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rkumar
July 11th, 2005, 02:43 PM
Dear Friends,

Role of Indian communists has always been to block Indian ambitions to become a world power. Look at the latest how these guys are blocking everything postive government wants to do. Hopwever, they don't raise finger when same thing is being done by Chinese or Russians. Here is a link to an interesting article about the role of communists in India.

http://www.saag.org/papers12/paper1107.html

Mr Karat, general secretary of CPM has been shouting againts Indo-US defence pact. May be he is trying to please his Chinese Master before visiting them today on a 7 days trip..

RK^2

ramksehrawat
July 11th, 2005, 04:16 PM
Thanks for providing link to such a good article, Rajendraji. True to every word.

rkumar
July 11th, 2005, 04:46 PM
here is another news item which tells about their double talks;

http://in.today.reuters.com/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=businessNews&storyID=2005-07-11T071604Z_01_NOOTR_RTRJONC_0_India-208895-1.xml

One may like to read communists have to say on uniform civil code in India at their website;

http://pd.cpim.org/2003/1019/10192003_thinking.htm

these jokers don't talk of religious freedom when its taken away in China and Russia, but they are very supportive of the same in India. In my views Indian communists are nothing but ideological feeders of terrorism. High time theier misdeeds are brought to the notice of common man in streets. They need to be exposed at every possible front.

Reading the stuff at following link appears as if CPI(m) is nothing but an extension of Chinese Embassy in India.

http://pd.cpim.org/2003/0810/08102003_sitaram%20china%20visit.htm

God save India from the slave communists.

RK^2

rkumar
July 11th, 2005, 06:51 PM
More I read about CPI's views on various Indian and world events, more I realise how useless this party is. I will be ruuning this thread to bring more on communists of India. This is what they have to say on 9/11;

http://www.cpiml.org/liberation/year_2002/january/opinion.htm

RK^2

rkumar
July 11th, 2005, 06:53 PM
This is what our communists have to say in Pakistan;

http://srirangan.net/india-defence/node/144

God save India from these guys

RK^2

rkumar
July 11th, 2005, 07:00 PM
Good words for China and critical of India here;

http://pd.cpim.org/2003/0824/08242003_sitaram%20china%20visit.htm

RK^2

ramksehrawat
July 11th, 2005, 07:40 PM
These communists have always been, are and will always remain anti-India. This Karat fellow must have gone to China to urge them to put all hurdles in the path of India's permanent membership of UN. Or to console them not to worry about US-India defence pact as long as they are there to serve their Chinese masters. I wonder how many of you are aware that during 1962 the present Petroleun Minister, Mani Aiyer was a communist and had even collected funds for China (though he has admitted being communist but denied collection of funds for China on the floor of the House). If congress is taking support of such a party it is nothing but shame.

deepender
July 11th, 2005, 08:24 PM
What's intriguing to me is the fact that these guys somehow have been able to maintain their strongholds in West Bengal, Kerala, Tripura and a few other states in to this century...

Based on citations by Rajendra Uncle ji, we ought to think about filing sedition cases against some of these communists.

anujkumar
July 11th, 2005, 08:25 PM
One thing is there though.

Among the politicians in India, The communist are most educated!

They are most impressive when it comes to being representitive in parliament.

Least corrupt??

Prehaps if you have a little extra brain, it becomes hard to to get trapped in to the "greed is good" pragmatism of modern capitalism.

I agree their whole idealogy is a big hinderance to take India forward in a pragmatic way!

abhishek
July 12th, 2005, 12:20 AM
Based on citations by Rajendra Uncle ji, we ought to think about filing sedition cases against some of these communists.

Try that and you will be branded "Hindu nationalist" ! The issue is not 60 seats that communists have in Loksabha, it is their total dominance of media and academic institutions. I am not sure how many of us know that NDTV is owned by sister of Brinda Karat( wife of CPI-M Gen. Sec Prakash Karat). They decide what news we get, they write the history books we read. No wonder we grow up hating our own civilization. I feel they are far ahead of Nazi propaganda machine when it comes to brainwashing general public.

rkumar
July 12th, 2005, 12:46 AM
Hi Abhishek,

These all communists have stakes in some or the other business. Most of them are ex union leaders and they keep always armtwist business owners with the threats of strike. They are a mafia of sort in every respect. They have certainly distorted Indian history. I don't know whether its good or bad, they have no consistent approach. This is why no one takes them seriously. They will keep making noise and also they will keep supporting UPA government.

RK^2

anujkumar
July 12th, 2005, 02:31 AM
I think Rajendra Jee that's an extrapolation. Where is that coming from? Don't write some long story, but what FACTS gave rise that conception of yours? Did you recently had anti-communist dream or something? Did you see Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb ?


Hi Abhishek,

These all communists have stakes in some or the other business.

Who among them is industrialist?

Most of them are ex union leaders and they keep always armtwist business owners with the threats of strike. They are a mafia of sort in every respect. They have certainly distorted Indian history.

How did they distort India's History.

I don't know whether its good or bad, they have no consistent approach. This is why no one takes them seriously. They will keep making noise and also they will keep supporting UPA government.

RK^2

birbal
July 12th, 2005, 04:19 AM
As stated by Anuj, the best educated and least corrupt politicians in India are the Communists. For those who have'nt had the opportunity, I suggest, read the Communist Manifesto written by Marx and Engels in 1848. You will find that the Capitalists and Imperialists were forced to change their ways and accept most of the rights of the workers Marx had demanded. In fact, if you look at the data from the World Economic Forum and ranking of prosperity of nations you will find that the countries at the top are those who have accepted most of the Marx's ideas. Of course, it has also been proven that 100% Marxism does'nt work either. Essentially, in the modern world, the requirement for sustained prosperity is a regulated economy (accepting most of Marxist ideas) with strong democratic institutions.

deepender
July 12th, 2005, 08:21 AM
Respected Dr Singh ji,

A few years back when I first read Communist Manifesto and Das Kapital, I too had believed in the idealism of Marx. Conclusions from a class struggle seemed logical. But now a few years down the line, I solidly believe that the basic Marxism , if you would, is flawed and has failed.

While I do partially acknowledge Marx's contribution as far as the issue of rights of workers, an example that you have cited, a strong argument can be made that improved rights may very well have resulted from increased bourgeois's greed to improve long term productivity and greed to reduce any loss in exchange caused on account of human rights activists.

Where I feel Communist Manifesto failed: The promised future paradigm where that laborers take over the means of production and so destroy the capitalist system was possible but never sustainable. Marx didn't account for the fact that means of production would become less and less expensive all the time due to efficiencies in production. And surely this efficiency would put a continued downward pressure on the exchange prices of most commodities; prices that only the more efficient enterprises will be able to meet while still extracting surplus. Additionally, in these free societies driven by explosive productivity growths on account of technology, more and more workers would themselves become entrepreneurs. (To his credit though, Marx never lived to see how techonologies like internet may shape the proletariate and bourgeois's class struggle). By the way, I'm not implying Marx was wrong because there was no class struggle. There perhaps has been an on-going class struggle throughout most of history. Amoung other reasons, he was proved wrong because he could not see that the dialectic process would work to elevate the working class to the entrepreneur class and not pull all of society down to the lowest common denominator. Social and moral implications from Communist Manifesto have never been the strong points anyway. I hope even the communists from West Bengal will concede here. I do find it intriguing that you feel that the most prosperous countries around the world are those who have accepted most of the Marx's ideas. Would certainly like to hear more from you on this.

Moving beyond my reasoning - history has proved Marx wrong. And it's right time for Indian Communists to reform themselves if they don't want to be part of that very history, in very near future. To our CPI & CPI(M) leadership I'd say - Communism is dead, and you better be dead than be a ghost.

Of course, these are my own views and you may still differ...

Best regards,
Deepender

rkumar
July 12th, 2005, 12:43 PM
I think Rajendra Jee that's an extrapolation. Where is that coming from? Don't write some long story, but what FACTS gave rise that conception of yours? Did you recently had anti-communist dream or something? Did you see Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb ?

Let me try to be as brief as possible as you have already put some sort of restriction on the number of words I can use. First, let me point you out to the following link, which tells about Chinese communists and their business interests apart from many other interesting observations;

http://www.hvk.org/articles/0203/68.html

Now coming to Indian communists;

1. Yes they all have stakes in businesses through trade unions. Most of trade union contributions are used to further their personal political gains. Additionally they armtwist business houses and extract many favours in the name of good industrial relations. Owning business directly and having stakes indirectly is same thing. Jyoti Basu's son is a prominent businessman and I hope you know that.

2. Distortion of history: To me most Indian communists are perverted intelligentsia who gets pleasure by ridiculing anything and everything which Indian masses enjoy. On the one hand they call themselves anti-imperialists, but they never fought against British rule. They have nothing to say against Mughal imperialists also. Taking refuse under Aryan invasion of India, they justify every other invasion. They are anti-religious when it comes to Hinduism, but say nothing against Islam. I hope you know how one of their lady historian called Nonica Dutta has painted Jats of Haryana?

Communists are anti Jat as we have not fallen to their philosophy of giving our land for co-operative cultivation. To them all Jats are Kulaks and not marginal cultivators.

If their vision is so grand, West Bengal should have been the number one state in India long back.


