EDITORIAL

Much is being written these days about the functioning of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) in the Capital and the way the Congress is being run across the nation.

But that is no reason why the ruling party at the Centre should be left off the hook as is being done by sizeable sections of the media. The BJP, which won a surprise absolute majority in the Lok Sabha in 2014, has been acting in an authoritarian way for the last two years while trying to divide the country and its people on communal lines despite mouthing such slogans as ‘sabka saath sabka vikas' and stressing on development in a bid to camouflage its divisive agenda. This came out in full view of all at the party's recently held National Executive meet at Allahabad. While PM Narendra Modi harped on development and projected the BJP-ruled States as models of development, BJP chief Amit Shah went ahead to announce the ‘exodus' of Hindus from Kairana (located in the same State of UP as Allahabad) to stoke the communal faultlines. It was a blatant display of the majoritarian offensive which came out in bolder relief with the BJP MP from Shamli, Hukum Singh, releasing “Kairana se palayan karnewale Hindu parivaron ki soochi (List of Hindu families fleeing Kairana)”, and claiming that 346 “Hindus” had left the place over “threats and extortion by criminal elements belonging to a particular community”.

Several newspapers, notably The Indian Express, carried out an investigation and found many flaws in Hukum Singh's list “including names of persons who have died and those who left more than 10 years ago for a better school for their children, or a better job”.

UP DGP Javeed Ahmed, while speaking to The Hindu, said:

Kairana is a town that got left behind in the development path, therefore people started moving to other industrial townships... like Rohtak, Sonipat and even Delhi. This is a socio-economic demographic change, part of a larger pull that industrial cities and metropolitan cities have. To link it to crime or the communal problem would be very incorrect.

Interestingly, Hukum Singh subsequently changed his tune, saying he intended to highlight a law-and-order and not a Hindu-Muslim problem. But in the light of the DGP's assertion even that is turning out to be false.

Meanwhile The Hindu came across a heart-warming truth of Hindu-Muslim unity while trying to verify Hukum Singh's list of victims of exodus: the reporter of the newspaper came face-to-face with a 42-year-old Muslim woman who had to flee her home in Lisadh village during the 2013 riots when it was a Hindu family which had given her family shelter by taking them as tenants.

It is these incidents that give the lie to Hindu-Muslim enmity which the BJP is assiduously seeking to promote and heighten to consolidate the Hindu vote-bank in its favour as it did in Muzaffarnagar in the run-up to the 2014 Lok Sabha poll in UP.

If all secular-democratic forces stand up as a rock to highlight Hindu-Muslim amity, as seen in the above incident, Modi-Amit Shah's nefarious designs can be defeated. But for that to happen secular-democratic unity is the need of the hour.

June 16 S.C.

o o o

As we go to press, the country has lost two veteran journalists—Krishan Kumar Katyal, 89, who passed away on June 8, 2016; and Inder Malhotra, 86, who breathed his last on June 11, 2016.

Katyal, known to many of his friends and admirers as KKK, was an ace political reporter and correspondent who worked in The Statesman (Delhi), Hindustan Times (Chandigarh) and The Hindu (Delhi). He was the Chief of Bureau of The Hindu in New Delhi when it started its publication from the Capital in the 1980s. He specialised in foreign affairs.

Inder Malhotra was not only an outstanding newsman but one of the most brilliant chroniclers of our times. He worked in The Statesman,The Times of India and wrote columns in national and international papers. He has written and published a large number of books. He specialised in defence, nuclear and foreign affairs.

Mainstream mourns the departure of these two stalwarts in journalism and sends heartfelt condolences to their bereaved family members.

BOOK REVIEW

by Aijaz Ashraf Wani and Mehrag Ud Din Bhat

Why India Votes by Mukulika Banerjee; Routledge Publishers; 2014; pages: 326 (2nd edition); ISBN: 9781138019713; Price: Rs 595.

Elections form the bedrock of any democracy in the world. Elections give power to the people and enable them to choose their leaders who make decisions on their behalf. Without elections democracy cannot be based on the wishes and aspirations of the people. Rather, it will turn into any other form of government where decisions are made by one person or a group of persons based on their own self-interests. Some important questions that puzzle researchers are as follows: what is so special about elections, even though they legitimise a system that ultimately fails the most vulnerable? Do elections mean anything more than a system of procedures and arrangements to elect politicians to power? Is there something about participating in them that makes the experience a special one unlike all other experiences in life? What do people think about elections and what do they get after exercising their right to vote? Why do people consider elections as sacred and compare these with weddings and religious festivals? These are the questions that the book under review tries to answer.

Why India Votes by Mukulika Banerjee is an important contribution to the debate over electoral politics and democracy. Banerjee is not a political scientist but an anthropologist. Her methods are not statistical but ethnographic. Anthropologists have in the past studied and often written about Indian elections. But this is the first time that a well-researched and coordinated study of this magnitude has been undertaken. To provide answers to the question, Why India Votes?, Banerjee sent ethnographers with expertise to fieldwork sites across India during the 2009 Lok Sabha elections: in Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Delhi, Gujarat, Kerala, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu, West Bengal, and Uttar Pradesh.

The study has been divided into six chapters followed by appendices. Each chapter has a descriptive narrative illustrated by examples from several locations, with quotations from printed material, mobile-phone texts, interviews, speeches, and so on. There are useful boxed summaries of things like ‘Elections and Music' or events.

The Introductory Chapter analyses the faith of the Indian voters in the election process. The author argues that on the Election Day in India, the everyday reality of inequality of wealth and status that dominate day-to-day life across the country is suspended and popular sovergnity is asserted for a day. The author highlights that political participation is a multidimensional; rather than a unitary, phenomenon of viewing elections as the only institutional arrangement. She especially highlights the working of the Election Commission of India (ECI) during the elections. The author points out that the ECI is one of the main public institutions along with the judiciary and police that creates a level playing field for electoral competition for the political parties and independent candidates. The author quotes Bikhu Parekh who states that “elections, public deliberation and peaceful protest are the three main components of the democratic system. Among them only elections have survived in good health because of fallen standards of public debate and degeneration of public protests into anger rather then disciplined campaign”. The result is that the “burdens of deliberation and protest have transferred into the institution of elections alone”. (p. 19) The chapter ends with the argument that illiteracy and poverty are not the impediments to under-standing the practice of voting in the Indian elections because people have developed a good understanding of the ideas of democracy and citizenship across India.

Chapter 2, titled “The Campaign”, deals exten-sively with the processes and instruments of campaigning. It highlights issues such as how political parties try to reach out to the electorate by distributing flags, pamphlets and posters during the election campaign and the role of these materials in elections. The author underscores the role of ‘paid news' in shaping the voting behaviour of the electorate during the elections.

Pointing to the nexus between political parties and media houses, the author observes that by providing extensive media coverage to the candidates of the political parties, who pay the highest sum of money to the media owners, the political parties often tarnish the image of their rival parties and candidates in order to gain the support of the public. Banerjee particularly underlines the importance of the personal image of the candidate to be seen by the public. She writes that good oratorical style and catchy words are essential ingredients for a memorable speech and candidates keep working hard to nurture these skills during elections. Candidates often remain careful with their visual self-presentation, paying close attention to the clothes they wear, the colours they choose etc. during the election campaign. These things play an important part in moulding the voting behaviour of the electorate during elections. She further writes that election campaigns in India are so important that during this time the entire nation appears to shift into another gear.

The Chapter on “Political Languages” talks about the use of language by people during elections in different social settings. She argues that the local language of the people is more advanced than the language of intellectuals in capturing the people's perceptions during elections. Referring to the still persistent patri-archial nature of society and polity in India, the author states that during elections men out-number women in public discussions regarding politics. She points to the lower castes like SCs, STs and Dalits, who are often forgotten by the successive governments before the elections, but are used by the political parties for votes at the time of elections. The author argues that although caste-based practices within society have declined across India, there has been an increase in caste-based politics. She writes that in India people compare elections with weddings because elections here provide the same excitement as at the time of weddings. People beat drums, dance in front of candidates like they do before the bride and bridegroom at weddings.

The fourth Chapter, titled”Polling Station”, talks about the experience of people casting their votes. She explains that voting day is important for the people because they feel empowered, being able to vote on equal terms regardless of caste, class, gender and sex. The polling station is the only place where equality in the true sense prevails. People of India feel that polling day is the only day when the lower-caste people come in contact with the upper castes that otherwise is difficult in a caste-ridden society like India. The author contends that the polling station is the only place where the voter, political parties and the entire state of India come together in conducting the business of true democracy which otherwise is very difficult to be seen in the country. The author highlights that voters see themselves as masters on the voting day. Voters compare their vote with the atom. Banerjee quotes the words of a Dalit woman who said: “My vote is like an atom; it may be small but it packs a lot of power.” (p. 140)

Chapter 5, titled “Why People Vote”, is an important chapter where the author depicts the true picture of electoral democracy in India. To answer the most important question as to why Indians vote, the author put this question to a cross-section of voters and got a variety of answers from across the nation. While some vote for material benefit, many support a candidate or party out of loyalty, and others vote against someone as a mark of protest. The author further explains that many in India vote because of peer pressure, while others vote for being counted as citizens of the country, still others think that it is important to vote in order to be recognised as equal citizens. There are others who think that voting is a right and to exercise this right is important. The author also brings out different factors that influence people to vote differently. There are many women who vote out of compulsion because if they will not, they will have to face the wrath of their husbands. Some vote because they think that they will get their work done in the government office with the help of the candidate whom they vote for. Then there are people who exercise the right to vote with the hope of making Indian democracy work.

The concluding chapter of the book asserts that elections have emerged as one of the most vital institutions that can mediate between the citizens and the state. The author argues that elections play an important role in mediating the tension between the state and popular politics and in acting as a pivot in the balance between the rule of law and the rule of numbers. She reveals that elections have become so integral to the people of India that they think it is better to choose the devil who governs them than having to suffer an autocrat. (p. 169) Further, she points out that in order evolve genuine democracy, the need of the hour is to strengthen the constitutional provisions of universal adult franchise and the principles of liberty, equality and fraternity.

On the whole the book portrays the true picture of the functioning of electoral democracy in India. It makes the people across the country believe that participating in elections can bring about egalitarianism and social change which other institutions so far have failed to ensure. The book investigates the motivations of voters, their thinking about politicians, political parties, the electoral process, democracy and their own role within it. It is an important read for the students of democracy in general and Indian politics in particular.

Dr Aijaz Ashraf Wani is a Senior Assistant Professor at the Department of Political Science, University of Kashmir. Mehrag ud Din Bhat is a Ph.D scholar at the Department of Political Science, University of Kashmir.

From N.C.'s Writings

My Earliest Recollections

After N.C.'s demise on June 27, 1998 three pieces were recovered from his notes as evidence that he had started writing his autobiography.We are carrying the following piece (written on March 5, 1990) on his birth and childhood.

What's the earliest memory I have about myself? I have tried to look back to catch a glimpse of what could possibly be the earliest scene I can remember about my life.

I don't remember anything about my birth and infancy, about the place where I was born. That was in a winter morning in November 1913 at a town in Assam called Silchar where my mother's uncle was a prison doctor. My mother told me later that I was born early morning at about 5. I don't know who were all there to receive me into the world, but I was told later that the arrival was smooth, without a hitch. My complexion was slightly dark—certainly darker than my mother's and my father's both of whom were fair. So I was called ‘Kanu'—the pet name of Krishna. One of my uncles was an admirer of a great Bengal scholar of those days and after him, I was named ‘Nikhil Nath'. That was perhaps all that I could gather about my first hours in this world.

My mother used to say that as a baby, I used to be quite a problem at night as I could cry for milk at the middle of the night and my full-throated angry howl would wake up the neighbours. And a relation who was rather obsequious to the Raj, would remark that it was good we were not living in sahib-para—the locality of the sahibs—as they would not tolerate this nightly howl by the Bengali baby. My mother used to recall another incident about my full-throated bellowing. The family had gone to the Tagore mansion at Jorasanko to watch Rabindranath's Valmiki Pratibha in which the poet himself took part. As soon as the curtain was up and the bearded old man appeared on the stage, I roared sitting on the lap of my mother who had to rush out of the hall and had difficulty getting back home all by herself carrying the baby, as my father and my aunt stayed behind as they were ardent votaries of Tagore.

Otherwise I was a healthy normal baby with a large head and bristling hair. No problem about food as I was and have continued to be fond of milk. Every afternoon, I used to have long outings in the pram with Jagabhai who was the all-purpose factotum in our cosy little home.

My earliest recollections centre round the small house at Amherst Street in Central Calcutta. You had to reach it from the main road by a winding brick-laid lane through which no carriage could pass, only rickshaws could enter. The room in front was my father's study-cum-sitting room. Behind it was a narrow open space and you reached the two dingy rooms and a narrow verandah which served as the dining place with small wooden stools and the meal laid out on the floor. By the staircase was the tiny little kitchen where my mother prepared all our meals. Upstairs there were two rooms, one with my father's bed and the other belonged to my mother, where my aunts whenever they would come could park themselves. Any other guest would be sleeping in my father's study downstairs. Next to us was the playing field of St. Paul's College, where students would be playing. One would notice a dark-skinned young man would be playing with the boys as if he was one of them. Years later, he turned out to be my teacher in Presidency College—Kuruvilla Zachariah, a shy person with big eyes and ears, a bachelor at that time who became a real guru to me.

It was war-time (1914-1918) when I was growing up to be a boy. Khaki uniforms were popular, with a Union Jack stitched on the shoulder, and I remember I got a boy howitzer. A nursery book of alphabets all dealing with the great war that the British were supposed to be winning—D stood for Dreadnought, J for Jellico, U for U-boat, Z for Zeppelin etc.

Day One in Calcutta

The following report by Nikhil Chakravartty, the Calcutta correspondent of People's Age (published from Bombay), appeared in the weekly's August 24, 1947 issue (it was wired from Calcutta on August 17, 1947) under the following headlines: ‘End of a Nightmare and Birth of New Dawn!'; ‘Calcutta Transformed by Spirit Of Independence'; ‘Hindus, Muslims Hug Each Other In Wild Joy—Tears Roll Down

Where Blood Once Soaked The Streets'.

Frenzy has overtaken Calcutta. It is a frenzy which no city in India has ever felt through the long years of thraldom under the British.

When the clock struck midnight and Union Jacks were hauled down on August 15, 1947, the city shook to her very foundations for a mad frenzy overtook her 40 lakh citizens. Nothing like this has ever happened before.

I have racked my brains for hours; I have looked up all despatches in the Press; but still I find no adequate words to communicate the unforgettable experience that has overwhelmed me in the last three days. It is like a sudden bursting of a mighty dam: you hear a deafening roar of water sweeping away everything in the flood. It comes with a crushing suddenness and strikes with the strength of a thousand giants.

That is how all of us in Calcutta have felt in the last few days—all of us, old or young, man or woman, Hindu or Muslim, rich or poor. In this mighty sweep of the flood none was spared. And the floods carried off a lot of dirt and stigma of our slavery.

Calcutta is Reborn

One hundred and ninety years ago, it was from Calcutta that Clive set out of conquer this land of ours and it was this city which was the seat of all his vile intrigues that divided our ranks and brought about our defeat. But today in the sweeping torrent of freedom all that has been wiped away, and once again this beloved city of ours stands out clean and full of radiance with the glow of lasting brotherhood.

Everybody felt nervous about August 15. Weeks ahead authorities were on tenterhooks; more police and military were being posted to ensure peace. Ministers would not permit meetings in the open to celebrate the transfer of power, afraid that the goondas might create trouble. East Bengal Hindus were nervous that one little spark in Calcutta might throw the entire province into the flames of a civil war; Muslims were panicky that they might be finished off in Calcutta and many had left the city.

Gandhiji had already moved his camp to one of the most affected areas—Belliaghata—and cancelling his East Bengal trip, had decided to spend a few days here with Suhrawardy. But even he was disturbed by rowdy goondas, backed by communal groups, accusing him of being an enemy of Hindus. News from the Punjab was bad. On the whole an uncanny fear gripped everybody and the day of independence seemed like a deadline for distur-bances.

But how wrong were our calculations! With all our pretensions of knowing our people, with all the prophecies and warnings, bans and precautions, no one really knew how the people—common men and women among both Hindus and Muslims—would come forward to celebrate August 15. It was this unknown factor, which in every turn of history is the determining factor, that has made all the difference in our calculations and the actual happenings on that day.

People's preparations for the celebrations of the day went on briskly, though imperceptibly. The demand for Tri-colours knew no bounds; whatever be the material, whatever the make, every flag was literally sold out. Even the poorest of the poor, coolie, scavenger or rickshaw-puller, bought the Jhanda. In paras and mohallas boys and girls were getting ready practising drills or formations, organising Prabhat Pheris. Party differences, personal bickerings, etc. were forgotten.

Discordant voices there were, but they did not matter. Mahasabha first raised the slogan of black flags, but then piped down and declared non-participation. But all the prestige of Shyamaprosad could not make any impression on the very people whom he had swayed during the Partition campaign.

Forward Bloc and Tagorites also opposed the celebration on the ground that real freedom was yet to be won. But despite the fact that thousands of Bengali homes paid homage to Netaji that day hardly a handful abstained from participation. Every school, factory, office, every home—be it a mansion or a bustee—awaited the great day with hearts full of jubilation.

As the zero hour approached, the city put on a changed appearance. On the streets, people were busy putting up flags and decorating frontage. Gates were set up at important crossings, bearing names of our past titans like Ashoka or our martyrs in the freedom movement. The atmosphere was tense; should there be a new round of stabbings or shootings among brothers, or should there be return to peace and normalcy?

All Barriers Broken

The first spontaneous initiative for fraterni-sation came from Muslim bustees and was immediately responded to by Hindu bustees. It was Calcutta's poor toilers, especially Muslims, who opened the floodgate, and none could have dreamt of what actually took place.

Muslim boys clambered up at Chowringhee and shouted, “Hindu-Muslim ek ho” and exhorted the driver to take them to Bhowani-pore. But the driver would not risk that and so they came up to the border only.

But then all of a sudden in the very storm-centres of most gruesome rioting of the past year—Raja Bazar, Sealdah, Kalabagan, Colootolah, Burra Bazar—Muslims and Hindus ran across the frontiers and hugged each other in wild joy. Tears rolled down where once blood had soaked the pavements.“Jai Hind”, “Vande Mataram”, “Allah-ho-Akbar”and above all renting the sky“Hindu-Muslim ek ho”.

Curfews were ignored; men rushed out on the streets, danced, clasped and lifted each other up. It was all like a sudden end of a nightmare, the birth of a glorious dawn.

As midnight approached, crowds clustered round every radio set and Jawaharlal's ringing words sent a thrill round every audience, “Appointed day has come —the day appointed by destiny..”

With the stroke of midnight, conch-shells blew in thousands, conch-shells blown by our mothers and sisters from the innermost corners of our homes—for the call of freedom has reached every nook and corner. And with the conch-shells were heard the crack of rifles and bursting of bombs and crackers. The very arms that were stored so long to kill off brothers were being used to herald the coming of freedom.

A torchlight procession started in North Calcutta. Tram workers, in all spontaneity, brought out a couple of trams crowded with Hindus to the Nakhoda mosque and were feted by Muslims with food and drink. In Burra Bazar, Muslims were treated the same way and all embraced one another. Hardly anybody slept that night—the night choked with passionate emotions welling up in so many ways.

As the morning came the city was already full of excitment and pavements were thronged with people. Prabhat Pheris came out singing songs of the national struggle. Boys and girls marched through the streets with bands and bugles—bright and smart, free citizens of tomorrow.

Flag salutations in every park, in every school and office. Buses plied free, giving joy rides to thousands. Trams announced that all their returns would be sent for relief. And they ran till late at night along all mixed routes which were closed for the past year.

At the Government House, our own Government was to unfurl the Tricolour, but invitees were confined to Burra Sahibs and officials, the rich and elite, Ministers and Legislators. They came in big cars, many with their wives dressed in all their fashionable clothes.

Government House—People's Property

Common people, those that have made freedom possible, they too came in thousands, but they were kept outside, beyond the huge iron gates. Why must this be so? Why must this occasion be celebrated in the way the White Sahibs have done so long?

I watched that crowd growing restless every minute and found among them the very faces that you come across in the streets every day or at the market or in your own home: babu, coolie, student, Professor, young girl and shy wife—all jostling with each other, impatient at being kept out. Sikh, Muslim, Bhayya and Bhadralok clamoured for the gates to be opened and when that was not done, they themselves burst into the spacious grounds and ran up towards the Governor's stately mansion.

The burst into the rooms much to the annoyance of the officials and perhaps also of the marble busts of many of the White rulers that have never been disturbed in their majesty.

For hours they thronged there, thousands over thousands of them, shoving out many of the ICS bosses. But it would be a slander to say that they were unruly. How little did they touch or damage? Had they been unruly, as somebody had reported to Gandhiji, the whole place would have been a wreck in no time.

