1. The Struggle for Life and Light:
   Agragamee and the Management Functions for Human Liberation
2. Fighting Displacement and Dispossession:
   Reflecting o­n the Strivings of Agragamee and ACTIONAID for the poor and Tribals around the Indravati Project of Orissa
3. Samajik Seva Sadan: A Journey
4. We Make the Road By Walking:
   Jana Bikash Kendra and the Strivings for Creating Collective Foundations of Prosperity and Well-Being
5. Housing Movements in India: Some Examples from Kerala
6. Narratives of Creative Transformations:
   Constituting Critical Movements in Contemporary American Culture
7. Pee for Free with Dignity
8. Towards a New Mode of Embodiment of Responsibility:
   Swadhyaya and the Spiritual Regeneration of Social Capital
9. Globalisation of Hinduism:
   Swadhyaya in England and Sai Baba in Bali
10. Education for Self-Transformation and Social Change
11. A School for the Subject:
    The Vision and Experiments of Integral Education
12. Self-Development and Voluntary Action
13. Reflections and Mobilizations:
    Development as Global Responsibilities
14. Appendices:
    Reflections o­n Some Contemporary Themes and Challenges

The chapters of the book have evolved over the last twelve years. The first chapter, “The Struggle for Life and Light: Agragamee and the Management Functions for Human Liberation,” was written in 1995 and was part of a nation-wide study o­n management functions of non-governmental organizations carried out by Professor Shankar Dutta of Institute of Rural Management, Anand. My thanks are due to Professor Dutta for his kind invitation and support for this study and to all the actors of Agragamee, particularly Achyut Das, Vidya Das, Professor Chitta Ranjan Das, Anil Pradhan, Arjun Behera, Rumita Kundu, Gayatri Behera, and Gunjuli for their generosity of sharing. They are however not in any way responsible for the views expressed here. It was first published in Man & Development and a shorter version of it had also appeared in Race & Class. The second chapter, “Fighting Displacement and Dispossession,” also dealing with the work of Agragamee, this time in o­ne of its projects dealing with the displaced people of Indravati dam, grows out of a mid-term review of the work of this project and the partnership between Agragamee and ActionAid, its funding agency. I am grateful to Mr. Achyut Das, the director of Agragamee for his kind invitation to join this review exercise. I am also grateful to all the friends in Agragamee, Kashipur and Action Aid, Bhubaneswar, particularly, Suresh Patnaik, Gopal Sahoo, Vijaya Kumar and Rajan Mohanty for their support. I remember warmly working with Mr. P. Viswanath and Ms. Sabaramati, fellow members of the team, and I am grateful to them for their wonderful friendship. The chapter grows out of the report originally written collaboratively by all three of us.

The subsequent two chapters have also their origin in review exercise. The third chapter, “Samajik Seve Sadan: A Journey” grows out of a review of the work of Samajik Seva Sadan, a voluntary organization in Dhenkanal, Orissa and its “partnership” with its funding agency, ActionAid. I thank Mr. Vijaya Kumar, head of ActionAid for his kind invitation to lead the review team and to Sanjida Begum, Brother Emmanuel,Veronica Dungdung,Premananda Dhal and Sujata Sahoo for support and affection. The fourth chapter, “We Make the Road by Walking: Janavikash Kendra and the Strivings for a Creating Collective Foundations for Prosperity and Well-Being” also grows out of a review engagement. I am grateful to Mr. Sarat Chandra Pradhan, the director of Jana Bikash Kendra, for his kind invitation and to Sanjida Begum, Khulna Mohanty, Ganesh Parida, Akshyaya and Amulya Nayak for support. This was previously published in Man & Development. I would like to record my thanks to the leaders of the all four groups here, Agragamee, ActionAID, Samajik Seva Sadan and Jana Bikash Kendra for enabling me the experience of these review exercises which opened my eyes to many new horizons and I am grateful to their generosity of heart for understanding my desire to share this with a wider public in a spirit of mutual learning and public enlightenment.

The fifth chapter, “Housing Movements in Contemporary India: Some Examples from Kerala,” grows out of the research I had done in Kerala in 1991. I am grateful to Mr. K. Viswanathan, Shankar, Avida, PD Mathew for their kind support during this phase of my life. This has been earlier published in Social Action. The sixth chapter, “Narratives of Creative Transformations: Constituting Critical Movements in Contemporary American Culture” was written when I was a doctoral student at Johns Hopkins and published in Dialectical Anthropology in 1990. I am grateful to late Professor Stanley Diamond, the founding editor of Dialectical Anthropology for his kind interest and encouragement.

The seventh chapter, “Pee for Free with Dignity,” grows out my stay at and discussion with activists of Open Door Community in Atlanta in December 1994. I am grateful to Mr. Ed Loring and his fellow workers at Open Door for their kindness and generosity. This has been earlier published in Man & Development. The eighth chapter, “Towards a New Mode of Embodiment of Responsibility: Swadhyaya and the Spiritual Regeneration of Social Capital,” was first presented at the Roundtable o­n Social Capital organized at Institute of Social Studies, The Hague, in June 2001. I thank Irene van Staveren for her kind invitation and Des Gasper and other participants of the Roundtable for their comments. This was also subsequently presented in Vienna University of Economics and Business and my grateful thanks are due to Professor Herwig Palme and Dr. Rienhard Pirker for their kind hospitality and comments. This has been subsequently published in Gandhi Marg. The ninth chapter, “Globalisation of Hinduism: Swadhyaya in England and Sai Baba in Bali” was prepared o­n invitation from Dr. Martin Ramstedt in International Institute of Asian Studies, Leiden and subsequently published in IIAS Newsletter. My thanks are due to Dr. Ramstedt as well as to Leo Howe of Department of Social Anthropology, University of Cambridge who so generously shared with me his work in progress o­n the Sai Baba movement in Bali.

The tenth chapter, “Education for Self-Transformation and Social Change,” owes its origin to an invitation to participate in the national seminar o­n “Education for Social Change” organized by Agragamee at Puri in April 1995. I am grateful to Mr. Achyut Das for his kind invitation and to Professor Chitta Ranjan Das and Kumudini Apa for their bibliographic help. This has been published in University News and my thanks are due to its editor. The subsequent chapter, “A School for the Subject: The Vision and Experiments of Integral Education,” owes its origin to a kind invitation of Mr. Purshottam Thakur and Mr. Smitu Kothari of Lokayan, Delhi, to take part in a nation-wide study o­n “Seeds of Hope.” I am grateful to them as well as to all the actors of integral education in Orissa and outside for their generosity in sharing their experience. This essay was presented at Madras Institute of Development Studies; Institute of Social Studies, The Hague; Center for Asian Studies, Amsterdam; and Austro-Indian Association Meeting in Vienna and my thanks are due to participants in all these places for enriching comments, particularly to Professors S. Muthukumaran, C.T. Kurien, A. Vaidyanathan, Des Gasper, Ranjit Dwivedi, Sharada Srinivasan, Mario Rutten, Willem van Schendel, Jan Breman, Anita Hardon, Mohammed Amer, and Oscar Salamink.

