Thursday, April 27, 2006
Dr Rajnarayan S Chandavarkar
From the Trinity College Magazine:
23rd April 2006: It is with great sadness that the College reports the sudden and unexpected death today of Dr Raj Chandavarkar, Reader in the History and Politics of South Asia and Fellow of Trinity (1979-1983, 1988-2006).
From the Mumbai Mirror:
The scholar was well known for spending a lot of time understanding the hardships and learning the culture of the people whose lives he deconstructed. “While most scholars would have been happy to source their information from the archives, Raj was interested in cultural forms and the locality.
“He was keen on human interaction -— to know how tamashas evolved. He wanted information on Marathi shairs and poets,” said Neera Adarkar, co-author of One Hundred Years, One Hundred Voices.
In the book, Adarkar, along with journalist and activist Meena Menon, documents the lives of mill workers at Girangaon, weaving together oral history and the seldom-documented realm of personal memory.
“The history of Girangaon can, in a sense, be called a history of modern India,” he writes in the preface to One Hundred Years, One Hundred Voices.
Both writers recall him as a humble man, seldom willing to stand on a pedestal and indulge in unnecessary sermonising. Author of The Origins of Industrial Capitalism in India and Imperial Power and Popular Politics, Chandavarkar is survived by his wife, Jennifer, who is also a scholar.
On a personal note:
It is difficult to put into words how much inspiration I drew from Dr Chandavarkar. Sitting in the idyllic surroundings of the seminar room overlooking the Cam, at the Centre of South Asian Studies, each class of his that I attended made my mind race and I felt a surge of excitement about re-discovering the Sociology and Politics of South Asia as if for the first time.
He was one of those rare teachers who had the ability to convey the larger picture of the most complex reality merely by demonstrating the first principles of it. Everything else followed, 'a harmony of mathematical precision'.
And of course his brilliantly understated but astonishingly clever sense of humour would lighten the load whenever the class became a bit intense.
I have felt and always will feel privileged that he took an immense interest in my work, and helped me see the power of political economy analysis. All that went before pales compared to what followed.
Sir, you will be missed. And remembered with gratitude for raising the pitch of an intellectual journey.
23rd April 2006: It is with great sadness that the College reports the sudden and unexpected death today of Dr Raj Chandavarkar, Reader in the History and Politics of South Asia and Fellow of Trinity (1979-1983, 1988-2006).
From the Mumbai Mirror:
Even as Mumbai ponders the future of mill lands and debates the treatment meted out to mill workers, the city’s foremost authority on the subject, Rajnarayan Chandavarkar, died of a heart attack in the United States.
Chandavarkar, a noted sociologist and Cambridge scholar, contributed immensely to the survey of issues in Indian labour history and put into perspective the peculiarities of the Indian working class.
The scholar was well known for spending a lot of time understanding the hardships and learning the culture of the people whose lives he deconstructed. “While most scholars would have been happy to source their information from the archives, Raj was interested in cultural forms and the locality.
“He was keen on human interaction -— to know how tamashas evolved. He wanted information on Marathi shairs and poets,” said Neera Adarkar, co-author of One Hundred Years, One Hundred Voices.
In the book, Adarkar, along with journalist and activist Meena Menon, documents the lives of mill workers at Girangaon, weaving together oral history and the seldom-documented realm of personal memory.
“The history of Girangaon can, in a sense, be called a history of modern India,” he writes in the preface to One Hundred Years, One Hundred Voices.
Both writers recall him as a humble man, seldom willing to stand on a pedestal and indulge in unnecessary sermonising. Author of The Origins of Industrial Capitalism in India and Imperial Power and Popular Politics, Chandavarkar is survived by his wife, Jennifer, who is also a scholar.
On a personal note:
It is difficult to put into words how much inspiration I drew from Dr Chandavarkar. Sitting in the idyllic surroundings of the seminar room overlooking the Cam, at the Centre of South Asian Studies, each class of his that I attended made my mind race and I felt a surge of excitement about re-discovering the Sociology and Politics of South Asia as if for the first time.
He was one of those rare teachers who had the ability to convey the larger picture of the most complex reality merely by demonstrating the first principles of it. Everything else followed, 'a harmony of mathematical precision'.
And of course his brilliantly understated but astonishingly clever sense of humour would lighten the load whenever the class became a bit intense.
I have felt and always will feel privileged that he took an immense interest in my work, and helped me see the power of political economy analysis. All that went before pales compared to what followed.
