Its now officially 2010 here, and New Year's Day isn't a work holiday, so everybody who was celebrating last night is now working.

We made some food and had some friends over, the first time we have hosted anyone in this apartment. Dolly and I both cooked, and our guests liked the food, so I let Dolly take credit. Dolly is throwing a much bigger party on Saturday evening, where maybe 30 people will come.

Its hard to believe, but I spent more of 2009 in India than in America, and it looks like 2010 will be entirely here!

Today we have an oxcart on Sambav ashram in Orissa, and ruins of a Bhuddist temple

Dr. Binayak Sen was at JSS yesterday, and Dolly and I had a chance to briefly meet him.

Dr. Sen is an ad visor to JSS, and has a long involvement with rural health care and rural issues. In 2007, due to his criticisms of the state government, he was arrested with bail or specific charges. Basically, the state is arming militias (Salwa Judum) who are killing innocent people, and Sr. spoke out about it. In present day Chattisgargh, that is enough to get you arrested. His arrest drew the attention of Amnesty International, and there were protests on both the first and second anniversary of his arrest. He was released on bail a few months ago after his case was appealed to the Supreme Court (more here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Binayak_Sen)

Dolly, a whirlwind of curiosity, did most of the talking, asking questions. Dr. Sen spoke in a thoughtful, quiet, and steady manner that reminded me of the way Noam Chomsky speaks - a man who has the command of a lot of facts and information, and is carefully deploying them in most effective manner.

Basically, there are areas of CG where the government has never really had control due to their remoteness and/or lack of interest. Now the government is interested in taking control in order to profit from the natural resources. This puts them into conflict with the people living in a delicate balance with the local ecosystems. So to use the Naxalites vs. The State narrative is inaccurate, and helps in justifying the State's response of deadly force and land clearance (the land clearance being what they're after anyway).

Dr. Sen has to be careful where he goes and who he talks to, because the people who come into contact with him are often harassed and questioned by the government, especially in villages and areas where government control is not strong.

Dr. Sen is hoping for peace, and would like to bring both sides into a conversation, using public pressure to bring them together. There was supposed to be a rally currently ongoing in one of the Naxalite districts, but the government didn't allow it. The organizer is currently on a hunger strike.

I also put these up on Facebook, but these look nicer when they're big... click for the full sized ones!

Setting aside land to preserve the habitat of tigers, a highly endangered species, certainly sounds like a good idea, one that I would normally support. However, the government is in the process of setting up a tiger preserve in a nearby forest area, and it seems like a mess all around.

The first issue that although they have claimed the area has a population of 30+ tigers, local villagers and forest officials say its two, possibly three tigers living in the area. The second issue is that the forests they are setting aside are already populated by aadavasis.

Aadavasis are the aboriginal peoples, much like Native Americans, except they are ethnically identical to the rest of the population. Only culture separates them from the rest of India, and even some of that culture has seeped in. The aadavasis rely on the land to provide them with their livelihoods.

Pretty much everybody who lives in the forest area is poor, and some are members of scheduled tribes/castes, officially recognized as groups needing extra help. These people will be getting some assistance in relocating. Others are just poor, but not a member of any of the designated groups, and they will be receiving much less help even though they need it as much.

One of the outreach clinics run by JSS is in a village scheduled to be moved. They are involved in educating the villagers about their rights, as the doctors are literate and not in as vulnerable a position. There is a risk of them being labeled Naxalites, a word thrown around as carelessly as "terrorist" is in America. It has the same effect of raising fears and shutting down any rational argument, and those to whom the label is applied are treated as unjustly and arbitrarily, outside the normal bounds of the law.

One of the doctors has written some about it: http://ramani-fieldnotes.blogspot.com/2009/12/tiger-reserve.html

For both Christmas Eve and Christmas day we were invited to one of the doctor's houses. On Christmas eve, we brought art supplies to make some ornaments - the children had come to our apartment previously and had fun painting with Dolly, so they wanted to make ornaments with her.

There was a Christmas tree, a live one in a pot. It was not the standard American variety, but it resembled a kind of pine tree. The top branches spread wider than the bottom ones which gave it a vaguely upside-down feel.

The next day we went over for a lunch of fried rice, sweet-and-sour vegetables, and soybean kofta in a soy sauce gravy, with fruit custard for desert. It was a nice get-together, but it didn't feel so much like Christmas, between the weather and the lack of familiar rituals.

Later that night we went to the cloth market and picked out a curtain for our living room. The store we went to had a few small, cramped floors with dozens of rolls of cloth to pick from. We eventually picked colors and patterns that we liked, and they should be made in another day or two.

In the US, fruitcake has become a Christmas joke. I think I have only seen one once, given as a joke gift, and have never been served it. Here in India, it seems to be popular. (Though I still haven't seen it)

Whenever we ask what people do for Christmas here, and what they eat, the first thing said is commonly "of course there's cake" and then they say that they just have a meal, with no particular special dishes. It took a while to figure out that "Christmas cake" is actually fruitcake.

I will have to see if on Christmas, there are actually fruitcakes around and being served.