Indian disconnect in Uganda

Mabira’s resistance to Monopoly of Mehtas in Museveni’s Uganda

By Vidya Bhushan Rawat


When I got an opportunity to visit Uganda to attend an international conference, the first thing that came in minds the issue of Indians in Uganda. Coincidently, exactly a week before my departure to Entebbe, Uganda saw worst kind of riots in Kampala in the post Idi Amin era. The news of an Indian killed send shock waves through out the country. The Indian media reported as if the native Ugandans have turned to racism against the ‘poor’ Indians. It failed to report that two Ugandans were killed in rioting. How can a community which has been victim of racism in the past and still facing discrimination in its own country could be termed as racist just because it lost its patience and indulged in rioting? There is a need to understand the issue of blacks, apartheid and Indian domination in the African countries and any analysis based on our ‘nationalistic’ pattern would be bias and unfair.

Uganda is a growing democracy despite army’s control over power. In the streets you can still find big appeals on behalf of the election commission to participate in the political process. Among many FM channels, you will get political discussion going and the president and prime minister being lampooned by the people. It is the growing sign of democracy. However, it is important as what happened to Uganda that the entire country united and condemned and that there is more than what was presented to us.

Issue of Self Respect of Native Ugandans

Idi Amin is not much respected in Uganda. There might be some pockets where he may be adored, probably among the Islamic tribal community but Ugandans have moved far ahead from that narrow idea of Idi Amin, which destroyed their freedom and lampoonised the entire governance process. Commentators called him a government owned by a minority group without any mandate from the people, yet on one count, I found many native Ugandans were appreciative of him. It is clear that Amin’s predecessor Milton Obote-1, had actually created another imperial class in his country. The Indians, particularly Gujaratis who went to Uganda and East Africa as laborers to construct the train track between Kampala and Nairobi and other East African countries by the British, later monopolized the Ugandan business and mercantile sector has now become a bone of contention. Not that Indians do not work hard but more than this, there habit of exclusivity and differentiate on colour. Yes, Indians are highly colour conscious. One they recognize your colour matches their own, then they shift to the caste loyalties. And when I was speaking to Ugandan friends about the Mabira Forest Controversy, many facts came into light.

Deo Sfekitooleko, is a teacher by profession at the University of Makarere, which is one of the largest Universities in East Africa with more than 40,000 students doing various courses. Deo is Chairman of Uganda Humanist Association and very radical humanists who feel that the Christian Evangelical forces are equally a threat to Africa and its secular cultural values. The violence against Indians and Asians worried Deo but he confirms that it was not exactly the case what was being reported. “ The idea behind the demonstration was good as Ugandans were demonstrating against their National Property being given to foreigner and also destruction of a great forest which has enormous value for Uganda.’

Responding to my question whether he felt that there was a similarity of pattern on attack against the Indian and Asians, Deo said that he found some similarity with the Idi Amin’s days but Amin cannot be blamed for everything. The fact of the matter is that Milton Obette-1 has been supporting the Asians particularly the Indians and sidelining the Africans. That was the reason that when Amin’s forces took over Uganda, he became an instant hero as he threw the Asians out of Uganda. But then he went to extreme endangering the progress of Uganda.

There is nothing particular against Asians or Indians, suggest Deo. ‘The problem lie with the Asian culture and values. The do not associate with Africans outside business. They may have a good relationship, employee-employer relationship in business. They may have good business relations with Africans but outside that there has never been an effort to build of social bonding. No interaction with the Africans. No marriages. So, one can say there is a complete cultural barrier with Asians and particularly with Indians who have a caste system and they bring it here also. This life of exclusion which Indians live make it difficult for them to associate with the African community who they consider as inferior. The Europeans and Americans also come here and appreciate our values and culture, mixed up with us. Their men can marry with our women and vice versa. Therefore there is not much against them in the socio-cultural front but Asians have come here as a businessmen and nothing more than the same. They remain confined to monitory gains and are here to earn without any sense of belonging to the country.’

Deo’s outspokenness is not without facts. As I go around the streets of Kamapla, I find lesser Indian. But once in the Old Kampala area, you will find the Muslims habitats, the Bombay Road, The Delhi garden as well as Bombay Garden, basically localities of the Indians. On the left hand side, there is a Gurudwara named as Ramgarhia Gurudwara. My mind swings into action that this must be a Dalit Gurudwara and I decided that I must visit them and find what is cooking inside. At the gate, a native guard stops my Ugandan friends and me. My Ugandan friends skip and allow me to go in.

Condition of the victims of (Kabootarbaji) illegal human trafficking

It is evening time and I can hear the beautiful Sabad-Kirtan inside the Gurudwara. After a short while, I meet a middle-aged woman Raj Pal Kaur who is an Indian immigrant here. I tell her about my motive to understand how Indian feel here and what were their relationships. Raj is very happy that a fellow Indian has come from Delhi and therefore invites me to her house.

Her husbands accompany me to their house in Bombay Garden. The guy is a mechanic in a local company and his inability to converse in Hindi is equally baffling. Her speaks with me in native Punjabi and narrates how the Indians are living here with ‘bhaichara’. Once inside the house, one find two blacks, a very young teenage boy and a girl are doing the household chores. I am told most of the Indians still keep the blacks in their houses as domestic servant.

Inside the house, the story is similar to that of any Punjabi family who aspire to grow up in Canada. Raj kaur and her husband along with a daughter were trapped into ‘dream Canada’ by a travel agent. They were dumped in Uganda. With great difficulty they established themselves and started recovering. Old habits die-hard. Once again another expatriate Punjabi robbed them of whatever they had by alluring them to take to Canada. They end up in paying up over USD 9000/- by selling their household items and Raj’s gold ornaments. For many days, she could not work. Situation turned volatile for them in an entirely alien country. But a remarkable thing about the Punabi woman is her strength of working hard. Raj decided that her husband’s salary was not enough for running their home and paying back the debt.

Raj Kaur today fetch 15 paying guests from India. She takes care of them, provide home cooked food there for an amount of Rs 5,000/- per person. This provides her help her children’s fees in school.

Once inside the house, I am shocked to hear the tales of Indians who are brought by the Kabootarbaji business rampant in Punjab and Haryana. Surjeet Ram, 27, is a graduate from Jullandhar, Punjab. He paid Rs 4,50 lakhs to the travel agent. Who promised him to Italy? Surender's father is an agricultural labour. He is a Dalit Sikh though he does not have long hair. Surendra today is living in a very difficult situation. being helped by a local Sikh woman who herself was victim of Kabootarbaji but now have obtained Ugandan citizenship, this woman Raj Kaur run a paying guest house. Her story is of a great struggle and how Indian cheat. Raj Kaur have two children. her husband is a mechanic who cannot even speak Hindi. I met them at a local Gurudwara in old Kampala when she said that I must narrate her story of how an Indian took away USD 9000 after staying for nearly a month at their place and promising them to take to Paris.

Surjeet Ram's story thought that he was going to Italy but at the end he was asked to take a flight to Entebbe. Since Uganda provide visa on arrival, this has become a heaven for the travel agents to dupe their client, extort huge some of money from the illiterate relatives.

Sudesh Kumar is just a matriculate and is about 22 years of age. He comes from Kurushetra district of Haryana. The travel agent promised him to get a job in Europe.
He also paid nearly four lakh of rupees. He is in equally difficult situation.

Satpal Singh is 45 years of age. He has younger children who are going to schools in Kurushetra. He sold his land and paid Rs 7,50,000 to travel agent. The travel agent promised that they will get a job in Europe but were dumped in Uganda.

It is equally shocking to hear the narratives from these people how their travel agent came to Uganda and stayed for a few days. He got the two guys arrested and extorted another USD 2,500 each for their release. Because of rampant corruption, police extract money from the foreigners.

Now, the travel agent have taken their passports and disappeared. Every one of them is today living in horror. They do not have any travel document today and fear that they might get arrested and no body is there to take care of them except Raj Kaur who herself is facing lot of troubles and had to sold her ornaments and other household itmes just to get Canadian visa.

Gandhi belongs to us in Uganda but abandon Gandhi in Gujarat?

Fifty kilometer from the Kampala city is another beautiful and planned town of Jinja. Jinja is famous for its tourist resorts, planned streets and the ‘source’ of river Nile, Ninja showcased Indian diaspora led by the Gujaratis. A large number of Gujaratis were settled here and build their mansions before Idi Amin asked them to leave Uganda. While the biggest commercial building in Kampala city belongs to ‘Bank of Baroda’, in Jinja you can find big mansions named after the Gujaratis.

At the source of river Nile, I meet Rubina, a native Ugandan, who owns a shop of the handcraft items, and ask her what is her reaction to recent anti Asian riots, which left Indians concerned. She said,’ The people of Uganda are not against Asians or Indian in particular. We are friends but Asians must understand that we cannot allow our forest and environment to be finished by private corporations. It is not a war against Asians but efforts of the private companies to loot the resources of the poor nations. You too have waged a war against imperialism and we have been together in our struggle against imperialism.’

While the success of Indians or in other way round, Indian imperialism in the East African countries, has hurt their relationship with local populace yet it reached the optimizing point, when Mr Madhavan N Mehta, the director of Sugar Corporation of Uganda Limited was granted more than 9000 Hectare of Mabira forest for developing another sugar factory. It is no secret that Indians control business in Uganda. While the Indians feel that since they are competent and know to do their work better (a racist propagation of their superiority), the native Ugandans feel that the Indian exploit their wide ranging connections particularly in the big corporations and the World Bank and other institutions. Mehta’s SCOUL was a joint venture with the government and earlier the government partnership was 49% but not it has reduced to a mere 23%. Secondly, newspaper reports continue in Kampala that Mehtas are not even the Ugandan Citizen but British Citizen. According to The Monitor, Kampala, The sugar baron has already pocketed Shs29.7 billion as compensation from government. Sunday Monitor has learnt that in 2002, Mehta demanded to be compensated for losses he had incurred during the regimes of Idi Amin (1971-79) and Milton Obote (1980-85).’

The paper’s report furthers that Mehta and his company has never paid any taxes in Uganda during the past 26 years. The compensation has become a controversial issue with President Yoweri Museveni firmly supporting the industrialization process. This ‘sale off’ triggered strong reaction in entire Uganda. Already president Museveni’s high handedness has created stir among the local population. In the name of development you cannot just shunt people from their inhabitat.

