The Mining of Poverty

Published paper titled "The mining of poverty" in Social Work foot Prints; (Special issue journal on poverty and income inequality in India: Social Social work responses) (ISSN: 2230-8830) Volume VII, Issue 5, November 2017

Title: The Mining of Poverty

Type: Socio-Political-Economic Analysis

Author: Ajith Fredjeev Dinakarlal, Faculty, School of Social Work, Marian College, Kutikanam (ajith.fredjeev@mariancollege.org, fredjeev@gmail.com)

Co-Author: Dr. Lokesha MU, Faculty, Department of Studies and Research in Social Work, Tumkur University, Tumkur (lokesh_mu2000@yahoo.co.in) 

Abstract:

“First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, and then you win.” 
by Mahatma Gandhi

It is not NEWS that the believers of the ‘divine right’ from the West as well as the pseudo-democratic champions of the East have both been abusing the rights and minority interests of the vulnerable for a very long period of time; yet, it must be realized that the impact thus created, has been quite severe on skewing the identity of the majority living within the barriers of geographical restrictions who end up bearing misrepresentations and its subsequent consequences. Our resistance (as Indians) to global disparities and dialectics of internal and external identities that have emerged as a result of these causes has not altered as the majority still live in a state of complacency of ignorance; if not, apathy. Resistance to forced identities has remained unrevoked and the Indian identity that has been skewed on the parallel to favour some hypocritical agendas set forth by funding and funded organizations in the development sector, can be only set right upon the realization of the fact that this plunder and ruin have been silently and systematically hatched, patched and dispatched, ignoring the identity of the majority and of course, with a certain level of deliberated resistance towards this wrongful depiction and misrepresentation. The following analysis at a socio-political-economic level, aims to disturb the complacency of silence in order to stop manifesting what necessarily does not represent the identity of every Indian and calls for rudimentary, majority response for its reversal.

Keywords: India, Identity, Human Rights, Funding, Development Sector, Violations, Abuse, Resistance, Social Action  

 Seeding the thought

“Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way,

into the dreary desert sand of dead habit,

where the mind is led forward by thee into

ever widening thought and action,

into that heaven of freedom, my father, let my country awake” Rabindranath Tagore

If one were to draw blind-folded, an image of an Indian, from what is heard and seen about India and its people by others outside its borders, perhaps it should not be surprising to see anyone drawing a dark, skinny and dusty person with a grim face and a turban wrapped several times around the head, standing amidst dark, gloomy clouds of lust and violence, corruption and scams, pollution and population hovering in the backdrop, holding a deep-pitted begging bowl raised towards any leaking place from which foreign funds have the slightest hint of dripping… no matter how demeaning the picture might be.  

A few decades back, this is how we too, as global citizens, played a part in painting the whole of Africa as a continent with sick, poor, bony, dusty, dark children; undeniable that we expected every child, woman and man coming out of Africa to fit into boxes and images of our forced imagination seeded by the exploitative colonial powers. To a certain extent, seeding this dark thought of an entire continent into our minds that so stubbornly refuses to leave has been achieved; so much so that we cannot stop seeing Africa and its citizens without sympathy; even if they don't ask for it. Thus remains Africa, a continent with absolute poverty and misery, violence and barbarism, with resent for advancement and justice requiring the saviours from the fair West to be present there all the time for establishing control of biblical proportions over otherwise tagged “barbaric” tendencies-confirmed and affirmed within the limitations of our mind if not anywhere else. With that idea established, is sealed the fate of Africa as an ever-impoverished nation in need of never-ending support in global perspective. Eventually, crossing borders and treading seas, India, seems to have become the new destiny, the new Africa, for the West to muse in the pretext of development.   

Historically, the colonial powers enter a particular territory only when there is a promise of economic prosperity and would not leave until the last drop of anything left is drained. Africa, I believe, has still some more fuel, diamond and un-questioning people left for the colonies to optimize and the West would go any length to skew the African identity to make space for them to remain until Africa’s resources are completely exploited. Amidst faith-based, pseudo-justice-based, exploitative colonial powers born out of intentions conceived through the marriage of hypocrisy and greed, it would be interestingly revealing if the following questions are reflected upon: How is this image drawn so conveniently? Who frames these images? What benefit is derived by giving and taking up such an identity?

  

From the Moral Eye of Democracy

Despite glamour and its commercial side taking on the best centers and corners of the mass media, some remnant gaps do bring highlights of contemporary social issues by chance or by choice and at times articles with NEWS-value do make it through media gate-keepers, that expose racist ideologies and stereotyping of the subaltern collective that indicate the cause of the selective-perception. It is then that the media finds its rightful place as the fourth pillar or rather the moral eye of the democracy that opens to reveal hidden agendas. Instances may be seen as run below.   

The Problem of Plenty

For a country which till recently had a weak civil society movement, India is now witnessing a boom in the NGO sector. With a population of 1.2 billion, the country could well be the land of opportunities for non-governmental organizations (NGOs) with the Central Bureau of Investigation conservatively estimating 20 lakh of them already operating in states and union territories.

The mind-boggling figures boil down to one NGO for every 600 people. Compare this to the latest government data on police. According to the latest figures from the Union home ministry, India has just one policeman for every 943 people.

But there is an accountability deficit among the NGOs. And that's how CBI got into the picture as the Supreme Court responded to a PIL. Many don't submit details of receipt of grant and spending to income tax authorities, the CBI told the apex court.[1]

The Funding Inquisition

Based upon the receipt of previously received, documented and established figures, NGOs operating in the country had received a staggering Rs 11,070 crore during 2013-14, with the US topping the list of donors by providing over Rs 4,491 crore, followed by the UK which contributed Rs 1,347 crore, according to the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA). Interestingly, the NGOs received donations even from secretive countries like North Korea.

