Power corrupts - Samantak Das

This sums up my feelings of a few weeks ago. The anger and bewilderment are still there, now.

We need to keep our spirits up, it's going to be a long and hard and, perhaps bloody, struggle. Thanks for inviting me to this blog.

"Power corrupts"

published in “Jabberwocky" The Statesman, 20 March 2007

The events of last Wednesday at Nandigram have left me stunned. In earlier installments of this column, I had discussed some of the concerns raised by the takeover of farmland for industrial use in Singur and talked about the ways in which complex debates seemed to be taking shape over vital issues such as the nature of development, the merits of industry vs. agriculture and so on. But 14 March 2007 has demonstrated that such debates might just as well be consigned to the dustbin of history. For the signal sent out by our rulers and the state machinery they control on 14 March was clinical in its simplicity: Do what we tell you to, or else…

Reports trickling in from Nandigram suggest that what took place there was nothing short of cold, calculated genocide. There are many who believe that the death toll is considerably higher than the official figure. Our High Court has stated that, on the face of it, the police firing was in violation of our Constitution and all that it stands for. Our governor spoke for many of us when he said that the firing had filled him “with a sense of cold horror” and went on to ask, “Was this spilling of human blood not avoidable? What is the public purpose served by the use of force that we have witnessed today?” Eminent intellectuals, writers, poets and others have symbolically returned awards received from the West Bengal government and resigned from government-constituted bodies. Meetings have been held, and will, I suspect, continue to be held, condemning the events of 14 March, condemning the government, condemning the CPI(M) and its cadres, condemning the police, condemning our chief minister…

But symbolic gestures and condemnation, important as they undoubtedly are, are not enough. As citizens of a free, democratic, nation, it is our duty to demand of our leaders that they not only redress the grievous wrong perpetrated last Wednesday, but also demonstrate to our satisfaction that such an occurrence will not take place again. I find it appalling that our chief minister has expressed regret for 14 March but has stopped short of apologizing for what occurred and has, so far, failed to assure us that such an event will not take place again. Perhaps, as the leader of a party with a huge mandate from the people, he feels that whatever he does must be meekly accepted as good by the inhabitants of West Bengal. Perhaps, after thirty years of unbroken rule, the Left Front believes in its own omnipotence. Perhaps the lack of any coherent opposition has led the CM to believe that the people will put up with anything and everything that is done by him and his party.

Responses to 14 March have been instructive. A businessman friend who has, so far, been appreciative of the direction in which West Bengal seems to be heading, asked me, in astonished bewilderment, “Tell me, are we still living in colonial times?” while another, never so supportive of the Left Front, said, “Forget resignation letters, just get me a light machine-gun!”

Unless our rulers find the means to address people’s concerns, redress wrongs, and provide believable assurance that 14 March was an aberration that will not be repeated, and do all of these in double-quick time, things could go rapidly, and horribly, out of control. The question is: will they demonstrate the political will and the human decency to do this, or will they trust on the brute arrogance of power, as they seem to have done so far, to see them through this crisis?

[Samantak Das is still shell-shocked at the events of 14 March.]

Jabberwocky: Folk rice wisdom

http://www.thestatesman.net/page.news.php?clid=16&id=146133&usrsess=1
Folk rice wisdom
Jabberwocky
Samantak Das