It is strange that Uganda does not have rehabilitation laws. When the people were uprooted from mabira forest under the guise of saving the forest, none of them objected but the same government shamelessly went ahead with providing land to a big corporations, which the Ugandan now feel are betraying their national interests.

Hence the violence against Indian is not because of Mehtas or Madhvanis who have controlled the sugar companies of Uganda but broader nature of Indians. At Jinja, I go to a Gujarati temple. Since it is Sunday therefore not many had turned up in the temple but I meet a young Gujarati who had been working in Uganda for the past three years. Accordingly, he feels that Jinja was a much better and safer place unlike Kampala, which was crowded and tense. There are three Gujarati temples in Jinja, he says. The temple that I visited was of ‘Satya Narayan’. At the temple, we join a discussion about how Gujarati’s are working. The man is proud of Mehtas and says that Gujarati’s build Uganda and now this country is not respecting us. When I ask him as what is the situation and how does he feel here? ‘ These issues are politicized. Look, President Museveni is a nice person and very supportive of investment but politicians do not like this.’ At this, I refer to situation in Gujarat. He says, Gujaratis always lived in brotherhood with Muslims and it is just the politics. Still today, many Gujaratis live together, no question of Hindus or Muslims. The fellow asks me to take photograph of Mahatma Gandhi. I am amused at this. Gandhi has been thoroughly rejected by the Hindus in Gujarat. They feel he is an obstacle in their progress but in Uganda, the same Gujaratis are asking me to remember Gandhi? Why?
We have to understand this psychology of using the popular names. There is a statue of Gandhi at the bank of river Nile. Gandhi is popularized as a person who fought for the rights of the blacks in Africa. Therefore the blacks too feel that Gandhi fought for their battle and is best symbol of fight against imperialism. Gujaratis knows it well and are using the same. Unfortunately, Gandhi’s statue in Black Africa is a conspiracy to disconnect the Africans to the popular anti caste movement in India. Gandhi has become a tool for every one to exploit particularly his native Gujaratis who have abandoned him. It is in the fitness of thing for the Gujaratis to think of how they treat others in their home state. What are the Gujarati industrialists doing? Supporting the Hindutva and its hate monger in Gujarat but at the same point of time want the world to respect their ‘culture’.

Back in Kampala, I am at the house of an Indian and for the first time in 10 days watched Aaj Tak. The woman talks of ‘Sansani’, a programme of crime reporting at the Star News. The 10 PM news at Aaj tak shows horrible footage of a paster being beaten by the goons of the Hindutva in Jaipur, Rajasthan. Acharya Giriraj Kishore is defending the Hindutva action on these things. I ask an Indian. What do you feel when such things happen in our country. “ Oh, its not an issue here, he says. Sikhs and Hindus are always friend.’ But such incident does not make you feel insecure here in Uganda. The Indians do not feel offended with that. It is more shocking. When riots occurred in Uganda, the government became over conscious to defend the Indians but what happen when we see such situation occurs with in our own country.

Land for Investment: While President Museveni confirmed that the struggle against Mabira forest take-over would subsidise. As a human rights activist, I felt proud to have spoken against the take over and expressed my solidarity with the native Ugandan people. Having heard the voices of sanity against this gross exploitation of natural wealth, Indian people would be doing great disservice if they support their crony capitalists. In fact, the governments everywhere should ensure that the corporate houses indulged in hate mongering formula and supporting fundamentalists groups must be kept out. At the time, when Americans are going crazy over war against terror, it is also worth demanding that such corporations which displace people, spread hatred elsewhere or support such campaigns should be barred from every where.
It is better that Mehtas have right now not staked the claim for the Mabira forest after the bloody riots. In case he continue to pursue his family interest, it would be difficult to contain the local resentment. Mehtas have given Ugandan an opportunity to think and unite and if he persist with the more take over; the day would not be far, when other ‘nationalists’ forces might take over Uganda. While the civil society organizations that assembled in Uganda to participate in the Assembly of International Land Coalition wholeheartedly spoke against the degazetting of the Mabira forest for commercial purpose threatening the biodiversity of the green Uganda, it is ironical that intergovernmental bodies desisted from issuing a statement against the government. People have forgotten Idi Amin but nobody can deny that his action to acquire property of the Indians was targeted at the popular sentiments with in the country who were frustrated with Indian domination over all walks of life. Clear enough while the Gujaratis want every one to follow their culture in Gujarat, they refuse to do the same elsewhere. The events of Uganda are a reminder that you cannot take a community for granted. If the Indians have got so much in Uganda, they must also respect local sentiments and be part of it.

And finally my disappointment with the current regime of President Museveni who continued to assure Indians that action would be taken against anti social elements but at the same point of time refused to understand the sentiments behind the protests. The cabinet does seems to lack unanimity on this issue as Agricultural minister told us that the president has no power to sale of a national asset and unless parliament approves it, nothing can be done. Very unfortunately, the government defines land in terms of investment, which is dangerous. Even when Indians do not have a fair record of land reform, yet our constitutional forefathers provided enough tools for poor to get a fair deal. Zamindari Abolition Act, land Ceiling Acts were out come of such concern but it is shocking that the land minister accepted in the conferences that his deputy was a landless person in the area where people have land in the area of over 10 kilometer. There was no system of land reform in Uganda. Idi Amin captured the land and property of the Asians to be distributed among his own cronies. People who thought his nationalism would help them remain clueless. Uganda government can learn a lesson or two from Indian constitution to help its landless population and allow people to access and control its vast natural resources. Uganda remains the ‘pearl of Africa’ and its greenery is enchanting. It must tread carefully with a greater balance with national aspirations, sustainability and development. The government needs investment but it cannot do so at the cost of displacing its people and killing the environment. India is already facing this war of people against the multinational onslaught on their soverignity and Ugandans will do the same. Government should ultimately remain loyal to their people and not to private corporations and international institutions failing which there are dangers of political instability, greater chaos and anarchy, which has already killed thousands in African continent. To attain short term objectives, the government should not lose sight on greater national interests and Mabira forest have become Uganda’s symbol of resistance against the onslaught of the private corporations and their masters in the government, any effort to discount popular sentiment would result in further polarization of communities and create further instability in the region.

Issue of OBC Reservation in India

Mandal will have the Last Laugh


By Vidya Bhushan Rawat


A two judges bench headed by Justice Ajit Parsayat has stayed the 27% quota meant for the Other Backward Communities in the higher education. The upper caste Hindus today celebrated Holy and Diwali. After the miserable failure and huge loss of advertisement by the favorite Indian cricket team virtually surrendered to Bangladesh and then to Srilanka, the reactions were similar to that happened to anti Mandal agitation in 1991. If our memories have not faded, we must revisit the events in Eden Gardens, Kolkata when the downtrodden Sri Lanka was inflicting a humiliating defeat and the Bhadralok crowd at Kolkata started throwing paper missiles, and stones at the Srilankan players. I am afraid, if this World Cup were being organized in India, the Indian people would not have allowed Bangladesh to win. That is upper caste nationalism in India. A nationalism, which does not recognize merit but purely create merit on the basis of one’s caste.

The defeat by the under estimated Bangladesh spelled a pall of gloom over the market which has been monopolized by the caste media which had lionized the team without realizing its real strength. India sunk into gloom (it was not a game but the nation was already declared world champions) and defeat clearly put the astrologers also to mat who were predicting super performance from the team. Nevertheless, despite this entire nonsensical attitude, the irrational astrology still is the best medicine that the caste Hindus takes. The doctors also have the same attitude as they have red tilak over their forehead and big temples outside the ICUs in Delhi. Nothing is irrational and unscientific as long as the Hindus believe in it. So Muslims become cruel for they slaughter animals but Hindus become ‘non violent’ when they slaughter goats, buffalos and pigs in the temples to please their Gods and Goddesses.

After days of gloom, the anchors at the TV studios are smiling for a ‘historic’ judgment of Supreme Court. Now, they can discuss things and bring the ‘cheerleaders’ to their studios suggesting that the ‘whole’ ‘nation’ is against reservation. A few doctors of the All India Institute of Medical Sciences or as I would like it call All India Institute of Manuwadi Studies have become ‘nation’ imagination. Based on their assumptions, the Supreme Court has stayed the order of the reservation for OBCs in the institutions of higher education, which were always meant for the Brahmins when Manu’s law first defined it. As India moved to secularism and democracy, Manu’s laws became politically though socially they remained as powerful as ever despite 9% growth rate. Understanding that power of democracy means power of number and not just democracy for the people but now it has become ‘of’ the people and ‘by’ the people. With the marginalized groups asserting their number power with more political aggressions, the upper castes were left with no options except to dilute the entire concept of social justice through the judicial process, which remain outside the purview of the quota. Moreover, through privatizing the various government owned corporations and services, the government has already nullified the concept of reservation.

Now, after the formation of Special Economic Zones, the government as well as the courts have hit on the backbones of our farmers. SEZ have been declared legalized while people have been uprooted from their nation. Land Reforms have been made redundant by the continuous protections by the courts. Today, the politicians use the courts for their own purposes. It is due to this ambiguity that the courts have now become the most powerful and uncontrolled institution of the country. A healthy democracy need independent judiciary and committed governance. Nodoubt, the political leadership during the past 20 years have reduced to nothing as more criminals taking lead but the power of the masses is relegated to ‘people’s representatives’. Still, even a bad democracy is better than an unaccountable government or military dictatorship. Ofcourse, this clearly means that it is the political class which will need to run the country and not the courts and the bureaucrats which is increasingly becoming the case in India.

Upper castes elite in Delhi often says that reservation is denying them basic human rights of equality and hence they are leaving for the United States. Let the courts ask them to stay in India if they studies in Indian schools. They cannot go abroad after getting the subsidized education at the premier Indian educational institutions. The youngsters do not know what is happening even outside their house. They would not even ask their parent as why the scavenger who clean their shit and toilet come from one particular community. This elite would not even know that in India there are places where people still clean shit and carry night soil. Yes, they are not interested to know about this.

Shockingly, the judgments in the past few years reflect of the growing trend to keep the middle classes happy. We have judges who speak for Hindutva terming it as a way of life. We have a former Supreme Court Judge who did not implicate a single politician in the anti Sikh riots in Delhi in 1984 and later became a Member of Parliament against all the ethics of impartiality of an institution. Right to Strike was also banned by the Kerala Highcourt, which was appreciated by the media and industries.

