I believe that a head of state should not publish his memoirs while in office. Political parties are reluctant to criticise him because he is the constitutional head, as much theirs as that of those who elected him. Pranab Mukherjee has violated the demand of office by publishing his memoirs when he is still the President of India.

Before reading his autobiography, I imagined that Mukherjee would explain how he was wrong in becoming Sanjay Gandhi's Man Friday. Prime Minister Indira Gandhi's son, Sanjay, literally ran the government. Shockingly, Mukherjee has praised him. “Sanjay was clear in his thinking and forthright in expression,” wrote Mukherjee.

The President should know that Sanjay destroyed the institutions and imposed his personal rule in a democratic polity. Although he had not won even a municipal election, Sanjay administered the country, a job entrusted to Indira Gandhi when the nation returned her to power.

Mukherjee was the Commerce Minister in her Cabinet. Still he was at the beck and call of Sanjay Gandhi. Mukherjee should have explained in his memoirs why he was at the end of Sanjay's telephonic call. Was it the lure of office or did he fear detention without trial?

I, for one, went straight to the index to locate the chapter on the Emergency. To my horror, I found that the word ‘E' was missing. I thought that the Emergency must have been discussed under some other head. But I was disappointed to find that Mukherjee preferred to skip the traumatic experience the nation had for almost 22 months.

The Turbulent Years, as he captioned his biography, has mentioned even small events but not the Emergency. Today, the people are quiet or reluctant to say. But posterity will not be burdened by his office. He can still explain and bring out the third volume to do so. By keeping quiet, his is only hurting himself.

Even on the demolition of the Babri Masjid, Mukherjee spares the then Prime Minister, P.V. Narasimha Rao, by saying that he was at fault. Narasimha Rao connived at the demolition. He sat at the puja (prayer) at home when the demolition started and opened his eyes only when the Masjid was demolished to the last brick. Madhu Limaye, a socialist leader, told me that Narasimha Rao knew about the “conspiracy” beforehand and did nothing to stop its execution.

Mukherjee may have known what Narasimha Rao told us, senior journalists, that the small temple which had come up overnight at the Babri Masjid site “would not be there for long”. The Mandir is still there. Had Mukherjee felt so strong about the issue, he would have probably said so. It would have retrieved the image of India. The tolerant country would not have got the tag of intolerance which has not been rubbed off even after some 24 years.

Mukherjee was taken aback when he learnt from the daughter-in-law of Kamalapati Tripathi, a Congress leader, that he had been expelled for anti-party activities for six years. Mukherjee even started a party of his own when he was dropped from the government by Rajiv Gandhi.

Subsequently, when he regretted his mistake, he was made the President of the West Bengal Congress Committee. Strangely, Rajiv Gandhi blessed Ashok Sen's tirades against Mukherjee. Sen was also from West Bengal. Mukherjee did not emulate the example of R.K. Dhawan, Indira Gandhi's trusted private secretary of 22 years who had also been summarily dismissed. Dhawan preferred to withdraw from public life. However, Mukherjee stayed on in politics.

Since the Congress was still riding the wave of garibi hatao (banish poverty), Union Carbide was nationalised. Mukherjee was at odd with the party because he criticised the economic policy. He wrote: “Union Carbide is a big multinational. Nationalising it would be compared with the nationalisation of Coca Cola and seen as a mistake. Nationalisation will discourage future investments into India. As Finance Minister, I have tried to woo investors, NRIs, etc. This will be a huge setback...”

His narratives remind me of President Giani Zail Singh who, too, fell from the grace of Indira Gandhi. But she was helpless because George Fernandes, a socialist leader, had appealed to the President to try Indira Gandhi for having imposed the Emergency. Zail Singh told me that he would have done it but being a Sikh, he would have been singled out for taking revenge for the ‘Operation Blue Star' when she sent the security forces into the Golden Temple.

Despite the deliberate slight to Giani Zail Singh, he remained loyal to the Congress party and made the broadcast to defend the government on ‘Operation Blue Star'. He told me then that he would have become another Maharaja Ranjit Singh if he had defied the government. The Sikh community, he thought, would have hailed him. But, as he told me, he did not do so because it would have adversely affected his country.

Things had come to such a pass between Rajiv Gandhi and Zail Singh that the former did not allow the President to undertake an official tour to South Africa. Mukherjee was then so close to Rajiv Gandhi that the Prime Minister took his advice and felt justified when Mukherjee endorsed Rajiv Gandhi's decision.

One strongly feels about the omission of such developments in Mukherjee's book. He knew too much but he has told very little. To that extent Mukherjee has neither helped himself nor the Congress party. Posterity may feel that Mukherjee has concealed more than what he has revealed in his memoirs. After all, he was privy to all government decisions, many of which were controversial and required to be told in perspective.

One of them is the imposition of the Emergency. Whatever has been published so far does not justify such a step. Was Indira Gandhi's unseating by the Allahabad High Court the real reason or the countrywide demonstrations by Opposition parties? Mukherjee has failed to make the nation wiser.

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

BOOK REVIEW

A Revolutionary History of Interwar India—Violence, Image, Voice and Text by Kama Maclean; Hurst and Company, London; First edition: 2015; 342 pages; price not mentioned.

One would be rather surprised to know the increasing interest in the study of the Bhagat Singh phenomenon in the Western academia lately, perhaps more than Indian academia taking interest in the subject!

Not only the author of the present book, Dr Kama Maclean, who is an Australian and an Associate Professor in South Asian and World History at the UNSW, Sydney, the editor of South Asia, Chris Moffat, has also recently completed his Ph.D on Bhagat Singh in Cambridge University, UK; Professor Christopher Pinney, at the University College, London, in his book—Photos of Gods—too dealt with the phenomenon of Bhagat Singh through a study of photos, posters and pictures. Moreover some Indian scholars, such as Neeti Nair with her paper ‘Bhagat Singh as Satyagrahi' and Simona Sawhney with ‘Bhagat Singh: A Politics of Death and Hope', have worked on the same theme in Western academic institutions.

Dr Kama Maclean has been working on this project since 2007, when on a visit to Amritsar on a sabbatical leave from her University, she noticed pictures of Bhagat Singh in every bazaar of the town. In those days, the Aamir Khan starrer popular film, Rang de Basanti, was running in cinema houses and a young scholar wished to write her paper on the revolutionaries' impact on the national movement. But she soon became frustrated as she could not find enough scholarship to continue with her paper! Well, that was a telling comment on the academic situation in Indian universities after sixty years of freedom. Despite the huge popularity of Bhagat Singh in the public mind, it did not motivate Indian historians to deal with the phenomenon at the academic level! However, some of the Indian academic personalities did pay attention to this neglected aspect of the Indian history of the freedom struggle. Most notably Bipan Chandra, with his introduction to ‘Why I am an Atheist'—the seminal essay of Bhagat Singh—and also some of his other writings, started the process of focusing upon Bhagat Singh and other revolutionaries' impact on the national movement. Sumit Sarkar, in his Modern India and later-day scholars from different fields, like A.G. Noorani with his The Trial Of Bhagat Singh, S. Irfan Habib with his To Make the Deaf Hear contributed towards studying Bhagat Singh's role in the freedom struggle at the academic level. This was the development after the 1970s. Prior to that the comrades of Bhagat Singh like Shiv Verma, Bejoy Kumar Sinha, Jaidev Kapoor, Sohan Singh Josh, Ajoy Ghosh, Jatindranath Sanyal, Yashpal, Rajaram Shastri and many others wrote their memoirs of Bhagat Singh and other revolutionaries from 1950 onwards, but these did not get much attention from the academic institutions for research. Even the biographical writing on the entire Bhagat Singh family by Bhagat Singh's niece, Veerender Sandhu, published as early as in 1967 from Benaras, did not attract prominence, partly because it was in Hindi. The Nehru Memorial Museum and Library conducted a number of interviews of ex-revolutionaries in the 1970s, which are now considered the most valuable part of the source material on research related to the revolutionaries and the present researcher, Kama Maclean, has also made liberal use of this valuable material from the NMML in this book. In fact the author collected so much of source material from various places that perhaps no other researcher had done so before. She has documents from the National Archives of India, particularly the Home (Political) Department files' proscribed literature collection. From Nehru Memorial Museum and Library (NMML), she has consulted or collected 34 interviews from the Oral History Transcripts, AICC Papers and some private papers. She collected rich source material from London, which perhaps no earlier researcher on Bhagat Singh had accessed in such detail. From the British Library, India Office records she has proscribed tracts collection, from other sections of the same library she has consulted important collections such as the Halifax Papers. She consulted 23 interviews from the Oral History Collection of the Centre for South Asian Studies, Cambridge University; from there she consulted private papers too. These interviews were not known much in academic circles before. The interviews were conducted during 1970-1991 and include some interviews not conducted by the NMML earlier. Most important among the Cambridge interviews is that of Bhikshu Chaman Lal, known earlier as Chaman Lal Azad, the correspondent of Hindustan Times at the time of the Delhi bomb case in 1929.

Dr Kama Maclean consulted the Bradley Papers from the People's History Museum, Manchester as well. Apart from these archival material, the author accessed many newspapers of that time like Abhyudaya, Bhavishya, Chand, Tribune, Civil and Military Gazette etc. A number of old and contemporary publications also form part of the author's bibliography for this project. She collected a number of posters, photographs for her book; out of these, she has reproduced as many as 53; These were collected from various institutions like the Supreme Court of India, National Archives, NMML, British Library and private sources; she even bought several items from Shyam Sunder Lal Picture Merchant, Kanpur and other places.

Collecting so much source materials the task of organising makes rather difficult and putting these to judicious use for research. That was a challenge for researcher here.

Based on such rich source material, Dr Kama Maclean, as a well-trained researcher, has organised her book into three parts with three chapters each in every part. She has a detailed Introduction as well as an Epilogue in her book, apart from all the technical details like acknowledgements, glossary, acronyms, note on spellings, list of illustrations, notes, bibliography, index etc.

In her Introduction, she has explained the area and period of her research project. Mostly she has focused upon the 1928-31 period and on the Hindustan Socialist Republican Association (HSRA). She has defined the 1928-31 period as the ‘Inter-War Period', starting from the Simon Commission's visit to India in 1928 and taking it up to the Karachi Congress of March-end, 1931, held immediately after Bhagat Singh, Rajguru and Sukhdev's execution. She has questioned the prevalent narrative of the independence struggle predomi-nately as the Gandhian ideology of non-violence and supplemented it with the impact of the revolutionaries on the national movement through the inter-war period struggle of the HSRA. To study the HSRA's role she has deployed oral histories, ‘un-archived' materials such as satire, hearsay, visual cultural artefacts like photos and posters to reconstruct this neglected history. Not only the material she has referred to, she has deployed as much archival material and authentic documents as well to fill the gaps of history. She has admitted in her Introduction that ‘The revolutionaries of the HSRA have long been marginalised in the academic historiography of nationalism, despite their extraordinary popularity in popular culture in colonial India. This was most evident in proscribed literature and posters, and in contemporary India, in films, posters, comics and bazar histories.' (page 2) She has mentioned here the 2004 book of Christopher Pinney, Photos of Gods: The Printed Image and Political Struggle in India.

In a way she has carried forward the interesting multi-disciplinary research began by Pinney in this area with the combination of social sciences and aesthetics. Dr Maclean has used a poster provided by Dr Pinney as the title of the book, which has a garland of Chandrashekhar Azad's photos on Bhagat Singh's picture. She has described her work thus: ‘This book represents only the beginning of a larger, collective project of understanding revolutionary history, from a range of post-subaltern and postcolonial scholarly perspective.' Dr Kama Maclean has concluded her Introduction by defining her research methodology as stemming from a ‘post-subaltern and postcolonial scholarly perspective', which could generate a debate among professional historians. The historians, to whom she has shown considerable respect, are from the subaltern school; they include Dipesh Chakrabarty, whose comments on this book are displayed on the back cover. She has humbly acknowledged that she has neither been able to consult all the oral histories, nor all the police records, despite consulting the massive store of material which she came across. The researcher has stated in her Introduction that the ‘Indian Political Intelligence files—constituting 21,660 volumes and 224 boxes of data' were opened for scholars in British Library's India Office records from 1996 onwards. (page 8)

The book is divided into three parts. Part-I is called ‘The Revolutionaries of Hindustan Socialist Republican Army: Histories, Actions, Activities'. This part has three chapters: i. Of History and Legend: Revolutionary Actions in North India—1928-31; ii. That Hat: Infamy, Strategy and Social Communication; and iii. The Revolutionary Unknown: The Secret Life of Durga Devi Vohra. The author has used here the term ‘Army' instead of the term earlier used ‘Association', both from the acronym of HSRA. The term ‘Army' was used by revolutionaries themselves as the military wing of their political group, known as ‘Association' with same three letters used earlier—HSR. Balraj, a pseudonym for Chandrashekhar Azad, was the commander-in-chief of the ‘Army'! Posters thrown in the Delhi Assembly after the bombs exploded were under the signature of ‘Balraj'; so were the HSRA posters pasted on the Lahore walls after Saunders' assassination earlier. This chapter delineates the short history of the Bengal revolutionary groups like Anushilan, Yugantar and also precursor of the HSRA, the Hindustan Republican Association (HRA), formed in late 1923 by Sachindranath Sanyal, that included all the characters of the HSRA and also Ram Prasad Bismil, Ashfaqullah, Roshan Singh and Rajendra Lahiri, who were executed in late 1927 on account of the Kakori rail dacoity in 1925. This chapter contains A Short History of Bhagat Singh as well, based upon clandestine, proscribed and aggrieved histories. Kama Maclean not only narrates the history of Bhagat Singh, she takes it to his After Life history too. She discusses the movement in Pakistan to name a square after Bhagat Singh (that is, Bhagat Singh Chowk) in Lahore. She discusses seven films made on Bhagat Singh under the sub-title—In the Grip of Popular Culture. Very few people now know that the first film on Bhagat Singh, Shaheed-e-Azam, was made by a certain Jagdish Gautam in 1954 and it had created quite a furore among revolutionaries and in Bhagat Singh's family. Bejoy Kumar Sinha has referred to this film in his memoirs and mentioned the fact that the issue was even raised in Parliament to get the film banned. It was not banned, but cuts were made, which satisfied neither the family nor the surviving revolutionaries at that time. The second film on Bhagat Singh is also largely unknown; made in 1963 with Shammi Kapur as the hero, its director was Kidar Bansal. It was third film, Shaheed (1965), starring Manoj Kumar that brought fame to the martyr as well as the hero of the film with its melodious musical appeal. The year 2002 saw the release of three films on Bhagat Singh, out of which The Legend of Bhagat Singh received maximum popularity and acceptability. The seventh and last film on him was the Aamir Khan starrer, Rang de Basanti (2006).