RK^2

gaganrana
July 12th, 2005, 01:23 PM
Well Dr. Birbal G, 100% of marx is pain but "****MODIFIED MARXIUM****" is a solution for these kind of issues...take all the negative out and you will get best SYSTEM....

How?How?How?How? I and some of my colleages are working on that...it can take many years to write a book on that....! :cool:

***Some points are imazing in Marxium which can change the whole life of an individual...****

From Gandhi G, Marx you will learn a lot...

dahiyars
July 12th, 2005, 04:19 PM
Dear Raj,

It smell of your personnel prejudices against communists. I agree with Dr Birbal on many points. Have you gone through the party progamme of cpm? CPM and left as a whole appear to be much more honest in what they say and what they do.
R.S.Dahiya

rkumar
July 12th, 2005, 05:22 PM
Dear Raj,

It smell of your personnel prejudices against communists. I agree with Dr Birbal on many points. Have you gone through the party progamme of cpm? CPM and left as a whole appear to be much more honest in what they say and what they do.
R.S.Dahiya

Not at all Sir. I have no prejudice whatsoever. I log onto CPM website very frequently and read most of their programmes and statements. If honestty is just not taking bribes, yes they appear to be honest. However, to me honesty is more than that. Its what you say and what you do. They are not honest in applying their views uniformly. Their rules change with the faces. One rule for India, another for China..

RK^2

ramksehrawat
July 12th, 2005, 05:48 PM
All wealthy people in the erstwhile USSR republics are communists. All mafia in these countries are no one else but the communists. In India, they seem to be honest as they didn't have much of chance. If you go through the affidavits filed during last general elections, Som Nath Chatterjee is the wealthiest MP. Jyoti Basu's son is no pauper either. Karats have stakes in several ventures including NDTV.

birbal
July 12th, 2005, 05:54 PM
Rajendraji,

I find your logic of relating Indian communists to today's China perplexing. China is not a Communist country today by any definition of Marxism. It is tightly controlled by a bunch of individuals who do seem to be succeeding for the time being for strange reasons. The current rise of China as a manufacturer of cheap goods can be directly related to the rise of right wing in America which began with the election of Ronald Reagan in 1980. With slick propaganda techniques, the right wing attack on the American middle class for the past 25 years has converted USA into a manufacturing wasteland and China has been the greatest beneficiary. Flagrant disregard of copyright laws and patents is also benefitting China.

rkumar
July 12th, 2005, 06:22 PM
Rajendraji,

I find your logic of relating Indian communists to today's China perplexing. China is not a Communist country today by any definition of Marxism. It is tightly controlled by a bunch of individuals who do seem to be succeeding for the time being for strange reasons. The current rise of China as a manufacturer of cheap goods can be directly related to the rise of right wing in America which began with the election of Ronald Reagan in 1980. With slick propaganda techniques, the right wing attack on the American middle class for the past 25 years has converted USA into a manufacturing wasteland and China has been the greatest beneficiary. Flagrant disregard of copyright laws and patents is also benefitting China.

Birbal Singh Ji,

I fully agree with your observations and this is what is confusing us all at our these so called intellectual communists who almost echo every statement from China. Often our communists do the dirty talking for Chinese. I have been following the recent Indo-US defence pact and various reactions to it. Chinese are mum over it. Xinhua reports what their mouthpieces from Pakistan and India say. I am not saying that USA is any well-wisher of India. But certainly China is a far worst enemy of India. Chinese have been opposing us at every possible platform and our communists never utter a word against them.

RK^2

anujkumar
July 12th, 2005, 08:41 PM
Let me try to be as brief as possible as you have already put some sort of restriction on the number of words I can use. First, let me point you out to the following link, which tells about Chinese communists and their business interests apart from many other interesting observations;

http://www.hvk.org/articles/0203/68.html

Now coming to Indian communists;

1. Yes they all have stakes in businesses through trade unions. Most of trade union contributions are used to further their personal political gains. Additionally they armtwist business houses and extract many favours in the name of good industrial relations. Owning business directly and having stakes indirectly is same thing. Jyoti Basu's son is a prominent businessman and I hope you know that.

2. Distortion of history: To me most Indian communists are perverted intelligentsia who gets pleasure by ridiculing anything and everything which Indian masses enjoy. On the one hand they call themselves anti-imperialists, but they never fought against British rule. They have nothing to say against Mughal imperialists also. Taking refuse under Aryan invasion of India, they justify every other invasion. They are anti-religious when it comes to Hinduism, but say nothing against Islam. I hope you know how one of their lady historian called Nonica Dutta has painted Jats of Haryana?

Communists are anti Jat as we have not fallen to their philosophy of giving our land for co-operative cultivation. To them all Jats are Kulaks and not marginal cultivators.

If their vision is so grand, West Bengal should have been the number one state in India long back.


RK^2

Thank You.

gaganjat
July 15th, 2005, 03:56 PM
I have met some people from Bangladesh and West bengal here, they know well that communists are bringing heaps of bangladesis in India for votes.
Bringing poverty and crime along. Shame!

dahiyars
July 15th, 2005, 05:13 PM
Dear all

In West bengal the Communists are in power for the last 25 years or so. No other party has such record in any of the states. How do we explain this phenomenon? if there are so many short comings do the bengali people donot observe them or are not able to see those which many of us are seeing on this Web Site?
R.S.Dahiya

abhishek
July 15th, 2005, 06:48 PM
In West bengal the Communists are in power for the last 25 years or so. No other party has such record in any of the states. How do we explain this phenomenon?

Exactly the way we explain the 15 years (mis)rule of RJD in Bihar. Moreover, various macroeconomical indicators tell the real story if anyone cares to look at them.

priti
July 15th, 2005, 07:24 PM
I guess everyone who's contributed to this thread should read Animal Farm by George Orwell. its a funny and tragic take on communism. and infact publishers refused to publish it in 1943 because stalin was a great partner against the germans.

I remember one of my profs from warwick whose research area was marxism and russia saying that what Marx wrote were mere observations (and true) from the society that existed at the time which necessarily was not to provoke a revolution.

Also, as suggested by deepender, communism is a different paradigm than what was theorised by karl marx

About communists in India...they do offer a balancing act on the globalisation rollercoaster we are on but offer no solution to the things they consider problematic. Labour parties around the world have become more right than left according to the changing times and maybe its time for our communists to take some lession in current labour sociology. Do they have any solutions to end poverty...well the so called capitalists have the solutions....has anyone read prahlad and hammond 'bottom of the pyramid'??

well this is the bookish knowledge i have...will be happy to increase it with the practical knowledge of our senior members...

Mr. Kumar could you let me know how i can get hold of this book by nonika dutta. would like to read what she has to say...



Respected Dr Singh ji,

A few years back when I first read Communist Manifesto and Das Kapital, I too had believed in the idealism of Marx. Conclusions from a class struggle seemed logical. But now a few years down the line, I solidly believe that the basic Marxism , if you would, is flawed and has failed.

While I do partially acknowledge Marx's contribution as far as the issue of rights of workers, an example that you have cited, a strong argument can be made that improved rights may very well have resulted from increased bourgeois's greed to improve long term productivity and greed to reduce any loss in exchange caused on account of human rights activists.

Where I feel Communist Manifesto failed: The promised future paradigm where that laborers take over the means of production and so destroy the capitalist system was possible but never sustainable. Marx didn't account for the fact that means of production would become less and less expensive all the time due to efficiencies in production. And surely this efficiency would put a continued downward pressure on the exchange prices of most commodities; prices that only the more efficient enterprises will be able to meet while still extracting surplus. Additionally, in these free societies driven by explosive productivity growths on account of technology, more and more workers would themselves become entrepreneurs. (To his credit though, Marx never lived to see how techonologies like internet may shape the proletariate and bourgeois's class struggle). By the way, I'm not implying Marx was wrong because there was no class struggle. There perhaps has been an on-going class struggle throughout most of history. Amoung other reasons, he was proved wrong because he could not see that the dialectic process would work to elevate the working class to the entrepreneur class and not pull all of society down to the lowest common denominator. Social and moral implications from Communist Manifesto have never been the strong points anyway. I hope even the communists from West Bengal will concede here. I do find it intriguing that you feel that the most prosperous countries around the world are those who have accepted most of the Marx's ideas. Would certainly like to hear more from you on this.

Moving beyond my reasoning - history has proved Marx wrong. And it's right time for Indian Communists to reform themselves if they don't want to be part of that very history, in very near future. To our CPI & CPI(M) leadership I'd say - Communism is dead, and you better be dead than be a ghost.

Of course, these are my own views and you may still differ...

Best regards,
Deepender

ramksehrawat
July 15th, 2005, 07:28 PM
Dear all

In West bengal the Communists are in power for the last 25 years or so. No other party has such record in any of the states. How do we explain this phenomenon? if there are so many short comings do the bengali people donot observe them or are not able to see those which many of us are seeing on this Web Site?
R.S.Dahiya


The main reason for communists staying in power in West Bengal is the TINA factor. After Siddharth Shakar Ray becme notorious during emergency, there has been no prominent congress leader from West Bengal who could sway the voters. Mamta, when she was in Congress, was seen as a threat but after her joining NDA, people lost faith in her because of her periodical tantrums. Moreover, once a communist always a communist is true in the rural areas of West Bengal. The land reforms introduced by the communists have made the poorer section of West Bengal staunt supporters of commos. Whatever support other parties have is restricted to Kolkata and other towns only.

rkumar
July 15th, 2005, 07:29 PM
I guess everyone who's contributed to this thread should read Animal Farm by George Orwell. its a funny and tragic take on communism. and infact publishers refused to publish it in 1943 because stalin was a great partner against the germans.

