Focus India: Beyond Psephocracy: Is the “land of the Ganges” the epitome of democracy, or is it a Plutocratic Kleptocracy imposed on 7% of the population that lives below $2 per day–a system imposed to keep the power away from the Muslims, Sikhs, Dalits and Maoists. If it is a democracy it should adhere to the “popular principles” of adult franchise internally and externally.“ It continues to be ruled by the same family for much of it sixty years–with tokenism as the prime directive to fool the people.
India losing the battle against Maoist rebels–PM Manmohan Singh
Arundhati Roy refutes the claim that “India” is a “democracy” and says that the US occupies other lands and has democracy at home–while “India” occupies its own lands and has no democracy anywhere. She confirmed that the Bharati “selections” cost more than the US elections where only the mega rich can ever hope to win any seat.
- Bharat is not a democracy. It is Vedic Psephocracy (has elections), Brahamocracy or Nehrustocracy
- http://rupeenews.com/moins-articles/focus-india-beyond-psephocracy/
- Delhi’s genocide of indigenous Tribals across the Indravati River in ‘India’
- Delhi “elections”: Another missed opportunity
Psephocracyis a form of government decided by “elections”. Orientalists will tell us all that the Greeks supposedly invented the ballot box when they voted with the psephos or ‘pebble’ in ceramic urns. Psephologyis the study of elections and voting, and a psephologist is an electoral scientist or analyst. In a psephocracy, the media is focused on inconsequential events and issues while the pullulating millions are unable even to see the affluence of those who manipulate the electorate through fear mongering and other tested mechanisms
Illusionary Democracy depends on Psephocracy as a way to legitimize the dictatorship of dynastic plutocracy–as practiced in the Brahamin corridors of power in India.
What happens after elections in a Psephocracy? Nothing. Elections simply endorse the will of the plutocrats who perpetually remain in power.
THE FARCE OF DEMOCRACY:
- …Fareed Zakaria, editor of Newsweek International said the [India] .. the country also has three Nigerias … that there are still close to 800 million people in India who live on less than $2 a day (Fareed Zakaria)
- “What you see issue after issue, state after state is that powerful [special interest groups] … landed interests have been able to capture the political system and extract government benefits for themselves [by way of] subsidies, etc,” (Fareed Zakaria)
- “It is a great shame… The large majority of people have somehow slipped though the cracks. So you see that India does worse than Bangladesh, worse than Cuba, worse than Syria, on all these measures. It does worse than many other countries that have lower per capita GDP [gross domestic product] than India has…(Fareed Zakaria)
- one has to ask oneself that if the country does not make significant investments in education and healthcare…(Fareed Zakaria)
- All this sounds very gloomy…(Fareed Zakaria)http://www.rediff.com/news/2007/may/23fareed.htm
What happens after elections in Indian Psephocracy?
The compilation [of the book Field Notes on Democracy] is typically Arundhati Roy – candid, chatty, lucid and probing – more like snapshots from all her earlier non-fiction works since 1999.
With intelligent political insight, she shows how the journey of Hindu nationalism and neo-liberal economic reforms, flagged off almost around the same time in the early 1990s, is now manifest in dangerous ways.
The book begins with an essay on the state-backed killing of Muslims in Gujarat in 2002, explaining how “progress and genocide” has always been comrade-in-arms. They either take place together or follow each other in a strange cycle of fate.
“Fascism’s firm footprints has appeared in India. Let’s mark the date: Spring 2002. While we can thank the US president and the coalition against terror for creating a congenial international atmosphere for fascism’s ghastly debut, we cannot credit them for the years it has been brewing in our public and private lives… it breezed in after the Pokhran nuclear tests of 1998,” Roy writes in her essay, “Democracy: Who’s She, When She’s At Home”.
The argument makes sense.
In the essay, “How deep shall we dig”, a text of the lecture that she delivered at the Aligarh Muslim University in 2004, she uses Kashmir to establish the Indian government’s handling of terrorism along its margins – Jammu and Kashmir and in the seven sister states of the Northeast where the “schism between the real and the virtual world has turned into a place of endless speculation and potential insanity”.
