http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2011/sengupta090811.html
India's 'World Class' Heist:
What the Commonwealth Games Audit Shows
by Mitu Sengupta
09.08.11
This has been a turbulent week in India. On August 5th, the
Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) of India released its final
report on the 2010 Commonwealth Games, placing it before the
parliament.
No one expected good news. The games, which were held in Delhi last
October, have been under a cloud of corruption and mismanagement since
last summer, when it was feared that preparations for the event would
not be completed on time. The head of the organizing committee,
Suresh Kalmadi, is already in jail on charges of racketeering (Kalmadi
has claimed he is suffering from memory loss).
But the bad news is worse than that of Kalmadi's impending dementia.
The CAG's 744-page report suggests that nothing short of daylight
robbery has occurred. Slamming the organizing committee for being
"deeply flawed, riddled with favouritism and bias," it unleashes a
torrent of ugly details.
The games cost a staggering $4.1 billion instead of the $270 million
initially estimated. The revenue that was supposed to pay for the
event amounted to a measly $38 million.
Extravagant contracts -- from toilets and shuttlecocks to broadcasting
rights and the Games Village -- were awarded on the basis of a single
bid.
The cost of 'beautifying' some of the poshest areas of New Delhi was
$22.5 million (imported luminaries were used to improve street
lighting rather than the cheaper domestic variety, adding $7.7 million
to the bill).
The delays in construction that kept the country on tenterhooks until
the very last moment were most likely deliberate: according to Rekha
Gupta, the Deputy Auditor General, "the argument of urgency was used
to obviate the regular process of tendering for award of contracts."
The ghastly list rattles on, implicating the Prime Minister's Office
and the Delhi state government's Chief Minister in the process.
Resignations and criminal prosecutions are anticipated (the Prime
Minister and Chief Minister are trying to absolve themselves with the
argument that they cannot be expected to "micromanage" decisions).
Red Flags, Trumped by National Flag
The CAG has given Indians good reason to be angry -- and judging by
the news coverage over the weekend, there's plenty of moral outrage to
go around.
Yet no one should be shocked by India's big heist. Given the opaque
decision-making and suppression of voice that marked the foundational
fabric of the Commonwealth Games, massive corruption was all but an
expected outcome.
In May 2010, a seminal study by a Delhi-based NGO, the Human Rights
Law Network, revealed that India's bid for the event was never
discussed in Parliament. Nor was there any public debate or opinion
poll among Delhi's residents as to whether the event should be held in
their city (even so, the bid document claimed that "the entire nation
supports the cause of the Games"). In fact, the government's decision
to bid for the Games was approved by the cabinet only in September
2003 -- barely two months prior to the official announcement that
Delhi had been chosen as the host city for 2010.
The Commonwealth Games were meant to affirm India's 'world class'
status and seal its reputation as a rising superpower (the bid
document is littered with references to such goals, as were the lavish
opening and closing ceremonies for the event). The executive's
unilateral decision to host the games was so easily accepted because
it played to the hubris of India's newly rich. It spoke to the
ambitions of a relatively narrow segment of the population that has
prospered disproportionately under India's regime of neoliberal policy
reforms, initiated twenty years ago. This 'rising middle class' --
estimates of its size range from 50 to 300 million people -- is the
force behind India's towering skyscrapers, luxury shopping malls and
pristine gated communities. It is also a major political force.
The political party on whose watch the bid was made -- the Hindu
nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) -- is widely seen as
representing the interests and collective aspirations of this class
(one may recall its campaign jingle, 'India Is Shining!'). In 2003,
the Commonwealth Games bid committee was reportedly awarded a 'blank
cheque' by BJP Prime Minister, Atal Behari Vajpayee, who was eager to
secure the games in the run-up to the 2004 national election. But the
bid was also supported by the Congress party, which led the United
Progressive Alliance (UPA) coalition to victory in 2004 on the claim
that it (unlike the BJP) represented the concerns of the poor and
marginalized. Glowing letters of endorsement were provided by two
Congress stalwarts, the Chief Minister of Delhi, Sheila Dixit, and the
leader of the opposition, Sonia Gandhi.
