement “dovetailed” into its policy.<br />
<span style="font-family: Arial;">L</span>ike all good Imperialists, the Philanthropoids set themselves the task of creating and training an international cadre that believed that Capitalism, and by extension the hegemony of the United States, was in their own self-interest. And who would therefore help to administer the Global Corporate Government in the ways native elites had always served colonialism. So began the foundations’ foray into education and the arts, which would become their third sphere of influence, after foreign and domestic economic policy. They spent (and continue to spend) millions of dollars on academic institutions and pedagogy.<br />
Joan Roelofs in her wonderful book <em>Foundations and Public Policy: The Mask of Pluralism </em>describes how foundations remodelled the old ideas of how to teach political science, and fashioned the disciplines of “international” and “area” studies. This provided the US intelligence and security services a pool of expertise in foreign languages and culture to recruit from. The CIA and US state department continue to work with students and professors in US universities, raising serious questions about the ethics of scholarship.<br />
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<strong><span class="fsppicturecaption">Uniquely placed</span></strong><span class="fsppicturecaption"> Nandan Nilekani, ‘CEO’ of Project UID. (Photograph by Jitender Gupta)</span></div>The gathering of information to control people they rule is fundamental to any ruling power. As resistance to land acquisition and the new economic policies spreads across India, in the shadow of outright war in Central India, as a containment technique, the government has embarked on a massive biometrics programme, perhaps one of the most ambitious and expensive information-gathering projects in the world— the Unique Identification Number (UID). People don’t have clean drinking water, or toilets, or food, or money, but they will have election cards and UID numbers. Is it a coincidence that the UID project run by Nandan Nilekani, former CEO of Infosys, ostensibly meant to “deliver services to the poor”, will inject massive amounts of money into a slightly beleaguered IT industry? (A conservative estimate of the UID budget exceeds the Indian government’s annual public spending on education.) To “digitise” a country with such a large population of the largely illegitimate and “illegible”—people who are for the most part slum-dwellers, hawkers, adivasis without land records—will criminalise them, turning them from illegitimate to illegal. The idea is to pull off a digital version of the Enclosure of the Commons and put huge powers into the hands of an increasingly hardening police state. Nilekani’s technocratic obsession with gathering data is consistent with Bill Gates’s obsession with digital databases, “numerical targets”, “scorecards of progress”. As though it is a lack of information that is the cause of world hunger, and not colonialism, debt and skewed profit-oriented, corporate policy.<br />
Corporate-endowed foundations are the biggest funders of the social sciences and the arts, endowing courses and student scholarships in “development studies”, “community studies”, “cultural studies”, “behavioural sciences” and “human rights”. As US universities opened their doors to international students, hundreds of thousands of students, children of the Third World elite, poured in. Those who could not afford the fees were given scholarships. Today in countries like India and Pakistan there is scarcely a family among the upper middle classes that does not have a child that has studied in the US. From their ranks have come good scholars and academics, but also the prime ministers, finance ministers, economists, corporate lawyers, bankers and bureaucrats who helped to open up the economies of their countries to global corporations.<br />
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</td><td><span class="fspblurbtext">Corporate philanthropy is as much a part of our lives as Coca Cola. Global finance buys into protest movements via NGOs. More troubled an area, more the NGOs.</span></td><td width="20"><br />
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</tbody></table><a href="" name="Blurb6"></a>Scholars of the Foundation-friendly version of economics and political science were rewarded with fellowships, research funds, grants, endowments and jobs. Those with Foundation-unfriendly views found themselves unfunded, marginalised and ghettoised, their courses discontinued. Gradually, one particular imagination—a brittle, superficial pretence of tolerance and multiculturalism (that morphs into racism, rabid nationalism, ethnic chauvinism or war-mongering Islamophobia at a moment’s notice) under the roof of a single, overarching, very unplural economic ideology—began to dominate the discourse. It did so to such an extent that it ceased to be perceived as an ideology at all. It became the default position, the natural way to be. It infiltrated normality, colonised ordinariness, and challenging it began to seem as absurd or as esoteric as challenging reality itself. From here it was a quick easy step to ‘There is No Alternative’. It is only now, thanks to the Occupy Movement, that another language has appeared on US streets and campuses. To see students with banners that say ‘Class War’ or ‘We don’t mind you being rich, but we mind you buying our government’ is, given the odds, almost a revolution in itself.<br />
<span style="font-family: Arial;">O</span>ne century after it began, corporate philanthropy is as much part of our lives as Coca Cola. There are now millions of non-profit organisations, many of them connected through a byzantine financial maze to the larger foundations. Between them, this “independent” sector has assets worth nearly 450 billion dollars. The largest of them is the Bill Gates Foundation with ($21 billion), followed by the Lilly Endowment ($16 billion) and the Ford Foundation ($15 billion).<br />
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</td><td><span class="fspblurbtext">Nilekani’s technocratic obsession with gathering data is consistent with that of Bill Gates, as though lack of information is what is causing world hunger.</span></td><td width="20"><br />
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</tbody></table><a href="" name="Blurb7"></a>As the IMF enforced Structural Adjustment, and arm-twisted governments into cutting back on public spending on health, education, childcare, development, the NGOs moved in. The Privatisation of Everything has also meant the NGO-isation of Everything. As jobs and livelihoods disappeared, NGOs have become an important source of employment, even for those who see them for what they are. And they are certainly not all bad. Of the millions of NGOs, some do remarkable, radical work and it would be a travesty to tar all NGOs with the same brush. However, the corporate or Foundation-endowed NGOs are global finance’s way of buying into resistance movements, literally like shareholders buy shares in companies, and then try to control them from within. They sit like nodes on the central nervous system, the pathways along which global finance flows. They work like transmitters, receivers, shock absorbers, alert to every impulse, careful never to annoy the governments of their host countries. (The Ford Foundation requires the organisations it funds to sign a pledge to this effect.) Inadvertently (and sometimes advertently), they serve as listening posts, their reports and workshops and other missionary activity feeding data into an increasingly aggressive system of surveillance of increasingly hardening States. The more troubled an area, the greater the numbers of NGOs in it. Mischievously, when the government or sections of the Corporate Press want to run a smear campaign against a genuine people’s movement, like the Narmada Bachao Andolan, or the protest against the Koodankulam nuclear reactor, they accuse these movements of being NGOs receiving “foreign funding”. They know very well that the mandate of most NGOs, in particular the well-funded ones, is to further the project of corporate globalisation, not thwart it.<br />
Armed with their billions, these NGOs have waded into the world, turning potential revolutionaries into salaried activists, funding artists, intellectuals and filmmakers, gently luring them away from radical confrontation, ushering them in the direction of multi-culturalism, gender, community development—the discourse couched in the language of identity politics and human rights.<br />
The transformation of the idea of justice into the industry of human rights has been a conceptual coup in which NGOs and foundations have played a crucial part. The narrow focus of human rights enables an atrocity-based analysis in which the larger picture can be blocked out and both parties in a conflict—say, for example, the Maoists and the Indian government, or the Israeli Army and Hamas—can both be admonished as Human Rights Violators. The land-grab by mining corporations or the history of the annexation of Palestinian land by the State of Israel then become footnotes with very little bearing on the discourse. This is not to suggest that human rights don’t matter. They do, but they are not a good enough prism through which to view or remotely understand the great injustices in the world we live in.<br />
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<strong><span class="fsppicturecaption">‘Mining happiness’</span></strong><span class="fsppicturecaption"> Vedanta is stripping all that the Dongria Kondh tribals hold sacred. (Photograph by Sandipan Chatterjee)</span></div>Another conceptual coup has to do with foundations’ involvement with the feminist movement. Why do most “official” feminists and women’s organisations in India keep a safe distance between themselves and organisations like say the 90,000-member Krantikari Adivasi Mahila Sangathan (Revolutionary Adivasi Women’s Association) fighting patriarchy in their own communities and displacement by mining corporations in the Dandakaranya forest? Why is it that the dispossession and eviction of millions of women from land which they owned and worked is not seen as a feminist problem?<br />
<a href="" name="Blurb7"></a>The hiving off of the liberal feminist movement from grassroots anti-imperialist and anti-capitalist people’s movements did not begin with the evil designs of foundations. It began with those movements’ inability to adapt and accommodate the rapid radicalisation of women that took place in the ’60s and ’70s. The foundations showed genius in recognising and moving in to support and fund women’s growing impatience with the violence and patriarchy in their traditional societies as well as among even the supposedly progressive leaders of Left movements. In a country like India, the schism also ran along the rural-urban divide. Most radical, anti-capitalist movements were located in the countryside where, for the most part, patriarchy continued to rule the lives of most women. Urban women activists who joined these movements (like the Naxalite movement) had been influenced and inspired by the western feminist movement and their own journeys towards liberation were often at odds with what their male leaders considered to be their duty: to fit in with ‘the masses’. Many women activists were not willing to wait any longer for the “revolution” in order to end the daily oppression and discrimination in their lives, including from their own comrades. They wanted gender equality to be an absolute, urgent and non-negotiable part of the revolutionary process and not just a post-revolution promise. Intelligent, angry and disillusioned women began to move away and look for other means of support and sustenance. As a result, by the late ’80s, around the time Indian markets were opened up, the liberal feminist movement in a country like India has become inordinately NGO-ised. Many of these NGOs have done seminal work on queer rights, domestic violence, AIDS and the rights of sex workers. But significantly, the liberal feminist movements have not been at the forefront of challenging the new economic policies, even though women have been the greatest sufferers. By manipulating the disbursement of the funds, the foundations have largely succeeded in circumscribing the range of what “political” activity should be. The funding briefs of NGOs now prescribe what counts as women’s “issues” and what doesn’t.<br />
The NGO-isation of the women’s movement has also made western liberal feminism (by virtue of its being the most funded brand) the standard-bearer of what constitutes feminism. The battles, as usual, have been played out on women’s bodies, extruding Botox at one end and burqas at the other. (And then there are those who suffer the double whammy, Botox and the Burqa.) When, as happened recently in France, an attempt is made to coerce women out of the burqa rather than creating a situation in which a woman can choose what she wishes to do, it’s not about liberating her, but about unclothing her. It becomes an act of humiliation and cultural imperialism. It’s not about the burqa. It’s about the coercion. Coercing a woman out of a burqa is as bad as coercing her into one. Viewing gender in this way, shorn of social, political and economic context, makes it an issue of identity, a battle of props and costumes. It is what allowed the US government to use western feminist groups as moral cover when it invaded Afghanistan in 2001. Afghan women were (and are) in terrible trouble under the Taliban. But dropping daisy-cutters on them was not going to solve their problems.<br />
In the NGO universe, which has evolved a strange anodyne language of its own, everything has become a “subject”, a separate, professionalised, special-interest issue. Community development, leadership development, human rights, health, education, reproductive rights, AIDS, orphans with AIDS—have all been hermetically sealed into their own silos with their own elaborate and precise funding brief. Funding has fragmented solidarity in ways that repression never could. Poverty too, like feminism, is often framed as an identity problem. As though the poor have not been created by injustice but are a lost tribe who just happen to exist, and can be rescued in the short term by a system of grievance redressal (administered by NGOs on an individual, person to person basis), and whose long-term resurrection will come from Good Governance. Under the regime of Global Corporate Capitalism, it goes without saying.<br />
<span style="font-family: Arial;">I</span>ndian poverty, after a brief period in the wilderness while India “shone”, has made a comeback as an exotic identity in the Arts, led from the front by films like <em>Slumdog Millionaire</em>. These stories about the poor, their amazing spirit and resilience, have no villains—except the small ones who provide narrative tension and local colour. The authors of these works are the contemporary world’s equivalent of the early anthropologists, lauded and honoured for working on “the ground”, for their brave journeys into the unknown. You rarely see the rich being examined in these ways.<br />
Having worked out how to manage governments, political parties, elections, courts, the media and liberal opinion, there was one more challenge for the neo-liberal establishment: how to deal with growing unrest, the threat of “people’s power”. How do you domesticate it? How do you turn protesters into pets? How do you vacuum up people’s fury and redirect it into blind alleys?<br />
Here too, foundations and their allied organisations have a long and illustrious history. A revealing example is their role in defusing and deradicalising the Black Civil Rights movement in the US in the 1960s and the successful transformation of Black Power into Black Capitalism.<br />
The Rockefeller Foundation, in keeping with J.D. Rockefeller’s ideals, had worked closely with Martin Luther King Sr (father of Martin Luther King Jr). But his influence waned with the rise of the more militant organisations—the Student Non-violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) and the Black Panthers. The Ford and Rockefeller Foundations moved in. In 1970, they donated $15 million to “moderate” black organisations, giving people grants, fellowships, scholarships, job training programmes for dropouts and seed money for black-owned businesses. Repression, infighting and the honey trap of funding led to the gradual atrophying of the radical black organisations.<br />
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</td><td><span class="fspblurbtext">Stones were pushed up Soni Sori’s vagina to get her to ‘confess’. Sori remains in jail; her interrogator, Ankit Garg, was awarded the police medal this Republic Day.</span></td><td width="20"><br />
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</tbody></table><a href="" name="Blurb8"></a>Martin Luther King Jr made the forbidden connections between Capitalism, Imperialism, Racism and the Vietnam War. As a result, after he was assassinated, even his memory became a toxic threat to public order. Foundations and Corporations worked hard to remodel his legacy to fit a market-friendly format. The Martin Luther King Junior Centre for Non-Violent Social Change, with an operational grant of $2 million, was set up by, among others, the Ford Motor Company, General Motors, Mobil, Western Electric, Procter & Gamble, US Steel and Monsanto. The Center maintains the King Library and Archives of the Civil Rights Movement. Among the many programmes the King Center runs have been projects that “work closely with the United States Department of Defense, the Armed Forces Chaplains Board and others”. It co-sponsored the Martin Luther King Jr Lecture Series called ‘The Free Enterprise System: An Agent for Non-violent Social Change’. Amen. A similar coup was carried out in the anti-apartheid struggle in South Africa. In 1978, the Rockefeller Foundation organised a Study Commission on US Policy toward Southern Africa. The report warned of the growing influence of the Soviet Union on the African National Congress (ANC) and said that US strategic and corporate interests (i.e., access to South Africa’s minerals) would be best served if there were genuine sharing of political power by all races.<br />
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<strong><span class="fsppicturecaption">Black ‘liberation’</span></strong><span class="fsppicturecaption"> Or a bow to the Washington Consensus?. (Photograph by Reuters, From Outlook, March 26, 2012)</span></div>The foundations began to support the ANC. The ANC soon turned on the more radical organisations like Steve Biko’s Black Consciousness movement and more or less eliminated them. When Nelson Mandela took over as South Africa’s first Black President, he was canonised as a living saint, not just because he was a freedom fighter who spent 27 years in prison, but also because he deferred completely to the Washington Consensus. Socialism disappeared from the ANC’s agenda. South Africa’s great “peaceful transition”, so praised and lauded, meant no land reforms, no demands for reparation, no nationalisation of South Africa’s mines. Instead, there was Privatisation and Structural Adjustment. Mandela gave South Africa’s highest civilian award—the Order of Good Hope—to his old supporter and friend General Suharto, the killer of Communists in Indonesia. Today, in South Africa, a clutch of Mercedes-driving former radicals and trade unionists rule the country. But that is more than enough to perpetuate the illusion of Black Liberation.<br />
The rise of Black Power in the US was an inspirational moment for the rise of a radical, progressive Dalit movement in India, with organisations like the Dalit Panthers mirroring the militant politics of the Black Panthers. But Dalit Power too, in not exactly the same but similar ways, has been fractured and defused and, with plenty of help from right-wing Hindu organisations and the Ford Foundation, is well on its way to transforming into Dalit Capitalism.<br />
‘<em>Dalit Inc ready to show business can beat caste</em>’, the <em>Indian Express</em> reported in December last year. It went on to quote a mentor of the Dalit Indian Chamber of Commerce & Industry (DICCI). “Getting the prime minister for a Dalit gathering is not difficult in our society. But for Dalit entrepreneurs, taking a photograph with Tata and Godrej over lunch and tea is an aspiration—and proof that they have arrived,” he said. Given the situation in modern India, it would be casteist and reactionary to say that Dalit entrepreneurs oughtn’t to have a place at the high table. But if this is to be the aspiration, the ideological framework of Dalit politics, it would be a great pity. And unlikely to help the one million Dalits who still earn a living off manual scavenging—carrying human shit on their heads.<br />
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</td><td><span class="fspblurbtext">Do we need weapons to fight wars? Or do we need wars to create a market for weapons? It’s the one thing that the US hasn’t outsourced to China.</span></td><td width="20"><br />
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</tbody></table><a href="" name="Blurb9"></a>Young Dalit scholars who accept grants from the Ford Foundation cannot be too harshly judged. Who else is offering them an opportunity to climb out of the cesspit of the Indian caste system? The shame as well as a large part of the blame for this turn of events also goes to India’s Communist movement whose leaders continue to be predominantly upper caste. For years it has tried to force-fit the idea of caste into Marxist class analysis. It has failed miserably, in theory as well as practice. The rift between the Dalit community and the Left began with a falling out between the visionary Dalit leader Dr Bhimrao Ambedkar and S.A. Dange, trade unionist and founding member of the Communist Party of India. Dr Ambedkar’s disillusionment with the Communist Party began with the textile workers’ strike in Mumbai in 1928 when he realised that despite all the rhetoric about working class solidarity, the party did not find it objectionable that the “untouchables” were kept out of the weaving department (and only qualified for the lower paid spinning department) because the work involved the use of saliva on the threads, which other castes considered “polluting”. Ambedkar realised that in a society where the Hindu scriptures institutionalise untouchability and inequality, the battle for “untouchables”, for social and civic rights, was too urgent to wait for the promised Communist revolution. The rift between the Ambedkarites and the Left has come at a great cost to both. It has meant that a great majority of the Dalit population, the backbone of the Indian working class, has pinned its hopes for deliverance and dignity to constitutionalism, to capitalism and to political parties like the BSP, which practise an important, but in the long run, stagnant brand of identity politics.<br />
In the United States, as we have seen, corporate-endowed foundations spawned the culture of NGOs. In India, targeted corporate philanthropy began in earnest in the 1990s, the era of the New Economic Policies. Membership to the Star Chamber doesn’t come cheap. The Tata Group donated $50 million to that needy institution, the Harvard Business School, and another $50 million to Cornell University. Nandan Nilekani of Infosys and his wife Rohini donated $5 million as a start-up endowment for the India Initiative at Yale. The Harvard Humanities Centre is now the Mahindra Humanities Centre after it received its largest-ever donation of $10 million from Anand Mahindra of the Mahindra Group.<br />
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</td><td><span class="fspblurbtext">When Mandela took over, socialism disappeared from the ANC agenda. Today, a clutch of Mercedes-driving ex-radicals and trade unionists rule the country.</span></td><td width="20"><br />
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</tbody></table><a href="" name="Blurb10"></a>At home, the Jindal Group, with a major stake in mining, metals and power, runs the Jindal Global Law School and will soon open the Jindal School of Government and Public Policy. (The Ford Foundation runs a law school in the Congo.) The New India Foundation funded by Nandan Nilekani, financed by profits from Infosys, gives prizes and fellowships to social scientists. The Sitaram Jindal Foundation endowed by Jindal Aluminium has announced five cash prizes of Rs 1 crore each to be given to those working in rural development, poverty alleviation, environment education and moral upliftment. The Reliance Group’s Observer Research Foundation (ORF), currently endowed by Mukesh Ambani, is cast in the mould of the Rockefeller Foundation. It has retired intelligence agents, strategic analysts, politicians (who pretend to rail against each other in Parliament), journalists and policymakers as its research “fellows” and advisors. ORF’s objectives seem straightforward enough: “To help develop a consensus in favour of economic reforms.” And to shape and influence public opinion, creating “viable, alternative policy options in areas as divergent as employment generation in backward districts and real-time strategies to counter nuclear, biological and chemical threats”.<br />
I was initially puzzled by the preoccupation with “nuclear, biological and chemical war” in ORF’s stated objectives. But less so when, in the long list of its ‘institutional partners’, I found the names of Raytheon and Lockheed Martin, two of the world’s leading weapons manufacturers. In 2007, Raytheon announced it was turning its attention to India. Could it be that at least part of India’s $32 billion defence budget will be spent on weapons, guided missiles, aircraft, warships and surveillance equipment made by Raytheon and Lockheed Martin?<br />
Do we need weapons to fight wars? Or do we need wars to create a market for weapons? After all, the economies of Europe, US and Israel depend hugely on their weapons industry. It’s the one thing they haven’t outsourced to China.<br />
In the new Cold War between US and China, India is being groomed to play the role Pakistan played as a US ally in the cold war with Russia. (And look what happened to Pakistan.) Many of those columnists and “strategic analysts” who are playing up the hostilities between India and China, you’ll see, can be traced back directly or indirectly to the Indo-American think-tanks and foundations. Being a “strategic partner” of the US does not mean that the Heads of State make friendly phone calls to each other every now and then. It means collaboration (interference) at every level. It means hosting US Special Forces on Indian soil (a Pentagon Commander recently confirmed this to the BBC). It means sharing intelligence, altering agriculture and energy policies, opening up the health and education sectors to global investment. It means opening up retail. It means an unequal partnership in which India is being held close in a bear hug and waltzed around the floor by a partner who will incinerate her the moment she refuses to dance.<br />
<span style="font-family: Arial;">I</span>n the list of ORF’s ‘institutional partners’, you will also find the RAND Corporation, Ford Foundation, the World Bank, the Brookings Institution (whose stated mission is to “provide innovative and practical recommendations that advance three broad goals: to strengthen American democracy; to foster the economic and social welfare, security and opportunity of all Americans; and to secure a more open, safe, prosperous and cooperative international system”.) You will also find the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation of Germany. (Poor Rosa, who died for the cause of Communism, to find her name on a list such as this one!)<br />
Though capitalism is meant to be based on competition, those at the top of the food chain have also shown themselves to be capable of inclusiveness and solidarity. The great Western Capitalists have done business with fascists, socialists, despots and military dictators. They can adapt and constantly innovate. They are capable of quick thinking and immense tactical cunning.<br />
But despite having successfully powered through economic reforms, despite having waged wars and militarily occupied countries in order to put in place free market “democracies”, Capitalism is going through a crisis whose gravity has not revealed itself completely yet. Marx said, “What the bourgeoisie therefore produces, above all, are its own grave-diggers. Its fall and the victory of the proletariat are equally inevitable.”<br />
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</td><td><span class="fspblurbtext">Capitalism is in crisis. The international financial meltdown is closing in. The two old tricks that dug it out of past crises—War and Shopping—simply will not work.</span></td><td width="20"><br />
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</tbody></table><a href="" name="Blurb11"></a>The proletariat, as Marx saw it, has been under continuous assault. Factories have shut down, jobs have disappeared, trade unions have been disbanded. The proletariat has, over the years, been pitted against each other in every possible way. In India, it has been Hindu against Muslim, Hindu against Christian, Dalit against Adivasi, caste against caste, region against region. And yet, all over the world, it is fighting back. In China, there are countless strikes and uprisings. In India, the poorest people in the world have fought back to stop some of the richest corporations in their tracks. Capitalism is in crisis. Trickledown failed. Now Gush-Up is in trouble too. The international financial meltdown is closing in. India’s growth rate has plummeted to 6.9 per cent. Foreign investment is pulling out. Major international corporations are sitting on huge piles of money, not sure where to invest it, not sure how the financial crisis will play out. This is a major, structural crack in the juggernaut of global capital.<br />
Capitalism’s real “grave-diggers” may end up being its own delusional Cardinals, who have turned ideology into faith. Despite their strategic brilliance, they seem to have trouble grasping a simple fact: Capitalism is destroying the planet. The two old tricks that dug it out of past crises—War and Shopping—simply will not work.<br />
I stood outside Antilla for a long time watching the sun go down. I imagined that the tower was as deep as it was high. That it had a twenty-seven-storey-long tap root, snaking around below the ground, hungrily sucking sustenance out of the earth, turning it into smoke and gold.<br />
Why did the Ambanis’ choose to call their building Antilla? Antilla is the name of a set of mythical islands whose story dates back to an 8th-century Iberian legend. When the Muslims conquered Hispania, six Christian Visigothic bishops and their parishioners boarded ships and fled. After days, or maybe weeks at sea, they arrived at the isles of Antilla where they decided to settle and raise a new civilisation. They burnt their boats to permanently sever their links to their barbarian-dominated homeland.<br />
By calling their tower Antilla, do the Ambanis hope to sever their links to the poverty and squalor of their homeland and raise a new civilisation? Is this the final act of the most successful secessionist movement in India? The secession of the middle and upper classes into outer space?<br />
As night fell over Mumbai, guards in crisp linen shirts with crackling walkie-talkies appeared outside the forbidding gates of Antilla. The lights blazed on, to scare away the ghosts perhaps. The neighbours complain that Antilla’s bright lights have stolen the night.<br />
Perhaps it’s time for us to take back the night.<br />
<hr /> <em>1. Edited March 18, 2012: the year of CIA backed coup in Indonesia was earlier incorrectly mentioned as 1952. Corrected to 1965<br />
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<em>2. Edited March 20, 2012: </em><em>The sentence that now reads “All this in Goa, where activists and journalists were uncovering massive illegal mining scandals, and Essar’s part in the war unfolding in Bastar was emerging” was earlier published as: “All this in Goa, while activists and journalists were uncovering massive illegal mining scandals that involved Essar”</em></div></div></div></div></div></td></tr>
</tbody></table>Sandip K. Dasvermahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03288589903537297131noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37668969.post-78949913306795683662012-06-13T20:41:00.001-07:002012-06-13T20:41:48.080-07:00‘The IIT Adivasi’ who became a frontbencher<a href="http://www.telegraphindia.com/1110709/jsp/nation/story_14216515.jsp">‘The IIT Adivasi’ who became a frontbencher</a>: <br />
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<tr><td class="articleheader" style="font-size: 12pt; font-weight: bold;"><div id="hd" name="hd">‘The IIT Adivasi’ who became a frontbencher</div></td></tr>
<tr><td class="articleauthor" style="font-size: 8pt;">R. GOPALAKRISHNAN</td></tr>
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</tbody></table><div align="left" class="story" style="font-size: 9pt;">At 4.30pm on July 7, as the shadows lengthened on the freedom memorial, Hijli jail, in Kharagpur, Yama took away a campus favourite. Living alone and quietly in a small apartment outside the IIT campus was a bespectacled, diminutive, 89-year-old professor.</div><div align="left" class="story" style="font-size: 9pt;">He was “The IIT Adivasi”, the only surviving original. His name, Gitindra Saran Sanyal, meant “the path of music and poetry”. His was a path of teaching and leading technology education.</div><div align="left" class="story" style="font-size: 9pt;">“Professor Sir” to today’s IIT directors and the 25,000 Kharagpur graduates over the last half a century, Sanyal was among the few able to recall first-hand how a modern and premier technical institution was created in a newly independent India.</div><div align="left" class="story" style="font-size: 9pt;">In the late 1940s, the N.R. Sarkar committee reported to the government, recommending the creation of the four institutions of higher technological learning. Bengal chief minister B.C. Roy provided land in Kharagpur. A committee member, Gyan Ghosh, became the first director in 1951 when the first batch was admitted. Jawaharlal Nehru called it a temple of learning.</div><div align="left" class="story" style="font-size: 9pt;">Sanyal was born in Assam on a historic day — February 1, 1922. It was the day Mahatma Gandhi wrote his famous letter to the Viceroy of India on the Non-co-operation Movement. Within five days, at Chauri Chaura in Uttar Pradesh, a group of protesters was fired upon by the police who soon ran out of ammunition. The excited mob hacked the 22 policemen and set fire to them. Gandhi was distressed and had to suspend the movement.</div><div align="left" class="story" style="font-size: 9pt;">Through the complex years of the fight for Independence, Sanyal grew up and graduated. When he was 22, he left to study radio engineering and radar systems in England. He was determined to return to India.</div><div align="left" class="story" style="font-size: 9pt;">He joined the fledgling IIT in 1954 and has lived in and with IIT for 57 years without a break. This must be an all-India record.</div><div align="left" class="story" style="font-size: 9pt;">He did many wonderful things during this half century. He has been the recipient of awards and honours for original research on electromagnetism, microwave antennas, phased arrays and optical fibres. He was the director of IIT Kharagpur from 1983 to 1987.</div><div align="left" class="story" style="font-size: 9pt;">But his most endearing quality was his child-like warmth for the students. What he achieved through his connections with generations of former students is stupendous. That was why he was appointed the first managing director of the Technology Foundation to link up with the alumni of the institute.</div><div align="left" class="story" style="font-size: 9pt;">Arjun Malhotra of HCL and TechSpan fame wished to donate money to set up a school of telecommunications. It is a tribute to Arjun’s generosity and Sanyal’s influence that the institute was named by Arjun after Sanyal. B.K. Syngal (former CMD, VSNL), Suhas Patil (ex-Cirrus Logic) and Arun Sarin (ex-Vodafone) have earned professional laurels but they would doff their cap to honour their wonderful teacher.</div><div align="left" class="story" style="font-size: 9pt;">So too would several others like Srikumar Banerjee, director of Barc, Purnendu Chatterjee of The Chatterjee Group and Parvati Dev of Stanford.</div><div align="left" class="story" style="font-size: 9pt;">A few years ago, Sanyal requested me to teach at Kharagpur’s Vinod Gupta School of Management. I agreed.</div><div align="left" class="story" style="font-size: 9pt;">“Do not merely say ‘yes’ and forget about it. In our tradition, a promise given to a teacher must be fulfilled — and remember, I am into my late 70s!” he reminded me.</div><div align="left" class="story" style="font-size: 9pt;">As a diligent former student of his, I took a few days’ leave to discharge my promise. Sanyal amazed me by sitting on the front bench and attending all my lectures. “Just reciprocating what you did 40 years earlier,” he said with a twinkle.</div><div align="left" class="story" style="font-size: 9pt;">Love in the form of accolades is pouring in from all over the world. From LA writes Devendra Mishra: “I was fortunate to be his student and grew up next door as my father was also a professor.” From Washington DC, B.K. Narayan rues that “it is the end of an epoch”.</div><div align="left" class="story" style="font-size: 9pt;">Pericles’ oration of 2,500 years ago is of relevance: “For the whole earth is the tomb of famous men; not only are they commemorated by columns and inscriptions in their own country, but in foreign lands, there dwells also an unwritten memorial of them, graven not in stone but in the hearts of men.”</div><div align="left" class="story" style="font-size: 9pt;">Professor Gitindra Saran Sanyal has every reason to be proud of the fruits of his karma on this planet.</div><div align="right" class="articleauthorBold" style="font-size: 8pt; font-weight: bold;">The author was Gitindra Saran Sanyal’s student in the early 1960s</div></td></tr>
