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Inside Bill Gates empire
by
Chandra Mohan
The
Microsoft Edge
by Julie Bick. Pocket Books,
New York. Pages 172. Rs 715.
MICROSOFT'S rise to the
status of the most valuable company in the world
has not been a fluke, nor even a smooth ride all
the way. While its seeds might have lain in
Apple’s Macintosh or the Windows concept
from Xerox’s famous Palo Alto Centre for
Advanced Research, its phenomenal growth is a
result of Bill Gates focus on making a
PC-user’s life easy, even fun. And to
deliver that basic thought he has built a
creative organisation driven by a missionary
zeal.
 Microsoft’s process
begins with hiring the best talent and provide it
a sizzling hard-driving environment which
challenges creative instincts to the core. Time
pressure to deliver is phenomenal. Quite often,
even two competing teams are set up to work on
alternate approaches to begin with. Long-term
commitment is ensured through bonuses and stock
options. Talent is placed in right slots and
slots changed to ensure peak performance.
While pioneering
creativity is deliberately encouraged, it is also
recognised that every new concept is not
business. This translation requires discipline,
patience and hard work which in turn requires a
different mind-set. Microsoft’s success lies
in making an effective blend of these two things.
Before any new creative dream is cleared for
full-scale back-up, there is deep questioning
into (a) those who are going to use this
technology and when will the products be ready;
(b) the business mode and who competitors are;
(c) the competitive advantages; (d) distribution
of the products; and (e) the outlook after five
years.
The crucial
aspect governing the commercial success of any
new product is marketing. Their analysis of
market and segmentation is deep. It includes
customer segmentation, launching styles and
publicity. Each aspect is tailored to a specific
product.
As
Microsoft’s financial strength has
multiplied over the years, publicity has become a
power-house blitz. But whatever strategy is
adopted, financial goals remain paramount. The
overall goals of the corporation have to be met.
Targets and timing has to be right. Even teaming
up with competitors has been resorted to out only
when warranted.
Microsoft had
missed the Internet bus completely. It is well
known that Ballmer’s discovery of web
transformation of the information world was
accidental and sketchy. But once recognition
dawned, Microsoft went full steam ahead to catch
it up. It took a few years to league in to
Netscape and margins have been steadily narrowing
in the past three years.
The
technological and financial strenggth have been
major factors in the catch up. Progression of new
features to entice customers permanently —
promotion blitz and creating new user communities
through chat-shows and information exchange.
Seeding of
influential customers, value of high profile
testimonials and sneaky previews under
nondisclosure agreements, partnerships and
alliances were valued tools in the success game.
Momentum to remain in the news is sustained
Carefully crafted global network of friends in
right places has helped, even for quashing
criticism of failures when required.
Early
partnerships with vendors, advertising agencies,
even discerning user groups in new product
development has been another success factor. The
end result is full integration of both product
and its market launch and subsequent propulsion.
With five years
of insider view in Microsoft marketing,
Bick’s neatly presented story is valuable.
Now that web sites and e-commerce have captured
every one’s mind, this book is a must-read
lesson for entrepreneurs. It could be an
excellent guide to translating their own dream to
success.
«
« «
Experiential
Marketing
By
Bernd H. Schmitt. The Free Press, New York. Pages
280. Rs 726.
MARKETING in
today’s competitive and knowledge-driven
society has acquired an entirely new dimension.
With hundreds of competing products of equal
quality, customers are no longer attracted by
hard facts that the product keeps hair healthy,
horse-power and a 10-speed gearbox, calorie-free
delicious meal. Customers buy products only if
they enrich life and provide enjoyment.
Possession has to become a valuable experience.
What is this
experience? Experience is a private and personal
emotion which occurs in response to external
stimuli. It involves one’s entire living
being. It begins with direct excitement of his
senses and builds into participation in a vision,
a real or virtual dream. To be successful in such
a market, managers must create such an
experience. And, this is where modern marketing
is moving into.
In this book
Schmitt analyses the psychology of this
experience and the stimuli which can create this
experience. Originating in senses, strategic
experiential module (SEM) leads through feelings
which trigger thinking which end up in action
which relates to the total conscious and
sub-conscious mind.
Marketing thus
begins with initial attraction, an appeal to the
senses: visual, sound, taste, touch, and smell.
One can see the investment and pains that are
taken today to lure the customer in a sea of
competing products.
Design of logos,
packaging, advertisements, their content has
changed radically. Focus has shifted away from
hard product facts, to impacts on life-style and
membership of exclusive clubs of the elite.
The desire to
move upward in the social club is innate and this
requires perception of mind and soul in their
totality. To succeed, products have to transport
you into a new dream-world when possession
becomes an obsession and life without appears
meaningless.
Look at what
Shahnaz Hussain has done to our women in the past
two decades. Facials, make-up and hair-style have
become dominating aspirations. They raise
self-confidence and appeal 10-notches. Or, see
what Nike has done to the mundane Bata sneakers
of our childhood. Could one ever imagine a
2000-rupee sneaker with all the fancy
air-cushioned soles, lights and bells 20 years
ago? Children no longer want the good old
black-bike; they look for the fancy sports models
with their weird handles and rainbow hues. Cars
and designer clothes again are the status symbol
of a man who has arrived.
This leads to
the necessity of a new culture in organisations,
the culture of creativity. It means induction of
a new spirit, a new theme to permeate every
individual. It means another level of
understanding the customer: his psyche and his
emotions. It means deeper segmentation of
age-groups, social strata, community and
nationality. Each has its do’s and
don’ts; each has its own mind. A product, or
a marketing approach, which is eminently
successful in the USA might fall flat in China.
Why is the market share of US-made cars in the
USA itself declining despite a decade-long
restoration of competitiveness, while that of
imports rising?
All this leads
to the creation of a new organisational
sensitivity for deeper understanding of customers
followed by action to deliver. A new theme has to
lead the organisation: From new logos, stationery
and ads, to new products and packaging, ending up
with new ways of marketing, servicing and
show-room display. Every facet has to acquire a
new ambience.
Schmitt dwells
at length on each of these aspects. Illustrations
from many products and companies across the world
support his discussion. Excellent practical
knowledge for the emerging world of cut-throat
competition. 
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Indian male is dissected
andfound wanting
by
Himmat Singh Gill
The Indian
Man by Sandhya Mulchandani. Picus Books, New
Delhi. Pages 181. Rs 175.
Many Indias,
Many Literatures edited by Sharmishtha Panja.
Worldview Publications, New Delhi. Pages 210. Rs
125.
TWO tastefully produced
paperbacks by two relatively new publishing
houses make engrossing reading. Let us take
"The Indian Man" from Ashok
Chopra’s Picus first, which is dedicated by
the Delhi-based author to "all
long-suffering men". That just about sets
the tone of the book which seems to say that the
Indian male should give up his fixation with his
dominating position of the past if he is to
handle the new challenges and the paradoxical
situation in today’s changing society with a
new breed of no-nonsense, aggressive and
independent woman.