They went there for they felt that it was one of their own leaders who had been installed as their Governor. And when the annoyed officials ran up to Rajaji to complain to him about the crowd swarming into the rooms, C.R., it is reported, replied: “But what can I do? It is their own property. How can I prevent them from seizing it?”

The sense of triumph, of pride that we have come to our own could be seen in the faces that entered the portals of the Government House. It is symptomatic of August 15 no doubt. For though there were restrictions and curtailments to real freedom in the elaborate plans the Dominion Status, the people—the common humanity that teems our land—have taken this day to mean that that have won and no amount of restrictions will bar the way, just as no policeman could stop the surging crowd that broke into the Government House.

Outside, all over the city, houses seemed to have emptied out into the streets, lorries came in hundreds, each packed precariously beyond capacity; lorries packed with Hindus and Muslims, men and women. Streets were blocked and the people themselves volunteered to control traffic.

Rakhi Bandhan Again

Lorry-loads of Muslim National Guards crammed with Gandhi-capped young Hindu boys shouted themselves hoarse “Jai Hind”, “Hindu-Muslim ek ho”.

Somebody in Bhowanipore waved a League flag under a Tri-colour. What a sight and what a suspense. But the days of hate were over and all shouted together, “Hindu-Muslim ek ho!”

A batch of Hindu ladies went to Park Circus to participate in the flag hoisting. They tied rakhi (strings of brotherly solidarity made famous during Swadeshi days) round the wrists of Muslim National Guards. And the Muslim boys said, “May we be worthy brothers!”

Hindu families, quiet and timid Bhadralok families, came in hundreds to visit Park Circus with their wives and children in tikka gharries piled by Muslims. Muslims, well-to-do and poor, visited Burra Bazar, and Ballygunge in endless streams. And this was going on all these three days.

They are all going to paras or mohallas they had to leave or where they had lost their near and dear ones. Today there is no area more attractive and more crowded than the very spots where the worst butcheries had taken place. As if to expiate for the sins of the last one year, Hindus and Muslims of Calcutta vied with each other to consecrate their city with a new creed of mighty brotherhood.

On the evening of August 16, one year back, I sent you a despatch which could describe but inadequately the mad lust for fratricidal blood that had overtaken Calcutta that day. To mark the anniversary of that day I visited the crowded parts of Hindu Burra Bazar and the Muslim Colootola where in this one year hardly anyone passed alive when spotted by the opposite community. But this evening Muslims were the guests of honour at Burra Bazar and Hindus, as they visited Colootola, were drenched with rose-water and attar and greeted with lusty cheers of “Jai Hind”.

On the very evening, at Park Circus, was held a huge meeting of Hindus and Muslims. Suhrawardy, J.C. Gupta, MLA, and Bhowani Sen spoke. It was here that Suhrawardy asked the Muslims to go and implore the evicted Hindus to come back to Park Circus.

At Belliaghata, Gandhiji's presence itself has brought back hundreds of Muslim families who had to leave in terror of their lives only a few weeks back. And Gandhiji's prayer meetings are attended by an ever increasing concourse of Hindus and Muslims—themselves living symbols of Hindu-Muslim unity.

Reports from Bengal districts also prove that this remarkable upsurge of solidarity was not confined to Calcutta alone. In Dacca, despite panic, Hindus and Muslims jointly participated in the celebration of Pakistan, and Muslim leaders themselves intervened in one case where the Congress flag was lowered, and the flag was raised again.

Everywhere Hindus showed response by honouring the Pakistan flag. Joint Hindu-Muslim demonstrations were the marked features of the occasion.

Reports from Comilla, Kusthia, Dinajpore, Krishnanagore, Munshinganj, Malda and Jessore, all show that August 15 had passed off in peace and amity. Only local fracas were reported from Kanchrapara, but the great and good tidings from Calcutta eased the situation there.

In this mighty flood of freedom and brother-hood there is yet the sense of suspense, for it came with such an incredible suddenness and magnitude that many think it is too good to last long. It is like holding a precious glass dome in your hands while you are in suspense that it might fall and break at any moment.

Spontaneous assertion of people's will for freedom and brotherly solidarity needs to be harnessed in lasting forms and that is where our leaders will be tested in the coming weeks.

Whatever happens, August 15 will be cheri-shed for Calcutta's grand celebration on the eve of the end of the dark night of slavery and the dawn of freedom. Calcutta yesterday was the symbol of our servitude and fratricidal hate. Calcutta today is the beacon-light for free India, asserting that freedom once resurrected can never be curbed or destroyed, for all our millions of Hindus and Muslims together are ready to stand together as its proud sentinels.

(People's Age, August 24, 1947)

The Roots of the Emergency

As years pass by, one after the other, the past recedes more and more into distant memory. There are certain events in the life of a nation as of individuals, to which distance does not lend enchantment to the view. Rather the ugly visage falls into the pattern of historical evolution and lives on as such. One such event in our lifetime, and in our very land was the Emergency which was promulgated on June 25-26, twenty years ago.

Twenty years is but a short space in the vast canvas that is the history of this land, and objectivity may be difficult to attain in dealing with it, because the turmoil it set still evokes ripples of excitement and the dark, the sinister character of that great misadventure is often lost in recolllecting those nineteen months of bizarre politics in this highly political country. To understand the enormity of that episode one has to take into account the events that preceded it as also the fall-out that came in its wake, and only then can one comprehend in full measure what enormous damage the Emergency inflicted on the democratic fibre of this country.

The Emergency was essentially a product of Indira Gandhi's approach to the question of power and her method of wielding it. Objective factors no doubt formed the bedrock of whatever happened; at the same time a very important factor behind the decision to snuffing out of democratic functioning was her very own greed for power, and with her, the worthy son she was then promoting.

To trace the roots of the Emergency one has to go back to the crisis that the Congress faced after the debacle of the 1967 General Elections, in which the party was dislodged from office in a number of States. She realised that apart from other factors, the direction of her policy stand at that time was regarded in general as having been dictated by the World Bank authorities and was therefore a misfit in Indian conditions. She promptly changed her stance and her team and very neatly turned the tables on her critics within the Congress leadership whom she branded as conservative and holding back her urge to push radical reforms. Bank nationali-sation, for instance, did not come at the crest of a massive movement but as a means by which to edge out Morarji Desai. There was an outburst of popular enthusiasm at the radical postures Indira Gandhi took, and with this, she managed to isolate the old guards of the Congress branding them as conservative, she alone to be regarded as radical progressive. Riding this radical chariot, she could mobilise the support of a good section of liberal Left-of-Centre opinion in the country and thereby split the Congress itself, holding out hopes that the Congress she would be rebuilding would be a paragon of democracy and radicalism. The climax was her coining the slogan Garibi Hatao with which she could win the 1971 election and soon after her intervention in the Pakistani civil war that led to the birth of Bangladesh, which in turn brought her further electoral victories in 1972. The poll success made her dizzy with success, little realising that the spell of election promises does not last long; rather she had roused people's expectations without the least efforts at implementing the promises.

This provoked a new round of strident action, led mainly by the youth and backed by the leadership of Jayaprakash Narayan. Gujarat was engulfed by the Nav Nirman movement which reached its peak in 1974-75 which led to the calling of the mid-term poll in which the Congress was badly trounced. Followed the equally powerful mass upsurge in Bihar directly under the leadership of JP. And from Gujarat and Bihar, the stormy winds of mass discontent reached Delhi just at the very hour when Indira had suffered a setback as her own election to the Lok Sabha was nullified by the Allahabad High Court. By that time she had already groomed her second son who was given a free hand to run the party and interfere without authority into the affairs of the state.

Meanwhile, tampering with the normal institution of governance was also undertaken. The concept of ‘committed' bureaucracy was widely broadcast to mean that the officers running the administration have to be totally subservient to the dictates of those in power even in matters which undermine the system. Side by side the judiciary was also sought to be made subservient by means of browbeating—for instance, the supercession of senior judges in the matter of appointment of the Chief Justice in 1973 which was widely resented.

So, when Indira Gandhi faced the dual crisis—threat to her regime because of the growing unrest in the public, and to her personal position because of the adverse judgement by the Allahabad High Court—she gave up the demo-cratic path and resorted to personal aggrandise-ment. One is reminded of the outburst of the sycophant Congress President of the day: “Indira is India, India is Indira”. As for the government, there is good reason to believe that among the contingencies discussed at that time, the question of temporarily scrapping the Constitution and arbitrarily installing her as a virtual dictator was also considered; however, legal experts in her camp hit upon the idea of declaring Emer-gency within the precincts of the Constitution on the plea that there was a threat to the established order by those campaigning against her regime. By clamping the Emergency, all the Opposition leaders were hauled up and those who could not be immediately caught were soon hunted down. The press was gagged and civil liberties were withheld. There was no consul-tation with the party leaders and no move the explain the reason behind the imposition of the Emergency. In fact, there was no election within the party under Indira.

Right from the moment the Emergency was clamped down, the party organisation was assigned no role, and Indira did not care that the party at all levels was confused and rattled and slowly forced into irrelevance, while Indira's son Sanjay took over with his gangster methods. That was the point when Indira finally buried the possibility of running either the government or the party along democratic lines. In fact, the party was put out of action and was virtually reduced to a cheer group for Indira and Sanjay. As for the government, it was concentrated in the hands of a few who were in the coterie of Indira and Sanjay. It was by all counts a dictatorship. Large numbers of Congressmen, including some of those holding important positions today, resented in private this emasculation of the party and government and the acquisition of power by a coterie round the Prime Minister, in which her son had the whip hand. This time the Emergency was sought to be dressed up by the “progressive” 20-Point Programme which was meant to blur the real face of the Emergency authoritarianism.

While the democratic structure was sought to be crushed, the democratic spirit of the people could not be stifled with all the gags imposed and news stifled through censorship. The hiatus between the ruling establishment at the top and the common people was widened with the result that even today it could not be bridged. It was in such a hot-house environment that Indira Gandhi groomed her son to succeed her. It needs to be noted that even with the emasculated Parliament she was not prepared to face the electorate. So, Parliament's life was extended from five to seven years. However, after the sixth year, she banked on the calculation that all opposition against her regime had been smothered and she felt it safe to go in for election, little expecting that the imprisoned leaders with all their differences would join hands to face the electorate together. Side by side, two major defectors, Jagjivan Ram and Bahuguna, came out of the Congress and joined other Opposition leaders for a common campaign against her regime. This was how the Janata Party was born.

During the brief Janata Party interlude, there was a spate of exposure of the Emergency and plenty of literature on the subject came out. But the Janata Party leaders had no idea of her determination and her mendacity. Every bungling, every shortcoming of the Janata Party government was exploited by her camp, so much so that her people played an active role in breaking up the Janata Party and put up Charan Singh for a few months to be the Prime Minister.

When Indira Gandhi came back to power in 1980, the only lesson she seemed to have learnt from her Emergency debacle was to take advantage of the Opposition division rather then rebuilding the party which was left in a state of neglect. When Sanjay died in an air crash, she did not call upon any senior leader of the party to be groomed as her successor, but blatantly brought into politics an unwilling Rajiv Gandhi to succeed her. The party was reduced to a machinery for electioneering—nothing more; while the government was run virtually as a one-man show by the Prime Minister. That tradition was continued by Rajiv Gandhi despite the promise at a moment of forgetfulness that he would rid the party of power-brokers. Incidentally, Indira Gandhi cancelled the reports of all the probe committees set up by the Janata Party government, except one—that was the Mandal Report.

The Emergency was thus a landmark in the annals of independent India insofar as it sought to destroy the democratic fibre of the leading party, turning it into a signboard organisation to render service to the leader and her progeny chosen by her to succeed her. On the political side, the Emergency destroyed the democratic fibre of the leading political formation, namely, the Congress which since the Emergency has never cared to adhere to any form of transparency in its functioning. A real landmark this, the Emergency whose impact will long be felt both in the attitude and functioning of the ruling establishment vis-a-vis the vast multitude that constitutes the overwhelming majority in our democracy.

[Mainstream (July 1, 1995); an abridged version of this article appeared earlier in The Pioneer]

We Need No Taliban Here

Maqbool Fida Husain is at the very centre of a storm whose after-effects are extremely relevant for our democracy—both for the democratic structure of our state and for the preservation of democratic values in our society.

It is not that Husain is at the centre of a controversy for the first time; in fact, it is seldom he is out of one. He has got thousands of fans, not all because of the beauty of his art but quite a large number applauding him for what would have been called idiosyncracies in the case of mere mortals. Publicity he likes, perhaps craves for, and publicity of one kind or another can certainly be good business in these days of market-worship. As is but natural in the case of any celebrity, there are always admirers and traducers, fans and jealous rivals for Husain. Sometimes, he has evoked adverse responses even among his admirers as when he put up his huge painting depicting Indira Gandhi as a Durga at the height of the Emergency. Though this fetched him a lot of kudos from the then establishment, it was taken as being in bad taste by many of his fans at that time.

Like many other artists, Husain sometimes seems to be seeking the limelight by being provocative. The present writer is no art critic, but he has sometimes felt that some of Husain's creations need not be so aggressive as to provoke protests and misunderstandings. Would his art or his power of depiction suffer if some of his images are not so downright? Is it necessary at all that Draupadi should be bereft of all clothes, which even the filthy villain at the famous gambling over chess could not achieve?

This is no doubt trading on a minefield, a dangerous ground as it brings into focus the question perennially controversial—the length of the artist's freedom of expression. Like all freedoms, this has its limitations, and carries alongwith it the responsibility of the artist to society to which he or she may belong. And if the artist flouts that responsibility, who is to enforce it upon him?

The raging controversy of today about Husain's paintings started precisely on this point. Some of the angry missionaries of faith, out to cleanse the world of all its dross and dregs, raised a hue and cry of some of Husain's paintings depicting well-known figures of Hindu mythology in scanty garments resembling birthday suits. They have warned Husain for having hurt the sentiments of the Hindu devotees. They have even gone to court to seek an injunction against the artist.

It is not difficult to anticipate the chain of argument of these angry upholders of the Hindu faith. Since Islam does not permit even an imaginary portrait of the Prophet, why should anybody, particularly a Muslim, be permitted to depict the immortals of the Hindu pantheon in a manner suggestive of being indecent, if not promiscuous? If the Prophet's portrayal is banned, so must be the portrayal of the gods and goddesses whom the Hindus worship. Sounds reasonable and this may be the gist of the accusation against Husain when the case comes up before the Bombay courts.

But the flaw in this argument lies in the fact that the mythology of the Hindus has never presented the gods and immortals as dry totems: they reflect, by and large, the life and living of a human being projected on a supernatural canvas. By no means do they appear as shrivelled-up, bone-dry. Rather they appear almost like robust human beings with supernatural powers—having all the emotions, sometimes in abundance. There is nothing Calvinistic in its austerity in the Hindu faith. It is worth recalling that in the wake of the reform movement in Indian society in the nineteenth century, a section of the Hindu fold was expelled from it, as it refused to agree to what they called the idol-worship. This section, the Brahmo Samaj and its smaller counterparts, was austere in its outlook, and, according to it, God in any manifestation must not be idolised as mere mortals with all their emotions and urges.

Needless to add, it is the broad sweep of the Hindu faith which helped to promote rich classics in history and poetry, performing and fine arts—many works out of them which may be frowned upon by rigid standards of moral sermonising. It is in a such a background that one has to comprehend the full implications of the sudden attack on Husain's works by self-styled defenders of Hindu faith. It would be absurd to think that the hollow pretences of such bigotry can mislead the true devotees of the religion. Nevertheless, Husain has done the correct thing in promptly issuing a statement that he did not want to hurt anybody's feelings by his paintings, and he was sorry about it all.

This, of course, has not satisfied the fanatics, who are out to make political capital out of it. The artist with his message has not been spared by the aggressive fanatics. One of the groups, the Bajrang Dal, attacked a well-known art gallery in Ahmedabad and tore out Husain's paintings and made a bonfire of them. This shocking example of vandalism has evoked widespread condemnation from a large body of intellectuals while artists at a number of places have come out to demonstrate their resentment against this piece of intolerance and vandalism. Undaunted, the President of the Mumbai branch of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad has now come with a new offer for truce with Husain. He wants Husain himself to destroy the paintings to which the VHP and its fellow-travelling crusaders have objected, as a Dussehra reconciliation. Obviously, this move has clear communal overtones: A Muslim artist cannot be permitted to depict Hindu gods and goddesses as he likes. Ironically, these fanatics want our people to forget that most of the religious festivals in our country cut across the communal divide. The best of the idol-makers for Dussehra in Calcutta, for instance, are Muslim potters for generations.

After all the vandalism committed, this spate of threats makes it abundantly clear that the fanatic fringe which has arrogated to itself the role of the upholder of morals as per its own book would pursue the persecution of all those who are their target. Today the target is Husain. Tomorrow it may be an author or a dancer. And let us not forget, it is the same mentality of blatant fanaticism that had fired the bullet that killed Gandhi. In the year earmarked for the celebration of the fiftieth anniversary of our achieving independence, it is an ominous sign that this country has within its fold such fanatics that would not hesitate to destroy our hard-earned democracy.

We need no Taliban of whatever denomination—neither in our parlour nor in our basement.

(Mainstream, October 26, 1996)

June 27 this year marks the eighteenth death anniversary of Mainstream‘s founder Nikhil Chakravartty, known to readers of this journal as N.C. On this occasion while remembering him we are reproducing tributes to N.C. by three stalwarts of Indian journalism—Inder Malhotra (who breathed his last only this month on June 11, 2016), Chanchal Sarkar and Prabhash Joshi (both of whom predeceased Inder Malhotra). Thereafter we are reproducing a few of N.C.'s writings.

Memories of a Many-splendoured Man

Inder Malhotra

It was with some trepidation that I first met Nikhil. I was then just past 21 and working for the tottering United Press of India (UPI) on whose ashes is built today's UNI. But within a few minutes in his company I realised that I needn't have worried. Unlike other very senior members of the profession, some of whom had dismissed me summarily, in one case without even looking at me, he was all attention and surprisingly generous with his time. He listened to me patiently and gave me the advice I had sought with great precision and manifest sympathy that had not the slightest trace of condescension. As time and good fortune brought me close to him for more than four-and-a-half-decades, I was to learn that, contrary to whatever notions I might have had, I was not being singled out for special treatment. To offer help, support and sage counsel to one and all, young or old, high or low, struggling or successful, was one of his many qualities. The number of those who have benefited from it is legion.

Another facet of Nikhil's personality that made its impress on me early enough was that though he was a great journalist—who took his work, not himself, very seriously—our troubled trade was not the be-all and end-all for him. His concerns were wider, his interests wide and his ability to enjoy life, as it came, heart-warming. He was also a man of great learning and deep knowledge, a nationalist in the highest sense of the term and a humanist.

As is well known, he was a member of the Communist Party of India from his student days up to Indira Gandhi's Emergency. Appalled by the party's crass support to this assault on Indian democracy (a support that, incidentally, turned pathetic when Sanjay Gandhi, arguably the most powerful person during the Emergency regime, gave a resoundingly anti-communist interview), Nikhil simply did not renew his membership of the CPI. However, as Sharada Prasad said the other day, he never ceased to be a Leftist, committed to both national independence and social justice. In choosing communism during his student days in England, Nikhil did what the best and the brightest of his contemporaries, many of them his personal friends, belonging to the generation of the “pink thirties”, were doing. But it is worth recalling that he was sent to Britain by his family to compete for the then cherished ICS which he resolutely refused to do even though, at Oxford, he had won marks so high that they had been obtained only once earlier, by Sir Girija Shankar Bajpai, in the early years of this century.

The main point about Nikhil's membership for long years of the CPI and his life-long commit-ment to the Left is that no matter what his politics at any given time, he enjoyed high respect and total trust of leaders, bureaucrats, technocrats, soldiers and other news sources across the entire political spectrum. It was this, combined with his prodigious diligence (even towards the end he worked thrice as hard as colleagues half his age) and his professional integrity, that made him better informed than any of his contemporaries. The files of Mainstream, to say nothing of his profuse writings for major newspapers, bear testimony to his unequalled qualities as a reporter, commentator and editor. Even after Sumit took over as the magazine's editor, Nikhil's contribution to Mainstream remained massive.

It was the prestige enjoyed by Mainstream and love for Nikhil that persuaded a wide variety of busy people to find time to write for it with-out any thought of remuneration. Editors of most national—and even international—newspapers were happy to let Nikhil reproduce their articles in Mainstream, again without any consideration of payment. Only once did he have some disappointment on this score: one foreign publication demanded £ 100 for reproducing a piece, which Mainstream was in no position to afford.

Travelling with Nikhil was always a joy. His scintillating conversation was usually spiced with humour, and after the end of the day's work he was ready for good food. In China in 1992, it was he who told us not to waste our money on fancy and well-known restaurants. Instead, with the willing help of a Chinese-speaking Indian embassy official, he found for us each day a Chinese version of a dhaba serving superb cuisines.

