“Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities.”
-Voltaire
Voltaire was talking about the church. But the dogma of the modern state is probably even more absurd.
Category Archives: Ideology
In India, the Old Curry for the Goose is the New Curry for the Gander….
“The marriage of Naveen, an engineer in Florida, hit rock bottom in mere five months. “I just asked her why she was in touch with her boyfriend. She tried to harm herself with a knife. We returned to India and I suggested she stay with her parents for some time. As soon as I was back in the US, she filed a 498-A case against my family and me. My parents were jailed for three days,” said Naveen, a case against whom is on in India and an Interpol Red Corner Notice pending abroad. Anupama Singh, the secretary of Rakshak that has raked up such cases, said the voluntary organisation has received over 700 such complaints, half of them from the US alone.
“We don’t say all these are genuine cases, but many are. The government is not really concerned. It’s futile to talk about the plight of men and their families by the women they marry. “In contrast, the cases of women being tortured by their husbands abroad have been overplayed with the government claiming that 30,000 brides — 15,000 from Punjab’s Doab region alone — had been abandoned abroad,” she said.
But in 2005, the government said in Parliament that only 100 such complaints had been received. The ministry of overseas Indian affairs (MOIA) recently revised the figure to 152. The trend, therefore, is more of vanishing brides and abandoned grooms abroad, Singh added.”
Comment
That’s from the Times of India last year, describing the ongoing barrage of domestic abuse of non-resident Indian males (especially high-status, high-earning males) by their delicately-nurtured, oh-so-domestic, docile, doe-eyed, dosa-making desi brides).
No surprise. Whenever the state starts “doing-good” with its right hand, its left hand has the thumb pressed into the pan of the scales. Dowry laws were cooked up to protect victimized wives. But after gender feminists got done with the recipe, a new set of victims had been trussed up for carving on the marital altar – husbands.
“Barack, the Magic Negro”: Limbaugh’s parody is in poor taste…..
A parody song about Barack Obama has been making the rounds of the talk shows.
This from “Crooks and Liars”:
BREAKING: Limbaugh’s “Barack the Magic Negro,” on-air song has workers up in arms
By: John Amato on Friday, April 27th, 2007 at 12:44 PM – PDT
UPDATED: Rush Limbaugh has angered many black employees over this parody song called “Barack the Magic Negro” This isn’t the first or the last time that Limbaugh will go after Obama’s race:
I’ve been told that they have held meetings internally to deal with a ground swell of anger at Rush because of this.
UPDATE: I’ve anonymously confirmed that stations around the country who carry the show are having concerns expressed by listeners and even their own workers of color about the Obama parody, and the ensuing controversy in the media, and that respective managements are considering ways to address the matter with as little Imus-like backlash as possible,..This is starting to boil over…
A caller noticed there was a disclaimer added to the station she listens to and asks Rush why.
Comment:
Why is accusing the United States government (ala Jeremy Wright) of using biological weapons against its minority citizens racist, but demeaning a black presidential candidate, a perfectly vacuous candidate in our humble opinion, NOT? Oh, because “Barack, the Magic Negro” is hip sociological talk, we hear:
“The Magic Negro is a figure of postmodern folk culture, coined by snarky 20th century sociologists, to explain a cultural figure who emerged in the wake of Brown vs. Board of Education. “He has no past, he simply appears one day to help the white protagonist,” reads the description on Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magical_Negro .
It’s an Al Sharpton phrase, Al Sharpton being tacky-race-theorist-in-residence on the American political scene. (Not that I don’t think Sharpton isn’t sometimes funny, but if you live by race, you’re going to die by it — and don’t complain).
In other words, it’s the old business of who says what. If rapper Snoop Doggy Dogg calls a woman a “ho,'” then that is social commentary; but if you (Joe Six-pack) do it, well, that’s sexist abuse.
Alright. Let’s stipulate that. If you’re a guy, you don’t get to call the ladies “ho’s” any more than if you’re white in 21st century USA you get to refer to blacks as “negros” (in a derogatory way) without raising up a few racial ghosts, even if the self-appointed guardians of racial morality do.
