When we examine the history of US foreign policy, we can easily come to the conclusion that over the years, the US foreign policy has done tremendous harm than good around the world.
From 1945 to present, the United States has attempted to overthrow more than 40 foreign governments, and tried to crush more than 30 populist –nationalist movements fighting against intolerable regimes. In the process, the US bombed some 25 countries, killed or caused the death of several million people, and condemned many millions more to a life of agony and despair.
Below is the list of Washington’s engagement from the end of WW-II to 2005:
Attempted to overthrow more than 50 foreign governments
Invaded unprovoked some 20 sovereign nations
Worked to crush more than 30 popular movements which were fighting against dictatorial regimes.
Provided full support to a small army of brutal dictatorships: Somoza of Nicaragua, Pinochet of Chile, Mobutu of Zaire, the Greek junta, Rhee of Korea, Marcos of the Philippines, the Shah of Iran, the Brazilian Junta, 40 years of military dictators in Guatemala, Trujillo of the Dominican Republic, Suharto of Indonesia, Hussain of Iraq, the Taliban of Afghanistan and few others.
Bombed people of some 25 countries including horrific bombing of Iraq for 45 consecutive days and nights, 78 days and nights in Yugoslavia and several months in Afghanistan where the invasion and war is still raging. All these three countries had met the first requirement as an American bombing target—being totally defenseless. None of these damaged countries was ever repaired or compensated by the United States. Afghanistan and Iraq are the latest examples.
Used vast quantity of depleted uranium, one of the most despicable weapons designed by mankind. It produces grossly deformed babies besides other horrific sicknesses including cancers. In a civilized world not intimidated by the US, it would be banned.
Repeatedly used cluster bombs, another fiendish device designed by mad scientist, that has robbed many young people of their limbs or their eyesight’s and still continues to do so every day in many countries as these bombs remain in the ground.
Tried to assassinate some 40 foreign political leaders.
Interferes crudely and shamelessly in dozens of foreign democratic elections.
Manipulated grossly, several labor movements.
Shamelessly manufactures and spreads fake “news” and disinformation in other countries.
Supplied handbooks, materials and encouragement for the practice of torture.
Resorted to chemical and biological warfare or tested such weapons and used extensively deadly herbicides such as Agent Orange, causing horrible effects to the innocent people and the environment of China, Korea, Vietnam, Laos, Panama, Cuba, Iraq, Afghanistan, and Serbia.
Encouraged drug trafficking in various parts of the world when it served the CIA’s purposes.
Supported death squads, especially in Latin America.
Caused enormous harm to the health and well-being of the people of the world by controlling the IMF, the World Bank, WTO and other international financial institutions, besides imposing ruthless sanctions and embargoes on other defenseless countries.
What is amazing is that US leadership in Washington, decade after decade, is impervious to owning such appalling record and continues these policies every now and then spreading deaths and destruction around the world. They don’t change! The policy continues.
Also, America’s domestic and global propaganda is so powerful that vast majority of Americans are unaware of this hideous record. Most people of the world at large are unaware of America’s sinister side as they are busy making a living. The global community, unfortunately, is blinded by America’s wealth and power, not realizing its ghastly deeds around the world. And hence we have defenders of America. Who are they? They are the ones who have benefited from the United States within the country or living outside the country and have callous disregard for the fate of millions who have lost their lives, are maimed or injured for life or have lost their dearest ones as a result of US foreign policy or they are simply unaware of the United States’ dark history of more than a century.
Yet, there are many who know what the United States does around the world. Win/Gallup International conducted a massive world opinion poll that was released at the end of 2013. Some 66, 0000 people across 65 countries were asked “which country is the greatest threat to world peace”, the majority of respondents (24%) around the world mentioned the United States as number one threat. The 2nd was Pakistan (8%), the 3rd was China with 6% and 4th, Afghanistan garnered 5 percent vote.
Despite such horrific record, there is no discussion of such dreadful foreign policy in mainstream US news media. Hence such policy will continue no matter a Republican or a Democrat comes to power as a president. Only the American public can force our politicians to change this policy of wars to the policy of peace and brotherhood amongst all the nations. But the majority of Americans are not aware of this horrendous foreign policy.
So unfortunately for the world, America’s policy of invasions, coups, and wars will continue unabated for a foreseeable future.
Chaitanya Davé, California, USA
Chaitanya, born in Bhavnagar, Gujarat, India, is an author, the Founder of Pragati Foundation, an Industrialist, a social activist, a highly progressive individual and an environmentalist; lives with his wife Amita in California, USA.
Attended college at New Mexico State University, Las Cruces, New Mexico and graduated with B.S. in Chemical Engineering in 1969. Started his own company in 1980 manufacturing metal finishing chemical products. The company is still running successfully.
He is founder/president of a non-profit charity organization named ‘Pragati’, based in Southern California and Hemubhai Rural Development Foundation based in India. The foundation has done rural developmental work in villages in India since 1993. He has travelled extensively all over the world and runs a non-profit rural development foundation.
Chaitanya Dave with Narendra Modi, the Chief Minister of Gujarat on December 2013 became the prime minister of India in May 2014
Chaitanya Dave with Narendra Modi, the Chief Minister of Gujarat on December 2013 (Narendra Modi became the prime minister of India in May 2014)
On December 2013, Chaitanya Dave met in person with the Chief Minister of Gujarat, Shri Narendrabhai Modi, about six months before he became the prime minister of the largest democracy in the world, India.
Early on Chaitanya Dave learned that only through good education and focused hard work can one come up in life. That is what he did developing his successful metal finishing company against all odds and very little money, in Los Angeles in 1980. He learned that there is no substitute for hard work. He derived these and other principles from great men like Mahatma Gandhiji and Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel.
Chaitanya Davé has authored three books:
CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY: A Shocking Record of US Crimes since 1776 (Nov. 2007)
COLLAPSE: Civilization on the Brink (June 2010), and
MONUMENTAL SHIFT: Creating a New Economy with Genuine Democracy. (2016)
Wife: Amita Dave has M.S in education from Pune University and also a Master’s degree in Special Education in the USA. She has been a teacher, administrator and advisor in the field of Special Education with the Los Angeles Unified School District. Though retired now, she continues to take assignments in her field.
Sons:
Maurya Dave, an electrical engineer and the CEO of Surfin Chemical Corp., Los Angeles, CA, USA
Dr Aditya Dave, a Veterinarian, currently doing his residency at Minnesota State University, St. Paul, Minnesota.
Favourite quotes:
“Nobody can make you unhappy without your permission” —Mahatma Gandhi
"I’m a great believer in luck, and I find the harder I work the more I have it." -- Thomas Jefferson, third U.S. president
Chaitanya Dave’s motto in life: Work hard, read a lot, learn a lot, and enjoy your life with your family and friends while helping others too.
Human beings are now waging war against life itself as we continue to destroy not just individual lives, local populations and entire species in vast numbers but also destroy the ecological systems that make life on Earth possible.
By doing this we are now accelerating the sixth mass extinction event in Earth’s history and virtually eliminating any prospect of human survival.
‘Earth’s sixth mass extinction is more severe than perceived when looking exclusively at species extinctions…. That conclusion is based on analyses of the numbers and degrees of range contraction … using a sample of 27,600 vertebrate species, and on a more detailed analysis documenting the population extinctions between 1900 and 2015 in 177 mammal species.’ Their research found that the rate of population loss in terrestrial vertebrates is ‘extremely high’ – even in ‘species of low concern’.
In their sample, comprising nearly half of known vertebrate species, 32% (8,851 out of 27,600) are decreasing; that is, they have decreased in population size and range. In the 177 mammals for which they had detailed data, all had lost 30% or more of their geographic ranges and more than 40% of the species had experienced severe population declines. Their data revealed that ‘beyond global species extinctions Earth is experiencing a huge episode of population declines and extirpations, which will have negative cascading consequences on ecosystem functioning and services vital to sustaining civilization. We describe this as a “biological annihilation” to highlight the current magnitude of Earth’s ongoing sixth major extinction event.’
Illustrating the damage done by dramatically reducing the historic geographic range of a species, consider the lion. Panthera leo ‘was historically distributed over most of Africa, southern Europe, and the Middle East, all the way to northwestern India. It is now confined to scattered populations in sub-Saharan Africa and a remnant population in the Gir forest of India. The vast majority of lion populations are gone.’
Why is this happening? Ceballos, Ehrlich and Dirzo tell us: ‘In the last few decades, habitat loss, overexploitation, invasive organisms, pollution, toxification, and more recently climate disruption, as well as the interactions among these factors, have led to the catastrophic declines in both the numbers and sizes of populations of both common and rare vertebrate species.’
Further, however, the authors warn ‘But the true extent of this mass extinction has been underestimated, because of the emphasis on species extinction.’ This underestimate can be traced to overlooking the accelerating extinction of local populations of a species.
‘Population extinctions today are orders of magnitude more frequent than species extinctions. Population extinctions, however, are a prelude to species extinctions, so Earth’s sixth mass extinction episode has proceeded further than most assume.’ Moreover, and importantly from a narrow human perspective, the massive loss of local populations is already damaging the services ecosystems provide to civilization (which, of course, are given no value by government and corporate economists).
As Ceballos, Ehrlich and Dirzo remind us: ‘When considering this frightening assault on the foundations of human civilization, one must never forget that Earth’s capacity to support life, including human life, has been shaped by life itself.’ When public mention is made of the extinction crisis, it usually focuses on a few (probably iconic) animal species known to have gone extinct, while projecting many more in future. However, a glance at their maps presents a much more realistic picture: as much as 50% of the number of animal individuals that once shared Earth with us are already gone, as are billions of populations.
Furthermore, they claim that their analysis is conservative given the increasing trajectories of those factors that drive extinction together with their synergistic impacts. ‘Future losses easily may amount to a further rapid defaunation of the globe and comparable losses in the diversity of plants, including the local (and eventually global) defaunation-driven coextinction of plants.’
They conclude with the chilling observation: ‘Thus, we emphasize that the sixth mass extinction is already here and the window for effective action is very short.’
Of course, it is too late for those species of plants, birds, animals, fish, amphibians, insects and reptiles that humans have already driven to extinction or will yet drive to extinction in the future. 200 species yesterday. 200 species today. 200 species tomorrow. 200 species the day after…. And, as Ceballos, Ehrlich and Dirzo emphasize, the ongoing daily extinctions of a myriad local populations.
If you think that the above information is bad enough in assessing the prospects for human survival, you will not be encouraged by awareness or deeper consideration of even some of the many variables adversely impacting our prospects that were beyond the scope of the above study.
While Ceballos, Ehrlich and Dirzo, in addition to the problems they noted which are cited above, also identified the problems of human overpopulation and continued population growth, as well as overconsumption (based on ‘the fiction that perpetual growth can occur on a finite planet’) and even the risks posed by nuclear war, there were many variables that were beyond the scope of their research.
For example, in a recent discussion of that branch of ecological science known as ‘Planetary Boundary Science’, Dr Glen Barry identified ‘at least ten global ecological catastrophes which threaten to destroy the global ecological system and portend an end to human beings, and perhaps all life. Ranging from nitrogen deposition to ocean acidification, and including such basics as soil, water, and air; virtually every ecological system upon which life depends is failing’. See ‘The End of Being: Abrupt Climate Change One of Many Ecological Crises Threatening to Collapse the Biosphere’.
Apart from the above, there is a host of other critical issues – such as destruction of the Earth’s rainforests, destruction of waterways and the ocean habitat and the devastating impact of animal agriculture for meat consumption – that international governmental organizations such as the UN, national governments and multinational corporations will continue to refuse to decisively act upon because they are controlled by the insane global elite. See ‘The Global Elite is Insane’ with more fully elaborated explanations in ‘Why Violence?’ and ‘Fearless Psychology and Fearful Psychology: Principles and Practice’.
So time may be short, the number of issues utterly daunting and the prospects for life grim. But if, like me, you are inclined to fight to the last breath, I invite you to consider making a deliberate choice to take powerful personal action in the fight for our survival.
If you do nothing else, consider participating in the fifteen-year strategy of ‘The Flame Tree Project to Save Life on Earth’. You can do this as an individual, with family and friends or as a neighbourhood.
If you are involved in (or considering becoming involved in) a local campaign to address a climate issue, end some manifestation of war (or even all war), or to halt any other threat to our environment, I encourage you to consider doing this on a strategic basis. See Nonviolent Campaign Strategy.
And if you would like to join the worldwide movement to end violence in all of its forms, environmental and otherwise, you are also welcome to consider signing the online pledge of ‘The People’s Charter to Create a Nonviolent World’.
We might be annihilating life on Earth but this is not something about which we have no choice.
In fact, each and every one of us has a choice: we can choose to do nothing, we can wait for (or even lobby) others to act, or we can take powerful action ourselves. But unless you search your heart and make a conscious and deliberate choice to commit yourself to act powerfully, your unconscious choice will effectively be the first one (including that you might take some token measures and delude yourself that these make a difference). And the annihilation of life on Earth will continue, with your complicity.
In 1932, Sigmund Freud and Albert Einstein conducted a correspondence subsequently published under the title ‘Why War?’ See ‘Why War: Einstein and Freud’s Little-Known Correspondence on Violence, Peace, and Human Nature’. In many ways, this dialogue between two giants of the 20th century is symbolic of the effort made by many humans to understand that perplexing and incredibly damaging feature of human experience: the institution of war.
In a recent article, the founder of peace research, Professor Johan Galtung, reminded us of the legacy of Freud and Einstein in this regard and reflected on their dialogue, noting some shortcomings including their failure to ‘unpack conflict’. See ‘Freud-Einstein on Peace’.
Of course, Freud and Einstein weren’t the first to consider the question ‘Why War?’ and their dialogue was preceded by a long sequence of individuals and even some organizations, such as the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom and War Resisters’ International, who sought to understand, prevent and/or halt particular wars, or even to understand and end the institution itself, as exemplified by the Kellogg-Briand Pact in 1928 outlawing war. Moreover, given the failure of earlier initiatives, many individuals and organizations since Freud and Einstein have set out to understand, prevent and/or halt wars and these efforts have taken divergent forms.
Notable among these, Mohandas K. Gandhi was concerned to develop a mode of action to deal with many manifestations of violence and he dramatically developed, and shared, an understanding of how to apply nonviolence, which he labeled satyagraha (holding firmly to the truth), in overcoming large-scale violence and exploitation. He successfully applied his strategic understanding of nonviolence to the Indian independence struggle against British colonial rule. But while Gandhi was happy to acknowledge his debt to those who had gone before, he was not shy in proclaiming the importance of finding new ways forward: ‘If we are to make progress, we must not repeat history but make new history. We must add to the inheritance left by our ancestors.’
My own journey to understand human violence was caused by the death of my two uncles, Bob and Tom, in World War II, ten years before I was born. My childhood in the 1950s and 1960s is dotted with memories of my uncles, stimulated through such events as attending memorial services at the Shrine of Remembrance where their war service was outlined. See ‘My Brothers’ on my father’s website.
But by the early 1960s, courtesy of newspaper articles and photos, I had become aware of exploitation and starvation in Africa and elsewhere, and as a young university student in the early 1970s I was reading literature about environmental destruction. It wasn’t just war that was problematic; violence took many other forms too.
‘Why are human beings violent?’ I kept asking. Because I thought that this question must have been answered somewhere, I kept reading, including the work of Freud and Karl Marx as an undergraduate, but also the thoughts of many other scholars, such as Frantz Fanon, as well as anarchists, feminists and those writing from other perspectives which offered explanations of violence, whether direct, structural or otherwise.
By the early 1980s I had started to read Gandhi and I had begun to understand nonviolence, as Gandhi practised and explained it, with a depth that seemed to elude the activists I knew and even the scholars in the field that I read.
Separately from this, I was starting to gain a sense that the human mind was not something that could be understood well by viewing it primarily as an organ of thinking and that much of the literature and certainly most of the practitioners in the field of psychology and related fields, especially psychiatry, had failed to understand the emotional depth and complexity of the human mind and the implications of this for dealing with conflict and violence. In this sense, it was clear to me, few had understood, let alone been able to develop, Freud’s legacy. This is because the fundamental problem is about feeling (and, in relation to violence, particularly suppressed fear and anger). Let me explain why.
Violence is something that is usually identified as physical: it involves actions like hitting, punching and using weapons such as a gun. This is one of the types of violence, and probably the one now most often lamented, that is inflicted on indigenous peoples, women and people of colour, among others.
Separately from this, Gandhi also identified exploitation as violence and Galtung elaborated this concept with his notion of ‘structural violence’. Other forms of violence have been identified and they take many forms such as financial violence, cultural violence and ecological violence. But violence can be more subtle than any of these and, hence, much less visible. I have given two of these forms of violence the labels ‘invisible violence’ and ‘utterly invisible violence’. Tragically, ‘invisible violence’ and ‘utterly invisible violence’ are inflicted on us mercilessly from the day we are born. And, as a result, we are all terrorized.
So what are ‘invisible’ and ‘utterly invisible’ violence?
In essence, ‘invisible’ violence is the ‘little things’ we do every day, partly because we are just ‘too busy’. For example, when we do not allow time to listen to, and value, a child’s thoughts and feelings, the child learns to not listen to themSelf thus destroying their internal communication system. When we do not let a child say what they want (or ignore them when they do), the child develops communication and behavioural dysfunctionalities as they keep trying to meet their own needs (which, as a basic survival strategy, they are genetically programmed to do).
When we blame, condemn, insult, mock, embarrass, shame, humiliate, taunt, goad, guilt-trip, deceive, lie to, bribe, blackmail, moralize with and/or judge a child, we both undermine their sense of Self-worth and teach them to blame, condemn, insult, mock, embarrass, shame, humiliate, taunt, goad, guilt-trip, deceive, lie, bribe, blackmail, moralize and/or judge.
The fundamental outcome of being bombarded throughout their childhood by this ‘invisible’ violence is that the child is utterly overwhelmed by feelings of fear, pain, anger and sadness (among many others). However, parents, teachers and other adults also actively interfere with the expression of these feelings and the behavioural responses that are naturally generated by them and it is this ‘utterly invisible’ violence that explains why the dysfunctional behavioural outcomes actually occur.
For example, by ignoring a child when they express their feelings, by comforting, reassuring or distracting a child when they express their feelings, by laughing at or ridiculing their feelings, by terrorizing a child into not expressing their feelings (e.g. by screaming at them when they cry or get angry), and/or by violently controlling a behaviour that is generated by their feelings (e.g. by hitting them, restraining them or locking them into a room), the child has no choice but to unconsciously suppress their awareness of these feelings.