On my first visit to Dhaka I had a list of about a dozen people to meet. To my delight I found that Nikhil was already in the Bangladesh capital, staying at the same hotel. We stayed in the coffee shop most of the day because most of the Bangladeshi mediamen and politicians on my list were trooping in, one after the other, to meet Nikhil.

Above all, it was Nikhil's capacity to keep confidences that enabled him to be the best informed journalist of his times. Bragging about what one knows but cannot publish is a common failing of the practitioners of the craft of journalism. But this unprepossessing weakness hadn't touched Nikhil even remotely. Some of the confidential information he had, he sometimes shared with only those he knew would not betray his trust. I was lucky enough to be so honoured.

A small part of the information he vouchsafed to me I did make use of—with his kind permission. The rest I must carry with me whenever I go to join him. However, I see no harm, at this late stage, in sharing with the reader one delightful incident which encapsu-lates what I have been trying to say.

Krishna Menon, at a time when he was at the height of his power, if not glory, as the Defence Minister, told Nikhil something which was highly sensitive. Having imparted the infor-mation, he apparently got worried. And, as was his wont, wagging his index finger said: “Nikhil, this is not to be whispered. Not to the leaders of your party, nor even to Renu.”

On Nikhil's face appeared the captivating, dimpled smile all of us are bound to remember, and he retorted: “Krishna, your difficulty is that you have never been a Communist. Nor have you ever married. So you do not know how we Communists function. Nor do you have any idea of the husband-wife relationship.”

(Mainstream, July 11, 1998)

o o o

Nikhilda

by Chanchal Sarkar

When I first came to work in Delhi the most respected journalistic figure here was Sir Usha Nath Sen, one of the founders of the Associated Press of India which eventually became the PTI (Press Trust of India). Sir U.N. once told me of his guru K.C. Roy, the real founder of the API, that in any matter concerning the Government of India, in Delhi or Simla, K.C. Roy could figure out exactly with whom the matter rested and who would take the decision.

Delhi has grown exponentially since K.C. Roy's time and is not just a government city any more but a much bigger jungle. There are political parties, lobbies, business interests, diplomatic establishments, any number of what the British call Quangos (Quasi non-government organi-sations) but I feel Nikhilda could have been called K.C. Roy's successor—knew where the buck stopped and who to call for an answer. And he would call. As for Sir U.N. Sen himself, a young Deputy Minister of External Affairs in Panditji's Council of Ministers whose name I forget (I recall that he was from the Nizam of Hyderabad's family) told me that when he first came to Delhi the only person who could ring the Viceroy up direct was Sir U.N. Sen because of the confidence and respect he commanded, again a similarity to Nikhilda who could ring the President or Prime Minister without having to boast about it.

Like Sir U.N. Nikhilda could do this because he never revealed confidences, because everyone, from the highest in the land to the woman in front of the Janakpuri Post Office, knew that they could speak fully and frankly. That was the secret of his limitless list of contacts. But of course the contacts would not have spilled out what they knew unless the person they spoke to was empathic, a very good listener whose interests were wide and deep and who could, more and anyone else in the Delhi Press corps, put two and two together to make 22. For this you need what a British philosopher Roger Collingood called a speculum menti—a map of the mind. Maybe that was the heritage of a lapsed Communist—a frame of mind able to assess developments and people and to surmise, speculate and predict. This is what made Nikhilda the commentator he was. He had a speculum menti which was no longer the immediate product of his Communist training but had widened well beyond it.

Presidency College, Calcutta was, in his time, a gem of an institution and in the galaxy of teachers there Prof Kuruville Zachariah was one of the brightest stars. In History Nikhilda was one of his most favourite pupils. Oxford, Cambridge and London of that time were the confluence where young Indians in the thirties got the first whiff of what the Soviet Revolution was doing to Russia and the hope it held out for egalitarianism in the world and, particularly, India. Some of the people in Oxbridge and London at that time became well known in the subcon-tinent's radicalist public life. Mohan Kumara-mangalam, Pieter Kueneman (of Ceylon), Bhupesh Gupta, Jyoti Basu and Renu Chakra-vartty were among them.

What was significant about Nikhilda is that even if his thinking differed and ways parted, he never made a messy break—the old friendships, affections and lines of communi-cation remained. So it was all his life. As a journalist he had easy access to people of all callings and views. He was warmly welcomed and entrusted with confidence. With his trained mind, wide reading and analytical capacity he could interpret and explain.

Though he began as a full-time political worker—with a short spell as university teacher before—journalism to which he eventually came fitted him like a glove. But, thanks be that he wasn't a “quota” journalist, turning out an amazing number of analytical pieces and seeing an astonishing number of people every week. He was also a delightful conversationalist and travel companion, interested in a myriad things, his well-stocked mind usually able to cap any story and draw forth a reminiscence or an anecdote. In journalism 50 years and in political work years before, he had seen passing before him the caravan of modern Indian politics. As for people he had seen many “Shelleys plain” and could describe them. Believe it or not, for the journalist gossip is often the building block of truth. Nikhilda loved a bit of gossip and usually had a saucy bit up his sleeve.

Mainstream was an inspired idea because there was nothing like a forum-type journal of opinion. It could never, in India, hope to touch a high circulation but it gave much satisfaction to its faithful readers. That it had held on for so long is a monument to great dedication and tenacity. May it have many more years with Sumit. Though Mainstream remained his flagship Nikhilda's influence enlarged after the Emergency and as his writings began to be widely syndicated.

He had infinite patience in dealing with meetings and people, even the most obstreperous and foolish, and was never fazed. Maybe it had something to do with what he told me once after Renudi's death. When misfortunes and setbacks occurred, he said, they produced no immediate reactions on him. These came a few days later and showed up in blood pressure and other symptoms.

Patience, good humour and affection for young colleagues produced in him an ability to persuade people, often very different sorts of people, to work together. His handling of them was sometimes gently firm but never suppressive. The Editors Guild, for instance, and Namedia worked smoothly and well. Most journalists that I know, not excepting the well-known ones, are interested primarily in their careers and their own papers; interest in the profession and its problems came well down the list. Not so Nikhilda—he could always be counted to stand up, stick his neck out, advise and act in a professional challenge.

Whether in an evening's lubricated dinner or a get-together in Karachi, Lahore, Colombo, Dhaka, Kathmandu or Geneva, he filled space quietly and with non-boisterous conviviality. And it is that space which we will find empty.

(Mainstream, July 4, 1998)

o o o

A Saint Editor

by Prabhash Joshi

Nikhilda had turned eightyfour. Some people live for hundred years and stay perfectly agile, alert and healthy. Though he had an ageing physique, Nikhilda was not a person who would live by obeying the regulations of keeping fit.

Four years ago, he took a taxi and went out in the hills. Alone. He was to meet me at the institutes in Mussoorie/Nainital. He reached there on time, attended the workshops, but again went out in the hills. I returned to Delhi and then left for Calcutta where I went to meet Renudi. Jansatta wanted to organise a function to mark Nikhilda's fifty years in journalism in the city from where he began as a reporter.

Renudi was to be persuaded for an interview. She agreed. She came out to see me off and as I was getting inside the car, she asked: “Where is your Dada?” I told her that he was roaming around in the hills—alone. She chidingly remarked: “Why don't you people tell him that he has crossed several years? He has grown old. He should stop loitering around uselessly.” After returning to Delhi, I told Nikhilda what Renudi was saying. Giving a shy smile, he said: “She talks like that.”

People of his age live with their wives/families so that their care can be taken. Dada had gout and he did not have a very robust heart as well. Still Renudi stayed in Calcutta and did her work while Dada lived in Delhi. His son Sumit lives in Delhi with his wife and son. But Dada did not stay with them. It was not that Dada had any misunderstanding with his son or daughter-in-law. They would frequent his Kakanagar flat and Dada also used to visit his son's place quite often. After all, Dada had made Sumit quit his job and handed over Mainstream to him. Yet, despite the misinformation campaign in the media circles as to why did Dada stay in a government flat even when he had his own house in Gulmohar Park, Dada did not live with Sumit. He used to say that he had sold off that house to take care of the financial difficulties faced by Mainstream, and Sumit had bought one floor of the house.

When he came to know that he had a tumour in his brain which could be malignant, Dada went to live with Sumit. Until then, he lived in Kakanagar. Alone. But he never accepted that he was alone. Three boys and four dogs lived with him. Any guest would get a warm welcome. Staying in Kakanagar, Dada never believed that he was dependent on anyone or missed being looked after by his family or felt lonely in his old age. When it came to performing worldly duties, Dada would behave like an elder.

He never gave up travelling due to minor health problems. Only when left with no option would he cancel a programme or meeting. He was not careless about his health but, unlike most others, he never wanted to lead a resigned life depending wholly on his family. Such a life was unacceptable to him. He accepted the chairmanship of Prasar Bharati Board at the age of eightyfour. And everyone knows he was not a ‘ceremonial' Chairman. He also used to write three to four articles every week. Dada would say that he needed fifteen thousand rupees per month to run his house. “If I don't write how would I do that?” Dada would borrow money for Mainstream and pay back in instalments. By nature he was a worker whose last hope was on the fruits of his labour. He never liked comforts, care and goods of life. Naturally, he loved standing alone, on his own feet, in his own esteem, with all his humility.

Such a person developed a tumour in his brain. Death always chooses a unique way of taking away every person. It chose this excuse for Nikhilda. During an operation to remove the tumour, a knot developed in the nerve of his brain. Even that was operated upon. During these surgeries, he slipped into coma. Good for him that even while being medically alive, Dada never felt the pain and he passed away as soon as he regained consciousness. Dada lived a complete life. He lived a fulfilling life. His going was like a release from the chains of maya. By his going, many people have been orphaned—like one becomes on the death of his father or grandfather. And, Indian journalism has lost Nikhilda's fatherly presence.

One day this had to happen. Remarkably, even when Renudi was no longer an MP (though Calcutta remained her constituency), Dada let her go there. This despite the fact that he had come to Delhi with Renudi after she was elected to the Lok Sabha in 1952. Dada stayed in Delhi while Renudi went back to Calcutta. She was so engrossed in her work that she could not attend the function marking Dada's fifty years in journalism. That day, she was scheduled to address a meeting in Malda. Renudi passed away in Calcutta after a year or so. She was the niece of the Bengal stalwart and Chief Minister, B.C. Roy. She was a Leftist, and Bengal has a Left Front Government for over two decades now. Yet she lived as alone in Calcutta as Dada did in Delhi. This was not due to any discord in their married life—which was happy and satisfying. Even while studying in Oxford when they met and got married, both the Leftists were busy performing their respective duties.

They never had any problems with Sumit or Tanya. Dada always had love and a soft spot for Sumit. Though Sumit also came to journalism, Dada never tried to promote him. Someome once told me that the Leftist Nikhil Chakravartty could get hold of only his son to run his paper. But if you know the financial state of Mainstream, you will realise that Dada has put his son into paying his debts. And Dada was no Yashpal Kapoor who would use his political connections to erect a sound base for Mainstream. He used to take out a journal of opinions and felt that taking favours in the guise of advertisements amounted to corruption. Sumit too never used his father's political conne-ctions and gladly accepted the responsibility of running Mainstream. But Nikhilda did not stay with such a son.

Dada had as much respect for his own independence as for that of others—even when it came to his wife or son. Such a pursuit is expected of sages and saints, but Dada led a wordly life. Yet, he never used his political connections for meeting his requirements or those of his family. And he did all this without ever boasting of his principles and sacrifices. Nikhilda did that naturally, unlike most others. Everyone knows the attitude of most people with journalistic/political connection—at least during the past fifty years.

Dada was born in a renowned Brahmo family. His father was a Professor of English in Calcutta. Dada, too, was a brilliant student and did his BA with Honours in History in the First Class from Presidency College. Then he went to Oxford where he became a Leftist, married B.C. Roy's niece, and developed close friendship with P.N. Haksar, Jyoti Basu, Indrajit Gupta, Bhupesh Gupta and Mohan Kumaramangalam. On returning to India, he started teaching in a Calcutta college. Then he left everything and became a reporter for the CPI's mouthpiece, People's War. During this period, Dada reported on the infamous Bengal famine. He even became a CPI card-holder. But when the realities of Stalin's excesses and the Russian occupation of Hungary began to unfold, Dada not only quit the CPI but started Mainstream to air his views. Soon, the journal became so critical of the CPI that the party had to publish a clarification in its mouthpiece that it had nothing to do with Mainstream!

Many others who had become disillusioned with the CPI joined the Congress. After the division of the Congress, the CPI not only became supportive of Indira Gandhi but even helped the Congress run its minority government. But unlike his friends, Nikhilda did not change sides. After leaving the CPI, he never became the member of any party. A person as fiercely independent as Nikhilda could not have belonged to any political party. This was so because a freedom-loving intellectual like him could never have liked the kind of falsehood and unprincipled alliances in which parties and their leaders indulge for grabbing power. It was not possible for Dada to accept the entire range of compromises made by the Communists. Yet, in his heart and thinking Dada remained a Marxist—of whichever hue. He had begun to believe in Gandhi as well.

From the times of Nehru till the Gujral regime was in office, the Leftists and Dada's friends had a strong influence in the running of the government and in public sphere. Yet, Dada did not accept any office of power or profit. In 1990, he returned the Padma Bhushan, saying that it was imperative for journalistic objectivity and commitment that one should never be identifed with the establishment or even appear to be so.

The then President was also Dada's friend and the government of the day was being propped up by the Leftists. Yet, Dada refused his own people. Such a nature is essential for living upto one's beliefs, commitments and values, and for staving off greed and fear. Unless you keep journalism and its practice above political power, money and popular pride and do your work keeping this principle in mind, you cannot develop the fearlessness, commit-ment and independence of Nikhilda.

Nikhil Chakravartty lived the kind of life that a journalist faithful to his vocation should lead. He was a saint who believed in Marx. He lived like a lion surrounded by rats craving for crumbs. To mourn his going is to insult him; to live like him is to keep him alive.

(Courtesy: Jansatta)

(Mainstream Independence Day Special Number, August 15, 1998)

(Translated from Hindi by Ashish Sinha)

The following is the speech delivered by the CPI-M General Secretary at the EMS Smrithi, Thrissur, (Kerala) on June 13, 2016.

I am, indeed, very happy to be back at the EMS Smrithi. I am honoured to inaugurate this 2016 discussions on the ‘Idea of India: A New Agenda for Reclaiming Secular Democracy'.

‘Idea of India' — The Backdrop

The emergence of Nation-States was integral to the long process of transition of human civilisation from the stage of feudalism to capitalism. This period also threw up in Europe, the struggle for the separation of the State from the Church. The triumph of capitalism over feudalism, at the same time, signified the separation of the political authority from the myth of a divine sanction to rule invoked by Kings and Emperors across the civilisations during the high time of feudalism. The agreements of Westphalia finally signed in 1648 laid the principles of sovereignty of the Nation- State and the consequent international laws and is widely believed to establish an international system on the basis of the principle of sovereignty of States; principle of equality between States; and the principle of non-intervention of one State in the internal affairs of another State usually referred to as the Westphalian system. Westphalian Peace was negotiated between 1644-48 between the major European powers. These treaties laid the basis for a host of international laws many of which remain in force today.

During the course of the defeat of fascism in World War II and the consequent dynamics of decolonisation, the people's struggles for freedom from colonialism threw up many constructs regarding the character of these independent countries. For sure, such constructs arose out of a long struggle in individual countries against colonialism, including India, during this period.

‘Idea of India' — Evolution

The concept of the ‘Idea of India' emerged during the epic people's struggle for India's freedom from British colonialism. What is this ‘Idea of India'? To put it in simple terms, though conscious of its complex multiple dimensions, this concept represents the idea that India as a country moves towards transcending its immense diversities in favour of a substantially inclusive unity of its people.

Prof Akeel Bilgrami, in his introduction to a volume of essays containing revised versions of lectures on the relations between politics and political economy in India given at a seminar in 2010 at the Heymen Centre for Humanities at Columbia University, New York (a Centre that he chaired then), says about my observations on the ‘Idea of India', then, the following:

“(This) might be viewed as an ideal of a nation that rejects the entire trajectory in Europe that emerged after the Westphalian peace. What emerged then (and there) was a compulsion to seek legitimacy for a new kind of state, one that could no longer appeal to older notions of the ‘divine right' of states personified in their monarchs. It sought this legitimacy in a new form of political psychology of a new kind of subject, the ‘citizen', a psychology based on a feeling for a new form of entity that had emerged, the ‘nation'. This feeling, which came to be called ‘nationalism', had to be generated in the populace of citizens, and the standard process that was adopted in Europe for generating it was to find an external enemy within, the outsider, the ‘other' in one's midst (the Irish, the Jews, to name just two), to be despised and subjugated. In a somewhat later time, with the addition of a more numerical and statistical form of discourse, these came to be called ‘minorities' and the method by which this feeling for the nation was created came to be called ‘majoritarianism'.” (Social Scientist, January-February 2011)

The RSS/BJP objective of replacing the secular democratic modern Indian Republic with their concept of a ‘Hindu Rashtra' is, in a sense, a throw back to the Westphalian model where the Hindu majority subjugates other religious minorities (mainly Muslim: the external enemy within) to foster ‘Hindu Nationalism' as against ‘Indian Nationhood'. This, in fact, represents a throw back to notions of nationalism that dominated the intellectual discourse prior to the sweep of the Indian people's struggle for freedom. Such a State, based on ‘Majoritarianism'—their version of a rabidly intolerant fascistic ‘Hindu Rashtra'—negates the core, around which emerged the consciousness of Indian Nationhood contained in the ‘Idea of India' as a reflection of the emergence of “a political psychology of a new kind”.

The RSS/BJP ideologues dismiss the ‘Idea of India' as a mere idea—a metaphysical concept. They reassert as a given reality Indian (Hindu) nationalism, negating the epic freedom struggle of the Indian people. From this struggle emerged the concept of Indian Nationhood rising above the Westphalian concept of ‘nationalism'. The RSS/BJP today are spearheading the most reactionary ‘throwback' to Indian (Hindu) nationalism as against the Indian Nationhood (the ‘Idea of India') consciousness that emerged from the epic people's struggle for freedom from the British colonial rule. Akeel Bilgrami asserts to this: “The prodigious and sustained mobilisation of its masses that India witnessed over the last three crucial decades of the freedom struggle could not have been possible without an alternative and inclusionary ideal of this kind to inspire it.” (Social Scientist, Volume 39, Number 1-2, 2011)

India's diversity—linguistic, religious, ethnic, cultural etc.—is incomparably vaster than in any other country that the world knows of. Officially, it has been recorded that there are at least 1618 languages in India; 6400 castes, six major religions—four of them originated in these lands; six anthropologically defined ethnic groups; all this put together being politically administered as one country. A measure of this diversity is that India celebrates 29 major religio-cultural festivals and probably has the largest number of religious holidays amongst all countries of the world.

Those who argue that it was the British that united this vast diversity ignore the fact that it was the British which engineered the partition of the subcontinent leading to over a million deaths and a communal transmigration of a colossal order. British colonialism has the ignomous history of leaving behind legacies that continue to fester wounds through the partition of countries they had colonised— Palestine, Cyprus, in Africa etc. apart from the Indian subcontinent. It is the Pan-Indian people's struggle for freedom that united this diversity and integrated more than 660 feudal princely states into modern India giving shape to a Pan-Indian consciousness.

Role of the Left

The Indian Left played an important role in this process of the evolution of this ‘Idea of India'. Indeed, for this very reason, given the Left's visionary commitments to the long struggle for freedom, the Left's role is absolutely central to the realisation of the ‘Idea of India' in today's conditions.

Let me illustrate this with reference to three issues that continue to constitute the core of the ‘Idea of India'. The struggles on the land question unleashed by the Communists in various parts of the country last century—Punnapara Vayalar in Kerala, the Tebagha movement in Bengal, the Surma Valley struggle in Assam, the Worli uprising in Maharashtra etc.—the highlight of which was the armed struggle in Telengana— brought the issue of land reforms to centre-stage. The consequent abolition of the zamindari system and landed estates drew the vast mass of India's peasantry into the project of building the ‘Idea of India'. In fact, such struggles contributed the most in liberating crores of people from feudal bondage. This also contributed substantially in creating the ‘Indian middle class'.

In today's conditions, the issue of forcible land acquisition has acquired a very dangerous dimension. Subverting the Parliament legis-lation, many BJP-led State governments are implementing schemes which permit the indiscriminate acquisition of agricultural land forcibly dispossessing lakhs of farmers, aggra-vating the agrarian distress even further. The question of land, hence, remains a crucial issue for the Left, the most important political force that is today focusing on developing the agrarian struggles against the mounting distress and the neo-liberal policies that are intensifying the process of primitive accumulation of capital.

Secondly, the Indian Left spearheaded the massive popular struggles for the linguistic reorganisation of the States in independent India. It, thus, is chiefly responsible for creating the political ‘map' of today's India on reasonably scientific and democratic lines. The struggles for Vishalandhra, Aikya Kerala and Samyukta Maharashtra were led, amongst others, by people who later emerged as Communist stalwarts in the country. This paved the way for the integration of many linguistic natio-nalities that inhabit India, on the basis of equality, into the process of realising the ‘Idea of India'.

