scandalous gawds

foreign aid for
superstitions

By Kulamarva Balakrishna

Vienna,Wednesday,January 16,2008:Prof.Sree
Sreenivasan of Columbia University has sent me
details of a scandal allegedly discovered by the
notorious Wall Street Journal about Indian misuse
of funds financed for the purpose of building
and running hospitals,since 1990s. This is by
Indian standards neither news nor scandal.It is
reality normal and simple.I had calculated in
1960s about 15 per cent of all developmental
funds sent to India ended up in private pockets
without deriving any return for public benefit.Under
today´s conditions, I can imagine the proportion
of private profit having gone up to 85 percent.

When I wanted in 2003 to find out the possibility of
setting up a mini wind energy generator on my sea
shore garden house at Padubidri at my own expense
on the National High Way 17 some 30 kilometers
north of Mangalore City, I had to make a pilgrimage
to the State Capital Bangalore to meet the officials
of Renewable Energy Sources Corporation. I had
there a surprise in store.The offices of the Corporation
was shifted years ago.It took a half an hour for me to
find out the new address.After an hour I reached the
new address to find the general manager of the
Corporation engaged in an =official business= with
a =jagadguru/Pope.Making me sit in front of him
in his office,next to the stinking toilet room for an hour
the worthy official was unable to give me,I was on my
part not successful in ferreting out any information
about the State´s policy on renewable sources of
energy or wind energy in Particular.

I returned to Padubidri disappointed.But I learned a
bit about the engineering standard of energy transmission
lines on the way.These are not safe lines.How electric
current of high density is being conveyed even today
in these lines is an incomprehensible miracle to me. In
the village itself electric lines criss cross above garden
trees! How on earth a farmer can let his trees grow
unhindered by the live current lines? Then I came to realize
every week there would be a power cut because of the
trees falling on the conveyor lines.Many a time,Karnataka
Power Transmission officials sent personnel to trim
arbitrarily my garden trees.That is an inbuilt system fault
unmistakably noticeable in Engineer Sir M.Visvesvaraya´s
home state!

It was then I came to the conclusion that India needed
no external finance of any sort. But it needed external
help in eradicating superstition like educating politicians
that they do not gain anything by accepting penis produced
by gawd men through their mouths! I say this because
we had witnessed a Prime Minister ceremoniously
accepting an =udbhavalinga=, a sanskrit word for
erect penis pure and simple from a gawd man known
as =Satya Sai Baba=.Now that former Prime Minister
is a candidate for the highest national award =jewel
of India= =Bharata Ratna= annually given by the Union
on the occasion of Republic Day celebrations! It is a
routine in India all kinds of gods being decorated with
gold, apparently financed by foreign aid giver financial
institutions including the World Bank. Udupi child Krishna
god got recently a brilliant vest made.Close to him
Kolluru Mukambika or Goddess Mother got a golden
chariot made.Another god got a crown.The cash came
of course from diversions of foreign development aids.
A routine.

Because of this I had to alert aid givers that they make
sure that funds indeed serve the intended development
work.I have seen the photos of open sewers,unclean
surroundings of filthy hospitals enough in India. In the
sixties when I worked in Bombay as a journalist, I had
the opportunity to report a public hospital´s drinking
water tap spat a snake! Its overhead tank was kept
unclean for decades creating conditions for snake
breeding.After all in India today snake is worshiped
as god.The former Chief Minister of Karnataka,
H.D.Kumaraswamy is a snake worshiper. Kumaraswmy
name itself denotes snake god!

I would suggest, Wall Street Journal reporting staff
tour India with open eyes and ears to educate itself
on the privileges of scandalous gods.In Orissa two
years ago I girl married a snake god! If she has now
given birth to a snake, it has not been reported.I would
advise world media in general to go to town with stories
of rampant superstitions in India.(end)

Comments:
My dear Bala:
The day I read the Wall Street Journal editorial about
the misuse in India of the aid provided by the World
Bank I wrote the Indian Embassy here, asking them
to refute the charges, if untrue, or own and explain
the remedial measures taken, if true.

You don't have to invite the Journal staff to visit
India to expose the superstitions there. There are
more superstitions in this country that need exposing
than any newspaper staff can handle. And things
will only get worse as long as the political arena is
dominated by evangelicals.If one of them becomes
president, we may even see their demand that
textbooks in the country replace Darwin's Theory of
Evolution with the biblical theory of creationism
becoming the law of the land.

President Bush, who had said that he became
President because God appeared to him in a dream
and told him to run for that office, is more superstitious
than many world leaders of today. The man who preaches
democracy to the whole world did not utter a word about
it to the Saudi King,( I quoted him saying he
ackowledged sharing gawd with Narakasura
King Abdullah-balakrishna) during his visit
there. The leader of the free world kissing the
ruler of one of the most dictatorial regimes
in the world! That picture should make anyone
vomit.

Prabhakaran, Editor: www.eastwestinquirer.com
New York