All is not Green here !

The Valley that never was silent

This year is marked by United Nations as the year for Biodiversity conservation. And it is the right time to retrospect into the undercurrents of the Silent Valley movement which is one of the most-heard efforts that took place in India to conserve the diverse natural resources. 

The site of struggle

Silent Valley was never silent. The 830 hectare long tropical rain forest carries the legendary myths of Mahabharata in its streams. The legend goes like this. Known otherwise as ‘Sairandhri’, Silent Valley was the area visited by the Pandavas in exile. It was a solace for their woeful heart. They bathed in the river that bubbled through this lush green forest. In memory of their mother’s absence, they named this river as ‘Kuntipuzha’. ‘Kunti’ was their mother and ‘Puzha’ is the Malayalam word for river. This valley is located in the area of Nilgiri hills in Palakkad District in Kerala.

The entire area with all its multitude of flora and fauna remained unknown to the mainstream life until 1847. Located in the Kundali Hills of the Western Ghats, Silent Valley in Kerala also holds rare plants and herbs in its virgin tropical evergreen forests interspersed with rivers. This tourist site in Kerala is surrounded with Attappadi Reserve Forests in the east, and vested forests of the Palghat and Nilambur divisions in the west and south. This forest is the abode of the bewildering variety of species including the lion-tailed macaque. Scientists have found many varieties of wild pepper here. Several plants have medicinal value. The evergreen forest tree- Hydnocarpus, whose seeds contain the oil used to treat leprosy, and the herb-like shrub Rauvolfia serpentine used for treating high blood pressure are two examples.  

Robert Bright, a British botanist was behind this landmark exploration that unveiled the Silent Valley. Once in the not-so-distant past he ventured into the area. He discovered an uninhabited, barely penetrable forest, where after nightfall there was silence- unlike other forests, the Cicadas comforting call could not be heard here after dusk. Thus Sairandhri, the unpronounceable was rechristened as Silent Valley. 

Thereafter British government proposed building a dam on the Kunti River and to create a reservoir in the Silent valley. The dam which would be 130 Metres high would be built between two hillocks in a natural gorge through which the river runs. That however was dropped by the British. In Independent India the Kerala Electricity Board (KSEB) had started work on it in 1973, but shortage of funds delayed things till 1976. The time when the government decided to resume the hydro electric project coincided with the period when international NGOs began concentrating on the developmental discourses in third world nation states.  

Manufacturing a Movement

In the work ‘Third Force: the rise of transnational civil society, Ann Florini proclaims that civil society opposition to big dam building in India was mounted during the 1970s and 1980s. She writes: “The campaign against the Silent Valley hydroelectric project in Kerala, one of the first to eventually draw support from the international NGOs, was a harbinger of trends to come. Grass root mobilization against the project emerged in 1976 when a group of local teachers began assisting villagers who feared the loss of their livelihoods from the destruction of forest resources. At the same time, the World Wildlife Fund for Nature began to highlight internationally the project’s negative environmental consequences on the pristine Silent Valley Forests and the endangered lion-tailed monkey. The Silent Valley campaign grew in size and strength over the subsequent decade. Domestic and foreign critics and opponents wrote letters, staged protests, lobbied officials and filed court cases to halt the project. During the same time, environmental issues increased in prominence domestically in India and internationally in the aftermath of the United Nations Conference on Human Environment held in Stockholm in 1972. As a result of the sustained opposition, the silent valley project was halted in 1984.” The government eventually abandoned the project in 1983 and declared Silent Valley as a national park in 1984.

UN Chronicle mentions the same conference as the first earth summit: “Held in Stockholm, Sweden from 5 to 16 June 1972, the UN Scientific Conference, also known as the First Earth Summit, adopted a declaration that set out principles for the preservation and enhancement of the human environment, and an action plan containing recommendations for international environmental action.”

This new paradigm thus became a devise for international NGOs to intrude into the non-political society (Otherwise known as civil society) in India. In their discourses, environment was conceived as something to be conserved and development was a sustainable practice. This notion confronted the Industrial planning envisaged by Socialist and decolonized states around the world. 

