> Hi - if you have a few minutes, could you take a look at Alexander Cockburn's piece on India <http://counterpunch.org/cockburn08062005.html> and let the list know what you think?>>
Most of it pertaining to the contemporary Indian economy is complete garbage. Cockburn seems to be writing like a tourist who spends few days with people who think like him. Indian reality is a vast, complex and contradictory reality and I don't claim to be an India expert. But Cockburn is frequently one-sided and his claims are exaggerations. It is important to note that Sainath is very close to CPM, the Left nationalist party which has changed over the years from a die hard stalinist party to a social democratic party. (If you visit CPM party offices today, you will find portraits of Stalin.) One feature of CPM is its hyper critical attitude to Indian reality, which is combined with endless gloating over achievements (real and imaginary) of China, Cuba etc. That growth of capitalism is impossible in the capitalist Third World is a dogma that must be defended irrespective of facts. One must believe that things are always getting worse, though Indian capitalism has had robus
t growth (5.7% per year) over last 25 years. Compare it with growth rates in US and Europe in last 150 years. I have posted enough material on Indian agriculture on this List. That should be available in the List Archives.
Cockburn tells you that "Kerala is a third Muslim, a third Hindu and a third Christian the latter faith being brought to the Malabar coast in 60 AD by Thomas the Doubting Apostle, no doubt plaguing the navigator with anxious questions." The reality is that 56% of Keralities are Hindus, 25% Muslims and 19% Christians per the latest Census in 2001. That should give you some idea of the level of sloppiness in Cockburn's travelogue.
As for farmers' suicides, I had posted some material on PEN-L some time back. I can try and find that material if anyone is interested. This phenomenon is largely restricted to parts of few states, viz. Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Maharashtra. You could ask people like Sainath if they would care to acknowledge starvation deaths in North Korea, Stalin's massacres or Tianamen Square crackdown.
Ulhas