Transcripts For CSPAN2 A Ghost Story 20140413

He seems like a really smart guy, a really great guy im sure andy ernst i can say about him he earns, you know, sort of my job was to ask tough questions on behalf of see, they have 107 lobbyists on capitol hill. They are swarming capitol hill their lobbyists. But ive got 100000 i had 100,000 people, more than 1000 people write me their objections. And so the first thing i would do is stop this deal. I would not let this go through if i were its not up to me. Senator franken weighs in on the proposed comcasttime warner cable merger monday on the communicators at 8 p. M. Eastern on cspan2. Booktv continues with arundhati roy. She talks about the effect of economic globalization on third world countries and argues that the exploitation of workers on the margins of the global capitalist system goes largely unnoticed even though the negative impact is huge. This is about an hour and a half half. Thank you everybody. Can you all hear me . Yeah . Okay. What im going to do is to talk a little and read a little, but to try and follow my Natural Instincts as a storyteller, even though a lot of what i write is about politics. So capitalism a ghost story is about the ways in which capitalism works in the modern day, which isnt always what we think. Its not just about operations and privatization and how does it colonize our imagination how does it pay must . Tema us. How does it make us into people we dont even know that we are . So ill just start ill just start at the beginning of this book and ill just read bits and talk a bit and if im being totally incoherent you can ask me questions afterwards about it. Is it a house or a home a templeton india or a warehouse for its ghosts . Ever since it arrived things have not been the same. Here we are, the frame to take me there said, pay your respects to our new ruler. Antilobbying laws to indias richest man. Id read that this most expensive dwelling ever built, 27 floors, three helipads, nine lifts, Hanging Gardens ballrooms, whether rooms gymnasiums, six floors of parking, and 600 servants. But nothing had prepared me for the vertical lawn a soaring 27 story high wall of grass attached to pay vast metal grid. The grass was dry in patches and dates had fallen off in neat rectangles. Clearly, trickle down hadnt worked. Thats why a nation of 1. 2 billion, indias 100 richest people on assets equal to onefourth of the gdp. The word on the street and in the New York Times is at least was, after all that effort and gardening they dont live in and tell a. No one knows for sure. People still whisper about ghosts and bad luck and sanctuary. May be its all karl marxs fault, all that testing. Capitalism, he said has conjured up such gigantic means of production and of exchange that its like a sorcerer who is no longer able to control the powers of the netherworld whom he has called up by himself. In india for 300 million of us who belong to the new post International Monetary fund reforms middleclass, the market, live sidebyside with the spirit of the netherworld. The poltergeist of dead rivers, dry wells, Bald Mountains and denuded force. The coast of 250000 debt ridden farmers have killed themselves and of the 800 million who have been impoverished and dispossessed to make way for us. And who survive on less than half a dollar a day. But he is personally worth 20 billion. He holds a majority controlling share in the Reliance Industries limited, i r. L. In company with a market capitalization of 47 billion Global Business interests that include petrochemicals, oil, natural gas, polyester fiber, special Economic Zones, fresh food retail, high schools, Life Science Research and stem cell storage services. Irl recently bought 95 shares in infotel, atv consortium that controls 27 tv news and entertainment channels and almost every regional language. Infotel, the only nationwide license for 4g broadband, a high speed information pipeline which is the technology works, could be the future of information exchange. He also owns a cricket team. So all, you have these huge industrialists who have this cross ownership of businessebusinesse s and then you have huge media houses like, for example newspaper which has a readership of 17. 5 million readers in four languages, and they own 69 companies which are Mining Companies to Power Generation Companies Real Estate companies, textile companies. So they have this kind of controlling the way of controlling information, imagination and business and land and agriculture. Irl is one of a handful of corporations that run india. Some of the others are the other reliance reliance by the group owned by his brother. The rate of growth is felt across europe, central africa, Asia Latin America the net cast why. The visible and invisible overground as was underground. They run more than 100 companies in 80 countries, and are one of indias oldest and largest privatesector power companies. They own minds steel plants, telephone and cable tvs and Broadband Networks and they run whole townships. They manufacture cars and trucks to own the hotel chain jaguar land rover, a chain of bookstores, a major brand of iodine salt. They are advertising could easily be you cant live without us. According to the rules the more you have the more you can have. The air of the privatization of everything has made in the dashing into a, with fascicle in the world. However, as with any good oldfashioned economy, one of its main exports is its minerals. Indias new Mega Corporation the reliance, those who managed to muscle their way to the head of the spigot that is spewing money extracted from deep inside the earth. Its a dream come true for businessmen to be able to sell what they dont have to buy. The other major source of corporate wealth comes from the land banks all over the world weak, corrupt local governments have helped wall street brokers, agribusiness corporations and chinese billionaires to amass huge tracts of land. In india the land of millions of people is being acquired and handed over to private corporations for public interest, for special Economic Zones and infrastructure projects, dance, highways, car manufacturers, chemical loves and formula one racing. As it concentrates wealth onto the tip of a shiny pin on which are billionaires live tidal waves of money crash through the institutions of democracy, the courts, the parliament, as well as the media search recovered the ability to function in the ways they are meant to. The noisier the carnival around elections, the less sure we are that democracy really exists. Each new Corruption Scandal that services in india makes the last one will gain. So there was this huge telecom scandal in india which involve millions of dollars, but the privatization and illegal