On Mon, May 4, 2009 at 5:01 PM, Zainab Bawa <bawazaina...@gmail.com> wrote: > > Can you point out where Arvind has made this statement? I am keen to know.
In an interview on one of the news channels i was surfing across, which is still hearsay. > to PWC and the Bank's meddling in appointing PWC, were the result of this > tactical use of RTI. Arvind himself mentioned to me in a meeting that RTI > provided the sheen of legitimacy to a tactical act. [snip] > I am citing this story to indicate that everything don't exist in black and > white and that instead of viewing politics, law, policy and democracy in > normative and black and white terms, it is important to consider these in > terms of balances of power and comparative justices. If we take democracy, > law, policy and politics from normative pedestals and bring them down to > everyday issues of contestations, then we may be able to move beyond lament > and rant. Actually his opinions during the interview didnt come across as a rant, rather the opposite. Even if Arvind&co made tactical use of the RTI (for a public cause?) it does not seem evil, considering the typical machiavellianism and apathy one lives with on a regular basis. I was definitely impressed by his account of a female volunteer who was working with them on the Delhi's PDS system, who refused to crumble to her family pressure (to tie the knot to a US groom) even after her throat was slashed. Hers was the 6th or 7th attack and they were on the verge of giving up but the girl persisted. >> Perhaps corruption and dirty politics is so >> brazenly woven into the fabric of daily life that we have no choice >> but accept and live with it. Is there no scope for change? :( > > Like said, this is what the usual story is. How do we move beyond this? Most > discussions on politics end in such laments or otherwise rants!?!?!?! .... Would love to hear how too but I'd prefer to not judge those who dont want to devote their lives for a social cause either. There are so many issues here that one can get overwhelmed and choose to live life instead of going against the tide. Not everyone can be like the lady Arvind cited. While there may be folks who in their entire life in India have _never_ paid a wee bit extra money to get the job done, i'm yet to meet them :) > Case would take a few years to be heard? It was just a shut case the moment > the MMRDA told us to buzz off. Information on issues which can expose > governments is hard to come by. In this case, the person filing the RTI was > not only asking for information, but by virtue of asking for it, he was > clearly indicating that something was going wrong in the way TDRs were being > issued y MMRDA and used by builders. One also has to understand the > political economy of land and of institutions such as MMRDA which was > literally ruled over by Chief Ministers. In Mumbai, mention "land" and even a kid would agree that it is something of a scarce commodity. Yards away from where my ancestors lived, there was lotsa empty land, some marshy, some reserved for public parks and some private (iirc, belonged to a Parsi trust) and some public land with illegal structures (not excluding slums). Today, each of those spaces has a multi-storeyed structures (both commercial and residential), the public parks (three such spaces) have been occupied by different religious bodies belonging to different communities. Private buildings have cropped up on land reserved for general public utilities. One foreign business house got acres of government land de-reserved and transferred to facilitate the industrial progress and business growth (of Mumbai, ofcourse). Fighting these lobby's (or any other for that matter) is not a singular task and its harder because money has a way of silencing even the best of good intent. > On that note, why is this issue being compared with Kasab's case? The issue A co-relational thread drift to the slow, hence delayed justice via the indian legal system!? > On another list called the Sarai Reader List, I find that > discussions around every post eventually veer on the plight of Kashmiri > Pandits even when the original intent of the making the post was to discuss > other issues. I'm not on the sarai list but since you mention the plight of Kashmiri Pandits, i'll extrapolate with the feed-back heard from the refugees. The Kashmiri Pandits (i know) feel they are treated as refugees in their own country. They tend to compare the attention the media reserves for other religions/communities and are upset that despite being suddenly thrown out of their homes in Kashmir the rest of India/world doesnt care enough. Reminding them that most Indians are temporarily outraged[1] does not soothe their ire. Adding to the drift here from Jagannathan's column, http://www.dnaindia.com/report.asp?newsid=1253540 For India, which faces several insurgencies and revolts, the first lesson to learn is this: it must display determination and muscle early in any war. Otherwise, the adversary is likely to conclude we are weak. This is what happened with Pakistan which foisted four wars on us; this is what happened with the Khalistanis in Punjab; and this is what is happening in Kashmir and the Maoist insurgencies across eastern and central India. India's approach has always been lackadaisical. First, we start by pretending the problem doesn't exist; next, when we can't ignore it, our liberals step in and say a little development will solve the problem; it is only when the problem gets completely out of hand that we invest the resources needed to squash the terrorists/militants. State power is used only when it is the only option left. -- . [1] http://www.dnaindia.com/report.asp?newsid=1254343
