Monday, June 27, 2011

The Mind and Satyagraha


MIND, INSTINCT, INTELLECT                                  

The mind, like the body, is the result  of evolution. It too has traveled down the ages with our DNA from the beginning of time, with each bodily birth, from parents to child, it retains the memory of the universe in its unseen depths. It is never thought only, but also instinct. Reason is the greatest faculty and far above conditioned ideas like law and morals, but Reason is even then only a part of the mind. Instinct it is my belief is higher than reason because it is not conditioned and is evolved through instinct into a higher form of intelligence . Instinct is beyond  reason and is impelled from within, or inwardly driven. Rather than being irrational it is supra-rational and is directly linked to the growth of the mind since primordial times and possesses an animal nature in its innermost depths. Scientists such as Einstein  claimed that instinct was the guide to the greatest scientific discoveries. Instinct is that part of our mind which regular conditioning destroys, and realizing this fundamentalists attack this centre of understanding and change thinking patterns especially in unconditioned ethnic societies.

Birth and motherhood are the products of instinct. When a human being is born he or she inherits the mind of their parents which is a continuing collection of thoughts and experience of generations of parents back to the first human. Instinct is born out of this long chain of thought and experience. In our materialistic and unnaturally conditioned modern world which is the product of the industrial revolution,  instinct is our most threatened faculty and more particularly in this present time when forced conditioning and scientific thinking is all but killing the reality of a metaphysical world. Conditioning kills instinct as surely as lack of water kills a plant. It is the seduction of human intelligence into robotic conditions which could, if unchecked, mean the end of humans. We choose to challenge this before we lose the faculties to challenge this danger.

Physical existence itself is the result of  instinct and our biological machine is kept alive by instinctive actions and reactions through our daily lives from birth to death, from breathing and that inner cave into which breath withdraws at the end of life. Instinct comes  from the same invisible cavern  from where both spirit and matter emerge and from where the mind itself emerges. Conditioning of the mind according to set ideas kills the instinct which is born of primordial intelligence, and when conditioning of the mind deprives it of instinct it becomes the robotic servant of its master and today the world is threatened by the conditioning of science and materialism and where it is all to easy to use humans is senseless robots. We saw this in the first great war of the last century and before it in the  rape of the Transvaal by the British, when soldiers were sent to their certain doom and could do nothing about it. More people were killed by conditioned thinking by their masters in the last century’s two wars than the whole of human history’s little wars. And yet, it was expected of them to die for their country. And it was expected of their leaders to kill for their country. Those who condition men and women towards their own ends – be it their faiths or their agendas , even to the point of killing them – are expounding a great violence against humans in whatever name it may be.  It is toward this end our institutions of learning and higher learning have been developed to bend green branches into whatever shape they like killing the inner genius of life and twisting it towards their own ends as if they are slaves.

The world is a greater mystery than we know and our minds an even  greater mystery than we may understand, and this is the great lie of science which is unable to measure the metaphysical and hence denies it. It is a denial in order to ensure its own survival. It verges on a fanaticism which in political times will countenance even genocide.  When societies develop such forms of intolerance even when they will put up with the unscientific beliefs of their own faith – then things become very dangerous. Materialism has become a creed, forgiven its effects by faith. It has led to the present ecological crisis the planet faces.  The planet has been changed by human intervention from a blue to a brown planet. Today ever greater numbers of humans are being threatened by climate change than  predicted. The future of the world’s livable environment has been predicted by that self-same science will become in the next few decades an inferno of heat waves and drought due to steadily increasing carbon dioxide emissions from industries trapping solar infrared rays. But still current economic and industrial development agendas ride over future hazards and continue to pollute the atmosphere with greenhouse gases, the greatest threat being from carbon dioxide from industrial burning of coal..

In these times of conditioned thinking imagination and instinct have been confused  and novelty is seen as creation and inventiveness understood as imagination. Instinct is portrayed as a dark spirit of a tribal underworld. The old order by which reality and unreality were comprehended have been erased from the minds of modern infants and the younger generation is unable to tell the unreal from the real.

The link between intellect and instinct

Modern psychiatry has identified a link between intellect, the highest faculty of the trained mind,  and instinct, which is the highest faculty of the primordial mind  (or what some would like to call the primeval or primitive mind). The latter as I have pointed out is the genius of our ancestors which was used in facing the unknown in harsh and changing times. The faculty of instinct was in the primates which preceded the human and indeed which is in all living things. Instinct is in all life, it is a part of life’s survival mechanism itself. It was understood in past  pre-Enlightenment society as perhaps the highest faculty in man apart from mystic spiritual consciousness. Ever since science became the arbiter of truths instinct became an embarrassment! Today in the dying hours of our race  it is more than ever important to realize the place of instinct as a faculty of the intellect before the vast stores of past wisdom contained in the instinct are destroyed by modern  mental conditioning. This instinct is vital in discriminating the validity of the products of the intellect and intelligence . Today we are seeing the destruction of natural resources and atmospheric pollution on such a vast scale by science supposedly for the good of humanity. On the other hand we are told that these activities are reducing the livable atmosphere and environment to a few decades. Have humans lost the power to recognize truth from untruth ? Food and water security face us on our door-steps, vast environmental calamities shake us from our stupor almost every day – heat waves, droughts, hurricanes ,tornadoes, escalating effects from seismic caused tsunamis and volcanoes. The scientists shrug and say they aren’t connected with global warming induced climate change. Which is right, the Deniers or the Accusers ? Huge unnecessary wars and justification of nuking civilian populations are considered  maintaining the status quo. We have been forced to accept these as a necessary part of civilized life. We are not supposed to question them.

Modern educated human society has lost the wisdom which caused the ancient world to develop great philosophies and arts, the highest glories of  architecture and  obeisance to the metaphysical among the very elements; even the very primitiveness of the simplest human societies which had developed a higher intelligence than our literate world can offer. The world has entered into a world of new laws of its own causing, --diminishing returns, endless need for lebensraum, hierarchical despotism, hierarchical  higher standards of living for the few at the cost of the impoverishment of the weak multitudes, loss of environmental security, --the list is endless. The planet and a few powerful rich are becoming a threat to the survival of the weak. Society as it was understood uptil only yesterday no longer has a future environment left  to survive. The time has come for the worm to turn. Society may no longer become into a plaything for the exploitation of the rich and powerful. The old order recognized the good of the maximum to be conserved for the good of the whole of society, which is the same as even distribution of natural resources between all for a just and sustainable society. This planet we live on has no credit cards operating in outer space. We are facing an unprecedented loss of species and changing climate. We have to all live on whatever we have left.

