Why the Budget has Come as a Surprise to the Corporate Sharks?

IT WAS amusing to watch the free fall of sensex on the budget day even as Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee was going ahead reading out his pro-poor, pro-welfare proposals. It was amusing the corporate sharks were so disappointed with the budget, as they were expecting the earth and heavens this time.

I think there was another reason too for the disappointment with the Government and the sensex reaction on the budget day. From the day the Manmohan Singh Government was known to have won the poll, there was a concerted effort on the part of the corporate media and its in-house intellectuals and opinion-makers to present the victory as the vindication of the neo-liberal, pro globalization policies of the Government.

In fact, there was an effort to run down the pro-poor policies that the Government had undertaken as of no consequence. In fact some of these policies, mainly the National Rural Employment Generation programme, were written off as a concession to the left parties who were supporting the Government. Since the Government had received sufficient numbers this time, they had no reason to seek left support and so it was time to go for a an all out, no holds barred free run for the capital, it was argued. They had even set an agenda for the Government and I remember some of the national channels spent a lot of prime time promoting this special agenda of their choice.

But the budget proposals give out the clear message that the Congress has a leadership which is more sensible and more down to earth than some of our corporate media chaps could ever imagine. In fact, the Government has proved two things:

First, that the Congress would actually claim the goodwill that the past pro-poor actions has generated and would continue to keep on this line because it is a sure vote winner at least for the time being.

Secondly, it would not allow the left to arrogate the pro-poor image that they had enjoyed so long and claim credit for all the pro-poor actions that the past government had undertaken. It is evident that Pranab Mukherjee has gone further in this budget even without the much hyped prodding from the left this time.

And the consequence of this is very serious: The left on the one hand, is losing the constituency they had among the poor with their actions like land grab and violence on the poor in places like Singur, Nandigram and Lalgarh, while, on the other, the Congress generally has been able to steer clear of such violent confrontations. They are emerging better managers of political and economic crises while the comrades seem to have lost themselves with no clear policy framework.

A Note on My New Book on Society, Culture and Globalization

MY NEW book, a collection of essays on culture, media and the process of globalization and its impact, was released in Kozhikode this evening by poet and friend Civic Chandran.

The book is called Charithranubhavangalude Koodumattom: Aagoleekaranam, Samooham, Samskaram and it is published by Thejas Publications, Kozhikode. I am indebted to Prof P Koya, editor of Thejas, and K P Kamal, publications manager, for making this possible.

The book contains 16 essays that I wrote in several publications and journals like Samakalika Malayalam varika, Madhyamam weekly, Patabhedam and other small magazines during the period from 1997 to 2007. This is a period in which I underwent a series of transformations in my intellectual and political life, my firm conviction that the Marxist politics that I upheld from the seventies would eventually succeed in building a new, egalitarian and secular India slowly eroded and in its place the explorations for a new politics slowly emerged. I do feel these essays would provide a graphic picture of this transformation and the search for something new, something which is more deeply embedded in our social and cultural history. Perhaps it is now taking the shape of a politics based on identity and its socio-cultural and economic aspects.

But even as I think identity could be the new marker for our political associations for empowerment of the dispossesed sections, I do believe the fundamental Marxist principles of the economic base of a society and social divisions would still remain valid. What we do need is the integration of these two aspects which would held us evolve a new politics that would be truly people-oriented, and would ensure a more egalitarian and truly secular society for all of us.

I try to give a broad outline of such a society and its culture in the making and I do feel in the coming years we will see it much more clearly as the new forces now slowly emerging would become much more assertive and influential.

Global Economic Crisis and Kerala's Future: A report from CDS

THE CENTRE for Development Studies, Thiruvananthapruam, has released its report on Global Financial Crisis and Kerala: Impact & Mitigation Measures, following a request from the State Government to assess the impact and possible measures and policy changes required to overcome he crisis.

The 98-page report (available online at www.cds.edu.in) is one of the first major attempts to put in perspective the crisis and how to face it and also possibly convert it into an opportunity to refocus on our economic priorities. The following observations are on the basis of the executive summary of the report which I had seen yesterday.

What strikes me as an extremely important warning signal in this report is that the already feeble sections of our economy and society are going to be hit hard again in this crisis. These segments, according to the report, are the traditional industries like coir and cashew, the cash crops like pepper, coffee, tea, rubber and spices, fish workers and other export oriented sectors, all of whom are dependent on a highly unpredictable global market. Unlike the IT units that are also likely to be hit, those employed in these sectors do not enjoy any financial stability or social security support at all. In fact most of them were already in dire straits, most of them neck-deep in debt and often witnessing a spate of suicides. I had occasion to do some work on the sectors like cash crop growers inWynad and fish workers in the northern districts. They are in a very serious plight and what has stopped- at least temporarily- the spate of suicides seem to be the steps taken as part of the Central Government intervention in recent months. Our own State Government's Debt Relief Commission has been a mockery of sorts as it could not offer any sensible aid to the majority of people who went there.

That, to my mind, is going to be our experience once again. We are going to get a lot of platitudes from our ruling politicians and precious little by way of action. In fact when I was reading State Planning Board vice chairman DrPrabhat Patnaik's tall claim in the Economic Review 2008 report that it was the State Government's Debt Relief Commission which had put a brake on farm suicides, I thought it was laughable because precisely at that point of time, things were quite different in the field with suicides spreading to new areas likeKuttanad rice bowl in the summer harvest season this year.

So this entrenched middle class segment that effectively control our political establishment, combined with the political leadership and intellectual bandwagon which actually cater to the middle class interest is going to be the real stumbling block in front of any reforms theCDS report calls for. The report calls for very serious policy shifts that will rekindle our economic activity, like a massive promotion of private investment, a private-public partnership, cut in subsidies in power, water supply and other sector to the middle class consumers, easing of legal hurdles in commercialization of agriculture, reducing controls on leasing landed properties, etc, which are all recommendations that go against the present rulers' economic wisdom.

A stark reality stands out in the report: The middle class would gain in this misery of the poor people, because when the prices fall their salaries are going to remain stable and real incomes rise. And when fresh money is pumped into the economy to recharge production, surely they will do everything to corner much of it and will stop any meaningful restructuring like rational power tariff or cut in subsidies or reforms in land legislation or introduction of the system of lease holding of lands to enable the landless to engage in cultivation.

Hence, it is necessary for the poor people to critically examine what is good for them, and not allow this middle class-controlled leadership to decide for them. I do feel that unless they make a determined effort to break this stranglehold of the government-employed, trade unionised middle class people who are holding sway in our public affairs, the really needy are not going to gain anything, and their misery would continue, they would keep committing suicide while the leaders would keep mouthing platitudes on how to bring in socialism...

Bill Gates: A new Messiah for Philanthropic Capitalism

This is my note on Bill Gates’ speech at Davos, submitted to creativecapitalismblog, which discussed the speech and his ideas for reinventing capitalism:


BILL GATES is now the philanthropic messiah and his speech at Davos where he elaborates on his new concept of creative capitalism is his manifesto. It could enthuse people and it could perhaps even solve many of our problems with the help of corporate do-gooders.

