Digital Colonization or otherwise...

(continued...)

I think it was over 10 years ago in one of the earliest meetings of the Knowledge in Civil Society (KICS), in Hyderabad. There were several people who had come and many from the civil society world, many of them had tried to share ideas and initiatives from the Development world. There was Shiv Vishwanath, the social science nomad, slouching in a corner, taking notes and not speaking at all. on the second day, i think almost post-lunch, he started in a low gurgling voice and i was stuck by what he said, i can't recollect everything, but, somethings he said has since then struck with me forever. for instance, "scale and replicability", terms that are casually tossed in the Development sector as a norm. He was challenging the same and asking people to examine the geneology of replicability. He went on to talk about that these were terms of war and cannot bring peace and prosperity as many of the people in the room had spoken of. that concepts and tools that have been developed for a certain purpose carry within them the purpose itself. you can try to adopt it for another purpose temporarily, but, eventually, the real purpose will manifest in the right eco-system.

I resonated with this because, i have been studying organization structures and their functioning, particularly the social sector ones. many philanthropic and supposedly social institutions adopt the legal, structural and functional model of a commercial, bureaucratic or a factory. while legal structures often can be addressed with the right kind of compliance consultants, the management systems and structure that is adopted is a problem. some of them resembled shop floor idea of efficiency with supervisors and speed being mistaken for efficiency while others mimicked the mediocre government systems where proximity to higher levels of decision making is automatically mistaken for intelligence.

in the sphere of technology, the purpose of majority of the technology has been for war and control rather than to propagate peace or compassion. it is more so in the last century and half of explosion of the technology. nuclear bomb was the purpose and 'peaceful' nuclear energy was always contrived, the gene-modification was a biological controller, to be used at times of war for denial of seeds, it has forever been exposed as incapable of either food security or eliminate pests, regardless of how many spin stories are planted in the media about it, the purpose of newer and newer drugs often is not as much to eliminate illnesses as much as companies to ensure that people are addicted to drugs forever and thereby contribute to the companies' profits, the purpose of media has always been to propagate certain twisted news to the public to shape their perception and thinking and more and more dynamic media cannot ensure that the news is not contrived. indeed the purpose of most of the technology has been to establish control over certain human activity and thereby for a small group of people to have a say over what a large group of people did or will do. in ensuring that the large majority do things in a particular manner, the small group manages to profit forever. and modern day technology has been driven and directed to this purpose to the most extent.

when the government forced us all to do only digital transactions during the peak of the demonetisation days, i was amazed at how stupid some of the arguments were in promoting the digital transactions. it was forcing the citizens to adopt a technology through which their purchase pattern can be stored without any safe guards whatever for the consumer behaviour. it was as though the government had decided one fine day to play along with the companies to mine the data of the individuals and both the company and the government would benefit from this jointly. to me this was the point of a new form of forced digitization imposed on the Indian public. there was no safe guard mechanism as to what would the data be used for, instead all that we had was the government parading the fact that so much of transactions were being fully digital. there were stories of 'digital villages' and 'digital small shops', etc., how could a government that forced our choice, celebrate making available a choice? it was freedom being trampled upon at multiple levels. data security in India was fully compromised with that move. 

UIDAI is the next step. It is such a slippery slope of an argument  that the government has built for mining our data for sharing with the companies and determine and control our behaviour. what are the biggest 2 arguments in favour of Aadhaar? 

1. that it unites all the various government identities - false. the government has no clue where is your passport no or where is your voter id no. the passport no. for instance asks my full name expanded as first,middle and last name whereas the voter id has only the first name and second name, aadhaar has the same 2 way naming. In my case, the voter id card entries were made by some local school teacher who got the name in tamil and spelt it any which way she could in english, the passport details were filled-in by myself and the aadhaar by a poor young man. each one has  a different way of writing name and spelling as well now. so, that is why the onus of linking has been pushed to us, not the government. it would be nightmare trying to understand the various spelling errors. but, the show is not over yet. there is still a good chance that there will be digital entry errors and the spelling errors in the various  levels in government will continue for sometime as it pans several departments. 