In this quest for a right balance between what can be had and what is needed for fulfillment, the instinct will be an invaluable guide, even more so than the intellect or intelligence. Even though this knowledge has by its nature declined in conditioned urban materialistic society it has nevertheless been preserved in the underdog primitive ethnic society wherever it has survived. India is one of the last great polytheistic tribal civilizations of the world even if it has been mauled by economics, industrialism and materialistic greed of a few. It is important to find out very quickly, in the very near future, whatever it takes humans to survive on very very little without destroying the means and resources of survival itself. And here we must turn to this vital knowledge bank in countries like India and Africa and South America which have been exploited for forests, ores and minerals  and torn apart by the politics of colonization. It is in this disappearing world that we will find the answer.

An intellectual renaissance is needed which challenges the shibboleths of economic growth. The divine rights of politicians and corporations will have to be challenged.  The primacy of the filthy rich and the filthy powerful, even the prelates, will have to be challenged. (This has already started happening).The forced stratification of society through levels of education into social classes separating the Haves from the Have-nots and the exploitation of resources for their benefit at the cost of the deprived, these will have reached certain limits beyond which they cannot go. Human rights will only be found in the archives of their institutions.  And then people will try and figure out what went wrong.


Intellectual Satyagraha

The internet today offers the possibility of such a communication network as a new age of discovery requires, a new age in which resources like food and water rapidly diminish and even disappear, in which natural resources become rare commodities and will have a higher price than any industrial products, heralding in a new economy. The human tragedy caused by a rapidly changing planet – heat, thirst, and inadequate food will stalk the future generations unless they are very wealthy and the ordinary will become extraordinary and the once easily available will become rare. There will be an increasing hegemony by military superpowers in the interests of their own populations. Globalization is not about a better globe but the exploitation of the planet by certain superpowers. The meaning of democracy will change. How to bring these visions to the common man and how to appeal for sense to the powerful elite who rule the nations. How to express our fears for the future and try and bring change to this juggernaut of incessant change, incessant Growth, incessant economic growth ?

Futuristic in concept, practical in application  the concept of intellectual satyagraha  -- clinging on to the truth – through the powers of reason and logic (logos), with unwavering faith in the collective good sense of our common humanity, calls upon the World Wide Web, the greatest weapon of the twenty-first century, or any century, because it allows the mind of humanity to address itself. The moral and social development of human societies has been dependant upon  information and communication, and today the World Wide Web brings to humans across the planet the possibility to join into one great democratic harmony, to join in the making of a new world order, one based on justice and sharing and not on Growth and War. The internet enters both as a tool and a weapon in deciding the way forward for human progress as humans everywhere would like to have it, not at gunpoint of some selfish greedy people.  The massive destruction of the planet’s natural resources, the growing massive pollution of the atmosphere with greenhouse gases especially carbon dioxide heralds the certain brutal  living conditions and premature deaths in our future generations, these all must be immediately addressed and stopped. We are in a time when our actions will shape the future of humanity. Humanity has not the way to find a common voice against a common oppression, and to my mind the practice and application of intellectual satyagraha is just such a way.  It is a reaffirmation of faith in our collective will as a race, of our common needs as humans. What future generations need is not economic Growth but survival conditions, not money and material goods  but food and water, and any act or acts which deny these to future generations are crimes against humanity. It is a reaffirmation of the collective will of our race at a turning point in our evolution. The decision making ability of a global internet population is awesome even as the internet and the World Wide Web reaches into the darkest corners of the planet and allows more and more voices to be heard. It presents the scope for a global democratic voice.

The World Wide Web has changed our world in more ways than great civilizations of the past have done. Its influence is everywhere – in politics, laws and the arts. Why should it not be an effective tool for the world to talk to the masters of global Growth, to the leaders of nations  --
to the human spirit and heart and mind ?Why should not people everywhere have their say in a world still governed by selfish feudal interests, by cartels and juntas and totalitarian regimes functioning in the name of economic growth and democracy and relentlessly exploiting nature and humans for Profit. Profit is the step-child of Growth. Intellectual satyagraha and the World Wide Web together offer limitless possibilities if they can be organized as a new  democratic voice , a world wide voice of global society. The idea sounds revolutionary and it is, -- a peaceful revolution through communication and reasoned protest against injustice to humans and nature. It is a revolution of thought and action.


Writing and Expression

The difference between instinct and intellect is that the instinct came first. The intellect proceeds from the development of writing and knowledge as separate from wisdom. Instinct belongs to the pre-literate mind, the so-called savage mind, the mind of our primitive ancestors. As I have pointed out the industrial age built on the economic foundations of Loot developed into an age of so called “enlightenment” which challenged the norms of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries and successfully wiped out the glories of twenty thousand years of creative intelligence. We are entering an age of counter enlightenment. Our race has developed destructive technologies far in advance of our anthropological evolution to control weapons of mass destruction. We have become more powerful than is good for us. Technology has outstripped human evolution itself. The children of tomorrow will be robots with intelligences primed by the then ruling disposition – which appears to be materialistic and non democratic for the masses –and highly democratic for the few. It will be a tomorrow of survivors and their obliterated generation. I am talking in the context of the imminent hazards of global warming and climate change within the next  thirty years when the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere will be four times pre-industrial levels (at 60 Gigatonnes), with sea level rise  around seven metres, and with atmospheric temperature 3C higher than today  in the tropics and 6.5F higher in the northern latitudes. Certainly these will not be livable conditions. Human life will only be possible under controlled conditions --in air conditioned cubicles. The methods of production of energy will have to change radically to meet these conditions. The numbers of deaths by this new plague – Global Warming – will not be countered easily simply through technology, it will be impossible to manage to save human beings in a  world scorched by heat and denuded of  food and water resources. These will indeed be extraordinary times. Robotic intelligence and mechanical assistance will be required even for decision making and the human will have to take a back seat (if it is there). The priorities of being human will be with only a very few in controlled laboratory conditions.  This transition of human to non human  operation will very likely happen suddenly after a certain point has been reached and no alternatives will be any longer possible. Mankind is accelerating towards this point and this very acceleration is slowing down the process of our realization of the reality.

I have spoken above of the pre-literate mind and the literate mind. Abrahamic scripture begins with the mission statement, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” The meaning of Ecology becomes suddenly God-defined by the followers. It isn’t plain logos (Gr. Logic), now it means Word. Church and  Theocratic State apply ecology to their actions as if all its concerns are defined by them and not by logos or Reason, i.e. ecological considerations  do not require to be logical.  Economy on the other hand is law-directed – nomos (Gr. Law), and economic considerations depend upon the law, military, police, etc. Its become a very dangerous law since economics depends on unlimited growth in a world of diminishing resources. That’s why thinkers have started despairing if we’ll ever make it beyond the present century.