We get that part.
What we don’t get is this: when we’ve had evidence from Tuskegee onward that governments, and not just in the US, are capable of just about anything against their own citizens, why is it racist to state the perfectly libertarian proposition that states are inherently murderous, but OK and even rather funny to use a stealth-racialist label on an individual who’s no more or less a bland apparatchik than any white candidate? (And we’re not Obama-bots here).
Of course, the Right Reverend Wright didn’t do himself or Obama any favors by his firebrand performance over the weekend. His makeover into introspective new, new theologian by Bill Moyers was an impressive act of cross-dressing, but his subsequent reversal to black theo-speak at the National Press Club undid that performance thoroughly.
The chickens-coming-home-to-roost explanation of American foreign policy is a banality of left-wing analysis, at home on many academic campuses, but add a dashiki and the visceral cadences of black preacher-talk, and it becomes the verbal equivalent of Jimi Hendrix playing The Star Spangled Banner.
It’s powerful stuff dressing up American government history as a morality play. But as foreign policy analysis, it’s weak. But then again, having been happy to confuse the two whenever it suited us, we’ve only ourselves to blame for this conflation of the moral and the political…..
So we’re left impressed only by the Reverend’s sincerity (conceded even by Newt Gingrich ) and unerring eye for a You-Tube moment (and there’s that million dollar mansion and the book tour to come) and quite unimpressed by whoever it is who manages the Barack Balancing Act — you know, placate the base (Weatherman buddy,– hat tip to The Absurd Report for that – Farrakhan bodyguards, Wright sermons) but aim for the center ( working-class white fears, health care, jobs).
So far, Obama’s aim’s been pretty rotten. He was loyal to his inflammatory pastor….and for payback, the guy tossed him into the flames.
It should have been all over for Obama by now.
But now comes this…..
Sometimes I have to wonder if Limbaugh is an undercover Air America operative….
Feminastiness: Eastern Men As Oppressive As Westerners….
Topping my recently opened female-of-the-species-is-more-deadly-than-the-male file, this, from an Indian site (I’ve changed some of the language for clarity):
How to Improve Gender Sensitivity in India:
1) Women must not be imprisoned even if they kill. They need to be put into reformatories.
2) As soon as a woman marries, she should get 50% rights to her husband’s property.
3) Large scale single parenting by woman (with maintenance provided by husband) is the norm. Research shows that children who are not allowed to see their fathers after divorce for years grow up to be very healthy. In India, Gender Sensitive judges alone should decide if the women should allow the father to see the child after divorce or not. Or if he should ever see them.
4) Any violence committed by woman against others (including murder) should be considered self-defense.
5) The disparity between life expectancy rates in men and women needs to be raised to the levels in developed countries. In India, women live 2.4 years more than men on an average. This difference has to be improved to the levels in the US and Europe where women live more than 6 years than men on an average.
6) If a man cancels an engagement, he need to be punished by imprisonment of upto 5 months. On the other hand, if a woman cancels an engagement, she should be compensated with 30% or more of the man’s yearly income.
7) For any woman who commits suicide within 7 years of marriage, a dowry harassment (or other harassment) case against the husband should be filed by default. He should be imprisoned for at least a year for not taking care of his wife.
8) If a woman complains of domestic violence, the man should be imprisoned immediately and bail only granted by a court. All their joint bank accounts need to be frozen at once. The woman also has the to right to stay on in the “matrimonial home” (i.e., the husband’s house), until she gets a divorce. If the women has an adulterous relation that is proved beyond doubt, the husband must still allow her to live in his house, or provide alternate accommodation of equal quality. The benchmark case is in the movie, “Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam.” The husband is even expected to help the women achieve her adulterous goals. If he cannot directly help, he must provide one-third of his salary towards the wife until she marries the other man.
9) A man must do half of all household work, even if his wife is not working. But he must always work full-time. If he does not, even if he does all house work, he should be labeled lazy, improvident, pathetic, and derelict, certainly in private, and preferably in public where it will cause maximum humiliation and pain either to him or to his relatives. If a woman does not work either outside the house or in, she is nonetheless entitled to all consideration and respect and anything less than deferential treatment of all her needs, demands, whims, and psychiatric moods should be considered a violation of her human rights.
