Democratise the polity

India’s tryst with Democracy

By Vidya Bhushan Rawat


Indian Justice Party’s candidate Lal Bahadur Sonkar, who was contesting from Jaunpur constitucney of Uttar-Pradesh was found dead, hanging on a tree yesterday. This famous town of Uttar-Pradesh, just about 40 kilometer from Varanasi, has never been that tensed. Sonkar, a Dalit himself was one of the candidates in the fray. The BSP had fielded Dhananjay Singh, who is well known here, not for his social work for his strong ‘muscles’. Whether some body is good or bad has become really a matter of convenience. Hence if Mulayam Singh embraced Kalyan Singh then he is not involved in demolition of Babari mosque. Gangsters are fighting elections and the courts are unable to do so but our government feel threatened with one Dr Binayak Sen that he has even been denied right to get medical test. Despite much voices of protest, this democracy, it seems, is afraid of releasing him from Jail that it does not feel shame of keeping him in Jail without any trial for the past one and a half year. So democracy is not just elections in five years, but our polity will have to be democratic.

Therefore it is not right here for me to mention about how our ministers are giving certificates about who is good and who is bad. While Varun Gandhi’s hate speech rightly placed him at the Jail, Mayawati yesterday gave a certificate to Mukhtar Ansari as ‘Garibon ka masiha’. Ofcourse, it is true that Mukhtar may not be as communal we make him and that his family has played an important role in India’s freedom struggle, but that does not exonerate him for the charges that he is facing in the courts of law.

During this election, we have seen worst kind of public speeches. And there is one common thing. While the Hindutva party is exclusively claiming that it can fight against ‘terrorism’ and ensure ‘National Security’, others are happy with positioning them as the sole champion of ‘secularism’ in the country. And hence Lalu want to bulldoze ‘Varun Gandhi’, like latter’s father did in 1975 at the Turkman gate in Delhi for beatification of the city. Muslims do not need these nautankis but solid promises as why they are left behind and what will parties do to ensure their faire participation in nation building. But we all know whether political parties have given tickets to them or not. A 12% Muslim society does not get 12% tickets even from so called secular parties. Even if they ask for it, the demand would be termed as communal. And here lies the tragedy of democracy.

Every body welcomed when a certain Jarnail Singh threw shoe on Chidambaram, despite the fact that jarnail actually betrayed his profession and became a ‘Sikh’. The problem in such perception is that when Congress party denied ticket to two of its sitting Member of Parliament’s m/s Jagdish Tytlor and Sajjan Kumar after the Sikhs have protested. The Hindutva party, whose goons were also involved in anti Sikh massacre in Delhi as many reports have proved and that Rajiv Gandhi won on an entirely communal mandate in 1984 which was based on hatred against Sikhs. Same thing is true about another gentleman called Narendra Modi, but he is the hero number one of the saffron party. We have hate mongerers given ticket from Kandhamal, in Orrisa. Problem with people like Jarnail Singh is that they open up their eyes when they feel their community is wronged. They keep quiet when others face such things. How can Akalis side with BJP which is accused of doing worst kind of pogrom in Gujarat. But then the record of Jaat Sikhs towards Dalits is well known in Punjab and we have faced their wrath in Shaheed Udham Singh Nagar, when I demanded land ceiling be imposed there as a majority of land has illegally been grabbed by the powerful Jat Sikhs from Punjab. The problem in democracy is that we give our version, speak the truth of convenience.

We all know politicians and political parties play games. They use words very carefully and reject that very next day. When Varun made that hate speech, the idea was to make his ‘entry’ into politics as the new hero of ‘Hindutva. The agenda was not this election but next one when a generation of the second generation of BJP leaders too would turn old and there is a dearth of leader who could claim to represent the youths of the country.

Tickets are being sold, money being pumped and election commission despite its role and monitoring is helpless as Netas are thick skinned. But the mass upsurge is equally happening. The urban middle classes are fed up with the current lot of political class while in the forest, the tribal and those who are victims of the current dispensation, are up in arms. So there is a wider disenchantment in public life.

