Category: Editorial/Opinion

When Love Is Called As A Conspiracy The ‘Love Jihad’ Bogey Targeting Interfaith Couples In India

Mariya Salim At IPSCulture, Editorial/Opinion, Religion 0

When Ali (name changed) proposed to his best friend, little did he know that her parents would take six years to agree to their alliance because he was born into a Muslim family, and they were Hindus. “Everything they had heard all their life pointed to Muslims being violent, conservative, forceful etc. The idea of me being Muslim and marrying their Hindu daughter was too much to fathom despite them thinking of me highly,” he said in an interview with IPS.

This story is one of the few where the end was ‘happy’, and the family did not bow to societal pressure. However, if one looks at recent propaganda and the increase of Islamophobia in India, one concept which has added fuel to this fire is the fictitious propaganda of ‘Love Jihad’. Love Jihad is a term propagated by religious fundamentalist groups, alleging a conspiracy by Muslim men to convert non-Muslim girls in the guise of love.

The propagation of this concept is perhaps one reason why Ali had to struggle to convince his wife’s parents that his religion had nothing to do with his love for their daughter. While it may be easy to counter such a narrative, socially, with more awareness, what has made this term popular and the hate associated with it resulting, in some cases, in violence is the support it has garnered from right-wing political parties and their success at turning such marriages into a criminal offence.

“Social media platforms, such as Facebook and Twitter, host hundreds of pages and handles which post unverified incidents as ‘real news’ of Hindu women being deceived by Muslim men into marrying them and ending up either dead or as captives forced to convert and live in the homes of their supposedly violent Muslim husbands,” says Ashwini KP, an academic and rights activist based in Bangalore.

Challenging the provisions of one such draconian state law passed in the state of Gujarat as Gujarat Freedom of Religion (Amendment) Act, 2021, Advocate Isa Hakim, one of the petitioners’ lawyers, argued: “Amendments (in the Act), read with the discourse around Love Jihad, it is clear that the impugned Act is enacted with nothing but a communal objective and is thereby opposed to the constitutional morality, basic features and fundamental rights guaranteed under Articles 14, 19, 21, 25, and 26 of the Constitution.”

The Gujarat High Court, through an order on August 19, 2021, put a stay on the operation of several sections of the Act, including a provision that termed interfaith marriages as a means for forceful conversion. The order, the court stated, was being passed “to protect the parties solemnising inter-faith marriage from being unnecessarily harassed”. The state government soon after decided to challenge this order in the Supreme Court of India.

Addressing a rally last year in Uttar Pradesh, the chief minister Yogi Adityanath openly proclaimed: “Govt will work to curb ‘Love-Jihad’, we’ll make a law. I warn all those who conceal their identities and play with the respect of our sisters if you do not mend your ways, your ‘Ram naam satya’ journey (a phase associated with people being taken to be cremated) will begin”. Therefore, it is not surprising that in a state whose chief minister makes such open threats, right-wing groups have used love Jihad to stoke communal tensions and rioting. A total of five states in India, where the BJP is in power, have laws based on the conspiracy theory of Love Jihad, without actually using the phrase.

“It is also to undermine the agency of 21st-century Hindu women. We are a society that is afraid of its own daughters, and to keep a check on them prohibiting them from making their own choices, they (current regime) have brought out very Islamophobic and communal legislation under the garb of a safety and security issue for ‘their’ women,” says Sheeba Aslam Fehmi, research scholar and journalist in an exclusive interview with IPS.

Fehmi, also the president of Dhanak, works to protect the couples’ right to choose marriage or relationship partners. The organisation supports couples in inter-faith and inter-caste marriages. She told IPS they also try to assist interfaith couples with safe houses to ensure they do not become targets of right-wing attacks. Popular Indian jewellery brand Tanishq withdrew this advert with a depiction of an inter-faith marriage. It said while the campaign was to celebrate diversity it had prompted reactions “contrary to its objective”.

It is perturbing that couples who want to marry under the ‘Special Marriage Act’ (an Act passed by the Indian Parliament allowing interfaith marriages without conversion) have a section, which is now being challenged, where a 30-day notice is publicly displayed, inviting objections, before the marriage is registered.

Shital (name changed), shared with IPS how she received threatening calls from some right-wing groups once she and her Muslim partner decided to register under the Act.

“My Aadhar card (national ID) details were made public on a Facebook group. My parents, who approved of our alliance, received calls where they were threatened with ‘dire consequences’ if they did not stop our marriage,” Shital said. She called the marriage off because of these security concerns.

Asif Iqbal, the co-founder of Dhanak, said in an exclusive interview to IPS that they started the organisation because there was no support system for interfaith couples trying to marry using the Special Marriage Act. The objective was to organise people against religious fanaticism.

“I was made to sit for six hours in a police station in Delhi. The investigating officer was trying to enquire about a possible conspiracy as I was the last person an interfaith couple spoke to before they eloped. The boy was Muslim, and the girl Hindu,” said Iqbal.

The fear of vigilante groups, in the online and in actual physical spaces, is so prevalent that even brands advertising using the idea of inter-faith marriages, particularly where the boy is Muslim, are targeted as promoters of Love Jihad. A recent example was a popular jewellery brand depicting a Hindu woman and a Muslim man getting married. The advert was trolled on social media, that the company removed the advertisement from all forums.

For couples looking to challenge the draconian laws, the only recourse is the courts. However, the worrying feature is that Love Jihad targets Muslims and criminalises its men in a society with frequent incidences of Islamophobia.

“We Will Live With The Scars Of 9/11 Forever”

Haven Daley And Jocelyn Gecker/Ap NewsEditorial/Opinion, Global, Nation USA 0

Twenty years later, Jack Grandcolas still remembers waking up at 7:03 that morning. He looked at the clock, then out the window where an image in the sky caught his eye — a fleeting vision that looked like an angel ascending. He didn’t know it yet, but that was the moment his life changed.  Across the country, it was 10:03 a.m. and United Flight 93 had just crashed into a Pennsylvania field. His wife, Lauren, was not supposed to be on that flight. So when he turned on the television and saw the chilling scenes of Sept. 11, 2001, unfolding, he was not worried for her. Then he saw the blinking light on the answering machine.

Lauren had left two messages that morning, as he slept with the phone ringer off in the bedroom. First, with good news that she was taking an earlier flight from New Jersey home to San Francisco. Then she called from the plane. There was “a little problem,” his wife said, but she was “comfortable for now.” She did not say she would call back, Grandcolas recalls. She said: “I love you more than anything, just know that. Please tell my family I love them too. Goodbye, honey.”  “That moment I looked over at the television and there was a smoldering hole on the ground in Pennsylvania. They said it was United Flight 93,” said Grandcolas, 58. “That’s when I dropped to the ground.” All 44 people on board were killed. Lauren was 38 years old and three months pregnant with their first child. She had traveled East to attend her grandmother’s funeral in New Jersey, and then stayed a few extra days to announce the pregnancy — a little “good news to lift the spirits of her parents and sisters after burying their grandmother,” Grandcolas said.

Flight 93 was the fourth and final plane to be highjacked on Sept. 11 by four al-Qaida terrorists on a suicide mission aimed at the Capitol in Washington, D.C. Passengers and crew members used seatback phones to call loved ones and authorities and learned of the first two attacks, on the World Trade Center in New York City and the Pentagon in Washington, D.C. Realizing their hijacking was part of a broader attack, they took a vote to fight back and try to gain control of the plane. It was a heroic act that spared countless more lives. “What they did was amazingly dramatic,” Grandcolas said. It was “a selfless act of love to conquer hate.” Outlines of the plan were relayed in phone calls and captured on the cockpit voice recorder, though many families will never know the specific roles their loved ones played.

Grandcolas believes that Lauren was involved. A hard-charging advertising sales consultant with a big heart and a zest for life, Lauren was athletic and outgoing and trained as an EMT because she wanted to be able to help people “Lauren was a doer, she was not going to sit there idly,” he said. He imagines her taking part in the planning of how to wrest control of the plane, gathering intelligence and knowing that time was running short. “She would have been tapping her watch to say, ‘We’ve got to do something fast.’” For years, Grandcolas bristled at the term “9/11 anniversary.” An anniversary is something to celebrate. But the 20th anniversary is an important one, Grandcolas said, adding that he plans to travel to Pennsylvania to visit the Flight 93 National Memorial for the first time since 2003.

Grandcolas attended the first two annual memorials at the Pennsylvania crash site and then stopped, finding it too painful. Instead, in years thereafter, he would spend Sept. 11 doing things Lauren loved, like going for a bike ride or a quiet walk on the beach. “Every year it’s a gut punch,” he said in an interview near his home in Pebble Beach, Calif. “We will live with the scars the rest of our lives.” Grandcolas struggled with depression and survivor’s guilt in the aftermath of the tragedy. With the help of therapy, he came to see Lauren’s message from the plane as meant to reassure him and her family and “to let us know that she was OK with what was transpiring.” That unworldly image he saw in the sky the morning of Sept. 11 took on new meaning as he healed: “It didn’t dawn on me until later that the vision was Lauren.” He would hear her voice in times of struggle, telling him to get up and keep living his life.

Grandcolas eventually remarried and moved out of the home he and Lauren had bought in San Rafael, California. Today, he’s semi-retired from his career as an advertising executive. He is writing a book about the grieving process that will be a tribute to his unborn child. It will be published in April, when the child would have turned 20. On the 20th anniversary, Grandcolas finds himself thinking back to how the country came together after 9/11, which he sees as a stark contrast to the division plaguing America today. “This country was united from sea to shining sea, and today, maybe now, would be a good time to let the divisiveness drop,” he said.

While Abandoning Afghanistan!

Mathew Joys, Las VegasEditorial/Opinion, Global 0

“What happened in Vietnam?” – we had been hearing the question on different platforms for so many years. On U.S. withdrawal from South Vietnam in 1975, many political analysts said China or the Russians would take it over; even now, we are blaming it as America’s humiliating military defeat. “The U.S. invaded Afghanistan in 2001 because the country’s Taliban rulers at the time hosted Osama Bin Laden along with  other Al Qaeda leaders who plotted the Sept.11 attacks on America. Since then, Islamist terrorist groups, particularly the far more radical Islamic State, have established other footholds worldwide, from Mozambique to the Philippines to West Africa.”

When U.S. troops withdrew from Kabul’s Hamid Karzai International Airport within the stipulated time, the nation’s most prolonged war cost was more than $ 2.3 trillion. During the last 20 years, more than 2,400 U.S. service members have been killed in Afghanistan alone. World astonished to hear that even while retrieving, thirteen U.S. soldiers were killed in the latest suicide bombing in Kabul Airport.  Taliban’s praise of China is aimed at gaining recognition for their government at the international level by establishing links with power like China. China and Pakistan are now the only countries in the region that fully support the Taliban.

According to diplomats, the Taliban decided to end trade with India due to pressure from the two countries. Whether all other hypothesis is right or wrong, this development is a real threat to India in the days ahead. Though we are doubtful about China, America is still stronger in technology, manufacturing, and military power. China is not ready to replace the U.S. in the region unless Pakistan pushes them to do so. Generally, it is criticized that the U.S. could have remained involved in Afghanistan, including by helping the country to maintain stability and combat terrorism and violence, The Taliban infiltration began after the United States began withdrawing from Afghanistan. First, they conquered each of the provinces. The American-trained Afghan fighters had to look on helplessly. Eventually, the militants took over. Not only did the militants take power on the soil they had fought for 20 years to drive out the militants, but they also took the lives of 13 American soldiers before withdrawing from there.

Have you ever heard the old sarcasm on U.S.: “They nurtured terrorist organizations by giving U.S. dollars to Pakistan to fight terrorism. American soldiers were shot dead with guns provided by the United States. When the U.S. was sifting through Afghanistan to capture Bin Laden, Pakistan hid him in their base and made the U.S. play a monkey. Unaware that Bin Laden was hiding in the next room, Hillary Clinton went to Pakistan, blamed India, and befriended Nawaz Sharif. She said a poor developing country was seeking permanent membership in the U.N. Security Council. Sharif and his group laughed at Hillary’s joke. How about American intelligence” if that was the actual story,  the U.S replied promptly later.

The story remains the same even after 21 years, US went to overthrow militants and terrorists in Afghanistan, but now left by handing over power to them only!. (Do not try to teach new tricks to old dogs, or democracy to Islamic conservatives.) We may be hearing more about the foolish things that happened on our quick withdrawal, leaving so many supporters helpless in the terrorists’ hands and leaving many weapons, bomber planes, and ammunition with the enemy..

The whole world knows that the Taliban captured Kabul, but they have no power to speak. Terrorist organizations like ISK, more potent than them, are growing in Afghanistan. Pakistan will be ready to help them.  This is where the importance of USA or NATO needs to be highlighted; America is burdened with more challenges and responsibilities, including the refugees and terrorists being spread everywhere!

America’s Failure To Deliver Sufficient Vaccines Worldwide Will Cost The U.S. Its Global Leadership

Phillip Braun At NewswiseEditorial/Opinion, Health 0

Since the Marshall Plan to rebuild Europe and Japan after World War II, the U.S. has exhibited global leadership on many different fronts. But failure by the U.S. to distribute sufficient Covid-19 vaccines worldwide is costing the country its global reputation — and there will likely be economic fallout, as well. The loss of the U.S.’s global leadership could have lasting impacts on global peace and prosperity. Madeleine Albright famously called the U.S. “the world’s indispensable nation” during her tenure as Ambassador to the United Nations. However, when we look at the U.S.’s track record thus far in dispensing doses of Covid vaccines to the developing nations, the country no longer fits that description. Instead, China has taken the lead on sharing doses of its vaccines with the developing world. This is a propagandistic victory for China, even though vaccines from Sinovac and Sinopharm reportedly have lower efficacy than the vaccines from Pfizer PFE +0.3% and Moderna.

China plans to export two billion doses of the Covid-19 vaccine this year, including 770 million doses it says it has shipped already. In contrast, the U.S. has shipped 110 million doses worldwide. In addition, in June, the U.S. pledged to donate 500 million Covid-19 vaccine doses from Pfizer to lower-income countries. Compared to a global population of nearly 8 billion people, the U.S.’s pledge falls far short of what is needed. According to Our World in Data, 30.2% of the world population has received at least one dose of a Covid-19, and only 15.6% is fully vaccinated. In low-income countries, however, just 1.1% of the population has received one dose.