Revisiting the Environmental Paradigm

Environment is not a monolithic entity to be conserved. It is a dynamic form comprising of natural habitat, human habitat, inhabitation formed by the interaction of man and nature and finally the ideology. Natural habitat cannot be left untouched by human beings in their life process. It will be modified and becomes human habitat. The further social development by human society in a given human habitat will become an inhabitation. 

                               

Decolonized governments in India and elsewhere were formed by capitalists and hence followed the Industrialization without heeding to the genuine concerns of displaced local people. This apolitical space was utilized by NGOs to promote the ideology of eco-conservation. In disguise this was an attempt to sabotage the Industrial initiatives in third world.

Why NGOs want to stall big dams? It is precisely because they are funded by donor agencies promoting the interests of US Imperialism. A market economy like US can thrive only when production of goods elsewhere is stopped or frozen. For seamless production across a nation, a reliable energy source is indispensable. And water is the most eco-friendly source of large energy potential with least amount of pollution and least chances of environmental and man made disasters. 

NGO ideology is against big dams because only such meta-narratives can induce a national production harnessing electricity. Water achieves its sublime utilization potential when it is converted to electricity, which is nothing but a matter to energy conversion. A big dam is not only a generator of energy but an integrator for a nation of diverse cultures. It can integrate various productive sectors through irrigation and electricity. We know that Aswan dam in Egypt became the site of a national identity. Thus big dams are the inhabitation that humans can create in a country or state having rivers and large coastlines. Thus big dams suits India, especially Kerala where we are bestowed with aplenty of rivers. 

Similarly, biodiversity is not a quality of nature devoid of human intervention. By human labour, nature becomes more diverse and agriculture is the most advanced form of biodiversity where a second productive nature is created on the fertile earth using maximum potential of soil and ground water. Keeping natural habitat untouched by indigenous population is always in the interest of the foreign market. 

NGOs shed tears for the trees cut, ignoring the plight of millions of Indians with dry throat and empty stomach. Dollars were funnelled to their intestines. The NGOs ravaging against the use of Kunti River for irrigation are muted when it comes to the consumption of bottled water in a land of 44 rivers.  Reading through the subsequent periods, we can see that the NGO ideology was a prelude to the civil society organizations that promoted Religious extremism, Dalitism, Feminism, Gay-lesbian rights and Naxalism. These ideologies were taken as the surrogates to intrude into nation states with the agenda of the imperium to fragment the nation states. 

Thus Silent Valley is an evergreen victim to the Imperial agenda to freeze the industrial and agricultural initiatives with a national perspective. And Environmental NGOs have replaced the national perspective with the localization agenda which is the product of globalization itself. This ideology continue to ripe more sites of fissure in Indian state through purchasing more and more marginalized lives using foreign funds and donor agencies. 

Pen is more expensive than the Sword !

Paid News Syndrome :

The Rot lies at the Root

News is defined to be the concoction of contemporary events and truth. But it seems to be an aging one in the new domains of public sphere. Editors Guild of India has observed that political parties are victims of 'paid news syndrome' during elections, and the opposition parties are favouring amendments in the Representation of the People Act to declare such news as an electoral malpractice. The facts demand much wider attention. It has taken many years for this malaise to come to the centre stage of media criticism. The syndrome is no more the apt word. It has become cancerous now.

The issue is now acting from both the sides of media and politics. The Political icons keenly ready to pay for an inflated image whereas media tycoons are double ready with their rate charts. This vicious circle (Money – Media – Politics) needs cure from political action as well as media conscience. When Congress CM of Haryana, Bhupinder Singh Hooda, revealed with such an ease that he paid a media establishment for painting his ‘proper’ image it shows the depth of the disease. 

First it was a meet of South Asia Free Media Association (India chapter) in Mumbai during the first week of December last year, where the issue of paid news was officially discussed with serious concern. Then came the annual general meeting of the Editors' Guild of India during the fourth week of December, where most of the members expressed concern at the growing tendency of a section of media groups (both print and electronic) to receive money for some 'non-advertorial' items in their media space. 

