Rediscovering 15 August

The last time I had been in India for 15th August celebrations must have been around 30 years ago. Thus, being in Delhi for this independence day was a special occasion for me.

Growing up in the immediate post-independence era, I had also imbibed the values of patriotism and national pride. 60 years later, my ideas about patriotism and nationalism have changed but that is another story!

I remember once going to Red Fort as a child to listen to Pandit Jawahar Lal Nehru and the long walk back home along with thousands of other persons after the speech. Though there was no TV in those days, listening to the prime minister's speech on the radio was something to which I had always looked forward to.

After leaving India, for a long time I had missed not being able to listen to the Independence day speech so usually I waited to ask my sister on telephone about it. Those were the pre-Internet days.

Over the last decade, even though Doordarshan did not provide any internet based live transmissions, it had become easier to read about the speech on internet. Slowly a feeling of cynicism coupled with indifference had crept in. The speeches were lacklustre and afterwards it was difficult to remember anything that the prime minister had said. 15 August had become a bureaucratic boring event.

This time while I waited to hear the speech of the new prime minister, I was not sure if the event merited any enthusiasm. From what I had read occasionally on internet, in my mind Mr. Narendra Modi's figure has been associated with communalism and intolerance of religious minorities. Over the last few weeks that I have been back in India, some of the things said by and campaigns launched by some BJP persons had reinforced those fears.

Still I had thought of going to Red Fort just to relive the old times. However, the metro services does not start early enough so I had given up the idea. Thus, I had sat in front of the TV with a bit of trepidation.

However I liked Mr. Modi's speech very much and also the way he spoke. Especially his words about communal harmony, discrimination against girls and the need for toilets and cleanliness. He seemed very passionate about these issues. There were times, when listening to him brought a lump to my throat.

One day later, thinking about his speech, I can see many contradictions about the issues he raised. Such as his slogan "Make in India". I know that India has to increase its industrial production but it would also mean intensifying the use of the natural resources of India and that will mean displacing people from their lands and endangering our environment. Reaching the "zero effect" he recommended is not realistic in the short or medium term, so how do we deal with it?

He also talked about giving up violence because it does not resolve anything (I agree with that whole heartedly) but would he extend his non-violence exhortation to the police and state agencies that jail or fire on persons who protest against the government's policies?

Even if I have my reservations about some of the things Mr. Modi had said yesterday and even if we all know that "walking the talk" is not so easy, still I am glad that I could watch and listen to him live. It was a pleasant change from the cynicism and indifference of the past decade.

In the evening, we went to Connaught Place for the Shubha Mudgal concert. There were so many persons at the concert that we could only listen to her from a distance.

In the central park, everybody was busy getting clicked in front of the giant Indian flag.

Along the way, people were busy taking their selfies in front of flower-flags set up by NDMC in different places. In India Gate, crowds were unbelievable. It was a wonderful way to conclude the Independence day, watching people express their joy in being Indian.

Here are some images from the day.

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Tribal lives - Konds of Orissa

Felix Padel, the great great grandson of Charles Darwin, is a well known Indo-British anthropologist. His book "Sacrificing people - Invasions of a tribal landscape" looks at the colonial roots of the relationships between "Adivasis", the indigenous people in tribal areas of India with the rest of country.

"First there were the soldiers, then missionaries and now the mining companies," Padel had said in an interview. His books explore the themes of displacement and the cultural genocide of the adivasis.

This post touches on some of the critical issues raised by Felix in his book "Sacrificing People" (Orient Black Swan, new updated paperback edition, 2011).

In the preface to the first edition of this book, Felix had written, "My main aim is to understand what has been imposed on tribal people by looking objectively at the various groups of people who have imposed on them." Among the various groups scrutinized critically by Felix are anthropologists themselves, which makes for a very interesting reading.

Large parts of the book deal with the issue of human sacrifices among the Konds of Orissa and how the colonial regime dealt with it. Another important area of focus of this book is the meaning of development and how it can lead to exclusion and exploitation of tribal people.

Apart from these two areas of enquiry, I personally found two parts of the book very interesting - those dealing with the way anthropologists look at and study the indigenous cultures and the impact of missionary work and religious conversions on tribal lives.

Adivasis, the tribal people of India

The initial works of Felix focused on the Kond group of indigenous people in Orissa. Different sub-groups of Konds such as Konda and Gond are present in neighbouring Chattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh and Andhra Pradesh.

During the British colonial rule, Kond groups in Orissa had been the subject of different "reforms" because there were reports of human sacrifice practices among them. Konds sacrificed meriah, children bought from the Dom groups ("lower caste" Hindu groups involved in trading with Konds).

There are many different groups among the Konds. Clans are important in people's identity. Each clan, as well as each section of a clan and each village, has its own territory, and its own ancestors and myths and particular customs and ways of dressing...

Now as in 1830s Konds have close connections with people of an 'untouchable' caste called Doms or Panos, who live in Kond villages and carry on small scale trading .. Other tribal castes whom Konds depend on include blacksmiths, potters and herders, who almost function as sub-castes of Konds. Sundis are a Hindu caste of distillers; they make and sell mahua - the most famous of alcoholic drinks that play such an important part in tribal culture... Konds also have a close relationship with high caste Hindus.

Kond villages, like those of other tribes, show a lot of variety in how far they conform to the non-tribal or modern lifestyle of those around them. When men cut their hair short, this is often a sign of conformity, whether to Hindu or Christian norms. In the remoter villages, where men keep their hair long, a way of life continues that has not changed much since the days before the British rule. (p. 14-15)

Thus, compared to other indigenous groups in Africa or South America, that remained "indigenous" because they were isolated from other people living in their lands, the adivasis-tribals in India, were not completely isolated and had different kinds of interfaces with other population groups. However, in spite of such contacts they were able to conserve their own cultures and customs.

At the same time, Felix explains how these adivasi groups assimilated the different influences of other Indian groups such as their caste-based hierarchical relationships with Doms. Thus, on one hand, adivasis are considered inferior by non-advasis and at another level, they themselves considered certain other caste groups to be inferior to them.

Culturally they have always been part of Indian civilization, on its edge. Unlike most tribal peoples outside India, they have maintained trading and ritual links with city-based 'civilized' society for well over 2000 years.

Ancient texts on statecraft such as the Arthshastra discuss how to win them over as allies... the Indian situation presents a striking contrast to the European or Christian relationship between tribal peoples and 'civilization': in Europe they were mostly conquered, 'pacified' or 'civilized' into peasantry, and converted to Christianity during the Roman period or soon after. Later in the 'New World' tribes were exterminated or at least displaced from their land through a stark confrontation between European colonists and aboriginals. Hindu civilization did not on the whole seek to convert or displace tribals, although there was certainly often conflict, and tribes were forced to retreat to the remotest areas ..

Tribal religion is not sharply distinct from Hinduism.. Tribal myths have clear connections with Hindu mythology. Adivasis travel from far around to take part in certain Hindu festivals... Yet their differences from Hindus are conscious and conspicuous. In some contexts or areas they call themselves Hindus, in others not. (p. 17) 

This co-existence between tribal and non-tribal groups in India was challenged during the British colonial rule. In post-independence period and especially over the past two decades, policies of liberalization and commercialization with exploitation of natural resources, have put increasing stress on this co-existence.

Anthropologists studying the "exotic" tribals

In the book, Felix takes a critical look at the way in which colonial anthropologists had dehumanized the subjects of their studies, where anthropology was a tool of the colonial project and the objective of "civilizing" the tribals translated into controlling them and their resources. He advocates for a transformation towards reflexive or critical anthropology.

Anthropology was a vital element in British rule of the Konds, not least because it legitimized British rule from the side of science by defining Konds as a 'primitive tribe' who stood to benefit from an 'enlightened government', just as the missionaries legitmized it from the side of religion and ethics. (p. 242)

And when I looked at the anthropological literature about the Konds and other tribes in India, I realized that it forms an essential part of the discourse of power that was imposed on them. It denies them a voice, and denies their reality, by defining and categorizing them in way that is fantastically, incomprehensibly alien. (p. 243)

Felix proposes that our present way of looking at the tribal groups in India is a variation on the colonial attitudes towards them - it supports their exploitation and exclusion from their lands and cultures.

Victorian anthropology produced a highly impersonal way of writing about tribes such as Konds, that defined them as 'primitive' in every domain of life. It thus gave out as a 'scientific fact' what was essentially a negative stereotype. The underlying theory is what we call 'social evolutionism' - which, officially, most anthropologists have rejected. Yet it persists in India now in a slightly different form,in the idea that adivasis are 'backwards' or 'in need of development', and thereby legitimizes imposing momentous restrictions on them or displacing them from their land in the name of development. (p. 243)

Colonialism and the missionary project

In the chapter "Soldiers of Christ", Felix takes a critical look at the role played by colonial missionaries in assisting and expanding the control over the tribals. He briefly touches upon the evolution of missionary activities in the post-independence period.

Missioneries' self-sacrifice is often extreme and their benevolence, especially in education and medicine, seems beyond question. But there is a fundamental bias in their outlook which polarizes people, in the idea that Christianity is superior to other religions and that only Christians can be 'saved'. Behind a mask of meekness there is thus an enormous arrogance and violence in the missionary entreprise: a fundamental closedness and prejudice against other cultures and religions. (p. 185)

Felix touches repeatedly on the dual nature of the missionary work among the tribal people:

My appraisal of mission work may appear unsympathetic, since I do not share missionaries' negative judgement of tribal religion or their desire to uproot traditional beliefs and customs. Yet the missionaries we shall meet 'gave their lives for the Konds' in the years of devoted 'service', and many of them died 'in the field'. (p. 186)

A contrast between how missionaries saw themselves and how they saw they came to convert is thus at the basis of their thinking. If they idealized their own suffering and benevolence, their image of various 'others' is basically a negative stereotype. (p. 206) 

Regarding the missionary role in the colonial cause, Felix looks at the complex relationships between the missionaries and the colonial administrators.

