E ven in the concrete jungle of Manhattan Bazar, the World Trade Center stands out as an unprecedented monument of supremacy of global market, whether of goods or of stock. Incidentally, the famous Wall Street, where New York Stock Exchange is located, is almost in the next street. After all, the acceptance or rejection of a particular commodity in the global market depended on the extent of currency it gained in the Manhattan Bazar. Infact the catchment area of this Bazar is entire globe, specially its developed segment. For a housewife in Switzerland, it is not particularly uneconomical to fly over to Manhattan for shopping. The transactions here are rarely in cash, they are rather through cards. The bargaining could be worked out in advance, through the Website of the concerned shops or commodities. If Manhattan Bazar or its stock exchange sneezes, the world market catches cold. So when the terrorists attacked the World Trade Center, it resulted into freezing of all global capital activities. After all, its backup support, the Pentagon, the headquarter of defence establishment and which had helped America for decades in international capital accumulation, itself was running for cover. Infact, its Supreme Commander and CEO of America Inc., the President Of America, George Bush, stayed airborne for almost an hour as if American capitalism had suddenly become rootless. Not only the Manhattan Bazar, the Bazars of London, Paris, Tokyo, Hongkong etc. also came to a grinding halt. The monstrosity of Manhattan was so overwhelming for me that I longed for my own Bazar back home, whenever I happened to go there.

In our understanding, a Bazar is an economic institution in between a formal place of commodity transaction and a Haat (an informal place of commodity exchange at certain intervals). The anthropology of Bazar always fascinated me. Having spent most of my childhood in Babu Bazar, under the benign eye of a benevolent tyrant landlord uncle, who owned this semi-informal small time transaction conglomeration in the south western end of Patna, I always felt I was part of this world. Unlike the Manhattan Bazar, this Bazar essentially catered to the needs of clerks/chaprasis of the Patna Secretariat, the seat of Bihar Government, whose habitation was located in its catchment area and the vast rural surroundings overlooking it. The Bazar itself was not only a convergence point of the primitive and modern, but also a junction of rural and emerging muffasil Patna. It was a delight to see how within a few years , transaction was getting converted to from barter to monetary and the pattern of conversation almost tantamounted to the erection of Tower of Bable from Maghi to Bhojpuri and from Bengali to Orriya. Whereas Babu Bazar was the melting point of several sub-national and local cultures, Manhattan Bazar was melting point of several nationalities. In the process, Babu Bazar evolved its own unique lingua-franca where fisherwomen would argue animatedly in broken Bengali about the quality and justification of the price of a particular variety of fish. On the other hand, the Bengali Bhadraloks, who were generally referred to as Babus, would put up all their skills of numeracy and haute culture of Bengal renaissance, to ensure that they are not cheated in the matter of weight. This century-old interface of Bazar and Bhadroloks including local gentry in the morning, in monotonous regularity, developed a leisured world view. On the contrary, in Manhattan, everybody moves in frenetic pace. The movement of the people is not only through long strides but it becomes more frenzied through lifts, elevators and escalators. There is hardly any occasion for verbal exchange. Infact you cannot have pleasure of leisure and yet be in Manhattan. On the other hand, Babu Bazar gave an appearance of fun and frolic and occasional crossing of swords between urbanity and rurality. Nevertheless, the visitors to Bazar, either seller or buyer, had developed a common bond. Most of them were on the first name basis, cash transactions could be deferred without conditions in case of resource crunch, even though there would be acrimonious exchanges over getting some extra number of cowdung cakes or on some other innocuous matters. This is all because outwitting the sellers became the main preoccupation, if not an enjoyable sport for the subaltern elites. Further as Bazar looked seductive, so individual was to be tamed, otherwise Bazar would seduce or devour you. However even in this acrimony, a whole range of personal relationship and equations developed which lasted over generations. Bazar was the place of gossips, exchange of notes on the latest trends in politics, and to find suitable matrimonial relations etc. If one was not seen for a long time in the Bazar, there would be anxious enquiries about the person. Bazar never held any terror for the consumer, rather it was a place for exploration and socialization and the demand created its own supply. But even this nondescript Bazar had to face competition. The promoter of Chitkohra Bazar, further western end of Patna put up a good fight for organizing better Haats. All the tricks of the trade were utilized. There was possibility of even communal conflagration. Gandhijee appealed to both the parties to maintain peace. Both the parties organized their private army to protect the market and the possible encroachment. After independence, the process of capitalist transformation hastened and within few decades Bazar gave way to the 'market', and several of them came up even in our peripheral town - Patna Market, Hathua Market, Khaitan Market, New Market etc. Many small time operators like sweetmeat manufacturers or tailors or carpenters or cloth merchants were uprooted. Only the sellers of vegetable, fish and meat were protected as the tariff were not yet lowered, nor there was invasion of meat products from Andhra. Now with the operation of WTO, even these products cannot be protected. Thus the financial empowerment of the upper backwards and the tenant section of the upper caste is being threatened. In most of the big towns now, supermarkets are coming up fast, which may put some of the western countries into shame. Not only these markets resulted into marginalisation of the Bazars but getting any indigenous commodity became almost impossible. Once I accidentally tumbled into the mega supermarket of Bangalore, called Kids Kemp. For the first time, I had this experience of stark terror of overattention. As soon I entered, couple of attendants surrounded me and showered me with their polite arrogance. As a non-metropolitan resident and with a complex of a quintessential Biharee, I had to cough up a few thousand. Even during my forays in Europe, I could'nt find a dress which could be called indigenous for my daughter, other than in Geneva, that too for an astronomically high price. You will not get anything exclusively French or Dutch. International uniformity is introduced , not only in commodities but in cuisine too, through a chain of supermarkets and food outlets. Even in the entertainment industry, dubbing the material in local language has itself become a big industry. The television channels have further created horror of uniformity. Thus the terror of market started unfolding itself in the world since eighties. Earlier markets were protected, either by the Babus of Babu Bazar or the Nawabs of Chitkohra Bazar. Napolean introduced the 'continental system' to provide protection to the French goods in Europe. Bismark also wanted a 'place in the Sun', a euphemism for market expansion and protection. Thus 'coal and iron' not only united Germany but ensured protection and expansion of territory for the German goods. Even the national bourgeoisie or its regional counterparts in India fought at different periods of history for its national or the regional market. In recent periods the grammar of capitalism and commercial transaction has completely changed. Now the supply is creating its own demand. Most of the markets are home of national and international chain. With the globalization most of our markets were getting integrated with the international industrial and commercial grid. Unlike earlier strategy of ensuring markets through the military intervention, the blitzrage of commercial television and information technology creates its own illusion of demand, by slowly banishing diversity of preferences. The market itself emerged as a terrorist dismantling earlier value system to bring about large scale deindustrialisation.

