A Counter-insurgency Strategy
Ajit Kumar Jha
CLEAR, HOLD, BUILD: HARD LESSONS OF BUSINESS AND HUMAN RIGHTS IN INDIA by Sudeep Chakravarti Oxford University Press, New Delhi, 2015, 278 pp., 599
February 2015, volume 39, No 2

Capitalism is cruel. Yet, for a poor, economically backward country, an evil necessity. The spread of capitalist development promises prosperity with malls, multiplexes and condominiums but its underside can be grotesquely ugly. In India, the spread of crony capitalism in recent years has been particularly perverse. The Coalgate, the 2G and 3G scams are part of this perverse situation signalling an unholy corporate and corrupt politician nexus. In a blatant abuse of state power, venal politicians allocate—or misallocate—land and natural resources to relatives, friends and cronies. Rash decisions by respectable business houses display utter disregard for environmental standards as well as human rights of marginal farmers and the tribal poor. As a result the spread of industrialization is choking our cities with pollutants leading to the spread of multiple diseases and in the process further immiserating those already living in miserably impecunious conditions.

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