The Judges went overboard in terming the quotas as vote bank politics. Question is why not vote bank politics after all what are politicians required to do? Yes, if they are working for their people than the best one is that who does not to take care of their constituencies? It is absurd as former Prime Minister V.P.Singh said about the court order. Parliament passed a bill unanimously and the court’s are terming it as vote bank politics. The Judges further said that politicians should not divide the country on the basis of caste and that in India it has become habitual for people to claim ‘backward’ status. One need to support V.P.Singh’s demand for a referendum and census based on caste.

It is tragic that the record of the courts related to social justice and social reform reflect poverty of ideas and lack of human rights understanding. It is also reflected that the courts are consciously giving judgments on the basis of media campaign. A media, which has been thoroughly unprofessional and highly prejudiced one. Justice Rajendra Sachar had long back stated in a public meeting that the court buckle under public pressure. Unfortunately, there is no backward movement in India, which can take on the upper caste thugs who are destroying India. Except for the forthright stand of DMK, PMK and other political groups representing the OBCs there is no one to raise their voice. They remain loyal shudras providing fodder to Hindutva to kill the Dalits in the villages. It is time for the OBCs to revolt against their self-serving leaders and get a new leadership which can give them new ideas and for whom OBC does not mean a family of their own but the entire community. We need a dynamic leadership which does not sale farmer’s land to corporate houses at the throwaway prices and have a clear vision to help and upgrade the communities. Alas, most of them have nothing except their caste. They remember their people only when they do nothing are defeated in the larger games of manipulation.

Where are the OBC students and their political leaders? Tamilnadu has taken the lead in this direction in a rare gesture of unanimity among the political class. But that unanimity is not visible in the North at the moment. In UP while every OBC caste is struggling to get an identity and a share in power but none of them is raging the issue of reservation in power. The reason behind this is the absence of the cultural movement among the OBCs. Unlike Tamilnadu where Periyar launched self respect movement for the OBCs and Dalits, north Indian OBCs still have not been able to divert their attention from the ritualistic Hindutva. The political ideas of the OBC leadership remained prejudicious and anti Dalits. Dalits is good for them as long as it vote to them but bad if the Dalit take the leadership. OBC leadership in the north must think that as long as they remain loyal soldiers of Hindutva as Ambedkar once said, they can not take on the powerful forces of corporations and religion, who jointly work together to thwart any new effort which challenges the status quo.

It is said that Periyar and his followers had no will to come to north and educate their ‘illiterate’ backward leaders who remain caged in the brahmanical agenda. Similarly, portraying Jyoti Ba Phule, as leaders of Bahujans have not worked as a community called Sainis feels that he was their leader. Kurmis have gone for Sardar Patel and Rajbhars towards Raja Sohail Dev. This is the irony of the entire movement in Uttar-Pradesh has been defeated by the shortsighted caste leaders who have very little to offer to their communities. They only need a power position and manipulating the sentiments of their communities. It is not for nothing that in Uttar-Pradesh, which is going to polls, that all the OBC-Dalit parties are running after the Brahmins and Thakurs. None of them have come out strongly against the current judgment of the Supreme Court. Perhaps, the leadership knows it would be too dangerous to ‘offend’ the Supreme Court because a majority of them are under the scanner of the Supreme Court.

More than the courts, Congress Party’s credentials in remain suspect in this regard. It is clear that with in the party, there is a group of member of Parliaments as well as Ministers who are opposed to quota for OBCs. One even doubt the credentials of H R Bhardwaj, the law minister who was brought back from hibernation for being Sonia loyalist, for his inability to put the government’s case properly in the court. A large number of OBC students who prepared for the IIMs and IITs have been denied human rights due to an intervention from the court, which many clearly term as retrogressive.


During the Mandal agitation and afterwards, it is the Dalits who have been supporting the reservation for the OBCs but OBC students hardly fought their battle. It is time for them to wake up and challenge the myth by the brahmanical media. Yes, I would say it firmly that Indian media remain confined to the sentiments of their fellow caste men who leave India after getting subsidized education from the elite institutions of IITs, IIMs and other institutions. This media does not see the plight of OBCs and MBCs.

It is the fallacy that the reservations have forced the upper castes to leave India. They had left India long before and they were using the services of the elite institutions to benefit their own community since a majority of them cannot afford to compete with the west on a level playing field.

The Indian Express today carried a story of Justice Parsayat quoting from the American Judiciary. The fact of the matter is that American Judicial system worked against the social justice but still it does not come in way of social justice. Secondly, in the United States and elsewhere, it is the minority, which is seeking the rights to be in the governance but in India it ironically the majority of Bahujans-Dalits who are asking to be given the space to govern and participate in the democracy. Prof Dipankar Gupta of the JNU has been in the news recently when he told the United Nations Human Rights Committee, in Geneva that there is no caste system in India and that the Kshatriyas, Brahmins, Vaishyas and Shudras do not have separate identities and they live together with great affection. Gupta has now come out strong in support of Supreme Court Judgment. Of-course, writing for mainstream media would not be that easy if you question the very basis of the Varnadhrama and its notoriety in keeping people subjugated. Dipankar Gupta is happy at the rational judgment of the Supreme Court and so are our friends in the media. The die has been caste and the judgment of the two-judge bench would become difficult for those who are celebrating today.

It may have been unintentional but the crude fact is that after the Supreme Court’s judgment, it is imperative for the government to go for a caste census. The upper caste leaders and bureaucracy has clearly not wanted to go for it, as they know it would be the last nail in their coffin. That the National Sample Survey which remains an organization of the upper elites in India could found 37% the population of the OBCs, and then it is for certain that the OBC population in Indian has grown much beyond what was in 1931. Let the government come out with a specific data on the OBC population and their social status. Just saying that all Yadavas have grown up because there are Mulayam and Lalu, is the travesty of truth. A majority of OBCs consisting MBCs whose social status remain as the Dalits. Ofcourse, these MBCs would always consider themselves higher in the social ladder despite weak economic strength yet they remain socially and educationally backwards.

There are various ways to measure socio economic ostracisation of the marginalized. And it should be done but the intention of the ruling party and those claiming ‘youth for equality’ is not to demolish the caste system but perpetrate it and ensure that their relatives and blood brothers remain safer in the new global world.

It is time not only for referendum but also for a constitutional review. To ensure that Parliament’s supremacy is retained, it is important that the leaders representing the communities have done their homework well. So far, there are very few who can speak with strength of their conviction and challenge. Democracy works on healthy relationship of judiciary with the Executive and legislature. One does not need moral preaching from the judges while exonerating themselves from the public scrutiny. If there is a Lokayukta for the state lagislature, there will have to be same provision for the judges also. And most importantly, why should the judiciary remain outside the ambit of quota and social justice. It is time for all the political parties, jurists, and academic to sit together and decide. The regular humiliation of merit and non-merit must stop. The country cannot remain silent when its majority is being humiliated by those who have no concern for the country and sole interest remain outside the country. Let us decide once for all, the entire issue of reservation. So it is also the time to review our constitution, which can make Parliament Supreme again. The present constitution was drafted by a legend called Ambedkar but his hands were tied with strong upper caste feudal presence in the constituent assembly. Let there be a new committee to look into the problems of the constitution and change it accordingly as numbers do matters in democracy. You cannot allow courts striking everything that is public welfare as against the spirit of the people.

Politicians have a lot to learn from this. No need for taking shelter in Supreme Court for taking potshots at others to score political goals. Introspecting the mistakes will help them realize whether it would the executive or the Supreme Court to run the country as they are doing it today. Their lack of convictions and moral high ground have given ample ammunition to the courts which might be unhealthy for democracy in the longer term as every good measure might be treated as ‘vote bank’ politics which the politicians are no doubt involved in. Time for them to look beyond their personal interest and serve the people.

A Tribute to Bhagat Singh

The Idea of Bhagat Singh


By Vidya Bhushan Rawat


On 23rd March 1931 the British government hanged three Indian revolutionaries namely Bhagat Singh, Rajguru and Sukhdev. All of them embraced death in an entirely heroic way and therefore became legend for the common Indian masses. None of the youth leaders of India’s independence movement inspired a whole lot of generation as Bhagat Singh. Unfortunately, the ruling elite of the country reduced Bhagat Singh into a ‘terrorist’. The result was that these revolutionaries who were non violent in their thought and process and wanted to change India remain outside the purview of college students, many of them liked Bhagat Singh for being ‘violent’ and Gandhi for being ‘non violent’. However, in the absence of idealism and understanding of Indian situation, revolutionaries like Bhagat Singh are grossly under evaluated and misrepresented.

Therefore, it is important to understand the idea of Bhagat Singh in these hours of communalization where crony capitalist of Indian caste order continue to use God and religion for their nefarious purposes. Religion is the biggest market in India and other south Asian countries. Your religion is important to realize your love for nation. Hence being a Hindu in Pakistan and Bangladesh is a crime as being a Muslim in India or being a Tamil in Sri Lanka. Being a Dalit is a crime everywhere though constitutional provisions in India make it relatively better than its neighbors.

Bhagat Singh wanted a radical change in our system and would not have been satisfied with a mere transfer of power. It is absolutely demeaning when Bhagat Singh is referred as a terrorist and some of the commentators from our neighboring countries made comparison of attack on the Parliament with that on the Lahore Assembly. Our younger generation must know what Bhagat Singh stood for and therefore need to challenge such malicious writings which club a revolutionary with religious fanatics. It would be the travesty of truth if people like Bhagat Singh are bracketed with the religious fundamentalist.


The shocking attack on Indian parliament by the terrorists has been equated with the issue of bombing at the Central Legislative Assembly, Lahore, in 1929, where Bhagat Singh and his colleagues were involved. A question was asked by a Pakistani commentator as why is Bhagat Singh a nationalist and kashmiri Mujahidin as terrorists. After September 11th events the Pakistani ruling elite is under tremendous pressure to curb on the Islamic terrorists operating in Kashmir, which the Pakistanis continue to term as ‘Mujahidin’despite the fact that most of them are not Kashmiris and have sneaked into the valley in the name of Islamic Jihad and are particularly targeting the people who dissent with them. Democracy has been the biggest casualty in the aftermath of the Islamisation process in Pakistan and Bangladesh.

