If you google that phrase (and substitute the correct letters in), my blog comes up #1. I discovered this through poking through my Sitemeter statistics (truly, I'm not motivated to do my grading just yet... think I need about 5 more cups of coffee).
You may be thinking, "in what, exactly?" But if you're asking that question, you're clearly not on board with the spirit of this particular Google search.
You may also be wondering, "but was such a sentiment ever expressed on this particular blog?" "Is it possible that Google is quoting out of context?" Google points to this archive page as the most direct instance of North America kicking European posterior. The culprit is Irshad Manji of all people.
Finally, you might even object that the statement in question isn't, in fact, true. That would be your prerogative. Certainly Northern North America wins hands down in terms of weather. Outside, it's currently drizzling, dark, and about 41 Degrees Fahrenheit. Now don't all come visit at once...
Ok, cancel that. Someone get me on a plane to Buenos Aires, pronto por favor.
(Or anywhere where it's warm and sunny.)
"Just remember that your real job is that if you are free, you need to free somebody else. If you have some power, then your job is to empower somebody else." --Toni Morrison
Coverage of Rushdie in Calcutta/Kolkata
See Kitabkhana for links to the Indian media's coverage of Rushdie in Calcutta this week. Far more entertaining than Rumsfeld in Delhi!
From Edmund Burke to Donald Rumsfeld to "Shibrum-Shibrum"
[A bit of an academic links round-up this morning]
Nick Robins is about to release a book critical of the East India Company. He has a piece in the New Statesman where he tears apart their business policy, as well as some 'heroes' of the British Empire. Robert Clive comes in for a special bashing.
It's also always a pleasant surprise to be reminded about the Trial of Hastings. It's a gloomy December morning in Connecticut, and the image of Edmund Burke preaching that Morality Must be Universal for four days straight is somehow cheering.
Chapati Mystery has a nice post on the need for academics to disseminate examples of good academic writing as an antidote to the "shibrum-shibrum." It might also help us when we are attacked (as most recently by Mark Bauerlein) for being bad writers.
Juan Cole links to an article in the Daily Princetonian, about the tension in the Princeton Middle East Studies department. Under the influence of Bernard Lewis and now Michael Doran, the department is considered highly conservative, though some graduate students are trying to rebel against its senior leadership. The piece, which laboriously explains the famous conflict between Bernard Lewis and Edward Said, is a little long-winded. But the quotes from Rashid Khalidi are pretty good. And the flame-up at a recent dissertation defence makes for some high academic drama...
Donald Rumsfeld is in India, talking with the PM Manmohan Singh about things like how to further peace prospects with Pakistan, and how much those F-16s are gonna cost. I didn't realize the Secretary of Defense was also a missile and planes salesman!
Nick Robins is about to release a book critical of the East India Company. He has a piece in the New Statesman where he tears apart their business policy, as well as some 'heroes' of the British Empire. Robert Clive comes in for a special bashing.
It's also always a pleasant surprise to be reminded about the Trial of Hastings. It's a gloomy December morning in Connecticut, and the image of Edmund Burke preaching that Morality Must be Universal for four days straight is somehow cheering.
Chapati Mystery has a nice post on the need for academics to disseminate examples of good academic writing as an antidote to the "shibrum-shibrum." It might also help us when we are attacked (as most recently by Mark Bauerlein) for being bad writers.
Juan Cole links to an article in the Daily Princetonian, about the tension in the Princeton Middle East Studies department. Under the influence of Bernard Lewis and now Michael Doran, the department is considered highly conservative, though some graduate students are trying to rebel against its senior leadership. The piece, which laboriously explains the famous conflict between Bernard Lewis and Edward Said, is a little long-winded. But the quotes from Rashid Khalidi are pretty good. And the flame-up at a recent dissertation defence makes for some high academic drama...
Donald Rumsfeld is in India, talking with the PM Manmohan Singh about things like how to further peace prospects with Pakistan, and how much those F-16s are gonna cost. I didn't realize the Secretary of Defense was also a missile and planes salesman!
Christian consumers, and getting my act together
In the Revealer. I went to gradaute school with one of the authors whose book is being reviewed, Amy Frykholm. We were in the same cohort at Duke.
