There is a costing formula. Necessary labour, to put it briefly, will be less if spending for shelter is low, and lower necessary labour increases surplus labour: the powerful profit. Moreover, there’s a huge army of reserve labour, which will immediately replace the labour lost in the quagmire of a Dhaka lake, writes Farooque Chowdhury
ARE the tin-house deaths, of at least 11 poor persons, in a Dhaka slum or in a Dhaka lake (New Age, April 16) or in whatever way one likes to describe it, Bangla New Year’s gift to the Dhaka poor? Shall any politician or policymaker in the city answer the question?
The answer is delicate. The answer is embarrassing. The answer shall indicate the great divide in the country between the poor and the rich. The answer shall indicate the brutal fact of exploitation. The answer shall admit the merciless fact of apathy to the poor the dominant interest nourishes in its heart. The answer shall uncover the interest’s shameless soul.
That will be an exposure. That will be an exposure of the poor’s cheap life. That will be an exposure of the way the dominating interest treats the poor: expendable; expendable without any cost.
The poor in society are cheap. They cost almost nil, their price is almost naught. There’s a huge reserve army of labour. It’s in towns and cities, it’s in villages.
Do the poor voice their interests? Their voice is almost inaudible. Almost no one lends ears to the poor’s voice. The voice has almost no power. The voice is almost unorganised. The voice is almost dependent on other interests. For them, it’s virtually a voiceless reality.
A review of incidents — political, social and economic — in recent months shall show the embarrassing fact. A review of incidents in recent years or in the last few decades shall also show the same fact.
Anyone can recollect the number of ‘accidental’ deaths — caved in factory building, collapsed structure, gutted slum, burned, suffocated, crushed, and many other ways that wait only for the poor — in the rank of the poor in recent months, years, and decades. Anyone can recollect the number of incidents showering death among the poor in Dhaka, in other cities and towns, in industrial areas, in construction sites, in slums. Anyone can compare these — the number, the incidents, the circumstances, the victims — with deaths faced by members of other classes. The comparison shall show that death doesn’t deny class line.
The deaths from the tin-house collapse in a Dhaka lake on April 15 are not from a reality unknown. Shall someone believe that politicians are unaware of thousands of people living in tin-houses built on lakeshores and riverbanks in Dhaka? Shall someone believe that politicians are unaware of thousands of people living in rows of houses made with bamboo made sheets, scores of families sharing a single oven, and sharing a single latrine? Can it be denied that thousands of poor’s barrack-like ‘homes’ hang on bamboo poles?
Politicians are well aware of the fact as these unfortunate machines with the name human are voters; and voters are required by politicians. Politicians are well aware of these instrumentum vocale, the tool that makes sound, as these instruments are required to raise slogans, to mobilise for political showdowns. These tools are cheaper than a few of the instrumentum semi-vocale, the beast, being sold in Dhaka-pet market. These tools are sometimes cheaper than a few instrumentum mutum, the simple tool. Isn’t a teenage instrumentum vocale, one can fondly name it child labour, cheaper than a steel rope or a large bolt or a king-sized nut or a tire of an SUV?
These instruments or humans live not only in Dhaka slums. Slums in Chittagong or Khulna or on the banks of the Padma (Ganga) flowing by Rajshahi city demo the same tools. These tools are around Ashulia, Savar, Tongi and other industrial centres surrounding the capital city. These are in the industrial centres near Khulna and Chittagong cities. Now they are millions.
Not only politicians, marketing and microcredit managers are also aware of these tools as the tools consume and pay interest. It’s an opening. Millions of shoes, hairpins, safety pins, clothes, vanity bags, breads, biscuits, tooth pastes, soaps are consumed by these tools. It’s a market. The tools pay for electricity and fuel and water. They pay at a higher rate. Studies by respectable organizations have found the encouraging fact.
The opening has led to design soaps, fairness cream, hair ribbon and many other products appropriate for these tools. Their choice, their preferred colour and aroma and packing material and brand name, and their capacity and willingness to pay have been considered and analysed while the products were planned. Marketing strategy was designed. Appropriate models were engaged. Words like bhalobasha and jiban, love and life, overwhelm the advertisements targeted to the audience tool. Surveys preceded the planning phase.
But shelter for these tools carries a different arithmetic. There is a costing formula. Necessary labour, to put it briefly, will be less if spending for shelter is low, and lower necessary labour increases surplus labour: the powerful profit. Moreover, there’s a huge army of reserve labour, which will immediately replace the labour lost in the quagmire of a Dhaka lake. So is there any need to have a better shelter for instrumentum vocale?