RECENTLY, I had the privilege of spending a few days at Vasudha, an extraordinary farm in a remote corner of Bankura district, where Dr Debal Deb, an ecologist of international repute, has been trying to preserve an irreplaceable part of our natural heritage — those varieties of rice that have been selectively bred over generations by our farmers in order to create hardy specimens capable of yielding good crops in extreme climatic conditions.These traditional or “folk” rice varieties require none of the inputs that we associate with High Yielding Varieties of rice so beloved of our agronomists and planners — no chemical fertilisers, no insecticides or pesticides, and little or nothing by way of augmented water supply (supplied, in the typical HYV scenario, by largescale irrigation projects). These traditional rice varieties have played a significant part in assuring India’s food security over millennia. Scientists estimate that India had some 62,000 varieties of rice in the not-too-distant past. That number has now dwindled to 4,000. Of these, several hundred varieties are cultivated in West Bengal, although this number, too, is decreasing under the pressures exerted by the Green Revolution-led push towards standardisation and homogenisation. On Dr Deb’s farm, there are hundreds of folk rice varieties, collected over many years from all over the state, with a bewildering combination of characteristics.Such varieties include “kelas”, a black rice whose pink starch is given to post-parturition and nursing women, and which is well-adapted to dry and semi-arid land. Or take, for example, “dudh-sar”, whose name suggests its white, bold grain. A highly nutritious variety, believed to possess curative properties, it can be grown in rain-fed lowlands. “Khaskani” is a small-grained, highly aromatic variety of rice used on festive occasions, while “dahar-nagra” has a bold grain particularly suited for making muri (puffed rice). Then there is “asit-kalma” with a medium-long grain, which gives high yields and is well adapted to medium lands. These are just five of the over 500 folk rice varieties that Dr Deb grows on his farm.A recent (October 2006) publication by Greenpeace International entitled “Future of Rice – 2006”, jointly authored by Drs Deb and Emerlito Borromeo, formerly of the International Rice Research Institute, spells out, in no uncertain terms, the threats posed to the wellbeing of our planet and the food security of the majority of its human inhabitants by the use of Green Revolution techniques of rice cultivation and the push to introduce Genetically Engineered rice varieties. The report is, in its own words, “about the compelling reasons why we should embrace rice knowledge developed by farmers over thousands of years and combine it with the best of modern biotechnology; not genetic engineering but science that is precise, predictable and acceptable to the public”.With a wealth of data the report demonstrates that “the real cutting edge solutions to the problems of rice production lie not in developing GE rice but rather in developing and/or adopting strategies that take advantage of ecological principles within agricultural systems, and integrating traditional farming practices with modern scientific knowledge”.Dr Deb works without any institutional support, and very meagre funds, yet his methods for sustainable, ecologically viable agricultural practices have not only won him international renown, they are increasingly being adopted by local farmers, tired of the decreasing yields and increasing inputs required by HYV rice varieties. I came away from Vasudha with a sense that I may have witnessed the small beginnings of a way of life and living that might well be our last chance of survival in this, our already abused, bruised and overburdened planet.

(Dr Debal Deb can be contacted at debaldeb@wildmail.com.)

Jabberwocky: Singur thoughts

http://www.thestatesman.net/page.arcview.php?clid=16&id=167951&usrsess=1
Jabberwocky: Singur thoughts
Samantak Das

IF Singur does not bother you, you can safely avoid reading this piece. What is happening there right now is a matter of considerable concern for substantial numbers of people and I do not intend to add to the debates raging around the acquisition of land, the lies and obfuscations, state repression, police brutality, the claims of the one-lakh-car versus the people’s right to their land, the fairness or otherwise of the compensation paid (or not), and so forth and so on.But it might be possible to consider Singur in the light of some larger changes that have been taking place in India (much of it outside public scrutiny and off the pages of newspapers), which seem to spell a sea change in the way our elected leaders (irrespective of where they are located in the political spectrum) are looking at the single largest occupational group in our country — the unsung and ignored farmers who comprise (by conservative estimates) some 65 per cent of all Indians.First, our netas appear to have come to the conclusion that the only way to ensure the future of our farmers and, by extension, of our production of and security regarding food, is by gradually withdrawing the state and its support from the farm sector. (In witness whereof one can cite the proposed Seeds Act, 2004, and the Draft National Policy for Farmers of April 2006, both of which speak favourably of a reduced role of the state in farming.)Second, the vacuum created by the withdrawal of the state is sought to be filled by the private sector (which includes transnational corporations). The two documents alluded to above both speak of a much increased role of the private sector and “public-private partnership” in increasing the quality and quantity of farm inputs, outputs and incomes derived from agriculture.Third, industrialisation is seen as an unmitigated good to be pursued, even at the cost of food and (perhaps more importantly) water security.Fourth, only lip service is paid to issues of ecologically safe and sustainable practices, especially when it comes to agriculture.Fifth, in all of this, little or no effort is being made to seek the views of those likely to be most directly, and drastically, affected by these proposed changes, namely, the farmers themselves.If all of these changes come into being, as seems very likely to be the case, their net result will be a severe compromising of our national food and water security, an increased dependence on (patented, hence costly) technology, a further impoverishment of farmers and a severe deepening of the rural vs urban, agriculture vs industry, rich vs poor divisions.What is happening in Singur is not only about repressive state machinery swaying to industrial capital’s siren song, nor is it about the future of a “resurgent”, industrialised West Bengal. It is really about the name and nature and future of “development” itself.Singur is not an isolated incident and if, by some quirk (such as the Tatas’ withdrawing their offer), the status quo (prior to land acquisition) were to be restored, things would not revert to “normal”. It is a symptom of a much larger malaise — one which, if left unaddressed, not just by political parties, but by civil society, by ordinary citizens like you and me (who might not have a direct stake in what is happening there), could well spell the end of a way of life we take for granted. The question each one of us needs to ask herself or himself, at this critical juncture of our country’s history, is — which side am I on?

(Samantak Das knows just which side he is on, but isn’t sure it’ll do anyone any good.)