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Emotional abuse

Emotional abuse has always been around. It is of late that it has been recognised, defined and classified as another deep rooted affliction. Many of us maybe victims (and unaware) of emotional abuse and are possibly subjected to it in our daily lives.Like physical abuse, emotional abuse can be severe and leaves behind permanent emotional scars. It can drain a person's confidence, self-respect and render one with a feeling of uselessness.

Emotional abuse is identified as a tactic used by the perpetrator to demoralise his victim. It can occur in any relationship - among spouses, relatives, friends, colleagues, in-laws etc. Dr. Ajit Bhaskar, a psychiatrist says, “emotional abuse may be defined as the use of inappropriate emotions to make the other person feel the inappropriateness. This will lead to an inner conflict on the person subjected to emotional abuse.” So what makes one emotionally abuse another? “The purpose of abuse can be varying in nature but somebody emotionally abusing another may have some personality disorder, ranging from mild to severe. It need not be just insecurity, fear or jealousy but can even be due to a sadistic or masochistic attitude,” adds Dr.Ajit Bhaskar.

Disguised occurrence

An emotional abusive relationship may be difficult to observe or identify for unlike in a physical abusive relationship the attack is more often premeditated or manipulated with disguised words, actions etc that leaves behind scars of humiliation and disgrace. All of us at sometime or the other would have experienced some form of it. “Emotional abuse that consists of a villain and a victim is quite a broad spectrum for debate”, says Anitha Raja, clinical psychologist of Amrita Hospital, Kochi. “Milder and temporary forms of emotional abuse can be observed in daily life like road rage or being roughed up or knocked around in a crowd. But it becomes a problem when the abuse is long standing, has an ulterior motive or targeted on a single person. Aged parents, needy relatives are often mistreated or insulted.”

The nature of emotional abuse can have many stages. It often begins with ignoring and disregarding the victim. Next in order may be an overbearing behaviour followed by snubbing, criticising, fault finding etc. Then harsher forms like verbal assaults, screaming, calling names, intimidating, threatening etc follow.

“However”, adds Anitha Raja, “the more vulnerable or timid one is the more hurt or offended one feels. So it's best to have a tough exterior to fight emotional abuse”.

So how do you know that you are in an emotionally abusive relationship? Look around yourself. Analyse your relationship with others. Do you have a friend, relative or colleague who tries to control you or ridicules and insults you before others? Then deal firmly without cowering down. Yet sometimes it may not be easy. It can also occur when two individuals are mutually dependent on each other or in a close relationship. However you can tackle the situation by setting your priorities right and end the unwanted taunts by braving up to the situation.

Dr. Diljit. B., a psychiatrist observes, “emotional abuse can occur in families, among friends and at the workplace . It can have very harmful consequences and can even lead to manic depression, schizophrenia etc in extreme cases. In families, a parent maybe unknowingly abusing the child when they adopt certain corrective measures that may have serious negative repercussions. At the work place too an emotional abusive boss can have a discouraging and dispiriting effect robbing the employees of their true potential.”

However before coming to any conclusions and trying to deal with the abusers in your life, a stark truth awaits you. Most often we identify ourselves as the victims and never the villains. Examine your relationships deeply. Set things right and make life friendly, it is every individual's birthright to be treated with dignity.

Dreams die in the desert

Dreams die in the desert

SWATHI V.

Unlike the educated elite who go Westwards, attracted by better opportunities and a luxurious lifestyle, those who land up in West Asia as waged labourers have a much harder time: Practically no rights, hostile working environments and absolutely no support systems. Why is it that the violation of their basic rights doesn't figure at all in the national imagination?

Photo: AFP

Building a future, brick by little brick...

About the same time that India aired “absolute displeasure and concern” over the continuing attacks on Indian citizens in Australia, the body of an Indian national completed two-and-a-half years of waiting for last rites in a Bahrain hospital. Nalli Mariamma (Nalli Mary according to her passport), the deceased dalit woman, hailed from a small village Ramaraju Lanka in East Godavari district of Andhra Pradesh. The fact that she was a dalit, a woman and wife of an agricultural labourer who owned not a sliver of land had much to do with her death — unnoticed, uncared for and unwept over.

Daughter Nagaveni can only recollect that Mariamma's departure to Bahrain, to work as a domestic help in an Arab household, preceded her death in 2007 by four years. She had no flashy dreams of emigration, citizenship and permanent employment. There were debts to be repaid, and a house to be constructed in her village. A commission of Rs. 50,000 to the agent who earned her a job in Bahrain compounded the debt.

“We had borrowed Rs. 40,000 for an earlier travel to Muscat. The employer there did not like her and sent her back after three months. Her wages for the duration were accounted for her ticket price. We were only left with more debt,” Nagaveni recollects.

Desperate measures

After reaching Bahrain, Mariamma feared rejection once again owing to the employer's displeasure over her absolute lack of communication skills in English. Unsettling visions of mounting debt pushed her to the wall and she was left with no other choice than escaping from the house and seeking employment elsewhere. Her passport was held up with the sponsoring employer, and overnight, she had become an illegal immigrant.