Note to self: Amy's book is out on Oxford, and getting positively reviewed in the Revealer. Your book is where, exactly?
Note to self: Amy's book is out on Oxford, and getting positively reviewed in the Revealer. Your book is where, exactly?
The books are about the Church; the movie will be about "Authority"
Henry at Crooked Timber writes about an upcoming movie called His Dark Materials, which is based on a seris of books criticizing the Anglican church by a British author named Philip Pullman.
He links to an article in the London Times, where the film studio's decision to remove references to the Church is explained.
Sorry to throw around jargon, but I think this shows what's wrong with Foucault: it's now safer to criticize "Power" than it is to talk about individual instances of the abuse of it.
It also tells us something about the dynamics of representing power on screen vs. in books. The mainstream movies can show an aesthetic of totalitarian oppression, but they can't pinpoint it with any historical precision. Historial details still matter, but only in books.
He links to an article in the London Times, where the film studio's decision to remove references to the Church is explained.
Sorry to throw around jargon, but I think this shows what's wrong with Foucault: it's now safer to criticize "Power" than it is to talk about individual instances of the abuse of it.
It also tells us something about the dynamics of representing power on screen vs. in books. The mainstream movies can show an aesthetic of totalitarian oppression, but they can't pinpoint it with any historical precision. Historial details still matter, but only in books.
Update on "Triple Talaq"
Indian Express: The National Commission for Women is trying to set the record straight on Triple Talaq in other parts of the Muslim world.
They are arguing that Muslim personal law in India is particularly backwards. In Pakistan, "triple talaq," or instantaneous verbal divorce, has been illegal since 1961. More facts about personal (marriage) laws in other parts of the Muslim world:
These are useful facts to have, and not to make debating points in favor of the Uniform Civil Code. I follow the NCW and Nafia Hussein here in thinking primarily of human rights for Muslim women in India.
They are arguing that Muslim personal law in India is particularly backwards. In Pakistan, "triple talaq," or instantaneous verbal divorce, has been illegal since 1961. More facts about personal (marriage) laws in other parts of the Muslim world:
She said creating awareness about other Islamic societies would help fight the propaganda that the Shariat laws could not be interpreted or changed. In countries like Indonesia, Malaysia and Brunei, even a second marriage is banned.
However, in countries like Iran, Iraq, Syria and Bangladesh, second marriages are discouraged through a strict legal and administrative mechanism. [In India, polygamy is still legal under Muslim personal law. -AS]
Unlike in India, where Muslim women have no right to divorce, in Turkey and Iran, both husband and wife enjoy equal rights for seeking divorce. In Pakistan, Indonesia and Bangladesh, government officials have to prove that they had gone for a divorce only after having made serious efforts to patch up their differences with their spouse. In all these Islamic countries, divorce is final only after a court verdict.
Again Turkey, Indonesia, Iraq, Iran and Bangladesh have legally banned one-sided divorces, which gave men arbitrary powers to break marriages, while countries like Egypt, Sudan, Jordan, Tunisia, Morocco, Pakistan and Bangladesh had banned the practice of triple talaq long ago.
These are useful facts to have, and not to make debating points in favor of the Uniform Civil Code. I follow the NCW and Nafia Hussein here in thinking primarily of human rights for Muslim women in India.
A little more on names and naming in Suketu Mehta
Pennathur's criticisms prompted me to read past the first 50 pages of Suketu Mehta's book Maximum City, partly in the interest of finding out the exact quote.
But it's also true that it's when you see real criticism of a book that you start to think seriously about it. What will its staying power be? Is it just this year's Desi publishing sensation, or is it going to be something you can come back to, and maybe teach from?
As an early general assessment, I do think this book will be of value as a source of pretty solid ideas and information about Bombay. It does have quite a few moments of diasporic writerly Romanticism (show-offy self-reflexivity), but it also has a lot of concrete information about unromantic things like architecture, the economics of the city, the politics of water, the changing dynamics of labor, and immigration to the city. Mehta's arguments will need to be verified and checked, but together they do offer a lot that will be new to non-Bombayites.
