The Rich want protection from the Masses

    In April last year, I wrote about Chidambaram's and Modi's common vision of building 100 new cities, even though they were in opposing parties in the election. I questioned and critiqued that step for its devastating effect on rural India (The 100-City Madness).
    What I did not expect, however, was that the government and academic elite would cobble together a scheme which is so wilfully depraved.
    We should be grateful to Shri Laveesh Bhandari for revealing these views during a recent seminar on 'Smart Cities in India: Reality in the Making'. Now we know what these chaps really think and do behind closed doors.
    In his presentation paper, Bhandari, an economist, says:
    "When we build these smart cities, we will be faced with a massive surge of people who will desire to enter these cities. We will be forced to keep them out. ‎This is the natural way of things... There are only two ways to keep people out of any space - prices and policing...
    "Even with high prices, the conventional laws in India will not enable us to exclude millions of poor Indians from enjoying the privileges of such great infrastructure"..

The modern myth of 'social mobility'

This is a letter I wrote recently to the Indian Express in response to their series on 'Is India Moving to the City?'. I have not been following newspapers for some time so I do not know if they have published it.
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Dear Sir,
    As a person who grew up in Mumbai, worked in Delhi, and who then lived in rural Garhwal and ran a village school there for many years, I found your series on 'Is India Moving to the City?' relevant and useful. It is an issue which has been staring at us in the face for 65 years, while we, the urban elite, have looked the other way.
    There is one basic assumption which has to be questioned for us to understand this issue fully. A few of your contributors may have touched upon it, in an oblique way, while most have missed it altogether.
    That basic assumption is the modern creation of 'social mobility' as a norm, indeed as a necessity. This 'social mobility' is represented as a geographical or financial movement - moving from village to town to city, or moving from small house to big house or from small to bigger bank balance.
    This is a crude, hastily gathered assumption of 'development' of the last hundred years. I feel we must question this 'need' completely, honestly, so that we understand ourselves first, before we try and understand the village and city..

Let us Vote for Change

    I write this as a supporter of Aam Aadmi Party. I write this in support of a people's movement which has the potential to correct the errors of modern politics and economics.
    The issue is not Mr Kejriwal. I feel it is important that we should not overlook a fundamental fact - that for once we actually have an alternative which is really an alternative, not just the same mindless copying of 'development' which all political parties are doing.
    The fear that this 'alternative' has triggered in the conventional political parties is apparent. Both the BJP and the Congress are desperate to show that the Aam Aadmi Party 'is like the rest of us'. They are shouting and screaming that AAP too has internal dissent, that it has people leaving them, that it plays caste politics, that it is irregular in taking donations, etc., etc. In a way, both BJP and Congress are conceding that political parties are after all corrupt and dishonest. So why should AAP be different?
    Why this fear of the Alternative? ..

Uber - the story of Technology Terrorism

Socially disruptive Technology?

    In India, we have seen the tragedy of a woman assaulted by an Uber taxi driver, and it has saddened all of us. We want society, the government, to do everything to prevent its happening again.
    Uber however is unrepentant. It is stating that it is not a taxi service at all. It asserts that it is only a web app. According to Uber, it is only a 'platform', the app only 'connects' the driver to the passenger.
    So even though it advertises and promotes its taxi service aggressively, it claims it is not a 'transportation company' and therefore is not responsible for what a normal taxi service would be accountable for.
    For Uber, our sister in Delhi is not a 'passenger' or 'customer'; she is just another data entry in their web app. As far as they are concerned, one data packet had a glitch; they claim no other relationship with the raped woman.
    One can sense strongly that something is terribly wrong in this whole buisness of web cabs. And in investigating this 'thing' called Uber, we discover a deeper and more worrying story - that of Technology Terrorism, which is the emerging face of free market liberal economy..

Will you apologise, Mr Modi?

Is her village her problem, Mr Modi?

    Amidst the uproar in Parliament over the abusive language used by a BJP minister, what has slipped unnoticed is a statement of grave significance by the Prime Minister of the country.
    Faced wtih protests over the behaviour of his intemperate colleague Niranjan Jyoti, Narendra Modi sought to excuse her on the grounds that she is 'from a village'. In one stroke, he has exposed his own gross ignorance, as well as done a great injustice to 70 per cent of Indians living in villages.
    The Indian villager already suffers from the stereotype of being ignorant, or a fool - Modi's statement now multiplies that untruth and suggests that she is also foul-mouthed and abusive.
    Actually, the truth is quite the opposite. Having watched village life closely for the last five years, I can say with certainty that it is the villagers who move out to towns who, on return home, come with a variety of bad habits, including the use of vulgar language. A second source of depravation is tourists, again from the cities, who apart from the material filth that they throw out of their cars, also 'educate' villagers through their own behaviour of drinking and gambling and the use of foul language. A third source is television, and movies, again produced by those in the metros, which introduce the villager to previously unheard of and unimagined ways of (mis)behaviour.
  So, will you apologise now, Mr Modi?

Open Letter to Aamir Khan

Dear Shri Aamir Khan,
    For a nation faced with a largely incompetent and irresponsible media, your production and presentation of Satyameva Jayate comes as a breath of fresh air. Indeed, I feel that the only three groups doing real journalism in the nation today are RTI activitists, Whistleblowers, and the Satyameva Jayate team.
    I write this letter mainly in response to the episode on mental disorders which was aired a few weeks ago. I feel that, unknowingly, you may have caused much harm to those suffering such illnesses. Let me elaborate.
    A key point that emerged during your discussion was the very persuasive advise to the viewers to go in for medication, with a strongly hinted assurance that mental illnesses could actually be cured with psychotropic drugs.
    Nothing can be further from the truth..