by Melka Miyar
Daijiworld Media Network - Mangalore
Mangalore, May 31:
India has the knowledge and strategy to take the country to greater heights. Therefore, the rulers of the nation should not adopt American policies in any level of administration, said Prof Kamal Chenoy of the Jawaharlal Nehru University.
Speaking at the programme , 'B V Kakkilaya At Ninety, A dialogue with new generation,' organized on Saturday, May 31, he said that, America is in recession as their president George W Bush has spent 3 trillion dollars on the Iraq war. Also, alliance with America is a form of slavery. Therefore, India has to learn from the Latin American countries like Chili, Cuba, former Yugoslavia etc which totally rejected American models, he added.
Instability has set in many places of India where poverty and inequality is rampant. The economically poor people are taking to guns and therefore Maoists have grown and flourished half way around the country. This government should learn a lesson from these dangerous developments, he advised.
Prof Muzzafar Assadi of Mysore University said that there is no benefit to the country from Americanization. People of Dakshina Kannada drink pepsi or coke while eating biriyani. It doesn't yield benefit to the person who drinks it. But it curbs the constitutional guarantee as it doesn't allow practice of traditional food pattern, he said.
Ascertaining that the land reforms that took place in Dakshina Kannada led into the growth of communalism in the state. He went on to say that Other Backward Communities (OBC) became land owners owing to the Land Reforms Act. The land they got was not so big and the first generation retained it. But the second generation could not compete with the economically elite classes.
They had no economic opportunities in any field as other communities enjoyed. Finally they started competing with the Muslim community which had engaged in small scale trading. Pro-Hindu organizations capitalized on this competition by attracting the OBCs, he opined.
Prof Surendra Rao of Mangalore University and MP C K Chandrappan also spoke on the occasion.
Eminent scholars from various parts of the state participated in this debate. B V Kakkilaya, on whose name this programme is being organized, also actively participated in the debate.