It is in the interest of us to know that the Congress particularly Gandhi did very little to save the lives of Bhagat Singh and his friends yet the founder of Pakistan Mohammad Ali Jinnah termed them nationalists and tried to get support for them in Lahore’s political and legal circle. To understand the revolutionary zeal of Bhagat Singh one should study his writings in which he talks of humanity and brotherhood. It is equally important to understand as why Bhagat Singh became an atheist so that those who equate him with terrorism are exposed to his rational views which are not tainted in the garb of religion which the so-called Mujahidins are involved in. Bhagat Singh became an icon of Indian youth fighting against the British Imperialism and was hanged at the young age of 23 years when a large number of our political leaders were either at the primary stages of their career or enjoying their life abroad. Bhagat Singh never justified violence as he could have easily killed numerous political leaders present in the Lahore Assembly including Moti Lal Nehru, Madan Mohan Malviya and Mohammad Ali Jinnah, if he had wanted that. The aim was just to awaken the ruling establishment about India’s long pending freedom. He said: “It is famous that I am a terrorist but I am not that. I am a revolutionary who has certain ideology, defined ideals and a long programme and if people think that after living in for a long period in the jail, there is any change in my ideologies then they are wrong. It is my firm belief that we cannot get any benefit from either bombs or pistols. Throwing bomb is not only dangerous but also harmful. It is required in certain specific conditions. Our main aim is the organization of laborers and farmers.”

Not only was Bhagat Singh against the communal parties and ideas but also his views on caste are equally inspiring. He mocked at India’s caste system and questioned the legitimacy of a system, which make people untouchable on the basis of their birth in a particular caste. He was equally aware of the capitalist class, which was compromising with the British imperial class. And certainly his conviction that this system based on exploitation can not be eliminated with just transfer of power from the British to ‘Indian British’. It needs revolution he said. As far as India was concerned, we can easily correlate the upper caste feudal power forces with that of the capitalist class in India who gained everything from the British occupation in India.

In fact, Bhagat Singh has become more relevant today when the state is abdicating its responsibility and private goons are being legitimized by it in the name of obstacles free capital while ignoring the same demand of the labor. It was this fact, which had disturbed Bhagat Singh and his comrades. April 8th, 1929, the Lahore Assembly was to pass a bill, which could have nullified the rights of the trade unions and labors. And this was the occasion, he felt, best, to convey his anger to those in powers. Bhagat Singh and his friends became immortal, the de-facto voice of the common man, labors and farmers of the country. While the bomb was not really meant to destroy the assembly and kill political leaders as they had made their intentions very clear. They became revolutionaries who inspired an entire nation cutting across caste and communal lines. In fact, it is heartening that Bhagat Singh is still an icon today for the youths all over the country.

On 6th June 1929 Bhagat Singh and Batukeshwar Dutt said in a statement, ‘ To change the system based on injustice, we need revolution. Is it not a constructed injustice that the labors and producers, despite being the part of mainstream, are victim of exploitation and have been denied basic human rights? Farmers, who produces die of hunger. The weaver who weaves cloths for others cannot do so for his own family and children. Meson, Carpenters, Ironsmiths build huge palaces die living in huts and slums. On the other side, capitalist exploiters, anti social elements, spend crores of rupees on their fashion and enjoyment. Those who enjoy at the cost of hardworking and hungry people should understand that they are sitting on such a volcano which is about to erupt.’

The above statement clearly indicates the direction of Bhagat Singh’s thought. How worried he was about the caste and class structure in India. That he narrated the plight of the Dalits who he called as working classes is a remarkable and unparallel for a young man who was in his early twenties. It is rare for a person of that age to understand the caste prejudices and its dynamics not in terms of social and cultural but economical basis. Bhagat Singh that way was far ahead of his contemporaries. Not only he was worried about the capitalist class sucking the blood of common Indian with the blessing its imperialist masters but he clearly understood the caste dynamics and questioned the very legacy of the brahanical legacy when he wrote his famous essay ‘ The question of untouchable’.

But the powerful forces of the Raj hanged him so that the legitimate voices of the marginalized are silent but it was not to be. Bhagat Singh and his ideas have become doubly relevant in todays world where exploitation is legitimized. When the tribal are dying of hunger, when the farmers are committing suicide and when the Dalits have to face the brunt of assertion, ideas of Bhagat Singh reverberates in the air. Here was a man who unapologetically sacrificed his life for the cause of the people and country. That the country’s ruler’s are today creating ‘ Special Exploitative Zones’, to rebuild the Zamindari system which they proudly claim to have destroyed.

Tragically, while the Bhagat Singh rarely got appreciation by the Congress’s brand of historians who always belittled his contribution by arguing that a few people could not have fought with the might of British empire. The other ruling party which claim to inherit the legacy of Bhagat Singh does not feel shame in slaughtering people fighting for their rights in Nandigram. Is not ironical that the people who shed their lives for the country in the hope of an India where every person would have right over natural resources, where there would be no caste victimization and no oppression of the farmers, today we are witnessing the very antithesis of those ideas championed by Bhagat Singh.

It was the outstanding popularity of Bhagat Singh, his differences with Gandhi and other members of the Congress party, made the Sangh ideologues to assimilate Bhagat Singh as the hero of Hindutva. Like other icons such as Ambedkar who gave an inspiration to millions of oppressed world over to fight against status quo of the Varnashram dharma, they must realize that it is not an easy project for Hindutva, for, both Ambedkar and Bhagat Singh had rejected the Varna system, condemned the Hindu caste order and proudly embraced modernity. Both of them not only rejected but also questioned the so-called ‘glorious’ culture and heritage. Bhagat Singh became a staunch non-believer and remained so till his death even when his family people and colleagues tried to push him to believing God and God’s word at the last moment. That was the strength of his character that he was now cowed down. Ambedkar, for record, questioned and exposed the myths of the Hindu Social Order.

Bhagat Singh knew the dangers of religious fanaticism and capitalists legitimization of religion. Therefore it is ironical that Pakistani elite equated Bhagat Singh and Lahore assembly case with that of attack on Indian Parliament. It is blasphemous to put Bhagat Singh with religiously intolerant Islamic Jehadis or Hindutva fanatics who want to take their respective societies to backwardness and hand them over to priestly class, which had exploited them over the years. One can only laugh at the explanation and analysis of those who make such insinuation. Those who want to cleanse Kashmir or Gujarat from the ethnic minorities must understand that world is a global village and by spreading hatred in the name of religion will not work. Bhagat Singh has become immortal because of his outstanding ideas. His sacrifice for a progressive India where each of us could focus on human development. Where caste discrimination remain a thing of past and where all the ethic, religious, non religious minorities live together in extraordinary brotherhood.

As people continue to fight for their legimate rights which the Indian state has failed to provide them despite a working democracy. The democracy has turned to be a sham democracy as it turned out to be a representative democracy rather than a participatory one, youth of the country, the farmers, the Dalits, the tribal continue to live in utter marginalisation. The Muslims, the second majority of India remains clueless without any effective participation in power structure. The religious fanatics are raising their head. The affirmative actions remains failed because of our sincerity always remained doubtful. The farmers are struggling and getting fired. The country’s invited chaos today gives doubt of ‘ growth rate’. The political class has enjoyed the benefit of freedom and independence. Today, they lord over the state without any accountability. Every sector is infected with the virus of corruption. The caste prejudices have increased and God is completely hijacked by the priestly class while those oppressed are unable to ‘ reject’ the ‘love’ of God and therefore remain exploited. India remains a failed society. It remained a failed society because it was fearful of powerful ideas, as it did not want to debate openly those ideas. Bhagat Singh like Ambedkar and other humanist, rationalists are not just national icons because of their sacrifices or drafting of constitution of India. Yes, much bigger than the said ‘nationalism’ are their ‘ideas’. The ideas which shook the Indian ruling elite as well as the British empire and since their fight was not only against the British regime but also for an equitable society, a society based on modernity and science rejecting caste system, India unfortunately did not embrace their ideas. We went to the same elite class which enjoyed the fruits of power whether political or social and in return got superstition and rituals in the name of culture. Today, the market has ridiculously been using this ‘Indian’ culture for its own purposes therefore completely destroying our thinking capabilities and our sense of responsibility for the nation and other human beings.

Bhagat Singh’s ideas and sacrifice have the strength to bring hope in the lives of millions of struggling masses. Let us salute to this towering icon of our freedom movement for his indomitable spirit. Like Che Guevara, Bhagat Singh will always remain a hope for all those who believe in secular socialist values and reject the caste based hierarchical system. His legacy continue to inspire all of us who are still waiting for a modern India, an India with modern ideas and not what the crony corporate would make us believe. Yes, an India where 2% of the rogues are not smiling and shining at the cost of crying 98% oppressed who have lost their houses, forest, water, and land and whose tears do not reach the India shining media. Therefore, Bhagat Singh and his ideas have become more relevant today for the youths to stand up and challenge an entire system, which has become corrupted, dysfunctional and captive to parochial religious thugs.

Know thyself

Debating discrimination, differences and dissent in our part of the world

By Vidya Bhushan Rawat

The issue of racial discrimination has been in the news for quite some time. Some Indian pretended that they have been discriminated against in Britain while rarely speaking that India does not have its own house in order. Despite 60 years of independence India has not been able to transformed into a modern state, in terms of freedom, dissent and life of the common men. Though it may be a great satisfaction for some of us that India surrounded by autocratic military dictators still managed to strive the political democracy but instead of basking on the glory of ‘successful democracy’, we need to introspect our persistent failures of social life. If democracy has not reached the last man as envisaged by Gandhi or if social life does not convert into a social democracy as envisaged by Dr Ambedkar, Indians all over the world need to investigate that without empowering common man, India can neither claim a powerful nation nor an intellectual giant which many of the commentators do not stop claiming all the time. Pakistan has the same problem though it is not a democratic state yet its ruler claims a secular army and a working democracy on various occasions. Question is democracy is thwarted by the identity politics and undemocratic caste Panchayats. They are a threat but these caste panchayats are now being modernized in the name of new identity assertion among every one from the non-resident Indians to urban Indians under various shades and names. This assertion reinforces and justifies the age-old traditions in the name of culture. It jump on the bogey of victimization as soon as an elite of its own class face discrimination as in the case of Shilpa Shetty but remain conspicuously silent on the issue of its own contradictions and discriminations. Hence the Indians, Pakistanis and the other South Asians would rarely speak on their own track record of discrimination against ethnic, religious and linguistic minorities in their own country. Oppression of women is always justified in the name of culture and vigorously defended.