sale of telecom doesnt involve war displacement and ecological devastation. The privatization of indias mountains, rivers and forests does. Perhaps because it does not have the uncomplicated clarity of a straightforward out and out accounting scandal, or perhaps because its all being done in the name of indias progress. It doesnt have the same resonance with the middleclasses your so basically what is happening now is in central india, you know one of the things that ive been thinking after couple of years which i find quite shocking, is that there hasnt been a year in india since 1947 which is the year we became independent there was a transfer of power between the british and the indian elite there hasnt been a single year in which the indian army has not been deployed against its own people. So from 1947 where the whether you think about kashmir punjab, the army is constantly deployed against people that are supposedly within the nation. And now because of this new aggressive Economic Policy which involves selling the bounds, the rivers privatizing and mining there is a war going on against Indigenous People in the forests of central india. But the war is not just in the forests. Theres a whole bandwidth of resistance movements. Inside the force are the armed maoist guerrillas. Outside there are militant peoples movements. Theres a whole bandwidth of movements which, you know, academics and journalists like to classify as oh this is gandhi and this is nonviolence this is violence, this is maoist. But, in fact people dont think like that. They think strategically. So when youre out in the villages, in the plains, you cant really have a guerrilla army. So you have movements which call themselves gandhian or, in any case there are militant but not armed. Inside the forest, which are now filled with Paramilitary Forces like in latin america and like in colombia in peru you have these hugely armed soldiers closing in on villages, burning them, raping the women trying to clear the forest for corporations. And the Prime Minister of india called these Indigenous People are certainly armed, most of the arms are snatched by the film Paramilitary Forces who are in the force with grenades and ak47s and rocket launchers. So they were called indias greatest internal security threat. And the government announced something called operation green hunt which was supposed to just hunt these people down and clear the force. So a year from two years ago i actually went into the forest and spent some time with the guerrillas and get out and wrote an essay called walking with comrades. Announces review a little bit just to give you kind of texture of what is actually going on in there. The terrorists typewritten note slipped under my door in a sealed envelope confirmed my appointment with indias biggest, single biggest internal security challenge. Ive been waiting for months to hear from them. I had to be at any of forgive and times on two given dates but that was to take care of bad weather, punctures, blockades, transport strikes and sheer bad luck. The note said ryder should have camera, and a coconut. The meter will have a cap outlook magazine, and bananas. That password will be i wondered whether the meter in the greater would be expecting a man, and whether i should get myself a mustache. There are many ways to describe it. Its an oxymoron. Its a border town smack in the heart of india. Its the epicenter of a war. Its an upside down inside out down. The please wear plain clothes and the rebels wear uniforms. The jail superintendent is in jail. The prisoners are free. 300 of them escaped from the old town jail two years ago. Women who have been raped in our are in police custody. The rapist give speeches in the bizarre. Across the river, in the area controlled by the maoists is the place Police Called pakistan. They are the villages are empty but the force is full of people. Children who want to be in school run wild. In the lovely forest villages the Concord School buildings have either been blown up and lie in the heat or they are full of policemen. That had the war thats unfolding in the jungle is a war that the government of india is both proud and shiite. Operation green hunt has been proclaimed as well as denied. Indias home minister and ceo of the war says it doesnt exist, that its a media creation. And yet substantial funds have been allocated to it, and tens of thousands of troops are being mobilized for it. To the theater of the war is in the jungles of central india they will have stars consequences for us all. If ghosts are the lingering spirits of someone or something that has ceased to exist then perhaps the National Mineral Development Corporation new fallen highway crashing through the forest is the opposite of a ghost. Perhaps its the harbinger of what is soon to come. The antagonists in the forest are disparate and unequal in almost every way. On one side is a massive Paramilitary Force armed with the money that the firepower, the media and the hubris of an emerging superpower. On the other ordinary villagers armed with traditional weapons backed by superbly organized hugely motivated maoist guerrilla fighting force with an extraordinary and violent history of armed rebellion. The maoists and the paramilitary have fought each other several times before. In the 60s and 70s and then begin from the 70s onwards all the way through to the present. They are familiar with each others tactics and have studied each others combat manuals closely. Each time it seems as though the maoists or the previous avatars have not just been defeated, but literally, physically exterminated. Each time they reemerged more organized, more determined, and more influential than ever. Today, the insurrection has spread through the mineral rich forests in west bengal homeland millions of indias tribal people, dreamland to the corporate world. I arrived monday, well before the time for my appointment. First day first shoot. I had my camera, my small coconut and the powdery red teacup him a four. I wonder if someone was watching me and having a laugh. Within minutes and young boy approached me. He had a cap and a backpack schoolbag, chipped red nail polish on his fingernails. No bananas. Are you the one whos going in, he asked me . Know i didnt know what to say. He took out a soggy note from his pocket and handed it to me. It said means i couldnt find outlook. And the bananas, i ate them, he said. I got hungry last night he really was a security threat. Is backpack said Charlie Brown not your ordinary blockhead. [laughter] he said his name was i soon learned that the force is about to enter was full of people that many names and fluid identities. It was like how lovely not to be stuck with yourself, to become someone else for a