Kappen Memorial Lecture 2003
When I first received the invitation and I started to read some of the materials that had been sent I had so much adimiration, you know, we have been forced to think about the situation that stare us in place. We had to use our minds because of the crisis we are in. But here was a person who was offering alternatives long before the crisis had literally reached life and death proportions and with such depth and coherence and integrity.  I have been liking to get one copy, but I was told that all publications are out of print all the time and I plead with Visthar to print fast and in large quantities so that the many more people can have access to his writings.  I also want to thank Visthar for the wonderful lamp with rice. You know a year ago the time for talking building a post globalisation  world and I have been building a globalisation world since globalisation what turned into an international law with the world trade organisation.

People really think you to be a dreamer there is nothing wrong to be a dreamer but they would also be you are joking and but how to get there, but I have to just say we have no need get there, globalisation will get us there which is brankrupting itself, it is  literally in every sector building roots by tearing our foundations. You know it increases exports by destroying local food security, it increases enoroms profits by dismantling state electricity boards. It is never really generating  genuine hope over and above what we had in terms of what the the earth get back or what people get back.  So it is a wonderful massive transfer of resources and wealth.  Each of that  transfer is being counted as growth and the less that is left with the deeper ecological crisis, the deeper economic crisis, and I believe intimately led to the deeper cultural crisis the fundamentalism and communalism crisis in which we are emerged right now as to the crisis. We experienced in the last year globalisation started to achieve the results that we could see. Enron was to use open up Indian economy. As you remember James Commerce secretary of US he flew in a  airforce Jet and said that enron was a flag ship project. Maharashtra assembly debated the Ministry of environment refused to clear the project on EPL rules were all put aside  when the enron collapsed down.

Rebecca Mark, who was at that time the CEO actually said to remember not only they went beyond to get all the power of the world and they even going to get every bit of water of the world and Rebecca mark said I will not rest till I own the last drop of water on this planet.

There was another brilliant company which started the entire dispute in  WTO on banana. No body wants to think the two countries have given the wonderful theory of competition  and level based and  WTO is the place where the people get justice and here was a country that doesn’t  grow banana filing a case at WTO  against countries that do. On the request of a company called chikita which like enron finances 5,000 it made huge profits like 50-70,000 million for the  other and they talk about corruption in India. But Chikita went bankcrupted the same time when Enron bankrupted. But nobody notices that the company  that treated descent fair and just export and import and  trading between coutnries as illegal and used entire machinery of the trade systems to suit you. All the banana import from the country used to have a procude market in Europe. As the result there was trade sanctions, as a result of which  my friend Jose Bove slow down of Mc. Donald because fallen a part of  that was for  the import into the US  to make cheese and the story goes on.

But the company that started went bankrupt. But as an idea I think globalisation was always bankrupt because it lift of an image of people interacting, people becoming one global village but what is achieved in reality was only one kind of globalisation, it was economic globalisation, you call corporate gloablisation, increasing markitects, access to coporation. Largely by destroying opportunities and auctions for local communities and national commerce. It just functioned in the decade, the past decade really has been a decade of economical pitch and that dictatorship is reflected both in the product as well as the process of internal trade treaties in the intenraitonal which are subjecting to our national constitution the subversion.But also other are treating other international agreement and I am looking into the agreements by the convention of the of biological diversity which I have been very intimate part. Every element which is been subvergent the conversion of biological days respect and protecting indiginous knowledge but the treaty says international proerty government now moving turning respect to indigenous knowledge they are moving very fast to try and implement exclusive rights. The gifts has Kappen talked about the gift of bio diversity is the  seeds we grow used our plants, the medicinal plants that 70% India still heal itself in each of that each seed with medicinal plants.  Centuries of embodiment or what I have called our grandmonthers university and not only they want to dismantle our grandmother university but also they want to dismantle our public university by privatisation. Privatize education, privatise water, privatise life itself.