The second chapter of this part of the book brings out an interesting story regarding Bhagat Singh's hat which, according to the researcher, contributed to his popularity through posters made on its basis. She highlights the fact that revolutionaries, particularly Bhagat Singh, were conscious about the power of the media to popularise their ideas and made maximum use of it through meticulous preplanning. The author underlines that most of the revolutionaries had their photographs from studios for records and for use by the media after their arrest or death. These photographs became rich material for artists later to turn them into attractive and impressive posters. The photograph with the hat was taken by the photographer Ramnath in his Kashmere Gate studio in Delhi probably on April 4, just a few days before both Bhagat Singh and B.K. Dutt threw bombs in the Delhi Assembly. B.K. Dutt was also photographed at the same time in the same studio by the same photographer. Ironically the same Ramnath was engaged by the Delhi Police as well to photograph the Assembly bomb site. The author has surmised that the Delhi Police had got Bhagat Singh and B.K. Dutt photographed after their arrest on April 8 by the same photographer Ramnath, but those photographs are still to surface. The photographs taken on April 4 were published on April 12 for the first time in the Urdu daily of Lahore, Bande Mataram, followed by Hindustan Times in Delhi on April 18, before becoming viral to use the term much in vogue today, and this contributed immensely to Bhagat Singh's popularity throughout India. The photograph of Bhagat Singh wearing the hat made him an iconic figure in times to come. The second chapter of the book on the hat photograph is a continuation of Christopher Pinney's earlier work based on the photographic studies of the revolutionaries. The third chapter in this part of the book carries a fascinating story of Durga Devi Vohra, popularly known among revolutionaries as Durga Bhabhi, the wife and widow of Bhagwaticharan Vohra, who died during a bomb experiment on May 28, 1930 on the banks of the Ravi in Lahore.

In the second part of the book, which has been given the curious title of Porous Politics: The Congress and the Revolutionaries—1928-31, the author has focused upon the interactions of the Congress party with the revolutionaries as part of the national movement. The close relations of the two Nehrus—Motilal and Jawaharlal—and Subhas Bose with the revolutionaries have been discussed in detail and many suppressed facts revealed. Kama Maclean has continued with the presentation and interpretation of the posters she had collected as part of her research interest in this part of the book. Motilal Nehru's rather unknown speech—‘Balraj or Gandhi'—in the context of the Delhi bomb case has been discussed. Motilal Nehru was softer than Jawaharlal towards the revolutionaries and liberally donated funds to them many a time.

The third part of the book—The Aftermath: Gandhism and Challenge of Revolutionary Violence—focuses on the Karachi Congress of 1931, held immediately after the execution of Bhagat Singh, Sukhdev and Rajguru and shows how deftly Gandhi dealt with the young people's anger and was able to avoid any split in the Congress.

In the Epilogue the story is taken till 1945-46 drawing attention to the revolutionaries' refusal to compromise with the Congress governments and their preference against seeking release by tendering apologies.

The book is rather lengthy (342 pages) in short font size, sometimes even difficult for readers with poor vision to read. The large number of ‘endnotes' disturb the reading as one has to consult those frequently at the end of the book; it could have become easy reading if those had been used as ‘footnotes' on each page. (The number of notes is very high—a total of 1379 notes!)

While the researcher has been careful in general, still some errors have crept in, like referring to the ‘Chand-fansi issue' of 1926, whereas it was published in November 1928; the error has been repeated several times. But on the whole Kama Maclean has worked hard to conduct research on an unusual subject and she did a lot of fieldwork to collect data for her research. She merits rich compliments for her well-produced research work that has resulted in this publication.

The reviewer is a retired Professor from the Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), New Delhi. His recent publication is Understanding Bhagat Singh.

IMPRESSIONS

Indian budgets are presented on the last day of February so that Parliament and the government will have all of March to discuss and finetune it before a new financial year begins on April 1. (Another British era tradition stipulated that budgets be presented in the evening so that stock markets would be closed and adventurous traders could do no mischief. Yashwant Sinha changed that practice by presenting his budgets at noon. The skies didn't fall.)

There are three features that make an Indian budget Indian. The first is that reactions to it run along pre-determined political lines. When a Congress Government presents a budget, the BJP dismisses it as unworthy. When a BJP Government is the presenter, the Congress condemns it as meaningless. That tradition was scrupulously maintained this time, too. The Congress said the Budget had ”no vision” and ”no big ideas”, BJP leaders hailed it as ”historic” and as ”a Budget that touched the lives of 1.25 billion Indians”. Were they talking about the same budget?

The second speciality of Indian budgets is that all of them are essentially the same, no matter which party is in power. The Narasimha Rao-Manmohan Singh Budget of 1991 was the only one that was substantively different because it changed the country's orientation from socialist controls to capitalist liberalism. For the rest, all Finance Ministers play with the same fundamental ideas, like Arun Jaitley has done this time with the rural employment idea.

The idea of the state providing direct employ-ment to the poorer sections of the population is as old as the Republic itself. Some States had already pioneered it before the Centre took it up. The National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, enacted in 2005, provided at least 100 days of wage employment a year to unskilled poor families in the villages. Corruption marred its handling, but it was a bold scheme, the World Bank describing it as a ”stellar example of rural development”. Nevertheless, the Indian tradition of the Opposition opposing for the sake of opposing held firm. The BJP described it as ”a living monument to poverty”. But the Jaitley Budget gave a fresh coat of paint to the same monument, allocating Rs 34,699 crores to it. Well done, too. The realities of India are the same but their visibility depends on the angle of vision.

Ditto with the third feature of Indian budgets—the eagerness with which whoever is in power zeroes in on the middle class for fleecing. The business class has their organisations and lobbies. The working class has their unions and strikes. Caught in between, the middle class is leaderless and unorganised, making them an easy target for squeezing. With their fixed salaries, their visible savings and their transparent transactions, they are the easiest group in the country to milk.

Look at the way petrol prices were kept high even when world prices hit record lows. The middle class cried foul, but no one heard it. This Budget confidently increased excise duty on aviation fuel, knowing that every self-respecting airline will pass the buck to passengers which means the middle class. (The business class travels on company account, the ministerial class just had their travel budget more than doubled, and the MP-MLA class has free travel among numerous other free things.) This when aviation turbine fuel costs 60-70 per cent more in India than global prices. The middle class, already facing rising cost of living, now has to face a situation where there are no tax-saving devices and no increase in income tax exemption limits; the increase is in service tax.

Considering the furore over the provident fund tax (a cruel idea), it is time to ponder why tax proposals cannot be published in advance so that they can be debated before the budget is presented. In other words, why not end the present policy of secrecy over tax proposals? (With electronic sweeping devices and Intelli-gence Bureau sleuths watching the movements of officials, the present secrecy blanket can be scary.)

A serious school of thought in Canada favours openness. In the US, the President's budget presentation is only a signal to start public discussions leading to final decisions. The Indian style of secrecy has encouraged lobbying and selective leaks favouring cronies.

Openness, on the other hand, will give the public also a chance to play a part before the budget is finalised. All we need is a forward-looking Finance Minister to start a new chapter. Like Yashwant Sinha did with timing.

The skies won't fall.

by Sujit Lahiry

The verdict in the Bihar Assembly elections in 2015 has some politically significant impli-cations not only for regional politics, but also for national politics. The Grand Alliance won 178 seats — out of which JD (U) got 71 seats, RJD got 80 seats and Congress got 27 seats. Despite a high-voltage, high-octane poll campaign by the BJP, the Grand Alliance won the elections by a thumping majority and was able to secure a three-fourths majority in the Bihar Assembly. This paper seeks to examine how the pre-poll electoral alliance of the two main political coalitions—the Mahagathbandhan/Grand Alliance and NDA—has fared in these elections. This paper has been accordingly divided into two sections. The first section probes into the reasons of the rise of the Grand Alliance and downfall of the BJP-led NDA. It also delves into how the Grand Alliance has swept the polls, clearly decimating the BJP-led NDA to a mere 58 out of 243 seats. Out of these 58 seats, the BJP won 53 seats, LJP two seats, HAM one seat and RLSP two seats. The second section ends with a brief conclusion.

I

The declaration of the election results in the Bihar Assembly on November 8, 2015 after five phases of polling has once again reaffirmed the firm hold of Nitish Kumar and Laloo Prasad Yadav in Bihar. What are the reasons for the downfall of the BJP-led NDA? To begin with, we can argue that the Modi magic has completely lost its relevance. Despite PM Modi himself addressing 30 plus rallies and trying to muster support of the electorate, the BJP-led NDA failed miserably in the Bihar elections.

Modi himself indulged in a personal and negative campaign by accusing Laloo and Nitish of ignoring the developmental issues in Bihar. Some of the props which can be identified by the BJP in this regard are the DNA jibe, Bihari versus Bahari, Tantra-mantra and three Idiots.

Let us examine all these one by one. In the heydays of the election campaign, Modi accused Nitish of betraying friends and allies like the BJP and argued that this is ingrained in Nitish's DNA. Taking strong exception to this argument, Nitish sent DNA samples (hair and nails) of the ordinary people of Bihar to Modi in order to defend the Bihari ‘asmita' (pride). Moreover, the BJP failed to provide a credible face of the Chief Minister and took upon himself the responsibility of steering the BJP through in Bihar. The ‘Bihari' versus ‘Bahari' jibe was part of this concealed manipulation by the BJP. Further, Modi referred to the Grand Alliance coalition as ‘three Idiots', comprising of the JD (U), RJD and Congress. All these reflect the depths to which a current Prime Minister can stoop in a personal and bitter campaign against the Grand Alliance. However, not only Modi, but BJP President Amit Shah addressed some sixty rallies and camped in Bihar for the entire October 2015. Despite such aggressive campaign, the Grand Alliance was able to register a landslide victory in Bihar. These arguments testify to our obser-vation that the people have rejected the Modi-Amit Shah model of governance.

Moreover, there was a strong wave of dissent among the party workers as well as senior leaders of the BJP, who were annoyed with the autocratic, dominant and authoritarian attitude of Modi and Amit Shah. All the senior leaders of the BJP, like L.K. Advani, Murli Manohar Joshi, Yashwant Sinha and Shanta Kumar, were disillusioned with Modi. All of them were sidelined ever since the NDA Government took office in May 2014 and placed in the ‘Margdar-shak Mandal', which has not yet met ever since then. In other words, the BJP seniors were virtually sent into oblivion. After the Bihar debacle, all the BJP seniors have since expressed their apprehension over the future direction of the party. They contended that if the BJP wins the election, all credit goes to Modi and Amit Shah. But, if the BJP loses the election, as has been in Bihar now, the discredit won't be directed against the Modi-Amit Shah duo, but will be shared by the entire party, that is, the principle of collective responsibility is being enforced.

Apart from these developments, there was a strong wave of communal polarisation unleashed by the BJP. The lynching of a Muslim man, Mohammad Ikhlaq, at Dadri in Uttar Pradesh over alleged beef-eating by the Hindu fanatics resulted in his death and sparked a national outrage. A pertinent question which arises here is: how can the Hindu terrorists decide what a Muslim will eat or not? The dominant majori-tarian Hindutva brigade and the Sangh Parivar have created a reign of terror in the country and led to a fear-psychosis among the minorities. The minorities, especially the Muslims, are not feeling safe in India under the Modi Government. They fear that their rights will be trampled upon if they criticise these fascist tendencies of the Modi Government.

These developments have raised the debate about the growing intolerance in the country. The intolerance debate is about the non-acceptability of secularism as a tacit ideology in our country. This debate has essentially spanned from a series of murders of rationalists like Pansare, Kalburgi and Dabholkar. Some BJP and RSS leaders have openly advocated the need to remove the word ‘secular' from the Preamble of our Constitution. They have vociferously advocated the need to create a ‘Hindu Rashtra'. In other words, the BJP is trying its best to ensure the creation of a militant and aggressive Hindutva. A galaxy of renowned academics, scientists, artists and film-makers have returned their awards in protest against the diminishing freedom of speech and expression in the country. Starting with Nayantara Sahgal, it has grown into a movement. The recent outburst of the Hindu fanatics against film actor Aamir Khan for speaking about the rising intolerance in the country is testimony to our observation. These developments essentially pose a challenge to the multi-cultural and pluralist ethos of our country. These, in part, also tilted the scales against the BJP.

Further, RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat's statement on caste and reservation was like a bombshell. Bhagwat contended that there is a need to rethink about the current reservation policy and caste-based reservation should be winded up. In a deeply class and caste-divided society as in Bihar, the caste factor cannot be ignored. The election results clearly show that Muslims, Yadavs, Extremely Backward Castes (EBCs) and Dalits have voted en masse for the Grand Alliance. Out of 243 seats in the Bihar Assembly, 61 Yadavs, 38 SCs, two STs, 23 Muslims, 20 Koeris, 20 EBCs, 19 Rajputs, 16 Kurmis, 16 Bhumihars, 14 Vaishay, 10 Brahmins and 4 Kayasthas have won the elections cutting across party lines.1 Thus, the caste arithmetic was well utililised by Laloo.

Lastly, the prices of ‘dal', especially arhaar dal, and onions have skyrocketed under the NDA regime and it has made a dent into the pockets of the migrant labourers and poor people, who have to fight for making the two ends meet. It definitely makes and leaves them vulnerable before the ‘corporate class', whom the BJP patronises. Modi talks about ‘Sabka Saath and Sabka Vikas'. But, the Modi Government is neither for all, nor does it talk about development for the vast majority of fragmented minority and the poor and downtrodden sections of society. The Modi Government has removed all social security measures further and has given a massive boost to bring foreign direct investment in all sectors of the economy. In other words, there is a ‘patron-client relationship' between the capitalist class and the Sangh Parivar. This has further led to the broadening of a wide gap between the ‘haves', who comprise a small section of the corporate and elite class, and the ‘have-nots', who comprise a wide arena of underprivileged, deprived and marginalised sections of society. The have-nots are at the receiving end of this government.

Union Minister of State for External Affairs and former Army Chief General V. K. Singh has equated Dalit children with dogs. Is Singh a human being? By such statements, the Modi Government has lost all moral right to continue in power. The Hindutva goons are trying to create a dominant majoritarian and Brahminical social order. Rather than criticise such virulent remarks, the Modi Government has not shown even an iota of sympathy and empathy for the Dalits and other marginalised sections who have been increasingly pushed to the periphery. In other words, class and caste distinctions have accentuated further with the present dispensation.

II

This election in Bihar has clearly demonstrated that the Modi-wave has dissipated and the results are definitely a referendum against the Modi Government. The projection of Nitish Kumar as the chief ministerial candidate was a big boon for the Grand Alliance, as Nitish has a clean image and there have been no reports of corruption cases pending against him in the last two decades. There had been no anti-incumbency against Nitish. On the other hand, the BJP-led NDA failed to provide a credible face as the CM before the electorate. At the same time, Laloo's social justice programme was well-accepted by all sections of society, especially the Muslims, Dalits and marginalised migrant workers in Bihar. Laloo Prasad Yadav had quite emphatically declared during the election process that this election was a battle between forward and backward castes. And accordingly, this election was regarded by Nitish-Laloo to be a victory of the backward castes, the triumph of secularism over the communal Sangh Parivar and also the victory of social justice and economic development planks. This election also witnessed the rise of the Congress, which has been able to increase its seat-share seven times, from a meagre four in 2010 to 27 seats this time in 2015. The ‘Fasivad Virodhi Manch', a civil society grouping comprising academicians, activists and others, was formed recently as one of the platforms through which the anti-people policies of the BJP Government can be curtailed and religious orthodoxy of the Sangh Parivar controlled. We just hope that the policies of secularism, tolerance, multiculturalism and pluralism prevail in our country.