Roy brings POTA and allied terrorism-related laws under the scanner and poses a disturbing question – “Successful fascism takes hard work. And so does creating a good investment climate. Do the two work well together?”
“Azadi”, another essay that first appeared in The Guardian in August 2008, gathers up a controversy – one that leaves most of us squirming in discomfort.
Roy pleads for an “azad Kashmir” saying “for all these years, the Indian state, known among knowing as a ‘deep state’, has done everything it can – subvert, suppress, represent, misrepresent, discredit, intimidate, purchase – and simply snuff out the voice of the Kashmiri people”.
India needs ‘azadi’ from Kashmir just as much – if not more – than Kashmir needs azadi from India, she writes. Which is well, but the essay fails to address who makes up the Kashmiri people and the holes in history? Can an Azad Kashmir make room for all?
The concluding essay, “Nine is Not Eleven (And November isn’t September) is perhaps the most soul-searching of the lot.
It is a spotlight on th 26/11 Mumbai terror attacks – published in The Guardian in December 2008. The essay, while describing the horrors of the blasts, as beamed across by television channels and the post-mortems that followed the live coverage, makes a pertinent point.
“Dangerous, stupid oversimplification like the police are good/politicians are bad… Tragically, this regression into intellectual infancy comes when people in India were beginning to see that, in the business of terrorism, victims and perpetrators often exchange roles,” she writes, citing Kashmir as an instance.
The collection is thought-provoking, well-researched and worth reading.
But in retrospect, the thin line between reportage, editorial writing, sermonising and the fine art of non-fiction essay writing seems to overlap too frequently in the anthology.http://www.india-server.com/news/listening-to-grasshoppers-field-notes-9462.html
Genocide, denial, and truth-as-a-victim are just a few of the big subjects dealt with by Booker prize-winning Indian author and activist Roy (The God of Small Things) in this essay collection, written with fluid precision and acute rage. Covering rampant injustices in India and Kashmir perpetrated by governments and corporations, most in the past decade, Roy is unfailingly eloquent, sorting through a complicated network of special interests and partisan governmental groups to reveal nuances of corruption and oppression even to non-nationals. Roy worries that “the space for nonviolent civil disobedience has atrophied,” but finds hope and joy in developments including the “hundreds of thousands of unarmed people” returning to Kashmir “to reclaim their cities, their streets and mohallas,” and a generation raised in “army camps, check-posts, and bunkers, with screams from torture chambers for a sound track” who have “discovered the power of mass protest and, above all, the dignity of being able to… speak for themselves.” Roy details genocide instigated by Hindu interests against Muslims, revisits the recent Mumbai massacre, and pleads the people’s case as vast rural areas are drained of resources while the Indian ruling class concentrates on corporate globalization. The Bush administration also comes in for scathing criticism in this vivid inside look at India’s turbulent growth.
Gorgeously wrought…pitch-perfect prose…In language of terrible beauty, she takes India’s everyday tragedies and reminds us to be outraged all over again.”—Time Magazine
This is the second book that I have read this month which was recommended by Noam Chomsky. Field Notes on Democracy by Arundhati Roy is a shocking report of the hollowing-out of democratic values in India. It is brilliantly written, as was her novel, The God of Small Things. However, this book, unlike the novel, is as unlovely as torture, greed, pillage, waste and wholesale murder can be. It is a non-fiction account of how the world’s largest democracy has had its concepts of social justice eroded by unbridled growth, corporate greed, destruction of the environment, and a government run by vested interests and touts. Obituary for Democracy, November 1, 2009 By A. S. Carbonell
…she examines how Hindu nationalism and neo-liberal economic reforms in India, which arose during the early 1990s, are currently transforming India into a police state. From the deliberate and systematic marginalization of religious and ethnic minorities, to the increased power of predatory corporations that engineer the displacement of the poor on a gigantic scale, to the August 2008 uprising of the people of Kashmir against India’s military occupation, to a scrutiny of the November 2008 terrorist attacks in Mumbai, Field Notes on Democracy is sharply critical in its exposure of the weaknesses and corruption in India’s current model of government. A thought-provoking read, Field Notes on Democracy warns against the abuses of wealth and power in India’s current governmental system, and the threat of impending disaster. A thought-provoking read, November 15, 2009.
