Global AgeWatch Index: Ageing gracefully is not an option in India

In a country that has more than 50% of its population under the age of 35 years, it is expected that the older people are taken good care of, if not revered. That, sadly, is not the case in India where the older people are often seen as cheap labour or as a liability. Instances of children abandoning their parents by the roadside or at old age homes reflect this. The economic pressure and the breakdown of the joint-family system have adversely affected the dignity of life of older people. This plight is worsened as, unlike many developed Western nations, the safety net of social security is absent. As is always the case, when faced with a crisis, it is the older women who doubly suffer.

Given this, it is not surprising that India is ranked at an unimpressive 73 among the 91 countries surveyed as ideal for older people to live. HelpAge International launched on Tuesday the first-ever Golbal AgeWatch Index ranking ‘countries according to the social and economic well-being of older people’. The parameters for developing the index were: the income status (including the pension coverage, poverty rate in old age), health (including life expectancy at 60, and psychological wellbeing), education and employment (including educational status of old people) and the living environment (including physical safety, civic freedom and access to public transport). Sweden tops the list, followed by Norway and Germany. India can take cold comfort in the fact that Pakistan (ranked 89) and Afghanistan (91) are at the bottom of the table. On the other hand, China (35) and Sri Lanka (36) have fared much better. Colombo’s long-term investments in education and healthcare have paid off providing a better standard of living for its older people, and New Delhi should take note of this achievement. The study dispels the myth that the wellbeing of older people is better in wealthier economics. None of the BRICS nations — Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa — that accounted for 40% of the global population and 25% of the world’s GDP based on the purchasing power parity in 2012, figured in the top 20 nations on the index. The high ranking of countries like Bolivia and Mauritius showed that smaller economies could also be good places for the old. The West, especially Scandinavian countries, has done well and this is mainly because the system is geared towards the demographic shifts taking place.

India has at present about 8% of its total population above the age of 60 and in the coming decades this is set to increase. The index shows that India’s rank in health is low. This is mainly attributed to the lack of availability of good healthcare facilities in rural India where most of the country’s ageing population resides. Some states, like Kerala, already have a significant number of older people and in the coming decades, unless farsighted policies are implemented, the quality of life for older people will not improve.

Lone wolf terror: More potent than Al-Qaeda

A video grab of the Woolwich killer

 Just when world nations had thought that they had seen the worst of terrorism and were devising ways to check and tackle it, comes an offshoot of terrorism that is frighteningly hard to detect and contain given its nascent and localised nature. ‘Lone wolf’ terrorism, in which an individual or a small group of people, after being influenced by extremist views, decide to attack, has been on a steady rise over the years. The Woolwich attack, in which two radicalised Britons of Nigerian origin attacked and killed a British soldier, shook the world because of the gory nature of the crime. What came as more shocking was the motive behind the crime: the two ideologically motivated youth were protesting British military action in Muslim countries.

Anders Breivik

Faisal Shahzad

The Woolwich incident is not a one off case. Right from Norway where Anders Breivik gunned down more than 80 youngsters to Faisal Shahzad’s failed attempt to bomb Times Square in 2010 to Fort Hood where Nidal Malik Hassan gunned down 13 people in 2009 till the recent Boston marathon bombings where two radicalised youth to used a pressure cookers to kill three and injure more than 250 people, all these examples prove that these lone wolves can be as potent and dangerous as organised groups. Two main reasons for a sprout of such attacks is the increasing difficulty in organising a 9/11 type of organised, large-scale attacks and a growing access to radical views on different platforms: be it on the Internet, educational institutions, etc.
These developments, though not taking place in India, have a bearing on India and should catch the attention of New Delhi. India is not immune to terror attacks. India has been a victim of the various hues of terrorism and has at times been successful in tackling it. However, New Delhi is yet to come up with a comprehensive strategy to tackle terror. More often than not it has been a piecemeal approach of gathering scattered bits of information after there has been an attack. With Internet and information technology penetration increasing throughout India, the law enforcement agencies must be on top of the job when it comes to surveillance of online activity. More manpower and technology should be dedicated for this purpose. If we fail to heed this wakeup call it will be too late before we get our act together.

The Lama, the Dragon and the Red Rainbow

On October 7 South African anti-apartheid crusader and Anglican bishop Desmond Tutu turned 80 years old. While the whole of South Africa rejoiced, one could not overlook the pall of gloom hanging heavy over the occasion. And Desmond Tutu himself made a reference to it, Fellow Nobel Laureate the Dalai Lama, who was expected to attend the celebration and give talks in the country, was not present at the function because the South African government did not process his visa. Tutu might be an octogenarian and retired from active duty as archbishop, but his vigour and zeal to fight injustice is as strong as it was in the eighties when he fought the minority White apartheid regime in South Africa. Tutu was critical of the ruling African National Congress for bowing to diplomatic pressure from China (China is one of the biggest investors in the country). And all it took for Beijing to stop South Africa from issuing the Dalai Lama a visa was a pledge to invest $2.5 billion in South Africa. The South African government played it safe by not antagonising China and inviting the Middle Kingdom’s displeasure (see The Dalai Lama Effect). But the reaction of the people of South Africa, as of many around the world, was best summarised on a banner outside the cathedral: ‘Sold out for a few yuan’.

