This temporal petition is said innumerable times by billions of believers through the length and breath of the planet over the centuries. Back home, the most tragic face of the agrarian crisis the country is facing are the suicides of over 200,000 farmers over the past decade. If our food producers do not survive, where is the nation's food security?
The Knanaya Community has its roots in the traditional agrarian society of Kerala. Our fore-fathers as recent as 3 decades ago have tilled the land to enhance the food security of our families and the State, before cash-crops like rubber completely took over our lands and our lives.
Globally too, half of the hungry people of the world today are food producers. This is directly related to the capital intensive, chemical intensive, high external input systems of food production introduced as the Green Revolution, and the second Green Revolution. Farmers must get into debt to buy costly inputs, and indebted farmers must sell what they produce to pay back the debt. Hence the paradox and irony of food producers being the highest number of hungry people in India and in the world.
The Government of India is lately committed to enacting a National Food Security Act, because the Right to Food is viewed as the basis for the Right to life guaranteed in the Indian Constitution to all its citizens. However, the government appears to be only focussed on the food grain distribution, and is silent on issues such as grain production, security to farmers, and preventing the diversion of agricultural land, forest and water for corporations. In the near future, food grains are expected to be imported thus benefiting the multinational companies. Efforts are also being made to employ a policy of food stamp or food voucher in place of food grains to the beneficiaries, so the government does not have to procure grains and thus save on the subsidy money.
Environmental activist Vandana Shiva has severely criticized this proposed policy of the Indian Government for its inherent bias in favor of the corporate sector. The assumption is that corporations will control the food supply, and the government will enable the poor to buy from corporations on the basis of food stamps and vouchers. Thus the poor will then be condemned to the least nutritious unhealthy food as has happened in countries like the United States. The wheat imported by India a few years ago, were unfit for human consumption due to contamination by pesticides.
Activists like Vandana Shiva advocate for a Food security system that assures the right to safe, healthy, culturally appropriate and economically affordable food, which Food stamps cannot guarantee. Further, the Public Distribution System is both a food procurement and food distribution system, which the Indian Government appears as keen to dismantle and let go.
The Small Farmers’ Convergence (SFC) at the World Summit on Sustainable Development 2002 in Johannesburg, with farmers from across Africa had rejected genetically modified seeds (GMOs), and chemicals and had committed themselves to organic farming, and defense of farmers’ rights. They are freely choosing seeds they can save and technologies that are sustainable. Farmer’s organizations in India and in Africa are saying “no” to GMOs on the basis of their freedom to choose to be organic, which means being free of genetic contamination that result from genetically modified (GM) crops. Patents and intellectual property rights on seeds rob farmers of their freedom to save and exchange and thus develop their own seeds. Farmers are treated as “thieves” and “criminals” for exercising their rights as farmers. That is why those who farm organically and want to maintain their freedom to farm and uphold farmers’ rights are resisting the irresponsible corporations which are trying to own life on earth, including seed, contaminate crops and food and have total control over farming and farmers. Ironically, the leftist Government in Kerala has very recently decided to shift its stance towards GM crops on grounds that it will be unscientific to oppose the introduction of such seeds into the country, and that they would not harm the environment.
Farmers in Punjab and Andhra Pradesh are committing suicides because the costly seeds and chemicals from corporations like Monsanto/Mahyco have pushed them into deep debts. Bill and Melinda Gates are criticized for launching the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA), Nairobi, Kenya, which is aggressively pushing genetically modified seeds and the involvement of agribusiness giants such as Monsanto.
Another vital factor for India's food security is water. The monsoons recharge the groundwater and surface-water systems. Since 1966, as a consequence of the introduction of the Green Revolution model of water-intensive chemical farming, India has over-exploited her groundwater, creating a water famine. The chemical monocultures of the Green Revolution use ten times more water than the bio-diverse ecological farming systems. Rubber Plantations as an example of monoculture farming and its adverse impact on the water table is very close to home for the Knanaya Community.
The proverbial last straw is about how speculations by the Goldman, Deutsche Bank, the traders at Merrill Lynch, and more, have also contributed to the starvation of some of the poorest people in the world. This story appeared in The Independent/UK on July 2, 2010:
At the end of 2006, food prices across the world started to rise, suddenly and stratospherically. Within a year, the price of wheat had shot up by 80 per cent, maize by 90 per cent, rice by 320 per cent. In a global jolt of hunger, 200 million people - mostly children - couldn't afford to get food any more, and sank into malnutrition or starvation. There were riots in more than 30 countries, and at least one government was violently overthrown. Then, in spring 2008, prices just as mysteriously fell back to their previous level. Jean Ziegler, the UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food, calls it "a silent mass murder", entirely due to "man-made actions."
