Fighting Corporatisation...

Lunacy of the "wholly non-political" - A Reply to Ramachandra Guha

2005-05-07T21:49:00.000-07:00

As students, something that we are taught in our University is to always support our arguments and ideas with verifiable and reliable facts, and restrain from reducing our writing to some cheap variety of journalism. We wonder if Ramachandra Guha was also taught the same rule when he went to the University because his article, “Where the left meets the right” that came in The Telegraph of April 30 [Click here to see the article] represents nothing more than a despicable piece of journalism.

While there are many sweeping generalizations that he makes and hopes to get away with, the specific generalization that we are concerned with is regarding his reference to the student campaign against Nestle outlet in Jawaharlal Nehru University. It is very clear from his article that his knowledge about the campaign is based solely on some conversation he had with his “wholly non-political” friends. Well, it is a shame that someone like Mr. Guha who claims to be a ‘historian’ depends solely on a conversation to write his thesis, especially in a public newspaper, thus misinforming the larger public. When an ‘academic’ like him writes for a public, it is not enough that he knows how to write good English but he also needs to convey reliable information. May be he should come back to the University and once again get familiar with his ‘academic’ skills.

It is a well known fact that the campaign against Nestle outlet in JNU campus was not a campaign initiated by any of the mainstream left student organizations, especially the Students Federation of India (SFI), the student wing of the CPI(M). Although, it should be said that certain other left student organizations actively joined in at a later stage of the campaign. May be Mr. Guha’s “wholly non-political” friends forgot to tell him that. The campaign was initiated by a group of students, most of who had no affiliation to any of the student organizations. This group of students initiated the campaign not because they passionately held some skewed idea of “nationalism” or some “irrational fear of the foreigner”, but because of the sincere moral outrage they felt over a corporation with a bad criminal record like Nestle being given a home in their campus. It was not big ‘foreign’ corporations like Nestle alone that this group of students felt a moral outrage towards but also big ‘indigenous’ corporations like the notorious Reliance and the Tata’s who are also making efforts to enter the University through funding of research programmes and projects. It was fortunate that there were at least some people in an academic campus like JNU who felt a certain moral responsibility to question and challenge the politics involved in the corporatisation of educational institutions. Now, it would be irresponsible on the part of an ‘academic’ like Mr. Guha if he reduces the efforts of these students to transcend the cynicisms of their times and question that which is taken for granted into some sort of “irrational fear of the foreigner”. The students who campaigned against the Nestle outlet in JNU are not some guinea pigs for the likes of Mr. Guha to develop their thesis on the Indian left

Another aspect that Mr. Guha’s “wholly non-political” never told him was the specific context in which the campaign against the Nestle coffee outlet was happening. They never told him about that because after all they are “non-political” and would not want their brahmin middle class hands to get all ‘dirty’ in politics. The campaign against Nestle was happening within the context of increasing corporatisation of campus spaces across the country and world, whereby large corporations, both ‘indigenous’ and ‘foreign’, were displacing small time local dhaba and canteen owners. Over the last few years, the campus development agenda of the JNU administration had changed. Earlier the policy was to lease out campus space to those who were from economically and socially disempowered backgrounds. But now the policy is to lease out campus space to the highest bidder, which of course can be none other than large corporations. The University authorities have also been increasing the rent of the existing dhabas and canteens in the campus. The increasing rents would slowly ease the existing dhabas and canteens out of the campus and clear the ground for big corporations to come and run their business.

Corporatisation is not a phenomenon that is happening in JNU alone but in each and every campus around the world. Whether it is through the establishment of outlets where corporations can exclusively sell their products, sponsoring of events and programmes, funding of research projects, starting of new courses and contracting out of work. It is gradually eroding the free and democratic nature of educational institutions and turning them into factories that produce the capital and labour required to meet the greed of the profit hungry rich. The struggle against corporatisation can’t be reduced to some anti-foreign xenophobia. May be it will help to let Mr. Guha know that several student groups fighting corporatisation in campuses around the world had expressed their solidarity to the struggle against the Nestle outlet in JNU.

As for the CPI(M) and its economists, it is not our responsibility to give an answer to what their party cadres or academicians do and say. But if Mr. Guha still insists on branding those who campaigned against the Nestle outlet in JNU as members of the CPI(M), then he is actually giving credits to the CPI(M) for a campaign they were not part of.