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<a href="https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/pengoopmcjnbflcjbmoeodbmoflcgjlk" style="font-size: 13px;">'via Blog this'</a>Sandip K. Dasvermahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03288589903537297131noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37668969.post-60980123075351718642012-04-24T13:46:00.001-07:002012-04-24T13:46:49.106-07:00What Did J.D. Salinger, Leo Tolstoy, Nikola Tesla and Sarah Bernhardt Have in Common? - WSJ.com<a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303404704577305581227233656.html">What Did J.D. Salinger, Leo Tolstoy, Nikola Tesla and Sarah Bernhardt Have in Common? - WSJ.com</a>: <br />
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<div class="targetCaption" style="color: #333333; font-size: 1.1em; line-height: 1.2em; margin-bottom: 6px; margin-top: 6px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">MY SWEET LORD The swami Vivekananda, the Bengali monk who brought yoga to the United States, meditating in London, in 1896.</div></div></div></div><div style="font-size: 1.4em; line-height: 1.5em; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 8px; margin-right: 8px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">By the late 1960s, the most famous writer in America had become a recluse, having forsaken his dazzling career. Nevertheless, J.D. Salinger often came to Manhattan, staying at his parents' sprawling apartment on Park Avenue and 91st Street. While he no longer visited with his editors at "The New Yorker," he was keen to spend time with his spiritual teacher, Swami Nikhilananda, the founder of the Ramakrishna-Vivekananda Center, located, then as now, in a townhouse just three blocks away, at 17 East 94th Street.</div><div style="font-size: 1.4em; line-height: 1.5em; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 8px; margin-right: 8px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">Though the iconic author of "The Catcher in the Rye" and "Franny and Zooey" published his last story in 1965, he did not stop writing. From the early 1950s onward, he maintained a lively correspondence with several Vedanta monks and fellow devotees.</div><div style="font-size: 1.4em; line-height: 1.5em; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 8px; margin-right: 8px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">After all, the central, guiding light of Salinger's spiritual quest was the teachings of Vivekananda, the Calcutta-born monk who popularized Vedanta and yoga in the West at the end of the 19th century.</div><div style="font-size: 1.4em; line-height: 1.5em; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 8px; margin-right: 8px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">These days yoga is offered up in classes and studios that have become as ubiquitous as Starbucks. Vivekananda would have been puzzled, if not somewhat alarmed. "As soon as I think of myself as a little body," he warned, "I want to preserve it, protect it, to keep it nice, at the expense of other bodies. Then you and I become separate." For Vivekananda, who established the first ever Vedanta Center, in Manhattan in 1896, yoga meant just one thing: "the realization of God."</div><div class="legacyInset" style="float: left; font-size: 1em; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 19px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; width: 278px;"><div class="insetContent" style="border-top-color: rgb(112, 120, 124); border-top-style: solid; border-top-width: 4px; font-size: 1em; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 8px; padding-right: 8px; padding-top: 0px; zoom: 1;"><h3 class="first" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; background-image: none; background-origin: initial; background-position: 0% 0%; background-repeat: repeat no-repeat; border-bottom-style: none; border-color: initial; border-image: initial; border-left-style: none; border-right-style: none; 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margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 6px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; top: 0px;"><div class="insetZoomTargetBox" style="font-size: 1em; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; position: relative;"><div class="insettipBox" style="bottom: -5px; font-size: 1em; left: -5px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; position: absolute;"><div class="insettip" style="background-position: 0% 100%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; cursor: pointer; font-size: 1em; left: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; position: relative;"><div style="color: #333333; font-size: 1em; line-height: normal; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"><a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303404704577305581227233656.html#" style="background-color: #eff4f8; border-bottom-color: rgb(153, 153, 153); border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 1px; border-image: initial; border-left-color: rgb(153, 153, 153); border-left-style: solid; border-left-width: 1px; border-right-color: rgb(153, 153, 153); border-right-style: solid; border-right-width: 1px; border-top-color: rgb(153, 153, 153); border-top-style: solid; border-top-width: 1px; color: #093d72; cursor: pointer; display: block; min-width: 70px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: none; outline-width: initial; padding-bottom: 5px; padding-left: 8px; padding-right: 8px; padding-top: 5px; text-align: center; text-decoration: none; white-space: nowrap;">View Slideshow</a></div></div></div><a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303404704577305581227233656.html#" style="color: #093d72; cursor: pointer; display: block; outline-color: initial; outline-style: none; outline-width: initial; text-decoration: none;"><img alt="[SB10001424052702303816504577307720950194882]" border="0" height="174" hspace="0" src="http://s.wsj.net/public/resources/images/OB-SI727_mag412_D_20120323160640.jpg" style="border-bottom-style: none; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-image: initial; border-left-style: none; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-style: none; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-style: none; border-top-width: 0px; border-width: initial; float: none; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; margin-top: 0px;" vspace="0" width="262" /></a></div><cite style="color: #666666; display: block; font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 3px; text-align: right;">CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT: SAN DIEGO HISTORICAL SOCIETY/HULTON ARCHIVE COLLECTION/GETTY IMAGES; ILYA EFIMOVICH REPIN/GETT Y IMAGES; POPPERFOTO/GETT Y IMAGES; SSPL/GETTY IMAGES</cite></div></div></div><div style="color: #333333; font-size: 1.2em; line-height: 1.2em; margin-bottom: 8px; margin-left: 8px; margin-right: 8px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"></div></div></div><div style="font-size: 1.4em; line-height: 1.5em; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 8px; margin-right: 8px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">After an initial dalliance in the late 1940s with Zen—a spiritual path without a God—Salinger discovered Vedanta, which he found infinitely more consoling. "Unlike Zen," Salinger's biographer, Kenneth Slawenski, points out, "Vedanta offered a path to a personal relationship with God…[and] a promise that he could obtain a cure for his depression….and find God, and through God, peace."</div><div style="font-size: 1.4em; line-height: 1.5em; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 8px; margin-right: 8px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">Finding peace would, however, be a lifelong battle. In 1975, Salinger wrote to another monk at the New York City center about his own daily struggle, citing a text of the eighth-century Indian mystic Shankara as a cautionary tale: "In the forest-tract of sense pleasures there prowls a huge tiger called the mind. Let good people who have a longing for Liberation never go there." Salinger wrote, "I suspect that nothing is truer than that," confessing despondently, "and yet I allow myself to be mauled by that old tiger almost every wakeful minute of my life."</div><div style="font-size: 1.4em; line-height: 1.5em; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 8px; margin-right: 8px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">It was his daily mauling by the "huge tiger" and his dreaded depressions that led Salinger to abandon his literary ambitions in favor of spiritual ones. Salinger—who appears to have had a nervous breakdown of sorts upon his return from the gruesome front lines of World War II—subscribed to Vivekananda's view of the mind as a drunken monkey who is stung by a scorpion and then consumed by a demon. At the same time, Vivekananda promised hope and solace—writing that the "same mind, when subdued and controlled, becomes a most trusted friend and helper, guaranteeing peace and happiness." It was precisely the consolation that Salinger so desperately sought. And by 1965 he was ready to renounce his once gritty pursuit of literary celebrity.</div><div style="font-size: 1.4em; line-height: 1.5em; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 8px; margin-right: 8px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">Although all but forgotten by America's 20 million would-be yoginis, clad in their finest Lululemon, Vivekananda was the Bengali monk who introduced the word "yoga" into the national conversation. In 1893, outfitted in a red, flowing turban and yellow robes belted by a scarlet sash, he had delivered a show-stopping speech in Chicago. The event was the tony Parliament of Religions, which had been convened as a spiritual complement to the World's Fair, showcasing the industrial and technological achievements of the age.</div><div style="font-size: 1.4em; line-height: 1.5em; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 8px; margin-right: 8px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">On its opening day, September 11, Vivekananda, who appeared to be meditating onstage, was summoned to speak and did so without notes. "Sisters and Brothers of America," he began, in a sonorous voice tinged with "a delightful slight Irish brogue," according to one listener, attributable to his Trinity College–educated professor in India. "It fills my heart with joy unspeakable..."</div><div style="font-size: 1.4em; line-height: 1.5em; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 8px; margin-right: 8px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">Then something unprecedented happened, presaging the phenomenon decades later that greeted the Beatles (one of whom, George Harrison, would become a lifelong Vivekananda devotee). The previously sedate crowd of 4,000-plus attendees rose to their feet and wildly cheered the visiting monk, who, having never before addressed a large gathering, was as shocked as his audience. "I thank you in the name of the most ancient order of monks in the world," he responded, flushed with emotion. "I thank you in the name of the mother of religions, and I thank you in the name of millions and millions of Hindu people of all classes and sects."</div><div style="font-size: 1.4em; line-height: 1.5em; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 8px; margin-right: 8px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">Annie Besant, a British Theosophist and a conference delegate, described Vivekananda's impact, writing that he was "a striking figure, clad in yellow and orange, shining like the sun of India in the midst of the heavy atmosphere of Chicago…a lion head, piercing eyes, mobile lips, movements swift and abrupt." The Parliament, she said, was "enraptured; the huge multitude hung upon his words." When he was done, the convocation rose again and cheered him even more thunderously. Another delegate described "scores of women walking over the benches to get near to him," prompting one wag to crack wise that if the 30-year-old Vivekananda "can resist that onslaught, [he is] indeed a god."</div><div style="font-size: 1.4em; line-height: 1.5em; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 8px; margin-right: 8px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">"No doubt the vast majority of those present hardly knew why they had been so powerfully moved," Christopher Isherwood wrote a half century later, surmising that a "strange kind of subconscious telepathy" had infected the hall, beginning with Vivekananda's first words, which have resonated, for some, long after. Asked about the origins of "My Sweet Lord," George Harrison replied that "the song really came from Swami Vivekananda, who said, 'If there is a God, we must see him. And if there is a soul, we must perceive it.' "</div><div style="font-size: 1.4em; line-height: 1.5em; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 8px; margin-right: 8px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">The teachings of Vedanta are rooted in the Vedas, ancient scriptures going back several thousand years that also inform Buddhism, Hinduism and Jainism. The Vedic texts of the Upanishads enshrine a core belief that God is within and without—that the divine is everywhere. The Bhagavad Gita (Song of God) is another sacred text or gospel, whereas Hinduism is actually a coinage popularized by Vivekananda to describe a faith of diverse and myriad beliefs.</div><div style="font-size: 1.4em; line-height: 1.5em; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 8px; margin-right: 8px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">Vivekananda's genius was to simplify Vedantic thought to a few accessible teachings that Westerners found irresistible. God was not the capricious tyrant in the heavens avowed by Bible-thumpers, but rather a power that resided in the human heart. "Each soul is potentially divine," he promised. "The goal is to manifest that divinity within by controlling nature, external and internal." And to close the deal for the fence-sitters, he punched up Vedanta's embrace of other faiths and their prophets. Christ and Buddha were incarnations of the divine, he said, no less than Krishna and his own teacher, Ramakrishna.</div><blockquote style="border-left-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); border-left-style: solid; border-left-width: 1px; font-size: 1.4em; line-height: 1.5em; margin-bottom: 1.3em; margin-left: 89px; margin-right: 3em; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 8px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; position: relative;"><div style="background-color: white; border-bottom-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 1px; border-top-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); border-top-style: solid; border-top-width: 1px; font-family: Georgia, 'Century Schoolbook', 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 1.2857em; font-style: italic; line-height: 1.5em; margin-left: -89px; padding-bottom: 13px; padding-left: 57px; padding-right: 65px; padding-top: 15px; text-align: center;"><span class="quo oQ" style="display: block; font-size: 100px; left: -81px; line-height: 1em; position: absolute; top: 1px;">“</span>'He is the most brilliant wise man,' Leo Tolstoy waxed. 'It is doubtful another man has ever risen above this selfless, spiritual meditation.'<span class="quo cQ" style="bottom: -45px; display: block; font-size: 100px; line-height: 1em; position: absolute; right: 16px;">”</span><cite class="tagline" style="color: #333333; display: block; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 0.72em; font-style: normal; line-height: 1em; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 8px; margin-top: 8px;"></cite></div></blockquote><div style="font-size: 1.4em; line-height: 1.5em; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 8px; margin-right: 8px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">Although Vivekananda was a Western-educated intellectual of encyclopedic erudition, "the descendant of 50 generations of lawyers," as he would say, Ramakrishna was for all intents and purposes illiterate. Born Gadadhar Chattopadhyay, Ramakrishna had not an iota of interest in schooling beyond the study of scripture and prayer. Fortunately, that amply met the job requirements of his post as a priest at the Dakshineswar Kali Temple. According to numerous firsthand, contemporaneous accounts, Ramakrishna—who is revered as a saint in much of India and as an avatar by many—spent a good deal of his short life in samadhi, or an ecstatic state. On a daily basis, sitting or standing, he was often observed slipping into a transported state that he described as "God consciousness," existing with neither food nor sleep. He died in 1886 at age 50.</div><div style="font-size: 1.4em; line-height: 1.5em; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 8px; margin-right: 8px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">Though Ramakrishna spoke in a village idiom, invoking homespun local parables, word about the "Bengali saint" spread through the chattering classes of India in the 1870s like a monsoon. Many who flocked to him—and declared him a divine incarnation—were educated as lawyers, doctors and engineers and were often the graduates of British-run Christian schools. His closest and most influential disciple, however, was Vivekananda (born Narendranath Datta in 1863 to an affluent family), whom he charged with carrying the message of Vedanta to the world.</div><div style="font-size: 1.4em; line-height: 1.5em; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 8px; margin-right: 8px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">Certainly, a smattering of Eastern thought had already traveled to the West before Vivekananda's arrival in the U.S. In the 1820s, Ralph Waldo Emerson had snared a copy of the Bhagavad Gita and found himself enchanted. "I owed a magnificent day to the Bhagavad Gita," Emerson wrote in his journal in 1831. The Gita would inform his Transcendentalist essays, in which he wrote of the "Over-Soul," that part of the individual that is one with the universe—invoking the Vedantic precepts of the Atman and Brahman. (In a tidy historical twist, one of Emerson's relatives, Ellen Waldo, became a devotee of Vivekananda, and faithfully transcribed the dictated text of his first book, "Raja Yoga," in 1895.)</div><div style="font-size: 1.4em; line-height: 1.5em; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 8px; margin-right: 8px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">Emerson's student and fellow Transcendentalist, Henry David Thoreau, would study Indian thought even more avidly and crafted his own practice—living as a secular monk, as it were, by Walden Pond. In 1875, Walt Whitman was given a copy of the Gita as a Christmas gift, and it is heard unmistakably in "Leaves of Grass" in lines such as "I pass death with the dying and birth with the new-wash'd babe, and am not contained between my hat and my boots." Though the two never met, Vivekananda hailed Whitman as "the Sannyasin of America."</div><div style="font-size: 1.4em; line-height: 1.5em; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 8px; margin-right: 8px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">The Academy, however, was a bit slower to embrace Eastern thought and literature. It wasn't until after an electrifying lecture by Vivekananda at Harvard's Graduate Philosophical Club on March 25, 1896, that Eastern Philosophy departments became a staple at Ivy League colleges.</div><div style="font-size: 1.4em; line-height: 1.5em; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 8px; margin-right: 8px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">Fascinated by the erudite and polyglot monk—who could pass an entire day sitting motionless in silent meditation—the esteemed philosopher William James roped in many of his colleagues, students and friends to attend Vivekananda's Harvard lecture. They were not disappointed. "The theory of evolution, and prana [energy] and akasa [space] is exactly what your modern science has," their exotic visitor blithely informed them. Nor were they unamused. When asked, "Swami, what do you think about food and breathing?" he replied, "I am for both." The evening ended with the turbaned monk, "dressed in rich dark red robes," receiving an offer to chair Harvard's new department. Columbia University promptly made its own bid for Vivekananda—who declined both, noting his vows of renunciation.</div><div style="font-size: 1.4em; line-height: 1.5em; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 8px; margin-right: 8px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">At a dinner party in his honor the following night, William James and Vivekananda scurried off to a corner by themselves, where they were observed nattering away until midnight. The next morning, James sent word inviting him to dinner at his own home that evening. And over the next week, James would dash into Boston to hear his other lectures.</div><div style="font-size: 1.4em; line-height: 1.5em; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 8px; margin-right: 8px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">"He has evidently swept Professor James off his feet," wrote a Harvard colleague. Indeed, the eminent scholar was deferential to a fault with his newfound Bengali friend, referring to him as Master. More important, in his seminal book "The Varieties of Religious Experience," James relied upon Vivekananda's "Raja Yoga," a treatise on the discipline of meditation practice from which he quoted extensively: "All the different steps in yoga are intended to bring us scientifically to the superconscious state, or samadhi."</div><div style="font-size: 1.4em; line-height: 1.5em; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 8px; margin-right: 8px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">Unbeknownst to him, Vivekananda had hit the piñata of influence: James was arguably the country's premier intellectual. And it hardly hurt that his brother was the master novelist Henry James.</div><div style="font-size: 1.4em; line-height: 1.5em; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 8px; margin-right: 8px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">Along with the James brothers, a half dozen socially prominent and wealthy women immeasurably facilitated the visiting monk—who not infrequently encountered some racism on his U.S. lecture tours. Sara Bull in Cambridge, Josephine MacLeod in New York City, and Margaret Noble in London would set up salons and avidly spread the word—and even followed him to India. With the vast contacts and shrewd networking of these women, his talks in Cambridge and Manhattan became standing-room-only affairs attended by the cognoscenti of the day, assorted seekers, and all manner of movers and shakers—from Gertrude Stein, one of James's students, to John D. Rockefeller. Blessed with "the power of personality," as Henry James would say, Vivekananda was the ideal missionary to pitch the message of Vedanta.</div><div style="font-size: 1.4em; line-height: 1.5em; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 8px; margin-right: 8px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">During his lifetime, Vivekananda had another enthusiast in Leo Tolstoy, the titan of Russian letters. "He is the most brilliant wise man," Tolstoy gushed after devouring "Raja Yoga" in 1896 in a single sitting and reporting it to be "most remarkable… [and] I have received much instruction. The precept of what the true 'I' of a man is, is excellent…Yesterday, I read Vivekananda the whole day."</div><div style="font-size: 1.4em; line-height: 1.5em; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 8px; margin-right: 8px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">Not long before his death, Tolstoy was still waxing about Vivekananda. "It is doubtful in this age that another man has ever risen above this selfless, spiritual meditation."</div><div style="font-size: 1.4em; line-height: 1.5em; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 8px; margin-right: 8px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">Tolstoy and Vivekananda never met, but the opera diva Emma Calvé and the great tragedienne Sarah Bernhardt sought him out and became his lifelong friends.</div><blockquote style="border-left-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); border-left-style: solid; border-left-width: 1px; font-size: 1.4em; line-height: 1.5em; margin-bottom: 1.3em; margin-left: 89px; margin-right: 3em; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 8px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; position: relative;"><div style="background-color: white; border-bottom-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 1px; border-top-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); border-top-style: solid; border-top-width: 1px; font-family: Georgia, 'Century Schoolbook', 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 1.2857em; font-style: italic; line-height: 1.5em; margin-left: -89px; padding-bottom: 13px; padding-left: 57px; padding-right: 65px; padding-top: 15px; text-align: center;"><span class="quo oQ" style="display: block; font-size: 100px; left: -81px; line-height: 1em; position: absolute; top: 1px;">“</span>Scores of women walked over benches to get near him, prompting one wag to crack, if Vivekananda 'can resist that onslaught, then he is indeed a god.'<span class="quo cQ" style="bottom: -45px; display: block; font-size: 100px; line-height: 1em; position: absolute; right: 16px;">”</span><cite class="tagline" style="color: #333333; display: block; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 0.72em; font-style: normal; line-height: 1em; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 8px; margin-top: 8px;"></cite></div></blockquote><div style="font-size: 1.4em; line-height: 1.5em; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 8px; margin-right: 8px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">Bernhardt, in fact, introduced him to the electromagnetic scientist Nikola Tesla, who was struck by Vivekananda's knowledge of physics. Both recognized they had been pondering the same thesis on energy—in different languages. Vivekananda was keenly interested in the science supporting meditation, and Tesla would cite the monk's contributions in his pioneering research of electricity. "Mr. Tesla was charmed to hear about the Vedantic prana and akasha and the kalpas [time]," Vivekananda wrote to a friend. "He thinks he can demonstrate mathematically that force and matter are reducible to potential energy. I am to go to see him next week to get this mathematical demonstration. In that case Vedantic cosmology will be placed on the surest of foundations." For the monk from Calcutta, there were no inconsistencies between science, evolution and religious belief. Faith, he wrote, must be based upon direct experience, not religious platitudes.</div><div style="font-size: 1.4em; line-height: 1.5em; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 8px; margin-right: 8px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">More presciently, he warned that India would remain a vanquished, impoverished land until it "elevated" the status of women. And while he admonished Westerners for their preoccupation with the material and the physical, he famously advised a sickly young devotee to toughen himself with athletics: "You will be nearer to heaven playing football than studying the Bhagavad Gita."</div><div style="font-size: 1.4em; line-height: 1.5em; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 8px; margin-right: 8px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">Vivekananda's influence bloomed well into the mid-20th century, infusing the work of Mahatma Gandhi, Carl Jung, George Santayana, Jane Addams, Joseph Campbell and Henry Miller, among assorted luminaries. And then he seemed to go into eclipse in the West. American baby boomers—more disposed to "doing" than "being"—have opted for "hot yoga" classes over meditation. At some point, perhaps in the 1980s, an ancient, profoundly antimaterialist teaching had morphed into a fitness cult with expensive accessories.</div><div style="font-size: 1.4em; line-height: 1.5em; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 8px; margin-right: 8px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">Moreover, a few American academics have recently taken to scrutinizing Vivekananda and Ramakrishna through a Freudian prism, offering up speculative theories of sexual repression. In turn their critics respond that the two titans from Calcutta are incomprehensible via simplistic Freudian prisms. To understand the unconditional celibacy of Ramakrishna and Vivekananda, they argue, requires fluency in 19th-century Bengali and a decidedly non-Western paradigm.</div><div style="font-size: 1.4em; line-height: 1.5em; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 8px; margin-right: 8px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">Supporting this view were Christopher Isherwood and his friend Aldous Huxley, who wrote the introduction to the 1942 English-language edition of "The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna," a firsthand account (originally published in India in 1898) described by Huxley as "the most profound and subtle utterances about the nature of Ultimate Reality." Nikhilananda, Salinger's guru, did the translation, with assistance from Huxley, Joseph Campbell and Margaret Wilson, the daughter of the late president.</div><div style="font-size: 1.4em; line-height: 1.5em; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 8px; margin-right: 8px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">Huxley and Isherwood were introduced to Vedanta in the Hollywood Hills in the late 1930s by their countryman, the writer Gerald Heard. In a fitting counterpart to the New York Center, the Hollywood Vedanta society was likewise run by a scholarly and charismatic monk, Prabhavananda, who initiated the English trio of writers.</div><div style="font-size: 1.4em; line-height: 1.5em; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 8px; margin-right: 8px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">Like Nikhilananda, Prabhavananda was a magnet for the intelligentsia, and his lectures often attracted the likes of Igor Stravinsky, Laurence Olivier, Vivien Leigh and W. Somerset Maugham (and led to his writing "The Razor's Edge"). Inspired by Isherwood—who briefly lived at the center as a monk—Greta Garbo asked if she too might move in. Told that a monastery accepts only men, Garbo became testy. "That doesn't matter!" she thumped. "I'll put on trousers."</div><div style="font-size: 1.4em; line-height: 1.5em; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 8px; margin-right: 8px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">Henry Miller, who made headlines with his torrid and banned "Tropic of Cancer," visited with Prabhavananda at the Hollywood center, devoured a small library of Vedanta books and settled down in Big Sur in 1944. Throughout his memoir, "The Air Conditioned Nightmare," Miller invokes Vivekananda as the great sage of the modern age and the consummate messenger to rescue the West from spiritual bankruptcy.</div><div style="font-size: 1.4em; line-height: 1.5em; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 8px; margin-right: 8px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">Isherwood's commitment to Vedanta, like Salinger's, was unswerving and lifelong. Over the next 20 years, he co-translated with Prabhavananda the Bhagavad Gita, Patanjali's "Yoga Aphorisms" and Shankara's "Crest Jewel of Discrimination," and was the author of several books and tracts on Vivekananda and Ramakrishna.</div><div style="font-size: 1.4em; line-height: 1.5em; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 8px; margin-right: 8px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">Huxley, however, in his final years turned over his spiritual quest to his second wife, Laura, and pharmaceuticals—an unequivocal no-no among Vedantins. Believing he had found a shortcut to samadhi, the great man had his wife inject him with LSD on his deathbed. "Aldous was the most brilliant man I ever met," sighed one monk, "but he lacked discrimination."</div><div style="font-size: 1.4em; line-height: 1.5em; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 8px; margin-right: 8px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">Of all the literary lions captivated by Vivekananda and Vedanta, J.D. Salinger perhaps made the fullest commitment and sacrifices. In 1952, Salinger exhorted his British publisher to pick up the English rights of the Gospel, calling it "the religious book of the century."</div><div style="font-size: 1.4em; line-height: 1.5em; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 8px; margin-right: 8px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">At the peak of his fame in 1961, Salinger delivered a warmly inscribed copy of "Franny and Zooey," which is saturated in Vedantic thought and references, to his guru Nikhilananda, who by then had formally initiated him as a devotee. Salinger confided to Nikhilananda that he intentionally left a trail of Vedantic clues throughout his work from "Franny and Zooey" onward, hoping to entice readers into deeper study.</div><div style="font-size: 1.4em; line-height: 1.5em; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 8px; margin-right: 8px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">The two men often met at the 94th Street center, where they would discuss the spiritual challenges of renunciation. Salinger would also embark on "personal retreats" at the Vedanta center in Thousand Island Park in the St. Lawrence River. There he would stay in the cottage where Vivekananda had lived and held retreats in the late 1890s.