Abstract
The following papers, mainly written in Bangla,
concentrate on the roles of social science and humanities in the domain of
specialized environmental science. If the disasters caused by climate change
are believed to be inevitable fact, as predicted by some of the
scientists, what shall be done by the social “engineers” (!)? Is it not the
moral responsibility of the organic intellectuals, barring technical
intelligentsia, to leave their mechanical reproduction of cultural capital and
join their hands to reduce the poisonous effects of contemporary military-industrial
society?
Many of them, specially my institutional colleagues
(both geologists and economists) do not ‘believe’ the entire notion of
anthropogenic global warming and the sustainable retreat from the developmental
paradigm is not in their priority list; some of my communist friends and
students do not care for such ‘myth’. All
of them ridicule me for my concern.
When I wrote a series of articles on the conditions
of Jute mills, brick industries and mines and in quarries West Bengal (cf. অর্থ-নেতি NEGATION OF
ECONOMICS)
l, one of his empathetic geologist friends suggested that all these
writings should be categorized under a new discipline: Geo-Sociology (sociological interpretations of geology
).
I loved that name though I was thinking about another discipline, another
portmanteau word: Eco-Economics—Ecology plus Economies, but not about
Econophysics, where the fallacy of misplaced concreteness is evident
enough as supposed nature is confused with supposed cultural phenomenon.
However, it is not the time for creating a new
disciplinary technology—it is high time for retreating from the civilized
funded developmental paradigm. A popular Hollywood movie messaged: “Now we do
not need engineers; we need farmers—caretakers of earth!”(Not a verbatim), but,
it is matter of regret, my academic training did not facilitate me to perform
farming, animal husbandry or weaving, i.e. socially necessary labor instead
that had alienated me from the supposed ‘nature’! I had realized such
alienation, when I had seen the supplementation of green architecture by
anti-green buildings (cf. in an
institute of science. If SALE-brated scientists (many of them are Padmashree
and Bhatnagar-awardees) are digging their own grave, who am I to speak?
SUMMARIES OF
THE MAIN ARTICLES:
There are five parts in this booklet on non-conventional
environmental science:
[a] A prologue written by Bandyopadhyay on the issues of image processing and
remote sensing techniques by means of which the wealth of the earth is
ruthlessly extracted by hedge account holders by using satellites and
surveillance helicopters with rudders that emit gamma-rays, infra red etc.
According to Bandyopadhyay that type of planetary–corpo[rate]real politics led
to anthropogenic climate change. He also cited Lila Majumdar’s prediction from
a science fiction [1983] according which, the ice were not only melting but the
axis of the earth was also displaced due to violent anthropogenic intervention
into the corpoREAL of the earth. Surprisingly enough, that prediction in the
eighties of the last century was subscribed by the Geo-Physical Society’s
Report [2008].
[b] Bandyopadhyay then wrote a lengthy report on the basalt [a
‘minor’ mineral as per legal term] quarries of Birbhum, West Bengal, India,
where a kowm [Bandyopadhyay was
reluctant to use the term ‘tribe’ for a group of homo sapiens] is exploited
illegally with slim wage and had become null workers—with or/and without
existential status. This report, written in a feminist narrative style through
the voice of a victim of West Bengal academiocracy, was published in 2008 “পাথুরে জীবনের কথা” ” [Life in the Stone Quarries].Sen, Ashok ed. Baromas. XXX.
(pp.145-51)] and in this re-presentation the whole scoop was extended with many
theoretical tools, viz. the question of ownership [svatva, cf. “স্বত্ব নিয়ে সমস্যার নিবেদন” (On my-ness and economic entitlement) and Language: From
I-Dentity to My-Dentity] of land, anti-green architectural imperialism etc. He also
cited new Minor Mineral Acts to show the lacuna of administration, who,
surprisingly enough, [voluntarily?] did not even know it. Environmental laws
are also violated and the administration was merely a puppet.
[c] Bandyopadhyay repeatedly visited the geo-political areas of
Birbhum, Bankura, Medinipur, Purulia and Bardhaman, West Bengal, India in 2010
and the report was published in a newspaper [2010. পাথরে পাথরে নাচে আগুন (Dances of Fire in Basalt Quarries). Post-Editorial column.
Chattopadhyay, Suman ed. Ekdin. 17/09/10 (pg.4)] and here re-presented by
deploying theoretical tools.