Having worked in and reported on economic and development issues of some of the poorest parts of the world, I feel the devil could always be in the details. Once former Indian prime minister Rajiv Gandhi, whose youthfulness and commitment to the cause of the poor reminds me of the Bill Gates of today, had pointed out that of every 100 rupees the government spent on the welfare of the poor only 15 actually reached them. The rest disappeared into some black-holes that divided the governments/philanthropists/ NGOs and international aid agencies from the really needy people who lived far away.

So what seem to be the real problems is not the lack of resources or lack of willingness of the rich to pay for the benefit of the poor. It is the sheer chasm that divides both these worlds, quite unbelievable but absolutely true.
Bill Gates speaks about a number of projects launched by the corporate world for bringing better resources and benefits to the poor of our world. One of the projects he speaks about is the new initiative for bringing the African coffee growers in direct contact with the major corporations in the business so that their returns would be doubled.

I am not familiar with the African scenario, but I have seen the life and experiences of Indian coffee growers, mainly in Wayanad, a district which has seen the largest farmer suicides in Kerala, a south Indian state afflicted by widespread farm distress in recent past. During 2002-2006, this tiny district had reported as many as 179 farmer suicides, according to the Economic Review 2007, released by the Government of Kerala.

Coffee has been a major crop here, most of the plantations started by the British planters who came here in 19th and early 20th centuries when India was a British colony. Now the major plantations are owned by big companies while there are a large number of small and medium growers who solely depend on coffee for survival.
As a journalist, I went to the place during November-December 2007 to find out what went wrong with their life and why there were so many suicides in those villages. It was a distressing situation: coffee is highly dependent on global market prices and small and medium scale farmers who cultivate it in a few acres of land, find it hard to withstand price dips and they have no resources to wait till the prices recover. They have to sell out even at huge losses because they are, in most cases, heavily indebted to banks, money-lenders, etc.

Here is the economics of coffee production for small growers:

Malana James, a grower with 2.65 acres of coffee in Kaniyampatta panchayat, Wayanad, got 30 bags of coffee beans in the 2007 season from his plants. Each bag contains 54 kg of beans and when processed he got 30 kg of coffee kernel from each bag. And the amount he got for one kg of coffee kernel in 2007 was just Rs. 70.

He sells in the open market, and agents for major global corporate companies procure it. The prices keep fluctuating every year, every season: it was as high as Rs. 120 for a kg in 1994-95 and then it dropped to as low as Rs. 16 in 2002-03. He said last year he lost around Rs. 60,000 on his small plantation.

At the same time the value-added coffee sells in the markets, at prices astronomical compared to the prices farmers get. Nestle India’s Nescafe Classic, a premium brand, is sold at Rs. 68 per pouch containing 50 grams.

I have experienced similar situation in most of the crops that depend on global markets. There is an obscene level of price differences, the small growers being fleeced like anything. But the corporate firms failed to ensure even minimum price stability for the growers, even in the days of acute farm distress and mass suicides. It was the federal and state governments who did some fire-fighting operations with the institution of a debt relief commission and higher budget outlay, etc, and taking over the debts of those who committed suicide so that their families need not keep running from pillar to post to pay off the debts left behind by their dead bread-winners.

I am not ruling out that corporate firms may have a say or a role, but can they really bring about any change? I doubt it, because their philanthropic role has always been conspicuous by its absence where it really matters: that is among the most backward parts of the world where people are committing suicide because of debt, destitution and lack of any support at the time they really need some.

(Courtesy:www.creativecapitalismblog.com)

Capitalism, Socialism and the Way Forward for the World: A Global Debate

I WAS involved in a heated global debate on these issues at the creativecapitalismblog, launched to discuss global efforts to bring a better life to the people in the poorer counties, following the famous Davos speech by Bill Gates. These discussions took place following a few interesting posts made by Martin Wolf, an eminent economist and associate editor of Financial Times, London. There are references to some posts from a few others from various countries, like an economist-investor from Germany, who identifies himself as fh, and an entrepreneur-economist from the United States, Tracy W, in the following edited version, which mainly trace my own line of argument:

N P Chekkutty:

Martin Wolf writes: But the biggest destruction of capital in the last century, in peace time, occurred in the Soviet bloc.

Is it right to compare the command economy of the Soviets or China with the democratic system where the market economy has been in full flow?
Perhaps it would be more correct to describe the destruction and wastage in Soviet bloc as creative destruction because in the past decade Russia has grown at least ten fold compared to the time Putin took over. The growth should seem impressive in the light of the kind of problems they faced at the time of the collapse of the earlier system.

Same should be the case with East Germany. It was a mess when integration took place but we do not hear the same complaints we used to hear in the mid-nineties about the economic costs of integration. So perhaps, there is much substance in what fh says, that the US, in spite of its clear advantages, is making a mess of things for themselves and others.

Martin Wolf:

Russia hasn't grown anything like 10-fold since Putin took over. Real growth has been about 6 per cent a year, if I remember correctly: so you can do the maths easily. Actually, for what it is worth (not very much, I agree), Russia's measured GDP is just about back to where it was in 1990. I think you may be confusing real growth with growth in nominal dollars. But that merely reflects the fact that the rouble overshot downwards massively in 1998 and 1999.

I really don't think that a 74 year detour, from which Russia emerged a basket case, can be called "creative". It is worth remembering that Russia was the fastest-growing large economy in the world immediately before WWI. So if it had not been for the Soviet experiment, Russia would almost certainly be a rich country today, which it is not (particularly if you ignore the oil and gas windfall). This also ignores the gigantic human and political costs of the Lenin-Stalin experiment with totalitarianism, from which Russia has not, alas, recovered. It may never do so.

Also, no, I don't think fh is right on the US. The US has always been a boom-bust economy and it still is. It is after all a capitalist country. Just as it is senseless to expect Germany to become the US, so it is senseless to expect the US to become Germany (as I discuss above). But the US has been the preponderant source of global economic innovation since the late-19th century and particularly since WW II. Among large countries, it also has much the highest average income per head. The US is the global economic frontier. One has to be blind not to see that it has been astonishingly successful.

N P Chekkutty:

Fh writes: The German AWG (Aussenwirtschaftsgesetz) should be coming into force very soon. Broadly speaking, that law is designed to make it much more difficult for foreigners to take over German firms.

Fh, Can I take it that this is a major step in the direction of insulating the German economy from the global one? Put it more clearly, is it an indication of the German aloofness or maybe, a new surge of protectionism in one of the most important economies in the rich world?

And one more question: Exactly against whom are these measures aimed at? Is it the rest of west which has always been an alley since the Second World War, or is the new forces from the developing world that the law would try to keep out? I have seen quite a bit of parochialism in some European countries of late, like when an Indian steel firm, Mittal, made an effort to buy up the French steel-maker, Arcelor.

Fh:

Why the AWG, NP? Well, Germans have seen the UK economy become a "hollowed out" one -- the auto industry, shipbuilding, hardly exist any more; GEC (once the No. 1 firm in the FTSE) no longer exists. ICI (Imperial Chemical Industry) another huge UK company shrank massively and was sold off to ...Norway?

And the once great civil engineering company Wimpey is now reduced to a house-builder, suffering from the construction slump in the UK.
When German managers look at the US auto industry, they have nightmares at the thought that such a fate could overtake German car giants like VW, BMW. That's why Porsche and one of the German states (Länder) fought tooth and nail to acquire the VW majority and will never let it go. The same applies to many other large German companies.