Earlier this year, when Mr. Guha visited the JNU campus to give his after-dinner talk, a few students who had nothing to do with the CPI(M) or its student wing SFI questioned some of the sweeping statements he made on the campaign against Nestle outlet with little or no knowledge about the reality of the issue. He immediately threw up a temper tantrum and branded these students as “agents of the CPI(M)”. He was too obsessed with linking the campaign against Nestle with the politics of CPI(M) that he didn’t even give a fair hearing to what those students were saying. Although later he apologized to them for his emotional outburst and hasty judgments on the issue, it is now clear that his apology was a sham since he has once again committed the same blunder. May be he is also a victim of the “larger epidemic of xenophobia” and if it is such xenophobia that is going to inform his writing rather than real facts, then he is no different from the Sudharshans, Advanis and Gurumurthys of our times.

Nima Lamu Yolmo, Centre for Economic Studies and Planning, JNU
John Thomas, Centre for Historical Studies, JNU
Santhosh M. R., Centre of Social Medicine and Community Health, JNU
Kaustubh Kumar Deka, Centre for Political Studies, JNU
Jatinder Singh, Centre for Political Studies, JNUSerohi Nandan, Centre for Historical Studies, JNU

Degrees of Influence: The corporatization of higher education

2005-03-24T09:23:00.000-08:00

By
Kristin Jensen

Large corporations hold more power than ever in our society, and the influence that they exert is obvious in many arenas: over the economy, our political system and what legislation is passed, over the media and what ideas and opinions are conveyed. What is less immediately obvious is the increasing influence that large corporations have on the educational system in the United States, especially on higher education. While some notice has been paid to the reach of corporations into public K-12 schools with ventures such as Channel One, less attention has been given to the increasing influence of corporations on universities, both public and private, throughout the country.

The unprecedented influence of corporations, and corporate values, on universities has led to a number of disturbing trends that challenge the integrity of higher education in the United States. Corporations are more visible and more powerful than ever on college campuses. The governing boards of universities, as well as their trustees and regents, are increasingly the executives of large corporations. Universities are contracting out for more and more of their basic services, from cafeterias run by fast food chains and exclusive beverage contracts with Coca-Cola or Pepsi to university bookstores run by large bookstore chains such as Barnes & Noble. Such arrangements effectively shut out smaller, local companies that benefit the local economy instead of corporate interests.

Increasingly, university education is becoming a corporate training ground as schools embrace not only the ideals of corporations but their practices as well. The corporatization of higher education has meant that decisions concerning academic planning and employment are determined by financial considerations. Like corporations, universities today evaluate particular departments and programs on their ability to pay for themselves and bring the university money. Many departments that do not bring in sufficient funds, especially in the liberal arts, are threatened with termination.

CORPORATIONS HAVE ALSO assumed a more direct and dangerous influence on higher education. Universities today are for-profit institutions, and in an era of scaled-back federal funding, corporations and their foundations are providing much of the needed money-with a heavy price attached. The influence of corporate money on many colleges has meant that corporations, instead of the universities themselves, frequently determine what receives funding. For example, instead of the sociology department of a university deciding that they want an endowed chair and then soliciting funds for it, a corporation provides funding for a chair in an area in which it wants research done. As Lawrence Soley, author of Leasing the Ivory Tower, documents, this leads to the Federal Express Chair of Excellence in Information Technology at the University of Memphis or the Reliance Corporation Professor of Free Enterprise at the University of Pennsylvania. In effect, this means that the corporation, instead of the university, determines which topics are looked at and which aren't.

Many university departments no longer exist to educate students but to do research and development for corporations. Corporate foundations give money to programs, courses, college newspapers, and student groups that further their ideology and opinions. Corporations also frequently donate money on the condition that it be used for a "research center" of their design, which provides them with valuable public relations outside of corporate headquarters. Soley notes that the professor who holds the Federal Express Chair at the University of Memphis also runs the Federal Express Center for Cycle Time Research, a research center devoted to studying overnight air delivery.

Large corporations will continue to seek influence in universities because they are a cheap source of labor for research. It costs the corporations less to conduct their research in university labs, which are built and funded with tuition and money from taxes, than to outfit and build comparable corporate labs. The real cost of such practices is high. Graduate students and research assistants are paid far less than their counterparts in the private sector and the costs of such research are absorbed by students in the form of higher tuition and by taxpayers. Additionally, some contracts that universities sign with corporations stipulate under what conditions (if at all) the research conducted can be made public.