We celebrate today the birthday of one of the greatest heroes of democracy and modernity. Yes, Dr Bhim Rao Ambedkar who brought 16 crore Dalits into national mainstream and made them believe in Democracy. Yet the same Ambedkar had warned in the constituent Assembly that if this democracy does not provide social and economic justice to his people, they will blow up the very structure of democracy we all have built so laboriously.

A democrat by heart, Ambedkar knew it well that ours is a democracy imposed on a feudal society, where the leaders always want to be looked as a messiah. He was prophetic when he wanted to liberate every individual. He did feel that individual is supreme but what happen today is the death that individual in our democracy. Democracy has become the best way to legitimize the illegal acts. Legitimise the goons to say that they are political leaders and that their misdeeds have been ‘approved’ by the people. Democracy today has made communities apolitical and depoliticized their thoughts. Hence you are really not voting to a party of ideology but voting to an individual who you feel belongs to your caste or religion.

I am not saying this has happened just now. Things evolve and evolution has come in such a way that it is very difficult for dissenting voices to contest elections when mainstream political parties are spending billions of rupees. When the big industrialists, mafias can fight election at their will or if they are barred from contesting the election, their ‘ideal wives’ take over therefore making democracy as a family business, then we must realize that writing is on the wall and that such things will not be helpful in promoting the ideas of social democracy as these things are anti democratic and are just stamping them leveled as democratic.
Hence democracy has become a game for entry into elitist circle. The choices are limited. Initially, this club has the domination of the upper castes now the membership has been extended to a few powerful individuals and parties from Dalit and shudra communities also so their quest is equally satisfied.

Uttar-Pradesh and Bihar are two politically volatile states. Many claimed that they have brought Dalit-bahujan revolution. However, after look at the village politics, I can say things are not that simple as our theoreticians make us believe. The churning of the Dalit backward communities happened in these two states. In fact, Bihar does seem much better than Uttar-Pradesh in this regard as people are now questioning politicians and it is not easy for both Lalu and Ramvilas to just hanker on ‘who stopped Advani’. People want work and politicians who raised aspirations and hope miserably failed them. Uttar-Pradesh experience or experiment of Sarvajan is on test. It succeeded in UP because of the peculiar caste equations and there is no guarantee of its success. Yet, the problem with this exercise is that that dominant upper caste communities have become stronger here and the Dalit remain victims. Now, they can not open their mouth. They have to vote to the people who are seen in the village lives as their enemies. And hence it is the travesty of the truth. A Sonker is killed because he is considered as vote –katua by his opponent. Dalit vote is transferrable hence the upper castes are bowing to Behinji for a ticket and got it. Hence we see an upsurge of upper castes particularly Brahmins in UP glorifying Mayawati as they have got much beyond their numbers. They are ready to play second fiddle and that too, only to Bahinji and not to Dalit community, as long as they get power and position and BSP has given them.

These elections mean a lot for people of India. They will mean a lot for Dalits and OBCs of India. Their politics will see a sea change. The cries of Indians who still have not got their due, the failure of democracy as providing justice are crucial factor. People will question. Netas can not be messiahs but will have to deliver. The biggest factor in democracy is the voices of Dalits, and marginalized. They will now question. Their vote matter but no work is done to them. If even after 60 years people are eating rats and snails in UP and Bihar, or Orissa and Andhra, then it is shame on us.

Democracy is not just elections. Democracy is the spirit. Democracy is how we respect people and take a decision by asking people. Is this happening. The distance between our political class and people is increasing. The political class feels that people are too proud of them hence they do not need to deliver. They feel that people are happy to see them hovering in helicopter. India is changed. The poor are changing. They will seek answer and the way Bihar has revolted and thrashed leaders, will be seen in public life.

It is important that we do not surrender our selves to political class. It is important that this political class just do not use us for its own purposes. Their agendas are big... they come in different names but at the end promote them selves as larger than life. People have aspirations from them but they never get filled. ‘ I have given them nothing but swar, i.e. voice, Lalu Yadav would often say, but he knows it well that people will not be satisfied with ‘Swar’ only, they need employment, they need job and they need justice.