Hounding the Lama

This is not the first time China has had its way in sidelining the Dalai Lama on various stages around the world. From 1959, when he fled Tibet after an uprising against the Communist Party of China failed, China has been after the Dalai Lama, who currently lives in India. Though there was unrest prior to it, it was the Lhasa uprising in March 1959 that got wide global attention.
The present Dalai Lama, His Holiness Tenzin Gyatso, is the 14th reincarnation of the Buddha Avalokiteshvara.  Though a leader for the people of Tibet, he is seen as a separatist by Beijing. While he has been going around the world speaking about the cause and garnering support for the Tibetan movement, China has been stonewalling the efforts of the Lama.
In 1989 when the Dalai Lama was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, China warned Norway of the cutting of trade relations. China took objection to Canada’s decision to award the Dalai Lama honorary citizenship in 2006 and to German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s meeting him in September 2007. In December 2008 Belgium’s Prime Minister Yves Leterme’s meeting Dalai Lama irked China. Beijing once again raised objections to Mexican President Felipe Calderón meeting the Lama this month.
In 2009 the Dalai Lama was prevented from attending a Nobel laureate’s conference in South Africa. The same year in October, while the Dalai Lama was in Washington, United States President Barack Obama cancelled a meeting with the spiritual leader after what was recognised as pressure from China. In refusing to meet the Lama, Obama became the first US President to do so. The round went to China. This was the same Obama who, along with Hillary Clinton, in April 2008 urged then President George W Bush to boycott the Beijing Olympics because of the bloody repression of the uprising in Tibet. However, the following February Obama met the Dalai Lama at the White House. Again in July 2011 they met at the White House. As expected China voiced its displeasure but with the two Nobel Peace Laureates meeting, that round went to the Tibetan spiritual leader.

Protests and India

Since 1959 Beijing has taken full control over Tibet. From 1959 to 1989 (Tiananmen Square) it went about its social and political reforms and after 1989 it has concentrated on suppressing the uprisings in Tibet, including the bloody suppression of the 2008 uprising which coincided with the Beijing Olympics. Currently there is a cycle of protests under way with the tenth monk setting himself ablaze in China. On October 25 a monk in the Sichuan province took the extreme step in a wave of anti-China protests hitting the country. China, as usual, dismissed the incidents as conspiracies by ‘splittist’ agitators, who China claims are influenced and instigated by the Dalai Lama.
Tibet has a very great bearing on Sino-India relations. The two countries at the best of times are suspicious of each other and at worst have fought a war – 1962 – in which India was badly scarred. Though over the years bilateral relations have looked up, there are whispers in the dark about unresolved issues like the border conflict. In Sino-India relations Arunachal Pradesh is a contentious issue because it is generally believed that if the next Dalai Lama has to come from outside Tibet, it is likely to be from Tawang in Arunachal Pradesh where the Sixth Dalai Lama came from.

 The Dalai Lama Effect

In 2010, Andreas Fuchs and Neils Hendrik Klann from the University of Gottingen, Germany, undertook a study to find out whether China's trade with countries was affected if the leaders of that country met the Tibetan spiritual leader. The inference was that there was a decrease in exports from 8 to 16 per cent from a particular country to China if its political leader met the Dalai Lama. Fuchs and Klann called this the 'Dalai Lama Effect'.

Red Rainbow and Hope

It’s not just the ‘Rainbow Nation’ that is exhibiting more hues of red. Almost every country around the world that wants to be part of the benefits of the economic juggernaut that China is today is turning a blind eye to many of its transgressions. Apart from issuing standard statements of remorse and regret at China’s human rights abuse, no country including India and the United States is willing to back its words with actions. China’s permanent membership of the United Nations Security Council gives it more power to act according to its discretion.
The present generation Tibetans living outside the country have not been to their homeland and China is betting that as Tibetan youth get assimilated into the culture of the country they are in, the movement will lose its zest. The movement also faces a number of crucial questions: Who after the current Dalai Lama? Will there be another Lama? What about China’s efforts to project a Lama? What is the future of the Tibetan political movement under Kalon Tripa (prime minister) Lobsang Sangay?
For now the advantage seems to be on Beijing’s side but the power of a peaceful resistance can never be undermined. There is hope for Tibet and its people in exile and they, scattered around the world, seem to have taken this Chinese adage to heart: You must persevere to accomplish seemingly impossible tasks.

(This article appeared in The New Indian Express on November 3, 2011)

Right-wing terror– An inconvenient truth

On Friday, July 22, 2011, Norway was shaken and with it the whole world. Two terrorist acts, carried out by the same person, became the worst attack on Norway since World War II. The first was a car bomb explosion at a government office which killed eight people and critically wounded many. The second was more drastic. A man, in the colours of a policeman, opened fire on innocent campers attending a youth camp of the Norwegian Labour Party on the island of Utoya. He killed more than 70 and scarred many more for life. The toll has reached 93 and an equal number are undergoing treatment. Both attacks were brewed within the country by a well-educated, financially sound 32-year-old Norwegian, Anders Benring Breivik, from the majority community in Norway.