However, once a child has been terrorized into suppressing their awareness of their feelings (rather than being allowed to have their feelings and to act on them) the child has also unconsciously suppressed their awareness of the reality that caused these feelings. This has many outcomes that are disastrous for the individual, for society and for nature because the individual will now easily suppress their awareness of the feelings that would tell them how to act most functionally in any given circumstance and they will progressively acquire a phenomenal variety of dysfunctional behaviours, including many that are violent towards themselves, others and/or the Earth.
Moreover, this emotional (or psychological) damage will lead to a unique combination of violent behaviours in each case. And some of these individuals will gravitate to working in one of the social roles that specifically requires, or justifies, the use of ‘legitimized violence’, such as the violence carried out by police, prosecuting lawyers, magistrates and judges, as well as that inflicted by the military. Others, of course, will operate outside the realm of legitimized violence and be labelled as ‘criminals’.
But, you might be wondering, what is the link between what happens in childhood and war?
The answer is simply that perpetrators of violence, and those who collaborate with them, are created during childhood. And these perpetrators and collaborators are all terrified, self-hating and powerless – for much greater detail of the precise psychological characteristics of perpetrators of violence and their collaborators, see ‘Why Violence?’ and ‘Fearless Psychology and Fearful Psychology: Principles and Practice’ – and they go on to perform all of the key roles in creating, maintaining, equipping, staffing and legitimizing the institutions of war and in conducting it.
If it weren’t for the violence to which we are all mercilessly subjected throughout childhood, there would be no interest in violence or war of any kind. If we were raised without violence, we would be naturally peaceful and cooperative, content to spend our time seeking to achieve our own unique evolutionary potential and to nurture the journey of others as well as life itself, rather than just become another cog in someone else’s military (or other bureaucratic or corporate) machine.
A child is not born to make war. But if you inflict enough violence on a child, and destroy their capacity to become their own unique and powerful self, they will be terrorised into perceiving violence and war as their society wants them to be perceived. And violence and war, and the institutions that maintain them, will flourish.
If we want to end war, we must halt the adult war against children as a priority.
It is a tragic measure of the depravity of human existence that genocide is a continuing and prevalent manifestation of violence in the international system, despite the effort following World War II to abolish it through negotiation, and then adoption and ratification of the 1948 ‘Genocide Convention‘.
According to the Genocide Convention, genocide is any act committed with the intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group by killing members of the group, causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group, deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part, imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group and/or forcibly transferring children of the
group to another group.
While this definition is contested because, for example, it excludes killing of political groups, and words such as ‘democide’ (the murder or intentionally reckless and depraved disregard for the life of any person or people by their government,) and ‘politicide’ (the murder of any person or people because of their political or ideological beliefs) have been suggested as complementary terms, in fact atrocities that have been characterized as ‘genocide’ by various authors include mass killings, mass deportations, politicides, democides, withholding of food and/or other necessities of life, death by deliberate exposure to invasive infectious disease agents or combinations of these. See ‘Genocides in history‘.
While genocide and attempts at genocide were prevalent enough both before World War II (just ask the world’s indigenous peoples) and then during World War II itself, which is why the issue attracted serious international attention in the war’s aftermath, it cannot be claimed that the outlawing of genocide did much to end the practice, as the record clearly demonstrates.
Moreover, given that the United Nations and national governments, out of supposed ‘deference’ to ‘state sovereignty’, have been notoriously unwilling and slow to meaningfully respond to genocides, as was the case in Rwanda in 1994 and has been the case with the Rohingya in Myanmar (Burma) for four decades – as carefully documented in ‘The Slow-Burning Genocide of Myanmar’s Rohingya‘ – there is little evidence to suggest that major actors in the international system have any significant commitment to ending the practice, either in individual cases or in general. For example, as official bodies of the world watch, solicit reports and debate whether or not the Rohingya are actually victims of genocide, this minority Muslim population clearly suffers from what many organizations and any decent human being have long labeled as such. For a sample of the vast literature on this subject, see ‘The 8 Stages of Genocide Against Burma’s Rohingya‘ and ‘Countdown to Annihilation: Genocide in Myanmar‘.
Of course, it is not difficult to understand institutional inaction. Despite its fine rhetoric and even legal provisions, the United Nations, acting in response to the political and corporate elites that control it, routinely fails to act to prevent or halt wars (despite a UN Charter and treaties, such as the Kellogg-Briand Pact, that empower and require it to do so), routinely fails to defend refugees, routinely fails to act decisively on issues (such as nuclear weapons and the climate catastrophe) that constitute global imperatives for human survival, and turns the other way when peoples under military occupation (such as those of Tibet, West Papua, Western Sahara and Palestine) seek their
support.
Why then should those under genocidal assault expect supportive action from the UN or international community in general? The factors which drive these manifestations of violence serve a diverse range of geopolitical interests in each case, and are usually highly profitable into the bargain. What hope justice or even decency in such circumstances?
Moreover, the deep psychological imperatives that drive the phenomenal violence in the international system are readily nominated: in essence, phenomenal fear, self-hatred and powerlessness. These psychological characteristics, together with the others that drive the behaviour of perpetrators of violence, have been identified and explained – see ‘Why Violence?‘ and ‘Fearless Psychology and Fearful Psychology: Principles and Practice‘ – but it is the way these (unconsciously and deeply-suppressed) emotions are projected that is critical to understanding the violent (and insane) behavioural outcomes in our world. For brief explanations see, for example, ‘Understanding Self-Hatred in World Affairs‘ and ‘The Global Elite is Insane‘.
Given the deep psychological imperatives that drive the violence of global geopolitics and corporate exploitation (as well as national, subnational and individual acts of violence), we cannot expect a compassionate and effective institutional response to genocide in the prevailing institutional order, as the record demonstrates. So, is there anything a targeted population can do to resist a genocidal assault?
Fortunately, there is a great deal that a targeted population can do. The most effective response is to develop and implement a comprehensive nonviolent strategy to either prevent a genocidal assault in the first place or to halt it once it has begun. This is done most effectively by using a sound strategic framework that guides the comprehensive planning of the strategy. Obviously, there is no point designing a strategy that is incomplete or cannot be successful.
A sound strategic framework enables us to think and plan strategically so that once our strategy has been elaborated, it can be widely shared and clearly understood by everyone involved. It also means that nonviolent actions can then be implemented because they are known to have strategic utility and that precise utility is understood in advance. There is little point taking action at random, especially if our opponent is powerful and committed (even if that ‘commitment’ is insane which, as briefly noted above, is invariably the case).
There is a simple diagram presenting a 12-point strategic framework illustrated here in the form of the ‘Nonviolent Strategy Wheel‘.
In order to think strategically about nonviolently defending against a genocidal assault, a clearly defined political purpose is needed; that is, a simple summary statement of ‘what you want’. In general terms, this might be stated thus: To defend the [nominated group] against the genocidal assault and establish the conditions for the group to live in peace, free of violence and exploitation.
Once the political purpose has been defined, the two strategic aims (‘how you get what you want’) of the strategy acquire their meaning. These two strategic aims (which are always the same whatever the political purpose) are as follows: 1. To increase support for the struggle to defeat the genocidal assault by developing a network of groups who can assist you. 2. To alter the will and undermine the power of those groups inciting, facilitating, organizing and conducting the genocide.
While the two strategic aims are always the same, they are achieved via a series of intermediate strategic goals which are always specific to each struggle. I have identified a generalized set of 48 strategic goals that would be appropriate in the context of ending any genocide here. https://nonviolentliberationstrategy.wordpress.com/strategywheel/strategic-aims/
These strategic goals can be readily modified to the circumstances of each particular instance of genocide.
Many of these strategic goals would usually be tackled by action groups working in solidarity with the affected population campaigning in third-party countries. Of course, individual activist groups would usually accept responsibility for focusing their work on achieving just one or a few of the strategic goals (which is why any single campaign within the overall strategy is readily manageable).
As I hope is apparent, the two strategic aims are achieved via a series of intermediate strategic goals.
Not all of the strategic goals will need to be achieved for the strategy to be successful but each goal is focused in such a way that its achievement will functionally undermine the power of those conducting the genocide.
It is the responsibility of the struggle’s strategic leadership to ensure that each of the strategic goals, which should be identified and prioritized according to their precise understanding of the circumstances in the country where the genocide is occurring, is being addressed (or to prioritize if resource limitations require this).
I wish to emphasize that I have only briefly discussed two aspects of a comprehensive strategy for ending a genocide: its political purpose and its two strategic aims (with its many subsidiary strategic goals). For the strategy to be effective, all twelve components of the strategy should be planned (and then implemented). See Nonviolent Defense/Liberation Strategy.
This will require, for example, that tactics that will achieve the strategic goals must be carefully chosen and implemented bearing in mind the vital distinction between the political objective and strategic goal of any such tactic. See ‘The Political Objective and Strategic Goal of Nonviolent Actions‘.
It is not difficult to nonviolently defend a targeted population against genocide. Vitally, however, it requires a leadership that can develop a sound strategy so that people are mobilized and deployed effectively.
As ‘mental health’ issues gain more attention, sympathetic and otherwise, in a wide variety of contexts and countries around the world, the opportunity for inaccurate perceptions of what causes these issues, and how to treat them, are likewise expanded.
So if you or someone you know is supposed to have a ‘mental illness’ such as anxiety, depression, schizophrenia, obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), bipolar disorder, anorexia nervosa or post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), I would like to give you the opportunity to consider an explanation and a way forward that you are unlikely to have come across.
[themify_quote]My first suggestion is that you ignore any label that you have been given. These labels are an inaccurate and unhelpful way of labeling the appropriate, diverse and complex emotional responses that a normal human being will have to emotionally disturbing events. It is inaccurate because words such as these imply a ‘disorder’ that a normal individual should not have in response to emotionally challenging events in their life and it is unhelpful because the term suggests that many different individuals are having the same (dysfunctional) response.[/themify_quote]
[themify_quote]Human beings have a brilliantly diverse and complex array of emotions and hence potential emotional responses as a result of the evolutionary pressures that shaped the emergence of hominids over millions of years. An extraordinary emotional capacity is one of the defining features of our humanity and, I would argue, far more important than any other feature such as our intellectual capacity.[/themify_quote]
Our emotions or, more simply, our feelings play the central role in determining our behaviour in any given circumstance. Whatever we do, we are responding to our feelings. If we are doing what we want to do, we are doing what we feel like doing. If we are not doing what we feel like doing, it is because our fear has been triggered sufficiently to override feelings that would otherwise have us doing something more functional and enjoyable. Regrettably, human ‘socialization’ (that is, terrorization) plays heavily on our fear during childhood in order to turn us into obedient slaves in the forms of student, worker/soldier and citizen. And this happens irrespective of our level of intelligence. For a full explanation, see ‘Why Violence?’
Unfortunately, once our fear has been utilized to suppress our awareness of how we genuinely feel and what we want to do – which is sometimes euphemistically referred to as ‘emotional regulation’ – we are no longer able to access these feelings readily and we live our lives unconsciously and powerlessly submitting to the will of those we fear and the institutions they control. But the price for doing so is that our lives are no longer our own.
As a unique individual who has experienced the ongoing violent trauma virtually all of us experience during childhood you have found yourself experiencing a level of emotional response that is very appropriate given your experience but which is both exacerbated and complicated by the sudden release of feelings that you had been suppressing since childhood (and which you are probably being told are inappropriate now).
The fear you feel (probably labeled ‘anxiety’, ‘nervousness’ or something else) in particular (and perhaps virtually all) contexts is also triggering the monumental fear (of your parents, teachers, religious figures and other adults) that you were scared into suppressing as a child.
The anger you feel about how you were treated and/or what happened to others (perhaps siblings) you know is merely the peak of the volcano of anger that you have been keeping the lid on since childhood.
The sadness you feel about what has happened to you and perhaps others you know is only the tip of the iceberg of sadness you have been suppressing all of your life.
The guilt, shame, embarrassment… you feel, perhaps about those you let down or for some other reason, is only the latest addition to the guilt and other feelings you have been suppressing since childhood.
Do you think I am wrong? Then consider this. Were you ever allowed to show your fear as a child (and to act on it)? Were you allowed to cry freely and openly? Were you allowed to get angry (at being ‘done over’ or in defense of yourself)? As often as you needed? Or were you endlessly admonished and, one way or another, terrorized into behaving blandly (with ‘acceptable’ feelings like love and happiness tolerated in particular doses and circumstances).
So if you want to deal powerfully with all of the emotional responses that are causing your so-called ‘mental illness’, here is my suggestion. Focus on feeling each and all of your feelings. If you wake from a nightmare, deliberately and consciously focus on the imagery in the nightmare while you feel just how terrified you are. Focus on this feeling for as long as you can. It will be horrendous and will take enormous courage. But, after a time, it will start to fade and you will feel some relief. When your fear arises again, in any context, pay conscious attention to it. You have been suppressing it all of your life; it just wants to be heard and felt so that you can let it go forever.
If you feel angry, instead of trying to suppress it, harming yourself or harming someone else (perhaps, even, someone you love), express your anger fully and completely but in a safe way. How? Here are some suggestions but you will need to decide what will work best for you. Get an axe and chop wood (thinking about utterly destroying who/what is making you angry: parents, teachers, religious figures, politicians, military officers…) until your anger has been vented. Or smash a bat or racquet into a mattress or cushion. Or scream (into a pillow if noise is an issue). Or punch a punching bag. If you feel angry you need to exert enormous physical effort to adequately express it. This might require several hours for any one session and you might need to do a great many sessions. Remember, you need to work off a lifetime of anger! If you can set up a safe space for your regular anger sessions, do so. Whatever you do, however, don’t waste your time saying or writing ‘I feel angry…’. And don’t waste a moment of your life in an ‘anger management’ course. Anger, like all emotions, needs to be expressed, not ‘managed’ (that is, suppressed).
Another reason why it is important that you express your anger as I have just suggested is because you will often discover afterwards that you are projecting your anger. Projection is another of the creative ways that your mind can use to give you a lead back to some of your suppressed feelings. Projection occurs, for example, when it feels like you are angry with your spouse for something she/he has done but, once you fully express the feelings, you realize that, in fact, while your spouse did something that unintentionally triggered your anger, most of the anger is actually about someone or something from your childhood. You cannot discover the source of the projection without fully expressing the feelings first. Many people who routinely abuse their spouse and/or children are trapped in a projection which is why their anger cannot lead to greater self-awareness. People often project their fear and sadness too: phobias are the result of projected fear, for example, while sad films enable some people to access their suppressed sadness.
If you feel sad or anxious or ashamed or guilty or in pain or despairing or obsessive or depressed or hopeless or compulsive or self-hating or humiliated or anything else, just let yourself feel it, deeply. And let it manifest in its own way: cry (if that is what happens when you feel sad), shake (if that is what happens when you feel scared), feel guilty or hopeless, feel horrible or …. Deliberately. Consciously. For as long as it lasts or for as long as you are able to do at the time.
If you feel a sensation in your body, such as muscle tension or a pain or a sense of contamination, focus on where you feel it and how it feels. Eventually, after feeling the feelings from this sensation (which might take very many sessions), you will discover why the sensation originated and learn what it is trying to teach you.
If you feel suicidal it will often be because you are unconsciously suppressing another shocking feeling that feels beyond your courage to feel consciously, such as the feeling of self-hatred for something shameful you have done, and suicide will seem the best way out. The suicidal feeling might also arise out a sense of hopelessness or a desire for release from enormous emotional and/or physical pain. Suicide is an option that no-one should ever take from you, and I would never do so, but I gently encourage you to focus on any suicidal feeling in the belief that the underlying feeling – self-hatred, pain or something else – will eventually be relieved and the urge to destroy yourself will pass allowing you to keep traveling the journey of healing.
At this point, I should add that consciously focusing on feeling physical pain (as a result of injuries or otherwise) is an important element of any comprehensive healing strategy too.
As you have realized by now, this process of feeling isn’t necessarily fun and my suggestion runs directly counter to our ‘feel good’ culture which emphasizes ‘positive’ feelings while teaching you to suppress ‘negative’ ones. However, feeling your suppressed feelings will be, ultimately, liberating and will progressively restore you to a life of authenticity: a superior version of the life of dignity, honour and courage that you once had (or should have had).
If new symptoms arise as you travel your healing journey and even if these involve difficult feelings, it will usually be a sign that you are making solid progress in uncovering the original sources of your emotional ‘ill-health’. These symptoms, if any, simply provide another opportunity for you to focus on how you feel. Take advantage of them until they fade so that you learn what they are teaching you.
Another suggestion I have is to alter your diet to the consumption of organically-grown, vegetarian whole (unprocessed) food so that your brain gets the nutrition it needs to heal and function well. This also means that you should discontinue using any drugs that are supposed to suppress your awareness of your anxiety, depression, OCD, PTSD… particularly given that psychiatric drugs might generate new symptoms, worsen your existing symptoms and/or even cause brain damage. If you are addicted (whether to psychiatric drugs, alcohol or illicit drugs), you might consider consulting a natural health practitioner (such as a homeopath or naturopath) who is familiar with assisting people to withdraw from drugs and to detoxify their bodies, or consider buying the Charlotte Gerson book Healing the Gerson Way: Defeating Cancer and other Chronic Diseases so that you can undertake Gerson Therapy at home to eliminate all of your physical drug addictions. Alternatively, you might consult the ‘Mad in America’ website for other methods on how to safely and easily break your addictions.
In addition, I strongly encourage you to discontinue seeing all of those psychiatrists, psychologists, psychotherapists, counsellors and doctors (unless they qualify as specified below) who are more terrified of the natural expression of your feelings than are you (and probably only offer time-limited sessions). See ‘Defeating the Violence of Psychiatry’. You need to feel all of your feelings which have been an appropriate emotional response to the terror of your childhood. It is feeling our feelings that allows us to move on from violence and trauma to lead a meaningful life. Evolution is not stupid even if many of its human products have, indeed, been stupefied.
If you are lucky enough to know someone (relative, friend or professional) who feels capable of listening to you while you talk about violent/traumatic experiences (and thus enable your feelings to surface more readily) and you trust them to do so, I encourage you to take advantage of the listening. Ideally, this should happen on a daily basis with each session lasting for as long as you need it.
