The Recent General V.K. Singh Episode

Friends, The controversy generated by the Indian Express report (20th September 2013) on Gen. V. K. Singh has created quite a storm. The report said to be based on govt.sources highlights a covert unit set up by General V.K. Singh during his tenure as the army chief.It alleges that secret funds were used by this unit to carry on quite a few covert operations including payments to ministers in the Jammu and Kashmir government and an attempt to destabilise the elected government of the current chief minister of Jammu and Kashmir.This last has raised quite a furore as this was seen as an attempt to subverting the basic democratic principle of the military being subordinate to democratic civilian rule in a democracy. In a mail to the audience cell of the news channel NDTV we had highlighted how this was reminiscent of the operations of the military- industrial complexes of the 20th century. We had also highlighted in the mail how peace movements since then had consistently struggled against such legacies of this period. Gen. V.K. Singh since has refuted the allegations in an interview with an NDTV correspondent and in statements to other sections of the media saying that his association with the opposition parties including his presence at a recent pre- election rally in Rewari had raised this campaign against him.
            Subsequently in a programme " The Big Fight" broadcast by NDTV last Saturday (28th September 2013 and recorded earlier) the issue came up in a  debate.Some of us who attended this debate as audience in the studios were struck by the heat and the animation the issue generated.The panel was composed of  distinguished politicians and equally distinguished retired senior officers of the armed forces along with a young journalist who tried to put across their perspectives on the issue. General Raj Kadyan was of the opinion that revelations had certainly damaged the reputation of the army but this should be seen as an aberrant episode.Another member of the panel, Mr. Tarun Vijay, was of the opinion that infact the government source who revealed the ministry report should be seen as a 'traitor'.Brig. Mahalingam and Gen. Arora were more sombre in their assessments.Mr.Surjewala(Congress) and the spokesman of National Conference too put forward sober assessments. However the dominant feeling was the wish that this episode should not have happened.
     How do we see this debate? As the NDTV website put it that it is for the first time since the independence that such a high level security officer(rank of a general) of the country has been involved in a fracas with the government in an episode widely seen to be hurting India's security.Recent portrayals of India as modernising in the global and indeed post- industrial context has brought forward the concept of security.Indeed since the time of French Revolution as societies went through modernisation in different contexts the issue of security has been centre-stage.For modernisation is marked by emergence of civil society in separation from the political state.The enlightenment thinkers including Karl Marx had argued in the 19th century that security is the highest social concept of civil society.This expressed the fact that the whole of society exists in order to 'guarantee to each of its members the preservation of of his person,his rights and his property'.Article 8 of the Constitution of 1793 after the French Revolution put it explicitly even then:"Security consists in the protection afforded by society to each of its members for the preservation of his person,his rights and his property'.Hegel later on in the early 19th century saw the civil society as the 'state of need and reason' However by the end of the 19th century certain trends became clear as to why the early optimism surrounding the emergence of civil society did not translate in to an effective modernisation.It was becoming evident that within the organisation of national life and perhaps chauvinist nationalism was not enabling a transition of individual citizens and their labour and work to the 'level of social elements'.Further chauvinist politics separated the individual from the state as a whole and civil society was constituted as discrete societies within society based on narrow corporate criteria of ethnicity, caste etc.These narrow corporations then determined the individual's relation to the state.While the political process did try to overcome these odds within the context of industrialisation and rising capitalism in Europe and elsewhere, the situation became complicated with militarism and colonialism which promoted and used narrow identities.Consequently we see the process of misanthropic(human hating) materialism emerging within the civil society.It is to combat such trends that we see the emergence of genuine international movements for peace and cosmopolitanism in Europe and America.It is with these movements India's early patriots including the Ghadar activists allied to promote a genuinely internationalist anti colonial struggle.
   The issue of security then acquired a broadbased dimension as well.Though the coming of the post- industrial societies gave a new dynamic to identity politics,today we see the legacy of broad based concept of security in international civil society and global citizenship movements.The attempt is to make the political process responsive to individual rights,life and liberty the cornerstones of  the concept of security since the French revolution.With emphasis on freedom of speech, expression and press today's movements have taken a step forward from certain practises of the French Revolution where press freedom did come under attack.
      It is in this context that the General V. K. Singh episode which blew up in the context of current pre-election campaigns in India assumes significance.There has been a tendency by some political and other forces to play politics with the issue.We argue that the issue of security is too important for it to be politicised in this manner.It is important here that modernisation of security forces be carried out. It is equally important that the military should be made subordinate to democratically formed civilian government.To take the concept of security forward moreover it is important that the current election campaigns of all political parties be responsible, healthier, democratic and free from violence. The recent communal violence and killings in Muzaffarnagar in the wake of the coming elections and other such violence only tends to undermine what the concept of security stands for. Strengthening democracy and democratic processes is the way forward from the Gen. V.K. Singh episode and perhaps to overcome the damage caused by it.(SFC, PG IGNOU, with the help of Mr. Ajay Mahurkar and Dr. Dolly Mathew).
      