Even after the linguistic reorganisation of States, today, many problems and demands for smaller States reflect the lack of equality amongst the various ethnic identities that exist in the country, particularly in the North-East. These can only be resolved by ensuring that all the linguistic groups and ethnic national identities are treated equally with concrete plans backed by finances to tackle the economic backwardness of these areas; and having equal access to all opportunities. It is only the Left that sincerely champions this cause to strengthen the unity and integrity of India.

Thirdly, the Left's steadfast commitment to secularism was based on the recognition of India's reality. The unity of India with its immense diversity can be maintained only by strengthening the bonds of commonality in this diversity and not by imposing any uniformity upon this diversity like what the communal forces seek currently to do. While this is true for all the attributes of India's social life, it is of critical importance in relation to religion. Following the partition of India and the horrendous communal aftermath, secularism became an inseparable element for the realisation of the ‘Idea of India'. The Indian ruling classes, however, went only half-way in meeting the Left's objective of defining secularism as the separation of religion from politics. This means that while the State protects the individual's choice of faith, it shall not profess or prefer any one religion. In practice, the Indian ruling classes have reduced this to define secularism as equality of all religions. Inherent in this is the in-built bias towards the religious faith of the majority. This, in fact, contributes to providing sustenance to the communal and fundamentalist forces today.

On this score as well, in today's conditions, it is the Left that remains the most consistent upholder of secularism, spearheading the efforts to forge the broadest people's unity against communalism and the steadfast fighter to defend the religious minorities; to ensure their security and equality as citizens of our country.

These are illustrative of some constituents of the ‘Idea of India'. The drawing in of the exploited majority of rural India; the drawing in of the socially oppressed people, especially those who continue to be subjected to obnoxious caste- based oppression and atrocities; the drawing in of the numerous linguistic nationalities; and the drawing in of the multi-religious Indian population, above all, the drawing in of all Indians in an inclusive path of economic and social justice, constituting the core of the inclusionary ‘Idea of India', remains an unful-filled agenda. The struggles for realising these incomplete tasks constitute the essential agenda of the CPI-M and Indian Left.

Battle of Visions

The emergence of the conception of the ‘Idea of India' was a product of the Indian people's struggle. It arose from a continuous battle between three visions that emerged during the course of India's struggle for freedom in the 1920s over the conception of the character of independent India. The mainstream Congress vision had articulated that independent India should be a secular democratic Republic. The Left, while agreeing with this objective went further to envision that the political freedom of the country must be extended to achieve the socio-economic freedom of every individual, possible only under socialism.

Antagonistic to both these was the third vision which argued that the character of independent India should be determined by the religious affiliations of its people. This vision had a twin expression—the Muslim League championing an ‘Islamic State' and the RSS championing a ‘Hindu Rashtra'. The former succeeded in the unfortunate partition of the country, admirably engineered, aided and abetted by the British colonial rulers, with all its consequences that continue to fester tensions till date. The latter, having failed to achieve their objective at the time of independence, continue with their efforts to transform modern India into their project of a rabidly intolerant fascistic ‘Hindu Rashtra'. In a sense the ideological battles and the political conflicts in contemporary India are a continuation of the battle between these three visions. Needless to add, the contours of this battle will continue to define the direction and content of the process of the realisation of the ‘Idea of India'.

Further, the Indian Left argued then and maintains today that the mainstream Congress vision of consolidating the secular, democratic foundations of our Republic can never be sustainable unless independent India frees itself from its bondage with imperialism and breaks the stranglehold of feudal vestiges. The Congress party's inability to take the freedom struggle to this logical culmination became clear by its serving the interests of the post-independence ruling classes — bourgeoisie in alliance with the landlords, led by the big bourgeoisie. This, by itself, weakens the foundations of a secular democratic Republic. First, it relegates the anti-imperialist social consciousness that forged the unity of the people during the freedom struggle to the background, thus permitting and buttre-ssing a social consciousness dominated by caste and communal passions. Secondly, instead of strengthening an inclusive India, it progressively excludes the growing majority of the exploited classes. This is resoundingly vindicated by our experience during these six decades of independence. This provides the ‘grist to the mill' of the communal forces, or the third vision, to strengthen itself exploiting the growing popular discontent against the policies pursued by the ruling classes.

A mere declaration of the creation of a secular democratic Republic and its reassertion by the Congress today, by definition, remains limited in its ability to realise this inclusive ‘Idea of India'.

There is another equally important factor that prevents the realisation of the ‘Idea of India'. The path of capitalist development being pursued by the ruling classes is one where there is an increasing collaboration with international finance capital and in compromise with feudal landlords. The Indian capitalist path of development, hence, is not along the classic lines of capitalism rising from the ruins of feudalism but in compromise with it.

The inability to eliminate the vestiges of feudalism means, at the level of the super-structure, the perpetuation of the social conscio-usness associated with feudalism and other pre-capitalist formations. The domination of religion and caste, integral to the social consciousness of pre-capitalist formations, continue to remain powerful in today's social order. The efforts at super-imposing capitalism only create a situation where the backwardness of consciousness associated with feudal vestiges is combined with the degenerative ‘consumerism' of today's globalised capitalist consciousness.

The Caste Factor:The process of class formation in India, as a consequence of such circumscribed capitalist development is, thus, taking place within the parameters of historically inherited structures of a caste divided society. It is taking place not by overthrowing the pre-capitalist social relations but in compromise with it. This results in the overlapping commonality between the exploited classes and oppressed castes in contemporary India. Class struggles in India, therefore, can advance only through simultaneous struggles against both, economic exploitation and social oppression.

Thus, at the level of the superstructure, feudal decadence is combined with capitalist degene-ration to produce a situation where growing criminalisation of the society, coexists and grows in the company of such social consciousness dominated by caste and communal feelings. Instead of overcoming such consciousness for the realisation of the ‘Idea of India', precisely these elements that are sustained and exploited by the ruling classes for their political-electoral benefits.

Such a reality provides the fertile ground which engenders the current Rightward shift in Indian politics buttressing the efforts for the negation of the ‘Idea of India' and the erection of a ‘Hindu Rashtra' in its place.

Fascism? Does all this mean the emergence of fascism in India? The most authoritative and to date scientific analysis of the nature and emergence of European fascism was made by Georgi Dimitrov in his penetrating address to the Seventh Communist International in 1935. He defined fascism as the “open terroristic dictatorship of the most reactionary, most chauvinistic and most imperialistic elements of finance capital”. The capturing of state power by fascism is not an ordinary succession of one bourgeois government by another but the substitution of one form of the ruling class state by another—bourgeois parliamentary democracy by an open terroristic dictatorship.

This came as a response, in Europe, of the ruling classes to the actual crisis that threatened its class domination. This was the case with the German monopoly capital, as a part of the global capitalist crisis of the ‘Great Depression' that began in 1929, in the period preceding Hitlerite fascism. This threat emerged as a response to the crisis generated by the ruling classes' own rule both from within its own camp as well as, and often simultaneously, with the challenge to its class rule by the toiling sections of the working people—the proletariat.

The situation obtaining in our country today is not similar to the period leading to the emergence of fascism in Germany. The threat of the immediate seizure of power by the proletariat is not yet on the agenda. Further, the crisis of the bourgeois-landlord class rule, notwithstanding the sharply increasing authoritarian tendencies, recently seen in the Uttarakhand developments and the undermining of institutions of parliamentary democracy, has not reached a stage where the jettisoning of parliamentary democracy by the ruling classes is on the immediate agenda.

Hence, the assumption of power by the RSS-led BJP does not mean the establishment of fascism in its classical sense. Undoubtedly, the RSS vision of its ‘Hindu Rashtra' is a fascistic vision. However, if the RSS does succeed, then it is a qualitatively different situation. That, however, is the situation that the revolutionary forces must work to render as unrealisable. The present situation, therefore, can be more appropriately described by the fact that the crisis of the bourgeois landlord class rule has reached a stage where one section of the ruling classes, the most reactionary section, represented by the RSS/BJP and the Saffron Brigade, has succeeded in capturing state power, at the moment. And, they are vigorously using this to advance their vision of establishing a fascistic ‘Hindu Rashtra'.

However, there are striking similarities in the propaganda methods employed by European fascism and the RSS. The RSS/BJP today adopt fascistic methods of appropriation of popular symbols, create a false consciousness of deprivation amongst the majority community and appeal to extreme jingoism as their methods to advance. Dimitrov had said: “Fascism acts in the interests of extreme imperialists but presents itself to the masses in the guise of a wronged nation and appeals to outraged ‘national' sentiments.” In order to present the RSS as such a champion, a false consciousness is created that the Hindus had been and continue to be deprived, while, at the same time, generating hate against the Muslims (taking the cue from Hitler's rabid anti-Semitism) to the effect that they are responsible for such a ‘deprivation' of the Hindus. To achieve its goal of a ‘Hindu Rashtra' it has perfected the Goebbelsian technique of ‘telling big enough lies frequently enough to make them appear as the truth'.

Georgi Dimitrov says: “It is in the interests of the most reactionary circles of the bourgeoisie that fascism intercepts the disappointed masses who desert the old bourgeois parties. But it impresses these masses by the vehemence of its attacks on the bourgeois governments and its irreconcilable attitude to the old bourgeois parties.”

Further, Dimitrov notes: “Fascism puts the people at the mercy of the most corrupt and venal elements but comes before them with the demand for ‘an honest and incorruptible government' speculating on the profound disillusionment of the masses...fascism adapts its demagogy to the peculiarities of each country. And the mass of petty bourgeois and even a section of the workers, reduced to despair by want, unemployment and insecurity of their existence fall victim to the social and chauvinist demagogy of fascism.” (Dimitrov, Georgi, Selected Works, Volume 2, Sofia Press, 1972, page 12)

Dimitrov could well be talking about the RSS/BJP's current campaigns and the people's experiences with its control of the State since the 2014 general elections. This shows a chilling convergence with fascist methodology. Impor-tantly, this strengthens the grip of the ruling class hegemony, which requires to be urgently confronted.

Unless confronted, the very conception of the ‘Idea of India' that we are discussing will be rendered redundant. At the same time, it is clear that the unity and integrity of our country and the unity of the social fabric of our immensely diverse society cannot be maintained unless the ‘Idea of India' is fully realised. Such a realisation is only possible when the revolutionary forces in our country advance in order to beat back the current communal offensive that negates the ‘Idea of India'. This is the only manner in which the process of the unfolding of the ‘Idea of India' can advance.

The Agenda

But then how can this be achieved? What constitutes the various elements of the agenda that must engage us in today's conditions?

First, communalism divides the Indian people on the basis of their religious identity. This is not only detrimental to the security and livelihood of the religious minorities, but also undermines the unity and integrity of our country and people. By doing so, communalism disrupts the very unity of the most exploited classes in our society on whose strength alone the revolutionary movement can advance. The communal forces today, therefore, represent a lethal counter-revolutionary force in our country. This has to be vigorously combated and defeated by forging the broadest people's unity.

The agenda that we are discussing today for reclaiming secular democracy requires, first and foremost, the strengthening of class and people's struggles. The objective of such popular upsurges must be the strengthening of the Left and democratic forces in our country, which has to be based, in turn, on the basis of an alternative policy framework to the existing bourgeois-landlord class rule.

Secondly, there is a need to recognise the class-caste overlap that exists in our country today. Class struggle in India has essentially two elements—economic exploitation and social oppression. Class struggle in India, therefore, stands on these two legs. Unless both these aspects are simultaneously taken up by the revolutionary forces with equal emphasis, the class struggle cannot begin its walk forward, leave alone running ahead. Issues of social oppression centring around the obnoxious caste oppression will have to be a part of the new agenda as much as the issues against economic exploitation have traditionally been. This inte-gration of both these aspects is an important element of this new agenda.

Thirdly, the ‘Idea of India' can never blossom unless the constitutional guarantee of equality “irrespective of caste, creed and sex” is scrupulously respected and implemented. Unless this is done, the confidence of the minorities in the Indian State cannot be strengthened. It is precisely playing upon this element of targeting religious minorities that the communal forces seek to consolidate their grip over State power. Championing the interest of the minorities is, hence, an important element of our agenda.

Fourthly, there are various popular and social movements that champion various important issues that need to be integrated in this struggle. Issues like environmental concerns are assuming a very serious dimension threatening the future existence of life on our planet. There are many others like the movements on the issues of children's rights; for a universal public health system; for a security net to be guaranteed by the State for the old and disabled people; the movements against gender oppression and for gender equality etc. etc. A common ground must be found to integrate such popular social movements with the larger revolutionary and democratic movement. This is again an important element of this agenda.

In addition to this, there are many other aspects that would legitimately be part of this agenda whose final objective would be to consolidate the unity of our diverse people into a single force for creating a better India for our people and for our country by permitting the unfettered unfolding of the ‘Idea of India'.

by Praveen Davar

No two leaders in the freedom struggle were closer to each other ideologically, and personally, than Jawaharlal Nehru and Subhas Chandra Bose. Nehru and Bose had much in common when it came to their views about the social and economic reconstruction of India. Both believed in variants of socialism and were deeply committed to secularism and Hindu-Muslim unity. It was only in 1939, less than two years before Subhash escaped to Germany, that the duo fell out. No two leaders of the Congress differed more with each other in their political views than the ‘Rightest' Sardar Patel and the ‘Leftist' Bose. This article attempts to explain the circumstances which led Bose to resign from the Gandhi led, and Patel controlled, Congress and chart out his own destiny.

Following Jawaharlal Nehru's two conse-cutive terms in 1936 and 1937, Subhas Bose was elected President of the Congress in 1938, with Gandhiji's goodwill. But he and his group of Leftists were not in tune with Gandhiji's principles and policies without being clear themselves about what was to be done under the prevailing circumstances. However, in selecting members of the Working Committee Subhas did not deviate from the old pattern when important decisions were taken by the Working Committee as a body. The President was only the first among equals. As the year 1938 was coming to a close, the question as to who should be the next President had to be decided.

Subhas wanted a second term but Gandhiji had made it clear to him that he would not support him. Subhas was determined to stand again. His name had been proposed. The question of the next President was discussed by the Working Committee held in Bardoli. Subhas did not attend this meeting. Four candidates, whose names had been proposed by different provinces for the election of the next President, were Subhas, Maulana Azad, Vallabhbhai and Pattabhi. The Maulana wanted to withdraw his nomination but Gandhiji and others induced him not to do so. He acquiesced. Vallabhbhai thereupon withdrew his name. From Bardoli the Maulana went to Bombay and four days later he sent a letter of withdrawal from the contest. He gave no reason for changing his mind.

Vallabhbhai having withdrawn from the contest, there remained only Subhas and Pattabhi in the field and the time for the nominations was past. Rabindranath Tagore wrote to Gandhi and Nehru urging them to select Bose. As Tagore saw it, there were only two modernists among the Congrerss leaders: Nehru and Bose. As Nehru was already the serving Chairman, National Planning Committee, Tagore wanted to see Bose once more as the Congress President. Gandhi was unimpressed by the poet's foray into politics and chose to ignore his recommendation. Bose prefered a Leftist like Acharya Narendra Dev. But with no one unanimously acceptable, he decided to contest himself. He justified this on the ground that he held strong views in favour of reviving civil disobedience on a mass scale, for with a war on the horizon this was an opportune time to do so. He also urged that his re-election would enable him to check the tendency of the Working Committee to compromise on the scheme of a federal structure at the Centre.

This was a direct attack on the Working Committee and Sardar took up cudgels on behalf of it. He regretted that Subhas Bose was trying to split the Congress over the election of the President, a post which as a symbol of the unity of the people had been normally filled without contest. Why did he want to defy Gandhiji and his own Working Committee ? ‘Because he felt he was big enough to challenge them and was confident that he alone could lead the Congress to victory.' Sardar declared that Subhas Bose's bid for re-election raised grave issues. The statement issued by him clearly showed that he had an inflated idea of the role of President. He should know that he was not the leader of the Congress but only a presiding officer. Actually, he was one among equals. On many occasions in the past, the President had had to carry out the decisions of the Working Committee, though they were contrary to his personal views.

Sardar was amazed that Subhas Bose had also attacked members of the Working Committee below the belt by accusing them of the intention to betray the Congress. The decision to reject the federal scheme had already been taken by the Congress, and there was no question of the Working Committee's going back on this. Bose was, therefore, misleading the electorate by posing as the saviour of the Congress. He was aware of this, and was using his office to further his ambition to secure mastery over the Congress. Gandhiji and Jawa-harlal Nehru appealed to Subhas Bose to withdraw his candidature in favour of Pattabhi Sitaramayya, who had been nominated by the Working Committee. But Subhas Bose was filled with the zeal of a crusader and insisted that the people should be given freedom to make their own choice.

This created a delicate and unique situation in the Congress. Since the time Gandhiji assumed leadership of the freedom struggle, the Congress President had been unanimously elected with his goodwill. Now, the organisation was divided into two groups. Intense canvassing went on either side. Subhas, who was a very able organiser, had during the term of his office quietly been working for his re-election. He won the election. On his re-election, those members of the Working Committee who had backed Pattabhi thought it proper to submit their resignations. They sent a joint letter of resignation to Subhas. Jawaharlal submitted his resignation in a separate letter. He did not want to be identified with the members of the old Working Committee.

A meeting of the AICC was called at Calcutta to take stock of the situation created by the resolution which was passed at Tripuri and to find a way out of the impasse. The members who had resigned from the Working Committee could not possibly join the new executive. Apart from the fact that they had resigned from the Working Committee as soon as it was announced that Subhas was re-elected President, they were also unable to join as they found that they differed from Subhas in certain vital matters. Letters and telegrams were exchanged between Subhas and Gandhiji about the formation of the Working Committee. In his last letter addressed to Subhas from Sodepore, Gandhiji wrote: “Knowing your own views and knowing how you and most of the members differ in fundamentals it seems to me that if I gave you names it would be an imposition on you.” After receiving this letter which confirmed the position taken by the old members of the Working Committee, Subhas thought it best to resign. The pity of it was that most of the socialists and radicals who had supported his re-election were no more with him.

But Subhas Bose continued his flank attack on the Congress by openly deriding the Congress Ministries in the provinces. The Working Committee warned him to desist from such activities. But Bose was a stubborn fighter. The Working Committee took up the challenge and disqualified him from holding any elected post in the Congress for three years. Bose resigned from the Congress and formed a new party, the Forward Bloc. According to a biography of Sardar Patel: ‘Vallabhbhai heaved a sigh of relief at the exit of a would-be dictator from the fold of the Congress — wherein he had functioned as a breaker rather than as a maker. Sardar had skilfully undone the mischief of the election of Bose. He had re-established Gandhij's supremacy over the Congress.'

Along with a sense of conviction in their life's missions, both Gandhi and Bose were tempera-mentally very strong-willed and admant about their judgement of priorities. In vain did Nehru try to mediate between the two headstrong men, during the Tripuri crises over the re-election of Subhas as the Congress President. The election drama brought into the open the differences in approaches, priorities, methods and mindsets of the three leaders. As Jawaharlal put it, behind the political issues there were psychological issues and these were much more difficult to resolve. In this crisis, both Gandhi and Subhas had acted from their convictions and were driven by their inner compulsions although they were at cross-purposes. Subhas had been asked by Gandhi to ‘cheerfully submit' to party discipline, and when he declined, he was edged out. However, his determination to chart out an alternative course to the Gandhian line led him to form his own party, the Forward Bloc, which despite its loud rhetoric, could never provide a viable alternative to Gandhi. The reaction of Jawharlal to this crisis demons-trated a totally different philosophical mindset and a contrasting response.

From the beginning, although Nehru had supported Subhas in his youthful challenge of the conservative Gandhian Congress, he would never encourage any divisive move that could break its unity. He, therefore, pleaded with Subhas not to contest the elections and tried to demystify the position of the Congress President, having held it several times himself. At the same time, his democratic temperament was unhappy with the Congress resolution with its insistence on a homogeneous Working Committee and asking the current members to resign. He pointed out that it had been a Congress tradition to allow several points of view to be represented in the apex body, and that although some homogeneity was needed, it should not be narrowly interpreted. Therefore, he did not resign with the others but acted as if he had. This was Nehru's quandary: intellectually, he resented the pressure tactics of Gandhi to make Subhas buckle under and yet he could not go along with Subhas in his defiant and rebellious path. Instead, he tried to play the role of the mediator. He prevailed upon Subhas to meet Gandhi and mend fences while he persuaded Gandhi to be more charitable towards Subhas. He succeeded with neither.

With the German attack on Poland in September 1939 marking the start of World War II, the focus now changed. Congress Ministries were asked to resign. In the discussions on the war situation which Viceroy Linlithgow had with the Congress, Subhas Bose was also invited to participate. Subhas did not sympathise with the fate of Britain, reiterating instead his earlier views about utilising the war situation to India's advantage. Without anyone to share his views, Subhas now turned back to Bengal where he stole some of the limelight by beginning an agitation for the removal of the Holwell Monument in the summer of 1940. The monument, which had been built in mid-eighteenth-century Calcutta as a memorial to the victims of the so-called Black Hole tragedy, was an eyesore for both communities of Indians, Hindus and Muslims. Arrested along with others, Subhas was, however, not released even after the government decided to do away with the monument and his co-prisoners were set free.