Talk about your experiences (or don’t talk if you find this difficult) but spend time focusing on how you feel about these experiences. Choose an unpleasant memory from your past and focus on the feelings – sadness, fear, anger, shame, guilt… – that arise as you talk and then think about that memory. Keep replaying the memory as often as it feels productive to do so, until the feelings attached to that memory have all been felt/expressed and the memory is no longer difficult to contemplate. If the feelings attached to a particular memory feel too horrible for you to feel now, choose a memory with feelings that feel manageable and tackle them first. The more horrible memories will wait until you feel capable of feeling them because the courage you need to feel your worst fears will gradually accumulate.
The listener should listen in silence (even if you are not speaking) and, if capable of doing so, occasionally reflect any of your feelings they can hear ‘beneath’ the words you are speaking; for example, ‘You sound scared of your mother/father’ or ‘You sound angry that your teacher forced you to do something against your will’. If the reflection is accurate, keep focusing on how you feel by imagining what is bringing up the feeling. If you feel like crying, then cry. If you need to get angry, do so in the way that works for you (as mentioned above). And so on. You are the only one who can interpret your feelings, nightmares, dreams and other emotional experiences and you should ask any listener to let you do so. Discourage any listener from reassuring or advising you; deal with the reality of how you feel, finally, and discover your own way forward. For more detail, see Nisteling: The Art of Deep Listening.
If you don’t know anyone who can listen without being triggered into feelings of their own (because they are scared by what happened to you/them) then you are better off listening to yourself. That means having regular sessions, preferably on a daily basis, in a safe space you have created when you allow yourself to deliberately focus on traumatic experiences and to feel each and all of the feelings, sometimes in combination, that arise when you do. It will sometimes mean that you need to abandon what you are doing because something triggers a sudden rush of feelings that demand your attention immediately. Not very convenient I know, but neither were your traumatic experiences as a child.
How long will it take? For many of you it will take a very long time, perhaps several years of regular sessions. I would like to tell you otherwise but you have been lied to far too often already – there are no quick fixes to the emotional trauma you are suffering – and I won’t insult you by doing so again. Having said ‘it will take a very long time’, I will add that every individual has a unique healing journey and, whatever the difficult feelings involved, each session of feeling is a session of healing – which might reveal an important insight about your life – and will take you one step closer to gaining a life free of mental ill-health and full of emotional power.
In essence, it is vastly superior strategy to provide yourself with a safe space in which your feelings can arise naturally so that you can feel and express them, safely and completely, rather than endlessly try to suppress them (but have them manifest ‘out of control’ anyway).
If you have a spouse or child who has been traumatized by your behaviour, the information in this article is equally valid for them too. In fact, it is useful information for any person because, tragically, we were all terrorized during childhood.
Obviously, I haven’t dealt with every issue – like ‘How do I recover from my emotional devastation when I need to work?’ or ‘How do I recover emotionally if I have difficult physical injuries too?’ – so I am going to have to trust you to work out answers to any unanswered questions. I am just explaining how you can emotionally restore yourself.
Finally, if your life experience generally leaves you inclined to believe that humans can do better than inflict mass violence on each other in attempts to ‘resolve’ their conflicts, then you might consider signing online ‘The People’s Charter to Create a Nonviolent World’.
In conclusion, I want to summarize your options, which are the options open to any human. You stand at the fork of two paths. The first path is the one that takes you further along the journey that you are traveling, offering you more of what you have now.
The second path, outlined above, offers you a long journey of difficult, frightening and painful emotional healing – with regular periods of relief and rewarding insights about your life – which will, if traveled, lead you to a vastly superior version of your old life.
The third path, which will only open to you once you have traveled the second path for a considerable time, will provide an encounter with ever deeper layers of suppressed fear, sadness, pain, anger, shame, guilt, anxiety, dread, humiliation, self-hatred … terror, fury … until its end many years later (although your capacity to cope with such horror will be steadily growing all of the time). At the end of this third path, should you choose to travel it and once your final layer of suppressed terror has been felt, you will become the person that evolution intended you to be on the day you were born.
has a lifetime commitment to understanding and ending human violence. He has done extensive research since 1966 in an effort to understand why human beings are violent and has been a nonviolent activist since 1981. He is the author of ‘Why Violence?‘
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It is already clearly apparent, as many predicted, that Donald Trump’s election as president of the United States would signal the start of what might be the final monumental assault on much of what is good in our world. Whatever our collective gains to date to create a world in which peace, social justice and environmental sustainability ultimately prevail for all of Earth’s inhabitants, we stand to lose it all in the catastrophic sequence of events that Trump is now initiating with those who share his delusional worldview.
Why does Trump ignore overwhelming scientific evidence (for example, in relation to the climate) and want to ‘lock out’ people who are desperate to improve their lives? Why does he want to prepare for and threaten more war and even nuclear war?
But why is Trump ‘dangerously mentally ill’ and violent?
For the same reason that any person, whether in the Trump administration or not, ends up in this state: it is an outcome of the ‘visible’, ‘invisible’ and ‘utterly invisible’ violence that they suffered during childhood and which unconsciously determines virtually everything they now do. In brief, Trump is utterly terrified and full of self-hatred but projects this as terror and hatred of women, migrants, Muslims… and this makes him behave insanely. For a brief explanation, see ‘The Global Elite is Insane‘. For a more comprehensive explanation of why many human beings are violent, see ‘Why Violence?‘ and ‘Fearless Psychology and Fearful Psychology: Principles and Practice‘.
So what are we to do? Well, if you are inclined to resist the diabolical actions of Donald Trump (and his insane and violent equivalents in the United States and other countries around the world), I invite you to respond powerfully. This includes maintaining a large measure of empathy for the emotionally damaged individual who is now president of the US (and his many equivalents). It also includes recognizing that this individual and his equivalents are the current ‘face’ of a global system of violence and exploitation built on many long-standing structures that we must systematically dismantle.
Here are some options for resisting and rebuilding, depending on your circumstances.
If you wish to strike at the core of human violence, consider modifying your treatment of children in accordance with the suggestions in the article ‘My Promise to Children‘.
If you wish to simultaneously tackle all military, climate and environmental threats to human existence while rebuilding human societies in ways that enhance individual empowerment and community self-reliance, consider joining those participating in ‘The Flame Tree Project to Save Life on Earth‘.
If you wish to resist particular elite initiatives that threaten peace, justice and environmental sustainability, consider planning, organizing and implementing nonviolent strategies to do so. But I wish to emphasize the word ‘strategies’. There is no point taking piecemeal measures or organizing one-off events, no matter how big, to express your concern. If you don’t plan, organize and act strategically, you will have wasted your time and effort on something that has no impact. Remember 15 February 2003? Up to thirty million people in over 600 cities around the world participated in rallies against the war on Iraq in what some labeled ‘the largest protest event in human history’. Did it stop the war?
So if you are inclined to respond powerfully by planning a nonviolent strategy for your campaign, you might be interested in the Nonviolent Strategy Wheel and other strategic thinking on this website – Nonviolent Campaign Strategy – or the parallel one: Nonviolent Defense/Liberation Strategy.
And if you wish to join the worldwide movement to end violence in all of its forms, you might also be interested in signing the online pledge of ‘The People’s Charter to Create a Nonviolent World‘.
Donald Trump
Donald Trump has formidable institutional power at his disposal and he and his officials will use it to inflict enormous damage on us and our world in the months ahead.
What most people do not realize is that we have vastly greater power at our disposal to stop him and the elite and their institutions he represents. But we need to deploy our power strategically if we are to put this world on a renewed trajectory to peace, justice and sustainability.
Robert J. Burrowes PhD Honorary Editor, Ground Report India
Punishment is a popular pastime for humans. Parents punish children. Teachers punish students. Employers punish workers. Courts punish lawbreakers. People punish each other. Governments punish 'enemies'. And, according to some, God punishes evildoers.
What is 'punishment'? Punishment is the infliction of violence as revenge on a person who is judged to have behaved inappropriately. It is a keyword we use when we want to obscure from ourselves that we are being violent.
The violence inflicted as punishment can take many forms, depending on the context. It might involve inflicting physical injury and/or pain, withdrawal of approval or love, confinement/imprisonment, a financial penalty, dismissal, withdrawal of rights/privileges, denial of promised rewards, an order to perform a service, banishment, torture or death, among others.
Given the human preoccupation with punishment, it is perhaps surprising that this behaviour is not subjected to more widespread scrutiny. Mind you, I can think of many human behaviours that get less scrutiny than would be useful.
Anyway, because I am committed to facilitating functional human behaviour, I want to explain why using violence to 'punish' people is highly dysfunctional and virtually guarantees an outcome opposite to that intended.
Punishment is usually inflicted by someone who makes a judgment that another person has behaved 'badly' or 'wrongly'. At its most basic, disobedience (that is, failure to comply with elite imposed norms) is often judged in this way, whether by parents, teachers, religious figures, lawmakers or national governments.
But is obedience functional or even appropriate?
Consider this. In order to behave optimally, the human organism requires that all mental functions – feelings, thoughts, memory, conscience, sensory perception (sight, sound, touch, smell, taste), truth register, intuition… – must be developed and readily involved, without interference, in our life. If this happens, then all of these individual functions will play an integrated role in determining our behaviour in any given circumstance. This is a very sophisticated mental apparatus that has evolved over billions of years and if it was allowed to function without interference in each individual, human beings would indeed be highly functional.
So where does obedience fit into all of this? It doesn't. A child is genetically programmed to seek to meet their own needs, not obey the will of another. And they will behave functionally in endeavouring to meet these needs unless terrorized out of doing so. Moreover, they will learn to meet their own needs, by acting individually in some circumstances and by cooperating with others when appropriate, if their social environment models this.
However, if a child is terrorized into being obedient – including by being punished when they are not – then the child will have no choice but to suppress their awareness of the innate mental capacities that evolved over billions of years to guide their behaviour until they have 'learned' what they must do to avoid being punished. For a fuller explanation of this, see 'Why Violence?' and 'Fearless Psychology and Fearful Psychology: Principles and Practice'.
Unfortunately, as you can probably readily perceive, this process of terrorizing a child into suppressing their awareness of what they want to do so that they do what someone else directs is highly problematical. And it leads to a virtually infinite variety of dysfunctional behaviours, even for those who appear to have been successfully 'socialized' into performing effectively in their society. This is readily illustrated.
Perhaps the central problem of terrorizing individuals into obedience of conventions, commands, rules and the law is that once the individual has been so terrorized, it is virtually impossible for them to change their behaviour because they are now terrified of doing so. If the obedient behaviours were functional in the circumstances then, apart from the obviously enormous damage suffered by the individual, there would be no other adverse social or environmental consequences.
Unfortunately, when all humans have been terrorized into behaving dysfunctionally on a routine basis (in the Western context, for example, by engaging in over-consumption) then changing their behaviour, even in the direction of functionality, is now unconsciously associated with the fear of violence (in the form of punishment) and so desirable behavioural change (in the direction of reduced consumption, for example) is much more difficult. It is not just that many Western humans are reluctant to reduce their consumption in line with environmental (including climatic) imperatives, they are unconsciously terrified of doing so.
By now you might be able to see the wider ramifications of using violence and threats of violence to force children into being obedient. Apart from terrorizing each child into suppressing their awareness of their innate mental capacities, we create individuals whose entire (unconscious) 'understanding' of human existence is limited to the notion that violence, mislabeled 'punishment', drives socialization and society.
As just one result, for example, most people consider punishment to be appropriate in the context of the legal system: they expect courts to inflict legally-sanctioned violence on those 'guilty' of disobeying the law. As in the case of the punishment of children, how many people ask 'Does violence restore functional behaviour? Or does it simply inflict violence as revenge? What do we really want to achieve? And how will we achieve that?'
Fundamentally, the flaw with violence as punishment is that violence terrifies people. And you cannot terrorize someone into behaving functionally. At very best, you can terrorize someone into changing their behaviour in an extremely limited context and/or for an extremely limited period of time. But if you want functional and lasting change in an individual's behaviour, then considerable emotional healing will be necessary. This will allow the suppressed fear, anger, sadness and other feelings resulting from childhood terrorization to safely resurface and be expressed so that the individual can perceive their own needs and identify ways of fulfilling them (which does not mean that they will be obedient). For an explanation of what is required, see 'Nisteling: The Art of Deep Listening' which is referenced in 'My Promise to Children'.
So next time you hear a political leader or corporate executive advocating or using violence (such as war, the curtailment of civil liberties, an economically exploitative and/or ecologically destructive initiative), remember that you are observing a highly dysfunctionalized individual. Moreover, this dysfunctional individual is a logical product of our society's unrelenting use of violence, much of it in the form of what is euphemistically called 'punishment', against our children in the delusional belief that it will give us obedience and hence social control.
Or next time you hear a public official, judge, terrorist or police officer promising 'justice' (that is, retribution), remember that you are listening to an emotionally damaged individual who suffered enormous violence as a child and internalized the delusional message that 'punishment works'.
You might also ponder how bad it could be if we didn't require obedience and use punishment to get it, but loved and nurtured children, by listening to them deeply, to become the unique, enormously loving and powerful individuals for which evolution genetically programmed them.
I am well aware that what I am suggesting will take an enormous amount of societal rethinking and a profound reallocation of resources away from violent and highly profitable police, legal, prison and military systems. But, as I wrote above, I am committed to facilitating functional human behaviour. I can also think of some useful ways that we could allocate the resources if we didn't waste them on violence.
Punishment can sometimes appear to get you the outcome you want in the short term. The cost is that it always moves you further away from any desirable outcome in the long run.
Dr Robert J Burrowes PhD, Australia
Dr Robert has a lifetime commitment to understanding and ending human violence. He has done extensive research since 1966 in an effort to understand why human beings are violent and has been a nonviolent activist since 1981. He is the author of ‘Why Violence?‘ and many other documents.
During our recent travel to the state of Arunachal Pradesh, India, we came across a shocking truth. While we were walking in the town of Zero (elevation 5,577 feet), we came across houses after houses with black letter signs: DDT, 7/14/15. Somewhat surprised, I asked our local guide what this sign meant. As I had suspected, he told me that DDT was sprayed in these houses on July 14, 2015. I asked him if they sprayed all the houses and how many times? He said every house is sprayed by the government twice a year in whole of Zero and all other parts of Arunachal Pradesh. Then a few days later, we were in Darjeeling and I asked my guide the same question and he too said that DDT is sprayed twice a year in every house in West Bengal. Now the picture was clear: DDT is being sprayed in most of the regions of India once or twice a year to eliminate mosquitos. As we were growing up--and I am sure this is the same experience of everyone who grew up in India—DDT was sprayed every year in our house, especially in the bathrooms and toilets and in the backyard. Like everyone, all of us have absorbed DDT while growing up in India. While the whole of Europe, America and other developed countries have banned DDT use, it is still being widely in India, other parts of Asia and in Africa.
Houses in Zero, Arunachal Pradesh
Well, let me give some information on DDT pesticide:
1,1,1-trichloro-2,2-bis(p-chlorophenyl)ethane or commonly known as DDT is an organochlorine insecticide that was first synthesized in 1874. DDT is a pesticide that was used very successfully to control the insect population especially the mosquito population prevalent all over the world. It is a persistent organic pollutant.
Farmers used DDT in a variety of food crops in the United States and worldwide. It was also used in buildings for pest control. The reason why it was used so widely was because not only it is effective, but it is also relatively inexpensive to manufacture and lasts a long time in the environment.
Rachel Carson, an environmentalist, came out with her ground breaking book called “Silent Spring” in 1962. She used DDT to tell the broader story of the disastrous consequences of the overuse of insecticides and raised enough concern from her testimony before the Congress. This triggered the establishment of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Following her testimony, President Kennedy convened a committee to review the evidence Carson had presented. By 1972, DDT was banned in the United States except in the case of public health emergency. But its manufacture is still legal in the country as long as it is exported for use by the developing nations.
When tested on animals, DDT is found to cause chronic effects on the nervous system, liver, kidneys, and immune system. DDT is also found to be carcinogenic, causing cancers when tested on animals. It is found to cause disruptions in the endocrine (hormonal) systems of the animals. Also, is found to cause reduced fetal weight or even sterility in some animals.
DDT’s carcinogenicity is equivocal. It has been shown to cause increased tumor production (mainly in liver and lungs) in test animals such as rats, mice and hamsters in some studies. In one study, increased connection was found between humans and pancreatic cancers. Also on humans, studies have revealed that DDT can adversely affect the nervous system, liver and the kidney.
The most amazing thing is that DDT gets accumulated in humans and animals in the fatty tissues of the body. Its concentration keeps increasing in the body and without doubt it will have significantly adverse effect on the bodies of humans and animals.
The evidence on DDT’s effect on humans has continued to mount over the years. The recent studies are showing harm even at very low levels of exposure. Studies show a range of human health effects connected with DDT and its breakdown product, DDE:
Breast and Pancreatic cancers & leukemia
male infertility
miscarriages & low birth weight
developmental delay
nervous system & liver damage
No wonder, all the developed countries have banned the use of DDT in their countries, especially after the US ban. Unfortunately, DDT is widely used in Africa and Asia including India. India is just one of the three countries still manufacturing DDT and is the largest user of it. The other two countries are China and North Korea. China uses a small quantity of DDT for domestic spraying while exports the rest to other countries.
We should learn from Mexico and Vietnam who successfully carried out a range of programs to reduce or eradicate malaria from their countries with measures other than DDT spraying. Both these countries don’t use DDT anymore since last several years as PAN (Pesticide Action Network) reports.
India desperately needs to develop and pursue other non-chemical methods to control malaria. They include protective nets, larvae eating fish and elimination of mosquito breeding sites such as stagnant waters and open gutters. An addition of alkaline salts to stagnant waters and gutters could be useful but needs further research. Mass production of cotton bed-nets should be made available to the masses at very low cost. Combined with other prevention and treatment strategies, these bed-nets can prevent half of all the deaths from malaria. Like what Vietnam did, there are drugs that can be freely distributed to the poor which gives protection against malaria.
With a huge pool of biologists and other scientists, India can devise ways to eliminate the malaria deaths from the country. Poisoning of millions of Indians by DDT spray is not the solution. I urge our popular Prime Minister Shri Narendrabhai Modi to launch a program to combat this menace by implementing other alternatives and save millions of Indians from being poisoned.
Chaitanya Davé, California, USA
Chaitanya, born in Bhavnagar, Gujarat, India, is an author, the Founder of Pragati Foundation, an Industrialist, a social activist, a highly progressive individual and an environmentalist; lives with his wife Amita in California, USA.
Attended college at New Mexico State University, Las Cruces, New Mexico and graduated with B.S. in Chemical Engineering in 1969. Started his own company in 1980 manufacturing metal finishing chemical products. The company is still running successfully.