On the surface missionaries were independent from the Government. Sometimes they came into conflict with it. There was a long standing tradition of missionaries who championed basic human rights overseas...But there was a lot of liason too, and at a deeper level a mutual dependence and division of labour evolved: in return for its patronage, missionaries extended the Government's hold over Konds in various ways. (p. 189-190)

Regarding the impact of missionary discourse on the tribal culture, Felix touches on different facets of this issue.

The missionary message was thus often aimed at persuading people of their sinfulness and appealing to their fear of damnation. As a result, a dominant theme in missionary discourse is a contrast between their own self-sacrificing Christianity and the sinfulness of various other groups - pagan Konds and Hindus, as well as Christians of other sects. (p. 200)

The theory here is that Kond religion consists of ignorance and the free expression of savage passions. The metaphors are of combating darkness and clearing the jungle, to 'elevate the Kond' .. The use of singular instead of plural in these passages is significant. It isolates the individual, just as in practice missionaries isolated individuals through teaching and conversion. 'The Kond' is a hapless, demonstrably ignorant specimen of scientific study and missionary persuasion. (p. 211)

Schools were not just a secular addition to Mission work: they were central to it, and it seems that the fundamental aim of Mission schools was to undermine traditional beliefs and inculcate a reformed pattern of behaviour and attitudes, preparing the ground for conversion, and creating a missionized elite among the population, who would see the world as missionaries wanted them to see it, separated from their fellows by many symbols. (p. 219)

So when Konds' language was 'reduced to writing', missionaries made sure its first texts were Christian texts. The same happened with the vast majority of tribal languages in the world. (p. 221)

.. missionaries segregated their converts as far as possible from unconverted pagans ... Orphanages and schools separated Kond children from their communities in many ways. Conversion to Christianity carried this much further, dividing a village with a host of values and symbols. (p. 233)

Felix notes that after independence, the evangelizing missions have been taken over the Indian Christians and the conversions to Christianity among the tribal groups have increased manifold.

Perhaps it would be interesting to see if the Christianity of Indian preachers is in some ways more inclusive of traditional beliefs and ideas of Tribal groups, giving rise to more syncretic versions of the religion?

Conclusions

Personally, at one level, I find frightening the idea of homogenising the different cultures and beliefs of people, substituting their rich world of myths and stories, with a common cultural-religious narrative. In recent years, like the missionaries, certain Hinduttva groups have also pushed for some standardized Hindu narratives in which the rich world of Adivasis gets submerged. At another level, the same happens to Adivasi languages, by the dominance of 'superior' languages, mainly English, but sometimes even Hindi or other Indian languages.

These discussions raise other questions in my mind - are human societies like museums where we need to keep 'pure and uncontaminated' varieties of people's cultures forcing them to live in the stone age, rather than the natural progressive transformation of societies when they meet other people and other cultures?

Felix Padel's book "Sacrificing People" forced me to rethink many of my ideas about tribal population groups in India - I think that many of my ideas were/are indeed shaped by the dominant Western cultural discourse which looks at indigenous people as ignorant and backwards and who need to be civilized.

Often persons advocating for 'development' get angry by any discussions on the rights of tribal people. They believe that such discussions and related protests against exploitation of natural resources in tribal areas are only ways to block 'progress'.

I do agree that sometimes people fighting for rights of indigenous groups have quaint but outlandish ideas about how persons ought to live and about the role of technology in our lives.

However, often 'development' is made only at the expense of the poor and marginalized, ignoring their rights and simple human dignity. It may also be controlled by ruthless groups of shareholders who benefit from a corrupt system. How can we avoid the 'development' that destroys our environment for short term gains? In my opinion, finding a middle ground in such a situation is fundamental.

***

Do films influence life?

I am a big fan of Kajol (though I was a greater fan of her mom Tanuja and her aunt, Nutan). Over the years she has given some wonderful performances. I wish she would do more films.

Recently while speaking at an event Kajol said that "If you say one gets influenced watching a character, I think it's foolish. Cinema reflects society, society rarely reflects cinema .. Movies show whatever happens in the society. For instance, if a hero smokes on the screen, it is because 90 percent of the country smokes and not the other way round. It's stupid to say one gets influenced by watching on the screen."

I don't know if the news correctly reported her words, but I do not agree with Kajol here. Perhaps she can't think objectively because she is from the film industry and has biased views.

Films do influence people

I think that films and famous film stars as celebrities are very good at influencing people. If that was not true, why would companies pay millions to make them as their brand ambassadors and even more specifically, pay to have their product placements in the films? Are all marketing persons in the big companies spending their money in films without being sure that their product in the films will not have any impact on public?

From Sadhana cut hair to Rajesh Khanna style kurta to the motorbikes used by the heroes and Shatrughan Sinha and Rajnikanth's way of flipping cigarettes, all have influenced millions of persons. If you have a child at home and you have seen her dancing with the suggestive gestures of a Chikni chameli or a Badnam munni, you know that films influence people and how much!

So how much can the films influence?

I am not saying that actors and films can change the society. If only it was so easy, films could have helped us to stop female infanticide, stop dowry deaths, increase literacy, stop child labour and stop violence against women. A society takes from films the things that fit that society's values, and if it does not agree with certain things, it may not take them.

Yet, even if certain values are not taken by large parts of society, they can still promote role models and give courage to individuals to fight with the system. That is how biopics like "Bhaag milkha bhaag" or films showing independent young women who fight for their rights, inspire young men and women.

Anti-smoking guidelines for films

Kajol's argument was motivated in part by the current national guidelines that impose putting up an anti-smoking warning over the smoking scenes in films. I agree that to see such warnings while you are watching a film is distracting and a little unpleasant.

Most Bollywood films are about unbelievable characters in unbelievable situations, so there getting an intrusive reality check does not make a big difference! But occasionally in a good film, the anti-smoking warning in the middle of the scene breaks the film's spell. It takes away from the film. And this rule shoould be changed.

However, having said that, I think that film fraternity from Bollywood needs to look inside its own soul and and ask itself some honest questions. The most important question that I would like them to ask themselves is - are some Indian film-makers taking money to show smoking scenes in our films? May be not directly but indirectly?

I am asking this question since big tobacco companies did pay film-makers and actors in Hollywood to smoke. A research article on this theme that appeared in British Medical Journal wrote:

"In all, almost 200 actors took part in the cigarette endorsements, including two thirds of the top 50 box office Hollywood stars from the late 1930s through to the 1940s. Among others, actors Clark Gable, Spencer Tracey, Joan Crawford, John Wayne, Bette Davis, Betty Grable and singer Al Jolson all appeared in endorsements for brands, such as Lucky Strike, Old Gold, Chesterfield, and Camel.American Tobacco alone paid the stars who endorsed Lucky Strike cigarettes US$ 218,750 in the late 1930s, equivalent to $3.2 million in today's money. Individual stars earned up to $5,000 per year, equivalent to around $75,000 in today's money...The authors say that smoking in movies is associated with teens and young adults starting to smoke themselves, but its persistent presence in mainstream films is rooted in the mutually beneficial deals between the film and tobacco industries in the 1930s and 1940s".

This image on the left shows models trying different poses of cigarette smoking in practice for a TV ad in 1953 (picture by Peter Stackpole ) because tobacco companies wanted to promote smoking as sexy and desirable for women.

Internet is full of reports explaining how tobacco companies have ruthlessly used marketing and paid "experts" to continue to sell their products that are marketed as "feel good, enjoy life" kind of products.

Over the last decade, slowly developed countries are making it difficult for tobacco companies to expand their markets and increase profits - in many countires, percentage of smokers is decreasing. Thus, these companies have increased their efforts in developing countries. In India, reports talk of more than 100% increase in smokers over the past decade.

If you think of tobacco companies trying all kind of tricks almost 100 years ago to influence Americans, I think that today they must be trying 100 times worse tricks to influence people in developing countries! 

Role of films in not encouraging smoking

Personally I feel that certain kinds of smoking must be completely stopped from showing in films - no young hero or heroine should be shown smoking as part of school life or college life or with friends or as young professionals, where the underlying message is "smoking is cool, it is ok to smoke for having a good time". I think that India's censor board should be really strict on this, because flashing warnings over such scenes are not enough discouragement.

On the other hand, in my opinion, film makers should have their creative liberty to show smoking if people are in older age groups, or are shown as addicts or having problems or as villains or underworld dons. I think that associating smoking with negative things in films will also discourage smoking among youngsters.

However, if films show the young hero or heroine smoking as has happened in some recent films, I don't think that film-makers can justify it by saying "this scene is essential to my story". Rather, I feel that such film-makers may be taking money from cigarette companies, to do their publicity and influence young people.

Conclusions

Contrary to what Kajol says, majority of Indians do not smoke - according to a World Health Organization survey in 2009, around 12% of Indian smoked. However, that still means a large number of illness and death associated with smoking in India.

And film-makers should work with Government to work in ways that do not promote smoking among young people. Smoking by young people shown in films as "feel good, enjoy" kind of activities must stop completely.

On the other hand, smoking is part of life, to ask film makers not to show any scene with smoking is not realistic. The Government needs to stop insisting that while watching the films we get anti-smoking warnings.

