Museum on caste

By RAMA LAKSHMI The Times of India 17 Apr 2006

After 16 years of debate and delay in the US Congress and Senate, the Smithsonian Institution finally announced this January the plan to open a National Museum of African American History and Culture. The museum will be one of the largest in the US dedicated to explore the tortured history of African Americans, their struggles against slavery, racism and injustice, and also to celebrate their triumphs. The museum, estimated to open in 2016, will tell the story of the African American experience through photographs, video films, oral histories, archival documents, letters, diaries, posters, music, art and literature. The legacy of racism in the US is not very different from our own shackles of the caste system.

The caste system is arguably even more degrading and pernicious than racism in the US. Many believe that the biggest social cleavage in India is not religion or gender, but it is caste. Despite progressive constitutional guarantees and abolition of untouchability, discrimination continues. Can we envisage a museum on the caste system in India? To do that, we may have to think beyond the notion of museums that present our history as a series of archaeological artefacts and royal treasures. A museum need not just be about archaeological artefacts, it is also a repository of collective memory. There is a profusion of story-telling museums around the world today that are built around people’s histories.

A caste museum is one way of confronting the existence of a parallel narrative (of Dalits) that has remained invisible from mainstream historiography. The experience of caste in India is an integral part of our history and permeates every aspect of our collective experience — history, identity, religion, economy, rituals, justice, and nation-building.

There are a lot of Indians who would dismiss caste as a thing of the past. They claim to live in a caste-neutral 21st century. If indeed, it is something we have overcome, then the story truly belongs in a history museum — of how a crippling social system was defeated by us. The nation and future generations will benefit from an acknowledgement of this past. But is it really over? Problems as old and deeply embedded like this do not disappear by a set of laws enacted for over 50 years, but they have to be debated and confronted at shared platforms.

Museums are sites of dialogue about traumatic episodes of history and also of community pride — the black history museums in the US, post-apartheid museums in South Africa, the Holocaust museums, the aboriginal museums in Australia, post-Soviet museums in the Baltics and the recent on-line Chinese Cultural Revolution Museum. There are those who would say that this may only deepen our social divisions. But such a museum need not be a confrontational site. It could also be a site to celebrate the prideful moments in Dalit history, literature and art.

For example, how many school-going children read about Dalit figures like Jhalkari Bai and Udha Devi, who courageously fought the British army? What would be more fitting than a tribute to these a gallery attached to the figures in National Gandhi Museum at Rajghat? Our history tends to be formal, inflexible and academic — a grand national narrative that subsumes the various strands of social and public histories. It is time we present different and differing approaches to our culture and identity. We need to go beyond fixed narratives because history has to be constructed continually and make room for other instruments of social memory — whether it is the history of our caste system, independence movement, partition history, Emergency, or even the Aryan migration theory.

Whose stories belong in the museum? Surely, not just those of the privileged. I don’t suggest replacing one version with another, but creating spaces in a museum where both stories can live together and engage with each other’s truths. A museum’s story need not be static and can be continually and collectively built. The museum of the caste system can be a dynamic locus of reflection and reconciliation. The writer, a journalist for The Washington Post, is on leave studying museology

The Friedan Mystique

Dan Seligman Commentary Magazine April 2006

Of course, even if The Feminine Mystique is rated a dreadful book, there remains the possibility that its author did a great deal for American women. This view will seem intuitively plausible to anybody who believes that feminism itself did a great deal for them. There is certainly no doubt that Betty Friedan was one of, arguably the most important of, the movement’s “founding mothers” (to quote again from the many obituaries). Possessed of boundless energy, an instinct for leadership, and self-confidence verging on arrogance, if not megalomania—even the most fawning obituaries felt obliged to mention her dictatorial impulses—she seemed always to be out front during the formative years.

In 1966 she was the main founder of the National Organization for Women (NOW), and in the 1970’s played significant roles in creating the National Women’s Political Caucus (slogan: Make Policy, Not Coffee) and the National Abortion Rights Action League. And the evidence suggests that, despite its flaws, The Feminine Mystique did succeed in articulating the grievances of a certain class of American women while simultaneously packaging an ideology for the nascent movement.

Well, what did feminism do for American women? Many people would argue that it had at least one important and incontestable achievement: the opening-up of broad new career opportunities for women, and especially for those with a claim to intelligence and education, like many of the suburban homemakers described in The Feminine Mystique. But this argument needs to be seriously qualified.

During the years in which the movement was taking shape, something else was happening: an explosion in the number of educated women: the number of female college graduates in America more than tripled (to around 5 million) from 1940 to 1970. It is inconceivable that this swelling supply could have long existed without creating its own demand in the labor markets. With or without a feminist movement, educated women would have seen opportunities opening up. Indeed, it is fascinating to speculate on a counterfactual scenario wherein they would have received their opportunities without the unpleasant side-effects of movement feminism: without sexual warfare, affirmative action, boundless litigation, and maybe even without the raging political correctness that would make it increasingly troublesome, even for a president of Harvard, to mention the possibility of innate differences between men and women.

A difficulty for anyone who wants to believe in Betty Friedan and also in the feminist movement is that she herself became a critic of it. During the 1970’s, she was increasingly unhappy with its emphasis on lesbian concerns and obsessive anti-male rhetoric. In 1981, she produced The Second Stage, a book intended to bring feminism back to its senses—to reestablish its relevance for heterosexual women who expected to marry and have children. Referring to women’s “femininity,” she complained in the opening chapter: “We blush even to use that word now.” Her new position brought on breaks with other feminist icons, including Bella Abzug and Gloria Steinem.

But The Second Stage did not have the resonance of The Feminine Mystique, and utterly failed in its effort to force the movement back on track. Part of the problem here was that even while disagreeing with the movement’s radicals, she shared many of their basic assumptions. Like them, Friedan assumed that the women’s movement must always be on the Left. Like them, she took it as axiomatic that, aside from certain reproductive differences, men and women were indistinguishable. After the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, Jimmy Carter began talking about a military draft and indicated that such a draft would include women; quite a few women proved unthrilled by the prospect, and The Second Stage, which appears to have been written at about this time, registers concern about such women. They are said to be demanding equal rights while failing to accept equal responsibility.