The suicide plane crash on the two towers of the World Trade Centres, named after two Rockefeller brothers, 'David' and 'Nelson', and the Pentagon, is a non-Eurocentric response to the terror of the market. After all, progenies of Allende, Mossadaq, Pablo Neruda etc. could not have regretted the events of Manhattan. World Trade Center and Pentagon, both of them symbolized the unbridled military and the financial power of USA. Over and above, World Trade Centre also symbolized the complete integration of financial and political power at the highest level in USA, unlike in India till now. It is no accident that one tower is named after David, the Chairman of the Chase Manhattan Bank and founder of the Lower Manhattan Association and the other is christened Nelson, who was the Governor of New York. One of the brothers was on the threshold to become the President of America.

Though the World Trade Centre finally came up only in 1973, it was conceived in early sixties. The 110 - story World Trade Centre (one on the north was 1368 feet and other on the south was 1362 feet) was more than New York' anchor in the cloud. After Soviet union sent Sputnik into space, it needed powerful emblem to establish its global authority, by building the tallest building on the earth. However within months, this position of the World Trade Centre was usurped by the Sears Tower in Chicago. Nevertheless, World Trade Centre symbolized the power of American capitalism.

The liquidation of the Soviet Union and the socialist countries was attributed to the absence of market equilibrium. As soon as the market is restored to its pristine glory, the equilibrium will be restored in the economy and the country will enter into the eldorado of development. This period also saw the ideologue of markets, from Milton Freidman to James Tobin, winning Nobel Prizes. One had to be a free marketeer to win Nobel Prize in that age. Amartya Sen's advocacy for the social sector was overlooked, Chicago school, conservative Department of Economics of Chicago University, exercised single most influence globally on the policy matters of economic governance. Reagan and Thatcher became the most important instruments in that direction. Market became the main 'mantra' at one hand and, on the other, the mention of the state as a development actor came to be considered as 'blasphemy'. There seemed to be an amnesia about Keynes and Roosevelt's 'new deal' policy which gave state sponsored new lease of life to American capitalism. For any problem of the developing countries, they are subjected to the terror of market and the consequent globalisation, manifested through structural adjustment programme, disinvestment, liberalization and dismantling of tariff barriers. In any market economy where endowments and resources are distributed unequally, the rules of the game are in favour of the powerful. However, democratic political environment, acts as a cushion to the small and the weak. Institutions of global economic governance like WTO (World Trade Organisation ) are not equipped to regulate the world economy into fairer deal across nations. The World Bank and the IMF have further perpetuated this global inequality.

For facilitating wealth making , the devices of free trade, economic liberalization and unfettered markets have been promoted . The logic of capitalism and expansion of the market , transcends political or geographical boundary .And to ensure the efficiency of markets , non-economic bottlenecks are removed. But wealth-making cannot be the only objective of mankind; reduction of poverty and inequality, all results of the capitalism, is as important an objective in any vision of better world. And it is here that market fails - it has never been known as a remover of deprivation and poverty. World history shows that non-market institutions, like the state have been the greatest facilitator in relieving masses of destitution and poverty. If capitalism wants its unfettered existence, the terror of the market has to be banished. The US terror sanctuaries in Diego Garcia or in NATO or in the Seventh fleet will not be able to match the non-eurocentric terror machine, until and unless world appears to be relatively more equal and tranquil. Monolithic power and brutal sway will breed brute and mindless retaliation, which either the world or USA can ill afford.