The situation was worst at that time. The kowms were revolting against
disembodied owners [a specter-like entity. Though they were not owners, they
were enjoying the ‘tribal’ land that could not be ‘owned’ by the so-called
non-tribal people. (cf.“চোট-পাট বেত্তান্ত [Jute
Industry in West Bengal]”)
in guise by means of huge money-sign] of the quarries. These
disembodied owners also took revenge with armed goons. So-called Maoists were
also reigning with arms and ammunition. Bandyopadhyay observed [1] the ‘Maoist’
terrorism was a construct of state-corporate-sponsored political
parties-industrialist/hedge account holders collusion and the Maoists had
nothing to do with the Maoism as an ideology per se [2] and thus it is a
simulated war for the strategic evacuation of the land so that the collusion
could establish ownership of the wealth underneath; [3] despite the fact of simulation
[a la Baudrillard] of irreal, ‘real’ was the DEATH/TERMINATION/ANNIHILATION of
many homo sapiens as well as flora and fauna of the ‘natural’ geography of the
above mentioned four districts; [4] the Malthusian mindset of the collusion was
also discussed; [5] State controlled [legal] terrorism was reflected in the
mirror of state-sponsored/-branded terrorism through mutual resemblance [anyonyopratibimba] or reverse mimicry.
[d] This self-funded qualitative survey with little bit of
statistics, when was executed in the fields and with the help of Google Earth,
Bandyopadhyay and Chakrabarti [at that time he was at the Boston University]
were engaged in a lengthy dialogue, an ‘other’ session—they were rendezvousing
through phones and E-mails. Both of them related this micro-incidence with the
lager question of environmental disaster. Bandyopadhyay initially posed three
problematic questions: [1] What was going on? [2] What was the matter? [3] What
was to be done? Chakrabarti, after criticizing the organized institutionalized
funded scientific enterprises born out of enlightenment-project, answered that
[1] was the result of capitalocentric economy; [2] was the consequences of
post-Manhattan project so-called ‘objective’ scientific enterprise; [3] would
be solved by real politic of eco-ethos. Chakrabarti discussed the feminist
positional subjectivity and Jaina
anekantavada
[theory of many probable perspectives] . Bandyopadhyay showed the instances of
internal sabotages within the scientific enterprise that negated the
hegemonization of single science by introducing the concept of “sciences” in
plural number. He also questioned the nature-culture binary following Derrida.
[e] After finishing the three-years’ conversation, both of them proposed [1]
economics of austerity; [2] real politic of eco-ethos; [3]Anekantavadin
eco-ethos and of course [4] extinction of surplus labor extraction . The joint
statement was written by Chakrabarti with little verbal input from
Bandyopadhyay. Thus the booklet had become an instance of a performance of
non-conventional environmental science.
It must be mentioned that the cover of this Bangla booklet was de-sign-ed by
Debraj Goswami, who reinterpreted the sculpture, “Santhal Family” by the famous
sculptor Ramkinkar Baij by inserting a bulldozer within it and thus captured
the secret moment of primitive accumulation. In this way, the critique of ‘development’
was re-re-presented and had become part of the text. The photo of surveillance
helicopter [Barughutu, Bankura], the secret moment of primitive accumulation,
was captured by Akhar Bandyopadhyay and edited by Biswajit Biswas.
This paper concentrates on the discourse of
Chapters 3, 4, 5, 6 of Marx’s Capital, Vol. I to understand the metaphysical
nature of money-sign, though frequent references are made to Grundrisse,
Mathematical Manuscripts and other chapters of the book, The Capital. Author
(a) found the epistemic impact of the then scientific discourse in the Capital;
(b) added a new variable N or ecological entitlement (this points
towards scarcity of raw materials, unplanned utilization of which makes an
impact on the environment) in
the circuit of c-m-c`; (c) discussed the role of hyper-real and irreal in case
of monetary economy. The paper headed towards the concept of moneyless green
society.
The investigator, out of his severe guilt feeling as he is a
member of the leisure class, executed some self-funded projects related to
socio-economic conditions of West Bengal. One of them is jute industry in West
Bengal, India. He had surveyed jute cultivation and industry(59 Factories).