“There was no communication for seven months after she had escaped. We all considered her dead. But then to our relief, she called and even sent money to repay the debts. After three years of stay, she was told by someone that she would be sent back as her passport was held up by the first employer. She escaped again,” Nagaveni says.

She could not get employment for the next four months, and reportedly had tiffs with her room-mates due to financial difficulties. Apparently, they had asked her to vacate, and she was on the roads. According to correspondents from Manama, she lost her mind and was found lurking in ruins.

For some time, there were no calls to home, presumably due to Mariamma's demented and indigent status. Then all of a sudden, the family received a call from an ailing Mariamma from a Bahrain hospital, and 10 days later, news about her death.

“She wept inconsolably, but could not explain what her illness was. She just said she had stomach pain. We could not talk to the doctors due to language barrier. There was nobody to look after her.”

Airlifting the body would have needed a couple of lakhs, and so it was decided that Mariamma would not return even as a dead body. The country she did not dare to leave was to become her abode in death too. Last rites needed an affidavit from her husband according to the rule of the land, and hence the unending delay. The village did not have a fax machine, and Mariamma's husband Venkateswara Rao would rarely be available when the MRO found the time to visit the village.

Hardly a ripple

Mariamma's death and the inhuman circumstances it occurred in remained largely unnoticed by the media, government, opposition and the vociferous groups shouting themselves hoarse for the rights of the non-resident Indians. As for Nagaveni and her father, they had too little time to be lost in wondering if the death was not worth outraging the nation's conscience. Coming to grips with the tragedy was a pressing necessity for them, because there lay a more worrisome aspect that needed attention — survival.

The hideous reality of the Indian poor consigning members of their nearest kin to an obscure fate in an alien land does not stop with Mariamma. While better mobility, cross-cultural experience, improvement in educational and employment opportunities and hopes of luxurious life act as inducements for the elite and educated classes migrating abroad, those who land up in West Asia as waged labourers do so for as little returns as construction of a house, payment of dowry, or acquiring a bit of land. In many cases — decidedly more in number than the Australian “racist” attacks — these little dreams come crashing down due to the hostile working environment and lack of support systems.

One more instance is the mysterious death of T. Nara Goud from Timmakpally village of Nizamabad district in Andhra Pradesh within a week after his arrival in the Eastern Province of Saudi Arabia in June 2009. He was found dead in the desert, and initially it was surmised to be a case of suicide and, later, of a heart attack. However, upon doubts, the police ordered a second autopsy and it validated horrendous conjectures. The forensic committee of Dammam noticed, apart from a diseased heart, abrasions on Mr. Goud's hands and shoulder, of the kind formed after remaining in shackles for a prolonged duration. It also noted that remaining fettered for a long period under extremely hot sun and the resultant physical exertion and nervous strain might have failed the already-fragile heart. Forensic examinations took extremely long, and the body could be sent home only after a whole year!

Mr. Goud had been an auto-rickshaw driver before he left for Saudi Arabia. He sold his vehicle and paid Rs.80,000 to the local agent who promised job as a car driver with handsome payment.

“He was asked to be a camel-herd instead of a driver upon reaching there. He refused, and the next we hear of him is that he is dead,” relates his nephew N. Satyanarayana Goud.

The Rs.1.5 lakh Mr. Goud borrowed for the fatal trip, an intimidating debt in rural India, could very possibly throw his wife and three kids onto the roads. His eldest son has already stopped his education and is going for NREG work.

Deafening silence

One is surprised that there was hardly any voice heard against the atrocity back at home. All the nationalistic flag-bearers of the NRI cause who jump at the slightest hint of perceived racism were blissfully ignorant of the incident or observed apathetic silence. No media trials, nor any surge of patriotism. A question raised in the state assembly by the local MLA was quickly buried under assurances of action. Nothing of the “action” is known however.

Another well-known sample of a nation's indifference towards its destitute citizens can be found in the case of Habib Hussain, a 26-year-old who came back from Saudi hidden in the toilet of an Air India flight. Initially, his appearance on the flight caused jitters among all those concerned with the nation's security — Islamophobia not ruled out. However, it was learnt later and thankfully believed — not before interrogations by Research and Analysis Wing (RAW), the IB, state intelligence department, Rajasthan ATS and local police — that his illegal boarding had more to do with his desperation to fly back home, and nothing with the intention to harm the security of the nation. The company in which he was employed treated him shabbily, and seized his passport. He was asked to work as a cattle-herd after his due working hours, and not paid decently, hence the flight. While a large section of media was content with reporting about the investigations and court proceedings, a few among them, for a change, came out with details about conditions of poverty that had driven Mr. Hussain to Saudi Arabia. Not very surprisingly, in all accounts, the outrage characteristic of national media when its tender-to-touch racial sensibilities are injured was replaced by a flaccid lament about how people are flocking to Saudi despite such incidents. The media is not alone in holding such a patronising view of the migration experience of millions. Politicians do so too.

Escape from hell:Ayesha Sultana.

Mohd. Ali Shabbir, the former Minister of Minority Affairs in Andhra Pradesh and a key player in having a Ministry of Overseas Indian Affairs set up, for one, takes satisfaction in the fact that the number of people rushing to Gulf countries has come down recently. He ascribes this fall in figures to the realisation by people of the inhuman conditions that would await them once they reach there.

