FAO and World Bank back food pirates

First the good news. Reuters wire service reports that only hours after the three-day Food Summit began in Rome this week, some 60 heads of state and dozens of ministers rejected the U.N.'s call to commit $44 billion annually for agricultural development in these nations.

This is a healthy sign. Although the decision is more political and smacks of international dishonesty in alleviating hunger, I personally feel it is a blessing in disguise. If the rich countries had committed US $ 44 billion annually for agricultural development, the entire money would have gone in for aggressively pushing for infrastructure development including GM research facilities and industrial farming systems based heavily on external input supplies that have already played havoc with farming in numerous developing countries.

Africa for instance would have received much of this investment for its highly flawed Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA), headed by Kofi Annan. Not drawing any lessons from the Green Revolution debacle in India, AGRA has all the ingredients to unleash a terrible farming crisis, building on a highly unsustainable farming system, in the years to come.

I am therefore not surprised to see the frustration being voiced by the FAO Director General Jacques Diouf: "I am not satisfied that some of the concrete proposals I made were not accepted,'' he told a news conference. "There was no consensus on this and I
regret it.'' The reason is obvious. As Reuters further said: While the summit agreed on the need to increase agriculture's share of international aid, it did not allocate the $44 billion annually - 17 percent of overall foreign aid - the FAO says is necessary to feed a population that is expected to grow to 9 billion by 2050.

And now the bad news. FAO has taken a U-turn in its clear position on the race by food-importing countries and private companies to buy land overseas for domestic food and agriculture needs. Terming this land grab as 'neo-colonial' system, the FAO chief Jacques Diouf had ealier said: The risk is of creating a neo-colonial pact for the provision of non-value-added raw materials in the producing countries and unacceptable work conditions for agricultural workers.

Jacques Diouf stand was however diametrically opposite to that of the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) in Washington DC, a think-tank that always thinks in favour of the agribusiness industry. Joachim von Braun, IFPRI Director General said importing nations realised that dependence on the international market made them vulnerable – not only to surging prices but, crucially, also to an interruption in supplies. “They want to secure the supply lines of food,” he had said. IFPRI therefore had called for a code of conduct for the investing companies and countries.

In my opinion, these companies and food importing countries are no better than food pirates. They are literally snatching food from the hands of the hungry populations in the countries that are leasing or outrightly selling their limited land resources to foreign investors.

But just prior to the Food Summit and ostensibly to please the investors as well as the food importing countries, the FAO has gone in for a complete turnaround, seeking now a voluntary code of conduct. I am in fact shocked at this u-turn as I had thought that the FAO was still a shade better than the World Bank/IFPRI. But I feel I must change my opinion now. I increasingly find the line that separates the World Bank/MNCs and the UN/FAO has now blurred considerably. They now appear to be merely two sides of the same coin.

Javier Blas of The Financial Times ( Nov 18, 2009) reports: The United Nations has started drawing up a code of conduct to regulate overseas investment in farmland, but the voluntary rules will not be ready for at least a year. The code is the first attempt to control the growing trend of so-called “farmland grab” deals, which involve rich countries such as Saudi Arabia and South Korea investing in overseas farming to boost their own food security.

The trend gained prominence after an attempt by South Korea’s Daewoo Logistics to secure a large chunk of land in Madagascar contributed to the collapse of the African country’s government.Diplomats are concerned that African countries, many of which face problems of chronic hunger, are giving away vast tracts of farmland almost for free in return for vague promises of job creation and spending on infrastructure.

The report further says: The UN and the World Bank are walking a tightrope in drawing up a code of conduct, however, as they do not want to undermine all foreign direct investment in agriculture, which they believe can offer opportunities for development. The difficulty was reflected in a declaration from the World Food Summit in Rome that aims to “facilitate and sustain private investment in agriculture” while seeking a study of “good practices to promote responsible international agricultural investment”.