Finally, we learn from The Feminine Mystique that her own marriage was a shambles. This brings us to an inescapable question: whether the unhappiness Friedan purported to find among affluent suburban women was somehow reflecting her own wretched situation. In principle, of course, a book’s findings should be judged on the evidence put forward by its author and not by details of the author’s life. In principle, the problem that has no name could have been discovered by a suburban housewife who thought her own life was marvelous. But when an author is passionately committed to sensational new ideas for which the evidence is shaky, it is impossible to avoid suspicions about her own problems and predispositions.

Fusion and synthesis

We often hear the cliché that truth emerges through the clash of opinions in the "marketplace of ideas." This is the ideal of democracy, of unregulated free speech, of political factions, and to a certain limited extent, it is obviously true. We wouldn't want to live in a place where someone's version of truth was handed down from on high, and we were not free to discover it.

But there is lower truth and higher Truth, discovered truth and revealed Truth, inductive truth and antecedent Truth. In each case, the former is the type of truth that may be fought out and determined in the marketplace of ideas, while the latter is only apprehended in another way. In that case, fighting it out the way you would a spending bill, a scientific debate, or a legal case would only muddy the water and debase and distance ourselves from the Truth we are seeking.

The sort of Truth discussed on this blog does not emerge through contra-versy, that is, "flowing against." Rather, it is only achieved through con-versing, or "flowing together." All of my work is the end product of years of "conversing" that you cannot know about. Nor can you know about my subservience to, and reverence for, those who surpass my understanding.

That is, it is a work of fusion and synthesis that could only be achieved by dwelling in a multitude of disparate and outwardly contradictory particulars and allowing their higher truth to emerge at their own rhythm and pace. This truth cannot be imposed from on high. Nevertheless, once it is revealed, it reveals itself to be from "on high." It is a higher truth that flows from a "center," not on the same plane as the lower truths it synthesizes.

When I talk about this truth, there is a knee-jerk instinct in some to treat it as any other truth available on a lower plane. This reflects the independent American spirit of "everyone's entitled to their own opinion." Yes, that's true, as far as it goes. posted by Gagdad Bob Sunday, April 02, 2006 at 6:29 AM 3 comments

Consensus, synchronicity, and solidarity

Tusar N Mohapatra said... Construed almost synonymous with democracy, the idea of plurality and choice is also lapped up by the market economy. The more the merrier, is the new refrain. But what about consensus, synchronicity and solidarity? Are they not equally significant?

This war between the modern and the post-modern has forced upon us lopsided priorities and warped perspectives. The fact that the divergent concepts must be applied in their respective locus is easily forgotten, and the contra attempted to corner browny points.

Then what about creating such a consensus on a particular knowledge system or a philosophy? Can’t it be attempted in an informed environment by employing dispassionate discourse? Or, at least, is it not worth striving for?

Sri Aurobindo holds a unique position among the modern day thinkers of the world. He has lived through the tradition of the east as well as the west for quite a long time and has not only delved deep into the soul of both the cultures, but also written about them extensively in English with a universal sweep.

Where shall I go!

Bishnupada Sethi

bishnupada.sethi@undp.org

Leaving this land,
For which I am only a trustee
As a tribal, I am duty bound
To pass it on to the generation next!

Who would shift the banyan tree!
And the village spirits lying underneath.
What would happen to the streams?
Singing praises in the names of God,
And the rocks lying there,
Our monuments for ages.

I will set my ancestors free,
Whose spirits I had installed in the home;
I am not sure,If they won't be angry,
As I failed to preserve things, given to me.
They were lucky,They knew no state,
No king ever ruled them before.

After I leave the land,
They would build the modern temple
For making gold out of earth.
A new era would dawn
With promises of more happiness;
And I know not for sureIf it means anything
To me or people like me.

Lush diversity and freedom

Border War By GEORGE BALL NYTimes.com: March 19, 2006 Warminster, Pa

THE horticultural world is having its own debate over immigration, with some environmentalists warning about the dangers of so-called exotic plants from other countries and continents "invading" American gardens. These botanical xenophobes say that a pristine natural state exists in our yards and that to disturb it is both sinful and calamitous. In their view, exotic plants will swallow your garden, your neighbors' gardens and your neighbors' neighbors' gardens until the ecosystem collapses under their rampant suffocating growth. If anything suffocates us, though, it will be the environmentalists' narrowmindedness. Like all utopian visions, their dream beckons us into a perfect and rational natural world where nothing ever changes — a world that never existed and never will.

Native plants are the survivalists of the botanical world, and in the appropriate settings — wilderness areas, home and botanical gardens, public parks and sidewalks — they bless us with their beauty and awe us with their tenacity. Our lives would be poor and grim without the strawberry, cranberry, columbine and trillium. They've always been here, in the same way that Native Americans have been; only their arrival and settlement are more ancient.

Their presence illustrates a geologic time, about 8,000 years ago, when the glaciers receded and unimaginably vast deluges swallowed the surface of the future United States — an airplane ride over the Midwest reveals enormous lakes formed by even larger melted ice masses. As the landscape changed, the botanical world sorted itself out, leaving us with the hardy "natives." (It should be noted, though, that many plants now considered natives — like sycamores, magnolias and cinnamon — arrived from other continents, just as we did. They are products of adaptation.)

Like human survivalists, natives are also subject to exploitation by the horticultural equivalent of radical fundamentalists. The anti-exotics argue that gardens should be populated exclusively by native plants, as if the exotics were trying to enter the flower bed illegally. The consequences of such a stand could be dire. Should we eat no onions or garlic, apples or lemons; feast our eyes on no magnificent tulips or roses — all exotics of Eurasian origin? Should Asians not enjoy their distinctive peppers, tomatoes, beans, squash, sunflowers and corn — all from the Americas?

Indeed, the world's most popular root crop, potatoes, started life as a staple of the Andean people and achieved its first international fame as a slave food. By the time it reached France, the "earth apple" was a delicacy likened to truffles; their flowers were featured in tiaras of court ladies. Exotic indeed.

