Shining India - The False Facade of A Nation

June 16, 2006

John Pilger is an award-winning journalist and documentary filmmaker and one of the truly great ones of our time. For nearly 50 years, he's courageously and brilliantly done what too few others in his profession, in fact, do - his job. John has also been a war correspondent, is the author of 10 books and is best known in his adopted country Great Britain for his investigative documentaries exposing the crimes of US and Western imperialism.

Freedom Next Time is John's newest book just published and the fifth one of his I've read. The others were magnificent, and when I learned a new one was due out, I couldn't wait to read it knowing it would be vintage Pilger and not to be missed. I wasn't disappointed and am delighted to share with readers what it's about. What else, as John himself says in his opening paragraph: "This book is about empire, its facades and the enduring struggle of people for their freedom. It offers an antidote to authorized versions of contemporary history that censor by omission and impose double standards." Indeed it does, and John devotes his book to exposing the crimes of empire in five countries. I'll cover each one in a separate section.

Chapter Three: Shining India - The False Facade of A Nation Where Over One Third of the People Live in Desperate Poverty

John explains how India is a nation of stark contrasts, and the country's richest city, Bombay, may show it best. At one extreme is a thriving business community of maritime trade, merchant banks and two stock exchanges. At the other is a city of one million humans per square mile and typified by the "rail roads" district foreigners and outsiders know nothing about. It teems with desperate people living under conditions "barely describable - a packing case for a home with sewage "ebbing and flowing in the monsoon." John asks how can a nation with memories of "great popular struggle" and democracy allow this. The answer is its leaders chose to sell its sovereignty to the neoliberal model of a global economy dominated by giant transnational corporations, especially those in the US.

The rise of the Hindu nationalist (proto fascist) BJP-led government in the 1990s accelerated the process. It removed the barriers in place to protect Indian industry and opened the country to invasion by foreign predatory corporations that took full advantage. The result is a nation that could be a poster child for how an adopted economic model got it all wrong and caused mass human misery. It's seen in an increase in "absolute poverty" to over one third of the population or about 364 million people. John explains that although India's growth rate is high, "this is about capital, not labour, about liberated profits, not people." He also exposes the myth of India being a high-tech juggernaut. While the nation has risen to "pre-eminence" in computer and other technology, the new "technocratic class" is tiny. Also, the so-called consumer boom has benefitted at most about 15% of the population.

Over two thirds of the people live in rural villages and depend on small scale agriculture for their livelihood and survival. These people have been devastated by the nation's embrace of the Western economic model. It's caused a hidden epidemic of suicides among them because they can't compete with agribusiness. Those opting for a less severe solution are forced off their land in a futile attempt to seek refuge among the teeming masses in the cities. The result is growing poverty, deprivation and extreme human misery on a massive scale. Because of its huge population of over one billion, India stands out as a warning of the kind of future people everywhere will face unless a way is found to reverse a failed economic model that enriches the few, devastates the many and is strangling the ability of the planet to continue sustaining the abuse afflicted on it.

A Summation

John has once again written a brilliant and magnificent book. Everyone should read it to learn from this great man what was and is ongoing in the five countries he chose to cover from among the many he knows well from having witnessed events around the world first-hand over his long career. He explains what few others do or would dare to help us understand how peoples' lives everywhere have been affected by the US economic model that's based on militarism and imperial expansion to control the world's markets, essential resources and cheap labor with no challengers to its dominance allowed. That's one message the book imparts. But it also breathes a special hope that the human spirit is indomitable and will find a way to overcome adversity and oppression and be able to endure. John believes a time of deliverance is ahead because committed people everywhere will never give up working for it.

Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago a visit his blog site at http://sjlendman.blogspot.com