Ok, here are the two paragraphs where the Bombay/Mumbai issue comes to the forefront. He mentions it a few times earlier (the early history of the Portuguese settlers) -- you might want to read the whole "Mumbai" chapter of the book before forming a final judgment -- but these are the two key paragraphs:
Mehta's resistance seems to be a conflation two rather different sorts of issues. He first mentions the renaming of Bombay's streets and chowks (corners), before he gets to the renaming of the city; he seems to be considering them as of a piece. On the one hand, he is clinging to the place names he grew up with, out of what might be called nostalgia. He points out that there is a significant degree of corruption behind the street-name changes going on in Bombay. He also points out (rightly, from my experience) that practically no one knows the names of the minor figures who get slices of the city named after them. The names aren't being used. In my view, this argument is a bit self-indulgent, but I don't see that he will generate a great deal of vehement opposition.
The name of the city is a different matter, and his statements on it now seem (after hearing people's objections) a little sloppy. Unlike Lady Laxmibai Jagmohandas Marg (which no taxi driver in Bombay is likely to recognize), the name of a city is big enough that its official name absolutely does matter, both to inhabitants and to others; it can't be cheekily ignored. Further, I gather that a pretty substantial number of people actually use the new name. In my experience, the people who are most likely to resist it are the "English-medium" educated Indians -- who also happen constitute the bulk of my friends and family. But I'm willing to accept that large numbers of Indians now accept the name "Mumbai," even when speaking English. Non-Indians are forced to accept the name by default.
Mehta should probably have kept the two issues separate.
One further thought: It also seems to me that Mehta's class bias is a little unbecoming in the passage quoted above. The line about the 'revenge of the ghatis' is a reference to the following paragraph from earlier in the book:
Mehta is well aware of the power of a slur (this book as a whole is quite sensitive to the question of the language one uses), so it's unclear to me why he allows this one to slip out unchallenged in the passage about "Mumbai."
But it's also true that it's when you see real criticism of a book that you start to think seriously about it. What will its staying power be? Is it just this year's Desi publishing sensation, or is it going to be something you can come back to, and maybe teach from?
As an early general assessment, I do think this book will be of value as a source of pretty solid ideas and information about Bombay. It does have quite a few moments of diasporic writerly Romanticism (show-offy self-reflexivity), but it also has a lot of concrete information about unromantic things like architecture, the economics of the city, the politics of water, the changing dynamics of labor, and immigration to the city. Mehta's arguments will need to be verified and checked, but together they do offer a lot that will be new to non-Bombayites.
Ok, here are the two paragraphs where the Bombay/Mumbai issue comes to the forefront. He mentions it a few times earlier (the early history of the Portuguese settlers) -- you might want to read the whole "Mumbai" chapter of the book before forming a final judgment -- but these are the two key paragraphs:
A name is such that if you grow up with it you get attached to it, whatever its origins. I grew up on Nepean Sea Road, which is now Lady Laxmibai Jagmohandas Marg. I have no idea who Sir Ernest Nepean was nor do I know who Lady Laxmibai Jagmohandas was, but I am attached to the original name and see no reason why it should change. The name has acquired a resonance, over time, distinct from its origin; as Rue Pascal or West 4th Street or Maiden Lane might ahve for someone who has grown up in those cities. I got used to the sound of it. It is incorporated into my address, into my dream life. I can come back to Nepean Sea Road; if some municipal functionary bent on exacting revenge on history changes it to Lady Laxmibai Jagmohandas Marg, he is doing a disservice to my memory.
Name-changing is in vogue all over India nowadays: Madras has been renamed Chennai; Calcutta, that British-made city, has changed its name to Kolkata. A BJP member of parliament has demanded that India's name be changed to Bharat. This is a process not just of decolonization but of de-Islamicization. The idea is to go back not just to past but an idealized past, in all cases a Hindu past. But to change a name, for a person or a road or a city, there had better be a very good reason. And there was no good reason to change the name of Bombay. It is nonsense to say that Mumbai was the original name. Bombay was created by the Portuguese and the British from a cluster of malarial islands, and to them should go the baptismal rights. The Gujuratis and Maharashtrians always called it Mumbai when speaking Gujurati or Marathi, and Bombay when speaking English. There was no need to choose. In 1995, the Sena demanded that we choose, in all our languages, Mumbai. This is how the ghatis took revenge on us. They renamed everything after their politicians, and finally they renamed even the city. If they couldn't afford to live on our roads, they could at least occupy the road signs.