Growth is dependant on subsidies by governments to corporations, kickbacks from corporations to governments, the destruction of natural resources without their being calculated in the production costs, the GDP. The abuse of economics and environmental resources  is paid for by the defenceless landscapes which are industrialized and the equally defenceless poor who live in these landscapes. Growth, growth, growth – that’s what economic growth is all about – and in an economic world what else can be done ? The divides between the poor and the rich, the Haves and the Have-Nots is the  essential outcome of Growth. This Growth is represented in the flawed Gross Domestic Product. And both are out of the reach of the common man to affect in any way. An economic despotism holds the world in thrall and growing military control of the planet escalates with escalating Growth. Totalitarian political regimes and their corporate cartels control the business as usual planet we live on. The last isolated ethnic environments are ready to be exploited through neo-colonial carnage. Hope is dead since  modern neo-liberal  economics is a deeply criminal fetish for the world’s leading economists and politicians and it is backed by police brutality and military power.  Displacing the last ethnic societies and taking over their natural environments is government policy in developing countries  unlike established economies which have a slow growth rate, such as Japan (1.5%). The old method of  judging a nation’s health on the basis of its fine products,  arts and crafts, the genius of its creative people, etc. is over. Now it is money, money, money – and more money -- which is the cri de coeur of the present economic global structure. In an age of global economy following an industrial revolution, a so called age of Enlightenment, and two world wars which left eighty million dead, we have the option of adopting the status quo or being left out in the cold.

It is no longer possible to ask any government riding a growth economy to be considerate or reasonable, honest or caring, since growth – economic growth, highly competitive economic growth – is based on corruption. Greater the corruption, greater the growth. That’s why a new system of morals is emerging in today’s world, one which condones the most immoral and colossal corruption. And the problem which arises in highly moral souls is that this is not right. But of course it is not. Clinton called a spade a spade when he charmingly observed “It’s the economy, stupid!”

We are globally at a stage of great danger. As the glaciers dry up – as they are doing in the Himalayas – and as the northern rivers dry up in time water is the potential cause of the next great wars between India and her neighbors; as the climate changes and affects food production in South Asia with increasing heat waves in the midst of growing populations; as more and more forest land is cut down or turned to plantations to increase growth; as the poor will die by the wayside, even so more people will be flying Spice-Jet and talking of champagne and caviar. And this is Growth, big bad Growth. The leaders understand the game perfectly. Which great general could afford the luxury of caring for the safety of society or his troops ? No, that luxury is not possible in quest of victory.

Everything else the Sage said is poetry, and poetry doesn’t buy food, or for that matter even water. The age of poets is over. The poet says “Helping the masses to return to the ancestral genius of the land, to help them bring up their children according to the old craftsmanship traditions, and to allow them to plough the land and reap a bountiful harvest” well, that’s all over. We’ve changed the playing field so fast and so permanently – or rather, the They who have done it, are tuned into a whole new dynamics for survival. Ruined rural India and her masses toiling in the sweltering, waterless desert India is fast becoming, they have read the writing on the wall: Join the bandwagon as the slogan says ! So the government plays to the audience. Chocolates and television, fine linen underwear and condoms, fulfilling the dream of simply riding on a train… this they say is what the simple ethnic societies want ! And they have created dangerous survival conditions which probably makes them right ! There is little place here for “ simple living and high thinking”. It is a fact that lower organisms are tougher than higher ones and that primitive societies are better adapted for survival under extreme conditions.  I believe that the masses are tougher, more resilient to change than the seemingly higher human types formed through wealth and education’ and these more primitive types will enter the ecological crisis for survival  well armed.” The poor shall inherit the earth” was the observation of the wisest man the world has seen – the gentle  Nazarene. Surely they will inherit the ghastly future we are going into! Till it lasts.


                             ---------------------------------------

Bulu Imam
Sanskriti
Hazaribagh
Jharkhand, India

The Mind and Satyagraha


MIND, INSTINCT, INTELLECT                                  

The mind, like the body, is the result  of evolution. It too has traveled down the ages with our DNA from the beginning of time, with each bodily birth, from parents to child, it retains the memory of the universe in its unseen depths. It is never thought only, but also instinct. Reason is the greatest faculty and far above conditioned ideas like law and morals, but Reason is even then only a part of the mind. Instinct it is my belief is higher than reason because it is not conditioned and is evolved through instinct into a higher form of intelligence . Instinct is beyond  reason and is impelled from within, or inwardly driven. Rather than being irrational it is supra-rational and is directly linked to the growth of the mind since primordial times and possesses an animal nature in its innermost depths. Scientists such as Einstein  claimed that instinct was the guide to the greatest scientific discoveries. Instinct is that part of our mind which regular conditioning destroys, and realizing this fundamentalists attack this centre of understanding and change thinking patterns especially in unconditioned ethnic societies.

Birth and motherhood are the products of instinct. When a human being is born he or she inherits the mind of their parents which is a continuing collection of thoughts and experience of generations of parents back to the first human. Instinct is born out of this long chain of thought and experience. In our materialistic and unnaturally conditioned modern world which is the product of the industrial revolution,  instinct is our most threatened faculty and more particularly in this present time when forced conditioning and scientific thinking is all but killing the reality of a metaphysical world. Conditioning kills instinct as surely as lack of water kills a plant. It is the seduction of human intelligence into robotic conditions which could, if unchecked, mean the end of humans. We choose to challenge this before we lose the faculties to challenge this danger.

Physical existence itself is the result of  instinct and our biological machine is kept alive by instinctive actions and reactions through our daily lives from birth to death, from breathing and that inner cave into which breath withdraws at the end of life. Instinct comes  from the same invisible cavern  from where both spirit and matter emerge and from where the mind itself emerges. Conditioning of the mind according to set ideas kills the instinct which is born of primordial intelligence, and when conditioning of the mind deprives it of instinct it becomes the robotic servant of its master and today the world is threatened by the conditioning of science and materialism and where it is all to easy to use humans is senseless robots. We saw this in the first great war of the last century and before it in the  rape of the Transvaal by the British, when soldiers were sent to their certain doom and could do nothing about it. More people were killed by conditioned thinking by their masters in the last century’s two wars than the whole of human history’s little wars. And yet, it was expected of them to die for their country. And it was expected of their leaders to kill for their country. Those who condition men and women towards their own ends – be it their faiths or their agendas , even to the point of killing them – are expounding a great violence against humans in whatever name it may be.  It is toward this end our institutions of learning and higher learning have been developed to bend green branches into whatever shape they like killing the inner genius of life and twisting it towards their own ends as if they are slaves.