P.S. Yes, Mittal - but in my opinion, he acted just in time to get Arcelor.
I think Sarkozy has also tightened up against outside takeover attempts. I know Mittal Steel from the time when it bought a steel mill in Temirtau (in Khazakhstan)...

N P Chekkutty:

MW writes: Russia hasn't grown anything like 10-fold since Putin took over. Real growth has been about 6 per cent a year, if I remember correctly: so you can do the maths easily.

I am not going into an argument with a veteran economist like Martin Wolf on the figures with regard to Russia's growth. But I find that my figures were correct, on cross checking.

According to a report published in the major Indian newspaper, The Hindu, dated August 4, 2008, the Russian economy which was at $200 billion ten years ago, crossed $1.4 trillion in 2008. its per capita GDP quadrupled to $7000 in this period.
Of course this growth includes its oil and gas revenue too. But why should Russia count this revenue out while all others including the US count their oil revenues in GDP?

Martin Wolf:

As I said, the huge rise in Russian dollar GDP is mostly because of the nominal appreciation of the rouble, not real growth. The appreciation was itself largely the inevitable consequence of the overshooting after the 1998 devaluation, plus the benefit of large oil and gas revenues. Figures for changes in national income in a foreign currency (the dollar) don't mean anything very much. As I said, you are confusing real growth with growth in nominal dollars.

N P Chekkutty:

MW writes: If I were fh, I would worry a bit more about Germany and a bit less about the US.

This, I am afraid, does not actually answer the point raised by fh. He was referring to the failure of the US in meeting some key social responsibilities of an economy, like health care and professional training. If an economy fails to take care of these basic social demands, I do not know how far it's worth to speak of.

So it is welcome when someone speaks of socialism. The pre-90s model has been a disaster, but that does not rule out socialism as a way out for the future. This could be much more important for the third world, as without an effective public policy and state intervention, ensuring a semblance of decent and equitable distribution there could prove to be next to impossible.

And the search for non-Anglo American models, like the German social market, expands the scope of finding a better way out for the world because so far the entire debate has been monopolized by the Anglo-American model of free market. Why not look elsewhere too for a workable solution?

Martin Wolf:

If a country wants to be export world champion (a silly aim!), then somebody has to buy the products and if a country wants to run huge current account surpluses, somebody has to run the deficits. I make this simple point in a forthcoming book.
I agree there should be many models. That has been one of the points made in my various posts.
Anyway, that's it.

Fh:

The American type of capitalism is too exclusive, in my opinion. Racial prejudice, lack of access to a good education, even living in the "wrong" state all combine to deny many Americans the chance of a better life.

N P Chekkutty is right, we can learn from other socio- economic models, seek out and analyse the reasons for others' successes and failures.

@ MW: Being Exportweltmeister just means that Germany is producing goods and services that other countries need or want to buy, at a price the latter are willing to pay.

Tracy W:

There's no reason to believe that socialism is necessary for a semblance of a decent and equitable distribution.

Why oh why are people so attracted to the idea of socialism that despite its massive failure, they still think it should be kept alive? Do they also advocate bringing back the Spanish Inquisition? And how about the habit of doctors going straight from autopises to attending childbirths without washing? Perhaps they spend their evenings plotting to blow up sewage treatment plants so we can check the theory that contaminated water causes cholera?

N P Chekkutty:

I think I need to explain why I still feel socialism needs to be taken once again into serious consideration.

I will try to do it later on, but right now let me tell you that when I speak about socialism, I do not mean the state capitalist system that Soviet Union experimented with disastrous consequences. Ever since the world War, there has been quite a bit of debate about what we do mean by socialism in a democratic polity.

N P Chekkutty:

Tracy W asks: What is the attraction of the word "socialist" that you, and other writers, find so valuable that you are willing to keep the word...

A considered analysis calls for a major attempt to understand modern history, politics and economics which is beyond the scope of this debate. I will confine myself to the limited scope of this forum where the primary idea was to locate which model is the best one to help those at the bottom of the pyramid.

I begin my search from where Martin Wolf left out in this note. He said, "that many social goals can only be met through political action. That is also where they ought to be met."

This leads us to which kind of politics. The contemporary experience, mainly in poor countries, make it plain that you will have to work with the poor and working class people to find a sensible way for human liberation.

I say this from a study of Marx and his concept about dialectical and historical materialism, a philosophical innovation from Hegel and enriched by the various strands of political and economic thought in Europe and elsewhere in the 19th and 20th centuries. In our times there has been a series of debates which enriched this world view and one cannot forget people like Antonio Gramsci, Mao, Deng Xiao Ping and Ho Chi Minh who gave new inputs. The fact is socialism is not just a few Russians who bungled their state control; it goes beyond to experiences in China, Viet Nam, and many newly independent countries like India where the communists and socialists helped develop and enrich political theory and practice. It also goes to the German, French and Italian left movement also which has a great history and tradition.

Look at the developing world: The contribution of socialist and communist parties to parliamentary democracy is immense. They helped bring in much more people friendly legislations, more equitable distribution and more public participation in governance.

Martin Wolf:

The view that communist regimes are responsible for the deaths of 100m people is not a cliche. The figure comes from "The Black Book of Communism: Crimes, Terror, Repression". It is controversial (since we don't really know how many died in China and there is dispute over whether the famines in the Soviet Union and China were deliberate, or not). But it is not unreasonable.

Tracy W:

Look, I agree that it is important to remember socialism. But it seems odd to focus merely on the failures of history and ignore the successes. And really really odd to pick the name of something with such a horrible history to call your new idea by. If the only reason you favour the name socialism is that it contributed to a series of debates, why not pick the name of a philosophical idea that also contributed to the same series of debates but didn't lead to millions of deaths, like libertarianism, or capitalism? (I would still prefer you to pick a name that was new, to avoid confusion, of course.)

N P Chekkutty:

What is in a name, after all? Right.

But it is not so easy or historical to forget the history and experiences of our times. Without a proper understanding and possibly appreciation of the contribution of the left politics, both socialist and communist, to the modern world I am sure we would never able to move on, to anything new and more meaningful for human endeavor.
Dear Tracy, let me say that there are some degree of unity of views between us, and some areas of profound differences. As far as I can see, the unanimity is about the value of capitalism as a vehicle for wealth production; but there is divergence over distribution or redistribution. You seem to think that the market would take care of it because it has its own means to ensure that wealth trickles down to every pore, to every nook and cranny of our universe. For me, we need special efforts to ensure that it reaches to large parts of humanity.

Now the question is how to ensure this? There were so many ideas including a direct transfer, say issuing cheques to all of them, to making things available at low cost, etc.

For me, all these are peace-meal and half-hearted. They are half remedies discussed half heartedly and without conviction. If we want to help poor, we need to empower them and empowerment takes a lot of social and political involvement and intervention, which has been the main idea Martin Wolf finally came up with.

I believe, and I have observed, that the forces that can act most effectively in this area are the political parties and other formations that belong to the poor people and working class. (Remember, I am talking about the developing countries now.) I belong to South Asia and in this region, (like others in other parts) I know that the political parties from the left have made immense contribution (you realize this when you contrast them with bourgeois parties) in bringing a better life to these people. (See for example, the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act in India, which helped millions survive in the days when thousands committed suicide in farm sector. There are many examples, but I can't write about all of them here.)This Act is the contribution of Manmohan Singh Government with the communist parties putting pressure.