Smoking is not cool, it is dead-cool!

***

Fatal assistance - Reconstruction chaos

"Fatal Assistance", the documentary film by director Raoul Peck, follows the massive destruction in Haiti caused by an earthquake on 12 January 2010. It looks at the promises and the challenges of the country's reconstruction. It paints a dismal picture of the response by the international emergency humanitarian-aid world to the tragedy.

"Fatal Assistance" will be a part of the International Documentary Film festival called "Mondovisioni" that will be held at Kinodromo - Cinema Europa in Bologna (Italy) from January to April 2014. "Fatal Assistance" will be shown on Wednesday 5 March 2014 at 9 PM.

Introduction

Natural disasters like earthquakes, cyclones, floods and landslides and man-made disasters like bombs and wars can cause massive destructions and loss of human lives. The global TV networks and the 24x7 TV news channels provide a trans-national platform to news about such disasters as they occur, showing horrifying images of destruction and human suffering. The reach of the news channels is accompanied by the growth of the social media, so that enterprising individuals can share information, pictures and videos about the events, adding a more personal human element to the far-away news. Usually this results in outpouring of  popular support and donations as people wish to help those affected by the disasters.

A whole "emergency humanitarian aid" industry has sprung-up around natural disasters. Thus industry swings into action as soon as the news breaks out. The roots of this industry are mainly based in the developed world especially in Europe and USA where important humanitarian organisations are based with their offices across the world and with budgets that rival national budgets.

"Fatal Assistance" touches on this theme by focusing on the damages caused to the buildings and homes in Haiti, their impact on peoples' lives and the international humanitarian efforts for their reconstruction.

The Film

On 12 January 2010 a massive earthquake, 7 degrees on the Richter scale, shook Haiti. About 220,000 persons died in the disaster according to the estimates by Haitian Government. Thousands of buildings and homes collapsed in the earthquake. The scenes of the tragedy dominated TV news-screens around the world and countries promised millions of dollars' worth of aid.

An International Commission for Reconstruction of Haiti (ICRH) was formed under the guidance of ex-president of USA Bill Clinton. UN agencies, bilateral government agencies, international emergency humanitarian organisations and NGOs arrived in Haiti to promote the reconstruction and ensure health care, rehabilitation, education and community support.

As months passed, it became clear that aid actually received was a small part of what was promised and it was not enough to cover the cost of US army to clear all the debris of the collapsed buildings and homes. Thus, reconstruction was difficult and extremely limited.

People were forced to come out and occupy whatever open spaces they could find to set up make shift shelters as their homes.

The response by the different agencies and organisations was chaotic. There were many duplications and unnecessary competitions among the organisations in some areas because different organisations had approved projects to carry out the same work - for example, 4 organisations were working on cleaning the same canal. On the other hand, lack of coordination meant that many other areas were left uncovered as no organisation was working there.

Some organisations worked on making new homes. However, this was also not planned properly. In one example shown in the film, a rocky area 18 km away from the city was selected for building homes. It lacked essential services and houses were built without toilets or kitchens, and when it rained, water came inside those houses.

The film also shows the human dimension of the tragedy in different ways - on one hand, important international figures like Clinton and Sean Penn who, in spite of their good intentions, seem to play the role of supermen and heroes, on the other, Haiti's president Preval and prime minister Bellrive, appear powerless in front of the foreigners who have the money and the ideas they wish to implement without talking about them to the locals. In a scene, the Haitian members of ICRH denounce that they are in the commission just in name, they are completely ignored and are not involved in any decisions.

Comments

The film presents a classic textbook case of how not to deal with development work. Unfortunately, in emergency situations, it seems impossible not to fall in the traps of rich donors dictating the kind of "help" they want to give. It is difficult to get out of the chaos because "humanitarian help" is part of countries' foreign policy and trade-commerce related issues are important in the aid-programmes. Thus, millions promised during the emergency, are given through contracts to expatriate companies, who want to earn and for them helping persons is secondary. In the end, large amount of aid-money comes back to them through their own companies.

Interference in the national elections, controlling and deciding without involving local partners, shown in the film are things that are known to all the actors involved in the situation, though they are hidden behind rhetoric and double-speak.

Personally I think that film's message that the money should have been given directly to people, was a little naive. I think that it leads to other problems and tragedies. Corrupt bureaucrats and corrupt politicians on one hand and difficulties of managing huge amounts of sudden cash, both contribute to it.

Local organisations and international NGOs with long history and experiences of working in those communities are both better placed to identify needs and provide appropriate support in emergencies. However they are usually small organisations and can not compete with big multi-national organisations that control the international emergency-aid industry. They are also few and can not respond to the enormous needs that are there in such situations.

Finally I think that nothing can substitute the country's own management capacities and their insistence on coordinating the relief efforts. Ideally they should refuse aid which they can not coordinate. It does become however very difficult to resist the pressures and controls of international organisations, who can bulldoze all the national efforts.

Though the chaos are caused by faulty planning and implementation guidelines and procedures decided in Europe or USA, it is the persons who work at the frontlines for these organisations who take the blame and try to find solutions. The film shows different moments of anguish of such persons, moved by idealism and a desire to help, who find themselves caught between the limits of their roles and their desire to help those whose suffering they are witnessing. They are the ones who salvage the humanitarian aid by their personal humanism and testimony.

***

When Economic Bubbles Burst

Norwegian documentary film When Bubbles Burst (Når boblene brister) by director Hans Petter Moland is about a small town called Vik in Norway that loses its investments, and about their efforts to understand the workings of global economy that led to it. If you are a small investor or a person suffering the impact of global economic crisis, watch this film to understand the issues and to put pressure on your Governments to regulate the banking and financial sectors.

"When Bubbles Burst" will be a part of the International Documentary Film Festival "Mondovisioni" to be held at cinema Kinodromo in Bologna between January to April 2014.

Introduction

The global economic crisis has had a crippling impact on the world's economy since 2008. That crisis is not yet over. It has involved countries like Iceland, Greece, Spain, Italy and Ireland. It has resulted in a prolonged period of recession with loss of jobs and closure of factories in different parts of the world.

This crisis was initiated by the crash of American banking systems due to accumulation of bad debts. At that time, there were talks of saving these banks since otherwise the bank-crash would have wiped out the savings of millions of small investors. At the same time, it was said that banking system was rotten with high level of financial speculation, risky investments, junk bonds, and billions of dollars siphoned off in bonuses to the bankers.

At the end Governments had paid millions of dollars' worth of aid to the banks. However, the proposed reforms of the banking system never took place and many of the major international banks continue to behave as if nothing has changed.

For ordinary persons, it is not easy to understand what had happened and what to expect in future. "When the Bubbles Burst" tries to take an in-depth look at the global economic mechanisms to explain this crisis and to pose some future scenarios, by talking to experts like Joseph Stiglitz, Michael Lewis, Jomo Kwame Sundaram and Carlota Perez.

Film

The film starts in the village of Vik in Norway, an idyllic rural community that dreams of building a tunnel and a road to connect to the nearby town. In 2007, the municipality of Vik had invested the funds for building the road and tunnel in Terra Securities, a "triple A guaranteed savings", through the American Citibank group. However, Terra Securities had turned out to be valueless junk bonds based on bad subprime loans and the municipality had lost all the money.

Two persons from Vik, involved in the investment, travel to USA to try to understand what had happened. The whole film is about their meetings with different experts who explain the why and how of the disconnect between the "financial economy" and "real economy", and how the technological progress has provided the foundation on which speculative financial markets can play "casino" with the banks and economies of the whole world. "Financial economy or the speculative investments are needed and necessary", they say, "because they provide the power to new innovations and development, but they have to be regulated. If financial economy becomes 50 to 70 times real economy, then it is not sustainable and leads to a crash."

They also visit and talk to persons crushed by the financial crisis. The house loans at very low interest rates were given to fuel the financial bubble but with the financial crisis, the value of those houses has decreased by 2/3rds, while people are forced to take loans to pay the bank interests.

They also visit Detroit, a symbol of the economic crisis with its closed and abandoned factories, decaying buildings with broken windows, an apocalyptic vision of the future.

Comments

The film provides an understanding about the diverse and complex factors that influence the creation of economic bubbles and their crashes. The economic crisis is not yet over - it will last another 7-10 years, one expert says. The closure of the crisis will also require regimentation of the financial sector that is resisting to be regulated in any way. Thus the situation may get even worse before a solution will be found, the film says.

One of the most interesting part of the film is the explanation by Carlota Perez about the cycles of expansion and crash of economic bubbles as essential part of our society. Thus economic crisis are "creative destruction", she says.

This is the fifth cycle of technological advancement and economic crisis in modern era, Perez explains. Each cycle takes us into a new golden age of progress. The first cycle was linked to industrial revolution around 1850. It was followed by progress-crisis cycles linked to railways and steam power development and then to the cheap steel linked development that had led to the wall street crash in 1929, followed by the golden age of progress due to constructions in the suburbs, cars, plastics, appliances and cheap oil after the second world war which led to the economic growth of 1960-80s. It had also led to dismantling of financial markets' regulations by persons like Reagan and Thatcher.

Perez explains that each cycle starts with an installation phase, where a new technology comes with the help of few small investors and slowly gathers steam to expand into a financial bubble, leading to the bubble crash and the crisis. This is followed by a golden age of development that requires use of that technology in transforming the society. Her hypothesis is that green economy could be the future for bringing the golden age following the present crisis. However, it would depend upon upon the initiatives of specific Governments to regulate financial economy and to provide support to the direction of the new developments through appropriate policies.