Mehta's resistance seems to be a conflation two rather different sorts of issues. He first mentions the renaming of Bombay's streets and chowks (corners), before he gets to the renaming of the city; he seems to be considering them as of a piece. On the one hand, he is clinging to the place names he grew up with, out of what might be called nostalgia. He points out that there is a significant degree of corruption behind the street-name changes going on in Bombay. He also points out (rightly, from my experience) that practically no one knows the names of the minor figures who get slices of the city named after them. The names aren't being used. In my view, this argument is a bit self-indulgent, but I don't see that he will generate a great deal of vehement opposition.
The name of the city is a different matter, and his statements on it now seem (after hearing people's objections) a little sloppy. Unlike Lady Laxmibai Jagmohandas Marg (which no taxi driver in Bombay is likely to recognize), the name of a city is big enough that its official name absolutely does matter, both to inhabitants and to others; it can't be cheekily ignored. Further, I gather that a pretty substantial number of people actually use the new name. In my experience, the people who are most likely to resist it are the "English-medium" educated Indians -- who also happen constitute the bulk of my friends and family. But I'm willing to accept that large numbers of Indians now accept the name "Mumbai," even when speaking English. Non-Indians are forced to accept the name by default.
Mehta should probably have kept the two issues separate.
One further thought: It also seems to me that Mehta's class bias is a little unbecoming in the passage quoted above. The line about the 'revenge of the ghatis' is a reference to the following paragraph from earlier in the book:
I did not know many Maharashtrians when I was growing up. There was the world I lived in on Nepean Sea Road, and there was nother world whose people came to wash our clothes, look at our electric meters, drive our cars, inhabit our nightmares. We lived in Bombay and never had much to do with Mumbai. Maharashtra to us was our servants, the banana lady downstairs, the textbooks we were force-fed in school. We had a term for them: ghatis--literally, the people from the ghats, or hills. It was also the word we used, generically, for "servant."
Mehta is well aware of the power of a slur (this book as a whole is quite sensitive to the question of the language one uses), so it's unclear to me why he allows this one to slip out unchallenged in the passage about "Mumbai."
Suketu Mehta central: Denver Post, NPR interview
The Suketu Mehta Maximum City publicity juggernaut continues. Today he is in the Denver Post, where the book reviewer praises the book, but makes what I feel is an unnecessary reference to his accent. (Via Kitabkhana)
And yesterday, he was on Fresh Air. It's an interesting interview, about 15 minutes long. Topics covered include: "Bombay" vs. "Mumbai", the role of third world mega-cities, communalism (Bombay riots), and Bollywood. I'm feeling a little generous this morning, so I'll include some excerpts that I transcribed by hand while listening to the interview. You should really listen to the whole thing.
NOTE: All quotations below are approximations.
While I don't think this take on Bombay is the most exciting thing ever, I do think Suketu Metha does a good job as a kind of cultural ambassador for the new, cosmopolitan India. Warts (gangsters, capitalists, filmmakers...) and all.
I'll probably be recommending the book to friends and colleagues...
And yesterday, he was on Fresh Air. It's an interesting interview, about 15 minutes long. Topics covered include: "Bombay" vs. "Mumbai", the role of third world mega-cities, communalism (Bombay riots), and Bollywood. I'm feeling a little generous this morning, so I'll include some excerpts that I transcribed by hand while listening to the interview. You should really listen to the whole thing.
NOTE: All quotations below are approximations.
Terry: Why don't you refer to Bombay as “Mumbai”?
Mehta: Bombay changed its name, or rather the name was changed for Bombay in 1995 by the Shiv Sena, a Hindu nationalist party. The British and the Portuguese created the city from a clump of malarial islands, so they should get the naming rights. The name is exclusionary. A number of people in the city refuse to call it Mumbai.
Terry: So it's a political statement you're making?
Mehta: Very much so. The politics of the Shiv Sena are nativist and exclusionist, which runs against the cosmopolitan spirit of the city of Bombay. I refuse to go along.