2. that people will have money delivered to their bank accounts directly. this was happening anyway for individual schemes that could link to bank account. aadhaar has nothing to do with this. BPL card holders with NREGA linked bank / post office accounts anyway had their money getting credited (wherever the local corrupt rural development official permitted that is)

 of course, it does establish the best form of control over the individuals accounts. obvious, the control based service providers and industries are the ones most happy. my aadhaar's biggest proponent is my auditor, who thinks it is very good. for my life, i cannot understand what is the idea of linking aadhaar to the private service provider's services? why link it to the mobile phones? on what basis? if the government thinks that this can prevent terrorists from acquiring newer sim cards, it is wrong. at the most it can figure out under what name a particular sim card was procured, that is all. now almost every other service needs an aadhaar card because paranoia has gripped the industry and everyone is playing it safe. recently while staying in a small guest house, because a VVIP was expected to arrive in the vicinity, the owner of the guest house apologetically demanded that i give my aadhaar card! i told him that any photo identity should do and aadhaar is not mandatory. he said, "i do what the cops want me to do, they are such an harassment. i almost want to shut down till this tamasha is over and then re-start business". i bet the cops too don't know why they have to get the aadhaar of all those staying, i am sure it is all entered into some machine somewhere and ultimately reaches a computer programme. ultimately it is the colonizer, the computer programme to whom everyone abides. 

recently someone pointed out to me that after the initial surge, the digital transaction has come down by almost 70% as more currency started to flow into the economy again. that reassures me the in-built wisdom of our people. they don't want anyone to know what all they do with their cash and there is no need. in fact, the irony of the "free market" is less and less freedom for the consumer! freedom in our country has always been the capacity of the individual to assert a way of life. globalized market economics is trying to dictate the way of life and ensure that this freedom is curtailed. digital colonization is the most blatant attempt on the part of the government to subjugate all of us to the global market economy. 

(will continue...)

Democracy or Digital Colonization?

A Short Quiz of 3 questions on Colonization - 

So, what is the most efficient thing that the Colonizers did? 
Collecting of taxes of course.

What is the most inefficient thing that the Colonizers did?
Implement any scheme for the welfare of its slave citizens.

What is the mechanism it used for this dual purpose?
Its puppet government, its agents in various trades and vocations and native power centres that were made to influence or intimidate anyone objecting for the same.


Is Digitization of our exchange with our own Government a new form of Colonization?

Let me explain..

What is the Government of India doing with maximum efficiency through the digital medium today?
Collecting taxes and keeping tabs of taxes owed to it from the citizen through the digitization, of course.

What is the most inefficient thing that the government does today?
Provide any targeted welfare schemes. Rural Development, Agriculture, Social Welfare, Tribal welfare, Urban and Rural amenities, Infrastructure,...none of these are given any importance to digital medium nor utilize them optimally except again to count them for showcasing. 

Several recent instances of failures on the digital transaction life in India -

• The IT department says the deadline for linking of Aadhaar to PAN card is extended, but, since a few days there are reports that you can't submit tax papers online without an Aadhaar as someone forgot to fix the software after the policy  changed. 
• I go to the bank to ask for the password with which I can open the monthly statement that they have asked me to 'opt for digital copy' now, but, the clerk doesn't know why I am asked a new no. unlike earlier when a combination of my account no and other sounds is fine.
• The government has my Aadhaar, it has my PAN, it has my Ration Card, it has my Passport, it has my mobile numbers with it and every other card within itself, but, it cannot have a simple software running that can link up the various personalities living in a particular address with same name and at least ask me if these are all myself and can the same be linked. Why is the onus on the citizen to go to every office and link all of these? why should they subject their days and revenue earning time to share and link data centres willingly submitting to the whims and fancies to the young adults that are hired on a part time  basis for this purpose; and if the citizen is not utilizing any of the scheme entitlements, it becomes even worse. 
• Old timers who have moved to India from other countries long ago and need to every 5 years renew their visas were told that now it can be renewed for only 1 year to make them comply to new systems, and in some of the embassies, they cannot give 5 year visas as the software programme has not been re-calibrated!
• I try and make a payment gateway method of paying for the IRCTC online ticket booking, the third party who collects IRCTC funds for UPI gateway doesn't acknowledge the payment and gets stuck, my bank and the payment gateway has already cleared the payment, but, the payment days not reflect in the IRCTC site and the third party has no way of letting me know what is happening!? So, till the money is returned into my account a few days later, I have no clue what happened and there was no option in the software for me to find out what happened.
• ATMs often run out of money, with or without demonetisation and the bank right next to it  can at the most shrug and tell you that though it is their ATM, they cannot control how much and when money gets refilled; but, the same banks take our old ATM cards and replace them with new 'chip carrying' ones and neither do the staff know why this has to happen! 
• recently, one of the online eMarketeers took an order, promised to deliver goods in 10 days, then 12 days later cancelled the order and said that they have initiated the repayment. the repayment of money took another 10 days and during this entire period, there was no way in which one could lodge a complaint with the eMarketeer, the option to make a complaint was well masked into several menu driven options that kept one going on and on without resolving anything. Government has done nothing to make the digital marketing companies become more accountable even as they swindle enarmous amount of money and the government continues to encourage the citizens to 'go digital' and 'go cashless'