Fear Of The ‘Other’

To say that Anders Behring Breivik is a loner, i.e. his case can be seen as a rare exception, is to trivialise the issue and ignore the dangers it portends for society. For too long governments the world over have ignored, sidelined or rubbished reports of the growing presence of organisations that view immigration and assimilation of cultures, religions and race as a threat to the existing majority community in a country.

Though the initial suspicion in Oslo was that the attacks had links to a jihadist bombing plot last year or the prosecution of an Iraqi terrorist, it was soon realised that the terror had not come from foreign shores. This was the same mistake the US authorities made when they assumed that the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing was the work of a group from outside the country. Only later did they realise a US Army veteran had blown up the truck in an act of revenge for the 1993 Waco Siege in which 76 people died, including David Koresh, leader of Branch Davidians, a Christian cult group.

This hatred towards the ‘other’ (as Edward W Said explains in his 1978 book ‘Orientalism’) cannot be seen in isolation and finds parallels in other places in Europe and the United States. A ‘right-wing Christian fundamentalist’, Breivik in an interview in which he asks and answers his own questions describes his ideology as “cultural conservatism, or a nationalist/conservative orientation known as the Vienna school of thought. As a political movement, I would describe it as a national resistance movement, an indigenous rights movement or even a right-revolutionary movement”.

Right-Wingers

People like Breivik are misled into believing that if things go on the way they are, with continuing immigration mainly from the Muslim-dominated parts of Africa and West Asia, it will lead to a clash of civilisations. They are indoctrinated to see it as is their job to ‘rescue’, ‘protect’ or even ‘cleanse’ their country. In his 1,500-page manifesto ‘2083: A European Declaration of Independence’ Breivik mentions that his aim is to save “European Christendom” and help it prevail against the “Marxist-Islamic alliance and the certain Islamic takeover of Europe to completely annihilate European Christendom”.

Bourgeois, Redneck Politics

The economic slowdown and high levels of immigration have fuelled an anxiety among the majority population and given more room and acceptability to right wing forums and parties that have come to the front since the eighties. Even mainstream parties are going populist.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel declared in October 2010 that “multiculturalism has failed, utterly failed” and this is the prod the Christian Social Union was waiting for to up the ante against immigration from West Asia. British Prime Minister David Cameron echoed Merkel’s views in February. In France it seems that despite Front National leader Marine Le Pen lacing her comments with scorn for Muslims her public ratings are soaring, threatening to unseat President Nicolas Sarkozy in the 2012 election. In the Netherlands the Party of Freedom won 15 percent of the vote share in 2010. Its leader Greet Wilder compares the Quran to ‘Mein Kampf’ and says, “I don’t hate Muslims. I hate Islam.” In Sweden and Denmark right-wingers are quick to attribute any and every problem the countries face to Muslims. In the US rabid-mouthed vitriol-spewing Republicans are getting shriller in their anti-Muslim rants and Christian pastors like Terry Jones, who proposed to burn the Quran on the anniversary of 9/11, are bolder – and stupider – than ever before.

These politicians provide grist for the fundamentalists’ mill. A common thread in all these cases is the growing Islamophobia (which peaked after 9/11, 7/7 and the Madrid bombings). But what is unfortunate is that just as European leaders have not done their part, Muslim rulers and leaders around the world have not done substantially enough to denounce the violence perpetrated by jihadists.

Camouflaged Easy Targets

The Fat Men and Little Boys can be used as political deterrents and for sabre-rattling between hostile nations. The unfortunate fact is that more casualties are caused by small-scale high-impact attacks by ‘loners’, sleeper cells and little known fringe groups around the world, which thrive because of a lack of effective surveillance.

A trait of these individuals/groups is that they do not show on the radar (suspect list or surveillance category) of the authorities as they do not come under the government classification of ‘suspects’.

Another trait of many people used by extremist groups, either through direct recruitment or through indoctrination, is that most of them are young, educated, from reasonably well-to-do backgrounds. More often than not indoctrination happens through local influence groups (like religious institutions or community-based organisations) or through the Internet (websites, chat rooms and networking sites) as in the case of Breivik. The Internet provides fundamentalists the manna that changes the world view of gullible people like Breivik. A fact, which many fail to see, is that most of the arguments and conclusions are based on specious arguments and discussions.

Shiver Down The Spine

Timothy J McVeigh, the 1995 Oklahoma City bomber whose act of lunacy claimed the lives of 168 people, commented thus on his deed, “Isn’t it kind of scary that one man could wreak this kind of hell?” McVeigh’s reflection of his work should send a shiver down the spine of every law enforcement officer. Imagine the many McVeighs and Breiviks who can be or are misguided. If July 22 has a message it is that no longer can any country afford to be naïve. While focusing on the trouble from outside it cannot ignore the rumbles from within.

(This article was published in The New Indian Express
http://expressbuzz.com/school/right-wing-terror%E2%80%93-an-inconvenient-truth/310786.html)