·    Malawi, a landlocked country in South East Africa, which is counted among the world’s least developed countries, is mentioned as a donor with over Rs 27 lakh donation to various NGOs during 2013-14. 

·        Swaziland, one of the smallest countries in Africa, donated over Rs 9.5 crore.

·        Donations from Pakistan during the same year were about Rs 50 lakh while Greece, which has been gripped by its worst economic crisis till date, donated Rs 61 lakh.

·        People from violence-hit countries like Afghanistan and Bosnia too donated to the Indian NGOs. Rs 1.23 crore came from Bosnia while Afghanistan’s contribution was Rs 1 crore.[2]

These are funds received besides the funding NGOs/NPOs in India receive from the Government of India itself.

·        In the last decade, more than Rs 85,000 crore has come in for the NGO sector from global patrons

·        Of the 40,000-odd NGOs registered under Foreign Contributions Regulation Act (FCRA), at least half do not file proper accounts with the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA)

·        As per a report published by the Home Ministry for the year 2011-12, there were 41,844 registered associations under the FCRA and some 22,702 NGOs reportedly received Rs 11,546 crore as foreign contributions

·        As compared to 2004-05, the amount received in 2011-12 was up by 85 percent (from Rs 6,257 crore to Rs 11,548 crore) and their number 38 percent (from 30,321 to 41844)

·        A total of Rs 1,16,073 crore was received by the NGOs between 1993-94 to 2011-12. Only about 55% NGOs gave audited account

·        Among the list of donors, the United States tops the list (Rs 3838.23 crore) followed by the United Kingdom (Rs 1219.02 crore) and Germany (Rs 1096.01 crore)

·        A majority of donors, including the top three, are church-based organisations such as Compassion International USA (Rs 183.83 crore) followed by Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, USA (Rs 130.77 crore) and the Kindernothilfe e.V. (KNH) Germany (Rs 51.76 crore)

·        Of the top 15 donor agencies, 13 are related to some or the other Christian sect. Over 90 percent of the top 30 recipient organizations are engaged in missionary activity

·        The highest amount of foreign contribution was received by the following Christian organization namely World Vision India, Chennai (Rs 233.38 crore), followed by the Believers Church India Pathanamthitta, Kerala (Rs 190.05 crore) and Rural Development Trust, Ananthpur, Andhra Pradesh, (Rs 144.39 crore)

·        To put this in perspective, India’s total defence allocation (2011-12) was Rs 1,64,000 crore. Thus, foreign-funded NGOs (FFNGOs) in 2011-12 received seven percent of India's then defence budget[3]

The Emerging Thought

Over six decades of freedom later and after millions of dollars raised outside our borders in promised lands by the so called “compassionate” and those living off that money raised in the name of the poor, with a stage set for provider-receiver drama to happen with lakhs of organizations to act as actors, traitors and betrayers (from within and out), nothing much has changed in the socio-economic-political diaspora of our country; we remain still burdened and still plundered and those we claim need help, upon whose needs the welfare-oriented development sector fuels itself, remain deprived, marginalized, excluded and vulnerable till date. Let us take the following statistics[4] available from the past five years for some revelation:

·        The Planning Commission of India has accepted the Tendulkar Committee report that says that 37% of people in India live below the poverty line (BPL)

·        The Arjun Sengupta Report (from National Commission for Enterprises in the Unorganised Sector) states that 77% of Indians live on less than INR 20 a day (about $0.50 per day)

·        The N.C. Saxena Committee report states that 50% of Indians live below the poverty line

·        A study by the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative using a Multi-dimensional Poverty Index (MPI) found that there were 650 million people (53.7% of population) living in poverty in India, of which 340 million people (28.6% of the population) were living in severe poverty, and that a further 198 million people (16.4% of the population) were vulnerable to poverty

·        421 million of the poor are concentrated in eight North Indian and East Indian states of Bihar, Chattisgarh, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Orissa, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal. This number is higher than the 410 million poor living in the 26 poorest African nations

·        The World Bank estimates that India is ranked 2nd in the world of the number of children suffering from malnutrition

·        The UN estimates that 2.1 million Indian children die before reaching the age of 5 every year – four every minute – mostly from preventable illnesses such as diarrhoea, typhoid, malaria, measles and pneumonia

·        Every day, 1,000 Indian children die because of diarrhoea alone.
The 2011 Global Hunger Index (GHI) Report ranked India 15th, amongst leading countries with hunger situation and

·      The Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative in its Global Multidimensional Poverty Index published in 2015, ranks two North Indian states amongst the five “poorest” sub-national regions in the world

The only thing gained and maintained by us at the end of the day, is the image of an always poor and absolutely needy, ever “developing” nation. As we continue to be abused for the virtue of patience we hold, often we are forced to live in a culture of fear, denial and silence. This attitude of ours to supply to the demand of other nations with our poverty, will always remain and be kept that way for a very long time. The image thus created and along with our identity, just like that of Africa, will be a story of never ending poverty and sorry endings and we shall soon be dressed in rags with Western imagination for the amusement of the rest of the world. This misrepresentation of our identity, (ab)using the vulnerability of select targets, has been the greatest injustice done to the people of India and the greatest damage done to the image of the country… the greatest abuse of our collective patience.

GO and NGO Lock Horns

Most funding organizations function nothing more than as the neo-capitalists of the contemporary scenario who see the poor and the vulnerable as nothing more than a Return on Investment (RoI); and their lives, their communities and the problems they deal with in everyday life as their Unique Selling Point (USP) to be optimized and highlighted outside the borders to nurture profits and dividends back in their homes out of which a portion found fitting is thrown at us for which we are busy fighting among ourselves to take a grab.