...and the story is endless. every person with whom I share any of the stories above comes up with more stories of 'software not updated', 'system failure', 'something went wrong', 'come later, system hangs', 'our software cannot accept this' or just a shrug of shoulder and an expression of helplessness with several wings of the government in recent times. 

In each of these instances, the most efficient digitization is on control and accounts, cases where the governments earn money, while the least efficient systems are the ones to do with providing access to privileges or entitlements or better facilities to the citizens. This is a country that prides itself of millions of software engineers, but, not one can fix a problem that can make life easier or better for the citizen in a ever increasing and brutally imposed 'digital world'. 

It is not to do with the medium (Information & Communication Technology), but, governance. That which is the attitude of the government (any government) will reflect in the way it uses the technology or tool that it has access to. Unless the governments of the day think of its citizens as people it wants to serve and uses the data and the tool of digitization for the purpose, the entire technology will be meaningless and undemocratic in its usage.  It is with this in the background, we need to understand how our government may use the BIG DATA against the citizen and thereby undermine Democracy all together.

(...to continue)

Election 2014, Built up - 4: Why does it make sense to support AAP

Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) is like a whiff of fresh spring air in the otherwise mostly nauseating gutter of Indian political space.

I have not blogged since their (non)victory in Delhi in early December, in fact my last posting was the day before the Delhi results were announced and ironically, I may be posting the day before their government may fall in Delhi after all.

I was in a taxi driver's tea shop in Delhi listening to some of the taxi drivers talk to each other in a cold January morning. One of them was describing with much gestures how he went and demanded a service from a government office and when the officer didn't know how to handle a request, asked him, "if you don't know how to respond, what are you doing in this job?". this new found energy, my friendly sardar taxi driver informed me, was because of the new AAP led move to record and report all corrupt officers and the whole process being made quite easy with a toll free number to report and everyone was becoming a corruption-catcher in the city.

In an interview, when the reporter asked Arvind Kejeriwal whether such a process wouldn't lead to mayhem, he calmly replies, this is Democracy. This is amazing 'out of the box' politics that this team had indulged in that is refusing to be cowed down by all the king's men and their media trying to pull them down.

It is said of Gandhi, that the British couldn't guess what will be his next move as never was predictable. Anna Hazare's movement had that element of surprise, but, it was soon crowded and taken over by more sophisticated and educated Indians, losing touch with the common man, except when Annaji himself starts to articulate. But, Arvind and team have taken this important lesson from Anna and perhaps Gandhi of keeping the opponents (and everyone who is anyone benefiting from the status quo that these people are challenging is an opponent currently)  guessing as to what will be their next move.

Like Gandhi, the AAP team has set its goal high, in fact, the same if we go by the name 'Swaraj'. However, unlike Gandhi, they have to deal with a very vocal and loud India, where every step is followed by a vigilante media, often precluding, predicting, prejudicing the public, encouraging diverse opinions of all and sundry being thrown up for response. I don't know what Gandhi would have done in such a situation, perhaps asked Arnab to sit in silence with him during prayer hours for a week before granting him an interview!? He definitely would have come up with some 'out of the box' solutions, many that would be critiqued by his co-Congresswallas as much as AAP is today being criticised for being 'out of the box' by just about everyone.