Further points of consideration are there: Have their politics and organisation not been overwhelmed with capital’s politics? Have their ideas and concepts not been influenced with capital’s ideas and politics? Has their publicity not been made dependent on capital’s good wishes? Have they not been made incapable of producing their literature? Shall anyone find any sustained publicity in the interest of these tools?
These tools can’t compare between the efficiency and speed of rich turning superrich and making mansions, and the inefficiency of a crushing slow speed, almost like a juggernaut, of building liveable, safe shelters for the tools. The knowledge required for making the comparison has been withheld from the tools. It’s an expropriation.
It’s an efficiency of doing some work: constructing super shopping complexes, palatial residential blocks and luxurious hotels, preparing extravagant dinners, creating consumers of diamonds, and manipulation and brushing away. Even the efficiency can manipulate and brush away essentials required for its governance. And, it’s an efficiency of going slow, of ineffectiveness of measures required for survival of the tools. The death in the lake has experienced nothing, but the efficiency.
The Brundtland Commission brought to notice ‘mushrooming of illegal settlements with primitive facilities [in the developing world] … Much of the housing used by the poor is decrepit’ (Our Common Future, p 238-9). The mainstream observation was made in 1987, about three decades ago. Since then, it’s not that the world lost its motion, and resources were not produced by the poor, and resources were not grabbed by the rich and the powerful.
How much did the toilers in Bangladesh produce? The foreign currency reserve, the amount of money looted from banks, the amount of money banks consider as bad debt, the amount of money miracle-assuring companies pocketed show a part of the toilers’ production. The sensational rise of the few rich, their property, the loan they ‘gained’ from banks, their spending, their vogue, and power depict a part. The production of food and industrial products, the export earnings are also witness to toilers’ sweat. Profit made by multinational corporations, and other companies help comprehend the picture. Even the taxes these companies pay is an indicator also. Overlapping in the description made above should be deleted, and a few more should be added.
But what’s the toilers’ achievement? Safe shelter is a far cry. Shelter with hygienic condition and in a hygienic surrounding is a dream impossible. Question of a dignified life doesn’t peep into the horizon of their imagination. Death is a regular visitor in the homes of the toilers. Death appears a mercy to the poor. Death provides an escape route to the toilers. The death that the situation “gifts” them is not even dignified. To them, it’s a capitulation to a savage reality.
Farooque Chowdhury is a Dhaka-based freelance writer.
The answer is delicate. The answer is embarrassing. The answer shall indicate the great divide in the country between the poor and the rich. The answer shall indicate the brutal fact of exploitation. The answer shall admit the merciless fact of apathy to the poor the dominant interest nourishes in its heart. The answer shall uncover the interest’s shameless soul.
That will be an exposure. That will be an exposure of the poor’s cheap life. That will be an exposure of the way the dominating interest treats the poor: expendable; expendable without any cost.
The poor in society are cheap. They cost almost nil, their price is almost naught. There’s a huge reserve army of labour. It’s in towns and cities, it’s in villages.
Do the poor voice their interests? Their voice is almost inaudible. Almost no one lends ears to the poor’s voice. The voice has almost no power. The voice is almost unorganised. The voice is almost dependent on other interests. For them, it’s virtually a voiceless reality.
A review of incidents — political, social and economic — in recent months shall show the embarrassing fact. A review of incidents in recent years or in the last few decades shall also show the same fact.
Anyone can recollect the number of ‘accidental’ deaths — caved in factory building, collapsed structure, gutted slum, burned, suffocated, crushed, and many other ways that wait only for the poor — in the rank of the poor in recent months, years, and decades. Anyone can recollect the number of incidents showering death among the poor in Dhaka, in other cities and towns, in industrial areas, in construction sites, in slums. Anyone can compare these — the number, the incidents, the circumstances, the victims — with deaths faced by members of other classes. The comparison shall show that death doesn’t deny class line.
The deaths from the tin-house collapse in a Dhaka lake on April 15 are not from a reality unknown. Shall someone believe that politicians are unaware of thousands of people living in tin-houses built on lakeshores and riverbanks in Dhaka? Shall someone believe that politicians are unaware of thousands of people living in rows of houses made with bamboo made sheets, scores of families sharing a single oven, and sharing a single latrine? Can it be denied that thousands of poor’s barrack-like ‘homes’ hang on bamboo poles?