Indeed, as the CAG's report renders clear, it is the Congress that
ultimately bears the most responsibility for the flawed planning and
execution of the event. It readily trumpeted the BJP's slogan of
'becoming world class' once its seductive appeal was recognized. The
Congress political elite granted total discretion over spending to
Suresh Kalmadi and the impenetrable maze of committees and
sub-committees that reported only to him (31 decision-making bodies,
22 advisory panels and 16 implementing agencies reported to Kalmadi's
organizing committee, over which he maintained absolute authority).
With India's global prestige and national pride at stake, moreover,
the usually clamorous (corporate-owned) media looked the other way.
In the seven years between the bid for the event and its execution,
human rights advocates, students groups and independent activists
raised a series of red flags. Most went utterly unheeded.
The government's plan to build a massive 'Games Village' on the
floodplains of the river Yamuna drew a gush of criticism when it was
first announced. Environmental groups and social activists pointed
out that the land targeted for the Village is ecologically fragile,
and that the project would lead to the eviction of hundreds of
low-income families from squatter settlements in the area.
In November 2008 -- several years after the initial concerns had
surfaced -- a group of social activists succeeded in getting the Delhi
High Court to freeze construction on the Games Village. The court
also ordered an environmental panel to investigate its ecological
impact. In response, however, the government appealed to the Supreme
Court, arguing that the High Court's ruling would "seriously
jeopardize the very conduct and holding of the 2010 games in Delhi."
Swift to act, the Supreme Court overturned the Delhi High Court's
verdict, arguing that the government had met all the approvals it
needed. This important decision was only lazily reported in the press
and, outside activist circles, provoked little concern. In light of
this, the CAG's discovery that the Delhi Development Authority (DDA)
failed to comply with the Ministry of Environment's conditional
clearance for building the Village is hardly surprising.
Questions were also raised by social activists and student groups
about how public money was being used to turn the Games Village into
an exclusive, gated community for the rich.
Built on a giant public-private-partnership agreement between the DDA
and Emaar MGF -- a real estate giant experienced in executing luxury,
master-planned townships -- the projected cost of the village was a
whopping $230 million (unsurprisingly, the CAG found "serious
irregularities" in the awarding of the contract to Emaar). According
to the deal, the DDA would own one-third of the 1,168 apartments,
while Emaar would retain two-thirds, for sale in the open market.
While bidding for the Games, the Indian government said that DDA's
share would be used to house Delhi University students, thus partially
compensating for the dearth of student residences in the city. As
construction proceeded, however, it was evident that DDA-Emaar had
other plans.
The Village was to be equipped with state-of-the-art security, an
upscale shopping mall, 'bio-toilets' at $10,000 per unit, a water
treatment plant (currently lying unused) for $6 million, a 'green'
power grid for $8 million, noise barriers (later found defective) for
$1 million, and a dedicated corridor of Delhi Metro connecting it to
the airport. As the upscale residential complex took shape, members
of legislative assembly (MLAs) with the Delhi state government
demanded its units at discounted rates. At present, well-appointed
apartments in this "self-contained premium residential community" (as
one real estate ad touts the property) are selling for $1 million and
beyond. It is quite clear that providing housing to university
students was never a genuine concern for the government.
Another major warning sign emerged when Emaar failed to hold up its
end of the bargain. In May 2009, the DDA announced a $150 million
bailout package for Emaar, which was defended by the Minister for
Urban Development, Jaipal Reddy, as a "buy-back arrangement by the DDA
to enable the developer to complete the Games Village." Reddy said
the Village was central to conduct of the games, and that any delay
would have meant cancelling or postponing the event. Since these
options were simply not on the table, the government offered no
apology for its decision to use public funds to prevent a real estate
leviathan from violating the terms of its contract, and for making
Indian taxpayers foot the bill for converting public green space into
heavily guarded private property. Beyond a few initial questions,
however -- and this is the most tragic -- no apology was demanded.
The games were the price of being 'world class,' and people were
willing to pay.
The CAG's report suggests that the bid and organizing committees, the
DDA, and indeed anyone else who asked, was given the proverbial carte
blanche. The budget for the games was revised upwards at least 10
times between 2003 and 2010. Each time, the cabinet nodded through
its approval. In this context, it is hardly surprising that the event
cost 16 times more than the original estimate. Under the
circumstances, sticking to the budget would have been the least
rational option. It would have been far more unusual had no money had
gone missing!