And up the political front and in government quarters, leave alone finding it difficult to strategically tackle poverty over the years, our topied-babus seem to find it hard enough even to define it. Shifting from per-capita income to kilo-calorie food consumption, we have indeed shifted focus defining poverty rather than focusing on the welfare of the poor. Of late, we have brilliantly figured out that the fastest and immediate way to bring down the poverty level of a country is to just adjust the way we define it. The once Chairman of the Planning Commission, Montek Singh Ahluwalia, submitted new price data that pegged the urban poverty line as consumption of Rs. 32/day per person in urban areas and Rs. 26/day in rural areas, a revision that would immediately lower India’s own measure of its poor from 37% to 32% of its population. Behold! Sixty million people, suddenly are no more poor by definition.

Optimizing on the poor who the government manages to define and the remaining that are left out undefined, at the end of the day, the NGOs from within and out, hover to notice and peck and fill themselves with benefits sought in their names. 

  

Big Fish Eats Smaller Fry

Cracking down on erring NGOs, government has cancelled licenses of 1,142 NGOs belonging to undivided Andhra Pradesh, under which they get foreign funds, for not filing their annual returns for three consecutive years. Earlier, government has said that 69 NGOs have been blacklisted from receiving foreign funds after finding fault in different aspects. Among those NGOs which were prohibited from receiving the foreign funds include 14 from Andhra Pradesh, 12 from Tamil Nadu, five each from Gujarat and Odisha, four each from Uttar Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir and Kerala and three from Delhi. Government had also initiated action against 26 NGOs in current fiscal after finding “irregularities” in receiving foreign contribution while 14 foreign donors have been placed under prior approval category.

On February 25, government told Parliament that more than 31,000 NGOs were served notices for not filing annual returns on their foreign contribution. In 2011-12, notices were sent to 21,493 associations which were found to have not submitted annual returns under Foreign Contribution (Regulation) Act 2010 for 2006-07, 2007-08 and 2008-09 and in 2014, and notices were issued to 10,343 associations which had not filed annual returns for 2009-10 to 2011-12.[5]

In October, the Home Ministry announced that the non-governmental organizations can’t do transactions of over `20,000 in cash—a clause which is applicable to only business enterprises under the Income Tax Act. In December, a Reserve Bank of India (RBI) circular was released, listing NGOs whose funds it said should be monitored by banks. In January, a new circular was released with a list of 10 donor organizations, including Danish International Development Agency (Danida), Mercy Corps, US; Hivos International of the Netherlands; Climate Work Foundation, US; and Greenpeace International.

Any NGO receiving funds from them will now need prior permission of the MHA before they bring in the funds. In fact, starting 1 April, 2015, all organizations registered under the FCRA have to reapply for licence within a year. While licences issued by the MHA in the ongoing year will be applicable for five, those issued before 1 April 2015 will be deemed cancelled from April 2016. Anil Choudhary, senior member with Indian Social Action Forum (INSAF), said, “If you are independent and critical of the market and the government, you face the music in the form of regulatory restrictions.” Those working in the development sector are hopeful of alternative funding models emerging, though not necessarily through CSR. Once community-centred funding comes into the picture, the voices of dissent and people’s movements will be harder to stamp out; it is believed.[6]

At the end of the sudden screening and lowering of shutters of NGOs by suddenly vigilant government bodies and the ironical subsequent screaming of “foul-play” by representatives from the civil society who claim this to be a direct attack on democracy to shut voices of dissent and disapproval of activists and nationalists, I wonder why voices of dissent and disapproval over a government’s unjust manifestation of oppressive tendencies to cover-up hideous corporate crimes suddenly stop when financial ties are cut(?!) Do voices of such heightened passion earlier heard require financial assistance to ensure volume?! Is this the junction of hypocrisy?

The painting of M.F. Hussain, titled 'the Rape of Mother India, portrays the image of a woman caught in a struggle to escape from the strangling force of two wild bulls; this painting was heavily criticized for the imagery as well as the titling. Revisit the painting and you get to see the Indian identity suffer a similar accord; torn apart by the betrayer from outside and the traitor from within and it is then that you realize that the painting would find no more contempt yet just absolute relevance in the present context to understand the fate of the poor caught between these two sectors that promise development.

The Mining of Poverty

“The identity of an individual is essentially a function of his/her choices, rather than the discovery of an immutable attribute.” Amartya Sen

India has always been seen as a land of harvest if not by us, at least by the West. As we try to think that gone are those days, when the great whites packed up after reaching our shores and mining us off our riches that they controlled, reaped and shipped to their land to be preserved, wrapped and sold, it is equally pertinent to be a little watchful and realize that today those we believed to be gone, are back in our shores and this time, to mine us off our poverty instead. Their first stop often as they reach our land are the slums, pavements and areas of claimed-underdevelopment, poverty and hunger-their choicest destinations (often with good connectivity through air), where they pull out their point and shoot cameras, to do exactly what it is meant to do-point and shoot-megapixel after megapixel of great whites amidst the poor, vulnerable and unprotected lot in an impoverished nation that will soon get captioned, tagged, uploaded, downloaded and blown up to unimaginable proportions to be presented in slides, posters, brochures, coffee-table stand-alone and anything creative and unimaginable during hair-raising, fund-raising campaigns to a bunch of mesmerized audiences who fill the high-raised bowls of those that seek on behalf of those who are not even aware (nor ever will be.) Thus emerges a breeding ground for forced-need-based communities and strategic-greed-based organizations and the marriage of these two groups have become subsequently complementary for each other’s survival.

In this rights-based-era we live in, with globalization in vogue, it is not just commodities that are traded yet often tags that come with an unstoppable influx of infused culture-new, foreign and distant to us; and as we stand in awe at the conqueror, we despise our own within the boundaries and step across even if it is in the risk of giving up our culture, traditions and freedom. There is a wide difference between these cross-cultural ideas; like the idea of feeling self actualized and satisfied that according to Western philosophy is possible when facilitated through the accumulation of materialistic resources to maximize satisfaction that is directly contradictory to the Indian philosophy that speaks about the idea of giving up materialism to attain nirvana. The solution to many problems in the Indian context cannot lie in plausible formulae that seems to have worked in the West or elsewhere; owing to the fact that there is a serious discrepancy in the way hypothetical assumptions have been made of Indians and India on the basis of flawed conclusions drawn from misrepresentation and ideas drawn from an equally plausible imagination.