Vaccine inequity is a global reality. While the U.S. is trying to incentivize Americans to get vaccinated, people in developing countries are protesting a lack of access. As Forbes observed, Covid vaccine distribution has been “extremely uneven.” The U.S. needs to step up its global vaccine sharing, not only to keep pace with China, but also to ensure Covid-19 inoculations do not become yet another divide between “have” and “have-not” nations.

The vaccine divide is producing an uneven map of global economic recovery, “a lopsided global recovery” that is widening the economic gap between rich and poor countries, according to the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Overall, the IMF projects a global economic growth rate of 6 percent in 2021, but that is largely due to the economic recovery in larger, developed nations; the expected 2021 growth rate for low-income, developing countries is only 3.9 percent. IMF’s chief economist, Gita Gopinath, has called for “multilateral action” to promote “rapid, worldwide access to vaccines, diagnostics and therapeutics.” Among the benefits of such actions, Gopinath added, would be adding “trillions of dollars to global economic growth.”

The IMF has put forth a proposal to end the pandemic that calls for vaccinating at least 40 percent of the population of every country by year-end, and at least 60 percent by mid-2022. To reach this goal, at least one billion vaccine doses would need to be shared this year. Other steps include vaccine producers prioritizing deliveries to developing countries and removing trade restrictions on vaccine inputs and finished vaccines. Importantly, regional vaccine capacity would need to be established to ensure sufficient production and distribution in markets around the world. Increasing global access to vaccines clearly falls on the shoulders of the U.S. and other developed nations. One way to achieve quicker global vaccine distribution would be for developed nations to support COVAX, a partnership of several global health organizations, which could accelerate the development and manufacture of Covid-19 vaccines and improve fair and equitable access worldwide.

The U.S. government could also apply pressure on the major Covid vaccine makers to release their patents and share their technology, allow regional production of the vaccines to improve global access, and also lower the price of their vaccines. Pharma companies such as Pfizer and Moderna have been reaping windfall profits from the sale of vaccines. To illustrate, in the first three months of the year alone, Pfizer generated $3.5 billion in revenue from the Covid vaccines—nearly one-quarter of its total revenue. Moderna’s revenues from the vaccine totaled $1.73 billion in the first quarter of 2021, and it has projected Covid-19 vaccine sales of $19.2 billion this year. International business leaders have a role as well, particularly to help employees and their dependents around the globe to get vaccinated. From a humanitarian perspective, such efforts will help secure greater equity in vaccine supplies worldwide. From a business perspective, it could very well help preserve the security of the global supply chain and contribute to worldwide economic growth.

The U.S. has a history of global leadership and distributing the vaccine as widely as possible would add to that legacy. While the U.S. has lagged China in dispensing vaccines to developing countries, there is still time to pick up the slack. Everyone would benefit from wide vaccine distribution in the global community, in terms of health, wellness, and economic growth.

U.S. Legally, Morally Obligated To ‘Clean Up The Mess’ In Afghanistan, WVU Researcher Says

Karen Culcasi At West Virginia UniversityEditorial/Opinion, Nation USA 0

A West Virginia University researcher who has worked with refugees and women in the Arab world believes the United States has a legal and moral obligation to aid the Afghan population after the Taliban’s takeover. The Taliban’s leadership has stated it would protect women’s rights, but Karen Culcasi is doubtful of that and fears for the safety of women and girls in Afghanistan.

QUOTES

“Women and girls are being drastically affected by the (U.S.) withdrawal. The Taliban, which the U.S. overthrew in 2001, had oppressed women so severely since the early 1990s that the 2001 U.S. invasion was justified, in part, to ‘liberate’ women and girls from their power. While the U.S. and NATO’s 20 years in Afghanistan was violent, oppressive and led to the deaths of over 100,000 Afghan civilians, police, and soldiers, the overthrow of the Taliban did greatly improve women’s rights. Job opportunities and political representation increased for women, while child marriages and maternal mortality declined. Improvements in education were profound. Approximately 900,000 boys were in school in 2001 and as of early 2021, there are 9.2 million children in school, of which 39% are girls.

“But with the Taliban back in Kabul, women and girls are at risk of being shrouded back into their homes and denied educational opportunities. The Taliban has recently pledged to allow girls to go to school and that they will be ‘inclusive’ in their governance, but these are just words. “In addition to women and girls, there are some 300,000 Afghans who were employed by the U.S. government and whose lives are now in danger. In 2009, the U.S. began to issue Special Immigrant Visas for Afghans whose safety was threatened because of their association with the U.S. But the process of issuing the visas has been slow and has benefited only a tiny fraction of those Afghans.

“As this catastrophe continues to unfold, we need to be asking some serious philosophical questions about the value of U.S. military and neo-imperial actions in Afghanistan (and across the globe) and about the U.S.’s responsibility to protect marginalized people. But in the immediate, we need to act quickly to issue visas and to help Afghans to seek safety in Iran, Pakistan and the U.S. The U.S. is legally obligated to help refugees and morally obligated to clean up the mess we have made.” – Karen Culcasi, associate professor, Geology, Eberly College of Arts and Sciences

The Afghanistan Tragedy: Will There Be An End To Endless Wars?

George AbrahamEditorial/Opinion, Global 0

“Many of these bureaucrats in Washington who are the true architects of these infamous wars have little in common with the folks who are sent to these godforsaken places to fight these unseen enemies. They are part of the elite society, mostly come with Ivy League credentials and live in their multi-million abodes in Washington suburbs.

Most of them might not have served a single day in the United States armed forces, and some of the older ones might even have gotten away with waivers during the time of the draft. At the end of the day, it is either those boys from the Midwest who believe that it is their duty to serve their country and honor its flag or the poor black and Latino kids who are hoping to build a better life after completing their service in the Military are the ones who fall prey to these odious designs of the so-called establishment.”

President Dwight Eisenhower once gave the nation a dire warning. “In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.” He called the military-industrial complex a formidable union of vested interests and a threat to democratic government.

As the tragedy in Afghanistan unfolds before our very eyes, the question is whether this could have been avoided? There is no doubt that this shameful exit by the United States has not only tarnished the reputation of the superpower but put thousands of Afghan lives in danger. There is little doubt that the current administration has failed miserably in executing a proper exit strategy. History will harshly judge those who have authored and run such an ill-conceived plan. Who are the victims of this unfolding strategy? The United States went to Afghanistan to root out Al Qaeda that has planned and staged the attacks on the World Trade Center that killed around 3000 Americans on September 11, 2001. There is no doubt that American intervention prevented more such episodes from the Afghan soil in the U.S., and the chief strategist of the 9/11 attack, Bin Laden, was pursued and eliminated.

However, the United States got bogged down in this protracted struggle with the Taliban, who found a haven in Pakistan for their hit and run attacks. Therefore, this was a fight lost by the United States that had no patience to outlast the enemy’s will. Taliban once boasted that “NATO has watches, but we have the time,” The truth is that the Taliban simply waited out the NATO forces and the American resolve to recapture Kabul in lightning speed that may have shocked the bureaucrats in Washington. The infantile justification by Jake Sullivan, the National Security Advisor to the President, that this chaos was inevitable is symptomatic of the mindset of the Washington establishment that is so detached from reality and back to their business as usual.

George W. Bush, who initiated the foray into Afghanistan, was never content with one war. Instead of focusing on eliminating the Taliban, which was dubbed as a terrorist organization, and securing the freedom for the people of Afghanistan from these regressive and evil elements reminiscent of medieval times, he started another war in Iraq that ended in disaster. Along with destabilizing the entire Middle East paving the way for the creation of a Caliphate by ISIS, American invincibility that was seen at the initial stages of the Afghan invasion was not only lost, but the American people simply got tired of these endless wars. Many of these bureaucrats in Washington who are the true architects of these infamous wars have little in common with the folks who are sent to these godforsaken places to fight these unseen enemies. They are part of the elite society, mostly come with Ivy League credentials and live in their multi-million abodes in Washington suburbs. Most of them might not have served a single day in the United States armed forces, and some of the older ones might even have gotten away with waivers during the time of the draft.

At the end of the day, it is either those boys from the Midwest who believe that it is their duty to serve their country and honor its flag or the poor black and Latino kids who are hoping to build a better life after completing their service in the Military are the ones who fall prey to these odious designs of the so-called establishment. Making war has become the primary business for many of these bureaucrats who are part of this military-industrial complex. People like Dick Cheney, who has never served in the Military, are prime examples who promoted wars and stood to profit. To them, these young men and women who are sent to these battlefields to die or permanently scarred for life are only of peripheral interests. Thousands of others who are caught up in the crossfire and lost their lives are simply collateral damages.

President Dwight Eisenhower once gave the nation a dire warning. “In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.” He called the military-industrial complex a formidable union of vested interests and a threat to democratic government. Take, for example, the folly of continuing to provide billions of dollars in funding to the Pakistan government while allowing bases for Afghan insurgents and actively supporting their mission. According to various reports, the Pakistani Military was also engaged in providing training and tactical support to terrorist groups crossing the border and creating havoc in Kashmir. How could the United States justify supporting the counter-insurgency funding for Pakistan while the country remained a factory for brainwashing young minds with fundamentalist ideology and turn them loose to commit horrendous crimes across the globe?

Taxpayers of the United States indeed have lost Trillions of dollars fighting these regime-changing wars. Still, all is not lost for these conniving bureaucrats who represent potent lobbies and special interests in the Capitol. Washington suburbs have become the most expensive real estate on American soil today as these folks continue to rake in riches while the rest of the country is undergoing economic hardships and facing an uncertain future. ‘Powell doctrine,’ named after the four-star general Colin Powell, said that “war should be the politics of last resort. And when we go to war, we should have a purpose that our people understand and support; we should mobilize the country’s resources to fulfill that mission and then go in to win”.

The precipitous withdrawal from Vietnam, Iraq, and now Afghanistan runs contrary to that principle, and Powel himself may have violated the spirit of his own proclamation with his WMD speech at the United Nations while promoting the invasion of Iraq. Obviously, people have lost control of their ‘greatest democracy.’ Once again, they are reeling from a shameful and disheartening scenario in Kabul as thousands who risked their lives supporting U.S. policies are stranded and fearing for their lives simply as the result of terrible decision-making in Washington. In the meantime, the powerful establishment may be plotting for yet another conflict somewhere around the world in the name of ‘promoting democracy and freedom’! (George Abraham is a former Chief Technology Officer at the United Nations)

Radical Socialist Statement on Afghanistan: A Double Tragedy

Mathew joyEditorial/Opinion 0

We mourn with the Afghan people their double tragedy. The first tragedy—the US’s illegal and utterly unjustified military invasion twenty years ago—helped prepare the ground for today’s tragedy, the accession to power of the Islamo-fanatical Taliban. Condemnation of the latter must not mean any softening of the criticism of US and Western imperialism or in shedding tears at its departure from the country.

The single most important democratic advance in the whole of the second half of the 20th century was the end of foreign colonial and imperialist rule even where this unfortunately resulted in the emergence of indigenous dictatorships. In a world where peoples are constituted as belonging to separate and multiple states, the fundamental moral-political principle to uphold (minus the rarest of exceptional cases) is respecting the freedom of agency of a people to overthrow their own tyrants. This is why it was the responsibility of Indians to overthrow British rule, of Indonesians the Dutch, of South Africans against Apartheid, and so on. Calling for external help of all kinds, even military aid, was one thing; calling for external military liberation, No!

In the 1978 ‘Saur Revolution’ a secular and reform-minded pro-Soviet ‘Communist’ party, the PDPA (People’s Democratic Party of Afghanistan) came to power but was bedevilled by internal armed faction-fighting and had no real social base beyond Kabul. The Soviet invasion in 1979 to support this government was morally unjustified and condemnable while politically disastrous, handing over as it did the mantle of ‘popular nationalist struggle’ against the foreign invader, to a host of ethno-tribal Islamist groups including Al Qaeda and Taliban. The primary military aiders, equippers and trainers of these were the US, its British/French allies along with Pakistan. The Soviets finally withdrew in 1989 with its factotum government collapsing three years later amidst a civil war waged by the various Islamists until the Taliban capturing  90% of the territory established its dominance in 1996.

In 2001 the US government deliberately refused to characterise the assault on Twin Towers and Pentagon as what it was, namely an international crime against humanity. For that would have meant going after the criminals and their network only. Instead, by declaring a ‘Global War on Terror’ and claiming that no distinction would be made between the guilt of the perpetrators and that of the governments of countries which the US declared to be ‘housing terrorists’—the way was cleared for the US to transform a conflict between itself and a non-state network into one against any number of countries in West and Central Asia in keeping with its wider geo-political ambitions of achieving global dominance. In the new millennium Afghanistan was the first of many to suffer such military assaults. The US foreign policy establishment had already identified China, Iran and Russia as the ones to watch out for and were accordingly well aware that Afghanistan, apart from Pakistan, abuts Iran, China and pro-Russia Central Asian Republics, the latter also a region having large relatively untapped sources of oil and gas.

In these 20 years the US military and its puppet regimes (themselves corrupt and internally fractious) have carried out massive bombings (‘daisy cutters’, cluster bombs), drone attacks (extending into Pakistan) and brutal and indiscriminate ‘search and destroy’ missions against unknown insurgents and their families. US deaths (soldiers and contractors) have been around 6500.

In contrast, by extremely conservative estimates, total Afghan deaths up to the end of 2019 (government soldiers/police, opposition fighters, civilians) were around 160,000. Other sources which try to take account of unreported deaths have estimates of civilian casualties alone running from a few hundred thousand to over a million in an overall population between 35-40 million. Four million Afghans have been internally displaced with another 2.7 million external refugees. As of now around 48% are below the national poverty line. Some progressive laws and reforms have taken place but they no more justify US presence and rule than the fact of the British building hospitals, schools and introducing some legislatures, elections and limited franchise would have justified the persistence of colonial rule in India.

