Frontline
December  1999
Special Millennium Issue

Millennium of the millionaires

In humankind’s rites of passage, certain dates act as special ‘milestones’ marking time. They could be occasions for celebration, mourning or reflection. But in these consumption–governed times, dates have become yet another reason to consume. So it is with the supposedly imminent dawn not merely of just
another century, but a whole new millennium. Strictly speaking, we are still a full year away from the 21st century and the beginning of the third millennium, according to the calendar system born in one part of the globe but which in recent centuries has virtually eclipsed the reference points of many other cultures. But with the impatient sellers and celebrities of consumerism eager for a mega bash — right now —, who is bothered about such minor details, who wants to wait one whole year for a brand new millennium? Never mind the misery of the masses in cyclone–ravaged Orissa and elsewhere, its got to be the ‘Party of the Millennium’ folks! For the millionaires, in India and everywhere else.

But beyond the fun and frolic, the closing moments of the most momentous century in the history of humankind also offers us an occasion to pause and reflect on the journey we have undertaken in the last one hundred years, as also on whither we are hurtling via cyberspace.

For this ‘special millennium issue’ of Communalism Comb, we invited a few persons — politicians, human rights advocates, historians, men of religion, gender rights activists, a spokesman for dalits, a poet and a writer — to introspect on the last century/millennium and also look at the century ahead, specially from an Indian perspective. We sincerely regret the fact that thanks to the dictates of the deadline, the gender perspective is missing in this issue.

More than others, men of religion, it seems, are presently engaged in a serious stock taking of faith. Thus, two of the articles that you will read in the following pages were originally written by two Indian participants at two recent international religious meets. One was the conference of the World Parliament of Religions at Cape Town, South Africa, and the other, a conference of the World Conference for Religion and Peace in Amman, Jordan. Going by the developments in India, its immediate neighbourhood and elsewhere around the globe in recent years, and the prime concern of Communalism Combat, this is just as well.

But religion, as we all know, is not unrelated to the material world. Even those who believe in ‘His’ existence will readily agree that man’s relationship with God is not unrelated to man’s relationship with man, the relationship of cultures and nations with each other. The focus of this issue is not religion but human beings. Colonialism earlier and globalisation now with an agenda dictated almost entirely by the West (in particular the U.S., the sole Super Power now), breathtaking scientific, technological and economic progress in an unequal world, paralleled by renewed conflicts in the name of God in India and elsewhere in recent years. What implications does all this have for poverty alleviation, human rights, social justice, gender justice, end of caste oppression and communal conflict in the coming century/millennium. These are the issues for reflection for our contributors in this issue.

And, now that the 21st century and the new millennium are about to prematurely dawn on us, a happy new century! And a happy new millennium!

— Editors

 


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