Coupled with
this male dilemma is the worldwide wave of
liberation and the blurring of international
boundaries, leading to expanding economics where
everyone must now have "a home with a
Samsung fridge, a Sony television, a Maruti car
in the garage and some Teacher’s Scotch
whisky in the evening while watching one’s
favourite programme on TV".
Sandhya very
deftly covers some of the conflicts that a male
would face in a society where monotony could set
in early in marriage and where the educated
middle class female is increasingly making more
and more decisions on her own and by herself.
"The discovery that they can actually go
beyond being cooks and mothers is for many
liberating and empowering."
Economic
necessity and even otherwise, the financial
independence gained by a woman who works, gives
her a better sense of identity and makes her
husband "listen to her more because she
listens to herself more — she expresses
herself and has clear-cut opinions." The
male, even the liberated one, however, does
express "an underlying anxiety when women
set foot outside the house. With working women
less available and less willing to provide
emotional support and nurturing, man sees woman
who works as being responsible for the collapse
of the family structure," says Mulchandani.
She goes on to
state that most men do not want their women to
work because of the "loss of the anchor
person, the neglect of children, homes not
maintained up to the standards and even
decreasing interest in sex".
In another
chapter on "Work, vocation and wealth",
this mother of a 12-year-old boy remarks,
"It’s the ultimate irony when beautiful
nature started distributing her largesse she gave
man muscles, a large brain and the gift of sperms
but bequeathed the gift of life to women. The
split second that it takes for a sperm to meet
the ova and fertilise it brings meaning for all
womankind, providing them with an unquestionable
role and identity for life." The long months
of pregnancy and rearing of children do give the
woman a "definition to their lives".
Sandhya goes on
to also highlight the role of pregnancy and
motherhood, a role which men are naturally
deprived of and suggests what many will find it
difficult to agree with "Most psychologists
believe that it is this underlying frustration of
not being able to bear a child that forces men to
seek substitutes which might be work or other
areas of creativeness."
Actually many
men are quite happy with not having to themselves
bear children!
While discussing
the "sexual conundrum", the author
highlights humourously the divergent male-female
viewpoint on physical sex. "Women say they
seek intimacy, not just the physical expression
of it; they also say they want to feel loved and
needed in thought and deed not merely in bed.
Men, on the other hand, see sex as their marital
right, and a denial of sex is viewed as
undermining the fundamental marriage vows. While
women complain that men lack sensitivity, men
find that waiting until their wives are ready is
like waiting for Godot!"
Sandhya sums up
her apprehensions about the attitude of the
Indian male toward change and tradition, and
quotes a male to suggest a viable solution.
"But women are in a hurry (for the change
that is). They want a miracle transformation
overnight and this is unrealistic. If women were
smarter, they would pave the way and make it
easier for man to change without getting
combative."
That is about it
then. The Indian female will herself have to
clone her ideal male, keeping in mind his ego,
sense of male supremacy and resistance to change.
I enjoyed reading your book, Sandhya, but what
happens to all the poor males in the rural areas,
about whom you have hardly said anything?
«
« «
Sharmishtha
Panja’s, "Many Indias, Many
Literatures" is a collection of essays
covering the various forms of our literature
— drama, poetry, short story, prose and
other genres of fiction from the modern age to
the present times. She throws open the question
whether at all it is possible to have a single
Indian literature. Some 19th century Indologists
cultivated the notion of Indian literature being
based on Sanskrit but others feel that even the
presence of an unbroken line of genres, symbols
and themes and the continuity of the Indian
literary tradition, do not suggest a singular
edifice of literature in this country. There are,
of course, many others who feel that Indian
literature is one, though it is written in many
languages.
However, one
must leave aside this major digression and come
specifically down to what the masters themselves
think of literature (in any language or in any
form, whether poetry or prose), they they have
created.
Jayanta
Mahapatra, looking for ultimate
"silence" as he calls it, declares in
his piece titled, "Large words, a small
silence", that "Somewhat hesitatingly,
one feels, after years of writing, that one
should give up the notion of writing poetry
altogether, because this alone is what we know:
that they, the words, the makers of poetry will
forever remain beyond us inspite of ourselves and
our paintstaking attempts to let the poems we
have created tell us we would be happy with
them."
He narrates how
as Rabindranath Tagore moved towards his silence,
he wrote some of his most brief yet telling
lyrics, which Mahapatra himself has translated
for us. "On the shore of the western sea/
the day’s last sun/ voiced its last question
/ in the stillness of dusk/ who are you?/ there
was no answer."
K.
Satchidanandan, secretary of the Sahitya Akademi
and a major Indian poet, writing about Dalit
poetry and its disregard for the middle class
conventions of patriotism ("you who have
made the mistake of being born in this
country/must now rectify it: either leave the
country or make war" — from Baburao
Bagul, a Marathi poet), does on balance suggest
that presently, "New phase of dalit writing
seems to be more mature, sober, larger in its
concerns, more conscious of form, less angry and
complaining. There is even a tone of celebration
of the dalit identity in the new generation
poets."
In fiction,
R.Raj Rao, a reader of Commonwealth literature at
Pune University, discusses the novel under four
heads of language and narration, structure, theme
and technique and identity. He does make some
very profound remarks, which it would be worth
pondering over. He quotes Adil Jussawala
lamenting the "two nation" theory
wherein there is the real India and the imaginary
India. According to him, those writers who are
resident in India write about the former whereas
the emigrants, metaphorically or
"literally" settled abroad, write about
the latter India "exoticised for western
consumption, often from memory as in the case of
Salman Rushdie". This, Jussawala says,
"can be a treacherous exercise".
Raj Rao quotes
nativists like Anantha Murthy and Nemade who
would possibly opine that "Indians can write
only in the regional languages and not in
English", a viewpoint many including this
reviewer would disagree with. However, their (the
nativists’) statement, "those who write
only in English and are based inIndia are nowhere
men and nowhere women", is realistic from
the way many creative writers or their works are
treated in this country!
Writing about
the genesis, context and evolution of Urdu short
story, Sukrita Paul Kumar of Delhi University
suggests that the art of storytelling of
"daastangoi" and "kissagoi",
"lay in the telling of the tale when even
magic would seem real and fantasy as convincing
as an actual happening". She highlights the
strong Persian influence on this tradition of
story- telling, where the Sufi philosophy of hikayat
and rivayat weighed heavily.
Another writer
Shafey Kidwai commenting upon the current trends
in Urdu literature says that its "most
sought-after verse genre ghazal, barring some
exceptions, primarily draws its sustenance from
the mundane as well as metaphysical notions of
love. Cliche-ridden diction, hackneyed symbols,
trite images and antiquated metaphors eloquently
sum up its structure."