Sensing that the British Government was planning to keep him in detention for the period of the war and realising that his political options within the country were limited, Subhas now hatched his sensational plan of escape, first from the British prison and then from the country. Commencing a fast unto death in protest against his unjust imprisonment, he frightened the jail authorities into letting him out in a few days as his indifferent health posed hazards. From under house arrest he wrote to Gandhi about the need for a mass movement. Gandhi replied that their paths had to be different for they were sailing in different boats. On January 16, 1941, Subhas escaped house arrest and subsequently left India, taking the British authorities and his countrymen by total surprise. He will never return and, despite the veracity of his aircrash, will never be allowed to die.

The author, an ex-Army officer, is a member of the National Commission for Minorities. The views expressed by him here are personal.

According to a report in The Hindu newspaper of June 12, 2016, Sanatan Sanstha spokesperson Abhay Vartak said that he is “sad to see that Hindu organisations [are] being targeted in spite of a Hindu government being in power”. He forgot that the law has no religion and that the law is above the government in power. A man who kills another human being is a murderer, plain and simple, and he is liable to the same punishment regardless of his religion. Most important, the Constitution of India requires the Government of India to have no religion.

It is of course characteristic that Hindutva people should expect to be above the law when their people run the government. They have neither principles nor morals, after all, and they derive their strength from “hamare log” in the government and the administration, not least the police forces. The painstakingly built up structure of Indian democracy—the Constitution, various institutions, the body of laws—means nothing to them. All of these things can be bent to their will by those in power. Voh toh hai thanedar ka sala is the guiding principle.

As we have seen in the two years since Hindutva came to power, its people are above the law. Their most horrific actions are not punished and are, in fact, given the seal of approval by the Prime Minister's silence. He was silent even about the barbaric killing of Akhlaq at Dadri. And of course he does not bat an eye-lid when people of his “family” honour criminals from among themselves and hold “mahapanchayats” to plan mayhem.

Sangeet Som, who criminally helped to instigate the Muzaffarnagar violence with a fake video and inflammatory speeches, and his fellow MLA Suresh Rana, were first felicitated by the BJP in Agra at a rally for Modi, the then prime ministerial candidate, in November 2013. Modi said nothing about the two in his speech. For a man who lavishly ridicules and abuses his opponents, silence about the foul behaviour and the crimes of people of his own “family” can only be seen as approval.

That was before Modi became the Prime Minister. After he came to power, those who committed crimes before 2014 have retroactively been declared innocent. This has been done systematically, and many now hold that the system of justice itself has been subverted and corrupted.

Gujarat, Modi's fief, has predictably seen the worst of this. Maya Kodnani, sentenced to 28 years' imprisonment for her role in the Naroda Patiya massacre, was granted bail by the Gujarat High Court—on July 30, 2014—on grounds of ill health. D.G. Vanzara, the “encounter specialist” who spent over seven years locked up in the Tulsiram Prajapati case, is out on bail and making grand public appearances. Amit Shah, the then Home Minister of Gujarat, arrested in 2010 in the same case and described as “kingpin and prime accused”, is not only out on bail and free to go to Gujarat, from which he had been externed, but is also the Party Boss in Delhi. His standing in the Sangh Parivar may even be higher because of the charges against him.

In these days of Hindutva, reality is of no consequence while the rulers' image is all-important. When Party Boss Shah speaks to his party workers, he never asks them to do what they promised in their manifestos. His entire focus is on what they should make the people believe. The grand spectacle of Modi's coronation and the staged photos of him and other leaders with brooms are image building and only that. So is the plastering of his and Shah's faces all over the newspapers and, indeed, wherever one cares to look.

All this is of course only to be expected, for in the general elections of 2014 Modi's image was played up while the reality was concocted—or disguised and suppressed. Modi is an achiever only for those who have manufactured his image: his achievements are imaginary.

These two years of Hindutva have seen no improvement in the lives of the common people. There has, in fact, been a decline, looking at many indicators—and this is when the effects of handing over the country to rapacious big capital have yet to fully manifest themselves.

All we have of the promised Good Days is an endless flow of loud but empty slogans. These slogans are too many to count, and I shall speak only of the strident and incessant calls for patriotism. How do we explain them? India is at war with no one; and India has no enemies. Pakistan, the “enemy” according to Hindutva, has been put in that role precisely so that patriotism may be invoked. We then see that the calls for patriotism are not aimed at making Indians love India. They are a device for labelling “anti-national” those people whom the Hindu Right fears. These are chiefly Muslims, tribals and those of the Left — or, as a friend said the other day, all who can think for themselves and who can see through the giant web of lies which Hindutva has fashioned.

There is one pair of slogans which gives hope. Students, who have felt the fist of a malign State and of Hindutva toadies planted in high positions above them, can be heard shouting both “Jai Bheem!” and “Lal Salaam!” I am one of those who believe that this new alignment will not remain confined to academia but will burst forth upon all of India.

The author is a writer, editor and photographer.

There is a good deal of misunderstanding about the subject itself, which is aggravated by the language of Article 44 of the Constitution. Most people believe that we do not have common civil laws in this country. The reality is, all civil laws are common, except one law, namely, the personal law which varies with the religious groups. The personal law relates to marriage, divorce, succession and inheritance, main-tenance, custody of children and adoption. By tradition, the personal law is treated as religious, though religion has nothing to do with it. It is interesting to note that the Hindus, who are clamouring for the common civil law, had themselves, led by the iconic leaders like B. G. Tilak, claimed that the Hindu personal law was a religious law and had warned the then British regime not to interfere with it, when the minimum marriageable age of the female was sought to be raised from 12 to 14 years by a bill tabled by Mr Vithalbhai Patel in the then Imperial Council. No wonder, therefore, that when a small section of Hindus—and of Hindus alone—is insisting today on a common civil code. that is, common personal law, the minorities, and particularly the Muslims, are raising the bogey of interference in their religious affairs.

It is therefore first necessary to correct or to read correctly, the language of Article 44, to mean that the direction is to secure a uniform “personal” law. Secondly, it must be borne in mind that Chapter IV of the Constitution, which contains Article 44, is a chapter on Directive Principles of the Constitution. There are other more vitally important and crucial Directive Principles contained in the Chapter which need to be implemented in the interests of all sections of the people and of the nation as a whole. But the Hindu fundamentalists do not even take cognisance of them.

The insistence of the Hindu bigots on uniform personal law is not borne out of any principles or values. This is not to deny the desirability of a uniform personal law consistent with human rights and the principles of equality, fairness and justice. In fact, these norms have to be observed in all human transactions in any civilised society. The question is of the appropriate method to be adopted for enacting the law. The subject being sensitive and almost certain to give opportunity to the religious diehards to raise communal controversies and create clashes, is it the proper time to secure such a law? What is the urgency of the law? Which national interests are in danger for want of the a law? Which aspect of progress or development is threatened, obstructed or impaired but for the law? Whose welfare is to be secured by the law?

Those clamouring for the law, are not concerned with the welfare of the minorities or any section of them. Their only concern is the permission given to Muslim men to marry four women by their personal law as practised in this country. They fear that on that account, the Muslim population in the country may soon outstrip the majority community. If therefore only that licence given to the Muslims is withdrawn, they will have no longer any interest in agitating for a common personal law. It is also on this account that they have started preaching that their Hindu brethren should have as many children as they can—a preaching which is contrary to the norm of two children laid down by the family planning programme of the national and State governments, from the inception. That also bares their hypocritical tears shed for the plight of Muslim women. In fact, one of their icons, Shri V. D. Savarkar, had advocated killing of Muslim women rather than men, since they give birth to Muslims. According to him, the killing of one Muslim woman was equivalent to the killing of ten Muslim men.

We may ponder the reality in this respect. First, the bugbear of more Muslim population on account of the licence to marry four women. The all-India statistics show that the percentage of Muslims marrying more than one woman is sharply dwindling throughout the country on account of various factors including poverty, spread of education both among men and women, increasing exposure to modern life-style, desire for improved standard of living, decreasing means of livelihood, unemployment etc. Secondly, the ratio of females to males born is the same for all communities in the country, and the said ratio shows 986 females to 1000 males. The Muslim females are not surplus that Muslim males may marry more than one woman. The Muslim females further have not remained as dumb as they might have been in the past. The Prophet had permitted men to marry more than one woman (but not more than four women) at that time, because on account of the constant internecine wars, the population of men had dwindled frightfully, and the number of widows and unmarried girls had risen abnormally. That later, even when the normalcy was restored, the selfish men continued to use the permission as a right is another thing. But even then who could afford the luxury of marrying more than one woman and which women would enter the wedlock knowing fully well that they had to contend with the co-wife or wives? The justification for permission to marry more women was that the unmarried girls and the widows should not be left to their fate. But do the Hindu bigots know or they conveniently forget that till the year 1955, the Hindus had a right to marry and many of them married, unlimited number of women, and not only four? The Hindu Marriage Act of 1955, which for the first time restricted the Hindu to marrying only one women, has even now, in some parts of the country not prevented polygamous marriages. Let us also remember that the illegitimate progeny of men, whichever the religion they may belong to, has been thriving all the same, and proportionately, of the Hindus more than of the others. The child marriages, the deserted and divorced women and the fatherless and abandoned children in all religious communities, and the prohibition of widow remarriage in vast sections of the Hindus even today, is the awesome baggage of human hardship that this country has to carry to date. What is the burden each religious community shares of this human misery? Does not the majority community share it more in proportion to its numbers?

The Hindu bigots' logic in this respect is self-defeating. Assuming that all or some Muslims marry four, or more than one woman. If they were not to marry more than one woman, in any case the other women would be married to some other men. Would that prevent increase in the Muslim population? On the other hand, the increase would be more. More than one woman sharing the intimacy of one man, would certainly lead to less births than when each woman has a separate spouse. Does not the Muslim law therefore act in its own way as a measure of controlling the population? Not that the law intended to control the population as such or that it should be commended on that account. The question is posed only to expose the hollowness of the fear raised by the Hindu supermacist.

Coming now to the triple-talaq practised by the Muslims. There is no doubt that it is not consistent with either morality, rationality or human rights, and needs to be done away with as early as possible. It is also not sanctioned by the Quran. Many Muslim countries have modified the provisions of the personal law prohibiting bigamy and divorce by voice-talaq. No doubt the Muslim women also have a similar right which is known as khula. But it is accompanied by many restrictions, and in the patriarchal system, it is as good as ineffective. It is however not the plight of Muslim women, resultant on the exercise by men of their so-called right to triple-talaq, that pains the Hindu extremists agitating for the common personal law. They are least concerned with their misery. On the other hand, following the teachings of their mentor, they are their first target, since they give birth to Muslims. They are using the triple-talaq only as a ruse in support of their demand.

It further appears that they are under an impression that the uniform personal law means the Hindu personal law for all religious communities. There is no doubt that all personal laws have to be just and equitable to both men and women and hence the good from all personal laws has to be accepted and the bad to be discarded. Hence the uniform code, if and when enacted, will have to be a different one from the personal laws of all religious communities. It will have to be framed by consensus among all the religious groups and will have to conform to the norms of modern values of freedom, equality, rationality, justice and humanism, for both men and women. A deeper reading of all personal laws will reveal that each of them contains some good and equitable provisions, which are worth incorporating in an ideal code.

It is true that if a rational common personal law is enacted, it will help eradicate many evil, unjust and irrational practices prevalent across the communities, and will also strengthen the unity and integrity of the country. However, it is wrong to assume that the process of integration is thwarted for want of such a law. Such simplistic assumptions may be a good propaganda material in the hands of the fascist religious forces, but is a harmful method of achieving unity. Apart from being counter-productive, it may divert our attention from the crucial socio-economic and political causes which need to be attended to, to achieve the integration of the communities.

Justice Sawant, a former judge of the Supreme Court and an erstwhile Chairman of the Press Council of India, is currently based in Pune.

The trick of the times clearly is to bloat the least of the Bharatiya Janata Party's successes into an India-shaking phenomenon. Thus, does it matter that in Assam the Congress had been in government for fifteen years and was by any reckoning due for rejection; never mind the fact that had that party borrowed an iota of the BJP's cunning and struck what might have seemed alliances-waiting-to-be-made, it could well have got a fourth term in office? Or does it matter that even now the INC has a higher vote-share in Assam than the gloating BJP? Or that the BJP's “triumph” owes less to itself and more to some borrowed help from other parties, chiefly the Congress itself?

Not a moment has been lost by political pundits to attribute the loss of the INC in Assam after a fifteen-year-long stint in office to the dynastic infirmities of the party. One swallow we are to understand makes a drastic bad summer for the Congress. And never mind the successes of the quite recent past. Here is a thought: that clutch of corporate owners and their spokespeople who wish to see the BJP continue in office for yummy material reasons but are simultaniuously embarrassed and irritated by the social and cultural agenda of the RSS which the BJP dutifully follows do not quite as boldly recommend to the BJP that they sever ties with that wholly extra-constitutional and uneleceted centre of power, namely, the RSS, as they recommend to the Congress that it sever its umbilical allegiance to the Nehru-Gandhi family, never mind their record of services and sacrifices, or their honest-to-god recourse to electoral legitimacy.. Sauce for the goose is not sauce for the gander, and the secular-democratic injunctions of the Constitution be damned so long as the golden egg is in sight, however imaginary that longing be. You might say, having won Assam the Modi Government has solved the agrarian distress, lifted manu-facturing, liquidated unaccounted wealth, enhanced exports by leaps and bounds, created jobs (records show that in 2015-16 the least number of jobs were created in the economy, 140,000, as opposed to the promise of two crore jobs per annum)—indeed won all the other States as well which went to the hustings. The brazenness of the ruling party seems to infect the faces of corporate TV anchors off whom any good, even irrefutable, argument bounces back as India rubber ball from brick wall. Such is the zeitgeist. Even in the shameful shenanigans in Uttarakhand, such worthies on tv could find a way of putting the Congress in the dock, and never mind either the High Court or the Supreme Court. Remind yourself of that magnificent passage in Shakespeare's Timon of Athens wherein we read how gold may turn one thing into another, including the most leperous untruth into a shining truth. One has more than small sympathy with what Sonia Gandhi said the other day: it is neither worthwhile nor lasting to build successes on unprincipled politics. Waiting in the wings are the States of the Punjab, Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Gujarat—none of which may go the BJP way. Do pause and think of that.

None of which is to say that reforms within the political culture of the Congress Party do not need to be hastened—some in drastic ways. State party organisations need to be handed back to leaderships who owe their credit to their own work and standing rather than to any Central endorsements of a feudal kind. They need to be encouraged to think that they may take on the Central leadership in debate and argument as boldly as many used to take on Nehru without having to look over the shoulder. Ideologically, the Congress Party needs to decisively get over the temptation to some-times project itself as a cultural or economic clone of the Bharatiya Janata Party, taking a cue here from Sonia Gandhi's consistently no-non-sense record of practice in these matters. The Party has already shown that it is willing to acknowledge a co-lateral position whenever such course of action helps the larger ideological imperatives of the republic. It must not fall prey to the fashionable view that smart technology and branded gimmickry can substitute for long-term and lasting political legitimacy. And every Congress member, spokesperson, opinion-builder must never lose sight of that which chiefly seeks to overthrow the letter and spirit of the Constitution which alone guarantees the stability-in-plurality and the prospect of social and economic equity that drove the struggle for freedom.

What of the Left? One expects there will be intra-party sectarian brickbats waiting to be hurled at Sitaram Yechury for having let the workers and local leadership of the CPI-M in West Bengal follow their best instincts in striking a grassroots understanding with the Congress. Predictably, the poor showing of the Left Front will be ascribed to that understanding. Blinkered and short-sighted, one is constrained to say. If the Congress has a shade improved upon its previous position both in terms of vote-share and seats won, and the Left rather not. This may say something about the continuing presence or absence of grassroots political hold of the two formations in West Bengal. The Congress, in winning fortyfour seats from some eighty or more contested, has struck a fifty per cent strike rate; that of the Left Front seems around sixteen per cent or so. Can this have been the case simply because the Congress vote did not tansfer to the Left Front? A highly gratuituous and self-congratulatory reading of the oucome methinks.

The sad fact may be that since the ouster of the Left Front in 2011, not only has the Left lost cadres by the droves to the Trinamul and lately even to the BJP, it has done little that is visible to mount a political-ideological struggle to make up for all that it has lost. Most of all, among its top leadership in West Bengal an internecince confusion continues to reign about what policies to adopt vis-a-vis the land-utilisation question and the path of development to be taken in the State. Its inputs into any revolutionary reformu-laltion of the health and education sectors remain in the womb of time. But, even as the Left remains a force in regions, its worry must extend consistently to perpetuating a politics that does not only shore up its pockets of influence but that takes in the character of the state and polity on a nationwide scale.

Indeed in the years before and since independence it is this sort of role that has given to the Left a unique regard and credibility in the life of the nation. It would be highly short-sighted to look upon its raison d'etre in terms which seek to limit it only to electoral successes—crucial and necessary as these are. But to think that it would have performed better in West Bengal had it gone alone may not be more than an interested illusion. Another-thought: in the years to come, and as indeed the recent elections have shown, the greatest and most effective resistance to a centralised and fascistic hegemony comes and is likely to continue to come from strong regioinal political formations. The Left has a crucial role in ensuring that such formations do not ever succumb to supping with the devil.

In the days to come responsible citizens who worry about the state of the Republic and the secular-democratic Constitution in selfless and non-partisan ways must ascribe to themselves the patriotic task of sifting truth from hype and the substantial from the ephemeral. As to the fortunes of particular political formations, history teaches us to read the democratic process in more sophisticated ways than Mr Amit Shah might want us to.

(Courtesy: Outlook)

The author, who taught English literature at the University of Delhi for over four decades and is now retired, is a prominent writer and poet. A well-known commentator on politics, culture and society, he wrote the much acclaimed Dickens and the Dialectic of Growth. His latest book, The Underside of Things—India and the World: A Citizen's Miscellany, 2006-2011, came out in August 2012.

Lest We Forget

Fortyone years ago on June 26, 1975, the Emergency was proclaimed throughout the country as the ruling leadership bared its fangs nakedly displaying its dictatorial proclivities. We present here write-ups and poems that bring back the nightmare of those dark days when our freedom was sought to be snatched away and our voice throttled.—Editor

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Emergency: What it meant by Amiya Rao, B G Rao (27 June 2012) http://www.mainstreamweekly.net/article3526.html

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The Editor's Notebook in Mainstream (June 28, 1975) after the promulgation of Emergency and the imposition of press censorship appeared as follows:

Tagore for Today

Somewhere in the excitement of National Emergency, the editor has lost his notebook. However, Rabindranath Tagore has, in the abundance of his generosity, lent him his own notebook:

Freedom from fear is the freedom I claim for you, my Motherland!—fear, the phantom demon, shaped by your own distorted dreams;

Freedom from the burden of ages, bending your head, breaking your back, blinding your eyes to the beckoning call of the future;

Freedom from shackles of slumber wherewith you fasten yourself to night's stillness, mistrusting the star that speaks of truth's adventurous path;

Freedom from the anarchy of a destiny, whose sails are weakly yielded to blind uncertain winds, and the helm to a hand ever rigid and cold as Death;

Freeom from the insult of the dwelling in a puppet's world, where movements are started through brainless wires, repeated through mindless habits; where figures wait with patient obedience for a master of show to be stirred into a moment's mimicry of life.

June 27 N.C.

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An Eye-witness Account

Published in The Morning News—Sunday Times Service (London) on July 3, 1975. An introduction to the article read:

“An uncensored account from Jonathan Dimbleby who was in Delhi last week for the Thames Televivsion programme: ‘This Week'. He filed his report from Addis Ababa to avoid censorship.”

This was included in The Press She Could Not Whip: Emergency in India as Reported by the Foreign Press. —Editor

The famous Indian journalist sat in his silent office surrounded by notes for an article he would never write and said without melodrama, “You will remember this day because it marks the end of democracy in India.”

The most awesome day in the history of India since Independence was uncannily normal. Soon after Mrs Gandhi's radio broadcast announcing the state of Emergency, Delhi's jingling flotilla of bicycles set off for work as normal. No angry crowd gathered. Shops and factories opened as usual. Beggars begged. The sleek race horses of the rich had their daily exercise and across the road from them and as ignorant as they, one of India's millions of untouchables tottered by clasping an emaciated baby to his neck.

Only the intelligentsia were aroused. At first bewildered, by the evening they were echoing in dismay each other's epitaphs for freedom. Shielding behind anonymity for the first time in their lives, distinguished political commentators were unanimous. Mrs Gandhi has taken steps that she would never retrace: “I never realised what freedom meant until today when I lost it,” said one of them. “I do not expect to find it again.”