Should we deprive ourselves of petunias, begonias, impatiens and hollyhocks — not a one of them "native"? Must we, on pain of being cast out of the garden as horticultural pariahs, deny the elephant his peanuts? This wouldn't be merely ridiculous. It would compare with the denial of human immigration on grounds that certain ethnic groups breed in numbers "too prolific" for the existing elite to tolerate. Imagine, then, a horticultural ruling class. No "invasives" need apply: let the lily find another valley. Such prohibitions of exotic plant species demonstrate only an elitist snobbery that is as dangerous to a free society as it is to a free botany.

No one, and certainly no gardener, grows truly destructive invasive plants in his garden. The devastating kudzu in the South, star thistle in the West and purple loosestrife in the East were accidental introductions from Asia, most often mixed with the feed and bedding of livestock. Yet the pro-native, anti-exotic partisans also wish us to stop enjoying the charms of harmless and beautiful plants like Queen Anne's lace, yarrow and chicory. Aside from requiring a bit of weeding, exotics are safe as milk, unless one considers gardening a chore rather than a passionate hobby. If so, forget the forget-me-nots.

Let's welcome, as spring arrives tomorrow, as many huddled masses of flowers, herbs and vegetables as can fit in our unique melting pot of a nation, unrivaled in its tradition of lush diversity and freedom to grow rampantly. George Ball, a former president of the American Horticultural Society, is the president of the seed and plant company W. Atlee Burpee & Company.

The great Indian train journey

After decades of socialist rhetoric, our nation’s grey (and greying?) cells are now getting stimulated with tons of free-market mumbo-jumbo. Ideas after ideas confuse and confound us. The worst of these “idea marauders” is “Competition.”It is said that Darwin’s Theory of evolution is a difficult idea to grasp. Not so among our compatriots. Suddenly it seems such an obvious theory and we love the Briton for it. To all of us in the subcontinent who are happy to be fed and clothed, Darwin’s thesis rhymes simplistically, monotonously and sweetly in our ears, all suitably adapted to the local milieu.

The fittest shall survive

None but the fittest shall survive

The strong shall inherit

None but the strongest shall inherit

This blessed earth

And all the material (and non-material) wealth

The pious amongst us knoweth.

The point is we do not understand what Competition really means. For most Competition is still the zero-sum games that we all play under inadequate supply conditions, like those we experience with the great Indian train journey. The scramble for body space, leg space and luggage space all define competition for us. It is such rawest forms of human exchange that condition our idea of Competition. And we seem to have difficulty in coming out of this mindset.

The train journey manoeuvres cannot be dismissed as instinctual, unpremeditated animal action. It appears that everyone thinks he or she is being “strategic” -- making complicated calculations to appropriate maximum space, beating the slant of the sun, or making clever manoeuvres to detrain most efficiently. Behind these competitive dynamics with the “other” individual(s), lurks an investment of human intelligence no animal can match. In a supply-choked society, tactical thinking passes for strategic thinking. Business Today, August 15, 2004 posted by Sankaran at Sunday, February 26, 2006 TAPMI, Manipal, Karnataka, India

The problems of home life

The Parent Trap By JUDITH WARNER The New York Times: February 8, 2006

Although it often seems anecdotally to be true that domestic tasks and power are pretty evenly divided in families where both parents are working full time, the statistics argue quite differently. The fact is, no matter how time- or sleep-deprived they are, working women today do upwards of 70 percent of household chores for their families. The gender caste system is still alive and well in most of our households.

After all, no one really wants to do the scrubbing and folding and chauffeuring and mopping and shopping and dry-cleaner runs. (I'm leaving child-minding out of this; in a happily balanced life, it doesn't feel like a chore.) Once the money for outsourcing runs dry, it's the lower-status member of the household who does these things. It is the lower-status member of the household who is called a "nag" when she repeatedly tries to get other members of the household to share in doing them.

This is just one indication that the feminist "revolution" that was supposed to profoundly reshape women's lives remains incomplete. Another is the fact that there are no meaningful national policies to make satisfying work and satisfying family life anything but mutually exclusive for most men and women.

Ms. Friedan herself anticipated this issue, in the final pages of "The Feminine Mystique," when she called for changing "the rules of the game" of society at large. In 1970, she came back to this thought, arguing that if we did "not only end explicit discrimination but build new institutions," then the women's movement would prove to be "all talk." Thirty-six years later, with women having flooded the professions and explicit gender discrimination outlawed, the institutions of our society simply have not changed to embrace and accommodate the new realities of women's lives.

The problems of home life seem to me now to be an all but hopeless conundrum. Yet the enduring failure of our social institutions to realize the larger promises of the women's movement is something we can address, straightforwardly and comparatively easily. We owe to Betty Friedan, to our daughters and to ourselves.

Ms. Friedan said last year, "We are a backward nation when it comes to things like childcare and parental leave." That's just the beginning. We need universal preschool, more and better afterschool programs, and policies to promote part-time work options that don't force parents to forgo benefits, fair pay and career prospects. We desperately need leadership on these issues. Without it, our national commitment to family values is truly "all talk."Judith Warner, who has been writing the "Domestic Disturbances" blog for the last month on TimesSelect, is the author of "Perfect Madness: Motherhood in the Age of Anxiety."

The torch just passes on to you and me

Books change lives. Remember that Ayn Rand-quoting misanthrope you used to know in school? Or that Sartre-reading existentialist who kept raving about how meaningless life was? But how many books can you think of that changed not just a few lives but the whole world? Books that questioned an entire generation’s attitude to life and their place in society, books that transformed the world as we knew it to be.

Rousseau’s The Social Contract heavily influenced the protagonists of the French Revolution and the American War of Independence, two events which changed the course of history. Marx’s Das Kapital reverberates in various parts of the world even today. Einstein’s essays on Relativity changed the way we looked at the physical universe. And more recently, Betty Friedan’s The Feminine Mystique (along with Simone de Beauvoir’s The Second Sex) changed the fabric of Western society and inspired women’s movements on the other side of the globe. I read The Feminine Mystique when I was 19 and I was completely captivated by what she called “the problem with no name”. She wrote:

"The problem that has no name — which is simply the fact that American women are kept from growing to their full human capacities — is taking a far greater toll on the physical and mental health of our country than any known disease."