Politicians are well aware of the fact as these unfortunate machines with the name human are voters; and voters are required by politicians. Politicians are well aware of these instrumentum vocale, the tool that makes sound, as these instruments are required to raise slogans, to mobilise for political showdowns. These tools are cheaper than a few of the instrumentum semi-vocale, the beast, being sold in Dhaka-pet market. These tools are sometimes cheaper than a few instrumentum mutum, the simple tool. Isn’t a teenage instrumentum vocale, one can fondly name it child labour, cheaper than a steel rope or a large bolt or a king-sized nut or a tire of an SUV?
These instruments or humans live not only in Dhaka slums. Slums in Chittagong or Khulna or on the banks of the Padma (Ganga) flowing by Rajshahi city demo the same tools. These tools are around Ashulia, Savar, Tongi and other industrial centres surrounding the capital city. These are in the industrial centres near Khulna and Chittagong cities. Now they are millions.
Not only politicians, marketing and microcredit managers are also aware of these tools as the tools consume and pay interest. It’s an opening. Millions of shoes, hairpins, safety pins, clothes, vanity bags, breads, biscuits, tooth pastes, soaps are consumed by these tools. It’s a market. The tools pay for electricity and fuel and water. They pay at a higher rate. Studies by respectable organizations have found the encouraging fact.
The opening has led to design soaps, fairness cream, hair ribbon and many other products appropriate for these tools. Their choice, their preferred colour and aroma and packing material and brand name, and their capacity and willingness to pay have been considered and analysed while the products were planned. Marketing strategy was designed. Appropriate models were engaged. Words like bhalobasha and jiban, love and life, overwhelm the advertisements targeted to the audience tool. Surveys preceded the planning phase.
But shelter for these tools carries a different arithmetic. There is a costing formula. Necessary labour, to put it briefly, will be less if spending for shelter is low, and lower necessary labour increases surplus labour: the powerful profit. Moreover, there’s a huge army of reserve labour, which will immediately replace the labour lost in the quagmire of a Dhaka lake. So is there any need to have a better shelter for instrumentum vocale?
Further points of consideration are there: Have their politics and organisation not been overwhelmed with capital’s politics? Have their ideas and concepts not been influenced with capital’s ideas and politics? Has their publicity not been made dependent on capital’s good wishes? Have they not been made incapable of producing their literature? Shall anyone find any sustained publicity in the interest of these tools?
These tools can’t compare between the efficiency and speed of rich turning superrich and making mansions, and the inefficiency of a crushing slow speed, almost like a juggernaut, of building liveable, safe shelters for the tools. The knowledge required for making the comparison has been withheld from the tools. It’s an expropriation.
It’s an efficiency of doing some work: constructing super shopping complexes, palatial residential blocks and luxurious hotels, preparing extravagant dinners, creating consumers of diamonds, and manipulation and brushing away. Even the efficiency can manipulate and brush away essentials required for its governance. And, it’s an efficiency of going slow, of ineffectiveness of measures required for survival of the tools. The death in the lake has experienced nothing, but the efficiency.
The Brundtland Commission brought to notice ‘mushrooming of illegal settlements with primitive facilities [in the developing world] … Much of the housing used by the poor is decrepit’ (Our Common Future, p 238-9). The mainstream observation was made in 1987, about three decades ago. Since then, it’s not that the world lost its motion, and resources were not produced by the poor, and resources were not grabbed by the rich and the powerful.
How much did the toilers in Bangladesh produce? The foreign currency reserve, the amount of money looted from banks, the amount of money banks consider as bad debt, the amount of money miracle-assuring companies pocketed show a part of the toilers’ production. The sensational rise of the few rich, their property, the loan they ‘gained’ from banks, their spending, their vogue, and power depict a part. The production of food and industrial products, the export earnings are also witness to toilers’ sweat. Profit made by multinational corporations, and other companies help comprehend the picture. Even the taxes these companies pay is an indicator also. Overlapping in the description made above should be deleted, and a few more should be added.
But what’s the toilers’ achievement? Safe shelter is a far cry. Shelter with hygienic condition and in a hygienic surrounding is a dream impossible. Question of a dignified life doesn’t peep into the horizon of their imagination. Death is a regular visitor in the homes of the toilers. Death appears a mercy to the poor. Death provides an escape route to the toilers. The death that the situation “gifts” them is not even dignified. To them, it’s a capitulation to a savage reality.
Farooque Chowdhury is a Dhaka-based freelance writer.
Source: New Age