He is founder/president of a non-profit charity organization named ‘Pragati’, based in Southern California and Hemubhai Rural Development Foundation based in India. The foundation has done rural developmental work in villages in India since 1993. He has travelled extensively all over the world and runs a non-profit rural development foundation.
Chaitanya Dave with Narendra Modi, the Chief Minister of Gujarat on December 2013 became the prime minister of India in May 2014
Chaitanya Dave with Narendra Modi, the Chief Minister of Gujarat on December 2013 (Narendra Modi became the prime minister of India in May 2014)
On December 2013, Chaitanya Dave met in person with the Chief Minister of Gujarat, Shri Narendrabhai Modi, about six months before he became the prime minister of the largest democracy in the world, India.
Early on Chaitanya Dave learned that only through good education and focused hard work can one come up in life. That is what he did developing his successful metal finishing company against all odds and very little money, in Los Angeles in 1980. He learned that there is no substitute for hard work. He derived these and other principles from great men like Mahatma Gandhiji and Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel.
Chaitanya Davé has authored three books:
CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY: A Shocking Record of US Crimes since 1776 (Nov. 2007)
COLLAPSE: Civilization on the Brink (June 2010), and
MONUMENTAL SHIFT: Creating a New Economy with Genuine Democracy. (2016)
Wife: Amita Dave has M.S in education from Pune University and also a Master’s degree in Special Education in the USA. She has been a teacher, administrator and advisor in the field of Special Education with the Los Angeles Unified School District. Though retired now, she continues to take assignments in her field.
Sons:
Maurya Dave, an electrical engineer and the CEO of Surfin Chemical Corp., Los Angeles, CA, USA
Dr Aditya Dave, a Veterinarian, currently doing his residency at Minnesota State University, St. Paul, Minnesota.
Favourite quotes:
“Nobody can make you unhappy without your permission” —Mahatma Gandhi
"I’m a great believer in luck, and I find the harder I work the more I have it." -- Thomas Jefferson, third U.S. president
Chaitanya Dave’s motto in life: Work hard, read a lot, learn a lot, and enjoy your life with your family and friends while helping others too.
(This article is based on the RTE in Uttar Pradesh, the situations could be same in other states too. I am exploring the regulations in other states also. I will write a detailed article on RTE shortly. RTE= Right to Education)
Vivek Umrao Glendenning
Including me, we praised a lot the RTE act, and we supported it last 12 years. But now I guess we were wrong because we trusted it blindly and skipped to see the deep inside the Act and praised the act emotionally, many clauses of the RTE are very dangerous for the poor and lower middle classes.
I met first time Vinod Raina in 2000 in Kanpur in a meet of education. I found Raina does not seem aware too much of the ground realities. I spent a week with Anil Sadgopal in 2002 in Hyderabad and discussed many educational issues.
I have been an active part of an organisation voluntarily who has been working for primary education for underprivileged children in all over India. We established many thousands of centres for the poor children in very remote villages. I started and established 10 non-formal education centres for the children of migrant-workers between 1999-2001.
I taught voluntarily in several non-formal schools for Dalit & Tribal children in interior villages of Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Bihar and Chhattisgarh. I am a founding part of an open teachers training centre in Rajasthan. We invite teachers from small-scale private schools to improve their teaching skills. The trainers we get from Maharashtra, some persons in Maharashtra have done very good experiments for teaching materials and teaching skill improvements.I am writing above to let you know that I understand the crisis of education systems for poor classes in India.
—–
The serious drawbacks of RTE in Uttar Pradesh:After 31.03.2013, no-one could run any formal or non-formal education centre. It is illegal under RTE and penalty starts with Rs 1 Lakh, if the formal school does not follow infrastructure standards set by the governments.
Thousands of notices have been issued to the formal recognised and non-formal schools not following the infrastructure standards set by the government.Following standards of the recognised school means around 2 million Rs expenses on infrastructures not included the land price. And recurring expenses will be around 0.15 to 0.2 million Rs per month to run a small school. This means these schools will have to charge a handsome amount of fee from the students.
Now a poor or lower-middle-class student has only two option-
To drop the education and only enrolled in the government schools
To study in ill-managed government schools
A poor or middle-class student will not have an opportunity to study in small-scale private formal/non-formal schools, which are comparatively better in education quality than the government schools because of government standards for infrastructures and teachers’ qualifications.
In Uttar Pradesh, there are many thousands of government schools do not follow the infrastructure standards and do not have teachers. There is lack of more than 3.5 Lakh teachers only in Uttar Pradesh in government schools.
Government is not arranging the facility of quality education but stopping community to arrange a quality education by possible means, what will the children of poor and lower middle class do?
The RTE will create high discriminations between poor and rich.
Poor and lower middle classes will get the education in ill-managed government schools, and upper middle class & upper class will get the education in costly public schools.
We welcomed 25% seats in public schools for poor children, but the RTE in Uttar Pradesh demands the two basic documents from a student from a poor and lower middle classes to study in costly public schools under 25% quota-
Students must produce proof that there is no government school in his/her area
or
Students must produce a letter from the principals of all government schools in the area that seats are full in their schools to the education officer
To provide above documents are as impossible for a child of poor or lower middle class.
Just for a note-
Ekal-Vidyalaya was a good effort and made lots of successful output but is illegal now because of RTE act.
Is RTE not a black act for poor and lower middle classes?
I have a good news to share with you. You may recall that we published a detailed report on the community water management works in Dewas district of Madhya Pradesh, motivated by Umakant Umrao IAS, in the January 2012 edition of GRI. The United Nations have awarded the community third rank for the best community practices for water management in the world.
Ground Report India group has started to work on organising 206 conferences on the environment including 200 local, five zonal conferences and an international conference in India on environment issues. We will conduct an exclusive national tour of around 1,00,000 kilometres over the next year. During this tour, we will meet the common people, groups and organisations working for environmental issues on the ground.
With this introduction, I would now like to present this fourth edition of GRI quarterly focusing on electoral reforms in India. The current edition presents the work of CERI’s (Campaign for Electoral Reforms in India), and this campaigns idea for electoral reforms in India in order to move towards a better democracy.
The founder of CERI, MC Raj, is a Dalit activist who campaigns for electoral reforms in India. MC Raj has pushed the CERI campaign forward. He has organized many workshops and seminars in India and foreign countries like Germany.
MC Raj is the guest editor for the current edition. Thus all articles have been arranged by him, except the articles written by John Szemerey and Amitabh Thakur.
John Szemerey is the chairman of the international advisory board of the Ground Report India group and he has worked with media services of European Union over the last few decades. Personally, I found his article interesting and with an objective vision. John is a visionary journalist and has been supporting the idea of Ground Report India from the first day of the foundation of GRI in 2009.
Ground Report India Quarterly published some articles in the October 2011 Edition on Anna’s Movement, few of those articles are re-published in this edition again because of the relevancy of the articles.
The next edition of Ground Report India Quarterly is expected on human rights issues and Dr Lenin Raghuvanshi has accepted to support Ground Report India as the guest editor for this edition.
Please keep patronising Ground Report India and support us to establish it as an accountable and valued journal.
Thank you very much and I look forward to sharing more with you in future.
Former Chairman, International Committee, The Chartered Institute of Journalists London
Chairman, International Advisory Board, Ground Report India Group
Chairman, Honourary Editors Board, Ground Report India Group
John is a political journalist, retired in summer 2005 after working over 30 years in the information services of the European Commission, Brussels.
Most people do not know and do not care how electoral systems work. As far as they are concerned, they have done their duty by marking their vote on a ballot paper, or by pressing buttons on an electoral machine. This is unfortunate, as the electoral system used to elect legislatures is directly responsible for the parliament and government that the system elects. Every electoral system – and there are several hundred of them – has a political objective, quite apart from its basic function of electing members to a parliament, council, committee or local legislature. Different electoral systems produce totally different end results. It is therefore important to know the results of each electoral system before discarding an existing system and adopting another one. While the man or woman on the street thinks that electoral systems exist to elect MPs and councillors, politicians tend to judge electoral systems by how good they are at electing members of their political parties to the legislature. In other words, politicians evaluate electoral systems by how effective they are at electing the candidates of their party, and by how good they are at giving power to their party. However, electoral systems have many more objectives than to help or prevent a political party come to power. Objectives range from producing a legislature that can create a stable government or unstable governments with MPs elected from several parties but with none having enough MPs to have a majority in parliament to form a government. (Yes, some systems deliberately produce unstable governments in countries that do not want to have a strong central government.)
Then there are electoral systems that give an advantage to parties of the political centre. Others make it very difficult if not impossible for independent MPs or small political parties to be elected. Normally the parties in control of a legislature do not look kindly at proposals to change the electoral system, unless the suggested changes to the system are likely to give them more elected MPs or unless they make it more difficult for candidates of rival parties to be elected. For some time people have been calling for India to change its electoral system. However, no-one has specified exactly which electoral system should be used, and what are the political objectives of that system. Before the public agrees, it would be wise to discover exactly what electoral system is being proposed, and what are the real political objectives of that system. An exercise that proponents of change should try is to take the voting figures of the last two or three general elections and allocate them as if they had been cast using the system that they propose. This can produce interesting and perhaps surprising results. First, however, they should decide what is the purpose of elections. There are two main viewpoints, which are contradictory. One is that parliament should represent all parts of the country and all residents in the country. The other point of view is that parliament should reflect the views and opinions of the whole country. In theory, elected MPs should represent the balance of opinions in the country. In fact, most MPs are free-thinking individuals. It is highly unlikely, if not impossible, for all the candidates on the list of a political party to have the same opinion about everything. It is even less likely that elected MPs – of different parties – from constituencies should fairly represent the balance of opinions in the country. However, the view of those elected makes a big difference to the views and decisions of parliament. So it is the party officials who decide whom to put on the party list, and what place they have on the list – if they are sufficiently high on the list to be elected – that have enormous power in setting up the legislature in countries with PR electoral systems. The only way it would be possible to have a parliament with members representing all viewpoints within the country would be to have an independent committee or organisation nominate candidates to every constituency, and for these nominated candidates to be declared elected. The committee could ensure that the nominated and elected MPs represent a fair balance of the views held in the country. But clearly this is not a free and fair way of electing parliament. This system would be totally incompatible with democracy.
Electoral systems
There are three major families of electoral system in use in democratic countries. These are Direct Representation (DR) (often referred to as First Past the Post), Proportional Representation (PR) and Preferential Representation (PrefR). Direct Representation was introduced before political parties existed. It ensures that everyone in a country has his or her elected MP, to whom constituents can go for help and advice. The country is divided up into many similar sized constituencies, each of which elects one MP to parliament. The duty of elected MPs is to represent in parliament the constituency for which they were elected. DR also ensures that all parts of the country are represented in parliament.
I must point out, however, that the anti-DR propaganda, that votes for a candidate who is not elected are wasted, is nonsense. The only votes that are wasted are those that are not cast. But all votes cast play an important role in elections – in the same way that a football team or a cricket team that loses a game did not waste their time playing. PR comes in many shapes and sizes, but its basic objective is to ensure that the political balance of a legislature is in proportion to how the electors voted. For this system to work, either the whole country is taken as one single constituency, or in larger countries the country is sub-divided into electoral regions. PR is meant to ensure that the political balance of MPs elected nationally or from each electoral region reflects the balance of votes for the different parties. Voting in PR systems is either by voting for a party list, which accepts the order into which the candidates have been put, or by voting for one or several candidates on the party list. Such a vote does two things: it is counted as a vote for the party list, and it gives preference to the candidate or candidates for whom the elector voted.
Pref R has many of the advantages of DR, in that constituencies either have one or a few elected MPs, who actually represent their constituency in parliament. Voters have more of a say as to which candidate(s) is elected than is the case with PR. They vote by putting numbers against the name of candidates, to indicate their preferences. So their first preference is given a 1, their second preference a 2, and so on. When first votes are counted, the candidate with fewest votes is removed from the list, and the votes he or she received are reallocated to the candidates who were his/her voters’ second preference. As many counts are held as are needed for the right number of candidates to be elected for each constituency or region. At the end of each count the candidate with the fewest votes is removed from the list, and his/her votes are reallocated to these voters’ next preference. There are two principal PrefR electoral systems: the Alternative Vote (AV) and the Single Transferable Vote (STV). AV elects one MP from each constituency, while STV elects several from each constituency.
DR “unfair” claim Liberals
A clear example of a political party trying to have the electoral system changed for its own benefit is the continuing campaign of the Liberal Party, now the Liberal-Democrat Party, in the UK. The Liberals have for years been complaining that fewer of their parliamentary candidates are elected than should be elected, in light of the total number of votes that the party receives nationally.
What is ironic is that the Liberals have been clamouring for proportional representation, whereas PR is the last thing they want. They really want the Single Transferable Vote (STV), a preferential electoral system that is designed to help parties of the centre. STV constituencies elect from two to 30 or more MPs per constituency.
The system works best when constituencies elect between three and five MPs. This is because if the constituency only elects two MPs, preferential votes are not very effective, as a maximum of only two parties or viewpoints can be represented in parliament. However, if constituencies elect 15 – 30 MPs, they will elect several independent or minority party candidates – whose presence in parliament will make it difficult for a stable government to be elected, and it will weaken the position of the bigger parties. How does STV help parties of the political centre?
If there are three or four MPs to be elected from each constituency, voters will give their first preference votes to the party they usually support, usually a party of the Left or of the Right. If that party has a second candidate, he or she will receive voters’ second preference votes. When there are no more candidates of voters’ preferred political party, the next – second, third or fourth – preference vote will not be cast for an opposing party (a voter of the Left is highly unlikely to give his/her second preference vote to a candidate of the Right, and a voter of the Right will be highly unlikely to vote Left). The next preference vote will be cast for a party of the Centre, such as the Liberals or the Greens. This is so with Left voters and Right voters. They both tend to give their next preference vote to a party of the Centre.
This results in candidates of the centre getting the second or third preference votes of voters who would normally not vote for them but who find them more acceptable, or less unacceptable, than a party whose policies are directly opposite to those of the party they support.
With PrefR, Liberal or Green candidates benefit from receiving the second or third preference votes of voters of the Left and of the Right, which in many cases give them enough votes for them to be elected as the third or fourth MP in a multimember STV constituency.
The end result is that with a preferential election system the Liberals and the Greens tend to win considerably more seats in parliament than if the election were held by direct representation or proportional representation. PR is a group of several hundred electoral systems that tend to be undemocratic.
In an ideal PR system, each party has a national list of candidates. In most cases, voters cannot choose between candidates but they vote for a party list. Candidates are selected and put on the party list by a senior committee within each major party. In advance, the percentage of the votes that will go to each major party is known. So if a party can expect to get 25% of the vote, the first 25% of candidates on the party list will be elected. If another party expects to get 10% of the vote, the first 10% of candidates on its list will be elected.
It is therefore the senior party apparatchiks, who decide who will be on the party list and where that candidate will be on the list, who in fact decide who will be elected. Voters can only have a marginal influence on the result by voting differently from the expected percentages of support for each party. So one or two more candidates of that party will be elected if the party receives 27% of the vote instead of 25%, and other parties that receive slightly fewer votes than expected will have one or two candidates fewer elected.
French example
In 1979 I did research into how France elected its 81 members of the European Parliament, as the French had decided to elect their MEPs by PR with national lists. There were four major political parties standing in the election and several small parties.
First, not one candidate of a small party was elected under the PR system with national lists. This had largely been known in advance, so what was of interest was how many candidates from each of the four main party lists would be elected. The percentage of the vote that the four main parties were expected to receive was known in advance, so it was each party’s election committee that decided which candidates would be on the party’s list, and where on the list, that in fact decided who would be France’s 81 members of the European Parliament.
Each of the election committees had between 12 and 25 members. So it was these members, fewer than 100 in all, who in fact decided who would be France’s MEPs for five years, and not the voters, who just went through a charade of voting.
It need hardly be said that in this situation it is very easy for a wealthy supporter of a party to bring pressure on an election committee to put one or more candidates in winning positions on the party list, or to put a potential MP low down on the list if the supporter does not want him or her to be elected.
Countries where PR is used often realise how easily the system can be manipulated. They therefore frequently modify the system so it is less proportional. For example, in several countries there is an electoral threshold. This means that a party or candidate must receive at least a given percentage of the total vote in his constituency or region to be able to win any seats. Some systems deliberately cut the country up into regions or large constituencies, which cannot be as proportional to total votes as a large electoral region like a country. Then there are many methods of counting the votes cast for parties or candidates. Some give seats to smaller parties that would not have won seats if the count had been truly proportional.
Counting votes
Best known of these systems is the D’Hondt method that divides the total number of votes for a party by the number of seats it has already won, plus one. Seats are allocated one after the other, with the first seat being allocated to the party with the most votes. The total votes of this party is then divided by the number of seats won plus one, namely 1 + 1 or 2. So this party’s total is halved. The next seat is given to the list that now has the highest number of votes.
In the example below, the total of the second list to win a seat, 23, is then divided by the number of seats that list has won, plus one, namely 1 + 1 or 2, leaving 11.5. The totals of all the lists are again compared, and the next seat to be won is by the party that now has the highest total of votes, namely party A that won the first seat. The total vote of party A, 39, is then divided by 2 + 1 or 3, leaving 13. And so on, until all the seats have been elected.
Seven MPs are elected from this fictitious region, where there are seven fictitious parties, A to G, and seven rounds of counting, each count to result in one candidate – the one with most votes at that stage – to be elected.
The first MP to be elected is from party A, which has most votes, namely 39. This number is then divided by (1 + 1) 2, leaving the party with 19.5 votes. The party with the largest total of votes is now F, which has 23 votes, so the second seat goes to party F. This party’s total vote (23) is divided by (1 + 1) 1, giving the party 11.5 votes.
The third seat is allocated to the party now with the highest number of votes. This is again party A, which has 19.5 votes. The party’s original vote, 39, is now divided by (2 + 1) 3, leaving a new total of 13.
The totals of all the lists are again compared, showing that party G now has most votes, with 17. So it wins the next seat, and its total is then divided by (1 + 1) 2, to leave it with 8.5.
The lists are again compared, to show that party B now has the largest number of votes, namely 16. It wins the next seat, and its total is divided by (1 + 1) 2, leaving it with 8.
The lists are compared yet again, and it is now party A that has the largest number of votes, with 13. It wins the next seat, and its original total (39) is divided by (3 + 1) or 4, leaving a new total of 9.75.
The lists are compared for a seventh time, and it is party F that now has the largest total, 11.5, so it wins the seventh seat.