</div><div style="font-size: 1.4em; line-height: 1.5em; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 8px; margin-right: 8px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">In January 1963, at the New York celebration of Vivekananda's 100th birthday—presided over by the secretary-general of the United Nations, U Thant—Salinger sat front and center at the banquet table. A few weeks later, he published "Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters and Seymour: An Introduction," two exquisitely wrought novellas in which the suicide of Seymour, arguably Salinger's alter ego, is the catalyzing event. "I have been reading a miscellany of Vedanta all day," begins one entry in Seymour's diary in "Raise High." In Seymour, the narrator declares, "I tend to regard myself as a fourth-class Karma Yogini, with perhaps a little Jnana Yoga thrown in to spice up the pot."</div><div style="font-size: 1.4em; line-height: 1.5em; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 8px; margin-right: 8px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">In Salinger's last published work, "Hapworth 16, 1924," in 1965 in "The New Yorker," Seymour bursts into a manic tribute to Vivekananda. "Raja-Yoga and Bhakti-Yoga, two heartrending, handy, quite tiny volumes, are perfect for the pockets of any average, mobile boys our age, by Vivekananda of India."</div><div style="font-size: 1.4em; line-height: 1.5em; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 8px; margin-right: 8px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">And then America's beloved novelist stopped publishing. "Name and fame," eschewed by Ramakrishna, no longer was the ticket for the increasingly hermetic Salinger. His ferocious literary ambition was now supplanted by what appears to have been a diligent, albeit eccentric, spiritual quest for the next four decades—until his death in 2010.</div><div style="font-size: 1.4em; line-height: 1.5em; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 8px; margin-right: 8px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">While Salinger is depicted by many chroniclers and contemporaries as an ornery crank, four letters, approved by Salinger's estate for use by the New York Ramakrishna-Vivekananda Center, suggest a man of singular devotion and renunciation: "I read a bit from the Gita every morning before I get out of bed," he wrote to Nikhilananda's successor swami at the New York center in 1975.</div><div style="font-size: 1.4em; line-height: 1.5em; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 8px; margin-right: 8px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">Salinger also conducted a long correspondence with Marie Louise Burke, who compiled a six-volume history of Vivekananda's visits to the West. Burke was as serious a seeker as Salinger and as devoted as a nun: Indeed, she took the monastic name Sister Gargi. Nevertheless, the nervous, sometimes paranoid Salinger fretted that she might profit from their letters. Unfortunately, Burke proved her fidelity to her friend by burning them.</div><div style="font-size: 1.4em; line-height: 1.5em; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 8px; margin-right: 8px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">In between his two treks to the West, Vivekananda returned to India and founded the Ramakrishna Order as both a monastery and a service mission. Today it is among the largest philanthropic organizations in India—providing food, medical assistance and disaster relief to millions. His prescription for his countrymen, however, who had been demoralized by colonialism, was to borrow a page from the West, he said, and instill itself with the "can do" spirit of Americans. "Strength! Strength is my religion!" he exhorted. "Religion is not for the weak!"</div><div style="font-size: 1.4em; line-height: 1.5em; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 8px; margin-right: 8px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">India has scheduled a yearlong party to commemorate the 150th anniversary of Vivekananda's birth, beginning on January 12, 2013. There will be plenty of readings of his four texts on yoga as a spiritual discipline. Nine volumes chronicle his talks, writings and ruminations, from screeds against child marriage to Milton's "Paradise Lost" to his pet goats and ducks. But if there were a single takeaway line that boils down his teachings to one spiritual bullet point, it would be "You are not your body." This might be bad news for the yoga-mat crowd. The good news for beleaguered souls like Salinger was Vivekananda's corollary: "You are not your mind."</div><div style="font-size: 1.4em; line-height: 1.5em; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 8px; margin-right: 8px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">In a 1972 letter to the ailing Nikhilananda in the last year of his life, Salinger seemed to be saying as much.</div><div style="font-size: 1.4em; line-height: 1.5em; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 8px; margin-right: 8px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">"I sometimes wish that the East had deigned to concentrate some small part of its immeasurable genius to the petty art of science of keeping the body well and fit. Between extreme indifference to the body and the most extreme and zealous attention to it (Hatha Yoga), there seems to be no useful middle ground whatever."</div><div style="font-size: 1.4em; line-height: 1.5em; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 8px; margin-right: 8px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">Salinger went on to express his gratitude to the man who had guided him out of his "long dark night." "It may be that reading to a devoted group from the Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna is all you do now, as you say, but I imagine the students who are lucky enough to hear you read from the Gospel would put the matter rather differently. Meaning that I've forgotten many worthy and important things in my life, but I have never forgotten the way you used to read from, and interpret, the Upanishads, up at Thousand Island Park."</div><div style="font-size: 1.4em; line-height: 1.5em; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 8px; margin-right: 8px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">By then, Salinger had not published in some time. Nor would he again. Nor did he seem to miss it.</div></div></div></div></div></div><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 10px; line-height: 10px; text-align: left;"><br />
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Read more: <a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303404704577305581227233656.html#ixzz1szcJEIXb" style="color: #003399; outline-color: initial; outline-style: none; outline-width: initial; text-decoration: none;">http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303404704577305581227233656.html#ixzz1szcJEIXb</a></span> <br />
<a href="https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/pengoopmcjnbflcjbmoeodbmoflcgjlk" style="font-size: 13px;">'via Blog this'</a>Sandip K. Dasvermahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03288589903537297131noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37668969.post-26672060489725626312012-04-10T00:01:00.001-07:002012-04-10T00:01:55.833-07:00States of Depression - NYTimes.com<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/05/opinion/krugman-states-of-depression.html?_r=1&ref=opinion">States of Depression - NYTimes.com</a>: <br />
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<h6 class="kicker" style="background-color: white; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 1em; font-weight: normal; line-height: 1.4em; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-align: left; text-transform: uppercase;">OP-ED COLUMNIST</h6><h1 class="articleHeadline" itemprop="headline" style="background-color: white; font-family: georgia, 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 2.4em; font-weight: normal; line-height: 1.083em; margin-bottom: 8px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-align: left;"><nyt_headline type=" " version="1.0">States of Depression</nyt_headline></h1><nyt_byline style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 10px; line-height: 15px; text-align: left;"><span itemprop="creator" itemscope="" itemtype="http://schema.org/Person"><h6 class="byline" itemprop="name" style="color: grey; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 1em; font-weight: normal; line-height: 1.2em; margin-bottom: 2px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 2px;">By <a class="meta-per" href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/opinion/editorialsandoped/oped/columnists/paulkrugman/index.html?inline=nyt-per" rel="author" style="color: #666699; text-decoration: none;" title="More Articles by Paul Krugman">PAUL KRUGMAN</a></h6></span></nyt_byline><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 10px; line-height: 15px; text-align: left;"></span><h6 class="dateline" style="background-color: white; color: grey; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 1em; font-weight: normal; line-height: 1.2em; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-align: left;">Published: March 4, 2012</h6><div class="articleTools" id="articleToolsTop" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; float: right; font-family: georgia, 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 10px; line-height: 15px; margin-bottom: 5px; margin-left: 5px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 5px; text-align: left; width: 132px;"><div class="box" style="border-bottom-color: rgb(226, 226, 226); border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 1px; border-color: initial; border-image: initial; border-left-color: rgb(234, 232, 233); border-left-style: none; border-left-width: 1px; border-right-color: rgb(234, 232, 233); border-right-style: none; border-right-width: 1px; border-top-color: rgb(170, 170, 170); border-top-style: solid; border-top-width: 1px; border-width: initial; clear: both; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; position: relative;"><div class="inset" style="clear: both; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><ul class="toolsList wrap" id="toolsList" style="list-style-image: initial; list-style-position: initial; list-style-type: none; margin-bottom: 7px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px;"><li id="facebook_item" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; background-image: none; background-origin: initial; background-position: 0% 0.45em; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; border-bottom-color: rgb(234, 232, 233); border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 1px; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 1em; line-height: 1.4em; margin-bottom: 0px; padding-bottom: 6px; padding-left: 8px; padding-right: 8px; padding-top: 6px; text-transform: uppercase;"><a href="" id="facebook_button" style="background-image: url(http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/article/functions/facebook.gif); background-position: -1px -1px; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; cursor: pointer; display: block; line-height: 13px; padding-bottom: 3px; padding-left: 20px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"><span style="font-size: 1em;">RECOMMEND</span></a></li>
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But after previous false starts — remember “green shoots”? — it would be foolish to assume that all is well. And in any case, it’s still a very slow economic recovery by historical standards.</div></nyt_text></div><div class="articleInline runaroundLeft" style="background-color: white; clear: left; color: #333333; display: inline; float: left; font-family: georgia, 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 10px; line-height: 15px; margin-bottom: 10px !important; margin-left: 0px !important; margin-right: 15px !important; margin-top: 6px !important; text-align: left; width: 190px;"><div class="inlineImage module" style="clear: both; margin-bottom: 12px; width: 190px;"><div class="image" style="margin-bottom: 2px;"><span itemid="http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2010/09/16/opinion/Krugman_New/Krugman_New-articleInline.jpg" itemprop="associatedMedia" itemscope="" itemtype="http://schema.org/ImageObject"><img alt="" height="240" itemprop="url" src="http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2010/09/16/opinion/Krugman_New/Krugman_New-articleInline.jpg" width="190" /></span></div><h6 class="credit" style="color: #909090; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 0.9em; font-weight: normal; line-height: 1.223em; margin-bottom: 3px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-align: right;">Fred R. Conrad/The New York Times</h6><div class="caption" style="color: #666666; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 1.1em; line-height: 1.2727em;">Paul Krugman</div></div><div class="columnGroup doubleRule" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; background-image: none; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; border-bottom-width: 1px !important; border-left-width: 1px !important; border-right-width: 1px !important; border-top-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); border-top-style: solid; border-top-width: 1px !important; clear: both; margin-bottom: 12px; margin-left: 10px; margin-right: 7px; padding-top: 12px; width: auto !important;"><div class="story" style="clear: both; margin-bottom: 8px;"><h6 style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; font-weight: normal; line-height: 1.25em; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><a href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/opinion/editorialsandoped/oped/columnists/paulkrugman/index.html" style="color: #666699; text-decoration: none;">Go to Columnist Page »</a></h6></div><div class="story" style="clear: both; margin-bottom: 0px;"><h6 style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; font-weight: normal; line-height: 1.25em; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><a href="http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/" style="color: #666699; text-decoration: none;">Blog: The Conscience of a Liberal</a></h6></div></div><div class="columnGroup doubleRule" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; background-image: none; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; border-bottom-width: 1px !important; border-left-width: 1px !important; border-right-width: 1px !important; border-top-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); border-top-style: solid; border-top-width: 1px !important; clear: both; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 10px; margin-right: 7px; padding-top: 12px; width: auto !important;"><h3 class="sectionHeader" style="color: black; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 1.4em; line-height: 1.2857em; margin-bottom: 8px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">Related</h3><ul class="headlinesOnly multiline flush" style="list-style-image: initial; list-style-position: initial; list-style-type: none; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px;"><li style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; background-image: none; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; font-size: 1.2em; line-height: 1.25em; margin-bottom: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"><h6 style="color: black; font-size: 1em; font-weight: normal; line-height: 1.25em; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">Times Topic: <a href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/subjects/u/united_states_economy/index.html" style="color: #666699; font-size: 1em; text-decoration: none;">United States Economy</a></h6></li>
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</ul></div></div><div class="articleBody" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 10px; line-height: 15px; margin-bottom: 1.7em; margin-top: 1.5em; text-align: left;"><div itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-size: 1.5em; line-height: 1.467em; margin-bottom: 1em;">There are several reasons for this slowness, with the most important being the overhang of household debt that is a legacy of the housing bubble. But one significant factor in our continuing economic weakness is the fact that government in America is doing exactly what both theory and history say it shouldn’t: slashing spending in the face of a depressed economy.</div><div itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-size: 1.5em; line-height: 1.467em; margin-bottom: 1em;">In fact, if it weren’t for this destructive fiscal austerity, our unemployment rate would almost certainly be lower now than it was at a comparable stage of the “Morning in America” recovery during the Reagan era.</div><div itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-size: 1.5em; line-height: 1.467em; margin-bottom: 1em;">Notice that I said “government in America,” not “the federal government.” The federal government has been pursuing what amount to contractionary policies as the last vestiges of the Obama stimulus fade out, but the big cuts have come at the state and local level. These state and local cuts have led to a sharp fall in both government employment and government spending on goods and services, exerting a powerful drag on the economy as a whole.</div><div itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-size: 1.5em; line-height: 1.467em; margin-bottom: 1em;">One way to dramatize just how severe our de facto austerity has been is to compare government employment and spending during the Obama-era economic expansion, which began in June 2009, with their tracks during the Reagan-era expansion, which began in November 1982.</div><div itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-size: 1.5em; line-height: 1.467em; margin-bottom: 1em;">Start with <a href="http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/03/03/austerity-recovery-continued/" style="color: #666699;" title="Blog post">government employment</a> (which is mainly at the state and local level, with about half the jobs in education). By this stage in the Reagan recovery, government employment had risen by 3.1 percent; this time around, it’s down by 2.7 percent.</div><div itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-size: 1.5em; line-height: 1.467em; margin-bottom: 1em;">Next, look at government <a href="http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/03/03/reagan-obama-austerity/" style="color: #666699;" title="Blog post">purchases of goods and services</a> (as distinct from transfers to individuals, like unemployment benefits). Adjusted for inflation, by this stage of the Reagan recovery, such purchases had risen by 11.6 percent; this time, they’re down by 2.6 percent.</div><div itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-size: 1.5em; line-height: 1.467em; margin-bottom: 1em;">And the gap persists even when you do include transfers, some of which have stayed high precisely because unemployment is still so high. Adjusted for inflation, <a href="http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/03/04/real-government-spending-in-two-recoveries/" style="color: #666699;" title="Blog post">Reagan-era spending</a> rose 10.2 percent in the first 10 quarters of recovery, Obama-era spending only 2.6 percent.</div><div itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-size: 1.5em; line-height: 1.467em; margin-bottom: 1em;">Why did government spending rise so much under Reagan, with his small-government rhetoric, while shrinking under the president so many Republicans insist is a secret socialist? In Reagan’s case, it’s partly about the arms race, but mainly about state and local governments doing what they are supposed to do: educate a growing population of children, invest in infrastructure for a growing economy.</div><div itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-size: 1.5em; line-height: 1.467em; margin-bottom: 1em;">Under President Obama, however, the dire fiscal condition of state and local governments — the result of a sustained slump, which in turn was caused largely by that private debt explosion before 2008 — has led to forced spending cuts. The fiscal straits of lower-level governments could and should have been alleviated by aid from Washington, which remains able to borrow at incredibly low interest rates. But this aid was never provided on a remotely adequate scale.</div><div itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-size: 1.5em; line-height: 1.467em; margin-bottom: 1em;">This policy malpractice is doing double damage to America. On one side, it’s helping lose the future — because that’s what happens when you neglect education and public investment. At the same time, it’s hurting us right now, by helping keep growth low and unemployment high.</div><div itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-size: 1.5em; line-height: 1.467em; margin-bottom: 1em;">We’re talking big numbers here. If government employment under Mr. Obama had grown at Reagan-era rates, 1.3 million more Americans would be working as schoolteachers, firefighters, police officers, etc., than are currently employed in such jobs.</div><div itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-size: 1.5em; line-height: 1.467em; margin-bottom: 1em;">And once you take the effects of public spending on private employment into account, a rough estimate is that the unemployment rate would be 1.5 percentage points lower than it is, or below 7 percent — significantly better than the Reagan economy at this stage.</div><div itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-size: 1.5em; line-height: 1.467em; margin-bottom: 1em;">One implication of this comparison is that conservatives who love to compare Reagan’s record with Mr. Obama’s should think twice. Aside from the fact that recoveries from financial crises are almost always slower than ordinary recoveries, in reality Reagan was much more Keynesian than Mr. Obama, faced with an obstructionist G.O.P., has ever managed to be.</div><div itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-size: 1.5em; line-height: 1.467em; margin-bottom: 1em;">More important, however, there is now an easy answer to anyone asking how we can accelerate our economic recovery. By all means, let’s talk about visionary ideas; but we can take a big step toward full employment just by using the federal government’s low borrowing costs to help state and local governments rehire the schoolteachers and police officers they laid off, while restarting the road repair and improvement projects they canceled or put on hold.</div></div><br />
<a href="https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/pengoopmcjnbflcjbmoeodbmoflcgjlk" style="font-size: 13px;">'via Blog this'</a>Sandip K. Dasvermahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03288589903537297131noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37668969.post-69621544784815524262012-04-06T12:37:00.001-07:002012-04-06T12:37:44.310-07:00Pentagon Pushes Crowdsourced Manufacturing - NYTimes.com<a href="http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/04/05/pentagon-pushes-crowdsourced-manufacturing/?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=edit_th_20120406">Pentagon Pushes Crowdsourced Manufacturing - NYTimes.com</a>: <br />
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<header class="entryHeader" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 10px; line-height: 15px; margin-bottom: 14px; text-align: left;"><h1 class="entry-title" style="color: black; font-size: 3.2em; font-weight: normal; line-height: 1.083em; margin-bottom: 2px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">Pentagon Pushes Crowdsourced Manufacturing</h1><address class="byline author vcard" style="color: grey; display: inline; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 1.1em; font-style: normal; line-height: 1.2em; margin-bottom: 2px; margin-top: 2px;">By <a class="url fn" href="http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/author/steve-lohr/" style="color: grey; text-decoration: none; text-transform: uppercase;" title="See all posts by STEVE LOHR">STEVE LOHR</a></address> | <span class="timestamp published" style="color: #a81817; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 1.1em; white-space: nowrap;" title="2012-04-05T15:15:30+00:00"><span class="date" style="color: grey;">April 5, 2012, <em style="font-style: normal; text-transform: uppercase;">3:15 PM</em></span></span><span class="commentCount meta" style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;"> <a class="post-comment comment-number-only no-comment-prompt" href="http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/04/05/pentagon-pushes-crowdsourced-manufacturing/#postComment" style="background-image: url(http://css.nyt.com/images/blogs_v3/nyt_universal/comments.gif); background-position: 3px 1px; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; border-left-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); border-left-style: solid; border-left-width: 1px; color: #666699; font-weight: bold; margin-left: 3px; padding-left: 15px; text-decoration: none;">5</a></span></header><br />
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</ul></div><div style="font-size: 1.4em; line-height: 1.5em; margin-bottom: 1em;">Designing and building things for the United States military is a notoriously slow-moving and costly endeavor. The time from idea to manufacturing for a new armored personnel carrier or a tank is typically 10 to 20 years.</div><div style="font-size: 1.4em; line-height: 1.5em; margin-bottom: 1em;">The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency wants to change that, and drastically so. It seeks to cut the design-to-production cycle to two to four years.</div><div style="font-size: 1.4em; line-height: 1.5em; margin-bottom: 1em;">So how are they going to do it? Crowdsourcing and prize contests are crucial ingredients in the speed-up recipe.</div><div style="font-size: 1.4em; line-height: 1.5em; margin-bottom: 1em;">The crowdsourcing effort will rely on a software initiative, called Vehicleforge.mil, which will be a Web portal for gathering, sharing and testing ideas.</div><div class="w480" style="margin-bottom: 16px; margin-left: -16px; margin-right: auto; overflow-x: hidden; overflow-y: hidden; padding-top: 4px; width: 480px;"><img alt="" height="297" id="100000001473630" src="http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2012/04/05/technology/05bits-concept/05bits-concept-blog480.jpg" style="display: block;" width="480" /><span class="credit" style="color: #909090; display: block; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 1em; line-height: 1.223em; margin-bottom: 2px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 2px; text-align: right;">G.E. Research</span></div><div style="font-size: 1.4em; line-height: 1.5em; margin-bottom: 1em;">Darpa, a government-sponsored research program, has enlisted scientists from the Georgia Tech Research Institute, Vanderbilt University, University of Pennsylvania, and a team from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and General Electric. The work is getting under way in earnest now, with the first of three prize challenges scheduled for next year.</div><div style="font-size: 1.4em; line-height: 1.5em; margin-bottom: 1em;"><a href="http://www.genewscenter.com/Content/Detail.aspx?ReleaseID=14209&NewsAreaID=2" style="color: #666699;" title="The G.E.-M.I.T. announcement of the project">G.E.’s research arm announced its collaboration with M.I.T.</a> on Thursday. Earlier in the week, researchers from the company, M.I.T. and the Pentagon agency, Darpa, discussed the project and its potential significance for the military and beyond.</div><div style="font-size: 1.4em; line-height: 1.5em; margin-bottom: 1em;">The near-term target, they said, is to collaborate on a design for an amphibious vehicle for the Marines. The first contest, with a $1 million prize, is planned for early next year. It involves mobility and drive-train subsystems for the vehicle. Next, about six months later, will be the design for the chassis and other subsystems, a contest that will carry another $1 million prize.</div><div style="font-size: 1.4em; line-height: 1.5em; margin-bottom: 1em;">In 2014, there will be a $2 million prize for the best design for an entire vehicle. Individuals, small teams and businesses and major defense contractors are welcome to compete and contribute, said Lt. Col. Nathan Wiedenman, a Darpa program manager. The goal, he said, is to “democratize the design process.”</div><div style="font-size: 1.4em; line-height: 1.5em; margin-bottom: 1em;">At G.E., the view extends well beyond military vehicles. “This is about changing the paradigm so you can rapidly design and manufacture complex systems of all kinds,” said Joseph Salvo, manager of the business integration technologies lab at G.E. Research. If successful, the approach could have a big impact on G.E., the nation’s largest manufacturer of industrial equipment, including jet engines, power generators and diagnostic medical devices.</div><div style="font-size: 1.4em; line-height: 1.5em; margin-bottom: 1em;">Crowdsourced software design, of course, is old hat. That is the open-source model that gave us the Linux operating system and the Apache Web server years ago.</div><div style="font-size: 1.4em; line-height: 1.5em; margin-bottom: 1em;">But what is different about the Vehicleforge.mil project is that it is essentially a software “engine” that contributors use to plug in simulated components. Then, the new part or subsystem can be tested, virtually.</div><div style="font-size: 1.4em; line-height: 1.5em; margin-bottom: 1em;">“You attach these simulation services to explore the behavior of complex systems,” explained David R. Wallace, a professor of mechanical engineering at M.I.T. “That allows you to predict problems earlier to get a better design faster.”</div><div style="font-size: 1.4em; line-height: 1.5em; margin-bottom: 1em;">There are plenty of software simulation tools used in manufacturing. It is a niche industry — computer-aided design. But the software is often difficult to use and expensive, so mainly big companies use them.</div><div style="font-size: 1.4em; line-height: 1.5em; margin-bottom: 1em;">The Vehicleforge.mil program, Dr. Wallace said, will allow solo inventors or small teams to tap into those capabilities. A vehicle body and chassis design, submitted as code, could be plugged into the Vehicleforge.mil platform and tested for aerodynamics by in a virtual wind tunnel, for example.</div><div style="font-size: 1.4em; line-height: 1.5em;">“The design models all hook up together,” Dr. Wallace said. “It’s an emergent way to design complex systems.”</div></div><br />
<a href="https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/pengoopmcjnbflcjbmoeodbmoflcgjlk" style="font-size: 13px;">'via Blog this'</a>Sandip K. Dasvermahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03288589903537297131noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37668969.post-7484319263617375812012-03-29T21:41:00.001-07:002012-03-29T21:41:56.890-07:00Tehelka - India's Independent Weekly News Magazine<a href="http://www.tehelka.com/story_main45.asp?filename=hub050610the_giant.asp">Tehelka - India's Independent Weekly News Magazine</a>: <br />
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<table align="center" border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" style="background-color: white; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><tbody>
<tr><td height="192" valign="top"><div style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif, Verdana; font-size: 11pt;"><strong><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">The Giant In The Shadows</span></strong></div><div style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif, Verdana; font-size: 11pt;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><strong>Dilip Tirkey</strong><em>, an Adivasi boy, rose from one of India’s poorest regions to become the most capped player in international hockey. So why is he retiring into obscurity, asks </em><strong>VAIBHAV VATS</strong></span></span></div><table align="left" border="0" style="width: 200px;"><tbody>
<tr><td><span style="font-size: x-small;"><strong><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><strong><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><img align="middle" alt="image" src="http://www.tehelka.com/channels/Thehub/2010/jun/05/images/giant.jpg" /></span></strong></span></span></span></strong></span></td></tr>
<tr><td bgcolor="#CCCCCC"><span style="font-size: xx-small;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><strong>Stripes of honour</strong><em> Dilip Tirkey at his Bhubaneswar home</em></span></span></td></tr>
</tbody></table><div style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif, Verdana; font-size: 11pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">In early May, Dilip Tirkey, former Indian hockey captain and iconic defender, was playing in a small six-aside local tournament in Bhubaneswar. Suddenly during halftime, he called a few journalists present and told them he would never wear the India jersey again. This decision even caught his wife Meera unawares. “He had been talking about retiring for a long time, but I never thought he would do it like that,” she says. That evening, when he returned home, Tirkey, 32, sobbed inconsolably and refused to look at his dinner. an epoch in Indian hockey had come to an abrupt end.</span></div><div style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif, Verdana; font-size: 11pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">It could easily seem a mere writer’s trick, but in a rare irony, a few days later, Tirkey stood waiting alone outside a mall in Bhubaneswar’s upscale Jayadev Vihar area — dwarfed by a giant hoarding of Mahendra Singh Dhoni. Poignantly capturing the contrasting arcs of two sporting lives. It is a brief meeting — Tirkey is out for a private dinner. But it’s clear the lanky allegend is still coming to grips with retirement. Hockey was the fulcrum of his life. To wake up one day and suddenly abandon a way of life is disorienting. “I still cannot believe I’ve left hockey,” he says. “There’s this voice at the back of my head that keeps asking me to go to practice.”</span></div><div style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif, Verdana; font-size: 11pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">The next day, at his government bungalow in Bhubaneswar’s dour Unit 8 area, it is surprising to find a Toyota Fortuner parked at the entrance. It’s not his, he says, it belongs to his brother-inlaw. apt perhaps, because even after 15 glorious years in hockey, the story of Dilip Tirkey is far removed from the svelte world of SUVs.</span></div><table align="right" border="1" cellpadding="5" style="width: 250px;"><tbody>
<tr><td bgcolor="#CCCCCC"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Tirkey stood waiting alone outside a mall in Bhubaneswar dwarfed by a huge hoarding of Mahendra Singh Dhoni</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table><div style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif, Verdana; font-size: 11pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Sundergarh, an adivasi district in western Orissa, bordering Chhattisgarh, is one of India’s poorest regions. Its parched, dry landscape allows cultivation just once a year. In the early part of the 20th century, as missionary activity spread in the region, it brought along another civic religion — hockey.</span></div><div style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif, Verdana; font-size: 11pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Hockey took root like nothing else ever had — its democratic ethos far more in tune with the egalitarian structure of adivasi life than a hierarchal game such as cricket. any social occasion — birth ceremonies, weddings, festivals — could become the context for a hockey game. The prizes are a world away from the opulence of commercial sport — village teams usually play for a live chicken or a goat that later become a rare feast. The non-cultivating months from October to December become the ‘season’ — tournaments between village teams take place, in which more than 100 teams participate. Growing up in this fevered milieu, Tirkey remembers walking kilometres to watch hockey games between rival villages. “Sometimes when the games were a little farther, I borrowed a cycle,” he says.</span></div><div style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif, Verdana; font-size: 11pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">However, his father Vincent Tirkey, a CRPF man who played state-level hockey for Orissa, was not content to let his son’s obvious talent fritter away. “Dilip’s father had just one dream that his son play for India,” says Chulu Barla, the sarpanch of Saunamara village, where Tirkey grew up.</span></div><div style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif, Verdana; font-size: 11pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">The national Sports Talent Contest (NSTC) was the opportunity Tirkey was waiting for. (another young sportsman who was the beneficiary of the nSTC that year was a footballer named Baichung Bhutia). yet, for a little oversight, one of hockey’s great stories may never have begun. AK Bansal, the coach and mentor with whom Tirkey was to form a lifelong partnership, was not particularly struck by his skills in the early trials. “It was later when I was watching a practice game that I realised that the boy was exceptional,” says Bansal.</span></div><table align="left" border="0" style="width: 200px;"><tbody>