Corporations are creating poverty by diverting the hard earned income of peasants and farmers to the seed/pesticide industry. The new seeds besides being costly are also ecologically vulnerable to pests and diseases leading to more crop failures and higher use of chemicals. These are killer technologies which are undesirable and unnecessary.
Though most Kananaits today have moved away from land to other means of livelihood and to the far corners of the globe, we cannot simply turn a blind eye to the plight of food producers back home and globally. Enhancing critical awareness on this grave issue is indeed vital to exercising a positive global citizenship.
Tuesday, June 21, 2011
Monday, June 20, 2011
Quest for Democracy within families
President Obama welcomed the relatively peaceful ouster of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak by invoking the words of Dr. Martin Luther King:
"There's something in the soul that cries out for freedom. Those were the cries that came from Tahrir Square, and the entire world has taken it up."
Do we hear such cries for freedom from within the confines of the Knanaya families living in Europe and North America? How do we as a community address this ongoing quest for Democracy within our homes? What about the families back home and in the Middle East, who do not have the socio-legal protection available to families in the West?
Whilst joint families in the not so distant past saw a scramble amongst the adult children to curry favour with the Patriarch/Matriarch (who ever holds power), the modern day nuclear families are beset with an ongoing struggle between spouses as well as between parents and children for power and control. When women were confined within homes to be home-makers, they pliantly acceded to their husbands’ last word. This has drastically changed in the past 2-3 decades. Wives also earn an income and are not willing to remain content playing second fiddle to the “Lord-and-Master”.
With no training in the skills of negotiation or in the art of give-and-take, a couple is left with only two options: Husband could either be a dictator or be labelled “hen-pecked”; and wife may choose to be either subservient or be described “as wearing the pants”. There is no third option and hence we have cases of few Knanaya adults (mostly husbands) being criminally charged for assaulting their spouses in UK and North America.
Parallel to the feuding parents, one also comes across a jostle for power and control between parents and children in their terrible T’s- Toddlers and Teenage-hood. Most parents misunderstand the developmental need of their toddlers and teenagers for self-realisation as an act of indiscipline and disrespect, and become heavy-handed in their responses. What could be an excellent opportunity to teach ones child the skill of negotiation becomes instead a pitched battle of wits finally leading to physical sanctions, viz., yelling, slapping, pushing and even shooting as in the recent case of Julie Schenecker in San Francisco, who the police say confessed to killing her two “mouthy” teenagers. On the other end of this spectrum, we see parents who are either divided, or, are mere pushovers; making them incapable of saying a simple “no” to their offspring. They are lacking in intellectual and/or moral capacities to challenge or redirect their children.
Most stories of our families in crises within and outside of Kerala include a lot of ordinary stress and social isolation. In order for any marriage to survive, compatibility has to be achieved in most of its varied and diverse elements that include education, culture, physical appeal, class, maturity, worldviews, ethnicity, so on and so forth. The weightage given to each element should be determined by the individual couples themselves, taking into consideration their personal situations and needs. They may seek the counsel of their friends and family before and during their marriage, but the ultimate decision should rest with them as a couple. However, this is hardly the case for most Knanaya families, due to the dubious claims of ethnic purity resulting in the practice of endogamy. The Knanaya community requires ethnic compatibility to take precedence over all of the other elements required for compatibility in a marriage, thus making it the proverbial spoke-in-the-wheels of holy matrimony.
We hear our clergy waxing eloquently about the virtues of respect within families. How do they actually define and understand this lofty emotion? Does it mean that wife and children should obey the husband and elders unquestioningly? Or, does it require the husband and father to demonstrate willingness, openness and humility to be questioned about their choices and decisions? Should the wife and children be also enabled to develop capacity to ask questions? Given the inherent gender bias of the Church and its belief in infamous doctrines like papal infallibility, its likely response to above questions is anybody’s guess.
In my article, “Making ‘Ahimsa’ a way of life” that appeared in the January 2011 issue of Sneha Sandesham, I had suggested “Assertive Communication” as an essential life-skill to deal with domination, bullying and violence in everyday life. Assertive communication is the ability to communicate without fear and anger. This calls for a positive self-esteem and an absence of irrational anxiety and fears, which likely is a tall order for most of us ridden with the “Catholic Guilt”.
What needs to take place within our families is to replace domination by husband/father with collaborative partnership between spouses, parents and children. Historical revolutions that had toppled unreasonable monarchs and dictators have taught mankind the fact that power is never handed over willingly, and that it is snatched through force and violence. However the people of Egypt have reminded the World that there is power in assertion, that it is possible to correct the imbalance of power without resorting to violence.