I remember one of my profs from warwick whose research area was marxism and russia saying that what Marx wrote were mere observations (and true) from the society that existed at the time which necessarily was not to provoke a revolution.

Also, as suggested by deepender, communism is a different paradigm than what was theorised by karl marx

About communists in India...they do offer a balancing act on the globalisation rollercoaster we are on but offer no solution to the things they consider problematic. Labour parties around the world have become more right than left according to the changing times and maybe its time for our communists to take some lession in current labour sociology. Do they have any solutions to end poverty...well the so called capitalists have the solutions....has anyone read prahlad and hammond 'bottom of the pyramid'??

well this is the bookish knowledge i have...will be happy to increase it with the practical knowledge of our senior members...

Mr. Kumar could you let me know how i can get hold of this book by nonika dutta. would like to read what she has to say...

Hi Priti,

Here is the link to the book;

http://www.oup.com/us/catalog/general/subject/HistoryOther/HistoryofReligion/~~/cGY9NTAmcHI9MTAmc3M9YXV0aG9yJnNmPWFsbCZ2aWV3PXVzYS ZzZD1hc2MmY2k9MDE5NTY0NzE5WA==

A review of the book appeared in Tribue long back..Here is the link to the review;

http://www.tribuneindia.com/1999/99nov21/book.htm

RK^2

priti
July 15th, 2005, 08:20 PM
thank you!

priti
July 15th, 2005, 09:08 PM
I must say, i dont like the tone of this review....i am not expert on jat history. But this book is talking about giving jats an identity...is this historical identity, social identity??

Mr. Kumar, has anyone challenged the methodology of this book? and the data it has used to come to define the 'jat identity'. and how many jats the author has interviewed?

This research seems to be based on very convoluted thinking in the first place and if the author is trying to remedy the flaws of other jat historians, i am sure she would not have even acknowldegd them in the first place and gone on to give her account.

anyway, maybe this my biased view of the reading being from the community she is has tried to give identity to....i would like to read her book first before making any further judgements!

dhruvdahiya
July 15th, 2005, 09:14 PM
Respected all,

Whatever we say,today they are calling the shots and are at centre stage.Atleast they are a shade better than the other parties as regards to KATHNI and KARNI is concerned.they are shaping well.Long way to go though!


regards

deepender
July 15th, 2005, 09:34 PM
I remember one of my profs from warwick whose research area was marxism and russia saying that what Marx wrote were mere observations (and true) from the society that existed at the time which necessarily was not to provoke a revolution.
Also, as suggested by deepender, communism is a different paradigm than what was theorised by karl marx
About communists in India...they do offer a balancing act on the globalisation rollercoaster we are on but offer no solution to the things they consider problematic. Labour parties around the world have become more right than left according to the changing times and maybe its time for our communists to take some lession in current labour sociology. Do they have any solutions to end poverty...well the so called capitalists have the solutions....has anyone read prahlad and hammond 'bottom of the pyramid'??
well this is the bookish knowledge i have...will be happy to increase it with the practical knowledge of our senior members...
...


Priti,

Regarding Indian Communists => let me start by agreeing with what a couple other members had previously mentioned: on average Indian communists are more honest than their mainstream counterparts. I used to have a few friends in Delhi who came from CPI(M), and I can attest to the fact that honest and simple living is indeed the norm for these guys.

Do these guys have solutions to end the poverty?
You might find an answer in a speech that JFK, who incidentally remains one of my favorite leaders worldwide, gave standing in West Berlin during the peak of communism in Europe. He said
"There are many people in the world who really don't understand--or say they don't--what is the greatest issue between the free world and Communist world. Let them come to Berlin!
There are some who say that "communism is the wave of the future." Let them come to Berlin!
And there are some who say in Europe and elsewhere, "we can work with the Communists." Let them come to Berlin!
And there are even a few who say "yes, that it's true, that communism is an evil system, but it permits us to make economic progress." Lass' sie nach Berlin en kommen! Let them come to Berlin!
Freedom has many difficulties, and democracy is not perfect But we have never had to put a wall up to keep our people in, to prevent them from leaving us....
All free men, wherever they may live, are citizens of Berlin And therefore, as a free man, I take pride in the words "Ich bin ein Berliner!"

Communists in general (weather Marxists or Maoist or Bolsheviks or 'Basuists'), I believe, are capable of only propelling emotions on false idealism and have been proven wrong by economics and history. Unless ofcourse they reform, Tom Friedman, the author of 'The World is Flat' noted
"Indian state of West Bengal has the oldest elected communist government left in the world today. Some global technology firms recently were looking at outsourcing there, but told the communists they could not do so because of the possibility of worker strikes that might disrupt the business processes of the companies they work for. No problem. The communist government declared information technology work an 'essential service', making it illegal for those workers to strike. Have a nice day."

So now we have a peculiar situation, people, who are doing politics by promising false 'Marxist' idealism till they are in opposition or "coalition", begin to look more like mainstream policy-makers when they govern. In some cases even worse. So I reiterate the point I made in this thread earlier: CPI & CPI(M) either have to come out of closet changing their names to Capitalist Party of India (Mera bharat mahaan) or they need to stop pressurising govts from not doing what they would do when in power.

They either need to reformed or will be dead soon; better to be dead than remain the ghosts they currently are.

Finally, I have read Prahlad and hammond's 'fortune at the bottom of the pyramid'; In most part I disagree with their main theme. There is no bottom of pyramid, it exists only virtually: To elaborate my point I'll use an example - say,if a company wants to sell some goods, while still extracting a surplus say S, they can employ the labor from the virtual bottom of the pyramid (for the value chain for this company and good) as a input in the production of good and sell it to those who can provide an exchange value, say P, with a surplus (P+S). Now the employed Labor are bound to gradually move up from the bottom of the pyramid as part of this 'S' percolates to them, and when that happens to a limit they will eventually start to look like the consumers who are not at the bottom of pyramid now. If the cycle recreates itself over and over, no company will find it attractive to sell to the bottom of pyramid as in real terms the bottom will never exist....

Anyway, those are just my views....

Deepender

rkumar
July 15th, 2005, 09:51 PM
I must say, i dont like the tone of this review....i am not expert on jat history. But this book is talking about giving jats an identity...is this historical identity, social identity??

Mr. Kumar, has anyone challenged the methodology of this book? and the data it has used to come to define the 'jat identity'. and how many jats the author has interviewed?

This research seems to be based on very convoluted thinking in the first place and if the author is trying to remedy the flaws of other jat historians, i am sure she would not have even acknowldegd them in the first place and gone on to give her account.

anyway, maybe this my biased view of the reading being from the community she is has tried to give identity to....i would like to read her book first before making any further judgements!

Nonica Dutta is a regular Jat basher. We had a long debate on Jatland about her writings. In the name of historical reasearch such people do community bashings. She wrote very bad stuff about Ms Subhasini , the woman behind Khanpur's women educational institutions. She branded her Arya Samaj the one who was responsible for killing Muslims during partition.

RK^2

deepender
July 16th, 2005, 01:15 AM
Nonica Dutta is a regular Jat basher. We had a long debate on Jatland about her writings. In the name of historical reasearch such people do community bashings. She wrote very bad stuff about Ms Subhasini , the woman behind Khanpur's women educational institutions. She branded her Arya Samaj the one who was responsible for killing Muslims during partition.

RK^2

Just read this book's review - it's totally bogus. Nonica Dutta belongs to the league of propagandists that take pride in testing the limits of the right to freedom of speech.

vinodks
July 16th, 2005, 03:24 AM
Hi, interesting thread. Though I am almost a layman on the subject I wanted to put some comments relating to various points raised...

First of all, thanks Rajenderji for starting up the thread.

Priti, yeah Animal Farm is good satirical allegory, Orwell's '1984' gives deeper insight in socialism by creating an imaginary totalitarian utopian world based on extrapolation of socialist tenants. But my favorite book on subject is “Darkness at Noon” by Arthur Koestler, about a guy who is accused of betraying The Party and goes through severe torture and brainwash. It gives brilliant account of emotions of an individual whose individuality is insignificant in front of State, while ‘1984’ is more intellectually arousing.

Deepender, I agree with your comments. Indian communist no longer hold on to original principal of socialism, they are good in painting romantic picture of revolution by distributing flags with Fidel Castro pictures on them among young naxalists. My complaint is not again original principles laid down by thinkers like Marx but anti-nationalist attitude Indian communist carry for various vested reasons. No one here is Marxist in true sense. One of my friend who knows little bit economics says even Amartya Sen’s theories consists of some socialism fundes and they are good enough to win Nobel but not good enough to run a country:-)

Dr. Birbalji, I agree most of communist are educated and may be more honest (or smart enough to act honest). But it’s the not surprising because educated class (pseudo-intellectuals, in technical term) is easiest prey to their revolutionary idea, student with unorthodox tendencies in communists campuses like JNU find vent to their sentiments through these groups and recruit themselves their propagandists. I heard that “Hazaron Hawaise Assi” is nice movie on that, have to watch:-) As far as honesty goes, dishonesty doesn’t always mean swindling public money for personal purpose, it’s ideological dishonestly and hypocrisy they practice to remain in power by various means which Rajenderji’s article talks about. I had opportunity to attend Rajiv Srinivasan’s talk in WAVES(world association for vedic studies) in DC about history textbooks and Romila Thapar’s stunts. It was quite an eye opener…

Ranbirji, no offences but party programs of CPM aren’t best places to know about CPM.