<tr><td><span style="font-size: x-small;"><strong><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><strong><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><img align="middle" alt="image" src="http://www.tehelka.com/channels/Thehub/2010/jun/05/images/dilip.jpg" /></span></strong></span></span></span></strong></span></td></tr>
<tr><td bgcolor="#CCCCCC"><span style="font-size: xx-small;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><strong>Defence mechanism </strong><em>Dilip Tirkey in action at the Asia Cup</em></span></span></td></tr>
</tbody></table><div style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif, Verdana; font-size: 11pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">BANSAL THINKS it was not his disciple’s talent that propelled him to the pinnacle of world hockey. “If I’m honest, I would say there were a few boys even more talented,” he says. “But, it was his determination and eagerness to take up any challenge that struck me most.”</span></div><div style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif, Verdana; font-size: 11pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Later, it was this quality that was to redeem Tirkey and set him on an unlikely course. During the nehru Cup, a national tournament for sub-juniors, Bansal found that the Orissa team was overburdened with strikers, while it lacked strength in defence. After a defender got injured, Bansal asked Tirkey — who had always played as a forward — to step up. “I always thought he would make a good defender,” he says.</span></div><table align="right" border="1" cellpadding="5" style="width: 250px;"><tbody>
<tr><td bgcolor="#CCCCCC"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Growing up in hockey-mad Sundergarh, Tirkey remembers walking kilometres to watch games between rival villages</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table><div style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif, Verdana; font-size: 11pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Until then, Tirkey had spent an unfulfilled time on the bench. “The coach came to me and asked — defence <em>mein khelega</em>?” he remembers. He jumped at this chance, and irrevocably made the position his own. Later, when he was picked for the senior state team, he produced a series of sterling performances at the back. It seemed only a matter of time before the India call came.</span></div><div style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif, Verdana; font-size: 11pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">However, on his international debut,Tirkey felt a mixture of bewilderment and anxiety at the thought of sharing the dressing room with Pargat Singh, the fiery full-back from Jalandhar he idolised. It was Pargat who broke the ice. “He never abused me, even if I committed a blunder,” Tirkey says. Later, the master and the proteģe would go on to form a memorable partnership, terrorising defences with their runs on the wing. “Each knew what the other would do,” says Pargat, recalling the intuitive dynamic they shared.</span></div><div style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif, Verdana; font-size: 11pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Miraculously, Tirkey’s career graph made its way through the turbulent and controversial world of Indian hockey like a steady, purposeful stream. From his debut in 1995 to 2001, he never missed a single game for the national team. This was as much down to his resolve to stay out of controversy as his famed fitness. “He never argued or politicked,” says Pargat. “His only interest was in playing hockey.”</span></div><div style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif, Verdana; font-size: 11pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Pargat thinks of Tirkey as one of the most consistent players he has ever seen, but refused to be drawn on the question of his best performance. It is easy to see why — to pose that question is to open a Pandora’s box of contrasting opinions. Events and anecdotes reel off — the ball from Sohail Abbas that smashed his cheekbone in the Indo-Pak test series; leading India to victory in the 2003 Afro-Asian Games; his valiant effort against Poland in the Sydney Olympics and his rock-like presence in the gold-winning 1998 Asian Games in Bangkok.</span></div><div style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif, Verdana; font-size: 11pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">IN HIS house, Tirkey’s living room is testament to overachievement — the deluge of medals and trophies adequately reflect the career of a man who played more international international hockey games — 403 — than any other player in history. Yet, some regrets still remain, and it is these that evoke most emotion. “I was never able to win a medal at the Olympics or the World Cup, and that I will always miss,” he says.</span></div><table align="left" border="0" style="width: 200px;"><tbody>
<tr><td><span style="font-size: x-small;"><strong><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><strong><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><img align="middle" alt="image" src="http://www.tehelka.com/channels/Thehub/2010/jun/05/images/dilip2.jpg" /></span></strong></span></span></span></strong></span></td></tr>
<tr><td bgcolor="#CCCCCC"><span style="font-size: xx-small;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><strong>The daily beast </strong><em>Even after retiring, fitness remains an obsession for Tirkey</em><em></em></span></span></td></tr>
</tbody></table><div style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif, Verdana; font-size: 11pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">His closest brush with Olympic glory was also the most heartbreaking. In 2000, at Sydney, India needed a win against abysmal Poland to make it to the semi-finals. The team was leading 1-0 from a Dilip Tirkey goal, and was coasting, when a lastminute equaliser struck them like a bolt from the blue. “It was like a funeral,” Tirkey says of the dressing room. “Some players were crying and others tried to console them silently.” Demoralised, India finished seventh.</span></div><div style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif, Verdana; font-size: 11pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">What did it mean for him to be only the second Adivasi to lead India? “I will never forget that moment — when I led the team out onto the pitch in the Athens Olympics. It was a dream and an honour to lead India,” he said. It is a reply as honest as it is banal. The unexpressed frisson lies in Sundergarh, 450 km away.</span></div><table align="right" border="1" cellpadding="5" style="width: 250px;"><tbody>
<tr><td bgcolor="#CCCCCC"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">A whole array of hockey skills is on display in the sweltering May heat. But some play without shoes. One team plays shirtless</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table><div style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif, Verdana; font-size: 11pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">In the harsh dustlands that make up the periphery of Sundergarh town, there is an oasis of green. Every day in the sweltering May heat, 150 boys and girls — selected from 500 aspirants in the district’s villages — practice on the shiny green astroturf. Most of them are no more than 12, yet their serious intent belies their age.</span></div><div style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif, Verdana; font-size: 11pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">In a practice game, the whole array of skills is on display — dazzling dribbles, short, crisp passes, clean tackles, intelligent scoops — a powerhouse of raw talent that would equal the footballers from a Brazilian <em>favela</em> in precocity as well as poverty. Some play without shoes, as their families cannot afford to buy a pair. In a practice game, one team plays shirtless because no jerseys are available.</span></div><div style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif, Verdana; font-size: 11pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">THEIR COACH, Tej Kumar Xess, talks from the sidelines as he barks instructions intermittently. “Hockey was always popular in Sundergarh, but it exploded after Dilip Tirkey,” he says. After Tirkey’s rise to the national team, a slew of players from the region made it to the national team. Prabodh and Ignace Tirkey, Lazarus Barla and William Xalxo all became household names, and inspired another generation in turn.</span></div><div style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif, Verdana; font-size: 11pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">An answer could also be found in the two houses of Dilip Tirkey in his native Saunamara village — one stands amidst a mud-roofed cluster of huts, the other is an impressive whitewashed façade that stands next to the village church. For young kids in the village, it is evidence of the possibilities of social transformation through the wielding of a hockey stick.</span></div><div style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif, Verdana; font-size: 11pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">It is this talent and hope that Tirkey would like to nurture. Coaching is where his heart lies, but the future is uncertain. He has plans for a state-of-the-art academy in Bhubaneswar — there have been encouraging noises, but nothing more. Tirkey, who is reluctant to criticise even in retrospect, gets impassioned when hockey is the subject. “I want to adopt promising players, so that they can solely focus on hockey,” he says.</span></div><div style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif, Verdana; font-size: 11pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">However, instead of devoting all his energies to hockey, Tirkey may find himself at an accounts desk — he works as a sales manager at Indian Airlines — lost in the maze of balance sheets, taking orders from superiors. After being at the pinnacle of the game for 15 years, he has to face the prospect of going back to the rigours of a daily job.</span></div><div style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif, Verdana; font-size: 11pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">In the nether world of hockey, Tirkey has managed a few low-level endorsements (a cement company, a local cable network). It is a life of moderate prosperity — his best deal earned him Rs 30 lakh. Tirkey has often been compared to rahul Dravid, even bestowed with the same nickname — the Wall. But the similiarities end there. Can we ever imagine Dravid settling back into a mundane bank job after spending a decade in international cricket? But the awareness that hockey is a stepchild of Indian sport has engendered a sort of resignation.</span></div><div style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif, Verdana; font-size: 11pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">The last time we meet, our conversation is interrupted by a couple of fans who want Tirkey’s autograph. Tirkey is pleasantly surprised — even in his home state, he is a stranger to mass adulation. Sitting in the restaurant, Tirkey appears restive, anxious, incessantly fiddling with his unkempt mane. His replies are monosyllabic. Thoughts about the future consume him — he has a sixmonth- old son. Later that evening, he is meeting some sponsors for his academy.</span></div><div style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif, Verdana; font-size: 11pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">But even after two decades, the thought of a break away from the game that has consumed his life seems implausible — it remains his true, singular vocation. “Hockey is in my blood,” he says. He walks off shortly after, already dreaming of newer horizons in a city that may one day embrace the hero in their midst.</span></div><div align="right" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif, Verdana; font-size: 11pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><strong>WRITER’S EMAIL</strong><br />
<a href="mailto:vaibhav@tehelka.com">vaibhav@tehelka.com</a></span></div></td></tr>
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<a href="https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/pengoopmcjnbflcjbmoeodbmoflcgjlk" style="font-size: 13px;">'via Blog this'</a>Sandip K. Dasvermahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03288589903537297131noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37668969.post-30304573505637835332012-03-29T21:02:00.001-07:002012-03-29T21:02:08.989-07:00His Own Mt Sinai | Salman Rushdie<a href="http://www.outlookindia.com/article.aspx?231147">His Own Mt Sinai | Salman Rushdie</a>: <br />
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<div class="fspchannelhome" id="ctl00_cphpagemiddle_reparticle_ctl00_divfspchannelhome" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 7pt; text-transform: uppercase;">LOOKING BACK</div><div class="fspheading" id="ctl00_cphpagemiddle_reparticle_ctl00_divfspheading" style="color: #af0e25; font-family: 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 24px; font-weight: bold; padding-bottom: 5px;">His Own Mt Sinai</div><div class="fspintro" id="ctl00_cphpagemiddle_reparticle_ctl00_divfspintro" style="color: #666666; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; padding-bottom: 5px;">As <i>Midnight's Children</i> celebrates its 25th anniversary, Salman Rushdie recalls its long and painful birth - and the day Indira Gandhi sued him for one sentence</div><div class="fspauthor" id="ctl00_cphpagemiddle_reparticle_ctl00_divartbyline" style="color: #af0e25; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; text-transform: uppercase;"><a class="fspprintsavelinks2" href="http://www.outlookindia.com/peoplefnl.aspx?pid=4333&author=Salman+Rushdie" style="color: #af0e25; text-decoration: none;">SALMAN RUSHDIE</a></div><div class="divseperator" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12px; padding-top: 10px;"><table align="center" border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" style="width: 550px;"><tbody>
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</tbody></table></div><div class="fsppaginationnos" id="ctl00_cphpagemiddle_reparticle_ctl00_divpaginationtop" style="border-bottom-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-image: initial; border-left-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); border-left-style: solid; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); border-right-style: solid; border-right-width: 0px; border-top-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); border-top-style: solid; border-top-width: 0px; color: #666666; font-family: Arial; font-size: 7pt; text-transform: uppercase;"></div><div class="fsptext" id="divouterfullstorytext" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13px; margin-top: 10px;"><div id="ctl00_cphpagemiddle_reparticle_ctl00_divfullstorytext" style="border-bottom-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-image: initial; border-left-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); border-left-style: solid; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); border-right-style: solid; border-right-width: 0px; border-top-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); border-top-style: solid; border-top-width: 0px; margin-right: 3px; vertical-align: top;"><div><span style="font-family: Arial;">I</span>n 1975 I published my first novel, Grimus, and decided to use the seven-hundred-pound advance to travel in India as cheaply as possible for as long as I could make the money last, and on that journey of fifteen-hour bus rides and humble hostelries <i>Midnight's Children</i> was born.<br />
<br />
It was the year that India became a nuclear power and Margaret Thatcher was elected leader of the Conservative Party and Sheikh Mujib, the founder of Bangladesh, was murdered; when the Baader-Meinhof Gang was on trial in Stuttgart and Bill Clinton married Hillary Rodham and the last Americans were evacuated from Saigon and Generalissimo Franco died. In Cambodia it was the Khmer Rouge's bloody Year Zero. E.L. Doctorow published <i>Ragtime</i> that year, and David Mamet wrote <i>American Buffalo</i>, and Eugenio Montale won the Nobel Prize. And just after my return from India, Mrs Indira Gandhi was convicted of election fraud, and one week after my twenty-eighth birthday she declared a State of Emergency and assumed tyrannical powers. It was the beginning of a long period of darkness which would not end until 1977. I understood almost at once that Mrs G. had somehow become central to my still-tentative literary plans.<br />
<br />
<img align="left" src="http://www.outlookindia.com/images/midnights_children_150_20060508.jpg" />I had wanted for some time to write a novel of childhood, arising from my memories of my own childhood in Bombay. Now, having drunk deeply from the well of India, I conceived a more ambitious plan. I remembered a minor character named Saleem Sinai, born at the midnight moment of Indian independence, who had appeared in the abandoned draft of a still-born novel called <i>The Antagonist</i>. As I placed Saleem at the centre of my new scheme I understood that his time of birth would oblige me immensely to increase the size of my canvas. If he and India were to be paired, I would need to tell the story of both twins. Then Saleem, ever a striver for meaning, suggested to me that the whole of modern Indian history happened as it did because of him; that history, the life of his nation-twin, was somehow <i>all his fault</i>. With that immodest proposal the novel's characteristic tone of voice, comically assertive, unrelentingly garrulous, and with, I hope, a growing pathos in its narrator's increasingly tragic overclaiming, came into being. I even made the boy and the country identical twins. When the sadistic geography teacher Emil Zagallo, giving the boys a lesson in 'human geography,' compares Saleem's nose to the Deccan peninsula, the cruelty of his joke is also, obviously, mine.<br />
<br />
There were many problems along the way, most of them literary, some of them urgently practical. When we returned from India I was broke. The novel in my head was clearly going to be long and strange and take quite a while to write and in the meanwhile I had no money. As a result I was forced back into the world of advertising. Before we left I had worked for a year or so as a copywriter at the London office of the Ogilvy & Mather agency, whose founder, David Ogilvy, immortally instructed us that 'the consumer is not a moron, she is your wife,' and whose creative director (and my boss) was Dan Ellerington, a man of rumoured Romanian origins with a command of English that was, let us say, eccentric, so that, according to mirthful company legend, he once had to be forcibly restrained from presenting to the Milk Marketing Board a successor campaign to the famous 'Drinka pinta milka day' which would be based on the amazing, the positively Romanian slogan, 'Milk goes down like a dose of salts'. In those less hard-nosed times Ogilvy's was prepared to employ a few oddball creative people on a part-time basis, and I managed to persuade them to re-hire me as one of that happy breed. I worked two or three days a week, essentially job-sharing with another part-timer, the writer Jonathan Gathorne-Hardy, author of <i>The Rise and Fall of the British Nanny</i>. On Friday nights I would come home to Kentish Town from the agency's offices near Waterloo Bridge, take a long hot bath, wash the week's commerce away, and emerge—or so I told myself—as a novelist. As I look back, I feel a touch of pride at my younger self's dedication to literature, which gave him the strength of mind to resist the blandishments of the enemies of promise. The sirens of ad-land sang sweetly and seductively, but I thought of Odysseus lashing himself to the mast of his ship, and somehow stayed on course.<br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Arial;">S</span>till, advertising taught me discipline, forcing me to learn how to get on with whatever task needed getting on with, and ever since those days I have treated my writing simply as a job to be done, refusing myself all (well, most) luxuries of artistic temperament. And it was at my desk at Ogilvy's that I remember becoming worried that I didn't know what my new novel was to be called.<br />
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<tr><td width="20"></td><td><span class="fspblurbtext" style="font-size: 12px; font-weight: bold; text-align: left;">My father was so angry about the character of Ahmed Sinai that he refused to speak to me. When he decided to 'forgive' me, I stopped speaking to him.<span class="fspblurbsource" style="color: #666666; font-size: 11px; font-weight: normal; padding-left: 2px; text-transform: capitalize;"></span></span></td><td width="20"></td></tr>
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</tbody></table>I took several hours off from the important work of coming up with campaigns for fresh cream cakes ('Naughty but nice'), Aero chocolate bars ('Irresistibubble'), and the <i>Daily Mirror</i>newspaper ('Look into the <i>Mirror</i> tomorrow—you'll like what you see') to solve the problem. In the end I had two titles and couldn't choose between them: <i>Midnight's Children</i> and <i>Children of Midnight</i>. I typed them out one after the other, over and over, and then all at once I understood that there was no contest, that <i>Children of Midnight</i> was a banal title and <i>Midnight's Children</i> a good one. To know the title was also to understand the book better, and after that it became easier, a little easier, to write.<br />
<br />
I have written and spoken elsewhere about my debt to the oral narrative traditions of India; also to those great Indian novelists, Jane Austen and Charles Dickens—Austen for her portraits of brilliant women caged by the social convention of their time, women whose Indian counterparts I knew well; Dickens for his great, rotting, Bombay-like city, and his ability to root his larger-than-life characters and surrealist imagery in a sharply observed, almost hyper-realistic background, out of which the comic and fantastic elements of his work seemed to grow organically, becoming intensifications of, and not escapes from, the real world. I have probably said enough, too, about my interest in creating a literary idiolect that allowed the rhythms and thought patterns of Indian languages to blend with the idiosyncrasies of 'Hinglish' and 'Bambaiyya', the polyglot street-slang of Bombay. The novel's interest in the slippages and distortions of memory will also, I think, be evident enough to the reader. This may, however, be an appropriate moment to give thanks to the original people from whom my fictional characters sprang: my family, my ayah Miss Mary Menezes and my childhood friends.<br />
<br />
My father was so angry about the character of 'Ahmed Sinai' that he refused to speak to me for many months; then he decided to 'forgive' me, which annoyed me so much that for several more months I refused to speak to <i>him</i>. I had been more worried about my mother's reaction to the book, but she immediately understood that it was 'just a story—Saleem isn't you, Amina isn't me, they're all just characters,' thus demonstrating that her level head was a lot more use to her than my father's Cambridge University education in English literature was to him. My sister Sameen, who really was called 'the brass monkey' as a girl, was also happy with the use I'd made of my raw material, even though some of that raw material was her. Of the reactions of my boyhood friends and schoolmates Arif Tayabali, Darab and Fudli Talyarkhan, Keith Stevenson and Percy Karanjia I can't be sure, but I must thank them for having contributed bits of themselves (not always the best bits) to the characters of Sonny Ibrahim, Eyeslice and Hairoil, and Fat Perce and Glandy Keith. Evie Burns was born out of an Australian girl, Beverly Burns, the first girl I ever kissed: the real Beverly was no bicycle queen, though, and I lost touch with her after she returned to Australia. Masha Miovic the champion breast-stroker owed something to the real-life Alenka Miovic, but a couple of years ago I received a letter about <i>Midnight's Children</i> from Alenka's father in Serbia, in which he mentioned a little crushingly that his daughter had no memory of ever having met me during her childhood years in Bombay. So it goes. Between the adored and the adorer falls the shadow.<br />
<br />
And as for Mary Menezes, my second mother, who never really loved a revolutionary nursing-home employee or swapped any babies at birth, who lived to a hundred, who never married and always called me her son, she was illiterate, even though she spoke seven or eight languages, so she didn't read the book, but did tell me, one afternoon in Bombay in 1982, how proud she was of its success. If she had any objection to what I'd made her character do, she didn't mention it.<br />
<br />
I reached the end of <i>Midnight's Children</i> in mid-1979 and sent it to my friend and editor Liz Calder at Jonathan Cape. I afterwards learned that the first reader's report had been brief and forbiddingly negative. 'The author should concentrate on short stories until he has mastered the novel form.' Liz asked for a second report, and this time I was luckier, because the second reader, Susannah Clapp, was enthusiastic; as, after her, was another eminent publishing figure, the editor Catherine Carver.<br />
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<tr><td width="20"></td><td><span class="fspblurbtext" style="font-size: 12px; font-weight: bold; text-align: left;">For all the crimes of Emergency the book mentions, Mrs G took objection to just a line where Saleem gives an account of Sanjay's unbreakable hold over Indira.<span class="fspblurbsource" style="color: #666666; font-size: 11px; font-weight: normal; padding-left: 2px; text-transform: capitalize;"></span></span></td><td width="20"></td></tr>
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</tbody></table>Liz bought the book, and soon afterwards so did Bob Gottlieb at Alfred Knopf. I quit my part-time copywriting job. (I had moved on from Ogilvy & Mather to another agency, Ayer Barker Hegemann.) 'Oh,' the Creative Director said when I tendered my resignation, 'you want a rise?' No, I explained, I was just giving notice as required so that I could leave and be a full-time writer. 'I see,' he said. 'You want a big rise.' But on the night <i>Midnight's Children </i>won the Booker, he sent me a telegram of congratulations. 'One of us made it,' it read.<br />
<br />
Liz Calder's editing saved me from making at least two bad mistakes. The manuscript as originally submitted contained a second 'audience' character, an off-stage woman journalist to whom Saleem was sending the written pages of his life story which he also read aloud to the 'mighty pickle-woman', Padma. All the book's readers at Cape agreed that this character was redundant, and I'm extremely glad I took their advice. Liz also helped me untangle a knot in the time-line. In the submitted manuscript the story jumped from the Indo-Pakistani war of 1965 to the end of the Bangladesh war, then circled back to tell the story of Saleem's role in that conflict, caught up with itself at the surrender of the Pakistani army, and then went on. Liz felt that there were too many temporal shifts here, and the reader's concentration was broken by them. I agreed to re-structure the story chronologically, and, again, am very relieved that I did. The role of the great publishing editor is often effaced by the editor's modesty. But without Liz Calder, <i>Midnight's Children</i> would have been something rather less than she helped it to become.<br />
<br />
The novel's publication was delayed by a series of industrial strikes, but in the end it was published in London in early April 1981, and on April 6th my first wife Clarissa Luard and I threw a party at our friend Tony Stokes's little art gallery in Langley Court, Covent Garden, to celebrate it. I still have the invitation, tucked into my first-received copy of the novel, and can remember feeling, above all, relieved. When I finished the book, I suspected that I might at last have written something good, but I was not sure if anyone else would agree, and I told myself that if the book were generally disliked it would mean that I probably didn't know what a good book was, and should stop wasting my time trying to write one. So there was a lot riding on the novel's reception, and, fortunately, the reviews were good; hence the high spirits in Covent Garden that spring night.<br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Arial;">I</span>n the West people tended to read Midnight's Children as a fantasy, while in India people thought of it as pretty realistic, almost a history book. ('I could have written your book,' one reader told me when I was lecturing in India in 1982.<br />
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<tr><td width="20"></td><td><span class="fspblurbtext" style="font-size: 12px; font-weight: bold; text-align: left;"><i>Midnight's Children</i>is a product of its moment in history, touched and shaped by its time. I'm glad that it still seems like a book worth reading.<span class="fspblurbsource" style="color: #666666; font-size: 11px; font-weight: normal; padding-left: 2px; text-transform: capitalize;"></span></span></td><td width="20"></td></tr>
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</tbody></table>'I know all that stuff.') But it was wonderfully well liked almost everywhere, and changed its author's life. One reader who didn't care for it, however, was Mrs Indira Gandhi, and in 1984, three years after its publication—she was Prime Minister again by this time—she brought an action against it, claiming to have been defamed by one single sentence. It appeared in the penultimate paragraph of chapter 28, 'A wedding', a paragraph in which Saleem provides a brief account of Mrs Gandhi's life. This was it: 'It has often been said that Mrs Gandhi's younger son Sanjay accused his mother of being responsible, through her neglect, for his father's death; and that this gave him an unbreakable hold over her, so that she became incapable of denying him anything.' Tame stuff, you might think, not really the kind of thing a thick-skinned politician would usually sue a novelist for mentioning, and an odd choice of <i>casus belli</i> in a book that excoriated Indira for the many crimes of the Emergency. After all, it was a thing much said in India in those days, had often been in print, and was indeed reprinted prominently in the Indian press ('The sentence Mrs Gandhi is afraid of' read one front-page headline) after she brought her action for defamation. Yet she sued nobody else.<br />
<br />
<img align="centre" src="http://www.outlookindia.com/images/sanjay_indira_gandhi_20060508.jpg" />Before the book's publication, Cape's lawyers had been worried about my criticisms of Mrs Gandhi and had asked me to write them a letter in support of the claims I was making. In this letter I justified the text to their satisfaction, except with regard to one sentence which, as I said, was hard to substantiate, as it was about three people, two of whom were dead, while the third would be the one suing us. However, I argued, as I was clearly characterizing the information as gossip, and as it had been printed before, we should be all right. The lawyers agreed; and then, three years later, this one sentence, the novel's Achilles heel, was the very sentence Mrs Gandhi tried to spear. This was not, in my view, a coincidence.<br />
<br />
The case never came to court. The law of defamation is highly technical, and to repeat a defamatory rumour is to commit the defamation oneself, so technically we were in the wrong. Mrs Gandhi was not asking for damages, only for the sentence to be removed from future editions of the book. The only defence we had was a high-risk route: we would have had to argue that her actions during the Emergency were so heinous that she could no longer be considered a person of good character, and could therefore not be defamed. In other words, we would have had, in effect, to put her on trial for her misdeeds. But if, in the end, a British court refused to accept that the Prime Minister of India was not a woman of good character, then we would be, not to put too fine a point upon it, royally screwed. Unsurprisingly, this was not the strategy which Cape wished to follow—and when it became clear that she was also willing to accept that this was her sole complaint against the book, I agreed to settle the matter. It was after all an amazing admission she was making, considering what the Emergency chapters of<i>Midnight's Children</i> were about. Her willingness to make such an admission felt to me like an extraordinary validation of the novel's portrait of those Emergency years. The reaction to the settlement in India was not favourable to the Prime Minister. A few short weeks later, stunningly, she was dead, assassinated on October 31st, 1984, by her Sikh bodyguards. 'All of us who love India,' I wrote in a newspaper article, 'are in mourning today.' In spite of our disagreements, I meant every word.<br />
<br />
This is by now an old story. I rehearse it here in part because I worried from the beginning that incorporating such momentarily 'hot' contemporary material in the novel was a risk—and by that I meant a <i>literary</i> risk, not a legal one. One day, I knew, the subject of Mrs Gandhi and the Emergency would cease to be current, would no longer exercise anyone overmuch, and at that point, I told myself, my novel would either get worse—because it would lose the power of topicality—or else it would get better—because once the topical had faded, the novel's literary architecture would stand alone, and even, perhaps, be better appreciated. Clearly, I hoped for the latter, but there was no way to be sure. The fact that <i>Midnight's Children</i> is still of interest twenty-five years after it first appeared is, therefore, reassuring.<br />
<br />
In 1981, Margaret Thatcher was British Prime Minister, the American hostages in Iran were released, President Reagan was shot and wounded, there were race riots across Britain, the Pope was shot and wounded, Picasso's Guernica went back to Spain, and President Sadat of Egypt was assassinated. It was the year of V.S. Naipaul's <i>Among the Believers</i> and Robert Stone's <i>A Flag for Sunrise</i> and John Updike's <i>Rabbit is Rich</i>. Like all novels, <i>Midnight's Children</i> is a product of its moment in history, touched and shaped by its time in ways which its author cannot wholly know. I am very glad that it still seems like a book worth reading in this very different time. If it can pass the test of another generation or two, it may endure. I will not be around to see that. But I am happy that I saw it leap the first hurdle.</div></div></div><br />