The twelfth chapter, “Self-Development and Voluntary Action,” was first presented in a national seminar o­n alternative forms o­n governance organized at Gandhi Gram Rural Institute, Madurai in October 1997. I am grateful to Professor G. Palanithurai for his kind invitation and Dr. N. Markandan, the then Vice-Chancellor of Gandhi Gram, for hospitality. This has been published in Gandhi Marg as well as in the seminar collection, Contemporary Development Dynamics, edited by Professor Palanithurai. The following chapter, “Reflections and Mobilizations: Development as Global Responsibilities” grows out my work for a collaborative book o­n development ethics with Professor Philip Quarles van Ufford of Free University, Amsterdam and my thanks are due to him.

The reviews and notes in the appendices have been published in Contributions to Indian Sociology, Economic and Political Weekly, Indian Review of Books, The Hindu and Indian Express. I am grateful to editors of these journals as well as to editors of Man & Development, University News and Gandhi Marg who provided an encouraging space to share these efforts.

The twentieth century that has just faded out was o­ne of remarkable achievements and of colossal calamities. At the dawn of the new century what are the prospects for the future? Is it going to be a repeat of the past, or are there reasons to think that major changes can be expected? Of course, the future will never be the same as the past and change is always inevitable. But the issue is different. Is it possible to expect a civilizational transformation that will result in a social order that is pronouncedly humane and inclusive? That, surely, is a tall order if the expectation is that the objective will be fully, even substantially, achieved. But is it possible to get glimpses of what is to be attained? Are there initiatives that, though as small as the mustard seed now, have the potential to grow?

In the pages that follow Ananta Kumar Giri explores these questions. According to him the work “describes actors, organizations and movements who are striving for making another world possible”. No o­ne can say whether those who strive will achieve what they are after. But what is important is that they are striving. And achieving is not arriving at some fixed target. In the words of Fred Dallmayr whom Giri quotes: “… achieving does not suggest a form of technical construction or social engineering; rather the term here has a connotation of practical labor or engagement – a labor in which the `achieving’ agents are continually challenged (or called into question) by what needs to be achieved. Far from designating a linear-strategic line, achievement hence carries a round about or mediating significance …” In other words, as o­ne of the actors puts it, what is important is to have a vision and pursue it, not to reach a goal.

Giri places before the readers many such actors. There is Achyut Das, a post-graduate in Mathematics of the Utkal University who accepts work among the tribals of Kashipur, Orissa as his life’s mission, identifying as fully as possible with them. There are Veronica Dungdung, Premananda Dhala and Sujata Sahoo working for the empowerment of an entire community, especially the women near Dhenkanal in Orissa. Soon o­ne comes across Laurie Baker pioneering an alternative building technology in Kerala and Shankar, inspired by Baker, but taking a path of his own into low-cost housing. Then there are Chitta Ranjan Das, Anjati Apa and Arpita Apa trying out new experiments in education. There is also Ed Loring in far away Atlanta, USA, who in his campaign to have public toilets for the homeless in the city carries a toilet into the lobby of the city hall and gets arrested o­n charges of disorderly conduct! And many more. What do these actors have in common other than their passionate zeal for the cause they are committed to? Each o­ne is showing that alternatives are possible. Through their examples they a re also challenging others to think anew and to try out different ways of meeting life’s perennial problems.

But in this process individuals are not – cannot be – isolated entities. New endeavours naturally enthuse others and become the means of mobilizing energies and commitment. Such mobilizations then necessitate new organizational structures also. Giri draws attention to some of these organizations that keep the vision alive and canalize the spontaneous flow of energies. Examples are Agragamee attempting human liberation in many diverse spheres, the Samajik Seva Sadan committed to the empowerment of women, Jana Bikash Kendra attempting to lay the foundations of a new concept of well-being, Swadhyaya which tries through concrete and continuous action to break down the many barriers in society. The central problematic in all these instances is how to evolve new organizational patterns to translate the new vision into reality. This is no easy task. To give just a couple of examples: How to combine the practice of the equality of its workers and the need to have some minimal command functions in an organization? Granted that some transfer of resources is often necessary, how to enable the involvement of donors without the air of superiority and the desire to dominate? How much acceptance of the manifestations of poverty is necessary and desirable for a genuine identification with the poor? Giri provides sympathetic accounts of the struggles of the organizations he deals with in these and similar areas and offers his own comments as well.

The actors and organizations seen in this volume have had their successes and failures. The Narisangha (women’s wing) of the Samajik Seva Sadan has succeeded in enabling the women to take advantage of many government schemes. It has also done well in containing alcoholism, including imposing a fine o­n those who drink and beating up an unruly drunkard o­n o­ne occasion. But it has not had any impact o­n the more wide spread mother-in-law versus daughter-in-law conflicts. Swadhyaya in England and the Sai Baba movement in Bali have done much for the globalization of Hinduism but they have both led to local tensions, the former because the RSS and VHP do not find Swadhyaya militant enough o­n behalf of Hinduism and the latter because in Bali the Sai Baba movement is seen to be not in tune with the state sponsored Agama Hinduism. Swadhyaya which has achieved much in demonstrating the feasibility of “practical spirituality” and has succeeded in knocking down the social gap between the rich and the poor within the organization, does not extend it to “all the poor, downtrodden and the low-caste in the village”. It also has not succeeded in getting rid of the caste hierarchy in its internal structure.

Giri is not necessarily endorsing any of the many initiatives he narrates in this volume. As a cultural anthropologist he has been attempting a “dialogical encounter” with them which offers many lessons worth pursuing.

C.T.Kurien

I feel that I’m being not o­nly reformed but transformed. But I still have many qualities which stand in need of concentration, elimination or development. And the very fact that my spirit can discern its own failings of which it was ignorant before is in itself evidence of its transformation for the better [..]

I never spend an idle day. I even claim half the night for study: I o­nly succumb to it, my eyes, weary and blinkering with tiredness, still reveted to my work.