The party has been called several names by now. But, one thing is sure, it has given the NaMo campaign, run for its money and for the first time made BJP feel that perhaps there could be an opposition. That within a month, you had both Congress and BJP admitting that their language has changed since Delhi elections is the biggest victory for the AAP, their government may not last 100 days, but, they have made a national level impact already. Both Congress and BJP leaders have acknowledged that the AAP Delhi has lessons to teach them.

Have they made mistakes? Ofcourse, they have. Will they make more mistakes? ofcourse they will. But, there was no 'horse trading' in Delhi, not a soul spoke of 'buying off' of MLAs for the first time a single majority party didn't emerge in recent years. In Democratic India, never before did so many ordinary people feel that they can also make a difference in politics and so many self-respecting individuals actually wanted to join politics. The most important aspect of the AAP impact has been the hope it has created in the midst of youth across the country. I was not old enough during the emergency and didn't know what it meant to be youth during JPs tenure, however, have heard from several people that perhaps that was the last time something equally significant happened in Indian politics. Elders place it at par with even the freedom struggle.

But the times are different - the strengthening of the ordinary citizen is also to be sensitive enough to prioritize not one but a million issues that have been waiting to be resolved through a political process for several decades. Suddenly, each one of these citizen voices that has never found strength in their supposed governments, find not just strength, but, complete liberty to demand that their issue be the first one to be resolved. And it is not just the citizen and individual, every activist, civil society member, public persona...all have their problems and now seek a solution placing the party in a great pressure situation, but, also in the process reposing their faith in a political process, party and ultimately participative and pro-active democracy.

The challenge for the party is to handle these demands and expectations. It also needs a nation full of leaders, diverse and multi-talented, but, united in being clean, corruption free and convinced and committed to the cause of a Swaraj ideal. An ideal that has its roots not merely in the Gandhian articulation, but, deeper into the very psyche of the Indian aadmi (aurat).

Their few policy confrontations, such as rejecting FDI in retail and asking for police control with the state have all been portrayed negatively by the Congress. While the anointed PM for their party is going around talking of Panchayat system of devolution of power, not realizing the contradiction is so deep rooted in his own party. As a party and a government facing the writing on the wall, the UPA has resorted to what conquerors have always done at the time of retracting - set up a process of destruction which makes the job of governance and re-construction for the new incumbent that much more difficult. Moily as the environment minister seems to have become an unlikely lead on this one (perhaps to make up for the loss of DMK representatives who have unsurpassed record of corruption within the UPA).

Perhaps the biggest, most vicious, vocal opposition to AAP and Kejriwal has come from the BJP, which suddenly sees a threat. A threat to its moral bastion (till AAP came) of 'nationalism'. AAP has combined nationalism with an issue - that of corruption and more later, whereas BJP had used nationalism alongside an identity. While identity emphasis required them to boost emotional appeal and breast beating political machismo, the issue related nationalism doesn't need such 'show' to perpetuate or popularize. The very fact that the NaMo roadshow is necessary for BJP along side a Congress like compulsion to negotiate with several political parties of dubious pasts and suspicious leaders, means that the BJP is not confident of a clean majority. I had blogged earlier that the BJP will be far more desperate in its bid to find allies, AAP has reduced its negotiation power with allies and made its job even more difficult and thereby allies even more expensive.

The invisible Left is another major loser of moral space to the AAP, many in the Left have joined the AAP in their localities and / or providing silent support from the sidelines as they see any activist movement that can get stronger in the political space as an extension of themselves.

