SACW - 21 May 2014 | Pakistan: Protect media + Play Blasphemy, Blasphemy / Sri Lanka: Accountability and Reconciliation ? / The new face of India; Tribute to Mukul Sinha / Protest Inc. / Debtfare state

Tue May 20 17:05:16 EDT 2014

South Asia Citizens Wire - 21 May 2014 - No. 2823 
[since 1996]
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Contents:
1. Protect media freedom says Human Rights Commission of Pakistan
2. Truth, Accountability and Reconciliation in Post-War Sri Lanka | Rohini Hensman
3. Pakistan: Aao Blasphemy Blasphemy Khelain [Come Let us Play Blasphemy, Blasphemy] | Tazeen Javed
4. India: Sorry, world, we tried | Javed Anand
5. India: The dying light of freedom | Mani Shankar Aiyar
6. Ceras Statement: Narendra Modi – CEO for India, inc.
7. India 2014 elections: Narendra Modi and the BJP bludgeoned their way to election victory | Jayati Ghosh
8. Video recording of Salman Rushdie speaking on India: Religious Freedom and Personal Safety on April 28, 2014
9. War Mongering Towards Pakistan by Top Leader of BJP
10. 2014 Elections and The new face of India | Pankaj Mishra
11. India: The Next Five Years Or More |Mukul Dube
12. India: Should Only Minorities Be Worried Over Narendra Modi? | Sanjay Kumar
13. This spread of 'holy fascism' is a disaster | Patrick Cockburn
14. Outer Space And Inner Agency: Reflections On The Realm Of The Outside In The Labour Movement |Dilip Simeon
15. Pakistan: Peace activists asks government to review decision asking two Indian journalists to leave Pakistan
16. Zoya Hasan: The Media and the 2014 Indian Election
17. India: "My Baba, the revolutionary" Rana Ayyub's Tribute to Mukul Sinha
18. India: Citizen’s Report on Violence in Baksa District, Assam on May 1 and 2, 2014
19. Pakistan:: Obituary: Requiem for a rights activist | I A Rehman
20. India: NAPM supports Struggle of Indian Express Newspapers Workers Union for Implementation of Majithia Wage Board recommendations
21. PIPFPD urges Pakistan government to renew the visa of correspondents of Indian newspapers
22. India: TUCI statement on Dr. Mukul Sinha
23. India: Revisiting Krishna Iyer’s Treatise on Bail In the Context of Tejpal’s Case | Shobha Aggarwal
24. India: Statement on the Demise of Shri Mukul Sinha by Citizens for Justice and Peace
25. India: Delhi University Teachers Union Protests Against Abduction and Arrest of Dr Saibaba
26. Pakistan: Demonstration by Rights activists remember Rashid Rehman and stands up for minority rights
27. Selections from Communalism Watch:
 - India: Prime Minister's Office MODIfied - An Artists View 
 - The Modi Whirlwind | Badri Raina
 - Outlook Magazine Cover story - SuperModi
 - Assam: The Politics Of Electoral Violence | Sanjib Baruah
 - India's Narendra Modi and the threat of Hindu nationalism
 - India : Anger, Aspiration, Apprehension - Modi's massive victory in 2014 Election (editorial, in EPW)
 - India: 56 inches did it for Modi this election. Everything else was a sideshow.
 - India: Hindutva enters Boardroom | Angshukanta Chakraborty
 - BJP to promote movies rich in Indian cultural values
 - India: NaMo Brigade books flight ticket to Pakistan for author Ananthamurthy! 

::Full Text::
28. Teaching Liberation to Pakistan’s Girls | Bina Shah
29. India: A command economy of opinion | Arvind Rajagopal
30. Book Review: Protest Inc.: The Corporatization of Activism edited by Peter Dauvergne and Genevieve LeBaron
31. Susanne Soederberg - "Debtfare-Staaten"/"Debtfare states"

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1. PROTECT MEDIA FREEDOM SAYS HUMAN RIGHTS COMMISSION OF PAKISTAN
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The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) calls upon the government, civil society and media organisations to take all necessary steps to deescalate the situation, and put an end to this malicious campaign and intimidation of journalists so as to protect media freedom from taking any further blows.
http://www.sacw.net/article8734.html

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2. TRUTH, ACCOUNTABILITY AND RECONCILIATION IN POST-WAR SRI LANKA
by Rohini Hensman
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Establishing the whole truth about the finale of the civil war in Sri Lanka requires an inquiry into the entire war and painstaking allocation of responsibility for casualties caused by multiple agents. Accountability for war crimes cannot be ensured unless divides between communities have first been bridged. Neither truth nor accountability is served by uncritical acceptance of accounts of the end of the war propagated by the pro-LTTE Tamil diaspora. The priorities at present must be fighting against postwar violations of human rights and working for reconciliation between communities at a grassroots level.
http://www.sacw.net/article8721.html