10) After marriage, a man must not stay with his parents or allow his parents to stay for a prolonged period with him (“prolonged” to be decided by the woman and subject to revision at any time on request by her, her friends, or her relatives however distant and uneducated). He must allow her in-laws to stay in his house for at least the same length of time his parents stay in his house. If he violates any of these fundamental human rights of a woman, he can be imprisoned for neglect and abuse of his in-laws.
11) If in-laws of a man “feel” their daughter (or they) are not properly treated, the man should be thoroughly counseled and sensitized to his failure. If he does not mend his ways, stringent laws must be passed (with provision even for administering a good lashing) that will rectify his behavior.
12) The ratio of male:female suicide rates in India should be brought to the levels in the West. In India, 50%(about 25,000) more men commit suicide than women. This is much lower than western standards, where about 150% more men commit suicide than women.
13) The richer and the more educated the men are, the more pressure should be placed on them. They should provide the wife with a lifestyle equivalent to their status….. and they must also spend quality time with family (See 9, 10, 11 above). If this is still impossible, see 12.
14) By definition, Bangalore techies (since they work with software) are required to be softer than others. Since they are also paid more than most, they should deposit 20% of their monthly salary, at least, in their wives’ names.
15) If the wife of a techie complains of dowry harassment (or any other harassment), he must be sacked from the job immediately (that is, after he gets out of jail on bail).
16) If the wife and husband are both techies, then the wife must not spend any part of her salary towards household or personal expenses. All expenses must be born by the man.
17) Streedhan given as a gift to the daughter during marriage must also be considered dowry.
18) Rural women and poor women are ignorant and can’t afford legal help. So, clearly the laws are really meant for urban India. Rural women should actually be discouraged from approaching the police or the courts since they don’t have the money anyway. Instead, they should be empowered in other ways – by better employment and by continuing to live in the traditional family system where they respect the decisions of elders. That will show everyone that that women’s rights laws are really UNDERUSED and (more importantly) will encourage urban women to MISUSE the law and file false cases. That makes for good business for feminist and Human Rights lawyers and keep bribe-giving at a healthy level, the booty being divided between the police and the women’s organizations. Currently, the rate of extortion for a techie is upto 1 lac and for an NRI (non-resident Indian) it goes upto 4 lacs.
19) Since, rural women do not suffer from domestic violence (see 18), domestic violence laws must be used mostly – and most stringently – in urban India. Quod Erat Demostrandum.
More here in the archives of one of many new blogs on the feminist abuse of dowry and domestic abuse laws in India.
It would be funny if it were not another grim reminder of the way statutory remedies by the state end up creating more problems than remedies. Ultimately, both the men’s movement and the feminists are right….only in different places and ways. The feminists are more right (generally) about rural, uneducated women…..and the men’s movements is more right (generally) about urban, well-educated women.. But even then, each individual case is unique.
Racism, sexism and exist, but only as useful terms for analysis.. Down in the marrow, it’s all about power and relative power.
And when it holds power, the fairer sex is also the fiercer sex…
Read more here on the abuse of dowry laws and some advice for expatriate men who want to return home to be married:
498A victims offer the following advice for men getting married in India:
• When the bride and groom’s families exchange gifts, keep a written record of everything received and given.
• If you are traveling to India, make copies of your passport, visa and all credit cards and leave the copies with a trusted friend or relative.
• Don’t give anyone your tickets or passport.
• Register with the local Foreigners Registration Office upon arrival in India, and let them know your expected date of departure as well.
• “Don’t sign any blank checks.”
• Consider a prenuptial agreement.
• Keep aware of any bank activity by monitoring your bank statements.
• Print out and save any emails that may help your case. Under India’s recent cyber-laws, the emails may be admissible as evidence.
For more information, contact the following:
• Yahoo! Groups: Misusedowryact and Nridivorce
• www.sangyabalya.org (site is not always operational; alternatively, call them in Bangalore at 011-91-80-5696-9850 or email them at victimsof498a@rediffmail.com.