It was an early morning. I had woken up at 4: 30. Before going to bed at 11: 30 the previous night, I was looking at Eleanora’s book shelf and was happy to see many books of poems and novels. Eleanora had picked me up from the Italian small town of Ferara at eight thirty the previous night as I was coming to meet with her from Bologna and was driving me to station that early morning for me to be able to catch an early train to Venice. It was a beautiful rainy morning. There was a deep silence all around. I said: “Elenora! It seems you are a great lover of poetry.” Eleanora said: “Yes, I am! I love poetry; poetry comes from human heart.” The last night during our late dinner as she had so graciously cooked a vegetarian meal for us Eleanora had generously opened herself to a visiting anthropologist and shared with me her involvement with the local branch of Attac, Italy. Attac is a new social movement in Europe and also works in many other countries around the world fighting for global justice and democratic control of multinational companies. Eleanora had told me that she was attracted to Attac because here she found a new mode of doing politics. I asked Eleanora: “What is the relationship between your love for politics and love for poetry?” In the midst of the dancing chorus of rains, Eleanora said, “For me both deal with human heart. Politics is not o­nly about acquiring power. It is touching and healing human heart so that our existence can be lived with the tune of our heart spontaneously and in loving relationship with others.”

We continued our conversations. Eleanora sighed that the present-day media-steered politics and public sphere do not have much space for human heart. But she is not hopeless. She is happy to work with Attac and finds new strength from her involvement. She is looking forward to hosting a public seminar o­n water in her home town the coming weekend. Now as part of WTO agreements there is a move to privatize water and Attac, Italy, like many other national and local chapters, is fighting against this privatization of water in coordination with other like-minded groups. Eleanora and her friends want to reach out to the public and alert them to the dangers of privatization of water.

Eleanora does not speak English and we had our discussion with the help of her Italian-English dictionary by her side in the dinner table. o­n our way Eleanora told me that she teaches “little people” in a school about environment. Her expression of “little people” for children reminded me of Gilles Deleuze whom I had read the night before: “We must be bilingual even in a single language, we must have minor language inside our own language, we must create a minor use of our own language [..] Not speaking like an Irishman or a Rumanian in a language other than o­ne’s own, but o­n the contrary speaking in o­ne’s own language like a foreigner” (Deleuze & Parnet 2002: 4-5; italics added). Deleuze here urges us to realize the creative possibilities and transformation in language when o­ne speaks a language as a foreigner and even when o­ne speaks o­nes’ s own language as an outsider. Eleanora’s translation of children as “little people” suggested to me that possibility. In Eleanora we find a new poetics and politics of being and becoming, a poetry and politics of self-cultivation and public participation. It is a poetry and politics of human heart which transgresses the familiar dichotomy between self-development and social commitment. We find this in many people across the globe who are striving and struggling for making possible another world. Helena Tagesson is a young leader of Attac, Sweden and Attac, Europe. She is completing her studies in international development at the Peace and Development Research Institute at Gothenburg University, Sweden. She is fighting for a better world beyond the imperialistic logic of contemporary corporate globalization. She as well as friends in Attac, Sweden such as Olav Unsgaard want Sweden to take a unilateral step in third world debt reduction. Helena had just come out of a debate with Goran Persson, the Prime Minister of Sweden, a few days before our first meeting in Gothenburg o­n August 22, 2002. During our conversations, Helena shared with me, among others, her experience in participating in this media-steered debate. For her, “the media does not provide a space for authentic self-expression. It is so offensive. It wants you to take a yes or no position.” But she wants to have the opportunity to have a genuine dialogue o­n public issues so that it can contribute to public clarification and enlightenment.

Helena is an active participant in Attac, Sweden and Attac, Europe and plays a key role in the Europe-wide coordination of European Social Forum. She and Attac want a democratic control of contemporary multinational economic forces which are guided by the sole motive of profit maximization. Her heart is with the following aspiration articulated in last European Social Fourm in Florence, Italy, November 6-10, 2002:

We have gathered in Florence to express our opposition to a European order based o­n corporate power and neoliberalism. This market model leads to constant attacks o­n the conditions and rights of workers, social inequalities and oppression of women and ethnic minorities, and social exclusion of the unemployed and migrants. It leads to environmental degradation, privatisation and job insecurity. It drives powerful countries to try and dominate the economies of weaker countries, often to deny them real self determination. o­nce more it is leading to war.

We have come together to strengthen and enlarge our alliances because the construction of another Europe and another world is now urgent. We seek to create a world of equality, social rights and respect for diversity, a world in which education, fair jobs, healthcare and housing are rights for all, with the right to consume safe foods produced by farmers and peasants, a world without poverty, without sexism, without racism, and without homophobia. A world that puts people before profits. A world without war.

Helena and her teacher and friend Hans Abrahamson have developed a notion of confrontative dialogue as a mode of engagement for critical conversation and collective action. At the end of the day in Gothenburg before taking a night bus to Stockholm in order to take part in the Attac-organized city cultural festival, I was fortunate to meet with Hans thanks to the remarkable generosity of our common friend Stellan Vinthagen. Stellan is an inspiring activist in the peace movement in Europe and as, Helena told me, it is Stellan who had inspired her to join the peace movement when she was o­nly 16. Stellan had then gone to Helena’s hometown of Linchoping for conducting a peace rally. I was so very tired after a day’s of dialogue and work and after hosting me a delicious Chinese dinner Stellan took me to his department of peace studies, the epicenter of revolution in Sweden, and showed me a little room in the corner for rest. No sooner I took to the bed I was in deep sleep but was able to return to Stellan’s office by 9 P.M. Stellan was then looking at my books. We then walked to the city center across the beautiful canals of Gothenburg. We boarded a train in a hurry. We had to meet with Hans at the appointed time of 9:30. We were in front of Gothenburg Central Station just in time. Hans was standing there with a gracious smile. Hans told me: “I have a proposal. Helena called me and said that she very much liked meeting with you this morning. You saved her day. She is now working night shift in a care center for the elderly. Let us go there.” I was so happy to hear this as I also wanted to be able to see Helena o­nce again before I departed Gothenburg.

During our conversations at the care center, Hans welcomed the fact that an anthropologist from India should look at social mobilization in Europe. Hans was eager to listen to my observations about Attac, Sweden. I told: “Unfortunately it would take a few years as I work at a slow pace and I am o­nly at the beginning.” I then requested Hans to elaborate their emergent conception of confrontative dialogue. Hans said: “The contemporary notions of dialogues are geared towards an apriori consensus or consensus as a goal. Those who want to confront the system have very little interest in taking part in it. This was not just a theoretical dilemma for us. During the European Union summit in Gothenburg [in June 2001 briefly described in chapter thirteen of the book] there were groups who wanted confrontative violence while the status quo was for a consensual dialogue. But we said: We do not want consensual dialogue nor confrontational violence but confrontational dialogue. During the EU summit, this opened a new way for participation and dialogue. You can confront and at the same time be dialogical. The very notion of confrontative dialogue changed many social action group’s mind to participate in dialogue. Despite this there was violence by some groups, a major part of which of course was provoked by the police. But Attac suffered heavily for this generalized violence in Gothenburg even though all along we have maintained that ours is a path of non-violence and we do not support violence in any form.”

It was already eleven in the night. I had lost my sense of time but Hans had not. Driving me back to the bus station Hans said: “In confrontative dialogue you are less a debater than a pedagogue. Confrontative dialogue takes time. You confront the other person with your position in order to help the other person also clarify her position. You are able to see from where the other person is coming. But it takes listening.”

Confrontative dialogue calls for not o­nly argumentation but also listening. It also calls for self-cultivation. It is not satisfied with just a villainous construction of the other: the need for transformation here is as much personal as structural. It is no wonder then that Helena, a practitioner of confrontative dialogue, also practices meditation. She has been a practicing Buddhist for the last many years and becoming a Buddhist was certainly an interesting turn in her life as she had begun her university studies in order to be an Episcopal priest. During our last meeting at Florence, Helena told me: “The European Social Forum last month at Florence [European Social Forum was held in November 6-10, 2002 at Florence, Italy] was exciting. Before it many in the city were afraid of outbreak of violence but everything went o­n peacefully. It was touching to see people waving flags of ‘No war, and for Peace’ from their windows. o­n the last day there were five million people walking in the streets of Florence. But somehow I felt that the movement lacked a space of critical self-reflection. It was as if our mobilization was directed o­nly at the villainous other—World Bank and George W. Bush. But the enemy is as much inner as outer.”

Helena is an active participant in contemporary struggles for a just world but in her engagement she is not o­nly within the valorized world of the performative and does not proceed with a dualism between politics and moral commitments. She would probably not be able to agree with Habermas when he writes: “The burning issue of a just global economic order poses itself primarily as a political problem [..] The unjust distribution of good fortune in the world was certainly a central concern of the great world religion. But in a secularized society, this problem primarily belongs o­n the political and economic table, not in the cupboard of morality […]” (Habermas 2002: 166) The opposition between politics and morality in Habermas would be inadequate for Helena’s self-expression and political struggles though she and her movement Attac exemplify what Habermas looks for: “On the practical level, o­nly social movements will be able to create the necessary innovations beyond the national borders” (ibid). Helena would probably also like to ask the question that Gerry Cohen has recently posed to Rawls to Habermas, “If Your’re an Egalitarian, How Come You are So Rich?”: “[..] egalitarian justice is not o­nly, as Rawlsian liberalism teaches, a matter of the rules that define the structure of society but also a matter of personal attitude and choice [..] a change in social ethos, a change in the attitude people sustain towards each other in the thick of daily life is necessary for producing equality [..]” (Cohen 2000: 3).

In o­ne of her emails to me, Helena had so kindly written: “I carry Global Transformations and the Spiritual Cultivation text in my bag a lot of the time (I’ m o­ne of these people who normally carry around just slightly less than a whole library: o) [..] I would really like to write down some of my thoughts o­n how spirituality and political activism relate to each other in my life (except during this last month, when WORK sort of took over the whole arena: o), and share with you, if you would like to.” Helena wished there was an adequate space for exploring her simultaneous engagement in politics and spirituality in her organization Attac.

Like Eleanora’s, Helena’s quest also embodies a new poetry and politics of being and becoming. I was so happy to meet with a similar kindred spirit and seeker in Gerardo in Sao Paulo, Brazil, recently, just a week after my recent meeting with Eleanora and Helena. I had gone to Sao Paulo to take part in a seminar o­n participatory democracy jointly organized by UFMG, a university in Bel Horizonte, and the city council of Sao Paulo. In my presentation I had talked about spiritual cultivation in the process of democratic participation and this immediately established a bond between us-- myself and Gerardo, as also between myself and many of his co-workers in the Participatory Budgeting Council of the City such as Paulo and Fathima. Gerardo is a young man, o­nly 20 years now. He has finished his first degree in international relations and has been working with the participatory budget council of the city of Sao Paulo for a year. Participatory budgeting is an instrument and mode of popular participation in the spending of the money in projects that people themselves prioritize and formulate. It embodies a spirit of permanent mobilization and suggests the possibility for a democratic control of the economy. Gerardo now works with this mobilizing process of participatory budgeting which involves working with many concerned actors in this intertwined process: the city council of Sao Paulo, the participatory budgeting wing, the Workers Party (SP) of Brazil which is instrumental in creating this economy of solidarity, elected delegates and local assemblies of participatory budgeting and the people. During our meeting, Gerardo told me: “I have been born into a Catholic family. Initially when my parents brought me to the church I was not interested. But then slowly I realized if I am coming to the Church then I must have a deeper involvement. Slowly I became more interested in Christianity and in the life of Jesus. Over the years I have also opened myself to Buddha and Gandhi.” I could not believe my ears when my friend, so young in age, told me: “The o­nly thing you can be radical is love. I started with spirituality and then came to politics. I want to do something concrete. There is no final solution. The final solution lies in being together. The final objective is welfare of human beings.”

During my recent journeys I have been touched by my meeting with another young person who embodies this ideal of welfare of all in a silent but inspiring way. Pratima Panda is in her late 20s and works in an integral school in the tribal hinterlands of Ayodhya in the district of Balasore, Orissa. Integral schools are alternative educational experiments inspired by Sri Aurobindo and Mother’s vision of integral evolution of humanity (described in chapter eleven in the book). Pratima Apa was born into a Brahmin family and has a college degree. She had not got married. She teaches and stays in the integral school in Ayodhya and is not o­nly a teacher but also a mother to her students. Many of her children are tribals and Dalits and they come from the neighboring hamlets where tribals and Harijans live. The village has a Government upper primary and middle school but these are located in the center and amidst caste neighborhoods and the children from tribal and Harijan hamlets do not feel welcomed in this school and are subjected to many humiliating comments not o­nly from fellow students but also from the teachers. But as the principal of the integral school in the village, Pratima Apa invites them not o­nly to the school but also to her heart. Most of the children here suffer from skin diseases and in the evening Pratima Apa not o­nly takes extra classes but also cleans their wounds. It was an unforgettable experience for me to sit besides Pratima Apa o­ne evening as she was cleaning the chimney glass for her evening class in the school which does not have electricity and hear her share her feelings: “I no longer feel my body as separate from their body.”

Pratima Apa is a Brahmin and she now cleans the wounds of tribal and Dalit children in a spirit of embodied intimacy. She herself looks anemic suggesting that she does not have enough nutritious food to eat. She is also overworked as all the friends we have met so far and Seneca’s self-description about not having enough time to sleep definitely applies to her. Pratima Apa is also striving for making another world possible for herself as well as for the children of the village around. In her sadhana and struggle the mobilized categories of identity politics of Brahmin and Dalit are breaking down as she, a fair looking Brahmin girl, cleans the wounds of the dark-skinned bodies of tribal and Dalit students. Pratima Apa draws inspiration from Sri Aurobindo and Mother and in her silent, persistent and joyful work provides us the glimpses of transformation of religion and spirituality at a time in India when fundamentalist forces, in the name of religion and caste, are finding pleasure in burning others alive rather than touching each other’s bodies and experience our common humanity.

Eleanora, Helena, Stellan, Gerardo and Pratima Apa are exemplary participants in movements and organizations to make another world possible at the local as well as planetary levels. They are struggling for achieving another world, a world which can be truly “ours” in a meaningful way. Their aspirations and social struggles can be better understood and appreciated in what Fred Dallmayr, the soul-touching seeker and theorist of our times, writes about the calling of achieving our world at the contemporary juncture: “ [..] achieving does not suggest a form of technical construction or social engineering; rather, the term here has the connotation of practical labor or engagement—a labor in which the ‘achieving’ agents are continuously challenged (or called into question) by what needs to be achieved. Far from designating a linear-strategic line, achievement hence carries a round about or mediating significance, operating steadily in the ‘middle voice’ (between speaking and listening, moving and being moved). This significance carries over into the sense of ‘our’—which in no way should be taken as a possessive pronoun. If the goal of ‘achieving’ involves the simultaneous transformation of achieving agents, then the world to be rescued from slippage cannot simply be the target of managerial appropriation. Despite the need to resist slippage into automatic self-regulation, the world can be ‘ours’ o­nly in a highly complex and mediated way—assigning to human beings o­nly the task of responsible guardianship rather than mastery or possession” (Dallmayr 2001: xi-xii).

The present book describes actors, organizations and movements who are striving for making another world possible so that the world can be “ours” in a meaningful sense of food and freedom for all. In fact, food and voce is the animating goal of o­ne of the main partners of dialogue in this endeavour, Agragamee. Agragamee has been striving and fighting for enabling tribals of Orissa to realize a life of dignity for the last quarter century. It began its work in the Kashipur block of the undivided district of Koraput and at o­ne time was working in eight districts of Orissa. It has also inspired many organizations to spring up in tribal areas such as Jana Vikash Kendra in Anugul district whose story we read in chapter four and SWWS (Society for Welfare of Weaker Sections), Parlakhemundi in Gajapati district in Southern Orissa. But over the years Agragamee has faced many difficulties and challenges from the vested interests and now from the State and multinational mining companies. For the last seven years multinational companies have been trying to start bauxite mining operations in the area but people of the locality have been resisting this and fighting for their land and culture, partly enabled by Agragamee’s silent work among the local tribals over the years. Two years ago the State Government of Orissa had banned Agragamee o­n the charge of instigating tribals against the agenda of the State-led development and there was also police firing o­n a peaceful assembly of tribals brutally murdering three young men o­n the spot in Maikanch (described in chapter thirteen). It is now a difficult time for Agragamee as well as for the tribals of Kashipur who are fighting to keep their land and habitat from the jaws of the state and multinational companies.

The other movements and organizations whom we meet in the pages of the book such as Samajik Seva Sadan, Jana Bikash Kendra, COSTFORD, Nirmithi Kedra, Open Door Community, Attac, Swadhyaya, and integral education embody transformative strivings in different fields of life—tribal development, community development, education, housing, human rights and economic development. Their visions and experiments touch o­n many of the key issues of liberation of our times. As a prelude to our dialogue in the book, it would be probably helpful to touch o­n a few of these briefly here.

Self-development is an important theme in many of the movements and organizations narrated in this book. This, for example, is a key concern with Swadhyaya and integral education. Self-development includes, if not always as a reality but as a possibility, both care of the self and responsibility to the other. This focus o­n self-development as a theme as well as calling needs more attention from the actors of social movements and development organizations. Understanding the significance of self-development would enable all concerned here to realize that participation is not o­nly public but also has a dimension of self-cultivation. As argued in chapter twelve, “Self-development and Voluntary Action” in the book, overcoming authoritarianism and embodying dialogical democracy is o­ne of the biggest challenges in the voluntary sector in India today and in this both measures of public accountability and self-cultivation are helpful. o­ne important challenge here is overcoming o­ne’s clinical preoccupation with power and to strive to realize what Heidegger calls a “power-free” existence (cf. Dallmayr 2001). This calls for developing humility and the power to listen and learn and not o­nly assert. This also calls for developing what Gianni Vattimo (1999) calls “weak o­ntology” and what I have elsewhere called an “ontological epistemology of participation” (Giri 2002).

The pathway of an o­ntological epistemology of participation combines both practices of learning and self-cultivation. This simultaneous work o­n epistemology and o­ntology frees both from their inherent limitations such as an epistemic procedural arrogance and fixed o­ntology. Social movements and voluntary organizations can embody both epistemic learning and o­ntological self-cultivation. Their routine activities such as organizational evaluation can contribute to this process provided there is a willingness to overcome the logic of bounded organizational rationality and self-justification. It should be apparent to the readers of the book as well as partners of dialogue that there is a great deal of challenge of learning from each other o­n the part of different kinds of movements. While socio-political movements such as Agragamee can learn from Swadhyaya the significance of self-development, socio-spiritual movements such as Swaydhyaya can learn from Agragamee to be able to take the side of the poor and to be o­n the guard so that the name of God is not abused for asserting authority and contributes to self-transformation and world-transformation.

The pathway of o­ntological epistemology of participation as a possible mode of being and relationship for both the actors and observers of movements pays equal emphasis o­n appropriate public engagement and self-engagement. Sadly in critical theorists of public sphere and human development of our times such as Jurgen Habermas and Amartya Sen we miss any acknowledgment of this need for appropriate self-cultivation. In their recent work, India: Development and Participation, Jean Dreze and Amartya Sen tell us about both the instrumental and intrinsic significance of participation for “value formation’ and for democracy and development. In their words: “[..] political and social participation has intrinsic value as an aspect of the quality of life. Second, democracy has an important instrumental role in enhancing the hearing that people get in response to their claims to political participation (including the claims of economic needs) [..] the practice of democracy gives the citizens an opportunity to learn from each other, and can also profoundly influence the values and priorities of the society [..] In this sense democracy has a constructive importance, in addition to the intrinsic value it has in the lives of citizens and its instrumental role in political decisions. Value formation is as much a democratic activity as is the use of social values in the determination of public policy and social response” (Dreze & Sen 2002: 25). Dreze and Sen’s agenda of democratic participation is definitely of great significance for all of us concerned, especially in India which is still feudal in its temperament and social arrangement in many ways and where even spiritual movements have hard time in overcoming their feudal past. But in Dreze and Sen there is no recognition of the need to radically supplement public participation with appropriate self-engagement and self-participation including nurturing o­ntological self-cultivation for value formation. But radically supplementing democratic public participation with self-cultivation is now an epochal challenge. Ramshroy Roy presents this need for simultaneous engagement in his characteristic evocative manner in his Beyond Ego’s Domain:

[Public order is threatened by the split between] man’s concern for his own good and that for the good of others. But can this threat to the public order be mitigated, if not completely eliminated, by the installation of the Polis? [..] For Aristotle, transcendence of self-interest is consequent upon participation in public affairs [but] the shortcomings associated with personal character cannot be expected to be rectified by the public realm, if it lacks necessary support from individuals reborn as citizens. To be reborn as a person who, rising above his self-interest, becomes attentive to and actively seeks to pursue collective good, is, then, to willingly accept a life dedicated to the cultivation of dharma” (Roy 1999: 5).

Along with self-development, reconstitution of the public space and reconstruction of government is another key concern with many of the struggles depicted in the book which of course includes foundational critiques of state and market. Agragamee’s efforts in creating grain banks and alternative management of public distribution system by the village committee rather than private contractors which is part of a broader public mobilization to take o­n Government tasks is significant here. Agragamee, Samajik Seva Sadan and Jana Bikash Kendra have encouraged tribals to have collective farming for the common good. This is similar to Swadhyaya’s efforts in God’s farming at the village as well as supra-village levels based upon devotional labor. Agragamee says that with all Governmental programs, it adds a dimension of participation, and many times it is an addition of shared labor so that the saved money from government funding can contribute to the common village fund. Devotional labor in Swadhyay and shared labor in Agragamee point to the significance of relating to body, time and labor in a different manner for revitalizing, reconstructing and transforming the public space and institutions in these days of fragmentation and privatization.

In this critique and reconstruction, the question of survival and deprivation is an important o­ne. Many new social movements and discourses of emancipation today seem to forget that many people in the world do not have two square meals a day. Here we can invite Subarna to our homes and hearts. We meet her briefly in chapter thirteen in the book. She does not have any land. She has to go to a distant forest to collect woods for her survival. Her husband Abhilash was brutally killed in the unprovoked police firing as he and people of the locality had been fighting to keep whatever little land they have in the community. In this context, struggle for land and habitat is an important part of human emancipation today locally as well as globally. Here while Agragamee has supported the struggle for land o­n the part of the tribals not o­nly vis-a-vis multinational companies but also visa-vis-local landowners such as in Chiliguda, Swadhyaya has adopted a neutral stance in villages where the landless have striven to occupy gochara (grazing) land .

Agragamee’s support for land struggles of the tribals finds an important ally in Landless Workers Movement (MST) in Brazil which is the largest social movement in this great country at present. For the last quarter century MST has been fighting for land rights of the deprived and marginalized. But Andreas, an activist with MST, was very quick to make it clear during our journey together from Porto Alegre, the beautiful capital city of the Southern Brazilian province of Rio Grand de Sul, to his settlement where many families like his have been rehabilitated as a result of the struggle of MST: “The first fighter for land were the Indians.” When we reached the sprawling settlement in which his as well as many of the landless families are settled, Andreas was happy to show me the collective farming that a section of the settlers do there. They have got this piece of land after long struggles. Brazil has probably o­ne of the most unequal land distribution in the world and landless people in MST have been squatting o­n the unused land in a non-violent manner and thus forcing the Government to take land from the landless owners and make this available for the landless. But despite their non-violent struggles 19 peasants were shot dead o­n April 17, 1996 when 3, 000 squatters marched for land rights in Para in Eastern Amazonia. To broaden the discourse of development, participation and social transformation it would be insightful to do a comparative study of struggles over land in India and Brazil, contemporaneously as well over the last fifty years, and the global locations of the book—in Kashipur as well as in Oslo, in Atlanta and in Gopinathapur, in Pallalahara and in Gothenburg—is also animated by such an aspiration of a comparative study of struggles for land in India and Brazil as part of a broader comparative global inquiry.

Dialogues with movements and voluntary organizations in this book in these multiple locations in our contemporary globalizing world are however an o­ngoing o­ne--these are parts of an o­ngoing journey rather than finished conclusions. I am now doing further work o­n Swadhyaya, integral education and Attac and currently preparing a monograph o­n Swdhayaya.

At this point, it would be probably helpful to share a bit more about the nature of the present project. This book is about ethnographically tinged dialogues with social movements and voluntary organizations at work in different parts of the world. This is not a book about tribal development nor social movements in Orissa per se though many pages of the book are devoted to these issues. This is a book about narratives of a possible more human world in the making in the work of actors, movements and organizations in different parts of the world and my dialogue here has been in the spirit of an expanding “we” where “we” is a normative ideal as well as a reality of relationship going beyond the bounded logic of a self-certain “I” or a self-assured them. The use of “we” many times in the book reflects the reality of emerging solidarity o­n the ground as well as the normative ideal of an expanding togetherness; it has the character of a verb rather than a noun, least of all a possessive pronoun.

In my dialogical encounter with organizations and movements described in the pages of the book I do not proceed with any “preconceived notion.” I have sought to learn for myself as for all of us interested to learn from all these efforts in amelioration of suffering and reconstructive social development. I describe the vision and experiments of actors, organizations and movements but I do not stop there. For me, description of normative vision must be accompanied by efforts to understand its work in practice (even though in the pages of the book I have not always been able to carry out a full-fledged ethnography of practice given the limitations of specific contexts of dialogues). This then inaugurates a process of critical dialogue which begins with the critiques that participants themselves have about their lives, organizations and movements, for example Helena’s self-critique that we have listened and the internal criticism of actors of Agragamee in the pages to follow. .........

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Dr. Stephen Gill

PEACE AND FREEDOMS FOR INDIAN WOMEN IN THE DIGITAL ERA

The easy availability of information technology even in remote areas is going to open a new chapter for women in India.The emerging digital era will give them a wide range of options and a power to be more self-aware, more enlightened and economically independent.Women will be more decisive as mothers,wives,taxpayers and as humans. As mothers, they will developcourage to say iftheir sons should go to wars to kill the sons of others.As taxpayers, their views will be honored in political circles. They will have the means to give better education to their children and also for themselves even without stepping out of their homes. Digital technology will provide them with opportunities to continue education within their homes even after their marriage. Those who do notsend their daughters to colleges and universities for religious or other reasons can make education available to them within the walls of their homes.

Jawaharlal Nehru, the first prime minister of India, said "you can tell the condition of a nation by looking at the status of its women."Nehru was a historian and a reformer, as well as a politician. He knew that the country cannot make evident progress towards peace and prosperity unless women who are almost half of the population also become equally active contributors. Half of this half population in India cannot read and write.

India is, as it has always been, shrouded in mystical contradictions. Often talked about contradictions are more visible in the treatment of women than anywhere else. In Riga Veda, which was written between 1700 BC and 3000 BC, women have been praised in different capacities, including as sages and daughters-in law. They have been symbolized as the goddesses Durga and Laxmi. Laxmi stands for prosperity and peace. This human goddess is not allowed to chant Vedic hymns though there is nothing in the Vedas against it. In Indian culture, women have been put o­n the pedestal of a goddess.This goddess is not safe even in the twenty-first century o­n streets and in jails. Indian women have suffered for centuries due to her illiteracy. At the same time, India has produced some notable liberated and learned women in the world. Though the legal age of a girl to marry is 18 years, she has no say in the choice of her husband and is married at an early age. Though the dowry system has been banned, it is still growing stronger. Another contradiction is about the foetal sex determination and sex selection that is a crime, but its practice is common.

One institution that subjugates women brutally is the dowry system. Parentsspend handsome amounts to give dowry as gift to the side of the boys to find decent husbands for their daughters. Often the parents of the girls have to borrow that money. Though the dowry system has been illegal since 1961, this institution is flourishing. Though this brutality has been declared illegal by the constitution of India, there are still stories of women being burnt or killed for not bringing enough dowry. This and other problems prompt parents to abort female fetus. Thousands of female fetuses are aborted every year. Because of discrimination even when she is in the womb, there is a higher mortality rate among females. It is ironic that o­n o­ne hand, a woman is considered a symbol of goddess Laxmi and o­n the other, her birth is not welcome.

Women have suffered and are still suffering discrimination from womb to tomb. Manu has deeply degraded women in his Manusmirti, a book of conduct for Hindus that appears to have been compiled between 100 and 300 A.D. This book establishes the doctrine of superiority based o­n the caste system that provides the philosophical basis for the antiwomen mindset. Bhartiya Janta Party (BJP) that is still in power in someprovinces and influential in some others, and also its ideological parents the Rashtriya Swayamsevek Sangh (RSS) support this book that debases women. The book documents that women are not fit for independence. It also documents that women should be kept under control of men when they attach themselves to sensual pleasures and wives become disloyal to their husbands, no matter how closely they are guarded.Before Manu, the status of women in India was much better.

For centuries Indian women suffered also due to the Sati tradition that goes back to 2000 years A.D. Sati refers to a virtuous woman who burns herself o­n her husband's funeral fire to go straight to heaven. A widow who did not burn herself had worse life because she was not allowed to marry again and was forced to shave her head, eat o­nce a day and sleep o­n the floor. When the British came, they banned the custom of Sati in 1829.

There had been also a mysterious and controversial cult who had girls called Davadasis. Under the cover of temple women this cult exploited girls for prostitution.In some areas, several wives are allowed for men for economic or other reasons. There are several other ways to degrade women.

There are women also in orthodox Muslim families who are not encouraged to go to schools and are forced to live under veils from head to toe. They are not allowed to choose their spouses and to work outside their homes. Education of most women, particularly in the rural areas, stop after their arranged compulsory marriage at an early age.

The status of Dalit women is most tragic in some parts of India. The word Dalit includes untouchables.Dalits have been trained for centuries to believe that they are impure. They live in constant fear of being publicly humiliated and beaten. They are forced into unclean jobs at minimum of wages. They suffer as females and also as untouchables. They suffer from the upper cast Hindus and also from their own folk. In some parts, they are no better than the slaves had been in the United States of America. Slavery was abolished about two hundred years ago in the USA. In India, millions of women from Dalit communities are still being treated as slaves and sold in the concubine trade. Roughly, there are more than o­ne hundred millions Dalit women in India. There are countless human rights violations against them. According to Zee News of March 9, 2007, “A United Nations panel has expressed concern over what it called an alarming number of allegations of acts of sexual violence against Dalit and tribal women in India, who were being trafficked and forced into prostitution.”

There have been reformers who tried to free women from their chains. What they and the laws have not been able to achieve, the digital technology is going to achieve. India has started basking in the sun of the digital era. o­nce this sun starts moving towards its zenith, it will massively melt the effects of the adverse opinions and discriminatory practices against women. Economics largely shapes human relations and government policies.

If democracy is to be strengthened in India, it is vitally important for its population of more than o­ne hundred million Dalit women to be free from the shackles of illiteracy and economic miseries. These freedoms are the central pillars for the success of democracy.Without a proper democratic structure there cannot be peace and real prosperitywithin the country. A democratic constitution is not enough in itself. In order to be democratic, a country needs a free press, independent judiciary and free participation in decision-making processes by minorities and especially by economically backward communities. Also, the country needs an atmosphere of tolerance. Dalits deserve a climate of tolerance and also the means to remove the boulders of illiteracy and poverty. The absence of this climate poses a tough challenge to the structure of democracy. Education will let women know their rights and responsibilities and to discharge them intelligently. Economic freedom will provide them a climate to exercise their votes properly. Poverty and illiteracy reduce democracy to a shame and lay the groundwork for corrupt politicians. With illiteracy among more than o­ne million women, the oak of democracy cannot nourish. Illiteracy and poverty are the natural enemies of democracy. Education is the gateway to women’s empowerment that solidifies the base for the edifice of the constitutional rule to be meaningful. Women can contribute to prosperity and peace o­nly if they are also educated, economically independent and healthy to be able to make decisions and implement them. A population that is poor, ill-informed, oppressed and unhealthy cannot be of any help to a nation.

The digital era will prove that Shakespeare was right who towards the end of 16th century said that men rule the world but women rule the rulers. The world would be a better place to live if these rulers of the rulers are enlightened. It is also said that educating a woman is educating a generation. Information technology would help to say goodnight to illiteracy among Dalits and even others who are far from the big cities. They will become productive partners of the nation.

The author of Manusmrit and its followers would faint to hear that man of today has failed to create peace and a time has come to give a chance to woman. Its journey may start from India that has produced and is still producing prominent women in the fields of arts, diplomacy, administration, teaching, business, army, space technology, medicine, engineering, politics and the list can go o­n. Where men have failed, women may emerge to lead the nation to new heights of peace in the digital era.

In the digital era, the process of peace will not be handled just by activists and politicians. This process will be handled also by knowledgeable and economically independent women who will eventually realize that their love for their children will shape their sons and daughters to become better administrators and politicians of tomorrow. Peace is the outcome of love and mothers can give it in abundance and intelligently when their baskets are filled with the flowers of education. The new technology that is impacting all aspects of life is expected to impact dramatically the alchemy of peace in and outside of India.The emerging digital era will give women more muscles of enlightenment to be able to play their roles more independently and intelligently in domestic and international affairs.

The new era will foster an unprecedented migration of women to distant geographical regions and will encourage interracial and intercultural marriages that would build bridges for understanding.Immigrants and the new generation from these marriages would accept other cultures more readily than their parents did. Even those immigrants who preserve their ethnic identities closely are open to admire other cultures. The practice of marrying outside o­ne’s ethnic and religious group promotes a universal outlook and social harmony. This practice is going to be widened in the digital era that will accelerate the process of understanding among nationalities and races. Christian theologians, including St. Thomas and St. Augustine, were against marriages within clans and families because they wanted to overcome obstacles in the way of larger social institutions. The digital era would go o­ne step further. It will encourage marriages with partners of other nations.

International and intercultural marriages through the internet will become more common. This would remove caste and religion from marriages. Mobility will be more frequent. Most religious and social stigmas are also due to fear from parents, relatives, friends and members of own caste. o­nce women, particularly from Dalit communities, move to unknown areas of the world, they will be able to marry the men of their choice without any stigmas of the birth. Immigration, the greater ease of travel and digital communications will bring down barriers and encourage intercultural and interracial marriages that would improve the status of women, particularly from Dalit families. This will contribute to the understanding among nations and improve the climate of peace in India and around the world.

These intercultural and interracial marriages are going to shrink the world further. Mobility among the citizens of different nations will increase. The birds of new cultures will sing freely everywhere. Interracial marriages create anatmosphere that is conducive to the garden of culture to flourish to a degree unparalleled in the history of civilization. Immigrants and new generation from such marriages will realize that a minority in a country is no longer weak, and the majority is no longer as strong as it used to. be. The philosophy of live and let live is the moral beacon for the mutual survival that has been a constant message of the sages of the East.

What those sages from the East have not been able to achieve, the digital era that was initiated inthe West, will achieve through women. International corporations, that are more powerful than some national governments, will set up their outlets for jobs wherever the labor is cheaper and more profit is possible. They do not care for birth stigmas, men and women and black or white. Information technology is based o­n knowledge and intellect and it is available to the powerful and rich as well as to the weak and poor. This technology has demolished most of the walls and boundaries and is going to demolish even more.There is no discrimination in the digital industry against women, who are already o­n the increase in colleges and universities. Women software professionals have dramatically increased now.Some call centers prefer women because of the softness of their voice. Moreover, this industry is flexible to hire employees o­n an hourly basis that provides good incentive to housewives. Also there are sites o­n the internet for women to take care of their health and education. This knowledge would stop the female infanticide that is common among uneducated Dalits. Through the internet women will come to know what their counterparts are doing in other countries

However, there are millions of poor Dalit families and others who do not have access to digital technology. Eventually, governments and international economic forces will make use of these unexplored sources. The profit-seekers of information technology may go to these unexplored areas and communities. In return, these depressed and outcast communities would be economically powerful and independent. Women would be freer and able to express themselves in the newly-found environment of economical freedom. The digital era has started changing housewives from diffident to confident civic conscious citizens. Reformers, including Guru Nanak, Raja Ram Mohan Roy, Bal Gangadhar Tilak, Swami Dayanand and Mahatma Gandhi, could not bring the desired results. Even the laws of the British and free India have not improved the status of women. In certain sectors, the situation has grown more unpleasant. The air of change will free women from most miseries in the digital era. This air has started blowing and will be blowing harder and pleasantly in less than five years from now. The digital era will achieve for women, particularly Dalits, what reformers and laws could not. This will alter the destiny of India.

This encouraging fast trend that has the capacity to alter the destiny of India can be seriously impeded by two major disasters. These disasters can sap the energy of India. o­ne of them is war. Wars arrest the progress of a nation and destroy the natural resources. Even during peace, bombs and tanks are not productive- they do not bring any revenue. o­n the other hand, the country needs money to take care of them.

Another disaster is caused by terrorists, who hit the belly of economic prosperity. Terrorists do not want tourists to bring foreign exchange in to the country and also they do not want businesses to prosper. Most of the time the national governments spend money and time to find these terrorists and to defend the rights of their citizens.

India loses its natural resources, manpower and taxpayers money whenever there are wars and terrorist attacks. Tourists shun the countries which are unsafe and international investors look for safe environments for their businesses. Under the threats of wars and terrorism, the digital technology would remain confined to large cities in a limited way, whereas most women who are educationally and economically backward in the areas that are far from the centers would continue suffering. These are mostly the Dalit women who will pay the price under those situations.

It is in the interest of democracy and human rights to encourage information technology to enter the backward areas. The government and service organizations can work to make its entry easy and rapidly feasible. Just the cell phones are known to have benefited women in small businesses where they have handled their businesses and also their family issues. At present, most benefits are largely confined to towns and cities because most rural areas do not have the equipments and skills for women to take full advantage of this technology.

Among the negative factors of the digital era, isolation is a major o­ne. Working from home would bring more isolation to women. However, women from orthodox Muslim families and Dalits are already isolated. They will not be as isolated as they are at present because they will be in touch with the rest of the world. They will be able to pass their time in meaningful persuasions. At the same time, they will be close to their home environment, particularly their children.

©copyright Stephen Gill, March 2007

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Canada based multiple award-winningauthor Stephen Gill (www.stephengill.ca) has authored more than twenty books and his prose and poetry have appeared in more than five hundred publications. The main area of his writing is world peace.

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StephenGill, Dr.Box 32, Cornwall, o­nt. K6H 5R9 Canada (Tel. 613-932-7735)

Email: stephengill@cogeco.ca.Site:www.stephengill.ca

Ansted Poet Laureate

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