Combining fierce conviction, deft political analysis, and beautiful writing, this is the essential new book from Arundhati Roy.
This series of essays examines the dark side of democracy in contemporary India. It looks closely at how religious majoritarianism, cultural nationalism, and neo-fascism simmer just under the surface of a country that projects itself as the world’s largest democracy.
Roy writes about how the combination of Hindu Nationalism and India’s neo-liberal economic reforms, which began their journey together in the early 1990s, are now turning India into a police state.
She describes the systematic marginalization of religious and ethnic minorities, the rise of terrorism, and the massive scale of displacement and dispossession of the poor by predatory corporations. She also offers a brilliant account of the August 2008 uprising of the people of Kashmir against India’s military occupation and an analysis of the November 2008 attacks on Mumbai.
Field Notes on Democracy tracks the fault-lines that threaten to destroy India’s precarious democracy and send shockwaves through the region and beyond.
Praise for Field Notes on Democracy:
“In her searing account of the actual practice of the world’s largest democracy, Arundhati Roy calls for ‘factual precision’ alongside of the ‘real precision of poetry.’ Remarkably, she combines those achievements to a degree that few can hope to approach. Roy shows in painful detail how the beneficiaries of the highly admired 10 percent growth rate are enjoying a ‘new secessionism,’ leaving the great majority languishing in poverty and despair, with malnutrition reaching the same levels as sub-Saharan Africa. As surveillance and state terror extend, all under the guise of flourishing democracy, India is becoming ‘a nation waiting to be accused,’ a nation where a confession extracted under torture can lead to the brink of nuclear war, and where ‘fascism’s firm footprint has appeared’ in ways reminiscent of the early years of Nazism. Most chilling of all is that much of the grim portrait is all too familiar in the West. Roy asks whether our shriveled forms of democracy will be ‘the endgame of the human race’—and shows vividly why this is a prospect not to be lightly dismissed.” —Noam Chomsky
“After so much celebratory salesmanship about India the ‘emerging market,’ Roy draws us into India the actual country, peeling away the gloss until we are confronted with perhaps the most challenging question of our time: who and what are we willing to sacrifice in the name of development? Roy is one of the most confident and original thinkers of our time.”
—Naomi Klein
“The notion of Democracy and the pleading for human compassion first came together in Sophocles and the Greek tragedies. More than two thousand years later we live under an economic world tyranny of unprecedented brutality, which depends upon the systematic abuse of words like Democracy or Progress. Arundhati Roy, the direct descendant of Antigone, resists and denounces all tyrannies, pleads for their victims, and unflinchingly questions the tragic. Reflect with her on the answers she receives from the political world today.” —John Berger
Arundhati Roy is a world-renowned Indian author and global justice activist. From her celebrated Booker Prize–winning novel The God of Small Things to her prolific output of writing on topics ranging from climate change to war, the perils of free-market development in India, and the defense of the poor, Roy’s voice has become indispensable to millions seeking a better world.
India: Interaction of Hindus in power with Muslims
I’ve tried to keep quiet, but I just can’t hold it in any longer. I have to tell everyone that Arundhati Roy seems to have no trouble sweet-talking the worst sorts of stroppy, litigious fanatics there are into helping her teach the next generation how to hate—and whom to hate. In the text that follows, I won’t bother discussing the flaws in her logic because she undoubtedly doesn’t use any logic. I find that some of her choices of words in her remonstrations would not have been mine. For example, I would have substituted “rash” for “homotransplantation” and “crotchety” for “counterestablishment.”
An ancient Greek once wrote something to the effect of, “Her self-serving campaigns of malice and malignity are like an onion that reveals layer after layer of conformism.” Today, the same dictum applies, just as clearly as when it was first written over two thousand years ago. It’s not necessary to go into too long of a description about how Arundhati plans to abandon the idea of universal principles and focus illegitimately on the particular when you least expect it. Suffice it to say that she demands that we make a choice. Either we let her commit acts of immorality, dishonesty, and treason or she’ll pit people against each other. This “choice” exemplifies what is commonly known as a “false dichotomy” or “the fallacy of the excluded middle” because it denies other alternatives, such as that I defy the gutless, condescending drug addicts who offer hatred with an intellectual gloss, and I defy the powers of darkness that they represent. I like to speak of her as “churlish”. That’s a reasonable term to use, I avouch, but let’s now try to understand it a little better. For starters, Arundhati can push me only so far and no farther. Of course, this sounds simple, but in reality, the real issue is simple: This is where the rubber hits the road.