For example, Soley documents a case at the University of California-San Francisco (UCSF) in which clinical pharmacist Betty Dong conducted research on Synthroid, a drug manufactured by the Boots Company, a British pharmaceutical corporation, which also paid for the research under a contract with UCSF. When the research failed to establish Synthroid's superiority, Boots blocked Dong's publishing her work and criticized her study publicly. Under the contract the company had the right to censor the study, and Dong, unable to make the study public, could not defend her work. This incident is an increasingly commonplace example of a corporation exerting undue influence over the research agenda of a university.

At the heart of the dialogue about growing corporate influence are fundamental questions concerning the aim of education. For what purpose do we as a society educate? Do we educate to develop citizens who are informed, active, and critical? To introduce as many people as possible to the joys of learning, to intellectual pursuits and the arts? Or is the sole purpose of a degree to get a job? What is the value that we as a society place on education?

How we as a society address the influx of corporate values and economic practices in our universities will not only determine the future of higher education in the next century but the quality and character of our communities as well.

Sojourners Magazine, January-February 1999 (Vol. 28, No. 1, pp. 12-13).

Resolution Passed...

2005-02-08T06:16:00.000-08:00

The resolution to scrap the Nestle coffee outlet in the Jawaharlal Nehru University campus was passed with an overwhelming majority by the entire student body. Yesterday the Campus Development Committee decided that the contract with Nestle should not be renewed.

A Comment to the McMedia

2005-02-03T03:27:00.000-08:00

Students and Academicians alike have a very constructive role to play in any society. Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi is no exception; it has a social commitment like any other public institution of this country.

Corporatisation of the public space is by all means an anti-people process. The colossal corporate beasts are not interested in anything other than burgeoning profits. Their insatiable greed for profits has seen them devouring small-scale traders – and changing the tapestry of the social fabric in many a country, including India.

When the multi-national giant Nestle (which is worth more than 100 billion dollars) were awarded the contract to run a coffee outlet in JNU, the seeds of a very dangerous weed were being sown in the JNU campus. There has been a very active campaign to weed out the corporate entities from the campus before their roots grew in all directions.

That campaign culminated in a General Body Meeting (GBM) which was to decide on Nestle’s future in the JNU campus. Students spoke and debated in length about the pros and cons of having Nestle in the campus. And in the end a resolution was passed with a 545-8 mandate to force Nestle to pack their bags and leave the campus.

Indian Express (Express News Service) covered the GBM at the JNU campus. Abantika Ghosh, on 27th January, reported: "To Nestle or not, that is JNU’s question," and on the 28th January there was a report: "Too many speakers, JNU’s Nestle brainstorm spills". [click here for the reports]

It is a matter of great pity that the print media, which many rely on for a near-objective coverage of issues, increasingly tends to simplify an event, packed more with the opinion of the reporter rather than the report itself. As for opinion pieces there are Op-Ed columns, which most journalists have access to.

I am a student of JNU, who over the last one year has observed how the Nestle issue has evolved. Since Abantika Gosh was only reporting and not writing an Op-Ed column, she should have tried to listen and understand what the students had to say – than jump into some sort of a premature conclusion.

When the media refuses to be a medium to report news, and instead becomes part of the news itself – it is trying to become a vicious power-broker. We all know how transparent the coverage of Iraq War has been with US government embeds reporting propaganda than covering what-really-was-going-on.

Every person today in India and all over the world uses some MNC product or the other. JNU is no exception to this. Unfortunately, it has become extremely difficult at the present moment to extricate oneself from the corporate trap. However, to imply that the overwhelming presence and use of those products takes away our ability to be critically thinking persons, engaging in debates and discussions, is preposterous. May be the McMedia that pays allegiance to the interests of big corporations and the political elite would find it hard to digest that. Within an academic campus, we cannot be as irresponsible as the McMedia.

The Express reporter who had been to the University campus, Ms. Abantika Ghosh, doesn't seem to know the meaning of what an outlet is. An 'outlet' in common parlance means a store or a market that sells goods.

A product or a good itself cannot be an outlet. But the report says, "For the record, the campus has outlets by Tata Indicom, Group 4, Compaq Computers, to name just a few MNCs". While it is true that Tata Indicom has phone booths set-up around the campus and Group 4-Falck is involved in keeping the 'security' of campus, there are no other outlets in campus except of course the Nestle coffee outlet.