So, using PR and the D’Hondt method of counting, party A wins 3 seats, party F wins 2, and parties G and B win one each. If seats were allocated on a simply proportionate basis, party A would win 3 seats, and parties B, E, F and G would each win one seat – quite a difference.
D’Hondt is just one method of counting. There are other systems that have other divisors, so that instead of dividing the total of a list that has just won a seat by the number of seats plus one, one divides the total by 3 + 1 or by 7 + 1, which both produce quite a different result. The larger the divisor the greater the number of candidates from small parties or independent candidates who get elected.
German electoral system
Another very political electoral system is the German Mixed Member Proportionate (MMP) system, which elects half the total number of MPs by DR from individual constituencies, and the other half of MPs from party lists by PR, in proportion to the votes their parties received. At first glance one is tempted to think the system is fair, as it ensures that MPs represent all parts of the country and that the total number of MPs is in proportion to how the electorate voted.
However, at first glance one does not spot the system’s worst characteristic: that it punishes political parties that manage to win a good number of constituencies, and it rewards those that won only a few or none.
If a party has managed to win, say, 25 out of 50 constituencies but it only has 15% of the vote for the PR lists, it will not win any PR seats. This is because 15% of a 100 seat parliamentary chamber is only 15, which is what the party would normally be entitled to win. It is allowed to keep the 25 seats its candidates won, but it has no extra seats allocated from the PR lists. Another party that won, say, 8 constituencies but received 15% of the vote for the PR lists wins seven seats from the PR lists. This is because it is entitled to 15 MPs. As it only won 8 constituencies, it is given 7 PR seats, that bring its total MPs up to 15.
Also, this system has a 5% electoral threshold, so no party with less than 5% of the vote can win any of the PR seats. This was written in to the constitution specially to make it very difficult for a dictator like Adolf Hitler to become the ruler or chancellor of Germany. The limit is effective in discouraging all small parties from being represented in the Bundestag.
On two occasions, in 1969 and 1998, Germany’s third party, the liberal Free Democrats, only just scraped into the Bundestag. In 1990, the next party, the Greens, did not get 5% of the vote in West Germany. However, the rules were temporarily changed to put together their vote in the former East Germany with their vote in the West to enable the Greens to have some seats in the Bundestag.
This electoral system has much to recommend it, although to be fair the PR seats should be awarded only according to the votes parties get with electors’ second votes for the PR lists, irrespective of how many constituencies were won by that party. This would avoid the present situation of punishing parties that win many constituencies by not giving them any list seats, or fewer seats than they would be entitled to according to the PR list vote, and rewarding them if they win few or no constituencies.
Conclusion
India’s present electoral system, Direct Representation or First Past the Post, has had several criticisms made against it. However, most of these criticisms have been on account of the fact that India does not run the elections correctly. For example, it allows a significant part of the population to be almost unrepresented in parliament.
Another criticism of DR in India is that several of the candidates are criminals or otherwise unsuited to be MPs. This is not a criticism of DR, but of the way it operates in India. The authorities should tighten the rules as to who can stand for election.
A further criticism is that there is corruption, with people or organisations financing a party or one or more of its candidates in exchange for the party or its MPs doing something in parliament after the election. This is also a criticism of the way DR operates in India. The authorities could simply apply rules that such misbehaviour cannot happen.
The best that India could do now is to examine why and where DR is not working properly and to propose corrections to the system. In particular, it should ensure that every citizen has a vote and that every citizen is able to go and vote at elections.
Meanwhile the proponents of change should be asked to specify exactly what electoral system they would prefer, and why.
If it was found that it was too difficult, or not possible, to correct the present system, that would be the time to have a country-wide discussion and consultation about the best alternative electoral system. This could be followed by a referendum, in which the electorate was asked which election system it would prefer.
This would give India the time it needs if it decides to change its electoral system.
It is at this historical juncture that this special edition of Ground Report India explores PES (Proportionate Electoral System) and CERI’s efforts before you. CERI is very grateful to Mr. Vivek Umrao Glendenning for this gesture towards Indian democracy. CERI is also thankful to all the writers who have contributed to bring out this issue successfully. We also recognize the unrelenting efforts of all the State Coordinators of CERI who have given part of their time and energy for the campaign without expecting any financial returns. There have been millions of invisible hands supporting this campaign. I am sure, through careful reading of this edition of GRI that you will also become a strong supporter of a PR system in India.
India has irreversibly come to an era of coalition politics. The Indian mind-set takes a lot of comfort at the many legacies that the British have left in India. One of them is the type of democracy that they brought into India and its corresponding electoral system. India claims to be the largest democracy in the world. This claim cannot be disputed – the mere size of 740 million registered voters that India defends that claim. However, the quality of democracy that India practices along with its electoral system that denies adequate political space for many communities of people has to go through the grind mill of analysis.
India is proud of its representative democracy. Representative democracies aim at providing adequate space in governance to all citizens and a share in power to all those sections of society who elect their representatives. The quality of representation that India’s democracy provides to its citizens comes under a critical scanner after every election. Most democracies that have emerged through the period of Western enlightenment and the evolution of dominant governance in the name of democracy have embedded mechanisms of concentrating power in the hands of ‘select’ powerful groups. To that extent by its very design FPTP (First Past the Post) system excludes sections of society that are ‘powerless’ within the boundaries of given nation-states. Such exclusion becomes assertive in multicultural societies where generally differences become foundations of multiple discriminations.
Ruling parties generally do not want to change electoral systems unless they see an enormous disadvantage in the existing system or a huge advantage to their party in a new system. The present FPTP electoral system favors a small conglomeration of powerful caste based groups in India. Till now, mechanisms of inclusion have not led to legitimate share in power. Shifting to another electoral system is also called for when an electoral system fails to fit into the way given nation state is constituted by the composition of its population. A shift in an electoral system is also necessitated by changes that take place in the political trajectory of a nation state. FPTP is a misfit in a multicultural nation state such as India. The entire world knows that India is a nation of nations. Therefore while the FPTP fits well in a democracy with two parties, it is no longer suitable for inclusive representation and governance in India. As long as FPTP continues to be the electoral system in India, governance in India will continue to remain in the hands of a few privileged classes of people. Power, when concentrated in the hands of the powerful, or when it is not widely shared, is bound to ferment unrest at the bottom. This is bound also to lead to social and political upheaval in the country that may force governments to take recourse to repressive laws as has already begun in some parts of India.
The face of the nation-state is changing all over the world, because of globalization and migration of peoples across different countries. In order for democracy to gain a more acceptable face in this fast changing political scenario, many countries have already shifted to one or other variant of the more inclusive Proportional Representation (PR) system. Today more democratic countries in the world have a PR system and the number of these countries outnumber the countries that are still sticking to FPTP. The countries with FPTP see it more advantageous to retain concentrated power in their hands. India too has had its share of the struggle to liberate itself from the jinxed power equation in its democracy. Dynasty, nepotism, corruption, exaggerated role of money, violence, communalism and casteism have played crucial roles in almost all the elections right from the time of India’s emergence as a sovereign republic. There has been repeated outcry in India to liberate its electoral system from such democratic anomalies. But there is not yet enough knowledge and determination to move into a system that will provide proportional and genuine representation and share in power. Though the struggle for an inclusive democracy, electoral system and governance started right from the time of drafting the Constitution of India, it is only in 1999 that the Law Commission of India strongly recommended an amendment to the Constitution in order to usher in Proportionate Electoral System in India. Unfortunately, this recommendation is only gathering dust in the archives of the Parliament of India.
It is CERI, the Campaign for Electoral Reforms in India, that has exerted considerable influence among the intelligentsia, academia, political leadership, civil society leadership and citizens in general in the last three years to reflect on a change in electoral system in India. In India, there has been some dominant caste groups that have clamoured for electoral reforms. However, their focus is not on changing the electoral system, but it has been to brush up the existing FPTP system and present it to the voters in a more acceptable form. CERI is at a crucial juncture in this campaign that has moved forward much beyond our expectations. The Campaign itself started out of solid researches from Germany, Norway, New Zealand, Nepal and lately also in the Netherlands. This has been received with several strong vocal support from varied political parties, social movements, people’s organisations, civil society as well as international, national and regional bodies of dalits, indigenous, tribals, minorities and women organizations and movements. In India, the passion for an inclusive representation and governance also made its way into the National Election Commission of India that has set up a Special Committee to look into the need for Proportional Representation system in India. It is a matter of much satisfaction that the Chief Election Commissioner of India has officially released the Policy Document on PR system, prepared by CERI.
Thank you very much for reading the current edition of The Ground Report India quarterly journal titled “Ground Efforts for Empowerment and Self-Sustainability of Tribal People”.
I prefer to see things at the actual ground level. I try my best to keep my eyes and mind open to see things as they are, without corrupting the vision by the influences of media-sensations or using theoretical intellectualism on secondary or manipulated information.
I do not have a television in my home. Thus I am almost a media-illiterate person if media-literacy comes through various media-sensations by Indian television channels.
But because I do not believe in media sensations, I try my best to make Ground Report India a positive and people accountable media.
When Ground Report India quarterly published a special edition in October 2011 on Anna Hazare’s Jan Lokpal movement, I faced many abuses and uncivilised criticism by the followers of Anna Hazare. However, with time the true character of Anna Hazare’s movement was revealed. People stopped to follow Anna Hazare and his team blindly and started questions the hidden interests behind the movement.
I guess I could face the same abusive behaviours again, because of the current edition content. These abusers would come from the metropolitan intellectuals, NGO sponsored activists and persons using theoretical intellectualism on manipulated information.
This edition is without a doubt covers the constructive ground efforts of individuals, groups of individuals, voluntary organizations, government institutions and non-government institutions for the empowerment, development and self-sustainability of tribal communities in various states of India.
I assure sincere readers, who have a wish to understand the ground realities of individual efforts, civilian efforts and organisational efforts towards social empowerment and transformation they will not be disappointed by this edition of Ground Report India. The Ground Report India team worked hard to produce this current edition for you.
In future, Ground Report India print journal coming editions are expected on:
Electoral Reforms in India
Employment in India
Please send your valuable and relevant articles to us for consideration in the above editions. Thank you very much for your continuous support and encouragement.
There is a breeze of NGOs sponsored tribal heroes in the media, on the internet and also social networking platforms for the Bastar region. Most of these sponsored heroes were or are paid employees of the NGOs working in this region.
But Nandlal Baba is a young tribal person, who does not know the tricks for applying for donor funds. But Baba has been working for education and economic development of the tribal community for more than 20 years. Baba runs an ashram at the foot of a hill, without any organized grant from a funding agency. This ashram is made by local available materials like mud, straw, bamboo, and wood and has a family of around 100 persons, including 60 tribal children and 20 tribal women.
This ashram has a school, residential campus, farming and vegetable centre, dairy, traditional herbal medical centre, a big beautiful pond and also a self-employment activity centre.
[flagallery gid=27 name=Gallery]
I asked the local people how Nandlal Baba manages the expenses of this residential campus of around 100 persons, cows and other activities. I was highly surprised to know that this ashram is run without any organized grant since the day of its foundation but with the local community support of commodities like cattle-food, clothes, grains, money and other.
Is there any news about Nandlal Baba in the media? No, there is no news. Is this not a heroic work in a disturbed area with a constructive approach?
Are the constructive approached movements not a civilian effort towards conflict resolution that should be applauded?
For the past 20 years, more or less, I have been working, or have been associated with various known social personalities and media celebrities of social activism in India. These personalities include international awardees, mainstream political persons, RTI/RTF/RTE/ NREGA activists, activists who follow Gandhi’s ideology, organizations who pursue Gandhi’s ideology and others in India.
Over the past decade, I have been spending most of my time each year in remote areas of many different regions of India. I have tried to spend a minimum of one to two months in a region, continuously interacting with local people to understand the ground reality and practicalities of their life. By doing this, I have had opportunities to understand many different types of people, their views, their understandings, their problems and their reactions to ongoing systems.
I feel that there are many different layers of social systems and hence worlds in India. These worlds are not mutually related, are not mutually understood, and are not known to each other. I feel that India needs fundamental changes in various social systems, which can only be achieved with basic ground reality understandings of society as a whole and all of its segments. Social changes or transformations always take much time, and need a huge amount of effort. To change systems requires individuals to sacrifice their individual identities and egos. No change can occur with shortcuts. To create social change can be compared to planting a tree. The seed of the tree needs care, water, sunlight, soil, nutrients and time to grow, and then the tree starts to give fruits.
India needs to understand the holes in her electoral, political, executional, judiciary, media and constitutional systems. Any change needs to be a self-motivated movement from the masses of India, and the masses can only be motivated by live sources of motivations. Live sources of motivations cannot be generated only by the media. Even a responsible and socially accountable media cannot generate live sources of mass motivation. The media can only support to strengthen live sources.
In India it is easy to generate various pseudo power centres by projecting virtual illusions. These power moves cannot change the systems in India to move towards social accountability, because they do not have a base in the self-motivated actions of the real masses.
There is an emerging trend in India. Changes, transformations, and revolutions all occurring in, with, and by the Internet. Even though in the virtual world it seems that many efforts are occurring to change India, in actuality things are getting increasingly worse on the ground. The Internet is being misused by Indian youth as a medium for the expressions of their reactions, but without doing sincere actions on the ground or in their daily life.
Ground Report India is here to support your efforts towards taking action on the ground, by assisting you to understand the ground realitites of India, with an unbiased understanding of India. Ground Report India is here to act as a close associate of you, to provide non-projected information of the people who work on the ground.
To this end, this edition focuses on water and agriculture in India. Today in India more than 65 percent of the population are supported by agriculture, with 50 percent directly dependent on agriculture. Most of these people are landless farmers, or have landholdings that are too small for any real productive use (less than 2 hectares). Much of the agricultural area is also rain-fed which places family farmers at high risk of poverty. Those most affected are women and children, who tend to play a larger role in rain-fed farming systems.
Director, Research IASE Deemed University
Head, Department of value Education, IASE Deemed University
Mother earth is considered one of the most beautiful and harmonious planets in the Universe. Earth may be the only planet in our galaxy that has enough water and
environment for the further evolution of life, that is plant, animal and human order. Naturally, life on earth is in co-existential harmony1. Unfortunately, global human society is suffering from various prob- lems due to the ignorance of this harmony. Nature cares, loves and supports the human order and recip- rocally, humanity must take care of its only beautiful planet. We must follow the law of mutual fulfilment. It is necessary for the survival of humanity.
Unfortunately, directionless and purposeless techno-scientific development damages the natu- ral-ecological and environmental harmony, and cre- ates ecological and environmental imbalances.2 The climate of the world is changing very fast. Catas- trophes are taking place almost every day, and unknown hazardous diseases are surfacing every- where. The only hope is that every person is capable of influencing the world in some way and that this influence would be positive. We can imagine the seri- ousness of the problem today, 150 major nations of the world show an ecological deficit. Taken together, the ecological footprint of all nations in the year 2001 is almost 20% bigger than the ecological capac- ity of the Earth. “Moderate UN scenarios suggest that if current population and consumption trends continue, by the mid 2030s we will need the equiva- lent of two Earths to support us. And of course, we only have one” .3 A poll survey report published in Washington Post ‘Mass Extinction Underway, Majority of Biologists Say’ “Amajority of the nation’s biologists are convinced that a mass extinction of plants and animals is underway that poses a major threat to humans in the next century. The rapid disappearance of species was ranked as one of the planet’s gravest environmental worries, surpassing pollution, global warming and the thinning of the ozone layer.” 4So we see, at this rate the human race could one day perish if we don’t look after our planet.
However, human centric philosophy ‘Mad- hayatha Darshan Sahastitvavad’5 elucidates Coex- istence, that is the existential/natural order among the physical-material world, plant/pranic and animal world. The relationships among the material, pranic (cells) /plants and animal orders, are mutually ful- filling and mutually enriching and this process is cyclic (avartansheel) in nature. Right understanding between Nature and Humanity will be necessary to fulfil the relationship with all these orders. A.Nagraj (2008) further argues that the whole of ‘existence is in the form of co-existence’6, as units submerged in space. Each unit is self-organized within itself (Niyam, niyantran, santulan sahit nishchit aacha- ran ke sath) and fulfils its harmonious relationship with all other units/order, except the human order. The ultimate desire of human beings is also to live in the harmony with rest of the nature. It means that noone has to create the harmony. It is already available. It exists in the form of Co-existential Harmony. One only needs to understand existence and align oneself with it. It is only by understanding these processes in nature, human beings can sur- vive and flourish. All the three orders are fulfilling their relationship with human beings. Subsequently human beings must organize their life style to fulfil the other three orders (figure 1).
Figure 01
Dr. Sandeep Pandey says “Madhyastha Darshan iden- tifies two distinct and independent components in a human being – the material body and the consciousness (‘jeevan’ or ‘chaitanya’). Spiritualism or sciences do not recognize their independent existence. While spiritualism is God-centered and mystical in nature, and science is matter-centred and uncertain in nature, but Madhyastha Darshan is human- centred and deterministic in nature. Since spiritualism and science have failed to universally satisfy the quest for knowl- edge of human beings in a manner, which could result in a just human order, there was a need to look beyond these two major streams of thinking which have guided human beings so far on earth.” 7
Socio-political, economic and personal choices must be based on the laws of physics (natural laws) in order to be in harmony with nature including human life. This basic principle was recognized by Karl-Henrik. Heargues (in ‘Educating a Nation: the Natural Step’) that “It also happens that nearly all of our natural resources have been created by cells. Over billions of years, a toxic stew of inorganic compounds has been transformed by cells into mineral deposits, forests, fish, soil, breathable air and water – the very foundation of our economy and of our healthy existence. With sunlight as the sole energy supply, those natural resources have been created in growing, self-sustaining cycles – the “waste” from one species providing nutrition for another (i.e. mutual ful- fillment). The only processes that we can rely on indefi- nitely are cyclical; all linear processes must eventually come to an end. For roughly the past hundred years, humans have been disrupting the cyclical processes of nature at an accelerating pace. All human societies are, in varying degrees, now processing natural resources in a linear direction.”8
Problems Facing Global Society
As we know that “Every year, six million children die from malnutrition before their fifth birthday. Every 3.6 seconds, about the time it’ll take you to read this sentence, another human being has died of starvation. five million people die from water borne illness every year. Almost 40 percent of the world’s population does not have basic sanitation and over one billion people still use unsafe sources of drink- ing water. HIv/AIDS takes the lives of 6,000 people every single day, as 8,200 more are infected with it. Every thirty seconds, another African child dies of malaria, which accounts for the deaths of more than one million children a year. A woman in sub-Saharan Africa has a 1 in 16 chance of dying in childbirth. Her North American counterpart has a 1 in 3,700 risk. More than 40 percent of African women do not have access to basic education, although it’s proven that if a girl is educated for six years or more, as an adult her prenatal care, postnatal care, and childbirth sur- vival rates will dramatically and constantly improve. Educated women are more likely to vaccinate their children. Every minute, a woman somewhere dies in pregnancy or childbirth. That’s 1,400 women every single day and 529,000 women each year dying from pregnancy-related causes. About five women have already died as you read this.” 1
A human monoculture without the support of other species is not viable. Anthropogenic, human caused mass extinction of species is a threat to human survival17. The Millennium Ecosystem Assess- ment project reports on the loss of species in the last 30 years of the 20th century. 18Modern life-style and trends of socio-politico-economic systems designed by materialistic ideologies are further aggravating the social & environmental problems.