Ayesha Sultana, a Hyderabadi woman who returned from Saudi Arabia, too swears by him. Ayesha, who went to Riyadh as a house maid, remained unpaid for months, despite being deployed to various places in the country by the local agent who sponsored her. Her passport was confiscated by the agent and never returned. Finally, she escaped from her workplace in Mecca, reached the Indian Consulate at Jeddah and waited there for months on end till the embassy reacted to her pleas and made arrangements for her return to Hyderabad.

“There are many like me languishing on the roads for over 15 years, waiting to return. You would find the underside of the Sitteen Flyover in Jeddah brimming with people eager to be picked by the police and deported. They even bribe the police and touts to get arrested,” says Ms. Ayesha. She vows never to go there again, and tells her compatriots to choose a penniless life here rather than chasing mirages abroad. Sad that they don't have a third choice though!

Ayesha's joy of safe return does not last though. Six months later, her daughter, five-year-old Rubina, for whose sake she had to cross the seas, still awaits a heart surgery, with no help arriving from any quarter.

One more such victim was Mohd. Mateen of Karimnagar, who escaped from his torturing employer and worked as a daily wage labourer before ending up in a hospital at Jeddah with a kidney ailment. His responsibility of getting three sisters married remained unfulfilled, as he and his father died within a gap of 12 days. Now his mother and sisters are as helpless as ever.

Losing battle

Be it Keta Tatarao, a dalit from East Godavari who escaped from bonded labour, and after being stepped on by a camel while fleeing, died of the injury on his flight back; or Dandugula Bheemaiah from Siricilla, Karimnagar, who went into a shock after being duped of Rs.16 lakh by an agent who promised a job for his son; or R. Lakshman from Nalgonda who lost his memory while working in Oman, but had nothing on him as identity-proof; or M. Kankaiah from Medak, who returned as a patient after continuous work in a hazardous carpet manufacturing utility, his ambition of having a house of his own remaining unfulfilled; each represents a case of desperate struggle against poverty, fought valiantly but lost miserably.

Political and legal interventions so far have been mostly aimed at keeping a check on the agents, rather than rendering the overseas experience a rewarding one for the emigrants. While a lot is being done in terms of preparatory courses to better equip job seekers and students aiming for higher educational and employment opportunities abroad, there is no such job-centric training for potential Gulf emigrants. Fast track courses in English language and in trades such as house-keeping, plumbing, electrical works, and construction work offered through institutes such as National Academy of Construction would have done a whale of good by placing the candidates a cut above others in terms of opportunities in West Asia. With no such intervention, Indian waged labourers end up competing with equally destitute, but more skilled workers from other Asian countries such as Indonesia and the Philippines.

The new Emigration Act on the anvil is said to prescribe more stringent procedure for registration of agents, and replace the existing agent network with a more centralised one. Such measures, by eliminating agents at the rural level, can only help in cutting down the number of people aiming to go to the Gulf countries, without addressing the real concerns in a comprehensive way.

PHOTO: AFP

Thankless job...

As can be gathered from history and contemporary experience, denying mobility to the rural population could only have an adverse effect, not only at the individual level, but on the community. It amounts to rejection of an opportunity for them to shed the beliefs, myths and dogmas associated with centuries of existence in stagnant village culture. As admitted by Mr. Shabbir himself, exposure to a foreign culture that is spiritually egalitarian has indeed resulted in estrangement of caste hierarchies among majority of the emigrants. “A Reddy and a Dalit, both do the same work there. They live together, cook and eat together, unlike in their native villages,” he said.

More important will be the MoUs to be entered about labour issues with the foreign governments. Cruel treatment and seizure of passports by employers should be taken up as an important issue to be dealt with during the discussions, because it is not in Indian government's capacity to bring the erring employers to book. Embassies, so far only mute spectators of inhuman treatment meted out to the Indian poor, should be empowered through the MoUs to set up help desks at various locations and coordinate with the departments concerned in the respective foreign governments in resolving the issues pertaining to harassment and deportations.

However, for the act to be successful in its mandate and for all these institutions and authorities to function and deliver, the paramount prerequisite is to have a civil society that gets equally enraged of social and class prejudices as it does about racial discrimination.

* * *

Changes in policy

Till last year, the focus was on making the condition of Gulf workers better. Accounting for 19 per cent of tabulated Non-resident and Overseas Indians, Gulf Indians have occupied a unique place in the consciousness of Indian policy makers. Largely deprived of citizenship even after spending decades in the Gulf, they face severe problems in meeting costs relating to death and illness. But these are the lucky ones. Many mortgage their life savings, fields and houses, only to be duped with a dud or faulty visa. The fortunate ones are stopped by the immigration authorities at the country's airports. Others have to spend months in Gulf jails awaiting deportation, a stamp that put a permanent stop to their dreams of going overseas to escape the poverty at home.