That the 300,000 plus official Afghan forces (soldiers, police, special militias) numbering 5 to 6 times more than Taliban fighters and also equipped with the most advanced arsenal of weapons and having full mechanical control of airspace should have so dramatically collapsed, indicates that the Taliban did have a measure of ground support and public acquiescence (no doubt considerably fear-induced) beyond its predominantly Pushtun base. However, it is strongly hostile to the Persian-speaking Tajiks who make up 27% of the population as compared to the 42% of Pushtuns which means there is every reason to fear serious internal repression and even a possible civil war type situation in the future. Taliban may or may not have learnt something from its past international isolation and avoid some forms of social  and civic repression. But given its history and social/civic programme of religious sectarianism, anti-democratic, anti-women measures—it has declared it will impose Sharia Law—there is every reason to oppose it forthrightly and without equivocation.

Governments everywhere including India’s, will shed crocodile tears for the Afghan people, but are in fact (accompanied by respective bus loads of ‘strategic experts’) only motivated by the crude and amoral considerations of realpolitik. Claiming to pursue the ‘national interest’—standardised subterfuge for the actual pursuit of ruling class interests that these different states actually represent—they will decide whether or when to establish diplomatic relations of some kind with the new Taliban government; or else to join hands with other self-serving major powers and their cohorts be these the Western Alliance or the possible front of Russia, China and Pakistan that looks more favourably at the new dispensation in Afghanistan.

No Afghan government has ever accepted the Durand line and the Taliban with even stronger sympathies with Pushtuni nationalism is not as beholden to Pakistan as the Islamophobic Modi government (some of whose Hindutva prescriptions are as debased as those of radical Islam) would like to make out for the purpose of whipping up anti-Pakistan sentiment domestically which then pays dividends for deepening repression in Kashmir.

It is the good of the Afghan people not our supposed ‘national interest’  that must be our point of departure for reflecting on what we must support and oppose. There should be no economic sanctions against Afghanistan. These hurt the people much more than the elites that govern. Humanitarian aid on an appropriate scale routed through progressive international and civil society organisations to this war-torn country is a must. No recognition to the Taliban regime while political, diplomatic and cultural pressures of various kinds (but not military) can play a role in pushing it to be less repressive in its laws and actions against women and ethnic and religious minorities.

A basic test for the West and many other countries will come with regard to the posture they adopt towards the flow of Afghan refugees now and afterwards. There should be no restriction to those seeking refuge or asylum and adequate provision be made for them to stay or relocate to where they can. This holds for India as well. Even before the advent of Modi, India was and remains a non-party to the 1951 Refugee Convention and its 1967 Protocol which among other things rejects refoulement (forcible return of refugees to their places of displacement/persecution).

The Modi government has carried this out to a number of Rohingyas simply because they are Muslims. This hostility to Muslims and Islam is also reflected in the Citizenship Amendment Act applicable to Afghanistan. While New Delhi may in current circumstances allow for selective refugee influx this is not enough. Free flow must be allowed even as there can be discussion among neighbouring states for sharing the responsibility. Moreover, those Afghans, students and otherwise who are already in the country and wish to remain must have their visas extended until such time as they feel confident of returning back or they can in due course apply for Indian citizenship. NO TO IMPERIALISM, NO TO THE TALIBAN

Whose Freedom Are We Celebrating This August 15?

George AbrahamEditorial/Opinion 0

What is happening to the soul of Indian democracy? ‘The basis for democracy is Liberty,’ said Aristotle. However, today, the Institutions that were built to safeguard that principle are under duress. Laws like UAPA were used in colonial times to suppress the independence movement by suspending ordinary jurisprudence. Under these laws, jail is the rule, and bail is an exception.

“Many of the Desi civil rights organizations in this country would make loud protests, justifiably so, at the slightest discrimination or physical attack on an Indian but remain largely silent to any level of atrocities committed to vulnerable groups in India. Some of them act as if they are mouthpieces of the BJP regime, often defending actions that violate the fundamental values and principles of the democracy we all live in. As a minority, we demand equal opportunities and protection from the US government; however, we mostly remain reluctant to hold the Modi regime accountable to the same standard! It is quite a paradox!”

As I was sitting at a corner table in a conference room at the Indian Consulate in New York surveying the folks who were busy preparing for a curtain-raiser function to celebrate India’s 74th anniversary of Independence with a Parade in Long Island, I wondered whether anyone in that group truly cared whether India is still holding on to that promise of freedom to all its citizens! To some, that question is lost amidst the excitement and pageantry of the upcoming celebration, and to many others, the retrogressive trajectory of India’s current path is the real reason for joy and celebration!

As the Diaspora is about to celebrate Independence Day of India once again, one of the questions that arises in minds across the globe is whose freedom is being celebrated on August 15, 2021?

Obviously, it was not the freedom of Father Stan Swamy, who died recently in detention on trumped-up charges of terrorism. He was a man who had devoted his life fighting for the rights of Dalits and Adivasis from the onslaught of corporate interests. And it is not the freedom of Sudha Bharadwaj, who has been languishing in jail now for over three years for defending the rights of the workers and seeking justice for extrajudicial killings by police officers. Of course, it is not the freedom of Asif Iqbal Tanha, Devangana Kalita, and Natasha Narwal who were exercising their constitutional rights to protest CAA. For that alone, they were incarcerated under the draconian UAPA law.In the case of Stan Swamy, the authorities didn ‘t even show basic civility in providing the man with a straw as this frail 84-year-old with Parkinson’s disease had difficulty drinking water from a cup. Upon contacting Covid-19 in prison, it took a court intervention for him to get released to a hospital of his choice, a delay that may have cost him his life. What happened to his right to life and liberty? Why was Stan Swamy denied the freedom to have a presumption of innocence?

Last February 13, 2021, marks the civil rights lawyer and activist Sudha Bharadwaj’s 900 days in detention under the UAPA law.

Last February 13, 2021, marks the civil rights lawyer and activist Sudha Bharadwaj’s 900 days in detention under the UAPA law.  She took cases that many other attorneys refused to touch and represented workers wrongfully dismissed by companies, illegally evicted villagers from their land, and women who alleged sexual assault by security forces. Born in Boston to a distinguished economist, she went to IIT Kanpur to study Mathematics. Later, she moved to an iron mining ore town in Chhattisgarh and supported worker’s rights and safety while challenging land acquisition by major corporations and seeking justice for extrajudicial killings by police officers. Bharadwaj has denied the charges and said it was “totally concocted. Obviously, these arrests appear to be an affront to the rule of law and infringing on the citizen’s constitutional rights.

It has been said that a right without a remedy is no right at all. According to press reports, Sudha’s health situation continues to deteriorate in prison. The 59-year-old suffers from diabetes, hypertension, and heart disease, making her susceptible to Covid-19 in the cramped prison. Her bail plea is being rejected, and she has been denied books and Newspapers in jail. Michele Bachelet, the UNHCHR commissioner, has expressed concern over using ‘vaguely defined laws’ to silence activists and government critics. Doesn’t Sudha Bharadwaj deserve the freedom to have a hearing on her case without indefinite detention?

According to press reports, the most bizarre incident took place on March 19, 2021, in Jhansi, Uttar Pradesh, when four Nuns from the Delhi province of the Sacred Heart Society were arrested while on the way to Odisha from Delhi. The incident occurred while the train they were traveling stopped at 6.30 PM at Jhansi railway station. A group of religious extremists returning from a pilgrimage accused them of religious conversion and raised religious slogans. Subsequently, police arrived at the spot and arrested the Nuns without paying any heed to their side of the story. Around 150 religious radicals accompanied the women in procession to the police station. The terrified nuns were finally released at 11.30 PM after the intervention of some advocacy groups. Don’t these Nuns deserve the freedom of unimpeded travel without harassment anywhere in India?

Mohammed Munazir arrived in Delhi decades ago, escaping poverty in his native Bihar, where his landless father worked on other people’s farms for a pittance. In the beginning, like poor migrants, he lived in a tarped hovel on the fringes of sprawling Capital, working in a bookbinding shop. Finally, when the bookbinding shop folded, he started selling home-cooked biryani on a cart. Ultimately, he saved enough money to buy a home, a nondescript building in a narrow lane. “It was a nest I finally built for my wife and six children after a lifetime of struggle,” says Mr. Munazir. “It was the only thing I wanted in life; it was my dream come true.” It is that dream that ended in flames on a bright sunny Tuesday when the Capital’s worst religious riots in decades took place in 2020, leaving 53 people dead and hundreds of wounded languishing in understaffed medical facilities, and corpses were still being discovered in drainage ditches. Doesn’t Mr. Munazir have the freedom to dream of building his own nest?

Born to a Dalit family in the slums of Indora, an Ambedkarite hub in Nagpur, fifty-four-year-old Sudhir Dhawale is an activist, editor, and writer. Dhawale was arrested alongside five other activists and professors on June 6, 2018, due to their connection to Elgar Parishad, which was blamed for the violence at Bhima Koregaon, which took place on January 1, 2018. The 1818 Battle of Koregaon is an important milestone for Dalits. On January 1818, eight hundred troops of the East India company’s Bombay Presidency army with a large number of Mahars defeated a numerically superior force of the Peshwa Baji Rao II. A victory pillar was erected in Koregaon by the British, and in 1928 B. R. Ambedkar led the first commemoration ceremony there. Since then, on January 1, every year, Ambedkarites gather at Bhima Koregaon to celebrate the victory against the upper castes and highlight the historical oppression they have suffered under the caste system. However, to the powerful establishment, these daring Dalits needed to be taught a lesson! They may have finally succeeded in putting a damper on Edgar Parishad’s luster through defamation, linking it to the Maoist and anti-national movements. Doesn’t Sudhir Dhawale and other Dalits have a right to celebrate a historical event without interference from the upper castes?

It should also be noted that Milind Ekbote, President of Dharmaveer Sambhaji Maharaj Pratishthan, and Sambhaji Bhide, a man associated with RSS and Shiv Pratishthan, who was accused of causing the violence, never faced any serious action.

Mr. Rajesh Tikait from Uttar Pradesh, a farm leader and spokesperson of the Bharatiya Kisan Union, could be seen in a video distressed and wailing so loudly that his sobbing drowned out his words. Mr. Tikait said that the BJP was trying to “destroy” farmers and that he would not let it happen. He was indeed referring to how goons have infiltrated the January 26 protests by farmers to discredit their movement that has legitimate grievances against the farm laws passed by the Government in 2020. Harsimrat Kaur Badal, a former Union Minister and erstwhile ally of the BJP government, said, “This anti-farmer attitude of the NDA government is responsible for the plight of farmers who are not only been stonewalled for eight months but even their dead are not being recognized.” Why this farming community that is ‘annadaata’ to the country is being humiliated in this manner and called anti-nationals for exercising freedom to air their grievances?

The alleged snooping by the Indian Government using Israeli spyware Pegasus on opposition politicians, media personnel, and private citizens indicates that individual freedom and the right to privacy have become a thing of the past. Congress leader Rahul Gandhi, one of the victims of the phone tapping issue, asked, “we want to ask just one question. Has the Government of India bought Pegasus? Yes or No. Did the Government use Pegasus weapon against its own people?” The Indians in the snooping database include over 40 journalists, three major opposition figures, and one constitutional authority. What happened to the freedom of the opposition parties to hold the Government accountable and the freedom of the fourth estate to keep Government, legislators, and big business in check by keeping society or the public informed?

What is happening to the soul of Indian democracy? ‘The basis for democracy is Liberty,’ said Aristotle. However, today, the Institutions that were built to safeguard that principle are under duress. Laws like UAPA were used in colonial times to suppress the independence movement by suspending ordinary jurisprudence. Under these laws, jail is the rule, and bail is an exception. A polis project statement says ‘political prisoner’ is a category of criminal offense that sits most egregiously in any civilized society, especially in countries that call themselves liberal democracies. It is a thought crime: the crime of thinking, acting, speaking, probing, reporting, questioning, demanding rights, and, more importantly, exercising one’s citizenship. The assault on the fundamental rights has been consistent and ongoing at a global level, and rights-bearing citizens are transformed into consuming subjects of a surveillance state”.

Freedom of Conscience is fundamental to all other liberties. It is innate and God-given. It is guaranteed under the Indian Constitution. However, it is open season for those who freely exercise it. Academia has become another favorite target of the Modi Government. BJP and its ilk have always hated Institutions like JNU, where the free flow of ideas flourished, and lively debates on the pros and cons of contemporary issues were the order of the day. Today, the students and faculty in these revered institutions are intimidated, harassed, and called anti-national for failing to toe their Hindutva agenda line and are often charged with sedition. Modi Government has been openly hostile to civil society groups. It repeatedly denounces human rights and environmental activism as “anti-national” – a phrase that carries connotations of treason.

There is also quite an irony in the fact that today’s BJP leaders, who mostly come from the RSS ranks, are vocal on the issue of nationalism. The words and deeds of the founders of that organization, from Hedgewar to Veer Savarkar, clearly indicated that they were not only non-participants in the freedom struggle where hundreds of people were risking their lives daily but also collaborators who supported the British on critical occasions. The British acknowledged that RSS has “scrupulously kept itself within the law and refrained from taking part in the disturbances that broke out in August 1942.” Sardar Patel, writing on the assassination of Gandhiji by Nathuram Godse, said, “As regards to RSS and Hindu Mahasabha…our reports do confirm that as a result of the activities of these two bodies, particularly the former (RSS), an atmosphere was created in the country in which such ghastly tragedy became possible.”

“Religious freedom in India is taking a drastic turn downward, with national and various state governments tolerating widespread harassment and violence against religious minorities” said United States Commission for International Religious Freedom in its 2020 report. The BJP-led Government enacted the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), which potentially exposes millions of Muslims to detention, deportation, and statelessness when the Government completes its planned nationwide National Registry of Citizens”. USCIRF also recommended to the State Department that India be designated as a ‘Country of Particular Concern.’ India also slipped into 53rd position in the 2020 Democracy Index’s global ranking, dubbed a flawed democracy. The Economic Intelligence Unit (EIU) said that in India, democratic backsliding by the authorities and crackdown on civil liberties led to a further decline in their global rankings.