• The FBI’s local Indian staff can be reached through the American embassy in New Delhi: 011-91-11-2419-8000
• A few blogs are online, such as batteredmen.fullhydblogs.com, batteredmen.rediffblogs.com and batteredmen.blogspot.com.
Bruni & Sarkozy Take Their Show on the Road…
And, a moment of comic relief, in the middle of all the financial trouble. On the public (and, apparently, well-hydrogenated) display of affection by the exhibitionistic French president, Carla Bruni, and her escort, Nicholas what’s-his-name, the last word came from a British columnist:
QUOTE:
“However, ultimately, it wasn’t her nudity in the past that was the issue, it was the Sarkozys’ naked ambition in the present, which was seemingly to be crowned as the hot new couple on the international political stage, the couple who make all other political couples look dusty, passionless and redundant. And correspondingly their politics, too, even their countries.
Indeed, was it inadvertent or was there a bizarre whiff of quasi-sexual competitiveness from the Sarkozys towards the Browns, a preening display of potency?
Whether Carla was sashaying into Sarah’s charity lunch or Sarkozy was ‘playing football’ with Brown at Arsenal’s stadium (both men coming across like two girls desperate not to get their petticoats dirty), it seemed palpable; the none too subtle one-upmanship from the French camp. The whole event had the air of a quiet, serious country couple making the mistake of inviting a glamorous, intimidating couple over for a hellish weekend of nonstop patronising, the story of the town mouse and the country mouse as reinterpreted for the international political stage.
However, for some of us, if the idea was to make the Browns, and by association Britain and its politics, look a bit passionless and lacking, it backfired. No offence meant, but the last thing I ever want to see is the Browns playing tonsil tennis on a boat on the Thames. Or anywhere. To me, this doesn’t say ‘virile and go-getting’, it says ‘midlife crisis alert, get him away from the button’.
Admittedly, it was all very diverting and it was sweet to see how gallantly British men rushed to welcome Madame Sarkozy and her interesting views on monogamy. Ultimately though, the whole try-hard thing with the Sarkozys left one with a huge appreciation for the Browns. In fact, I’d like to use this column to make an apology: I interviewed Gordon once and left whingeing that he was serious and dull. I’d like to change my mind. Like surgeons and airline pilots, you don’t want your world leaders to be too exciting or, God forbid, surprising – it’s reassuring that they’re serious and dull.
Indeed, although one feels this country was too easily seduced by the Carla-Nicolas roadshow, and should maybe have felt affronted by the way they made British politics look passionless by comparison, perhaps in the end, we should just feel relieved….”
More from Barbara Ellen in The Observer.
Wright on Race……
“In 1957, Doubleday released Richard Wright’s White Man Listen. In it, he wrote “…the greatest aid that any white Westerner can give Africa is by becoming a missionary right in the heart of the Western world, explaining to his own people what they have done to Africa.”
Nobody expects the media to educate the public about Africa. The current coverage is consistent with the images found in the Tarzan movies. It’s not going to change. I’ll settle for missionary work among the American public. Free them from entrapment by the corporate media, which are causing their brain cells to atrophy. Teach them the other points of views that are smothered by the noise, and trivialized on You Tube. Then maybe they’ll understand where the crazy Rev. Wright is coming from…”
Controversial but well argued piece by Ishmael Reed at Counterpunch, on the continuing media “scandal” about Obama’s tough-talking preacher man. Reed is a”racialist” by all accounts, but while race is central in media (and public) perception, it isn’t clear to me that making it the centerpiece of any campaign makes sense….
Econ-job: US food prices to rise sharply…just as more mortgage payments shoot up…(revised)
According to the Financial Times,
“When William Lapp, of US-based consultancy Advanced Economic Solutions, took the podium at the annual US Department of Agriculture conference, the sentiment was already bullish for agricultural commodities boosted by demand from the biofuels industry and emerging countries.
He added a twist – that rising agricultural raw material prices would translate this year into sharply higher food inflation.
