Alternative Perspective
On Contemporary India
 Issue 34, May 28, 2003
Compiled by Madhukar Shukla

 Alternative Perspective is an attempt to widen our awareness about issues related to business, environment, role and influence of media, geo-politics, culture, etc. It aims to share, on a regular basis, some of those pieces of news and information, which do not find place in the highly monopolised mainstream media. Please feel free to share/ forward/ distribute this newsletter to others who may be interested.



Note: The URLs of sources used in the text are numbered and given at the end of the Newsletter.

In This Issue:
  • From Midnight to Millenium
    Well, this is India of our day-to-day experience - full of anamolies, inequalities, confusion or diversity (depending on how one tries to understand it)... Contemporary India, perhaps more than any other time, is Many Indias. To quote from this article by Shashi Tharoor, India is: "snow peaks and tropical jungles, with seventeen major languages and 22,000 distinct "dialects"... 51% illiterate but which has educated the world's second-largest pool of trained scientists and engineers... birthplace of four major religions, a dozen different traditions of classical dance, eighty-five political parties and 300 ways of cooking the potato"...
    http://resurgence.gn.apc.org/articles/tharoor.htm

  • The Kalahandi Syndrome
    Kalahandi is perhaps more known for its abject poverty (87%) and starvation deaths, than for being the rice-bowl of Orissa, which has been consistently producing surplus rice over years. It also represents the realities which don't find place in the main-stream media[1]; after all, as long as one can buy packed potato chips, why would anyone be interested in reading about the plight of the potato-growers in UP?[2]... Underlying these anamolies is the remarkable "paradox of plenty", which India has become/is becoming. With record 100mn+ tonnes of grains in reserves, starvation deaths still happen and farmers continue to commit suicide... but, nevertheless, the nation continues to exhort the farmers to produce more and perish!!![3]
    http://www.dsharma.org/hunger/kalahandi.htm

  • Privatization of the Ganges
    It is, after all, happening world-over - from Bolivia to France. So here is an example of India's own Water Wars/Water Trade[4]. About a year back, Delhi government decided to privatize Ganges through an agreement with Suez Lyonnaise to bring water to the populace of India's Capital from Tehri. As with other privatizations, this one also neglects the other social (uprooting of communities)/ economic (loss of water for agriculture)/ and cultural (for an average Indian, Ganges is more than just a source of water) aspects.... [Note: This is a long article - because it is exhaustive - but still worth reading].
    http://www.inmotionmagazine.com/global/vshiva2.html

  • Dharavi: The Twilight Metaphor of India
    Perhaps, it is only in India that you will find the "Largest Slum of Asia"[5] (do have a look at these photographs) occupying land ("real estate" if are on the other side) next to the airport of the Financial Capital of the country - Mumbai... But then Dharavi is also the metaphor for India, which, to quote Arundhati Roy, "lives simultaneously in many centuries." In the contemporary India, Dharavi represents what India is: an anamoly to alleged prosperity (mainly of the consumer/middle-class), to be ashamed of - and a buzzing hub of entrepreneurship and individual hopes[6], which one should be proud of.
    http://www.indiatogether.org/opinions/ddsouza/dharavi.htm

  • The Challenge of Educating the "Educated"
    In this country of 1bn people, I recall reading somewhere, there are just 9mn families who earn more than Rs 4lacs (US$8000, approximately). They all clamour to be identified as "The Indian Middle Class" of the global economy[7]. Most of these are educated (i.e., have degrees), speak English, are urban, and sincerely believe that western consumerism is the only (and right) way of being/ becoming modern[8]... in many ways, they represent another India, whose realities are far removed from those of the farming community, Dharavi slum-dwellers, displaced migrant workers... The fact that they also constitute the majority of the policy-makers, also ensures that India continues - and, perhaps, will continue - to live in many different worlds.
    http://www.indiatogether.org/opinions/lalisri/ls0802.htm


    Other Sources Quoted in the Newsletter:
    [1]: http://www.unesco.org/courier/2001_06/uk/medias.htm
    [2]: http://www.vshiva.net/aticles/potato_crisis.htm
    [3]: http://indiatogether.org/agriculture/opinions/dsharma/cropyields.htm
    [4]: http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=14697
    [5]: http://digitaljournalist.org/issue0204/city_index.htm
    [6]: http://www.rediff.com/style/jun/06nadar.htm#6
    [7]: http://www.the-week.com/21dec30/cover.htm
    [8]: http://www.tompaine.com/feature.cfm?ID=4632&view=print


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