<a href="https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/pengoopmcjnbflcjbmoeodbmoflcgjlk" style="font-size: 13px;">'via Blog this'</a>Sandip K. Dasvermahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03288589903537297131noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37668969.post-25150535065882284022012-03-23T02:53:00.001-07:002012-03-23T02:53:58.901-07:00George Lakoff tells how conservatives use language to dominate politics<a href="http://www.berkeley.edu/news/media/releases/2003/10/27_lakoff.shtml">George Lakoff tells how conservatives use language to dominate politics</a>: <br />
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<tr><td style="vertical-align: top;" width="400"><img alt="George Lakoff" height="240" src="http://www.berkeley.edu/news/media/releases/2003/10/images/lakoff1.jpg" width="400" /></td><td style="vertical-align: top;"><img height="1" src="http://www.berkeley.edu/news/images/nc/sp.gif" width="10" /></td><td class="bottom" style="vertical-align: bottom;" width="90"><span class="caption" style="color: #330000; font-size: 10px;">Linguistics professor George Lakoff at the Free Speech Movement Café. </span><span class="credit" style="color: #330000; font-size: 10px; font-style: italic;">(BAP photos)</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table><div class="headline" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; font-weight: bold;">Framing the issues: UC Berkeley professor George Lakoff tells how conservatives use language to dominate politics</div><div class="byline">By <a href="mailto:bap@pa.urel.berkeley.edu" style="color: #666666;">Bonnie Azab Powell</a>, NewsCenter <span class="date" style="color: #999999;">| 27 October 2003</span></div><span class="dateline" style="font-weight: bold;">BERKELEY</span> – With Republicans controlling the Senate, the House, and the White House and enjoying a large margin of victory for California Governor-elect Arnold Schwarzenegger, it's clear that the Democratic Party is in crisis. George Lakoff, a UC Berkeley professor of linguistics and cognitive science, thinks he knows why. Conservatives have spent decades defining their ideas, carefully choosing the language with which to present them, and building an infrastructure to communicate them, says Lakoff.<br />
The work has paid off: by dictating the terms of national debate, conservatives have put progressives firmly on the defensive.<br />
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<tr><td style="font-size: 12px; padding-bottom: 4px; padding-left: 6px; padding-right: 6px; padding-top: 4px; vertical-align: top;"><img align="left" alt="George Lakoff" src="http://www.berkeley.edu/news/media/releases/2003/10/images/lakoff2_t.jpg" style="margin-right: 4px;" /><strong>George Lakoff dissects "war on terror" and other conservative catchphrases </strong><br />
<a href="http://www.berkeley.edu/news/media/releases/2004/08/25_lakoff.shtml" style="color: #666666;">Read the August 26, 2004, follow-up interview</a></td></tr>
</tbody></table>In 2000 Lakoff and seven other faculty members from Berkeley and UC Davis joined together to found the Rockridge Institute, one of the few progressive think tanks in existence in the U.S. The institute offers its expertise and research on a nonpartisan basis to help progressives understand how best to get their messages across. The Richard & Rhoda Goldman Distinguished Professor in the College of Letters & Science, Lakoff is the author of "Moral Politics: How Liberals and Conservatives Think," first published in 1997 and reissued in 2002, as well as several other books on how language affects our lives. He is taking a sabbatical this year to write three books - none about politics - and to work on several Rockridge Institute research projects.<br />
In a long conversation over coffee at the Free Speech Movement Café, he told the NewsCenter's Bonnie Azab Powell why the Democrats "just don't get it," why Schwarzenegger won the recall election, and why conservatives will continue to define the issues up for debate for the foreseeable future.<br />
<div class="subhead" style="color: #666666; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-weight: bold;">Why was the Rockridge Institute created, and how do you define its purpose?</div>I got tired of cursing the newspaper every morning. I got tired of seeing what was going wrong and not being able to do anything about it.<br />
The background for Rockridge is that conservatives, especially conservative think tanks, have framed virtually every issue from their perspective. They have put a huge amount of money into creating the language for their worldview and getting it out there. Progressives have done virtually nothing. Even the new Center for American Progress, the think tank that John Podesta [former chief of staff for the Clinton administration] is setting up, is not dedicated to this at all. I asked Podesta who was going to do the Center's framing. He got a blank look, thought for a second and then said, "You!" Which meant they haven't thought about it at all. And that's the problem. Liberals don't get it. They don't understand what it is they have to be doing.<br />
Rockridge's job is to reframe public debate, to create balance from a progressive perspective. It's one thing to analyze language and thought, it's another thing to create it. That's what we're about. It's a matter of asking 'What are the central ideas of progressive thought from a moral perspective?'<br />
<div class="subhead" style="color: #666666; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-weight: bold;"><a href="http://www.blogger.com/blog-this.do?zx=15t7txdsxhkex" name="framing" style="color: #347a9e; text-decoration: underline;"></a>How does language influence the terms of political debate?</div>Language always comes with what is called "framing." Every word is defined relative to a conceptual framework. If you have something like "revolt," that implies a population that is being ruled unfairly, or assumes it is being ruled unfairly, and that they are throwing off their rulers, which would be considered a good thing. That's a frame.<br />
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'Conservatives understand what unites them, and they understand how to talk about it, and they are constantly updating their research on how best to express their ideas.'<br />
<div class="pullquote_attrib" style="text-align: right;">-George Lakoff</div></td></tr>
</tbody></table>If you then add the word "voter" in front of "revolt," you get a metaphorical meaning saying that the voters are the oppressed people, the governor is the oppressive ruler, that they have ousted him and this is a good thing and all things are good now. All of that comes up when you see a headline like "voter revolt" - something that most people read and never notice. But these things can be affected by reporters and very often, by the campaign people themselves.<br />
Here's another example of how powerful framing is. In Arnold Schwarzenegger's acceptance speech, he said, "When the people win, politics as usual loses." What's that about? Well, he knows that he's going to face a Democratic legislature, so what he has done is frame himself and also Republican politicians as the people, while framing Democratic politicians as politics as usual - in advance. The Democratic legislators won't know what hit them. They're automatically framed as enemies of the people.<br />
<div class="subhead" style="color: #666666; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-weight: bold;">Why do conservatives appear to be so much better at framing?</div>Because they've put billions of dollars into it. Over the last 30 years their think tanks have made a heavy investment in ideas and in language. In 1970, [Supreme Court Justice] Lewis Powell wrote a fateful memo to the National Chamber of Commerce saying that all of our best students are becoming anti-business because of the Vietnam War, and that we needed to do something about it. Powell's agenda included getting wealthy conservatives to set up professorships, setting up institutes on and off campus where intellectuals would write books from a conservative business perspective, and setting up think tanks. He outlined the whole thing in 1970. They set up the Heritage Foundation in 1973, and the Manhattan Institute after that. [There are many others, including the American Enterprise Institute and the Hoover Institute at Stanford, which date from the 1940s.]<br />
And now, as the New York Times Magazine quoted Paul Weyrich, who started the Heritage Foundation, they have 1,500 conservative radio talk show hosts. They have a huge, very good operation, and they understand their own moral system. They understand what unites conservatives, and they understand how to talk about it, and they are constantly updating their research on how best to express their ideas.<br />
<div class="subhead" style="color: #666666; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-weight: bold;">Why haven't progressives done the same thing?</div>There's a systematic reason for that. You can see it in the way that conservative foundations and progressive foundations work. Conservative foundations give large block grants year after year to their think tanks. They say, 'Here's several million dollars, do what you need to do.' And basically, they build infrastructure, they build TV studios, hire intellectuals, set aside money to buy a lot of books to get them on the best-seller lists, hire research assistants for their intellectuals so they do well on TV, and hire agents to put them on TV. They do all of that. Why? Because the conservative moral system, which I analyzed in "Moral Politics," has as its highest value preserving and defending the "strict father" system itself. And that means building infrastructure. As businessmen, they know how to do this very well.<br />
Meanwhile, liberals' conceptual system of the "nurturant parent" has as its highest value helping individuals who need help. The progressive foundations and donors give their money to a variety of grassroots organizations. They say, 'We're giving you $25,000, but don't waste a penny of it. Make sure it all goes to the cause, don't use it for administration, communication, infrastructure, or career development.' So there's actually a structural reason built into the worldviews that explains why conservatives have done better.<br />
<div class="subhead" style="color: #666666; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-weight: bold;"><a href="http://www.blogger.com/blog-this.do?zx=15t7txdsxhkex" name="father" style="color: #347a9e; text-decoration: underline;"></a>Back up for a second and explain what you mean by the strict father and nurturant parent frameworks.</div>Well, the progressive worldview is modeled on a nurturant parent family. Briefly, it assumes that the world is basically good and can be made better and that one must work toward that. Children are born good; parents can make them better. Nurturing involves empathy, and the responsibility to take care of oneself and others for whom we are responsible. On a larger scale, specific policies follow, such as governmental protection in form of a social safety net and government regulation, universal education (to ensure competence, fairness), civil liberties and equal treatment (fairness and freedom), accountability (derived from trust), public service (from responsibility), open government (from open communication), and the promotion of an economy that benefits all and functions to promote these values, which are traditional progressive values in American politics.<br />
The conservative worldview, the strict father model, assumes that the world is dangerous and difficult and that children are born bad and must be made good. The strict father is the moral authority who supports and defends the family, tells his wife what to do, and teaches his kids right from wrong. The only way to do that is through painful discipline - physical punishment that by adulthood will become internal discipline. The good people are the disciplined people. Once grown, the self-reliant, disciplined children are on their own. Those children who remain dependent (who were spoiled, overly willful, or recalcitrant) should be forced to undergo further discipline or be cut free with no support to face the discipline of the outside world.<br />
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<tr><td style="color: #738f9e; font-size: 12px; padding-bottom: 6px; padding-left: 6px; padding-right: 6px; padding-top: 6px; vertical-align: top;"><img alt="George Lakoff" border="0" height="192" src="http://www.berkeley.edu/news/media/releases/2003/10/images/lakoff3.jpg" width="150" /><br />
'Taxes are what you pay to be an American, to live in a civilized society that is democratic and offers opportunity, and where there's an infrastructure that has been paid for by previous taxpayers.'<br />
<div class="pullquote_attrib" style="text-align: right;">-George Lakoff</div></td></tr>
</tbody></table>So, project this onto the nation and you see that to the right wing, the good citizens are the disciplined ones - those who have already become wealthy or at least self-reliant - and those who are on the way. Social programs, meanwhile, "spoil" people by giving them things they haven't earned and keeping them dependent. The government is there only to protect the nation, maintain order, administer justice (punishment), and to provide for the promotion and orderly conduct of business. In this way, disciplined people become self-reliant. Wealth is a measure of discipline. Taxes beyond the minimum needed for such government take away from the good, disciplined people rewards that they have earned and spend it on those who have not earned it.<br />
<div class="subhead" style="color: #666666; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-weight: bold;">From that framework, I can see why Schwarzenegger appealed to conservatives.</div>Exactly. In the strict father model, the big thing is discipline and moral authority, and punishment for those who do something wrong. That comes out very clearly in the Bush administration's foreign and domestic policy. With Schwarzenegger, it's in his movies: most of the characters that he plays exemplify that moral system. He didn't have to say a word! He just had to stand up there, and he represents Mr. Discipline. He knows what's right and wrong, and he's going to take it to the people. He's not going to ask permission, or have a discussion, he's going to do what needs to be done, using force and authority. His very persona represents what conservatives are about.<br />
<div class="subhead" style="color: #666666; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-weight: bold;">You've written a lot about "tax relief" as a frame. How does it work?</div>The phrase "Tax relief" began coming out of the White House starting on the very day of Bush's inauguration. It got picked up by the newspapers as if it were a neutral term, which it is not. First, you have the frame for "relief." For there to be relief, there has to be an affliction, an afflicted party, somebody who administers the relief, and an act in which you are relieved of the affliction. The reliever is the hero, and anybody who tries to stop them is the bad guy intent on keeping the affliction going. So, add "tax" to "relief" and you get a metaphor that taxation is an affliction, and anybody against relieving this affliction is a villain.<br />
"Tax relief" has even been picked up by the Democrats. I was asked by the Democratic Caucus in their tax meetings to talk to them, and I told them about the problems of using tax relief. The candidates were on the road. Soon after, Joe Lieberman still used the phrase tax relief in a press conference. You see the Democrats shooting themselves in the foot.<br />
<div class="subhead" style="color: #666666; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-weight: bold;">So what should they be calling it?</div>It's not just about what you call it, if it's the same "it." There's actually a whole other way to think about it. Taxes are what you pay to be an American, to live in a civilized society that is democratic and offers opportunity, and where there's an infrastructure that has been paid for by previous taxpayers. This is a huge infrastructure. The highway system, the Internet, the TV system, the public education system, the power grid, the system for training scientists - vast amounts of infrastructure that we all use, which has to be maintained and paid for. Taxes are your dues - you pay your dues to be an American. In addition, the wealthiest Americans use that infrastructure more than anyone else, and they use parts of it that other people don't. The federal justice system, for example, is nine-tenths devoted to corporate law. The Securities and Exchange Commission and all the apparatus of the Commerce Department are mainly used by the wealthy. And we're all paying for it.<br />
<div class="subhead" style="color: #666666; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-weight: bold;">So taxes could be framed as an issue of patriotism.</div>It is an issue of patriotism! Are you paying your dues, or are you trying to get something for free at the expense of your country? It's about being a member. People pay a membership fee to join a country club, for which they get to use the swimming pool and the golf course. But they didn't pay for them in their membership. They were built and paid for by other people and by this collectivity. It's the same thing with our country - the country as country club, being a member of a remarkable nation. But what would it take to make the discussion about that? Every Democratic senator and all of their aides and every candidate would have to learn how to talk about it that way. There would have to be a manual. Republicans have one. They have a guy named Frank Luntz, who puts out a 500-page manual every year that goes issue by issue on what the logic of the position is from the Republican side, what the other guys' logic is, how to attack it, and what language to use.<br />
<div class="subhead" style="color: #666666; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-weight: bold;">What are some other examples of issues that progressives should try to reframe?</div>There are too many examples, that's the problem. The so-called energy crisis in California should have been called Grand Theft. It was theft, it was the result of deregulation by Pete Wilson, and Davis should have said so from the beginning.<br />
Or take gay marriage, which the right has made a rallying topic. Surveys have been done that say Americans are overwhelmingly against gay marriage. Well, the same surveys show that they also overwhelmingly object to discrimination against gays. These seem to be opposite facts, but they're not. "Marriage" is about sex. When you say "gay marriage," it becomes about gay sex, and approving of gay marriage becomes implicitly about approving of gay sex. And while a lot of Americans don't approve of gay sex, that doesn't mean they want to discriminate against gay people. Perfectly rational position. Framed in that way, the issue of gay marriage will get a lot of negative reaction. But what if you make the issue "freedom to marry," or even better, "the right to marry"? That's a whole different story. Very few people would say they did not support the right to marry who you choose. But the polls don't ask that question, because the right wing has framed that issue.<br />
<div class="subhead" style="color: #666666; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-weight: bold;">Do any of the Democratic Presidential candidates grasp the importance of framing?</div>None. They don't get it at all. But they're in a funny position. The framing changes that have to be made are long-term changes. The conservatives understood this in 1973. By 1980 they had a candidate, Ronald Reagan, who could take all this stuff and run with it. The progressives don't have a candidate now who understands these things and can talk about them. And in order for a candidate to be able to talk about them, the ideas have to be out there. You have to be able to reference them in a sound bite. Other people have to put these ideas into the public domain, not politicians. The question is, How do you get these ideas out there? There are all kinds of ways, and one of the things the Rockridge Institute is looking at is talking to advocacy groups, which could do this very well. They have more of a budget, they're spread all over the place, and they have access to the media.<br />
Right now the Democratic Party is into marketing. They pick a number of issues like prescription drugs and Social Security and ask which ones sell best across the spectrum, and they run on those issues. They have no moral perspective, no general values, no identity. People vote their identity, they don't just vote on the issues, and Democrats don't understand that. Look at Schwarzenegger, who says nothing about the issues. The Democrats ask, How could anyone vote for this guy? They did because he put forth an identity. Voters knew who he is.</div>Sandip K. Dasvermahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03288589903537297131noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37668969.post-55841637830745419242012-03-20T02:36:00.001-07:002012-03-20T02:36:08.188-07:005 Words And Phrases Democrats Should Never Say Again | AlterNet<a href="http://www.alternet.org/newsandviews/article/863927/5_words_and_phrases_democrats_should_never_say_again/#paragraph3">5 Words And Phrases Democrats Should Never Say Again | AlterNet</a>: <br />
<br />
<div class="headline" style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Georgia, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; text-align: left;"><h1 style="clear: left; font-family: Georgia, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 24px; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">5 Words And Phrases Democrats Should Never Say Again</h1></div><div class="body_" id="the_body" style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Georgia, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 25px; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 10px; text-align: left;"><div id="paragraph1" name="paragraph1" style="margin-bottom: 22px;">We talk about the "Death Tax" and not the proper term, "Estate Tax." Two little words—"Death Panels"—were capable of nearly derailing the best thing that's happened to health insurance in this country in decades. Harvard-educated President Obama is universally considered "elite," while Yale-educated George W. Bush is considered "down home."</div><div id="paragraph2" name="paragraph2" style="margin-bottom: 22px;">Many Democrats buy into the old saw that the Democratic party has had a history of "tax and spend" policies that needs to change or be lived down somehow. Until the Occupy movement brought the topic front and center, even most Democrats accepted the notion that businesses were "job creators" and worried more about distracting the opposition from this "fact" than<a href="http://www.businessweek.com/news/2011-12-07/raise-taxes-on-rich-to-reward-true-job-creators-nick-hanauer.html" style="color: #7c470c; font-weight: bold; line-height: 1.4; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-decoration: none;" target="_new">debunking it for the lie it actually is</a>.</div><div id="paragraph3" name="paragraph3" style="margin-bottom: 22px;">Unfortunately, this is because Democrats have failed to speak in a language strong enough to rebut Republicans who have defined who we are and what we want, in a way that doesn't even remotely reflect an iota of the truth, and instantly conjures up the negative in the mind of the listener.</div><div id="paragraph4" name="paragraph4" style="margin-bottom: 22px;"><b style="line-height: 1.4; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">HOW TO TALK LIKE A REPUBLICAN</b></div><div id="paragraph5" name="paragraph5" style="margin-bottom: 22px;"><a href="http://www.scribd.com/doc/70467439/Leaked-Luntz-Republican-Playbook" style="color: #7c470c; font-weight: bold; line-height: 1.4; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-decoration: none;" target="_new">Professional media strategist Frank Luntz has been providing Republicans with a detailed handbook</a> on exactly what language to use and not to use for decades. He has built up a lexicon that is not only far-reaching and deeply ingrained, but also very, very successful. As Progressive Democratic linguist George Lakoff explains it, this "framing" is crucial to how they've managed to win so much of the debate.</div><div id="paragraph6" name="paragraph6" style="margin-bottom: 22px;">Here are some examples from Luntz's handbooks, of how the Republican party has been taught to frame the way they talk:</div><div id="paragraph7" name="paragraph7" style="margin-bottom: 22px;"></div><blockquote><div style="margin-bottom: 22px;"></div><div id="paragraph8" name="paragraph8" style="margin-bottom: 22px;"><b style="line-height: 1.4; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">Don’t say "bonus!"</b></div><div id="paragraph9" name="paragraph9" style="margin-bottom: 22px;"><b style="line-height: 1.4; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">Luntz advised that if [corporations] give their employees an income boost during the holiday season, they should never refer to it as a "bonus."</b></div><div id="paragraph10" name="paragraph10" style="margin-bottom: 22px;"><b style="line-height: 1.4; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">Don't say that the government "taxes the rich."</b></div><div id="paragraph11" name="paragraph11" style="margin-bottom: 22px;"><b style="line-height: 1.4; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">Instead, tell [people] that the government "takes from the rich."</b></div><div id="paragraph12" name="paragraph12" style="margin-bottom: 22px;">This sleight-of-tongue has managed to manipulate at least half the country into believing things that simply are not true. And this type of language mash-up has been so successfully drilled into the vernacular, that Democrats have been hard-pressed to come up with a simple and just-as-effective way to expose the lies beneath them.</div><div id="paragraph13" name="paragraph13" style="margin-bottom: 22px;"></div></blockquote><div style="margin-bottom: 22px;"></div><div id="paragraph14" name="paragraph14" style="margin-bottom: 22px;"></div><div style="line-height: 1.4; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">"If you give out a bonus at a time of financial hardship, you’re going to make people angry. It’s 'pay for performance.'"</div><div id="paragraph15" name="paragraph15" style="margin-bottom: 22px;"></div><div style="line-height: 1.4; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">"If you talk about raising taxes on the rich," the public responds favorably, Luntz cautioned. But "if you talk about government taking the money from hardworking Americans, the public says no."</div><div id="paragraph16" name="paragraph16" style="margin-bottom: 22px;"><span style="line-height: 1.4;">See the 5 Words Democrats Should Never Say Again after the jump.</span> </div><div id="paragraph17" name="paragraph17" style="margin-bottom: 22px;"></div><div class="article-body" id="body" style="line-height: 1.4; overflow-x: hidden; overflow-y: hidden; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"></div><div style="line-height: 1.4; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"><b style="line-height: 1.4; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">DEMOCRATS NEED A HANDBOOK OF OUR OWN</b></div><div id="paragraph18" name="paragraph18" style="margin-bottom: 22px;"></div><div style="line-height: 1.4; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">How can Democrats and Progressives fix this? Start by never saying any of the following five words or phrases again.</div><div id="paragraph19" name="paragraph19" style="margin-bottom: 22px;"></div><div style="line-height: 1.4; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"><span style="line-height: 1.4; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"><b style="line-height: 1.4; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">1. Never say Entitlements.</b></span></div><div id="paragraph20" name="paragraph20" style="margin-bottom: 22px;"></div><div style="line-height: 1.4; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"><span style="line-height: 1.4; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"> <b style="line-height: 1.4; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">–Instead, say Earned Benefits.</b></span></div><div id="paragraph21" name="paragraph21" style="margin-bottom: 22px;"></div><div style="line-height: 1.4; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">While the word "entitlement" was originally coined by Democrats as a way to illustrate that the receiver of the attached benefits was <i style="line-height: 1.4; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">entitled</i> to them by having worked to earn them, or having been taxed to support them, it has been re-defined by the right as akin to a spoiled child who acts as if they're "entitled" even though they are not.</div><div id="paragraph22" name="paragraph22" style="margin-bottom: 22px;"></div><div style="line-height: 1.4; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">"Earned benefits," on the other hand, cannot be twisted or misconstrued to mean anything other than what what they are: something the recipient has actually earned, as opposed to something they are being given. Social Security and Medicare are paid into through taxes deducted from employees' paychecks, or the paychecks of one's spouse or parent. No one who hasn't either personally paid into these programs, or been the spouse or child of someone who has paid into these programs, or, in the case of Medicare Part B, paid a monthly premium in order to receive them, can extract benefits from these programs.</div><div id="paragraph23" name="paragraph23" style="margin-bottom: 22px;"></div><div style="line-height: 1.4; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">Here is a perfect example of how the right wing uses the word "entitled" as a pejorative associated with Democrats (emphasis mine):</div><div id="paragraph24" name="paragraph24" style="margin-bottom: 22px;"></div><blockquote style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: #f6f3ec; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; border-bottom-color: rgb(226, 226, 225); border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 1px; border-top-color: rgb(226, 226, 225); border-top-style: solid; border-top-width: 1px; line-height: 1.4; margin-bottom: 1.2em; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 1.2em; padding-bottom: 20px; padding-left: 20px; padding-right: 20px; padding-top: 20px;">"<a href="http://www.therightsphere.com/2012/03/sandra-fluke-and-monica-lewinsky/comment-page-1/" style="color: #7c470c; font-weight: bold; line-height: 1.4; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-decoration: none;" target="_new">Fluke is an <b style="line-height: 1.4; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">entitled</b> liberal</a>, which is both <b style="line-height: 1.4; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">emblematically typical and essentially required for one to be a liberal in today’s American political landscape</b> ... Her talking points represent a very real <b style="line-height: 1.4; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">attitude</b> quickly manifesting itself into mainstream American thought process: that a person literally deserves the resources of another. <b style="line-height: 1.4; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">This, of course, is the entitlement and dependency culture on which the Democratic Party has rallied around, encouraged, campaigned, and insisted.</b>"</blockquote>Democrats have done nothing of the sort. Recall that the subject at hand is <b style="line-height: 1.4; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">insured individuals</b>. That means that they have paid into the pool in order to be able to take resources out later when needed. <a href="http://reelectdemocrats.blogspot.com/2012/03/its-not-about-who-writes-checkstop.html" style="color: #7c470c; font-weight: bold; line-height: 1.4; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-decoration: none;" target="_new">Even if the check was dispersed by their employer, it's still their benefit as employees</a>, paid out in the form of insurance coverage in lieu of cash compensation. Not to mention any shared responsibility the employee, or in Sandra Fluke's case, the student, may have in paying the monthly premium. (For the record, <a href="http://studentaffairs.georgetown.edu/insurance/fulltime.html" style="color: #7c470c; font-weight: bold; line-height: 1.4; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-decoration: none;" target="_new">students at Georgetown University where Sandra Fluke is a student, pay 100% of their own premium</a> toward their student health insurance.)<br />