Her emphasis might have been on middle-class, suburban American women but there was no doubt in my mind that it applied to women everywhere. I grew up in a place where gender inequality is very much institutionalized and rarely questioned. In classrooms and playgrounds, when you are not “allowed” to do certain things or play certain games, when you need to be more “protected” from the world, when you are “pushed” towards certain professions, when you learn to carry safety pins and chilli powder in your purses, in movies where the women are a “commodity”, at work when you have to work twice as hard and still don’t make the cut, and most of all, at home where your worth is measured by your ability to cook and clean, to bear and bring up children. That I was brought up in a “liberated” household is hardly the point; the biases of the society always wield an unconscious influence in every home, admit it or not. And every single time that happened to me or to anyone I know, I would remember Friedan:

“Experts told them how to catch a man and keep him, how to breastfeed children and handle their toilet training, how to cope with sibling rivalry and adolescent rebellion; how to buy a dishwasher, bake bread, cook gourmet snails, and build a swimming pool with their own hands; how to dress, look, and act more feminine and make marriage more exciting; how to keep their husbands from dying young and their sons from growing into delinquents. They were taught to pity the neurotic, unfeminine, unhappy women who wanted to be poets or physicists or presidents. They learned that truly feminine women do not want careers, higher education, political rights -- the independence and the opportunities that the old-fashioned feminists fought for.”

And today, as I read the news of Friedan’s death, its very humbling to remember that the many things that I take for granted here in the country that has been my home for the past five years – equal rights, equal pay, legal abortion, maternity leave to name a few – were the fruits of the feminist movement that this woman kick-started in the 1960s. To those who argue that Friedan’s feminism is not inclusive (as she does not seem to include the poor, the blacks or the lesbians), I would say that lets not take the woman or her ideas out of her time and place.

• So has the battle been won?
• At least in this part of the world?
• Can we all go back home victorious and wait for the food to appear on the table?
• Not so fast. Just switch on the television set, or read one of those “lifestyle” pieces (remember Maureen Dowd’s book?) that seem to appear with astonishing regularity in the NY Times? Or just look around you. How many of your co-workers slipped into suburban obscurity over the past few years?
• Can we really deny that in this country, we are still “taught to pity the neurotic, unfeminine, unhappy women who wanted to be poets or physicists or presidents?”
• Can we really claim that we as a society don’t measure a woman’s worth by the man she ends up with?

And until a day arrives when we can make that claim, here or in any other part of the world, Betty Friedan’s work is not finished. The torch just passes on to you and me. Update: Do read R~’s tribute to Friedan at Locana. posted by Veena @ 3:59 PM 0 comments

Integral Relationship

In an integral relationship, concern for the other's growth, happiness, needs, and safety transcend one's own ego concerns. For the first time, partners place the other's needs above their own. The approach is similar to being of service to Spirit in that we act in service of our partner, who in our eyes manifests Spirit. This does not mean we ignore or reject our own needs but, rather, that we seek ways to transcend purely egoic needs in order to serve a higher purpose (a soul-level relationship, our soul needs, and the soul needs of our partner). Even if we can't live in this elevated moral position every minute of every day, we must be able to access it in times of conflict. The ability to hold a transcendent moral stance in times of conflict is what allows us to place the spirit of the relationship above our own ego needs.

Being able to separate from our ego needs, which are usually tied to emotions, becomes central element of an integrally oriented relationship. Emotional intelligence (affect), as defined by John D. Mayer and Peter Salovey and updated by Daniel Goleman, is crucial to a healthy relationship and, therefore, the foundation of an integral relationship. posted by WH Saturday, January 28, 2006 @ 10:49 AM

e-mail addiction

By VERLYN KLINKENBORG The New York Times : January 29, 2006

For some of us, the computer has become less and less a place to work and more and more a place to await messages from the ether, like hopeful spiritualists. I thought I was a fairly temperate user of computers. But in the past year or so I have become addicted to e-mail. I confess it. You probably know the signs.

• Do you tell your e-mail program to check for messages automatically every two minutes — and then disbelieve it when it comes up empty?
• Have you learned to hesitate before answering a new message so it doesn't look as though you were hunched over the keyboard, waiting?
• Do you secretly think of lunch as a time for your inbox to fill up?

But the clearest sign of e-mail addiction is simply to ask yourself, what is the longest you've gone without checking your e-mail in the past two months? Anything longer than a broken night's sleep is good.

What's Happened to Asian Values?

Anthony Milner

During the years of the 'Asian miracle', of course, there was a sense of exhilaration about the 'Asian values' campaign. Mahbubani wrote of the 'explosion of confidence' that gave East Asians the sense that 'they can do anything as well as, if not better than other cultures' [60]7 . These were indeed heady days for those public intellectuals who, working to some extent in sympathy with the 'Asian values' political leaderships, committed themselves to the task of asserting intellectual as well as political agency on behalf of their region. Today Mahbubani admits a 'genuine hint of regret at having spoken so confidently of the rise of Asia' [61]8 . But I think he is right to see the 'Asian values' debate of the 1990's as only one episode in a much longer process of international, cultural reconfiguration.

Mahbubani is quite mistaken, however, in my view, when he expects that this 1990's debate will be seen in retrospect as the 'initial round' in the long campaign. It actually strengthens his case to situate the debate in its proper place, as occurring well into the long-term process of defending the 'local' in the Asian region against what is seen to be the Western global. To understand the 'Asian values' program within the context of this larger historical realignment, that began in the nineteenth-century, draws attention to the well established forces that will help maintain the momentum for change, even at a time of economic reversal.