But why can't we call them by some other name?

This involves the history of the left movement. In Communist Manifesto, Marx and Engels describe their political view as scientific socialism, to distinguish itself from the earlier utopian socialists. Unlike in Europe, where the Euro Communists in 70s abandoned their flag and name, in third world you can't be so utopian, to use Marx's own terminology. You need a strong and united working class movement to see that these sections are able to fight on for their rights. Once they reach the developed world's levels of growth, I am sure they may not need the red flag any longer. But that would take many many more years to come.

Tracy W:

Chekkutty, why are you saying this? What did I say that gave you the impression that I wanted to forget socialism? I said, in the comment you are replying to:
"I agree with you that we should not forget socialism. Just as we should not forget that hot things burn and that contaminated water can lead to cholera outbreaks. I hope that we can learn from history what not to do. "

I don't know how you can read that as a call to forget the history and experience of our times. Is there anything else I can say that can convince you I am entirely in favour of remembering socialism?

You say, Once they reach the developed world's levels of growth, I am sure they may not need the red flag any longer.

The Asian Tigers appear to have managed very well without the red flag.

And just to repeat myself, I am utterly convinced that we must remember socialism. I think the history of the left movement should be studied in schools. I just don't understand why you want to call your system "socialism". Why not call it "feudualism" or "slavery" or "religious intolerance"?

N P Chekkutty:

Memories do differ. And what you remember may not be what I would like to remember. As for those deaths of people, I agree terrible mistakes have been made. All sensible people say this. But which system has not been responsible for similar crimes? Who dropped an atom bomb on the people of Hiroshima after the Red Army had entered Berlin?

As for the dictionary definition of socialism, let me tell you I go by what the theoretical definitions of these terms are in the writings from Marx to contemporary Marxists and the party programs of various communist parties with which I am familiar.

Asian Tigers appear to have managed very well...

Asian Tigers? hahaha
Do you know how big are these places and who rule them? Fine examples for the victory of capitalism proper!

(This is an edited version of the debate. Courtesy:www.creativecapitalismblog.com)

Child Labour, Sweatshops and the West’s Crocodile Tears

This is in continuation of the debate on creative capitalism, an idea made popular by Bill Gates. For earlier inputs see tag: Capitalism.

Tim Harford writes:

My final worry about recognition is that we do not always recognize behaviour that will truly help the poor. A simple example: a friend
of mine recently bought shoes made in Italy rather than shoes made in Romania, specifically because she was worried (in a rather vague way) about encouraging sweatshop labour.


I am a bit worried about this 'concern' for the poor in other parts of the world expressed through the market place. It could backfire on the poor person in most cases.

Let me try to explain this through an example:
Sometime ago while I was working in Delhi, we used to get tea, coffee, etc, from the Indian Newspaper Society's building in Rafi Marg, a stone throw from Parliament House, served mostly by small children from Nepal. I asked the boy why he was serving in the canteen instead of going to school like all other kids do.
He said he would like to. But things were bad at home, and his father had no way but to send him to India where he could find some work. He said once things are better and he earns a little money to help his parents, he would go back and get into a school one day.

I knew child labor was a crime but what could I do? Report him to the police? I could only pray that things would get better for him, and perhaps now that his country is a republic he may be able to go back and enter a school.

I was trying to say, there are moral choices in this. Avoiding goods for fear of aiding sweatshops even inadvertently might harm a family somewhere, who are dependent on this little money for their survival. Those little ones in the sweatshops in those far-away dreary places too have their parents who had to make a moral choice too, and it is difficult for any parent to send the kids to these work places instead of schools. But they have no option in most cases.

I do not say the world should keep a blind eye to the extremely poor working conditions in the poorer parts of the world. By no means. It should always be concerned, it should agitate, put pressure on governments, and try every which way in which it could help them.

But paying a higher price for the goods of same quality from a developed country to avoid something suspected to be tainted by the sweat of a child from a poor country can't be the right answer to this moral question. Perhaps it boosts one's self esteem, but surely it would not help bring in a better world for any one of us.
Posted by: n p chekkutty | July 26, 2008


Stephen Landsburg writes:

Undermining the anti-sweatshop movement would be an excellent place to start.


This is an excellent proposition because one of the first things the West can do to help the poor in the developing world is to dispel the sentimental nonsense revolving around this concept about 'sweatshops' in those countries. The fear of sweatshops and the 'conscientious' objection to the products from these countries is a virus fast spreading all over the developed world and I am sure, it would hurt the poor of our world much harsher than any other steps the West can take, say the protectionist legislations or even the the refusal to help with aid.

A few days ago in response to a post by Tim Harford, I had made the following observation: "Avoiding goods for fear of aiding sweatshops even inadvertently might harm a family somewhere, who are dependent on this little money for their survival."

I feel that since Prof Landsburg has made a scathing criticism about the way the West is dealing with this issue, it is necessary to look at it from the standpoint of those countries and people who are likely to be hurt by such measures.

First let us accept that the working condition in most of the developing world is not as comfortable as the workers in the developed world enjoys. But the crucial aspect is that while there may be choices for the workers of the developed world, there is precious little choice for those living in these parts of the world. The less choice, the less bargaining power you have. Hence exploitation of the labor is at a much higher level in these parts, no doubt about it.

So what to do? Leave them to the care of God and disallow their products from the Western shops? And thereby deny them the daily meal, if at all they are able to afford a meal by all these exertions? I have seen hundreds of kids who work in road projects, small workshops, mills, canteens, etc, and then go to school to build their lives. By refusing to buy the products that may have their sweat on it, what we actually do is to deny them the only chance to hold on to a better life, stonewalling the only glimmer of hope they may have.

The best way here is to put pressure on the governments, the factory owners and the business community in these parts of the world to improve working conditions, to go for stricter law and enforce labor standards. Here the trade unions and political parties who are deeply involved with the poor people's lives could be of immense help. So what we need to do is to think of building strategic tie-ups with the political establishment, say the trade unions, political parties, etc, and enforce change. But the Gates Foundation memo never even speaks of such a strategic initiative as they do not think the political society in the third world can be a valuable ally in the effort to promote creative capitalism. I think this is a fundamental mistake on their part. They speak of Prahalad and the gains to be picked up at the bottom of the pyramid. Fine. But unless you have somebody alive at the bottom how can you pick up anything from there?
Posted by: n p chekkutty | August 04, 2008


A response to a query from Jessica Haussler, Frankfurt:

Jessica,

My objection to the campaign against 'sweatshops' now gaining ground in the rich countries not because I do not want the working conditions there to improve. I do certainly want the difficult conditions in which people work in many companies who are suppliers to the global chains to improve. Naturally, any consumer pressure that would force the corporate firms to take actions to get the situation improved would be welcome. But that can be done not by diverting production units, shifting locations, or cutting back orders. But through forcing their collaborators to go for better standards, by persauding the local governments to enact much stricter laws, and ensuring decent working conditions do exist in those countries also.
But the problem with a blanket campaign and boycotting of such products simply on the basis of a suspicion that it involves child labour can be disastrous to those people who depend on them. Possibly they work in abominable conditions, but refusing to buy their products would only mean denying them their daily meal. I suppose no conscientious consumer can ever think of doing it.
Posted by: n p chekkutty | August 06, 2008

Debt Relief Activities and Farmers: A Report from Kerala

THE ECONOMIC Review 2007, released during the budget session of the State legislature by the Kerala State Planning Board, makes the claim that the GSDP of the State in real terms increased by 8.1 per cent in 2006-07, which is marginally higher than 8 per cent of the previous year. The document says: “What was notable in Kerala during 2007 was that the high growth rate came together with reduced rural distress. The most significant reflection of this was that peasant suicides came to an end in the second half of 2007, Kerala being the first major suicide-affected state to have put and end to this tragic phenomenon.”

