finally!

along the path of the storm across seven countries.

The devastating shooting at the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut in the US has left the world shocked. Of the 27 killed, 20 were schoolchildren, gunned down by 20 year old Adam Lanza on December 14.

In another incident in August, six people were shot at a Sikh gurudwara in Oak Creek, Wisconsin, while the gunman was killed by a police officer. The rising number of gun-related crimes is forcing the US Government and Congress to relook at legislation relating to the use of weapons.

This year has seen many deaths, from the shock demise of Whitney Houston to Robin Gibb, after a long illness. Donna Summer, Vidal Sassoon, Neil Armstrong were among those who passed away in 2012.

AUSTRALIA IN 2012 Gillard survives!

Prime Minister Julia Gillard is still in the head hotseat in Canberra, and has been making waves internationally too. Her strongly worded speech in Parliament in which she accused Tony Abbott of sexism and misogyny made waves around the world. And the political posturing continues…

Disaster zones

The floods in New South Wales and Queensland took their toll on the country too, with destruction and loss of property amounting to millions.

The Australian swimming squad’s dismal performance at the London Olympics disappointed fans back home, and investigations continue into allegations of misconduct.

Radio rubbish

In what is now an internationally infamous prank gone wrong, 2Day FM radio jocks Mel Greig and Michael Christian are still experiencing heavy backlash from across the world. They pretended to be the Queen and Prince Charles, calling the King Edward VII hospital in London to enquire about the condition of the pregnant Duchess of Cambridge. The nurse who took the call later committed suicide, resulting in a media frenzy of naming and blaming, with the only losers being the family of the deceased.

Holy horror

The Catholic Church in Australia has been embroiled in a shocking scandal, revealing that hundreds of children have been sexually abused by its priest since the 1930s. A Royal Commission has now been set up to further investigate these crimes and bring justice to the victims.

Personalities

Much admired Dame Elisabeth Murdoch, renowned philanthropist and mother of media magnate Rupert Murdoch passed away aged 102.

Ricky Ponting finally bid adieu to cricket, retiring from the game in early December. And Australian captain Michael Clarke scored more runs this year in fewer Tests at a higher average than cricketing legend Don Bradman did in the greatest run-scoring year of his fabled career. The pup’s growing up!

India Insights

Plunge into darkness

The huge blackouts in India at the end of July left a staggering 820m people without electricity in the largest power outage in history. Three of the country’s interconnected northern power grids collapsed for several hours, as blackouts extended almost 2,000 miles, from India’s eastern border with Myanmar to its western border with Pakistan.

Will he, won’t he?

Sachin Tendulkar continues in the news, this time as speculation about his retirement reaches fever pitch. He is now a member of the Rajya Sabha and has been presented with the Order of Australia. But when will he hang up his gloves? That’s anyone’s guess!

Justice is served

Mohammed Ajmal Amir Kasab, sole surviving member of the terrorist squad that was responsible for the 2008 terror attacks in Mumbai was finally hanged in mid-November.

But in the case of the two young girls who were arrested for posting an innocent comment on Facebook relating to Bal Thackeray’s death, the incident seems to have opened up a veritable can of worms on legislation governing the internet. The saga continues…

Farewell forever

Several significant personalities passed away in 2012, including renowned film-maker Yash Chopra; actors Rajesh Khanna, AK Hangal, Jaspal Bhatti; Shiv Sena supremo Bal Thackeray and renowned sitarist Pandit Ravi Shankar.

So let’s hope 2013 chimes in positive change, less strife and more understanding, less vengeance and more peace, a still imperfect, but better world.

Sheryl Dixit

Rajendra Prasad’s book is a powerful commentary on the true nature of British occupation in Asia, writes MR NARAYAN SWAMY

Colonialism-

Lumpenization-

Revolution (Vol I) by Rajendra Prasad is a powerful indictment of what passes off euphemistically as the benevolent Raj. British colonial rule of India and China (two countries under study), the author says, was nothing short of a terrible crime against humanity. In what is undoubtedly a pathbreaking study, Prasad dives into newspapers, books, pamphlets, booklets, journals, confidential notes, British official reports, secret directives and even posters of a bygone era to study how colonialism bled India and China, more so Calcutta and Shanghai, from 1850 to 1914. The results are devastating!

The book, the author says, is “history written by us”“the exploited and the lumpenized colonial people”. His focus on Calcutta and Shanghai has a reason. “Both the colonial port cities had played a significant role in imposition and fostering of colonial factors of production.”

And both paid a heavy price for it - in the years under study.

Prasad is clear that British colonial rule was to blame “for various problems that confront ex-colonial societies” today. In contrast to the school of thought that credits British rule with “development”, Prasad marshals a wealth of statistics and facts to lay the claim that Britain was indeed “responsible for crimes against the innocent colonial world of humanity”.

British rulers were “autocratic, savagerous and fascist”, destroyed indigenous culture, consciously and painstakingly distorted the path of social formation, drained the colonies of merchant and commercial capital, and forcibly captured all sources of revenue. Worse, they played one religion against another, one race against another, one clan against another, one caste against another. Whatever the British introduced in India and China for “development” was meant to cement their own rule, for their own selfish ends. But colonialism in Asian societies found little attention from Marx, says Prasad. Not that Marx was not keen to analyst the apathy of the colonial people but “he was too preoccupied with the conflicts and tensions of the capitalist society... He did not address himself to colonial people, the only exception being Ireland”. But India, the book says, suffered in some ways far worse than Ireland at the hands of British. British colonialism imposed colonial factors of production, strangling India into an agricultural colony. At the same time, the native population was deprived of basic food necessities. Scarcity of food led to famines. Indian economy was transformed into a lumpen one “by forcibly maintaining it in a state of wretched backwardness”.

China suffered similar fate, with Britain “exporting” many experienced officers from India! Foreigners controlled China’s export-import trade, and China was compelled to borrow funds from foreign merchants on its soil. Shanghai, like Calcutta, suffered the deepest imprints of colonial subversion of economy, society and culture. Colonial people, Prasad says with indignation, were not treated like humans. For the metropolitan bourgeoisie, the ends were more important. “If the means had been given some human consideration, probably colonialism may not have survived for so long.”