Meeting 4-28-08

Meeting: Tuesday, April 28
Zach's--6:00

-Discussed readings and video from previous week
-Jessie watched video about brothels and the Red Light District in Calcutta
-Claire read article about corruption in Northern India

-Talked about our final project
-Using foam board and pictures to tell about what we've learned this semester
-All pictures will relate to our topic of study

-Decided when to meet to work on project--will be meeting on Saturday to do that

-Discussed summer plans, shots, money, etc.

Caste, Class, and Clientelism: A Political Economy of Everyday Corruption in Rural North India

This article was very interesting. I have been trying to find articles that primarily focus on Calcutta. This article wasn't quite that specific, rather it focused on northern India as a whole. Corruption was the main topic in this article. I have read about corruption in India in something that I have read previously, but this article went into more detail especially for the area in which the corruption takes place. The main focus was on the role of corruption in perpetuating material inequalities within rural society. It is not uncommon for people to create links with the police and politicians in order to build "cross-class alliances." Most of the dominant classes are usually quite successful in manipulating the local police force through bribery, influence, and intimidation. The author also discusses how people in north India often in rural India are brought into contact with government officials who demand bribes and ration state resources. People do this in accordance to their own financial and social interests. Corruption takes place not only by the rich farmers, but also by the rural poor. I thought this was interesting, because it would seem like the poor wouldn't have as much to bribe with or have much influence to persuade the officials with. This isn't necessarily true--differently positioned "agents attempt to insert themselves into patron-client networks." This article also discusses specific areas of corruption which includes corruption among cane societies, sugarcane cultivation and corruption. This article was interesting because it discussed an issue that I have already known to occur, yet it gave specific examples of where corruption comes about and who all it involves. I wished that I could have learned a little more about Calcutta specifically through reading this article, but that will be something I try to find in my next article I decide to read!

Meeting 4-23-08

Meeting 4-23-08
5:30
Zach's

- talked about articles read this week (Newspaper articles and Oh! Kolkuta)

- discussed summer plans and arrangements

- started planning final project

- Jessie to buy foam board for project this weekend.

- Claire to check on shots

"Born into Brothels"

Born into Brothels- Film about childhood in the brothels of the Red Light District of Calcutta, India



For more background information, please visit http://www.kids-with-cameras.org/bornintobrothels/

I found this documentary shocking and saddening. I thought that it was a film that showed me how Calcutta really is for children of the brothels from the most untarnished and raw source of all: the children themselves. The kids were honest like only children can be and it was a great thing to see especially considering how in the West we hear a lot about how advanced and industrial India is becoming, yet in some places, like the Red Light District, hardship is as great as ever.
There were 8 children included in this documentary and all have different personalities that made the accounts both balanced and informative. The hard part about watching the accounts of the girls is the fact that if they do not get out of the brothels soon, they will “join the line” (become a prostitute as well). There is a part of the movie where there is a ten year old girl who is talking about how he has already been told about her becoming a prostitute soon and how she does not want to do it. She wants to get out but does not see how. Also, one of her friends (male) talks about how he wants to take her away from this place because she will soon be forced to join the line. This struck me because even the other children knew about the situation and had to be concerned with it. These children were not getting a childhood at all. They not only know what could happen to them, but they are also very aware of how their mothers are employed. One child recounted how they had a curtain in their home and when customers came, they closed the curtain and the children were not allowed to see. Either that or all the children were forced to go play on the roof.
It was also very interesting to me how the children saw their economic position. All of the children in the documentary lived in an area that looked like a slum to me (although I could be mistaken)—but if it was not, it was certainly very poor by anyone’s standards. It was interesting how when the girls were asked about their condition, they said that they did not think about being rich. They said that even if they were poor they could have a very happy life because they accepted sadness and pain as a normal part of life. This is connected to the reading I did a couple weeks ago about the subjective happiness and well being of the homeless. The article said that homeless people in India were more content with their position in life and this film seems to confirm that though the dialogue of these kids.
My other reading for this independent study also talks about how people in India who are poor or in the slums do recognize how essential education is to their getting out. The children talk about how they want to get an education throughout the video and they finally do get some help from “Zana Auntie” at the end of the film. However, it is sad that one of the girls says that she needs to go to school to that she can take those skills and make a living to support herself and her sister. It is eye-opening to see that these children have high ambitions (some do want to be doctors, artists, etc.) but it is with very practical implications that we do not usually think of kids worrying about in the West.
I could not possibly cover all the implications and interesting things about this film in this blog, so I just recommend that you watch the film. It can be both heartbreaking and uplifting, but is a great and informative way to break our ethnocentric view of childhood.