The world is a greater mystery than we know and our minds an even  greater mystery than we may understand, and this is the great lie of science which is unable to measure the metaphysical and hence denies it. It is a denial in order to ensure its own survival. It verges on a fanaticism which in political times will countenance even genocide.  When societies develop such forms of intolerance even when they will put up with the unscientific beliefs of their own faith – then things become very dangerous. Materialism has become a creed, forgiven its effects by faith. It has led to the present ecological crisis the planet faces.  The planet has been changed by human intervention from a blue to a brown planet. Today ever greater numbers of humans are being threatened by climate change than  predicted. The future of the world’s livable environment has been predicted by that self-same science will become in the next few decades an inferno of heat waves and drought due to steadily increasing carbon dioxide emissions from industries trapping solar infrared rays. But still current economic and industrial development agendas ride over future hazards and continue to pollute the atmosphere with greenhouse gases, the greatest threat being from carbon dioxide from industrial burning of coal..

In these times of conditioned thinking imagination and instinct have been confused  and novelty is seen as creation and inventiveness understood as imagination. Instinct is portrayed as a dark spirit of a tribal underworld. The old order by which reality and unreality were comprehended have been erased from the minds of modern infants and the younger generation is unable to tell the unreal from the real.

The link between intellect and instinct

Modern psychiatry has identified a link between intellect, the highest faculty of the trained mind,  and instinct, which is the highest faculty of the primordial mind  (or what some would like to call the primeval or primitive mind). The latter as I have pointed out is the genius of our ancestors which was used in facing the unknown in harsh and changing times. The faculty of instinct was in the primates which preceded the human and indeed which is in all living things. Instinct is in all life, it is a part of life’s survival mechanism itself. It was understood in past  pre-Enlightenment society as perhaps the highest faculty in man apart from mystic spiritual consciousness. Ever since science became the arbiter of truths instinct became an embarrassment! Today in the dying hours of our race  it is more than ever important to realize the place of instinct as a faculty of the intellect before the vast stores of past wisdom contained in the instinct are destroyed by modern  mental conditioning. This instinct is vital in discriminating the validity of the products of the intellect and intelligence . Today we are seeing the destruction of natural resources and atmospheric pollution on such a vast scale by science supposedly for the good of humanity. On the other hand we are told that these activities are reducing the livable atmosphere and environment to a few decades. Have humans lost the power to recognize truth from untruth ? Food and water security face us on our door-steps, vast environmental calamities shake us from our stupor almost every day – heat waves, droughts, hurricanes ,tornadoes, escalating effects from seismic caused tsunamis and volcanoes. The scientists shrug and say they aren’t connected with global warming induced climate change. Which is right, the Deniers or the Accusers ? Huge unnecessary wars and justification of nuking civilian populations are considered  maintaining the status quo. We have been forced to accept these as a necessary part of civilized life. We are not supposed to question them.

Modern educated human society has lost the wisdom which caused the ancient world to develop great philosophies and arts, the highest glories of  architecture and  obeisance to the metaphysical among the very elements; even the very primitiveness of the simplest human societies which had developed a higher intelligence than our literate world can offer. The world has entered into a world of new laws of its own causing, --diminishing returns, endless need for lebensraum, hierarchical despotism, hierarchical  higher standards of living for the few at the cost of the impoverishment of the weak multitudes, loss of environmental security, --the list is endless. The planet and a few powerful rich are becoming a threat to the survival of the weak. Society as it was understood uptil only yesterday no longer has a future environment left  to survive. The time has come for the worm to turn. Society may no longer become into a plaything for the exploitation of the rich and powerful. The old order recognized the good of the maximum to be conserved for the good of the whole of society, which is the same as even distribution of natural resources between all for a just and sustainable society. This planet we live on has no credit cards operating in outer space. We are facing an unprecedented loss of species and changing climate. We have to all live on whatever we have left.

In this quest for a right balance between what can be had and what is needed for fulfillment, the instinct will be an invaluable guide, even more so than the intellect or intelligence. Even though this knowledge has by its nature declined in conditioned urban materialistic society it has nevertheless been preserved in the underdog primitive ethnic society wherever it has survived. India is one of the last great polytheistic tribal civilizations of the world even if it has been mauled by economics, industrialism and materialistic greed of a few. It is important to find out very quickly, in the very near future, whatever it takes humans to survive on very very little without destroying the means and resources of survival itself. And here we must turn to this vital knowledge bank in countries like India and Africa and South America which have been exploited for forests, ores and minerals  and torn apart by the politics of colonization. It is in this disappearing world that we will find the answer.

An intellectual renaissance is needed which challenges the shibboleths of economic growth. The divine rights of politicians and corporations will have to be challenged.  The primacy of the filthy rich and the filthy powerful, even the prelates, will have to be challenged. (This has already started happening).The forced stratification of society through levels of education into social classes separating the Haves from the Have-nots and the exploitation of resources for their benefit at the cost of the deprived, these will have reached certain limits beyond which they cannot go. Human rights will only be found in the archives of their institutions.  And then people will try and figure out what went wrong.


Intellectual Satyagraha

The internet today offers the possibility of such a communication network as a new age of discovery requires, a new age in which resources like food and water rapidly diminish and even disappear, in which natural resources become rare commodities and will have a higher price than any industrial products, heralding in a new economy. The human tragedy caused by a rapidly changing planet – heat, thirst, and inadequate food will stalk the future generations unless they are very wealthy and the ordinary will become extraordinary and the once easily available will become rare. There will be an increasing hegemony by military superpowers in the interests of their own populations. Globalization is not about a better globe but the exploitation of the planet by certain superpowers. The meaning of democracy will change. How to bring these visions to the common man and how to appeal for sense to the powerful elite who rule the nations. How to express our fears for the future and try and bring change to this juggernaut of incessant change, incessant Growth, incessant economic growth ?