While the economic crisis certainly challenges the 'Asian values' proponents and their intellectual allies, the way it is interpreted in the region has to be influenced by the firmly-established 'Asian' campaign of resistance against the liberal, Western ideological program. As we have seen, Mahathir is by no means the only influential figure in the Asian region who resists IMF interpretations and solutions. For many intellectuals and other opinion leaders in Asia the economic downturn has been perceived as a reason for condemning liberal as much, or more than, Asian values. Bitter about the revealed economic vulnerability of their countries and their region, prominent many members of Asian societies feel a renewed distrust of 'The West' and are hardened in their resolve to develop post-colonial visions and meanings for the people of Asia.

The main game in the next months and years will be economic, and the forces of globalisation continue to be formidable in bad as well as good times, as anyone visiting Kuala Lumpur, Shanghai, Taipei or Manila notices immediately. The power of the United States is such that it is not surprising to hear talk of the triumph of 'Anglo-Saxon market values' and the likelihood of a consolidated American 'hegemon'. In speculating about future directions in Asia, however, it may be dangerous to trivialise 'Asian values'. The real, everyday presence of different and contrasting value systems to be encountered as one crosses the Asian region will continue to influence practical developments in all sorts of fields, including the economic.

We need to be aware also that the category 'Asian', however problematic it might be in cultural terms, is attracting a growing emotional investment. Consciousness of 'Asian', as well as 'Confucian', 'Islamic' or 'Malay' identity - just like the promotion of nationalism within the specific nation states of the region - works to reinforce resistance to the claims of a purportedly universal, global community. For many people, ' the global' has a Western flavour. And the fact that a global economy seems to have failed Asian states makes it possible that the long ideological campaign that seeks to undermine the colonial heritage, and that has underpinned the 'Asian values' proclamations, may gain rather than lose momentum in the next decades. I should like to thank Alison Broinowski, Rey Ileto and Deborah Johnson for their assistance and advice in writing this essay. Professor Anthony Milner is the Dean of the Faculty of Asian Studies at the Australian National University. This paper was first published in a volume titled Beyond the Asia Crisis, edited by David Goodman and Gerald Segal Rutledge, 1999.

Break between state and civil society

DEVIL'S ADVOCATE: Go to Pot Sauvik Chakraverti The Times of India Friday, January 20, 2006

Devprayag lies north of Haridwar and Rishikesh, and the great thing about the place is that there are no pilgrims at all. But it must be an even holier place, because here the Alaknanda and Bhagirathi meet, and it is only thereafter that the river assumes the name Ganga. At the confluence, I was met by a solitary priest. He asked me if I wanted to offer a puja, and I agreed. I tossed some grains of rice and some flower petals into the Ganga and said some mantras. I then paid the priest some money. That is when I decided to perform 'an experiment with truth':

I inquired of the priest: "Panditji, main is pavitra sthaan mein ek chillum peena chahta hoon. Aap kuch intezaam kar saktay hain?" Translated: "Respected priest, I would like to smoke a chillum at this sacred spot. Can you make the necessary arrangements, please?" The priest immediately turned to some caves higher up the mountain slope and shouted, "Bhoothnath! Oi Bhoothnath!" Soon a tall sadhu with dreadlocks emerged. The priest told him to get me the needful and within no time Bhoothnath and I were blowing chillum after chillum at the extremely sacred spot. The priest kept sitting by himself in peaceful contemplation while Bhoothnath and I smoked.

The point is this: Cannabis has always been an integral part of our culture, unlike alcohol. If I had decided to open a bottle of beer at the confluence, no doubt the priest would have thrown both me and the bottle into the Ganga. There are no words for "Cheers" in any Indian language. There are a thousand salutations to Shiva used when lighting a chillum.

It is a shame that our democratically elected legislators have outlawed the one way of getting high we can truly call Indian. It starkly demonstrates the break between state and civil society. It is as absurd as the German parliament passing legislation outlawing beer. Cannabis is non-addictive, unlike tobacco or alcohol. Making it illegal is absurd. So let us all call for a repeal of this repressive, unrepresentative legislation that assaults our own culture. Branded cannabis will deliver better quality than what is available underground. And tourism will hit the roof.

Religion and sex

Prof. Dawkins seems to want to magic religion away. It's a silly delusion comparable to one of another great atheist humanist thinker, J.S. Mill. He wanted to magic away another inescapable part of human experience — sex; using not dissimilar arguments to Prof. Dawkins's, he pointed out the suffering caused by sexual desire, and dreamt of a day when all human beings would no longer be infantilised by the need for gratification, and an alternative way would be found to reproduce the human species. As true of Mill as it is of Dawkins: dream on. Madeleine Bunting The Hindu Tuesday, Jan 10, 2006 © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2004

Marriage Today

In a predominantly partriarchal society marriage was an apt arrangement which not only helped the economically & physically weaker women to survive but also allowed some rules around sexual communion. But why was this a partriarchal society in the first place? Was it because men were physically stronger or was it something else? I have huge faith in the power of nature to find a solution. I believe that a partriarchal arrangement was nature's way of setting some rules around human survival. It was not a man made arrangement but a culmination of a series of different methods tried at different times. And the best survived. If you disagree you will have to give better reasons.

So why am I raising this now? How much of a partriarchal society is this anymore? I was trying to think of the marriages that are around me. In a majority I see the women have some kind of earning power. In quite a few I even see women having more earning power. In many I see women playing the dominant role. All of these three conditions are alien to men. Now let's look at the men. Once the master of the house he now finds his dominance, his earning power, his decision making all challenged at each point. In many a households they are no more the more educated. Its a quezy situation to be in, more so when you have enjoyed your thousands of years of nature-gifted dominance.But women having allowed themselves to be dominated for circumstancial reasons have regrouped. They are equally educated, earn now and most importantly have discovered that sexuality is no more a disadvantage but can be used to good effect to make way in society.

Result? A permanent feeling of imbalance in most marriages. You fret, you slap, you kick, you fume! Sometimes you kiss and make up. Sometimes you make love and make up. At other times you just drink and make up. Sometimes you just make up. Sometimes you just dont make up and continue. I do not see a single perfect marriage around me. Some are nasty, some stoically pathetic, some are so shamful that the least said the better and some give me the picture of slave trade (does not matter who is the slave and who the master).