while. We walked to the bus stop only a few miles away, minutes away from the temple. It was already crowded. Things happened quickly. There were two men on motorbikes. There was no conversation, just a glance of acknowledgment, the shifting of body weight, the revving of engines. I had no idea where were going. We passed the house of the superintendent of police which i recognized from my last visit. He was a candid man. In fact, this man committed suicide a couple of years ago. Frankly, speaking, this problem can be solved by police or military. The problem with these tribals is that they dont understand greed. Unless they become greedy, theres no hope for us. I have told my boss remove the forest and instead put a tv in every home. Everything will be automatically thought about. In no time at all we were riding out of town. It was a long ride. It ended abruptly in the middle of nowhere on an empty road with forests on either side. Munkto got off and i did too. The bikes left and picked up my backpack and followed the small interval security challenge into the forest. It was a beautiful day. The forest floor was a carpet of gold. In a widely and marched under white sandy banks of a broad flat river. It was obviously monsoon fed. So now it was more or less a sand flat. At the center, a stream ankledeep in easy to wade across. Across with pakistan. Out there, maam, they candid s. B. Had sydney, my boys shoot to kill. I remember that as we began to cross. I saw us and a policemans rifle sights, tiny figures in the landscape, easy to pick off. But munkto seemed quite unconcerned, and i took my cue from him. And then, of course, it goes on the weeks i spent in there. So the way it works is that the Indian Government now, i mean one of the main things that is happening, the indian elections will be starting on the 10th of april. And one of the main issues in the election im stated in some ways is that the present government, though it tried to do this operation green hunt and it was pushed back by civil society, by activists by the physical fight in the forest. So now the corporations are backing, or they want to back the government that can actually send out the army and air force against the poorest people in india, to hand over those lands to the corporations. And they want someone whos not going to flinch you know, is not going to be upset by what happened over the last two years when indian civil society, many people just stood up and said you cant do this. And this government blinked so now we are looking for a government that isnt going to blink. But obviously this kind of coercion works for the poor. You can bomb the poor. You can jail them. You can do all of that, but what are you going to do with the others . The army is experienced enough. So im just going to read you what the army says now. The indian army publicly released its updated doctrine of military psychological operations which outlined and i quote, a planned process of conveying a message to a select target audience to promote particular themes that result in desired attitudes and behavior which affect the achievement of political and military objectives of the country. This process of perception management, it said, would be conducted using the media available to the services. The armys experience enough to know that coercive force alone cannot carry out or managed social engineering on the scale that is envisioned by indias plans. Basically, what the Indian Government is saying that is that it wants to 75 of the indian population in the cities, which means Something Like 500 million people. How do you engineer something on that scale . Certainly not voluntary. But the war against the poor is one thing but for the rest of us the middle class, the intellectuals, the opinion makers, it has to be perception management. And for this we must turn our attention to the exquisite art of Corporate Philanthropy. Of late, the mining corporations have embraced the arts art installations and the rush of Literary Festivals that have replaced the 1990s obsession with beauty contests. Currently mining in the heart of the homeland is sponsoring a creating happiness film competition for young students. The tagline is mining happiness. Mr. Jindal group brings out a contemporary art magazine and supporters come and support some of indias major artists who naturally work with stimulus steel. Sr was a principal sponsor of the pink vest that promises these high octane debates end zone. Tata steel which has a sordid record of its own among the chief sponsors of the Literary Festival which is advertised as the greatest literary show on earth. The tatas strategic brand matters sponsor the press can pick many of the worlds best and brightest writers gathered to discuss love, literature politics and sufi poetry. Some tried to defend the right to free speech by reading from his proscribed book the satanic verses. The battle for free speech against islamist fundamentalism made it to the worlds newspapers, and its important that it did. But there were started in the report about the festival sponsors rules and the war in the fourth, the bodies by the of, the prisons filling up or about the unlawful activities prevention act and the Public Security act which made even thinking an antigovernment thought an offense. Or about the mandate for public hearing for the tata steel plant which local people complained would place hundreds of miles away in a Collectors Office compound. Where was free speech than . So now you see whats happening is that they are sponsoring these film festivals, these riding festivals, art festivals College Courses but which of the senate is going to cast the first stone. Not to me who lives off royalties from corporate publishing houses. We all watched tata sky. We surf the net with tata phone. We write in tata taxi. We stay in tata hotel to we sip our tata t. And stir it with teaspoons made in tata stupid we by trying to books in tata bookshops and we even eat tata salt. We are under siege. With a sledgehammer of moral purity is to be the criteria for the stone throwing, then the only people who qualify are those of in silence already can live outside the system the outlaws in the forests, for those whose protests are never covered by the press. But the lit fest gave us our aha moment, overcame. She said she loved india and that she would become again and again. Made us proud. But this is only the end of the exquisite art. And though the tata have been involved with Corporate Philanthropy for almost 100 years now and towering scholarships and running some excellent Education Institution of hospitals, Indian Corporations have only recently been invited into the star chamber, vic kamber, the brightly lit world of Global Corporate governance, deadly