Recent Students Protest at the IGNOU Campus

Friends, In the second half of April 2012 and till the 1st May 2012, the IGNOU students protested at the prospects of closure of the face to face programmes of the university.Starting with two massive demonstrations going on to  an indefinite hunger strike which was called off and converted in to a relay hunger strike, the protest ended with a peaceful court arrest.The face to face programmes on campus had been started by the previous vice chancellor but the current acting vice chancellor had told the students and the press that  these face to face programmes were unconstitutional and would be closed.The vice chancellor had also set up a 'high power committee to review IGNOU's mandate' whose interim report recommending the suspension of these programmes had been deferred by the academic council.These events started a lively debate on the  question of face to face programmes on an Open and Distance learning university campus.The more orthodox opinion in the university rejected the idea of a face to face programme in the university saying that it was not was not within IGNOU's 'mandate' to launch such programmes.Indeed the term 'mandate' was also used to designate the brief of the 'high power' committee set up by the vice chancellor.However even amongst the orthodox practitioners and scholars of  Open and Distance learning, opinions are divided. Hilary Perraton, an eminent practitioner of Open and Distance learning argued recently in a book that part of the revenues earned in the fees of distance teaching universities can be ploughed back in to face to face teaching.Graville Rumble (an old distance education hand) argued in the U. K. Open University journal 'Open Learning'(1992,7,2) that dual mode universities( offering both face to face and distance education programmes) tend to be more flexible and cost effective.The main concern here was the rigidities of outlook and functioning which had come in to the Open and Distance teaching universities which some of the scholars argued were tending towards 'closure' rather than openness.(These included the first open University that is the United Kingdom Open University).The debate in IGNOU at the same time also focused on off campus face to face programmes offered in institutions under the public private scheme of IGNOU to highlight whether these were 'teaching shops' and whether they would contribute to the rigidities of the University.
    The arguments also turned towards the Indian Parliament Act of 1985 which had established the IGNOU.It was argued that this Act of 1985 would have to be amended for IGNOU to offer face to face programmes and that IGNOU did not have the 'mandate' to launch such programmes. However we did point out that the IGNOU Act of 1985 does not use the term 'mandate' to describe the objectives of IGNOU. Rather it used the terms 'encouragement and promotion of Open and Distance learning within the educational pattern of the country'(See the opening statement of the Act). For this the clause 4 of the Act advocates 'a diversity of means including the use of any communication technology'.We had recently argued this point in a paper to the Search Committee headed by the eminent scientist Kasturirangan constituted to search for a new V.C. of the university.We also argued here that scholars and practitioners like Terry Evans and Daryl Nation while researching in to Open and Distance learning systems and Universities have been arguing for developing forms of synergy between face to face and distance teaching/learning practices in the context of late modernity (with which we seem to be integrating under the current phase of globalisation).This does not take us back in to the rigidities of the Conventional  education systems but takes us towards building new relationships and forms of Open learning.For this we argued there was no need to change the Act of 1985 but there was a need to recognize the changing times we live in. The Act itself provides for sufficient diversity of practices.Recently talking to Prof. Santosh Panda, a member of this 'high power mandate' committee and an eminent educationist, we found that even he holds that under the Act of 1985 the IGNOU teachers reserve the option of teaching face to face programmes.Addressing the question of rigidity also becomes important in the context of the fact that the use of the term 'mandate' of the university comes from the way old universities of France and Germany were established in the medieval times by the then Popes.Indeed 'mandate' of the Pope was given to prescribe which subjects could be taught or could not be taught in these universities and the way these could be taught.Indeed George Brodrick in his histories of Cambridge and Oxford Universities(1894) brings out some of these themes.(Moreover even here at the highest level there was a concept of a dialogue between the King and the Pope before establishment of these universities as some scholars bring out.).The IGNOU Act on the other hand has come from a parliamentary process of debate and dialogue.Importantly the Indian Parliament itself is the outcome of a modern and broad based freedom struggle, indeed one of the greatest democratic and non violent movements of the 20th century.It is in this movement there were struggles for freedom of speech and expression which later on became a part of our constitution.It is this background we must keep in mind while looking at IGNOU Act which in any case does not even mention the concept of 'mandate'. Indeed the IGNOU Act in its clause 7 does away with any imposition of religion(implied in the term mandate used in the context of universities, esp. European Universities) on its students,teachers, academic staff or other staff while making a positive provision for women and weaker sections of the society. This is far removed from the patriarchal and religious concerns of heretical subjects being taught at the European Universities established by the religious concerns of the mandate or fiat of the Popes in medieval times.
           Indeed in the light of freedom of speech and expression upheld by our constitution,parliament and our freedom struggle and such struggles since then enable us to understand the diversity of teaching learning processes which the IGNOU Act of 1985 upholds.That  concept of diversity is extended also to teaching/learning in technology.(This is an important area since it is here that philosophers like Sartre pointed out that in technological work even during the period of semi-automatic machines men and women responded differently while being placed in analogous technological work.[see his Critique of Dialectical Reason, Vol.1] It is here that we need to take care that the technologically mediated teaching/learning does not succumb to viciousness of identity politics which dominates today and due regard is given to freedoms of speech and expression and other fundamental freedoms.We are referring here to the what Herbert Marcuse points out as  'struggles of existence' which break out in the context of a technology driven post industrial society of late modernity.In his book the 'One Dimensional Man' he points out how 'competing or differing needs,aspirations and desires are organised by vested interests in domination and scarcity' which moves this society towards violence and war. This is achieved by a fierce identity politics which imposes stereotypes of men, women,communities, race, creed etc.(We saw one example in the racist attacks on Indian students in Australia).
     It is here the struggle for openness away from rigidity in the open and distance education becomes important.Desmond Keegan has pointed out how important it was for Open and Distance learning to get out of stereotypes of race, caste, gender, religion etc.(See his Foundations of Distance Education). It was precisely for this purpose that a critique of the conventional classroom teaching was developed by early open and distance educators.It is precisely here the debates on synergy between classroom and distance teaching become important to combat the radical stereotyping of gender, creed, caste etc. imposed on us in the post industrial/late modernity context.
      We feel that the IGNOU students protest highlighted a struggle and search for openness in a context where a radical stereotyping of distance education was going on through high power committee etc.That they were joined by students of Jamia, Jawaharlal Nehru University, Delhi University and other students through social media perhaps highlights this search for openness in education. Of course they have to take care that in the process they do not promote further rigidities through what are being called 'teaching shops' The protest was peaceful and the VC to his credit did constitute a teachers committee to dialogue with the students which also brought a split teachers association representatives for the purpose of talks. We hope this will continue.The sound and fury of the last day of the protest when the police was called in because the students were blocking passage however masked a desire for a non violent expansion of democratic space in the university. A few strident notes were struck but the students realised that no student movement can succeed by turning anti-teacher or indeed anti other constituents of the university. They were back on dialogue table after a peaceful court arrest and the VC gave them the assurance that he would do his best to look after their interest, the ongoing dharna and relay hunger strike was called off on the 1st May 2012. We hope that this search for openness along with massive participation of our distance education students in the recent 'Save the Forests' campaign with the Greenpeace (where on campus students too participated) will move towards what Herbert Macuse called an alternative of 'pacification of existence' in the wake of fierce identity politics and violence in the context of late modernity.We then could really move towards new forms of open learning.(SFC, PG IGNOU with the help of Mr. Ajay Mahurkar and Dr. Dolly Mathew)
              