However, among the Gulf Indians, the lot of not all is pitiable. Many have struck it rich and are now feted citizens in their provinces. Several are now helping install sophisticated infrastructure from IT services to airport traffic control services. At the same time, the Gulf dream for potential emigrants is now coming to a close and new opportunities are going to open up elsewhere such as Japan and South East Asia. It is in keeping with all these factors that the Government made changes in the nearly two-decade-old Emigration Act.

One of the major changes is to ensure that the recruiting agent is solvent — by increasing the bank guarantee and application fee for registration besides asking for balance sheets. And literate, by making it compulsory for the agent to have a bachelor's degree or diploma. The service charges to be collected by the recruiting agent have now been fixed. For directly recruiting workers, foreign employers will have to now provide bank guarantee. In conjunction with bilateral agreements being struck with individual countries, it is hoped Indian expatriate workers will largely be able to escape exploitation and pitiable conditions they have been subjected to not only in the Gulf but also in emerging areas for employment for the Indian blue collar workforce.

SANDEEP DIKSHIT

Definitions of Will Power and Self Discipline

Definitions of Will Power and Self Discipline

Will power is the ability to overcome laziness and procrastination. It is the ability to control or reject unnecessary or harmful impulses. It is the ability to arrive to a decision and follow it with perseverance until its successful accomplishment. It is the inner power that overcomes the desire to indulge in unnecessary and useless habits, and the inner strength that overcomes inner emotional and mental resistance for taking action. It is one of the corner stones of success, both spiritual and material.

Self-discipline is the companion of will power. It endows with the stamina to persevere in whatever one does. It bestows the ability to withstand hardships and difficulties, whether physical, emotional or mental. It grants the ability to reject immediate satisfaction, in order to gain something better, but which requires effort and time.

Everyone has inner, unconscious, or partly conscious impulses, making them say or do things they later regret saying or doing. On many occasions people do not think before they talk or act. By developing these two powers, one becomes conscious of the inner, subconscious impulses, and gains the ability to reject them when they are not for his/her own good.

These two powers help us to choose our behavior and reactions, instead of being ruled by them. Their possession won't make life dull or boring. On the contrary, you will feel more powerful, in charge of yourself and your surroundings, happy and satisfied.

How many times have you felt too weak, lazy or shy to do something you wanted to do? You can gain inner strength, initiative and the ability to make decisions and follow them. Believe me, it is not difficult to develop these two powers. If you are earnest and are willing to become stronger, you will certainly succeed.

In this article you will find some exercises and techniques for developing these abilities. These simple, but effective exercises, can be performed everywhere and at any time. Go slowly and gradually, and you will see how you get stronger and your life start improving.

There is a misconception in the public mind regarding will power. It is erroneously thought to be something strenuous and difficult, and that one has to exert and tense the body and mind when expressing it. It is a completely wrong concept. This is one of the reasons why people avoid using it, though they are conscious of its benefits. They acknowledge the fact that the employment of will power in their life and affairs will greatly help them, and that they need to strengthen it, yet they do nothing about it.

Will power gets stronger by holding back and not allowing the expression of unimportant, unnecessary and unhealthy thoughts, feelings, actions and reactions. If this saved energy is not allowed expression, it is stored inside you like a battery, and it becomes available at the time of need. By practicing appropriate exercises, you develop your powers the same way, as a person who trains his/her muscles in order to strengthen them.

Developing Will Power and Self Discipline

An effective method for developing and improving these abilities is to perform certain actions or activities, which you would rather avoid doing due to laziness, procrastination, weakness, shyness, etc. By doing something that you do not like doing or are too lazy to do, you overcome your subconscious resistance, train your mind to obey you, strengthen your inner powers and gain inner strength. Muscles get stronger by resisting the power of the barbells. Inner strength is attained by overcoming inner resistance.

Remember, strengthening one of these abilities, automatically strengthens the other one.

Here are a few exercises:

1) You are sitting in a bus or train and an old man or woman, or a pregnant lady walks in. Stand up and give up your seat even if you prefer to stay seated. Do this not just because it is polite, but because you are doing something that you are reluctant to do. In this way you are overcoming the resistance of your body, mind and feelings.

2) There are dishes in the sink that need washing, and you postpone washing them for later. Get up and wash them now. Do not let your laziness overcome you. When you know that in this way you are developing your will power, and if you are convinced of the importance of will power in your life, it will be easier for you to do whatever you have to do.

3) You come home tired from work and sit in front of the T.V. because you feel too lazy and tired to go and wash. Do not obey the desire to just sit, but go and have a shower

4) You may know your body needs some physical exercise, but instead you keep on sitting doing nothing or watching a movie. Get up and walk, run or do some other physical exercise.

5) Do you like your coffee with sugar? Then for a whole week decide to drink it without sugar. You like to drink three cups of coffee each day? For a week drink only two.

6) Sometimes, when you want to say something that is not important, decide not to say it.

7) Don't read some unimportant gossip in the newspaper, even if you want to.

8) You have a desire to eat something not too healthy. For the sake of the exercise refuse the desire.

9) If you find yourself thinking unimportant, unnecessary, negative thoughts, try to develop lack of interest in them, by thinking about their futility.

10) Overcome your laziness. Convince yourself of the importance of what is to be done. Convince your mind that you gain inner strength when you act and do things, in spite of laziness, reluctance or senseless inner resistance.