In the long run, I see the emergence of AAP as the final comeuppance of national political parties in India. I see a change being forced on all political parties, particularly the Congress and the Left. BJP and AAP maybe the only parties left in the coming times. One will continue to do 'identity' based politics and other 'issue' based politics. One will place the idea of India, an idea of India as a burden on people and will tow the line of global corporate on all other issues. The other will place the issue of the people and their methods and means of engagement above all identity politics and will perhaps be more closer to the people. Congress may disappear, I hope it does, it would have fulfilled the desire of Mahatma of 1936 when he said that the party has to be disbanded. The Left too will have to seriously think how is it relevant in the new India, in a time when ideology has been given a pass and identity and issues start to rule the idea of governance. Drawing from global examples won't do in governance of other Left's elsewhere, in the era of internet, principles and practices would already be adopted sans the ideology or they would be countered and proved irrelevant in the Indian context.

In the coming election, I would vote for AAP sure. Even better, for the first time I believe that it could be within my power to even influence who can be a candidate in a political party if I am able to spare the time and effort. This for me is a major shift. I will ensure that whatever I can to help AAP to stay simple, local and addressing the last man and women, I better do. It is a commitment for a better future, and, to not take this responsibility is to not be sensitive to the hope and the air of freshness that AAP brings to Indian public space.

It does make sense to support AAP, it makes more sense to actively participate in their party work.

the single killer vote!!

As we inch closer in perhaps the most publicly debated power struggle in the centre, new standards seem to be set in politics. There are reports of 100Cr being offered per M.P. to either vote for government or abstain, there was reports of someone being offered a berth in the Central cabinet and someone else a Chief Ministership, someone else has been offered a divided state. The opposition not to be out done by the government has also proposed someone as the future Prime Minister! and is trying its own tactics.

Individual MPs are suddenly so caught up in their importance of their single vote, they seem to feel more valuable (some MPs may be wondering why the hell they have only one vote, why not do what is done in municipality elections and let the powerful one cast more votes!?) and in their excited state almost forget what they are talking about. 'In the national interest' has been most heard in the last one week in our media than ever before, 'I believe the Nuclear Deal is in the national interest', 'we need the energy for our future', 'this is strategically important for us', etc. all being mouthed by people who suddenly want to mix emotions, national pride, loyalty, blind faith, meaningless morality and any other kind of sentiment to justify a policy decision that has its roots in science and technology. Even the normally sane looking Dayanidhi Maran was on television declaring his loyalty and reiterating his faith in the 'wisdom of Manmohan Singh' as the reasons for supporting the Nuclear 'Deal' (to the utter irritation of Ms. Gandhi that is what the nation calls it despite her insistence that it be called a agreement and not a deal).  I wouldn't be surprised if there will be prayers to Gods and Godesses across the country that we sign the Nuclear deal and that the government survive. The other day there were reports of Sonia Gandhi being offered laddus from Tirupathi temple for precisely this reason!!! 

Electrical energy is a function of technology, technologies for producing energy are many and some of them are clean and some cheap, some are destructive to the environment and others not too destructive. Nuclear energy (after this deal) will make us depend external players for raw material, technology, regulation, usage and maybe even trading and charges. It is high technology dependent, requires extreme precaution in terms of safety and security, needs enormous amount of resources as initial investment and maintenance, is certainly not clean or green as the government advertisements claim and could leave residues that takes many thousands of years to dissipate.

But, that is of least concern to the MPs, they are currently consumed by the single killer vote that they possess in their person. Never has every insignificant MP felt so important and so sought after. 

The visual media is loving it too, post-IPL, they have been fighting among themselves for re-re-re-re-run of Ramayana and Mahabaratha for bolstering their TRPs and here is an opportunity to squeeze a live coverage to its maximum. All kinds of meaningless debates and even more meaningless surveys seem to be conducted by the media. One of them, which I briefly watched, had a survey of Muslims across metropolitan cities as to what they feel about the deal. That is the most stupid development in the media. Why are Muslims being asked an opinion based on their religion on an issue that is about energy and technology? Will we next ask Christians about their opinion on the Iran-Pakistan pipeline, because Iran has snubbed the Christian nations? Similarly will we seek the opinion of Buddhists before we protest against Sri Lanka for killing fishermen in the Tamilnadu coast? What kind of the insensitive media can come up with divisions such as energy for Indians and energy for Muslim Indians.

This sure is the most macabre political theatre we are witnessing and the killer votes are shooting at our foundations of democracy and political life.  We all may suffer this process as long as its eventual policy outcome.