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3. PAKISTAN: AAO BLASPHEMY BLASPHEMY KHELAIN [COME LET US PLAY BLASPHEMY, BLASPHEMY] | Tazeen Javed
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Do you know what is the most popular sports in Pakistan these days? If your answer is cricket, you are way off the mark. The most popular sport in Pakistan is called “Aao Blasphemy Blasphemy khelain” and it is more lethal than most blood sports out there. There are no rules to this game. Any random person can get up and blame the other one of blasphemy and before you can ask them to spell blasphemy, the whole country gets involved in it.
http://www.sacw.net/article8702.html

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4. INDIA: SORRY, WORLD, WE TRIED
by Javed Anand
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Majority and morality do not mean the same thing.
http://www.sacw.net/article8701.html

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5. INDIA: THE DYING LIGHT OF FREEDOM | Mani Shankar Aiyar
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Darkness descends. The idea of India gutters. The light that lit our freedom struggle and so defined the nature of our nationhood is going out. We are at a moment of history that can only be compared to Lahore, March 23, 1940, when Jinnah persuaded one section of our society to accept that India was comprised of two nations because nationhood had to be founded in religious identity. Thus was conceived a Muslim Pakistan. But Gandhiji resisted India cloning that example with a Hindu India. For that, he had to pay with his life at the instance of the very forces that are today most avidly celebrating Narendra Modi's victory.
http://www.sacw.net/article8700.html

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6. CERAS STATEMENT: NARENDRA MODI – CEO FOR INDIA, INC.
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Secular, pluralist and democratic Indians in the country and abroad are mourning the victory of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and their ‘star’ candidate, Narendra Modi, the ‘Butcher of Gujarat’, as Prime Minister of India for the next five years.
http://www.sacw.net/article8699.html

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7. INDIA 2014 ELECTIONS: NARENDRA MODI AND THE BJP BLUDGEONED THEIR WAY TO ELECTION VICTORY | Jayati Ghosh
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The sheer aggression of the BJP campaign, the threats to the Election Commission – Modi made sure India felt his presence. ’Voters got used to the idea [of Narendra Modi as leader] through repetition of images and slogans.’ ’Voters simply got used to the idea through sheer repetition of the images and slogans.’
This general election in India was almost a test case: just as advertising can make people want a particular brand of soft drink or breakfast cereal, can a massively funded and aggressive media campaign make people choose a particular leader? The answer, sadly, seems to be yes.
http://www.sacw.net/article8697.html

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8. VIDEO RECORDING OF SALMAN RUSHDIE SPEAKING ON INDIA: RELIGIOUS FREEDOM AND PERSONAL SAFETY ON APRIL 28, 2014
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Salman Rushdie speaks passionately about present Indian Elections and how the Indian Government is failing to protect free speech, religious freedom and personal safety in India.
http://www.sacw.net/article8695.html

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9. INDIA: WAR MONGERING TOWARDS PAKISTAN BY TOP LEADER OF BJP
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http://www.sacw.net/article8712.html

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10. 2014 ELECTIONS AND THE NEW FACE OF INDIA | Pankaj Mishra
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With the rise of Hindu nationalist Narendra Modi culminating in this week’s election, Pankaj Mishra asks if the world’s largest democracy is entering its most sinister period since independence
http://www.sacw.net/article8691.html

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11. INDIA: THE NEXT FIVE YEARS OR MORE
by Mukul Dube
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We must look ahead. If we who make up seven tenths of India are to stand up to the Hindu Right in five years' time, we need to find ways to ensure that we do not remain so divided that less than a third of the voters in the country can make us irrelevant. I am aware that five years from now the country itself may have been damaged beyond repair.
http://www.sacw.net/article8730.html

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12. INDIA: SHOULD ONLY MINORITIES BE WORRIED OVER NARENDRA MODI? | Sanjay Kumar
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All successful experiments in Fascism have relied on popular mobilisations behind a charismatic leader. It seems for the first time the Hindutva fascism in our country has found some one with that potential in Modi. The privilegenstia of the country has made up its mind. Modi's political opponents are addressing the remaining Indians, telling them of his role in the 2002 pogrom. It is a sign of weakness of the anti-fascist forces in the country that they have continued to harp on his anti-minority record only, and have failed to develop a generalised critique of the man and his politics. In reality there are enough reasons, even without the 2002 pogrom, for ordinary Indians to be worried over the rise of Modi.
http://www.sacw.net/article8729.html