The review looks at the first year of the Left Democratic Front Government led by V S Achuthanandan, which came to power in May, 2006. In the previous years the State was reeling under a spate of peasant suicides and according to official figures there were as many as 179 cases reported from the tiny district of Wayanad alone during 2002 to 2006. Two other major districts affected were Palakkad and Kasargode. Hence the first priority of the Government as it took over, was to find a solution to the widespread farmer distress. One of the first steps taken by the Government was to set up a statutory Agricultural Debt Relief Commission, a six-member body with members drawn from peasant organizations, legislative assembly members, judicial officers, etc, empowered to look into the complaints and find redress with the resources made available in the State budget.

The Economic Review noted: Of greater significance is the setting up of a statutory Debt Relief Commission by the State Government, which, brought substantial hope to the distressed peasantry with its formation.

It is a fact that the commission did give rise to a lot of hope among the poor peasants who were reeling under a tremendous burden of mounting debts. In the first few months itself, it had received over 4.76 lakh complaints from peasants all over the State. But the claim that the Government was able to put an end to the suicides among farmers was far fetched, as even during the 2008 summer, a few suicides were reported from Kuttanadu, known as the rice bowl of Kerala. What is distressing about the Kuttanadu suicides is that while so far the suicides were confined to the hill regions, they were now spreading to new areas. (As I finalize this note, a report came from Kasargode that on July 25, 2008, two peasants committed suicide in the district as they were not able to get any support under the government sponsored schemes.)

With a view to keep a tab on the functioning of the Agricultural Debt Relief Commission, this correspondent and a friend, journalist K P Vijayakumar, spent a few weeks monitoring it, during November-December 2007, when the Commission was holding its first sittings. We also checked back with the rural situation, looking at specific cases in order to locate what went wrong in the life of those who were forced to appeal to the Commission. It was a sad spectacle that we witnessed, as the Commission struggled with its limited funds, few staff members and many hurdles of a technical and administrative nature, facing hundreds of highly strung poor peasants waiting for redress of their grievances everywhere they went. The Commission was empowered to write off 75 per cent of the loans amounting to Rs.50,000 taken from cooperative banks, which they had to compensate from funds promised through budgetary provisions. However, they had no authority to provide relief on loans availed from nationalized or private scheduled banks. A large part of the agricultural loans were from the commercial banks and private money-lenders, as the peasants had availed every possible loan from every source available.

Here are a few cases we have studied, watching the Commission’s proceedings, talking to the distressed peasants who came to present their grievances and visiting some of their homes and villages to examine the actual state of affairs that led them to the depths of penury and distress.

The Debt Relief Commission had conducted a series of sittings at the Government Guest House, Kalpetta, headquarters of Wayanad, known as the district that has seen the largest number of peasant suicides during 2002--2007. These sittings were held in the last week of November and the first week of December, 2007.

Annamma Mathai, a 65-year-old woman from Pulpally panchayat in Wayanad, whose husband had died two years ago leaving her a land holding of 2.05 acres and a huge debt, had arrived in the town on the evening of November 29, as she had received a letter from the Commission to be present personally the next day. She was cultivating ginger and pepper in her small holding and as the products normally used to fetch reasonable returns, it was sufficient to keep the family going. Still, it left them nothing as savings because of seasonal fluctuations in prices. However, pepper vines were hit by a fast spreading disease wiping off all the plants. Her husband Mathai took a loan of Rs. 25,000 from the Nadavayal branch of South Malabar Gramin Bank to revive his farming operations. But he was unable to repay the loan and after his death, the total amount she owed to the bank had reached Rs. 42,000 leaving her no way to escape debt trap.

Annamma was the 52nd person in the queue and after a few hours’ waiting on an empty stomach --she had had no breakfast-- she was ushered into the presence of the Commission. Her files were examined and the Commission after consultations with bank officials, gave its verdict: The interest and penalty interest will be waived, she will have to pay the principal amount.

She was standing there thunder-struck, no words coming out of her mouth. Then after the lapse of a few moments, she managed to say through her tears: “Sir, where do I find the money, I have nothing…”

Moments later, she was seen moving out of the building, her head low and her frail figure swaying like a reed in the heavy Wayanad wind blowing outside.

A large number of peasants who came to the Commission were small-holding farmers whose small loans had become huge debts with penal interest as they were unable to repay the loans. But what kept them from repaying these small loans? Expert studies have been made by various agencies which came to the conclusion that non-remunerative agricultural practices, continuous price fluctuations in the market which left farmers with no savings, heavy debts owing to non-farming activities like expenses on weddings, widespread diseases of the plants, etc, as reasons.

We went to a few villages to see what actually took them to debt trap and such deep penury. One of the villages visited was Poozhithode, a small hamlet in the ward four of the eastern hill panchayat of Chakkittappara, in Kozhikode district. It is practically an inaccessible place as there are no roads; one has to walk three kilometres to reach the place. Here we met Vettappala Chinnamma, a 68-year-old woman, who lives in a dilapidated two storey building, with her sister. Chinnamma came almost fifty years ago to this remote village from Ranni in South Kerala as her family came to the north in search of a better livelihood. Land was cheap and plenty and her father had 5.5 acres of forest land converted into farm lands. They had planted areca-nut palms in the land.

Areca-nuts are spices used as an ingredient in many products and hence depend solely on global markets. There were times when it fetched very good prices, but recently there has been a major drop in prices and demand that left many farmers in distress and their plantations remained uncared for. Chinnamma’s was a two-member family with 5.5 acres of rich agricultural land, in which stood 3500 areca-nut palms, all of them headless wonders by then. When diseases hit, they had no resources to care for the palms and with no income from the land, they were almost starving. The areca-nut palms were all destroyed by the disease that had spread in the region making it a graveyard of areca-nut palms. These are long and lean plants which bear gold-colored areca-nuts with minimum care for the palms, but once the disease hits, the only way out is to replant them and for a plant to grew and bear nuts it takes a few years’ time and an infusion of heavy investment.

Chinnamma had the land but no resources to replant them. She was surviving only because of the Pubic Distribution System which is still widespread and quite effective in Kerala. Her ration card entries revealed the story of how misfortune came to take control of her life: Till May and June 2007, she was not lifting any rice from the PDS outlet. Then came the season of plant disease and ever since, from July to November, the time of our visit, the entries said she had received five kg of rice every month.

This village has many such cases of sudden misfortune hitting them like a bolt from the blue. Poovathumalil Kuttappan, an active CPM worker, has five acres of land with 3000 areca-nut palms, but the contagious disease destroyed his entire plantation. He made an effort to revive his fortunes, taking loans from various sources to replant and fight the disease. He had taken a loan of Rs. 15,160 from the Chakkittappara Service Cooperative Bank and another of Rs. 85,000 from the Union Bank of India, and was facing revenue recovery proceedings from both.