Never say that you cannot follow the above exercises, because you certainly can. Be persistent no matter what. Motivate yourself by thinking about of the importance of performing the exercises, and the inner power and strength you will gain.

Trying to attempt too many exercises when you are still a beginner, might end in disappointment. It is better to start with a few easy exercises at first, and then gradually increase their number and move to the more difficult exercises.

Most of these exercises can be practiced anywhere and at anytime, and you don't have to devote special times for them. They will train and develop your inner strength, enabling you to use it whenever you need it.

If you practice weight lifting, running or aerobics, you strengthen your muscles, so that when you need to move or carry something heavy for example, you have the strength for it. By studying French each day, you will be able to talk French when you travel to France. It is the same with will power and self-discipline; by strengthening them, they become available for your use whenever you need them.

If for the sake of an exercise, you stop doing something that you usually do, and overcome the inner resistance concerning it, you may resume doing it, if it is not harmful. For example, if you love drinking orange juice, and for the sake of an exercise you switch to drinking apple juice, after doing so for some time and after it makes no great difference to you, you may go back to drinking orange juice, if you still like it. The point here is to develop inner strength, not making life difficult for you or continue doing things you don't like to do.

Benefits of Possessing Strong Will Power and Self Discipline

You need these skills to control your thoughts, improve your concentration, and to become the boss of your mind. The stronger these skills are, the more inner strength you possess.

Being the master of your mind you enjoy inner peace and happiness. External events do not sway you, and circumstances have no power over your peace of mind. This might sound too unreal for you, but experience will prove to you that all the above is true.

These skills are vital for achieving success, they give you more control over your life, help you change and improve habits, and are essential for self improvement, spiritual growth and meditation.

Practice the exercises presented here earnestly and persistently, and your life will start changing.

INDIA =ITALY -CORRUPTION

With graft in public life an almost accepted universal norm, the similarities between India and Italy are both striking and startling.

Indians returning from trips to Europe usually tend to grouse about the rude rigidity of the Germans, the haughty froideur of the French, the extreme parsimony of the Dutch or the racism of the Austrians.

Italy, however, brings forth altogether different reactions: “They are friendly, garrulous, welcoming, and it is the only place in Europe that vegetarians can get a decent meal. But they are also thieves and double dealers. Given half a chance they'll take the very shirt off your back and the shoes off your feet and you won't even know how it happened, a bit like with the Bambaiya pickpockets. But then, you also somehow feel you are on familiar ground.”

Most Indians say they feel at home in Italy: life is chaotic, no one obeys the rules, policemen can be paid to cancel fines, there is massive tax evasion, the mafia controls large swathes of territory, the government counts for little and for the well-heeled, life is very good indeed.

Hardly anyone, except for a few Christian charities and other NGOs, thinks of the poor. Public money hall-marked for disaster victims tends to disappear into the pockets of officials and cronyism is rampant; homes built for the poor are the first to collapse in southern Italy's earthquake-prone zones because of the poor quality of materials used ….

Sounds familiar? Well, with regard to the way politics is conducted, with corruption in public life an almost accepted universal norm, the continuing strength of family ties and how society is structured, the similarities between India and Italy are both striking and startling.

In India of course we do not have a jaded, ageing lothario like Silvio Berlusconi at the helm, whose Bunga Bunga nights — lavish parties where he surrounds himself with a bevy of often under-age nymphets — have brought Italy shame and universal opprobrium. Such behaviour would not be possible in India because of the prevailing notions of public (or for that matter) private morality. But like in Italy, hardly any politician caught for graft, blatant misuse of office, or, quite simply, theft from the public coffers has ever gone to prison.

The world might mock and the country's magistrates might well try to bring Mr. Berlusconi to book for paying under-age prostitutes, for abuse of political office (he ordered the police to free a 17-year-old Moroccan prostitute who called the Prime Minister on his private mobile number from the station where she was being held for shoplifting), or more seriously, for introducing legislation designed to protect him from the judiciary while increasing his own power and influence, but at least half the country's population continues to support him, admiring him for being a furbo, a clever clogs who has used every trick in the book to outwit the judiciary and get away with a host of alleged crimes and misdemeanours. These include fraud, tax evasion, bribing judges, consorting with the mafia, corruption, conflict of interest, impeding justice, undermining democratic institutions and exploiting them to serve his own vested interests … to name just a few. A recent poll showed that his popularity ratings continued to top 50 per cent and any Italian will tell you that Mr. Berlusconi has a strong chance of being re-elected should he stand for another term.

“In my view Italy is really a political infant, an underdeveloped polity, in a certain sense, a flash in the pan in the developed world. It is astounding, given the levels of corruption we have achieved that Italy continues to have the world's seventh-largest nominal GDP, (10th highest GDP in PPP terms) and the sixth highest government budget — hugely deficit-ridden of course. But this lack of balance between our economic prowess and the absence of political maturity is the result of history. You must not forget that Italy is a very young democracy — compared to other western powers and that the unification of Italy is barely 130 years old,” Clara Fiorini, a history professor from Milan who says she has compared the situations in India and Italy told The Hindu.