Comment:
Read further down in the Financial Times piece and you will note that the IMF, on the other hand, appears not to believe that the developing world will decouple from the US. If there is no decoupling, it says, then a US recession will cause global growth to slow and push down food prices.
The question boils down to whether you believe what an interventionist economist at the IMF says or what the market (the commodity market) says….
For one answer, read Bill Engdahl’s piece on the financial tsunami coming our way and how complex, Nobel prize-winning economic theories and models are the problem behind, not the solution to, the present crisis.
Why?
Because they are houses built on the sand of specious notions. Notions of a perfectly rational “economic man” and of a perfectly Gaussian “efficient market.”
“As hundreds of thousands of Americans over the coming months find their monthly mortgage payments dramatically reset according to their Adjustable Rate Mortgage terms, another $690 billion in home mortgage debt will become prime candidates for default. That in turn will lead to a snowball effect in terms of job losses, credit card defaults and another wave of securitization crisis in the huge market for securitized credit card debt. The remarkable thing about this crisis is that so much of the sinews of the entire American financial system were tied in to it. There has never been a crisis of this magnitude in American history.
At the end of February the Financial Times of London revealed that US banks had “quietly” borrowed $50 billion in funds from a special new Fed credit facility to ease their cash crisis. Losses at all the major banks from Citigroup to J.P.Morgan Chase to most other major US bank groups continued to mount as the economy sank deeper into a recession that clearly would turn in coming months into a genuine depression. No Presidential candidate had dared utter a serious word about their proposals to deal with what was becoming the greatest financial and economic meltdown in American history.”
More by Bill Engdahl at Oilgeopolitics.net.
Update:
I might have been a bit naive in the piece above. I was rightly curious about the IMF economist’s motives in telling us that food prices would go down in the future, when the grocery shelves say the opposite.
But I was a bit trusting about the first quote.
So here’s a bit of belated digging.
Who is Bill Lapp and this consultancy Advanced Economic Solutions?
Lapp is a former VP of research at Con-Agra. A little googling reveals that just in 2007, ConAgra settled with the SEC over various financial improprieties.
He also seems to show up at Harvard run bashes for agribusinesses, says Hal Hamilton of the Sustainability Institute. And seems to like cheering on Monsanto’s attempts to shove biotech down the mouths of unwilling Europeans as Adam Smith in action….a curiously fundamentalist interpretation of The Wealth of Nations that, as Hamilton points out, would probably have left old Adam speechless.
The website of the Kansas City Board of Agriculture had this:
“Lapp, who has been appointed to his first two-year term, has more than 25 years of experience in analyzing and forecasting economic conditions and commodity markets. He recently formed Advanced Economic Solutions, which provides economic and commodity analysis to agri-business and food companies. Prior to that, he was the vice president of economic research for ConAgra Foods. Lapp currently serves on numerous boards, including the Kansas City Federal Reserve Board’s Center for the Study of Rural America, the Farm Foundation, and the Food and Agriculture Committee of the Omaha Chamber of Commerce. Lapp is a member of USDA National Agricultural Statistics Service Advisory Board and participates on the Harvard Business Industrial Economists’ Round-Table.”
And here we find Bill Lapp saying about what he said up above....only he’s saying it in s 2004.
Since 2002, the value of the dollar has dropped 25% while commodity costs have risen 46%. In fact, according to the CRB Index, commodity costs earlier this year were at their highest level since 1984.
The result was that in the year between April 2003 and April 2004, soymeal prices rose 92%, cheese 90%, soy oil 54% and chicken breast meat 47%, just a few of the more dramatic price jumps.
The good news? April seems to have been the peak for this escalation. Since then, many (though not all) commodities— especially grains and dairy products,but not proteins—have seen price declines, some quite sharp. This is due, Lapp indicated, to a stabilization of the dollar and a slowdown in the Chinese economy. Over this period, cheese prices have fallen 33%, corn 24% and soymeal 23%. However, protein prices remained high through mid-June thanks to continued high demand driven by the low-carb diet fad, along with constrained domestic supplies and a ban on Canadian beef imports.