Priti, thanks for mentioning Nonika dutta’s book. You know what, I was just about to order it from Amazon today but review sounds crapy… is there no single decent book on Jat history? We should write one:-)

Vinod

priti
July 20th, 2005, 07:07 PM
Yeah, it is good...isn't it! I will try to get hold of '1984'. I really liked Orwell's style of writing and would not mind reading all his books.

Thanks Deepender for making the problem of communists in India clearer to me. The thing is that protectionism of any ideology leads to its ruins and double standards only ....a point well illustrated in orwell's writing.

Believe it or not, i ordered Nonica Dutta's book. The first thing that struck me was the picture of this old man used on the cover page. This man is shown with a 'raddi' like business behind him of chappals! how many jats actaully are into the chappals business and how many in agriculture. The choice of book cover does not depict Jats at all.

Are there any other 'leading' books on Jat history for comparison??

rest later...


Hi, interesting thread. Though I am almost a layman on the subject I wanted to put some comments relating to various points raised...

First of all, thanks Rajenderji for starting up the thread.

Priti, yeah Animal Farm is good satirical allegory, Orwell's '1984' gives deeper insight in socialism by creating an imaginary totalitarian utopian world based on extrapolation of socialist tenants. But my favorite book on subject is “Darkness at Noon” by Arthur Koestler, about a guy who is accused of betraying The Party and goes through severe torture and brainwash. It gives brilliant account of emotions of an individual whose individuality is insignificant in front of State, while ‘1984’ is more intellectually arousing.

Deepender, I agree with your comments. Indian communist no longer hold on to original principal of socialism, they are good in painting romantic picture of revolution by distributing flags with Fidel Castro pictures on them among young naxalists. My complaint is not again original principles laid down by thinkers like Marx but anti-nationalist attitude Indian communist carry for various vested reasons. No one here is Marxist in true sense. One of my friend who knows little bit economics says even Amartya Sen’s theories consists of some socialism fundes and they are good enough to win Nobel but not good enough to run a country:-)

Dr. Birbalji, I agree most of communist are educated and may be more honest (or smart enough to act honest). But it’s the not surprising because educated class (pseudo-intellectuals, in technical term) is easiest prey to their revolutionary idea, student with unorthodox tendencies in communists campuses like JNU find vent to their sentiments through these groups and recruit themselves their propagandists. I heard that “Hazaron Hawaise Assi” is nice movie on that, have to watch:-) As far as honesty goes, dishonesty doesn’t always mean swindling public money for personal purpose, it’s ideological dishonestly and hypocrisy they practice to remain in power by various means which Rajenderji’s article talks about. I had opportunity to attend Rajiv Srinivasan’s talk in WAVES(world association for vedic studies) in DC about history textbooks and Romila Thapar’s stunts. It was quite an eye opener…

Ranbirji, no offences but party programs of CPM aren’t best places to know about CPM.

Priti, thanks for mentioning Nonika dutta’s book. You know what, I was just about to order it from Amazon today but review sounds crapy… is there no single decent book on Jat history? We should write one:-)

Vinod

priti
July 20th, 2005, 07:29 PM
Deepender, I have read just a journal article and not the whole book...the idea i got from it was that with bottom of the pyramid strategy, in the least the MNCs would integrate the Tier 4 or the 'poorest of the poor' of the world in their emerging market strategy and offering customised products and more crucially 'services' rather than this section of the world population being ignored completely in the process of globalisation and value creation. Am I right in this??

deepender
July 21st, 2005, 06:02 AM
Deepender, I have read just a journal article and not the whole book...the idea i got from it was that with bottom of the pyramid strategy, in the least the MNCs would integrate the Tier 4 or the 'poorest of the poor' of the world in their emerging market strategy and offering customised products and more crucially 'services' rather than this section of the world population being ignored completely in the process of globalisation and value creation. Am I right in this??

You're mostly right; these links should provide you with some details:

http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article/940.cfm

http://www.chillibreeze.com/bookreviews/TheFortuneAtTheBottomofThePyramid.asp

http://www.pearson.ch/Business/FTPrenticeHall/1469/0131467506/FortuneattheBottom.aspx

My 2 cents:
The strong points of this book are apt case studies; here's the catch: at least all the cases related to India, are available as HBS bschool cases....(and some are directly from Kennedy School Phd theses). So, you might want to check out the 'Table of Contents' if you read from these sources regularly....

And pease don't get me wrong, it's a worthwhile reading and authors do make a passionate argument for the revaluating how companies look at poor in emerging economies....I was just attacking the economic semantics of the main theme.


Vinod, Priti - By the way, you guys just inspired me to get some Orwell stuff (1984 or Animal Farm or whatever)...

rkumar
July 21st, 2005, 07:04 PM
Read what our communists have to say on latest Indo-US relations;

http://www.hindu.com/thehindu/holnus/001200507211611.htm

I can hardly make head or tail out of what they are trying to say...they appear to be makinh noise just because they have to...Most interesting thing is how they opposed NDA governemnt for nuclear weaponisation...Wish they oppose the Chinese and the Russionas same way..

RK^2

solankibs
July 21st, 2005, 07:43 PM
Thanks for providing link to such a good article, Rajendraji. True to every word.

Sehrawat Sahab; J= Justice
A= Action
T= Truth

rkumar
July 24th, 2005, 12:16 PM
Great communits who are fighting for BHEL. .......

http://www.ndtv.com/morenews/showmorestory.asp?slug=CPI+%28M%29+faces+flak+over +dubious+deal&id=76405

Let us see what our great communists will say about this dubious deal..

RK^2

dahiyarules
July 24th, 2005, 05:02 PM
Its an oft repeated phrase, but the only time it struck me ahrd was whe I heard Patrick Buchanan (Speechwrite for President Richard Nixon and Advisor to Preident Roanld Reagan, Later on ran for President on a freedom Party ticket), say it once: The only good communist is a dead communist. Communists do more harm than good.

I think the communist movemnt in india is more of a congregation of robbers and bandits, than a political force. I have seen them show off at durga pujas in bengal. Now communists dont beleive in religion, but here they play some important roles in the west bengal religious community.

The communists are no stooges of no one. Infact no one in China or russia even care about them. They are just a bunch of clowns. Mr. Karat must be glad he got his all expnses paid trip to China. by the way whats there to do in China for 7 days. Dude I cannot stand a moment of communist propoganda, and we are talking about 7 days. I hope he enjoys his cheap wrist watches, digital cameras, and other goodies he stuffs in his baggage, on the way bag. ALL EXPENSES PAID.

dahiyars
July 28th, 2005, 06:50 PM
Dear All

All of us are interested in an Indian society where

health for all would be possible,
education for all would be possible
gender discrimination will not be there
Huose for all will not be a dream
Safe drinking water will be available to all
Employment will not be a problem
Environmental pollution will be taken care of
I think that this type of ANOTHER WORLD is possible but how? Definitely not by Capitalism.If you donot subscribe to the above goals than the matter is different.

Dr R.S.Dahiya

rkumar
July 28th, 2005, 07:17 PM
Dear All

All of us are interested in an Indian society where

health for all would be possible,
education for all would be possible
gender discrimination will not be there
Huose for all will not be a dream
Safe drinking water will be available to all
Employment will not be a problem
Environmental pollution will be taken care of
I think that this type of ANOTHER WORLD is possible but how? Definitely not by Capitalism.If you donot subscribe to the above goals than the matter is different.

Dr R.S.Dahiya

All of above will be possible only when we men join our fellow being back in jungles and be like them...Dismantle all forms pof government and evry type of industry. Move to diffenet places according to climate and availability of food. NO agriculture nothing...just live on what is available naturally...As only healthy will live, we will have health for all. Water will not be polluted, so we will have safe drinking water for all. Collecting food will be the only work, so there will be emplyment for all.

If I have my say, this is the way I will like to see the human kind..

RK^2

dahiyarules
July 29th, 2005, 11:05 AM
Dude, What world do you live in?

Health for all is possible in a system, where people have insurance policies. SO that theres someone to assure you that your expenses would be taken care of, as they avail quality healthcare, and dont get to see their loved ones dying the corridors of a GOVERNMENT HOSPITAL.

When there are opportunities, there will be a requirement for high skilled labor. For that people need to go in for higher education. For that either their parents contribute to an education fund for their children, as they grow up, or people take out student loans to goto schools. And if not that, there would be numerous charitable organization out there that give scholarships to the needy and the deserving. This way children dont have to go to underfunded government eduction institutions.

House for all is possible by low cash downs, and low monthly installments on a housing loan. In most cases, its cheaper than what people pay in rent, and they gain ownership after paying off the loans. Under communism you can live in government constructed cheaply provided ghttos, with no option to move into a better home, becuase theres no such thing as private option. You are damned to live at a place for the rest of your lives.