“Like India, Italy was forever being invaded by the outside world. Both our countries are insular peninsulas, protected in the north by the Himalayas in your case and by the Alps in ours. India was constantly taken over, first by the Aryans, followed by the Greeks, the Muslim rulers of the Delhi Sultanate, the Mughals, the Portuguese, the British, the Dutch, the French … and the country was divided into several independent kingdoms or city states like Hyderabad, Mysore, Gwalior, etc. It was the same with us. We had very powerful city states like Venice, Florence, Genoa, Pisa or Amalfi. We were ruled by the Spanish Hapsburgs and also by the Austrians. Then came the Napoleonic wars from 1796 to 1814 when Napoleon destroyed several parts of Venice including the great Arsenale or shipbuilding docks and stole some of our best Renaissance art treasures. When you are ruled by foreign powers, the only persons you can trust are members of your own family or community. That is how Italy's nepotism began. In India of course appurtenance to caste and community have the same effect.

“Italian unification or Il Risorgimento began with Giuseppe Garibaldi in 1861 and continued until 1922. We have had three wars of independence in this struggle to unify Italy and that was finally achieved after the First World War came to an end. But then we launched into the Fascist period with Mussolini and the modern Italian Republic was born only in 1946, just one year before India became independent.

But if India benefitted, in the first years of its existence as a fledgling state from figures as towering as Nehru or Patel to seal the unity of India, the same cannot be said about Italy, where the Vatican and the influence of the Catholic Church remained very strong. Italian intellectuals like elsewhere, including France, were attracted by Marxist ideology, reviled by the Church. The Italian communist party under charismatic leaders like Enrico Berlinguer commanded as much as 25 per cent of the vote.

“It was to keep the communists out of power at all costs that the horrible power sharing formula known as the ‘partitocrazia' or the reign of the parties was born. For almost 40 years thereafter until the huge 1992 bribery scandal in Milan known as Tangentopoli (Bribe City) the Christian Democrats and the Socialists with two smaller parties, ruled with governments changing every other day. Corruption was rampant. People held their noses when they went to vote — so strong was the stench of corruption — but voted for the four-party combine nevertheless, in order to keep the communists out,” says Fiorini.

As a result of the Mani Puliti (Clean Hands) investigation that came in the wake of Tangentopoli, Socialist Prime Minister Bettino Craxi fled to Tunisia where he died in exile. Giulio Andreotti, seven times Prime Minister, was charged with corruption, murder and for his links to the mafia. He escaped jail because of the statute of limitations, a trick Mr. Berlusconi has used again and again, getting trials postponed, adjourned or delayed or by transferring judges.

If Italians had hoped for a fresh start, with what many called the Second Italian Republic, they were to be disappointed. The major parties, the Christian Democrats, the Communists and the Socialists dissolved to spring up as new political formations. Silvio Berlusconi entered the breach left by the dissolution of the Christian Democratic Party to form first his Forza Italia and then House of Freedom party. His natural allies came from the right — the deeply anti-immigrant and xenophobic Northern League and the newly re-baptised Allianza Nationale (Mussolini's original fascist formation) led by Gianfranco Fini. The Left, in what has turned out to be Italy's greatest tragedy, has broken up into several small, squabbling, fractious political formations, leaderless and with no clear programme to offer. It is not surprising, that Mr. Berlusconi, who comforts the country's right-wing elites and business communities, remains as popular as he is, despite his shenanigans.

But the magistrates, who, in Italy like in India, constitute the people's bulwark against open and shameless corruption, appear determined to get him. Magistrates said they could file charges against Mr. Berlusconi “as early as next week.” If convicted of buying the services of an under-age prostitute and abuse of power, Mr. Berlusconi could face a long jail term. But he is protected by an immunity law he himself passed and for the moment, remains beyond the judiciary's reach.

The noted writer of Italian origin Alexander Stille wrote in The New York Timesrecently: “In almost any other democracy, that would have been enough to end a politician's career. But Italians are deeply cynical about their political leaders. Believing that ‘everyone does it,' it is possible to convince yourself that the exposure of Berlusconi's crimes and misdemeanours is actually a sign that he is being singled out for persecution.”

This is a view, says Stille, which is reinforced by the substantial portion of the Italian media, which is controlled by Mr. Berlusconi. Even the media outlets he does not own outright are either intimidated or under his influence. Much of the evidence in the current scandal (as with those in the past) has not been aired on the principal newscast of the Italian State TV, which, together with Mr. Berlusconi's networks, enjoy a nearly 90 per cent market share in a country where 70 to 80 per cent of the public gets its news from television.”

Beware of paper cups

Beware of paper cups

Varun*, an IT professional working in Technopark, was finding himself with an upset stomach every night. While normal medical checks revealed nothing wrong in him, deeper probes revealed the reason – his stomach was collecting significant amounts of wax. And doctors identified the villian – the ordinary paper cups he used for drinking his tea at his office pantry.

Disposable paper cups have become quite popular in office pantries due to the convenience it offers. What many overlook is the fact that these paper cups are coated with a tiny layer of wax, which is essential to prevent water from seeping  into the paper. When very hot liquids are pour over this cup, the wax may disintegrate and a little may come off, which will promptly be sent along with the drink into our stomachs! While our body can discard minor amounts, over the long-term, it does become a problem.