Multiculturalism essentially teaches us to have tolerance and respect for other cultures and religions, while at the same time strengthening the insight into one's own religion and culture. It essentially celebrates cultural diversity, which arises from language, region, race, ethnic and religious differences. Similarly, the ideas of ‘secularism' have been ingrained in our Constitution through the Right to Freedom of Religion, as envisaged in the Fundamental Rights (Articles 25-28). It allows every Indian to freely practice any religion and also set up minority institutions for propagating such religion. However, the present dispensation under Modi is averse to such ideas of India and is bent upon establishing a homogenous and hegemonic Hindutva over the minority religions and cultures, especially Islam. These anti-national and anti-secular forces need to be defeated in order to lay down the basis of a more humane India. We conclude by arguing that it is our ardent hope that the Grand Alliance experiment will be repeated in other States as well to protect the basis of a secular, plural and multicultural India.

Footnote

• Hindustan Times, New Delhi, November 10, 2015.

Dr Sujit Lahiry is an Assistant Professor of Political Science, Panjab University Regional Centre, Sri Muktsar Sahib (Punjab).

Legendary freedom fighter and martyr Bhagat Singh's birth centenary was observed on September 28, 2007. On the occasion of the eightyfifth anniversary of his martyrdom, we are reproducing, with due acknowledgement, the following article (published earlier in Countercurrents.org) in homage to the outstanding revolutionary hero's abiding memory. He was executed along with Sukhdev and Rajguru in Lahore on March 23, 1931. He was and remains to this day a source of inspiration for our youth. In this context we also offer our sincere tributes to Babasaheb Ambedkar just before his 125th birth anniversary next month.

The vested interests, while lauding Babasaheb Ambedkar, have systematically reduced him to be his near-ideological antithesis. The ruling classes and their state, of course, have played a vanguard role but even his so-called followers have not in any way been behind. This year the ruling establishment is going gaga over the celebration of his 125th birth anniversary, when as though revealingly, the year has dawned with the monumental injustice to the five Dalit Ph.D scholars of the Hyderabad Central University that led to one of them, Rohith Vemula, committing suicide. When Ambedkar stressed on higher education, unlike most reformers of his times, he had the likes of Rohith in mind, laced with critical faculties to steer the movement of oppressed people to their liberation. Harassment of Dalit students pushing them to commit suicide in higher educational institutions is not new but the manner in which this suicide took place should wake up Dalits to the deceit practised by the current regime.

It saw the continued abuse of the Constitution and trampling of all ideas Ambedkar stood for in the recent imbroglio in JNU. The very establishments that decimated his ideal of democratic republic and killed the spirit of liberty, equality, fraternity are posing as his biggest devotees. Under such mounting propaganda, right from the late 1960s, which shows that it is not the parties but the class they belong to that has been acting in concert, the radical aspects of Babasaheb Ambedkar have been systematically overshadowed. For instance, just after getting disillusioned with the aftermath of the Mahad struggle he had tried class politics over the entire decade until he was forced by the circumstances to revert back to caste politics. This politics, symbolised by the Independent Labour Party, which was described by him as a workers' party, and its reflection in Janata, his newspaper, appears to have been completely forgotten. The 1930s was an eventful decade and it is interesting to see how he saw or related with many of these events. The non-Marathi readers are totally lost to these writings because their translations are yet not available in English and therefore in other languages. This creates the impression that Babasaheb Ambedkar just hammered on the betterment of Dalits and supplemented the ‘divide-and-rule' policy of the British imperialists. At least that is what is reflected by the current genre of Dalit leaders through their apathy towards issues other than Dalit.

One of the most shattering events of this decade was the trial and eventual hanging of Bhagat Singh along with his two comrades, Rajguru and Sukhdev. It exposed the British imperialists in their true colours along with their love for the rule of law as well as the phoney concern of our nationalist leadership for the freedom of the people. Bhagat Singh and Dr Ambedkar, as they would seem perfect opposite of each other, are the two heroes who had truly understood what ailed this country. When I said this while speaking at the launch of the centenary celebrations of Bhagat Singh in Maharashtra in 2007, people were perplexed by such a weird statement. But that is quite true. The relevance of these two people is growing as they get distanced from us. How did they see each other? There is no evidence of either of them saying anything about the other. However, we do know that Bhagat Singh had grappled with the Dalit question. He had written an article, titled Achoot Samasya (Problem of Untouchability), at the age of 16, but it still has a freshness and reflects an amazing maturity of thought to be relevant for the emancipatory struggle of Dalits. Ambedkar did not write on the revolutionary movement of Bhagat Singh but had written an editorial note, titled “Three Victims”, when they were hanged. Though it does not speak about their struggle, much less politics, it explains how their execution was influenced by political expediency back home.

I provide herewith its translation as it may be of interest to many a student of Ambedkar besides its historical value.

Three Victims

(Janata, April 13, 1931)

Bhagat Singh, Sukhdev and Rajguru have been eventually hanged. They were charged for the murders of an English police officer, named Saunders, and a Sikh police sepoy, named Chaman Singh. Also there were three or four additional charges such as an attempt of murdering one police inspector at Banaras, throwing a bomb in the Assembly, conducting robbery at a house in Maulimiya village and looting its valuables. Bhagat Singh had already admitted to the charge of throwing bomb in the Assembly. For this crime, he and Batukeshwar Dutt were already sentenced with life imprisonment. One of the comrades of Bhagat Singh, by the name of Jaigopal, had confessed that the murder of Saunders was executed by the revolutionaries including Bhagat Singh and others. The government had filed a case against Bhagat Singh and his comrades based on this confession. None of the three accused participated in this case, however. A special tribunal was appointed comprising three High Court judges that heard the case and unanimously awarded them death penalty.

Bhagat Singh's father had made a mercy petition to the Emperor and the Viceroy requesting them not to execute the punishment and convert it, if required, into life imprisonment at Andamans. Many people, including prominent leaders, also tried to plead with the government in the matter. The issue of Bhagat Singh's death penalty might have arisen in the negotiations that took place between Gandhi and Lord Irwin. Although Lord Irwin had not given any definitive assurance about saving Bhagat Singh's life, Gandhi's speech during the intervening period created a hope that Irwin would try his best within his powers to save the lives of these three youth. But all these hopes, predictions and appeals proved futile. They were killed by hanging in the Central Prison, Lahore on March 23, 1931 at 7 pm. None of them had made any appeal for saving them. But as it is already published, Bhagat Singh had expressed a desire for being killed with bullet shots instead of hanging by the neck. But even this last will of his was not granted and they implemented the judgment of the tribunal verbatim. The judgement was to hang by the neck till dead. If they were killed with bullet shots, the execution would not have conformed to the judgement verbatim. The order of the justice goddess was obeyed in toto and the three were killed with the method she prescribed.

For whom the Sacrifice?

If the government thinks that people would be impressed by its display of devotion to and strict obedience of the justice goddess and therefore they would approve of this killing, it would be its utter naiveté. None believes that this sacrifice was made with the only intention of maintaining the clean reputation of the British justice system sans blemish. Even the govern-ment will not be able to convince itself with such an understanding. Then how will it convince others with this veil of the justice goddess? The entire world, as well as the government, does know that it is not for the devotion to the justice goddess but the fear of the Conservative Party and public opinion back home in England that this sacrifice was executed. They thought, the unconditional release of political prisoners like Gandhi and signing pacts with Gandhi's party have damaged the prestige of the Empire. Some orthodox leaders of the Conservative Party have launched a campaign that the prevailing Cabinet of the Labour Party and the Viceroy, who danced to its tune, were responsible for it. In such a situation if Lord Irwin had showed mercy to political revolutio-naries who have been convicted for assassinating an English officer, it would be like giving a burning torch into the hands of the Opposition leaders. Already the condition of the Labour Party is not stable. In such a situation if these Conservative leaders got an alibi that the Labour Government grants clemency to the convicts, who had murdered an Englishman, it would be so easy to provoke public opinion against it. In order to avert this imminent crisis and to thwart the fire in the minds of the Conservative leaders from flaring further, these hangings were executed.

As such this was not to satisfy the justice goddess but to please public opinion in England. If it had been the issue of personal liking or disliking of Lord Irwin, he would have within his own powers annulled the death penalty and awarded life imprisonment in its stead. The Cabinet of the Labour Party in England would have supported Lord Irwin in this decision. It would have been necessary to maintain congeniality of public opinion in the context of the Gandhi-Irwin Pact. While leaving the country, Lord Irwin would surely have liked to earn this goodwill. But he would have been crushed between the ire of his Conservative kin in England and the Indian bureaucracy imbued with the same casteist attitude. Therefore, not minding the public opinion here the Government of Lord Irwin hanged Bhagat Singh and his comrades to death and that too just two to four days before the Karachi conference of the Congress. Both the hanging of Bhagat Singh and his comrades, and its timing were sufficient to puncture the Gandhi-Irwin Pact and to trash the efforts to bring it about. If Lord Irwin wanted to fail this Pact, he would not have found a better act than this one. Looking from this perspective, as Gandhiji also felt, one could say that the government committed a great blunder.

In sum, merely not to incur the anger of the Conservatives in England, they sacrificed Bhagat Singh and his comrades ignoring public opinion and not minding what would happen to the Gandhi-Irwin Pact. The government must remember, howsoever it tries to cover it up or polish it, it will never be able to hide this fact.

(Courtesy: Countercurrents.org)

Dr Anand Teltumbde is a writer and civil rights activist with the CPDR, Mumbai. He is currently a Professor of Business Management at the IIT, Kharagpur.

The Aadhaar Bill, 2016

The Aadhaar (Targeted Delivery of Financial and Other Subsidies, Benefits and Services) Bill, 2016 (“Aadhaar Bill”, for short) was passed in the Lok Sabha on March 11, 2016, as a money bill, a strategem clearly meant to prevent delay in the Rajya Sabha, where the BJP does not command a majority.

Leaving aside the questionable strategem, the Aadhaar Bill leaves much to be desired, especially considering its troubled “history” ever since the beginning of the Aadhaar scheme. In particular, according to this writer, two of the major issues involved are personal privacy and national security.

Personal Privacy

At present there is no law on privacy, but in Rajagopal versus State of Tamil Nadu (1994), the Supreme Court opined that privacy is inherent in an individual's right to personal liberty. Also, Section 8(1)(j) of the RTI Act 2005, protects the private individual against unwarranted invasion of his/her privacy, proof enough that privacy is a right even if it is not a fundamental right. On whether privacy is a fundamental right, the Government of India succeeded in convincing a three-judge Supreme Court Bench hearing a bunch of petitions challenging Aadhaar on multifarious grounds, that privacy is important enough an issue to warrant consideration by a Constitution Bench.

There is little doubt that mass surveillance for suspicion-less, untargeted snooping into people's private spaces to identify a possible threat to security, is questionable. The privacy issue was brought to international attention in 2013, with the USA admitting that its National Security Agency had been clandestinely collecting billions of pieces of information worldwide including personal data and e-mails from computer networks and telephones. India was one of the USA's many surveillance targets.

Today, the technical capability of shadowy intelligence agencies for mass surveillance to collect, sort and process enormous quantities of data or meta-data has multiplied enormously. Hacking into databases for data is not very difficult for a person with the necessary motivation, skills and time, and it is quipped that systems are hack-proof only until the first hack. Cyber security concerns in the face of clandestine, untargetted surveillance are not only about national security but also citizens' right to privacy.

Target for Intelligence Agencies

Whether or not it succeeds in its declared primary aim of targeted welfare services for the poor, Aadhaar enables surveillance and tracking. Aadhaar promoters claim that access to its data base will not be permitted to any agency, and will be secure from intelligence agencies that spy on citizens. This claim is questionable since, according to its website, UIDAI contracted to receive technical support for biometric capture devices, from L-1 Identity Solutions, Inc. (now MorphoTrust USA), a US-based intelligence and surveillance corporation. According to the corporation's website, its top executives are acknowledged experts in the US intelligence community. Other companies awarded contracts for key aspects of the Aadhaar project, are Accenture Services Pvt Ltd (implementation of Biometric Solution for UIDAI) which works with US Homeland Security, and Ernst & Young [setting up of Central Identities Data Repository (CIDR) and Selection of Managed Service Provider (MSP)].

It is difficult to have confidence in the security of sensitive national information when the technical provider which creates, holds or manages the database is a business corporation with strong connections to foreign intelligence organisations. Furthermore US corporations are mandated by US law to reveal to the US Government, information obtained during their legitimate operations, when called upon to do so. The extent to which India's cyber security has been already invaded by surveillance is not even known, and when the security of the Aadhaar system is not water-tight, compromise of the Aadhaar system's security will tantamount to compromise of national security.

When the cyber systems of high-security organisations like the USA's NASA or India's DRDO have been repeatedly hacked, UIDAI's self-certification of its database security rings hollow. As far as institutional cyber security in India is concerned, barring one database protected by an indigenously developed network security system, official databases in India, including Aadhaar's Central ID Repository (CIDR), are protected by purchased commercial network security and cryptographic products. There is little need to emphasise the vulnera-bility of the Aadhaar database to access by unauthorised persons/agencies for data destruction, corruption or simply copying by surveillance or hacking. The effect on individual privacy is unquestionably adverse.

Intelligence agencies operate by conducting general surveillance on citizens in public places and linking this with personal information available in various databases maintained by banks, income tax offices, ration cards, electoral rolls, airline and railway ticketing, internet and telecom service providers, etc. Since the Aadhaar number is “seeded” in these various data bases, Aadhaar itself will inevitably be at the core of a system to enable profiling and tracking of any and every private individual. Therefore Aadh-aar is a prize target for intelligence agencies to hack or surveil to acquire data to invade individual privacy and compromise national security.

Urgent Need

There have been a host of objections— especially including those of privacy and security—to the Aadhaar scheme itself since its inception, with several petitions still pending before the Supreme Court. The Aadhaar (Targeted Delivery of Financial and Other Subsidies, Benefits and Services) Bill, 2016, does nothing to address those objections including especially those articulated unambiguously and vigorously by the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Finance, headed by Yashwant Sinha, in December 2011.

In particular, the Aadhaar Bill fails to address the serious systemic issues of national security and individual privacy and indeed, the word “privacy” is absent from its text. However, concerning the security and confidentiality of information, the value of individual privacy is indirectly acknowledged in Section 33(2), by specifying that an individual's Aadhaar number, and biometric and demographic information may be revealed in the interest of national security, only by a specially authorised officer not below the rank of Joint Secretary of the Government of India. Yet here again, the interpretation of the term “national interest” remains at the sole discretion of a bureaucrat.