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13. THIS SPREAD OF 'HOLY FASCISM' IS A DISASTER | Patrick Cockburn
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(via Dilip Simeon's Blog)
A creed such as Wahhabism is useful to many movements because its exclusivity justifies any brutal action against an opponent. In Chechnya, semi-criminalised bands of fighters against the Russians, known as Wahhabis, used their fundamentalist religious beliefs to excuse banditry and kidnapping. The ever-increasing impact of Wahhabism over Sunni Islam is a disaster, the effects of which are felt from the villages of northern Nigeria to the courts of Khartoum and the Sultanate of Brunei. It has everywhere produced persecution of minorities, subjugation of women and the crushing of dissent. In a prophetic description of this trend, an Afghan editor denounced jihadi leaders in Kabulin 2003 as "holy fascists", misusing Islam as "an instrument to take over power".
http://www.sacw.net/article8717.html

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14. OUTER SPACE AND INNER AGENCY: REFLECTIONS ON THE REALM OF THE OUTSIDE IN THE LABOUR MOVEMENT
by Dilip Simeon
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This essay is a speculative exercise undertaken with the purpose of debating afresh one of the most hoary themes in the history of the working class - the question of intervention and agency. The subject is vast, and I will not pretend to have arrived at any definitive conclusion. The observations set out here are not based on an all-encompassing survey of labour history, but may be substantiated in a reading of some of my earlier research to which references will be provided. The exercise will begin with a consideration of certain well-worn positions, but will then attempt to analyse the functional notions of space and boundary inherent in the repeated use of the term `outside', `outsider', "from without", etc in the language of managements and unionists of different hues. I will suggest that the question of the Outside is not merely one of the origins of consciousness (to which suffixes such as `adequate', `socialist', `historical', etc may be attached as per ideological preference), but also, and perhaps primarily, one of class domination and class power. Hence I will suggest an expansion of the historiographical use of the term. It is also about the types of plebeian agency and initiative, which the hegemons of labour found acceptable, versus those, which endangered their position and required to be thwarted in the immediate sense and disregarded historically.
http://www.sacw.net/article8705.html

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15. PAKISTAN: PEACE ACTIVISTS ASKS GOVERNMENT TO REVIEW DECISION ASKING TWO INDIAN JOURNALISTS TO LEAVE PAKISTAN
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KARACHI, May 15, 2014: Founding members of Pakistan-India People’s Forum for Peace and Democracy (PIPFPD) Karamat Ali and B. M. Kutty on Thursday called upon the Pakistan government to reconsider the decision to two Indian journalists to leave Pakistan and withdraw the decision, as it is only going to help undermine its own publicly announced policy of turning a new leaf in Pakistan-India relations.
http://www.sacw.net/article8688.html

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16. ZOYA HASAN: THE MEDIA AND THE 2014 INDIAN ELECTION
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The increasing corporatisation of the media—with business houses, politicians, political parties and individuals with political affiliations owning and controlling increasing sections of the press—has resulted in a situation where the media discourse is heavily loaded with political bias. This is apparent in the media analysis around the general election, says noted political scientist Zoya Hasan.
http://www.sacw.net/article8681.html

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17. INDIA: MY BABA, THE REVOLUTIONARY - MUKUL SINHA
A Tribute by Rana Ayyub
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You did not have to be baba’s favourite to like him. I have never seen a man so deeply revered by the masses. On one occasion, my taxi driver having noticed, that I was visiting ‘Mukul Sinha’ requested if he could meet him. Baba promptly stepped out on hearing the request, my driver took his hands and kissed them. He had tears in his eyes, “Saheb, this state needs more messiahs like you” he spoke in Gujarati. The IIT graduate who hailed from Bilaspur left his home state decades ago and had touched a chord with the common Gujarati.
http://www.sacw.net/article8679.html

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18. INDIA: CITIZEN’S REPORT ON VIOLENCE IN BAKSA DISTRICT, ASSAM ON MAY 1 AND 2, 2014
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A fact-finding team organized by the Centre for Policy Analysis, Delhi visited the affected villages and the main camp in Baska where the people directly affected by the violence reside, on 10 and 11 May 2014. The members of the team included Seema Mustafa, Anand Sahay and Satish Jacob, all senior journalists, Anuradha Chenoy, senior academic and political activist, and Harsh Mander, social worker and writer.
http://www.sacw.net/article8677.html

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19. PAKISTAN:: OBITUARY: REQUIEM FOR A RIGHTS ACTIVIST
by I A Rehman
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There is much to celebrate in the life of Rashid Rehman Khan and thus much reason to mourn his passing. But there is an even greater reason to feel sorry for the millions of the Pakistani people who consider themselves alive.
http://www.sacw.net/article8673.html