<div style="line-height: 1.4; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">Do not allow the right wing to frame this issue in their terms. These are <b style="line-height: 1.4; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">Earned Benefits</b>. Say that.</div><div id="paragraph25" name="paragraph25" style="margin-bottom: 22px;"></div><div style="line-height: 1.4; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"><span style="line-height: 1.4; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"><b style="line-height: 1.4; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">2. Never say Redistribution of Wealth.</b></span></div><div id="paragraph26" name="paragraph26" style="margin-bottom: 22px;"></div><div style="line-height: 1.4; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"><span style="line-height: 1.4; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"> <b style="line-height: 1.4; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">–Instead, say Fair Wages For Work.</b></span></div><div id="paragraph27" name="paragraph27" style="margin-bottom: 22px;"></div><div style="line-height: 1.4; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">When we hear "redistribution," we think in terms of simply moving things around, not something earned by someone. And when you tack the word "wealth" onto it, everybody's hackles immediately go up. "What do you mean, redistribute my wealth? You don't get to take something from me and give it to someone else! I work hard for what I get; let other people work for their own money, not mine!"</div><div id="paragraph28" name="paragraph28" style="margin-bottom: 22px;"></div><div style="line-height: 1.4; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">But when we hear "fair wages for work," we know instantly that we are talking about paying working people a fair wage for the work they're doing, not giving them something they haven't actually earned. Since at least 1965, Republican policies have created a corporate culture that only rewards those at the very, very, <i style="line-height: 1.4; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">very</i> top of the pyramid. <a href="http://reelectdemocrats.blogspot.com/2011/11/average-worker-and-ceo-pay-1965-vs-2007.html" style="color: #7c470c; font-weight: bold; line-height: 1.4; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-decoration: none;" target="_new">While the average "hourly wage" equivalent for CEOs</a> has gone from $490.31 to $5,419.97 ($11,273,537.00 / year), the average hourly wage for workers has stagnated at $19.71. That's just $40,997.00 / year. The same $40,997.00 that we were earning in 1965. At 2012 inflation. We need fair wages for our work*—in <i style="line-height: 1.4; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">today's</i> dollars. Say that.</div><div id="paragraph29" name="paragraph29" style="margin-bottom: 22px;"></div><div style="line-height: 1.4; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"><span style="line-height: 1.4; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"><b style="line-height: 1.4; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">3. Never say Employer Paid Health Insurance.</b></span></div><div id="paragraph30" name="paragraph30" style="margin-bottom: 22px;"></div><div style="line-height: 1.4; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"><span style="line-height: 1.4; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"> <b style="line-height: 1.4; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">–Instead, say Employee Earned Health Insurance.</b></span></div><div id="paragraph31" name="paragraph31" style="margin-bottom: 22px;"></div><div style="line-height: 1.4; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">When we say "employer paid," we immediately think of it as something that's <i style="line-height: 1.4; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">given</i> to the employee by their employer. But as I pointed out in my blog post, "<a href="http://reelectdemocrats.blogspot.com/2012/03/its-not-about-who-writes-checkstop.html" style="color: #7c470c; font-weight: bold; line-height: 1.4; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-decoration: none;" target="_new">It's Not About Who Writes The Check—Stop The Republican Lie About Who Pays For Contraceptives</a>," all <i style="line-height: 1.4; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">employee</i>health insurance is <i style="line-height: 1.4; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">earned</i> by virtue of the employee's labor. That makes it "paid for" by the employee, even if they aren't the ones writing the checks to the insurance companies themselves. Employee health insurance is just one of several forms of compensation in exchange for labor, that include cash, retirement funds, long- and short-term disability coverage, etc.</div><div id="paragraph32" name="paragraph32" style="margin-bottom: 22px;"></div><div style="line-height: 1.4; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">Employee health insurance is not a "gift," it is compensation in exchange for labor. Cease the labor and the compensation ceases right along with it. Employees <i style="line-height: 1.4; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">earn</i> their insurance. Say that.</div><div id="paragraph33" name="paragraph33" style="margin-bottom: 22px;"></div><div style="line-height: 1.4; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"><span style="line-height: 1.4; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"><b style="line-height: 1.4; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">4. Never say Government Spending.</b></span></div><div id="paragraph34" name="paragraph34" style="margin-bottom: 22px;"></div><div style="line-height: 1.4; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"> <span style="line-height: 1.4; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"><b style="line-height: 1.4; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">–Instead, say The People Are Investing.</b></span></div><div id="paragraph35" name="paragraph35" style="margin-bottom: 22px;"></div><div style="line-height: 1.4; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">When we hear "spending," we automatically think of going shopping and whipping out the credit card. And while government at every level often leverages their ability to borrow at low interest rates to fund their spending, it's hardly the same thing as going out and buying a dress you're only going to wear once and then hanging in the closet until it's out of style.</div><div id="paragraph36" name="paragraph36" style="margin-bottom: 22px;"></div><div style="line-height: 1.4; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">What governments actually do is <i style="line-height: 1.4; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">invest</i> in our cities, states, country and our people. Government invests in infrastructure that affords us the ability to move around freely. It invests in programs that train people with job skills. It invests in research that cures diseases. There is an actual<i style="line-height: 1.4; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">benefit</i> to "spending" when a government does it, which actually makes it an investment in all our futures.</div><div id="paragraph37" name="paragraph37" style="margin-bottom: 22px;"></div><div style="line-height: 1.4; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">And who is "the government"? We, The People. It's a Constitutional phrase that evokes strong support for whatever follows. Democrats need to take Constitutional language back from the Republican party and make it ours again, since Democratic principles of equality and liberty were the driving forces behind the creation of this great nation in the first place.</div><div id="paragraph38" name="paragraph38" style="margin-bottom: 22px;"></div><div style="line-height: 1.4; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">We, The People, are <i style="line-height: 1.4; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">investing</i> in our future. Say it that way. Every time.</div><div id="paragraph39" name="paragraph39" style="margin-bottom: 22px;"></div><div style="line-height: 1.4; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"><span style="line-height: 1.4; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"><b style="line-height: 1.4; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">5. Never say Corporate America.</b></span></div><div id="paragraph40" name="paragraph40" style="margin-bottom: 22px;"></div><div style="line-height: 1.4; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"> <span style="line-height: 1.4; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"><b style="line-height: 1.4; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">–Instead, say Unelected Corporate Government.</b></span></div><div id="paragraph41" name="paragraph41" style="margin-bottom: 22px;"></div><div style="line-height: 1.4; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">Calling businesses "Corporate America" gives the impression that somehow corporations are the same as <i style="line-height: 1.4; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">human</i> Americans. But in spite of what the current Supreme Court would have you believe, they aren't.</div><div id="paragraph42" name="paragraph42" style="margin-bottom: 22px;"></div><div style="line-height: 1.4; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">In fact, in many ways in our daily lives, we are governed far more by corporations than we are by governments. Corporations govern where we shop, what we pay for goods and services, who gets access and who doesn't, how we communicate and what we pay for that privilege, and so on.</div><div id="paragraph43" name="paragraph43" style="margin-bottom: 22px;"></div><div style="line-height: 1.4; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">But more importantly, Corporations govern us by buying our legislators to do their bidding with campaign donations, and by actually <a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-07-21/koch-exxon-mobil-among-corporations-helping-write-state-laws.html" style="color: #7c470c; font-weight: bold; line-height: 1.4; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-decoration: none;" target="_new"><i style="line-height: 1.4; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">writing</i> legislation that makes it into our law books.</a>Corporations govern when they privatize formerly-public, taxpayer-funded institutions, like schools, prisons and military operations. And unlike actual governments, they do it solely for <i style="line-height: 1.4; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">their</i>benefit and profits, not those of real American citizens.</div><div id="paragraph44" name="paragraph44" style="margin-bottom: 22px;"></div><div style="line-height: 1.4; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">And if there's one thing we know the right wing zealots claim not to like the most, it's "government interference in our lives." So what's worse than the government we actually elect to make our laws "interfering in our lives"? It's a government structure that we didn't even <i style="line-height: 1.4; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">elect</i>interfering in our lives.</div><div id="paragraph45" name="paragraph45" style="margin-bottom: 22px;"></div><div style="line-height: 1.4; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">Corporations are not "Corporate America," they are Unelected Corporate Government. Describe them that way and people will come to resent their presence in our public policy-making.</div><div id="paragraph46" name="paragraph46" style="margin-bottom: 22px;"></div><div style="line-height: 1.4; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">In closing, turning once again to Professor Lakoff, "Unfortunately, Luntz is still ahead of most progressives responding to him. Progressives need to learn how framing works. Bashing Luntz, bashing Fox News, bashing the right-wing pundits and leaders using their frames and arguing against their positions just keeps their frames in play. ... Progressives have magnificent stories of their own to tell. They need to be telling them nonstop. Let’s lure the right into using OUR frames in public discourse."</div><div id="paragraph47" name="paragraph47" style="margin-bottom: 22px;"></div><div style="line-height: 1.4; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">Let's start doing that by <i style="line-height: 1.4; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">never</i> saying any of the above five words and phrases again.</div><div id="paragraph48" name="paragraph48" style="margin-bottom: 22px;"></div><br />
<center style="line-height: 1.4; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"><iframe defang_allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="360" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/bHiJ-gIY7tM" style="line-height: 1.4; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" width="640"></iframe></center><br />
<div style="line-height: 1.4; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"><b style="line-height: 1.4; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"><u style="line-height: 1.4; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">REFERENCES AND ADDITIONAL RECOMMENDED READING</u></b></div><div id="paragraph49" name="paragraph49" style="margin-bottom: 22px;"></div><div style="line-height: 1.4; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">▶ <a href="http://www.berkeley.edu/news/media/releases/2003/10/27_lakoff.shtml" style="color: #7c470c; font-weight: bold; line-height: 1.4; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-decoration: none;" target="_new">Framing the issues: UC Berkeley professor George Lakoff tells how conservatives use language to dominate politics</a> ~ <i style="line-height: 1.4; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">By Bonnie Azab Powell, NewsCenter</i><br />
▶ <a href="http://georgelakoff.com/2011/12/11/words-that-dont-work/" style="color: #7c470c; font-weight: bold; line-height: 1.4; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-decoration: none;" target="_new">Words That Don't Work</a> ~ <i style="line-height: 1.4; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">By George Lakoff</i> (If you read nothing else from the below list, this article and the one immediately above are <b style="line-height: 1.4; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">Must Reads</b>.)<br />
▶ <a href="http://www.scribd.com/doc/70467439/Leaked-Luntz-Republican-Playbook" style="color: #7c470c; font-weight: bold; line-height: 1.4; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-decoration: none;" target="_new">The New American Lexicon</a> ~ <i style="line-height: 1.4; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">By Frank I. Luntz</i><br />
▶ <a href="http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0226-27.htm" style="color: #7c470c; font-weight: bold; line-height: 1.4; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-decoration: none;" target="_new">The Language Police: Gettin’ Jiggy with Frank Luntz</a> ~ <i style="line-height: 1.4; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">By by Nancy Snow at Common Dreams</i><br />
▶ <a href="http://littlegreenfootballs.com/article/39525_Frank_Luntz_Teaches_GOP_Governors_How_to_Lie_More_Effectively" style="color: #7c470c; font-weight: bold; line-height: 1.4; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-decoration: none;" target="_new">Frank Luntz Teaches GOP Governors How to Lie More Effectively</a> ~ <i style="line-height: 1.4; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">By Charles Johnson at Little Green Footballs</i><br />
▶ <a href="http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/ticket/republicans-being-taught-talk-occupy-wall-street-133707949.html" style="color: #7c470c; font-weight: bold; line-height: 1.4; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-decoration: none;" target="_new">How Republicans are being taught to talk about Occupy Wall Street</a> ~ <i style="line-height: 1.4; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">By Chris Moody at The Ticket</i><br />
▶ <a href="http://www.politicalcortex.com/special/Luntz_NAL_Introduction" style="color: #7c470c; font-weight: bold; line-height: 1.4; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-decoration: none;" target="_new">Frank Luntz: New American Lexicon 2006</a> ~ <i style="line-height: 1.4; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">By Political Cortex - Brain Food For The Body Politic</i><br />
▶ <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/the-worst-political-failure-of-the-obama-administration-2012-1" style="color: #7c470c; font-weight: bold; line-height: 1.4; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-decoration: none;" target="_new">The Worst Political Failure Of The Obama Administration</a> ~ <i style="line-height: 1.4; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">By Joe Weisenthal at Business Insider</i> (Trust me, it's relevant—and not what you think it is. Great article.)<br />
▶ <a href="http://www.businessweek.com/news/2011-12-07/raise-taxes-on-rich-to-reward-true-job-creators-nick-hanauer.html" style="color: #7c470c; font-weight: bold; line-height: 1.4; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-decoration: none;" target="_new">Raise Taxes on Rich to Reward True Job Creators</a> ~ <i style="line-height: 1.4; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">By Nick Hanauer at Bloomberg Businessweek</i><br />
▶ <a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-07-21/koch-exxon-mobil-among-corporations-helping-write-state-laws.html" style="color: #7c470c; font-weight: bold; line-height: 1.4; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-decoration: none;" target="_new">Koch, Exxon Mobil Among Corporations Helping Write State Laws</a> ~ <i style="line-height: 1.4; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">By Alison Fitzgerald at Bloomberg</i><br />
▶ <a href="http://ssa-custhelp.ssa.gov/app/answers/detail/a_id/400/~/how-to-qualify-for-medicare" style="color: #7c470c; font-weight: bold; line-height: 1.4; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-decoration: none;" target="_new">How to qualify for Medicare</a></div><div id="paragraph50" name="paragraph50" style="margin-bottom: 22px;"></div><div style="line-height: 1.4; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"><i style="line-height: 1.4; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">This post originally appeared at <a href="http://reelectdemocrats.blogspot.com/" style="color: #7c470c; font-weight: bold; line-height: 1.4; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-decoration: none;" target="_new">Reelect Democrats</a>.</i> Please visit my blog for more of my posts.</div><div id="paragraph51" name="paragraph51" style="margin-bottom: 22px;"></div><div style="line-height: 1.4; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"><b style="line-height: 1.4; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"><i style="line-height: 1.4; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">"How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world." ~ Anne Frank</i></b></div><div id="paragraph52" name="paragraph52" style="margin-bottom: 22px;"><b style="line-height: 1.4; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"><i style="line-height: 1.4; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"></i></b></div><div id="paragraph53" name="paragraph53" style="margin-bottom: 22px;"></div></div><div id="published" style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Georgia, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; text-align: left;">By <span style="color: #de4900;">jillwklausen</span> | Sourced from <span style="color: #de4900;">DailyKos </span><br />
<h3 style="color: #4d4d4d; font-family: Georgia, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; font-style: oblique; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 12px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">Posted at March 19, 2012, 6:06 am</h3></div><br />
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<a href="https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/pengoopmcjnbflcjbmoeodbmoflcgjlk" style="font-size: 13px;">'via Blog this'</a>Sandip K. Dasvermahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03288589903537297131noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37668969.post-42699651891403988582012-03-16T19:37:00.001-07:002012-03-16T19:37:08.973-07:00How To Avoid Dementia..!!!! 20 TIPS THAT MAY HELP<div style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #222222; font-family: 'times new roman', 'new york', times, serif; font-size: 16px;"><b><span style="color: #6600cc; font-size: x-large;">How To Avoid Dementia..!!!!</span></b><br />
<b><span style="color: #cc33cc; font-size: medium;">20 TIPS THAT MAY HELP</span></b><br />
</div><div style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #222222; font-family: 'times new roman', 'new york', times, serif; font-size: 16px;"><div><div><div><div dir="ltr"><div><div><div><div><div><div><div lang="EN-IN"><div><div><b><span style="color: navy; font-size: 24pt;">Dementia</span></b><span style="font-size: 9pt;"></span><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><u></u><u></u></span></div><div><div><div><div><div><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><br />
</span><b><span style="color: maroon; font-size: 13.5pt;">Most </span></b><b><span style="color: maroon; font-size: 13pt;">of </span></b><b><span style="color: navy; font-size: 13.5pt;">us start worrying about dementia after retirement - and that may be too little, too late. Experts say that if you really want to ward off dementia, you need to start taking care of your brain in your 30s and 40s - or even earlier.</span></b><b><span style="color: navy; font-size: 13pt;"><br />
</span></b><b><span style="color: navy; font-size: 13.5pt;">"More and more research is suggesting that lifestyle is very important to your brain's health," says Dr. Paul Nussbaum, a neuro-psychologist and an adjunct associate professor at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine. "If you want to live a long, healthy life, then many of us need to start as early as we can."</span></b><b><span style="color: #0033cc; font-size: 13pt;"></span></b><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><u></u><u></u></span></div></div></div></div><div><div><div><div><b><span style="color: navy; font-size: 13pt;"><br />
</span></b><b><span style="color: navy; font-size: 13.5pt;">So what can you do to beef up your brain - and possibly ward off dementia? Nussbaum, who recently gave a speech on the topic for the Winter Park (Fla.) Health Foundation, offers 20 tips that may help.</span></b><b><span style="color: #0033cc; font-size: 13pt;"></span></b><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><u></u><u></u></span></div></div></div></div></div><div><div><div><div><b><span style="color: #007f40; font-size: 13.5pt;">1. </span></b><span style="font-size: 9pt;"><br />
</span><b><u><span style="color: #007f40; font-size: 13pt;">Join clubs</span></u></b><b><span style="color: #007f40; font-size: 13.5pt;"> or organizations that need volunteers. If you start volunteering now, you won't feel lost and unneeded after you retire.</span></b><b><span style="font-size: 13pt;"> </span></b><span style="font-size: 9pt;"><br />
</span><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><img height="194" src="https://mail.google.com/mail/?ui=2&ik=c7fcd6ac86&view=att&th=1335c01355ecbc15&attid=0.7&disp=emb&realattid=d9fffd00886f5604_0.1&zw&atsh=1" width="259" /></span><span style="font-size: 9pt;"><br />
</span><b><span style="color: #0000bf; font-size: 13.5pt;">2. </span></b><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><br />
</span><b><span style="color: #0000bf; font-size: 13.5pt;">Develop a <u>hobby</u> or two. Hobbies help you develop a robust brain because you're trying something new and complex.</span></b><b><span style="font-size: 13pt;"> </span></b><span style="font-size: 9pt;"><br />
</span><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><img height="225" src="https://mail.google.com/mail/?ui=2&ik=c7fcd6ac86&view=att&th=1335c01355ecbc15&attid=0.5&disp=emb&realattid=d9fffd00886f5604_0.2&zw&atsh=1" width="224" /><br />
</span><b><span style="color: #7f007f; font-size: 13.5pt;">3. </span></b><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><br />
</span><b><span style="color: #7f007f; font-size: 13.5pt;">Practise <u>writing</u> with your non-dominant hand several minutes everyday. This will exercise the opposite side of your brain and fire up those neurons.<br />
</span></b><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><img height="192" src="https://mail.google.com/mail/?ui=2&ik=c7fcd6ac86&view=att&th=1335c01355ecbc15&attid=0.13&disp=emb&realattid=d9fffd00886f5604_0.3&zw&atsh=1" width="214" /><br />
</span><b><span style="color: #bf5f00; font-size: 13.5pt;">4. </span></b><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><br />
</span><b><span style="color: #bf5f00; font-size: 13.5pt;">Take <u>dance</u> lessons. In a study of nearly 500 people, dancing was the only regular physical activity associated with a significant decrease in the incidence of dementia, including Alzheimer's disease. The people who danced three or four times a week showed 76 percent less incidence of dementia than those who danced only once a week or not at all.</span></b><span style="font-size: 9pt;"><br />
</span><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><br />
</span><b><span style="color: #007f40; font-size: 13.5pt;">5. </span></b><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><br />
</span><b><span style="color: #007f40; font-size: 13.5pt;">Need a hobby? Start <u>gardening</u>. Researchers in New Zealand found that, of 1,000 people, those who gardened regularly were less likely to suffer from dementia! Not only does gardening reduce stress, but gardeners use their brains to plan gardens; they use visual and spatial reasoning to lay out a garden.</span></b><span style="font-size: 9pt;"><br />
</span><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><br />
</span><b><span style="color: #823857; font-size: 13.5pt;">6.</span></b><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><u></u><u></u></span></div></div></div></div><div><div><div><b><u><span style="color: #823857; font-size: 13.5pt;">Walking daily</span></u></b><b><span style="color: #823857; font-size: 13.5pt;"> can reduce the risk of dementia because cardiovascular health is important to maintain blood flow to the brain.</span></b><b><span style="font-size: 13pt;"> </span></b><b><span style="color: #823857; font-size: 13pt;">Or...</span></b><b><span style="color: #823857; font-size: 13.5pt;"> buy a pedometer and walk 10,000 steps a day.</span></b><span style="font-size: 9pt;"><br />
</span><span style="font-size: 10pt;"></span></div></div><div><div><div><div><div><b><span style="color: blue; font-size: 13.5pt;">7. </span></b><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><br />
</span><b><u><span style="color: blue; font-size: 13pt;">Read and write daily</span></u></b><b><span style="color: blue; font-size: 13.5pt;">. Reading stimulates a wide variety of brain areas that process and store information. Likewise, writing (not copying) stimulates many areas of the brain as well.</span></b><b><span style="font-size: 13pt;"> </span></b><span style="font-size: 9pt;"><br />
</span><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><img height="194" src="https://mail.google.com/mail/?ui=2&ik=c7fcd6ac86&view=att&th=1335c01355ecbc15&attid=0.8&disp=emb&realattid=d9fffd00886f5604_0.4&zw&atsh=1" width="259" /></span><b><span style="color: #ff409f; font-size: 13.5pt;">8. </span></b><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><br />
</span><b><span style="color: #ff409f; font-size: 13.5pt;">Start <u>knitting</u>. Using both hands works both sides of your brain. And it's a stress reducer.<br />
</span></b><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><img height="156" src="https://mail.google.com/mail/?ui=2&ik=c7fcd6ac86&view=att&th=1335c01355ecbc15&attid=0.15&disp=emb&realattid=d9fffd00886f5604_0.5&zw&atsh=1" width="236" /><br />
</span><b><span style="color: #7f007f; font-size: 13.5pt;">9. </span></b><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><br />
</span><b><span style="color: #7f007f; font-size: 13.5pt;">Learn a <u>new language</u>. Whether it's a foreign language or sign language,you are working your brain by making it go back and forth between one language and the other. A researcher in England found that being bilingual seemed to delay symptoms of Alzheimer's disease for four years. And some research suggests that the earlier a child learns sign language, the higher his IQ - and people with high IQs are less likely to have dementia. So start them early.</span></b><span style="font-size: 9pt;"><br />
</span><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><img height="205" src="https://mail.google.com/mail/?ui=2&ik=c7fcd6ac86&view=att&th=1335c01355ecbc15&attid=0.4&disp=emb&realattid=d9fffd00886f5604_0.6&zw&atsh=1" width="246" /><br />
</span><b><span style="color: #7f3f00; font-size: 13.5pt;">10. </span></b><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><br />
</span><b><span style="color: #7f3f00; font-size: 13.5pt;">Play <u>board games</u> such as Scrabble and Monopoly. Not only are you taxing your brain, you're socializing too. Playing solo games, such as</span></b><b><span style="color: #0033cc; font-size: 13.5pt;"> </span></b><b><span style="color: #7f3f00; font-size: 13.5pt;">solitaire or online computer brain games can be helpful, but Nussbaum prefers games that encourage you to socialize too.</span></b><b><span style="font-size: 13pt;"> </span></b><span style="font-size: 9pt;"><br />
</span><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><img height="214" src="https://mail.google.com/mail/?ui=2&ik=c7fcd6ac86&view=att&th=1335c01355ecbc15&attid=0.3&disp=emb&realattid=d9fffd00886f5604_0.7&zw&atsh=1" width="286" /><br />
</span><b><span style="color: #007f40; font-size: 13.5pt;">11. </span></b><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><br />
</span><b><span style="color: #007f40; font-size: 13.5pt;">Take <u>classes </u>throughout your lifetime. Learning produces structural and chemical changes in the brain, and education appears to help people live longer. Brain researchers have found that people with advanced degrees live longer - and if they do have Alzheimer's, it often becomes apparent only in the very later stages of the disease.<br />
</span></b><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><img height="233" src="https://mail.google.com/mail/?ui=2&ik=c7fcd6ac86&view=att&th=1335c01355ecbc15&attid=0.14&disp=emb&realattid=d9fffd00886f5604_0.8&zw&atsh=1" width="216" /><img height="210" src="https://mail.google.com/mail/?ui=2&ik=c7fcd6ac86&view=att&th=1335c01355ecbc15&attid=0.11&disp=emb&realattid=d9fffd00886f5604_0.9&zw&atsh=1" width="240" /><br />
</span><b><span style="color: #00007f; font-size: 13.5pt;">12. </span></b><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><br />
</span><b><span style="color: #00007f; font-size: 13.5pt;">Listen to <u>classical music.</u> A growing volume of research suggests that music may hard wire the brain, building links between the two hemispheres. Any kind of music may work, but there's some research that</span></b><b><span style="color: #0033cc; font-size: 13.5pt;"> </span></b><b><span style="color: #00007f; font-size: 13.5pt;">shows positive effects for classical music, though researchers don't understand why.<br />
</span></b><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><img height="200" src="https://mail.google.com/mail/?ui=2&ik=c7fcd6ac86&view=att&th=1335c01355ecbc15&attid=0.2&disp=emb&realattid=d9fffd00886f5604_0.10&zw&atsh=1" width="251" /><br />
</span><b><span style="color: #bf00bf; font-size: 13.5pt;">13. </span></b><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><br />
</span><b><span style="color: #bf00bf; font-size: 13.5pt;">Learn a <u>musical instrument</u>. It may be harder than it was when you were a kid, but you'll be developing a dormant part of your brain.</span></b><span style="font-size: 9pt;"><br />
</span><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><img height="200" src="https://mail.google.com/mail/?ui=2&ik=c7fcd6ac86&view=att&th=1335c01355ecbc15&attid=0.12&disp=emb&realattid=d9fffd00886f5604_0.11&zw&atsh=1" width="225" /><br />
</span><b><span style="color: #007f7f; font-size: 13.5pt;">14. </span></b><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><br />
</span><b><u><span style="color: #007f7f; font-size: 13pt;">Travel</span></u></b><b><span style="color: #007f7f; font-size: 13.5pt;">. When you travel (whether it's to a distant vacation spot or on a different route across town), you're forcing your brain to navigate a new and complex environment. A study of London taxi drivers found experienced drivers had larger brains because they have to store lots of information about locations and how to navigate there.</span></b><span style="font-size: 9pt;"><br />
</span><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><img height="200" src="https://mail.google.com/mail/?ui=2&ik=c7fcd6ac86&view=att&th=1335c01355ecbc15&attid=0.10&disp=emb&realattid=d9fffd00886f5604_0.12&zw&atsh=1" width="252" /></span><b><span style="color: #ff4040; font-size: 13.5pt;"></span></b><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><br />
</span><b><u><span style="color: #ff4040; font-size: 13pt;"></span></u></b><span style="font-size: 9pt;"><br />
</span><b><span style="color: blue; font-size: 13.5pt;">16. </span></b><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><br />
</span><b><span style="color: blue; font-size: 13.5pt;">Learn to <u>meditate</u>. It's important for your brain that you learn to shut out</span></b><b><span style="color: #0033cc; font-size: 13.5pt;"> </span></b><b><span style="color: blue; font-size: 13.5pt;">the stresses of everyday life.</span></b><b><span style="font-size: 13pt;"> </span></b><span style="font-size: 9pt;"><br />
</span><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><img height="198" src="https://mail.google.com/mail/?ui=2&ik=c7fcd6ac86&view=att&th=1335c01355ecbc15&attid=0.6&disp=emb&realattid=d9fffd00886f5604_0.13&zw&atsh=1" width="255" /><br />
</span><b><span style="color: #007f40; font-size: 13.5pt;">17. </span></b><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><br />
</span><b><span style="color: #007f40; font-size: 13.5pt;">Get <u>enough sleep</u>. Studies have shown a link between interrupted sleep and dementia.</span></b><span style="font-size: 9pt;"><br />
</span><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><br />
</span><b><span style="color: #ff007f; font-size: 13.5pt;">18. </span></b><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><br />
</span><b><span style="color: #ff007f; font-size: 13.5pt;">Eat more <u>foods containing Omega-3 fatty acids</u>: Salmon, sardines, tuna, ocean trout, mackerel or herring, plus walnuts (which are higher in omega 3s</span></b><b><span style="color: #0033cc; font-size: 13.5pt;"> </span></b><b><span style="color: #ff007f; font-size: 13.5pt;">than salmon) and flaxseed. Flaxseed oil, cod liver oil and walnut oil are good sources too.</span></b><span style="font-size: 9pt;"><br />
</span><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><img height="183" src="https://mail.google.com/mail/?ui=2&ik=c7fcd6ac86&view=att&th=1335c01355ecbc15&attid=0.9&disp=emb&realattid=d9fffd00886f5604_0.14&zw&atsh=1" width="276" /><br />
</span><b><span style="color: blue; font-size: 13.5pt;">19. </span></b><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><br />
</span><b><span style="color: blue; font-size: 13.5pt;">Eat <u>more fruits and vegetables.</u> Antioxidants in fruits and vegetables mop up some of the damage caused by free radicals, one of the leading killers of brain cells.<br />
</span></b><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><img height="245" src="https://mail.google.com/mail/?ui=2&ik=c7fcd6ac86&view=att&th=1335c01355ecbc15&attid=0.16&disp=emb&realattid=d9fffd00886f5604_0.15&zw&atsh=1" width="262" /><br />
</span><b><span style="color: #407f00; font-size: 13.5pt;">20. </span></b><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><br />
</span><b><u><span style="color: #407f00; font-size: 13pt;">Eat at least one meal a day with family and friends</span></u></b><b><span style="color: #407f00; font-size: 13.5pt;">. You'll slow down, socialize, and research shows you'll eat healthier food than if you ate alone or on the go.</span></b><b><span style="font-size: 9pt;"><br />
</span></b><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><img height="160" src="https://mail.google.com/mail/?ui=2&ik=c7fcd6ac86&view=att&th=1335c01355ecbc15&attid=0.1&disp=emb&realattid=d9fffd00886f5604_0.16&zw&atsh=1" width="316" /></span><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><u></u><u></u></span></div></div></div></div></div><div><div><div><span style="color: #0000cc; font-size: 9pt;"><br />
</span><b><span style="color: red; font-size: 13pt;">DOING ALL 20 THINGS LISTED ABOVE AND YOU WILL NOT FIND ENOUGH TIME IN YOUR LIFE TO FIT IN DEMENTIA AS WELL: IN OTHER WORDS, "CONTINUE TO DO ALL THE THINGS THAT YOU ALREADY DO AND YOU WILL HAVE COVERED MOST OF THE THINGS LISTED!"</span></b><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><u></u><u></u></span></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div><br class="Apple-interchange-newline" />Sandip K. Dasvermahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03288589903537297131noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37668969.post-10261007865165496662012-03-12T17:14:00.001-07:002012-03-12T17:14:48.123-07:00Australian Politician: Murdoch News Executive Tried To Bribe Me | Media Matters for America<a href="http://mediamatters.org/blog/201111230004">Australian Politician: Murdoch News Executive Tried To Bribe Me | Media Matters for America</a>: <br />
<br />