Futuristic in concept, practical in application  the concept of intellectual satyagraha  -- clinging on to the truth – through the powers of reason and logic (logos), with unwavering faith in the collective good sense of our common humanity, calls upon the World Wide Web, the greatest weapon of the twenty-first century, or any century, because it allows the mind of humanity to address itself. The moral and social development of human societies has been dependant upon  information and communication, and today the World Wide Web brings to humans across the planet the possibility to join into one great democratic harmony, to join in the making of a new world order, one based on justice and sharing and not on Growth and War. The internet enters both as a tool and a weapon in deciding the way forward for human progress as humans everywhere would like to have it, not at gunpoint of some selfish greedy people.  The massive destruction of the planet’s natural resources, the growing massive pollution of the atmosphere with greenhouse gases especially carbon dioxide heralds the certain brutal  living conditions and premature deaths in our future generations, these all must be immediately addressed and stopped. We are in a time when our actions will shape the future of humanity. Humanity has not the way to find a common voice against a common oppression, and to my mind the practice and application of intellectual satyagraha is just such a way.  It is a reaffirmation of faith in our collective will as a race, of our common needs as humans. What future generations need is not economic Growth but survival conditions, not money and material goods  but food and water, and any act or acts which deny these to future generations are crimes against humanity. It is a reaffirmation of the collective will of our race at a turning point in our evolution. The decision making ability of a global internet population is awesome even as the internet and the World Wide Web reaches into the darkest corners of the planet and allows more and more voices to be heard. It presents the scope for a global democratic voice.

The World Wide Web has changed our world in more ways than great civilizations of the past have done. Its influence is everywhere – in politics, laws and the arts. Why should it not be an effective tool for the world to talk to the masters of global Growth, to the leaders of nations  --
to the human spirit and heart and mind ?Why should not people everywhere have their say in a world still governed by selfish feudal interests, by cartels and juntas and totalitarian regimes functioning in the name of economic growth and democracy and relentlessly exploiting nature and humans for Profit. Profit is the step-child of Growth. Intellectual satyagraha and the World Wide Web together offer limitless possibilities if they can be organized as a new  democratic voice , a world wide voice of global society. The idea sounds revolutionary and it is, -- a peaceful revolution through communication and reasoned protest against injustice to humans and nature. It is a revolution of thought and action.


Writing and Expression

The difference between instinct and intellect is that the instinct came first. The intellect proceeds from the development of writing and knowledge as separate from wisdom. Instinct belongs to the pre-literate mind, the so-called savage mind, the mind of our primitive ancestors. As I have pointed out the industrial age built on the economic foundations of Loot developed into an age of so called “enlightenment” which challenged the norms of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries and successfully wiped out the glories of twenty thousand years of creative intelligence. We are entering an age of counter enlightenment. Our race has developed destructive technologies far in advance of our anthropological evolution to control weapons of mass destruction. We have become more powerful than is good for us. Technology has outstripped human evolution itself. The children of tomorrow will be robots with intelligences primed by the then ruling disposition – which appears to be materialistic and non democratic for the masses –and highly democratic for the few. It will be a tomorrow of survivors and their obliterated generation. I am talking in the context of the imminent hazards of global warming and climate change within the next  thirty years when the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere will be four times pre-industrial levels (at 60 Gigatonnes), with sea level rise  around seven metres, and with atmospheric temperature 3C higher than today  in the tropics and 6.5F higher in the northern latitudes. Certainly these will not be livable conditions. Human life will only be possible under controlled conditions --in air conditioned cubicles. The methods of production of energy will have to change radically to meet these conditions. The numbers of deaths by this new plague – Global Warming – will not be countered easily simply through technology, it will be impossible to manage to save human beings in a  world scorched by heat and denuded of  food and water resources. These will indeed be extraordinary times. Robotic intelligence and mechanical assistance will be required even for decision making and the human will have to take a back seat (if it is there). The priorities of being human will be with only a very few in controlled laboratory conditions.  This transition of human to non human  operation will very likely happen suddenly after a certain point has been reached and no alternatives will be any longer possible. Mankind is accelerating towards this point and this very acceleration is slowing down the process of our realization of the reality.

I have spoken above of the pre-literate mind and the literate mind. Abrahamic scripture begins with the mission statement, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” The meaning of Ecology becomes suddenly God-defined by the followers. It isn’t plain logos (Gr. Logic), now it means Word. Church and  Theocratic State apply ecology to their actions as if all its concerns are defined by them and not by logos or Reason, i.e. ecological considerations  do not require to be logical.  Economy on the other hand is law-directed – nomos (Gr. Law), and economic considerations depend upon the law, military, police, etc. Its become a very dangerous law since economics depends on unlimited growth in a world of diminishing resources. That’s why thinkers have started despairing if we’ll ever make it beyond the present century.

Growth is dependant on subsidies by governments to corporations, kickbacks from corporations to governments, the destruction of natural resources without their being calculated in the production costs, the GDP. The abuse of economics and environmental resources  is paid for by the defenceless landscapes which are industrialized and the equally defenceless poor who live in these landscapes. Growth, growth, growth – that’s what economic growth is all about – and in an economic world what else can be done ? The divides between the poor and the rich, the Haves and the Have-Nots is the  essential outcome of Growth. This Growth is represented in the flawed Gross Domestic Product. And both are out of the reach of the common man to affect in any way. An economic despotism holds the world in thrall and growing military control of the planet escalates with escalating Growth. Totalitarian political regimes and their corporate cartels control the business as usual planet we live on. The last isolated ethnic environments are ready to be exploited through neo-colonial carnage. Hope is dead since  modern neo-liberal  economics is a deeply criminal fetish for the world’s leading economists and politicians and it is backed by police brutality and military power.  Displacing the last ethnic societies and taking over their natural environments is government policy in developing countries  unlike established economies which have a slow growth rate, such as Japan (1.5%). The old method of  judging a nation’s health on the basis of its fine products,  arts and crafts, the genius of its creative people, etc. is over. Now it is money, money, money – and more money -- which is the cri de coeur of the present economic global structure. In an age of global economy following an industrial revolution, a so called age of Enlightenment, and two world wars which left eighty million dead, we have the option of adopting the status quo or being left out in the cold.

It is no longer possible to ask any government riding a growth economy to be considerate or reasonable, honest or caring, since growth – economic growth, highly competitive economic growth – is based on corruption. Greater the corruption, greater the growth. That’s why a new system of morals is emerging in today’s world, one which condones the most immoral and colossal corruption. And the problem which arises in highly moral souls is that this is not right. But of course it is not. Clinton called a spade a spade when he charmingly observed “It’s the economy, stupid!”

We are globally at a stage of great danger. As the glaciers dry up – as they are doing in the Himalayas – and as the northern rivers dry up in time water is the potential cause of the next great wars between India and her neighbors; as the climate changes and affects food production in South Asia with increasing heat waves in the midst of growing populations; as more and more forest land is cut down or turned to plantations to increase growth; as the poor will die by the wayside, even so more people will be flying Spice-Jet and talking of champagne and caviar. And this is Growth, big bad Growth. The leaders understand the game perfectly. Which great general could afford the luxury of caring for the safety of society or his troops ? No, that luxury is not possible in quest of victory.