Media, by and large, is the generator of public opinion and reflector of social discourses. It is the same function that the vested invested groups want to exploit. Media exercises the legitimizing function with the definite ideological bent. This complicates the situation further. The entire cluster of all this is the media business of our day. By this very existence as a profit making and profit craving entity, contemporary media is loosing all the credibility in the public sphere. 

But unfazed by this trend of history, media barons are showing arrogance just to attract the honeycomb they hold –even the ‘editorial space’ for sale. Just to note here, political masters are not innocent either. It is their clumsy politics and the way they are detached from public that make them afraid of ‘paid news’ black mailing. Now the ‘good, bad and the ugly’ have come out in the public to reveal the devastating extent of this malaise. And that can make a different twist to this story. 

Every eyes and nerves of press loving people are tuned to watch out what the recently formed ethics committee of Editors Guild will do in this scenario. It can engage media in a monitoring and regulating exercise for sure. But the problem does not end there, nor it is rooted there. It lies at the core of the Business model centred on sheer profiteering. And it is striking chords now only because it has started to intrude into the sheaths of political society. 

In Parliament, BJP leader Arun Jaitley has described paid news phenomenon as ‘Bribery of the media’. “It interdicts the process of free and fair elections. It violates the limits set out by the Election Commission for expenditure in elections. Black money, in consideration of ‘paid news’ violates provisions of the income tax act.” He said. Jaitley argued that “paid news” was not free speech and, therefore, not protected by Article 19 (1) (a) of the Constitution — which guarantees the right. It can, he said, be restricted by enacting a law that empowers the Election Commission to refer “paid news” matters to a tribunal headed by a serving judge, and provides for exemplary punishment.

The CPM’s Sitaram Yechury wanted government ads stopped to those purveying “paid news”. The press council has set up a sub-committee to look into the issue, and its report is expected soon. After that, the government is expected to draw up rules giving the council more powers to tackle the problem.

Conceding these measures to be partially effective, we should march ahead extra miles to think beyond the issues it has created to the electoral system. Beyond the consternation of politicians, ‘paid news’ is a far departure from the duties that the press owes to this country and the right for information. In this context the argument by N.Bhaskara Rao, the founder chairman of CMS Academy of Communication & Convergence studies is worth noting. He is arguing for bringing Media under the purview of RTI. In addition to this he has advocated that Government media campaigns, other than on specific occasions, be discouraged six months before elections. 

The paid news phenomenon or otherwise known as ‘packaged journalism’ is not form of corruption practiced by a few journalists, says renowned journalist P.Sainath. He accuses that it has become a media-run game worth hundreds of millions of rupees. And it has grinded axe at the very foundation of our democratic process. For taking cure of this, the ongoing structural changes in media should be regulated immediately. If not, rather than supporting the three pillars of the state, media will transplant or supplant the entire state with its own market propaganda. Let’s keep eyes on nerves. 

Creative Marxist Conceptions

Bakhtin: 
In Context of Literary Revolutions

Many of the biographical sketches about the prominent literary critic Mikhail Mikhailovich Bakhtin (November 17, 1895 – March 7, 1975 ) are branding him as a neo-Kantian philosopher . His friendship with Matvei Kagan who later joined the neo-Kantian Hermann Cohen, is sited as a reason for this analysis. Hermann Cohen later formed the Marburg school and focused on the problems of epistemology and logic. We can see that neo-Kantians could never resolve the issues of idealist notions on Knowledge and empirical perspectives on the social activity of humans. They never went beyond the idealist architecture of Kantian system. 

Worse to say, neo-Kantianism became a inflated rhetoric over the universal human phenomenology posited by Kant. This sort of ideological position was a reflection of the continuing crisis in the bourgeoisie idealism in the times of World war. It reflected the desperate attempt by bourgeois ideologies to encapsulate the horizons of enlightenment. And many a times neo-Kantians reduced their 'philosophical positions' to mere personal allegations and quarrels. This inevitable locus of events made young George Lukcas to desert his early Kantian notions on the theory of knowledge which is reflected in his early works ( 'Theory of a Novel' ).