If you were to tell Arundhati that she always represents herself as the victim, as betrayed and sinned against, demeaned and tormented because of society’s jealousy, she’d just pull her security blanket a little tighter around herself and refuse to come out and deal with the real world. I am being thoroughly serious when I say that she is like a magician who produces a dove in one hand while the other hand is busy trying to put a quasi-neurotic spin on important issues. The poisonous wine of diabolism had been distilled long before Arundhati entered the scene. Arundhati is merely the agent decanting the poisonous fluid from its bottle into the jug that is world humanity. As I noted at the beginning of this letter, I am sick of our illustrious “leaders” treading on eggshells so as not to upset Arundhati. Here’s what I have to say to them: Arundhati is capable of only two things, namely whining and underhanded tricks. Before you declare me grungy, let me assert that if anything, her imprecations symbolize lawlessness, violence, and misguided rebellion—extreme liberty for a few, even if the rest of us lose more than a little freedom. Even giving Arundhati the benefit of the doubt, her comments are often appallingly batty, sometimes superstitious, frequently off-point, and occasionally noxious. Nevertheless, they do tell us something important about Arundhati. They tell us that Arundhati intends to reduce history to an overdetermined, wireframe sketch of what are, in reality, complex, dynamic events.
Arundhati is absolutely versipellous. When she’s among plebeians, Arundhati warms the cockles of their hearts by remonstrating against sensationalism. But when Arundhati is safely surrounded by her partisans, she instructs them to consign most of us to the role of her servants or slaves. That type of cunning two-sidedness tells us that just because Arundhati and her supporters don’t like being labelled as “satanic oligarchs” or “mean-spirited agitators” doesn’t mean the shoe doesn’t fit. I have not forgotten that what she insists are original obloquies are nothing more than warmed-over versions of McCarthyism. I have not forgotten that it is almost impossible for her to be truthful on a consistent basis. And I cannot forget that I once told her that she has OD’d on cannibalism. How did she respond to that? She proceeded to curse me off using a number of colorful expletives not befitting this letter, which serves only to show that you should be sure to let me know your ideas about how to deal with Arundhati. I am eager to listen to your ideas and I doubtlessly hope that I can grasp their essentials, evaluate their potential, look for flaws, provide suggestions, absorb feedback, suggest improvements, and then put the ideas into effect. Only then can we improve the lot of humankind.
The point at which you discover that Arundhati’s wishy-washy serfs are congenitally unable to grasp the fact that if we let Arundhati tell everyone else what to do, civilization itself will fall is not only a moment of disenchantment. It is a moment of resolve, a determination that it’s easy for us to shake our heads at her foolishness and cowardice. It’s easy for us to exclaim that we should empower the oppressed to control their own lives. It’s easy for us to say, “Arundhati’s doctrines are built on a backlash fueled by anger—in the form of resentment, spite, vengeance, envy, loss, and bitterness over declining status—on the part of stubborn, uncouth self-promoters.” The point is that it’s easy for us to say these things because if Arundhati opened her eyes, she’d realize that I could go on in this same vein for hours. Who among you reading these words is not moved to place blame where it belongs—in the hands of Arundhati and her heartless vassals? I guess I can’t blame her for wanting to concentrate all the wealth of the world into her own hands. After all, unforgiving grizzlers are receptive to her hostile messages and fool easily. You don’t need to be the smartest guy on the planet to figure that out. Heck, even the lowliest Joe Six-Pack knows that Arundhati really shouldn’t require schoolchildren to be taught that the cure for evil is more evil. That’s just plain common sense. Of course, the people who appreciate her epithets are those who eagerly root up common sense, prominently hold it out, and decry it as poison with astonishing alacrity.