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20. INDIA: NAPM SUPPORTS STRUGGLE OF INDIAN EXPRESS NEWSPAPERS WORKERS UNION FOR IMPLEMENTATION OF MAJITHIA WAGE BOARD RECOMMENDATIONS
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Indian Express Newspapers Workers Union has been sitting on an indefinite hunger strike from May 12, in front of the IE Building demanding implementation of the recommendations of the Majithia Wage Board.
http://www.sacw.net/article8672.html

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21. PIPFPD URGES PAKISTAN GOVERNMENT TO RENEW THE VISA OF CORRESPONDENTS OF INDIAN NEWSPAPERS
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India chapter of Pakistan-India Peoples Forum for Peace & Democracy (PIPFPD) urges Pakistan government to renew the visa of two Indian journalists Meena Menon of The Hindu and Snehesh Philip of PTI. They are based in Islamabad since August last year. They have been asked to leave Pakistan in a week’s time. Their visa expired in March and since then both have been trying hard to get them renewed. There has been no provocation on their part.
http://www.sacw.net/article8662.html

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22. INDIA: TUCI STATEMENT ON DR. MUKUL SINHA
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Com. Mukul Sinha was a collossal figure in the fight against communal fascism in Gujarat. He was a great trade union leader and was a genuine revolutionary. He lived his life according to rational thought bereft of the complexes of religion, caste, etc. Upto the very end, even his body was not cremated or buried but donated to the hospital. His great quality was not only that he was revolutionary to the end but that he was able to open the workers minds in a way that helped them to grasp this revolutionary thought.
http://www.sacw.net/article8658.html

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23. INDIA: REVISITING KRISHNA IYER’S TREATISE ON BAIL IN THE CONTEXT OF TEJPAL’S CASE
by Shobha Aggarwal
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Why should Tejpal and those similarly placed be denied bail when the trial is not complete within the stipulated period? If the legal system cannot assure that the time period would be adhered to why deny bail and liberty to the accused. Tejpal’s trial has not yet started and he has been incarcerated for about five months.
http://www.sacw.net/article8657.html

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24. INDIA: STATEMENT ON THE DEMISE OF SHRI MUKUL SINHA BY CITIZENS FOR JUSTICE AND PEACE
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The Citizens for Justice and Peace (CJP) expresses its deep sense of loss at the demise of advocate Mukul Sinha of the Jansangharsh Manch (JSM), an indefatigable champion of the voice of the dispossessed, especially those who became victims of the state’s extrajudicial killings in Gujarat post September 2002. In this moment of loss, the CJP extends the deepest of condolences to surviving members of his family, Nirjhari and Prateek Sinha.
http://www.sacw.net/article8652.html

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25. INDIA: DELHI UNIVERSITY TEACHERS UNION PROTESTS AGAINST ABDUCTION AND ARREST OF DR SAIBABA
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The Delhi University Teachers’ Association (DUTA) expresses shock and anguish at the manner in which the Maharashtra Police has arrested and detained Dr. G. N. Saibaba (Asst. Professor, English at RLA College) under the UAPA. The DUTA is categorical in its understanding that the circumstances of Dr. Saibaba’s arrest and detention amount to a grievous violation of human rights by the Government. The DUTA also appeals to the College and University authorities to intervene on behalf of Dr. Saibaba and ensure that his rights are safeguarded. Failure to do so will send a wrong signal to the teaching community which is expected to discharge its duty in expressing free and fair opinion in support of democracy and intellectual freedom.
http://www.sacw.net/article8642.html

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26. PAKISTAN: DEMONSTRATION BY RIGHTS ACTIVISTS REMEMBER RASHID REHMAN AND STANDS UP FOR MINORITY RIGHTS
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A collection of press clippings from Pakistani newspapers in Urdu and English with reports on 12 May 2014 mobilsation of rights activists seeking protection for minority rights
http://www.sacw.net/article8640.html

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27. SELECTIONS FROM COMMUNALISM WATCH
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India: Prime Minister's Office MODIfied - An Artists View 
http://communalism.blogspot.in/2014/05/india-prime-ministers-office-modified.html

The Modi Whirlwind | Badri Raina
http://communalism.blogspot.com/2014/05/the-modi-whirlwind-badri-raina.html

Outlook Magazine Cover story - SuperModi
http://communalism.blogspot.com/2014/05/outlook-magazine-cover-story-supermodi.html

Assam: The Politics Of Electoral Violence | Sanjib Baruah
http://communalism.blogspot.com/2014/05/assam-politics-of-electoral-violence.html