Further, the Aadhaar Bill omits to explicitly state whether enrolling into the Aadhaar scheme is “mandatory” or “not mandatory”. This can be interpreted as a deliberate omission to justify the ongoing coercive enrolment into the Aadhaar scheme. The effect of the final order of the Supreme Court on this omission remains to be seen.

The several issues pleaded in the outstanding petitions before the Supreme Court and the outcome of the privacy issue placed before a Constitutional Bench will surely have a bearing on the details of the Aadhaar Bill if not on its structure. Thus, ramming the Aadhaar Bill through the Lok Sabha without waiting for the Supreme Court to give its orders may result in unnecessary litigation, besides exposing lack of respect for transparent democratic procedures.

Notwithstanding, genuine national interest may dictate that laws on data/digital privacy protection and cyber security be urgently enacted and linked with the Aadhaar Bill, before it becomes operational in the public sphere.

Major General S.G. Vombatkere, VSM, retired in 1996 as the Additional DG, Discipline and Vigilance in Army HQ AG's Branch. The President of India awarded him the Visishta Seva Medal in 1993 for distinguished service rendered in the high-altitude region of Ladakh. He holds a Ph.D degree in Structural Dynamics from IIT, Madras. With over 470 published papers in national and international journals and seminars, his area of interest remains strategic and development-related issues.

DOCUMENT

• Release JNU students Omar Khalid and Anirban Bhattacharya immediately!!

• Release Delhi University Professors S.A.R. Geelani and G.N. Saibaba immediately!!

• Abolish Capital Punishment! Abolish the colonial ‘Sedition Act'!

• Justice for Rohith Vemula and enactment of the Rohith Act!!

• Complete withdrawal of Army from Kashmir, North-Eastern States and Chhattisgarh!!

• Justice for Soni Sori! Stop assaults on journalists, activists and NGOs in Chhattisgarh!

Indian Workers' Association, Great Britain continues to stand firmly with Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) and strongly condemns the attempts by the Indian state and Hindutva forces to stifle the voices of democratic dissent, disagreement and discourse in the campuses. We congratulate the students and the faculty for standing unitedly and firmly at a time when assaults on democratic rights is taking place across India on various sections of the people. We thank and congratulate the students, faculty and staff of various educational institutions from within India such as Jadavpur University, Hyderabad Central University, IITs, IIMs, FTII and IIMC for standing with JNU. We also thank hundreds of academicians such as Noam Chomsky from universities across the globe, including Columbia, Harvard, Yale, Cambridge, Oxford and Warwick for their outpouring solidarity in support of JNU. We also thank the legal team who volunteered to act as lawyers for the six JNU students including Kanhaiya, Omar Khalid and Anirban Bhattacharya and also for successfully getting the JNU Students' Union President Kanhaiya out on interim bail. It demands immediate release of Omar Khalid and Anirban Bhattacharya from prison.

On a similar note, IWA, Great Britain strongly condemns the arrest of Prof Geelani, Delhi University, barely three days after the arrest of JNUSU President Kanhaiya Kumar. While the six JNU students have been charged with sedition over an event on JNU campus against the hanging of Afzal Guru, Prof Geelani is facing the same charges over an event at the Press Club on the same issue. S.A.R. Geelani's biggest crime is that he is a Kashmiri Muslim and questioned the capital punishment given to Afzal Guru. IWA, GB demands his unconditional release from detention.

IWA, GB likes to remind that yet another Delhi University Professor, G.N. Saibaba, who was incarcerated in Nagpur jail for 14 months, was sent back to prison again in the last week of January, within six months after being released on bail based on his deteriorating health conditions. He was charged under the colonial Sedition Act and the UAPA. The only fault of this 90 per cent disabled wheelchair-bound Professor was that he questioned the ongoing military assault of the government, code named ‘Operation Green Hunt', on the poorest of the poor—the Adivasis of Chhattisgarh, Orissa and Jharkhand. He also questioned the signing of hundreds of secretive mining and infrastructure contracts (MoUs) by the Central and State governments with multinational corporations, who are looting the natural resources, grabbing thousands of acres of land of the indigenous people and destroying their livelihood. In a related development, a contempt notice was issued against Arundhati Roy by High Court Justice Arun Chaudhari in December for her views published in Outlook magazine on the arrest of Dr G.N. Saibaba and subsequent rejection of his bail plea early last year. IWA, GB demands immediate release of Dr G.N. Saibaba and withdrawal of the contempt notice served against Arundhati Roy.

We cannot see what is happening in the JNU or Rohith Vemula's institutional murder in the University of Hyderabad in isolation from what has been happening elsewhere in India and across the world. As the global economic crisis is deepening, the corporations are bringing extreme Right-wing forces to power in many countries, which are intensifying their assaults on the democratic and constitutional rights of the people, including students. Historically, students have been in the forefront—may it be the anti-war campaign against the US war on Vietnam or against the Chinese Government's assault at Tiananmen Square. On the 9th of March, 2016, about half a million students and industrial workers jointly took to the streets in Paris and other cities around France, striking against President François Hollande's proposed changes to the labour laws, which are seen as a major assault on workers' rights. The demonstrations shook the French rulers, reminding them of the 2006 militant demonstrations of students and youth. From that perspective, the students in India have a huge responsibility in building a democratic movement in India, resisting the ongoing assaults by the pro-corporate Hindutva government.

JNU has brought some age-old important issues to the forefront once again for debate. One of them is the right to self-determination of nationalities and the question of Kashmir. Contrary to what the Sangh Parivar thinks, India is not just one monolithic nation. India is diverse with various nationalities, regions, tribes and cultures. In political terms India is a union of several nationalities, which are still struggling to evolve as full-fledged nations. The right to self-determination of oppressed nationalities, such as Nagas, Manipuris, Mizos and Assamese, is being crushed under the iron heels of the armed forces. Though there are name-sake State governments, Kashmir and North-Eastern States have always constantly been under military rule, with hundreds of thousands of armed forces being deployed there. The pre-1947 promises made by the Indian National Congress (INC) to the people of various nationalities in India for a real federal democratic republic remained as broken promises, making India a prison-house of nationalities.

Another question is the Capital Punishment and colonial repressive acts such as the notorious ‘Sedition Act', which the British used on Bhagat Singh, Gandhi and Tilak. In addition to what they have inherited from the British, the Indian rulers have made innumerable draconian repressive laws such as AFSPA, TADA, POTA, NASA, MISA, UAPA, Chattisgarh Special Public Security Act and so on.

The same government, which has taken away the non-NET fellowships and is rushing to sell-off our educational institutions to the World Trade Organisation (WTO), is on the other hand continuing its assault on the industrial working class by diluting the already weak labour laws, making it easy for the corporations to hire and fire workers. The same Hindutva forces, who are responsible for the institutional murder of Dalit scholar Rohith Vemula of HCU, are also responsible for the suicides of thousands of peasants. The same fascist forces, that are responsible for the massacres of thousands of minorities such as Muslim and Christians across the country, are intensifying their assaults on thousands of villages in the mineral-rich forest areas of Chhattisgarh, Orissa, Jharkhand and Bihar with an intention of displacing millions of Advasis from their lands and homes for the benefit of foreign and domestic mining and heavy industry corporations. Attacks on Adivasi villages by armed forces are increasing. Arrests, torture, rapes, burning of crops and homes, stealing their savings and poultry by the armed forces have been going on as a routine for more than two decades. According to the reports of the Home Ministry, there are over one lakh armed forces such as CRPF, BSF and ITBP deployed in South Chhattisgarh, making it the mostmilitarised zone in the entire country. Around two years ago the Indian Army too was deployed in the guise of establishing a training school for the Army. The Indian Airforce is building airstrips there.

Indian jails are overcrowded, most of them being people from poor working class/rural background and political activists. According to the 2013 prison statistics of the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB), published in The Times of India (November 9, 2013), Chhattisgarh is the worst among any other State in India with 14,780 prisoners against the prison capacity of 5850, which means a 252.6 per cent. Most of them are Adivasis imprisoned under false cases. Sixtyeight per cent of them are undertrials and never produced before the court. Legal aid organisations such as jagLAG, who provide free legal advice to poor Adivasis and NGOs such as Red Cross, who provide free medical care to the Adivasis, and many journalists such as Malini Subramanyam of Scoll.com, who report the atrocities of the armed forces on Adivasis, are driven out of South Chhattisgarh by the police. A day after being warned by the Chhattisgarh Police to vacate her home in a village near Jagadalpur, tribal leader Soni Sori was attacked by some ‘unidentified persons' who threw a chemical on her face.

Our country is passing through a critical phase of history in terms of erosion of democratic rights and shrinking democratic space. We appeal to the students and youth of India to stand in solidarity with other progressive sections of the society such as journalists, lawyers and teachers to build a democratic united front against the ongoing assaults by the fascist state. They should stand in solidarity with the peasants who are being driven to take their own lives and adivasis who are facing the joint assault of armed forces and multinational corporations. They should join forces with the industrial working class as the French students are doing. The interests of working class and peasants are not any different from those of the students, as a majority of them come from poor peasant and working class families.

* Long live the unity of students, intellectuals, workers, peasants and adivasis!

* Uphold the democratic values and fight to retain the rights achieved through democratic struggles!

* Freedom for all political prisoners!

by Vivek Kumar Srivastava

There is onslaught from the cultural nationalists on the history books which are being taught in post-independent India. A demand for history rewriting will emerge again with more intensity in the post-JNU incident. The general thinking among several politicians is that most of these historians are inclined towards the communist ideology. They are anti-Hindu and mainly belong to JNU. Although these historians have emerged as a distinct school of history, and can be termed as the ‘JNU school of history', they may include some eminent writers from other institutions as well. They are under attack for no reason, perhaps the other group thinks that they disseminate a particular ideology; but it is unscientific thinking with no substance.

There are different dimensions of the issue which can be briefly conceptualised here. History-writing is evidence-based and it is not the common people's task. It depends upon certain sourcese; only then history in the real sense can be written. This makes history a research-based discipline. Historians have limitations as they have to write with the available facts. The interpretations, an important component of the knowledge, may differ but its core cannot be distorted.

Indian history-writing has followed this tradition. That is the reason that it is treated as more authentic than Pakistani history-writings where several interpretations and facts have been misjudged, leading to serious shortcomings in their writings. But it is not so in India where historians have produced serious works on the basis of the documented evidences. When Romila Thapar writes in her book ‘Asoka and the decline of the Mauryas', that ‘for a woman life in Buddhist society was not so trying as life in brahminical society, since she was not regarded as a child-bearer' (Horner, Women in Primitive Buddhism), she depends upon an authentic source. She also takes evidences directly from the primary sources as Arthasashtra, Indica, Asokan edicts etc. Bipan Chandra has also based his researches on documentary evidences. His article published in the EPW's special number in August 1975, ‘Jawaharlal Nehru and the Capitalist Class, 1936', is based on high quality research. He at one place notes that ‘they (15 leading businessmen of Bombay, who were all members of the Committee of the Indian Merchants Chamber) also asked him (Nehru) “to explain what he meant by socialism, when it would be achieved, and whether the merchants with their limitations could give their quota in the movement of socialism”. The evidence was based on a news item published in The Tribune, May 23, 1936; The Times of India, May 23, 1936.'

Bipan Chandra was analysing the events on the basis of the evidences; hence his writings on Indian nationalism, if criticised or underestimated, it in fact becomes an insult to the discipline of history and all social and natural sciences because all knowledge in any discipline is the result of the new researches, based on authentic sources. Therefore the writings of any true historian of any age depends upon the authentic sources, which are the raw material of historians for writing their works. Hence to say that history should be rewritten means to debunk what has been achieved by the researches and established as real knowledge.

I took a survey of fifty students on this issue in the city of Kanpur in February 2016. They belonged to different disciplines, some were NET qualified, three University toppers and a few preparing for the civil services examination, NET and provincial services examinations. I came to know that for them the names of Acharya D.D. Basu (Indian Constitution), Bipan Chandra, Romila Thpar even Sumit Sarkar were well known. They had read several writers including H.C. Verma, A.L. Srivastava on medieval Indian history but Satish Chandra and in ancient Indian history Ram Sharan Sharma were their favourites. One student, a university topper in Political Science (with a liberal- Right tilt) said that ‘Bipan Chandra is in our DNA'.

What does it mean? Can the rewriting of history change the mindsets of the young people? Perhaps not because they know well what actually is the quality of the work. This needs to be understood by the pro-changers for history writings, who do not know that changes in the history books during the previous NDA Government were not accepted by the students at large because the quality of history writing from the ‘JNU school of history' has remained unmatched and is most acceptable and attractive for all students, the major group of readers of such works.

Another deep issue is related to it; this explains why historians from these institutions edged out many, in creating knowledge. The major reason is that historians with a research bent of mind were trained firstly at their own level in reading the economic history texts, mainly from Marx who wrote an article ‘The British rule in India' in the New-York Daily Tribune, on June 25, 1853, which laid the basis of the economic history of India. Dadabhai Naoroji, Rajani Palme Dutt were analysing the impact of the British rule on India. They all concluded that it was exploitative. Hence their readers were influenced as well as their students themselves reached the same conclusion, from Tara Chandra to Bipan Chandra etc. The study of the marginalised, of the exploited ones, of poor farmers and the way events during the Indian freedom movement unfolded with the prominent roles of several Congress leaders, influenced their intellectual understanding, and in due course document-based research works were produced, albeit all appeared as taking a communist line but they only brought out the real character of modern Indian history. When you think about a poor person or think why some are so rich and how a poor is being exploited? Even if you have not read Marx or modern historians, somewhere the individual is a Marxist. On this ground every emotional and kind-hearted person is a Marxist. So to say that they are Marxist historians is a great fallacy at the intellectual level.

The problem with several other organisations is that they have failed to produce real scholars. They have lagged in the intellectual discourses; better would have been if new researches would have come in the public domain from their side too but that has not taken place, suggesting that there is a huge dearth of research-based works in history. Scholars in JNU and other universities have worked to overcome this lacuna; hence they need to be recognised rather than be subjected to attacks and humiliations.

Dr Vivek Kumar Srivastava is the Vice-Chairman, CSSP, Kanpur. He can be contacted at e-mail: vpy1000[at]yahoo.co.in

From N.C.'s Writings

There is much to learn for ourselves from the stormy experiences of the World Cup cricket that we all have been watching excitedly in the last two weeks, particularly from what happened at Bangalore on March 9 and what followed four days later in Calcutta on March 13. It is not just the question of having gone through a hideous ordeal at Calcutta after the rout that the Indian team had to face at the hands of the young Sri Lankan team, who definitely outclassed Mohammed Azharuddin and his men. Professional mistakes might have been committed by the Indian side when it let Sri Lanka bat first while the wicket was known to be weak and was bound to crumble. There might have been other serious factors behind India's collapse.

But what happened in Calcutta that has put the entire country to shame had nothing to do with the players but the wider public, the spectators who had come in thousands and hundred thousands to watch the match. The vandalism let loose by a section of angry spectators was no doubt shocking but not totally unexpected. For weeks before the great match at the Eden Gardens, there was a mammoth ad-campaign creating an unprecedented frenzy, presenting a larger-than-life illusion about cricket and its heroes. The essence of a long-tested healthy game—which was supposed to have helped in the moulding of an entire nation—is the motto that victory or defeat did not matter and that playing cricket is playing fair. The fact that cricket has been democratised by its acceptance by the common millions in many parts of what was once the British Empire, shows that its true message of healthy rivalry without rancour or bitterness has permeated down to millions in the decolonised world of free nations.