Did you forge Chernobyl, and the amount of nuclear and other pollution created by the Soviet Union. As they dumped nuclear waste in the Caspean sea. Go and look at the Caspean sea, and its no more than a dead lake.

Emplyment wont be a problem becuase eople would get jobs and compenation in proportion to their skills. More the number opportunities out there, higher the employment. Onl capitalists get create an endless numbe rof opportunites. ever heard of the millions flocking illegally to the United States.

Well communism failed to provide for any of your dreams. Soviet union collapsed 16 years ago. China is opening up. Cuba and North Korea are nearly strangled. Wake up my friend. n the other hand look at the capitalistic economies of the world. They provide if not all, nearly everything that you desire.

You can argue all you want infavor of communism, but the fact that it has failed drastically, cannot be averted. Rather accept reality, or keep daydreaming.

deepender
August 11th, 2005, 10:04 AM
Now what to make out of this?

http://www.hindustantimes.com/news/181_1458169,0002.htm

rkumar
August 11th, 2005, 10:13 AM
Real dirty politics at work. Who cares for nation. People of Haryana must be watchful, else they will loose all the industries to other states. Unions have already played havoc with Faridabad industry. While maintaining good industrial relations, Haryana must deal effectively with these external political goodas. Haryana government should educate common man about the designs of these people. Such people must be isolated like diseases tissue as soon as possible. More and more news of increase in trade activism are apearing lately;

http://sify.com/finance/fullstory.php?id=13914139

My personal opinion is that trade unionism is doing more harm than good lately. Economies of regions like Kanpur have totally been devastated by these trade unions.

RK^2

rkumar
August 23rd, 2005, 07:41 PM
True to their colours, Commies have different rules for West Bengal and rest of the India. They are willing to allow 100% FDI in Airports in West Bengal, but oppose else where...

http://in.today.reuters.com/news/NewsArticle.aspx?type=businessNews&storyID=2005-08-23T131258Z_01_NOOTR_RTRJONC_0_India-213578-1.xml

RK^2

deepender
August 23rd, 2005, 08:23 PM
Unbelievable!

What double-speak!

like they say: khosada bhi mhara ar taant bhi mhari!

or another one (seems like I am in a light mood today! :-) ): chit bhi mhari, pat bhi mhari ar aanta mhare baap ka!

mukeshkumar007
August 27th, 2005, 05:36 PM
True to their colours, Commies have different rules for West Bengal and rest of the India. They are willing to allow 100% FDI in Airports in West Bengal, but oppose else where...

http://in.today.reuters.com/news/NewsArticle.aspx?type=businessNews&storyID=2005-08-23T131258Z_01_NOOTR_RTRJONC_0_India-213578-1.xml

RK^2
This time what Buddhadeb Bhattacharya has said is competely differ from the left's policy at centre. I think left parties at national level should change its policy on economic reform by following Buddhadeb Bhattacharya's words other wise un jitna besharma and nakta koi nahi hoga is india maie to....

http://www.ndtvprofit.com/homepage/storybusiness.asp?template=&from=top

rkumar
August 27th, 2005, 06:24 PM
Looks like pressure is building upon communists to fall in line. I see some rays of hope in current statements by West Bengal CM and Jyoti Basu. India badly needs resources to develop her infrastructure, else we will be in more and more troubles.

RK^2

mukeshkumar007
August 28th, 2005, 12:15 PM
Looks like pressure is building upon communists to fall in line. I see some rays of hope in current statements by West Bengal CM and Jyoti Basu. India badly needs resources to develop her infrastructure, else we will be in more and more troubles.

RK^2
Well said. Now they must have to change their old policiy which cost much to national interest. But I am doubtful that people like Prakash karat will accept it easily. as someone said Kute Ki Pooch sidi nahi hoti....

rkumar
August 29th, 2005, 08:35 PM
here is an interesting article on the decline of Indian communists;

http://www.saag.org/papers16/paper1523.html

Really very thought provoking..

RK^2

rkumar
September 8th, 2005, 03:45 PM
This is what is happening to farmers in China as per their own version;

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2005-09/08/content_3462652.htm

Who says communists care for poor any better?

RK^2

mukeshkumar007
September 8th, 2005, 04:03 PM
Who says communists care for poor any better?

RK^2
Uncleji, Aap to hath dho ke piche hi padh gaye inke. :) by the way it is clear that there is a big difference in what they say and what they do..

rkumar
September 8th, 2005, 04:24 PM
Uncleji, Aap to hath dho ke piche hi padh gaye inke. :) by the way it is clear that there is a big difference in what they say and what they do..

Bhai Mukesh agar communists hum Jatton ke peeche haath dho kar par sakte hain to hum kyoon nahi par sakte? Look at communist media (NDTV included), how they do Jat bashing..

RK^2

rajendersingh
September 8th, 2005, 05:03 PM
dear all,
i have not read what all good or bad has been written under this topic...reason being i know what they are, so no need ......

they are panther leeches..leeches suck the blood out of u... u all must have experienced it in villages..they do not spare the poor buffallows....
latest target is haryana.....jats should understand them...... only communist are to be blamed, nobody eles, for what all happened in gurgaon.....all jats should consider them untouchables.... if any body has any doubt about their true colours i can explain in person,i have seen them spoiling life of innocent students in hau hisar. communists..... not meant for jats

rkumar
September 8th, 2005, 08:43 PM
There are many breeds of communists in India. Think of someone like;

Born in Bengal and raised in Kerala.. what will you call such person? Its like Karella aur wo bhi Neem Chadha....

Such person is Arundhati Roy who goes around talking almost everything Indian, be it Indian army, Supreme Court. I feel like running a non-stop campaign against these peudo intellectuals who are hell bent upon running down everything what we call Indian..

RK^2

rajendersingh
September 8th, 2005, 09:22 PM
it was just that i joined jat college hisar after my 10+2 at mnss rai. and with in a week i got introduced to the real communism in india. there was a strike call in the college by these fellows. so the gate meeting was organised bu these fellows.
and the meeting started..... the local leader started giving reason for the strike.... it has got nothing to do with any issue concerning the college or the area.. he just started the issue of tirpura... many student were not even aware about its location.. when i asked about our concern for tirpura as college student... it was taken as if i was there target no one... and it realy helped me to understand these kalakars.
now they have choosen three kalakars to exploit haryana...
1. gupta the main culprit for gurgaon
2.mrs karat..the queen
3. subhashni ali.... a symbol ofsecularism

rkumar
September 8th, 2005, 09:26 PM
it was just that i joined jat college hisar after my 10+2 at mnss rai. and with in a week i got introduced to the real communism in india. there was a strike call in the college by these fellows. so the gate meeting was organised bu these fellows.
and the meeting started..... the local leader started giving reason for the strike.... it has got nothing to do with any issue concerning the college or the area.. he just started the issue of tirpura... many student were not even aware about its location.. when i asked about our concern for tirpura as college student... it was taken as if i was there target no one... and it realy helped me to understand these kalakars.
now they have choosen three kalakars to exploit haryana...
1. gupta the main culprit for gurgaon
2.mrs karat..the queen
3. subhashni ali.... a symbol ofsecularism

Rajender Singh Ji,

We need to counter their offensive with unity. I am sure we can match them in every possible way. This needs to be done professionally, else they would continue with their propaganda. Their actions are harming Jat-belt more than anything.

RK^2

rkumar
November 7th, 2005, 04:12 PM
This is what West Bengal CM has to say on Indo-US air exercise;

"We would not have protested if the exercises involved Russian or any other European air force, but we can never accept joint exercises with the US. The federal government in Delhi is compromising on India's independent foreign policy by encouraging stronger military relations with the US."

As expected, our communists have no problem if we hold such exercises with Russia. Worst part is that all our so-called centrist or rightist parties never counter communist propaganda vigorously. Unity among communists and division among all other political parties might spell doom some day for India. Even left backed Rajya Sabha MP retd. Gen Choudhary has argued in favour of joint Indo-US execise. Most interesting coincidence has been of China opposing the Indo-US nuclear agreement just about at the same time when our communists decided to oppose the Indo-US air exercise..