Anyone who lives in the campus knows that there are no outlets ‘owned’ by compaq computers or any other MNCs inside the campus, although there are a number of outlets owned by local entrepreneurs, selling MNC products. It is important to distinguish an outlet from a product.

Let me offer some lessons in history of this Nestle-specific campaign. The debate over Nestle coffee outlet began almost a year back. When the permission was granted to Nestle to start an outlet, no party from left to right of the political divide, opposed it.

The left student parties remained mute as they watched a big corporation with a criminal record setting up its outlet inside the campus. One wondered whether the left’s marriage of convenience with the 10-Janpath was corroding the very foundation of the leftist ideological conscience inside the campus!

Even without a whimper of protest from our comrades, construction on the outlet went ahead. As it was nearing completion, some students, independent of any party affiliation realised that there has been a shift in the campus development agenda.

Earlier the campus space was allotted to those who are from SC/ST or physically challenged backgrounds to do business, now the University administration had started allotting space to the "highest bidder". The "highest bidder" in our society has always been the large corporations who make a huge turnover everyday.

The students are not to be blamed if they view this change in the campus development agenda as socially irresponsible move. How humane is it to deprive opportunities to those who are already deprived and give more opportunities to those who already have tremendous wealth and power?

It was also found out that those people from the deprived sections of the society are being eased out from existing livelihoods. The University administration has been increasing the rent of every canteen and dhaba in the campus, run by small-time entrepreneurs, by ten percent every year!

With such a hike in rent, it would become almost impossible for the small-time entrepreneurs to sustain their means to livelihood for a long time. One canteen has already succumbed to this systematic purge.

This purge of the existing canteens and dhaba over a period of time is to welcome in large corporate food outlets to take their place. This has already happened in Delhi University, where the existing coffee houses and canteens run by cooperatives and small time entrepreneurs have been shut down to give space to McDonald's and Nirulas!

It needs a massive dose of conviction to make a statement as we the students in JNU have. We refuse to take the Delhi University route.

Nestle has all rights in the world to be what they are – a multi-national corporation – in the business of making profits. So too does JNU have the right to decide on what future it wants to take.

The real issue is not Nestle or its products, but the shift in agenda that Nestle ushers in with it into the JNU campus. The campus development agenda has been changed to accommodate big corporate entities like Nestle, while dispossessing the existing small time entrepreneurs – who are trying to make their ends meet.

As an academic community, it would be irresponsible of us not to speak out on these subtle ways through which inequality is furthered and celebrated.

When a corporation that has blood in its hands decides to get in to a direct contract with our University administration, it is very much a matter for debate for us. Representatives of McMedia can sit in front of a television set and report about a riot but we in the academia cannot afford to do that. We cannot afford to sacrifice our conscience for greed.

John Thomas,
Centre for Historical Studies,
Jawaharlal Nehru University,

New Delhi - 110067

Support the Fight Against Corporatisation at Jawaharlal Nehru University!

2005-01-26T01:03:00.000-08:00

Students at JNU in India are fighting back! Help them fight an aggressive attempt by the administration to drive out local entrepreneurs and welcome in big corporations like Nestle!! Here’s how to help:

1. Read the Letter…
2. Cut and Paste it…
3. Email it to the University BY THE DEADLINE JAN 29!

JNU students have called for our solidarity so let’s give it to them!

THE LETTER:

We/I, ORGANIZATION/INDIVIDUAL NAME, support Students' Solidarity and the larger collective, Forum Against Coporatisation, in their fight to reclaim their campus space from big corporations like Nestle and hand it over to more deserving local entrepreneurs.

Previously local entrepreneurs and those from the socially deprived sections of the society were given preferential access to campus space, but increasingly small businesses are being driven out, and larger corporations welcomed in. Nestle is only one particularly bad example: the company has violated workers' rights and supported the violent suppression of workers' unions in countries like Colombia, Philippines and Thailand; acquired cocoa for its chocolates from plantations in Ivory Coast and Indonesia where the work force is made up of children, who are treated like slaves; and marketed infant formula to poor nations for years at the cost of thousands of infant lives.

We are deeply concerned about the increasing corporatisation of JNU, from academic research to the contracting out of basic services, as we do not believe this serves the interests of the students, the local community, or society at large. It only serves the interest of large corporations.

We support the demands of Students' Solidarity and the larger collective, Forum Against Corporatisation, and believe that the Campus Development Committee should scrap the contract with Nestle immediately.