India Newspaper Articles-- The Telegraph, Calcutta, India

I decided that for this week I would read some newspaper articles from Calcutta, India. I just got excited about finally having it nailed down where I was going, so I thought because of that I would read something specific about the city of Calcutta and what is going on there currently that is related to the topic of this independent study project. I learned some really interesting things that supplemented what I have already read elsewhere.
From the article, “Slum dwellers’ rally on cards” from April 15 in “The Telegraph”, I learned about demands that the slum people are making in regards to their conditions. One thing that they are demanding is land “pattas”. I did some digging and I am not sure what a “patta” is, but after looking around I get the idea that maybe it is a grant of land that is used for agriculture. I know at least it is some sort of land grant, but may not necessarily be used for agriculture. It is interesting to me that these people are asking for grants of land especially in the city, because it seems like there would not be very much land to be had unless they moved. And, would they want to do that? This article also talked about slum people in general and their demographics. Evidently, there are about 220 slums in Calcutta most of which have been “built” over the past 70 years. This makes me wonder if the slums they are counting are concentrated mostly in a certain area of the city, or if they are spread all over. Finally, when talking about homeless people (do slum people consider themselves homeless?) in the United States, we often assume that they are unemployed. However, this article makes a point to say that these slum people usually do have jobs such as telephone or construction workers, vendors, rickshaw operators, or daily labor. This difference between American and Indian urban poor was very distinct and interesting to me.
It is also interesting to me that several of the articles referenced an effort to make a database of all the slum dwellers in the city. This seems like quite the endeavor to me. With all those not only homeless people, but slum dwellers as well, it seems that it would take a lot of centralized government power to organize and educate such a task. It also makes me realize that maybe these people are seen in a different light than in America cataloguing them shows concern for their wellbeing. However, one could also take this effort as dehumanizing the slum dwellers by making them a number instead of a person on level with any other citizen of Calcutta. Judging from my other readings, however, it seems that the homeless are not seen with such a stigma as in the United States, so I would tend to think that maybe this effort at a database is showing more concern for the people and wanting to help them than anything else.
Finally, another article spoke of how a slum area was defined. It says that slums “consist of clusters of hutmet comprising several rooms constructed with building materials where each room is inhabited by a family sharing a common latrine without arrangement for water supply, drains, disposal of solid waste and garbage within slum boundaries.” This is something that I had been curious about since beginning this study—how do you define poverty, or a slum? If course, this is not the only way to define it, but it is a clear-cut definition and that is something that I was not able to find previously.

The Urban Pattern of Calcutta, India

This journal article was very interesting because it really discussed the city of Calcutta in detail. I feel like I learned a lot about the city itself, and the information includes things that I can look out for this summer while I am in the city. The author also did a really good job of breaking the article up into different sections to adequately explain the different areas of the city.

The author first discusses the importance of Calcutta because of its location. This was also mentioned in the previous article I read, but a lot of the importance is due to its excellent position at the mouth of the Ganges Valley. The water source near Calcutta provides a great advantage to this particular city. For factual information, Calcutta is the capital of the province of West Bengal, it is the focus of trade and commerce of all eastern India, and it is the center of modern life of Hindu Bengal.

While Calcutta is located in, what seems to be a prime area, the city has grown in a haphazard way during the course of two and a half centuries. The population density of Calcutta is approximately 100,000 people to the square mile. The way the city is organized and the congestion in the city can be quite overwhelming. The author mentions the over strained municipal services, the large amounts of garbage that is accumulated, the lack of filtered water, etc. due to the make up of the city. These are some of the general characteristics mentioned by the author of this article.