Terry: Is the Shiv Sena a Hindu fundamentalist party?
Suketu: The phrase 'Hindu fundamentalist' doesn't make much sense. There isn't a fundamental scripture. "Hindu nationalist" is more appropriate.
[...skip a few minutes: on "mega-cities"...]
Terry: You interviewed all kinds of people, including a Hindu nationalist leader who actually set a Muslim or two on fire.
Suketu: This was during the riots after Ayodhya. There was a group of Hindus out early in the morning looking for Muslims to kill. He knew a man who sold him bread every day. He set him on fire for no other reason than that he was Muslim.
A mob assaulted him and poured Kerosene on him. As this was happening, he was weeping and he was crying, and reminding Sunil, the Shiv Sena man, that he used to sell him bread every day. He was begging for his life, saying that he had children.
Sunil, the man I interviewed, said to him, “When your people were killing our people, did you think of your children?” And he proceeded to kill him. I talked to a number of people who told me that they had killed Muslims. And I talked to Muslims who said they had killed Hindus.
I asked them about what it feels like to take a human life. As I was listening to them, I tried to withhold judgment. I had to remain expressionless, I could not show shock or horror. They were telling me what they had been living with for years. I was there, just writing it down.
At some point, they stopped talking to me, and were just explaining something to themselves. That was when I got the best stuff.
[...skip a few minutes: more on communalism...]
Terry: Seeing how Muslims and Hindus do not get along, famously, in Bomay now, and having researched what happened in the riots, and having talked to people who had participated in communal killings, what are your thoughts about the growing role of religion in American politics?
Suketu: I lived in Iowa for several years. I had some experience with the Evangelical churches there. Just as many people say that much of India is a Hindu nationalist country, much of the US is a Christian nationalist country. It's a troubling development. It's really a reaction to modernity, people who don't know how to respond to changes. [...]
One difference is, in India, Communalism is largely an urban problem. In India, you hardly ever hear about riots in the country. The opposite is true in the U.S. Most of Christian fundamentalism is found in 'flyover country.'
Also, in India, this spring, the Hindu nationalist party was voted out of power. People got tired of that kind of politics. I frankly was hoping the same thing would happen this fall in the U.S. Perhaps people here may need to live with that kind of government for a little while before they do the same.
Terry: You write that, since moving to the U.S., you've never felt any patriotism.
Suketu: Yes, growing up in India we were inundated with patriotic songs. [...] Every time you went to see a movie, you had to stand for the national anthem, on pain of arrest. And then I came to America, I found much the same sort of thing. Anthems playing, people thinking that America is the best country in the world...
It seems like lunacy. I think that migration is the best antidote to patriotism. These countries have had lots interactions with each other. [Refers to the influence of the Gita on Thoreau and the influence of Thoreau on Gandhi]. I'm most interested in the idea of looking outward from oneself. I really feel that a passport is just a travel document.
[...skip a few minutes of basic intro to Bollywood films...]
Terry: Where do the songs come in?
Suketu: The songs are in my view the most delightful part of the films. They aren't just a diversion from the plot. It's part of a Complete Entertainment.
There's a movie out called Veer Zaara, which I was also part of the making of. It's 3 ½ hours long – most Americans would be killing themselves if they had to watch a movie that long. But if you take a villager in India, he comes in from a long day's work, he wants to get his money's worth. He wants to watch these gorgeous people for 3 ½ hours, he wants the songs, he wants the action, he wants a bit of titillation -- he wants it all. When he goes back, there's not that much to go back for.
Terry: So do you think you'll ever live in Bombay again?
Suketu: I think so. I began this book with the question – can you go home again? I found that, not only can you go home, you can also leave again. Home for people like me moves with me. I have a room in New York and a room in Bombay.
Home is where my people are. And they are in the cities of the world. I have family in Paris, Antwerp, etc.
Everywhere you go, you find similar elements. There are piece of the first world in the midst of the third world – islands of convenience and wealth in the midst of urban squalor.
Terry: Thank you...
While I don't think this take on Bombay is the most exciting thing ever, I do think Suketu Metha does a good job as a kind of cultural ambassador for the new, cosmopolitan India. Warts (gangsters, capitalists, filmmakers...) and all.