Sir, you will be missed. And remembered with gratitude for raising the pitch of an intellectual journey.
Why We Don't Need Moral Absolutism
As a follow-up to the post on Political Philosophy and the Cartooning Controversy, a perfect example of how liberal values may be combined while still respecting the rights of minorities to preserve their particular cultural/traditional values is evident in the article below, from The Hindu. Let none cast aspersions on the ability of India and its legal-political institutions to maintain such a balance!
Protect fatwa-separated couple: court
THE SUPREME Court has directed the Orissa Government to provide police protection to a Muslim couple, forced to live separately following a fatwa issued by the community at Bhadrak.
Local clerics said their divorce became effective after the husband, though drunk, pronounced the triple talaq. The couple could no longer live together though he realised his mistake and decided to live with his wife, Nazma Biwi, and their three children.
On a petition from Nazma Biwi challenging the fatwa, the court in January issued notice to the parties concerned. When the matter came up for further hearing on Friday, a Bench made up of Justices Ruma Pal, C.K. Thakker and Markandey Katju told counsel: "No one can force them to live separately. This is a secular country. All communities, Hindus, Muslims or [of] any other religion, should behave in a civilised manner."
Counsel said the couple continued to be ostracised by the community and sought police protection for them. Counsel for Orissa sought two weeks to file a reply to the petition and the Bench adjourned the hearing till then.
Protect fatwa-separated couple: court
THE SUPREME Court has directed the Orissa Government to provide police protection to a Muslim couple, forced to live separately following a fatwa issued by the community at Bhadrak.
Local clerics said their divorce became effective after the husband, though drunk, pronounced the triple talaq. The couple could no longer live together though he realised his mistake and decided to live with his wife, Nazma Biwi, and their three children.
On a petition from Nazma Biwi challenging the fatwa, the court in January issued notice to the parties concerned. When the matter came up for further hearing on Friday, a Bench made up of Justices Ruma Pal, C.K. Thakker and Markandey Katju told counsel: "No one can force them to live separately. This is a secular country. All communities, Hindus, Muslims or [of] any other religion, should behave in a civilised manner."
Counsel said the couple continued to be ostracised by the community and sought police protection for them. Counsel for Orissa sought two weeks to file a reply to the petition and the Bench adjourned the hearing till then.
Monday, April 03, 2006
Indian Media Boom Revisited
From the Guardian: With a burgeoning middle class and consumer market, India is a target for the UK's newspaper groups.
On the chaotic streets of central Mumbai, where taxis and motorised rickshaws clog the polluted streets below the city's dilapidated colonial buildings, there is a newspaper vendor on every corner. The array of titles on display, laid out on collapsible plywood tables, makes even the vibrant British market seems positively sedate. Dozens of daily broadsheets and tabloids, regional and national, printed in more than a dozen languages, vie for readers' attention. And on Mumbai's packed commuter trains, discarded newspapers litter carriage floors.
The Indian newspaper market is one of the healthiest in the world, with hundreds of daily titles - and it's growing. Total newspaper circulation rose by 8 per last year, according to the World Association of Newspapers. Over the same period, UK circulation fell by 4.5 per cent. Indian sales are likely to continue climbing. With a population around 1 billion, and millions of people migrating from the countryside to the cities every year, new readers are being created by the day. The country's literacy rate, currently running at around 60 per cent according to the World Bank, is rising; the economy is growing; and India's educated middle class is expanding rapidly. The main languages, including Hindi, Urdu and English, are gaining ground at the expense of local dialects, which increases the potential audience for the biggest papers. Most importantly of all, perhaps, there are no constraints on press freedom, in contrast to other emerging markets where economic reforms have not been accompanied by greater democratic freedoms.
The Indian press is as abrasive as any in the world, and the largest English-language title, the Times of India, has a circulation of 2.6 million, dwarfing that of any other English-language paper. It is not difficult to see why Western newspaper groups, including Independent owner Independent News & Media and DMGT, which publishes the Daily Mail, find the Indian market compelling.