What about the future? If that could be predicted with certainty, there would be no futures market in commodities. However, the best guess, according to Lapp, is that moderation in price will continue through the end of the year, perhaps extending even to protein after Labor Day and the end of the peak summer season. A continued economic lull in China would also reduce demand from that market, lessening pressure on global supplies.”
Here is Lapp in December on the rate of inflation in US food prices over the next five years:
“During the next five years, food inflation is forecast to increase by an average of 7.5 percent, well above the 2.3 percent average of the past 10 years.
“The US experienced a similar period of rising commodity prices and food inflation in the 1970s. Commodity prices doubled … this ultimately resulted in food inflation from 1972 to 1981 averaging 8.2 percent,” the study said.
Traditionally, the food industry — processors, grocery stores, restaurants, and others — absorbed the cost of higher commodity prices within its operating margins as the rise was temporary given the competitiveness of retailers.
But times are changing, said Lapp, who is a consultant to the food and agricultural industries….”
And here’s Lapp in this piece telling the consumer that he can – and should – pay higher prices.
“Lapp, the former leading economist for ConAgra, told Brownfield bread prices rose over 10% in 2007 and are likely to do at least that again this year. He added other food prices will also head higher as food manufacturers increasingly pass on the costs of high commodities to consumers. The good news, Lapp said, is that most U.S. consumers can afford to pay up, even if they won’t have much choice in the matter.
“I think consumers are more prepared than we realize to accept higher prices on food and I think that’s part of our future,” Lapp predicted. “It’s largely been set in stone for us already.”
Who’s the most bigoted of them all?
“It’s been said that industrialized nations are becoming more intolerant of foreigners, and a provocative new paper in the August issue of Kyklos tries to quantify just how bigoted Western nations are.
The paper’s authors used responses from a question in the Human Beliefs and Values Survey — a twice-a-decade survey of social and political attitudes around the world — which asked respondents how they would feel about living next to: People of different ethnicities, Muslims, Jews, immigrants or foreign workers, and homosexuals.
The researchers used these answers as a proxy for bigotry in each country.(The survey took place in 1999-2000).
And the most prejudiced country? Drumroll please…
Northern Ireland with an estimated 44 percent of its population saying they wouldn’t want to live next to one of the above five groups took the top “prize.” Breathing down it’s neck was Greece with 43.2 percent and at 37.6 percent Italy rounded out the top three.
The least bigoted nations were dominated by Scandinavian countries: Sweden (13.4%), the Netherlands (17.2%), Iceland (18.4%), Canada (21.5%), Denmark (21.9%).
(Germany joins the ranks of the most bigoted nations using an alternative measure based on how strong bigoted feelings were among those who had them, the researchers found.)
The United States was estimated to have a 30.4 percent level of bigotry.
On average, about one out of every three people in the 19 countries used in the study were bigoted.
By far the most hated group were homosexuals with an overall average of 19.6 percent of people saying they wouldn’t want them as neighbors. Next up were Muslims with 14.5 percent, but since the survey was taken before September 11th, those results might be much different today.”
More here in a report produced by researchers from the Universities of Ulster and Queensland.
Ron Paul Revolution: Ron debates Democrats on You-Tube
Yep, Democrats. Except for Paul, Hunter and Tancredo, there wasn’t anyone in last night’s debate who couldn’t have changed their rhetoric and tone of voice a bit and been palmed off as a Democrat. Or maybe, to be fair to the genuine left, as Demopub… or Republicrat…
“McCain said Paul is promoting isolationism in calling for the United States to disengage from the war. “We allowed (Adolf) Hitler to come to power with that attitude of isolation,” he said.
Paul objected, saying McCain had confused his support for nonintervention with isolationism.
“I want to trade with people, talk with people, travel,” Paul replied. “But I don’t want to send troops overseas using force to tell them how to live.” Later he made clear he would not run as an independent, despite requests from many of his supporters….”
More at the Washington Post.