However, the high-tension media blitz spread over one long month has been an eye-opener about the mass intoxication that overpowered millions as part of the global advertisement drive of Coca Cola and Pepsi Cola together with the Wills cigarette. The legal injunction that requires every cigarette advertisement to carry the warning that cigarette smoking is injurious to health was ignored and the VIPs and Chief Ministers associated themselves with the carnival whose main commercial incentive was to promote a particular brand of cigarette. High tension bordering on mass hysteria that was spread through hi-tech communication channels—and this was reinforced by betting on players and teams a la horse racing—obviously overpowered the message of civilised recreation that cricket originally stood for and in its place came a fearsome orgy of violence and hatred, rousing all the basest instincts in a human being. This could be seen in the unbelievable wave of hysteria in Pakistan, leading to suicide, arson, mob outburst just because the Pakistani team lost at Bangalore. The bonhomie that dominated the top cricketers from Pakistan and India playing together in a combined team at Colombo hardly a month ago—as a gesture of South Asian solidarity when the Australians and West Indies had chosen to stay away from Sri Lanka proclaiming their refusal to accept Sri Lanka's assurances of security from terrorist violence—was almost wiped off by what happened in Pakistan in the wake of the defeat of its team in Bangalore and was compounded by the shameful display in Calcutta at the rout of the Indian team.

If one counts up the sum-total of all the three episodes, it would seem that the beastliness in the wake of Pakistan's Bangalore defeat and India's Calcutta defeat has wiped off the spon-taneous jubiliation that one could discern at the Colombo demonstration of Indo-Pakistan amity and goodwill. From this one cannot help drawing the inference that the ultra-modern ad-dictated life-style of today, serviced by the present-day information technology, does not necessary on its own generate fraternal goodwill. The hi-tech society does not by itself ensure a better world to live in, a world of peace and amity. What is urgently needed is the cultivation of a new civilisational approach that will be able to look upon a neighbour's victory as one's own, and there is nothing to be ashamed about at one's own defeat at the hands of a neighbour. This is a mandate that life itself imposes upon every Indian since our country happens to be big and physically more powerful than every one of our neighbours. It is, therefore, our duty to ensure that no bad blood shall be spilt at any encounter between India and Pakistan, whether it is among sportsmen in the playing field, or our scholars in the colloquium and the laboratory or between our businessmen at the marketplace. And when the occasion will arise, we in India should share in the success of our neighbours even if it has come by way of having to face defeat at their hands.

Five decades have gone by since four countries of today's South Asia broke out of the colonial yoke of the British Raj. With our common civilisational heritage, social and cultural links that refuse to be broken, the imperative of sharing many gifts of nature, particularly the waters of the mighty rivers that flow through our lands, it is sheer common sense that we live and let our peoples grow up in mutual harmony, and brotherly amity. Instead, we have succeeded in amassing huge arsenals which we can hardly use against others, but point them against ourselves, building up the phantom of monstrous hostility against each other.

The image of the enemy that we nurture is about our neighbour, and we let our people starve while we readily pile up deadly arms on the distorted assumption that our neighbours are our greatest enemies. So long we stick on to this insensate mindset of suspicion and hatred, our social and cultural intractions can never flourish, initiative for mutual help and joint endeavour will be starved out. And only in that artificially worked up hostility, we shall play cricket as if it is the theatre for pitched battles and no amount of world cricket tournament will help. If we have to generate real peace and understanding among our brothers and sisters in our neighbourhood, we have to make conscious efforts at coming closer to each other, know each other closely and share in each other's moments of joy and sorrow, of triumphs and tribulations. This can be achieved by making a determined endeavour at discarding weapons that kill each other and set up, in its place and with the resources so saved, a common destiny of peace and prosperity, of happiness and goodwill. Deep within us lies buried that urge for a new understanding, and it comes up at times—as happened when the World Cup final was played at next-door Lahore on March 17—and the entire South Asian fraternity, the good citizens in Pakistan and India, those at Bangalore and Calcutta, praying for Sri Lanka to win the final match.

At home, we have many lessons to learn from the Eden Gardens vandalism. The shameful incident has no doubt been condemned by many both in Calcutta and elsewhere, and it has been righty regarded as a blot on the fair name of India. However, it is time for us to note that although hooliganism at the Eden Gardens was perpetreated in the presence of VVIPs, political or otherwise, there was no effort on the part of any of them to intervene. The Chief Minister of West Bengal, who was present on the occasion and was witness to the ugly episode, did not come out to intervene. He is no novice in dealing with the crowd. One recalls many an occasion in his early political career when he had single-handedly intervened in defence of the underdog, and yet he chose to be just a mute spectator to the rampage by a motley group of hooligans on March 13. When the referee of the match, Clive Lloyd, could take to the mike asking for order, what prevented Jyoti Basu to take up the loud- speaker and appeal to the people to see that the handful of goondas did not sully the fair name of Calcutta? This cannot be left to the police, the CRP, the RAF and what have you.

The great legacy of our freedom struggle has been to inculcate the courage to actively inter-vene wherever any wrong-doing is committed. Our leaders are not expected to be ensconced with security guards and henchmen. Calcutta is this year celebrating the birth centenary of Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose. Can anybody imagine that he would have just remained a disconsolate spectator at the Eden Gardens and would not have leapt out of the VIP box to silence and chase out the hooligans? Courage is not displayed through angry words and angrier demonstrations alone: courage demands active intervention against any misdoing.

The Eden Gardens incident has a great lesson to impart for us all. In a flash, it has shown up the rot in our public life today. Not only is the goonda on the prowl, it is time our leaders braced up to themselves take up the fight and root out the anti-social, whether it is the hawala-man in the parlour or the goonda at the Eden Gardens cricket ground.

[By arrangement with The Tribune]

(Mainstream, March 23, 1996)

The following is the author's inaugural address at the National Seminar on ‘Dynamics of Rural Labour Relations/Markets in India: Issues, Dimensions and Processes', S.R. Sankaran Chair (Rural Labour), National Institute of Rural Development and Panchayati Raj, Hyderabad, March 10-12, 2016.

As pointed out in the background note for this seminar by the S.R. Sankaran Chair at the NIRD&PR, the ongoing structural changes in the Indian economy are leading to significant changes in the rural labour market affecting their livelihoods and prospects for the future. These developments call for discussions among social scientists for stock-taking and reflecting on policies for improving the livelihoods of rural labour.

The subject is important and interesting and is also quite wide-ranging. The major develop-ments in the rural labour markets that have acquired prominence in the recent period in large parts of the country are:

first,

a significant rise in wages of agricultural labour and of rural labour in general;

second,

emergence of rural non-farm sector as an important source of employment for those dependent on agriculture; and

third,

increasing feminisation of agriculture consequent to male labour moving out, even as there has been a decline in the rural female labour force participation.

Rural Wages

Let me take up the rise in rural wages first. They are driven basically by the rising demand for labour emanating from the growth in agriculture as well as overall GDP. Agricultural wages are particularly sensitive to the growth in agriculture GDP. Real wages of male as well as female agricultural workers showed a marked rise in several States during the decade of the 1980s and later during 2005-06 to 2010-11. In both the periods the agriculture growth rate in the country had accelerated to a little over three per cent per annum. Growth in real agricultural wages slowed down during the post-reform period of 15 years between 1990-91 and 2005-06 when agricultural growth decelerated to below two per cent per annum, despite an acceleration in the overall GDP growth. Real wages of Rural Casual Labourers, both males and females, rose significantly in the country during 12 years ending 2011-12. (Jose, 2016; Binswanger-Mkhize, 2012)

The rise in rural wages, particularly a significant rise in quite a few States during 2005-06 to 2010-11, cannot be explained solely by the growth in agricultural and overall GDP. Rural labour being unorganised and consisting largely of those living below the poverty line have a low staying power and hence low bargaining power. Social security measures like pensions, public distribution of foodgrains, provision of healthcare, etc. targeted at them have a potential to raise their capacity for bargaining by improving their staying power. The Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Programme (MGNREGA), launched during this period and effectively implemented in quite a few States, is widely believed to have contributed significantly to raising the rural wages, especially agricultural wages, by improving the bargaining power of rural labour and raising their ‘reservation wage'.

Farmers, who depend essentially on hired labour, have been quite vocal on being adversely affected by the MGNREGA. Village studies, such as the one by scholars from the ICRISAT, indeed confirm that this scheme has led to a rise in the share of labour cost in the total production cost, despite a decline in the number of labour days hired consequent to mechanisation. (N.Nagaraj, et.al, 2016) Such a rise in wage-share can be expected because the elasticity of substitution between labour and capital has, in general, been found to be less than unity in Indian agriculture under the given technology. But this is a static picture reflecting the immediate response by the farmers.

Over a period of time, however, farmers respond to the rise in the cost of labour by adopting capital-intensive technologies and practices, including diversification of agriculture, which raise profits by raising productivity and reducing the unit costs and, in the process, contribute to raising the growth rate of agriculture. This indeed seems to have happened, as diversification of agriculture towards high-value products has, of late, been an important source of agricultural growth. The ICRISAT paper mentioned above does hint at such a possibility.

My own study, Technological Change and Distribution of Gains in Indian Agriculture, done in the mid-seventies, had brought out how in response to the rise in the cost of labour farmers reduce unit costs by raising productivity through increased application of fertilisers. In fact, a couple of years ago, another ICRISAT exercise had indicated a positive impact of wage rates on agricultural growth. Even if these results cannot be treated as conclusive because of problems of estimation, logical or a priori reasoning pointing to the positive relationship between wage rates and output growth cannot be given up altogether.

Even as they effectively cope with the rise in wage cost by adopting new technologies to raise productivity, farmers hiring labour may continue to express their misgivings about welfare programmes like the MGNREGA which improve the bargaining power of labour. Such prejudices are inherent in a society characterised by inequalities of wealth and status. However, from the social point of view, the encouraging results of the MGNREGA should prompt the policy-makers to implement welfare measures targeted at the poor among the unorganised labour such as those recommended by the National Commission for Enterprises in the Unorganised Sector (2004-2007), headed by Professor Arjun Sengupta.

Rural Non-Farm Sector

The emergence of the rural non-farm sector as an important source of output and employment holds the prospects of spatially broadbased and environment-friendly growth conducive to the well-being of the rural poor. Spatially broad-based growth would reduce the costs and hardships associated with migration and urban congestion and can ensure a larger volume of employment than when growth is limited to high-wage pockets.

Non-farm wage income is less variable than income from farming which is subject to weather-induced fluctuations. Small, marginal, and semi-medium farmers may be receiving a larger proportion of their income as wage income and remittances from non-farm sources when compared to the medium and large farmers. (Ranganathan, et.al., 2016) As the rural non-farm sector grows, this stable source of their income may predominate, thus drought-proofing their incomes. In view of the rise in land values such farmers may prefer to continue as part-time farmers without alienating their land.

Agro-processing, which has strong linkages with agriculture and which has a large potential for sustained growth of output and employment in the rural non-farm sector, has yet to make a visible impact in India. Sustained growth of agriculture, through the rise in the Total Factor Productivity, is indispensable for the growth of the rural non-farm sector because of its strong backward and forward linkages. This requires strong policy measures to raise agricultural productivity and improve infrastructure for agricultural marketing.

Apart from raising agricultural productivity, the growth of the rural non-farm sector requires broadbased development of physical and social infrastructure in the rural areas such as roads, electricity, water, schools and healthcare facilities. In this context, it would be instructive to study inter-State or regional variations in the develop-ment of the rural non-farm sector in India in relation to agriculture growth and development of rural infrastructure.

Feminisation of Agriculture

Feminisation of agriculture is largely a consequence of male labour in the household taking up non-farm work. Management of farms by women may become widespread among marginal, small and medium farms in course of time with the male members of households increasingly taking up non-farm work.

Management of farms by women should be regarded as an opportunity as well as a challenge. Opportunity, because it enables empowerment of farm women who have greater familiarity with enterprises like dairying and horticulture which are going to be the major sources of farm income. Challenge, because women lack property rights on land, farming becomes an additional respon-sibility for them apart from household work, their lower literacy level and lack of experience in dealing with agricultural support systems, including extension services, which are male dominated.

As it is, small and marginal farmers fail to get adequate access to agricultural support systems because of their weaker resource position and various forms of discrimination against them within and outside the village. The seriousness of the challenge is underlined by the need to accelerate total factor productivity growth in agriculture where small and marginal farmers predominate cultivating a substantial proportion of area, including the area leased-in by them which is on the increase.

Nevertheless, a silver-lining is that apart from their familiarity with and expertise in managing certain farm enterprises, women farmers have performed extremely well when adequately empowered, as exemplified by the work of Women's Self-Help Groups. This experiment needs to be extended for the provision of various services, including marketing, by organising small and marginal farmers into groups.

Since feminisation of agriculture is a major challenge, it calls for strong policy initiatives, right from the national level, for dealing with issues such as strengthening land inheritance rights for women, endowment of property rights on houses built with public assistance, improving literacy level and awareness among women farmers, measures to lighten the burden of their household work, and sensitising the agricultural support systems, including credit institutions, about the needs of women farmers and, in particular, inducting women in large numbers in the agricultural extension system to assist women farmers.

References

Binswanger-Mkhize, Hans P., ‘India 1960-2010: Structural Change, Rural Non-Farm Sector, and the Prospects for Agriculture', Stanford University, 2012.

Jose, A.V., ‘Factors Influencing the Growth of Wages in Rural India'.

Nagaraj, N., Lalmani Pandey, Cynthia Bantilan, Namrata Singh, ‘Impact of MGNREGA on Rural Agricultural Wages in SAT India', ICRISAT, Patancheru, Hyderabad, 2016; paper presented at the National Seminar on Dynamics of Rural Laboour Relations/Markets in India: Issues, Dimensions and Processes, S.R.Sankaran Chair (Rural Labour), National Institute of Rural Development and Panchayati Raj, March 10-12, 2016.

Ranganathan, Thiagu, Amarnath Tripathi, Bisla Rajoriya, ‘Changing Sources of Income and Income inequality among Indian Rural Households', Institute of Economic Growth (IEG), New Delhi, 2016; paper presented at the above Seminar.

The author is an Honorary Professor, Centre for Economic and Social Studies, Hyderabad.

by Ram Puniyani

Following the death of Rohith Vemula in the Hyderabad Central University (HCU), one of the most prestigious universities of the country, Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), has been targeted by the ruling Modi Sarkar. The frightening things which happened in the HCU were just the beginning of the attack on the autonomy of universities, on free thinking in a democracy. Rohith was forced to kill himself by the machinations of the ABVP, which had brought pressure through a BJP MP on the Ministry of HRD to get Rohith expelled from the hostel and stop his fellowship. Similarly the local ABVP unit brought pressure through its usual channels to intimidate and stifle the democratically-elected Students' Union in JNU.