           
               

Congratulations

We congratulate the students of IGNOU who participated in large numbers last week in the Greenpeace campaign 'Save the Forests'. After an SMS campaign which reached about a lakh students we were told by the Greenpeace India that about 10,ooo students registered to express their support. The activity involved giving a simple missed call to the number given in the campaign message to register support.This campaign is a part of the larger movement of the Greenpeace where issues of climate change, marine biodiversity and related concerns have been highlighted.In a subsequent meeting with the activists of the Greenpeace India we were told that they intend to take up their campaigns through talks, plays, posters etc. to different localities in India with the help of volunteers drawn from all sections of the society including students.IGNOU students who are located in different parts of the country could come forward here. We in IGNOU have been interacting with the Greenpeace India for the past one year.We organised(thanks to SOSS) an interaction of the students,academics,teachers and the staff with Greenpeace India at the Convention Centre at the Maidangarhi campus last year in March.Subsequently we went to their actions at the India Gate, Delhi Haat and at the Jantar Mantar.The interaction at the Convention Centre has now been made in to a documentary "Going Green: An Interaction with Greenpeace" and has been telecast on the IGNOU's Gyan Darshan. The IGNOU teachers association blog too expressed its support to the Greenpeace ship 'Hope'(working on the question of marine biodiversity) recently when it discussed IGNOU's thrust towards a green curriculum. On our blog too we had posted a letter of support from the Australian Green Party when we were campaigning against the racist attacks on the Indian students in Australia.The massive support which we have received on the IGNOU-Greenpeace 'Save the Forests' campaign is also a support for non violent campaigns for the expansion of democratic environmental space. It is in this context we view the recent violent clashes in Senegal in Africa with concern. It is here in the city of Dakar that one of the largest gathering of the Global Greens(a network of Green parties from all over the world) will be taking place at the end of March this year.They will be addressing the complex task of democratisation in North Africa.They are hoping that with this attempt they can move towards a new green deal and a politics for the new millennium.It is for this reason that they are supporting the greens FEDES which is opposing the ruling party's unconstitutional moves.However violence has broken out with the incumbent President announcing his candidacy for a third term deemed unconstitutional by many.Greenpeace Africa has already issued a statement condemning the violence in which even some young people participated.We too wish to reiterate that violence will only take us back to regressive political structures and ideologies and defeat any attempts towards building a peaceful,tolerant and an environment friendly world. (SFC, PG IGNOU with the help of Mr. Ajay Mahurkar and Dr. Dolly Mathew)

Last One Week or So

Friends, Last week we saw the return of shocking and horrifying violence of terror in Delhi. With 13 dead and many more injured we will be living with one more trauma to cope with. We hope the affected families and their friends find the strength to carry on as they must.The perpetrators of this ghastly act are yet to be caught. Meanwhile the focus has shifted to political blame games and complex penologies to deal with terror. We have been discussing(from 2nd September 2011 onwards) the issues of effectiveness of capital punishment in our discussions/groups of the university and have had heated exchange of views. Interesting also was an NDTV discussion on 4th of September 2011(We the People episode) which we attended.(This you can look up on the website of www.ndtv.com) The discussion was in the context of rejection of mercy pleas of Rajiv Gandhi assasins(who had been sentenced to death) by the Supreme Court and the President of India .(Subsequently the Tamil Nadu assembly passed a resolution asking for a review).Mr. S. Chaturvedi of the Congress said that it was glaringly clear that the law should take its course and after the rejection of the petition the discussion(ie. this programme) should not have taken place at all.Mr. Chandan Mitra of the BJP tended to agree with him. We feel that here it is important to take in to account the insight of Plato that law has to be onesided and it makes an abstraction of the individual criminal.It is this insight which was taken up by the modern legal systems.This enabled an attempt to create human conditions for the reform of the criminal(in which he himself participated) under modern law.Capital punishment however is a finality which does away with the need to address the creation of this human condition itself. The complex penologies which are under debate today will perhaps need to take this in to account.(SFC,PG IGNOU,with the help of Ajay Mahurkar and Dr. Dolly Mathew)

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)

The Hazare Effect

Some IGNOU students marked the Anna Hazare(the ex- armyman who turned Gandhian) campaign against corruption in a small way by holding a march and screening of an anti-war film 'Turtles Can Fly' by Bahman Ghobadi. The march and the film were basically held to demonstrate how political power, in the words of the eminent thinker of the 19th century Frederick Engels ,'can do great damage to the economic development and result in the squandering of great masses of energy and material' when it tries to cut off economic development from certain paths and prescribe certain others.The massive corruption of the recent scams is surely a squandering of great masses of energy and material which could have been put to an all around development purposes. Ghobadi's film brought out how even in the context of war, the young ( in this case children) try to organise themselves in a situation where odds are overwhelmingly stacked against them. Perhaps in the Hazare campaign the youth were similarly taking on the state and political power in an issue whose dimensions are mind boggling. Social scientist Shiv Vishwanathan (April 11,HT) confesses to be puzzled by the movement. He agrees with the issue, 'our democracy seems to be emptying out in our ability to handle corruption'.Yet he feels that the participants in the movement are like the millenialists who felt that the bullets could not harm them and likewise they (Hazare activists) feel that authority cannot touch them. He sums up,'they feel that they are at the roots of law, creating law for a new era'. Perhaps it was Fredrick Engels who put the matter in perspective when he argued in the context of relations between money markets, trade and production that 'the reflection of economic relations as legal principles is necessarily also a topsy-turvy one: it happens without the person who is acting being conscious of it; the jurist imagines he is operating with a priori principles, whereas they are only economic reflexes; so everything is turned upside down'. Perhaps this accounts for the sense of surreal which Shiv Vishwanathan feels in watching the Hazare protest?(SFC, PG IGNOU with the help of Ajay Mahurkar and Dr. Dolly Mathew)