Christians who constitute around 3% of the population are also under severe stress with many of their places of worship under attack, increased re-conversion efforts by Hindu fundamentalist organizations, removal of Christmas Day and Easter Day from the National Calendar, and the cancellation of FCRA of thousands of Christian charities effectively putting them out of business, the Saffron brigade appears to be questioning the very Indian ness of every Christian in India. In addition, they are engaged in a scathing campaign to link Christianity in India, which has a two-thousand-year history, with the colonial legacy.

Agencies such as India’s Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), the Enforcement Directorate of the Finance Ministry, the Tax authorities, and even local police forces are often accused of doing the Government’s bidding. The opposition has charged that their leaders have often been targeted for harassment which they consider a political vendetta for expressing their opinions critical of the Government.

In this week, we may witness widespread celebrations of India’s Independence that will be held in many cities across the U.S. However, one may hear very little regarding whether the hard-fought freedom won by the founding fathers of modern India is in danger of being extinguished! The Cultural and Religious organizations that provide forums for these events appear not to be concerned about the ever-diminishing freedom of India’s citizens or the weakening of its institutions. The current dispensation favors singing Vande Mataram in place of Jana Gana Mana as parts of that national song are replete with Hindu symbolism that is more gratifying, albeit not the communities in their entirety.

Indians have done well with the open electoral process in the US, having elected four of their own to the House of Representatives and another one as the Vice-President. Although most of them ascribe to policies considered far left of the center and often very strident on issues dealing with Civil Rights, Social Policies, or Immigration, they rarely criticize the Government of India for any similar wrongdoings such as violations of human rights or religious freedom.  They seem reluctant even to raise these issues when meeting with the Prime Minister or other Embassy officials.

Many of the Desi civil rights organizations in this country would make loud protests, justifiably so, at the slightest discrimination or physical attack on an Indian but remain largely silent to any level of atrocities committed to vulnerable groups in India. Some of them act as if they are mouthpieces of the BJP regime, often defending actions that violate the fundamental values and principles of the democracy we all live in. As a minority, we demand equal opportunities and protection from the US government; however, we mostly remain reluctant to hold the Modi regime accountable to the same standard! It is quite a paradox!

The Bhartiya Janata Party’s victory in the Lok Sabha elections of 2014 and 2019 has ushered in an unprecedented attack on India’s democracy and injected new elements of intolerance and authoritarianism into the lives of people living in the country. The anti-democratic actions by the Government have sullied international reputation. Therefore, it is time to ask exactly whose freedom are we celebrating on this 74th anniversary? Is it the hard-fought freedom won under the long struggle by Mahatma Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru, Sardar Patel, and Maulana Azad from the British to the benefit of all its citizens in India or the diminishing freedom at the expense of the minorities and Dalits solely to the delight of the feudalists/upper castes elites? Nevertheless, from a vantage point, this celebration may be all about the genuine freedom we enjoy in this land of the free and home of the brave, which includes the right to hold a foreign national flag and walk in a parade under a religious banner of our choice!

(The author is a former Chief Technology Officer of the United Nations and Vice-Chairman of the Indian Overseas Congress, USA)

Should President Biden Receive Holy Communion? Cardinal Tobin & Bishop Rhoades Discuss

Staff ReporterCulture, Editorial/Opinion, Religion 0

Catholic bishops meeting in regional cohorts have until the end of next month to submit their thoughts on what should be included in a forthcoming document on the Eucharist, which some Catholics fear may further divide the church over political support for abortion rights, the bishop heading the committee drafting the document said last week.

Bishop Kevin C. Rhoades, who leads the doctrine committee of the U.S. Conference of Catholics Bishops, reiterated that the document will not bar any individuals from receiving Communion and said it is “going to be addressed to all Catholics, not a particular person or a single issue in the part on Eucharistic consistency.”

“The document will not be establishing national norms or a national policy,” he said. “That’s really beyond the scope of the document; it’s really beyond our competence.” Bishop Kevin C. Rhoades, who leads the doctrine committee of the U.S. bishops, reiterated that the document will not bar any individuals from receiving Communion.

“We’re striving to write a document that will contribute to a real eucharistic revival in the church in our nation by highlighting the truth about the amazing gift that Jesus gave us on the night before he died,” Bishop Rhoades said.

But Bishop Rhoades also suggested that Catholics who do not accept the totality of church teaching are not prepared to receive Communion.

“In order to be properly disposed to receive the Eucharist, we need to be in communion with the church, and we need to assent to the deposit of faith that’s contained in Scripture and tradition that the apostles entrusted to the church,” Bishop Rhoades said. “This is our perennial tradition.”

The comments came during a panel hosted by the Initiative on Catholic Social Thought and Public Life at Georgetown University.

Bishop Rhoades also suggested that Catholics who do not accept the totality of church teaching are not prepared to receive Communion.

Cardinal Joseph Tobin, the archbishop of Newark who spoke last month against moving ahead with drafting a statement, said during the panel that the perception around that document is that it is political in nature and is thus unlikely to achieve the goal of broadening understanding about the Eucharist.

​“One thing I’ve learned in 43 years as a priest is that preaching has two essential dynamics,” he said. “One is what you say and second is what they hear.”

He applied that dynamic to the forthcoming document, which follows statements from individual bishops condemning Mr. Biden’s support for abortion rights and an unusual working group formed by the U.S.C.C.B. president in the wake of Mr. Biden’s election.

“This document was born in some confusion,” Cardinal Tobin said. “This document was born in some confusion,” Cardinal Tobin said.

Cardinal Tobin suggested that U.S. bishops look to other nations that have dealt with similar situations for guidance. He noted that bishops in Argentina did not threaten to deny Communion to political leaders who sought to legalize abortion there.“Are they slacking or do they have a different pastoral sense?” he asked.

A Catholic commentator said she feared the document could reduce reflection about worthiness to receive the Eucharist to one’s views on abortion, which she called “simplistic.” “It does seem to me simplistic to say that abortion is the preeminent priority for Catholics politically, not just in a sense of ranking moral issues but also when it comes to making specific decisions about voting and about elections,” said Mollie Wilson O’Reilly, an editor at large at Commonweal. “Insisting on that has led the Catholic Church and the Catholic hierarchy into a de facto alliance with the G.O.P. over the last several decades.”

Mollie O’Reilly lamented that U.S. bishops have “come out on what looks like a kind of a war footing” against President Biden. Ms. O’Reilly lamented that U.S. bishops have “come out on what looks like a kind of a war footing” against President Biden. “I think this is an opportunity when the church could really be a fruitful partner in addressing a lot of those other issues that so badly need to be addressed and where I think there is a lot of common ground and common language,” she said.

John Carr, a longtime staffer of the U.S.C.C.B. and now the co-director of the Initiative on Catholic Social Thought and Public Life, called the debate over whether Catholic politicians are eligible to receive Communion “terrible timing.”

“In the midst of a pandemic racial reckoning, let’s have a fight about whether the president ought to be able to receive Communion?” he questioned.

“We ought to be saying to people, the Eucharist brings us together, we need you as part of our family and faith,” he said. “We’ve got to read the signs of the times. We’re in a particular moment, and we ought to do everything we can to make sure the Eucharist doesn’t get used or misused for political or ideological purposes.”

“In the midst of a pandemic racial reckoning, let’s have a fight about whether the president ought to be able to receive Communion?” John Carr questioned.

Mr. Carr said he is “bitterly disappointed” in the president’s support for abortion rights, “but what’s different is he continues to be a part of our community. He attends Mass every Sunday.”

“We need not to discipline politicians but to engage our politicians and to pull them back in, so they see the richness of our tradition in its everyday forms,” he said.

Some Catholics have lamented that the debate over the document—which lasted for more than two hours when bishops met virtually last month—highlights divisions in the church.

But Gretchen Crowe, the editor of the Catholic newspaper Our Sunday Visitor, said on the panel that fears over divisions should not deter bishops from talking about “eucharistic coherence.”

“A fear of division, or really a fear of anything else, really never should prevent the church from teaching what it professes about anything,”  Gretchen Crowe said.

“A fear of division, or really a fear of anything else, really never should prevent the church from teaching what it professes about anything, much less what it teaches about the real presence of Jesus Christ in the Eucharist,” she said.

A number of bishops have pointed to a 2019 poll from the Pew Research Center that found significant numbers of U.S. Catholics either disagree with or do not understand the church’s teaching that the Eucharist is the real body and blood of Christ. That poll helped prompt bishops to adopt a strategic plan that highlighted church teaching on the Eucharist. Those backing the statement on “eucharistic coherence” said the document fits in with that plan.

Cardinal Tobin said on Wednesday’s panel that perhaps church leaders trying to inspire Catholics about the Eucharist might look to Rome for inspiration. “If Pope Francis’ great encyclicals were quoted as often as that Pew statistic, I think we might be better off as a church,” he said.

Secretary Blinken’s Assessment Of Indian Democracy Is Not Compatible With Ground Reality

Koshy GeorgeEditorial/Opinion, Nation India, Nation USA 0

“The most remarkable democratic election in the world, in many ways , is here in India” Blinken told a press conference.  As a pravasi Indian I wish these were true statements and I want India to be known this way among the nations of the world.  Blinken either believes this to be true or he was ignoring the truth for the sake of international diplomacy.  Since there is no freedom of the press in India only polished news comes out.

Blinken would have simply gone with a political argument ignoring the reality on the ground.  Either way, based on the facts on the ground Blinken was either misguided or as the UCA (United Catholic Asian) news quotes it was Blinken’s blinkered vision of India to suit Modi.  These words would have been soothing for the ears of Mr. Modi and his party.

However, this does not give justice to hundreds of Christians and other minorities who sacrificed their lives due to the quest of the ruling party to declare India as a Hindu state. The poor departed souls must have been churning in their graves when they hear such statements.  The injustices suffered by the 84-year-old Fr. Stan Sway alone should have been reason enough for Mr. Blinken to have been more cautious in his statements about human rights and respect for democratic principles by the government of India.

According to Reuters, on July 23, 2021 a senior State Department official said that  U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken will raise human rights issues with officials in India when he visits the country next week.  If Secretary Blinken was aware of human rights violations in India, how can he take an about-turn stand after 12 hours of air travel to India?  USCIRF (United States Commission on International Religious Freedom) recommends India as one of the Countries of Particular Concern (CPC) as India is listed by Open doors as the tenth most violators of human rights in the world.  Now Secretary Blinken will have to accept or reject the recommendations of the State Department’s own report by the bureau of democracy human rights and labor.

We hope and pray that Secretary Blinken will have the wisdom to do the right thing.  Of course, no one is happy about such a rating for India, but due to the stubborn stand of several nationalists in the Modi administration, this may be the only medicine for them to respect the basic human rights and religious freedom of minorities.

India had a good beginning after the independence which adopted the principles of pluralism and secularism.  However, the evils of the caste system and the supremacy ideologies of the majority squeezed out any decency that was left in the political system in India by the ruling majority of the Modi government.

The current government has been suppressing all kinds of freedom in India including individual and press freedoms.  Anyone criticizing any act of the government is termed as anti-national and they will be jailed indefinitely without the chance for a bail hearing.  Such atrocities are unheard of in a decent democracy.  What is the basis for Secretary Blinken’s assessment that India is a remarkable democracy?  Facts on the ground state otherwise.  All he needs is to talk to anyone of the church leaders in India to find the real situation.

Is the election process in India rigged?  Don’t know for sure unless there is a reliable process for recounts or investigations.  The EVM (electronic voting machines) in India are always under the control of the government where chances for abuses are real.  However, without blaming anyone, we should go back to paper ballots as adopted by many civilized nations.

Who ever may be ruling India we must have peace and harmony.  This is possible only if the ruling majority respects the interests of the minority.  Citizens to follow religious faith of their choice in India has become a challenge under Prime Minister Modi’s watch.  If India has to prosper, she has to get rid of the caste system.  We appeal to the government of India not to pass any more laws that hurt the interest of the minorities.  In the meantime, until India reverses all its unjust laws, US State Department must include India in the list of CPC nations to encourage India to go back to her roots and give all Indians the same rights and privileges under the law.

Snooping In India Indicates, Fundamental Freedom In India Is In Serious Jeopardy

George AbrahamEditorial/Opinion, Media, Nation India 0

“The alleged snooping in India using Israeli spyware Pegasus of opposition leaders, journalists, activists, and constitutional scholars is one more indication that fundamental freedoms in India are in serious jeopardy” said George Abraham, Vice-Chairman of the Indian Overseas Congress, USA. What we have been witnessing over the last six years is the steady deterioration of the rule of law and undermining of democracy, and the government must be held accountable” added Mr. Abraham.

One of the most prominent people on the list is Rahul Gandhi, leader of the Indian National Congress and a vehement critic of the Modi Administration on their undemocratic policies. In a statement, Mr. Gandhi said, “ targeted surveillance of the type you describe, whether in regard to me, other leaders of the opposition or indeed any law-abiding citizen of India is illegal and deplorable.”

It is becoming evident that power is all that matters to the current leadership at the Centre, and they may stoop to any low to snatch it even at the cost of undermining constitutional freedom and individual liberties. News reports suggest that key political players, including the then deputy chief minister Parameswara and the personal secretaries of then Chief Minister H D Kumaraswamy and former Chief Minister Siddaramaiah, may have been potential targets of surveillance by the Pegasus spyware in the run-up to the collapse of the Congress-JD (S) alliance government in 2019. If these reports are accurate, it is undermining the democratically run election process and severe violations of constitutional provisions these authorities are sworn to uphold.

The Biden administration has condemned the harassment and ‘extra-judicial surveillance of journalists and others in reaction to the story. “The United States condemns the harassment of extra-judicial surveillance of journalists, human rights activists, or other perceived regime critics,” a White House spokesperson stated.

Significantly, the list includes a woman who made sexual harassment allegations against India’s former Chief Justice, whose turnaround from a critic to a supporter of the Modi regime policies has surprised many. It may very well make a case study about how skeletons in the closet of any individual can be unearthed and weaponized to extract concessions or demand behavioral changes. It is a sad state of affairs in India today that reveals how much the world’s largest democracy has deteriorated under the BJP rule.