The organizers of the games must have felt invincible. Few questions
were raised when Delhi was turned into a quasi military zone in the
weeks before the event. The elaborate and intrusive security plan,
known months in advance, included the construction of a 14-foot fence,
helicopter surveillance, a fleet of armoured cars for Delhi Police,
the installation of CCTV cameras in strategic points of the city, and
the deployment of tens of thousands of police, paramilitary troops,
elite commandos, snipers and bomb-disposal units.
There was no public uproar when 'anti-begging' police squads rounded
up destitute and homeless persons and 'relocated' them to the
peripheries of the city, or when Jantar Mantar -- one of the few
spaces in Delhi where protest is legally permitted -- was cleared of
overnight demonstrators by Delhi Police with the argument that the
space needed to be readied for tourists (as it turned out, there were
few tourists, and many affluent Delhiites fled the city for the
duration of the games).
Ultimately, the Commonwealth Games bespeak a larger truth: if you
peddle the dream of a 'world class' India, you can get away with
almost anything. This is as true of the games as it is of the
country's special economic zones (SEZs), the tax free and unregulated
industrial areas that are meant to boost India's exports and propel
the country into a new ('world class') orbit of growth.
The development of SEZs has been a highly corrupt process, with state
officials colluding with private developers to evade fair compensation
and exploit legal loopholes. Abuse of the principle of 'eminent
domain' is widespread as is intimidation of small landowners and
tenant farmers by the police. All of this was known when the
government passed legislation to facilitate the creation of SEZs. Yet
the SEZ Act (2005) was passed relatively quickly and with minimal
debate, especially when compared to the repeated delays, expressions
of outrage and watering down that besieged the enactment of the
National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA) and other measures of
social security for the poor. Indeed, the pedantic concern that India
has 'finite resources that cannot be wasted' is repeated with great
gusto when it comes to making policies that may benefit the poor. The
same government that poured $4 billion into a fourteen-day sporting
event spends little more than 1 percent of its GDP on health and
little more than 2 percent on education.
Anti-corruption Interventions
The Auditor General's report on the Commonwealth Games is a testament
to the magnitude of India's corruption problem, and to the sort of big
money that's up for grabs in its fast-growing, post-liberalization
economy.
At present, the favoured interventions are the creation of an
Ombudsman's Office (Lokpal) and the strengthening of bodies such as
the Central Vigilance Commission (CVC) and the CAG. While watchdog
organizations are a good idea, a lot depends on who is at the helm,
and how far he or she is willing to go in pursuing a particular
complaint (fortunately, the current Auditor General, Vinod Rai, has
turned out to be a courageous man). Watchdogs also tend to focus on
the apolitical goal of correcting individual behaviour, when the
problem is systemic and political. Finally, Congress spokesperson
Manish Tewari's concern that the CAG has exceeded its brief by
commenting "on policy choices that a government may or may not make"
and on "an appointment process" (i.e. that of Kalmadi) is
self-serving, but not entirely without legitimacy. It is reasonable
to argue that top-down technocratic bodies like the CVC, CAG and
Lokpal should be limited in their powers over elected representatives
(of course, there's ongoing debate on this issue in India).
A better, more bottom-up approach is that of the Right to Information
(RTI) Act, which entitles ordinary citizens to any information they
want about government decisions and spending (the study by the Human
Rights and Law Network, cited earlier in the article, was based on a
series of RTI petitions). Nonetheless, the RTI process is far from
perfect. Among other things, petitioners still face intimidation, and
public-private-partnerships, which are proliferating in every sector
of the economy, have yet to be brought under its ambit.
Neither route will be sufficient, however, unless there is more
disengagement from the ugly game of global one-upmanship that informs
the desire to be 'world class,' especially by parties that claim to
represent the poor and socially excluded. Nothing facilitates
corruption more effectively than throwing a veil over democratic
processes, which even well-meaning people are inclined to do, when
driven by the competitive fire of becoming 'world class.'
Mitu Sengupta is Director, Centre for Development and Human Rights
(CDHR), New Delhi, and Associate Professor of Politics, Ryerson
University, Canada. She can be reached at mitu.sengupta@gmail.com.
An earlier version of this essay was published in CounterPunch.
Comments (0) | Print
--
"Until all of us are free, the few who think they are remain tainted
with enslavement." Lee Maracle
http://greenhouse.economics.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/margins-to-centre
http://electronicintifada.net/new.shtml
http://noii-van.resist.ca/
India's 'World Class' Heist:
What the Commonwealth Games Audit Shows
by Mitu Sengupta
09.08.11
This has been a turbulent week in India. On August 5th, the
Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) of India released its final
report on the 2010 Commonwealth Games, placing it before the
parliament.