RK^2

priti
November 8th, 2005, 02:32 AM
FYI

Special Report: Democracy's drawbacks - Reform in IndiaThe Economist. London: Oct 29, 2005.Vol. 377, Iss. 8450; pg. 23

Sustained growth in India would be all the more impressive if the government could pass its reforms. But the road is blocked by politics
IN CITY after city, India is booming. Visit Delhi or Mumbai or Hyderabad, and they are full of shining new office towers and American-educated MBAs. The suburb of Palm Meadows (pictured) outside Bangalore, the home of high-tech and outsourcing, looks like the richer blocks of Los Angeles. The stockmarket has risen by more than 20% this year (see chart 1 on next page), though it slipped back a bit this month. In the second quarter, India's GDP grew by 8.1% compared with the same period last year. After annual growth of around 7% in 2003 and 2004 (see chart 2), the country is on course, many economists think, to repeat the trick this year and next.
India's IT companies are world-beaters. Firms such as Tata Consultancy Services, Infosys and Wipro, which owe their success to large, co-operative software-development projects for companies in America, are now beginning to compete directly with the big IT multinationals for large consultancy contracts. Out of this IT infrastructure has grown a huge business in "outsourcing" almost any business process that can be performed remotely, from answering a call in a help centre to interpreting an X-ray. The largest outsourcing firm relaunched itself in September as Genpact, partially disguising its origins as the Indian back-office of General Electric, and expects to exceed $1 billion in annual sales by 2008.
These service businesses have thrived because they have capitalised on India's strengths--computer skills, fluency in English--and are not hostage to its weaknesses. Yet those weaknesses are all too obvious, and are the reason why India on many counts still lags behind its neighbour-rival, China. India has lousy infrastructure, bumbling and burdensome regulation and restrictive labour laws. And economic reform now appears to have stalled in political recriminations.
Last year's election gave no party a clear majority. A delicate arrangement allowed Manmohan Singh, of the left-of-centre Congress party, to take office as prime minister, while a committee was set up to negotiate policy between Congress and its coalition partners (together called the United Progressive Alliance or UPA) on the one side, and the Left Front of Communists and other left-wing parties on the other. The committee, however, has not managed to meet since June, though on October 26th there were rumours that it was about to. Meanwhile, the Communists--without whom the coalition has no majority in Parliament--are getting truculent. They staged a four-month boycott of the co-ordination committee to press their policies and then, in concert with the trade unions, called a one-day general strike on September 29th. It was ignored in many places, but the banks, along with the Communist stronghold of Kolkata (Calcutta), were paralysed.
When Mr Singh was finance minister, in the 1990s, it was he who pushed through the measures that kick-started reform in India. Without the support of the Left Front, however, he can do nothing more. His most significant legislative achievement to date has been a law that guarantees 100 days' employment to every household in India's 200 poorest districts. Though the Left Front loves it, many economists reckon that much of the money--as much as 1% of GDP, by some estimates--will be wasted or stolen.
The list of what Mr Singh has been prevented from doing is much longer. Completely ruled out has been any progress on liberalising India's notoriously rigid labour laws. The key battleground is a rule preventing any company with more than 100 employees from making redundancies without obtaining approval from local labour boards. According to the Left Front, this protects workers from unscrupulous employers. In fact, it makes employers wary of taking on new staff, opening new factories or, in the case of smaller companies, growing beyond the threshold of 100. It protects unionised labour, in short, at the expense of those not in work.
The Left Front, which draws most of its support from organised labour, does not greatly care. Its eyes are on state elections due next year in West Bengal (whose capital is Kolkata) and Kerala, the two biggest states where the Communists are strong. Those who are losing out from unreformed labour laws are hundreds of millions of people now marginally employed in the countryside. These people need jobs in manufacturing if India is to improve its record on poverty, as well as growth. Jobs could be found in the labour-hungry textile industry, especially now that, with the ending of the developed world's protectionist Multi-Fibre Arrangement, India's textile exports are booming. As it is, a jobless boom is going on in manufacturing, which is growing at 7% annually, but without increasing employment.
Touches of xenophobia
India's antiquated laws are not only preventing it from exploiting the textile boom as successfully as China (whose textile businesses are so successful that they provoke retaliation). They are also pushing it far behind China in terms of foreign direct investment. FDI has been the most important driver of China's growth, not just because of the money involved (more than $60 billion last year) but also because of the technology, expertise, marketing relationships and much else that this money represents. India's showing has been far less impressive: about an eleventh of China's haul last year (see chart 3).
One chief reason for the discrepancy is that India imposes caps on FDI in a host of economically important, or politically sensitive, sectors: insurance, aviation, coal-mining, media and much else. Chief among these is retailing. Though franchise operations are allowed, foreign direct ownership is banned, which explains why even Delhi's smartest shopping areas are scruffy and chaotic places with limited stock.
Mr Singh's government would like to raise the caps, and had some success at first. It proposed in February, for example, that the cap for telecoms investment should be lifted from 49% to 74%, and this has just, at last, been approved. But the Left Front is violently opposed to any tinkering with the rules for FDI in retailing. Its leaders appear to accept that the advent of, say, Wal-Mart would generate many jobs, since much of what the company sold would be domestically produced (Wal-Mart spends $15 billion a year in China). But they worry that millions of small retailers would be put out of work. For those who want to move out of farm work, a small shop is often their first choice.
Mr Singh remains optimistic, but on slender grounds. With the Left Front so adamant, nothing is likely to happen. And the same is true of privatisation, or its younger sibling, disinvestment, the selling of minority stakes in state-controlled companies. From the very start of its tenure, the government was forced by the Left Front to agree not to privatise nine so-called "crown jewels", or leading state-owned companies. But the Left has taken advantage of its position to go beyond what was originally agreed. When, in June, the government announced plans to sell a 10% stake in Bharat Heavy Electricals, an engineering firm, the Left Front vigorously objected. Although the sale does not require legislation, and so could be enacted by the minority government, the government shows no stomach for doing so.
Another disappointment--though the word is perhaps inappropriate, since no one ever expected a Congress government to have the necessary courage--is the failure even to attempt to do anything about the mountain of subsidies that distort the Indian economy. Often badly targeted, benefiting middle-class people more than the poorest, they consume a shocking 14-15% of GDP.
Worst of all, Indian politics may actually be retreating to its bureaucratic past. Take oil pricing, a complex statist rigmarole that had been moving from the hands of government to those of a regulator. Under Mr Singh, price decisions are again being taken by the government.
The prime minister's instincts are sometimes depressingly bureaucratic. Faced with obvious and longstanding problems, he commissions a study on them. The latest strategy document appeared in September from a specially convened National Manufacturing Competitiveness Council. It listed the most pernicious difficulties for manufacturers: power shortages, taxes and the "inspector raj". No one was surprised by these, or felt much hope they would be fixed.
Removing the brake
It may seem odd, if reform is so important, that the economy is doing so well without it. There are a number of reasons. The biggest is that the Indian economy is so strong, structurally and cyclically, that it can ride out a period of wobbly policy. India's young population gives it a fast-growing workforce and a declining proportion of dependants. Over the next few decades, that will be good for savings and investment. Industry, meanwhile, has recovered from a splurge of over-investment in the mid-1990s. It has improved efficiency and is now both reaping the benefits and investing again in new capacity.

Continued in the next post....

priti
November 8th, 2005, 02:33 AM
....Continued from previous post

The government started to get out of business's way in the 1980s and, especially, after a balance-of-payments crisis in 1991. At that point Mr Singh, as finance minister, was given the freedom to bring in reforms by an unexpectedly brave prime minister, Narasimha Rao. Since then, government has been unable to put an absolute crimp on growth. Many important reforms--especially trade liberalisation, but also the dismantling of the "licence raj" of bureaucratic obstacles to enterprise--are well in train and not in reverse.
Almost every budget since 1991, including this year's, has cut import tariffs and freed more industries from "reservation" for small firms, a big hindrance to competitiveness in businesses that might benefit from economies of scale. This year, moreover, saw the introduction of one long-planned reform, a standardised value-added tax imposed at state level. Typically, politics meant that not all states fell into line, and implementation has been patchy. Yet the tax may eventually not only bring new fiscal stability, but also reduce the burden of cascading excise and sales taxes that is one of the biggest handicaps facing manufacturers. Modest, piecemeal reform, in other words, is not quite dead.
The government's priorities--investment in infrastructure, agriculture, basic education and primary health care--are also right, given that the big macroeconomic stuff was mostly done in the 1990s. But they all need money, and that requires fixing the budget. India's fiscal deficit is now 8% or so of GDP if both state and central governments are counted--an improvement after six years of double-digit deficits, but still too high. Public finances have been in a mess for so long that it seems almost impolite in government circles to mention them.
The deficit, which goes largely on interest payments (40% of recurrent spending), defence, subsidies and civil-service wages and pensions, leaves little room for big capital investments. Some new airports, ports and roads are being built, and the "Golden Quadrilateral" highway, linking India's four biggest cities, is being expanded to six lanes. But Mr Singh wants a good deal more. Improving India's infrastructure, he says, is his top priority. Hence his government's zeal for "public-private partnerships" to finance and construct it.
A standard concession agreement is to be produced soon, modelled on successes with toll roads, where concessionaires have put in competitive bids for government grants. For some projects, the government does not need parliamentary approval and can proceed anyway. Other projects, however, such as airports, will run into objections from the left. It is therefore hard to see these partnerships making much of a dent in what Montek Singh Ahluwalia, the prime minister's chief planner, calls India's "infrastructure deficit".
Might the left-wing parties ever become less obstreperous, and realise that reforms like these are of benefit to all Indians? It is possible. Jairam Ramesh, a Congress member of parliament who played a big role in writing the "common minimum programme" that defines relations between the UPA and the Left Front, floats the interesting theory that, now that Congress has enacted the Employment Guarantee Act that the Left was so keen on, the Left may prove a little keener on asset sales. They would, after all, be a way of paying for all those jobs.
From the Left Front come faint signs of accommodation. Prakash Karat, the general secretary of the CPI (M), the most important party within the group, is, like Mr Ramesh, adamant that full-scale privatisation of profitable public enterprises is not on the agenda. But he says the party is "ready for a discussion" on how to raise resources for spending on the poor.
Among the most eloquent advocates of a re-think is, in fact, a senior Communist, Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee, chief minister of West Bengal, a state of 82m people run for 28 years by the Communists and their allies. On September 30th, the day after Communist-affiliated trade unions had brought his capital, Kolkata to a halt, he could scarcely conceal his exasperation. He told The Economist that the trade unions--and many of his party comrades--had become "one-dimensional", representing only the interests of the 30m or so workers in India's "organised" sector.
Mr Bhattarcharjee concedes that some of his colleagues in Delhi do not seem to grasp that economic reform could benefit a much bigger number of workers than those who belong to unions. If they do, they perhaps see political benefits in ignoring it. But "Here, we are running a government. We have to fulfil the aspirations of the people." To that end, he is trying to turn Kolkata into a hub for the information-technology industry by declaring it a "public utility" where strikes are banned, and has started going abroad to bang the drum for inward investment.
Jobs for the poor
Such enthusiasm may start to shift the political balance back towards reform, but it looks unlikely. For the foreseeable future, both left-wing intransigence and lack of decent infrastructure--in particular, a chronic shortage of electricity--will constrain India's growth. An average annual rate of 6-7%, as in the past decade, does not seem a tall order. But a gear-shift to a durable growth rate of 8-10% still seems out of reach.
Without it, that burgeoning workforce may seem less of an advantage. Shankar Acharya, a former government economist now at a Delhi think-tank, worries that between now and 2051 nearly 60% of India's population increase will come from four "populous, poor, slow-growing northern states with weak infrastructure, education systems and governance".
China has sucked surplus agricultural labour into factories by the tens of millions. India's manufacturing industries, by contrast, have progressed by becoming more productive. They are still not a big source of rural employment. As a good liberal economist, Mr Singh says he does not believe in having an "industrial policy" or picking favourites. Create decent infrastructure, and industry will come--and he sees huge potential, as do many others, in food-processing. His finance minister has spoken of 12m new jobs in the textile sector alone in the next five years.
They are sorely needed. India's information-technology firms are world-beaters, but the entire IT and office-service industry employs only about 1m people. None of the Asian tigers, not even Singapore, managed its rapid climb into the ranks of middle-income and rich countries without a boom in export-oriented manufacturing. India is unlikely to be different.
When he speaks of following the "Chinese model", Mr Singh seems to admit this. But it remains sadly true that the free market that has helped the tigers so much often works better in Communist China than in India--not least thanks to India's own democratically elected Communist politicians.
[Illustration]Caption: Too many are still losing out