Thank You, Dear Father Stan, You Will Live Forever

Cedric Prakash At UcanewsEditorial/Opinion, Profile 0

Jesuit priest Stan Swamy has inspired many to pursue his vision of a more humane and just society for the poor in India

Dear Father Stan Swamy,

On July 5, you completed your pilgrimage on earth. A light has gone out of our lives and there is darkness everywhere. I am sure you will not want us to mourn your death. As we look back, we also celebrate your life of commitment, the rich legacy you have left us all. Our hearts are full as we say: “Thank you, dear Father Stan, you will live forever.” We cannot help but think of your incredibly committed and simple lifestyle. In fact, the media had a field day when authorities came to seize your possessions and found almost nothing.

As a young priest, you lived in an interior Adivasi (aboriginal) village, sharing a small room with one of the local families. You mastered the Ho language, studied the tribe’s culture and customs, ate their food and even sang and danced with them. You believed in youth, gave them a sense of identity and helped them to critically analyze what was happening to their tribal society. With their help, you also built your own residence, which was an open house to one and all. As an Adivasi rights activist, you worked on issues related to land, forest and labor rights, and for the protection, well-being and development of the local tribes.

The Adivasis and other excluded peoples, who had been consistently denied their legitimate rights, saw in you a person who left no stone unturned to champion their cause

You helped form the Persecuted Prisoners’ Solidarity Committee to gain justice for 3,000 tribal people illegally put in jail, expressing your dissent with official policies and laws, which you were convinced violated the Constitution of India. The Adivasis and other excluded peoples, who had been consistently denied their legitimate rights, saw in you a person who left no stone unturned to champion their cause. You did this unreservedly to the very end and taught us all the true meaning of solidarity — what it means to actually walk the talk.

We listened to your heartfelt words shortly before your arrest on Oct. 8, 2020: “What is happening to me is not something unique — happening to me alone. It is a broader process that is taking place all over the country …  In a way I am happy to be part of this process. I am not a silent spectator, but part of the game, and ready to pay the price whatever be it.” On May 21, you told Bombay High Court about the sufferings you were undergoing in jail. It had been eight months since you were brought there with your body fully functional. You could have a bath by yourself and also do some writing.

But the dire conditions in jail brought you to a situation where you could neither write nor go for a walk by yourself or even eat. “I am not able to meet this demand. Eating has become a real difficulty; someone has to feed me with a spoon,” you said. You also highlighted how prisoners came to help each other in difficult circumstances and were profoundly touched by the help you received from your fellow inmates. You seemed to have an intuition of your impending death. You wanted to be given regular bail and to go back to Ranchi in Jharkhand, where you had spent decades in the midst of your people.

“I want to go to Ranchi to be with my friends … Whatever happens to me I would like to be with my own,” you said.If not that, you were very clear about wanting to continue to be in jail: “I would rather die here very shortly if things go on as it is.” Your death seems to have spurred the opposition parties of the country into action, demanding the president of India’s intervention to act against those responsible for foisting false cases on you and subjecting you to inhuman treatment in jail.

Ironically, the opposition parties could not come together earlier on several key issues that plague the nation. But then your death provided them at least a cosmetic unity to address a serious reality. It is now incumbent that all those jailed along with you in the BhimaKoregaon case and other politically motivated cases by misusing draconian anti-terror laws be released forthwith.

The powers that tried to put you away, to annihilate you, have failed miserably in their evil design

A statement from the United Nations’ High Commissioner Michelle Bachelet raised your case along with the “15 other human rights defenders associated with the same events,” urging the Indian government to release them from pre-trial detention. She also raised concerns over the use of a draconian law in relation to human rights defenders, reminding that it was “a law Father Stan was challenging before Indian courts days before he died.”

The US State Department through its Office of International Religious Freedom called “on all governments to respect the vital role of human rights activists in healthy democracies.”All this has obviously raised the hackles of those who illegally incarcerated you. They were afraid and insecure for what you stood for. They tried to do away with you, not realizing that your spirit will never die. The powers that tried to put you away, to annihilate you, have failed miserably in their evil design. They did not realise that doing away with you would spawn hundreds and thousands of Stan Swamys everywhere.

Since your death, there have been numerous programs all over the world: rallies and demonstrations, candlelight vigils and processions, memorial prayer meetings and Masses, webinars and articles. Leading dailies and magazines have you on their cover with powerful editorials and op-eds; social media has not stopped talking about you. In several ways you have galvanized people across the board to celebrate your life and mission; and to condemn the way you were made to die. The underlying refrain everywhere is “I am Stan”; no longer the hashtag #StandWithStan, it has gone way beyond.

As a prophet of our times, you epitomized compassion, courage and commitment

A new cohesive, vibrant national campaign is emerging and gaining momentum — The Joint National Action to Defend Democracy; Defend Right to Dissent. A day of action has been planned for July 23. Called “Justice for Father Stan Swamy,” it will lead up to a national action program from Aug. 15-28 with thousands from all over India expected to participate.

We demand the immediate revocation of India’s anti-terror legislation, the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA); the unconditional release of the Bhima Koregaon 15 and all others illegally incarcerated under this draconian law; we demand prison reforms and better conditions for prisoners — all that you relentlessly worked and died for. Strangely enough, in a lecture on July 13, Supreme Court Justice D.Y. Chandrachud stated that “criminal law, including anti-terror legislation, should not be misused for quelling dissent or for harassment of citizens.”

Powerful words, a vindication of what you lived and died for; we need to see now what happens in practice. As a prophet of our times, you epitomized compassion, courage and commitment. You had the audacity to dare: to walk with the excluded and the exploited and to make their struggles your own. Today you are a martyr for justice and truth. The Adivasis and many others already regard you as a saint. But you have not died; you will continue to live in each one of us. Many more Stan Swamys will continue to rise until that day when your vision of a more humane, just, equitable, fraternal, free and dignified society becomes a reality for the poor and underprivileged, the excluded and the exploited of India.

(Father Cedric Prakash SJ is a human rights, reconciliation and peace activist and writer. The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official editorial position of TheUnn.com)

Reflections On The Demise Of Fr. Stan Swamy

Rev ValsonThampu, Former Principal Of St. Stephen’s College, DelhiEditorial/Opinion, Profile, Religion 0

I don’t know if Fr. Stan Swamy’s soul will rest in peace. Given his sincerity to the cause of Dalit and adivasi rights, it is unlikely that it would, so long as the present situation continue. One thing, however, is certain. The present dispensation can now rest in peace. An octogenarian, enfeebled by Parkinson’s disease, unable even to hold a spoon with steady hands, will not destabilize the mighty Indian State anymore. Mera Bharat Mahan!

Why don’t I mourn Fr. Stan’s death, though it is ‘untimely’? His death is ‘untimely’ because senseless imprisonment expedited it. If so, the plain truth is that he is killed. But, if you ask me, ‘Who killed Fr. Stan?’ I will have to refer to Count Leo Tolstoy. Tolstoy says that the State is able to perpetrate atrocities through a division of labour. Now if a judge, for example, had to not only condemn but also to take Fr. Stan personally to a prison and shut him up there, he would not be able to do it. If the NIA lawyers were to do it, their conscience too would revolt against it. Even the policemen involved, if they were to, on their own responsibility, throw Fr. Stan into the jail, they would have trembled at the abhorrence of it. But break this atrocity into many pieces and make different agencies carry out the fragments by way of discharging their ‘duties’, it can then be done with sincerity and national fervour. I too am part of this callous system. So, how can I mourn the death of this saintly man, having kept quiet about it for nearly a year?

Secondly, I feel happy for him because Fr. Stan is now in a better state than he was, while alive in circumstances such were inflicted on him for reasons he could not understand. There is a school of thought that it is easier for an innocent man to suffer. They think so because they have never suffered, innocently or otherwise. The anguish in guilt-less suffering is that one’s suffering makes no sense. It is absurd. What is absurd is unendurable. If you are punished for your wrongdoings, then you can reconcile yourself to your plight. Think, if you dare, of the plight of an old and chronically ill man in a prison. Prison-life conditions, including the psychological poison that goes with it, being what they are, even individuals much younger than Fr. Stan and in better states of health disintegrate fast. Fr. Stan himself said that it is better to die than to be in prison the way he was. So, why shouldn’t we celebrate his release from misery through the mercy of death, for neither mercy nor justice was likely to reach him in any other way?

Oh, no! It is not Fr Stan that we need to mourn. It is ourselves. Given the miasma of fear that is enveloping the country –of which the plight of Fr. Stan is a clear warning- the difference between being inside the jail and being outside of it is becoming merely notional. A story from Hitler’s Germany is relevant here. Pastor Martin Niemoller was visited in jail by some of his sympathisers who wondered why he had to be in jail. He quipped, ‘Why are you not in jail?’ That is to say, at what cost are you keeping yourself out of it?

What intrigues me most is not the efficiency and zealous patriotism of NIA that rids India of extreme threats like Fr. Stan, but the crass indifference of the Catholic Church. No one is in the dark about the communication lines between the church hierarchy and the Modi dispensation. We are also aware of the extent to which the church goes, covertly, if not overtly, to save worthies like Franko of the nun-rape fame. We have seen, over three decades, bow the accused in the Abhya nun murder case were sheltered from the arm of the law. The humongous financial investment made for their sake is also not unknown. The one thing we do not know is if anything comparable has ever been attempted by the same Church arms or agencies for the sake of Fr. Stan. He was abandoned, it seems, like an illicit baby by its unwed mother.

A couple of issues stare at us from the Fr. Stan tragedy, which is the tragedy of humanity as a whole. First, Fr. Stan has died condemned, without the due process of law. Under the UAPA, the accused is guilty until proven innocent. Fr. Stan was not proved innocent. He was ‘the accused’ at the time of his death. The accused is, under the UAPA, guilty. So, I suggest that his case be tried on an urgent basis and the truth or otherwise of the allegations against him established. This is a matter of larger significance. It is likely that many more will suffer Fr. Stan’s plight, given the increasing number of people booked under the UAPA and the inordinate in trying them as well as the protracted nature of their trials.

There is, besides, a humanitarian issue involved here. The State tends to mistake the cry of the poor for justice as a war-cry against peace and stability. Since Fr. Stan was booked under the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act, we cannot but ask: Is it ‘unlawful’ to empathise with those who struggle for their rights: both human and constitutional? The Pathalgadi movement, with which Fr. Stan was in solidarity, is a tribal movement to realize the tribal rights enshrined in the Constitution of India. From Fr. Stan’s point of view, it is a spiritual and humanitarian duty to stand with those who struggle and suffer for justice. In itself it is a humane and laudable thing. But, under the law, it has become subversive and anti-national. It has become, that is to say, dangerous to do good, if the good you do seems to go against the interests of the ruling elite. But, the right and duty of human beings to express their conscience through humanitarian activities is not subject to the charity of a State; it is a God-given duty. It is reprehensible for the State to trespass into this domain of practical spirituality.

Let’s not forget that Fr. Stan is the victim not only of callous State action but also of the even more reprehensible indifference of the people at large. Today what is done to fellow human beings doesn’t matter to us, so long as it has either the tang of ideology or the veneer of legality. So long as our own skin remains intact, we sail along without any pang of conscience. Let me, yet again, borrow the words of Pastor Niermoller: today it is Fr. Stan. Tomorrow it will be your neighbor. The day after . . . ?

UN’s Most Powerful Political Body Remains Paralyzed Battling a New Cold War

Thalif DeenEditorial/Opinion, Global 0

UNITED NATIONS: (IPS) – A new Cold War – this time, between the US and China —is threatening to paralyze the UN’s most powerful body, even as military conflicts and civil wars are sweeping across the world, mostly in Africa, the Middle East and Latin America.

The growing criticism against the Security Council is directed largely at its collective failures to resolve ongoing conflicts and political crises in several hot spots, including Syria, Yemen, Afghanistan, Iraq, Myanmar, Somalia, South Sudan, Ukraine and Libya — and its longstanding failure over Palestine.

The sharp divisions between China and Russia, on one side, and the Western powers on the other, are expected to continue, triggering the question: Has the Security Council outlived its usefulness or has it lost its political credibility?

The five big powers are increasingly throwing their protective arms around their allies, despite growing charges of war crimes, genocide and human rights violations against these countries.

Last week, Yasmine Ahmed, UK Director at Human Rights Watch, called on Britain “to step up as penholder on Myanmar and start negotiating a Security Council draft resolution on an arms embargo and targeted sanctions against the military”.

Over 580 people, including children, have been killed since the February 1 coup: “it is time for the Security Council to do more than issue statements and begin working towards substantive action,“ she warned.

But in most of these conflicts, including Myanmar, arms embargoes are very unlikely because the major arms suppliers to the warring parties are the five permanent members of the Security Council, namely the US, UK, France, Russia and China.

US President Joe Biden has described the growing new confrontation as a battle between democracies and autocracies.

In a recent analytical piece, the New York Times said China’s most striking alignment is with Russia, with both countries drawing closer after Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014. The two countries have also announced they will jointly build a research station on the moon, setting the stage to compete with US space programs.

“The threat of a US-led coalition challenging China’s authoritarian policies has only bolstered Beijing’s ambition to be a global leader of nations that oppose Washington and its allies,” the Times said.

Ian Williams, President of the New York-based Foreign Press Association and author of ‘UNtold: The Real Story of the United Nations in Peace and War’, told IPS that in the early years, with a secure majority in the General Assembly (GA), the US could pretend virtue and eschew using the veto. The embattled Soviets resorted it over and over.

“But as with so much UN and international law, the Israeli exception had the US making up for lost time. Now the Russians have been catching up with vetoes for Serbia and Syria”.

China, he pointed out, avoided using the veto unless Taiwan or Tibet was mentioned. In the old days there was a hint of an ideological element — Third World and Socialism versus Imperialism.

“But now it is entirely transactional, veto holders looking after their clients and allies, so no one should entertain illusions about China and Russia acting in a progressive and constructive way. But the US is no position to point fingers about Syria while it protects Saudi Arabia and Israel”.

“We can hope that the majority of members will grow indignant enough to try to effect indignation. But sadly, historical experience suggests many governments have almost unlimited tolerance for mass murder in far-away countries of which they know little,” he noted, including Darfur, the Balkans, Rwanda and now Myanmar.