But the blurred line that I talked about is in the next para: Guidelines would be non-binding, UN officials said. They would focus on making sure that “existing rights to land ...are recognised” and “investments do not jeopardise food security”, according to a World Bank draft policy paper seen by the Financial Times.

In future, please be sure that the World Bank and UN FAO policy papers are no different. You can read them as one.

USAID learns from Pepsi: appoint an Indian as head, and it is easy to win India -- the gateway to Third World

US President Barrack Obama's decision to appoint Rajiv Shah (of Indian-origin) to head USAID and thereby hoping to rejuvinate the US role in spearheading the 2nd Green Revolution has a clever streak. Putting a face that looks like one of them, it is much easier to convince the Third World that the US is there to help. In fact, this is emerging as a great marketing chip, a winning strategy that Pepsi had followed all these years.

Author, essayist and aspiring jazz violinist Mira Kamdar explains to you the meaning of The Shah Appointment at USAID 
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mira-kamdar/the-shah-appointment-at-u_b_356184.html

The elevation of Indra Nooyi as the chairperson and chief executive officer of PepsiCo, one of the world's biggest food and beverage companies, was therefore not without any purpose.

Nooyi has now emerged as the darling of the Indian pink newspapers, and is now for all practical purposes the business advisor to the Government of India. Any other PepsiCo CEO, I mean of any other nationality, would have failed to attain such proximity to the powers that be, and also to the media.

And once India gets addicted to the Pepsi fizz, you have got the world's biggest market under your control. The rest becomes much easy. And this, despite the Yoga guru Swami Ramdev, telling his audience every other day that Pepsi and Coke are very good toilet cleaners.

I tried it, and believe me since then I have kept Pepsi where it deserves to be: in my toilet.

Coming back to the marketing strategy, let me tell you it surely works. In the mid-1980s, PepsiCo was trying desperately to re-enter India (some years back, Pepsi and Coke were thrown out of India). Knowing that it will not gain an entry from the front door, PepsiCo tried to put a foot in the backdoor. Knowing that India was faced with a terrible militancy in Punjab, the food bowl, PepsiCo came up with a wonderful plan to usher in a 'second horticultural revolution' in Punjab.

And you obviously need an Indian face to convince India of your sincerity.

Ramesh Vangal was appointed head of the PepsiCo India operations, and I can tell you this marketing strategy did pay off. India allowed PepsiCo a backdoor entry, and Pepsi is now a household name. Perhaps agriculture was the only way to gain an entry into the Indian market, and the strategy succeeded because the company had very cleverly used an Indian to convince India.

The 2nd horticultural revolution that it had promised to usher in, has been all but forgotten. And this is what I had forewarned in my writings all the years.

As the then Agriculture Correspondent of the Indian Express, and based at Chandigarh, the Capital of Punjab, I had followed keenly the march of PepsiCo into the higher echelons of the Punjab government. I had spent quite a time in analysing the project proposals that PepsiCo had prepared, and invariably found that it didn't make much sense. My analysis, which my newspaper published religiously (I don't think it can happen now), did challenge the conclusions of some of the feasibility studies that PepsiCo had put out.

One fine morning, I got a call from a senior Punjab bureaucrat who wanted to facilitate a meeting between Ramesh Vangal and me. The same afternoon we met, and we had quite a long discussion. Ramesh Vangal was of course trying to tell me that he has a dream to bail out Punjab from its present crisis, and therefore sees the PepsiCo project as a way out. At one stage, he even told me and if I remember correctly it went like this: "I too am a patriot, Devinder."

I remember telling him that I never claim to be a patriot. I only love to do my duty to the best of my ability.

Several years later, when PepsiCo was well entrenched in Punjab, some parliamentarians demanded a status report against the claims that the company had made. A three-member expert committee was constituted, which went to PepsiCo's project sites and plants. The company decided to boycott the expert committee. Obvioulsy, the company knew that it would fail the scrutiny and therefore decided to stay out from the investigating eye of the expert committee.