Against Chauvinism

Friends, Some of us had the opportunity to gather at an NDTV programme on language wars along with a diverse audience and panel at their studios in N.Delhi. The discussion covered a range of issues including the issue of a link language for India and personal experiences of learning languages in the Indian context. The backdrop of the programme was the dispute between Karnataka and Maharashtra on the issue of Marathi speaking villages in the district of Belgaum in Karnataka which Maharashtra is claiming for its own.This has given vent to a rising tide of linguistic and regional chauvinism in both Karnataka and Maharashtra. Now, language was the basis on which Indian states were organised in India.The background to adopting this criterion were the famous debates on the nationality question in the 20th century.The challenge in this context was always to rise above chauvinism. This was well reflected in the concerns raised by the panel and some of the audience. The discussion also turned to politics of language etc. but missed out on the question of education against linguistic chauvinism and chauvinism as such as the anchor acknowledged towards the end.To us however, the democratic spirit of the gathering and the concern of the vocal and not so vocal in listening to each other in fact contributed to the spirit of education against chauvinism. It is this democratic spirit which ultimately contributes towards an internationalist education against linguistic chauvinism.It was this spirit which was highlighted by the prominent writers on this question in the nationality question debates in the 20th century.
However, it is this very democratic and educational spirit which is being hijacked in the current context. The attack on Zee TV station in Maharashtra where a discussion on the Belgaum issue was in progress last week or the attack on TV Today offices in Delhi again last week shows that there are forces out to annex this progressive spirit itself. We need to be on our guard against this.(SFC, PG IGNOU with the help of Ajay Mahurkar and Dr. Dolly Mathew)

Best Wishes

Friends, It has indeed been a May of negative and violent political developments. On the other hand IGNOU had a hectic schedule of conferences and seminars. We must also congratulate the Student Support Division of IGNOU and the Regional Centres for successfully holding the North Zone Learners' Conference on 16th of May2010. Over five hundred students from different streams participated. Spread over four sessions with themes including counselling, evaluation processes, use of ICT in open and distance learning and placements of students there was free and frank exchange of views. The organisers made it clear that they were there to listen which they did. Coming as this did on the 25th anniversary celebrations of IGNOU the conference held out the hope that IGNOU students would become active participants in the processes of the university.IGNOU students, as veterans would testify, do not have the luxury of a campus like in the conventional system of education.They are out there in the society trying to work out a learning space while perhaps working or with other pressing commitments. In that sense violence and negative political developments only negates the processes of creating a conducive learning space in manifold ways. Not having the shelter of the walls of a campus they tend to be more vulnerable. The organisers of the Learners Conference by attentively listening to and in moving towards a more participatory process contributed towards a 'healthy human understanding' of the vulnerabilities involved.Meanwhile best wishes to the thousands of IGNOU students from us for the on going June term end exams. (SFC and PG IGNOU with the help of Mr. Ajay Mahurkar and Dr. Dolly Mathew)

PICS

PICS ON CAMPUS

Friends, As the short spring this year turned to a very hot summer the landscape turned really fiery. The social and political landscape too did not provide any relief as the events of the last one and a half months show. Our friend Dr. SVS Reddy has been clicking away on the IGNOU campus meanwhile and has sent us some pics. We are posting them as they seem to provide a little relief. We have not classified them yet and hope you will help.(SFC, PG IGNOU with the help of Mr. Ajay Mahurkar and Dr. Dolly Mathew)

SFC work at Almora

Friends, In an earlier posting on this blog on September 8th, 2009, we had told you about setting up the experimental SFC and PG groups at the remote Almora, (IGNOU) SC. We had told you then that important to setting up the study groups would be the multicultural experiences of the students of our PG member Dr. Dandekar. His students were to stay with families in the villages of different communities in the vicinity of the Almora SC.These students themselves come from different backgrounds and for most of them staying in a remote rural village would be a first time experience. Since these students were not trained anthropologists, Dr. Dandekar had gone in advance along with some of us to meet the families in the villages where these students had to stay. He also liased with a local NGO and asked them to take care. The students, however, had to be on their own and had to live with the families as family members and even do chores etc. in the process of creating time and conditions to study the local developmental processes. Towards the end of their stay, we made another trip, to visit the students in the villages they were staying in. This time we were accompanied by some local IGNOU students as well. In the discussions of Dr. Dandekar with his students, the IGNOU students got a first hand opportunity to listen in and participate in discussions on remote area developmental processes. That these studies were being conducted in a multicultural environment in harsh winter months was itself a learning experience(This perhaps would be used in setting up their study groups). Moreover these villages were poorly connected by roads. There was no telephone network except now one satellite phone is kept at the house of the village sarpanch for emergency calls etc. We too had to walk long distances in the cold to reach these villages.The villages we visited were Dulum, Loharkhet, Chaura and Supy(height of 7000 feet above sea level). This was sometimes end October 2009. It is important to recall these experiences at a time when the left in India just this week held a rally to focus on the issues of peasants and workers in Delhi.In the rally also figured the issue of the cycle of violence in which the Indian countryside(and elsewhere) developmental processes get caught up in. In this context the role of students in studying and understanding these processes is important.Our students were by this time nearing the end of their stay and were a little emotional about leaving.The families with whom they were staying had developed an affectionate bond with them. Many of us have gone through the school/college/university leaving experiences after a long period of stay. Farewells normally are a reminder that the 'carnival' is over and time for goodbyes has come. As the number by the Australian group Seekers put it ' Now the carnival is over, high above the dawn is waiting,and my tears are falling rain, for the carnival is over, we may never meet again' It is towards this high dawn that our students were moving for different and more absorbing experiences when we left their villages in Almora.Doubtless thousands of IGNOU students would perhaps be feeling the same when they leave after receiving their degrees on the convocation to be held on the 15th of March2010. (SFC, PG IGNOU with the help of Mr. Ajay Mahurkar and Dr. Dolly Mathew. We are posting some pics sent by Dr. Dandekar taken on the trip)