for its adversities but the artful that you barely know its there. So this is just a little bit the last part i read before we chat, about foundations like carnegie, like the rockefeller and like ford and the history of how base start to operate and what they are doing now. Their history which is safe and content remembered begin in the United States in the early 20th century when legally in the form of endowed foundation, Corporate Philanthropy began to replace missionary activity as capitalism and imperialism systems, maintenance patrols. Among the first to be set up in the United States was a Carnegie Corporation endowed in 1911 by profits from carnegie steel, and the Rockefeller Foundation endowed in 1914 by rockefeller found of standard oil company. Some of the institutions finance given seed money or supported by the Rockefeller Foundation of United Nations, the cia the council on foreign relations, the cfr, new yorks most five his museum of modern art and the Rockefeller Center in new york. Rockefeller was americas first billionaire and the worlds richest man, and he believed his money was given to him by god which must have been nice for him. [laughter] when corporate endowed foundations made their first appearance in u. S. There was a furious debate about the legality and lack of accountability. People suggested that if companies have so much surplus money, they should raise the wages of their workers. People made these outrageous suggestions those days even in america. But the idea of these foundations so ordinary now was in fact a leap of the business imagination. Nontaxpaying legal entities with massive resources and an almost unlimited, brief, wholly unaccountable, holy nontransparent. What better way to parlay economic wealth into political social and cultural capital, return money into power. How else would bill gates who admittedly knows a thing or two about computers find himself designing, education, health and agriculture policies not just for the u. S. But for governments all over the world . [applause] over the years as people witnessed some of the genuinely good work the foundations did a direct connection between corporations and foundations they endowed began to blur and eventually it faded altogether. In the 1920s u. S. Capitalism had begun to look at words for robert drew and overseas markets. Foundations began to form a the idea of Global Corporate governance. In 1924, rockefeller and Carnegie Foundation jointly created what is today the most powerful Foreign Policy Pressure Group in the world, the council on foreign relations. Cfr, which later came to be funded by the Ford Foundation as well. By 1947 the newly created a caa was supported by and working closely with cfr. Over the years the cfrs membership has included 22 u. S. Secretaries of state five cfr members in 1943 Steering Committee that planned the United Nations and 8. 5 million grant from rockefeller. All 11 of the world banks president s since 1946 men have presented themselves as missionaries to the poor, have been members of the cfr. At Bretton Woods the world bank and imf decided that the u. S. Dollar should be the reserve currency of the world and that in order to enhance the penetration of global capital, it would be necessary to universally standardized Business Practices in the open marketplace. The concept of the rule of law provided they have a say in making the laws. And hundreds of anticorruption programs to streamline the system they put in place. Corporate endowed foundations channel the power on the chessboard to a system of elite clubs and think tanks whose members overlap and move in and out through a revolving door and contrary to the there is conspiracy theories in association, particularly among left wing groups, theres nothing secretive, satanic or freemasons about this arrangement. Its not very different from the way corporations use Shell Companies and offshore accounts to transfer and administer their money. But the Ford Foundation liberal foils of the more conservative Rockefeller Foundation, though the two worked together was set up in 1936. And the Ford Foundation then really talked up with this idea of making america a society that lives on credit. And this idea was first you could first crack at it to a Department Store owner called Edward Filene who believed in creating a mass consumption society, consumer goods by getting workers Affordable Access to credit a radical idea at that time. But it was only have a radical idea because the other half is that he believed in a more equitable distribution of national income. But many years later this idea you know microcredit and so on has trickled down into places like india and bangladesh, and now you have people you know, very poor people in debt committing suicide like 250,000 indian farmers. And then, i do want to talk a lot about it now but the whole way in which they change the education system, the way they changed politics into a form of ngo, the feminist movement, they basically funded the politics out of the black Civil Rights Movement. What they did in south africa, what they are doing in places like india now. So to understand, in fact india is a place where people understand this very well. The militant People Movement understand that even in gl is in itself doing good work the whole way in which it coopted to serve the International Market is something that is even more dangerous and direct corporate funding, mining and things like that. It was hard for me to explain the whole thing, but, of course, thats what the book is about. So maybe with that we can chat about it. [applause] thank you. Thank you arundhati. Can anyone hears back there . You have a full house and i see you have made a pretty buddy happy, not just in the room. The military, the government, the foundation. Who have you left out . You know theres just only things i want to ask you but lets just start uphold it the question about capitalism from capitalism a ghost story. I was very struck by the figures that you read out at the beginning to indias 100 richest people on assets equal to onefourth of the gdp. Arundhati, you read that wonderful passage but exactly how much they own or how much the tata company owns. And i suppose that kind of concentration of wealth become sadly quite used to across not just in india but as it is true in china true in the trendy, that is increasing true across the world. So that is very much indian capitalism has in common with capitalism around the world. But im also struck on the other figure that you have i think just a few pages later, when you say that after 20 years of growth, and you have growth within quotes, just to make the growth people happy you right after 20 years of growth, 60 of indias workforce is selfemployed, and 