Soul Searching about Pakistan

Among the crowd of writings that have emerged since the Pakistan emergency, the following one caught my eye. I think we need more sincere analysis of the situation and not be carried away by statements of Ms. Rice and others from the US Government. It has been repeatedly stated in the news reports that the current state of Emergency was declared with the blessings of the US Government and with the co-option of Benazir. I personally suspect that the noises being made about the 'Pak Nuclear Arms falling in wrong hands' is pressure sales man tactics being applied on the Indian Government for the Nuclear Deal. It has already surfaced in the media. Unless the Pakistan State is dis-engaged from the American War On Terrorism, it looks unlikely that the state will remain stable. We have had the world tell us repeatedly that Kashmir is the prime issue for normalizing Indo-Pak relations, I think now we need to state that the delinking of Pakistan state from sustaining the American Supremacist P(r)ogram(me) is essential for Peace in Pakistan and normal relations with any of its neighbours including India.

"It is easy to condemn the imposition of yet another martial law by Musharraf. But I have yet to see one iota of solution coming out from any brilliant, or dumb, analyst on how to deal with the situation that has developed in Pakistan over the last seven years. It is always easy for liberal democrats to abuse the men in uniform. That is easy, and highly popular among the English-speaking middle class in Pakistan. But, the crisis in Pakistan today is a direct result of the US' and NATO's ( the bastions of democratic world) insane policies in Afghanistan. To begin with, bombing of southern, central and eastern Afghan villages killing innocent civilians, who happen to be Pushtuns, has eradicated the distinction between the Taliban and Pushtruns. The so-called Taliban and the other bad guys have long moved over to Pakistan's FATA, Balochistan and northern territories waiting for the "foreign troops" to leave. In Afghanistan, of course, everytime a Pushtun get killed, the individual is labeled as a "Taliban" by the West. That sells well in West, but neither in Afghanistan nor in Pakistan.

The situation in adjoining Pushtun areas in Pakistan is no different. Americans and the Europeans -- the old colonial guys with white skin-- have arrived again to take control of Afghanistan. This time they are waving Bernard Lewis' books to justify their arrival. They are taking care of evil Islam, that is what the invaders say.

The mistake that Islamabad made, and now Benazir and the other liberal democrats have plunged right in, is to agree to the war on terror when it was known in 2001 that in order to succeed in this venture, the Pakistani army will be needed to wage a full-fledged war against its own people. That was a huge mistake, and the Americans, Europeans and all those Pakistanis who hate "bearded lunatics", joined in this false campaign. And, most disgustingly, even today they do not point out that Pakistan west of River Indus may well merge with Afghanistan in its fight against the US, NATO and Islamabad because these Pakistanis have been identified as enemies of Pakistan and the west..

The result is the threat of a breakdown of Pakistan's military-- the only institution that the Pakistanis reach out for when kleptocrats and fundie-appeasers move in and make mess things up royally.

In other words, the crisis that has been created by the United States and NATO, and because of Musharraf's willingness to go along with it, hoping he would be able to outsmart them, is huge. Hugging Benazir Bhutto, or democracy, will not do. It is time the Pakistani literates stop their knee-jerk reactions and address the source of this crisis for a constructive future.. - Ramatanu Maitra in the South Asia Discussion Group

World Bank Charged with Serious Violations of Democracy, Human Rights and Soverignty - Indepedent People's Tribunal findings

PRESS RELEASE 25 September 2007, New Delhi

World Bank Officials Refuse to be Held Accountable

'TRIBUNAL CHARGES BANK WITH SERIOUS VIOLATIONS OF DEMOCRACY, HUMAN RIGHTS AND SOVEREIGNTY'

New Delhi: The four day Independent Peoples Tribunal (IPT) on the World Bank in India concluded here today hearing numerous depositions indicting the Bank's policy and project interventions in India. Over six hundred people from communities, social movements, research institutes, NGOs and universities attended the proceedings. The Tribunal, supported by the Jawaharlal University's Teachers Association and Students' Union was held in the university premises.