(above) the family with whom the students stayed at Supy village

(above) observing developmental work at Supy village

(above) students at the village Supy(7,000 feet above sea level)

(above) villagers at dusk in Chaura

(right) a stream on the way to Supy village(below) a shot of a grove

(above) a view of the village Chaura

(right) students at village Chaura

(above) village Chaura at night

(right) view of the mountains

(Right) IGNOU students contemplating the way. Students at village Loharkhet (above)

(Below) 1. A village student at Dulum2.A view of the snow mountains3. Our students at the village Dulum. Dulum in the local language is the place where the shadow of the rising sun meets the shadow of setting sun (Right) A grove

Thank You!

At The Surajkund Fair

Friends, Some of the faculty and and students of IGNOU had visited the the Surajkund crafts fair(ended 15th Feb.2010) which is held on the the way to Faridabad. These pics were sent to us by Dr. S.V. Reddy. The fair is held by the Haryana Tourism. Here the urban and the rural meet spectacularly.This time countries like Thailand, Afghanistan, Bhutan, Egypt and Tajkistan too participated to show their traditional crafts along with the Indian craftsmen/women. In this way a chance for building national and international goodwill and understanding seems to have taken shape.In contrast to the violent past month in India and elsewhere, some shades of harmony were at display at the fair. (SFC, PG IGNOU with the help of Mr. Ajay Mahurkar and Dr. Dolly Mathew)




Artefacts on Display and above artificial Flowers
Display at a Pavilion

Mela(fair) pictures

A Trapeze Artist about to begin

Mr. Ravikant (Dir) EMPC at the fair

Mr. Ajay Mahurkar at the Surajkund Fair

The Afghanistan Pavilion at the Surajkund Fair

A canopy at the Surajkund Fair

A village Artist

Performing Artists at the Fair

A Camel At the Surajkund Fair

IGNOU faculty member Dr. S.V. Reddy at the fair

The Surajkund Mascot

Blood Donation Camp at IGNOU

The School of Health Sciences, IGNOU and Rotary deserve to be congratulated for holding a successful blood donation camp at the Maidangarhi campus yesterday. Over a hundred volunteers donated blood and many contributed by looking after the donors and in organising the camp. The participants included students,faculty members and staff of IGNOU. At a time when there would be need for emergency medical supplies (including crises such as the earthquake at Haiti where even Indians are reported as missing or injured), such a camp can either help or atleast be an example for future such camps. That such camps can promote international goodwill is demonstrated by the report in Times of India on 31st Oct. 2009 when the family of an Australian David Moore travelled to India and donated blood in a camp which was deemed to be part of marriage celebrations of an Indian student who had worked and studied in Australia. They reiterated here their commitment to be a part of the wider donors movement. At a time when the attacks on the Indians are again on the rise in Australia, these gestures are worth remembering. (They remind us that a very large number of Australians can be appealed to for building goodwill at times of racist attacks or urban violence of the 'social swamp' which we described in an earlier posting.) The camp at IGNOU also threw up certain questions. The anxiety and apprehensions of participating in such a camp was evident amongst all the participants ie. the students, faculty and the staff. Some exhibited symptons of a higher than usual BP levels or some students fainted. Now the reasons for this could be due to the higher levels of anxiety which prevail in the typical urban existence we lead today. Various studies have documented how these anxiety levels about the body have gone up in the age of mobiles and speed telecommunication. Also, the questionnaires asking for health background etc.could be better designed and executed. As we move in to an an age where workplace takes up most of our time and it is here that we encounter the dynamics of speed telecommunication at its peak, we need to have strategies to cope with its stresses and strains. In India some private sector companies have gyms where employees can destress. Similarly in some countries a good and cheerful ambience is created by the efforts of the working people. This needs to be consciously done. As several writers including Sitaram Yechury, M.P. from Rajya Sabha have recently pointed out (in HT this week), progress in health does not automatically follow economic development. It has to be consciously achieved. As more and more students from diversity of backgrounds come in to IGNOU in large numbers and also leave to join the work force, this task of good health and cheerfulness will have to be worked for. It is here spending time on the counselling of the participants on questions of health background etc. could have been useful in taking care of risks and confidence building . On the whole a success and our congratulations to the School of Health Sciences. (SFC, PG IGNOU with the help of Ajay Mahurkar and Dr. Dolly Mathew)

NITIN GARG

Nitin Garg
The Indian student who was killed in Australia was cremated at his village in Jagraon (India) yesterday. We extend our condolences to his family and friends in this hour of grief. Meanwhile we wait for the 'full facts' to come out from the Australian government(as promised by the acting foreign minister Crean) on a series of recent attacks on Indian students in Australia.( SFC, PG IGNOU, with the help of Ajay Mahurkar and Dr. Dolly Mathew)