Concluding Idea of Justice

India has become a country where a plethora of projects are drafted for the money collected; when ethically it should be the other way around; this is when and where the Indian soil and its people have become testing grounds for launching medical and other researches banned in other sensible parts of the world, where pesticides, bio-modified seeds and pilot projects considered harmful gets conceived, incubated and hatched on our open grounds thus condensing our land to blocks of wasted and barren exploited pieces and our people to mere guinea pigs and lab rats capitalizing on the illiteracy and ignorance of the exploited masses.

Eventually, it is the poor, blanketed under the darkness of poverty, who are being silently and systematically plundered, ruined and tagged and we, as a majority carry these imprints in our represented, presented and misrepresented identity; yet it is not such a rarity that these isolation chambers are what many walk into these days willfully and voluntarily; giving up pride, respect and dignity which some of our earlier Indians refused to exchange. Much of the damage has been partly due to an identity thrust upon us and much more attributed to us for accepting the identity thrust without defending our own.

In The Idea of Justice, Amartya Sen, hints on the need for the concept of ‘open impartiality’ in a global context that cannot be abstracted without the existence of ‘global democracy’. This is one of the weirdest situations where a global dialogue that is imperative for ensuring global justice under the organization of commonalities of identities and institutions in the contemporary world gets dismissed for evoking ‘distracting details’ that shun the purity for exercising fairness while delivering justice. Often, this is the same detailing that is available to understand the global presentations of vulnerable people and communities and their identities that are un-spared and brutalized, very often on global grounds of injustice.

The images of the beggar tapping at car window at a traffic signal, a working child carrying a sack-load of waste in a gunny bag, a pavement dweller living in a pipeline discarded from an unsuccessful project, a pathway seller rushing to hide his commodities when the cops come in, a push-cart monger who yells at the top of his voice right outside the house and everyone else we drive past or possibly just pause to pick a decent bargain or take a moment to pity have been raised to be identified as the symbols of poverty and objectified.

The life that drives these people into who they are, where they are and where they come from and why they do what they do, are interestingly heart-warming stories of endurance and courage if rightly captured and truthfully represented. The stories from the everyday life of these people, true and alive, have a greater significance for living the great Indian philosophy that teaches of artha, kama, dharma and moksha that will help us to understand the essence of breaking barriers of conceived perception by observing their very simple way of life amidst struggles like anyone else’s. The idea to capture their lives, courage and dream amidst their struggle may change our perspective of them and provide a spectrum of understanding of the immense resilience of an ordinary, regular Indian to the rest of the world.

The irony behind these stories of struggles and endurance amidst suffering, tragedies and difficulties is that these issues need not be faced in the first place if policies that run the government, non-government and community systems were functioning as promised and as truthful as told in the first place. Diamonds are rare, beautiful and valuable, but their beginnings were always as humble in form as the common carbon-dark, dirty, and combustible. Through years of withstanding intense heat and high pressure, they become pure, beautiful and strong; this makes the gem a good metaphor for the patient Indian endurance that has historically withstood abuse, chaos and catastrophe. This can be understood through the lives of a few contemporary and lesser known Indians when presented and represented from an un-hideous and positive angle and their misrepresentations get subsequently erased.

Reference [i] , [ii] , [iii] , [iv] , [v] , [vi] , [vii] , [viii] , [ix], [x], [xi], [xii], [xiii], [xiv], [xv]

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[1] Dhananjay Mahapatra, India witnessing NGO boom, there is 1 for every 600 people, Times of India, Feb 23, 2014 retrieved from http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/India-witnessing-NGO-boom-there-is-1-for-every-600-people/articleshow/30871406.cms as on 4th April, 2015

[2] Yatish Yadav, NGOs Got Rs11K Crore Foreign Funds in 2013-14, The New Indian Express, 27th February 2015 retrieved from http://www.newindianexpress.com/nation/NGOs-Got-Rs11K-Crore-Foreign-Funds-in-2013-14/2015/02/27/article2689210.ece as on 4th April 2015

[3] Tarique Anwar, Scrap FCRA, NGOs doing Church work with foreign funds: Experts, Feb 1, 2015 retrieved from http://www.firstpost.com/india/scrap-fcra-ngos-church-work-foreign-funds-experts-2074339.html as on 4th April, 2015

[4] Source available in reference

[5] Press Trust of India, Govt cancels licenses of 1,142 NGOs to receive foreign funds, The New Indian Express, 17^th March, 2015 retrieved from http://indianexpress.com/article/india/india-others/govt-cancels-licenses-of-1142-ngos-to-receive-foreign-funds/ as on 4^th April, 2015 

[6] NGOs facing a funding challenge: Are funds drying up due to increased scrutiny or because India is now seen as an emerging economic power? Retrieved from http://www.livemint.com/Politics/hTcPwLtj9qU8tvVVudUDMJ/NGOs-facing-a-funding-challenge.html?facet=print as on 4^th April, 2015

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[i] Amartya Sen, 2005, The Argumentative Indian, Writings on Culture, History and Identity, New Delhi, Penguin Books

[ii] Amartya Sen, The Idea of Justice, 2009, New Delhi, Penguin Books

[iii] Ziauddin Sardar and Borin Van Loon, 2000, Media Studies, Malta, Icon Books

[iv] Ziauddin Sardar and Borin Van Loon, 1997, Cultural Studies, Malta, Icon Books