The Government's operation was faultlessly efficient. In the first hour of Thurday morning a neatly timed power cut stopped the presses of Delhi's most prominent newspapers. By 5 a.m. hundreds of Opposition leaders had been plucked out of their beds and whisked away into detention. By this time Mrs Gandhi declaring the state of Emergency was on the radio speaking solemnly of the “deep and widespread conspiracy” which threatened the nation and the “forces of disintegration” which had apparently brought India to the abyss were safely silenced.

By the afternoon, as journalists sweltered in office, still without power, the Government issued the details of the Press ‘guidelines'. All ‘unauthorised, irresponsible or demoralising news items', anything ‘likely to bring into hatred or contempt or excite disaffection towards the Government' and ‘any attempt at denigrating the institution of Prime Minister' is now censored.

As her supporters frequently proclaimed last week: “India is Indira, Indira is India.”

Trying to take in the magnitude of what had happened, bewildered by the harshness of the measures, Delhi's Gandhi-watchers sought to comp-rehend her actions on the assumption that she was not merely trying to keep hold of her political power at all counts. They failed. Only that handful which believes that without Mrs Gandhi India would disintegrate found themselves able to swallow her conspiracy theory without indigestion.

Mrs Gandhi spent much of the last week on a makeshift rostrum in the road outside her house, sometimes standing in the rain, always composed and elegant. Pledging to innumerable rallies of her supporters that she would abolish poverty, create socialism and—in or out of office—serve her people as she always had.

Her critics pointed, instead, to the fact that one of the most convincing displays of devotion to Mrs Gandhi last week came from 500 Delhi busisnessmen who left their airconditioned offices to stand at her gate and implore her to remain Prime Minister.

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Does it Matter?

My tablet and my pen,

My two cherished treasures

Are snatched from me,

But does it matter?

For I have dipped my fingers

In the blood of my heart;

My tongue they sealed

Bu does it mater? For,

I have placed a tongue

In every link of chain

That fetters me.

Faiz Ahmed Faiz

A mother of

two small children at 41

after a life of passion

doing good for the unfortunate, the refugee,

and a member

of Parliament to boot,

shot dead on

a British street

talking to constituents.

And you tell me

there is a God.

S. Nihal Singh

Some harshest mistakes have been mollified by straight repentance by the perpetrators. The post-War Germany apologised for the atrocities committed by Hitler and even paid the reparations. Not that the sins committed were forgiven but people generally felt that the children and grandchildren of their parents and grandparents have tried to make amends.

Former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh went to the Golden Temple at Amritsar to say sorry for ‘Operation Bluestar' when the Indian Army stormed the temple to kill the militants, including Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale. The state could not allow another state to come up in the country.

But the Emergency, which was no less a crime, till date remains the darkest phase and not even a word of ‘sorry' has come from the Congress party, particularly the dynasty. The non-Congress parties off and on issue statements or hold protests. But the Congress party, which was ruling then, remains conspicuous by its silence.

After all, what provoked the Emergency? It was the Allahabad High Court judgment which unseated the then Prime Minister, Indira Gandhi, for a poll offence. Instead of following the Court's verdict, she abolished even the rights of the judiciary to question such orders by suspending the very Constitution which authorise the courts to assess the rights and wrongs.

Had Indira Gandhi resigned—her initial decision was to step down which was strongly opposed by Jagjivan Ram—and gone to the public to seek forgiveness, she could have returned with a thumping majority. People were angry by the excesses she committed during the Emergency and the way in which she had become an autocrat.

Although her son, Sanjay Gandhi, and his alter ego, Bansi Lal, ran the state as their personal fiefdom and brooked no criticism, she was generally seen as someone who was innocent and oblivious to what was happening. In fact, things had come to such a pass that blank warrants had been issued to the police who used the warrants to settle even their personal scores.

As a result, more than 100,000 people were detained without trials, houses and business premises of opponents, including political leaders, were raided and even an innocuous film, Aandhi, which portrayed an autocrat ruler, was banned because it had some resemblance to Indira Gandhi's role.

If I were to explain the Emergency to today's generation, I would repeat the adage that eternal vigilance is required to defend press freedom, which is as much true today as it was when India won freedom some 69 years ago. Never did anyone expect that a Prime Minister, after the High Court's indictment, would suspend the Constitution when she should have stepped down voluntarily.

Former Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri would often advise his colleagues: Sit light, not tight. That is the reason why he resigned as the Railway Minister after a big accident at Ariyalur in Tamil Nadu. He took moral responsibility for what had happened.

It is difficult to imagine anybody following that precedent today. Yet, India is still looked upon by the world as a country where the value system exists. Parochialism or posh living is not the answer. The country has to go back to what Mahatma Gandhi told the nation: Disparities drove people to desperation.

There is no point in harking back on the days of independence struggle. All had joined hands to oust the British. I wish the same spirit could be revived to oust poverty. Otherwise, the independence comes to mean a better life only for the haves.

If there was a one-person rule of Indira Gandhi a few decades ago, today it is that of Narendra Modi. Most newspapers and television channels have adapted themselves to his way of working, if not thinking, as they had done during Mrs Gandhi's period.

The one-man rule of Narendra Modi becomes ominous in the sense that no Cabinet Minister counts in the BJP Government and the joint consultation by the Cabinet is only on paper. All political parties should put their heads together to stall any Emergency-like rule before it actually comes to exist. But even a person like Arun Jaitley, who knows rigours of the Emergency—he too was jailed—would not fall in line because his way of thinking doesn't seem to be dictated by the RSS.

I do not think that the Emergency will be re-imposed because the amendments incorporated in the Constitution by the Janata Government make it impossible. Yet, conditions can be created which will suggest the Emergency without a legal sanction. However, public opinion has become so strong that such a step is not possible. Even the people may come out on the streets to protest against any rule which is autocratic and resembles the Emergency.

Basically, what counts is the strength of the institutions. Even though they have not regained the health which they enjoyed before the Emergency, the institutions are still strong enough to resist any move which even remotely restricts their freedom. There are recent examples which evoke that kind of optimism.

Take the case of Uttarakhand. The House was dissolved one day before the floor test of the members. The Supreme Court held the Governor's order ultra vires and revived the Assembly. Even a State High Court like the one in Maharashtra has admonished the Censor Board not to act like a grandmother but to stick to its job of certification rather than imposing cuts. Only one cut was allowed by the Court as against as many as 90 suggested by the Censor Board.

This example should give heart to the critics that conditions are improving and may soon get the same vigour which they enjoyed before the Emergency. No ruler would dare to repeat what Indira Gandhi had done but uphold the Consti-tution in letter and spirit. The lessons learnt from the Emergency would not have been lost and there would be the same old confidence in the public that their freedom was not fettered and their right to differ in any way curtailed.

The author is a veteran journalist renowned not only in this country but also in our neighbouring states of Pakistan and Bangladesh where his columns are widely read. His website is www.kuldipnayar.com

EDITORIAL

The last few days have seen several major developments on the domestic front.

The government went out of its way to widen the doors to ensure more Foreign Direct Investment last Monday (June 20). This was termed as “radical liberalisation” of the FDI regime with the easing of norms for entry of such investment in a host of major sectors like defence, civil aviation and pharma-ceuticals—in fact these have been opened up for total foreign ownership.

The more significant step than these FDI reforms was the Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV-C34) of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) lifting off from the Second Launch Pad in the Satish Dhawan Space Centre at Sriharikota this morning and lobbing 20 satellites into orbit in one go. These included a Cartosat-2 series satellite, two student satellites from universities in Pune and Chennai, and 17 satellites of four foreign countries (the US, Canada, Germany and Indonesia).

This has been described by the PM as a “monumental accomplishment” by the ISRO. He also said on Twitter: “20 satellites in a go! @isro continues to break new barriers. Hearty congratulations to our scientists...” One does not frequently find oneself on the same wavelength as Narendra Modi but this is one of the rare occasions when his statement needs to be endorsed without any equivocation whatsoever.

The 725.5 kg Cartosat-2 would be used for earth observation. According to the ISRO, the imagery sent by satellite will be useful for cartographic applications, urban and rural applications, coastal land use and regulation and utility management like road networking.

Apart from putting 20 satellites into orbit, the PSLV-C34 performed two tricky experiments of the same nature.

Eight years ago in April 2008 the ISRO had launched 10 satellites in a single rocket. And two years back in 2014 Russia had launched 37 satellites in a single mission, an unparalleled record.

According to the Satish Dhawan Space Centre Director P. Kunnhikrishnan, today's achievement was indeed a “major milestone” for the ISRO.

The present dispensation running the country should be made to understand and appreciate that the technological development carried out over the years since the time of Jawaharlal Nehru, the genuine architect of modern India, has helped the nation to register this outstanding feat. So it is pointless to repeat ad nauseam, as our PM has been doing, that practically nothing was achieved during the Congress rule under Jawaharlal Nehru and that the nation's real development began after the advent of Modi as the PM in May 2014.

Sixteen years ago when India had successfully test-fired Agni, the intermediate range missile, the founder of this journal had in these columns highlighted the unique national pride at our scientists having attained a “degree of self-reliance in sophisticated technology”. It is this sense of national pride—also being witnessed now—that needs to be harnessed today for building a new, inclusive, united and self-reliant India braving all the heavy odds that beset our path of advance.

June 22 S.C.

by S.N. Sahu

This article could not be used before June 21, the International Yoga Day. But it is being published now as its contents retain their validity.

Twentyfirst June has been declared as the International Day of Yoga at the initiative of our Prime Minister, Shri Narendra Modi. More than a decade back, in pursuance of Shrimati Sonia Gandhi's initiative October 2, the birthday of Mahatma Gandhi, was declared as the Inter-national Day of Non-Violence. One of the foundational pillars of Yoga is non-violence which is inseparable from spirituality. Yoga minus non-violence is no yoga. A day dedicated at the international level for the cause of Yoga augurs well for the entire mankind in making more people aware of its profound significance some aspects of which are being followed by peoples across the globe for getting health benefits.

It was Swami Vivekananda who made the Western world know and realise the rich spiritual content of Yoga which is non-denominational and anchored on the vast infinite dimensions of the cosmos. Even though Mahatma Gandhi did not follow any Yogic practices, he with his phenomenal understanding of spirituality practised certain aspects of Yoga for regenerating our nationalism and making it constructive, liberating and all-embracing for the purpose of freeing India from British rule. One may ask as to how certain aspects of Yoga freed us from colonial rule and exploitation. The foundational pillars of Yoga are Satya (Truth), Ahimsa (Non-Violence), Bramhacharya (Disciplining of carnal desire), Aparigraha (Non-posession) and Astreya (Non-stealing). These are cardinal, sacrosanct and inviolable principles which are integral to Sanyasa (Renunciation) and without which none can make any progress on the path of spirituality. He made these principles part of his ekadash vrat or eleven vows1 by following which individuals would be able to first rule themselves on the basis of a disciplined body and mind and usher in self-rule for our country. Such larger vision of self-rule shaped by disciplining of mind, body and senses would result in a non-violent social and economic order which would be beneficial not only for our country but also the whole world.

The Divine Life Society (Divya Jivan Sangh), founded by Swami Sivananda in Rishikesh, celebrates Gandhi Jayanti on October 2 every year. The Society and its revered monks and devotees recall gratefully the phenomenal contri-butions of Mahatma Gandhi in applying the foundational principles of Yoga (Satya, Ahimsa, Brahmacharya, Aparigraha, Atreya) to the complex problems of politics, economics and society and, above all, for our liberation from centuries of foreign rule. On that day Dalits are invited to the sanctum sanctorum of the Divine Life Society and they are respected and honoured by the senior monks. On one such occasion, while speaking at the august gathering on October 2, Swami Nirliptananda said that during the freedom struggle Swami Sivananda was deeply impressed by Gandhiji's method of struggle for freedom by applying the basic principles of Yoga and, therefore, he used to send a special emissary to Gandhiji to extend him his support. He also said that Mahatma Gandhi, by applying the main principles of Yoga to find solutions to intractable problems confronted by humanity, earned for himself the position higher than the position of all monks in the annals of spirituality. Swami Nirliptananda's message on that occasion was that by following the central aspects of Yoga or Sanyasa Gandhiji launched the non-violent movement for freedom and indepen-dence and gave a much-needed moral dimension to our arduous struggle for liberation from colonial rule.

Our first Prime Minister, Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, in his book Discovery of India, reflected deeply on Yoga to underline the magnificent narrative associated with the ancient wisdom of our country. In his quest for understanding and exploring India's rich cultural and civilisational legacy he reflected on Yoga in Discovery of India in the late 1940s to sensitise the younger generation about our invaluable spiritual wisdom which gives meaning and significance to material and sense-based life. He wrote: “The Yoga system of Patanjali is essentially a method for the discipline of the body and the mind leading up to psychic and spiritual training.” He understood its deeper meaning by writing that “... it is based on the psychological conception that by proper training of the mind certain higher levels of consciousness can be reached”. He added that “it is meant to be a method of finding out things for oneself rather than a preconceived metaphysical theory of reality or the universe”. Stating that “this old and typical Indian method of preserving bodily fitness is rather remarkable when one compares it with the more usual methods involving rushing about, jerks, hops, and jumps which leave one panting, out of breath, and tired out”, he could understand that it gave some degree of poise and composure to life and “an unruffled calm even while it exercises the body”.

Modern Western civilisation, which emerged following the industrial revolution in Europe, celebrated the possessive individual and, therefore, built a political, social and economic architecture to protect possessive instincts and qualities. The book Possessive Individual, authored by Professor Macpherson, read by generation of students in universities, very persuasively argued that the ideals of freedom, which included in their scope right to life, property, commerce, safety and security, were emphasised for enabling the individual to possess more and more and multiply wants and desires. In contrast, the enduring tradition of Yoga is based on non-possession and non-stealing. So while the modern era in the Western world took shape in celebrating the material exuberance, it did not adequately focus attention on the non-material or spiritual dimensions of life which are as important as the material dimensions. Yoga, by emphasising on non-material dimensions, actually restores the sanity and strength of life and gives the material dimensions the much-needed spiritual content.

David Brook in his insightful article ‘The Ambition Explosion”, published in the New York Times on November 27, 2014, thoughtfully observed that “the central illusion of our time is that career and economic success would lead to fulfilment in life”. In fact this “central illusion” guides us and allures us. We get mired deeper into this illusion. It does not mean that material attainments are to be discounted. It means that there must be some balance in life by blending them with non-material dimensions. It is Yoga which will make us realise the profound meaning of life the aim of which is to attain higher consciousness. Patanjali's Astanga Yoga, the eight-fold path of Yoga, is a revolutionary prescription to usher in that higher consciousness which is the state of Samadhi where the consciousness is independent and much higher than the consciousness based on sensory experiences and material possessions. That kind of consciousness would coexist only with non-violence, non-possession and non-stealing. In other words, if we talk about Yoga and integrate it with the texture of life, we need to simultaneously talk and put into practice non-violence, non-possession and non-stealing. In other words, Yoga means a high level of consciousness, tolerance and acceptance. Otherwise it will negate non-violence which is one of the highest attributes of Yoga. By spewing hatred and venom on people just because they belong to Islamic or Christian faith we would negate the basic principles of Yoga. This all, embracing aspect of Yoga was very well explained by Sri Aurbindo in his scholarly book, Synthesis of Yoga, the very first sentence of which is: “All life is Yoga.” Sri Aurobindo, who did rigorous practice of Pranayam for more than two decades, could predict that human beings would evolve to attain transcendental consciousness.

Modern scientific explanations of Yoga have been found to be very fascinating and useful for addressing many complicated health problems. One study, conducted by Professor Elizabeth Blackburn, Nobel Laureate in Medicine for the year 2009, reveals that by doing Yoga and meditation the number and length of telomeres placed at the two end of chromosomes determining the youthful look can be sustained for long. Her study revealed that the youthful stage of life dependent on access to quality food and other material aspects is also greatly dependent on non-material dimensions which shape the mind and healthful and wholesome living. One such non-material aspect is Yoga, the constant practice of which can make the individual more youthful even as he or she may not have abundance of material facilities in life.

Yoga means no privilege based on differences of natural attributes even as it celebrates diversities and differences. Swami Vivekananda, who transmitted the philosophy of Yoga to the Western world, always underlined its ethical and meditative aspects to counter fanaticism and the monstrous materialistic greed. He stressed on the Himalayan quietness to pursue Yoga and spirituality.

Our judiciary has also underlined the significance of Yoga for dealing with complex criminal issues. The Supreme Court in several cases has prescribed Yoga for cleansing the minds of hardened criminals. On August 16, 1977 in the Hiralal Mallik vs. State of Bihar case, late Justice Krishna Iyer of our Apex Court described Yoga (transcendental meditation) as a science of creative intelligence to augment the moral tone and temper and prescribed it for changing the inner mind and character of a person who was convicted for murder. The honourable judge also observed: “Modern scientific studies have validated ancient Vedic insights bequeathing to mankind new meditational, yogic and other therapeutics, at once secular, empirically tested and transreligious.” Even the Supreme Court in Giasuddin vs. A.P. State observed: “There is a spiritual dimension to the first page of our Constitution which projects into penology. Indian courts may draw inspiration from Patanjalai sutra even as they derive punitive patterns from the Penal Code.”

The Indian Parliament has remained in the forefront in taking up the cause of Yoga right since its inception in 1952 after the first general elections. It was evidenced from the discussion on the Resolution moved by the first Prime Minister of India, Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, in the Rajya Sabha on December 16, 19522 for recording the general approval of the House of the principles, objectives, and programmes of development in the First Five Year Plan document. While participating in the discussion Dr W.S. Barlingay, representing the Indian National Congress, stated that health education would have to be given priority to address health issues and suggested that the ancient wisdom embedded in Yoga should be adopted and integrated with the scheme of health education for the whole country.3

The wider applications of Yoga in the modern period underline its pervasive and deep impact on every aspect of life. However, we should be mindful of the fact that Yoga woven around only some Asanas and breathing exercises without exploring its foundational principles narrows its scope. Those who never participated in the freedom struggle remained away from those foundational principles and are now using Yoga by consigning those very principles to oblivion. Such attempts will restrict the meaning of Yoga and reduce its infinite dimensions, representing the plurality of the cosmos, to a uni-dimensional attribute. High-decibel demonstrations for promotion of Yoga will rob it of its basic purpose to discipline senses and attain higher consciousness permeated by the values of non-violence, non-discrimination, selflessness, sharing, fellow-feeling and love. Sri Aurobindo's Integral Yoga included in its scope all Yogas—Bhakti (devotion), Gyan (knowledge), Dhyan (meditation) and Karma (duty) .

Yoga means higher consciousness which remains tuned to infinity and, therefore, is devoid of narrowness and sectarianism. Being non-denomi-national it is infinite in scope and, therefore, stresses on commonalities of all faiths. There is no scope in it for violent thoughts. It was Swami Vivekananda who prophetically wrote that the day mankind would discover and explore Yoga that day would be far more significant than the renaissance and reformation which gave birth to modern science and modern civilisation. His profound articulation that ethics is inseparable from Yoga makes us mindful of the ethical orientation and outlook which should precede the practice of Yoga. Any compromise on ethics would constitute serious compromise of Yoga. That is why in Raja Yoga exacting standards are prescribed and even it is cautioned that a Raj Yogi would become insane if he or she entertains sexual thoughts. In other words, a measure of emphasis is given on disciplining thought which Swami Vivekananda described as internal motion. The disciplining of the internal motion would lead to disciplining of external motion which the revered Swamiji said is manifested in action. So while celebrating the International Day of Yoga we need to be more ethical, more non-violent, less possessive, imbibe the values to share more and be more respectful to the faiths of others. In other words, we need to be more noble guided by cosmic consciousness which will broaden the mind and remove narrowness. Succinctly it captures in its scope the ideal of the Idea of India celebrating the confluence of civilisations and embracing the other.

Footnotes

1. Truth, Non-violence, Disciplining of carnal desire, Non-possession, Non-stealing, Bread labour, Control of palate, Fearlessness, Equal respect for all religions, Use of locally made goods and Removal of untouchability.

2. Rajya Sabha Debates, Volume II, December 16, 1952, Column no. 1961.

3. Ibid. December 17, 1952, Column no. 2186.

The author was an Officer on Special Duty and Press Secretary to late K.R. Narayanan when the latter was the President of India. He then served as a Director in the Prime Minister's Office. He is now serving as a Joint Secretary in the Rajya Sabha Secretariat. The views expressed in the article are personal and have nothing to do with the Rajya Sabha Secretariat.

International Yoga Day

Is the time when you had

Better take your rebellious

Mind away from the price

Of tomatoes and sundry other

Woes that afflict the

Preponderant millions.

Where policy fails it is Yoga

That will blaze the trails

To conquest of hunger and

Destitution, bringing world

Leaders to accord accolades

In profusion. When sense

Threatens, recourse must be

To collective Pretence. If the

Standing rows of national discipline

Served the Stalinists and the Nazis

Against recalcitrant thought, why

May not a disfigured democracy

Emulate that clever lot? Where

Hard knocks are without redress.