The voices of people should not satisfy with electing one party or other. An awakened people can control their leaders. The parliament which is becoming a place where we surrender our sovereignty. Look how Binayak Sen is still languishing in Jail and our political leaders are contesting elections. What is the fault of Binayak Sen ? They have not been able to prove. He is a Naxalite, said the government. The voices of newspapers in Chhatisgharh are shut. So are our voices too. Democracy is becoming too strong for us to speak for those who the state feels ‘anti-national’, without proving their crime. We faced it. Such frivolous charges against any one who dissent with the establishment are the norms of the day. I have got such a charge from the intelligence that I am influenced by ‘ leftist ideology’. Is being a leftist a crime? While I am not that and discard the Naxal violence, not because they are violent but because we believe in democracy, freedom and choice and sadly the Maoists-Naxal do not believe in that. They still believe in their own confined world and protected fences and become sole arbitrator of people’s choices and ideas which is unacceptable.

As a person devoted to democratic values and freedom, I feel that the challenges are too big. Our political class does not understand the differences between ideologies and perception. They want to shut our voices in the name of isms. Whether it is Maoism, or naxalism or Islamism, our state feel threatened with ideology. Despite India being too big and diverse, people of India have decided to live together. It is not the politicians but a spirit of togetherness that bind them together. They will fight back against all anti democratic norms. Let us save democracy from the clutches of feudal lords.

The largest democracy of the world does not seek people’s opinion from displacing them. Who will allow them to displace them? The largest democracy in the world has its people, still carrying night soil over their head and cleaning shit, largest democracy still have huge number of child labor and bonded labor... the largest democracy has failed to provide justice and Dalits and Adivasis. It is making them enslaved. Democracy will not succeed in symbols and enlarging the elite clubs of billionaires. Democracy will succeed when every body will have freedom to dissent and live a life of dignity and self respect.

Let our political class not live in the caged past. Let them follow what Dr Ambedkar said ‘not to glorify our past and our village system’. Let the political class not take shelter in our great ‘culture’ and great ‘villages’ of India where our caste live and which still live in ignorance and nepotism, as Ambedkar prophetically mentioned. Unlike Mulayam Singh, whose son went to Australia to learn English language or Charan Singh who said he would stop computers by sending his son Ajit Singh to US to learn that, let the political class be honest enough to accept what they personally believe and behave. Let there be no duality in our life, one masked for people and other for our own selves. Our issues are bigger than English language. Our issues are bigger than poll rhetoric’s. Let us work to democratize our political class, our villages and socialize democracy otherwise, democracy will only be like surrendering our soveignity to a class which has no concern for people and which is hell bent on depoliticizing the whole society by deviating people’s issue and becoming individual centric. One must not expect too much from this exercise yet it is certain that a lot of churning will happen at the ground level as people are watching everything closely. Those people who think that rural poor do not understand thing and vote in emotions will have to eat their word after elections. Nobody can save a country or a society if intellectual become bankrupt. The spirit and ideas of Ambedkar are still alive and relevant, it is time we move ahead and spread his words and ideas in the true spirit of democracy and human freedom which will liberate us and give millions their dignity.

Another Nandigram in making

Chengara’s Dalit-Adivasis call to restore their fundamental rights

By Vidya Bhushan Rawat

Bharathi Sreedharan could not resist taking risk on her life through dense forest as her children suffered in hunger and starvation in the Chengara village which has been unconstitutionally and unethically blocked by the trade union gangs of all the political parties including the ruling CPI(M) in Kerala. Her agonizing face reflected the happenings inside the village as for more than two months; it is completely cut off from rest of the country. No outsider is allowed to venture into the village and no villager is allowed to come out of it. CPM’s goons attack people from the buses once they recognize that they have sympathies with Chengara people. Many families are on the verge of hunger death if in the next few days no arrangement of food supply is done. ‘They want us to get out of the place but we are determined, says Bharathi, we won’t allow them to take over the place. We are ready to face any eventuality’. We are ready to die for the cause of our children’.