IN&M paid £17.4m for a 26 per cent stake in JPL which publishes the Hindi paper Dainik Jagran, in 2004. DMGT executives, meanwhile, have spent 18 months searching for a potential joint venture partner of their own. Independent chairman Sir Tony O'Reilly has already seen his company's stake double in value after JPL floated on the Indian stock market earlier this year, but he has no intention of cashing in. The Indian investment is part of IN&M's long-term expansion, which has already seen it become the biggest newspaper publisher in South Africa and one of the largest in Australia. Last week it confirmed plans to gain a foothold in Russia and there are moves to make investments in the Far East. 'My view for the future of all media is you've got to be location-indifferent, language-indifferent and platform-indifferent' says O'Reilly from his US home in Pittsburgh. The company publishes a Zulu language title in South Africa and more foreign language titles will follow.
Only 5 per cent of the world's population speaks English as a first language, O'Reilly says, so ambitious newspaper publishers need to learn to publish in foreign tongues. 'You also need to choose markets with consumer purchasing power because the lifeblood for newspapers is advertising'. he adds. With an economy growing at 8 per cent per annum, India meets that criterion. 'You can't afford not to be there', O'Reilly says. 'They are going to have better houses, better cars, new clothes, and so on.'
A DMGT source says that it is keeping a watching brief on India, although it is wary of entering the market until restrictions on foreign ownership, already eased to allow overseas investors to buy stakes up to 26 per cent, have been lifted. O'Reilly is more pragmatic. 'You've got to work at these things - 26 per cent is a damn good start.' In Australia, foreign ownership was initially limited to 15 per cent, and restrictions are being loosened nearly a generation later.
DMGT is also keen to 'internationalise', although its overseas sojourns have so far been limited to launching an Irish edition of the Daily Mail. According to a DMGT source, 'we've been monitoring the Indian market because it's English-language, there's an expanding middle class and a voracious appetite for newspapers.'
Executives at the group were approached some time ago by an Indian businessman who wanted to launch an Indian version of the Daily Mail, which would appeal to a similar middle class readership. That is still a possibility, although it would probably not take the Daily Mail name. Nor would it include any localised content culled from the British title. Although many UK papers print editions abroad, they are aimed at British ex-pats or holidaymakers, providing a useful circulation fillip rather than a potentially lucrative new market.
DMGT has also considered launching a free paper, although a company executive says there is a good reason that hasn't been done already. Poorer Indians would be more likely to sell free newspapers for recycling than read them, which is unlikely to lure advertisers.
DMGT is unlikely to enter the market in the short-term, partly because the Indian stock market has soared in recent months and shares in media groups have almost doubled in value. Buying a minority stake now would be expensive. Should that change, the privately-owned Times Group, which owns the Times of India, could be the most likely partner for a British company. Set up by two Englishman in 1838, it passed into India ownership following independence in 1947. It is currently chaired by media baron Indu Jain, who has a $24bn fortune and was last year named the world's 317th richest person by Forbes magazine. The Times sits at the centre of a media powerhouse that includes two TV channels and four papers and has an annual turnover of $400m.
From this perspective, much of the gloom about newspapers in the developed world is misplaced. Advertising revenues are buoyant and if internet readership is added to circulation figures, the press is in ruder health than many observers admit. But increased sales in developing countries have compensated for a steady fall in the West for the last five years, a trend that has not gone unnoticed by western proprietors.
Rupert Murdoch's Times announced last week that it is appointing sports columnist Ashling O'Connor as its new Mumbai-based Indian business editor. A News International spokesman says the move is editorial rather than a precursor to a more aggressive launch on the Indian market, but that could change. Murdoch already has a foothold in the country in the form of satellite TV operator Star, and the opportunity to share in India's economic upside may prove too tempting to resist.
On the chaotic streets of central Mumbai, where taxis and motorised rickshaws clog the polluted streets below the city's dilapidated colonial buildings, there is a newspaper vendor on every corner. The array of titles on display, laid out on collapsible plywood tables, makes even the vibrant British market seems positively sedate. Dozens of daily broadsheets and tabloids, regional and national, printed in more than a dozen languages, vie for readers' attention. And on Mumbai's packed commuter trains, discarded newspapers litter carriage floors.
The Indian newspaper market is one of the healthiest in the world, with hundreds of daily titles - and it's growing. Total newspaper circulation rose by 8 per last year, according to the World Association of Newspapers. Over the same period, UK circulation fell by 4.5 per cent. Indian sales are likely to continue climbing. With a population around 1 billion, and millions of people migrating from the countryside to the cities every year, new readers are being created by the day. The country's literacy rate, currently running at around 60 per cent according to the World Bank, is rising; the economy is growing; and India's educated middle class is expanding rapidly. The main languages, including Hindi, Urdu and English, are gaining ground at the expense of local dialects, which increases the potential audience for the biggest papers. Most importantly of all, perhaps, there are no constraints on press freedom, in contrast to other emerging markets where economic reforms have not been accompanied by greater democratic freedoms.