Regarding Bakhtinian studies, none of these analysts are showing any interest in seeing the semiotic trajectory of his materialist discourse which traverses the literary works and epistemological structures, toppling the monolithic hierarchies ( and underlying class positions ) and idealist narratives. In Bakhtin's positions, we can see the evolution of a language subsystem with semiotic value system based on the underlying process of historical materialism. He tried to explore the multitude of dimensions of signs and its historic semiotics. 

For him, 'Sign was never arbitrary'. He tried to create new pathways in semiotics by widening the domains of semiosis. Bakhtin was always analytical of the parody in literary works. For him, it was a site of the dialogic imagination. This is the major focus in his doctoral thesis 'Rabelais and his world'. It was a work on the French Renaissance writer François Rabelais. Bakhtin explores Rabelais’ Gargantua and Pantagruel in this thesis. His semiotic orientation is reflected in selecting a work of Parody as a site of textual analysis. 

A work of Parody and satire with dialogic potential will be imminent in the creation of new cultural signs. This can be attributed in his choice of Rabelais. Bakhtin identifies a rare unity of contradicting discourses in the Political satire of Rabelais, which communicated well with the people of his times. It was rich in folk spectacle, carnival atmosphere and festivity of images. But interestingly this aesthetics was too cryptic for the critics of next two centuries. For them, it was too heterogeneous and in eighteenth century it became too incompatible. 

All these can be traced in the works of his imitators (Des Periers , Noel du Fail) itself. Grotesque was used to convey the contradictory and double faced fullness of life in the works of Rabelais. This became a mere shadow in the works of imitators. Bakhtin identifies the elements of dialectics in the composition of grotesque when he invokes the process of negation of negation to describe the organic birth of anew life from the destruction happening in grotesque.

"Negation and destruction ( death of the old ) are included in the essential phase, inseparable from affirmation, from the birth of something new and better. The very material bodily lower stratum of the grotesque image ( food, wine, the genital force, the organs of the body) bears a deeply positive character. This principle is victorious, for the final result is always abundance, increase." 

(Page 62, Rabelais and his world By Mikhail Mikhaĭlovich Bakhtin )

Here we can see Bakhtinian prism traversing through the layers of grotesque image. We have seen similar analysis of archetypal symbols in the analytical psychology of C.G. Jung. But this is evidently more near to the processes of historical materialism. And he identifies the embedded but distorted positivity of primitive life in the compositions and ideological strata of myths. To be more precise, grotesque is materialistic and repellent towards the ideological forces. Always it shows its primitiveness and innate dynamics, even towards much forceful and static lattice of ideology.

If we turn to his notion of 'quoted speech', it throws light on the otherwise cryptic space of our inner speech and on the dynamics involved in the verbal communication. This framework runs through his analysis of the multiplicity of styles involved the discourse of novel. He says that all our communicative acts are reuse or use of quoted speech of others. Thus he locates the dialectic elements of 'I /Other' in the space - time conjecture of speech. 'I /Other ' compound is termed as a dual sign by many Bakhtin analysts. This notion 

is an omission of the historical process behind the dynamics of 'I / Other'. The meanings of the 'I /Other' are positioned with respect to the common material system of language. Hence 'I/Other' cannot exist as independent duals.

Another aspect of debate is about Bakhtin's interest on the folk culture. Linguistic carnival is an essential element in his studies on the culture of the so called lower strata of society. This notion is a negation of the class hierarchies as represented in many of the art works ( Edgar Allan Poe, Doestovsky etc ). And he writes about the carnival atmosphere in the medieval plays. It is deep rooted in primordial order and primordial thinking of man. But he stresses that it is not a literary phenomenon. He annotates it as a syncretic paegentry of ritualistic sort. [Problems of Dostoevsky's poetics ]. He is always careful to say that it can only be transposed into the realms of literature. Here we see Bakhtin traversing beyond the limits of verbal language itself. 

It is also to be noted that Bakhtin's notions about the organics of lower strata of life is quite different from the postmodern notion of subalterns. Bakhtin says that in carnival there are no divisions of performers and spectators. It is not contemplated ; not even performed. In Bakhtin's varied investigations , thus we can see the revolutionary trajectory of a Marxian radiance through the obscure most and primordial terrains of human civilization. Still , a lot to unearth from his theory of discourse and language that spans more than 6 decades of explorations .