So what happens to the institution called marriage whose basic tenets did not factor in a society in which men and women share power. In today's scenario where each of one of us wants to lead a life on our own terms marriage is archaic. Think of it - if you were asked to marry your best friend (forget gender here) would that be exciting? Why would you want to adjust 24 hrs with someone even if he/she is your best friend. For most of us the idea would puke.But it is marriage's second reason that is the bigger problem. And this worries me the most. Most marriages fail after the reckless couple has procreated. And where they dont those moments of make belief kiss and make up (Hollywood Ishtyle) becomes the catalyst of procreation.

Suddenly you are left to parent a progeny who inherits the confused state of the world. Soon it becomes another tool of the power struggle. Like the car, the TV, the fridge it also becomes the bone of contention during nasty moments of tug of war. Unlike the tangibles it cannot be divided into two equal halves. But who cares in this war of the sexes. Each of us become a reason for a blotched childhood that leads to another disastrous adulthood. And the cycle goes on...The law most often, with its eye blindfolded, gives custody of the child to the woman. Is it an acknowledgement of the 9 months of gestation or is it a signal of the imminent shift. But then we still have things like alimony, ladies seats, all reserved compartments for women. The physical strength of men is but the last bastion but the age of Viagra will soon come up with a solution. So what will happen to Marriage? posted by kaushik Thursday, December 22, 2005 at 7:39 PM 4 comments

Pleasure cannot be outlawed

Arvind Kala The Times of India Monday, January 9, 2006

Dutch prostitutes pay 19% VAT on their earnings. Singapore's business district has a licensed red light area with five to six brothels having around 400 prostitutes. Australia's leading sex company Daily Planet was listed on the stock exchange two years ago. Street prostitution has been legal in Italy for 50 years. Its prime minister suggests that brothels be legalised too. In short, the western world has veered around to viewing prostitution as an economic activity. But India's estimated 2.3 million prostitutes are clubbed with beggars, vagabonds and street children in the 2001 census. Now a new lethal threat hangs over their livelihoods — a government move to broaden its anti-prostitution law to include the arrest of their male clients. If implemented, the move will pauperise prostitutes by frightening away their customers. India should ask why it criminalises a profession that is legal in countries like Denmark, Greece, Brazil and Costa Rica. These countries have sensibly concluded that it's best to regulate a profession that cannot be stamped out. India should do the same.

She came to break the conventions and superstitions

ELIMINATING SEX-CONSCIOUSNESS: A dress to fit and be comfortable with

AJU MUKHOPADHYAY Deccan Herald Sunday, April 25, 2004

Peoples of different countries had different dresses with varied colours and shapes, which stroke wonder in one's heart. Dress is attuned to the climate of a country, a part of its culture. Indians in ancient time had two lengths of cloths as their main attire: Upper garment, uttariya and the lower one from the west, paridhana or vasana. In colder places a third garment was worn, draped like a mantle, called pravara. Differing in fashion of wearing, the same pieces of dresses, called dhoti, sari and chaddar were used to cover the body of all Indians of both sexes. Ladies in olden times perhaps kept the upper part of their bodies naked up to waist, as evidenced by the sculptures and paintings and confirmed by historians like A L Basham and James Ferguson. The Nayyar women of Kerala used to appear likewise in public until the recent past.In spite of innumerable foreign invasions the pith of Indian culture remained almost the same. In dress and fashion Muslim and Western influences have been more perceptible in recent time. Young ladies have almost discarded saris, mekhalas and such things. After salwar kameez, it is the time for trousers. It may be mentioned that trousers entered with the Sakas and Kushanas from the Central Asia.

The Mother introduced white shorts and shirts with kitty caps way back in 1944, for the girl students who took part in games and athletics. Not merely for convenience, the most potent point was to eliminate sex-consciousness among the young people. To her critic she said that she came to break the conventions and superstitions. But she respected all cultures. She herself learnt wearing kimono in Japan, veil in Algeria and sari in India. One takes from others when the wind of fashion blows, but it is better not to give up one's own cultural treasure altogether. In diversity remains the unity, not necessarily in uniformity. ajum24@yahoo.co.in

Liberated society has confused itself

THE SPEAKING TREE: Take Cue from Panchkanyas On Women's Liberty

BAL MUKUND SINHA The Times of India Friday, Dec 23, 2005

The issue of premarital sex is being debated fiercely in the name of social morality. Tamil film star Khushboo had said in an interview that women should know how to protect themselves from pregnancy and AIDS if they chose to have premarital sex and that educated men should not expect their spouses to be virgins at the time of marriage. These statements created a furore. Political parties organised protests, police cases were registered against Khushboo and she had to render a public apology. The issue did not end there. Celebrities like actress Suhasini, tennis star Sania Mirza and Formula One racer Narain Karthikeyan spoke out in support of Khushboo's remarks. On the one hand there are moralists who cry that statements of this kind by celebrities would tear the fabric of social morality and expose a whole new generation to risky behaviour. On the other hand there are those who cite the Kamasutra and Khajuraho to defend free discussion and discourse on sex. Is sex — premarital, extramarital or otherwise — an issue? Remember the Panchkanyas: Tara, Kunti, Mandodari, Ahalya and Draupadi.

They are so exalted in our shastras that many believe that the sheer remembrance and pronouncement of their names can take you closer to divinity. Everyone of them had either premarital or extramarital sex or married another man after the death of their husbands. These women were put on a pedestal because they expressed their rights as women and as individuals. It is for an individual to decide when to have sex and with whom to have sex. It is an entirely personal affair, a natural right which no one can take away from her. There is the popular legend of the great love between Radha and Krishna. Radha was married to Govardhan but had the deepest love for Krishna. According to Puranic folklore, Radha once caught her husband spying on her while she and Krishna were making love. Radha reacted by hitting Govardhan and in the ensuing scuffle, her husband died. Repenting the loss of life of her husband, Radha later got back his life through prayer. The message is clear: No one has the right to spy on another or question an individual's love choice. Love and sex are personal choices between consenting adults. Why, then, do we want to hear from Khushboo, Sania or Suhasini about their sexual preferences?