In view of addressing environmental problems, the World bank economist Jean-francois Rischard 9(2002) seriously argues that the next 20 years will be of critical importance to our planet. The resolu- tion of global problems over the next decade will determine the fate of our planet for future genera- tions. He points out that the twenty most pressing issues facing the global community, can be classified in three groups, 1. Issues involving the global commu- nity, i.e. global warming, biodiversity and ecosystem losses, fisheries depletion, deforestation, water defi- cits, maritime safety and pollution, 2. Issues requiring global commitments, that is massive steps in the fight against poverty, peacekeeping, conflict prevention, combating terrorism, education for all, global infec- tious diseases, digital divide, natural disaster preven- tion and mitigation and, 3. Issues needing a global regulatory approach, that is reinventing taxation for the twenty-first century, biotechnology rules, global financial architecture, illegal drugs, trade, invest- ment, and competition rules, intellectual property rights, e-commerce rules, international labor and migration.
All this demands a drastic paradigm shift in the materialistic modern education orientation, from conflict centric to harmony centric education. And the priority, approaches and mainstream develop- ment strategies of the nation states must be on the basis of human centric existential harmony, that is wisdom based sustainable and cyclic development and a balance between production and the con- sumption of natural resources. The tendency of the consumerist global market to exploit the natural resources for profit alone for generating illusionary paper money at nature’s cost forms the core of the problem.
On the other hand, Russian Philosopher Alexan- der Chumakov believes that “At the dawn of global civil society, the test for humanity is to achieve unity while preserving cultural differences as well as the distinctiveness of nations and peoples. Such unity can be reached only by recognizing human values, especially human rights. However, these rights must be strictly determined and more than mere obliga- tions. Hence, the most important task for philosophy is to develop foundations and principles for a world society and to formulate a global consciousness and a humanistic worldview that adequately reflects the realities of our epoch. Our action must increasingly be based on an acknowledgment of global values.” 10
As suggested by most of the secular humanists solutions of global problems include: upholding and strengthening international law, application of the rule of law in combating terrorism, promoting secular values, laws and constitutions worldwide, asserting the rights of children to be free of religious indoctrination, rational solutions to global problems based on international cooperation, strengthening of the ‘Kyoto Agreement’ to provide an international carbon tax and the voice against unilateral pre-emp- tive military action, the policy of any country that seeks to promote a sectarian religious agenda, poli- cies based on the presumption of religious superior- ity, theocracies of any kind, be they Judaic, Christian or Islamic.
To achieve this, it requires a shift in our orienta- tion from discriminatory/sectarianism (race, class, caste, religion, and gender ) to a human centric mind- set, which can be achieved through co-existential harmony centric global and universal educational content for all. This will create a conducive envi- ronment for common humane civil code, universal- global laws and legislations (a common constitution for all humanity) to resolve the disastrous social and environmental problems plaguing our planet.
Today’s global economic-political and educa- tional policies and activities are influencing the global climate system. various research data indicate that the earth’s surface temperature is rising. This increase can be attributed and caused by an increase in greenhouse gases, such as carbon dioxide. It is becoming apparent that these climatic changes are negatively affecting the physical and biological sys- tems worldwide. Charles H. Southwick 11 , a well known ecologist, argues about how we, as humans, affect global ecosystems and how these changes impact our health, behavior, economics and politics.
Winfried K. Rudloff, of governors State Univer- sity suggests, “On one hand, globalization in science and education is rapidly taking place on account of the World Wide Web and the Internet. On the other hand, such high technology-based education is still in its infancy and mostly concerned with run-of- the-mill subjects that lack focus on urgent global problems. Specifically, most urgent problems such as resource depletion, environmental pollution, over- population, deforestation, the greenhouse effect, unchecked militarism, and rampant nuclear pro- liferation are studied to provide our students with a better understanding of the complexity of these interrelated issues. They should learn how to analyze problems of global importance and find creative solu- tions. After all, they are the generation of the future which they have to shape through knowledge and state-of-the-arts skills.”12
The big question is what is the underlining cause of such economical and political behavior? Human centric philosophy of coexistence, that is ‘Madhayatha Darshan Sahastitvavad’, explains that, consumerist social behav- ior, profit centric economies, sex-lust centric psychologi- cal content of media, and uncertainty, disorder, chaos and conflict based ideologies and theories of modern education content comprise the root of this problematic behavior.
lester brown argues that sometimes the scien- tific predictions are uncertain due to the complexity of an issue, such as the present state of the world. Human civilization is endangered by anthropogenic environmental degradation, and by destructive social and individual conflicts. Healthy ecosystems are the major supplier of vital resources to humans.13
A. Nagraj proposes that each existential phe- nomenon is self organized, the law of nature is constant, stable and that the evolutionary process in nature is definite. Hence the current problems faced by humanity can not only be predicted but also resolved.
Homer-Dixon states that “Environmental scien- tists have been saying for some time that the global economy is being slowly undermined by environ- mental trends of human origin, including shrinking forests, expanding deserts, falling water tables, erod- ing soils, collapsing fisheries, rising temperatures, melting ice, rising seas, and increasingly destructive storms” 14.
The links between environmental change and acute conflict will help us to evaluate our theory of environ- mental change and its contribution to conflict. Scarcity of resources from the environment (clean air, water, food, energy, land etc.) leads to violent conflicts within nations, and to war and terrorism between nations.15 Neo-Malthusianism have argued that global environ- mental change leads to scarcities of resources that could lead to societal collapse. Somalia, Rwanda, and Haiti serve as poster children for such arguments. 16They also demonstrate how violent conflicts emerge indirectly from resource scarcity. Already today, 150 major nations of the world show an ecological deficit. This situation arises when there is a lack of understanding of co-exis- tence, mutually fulfilling and mutually enriching cyclic process (avartansheel) in nature and instead a mutually unfulfilling and disorderly relationship of humans with the rest of the nature. Moreover the production model especially industrial, adopted by modern humans, has disturbed the law of natural cyclicity which results in ecological imbalance.
In view of the philosophy of co-existential har- mony, the human intervention through science and technology into the existential order (such as atom, cells, and genes) can lead to massive destruc- tion and uncertain behavior of nature. This can eventually lead to the collapse of civilization. The major factor in this outcome will be the activities propelled by nuclear fission and fusion. The advent of nuclear weapons might lead to mutually assured destruction, and therefore the resolution of con- flicts by the rule of international law has become a necessity. Well known scientist Carl Sagan, in his widely acclaimed television series “The Nuclear Winter” (1983), explored the unforeseen and devas- tating physical and chemical effects of even a small- scale nuclear war on the earth’s biosphere and life on earth. War and terrorism within and between nations is a critical global issue. An all-out nuclear war causing a nuclear winter would be a catastro- phe for humankind; it would not only create social chaos, but also ruin the life-supporting ecosystem beyond repair 18. It is now almost 40 years since the invention of nuclear weapons. We have not yet experienced a global thermonuclear war, although on more than one occasion we have come tremendously close. I do not think our luck can hold forever. Men and machines are fallible, as recent events remind us. fools and madmen do exist, and sometimes rise to power. Concentrating always on the near future, we have ignored the long-term consequences of our actions. We have placed our civilization and our spe- cies in jeopardy.
Healthy ecosystems are the major supplier of vital resources to humans. lester brown says in ‘Plan B 2.0: Rescuing a Planet Under Stress and a Civilization in Trouble.’ “Our global civilization today is on an eco- nomic path that is environmentally unsustainable, a path that is leading us toward economic decline and eventual collapse.” 19
The use of fossil fuels has advanced technology- based civilization to unprecedented destruction levels, because the extraction of fossils fuels cre- ates tectonic disturbances and also releases CO2, which creates the atmospheric imbalance leading to global warming. However today, we begin to realize the consequences of our energy choices may lead to climate change, and the demise of a fossil fuel based civilization. So the most appropriate alter- native for our energy source should be renewable energy. long term systemic thinking and appropri- ate action at the global and local levels are urgently needed for achieving sustainability and civility in the world community. Sustainability is the overarching issue. It rests on three pillars: ecological, societal, and personal integrity.
billions of human beings on the Earth are unhappy due to their inability to satisfy their basic personal needs (physiological needs, safety and secu- rity needs, love and belonging needs, esteem needs) as defined by A. Maslow.20 Maslow has been a very inspirational figure in personality theories. In the 1960’s in particular, people were tired of the reduc- tionist, mechanistic messages of the behaviorists and physiological psychologists. They were look- ing for meaning and purpose in their lives, even a higher, more mystical meaning. Maslow was one of the pioneers in that movement to bring the human being back into psychology and the person back into personality!
At approximately the same time, another move- ment was getting underway, one inspired by some of the very things that turned Maslow off: computers and information processing, as well as very ratio- nalistic theories such as Piaget’s cognitive develop- ment theory and Noam Chomsky’s linguistics. but the philosophy of co-existential harmony explains two types of human needs: material needs (food, clothing, shelter, and material means) for the body, which is fulfilled through agriculture and industrial production, and non-material needs for conscious- ness (trust, respect, love, and understanding),21 which can be fulfilled only by understanding Niyam, Niyantran, Santulan in the natural order and Nyay, Dharma (order), and Satya in the relationship.
In fact, every human wants to live with perennial happiness and prosperity. Almost all human efforts and time are spent in order to ensure physical (mate- rial) comfort with the inherent presumption that comforts will lead to happiness. If we look into this presumption, what appears is that in the case of lack of comfort one feels deprived. but it is well known that having enough comforts cannot ensure happi- ness. Thus it becomes essential to address the need of happiness and comfort separately. Consequently, one must understand happiness, comfort and the difference between these two needs. Thus perennial happiness can be achieved by living in synchrony with co-existence.
The role of the global civil society
Since early in Indian civilization, there has been an earnest desire for realizing Vasudhev Kutambakam (a single global family). In the modern sense this is a global civil society and “global citizenship”, which are widely prevalent in contemporary intellectual discourses. The Chief Editor of the International Journal of Sociology françois Houtart says “the debate on the limits, possibilities and opportunities facing civil society today is an open one. The issue was discussed during the World Social forum in January in Porto Alegre, brazil, which brought together spokespeo- ple and representatives of civil society around the world.”
The concept of civil society is very fashionable at the moment. It is so widely accepted as to allow all kinds of interpretations, while at the same time covering all kinds of ambivalences.
When the World bank talks of civil society, it is referring to a completely different reality than the one expressed by the Thai Poor People’s forum or the brazilian Movement of landless Peasants. It is necessary to analyze this term ‘civil society’ away from the slogans. Civil society is the arena for social struggles and thus for defining collective challenges, but before reflecting on how to build it we should first take a close look at the different ways the con- cept is currently interpreted. Global civil society represents the potential of transnational civil society to enhance democracy in global governance. Numerous works are devoted to the role of new ideas, norms, and discourse of transnational advocacy networks 22,23,24.
The development of transnational networks may help to create new identities and awareness of global society that would improve the current discriminatory codes and practices based on established political boundaries. Richard Price25 implies that research into transna- tional civil society tends to overemphasize the effect of particular campaigns that aspire to liberal and progressive moral change and to downplay the ‘bad’ or failed campaigns. In a similar vein, Chris brown suggests that the pitfall of the global civil society scholarship is to assume that transnational advocacy networks would provide a panacea for world ills and represent the universal values of the human race.
Then, what factors contribute to the achieve- ment of global civil society, lest we fall for versions of cosmopolitan idealism? Those who turn to history, as well as theory, suggest that the birth of global civil society could occur only in the further development and maturation of civil society. John Keane26 argues that ‘so-called domestic civil societies and the emerg- ing global civil society are normally linked together in complex, cross-border patterns of looped and re-looped circuitry’. The normative divide between domestic and global civil societies is nationalism, a collective sense of unity based on the cultural tra- dition and the recognized existence of a nation in a particular region. However, according to Edward Shills27, civil society is sustained by national collec- tive self-consciousness (Akhand Samaj/One human society), because its normative basis is a collective willingness to accept the legitimacy of the law and authority, which enhances plurality of interests and ideals. Thus, nationalism is also an important vehicle for global civil society.
Philosopher A. Nagraj propounded Madhyas- tha Darshan, which is basically a human centric phi- losophy. At its core is the co-existentialism. Nagraj has elucidated on the harmony and balance in the humane conduct as well as in natural phenomenon. He has proposed some guidelines (human conducts) for humanity that is known as Manviya Samvidhan (human constitution). Keeping the human being as the focus, based on human mental faculties, he has presented a number of sutras that are of very high value for the establishment of a universal human order. These sutras enlighten the path to the solu- tions of present day problems. It guides humanity towards achieving satisfied, prosperous, fearless and co existential life. 28
If we have to identify the role of global civil soci- ety for solving human problem, first of all it is imper- ative to identify and explore the definite human conduct, that is to live Niyam, Niyantran, Santulan with natural order and Nyay, Dharma (order), Satya with human society. The philosophy of Madhyastha Darshan explains the definite and constant conduct of human beings. This conduct could be the founda- tion of a global human citizen code and constitution by which we can explore the universal human order. This is possible through the reorientation ofcontent in education towards behavioral sociology, cyclic eco- nomics, humanization of science and technology, consciousness centered psychology, human centric economic and social system and the human constitu- tion, which could potentially solve problems faced by humans.
REFERENCES:
1. A. Nagraj, Samadhanatmak bhautikvad, Jeevan vidya Prakashan (1998)
2. Millennium goals – global Problems ~ global Solutions forum, www.laroche.edu/global/goals.htm
3. global footprint http://www.footprintnetwork.org/gfn_sub.php?content=global_footprint
4. Washington Post, Tuesday, April 21, 1998, “Mass Extinction Underway, Majority of biologists Say”
5. A. Nagraj, Samadhanatmak bhautikvad, Jeevan vidya Prakashan (1998)
6. A. Nagraj, Samadhanatmak bhautikvad, Jeevan vidya Prakashan (1998)
9. Jean-francois Rischard, Twenty global Issues, Twenty years to Solve Them (2002)
10. Alexander Chumakov, Human values: The Key to Solving global Problems (Abstract), The Proceedings of the Twentieth World Congress of Philosophy (1998), Alan M. Olson (Editor)
11. Charles H. Southwick, global Ecology In Human Perspective, Oxford University Press, 1996
12. Winfried K. Rudloff, global Issues and Integrative Education, Published in “Adv. In Educ., vol III”, pp. 1-6, Ed. george lasker, IIAS Publication, Windsor, Canada 2000
13. lester brown, Plan b 2.0: Rescuing a Planet Under Stress and a Civilization in Trouble http://www.earth-policy.org/books/Pb2/
14. Thomas Homer-Dixon, ‘On The Threshold: Environmental Changes as Causes of Acute Conflict’. http://www.library.utoronto. ca/pcs/thresh/thresh3.htm#top
15. Thomas Homer-Dixon, ‘On The Threshold: Environmental Changes as Causes of Acute Conflict’. http://www.library.utoronto. ca/pcs/thresh/thresh3.htm#top
16. gleditsch, Nils Petter, 2003. ‘Environmental Conflict: Neomalthusians vs. Cornucopians’, in Hans günter brauch, ed., Security and the Environment in the Mediterranean: Conceptualising Security and Environmental Conflicts. berlin: Springer (477–485).
17. global footprint http://www.footprintnetwork.org/gfn_sub.php?content=global_footprint
18. Charles H. Southwick, global Ecology In Human Perspective, Oxford University Press, 1996
19. lester brown, Plan b 2.0: Rescuing a Planet Under Stress and a Civilization in Trouble http://www.earth-policy.org/books/Pb2/
21. A. Nagraj, vavharvadi Samajshastra, Jeevanvidya Prakshan Amarkantak, (1999)
22. Keck, Margaret and Kathryn Sikkink. 1998. Activists beyond borders: Advocacy Networks in International Politics. Ithaca, Ny, and london: Cornell University Press.
23. Higgott, Richard, geoffrey Underhill, and Andreas bieler. 2000. Non-State Actors and Authority in the global System. london: Routledge.
24. O’brien, Robert, Anne Marie goetz, Jan Aart Scholte, and Marc Williams. 2000. Contesting global governance: Multilateral and global Social Movements. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
25. Price, Richard. 2003. ‘Transnational Civil Society and Advocacy in World Politics.’ World Politics 55 (July):
26. Keane, John. 2001. ‘global Civil Society?’ In global Civil Society 2001, eds. Helmut Anheier, Marlies glasius, and Mary Kaldor. Oxford: Oxford University Press: 23–47.
27. Shils, Edward. 1995. ‘Nation, Nationality, Nationalism and Civil Society.’ Nations and Nationalism 1(1): 93–118. 28. A Nag raj, A.Nagraj, Manviya Samvidhan, Jeevanvidya Prakshan Amarkantak, (2008)
Freedom of Religion Bill, introduced in the Lok Sabha on December 22, 1978, seeks “to forbid conversions from one religion to another by the use of force or inducement or deceit or by any fraudulent means.”
This Bill is in no way “against genuine conversions done with free consent and will.” It Is meant to curb abuses, especially prevalent in the conversions of Adivasis and Harijans.
The Bill has provoked strong protests among some Christian leaders who are accusing it of being against the freedom of conscience guaranteed by the Constitution. Representatives of the Karnataka Christians Combined Action Committee recently called on the Governor and submitted a memorandum protesting against the Bill. They also “urged the Government to extend the privileges given to Scheduled Castes to Christians of Scheduled Caste origin.”
(D.H. March 21).
The Christian leaders seem to forget that the supreme body of the Catholic Church in Rome, the Ecumenical Council, Vatican II, itself has condemned conversion by force and allurement in the very same terms used by the Bill. Besides, the Freedom of Religion Bill will be equally applicable to all the religious communities, since it forbids forced conversion from one religion to another; so there is no valid reason why Christian leaders alone should agitate against it.