So what can be done about it? You can try to bring your own glass cups. Glass is one of the least reactive materials in the world (remember acids are stored in glass vessels, blood samples are collected in glass plates – these are for a good reason). But glass does have the problem of breaking easily, so it requires good care. Ceramic cups are probably the best bet. Of course, you can also use your ordinary stainless steel glass, but never use plastic ones – its dangers are even worse than wax!

Are we creating an anarchic society?

Are we creating an anarchic society?

While the inclination to revel in random and wanton acts of terror and destruction is disturbing, perhaps the most dramatic aspect of this liturgy of growing social anarchy is its increasing State patronage, which has been compounded further by a keenness to erode faith in public institutions. It is a mentality that is crippling and fast obscuring the need for a shared vision for the country. Can we hope for better times? Where are the saner voices, ask SWAMI AGNIVESH and Rev. VALSON THAMPU.

THE duty of every citizen to safeguard the health of society is most neglected today. Everyone wants to have a benign society and wants it served on a platter. At the same time, people endorse socially disruptive agendas to bolster their vested interests. We pay lip-service to values; but we assume that values are, most often, for others to follow for our benefit. No principle is welcome when upholding it goes against our interests. We want the courts, for example, to be impartial, but we throw a tantrum when judicial impartiality goes against our calculations. We seem to have lost the ability to look beyond our noses. We are doing everything imaginable to erode the health and wholeness of our society. And we are, today, paying the price for it.

A society, not less than the individuals who comprise it, is vulnerable to ill-health. Disharmony between the constituent parts is the pattern of illness in both cases. In a human being, a heart attack results, for instance, when the relationship between a part and the rest of the heart is compromised through the narrowing of the coronary artery. The hand experiences acute pain and dies when the blood flow into it is cut off. Paralysis results from the alienation between the brain and the affected limbs. Physical illness implies, in other words, organic anarchy. The same pattern applies to macro-systems like societies and nations. When these symptoms of collective pathology are neglected over time, societies begin to degenerate and collapse into anarchy.

Because of the enormous difference in scales between the individual and society, symptoms of collective illness are apt to be mistaken for the vitality of a constituent part. Consider this illustration. In a certain neurological condition, a gentle tap on a muscle results in an enormous jerk of the limb concerned, quite beyond the range of normal sensitivity. If seen in isolation, it could be mistaken as proof of the patient's extraordinary strength. But when it is seen in the light of that person's inability to do any useful work, it emerges as a pathological phenomenon.

Communal atrocities that signal our social ill-health are of this kind. They are misunderstood as signs of religious vitality in the absence of a total vision of societal health. It is a suicidal folly to condone, much less encourage, any anarchic agenda, overlooking its disruptiveness in the national context. Sadly, the protagonists of vote-bank politics have misled a large number of people to believe otherwise. Allowing their discernment to be lulled by the spell of spurious patriotism, the gullible and the naive have become a party to undermining the health and wholeness of our society. The silver-lining on the cloud, though, is that the facade of deception has begun to slip away, allowing the truth to be seen for what it is. The obvious loss of popular enthusiasm for the mandir movement, especially in the temple city itself, is the most significant fact that shines through the recent stage-management of the Ayodhya imbroglio.

We are being hijacked into becoming an ungovernable society. This is a roguish ritual sustained by political parties and communal outfits. But the most dramatic aspect of this liturgy of social anarchy is the increasing State patronage it receives. It is no longer a secret that every communal atrocity, every instance of corruption and oppression, presupposes political protection and patronage. The recent carnage in Gujarat, like Ayodhya of 1992, would not have occurred but for the complicity of the State. Shila-daan at Ayodhya ended the way it did only because the government at the Centre had to be seen holding the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) hawks on leash, even while lending further legitimacy to their agenda. As regards the bluster of Paramhans, Singhal, Katiyar and the others, only consider how quickly they sobered down when the likelihood of Inter Service Intelligence (ISI) agents infiltrating the karsevak crowd was merely mentioned to them. The salutory effect of a firm stand on the part of the Central dispensation can, then, be easily imagined.

 
Praying for peace after the riots ... school girls in Gujarat.

The creed of an anarchic society is total faith in violence. Over the last five decades, the very foundation of our national life has shifted from a faith in non-violence to the exclusive faith in use or threat of violence. This process reached its summit with the political ascendancy of the Sangh Parivar, with its unabashed commitment to crafting a culture of violence. The atom bomb, as is now amply clear, was not a strategic but a symbolic object: a cultic embodiment of the culture of violence. This was of a piece with the Ram mandirmovement that celebrated its virility through the destruction of the centuries-old mosque in Ayodhya. It was the self-same cult of violence that was witnessed again in the charade of the shiladaan. The message that the threat of violence, including that of self-immolation, will be amply rewarded is writ large over the way the Government handled this law and order problem. An experienced and seasoned politician like Mr. Vajpayee does not have to be told that such encouragement extended in full public glare to forces that openly defy constituted authority, including that of the Supreme Court, is a recipe for national anarchy. It amounts to a gross betrayal of the constitutional obligations under which governments are required to function.

