400 million Agricultural refugees...

Three days ago i read a piece. Prime Minister spoke one of my favourite lines ... an idea whose time has come. (In school we ask often, is it a good idea or an idea whose time has come?)

But he spoke about SEZs, the special economic zones being created all over the country to help large projects by pass the democratic machinery, the process of careful consideration. Also to help the process a new act has been put into operation.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh announced the formation of a new rehabilitation policy for farmers displaced due to land acquisitions. This means the Govt, state and central can ask the farmer to leave, in the name of a large corporation.. ie. corporate interest is equal to national interest... Till now the Govt could only ask someone to vacate in national interest.. but.. now..

There have been large zamindars in India and when they wanted to acquire smaller lands, they asked the owner, cajoled him, threatened him etc. But now the state can actually just take the land as per law.

When a tea stall owner refused to move his small business, the owner of a huge business house in Calcutta, had him murdered.... if he had but waited 2 years, the Govt would have had the man evicted in the interest of the nation and its big projects...

This would be backward enough in a country where the pavements are shrinking just as we speak about globalization, if it were merely misguided enthusiasm. But it turns out that this ... idea whose time has come... has been carefully studied by people ....

"A former vice-president of the World Bank and a former chairman of Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR), a body that governs the 16 international agricultural research centers, Dr Ismail Serageldin, had forewarned a number of years ago. At a conference organised by the M S Swaminathan Research Foundation in Chennai a few years back, he quoted the World Bank to say that the number of people estimated to migrate from rural to urban India by the year 2015 is expected to be equal to twice the combined population of UK, France and Germany.

The combined population of UK, France and Germany is 200 million. The World Bank had therefore estimated that some 400 million people would be willingly or unwillingly moving from the rural to urban centres by 2015. Subsequent studies have shown that massive distress migration will result in the years to come. For instance, 70 per cent of Tamil Nadu, 65 per cent of Punjab, and nearly 55 per cent of Uttar Pradesh is expected to migrate to urban centres by the year 2020." 22nd June 07 - Devinder Sharma writes.

Is this not shocking? That we can stand by and accept this large scale pushing and pulling? Is it not a travesty of justice to say that the individual is second to the corporation? While it is being advocated that

One man alone can be pretty dumb sometimes, but for real bona fide stupidity, there ain't nothin' can beat teamwork.
- Edward Abbey

"Over the years with the complexity introduced by processes of the industrial revolution the work of groups of individuals has undergone change. The change is so vast that the similarity between individual accountability and that of a group is almost non existent. Fueled by the economy of sale doctrine and the excitement of large scale manufacture of goods and the burgeoning of new specializations and new professions the world has change rapidly. Guilds have given place to corporations. Very large organizations have grown with the background of complex international laws and a global trade system. These are as similar to small business as a sparrow is to a dinosaur. In terms of accountability there are dangerous lacunae that have got established as the way life is, as the way business is to be carried out.
One of the important aspects of a corporation is that it is almost impossible to localize responsibility. Take for instance the concealment of information and misinformation by the cigarette companies; the companies have been fined close to 4 billion dollars by the US administration for their long term misdemeanours. Now who is responsible, or who are responsible seems a difficult question. Is it the head of the organization, or the legal department which decides what information to offer the Government? It is quickly apparent that it is almost impossible to pin responsibility for willful acts of unethical conduct, for acts which damage human health and keep in place unhealthy practice. Are the shareholders responsible? Or are they merely the distributed risk bearers? It is obvious that hey have little information about corporate niceties and the jostling, concealment and irresponsibility. Corporate functioning appears to have no need for any morality or ethics beyond profit making. History of industries is replete with examples. The auto manufacturers closed down railways in the US and concealed data regarding implications of large scale automobile use. Nuclear agencies have consistently underplayed the problems and have been fooling the public about the risks. Chemical companies that marshal vast resources own no responsibility for the havoc caused to the earth and living creatures. The Bhopal tragedy, visited on the landscape and people, is a stark example of the corporate irresponsibility. Oil companies, beyond cleaning up once in a while are certainly nor held responsible for the poisoning of the oceans. Smaller corporations, or companies dump waste knowingly or unknowingly into waste land or sea or rivers. In Chennai we had an episode of industrial waste containing cyanide dumped near a water body. All kinds of waste is dumped, off the coast of Africa, travelling large distances in hired ships. Pharmaceutical companies blatantly sell drugs banned in the First world to lesser mortals from the Third world."

Considering the history of groups, it appears significant to ask if there should to be critical checks in the law which provides for the distinctions between individuals and groups. Read Corporations. Jerry Mander suggests that all technology must be treated as guilty unless proven innocent. The onus of proof is on the purveyor of technology and not on the hapless recipients. It is worth considering if a group of any kind needs to be treated under law with such a gaze. In the global village the vested interests of mercenary groups of human beings needs to be understood with scepticism." (G 2000 Wake up India)

But we seem to be headed in the opposite direction.. far from protecting the individual, we are placing him at the mercy of the corporations. Further we seem to be placing corporations in a location. it is said in the SEZs the law will not operate for labour. If this is true, then the law, India law will stop outside the wall of the SEZ. Are we then creating mini nations? Ruled by the industry and corporations..

Are we to forget that the land and its resources belong to the people? And that we are a democracy? Or are we redefining democracy as SEZocracy.. ... sell the land in little bits to corporations.. after all the board room is another democracy. Repalce the parliament with boardrooms.. Coca Cola, Nestle, IBM, Infosys, Tata, Benz, Sony, .. etc can run their companies from their corporate boardroms and the nations shall be mere infrastructure...

is that the direction we are headed?.. Have we forgotten SMALL IS BEAUTIFUL? EF Schumacher. Or have we lost hope... and sold out to the World Bank???

yesterday had a history lesson.. a most unlikely lesson and a most unexpected, unplanned style...

yesterday 11 jul at castle hill..

My host Tamas Matinovich and another Tamas Dede, (you say this as Tamash..) were sitting in the cafe, from 1829 on castle hill and filling me and radhaji on some hungarian history. it seems the Bishop of Austria, in the end of 16th century said he would make the Hungarians into German, into catholics and into beggars.. .

Such strong words... that they echo even now... the sting remains in every Hungarian, that someone should say this.. 

And the Hapsburg emperors when they came tilted the cross on the crown of Hungary. The crown is not just a crown but a person. And it had power, the power of the Hungarians.. The people have power of the past. And Austria tried to destroy the past of Hungary.

Tamas 1 and Tamas 2 spoke one sentence each, unplanned, and intoned the history of Hunagary, apologising for telling us why this was so important to them... it was so moving and sad.