A few days ago, I was reading the horrible tale of Mukhtar Mai who faced tyranny of the caste Panchayat called as Jirga in the North West Frontier Province, in Pakistan, which ordered her rape for a crime allegedly committed by her minor brother. Mukhtar Mai has become a legend in her own life times. Fighting against the feudal lords of the notorious North West Frontier Province, Mukhtari Mai showed how the village women in the Indian subcontinent have the courage to challenge the system. That, this system degrades and humiliates the victim is a well- established fact. And based on this principal, the rural women suffer in utter humiliation and indignity. Mukhtar Mai is not alone in such cases. Things are same in India, though a bit sophisticated here. It is important that a woman like Phoolan Devi would not have born if she had not shown the courage to fight against the humiliation. Rather than surrendering to the whims of the local powerful caste groups, these women stood up. Some chose the constitutional path while other decided to avenge it according to their own way. While Bhanwari Bai had to face the humiliation even inside the court where the judge in the Jaipur court released the accused establishing that an upper caste person would rarely rape a woman.

In her wonderful memoirs ‘ In the name of honor’, Mukhtar Mai, now symbolizing as an assertive woman protesting against the man made rules, says,’ police are directly controlled by the upper castes. Policemen act as the fierce guardians of traditions, allied with the tribal authorities. Whatever decision a jirga (caste Panchayat) makes will be accepted and backed up by the police. It is impossible to charge an influential family with a crime if the police consider the matter a village affair, especially if the victim is a woman’.

What Mukhtar Mai is saying reflect the farce in our system. As propagandists of family virtues, we, the South Asian have been at the height of hypocrisy blaming the west for every fault of their own. I am sure one would agree that these feudal values, the Manus law are not the invention of the wild west which our commentators often describe. The recent issue of race relation in Britain where a B grade Bombay film heroine earned huge amount of money, the South Asian communities are being presented as if everything has been imposed upon them and are being victimized. Ofcourse, the same South Asian would not like to be reminded about the growing number of honored killing in UK among the South Asian Communities. Shocking it may sound, but the fact is, that South Asians have more racial contours than their British counterparts. A study in UK showed how the Indians still are confined to their caste identities and how to get marry, every Indian boy come to India to look for an ‘ideal’ ‘ cultured’ and ‘fare’ color girl. Will we tell the world that we are more colours conscious than the British or European? That our boys are deeply intoxicated in the idea of varna and colour and that dogs can enter our temples and urinate over the gods but when the Dalits want to enter there the Gods become angry and their followers on earth goes on rampage.

Human life is not equal in this part of the world. Honored killing are not happening in Britton and Pakistan only but are very much part of our traditions. After all, all our marriages are not meant for the bride and the groom but for the parents of the both. Reputation is the biggest thing in these marriages.

A boy from the Valmiki family is still facing threat to his life for felling love with a girl from a Jaat family. Jaats are the peasant community and their men dominate the Delhi police hence when I visited along with other friends to the Assistant police commissioner some three years back, to provide security to this young boy, the officer said ‘. You see organizations like your should come forward and train the policemen, after all they too are human being and family. How do you expect them to change over night.’ I told the officer: Do you want to justify police negligence in the name of tradition.’ No, he said, but see how the society is changing. The girls move out in the evening without any escorts. How can police resolve every crisis that the society faces? I was aghast at this answer by the police officer that proudly claimed a JNU background. The officer certainly was not interested in telling that the police had failed to protect the victim and that such things should be stopped. I still remember how a younger sister of a girl who was slaughtered by her family and entire village community along with her husband, was happy and said that those who goes against social norms would meet the same fate.

Yes, the South Asian would not like to speak about the horrible culture of moral policing that they have developed without any change. The paradox of this is that they all enjoy best of multiculturalism in Europe and America but are highly paranoid of granting minority rights or space to dissent. For instance, Gujaratis world-over, have enjoyed the hospitality of multiculturalism. United States, United Kingdom and South Africa were their hunting ground. They build up huge empire. And see what is happening their native Gujarat? Most of the Non Resident Gujarati’s are financing the Babas, and the right wing elements. Narendra Modi might call Gujarat a vibrant state but it remains totally out of bound for the non-Gujaratis particularly Muslims and Chrisitians. During a trip to Gujarat last year, I put this question to a friendly Gujarati as why do they not want to keep Muslims in Gujarat. And the cryptic answer that this businessman was that the outsiders are creating problems in Gujarat. Gujarati’s are peace-loving people but it is the Biharis and others who created havoc in the aftermath of Godhara. It is tragic that India’s new vibrant culture is very much in tone with what is happening in Gujarat. There is no freedom in the air. The darkness in the noon is visible in Gujarat. The only thing is that you need to go and see beyond what is visible. The dangerous aspect of this newly immerging India is the growing middle class of upper caste Hindus which clearly want to look exclusive. Hence Dalits, Adivasis and others who are at odd with the current economic social set up feel suffocated and completely isolated. The government at the center is interested to placate this elite class and has launched another India shining campaign without including the poor people.

South Asian therefore needs to speak more vigorously against their own value system. That very few people stood up with both Mukthar Mai and Bhanwari Bai is reflection of our mindset. While Shilpa Shetty has detracted from her statement regarding racial discrimination, it is painful how the British upper caste Hindus and other upper South Asian elite made this a racial issue. Did they ever protest against the merciless treatment meted out to disabled in the Bombay films? How many of South Asian stood up and say that the depiction of the blacks in the Hindi films is most racial in nature. They are laughed. Our fascination for the fair color is well known. A dark skinned woman in India will hardly find a partner of her choice. Women’s skin her biggest ability or disability. Another disability in India is the physical disability, which is visible. One will rarely find a physically disable woman getting married to a ‘normal’ man because such things are not ever thought off. She will find a man in a ‘disabled’ person only. The girls born ‘Mangalik’ would be very difficult to get marry. And see, how our superstar icon Mr Amitabh Bachchan is behaving? One needs to see his discomfiture with a Manglik daughter in law. He goes from one temple to other temple to perform Yjnas and Pujas so that the evil spirit get off from the world queen Aishwarya Rai. More shocking is the fact as alleged in the media that the poor woman was asked to marry the tree to rectify the misfortunate. What these signals. Rather than becoming enlightened and accepting the person as she is or he is, Indian’s or South Asians still think in terms of his birth sign, physical appearance, cast and clans. Can we launch a movement against it or not. How long should we blame that the onslaught of the global powers have destroyed our culture and values.

It is not that people do not oppose it. Yes, those who oppose it live on the margin thoroughly isolated and dejected. But the grave danger comes from those forces who feel great in glorifying these customs. A well-known Gandhian activist has been promoting the idea of the caste panchayats. He would say, how great these Panchayats were in resolving the village problems. But going by the nature of these Panchayats, I a sure every saner person in the world would say demolish and destroy these caste Panchayats. Not only they have been anti people but also almost all of their decisions are against the basic tenets of civilization. Whether it is Jirga which gave decision to rape Mukhtar Mai or some disgruntled Panchayats in western Uttar-Pradesh which asked Imrana, a Muslim woman who was raped by her father in law, to marry him, these caste Panchayats are a blot to civilization and individual freedom and liberty. They promote fanaticism, parochial values and patriarchy. It is important that any glorification of these Panchayats need to be questioned. These Panchayats have authorized the goons to kill lovers, rape women, and exterminate families, which do not follow their dictates. In this hour of identity politics in India, these caste Panchayats are mushrooming very fast. Identity itself is patriarchical in terms and therefore there is very little that a woman can get out of it. That Mukhtar Mai in Pakistan came from a backward Gujar community does not means that this does not happen in that community. Only question is that she was a woman and her community was at the receiving end. The Gujjars in India are no better. Fully coated in the brahmanical stigmas, they do not allow their women to venture out.

Indians need to fight against such atrocious social behavior and practices. Unfortunately, rather than taking a strong action against the same, we are always put on the flimsy ground the issue of racial discrimination. One must question the upper caste Hindus as how many of them mix up with the Scheduled Castes in United States and UK. Not many years ago when I traveled to Bolivia to participate in a conference, a Kenyan friend questioned Gandhi and his intentions in Africa. ‘ You people have always claimed that Gandhi fought for our rights but where was the fight? None of the Indians ever want to share the issues with the blacks in Uganda and other part of the world. The situation is not much different in UK and USA where Indians do not want to be clubbed with Pakistanis.” Shilpa Shetty felt very bad when an in house lady called her Paki. This superiority complex has been injected in our heart and minds from the very beginning and the sooner we understand that the world has changed and going to be more civilized, would be better for us.

As I finish this, the news comes that the parents of the missing Children of Nithari say that the role of Noida Police was very fine in the act. They appreciated the state government and particularly the ruling political party of the state which lodged them in the five star hotels, gave them land and promised every member of the family a government job. I think nothing comes more shocking then this. This culture of considering people, as purchasable commodity is very much in existence in our part of the world. A majority of the missing children were Dalits and the upper castes in nearby localities said that it was not their problem.

British people gave a resounding verdict in favour a failed Indian star but will the South Asian communities be as mature enough to respect dissent, differences with in their own communities. One hope they would do so for the betterment of their own communities and their own country. I would like to finish with a Bangladeshi cab driver in London who was working with a new agency and took me to London Metro station when he said how happy his children were in London and that they do not wish to go back to Dhaka simply when they see violence in the name of culture and tradition. The simple driver had two houses in London and appreciated the multiculturalism in UK. There are other stories as well. While all written above does not mean to exonerate the western power for what they did through their imperialist agendas but then every one of us has this in our blood, it is only who is smarter enough then others. We all have at some point of time exploited the lesser powerful and marginalized communities. Now, in the 21st century, such discrimination and justifications in the name of identity, region, religion and language must be discarded and rejected.