In "Many
Indias....." some well known and some
refreshingly new scholars have covered vast
ground in all domains of literature. The views of
Ambal, a strong feminist voice in Tamil fiction
("I never wished to be identified as a woman
writer. It seemed like an inferior stamps",
and again "If a woman avoids a heterosexual
relationship and prefers a female partner, it is
her choice"), question the "cultural
construct" of the Tamil motherhood, and show
that a woman’s quest for fulfilment is
"embedded in her societal, historical and
political context".
Sukrita Kumar
elsewhere commenting on how the division of the
Hindi and Urdu languages took place in free
India, quotes Sadat Hasan Manto actively
protesting this divide, and believes that,
"the increased Sanskritisation of Hindi was
probably a move towards establishing a distinct
identity of the Hindi language."
This rich
literary criticism concludes that many
literatures exist in divergent India, and that
the place of English in Indian literary studies
has long been assured.
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Books that shaped
sensitivity of the age
by
Bhupinder Singh
MY first foray into
serious literature was Jules Verne’s
"Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the
Sea". I was 13, in Class VII and it left me
overawed and hero-worshipping Captain Nemo who,
deeply embittered with the world (I forget why)
instead diverted all his energies to build a
futuristic submarine called the Nautilus. This,
of course, was science fiction. The world paid
tributes to Captain Nemo when the first nuclear
submarine was actually built in 1948 — a
hundred years after it was envisaged in his, and
Jules Verne’s mind. The submarine was named
the "Nautilus".
But I could read
only about 400 of the 700 pages of the small
print. It was three years later that I read
Charles Dicken’s "David
Copperfield" cover to cover in original. My
joy knew no bounds. The complete works of
Sherlock Holmes soon followed. By the end of
Class XII, I was ready to take on more serious
stuff. Thus started my long affair with classical
Russian literature and much else.
But I digress. I
am supposed to write about the greatest books
published in the 20th century, not the 19th (all
three mentioned above are of the 19th century).
Neither am I supposed to write on my own
evolution as a bibliophile. But, however much as
I would like to stick to the main theme, I cannot
get either the 19th century or my own periscopic
view off my back. I would, therefore, seek the
reader’s indulgence in two respects.
Before
discussing the 20th century books, I will briefly
mention some of the books published in the 19th
century. The more I think about it, the more I
feel that all books that have profoundly moved
me, or influenced me, are old 19th century works.
Two, the volume
of books printed in the 19th century is just
overwhelming, both in quantity and the range of
subjects. What follows, therefore, is a collage
of my readings as a layman rather than any
authoritative or sweeping judgements.
«
« «
The most
powerful impact that any book made on me was
Nikolai Chernesvesky’s "What is to be
Done?". Other Russian writers like
Dostoevesky, Turgnev, Saltykov- Schedrin,
Pushkin, Gogol and Chekov also made a deep impact
with their running concern on the role of the
intellectual in shaping and changing society.
Tolstoy’s "War and Peace" with its
vast canvas, range of characters and the vision
of history as a self-governed Gargantuan force,
remains certainly the greatest novel ever
written.
Marx’s
"Communist Manifesto" (which I read
when in Class X), "Eighteenth Brumaire of
Louis Bonaparte" and "Capital"
(specially the first three chapters of Vol. I)
formed the bedrock of my subsequent convictions
and beliefs. For a long time, whenever I was in
doubt, the first impulse was to turn to the
"Eighteenth Brumaire". The sheer
clarity of expression and application of the
historical method to analysis of contemporary
France is education in itself, and generations
have grown up learning the fundamentals of
Marxist analysis from this little book.
Having said
that, and with the preceding as a backdrop, the
first 20th century book that comes to mind is
"Mother" by Maxim Gorky (1908). Russian
literature took a sharp turn with the emergence
of Pavel, the first working class hero. But then
it only reflected the great movement then
underway in Russia that culminated in the
Socialist Revolution of 1917 — the last of
the great European revolutions in a period of
deep political upheavals that started in 1789.
The series of
pamphlets that Vladimir Lenin wrote at the time
continued to resound for a major part of the
remaining century, providing a political impetus
that found an echo in all parts of the world.
Lenin, "the man who lived politics 24 hours
of the day", became the most published and
most read political author in the century. His
"What is to be Done?", "Two
Tactics of Social Democracy", "One Step
Forward, Two Steps Back" and "The State
and Revolution" became compulsory reading
for working class activists as well as armchair
revolutionaries, for those on the Left as well as
for those who came close it — and there were
many.
His "April
Thesis" is startling not only for its
political significance but also for its length
— it is hardly a few pages long — much
like Marx’s "Critique of the Gotha
Programme" where Marx came closest to
envision a socialist society.
Much of what
Lenin wrote, however, came under a cloud later in
this century, not only from opponents, but also
from those within the socialist movement. The
most significant of these was fellow communist
Antonio Gramsci’s "Prison
Notebooks" that turned many a dictum on its
head. Gorbachev’s Perestroika marked a
significant break, even as it claimed to be a
continuation of Lenin’s ideas.
In England,
Raymond Williams, Christopher Hill, E.P. Thompson
and Eric Hobsbawm provided excellent and
insightful Marxist interpretations of history and
culture. Thompson’s "The Making of the
English Working Class" and Hobsbawm’s
"Primitive Rebels" are landmark
writings, the latter prompted, if not spawned,
the subaltern school of historiography.
Closer home,
D.D. Kosambi blazed a new trail in Indian
historiography. A mathematician by training, his
works on ancient India — though dated by
today’s standards — were a watershed.
His "Culture and Civilization of Ancient
India" remains one of the most influential
books on ancient India. "An Introduction to
the Study of Indian History" continues to go
into reprints decades after its first publication
in 1956.
Kosambi had the
onerous task of writing history in a country
where written sources are sparse and local
variations plentiful. It was his deep sensitivity
to life that led him to extend scientific inquiry
to the study of society.
His
quintessentially humanistic streak is reflected
in his own words. "The subtle mystic
philosophies, torturous religions, ornate
literature, monuments teeming with intricate
sculpture and delicate music of India all derive
from the same historical process that produced
the famished apathy of the villager, senseless
opportunism and termite greed of the
‘cultured’ strata, sullen,
uncoordinated discontent among the workers,
general demoralisation, misery, squalor and
degrading superstition. The one is the result of
the other, one is the expression of the
other…it is necessary to understand that
history is not a sequence of haphazard events but
is made by human beings in the satisfaction of
daily needs."
«
« «
Others, from
within and without, provided scathing indictment
of Soviet society, notably Arthur Koestler’s
"Darkness at Noon", Pasternak’s
"Dr Zhivago" and Solznitzyn’s
"One Day in the Life of Ivan
Denisovich". Koestler’s Bukharin-like
character Rubashov, personified the dilemma and
tragedy of those who led the revolution and then
became its victims. It is astonishing that the
novel was written in 1940 at all — at the
height of Stalin’s power and the extremly
limited information about Soviet Union outside.
