darkernations
As you may know: https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/desperation-migration-why-thousands-indian-workers-want-to-go-israel
‘Migration from desperation’: Why thousands of Indian workers want to go to Israel Israel wants to fill a labour shortage with workers from India, but unions there say they are uncomfortable with being complicit in genocide
in November, the Israeli Builders Association asked the Israeli government to approach India for workers and said it would require around 50,000-90,000 to replace Palestinian workers. It is estimated that 72,000 Palestinian workers were employed in the construction sector before 7 October.
The desperate scenes around India of thousands of labourers queueing up to work in Israel is the surest sign yet that Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s much-touted economic policies have failed to meet the needs of his people, economists and trade unionists in India have told Middle East Eye
In the last week of January in India, recruitment efforts took place in Rohtak in Haryana and Lucknow in Uttar Pradesh, where thousands of Indian workers arrived to be screened and interviewed by Israeli recruitment officials.
“The scenes at the centres are a direct reflection of the very, very poor condition of workers. That is why they are queuing up to go to Palestine. There’s no two ways about it,” Pulapre Balakrishnan, a former economist at Ashoka University, outside New Delhi, told MEE. “It is a migration from desperation. People are being pushed. It is not a pull factor,” Balakrishnan said.
I would argue most “economic migrants” - to use the parlance of the anglophone anti-immigrant media - have this “push factor”; this is the norm not the exception.
The effects of uneven development via capitalism with purposeful underdevelopment for the majority of the population:
Since becoming prime minister of India in 2014, Modi has projected the country’s economy and global influence to be on the ascendency.
“At a time when the world is surrounded by many uncertainties, India has emerged as a new ray of hope,” Modi said at the Vibrant Gujarat Global Summit in January.
Economists like Balakrishnan say that India’s economy has grown tremendously. This is no myth, but this growth has been neither inclusive nor has it benefited a large chunk of the country. He says the data indicates that real wages for more than 30 percent of the country have not increased since 2014.
Despite projections by the Indian government that the economy is scheduled to become the third-largest in the world by 2027, its inability to absorb as well as provide a living wage to its most vulnerable is leading the country to a precipice.
India’s economy grew 7.2 percent in 2022-23, and 8.7 percent in 2021-22. In January, India’s finance ministry forecast a growth rate of 7.3 percent for the fiscal year ending in March.
According to Reuters, this is the highest rate for any of the major economies. Yet economists note that India’s growth is fuelled by very specific sectors such as the financial services and the information technology sectors, which create limited employment and have a marginal impact on the vast majority of the country.
The internationalism of the bourgoisie in their cooperation of fascism and proleteriat exploitation, and the resulting murder of the oppressed, is plain to see.
It should also be noted that though I have highlighted “economic” classes here that it should be stressed that other class structures should be considered such as those involved in liberation struggle.
I would even add critical support should be given to those in the subjugated class in national liberation including the bougoisie or petite-borugoisie that make up this subjugated group, and that this support supercedes the oppressors who engage in their subjugation even if they are the proleteriat of the imperialist/fascist nation. After liberation we can then take on our own bourgoisie. (Lenin said it better)
[Edited to clarify my thoughts and formatting]
It feels like at this stage if they could have then they already would have by now given the massive military infrastructure losses in northern palestine. They appear to be doing their best impression of a barking dog with no bite. Like a lot of western armies these day they appear to be better at killing civilians and ethnic cleansing as opposed to fighting other militaries.
/please take this layman armchair analysis with a pinch of salt
Amartya Sen won the Nobel Prize for the concept that famines don’t happen if there’s a “free press” because the public finds out and demands action. He didn’t understand Israel and its supporters, who see starvation and demand action - to make starvation worse
https://x.com/justinpodur/status/1801661762883764296
Focus on the fact that propaganda exists, yes. But also focus on the fact that people probably put up a lot of hostile resistance to any propaganda if it goes against their pre-existing wishes. Ask more questions about those.
https://twitter.com/RodericDay/status/1799409826029810176
One’s loyalty to one’s own superior material conditions even if it means denying the humanity in oneself by gleefully participating in the butchering of others while maintaining cognitive dissonance to the memories of the subjugation of their spiritual ancestors is one of the defining traits of liberalism - and its child fascism - that the Europeans have bestowed to the rest of the world.
I wonder how the sangh will spin this to blame “urban naxalites” (if they do).
“Truly a terrible time to be an Indian right now.”
I think it was Amartya Sen who claimed an excess of 2.5 million deaths per year since formal end of colonisation compared to China - even taking into account liberal “accounting” of deaths (things like unborn children etc). Unfortunately for the majority it has been a terrible time to be an Indian for about the past few centuries though obviously the fascist hindutva for the past decade has not helped. (Someone with more knowledge please correct this figure if inaccurate)
I agree current systems disproportionally favour wealth over merit but given limited resources how would one filter candidates efficiently to select those truly motivated and disciplined to study? If one approaches the problem by eliminating privatisation of education you can then work towards a more meritocratic system with or without entrance exams?
The comments in this thread has made me realise I need to read the following:
- In Defence Of Materialism by Plekhanov
- Dialectical Biologist by Lewontin and Lewin
And re-read the Red Sails articles:
You are right in that I should clarify with regards to limited resources; I mean developed infrastructure (both “soft” and hard eg people and buildings) in the context of an underdeveloped country like India and the uneven development in wealthier capitalist countries taken as a whole.
Furthermore we should also consider a privatised system can include “public” infrastructure systems in a capitalist country (there are myriad ways one could analyse this from the financialisation of tuition fees to the contracting out of education materials and infrastructure that is overwhelmingly dictated by the private sector).
My argument is not really for or against entrance exams (this should be determined through peer reviewed research and may be discipline specific) but there are other loci of focus that are of greater importance to avoid higher education just reflecting wealth demographics and bourgoisie sensibilities including the artificial scarcity of higher paid labour.
I also tend to lean towards Paolo Friere’s Pedagogy of the Oppressed on a more enlightened path for education.
Addendum: I should add that I actually agree with your initial premise that medical schools should have neither entrance exams nor lower degrees; there are places in the world (geographical/historical) where this is/was the reality. However, we should work towards overthrowing the systems that generate the constraints that you have outlined. We shouldn’t just treat the injury of a fallen patient but also question why the patient collapsed in the first place.
Feels like a “feature not a bug” of orientalism… which reminds me of another book on my long list to read (Edward Said).