<h1 style="background-color: white; color: #464646; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 24px; font-weight: normal; line-height: 26px; margin-bottom: 0.2em; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: left;">Australian Politician: Murdoch News Executive Tried To Bribe Me</h1><div class="post-pub-info" style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; margin-bottom: 15px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: left;">November 23, 2011 10:07 am ET by Eric Boehlert</div><div class="post-full" style="background-color: white; clear: both; color: #464646; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 16px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: left;"><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"><div style="line-height: 19px; margin-bottom: 1.3em; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">The<em> Sydney Moring Herald </em><a href="http://mediamatters.org/rd?to=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.smh.com.au%2Fnational%2Finvestigation-of-political-favours-against-news-ltd-20111122-1nszb.html%23ixzz1eXLZrmTZ" style="color: #265699; font-weight: bold; outline-color: initial; outline-style: none; outline-width: initial; text-decoration: none;">reports</a> that federal police in Australia are investigating claims by a former legislator that in the late 1990's a senior executive with a Murdoch-owned newspaper offered to "take care" of the politician and create friendly, "special relationship" with him if he voted against a pending piece of legislation that would impact Murdoch's business interests.</div><div style="line-height: 19px; margin-bottom: 1.3em; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">According to the <em>Herald</em>, which has seen the nine-page statement given to investigators by former senator Bill O'Chee, when a bill proposing the creation of digital television in Australia was nearing a vote, an unnamed News executive and lobbyist invited O'Chee to lunch to try to get him to vote against the bill. (The <em>Herald</em> notes that while serving in parliament, O'Chee "had a long and difficult relationship with the Murdoch press.") </div><div style="line-height: 19px; margin-bottom: 1.3em; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">Referencing O'Chee's account, the <em>Herald</em> reports [emphasis added]:</div><blockquote style="background-color: #fafbfd; border-bottom-color: rgb(230, 236, 242); border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 1px; border-image: initial; border-left-color: rgb(230, 236, 242); border-left-style: solid; border-left-width: 1px; border-right-color: rgb(230, 236, 242); border-right-style: solid; border-right-width: 1px; border-top-color: rgb(230, 236, 242); border-top-style: solid; border-top-width: 1px; margin-bottom: 20px; margin-left: 20px; margin-right: 20px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 10px; padding-left: 10px; padding-right: 15px; padding-top: 10px;"><div style="line-height: 19px; margin-bottom: 1.3em; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">During the meeting, Mr O'Chee said, the News executive argued that the digital conversion bill needed to be defeated because it would bankrupt regional free broadcasters which could not afford to convert to digital.</div><div style="line-height: 19px; margin-bottom: 1.3em; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">''I felt that these arguments were made up because News Corporation had no financial interest in non-pay television broadcasting,'' Mr O'Chee's statement says.</div><div style="line-height: 19px; margin-bottom: 1.3em; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">''[I] believed that News Corporation's real interest was the effect the digital conversion legislation would cause to its Foxtel business venture, because it would reduce the amount of people who would want to subscribe for these services.'' <strong style="font-style: inherit; font-weight: bold;">The executive then said that while it would be controversial for Mr O'Chee to cross the floor, ''we will take care of you''.</strong></div><div style="line-height: 19px; margin-bottom: 1.3em; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">If Mr O'Chee was criticized for his decision, News would use its Australian newspapers to look after him, including running his media releases and opinion pieces. '<strong style="font-style: inherit; font-weight: bold;">'[He] also told me we would have a 'special relationship', where I would have editorial support from News Corporation's newspapers,</strong> not only with respect to the digital conversion legislation, but for 'any other issues' too.</div><div style="line-height: 19px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">''I believed that [he] was clearly implying that News Corporation would run news stories or editorial content concerning any issue I wanted if I was to cross the floor and oppose the digital conversion legislation.''</div></blockquote><div style="line-height: 19px; margin-bottom: 1.3em; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">In the end, O'Chee voted in favor of the bill and soon found it "impossible" to get anything published in newspapers controlled by Murdoch's News Corp., even though O'Chee claims he "had been able to do so before the lunch meeting." </div></div></div><br />
<a href="https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/pengoopmcjnbflcjbmoeodbmoflcgjlk" style="font-size: 13px;">'via Blog this'</a>Sandip K. Dasvermahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03288589903537297131noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37668969.post-24417843915075921672012-03-12T15:53:00.001-07:002012-03-12T15:53:38.480-07:00Three Fundraising Habits of Supremely Successful Boards<a href="http://www2.guidestar.org/rxa/news/articles/2012/three-fundraising-habits-of-supremely-successful-boards.aspx?hq_e=el&hq_m=1546056&hq_l=12&hq_v=0a6f5d8154">Three Fundraising Habits of Supremely Successful Boards</a>: <br />
<br />
<h1 style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; color: #00457c; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 1.5em; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: left;">Three Fundraising Habits of Supremely Successful Boards</h1><div style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 1em; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: left;"><strong>March 2012</strong></div><div style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 1em; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: left;">Excerpted from <em>The Fundraising Habits of Supremely Successful Boards,</em> rev. ed.</div><div style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 1em; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: left;">In my work with nearly two thousand organizations, I've found that board members will stand on tiptoes to reach high standards if they know what's expected of them. They'll perform extraordinary feats, give unlimited time, combine all their talents for a common and great cause.</div><div style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 1em; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: left;">But if trustees don't understand their role, this enormous potential is reduced to a trickle, forced through a narrow institutional funnel.</div><div style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 1em; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: left;">In my book, <em>The Fundraising Habits of Supremely Successful Boards,</em> I discuss 25 habits that every board must adopt if they hope to raise substantial money. Here I'll focus on three.</div><h2 style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; color: #9a0521; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 1.25em; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 1.5em; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: left;">Habit One: You Invest</h2><div style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 1em; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: left;">Paul Folino is former chairman of the board of the Performing Arts Center in Orange County, California. Recently we had a conversation about the importance of board members giving to their organizations.</div><div style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 1em; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: left;">What Paul tells me may surprise you.</div><div style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 1em; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: left;">"Here, the stated expectation is $50,000 a year," he says. "If they can't meet that, they're asked to serve in some other capacity, perhaps on a committee."</div><div style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 1em; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: left;">I'm incredulous. "Do you mean every trustee gives $50,000 a year?"</div><div style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 1em; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: left;">"Yes they do," he says emphatically.</div><div style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 1em; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: left;">But that's not all. Paul says each trustee is expected to bring in at least that much from others in the county.</div><div style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 1em; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: left;">"We follow the dictum Give, Get, or Get off!"</div><div style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 1em; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: left;">My first thought is <em>Good grief, you must have trouble recruiting trustees.</em> But as I learn from Paul, there's actually a waiting list. Imagine—people lining up to give $50,000!</div><div style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 1em; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: left;">What has happened is that by raising the bar, there's a certain social cachet to belonging to the board of the Performing Arts Center. It's considered an honor. I'm reminded of what Groucho Marx said: "I'd never belong to a club that would have me as a member."</div><div style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 1em; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: left;">In your own particular organization, $50,000 may be too high. But don't let the figure scare you. I know of many organizations where the expected level of trustee giving is $10,000. For others it's $5,000. Many are even lower. But the Performing Arts Center example does forcibly deliver the point: as a board member, you must give.</div><div style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 1em; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: left;">Especially if you hope to get!</div><div style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 1em; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: left;">Judy Jolley Mohraz, who heads the Virginia G. Piper Charitable Trust, the largest foundation in Arizona, makes that very clear.</div><div style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 1em; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: left;">"We wouldn't consider a grant to an organization if the directors weren't 100 percent in their giving. Why would we? If they don't care enough for their organization to give to it, why should we?"</div><div style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 1em; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: left;">This isn't unusual. We find most foundations now look carefully at board giving. And for some, it's not even a matter of 100 percent participation. They want to examine whether some directors are giving to their potential.</div><div style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 1em; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: left;">Claremont-McKenna College (California) has a brilliant way of helping trustees understand their responsibility in giving. Their minimum gift is expected to be a student's tuition (now over $40,000 a year). Thomas Mitchell, past chair of the college's Advancement Committee, tells me most trustees give more than that.</div><div style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 1em; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: left;">Don't worry if your organization's level is lower than this. But aim high. Ask trustees to stand on tiptoes.</div><div style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 1em; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: left;">Trustees who fail to give place their organization in manacles—forged and fashioned of a rigid spirit and lowly aspirations.</div><div style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 1em; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: left;">Martin Luther said God divided the hand into fingers so the money would slip through to worthy causes. As a trustee, you must spread your fingers wide!</div><h2 style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; color: #9a0521; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 1.25em; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 1.5em; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: left;">Habit Two: Back to the Well</h2><div style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 1em; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: left;">"You can't keep going back to the same well," declared the trustee.</div><div style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 1em; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: left;">I was at a board meeting recently at an independent school in western Pennsylvania. One of the board members was adamant: they couldn't keep going back to the same old donors.</div><div style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 1em; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: left;">And in truth this is a well-worn maxim. It's as old as fundraising itself, repeated often, and usually with the same satisfying finality as a Bach cantata.</div><div style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 1em; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: left;">The only trouble ... it's absolutely untrue. A hoary saw that's totally baseless.</div><div style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 1em; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: left;">You can indeed keep going back to the well. As a matter of fact, that's where your greatest potential is.</div><div style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 1em; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: left;">It's as simple as this: Giving begets giving. The more a person gives, the more he or she keeps giving. And giving.</div><div style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 1em; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: left;">What's really difficult is getting someone to give who has never given before. Or worse, has no philanthropic intent and gives to nothing.</div><div style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 1em; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: left;">Take Thomas, for instance, in Champaign, Illinois. For years, he made the Forbes list as one of the wealthiest men in the country.</div><div style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 1em; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: left;">When we were working with the University of Illinois Library, everyone insisted we put him on the prospect list. One of the board members said, "Heck, Tom could do the whole darn campaign himself."</div><div style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 1em; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: left;">Well, indeed, he could have ... with nary a blip in his net worth. The trouble is, he had never given to the university. In fact, as far as we could tell, he had never given to anything.</div><div style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 1em; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: left;">We should certainly have called on him, but I didn't harbor much hope. It's what Samuel Johnson said about marrying the same woman twice—it's a case of faith over experience.</div><div style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 1em; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: left;">If you want the real maxim, here it is: Givers give. Which explains why at the end of your campaign if you're short of goal, you call on those who have already given. You don't go to those who earlier said, "Call on me later." Chances are they'll put you off again.</div><div style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 1em; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: left;">Your organization needs financial support. As a board member you're willing to ask others for it. You need to know you can indeed go back to the well.</div><div style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 1em; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: left;">Follow one of Pope John Paul's last encyclicals to his bishops: "Go deep, go deeper, go deeper still."</div><h2 style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; color: #9a0521; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 1.25em; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 1.5em; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: left;">Habit Three: Beware the Trojan Horse</h2><div style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 1em; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: left;">We were in the middle of a campaign at the Asheville School (North Carolina) and had reached that point where we needed something big to happen. Something consequential.</div><div style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 1em; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: left;">We had gotten off to a great start. The board had given sacrificially. A number of major gifts had come in at just the level we hoped. But now we were stalled. Little was happening. And it was painful.</div><div style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 1em; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: left;">Then Peter calls (you would recognize his real name immediately). He wants to give $7 million! We were singing the doxology.</div><div style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 1em; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: left;">There was only one hitch. Peter wanted the money to be used to reestablish the small campus lake he remembered when he was a student.</div><div style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 1em; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: left;">Filled in years ago, the lake was a perennial problem and a worrisome safety risk—students loved going swimming at midnight. (That's what Peter seemed to remember most about his days at Asheville!) Now there was an inviting meadow on the spot.</div><div style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 1em; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: left;">Peter wanted the lake back. And if it costs a little more than the $7 million, he'd up his gift, he told us.</div><div style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 1em; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: left;">A special meeting of the board was called. Restoring the lake wasn't part of the campaign. Nor did it figure in any future plans. After hours of discussion, the board decided to go back to Peter and ask if his proposed gift could be diverted to another purpose.</div><div style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 1em; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: left;">But Peter was insistent. He wanted the lake. And he'd pay for the engineering fees if that was a problem. He also made it clear—no lake, no gift ... of any size.</div><div style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 1em; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: left;">Another all-day special board meeting. Maybe it would be nice to have the lake again, one trustee mused. A few others agreed. "It was a popular spot." But in the end, the board did the right thing. They refused the gift.</div><div style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 1em; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: left;">Trustees like you and those at the Asheville School have a responsibility to determine what gifts might compromise the organization.</div><div style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 1em; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: left;">Sometimes, the right decision isn't so clear.</div><div style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 1em; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: left;">I was at a board meeting at Pacific Union College (Angwin, California). Trustees were split evenly about accepting a sizable gift from a local winery. The College is Seventh-day Adventist and Adventists are adamantly anti-alcohol. It's one of the church's inflexible tenets.</div><div style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 1em; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: left;">I watched as trustees moved to one end of the room or the other to show their position. From both sides, the arguments grew heated and vehement. The chair was having trouble maintaining control. Forget about decorum!</div><div style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 1em; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: left;">Finally, someone said, "Malcolm, you've been quiet the whole time. What do you think about this?" Malcolm was the highly respected president of the university.</div><div style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 1em; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: left;">The moment was suddenly flooded with thundering silence.</div><div style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 1em; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: left;">"Well," said Malcolm, "I think the devil has had this money long enough. I believe it's time we had it for our use."</div><div style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 1em; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: left;">That's all it took. Trustees voted to accept the gift with, as one board member said, "Deep appreciation to the wonders of the Lord."</div><ul style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-left: 0px; padding-left: 40px; text-align: left;"><li style="margin-bottom: 1.25em;">How useful did you find this article? Give us <a href="http://guidestar.vovici.net/wsb.dll/s/1g34114" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; color: #00457c;" target="_blank" title="Feedback survey (opens in new window)">your feedback</a></li>
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© 2012, Jerold Panas. Excerpted from <em>The Fundraising Habits of Supremely Successful Boards: A 59-Minute Guide to Ensuring Your Organization's Future,</em> rev. ed. Excerpted with permission of <a href="http://www.contributionsmagazine.com/books/fundraisinghabits.html" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; color: #00457c;" target="_blank" title="The Fundraising Habits of Supremely Successful Boards (opens in new window)">Emerson & Church, Publishers</a>.</div><div style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 1em; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: left;"><em>Jerold Panas is executive director of one of the premier firms in America and co-founder of the I</em></div><br />
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<a href="https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/pengoopmcjnbflcjbmoeodbmoflcgjlk" style="font-size: 13px;">'via Blog this'</a>Sandip K. Dasvermahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03288589903537297131noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37668969.post-82995938075409558672012-03-12T15:24:00.001-07:002012-03-12T15:24:11.215-07:00The Talent Society - NYTimes.com<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/21/opinion/brooks-the-talent-society.html?_r=1&emc=eta1">The Talent Society - NYTimes.com</a>: <br />
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<div class="columnGroup first" style="background-color: white; clear: both; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 10px; line-height: 15px; margin-bottom: 12px; margin-left: 10px; margin-right: 7px; text-align: left; width: auto !important;"><h6 class="kicker" style="color: black; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 1em; font-weight: normal; line-height: 1.4em; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-transform: uppercase;">OP-ED COLUMNIST</h6><h1 class="articleHeadline" itemprop="headline" style="color: black; font-size: 2.4em; font-weight: normal; line-height: 1.083em; margin-bottom: 8px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><nyt_headline type=" " version="1.0">The Talent Society</nyt_headline></h1><nyt_byline><span itemprop="creator" itemscope="" itemtype="http://schema.org/Person"></span></nyt_byline><br />
<h6 class="byline" itemprop="name" style="color: grey; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 1em; font-weight: normal; line-height: 1.2em; margin-bottom: 2px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 2px;"><span itemprop="creator" itemscope="" itemtype="http://schema.org/Person">By <a class="meta-per" href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/opinion/editorialsandoped/oped/columnists/davidbrooks/index.html?inline=nyt-per" rel="author" style="color: #666699; text-decoration: none;" title="More Articles by David Brooks">DAVID BROOKS</a></span></h6><br />
<h6 class="dateline" style="color: grey; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 1em; font-weight: normal; line-height: 1.2em; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">Published: February 20, 2012</h6><div class="articleTools" id="articleToolsTop" style="float: right; margin-bottom: 5px; margin-left: 5px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 5px; width: 132px;"><div class="box" style="border-bottom-color: rgb(226, 226, 226); border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 1px; border-color: initial; border-image: initial; border-left-color: rgb(234, 232, 233); border-left-style: none; border-left-width: 1px; border-right-color: rgb(234, 232, 233); border-right-style: none; border-right-width: 1px; border-top-color: rgb(170, 170, 170); border-top-style: solid; border-top-width: 1px; border-width: initial; clear: both; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; position: relative;"><div class="inset" style="clear: both; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><ul class="toolsList wrap" id="toolsList" style="list-style-image: initial; list-style-position: initial; list-style-type: none; margin-bottom: 7px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px;"><li id="facebook_item" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; background-image: none; background-origin: initial; background-position: 0% 0.45em; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; border-bottom-color: rgb(234, 232, 233); border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 1px; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 1em; line-height: 1.4em; margin-bottom: 0px; padding-bottom: 6px; padding-left: 8px; padding-right: 8px; padding-top: 6px; text-transform: uppercase;"><a href="http://www.blogger.com/blog-this.do?zx=1wglg4wk83ykc" id="facebook_button" style="background-image: url(http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/article/functions/facebook.gif); background-position: -1px -1px; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; cursor: pointer; display: block; line-height: 13px; padding-bottom: 3px; padding-left: 20px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"></a><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/adx/bin/adx_click.html?type=goto&opzn&page=www.nytimes.com/yr/mo/day/opinion&pos=Frame4A&sn2=f8475720/9aad5d74&sn1=7d2274e3/c897ce00&camp=FSL2012_ArticleTools_120x60_1787504b_nyt5&ad=SoundofMyVoice_Feb17_120x60&goto=http%3A%2F%2Fwww%2Esoundofmyvoicemovie%2Ecom" style="color: #666699; font-family: georgia, 'times new roman', times, serif; line-height: 15px; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank"><img border="0" height="60" src="http://graphics8.nytimes.com/adx/images/ADS/29/23/ad.292337/SOMV_NYT120x60_2-16.gif" style="border-bottom-style: none; border-color: initial; border-image: initial; border-left-style: none; border-right-style: none; border-top-style: none; border-width: initial;" width="120" /></a></li>
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<div itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-size: 1.5em; line-height: 1.467em;">We’re living in the middle of an amazing era of individualism. A few generations ago, it was considered shameful for people to have children unless they were married. But as Jason DeParle and Sabrina Tavernise <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/18/us/for-women-under-30-most-births-occur-outside-marriage.html" style="color: #666699;" title="The article">reported in The Times</a> on Saturday, these days, more than half of the births to women under 30 occur outside of marriage.</div></div><div class="articleInline runaroundLeft" style="clear: left; display: inline; float: left; margin-bottom: 10px !important; margin-left: 0px !important; margin-right: 15px !important; margin-top: 6px !important; width: 190px;"><div class="inlineImage module" style="clear: both; margin-bottom: 12px; width: 190px;"><div class="image" style="margin-bottom: 2px;"><span itemid="http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2010/09/16/opinion/Brooks_New/Brooks_New-articleInline.jpg" itemprop="associatedMedia" itemscope="" itemtype="http://schema.org/ImageObject"><img alt="" height="240" itemprop="url" src="http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2010/09/16/opinion/Brooks_New/Brooks_New-articleInline.jpg" width="190" /></span></div><h6 class="credit" style="color: #909090; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 0.9em; font-weight: normal; line-height: 1.223em; margin-bottom: 3px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-align: right;">Josh Haner/The New York Times</h6><div class="caption" style="color: #666666; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 1.1em; line-height: 1.2727em;">David Brooks</div></div><div class="columnGroup doubleRule" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; background-image: none; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; border-bottom-width: 1px !important; border-left-width: 1px !important; border-right-width: 1px !important; border-top-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); border-top-style: solid; border-top-width: 1px !important; clear: both; margin-bottom: 12px; margin-left: 10px; margin-right: 7px; padding-top: 12px; width: auto !important;"><div class="story" style="clear: both; margin-bottom: 8px;"><h6 style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; font-weight: normal; line-height: 1.25em; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><a href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/opinion/editorialsandoped/oped/columnists/davidbrooks/index.html" style="color: #666699; text-decoration: none;">Go to Columnist Page »</a></h6></div><div class="singleRuleDivider" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: #cccccc; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; border-bottom-style: none; border-color: initial; border-image: initial; border-left-style: none; border-right-style: none; border-top-style: none; border-width: initial; clear: both; height: 1px; line-height: 0; margin-bottom: 8px; margin-top: 12px; overflow-x: hidden; overflow-y: hidden; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"></div><div class="story" style="clear: both; margin-bottom: 8px;"><h3 class="sectionHeader" style="color: black; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 1.4em; line-height: 1.2857em; margin-bottom: 8px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><a href="http://brooks.blogs.nytimes.com/" style="color: black; text-decoration: none;">David Brooks’s Blog</a></h3><div class="summary" style="font-size: 1.2em; line-height: 1.25em; margin-bottom: 5px;">The intellectual, cultural and scientific findings that land on the columnist’s desk nearly every day.</div><div class="refer" style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 1.1em; line-height: 1.182em; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-top: 2px;"><a href="http://brooks.blogs.nytimes.com/" style="color: #666699; text-decoration: none;">Go to the Blog »</a></div></div><div class="singleRuleDivider" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: #cccccc; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; border-bottom-style: none; border-color: initial; border-image: initial; border-left-style: none; border-right-style: none; border-top-style: none; border-width: initial; clear: both; height: 1px; line-height: 0; margin-bottom: 8px; margin-top: 12px; overflow-x: hidden; overflow-y: hidden; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"></div><div class="story" style="clear: both; margin-bottom: 0px;"><h3 class="sectionHeader" style="color: black; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 1.4em; line-height: 1.2857em; margin-bottom: 8px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><a href="http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/category/the-conversation/" style="color: black; text-decoration: none;">The Conversation</a></h3><div class="thumbnail" style="clear: right; display: inline; float: right; margin-bottom: 6px; margin-left: 6px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><a href="http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/category/the-conversation/" style="color: #666699; text-decoration: none;"><img alt="Conversation" height="75" src="http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/blogs_v3/opinionator/pogs/theconversation75.gif" style="border-bottom-style: none; border-color: initial; border-image: initial; border-left-style: none; border-right-style: none; border-top-style: none; border-width: initial;" width="75" /></a></div><div class="summary" style="font-size: 1.2em; line-height: 1.25em; margin-bottom: 5px;">David Brooks and Gail Collins talk between columns.</div><div class="refer" style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 1.1em; line-height: 1.182em; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-top: 2px;"><a href="http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/category/the-conversation/" style="color: #666699; text-decoration: none;">All Conversations »</a></div></div></div><div class="columnGroup doubleRule" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; background-image: none; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; border-bottom-width: 1px !important; border-left-width: 1px !important; border-right-width: 1px !important; border-top-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); border-top-style: solid; border-top-width: 1px !important; clear: both; margin-bottom: 12px; margin-left: 10px; margin-right: 7px; padding-top: 12px; width: auto !important;"><h3 class="sectionHeader" style="color: black; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 1.4em; line-height: 1.2857em; margin-bottom: 8px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">Related News</h3><ul class="headlinesOnly multiline flush" style="list-style-image: initial; list-style-position: initial; list-style-type: none; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px;"><li style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; background-image: none; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; font-size: 1.2em; line-height: 1.25em; margin-bottom: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"><h6 style="color: black; font-size: 1em; font-weight: normal; line-height: 1.25em; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/18/us/for-women-under-30-most-births-occur-outside-marriage.html?ref=opinion" style="color: #666699; font-size: 1em; text-decoration: none;">For Women Under 30, Most Births Occur Outside Marriage</a>(February 18, 2012)</h6></li>
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</ul></div></div><div class="inlineLeft" id="readerscomment" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: #f4f4f4; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; border-top-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); border-top-style: solid; border-top-width: 1px; clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 20px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 15px; margin-top: 0px; width: 190px;"><h3 style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; background-image: url(http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/article/comments/icons/comment_black.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 0% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; color: black; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 1.133em; margin-bottom: 2px; margin-left: 10px; margin-right: 10px; margin-top: 7px; padding-bottom: 5px; padding-left: 15px; padding-right: 15px; padding-top: 5px;">Readers’ Comments</h3><div class="content" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; background-image: none; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; border-top-color: rgb(226, 226, 226); border-top-style: solid; border-top-width: 1px; padding-bottom: 13px; padding-left: 10px; padding-right: 10px; padding-top: 9px;"><blockquote style="font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 6px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">Readers shared their thoughts on this article.</blockquote><ul class="more" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; list-style-image: initial; list-style-position: initial; list-style-type: none; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px;"><li style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; background-image: none; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; font-size: 11px; line-height: 1.2em; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/21/opinion/brooks-the-talent-society.html?_r=1&emc=eta1#comments" rel="3v" style="color: #666699; font-size: 1em; text-decoration: none !important;">Read All Comments (275) »</a></li>