Soft power steps in to bless.

Badri Raina

In dealing with neighbours, much of the energy of the leaders of South Asia is spent on responding to ceasefire violations on the borders. Each of these countries has become enemies of the other. There is rhetoric of hate, insecurity, control and domination in the public statements of all leaders of the neighbourhood as they respond to these violations. The daily news about new accumulation of increasing numbers of nuclear weapons and satellite launches as a part of competitive security measures to threaten or to express the military might of each of these countries towards the others is making the region more and more insecure. When India explodes a Hindu bomb, Pakistan has retaliated in the past by a Muslim bomb. China's domination of the area has compelled India to become more security-conscious. Sri Lanka and Maldives continue to have problems with India and they look for their protection by aligning with other military forces.

Large spending on security is also threatening the life and livelihoods of the poor in South Asia. The money that should have been spent on the poor for food, clothing and shelter is simply being wasted in buying sophisticated weapons. Nuclear installations in the region have seen vociferous protests by the public in each of these countries. Is there a way of moving beyond these insecurities to make the region secure? Nuclear weapons, increase of armed forces, spying and improving sky security measures have not helped to make these regions secure. It has only increased suspicion among and with nations.

Though India claims that it is a peaceful country, Pakistan has accused India of playing a subversive role. India views Pakistan as an enemy territory. India has its complaints on China and similarly China has its own suspicions about India. Sri Lanka has had its problems with India. So is Bangladesh. And all this happens because of borders. There are armed forces with guns and bombs at the borders. We have been told that they are there to protect citizens. And the environment at the borders is quite hostile. This hostility cannot make people of the region safe. Is it possible to think of security differently by breaking down borders for free movement of people and goods? Can we think of a borderless South Asia?

Borders do not make Countries Safe

The objective of strong borders is to make citizens safe. That is the thinking of the state. Erect boundaries, place armed forces, keep arms and ammunition to attack the enemy and the countries will remain safe, the leaders of each of these countries hold. Once the borders are safe, the countries within will be safe is the argument. But citizens have never felt safe with armies protecting borders and sometimes even killing civilians and members who defend. Individuals from one country who travel to other countries constantly complain about being held up at borders but we do not want others to enter our country. Once borders are erected people of the other side become the “other”. The ‘other' is a foreigner and cannot be allowed to move inside “our” territory. Should we allow this suspicion to take over our lives?

All borders are imaginary. They do not exist in reality. They are artificially constructed by selfish and vested interest leaders. Is it possible to pull them down and destroy them? The peoples of South Asian countries, unlike their leaders, do not want walls of bricks and mortar to separate them but desire human hearts to be united. Is it possible to build solidarities among the peoples of South Asia by breaking down borders? Once the borders are got rid of the “other” will disappear and the mental framework of how we view the other will change. When the Berlin Wall was brought down, there was euphoria on both sides of the borders. Like the Germans we in South Asia are one people. Do we need these borders that create hostilities? Much of the money that we spend on buying weapons of mass destruction can be used to ameliorate poverty.

Borders are not Normal

Borders surely are not normal. They are arti-ficially constructed. Indo-Pakistan borders are the making of two communal sets of leaders. It is likely that a majority of Muslims and Hindus may not have been in favour for the establish-ment of two nations. As long as there was no plebiscite on the issue it is difficult to say whether people desired a partition at all. People were not consulted.

During the British rule there were no borders and all of South Asia was one. Even in Europe borders came into existence after the 19th century. Even those borders are now trans-cended and Europe is coming together with Euro as a single currency with freedom of movement for people, goods, services and borderless ‘Schengen Area'. If European countries have succeeded to come together after years of separation and suspicion, why not South Asia? Among South Asian countries India is a powerful state. It is possible for India to take the initiative to unite the countries of South Asia? India has already made proposals for open borders for trade. But a border that is open to trucks, buses and trains and at the same time closed to people is not logical and right.

Right to Live in any part of the Globe should be a Basic Right

In principle if all people are equal, they have equal right to live in any part of the globe. Earth is a free gift to humans. Humans should not have a right to own what is freely given and every person should have the right to make use of the free gift. That is why we need to break down all borders to maintain a liberal culture. How can the right to freedom of movement be realised if borders restrict? It is totally wrong on the part of states to define a territorial right of abode. This defining of the territorial right of abode is to serve dominant interests of the landowning classes to maintain control over people. While such control deprives people of their right to live in any part of the earth, it provides the ruling classes control over the people.

A South Asian economy as it becomes more and more Asian and global, the challenge democracy would face is to organise extra-territorial democracy. The recognition of human rights should be independent of any specific ‘state citizenship'. If human rights are universal there should be a universal access to a home or a right to live in any part of South Asia or the globe. Everyone must have the right to cross national borders and to settle where they desire. The globalised world is already a single system of networks from pipelines to broadband to the high speed trading of the financial markets and product supply chains.

Everything has in practice functioned unhin-dered by national borders. What is now required is to develop a case for a “homeland to be bound together” in the legal and normative senses. Legally we need to opt for one Constitution and at the level of norms all need to be included beyond mental frameworks that term people of other countries as the “other”.

Dr Ambrose Pinto SJ is the Principal of St. Aloysius Degree College, Bangalore. He can be contacted at e-mail: 23ambrose@gmail.com

Following the verdict in the Gulbarg Housing Society massacre, a television channel flashed as breaking news almost the whole day the Special Court's observation imputing blame on the riot victim, former parliamentarian Ehsan Jafri that ‘his firing was the catalyst, infuriated the mob'.1 The communal violence claimed 69 lives including the former lawmaker himself. The case has captured the public domain for a long period. The riotous mob, said the Court, was not “really interested in causing deaths” but turned murderous after Ehsan opened fire at them. The Court went on record to state that the witnesses' testimonies “are not sounding realistic or truthful”. Of 24 convicts in the case, 11 have been sentenced to life imprisonment for murder. Many may recall the Urdu couplet as very apt in the situation:

“Qatal kyon ho gaye, mujh pe ilzam hai

Qatal jisne kiya, hai vahi Muddai

Vakilon mein ab ye bahas chir gayi

Ye jo qatil ko thodi si zahmat hui,

Ye jo khanjar pe thoda sa kham a gaya

Is ka tawan kisse liya jayega.

(I have been accused of getting killed, killer is the complainant. Now the lawyers debate as to who will compensate the slight inconvenience caused to the killer and the slight bent caused to the knife.)”2

According Section 96 of the Indian Penal Code, “Nothing is an offence which is done in the exercise of the right of private defence.” Section 97 IPC declares: “Every person has a right to defend:

1. His own body, and the body of any other person, against any offence affecting the human body; and

2. The property, whether movable or immovable, of himself or of any other person, against any act which is an offence falling under the definition of theft, robbery, mischief or criminal trespass, or which is an attempt to commit theft, robbery, mischief or criminal trespass.”

The verdict duly noted in the judgment that the mob “was largely involved in stone-throwing and attempting to burn and damage the vehicles, and properties of members of the minority community outside Gulbarg society.” The situation, speaking matter-of-factly, was justifiable for exercising the right of private defence by the victim in question under the Section of the IPC cited above. Of course, it is not known. if or whether the ex-parliamentarian had used a licensed gun in the right of his private defence while he fired on the frenzied mob engaged in destruction of private properties. His action to defend himself along with the lives of others and private properties is protected by law.

A popular film actor, Salman Khan, along with co-stars, was charged by a Jodhpur Court with poaching black bucks, a protected animal “on the night of October 1-2, 1989......”3 Speaking about the habitat of black buck, a British naturalist had written long ago that “..... it is common in the wooded parts of Rajputana, throughout the Bombay Presidency, the Central Provinces, and the northern parts of Madras....”4 Though the crime of poaching was committed at mid-past-mid-night (October 1-2), there were witnesses and the court inflicted punish-ment on the poacher on their testimonies. We loudly appreciate the importance the court attached to the protection of wildlife.

Paradoxically, on the other hand, the murderer of Jessica Lal, a model who, at Tamarind Court, Qutab Minar, Delhi was acting as bartender, was let off by the trial court though the crime took place in a crowded place in Delhi! She was shot dead at around 2 am on April 30, 1999 in the crowded bar for refusing to serve drinks beyond the prescribed hour of business. Dozens of witnesses pointed to Siddharth Vashisht, alias Manu Sharma, the son of Venod Sharma, a wealthy and influential Member of Parliament from Haryana, as the killer. On February 21, 2006, a Delhi trial court acquitted Manu Sharma along with all his accomplices for want of eyewitness to testify for the murder.5 Later the case, under intense public pressure and media hype, was reopened. On December 18, 2006 the Delhi High Court convicted Manu Sharma, Vikas Yadav and Amardeep Singh Gill alias Tony and acquitted Aloke Khanna, Vikas Gill, Harvinder Singh Chopra, Raja Chopra, Shyam Sunder Sharma and Yograj Singh.6 The law-enforcing agencies obviously were browbeaten to derail the legal process and frustrate the award of punishment. Presiding officers of courts, public prose-cutors and lawyers are like any other normal human beings susceptible to extralegal forces, external pressures, temptations, influences and suffer from the same weakness and aspirations. The Indian society, divided deeply by caste and communal affiliations, at large is full of pitfalls. The census returns of 2011 show that 4.2 lakh people were in prison in 2013. Muslims, Dalits and adivasis—three of the most vulnerable sections of the Indian society—account for 53 per cent of the prison population though they together are 39 per cent of India.7 Of the prison population, “nearly 20 per cent of them were Muslims although the share of Muslims in India's population is about 13 per cent according to Census 2001.... Dalits make up 22 per cent of prisoners, almost one in four. Their proportion in population is about 17 per cent according to Census 2011. While adivasis make up 11 per cent of prisoners, their share in the general population is 9 per cent.”8 Disproportionate population in prisons of each group bears the hallmark of prejudice of the minuscule dominant sections against them.

According to Colin Gonsalves, human rights activist and lawyer, “Our system has an ingrained communal and casteist bias. Also, the proportion of these communities in the police officers and even judiciary is less. These are key factors behind this shocking imbalance.”9 If we take into account the custodial deaths across the country, we will find, without doubt, proponderence of SCs, STs and Mulsims as victims. During the colonial era down to 1964 (the year when the jury system of trial was abolished) when trial by jury was in practice, caste provided safeguard for certain sections of Indians. Acquittal of offenders belonging to those castes and communities in India was a certainty. The conviction of offenders of certain castes and communities, on the other hand, was a certainty too. Caste and communal bias is predominantly pronounced in every sphere, not excluding the police, judiciary and legislatures. What the census report 2011 has brought on record I would view the results, with long and sustained study and analysis of census reports since 1872 to 2001, as largely, sanitised.

Part-II

Laxmanpur Bathe marks a Dark Era of Indian Nation

Anti-Dalit Prime Minister in league with Ranvir Sena

On the night of December 1, 1997 the Ranvir Sena, the savage “militia of upper-caste Bhumihar landlords of Bihar” marched to the village Laxmanpur Bathe on the river banks of Sone and accomplished an unprovoked genocidal massacre claiming the lives of 58 Dalits, men, women, children and old—including 19 men, 29 women and 10 children of whom one was one- year old, about 90 kms off Patna, Bihar's capital.10 A Patna High Court Division Bench of Justices V.N. Sinha and A.K. Lal ruled that the prosecution witnesses “are not reliable” and the appellants deserved to be given the benefit of the doubt. The acquitted persons should be released forthwith if they were not wanted in any other case.11 A Sessions Court convicted 26 accused, sixteen of them with death sentence. Doubts of the Bench benefited the convicts, for example, Girija Singh, Surendra Singh, Ashok Singh, Gopal Sharan Singh, Baleshwar Singh, Dwarka Singh, Vijendra Singh, Nawal Singh, Baliram Singh, Nandu Singh, Sheomohan Sharma, Pramod Singh, Shatrughan Singh, Ramkeval Sharma, Dharma Singh and Nand Singh bringing them back from the jaws of gallows. Other beneficiaries were lifers.12 Veteran journalist Kuldip Nayar wrote in his column: “An upper caste judge has released all the accused on the plea that there was no evidence. It is a travesty of justice.... If the High Court judge did not find any evidence, he could have constituted a special investigation team (SIT) to work under its supervision to hold a fresh probe.... What has happened at Laxmanpur is the fate of Dalits all over the country. The equality before law, enshrined in the Consti-tution, is a farce.”13 The warning as also prognosis that the brutal treatment meted out to the Dalits of Laxmanpur Bathe happen to be the “fate of dalits all over India” and these are chilling and awe-inspiring. The dream of equality enshrined for all citizens under the Constitution stands shattered. What was his basis for issuing such a shattering note? President K.R. Narayanan had condemned the Laxmanpur Bathe massacre as “a national shame”.

A former High Commissioner of India to London and an ex-Member of Parliament, Nayar had consciously, without inviting contradiction, raised his finger at one of the judges on the Bench for acquitting his caste-men in Ranvir Sena from the gallows. The whole of Bihar knew who he was. He did precisely what the State Government of the day, despite monumental pressure exerted by that caste lobby, could not accomplish publicly for fear of political fallout. The acquittal seems to be a part of a long-drawn conspiracy hatched by political leaders of the ruling party against the Dalits who started slowly and gradually asserting themselves against feudal exploitation, caste oppression and subjugation. In a year-long sting operation code-named ‘Black Rain', carried out by Cobra-Post, it came to light that after the command of the Ranvir Sena, founded by Dharichan Chaudhary of Bhojpur district in 1994 to counter the rising weave of assertion by the Dalit labouring class, passed into the hands of Brahmeshwar Singh, he turned it into a war- machine. Modern and sophisticated weapons were acquired by them from the Indian Army for using against the Dalits. Besides, the Ranvir Sena men were trained by Army jawans, either retired or on leave. Arms collected by the private militia included AK-47, LMGs, auto-matics, SLRs and Mausers etc., known for their enormous lethal power.

Cobra-Post Associate Editor K. Ashis, who conducted the covert operation, caught six Ranvir Sena accused—Chandkeshwar alias Chandreshwar, Pramod Singh, Bhola Singh, Arvind Kumar Singh, Siddhnath Singh and Ravindra Chaudhry—on camera to speak and spill the beans. “Not only are they seen admitting to their roles in the massacre of 144 destitute Dalits that shocked the nation— Bathani Tola, Laxmanpur Bathe, Shankar Bigha, Miyanpur and Ikwari—but they also also reveal some of the Sena's shocking strategies which failed to materialise, such as the plan to carry out up to 50 massacres in 50 different villages in a single day.”14

The Ranvir Sena's grand plan to carry out 50 operations against Dalits in 50 different locations simultaneously on a single day warranted a massive arsenal and large trained manpower. The Laxmanpur Bathe massacre was executed under the command of Chandkeshwar Singh who was acquitted by the Patna High Court in October 2013. “Chandkeshwar Singh confessed not only to his involvement in the Bathani Tola massacre in 1996 in which he claimed the private militia massacred 22 Dalits but also to have beheaded five low-caste fishermen with his knife.”15 Brahmeshwar Singh's aide Siddhnath Singh disclosed to Cobra-Post the secret of the source and the manner of acquisition of arms and ammunitions by the Ranvir Sena. The weapons were obtained from Indian Army depots as rejects. According to Cobra-Post, the Ranvir Sena received “military reject” arms with the help of “the then Prime Minister Chandra Sekhar”. Siddhnath's startling admission to the police: “... toh woh military ka rejected saman tha wahi hum logon ko uplabdh hua tha... hum kahe uplabdh hua tha jab pradhan mantri humare huye the... Chandra Shekhar... (...I told them we got them from Indian military as rejected lot... we got the arms when our Prime Minister... I said was Chandra Shekhar...).”16 In Bihar parlance and ethos, “jab pradhan mantri humare huye the” people understand simply “when our caste-man became the Prime Minister”. What a towering accomplish-ment of the fire-brand socialist and Young Turk of the Indian National Congress! Solemn and ceremonial oath of office and secrecy under the Constitution to work without fear or favour.... etc., etc. is not only meaningless but it fades away before caste interest. The arms were funnelled through Surajdeo Singh, an ex-MP from Dhanbad, who was close to Prime Minister Chandra Sekhar, both of Rajput caste.17

The Dhanbad MP alone did not provide muscle to the anti-Dalit buildup. The Cobra-Post also disclosed that Yashwant Sinha, the suave former bureaucrat (IAS) who was India's Minister of Foreign Affairs and Finance, supported the Ranvir Sena both financially and politically. According to convict Promod Singh who too got reprieve along with others from the Patna High Court, “Bhajapa ka sarkar jiss samay tha ... Atal Behari Vajpai the ... uss samay the Yashwant Sinha ... barabar aate the... mukhiya ji se barabar milte the... wo toh humare gaon mein hi ... jiss samay chhapemari ho rahi thi uss samay barabar humare gaon mein the. (It was when there was the BJP Government [at the Centre]... there was Atal Behari Vajpai [as Prime Minister]... there was Yashwant Sinha... he would visit regularly... meet the Mukhiya [Barmeshwar Singh] regularly... he was there in my village when the police were hot on our heels and raiding our places.)“ We again get an affirmative double “Hoon, hoon” when we ask him if Yashwant Sinha knew what they were doing or what they were up to. What kind of support did they get from Sinha?18

Hatred against the Dalits was not confined to these few political leaders who held high positions in the government. The list of enemies and haters of Dalits was bigger. Justice Amir Das Commission, instituted by the Bihar Government in the wake of the Laxmanpur Bathe massacre was dismissed by Nitish Kumar whose party with the BJP as the coalition partner was voted to power in Bihar. Referring to the Ranvir Sena's patrons and protectors, Justice Das said: “I can tell some names, for instance, Shivanand Tewari, C.P. Thakur, Murli Manohar Joshi and Sushil Kumar Modi.”19 C.P. Thakur was the Union Minister for Health and Family Welfare, Murli Manohar Joshi the Minister for Human Resources Development under Atal Behari Vajpayee and Sushil Kumar Modi the Deputy Chief Minister in the first Council of Ministers of the Government of Bihar headed by Nitish Kumar. About Shivanand Tiwari, known as a habitual “aya ram gaya ram”, even sober political leaders and senior journalists have lost count of the number of occasions of his floor-crossings.

The role of people's representatives of Bihar merits notice in the context. Jehanabad MP Arun Kumar's foolproof support to the Ranvir Sena cadres highlighted by the Cobra-Post, is particularly relevant. The MP would escort and ship out the underground Sena cadres in his car as and when they were cordoned by the police for arrest.20 A noble role in performance of public duty!

Bihar People's Party supremo and former MP Anand Mohan Singh, a notorious outlaw, threw open his arsenal to the Ranvir Sena. He has been serving a sentence for the murder of Gopalganj District Magistrate G. Krishnaiah in 1994. The Ranvir Sena men told Cobra-Post that “...Anand Mohan aaye bechare poora keh gya ki humare paas hathiyron ka jakhira hai jo jo hathiyar lena chahte ho aaker le jao. (... Anand Mohan came and told us that he has a cache of all kinds of arms. Whatever you need you can pick.)”21

Anand Mohan is a Rajput. Hardly any Rajput has a good word for Bhumihars who consider it blasphemy to speak a word in appreciation of Rajputs. They are perpetually at loggerheads. Since the pre-independence days, their mutual bad blood is known. But they solidly stood united against the Dalits.

Tahelka.com October 17, 2013, quoted Justice Das as saying that within 15-20 days of the formation of the government headed by Nitish Kumar in 2005 the Commission to investigate the Laxmanpur Bathe massacre perpetrated by the Ranvir Sena was scrapped.22 This was indeed one of the tallest achievements of the ‘vikas-purush', a sobriquet with which the media, dominated by the same class, decorated the Chief Minister, who subscribed to appease the dominant forces operating against the Dalits. Mahadalit was his calculated ploy for harvesting electoral benefits. If and when capital punishment was awarded to the Dalit accused, their pleas and testimonies were rejected by the higher judicial authorities. In a massacre claiming several Bhumihars in Bara, for instance, the Gaya Sessions Court handed down death sentences to Nanhe Lal Mochi, Krishna Mochi and Bir Kuer Paswan, all Dalits. They have now been awaiting death after the Supreme Court has rejected their pleas. So, the formula for administration of justice is simple: If Dalits are killers of Bhumihars, sentence of death is a certainty for them. If, on the other hand, Bhumihars are the Dalit-killers, acquittal of convicts is a foregone conclusion.23 Evidence of Dalit witness, though strange it may sound, did not inspire confidence of the High Court. Laxman Rajvanshi, an eye-witness and survivor of the Laxmanpur Bathe bloodbath, reacted angrily when the High Court rejected their testimony, as unreliable: “How could I not have recognised them? We stay in the same village and I see them about 10 times a day! We worked on their fields. We had no inkling of this attack, otherwise we would have been alert.” Turning his focus on the Chief Minister, he continued in the same breath: “The Nitish Kumar Government is hand in glove with the feudal elements. He slotted us into the Mahadalit category, collected our votes and then cut our throats.”24 He has been in the infatuated company and embrace of the patrons, financiers, protectors of the Ranvir Sena all along.

