P Sainath is a rural journalist and has written about people and places we do not hear much about in today’s ‘flat’ world. He spends 270 days a year living in households in rural India - with villagers in Vidharba, Wayanad, Andhra, Orissa and elsewhere - who have been struck most by government non-intervention. The number of farmer suicides at these places corroborates this.
This lecture ‘Globalizing Inequality’, which he gave at the State University of Washington, Vancouver in 2005, is a real eye-opener. He gives accounts of events that took place in the developing as well as in the economically rich world, which justifies his stand against the kind of globalization plaguing us today, with a few men wielding all the power and controlling the masses.
Through these cases he takes up during the lecture, he convinced me that today’s world does not take up matters that are of no consequence to the few in the driving seat. Today, when we measure economic success of a nation based on its stock exchange value, we are moving further away from the ground reality – from the masses - which do not have an influence on the stock exchanges.
There is a historical text by Tacitus (from his annals), which speaks about Nero burning down Rome. It was during a party that he had organized which had guests that included intellects, columnists, and political figures, when the fire started. And how? He had used the poor from Rome and had put them on fire as a source of light for the guests at night. Rome’s poor then and today’s poor are no different. They are being burnt by the various policies pursued by governments in their home countries as well as by international organizations and nations. We know who today’s Nero is. We are Nero’s guests in today’s world. Sainath asks us to stop being his guest, and watching this lecture would be the most appropriate way to make a start in this direction.
Watch the lecture here.
Read the citation for Sainath read at the Ramon Magsaysay award presentation ceremony here.
Read all his editorials, op-ed articles, reports here.
This lecture ‘Globalizing Inequality’, which he gave at the State University of Washington, Vancouver in 2005, is a real eye-opener. He gives accounts of events that took place in the developing as well as in the economically rich world, which justifies his stand against the kind of globalization plaguing us today, with a few men wielding all the power and controlling the masses.
Through these cases he takes up during the lecture, he convinced me that today’s world does not take up matters that are of no consequence to the few in the driving seat. Today, when we measure economic success of a nation based on its stock exchange value, we are moving further away from the ground reality – from the masses - which do not have an influence on the stock exchanges.
There is a historical text by Tacitus (from his annals), which speaks about Nero burning down Rome. It was during a party that he had organized which had guests that included intellects, columnists, and political figures, when the fire started. And how? He had used the poor from Rome and had put them on fire as a source of light for the guests at night. Rome’s poor then and today’s poor are no different. They are being burnt by the various policies pursued by governments in their home countries as well as by international organizations and nations. We know who today’s Nero is. We are Nero’s guests in today’s world. Sainath asks us to stop being his guest, and watching this lecture would be the most appropriate way to make a start in this direction.
Watch the lecture here.
Read the citation for Sainath read at the Ramon Magsaysay award presentation ceremony here.
Read all his editorials, op-ed articles, reports here.
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