Bharathi came hiding to get some ration from her brother. When the road is blocked from all the way, it is possible only through walking around 10 kilometers in the forest to come and reach the office and wait for him to be there at Laha Gopalan’s office who is the leader of ‘ Sadhu Jan Vimochana Samyukta Vedi’, the organization fighting for the land and livelihood rights of the Dalits and Adivasis in Chengara. It is remarkable that people have united in this struggle and are determined to sacrifice their lives for the land. Interestingly, it is for the first time, that Kerala is witnessing an assertive emerging Dalit Adivasi struggle independent of the influence of dominating communities irrespective of religion.

Gopalan hails from a trade union back ground as he worked in Electricity department and now swears by the legacy of both Baba Saheb Ambedkar and Ayyankali, another Dalit revolutionary from Kerala. The semi constructed office in Pattthanamthittha is a place where all the Dalit-Advasis in the Chengara struggle come and stay. According to Laha Gopalan, they ventured into the area some fourteen months back, as it was legally a government land which should have gone to the landless Dalit-Adivasis of Kerala. The government of Kerala was never interested in the land reform and whatever happened in the name of land reform was eyewash. The tragedy is that there are villages where the Dalits do not have land for even cremating their people. The issue of Dalits and tribal has been neglected by the national and state level parties and hence we decided to make our own destiny.

About 10 kilometer away towards Tiruwala lives the big family of Sabu who are five brothers. Each brother has a big family of his own to support. They have no land. Sabu and his wife have small tea shop. The number of children in the family and the small kitchen that they have for their survival tell the story as how the successive Kerala governments failed to give land to the Dalits. ‘ Sabu was happy that Chengara’s vast track could have provided him a source of independent living and some land for agriculture work. He went there with other families. The real assault came from the trade unions this year when people refused to leave their land. ‘ The union felt that they can coerce us to accept their issues but at the moment people are ready to die. They will commit mass suicide if police and other forces are sending to evict them. We are not ready to accept anything less than a decent land package for our children’, say Sabu. He adds that situation is worsening as there is no food, no water and no sanitation in the entire area. Particularly, it is becoming difficult for children and elderly people to stay. Because of the blockade, we can not provide emergency treatment to any of the villagers as vehicles are not allowed and there is every chance of a bloody fight if we come in touch with the trade union people. Children are facing the malnutrition as there is nothing to eat and drink. We can not go to market to buy milk and rice. Moreover, because of no work in the past two months, there is no money to buy anything’.

How come he is here in the village. ‘ Sir, the union people allowed us 5 days leaves during the Onam festivities. We were allowed to move in and out and hence I came here. I have overstayed here and hence it is difficult to go there because of blockade’. I can not speak to my relatives and friends there, I am really worried as if food is not provided to people soon, they will start dying soon. I am concerned about children and elderly people. They are completely cut off from the rest of the world. It is shameful.’

The seize of Chengara went off well until one day the government which was keen to revive its lease to Harrison Plantation decided that the Dalit and Adivasis could only be evicted if they push it through other routs which is ‘right to live’ issue of the 70 odd plantation workers who were working there. The issue is the Chengara’s tea plantation was already defunct years ago and hence to blame the current situation for the crisis is absolutely wrong. Harrison Plantation cannot use these 70 workers as a shield to deny land rights of the people. The tactics they adopted are fascistic in nature as from the August this year, the situation worsened after the plantation trade union and CPM in particular started blockade. Now the parties have not only used the local tea plantation trade unions but people have been invited from other parts of the state also against the landless people. All the ways going to Chengara were blocked by the party men and no material including medical aid was allowed to go into the village. Only allowance given to people was during ONAM festivities when the blockade was lifted for 5 days to let the people celebrate the festival. But after that the blockade has become functional and harsher and it might turn into a bloody war. Now the situation has gone out of hand. People inside the Chengara area have no source of livelihood; there is no supply of food and water. Some Muslim youth organizations of the area wanted to send rice for the families but but never allowed to do so. It is violation of their rights to food and free from hunger. The state government has shamelessly allowed the situation to go out of hand which has given strength to the trade unions.