</ul></div></div><div class="articleBody" style="margin-bottom: 1.7em; margin-top: 1.5em;"><div itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-size: 1.5em; line-height: 1.467em; margin-bottom: 1em;">In 1957, 57 percent of those surveyed said that they believed that adults who preferred to be single were “immoral” or “neurotic.” But today, as Eric Klinenberg reminds us in his book, “Going Solo,” more than 50 percent of adults are single. Twenty-eight percent of households nationwide consist of just one person. There are more single-person households than there are married-with-children households. In cities like Denver, Washington and Atlanta, more than 40 percent of the households are one-person dwellings. In Manhattan, roughly half the households are solos.</div><div itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-size: 1.5em; line-height: 1.467em; margin-bottom: 1em;">A few generations ago, most people affiliated with one of the major parties. But now more people consider themselves independent than either Republican or Democrat. A few generations ago, many people worked for large corporations and were members of a labor union. But now lifetime employment is down and union membership has plummeted.</div><div itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-size: 1.5em; line-height: 1.467em; margin-bottom: 1em;">A few generations ago, teenagers went steady. But over the past decades, the dating relationship has been replaced by a more amorphous hook-up culture. A few generations ago, most people belonged to a major religious denomination. Today, the fastest-growing religious category is “unaffiliated.”</div><div itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-size: 1.5em; line-height: 1.467em; margin-bottom: 1em;">The trend is pretty clear. Fifty years ago, America was groupy. People were more likely to be enmeshed in stable, dense and obligatory relationships. They were more defined by permanent social roles: mother, father, deacon. Today, individuals have more freedom. They move between more diverse, loosely structured and flexible networks of relationships.</div><div itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-size: 1.5em; line-height: 1.467em; margin-bottom: 1em;">People are less likely to be trapped in bad marriages and bad situations. They move from network to network, depending on their individual needs at the moment. At the same time, bonds are probably shallower and more tenuous.</div><div itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-size: 1.5em; line-height: 1.467em; margin-bottom: 1em;">We can all think of reasons for this transformation. Affluence: people have more money to live apart if they want to. Feminism: women have more power to define their own lives. The aging society: more widows and widowers live alone. The information revolution: the Internet and smartphones make it easier to construct far-flung, flexible networks. Skepticism: more people believe that marriage is not for them.</div><div itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-size: 1.5em; line-height: 1.467em; margin-bottom: 1em;">But if there is one theme that weaves through all the different causes, it is this: The maximization of talent. People want more space to develop their own individual talents. They want more flexibility to explore their own interests and develop their own identities, lifestyles and capacities. They are more impatient with situations that they find stifling.</div><div itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-size: 1.5em; line-height: 1.467em; margin-bottom: 1em;">Many people have argued that these changes have led to a culture of atomization, loneliness and self-absorption. That’s overdrawn. In “Going Solo,” Klinenberg nicely shows that people who live alone are more likely to visit friends and join social groups. They are more likely to congregate in and create active, dynamic cities.</div><div itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-size: 1.5em; line-height: 1.467em; margin-bottom: 1em;">It’s more accurate to say that we have gone from a society that protected people from their frailties to a society that allows people to maximize their talents.</div><div itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-size: 1.5em; line-height: 1.467em; margin-bottom: 1em;">The old settled social structures were stifling to many creative and dynamic people (and in those days discrimination stifled people even more). But people who were depressed, disorganized and disadvantaged were able to lead lives enmeshed in supportive relationships.</div><div itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-size: 1.5em; line-height: 1.467em; margin-bottom: 1em;">Today, the fast flexible and diverse networks allow the ambitious and the gifted to surf through amazing possibilities. They are able to construct richer, more varied lives. They are able to enjoy interesting information-age workplaces and then go home and find serenity in a one-bedroom apartment.</div><div itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-size: 1.5em; line-height: 1.467em; margin-bottom: 1em;">On the other hand, people who lack social capital are more likely to fall through the cracks. It takes effort, organization and a certain set of skills to surf these new, protean social networks. People who are unable to make the effort or lack social capital are more likely to be alone. As Klinenberg and others have shown, this is especially likely to happen to solitary middle-aged men, who are more likely to lack the drive and the social facilities to go out and make their own friendship circles.</div><div itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-size: 1.5em; line-height: 1.467em; margin-bottom: 1em;">Over all, we’ve made life richer for the people who have the social capital to create their own worlds. We’ve also made it harder for the people who don’t — especially poorer children.</div><div itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-size: 1.5em; line-height: 1.467em; margin-bottom: 1em;">These trends are not going to reverse themselves. So maybe it’s time to acknowledge a core reality: People with skills can really thrive in this tenuous, networked society. People without those advantages would probably be better off if we could build new versions of the settled, stable and thick arrangements we’ve left behind.</div><nyt_correction_bottom></nyt_correction_bottom><br />
<div class="articleCorrection" style="margin-bottom: 2.8em;"></div><nyt_update_bottom></nyt_update_bottom></div></div><div class="columnGroup " style="background-color: white; clear: both; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 10px; line-height: 15px; margin-bottom: 12px; margin-left: 10px; margin-right: 7px; text-align: left; width: auto !important;"><div class="articleFooter"><div class="articleMeta"><div class="opposingFloatControl wrap"><div class="element1" style="float: left;"><h6 class="metaFootnote" style="color: #aaaaaa; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 1.1em; font-weight: normal; line-height: 1.273em; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">A version of this op-ed appeared in print on February 21, 2012, on page <span itemprop="printSection">A</span><span itemprop="printPage">25</span> of the <span itemprop="printEdition">New York edition</span> with the headline: The Talent Society.</h6></div></div></div></div></div>Sandip K. Dasvermahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03288589903537297131noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37668969.post-58506772379669971632012-03-08T20:19:00.001-08:002012-03-08T20:19:54.942-08:00Communalism Watch: Karnataka: Durga idol placed for worhsip at Buddhist stupa site<a href="http://communalism.blogspot.in/2012/03/karnataka-durga-idol-placed-for-worhsip.html">Communalism Watch: Karnataka: Durga idol placed for worhsip at Buddhist stupa site</a>: <br />
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<h2 class="date-header" style="color: #cc0000; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; letter-spacing: 0.2em; line-height: 1.3em; margin-bottom: 0.5em; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 1.5em; text-transform: capitalize;">March 08, 2012</h2><div class="date-posts"><div class="post-outer"><div class="post hentry" style="border-bottom-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); border-bottom-style: dotted; border-bottom-width: 1px; margin-bottom: 1.5em; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0.5em; padding-bottom: 1.5em;"><a href="" name="5289816860760267764"></a><h3 class="post-title entry-title" style="color: #000033; font-size: 19px; font-weight: normal; line-height: 1.4em; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0.25em; padding-bottom: 4px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"><a href="http://communalism.blogspot.in/2012/03/karnataka-durga-idol-placed-for-worhsip.html" style="color: #000033; display: block; text-decoration: none;">Karnataka: Durga idol placed for worhsip at Buddhist stupa site</a></h3><div class="post-header-line-1"></div><div class="post-body entry-content" style="line-height: 1.6em; margin-bottom: 0.75em; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">From: <a href="http://tehelka.com/story_main52.asp?filename=Ne100312Idol.asp" style="color: #660000; text-decoration: none;">Tehelka, March 10, 2012</a><br />
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<span style="font-weight: bold;">Idol Worship Sparks Buddhist Fury</span><br />
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By Imran Khan<br />
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A historical Buddhist site near Gulbarga, 584 km from Bengaluru, where the first inscribed image of Ashoka was discovered, has become the latest communal flashpoint in Karnataka. For the past two weeks, Dalit organisations and a Buddhist monk have been protesting against what they claim is an attempt by Hindus to appropriate the monument by placing a Durga idol. Four Dalits and a Buddhist monk have been arrested for removing the idol. However, the protesters claim that they had removed the idol only to take it to the deputy commissioner's office when they were arrested. In 1986, a Buddhist stupa dating back to 1st century BC was discovered in Sannati, around 70 km from Gulbarga. It is believed that Ashoka sent his son Mahindra and daughter Sanghamitra as emissaries to spread Buddhism in this region, which is now considered the most backward district in Karnataka. Subsequent excavations by the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) have established Sannati as an important historical site.<br />
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"On 5 February, a group of Dalits led by a Buddhist monk tried to forcibly take away the Durga idol," says R Vishal, deputy commissioner of Gulbarga city. "The area is a protected monument and ASI is conducting excavations there. When ASI men tried to stop them, they pushed them and ran away. Before the situation could get out of control and communal tension could be created, we caught them. A case has been lodged." Buddhist monk Bodhidhamma Banteji, who is in judicial custody, says, "A sinister plan has been carried out all over India. Look at the cases of Khaneri, Elephanta and Mahalakshmi in Mumbai and Karla and Mansari in Nasik and Nagpur. Efforts have been made to ascribe a Hindu connection to Buddhist places of worship." "I have been coming to this place for the past 10 years as part of my dissertation on Sannati. I never found this idol or any Hindu relic at this place. Suddenly we saw rituals taking place and this idol sprouting up," says Banteji.<br />
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Banteji and four Dalit leaders have been booked under various IPC sections for promoting enmity between different groups on grounds of religion, intentional insult with intent to provoke breach of peace, unlawful assembly intended to outrage religious feelings. Surprisingly none of the accused have been booked for trespassing, theft or damaging a historical site. When contacted, DK Ravi, assistant commissioner of Sedam taluk (where the complaint has been lodged) and administrator of Sannati Budhha Stupa Development Authority, refused to comment. The accused allege that the complaint was filed based on Ravi's insistence.<br />
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"When I saw this idol, I immediately informed the local authorities and the district administration. Even after my constant reminders, they didn't take any action. I couldn't have just sat back and watched the cultural heritage of Buddhism being destroyed," says Banteji. "Look at the absurdity of this case. The complaint has been lodged by a Muslim (ASI worker Azeem) against Buddhists and Dalits for hurting his religious sentiments. Whereas the deity in question is a Hindu idol," says the defendants' lawyer Mazhar Hussain. He claims Banteji has been targeted specifically as he's been instrumental in converting over 15,000 Dalits to Buddhism since 1995.<br />
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ASI Deputy Superintendent Dr JK Patnaik rubbishes the claims. He cites a study conducted by ASI in 1989 to prove that the practice of Durga worship was prevalent at the time when the government acquired the place in 2002, and subsequently declared a protected site in 2003. "The idol dates back to the 9th century AD - Rashtrakutas period - and had not been installed there," he says. He admits that ASI is allowing rituals to take place as discontinuing the practice would incur "the wrath of locals". Local Hindu groups led by BJP MLA Valmiki Nayak have been demanding puja to be allowed at the site. "Twenty years ago, the site belonged to a villager who used to worship Durga. Hence we demanded that puja should be allowed. Those who say that the place only belongs to Buddhists and that this place is only Buddha Vihar are troublemakers," he says.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://tehelka.com/story_main52.asp?filename=Ne100312Idol.asp" style="color: #660000; text-decoration: none;">http://tehelka.com/story_main52.asp?filename=Ne100312Idol.asp</a><div style="clear: both;"></div></div><div class="post-footer" style="color: #cc0000; font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 11px; letter-spacing: 0.1em; line-height: 1.4em; margin-bottom: 0.75em; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0.75em; text-transform: uppercase;"><div class="post-footer-line post-footer-line-1" style="background-color: white; text-align: left;"><span class="post-author vcard">POSTED BY <span class="fn">C-INFO</span> </span><span class="post-timestamp">AT <a class="timestamp-link" href="http://communalism.blogspot.in/2012/03/karnataka-durga-idol-placed-for-worhsip.html" rel="bookmark" style="color: #660000; text-decoration: none;" title="permanent link"><abbr class="published" style="border-bottom-style: none; border-color: initial; border-image: initial; border-left-style: none; border-right-style: none; border-top-style: none; border-width: initial;" title="2012-03-08T11:05:00+01:00">THURSDAY, MARCH 08, 2012</abbr></a> </span><span class="post-icons"><span class="item-action"></span></span></div><div class="post-footer-line post-footer-line-2" style="background-color: white; text-align: left;"><span class="post-labels">LABELS: <a href="http://communalism.blogspot.in/search/label/BJP" rel="tag" style="color: #660000; text-decoration: none;">BJP</a>, <a href="http://communalism.blogspot.in/search/label/Karnataka" rel="tag" style="color: #660000; text-decoration: none;">KARNATAKA</a>, <a href="http://communalism.blogspot.in/search/label/Monument" rel="tag" style="color: #660000; text-decoration: none;">MONUMENT</a>, <a href="http://communalism.blogspot.in/search/label/Protest" rel="tag" style="color: #660000; text-decoration: none;">PROTEST</a></span></div></div></div></div></div>Sandip K. Dasvermahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03288589903537297131noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37668969.post-45204207155584572432012-03-08T01:49:00.001-08:002012-03-08T01:49:48.414-08:00India a superpower? Unlikely, says London School of Economics study - The Economic Times<a href="http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/articleshow/12175354.cms?prtpage=1">India a superpower? Unlikely, says London School of Economics study - The Economic Times</a>: <br />
<br />
<br />
LONDON: Despite "impressive" achievements in various sectors in recent years, India is unlikely to be a superpower and in fact, should not aspire to become one, a<br />
study by the London School of Economics (LSE) has concluded.<br />
The study, titled 'India: The Next Superpower?', recalls and dismisses US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's statement made during her visit to India in 2009 that "I<br />
consider India not just a regional power, but a global power".<br />
The LSE study comprising essays by nine experts in the areas of India's economy, defence, government, culture, environment and society advises "caution in<br />
assessing India's claim to superpower status".<br />
Ramachandra Guha, currently the Philippe Roman Chair in History and International Affairs at the LSE, argues that it is doubtful whether India should seek to<br />
become a superpower.<br />
He cites seven reasons why India will not become a superpower.<br />
These are: "The challenge of the Naxalites; the insidious presence of the Hindutvawadis; the degradation of the once liberal and upright Centre; the increasing gap<br />
between the rich and the poor; the trivialisation of the media; the unsustainability, in an environmental sense, of present patterns of resource consumption; the<br />
instability and policy incoherence caused by multi-party coalition governments", he writes.<br />
Listing India's several achievements that prompted predictions and ambitions in some quarters about India being the next superpower, the study goes on to discuss<br />
several challenges that are likely to prevent India from realising such ambitions.<br />
It says: "Still, for all India's success, its undoubted importance and despite its undisputed potential, there is cause for caution in assessing India's claim to<br />
superpower status.<br />
"India still faces major developmental challenges. The still-entrenched divisions of caste structure are being compounded by the emergence of new inequalities of<br />
wealth stemming from India's economic success".<br />
The study adds: "India's democracy may have thrived in a manner that few ever expected, but its institutions face profound challenges from embedded nepotism and<br />
corruption.<br />
"India's economic success continues to come with an environmental cost that is unsustainable".<br />
Moreover, the study says that India has pressing security preoccupations, but sees the country continuing to play a constructive international role in, among other<br />
things, the financial diplomacy of the G20.<br />
"(It) certainly has a soft-power story to tell as a model of liberal political and economic developmentSandip K. Dasvermahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03288589903537297131noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37668969.post-49718254021188083632012-02-29T01:45:00.001-08:002012-02-29T01:47:01.462-08:00FOCUS: IBM at Auschwitz, New Documents<div class="contentpaneopen size artp" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; font-family: 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 15px; text-align: -webkit-auto; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); "><div class="art02" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; "><div class="txtimg" style="margin-top: 280px; margin-right: 10px; margin-bottom: 40px; margin-left: 20px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; clear: both; "><br style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; "><br style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; "><h1 class="txttitle" style="margin-top: 30px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 2px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 8px; padding-left: 0px; font-size: 22px; width: 475px; ">IBM at Auschwitz, New Documents</h1><p class="txtauthor" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 2px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; text-align: left; line-height: 17px; font-size: 12px; color: rgb(51, 51, 51); ">Edwin Black, Reader Supported News</p><p class="date" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 2px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; text-align: left; line-height: 17px; color: rgb(220, 59, 65); ">28 February 12</p><p style="margin-top: 10px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 20px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; text-align: left; line-height: 17px; "> </p><p style="margin-top: 10px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 20px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; text-align: left; line-height: 17px; "><img src="http://readersupportednews.org/images/stories/alphabet/rsn-N.jpg" border="0" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; " />ewly-released documents expose more explicitly the details of IBM's pivotal role in the Holocaust - all six phases: identification, expulsion from society, confiscation, ghettoization, deportation, and even extermination. Moreover, the documents portray with crystal clarity the personal involvement and micro-management of IBM president Thomas J. Watson in the company's co-planning and co-organizing of Hitler's campaign to destroy the Jews.</p><p class="indent" style="margin-top: 10px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 20px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; text-align: left; line-height: 17px; text-indent: 30pt; ">IBM's twelve-year alliance with the Third Reich was first revealed in my book IBM and the Holocaust, published simultaneously in 40 countries in February 2001. It was based on some 20,000 documents drawn from archives in seven countries. IBM never denied any of the information in the book; and despite thousands of media and communal requests, as well as published articles, the company has remained silent.</p><p class="indent" style="margin-top: 10px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 20px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; text-align: left; line-height: 17px; text-indent: 30pt; ">The new "expanded edition" contains 32 pages of never-before-published internal IBM correspondence, State Department and Justice Department memos, and concentration camp documents that graphically chronicle IBM's actions and what they knew during the 12-year Hitler regime. On the anniversary of the release of the original book, the new edition was released on February 26, 2012 at a special live global streaming event at Yeshiva University's Furst Hall, sponsored by the American Association of Jewish Lawyers and Jurists together with a coalition of other groups.</p><p class="indent" style="margin-top: 10px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 20px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; text-align: left; line-height: 17px; text-indent: 30pt; ">Among the newly-released documents and archival materials are secret 1941 correspondence setting up the Dutch subsidiary of IBM to work in tandem with the Nazis, company President Thomas Watson's personal approval for the 1939 release of special IBM alphabetizing machines to help organize the rape of Poland and the deportation of Polish Jews, as well as the IBM Concentration Camp Codes including IBM's code for death by Gas Chamber. Among the newly published photos of the punch cards is the one developed for the statistician who reported directly to Himmler and Eichmann.</p><p class="indent" style="margin-top: 10px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 20px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; text-align: left; line-height: 17px; text-indent: 30pt; ">The significance of the incriminating documents requires context.</p><p style="margin-top: 10px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 20px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; text-align: left; line-height: 17px; ">Punch cards, also called Hollerith cards after IBM founder Herman Hollerith, were the forerunner of the computers that IBM is famous for today. These cards stored information in holes punched in the rows and columns, which were then "read" by a <a href="http://www.facebook.com/events/365628346790093/" target="_blank" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); ">tabulating machine</a>. The system worked like a player piano - but this one was devoted to the devil's music. First designed to track people and organize a census, the Hollerith system was later adapted to any tabulation or information task.</p><p class="indent" style="margin-top: 10px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 20px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; text-align: left; line-height: 17px; text-indent: 30pt; ">From the first moments of the Hitler regime in 1933, IBM used its exclusive punch card technology and its global monopoly on information technology to organize, systematize, and accelerate Hitler's anti-Jewish program, step by step facilitating the tightening noose. The punch cards, machinery, training, servicing, and special project work, such as population census and identification, was managed directly by IBM headquarters in New York, and later through its subsidiaries in Germany, known as Deutsche Hollerith-Maschinen Gesellschaft (DEHOMAG), Poland, Holland, France, Switzerland, and other European countries.</p><p class="indent" style="margin-top: 10px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 20px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; text-align: left; line-height: 17px; text-indent: 30pt; ">Among the punch cards published are two for the SS, including one for the SS Rassenamt, or Race Office, which specialized in racial selections and coordinated with many other Reich offices. A third card was custom-crafted by IBM for <a href="http://www.deathcamps.org/reinhard/korherr.html" target="_blank" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); ">Richard Korherr</a>, a top Nazi statistician and expert in Jewish demographics who reported directly to Reichsführer Heinrich Himmler and who also worked with Adolf Eichmann. Himmler and Eichmann were architects of the extermination phase of the Holocaust. All three punch cards bear the proud indicia of IBM's German subsidiary, DEHOMAG. They illustrate the nature of the end users who relied upon IBM's information technology.</p><p class="indent" style="margin-top: 10px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 20px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; text-align: left; line-height: 17px; text-indent: 30pt; ">In 1937, with war looming and the world shocked at the increasingly merciless Nazi persecution of the Jews, <a href="http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/images/Holocaust/Watson_Hitler.jpg" target="_blank" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); ">Hitler bestowed upon Watson</a> a special award - created specifically for the occasion - to honor extraordinary service by a foreigner to the Third Reich. The medal, the Order of the German Eagle with Star, bedecked with swastikas, was to be worn on a sash over the heart. Watson returned the medal years later in June 1940 as a reaction to public outrage about the medal during the bombing of Paris. The return of this medal has been used by IBM apologists to show Watson had second thoughts about his alliance with the Reich. But a newly released copy of a subsequent letter dated June 10, 1941, drafted by IBM's New York office, confirms that IBM headquarters personally directed the activities of its Dutch subsidiary set up in 1940 to identify and liquidate the Jews of Holland. Hence, while IBM engaged in the public relations maneuver of returning the medal, the company was actually quietly expanding its role in Hitler's Holocaust. Similar subsidiaries, sometimes named as a variant of "Watson Business Machines," were set up in Poland, Vichy France, and elsewhere on the Continent in cadence with the Nazi takeover of Europe.</p><p class="indent" style="margin-top: 10px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 20px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; text-align: left; line-height: 17px; text-indent: 30pt; ">Particularly powerful are the newly-released copies of the IBM concentration camp codes. IBM maintained a customer site, known as the Hollerith Department, in virtually every concentration camp to sort or process punch cards and track prisoners. The codes show IBM's numerical designation for various camps. Auschwitz was 001, Buchenwald was 002; Dachau was 003, and so on. Various prisoner types were reduced to IBM numbers, with 3 signifying homosexual, 9 for anti-social, and 12 for Gypsy. The IBM number 8 designated a Jew. Inmate death was also reduced to an IBM digit: 3 represented death by natural causes, 4 by execution, 5 by suicide, and code 6 designated "special treatment" in gas chambers. IBM engineers had to create Hollerith codes to differentiate between a Jew who had been worked to death and one who had been gassed, then print the cards, configure the machines, train the staff, and continuously maintain the fragile systems every two weeks on site in the concentration camps.</p><p class="indent" style="margin-top: 10px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 20px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; text-align: left; line-height: 17px; text-indent: 30pt; ">Newly-released photographs show the Hollerith Bunker at Dachau. It housed at least two dozen machines, mainly controlled by the SS. The foreboding concrete Hollerith blockhouse, constructed of reinforced concrete and steel, was designed to withstand the most intense Allied aerial bombardment. Those familiar with Nazi bomb-proof shelters will recognize the advanced square-cornered pillbox design reserved for the Reich's most precious buildings and operations. IBM equipment was among the Reich's most important weapons, not only in its war against the Jews, but in its general military campaigns and control of railway traffic. Watson personally approved expenditures to add bomb shelters to DEHOMAG installations because the cost was born by the company. Such costs cut into IBM's profit margin. Watson's approval was required because he received a one-percent commission on all Nazi business profits.</p><p class="indent" style="margin-top: 10px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 20px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; text-align: left; line-height: 17px; text-indent: 30pt; ">Two telling U.S. government memos, now published, are remarkable for their telling irony. The first is a State Department memo, dated December 3, 1941, just four days before the attack on Pearl Harbor and as the Nazis were being openly accused of genocide in Europe. On that day in 1941, IBM's top attorney, Harrison Chauncey, visited the State Department to express qualms about the company's extensive involvement with Hitler. The State Department memo recorded that Chauncey feared "that his company may some day be blamed for cooperating with the Germans."</p><p class="indent" style="margin-top: 10px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 20px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; text-align: left; line-height: 17px; text-indent: 30pt; ">The second is a Justice Department memo generated during a federal investigation of IBM for trading with the enemy. Economic Warfare Section chief investigator Howard J. Carter prepared the memo for his supervisors describing the company's collusion with the Hitler regime. Carter wrote: "<em style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; ">What Hitler has done to us through his economic warfare, one of our own American corporations has also done ... Hence IBM is in a class with the Nazis." He ended his memo: "The entire world citizenry is hampered by an international monster</em>."</p><p class="indent" style="margin-top: 10px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 20px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; text-align: left; line-height: 17px; text-indent: 30pt; ">At a time when the Watson name and the IBM image is being laundered by whiz computers that can answer questions on TV game shows, it is important to remember that Thomas Watson and his corporate behemoth were guilty of genocide. The Treaty on Genocide, Article 2, defines genocide as "acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial, or religious group." In Article 3, the treaty states that among the "acts [that] shall be punishable," are the ones in subsection (e), that is "complicity in genocide." As for who shall be punished, the Treaty specifies the perpetrators in Article 4: "Persons committing genocide or any of the other acts enumerated in Article 3 shall be punished, whether they are constitutionally responsible rulers, public officials, or private individuals."</p><p class="indent" style="margin-top: 10px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 20px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; text-align: left; line-height: 17px; text-indent: 30pt; ">International Business Machines, and its president Thomas J. Watson, committed genocide by any standard. It was never about the antisemitism. It was never about the National Socialism. It was always about the money. Business was their middle name.</p><hr size="3" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; width: 160px; "><p class="indent" style="margin-top: 10px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 20px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; text-align: left; line-height: 17px; text-indent: 30pt; "><em style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; ">Edwin Black is the author of IBM and the Holocaust, The Strategic Alliance Between Nazi Germany and America's Most Powerful Corporation, newly released in the Expanded Edition.</em></p><p class="indent" style="margin-top: 10px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 20px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; text-align: left; line-height: 17px; text-indent: 30pt; ">Reader Supported News is the Publication of Origin for this work. Permission to republish is freely granted with credit and a link back to Reader Supported News.</p></div></div></div><span class="article_separator" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; height: 1px; border-top-width: 1px; border-top-style: solid; border-top-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); font-family: 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 15px; text-align: -webkit-auto; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); "> </span> <a href="http://readersupportednews.org/news-section2/328-121/10198-focus-ibm-at-auschwitz-new-documents">FOCUS: IBM at Auschwitz, New Documents</a>:<br /><br /><a style="font-size:13px" href="https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/pengoopmcjnbflcjbmoeodbmoflcgjlk">'via Blog this'</a>Sandip K. Dasvermahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03288589903537297131noreply@blogger.com0