I'll probably be recommending the book to friends and colleagues...
Profile of Tukey's Erdogan in FT
December 17 is D-Day for Turkey's admission to the EU.
A profile of Turkey's current PM, starting with his imprisonment in 1999 for criticizing secularism, and ending with the considerations affecting Turkey's bid for EU membership.
A profile of Turkey's current PM, starting with his imprisonment in 1999 for criticizing secularism, and ending with the considerations affecting Turkey's bid for EU membership.
Epstein Dislikes Blagues
Joseph Epstein is skeptical about blogs. The best line in his piece for the WSJ when he notes the similarity between the word 'blog' and the French word 'blague':
The RAM issue he mentions is a real one, as is the chaff-humbug problem. But I wonder if the limits of how much information a person can take in might be altered by conditioning? I also think things like RSS can help us scan quite a broad range of material, while the text we actually read with some measure of attentiveness remains somewhat limited.
After admitting all the successes of bloggers in politics and journalism in recent years, I myself remain a bit of a blogophobe. My problem with blogs is, to stay within computerese, a RAM problem. RAM is, of course, random access memory, denoting how much information one can store in one's computer, or, in human terms, in one's brain. Those little gray cells, as Inspector Poirot likes to call them, are dying off in impressive numbers in all of us; and do we wish to spend many of them reading blogs, in which a large percentage of the material cannot be relied upon, and lots more of which is beside any possible point? Well to remember that the French word blague, pronounced the same as blog, means to talk chaff, to hoax, to humbug.
The RAM issue he mentions is a real one, as is the chaff-humbug problem. But I wonder if the limits of how much information a person can take in might be altered by conditioning? I also think things like RSS can help us scan quite a broad range of material, while the text we actually read with some measure of attentiveness remains somewhat limited.
Another Unhappy Anniversary: Ayodhya
Check out Anand's (i.e., Locana's) thoughtful reflection on Ayodhya. Today is the 12th anniversary of the razing of the temple. It proves yet again that he is one of the best India bloggers out there. I agree with him on all points.
[For background on this event, Wikipedia has a very good entry.]
Today in India, 600 Muslim activists were arrested for attempting to stage a protest at the site.
And some testy words were exchanged in the Indian Parliament over the issue.
Big whoop. Other than that, I'm not finding any acknowledgment of the anniversary in the either the Indian or the International press. Maybe it will come back to the forefront when a decision is finally made as to what happens next at the site, which remains in post-demolition limbo.
[For background on this event, Wikipedia has a very good entry.]
Today in India, 600 Muslim activists were arrested for attempting to stage a protest at the site.
And some testy words were exchanged in the Indian Parliament over the issue.
Big whoop. Other than that, I'm not finding any acknowledgment of the anniversary in the either the Indian or the International press. Maybe it will come back to the forefront when a decision is finally made as to what happens next at the site, which remains in post-demolition limbo.
A fresh view of Disraeli's Sybil
Benjamin Disraeli: though he wasn't much of a novelist, he definitely knew how to turn a phrase. When he finally made it to the Prime Ministership of England (the first person of Jewish descent to ever do so), he famously retorted "I have made it to the top of the greasy pole." And on the Indian Mutiny of 1857 he said, "The decline and fall of Empires are not affairs of greased cartridges." By which he meant, "Uhh, might they have motivations besides religion for revolting against our massive, rapacious Empire, which is starting to seem just a little too Roman?" (Despite ambivalence about Empire early in his career, in the 1870s, Disraeli would go on to embrace it -- probably because it was the only rhetoric the Tories could use that sounded remotely populist.)
The Hindu, in its latest monthly literary review, has a new review of Disraeli's best-known novel, Sybil, which is about the Chartist agitations in England in the 1830s and 1840s. I'm not entirely sure why The Hindu is publishing a review of Sybil now, but there it is. And here are two paragraphs:
Ah yes, the rich and the poor. Remember them?