90 of indias labor force works in the unorganized sector. I think that something that might be worth talking about especially for those here were not fully with india or south asia. Could you talk a little more about these 90 or the 60 selfemployed, or the 90 you know, what we refer to as the masses of the people . Why . By after 20 years of growth that theyre working in the unorganized sector . What does that mean . Did you explain that . Well, i think when in the late 80s and the early 90s, wind, lets say when soviet communism lost the war in afghanistan and became india which used to be aligned with the soviet union became, begin to see itself as a natural ally of israel and the u. S. And it changed its economic policies, and one of those things involve dismantling protection to workers. You know, and on the other hand they would pass laws like loss or minimum wages but it was understood that they were never going to be implemented. And people have seen lets say ive written and follow the a lot on the issue of dan building, you know where people displaced, and theres hundreds of thousands are told that when the dam is built you all get a job. But there are no jobs. The mechanization and all of that is taking place. So what we have is what is known as jobless growth. Its one great areas of growth is the it sector, for example. But what you have is a country where a small section of people have become very wealthy. But even a small percentage of the population like india still means its a very big market. The rest have just fallen away outside the radar altogether. Youve been involved i think or you followed the labor strikes like at the factory, is that right . Could you talk a little bit about that and how you see what happens to workers . Because these workers are essentially former agriculture who are getting jobs in cities. What are the struggles they face . Why arent they doing well with 20 years of growth if we are buying cars and stuff like that . Why are they not doing will . Again, the factory, there are a few workers who are regular in the organized sector, and the rest are unorganized sector workers. The pressure on them to work faster, to produce more cars, you have less free time you know, to refuse not allowed to have a union. And to basically what happened was finally there was a strike and according to the workers there were some people who entered the factory and workers uniforms, were not really workers. And one management person was killed, the person was killed happens to be the one management person who was actually on the side of the workers. And now theyre hundreds of them who have been put into prison. The rest of them have been sacked. You have workers just brought in from elsewhere, paid very low wages and who are willing to work as basically slave labor. This is whats happening everywhere. If you go to the outskirts of delhi, its worse than what is going on. And it is supposed to be the sort of pilot operation of india shining. Its a show window. So the people in the villages are being, you know displaced and losing their livelihoods and their land but now theres trouble in the show window as well, which is a real problem. In terms of the trouble, but growth in 20 years it hasnt led to much for the people for the night of nine or so for the majority of the people. Its been slowing down. What effect this is having on the elections . Can you talk about that a little bit . You mentioned a little bit during the reading that the Congress Party has been in charge since 2004, for 10 years. So it has actually overseeing some of the expansion of the market from expansion of the middleclass, the expansion of consumer. So why do people want the Congress Outcome are wide does a very vocal section of the middleclass, the welltodo, why do they want the congress out and why do they want the other party in . Welcome in the i mean ive connected a little to your earlier question about capitalism. I think india in india we are still not an entirely capitalist country. Theres also a great amount of feudalism, communism, and fundamentalist involved in our society. And when things have happened in indian since the time the markets will open to international finance, at the very same time started hugely sort of hindu chauvinist movement led by the bjp obviously and its corporatism were going hand in hand. And with the slow down of the economy in the world what happened is this huge expectations of this very brash new middleclass has turned dangers. They were sitting in an aircraft hoping to take off. And suddenly it was frozen and all those expectations have turned to kind of panic. And theres a hope that the more aggressive government can push the stupid and the congress is of course seen as being, and is but so is everybody else just deeply corrupt deeply rotten. The impatience of the middleclass is taking the form of these huge sort of protests you know on different issues but man on the anticorruption issue that started. And it was covered 24 7 but all these Corporate Media channels. That was the beginning, you know the bjp and the very, very right wing groups are backing it at the time, and that was the beginning of the end of the congress in some ways because it was just being portrayed as this week government that couldnt push through policy. Why was the scene as weak because it was a willing to commit itself fully to the kind of identity, or not as much as the bjp . Yeah, thats a historical, i mean, if you go back in time to the turn of the 20th century, you had come you know, in the Freedom Movement you had these two factions in the congress known as the military the moderate. And now they just happen to be two different political parties, but they are playing up the same trajectory. So that is in the nature of it. That is absolutely what the bjp sell its hindu nationalism and this congress, sal the secularism. Or actually in fact like i was saying since 1947, if you look at these wars that the indian army has thought the wars are always spot against the other communism whether there muslim sikhs, christians. Its an upperclass hindu state at war with the other. That remains consistent. Its just that one does by dave what the other does by night. Right. But isnt there something very very marked about this moment where the private industry, the bjp is the most aggressive they are all aggressive but he has the record of being the chief minister, when all this incidents of violence took place who is banned from entering the United States. Partly because of that but now hes very much being projected as sort of a man who is a good manager, he has vision of corporate india. Theres enormous social media support. Theres a branding of them. Theres a branding of him and not even the United