[v] Dave Robinson and Judy Groves, 2003, Political Philosophy, Malta, Icon Books

[vi] Rabindranath Tagore, 1913, Gitanjali, London, Macmillan and Co., Limited

[vii] Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative (OPHI), Excerpt from Sabin Alkire and Gisela Robles Aguilar, January 2015, University of Oxford

[viii] "Country Briefing: India, Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI) At a Glance". Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative

[ix] "8 Indian states have more poor than 26 poorest African nations". Times of India. July 12, 2010

[x] Quote by Mahatma Gandhi, retrieved from http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/4694-first-they-ignore-you-then-they-ridicule-you-then-they as on 19th April, 2015

[xi] Rupashree Nanda, It's official: 37 pc live below poverty line, Apr 18, 2010, CNN-IBN, retrieved from http://ibnlive.in.com/news/its-official-37-pc-live-below-poverty-line/113522-3.html as on 19th April, 2015

[xii] Poverty in India, retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poverty_in_India as on 19th April, 2015

[xiii] Malnutrition in India, retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malnutrition_in_India as on 19th April, 2015

[xiv] Jyoti Thottam, Whose Line Is It Anyway?: India Rethinks Its Poverty Schemes, Oct. 04, 2011, Time, retrieved from  http://globalspin.blogs.time.com/2011/10/04/whose-line-is-it-anyway-india-rethinks-its-poverty-schemes/#ixzz1nOwM3yzQ as on 19^th April, 2015

[xv] SA Aiyar, Middle class hypocrisy on the poverty line, October 2, 2011, Times of India retrieved from http://blogs.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Swaminomics/entry/middle-class-hypocrisy-on-the-poverty-line as on 19th April, 2015

Have You Ever Wondered Why Your Paste Has Fluoride

What is the point in having fluoride in our toothpaste? Have we ever wondered or even asked?

Neither did I until last week and the revelation was a bit too unholy. 

Toothpaste ads usually guarantee us that, 'toothpastes carrying fluoride strengthens the enamel and reduce decay.' 

Yet, did you know that fluoride - yes, the component in most of our toothpastes today - can actually cause more damage than the benefits it promises to render while studies have confirmed that it is a neurotoxin that can cause serious damage to the brain that subsequently affects its functions?(!)

Now for some facts:

Fluoride’s ability to damage the brain is one of the most active areas of fluoride research today. Over 300 studies have found that fluoride is a neurotoxin (a chemical that can damage the brain). This research includes:

Over 100 animal studies showing that prolonged exposure to varying levels of fluoride can damage the brain, particularly when coupled with an iodine deficiency, or aluminum excess;

50 human studies linking moderately high fluoride exposures with reduced intelligence;

45 animal studies reporting that mice or rats ingesting fluoride have an impaired capacity to learn and/or remember;

12 studies (7 human, 5 animal) linking fluoride with neurobehavioral deficits (e.g., impaired visual-spatial organization);

3 human studies linking fluoride exposure with impaired fetal brain development.

Based on this accumulating body of research, several prestigious reviews — including a report authored by the U.S. National Research Council, a meta-analysis published by a team of Harvard scientists, and a review published in The Lancet— have raised red flags about the potential for low levels of fluoride to harm brain development in some members of the population.

The NRC Review (2006)

In 2006, the National Research Council (NRC) stated that “it is apparent that fluorides have the ability to interfere with the functions of the brain.” In addition to calling for U.S.-based research on fluoride’s IQ effects, the NRC expressed concern about fluoride’s possible contribution to dementia. 

Harvard Review (2012)

In July of 2012, a team of Harvard researchers published a “meta-analysis” of 27 studies that have investigated the relationship between fluoride and human intelligence. (Choi 2012) The overwhelming majority of these studies found that fluoride exposure was associated with reduced IQ in children. In fact, 26 of the 27 studies that met the Harvard team’s inclusion criteria found a relationship between elevated fluoride and reduced IQ. The Harvard team thus concluded that fluoride’s effect on the developing brain of children should be a “high research priority” in countries like the U.S. where, despite mass fluoridation programs, no studies have yet been conducted to investigate the issue.

The Lancet Review (2014)

In March of 2014, the prestigious medical journal The Lancet published a review of “developmental neurotoxicity” which concluded that fluoride is one of only 11 chemicals that is known to damage the developing brain. Developmental neurotoxins are capable of causing widespread brain disorders such as autism, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, learning disabilities, and other cognitive impairments.  The harm is often untreatable and permanent.

The authors of The Lancet review, which included Harvard scientist Philippe Grandjea, write:

“Our very great concern is that children worldwide are being exposed to unrecognized toxic chemicals that are silently eroding intelligence, disrupting behaviors, truncating future achievements, and damaging societies, perhaps most seriously in developing countries.”

In a bulletin posted on the Harvard School of Public Health website, Grandjean notes that:

“Fluoride seems to fit in with lead, mercury, and other poisons that cause chemical brain drain. The effect of each toxicant may seem small, but the combined damage on a population scale can be serious, especially because the brain power of the next generation is crucial to all of us.” 

Then why do they do it to us? Why do they stalk the developing countries with this fluoride flush? Does it have anything to do with eugenics? Does this have anything to do with the slow, silent and systematic process to eraze races considered too low to even exist - by a group which considers selective breeding to bring forth a generation of super-humans through its bio-social engineering programs... do you even understand what I am getting at? or perhaps, never mind, check your toothpaste... it must have fluoride. After all, a breed that can be made not to think, is easier to control, right?     

My Right To My Privacy

'First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.' Mahatma Gandhi

Seems like this came true yesterday after the right to privacy verdict from the SC that saed that 'privacy is a fundamental right, protected as an intrinsic part of the right to life and personal liberty and as part of the freedoms guaranteed by the Constitution.'
In a landmark decision, the Supreme Court on August 24, 2017 unanimously ruled that the right to privacy was a fundamental right under the Constitution. A nine-judge Constitution bench headed by Chief Justice J.S. Khehar ruled that “right to privacy is an intrinsic part of Right to Life and Personal Liberty under Article 21 and entire Part III of the Constitution“.