For the construction-car-oil-appliances cycle USA government under Roosevelt had taken lead by providing appropriate policies. For the new cycle of golden age, the experts seem doubtful if the appropriate policies can come from USA or will take place in another part of the world. Thus, the film ends on a hopeful note of a new and better future.

I found the film fascinating for explaining an area of life that I find difficult to understand and also for the way it explains the links between crisis and development.

***

Blood on fire in a cynical world

Dylan Mohan Gray's film "Fire in the blood" moves you and makes you despair for the future of world. It tells the story of more than 10 million people who died due to the uncontrolled greed of Big Pharma. It forces you to think of those other countless millions, who continue to die around the world because of the way the Big Pharma operates. Yet, "Fire in the blood" is a film filled with hope - it inspires you to stand up for your rights and fight for a better world.

"Fire in the blood" will be part of the Mondovisioni, the international documentary film festival, that will be held at Kinodromo, Via Pietralata of Bologna between January and April 2014. You can check the reviews of other films in programme at Mondovisioni festival by clicking here.

Introduction

"Fire in the blood" is the story of persons with AIDS and their fight for medicines. This story illustrates how Big Pharma (ab)used international laws and manipulated governments in ruthless endeavour to increase their profits. This is the same way that big tobacco companies, armaments industry, big oil companies, international mining and petroleum companies, big food and seeds companies, etc. work. Ownership of most of these companies are interlinked.

Any discussions or questions about the modus operandi of these big multi-national corporations are immediately attacked as "communists", "anti-capitalists", "anarchists" and "radicals". Persons who raise these issues are called "against development" and "they want to maintain poverty". In reality the corporations of the Big Pharma are "monopolies disguised as free-market campaigners", they refuse any kind of middle ground and are as extreme as any communist regime they criticise.

Vandana Shiva in a recent article in Guardian had written about this convoluted idea of "development" characterized by the Big Pharma and other corporations as: "A living forest does not contribute to growth, but when trees are cut down and sold as timber, we have growth. Healthy societies and communities do not contribute to growth, but disease creates growth through, for example, the sale of patented medicine. ..Water available as a commons shared freely and protected by all provides for all. However, it does not create growth. But when Coca-Cola sets up a plant, mines the water and fills plastic bottles with it, the economy grows. But this growth is based on creating poverty – both for nature and local communities."

"Big Pharma" towards which "Fire in the blood" points an accusing finger, include companies that sell brand name "blockbuster" medicines such as Pfizer, Roche, Glaxo Smith Kline, Novartis, Merck and Bayer. "The top ten big pharma companies in "Fortune 500" list earn more than the remaining 490 companies combined together, but their greed for money is endless", says Fire in the Blood, "only 5 cents per dollar of what they earn goes back to the research of new medicines."

The film

When the AIDS epidemic broke out in the 1980s, soon Africa became the continent where it affected the most persons. In the initial years, when there were no medicines to control AIDS, millions of persons died all over the world. The first successful treatment of AIDS came out in 1996 but it was very costly - around 15,000 dollars/person/per year - a cost that was not accessible to millions of AIDS patients in the developing world. The new AIDS treatment made of a mixture of drugs, dramatically changed the lives of people in the developed countries, giving them back near normal lives, but only a tiny minority of persons in the developing world had the resources to get these medicines.

Countries like Thailand and Brazil started producing these medicines but these could not be imported to Africa because of patent laws and pressure of countries like USA and European Union. In 2000, Dr Hamied, CEO of an Indian drug company called CIPLA, told a high level meeting of U.N., governments and big Pharma that he can supply those medicines for 350 USD/person/year but his offer was ignored. Activists launched a campaign, but the decision of South African government to import these medicines was blocked with a lawsuit by the big Pharma.

CIPLA made another proposal of reducing costs, offering treatment for 200 USD/person/year. Initially generic medicines from India were attacked as "counterfeit, illegal and low quality". Though Africa provided less than 1% of the income of the big Pharma, it opposed the import of low cost medicines in Africa fearing that such practices will undermine their long term incomes from rapidly developing countries like China and India, and that they might put pressure on companies in US and Europe to reduce the costs in domestic markets.

In 2003 big Pharma and countries like USA and EU bowed to the mounting international pressure and negative public opinion, and stopped their opposition to import of life-saving AIDS drugs in Africa. In the mean time, between 1996 and 2003, when people could have been treated, more than 10 million persons had died needlessly in the developing world.

To avoid similar challenges to its control in future, since 2003 Big Pharma has launched other measures with the support of World Trade Organization and governments of USA and EU  - an international trade agreement called TRIPS, and other bilateral trade agreements. India's patent laws have also been changed so that it can not challenge the Big Pharma.

Comments

I remember participating in different initiatives around the end of 1990s and the beginning of 2000s to talk about the situation of HIV positive persons especially in Africa and their lack of access to the anti-AIDS treatment. I also remember the joy when the Big Pharma had been forced to withdraw its court fight against the import of generic anti-AIDS drugs in South Africa. Still Dylan's film has managed to surprise me by providing new insights in the complex issue of access to medicines and human rights.

Access to medicines has different aspects and point of views. "Fire in the blood" manages to present them in an easy to understand manner by focusing on the stories of the people. It uses a lot of historical footage. It has many well known personalities like former US president Bill Clinton, archbishop Desmond Tutu and the south African icon Nelson Mandela, talking about the issue of medicines. It also presents interviews with different persons who had played a key role in the fight against the Big Pharma like Jackie Achmat and Jamie Love. Photography, music and editing of the film are wonderful.

At the end of the film, it is easy to feel disgusted by the behaviour of the Big Pharma and the support they still manage to get from US and EU Governments. The film makes the point that in spite of all their talks about human rights and high principles, Big Pharma with support from willing governments was responsible for millions of deaths due to lack of access to affordable medicines.

It is also discouraging to understand that though that particular fight was won by ordinary persons, similar fights about other issues such as medicines and life-saving technologies, tobacco, food, seeds and nature are still going on with little attention from the rest of the world.

The ownership of corporations controlling Big Pharma has links with big media companies - they have big institutions, famous names of experts and academics, they use and manipulate concepts like free choice, liberty of expression and free markets through popular and specialized media. They create philanthropy foundations, run beautiful advertisements of the good work they are doing, they "donate" free medicines for the "diseases of the poor" - all the while consolidating their control on lives and deaths of people!

Personally I am not a pessimistic person. I believe that change will come. None of the worst tyrannies of the world has lasted for ever. History shows that when the despots and dictators feel strong, the seeds of their destruction are growing in their bellies. So the reign of the corporations will also end. The question is, while we wait for the change, who is going to pay the price of their reign with their lives?

Do not miss on "Fire in the blood", it is worth watching!

***

Powerless - The Ironman and the Goddess

" Powerless" is an engaging documentary film around the theme of electricity in India. It explores the lives of the urban poor and the impact of electricity shortage. It also looks at how the system makes it so difficult, if not impossible, to bring any kind of reform. It tells the stories of two persons - Ritu Maheshwari, an officer who wishes to bring reform; and Loha Singh, an electricity thief, who looks at himself as a kind of Robinhood. "Powerless" is a powerful film, forcing you to reflect on your ideas of right and wrong.

Ironman and the Goddess

When I saw "Powerless", I was immediately struck by the names of its two key figures - Loha Singh and Ritu Maheshwari. Loha Singh, literally means "Iron Lion" and Maheshwari, the wife of Shiva, is the goddess Shakti in Hinduism. With an anti-hero playing with fire and the lady official, using her power in the hierarchy to bring a change, can be seen as the story of the Ironman and the Goddess.

In the initial part of the film, the two start on the opposite sides - Maheshwari wants to reduce the financial losses caused by the electricity theft and Loha Singh wants to ensure that small entrepreneurs and their workshops can continue to run, even if that means that he steals electricity. As the film proceeds, you realize that both have their hands tied and that both will be used and then abandoned by the system.

Maheshwari is an IAS officer, part of the Indian National Administrative service. To become an IAS officer, you need to go through a tough entrance exam and a selection process. Every year, hundreds of thousands of young graduates from the small towns of India try this entrance test and only a small minority manages to get in. Some of them, like Maheshwari, come with idealism and dreams of reforming the system.

Loha Singh is a barely literate nobody, who has come through a life of informal, low paying exploitative jobs since his early childhood. Circumstances have made him a "katiyabaaz", someone who splices the electric wires. His life is still one of poverty and a daily game of roulette that can end with his death.

Kanpur, the city where Maheshwari and Loha Singh come across each other, with 3 million population is an industrial town on the banks of the river Ganges in the state of Uttar Pradesh (UP) in north India.

Story

Kanpur faces chronic electricity (power) shortage, with long power-cuts that last up to 10-15 hours every day. The electrical infrastructure of the city is grossly outdated with loss of electricity and frequent burnouts. Personnel of the electric supply company ask for bribes from the consumers - bribes are needed for everything, including for manipulating electric bills and supply.

Loha Singh knows how to connect you to the electric lines passing on the streets and if needed, he can steal electricity from your neighbours. He has grown up in the city, starting as a child worker. His clients call him Robinhood - it costs less to pay him than to bribe the personnel of electric company and he responds faster to their needs.

Ritu Maheshwari, an idealistic IAS officer is the new CEO of the electric company, she has just arrived in Kanpur. She wants to reform by mobilizing the personnel, answering the needs of clients, and stopping the electrical losses through theft. Persons with long experience in the company and set in their ways (mostly men), tolerate her with smirks and barely masked contempt, but Maheshwari is persistent, and she refuses to back down.