The latest in the Sangh Parivar series of public indulgence in the cult of violence is the attack on the Orissa Assembly. This does not come as a surprise to anyone familiar with the ideological outlook of the Parivar. What surprises objective onlookers is the zealous avoidance of the term terrorism in this and similar contexts. The attack on the Jammu and Kashmir Assembly amounted to terrorism. It was terrorism, par excellence, when five men managed to infiltrate into the premises of Parliament. But hardly does anyone think of the organised, pre-meditated attack on the Orissa Assembly as an act of terrorism! In an objective assessment, the VHP-Bajrang Dal can only emerge as a terrorist combine, no better than the Students' Islamic Movement of India (SIMI) in terms of explicit words and deeds. To countenance such open advocacy and practice of aggression is to encourage the agents of anarchy.

The flip-side of the culture of violence is what psychologists call the grievance-hunting mentality. In psychology this is recognised as a condition of illness. It betrays a state of mind singularly incapable of normally engaging the opportunities and responsibilities of today and so must flee to the past to discover a haven of grievance for itself. The landscape of the present is littered with responsibilities, which it cannot or does not want to handle. No human being infected with this grievance-hunting mentality can perform normally and creatively, though he can have a great deal of nuisance value. That being the case, nobody should be in any doubt as to what it means for a whole nation to be infected with this sick mentality. The massive ritual of collective grievance-hunting, such as is choreographed by the Sangh Parivar, has already taken its toll on the country as a whole. It has crippled our national energies and diverted the attention of the country from the pressing issues that cry out for attention. It is worse than absurd that the attention of the country is focussed on this to the total exclusion of life-and-death issues affecting a billion people. One wonders if this can happen in any other country.

Yet another ingredient in the recipe for social and collective anarchy is the keenness to erode faith in public institutions, especially the Judiciary and the State. Perhaps there is nothing new in this. But what is absolutely new is the complicity of the State in eroding its own credibility, as in the case of Gujarat. What makes it all the more worrisome is that it did not take long for the Gujarat syndrome to catch up with the Centre. The way the shiladaan melodrama was stage-managed does not leave anyone, not even the so-called coalition partners, in any doubt as to the partisan role played by the Vajpayee Government in this matter. Those who remember Ayodhya 1992 would agree that the communal and partisan role of the State has reached a new peak now. In 1992, it was an ordinary policeman in his secular uniform who was seen kneeling and praying at the site where the mosque was destroyed and a makeshift temple was hastily set up. In 2002 it is a senior bureaucrat from the Prime Minister's Office who is forced to pose before the media and seen accepting the would-be temple shilas: a posture that fouls the secular character of the State. The fact that this has come in the wake of the role that the Attorney General of India played, seen by most people as pleading the VHP cause, leaves the secular part of our democracy in the sewer of a veritable scandal.

The animating force of an anarchic society is the spirit of negativity, which remains powerful precisely because it is not recognised for what it is. It is this spirit of negativity that enhances the popular appeal of divisive and hate-driven ideologies and agendas. The inclination to revel in destruction is bred by this spirit. The sight of a frenzied mob tearing down the Babri Masjid in a matter of hours, ecstatic in this act of negative assertion, speaks for itself. No comparable enthusiasm can be whipped up for building the temple. Whatever drama happened in Ayodhya recently was stage-managed, merely to cover up the fact that the local people are apathetic to themandir movement. If they were not, there would have been no need to import lumpens and quasi-tourists into Ayodhya.

The cost for the nation on account of popularising this spirit of negativity is not limited to the days lost in fire-fighting, as in the recent instance. The larger cost is that the epidemic of negativity infects the mind of India and disables the country from realising its potential. Negativity cannot be selectively invoked or employed. If you are negative to your neighbour because he happens to practise a religion that you dislike, you will be negative to all else who displease you one way or another. This will make life impossible. The foremost casualty to the spirit of negativity is work-culture. Very few people have an instinctive liking for the work they do. It is either the general idea of contributing to nation-building or the hope of being recognised in the context of work that keeps most people positive towards their work. The epidemic of negativity will erode all these, degrading the workplace into a jungle of grievances.

Our foremost need as a nation, faced with unprecedented challenges and pressures in the wake of globalisation, is to enunciate and internalise a shared vision for the country in harmony with the spirit of the Constitution. Given how integral religious plurality and cultural diversity are to the history and ethos of India, a project of religious and cultural homogenisation is sure to turn India into a Sri Lanka, ten times over. Religious minorities, numbering some 200 million, and dalits of an even larger chunk cannot be wished away or browbeaten into submission forever. There is room enough in this country for all; or there will be room for none. That is the truth, unless the logic of history has changed for the sake of some misguided elements who happen to enjoy official patronage today. But the rest of us cannot afford to entertain any illusion on this count: precipitating social anarchy is a singular act of national subversion: it is terrorism from within, which is far more dangerous than cross-border terrorism of the worst kind.

Swami Agnivesh is a noted social activist and national president of the Bonded Labour Liberation Front.