The breakthrough would be the US saying, end the Occupation and then inviting others to join in a reaffirmation of the Charter.

“But since I don’t really believe in the tooth fairy, I would have to settle for a coalition of the conscious-stricken in the GA united for peace – and international law and order”, said Williams, a senior analyst who has written for newspapers and magazines around the world, including the Australian, The Independent, New York Observer, The Financial Times and The Guardian.

Asked about the killings in Myanmar, and the lack of action in the UNSC, Secretary-General Antonio Guterres told reporters on March 29: “We need more unity in international community. We need more commitment in the international community to put pressure in order to make sure that the situation is reversed. I’m very worried. I see, with a lot of concern, the fact that, apparently, many of these trends look irreversible, but hope is the last thing we can give up on.”

Vijay Prashad, Executive Director, Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research, who has written extensively on international politics, told IPS the United Nations is an essential institution, a process, in many ways, rather than a fully-finished institution.

The agencies of the UN – including WHO, UNICEF, UNHCR, he said, provide vital service to the world’s peoples; “and we need to make these institutions more robust, and we need to ensure that they drive a public agenda that advances the UN Charter’s main goals (namely to maintain peace, to end hunger and illiteracy, to provide the basis for a rich life, in sum).”

The Security Council is a victim of the political battles in the world, he argued.  “There is no way to build a better framework to handle the major power differentials”., said Prashad, author of 30 books, including most recently ‘Washington Bullets’ (justifyWord, Monthly Review),

“It would be far better to empower the UN General Assembly, which is more democratic, but since the 1970s we have seen how the US – in particular – undermined the UNGA to take decision making almost exclusively to the UNSC”.

Ever since the fall of the USSR, he said, the UN Secretary-General has become subservient to the US government (“we saw this shockingly with the treatment of former Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali”).  The new ‘Group of Friends to Defend the UN Charter’, which includes China and Russia, is a positive development, said Prashad.

US Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield told reporters on March 31: “And then in terms of working with my counterparts in the Security Council, I know that there are areas – and this is a discussion that I’ve had – with both my Russian and Chinese colleagues – we know that there are red lines”.

“There are areas where we have serious concerns, and we’ve been open and we’ve been frank about those concerns. In China, what is happening with the Uyghurs, for example. With Russia, in Syria, and there are many others. We know what the red lines are”, she added.

“We tried to bridge those gaps, but we also try to find those areas where we have common ground. We’ve been able to find common ground on Burma (Myanmar). With the Chinese, we’re working on climate change in, I think, a very positive way. We’re not in the exact same place, but it’s an area where we can have conversations with each other.”

“So as the top U.S. diplomat in New York, it is my responsibility to find common ground so that we can achieve common goals, but not to give either country a pass when they are breaking human rights values or pushing in directions that we find unacceptable,” she declared.

Meanwhile, harking back to a bygone era, during the height of the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union in the 1960s, the United Nations was the ideological battle ground where the Americans and the Soviets pummeled each other– either on the floor of the General Assembly hall or at the horse-shoe table of the UN Security Council.

Perhaps one of the most memorable war of words took place in October 1962 when the politically-feisty US Ambassador Adlai Stevenson (1961-65), a two-time Democratic US presidential candidate, challenged Soviet envoy Valerian Zorin over allegations that the USSR, perhaps under cover of darkness, had moved nuclear missiles into Cuba—and within annihilating distance of the United States.

Speaking at a tense Security Council meeting, Stevenson admonished Zorin: “I remind you that you didn’t deny the existence of these weapons. Instead, we heard that they had suddenly become defensive weapons. But today — again, if I heard you correctly — you now say they don’t exist, or that we haven’t proved they exist, with another fine flood of rhetorical scorn.”

“All right sir”, said Stevenson, “let me ask you one simple question. Do you, Ambassador Zorin, deny that the USSR has placed and is placing medium and intermediate range missiles and sites in Cuba?” “Yes or No? Don’t wait for the translation: Yes or No?”, Stevenson insisted with a tone of implied arrogance.

Speaking in Russian through a UN translator (who faithfully translated the US envoy’s sentiments into English), Zorin shot back: “I am not in an American courtroom, sir, and therefore I do not wish to answer a question that is put to me in the fashion in which a prosecutor does. In due course, sir, you will have your reply. Do not worry.”

Not to be outwitted, Stevenson howled back: “You are in the court of world opinion right now, and you can answer yes or no. You have denied that they exist. I want to know if …I’ve understood you correctly.”

When Zorin said he will provide the answer in “due course”, Stevenson famously declared: “I am prepared to wait for my answer until hell freezes over.”

*Thalif Deen is the author of a newly-released book on the United Nations titled “No Comment – and Don’t Quote Me on That.” The 220-page book is filled with scores of anecdotes– from the serious to the hilarious– and is available on Amazon worldwide and at the Vijitha Yapa bookshop in Sri Lanka. The links follow:

IMF, World Bank Must Urgently Help Finance Developing Countries

Anis Chowdhury and Jomo Kwame SundaramEconomy, Editorial/Opinion, Global 0

(IPS) – COVID-19 has set back the uneven progress of recent decades, directly causing more than two million deaths. The slowdown, due to the pandemic and policy responses, has pushed hundreds of millions more into poverty, hunger and worse, also deepening many inequalities.

The outlook for developing countries is grim, with output losses of 5.7% in 2020. Compared to pre-pandemic trends, the expected 8.1% loss by end-2021 will be much worse than advanced countries dropping 4.7%.

COVID-19 has further set back progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). As progress was largely ‘not on track’ even before the pandemic, developing countries will need much support to mitigate the new setbacks, let alone get back on track.The extremely poor, defined by the World Bank as those with incomes under US$1.90/day, increased by 119–124 million in 2020, and are expected to rise by another 143-163 million in 2021.Fiscal response constrainedGlobal fiscal efforts of close to US$14tn, plus low interest rates, liquidity injections and asset purchases by central banks, have helped. Nonetheless, the world economy will lose over US$22 trillion during 2020–2025 due to the pandemic.

Government responses have been much influenced by access to finance. Developed countries have accounted for four-fifths of total pandemic fiscal responses costing US$14tn. Rich countries have deployed the equivalent of a fifth of national income for fiscal efforts.
Meanwhile, emerging market economies spent only 5%, and low-income countries (LICs) a paltry 1.3% by mid-2020. In 2020, increased spending, despite reduced revenue, raised fiscal deficits of emerging market and middle-income countries (MICs) to 10.3%, and of LICs to 5.7%.

Government revenue has fallen due to lower output, commodity prices and longstanding Bank advice to cut taxes. Worse, they already face heavy debt burdens and onerous borrowing costs. Meanwhile, private finance dropped US$700bn in 2020.
Developing countries lost portfolio outflows of US$103bn in the first five months. Foreign direct investment (FDI) flows to emerging and developing countries also fell 30–45% in 2020. Meanwhile, bilateral donors cut aid commitments by 36% between 2019 and 2020.
Meanwhile, the liquidity support, debt relief and finance available are woefully inadequate. These constrain LICs’ fiscal efforts, with many even cutting spending, worsening medium-term recovery prospects!Debt burdens

In 2019, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) assessed half the LICs as being at high risk of, or already in debt distress – more than double the 2013 share. Debt in LICs rose to 65% of GDP in 2019 from 47% in 2010.Thus, LICs began the pandemic with more debt relative to government revenue, larger deficits and higher borrowing costs than high-income countries. And now, greater fiscal deficits of US$2–3tn projected for 2021 imply more debt.

Debt composition has become riskier with more commercial borrowing, particularly with foreign currency bond issues far outpacing other financing sources, especially official development assistance (ODA) and multilateral lending.More than half of LIC government debt is non-concessional, worsening its implications. External debt maturity periods have also decreased. Also, interest payments cost more than 12% of government revenue in 2018, compared to under 7% in 2010.

Riskier financial flow developing economies have increasingly had to borrow on commercial terms in transnational financial markets as international public finance flows and access to concessional resources have declined.Low interest rates, due to unconventional monetary policies in developed countries, encouraged borrowing by developing countries, especially by upper MICs. But despite generally low interest rates internationally, LIC external debt rates have been rising.

Overall ODA flows – net of repayments of principal – from OECD countries fell in 2017 and 2018. Such flows have long fallen short of the financing needs of Agenda 2030 for the SDGs. Instead of giving 0.7% of their national income as ODA to developing countries, as long promised, actual ODA disbursed has yet to even reach half this level.Although total financial resource flows (ODA, FDI, remittances) to least developed countries (LDCs) increased slightly, ODA remained well short of their needs, falling from 9.4% of LDCs’ GNI in 2003 to 4.3% in 2018. Meanwhile, FDI to LDCs dropped from 4.1% of their GNI in 2003 to 2.3% in 2018.

There has also been a shift away from ‘traditional’ creditors, including multilateral financial institutions and rich country Paris Club members. Some donor governments increasingly use aid to promote private business interests. ‘Blended finance’ was supposed to turn billions of aid dollars into trillions in development finance.

But the private finance actually mobilised has been modest, about US$20bn a year – well below the urgent spending needs of LICs and MICs, and less than a quarter of ODA in 2017. Such changes have further reduced recipient government policy discretion.Inadequate support
The 2020 IMF cancellation of US$213.5m in debt service payments due from 25 eligible LICs was welcome. But the G20 debt service suspension initiative (DSSI) was grossly inadequate, merely kicking the can down the road. It did not cancel any debt, with interest continuing to accrue during the all-too-brief suspension period.

The G20 initiative hardly addressed urgent needs, while private creditors refused to cooperate. Only meant for LICs, it did not address problems facing MICs. Many MICs also face huge debt, with upper MICs alone having US$2.0–2.3tn in 2020–2021.World Bank President David Malpass has expressed concerns that any change to normal debt servicing would negatively impact the Bank’s standing in financial markets, where it issues bonds to finance loans to MICs.

The Bank Group has made available US$160bn for the period April 2020 to June 2021, but moved too slowly with its Pandemic Emergency Financing Facility (PEF). By the time it paid out US$196m, the amount was deemed too small and contagion had spread.Special Drawing RightsIssuing US$650bn worth of new special drawing rights (SDRs) will augment the IMF’s US$1tn lending capacity, already inadequate before the pandemic. But US$650bn in SDRs is only half the new SDR1tn (US$1.37tn) The Financial Times considers necessary given the scale of the problem.

To help, rich countries could transfer unused SDRs to IMF special funds for LICs, such as the Poverty Reduction and Growth Trust (PRGT) and the Catastrophe Containment and Relief Trust (CCRT), or for development finance.Similar arrangements can be made for the Bank. A World Bank version of the IMF’s CCRT could ensure uninterrupted debt servicing while providing relief to countries in need. Investors in Bank bonds would appreciate the distinction.

Hence, issuing SDRs and making other institutional reforms at the Spring meetings in April could enable much more Fund and Bank financial intermediation. These can greatly help finance urgently needed pandemic relief, recovery and reforms in developing countries.

An Indian Citizen’s Musings

Julius Rebeiro,Editorial/Opinion, Nation India 0

As a citizen of the country I felt it has to be conveyed to them. Modi ji, there is no point in shouting standing in a stage and asking question that what is achieved in 60 years. Dont think that the citizen of our country are fools. You are a Prime Minister of a country which was under British rule for more than 200 years. The people were living just like slaves. Congress came to power in 1947 after independence started with zero. There was nothing in this country except the garbages left out by the British.

India didn’t even had the resourse to produce even a pin since Britishers left India. The electricity was available only for 20 villages across the country. Telephone facility was available only for 20 rulers (kings) in this country. There was no drinking water supply. There was only 10 small dams. No hospitals, no educational institutions. No fertiliser, no feeds, no water supply for cultivation. There was no job & only starvation in the country. There was many infant death. Very few military staff in the border. Only 4 planes, 20 tankers & fully open borders on all 4 sides of the country. Very minimum roads & bridges. Empty exchequer. Nehru came power in these circumstances.

What is India after 60 years?

World’s largest army. Thousands of war planes, tankers. Lakhs of industrial institutions. Electricity in all villages. Hundreds of electic power stations. Lakhs kilometre of national highways & over bridges. New railway projects, Stadiums, super speciality hospitals, most of the Indian households with television, telephone for all the countrymen. All infrastructure to work in and outside the country, Banks, Universities, AIMS, IITS, IIMS, Nuclear weapons, sub-marines, nuclear stations, ISRO, Navarathna Public sector units.

Indian Army barging till Lahore years back? Split Pakistan into 2 pieces ? 1 lakh of military & commanders surrendered to Indian army? India started exporting minerals & food items ? Bank nationalization by Mrs. Indira Gandhi? Computer introduces to India & many job opportunities in India and outside the country? You have become PM using information technology?

When you took over as the PM, India was the top 10 economies in the world? Apart from this, GSLV, Mangalyan, Monorail, Metro rail, International airports, Prithvi, Agni, Naag, Nuclear submarines….all these were achieved before you became PM.

Please do not come to people asking what The Congress Party has achieved in 60 years.

Please tell people what you have achieved in the last 6 ½ years except changing names, doing statue and cow politics, failed demonetisation, poorly executed GST, and making people stand in long queues. Hypocrite BJPians opposed FDI like anything and now BJP is supporting FDI shamelessly.. BJP is selling India to Ambani and Rafale deal to Anil Ambani’s 2-month old company over HAL owned by government of India is a prime example of it.. BJP made petrol, diesel, and LPG price go up by putting more tax, while the price of crude oil became cheaper.. Modi government through SBI in the form of fine collected whopping Rs 1771 crore for not able to maintain minimum balance from the poor people of India. Vikas is happening for Amit Shah’s son, Amit Shah, Shaurya Doval, Ambanis, Adani, baba Ramdev’s Patanjali group, and the people who sponsors BJP.. 3000 crores have been spent by BJP to clean river Ganga, this corruption each and everyone can find out by taking a dip in river Ganga..

(PS This is not an advertisement for the congress campaign. I’m not a congress supporter. I’m just an informed voter who feels it is an insult to his intelligence each time the current government says our country has been no good over the last 60 years!)