A few weeks later, after the report was submitted to parliament, I dug out the report and published in my newspaper (at that time I worked briefly with Business & Political Observer in New Delhi). The expert committee report was of course very critical and clearly brought out that PepsiCo had not lived upto its promises.

After my exposure, Ramesh Vangal went on a media campaign, addressing a large number of press conferences across the country. I did attend his press conference in New Delhi, where he made an impassioned plea before journalists (who of course didn't know anything about agriculture) saying what wrong the committee had done to the company. The press meet ended, and we broke for lunch the moment I asked him a question.

"Mr Vangal, why didn't you bring all this to the notice of the expert committee," I asked.

"We had decided to boycott the committee," he replied.

"Than, why are you giving this explanation to an ignorant media, " I asked, and as you would guess his media advisors were quick to interrupt saying that let us now carry the discussion to lunch. Ramesh Vangal then recognised me, and what he told me is something that is not printable.

Anyway, the bigger question is that the 2nd Horticultural Revolution that PepsiCo had promised in Punjab, never happened.

USAID is certainly in a better position. Buttressed by financial support from Bill Gates and Warren Buffet and backed by the MNCs, it is now gearing up to unleash the privately owned 2nd Green Revolution. It therefore needs a coloured face to justify the benevolence it is going to shower on the coloured people. It is however another matter that by the time 2nd Green Revolution ends, farmers would have all but disappeared, farm lands would be rendered barren and sick, bringing the world perilously close to a tripping point.

USAID supported 2nd Green Revolution would end the kind of agriculture we have always lived with. Your food will not be produced in the farm but in food factories. The World Bank is already considering subsidising the future food factories, which would not require farmers nor farm lands.

Welcome to the Grave New World.

Tata's dark underbelly -- biggest land grab after Columbus

I think the eulogisation of Tata's has gone too far. Behind all the glamour, sobriety and humanitariasm that we read and hear about Tata's, there is a dark hidden side which is kept under wraps. It is time we look at the destructive role Tata's have played over the years in uprooting thousands of poor families, and the resulting destruction of livelihoods and the environment.

To overcome their guilt, and that too aimed at pacifying the liberal voices in the urban centres, I am sure Ratan Tata would be thinking of setting up schools and funding some NGO activities in the tribal lands as part of their Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR).

What a sophisticated way to cover your dark underbelly !

I was quite taken aback today to see a frontpage headline in The Hindustan Times: The biggest land grab after Columbus. As the blurb says: Government report criticises corporate exploitation of tribal lands; tribals turn to new friends: Maoist. And if you remember only a few days back, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had publicly accepted, and made a promise: "The systemic exploitation of our tribal communities can no longer be tolerated."

Do you think Manmohan Singh will do anything to stop this? You bet, he will simply push for more such projects that will eventually destroy the social fabric of these tribal lands. If you think I am wrong, let us take the land-grab in Bedanji, a remote rural expanse in Bastar in Chhatisgarh, as a test case. The Tata's plan to set up a Rs 19,500 crore steel plant for which ten villages have to be emtied.

Interestingly, a report of the PM-appointed Ministry of Rural Development committee on Land Reforms has succintly said: "This open declared war will go down as the biggest land grab ever, if it plays out as per the script." The Hindustan Times report quotes the just-released government report warning against the corporate takeover in the Bastar hinterland: "The biggest grab of tribal lands after Columbus."

You can read the full news report here: http://www.hindustantimes.com/The-biggest-land-grab-after-Columbus/H1-Article3-476125.aspx

I was reading another detailed field report from Pravin Patel, a human rights activist. It tells you how the State government is helping facilitate the process of the massive takeover of tribal lands. It tells you how the official machinery has actually been hand in glove with the industrial houses to ruthlessly exploit the tribals.

This is what he writes: In Chattisgarh the tribal district Batar, District administration has played in the hands of house of Tatas by way of stage managed public hearing bluntly violating the norms and set procedures as laid down in the Notification to grant Environmental Clearances.