Sincerely,
NAME AND CONTACT INFO

EMAIL IT TO:

studentsolidarity@rediffmail.com AND
gkchadha@mail.jnu.ac.in (Vice Chancellor of the Univeristy, G. K. Chadha);
rghosh@mail.jnu.ac.in, ghosh_r@vsnl.com (JNU Teachers' Association President, Rupamanjari Ghosh);
rohanxdsouza@yahoo.co.in (JNUTeachers' Association Joint Secretary)
rnmenon@mail.jnu.ac.in (Campus Development Committee Chairperson, R.N. Menon)
jnusu_campaigns@yahoo.co.in (JNU Students' Union President, Mona Das)
ahmar_bluez@yahoo.com (JNU Students' Union General Secretary, Muqbil Ahmar)

studentsolidarity@rediffmail.com, gkchadha@mail.jnu.ac.in, rghosh@mail.jnu.ac.in, ghosh_r@vsnl.com, rohanxdsouza@yahoo.co.in, rnmenon@mail.jnu.ac.in, jnusu_campaigns@yahoo.co.in, ahmar_bluez@yahoo.com

BACKGROUND:

- The campaign right now is to demand for the closure of the Nestle coffee outlet in campus. Nestle had signed a direct contract with the University administration. The contract comes up for review each year and the Campus Development Committee of the University has the choice to scrap the contract whenever it wants to.

- This year's review of the contract is happening at the Campus Development Committee meeting that is to be held sometime in the last days of this month. The Campus Development Committee comprises of members elected by the University administration. Although there are two representatives from the Teachers' Union and Students' Union who are invited to the Campus Development Committee meetings. If these four representatives put enough pressure in the CDC meeting, the contract could be scrapped.

- Student Solidarity (a platform that has been formed with the objective to campaign against the corporatisation of campus space) have been mounting pressure on the Jawaharlal Nehru University Student's Union to take the issue up with the administration. But the Students' Union, despite belonging to a mainstream left organisation, has been reluctant to do so. They have been reluctant because they as representatives of last year's Union had a major role in bringing Nestle into the campus in the first place. Now, even though they have realised the blunder they have committed, they have been trying to give justification for their actions to save face. The Students' Union president, belonging to another left organisation, has extended her support for the campaign but she is very much a minority voice within the Union.

- Although our immediate campaign is for the closure of the Nestle outlet in campus, our larger fight is against the increasing corporatisation of every sphere of University life. One can get an idea of the nature of our campaign and more details on what exactly has been happening in the campus from our blog: studentsolidarity.blogspot.com. The blog basically contains the four main pamphlets we came out with on the issue.

- We would really like to get some solidarity statements asap because enough pressure has to be put on the administration to scrap the contract at the meeting that is coming up at the end of this month. Pressure also needs to be put on the Students' Union and the Teachers' Union to take up the issue with the administration. The campus has been active in the last few days with many public meetings on the implications of corporatisation, numerous pamphlets being circulated, door to door campaigning etc.

On Yet another story we heard...

2005-01-20T06:50:00.000-08:00

While Ram Kishen waits for his dream to be fulfilled, there is yet another story that we heard. This time it was about the several canteens that are being run in each school building and other areas of the campus. It is about the fear that many people who run these canteens have over the developments that have taken place as a result of the recent changes in the campus development agenda. Four years back, the JNU administration decided to consistently raise the monthly rent of each canteen every year by about 10% and impose a fine of Rs. 1000 in case one failed to pay the rent on time. That means, as years advance, all that the canteen owners earn as income would increasingly go into paying the rent. Until it reaches a certain year when they would have to pay more rent than the actual income they earn. When such a time comes, which is not too long, the Univeristy administration will shut their canteens and throw them out. Therefore, along with making more money each year, the administration would eventually like to shut down the existing canteens.

To avoid being thrown out, many canteen owners may decide to struggle as much as they can to make their ends meet. They will try all different means to earn as much profit as possible so that there is enough to sustain them and pay the rent. They may resort to laying-off workers as installing vending machines and ready to serve eatables and drinks produced by big corporations would need only less labour. They may also decide to try and raise the prices of food and drinks to keep up with the rising rent. Well, that is a situation best avoided. For canteens are not made solely to provide for a moneyed middle class but to also provide for a large number of students from socially and economically poorer backgrounds. It doesn’t take much education to realise that. Moreover, how long can a canteen owner go on raising the price of his products? After all, there is also a limit to what a small time canteen owner can do in order to earn enough income to keep up with the rising rent. Raising of prices can only remain a temporary arrangement and nothing more than that. So, there seems to be no way out of this problem.