Let them enjoy the right to their wisdom. The day a woman chooses to celebrate her decision and share her joy with society, she might also choose to go in for the social ritual of marriage. Our sages had given the deepest thought to these issues and they have narrated these in our shastras. It is a so-called liberated society that has confused itself over nothing. Traditional societies like ours do need to sacrifice some of this liberty to keep societal structure intact. Hence the ethics, morality and regulations. But then women, too, understand these social obligations as much as the rest of society. Why do we want to ask for their views and then go about criticising them? Every woman has certain inalienable rights, as long as they don't impinge on the rights of others.

The cultural development is more valuable than the service of the physical needs

SRI AUROBINDO
Letters on Yoga Volume 1 Section Nine

The view taken by the Mahatma in these matters is Christian rather than Hindu – for the Christian, self-abasement, humility, the acceptance of a low status to serve humanity or the Divine are things which are highly spiritual and the noblest privilege of the soul.

This view does not admit any hierarchy of castes; the Mahatma accepts castes but on the basis that all are equal before the Divine; a Bhangi doing his dharma is as good as the Brahmin doing his, there is division of function but no hierarchy of functions. That is one view of things and the hierarchic view is another, both having a standpoint and logic of their own which the mind takes as wholly valid but which only corresponds to a part of the reality.

All kinds of work are equal before the Divine and all men have the same Brahman within them is one truth, but that development is not equal in all is another. The idea that it needs a special punya to be born as a Bhangi is, of course, one of those forceful exaggerations of an idea which are common with the Mahatma and impress greatly the mind of his hearers. The idea behind is that his function is an indispensable service to the society, quite as much as the Brahmin's, but, that being disagreeable, it would need a special moral heroism to choose it voluntarily and he thinks as if the soul freely chose it as such a heroic service and as reward of righteous acts – but that is hardly likely.

The service of the scavenger is indispensable under certain conditions of society, it is one of those primary necessities without which society can hardly exist and the cultural development of which the Brahmin life is part could not have taken place. But obviously the cultural development is more valuable than the service of the physical needs for the progress of humanity as opposed to its first static condition, and that development can even lead to the minimising and perhaps the entire disappearance by scientific inventions of the need for the functions of the scavenger.

But that, I suppose, the Mahatma would not approve of, as it would come by machinery and would be a departure from the simple life. In any case, it is not true that the Bhangi life is superior to the Brahmin life and the reward of a special righteousness. On the other hand, the traditional conception that a man is superior to others because he is born a Brahmin is not rational or justifiable. A spiritual or cultured man of pariah birth is superior in the divine values to an unspiritual and worldly-minded or a crude and uncultured Brahmin. Birth counts, but the basic value is in the man himself, in the soul behind, and the degree to which it manifests itself in his nature.

My son, your son and AIDS

Swaminathan S Anklesaria Aiyar The Times of India Sunday, December 04, 2005

The focus has to be on prevention through better awareness. Some state governments in south India are doing a good job of improving awareness. Yet, this task cannot be left to governments alone. All of us must do our bit. What exactly? Well, you could follow my example.

In August, my 16-year-old son, Rustam, was getting ready to join a co-educational boarding school. I marched him down to the local pharmacy and bought him a stock of condoms. These, I told him, can make the difference between life and death. You will almost certainly get a girlfriend and have sex soon. Sex is bliss, but can also be death. Your girlfriend might be pure as snow, but she could have caught the virus from a blood transfusion or infected needle in a blood test. So, always use a condom. And always keep one handy in your wallet, since when the moment of bliss arrives, you will definitely not feel like going out to buy one. I am launching you in life with these condoms. May they be the first of many.

Modernism in Miranda

Sponsors kept out The Times of India Saturday, December 17, 2005

New Delhi: A fairness cream company had volunteered to sponsor it. But English (honours) students of Miranda House, determined to make their twoday event on Modernism a true expression of the spirit of breaking tradition that the movement had stood for, turned down the offer. Instead, they sold food they had themselves cooked and raised Rs 10,000 to meet the expenses of biennial event.

The event, comprising film screenings, discussions, and a photography and poster exhibition based on the themes of war, city and body, happened in the college premises on Thursday and Friday. Said Bharti Bharadwaj, a third year student and president of the Literary Society of the college: ‘‘We wanted sponsors. But just because this is a girl’s college, the only company interested was the one selling fairness creams. We didn’t want them to come, so we raised our own money.’’ There is even a competition ‘‘Eye for Detail’’, where students are required to identify fragments of the works of great modernist painters and cash prizes to be won.

Tracing the birth and evolution of modernism in literature, arts, sciences from 1890-1930, the ‘‘visual journey’’ had an interesting take on the champions of modernism. ‘‘They who led the modernist movement also ruled the world,’’ talked about the colonisation of the world and how the economics of it, fuelled the movement that was to alter the face of the world forever.

Sharmila Purkayastha, a teacher of the English department, said: ‘‘The idea was to drive home the point that the aesthetics was not without its political and economic roots. Modernism was just one of the themes we had in mind for the exhibition, but it was finalised because as a concept it is very difficult to be taught without the visual element involved. This gave the students a chance to understand modernism in its totality rather than in literary abstracts.’’ Teachers took an active part in the planning and execution, even obtaining prints of some of the first photographs taken after the camera was invented from their contacts in foreign universities.

There was something for everybody, the exhibition featuring works as diverse as those of Ezra Pound, Van Gogh, Schielle, Monet and D H Lawrence. The two films screened were Battleship Potemkin and Modern Lights.

I've always wondered how you adjusted?

They have a nice shared interest in art. While he creates sculptures, paintings and murals, she has more than a passing interest in visual art - having seriously pursued these arts before settling for her first love - dancing. Sharon Lowen, the Fulbright scholar and sensitive Odissi dancer, and Satish Gujral, one of India's best known and most creative artists, whose art extends to harnessing space via architecture as well, in a free-wheeling conversation with Alka Raghuvanshi at the latter's aesthetically maintained residence in South Delhi.