The IPT invited the World Bank two weeks ago and while they did agree to make a presentation responding to some of the evidence, they failed to show up despite provision of adequate space and time by the organisers. They stated on their website that they had taken this decision because they are not accountable to the Tribunal process. We must record our shock at their blatant disregard of any need to be accountable to civil society and to a Jury comprising retired justices of the Supreme and High Courts as well as leading writers, academics, religious leaders and activists.

In its preliminary findings, the IPT observed the Bank had an undue and disturbingly negative influence in shaping India's national policies disproportionate to its contribution, financial or otherwise.

While India is the world's largest single cumulative recipient of World Bank assistance, with lending totaling about $60 billion (Rs. 2,40,000 crores) since 1944, current annual borrowing amounts to less than 1% of the country's GDP. The loans, however, have been used as leverage to bring about important policy changes and impose conditionalities in areas such as governance reform, health, education, electricity, water and environment- many of these with obvious political and social consequences. The loans also legitimize substantial additional funding from a diversity of bilateral and multilateral donors such as the Asian Development Bank and Department for International Development (DFID-UK). The Bank's loans have caused extensive social and environmental harm from mass displacement in the Narmada valley to loss of livelihoods of traditional fishworkers in places such as Barwani.

It was noted that such overbearing influence on India's policy making was in violation of the World Bank's own Rules of Association, which mandate it to be an apolitical institution that should not interfere in political processes of any member country. Further, the IPT depositions stated that the presence of former Bank officials in senior government positions was unacceptable and involved conflicts of interest.

UNDERMINING DEMOCRACY:

Vice Chairman of the Kerala State Planning Board Professor Prabhat Patnaik in his deposition cited the example of the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (NURM), which is a World Bank designed project. In the Kerala NURM project, the state government, he said, was being forced to accept a conditionality to reduce stamp duties to 5% from the earlier 15-17%. To avail a loan of about 1000 crores, Kerala would lose up to Rs.7000 crores of government revenue.

Vinay Baindur of the Bangalore based Collaborative for the Advancement of Studies in Urbanism (CASUMM) showed evidence of how the Karnataka Economic Restructuring Loan (KERL) resulted in the conversion of a state government and its economy into a corporatised entity meant to generate funds for "private sector and enterprise development". 'The $250 million loan resulted in far reaching changes; the closure/privatisation of the public sector, nearly two lakh permanent employees were forced to take Voluntary Retirement Scheme (VRS) payments.

Further, the restructuring process led to a steep rise in farmer suicides; many of those who committed suicide did so because they were unable to pay the arrears in power costs that were suddenly slapped on them on account of power tariff hikes. "The withdrawal of subsidies for agriculture led to a sharp rise in the costs of cultivation", argued Baindur in his deposition.

Jury member and scientist Meher Engineer said that he found the depositions on how the Bank forced inappropriate technology on India such as incinerators especially damning. 'Given the well researched evidence that I have heard it is hard to imagine any role for the World Bank in the environment sector, he said. 'The Bank is pro-rich, pro-urban and anti-environment', he concluded.

The IPT was organized by an inclusive platform consisting of over 60 national and local groups (see list below). Activists, academicians, policy analysts and project affected communities presented evidence against the World Bank in over 26 sectors from 21-24 September. Jury members included historian Romila Thapar, writer Arundhati Roy, activist Aruna Roy, former Supreme Court Justice P B Sawant, former Finance Secretary S P Shukla, former Water Secretary Ramaswamy Iyer, scientist Meher Engineer, economist Amit Bhaduri, Thai spiritual leader Sulak Sivaraksa and Mexican economist Alejandro Nadal amongst others.

WORLD BANK AND GOVERNMENT OF INDIA MISSING IN ACTION:

But in response to the depositions the Bank posted a Q&A document on its India home page. In the document, the Bank makes the outrageous claim that, "The World Bank definitely has not recommended the privatization of water supply services in India". It is particularly worrisome that the Bank has to repeat a series of untruths and not own responsibility for the extensive harms they have caused.

In a sign of convergence with the Bank, the Government of India also failed to send even a single representative to the event, despite personal invitations, emails and faxes being sent 2 weeks in advance to several Government officials at all ministries that borrow money from the World Bank.