It is alleged that in JNU some anti-India pro-Pakistan slogans were shouted. There are confusing versions as to who did so. The truth of the video has come out: it was doctored. On the pretext of that Kanhiaya Kumar, the President of the JNUSU, was arrested and the charge of sedition was slapped on him. Now Kumar is a member of the AISF, the student wing of the CPI, which is opposed to the separatist pro-Pakistan stance and in no way can he be a part of the type of slogan-shouting which is supposed to have taken place. The original video also makes this clear. He neither shouted the slogans nor can anybody be arrested on the charge of shouting the slogans. The constitutional position, as clarified by noted jurist Soli Sorabjee, is that incitement to violence alone can be termed anti-national.

How come the Delhi Police entered the campus? The Vice-Chancellor, a BJP appointee, is indulging in double-speak on the issue. On TV he stated that he will be the last person to call the police into the campus. The investigation shows that he wrote letters to the police calling upon them to take suitable action. The Delhi Police, working under Home Minister Rajnath Singh, went on recklessly to put the charge of sedition against Kumar. The lawyers in the court indulged in violence against those who looked like JNU students. One BJP MLA was involved in mercilessly beating up a CPI activist. This MLA also said that had he got a gun he would have shot those raising anti-India slogans. One journalist was also attacked by BJP supporters. The same violence was repeated by lawyers the following day as well and when Kanhaiya was being brought to the court he was also beaten up.

Now what is happening is a blatant attack by the RSS-controlled ABVP-BJP to crush the democratic secular voices in the country. As in the Rohith Vemula case, the ABVP has become emboldened to call all those opposing their politics as anti-national as it is getting the state support to intimidate the voices for social justice, that is, the progressive voices. BJP-affiliated organisations are creating a mass hysteria around the word ‘anti-national'. All those who don't endorse the ‘RSS-promoted Hindutva nationalism' are being called anti-national. Prashant Bhushan calls it a fascist onslaught.

All this constitutes a big erosion of the values and practices which India has been nourishing. The RSS combine is seeing this as an opportunity to wipe out all the norms and ethos of democratic culture and dissenting voices. It is a matter of shame that the police lacks the spine and professionalism and arrests the likes of Kanhaiya Kumar.

Rahul Gandhi, who went to the JNU campus and showed solidarity with the students, was greeted with black flags and stones were thrown at him in Lucknow. Those agitating said that they were very angry as Rahul was sympathising with anti-nationals. The MLA, who beat up the CPI worker, also said that anti-national activities were going on and so he was showing his anger against those who shouted the pro-Pakistan slogans. In TV debates the BJP spokespersons have been harping on the same slogans and the social media is resorting to a similar language.

The argument has been uniformly advanced by the Delhi lawyers taking law into their own hands to those indulging in violence, from the Ministers and top BJP leaders to those resorting to street violence. The second observation is that JNU students have been demonised through the propaganda as being anti-national, and JNU being the den of anti-India activities. One recalls that all this demonisation of JNU started with this government coming to power. The RSS affiliates, VHP etc. have been taking marches to the JNU gate to protest against the anti-national JNU students and faculty.

Both these arguments in a way show the deeper agenda. The anti-national rhetoric has been created to generate a mass hysteria against those disagreeing with the BJP's politics. The resorting to violence on this pretext clearly shows that this is a concerted effort to browbeat the practices and ideas which are not in keeping with the RSS-BJP mindset. This hysteria has been created to distract attention from the social movement building up around the death of Rohith Vemula. The all-round anger on the Rohith issue had put the BJP on the backfoot. The mass hysteria generated around anti-India slogans is leading to street violence. This is an attempt on the part of the BJP associates to wrest the initiative away from the movement which is building around Rohith. Apart from the attempt to abolish the autonomy of universities, this is also an offort to sidetrack the issue of Dalits. The latter has also been reflected in the resignation of three office-bearers of the ABVP in JNU. These office-bearers in their letter point to their dissatisfaction with the government-BJP-ABVP interference in JNU affairs and their attitude of undermining the Dalit issue as reflected in their approach to the death of Rohith.

The demonisation of JNU again is on purpose. This institution has reflected the democratic spirit, the freedom of thought, and the progressive values, all of which are an anathema to the agenda represented by ABVP-BJP. They want to abolish the autonomy of academic institutions as reflected in their policies in the case of FTTI, IIT Madras, IIT Delhi and HCU, to name a few. JNU was a particular target due to its outstanding contribution to the high level of scholarship and adherence to progressive secular values. The concerted move by the ruling dispensation and its political associates to create a mass hysteria around anti-nationalism and to erode the image of a progressive institution like JNU is an attack on the principles of democracy in the country.

While hopefully the courts may give some relief to Kanhaiya Kumar, the issue remains as to whether the mass hysteria and street violence which has been unleashed on the pretext of anti-India slogans can be brought under control. The massive rallies of students demanding the release of Kumar, calling upon the government not to interfere in the autonomy of universities and opposing the demonisation of JNU drew a massive response. The ABVP and its family in a recalcitrant manner is mobilising its cadres all through the country to protest against ‘anti-nationalism'. Those who were part of the JNU students meeting at the university have condemned the anti-India pro-Pakistan slogans. The need is to take up the struggle for preserving the democratic values to the masses.

The author, a retired Professor at the IIT-Bombay, is currently associated with the Centre for the Study of Secularism and Society, Mumbai.

Hardly two months back nobody would have thought that PM Narendra Modi's authority would be questioned by ordinary university students on campuses. The campaign which brought Modi to power in Delhi was so high profile that in the initial period of his prime ministership an atmosphere was created in which, what to talk of the common people, even his own party members, elected represen-tatives and Ministers couldn't question him. He was like a headmaster who believed only in one-way communication. The media rarely questioned him or his decisions. But from the beginning of 2016, in less than two years of his prime ministership, the aura built around Modi has been punctured, not once but on several occasions.

The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh has a strategy since long to mould the people's minds through the education process. By propagating a certain ideology it has built a base of its supporters. Since this ideology is founded on aggressive nationalism, the people trained in the RSS schools have a domineering personality which believes in direct action. They don't believe in the Indian Constitution nor do they respect law and order. For example, on December 6, 1992 the then BJP CM of UP, Kalyan Singh, gave an affidavit to the Supreme Court to the effect that he will not allow any damage to the Babri Masjid and then allowed it to be demolished by the Hindutva activists. It is surprising that no questions have been raised on his holding the constitutional post of a Governor today.

The government's interference in academic institutions and its simultaneous opposition, to those bodies, which did not go down well with the academic community, started in the Film and Television Institute of India when Gajendra Singh was appointed its Chairman in June 2015. The students after a prolonged 139-day protest continue to oppose his appointment and refuse the offer of dialogue with him on this issue.

Things flared up after the suicide of Rohith Vemula on the Hyderabad University campus on January 17, 2016 and started taking an ugly turn. Shameless interference by the Central Ministers, use of violence to subjugate the voices of dissent by ABVP or BJP members and manipulation of facts by those sitting in responsible positions like the VC became a pattern. No other political organisation uses violence so easily against others as the Right-wing. The police and government usually stand by and let them go on rampage as was recently witnessed in the Patiala House Courts.

But the response to highhanded treatment by the government and university administrations has been equally strong. On January 22 three Dalit students—Ram Karan, Amrendra Kumar Arya and Surendra Kumar Nigam—raised slogans against Narendra Modi and dented his overawing image for the first time at the convocation of the Babasaheb Bhimrao Ambedkar University at Lucknow. Following this the BHU authorities were very circumspect and took extreme care that no untoward incident happened during Modi's presence on the campus during the convocation. A Dalit Minister came in advance and held a meeting with Dalit students and professors to assuage any anti-government feelings they might have. In spite of this, about 200-250 members of the Bharatiya Vidyarthi Morcha, two of whom had earlier courted arrest in open defiance when they went to seek permission from the Varanasi DM to show black flags to Modi during his Varanasi visit, protested at the gate of the BHU and shouted ‘Narendra Modi go back' slogans. Then when Narednra Modi was proceeding towards the gate inside the BHU leading to the Ravidas temple, members of Bahujan Mukti Party raised ‘Rohith Vemula Zindabad' slogans and demanded punishment for the culprits responsible for his death. Here again ‘Narendra Modi go back' slogans were raised. During the convocation in the BHU one student, Ashutosh Singh, raised slogans demanding revival of the Students' Union which has been suspended since 1997. He was slapped and overpowered by the police. These three incidents took place when the BHU was converted into a fortress on February 22, 2016 and every person and corner was under the security gaze. Imagine what would have happened if this security cover was not there. It is quite possible that Dalit organisations alone would have blocked Narendra Modi's entry into the campus.

Compared to the two terms of Manomohan Singh in which, what now appears to be major achievements, important Acts like the Right to Information, Protection of Women from Domestic Violence, (Mahatma Gandhi) National Rural Employment Guarantee, Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights), Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement, National Food Security, Right to Education, Street Vendors (Protection of Livelihood and Regulation of Street Vending), Prohibition of Employment as Manual Scavengers and their Rehabilitation were enacted, the Narendra Modi Government hasn't really accomplished anything worthwhile to show. The Make in India or Startup India programmes have failed to take off due to lack of interest of the investors. Hence the RSS has found it convenient to fall back on its tested strategy of polarising the society on emotive issues like patriotism and anti-national activities.

Usually university level politics is left to the student groups. Every political party of any worth has student groups on campuses. If the Congress has the NSUI, the BJP has the ABVP. Left parties, which otherwise are not very strong in State level politics, have a strong presence on campuses in the form of the AISA, SFI and AISF associated with the CPI(ML), CPI-M and CPI, respectively, and are able to win student union elections quite easily. There are even ultra-Left groups like the DSU which don't believe in contesting elections. In other words, univeristies have seen a plethora of groups believing in diverse ideologies that co-exist. Usually they don't engage in violent clashes with each other even though their ideologies may be contradictory. Sometimes they resort to violence but it is usually against the administration or government.

No other political party has been so obssessed about taking control of academic campuses as the BJP. And they have made a mess of it. In addition to encouraging clashes between student groups, which sometimes become violent, by direct or indirect intervention through RSS-affiliated VCs or police, they have spoiled the academic atmosphere of institutions so much so that it has now started pinching their own people. Three ABVP officer-bearers in JNU, Pradeep Narwal, Rahul Yadav and Ankit Hans, have resigned citing differences with the RSS and BJP on Manusmriti and the Rohith Vemula incident. A Ph.D student at JNU, Neetu Singh, feels the BJP has let her down as people outside the campus now call her anti-national.

Noted social activist and Magsaysay awardee Dr Sandeep Pandey was recently sacked this year from the IIT-BHU where he was a Visiting Professor on the charge of being a “Naxalite” engaging in “anti-national” activities. He was elected along with Prof Keshav Jadhav the Vice-President of the Socialist Party (India) at its founding conference at Hyderabad on May 28-29, 2011.

by Nagender Rao

Prime Minister Modi's administration brought pseudo-nationalism as its core agenda after failing to keep its election promises. The current chief of the RSS established its command and control office in the HRD Ministry to supervise the educational institutions in the country. The Hindutva elements are firing shots against the students of Dalits, OBCs, and minorities under the cover of nationalism. In Kanhaiya's arrest, these forces made many mistakes and exposed themselves as ignorant people. They created doctored videos, morphed photos, sent messages from the fake twitter account of the Pak terrorist, Hafiz Saeed, to implicate Kanhaiya on sedition charges. A few TV channels, the Delhi Police, Home Ministry, HRD Ministry, Right-wing attorneys and some ex-servicemen unleashed unprecedented attack on Kanhaiya simultaneously. The mischievous persons did not realise that technology has a capability of exposing doctored videos, fake twitter accounts and morphed pictures. After India Today revealed the doctored video, then the pack of lies started collapsing. A contract-employee of the HRD Ministry cancelled her twitter account hiding it from the public. A similar case took place in the US. In 1986, the main person in the Iran-Contra scandal, Oliver North, deleted his e-mails and testified to the US Congressional Committee that he was not aware of the scandal. He was not conscious that the e-mail server can contain the information even though e-mails are deleted from the recipient's account. He was found guilty for destroying evidence and sentenced to jail.

The suicide of Rohith Vemula infuriated students and secular groups. Rahul Gandhi's visit to the Hyderabad University changed the dynamics of the incident. Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal, CPI General Secretary Suravaram Sudhakar Reddy, CPI-M General Secretary Sitaram Yechury and many prominent personalities visited the campus and highlighted the vengeful attitude of the HRD Ministry. Instead of forgetting the incident and moving forward, HRD Minister Smriti Irani decided to teach a lesson to the students. Naturally, JNU attracted the attention of the Minister who was visibly annoyed. She took a page from the history of Hitler. The German dictator had blamed the Communists for the Reichstag Fire and acquired autocratic powers through the Enabling Act in 1933. He put opponents of the Nazi party in prison branding them anti-German. The same scene was scripted meticulously in India but could not be executed successfully because of strong Opposition parties, the media and courts.

JNU was under attack for several reasons for a long time from the Right-wing thinkers. The admission process and composition of the students community was exasperating for the ruling party. The HRD Minister tried to stop fellowships to the scholars but they fought back and restored the fellowships. Vociferous attacks were started to discredit JNU on the ground that the university was running on taxpayers' money but it was involved in anti-national activities. A few media channels actively participated in disparaging the JNU. Providing education to the students is the basic responsibility of the government. Prime Minister Narendra Modi has been living on taxpayers' money since 2001. His first contribution for the taxpayers was the Gajarat massacre in 2002. A fraction of the wealth of crony capitalists can run hundreds of JNUs. The Reliance Company acquired the Krishna-Godavari gas basin through manipulative techniques. In 2011, Reliance sold 30 per cent of its stakes to British Petroleum (BP) for Rs 4.6 lakh crores. Adani alone accumulated Rs 50,000 crores of wealth in the past two years. Successive governments are allocating land to crony capitalists for throwaway prices, displacing poor farmers and tribal people. Ruling parties never made the robbing of natural resources a topic of discussion but public universities where students of Dalits and tribal families can roam about without insults are being targeted.

The eloquent speeches of Kanhaiya did not contain objectionable material to implicate him in sedition charges. Whatever may be the reason, the government targeted a wrong person. His arrest on sedition charges, assaults on JNU academics, students and journalists by attorneys in Patiala House Courts and subsequently exposure of doctored videos led to explosion of the volcano of dissent. Kanhaiya got the best defence attorneys in the country without paying a penny. In recent history, no other person garnered the support from different ideology groups such as Congress Party Vice-President Rahul Gandhi, Delhi CM Aravind Kejriwal, Bihar CM Nitish Kumar, BSP leader Mayawati and the two Left parties. Though he is from the CPI-affiliated students wing, the All India Students' Federation (AISF), his personality expanded exponentially beyond the strength of the CPI. The question is: how is Kanhaiya connecting to every section of society hitherto not accessible to the dogmatic politics of Leftists?