Everything else the Sage said is poetry, and poetry doesn’t buy food, or for that matter even water. The age of poets is over. The poet says “Helping the masses to return to the ancestral genius of the land, to help them bring up their children according to the old craftsmanship traditions, and to allow them to plough the land and reap a bountiful harvest” well, that’s all over. We’ve changed the playing field so fast and so permanently – or rather, the They who have done it, are tuned into a whole new dynamics for survival. Ruined rural India and her masses toiling in the sweltering, waterless desert India is fast becoming, they have read the writing on the wall: Join the bandwagon as the slogan says ! So the government plays to the audience. Chocolates and television, fine linen underwear and condoms, fulfilling the dream of simply riding on a train… this they say is what the simple ethnic societies want ! And they have created dangerous survival conditions which probably makes them right ! There is little place here for “ simple living and high thinking”. It is a fact that lower organisms are tougher than higher ones and that primitive societies are better adapted for survival under extreme conditions.  I believe that the masses are tougher, more resilient to change than the seemingly higher human types formed through wealth and education’ and these more primitive types will enter the ecological crisis for survival  well armed.” The poor shall inherit the earth” was the observation of the wisest man the world has seen – the gentle  Nazarene. Surely they will inherit the ghastly future we are going into! Till it lasts.


                             ---------------------------------------

Bulu Imam
Sanskriti
Hazaribagh
Jharkhand, India

Thursday, June 23, 2011


Exhibition of paintings at Bad Honnef (near Bonn), Germany

An exhibition of the Khovar and Sohrai paintings on paper (30”x22”) by TWAC (Tribal Women Artists Cooperatve) artists was organized at Bad Honnef (near Bonn) by FIAN –Austria. TWAC artists Philomina Tirkey and Elizabeth Bara painted a Sohrai mural of large size in the FIAN office in the presence of about seventy invited guests. The exhibition was followed by a talk on the art and the coal mining in the upper Damodar valley which is destroying the villages and natural environment of the region. The project was coordinated by Sabine Pabst, Mohan Damotheran, and Dr Pollyana Thomas of FIAN.



From Danube to Damodar


                            TWO RIVERS – ONE LIFE
                       From Danube to Damodar
                       March 22nd – 29th/Austria


 FIAN Austria hosted the delegation with Bulu Imam, Elizabeth Bara and Philomina Tirkey from March 22nd to March 29th.
Arrival in Vienna: Tuesday, March 22nd, 12,35h pm.
Two interviews were planned one for a newspaper, and one broadcast for Radio Orange, done by “Frauensolidrität”, (Women Solidarity)

The delgation procedes to Linz by train on Friday, March 25th, met at the station by Elisabeth and Edi (me and my husband) and accompanied to DK Austria (DKA=Carol Singers Action), where a lecture is planned for participants of a college course. This starts at 14,00h and goes until 16,00h.
It can be done in English without translation. (Bulu can present the same that is prepared for La Sapienza).
After that, the delegation arrived at our place in Upper Austria: Elisabeth Költringer and Gernot Krondorfer,  Ohnersdorf 11, A-4152 Sarleinsbach, Tel. 0043 (0)7283 8605, Email: elisabeth.koeltringer@sundial.at




Sunday, March 27th:
Event on the Danube riverbanks and on the Ship “Lilofee”
Title: TWO RIVERS – ONE LIFE, from Danube to Damodar.
10,30h: excursion on water with ship “Lilofee” (www.resi.at-Schiffstaufe )
Water from the Damodar is given to the Danube, water from the Danube is taken for being given to Damodar.
Press, TV and Public on the ship, accompanied with music by Veronika and Franz Falkinger.
Symbol: there are many rivers but one water, there are many humans but one life…..
13,00h: lunch at Donauparadies Gierlinger (www.donauparadies.gierlinger.at )

14,00h: public event in the marquee (tent) at the riverbank: see poster.
This FIAN Event is supported/sponsored by www.kultursprung.at , Musicschool Lembach, Europäischer Landwirtschaftsfond, Leader, Land Oberösterreich and Dreikönigsaktion-Hilfswerk der Katholischen Jungschar (www.dka.at ).
Public Event for the support of the resistence against open cast coal mining in the Karanpura Valley in Jharkhand.
Philomina Tirkey and Elizabeth Bara will paint live for the public.
Bulu Imam will inform about Karanpura Valley and resistence against mining.

Option: to initiate a partnership between the inhabitants of the Damodar dwellers and the inhabitants of the Danube dwellers.
Inculturell exchange, meeting, alliance.
Initiate public support for planned FIAN campaign Kusum Tola/Karanpura.

DKA will participate with info desk (Luggi Frauenberger) and with programm for children (Magdalena Jetschgo).
Poster “From Danube to Damodar” will be painted and presented by Vera Krondorfer.

17,00h break with refreshments.
Discussions, exchanges, alliances, open end.

Monday, March 28th
Excursion to Sumava Nationalpark (www.sumava.nationalpark ) with proponents of www.gruenesherz.boehmerwaldnatur.at (Thomas Engleder), natura 2000, (Andreas Prammer) www.naturschutzgruppe haibach (Franz Exenschläger) and YTAE (Youth Taking Action for the Earth: Moritz Schachner).

Tuesday, March 29th: departure for Heidelberg to FIAN IS by train from Passau.

For more information please contact: elisabeth.koeltringer@sundial.at


Second programme: On the Damodar river at Ramgarh

On 17 May the ceremony of pouring the Danube water brought from the upper Danube at the Snake Bend upstream of Linz near Ohberndorf in Austria was performed on the left bank of the Damodar at Ramgarh. The day 17th April was chosen for this sacred event as it was sacred to the Buddha which is marked on the full moon of mid-May called Buddh-Purnima. The group of us consisted of Philomina, Elizabeth and Bulu, our eldest son Justin and his wife Alka, and two women of our cooperative. The ceremony was a ritual one and a round wooden plate was decorated with flowers (pagoda flower, goldmohur, marigold) , and five lights in clay diyas  in the middle of which was kept the ceramic jar of water from the Danube. The jar had been made near the Danube in Ohberndorf by the brother of Elizabeth Koeltringer named Peter. It thus had a special significance. The site chosen was beside a rocky bed where the Damodar is deep and at its widest in Ramgarh a little to the east side of the N.H.33 bridge between Ramgarh and Hazaribagh, and in view of the temple on the opposite bank. The women read the prayer to the Damodar to receive the waters brought from the Danube river in Austria by the women for immersion in the Damodar. After this the water in the jar was poured in the Damodar waters. Then in the traditional Indian custom the wooden plaque decorated with flowers on which the jar of water had been kept was put in the river and floated downstream. 