Dear Senator McCain, your uncompromising stance on torture is admirable. So was your Vietnam war service. But while you seem to be quite clear about what the Constitution says about asphyxiating our fellow man in excruciating stages, you seem less clear about carpet bombing him. I fail to follow the logic. Pouring too much H2O down the wrong orifice of suspected terrorists upsets you deeply (and it should — they are still held in our prisons and there are other ways to get them to talk) but leveling cities filled with innocent civilians, from babies to grandmothers and cripples, because some bearded guy somewhere else went on a criminal rampage — now that’s just fine and dandy.
I am being facetious but that’s what the logic of this foreign policy amounts to.
Paul’s answer was perfect. Because we don’t want to bomb people into “freedom” (our version) doesn’t mean we want to be “isolationist.”
Here’s another of those slogans “Mobs” talks about.
Is everything always this black and white, this simplistic?
Is the alternative to bombing people raising the draw- bridge, holing up inside, and contemplating our navels? Isn’t there such a thing as peaceful, unmanaged trade? Isn’t the other name for that the free market? And isn’t that what conservatism is supposed to defend?
Not the military-industrial-financial much-too complex?
Update:
Now we find that the debate was infiltrated by a covey of Democrat supporters posing as random questioners, including the gay military officer who was almost disruptive…
More evidence of the arrogance and corruption of the MSM and their pals on You Tube.
Now figure out where else those pals are – on google, on amazon, and everywhere else where opinions are voiced.
Strike at the root: fix the pipes or fix the pipe-dream?
“It came as a shock to me that India’s cities have more water than most cities in the world. Delhi has 300 litres per person per day of treated water compared to Paris with 150 or London with 171. Then why do people in Paris and London get water 24 hours a day while Delhi’s residents get it only for four? Gauhati sits on the Brahmaputra River but people get water for only two hours. The poor in our cities have to depend on tankers. When the tanker is late there is a scramble and even a riot. Recently, a tanker driver fearing for his life took off at a high speed, and a child died in the chaos.
Because water comes intermittently, Indians have to store it. Storage tanks cost money and are not cleaned regularly. This brings disease. Since water pipes are not under continuous pressure, they get broken when pressure is released–it’s called the ‘hammer effect’. Vacuum also develops in the pipe, and ground and sewage water enters through the cracks, thereby contaminating drinking water. It takes 90 minutes to re-pressure, dump the contaminated water, and lots of clean water is thus wasted.
Everyone has a diagnosis. Delhi’s Jal Board says that 40% of its water is stolen. Its zonal engineers want more pipes and infrastructure. (Lucrative contracts bring prosperity to engineers.) Economists say that Paris charges properly for its water; hence Parisians don’t waste it. Delhi’s water charges are so low that there is little incentive to conserve. Besides, low tariffs help mainly the rich because the poor don’t have taps. All these facts are true but the main problem is the Delhi Jal Board. It is a fiefdom of politicians with 20,000 employees when it should have 5000. It doesn’t meter properly, encourages theft, and is not accountable to customers.
Delhi’s government, to its credit, recognised the problem and decided to fix it. It tried to insulate the Jal Board from politicians and test a plan to give water 24 hours a day in two out of its 22 zones. It offered management contracts to experts, who would motivate Jal Board employees to reduce theft, extend taps to poor areas, and be responsive to customers. It also decided to take a loan from the World Bank for this project. This is when its problems started. A well meaning but ideological NGO, Parivartan, claimed that the process of hiring consultants was manipulated. It raised the fears of privatization, mobilized public opinion, and killed the reform. With it died the prospect of 24 hour water for Delhi.
The Greeks were suspicious of democracy. They felt that people often made bad decisions that went against their interest. People could be manipulated by demagogues and vested interests. In this story, vested interests were the local politicians, bureaucrats and Jal Board employees. They manipulated Parivartan to become their demagogue. They scared Delhi’s people and a workable reform failed. Sad, indeed, for it kills 24×7 water in other Indian cities as well.
The lesson from this sad story is that it is not easy to reform in a democracy. Reformers have to win over the people when they change institutions. If Sheila Dikshit had worked as hard to “sell” this reform as she had to conceive it, she might have saved it. We are facing another summer of water and power shortages and politicians have begun to make ridiculous promises. The answer is “not to fix the pipes, but to fix the institutions that fix the pipes.”