States, the uk, european government have come around. They seem to be on the verge of accepting him as the person from the elite in india. So is this the kind of even though there is no difference in substance and one by day the other by night. There seems something particularly marked about this moment. What is your thought about that . I think that we are poised in a very momentous, bloody dangerous faith. Because in 2002 when 58 hindu programs were burned alive in a train, and following that and we still dont know who birthed them or how that happened, but following that was this sort of Genocidal Program against muslims, where more than 1000 people were just burned and lynched, and women were gang raped and so one come and 100,000 were driven from their homes. And now we are in a stage where people are saying yeah, why did you go on about that . Put it in your past. We need a developer chief minister. Heres this person who made of course now even that idea is being this idea we are at the forefront of progress and development has been taken apart. But the recent how so . How so, because you look at the human development, the levels of malnutrition, all those, you know there on the internet for anyone to see. But i think the reason he has been back is because he shows himself to be a man who will not blink, who is able to be brutal, and the brutality is not going to be against muslims. When someone is brutal against muslims, you know, i learned a huge lesson when the killings happened, and i wrote about them with this kind of you know outrage. And, obviously, i was appealing to what i thought was a humanness where people would react with horror and you just got this cold look which said, so what . They deserve it. From the middleclass. I wont say theres a huge theres a huge sort of committee of indian youth who are outraged. And even today there are people who still cant believe this is happening. But now the hope is that this brutality will be turned against those who are fighting these big corporate projects, you know, in the villages come into force. And that is what the corporations are backing him for. All the big corporations are united. So theres a kind of almost colonial extraction of resources. But what other peoples movements, what are the protests beyond just can you talk about that . You travel out to the country. You travel all over. What do you see when you go to the northeast or when you go to kashmir . Or to the south . What you see in terms of people this is on this completely filtered out from the media. We dont see any of this in the indian media or in the western press. What is happening in india is, how have countries in the west how have they become industrialized modernized . That has happened through a history of colonialism a colonialism where Raw Materials were used to feed interest the. Feed industry. As i keep saying you have the middleclass and then he sort of seceded into outer space and let them what is our water doing in the rivers . There is a sense of entitlement. People i mean, i have to say people have told me openly that, look, all these other countries they have a history. And by that they think they have a history of committing genocide. Some people have to pay the price for progress. I have heard, told me many times, but ill say this that you know, the understanding of what is going on is tremendous amongst people who are involved. This is why, you know i always find it surprising when people say, oh, shes and at the national. I dont think shes an antinational. I dont think anybody could be prouder of how come with such wisdom, with such courage, with such intelligence, you know, these battles are being waged. And with such profound questioning. Because its not just a battle about oh, this is my land i dont want to leave my home. Its really a question that is being asked about the nature of happiness, about the nature of what we call civilization, you know . And that profound question is being posed by people whose bodies are on the line. And as i said, these movements are very very like people do when i wrote walking with the comrades, i was criticized brutally for that you know call the maoist. Im not a maoist but in the land of gandhi how can you support these people with guns . I said, no tell me if thousands Border Security force surround the village, a village and its people and start burning it and raping women and chasing what are they supposed to do . Can hungry people go on a Hunger Strike . 10 people who dont have by me, access to tv go around act being so theoretically while in tv studios and in academia people discuss violence and nonviolence, its actually people discuss violence and nonviolence, its actually strategic. The same persons can be a gandhian on the street and i maoist in the forests. You just do what you have to do. [applause] do you know how to the comrades you are used to criticism. Have you had criticism . Oh, no, i had you know, kind of very difficult because the forest is under siege. Its actually terrible whats going on there. Evil cant come out, people cant get medicine. He received a phd in columbia. But he was born a family of untouchables. And so he published in 1936 that though he was born a hindu hindu he could have voted much later. And the hot but condi basically replied to this with a debate between the two. He challenged gandhi in every way that only intellectually, so its texttospeech that has speech that has existed since then and is available everywhere. It took a long time to do it because while i was looking at this debate, i was called by what i learned. Im not as harsh as they should be. So it took me right back to gandhis views which took me back to 1893 and the right south africa. We of course knew that he had been back from south africa. You know, what did there. Anyway, whenever the introduction its just cannot a few days ago. So there is reaction from students whose dad i think the u. S. Are familiar with these debate to. Its not a position i would agree with. Then again, ever go back to the ways in which we are now hermetically sealing our identity in which the future cant take this anymore by with others without being accused and cliched ways. The book has just come out. For the first 6 million then the text you know, i understand it. They understand has become well known for doing good. So you write. Anything but i cant stop writing. I have to read what i have to write. Books are becoming quite problematic in india. Most recently asserts the history of the hindus was called back by the publisher who publishes the address i take it. You wrote them in protest about that. It is amazing that it is supposed to be freemarket, supposed to be democracy, but a book has just been withdrawn because a small Pressure