Nobel poet Seamus Heaney bequeaths harvest of joy

Nobel poet Seamus Heaney passes,leaving joy for ever By Subhash Chopra With the passing of Nobel Laureate Seamus Heaney not only Ireland lost its greatest poet since W. B. Yeats, English poetry lost one of its greatest practitioners since Yeats, T. S. Eliot and Ted Hughes. More lovingly known by his first name Seamus, he was truly universal voice yet rooted in his native Irish soil. For when in 1981 his work was included in a Penguin anthology of British poetry, he forthrightly made known his concern in verse: “My passport’s green,/ No glass of ours was ever raised/ To toast the Queen.” No offence to the British, he accepted in 1989 the honour of being made Oxford Professor of Poetry for five years and the T. S. Eliot Prize in 2006. Heaney who died last week (on 30 August 2013) was born in April 1939 within a few weeks of Yeats’s death. The long line of poets who influenced him included Wordsworth, Gerard Manley Hopkins, Thomas Hardy and Dante. His steady outpour of a dozen collections of poetry from the ‘Death of a Naturalist’ in 1966 to ‘North’ in 1975 and ‘District and Circle’ in 2006 along with other writings over half a century carried the stamp of simplicity, elegance and an earthy affability which made him one of the most widely read contemporary poets in the English speaking world. Laid to rest in rural Bellaghy near where he was born in Northern Ireland’s County Derry, which the British Loyalists call Londonderry, he remained true to his earthy upbringing. In one of his earliest poems Digging , he admires his father’s and grandfather’s work with the spade: “By God the old man could handle a spade,/ Just like his old man.” Though unable to follow his forbears literally, he followed them in his own way: “Between my finger and my thumb/ The squat pen rests,/ I’ll dig with it.” And a long and happy harvest he reaped whose fruits have been enjoyed by many and will continue to be enjoyed by generations to come. Another of his early poems Mid-Term Break recalls the death of his younger brother in a car accident when he himself was a schoolboy: “ He lay in the four-foot box as in his cot, No gaudy scars, the bumper knocked him clear. A four-foot box, a foot for every year.” Having lived his life in Ireland’s turbulent times called the Troubles, some of his compatriots wanted him to declare his colours for the Republican cause against British imperialism. He tackled the question and answer in his own way thus: “ When for fuck’s sake, are you going to write Something for us? If I do write something, Whatever it is, I’ll be writing for myself.” He was part of the protest but not part of the vitriol associated with the struggle. The murder of one of his cousins in a sectarian attack haunted him, yet at the same time he could not abandon belief in the power of art and poetry as the ultimate winner and reconciler. As The Irish Times, English language’s premier paper worldwide, put it in its tribute covering almost the entire front page: “ Like all great poets, Seamus Heaney was an alchemist. He turned our disgrace into grace, our petty hatreds into epic generosity, our dull clichés into questioning eloquence, the leaden metal of brutal inevitability into gold of pure possibility.” The paper, which devoted almost five and a half broadsheet pages to the poet on the morning after his death, also carried a full two-column editorial with the accolade heading: “A servant of the language.” Quite like the Nobel Prize citing which honoured him “for works of lyrical beauty and ethical depth, which exalt everyday miracles and the living past.” ..................................................................................................................................

India passes world's largest welfare food law

India’s $20bn leap of faith for food to poor By Subhash Chopra India’s truly landmark Food Security Bill to fight poverty and malnutrition which cleared its passage through parliament promises food security to 800 million people or two-thirds of its population at virtually throw away prices. The Upper House passed it by a voice vote on 2 September 2013, with the Lower House having cleared it the previous week. Billed as the world’s largest welfare programme, it promises 75% of the country’s rural population and 50% of urban population rice at Rs 3 (7US cents or 5p) a kg, wheat at Rs 2 a kg and coarse grains at Rs 1 a kg. It will guarantee 5 kg of rice, wheat and coarse cereals per month per person. And it’s not just a promise, it’s already being delivered in parts of the country. Over the coming weeks and months it will cover the entire nation. The measure had already become operative through an ordinance promulgated in July but the government had for long wanted to have it approved by parliament. The six-hour long debate on the final day in the Lok Sabha (Lower House) saw 18 divisions forced by MPs but the government’s patience and perseverance paid off. Pushed through against the given wisdom of the economists of World Bank, IMF and their allied tribes in India and elsewhere, it sets out a model of human development from grassroots upwards rather than trickle-down palliatives to save lives or improve living standards. But economists like Nobel Laureate Amaratiya Sen and Professor Jean Dreze have broadly backed it, even though it falls short of their expectations. In fact, Prof Dreze resigned from the National Advisory Council of Congress president Sonia Gandhi because the bill did not go far enough or was not comprehensive enough. Shortcomings notwithstanding, it’s a leap of faith against dire warnings of the cost of food subsidy which could top Rs 1 lakh crore ($20 billion) a year. And it’s a leap of faith for India’s current coalition United Progressive Alliance government led by the Congress party which in turn is headed by Sonia Gandhi. It’s also the fulfilment of the party’s promise which it made in 2009 when the UPA returned to power for its second consecutive term of five years. Speaking on the final day of debate in Parliament Mrs Gandhi said: "Some people ask - do we have the resources for such a legislation? I would like to say, the question is not about resources; we will have to manage resources for this. "The question is not if we can do this. We have to do this," she told MPs and urged them to pass the welfare measure which was part of the “empowerment revolution” for the people of the country and deserved unanimous support. Yet having fought for the bill so doggedly Mrs Gandhi could not vote in the final count because she was suddenly taken ill and had to be rushed to the hospital after feeling chest pain. Her son Rajiv too could not vote as he left parliament to accompany his mother to the hospital. Soon everybody was relieved to find that Mrs Gandhi had been discharged after a short medical check-up. The UPA had unveiled its bold welfare vision for the Aam Admi or the Common Man by launching Narega, the 100-day guaranteed rural job plan for all adults in villages across the country midway through its first five year term which began in 2004. The jobs scheme, which covered the entire country by the end of the first term, lifted the wages and spirits of rural workers in an unprecedented sweep and proved a major factor in swinging the 2009 election for the UPA . Unfazed by the barrage of corruption charges but buoyed by the people’s response to its welfare programmes, the UPA has definitively launched the second tranche of its welfare strategy in the shape of the just cleared Food Security Bill. This latest initiative has all the makings of an election swinger in 2014 and could win a hat trick for the UPA. It could indeed be a “game changer” politically for the parties and economically for the Aam Admi. Sushma Swaraj, the BJP leader of the opposition in the Lok Sabha, may have tried to make fun of the Food Security Bill by calling it “Vote Security Bill” but her party still saw the wisdom of voting for it. Others called it a gimmick and lollipop but they all let it through. Any party voting against it could see itself branded as anti-people. As a result nearly 300 pin prick amendments were dismissed .Some of the amendments, though, were quite weighty and sought to make it obligatory for the government to give food even at times of natural calamities. The left parties wanted it to cover the entire population. Others wanted elimination of financial liability or burden on state governments in implementing the law. Yet others demanded imposition of higher fines on public authorities from the existing Rs5,000 to Rs25,000 in case of failure to provide food to the needy. Finally the bill was carried by a voice vote because no party wanted to be branded as obstructive and anti-poor. ......................................................................................................................