In this decade the thinking has moved from the idea of the conomic inequalitiety limiting itself to haves and have nots some people are fine with room bunglows and some in one room slum thatched some people with taps inevery  bathroom and a person going to a community tap,but atleast the person in the slum had a community tap, atleast the person in the slum had a roof above their head at least that a tiny peasant had a piece of land and a guarnatee of a future. What economic globalisation and its bankruptcy has done is lead individuals bankrupt in the very processes and resources that allowed  it has mutated the have and have not’s.             polarisation into the live and live not. In polarization some will be allowed to live most not and the prio    is to unite this             is the way to unite this invisible law that you don’t have right to it look at the decade thatwe have gone through in terms of with what grashness slum removal and uprooting has happened. Just look at the numbers of our society  in our country. Something our organisation has monitored extremely closely and even though every time yet another 1000 figure is added to the 1000s already dead the govts., the two places that we look at closely are  Punjab and Andhra Pradesh specially Warangal and the Chief Ministers  of both states have always find a wonderful explanationfor every suicide every farmer committing suicide was engaging either in adultaryor was alcholic or both,suddenly all farmers are alchoholics and every rural peasants is egaging in  interface relationship that are breaking up families and therefore forcing them to consume pesticides.

But the  figures tell us a different story.6000% has increased in pesticide use infintity increase cost 0% input cost. Now you cannot buy any seed that is less than Rs. 1000, 2000 or 3000 per kilo gram and no matter goes up to 50,000 so you input shot 1000 %of 1000%  for farmer who have no capital and therefore they are doing on all borrowed money  and then u get on the other side because of the same globalisation a collapse in the market prices you get coconut in Kerala for Rs. 2/-  of Rs. 10/-, the mustards have gonedown1/3 of the price, the sesame, the soybeans is also the same case. The sowabeans oil that is been imported. People often don’t remember that the import were allowed during a period when our country was going through an emergency of the Hijack Indian Airlines plain at Katmadu. I must read Umar Sheik’s name he was released during that operation. But what was interesing is here was country who was suppose get the people released from hijack plain and beind the back of the  country parliament is signing an agreement with the United States for removing the quantitative restrictions by April of last year. You have a very good reason to say sorry we cannot sign, we are in national emergency and we need to respond to national emergency in any case the ruling WTO, which in itself is to not necessary 2003 preponed to 2001 every time there is an economic issue to be debated, to be discussed to be brought to parliament our entire national energy gets focused on communal violence, riots and an hijack  or a bomb explosion.

But to me it was a double because I had all the news paper clippings because at that time I was invovled in US university programme on conlfict resources, and during that period we built the different andolans the     narmbada bachao andoloa, apico      in the western ghat it was a part of participation research and on river issue cost of produciton issues and suddenty in june 84 rivers, development debates crisis disappeared on Punjab. it  is too sudden,it is too artificial and that is why told u look something is gone wrong write the book on vioelnce of the green revolution. I need to take side somewhere the issue gets still decided while doing that reseach started getting sense terrorism, extremism, fundametnalism is intimately connected to the way we run our economy whether it is development models or globalisation. There is a very intimate linkage between eco systems that generate eco insecurity. Both by approperating livelihoods and resources from large numbers but also by leaving a pseudo prosperity in the hands of thoes who benefit. What we do with the wealth of nature and what we dowith ourself and society has to get very intimately connected. In a mxi forest there is no war beteen species. In a natural forest the other species thrue together. A mixed farm each crop has the other you take that amazing richness of diversity and replace it with a monoculture you unlike a war within the system. In North India in the wheatfields you have different kind of greens. Now once you turn to monoculture this very important companion becomes a competitor and that is a very important insight of Kappen in the oppening quotations when you kill the conditions of cooperation which is the diversity then that diversity itself ends up being mutually anhilating competition and a field a farm is a good example of that.

In a mixed field there is pest relator balance. In a monoculture everything is a pest. There are no beneficial speicies anymore. Everything is a wheat, everything is stealing water. Kargil staement says that farmers are so stupid they don;t realise we have grown such smart technology, technologies that can present bees from usurping the pollen. Bees which are supposed to be our partners through pollination end up being our thieves. Stealing the pollen which is theirs. The world view is everyone is a thief, everyone is a competition space is too scarce only one can survive that is exactly the monoculture thinking that is taking roots in society. It is from that ground that the philosophy of Hindutva thinking took place.

When animals are kept in factory farms everyone of their organs the horns of the cows, the beaks of the chicken that they have and use to stay alive they become dangerous weapons of death. So the chickens start to bite each other to death.

The first thing in factory farming what they do as a result of this new phenomena which is called cannibalism and it happens only when animals are caged. They take the small chicks and burn their beaks for pigs they take of then teeth and cut of their tails.

One would imagine that when you see violence emerge because of lack of space and for humans lack of space is ecological, cultural, political. Everytime instead of recognizing what are the roots of violence what is happening with the mechanistic mind is to perpetuate more violence and increase the process that  creates the violence so in factory farming instead of saying these animals are behaving violent because of imprisonment release them make them free range. They are basically dismembering animals as society is being dismembered. They are even worst  forms of violence that are self generated eg. mad cow disease. The kind of violence that was done to animals created self infection.