Communists made one of the biggest mistakes by not aligning with Dr B.R. Ambedkar in the 1952 Lok Sabha elections for social and political emancipation of the weaker sections. The elite class of the Communist leadership never understood the real pains and problems of the downtrodden sections but only gave slogans for the sake of public consumption. Recently, Hillary Clinton mentioned in the US Presidential debate that as a white woman she had a racial advantage compared to the black people and did not go through the painful experiences of black women. The Leftist leadership had the same disadvantage in understanding the problems of the disadvantaged people. Kanhaiya, a new phenomenon in Indian politics, is bringing the bahujan (neel) and Leftist (lal) forces together. He broke the stereotype of Left thinking within the framework of classical Marxism, invested it with Ambedkarism and gave it new content, slogans and agenda. In daily TV discussions, spokespersons of all non-BJP parties are advancing his arguments. Senior journalists Barkha Dutt, Rajdeep Sardesai and others are defending his speech on different platforms. Secular and progressive people have found an anti-Modi messiah in him.

In the Indian epic, Kanhaiya had a purpose of ending the rule of Kansa. The avatar of Kanhaiya was born on February 12, 2016 when he was arrested to fight back. Venkaiah Naidu consoled the worrying BJP leaders that people would listen to Kanhaiya's speeches until he joined the CPI to campaign in the coming Assembly elections. The BJP is betting on the disadvantages of the CPI to contain his message from reaching the masses. It is high time for the Left parties to reorient themselves from the perspective of the new awakened social forces in Indian polity. Kanhaiya has to decide his future course of action either to compartmentalise himself in a particular political party or build a mass movement with neel and lal groups against the Modi Government for dislodging its despotic rule in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections in the larger national interest.

Dr Nagender Rao worked as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Political Science, Osmania University, Hyderabad until 1995. Currently he is living in the US. While in India he used to contribute articles in Mainstream. He has sent this article for publication now with a forwarding note which reads: “Recent incidents in India being highly disturbing, I think no conscious person can take a neutral stand today.” He can be contacted at e-mail: nagender1@hotmail.com

by M.C. Pindwal

The world cultural event on the Yamuna river-bed took place from March 11 to 13, 2016. This happened at the cost of the poor living and surviving on the riverbed; it is they who have been badly affected by this so-called rich and mega cultural event, their jhuggies have been destroyed alongwith their crops in totality and they have been permanently displaced from their own land as the entire riverbed has been flattened and its fertility lost.

These farmers and labourers cultivate the land for their living and they have been using it for centuries to earn their livelihood; but now they have been ruthlessly removed and made rootless without any land as it has been destroyed by both the governments, that is, the Central Govern-ment and Delhi Government. This riverbed land was earlier protected and promoted by the Mughals and the British who were ruling India in the last few centuries before freedom in 1947 and it was legally allotted to these farmers; but it has now been snatched from them illegally for the event. The National Green Tribunal has already started uprooting these farmers by asking them not to grow anything on this riverbed land including various vegetables etc. since they were reportedly using heavy doses of chemical fertilisers for higher degree of production which spoils the quality of the Yamuna water. But this is not fully true as most of the Delhi gutter water goes into the Yamuna without treatment since Delhi discharges nearly two dozen nallahs into the river which substantially brings down its water quality. It is needless to blame the poor farmers for the poor quality of Yamuna water because these farmers hardly use any fertiliser since the flood waters in the Yamuna bring rich fertile soil from the higher reaches of the Himalayas thus boosting the production regularly and effortlessly. Therefore, most of the food products of the riverbed are originally organic in nature and content. The crops grown here mainly consist of wheat, gram, mustard and peas etc.

Both the governments have shown scant respect for these farmers and on the contrary they have displayed their destroying teeth and power in bulldozing the riverbed. Paying insufficient compensation to the aggrieved farmers to make their land available for the so-called world event is indead shocking since the large piece of land could have been made available to the Art of Living cultural event elsewhere instead of destroying the riverbed, its ecology and environment which are difficult to repair and the original water recharging capacity restored. This destruction has been done cunningly in the name of cleaning the river which is getting dirtier by the day despite the authorities' claim to have cleaned it earlier as well. It seems that the cultural event was held to camouflage the real intention of the organisers. The event was more like an ‘art of ecocide' than the ‘art of living' as it was against the flora and fauna of the Yamuna riverbed.

I wonder how many governments in the world would allow the installation of deep-rooted tents in the bed of a holy river for a holier task, that is, the ‘art of living'. I think this kind of unholy alliance happens only in India.

The author is a retired IRS officer.

POLITICAL NOTEBOOK

Until recently, the BJP was eyeing Assam as the only winnable State among the five States that are going to the polls this summer. But the situation has changed in the last few weeks. Its exercise at striking an alliance with the Asom Gana Parishad has resulted in a vertical split in the regional party. The break-away faction, which calls itself the AGP (Anchalik), has announced that the new party will contest 45 of the 126 Assembly seats.

The grass-root level workers of the AGP were against any tie up with the BJP. They had been putting pressure on the party leadership not to enter into an electoral alliance with the BJP. But the leaders thought otherwise. They wanted to become the junior partner in a BJP-led alliance. The result was the split. The new party may not be able to achieve significant victories but it will act as a spoilsport for the parent party in many constituencies to the obvious advantage of the Congress.

The BJP's alliance with another regional party, the Bodoland People's Front, which rules the Bodoland Territorial Council, has led to the Congress formally entering into an electoral alliance with the rival United People's Party in the Bodo areas. As numerically the non-Bodos outnumber the Bodos in the Bodoland Territorial Council area, the UPP will give the BPF a run for its money.

The BJP's aggressively polarising politics is now recoiling on itself. The All India United Democratic Front (AIUDF) has a strong following among the Bengali-speaking Muslims of the Brahmaputra and Barak Valley areas. However, the minority community seems to be weighing its options between the AIUDF and Congress in the larger national political context. They know that it is only the Congress which can effectively challenge the BJP in 2019.

In neighbouring West Bengal the election scenario is completely different. Here the Congress is a marginal player that has entered into seat adjustments with the CPI-M. It is still doubtful how far the two parties will gain from this marriage of convenience. The recent sting operation showing some Trainamul Congress MPs accepting bundles of notes can have some impact in the urban areas but not much in rural Bengal. The people have already got inured to the venality of their elected representatives who, they know, take money. What the people note critically is whether their representatives are doing some work for them.

Secondly, most of the MPs shown in the sting operation count for very little in either the TMC or State politics, minus Mamata. The State CM has proved for long that she and she alone is the vote-catcher who enjoys the people's affection and trust.

The CPI-M and Congress are being compelled to explain to the voters, why they are fighting together in Bengal and fighting each other in Kerala. Mamata Banerjee is making the best use of this contradiction.

Amid the din and bustle of the State elections the Opposition parties in general, and the Left in particular, seem to have become oblivious of the nature and dimension of the real threat growing bigger by the day before the Indian Republic.

Since independence, all political parties, from the Congress to the Communists to the Socialists to the Naxals that emerged in the 1970s to the Maoists who took to armed struggle in the 1990s—all were unanimous on the four major ideals enshrined in the Constitution, namely, national sovereignty, democracy, socialism and secularism. Even Indira Gandhi during the Emergency, did not challenge these ideals. In fact her Emergency had no ideological overtones, as it was motivated by only the desire to keep herself in power.

But the new dispensation, that began in 2014, is a qualitatively different one. It seeks to change the democratic and secular polity of India into an authoritarian Hindu Rashtra. The democratic space is getting abridged more quickly than feared. Whether in the future elections the Opposition parties will be permitted to participate freely and to what extent public franchise will be allowed to be exercised are the key questions. Indian democracy never faced such a challenge before.

March 17 B.D.G.

Two Poems of Badri Raina

The Horror, the Horror

Did he just have another
Unauthorised thought?
To the House of Correction,
Then, where all thought
But the authorised one
Is quickly forgot. After all,
If the nation is to gallop apace,
Ideological democrats must
Be shown their place.
How are we to scale glory
Number one, if we forever
Carp knowledgeably at our own story?

Speaking of number one,
When thoughts proliferate
They convey a clear and present
Danger to the nationalist state.
And when colours multiply, they
Besmirch the authorised nationalist

Dye. Nor must it be forgot how
Our great sages have defined
Nirvana as that empty condition
Where the mind is without thought.

More practically, however crude
Be the facts on offer, the image
Of the Motherland must never suffer.
Our mothers may well be without
Nutrition, the idea of the Mother
Must remain a sacred one. Just
As we are known by the clothes
We wear, the truth of civilisations
Is to be found in the myths and
Legends we devotedly foreground.
We commit no greater crime than
To let thought meddle with this
Supremely elevating paradigm.

It is seen that too many handlers
Mangle the spice. Salubrious
Home food is best served to
One habituating voice. Our
Abacus must cease with the
Count of One; chaos descends
When it stretches from one to ten.
To this end we must reorient
Our education, as much in books
As in the realm of politics.
Should you fail to see this simple
Point, you have to be a left out critic.
Those that laud the sickle and
Hammer, and insist on argument
Must now be promptly sent
To the salubrious slammer. But
Only after patriotic roughs first
Chastise them with fisticuffs.

Remember what Chanakya said:
“Nothing is in itself bad, you
Must know; only thinking makes it so.”
Think not, obey, O Bharat ki santaan,
Obedience is the surest way
To multiple Nirvana. And remember,
Nothing is ever wrong with
The land in which you are born.
Such expressions of discontent
Place you squarely in the enemy tent.

Thus, relent, relent, be thoughtless,
Nimble, and thou shalt prosper
Under the authorised symbol.
Those that dream have the Preamble.
Think not with the people
who lay claim to the nation;
let the territory constitute
your nationalist passion.
Go there and lay down your
Fervent breath; and the state
Shall reward you in your death.

Speaking of Which

There are times when speaking
Your mind draws thoughtless
Applause, whatever be your cause.
In such circumstance, words
Are not difficult to find.
All that, as we know now, leads
To a deleterious loosening
Of character, undermining
The sacred nation from below.
Deeply, deeply culpable are regimes
That encourage such collective
Laxity. Blessed are we in
A new dispensation that tirelessly
Teaches all but its own how
To hold the tongue in discipline.
After decades of polyvalent fraction,
The realm is on course correction.
Only those may cavil and groan
Who needlessly choose to have
A mind of their own. God did not
Give us the gift of expression
For critical babbling; rather for
Responsible nationalism and
Ennobling tactical repression.
Here is what incorrigible freaks
Need to ponder: how little god,
Who may speak all, actually speaks.

In my article “Videshi and Swadeshi Fascism” published in Mainstream of August 7, 2004, I had delineated in some detail incidents of a fascist mode occurring in our country. Even after more than eleven-and-a-half years the scourge of fascism stares us in the face. Before updating this gruesome phenomenon, it may be useful to recapitulate some of the more important points made in that piece. These are as follows:

1. The European fascism and its Indian version came into being around the same time in early twentieth century. Interestingly, B.S. Moonje, Hedgewar's mentor, adopted Musso-loni's ideas for application and replication in India through the RSS. During his Europian tour he had met Mussolini at 3 pm on March 19, 1931.1

2. After the inhuman carnage of Godhra, what followed in Gujarat was the ugliest demons-tration of majoritarian attacks on Muslims. It was, in the words of Praveen Swami, “A fascist pogrom conducted by organised death squads of the Hindu Right with the entire State apparatus at their disposal.” (Frontline, March 19, 2002)

3. Randhir Singh, Professor Emeritus, Delhi University, opined that with the deepening socio-economic and moral crises afflicting Indian society and politics, communalism might come to contribute to the rise of a specifically Indian form of fascism. (Mainstream,Annual 1992)

4. One could not also forget physical attacks on M.F. Hussain's paintings, Deepa Mehta's films, Habib Tanvir's play Ponga Pandit and Jamadarin, Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute at Pune, and Praful Shah's Garden Art Gallery at Surat. (The Hindu, April 12, 2004)

5. Professor Aijaz Ahmad, Visiting Professor, Jawaharlal Nehru University, has commented that Hindutva communalism in general, and organisations of the RSS and Shiv Sena in particular, are not expressions of the familiar kind of Rightwing politics, but the specifically Indian forms of fascism.2

6. Demolition of the Babri Masjid on December 6, 1992 was the deadliest attack so far the Indian fascists mounted on the minority community. (Hindustan Times, October 17, 2003)

7. The noted historian, K.N. Panikkar, asserting that fascism has arrived, has said that it is only “waiting to cross the doorsteps”.3

8. Christians were one of the traditional enemies of Hindu fundamentalists and were being attacked regularly. The most gruesome incident was the burning alive of a Christian missionary, Graham Stains, and his minor sons in a jeep on January 23, 1999. Then followed Brother George being beaten to death in Mathura. (The Statesman, June 2000)

9. But the alarming aspect of this Hindu communal fascism is that it had the support, tacit or otherwise, of the highest in the land, who covertly and occasionally overtly, encouraged fascist actions of the hotheads of the Sangh Parivar. Professor Badri Raina of the Delhi University very aptly said: “Every respectable theory of fascist politics tells us that the beast flourishes best when in State power.” (HT, April 15, 2004)

10.Last but not the least, one shudders to confront the Togadia factor. A few samples of his most virulent statements: (i) He thundered: “We will repeat Gujarat all over the country, making the whole country a laboratory of establishing its ‘supremacy' in India. This is our promise and our resolve”. (ii) Muslims alone were not the target of his ire. All those who opposed Hindutva, and they certainly included secularists, would get the “death sentence”. The eminent social scientist, Rajni Kothari, saw it as a “phenomenon triggering an onslaught on the full panaroma of democratic institutions and party politics, replacing it by clearly fascist restructuring of the polity and the nation”.4

The fascistic trend has continued to rule the roost even after that. We may enumerate a few incidents to prove the point. For example, on July 16, 2010, an unruly mob of the RSS members started protesting against a Headlines Today sting exposing links between RSS leaders and the bomb blasts at Ajmer Sharif and Malegaon. They attacked the Videocon Tower in Delhi's Jhandewalan area, pelted stones, smashed glass doors, broke into the building and manhandled people.7

Earlier on January 17, 2010, a case of moral policing happened in Bhopal when ‘culture cops' belonging to the Sanskriti Bachao Manch, an affiliate of the Bajrang Dal and RSS, went on the rampage threatening local shopkeepers not to display inner wear outside their shops and tearing down hoardings etc.5

It was reported that in late January 2010, the Karnataka Governor sought stringent action against persons responsible for desecreting churches near Mysore and Bhatkal in Uttar Karnataka district. The Chief Minister, B.S. Yeddyuruppa, termed the attack ”a pre-planned conspiracy to disturb peace on the eve of the Republic Day celebrations”.6

In retaliation for his statement on Jammu and Kashmir inter alia purportedly supporting demands for withdrawal of security forces from there, the senior lawyer Prashant Bhushan was attacked in his chamber by activists of the Shri Ram Sena and Bhagat Singh Kranti Sena on October 12, 2011. Bhushan was being interviewed by a Times Now news channel crew. Even as the television camera kept rolling, he was slapped by the miscreants, hurling blows on him, tearing his shirt and kicking him till he fell down.8

Tehelka of March 9, 2013, captured about a dozen incidents in which members of the different outfits of the Sangh Parivar attacked persons, vandalised offices of newspapers, and manhandled young boys and girls participating in parties in pubs or in private homestays.

