[Buddha-l] Re: Maitreya statue discussion

[jkirk]

> =============
> Quite so. I already suggested the corruption in my original comment 
> about this FPMT project--that if local farmers supported it, they were 
> no doubt PAID under the local patron-client system, because the 
> majority of the locals villagers oppose the dang thang. Those folks 
> don't want to lose their land, not be compensated porperly, nor 
> offered low-grade land for cultivation elsewhere. The same thing 
> happened when the Narmada Dam displaced thousands of villagers--the 
> government, in that instance, never did successfully compensate and
relocate those tossed off their lands.
> FPMT megalomania, as already suggested, seems to be THE word for the 
> ridiculous waste of money and display of condescending magical 
> thinking (e.g, "karmic imprints").
> 
> Joanna K.
> 

Wonder what they mean by "farmers"? - pretty much the only people that own
land in that neck of the woods are upper caste landlords & zamindars. My
guess is the majority local people & villagers are either share-croppers or
bonded laboureres. They probably don't actually own any land that anyone is
going to compensate them  for in the first place.

I guess the FMPT probably think these people are suffering because they
didn't earn enough merit in previous lives (by doing things like making or
venerating statues).

Cripes to get their merit why can't the FMPT just visualise giant Buddhas
and clouds of offerings and spend all this money and energy on something
that actually relieves the suffering of sentient beings.

- Chris
===========
I think you meant to write FPMT. I share your conclusion.
My guess is the people referred to as farmers are sharecroppers who live in
the nearby villages--they produce for themselves (meagerly, as the zamindars
get a huge chunk of the produce) but this economy is all they have and all
they know. Their families may have been on the land around here for a very
long time. If this assumption is the case, compensation would entail finding
them other land to share-crop on, or paying them just compensation for the
loss of their livelihoods if not land.  It's not hard to understand. You
don't have to be a landowner in India to still lose an income from a farming
livelihood.
JK

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