Many persons in the city and the personnel both are unhappy with Maheshwari's reforms. She is disturbing the status quo without any improvement in electric supply. The summer has arrived and the electricity need is increased. People who have the means, use their own generators increasing the pollution.

Loha Singh does not care about Maheshwari. He knows that officials can come and go, but the city is not going to change.

Election time arrives. Irfan Solanki, a local politician, intervenes, asking Maheshwari to back off. However Maheshwari does not understand the rules of political patronage, and refuses to bend. Solanki thunders about the "arrogant woman who wants to command" in his election campaign and gains public support to win the election. Maheshwari is transferred to another city and the life goes back to the old ways.

Comments

Usually such films are made when such stories are already over and have created some news for some reason. The film-makers collect testimonies, share documents and stage some of the key events for making their documentaries. Some times, on some drammatic real-life events, commercial films can also be made. In "Powerless" it is remarkable that the real-life drammaticity of the whole arc of events has been captured with actual protagonists without staging or fictionalizing anything.

The film has three main characters - the city of Kanpur, Loha Singh and Ritu Maheshwari. It gives us an intimate glimpse into some of the complex issues facing the individuals who need to negotiate their lives in the context of local social, cultural and economic systems. "Powerless" does not explain the complexity, you can glimpse the complexity through the lives of Loha Singh and Maheshwari.

The city of Kanpur in the film is a part of the old city. It is not presented in the kitsch magic realism of Bollywood - rather it is a dystopic post-modern scenario where the city is like a dark urban jungle of decaying houses, dirty spaces of garbage and open drains, with hundreds of electric wires criss-crossing the screen like spiderwebs. The usual joie de vivre between the people in India that usually dominates its congested life spaces, is hardly visible in this film. Rather the spaces are dominated by moments of anger, angst and despair. Large parts of the film have been shot at night, sometimes during power blackouts, that deepens the dark mood of the film.

The continuing feudal mentality of the people, after 60 years of independence of India, comes out when the middle aged man pleading his case and asking for leniency, sits down on his knees and calls the officials "Mai baap" (mother and father). It comes out when the local politician Solanki, shouts at Maheshwari in her office, "Lower that finger, don't you dare, I am the representative of the people."

Loha Singh has the biting carelessness and wistfulness of a man living on the edge. He knows the system and understands that idealistic officers trying to achieve legality are without any hope of success and that his life will continue. He is also aware of his own fragility when he acknowledges that he does not know any other work and has no other options for survival. His hands carry the scars of his daily duels with the naked live electrical wires. He also knows that sooner or later his luck is going to run out and he is going to end with an accident that will kill or disable him.

Ritu Maheshwari has the look of a small town woman. She has a house with a garden and a marble floor. Compared to the dark world of Loha Singh, her life is luxurious (though in comparison with the booming entrepreneur and professional classes of the upworldly mobile India, it would be considered very modest - in fact, few persons from well-off families in India, dream of being part of IAS). She has already been transferred many times but has not yet lost her idealism. In the patriarchal society, women like Maheshwari can be venerated like goddesses at some levels, especially in the media, but at more personal levels and especially with their male colleagues, they are often bitched about as being arrogant or dominating. At the end of the film, she knows that she has lost her fight. Unless she can forget her idealism and learn some of the rules of the game, a life of transfers from one place to another awaits her.

Editing and music are used very well in the film, adding to its quasi-commercial film drammaticity. In fact watching "Powerless" reminded me of a recent commercial film, "Shanghai" (by Dipankar Banerjee, 2012), that had some common elements with it - it was also based in an UP town and had an upright IAS officer. "Shanghai" was about the murder of an idealistic politician who is unwanted because he questions the dominant notions of development and globalization. In that film, the IAS officer manages to extract his revenge from the subservient bureaucracy and the corrupt politicians. Compared to most of the commercial films coming out of Bollywood, "Shanghai" was not bad.

However I prefer "Powerless" because it made me reflect on how each of us, and our interests, influence the system and how that makes it so difficult to change that system! The film's title "Powerless" is about lack of electrical power, but it is also about lack of power in the persons to change the system.

Credits

Directed by Fahad Mustafa and Deepti Kakkar
Assistant director: Jamal Mustafa
Production assistant: Ahsan Iqbal
Associate producer: Leopold Koegler
Cinematographer/editor: Maria Trieb
Editor: Namrata Rao
Music composers: Amit Kilam, Rahul  Ram and Nora Kroll Rosenbaum
Sound designer: Kunal Sharma
Production: Globistan Films along with ITVS and others
Website: http://www.powerless-film.com/ (film stills used above are from this website)

***

Matru, Bijlee and Bhardwaj’s nautanki

Vishal Bhardwaj's new film "Matru ki Bijlee ka Mandola" (MKBKM) revolves around two main themes – a young woman called Bijlee and the land of her village. It is a quirky film with some great funny moments, that touches lightly on the rush for the land grab and "development" in India through an unconvincing love story between a JNUwala and an Oxford returned girl who likes singing rural songs in Haryanvi.

I enjoyed watching MKBKM because of its tongue in cheek and playful way of looking at serious and not-so-serious issues.

Though not unsympathetic to its female characters, the film has a very male gaze at life. It is a film full of male characters who all like to ogle at Bijlee while she goes around in the village wearing hot pants (and even play acts Raquel Welsh in the Bond movie from 1970s, coming out of water like a nymph, with an admiring and applauding crowd like the cricket match in Lagaan. Even an occasional ghunghat covered women stops to look at her.)

Since the film is based in the land of female foeticide and khap-panchayats, its all male lineup of actors makes sense. Like all self-respecting Indian patriarchists, it also has a female chief-minister, around whom they wag their tails.

Main characters of the film

All the charactors of this film are a little inconsistent. They can be charming and fun in one scene, serious and brooding in another and villanous in another. Though all are competent and some are very good actors, its gives the film an air of serious play-acting, as if a group of friends gathered for a party, have decided to act out the different roles for an evening.

Hukum Singh or Matru (Imran Khan) is the bidi-smoking, local-liquor drinking and card playing JNUwala guy who believes in small revolutions. He is not a real communist, in the sense that he does not really hate the class-enemy, oppressor-of-the-poor local zamindaar-cum-industrialist Mandola (or his daughter), he just manipulates him by getting him drunk. His goal of revolution is not to change the system but only to make sure that the farmers' land is not taken away for making SEZ for a Gurgaon-like town full of malls and high rise buildings.

Farmers themselves are more realistic, willing to negotiate the right price to sell their land rather than singing "Mera Bharat Mahaan lives in the villages", but then our revolutionary hero, like all self-respecting maoists, knows what is best for them and does not believe in democratic decision-making.

Matru has his ex-JNU friends-turned-traitors to “the cause”, who work for big multi-nationals, but don't mind smoking bidis and talking with nostalgia about the good old revolutionary student days (it clearly tarnishes the revolutionary reputation of JNU, for which JNUwallas could have asked for a ban on this movie).

Matru also has a hidden life, where he re-reads dog-eared old books in the darkness of the night. It is hidden because he is never shown reading anything, except when he borrows the Shakespeare book from Bijlee. We see a glimpse of this hidden life, when Matru feels that he has failed in his revolution and packs his old battered suitcase with these books, presumably for going somewhere else for another revolution.

Yet a revolutionary or not, when our Bijlee bats her pretty eyelashes at him, he can't do anything except to accept his destiny of being a hero and kiss the heroine. He does try, weakly, to safeguard his ideals and refuse marriage to the rich industrialist's daughter because "I am a servant", but fortunately, the director decides that it is time to end the film, so no body listens to him.

Harphool Singh Mandola or Harry or Mr. Mandola (Pankaj Kapoor) must have read Suketu Mehta's "Extreme city", so he mumbles something that sounds like "bhenchod" in every sentence. He is also Mr. Jekyl and Mr. Hyde, and his change of personality is induced by alcohol, preferably a country liquor called Gulabo, that comes in what looks like a beer bottle and has the logo of a pink coloured cow. When he is sober, mostly in the mornings, he is a cold-hearted, calculating industrialist, who dreams of buying the farmers' land and making the Gurgaon-like Mandola Town. However, he is also a closet JNUwalla maoist, and this part of his personality comes out in the night, when he drinks and shouts slogans against cold-hearted enemy of the villagers.

It is difficult for him to give up drinking, because there is no AA branch in Mandola and also because Matru makes sure that temptations are always there around him. When he does try to give up drinking, he has delirium tremens, during which he hallucinates about pink-coloured cows. You can wonder why he does not get delirium tremens in the mornings when he plays nasty-screw-you-all industrialist, but that is besides the point. The prosperous looking doctor’s wife (Navneet Nishan), dressed in pink tights, takes those pink cows in his hallucinations as a reference to her figure.

His world revolves around Bijlee, but he is willing to get her married to the silly son of the chief minister, just to make the right alliance, that will make him more powerful and rich.

Badal (Arya Babbar) the chief minister's son, is supposed to be stupid and a villain, someone who does not understand the finer points of life. Yet, he is stupid only when it suits the script.

I loved this guy, because to show-off his love for Bijlee, he brings her a group of Zulu dancers from South Africa on a 30 years lease.

These African dancers, looking as strange in the Haryana village, as any of those white blonds and redheads who dance as high-class extras in Hindi films, are at least different as they are dark-skinned and their dance is very African. May be Vishal Bhardwaj wanted to pull the legs of some Hindi directors who have European girls to play the role of traditional Indian woman (recently a film even had a Ms.UK playing a Kerala girl because “she suited the role”).