Group says it is if it is. Do you think this is going to go on . This is going to happen even more . View yourself of course had these court cases for speeches. Almost at way back to the novel. Can you talk about this . The books in india . It is quite fascinating that i see legislative more about free speech and as you make more of a son and gave it about free speech, in fact in india with the persian poet could say in the 1970 about his relationship with islam, nobody could say today but separate short story writer but say about mulan is. Nobody can say today about tenderest and. You cant say it now. I mean, it is almost unbelievable how little you can say now. On the issue of when they dont occur it was really sad because it wasnt even as if there was a court case for a fan order or anything. Its just a hindu group hindu group that said sentiments were heard by the book on hinduism is just pulled back which frightened many people because at least paying when houston resources to fight the legal case. Other people dont. When i wrote the god of small things, five lawyers filed a criminal case against me for corrupting public morality. And then i have to appear in court, by which time it when they put prize. They wanted to clean me but not claim the book. Since a judge would appear the court and he said every time this case come before me i get chest pains. But it went on for 10 years. Of course theres this thread of sedition and almost everything you write or say what has happened is that you know it is not like youre living in a dictatorship with the government has terrorized you and us creating subversive than you do for literature. Its not that. What has happened is the censorship has been out source to the mob. So people can trash your house. They can trash your book vouchers as has happened with me several times. People can do anything. Theres a subtle vigilante groups that taken it upon themselves to do it. Sir left at the danger of becoming a man who sent this to himself time. But you havent, clearly geared i have to some extent. How do you know what i would like to say. Last nights on that note, why dont we open up the fuller. We are doing well in terms of time. Why dont we do that. Sounds good and whats cherishing about the United States and america and do you have advice for the anticapitalist movement in the u. S. . Guest thats the next question. Host the thing about people saying soandso is antiamerican or antinational, he sees to whoever is saying that, the right to decide what is american or what is indian or what is national. You know we dont give them to read. And i dont actually mean personally i dont think in terms of countries anymore. I dont mean in this kind of touchyfeely hippy way. [laughter] what i feel is the elites have ulcerative seceded into matters they had found some country of their own they are. You know what is there now or we can say when i say in the outburst of memphis india, i really dont know what they mean. When someone says can you give us an interview about and even women, what does that mean . There are indian women who are the most liberated, unique and free women that i know about the same time you dont have to churn me five minutes to know the nurse female feticide and people are living in the medieval times. So how do we think in terms of countries. Sometimes i really dont unders the end. Im certainly not antiamerican. Im antivery Many American palace is made by the american government. [applause] do i have advice for the anticapitalist movement in the u. S. . A very bad at giving advice. Really bad at giving or taking advice. So i dont have any eyes. [laughter] you mention that india is being recognized as the land of gandhi. However, is not largely of perception of the western world is it not recognized in any manner relatives to the revolutionary who strive to bring indias independence prayers to his own execution. , one of the very heroic Young Indians who was hanged when he was 21 or 22 years old. In fact in the 23rd of march march 18. The dnc is one of those figures hes just a perforated by everybody now, which is what happened to icons. Certainly, i would say about that being is a much more important revolutionary and necessary figure in gandhi to india. Do you think he would have received the same existence to the top of the saints promotes a is same as my introduction, had it been published separate from innovation of cost . Well, i dont know. I think it would have been a resistance of another kind. But the real problem with the federal budget is saying about from the inside the moral coordinates of india would have created a problem at some stage. But the thing is i think that innovation of costs is a tax that is extremely important for people who have not heard further read it to be. This introduction is to annotated edition of cost and i wrote that introduction and i take care to read that introduction because i feel that i make maker is someone whos just been raised by the indian establishment. I wanted to use whatever influence i had to bring that text to the world, which doesnt know. He is a hero in india, but is virtually unknown in many places and where they should have been a great solidarity between the Civil Rights Movement and the politics of black america and india. You have a strange situation where gandhi is worshiped by black people in america because they dont know the history of this absolute contempt for black people in south africa. [applause] another question for advice. Any advice for a struggling writer . Never ask anyone for a rice. [applause] when can we expect to read your next to . Look if i come back here without my next novel, telcom. Just bring an empty. Or say we are not listening to anything more. I really want to do that now which is not to say that its not political. Its a different and more subversive way it being political. How do you see social move and send the possibilities of popular politics and in the after the new Land Acquisition act and the court ruling against the. I think the social move mints in peoples movements are going to come under a tremendous hmm this amount of pressure not that they arent already, but if we do indeed see a government headed by marine community, all of you must have followed the protest that happened in delhi after the young girl was gang and murdered on a bias. Of course you know, the media refers to it as if much worse to be raped than murder. They dont even refer to the fact that she was killed. During the era when the one incident have been 1500 women were raped. I mean 650 were murdered. In this area for a gun lock the combat, a woman tribe susan imus captured by the police to be a career for the malice. She was taken to a Police Station and headstones pushed up her 