An Intelligent Conversation

On TV, this might sound like an oxymoron, if not an impossibility. But I actually saw an intelligent conversation. It may be as rare as a dhoomketu (comet), but I think it is worth mentioning that it can happen.

This was an interview with Harsh Mander, ex-bureaucrat who has written a book called Ash in the Belly, and talks intelligently. That's saying a lot. He expressed his views to Paranjoy Guha-Thakurta, the interviewer, about hunger in India, and the double-faced behaviour of the middle class towards the poor. Also the government's changing role from being a champion of the poor to something altogether different (according to him).

It was interesting, and he talked of the Berlin wall collapse in 1989, Babri Masjid demolition and 9/11 as defining moments which changed our perceptions about the poor and the need to give them dignity. The poor work quite hard, but we treat them as cheating, stealing, unwashed masses, and don't think about them in the developmental or aggrandisement (market-led) processes that breed inequalities.

Very interesting, and might lead to some soul-searching.