[Side note: Why is the literary review section of The Hindu such compelling reading? The writing seems to be fresh & the perspective eclectic. The New York Times Book Review, in contrast, would never carry such a straightforward, plot-intensive review of a book written 140 years ago apropos of nothing in particular. Incidentally, Tabish Khair is at it again. The Indian James Wood? His latest provocation will likely require a separate post]
The Hindu, in its latest monthly literary review, has a new review of Disraeli's best-known novel, Sybil, which is about the Chartist agitations in England in the 1830s and 1840s. I'm not entirely sure why The Hindu is publishing a review of Sybil now, but there it is. And here are two paragraphs:
No one previously had articulated the existence of two totally antagonistic communities that represented "two nations" with such candour. Disraeli saw its dangers and wished to take steps to quickly defuse the gathering tensions. Sybil, or the Two Nations, which contains the key to Disraeli's mind, was first published in 1845 and is set during the period 1837-1844. It depicts the storms of Chartist agitation and social disturbance in England. The Chartist movement was, of course, a working class movement that wished to bring about equal political and social rights for all classes by legal means.
Here is a dramatic exchange between the aristocratic Egremont and a young stranger in Sybil. Egremont exclaims that "our queen reigns over the greatest nation that ever existed". The riposte is immediate. "Which nation?" asks the younger stranger, "for she reigns over two"... "Yes,"... "Two nations; between whom there is no intercourse and no sympathy; who are as ignorant of each other's habits, thoughts, and feelings, as if they were dwellers in different zones, or inhabitants of different planets; who are formed by a different breeding, are fed by a different food, are ordered by different manners, and are not governed by the same laws." "You speak of — " said Egremont, hesitatingly. And the young stranger replies, "THE RICH AND THE POOR."
Ah yes, the rich and the poor. Remember them?
[Side note: Why is the literary review section of The Hindu such compelling reading? The writing seems to be fresh & the perspective eclectic. The New York Times Book Review, in contrast, would never carry such a straightforward, plot-intensive review of a book written 140 years ago apropos of nothing in particular. Incidentally, Tabish Khair is at it again. The Indian James Wood? His latest provocation will likely require a separate post]
Is Bangalore in Trouble?
And just when I was about to buy land near the new airport!
Indian Express. I don't have any trouble believing it -- one hears a lot about the terrible traffic in Bangalore, for instance. But I find the substantial thesis of this piece questionable. The author is arguing that the Congress government has blocked improvements and infrastructural investment since coming to power six months ago.
If true, that would be bad. But is the Congress abandoning growth? Are they deliberately halting the building of the airport or the highway flyovers? This article seems to have nailed the traffic problems down tightly, but it isn't really explaining the political scenario responsibly.
Indian Express. I don't have any trouble believing it -- one hears a lot about the terrible traffic in Bangalore, for instance. But I find the substantial thesis of this piece questionable. The author is arguing that the Congress government has blocked improvements and infrastructural investment since coming to power six months ago.
The patience that Singh prides himself on has worn thin in the gleaming glass towers and lush campuses of 1,200 IT firms and their 2 lakh employees. About a million people and industries feed off them—taxis, retail, banking, auto sales, hotels—firmly driving Bangalore’s booming economy. At stake, then, is much more than the future of investments worth about $15 billion (Rs 64,500 crore) made in this gridlocking, crumbling city of 7.2 million.
Since the Congress party began its coalition government with Singh—an affable leader with a love for Ghalib and ghazals—at the helm in June, Bangalore’s attempts to transform itself are rapidly unraveling: flyovers are stuck, so is a new international airport and metro, and the roads are simply falling apart.
Worse, the signals are all bad: a dedicated team of officers overseeing the upgradation of Bangalore has been systematically dismantled; and a unique government partnership with the city’s big names (headed by Infosys MD Nandan Nilekani), which oversaw the city’s progress over the last four years, has not just been ignored but even mocked by ministers in Singh’s government.
If true, that would be bad. But is the Congress abandoning growth? Are they deliberately halting the building of the airport or the highway flyovers? This article seems to have nailed the traffic problems down tightly, but it isn't really explaining the political scenario responsibly.
Online Art Exhibit: Ranbir Kaleka
Delhi/London based artist Ranbir Kaleka has an online exhibit of his painting, digital photgraphs, and installations at Another Subcontinent.