The Indian press is as abrasive as any in the world, and the largest English-language title, the Times of India, has a circulation of 2.6 million, dwarfing that of any other English-language paper. It is not difficult to see why Western newspaper groups, including Independent owner Independent News & Media and DMGT, which publishes the Daily Mail, find the Indian market compelling.
IN&M paid £17.4m for a 26 per cent stake in JPL which publishes the Hindi paper Dainik Jagran, in 2004. DMGT executives, meanwhile, have spent 18 months searching for a potential joint venture partner of their own. Independent chairman Sir Tony O'Reilly has already seen his company's stake double in value after JPL floated on the Indian stock market earlier this year, but he has no intention of cashing in. The Indian investment is part of IN&M's long-term expansion, which has already seen it become the biggest newspaper publisher in South Africa and one of the largest in Australia. Last week it confirmed plans to gain a foothold in Russia and there are moves to make investments in the Far East. 'My view for the future of all media is you've got to be location-indifferent, language-indifferent and platform-indifferent' says O'Reilly from his US home in Pittsburgh. The company publishes a Zulu language title in South Africa and more foreign language titles will follow.
Only 5 per cent of the world's population speaks English as a first language, O'Reilly says, so ambitious newspaper publishers need to learn to publish in foreign tongues. 'You also need to choose markets with consumer purchasing power because the lifeblood for newspapers is advertising'. he adds. With an economy growing at 8 per cent per annum, India meets that criterion. 'You can't afford not to be there', O'Reilly says. 'They are going to have better houses, better cars, new clothes, and so on.'
A DMGT source says that it is keeping a watching brief on India, although it is wary of entering the market until restrictions on foreign ownership, already eased to allow overseas investors to buy stakes up to 26 per cent, have been lifted. O'Reilly is more pragmatic. 'You've got to work at these things - 26 per cent is a damn good start.' In Australia, foreign ownership was initially limited to 15 per cent, and restrictions are being loosened nearly a generation later.
DMGT is also keen to 'internationalise', although its overseas sojourns have so far been limited to launching an Irish edition of the Daily Mail. According to a DMGT source, 'we've been monitoring the Indian market because it's English-language, there's an expanding middle class and a voracious appetite for newspapers.'
Executives at the group were approached some time ago by an Indian businessman who wanted to launch an Indian version of the Daily Mail, which would appeal to a similar middle class readership. That is still a possibility, although it would probably not take the Daily Mail name. Nor would it include any localised content culled from the British title. Although many UK papers print editions abroad, they are aimed at British ex-pats or holidaymakers, providing a useful circulation fillip rather than a potentially lucrative new market.
DMGT has also considered launching a free paper, although a company executive says there is a good reason that hasn't been done already. Poorer Indians would be more likely to sell free newspapers for recycling than read them, which is unlikely to lure advertisers.
DMGT is unlikely to enter the market in the short-term, partly because the Indian stock market has soared in recent months and shares in media groups have almost doubled in value. Buying a minority stake now would be expensive. Should that change, the privately-owned Times Group, which owns the Times of India, could be the most likely partner for a British company. Set up by two Englishman in 1838, it passed into India ownership following independence in 1947. It is currently chaired by media baron Indu Jain, who has a $24bn fortune and was last year named the world's 317th richest person by Forbes magazine. The Times sits at the centre of a media powerhouse that includes two TV channels and four papers and has an annual turnover of $400m.
From this perspective, much of the gloom about newspapers in the developed world is misplaced. Advertising revenues are buoyant and if internet readership is added to circulation figures, the press is in ruder health than many observers admit. But increased sales in developing countries have compensated for a steady fall in the West for the last five years, a trend that has not gone unnoticed by western proprietors.
Rupert Murdoch's Times announced last week that it is appointing sports columnist Ashling O'Connor as its new Mumbai-based Indian business editor. A News International spokesman says the move is editorial rather than a precursor to a more aggressive launch on the Indian market, but that could change. Murdoch already has a foothold in the country in the form of satellite TV operator Star, and the opportunity to share in India's economic upside may prove too tempting to resist.
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