Poozhithode is classic case of an entire village going to dogs: It has an area of 88 hectares of land, and there were as many as 29 peasant families with small and medium holdings there. In the last week of November 2007, there were only six families remaining as all others had left the village looking for means for survival elsewhere. It was not lack of hard work, or physical resources or land that made their life miserable. It was the unpredictability of a peasants’ life, its total lack of any social security cover even as they solely depended on the vagaries of a global market and an equally unpredictable climate and spreading plant diseases that made them flee from the place they had lived for generations. Peasants complained that the diseases were now becoming more and more common and frequent, and many suspect it could be the impact of a changing climate patterns, irregular rainfall and excessive dependence on chemical fertilizers and pesticides.

While diseases and poor prices destroyed life in area-nut plantations, it was a global drop in prices that brought hardship to villages in Wayanad where coffee is grown. In the first week of December a visit to Kambalakkadu, a small town that smells of coffee and renowned for its coffee market, gave a picture of what went wrong with this global brand. It was here we met Sarojini, a worker in a coffee plantation at Kozhinjakkadu, in Kaniyampatta panchayat. She lives in a small hut with her two children; her husband had abandoned her two years ago. She had received Rs. 60 for a day’s work in the plantation besides four idlis, three of which she had saved three for her children.

The plantation was in bad days and there were no permanent workers any longer. Sarojini got work for three days a week. In a way, she was lucky compared to Adivasi women who got a pay of only Rs. 50 a day, if at all they had work.

The present economics of coffee production is hopeless for small and medium growers, says James, a small grower here. The coffee prices were falling and expenses for cultivation were growing. He had three acres of coffee but recently had to sell 35 cents of land to meet pressing burdens. His family of four survives on the coffee grown in the remaining 2.65 acres of land. Last year his total yield was 30 bags of coffee, each bag containing roughly 54 kg of beans. Processed, it would yield 30 kg of coffee kernel per bag, which fetches Rs. 70 per kg. Considering the expenses he incurred in maintaining the plants including the manual work, fertilizers, etc, he points out that it works out to a loss of around Rs. 60,000 per acre. At the same time, the Nescafe Classic coffee, a major brand, is sold at Rs. 68 per pouch of 50 grams in the retail outlets.

The Government policy of coffee procurement monopoly for the Coffee Board had done damage to the growers as the prices offered by the Board were quite low compared to open market. After a series of agitations, the growers were allowed to sell in the open market which, during the season of price hike, helped them. In fact in 1994-95, the local prices had touched a record of Rs. 120 per kg, but later on it fell sharply and during 2002-03, it touched the lowest benchmark of Rs.15. Last year it stood at Rs. 70, way below the boom period prices.

A third major crop that was examined during the study was pepper, an important spice grown widely in Wayanad. Pepper is historically known as black gold because of its vast demand in the world market even from the Roman times. Pulpally, known as the base of Pazhassi Raja who resisted the British East India Company in 18th century in a series of heroic battles, has been the centre of pepper trade and till a few years ago, when the plants were hit by a debilitating disease even as the prices started to crash, it was a prosperous area. In its best of times, there were as many as 540 Mahindra jeeps in this small village; one of the largest congregation of such vehicles in a small village in India. However, in the past five years this village had seen as many as 124 farmer suicides, the largest number in any Kerala village.

What brought a spate of misery here is a double tragedy: The crashing prices combined with a sudden spread of new diseases that destroyed not only the pepper vines but its supporting plants like murikku, a local variety of soft wood tree bearing bright red-colored flowers in summer. Pepper can be replanted easily but without the supporting plant, it just can’t survive. The effort by State and Central Government organizations and farm officials to revive the pepper cultivation in Pulpally is yet to take off as the entire village looks like a graveyard of pepper vines, the dried and withered supporting plants remaining like ghosts.

The sudden decline to penury and destitution has had a tremendous psychological impact on the village population, and local doctors say that there has been a sharp increase in the incidence of psychological problems and disorders. Many people have left the village, leaving behind their lands uncared for, in search of jobs in Karnataka, and women have left for the sweatshops in Tirupur and other places.

So what we saw in the villages in the last weeks of 2007 was something dramatically different from the picture described in the Economic Review report, 2007. The Government’s actions had indeed raised high hopes but the limitations imposed by the restricted operation of the Commission had put a brake on its effectiveness.

The Government in its efforts to bring some succour to distressed farmers, had decided to take over debts up to Rs. 100,000 in the case of peasants who committed suicide. It has helped a number of families who were left without any means of subsistence after their breadwinners had taken the easy way out. The Central Government package of taking over loans for agricultural purposes from nationalized and scheduled commercial banks, announced in the budget 2008, has also helped ease the situation to an extent. The Economic Review reveals that as many as 248 loans availed by the deceased farmers with liabilities up to Rs. 100,000 had been written off by commercial banks and the total amount was to the tune of Rs. 76.67 lakh. In addition, the cooperative banks had written off 487 loans of the deceased farmers, worth a total of Rs. 153.26 lakh by May 31, 2007. The total loans taken over in the both categories came to 885 involving a total amount of Rs. 2.30 core.

It is a fact that compared to the gloomiest days in recent past, things seem to be looking up now. There are many factors that helped ease the tensed situation. First, there is a minor revival of world market prices for a variety of cash crops raising hopes once again; secondly, the debt relief efforts by State and Central Government agencies seem to have arrested the trend of mass despair; third, there is a substantial increase in paddy procurement prices from Rs. 6.30 to Rs. 9 this year; and the implementation of the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme is somewhat effective in the poorest districts of the State, contributing to this trend.

But these are temporary and piecemeal measures whose effects could be wiped off once the prices dip again and the official aid programmes are withdrawn. What we need urgently to develop seem to be a long-term strategy that will ensue regular, remunerative prices for the farmers, a social security net for those who face sudden reversal of fortunes owing to the over-dependence on global markets, and an effective and farm-based science and technology development programme that would help address the widespread problems of diseases, erratic climate conditions, changing farming practices, etc.

(Courtesy:www.infochangeindia.org, August, 2008.)

An Emergency Landing for the UPA Government in India?

IF THE country is going to have a mid-term election later this year, it is surely going to be a crash-landing for the United Progressive Alliance Government led by Dr. Manmohan Singh.

Going by the current situation, it is almost clear that there are very few options for the government as well as the left parties who have declared their intention to part ways after four years of supporting this government.

It does not take much hard speculation as to why the left parties decided to pull the rug at this point. They simply can’t be seen accepting a policy that takes India to the Untied States’ global policy framework, or their global agenda. That would be suicidal because the left parties have always survived on a consistent economic and political line whose axiom remains anti-imperialism. Not that they do not make concessions, compromises or even opportunistic positions. They do and try to accommodate all such compromises within their overall ideological positions. They know private investment and capital is a must, and that capital can only come from the moneybags in the west, because they have been running governments for a long time.

That is why they, in spite of public show of great antagonism to the Chidambaram brand of neo-liberal economic policies, were comfortable with the UPA alliance. They needed to have some expertise in political acrobatics, or the dexterity to adapt to the philosophy of running with the hare and hunting with the dog. They do have these qualities, in abundance too.

But accepting the Indo-US nuclear deal was something different. It meant accepting the US hegemony in our hemisphere, in our own backyard. It also meant discarding the long held convictions of our foreign policy, nurtured and perfected from the days of Jawaharlal Nehru. Though it was officially Congress policy, its primary supporters and beneficiaries were the left forces, as it suited perfectly to their world view.