The conversation explores several genres for communication - words, signs, gestures and most importantly, Satish's wife Kiron, who conveys some of the words to him through a totally personalised language perfected over decades of togetherness. They talk of their experiences in foreign lands, the initial hiccups and the final triumph. What shines all through is their spirit, when they agree, when they disagree, when they embrace. Truly, there is almost a mutual admiration club at work here.

The Hindu Metro Plus Delhi Thursday, May 05, 2005

Sharon: It is interesting how there are so many parallels in both our lives in our experiences in alien lands. You went to Mexico with no language - neither English nor Spanish, no hearing, no money! And I came to India on a tiny scholarship, at an young age to pursue dance, not knowing the language, not knowing where I was going to stay, not knowing how safe it was... And to top it all, both of us didn't look alien in the countries we opted for!

Satish: But that was more of an advantage! We merged into the people seamlessly and didn't stick out!

Sharon: What was you motivation? How did you have the nerve?

Satish: I was always drawn to murals. Easel painting was for drawing rooms. Whether one painted the bourgeoisie or the revolution, it was going to land up in someone's drawing room! And I wanted to share my arts with everyone! And when I heard that Mexico was the place where murals were being taught, I knew there was where I had to go! Except I didn't even know where it was on the map! It didn't have an embassy here! I was the first Indian to go there. My mother said it was where the Pandavas had gone when they had to go to Paatal lok! My brother (I.K. Gujral) saw an advertisement offering scholarships to study there, he insisted that I apply. He said, what do you have to lose? And Octavio Paz, the poet and then the Mexican envoy to India, said: All that could be negative is already there, anything else can only be positive!

Sharon: That's the poet for you! When I landed, it was a horrible living experience. I decided to live as a paying guest with a family who went away to Shimla for a month, leaving me at the mercy of a small servant, who didn't understand the language, could barely cook and I didn't know if it was safe to go out to eat, what to buy, etc! Mind you, it was nearly three decades ago!

Satish: When I landed there after much high drama, it was rather tough as well. On the day I arrived, there was a change of government and all the civil servants and political honchos changed! And language was a huge problem. I met an American architect who offered to teach me English if I taught him Hindi. While I picked up English, he didn't go very much further with his Hindi! You are a dancer, how come I see you always with artists and not so much artistes?

Sharon: Ever since I came to India, I've had better relations with visual artists rather than dancers! There was more readiness by individuals to share rather than stonewall!

Satish: I've always wondered how you adjusted? A white woman, beautiful, alone... It was very inviting - not that men anywhere need too much invitation!

Sharon: My safety was in numbers. And I made sure that I didn't meet people in private. I was very social and hung out a lot with Shankho Choudhry, Biren De, G.R. Santosh, Shanti Dave, Himmat Shah - who were like protective uncles. I went out with so many different people to various places like art shows, dance and music concerts that some people must have thought that I was having an affair with several people! I knew if I had an Indian boyfriend, and if that relationship were to not work out for some reason, all my connections would collapse. Besides, I didn't think I was beautiful!

Satish: Were you so modest or so naïve! How did you make sure these artists didn't misunderstand?

Sharon: They came. They tried. But when they realised that it was not going to go any further, they went away to try elsewhere, but there were others who found me interesting and stayed anyway! Then I started taking my daughter. Since I didn't look western, I felt I had to uphold Indian values! You are the only male that I kiss! And that's because you are safe and I love you!

Satish: I think I should be offended at that safe epithet! But I learnt in life to play safe!

Sharon: No that's because you've got a more wonderful woman in your life at home, whom you love at least 100 per cent more than anyone else! You are one man who really appreciates women in the classical sense of the term and there are not that many men who appreciate women and one wants to be appreciated by someone one respects. Touche!

India’s strong family bonds.

Shall the twain meet? Can we conceive of a modernity which is not Western but evolves from the matrix of Indian culture, asks MARTIN KÄMPCHEN The Statesman Jan 23, 2003 (The author is a German Tagore scholar and freelance writer based in Santiniketan.)

One of the most fascinating and troubling aspects of Indian life is the co-existence of pre-modern and modern mindsets and lifestyles. One does not seem to influence the other. Pre-modernity does not merge into modernity. The invisible wall dividing the two seems impenetrable. What makes this wall so strong? Scholars may give many reasons, relating this intransigence to the power of tradition, to the strongly felt need for identity of each group in a highly diversified society, or to colonialism which has created an aversion to modernity. Having lived in this country for nearly 30 years and mingled both with the upper and lower strata, I’ve reached a conclusion: Modernity and pre-modernity coexist because of India’s strong family bonds.

Critics bemoan the weakening of the Indian family system; its breaking up into nuclear units; weakening of morals, especially of the erosion of selflessness which allows to put family interests before the individual’s. And it’s always “the West” with its selfish individualism which is seen as the corruptor. Even the vulgar Bollywood film extols in its incongruent ways the family values of Hindu society.

• The family is held together by hierarchy.
• There’s no room for equality in a traditional family set-up.
• The “higher” and “lower” is determined by seniority, or by the proximity of relationship.
• The entire cosmos is kept functional by the way each member knows his/her position in relation to the others.
• There can be no serious challenge to authority because traditionally authority is determined by extraneous factors, such as age, gender, and kinship, or sometimes by ritual authority, but not by such vague concepts as knowledge, experience, or wisdom.
• The assumption is that with age, knowledge, skill and wisdom increase as well.
• The hierarchy and non-equality of the Indian family is, I wish to emphasise, mostly a comfortable one.

Pratibha Shakti

Pratibha Prahlad to revive Lok Shakti The battle for Hegde legacy is on. After most of his family members joined the BJP, his long-time companion has now decided to revive the party he founded in 1996. From B S ARUN : Deccan Herald Saturday, March 13, 2004

Well-known dancer and late Ramakrishna Hegde’s long-time companion Pratibha Prahlad is all set to revive the Lok Shakti, the party he founded in 1996. Pratibha, who was associated with Hegde for 15 years till his death, is likely to take over as president of the party at its national executive on March 15.