It is unfortunate that in this war against their Dalits and tribal the organized gang of the trade union is taking action irrespective of ideology. It is a rare combination of how the upper caste communists and the Hindutva people can come together to wipe out the legitimate demands of the Dalits and tribals. The duplicity of the CPM’s idea comes that the same party launch movement for restoration of land in Andhra Pradesh but want to say that all the Dalits and tribals who have now settled in Chengara are encroachers. Perhaps they have forgotten their own slogan of ‘ Jo jameen sarkari hai, woh jameen hamari hai ( the government land is our land. Land struggles historically invoked this slogan. Harrison Plantation Company did not have legal rights to the acquired land. The lease expired long back. The dalits and tribal who did not get benefited under any programme of the government rightfully acquired the land and asked the government to redistribute it to them. How come the communist government of Kerala kept quiet and turned hostile to Dalits who have just extended the slogan what the communist parties have been raising every where else except in the states they have been ruling. Is it because this land struggle is first of its kind being led by the Dalits and have organized both the Dalits and tribal together in the state.

Dalits have been asking the government to allot them land. In 2006 in the Patthanamthitta district after five days struggle in the government land of rubber plantation area, the land was given to the Dalits on the papers only. Many people are still trying to find where there land is which was given to them on papers by the state government. Says, Raghu, one of the members of the Solidarity Committee, ‘we do not want papers, we want land’.

Patthanamthitta is a district about 60 kilometers from Kottayam, the heart of the Syrian Christian, the original brahmanical convert to Christianity. About 40 kilometer from the town is the heart of Ayappa, the Hindu God. The land relations here are different as the dominant community here is the upper caste Christians. What their role is in the entire struggle of the Dalits, I ask Raghu. ‘ Oh, like any other feudal, the Syrian Christians also are not interested in the battle of Dalits. Dalits here have separate churches for them.’ The Solidarity Committee members like Simon John, who is also Chairman of Backward People Development Corporation, Kerala concede that the original Brahmin converts to Christianity have not left their old prejudices in the Church and therefore are not very keen in supporting the movement of the Dalits and tribal in Chengara. Like the CPM cadre, many of them too feel that the Dalits and tribal have ‘encroached’ the government land, though it is another matter that they all forgot that Harrison Plantation has been the biggest encroacher and was overstaying at the place. It is also shocking that Kerala did not have substantial land reform and all talks of a Kerala module in the developmental text books are big farce if one visit the rural areas of Kerala and speak to Dalits and tribals. A lot is written about Kerala model as a state. Recently a friend wrote to me from London about casteless, dowerless society in Kerala. Yes, I said, Kerala’s caste prejudices are hidden underneath like West Bengal since the first thing the communist regime does is to stop the export of information to outside world. More importantly since a large number of writers and authors actually have been sympathetic to the CPM’s policies with upper caste mindset, they do not really expose the Kerala myth. It was not just Bengal, Tatas have huge track of land in Kerala in the name of tea gardens and plantation. One should not forget that great Dalit revolutionary Ayyankali emerged in Kerala to fight for the rights of Dalits. It is not for nothing that both Patthanmthitta and Trivendram represent two different kind of dominations that Kerala has : the Christian domination and the Hindu domination. Both these upper elites interest are against the rights of the Dalits and other marginalized communities. They remain caged to their old prejudiced worldview.

Laha Gopalan is a determined man. He has seen the traumas of the Dalit communities in the villages where they do not even have land for funeral leave alone for education and houses. ‘ The political parties, both at the national and state level have betrayed the cause of the Dalits and tribal,’ he says. ‘ We started our struggle when people failed to get land by any request. We found that there is no land to them and the government wanted to further the lease at the area which was being used by the Dalits and tribal. Our historic struggle started last year as 7000 people captured the area and started living there. One should have expected that the communist parties which have raised the slogans of ‘ jo jameen sarkari hai, wo jameen hamari hai, ( Government land is our land) today are strangely at the other end. There is no hope in the sight as the trade unions are determined to take law in their own hand and kill people with chief minister virtually becoming a ‘Dhritrastra’.