A section of the Christian Church has always wrongly emphasised conversion as the primary aim of the Christian mission, totally misunderstanding Christ’s commission. In India some churches were more influenced by this misconceived idea. In the last decade, the issue attracted wide attention within and outside the Church.
At this point, one can ask whether mere conversion will any way help the Church in fulfilling the Christian duty in a society. Many will answer in negative. As long as the economic and social conditions remain unchanged, the Church’s mission also will fail. Christians have sinned more than others .in perpetuating social injustice. Therefore, to speak of the Harijan Christians and ask the Government to uphold fairness and justice is to add insult to injury. It smacks of hypocrisy.
PRESTIGIOUS Christians run prestigious schools for the children of the affluent and even accept rich donations for admission to these Institutions. In many of these schools the authorities do not admit the children of Harijan Christians on the pretext that they cannot help their wards in their home work as they do not have “English education.’ Through such schools, the class structure Is perpetuated and Christians are very much flattered by the fact that children of ‘ highly placed Hindu officials and businessmen seek admission in their institutions.
The Christian Church has no dearth of money and organisation. As Mr. Joachim Alva the former M.P., once said, “Christ was the son of a carpenter, with fishermen as his apostles but his Church now is ah empire!.” In the last 30 years vast sums of money have come from abroad into the coffers of the Church in India. One would like to know how much of this has been spent on the welfare of Harijan Christians. The Church has done nothing substantially to wipe the” tears out of these unfortunate ones.
On the other hand, this money from abroad has been mainly used to build lavish structures in big cities and on administrative personnel who appropriate the lion’s share for themselves and their satellites. Huge hospitals have been built in cities and medical aid there is beyond the means- of the poor and needy. Excepting the ones run by Mother Teresa, almost all other Christian hospitals are unapproachable to the poor.
Caste-consciousness is still prevalent in the Christian community. The caste-complex still persisting among Christians only shows that they are not yet sufficiently redeemed as they profess to be. When the higher ideals and aspirations of the Christian path are understood and when, their mentors, both clergy and the laity, inculcate true Christian spirit among its members, the community can get rid of all negative phases of casteism and transform it as an ideal and casteless society.
MINIMUM CHANCE When a Harijan becomes Christian he should be given a minimum chance of escaping from the ‘outcasts’ status. He should merge with the rest of the Christian community and the Church must make it possible for him to start afresh. If Christians cannot treat outcaste converts as part of their fellowship it is better to leave them alone. Christ himself said: “You encompass sea sad land to make one convert and then you make him twice the son of hell as you are.”
For many of the Harijan Christians their conversion to Christianity means nothing but substitution of social discrimination within the Churches for discrimination within the Hindu system.
As for democratic and constitutional rights, let the Church first establish true democracy within its own institutions. It is well known that power and money in the Christian organisations are held by cliques who perpetuate their positions through constant manipulation of membership of committees. If any one has the courage to raise a dissenting voice he will find himself out by the end of the year.
All this is not to say that Christians should not raise their voice against injustice and intolerance, but a parochial approach is not the way. They should not try to bargain both ways to be Christians and at the same time grab the advantages available to the Scheduled Classes. They can as well choose to go back to the Hindu faith.
Educational and employment! opportunities and concessions should be made available to the poor and economically underprivileged and should not be based on caste or creed. Th» Government should bring in legislation urgently on an all-India basis towards this end. That would be a revolutionary step indeed which would go a long way towards abolition of caste and social inequality.
Christian leaders must stop “being dazzled by their own words and ensure instead that the distance is closed between what they preach and what they practise. They must take the beams out of their own eyes before pointing out the mote in others’ eyes. Like charity, fight against social evils must begin at home. Otherwise, they would be told, “Physician, I heal thyself!.” The Christian leaders must present themselves as men of real Christian vision, like Martin Luther King Jr., and charisma, like Mahatma Gandhi, and lead the people against injustice and oppression.
Those who describe the Freedom of Religion Bill as a blow to Christianity forget that the minorities in independent India, especially the Christians, have been enjoying more rights both in law and substance than ever before and they are much better off as citizens of a democratic country than those in the so-called citadels of democracy in the West. It is a fact that the Catholics in India enjoy more privileges and better rights than their Catholic counterparts in the United States of America and Britain, both allegedly Christian. But the Christian leaders in India who cry wolf against the Bill close their eyes to this fact when they shout “threat to minority rights.”
While it is wrong for the majority to deny the existence of minorities, it is equally wrong for the minorities to perpetuate themselves through artificial means and vested interests.
—————–
P N Benjamin
A senior freelance journalist
writing regularly for the last forty odd years in Deccan Herald, The Hindu, Indian Express and others.
Member, Karnataka state minorities Commission
Founder and executive trustee/coordinator of the Bangalore initiative for Religious dialogue (BiRd)
There has been much excitement in the Ground Report India team as we move from a monthly eJournal (which will still continue) and bring to you this detailed quarterly journal.
This print magazine has arisen out of our concerns and awareness for a balanced media representation of the ground realities of present day India. We presently feel that the Indian media does not provide sufficient attention to the situations of the ‘common man’. I believe that the print magazine of Ground report India is timely, as the push for India to provide an economic growth that is inclusive to the hundreds of millions of Indians who still live on less than $2 a day.
Today, the world is a global village. Poverty, the environment, climate change, economy and peace cannot be understood or tackled without first understanding the ground realities of the major human-populations of the world. As readers of Ground Report India, you can influence policy making, by mobilising, motivating and campaigning for a better world. We want to keep you informed with the ground realities in India and the world, to help your understanding. This is our contribution to your efforts for a better world.
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For each edition of the magazine, Ground Report India team tours for 70 days in hundreds of areas of various states of India for ground reporting. Because of our efforts to report concretely from the ground, Ground Report India is a quarterly magazine.
This inaugural issue of the Ground Report India journal will explore a number of current issues India is facing at the moment, with a strong focus on the Jan Lokpal Bill and democracy.
Our next edition will be focused on Water and Agriculture. Our team will tour for 75 days from 5th October 2011 in hundreds of areas of 12 states of India.
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It has now been confirmed that the Anna Hazare’s-led so-called ‘second freedom struggle’—as some sections of the media have mistakenly chosen to call it—has close links with the RSS. From conceptualizing this media-propelled movement to successfully organizing it, the RSS, it appears, played a key role in it. This being the case, it is imperative to analyse the specific communal character of this self-styled Gandhian movement against corruption.
No movement can be properly understood without taking into account the forces behind it and their underlying objectives. Anna Hazare’s movement has been analysed from several perspectives by both its critics as well as supporters. Thus, it has been asked if the movement was truly a Gandhian one. Was it really politically impartial? Was it democratic? Was it orchestrated by the media? Was it funded by the corporate world? Was it an NGO stunt? Was it all-India in its scope? On all of these points there has been heated debate. Yet, lamentably little has been said about whether or not this movement was truly based on the Constitutional principle of secularism and what, in particular, its position has been on the issue of Hindutva.
The men behind Anna Hazare’s movement bluntly deny that their movement has any direct link with Hindutva forces. Some people have accepted this claim at face-value. Yet, the reality seems quite the opposite. It would be amply clear to a perceptive analyst that the movement was heavily based on the support and assistance of the RSS. Members of the so-called ‘Team Anna’ may or may not concede this, but the RSS has itself officially acknowledged this fact. After all, ‘India Against Corruption’ has no cadre of its own—all it has are leaders. The massive crowds that poured out onto the streets to participate in the movement could not have been mobilized simply by ‘Team Anna’ and a handful of NGOs. Rather this was, to very a large extent, the handiwork of Hindutva organizations.
It is now evident that not only did the RSS mobilize crowds in support of Anna Hazare’s movement, but that it even prepared the movement’s very roadmap. The decision to launch a campaign against corruption was taken by the RSS at its All-India leaders meeting in Karnataka in March 2011, and it was only after that, in April and then in August that Anna Hazare sat to fast against corruption.
It has recently come to light that both the father and uncle of one of the key men in ‘Team Anna’, the Marwari Arvind Kejriwal, have been office-bearers of the RSS and allied groups in Haryana. Kejriwal is not known to have openly condemned the Hindutva forces. On the contrary, he has consistently been soft on them. His close relation with a top BJP leader, LK Advani, are well-known. And the manner in which he maintained close links with top BJP leaders in the course of the recent agitation, including Arun Jaitley, Sushma Swaraj and Nitin Gadkari, raise several questions about the actual nature of the relationship between Kejriwal and the RSS. Is it that Kejriwal, the RSS and the BJP were seeking to work together to bring the present government down?
Whatever be the case, it is obvious from all this that there is no truth at all in the assertion by key members of ‘Team Anna’ that their movement has no direct link with Hindutva forces. The fact of the matter is that Anna Hazare has for long been a favourite of the RSS. Interestingly, a top RSS leader, the late HV Seshadri, even wrote a book on Anna Hazare’s so-called ‘model village’ of Ralegan Shiddi, which he hailed as supposedly heralding the arrival of Ram Rajya! This was possibly the first book of its sort on Anna Hazare’s activism. Another leading RSS activist, BM Datte, organized a number of programmes in and around Pune in support of Hazare. According to top RSS ideologue, Govindacharya, a number of RSS activists have toured Hazare’s village.
For his part, Anna Hazare has never spoken against the Hindutva ideology. He is said to have had very close relations with the RSS till 1995, when he targeted two ministers of the then BJP-Shiv Sena ministry in Maharashtra, Mahadev Shivankar of the BJP and Shashikant Suthar of the Shiv Sena—for corruption, after which his relation with the RSS was somewhat shaken. Despite this, the RSS consistently supported him for living in a temple and for seeking to revive India’s ‘ancient’ culture through village self-government. He has been praised as a great Indian leader in the RSS’s Hindi periodical Panchjanya, even featuring on its cover page.
When the BJP recently failed in its attempt to topple the government, it suddenly remembered its favourite hero Anna Hazare, and accordingly (so it seems) Hindutva forces decided to achieve their objective by creating this movement ostensibly against corruption. For this purpose, activists of the RSS’s students’ wing, the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad, floated an outfit called ‘Youth Against Corruption’. At the same time, Arvind Kejriwal, who was running an organization called Parivartan, got together with flag-bearers of ‘soft Hindutva’, men like Baba Ramdev, Shri Shri Ravi Shankar and other such religious leaders, and established a group that called itself ‘India Against Corruption’. It seems that both these organizations, with very similar-sounding names, were established in accordance with the RSS’s plan of unleashing a countrywide agitation apparently against corruption.
The RSS instructed its volunteers, a huge number of people spread across India, to wholeheartedly participate in this movement. This explains why the overall ethos of Anna Hazare’s agitation at Jantar Mantar was no different from that of the RSS shahkhas—with the same image of Akhand Bharat being displayed in the form of ‘Bharat Mata’! The only difference was that she held the Indian tricolor in her hand instead of the Hindutva bhagwa-dhwaj. RSS supremo Mohan Bhagwat’s call to the youth of India to join the people’s movement against corruption and the presence of top RSS leader Ram Madhav on Anna’s dais at Jantar Mantar raise the very real possibility that the entire movement was engineered and directed in accordance with the agenda of the RSS. When some people raised questions about this, the men behind the movement became alert and felt it imperative to be a little less indiscreet. And so, at Hazare’s dais at the Ram Leela Grounds instead of well-known Hindutva leaders Ram Madhav and Uma Bharti, another RSS activist, Kumar Vishwas, was present throughout the thirteen-day fast, and even handled the task of managing the dais.
Can ‘Team Anna’ deny that the RSS had sent the same Kumar Vishwas to manage the dais in the very same Ram Leela Grounds during the recent agitation led by Baba Ramdev? The Hindutva hand behind the movement does not stop here, though. Top VHP leader Ashok Singhal is on record as having thanked the volunteers of the RSS for making Anna’s movement a success. He revealed that members of the Dharamyatra Mahasangh, a unit of the VHP, ran food stalls at the Ram Leela Grounds, where some 20, 000 people were fed every day.
In accordance with the RSS’s plans, vast numbers of people were mobilized to come out on the streets to support Anna Hazare. Top RSS leader Bhaiyyaji Joshi declared that RSS volunteers were fully active in Anna Hazare’s movement. The BJP youth leader Tejinder Pal took up the task of gherao-ing the residences of Congress MPs, while BJP MPs Anant Kumar, Gopinath Munde and Varun Gandhi made their appearance at the Ram Leela Grounds. One day before Anna went on his fast, MG Vaid, a top RSS leader, issued a statement indicating that the RSS had given its full support to his movement. And that explains why and how RSS activists were present at the Ram Leela Grounds, as well as in other parts of India where Hazare supporters had gathered and kept raising their favourite slogans of ‘Bharat Mata ki Jai’ and ‘Vande Mataram’, in that same style and with the same sort of fervor as they are wont to in their shakhas. This is a clear indication of the massive presence of RSS activists in the movement.
That Hindutva forces strongly backed Anna’s movement and participated in it in a big way across the country, even in remote parts, is clearly evident. To cite just one instance, a social activist called Gopal Rathi, a member of the Samajwadi Jan Parishad, wrote to Prashant Bhushan, a key member of the so-called ‘Team Anna’, from a small town called Pipariya in Madhya Pradesh, saying that in his town BJP activists had donned Anna-caps and launched a motor-cycle rally to protest against Hazare’s arrest. On the occasion of Janamashtami, VHP activists, he wrote, organized a recitation of the Sundar Kand, a section of the Ramayana, in support of Hazare. Volunteers of other Hindutva outfits, he write, such as the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad, the Bajrang Dal, the Durga Vahini, and the Bharatiya Kisan Sangh, also organized a number of programmes to express their solidarity with Anna Hazare.
But this sort of overwhelming support for Anna Hazare from Hindutva forces was not limited to this little-known town of Pipariya. The fact is that the same story was repeated across the country, in virtually every village, locality and city, where activists of the RSS and its associated outfits proved to be the backbone of the agitation.
For me the important question is not why the RSS participated in Anna Hazare’s movement. This was, after all, its own decision. As far as I am concerned, the key question is this: How did folks raising Gandhian slogans and who never tire of hailing secularism became a part of an RSS-backed scheme? This is a very important question that must be asked and must also be answered. How did people like Medha Patkar, Swami Agnivesh, Prashant Bhushan and Sandeep Pandey, and many other such activists, who have all along opposed communalism, and have themselves been targeted by communal forces, fall prey to this RSS conspiracy and become involved in an RSS-backed movement? Their stance has greatly troubled millions of Dalits, Adivasis and religious minorities of this country, who have not hesitated to express their distaste for Anna Hazare’s movement, not least because of its close links to Hindutva forces. Is it that these activists simply failed to understand the draconian nature of the Jan Lokpal that Anna Hazare and his Hindutva backers are demanding? Is it that they failed to understand the nature of the forces at work behind the mob demonstrations that we recently witnessed? Is it that the secularism that they kept talking about earlier was a pretence? These are questions that they have to answer.
It goes to the credit of a number of leaders, activists, and intellectuals from the Dalit and OBC communities to have pointed out not only how the Anna Hazare-led movement and many of its demands militate heavily against the oppressed castes, but also how it is heavily communal, being closely allied to the Hindutva agenda. The noted writer Mudra Rakshas plainly declared, ‘The Jan Lokpal represents the agenda of the Indian Savarna middle-class, which, while claiming to be modern, continues to cling to the communalism of the RSS’. SK Panjam, editor of Dalit Today, believes that Hazare’s Jan Lokpal is a new tool of the Savarna Hindu revivalism. For his part, Rajvir Yadav of the Arjak Sangh insists that it is an assault on the Indian Constitution by the forces of Savarna Hindu chauvinism. Many other ideologues from the oppressed castes opine that Anna Hazare’s movement has been propped up as part of a conspiracy on the part of Hindutva forces to stop the caste-based census and stall the passing of the proposed bill against communal violence.
True to form, the dominant Indian media has deliberately ignored such voices, thus revealing, as Anna Hazare’s movement also does, its Savarna casteist and Hindu communal character.
For the past 20 years more or less, I have been in touch (active or passive), have been working or have worked with various known Social Personalities, Media Celebrities of Social Activism in India, known/ unknown Ground Activists, International Awardees, Mainstream Political Persons, RTI/RTF/RTE/ NREGA Activists, Activists of Gandhi’s Ideology, Organizations of Gandhi’s Ideology, Groups/Individuals of Ideology of Violence and others in India.
Generally for the past one decade, I have been spending an average 6 months or more per year in remote areas of different regions. I try to spend a minimum 1 to 2 months in a region continuously being active with local people. By doing this I get opportunities to understand various types of persons, their views, their understandings, their problems and their reactions to ongoing systems. I feel that there are different layers of worlds in India and they are not mutually related, are not mutually understood and are not known to others.
I feel India needs fundamental changes in various systems with ground understandings of society and her segments. I feel that without completing the basics, actions such as running in Parliamentary Elections cannot be tools for the changes India needs.
India needs to understand why have her political systems been moving towards failures? Until the fundamental causes of failures will not be explored, India cannot move towards changes or transformation.
Social changes or Transformations always need lot of works, sacrifices of Individual Identities and egos, also cannot be done with shortcuts. It is like planting a tree; the tree needs care, water, sunlight, soil, nutrients and time then it starts to give fruits.
India needs to understand the holes in her Electoral, Political, Executional, Judiciary, Media and Constitutional systems. The changes need self-motivated movements from the masses of India and the masses can be motivated only by live sources of motivations. Live sources of motivations cannot be generated by Media. Even a responsible and social accountable media cannot generate live sources, the media can only support to strengthen live sources.
Individuals, who project themselves in Media as representatives or sources of motivations for changes/transformations in India, should be analyzed carefully not being biased and above of vested interests.
India needs fundamental changes in her social, economical and political systems. These changes should not be made or projected by markets or corporate bodies. Currency should not be the base of economy.
After political independence from Britain India always needed/ needs/will need to form an economy based on villages and basic structures of Indian society. India continued to use British execution systems and has been using, which were made to rule on India. Because of these major mistakes major percentages of common India do not enjoy freedom or independence.
Changes were made to show Sovereignty of India but basics of systems were not changed. Efforts were made for political powers in name of Independence. It was pre-assumed that with political powers everything will be changed and India will be better for all, but it never happened. In India people still think that only political powers can make fundamental changes thus they do not make efforts or explore possibilities other than electoral politics.