By making mockey of the conditions of the Notification where Public Hearing is a mandatory requirement where consultation with the likely affected villagers are held. But to fulfill this mandatory requirements, public hearing was held at the campus of the district collector, which is at a distance of about 30 Kms from the project area. This was done with mischivious motives as it is known to all that the villagers are strongly opposing the setting up of any steel plant in their area.

The entire drama was enacted to show off that the mandatory public hearing is held. This has proved to be nothing less than a puppet show of the district administration where except the most of the tribals who are residents of the villages to be affected, all others were present whom the project proponent hired or managed with the help of District Administration to dance to the tunes of the project proponent house of Tatas.

You may like to read his full report. Please click on: http://mail.google.com/mail/?hl=en&shva=1#inbox/124f0af3377e6531

And finally, what does all this translate into. Well, you guessed it right. The tribals have no one else to seek solace and help from, except Maoists. What to talk of help, no one is willing to even listen to them except the Maoist. No wonder, Naxalism is growing.

As Gandhian Himanshu Kumar said the other day in an interview with the Times of India, (Nov 13, 2009) : Salwa Judum saw a 22-fold increase in Maoist numbers. Green Hunt will result in genocide of Adivasis. Those who survive will become Naxalites. (Read the interview: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/home/opinion/edit-page/Green-Hunt-will-result-in-genocide-of-Adivasis/articleshow/5223813.cms)

How true? But do you think anyone cares, least of all Manmohan Singh? Ha, he is more hinged to the GDP than the welfare of the human beings that he represents. With Tata's investing Rs 19,500-crore, which will add to the GDP, and that will be his government's report card.

"Silently I Weep" -- a scientist's tryst with science

Scientist Chitra Narayanasami gives us hope. I was feeling all these days that good science has been sacrificed at the altar of corporate interests. It is bad science that has taken over, with even distinguished centres of excellence like the Royal Academy of Sciences, Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) and universities like Harvard, Cornell, Cambridge bowing to the needs of Monsanto, ADM and Wal-Mart's.

I know quite a number of scientists who actually voice serious concern at the way present day science has been derailed by a few crooks in the guise of scientists, and I know they also weep silently. Like Chitra, I am sure there must be still a large number of scientists worldwide who haven't still mortgaged their conscious. This silent tide will turn the tables one day, I am very hopeful.

Thank you Chitra for giving me this hope. Your thoughts expressed in this moving poem have come as the only silver-lining peeping through the dark clouds of corporate takeover of science. I am sure the silent majority among the scientific community would remain eternally grateful to you for expressing their pain.

Here is a poem penned down by Chitra Narayanasami:

Silently I weep
My Tryst with Science

Beneath a smiling face
Silently I weep
When I put my little boy to sleep
In the scented fragrance of pyretheroids

Beneath a smiling face
Silently I weep
When I feed my little boy
With lethal genes of GM food

Beneath a smiling face
Silently I weep
When I clothe my little boy
With lethal genes of GM cotton

Beneath a smiling face
Silently I weep
When I failed to nurture my boy
The priceless natural air, food or clothing

Beneath a smiling face
Silently I weep
Enshrouded in languishing science
Pushed away miles from nature

Beneath a smiling face
Silently I weep
Tear by tear falling down in vain
Like pearls thrown before swine

Beneath a smiling face
Silently I weep
Hoping for a silver lining
In our tryst with science

- Chitra Narayanasami

(I thank my colleague Ramasamy Selvam for sharing this poem with us)

If you are an NGO, time to laugh at yourself

A picture they say is more than a thousand words. A good cartoon I think can be more than a Ph.D thesis. At times, I find a cartoonist says much more than what a post-doctoral thesis can conclude and that too after a study/research period has spanned three to five years. Rajkumar Patel's cartoon above (originally published at http://www.d-sector.org/) is not only a treatise on the working of the NGO community in India and for that matter worldwide, but also provides enough food for thought.

I find this cartoon is quite a reflection on the real purpose of innumerable NGO activities in the name of poverty, hunger and social discrimination. Although NGOs don't like to be told, but the fact remains that most of the civil society activities are driven by agenda of the funding agencies. It might be HIV AIDs today, tomorrow it can shift to global warming, and then you can always return to agriculture if nothing else works in the sense that project funding becomes a constraint.