Coming to the aadhar, that must be thrashed now, we already have enough of id cards right? The issue is not about owning yet another (aadhar) card. It is about one's right to privacy. Would you like the police and other people in uniform enter your house at night in the name of checking you for some nonsense just because they think your right to privacy is not absolute (like it happens in many of the countries functioning on pseudo-democracy in the West giving us a chance to see what happens when fascist corporate powers takes over nations)? Would you like our women to be strip-searched on the pretext of national security because the government thinks it has the absolute power to decide the level of privacy citizens may have? What draconian law will that be?
Strange people may ask, what is it I do that I need to hide(?) Well, I too would like to be an open book... yet, even an 'open' book reserves it right to open only to two pages... right? Let me retain that right to remain silent if I wish to. I do not want my finger prints taken, my eyes scanned in the name of providing a card, nor have a microchip inserted into my body or have a gps tied to my ankle, nor my body inked with tattooed numerical codes in the pretext of providing me with an unique code - to find me just in case I get lost - all for my own good you see!  All these great goodness done for me with pretexts I care a damn about - If I rubbish these as nonsense and say a 'No, thank you' to their pretentious offers with hidden corporate agendas, I get branded as a 'Communist', a 'Leftist' or even better, an 'Anti-national goon'. Well for A-holes who do say that, well here is my reply, 'I love this country and the fact that we live to enjoy this freedom marching on the dead backs of thousands who sacrificed their body, mind, family and soul for that cause, makes me love it even more. I do what I do because of this more than anything else. I love this country unconditionally as I reserve my right to critically analyze and even hate (if I must) the government(s) that run it"
My body, my rights... I do not want to live without them.
Aadhar should go away like its founder has ran away from the scene following the judgement - perhaps even before when he  could sense the impending judgement. Rights should be established. Democracy must reign in its true sense. Truth alone triumphs. Satyameva Jayate...  Happy to be in a country where this jurisprudence has gone into the jurisdiction. Aren't you?

A Tryst With Destiny

Recently, I have been laughing my head off listening to proverbs and quotes with a slight twist... to make some impression, I notice that people add a list of (for no better way to put it,) 'bad' words to their punchlines. I hate being judgmental while at the same time wonder why people call certain words as "bad" nevertheless get offended by them when most words actually are just another way of mentioning frivolous aspects of our lives. What makes us laugh, sure makes us think.

Of all the things happening around that one may laugh at, the chance to laugh at 'Swachh Bharat Abhiyan' or rather the idea that cleaning a country's filth left over by the dumping of wastes and irresponsible discharge of pollutants into land, water and air (like many of our politician's speeches that we accidentally listen to,) by giant, greedy corporat(e)s rests on the hands and head of the individuals, is hilarious as it makes no sense. Shouldn't the cola companies and mining companies be cleaning their own mess? Shouldn't they be held responsible for that? Or should the burden be passed on to the citizen's shoulder for the government's incompetency to stop the corporat(e)s from littering?! Anyways, why bother when a broom in the hand and dirt pan on the head can spin a political wheel or should I say, help a political flower bloom in India.

India's tax policy is another joke that drives me bonkers. Just take for example the case where a baker pays GST for the bread, another GST for the olive, yet another for the cheese and one more and another for the meat, pepper and anything else he throws into making a pizza and charges us for all the ingredients, why does he charge us yet another GST for the whole pizza one more time?! Isn't it multiple taxation yet again for a country that is already unbelievably in a double taxation system without going for war?
Concerning concepts for jokes, no one in India dare claim a shortage - the idea of imposing the aadhar down the throat and up the arse of every citizen, the dysmal disregard for privacy and total disregard for personal rights, the soaring prices, the plunging pay scales and when I start counting the jokes one has that can make use of proverbs and quotes with the added twist, the chances of finding concepts for a hilarious laugh are limitless as the issues knock down one domino after the other and one can have a knock-out night of stand-up comedy just by speaking the truth. 

70 years of independence and I am still waiting... like many in our villages and high ranges do as they wait for electricity to light a single bulb while our ministers howl over a digital India and e-payments that will surely brighten the lives of the entire nation, waiting like many who lack a toilet in their home or even the basic sanitation and like the many more who live on the pavements for the lack of a home to begin with - to be saved from our superstars and their kids who run on alcohol who in turn wait to run over them with their super-fast, imported sports car that run on liquid gold for remorseless fun and know how to get away with it too, I am waiting like the scores whose land has been grabbed, whose jobs have been looted and their livelihood pushed off their grounds to give way for some luxury hotel or a chain of resort to come in, like the many whose daughters have been raped, son's illegally detained, father's tortured and mother's abused as they are voicelessly forced to wait for justice as they hide from the stigma cast by their own shadow, I am waiting just like that 70 year old man named independence who has seen enough, with just as much strength, with just as much hope that the 70 years of life of watching the same ruthlessness over and over again can bear before singing the eulogy of an entire nation go down the pits of a pre-dug grave right in the front, left, right, state and center. 

Even death, as I see it in India, is merciless as the poor, innocent migrant worker from Tamil Nadu - Murugan, who met with an accident in Kerala would have experienced it last week as he was rushed from hospital to hospital, pleading with one doctor and another to treat him and finally after being refused treatment by several learned doctors in seven different hospitals, after almost seven hours died helplessly due to neglect of treatment. (These are times when I feel like screaming underwater.) At the end of the day, all that the government needed to do to get away with this inhumane murder was mention a 'sorry' - a 'sorry' that marks the state of our conscience 70 years post-independence for the world to see.  