On the death of a seasoned activist

A tribute to M A Khan

Remembering a man who committed his life for the tribal of Sonbhadra


By Vidya Bhushan Rawat

He was a mobile Information Centre of Sonbhadra district in eastern part of Uttar-Pradesh, whose work during the past thirty years was utilized by those who do not have time to visit the villages and follow up the stories after they started. M.A.Khan was always cheerful related to his work, his love for the Adivasis and his conviction against the child labour, brought him close touch of the ground reality. His only concern was that ‘agencies outside Sonbhadra were using the ignorance and poverty of the poor people for their own purposes and not with an aim to lift the tribals and end poverty which they can very much do. Once the project was over, these agencies left the tribal for their own good.’ For the past few years, Khan in his every interaction with me displayed his disappointment of how the international donor agencies find their people and agencies in these regions but never found Khan and his Chaupal which had been fairly active in the region.

In a two days human rights consultation in Delhi, when I was informing a friend about Khan and his impeccable credentials for fighting the rights of the common man in Sonbhadra district, a shocking news was revealed by another friend that M.A.Khan passed away, a day before, on 27th of January 2007, in Varanasi. I was dumb and shocked to hear this. Just a fortnight ago, I spoke to him on his mobile when he told me that Doctors have found symptoms of cancer in him and that he wish to be transferred to AIIMS in Delhi. That time, the first thought in my mind was that this news would be wrong and hence I said ‘ Khan Saheb, you will get well soon. AIIMS is not the same as it used to be. If people like you are here who speak for the poor Dalits and marginalized, I do not know whether the doctors who do politics and not the treatment, would treat you well or not.’

M.A.Khan was quintessentially a secular activist with strong left leaning. He was not fit in the glamour world of NGOs where you are fixed in certain style of format and report as per it. Though, his documentation of events, custodial deaths, cases of torture of Adivasis and forest dwellers in Sonbhadra would remain unparallel. At a time, when NGOs masquerading to be human rights organization splash information with the purpose of publicity and not to really help the poor, Khan was refreshingly different with his people centric approach. He would walk down the villages, record the narratives of the victims and finally take them to the related authorities in the district and even file petition in the court. In fact, he had formed a group of lawyers in Sonbhadra who used to take such cases of illegal detentions of the tribal in the name of naxalism.

Born in 1946 in a Zamindar family of Robertsganj, Khan went to Deoband to earn a degree in Fazil and then he completed his masters. He worked very hard during the 1967 famine in the region. In 1968 he joined Communist Party of India and started Pragatisheel Kisan Manch (progressive farmer’s forum). He continued to travel around the villages and help the needy. In 1985 he founded Jan Sewa Kendra to assist the poor of his region.

It was his concern about the growing landless situation in Sonbhadra that he traveled around 500 villages of his district to understand the condition and found that tribal were living in utter misery. Their land being occupied by others and that they did not have two-time meal to eat. He felt that they lacked information regarding their rights. He found that the ignorance of the people was the biggest obstacle in their development and the officers were misusing it. In fact, one of his candid remarks was that despite huge funds flowing to NGOs in Sonbhadra and Varanasi, the condition of the poor and their rights remain the same. He would laugh and say that the NGOs have not come to remove the poverty of the people but their own poverty. ‘Chaupal’, a village initiative to discuss and resolve their problem by the villagers took shape during this period. He would form a team of 8 members in every village who would discuss their issues and carry the information to the central office in Robertsganj. Chaupal worked in 80 villages. Khan Saheb new it very well that it was difficult to run an organization without resources. Often, the big fishes would catch the members of Chaupal for their own purposes. He started getting depressed because of the growing commercialization of the civil society movement where the powerful elite had gathered all the NGOs in the name of ‘poor’. In the region of eastern Uttar-Pradesh where dirty tricks among the NGOs are the best practices, where NGOs are run by powerful connections and castes, Khan remain a grounded man. Very much down trodden who with the help of a few committed lawyers tried to do help the tribal.

Despite hailing from a Zamaindar family, Khan did not have much land and property at the end. He had a small typewriter where he would type reports of malfunctioning of the government department. If a tribal girl or woman would come to him, he would type their application and go along with them to submit it to the relevant authorities. He would nicely take a copy of the same in his file. And this was his regular practice. The habit resulted in one of the best documentation, which was hardly recognized and which remain thoroughly unpaid, that I had ever seen. It was this information, which proved volatile for police once upon a time and his office was burnt and valuable information got lost. Nevertheless, after that, he started working from him home and still had huge piles of files, meticulously maintained in his drawer.

For me he was a great source of information. He would send his well-written reports on issues as important as custodial deaths, National Rural Employment Guarantee programme, land and forest issues to be send to national and international agencies for lobbying. He felt betrayed that his work was not recognized by the international community leave along the donor agencies who have their own criteria for support.

Apart from sending these reports, which Khan was really very committed, the thing, which was very admirable about him, was his concern for the natural resources of the people and how they lost it to big companies and local feudal elements! His stories, many of which remain unpublished would be treasure to learn how the state and its apparatus have sucked the blood of tribal over the year. He had detailed information about how forest department captured the land of the tribal and how the NGOs from outside did not have enough information about it and they flash information and leave the place making the lives of the tribal more vulnerable to exploitation. I had promised to him to get them published in future. In fact, I introduced him to Hum Dalit, a monthly journal, which regularly published his well thought out articles.

I still remember the day when the villagers had come to protest in front of the district collector and all of them showed the food product they had been eating. The district Magistrate did not turn up but send his deputy and several forest officials. Seeing the tribal displaying their food produce the SDM became angry and said ‘ you sale our poverty abroad. You have no business do that. Go back.’ The forest department officers were equally angry and blamed Khan that he was responsible for misguiding them, a charge which Khan openly denied. Khan stood by the people all the time.

Being a local citizen of Sonbhadra, his house was always open for the tribal and Dalits of the region. Women would come to his house, get their work done and go back satisfying. In fact, for many of them, he was their father, who had performed the ‘kanyadaan’ during the marriage.

Once, I asked him why doesn’t he work on the ‘communal issues’. As usual he said ‘ I always feel my heart with the Adivasis of Sonbhadra. I never feel that I am different from them. They have been cheated by the regularly. The government has done very little for them. If they retaliate they are charged with being Naxalites and cases are filed against them.’ In fact one of the work that Khan did was to fight for a young 12 years old boy who was charged under POTA. This is tragic how police behave. Sonbhadra district is notorious for police highhandedness since they are unable to take on the Naxal, they exploit the helpless villagers.

It was therefore not surprising that the man who was arrested many time as well as whose office was burnt by the police in the name of alleged link with naxalites, did not find any favor from the donor agencies in their work for the region.

He would always say that the village needs to connect with international community. The idea of his Chaupal was to flood the authorities with complaints and information about the villages and the people and their problems. He would always ask me that internet and computers should linked to village and they would empower the poor people and reduce their dependency others to write letters for them as well as it will also enable the international community to see things at their own rather then being shown.

M A Khan remains simple all through his life. He was an anguished man that he could not communicate and write in English language and felt that it was the reason why people like him remain outside the net of those who matter. While, not many have had opportunity to hear him internationally, for the thousands of tribal people, he was one of their own, very own father figure, who went out of his way to help them and gave them a sense of dignity and honour. Like a lone man struggling in utterly difficult circumstances, he left a legacy of his work but no second rank leadership since he himself remained penniless till his end, struggling to get resources for his medication. That is the biggest irony of those work in the grassroots that they work for all and at the end they remain aloof from the world. None care to listen their problems and perhaps very few to bother that a committed man is no more. Since nobody care to inquire about each other particularly those come from not powerful families, there remain no news about them. It is tragic and it should end. The best tribute to MA Khan would be to strengthen the ideas that he gave and carry on his message of Chaupal so that the rural poor is saved from the a contemptuous bureaucracy as well as local middlemen who thrive on their ignorance.

Ambedkar's Economic Philosophy

DR. BR AMBEDKAR –ECONOMIC PROGRAM-VISION- CENTRAL MISSION

Admiral Vishnu Bhagwat

Dr Ambedkar descended the Indian skies like a meteor , lighting up the freedom movement with a viable economic vision and road map, charted a constitutional democracy which , as he often said, could take us to the revolutionary goal of equality , liberty and fraternity. This assessment is accepted by a large number of people . However, his economic ideology and mission have been buried in the sands of globalisation , privatization and ‘reforms’ by the ruling elite and even his self-proclaimed followers , who have joined hands in erecting stone and granite statues of the ‘Revolutionary’ whose thoughts not only sprang from the soil of the country but also its political ,economic and social realities ( It was buried even earlier by those who presented a confused and diffused ideology from various political platforms, and who buried his rational and scientific thinking ) .

If we really, deeply study his core ideas , ideology if you like , his central mission is spelt out in his drafts to the Constitution Drafting Committee of which he was the Chairman ,1947-49 . Dr Ambedkar finally emerged as the main ‘Architect’ of this most vital document that lays down the framework of the Republic and its social , political and economic objectives , which is a manifesto of those who struggled for India’s freedom against foreign capital , foreign rule and local dominant , economic and caste interests . The Constitution is above the Supreme Court , the Lok Sabha , the Prime Minister and the Executive and was intended to be its guiding star , its Dhruva tara. How much we have deviated from the Constitution’s Directive , its soul the Directive Principles which are mandatory for any Government in office is an issue which is for all of us to assess. . If this is tested by the ground reality of the condition of the exploited classes , the denial of equality of opportunity , of education, of the very right to life , to work, and economic policies which have made the preamble of the Constitution a paper promise in the hands of the exploiting class who have arrogated to themselves a near total monopoly of resources , unprecedented and growing concentration of wealth that make a mockery of the direction ‘for the common good’.