The Great War of
the European nations, later termed World War I,
was the backdrop of "The Good Soldier
Sjevk" by Jaroslav Hasek, the Czeck writer,
possibly the finest satire on war written in the
century. Sjevk, in his various roles, including
as an orderly to numerous army officers, often
lands into problems despite his good intentions
and like most honest citizens of the modern
world, finds himself to be a patriot, and even a
‘soldier’, more by accident than
ambition. It is a hilarious and at the same time
a humane novel.
It is, however,
Gabriel Garcia Marquez who deserves pride of
place with "One Hundred Years of
Solitude". The narrative in "One
Hundred Years" moves through a maze of
subtle and often innocuous looking images and
metaphors so that one finds the fantastical and
mythical interacting with the liveing and the
real. The transmission of ideas and inventions
from the outside world to the small village of
Macondo takes place through wandering gypsies so
that what reaches them is a bunch of scattered
and seemingly unrelated ideas.
The formation of
the worldview of the founder of the village,
Arcadio Buendia, and his successors evolves
through this mixture of myth, fantasy and science
through the corruption of the spoken word,
mingled with songs and tales. Flying carpets and
disappearing acts are a part of the hazards. The
untiring and fruitless efforts of the alchemists
and the dreams of the pioneers of flying
transport one to the times of struggle, hope and
ecstasy.
Garcia’s
works, despite his impeccable roots as a writer
of protest, are not propagandist. His vision of
his native land is expressed in his novel
"Love in the Time of Cholera", which is
the story of two separated lovers who rediscover
each other in old age. At one level this is a
case of old age romanticised, at another, it is
the romanticisation of Latin America’s tryst
with destiny and a conception of a new
civilisation for the continent. Suppressed for so
long, denied its historical role and the
seemingly unending brutality of life are sought
to be reconciled in a future old age.
In the much
acclaimed "The General in his
Labyrinth", he profiles the George
Washington of South America — Simon Bolivar
in the last ten years of his life. These are days
of retreat. It is the examination of a political
leader who has forsaken his people —a
character so familiar in Latin America because of
repetition. It is a study and an indictment of
weak, indecisive and dithering leadership. It is
their legacy that has played havoc with Latin
America. It is also the legacy which, ironically,
has produced a whole body of literature
recognised the world over.
«
« «
Were there any
worst books of the century? This is much more
difficult to answer but one book that did let one
down was Gandhi’s "Hind Swaraj".
Gandhi is undoubtedly India’s greatest
contribution to the world after the Buddha. He
was a unique mass leader and one who is
continuously being rediscovered by later
generations. "Hind Swaraj", which he
considered to be the closest to his formulation
of a theoretical framework for his political
ideas, was a big let-down for its antimodernism
and comments that fly in the face of logic.
Finally, what
does one look forward to in the coming century?
There are some books that one would like to
reread mainly for the nostalgic aura about them.
Tintin comics that I read in school top the list.
Then there are those that one either
"forgot" to read or have been
repeatedly postponing. Gerald Durrel’s
delightful animal stories fall in this category.
Then there are
others that one has not read because of ignorance
and the most prominent of these is Allama Iqbal,
who wrote much in Urdu but much more in Persian.
Iqbal’s
stress on the development of the self came as
fresh breeze, as part of his critique of Sufism,
he stressed on the development of the ego or
self. While Sufism emphasised the need to merge
the self into the whole, Iqbal took a
diametrically opposite stand — that of the
development of the ego. Thence: "Tu shab
afridi, charag afreedam Sayal afridi, ayagh
afreedam, Man aanam ke az sang aina saazam, Man
aanam ke az zahar naushina saazam."
(God, You
created the night, I made the lamp, You created
the earth, I made the earthen pot out of it. It
is me who made mirror out of stone. It is me who
made elixir out of poison.)
He is a unique
poet, sung in the national songs of two
countries, but ignored in one and unfairly
misinterpreted in the other.
«
« «
I will end by
returning to the theme that I started with and my
growing up in the shadow of the 19th century
works. One hopes that there would be many books
published in the 20th century that may still be
waiting to be discovered in the new century.
After all, Karl Marx, the single most powerful
influence on 20th century thought. (Reuters has
declared him to be the "Intellectual of the
Millennium".) was little known, much less
read, and still less understood outside a small
circle in his own age.
The writer,
32 years old, is a software engineer.
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Eco-destruction: the
creeping disaster
by
R.K. Kohli
The
Environmental Debate by R.C. Das, J.K. Baral,
N.C. Sahu and M.K. Mishra. APH Publishing, New
Delhi. Pages xvii plus 261. Rs 600.
THE earth is the
only planet in the universe to sustain life. We
must, therefore, treat this planet as a home for
all of us, and we must realise that its
life-supporting potential is being eroded at a
fast rate. This is especially so because
exploding population and equally exploding
consumption demands have shrunk the available
land and other resources. The poor, who are in an
overwhelming majority, are struggling to stay
alive and the rich minority lives in luxury, and
the combined effect is to destroy most of the
world’s resources. Life on the planet is
being sustained with very limited resources.
Further,
environmental threats facing the world are so
great and universal that no country or society
can tackle them alone. Environmental components
— air, water and land and even the biota
— do not recognise the man-made political
boundaries. Deforestation in the north-eastern
Himalayas has led to floods in Bangladesh. The
drought in Africa and deforestation in Haiti
triggered an exodus of citizens and refugee
problems in the neighbourhood. Acid rain had been
an irritant between Russia and adjoining Europe
and again between the USA and Canada for many
years.
Likewise,
disputes over river water sharing between Tamil
Nadu and Karnataka or Punjab and Haryana or even
India and Pakistan are yet to be resolved. Black
rains over China, Afghanistan, Pakistan and even
the Indian Himalayas were a result of burning of
oil wells during the Gulf war and eco-terrorism.
It is now widely
accepted that much of the current environmental
problems arise from a widening gap in the
consumption pattern between the rich and the poor
nations. The industrialised countries comprising
23 per cent of the world’s population are
harvesting about 80 per cent of the world’s
resources. Overpopulation, malnutrition,
unhygienic condition of living and diseases are
the lot of poor societies.
In an attempt to
put aside the political differences and to work
towards a global partnership for achieving
environmental conservation, the United Nations
set up its environment programme (UNEP) in 1972.
Serving as a catalyst, it aims at bridging the
gap between awareness and action apart from
mobilising the nations to unitedly confront
common environmental problems.
A decade after
its inception, it adopted the Nairobi Declaration
and urged all governments and people to
collectively and individually ensure that we
bequeth the earth to future generations in a
condition that guarantees life with dignity for
all.