No one expected good news. The games, which were held in Delhi last
October, have been under a cloud of corruption and mismanagement since
last summer, when it was feared that preparations for the event would
not be completed on time. The head of the organizing committee,
Suresh Kalmadi, is already in jail on charges of racketeering (Kalmadi
has claimed he is suffering from memory loss).
But the bad news is worse than that of Kalmadi's impending dementia.
The CAG's 744-page report suggests that nothing short of daylight
robbery has occurred. Slamming the organizing committee for being
"deeply flawed, riddled with favouritism and bias," it unleashes a
torrent of ugly details.
The games cost a staggering $4.1 billion instead of the $270 million
initially estimated. The revenue that was supposed to pay for the
event amounted to a measly $38 million.
Extravagant contracts -- from toilets and shuttlecocks to broadcasting
rights and the Games Village -- were awarded on the basis of a single
bid.
The cost of 'beautifying' some of the poshest areas of New Delhi was
$22.5 million (imported luminaries were used to improve street
lighting rather than the cheaper domestic variety, adding $7.7 million
to the bill).
The delays in construction that kept the country on tenterhooks until
the very last moment were most likely deliberate: according to Rekha
Gupta, the Deputy Auditor General, "the argument of urgency was used
to obviate the regular process of tendering for award of contracts."
The ghastly list rattles on, implicating the Prime Minister's Office
and the Delhi state government's Chief Minister in the process.
Resignations and criminal prosecutions are anticipated (the Prime
Minister and Chief Minister are trying to absolve themselves with the
argument that they cannot be expected to "micromanage" decisions).
Red Flags, Trumped by National Flag
The CAG has given Indians good reason to be angry -- and judging by
the news coverage over the weekend, there's plenty of moral outrage to
go around.
Yet no one should be shocked by India's big heist. Given the opaque
decision-making and suppression of voice that marked the foundational
fabric of the Commonwealth Games, massive corruption was all but an
expected outcome.
In May 2010, a seminal study by a Delhi-based NGO, the Human Rights
Law Network, revealed that India's bid for the event was never
discussed in Parliament. Nor was there any public debate or opinion
poll among Delhi's residents as to whether the event should be held in
their city (even so, the bid document claimed that "the entire nation
supports the cause of the Games"). In fact, the government's decision
to bid for the Games was approved by the cabinet only in September
2003 -- barely two months prior to the official announcement that
Delhi had been chosen as the host city for 2010.
The Commonwealth Games were meant to affirm India's 'world class'
status and seal its reputation as a rising superpower (the bid
document is littered with references to such goals, as were the lavish
opening and closing ceremonies for the event). The executive's
unilateral decision to host the games was so easily accepted because
it played to the hubris of India's newly rich. It spoke to the
ambitions of a relatively narrow segment of the population that has
prospered disproportionately under India's regime of neoliberal policy
reforms, initiated twenty years ago. This 'rising middle class' --
estimates of its size range from 50 to 300 million people -- is the
force behind India's towering skyscrapers, luxury shopping malls and
pristine gated communities. It is also a major political force.
The political party on whose watch the bid was made -- the Hindu
nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) -- is widely seen as
representing the interests and collective aspirations of this class
(one may recall its campaign jingle, 'India Is Shining!'). In 2003,
the Commonwealth Games bid committee was reportedly awarded a 'blank
cheque' by BJP Prime Minister, Atal Behari Vajpayee, who was eager to
secure the games in the run-up to the 2004 national election. But the
bid was also supported by the Congress party, which led the United
Progressive Alliance (UPA) coalition to victory in 2004 on the claim
that it (unlike the BJP) represented the concerns of the poor and
marginalized. Glowing letters of endorsement were provided by two
Congress stalwarts, the Chief Minister of Delhi, Sheila Dixit, and the
leader of the opposition, Sonia Gandhi.
Indeed, as the CAG's report renders clear, it is the Congress that
ultimately bears the most responsibility for the flawed planning and
execution of the event. It readily trumpeted the BJP's slogan of
'becoming world class' once its seductive appeal was recognized. The
Congress political elite granted total discretion over spending to
Suresh Kalmadi and the impenetrable maze of committees and
sub-committees that reported only to him (31 decision-making bodies,
22 advisory panels and 16 implementing agencies reported to Kalmadi's
organizing committee, over which he maintained absolute authority).