When There Is No Getting Over That Rainbow

Day after day I must face a world of strangers
where I don't belong, I am not that strong
Its nice to know that there is someone I can turn to
who will always care, you are always there
when there is no getting over that rainbow
when my smallest of dreams won't come true
I can take all the madness the world has to give
but I won't last a day without you
So many times when the city seems to be without a friendly face
a lonely place
Its nice to know that you will be there, if I need you
and you will always smile, its all worthwhile..........
This 1970s Carpenters number captures the bewildering urban life and its emotional ups and downs which so many of us(both young and not so young) lead. It is in this context that the Ruchika case and its aftermath sends shivers down our spines.Molestation of a young student and an aspiring tennis player, misuse of power,harassment of family and friends and the eventual suicide of Ruchika have been highlighted by the press and the media.So also the hounding which continued for 19 long years.Ms.Brinda Karat,the Rajya Sabha MP, described this aptly as the 'sickness of the system'. Not only was the young girl traumatised and isolated by the incident but the operations of the 'political state' further reinforced her feelings of debasement and isolation. How else do we look at the political and state machinery nexus which as the media points out swung in to operation for these many years? India inherited the structures of its state system from the British colonial times. As an eminent writer and thinker of the 19th century, Frederick Engels,has pointed out that the British system had drawn up its legal institutions 'almost exactly in the the same terms as in the (absoloutist) Prussia'. Framing of cases against Ruchika's brother,his torture and then concomitant harassment of her friends and their isolation reflects methods of operation reminiscent of these practices under British imperialism. The British political state, as Engels points out had perfected the methods of 'debasement through isolation' and 'debasement through association'(which he also found in reports on Australia) both designed to'ruin systematically and consistently the victims of the state and law physically, intellectually and morally and to reduce them to below the level of beasts.' Today this works through what the Slovenian thinker Zizek calls the technological totalitarianism of 'emotional democracy' Witness how Chautala in a media interview almost labelled Ruchika's family cowards-'dubak ke baith gaye'( they are cowering like weak animals in a corner) thus appealing to the macho emotionalism which he presumed would isolate her 'cowering' family and friends. They have infact taken up the cudgels with the help of a fledgling but determined civil society movement. We in the IGNOU SFC and PG have taken up the issues of our study processes and life processes getting caught up in the machinations of the political state both here as well as in supporting Indian students in Australia. We need to concomitantly exercise this vigil. Otherwise there will be 'no getting over that rainbow.' (SFC, PG IGNOU with the help of Ajay Mahurkar and Dr. Dolly Mathew)

Clouds Coming From the South

Friends, We are posting an account of travel to the Yunan province of China by one of our friends from IGNOU. Mr. Vats went to China from IGNOU about seven years back. Since then he has taught at the Beijing university and not only learnt the Chinese language but also is now engaged in translating Chinese literature. In the process he has made many friends and was even nominated for an award for promoting India-China friendship. Currently he works at the China radio international. He has travelled extensively in China, keenly studying the issues of development and the questions of harmony in the Chinese experiment.As you know, recently the ethnic riots in Xinjiang province recently placed these issues centre stage in the context of China. There have been analyses pointing out departures from Mao Zedong's approach towards minority- majority communities' relationships in the current day China.Mr. Vats has decided to study the situation himself. His account of travels in Yunan(which in Chinese he tells us means 'clouds coming from the south') is at the moment a page from his diary. He is open to your comments.You can write to him directly at c/o Mr. Rakesh Vats, China Radio International (we will subsequently post his email address)or you can query him through this blog.It is perhaps these issues of harmony and development which have enhanced interest in Asian studies and China in universities such as the Australian National University, as reported by the ABC news on 8th Jan. 2009.This news report also suggested that one of the factors in this interest is the dream of the Australian PM, Kevin Rudd (who speaks the Chinese language fluently), that Australian children will learn Chinese to reach out to the region.Mr. Kevin Rudd, who was in India recently in the context of race attacks on the Indian students in Australia could perhaps also include these Indian students in such dreams of multiculturalism. "Development in the border areas of Yunnan in China
Run up to the much awaited celebration of 60th anniversary of People’s Republic of china on October 1st ; CRI gave us an opportunity to travel to the vast border areas of south western part of Yunnan province inhabited mostly by minorities of china. The purpose of the travel was to observe and see the development taken place in the last thirty years after china implemented reforms and open policies in those far flung areas that usually don’t shine in the cities neon lights. We were flown from Beijing to Kunming the capital of Yunnan province from where we had to start our journey of two weeks mostly by bus. Yunnan province is the sixth largest province of china and home to two third of 56 minorities, half of the total plants and animals found in china. If someone travels to Kunming and want to see the cultural varieties of these minorities, one can visit minority’s village in the city which showcase the cultural diversity of almost all the minorities in one place. On 12th August early morning we started our journey by bus and our destination was 700 km far away in the mountainous region a small town Manshi which is a town under the jurisdiction of Luxi,which is the capital of the Deihong Dai & Jingpo nationalities autonomous Prefecture. I was very apprehensive before the travel and was sure to get all the joints of the body loosen by the end of day’s journey in the mountainous region. My experience of traveling in the hometown mountains in Himachal Pradesh, India was an indication of the trouble ahead. As our bus journey progressed I was utterly surprised to witness the wide four lane road in the lap of the serpent shaped mountain track, and the minimum speed of the vehicle is prescribed 60 to 80 km for heavy vehicle and 100 km for smaller one. By cutting open the hearts of mountains, by erecting tall pillars, by cementing and iron netting the slope of the mountains, hundreds of tunnels as small as 50 meter and as long as 3900 meters, a wondrous straight highway has been made till Manshi. If you drive on this road and in case your car’s breakdown, there is a safety net on this mountainous highway, after every ten twenty kilometers there is a bifurcated safety road peace going up and been filled with sand and rubber tier wall, it can save the life in the emergent situation. And there were also signs on the road of the length of the descent and ascend lying ahead, and numerous water stations on the way.
It’s not only the highway and vehicles whose speed was a matter of surprise, but the overall development of the region which lay both sides of the road was an eye opener. Village by village we witnessed the progress of rural areas of minorities in the mountains. Even traveling in the bus and seeing from the window, we could clearly recognize which minority village we are passing by. The well built houses of the villages clearly have some symbol painted on the walls of each and every house which indicate their identity.
Next four days we spent in the border towns of Manshi, Baoshan ,Ruil, Wanding, talking with the officials, meeting local peoples, criss-cross the border market and enjoying the local feast in the minorities villages. In Manshi,we found the language, the costumes and the customs are more like those in Burma, Laos and Thailand. Even the sign board in the market, road sides are mostly in three languages, Chinese, Burmese and Thai. After reforms and opening up these areas have witnessed an unprecedented growth in the border trade which has benefited people’s income and their life. Most of the minority’s villages in this region enjoy all the facilities accorded by the central government’s policies for minorities, school with in radius of four kilometer for every village, electricity, health care center, nine years compulsory education, tax rebate and insurance for the farmers. Normally where a couple can have only one child as a rule in China, minorities can have more then one. To protect their languages, and to curb drop out rate in the schools, the teachers are appointed after giving them training from their own communities so that the children can get basic education in their mother tongue. When you pass through the city, you tend to forget that you are walking through the streets of a small border town, the streets are as wide as in Beijing and all the facilities of modern city town can be seen here. ATM, Carrie four, KTV, net bar and high rise buildings. Ruili also has the largest jewelry market of china, mostly jade articles and jewelry is being traded here.
Our next destination was Tengchong County which lies at the western foot of Gaolinggong Mountains, in the western part of Yunnan province. Bordering on keqinbang of Burma on the west with a boundary of 148.7 kilometers. The population here consists of more than 10 ethnic groups, such as Hans,Dais,Bais,Huis,Lisus,Achangs and others, each with their own rich and colorful culture and traditions. Tengchong is a famous historical and culture town, known as “The hometown of Overseas Chinese”. It is situated in a border area and is a town of strategic importance. During the anti-Japanese war Tengchong was a main battle field in the western part of Yunnan Today It has seen much development, thanks to the bubbling border trade and it has emerged as a famous tourist attraction for scientists, and inland Chinese travelers for “Geological Museum”,” Natural Botanical Garden” and” a “Natural Museum”. Anti-Japanese war memorial is a new edition in the city’s tourist spots which attracts nearly a 1000 visitor everyday.
Our first leg of travel was coming to an end and we traveled back from Tengchong to Kunming, a day’s journey again by bus. In the last six days we had seen many new places, unknown to us before and our purpose was to know first hand how far these places have benefited with the reforms and open policies of the Chinese government of the last thirty years. And how much impact these policies have made on the life of so called ‘Aam Admi’ (common man) .Is he getting ‘Roti,Kapra aur Makan’ and other facilities, such as electricity, clean water, roads, schools ,hospitals and social security? How can we do that? To know about all this firstly we need to talk to those, who have power and responsibility to provide all these things, and we did talk to those people, although we also know its not sufficient but the fact remain that a society which has zero tolerance for corruption, government officials tried to do their job with a sense of responsibility, honesty, hard work and with utmost transparency provided us all the figures and information we needed. .secondly, we should look around with open eyes and ears and try to see those forms of development which don’t require any discussion or figures and information. They speak for themselves, such as basic infrastructure in the city, roads, transport, market,etc.We can clearly have an idea after seeing this if the society is moving ahead or not. Third, we need to talk to those who are the recipient of all this development. We tried to use all these three methods to see how much developed has taken place in these areas. I met with a 14 year old girl of Jingpho minority in her village named Lucy and she for me represents the new face of upcoming generation of these minorities. She likes English, can use Internet and after graduation she want to work in a media. The new generation of minorities in this region has got a chance to dream and to fulfill it also." (Pages from Mr. Vats's diary.We are grateful for sharing his thoughts with us.).(SFC, PG with the help of Mr. Ajay Mahurkar and Dr. Dolly Matthew)