Since independence India could not form better needed systems because concentrations were/are only on political powers and electoral politics. By these mistakes, gradually the political power centers are being empowered continuously. The common person and public of India have become increasingly weakened even though Political independence was joint efforts of and for people of India.
Political independence was achieved after slavery of centuries thus social institutes and social education systems should have been formed parallel to the efforts for political independence.
These parallel efforts were not made because India had a tendency that everything can be done/changed only by political powers, still India has this tendency.
India could not form better systems even in many decades of independence by political power because political powers are strengthen in the cost of common people of India thus common people of India are weakened increasingly.
Jai Prakash Narayan led a movement for Total Revolution (known as the JP Movement) but again the same mistakes on the peak of movement were done – political powers as centers of Social changes and Transformations and a movement for Total Revolution was ended with formations of short term central governments. Did those governments transform any change? No.
Seeds and visions of a historical mass movement that could lead towards Total Revolution were damaged by historical mistakes and again unaccountable power centres were strengthened.
Power centres became more unaccountable for common people. These things have been weakening Democracy in India. Power centres do not feel fear from public and mass pressures, they are being increasingly unaccountable for the common public of India.
There is an emerging trend in India- Changes, Transformations, Revolutions all are being done in, with and by Internet. Even though in the virtual world of Internet it seems that too many efforts are occurring to change in India but things are being increasingly worse on ground. Internet is being misused by youth as medium for expressions of their reactions without doing sincere actions on ground.
In India it is easy to generate various pseudo power centers by projecting virtual illusions. Thus knowingly or unknowingly these illusions motivate people to move into electoral politics. These moves cannot change systems in India towards social accountability because they do not have bases of self-motivated real masses.
India needs decentralization of powers by empowering local civilian councils as policy making bodies and should have higher status than government officers and employees. India needs strong social institutions for policy researches, making and implementations.
Things should be done where they are needed, should not be done by projection or plantation of needs or by following others blindly.
India needs sincere efforts with long-term vision, sacrifice, unbreakable social commitment and ground understanding.
Thank you for appreciation and contributions to establish and empower the Ground Report India (GRI) as a ground voice for the common people.
The Ground Report India is planning a Special Edition in the month of September 2010 on Water Issues and ground works on Water Issues in India. Please send reports of ground works on water issues for special edition.
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The smallest unit of human society is a family, which is based on love and compassion. But what an anomaly that the coordinating agency or federating authority of families, which is known as the state, is based on repression and violence! So as it is to change an unjust system or destroy an oppressive state violent methods are needed. Gandhi experienced and realised the cruelty inherent in the anomaly. He felt the depressiveness of the situation. He visualised human society as a family, where love and compassion should be the way to resolve various conflicts. Gandhi introduced non-violent methods based on a threefold action: Satyagrah (insistence to truth), Asagayoga (non-cooperation) and Atmanigrah-atmabalidan (self-abnegation, self-sacrifice). The combination of all of these is crystallized in Savinaya Avajnya Andolan (civil disobedience movement) by individuals and communities against the oppressor and oppressive authority. Gandhi successfully fought the British imperial authority with his non-violent methods and led the Indian subcontinent towards Independence.
Indian Tradition
Impact of Mahabharat War1 and its apparent futility
Urge to find an alternative to war
Evolution – Reshabhadeo2 to Buddha3, static non-violence to dynamic non-violence, Nirvana (non-enmity to Karuna (compassion to love))
Karuna was entwined with Nivrutti4 (life of renunciation) and Pravrutti5 (worldly life, even as propounded by Krishan6) was involved with violence
Buddha7 to Gandhi – Synthesis8 between Karuna (compassion and love) and Pravrutti (worldly life) is evolved.
In Semitic tradition
A. Concept of God
In Judaism: a just patriarch who punishes his folk in various ways if they defy or go astray
In Christianity: God is an all-loving father who pardons sins and weaknesses of his folk on repentance; his grace guides them to emancipation
In Islam: Allah (God) is just. He is merciful while giving judgement. He is Rahamanir Rahim (the benevolent, the compassionate).
B. On the social plane
In Judaism: It is tooth for a tooth and an eye for an eye
In Christianity: Love they neighbour as thyself, and compassion for the sinner. No retaliation to violence, instead prove its futility by loving defiance
In Islam: Sanctity of human life is propounded emphatically. Equality and brotherhood of human-kind is emphasised. Return evil acts by good acts, and the evil doer will become your bosom friend.
PURPOSE
We need a forum on the global plane where all people who believe in the sanctity of life would join together in an endeavour to evolve ways and methods based on non-violence for resolving various human conflicts. In the present situation, the UNO, for the cause of people, deploys armed forces to control and suppress different warring groups and countries. Peace imposed by arms is a mirage. Hence the forum’s priority would be to organise a Global Peace Crops. It would comprise of intelligent and self-sacrificing people from all parts of the globe, representing different ethnic, cultural and linguistic groups. When constituted, the corps would replace the armed forces deployed by the UN in due course of time. The members of the Global Peace Corps, with their knowledge and compassionate understanding, would try to dissuade the warring groups and countries from killing each other and forsake the path of violence.
In the process, if need arises, the members of the Global Peace Corps would risk their lives by coming in between the warring groups. Sacrifices would continue till the feuding parties agree to settle their disputes by peaceful methods.
All those people who have experienced the beauty and joy of life and have ennobled themselves by human kinds aesthetic sensibility and its various creative expression, should come forward and assist the forum in its purpose to evolved and build a society and a system where everybody could partake in this beautiful and joyous phenomena of life, without fear or remorse.
NOTES
1. Mahabharat War
After the war between Ram and Ravana, which was fought in South India, the Mahabharat was the most important event of ancient India. It was fought between two groups of cousins – the Kauravas and the Pandvas, in the plains of Kurukshetra near Delhi, in which practically every important ruler from West (Afghanistan) to East (Kamprup Assam) participated. Its exact timing is yet to be determined. It could be done by backward astronomical calculation of timings of the position of stars and constellations as mentioned in the Mahabharat. The destructive power of weaponry used in the war competes with that of nuclear weapons. The impact of ‘Brahmshirastra’, launched by Kaurava’s general Ashwathama, is described by the writer of the Epic Mahabharat in the following words: ‘fierce energy blazed up with terrible flames within a huge sphere of fire. Numerous peals of thunder were heard, thousands of meteors fell and all living beings were overtaken with great dread. The entire welkin was filled with great noise and assumed a terrible aspect with those flames of fire. The whole earth with their mountains, waters and trees trembled.’ To neutralise and counteract that weapon, Arjuna (the third of the Pandava brothers) launched another highly powerful weapon. Before these weapons could collide and let loose destructive and devastating energies and also leave a long term impact of a rainless 12 years, sages intervened, positioning themselves in between the two weapons. They persuaded both the fighters to withdraw their weapons, thus saving the earth and its inhabitants from impending disaster. In the Epic Mahabharat, the writer Sri Ved Vyasa observed that there is no winner in the war; the victor and the vanquished both are losers, the worst losers are people. Since that time an urge to find an alternative to war took possession of the Indian psyche.
2. and 3. Rishabhadeo – Nirvaira (non-enmity) and Buddha – Karuna (compassion and love)
Rishabhadeo was a king of Ayodhya in ancient times, who introduced agriculture and taught people how to live in harmony. He renounced the worldly affairs for a life on penance, meditation and contemplation to find the Truth (Reality) of life. He experienced that while doing penance, he was bereft of fear and enmity towards all beings – humans, animals, birds, insects and others. In response to this state of mind and feelings, other beings also shed their fear and enmity towards him. It was a stand still situation of Nirvaira (non-enmity) thus the static non-violence. Later Buddha added a new dimension to this state of mind and feelings. He had a novel experience that after one sheds fear and enmity, positive feelings of Karuna (love and compassion) engulfs oneself. This Karuna (love and compassion) permeates other beings who come in contact with the ‘compassionate-one’. Thus is the dynamic of non-violence.
4. and 5. Nivrutti and Pravrutti
Human kind has one qualitative difference from other living species; its urge to know and comprehend Truth and the phenomena of life. And on the basis of that knowledge to coordinate and correlate individual as well as community living with the laws of the universe. There are two ways to understand and comprehend cosmic phenomena; one is to participate in the creative and productive process which leads gradually to widening the horizon of our knowledge about the laws of the universe. It is called Pravrutti Marg. The other is to renounce aforesaid activities for meditation, contemplation and penance to understand and go deep into one’s self. As one is an integral part of the phenomena, by knowing self, one can know that also. It is called Nivrutti Marg.
6. Pravrutti – as propounded by Krishna
Krishna propounded that one should participate in worldly activities in a detached manner without any consideration of subjective interests. This universe is a playfield of the cosmic being, who expresses itself in manifold ways and myriad forms for the sake of Anand (joy). It is called Lila (dance drama) of the cosmic being. One is only an actor in this Lila (dance drama), so why be subjective about one’s role or its outcome. Rita (law and rhythm) sustains this Lila. To enjoy Lila fully the individual and the society have to tune itself with the Rita. This is the way of Dharma, any individual or group which obstructs this intoning has to be suppressed or eliminated as situations demand.
7. Buddha – further elucidation
With the common formulation that soul transmigrates from one body to another and the shared premise that attitude and inclination of the being at the time of death determines its next living form and personality; Buddha elucidated later that instead of suppressing or eliminating wrong doers or evil doers, one should educate them and sublimate them by Prajnya (higher knowledge) and Karuna (compassion and love). In the long run suppression and elimination are counterproductive. The eliminated one or ones are born again with the psychic deficiency of the previous birth and thus their obstruction to the intoning of life with Rita continues. In order to achieve the desired results, one should shun the violence in dealing with recalcitrant enemies and instead adopt the path of Karuna to sublimate them. Buddha’s preaching’s did have universal appeal, but its practice was mostly limited to the people who renounced the life of worldly affairs like saints, monks and others. For a common householder and men of worldly affairs detached activities which included violence against criminals and enemies was the way towards higher life.
8. Synthesis
For two thousand years, the people of India, defying common logic, have experimented in various ways in many walks of life to synthesise between two seemingly opposite directions: Pravrutti ( a life of worldly affairs), presupposed violence and Karuna (love and compassion) presupposed Nivrutti ( a life of renunciation). Their success was limited generally to family affairs and immediate neighbourhood. On a wider canvas Guru Tegh Bahadur, a saint and householder of the seventeenth century is a shining example of that experiment. All the way from Anandpur Sahib, a place in Punjab near foothills of Himalayas, he came to Delhi to face the wrath of Mughal King Aurangazeb and resist his drive of forcible conversions in a peaceful manner. He sacrifices his life and that of his camp followers without rancour remorse and enmity at the altar of human freedom. This process continued and Gandhi became the harbinger of a new way. He experimented with and evolved non-violent methods for effecting desirable changes in the affairs of the state and system of governance – bastions of violent authority thus synthesising Karuna and Pravrutti to a great extent.
Triloki Nath Purwar
Triloki Nath Purwar was a freedom fighter who participated in 1942 Quit India Movement and was imprisoned for about a year. He participated in peoples movement in 1947 in Tehri Garhwal state against feudal order and was imprisoned.
After his release from jail he organized a successful non-violent people’s movement and dislodged Tehri Garhwal ruler and handed over the administration to the forces of Government of India. In mid 50’s he went for a study tour in Assam there he came in contact with Nagas and other tribal groups then onward he concentrated on the problems of North East. He came to Delhi and contacted leaders of the Central Government.
After their approval he started on a one man’s peace mission in Nagaland. The then Chief Minister of Assam did not appreciate the interference of central leadership in his domain so he was obstructed by state government and was put in jail on false charge of violating inner line regulation. After his release from imprisonment he continued on with the problem.
After ten years again in 1963 an understanding was reached between him and Jawaharlal Nehru, the prime minister of India. He went on a tour of Nagaland where he was able to persuade a sizeable number of people to his point of view. The nominated leadership who were heading the state administration felt insecure that they may not be able to find a place in an understanding interfered with his work and forcibly sent him to Shillong.
Triloki Nath Purwar came to Delhi and discussed the issue with Jawaharlal Nehru, the prime minister, who hesitated a bit. He then went to Nagaland and started a Satyagrah.
There he was arrested and imprisoned. He went on a fast which continued on for forty days, which be broke after a Peace Mission was announced for the Naga problem and state authorities were instructed to make arrangements for travel of Triloki Nath Purwar to either to Bhubaneshwar (where Congress Party was holding its annual session), Allahabad or New Delhi as Jawaharlal Nehru, the Prime Minister, wanted to see him. He reached Bhubaneshwar but he could not see the prime minister as Prime Minister had a paralytic attack.
Peace Mission started its activities and Triloki Nath Purwar continued on communicating with his contacts of Naga rebels. Peace mission failed because its member could not understand the Naga psyche and establish a rapport with them.
And after that for a few decades he dedicated himself to studies, meditation and contemplation. After achieving a understanding on clarity about his future work, he has decided to resume his activities again for a cause of harmonious human society.
He initiated an idea of half million non-violence peace volunteers for stopping wars in the world.
Triloki Nath Purwar was active in Bangladesh Movement also. After the independence of the country he never accepted the membership of any political party. He never voted in general elections, he never participated in electoral politics because according to him some aspects of constitution of India are not in harmony with people’s interest.
Chairman: International Division, Chartered Institute of Journalists, London
Wrapping sandwiches or fish and chips in that morning’s newspaper indicates the lack of importance many people give to the day’s news. True, “the best tings in life are free”, goes the maxim. But while news, be it in a newspaper, on radio or on the television, may be free or very cheap to the people who read, see or hear it, it is actually very expensive both in money terms and in the exertions and sometimes the lives of the journalists, photographers and other media people whose task it is to discover and report the news.
This week 12 journalists were massacred in the Philippines. Why? They were covering the wife of a politician going to table his candidature for a forthcoming election, and the politician’s opponents did not like that. According to INSI (International News Safety Institute) 63 journalists and media staff have been killed at work this year, and well over 1000 in the last ten years. The record number of journalist and media staff deaths was in 2007, with 145 killed.
Most of these were deliberately murdered, either to stop them publishing information or as punishment for something they had written (in the press) or said (on radio or TV).
The media is the fourth estate of a civilised society. Like the other three – the executive, the legislature and the judiciary – it has to be totally independent of the others if it is to do its job. And it has to be entirely honest, publishing the truth, irrespective of whether that hurts those responsible for shady dealings, fraud or any other crime.
Its job is vital. It is to inform everyone – from the President and Prime Minister to the man in the street – of what is happening, what is going to happen, and what has just happened.
This information is vital to everyone, as everyone bases his or her actions on what is happening and what he/she thinks is going to happen. This is as true of the Prime Minister and the Government as it is of business, trade and everyone’s daily life.
“Knowledge is power”. And knowledge consists of two elements: the wisdom and information one has learned through education and the experience of life, and the information one has of what is happening in one’s business circle, in the country and in the world. This information comes in many forms, from one’s friends and contacts, from an information network, if one is a big business, a political party or a government, but principally from the media.
Every politician starts the day by glancing over the newspapers and listening to the morning news on the radio, or if he is an important politician or businessman, underlings will prepare for him a summary of that morning’s news. He has to know what is happening and what is likely to happen in order that he can take the right decisions, be it about governing the country, about his business or, for the man in the street, about how to live his daily life.
When there is a big earthquake miles away under the ocean and a tsunami is heading towards one’s country, those who listen to the news can get away, while those who do not are going to be drowned and swept away.
Similarly in other fields of life if the decision makers know what is going to happen, they can take correct decisions. If they do not know, they make mistakes. They buy at the top of the market or fail to prepare to defend the country from some imminent danger.
Being the fourth estate places a big responsibility on the shoulders of the media and its journalists. They have to maintain high standards to be credible, reporting news truly and honestly. Its journalists must write or speak clearly and well. They must not practise self-censorship for fear of what the authorities or others might do if they publish something.
“Publish and be damned” is the motto of all self-respecting newspapers, news magazines and radio and TV programmes.
This is not special pleading by a journalist or by the media. The importance of free and independent publications and radio and TV programmes was stressed by Britain’s Lord Chief Justice, Lord Judge, last week.
Speaking to the Society of Editors in Stanstead, England, Lord Judge argued that an independent judiciary and an independent press were “twin cornerstones and bulwarks of a free society”. Newspapers should not be beholden to public authorities.
“I do not want the press to become the broadsheet of those institutions,” continued the Lord Chief Justice. “I do not want proceedings of the local council to be reported by an employee of the local council and the proceedings of court to be reported by a member of the judicial communications office. Spin is neither a cornerstone nor a bulwark of a free society.”
Lord Judge added that the prospect of papers relying on handouts from council press officers “should send a shiver down all our spines”.
He also pointed out the importance of the media reporting honestly and pointing out mistakes. And he opposed state funding of the news. “I remember that he who pays the piper calls the tune.” If journalists were not free to walk into court, walk into council or walk into other places where important decisions were being taken, and if they were not free to write up what they had seen and heard, “the public interest is damaged”.
Knowledge is power. For that knowledge we depend on the media, on the newspapers, radio, television and electronic news, and on that news being true and correct.
Some foolish people try to influence the media by lying to them or by forcing them to write and report untrue things. Some politicians and some businessmen have information officers who spread disinformation or propaganda. In some cases they may even succeed in making the media report things that are not true. But the media – whose editors and reporters are not fools – will soon find out. After that, they will not believe a word from those politicians or businessmen.
(This is not an attack on information officers, many of whom are honest and do their job well. They are a boon to society, as they help the media to collect and then report the news. We only criticise those who try to distort or manipulate the news.)
Some governments vote themselves special powers so they can control and censor the press. In countries like Russia, China and Zimbabwe, they arrest, imprison, torture and sometimes kill journalists for saying or writing the truth. In other countries it is organised criminals who harass journalists and sometimes kill them to prevent their crimes and wrongdoing becoming public knowledge.
But good and honest journalists do not let themselves be frightened or bribed to write lies. Some of them suffer fines and imprisonment because they publish the truth, be it about official incompetence, corruption or other crimes.
It is in the public interest that there is a strong and independent media in all countries. It is also in the interest of all levels of government. Good reporting and honest media often throw the light on errors and dishonesty, enabling wise managers, wise politicians and good government to correct and improve things that have not worked out as well as their originators had expected.
Let us pray that there will always be brave and honest journalists who will see what is happening and have the courage to report it.
There is a breeze of NGOs sponsored tribal heroes in the media, on the internet and also social networking platforms for the Bastar region. Most of these sponsored heroes were or are paid employees of the NGOs working in this region. 