Why does the JNU administration then pursue this kind of policy? Is it really that ignorant or is it just playing ignorance in order to cover up its shrewd mind? We think that latter is the case. Killing existing canteens and those who live by it is part of a larger campus development agenda that is slowly being implemented. It is of grave importance for the student body to be clear about what this agenda is. For that, the decision to raise the rent of canteens cannot be taken as an isolated incident. While the rent was increasing, the University administration was inviting new occupants into the University - it directly signed a contract with the Nestle Corporation to lease out our public space to set up its outlet. While on the one hand small time canteen owners are being slowly suffocated with increasing doses of rent, public spaces are being sold off to big corporations - a reflection of a larger phenomenon that is taking place all around our ‘great’ country. You clear forests and displace adivasis from their lands so that big corporations can mine all the valuable minerals and make money out of them. You sell and dam rivers, again displacing large numbers of dalits and adivasis to give space for big corporations to buy off common resources like water and electricity and make money off it. You clear the jhuggis in the cities so that you can arrange the urban landscape according to middle class aesthetics and build hi-tech electronic cities for big companies. You shut down existing industries and leave large numbers of workers without any livelihood so that you can create a “level playing field” for big companies. The list goes on…Today, what we see is, our University administration also believing in the same logic. Big corporations and the consumerist culture it brings along are really the ‘choice of a new generation’ for the administration. So, you kill off the existing local small time businesses and then create space for the rule of big corporations. You drive out the weak and give space to the rich and the powerful. Indeed a kind of fascistic idea. Unfortunatley, it is this kind of idea that is at work in the present campus development agenda and begging to be questioned.

The Nestle outlet is only a symptom of a larger disease that is spreading through out the world. It is important therefore to place the struggle against Nestle outlet within the larger context of a change in the campus development agenda. The setting up of Nestle outlet is not just a mere ‘election issue’ as some journmalists of the ‘McMedia’, who frequent the campus only at election time would like to say. But an issue that serves as a clear example of the way in which new economic and social agendas of the rich are unfolding. It is unfortunate that one ‘McMedia’ journalist of a mainstream English Newspaper while commenting on the Nestle issue advised the student leaders to “keep food for thought away from the dining table.” Well, in a country where a huge percentage of the population do not get two square meals a day and many die of starvation, it is only criminal to “keep food for thought away from the dining table”.

[Although posted now it was written on November 1, 2004]

On the Story we heard...

2005-01-20T06:44:00.000-08:00

Ram Kishen is the sole earning member of his family consisting of his wife, Lali and six children. He lives in Kusumpur Pahadi, a jhuggi very close to JNU. Like many that live in the large jhuggis of big cities like Delhi, Ram Kishen and his family came to the city in search of a livelihood from Naura village, in Dausa, Rajasthan a few years back. It was while he was trying to make his ends meet by selling basic provisions to others in his jhuggi that he heard of some contsruction happening in that big University near by. Yes, that big University, from where getting an education remains a distant dream for people like him. Yes, that same big University that boasts of churning out the ‘intelligentsia’ of our ‘great country’ with little effect on the lives of people like him. It was heard that the consruction was that of two hostels and that it employed 500 workers, all like him, migrants working for meagre wages under exploitative conditions. The workers being settled close to the site of construction, Ram Kishen had an idea. Why not set up a small shop where he can supply tea and snacks for the workers? This he did for all the three years that the construction took place. Although initially the security objected to him setting up his small business to serve the basic needs of the construction workers in the campus, he managed to plead his case with the contractor, who in turn gained permission from the University authorities for him to stay on until the construction was over.

The four years that Ram Kishen spend in the University, looking after the basic needs of the construction workers, made him feel quite at home. The University campus reminded him much of his own village rather than Delhi. However, now the four years of construction is over. The workers are leaving, looking for new places to work. The newly constructed hostels are on their way to being inaugrated and soon enough there will be room for the whole student body in the University. The time has also come for Ram Kishen to leave. The other day, the contractor let him know that by demolishing his small shop. And on Monday, 17 October 2004 at around two o’ clock in the afternoon the security personnels on behalf of the University administration pushed him out of the campus. But, where will he go now? How will he find the means of feeding his family of eight?