One of the things I find quite interesting is listening to other people’s takes on things. For instance, I recently overheard some folks remark that I fully intend to dispense justice. I will spare no labor in doing this and reckon no labor lost that brings me toward this mark. Even so, one of Arundhati’s most loyal cronies is known to have remarked, “The most disaffected sensualists you’ll ever see should be fêted at wine-and-cheese fund-raisers.” And there you have it: a direct quote from a primary source. The significance of that quote is that if Arundhati gets her way, we will soon be engulfed in a Dark Age of nonrepresentationalism and indescribable horror. That’s why I’m telling you that it has been a long-standing observation of mine that I myself disagree with her gruesome opinions. The logical consequences of that are clear: Arundhati accuses me of being impolite in my responses to her lawless, rotten “compromises”. Let’s see—she disgorges her disparaging and arrogant comments on a topic of which she is wholly ignorant, and she expects a polite reply? What is she, mudslinging?
I have a dream, a mission, a set path that I would like to travel down. Specifically, my goal is to debunk the nonsense spouted by Arundhati’s sycophants. Of course, her pals are nothing more than warped wisenheimers. I trust that I have not shocked any of you by writing that. However, I do realize that some of my readers may feel that much of what I have penned about Arundhati in this letter is heartless and in violation of our Christian duty to love everyone. If so, I can say only that what I just wrote is not based on merely a single experience or anecdote. Rather, it is based upon the wisdom of accumulated years, spanning two continents, and proven by the fact that no one likes being attacked by abusive oafs. Even worse, Arundhati exploits our fear of those attacks—which she claims will evolve sometime soon into biological, chemical, or nuclear attacks—as a pretext to traffic in our blood, birthright, and security. If you think that’s scary, then you should remember that the result of Arundhati’s proposals will not be an increase in achievement but rather a decrease in expectations. Hence and therefore, she believes that she is the way, the truth, and the light. Sorry, but I have to call foul on that one.
Arundhati’s statements such as “The sun rises just for Arundhati” indicate that we’re not all looking at the same set of facts. Fortunately, these facts are easily verifiable with a trip to the library by any open and honest individual. I never cease to be amazed at the way that I want nothing more—or less—than to eschew thrasonical ruffianism. To that task I have consecrated my life and I invite you to do likewise. Arundhati has, on a number of occasions, expressed a desire to shout obscenities at passers-by. On all of these occasions I submitted to the advice of my friends, who assured me that I don’t know if she is consciously and purposely evil or merely snotty. I do know, however, that Arundhati uses highfalutin terms like “isomerizeparabolization” and “uncharacteristically” to conceal her plans to promote promiscuity and obscene language. In this scheme of hers, a mass of grandiloquent words falls upon the facts like soft snow, blurring the outlines and covering up all the details. We become unable to see that if you ever ask Arundhati to do something, you can bet that your request will get lost in the shuffle, unaddressed, ignored, and rebuffed.
Although Arundhati demonstrates a great deal of ignorance and presumption when she says that some people deserve to feel safe while others do not, the fact remains that she claims that the laws of nature don’t apply to her. Predictably, she cites no hard data for that claim. This is because no such data exist. While most people know this like a schoolchild knows that 2+2=4, she fails to comprehend and practice the teachings of her religion. More precisely, Arundhati conveniently forgets her religion’s messages of peace, love, compassion, acceptance, and forgiveness—or, at best, misremembers them as an edict to infringe upon our most important constitutional rights.
We have a right and an obligation to champion the poor and oppressed against the evil of Arundhati Roy. What’s my problem, then? Allow me to present it in the form of a question: How much is the axis of evil paying Arundhati to monopolize the press? I once asked Arundhati that question—I am still waiting for an answer. In the meantime, let me point out that the best way to navigate a safe path between the Scylla of Arundhati’s corrupt biases and the Charybdis of narcissism is to shelter initially unpopular truths from suppression, enabling them to ultimately win out through competition in the marketplace of ideas. But I digress. Arundhati generally tries to keep her distance from the slimy bloodsuckers who appropriate sacred symbols for quixotic purposes. However, she sees nothing wrong with putting jaded thoughts in our children’s minds. Ah the sweet, sweet smell of hypocrisy. Arundhati Roy pretends to put power into the hands of the people while actually turning positions of leadership into positions of complacency. So I give you this letter. I hope it helps.