Then why the Congress abandons their age-old policies of non-alignment, inherited from the days of Nehru, and run to the US arms now?

Because, the world has changed and it has changed beyond recognition. The foreign policy of India was perfected in the days of cold war, when the world was divided into two grand camps, the capitalist US and socialist USSR. Every country, every region and every conflict had been caught up in this larger divide and the two forces were behind one or the other contender in those conflicts.

Now things are different. Te bipolar world is no more and uni-polarity is gone and it seems multi-polarity is the name of game. And naturally, India emerges as a regional player and it has ambitions of being a global power. Its establishment thinks the US is a natural ally because both have complimentary ambitions and can play to mutual benefit.

But how far this could be true?

It is tough to say. But one thing is clear. If India takes itself to the US camp, it would naturally have serious consequences among the Muslims, within the country and globally, especially as and when the US goes ahead with its threatened attack on Iran too. Then there is another possibility too: Of the non-US world, may be Russia, China, Venezuela, Iran and others, joining hands in a grand global alliance against the US and its allies. Then India would find itself woefully alone, its natural allies gone and its new friends not entirely dependable.

Why Hillary-Obama Tussle is Big News in Kerala?

A cartoon on Super Tuesday, published in Thejas, a newspaper from Kozhikode.



THE SUPER Tuesday showdown was big news in India. No wonder that the mainstream Indian English newspapers, from The Hindu of Chennai to Times of India of Mumbai to the Hindustan Times of Delhi front paged it and most of them led the day’s news with the neck to neck battle between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. They are the voice of the upwardly mobile Indian middle class, who speak the language of the yuppie, eat his hotdogs and aspire to the life and style of the west.

But most of the regional language newspapers also carried the news item on front pages and many of them led their news with it. I read around a dozen Malayalam newspapers and I found that almost half of them had prominently covered the news on their front pages.

Why such an unusual interest in the election process in the United States, at a time when even the candidates are yet to be decided? What is unusual is the keen interest the regional newspapers, mainly those catering to the small religious and linguistic minorities, have shown in this election process. They seem to follow up the Clinton-Obama battle as if they were candidates in a local election.

One interesting aspect of this media interest seems to be the fact that the newspapers run by the Muslim community are showing an unusual interest in the election. In Kerala, there are as many as five major mainstream newspapers that cater to the Muslim community, a religious minority that comes to around 26 per cent of the population. As a community, Muslims in Kerala, mainly living in the northern Malabar region, are now showing a vigor unseen in the past. Just two decade ago, they had just one newspaper, Chandrika run by the Muslim League, but recent years have seen such a massive growth in the Muslim media. From the city of Kozhikode, five morning newspapers come out targeting the Muslims readers while there are around a score other publications including weeklies and magazines.

And reading their pages, one realizes that they are more international than any other major national newspapers which give scanty coverage for international affairs. The Bush administration’s attack against Iraq and its aftermath, Israel’s aggression against Palestine, the Iran nuclear imbroglio, etc, were followed up as eagerly as any local event by these newspapers. In fact unlike other mainstream newspapers, Thejas and Madhyamam, two leading Muslim newspapers, devote full pages for international affairs.

The fact seems to be that global events, especially attacks on the Muslim community everywhere is as avidly followed up by editors as well as their readers as any other local event. That explains the keen interest in Hillary-Obama tussle, as people here expect that an Obama victory would have a tremendous impact on the United States’ Iraq policy. There is also a hope that a saner attitude to the Muslim community would be pursued if Obama comes to power.

The same message is what one gets reading the letters to the editor columns in these newspapers. In a place where there are umpteen number of issues to write to the editor about, like the huge rise in rice price to the lack of employment to the increasing menace of mosquitoes in cities, one finds that almost half of the letters are about global affairs, from the hanging of Saddam Hussein to the plight of the children in Gaza strip.

A truly international community lives in this small part of the global south, indeed.

A Landmark: 2500-year-old Canoe Found in Makotai

The Iron Age canoe brings first proof of Kodungallur as the centre of global trade 2500 years ago.

By N P Chekkutty

Yaleglobal, the online magazine of the Yale University Centre for the Study of Globalization, describes globalization as an historical process that began with the first movement of people out of Africa into other parts of the world. Traveling short, then longer distances, migrants, merchants, and others have always taken their ideas, customs, and products into new lands. The melding, borrowing, and adaptation of outside influences can be found in many areas of human life.

The movement of technology, food and plants and ideas are three major areas where this process made its impact right from the early days of history. New historical and archaeological studies have proved how this process developed through centuries and how mankind was going through a process of integration ever since they came to know how to travel around.

In the past week, two major archaeological findings, from the two hemispheres of the planet, brought back into focus the ancient roots of this process. The first report came from Yucatan in Mexico, where scholars unearthed evidence of a 1500-year-old market in an ancient Mayan city. The market place was a thriving place dealing with food articles and other essential items as any other market in these days of post-modern globalization, reminding us how ancient are most of the modern trends that we speak of.(See report, Ancient Yucatan Soils Point to Maya Market, and Market Economy, New York Times, Jan.8.,2008, www.nytimes.com).

On the other side of the planet, in Kodungallur near Kochi, Kerala, archaeologists reported finding of the remains of an ancient ship. The Hindu on Wednesday, January 9, reported that the radiocarbon dating of the remains unearthed at Pattanam, seven kilometers south of the present town of Kodungallur, has proved that these remains date back to around 5th century BC.(See report, Study Points to 500 BC Kerala Maritime Activity, The Hindu, Jan.9,2008; www.thehindu.in).

These are exciting findings: The Iron Age remains unearthed in Kodungallur including part of a wooden canoe and bollards (stakes used to secure canoes and boats) give the first archaeological evidence that trade was indeed part of human activity even in those Iron Age days.

It was the Kerala Council for Historical Studies (KCHR) which conducted these studies at Kodungallur in February-April 2007 and the findings were tested for dating at the Institute of Physics, Bhubaneswar. The analysis was done making use of the method known as Accelerator Mass Spectrometry (AMS) Radiocarbon 14C, a well known process for dating historical artifacts.

The KCHR director, Dr. P J Cheriyan, describes the findings as evidence for the maritime activities in these parts as early as the fifth century BC. “The artifacts received from the excavation site suggest that Pattanam, a hinterland port and a multicultural settlement, may have had links with the Mediterranean, the Red Sea, the Arabian Sea and the South China Sea rims since the early historical period of South India,” he says.

Archeologists and historians are excited about the new findings. T Satyamurthy, eminent archaeologist, Chennai, has expressed the view that the new findings were very encouraging. It is necessary to conduct more excavations of a horizontal nature to find further validation for these initial findings, he says.

Dr. M G S Narayanan, eminent historian and former chairman of the Indian Council for Historical Research (ICHR), also feels these are very important findings. This is the first time archaeological evidence has come up that points to the existence of maritime trade in these areas as early as the fifth century BC, he said in an interview.

Dr. Narayanan said that the ancient Sangham literature referred to the booming city of Makotai, which was known as Muciri in Tamil and Muziris in Greek. There were a number of songs in the Sangham literature that spoke about the town. There were inscriptions and other epigraphic evidences that proved the importance of the town of Makotai which later became Mahodayapuram during the second Cera’s who ruled from the ninth to 12th centuries.