Methodologically speaking, he had not followed any statistical sample survey
techniques as he wished to reject state-statistics unholy nexus following
Foucauldian paradigm; secondly, under the deployment of scheduled survey
techniques, subjects were objectified and they underwent metonymic
transformation. According to investigator, a Foucauldian, that is a sever
violence. Therefore, instead of this technique he followed his own version of
qualitative ethno-methodology or snow-ball method for understanding such
domains. His findings are as follows: • Economics is not a so-called natural
science that could be guided by the laws of physics. Thus the universalization
of economic laws is not at all possible. Econometric analysis does not able to
predict future economic condition. • The governmental statistics does not match
with the ground-reality narratives. • The so-called binary division between
organized and unorganized sector does not work at all— a fuzzy zone of
organized-unorganized sector has been evolved in the West Bengal industrial
scenario. • The existence of disembodied (a phantom or ghost-like entity)
owners of several industries has been observed in organized jute industry, coal
industry as well as in unorganized basalt-quarries. • Due to automation and
manipulative procedures taken by the owners of industries and due to the
conversion of surplus labour-necessary labour ratio in the form of money-sign,
null-workers are “working” without any work in the sphere of economy. The
extraction is possible due to the diachronically accumulated surplus labor from
the deceased null workers. Null workers exist and do not exist. • By the virtue
of the labour of the deceased null workers, owners are creating a accumulative
space, where one can convert money-sign to another money-sign, i.e., the domain
of dangerous share market. Specters of the null workers are not at all haunting
here, where capital to commodity transformation has become merely a place of
conspicuous consumption of the minority super-rich people, who have the fetish
for the ostentatious display of eco-enemy commodities. • The role of state is
minimal—collusion of super-rich, a minority, is reigning with the help of
ideological state apparatuses. • The investigator is emphasizing on using local
terms to depict the nature of economics as it is found in glocal (global+local)
context of West Bengal. If Sahibs could use so-called anti-languages like plum
or lemon market, what is wrong with the terms like lokkhibar (no consuming
day), tola (illegal levy), pORta (covert weight), gunda tax (tax to be paid to
the goons), bani (the hidden residue of the gold at the time of reselling),
Soru line (illegal path) phoRe (the ‘illegal’ agent), cinHat (signs or a type
of archewriting that regulates the parallel market with legal conflict)? • The
role of political parties here surprising enough. There is no question of
ideology as advertised by the respective parties, rather they are using
ideology as a mask. They are acting as private limited company as the
corporatization of those parties guided by management gurus has successfully
established in the dollar-controlled democracy.
After self-funded surveying of jute-industry,
basalt quarries, consumerist wholesale-retail -ostentatious mall culture in
West Bengal, India, the author ventured to reveal the nature of Brick industry
in West Bengal and he connected it with the larger question of green
architecture (as it was found in Indian Statistical Institute, Kolkata, in
which hollow bricks were used once upon a time by minimizing the use of
reinforced concrete and basalt-bitumen combination in the context of
constructing roads, but now the new
buildings and concrete roads are perfect examples of
ecological imperialism that metaphorically tallies with the mimic
academic enterprise that practices clerical deployment of raw data in a pre-given model), anthropogenic
climate change, food scarcity etc. In this context, the question is: which one
is “modern” architecture? Age-old hollow-brick-buildings, roads without
pitch-bitumen, conservation of ponds, rain water harvesting or the recently
built anti-green buildings?
The author showed, taking cue
from history of Harappa-Mohenjo-Daro, that the unplanned usages of top soils led to scarcity of
ground-water and lastly the end of the
city that depends on the surpluses of village-economy. According to Bandyopadhyay, anthroposes do
not learn from the pages of history and they are executing same mistake by
constructing damns. The author surveyed the adjacent areas of Farakka barrage,
a single purpose damn to serve Kolkata port. The fact is that this dam disrupts
the biodiversity as it ignores the neo-tectonic movement of the river
Bhagirathi. It is also depriving Bangladesh, India’s neighboring country from the free flow of water.