Ram Kishen himself has an idea. He has a small wish, a small dream. That dream is to set up a small dhaba that would provide the students living in the two newly constructed hostels with tea, samosas, bread pakodas and lot of other snacks he can think of. However, with the existing campus development agenda of the administration, can Ram Kishen’s dream come true? When it is more profitable for the administration to have flashy, hep corporate joints like Nescafe coffee corner, how will Ram Kishen’s dream fit into the whole picture? When our public space is up for sale, wooing various rich corporate criminals, how will Ram Kishen get some space to build his small Dhaba? While we, caught up in some grand illusion, open ourselves up to thugs in black suits from big corporations like Nestle, will we continue to kick poor Ram Kishens of our society who are struggling to make a living out of here? These are just a few questions for which answers can be found according to how we make an intervention in this given point in history.

Now elections are around the corner, different student organizations from left to right will harp loudly on how great they all are. Exchanging political rhetoric will be the order of the day. In the midst of all this, real issues that students raise become mere weapons to fight their own petty battles. It is in such a context that we demand from all the parties a statement and position on the extent to which each of them are willing or not willing to sell off our campus to big corporations. No longer can any student organization continue to remain ambiguous and silent over this issue. We also urge the student community to pay urgent attention and lend support to fulfilling Ram Kishen’s dream. The choices we make are very important. Many may think silence is an option. Well, it is this silence that has allowed the criminal rich to shatter the dreams of the millions of Ram Kishens in our society. It is this silence that has allowed the rich to build their monuments on top of the demolished homes and livelihood of the poor. Human history is not an accident. It is the outcome of the kind of choices we human beings make.

[Although posted now it was written on October 20, 2004]

On the Nightmare we see...

2005-01-20T06:35:00.000-08:00

A Spectre is haunting JNU – The Spectre of Corporatisation.

It was sometime in the middle of March that the Nestle outlet began to show its ugly head in the campus. Pamphlets and posters were written and drawn exposing the ethical issues involved in allowing a giant Multi-National Corporation open its outlet in the campus. Most Student organizations from left to right exchanged angry pamphlets, made a lot of noise, signifying nothing. The polemics contained little or no substance, exposing nothing but the ideological and moral bankruptcy of the student organizations. While all this was happening, Nestle sat around and continued to churn the blood of millions of babies, workers and children into coffee. By the way if one thinks it is coffee that is being sold in that outlet, may be you haven’t tasted real coffee. In any case, even if it is real coffee, it is only right that an academic community looks into the politics behind that coffee.

Nestle, the big swiss food company whose criminal record gets covered up under all that gloss and colour. Nestle’s corporate crimes include violation of the marketing code introduced to regulate the marketing of breastmilk substitute, leading to malnourishment and death of large number of infants; violation of workers’ rights and violent suppression of workers’ unions especially in countries like Colombia, Philippines and Thailand; acquiring of cocoa for its chocolates from plantations in Ivory Coast and Indonesia where the work force comprises of children, who are treated more or less as slaves.

Even if our conscience is not disturbed by these facts, then we at least need to be concerned when our university administration signs a contract with such big corporate criminals. Products marketed by such corporate criminals are everywhere on campus and most times we are left with no choice but to consume them. However, when they come and make underhand dealings with the university administration, we are asking the Devil himself to come and live in our homes. And the Devil is not as naïve as us. He has his own plans and interests; after all he is out to make profits. The campus space is something that the JNU community cherishes. Its democratic and liberal character is something the students, faculty and karamcharis have enjoyed over the years. Now, this is being sold to satisfy the interests of the corporate powers like Nestle, Group 4-Falck (who is notorious for “maintaining security” in Israeli occupied Palestine) and Tata Indicom. This is only the beginning. Tomorrow many more of them will come and knock at the door. If we continue to let them in, the campus will no longer be ours. It will become yet another space colonized by corporate interests. When one lives under corporate rule, one will no longer have the democratic space to make any institution in the campus accountable. It is not we who decide what we need but some CEO sitting in some plush office, well hidden from the gaze of the public.

Keeping the corporates away from messing around with our lives doesn’t mean we don’t need places to drink coffee or to make phone calls. We do need those places but controlled by persons or institutions that are most deserving in our society and those who can be accountable to the JNU community. For example, a co-operative of small coffee cultivators or persons who are physically challenged can be given the space to do business, making their ends meet and satisfying our need for coffee and phone calls, instead of some huge corporations with too many criminal involvements.