79. The police antinous given the gallantry award for bravery. Im the one hand you have what is happening to women and on the other hand you have been institutionalized island against women going on. The Public Security act actually actually basically anybody who is resisting this Development Project can be called a malice and thrown into jail. The 3000 custodial deaths the year before last. In kashmir, and there are thousands of people who have been killed, thousands who disappeared. Yet india is known as a great democracy. There is a part of india which is a great democracy and doesnt apply to other people. It applies to some people. I think social movements are going to be under tremendous pressure. I think we are going to see the army called out again the poorest people. And what india is very good at doing to the government is able to take young men from kashmir and deploy them. Multiply them and has some good good in this way, like in this way, like a good colonial power, it pits people against each other. Host do i take in india questioned writing question . Guest food question. Postcode there are no food questions you. Off in the discourse and writing both fictional and nonfictional within the Muslim American community are highly apologetic and stay within the safety net of acceptability which only undset sidelining our identity. What advice would you give to young Muslim Americans and other minority writers in developing a strong voice in their writing . Honestly, i really dont know how to give it vice. But i think looking for acceptability is a very dangerous part for a writer. Because, for example when i write all the work thursday tastings is not very but eking it instability. In fact, before hand i know that i havent written it from a constituency that is going to stand up and say well done. Its always sad thing which make sense trouble past area. It is fantastic as you can just be brash. You know, the craft of writing is sent being which i think the more attention you pay to it the less obvious it is. Its like i remember a few years ago i was in the hague because id been invited to speak in this water for a period and then i heard their lives it will delegation that done to promote dans so i just went direct enterprise. There is a panel of writers deborah not really writers. The rest of writers of policy documents for the privatization of water. There are last to introduce ourselves and say why we read about water. The person sitting next to me was american anything i write about water because im paid to. I decide to say that god is the rivers but he didnt put in the Delivery Systems and thus we need private enterprise. I say i read about water because id be paid a great deal not to. Everyone here calls themselves a writer. But writers spend a right time lifetime trying to close that gap between thought and would. Here you are, all of you not you, then. Doing the exact opposite, developing a language to mask that. So you are doing the exact opposite of what braiders do. You cannot really you know how you develop the craft of saying what you want to say, i cant entice you but i can only say that acceptability spells death to a writer. Host we have lots of questions, but not enough time. Maybe a last question. Host what do i read . Is that a question . Guest well i Read Everything from really bad humane raised reporters to poetry to a lot of things. If i just wanted to mention one writer not that im not 100 i could mention, but i would say for this evening kind of talking i would read eduardo galliano. [applause] host thank you. I think now a conservative move to the next stage of the program. Host ill just end with a three minute readings my first from the First Political essay that i wrote. Host shes going to read all of your questions afterwards. The one set of asked for responses, ill give them all to her. Guest this is from an essay called the end of imagination. Which happened just after the Nuclear Tests than india qquebec did. In early may, before the bomb, i left home for three weeks. I thought i would return. I had every intention of returning. Of course things have not worked out quite the way i planned. While i was away, i met a friend of mine who ive always loved for above other things her ability to combine deep affection and with a frankness that orders and savagery. Ive been thinking about you she said about the god of small things what senate, was still over it, under around, about. She fell silent for a while. I was uneasy and not at all sure that i wanted to you the rest of what she had to say. She however was sure that she was going to say. In this last year less than a year youve had too much of every game. Fame money prizes, adulation criticism, combination love anger, hate and generosity. Everything. In some ways it is a perfect story perfectly per rack and its success. The trouble is a pastor can has only one perfect ending. Her eyes were on me right with the slanting, probing brilliance. She knew that i knew what she was going to say he had knew that i knew what she was going to say he had she wasbrilliance. She knew that i knew what she was going to say he had she was insane. She was going to say that nothing that happened to me in the future could ever match the buzz is that the whole of the rest of my life is going to be vaguely unsatisfying and therefore the only perfect ending to this story would be to my death. The thought had occurred to me, too. Of course the fact that all this global dazzle, dislike in my eyes the applause the flowers among photographers, journalists feigning a deep interest in my life struggling to get a single factory, the men in suits fun enough for me, none of which was the way to happen again. What a mess it . Had a printed media . Was i a fame junkie for what i have withdrawal symptoms . I told my friend there is no such thing as a perfect story. I said in any case hers is an extra view of things. The assumption that trajectory of the persons happiness or that say had pete and now must strive because she had accidentally stumbled upon success. It is premised on the unimaginative relief that wealth and fame were the main stories is that the group of these streams. He was too long a new yorker soldier. There are other worlds, other kinds of dreams in which failure is feasible, honorable, sometimes even worth striving for. Roasted which recognition is not the only barometer of brilliance or human work. Therere plenty love. People plenty of lawyers whom i know in love. People far more valuable than myself who go to war each day, knowing itd chance that they will fail. True, they are less successful in the most vulgar sense of the word. But by no means glassful filled. Deal nature you must have been a soldiers victory and that do this while