In the eighties
the UNEP went on to identify eight specific
issues — protection of atmosphere, fresh
water, oceans and coastal areas; land; combating
deforestation and desertification; conservation
of biodiverisity and ecofriendly management of
biotechnology; management of hazardous waste and
toxic chemicals; and the protection of human
health; and quality of life — for focusing
the attention of the world.
Soon,
environmentalism became a key factor in shaping
international economic relations. The surprise
presence of the Heads of Government and powerful
delegates from almost all countries at the World
Earth Summit in Rio-de-Janeiro in June,1992, was
indicative of the concern of the world at large.
However, the
summit witnessed an emergence of well-defined
blocks based on economic status. Even countries
like India and China, which are not mutually
friendly at international fora, formed a group of
the developing countries. The coming together of
the Third World nations under the banner of Group
of 77 frustrated all efforts of the North to
split them.
With Europe and
Australia taking a moderate stand, the USA felt
isolated and dragged its feet on many crucial
issues.
To discuss the
divergent perceptions and approach which led to
the sidetracking of the real issue of
conservation by preferring national economic
interests, a team of four scholars from Berhampur
University in Orissa, R.C. Das, former
Vice-chancellor, J.K. Baral, Professor of
political science, N.C. Sahu, reader in economics
and M.K. Mishra, reader in botany, have authored
the book under review.
The text has
been grouped into six chapters. Apart from
including some of the basic ecological concepts
of biosphere and general issues confronting man,
the first introduces and identifies the nature
and extent of the needs of the developing world
and its environmental problems. The debate
started in the 1970s and peaked at the earth
summit in 1992, indicating the differences in the
perception of two terms —
"development" and
"environment" — between the
developing and the developed worlds.
To remove any
confusion, the authors define development as a
socio-economic change for achieving a set of
desired goals. Accordingly, development serves as
a vector of desirable objectives like economic
growth, social justice, better education,
improved health, access to resources and
increased freedom, which society intends to
maximise.
Once a nation,
society, family or an individual has achieved
such elements, other attributes like better
quality environment, recreation, sustainability
and sense of security add themselves to the
meaning of development.
Even though
these elements are complimentary, their relative
importance may vary with each society and time.
Therefore, the term remains debatable.
In fact, these
are the social needs and priorities which guide
the development of a country. Economic
development and cultural enrichment like the
other elements of development are different from
each other. Unfortunately, contrasting terms such
as developing/developed, poo/rich,
backward/advanced or underdeveloped/developed are
all based on economic parameters and not on the
environmental status.
While building
the argument of environmental divide and linking
it with development, the authors consider the
three-bloc model (the First World consisting of
the capitalist countries, the Second World of the
erstwhile communist countries and the Third World
of the Asian, African, Latin American and the
non-communist underdeveloped member countries of
the UN) as irrelevant today, especially after the
dismantling of the socialist bloc and the end of
the cold war. However, it recognises the terms
developed and the developing as initially used by
the UNO.
Using the World
Bank Report of 1994, the book says that 170
developing countries, as against 40 developed
ones, occupy 76 per cent of the total area on
this planet with a population of 85 per cent and
a gross domestic product of just 21 per cent and
a per capita income of just 25 per cent of the
world average.
Though the
authors have successfully built their argument,
it baffles me why they have depended on old data
for a publication of 1998. The latest World Bank,
UNDP and UNEP data are readily available. Because
of this reason, the book refers to the
independent Federal Republics of Czech and Slovak
by the undivided name of Czechoslovakia.
The second
chapter tries to trace the quantum jump in the
world population from one billion in 1825 to 5.6
billion in 1994. The ratio between the developed
and the developing countries, as on today, has
changed from 1:1 in 1825 to 1:4 in 1994 and is
expected to further deteriorate to 1:9 by the
year 2050.
"The crux
of the sustainability challenge of the world lies
here. The main debate in the first World
Population Conference held in Bucharest in 1984
centred on how to slow down the growth of
population in the developing countries, but it
faltered over the issue of abortion. The stark
truth that population control programmes must be
linked to the core development issues of poverty
alleviation, literacy, etc. was realised only at
the 1994 Cairo International Conference on
Population and Development.
Further, basing
itself on the Human Development Index (HDI)
developed by the UNDP, the book tabulates the
increasing ratio of global income of the rich to
the poor nations from 30:1 in 1960 to 59:1 in
1989. The chapter concludes on a sombre note that
an average child in the USA consumes earth’s
resources equal to 3 Italian or 13 Brazilian or
35 Indian children.
The third
chapter, "Two faces of environment",
attempts to deal with some of the key
environmental issues on which global cooperation
is necessary. These include the threat of climate
change and global warming, ozone depletion, acid
rain, etc. After outlining the basic issues, it
accuses the rich countries of emitting the
maximum green house gases and ozone-destroying
substances. As a percentage of the world’s
total, Brazil, China and India rank the third,
fourth and the fifth respectively. However, here
also the authors have quoted old data from the
World Resource Report of 1990-91 when those of
1997 and 1998 are readily available.
Nevertheless,
the text refers to the fact that this report has
been challenged by the Centre for Science and
Environment (CSE), New Delhi, on the ground of
erroneous assumption since it ignored the
consideration of natural cleaning facilities or
"environmental sinks". Accordingly, the
total amount of carbon dioxide emitted by India
can be neutralised by just 6 per cent of the
earth’s natural sink whereas, the emissions
from the USA would require 25.7 per cent of the
natural sink.
Likewise, the
figure of the emission of methane from paddy
fields and cattle dung from India and China has
also been refuted by the CSE. The authors here
rightly consider it unfair to compare
"survival emissions" from the
developing countries to the "luxury
emissions" from the developed ones. The
chapter also discusses the problem of acid rain,
management of fresh water and wetlands, oceans
and land apart from sharing the views on the fast
depleting biological diversity and the
implication of the WTO.
The debate on
economy versus ecology, on which the world is
sharply divided, has been discussed in the next
chapter. It quotes from "Environmental and
Resource Economics", a book by Michael
Commons, "Environmental problems are not the
consequences of economic growth as such, but they
are the consequences of inappropriate patterns of
economic activity, if the economy-environment
relationships are determined by a properly
functioning price mechanism."
Some problems
(inadequate sanitation, nonavailability of clean
water, land degradation, etc.) are associated
with the lack of economic growth while others
(like industrial and energy-related pollution of
water and air) get exacerbated because of fast
and unsustainable rate of development.
Unless
development is guided by environmental
considerations, it will never be sustainable.
Indisputedly, both economic development and
environmental conservation are for the people.
An interesting
analysis of the divide on the basis of the
economic status of countries has been attempted
in the fifth chapter entitled "Green
diplomacy: Rio and after". The Rio summit
was on the relationship between environment and
development. However, the developing countries
attached importance to development while the
developed ones to environment. The role of the
developed countries in the post-summit period has
been to link environment and development with the
primary objective of increasing their own wealth
rather than removing the root cause of poverty in
the developing countries.