There are other scenes where Badal comes out as a person who understands the need to manipulate and to use people, hardly the signs of a well-meaning stupid-rich guy that people like Matru and Harry call him.  Like the scene, where his mother (Shabana Azmi), explains her strategy about how to make fools of people for cornering more wealth and power, and Badal smiles and applauds ironically. Or the scene near the end, when he defends Bijlee when her father discovers her playing lovey-dovey with Matru.

I could understand why Matru thinks that Badal is stupid – because he did not study at JNU – but why do Harry and even Badal’s mother feel that he is stupid, is not clear. May be because he genuinely seems in love with Bijlee and is not ruthless enough?

In the meetings, villagers of MKBKM are almost all men, except for Naseeban, who is a transgender person. There some fleeting shots of a few woman standing near their homes. May be Bhardwaj wanted to remind Haryana guys that if they go on with their female foeticide and infanticide drives, the only women they are going to get are like Naseeban. Actually he could have also shown a couple of village guys with wives who speak Bengali, Bihari or Nepali, to underline the bride-buying from other parts of India, because there are not enough marriageable women in some parts of Haryana.

Coming to the female characters in MKBKM, Bijlee (Anushka Sharma), the girl around whom the story revolves, has the least defined role in the film. The girl had insisted on going to study in Delhi and then in Oxford, but to study what? She seems content enough to follow her father’s plan to marry Badal, even if she also thinks that he is shallow and stupid.

She also seems content to take bath in the village pond and to play with old bicycle tyres in the village wearing hot pants. May be she did feminism studies in Oxford and has taken it as her life’s mission to use her dominant social position as zamindar’s daughter to bring out Haryanvi men from the medieval period into twenty-first century?

In her farm-house party, with other city guys and women, Bijlee chooses to sing a rural song, “oye-bhai oye bhai charlee” sung by Rekha Bhardwaj, hardly the song or the voice for the party of a Oxford-returned young girl and her rich friends!

Apart from the pink-wearing doctor’s wife, the only other female character of MKBKM is the scheming-plotting chief minister Chowdhury Devi (Shabana Azmi). Though she tells her son to get married to Bijlee only to get hold of her property and then to kill her off, she hardly looks and sounds like the vamp she is supposed to be. Her scheming and plotting look like play acting, she is too soft with the officials (like the scene in the beginning, where collector, police inspector and her secretary are all drunk and vomiting), and her eyes never exude the meanness she is supposed to have (though I must confess my weakness for the lady for past many decades, ever since I saw her pounding the grain in "Ankur", so I can't be objective about "Shabby Ass"!).

With Harry, as they stand on the top on hillock and talk of their future plans, she is indulgent, loving and almost poetic, hardly a ruthless politician.

Naseeban, the transgender person (which actor is it?) is treated with empathy in MKBKM. In Bollywood, usually transgender persons have been used for some songs or sometimes for films on prostitution and mafia gangs. In their rare "proper roles" in Bollywood, they are usually some kind of perverts or killers. In MKBKM, for a change, Naseeban is close friend and confidante of the hero. She is his mouth-piece, when he wants to speak to the villagers as Mr. Mao.

Synopsis

Harry Mandola wants to take the villagers' land and build a township. For power and money, he wants his daughter Bijlee to get married to the son of the chief minister, who helps him in getting the land earmarked as "special development zone" (SEZ), so that he can get investments and not pay taxes. His driver, Hukum Singh, is a hidden maoist, who incites villagers to find ways to sell their produce without intermediaries, pay their loans and save their land. Harry has other plans to make the villagers poorer, so that they are forced to sell their lands. However Bijlee has fallen in love with the maoist driver-cum-hero and decides to help him and the villagers.

Comments

All the persons in MKBKM are a kind of make-believe people that superficially look real, in a make-believe place, that superficially resembles Haryana. It is a fake-realism film. None of the main characters is consistent. They are all out to have a good time, doing a kind of sophisticated nautanki, a kind of  theatre of absurd.

Thus there are scenes, if taken individually, that look very realistic. Like the scene where a drunk Harry begs his daughter to give him alcohol. Bijlee tries to reason with him, bares her anguish and emotions, but like many alcoholics, the only thing that Harry understands is his need for alcohol and manipulates her emotions to run away with the drink. By itself, this scenes is realistic and very well acted. There are other scenes like the airplane scene that are more of a farce, though they are also well acted (I think that it is impossible to make Pankaj Kapoor look unconconving doing anything!). But seen as a whole, the graphs of characters are not coherent. For example, Harry behaves completely differently a few scenes later, when he play-acts to be drunk and is able to resist alcohol, because “he has sworn on his daughter’s name”.

No one is really a classical all-black villain in the story. Even the chief minister and her ridiculed son, join in the last song-and-dance routine, to show that they were play acting to be bad. Rather, Bhardwaj makes fun of all his main characters - the pro-industry-and-development group versus the community-environment-empowerment group, highlighting their contradictions.

This does not mean that there is no undercurrent of reality, necessary to call the film a satire. This undercurrent of reality is there in the ordinary viciousness of public officials, their willingness to lick the butts of those in power and to wrench out the guts of those for whom they are the mai-baap. The mad rush for the land grab under the cloak of “development”, for raping and looting the earth, unmindful of the destruction of people’s lives and of environment, is real enough.

“How did you show this land as barren and unused in the map, appropriate for making SEZ?”, the naïve chief minister asks the collector as she looks at the sprawling green fields. The collector with his greasy knowing smile says wryly, “Madam, there was nothing there for three years when it had not rained. This year unfortunately it has rained.”

That undercurrent of reality is an unconscious message that you take home with you, because the film touches very lightly on it. Most of the time, it lets you see that world as make believe, where we are smiling about the antics of a drunk man and his driver, running on a motorcycle or flying away in a small private aeroplane.

In one scene, TV reporters ask a young guy called Nainsukh, the only "eyewitness" of the landing of an UFO in Mandola village, to share his experience. And he talks about his crap. That seems to be message of the film. That the system, the media, the so-called development, but also some of people fighting for justice, are just crapping. Reality is hidden behind that crap, and you need to figure it out.

I am looking forward to watching this film again.

***

Breaking through the class ceiling

Indian society is made of hierarchies of class. We keep on judging persons and mentally classifying them if they are above us, at our same level or are below us. It happens inside our families, in our work places, when we go out, when we meet someone. This classification decides how we behave with them.

I am arguing that this class-based mindset is a barrier to development of India.

For the past few days, since the 23 year old girl was brutally raped and dumped from a moving bus in Delhi, I have been reading about the growing public outrage and protests, as well as, the reflections of persons about it.

For example, Shoma Chaudhury from Tahelka has written in her opinion piece:

THE SURGING outrage at the gangrape of a paramedic in New Delhi this week is welcome and cathartic. But it is also terrifying. There’s a fear that this too shall fade without correctives. But there is also a question we must all face: why did it need an incident so unspeakably brutal to trigger our outrage? What does that say about our collective threshold as a society? Why did hundreds of other stories of rape not suffice to prick our conscience?

The harsh truth is, rape is not deviant in India: it is rampant. The attitude that enables it sits embedded in our brain. Rape is almost culturally sanctioned in India, made possible by crude, unthinking conversations in every strata of society. Conversations that look at crime against women through the prism of women’s responsibility: were they adequately dressed, were they accompanied by a male protector, were they of sterling ‘character’, were they cautious enough.

Something about these discussions in the newspapers and magazines has intrigued me – while talking about the victim of the rape, they always add that she is “a paramedic”. Initial newspaper reports had talked about her being “a medical student”. Later on, reporters must have discovered other information and had become more specific – the girl is not a medical student but a paramedical course student.

How does it matter if the girl who is raped is a medical student or is studying to be a lab technician or a nursing assistant? And, why do newspaper or magazine have to specify it every time they write about it? Isn’t it enough to say “a young girl”? or a university student?

I can understand that when the news broke out, newspaper had to provide some information about the girl and her background. But why do they need to keep on specifying it, or rather, defining the girl in terms of her studies?

I feel that one of the reasons why we keep on specifying the study course of that girl is because we are very class-conscious. After visiting a number of countries in different continents, I think that Indian society is one of the most class-conscious societies in the world.

Perhaps the most defining criteria of this class consciousness is persons’ socio-economic background, their professions, incomes, etc. We behave differently with people who work as waiters, drivers, security guards, domestic helpers, cleaners etc. compared to how we behave with people higher up in hierarchy.

However, there are many other criteria to classify people and to calculate their relative place in the world around us. Gender is one such criteria, women are lower in hierarchy. If women claim higher hierarchical space, because of their socio-economic status, as soon as there is an opportunity, men placed lower down on their hierarchy, feel justified to “put them in their place”. Groping, violence and rape are some ways of putting women in their place.

Caste is another criteria for defining your place in the hierarchy of the Indian society. Comparatively, some attention has been given to issues related to caste discrimination. For those placed in the lowest margins of the caste system, parts of Indian society have asked for the removal of untouchability and affirmative action for their inclusion in areas of education and livelihood. However, we do not seem to have any problems with caste system if these "extremes" can be corrected. I wonder if only overcoming the stark discriminations against Dalits, would make the remaining caste-based hierarchies acceptable?

The language we speak, and the clothes we wear are other markers of our place in the social hierarchy. In “English Vinglish”, Shashi (Sridevi) says with a wry smile, “Important things are discussed only in English.” If you can’t speak English properly, you lose your place in the social hierarchy in India. Just a look at the smug publicity of “English medium” schools and the demand for “convent school educated” brides in the matrimonial columns is enough to state the obvious superiority of English. Even the poor and the uneducated persons know this and are willing to make sacrifices so that their children can repeat English nursery rhymes.