rkumar
November 9th, 2005, 03:32 PM
Dear Friends,

Please take some time off to read the following article;.......................................... .................................................. .....
INDIA: FOREIGN POLICY UNDER LEFTISTS’ SIEGE

by Dr Subhash Kapila

Introductory Observations
Last year when the Congress Government (with the Indian Communist Parties as the main coalition partner) came into power this author in his paper: “India’s New Government and its Foreign Policy Options: An Analysis” (SAAG Paper No 1049 dated 07/06/2005) made the following concluding observations, which bear repetition:

“India’s foreign policies cannot be made captive to the delusional non-alignment gladiators or India’s Communist Parties who have never been known for their objectivity or to India’s minority Indian Muslim vote banks where every issue is viewed in a Pan-Islamic context.’
“In today’s global security environment and the international strategic realities for the next 50 years, India neither has the luxury nor the time to find new anchors for her foreign policies from the fossilized remains of Nehruvian Non-alignment or her “presumed power-potential” not concretized so far”
“In the last eight years the center-piece of India’s foreign policy has been the evolution of a strong political and strategic partnership with the United States. United States and India recognized the mutual convergences and imperatives and have been engaged in establishing a substantive bi-lateral relationship”
“India’s national security and economic interests dictate that this is India’s only foreign policy option available. India’s national aspirations can best be met by formulating India’s foreign policy inter-dependent with United States national interests and not in opposition to it”
It was a measure of great professional gratification that India’s Ministry of External Affairs, in a paper on the official letterhead of the Ministry, reproduced by the University of Arizona (USA) on its website echoed the following on the very first page:

“Confirmed progress toward world power status is a top objective of New Delhi. As Dr Subhash Kapila writes for the South Asia Analysis Group (SAAG), there are three main structured components that shape Indian foreign policy. He lists the global security environment, existing global power structure and United States re-definition of South Asia priorities” as the framework for future Indian foreign policy decisions. Kapila describes an air of cooperation within the Indian external affairs apparatus over the past decade, noting that foreign policies “have enjoyed bi-partisan political support domestically” since the 1990s (Kapila). However in 2004, the elections “witnessed a change of political complexion of the government in India” and that it “raises uncertainties” on foreign policy.

Undoubtedly, the pronouncements of India’s new Foreign Minister did raise a fair share of uncertainties besides the “Foreign Policy” component of the Congress Party Election Manifesto (2004) composed by him was critical of the on-going process with the United States.

Somewhere, along the line, better sense prevailed, presumably in the institutional base of the Ministry of External Affairs and re-enforced by the Prime Minister and the Defence Minister, that stayed the main thrust of India’s foreign policy. This has led in 2005 to the landmark United States – India commitments, ensuring their 21st century national security interests namely:

Defense Relationship Agreement (June 2005)
Joint Agreement July 18, 2005(signed by President Bush and PM Manmohan Singh)
In the last three months after the signing of these accords, an extensive debate has taken place in informed circles in India. However, this debate seems to have concentrated more on the centerpiece of the July 18, Joint Agreement, namely, the US-India civil nuclear energy deal.

However, in terms of India’s foreign policy, the Communist Parties group, forming the major component of the coalition led by ruling Congress Government have rejected outright the two US-India agreements above. They have threatened mass agitations on the streets on this issue and also seem set to corner their ruling partners in the winter session of the Parliament from November 23, 2005.

Nothing highlights more the hold of India’s Communists Parties than the sight of India’s Foreign Minister, Natwar Singh, (besieged on the Volcker Committee report issue). visiting Communist Party leaders to rally support for his continuation in office. As per media reports, the case was being made out that since he was of the Nehruvian mould he was being targeted by USA.

Before analyzing the Indian Communist Parties attitudes and approaches to the present issues, it would be in order to spell out some guiding principles for India’s political parties on the issue.

India’s Foreign Policy – The Touchstone for Analysis by India’s Political Parties

India’s political parties must bear in mind the following factors when thinking about foreign policy:

Foreign policies of any nation do not function in a vacuum. They are a product of the prevailing, international environment and the countries indices in terms of geo-strategic location, economic health, military strength and domestic stability
India’s foreign policy should be primarily determined by India’s national security interests and economic interests
India’s foreign policy, therefore, cannot be based on ideological considerations
India’s foreign policy should enjoy bi-partisan political support to make it credible in international relations.
If it is conceded that India’s foreign policy should stand on the principle of securing India’s national security interests, then:

India’s political parties can have no two opinions on this principle; debate can be on the nuances
In the prevailing international environment, India must emerge as a global power. This too is in India’s national security interests
India in its foreign policy options has to determine that in the international power system, which country or countries can facilitate India’s rise to global power status.
It needs to be recognized that India on its own cannot become a global power. It needs facilitation by others
Lack of proper appreciation of the above principle and factors lead to Indian political parties inappropriate responses to India’s foreign policy. The chief example of which is the unrealistic approaches of the Indian Communist Parties to India’s foreign policy challenges.

Indian Communist Parties Monochromatic Approach to India’s Foreign Policy

India’s Communist Parties have all along adopted a monochromatic approach to India’s foreign policy, and which most of the time has been at great variance with the prevalent mood in the country. Some notable features that need to be recounted are:

Though not connected with foreign policy, but indicative of communist mindset, was that while India was fighting for freedom, the Communist Party came out in support of Britain, the moment the Soviet Union joined the Allies in World War II
During the run-up to the 1962 Sino-Indian conflict, India’s Communist Parties were more supportive of China’s stand, than India’s national security interests; for them China was right and India was wrong
The “China is right and India is wrong” syndrome continues to prevail even today
The Communist Parties in India have adopted a single point approach to India’s foreign policy. Everything today that India does is seen through the “Chinese Prism” and not through India’s national security interests.

This can best be illustrated by an encounter that this author had with one of the leading lights of the Communist Party (M) at a diplomatic reception. The conversation went something like this, in brief:

Why are you against the USA and the US-India Defense Framework and July 18 Agreement

The answer was: Because USA is anti-China and the agreement seems to be aimed at China
When questioned as to what were his comments on China’s anti-Indian stances in terms of nuclear weaponisation of Pakistan etc there was no answer, just a polite excuse me and walk away
It thus becomes abundantly clear that:

The Communist Parties in India approach India’s foreign policy issues not on the principal determinant of India’s national security interest
The approach is determined by China’s national security interests
If the above is wrong and refuted, then this author has a number of posers for India’s Communist Parties in their approaches to foreign policy issues.