Those with administrative experience of working in Bihar know too well that in any criminal or civil cases involving Dalit or tribal, on one side, and upper caste, on the other, the advocates engaged by the former often collude with advocates of their opponents to bring miseries for their clients. Medical officers hardly stand to testify truthfully in any case if Dalits vis-a-vis their upper-caste tormentors are concerned.

In cases where for a variety of reasons, including intimidation, domination or fear, truth does not come before the court, its presiding officer has the responsibility in the interest of justice to become proactive. The former Chief Justice of India, Vishweshar Nath Khare (tenure—December 19, 2002 to May 2004), was quoted by the British Broadcasting Corporation as saying:

“Sometimes when the police, the prosecution and the lawyers all have connections with the criminals, the judge should be slightly proactive. He should try to get to the truth, and not depend totally on the evidence provided in court. In a case like this, he is not going to get proper evidence. Mostly the judiciary is depended on the evidence provided by the investigative agencies, but now when the situation is so bad, the judges have to wake up, be proactive and find the truth.”25

The acquittal of convicts of the Laxmanpur Bathe massacre was perverse. The guidelines furnished by the former Chief Justice of India had no takers with the upper-caste judges, political leaders and Ranvir Sena being in tight embrace against the Dalits. The Apex Court could have intervened suo motu and frustrated the miscarriage of justice.26

Dalits and tribal are rarely considered as pressure groups.

We may cite the case of the massacre of 13 Dalits in village Tsundur, Guntur district of Andhra Pradesh on August 6, 1991. It runs parallel to the Laxmanpur Bathe massacre. A young Dalit graduate was beaten up for his feet uninten-tionally touched a Reddy man in the cinema hall. The Dalits of the village stood by their graduate. As a result Dalits were socially boycotted by the Reddy landowners of the village and were made to suffer enormously. Significantly Dalits collectively fought to gain legal justice by invoking the SC/ST Prevention of Atrocities Act 1989. The dominant Reddys and Telagas, encouraged by the police, attacked the poor Dalits. The trail court sentenced 21 accused to life imprisonment and 35 others to a year of rigorous imprisonment besides a fine of Rs 2000 each under the SC & ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act 1989.27

On April 22, 2014 a Division Bench comprising Justices L. Narasimha Reddy and M.S. Jaiswal of the Andhra Pradesh High Court acquitted all the accused in the Tsundur killings.28 The Bench held that the prosecution failed to prove the exact time of death, place of occurrence and the identity of attackers. It said the trial in a criminal case was not something like a mathematical exercise where common minimum factors from various numerals could be taken to be put outside a bracket.

What a Division Bench of the Patna High Court did to the Ranvir Sena in October 2013 its counterpart in the Andhra Pradesh High Court did to the Reddy and Telegas six months later. Justice for the Dalit and deprived is dependent on the vagaries of the presiding officers.

In May 1987, the Maoist Communist Centre of India massacred44 Rajputs of Dalelchak and Baghora of Aurangabad district. The accused in the case were 75, one of whom absconded. FIR was lodged after 24 hours of the incident. And the case diary reached the court three days later.

The prosecution produced 30 witnesses, including the informant Rajballam Prasad Singh and minor Shailendra Kumar aged eight years, who too did not live in the village, that is, the place of occurrence. The informant, whose statement formed the basis of the FIR, was a resident of district East Champaran to the north of the river Ganges, some 300 kms from the place of occurrence in Aurangabad. He subsequently turned hostile! The Additional Sessions Judge awarded punishment solely on an eye-witness of the child who saw murders being committed in the light of the house on fire. The minor hiding in a gaushala, cowshed claimed to have witnessed the entire massacre. Eight accused—all Yadavas—were convicted and sentenced to death. The Additional Session Judge did not find any infirmities in his evidence. One would be reeling under shock and trauma to understand as to what actually is admissible to the court and what is not.

India boasts of justice done to Nirbhaya, who was raped and murdered on December 16, 2012 in a moving bus in the glittering Capital of Delhi. This was a tragic case indeed. Her father was quoted by CNN (The Cable News Network, Atlanta, Georgia, USA) as saying: “It shook the entire nation and led to public outrage on the streets. After seeing all that, we felt humanity still prevails on this earth.”29 Only the privileged can claim as such in this country. Portrayed as abrave heart,“To India, Nirbhaya has become a symbol of bravery, courage and change” is the oft-repeated theme. It underscores an inherent insinuation as if victims belonging to other (particularly Dalit) castes do not protest or fight against their rapists or violators. Such depiction by upper-caste insensitive correspondents, either for the Indian or foreign media, is endemic in their despatches.

Jisha, a gutsy Dalit law student, was raped and murdered on April 28, 2016 in Kerala. Since 2005 the police was approached by her and her widowed mother several times alleging harass-ment, stalking, abuses against Jisha by neigh-bours, strangers and undesirable elements.30 The police took no action on their complaints. There has been inordinate delay even to register FIR. Detention of a suspect of murder after two long months of the the crime testifies the administrative and political attitude of the State to the victim. The caste factor, needless to stress, is prominent in both the cases. Nirbhaya got treatment per excellence everywhere because of her caste whereas Jisha was denied precisely for the same reason. The Kerala authorities have demonstrated an attitude marked by hostility to the Dalit victim.

Parliament was told sometime back by the Minister, Social Justice and Empowerment, that the conviction rate in cases of atrocities against Dalit and tribal communities was merely two per cent. Imagine about 50,000 cases of atrocities are registered annually with the police. Those who do not go to the police for com-plaining offence against them are much larger. We can imagine that cases of rape, murder, arson, and many serious complaints from the under-privileged never ever come before the courts for trial and administration of justice. No victims expect justice from the nation's rulers and administration. Do the Dalits or tribal communities matter at all for the nation's rulers and law-enforcing agencies? Do they matter for them except proving that India is a Hindu-majority nation before the world?

How shocking and traumatic it is to be told publicly that India's Prime Minister empowered an anti-Dalit private mafia like Ranvir Sena with supplies of sophisticated arms and ammunitions from the Indian Army Depots! There were Union Ministers, Members of Parliament, Ministers of Bihar too in the league with the same conspirators! A whole govern-ment was harbouring, nurturing and nourishing a savage force. Nevertheless there have been no earthquakes in political and social life of the country against such nefarious designs. Those voted to power are hostile to the Dalits. They are friends of their enemies. The conscience of the countrymen is either dead or in a comatose state. In any other country, which does not have the caste system, the people would have perhaps rose in tumultuous rebellion against treachery and violation of the oath of office and secrecy of these men.

In their motherland Dalits and tribals, autochthonous 300 million, it is appropriate to state, are under enemy occupation with no hope of emancipation.

Footnotes

1. The Indian Express, June 18 2016

2. I am grateful for this to Abdul Qadir, an English language journalist stationed at Gaya, Bihar.

3. The Tribune, Black buck case: I was ‘falsely implicated', Salman Khan tells Court.

4. Blanford, W.T. (1891), The Fauna of British India, Including Ceylon and Burma. London, UK: Taylor and Francis. pp. 521—4.

5. The Hindu, All accused acquitted in Jessica Lall murder case, February 22, 2006.

6. The Hindu, Jessica Lall murder case: Chronology of events, April 19, 2010.

7. The Times of India,“Muslims, dalits and tribals make up 53% of all prisoners in India”, November 24, 2014.

8. Ibid.

9. Ibid.

10. National Herald, news item captioned “Death to 16 in Dalit massacre”, April 7, 2010.

11. The Hindu, October 9, 2013.

12. The Times of India, HC acquits 26 convicted of Laxmanpur-Bathe carnage, October 10, 2013.

13. Kuldip Nayar, “Signs of Fundamentalism”, The Statesman, Calcutta, October 24, 2013.

14. Gaurav Vivek Bhatnagar, The Wire,‘Confessions from Bihar's Killing Fields Set to Singe BJP, and Nitish Too', August 17, 2015, http://thewire.in/8661/confessions-from-bihars-killing-fields-set-to-singe-bjp-and-nitish-too/

15. Cobra-Post, ‘Operation Black Rain: Revisiting the killings of dalits of Bihar and confessions of their killers', updated: August 16, 2015. http://cobrapost.com/index.php/news-detail?nid=8983&cid=23

16. Gaurav Vivek Bhatnagar, op. cit.

17. Ibid.

18. http://cobrapost.com/index.php/news-detail?nid=8983&cid=23

19. Ibid.

20. Gaurav Vivek Bhatnagar, op. cit.

21. Ibid.

22. Nirala, Laxmanpur Bathe: ‘Some from the Nitish Kumar government were also involved,”Tehlka.com, October 17, 2013.

23. https://drambedkarbooks.com/2015/07/30/death-penalty-for-dalits-and-minorities-only/Ambedkar, Caravan.

24. Bhatnagar, op. cit.

25. BBC: India campaign for murdered Delhi model, March 9, 2006.

26. The Hindu,‘Cobrapost film on Bihar dalit massacre expose BJP link', August 18, 2015. V.A. Ramesh Narayan, general secretary of the National Dalit Movement for justice “called for the supreme Court to take suo motu cognisance of the evidence of the film to initiate trial against the accused”.

27. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tsundur_massacre

28. The Hindu, HC acquits all accused in Tsundur killings, April 22, 2014.

29. CNN, World's Untold Stories, ‘Nirbhaya, victim of India gang rape fought for justice', December 15, 2013.

30. Manorama, Jisha, a long story cut short, Friday June 17, 2016.

A retired IAS officer and former Vice-Chancellor, B.R. Ambedkar University, Muzaffarpur (Bihar), Dr A.K. Biswas can be contacted at e-mail: biswasatulk@gmail.com

With all due respect to the Gujarat High Court, I beg to differ with its judgment that the firing by Ehsan Jafri provoked the mob to kill him. I knew him and he was a staunch Congressman. The Gulbarg Society massacre was the doing of local Gujarati leaders hoping to parochialise the people.

When Jafri was surrounded by the Hindu mob, he rang me up, seeking my help to rescue him from the frenzied crowd he had around him. I rang up the Home Ministry in Delhi and told them about the telephone call. They said they were in touch with the State Government and were “watching” the situation. As I put down the telephone, the bell rang again and Jafri was at the other end, beseeching me to do something because the mob was threatening to lynch him. His cry for help still resounds in my ears.

I admit I could not do anything beyond ringing up the Ministry once again. Therefore, the Court's verdict that Jafri provoked the crowd is misplaced. It is a travesty of justice. But then the Bench is not to blame because it has to go by the evidence placed before it. The prejudiced police had neither done their job, nor homework thoroughly, and so the Court had come to the conclusion that the provocation came from Jafri.

I hope the matter will come up before the Supreme Court and the real facts may emerge for the knowledge of the wider public. This is important because the general impression is that Jafri was to blame. The tragedy is that even the judges have now been taken in by the sordid job done by the police. India is a pluralistic state and it is ruled by the Constitution which Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs and Christians in the Constituent Assembly together had adopted.

It goes to the credit of leaders of the national struggle that they adopted a secular Consti-tution although the population of Hindus was an overwhelming 80 per cent. The Hindu Mahasabha, which gave birth to the Jana Sangh, could not even return 10 members to the Lok Sabha. The party has, in fact, improved its position and today commands a majority in the House on its own. It has 282 seats in the Lok Sabha, guaranteeing it a clear majority. Close allies like the Shiv Sena have added to its strength.

What plagues India is that the government apparatus reflects the ideology of the party in power. This applies as much to the Congress as to the BJP. Even the Communists are not innocent. How we reconcile these shortcomings with the rule of law is the biggest problem that the nation faces. Since all political parties are culpable, there doesn't seem to be any light at the end of the tunnel.

Unfortunately, the main onslaught today is against the minorities and the marginalised. If the rule of law is not maintained, all members of the society are vulnerable and will be victims one by one. The enemy phobia will be sustained. Today the Muslims are to blame; tomorrow it will be the turn of some other members of society. Where will it end? There is no option from the rule of law.

Fortunately, some activists are still trying to bring democracy back on the tracks, but the atmosphere has become so polluted that their job looks tremendous and almost impossible. Ultimately, Parliament is the arbiter. The nation will have to see that it elects such people who have faith in the rule of law and the Constitution which came into being from 1950.

In fact, there were many options before the Constituent Assembly. Adviser B.N. Rao, who had gone around the world to see various systems in operation, placed before the Advisory Committee of the Constituent Assembly the presidential form of government pursued by America and the one followed by France. Jawaharlal Nehru, whose ideas prevailed at that time, preferred the parliamentary system. It is alleged that his education at Harrow and Cambridge had moulded his thoughts. That may well be true but he wanted a system where every adult would participate.

In the Constituent Assembly, Dr Rajendra Prasad, who was in the chair, wanted some educational qualification as a requirement for voters. Nehru replied that the uneducated and the ignorant constituted the main force which fought during the independence struggle. Now when the country was free, should he tell them that they were not entitled to vote?

Another principle which goaded the movement was secularism. This was embodied in the Constitution which gives one person one vote, whatever their community's strength in the country. It may be unthinkable today in certain circles of society, but the representatives of the majority community accepted this principle.

So much so that the Muslim community's leaders in the Constituent Assembly refused to have reservations or quotas in the legislatures, educational institutions and even in government jobs which they had enjoyed under the British. This is the practice even today. Still the prejudice has worked in jobs in the private sector. Very few Hindu establishments have Muslims as their employees. In fact, the Sachar Committee, appointed by Dr Manmohan Singh, the then Prime Minister, has said that the condition of the Muslims in India was worse than that of the Dalits. Very little improvement has been noticeable since then.

Regrettably, the judgments like the one in the Jafri case could only provide the Hindutva crowd with a justification that aggressiveness of the Muslims forces the Hindus to adopt a communal line. Maybe, I am overly-optimistic, but I still hope that the society would realise on the whole that a country with so many complexities can survive in a pluralistic and democratic environment.

People will themselves see the incongruity between the values of the Constitution and what is being practised otherwise. Pluralism is not only an ideology to prize, but also something to cherish that it is needed for the country's integrity.

The author is a veteran journalist renowned not only in this country but also in our neighbouring states of Pakistan and Bangladesh where his columns are widely read. His website is www.kuldipnayar.com

Shankar Guha Niyogi, the legendary leader of workers in Chhattisgarh, was brutally murdered by the hired goons of industrialists in 1991. He started his political journey in the official Communist Parties in India and went beyond the frame of their politics. He was impressed by the Naxalbari peasant uprising, but severed his connection with the CPI (ML) as it decided to give farewell to mass organisations like trade unions.

Niyogi's notion of trade unions was com-pletely different from that of traditional trade unions. He criticised the economism and political bankruptcy of Left trade unions. He believed that the trade unions should work in the workers' slums to be a part of the social and cultural life of workers. The Chhattisgarh Mukti Morcha (CMM) founded by him tried to address the problems of women, alcoholism among workers, the land question and the questions of health and environmental protection. This holistic approach to trade union politics is a unique contribution to workers' struggles in India. The CMM brought the ‘footloose' mine workers of Chhattisgarh in the arena of struggle and posed a challenge to the captains of industry and the dominant paradigm of trade unionism.

The question of local development was an important element in the imagination of Niyogi. He argued that as most of the workers of Bhilai, Bokaro and Tata steel plants came from outside, the question of local development did not matter to them. In the course of his work, Niyogi made a thorough survey of the economy, language and culture of Chhattisgarh.

The flag of the CMM was designed to incorporate both red and green colours to highlight its mission of doing work among the workers and peasants. It may be mentioned in this connection that the CMM revived the local memory of martyrdom of Virnarayan Singh, who fought against the British rulers and the local oppressive merchants in 1856-57, to inspire people in their struggle.

Shankar Guha Niyogi is no more. But, his brainchild, the CMM, has created for us a rich legacy of creative workers' struggles in India.

by Mridula Mukherjee

The Modi Government loves mythology. And not only as a substitute for history. But as a substitute for reality. And this for good reason. The reality that has unfolded in the last two years is so far removed from the dreamland or ‘Achhe Din' promised in the longest election campaign in Indian history, that myth-making is the only choice left for the dream merchants of the Sangh.

One-third of India is in the grip of severe drought, with many areas suffering for the third consecutive year. The situation is so bad that even drinking water is scarce, and it is not only fields that are dry but throats that are parched. Water-levels have dipped precariously in lakes, tanks, wells and even underground. Agriculture, never a money-spinner, except for tax-evading urban businessmen who show huge tax-free farm incomes, grew at 0.2 per cent in 2014-15. Farmer suicides are rising and spreading to new areas. You would imagine that the government which talks of ‘sabka saath sabka vikas' would at least show compassion and order all its Ministers and party functionaries to devote all attention to this emergency.

Instead, you are offered a grand Yoga Day celebration. It is all very well for well-heeled urban babus to congregrate at India Gate lawns and other public places to perform yogic exercises. After all, they need to calm their nerves and relieve the tension caused by not being able to decide which foreign country or university their progeny should go to for higher education to prove their nationalist credentials, since the best Indian universities are dens of ‘anti-national' elements. They spend sleepless nights wondering whether the best choice is the PM's favourite country where super-nationalist NRIs spend all their time (left over from making money) promoting Hinduism. Their worries increase when the thought creeps in what if their darlings get swayed by unspeakable temptations lurking in this Christian, beef-eating land? Sure, they need Yoga.

But what about the tens of millions, or crores, who have not enough to fill their stomachs or satisfy their thirst? Their crops have failed because of drought, so nature is at fault. But why has the government reduced the expenditure on MGNREGA from the peak of 0.6 per cent of the GDP in 2010-11 to 0.26 per cent of the GDP in 2016-17, when rural distress has increased and the rural poor need enhanced employment opportunities? Why is food inflation not checked, and the price of dal, especially arhar, remains at absurdly high levels for months on end?

On the excuse of increased share of revenue to States, funds for schemes, which the Centre is legally obliged to support, are not transferred. The ICDS centres are in poor state in many parts, mid-day meals in schools are under stress, there is little provision for providing fodder for cattle, feeding the destitute, the elderly, the children. Funds for RTE have declined, as are those for rural health and sanitation.

Recent surveys by independent agencies, such as the CMS, have shown that of the 40 governmnt schemes studied, MGNREGA and Food Security Act were among the worst performing schemes.

Jan Dhan Yojana is the best performing, but how will empty bank accounts fill hungry stomachs? The spectacle, Jan Dhan accounts, is more important than the substance, which could be provided by Food Security Act and MGNREGA. Is Yoga the panacea for empty food and water bowls? Vice-Chancellors may well bend to the UGC diktat to conduct Yoga performances on June 21, but dare the government order panchayat heads to do the same in India's villages?

The tragedy for this government however is not that they did nothing for the poor, especialy the rural poor. That was only to be expected from a regime that got corporate support for their election campaign to an extent unparalleled in the history of independent India. It is not only the innocent young first-time voters who bought into the El Dorado promised by Modi. Corporate India, which should have known better, fell for the bait of ‘enhanced ease of doing business', having forgotten the history of the fate of German business which hailed Hitler only to regret it sorely later. The tragedy of this government is they could do nothing for their corporate supporters. Exports and imports have been falling for months, industrial production is failing to pick up, Make in India remains an empty slogan. The enormous opportunity provided by falling petroleum prices and the slowing down of the Chinese dragon has been frittered away.

Ordinary citizens are wondering when the famed black money will reach their empty Jan Dhan accounts. When will their children get the promised jobs, since job-creation is abysmal?

In the meantime, the government ensures they are kept entertained by TV channels (we have a free press, please remember) who daily berate the anti-national elements, whose natural habitat is in India's best Universities, such as HCU, JU, and JNU. Further diversion from empty stomachs and no jobs is provided by nationalist lawyers beating up anti-national students such as Kanhaiya and journalists like Sonam Malhotra, so everybody can go to sleep satisfied that their deprivation is for a good national cause.

The icing on the nationalist cake (sorry, not the foreign version but the desi milk cake, for which the infamous Dadri is famous), whenever people's minds wander, and they hear “arhar Modi” instead of ‘Har har Modi', is provided by history and historians. Rename roads, A.P.J. Abdul Kalam instead of that bigot Aurangzeb, Maharana Pratap instead of that infidel Akbar. Or, how about targeting a history book we don't like, such as Bipan Chandra's? Let's remove that builder of Modern India, Jawaharlal Nehru, for a start. Let's make Sardar Patel, a Congressman all his life, into our mascot. People will soon start believing he was a leader of the pro-British Hindu Mahasabha. And then let's go for Subhas Bose, who gave Mahatma Gandhi the highest honour of being the first one to call him the Father of the Nation.

The bottom-line is: If you don't have history, you need mythology. If you do not have your own nationalist heroes, you need to steal other people's. If you do not have substance, you need rhetoric. We hope that the next three years will be short on rhetoric and long on substance.

Prof Mridula Mukherjee is a Professor of Modern Indian History (now retired), Centre for Historical Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi.