I want to make 2 observations:
1. The disconnect between urban, semi-urban, mofusil settlements, villages and forests has attained a critical mass in India that is likely to result in a series of violent civil-war like situation in the next 5 years. This disconnect primarily relates to wide disparity of economic opportunities, concentration of private wealth and assets and access to natural resources across sections. It is essentially a fallout of rapidly shifting of national economy from communal and traditional food production to laying integral focus on industrialization and high-technology services following [actually succumbing to] the vested interests pursued by the large commercial corporations of a economically globalized world [where political systems whether democratic or otherwise are more or less subservient to the commercial interests of large corporations]. The central and the state governments are coercively pushing forward a development agenda based on mass-scale industrialization, urbanization and converting all kinds of labour into technology driven manufacturing. As such, the urban localities are directly eating up vast volumes of resources leaving very little for others. So the urban areas are extending into farmlands and farmlands into forests. This is of course creating terrific levels of human migration [which goes incipient most of the times] and irreversible destruction of ecology. Most importantly these speculated civil wars spread across regions within forests, at the fringes of forests and towns and affluent centers of metropolitan cities are likely to be sporadic, very violent, sustained yet non-cohesive giving one an impression of mindless rioting, looting and arson as they would lack any comprehensive political leadership [I’m not taking cue from the recent London riots because they were not civil wars by any stretch of imagination]. The State and the mainstream media would be as insensitive as ever – religiously upholding the sacred nature of our Constitution and Parliament – to these perpetrators of mob violence. They would treat it as a law and order crisis and thus react with greater degrees of security intervention: the States’ Police and the Armed Forces will start killing increasing number of Indian citizens in due course. Acute hunger and impoverishment coupled with years and years of neglect relating to identity crisis of people living in Kashmir and the Northeast and that of the minorities and the perennially disadvantaged [Dalits etc] would land us into a spiraling darkness of mayhem and chaos. However what this would end up underlining emphatically is questioning of the very tenets and assumptions of: Nationhood, Political Democracy and the belief that Institutionalization of all functions can deliver equitable and just results for people at large and organization of operations at a magnum scale. We must ponder: whether we want things to become so big and so overpowering as to make us feel helpless in negotiating its consequences in the long run; is the idea of living collaboratively in stateless communities an idea worth pursuing; is an economy based on barter of goods and services considering survival requirements a more balanced and holistic economy compared to a currency economy … well, there are many things likewise to ponder! If our contemplation remotely convinces us that these ideas could be worth dying for [I actually mean worth living for in spite of the embedded consciousness in the human animal that makes this strange animal continuously susceptible to exploring newer and meaner power structures in the name of ideas and having accepted this anthropological truth one can only understand the true nature of this rebellion is against your own natural self]; the larger question would still remain: how and where do we start; how do we negotiate with the accumulators and multipliers of assets and lobbies of unassailable power in ensuring our way to leading a contended, small, zero-development life. Or, is it because we know subconsciously that choosing such a path might make us tread the harshest of harsh, scorching by-lanes and labyrinths that Michael K had traversed [I recommend a reading of J.M.Coetze’s Life and Times of Michael K] that we are convinced a spectacle of fire and violence is a better choice to put an end to oneself if not the man-made power structures and towers constructed in the name of humanity!
2. Globally in the next 5 years we will find a substantive reversal of technological interventions. Technology until now has been earning its maximum revenues from: gadgetry [evolving and satisfying intense consumerist aspirations] and warfare. It is prolonging life spans at one end whereas helping conduct our businesses and transactions much faster [the speed is enhancing every passing year] leaving us with unending pools of time. We are a baffled and bewildered lot as we do not know what we should do with such large gaps in time. What was the time taken to seduce a woman in the 2nd decade of the eighteenth century? What was the time taken to seduce a woman in the 2nd decade of the nineteenth century? And, now? Well, the 3 figures would seem to be in geometric progression in a telescopic descending order. That tells us something; simply put the fun of an exploit is gone. So we get very easily bored. [I recommend a reading of Milan Kundera’s Slowness in this connection]. You can decimate a country by directing missiles from 2000 miles away – well, that is another big contribution of technology. But to win a war comprehensively you need to win in a land battle that requires raw courage, organization, planning and sheer mental strength – some things which are clearly not derivatives of technology. Afghanistan and Iraq are cases in point. I am inclined to believe long life spans with loads of idle-time on hand can actually lead to a very different kind of violence arising out of relentless boredom. An understanding is slowly descending about the farcical nature of extending life on expensive, invasive and exclusive life support systems. Technology has also altered the appreciation of the natural sciences which is nothing but your unending conversations with the silence of the universe [there was a time when pursuing astrophysics was sexier than becoming a computer engineer; it soon got changed; the process is likely to be reverted although interventions of the industry may not allow such a move so easily]. The split between technology and science is being gradually understood in a more explicit manner. Technology is no longer innovation [at its core an audacious defiance of nature] of goods and materials based on the principles of natural science; it is something much more colossal: it has become a way of life – it panders to the whole idea of modernity [hyper-cool; monstrously big beaming an image of power and success; integrating – making distances look shorter and thus deriving an unimaginable control of transport; simulating pace; reducing costs and thus becoming more and more profitable in commerce]. It took many, many, and many … yes, many years for our brains to evolve to create the kinds of art and literature we have made over the years. But the news is: our brains have started evolving very differently now in this world of digitization and we are soon on the verge of losing critical anthropological traits of identity – handwriting per se!
1. The disconnect between urban, semi-urban, mofusil settlements, villages and forests has attained a critical mass in India that is likely to result in a series of violent civil-war like situation in the next 5 years. This disconnect primarily relates to wide disparity of economic opportunities, concentration of private wealth and assets and access to natural resources across sections. It is essentially a fallout of rapidly shifting of national economy from communal and traditional food production to laying integral focus on industrialization and high-technology services following [actually succumbing to] the vested interests pursued by the large commercial corporations of a economically globalized world [where political systems whether democratic or otherwise are more or less subservient to the commercial interests of large corporations]. The central and the state governments are coercively pushing forward a development agenda based on mass-scale industrialization, urbanization and converting all kinds of labour into technology driven manufacturing. As such, the urban localities are directly eating up vast volumes of resources leaving very little for others. So the urban areas are extending into farmlands and farmlands into forests. This is of course creating terrific levels of human migration [which goes incipient most of the times] and irreversible destruction of ecology. Most importantly these speculated civil wars spread across regions within forests, at the fringes of forests and towns and affluent centers of metropolitan cities are likely to be sporadic, very violent, sustained yet non-cohesive giving one an impression of mindless rioting, looting and arson as they would lack any comprehensive political leadership [I’m not taking cue from the recent London riots because they were not civil wars by any stretch of imagination]. The State and the mainstream media would be as insensitive as ever – religiously upholding the sacred nature of our Constitution and Parliament – to these perpetrators of mob violence. They would treat it as a law and order crisis and thus react with greater degrees of security intervention: the States’ Police and the Armed Forces will start killing increasing number of Indian citizens in due course. Acute hunger and impoverishment coupled with years and years of neglect relating to identity crisis of people living in Kashmir and the Northeast and that of the minorities and the perennially disadvantaged [Dalits etc] would land us into a spiraling darkness of mayhem and chaos. However what this would end up underlining emphatically is questioning of the very tenets and assumptions of: Nationhood, Political Democracy and the belief that Institutionalization of all functions can deliver equitable and just results for people at large and organization of operations at a magnum scale. We must ponder: whether we want things to become so big and so overpowering as to make us feel helpless in negotiating its consequences in the long run; is the idea of living collaboratively in stateless communities an idea worth pursuing; is an economy based on barter of goods and services considering survival requirements a more balanced and holistic economy compared to a currency economy … well, there are many things likewise to ponder! If our contemplation remotely convinces us that these ideas could be worth dying for [I actually mean worth living for in spite of the embedded consciousness in the human animal that makes this strange animal continuously susceptible to exploring newer and meaner power structures in the name of ideas and having accepted this anthropological truth one can only understand the true nature of this rebellion is against your own natural self]; the larger question would still remain: how and where do we start; how do we negotiate with the accumulators and multipliers of assets and lobbies of unassailable power in ensuring our way to leading a contended, small, zero-development life. Or, is it because we know subconsciously that choosing such a path might make us tread the harshest of harsh, scorching by-lanes and labyrinths that Michael K had traversed [I recommend a reading of J.M.Coetze’s Life and Times of Michael K] that we are convinced a spectacle of fire and violence is a better choice to put an end to oneself if not the man-made power structures and towers constructed in the name of humanity!
2. Globally in the next 5 years we will find a substantive reversal of technological interventions. Technology until now has been earning its maximum revenues from: gadgetry [evolving and satisfying intense consumerist aspirations] and warfare. It is prolonging life spans at one end whereas helping conduct our businesses and transactions much faster [the speed is enhancing every passing year] leaving us with unending pools of time. We are a baffled and bewildered lot as we do not know what we should do with such large gaps in time. What was the time taken to seduce a woman in the 2nd decade of the eighteenth century? What was the time taken to seduce a woman in the 2nd decade of the nineteenth century? And, now? Well, the 3 figures would seem to be in geometric progression in a telescopic descending order. That tells us something; simply put the fun of an exploit is gone. So we get very easily bored. [I recommend a reading of Milan Kundera’s Slowness in this connection]. You can decimate a country by directing missiles from 2000 miles away – well, that is another big contribution of technology. But to win a war comprehensively you need to win in a land battle that requires raw courage, organization, planning and sheer mental strength – some things which are clearly not derivatives of technology. Afghanistan and Iraq are cases in point. I am inclined to believe long life spans with loads of idle-time on hand can actually lead to a very different kind of violence arising out of relentless boredom. An understanding is slowly descending about the farcical nature of extending life on expensive, invasive and exclusive life support systems. Technology has also altered the appreciation of the natural sciences which is nothing but your unending conversations with the silence of the universe [there was a time when pursuing astrophysics was sexier than becoming a computer engineer; it soon got changed; the process is likely to be reverted although interventions of the industry may not allow such a move so easily]. The split between technology and science is being gradually understood in a more explicit manner. Technology is no longer innovation [at its core an audacious defiance of nature] of goods and materials based on the principles of natural science; it is something much more colossal: it has become a way of life – it panders to the whole idea of modernity [hyper-cool; monstrously big beaming an image of power and success; integrating – making distances look shorter and thus deriving an unimaginable control of transport; simulating pace; reducing costs and thus becoming more and more profitable in commerce]. It took many, many, and many … yes, many years for our brains to evolve to create the kinds of art and literature we have made over the years. But the news is: our brains have started evolving very differently now in this world of digitization and we are soon on the verge of losing critical anthropological traits of identity – handwriting per se!
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