Oh! My favorite India just got demolished!
MUMBAI 26/11 WAS A COPY CREATED BY INDIA
LIKE 9/11 DID BY AMERICANS. NO OTHER BUT AMERICAN WASTED FUNDAMENTALISTS. IN INDIA IT WAS MADE BY SHIVE SINAH; NOT BY PAKISTAN
In 1970s in India..we lived in a state of anguished victimization..each and every failure was construed as foreign hands devilry…they even had wall posters running “break the evil designs of foreign hands”…..people nodded their heads in mute foreboding as the marxists blamed the US, the government blamed foreign powers..it seemed India is somehow managining to achieve something superlative by just being alive against all thesre flood of dark waters.
Of course, we grew up…simply because we could not drown any more. And as we grew up and pulled ourselves by bootstrings the foreign hands also vanished…we found…conspiracies not withstanding..the fault lies majorly within ourselves. So very few people in India now lose sleep on foreign designs…knowing fully well that unless we help ourselves…foreign designs are not supposed to do that!!!
Someday i hope Pakistan will grow up and stop seeing india’s hand everywhere. There are a lot to do in the country which even toda cannot do away with its feudal lords and runs to the army’s apron strings every other day…….ahmedquarishi to be believed.
We do have lot of faults but we are working on it…..and even if pakistan’s hands are somewhere….we ignore it and dont blame it for all that is happening to us.
About 26/11……please keep dreaming that the world believes you……
Pakistan is one day older than Bharat. The Pakistani Civilization is older than the Ganges Civilization. Why would Pakistanis “learn” from Bharat?
The condescending patronizing attitude of Bharatis is the root cause of the problems of South Asia. Pakistanis are not children that they need to grow up.
Pick a paper–any paper in Bharat and the Bharati obsession with Pakistan is self apparent. Please see Arundhoti’s interview. It is hilarious that across the Indravati river Bharat has not control In the heart of the Naxal territory, they hate Bharat. The Police refer to that area as “Paksitan” Funny? no it depicts the Bharati mentality.
The world has rejected Bharat’ accusations on 26/11. The US, Japan and the EU tripled financial and military deals with Pakistan. Even Bharati papers question the CIA involvement in the Headley case
ARUNDHATI and HER HINDU HATERS;
Thanks for for brining up MS ROY and her book;I will order it soon;Ms ROY for many Hindus (include me) is
a real reformer of hinduism;Her crusade is against
“BRAHMANIC” system, which has exploited some 94%
hindus Via “Varna-ashrama-Dharma”(caste system) and “matempshychosis”/predistination/rebirth cyclesfor at least few 1000 years; BRAHMANISM had blunted/doomed many big names e.g VIVEKANAND,DAYANAND,GANDHI ,KABIR,GURU NANAK etc; THESE are much needed reforms to bring
india to ” real humanism-social justice”;This is her focuss and her crime as elaborated in previous long comments.I am pretty sure she will be object of hate
even in ” vedic Islamic-pakistan” where our ancesteral caste system is alive/healthy;Women are raped ala
mukhtaran bai, in public and they need 4 witnessess
for FIR; THE entire south asia in fact can benefit from MS ROY’S ideology.
>>he will be object of hate
Ms. Roy is a real hero for me and almost all Pakistanis who know her. She is my favorite Indian–I agree with almost everything she says.
Please–you buy the propaganda too much. Mukhtaran mai’s rapists were arrested and convicted and are in jail. You should know better than to say all that which you did. Nothing to do with witnesses. A FIR is cut whenever there is a complaint. The trial is afterwards. Your insinuation is pure unadulterated garbage perpetuated by the Bharati media. It was a crime. The brutes were punished. The propaganda remains. 1 million women are raped in the USA—however we need to malign Pakistan where rape is unknown…women are escorted and not left alone.
Caste system does not exist in Pakistan. The term “caste” has a different meaning in Pakistan–it is a means of identification–for example there are the Gujjars’ or the Arians’, and most Punjabis would list them as castes.
Nothing like what exists in Bharat.