In this paper, the
author tried to establish Rabindranath Tagore as a non-mainstream
non-conventional economist/fiscal auditor on the basis of Tagore’s different
texts, viz. novels, verses, songs, plays and essays. The author emphasized on
the following points:
a) Tagore
thought that he was a parasite as he was not capable of doing necessary labor
and he was depending on surplus labor of the other.
b) According to Tagore, city is also a parasite
as it is sucking the blood of the villages.
c) Tagore
reinterpreted the concept of necessary labor by introducing a new category:
voluntary labor with pleasure/toiling with full of joissance and of course without alienation.
d) He condemned the extraction of others’
labor-time/ surplus labor and criticized usuries.
e) He had given the different semantics of
private property, which was not merely property in the material sense of the
term, but it is a possession of creative mind.
f) Tagore interpreted money-sign as /taka-rupak/
“money-simile”, by means of which inequals have become equals by some necessary
and sufficient conditions. In the “rupaka” figure of speech the identify and
difference between the object compared and comparable are blurred.
g) The
“body-politic” of democracy is the joy-ride of the super-rich. Here “opinions
are manufactured” (1924). Tagore anticipated the concept of dollar-vote and entered
into the domain of political economy.
h) Tagore
introduced a novel concept of surplus freedom provided by the cessation of
activities (karmavirati) / leisure (udbritto ObokaS) that could be executed if
and only if the voluntary labor with pleasure might be performed.
i) He introduced ecology as a variable as a part
of his economics. This is one of the unprecedented contributions of Tagore. He
was against the extraction of wealth of earth by the violent anthropogenic
intervention.
j) He emphasized on the passion of greed as a
part of his epistemology. It can be reinterpreted in psychoanalytic terms.
k) Tagore introduced “samavaya” (Co-operative) through the activities of a society called
“Sriniketan”, though the semantics of this term is totally different. The
author of this paper explained the difference between the detachable (samjoga) and non-detachable (samavaya)relations. As for example,
suppose that we are connected by some non-eco-friendly electronic gadgets like
CPU, satellites etc. , i.e. we are connected in the web—we have some definite
relations. These relations can easily be disconnected according to our whims or
by some catastrophic situation. However, may you detach the quivering and
leaves when you perceive quivering leaves? This is another type of
non-detachable relation, which is de-sign-ated as “samavaya”. The small-big i
and I non-detachable relationship/communication without any instruments is
something different from the anti-green techno-centric communication network
between you and me.
(Kindly note that the escape route is depicted
here following Tagore. Are we taking cue from ‘literature’ in combating the
effects of anthropogenic global heating?]
This paper is a simple refutation of the hypothesis, “Idealism
is responsible for decline or decay of Indian science and technology.” What is
branded as “Idealism” in opposition with Materialism (surprisingly enough, not
with Realism!) and monotheism in Indian Philosophical thought, is not at all
Idealism or Monotheism as it is perceived by the Westerners. This Western gaze
and that allegation/hypothesis will be treated as purvapaksa (opponent’s view) and is contested in this paper.
Instead, the author of this paper argues that the anticipation of pralaya
(dissolution) or mahapralaya (great dissolution) due to anthropogenic
intervention in the corporeal of prakrti led Indian thinkers to idealize the
praxis of life in a “different” way.
This “different” way is revealed in phase of Indian history, known as agraha (3rd C A.D.), when it is
observed, in that period onwards, that there were urban and monetary anemia.
Lack of urbanization and money(-signifer)-less society are branded and
perceived as a disease—anemia! After realizing the fate of two urbanizations,
both of which were not sustained, it was a great decision to revert back to the
life of aranyaka in connection with tapovana-culture. This point of departure
or sustainable retreat from the developmental paradigm (“development” as it is
understood today) will be discussed with a special reference to Tagore’s
“The Message of The Forest” (1919). The author of this paper will try to show
the embedded environmental consciousness that believed in the least exploitation
of nature, in Indian “scientific” thoughts and will compare that with
contemporary (last stage of Anthropocene) situation, which is threatened by the
anthropogenic global heating, the ultimate consequences of Industrial
Revolution, 1750.
For detailed discussion, kindly follow hyperlinks (blue-colored titles)
2014. মেঘবিষদূত (Poisonous Cloud Harbinger). Sabdo. I:3
(pp.5-6)
2013. (with Akhar Bandyopadhyay) নিসর্গ ভয়ংকর"Amra O Feluda" E-Pujabarshiki.
(pp.89-98). Kolkata.
It is
classified in the following SSRN abstracting journals: Food Politics &
Sociology eJournal
Public
Economics: Miscellaneous Issues eJournal
RCRN:
Cultural Analysis (Topic)
Rhetorical
Analysis eJournal
SRPN: Other
Food Politics & Sociology (Topic)
Sociology
of Innovation eJournal