It however does not mean that everyone is like that. There are good NGOs, there are bad NGOs and of course there are worst NGOs. I do agree that the number of good NGOs is fast receding, much faster than the Himalayan glaciers.

This cartoon also provides you an opportunity to laugh at yourself, and then to think whether it mirrors your role. If yes, it is time for a correction.

Himalayan Blunder: The perils of denying glacier melting

The last time I trekked to the Gangotri glacier was in 2007. I had to trek 37 kms (both ways) from Gangotri to reach Gomukh, the source of mighty Ganga. Everyone knows that Gomukh has retreated over the years.

Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh loves to challenge the dominant opinion (except in the case of Genetically Modified crops). Whether it is the stand India should take at the forthcoming Copenhagen conference or the melting of the Himalayan glaciers, he enjoys throwing a stone in the still waters and then sits back and enjoys watching the ripples it creates.

Jairam Ramesh loves to create unnecessary debate that can put him at the centrestage. At a time when newspapers and TV channels are dominated by film stars and cricketers, Jairam Ramesh has to find ways to stay in news. And I must acknowledge he has done fairly well. The PR agencies have a lot to learn from him.

I was therefore not even amused when Jairam Ramesh released on Monday a paper entitled Himalayan Glaciers by V K Raina, a former deputy director general of the Geological Survey of India. While the paper says that there is no conclusive evidence to prove that Himalayan glaciers are melting due to climate change, Mr Jairam Ramesh was quick to add that it is meant to "stimulate discussions".

I wonder what is the reason now for stimulating another discussion, after the recent leak of his letter to the Prime Minister asking him to take a u-turn in India's position on climate change to ostensibly show proximity to the United States. Well, I wouldn't be surprised if we learn subsequently that the paper was formally released to build up a case for river-linking. After all, billions of dollars are at stake and the lobby is still at work.

Neverthless, the simple reason why there is no "conclusive evidence" to show that the Himalayan glaciers are melting is because India had repeatedly turned down requests from the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD), in collaboration with the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), for an exhaustive study of the Himalayan glaciers

The Indian government, which treats glacier studies only for defence purposes, did not see any major threat from the melting of glaciers and the formation of the newly created lakes. Perhaps India is waiting for another disaster to strike before it acknowledges the threat. Jairam Ramesh should realise that deflecting attention from the urgent need to do something more meaningful for protecting the Himalayan glaciers will be disastrous for the country's environment and food security.

I draw your attention to a Himalayan disaster in waiting. This is based on a detailed report prepared by ICIMOD sometimes back.

It happened on Aug 4, 1985. Dig Tsho glacial lake, situated close to the Mt Everest region at a height of 4,365 metres above sea level, suddenly burst. Within the next four hours, estimates show that nearly 8 million cubic metres of water had drained from the lake. The torrent moved forward rather slowly down-valley as a huge ‘black’ mass of water full of debris. The surge waters from what is called as ‘Glacial Lake Outburst Floods’ (GLOF), completely destroyed whatever came its way.

Within the next few hours, the GLOF had completely destroyed civil structures of Namche (Thame) Small Hydel Project (estimated cost of US $ 1.5 million), swept 14 bridges, long stretches of roads, trails, cultivated land and took a heavy toll of human and animal life.

Dig Tsho glacial lake was not the only of its kind in the Hindu Kush-Himalayan mountain range that passes through Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, Nepal and Bhutan. With the glaciers retreating in the face of accelerating global warming, the resulting melting of snow forms glacial lakes downstream. While the total number of glaciers in the region is still unknown, ICIMOD had for the first time documented 3,252 glaciers in Nepal spread over 5,324 square kilometres. More significantly, the number of glacial lakes has been computed at 2,323. Most of these, it is believed, have formed in the past 50 years or so.