Let it be said that the talk of corporate invasion is not the nightmare of a bunch of schizophrenics. But, this is a nightmare that many in the campus, across party and ideological lines, across student, faculty and karamchari divisions see. And one shouldn’t forget that this nightmare has become a reality in many university campuses around the world where from the topics and findings of academic research to the courses offered to the lifestyles lived, all are now determined by corporates and not by the students and faculties. Therefore, before it is too late it is important that the student community, especially the JNU Students’ Union take a clear stand against this corporatisation of our spaces and minds, and bring to light how the Nestle contract was signed and also the conditions of that contract. In a democratic structure it is the right of every student to know how and what decisions regarding their lives are taken. Nothing can be hidden away with the help of empty words and rhetoric.

“If injustice is the order of the day
then disorder is the beginning of justice”
- Romain Rolland

[Although posted now it was written on August 6, 2004]

Wake up and smell the stale Coffee...

2005-01-20T06:17:00.000-08:00

Sojourner Truth

A fashionable looking structure is coming up in between Tapti and Sabarmati with workers working on it day and night. While those who have struggled to find out what that structure would be now know what it is, many may still be quite ignorant of it. Well, it is yet another representative of neo-liberal capitalism, the Swiss food company Nestle with its Nescafe outlet making its presence felt in the University campus. To this day, many such Multi-national Corporations (Group 4, Coke and others) with disgraceful track record have made their presence felt in the campus. Do we need to let yet another one in?

In a world where consumer interest and profit making matter more than any ethics that affirm life, it is necessary for an academic community like the one we live in to keep its conscience clear and try not be subsumed completely into the logic of capital. It is important to reflect on who Nestle is. On what he is doing to millions of infants, hundreds of thousands of children and many more thousands of workers to meet the demands of his greed.

According to World Health Organisation (WHO) estimates, 1.5 million infants die around the world because of the absence of breastfeeding and in places where water is unsafe for drinking a bottlefed infant is 25 times more likely to die than a breastfed infant. Because of this, in 1981 a marketing code was introduced to regulate the marketing of breastmilk substitute. Nestle up till this day has violated this code. It has been at the forefront promoting artificial infant feeding and discouraging breastfeeding. Free samples and supplies are given to health care institutions to promote artificial infant feeding and no clear notification is given about the harmful effects of artificial infant feeding and the benefits of breastfeeding. Many women from poor socio-economic backgrounds, especially of the developing countries are misled and misinformed, and many newborn infants die of malnutrition. It is Nestle that sentences their death.

Recently, Nestle has been making its way into the “Zero Hunger” programme of the Brazilian government to eliminate hunger by promoting and giving away free samples of powdered milk which of course doesn’t come close to breast milk in terms of nutrition.

Nestle along with the state machinery is notorious for its actions against the interests of the workers. In Colombia, with the help of the state, Nestle first denied the workers their yearly raise, health plan, education assistance, and compensation for dismissals, along with other rights. Then through “pressure, blackmail and terror” they took away the job security of the workers. According to the worker’s union SINAL TRAINAL Nestle “massacred the workers' ability to work and robbed them of their rights, but gave them a few miserable dollars so that they can die slowly in misery and squalor”. It is also characteristic of big corporate houses like Nestle to ally themselves with para-military troops and other armed groups to suppress worker’s unions and assassinate their leaders. This is the case in countries like Colombia and Philippines.

The biggest chocolate producers in the world like Nestle and Cadbury acquire their cocoa from the cocoa plantations of Africa, South East Asia and Latin America. Hundreds of thousands of children work in these plantations under extremely severe conditions. Most of these children are slaves who have been trafficked from outside the country and are subject to all kinds of torture and punishments. In Ivory Coast there is an estimated 200,000 children working on cocoa plantations of whom 15,000 are slaves. In Indonesia atleast 700,000 work in 350,000 hectares of family-owned cocoa plantations.

Even if we are promised good coffee, as critical, thinking human beings we have a moral responsibility. A moral responsibility to say that we refuse to compromise with those institutions that live as parasites on human life. Therefore it is necessary to raise one’s voice against Nestle. The JNU Student’s Union, which in rhetoric upholds a critical stand towards neo-liberalism, needs to show in practice if it will take a stand against the Nescafe outlet instead of initiating it and giving it a space in the campus. Let it be known that you may remain silent today but the tomorrow will judge you for your inaction.

[Although posted now, it was written in March, 2004]