La Sapienza, University of Rome, and ISIAO Conference

Papers presented at  La Sapienza, University of Rome, and ISIAO

18th and 19th April two day international seminar was held by La Sapienza, University of Rome. The first days meeting was in the grand premises of La Sapienza itself, and second days proceedings were held at ISIAO, the Italian Institute for the Study of Africa and the Orient. Here an exhibition on the Khovar and Sohrai art had been set up by Ms Daniela Bezzi using artworks from the 2008 Pigorini Museum exhibition of TWAC in Rome. The seminar was organized by Dr.Fabio Scialpi, Head of Dept. of Religion and Philosophy, La Sapienza and Dr.Tiziana Lorenzetti,

Alongside this exhibition  a working display was given by Philomina and Elizabeth Imam of a Sohrai lotus mandala painted on mud treated cloth. The proceedings of both days seminar is given below-

The first day’s seminar at La Sapienza, Univ. of Rome consisted of paper given by eminent European and Indian Scholars on Indian Art and History.

The second day’s seminar was held at ISIAO in the same way and in this seminar in the evening I presented my paper attached with a slide presentation which was widely accepted. Philomina and Elizabeth painted a large mandala on cloth using mud acrylic.




Presented at La Sapienza, Univ. of Rome, and ISIAO (18th-19th April, 2011)

International Conference, Glimpses of Indian History and Art, Reflections on the Past, Perspectives for the Future  

TRIBAL CULTURE AND OLDEST ARTISTIC TRADITION OF INDIA IN STATE OF JHARKHAND


Hazaribagh, Jharkhand, eastern central India: 23 – 25 and 24 -48 north latitude and 84 -29 and 86 -38 east longitude. Jharkhand is famous in Indian anthropology as the cradle of tribal culture and its name means “forest land”. Its vast forests have been badly damaged by mining, dams and industrialization since India’s independence from British rule in 1947 and its tribal population has faced massive displacement.  The documentation of tribal art and culture by the Author has been persistently pursued for the past three decades and this paper presents viewpoints regarding the rockart of Jharkhand which he has brought to light since 1991 – one dozen new sites – and the connection between the rockart and the contemporary village paintings  in the context of the palaeoarchaeology of the region  which is collected in a museum  specially for the purpose.

The Archaeology of the region  goes back to the middle palaeolithic in the vicinity of the rockart caves which have been dated by experts to between 8000-2500 B.C. The stylistic interpretation of the village paintings has been done for the over dozen tribal groups to show the continuing artistic tradition and relationship between the local tribals and the art of their prehistoric ancestors. It describes how  the art of these indigenous societies along with scientific analysis of the palaeoarchaeology and interpretation of their artistic traditions have conferred  indigenous identity recognized at the UN level to these  tribes whose environments are facing massive destructive strip mining interests which threaten to destroy the region and its heritage. The present paper  presents  the motifs found in the rock paintings a continued in the traditional village painting , and their  continuing significance in the common life of the women who paint them for ritual purposes. 

The rock paintings overlooking the villages  until their discovery in the hilly ranges during the 1990s and early 21st century were unknown to the women village mural painters. Their significance was unlocked by studying their village significance. This information is studied in its  pan-Indian context and in relation to various social and historical forces over the past several millennia going back to pre-Indus valley times. The paper presents the gradual interpretation of the language of the Adivasi mural painting tradition , in relation to the rock art symbolism, and  presents a summing up of the methodology for obtaining credibility of the art for gaining  UN indigenous status for the tribals, and the forming of a tribal women’s Artists Cooperative in 1993, which has already held several dozen major exhibitions of the art at prestigious national museums and art galleries around the world, and has received the patronage of SOAS for a six week exhibition at the BRUNEI GALLERY in London from 12 April 2011. In 2009 the art was exhibited in Rome in the PIGORINI MUSEUM for four months.

Text of full paper attached
 

SOAS, London- Exhibition and Seminars


Report on the Exhibition at the Brunei Gallery, 13th April to 25th June, 2011

Friends from far and near in a revival reminiscent of 2008 at the Pigorini in Rome had assembled -- Susazanne Gupta from Berlin who made our film The One-Eared Elephant from Hazaribagh (who has eaten up many lettuce leaves and cabbages in Europe), Michel Sabatier, wife Beroze and daughter Lilya from La Rochelle, France ( expected to be hosting our next exhibition with the La Rochelle municipal council, in France during the coming Autumn),  The exhibition mentioned above at SOAS was organized by Robert Wallis and Jennifer Wallace of Cambridge under the expertise of gallery manager John Hollingworth. Robert's great photographs from the killing fields -- the coal mines of Jharkhand - were beautifully printed in large format and displayed beautifully. This was complemented by our specially prepared artwork on cloth and canvas by the Tribal Women Artists Collective under the INTACH  banner. Justin's wonderful film of the  puja by the Tana Bhagats to the Thethangi rockart in 1969 was shown in a specially designed room within the exhibition. Robert's film of the tribal women painting in the village was shown by closed-circuit TV with headphones for sound.  The guests were dazzling in their number and variety,  a great  many from the higher London  social circle, but one stood ouit - Bianca Jagger , who promised to visit us in Jharkhand this coming Sohrai festival at the end of October. The exhibition was titled: A Disappearing World: Ancient Traditions  under threat in Tribal India - Tradition, Continuity anmd Conflict in Jharkhand State. The exhibition continues for nine weeks uptil 25 June. It was introduced by the Director of SOAS. We have to thank for sponsorship of the exhibition and seminars The Gandhi Foundation, INTACH, SOAS, and the Helen Hamlyn Trust.



Report on the two Seminars at SOAS in conjunction with the opening of the exhibition of paintings and photographs titled a Disappearing World at the Brunei Gallery

SOAS is part of the University of London and is acknowledged to be the worlds leading centre for the study of a highly diverse range of subjects concerning Asia, Africa and the Middle East


14th April, 2011:
Two seminars were held on the 14th April

The first seminar was from 3-5 pm and held in the SOAS seminar auditorium. The topic was art, ancestry and tribal identity and was introduced by Bulu Imam of TWAC and concerned adivasi religious beliefs and art, and their connections to their ancestral lands and the natural environment endangered presently by largescale openscale mining in the Karanpura valley which subject was explicitly treated in theompanying exhibition in the Brunei gallery of SOAS alongside which featured large format photographs of the hazardous coal mining taken by photographer Robert Wallis, with large khovar and sohrai paintings by the artists of the Tribal Women Artists Cooperative. The report on the seminar is given below-



A summary of issues raised in the “Disappearing World” seminars:


Comments by Jennifer Wallace:
We held two public seminars on Thursday 14th April, in conjunction with the “A Disappearing World: Ancient Traditions Under Threat in Tribal India” exhibition at the Brunei Gallery, SOAS.
The first panel discussion was on Art, Ancestry and Tribal Identity, chaired by Jennifer Wallace (Cambridge University and writer/researcher for the Disappearing World exhibition).  On the panel were Bulu Imam, Convener of INTACH (Indian National Trust for Art, Culture and Heritage) in Hazaribagh, Jharkhand, and Director of the Tribal Women’s Artist Collective; Philomina Tirkey, an Oraon tribal artist whose work was included in the exhibition; Daniel Rycroft, lecturer at University of East Anglia and co-editor of The Politics of Belonging in India: Becoming Adivasi; and Rasmi Varma, lecturer at Warwick University and author of the forthcoming book Modern Tribal: the Cultural Politics of Indigeneity in Post-Colonial India.