The book also
highlights the role of the NGOs in articulating
the demands with skill and sophistication. As a
result of their diplomatic offensive marginalised
groups like women and local communities have
found a place on the global agenda.
In the last
chapter, "Towards an international
order", the authors point out that the
international community has now reached a
consensus that the environmental threats are real
and pervasive. Environment can be damaged not
only by fast economic growth but also by lack of
economic development. It, therefore, demands
sustainable development which is socially and
environmentally sound.
The situation,
the book says, has become easy for the developing
countries. Their development invites
environmental hazards, while the lack of
development threatens poverty-related
environmental problems. The rich North during its
phase of development did not have such a
precarious situation, because the countries were
(and even now are) getting buttressed by
large-scale depletion of resources (even brain
drain) of the poor South. The developing
countries do not enjoy the advantage of
developing at the cost of environment.
While
concluding, the authors propose an action
programme to bring about a new environmental
order. This, according to them, should be at four
levels — the developed world, the developing
world, global agencies and the NGOs. The order
expects the developed countries to move towards
disarmament, cut down their consumption, reduce
their luxuries and help the development of poor
countries in letter and spirit. The developing
countries, on the other hand, must control their
population, check their religious, racial and
other conflicts, reduce their defence expenditure
and pool their resources and skills.
The book is
highly useful for environmentalists,
decision-makers and intellectuals. However, it
would have been more informative had it contained
the latest data. The book makes interesting
reading even though its price of Rs 600 seems
injudiciously high.
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Women’s woes inside and
outside home
Write view
by
Randeep Wadehra
Women
Problems and Their Oppression by Nirula Singh.
APH, New Delhi. Pages xxv plus 152. Rs 400.
WOMEN came into sharp
focus in the 90s. Literature on, by and for them
was feverishly churned out, giving an impression
of an earnest attempt to unwrap the enigma that
woman, especially Indian woman, is. Or, perhaps
the trend was an early indication that the new
millennium belongs to woman. However, despite the
progress made in the various fields, women are
still facing problems of various kinds.
One can notice
discrimination against them right since their
birth. A son’s arrival sparks celebration,
while a daughter is welcomed with a deafening
silence if not suppressed mourning. Barring
exceptions a son gets preference over a daughter
in the matter of education, participation in
sports, food and clothing and a share in family
property. After marriage, no matter if they are
employed or not, women have little say in the
family’s decision-making.
Again, women
have little or no say in the purchase or disposal
of family assets. Not that there are no laws that
protect their interests. These laws are observed
more in violation than compliance. Similarly, at
work places, women are often discriminated
against. They have to be twice as good as their
male colleagues to get their promotion and
recognition.
Nirula Singh
has, in this study, looked at the condition of
women in the United Provinces of Agra and Oudh
during the period 1900 to 1950. The author
justifies her choice of the period as it saw
"most happening reforms and events".
The study does not differentiate women on the
basis of their social stratum — landlord or
peasant family. It considers them a homogenous
social entity — an obstacle in drawing
meaningful conclusions. The book also ignores
Muslim women — an important segment in UP,
especially during the time chosen by the author.
Considering the outlines set by the author to
research the social conditions of women, one will
have to consider the conclusion in comparison
with other empirical studies taken up with a
larger canvas.
It has become a
habit, almost a ritual, for our scholars to quote
Manu, while dealing with women’s issues.
Nirula is no exception. What the author forgets
is that Manu Smriti is neither the final word nor
was it ever a popular prescription with the
masses or the elite.
Otherwise how
does one explain the practice of
"swayamwar", polyandry and matriarchal
societies in several parts of India, including
UP? Again she quotes a verse from the Atharva
Veda that roughly states, "The birth of
girl, grant it elsewhere, here grant a son".
It is conveniently overlooked that our scriptures
were composed when society was totally dependent
on agriculture. Males were sought, as brawn was
more in demand then.
Conversely,
women were often addressed with "shree"
as prefix or suffix. As we all know,
"shree" stands for the goddess of
wealth as well as for general well-being. It was
a mark of respect. This is not to say that
everything was fine with women in the hoary past.
However, it
would have been more useful if the author had
analysed the condition of women circa 1950-51 in
the context of their present status. She could
have also tried to find out whether women were
better off in the past or not. Nevertheless, the
book can be the basis for further research into
the woman’s quest for self-discovery. For
example, what impelled Kamla Das to become
Sorayya Begum at the tender age of 62?
«
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Social,
Cultural & Economic History of Himachal
Pradesh by M.S. Ahluwalia. Indus Publish-ing, New
Delhi. Pages 200. Rs 350.
For ages, the
magnificent Himalayas has attracted people of
different callings. Sages and tourists,
conquerors and fugitives, romantics and explorers
have been coming in droves to seek whatever their
desires and imaginations prompted them to. Of
course, Himachal Pradesh, or the mythical Dev
Bhoomi, has been an age-old abode of spiritual
India. Historians like Hutchinson and Vogel have
immortalised the region in their two-volume
treatise, "History of the Punjab Hill
States". Innumerable monographs and research
papers have come out depicting the fascinating
social, cultural and spiritual wealth in the
state.
In 1930, G.E.
Lewis of Yale University had first discovered
hominids in the Shivalik Hills. Archaeologists
believe that as early as two million years ago,
at least one form of man lived in the
Banganga-Beas valleys of Kangra, the Sirsa-Sutlej
valleys of Nalagarh-Bilaspur, and the Markanda
valley of Sirmaur.
According to
Ahluwalia, though the Indus valley civilisation
had extended up to the Himalayan foothills, the
upper reaches were peopled by the Munda-speaking
Kolorian tribes. Later on Aryan and Mongolian
ethnic groups settled in the region.
The author has
diligently enumerated the political and cultural
history of the region like the rise and fall of
tribal republics, the influence of the Gupta
empire, etc. After touching briefly the modern
history of Himachal Pradesh, Ahluwalia has given
details of important fairs, religious practices
and social mores prevailing in the region.
He also dwells
on the evolution of art and architecture over a
period of time. Overall, a valuable addition to
your collection.
«
« «
Jewel in the
Lotus by Mumtaz Ali. Sterling, New Delhi. Pages
161. Rs 90.
Indian thought
defies definition. This is because, on the one
hand, it is a vast collection of diverse,
sometimes conflicting, philosophies and, on the
other, it is a continuously evolving and living
concept. Sifting, assimilating and discarding
various dogmas and views is a never-ending
process. Consequently, for the uninitiated our
philosophy can be confusing and awe inspiring.
However, its
essence remains simple and invigorating.
Otherwise, how does one explain that those who
used to condemn Hindus as fatalists at one time,
eventually realised that a legion of karmayogis
— inspired by the Bhagwad Gita — set
about repairing the crumbling edifice of this
once majestic society? Those who call us
escapists forget that we are the only society
which accepts reality in totality, warts and all.