First of all let us try to forge a common understanding of how ‘Ambedkar thought’ evolved ? Is it possible to flag mark Dr Ambedkar’s tortuous yet blazing journey . Dr Ambedkar chose his own methodology to educate and inform himself . It is true that cataclysmic events took place in the journey of his life…the 1917 October Proletarian Revolution in Russia, which to begin with placed power in the hands of the workers and peasants , the toiling and hitherto exploited class . In my understanding , though he may not have explicitly stated so in his revolutionary call in Manmad in 1938 , that was the central idea of his declaration of the three principles at the workers conference to which we will come as we discuss further . Then came the ‘Great Economic Depression’ of 1929 , with its devastation , hunger and unemployment , which not only burnt and singed the people in the United States but also in Europe . The Capitalist classes across the industrialized countries speedily funded Fascist groups , to further disposses and divert the working class . This was spread through fear and propaganda , promising them the mirage of nationalism , discipline, conquests and full employment , at the same time breaking their organizations , enslaving them in factories , mines and plants jointly owned by global ‘finance capital’ , including by American corporations and British capitalists , through the 1930s , as now brought to light , through the period of the Second World War ,via a commonly owned and set up Banking system, while the soldiers were killed and maimed as cannon fodder on military fronts all over the world in Europe , the Soviet Union , North Africa and Asia . Dr Ambedkar by now a champion of Dalit rights also clearly saw that Dalit emancipation could only be achieved through a broad united front of all the exploited classes . Dr Ambedkar had already defined a Dalit as ‘one who struggles’ ( for democratic rights ). His definition was, therefore, categorically inclusive of all individuals and groups who were naturally bonded , engaged in the common struggle, of the exploited classes.

Dr Ambedkar had through his definitive works , beginning in 1917 with his outstanding doctoral dissertation at the Colombia University, the “National Dividend of India” , essentially on the transfer of wealth and surpluses from India to Imperial Britain , laid bare the huge colonial (looting ) enterprise on which Britain’s industrialization was founded . There is another work , that of RC Dutt , covering this path breaking subject ; which dared to expose to bare bones , through facts , figures , official documents how Britain , later called ‘Great Britain’, established and executed the great parasitical enterprise , called British India . Dadabhai Naoroji whom Dr Ambedkar greatly respected also spoke and wrote on the rapacious transfer of surpluses from India to England .This thought process , bold and courageous in the extreme, shook those little social clubs who were petitioning the Sarkar for some concessions in entrance to the British Indian Army through the Royal Military Academy, Sandhurst and the ICS quota for Indians . Historically , it was quite a coincidence that Gandhi’s own experiences in South Africa of racial discrimination and apartheid , brought him to India and start transforming the Congress into a mass organization of peasants , workers and all the toiling masses within the limitations of the social setup in the country. Not content with his monumental work Dr Ambedkar finished writing his “Small Holdings in India and their Remedies in 1917.” We cannot but infer that Mahatma Jyotiba Phule’s “Kisan Che Kode” inspired him and stoked his passion to try and expose, and later struggle , by throwing in his lot with those classes subjected to extreme social , political and economic exploitation .

Academically and to further consolidate his grasp of Public Finance was published in 1921, he worked on and published “Provincial Decentralisation of Imperial Finance in British India , the Problem of the Rupee ( the issues of Silver and Gold Standards ) in 1923 , the Evolution of Provincial Finance in British India 1925. Let us pause for a moment and reflect on the boundless energy , the diligence and perseverance , the prodigious output of the Man. No economist in India has produced such monumental , vital and relevant works as Bhimrao Ambedkar did in those nine years 1916-25. Undoubtedly these studies gave him an incomparable advantage over his contemporaries . He may have surpassed his contribution as a Law Minister after 1950 in the field of public finance if he had been Finance Minister ; but Finance Ministers in the existing system have to be conservatives not revolutionaries , who may upset the ‘apple cart’ !

Dr Ambedkar had emerged as ,by far the most erudite and scholarly economist on the sub-continent. His alert , incisive and sensitive mind was now setting up his own compass for the struggles ahead as he walked tall in the thirties. The Great Depression of 1929 –33 shook the whole world and its epicenter was in the United States and Europe , the foremost capitalist systems, where he had spent his period of study and observation . Capitalism’s exploitative chain had broken down and was engulfed by a serious crisis ; it was replaced by Fascism , i.e the rule by private Corporations in partnership with the ruling elite controlling the State apparatus. Dr Ambedkar was perceptive enough to grasp the significance of slave labour being used by the Corporations . While he had pre-occupations with the Round Table Conference, the Poona Pact , the Government of India Act 1935 , the provincial elections and Separate electorates ; he was deeply distressed by the exploitation , impoverishment, daily humiliation and denial of human rights to the exploited classes and the Dalits in the social mileu of the backward , feudal , arch conservative society that had evolved in the country of his birth . This evolution was not an accident . Michiavellian state craft in combination with parasitical economic production relations and a cruel , ritual order was used as a means to enslave the people who built India . Another economist in Ancient India had seen through it all – Chanakya who led a revolt of the slaves and helped install a Shudra dynasty , the Mauryas , which held sway over most of India until it was done out by a regrouping of the wealthy and the propertied , expropriating classes . The people who toiled in the fields to produce food, the bundkars who wove clothes and fabrics , the artisans who made tools with their hands , household items and the most exquisite articles with precious stones and alloy metals , the people who built homes , palaces and monuments, the leather workers who made shoes , saddles for the army cavalry and without whose services society would not exist and flourish , were all continuously being cheated , looted through expropriation of the surpluses that they created by their sweat, blood and sacrifices. The Manu Smriti , a fraudulent , adharmic manufacture of diseased minds of some elements of the priestly class who had prostituted themselves to the exploiting , ruling class to lay a spider’s web of fear , intimidation and an unimaginably, cruel and despotic social order based on all that is ignoble , unjust and unequal , in direct opposition to the Dharma that many great minds, specially Gautam Buddha , and those who guided Indian society had laid down. The nectar of Dr Ambedkar’s perceptions can be gauged by a better effort at understanding the essence of his writings and speeches , through his life and the stands he took, some necessarily with compromises, underpinned by his deep understanding of how the exploitative chain and the process of accumulation of surplus works and creates an overwhelming majority of serfs and slaves as an economic underclass leading a dehumanizing animal like existence , outside the boundaries of the proper village or bustee and in slums and ghettoes in the cities and towns as outcastes , untouchables and sub humans or’unter-menschens’. Others , so called born into higher castes have also been forced into this large mass of labor, of unceasing toil , of carrying the load on their backs and pulling the ‘thela’, since then with the rise of modern capitalism.

Dr Ambedkar had decided to carry out the struggle on two tracks ; to destroy the oppressive social order and to bring about an equitable , non –capitalist economic restructuring through mass awakening , reform and democratic movements , as he believed that real economic democracy was a means to transform a nation to a just order . He said ‘the struggle for economic justice was as important as the struggle for social justice’ . Why has this central idea and central mission of Dr Ambedkar’s life been forgotten and his core ideas and philosophy on the struggle for economic justice , suppressed by various big leaders and movements in all corners of the country is a question of fundamental importance ? This needs to be urgently corrected if we have to move forward.
We have seen how the Sanghis , who are essentially adherents of the Manu Smriti order, infiltrated and subverted the Congress Party , pre and post Independence , camouflage the core issue of economic justice while rationalizing ‘social justice’ to fool the people, assassinated Gandhi for opposing the domination of British finance capital in India which devastated the Indian economy . This class opposed the mild dose of reform for the Hindu society , the Hindu Code Bill and engineering riots and pogroms and spreading division and violence through their well-oiled Goebellsian propaganda machinery , all funded by the corporate class . What of ourselves why is it that we too have deviated from the central thread that runs through the mission of Dr Ambedkar’s life ?

As we have seen Dr Ambedkar through his logic , reasoning and scientific rationale , backed by a deep and real understanding of theoretical and applied economics, charted a path for all Indians, for the Dalits who he defined as ALL those engaged in the ‘Struggle’ for emancipation from the bondage of the exploitative order , through centuries of feudal and capitalist domination .

It is no surprise , therefore, that he set his precepts into practise by mobilizing and leading the march for temple entry at Mahad , to be shortly followed by his stirring address at the Independent Labour Party Conference at Manmad in 1938. This was a continuity of the calls of TukaRam , Shahuji Maharaj , Jyoitaba Phule , only set in the contemporary context and sharply focussing on the struggle for economic justice that lay ahead . These ideas he later introduced in his draft submissions for the Constitution and the final form of the Constitution, of which he was the principal architect. ( Imagine if the Constitution of India had been drafted in 2004 ,and indeed the attempt to ‘reform’ the Constitution by the Sangh Parivar had succeeded in 1999-2000 , what kind of a Constitution would we have today ! )

Manmad 1938, the GIP Railway Dalit Mazdoor Conference, ( caste discrimination was practiced in the railways and the textile mills , with the lower and lesser paid jobs going to the Dalits ; while clean and weaving jobs went to the ‘other’ workers ) , was a defining moment in Dalit struggle , an inflexion point, a turning point, that focuses both on the contemporary reality and a guiding star for the times ahead. Dr Ambedkar places before all, this foundation of his beliefs , convictions and the path that leads to the future , that the Dalits in a common united front to be forged with all the exploited classes , to achieve the goal of social and economic justice in an egalitarian society and real democracy thus :
The economic emancipation of the Dalits is as vital as the struggle for social justice ( To make the Dalits aware of the definition of the Subjugated class’; so that Dalit awareness is raised to a level whereby we join hands and march shoulder to shoulder with all other subjugated classes , to wage the struggle against the Ruling Class ).

Brahmanism ( or the forces that negate and deny equality , liberty and the feelings of brotherhood, ‘bhai-chara’) and Capitalism are the two biggest enemies of the workers or toiling classes.

Karl Marx did not as a principle, say that there were only two classes, the owner and the worker, and that in India these two classes had evolved in their final form.
The spread of poisonous and vicious religious hatred in a casteist order in Indian society has resulted in workers and employees sometimes turning against each other , as opponents and enemies.

Trade Union Leaders while exhorting and giving spirited speeches against the Capitalists adopt double standards and remain silent on the issue of Brahmanism.
The Dalit wokers and labourers movement is not against the common workers movement . It also does not support the Capitalists . Their only request is that their independent identity be protected.

The movement of the Working class has deviated, from its main goal , and is solely concerned with trade unionism per se.

The General Strike is the weapon of last resort , it is not an end in itself to be used for attaining the end of competitive trade unionism - leadership.

In the struggle against capitalist owners the working class cannot be successful by resorting only to trade unionism. The workers have to seize and take the reins of political power in their hands.

Mazdoor Sanghatans which are politically directionless become tools in the hands of political parties that support the capitalist class.

Equality, liberty and fraternity must be the ideals of the working class.

Even after the end of British Rule , it would be wholly legitimate for the workers to struggle against the spider’s web of the Landlords, Capitalists and the Baniya –Sahukar combine who will very much survive even after British Rule.