Says Laha Gopalan, ‘ when we started our first struggle the government termed that they were genuine demands. In June 2006 about 5000 families were living in another plantation area when the revenue minister interfered and promised them land. Chief Minister Achutanandan promised about 1 acre land to each family of the landless but nothing happened. Since August 4, 2007, there are over 7000 families and the government has so far neglected their demand. The unions have surrounded the area and are beating people who are showing solidarity. The lives of the solidarity committee members are in deep threat in the area. They are being identified in the buses, taxis and even in the press conferences and targeted.’

‘ Even in the war zones people allow doctors and medical teams to visit the victims but here the goons of CPM and other trade unions have denied that too to the people,’ says Simon John. They are not allowing the food supply in the village. There is a hunger and starvation situation prevailing in the ‘samarbhoomi’ and one person is already dead due to hunger. It is violation of people’s right to life’, add John. ‘ We are deeply disturbed at the turn of events as government and political parties led by the upper castes are not at all bothered about the growing marginalization of the communities says another activist in Patthanamthittha.

Is it not strange and ironical that CPM and other communist parties who have been in the forefront of agitation against any kind of exploitation in the organized sector do not find that the landless people in Chengara are struggling for a genuine cause? The party leaders termed the entire struggle as unwanted and felt that the local goons and land mafias have taken over the Chengara land struggle. Ofcourse, Party’s anti Dalit stand is visible anywhere. One does not blame the top leadership of the party for being anti Dalit as it would be too much to blame but definitely party’s local leaders are not really that radical Dalit supporters as they should have been. CPM for that matter is like any other political party ( we wanted it remained a different political party) whose cadres hail from dominant communities and serve their local interest as we have seen in West Bengal and how the party remained mute to the displacement of about 700 Valmiki families in Belilius Park in Howarah several years back. Today, party’s proud MPs have made use of the entire space for private properties and shops. Ofcourse, the poor Balmikis never got support from any other Bhadralok parties in Bengal and living in Bengal in highly uncivilized and unacceptable conditions near the waste-mountains, on sewerage lines and on the railway tracks. Similar thing happen in Kerala where the Dalits and Adivasis of Chengara have not got support from any other political outfits. That gives strength to fascistic tendencies of the ruling party and their leaders. But the fact is this nationalism of the communist parties is more dangerous. Our problems with the Hindutva fascist is that we know that they are against the people but when the so called leaders of the proliterariat start behaving neo Hindutvavadis then situation need special remedial measures otherwise people’s frustration would explode soon.

Chengara’s land struggle is historical. It shows that people can not really depend on government dole out for land. Political parties in connivance with the defunct industrial houses are keeping people landless. New landlessness is on the rise. Courts are being used as an excuse to evict people. The marginalized have understood this and are ready to fight till end. If the government of Kerala think it is wrong, let it come out in open and say that they oppose people’s movement for land right. The government cannot use trade unions and other goons to threaten people and evict them. Life in Chengara has become miserable and any further delay will turn Chengara into another Nandigram. The situation in Chengara would become more dangerous and bloody if the government does not behave responsibly. All national and international rights bodies should take care of this note that denying people free movement is denying them right to choice and livelihood. Kerala government has failed to protect Chengara’s Dalits and Adivasis right to move free from one place and other. The inhuman blockade has created unprecedented situation where children and elderly people in Chengara are suffering. Any further delay would escalate the crisis and only government of Kerala would be held responsible for this. The government must act fast and negotiate with the struggling masses of Chengara. The trade union blockade is unconstitutional and illegal and must be removed immediately as it violate the fundamental rights of the people living there who are victim of the criminal silence of the government and civil society.