Reimagining Diplomacy in the Post-COVID World An Indian Perspective | Opinion

Jaishankar SEditorial/Opinion, Global, Nation India 0

We enter 2021, hoping to put the COVID-19 pandemic behind us. While each society has dealt with it uniquely, global diplomacy will nevertheless focus on common concerns and shared lessons. Much of that revolves around the nature of globalization.

Our generation has been conditioned to think of that largely in economic terms. The general sense is one of trade, finance, services, communication, technology and mobility. This expresses the interdependence and interpenetration of our era. What COVID, however, brought out was the deeper indivisibility of our existence. Real globalization is more about pandemics, climate change and terrorism. They must constitute the core of diplomatic deliberations. As we saw in 2020, overlooking such challenges comes at a huge cost.

Despite its many benefits, the world has also seen strong reactions to globalization. Much of that arises from unequal benefits, between and within societies. Regimes and dispensations that are oblivious to such happenings are therefore being challenged. We must ensure that this is not about winners and losers, but about nurturing sustainable communities everywhere.

COVID-19 has also redefined our understanding of security. Until now, nations thought largely in military, intelligence, economic, and perhaps, cultural terms. Today, they will not only assign greater weight to health security but increasingly worry about trusted and resilient supply chains. The stresses of the COVID-19 era brought out the fragility of our current situation. Additional engines of growth are needed to de-risk the global economy, as indeed is more transparency and market-viability.

Multilateral institutions have not come out well from this experience. Quite apart from controversies surrounding them, there was not even a pretense of a collective response to the most serious global crisis since 1945. This is cause for serious introspection. Reforming multilateralism is essential to creating effective solutions.

Fashioning a robust response to the COVID-19 challenge is set to dominate global diplomacy in 2021. In its own way, India has set an example. That it has done by defying prophets of doom and creating the health wherewithal to minimize its fatality rate and maximize its recovery rate. An international comparison of these numbers tells its own story. Not just that, India also stepped forward as the pharmacy of the world, supplying medicines to more than 150 countries, many as grants.

As our nation embarks on a mass vaccination effort, Prime Minister Narendra Modi‘s assurance that it would help make vaccines accessible and affordable to the world is already being implemented. The first consignments of Made in India vaccines have reached not only our neighbors like Bhutan, Maldives, Bangladesh, Nepal, Mauritius, Seychelles and Sri Lanka but partners far beyond like Brazil and Morocco.

Other key global challenges today deserve similar attention. As a central participant in reaching the Paris agreement, India has stood firm with regard to combating climate change. Its renewable energy targets have multiplied, its forest cover has grown, its bio-diversity has expanded and its focus on water utilization has increased. Practices honed at home are now applied to its development partnerships in Africa and elsewhere. By example and energy, Indian diplomacy is leading the way, including through the International Solar Alliance and the Coalition for Disaster Resilient Infrastructure initiatives.

The challenge of countering terrorism and radicalization is also a formidable one. As a society, long subjected to cross-border terrorist attacks, India has been active in enhancing global awareness and encouraging coordinated action. It will be a major focus in India’s diplomacy as a non-permanent member of the Security Council and in forums like FATF and G20.

Among the takeaways from the COVID-19 experience has been the power of the digital domain. Whether it was contact tracing or the provision of financial and food support, India’s digital focus after 2014 has yielded impressive results. The “work from anywhere” practice was as strongly enhanced by COVID-19 as the “study from home” one. All these will help expand the toolkit of India’s development programs abroad and assist the recovery of many partners.

2020 also saw the largest repatriation exercise in history–the return home of more than 4 million Indians. This alone brings out the importance of mobility in contemporary times. As smart manufacturing and the knowledge economy take deeper root, the need for trusted talent will surely grow. Facilitating its movement through diplomacy is in the global interest.

A return to normalcy in 2021 will mean safer travel, better health, economic revival and digitally driven services. They will be expressed in new conversations and fresh understandings. The world after COVID-19 will be more multi-polar, pluralistic and rebalanced. And India, with its experiences, will help make a difference.

(Dr. S. Jaishankar is the minister of external affairs of India and author of “The India Way: Strategies for an Uncertain World.” The views expressed in this article are the writer’s own.)

 

Hoteliers Optimistic About Biden Administration’s Small Business Priorities

Staff ReporterEditorial/Opinion, Tourism 0

WHASHINGTON, D.C., Jan. 20 – AAHOA President & CEO Cecil P. Staton issued the following statement today following the inauguration of President Joseph Biden as the 46th President of the United States:

“America’s hoteliers congratulate President Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris on this historic day for our nation. We look forward to the vision and leadership offered by the Biden administration as our nation works to contain the COVID-19 pandemic and get our economy back on track. The ambitious plan to vaccinate 100 million people in the next 100 days, if achieved, would give a much-needed boost to consumer confidence that could lead to a resumption of travel, tourism, and in-person events. Such a significant increase in vaccinations and testing will go a long way towards alleviating the uncertainty that surrounds the viability and safety of resuming these pre-pandemic activities. Small business owners are struggling with the pandemic’s economic fallout, and the plan outlined by President Biden looks to target those industries, such as hospitality, that are experiencing a disproportionate amount of hardship. We are optimistic that the new administration’s focus on the public good will speed along our recovery, and we look forward to working with President Biden and his team to do right by America’s small businesses.”

About AAHOA:
AAHOA is the largest hotel owners association in the world. The over 19,500 AAHOA members represent almost one in every two hotels in the United States. With billions of dollars in property assets and hundreds of thousands of employees, AAHOA members are core economic contributors in virtually every community. AAHOA is a proud defender of free enterprise and the foremost current-day example of realizing the American dream.

AAHOA is the largest hotel owners association in the world. AAHOA’s 20,000 members own almost one in every two hotels in the United States. With billions of dollars in property assets and hundreds of thousands of employees, AAHOA members are core economic contributors in virtually every community. AAHOA is a proud defender of free enterprise and the foremost current-day example of realizing the American dream.

The Devil Is A Better Loser Than Donald Trump

Rev. William GrimmCulture, Editorial/Opinion, Religion 0

US bishops who pandered to Trump have failed to guide Catholics to be a discerning, peaceful, loving community. 

The legendary Faust’s desire for power led him into a pact with Mephistopheles, the agent of Satan. The deal was straightforward. In exchange for the fulfillment of all his desires in this life, hell would get Faust’s soul after death.

There are variations on the story. Goethe’s version differs from the tradition in having Faust saved in the end.

An American variation, Stephen Vincent Benét’s The Devil and Daniel Webster, has the devil bested in a trial over the contract. The devil is a better loser than Donald Trump.

But overall, those who contract with the devil are eventually told, “Go to hell!”

The attack by Trump’s partisans upon the verification of the American presidential election was no surprise to those who had paid attention to that man’s actions, the manipulation of his followers and the enabling by the Republican Party over four years. The only surprise for me was that the mob did not burn down the Capitol building.

 

This is the fruition of a pact with the devil that the Republican Party made in the 1960s. As civil rights legislation empowered Black Americans and threatened the political supremacy of Whites, especially in the South, the Republicans played upon the prejudices of those people to wean them from the Democratic Party. It was called the Southern Strategy.

Had that strategy included plans for guiding new supporters to openness toward other races and ethnic groups, it might have been good for the party and the nation. Instead, prejudices were nurtured and encouraged. In 2005, the chairman of the Republican National Committee finally apologized to Blacks in a de facto admission of his party’s use of racism as a means to draw voters.

But it was too late. Increasingly, the racist, xenophobic and anti-Semitic stream that had been channeled into the Republican Party took control. The presidency of Donald Trump is the result. His rallies are festivals of racism and anti-Semitism with Confederate flags, swastikas and sweatshirts emblazoned with anti-Semitic slogans like 6MWNE (six million was not enough) or Camp Auschwitz.

The attack on the Capitol and democracy may mark the beginning of a “Go to hell!” period for Republicans as their pact with evil bears fruit.

The Republican Party must repent, reform and recover from that pact. But that is not the only institution that succumbed to the Faustian allure of power.

What of the American Catholic Church?

Traditionally, Catholics tended to support the Democratic Party. They were often city dwellers, immigrants and industrial workers. Their concerns differed from those of the business-oriented Republicans. However, their children and grandchildren prospered and began to find the Republicans attractive, overlooking the Faustian bargain the party had made.

But there is more to the Catholic story than a semi-natural migration to the Republicans. There has been a Faustian bargain on the part of some in the Church who for their own ends have allied themselves within the larger bargain with racism, xenophobia and anti-Semitism, though they might not admit that they have become fellows of those attitudes.

Their situation is like that of Germans who did not like what the Nazis were doing but went along for the sake of what that party might do for them. However, guilt by association is real and saying one does not like the way a ship is going does not change the fact that one has booked passage or even become a crew member.

Can we see that in the US Catholic Church? Yes.

Half of Catholics who voted in the November presidential election voted for Trump even after four years of blatant lies, hypocrisy, racism, nepotism, corruption, narcissism, bullying, boorishness, sexual abuse, defiance of the law, divisiveness, pettiness, general incompetence and childish petulance. Is there nothing in that list that repels those Catholics? Why not?

One reason may be that men who are supposed to guide Catholics in their lives as Christians told them to overlook those failings. Bishop Joseph Strickland said, “As the bishop of Tyler [Texas] I endorse” a priest’s message that said, “Repent of your support of that [Democratic] party and its platform or face the fires of hell.”

Bishop Strickland later took part virtually in one of the “Stop the Steal” rallies that denied Trump’s loss and was a precursor to the invasion of the Capitol. After that terrorist attack, he spoke of “a sad day” and that “we have to turn to God.” He did not say that the turn to God would include repentance for his part in laying the groundwork, nor anything about hell for terrorists.

He is only one of several bishops and priests who pandered to Trump and Trumpism. The question is, where are the US bishops who disagree? The episcopal code of omertà that allowed the scandal of Theodore McCarrick to fester remains an indictment of the whole pack.

The bishops and their clerical underlings have failed to guide America’s Catholics to be a discerning, peaceful, loving community shaped by the Gospel. But that’s their job!

They are failures who have decided to rely upon the political system to do what they failed to do, for example, regarding abortion. If they had done their job and led society to a vision of life that would make abortion as unthinkable as public hanging, drawing and quartering, they might not have resorted to supporting a fascist movement marked by racism, anti-Semitism and injustice.

Calling the bishops and not a few pastors of the Catholic Church in the United States “leaders” is a violation of truth and language. And so, to the managers of the United States Catholic Church: “Go to hell!”

(Father William Grimm is the publisher of UCA News based in Tokyo, Japan. The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official editorial position of UCA News.)

(picture courtesy: Tulsa World)

Indian Farmers, We Need Not Fail!

Dr.Mathew JoysEditorial/Opinion, Nation, Nation India 0

The government and the farmers remain unchanged in their positions. For the eighth time, the farmers ordinance were discussed with the leaders of the farmers’ organizations. But the Central government washed their hands by saying that they let the Supreme Court decide on the issue.The panel, which will be nominated by the Supreme Court, will hold further deliberations. 

 

Supreme Court orders non-implementation of agricultural law The Supreme Court also directed the formation of an expert committee on agricultural law. The Center has asked for one day to decide the members of the expert committee. The Chief Justice also directed that the venue where the farmers are currently protesting should be changed. The court also directed that adults, women, and children withdraw from the strike. The court had earlier told the central government that it did not want to spill farmers’ blood. The court also said it was responsible for preventing the bloodshed. The apex court said it knew how to decide the matter

 

Representatives of the farmers’ strike ask if the discussions with the government could not yield any solution, what is the solution if it is discussed with the Supreme Court Committee? Farmers’ organizations are also confirming that the struggle is not over until the rules are upheld, and they have not stopped the protest.

 

On the other hand, supporting the farmers over the three farm laws, the Congress on Saturday said the Prime Minister should resign if he can’t repeal the laws and depend on the Supreme Court to break the deadlock with farmers. Incidentally, with the next round of deliberations among the representatives of both sides on January 15th, the opposition party Congress has decided to conduct Kisan Adhir Diwas [Farmer’s Rights Day] holding protest marches, dharnas, and petition Governors to annul the farm laws.

 

“The Constitution has not given the responsibility of framing the laws to the Supreme Court but to the Parliament of India. If this government is incapacitated to discharge this responsibility, then the Modi government has no moral authority to remain in power even for a minute,” Congress communication chief Randeep Surjewala added.

 

The central government is misleading the farmers declaring that the new laws are good for farmers.”Our stand is unequivocal — we want a legal guarantee for minimum support prices (MSPs) for farm produce, besides revoking all the three farm laws. If our demands are not fulfilled, we will continue with our agitation indefinitely,” Mr. Singh said.

 

The Sikh people are fighting to defeat the new agrarian laws that are not farmer-friendly, not wanted by the farmers, and implemented only for the corporates. All Indians, and all future generations, will have to pay bribes to corporates and work for them, of course.

 

Farmers are gearing up to intensify their strike after the eighth failed talks with the central government. The farmers’ decision is to block the Palwal Manesar highways. The farmers said that the tractor would march to the four borders of Delhi, and the Desh Jagran campaign will continue for two weeks. The question arises as to what is next as the farmers are not ready to accept the conditions put forward by the government or the government is not ready to accept the demands of the farmers. But the farmers are adamant that they will not back down from their stand. 

 

Joginder Singh, president of the Bharatiya Kisan Union (Ugrahan), one of the largest outfits in Punjab, alleged that The government has been trying to justify the laws by saying that several farmers’ unions are supporting them, but this is only an attempt to weaken the ongoing movement and divert attention. “The government intends to establish a parallel platform to weaken the ongoing agitation.”

 

Punjabi actor Gurpreet Ghuggi at Singhu meeting protesting farmers, said, “This fight is of the ‘zameerdar’ (one with a conscience) the farmers have rejected the three farm laws, so you (Centre) should also reject it now.”

 

It is also alleged that some middlemen, commission agents & political leaders with vested interests are running this movement. The farm laws are meant to favor the farmers, but eventually, the new reforms are likely to hurt the peasants and be controlled by few corporates.

