The Hindu : `Only 10 per cent of India shines'

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Monday, Mar 22, 2004

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`Only 10 per cent of India shines'

By Our Special Correspondent

JAIPUR, MARCH 21. Journalist P. Sainath has termed the one year of "occupation" of Iraq by the United States-led troops as a "neo-colonialist'' exercise. The Iraq war was part of the expansionist games of the U.S. spurred by the needs of the free market, and the first thing the "puppet regime'' installed in Iraq by its "invaders" did was to open up the economy. Sainath delivered a lecture here on `Iraq, inequalities, intolerance,' to mark the first anniversary of the U.S.-led attack on Iraq at a programme organised by the Rajasthan Union for Civil Liberties and the Janwadi Lekhak Sangh.

"India could escape sending its forces to Iraq due to the public outcry,'' Sainath said dismissing the National Democratic Government's claims that it had on its own "free will'' decided.

"The Prime Minister, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, wanted to send the Indian troops to Iraq and so was the Deputy Prime Minister, L.K. Advani, who had promised the U.S. the same. It was the victory of the Indian public in 2003 that the country's soldiers were not sent to die in somebody's war,'' Sainath said. The "India Shining'' campaign of the NDA also came under attack from the author of the award-winning book on poverty.

According to Sainath, India shone for only 10 per cent of people while for the rest it was "India burning.'' The priorities of the decision-makers, including the captains of the newspaper industry, had changed over a period. What was getting noticed in the media now was the activities of the rich and famous instead of the plight of families of the farmers who had committed suicide or the poor who could not afford to buy firewood to burn their dead, he said.

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