ARREST THE POPE? WHY NOT?

Arrest the Pope? Why not?

Last night I watched a panel of journalists on BBC’s Dateline London discuss the Pope’s direct role in the cover up and protection of paedophiles in the Catholic order.  I realized with a bit of a shock, that the discussion was not about whether the Pope was responsible or not; with all kinds of evidence pouring out from all corners of the world, and a BBC documentary, the Pope’s explicit role in all this was irrefutable.  What the BBC panelists were discussing – was what could now be done with the Pope.

Suddenly one of the panelists said something like, “Well you cannot possibly arrest the Pope!”

And I immediately thought, why not?

If this was any other large, multinational organization with evidence of harboring an international ring of paedophiles, would not the topmost authorities be immediately liable to investigation and police action? If the CEO of that organization had this kind of direct evidential pile-up against him of actually leading the cover-up would he not be put under arrest?

So what excuses the Pope is what I would like to know?

Will the Indian Woman Challenge Her God?

Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay is one of my grandmother’s favorite novelists, and she says so with an air of superiority. To like Sarat Chandra is to be acknowledged as a true connoisseur of literature in India.

So it is at the risk of being rebuffed that I say this:  Sarat Chandra's novels, particularly at the storyline level really get up my nose. I have tried reading them through all kinds of lenses—rose tinted, myopic, historic etc. etc. but they seem to always end up in the same place.

The female protagonist is always bovine and sweet-tempered. She has all but trashed her sense of self and individuality, and happily submits to the whims of her male counterpart, her family, and society, serving them all diligently, and allowing them to do with her life whatever they please. The male protagonist is almost a mirror opposite – self-seeking, irresponsible, thick-skinned and narcissistic. He believes that the world – including his family and the female protagonist are there to serve him and submit to his will. This in a nutshell is Sarat Chandra's idea of an ideal male-female relationship.

The Potato Cartel

March 24, 2010

A young potato farmer, Maktabul Hussein, only 18 years old, committed suicide today in Jalpaiguri, (West Bengal, India). Why? Because the price of potatoes have dropped so much that he could not make up the money to pay back the Rs. 500,000/- loans he had taken to cultivate his crop.

Maktabul was getting only Rs. 1.80/kg for his potatoes. And this is what is bizarre! Over the last few months everyone in town has been complaining about how the cost of potatoes has been soaring, along with that of onions, lentils and rice. At one point potatoes was selling for Rs.20/kg! If the middle-class was feeling the pinch, just imagine how it has been for the poor. Potato after all has been the poor’s sustenance! What more – recently the West Bengal government announced that there has been such a surplus of potatoes that they are going to be exporting them!

What are we supposed to gather from this? Is there a potato cartel at work here? That odious middle-man? Does he hoard the potatoes – and rips off the poor farmer who breaks his back cultivating it. And then turns around rips off the customers by charging them 10 times the cost?

The book Needless Hunger -- explains how this is the kind of mechanism that created an artificial famine in Bangladesh when thousands died of hunger.

Needless Hunger: Voices from a Bangladesh Village