With India's global prestige and national pride at stake, moreover,
the usually clamorous (corporate-owned) media looked the other way.
In the seven years between the bid for the event and its execution,
human rights advocates, students groups and independent activists
raised a series of red flags. Most went utterly unheeded.
The government's plan to build a massive 'Games Village' on the
floodplains of the river Yamuna drew a gush of criticism when it was
first announced. Environmental groups and social activists pointed
out that the land targeted for the Village is ecologically fragile,
and that the project would lead to the eviction of hundreds of
low-income families from squatter settlements in the area.
In November 2008 -- several years after the initial concerns had
surfaced -- a group of social activists succeeded in getting the Delhi
High Court to freeze construction on the Games Village. The court
also ordered an environmental panel to investigate its ecological
impact. In response, however, the government appealed to the Supreme
Court, arguing that the High Court's ruling would "seriously
jeopardize the very conduct and holding of the 2010 games in Delhi."
Swift to act, the Supreme Court overturned the Delhi High Court's
verdict, arguing that the government had met all the approvals it
needed. This important decision was only lazily reported in the press
and, outside activist circles, provoked little concern. In light of
this, the CAG's discovery that the Delhi Development Authority (DDA)
failed to comply with the Ministry of Environment's conditional
clearance for building the Village is hardly surprising.
Questions were also raised by social activists and student groups
about how public money was being used to turn the Games Village into
an exclusive, gated community for the rich.
Built on a giant public-private-partnership agreement between the DDA
and Emaar MGF -- a real estate giant experienced in executing luxury,
master-planned townships -- the projected cost of the village was a
whopping $230 million (unsurprisingly, the CAG found "serious
irregularities" in the awarding of the contract to Emaar). According
to the deal, the DDA would own one-third of the 1,168 apartments,
while Emaar would retain two-thirds, for sale in the open market.
While bidding for the Games, the Indian government said that DDA's
share would be used to house Delhi University students, thus partially
compensating for the dearth of student residences in the city. As
construction proceeded, however, it was evident that DDA-Emaar had
other plans.
The Village was to be equipped with state-of-the-art security, an
upscale shopping mall, 'bio-toilets' at $10,000 per unit, a water
treatment plant (currently lying unused) for $6 million, a 'green'
power grid for $8 million, noise barriers (later found defective) for
$1 million, and a dedicated corridor of Delhi Metro connecting it to
the airport. As the upscale residential complex took shape, members
of legislative assembly (MLAs) with the Delhi state government
demanded its units at discounted rates. At present, well-appointed
apartments in this "self-contained premium residential community" (as
one real estate ad touts the property) are selling for $1 million and
beyond. It is quite clear that providing housing to university
students was never a genuine concern for the government.
Another major warning sign emerged when Emaar failed to hold up its
end of the bargain. In May 2009, the DDA announced a $150 million
bailout package for Emaar, which was defended by the Minister for
Urban Development, Jaipal Reddy, as a "buy-back arrangement by the DDA
to enable the developer to complete the Games Village." Reddy said
the Village was central to conduct of the games, and that any delay
would have meant cancelling or postponing the event. Since these
options were simply not on the table, the government offered no
apology for its decision to use public funds to prevent a real estate
leviathan from violating the terms of its contract, and for making
Indian taxpayers foot the bill for converting public green space into
heavily guarded private property. Beyond a few initial questions,
however -- and this is the most tragic -- no apology was demanded.
The games were the price of being 'world class,' and people were
willing to pay.
The CAG's report suggests that the bid and organizing committees, the
DDA, and indeed anyone else who asked, was given the proverbial carte
blanche. The budget for the games was revised upwards at least 10
times between 2003 and 2010. Each time, the cabinet nodded through
its approval. In this context, it is hardly surprising that the event
cost 16 times more than the original estimate. Under the
circumstances, sticking to the budget would have been the least
rational option. It would have been far more unusual had no money had
gone missing!
The organizers of the games must have felt invincible. Few questions
were raised when Delhi was turned into a quasi military zone in the
weeks before the event. The elaborate and intrusive security plan,
known months in advance, included the construction of a 14-foot fence,
helicopter surveillance, a fleet of armoured cars for Delhi Police,
the installation of CCTV cameras in strategic points of the city, and
the deployment of tens of thousands of police, paramilitary troops,
elite commandos, snipers and bomb-disposal units.