Apart from redefining ‘respect’, we as a community also need to redefine the much abused term ‘leadership’, which was powerfully role-modelled by Christ as he washed the feet of his disciples. Could we take a moment to ponder about how and when we had missed valuable opportunities for leadership within our families, by demonstrating willingness and capacity to place the needs of those dependent upon us before that of our own?
"There's something in the soul that cries out for freedom. Those were the cries that came from Tahrir Square, and the entire world has taken it up."
Do we hear such cries for freedom from within the confines of the Knanaya families living in Europe and North America? How do we as a community address this ongoing quest for Democracy within our homes? What about the families back home and in the Middle East, who do not have the socio-legal protection available to families in the West?
Whilst joint families in the not so distant past saw a scramble amongst the adult children to curry favour with the Patriarch/Matriarch (who ever holds power), the modern day nuclear families are beset with an ongoing struggle between spouses as well as between parents and children for power and control. When women were confined within homes to be home-makers, they pliantly acceded to their husbands’ last word. This has drastically changed in the past 2-3 decades. Wives also earn an income and are not willing to remain content playing second fiddle to the “Lord-and-Master”.
With no training in the skills of negotiation or in the art of give-and-take, a couple is left with only two options: Husband could either be a dictator or be labelled “hen-pecked”; and wife may choose to be either subservient or be described “as wearing the pants”. There is no third option and hence we have cases of few Knanaya adults (mostly husbands) being criminally charged for assaulting their spouses in UK and North America.
Parallel to the feuding parents, one also comes across a jostle for power and control between parents and children in their terrible T’s- Toddlers and Teenage-hood. Most parents misunderstand the developmental need of their toddlers and teenagers for self-realisation as an act of indiscipline and disrespect, and become heavy-handed in their responses. What could be an excellent opportunity to teach ones child the skill of negotiation becomes instead a pitched battle of wits finally leading to physical sanctions, viz., yelling, slapping, pushing and even shooting as in the recent case of Julie Schenecker in San Francisco, who the police say confessed to killing her two “mouthy” teenagers. On the other end of this spectrum, we see parents who are either divided, or, are mere pushovers; making them incapable of saying a simple “no” to their offspring. They are lacking in intellectual and/or moral capacities to challenge or redirect their children.
Most stories of our families in crises within and outside of Kerala include a lot of ordinary stress and social isolation. In order for any marriage to survive, compatibility has to be achieved in most of its varied and diverse elements that include education, culture, physical appeal, class, maturity, worldviews, ethnicity, so on and so forth. The weightage given to each element should be determined by the individual couples themselves, taking into consideration their personal situations and needs. They may seek the counsel of their friends and family before and during their marriage, but the ultimate decision should rest with them as a couple. However, this is hardly the case for most Knanaya families, due to the dubious claims of ethnic purity resulting in the practice of endogamy. The Knanaya community requires ethnic compatibility to take precedence over all of the other elements required for compatibility in a marriage, thus making it the proverbial spoke-in-the-wheels of holy matrimony.
We hear our clergy waxing eloquently about the virtues of respect within families. How do they actually define and understand this lofty emotion? Does it mean that wife and children should obey the husband and elders unquestioningly? Or, does it require the husband and father to demonstrate willingness, openness and humility to be questioned about their choices and decisions? Should the wife and children be also enabled to develop capacity to ask questions? Given the inherent gender bias of the Church and its belief in infamous doctrines like papal infallibility, its likely response to above questions is anybody’s guess.
In my article, “Making ‘Ahimsa’ a way of life” that appeared in the January 2011 issue of Sneha Sandesham, I had suggested “Assertive Communication” as an essential life-skill to deal with domination, bullying and violence in everyday life. Assertive communication is the ability to communicate without fear and anger. This calls for a positive self-esteem and an absence of irrational anxiety and fears, which likely is a tall order for most of us ridden with the “Catholic Guilt”.
What needs to take place within our families is to replace domination by husband/father with collaborative partnership between spouses, parents and children. Historical revolutions that had toppled unreasonable monarchs and dictators have taught mankind the fact that power is never handed over willingly, and that it is snatched through force and violence. However the people of Egypt have reminded the World that there is power in assertion, that it is possible to correct the imbalance of power without resorting to violence.
Apart from redefining ‘respect’, we as a community also need to redefine the much abused term ‘leadership’, which was powerfully role-modelled by Christ as he washed the feet of his disciples. Could we take a moment to ponder about how and when we had missed valuable opportunities for leadership within our families, by demonstrating willingness and capacity to place the needs of those dependent upon us before that of our own?
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