 

Despite the cold and rain, many are arriving at the border. The farmers have decided to hold a tractor rally led by women. With elections looming in four states and one union territory, the central government will try to end the peasant agitation as soon as possible.

 

Under a Blanket Challenge, AIYF youngsters at Thrissur, Kerala could collect 5000 new blankets they are sending to the Farmers on strike in the shivering cold weather in New Delhi.

 

Recently, Indo American Press Club hosted two Zoom Conferences with Ambassador Pradeep Kapur’s active participation, Mr. Khanderao Kand (Director of FIIDS USA, Yogesh Andlay, Co-founder of Polaris and Nucleus, Dr. Nishit Choksy, Berkeley, MI and another one with the leadership of Mr. N.K.Premachansran MP, Mr. P.C. Cyriac IAS, Dr. Ejaz Ghani ( Lead Economist at World Bank), Prof. M.D. Nalappat (Vice-Chair Manipal Advanced Research Group) analyzed the damaging Farmers Ordinance’s various features and how the laws are destroying the traditional agricultural system in India.

 

Media projection is more important on the Farmers’ agitation in India. As a responsible media club, Indo American Press Club is prompted to impact the mainstream western media for global narrative,” Ambassador Pradeep Kumar Kapoor said while presiding over the Zoom Meeting hosted by Indo-American Press Club (IAPC) on “What’s the truth behind the Indian Farmers Protest?”

 

Mr. Vimal Goyal, CPA, and industrialist from Long Island, NY, expressed a different perspective on economic considerations. He affirmed that the latest one is the most comprehensive farmers bill, as the farmers were left behind with no recognitions so far. He believed that this bill is going to promote the abundance of rice and wheat. He also mentioned that the poor farmers do not have resources for e-commerce or transporting facilities, and hence they have to resort to the greedy private middlemen.

 

For every grain produced by the peasantry, the leading share goes to the corporates without making a fair profit to the toiling masses. Today there is no Mahatmaji, no Nehru to lead a second freedom struggle. If the opponents were foreigners then, today the enemies are inside the democratic republic. It is not easy to fight and win against them.

 

If farmers fail today, in future we may to have to pay the price for the air we breathe, by leasing the entire atmosphere above India to the monopolies. If we fail today, we will have to lease out all the rivers flowing through the nation to the monopolies and even pay for the water we drink. It’s time to respond.

(Picture Courtesy” Gulf Today)

“A Nightmare Called Trump”

Prakash WaghmareEditorial/Opinion 0

The breach of security on Jan. 6 at the ‘Capitol Building’ in Washington, D.C. while certification of Mr. Joe Biden as the next President of U.S. was under way, wasn’t just an incidence of one more demonstration of violent protest that besieged Yr.2020 … It was a total failure of our nation’s security apparatus, triggered by our own enragedly egotist President Trump. This day will remain as one of the darkest days in the history of U.S. It was a defining moment as an attempt to hijack the democratic values of this great nation in a coup by intimidating Congressional body to overturn the election results. Let’s not forget that the out-of-control mob of hoodlums, anarchists, white-supremist and false conspiracy theorists who converged on the Capitol were, incited earlier by none other than deranged Trump himself who exhorted them to take the matter in their own hand. It exposed how fragile our nation is, not only to the wide-spread barrage of venomed falsehood and divisiveness, but also, how vulnerable it is to anti-national militia & terrorist attacks.

 

Let’s stop the charade or pretend that what happened on Jan.6 was ‘totally shocking’. It was 4 years in making with the support of misguided supporters. Trump’s core support comes from numerous splinter ‘anti-groups’ – anti-immigrant, anti-nonwhites, anti-govt, anti-women’s rights, anti-establishment, anti-environment, anti-media, anti-rules & regulations for good governance etc. He systematically tapped into these lot’s insecurities and nurtured them to his selfish ends. President John Kennedy from the same ‘Capitol’ steps had motivated the Americans to work in harmony for the collective bright future with a historic proclamation – “Ask not what your country can do for you; Ask what you can do for your country”. Trump, on the other hand put Americans against each other. Though this had been a country of immigrants, he made ‘immigrant’ an exclusionary word in the life of this country by equating it to only the ‘white people’, and making ‘non-white people’, the root-cause of all U.S. problems. Never in the history of U.S., there had been so many violent acts of bullying and infamous pogrom-style vengeful killings that ultimately resulted into global movement of ‘Black Lives Matter’. In spite of losing all court cases for lack of even a shred of evidence, except his own mere psycho-rhetoric to boot, all the way to the Supreme Court & ‘Electoral College’, Mr. Trump, in his delusional alternative world kept on spreading the falsehood just to satisfy his own whimper. The Republicans, right-wing media, and the so-called conservatives – all bear the responsibility for this greatest historic American tragedy.

He bullied them and this spineless lot caved in. They fully knew that the words have consequences, but intentionally kept mum as long as he did not turn against them. They did not stand with Sen John McCann, decorated Generals, experienced career Diplomats when he insulted them nor objected to his hundreds of lies, each month. They did not do a thing when he refused to take any action against Covid-19 epidemic or Russia’s cyber-attacks on vital components of U.S. government. They, in fact, stroked his outlandish conspiracy theories and went against the constitution they had pledged to upheld, to confirm their loyalty to him. When Trump was stroking his goons with hateful speeches, no republican or conservative protested that to be ‘unamerican’, then.  In short, the responsibility of creating this self-centered, self-absorbed monster rests solely with them. Some of the ardent supporters rallied around him even after his disgraceful fall simply because the reality was too painful and bruising for their own ego. It is worth noting the ‘double standards’ of some of the nationalist Indians who were Trump supporters. This cadre, had unequivocally lambasted outrageous accusations of the Indian Congress and its allies against Hon. N. Modi and BJP as ‘mere allegations without any shred of proof or merit’ but readily accepted Trump’s whimsical personal allegations against the electioneering process as the truth, when he lost the second term. The enthusiasm of some of them overflowed so much so that they even attached the word ‘Hindu’ to their support groups. This was outright blasphemy of what ‘Hinduism’ stands for. Trump had never ever exhibited any trait that ANY religion – leave alone just Hindu – could take pride in. All his life, Trump had cheated people & the government, ruined thousands of businesses, taken advantage of vulnerable women, spread hatred and never ever repented or regretted any of his unscrupulous actions.

Trump has been universally condemned after what happened on Ja.6. He personally has no political future, in my opinion. He lost his year 2024 chance to get elected when he refused to gallantly accept his loss in November elections. A Lot has been lost during four tumultuous years of Trump presidency. As a nation, our Democracy not only been disgraced, but also, lost clout or the power to make the things happen in our interest. Trump had already isolated U.S. from the rest of the world by going against all our allies. Jan.6, proved that we cannot manage our own affairs, peacefully and according to the ‘law of the land’. How different was Trump-era than the era of third world country dictators like ‘Mugabe’, ‘Idi Amin’ or ‘Gaddafi’. Like them he refused to relinquish the power when the time came. This was disgraceful, despicable and shameful to be played out on the world stage.

At such junctures, it is always customary to stress that the goodness in U.S. outweighs all negativity, lapses or bad episodes etc., put together … I say – not so fast … Make no mistake; Trump and his hateful twisted ideology is not going to go away, at least in near future, unless people and the lawmakers are vigilant about the future of this country. He and his humiliated surrogates in the Congress are likely to create hurdles for Biden administration, every which way they can, every step of the way for the next 4 years. Also, there is plenty of room to wonder whether challenging election results, is going to be the future ‘norm’? If it does, then it will be the beginning of U.S. becoming a ‘Banana Republic’.

2021: Year of Living Dangerously?

Staff ReporterEditorial/Opinion, Education 0

Goodbye 2020, but unfortunately, not good riddance, as we all have to live with its legacy. It has been a disastrous year for much of the world for various reasons, Elizabeth II’s annus horribilis. The crisis has exposed previously unacknowledged realities, including frailties and vulnerabilities.
For many countries, the tragedy is all the greater as some leaders had set national aspirations for 2020, suggested by the number’s association with perfect vision. But their failures are no reason to reject national projects. As Helen Keller, the deaf and blind author activist, noted a century ago, “The only thing worse than being blind is having sight, but no vision.”
After JFK’s assassination in November 1963 ended US opposition to Western intervention in Indonesia, President Sukarno warned his nation in August 1964 that it would be ‘living dangerously’, vivere pericoloso, in the year ahead. A year later, a bloody Western-backed military coup had deposed him, taking up to a million lives, with many more ruined.
Further economic slowdown
Lacklustre economic growth after the 2009 Great Recession has been worsened in recent years by growing international tensions largely associated with US-China relations, Brexit and slowing US and world growth although stock markets continued to bubble.
Economic growth has slowed unevenly, with Asia slowing less than Europe, Latin America and even the US. With effective early pre-emptive measures, much of East Asia began to recover before mid-2020. Meanwhile, most other economies slowed, although some picked up later, thanks to successful initial contagion containment as well as adequate relief and recovery measures.
International trade has been picking up rapidly, accelerating rebounds in heavily trading economies. Commodity prices, except for fossil fuels, have largely recovered, perhaps due to major financial investments by investment banks and hedge funds, buoying stock and commodity prices since late March.
Very low US, EU and Japanese interest rates have thus sustained asset market bubbles. Meanwhile, new arbitrage opportunities, largely involving emerging market economies, have strengthened developing countries’ foreign reserves and exchange rates, thus mitigating external debt burdens.
Unbiased virus, biased responses
The pandemic worsened poverty, hunger and vulnerability by squeezing jobs, livelihoods and earnings of hundreds of millions of families. As economic activities resumed, production, distribution and supply barriers, constrained fiscal means, reduced demand, debt, unemployment, as well as reduced and uncertain incomes and spending have become more pronounced.
While many governments initially provided some relief, these have generally been more modest and temporary in developing countries. Past budget deficits, debt, tax incentives and the need for good credit ratings have all been invoked to justify spending cuts and fiscal consolidation.
Meanwhile, pandemic relief funds have been abused by corporations, typically at the expense of less influential victims with more modest, vulnerable and precarious livelihoods. Many of the super-rich got even richer, with the US’s 651 billionaires making over US$1 trillion.
On the pretext of saving or making jobs, existing social, including job protection has been eroded. But despite hopes raised by vaccine development, the crisis is still far from over.
Don’t cry for me, says Argentina
Meanwhile, intellectual property blocks more affordable production for all. Pharmaceutical companies insist that without the exhorbitant monopoly profits from intellectual property, needed tests, treatments and vaccines would never be developed. Meanwhile, a proposed patent waiver for Covid-19 vaccines has been blocked by the US and its rich allies at the World Trade Organization (WTO).
Hence, mass vaccination is likely to be very uneven and limited by intellectual property, national strategic considerations (‘vaccine nationalism’), prohibitive costs, fiscal and other constraints. Already, the rich have booked up almost all early vaccine supplies.
The main challenge then is fiscal. Economic slowdowns have reduced tax revenues, requiring more domestic debt to increase spending needed to ensure the recessions do not become protracted depressions. Meanwhile, rising debt-to-GDP ratios and increased foreign debt have long constrained bolder fiscal efforts.
But despite the urgent need for more fiscal resources, we are told that if the richest are required to pay more taxes, even on windfall profits, they will have no incentive to ‘save’ the rest of us. Nevertheless, new wealth taxes have just passed in Argentina.
This time is different
As the pandemic economic impacts began to loom large, International Monetary Fund Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva quickly offered debt relief for low-income countries on terms much better than the G20’s miserly proposal.
Unlike well-meaning debt-fixated researchers and campaigners, even new World Bank chief economist, erstwhile debt hawk Carmen Reinhart has urged, “First you worry about fighting the war, then you figure out how to pay for it”.
Nobel laureate Amartya Sen is concerned that “in the policies against the present pandemic, equity has not been a particularly noticeable priority… Instead, the focus has been on drastic control and sudden lockdowns…with little attention paid to labourers who lose their jobs or the many migrant workers, the poorest of the poor, who are kept hundreds of miles from their homes”.
COVID-19 may still bring major reforms, such as Roosevelt’s New Deal response to the Great Depression. But now, it seems likely to usher in a world where insecurity and unpredictability define the new normal. While professing to protect victims’ interests, ethno-populism blames ‘Others’ as the enemy responsible.
Still, many hope for a silver lining. Sen suggests that “a better society can emerge from the lockdowns”, as happened after World War Two, with greater welfare state provisioning and labour protections in much of the West and agrarian reforms in East Asia. But there is nothing to guarantee a better ‘new normal’.
Beyond neoliberalism?
For many, Joe Biden’s election to succeed Trump is being celebrated as a resurgent triumph for neoliberalism, enabling the US and the rest of the world to return to ‘business as usual’.
Incredibly, another Nobel laureate Michael Spence has even called for structural adjustment programme conditionalities for countries seeking help from the Bank and Fund, repudiating the Bank’s Growth Commission he once chaired, i.e., which found that seemingly fair, often well-intentioned conditionalities had resulted in “lost decades” of development.
But thankfully, there is widespread recognition that all is not well in the world neoliberalism and Western dominance created. Incredibly, Klaus Schwab, transnational capitalism’s high priest, has conceded, “the neoliberalist … approach centers on the notion that the market knows best, that the ‘business of business is business’…Those dogmatic beliefs have proved wrong”.
Instead, he advised, “We must move on from neoliberalism in the post-COVID era”, recognising: “Free-market fundamentalism has eroded worker rights and economic security, triggered a deregulatory race to the bottom and ruinous tax competition, and enabled the emergence of massive new global monopolies. Trade, taxation, and competition rules that reflect decades of neoliberal influence will now have to be revised”.
Will we ever learn?
The philosopher Santayana once warned, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” Hegel had observed earlier that history repeats itself, to which Marx added, “the first time as tragedy, the second time as farce”. Nevertheless, hope remains an incurable disease that keeps us all striving and struggling.
As FDR reminded his supporters, no progressive policies will come about simply by relying on the goodwill of those in authority. Instead, they will only be enacted and implemented thanks to popular pressure from below. As Ben Phillips has put it, “the story of 2021 has not yet been written: we can write it; we can right it”.

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