India's Narendra Modi and the threat of Hindu nationalism
http://communalism.blogspot.com/2014/05/indias-narendra-modi-and-threat-of.html

India : Anger, Aspiration, Apprehension - Modi's massive victory in 2014 Election (editorial, in EPW)
http://communalism.blogspot.com/2014/05/india-anger-aspiration-apprehension.html

India: We Have To Expect The Worst | Toorjo Ghose
http://communalism.blogspot.com/2014/05/india-we-have-to-expect-worst-toorjo.html

India: 56 inches did it for Modi this election. Everything else was a sideshow.
http://communalism.blogspot.in/2014/05/india-56-inches-did-it-for-modi-this.html

Modi’s BJP in massive election win – and that threatens to be a disaster for India
http://communalism.blogspot.com/2014/05/modis-bjp-in-massive-election-win-and.html

Indian Americans pledge to continue the struggle for justice despite Modi victory
http://communalism.blogspot.in/2014/05/indian-americans-pledge-to-continue.html

India: Hindutva enters Boardroom | Angshukanta Chakraborty
http://communalism.blogspot.com/2014/05/india-hindutva-enters-boardroom.html

BJP to promote movies rich in Indian cultural values
http://communalism.blogspot.com/2014/05/bjp-to-promote-movies-rich-in-indian.html

India: NaMo Brigade books flight ticket to Pakistan for author Ananthamurthy! 
http://communalism.blogspot.com/2014/05/india-namo-brigade-books-flight-ticket.html

::: FULL TEXT :::
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28. TEACHING LIBERATION TO PAKISTAN’S GIRLS
by Bina Shah
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(The New York Times- May 13, 2014)
KARACHI, Pakistan — You can’t go a day on the streets of Pakistan without hearing some spectacularly rude words and colorful insults taken in stride, whether thrown in anger at an errant motorist or in banter among friends at a tea shop. But the words “sex education” are different; they release a tirade of moral righteousness from many Pakistanis, who find this the dirtiest phrase of all. These people fear that it means “teaching children how to have sex,” rather than educating them about their health and reproductive rights.

At least in some parts of Pakistan, though, that is beginning to change.

Most Pakistanis still profess conservatism and modesty about sexual relations and matters of the body. But Dr. Nafis Sadik, a United Nations population expert who led Pakistan’s successful Family Planning Program in the 1960s, describes a deeper feeling of fear: that if girls are given access to information about sexual health and reproduction, they will become promiscuous. “Boys’ and men’s sexual behavior is condoned and appreciated,” she has said, “but girls’ and women’s sexual behavior is seen as something that needs to be controlled.”

Nevertheless, attitudes are evolving — not least because this prudishness has proved dangerous for the nation.

Today, Pakistanis face a major health care crisis of deadly communicable diseases like hepatitis C, which is rampant in rural areas, as well as a flood of health problems that women and girls experience because Pakistan has also retained the practice of early marriage. Many girls are married off by their families as soon as — or even shortly before — they have reached puberty in their early teens. A result: Pakistan ranks near the bottom among countries in maternal and child health care.

One anecdote captures the absurdity of the problem. Early this year, a village in rural Sindh summoned the boldness to instruct 700 girls from eight local schools on topics like menstruation, how to protect themselves from sexual assault, and even marital rape. The villagers had demanded the classes, and the students reacted enthusiastically to the revolutionary idea that they had the right to control their own bodies. But Mirza Kashif Ali, president of the All Pakistan Private Schools Federation, reacted angrily, reportedly saying: “What’s the point of knowing about a thing you’re not supposed to do? It should not be allowed at school level.”

That “thing you’re not supposed to do” is actually being done to young women and girls in child marriages all across Pakistan. Of Pakistan’s 90 million women, 37 percent have married before the age of 18. And one of every 70 dies each year because of early pregnancy, not enough time between pregnancies, and other risks of teenage pregnancy. In 2002, a year assumed to be typical, some 900,000 abortions were performed, the great majority of them unsafe. Abortion is illegal, although rarely if ever prosecuted, and most women who need one must go to an underground doctor or, worse, untrained abortion providers.

Recognizing those facts, a groundbreaking “Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights” education program (the euphemism and its abbreviation — S.R.H.R. — were deemed necessary to avoid the label “sex education”) was conducted in rural parts of two Pakistani provinces from 2010 to 2012.

