>first we create a caricature out of shiva.
Hardly necessary; she does a fine job by herself:
<http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/static/events/reith_2000/text5.stm>
Prof. Vinod Chowdhury, reader in economics at St. Stephen's College: It strikes me as very extraordinary that Vandanaji should have such a one sided approach. And I'm saying that with due respect to the sheer vivacity of her presentation. Vandanaji seems to believe that there are two clearly antithetical paradigms. One is a paradigm that essentially is based on decentralisation, democratisation - all the good things in life - - women are cared for, poor people are cared for - this, that and the other. And other is terribly evil. Everything's wrong with it. Now surely life cannot be like that Vandanaji may I plead with you to please consider third paradigm, where we take bits and pieces from here and there and get an eclectic, practical approach, and I support Boopinder Singh Hooda - the President of the Haryama Congress who asked you - and you didn't answer that - what is the alternative at a time when no country can opt out of the WTO - it's not a piece of paper madam - it is a commitment that countries have to make or they will be paraiah countries and we cannot afford to be a paraiah country - please react?
Vandana Shiva: I did react to him. And I said rewriting those rules - rewriting those rules that are one sided. In fact it's the WTO rules that are totally one sided because they really only protect the interest of one sector of the global community which is the global corporations, not in the local industry, not even local retail business, not small farmers anywhere, not in the north and not in the south. And those rules can be rewritten. That is the point I'm trying to make. Do not treat WTO rules in the Uruguay Round Treaty as the final word on how trade should be carried out. Those rules are being reviewed. What we have called for in Seattle is a more democratic input in what sustainable and just rules would look like for agriculture on intellectual property rights, in the area of services, in the area of investments, the four new areas which were brought in. Before that - no-one had problems with the GATT. The old GATT was about real trade in real products beyond national boundaries. The new GATT with the Uruguay round - is about invading in every space of our everyday lives ... and if you are a woman you do have a somewhat different point of view. That's why we talk of gender. If you are poor, you will have a different point of view from the rich. To have different points of view because of differences in location in society is not a problem. It is opportunistic though to take a little element of the perspective of the rich , a little element of the perspective of the poor and put it into a little jigsaw of opportunistic statements. Societies live by coherent principles, organisational systems, values and world views. And what we are calling for is to balance out that one sided idea that we live by commerce alone.
Rovinder Raki, student: You seem to eulogise the fairness and efficiency of traditional agricultures, societies and production patterns. But the reality is that the farmers were exploited in these societies by moneylenders and feudal lords. With the market reaching these societies that exploitative social system certainly declines. Now what I have to ask you is what restrains you from appreciating this sanitising effect of the market?
Vandana Shiva: Well the sanitising affect of the market does end up treating people like germs. Wipe them out. And it is that view of dispensability, the disappearances of the small that I was trying to draw attention to in my lecture. There has always been exploitation, and I agree with Mr Hooda, but no exploitation before this period of current, economic globalisation, ever organised itself in ways that it could totally dispense with the exploited. Even the slave system needed the slave. Even the worst of British rule which created the Bengal famine, and led to the "Faybehaga" movement to rise against the exploitation, it needed to keep the peasants alive. For the first time we have a system where no-one needs the peasants, unless we realise as societies we need them, that we've reached a period where people are actually talking in India, in other countries that you can get rid of small producers. It's assumed that everything, real growth, real prosperity is going to come out of cyber space, but as you can see, you can have the best of IT technologies floating above the carcasses of people dying in Rajisthan and Gujerat right now -- and it will not help them out. We have to pay attention to the ecological base of our survival and the needs of all. I personally am committed to feeling and believing that the smallest of species and the smallest of people have as much a right to live on this planet with dignity as the most powerful corporation and the most powerful individual.