We don’t hide behind well-crafted facades.
This is what
prompts us to take up cudgels against such social
aberrations as sati, child marriage, etc. True,
for almost a millennium we remained in slavery,
but the vigour of our spirit manifested itself in
the reawakening that now pervades our polity. It
will take some time for us to come to terms with
our drawbacks but come we will.
It is the
multi-hued splendour of Hinduism that has
attracted a secularist like Mumtaz Ali. He is
well versed in both Islamic and Hindu scriptures.
In this book he deals with the essence of
Hinduism, the Gayatri mantra, the concept of
kundalini, Vedanta and yoga, among other things.
After reading the book one feels impelled to go
on a journey of spiritual self-discovery.
Strongly recommended to those who seek solace in
matters spiritual.
«
« «
A College
Teacher’s Crusade by Teja Singh. Parveen
Publication, Rohtak. Pages 152. Rs 210.
There was a time
when the guru, or teacher, was held in high
esteem in society. But that was long ago. To be a
teacher was a privilege in itself. Monetary
benefits were of secondary consideration. His
primary concern was to see that he imparts the
best possible education to his pupils.
He would rejoice
in their success and talk proudly of their
achievements in their later life. In return, the
pupils worshipped their teacher. In fact the guru
was given a more exalted status than even God as
exemplified in Kabir’s couplet, "Guru
Gobind douoo khade, ka kay lagoon paye/ Balihari
guru aapno jin Gobind diyo bataye."
However, times
have changed. The guru has fallen from his grand
pedestal for reasons attributable to his conduct
as well as the changes wrought in society.
Materialism has certainly taken its toll. Teja
Singh claims that his book enumerates his
"crusade" for the benefit of his
profession.
However, the
book deals with the Punjab and Haryana college
teachers’ struggle to get pecuniary
benefits. There is a lot of politics in this
struggle. Nowhere does the author mention any
attempt made to improve the standards in
educational institutions in the region.
Nowhere are the
interests of students even acknowledged. Yet Teja
Singh uses the high falutin adjective
"crusade" for his political-pecuniary
struggle! You can read this book if you are
interested in trade unionism.
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Why you must keep your
nose clean?
by
Priyanka Punia
Smell by
Radhika Jha. Viking-Penguin India, New Delhi.
Pages 290. Rs 395.
WHAT happens when all you
hold dear is lost?When the security of your home
and the loved ones is suddenly taken away from
you in one decisive stroke of fate, leaving you
to fend for yourselves among strangers and a
completely new environment? When your power of
smell, hitherto a unique asset, becomes a curse,
driving you to the edge of insanity?
"Smell",
a deeply complex novel, hurls these questions and
much more at you.
After her father
is killed in Nairobi, lissom Leela is sent off to
her childless uncle’s place in Paris while
her mother and brothers take refuge with a
relative in London. Desolate and lonely, she
endures each dreary, cheerless day in the hope
that her mother would soon send for her.
However, the
news of her mother’s remarriage comes as a
warning that her life would never be the same
again.
Unable to
forgive her "treacherous" mother and
the hope of a reunion with her family having
gone, she blocks her memory and at a subconscious
level begins to reinvent herself.
From then
onwards, her life becomes a series of runs.She
continuously runs away from one place to another
and from one debilitating relationship to another
to find some meaning in her life.
Her
metamorphosis from an innocent girl to a
compulsive tease is striking and utterly final.
Buffeted by and
alienated from life, she is caught in a crazy
rigmarole which is set in motion by her strong
sensitivity to smell, which is the motif of the
novel.
Earlier, when
she tried to smell herself, she could smell
nothing. But in her transition and moments of
crisis and insecurity she begins to smell of
"a dark feral smell, too strong to the
civilised, too powerful to be hidden. A smell so
shameless, it belonged to the night or to those
private moments of solitude that cannot be
shared."
The smell begins
to haunt her and surfaces when she least expects.
"Sometimes as I rose to go to the bathroom,
it would creep out of the sheets with me. Or when
I went to the supermarket, it would whistle past
me in the aisle filled with people..... Only the
smell followed me dark as a shadow, ugly, hungry
and jealous."
Leela starts
from wanting to be invisible, an unobserved
minuscule part of the universe — to simply
melt in the crowd. So much so that a rat becomes
her friend — her "personal totem".
But with her transition comes the desire to be
famous. She begins to ruthlessly cut the
"bonds of the old world to enter the
new".
Radhika
Jha’s conceptualisation and use of words are
brilliant. She lends something so abstract as
smell a sinister character which hungrily devours
anything that comes in its way.
She has an
astonishing ability to describe a simple, mundane
act of wine tasting as an elaborate affair.
"The wine smelt at once sweet and
spicy.....and sour and earthy...... The smell
filled my nostrils, delicate but well-formed as a
gazelle. Then I took a sip. The wine slid across
my tongue like oil, and slipped effortlessly down
my throat. Underneath its silky coat, I could
feel the muscle that held the various elements of
it together. The smell gathered force after I had
swallowed it, the warm juices that had been
hiding beneath my tongue rushing into it, lifting
it up and warming it so that the fumes rose
through my throat, once again climbing the dark
nasal tunnels to my brain."
At another place
she describes it thus:"The wine tasted thin
and green, like gooseberries and freshly mowed
grass. I felt the liquid cutting through the
layers of food in my mouth, erasing their memory
from my palate. Soon it would enter my brain,
erasing the memory of the evening from my
mind."
There is another
twist in the tale. Towards the end, she knows the
smell keeps coming back, only this time she
can’t smell it. This realisation drives her
over the edge. She feels unwanted and ostracised.
"My smell surrounds me like a shroud, rotten
and sweatly fermenting. My body is worse than a
garbage truck. Unlike the truck which is open to
the sky, and to which men cling every day, my
smell stays bottled up inside me....oozing out of
my pores like some dreaded chemical waste that no
one will touch."
However, she
meets two persons who show her the way out of the
bottomless pit and give her the strength to stand
alone again. One is a dog walker, confined to a
wheelchair, and the other a puppeteer. The farmer
tells her that "no one needs other people.
You just need something to love."
The latter,
whose puppets are often broken by an unruly crowd
but who keeps getting new ones made, sets her
free of her fears saying, "You don’t
smell. You’ve never smelt. It is just your
fear talking. You fear that you will once more be
rejected."
Transformed yet
again, she opens her heart to life and goes back
to Olivier, her old friend who could have been
her lover.
Written in first
person, "Smell" is packed with tension
which builds up as each chapter unfolds.Its
redeeming feature is the rich, evocative language
and the hope which comes through.
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Headlong into the wrong world
by
Bhupinder Brar
Capitalism
in the Age of Globalisation by Samir Amin.