Dr Narayanan said the present day Pattanam was most likely the ancient Muciri Pattanam, described in the ancient Tamil literature. Many interesting findings had been made here, like the ancient Roman pottery and coins that date back to the first and second centuries AD. Large broken pieces of amphora, the long beaked Roman wine glass, were also among them.

But the present findings take the history of Makotai to even before the Roman age, much deep into the Iron Age. The KCHR plans to continue their digging in the area, including an under-water exploration, later this year in search of more detailed information about the ancient trade that linked this port to other parts of the world.

11.01.2008

Bikaneri Bhujia Battles the World's Titans

By N P Chekkutty

The case of Bikaneri Bhujia, an indigenous variety of sweet quite popular in the north, gives a graphic illustration of the impact of the global market forces on the livelihood of the poorer in Indian villages.
The bikaneri bhujia is a traditional snack produced in cottage industries in Bikaner, Rajasthan. It provides employment to around 2.5 million people in villages, the majority of them women who inherited the know-how and skills to produce this delicacy. The snack is prepared from the moth lentil which grows only in the deserts of Bikaner and Jodhpur and it has had a secure local market all these years. It provided employment not only to the producers and traders and street-vendors but also a large number of farmers in the desert region; another ten thousand women were engaged in the preparation of papads, which are eaten together with the bhujias.
But the cycle of secure employment and local consumption of produce is changing, with globalisation. A recent study brought out by the National Commission for Women, entitled Impact of WTO on Women in Agriculture, prepared by the New Delhi-based Research Foundation for Science & Technology after detailed research and field studies, provides many examples of what goes on Indian villages - where indigenous know-how is now being widely exploited by multinational corporations bent on monopolizing the traditional markets. Recently, Pepsi, the global food and beverages company, began using this traditional name in their advertisements with a view to underbid the local producers; this would destroy a market developed in the region through the hard work of many generations. The report says that Pepsi had done no special research input into developing it nor had it introduced any new technology in the production of bikaneri bhujia; it simply took the traditional know-how.
The study asserts that the global agribusiness is now attempting to take over food processing, which provides millions of Indians with a livelihood in their age-old ghanis (oils extractors), chakkis (flour millers) and dhabas (foods servers), by labeling locally produced food as inferior, while promoting their stale and frozen food clothed in aluminium and plastic foils as modern. This is the magic of powerful advertising which promotes the market forces even in a highly decentralized and culture-specific sector like food production. What is being destroyed by the food retail chains and packaged foods is the livelihood of millions who include the small farmers, the traders, the mill-operators or chakkiwallahs and the thousands of family-run kirana shops.
It also points out that the US multinational is now trying to undercut the local producers of Bikaneri bhujia, by taking up high-tech production, which holds disastrous consequences for the people of Bikaner. It would result in their traditional product going to the multinational and their market destroyed by its high volume produce backed by massive advertisements flooding the market, in the process driving out the original producers of the snack.
The book gives a description of how Cargill, a US multinational, was making efforts to take over the sphere of activities of our ancient chakkis with its recently introduced Nature Fresh Atta. It points out that Cargill, which controls over 70 per cent of the world's trade in cereals, can dictate the prices of agricultural commodities. Since they entered the wheat food market in India with their Nature Fresh Atta campaign, half the mills in Punjab, a State where wheat flour is the primary item for food preparations, have closed down. As the authors of the report says, the Cargill company had even used the occasion of Kargil war victory celebrations to launch their new brand of 'Nature Fresh Atta' in an attempt to "exploit the sentiments of the people and to create confusion among the consumers with a dexterous and unethical use of the similarity in the names of the place and the company".
What the study undoubtedly proves is the disastrous ways Indian traditional agriculture is being undermined by the invasion of the multinational corporations in the wake of our entry to the World Trade Organization and its multilateral agreements relating to agriculture.
Over 70 percent of Indian farmers depend on traditional systems of production and majority of them are small and marginal farmers in the rural areas. Often, entire communities are organised around local knowledge and production.
Brains and bullocks
Women are a major part of the food industry in the country as they are primarily responsible for most of the activities related to food, from seed preservation to food production, and their role is now being marginalised by the multinationals who are out to take over the Indian food industry. As Vandana Shiva, who led the study on behalf of the Women's Commission, notes, it was the first gender sensitive study on the impact of WTO on agriculture, based on research as well as field work involving public hearings held in four parts of the country. It focussed primarily on two major aspects; the first a review of the shifts of knowledge and control over seed and bio-diversity from women to global corporations and secondly, it examined the impact of trade liberalization in agriculture leading to loss of livelihood, women's employment and entitlement.
The fist part of the book, where WTO and its various agreements are examined with relation to India, makes an objective critique of the major agreements, viz, the Agreement on Agriculture (AoA), Agreement on Sanitary and Phyto Sanitary Measures (SPS) and Trade Related Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPs) on Indian peasants, especially its womenfolk. As it elaborately argues, these agreements have had an extremely negative impact on the women with deprival of entitlement and employment leading to massive hunger and malnutrition; divestment of resources and livelihood and an increase in violence against women. It also notes the catastrophic consequences of the shifting patterns of agriculture leading pauperization and consequent massive peasant suicides adding additional burden on their shoulders as most often women are left behind to look after the deprived families.
The experience gained at the jan sunwais conducted in Punjab, West Bengal, Karnataka and Budelkhand actually substantiates what the academic critique of the new regime in agriculture has pinpointed. These jan sunwais were participated in by ordinary peasant women, activists from the peasants and agricultural workers organizations, grassroots level workers, etc. They threw a lot of light on the miserable situation in most parts of the Indian countryside, the deepening debt crisis and the erosion of traditional methods of agriculture, loss of traditional expertise and loss livelihood, and the massive impoverishment of the peasant class across the country.
Here is what Sabitri, a peasant woman from Bhelware, Bishnugarh in Jharkhand says about the way agriculture changed over the years. She said they used to cultivate a number of varieties like bal-bhog, man-bhog, purbi sail, kart baki and maina tho, each of them having different characteristics. They needed less water and no fertilizer. Then came the new varieties of high yielding seeds and what happened? They produced twice as much, but destroyed the fields and drained out the water resources. As Sabiri says, "khet kharab ho gaye. Labh ke liye purao dhan chhod diyo".(Now our fields are spoilt. For profit people have stopped planting the old strains.)
As the book points out, over 70 percent of Indian farmers depend on traditional systems of production and majority of them are small and marginal farmers in the rural areas. Often, entire communities are organised around local knowledge and production; almost the entire population of Bikaner, for example, was involved in one way of the other in the production and distribution of bikaneri bhujias. When traditional methods of sharing and exchange of biological resources like seed sharing are undermined by the new regime being brought in by the Seed Bill and Patent Bill, it would bring more harm to them than the intended benefits. As already seen in the case of Cargill and Pepsi, the traditional systems of exchange of know-how are now being eroded; individuals, organizations and corporations who receive bio-diversity and knowledge from indigenous communities free of charge are converting these gifts into private property.
This work is an important step in the efforts to study the malaise that has befallen the Indian rural life. As the pioneering gender specific study of the impact of the new economic policies, it should attract the attention of policymakers and officials in the government.

(First published at www.indiatogether.org in July 2005.)