The discussion focused on the issue of indigenous identity. Although Bulu began by declaring that Adivasi identity was defined by the 2007 UN declaration on the rights of indigenous people, the debate became polarised between those (chiefly Bulu and Philomina) who said that Adivasi identity was characterised by the experience of living in accordance with nature, in a way unchanged since ancient times, and those (chiefly Daniel and Rashmi) who stressed that it was more a political definition which was also available to those who no longer live in villages or in accordance with old beliefs and practices and who might still want to claim allegiance to those indigenous roots. In other words, the debate was between whether the Adivasi culture stretched back to the dawn of time and could not be intellectualised or whether it was constantly in transition, able to be appropriated and imposed by different groups and was the product of more recent history (such as rebellions against the British colonialists). While somebody from the audience raised the question of whether this was all just an obscure academic debate, others from the audience and the panel responded with the point that defining Adivasi identity was in fact hugely important for social policy and ongoing legislation. The general feeling was that it was very good for those on the ground and academics to talk to one another, because we are all working towards the same goals and objectives.
In the context of this larger debate, there was also a discussion of Adivasi religious beliefs and practices. Philomina spoke eloquently of the festivals and pujas that her village held every year, and we went on to discuss whether these pujas, which were focused upon the sacred land around the village, could also be continued by those who had been displaced from the land and who now live in urban slums. Rasmi pointed to the comparable example of the Gond tribe, who now paint instead of singing their old traditional songs; this led to a brief discussion of the art practised by the tribal women of north Jharkhand and its connection to their spiritual beliefs.  Bulu concluded the afternoon’s discussion by declaring that art was vital to a people’s humanity, that what we are all in danger of losing is a notion of ourselves as human. This notion is rooted in our sense of belonging, in our history and community; Adivasi traditions (which are endangered) represent that spirit of humanity for us most strikingly.

14th April, 2011

The second seminar was from 6.30 – 8.30 pm and was on mining, displacement and resistance in India’s tribal lands which dealt with the questions of indigenous adivasi identity, the impact of mining on these peoples  lands and on the environment, and the growing resistance to the mining from  the adivasis, and the government’s response to the resistance. The report on this second seminar is given below –




Comments by Jennifer Wallace:
The second panel discussion was on “Mining, Displacement and Resistance”, chaired again by Jennifer Wallace. On the panel were Bulu Imam, as the director of the Save the Karanpura Valley Campaign; Vinita Damodaran, lecturer at University of Sussex and author of many books and articles on popular protest, forest rights, globalisation and mining in Eastern India; Robert Wallis, the photographer for the “Disappearing World” exhibition; and Richard Harkinson, part of the London Mining Network.
The session began with a screening of Robert Wallis’s 6-minute film on the situation in Jharkhand. The panel discussion focused around three questions: what are the laws which are supposed to protect the Adivasi and which also paradoxically allow the displacement of tribal people from their lands? To what extent is mining a major contributing factor to the Maoist insurgency in the region? And what is the solution, or in other words, what kind of development, if any, could or should be brought to Jharkhand? Vinita explained the problems with the recent Forest Rights Act, and spoke powerfully about the extent of dispossession (about 60 million people) since Independence. With facts like these, she asked, is it any wonder that there is grievance and that some Adivasi are ending up fighting with the Maoists? The panel were divided on the question of the solution. Bulu was strongly opposed to any form of development imposed by outsiders for the benefit of outsiders. Others felt that some form of local development, in which Adivasi take control of their own industries, could be the way forward. Only through development of this kind might the Adivasi be given a non-violent alternative to the Naxalites or armed insurgency. There was a vigorous debate about whether corporations or NGOs could – or indeed already do - carry out Environmental Impact Assessments, and how these could ever be effective or whether they are completely ignored and used only as a PR exercise. Bulu expressed a faith in young people to realise the importance of nature, community and spirituality for the human race. While Robert was sceptical about whether young, middle-class people living in cities really cared about the cost of the development which was bringing them prosperity, Bulu finished the session by declaring that the power of the internet and other media to raise awareness offered the crucial solution; with knowledge of what was really going on in Jharkhand and the other mining states of India, young people would strive to overturn the mistakes of their parents.


Additional comments by Robert Wallis:
Further to discussions about the Forest Right’s Act, during the seminar and after it, it was pointed out that the FRA, which was ostensibly created to protect tribal land rights, has in fact been used to exploit their lands without fair compensation. While the FRA prevents tribal land from being freely bought and sold like non-tribal land, it does not prevent the government from seizing the land for purposes considered to be in the “national interest”- specifically in the case of Jharkhand, for mining and hydro-electric projects.  So in practice Adivasi are forced off their land but paid only a tiny fraction of what it is really worth to corporate interests which will then buy it from the government at a much higher price.  Bulu forcefully argued that this is a loophole which the government uses to acquire mineral resources on Adivasi lands at knock-down prices. He said this must be changed. If Adivasi are dispossessed and forced to leave their ancestral lands, they must receive a fair price for the land, the same price that would have to be paid if it was owned by non-tribals. Only in this way can Adivasi purchase other agricultural land (land for land) to continue their traditional way of life or choose alternatives that are economically viable.  Otherwise many will end up scavenging on the edge of the mines that have displaced them (as seen in my photos in the exhibition) or working as unskilled day labourers living in urban slums.
To summarise, Bulu said that either the FRA must be respected and not easily overruled by the so called ‘national interest’, which is really the interest of large corporations but not of those whose way of life is being destroyed, or Adivasi must be paid the same as non-tribals for what their land is really worth to be able to start a new life elsewhere. It becomes a legal issue in either case.
Bulu concluded that even if the law is changed or interpreted fairly, it must then be enforced at the local level which is an entirely different challenge since non-enforcement of existing laws is endemic in India due to bribery, intimidation and corruption.