The program was run by Rutgers WPF, a Netherlands-based organization, with two Pakistani partners, Bargad and Saifco; they went into 21 schools in the Sanghar district of Sindh and the Gujranwala district of Punjab to teach 220 female teachers how to speak to their female students about S.R.H.R. The sensitivities that had to be navigated were obvious: The curriculum guide’s title was changed — from Comprehensive Sexuality Education to Life Skills Based Education — and the program avoided discussing contraception and sexual activity in the same context. It also included references to sexual and reproductive health and rights in the context of Islam.

The program reached 19,000 girls directly (and through them, an estimated 150,000 more), allowing them for the first time to talk openly to teachers about their health issues. The teachers also made connections with tens of thousands of parents, particularly mothers who had never spoken to their daughters about sexuality or what was expected of them in the marital relationship.

Child marriages are another question. Among Pakistan’s rural poor, when girls are married off before full adulthood, the reasoning is usually about economics rather than sexual morality. Many families think they cannot afford to keep their daughters in school; by tradition, the precious little money they have is spent on educating boys. And when parents take a daughter out of school, the next logical step is to get her married.

One theory among reformers is that giving girls the ability to make decisions about their sexual health and reproductive rights can teach them how to say no to child marriage, and no to unwanted pregnancies. But Dr. Sadik says parents have more power to make any education program a success: They are the ones with — or without — the economic wherewithal that determines whether their daughters will begin marriage and childbearing in their early teens.

To address this, girls in the Sanghar and Gujranwala program were taught negotiating skills to influence family financial decisions, like budgeting. According to the sponsoring organization, the girls were urged to prove themselves valuable contributors to the household’s economic health, so that parents would not consider them a burden, and in the end, most of the parents appeared to have left their daughters in school rather than force them into child marriages.

Innovative programs like these need to be accompanied by stricter laws against child marriage, like the recently enacted Sindh Child Marriage Restraint Act of 2013, which makes marriage under the age of 18 illegal, and punishable with jail or fines for bride, groom or parents. Such measures can help transform the idea of “sex education” from something dirty into a vital tool of economic empowerment and progress.

We need to show our people that a young girl’s body broken by pregnancy after pregnancy is the real obscenity — and that a few more precious years of freedom can make the difference between health and illness or death for Pakistan’s girls. If we can do that, we’ll have achieved a real revolution.

Bina Shah is the author of several novels, including “Slum Child,” and short-story collections.

A version of this op-ed appears in print on May 14, 2014, in The International New York Times. 

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29. INDIA: A COMMAND ECONOMY OF OPINION
by Arvind Rajagopal
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(Indian Express, May 15, 2014)
The media industry worries little about the Indian government now. Its concern is rather about revenues, which are still tiny in relation to the size of its audience. 

The major private media outlets are owned by large business houses that can navigate any set of rules with their ability to buy talent, technology and political favours. ( Source: Reuters) The major private media outlets are owned by large business houses that can navigate any set of rules with their ability to buy talent, technology and political favours. ( Source: Reuters)

The demand for an independent media in India was initially seen as a way to curtail state control over the airwaves: since state control was taken as fait accompli, the demand for autonomy was a way to limit the impact of the ruling party’s grip over broadcast media.

After 1995, when a Supreme Court ruling deprived Prasar Bharati of its monopoly, which satellite channels had already begun to undermine, the government suddenly became one player among many. From declaring the media was irrelevant, irresponsible, or both, as Indira Gandhi used to do, political leaders became vulnerable to negative media coverage.

Today, more than government media, it is the “autonomous” or commercial media that presents a threat to public interest. The commercial media exerts de facto monopoly over the airwaves, while Prasar Bharati is almost a voice in the wilderness  —  except, ironically, when it interviews Narendra Modi.

Indeed, Prasar Bharati is considered so unimportant that the television ratings agency, TAM, has ignored it, until forced by a recent court order to include it. The election media coverage study released recently by CMS Media Lab does not even mention Prasar Bharati in its study, and few seem to have noticed Prasar Bharati’s viewership is nowhere near its pre-1995 levels. Meanwhile, advertisers have focused on the more affluent urban audiences who watch cable and satellite, not the free-to-air government channels, which are watched mainly by those who cannot afford private channels.

Given that they inform, and even embody, the public interest, all media houses and sectors should be held to the same, high standards of accountability. The very criteria used to evaluate Prasar Bharti’s professional autonomy should therefore apply to privately owned media.

In fact, since 1995, debates about the Indian media have been about the growing power of private media, and the government-business nexus central to it. The “paid news” phenomenon has taken media manipulation to extraordinary levels, since viewers today have no way of knowing which news stories are genuine, and which ones are disguised advertisements. Political parties spend huge amounts on their election campaigns, their money is from sources they refuse to declare, and the media is the biggest beneficiary.

