opinions

Guest Speaks – Support Hazare at Own Peril by Ashok Malhotra


Support Hazare at own peril The Yaksha asked Yudhishtra -what is the most surprising feature of human existence?  Yudhishtra’s reply was “the fact that we all know that we are mortal, yet behave in a manner as though we will live for ever”. The insight is useful in understanding how we all can shout slogans, take up candle marches and keep symbolic fasts in response to Mr. Hazare’s clarion call, and, totally ignore the fact that in the ultimate analysis, his real fight is with us and our obscene life styles. It is tempting to delude ourselves into believing that he is fighting only against the Rajas, Rajus and Kalmadis, and the rest of us are only enjoying the priviledges due to us by our merit and earned by us through our hard earned money.  It is tempting to close our eyes to the fact that we are all beneficiaries of an exploitative, inequitable and corrupt superstructure. It is tempting

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Guest Speaks – Show Me The Money by Arundhati Ghosh


Arundhati is the Deputy Director at India Foundation for the Arts. She also independently consults for not-for-profits with over 15 years of experience in the areas of organisation set-up and strategy, communications, resource mobilisation, media relations, donor management, evaluation and programme management. She hates air conditioners and hair products. SHOW ME THE MONEY! I had once heard an art auctioneer smirk at a funding organisation at a party and say, “I don’t believe in philanthropy. If the artist is good enough, the market will find a way to support him. Everything else is a hospital, keeping should-be-dead art on life-support.” I wanted to point out to him that if that was the case we would never have heard of Kafka or seen the wonder of Van Gogh. However, the wine was too tempting and it seemed rather pointless to explain why the arts need funding, free of the market, to someone who thinks that building his own archive and creating a

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