At Cooper Street

The reported racial attack on a Sikh youth at Cooper Street in Melbourne last Sunday again shows that the problem has not yet gone away. However, one positive point was that there was an attempt to prevent the attack by the companions of the attacking youth and also by the bus driver and a passenger at the bus station where the attack took place. We have in the past also drawn attention to this positive aspect of the Australian society. This indeed is an indication that getting out of what the French thinker Paul Virilio called the 'social swamp' is actually possible. This 'social swamp' is a result of individuals cooped up in their 'own black holes' and complementing the micro- fascism of local gangs who dictate local laws and local conditions of living, interacting and thinking in the modern(hyper modern) urban settings. This 'social swamp' according to him actually completes the 'obvious and super organised society' of the western world in the current times. This technologically super organised society he points out is driven by the relentless logic of speed which plays a crucial part in the militarization of urban space and the transformation of social, political and cultural life. Indeed history itself makes 'progress at the speed of its weapons system' It is here that Virilio tries to rescue a sense of history in his critique of the famous cyber Australian artists such as Stelarc. This critique by the humanist Virilio is to prevent situations where political power aided by technoscience turns against its own people. This happened, for example, recently in September 2009 when the military ruler of Guinea in Africa turned the guns at his own people who were holding a protest rally. Hundreds were killed and injured. Really a tragic consequence of attempts to control the mind and body. In India we need to be careful of the ' black hole' phenomenon as evidenced in the bizarre case of the murder committed by the 'brilliant' Phd student of IIT which was reported yesterday. At the same time the attempts to dictate what and how people should think in the wake of the condemnable Maoist violence can only throw us in to a 'social swamp'.(SFC, PG with the help of Ajay Mahurkar and Dr. Dolly Mathew)

Wake Up Sid

In yet another race attack, an Indian student was hit and robbed in North - West Melbourne in Australia on the 29th of September, reports of which are still coming in. We have been commenting on and actively mobilising opinion on the safety of the Indian students in Australia.Clearly more needs to be done both in India and Australia. However, equally shocking are the reports coming from Mumbai where a leading film maker was made to apologise for his characters using the name Bombay instead of Mumbai for the city in the film 'Wake Up Sid'. Incidents of this kind hardly project the right impression of India and the Indians in an interconnected world.Needless to say such incidents would not help campaigns for the welfare and security of students and other sections of society studying, travelling and living in various destinations across the globe.Within India this kind of identity politics immensely sets back our social, educational and democratic processes.