ICIMOD had identified 20 glacial lakes to be potentially dangerous, including 17 that do not have any prior outburst history. These lakes are situated in very remote and higher reaches but the catastrophe that they cause can be devastating for the local communities and the country’s economy. Take the case of Tsho Rolpha glacial lake. Situated in the Rolwaling Valley in Dolakha district, the lake is only 110 kms by a crow’s flight from the Capital city of Kathmandu. With the lake volume rising every year, the area increasing from 0.23 sq kms in 1959 to 1.55 sq kms in in 1990, and the subsequent weakening of the damming moraines that hold the water, researchers term it as ‘potentially dangerous’.

Not only in the Himalayas, glaciers are receding at a fast pace the world over. East Africa’s Mount Kilmanjaro is expected not to have any snow cap by the year 2015, its snow cover having shrunk at an alarming 82 per cent between 1912 and 2000. The alpine glaciers have reduced by 40 per cent in area and more than 50 per cent in volume since 1850. Since 1963, the Peruvian glaciers have retreated at the rate of over 155 metres a year. The Himalayan glaciers, however, are considered to be extremely sensitive to climate change as these accumulate snow during monsoon and shed it in summers. Other high-altitude glaciers on the other hand accumulate snow during winters and cast it off in summers.

The UNEP estimates that the bursting of glacial lakes is likely to become a major problem globally, especially in countries South America, India and China. But unfortunately, both India and China have used glaciers only for defence purposes. Much of the snow bound areas in both the countries is under the control of the armed forces and forms the ‘inner line of control’. No scientific access or public activity is allowed in these politically and strategically sensitive areas of high altitude. International pressure therefore has to be on both the giants to allow for scientific explorations and suitable remedial solutions to be put in place before the ‘inner line of control’ goes out of control.

While the world continues to debate over the dangerous implications of climate change on the glaciers, Nepal government, in collaboration with the Netherlands-Nepal friendship Association, had made a series of attempts to implement an early warning system, and at the same time launch efforts to mitigate the dangers of an outburst. Among the strategies adopted is to reduce the water level in the lake by three metres by way of a GLOF risk reduction system. Knowing that it is still not safe, the lake waters is planned to be further lowered by another 17 metres under the second phase, the Tsho Rolpha GLOF Permanent Remediation Project. This in itself is a remarkable initiative and needs to be replicated in the other countries faced with the fast receding but little understood phenomenon of the vanishing snow caps.

Three of the 20 potentially dangerous lakes (Nagma, Tam Pokhari and Dig Tsho) have past outburst records. There are six other glacial lakes that ICIMOD thinks have had a past outburst history but do not appear to be dangerous at present. Researchers opine that of the several possible methods of reducing the risk and probability of GLOF bursts, and that includes regular monitoring and early warning systems, the most important is to reduce the volume of water in the lake so as to cut down the peak surge discharge.

Protection human, animal life and the infrastructure and property would largely depend on careful planning and co-ordination with the concerned agencies. More importantly, it is crucial to frame the disaster mitigation policies and activities. Nothing better illustrates the urgency with which a massive global programme to save the mountains from an impending apocalypse. The mountain areas are already reeling under abject poverty and the accompanying destruction of the fragile habitat. Ignoring the serious and real threat of climate change will surely be still more catastrophic. #

"Naxalism is not a distant forest fire, it is now reaching our doorsteps."

My blog on Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's concern about growing naxalism in the country evoked tremendous response. I am thankful to all those who took time off to write or text me their concern. This only goes on to show how outraged the nation feels at the dishonesty of the government's response.

Among the responses I received is this detailed analysis from film director Ajay Kanchan. It is a powerful and moving insight, which I would like to share with you all.

"Naxalism is not a distant forest fire, it is now reaching our doorstep."

Ajay Kanchan

One of the greatest philosophers Aristotle once said, "revolution is not possible in a country where there is a huge middle class". The rise of Maoists and Naxalites is not the withering away of middle class in India but swelling up of that section of society whose existence we barely recognize. This is the section of society whose generations after generations were made to pay with their lives and livelihoods in the name of so called "larger national interest" and what we are now witnessing is a stream of small but powerful pockets of revolutions in many parts of the country. And why not?