Madhyam Books, Delhi. Pages xii+158. Rs 175.
AMONG the best-known
theoreticians of global economic change, Samir
Amin brings together and summarises in this slim
volume the perspectives, arguments and
explanations which he had developed in his
writings such as "Rereading the Post-War
History", "Empire of Chaos",
"The Future of Global Polarisation",
and "Maldevelopment: Anatomy of a Global
Failure", published mostly in the past one
decade or so. It is therefore a significant
publication, and should be compulsory reading for
all those who are interested in the question of
globalisation and its implications for a country
like India.
This is so for
several reasons. The most important among these
is the fact that globalisation has divided Indian
intellectuals down the middle.What is
regrettable, however, is not the division itself,
which was probably inevitable, but the way the
division has occurred. The issue has not been
debated threadbare; it has been prejudged from
fixed ideological positions. What is still worse,
the ideological positions themselves are no more
than "received wisdom", its source
easily traceable to one or the other stream of
thinking in the West.
Samir Amin, an
Egyptian by birth, too has worked, at least
partly, in western academic and research
institutions, but in his concerns and
commitments, he remains firmly a thinker of the
global South. Not for him, therefore, the
abstract and fanciful theories which adorn
passing academic fashions in the West. Amin
firmly believes that "social thought is
inseparable from the practical work it
inspires". He proposes, therefore, a
politically significant distinction between those
he calls "operatives", serving the
established ideological apparatus, and the
"intelligentsia proper".
In which
category will fall some of the best known Indian
names, particularly those who subscribe with the
zeal of new converts to the thesis popularly
known as "the end of ideology"? Amin
finds it amusing that the end of ideology is
being proclaimed at the very moment when the
dominant global North is attempting to impose the
"utopia of the market" which is nothing
but "a pure ideology, expressed in the most
primitive form".
Not that such
tricks are new. They would have been pulled off
just as World War II ended with the help of the
newly created Bretten Woods institutions —
the IMF, the IBRD and GATT. But these were fought
of with considerable success, thanks to the
spirit of what Amin calls the "Bandung
Project" which at that time was most alive
and vigilant.
In contrast, we
have seen in the more recent years "the
demise of the Bandung Project". Development
-determined economic nationalism has been diluted
in the countries of the global South and the
Third World solidarity has been abandoned. In
effect, we are witnessing
"re-compradorisation of peripheries"
through structural adjustment programmes,
sponsored by the IMF in the name of
"reforms".
Indian
enthusiasts of these "reforms" refuse
to see a simple point that Amin puts his finger
on only too sharply: the IMF has never been able
to force structural adjustments on the powerful
industrial nations. Going back by the IMF logic,
the USA should need these adjustments the most.
Its budget deficit, $ 931 billion for the decades
1980-99, is not only large enough to absorb all
the surpluses of the other developed regions, but
has also actually drained the international
market of capital which would have otherwise been
available for other regions of the world.
Amin is not
against globalisation per se. What he is
against is the kind of "globalisation"
that is taking place. One should never forget
that this "globalisation" is occurring
in a world system which is characterised by
"five monopolies" in the hands of the
industrial countries of the global North: over
technology, financial markets, natural resources,
media, and weapons of mass destruction.
"Globalisation"
shaped by an unequal and unjust world system
could not have led to equality and justice, and
has not. It has brought about instead what Amin
calls the "triple failure of the
system". First, it has failed to develop new
forms of political and social organisations
beyond the nation state whereas that should
logically be a requirement of the globalist
system of production.
Second, it has
failed to accommodate smoothly the industrial
zones which have emerged in parts of Asia and
Latin America and now wish to compete with North
America and Western Europe.
Finally, it has
not developed a relationship, other than one of
excluding, with Africa and peripheral regions of
Asia and Latin America.
Obviously, the
net result could not have been a new world order;
what these failures have produced is a
"global disorder", now sought to be
managed through US military hegemony and an
expanded NATO role.
Goals of
equality, freedom and justice require, Amin
argues, an "alternative humanist project of
globalisation". That project must involve
global disarmament, particularly so in the case
of nuclear weapons, and it must also involve
arranging equitable access to the planet’s
resources.
Negotiations
must start for an open and flexible economic
relationship among major regions of the world.
Democratic management of communication media is
another must. Amin proposes ultimately the
creation of a "polycentric world". Only
within such a framework, he believes, can a
"negotiated interdependence" be
organised.
The creation of
polycentric world requires, in turn, two kinds of
commitments on the part of the countries of the
global South. One, they must relaunch their
national development projects and in order to do
that, they must reconcile internal inequalities,
be these between classes or social groups.
Second, they must show willingness to broaden
their concerns, and move up from the level of
being nation-state to that of being partners in
their respective regions. Small and medium-sized
countries need to develop these regional
formations in particular.
To be honest,
none of the criticisms and proposals mentioned
above is likely to appear as particularly new or
innovative to many of us. Many of these points
were also made by the group involved in the World
Order Models Project (WOMP) conceived and
executed under the leadership of Richard Falk in
the 1970s. That was the period in which
globalisation had not yet become a buzz world.
One might recall here the book "Footsteps
into the Future" (1974) by Rajni Kothari,
one of the WOMP authors, proposing the same kind
of polycentric world based on regions.
So what is new
or different about Amin? In a sense, not much.
But even if he is merely reiterating a point, the
reiteration is of utmost importance. The fact of
the matter is that some of those who made these
points in the 1970s have moved away from them as
a disillusioned and bitter lot. They have lost
all faith in the agency of the state, and have
ended up taking anti-state positions
uncritically. This, Amin argues, suits the
globalisations of the global North perfectly
well. What these well-meaning theorists must
always remember, says Amin, is the telling
comment of Kostas Vergopulos: if national
coherence is regressing, it is not being replaced
by global coherence.
Amin’s
ultimate aim is to provide a systematic critique
of the dominant discourse which makes
globalisation appear inevitable. He believes that
human history is not determined by material
realities alone; it is the product of social
responses to these realities. The duty of the
intelligentsia, especially those of the Third
World, is to lay bare the justificatory rhetoric
for the present forms of globalisation.
This effort
cannot be limited to conventional Marxist
critiques of capitalism and capitalist modernity:
"Marxism too assimilated the economistic
biases of bourgeois theory, yielded to the lure
of its deterministic vision, and thus turned the
‘laws of history’ into a set of
implacable rules identical to the inexorable laws
of natural sciences... and in the process trashed
the dialectic of human freedom."
In this context,
probably the most insightful section of the book
concerns the neo-Marxist understanding of
globalisation. He argues that theories developed
within the frameworks of "dependency"
and "world system" by theorists like
Andre Gunder-Frank and Wallerstein can sometimes
be extremely mechanistic, economistic and
deterministic, and by being so, they make the
ongoing process of capitalist globalisation
appear as inevitable as do the rightwing
globalisation arguments.
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