Every now and then I receive congratulatory messages from friends and acquaintances for “writing in Hindi”. I don’t know if there is another country in the world, where people are congratulated for their skills in writing or talking in their mother tongue, and where not being able to speak properly in the mother tongue is seen as sign of higher social status.

If Hindi is much lower compared to English in our social hierarchy, Hindiwallas look disdainfully at those who speak Maithili or Bhojpuri. Speaking sanskritized Hindi or refined Urdu is higher social status marker compared to those speak ordinary Hindustani.

Being from a big city, compared to being from a hinterland city or worse, being from a village, the colour of your skin, etc. are also markers of social status. This list of criteria for defining your place in social hierarchy goes on and on.

Unfortunately, these differences are not about human diversity, but they affect every aspect of our lives. For example, they determine, the kind of jobs you can have, the kind of news-worthiness you will have, and how the Indian system will treat you in your daily life.

There have been many social reformers in India who have spoken about the negative role of untouchability and caste exclusion, but there has been much less debate about the our rigid class-hierarchies and the impact these have on our lives and on our nation. One exception to this was Swami Vivekanand. Mr. Pranav Mukherjee, president of India, recently wrote in an article in the Week about the 150 birth anniversary of Swami Vivekanand:

Before he went to America in 1893, Swamiji spent a few years travelling all over India as a wandering monk. During these travels he was deeply moved by the destitution and backwardness of millions of ordinary Indians. However, he also saw that, in spite of poverty, the ancient spiritual culture was a powerful force in their lives. Swamiji concluded that the real cause of India's backwardness was the neglect and exploitation of the masses who produced the wealth of the land…Swamiji was intensely pained at the caste discrimination prevalent in India and full of sympathy for the poor and suffering of all nations, castes and creeds. He held the neglect of the masses and the subjugation of women to be the two causes of India's downfall.

Living in India, often it is difficult to become aware of these class hierarchies that permeate our lives. They are so pervasive and ingrained in our minds that they look like “natural phenomenon”, something god-given and thus, impossible to change.

Everyone in this system has some one else who is lower in some kind of hierarchy from them. While we chafe at the highhandedness and callousness of those above us, we are equally brutal in our behaviour towards those who we perceive as lower than us.

How can we break these barriers? Can India truly develop without breaking down these barriers?

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Firoze Manji: The Voice of Africa

Firoze Manji is founder and editor of Pambazuka News, a newsletter with articles, news and links about different countries, people, civil society organisations and movements of Africa. Pambazuka News provides weekly information and links to articles on new developments in Africa in English, French and Portuguese by email. You can also read Pambazuka News along with its archive of hundreds of articles on its website.

Recently I interviewed Firoze through email for an article in the AIFO magazine. So this interview will appear in Italian in the issue of June 2012.

I think that for all persons interested in development issues in Africa and in reading and listening to the more important voices of African thinkers and civil society leaders, Pambazuka News is one of the most important gateways. I join Firoze in asking you to become friends of Pambazuka and help in maintaining it independent.

Here is the interview

Sunil: How did the idea of Pambazuka came and how was the idea turned into reality?

Firoze: Pambazuka News was the serendipitous offspring of a programme established to harness ICTs for strengthening the human rights movement in Africa. Its birth was intimately intertwined with an attempt to develop distance learning materials for civil society organisations in Africa. In 1997, Fahamu (ndr: an African network of civil society organisations with offices in Kenya, South Africa and Senegal) set out to examine how developments in information and communications technologies can be harnessed to support the growth of human rights and civil society organisations in Africa. Like many others, we saw the potentials opening up with the growth in access to the internet. One of the outcomes was that we began receiving requests from human rights and other civil society organisations for assistance in finding information on the web, and with disseminating information about their own work.

Initially, we responded on a case-by-case basis, sending off the results of searches or disseminating by email information we had received from others to those on our modest contacts list. But soon the demand became overwhelming. We simply could not respond to all the requests we received.

We decided to establish Pambazuka News as a means of sharing information relevant to the this constituency, but rather than just send out information, we decided also to include op-eds that would provoke reflections about the potentials for freedom and justice in Africa. From a small base of subscribers in December 2000, Pambazuka News has grown rapidly with 28,000 subscribers, and an estimated readership approaching one million. Today we publish some 20-30 articles every week, with contributions from more than 3200 authors across the continent and the African diaspora.

We have published some 580 issues of the English edition of Pambazuka News over the 11 years of our existence. And four years ago, we started publishing a French language edition, and two years ago a Portuguese language edition.

Pambazuka News is used widely by activists, commentators, social movements, alliances and networks to foster debate, disseminate analyses and share information. We monitor some 250 websites related to Africa, and publish summaries every week of some 100 sites.

Sunil: What are the biggest challenges Pambazuka has faced since its inception

Firoze: Perhaps the greatest challenge we have faced has been to keep up with the demand from the growing constituencies that depend on Pambazuka News as an advocacy tool as well as to get an African progressive perspective on Africa and world affairs. To respond to these demands means that we need the necessary resources, and those are hard to find.

There are very few funders who fully understand the importance of what we do, despite the fact that most of them depend on Pambazuka News as a source of analysis and information. And with the growing African awakening that we have written about in our recent book "African Awakening: the emerging revolutions", there is a critical need for Pambazuka News to grow and provide support for the struggles for freedom and justice taking place across the continent.

Which is why we have decided to turn to our readership: we have asked our readers to join the Friends of Pambazuka and to donate to keep Pambazuka free and independent.

Sunil: In which ways Pambazuka has changed and evolved since the beginning?

Firoze: Pambazuka News has grown substantially in terms of the amount of coverage provided as well as the quality of the articles. We have attracted some of the leading thinkers across the continent to write commentary and analyses, while a the same time providing a platform for social movements such as Abahlali base Mjondolo in South Africa and the Bunge la Mwaninchi in Kenya.

We have produced radio programmes as well as podcasts and multimedia materials such as the 'Burden of Peace", a documentary on violence against women during the post-election violence in Kenya. In 2008 we expanded our operations to including a book publishing enterprise - Pambazuka Press. Today, Pambazuka News is produced by staff in Senegal, Kenyam South Africa and UK.

Sunil: Who are the most popular writers or star writers at Pambazuka?

Firoze: There are many 'star writers' such as Mahmood Mamdani, Sokari Ekine, Samir Amin, Horace Campbell, Issa Shivji and many others who are well known - but we are proud that there are many regular contributors from social movements and the activist community who also write and who enrich the dialogue, debates and analyses that appear in Pambazuka News.

Sunil: Any information campaigns launched by Pambazuka that resulted in change on the ground?

Firoze: Perhaps the best known campaigns was the support we provided to the campaign for the ratification of the Protocol on the Rights of Women in Africa, coalition of some 30 regional organisations, producing special issues profiling important aspects of the protocol as well as publishing a 6-part radio soap opera in English, French, Portuguese and Kiswahili.

We also developed and hosted a petition on the Pambazuka News website in support of women’s rights that involved the development of an SMS function that enabled people to sign the petition by SMS and receive SMS updates about the campaign. This campaign led to the fastest ratification of any international instrument in the history of Africa - today more than 30 countries in Africa have ratified the protocol.

Sunil: How does Pambazuka reach out to French and Portuguese speaking Africa?

Firoze: We publish a French and Portuguese language edition of Pambazuka News. Originally we thought that these editions would be merely translations of the English edition, but in practice these are distinct editions, with articles originated in those languages. As a result, the three editions of Pambazuka News contain articles that have been cross translated from each other.

Sunil: Is there going to be a Kiswahili Pambazuka?

Firoze: I would hope so. There are certainly demands for a Kiswahili edition, but this will require raising resources to make that possible. We also want to develop an Arabic language edition of Pambazuka News, and are trying to raise the necessary resources for that.

***

How to become a fighter?

I was in Bidar district in north Karnataka (India), to evaluate the disability programme of ORBIT an organisation working for different groups of marginalized persons and watershed management. I went around the villages to meet the self-help groups of disabled persons.

Faint echoes of the anti-corruption campaign launched by Anna Hazare reached us, while I had my personal encounter with the small level corruption that permeates the life in India. It was difficult to find someone completely blameless in the corruption cycle. Is corruption justified if you are so poor that you can't have a life of dignity?

The Indian law asks for 3 percent of Panchayat budget to be reserved for persons with disabilities and persons with certified disabilities have right to receive pension, based on the degree of disablement.

"Persons in the Panchayat want bribe for giving any funds from the 3% reserved budget", "to get disability certificate you have to pay bribes", "to get disability pension they ask for bribes", were the frequent refrains. But persons asking for bribes were not just petty officials who rule the village lives. They were also village rehabilitation workers, persons who also had disability and who knew the challenges faced by other disabled persons in those villages.

And the poor disabled persons in the villages, if they could, were some times happy to manipulate and tell lies, so they could get additional benefits. How do you eliminate this corruption that does not spare anyone?

"But you are not few, if you all unite and ask for your rights, can't you fight this corruption?", I asked to one group headed by a small woman with sandalwood marks on her forehead, whose son was disabled.

"Alone we can't do any thing. We are weak and we need your help", she said and other persons in her group nodded in agreement.