I shudder to feel if one fine morning someone comes and pastes a small poster in my colony that informs us that in the next 30 days our houses will be acquired in "larger national interest" as after demolishing them the Government will make a road here.

Just think of plight of people when their properties, especially the sources of livelihood are snatched on which they lived for generations and after generations, and that too without any compensation. During my Oxfam days many times I was driven to tears and my heart filled with anguished when I came across people who suffered multiple displacements. I still remember of visiting one village where many women even lost their eyesight because of chronic malnutrition and severe anaemia. That was not an exception as villages after villages will remind you as if you are not in India but in Ethiopia.

I have seen papers of compensation where people were paid 25 paise for mango trees, Rs 100 for their house and that too remained on paper as police simply heard them in a bus and sent off to far of places so that they can't even come back to the places where they used to live. Many of these people had never seen a road or a vehicle in their lifetime.


Actually sir, the rise of Maoists and Naxals is nothing but the outcome of the structural violence that the Indian State, or I should say the misrule that successive governments have unleashed against its own people in the last 62 years, which is largely responsible for the parallel power structures in almost 300 districts of the country.

A war with Pakistan or China may never take place in view of all the countries are possessing nuclear weapons but a civil war, where the armed forces will be pitted against our own people is now seems inevitable. The political diaspora in the country always needs a powerful villain to keep itself in power, and therefore Arundhati Roy is spot on when she said "What Muslims are for the BJP, the Maoists and Naxalites are for the Congress".

Let's face it sir that our country has always been described as "India" that belongs to the elite and upper middle class and "Bharat" where the poor and downtrodden live, but what everyone forget so conveniently that there are more than 40 million internally displaced people, a number which is perhaps much more than the combined population of refugees all over the world. These internally displaced people may still be the citizens of this country but their lands have been snatched, their means of livelihood have been destroyed, their women have been raped and butchered, their children have no future, so what will they do other than declaring a war against the Indian state. This is how it all started.

Two wrongs can never make a right, but how long one party will continue to behave as if committing wrong is its prerogative, and this is precisely the way the Indian state has behaved against its poor in the last six decades. We need to contemplate on the reasons why the successive Governments at Centre and in States have failed to stem the rot and why over 800 million people still earn less than Rs 20/- a day. Unless we do an honest introspection and address the issues as they are, we will continue to hurtle into chaos and civil war.

Sir, Salwa Judum, a defence committee of villagers against Naxals was the Congress idea and started during Ajit Jogi's tenure as the CM of Chattisgarh. It was a clever Congress ploy aimed at divide and rule but it boomeranged. Most of the displacement of people without any compensation has taken place during Congress regimes.

Just before leaving Oxfam I made a comprehensive project "India Displaced" and most of points that we listed were given to Ministry or Rural Development and Tribal Welfare. Question is that who is preventing the government from implementing it? Why there is no sense of urgency?

Sir, my fear is that with the emergence of a one party (or one coalition) rule in the country the corrupt elements in the political system will compromise the interests of the country. The emergence of Special Economic Zones (SEZs) and surrendering of Indian agriculture to US MNCs like Monsanto is a case in point.

Unfortunately, Congress is not the only one as the eagerness of all the political parties to rob the people of their lives and livelihoods simply because of mineral wealth in areas where they live will only grow in the days to come. Previously we the rich urban dwellers wouldn't even get to know their misdeeds but this time they have a powerful villain called "Maoists and Naxals" to deal with, whose means are no less pervert than that of the forces they are combating.

One outcome is certain and becoming more and more apparent that India is cracking up from within. The continued hypocrisy and denial will only lead to bloody battles and ultimately result into disintegration of the country. It's inimical to "acquire and consume" culture that most of us live in. Fire is no longer somewhere in distant forest it's now reaching right on our doorstep.