His work seems to allude to German expressionism and surrealism. And there are some video installations, though you can't actually watch the videos online (would have been nice).
Very serious, high quality stuff. The image quality and organization of the site is also pretty impressive.
His work seems to allude to German expressionism and surrealism. And there are some video installations, though you can't actually watch the videos online (would have been nice).
Very serious, high quality stuff. The image quality and organization of the site is also pretty impressive.
More tweaks and twists on Outsourcing
I have often complained (confessed?) that I don't understand economics, especially the economics of outsourcing. There are certain fundamentals at play that I grasp (and everyone grasps), but the fine points are a bit nugatory.
And it's all in the fine points -- for instance, the question of whether the jobs that are sent abroad are really replaced with more rewarding, "creative" gigs here in the U.S. Is it really true that everybody could potentially be benefiting, as my Indo-Republican (leaning), Software-engineer wallah friends tend to claim? Another question is whether the profit sustained by U.S. firms that outsource is greater than the net flow of capital out of the country. And a third question: are the recent stats on outsourcing taking into account the distinction between intra-firm 'outsourcing' and external contract-work?
And there are a dozen other problems and questions that have been circulating in the real media as well as the blog world this fall. Not many have been answered very comprehensively, it seems to me.
Today, I came across two further tweaks and twists on the story. The first, from an essay published in an IMF journal called Finance & Development, (and summarized on Rediff) suggests that the U.S. is actually very much in the black when it comes to "business services imports" (a codeword, I gather, for various kinds of corporate and high-tech outsourcing). In other words, for at least some kinds of outsource work, the U.S. is much more a destination than it is a sponsor.
[UPDATE: See Drezner's reading of this. He acks. me]
The second surprise is that for all the ballyhoo (or should I say "bollyhoo"?) about India's job "imports," it is, according to the numbers given to the International Labor Organization (ILO) very much a net-outsourcer to the U.S., Germany, Japan, and the U.K.! To the tune of $11 billion!
These numbers might be suspect. The $11 billion number might look a little different if we were to see some trend-lines, for instance. Did the ILO compile the same statistic 10 years ago? Anyone know how to find out?
Still, if these reports are true, then virtually all of the conventional debates about white-collar outsourcing as a) a looming danger to the U.S. economy, and b) an immediate benefit to the Indian economy, are completely off-track.
And it's all in the fine points -- for instance, the question of whether the jobs that are sent abroad are really replaced with more rewarding, "creative" gigs here in the U.S. Is it really true that everybody could potentially be benefiting, as my Indo-Republican (leaning), Software-engineer wallah friends tend to claim? Another question is whether the profit sustained by U.S. firms that outsource is greater than the net flow of capital out of the country. And a third question: are the recent stats on outsourcing taking into account the distinction between intra-firm 'outsourcing' and external contract-work?
And there are a dozen other problems and questions that have been circulating in the real media as well as the blog world this fall. Not many have been answered very comprehensively, it seems to me.
Today, I came across two further tweaks and twists on the story. The first, from an essay published in an IMF journal called Finance & Development, (and summarized on Rediff) suggests that the U.S. is actually very much in the black when it comes to "business services imports" (a codeword, I gather, for various kinds of corporate and high-tech outsourcing). In other words, for at least some kinds of outsource work, the U.S. is much more a destination than it is a sponsor.
US business service imports as a share of GDP have almost doubled in each of the past several decades, from 0.1 per cent in 1983 to 0.2 per cent in 1993 and 0.4 per cent in 2003.
[UPDATE: See Drezner's reading of this. He acks. me]
The second surprise is that for all the ballyhoo (or should I say "bollyhoo"?) about India's job "imports," it is, according to the numbers given to the International Labor Organization (ILO) very much a net-outsourcer to the U.S., Germany, Japan, and the U.K.! To the tune of $11 billion!
These numbers might be suspect. The $11 billion number might look a little different if we were to see some trend-lines, for instance. Did the ILO compile the same statistic 10 years ago? Anyone know how to find out?
Still, if these reports are true, then virtually all of the conventional debates about white-collar outsourcing as a) a looming danger to the U.S. economy, and b) an immediate benefit to the Indian economy, are completely off-track.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)