The author then goes on to discuss the functional areas of the city, which were divided into six different categories. The first category is Fort William and the surrounding park. This Fort stood as a symbol of British power in eastern India. It is generally still well kept with lakes and trees around. The second category is the administrative and commercial "core." This area contains government administrative buildings along with secondary retail business districts. The third area is the foreign residential section, consisting of substantial buildings and large apartment houses. Well planned streets as compared with the rest of the city are also found here. The next area is the old residential district. This is an extremely congested area that exhibits "reckless" growth of homes. The newer residential district, number five, shows evidence of a planned peripheral development of the city. The last area the author mentions is the dock area that is located on the river used for loading and unloading large steamers.

The author also discusses public utilities within the city. The water supply is a large issue in this big city. Unfiltered water is typically in adequate supply during the majority of the year, but it is inadequately supplied during the hot and dry seasons of the year. Typically 25 gallons of filtered water per heard per day are supplied (I wonder how many gallons are supplied here on a typical day?). During the hot season, water is only supplied during certain hours of the day. Power, sewage disposal, and slum areas are also briefly mentioned by the author.

Finally, physical handicaps of the city were discussed. Some of these include the difficulty that comes when the drains overflow because of the way the city is built. Calcutta is built in a way that the water during the rainy season inundates areas for days and weeks at a time. Wide stretches of salt marshes cause physical obstacles along with breeding grounds for mosquitoes which can result in an unhealthy environment in general. The soil in the city is clay and clay loam. This results in difficulty building roads and construction work, especially during the rainy season. This also increases the cost of construction. The author does not go into detail, but mentions a "Master Plan" to fix some of the constraints in the city. He lists four areas that desperately need improvement, these are: de-congestion of urban area, zonal distribution of functional areas, improvement and possible removal of slum areas (I would like to know how the author thinks that will happen...), and finally proper distribution of communication facilities. While I appreciate the author's suggestions, I wish I knew ways he expected people to go about making these changes. They seem a little idealistic to me--but maybe I'm just cynical! : )

Oh! Kolkata!

Well, this article was very interesting because it dealt specifically with Calcutta (Kolkata). The author began by discussing his experiences in Kolkata, and did a good job of explaining and evaluating the things he saw. He mentioned the slums, the summer monsoons, the beggars, the street people, the rickshaws, etc. After spending some time discussing these things, the author goes into discussing Kolkata and how it is transforming into a global city. One way Kolkata is going global (sounds like a book I read earlier...India: Goes Global...I guess the same should be true of Kolkata) is through the expansion of malls, and restaurants. As these types of buildings grow, and Indian business people are using the standards of service many have learned from the West, Kolkata is catching up with many of it's neighboring cities and countries.

The author says that Kolkata still isn't "on a par" with that of China, but the city is headed in the same direction. I thought it was very interesting that the author talks about the middle class. In most everything I have read up until now, very little is said about the middle class, and if anything is mentioned, it is that the middle class is vanishing. The author of the article states that "Calcutta's middle class, which has always been here, has take on greater visibility, thanks in part to its consumerist buying sprees." The author also mentions, in discussing the middle class, that the people who sell food on the side walk, and the people with sewing machines sitting on pavement are actually lower middle class people. What? I think that really puts things into perspective for me. The author says that "selling noodles and curry dishes testify to the rise of a lower middle class." I guess these are individuals who have risen from complete poverty, and this is considered a fairly decent job. Wow!

With what I just came to understand, I think it is true that our "Western fixation on the visual brutality of its poverty has obscured its harsh, unsentimental upward mobility." It is difficult to see upward mobility, when the people who are moving up still seem to be in such poverty in my eyes. The "new rich" class is growing, and because of this jobs are being created for the poor. Although jobs are being created, problems still remain because the places the poor live are being over run by new "housing developments" and gated communities for the rich. Kolktaa is home to primary and secondary education that is probably the finest in the country--it is even referred to as "the Harvard of India" (I thought this was hilarious because some people refer to Wofford as "the Harvard of the South!"). Kolkata has something though, that many other cities do not have that will allow it to continue to grow. Kolkata has adequate fresh water which many other Indian cities lack. This alone is a big promoter in the continued growth of Kolkata.