IIM Kozhikode plays host to Shri. P Sainath for an interactive session with students
It was a momentous occasion for IIM Kozhikode as Shri P. Sainath, the rural affairs reporter of The Hindu interacted with students and made efforts to make management students aware of the socio- economic issues facing the country. Drawing from his rich experience, he chose to illuminate the eager crowd through a method of discourse by asking students their concerns and answering using his numerous experiences and factual observations. He explained the vast diversity of India by elucidating about the number of spoken languages (400+) across the breadth of the country and emphasized that cultural forces are far too deep rooted and Indian constitution needs to recognize the regional languages in order to limit the detachment that the rural and the urban classes of India have seemed to gather over the centuries.
He cited many examples and recollected with nostalgia his coinage of the phrase ‘Resident Non-Indian’ to denote an Indian who never becomes a national citizen owing to myriad factors. He said that Urban India is blindly aping the west which could be seen in the fact that while poorer neighbourhoods of the developed countries depend on McDonalds, in India it is seen as a status symbol! He moved towards the divide between news and paid news and said it has become more of a Mass Media versus a Mass Reality of late. He spoke at length while answering a question on the national water policy and water sharing issues and lay stress on the fact that a majority of states in India have some of the most major political issues over water and the government of late has tried to ‘Nationalize rivers’ and ‘Privatize water’. He also is flabbergasted to the fact that after 65 years of Independence and centuries of newspaper publishing we still don’t have any full time agricultural correspondent in any fourth estate.
He dwelled further and deduced, over a lot of mythological and cultural instances that water always has strong caste geography when it comes to usage by various strata. He highlighted the detrimental impact of mindless bore wells and lambasted India’s billion bore well drive of the late 80’s. Lastly, on being asked over the real issues facing India; he answered that India needs to respect the artisan, the farmer and a multitude of other craftsmen. In his ambitious venture touted as the rural Wikipedia, ‘People Archives of a rural India’ he explains that more the information about a segregated tribe, a downtrodden society and traditional arts come into the light, the more would be the respect for rural India and hence an end to the rampant predatory commercialization practiced by many corporates. [/b]