Meanwhile, Indian politicians have resorted to the culture of silence by learning the art of evading questions in political platforms and have decided to grow fat in silence on their loot. India's freedom struggle kicked off with a debate over the dead fat of mute animals and today's reason to celebrate our freedom seems to be for no different reason. 70 years of independence and I am still waiting like many... for the freedom that was supposed to be.

An Island Of Smiles

There was a time when someone pointed out to an issue I seemed to have had and it even got labelled as 'chronic happiness'. It supposedly confused people; 'How could a person be happy even in the oddest of circumstance?' they told they wondered. Think it bothered them and many others during that time. Those were days when I faintly remember that nothing was too big that my shoulders could not carry or anything too difficult my soul could not handle - everything was doable and any challenge posed was only a motivation to complete the task at hand with ease. Life was fun.

Think it was an influence cast upon by some really strong people who suffered pain yet chose to smile - many who I had met during my wandering days... people who chose to live when all that went around them called them to die; people who faced struggle with courage; people who talked less and did more. The one incident, when I look back, that shattered me is an incident where I met a little kid who endured a painful life without a grudge - even attempting to reduce the pain of her parents bearing her own without a whimper. Think I must tell this story...

This happened when a bunch of us from Loyola were called to document a human rights violation issues in a small God-forsaken village that was getting marooned due to sand mining and other such related corporate greed in a place close to Madras. Once there, we split into teams to cover the story on behalf of each stakeholder - the elders, the mothers, the fishermen, the children and so on. I was part of a team to cover the story of children from a Government School in a small island nearby. Once the catamaran reached the spot, curious children came to have a look at all the cameras, lights and equipment that reached their otherwise ignored and isolated part of the world. 

After a little bit of rapport establishment and ice-breaking, we set to talk with them regarding how life was treating them, how they perceived issues and how they managed to live through their struggles. This was supposed to be both interesting as well as crucial as we were attempting to see issues from the children's point of view. Children often provide multi-dimensional clues to issues as they not only boldly point out to issues without any restriction yet also reveal an adult world from what they have absorbed as silent audience to their interactions - once again with no restriction.

The day went on and on as complaints piled one above the other - issues ranging from lack of regular teachers and computers at school to dirt on food served as part of the mid-day meal, their complaints were many. 

Amidst all this (by then a nauseating discussion), I could not fail to notice the bright smile on a little girl's face. She must have been 6 or 7 years old then. Perhaps, that must have been the most brilliant smile I have ever seen in my life by far. I was curious as hell to know how on Earth amidst all these complaints, she managed to smile. I asked her. Her reply was even more positive: 'Our teachers are good, they manage to teach us as much as they can; why do we need a computer(?!) when we have so many books to read? and our cooks can't do a better job than what they already do... in a home of just four don't we find at times a small stone or dirt in our rice(?!) wouldn't we then just pick it, drop it and continue to eat without complaining? Just imagine how difficult it must be for the ayyahs who cook for so many of us. This is the best we can have and I am always happy for all that is there..." she said and continued smiling. 

By now, the other kids around her withdrew and sneered at her. They were perhaps confused and angry that this one effortlessly blew all the facade they were creating so far, Finally they concluded, 'She has to be happy. What else can she afford to be? She is going to die soon after all...' There was a halt on that smile on the kid's face and was replaced with an unreasonable shameful silence.

A little shocked and being rocked back to reality, I sought clarity. I tried to ask the kid to tell me what others were talking about. She didn't. The others filled the silence and said, 'Yes, she is going to die. she has a hole in the heart that her father can't afford to treat and soon she is going to die.'

I asked the little girl if it was true. Tears rolled down her eyes and she said, 'Yes.' She continued, 'It hurts. And at times, it hurts so much in the night. To get to a doctor, my father has to carry me on his shoulder through the water as we do not have a boat or a catamaran to ferry us from our village to the other side of the land to reach the hospital at night. At times when the tides are high and my father carries me on his shoulder, I can see my father's face go down under the water as he pants for breath. To see that, hurts me more.' 'So these days,' she said, 'I do not cry at all when it hurts. I have seen my father and mother skip their food because they have to spend on my medicine. I know my father will carry me on his shoulders no matter how high the tide and I cannot to see him suffer.' 

I asked her what she does instead. She said she bears the pain. 'If it hurts too much, I bite my blanket hard and try not to make a noise that may wake my parents. I bear the pain' she said.

I believe anything one does must affect him or her - be it a relationship, watching a movie, cooking, reading a book or even writing; otherwise the things we do are not worth doing at all. This is one incident that affected me the most. Watching such matured endurance at such an young age, positivism to the core, the constant and continuous sacrifice, respect and love that runs in their family that I got to see, surprized me. 

For a person who lives an everyday life amidst chronic dissatisfaction and suburban drudgery in a concrete jungle, where even the remotest discomfort has to be amplified and cribbed about, a time when we live in a world where we pick on issues to talk about rather than work on solutions to overcome the same, living amidst people whose favourite pass-time is to discuss issues they have created or create issues so that they can discuss and remain the center of self-obsessed, self-centered and selfish conversations - because they have nothing better to do otherwise with life, this child was like a lesson straight out of the pages of a zen book to me. 

I sought help for the girl at that time. People I took up her case to, took it upon themselves to advice me to concentrate on my own affairs and consider this incident unseen if it affects me again. Social Workers I met advised me that according to some paradigm and some theory, this was a natural process and by a certain cycle, this was a process she and her parents were meant to go through until they would eventually learn to help themselves - the highest form of undependency, self-reliance and empowerment - that I dare not disturb.
Seemed like I was just going through an unstoppable wind-chime of repeated advice on the same note from each person I set to ask for help. Nothing happened, none helped, not even the slightest offer of real help at that time. Life moved by and every time I saw trouble or a chance to complain, I would be reminded of this little girl and her smile. I would turn into this chronically happy monster who could always smile.  