This kind of identity politics has arisen within the context of the advanced industrial world with which we are supposed to be integrating. We must remember that even within that world this identity politics is a problem area creating enormous difficulties for everyday life of the common people.It has led to riots and frictions in France, U.S. , U.K. and other countries. In Australia it had led to movements such as 'Australian Universities for Australians'. The dynamics of these politics differ from country to country. However in the context of the post- industrial society they seem to be marked by what a leading American author called the union of 'total commercialisation and politics'.This leads to 'one of the many ways' in which discourse and communication becomes immune to artistic and creative expression. The notions of Maharashtrians, Indians or Australians etc. are fixed as some kind of constructs in this discourse and are sought to be imposed. All development of meanings or history is cut off in this way. Human beings in this situation are reduced to these constructs and are vulnerable to the stereotypes generated by them. The 'north Indian outsider' or the 'pesky Indian student' are some of the stereotypes. The defining feature of the post industrial society is the dominance of technology. It is this dominance which identity politics uses to create a closed universe in which fixed meanings and constructs have to be accepted and internalised by individuals in order to survive. In other words multiculturalism is out and the individual is expected to associate with a fixated structure of institutions, attitudes, aspirations and he/she is expected to react in fixated,specific manner.Thus, one of the Bollywood filmstars actually said that her respect for Karan Johar went up because he apologised to Raj Thackeray.It is this internalisation of repressive and fixed constructs which marks the identity politics of the post industrial society.This could be even reflected in undemocratic state systems of the post industrial world which thrive on identity politics. The language of interaction which comes up here, is that of what the famous French linguist and semiotician Roland Barthes called 'intimidation and glorification' It is thus through the intimidatory tactics of Raj Thackeray the glorification of the Marathi 'manoos'(man) is achieved. Likewise glorification of such fixed identity constructs are achieved elsewhere in the world. This creates a hypnotic reality (as Barthes points out) and it is to this reality that we along with Sid actually need to wake up to.(SFC and PG of IGNOU with the help of Mr. Ajay Mahurkar and Dr. Dolly Mathew).

Descent In To Hell

The recent physical attack on a cab driver of Indian origin by the rising Australian sports star, Michael Hurley, in Melbourne, is quite disturbing. At a time when the Premier of Victoria, John Brumby is on a confidence building tour of India(after the racial attacks on the Indian students there), this incident could not have been more badly timed. The dispute was over the cab fare to be paid. It was then that the drunk Hurley punched and kicked the cab driver in the loins.
"Melbourne is a big city and this happens" said Brumby while reacting to the incident. Acts of similar kind in France, the U.S.and elsewhere tend to get explained away as urban crime and misdemeanour. While we leave it to the experts to debate the complex nature of today's urbanization, we do need to take in to account the increasing number of incidents of such 'crime' which are taking place in the Indian cities as well as cities abroad.What seems to be shaping the attitudes as the recent media reports suggest, is what 19th century writers called the 'Mammon Gospel'. Witness the recent furore over austerity drives etc. in India for example.
Perhaps here we could turn to the eminent English educationist, historian and writer of the 19th century, Thomas Carlyle, for some insight.(He had also visited and travelled in Australia). Carlyle's book 'Past and Present', published in 1843, was an attempt to understand the early modern society in England. It "is the only one which strikes a human chord,presents human relations and shows traces of a human point of view" said one progressive commentator of the time. Though Carlyle in his later works was to move away from his 'forward looking' views and was even accused of racism, his comments on the Mammon Gospel are instructive.He was to argue that the 19th century England had acquired an 'unchristian' new hell.The hell of modern England is the consciousness of "not succeeding, of not making money" To quote him:
"True we with our Mammon Gospel have come to strange conclusions.We call it Society;and go about professing openly the total separation, isolation.Our life is not a mutual helpfulness; but rather, cloaked under due laws-of-war,named 'competition' and so forth,it is a mutual hostility.We have profoundly forgotten that Cash payment is not the sole relation of human beings.'
Perhaps we need to address these 'strange conclusions' as they keep cropping up in the reactions to the various incidents, Australian and others.(SFC, PG with the help of Mr. Ajay Mahurkar and Dr. Dolly Mathew).

In the Cattle Class Now?

The recent racial attacks on three Indians in Melbourne by a mob of eighty again highlights the fact that the problem has not gone away.The repeated assaults indicate a mindset which refuses to see a human being as a human being.We have pointed out before that the problem is systemic. Clearly in this system the human body is being treated as a means to accomplish a racist end. Otherwise how do you explain this brutal physical assault degrading human beings?
At our end, in India, it could have been a matter of battling attitudes which lead up to the racial tensions.This is however not helped by the unseemly controversy in which our MOS for external affairs has got caught up in. Calling a large section of society 'cattle class' is hardly the way to build the right national and international attitudes.Being a former contender of the top United Nations job, he should have known that the majority of the nations in the U.N. are those who have fought these 'cattle class' attitudes to emerge out of war and colonialism and in to freedom. These 'cattle class' attitudes led to the racial segregation and the 'koi hai' culture of the British in India in the 19th century.This 'cattle class' culture also keeps a vast number of people today under 'techno-political' subjugation.Inherent in these 'cattle class' classifications are the attitudes of patriarchy, communalism and disdain for human life.In the last twenty odd years of India integrating with a globalized world, these were the issues to have been tackled by us. In tackling these we could have moved towards the right attitudes for tackling issues such as racism which seem to be emerging in Australia and as well as in the issue of health care reform in the U.S or attacks upon Muslims in Germany.
This is not to run down Mr. Tharoor whom we respect as a writer and a gentleman. However, his comments have given us an occasion to reflect upon the enormity of tasks ahead of us at a time when study processes have got caught up in racial and political tensions.Here we must stress to him that it is this historical and juridical positing of man to the animal nature by the German jurist, Gustav Hugo(1764-1844) which was criticised by a famous radical thinker in the 19th century as the German theory of the French ancien regime.The only conclusion which stems from this, as this radical points out, is "the right of arbitrary power". This ofcourse we must oppose.(SFC and PG IGNOU with Mr. Ajay Mahurkar and Dr. Dolly Mathew)