If you read the newspaper and letter who are the worst communalist today they are the NRIs who have lost their identity so totally and all of them made all the millions of dollars but it doesn’t make you feel yourself so what do they do they send millions down, to images that Ram was a Rambo Ram. For Gandhi Ram was an inclusive category. For all of us he  has been an inclusive category.

The three levels at which the late phenomena as growing is globalization by destroying economic insecurity creates a readiness of thinking your neighbour is your enemy. Second is for every peasant, for cury tribal uprooted that alienation that Kappen talked about is also grand eg. negative identities
So the negative economy of globalization which is based on produced less values

The negativity economy of globalization which is based on producing less by using more and you can show that on every field is connected very intimately to negative culture when you cannot experience culture in a positive way as related to thus piece of earth.

There is also simultaneously a negative quality that is feeding into this but there is one little connection with globalization. If you just go back to 80s what did politicians go to the villages with well bring you a school, a factory, water. It is around these issues. Now no politician can go on a vote on any of these issues because bilateral and are just coming from Orissa where we had a public hearing on water and irrigation is being privatized and the privatization is shooting up irrigation costs. Ten fold and the calculation we did with the farmers means if they achieve by the year 2010 what they want to achieve peasants will be paid 40,000 Rs per acre on irrigation alone show me one farming system that can bring 40,000 Rs as a return.

All the subsidies are corporate subsidies they are building storage systems, highways, ports and they say it is for the vard peasant what the peasants require is a market and that market requires fair prices. No politician at the National or state level can work in and promise basic needs education, services because basic needs and services are being turned into commodities and being governed by rules made somewhere else.

It is the vacuum created in economic democracy. The substance of democracy has been removed by removing economics from it. The democracy we have is getting lost. What democracy we had was representative and it had economics as its crucial element. The only representation left now is communal representation

The group called International forum of globalization one part of the group said we need the state, the other said we need people and the state is doing funny things like Narmada etc. Everywhere there is a militarized state around the country basically robbing fundamental freedom from citizens according to our constitution.

The mechanistic paradigm that created the ecological axis that is also creeping into the communal crisis. If the Nestorian law of equal and opposition reaction is our problem the second big problem is the law of exclusion. If you have to be an Indian you have to be a Hindu chauvinist. The Muslim who chose to be Indian at time of partition are not Indian because they fall in the middle that  does not belong to Pakistan or Hindutva defined India and we need to reclaim the middle space because the middle spaces are spaces of compassion, spaces of going, spaces of sustainability generosity of richness and creativity of our society and the day we loose those middle spaces we are a dead society. Democracy at this point is not just dead. For me the death of democracy was so obvious after 9/11/ where in every country there wil be 2 podium and two leaders will stand Bush/Vajpayee   Blair/Puttin and they would say the same thing everywhere there were protests and yet there would be militarization that is a dead democracy where leaders who are elected on certain mandates and are accountable to its people to only work according to the will of people stop turning back after election. They have a life of their own. It is a killing democracy and Gujarat has shown partition it was the defeat of the Muslim league that created the fundamentalism for a separate state. Because its when the normal processes don’t work then communalism becomes the politics of last resort. In a failing democracy for us living democracy is then bringing all of life back in the future life in the nature and all its diversity.

Our life in all its generosity and abundance because what we have with globalization which in my view is in ruins and if it hadn’t been for September 11th that globalization is collapsing. Globalization based on greed and monopoly and non-sustainability and injustice can only stay cropped up for little while longer with military violence backing up the economic violence of those processes. We need to move exactly as Kappen was talking from cultures and economy based on cruelty to cultures. Economy ethics based on compassion. She felt earlier there was such a beauty to Bangalore and nowadays you see big sign boards to more and more consumerism it is really celebrating greed of those who sell and those who buy and greed among those who cannot buy and therefore will turn to something else in frustration we need to move from cultures where everyone is afraid of everything to love for everything.

Cultures and economies where under the WTO and world bank order life is property water is property everything is fradable nothing has limits we need to bring back notions of the sacred we need to move to monocultures to diversity because that is the only place where sharing and love and compassion and understanding and peace can be created. We are in a context where the fascism of the market place has being helped by fascism of fundamtalism and vice versa we need to retain relive and redefine the living democracy and inspite of the brutality around us the despair she does not stop hoping and celebrating.