In recent times, certain statements and actions on the part of the Sangh Parivar also smack of fascist manners. For example, on February 8, 2015, Mohan Bhagwat, the RSS chief, said in an address in Meerut that “Hindustan is our nation, a rashtra of Hindus”.9

On October 22, a 23-year-old Dalit journalism student at Davenagere University, Huchangi Prasad, was attacked and injured apparently by Rightwing men for having written a book containing his writings against the caste system.10

Fascism is a hydra-headed monster. Otherwise, why should an innocuous statement by Aamir Khan be attacked fiercely? During a conversation at the Ramnath Goenka Award function, he, referring to the atmosphere of intolerance, said that his wife, Kiran Rao, once wondered whether the family should consider moving out of the country to a place where their children would be safe. A virulent attack against him followed with a BJP politician charging him with committing a ‘moral offence', and ‘defaming the entire country'. An apt answer to this malicious statement was given by a former Premier of British Columbia and former Canadian Minister of Helath, Ujjal Dosanjh, who had left India in 1964, taking up foreign citizenship. He said that “critics are wrong... I should be the one charged with treason for being a fugitive...”.11

Interestingly, the BJP patriarch, L.K. Advani, made an opaque reference to the authoritarian style of governance of Modi. He told “Aaj Tak” in June 2015, that forces that can crush demo-cracy are stronger now and another Emergency is possible. He added that he was against a “one-man show” and that “arrogance breeds authoritarians. It is very sad.” Strangely, this BJP stalwart made an anti-fascist remark.12 Is Modi listening?

We may conclude by quoting from Ayaz Ahmad, an Assistant Professor, Global Law School, Global University, Saharanpur: “Never before (except during the Emergency) in the history of our country, members of the ‘Ruling Party' were inolved in fascist activities at such a large scale. Killers of rationalists, writers, lynchers of innocent on stupid suspicion, rioters, hate-mongers, prophets of violence all belong to the ‘One Ruling Party'. This creates apprehension of fascism taking over our motherland in an organised manner.”13

Endnotes

1. Economic and Political Weekly, January 22, 2000, p. 220.

2. Ibid., June 1, 1996, p. 1335.

3. Before the Night Falls by K.N. Panikkar, Books for Change, Bangalore, 2003, p. 142.

4. The Hindu, January 10, 2003.

5. The Hindu, January 18, 2010.

6. The Hindu, January 28, 2010.

7. Mail Today, July 17, 2010.

8. The Hindu, October 13, 2011.

9. Mail Today, February 9, 2015.

10. The Hindu, October 23, 2015.

11. Frontline, December 25, 2015.

12. The Hindu, June 19, 2015.

13. Mainstream, December 12, 2015.

The author is a former Under Secretary (now retired) of the Union Public Service Commission.

by Hasan Hamidullah

The emergence of the Russian Air Force in Syria at a time when many had predicted the capture of Damascus by the ISIL and other fundamentalist elements within a brief spell, has thrown Ankara and Riyadh into confusion as it has foiled the Turkey-Saudi plan to bring the Sunni groups to power in Syria. The campaign unleashed by these two states to accuse the Russian Air Force and Assad's forces of allegedly causing widespread civilian casualties in Syria is only a pretext to disrupt the peace process in the country and engineer an armed intervention there for the purpose of saving the jihadists under their control.

Riyadh's announcement of its intention to use ground troops in Syria as part of the US-led coalition, supported by Turkey, the UAE, Qatar and Bahrain, bears testimony to the Saudi desire to involve the West in the conflict by any means with the objective of realising its military gamble in the region. At the same time Riyadh is doing everything possible to frustrate the negotiations on the Syrian settlement at Geneva with the help of a high-level negotiation committee formed by the forces opposed to Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad; and this negotiation committee includes terrorists of Ahram ash-sham and Jaish al-Islam. This committee is striving to press certain prelimi-nary conditions aimed at stopping the offensive of the Syrian Army.

Ankara and Riyadh are coordinating their actions with the purpose of inflicting strikes on Syria under the banner of an Islamic military coalition of 34 countries, mostly Sunni, set up under the aegis of Riyadh in December 2015. For them what is imperative is that military operations against Syria are conducted not only by Turkey and Saudi Arabia but by the forces of other countries as well. Thus Ankara and Riyadh are keen to share responsibility for the aggression with other states and impart an international character to this conflict. Saudi Arabia is probing the possibility of placing a 150,000-strong Islamic military contingent on Syrian territory and this is to comprise forces from Egypt, Jordan, the UAE and Pakistan, besides Turkey.

Already there is information about the deployment of Saudi troops in Jordan and military preparaedness of Turkey thereby strengthening the suspicion that Saudi Arabia is making intensive preparations for a military invasion of Syria. According to Reuters, Syrian insurgents have received in February surface-to-surface missiles from abroad. Ankara and Riyadh are supplying weapons to the rebels through an operation station located in Turkey. Separate groups of insurgents and outside troops to be deployed in Syria are also learnt to have undergone military training under the super-vision of the CIA of the US.

When a member of the Washington-led coalition fighting the Syrian Government creates its own group and proclaims goals which are the same as those of the US, it clearly means that Saudi Arabia has been assigned tasks which are different from those of the USA for fighting international terrorism. The armed struggle against the ISIL is used only as an excuse to get the green signal from the international commu-nity for intervention in neighbouring countries—in Yemen, in Syria and in Iraq. At the same time none is pondering over certain irrefutable facts: the direct aggression of Ankara against a sovereign state by the Turkish Army's artillery strikes on settlements of Syrian Kurds, and the genocide of Shiites in Yemen carried out by the Saudi Army with the use of cluster munitions.

Thus Saudi and Turkish troops side by side with the jihadists under the cover of the US-led coalition will fight against the Syrian Army and Kurds resulting in a considerable escalation of hostilities. However, the attempt to initiate a local conflict is fraught with unpredictable consequences—of a regional war taking a much bigger dimension and presenting the threat of a Third World War in view of Turkey's membership in the NATO. Therefore, there is every possibility of the whole region becoming hostage to the strategy of Erdogan and his Saudi friends—that is, King Salman suffering from Alzheimer's disease and his imbalanced son, Muhammad.

According to the Delhi grapevine, Americans, in their private conversations with Indian interlocutors who are opinion-makers, have been badmouthing Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar—just as they used to do to A.K. Antony in the UPA era. Their grievance remains the same—Parrikar is “slow” in decision-making.

Washington hopes that by the time US Defence Secretary Ashton Carter visits Delhi next month, a few multi-billion dollar arms deals could be finalised and also that the Ministry of External Affairs would by then have somehow succeeded in piloting the Logistic Support Agreement (LSA) on the home stretch. A top Pentagon official told a US Congressional hearing recontly that the LSA is finally sailing into view.

The LSA has become particularly urgent since there are gathering storms on the horizon in West Asia and the dogs of war are straining at the leash. Russia is moving its heavy aircraft carrier, Admiral Kuznetsov, to the Mediterranean to lead its naval flotilla deployed there.

Promoting arms deals and encouraging Sinophobia go hand in hand in the US diplomacy; they are mutually reinforcing objectives. Thus, we see a renewed push to get India on board the US' rebalance strategy in Asia. From the US perspective, the optics of a US-Indian entente directed against China works well insofar as it will inevitably impact the Sino-Indian normalisation. Thus, lately, the Pentagon officials have begun planting media stories that the US and India are planning to undertake ‘joint patrols' in the disputed waters in South China Sea, which China claims as its sovereign territory.

To be sure, it was a masterly performance by the US Pacific Commander Admiral Harry Harris at a conference sponsored by the Ministry of External Affairs in Delhi in early March when he went the extra league to give habitation and name to the idea of US-Indian ‘joint patrols' in South China Sea. Harris said (in the presence of senior MEA officials and a senior Chinese diplomat): “In the not-too-distant future, the American and Indian Navy vessels steaming together will become a common and welcome sight throughout Indo-Asia-Pacific waters.”

Bluster is traditionally one-half of US diplomacy and the Americans know how to create an optic illusion to trigger misperceptions which enable them to fish in troubled waters. But then, Admiral Harris was hit within the week by a rocket fired from Delhi. Significantly, it was none other than the indecisive, lethargic, slow-moving Indian Defence Minister who debunked Harris' vision. Parrikar said:

As of now, India has not taken part in joint patrols but we do participate in joint exercises. So the issue of joint patrols at this time does not arise. I am not responding to what the US Admiral has said. Our viewpoint will come to you if we at all consider any such thing from our side.

Parrikar also touched on the Logistics Support Agreement: “It (LSA) has to benefit the nation on various counts. We definitely would say that our government is very active on almost everything. We don't like to unnecessarily delay things. So, we do proper work, discussions are going on on many things.”

One of the good things about globalisation is that word travels very fast, isn't it? Parrikar seems to be aware that he “unnecessarily delays things”.

It is understandable if the Americans hustle India to let them in through the ‘Make in India' gateway. But then, they don't want to part with technology. They want India to keep buying and they hustle the government to take hurried decisions. Hence the smear campaign against select officials who stand in their way—Antony then, Parrikar now.

Even a newly-appointed Joint Secretary or Additional Secretary in the MOD promptly comes under intense American scrutiny—whether it is in his or her DNA to play ball with arms vendors and their middlemen (to mutual benefit, of course.)

Ambassador M.K. Bhadrakumar served as a career diplomat in the Indian Foreign Service for over 29 years, with postings including India's ambassador to Uzbekistan (1995-1998) and to Turkey (1998-2001).

The discussion on JNU in Parliament brought out the political divide on the issue of nationalism and the functioning of the institutions of higher education in the country. JNU has been under severe attack since the Ninth of February when some shouted objectionable slogans on the JNU campus. These have been used to characterise JNU as anti-national. A video grab shows objectionable slogans being raised by a handful of people at a cultural event organised by a student group. The Students' Union President was arrested and now is out on interim bail even though he repeatedly clarified that he was not involved. Some of the student leaders have clarified that they had gone there only to ensure that violence did not take place.

In the past I, as the President of the JNU Teachers' Association, was asked by the students groups to come to events to see that violence did not take place. I had gone to some events as an observer. A video grab could have been misconstrued as my participation in the events even though that was not the case.

Those attacking JNU admit that only a few were shouting the objectionable slogans and that these may have been outsiders but in the next breath they tarnish the entire University as anti-national. They also ask: how can such slogans be allowed to be raised in a publicly-funded university like JNU? There have even been calls to close down the University.

It now transpires that the evidence against the JNU Students' Union President was doctored. The other accused students are student leaders who have clarified that they played a rather limited role in the events of February 9. While this leadership is being harassed, those who shouted the slogans are still at large. In the past, I have interacted with some of the accused and found them to be highly nationalistic in the sense that they have sided with the marginalised majority in the country.

The students are painted as misguided and in the media the teachers have been asked what do we teach and why are our students anti-national? This question needs to be addressed in public interest. This would be JNU's accountability to society.

The contribution of JNU has been widely lauded except by the hard-core critics. NAAC, an independent officially recognised body, has rated JNU as the highest ranked university in the country. JNU's contribution to the nation's life has been substantial with many top academics, mediapersons, bureaucrats, police officers and so on having passed out of its portals.

JNU's uniqueness lies in the involvement of its faculty and students in a continuous process of learning and teaching. The JNU faculty upgrades itself via the research it carries on—teachers are also students. Courses are not static but respond to the changing situation in the country and the world because of the ongoing research. Often, JNU academics are at the forefront of the debates in the country and the world and the students become a part of this in the class rooms or during their research. There is constant questioning and this is reflected in the teaching. The students are taught not just the subject but to question established ideas in their field of study. Libraries are full not just at the time of exams but throughout the year. Interaction between the faculty and the students is not just in the class but during contact hours and outside.

In most of our schools and colleges, students learn mostly by rote and question little. Most students mug up to do well in the exams and then forget it so that their base is weak. When students join JNU they face difficulties with this way of learning but they pick it up to varying degrees. Everyone imbibes the spirit of questioning to a greater or lesser extent. The student body itself is active and organises lively discussions and meetings on current issues. The debate continues in the canteens and dhabas dotting JNU. It is wrong to say that students should just focus on studies in the class—learning is multifaceted.

Constant questioning helps students to develop intellectually and form their ideas through reasoning. Questioning of orthodoxy and established views leads many students to become Left-oriented, but some also turn Right. Thus, in JNU, all shades of ideology exist—from extreme Left to extreme Right. The Left is also not monolithic given that orthodoxies are challenged by the more radical ones. Those on the Right are uncomfortable with this process of constant questioning.

The faculty does not teach/discuss one single idea. Existing ideas on any topic are presented and critiqued to enable students to form their own opinion. This is not to say that teachers do not have their own proclivities. They do emphasise what they believe in. But, students get a choice. For example, in the JNU Economics Department, students are exposed to theories from Classical to Marxist to Keynesian to Neo-Liberal ideas, etc. This is unlike what even the best Western universities offer today. As the Nobel Prize winner Samuelson lamented in 1985, for most young economists, economics begins in 1980 with game theory. JNU's Economics Department offers a choice to the students even though the job market is increasingly forcing them to choose courses that are either technical or to the Right. The attempt is to develop a holistic and historical view. It is clarified that economic issues may be approached in many ways and none is complete or in its final form.

The concept of nationalism is taught as an evolving and multi-dimensional idea. It implies non-acceptance of the ruling party's narrow ideas of nationalism—whether the Congress or the CPI or the BJP variety. Many in JNU question the Congress' role during the Emergency, Mrs Gandhi approaching the IMF in 1980 and the introduction of the New Economic Policies under the pressure of the IMF and World Bank in 1991 under Narasimha Rao. The CPI's tilt towards the Congress is also questioned. The diversity of India leads many in JNU to believe that the issue has to be understood from the point of view of the marginalised and not just the elites in society. It is argued that the focus has to be on the Dalits, women, Muslims, peasants, the unorganised and the workers—what Gandhi captured as ‘last person first'. Is this being anti-national?

Given the contestation, someone's sedition can be another's nationalism and vice-versa. Nationalism and sedition are political issues as the parliamentary debate shows. No wonder politics is taking place around the events in JNU. While JNU has dealt with the issue of slogan-shouting—even the objectionable ones—and extremism by politically marginalising such elements, now the issue has been turned into one of law and order. This is unfortunate since the political issue of nationalism will not get settled this way but the manner in which it has been raised threatens JNU's autonomy and the associated freedom of thought. The impact of this is likely to ripple down the academic life of the country to the detriment of all.

(Courtesy: The Tribune)

The author is retired Professor of Economics, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. He is also the former President, Jawaharlal Nehru University Teachers' Association (JNUTA). He can be contacted at e-mail: arunkumar1000@hotmail.com