There was no public uproar when 'anti-begging' police squads rounded
up destitute and homeless persons and 'relocated' them to the
peripheries of the city, or when Jantar Mantar -- one of the few
spaces in Delhi where protest is legally permitted -- was cleared of
overnight demonstrators by Delhi Police with the argument that the
space needed to be readied for tourists (as it turned out, there were
few tourists, and many affluent Delhiites fled the city for the
duration of the games).
Ultimately, the Commonwealth Games bespeak a larger truth: if you
peddle the dream of a 'world class' India, you can get away with
almost anything. This is as true of the games as it is of the
country's special economic zones (SEZs), the tax free and unregulated
industrial areas that are meant to boost India's exports and propel
the country into a new ('world class') orbit of growth.
The development of SEZs has been a highly corrupt process, with state
officials colluding with private developers to evade fair compensation
and exploit legal loopholes. Abuse of the principle of 'eminent
domain' is widespread as is intimidation of small landowners and
tenant farmers by the police. All of this was known when the
government passed legislation to facilitate the creation of SEZs. Yet
the SEZ Act (2005) was passed relatively quickly and with minimal
debate, especially when compared to the repeated delays, expressions
of outrage and watering down that besieged the enactment of the
National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA) and other measures of
social security for the poor. Indeed, the pedantic concern that India
has 'finite resources that cannot be wasted' is repeated with great
gusto when it comes to making policies that may benefit the poor. The
same government that poured $4 billion into a fourteen-day sporting
event spends little more than 1 percent of its GDP on health and
little more than 2 percent on education.
Anti-corruption Interventions
The Auditor General's report on the Commonwealth Games is a testament
to the magnitude of India's corruption problem, and to the sort of big
money that's up for grabs in its fast-growing, post-liberalization
economy.
At present, the favoured interventions are the creation of an
Ombudsman's Office (Lokpal) and the strengthening of bodies such as
the Central Vigilance Commission (CVC) and the CAG. While watchdog
organizations are a good idea, a lot depends on who is at the helm,
and how far he or she is willing to go in pursuing a particular
complaint (fortunately, the current Auditor General, Vinod Rai, has
turned out to be a courageous man). Watchdogs also tend to focus on
the apolitical goal of correcting individual behaviour, when the
problem is systemic and political. Finally, Congress spokesperson
Manish Tewari's concern that the CAG has exceeded its brief by
commenting "on policy choices that a government may or may not make"
and on "an appointment process" (i.e. that of Kalmadi) is
self-serving, but not entirely without legitimacy. It is reasonable
to argue that top-down technocratic bodies like the CVC, CAG and
Lokpal should be limited in their powers over elected representatives
(of course, there's ongoing debate on this issue in India).
A better, more bottom-up approach is that of the Right to Information
(RTI) Act, which entitles ordinary citizens to any information they
want about government decisions and spending (the study by the Human
Rights and Law Network, cited earlier in the article, was based on a
series of RTI petitions). Nonetheless, the RTI process is far from
perfect. Among other things, petitioners still face intimidation, and
public-private-partnerships, which are proliferating in every sector
of the economy, have yet to be brought under its ambit.
Neither route will be sufficient, however, unless there is more
disengagement from the ugly game of global one-upmanship that informs
the desire to be 'world class,' especially by parties that claim to
represent the poor and socially excluded. Nothing facilitates
corruption more effectively than throwing a veil over democratic
processes, which even well-meaning people are inclined to do, when
driven by the competitive fire of becoming 'world class.'
Mitu Sengupta is Director, Centre for Development and Human Rights
(CDHR), New Delhi, and Associate Professor of Politics, Ryerson
University, Canada. She can be reached at mitu.sengupta@gmail.com.
An earlier version of this essay was published in CounterPunch.
Comments (0) | Print
--
"Until all of us are free, the few who think they are remain tainted
with enslavement." Lee Maracle
http://greenhouse.economics.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/margins-to-centre
http://electronicintifada.net/new.shtml
http://noii-van.resist.ca/
--
progpak.wordpress.com
http://www.plutobooks.com/display.asp?K=9780745329901&
http://us.macmillan.com/thestateofislam
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