PUSHING FOR ELECTRICITY PRIVATISATION:

In the 1990s, 20-30% of World Bank loans in India went to the energy sector. Orissa had the dubious distinction of being the first state to receive World Bank loans for restructuring the sector. Sreekumar N, from the Pune based Prayas Energy Group argued that based on World Bank advice, Orissa spent upto Rs.306 crores for foreign consultants, ignoring local expertise. The consultants recommended the privatisation of distribution and the American firm AES that took over distribution in the central zone behaved in a high handed manner and ultimately exited the state in 2001.

BANKS TOXIC COLONIALISM:

Nityanand Jayaraman of the Chennai based Corporate Accountability Desk in his desposition before the jury said, 'The Bank is perpetrating toxic colonialism by funding discredited and polluting technology interventions'. As evidence he presented cases where the Bank has promoted the setting up of more than 88 Common Effluent Treatment Plants, more than 90 percent of which were shown to have failed to meet environmental norms by the Central Pollution Control Board.

JUST THE BEGINNING:

Wilfred D' Costa, General Secretary of the Indian Social Action Forum(INSAF) one of the convening groups of the IPT said, 'The tribunal has been useful since it has seen a convergence of social movements, unions, academicians, researchers and struggle groups from across the country. Our next steps would be to use this platform to create a broad based political struggle against neo-liberalism and work towards an India without institutions such as the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank'.

For more information contact the IPT secretariat at secretariat@worldbanktribunal.org and +91-9820039557

CONVENORS and ADVISORS

All India Bank Employees Association o All India Trade Union Congress o Alternatives o Alternative Law Forum o Prof. Arun Kumar o Arunachal Citizen's Rights o Asia Pacific Movement for Debt & Development o Banwari Lal Sharma o Biraj Patnaik o C Rammanohar Reddy o Centre for Education and Communication o Chhotanagpur Adivasi Seva Samiti o Collaborative for the Advancement of Studies in Urbanism through Mixed Media o Corporate Accountability Desk o DICE o Prof. Deepak Nayyar o E.A.S Sharma o Equations o Food First Information and Action Network [FIAN] o Focus on the Global South o Forum for Biotechnology and Food Security o Human Rights Law Network o Indian Social Action Forum[INSAF] o Intercultural Resources o Jawed Naqvi o Jan Swasthya Abhiyan o Jharkhand Mines Area Co-ordination Committee o Jubilee South o K.G. Kannabiran o Kalpana Kannabiran o Kalpavriksh Environment Action Group o Kalyani Menon Sen o Karen Coelho o Kavaljit Singh o Kavita Srivastava o Kisan Sangarsh Samiti o Leo Saldanha o Lokayan o Lok Shakti Abhiyan o Lok Sangharsh Morcha o M Vijayabhaskar o Manthan Adhyayan Kendra o Michael Goldman o Mihir Desai o Dr. N Raghuram o Narasimha Reddy o Narmada Bachao Andolan o National Alliance of People's Movements o National Campaign for Dalit Human Rights o National Campaign for People's Right to Information o National Committee for the Protection of Natural Resources o National Conference of Dalit Organisations o National Confederation of Officers Association o National Hawkers' Federation o Neil Tangri o PEACE o Parivartan o People's Campaign for a Common School System o Plachimada Solidarity Committee o Praful Bidwaio Prashant Bhushan o Prayas o Sanjay Parikho Sathi-CEHAT o Satya Sagar o Shalmali Guttal o Shetkari Sangathana o South Asian Network on Dams, Rivers and People o Subrata o Sudhir Patnaik o Urban Research Centre o Vikas Adhyayan Kendra o Vijay Paranjype o Vinay Baindur

In Collaboration With Jawaharlal Nehru University Teacher's Association [JNUTA] and Jawaharlal Nehru University Student's Union [JNUSU]

Follow Up: Goa Elections

Earlier I had blogged immediately after the Goa elections and had opined that the wafer thin majority may not last long, well, one and a half month seems to be the norm in a state that has seen close to a dozen ministry changes in less than that many years. What price democracy?