The expansion of the economy has thus completely changed the question of media regulation. Previously, businesses had to fear the government, and media regulation served mainly to protect government power. Today, the balance has shifted.

The major private media outlets are owned by large business houses that can navigate any set of rules with their ability to buy talent, technology and political favours. Large volumes of persuasive media coverage can be generated to convey the impression of public support for any suitable programme chosen for promotion. Questions of fairness or unfairness of media treatment are outweighed by the volume of coverage, audience size, and revenue earned.

The media industry worries little about the Indian government now. Its concern is rather about revenues, which are still tiny in relation to the size of their audience, and finding creative ways to bring in less affluent audiences into a market that has historically been heavily tilted towards its premium segment.

One way it has done so, whether by accident or by design, is through the encouragement of civil disobedience and popular protest focused on select social issues. Historically, major media houses have dismissed or trivialised protest, and tacitly endorsed the status quo, but there has been a 180 degree switch lately. Both the news and the entertainment media have embraced popular dissent, diffusely defined and safely practised. From the anti-corruption campaign led by Anna Hazare, to the mass outrage against the December 2012 gang rape of “Nirbhaya”, enthusiastic media industry support has been critical to the sense that Indian democracy is alive and well.

The sympathy for popular protest is a legacy of nationalist politics, and India has a history of insurgent movements. But for the news and entertainment industry, social issues provide an avenue for growing audiences, and bringing them into intimate relationships with the media. Media industry reports list the Anna Hazare campaign and the protest against the December 16 gangrape as their achievements, and as signs of the increasing reach and influence of the media.

In this conception, today’s protestor is tomorrow’s consumer, while media self-regulation is a triumph of Indian democracy. Only government is the problem, and needs to be rectified. Indeed, it needs to be regulated, and business can offer suggestions as to how.

The command economy of the licence-permit raj is no more, but corporations seek a command economy of opinion in its place. Before we embark on a discussion of how genuine autonomy can be achieved for Prasar Bharati, we should notice the new alignment between government and business that has taken place, and demand a genuinely public media that is autonomous with respect to both these entities.

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30. BOOK REVIEW: PROTEST INC.: THE CORPORATIZATION OF ACTIVISM EDITED BY PETER DAUVERGNE AND GENEVIEVE LEBARON
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(LSE REview of Books)

How can political activism make more of an impact? In Protest Inc., Peter Dauvergne and Genevieve LeBaron argue that the corporatization of protest has left us today with little more than an illusion of activism; one that serves citizens’ restless desire to do something (albeit on their own terms), but one that ultimately fails to get to the root cause of most global problems. This is an angry, frustrated and pessimistic attack on the current state of protest and activism, writes Alex Hensby, but what we are to do about it, nobody seems to know. Provocative reading for readers interested in protest politics and the future of NGOs and social movements.

Protest Inc.: The Corporatization of Activism. Peter Dauvergne and Genevieve LeBaron (eds.). Polity Press. February 2014.

The past few years have been an interesting time to be studying social movements. Between 2010 and 2012 we saw the Arab Spring, anti-austerity protests in Greece and Spain, student protests in Chile, Canada and the UK, and the rise (and fall) of Wikileaks, not to mention the global Occupy Movement. This upsurge has inspired many scholars to study the new tools of dissent at activists’ disposal. Recent publications by Manuel Castells and Paul Mason, among others, have emphasised the power of fast and fluid organizational and communication networks aided by open source communications technologies. Although these authors are usually reluctant to try and write the recipes for the kitchens of the future, they at least find cause for optimism in activists’ ongoing struggles against state repression, and the neoliberal mantra of ‘there is no alternative’.

Given this context, it might seem a surprise that in their assessment of the contemporary health of global social movements, Peter Dauvergne and Genevieve LeBaron should produce such a relentlessly gloomy and pessimistic book. In Protest Inc.: The Corporatization of Activism, the authors posit that that we are seeing not only a trend towards the corporatization of state politics, but also the corporatization of protest. This can be most clearly seen in the way advocacy groups, NGOs, and social movement organizations (SMOs) increasingly pursue partnerships with the very corporations they are supposed to be opposing. At the same time, grassroots movements have come under renewed pressure from what the authors call the ‘securitization of dissent’, with states authorising militarized police tactics against protesters. In this sense, Protest Inc. reflects global capitalism at its most pernicious – pressurising activists to fall within its slipstream by providing benign remedies to the world’s problems. Of course, the authors argue that such remedies do not challenge what has become a crucial blind-spot in the corporatized activist purview, namely global capitalism itself.