Yet there were persons like Hashmat Bi, an elderly woman heading a group in another village. A childless first wife who also had disabilities due to leprosy, she had an infectious laugh. "I always fight, till they give up", she said simply, a natural leader. The bus drivers didn't want her and other disabled persons in their buses, but she fought till they gave in. Panchayat and district officers, in the end everyone gave in to her determined fights. In their group, everyone gets pension and she has used the Panchayat funds for starting different schemes in their village.

How can you make people become fighters for their rights like Hashmat Bi?

***

Rahul Bose - Florence Interviews (2)

Rahul Bose, 43 years old, is known for his subtle and understated roles in many films such as Mr. and Mrs. Iyer, The Japanese Wife, Shourya, etc. He had directed "Everybody says I am fine" and is supposed to direct, "Moth smoke" (based on a book by Mohsin Ahmed). He has also played in the Indian national Rugby team for many years.

I had the opportunity to meet and interview Bose during the River to River film festival in Florence (Italy) in December 2010. In the festival there was four of his films - Split wide open, Every body says I'm fine, The Japanese wife and I am. I had spoken to him before "I am" was shown in the festival.

Here is a transcript of my talk with him, that focused mainly on his work with voluntary organisations and only briefly touched some issues related to his films.
***

Sunil: I am curious about your role in Onir's "I Am". I know the screen play of "I am" because I did the Italian subtitles of of that film. It has four stories - Afie, Megha, Abhimanyu and Omar. In which of these four stories you play a role?

Rahul: I am in "Omar" but I am not Omar, I have the other guy's role.

Sunil: Can you say something about this role?

Rahul: This part deals with homosexuality, related to the judgement on the abolition of section 377, which decriminalized homosexuality in India. My part of the film looks at that. It looks at life before the judgement and after the judgement. It is about the discrimination and terror inflicted on homosexuals.

Sunil: This is not your first time with Onir, you were also there in "Bas ek pal"?

Rahul: No, this is my first time with Onir.

Sunil: I read your article in Tehalka magazine a few months ago, about raising funds through an auction. Then I also read about some work that you did in leading a group of non-governmental organisations (NGOs) in Bombay.

Rahul: That was the "group of groups". We had formed it after the tragedy of 26/11 so that we could get together and speak with one voice to the Government. There were a lot of groups that were speaking at that time, but we were all speaking with different voices. So our attempt was to get everyone together. We had worked very hard and in the end we had 52 groups under one umbrella. But like all things, the work needed to keep something like this going on, is so tremendous that after about 6 months, it fell apart.

Sunil: What kind of things this group was trying to achieve?

Rahul: So many issues linked to 26/11, like asking for police reforms ..

Sunil: In the sense of the outcry that happened after 26/11?

Rahul: Yes, but we wanted to give it a more secular and tempered response, by looking ahead and not reacting in a knee-jerk manner by blaming people and other nations unnecessarily. So it's aim was to try to speak in one voice and to speak in a temperate reasonable voice as citizens of a city that wants to say things to the Government ..

Sunil: But the kind of things that are allowed to happen in Bombay, they are so negative, and where Government does not step in, it does not do anything to stop those groups .. so what can you expect from that kind of Government?

Rahul: Whatever the Governments do or don't do in Maharashtra, it is important that they are made aware that there is an active citizenry that is watching, controlling and is going to speak about it. Just doing that is important. I am not saying that it made a big difference, but our idea was to tell them that we are here, we are listening and watching, and that we are angry. We want good governance.

We don't need 26/11 to ask for better governance. The city has had a very patchy record of good governance. Politically it is a hot bed.

Sunil: Tell me about your foundation.

Rahul: My foundation is called "The Foundation". I was raising money for this foundation through India's first sports' auction. We had 25 pieces from 25 Indian world champions, and we raised money for the foundation.

Sunil: What does the Foundation do?

Rahul: It has two initiatives - REACH and HEAL.

REACH is about restoring equality though education for advancement of children. We have given scholarships to 6 children in Andaman and Nicobar islands, to study at the Rishi Valley school outside Bangalore. The idea is to empower children, who otherwise would never leave their communities. They are getting education at a world class institution, so that they can one day get into mainstream of India's economic life and hopefully they will also take their learnings to their communities, or they can go anywhere in the world. But we never see anyone from Andaman Nicobar in any jobs in mainland India. So it is my wish that these children will become a bridge between people.

But there are different ways to do it and there are different questions. One way could be to build world class schools in Andaman and Nicobar, but then that won't really bring those children out of Andaman to go to the rest of India and become part of mainstream economic life.

Now we are looking at supporting children from another part of the country that is also disfranchised, we want to send children from there to world class schools. The schools have to be chosen carefully and the entire thing takes almost a year to be organised.

The other initiative is HEAL - help eradicate abuse through learning. It is about sexual abuse of children. 53% of all Indian children have some kind of sexual abuse.

Sunil: What kind of data you looked up on this issue? It sounds huge, like almost every second person in India is sexually abused?

Rahul: It is a police data, and it is absolutely shocking. Like most other countries, these are hidden statistics.

Sunil: How long you have been involved in the NGO work? How did it start?

Rahul: I have been involved in it since 2002, after the Gujarat riots. At that time, I began to work with a gender based NGO in Mumbai called Aksharma that worked together with Muslim girls and some Hindu girls, mainly dalits. The idea was to educate them with values of secularism and to empower them slowly, slowly expand their social orthodoxies so that they could attain some kind of status in their communities.

Sunil: This kind of involvement in different issues, has it changed the way you look at those issues, between 8 years ago when you started and today?

Rahul: Yes, completely. I went into it with good intentions but with little knowledge. As you start to understand how social orthodoxies work, you start to respect the need to change things very slowly without antagonising the other side. For example, you don't want to antagonise the men in a girl's family. She has to go back and live with them, so it has to be done in a way that creates consensus, slowly. There can't be gender equality without men.

One learns, especially in India, that there are complex problems within the problems. It could be income, it can be health. You suddenly realize that the woman can't go out of the house because she is not well, she does not get right kind of food. India is a deeply humbling place, you think that you know things, but you don't. You start appreciating that to bring about any change, you need a long long time and it is never permanent, you always have to go back and look.

Sunil: The children you are supporting in Andman and Nicobar, they come from indigenous families?

Rahul: No, only one of them is half tribal. Out of 550,000 persons in Andmans and Nicobar, only about 35,000 are tribal and so there are about 8,000 tribal children. Rest of the persons came there in different waves of migration. All the children that we support come from modest socio-economic backgrounds.

Sunil: I am asking so many questions about your NGO work, because I work in a NGO too, an organisation that deals with persons affected with leprosy and disabled persons. I just came back from Guwahati, two days ago.

Rahul: I became familiar with Andamans after the tsunami. I made 23 trips there over a period of two and a half years, to organise relief and rehabilitation. I was representing a network of organisations called the Solidarity Initiative. We managed to do a few concrete things on the ground and it was satisfying.

Sunil: So many issues you are talking about and specifically in terms of secularism, how did you get there? What made you think about these issues in these terms?

Rahul: I think that part of it is do with the way I grew up. My family, the city, the milieu .. Bombay, where I grew up .. my friends - like I never asked why Nasir was Muslim, Vinay was a U.P. Brahmin, Cyrus was a Parsi. They were and remain my childhood friends. At that time, in our upscale economic circle, religion didn't play an important role. But it changed in 1992, when there was popular religious resurgence from all sides ..

Sunil: After the Babri Masjid thing?

Rahul: Not just that, it happened on all sides. Today we also have Christian fundamentalism, we have Hindu terror. You can see that today terror is polarised along religious lines.

Sunil: Let us leave this line of discussion, and to conclude, let me go back to the films. Your image has been that of an understated kind of actor, so I was a little surprised when I had seen "Split wide open", it was pleasant kind of surprise that you can play loud characters also.

Rahul: Thanks.

Sunil: Among all the roles that you have played, have there been characters that you didn't like becoming? Characters that made you feel uneasy?

Rahul: It was my role in Thakshak.

Sunil: The villain's role?

Rahul: It took me to some ugly places in my heart and I was afraid to be that ruthless psychopath, a complex person. It was very different, mentally very different from me as a person. Even the character in "Everybody says I'm fine" was very challenging.

Sunil: What was your role in "Everybody says I'm fine", I had seen it long time ago and I don't remember it.

Rahul: I was the actor who has no work, a flamboyant character who wears all kinds of weird clothes. And, all his lies about how successful he is. (Smiling) In real life, I am not very successful, but I don't lie about it.

Sunil: But you are successful, especially in your own particular kind of cinema.

Rahul: Yes, I am happy.

Sunil: You also had some mainstream films. But were they not commercially successful?

Rahul: Hardly any of my films have been commercially successful! Perhaps Shourya, Chameli, Pyar ke side effects and Jhankar Beats had some commercial success. Two of my Bengali films, Antaheen and Anuranan had success in Calcutta, they ran for 100 days.

Sunil: And you are recognised as a good actor ..

Rahul: So I am happy ..

Sunil: OK, thanks Rahul for this chat. I greatly enjoyed it.

Note
I think that I was too much taken up by his work with NGOs that I forgot to ask all other things. Yet, I am happy that I spoke to him about NGO work and other social issues. He came across as a sensible and articulate person.

If I had more time, I would liked to talk more about their scholarship for poor children from marginalised groups such as from Andaman and Nicobar islands. I would liked to share ideas and experiences of organisations that I have visited in many countries that are concerned about making sure that children from marginalised groups are not made to feel ashamed about their original cultures and that strive to keep strong links between the children and their original communities.

I also wanted to know more about his parents, his schools, the things that influenced and molded him as a person, but there was no time for it.

If you have not read his Tehlaka article, I suggest that you read it. He writes really well.

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