A few years back, I happened to visit the village where I had met the girl - now with the capacity to help with what life had granted me in the mean time. I inquired about the girl from this marooned village. The village was gone - they showed me. Like most human rights issues, the village now claimed unbothered advancement on the dead backs of the vanished and forgotten others. People from the submerged village had moved to the mainland I was told. Then a few young girls - who recollected having a classmate who fitted into my description of the person - must be the ones I had met during their school days earlier in that island, volunteered to take me to where the girl was now. We walked along the narrow lanes, now all advanced; they had self-help groups and even a co-operative store that sold traditional toys they made; there was a new panchayath building and a school that even offered a computer course. We walked all through India shining and we reached a spot where the girls pointed out to a little grave. They said the girl I mentioned had died a year after we had met as I stood there watching the cold-hearted tombstone that held the smile of a girl who had changed my life. I think I lost my smile then and there...   

An important read on Aadhar / UID and the false govt propaganda

The following is a message from an eminent activist giving clarity about the government's hand-holding with the corporates and media in a desperate attempt to push the aadhar:

Some people have written in worry that the SC yesterday directed that the government can ask for the UID for Income Tax and PAN card; that is just misinformation coming to us through the press.

For one, what transpired happened during a `mentioning', that is, where the lawyer mentioned the matter only to the court to ask that the matter actually be listed and heard on 3rd April. Earlier the case was listed for 27t March, but then it got shifted in the list to 3rd April. The lawyer took the matter to court to ask the court that there should be no further delay, and that it should be heard on the 3rd April.

The court turned down the request for such an assurance.

While doing that, the court looked at para 5 of the order of the 5-judge bench in its order dated 15th October 2015, where it said that even when it is used in PDS, NREGA, pensions, LPG, JDY and provident fund, it cannot be made mandatory.

That is it.

The court nowhere said that the UID can be asked for other services. That is wrong reporting.

Anyone who knows court proceedings knows that the court could not have made any such order,

1) Because it was a `mentioning' that was underway, and that was only to fix a date, and such an order cannot be passed without hearing the parties to the case, and

2) The October 15, 2015 order was by a 5-judge bench, and 3 judges cannot revise/rewrite/override that order.

For your information, the October 15, 2015 order said:

The UID can be used in six services: PDS, LPG, NREGA, JDY, EPFO, pensions such as disability, widow, old age pensions which are seen as services provided by the state.

Even in these services, its use "is purely voluntary, and cannot be made mandatory till the matter is finally decided by this court one way or the other".

The UID number cannot be used in any other service. It is not a matter of whether it is voluntary or mandatory. It cannot be used at all.

All earlier orders from the first order of the court on September 23, 2013, when it directed that no one can be denied any service only because they do not have a UID card or number, shall be `strictly followed'. That includes the order dated August 11, 2015, which, among other things says that enrolment is not mandatory (which makes their notifications saying that those who do not have a UID number should be shepherded to the enrolment station is in contempt of court).

On October 15, 2015, the 5 judge bench heard a series of applications for expansion of the use of the number, including the TRAI that came to court saying that they could deal with terrorism if they were able to use the UID number for giving and checking Sim cards. The 5 judge bench refused this use. This refusal by the 5 judge bench was suppressed by the Attorney General when he told the court in a matter taken to court by Lokniti, an NGO, that they intended to make sim cards secure by having it checked against the UID. The court reproduced this submission and disposed of the matter. This has been read by some part of the press as an order by the court that sim cards should be checked against the UID, which is inaccurate. This did, however, mean that the court did not object to such use. That was a 3 judge bench, and could not have overridden a 5 judge bench. This happened because the Attorney-General did not inform the court, and since it was not a UID matter that was being heard, there was no one challenging the UID project who could have pointed this out to the court. This is what is called an order -per incuriam' (i.e. being in disregard of the facts or the law, in this case because they were kept in the dark about what had happened before the 5 judge bench.)

So, the government attempt to make UID mandatory for income tax and PAN card is in contempt of court.. Not just making it mandatory, but even using the UID in these fields is in contempt.

The reason the court so restrained the court is because it had seen the various dimensions of the project that made up the challenge before it, including

surveillance
profiling
tagging
tracking
insecurity of the data base
national security issues, posed both by the creation of such data bases, and because of the companies involved which includes L-1 Identity Solutions, Morpho and Accenture, which have close connections to the intelligence establishments of foreign governments.
lawlessness the use by private actors, and importantly, the denial of the right to privacy of the people that the government had asserted before them. Like the court said: without the right to privacy, "the fundamental rights guaranteed under the Constitution of India, and more particularly the right to liberty under Article 21 would be denuded of vigour and vitality."

That is why they said that their order would be till the court has heard and decided these matters - not till passage of a law or any other such circumstance.

There is another thing, and of much significance. When the government directs that we put the UID number on various data bases, they are violating not just the order of the Supreme Court, but their own law (which they passed as a Money Bill, to stifle discussion and dissension). Nowhere does the Act of 2016 authorise the `seeding' of numbers in data bases. It allows only two things:

authentication, which means that biometric or demographic data can be sent to the UID's CIDR (Central Identities Data Repository) to return a `yes/no' reply to the question whether you are who you say you are.

eg. KYC, which does something they had said they would never do, viz., give the data on their data base (except core biometric data - but they have no means of stopping any agency from collecting and keeping biometrics when it is given for authentication) to an Authorised Service Agency.

Section 8(2)(b) is categorical that an agency requesting authentication "ensure(s) that the identity information of an individual is only used for submission to the CIDR for authentication". There is no authorisation to hold on to the number. So, seeding the number is itself beyond the law. And this is how it makes sense anyway if establishing identity was indeed the purpose of this project, as claimed.

Well, now what is wrong with you media fellows?! Is everyone becoming a Bakra Dutt?! Duh!