The book draws on a mixture of old and new themes. For many political scientists, discussions of individualization and declining social capital (chapter 4), and the institutionalization of activism organizations (chapter 5) will already be familiar, even if certain key studies – most notably Jordan and Maloney’s similarly-titled The Protest Business? – are oddly absent. Certainly, the book brings these discussions up to date: whilst NGOs and SMOs are traditionally mindful of accepting direct funding from corporations, the authors show how intermediary initiatives and foundations (such as the Global Fund to Fight AIDS) allow funds to be transferred more covertly. Much is also made of the increasing number of corporate executives on NGO boards. Perhaps most controversially, Fair Trade logos have started to appear on a range of unlikely brands such as Nestlé and Starbucks. Whilst some might see this as reflecting a shift in corporate practices towards ethical trade and sustainability, the authors contend that in awarding these moral kite-marks Fair Trade’s capacity to publicly criticise these corporations’ more nefarious practices has been fatally compromised.

Anti Nestle Graffiti

Although the authors’ critique of NGOs and SMOs is generally convincing, its framing can sometimes be problematic. It is implied throughout the book that the deepening relationship between corporations and global civil society effectively represents the co-optation of the latter by the former. Although many activists feel queasy about the way certain corporations express their ethical credentials (such as the vomitous claim by one that investing in the poor ‘isn’t a social issue; it’s smart economics’), I would dispute the implication that all NGOs or SMOs are guiltily compromising their ideals by linking up with corporations. In fact, many have always seen capitalism as part of the solution rather than the problem, and would see no cognitive dissonance in, say, KFC supporting awareness campaigns to fight breast cancer (p.45). Many would also defend the real, tangible gains made through fair trade and eco-labelling policies. So rather than being simply a question of co-optation, I would argue that this instead reflects longstanding differences between liberal and leftist voices within global civil society about what this sphere is and should be.

Consequently, this book poses a serious question to the reader: do we want NGOs and SMOs working with corporations to pressurise them into changing their values and practices, or should these groups retain a critical independence? The authors argue in favour of the latter, reflecting this book’s quietly radical politics. Of course, the authors might argue that claiming a critique of global capitalism as ‘radical’ is symptomatic of the very problem we presently face. Such a critique was at the core of the global Occupy Movement, but Dauvergne and LeBaron do not share the optimism of many authors on this subject. As they argue in chapter 3, grassroots movements have been increasingly trampled into the dirt by securitized policing policies. The authors trace the securitization of dissent back to 2001, finding that states have made use of anti-terrorist legislation to crack down on protest through ‘command and control’ policing. This has led us to a deeply alarming present situation where the head of Russia’s presidential administration can cite European and North American governments’ use of water cannons, crowd kettling, group surveillance, and pre-emptive arrests as examples of ‘best world practices’ for policing protest today (p.69). Depressing though it is to read, this topic perhaps represents the book’s strongest contribution.

Aside from its subjugation at the hands of securitized policing, the Occupy Movement is afforded relatively little detailed analysis in this book. This is surprising given that for many activists Occupy represented a real organisational alternative to the corporatization of NGOs and SMOs. Admittedly, references are made to the movement’s ‘drifting priorities’ since 2012, with its constantly-evolving network structure considered too fragmentary to sustain any real influence. This raises the question of whether the authors believe that some level of institutionalization can be a good thing, not least because they argue that corporatized NGOs and SMOs are otherwise left largely unopposed in claiming to speak on behalf of global civil society as a whole.

Although Dauvergne and LeBaron are keen not to dismiss the piecemeal gains of NGO and SMO campaigns, they conclude this book by arguing that we are left today with little more than an illusion of activism, one that serves citizens’ restless desire to do something (albeit on their own terms), but one that ultimately fails to get to the root cause of most global problems. For this reason, this book should perhaps be read as a polemic – an angry, frustrated and pessimistic attack on the current state of protest and activism, especially the corporatized institutions of global civil society. One suspects the authors would like their anger to inspire greater critical reasoning, research, and protest action from its readers. This is no ignoble aim, though having read this book I am left wondering where on earth this should take us.

Alex Hensby is a final-year PhD researcher at the University of Edinburgh. His thesis focuses on participation and non-participation in the 2010/11 UK student protests against fees and cuts. He previously taught sociology at Roehampton and Cambridge universities, and is the co-author of Theorizing Global Studies (Palgrave, 2011). He occasionally tweets at @alexhensby. Read more reviews by Alex.

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31. SUSANNE SOEDERBERG - "DEBTFARE-STAATEN"/"DEBTFARE STATES"
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Susanne Soederberg - Alternative Solutions to the Debt Crisis
http://youtu.be/9j-dURl7mKw

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South Asia Citizens Wire
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