India's Growth Story

Friends, Participating in the NDTV programme on the India Growth story killed by corruption? in its We the People episode of 31st July2011, certain points arose which we would like to share with you. The India Growth Story is about India's engagement with modernity. Disputes can be there about how India has gone about this engagement on which the participants in the programme expressed their views. Here inevitably the civil society led anti corruption campaign came in to discussion. Ashutosh Varshney, an eminent scholar on the panel, was of of the view that corruption accompanied most societies(including U.S.) which made a transition from the agrarian stage to the industrial stage. Here he looked at the anti corruption campaign more as a middle class angst which should find a reflection in the political parties' concerns.Mr. Manish Tewary the Hon. MP from the Congress on the panel expressed concerns about how the anti corruption campaign was threatening the legislature and its law making concerns.It is for this reason perhaps the Congress has branded the anti corruption campaign sectarian. To us it is important in this context of debates on India's engagement with modernity that certain questions are not missed out. Importantly the passage to modernity involves a move towards the separation of political state and civil society.It is here Karl Marx an eminent thinker of the 19th century pointed out in his Contribution to the Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Law that 'the question whether all should individually participate in deliberating and deciding on the general affairs of the state is a question which arises from the separation of the political state and civil society'. In a situation where this separation is in the process of happening within the precincts of the older political state where the political state and civil society are one there arise mass aspirations for as general a participation as possible in the legislative power(like the debates we witnessing on the Jan Lokpal Bill).This is what emerges as a striving for as general as possible a participation in the legislation making. It is here it is most important that the anti corruption campaign of the civil society be understood as a movement which is not sectarian or reduced to one estate or the other as both the scholar Ashutosh Varshney or the mainstream political parties tend to do.The mass support to the civil society's anti corruption campaign is significant in this regard. The recognition of this as a nonsectarian movement perhaps can help us in coming to grips with the India story.(SFC, PG IGNOU,with the help of Mr.Ajay Mahurkar and Dr. Dolly Mathew)

Horror In Norway

Friends, Close on the heels of the terror attack in Mumbai(13/7) in India, we see the reports of the horrifying blast and killing of the eighty six young students at a youth camp near Oslo last week.While the perpetrators of the Mumbai terror are yet to be identified, the Norway police have arrested Anders Breivik ,a Norwegian, for the attacks and killings. The attacker has been identified as a right wing Christian fundamentalist whose manifesto was anti immigrant, anti Muslim,anti multiculturalism and anti cultural Marxist.Breivik was also courting revenge for the betrayal of the their heritage by the 'indigenous Europeans'.Praveen Swami writing in the Hindu newspaper on 25th July'11 described this as a 'mode of praxis consistent with the periodic acts of mass violence European fascists have been carrying out since World War II'. Mr. Swami, drawing parallels with India, argued that these ideas were firmly rooted in the mainstream right wing discourse. It is in this context that the response of the Norwegian people and the young students who survived the massacre have been noteworthy.The Norwegian PM was emphatic that this tragedy will not take Norway away from the democratic and pluralistic principles for which Norway stands.Speaking on the BBC, a youth leader from the camp affirmed that the youth will move towards more democracy in the face of such an attack. In India too we need to find such ways to affirm our pluralistic and democratic traditions and processes in the wake of these dangers. Jean Paul Sartre the French intellectual had been highlighting such dangers in his writings in the post world War II period. He located the origins of Terror in the static totalizing and schematizing tendencies of ideologies and their practioners in Europe
where whatever was not understood was simply eliminated. It was this according to him which gave rise to extremist trends in Europe. Accompanying this in European history were attempts to reduce as quickly as possible the political to social. As in the case of Praveen Swami's right wing political extremist in India, who wanted to set fire to the society to awaken people, this led to a great deal of violence in Europe. The move towards further exploring democratic options and processes(as in Norway) today will perhaps take us away from static schematisms and quick fix solutions to a more peaceful world.(SFC,PG IGNOU,with the help of Mr.Ajay Mahurkar and Dr. Dolly Mathew)