Foreign Policy Posers for the Indian Communist Parties

The major Communist Party (M), which is a leading supporter of the Congress Coalition Government may like to provide answers to the following posers;

How are India’s national security interests jeopardized by a strategic partnership with USA?
Why has China opposed India’s bid for a United Nations Security Council Permanent Membership Seat?
Why has China been opposing American efforts in the Nuclear Suppliers Group and IAEA for making India as an “exceptional case’ so that India could be provided civil nuclear energy equipment and resources
Do China and Russia have the clout and the capabilities to propel India into a global power status?
Would China even ever have the intention to do so?
Who strategically and economically facilitated China’s rise into a global power status?

rkumar
November 9th, 2005, 03:32 PM
The Indian Communist Parties will have no cogent answers to all of the above questions. As for the last question they would hesitate and hate to admit that it was the United States, which did so in late 1970s and 1980s when China was in a quasi-strategic alliance with the United States against a fellow Communist nation – the former Soviet Union.

So, they should explain if what was good for China then why does it not remain good for India, too?

The Indian Prime Minister Should Breach the Leftist Siege of India’s Foreign Policy

India’s foreign policy cannot become an ideological plaything of the Indian Communist Parties, nor can the Indian Government allow itself to become hamstrung by foreign policy becoming an endless controversy in UPA’s Coordination Committee.

The threats of street demonstrations against India’s present foreign policy initiatives in the last three months and the Leftist demonstrations in Kolkatta and Kalaikunda against Indo-US military exercises are a serious distortion of India’s external image and the credibility of its foreign policy initiatives.

Will India’s Cabinet Committee on Security have to go into emergency sessions, every time the Communists threaten some foreign policy development? The country would also like to know why the Communist Parties did not conduct demonstrations when the Russian troops arrived in Rajasthan for military exercises or when Chinese military observers come to observe Indian military exercises.

India’s foreign policy under the present Congress Party stands besieged on India’s external relationships on the following issues:

The Communist Parties are notably against the transformation of the Indo-US relations to a strategic partnership
The Communists interfered in India’s West Asia policy leading to Israel’s riposte of examining an Israel-Pakistan relationship
The Communists have been supporting a pro-Maoist insurgency Nepal policy by India
The Communists have an influences on India’s Bangladesh policy
The Communist Parties insist on the Congress reverting to India’s non-alignment policies
The Communist Parties oppose an essential component of India’s foreign policy to emerge as a liberalized and open economy. They oppose FDI in areas which could kick-start India’s economy
The Communists oppose the Indo-US civil nuclear energy deal
India’s Prime Minister should awaken to the reality, that:

Indian Communist Parties have no understanding of Indian national security interests and issues
India’s Communist Parties have acquired an over-riding influence on India’s foreign policies formulation without the accompanying accountability that should go with it
While the Congress Government may have its compulsions to kow-tow to the Communist Parties dictates on domestic policies issues, it can ill-afford to be dictated by Communist Parties on foreign policy issues. In this sphere, not only are India’s national security interests at stake but also India’s standing and credibility in the international arena.

Nothing is more piquant than to witness India’s Foreign Minister now singing the Communist Parties line, (under pressure on the Volcker Committee Report) qualifying that it is his opinion as the Foreign Minister of India. Surely, he is the Foreign Minister of the Congress Party Government in power of which the Prime Minister is Dr Manmohan Singh. Surely, he was playing to the Communist gallery.

It is high time that the Prime Minister breaks the siege of India’s foreign policy by the Communist Parties, if not in interests of India, at least, for the interests of the Congress Party.

Concluding Observations

The Communist Parties in India like to camouflage their ideological mind-set approaches to foreign policy in the garb of “protecting India’s non-alignment policies”. Indians at large have discarded their support for non-alignment as a foreign policy precept. This is evident from the ongoing debates in informed circles. Nobody doubts the patriotism of India’s Communist Parties leaders. What is being disputed is their approach to India’s foreign policy. They must also take a rational and realistic approach to India’s national security interests. Their crusading political creed needs to be shorn from external interests and subordinated to India’s national security interests.

(The author is an International Relations and Strategic Affairs analyst. He is the Consultant, Strategic Affairs with South Asia Analysis Group. Email drsubhashkapila@yahoo.com)

rkumar
November 14th, 2005, 02:43 PM
China needs watching



B. RAMESH BABU


Posted online: Monday, November 14, 2005 at 0000 hours IST



The inexplicable Indian habit of giving the benefit of doubt to China emerges every now and then despite hard evidence to the contrary. Recently, when Defence Minister Pranab Mukherjee referred to the ’62 border conflict as a war with China, a lowly vice-consul in the Chinese Embassy pounced on him. The vice-consul changed tack the next day and declared that his admonition was a remark from a friendly country. Amazingly, he got away with it!

That the ongoing negotiations between India and China provide the most propitious opportunity in decades to move forward on the border dispute is true. India should do all that is possible—and a bit more—to end quickly this lurking threat. But things are not exactly in our hands. China effectively occupies almost all of the difficult terrain in dispute.



Relations between two countries of continental dimensions that go back in centuries are bound to be complex. China has been going back and forth on Sikkim. During the two years, its posture has been hardening all along the border. Compared to 2003, incidents of Chinese Frontier Guards violating the LoC have doubled in 2004, according to China expert, Srikanth Kondapalli. China is once again relapsing to its age-old stance of India’s “illegal” occupation of Arunachal Pradesh. Although Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has said that in settling the borders, populated areas would not be disturbed—implying non-negotiability of the Tawang tact—China has started fishing in the troubled waters of the Tawang and Bomdila districts.

Since ’87, when the current round of negotiations began, China has been throwing up differing but nice sounding “concepts” for settling the border dispute. The most frequent among them are “just”, “fair”, “reasonable and mutually acceptable”, and—the latest—”on the basis of mutual understanding”. However, the intent behind the parade of phrases seems to be to lull India while it carries on with its “cartographic aggression”, quickly followed by by effective occupation on the sly—an established Chinese trademark.

Furthermore, we should not forget even for a moment the fact of China’s collusion with Pakistan on all fronts — political, military, strategic and, above all, in the nuclear/missile fields. It is good to remind ourselves that Pakistan gave away thousands of square kilometres of “Indian” territory to the then acknowledged enemy state of China, which enabled the latter to build the Aksai Chin highway connecting Tibet and its own territory to the north and east of Ladakh. This has facilitated China’s reign of repression in Tibet. As a quid pro quo, Pakistan was accorded a special place in the Chinese scheme of fishing in the troubled waters of South Asia.

Then there were the clandestine Chinese military exports to Iran started in 1981 and were nurtured throughout the latter’s war with Iraq in the ’90s. As the weapons relationship gathered steam, China made the controversial sale of HY-2 Silkworm missiles to Iran. The US retaliated by freezing liberalisation of technology sales to China. In January ’88, China gave private assurances to the US that it would stop the export of Silkworm missiles to Iran. However in ’96 Iran tested an advanced Chinese C-802 anti-ship cruise missile. The US once again pressured China to stop the shipments. In September 1997, the Clinton administration received a pledge from the Chinese to stop further sales of the missiles to Iran.

Pledge or no pledge China’s charade continued—and continues till today. Export of nuclear and missile related assistance is in harness now. Richard L. Russell, in his recent book, Strategic Contest: Weapons Proliferation and War in the Greater Middle East, says that China plays “the cat and mouse game” of strategic security with the US in West Asia and East Asia. China’s policy and tactics regarding the export of WMDs and nuclear proliferation on the sly to Saudi Arabia, Iran and Pakistan, are best characterised as “cheat, retreat, and cheat again,” Russell asserts.

Be that as it may, what is of immediate concern to us is that Pakistan and Dr A.Q Khan were the clandestine conduits for this nefarious enterprise dating back to the 1980s. The global intelligence community is well acquainted with the sordid details of the secret linkages in the multibillion dollar fraudulent arms smuggling enterprise. India periodically protests to the US and “the international community”. But I have yet to across a single statement of criticism, disapproval or even a pro-forma protest for the record by any prominent Left leader on this!


The writer is an adjunct professor, School of Public Policy, ICFAI University, Hyderabad

rkumar
November 21st, 2005, 08:49 PM
I am sure by this time many members must be thinking that I am anti communist to the core. Yes, partly this is true as I find them most irresponsible and erratic people. Here is the latest on the wedding of the grandson of Harkishan Singh Surjeet. Poor old communist...literally competing with the capitalists when it comes to wedding celebrations on grand scale;

http://www.southasianmedia.net/cnn.cfm?id=251284&category=Politics&Country=INDIA

One feels like laughing watching our great communist in Imperial attire..

Hope members also know about Jyoti Basu's son's involement in evading customs duty on a very expensive car. ..These the workers friends...LOL

RK^2

devdahiya
November 21st, 2005, 09:31 PM
I am sure by this time many members must be thinking that I am anti communist to the core. Yes, partly this is true as I find them most irresponsible and erratic people. Here is the latest on the wedding of the grandson of Harkishan Singh Surjeet. Poor old communist...literally competing with the capitalists when it comes to wedding celebrations on grand scale;

http://www.southasianmedia.net/cnn.cfm?id=251284&category=Politics&Country=INDIA

One feels like laughing watching our great communist in Imperial attire..

Hope members also know about Jyoti Basu's son's involement in evading customs duty on a very expensive car. ..These the workers friends...LOL

RK^2





They had been doing these things successfully in past. Kar lo kya kar loge inka? Let us face the truth.............Tum bhi maje karo hum bhi maje krein...desh jaye bhadd mei...............Let us not have doubts about their design. It is the general public who has to face the music. shameless is the word but then this had been happening to this land of great people..........it is a worst slavery than that we faced in the hands of British.