To wage a struggle to oppose the Imperialists does not mean that the class struggle against the internal structure of society has to be kept away on the shelf.
The Dalit class conflict in the interest of the Dalits must conjoin with the mainstream Mazdoor Andolan.

In normal situations Mazdoors will take the Constitutional path. However they should prepare and ready themselves to use other means , should the situation and circumstances so demand.
Dalit Mazdoor Sanghatan is in full co-operation and support of the All India Mazdoor Andolan; and it sees ‘resevation’ as complimenting and supplementing the Andolan.

Dr Ambedkar formed the Independent Labour Party on three fundamental / basic principles and these principles were:-

First : All the wealth , property and assets which are in this world are the result of / and have been created by the undying ,hard labour of the workers and the kisans. . Despite this , the worker and the kisans who toils with desperation in the field is naked and hungry. All these riches, property and the means of production have been arrogated by private property rights arbitrarily imposed by the profiteers, landlord class, capitalists and the rich class who have expropriated all this wealth by illegal / unjust loot, robbery and theft. This ( parasitical ) class has done nothing to earn this.

Second: Indian society is divided into the class ruled over and the ‘Ruling’ class’, whose interests mutually clash as a class conflict between the ‘Ruler-Exploiter’ and the ‘Ruled –Exploted’, is fundamental, and this fact remains all encompassing.
The rights of workers and the toilers can be defended , ( and will be secured ) only when the reins of ‘Political power’ will be in their own hands.

If the 1920s were the decade of learning and education in Dr Ambedkar’s life , the 1930s were a period of struggle ,agitation , deep sensitivity and commitment to the cause of the oppressed and the exploited of all classes and communities ; the decade of the 1940s demonstrated his ability for creativity and innovation of national level institutions and experimentation . Few equal his contribution in this decade which preceeds and transgresses India’s Independence / partition ,the founding of the Republic and great hopes and aspirations to real democracy, however troubled they were in the predominant class structure in 1947.
It was evident that the not so young Dr Ambedkar was burning the candle at both ends , unmindful of his health , all fired up with hopes and dreams.
As Labour Member of the Viceroy’s Council , 1942-45, he initiated programs to help increase the productivity of workers, by providing them education and skills , health care and maternity leave provisions for women workers, for example . Dr Ambedkar set up the Tripartite Labour Council in 1942, to safeguard social security measures to the workers , giving equal opportunity to the workers and employers to participate in formulating labour policy and strengthening the labour movement by introducing compulsory recognition of trade unions and worker organizations. Labour was placed in the Concurrent List. Chief and Labour Commisioners were appointed , so was a Labour Investigation Committee. Minimum Wages Act was his contribution. So were Employment Exchanges and importantly worker’s ‘Right to Strike’. Productivity and job security went together , unlike the Reformers and Globalists of today, bent on contract labour and its informalisation thru ‘hire and fire’ or ‘Exit Policy’.
Dr Ambedkar’s vision and economic philosophy is best illustrated by his thrust to improve human capital and human resources. He established the Central Water Commision , the Central Electricity Authority , the Central Irrigation & Waterways Commision in 1944 which became the Central Waterways, Irrigation , Navigation Commision on the approval of Babasaheb in 1945 , and the Central Water , Power , Irrigation and Navigation Commission, the latter’s integration to concurrently enhance employment opportunities , in 1948. The Central Water & Power Commission later bifurcated into the Central Electricity Authority and the Central Water Commission. Environment was a central concern. Downstream it gave birth to State Electricity Boards ( now sought to be unbundled and privatized ), the Regional and National Grids ( and Corporations ), the National Thermal Power Corporation a giant in the Power sector today , the Damodar Valley Corporation , work on both initiated in 1943-44. His initiative and contribution on the Multi-purpose Plan for Development of Orissa’s rivers is noteworthy . Such was the energy and vision of a great ‘Dalit’ son of the soil.
We now come to perhaps his greatest contribution to the Nation State, to the Republic and to his much dreamed concept of democracy . Appointed Chairman of the Drafting committee of a Constitution for India , Dr Ambedkar found himself the only active member of the seven originally nominated . Extraordinary though , he was still subject to being over-ruled , specially in the interest of the dominant class as regards production and property relations .

Dr Ambedkar clearly saw that unless the means of production were nationally owned by the state and agricultural lands too were nationalized and the property of the State there would be no real democracy . The village commons were in earlier times, not under the ownership of individuals / families . They were only scantified as private property, just over a hundred years ago by Wellesley’s Permanent Settlement and the Zamindari system introduced to make it convenient to help collect revenues for the East India Company and later the Crown , which had destroyed the social and economic fabric of our villages, by an order of magnitude. The Dalits and the landless of whom the Dalits were a majority , had no hope in hell , so to say. For the call for ‘Land to the tiller’ did not cater for the interests of the Dalits as they were not even tillers or ‘hissedars’ and ‘bataidars’.

While presenting the main memorandum on ‘State and Minorities’ he clearly stated that “ The main purpose behind the clause is to put an obligation on the State to plan the economic life of the people on lines which would lead to the highest pont of productivity without closing every avenue to private enterprise and also provide for the equitable distribution of wealth .” Dr Ambedkar was against monopoly in every form because he knew monopoly leads to exploitation…..it extracts work at low wages and creates artificial scarcities…..monopoly of capitalists cannot give justice to the exploited , poor classes.” He wrote in 1956 in the RPI manifesto , “that any scheme of production must in the view of the RPI remain subject to one overriding consideration that there should be no exploitation of the working class.” Dr Ambedkar made it clear that economic reforms by equalization of property must have precedence over every other kind of reform , noting that man is not just an economic creature ( the monster of caste also had to be killed ).

To recapitulate , Dr Ambedkar’s radical proposals for inclusion in the Constitution were :-
Consolidation of land holdings and tenancy legislation are worse than useless, as they cannot help the 60 million untouchables , who are just landless labourers ….only collective farms set out on the lines in the proposal can help them.
State Socialism is vital for the rapid industrialization of India. Private enterprise cannot do it and if it did it would produce those inequalities of wealth which private capitalism has produced in Europe.
Nationalisation of Insurance serves a double objective. Apart from greater security to people ,it also gives the State resources for financing its economic planning in the absence of which it would have to resort to borrowing from the money market at a high rate of interest .
This plan , elaborated in clause 4, Artcle II of his Memorandum to the Constituent Assembly included recommendations that :-

Agriculture be a State industry.

Key and basic industries would be owned by the State.

A life insurance policy would be compulsory for every citizen.

The State shall acquire the subsisting ( existing ) rights in agriculture and private owners will be compensated for by transferable debentures. ( Nationalisation of land would simultaneously abolish caste , in Dr Ambedkar’s view. )

The land acquired shall be divided into farms of standard size and let out equitably , and cultivated collectively . Finance or credit shall be provided by the State.
All this was without closing every avenue for private enterprise .
Dr Ambedkr’s ardent desire was that the plan of State Socialism must become a part of the Constitution . He further cautioned that this essential condition for the success of a planned economy should not be liable to suspension , abrogation or abandonment by the Parliament or the Government ( and how prophetic he has turned out to be today ). Political democracy , he said rests on the principle that the State shall not delegate powers to private persons ( entities ) to govern others .
Dr Ambedkar went on to write “ Anyone who studies the working of the system of social economy based on private enterprise and pursuit of personal gain will realize how it undermines , if it does not actually violate , the last two premises on which democracy rests . How many have to relinquish their constitutional rights in order to gain their living ? How many have to subject themselves to be governed by private employers ?
Ask those who are unemployed whether what are called Fundamental Rights are of any value to them . If a person who is unemployed is offered a choice between a job of some sort , with some sort of wages , with no fixed hours of labour and with an indirect restriction on joining a union and the exercise of his right to freedom of speech , association , religion etc can there be any doubt as to what his choice will be ? How can it be otherwise ? The fear of starvation , the fear of being compelled to take children away from school, the fear of having to bear the burden of public cost are factors too strong to permit a man to stand out for his fundamental rights . The unemployed are thus compelled to relinquish their fundamental rights for the sake of securing the privelege to work and to subsist….
What about those who are employed ? Constitutional lawyers assume that the enactment of Fundamental Rights is enough to safeguard their liberty , and that nothing more is called for . They argue that where the state refrains from intervention in private affairs , economic and social , the residue is liberty. What is necessary is to make the residue as large as possible and state intervention as small as possible . It is true that that where the state refrains from intervention what remains is liberty . But this does not dispose of the matter ; one more question remains to be answered. To whom and for whom is this liberty ? Obviously, this liberty is liberty to the landlords to increase rents , to the capitalists to increase the hours of work and reduce the rate of wages . This must be so . It cannot be otherwise , for in an economic system employing armies of workers , producing goods in mass at regular intervals , someone must make rules, so that the workers will work and the wheels of industry run on . Liberty from the control of the state is another name for the dictatorship of the private employer.” The Advisory Committee did not accept his proposals . Dr Ambedkar pressed repeatedly with the Chairman of the Constituent Assembly to incorporate his proposals in the Chapter on Fundamental Rights of the Constitution and not disallow them on ‘technical grounds’. He argued that it was a matter in which the labouring classes in general and the scheduled castes in particular , are vitally concerned . That is the precise reason why it was not permitted in the justiciable part of the Constitution ..but relegated to the Directive Principles , now more honored in the breach than practise ( that is why the PS Appu Committee observed in its report on Land Reforms in 1972, that the hiatus between precept and practice, between policy pronouncements and actual execution has been the greatest in the domain of land reforms . )

The Constitution remains our compass ; Dr Ambedkar’s economic ideology the guidance document . The application , in steps and phases can only be implemented when the mazdoors in both the formal and the informal sector, kisans , landless workers , rural and urban men and women without livelihoods and entitlements, adivasis, artisans , bundkars, students , teachers , educated unemployed , technicians and engineers ,employed or unemployed , subscribe and dedicate themselves to a better future for all . Quite obviously the Dalits as a caste group are not sufficient in numbers to change the system, its core policies , priorities and its structure without joining with the other oppressed groups, communities and demonstrating an overwhelming democratic majority. Dr Ambedkar had emphasisied this again and again in all his writings and speeches. For this a United Front of all sections and elements who constitute the exploited majority must be forged as a federation with decentralization as its watchword . Then and only then will the Dalits advance forward to their goal of social and economic justice . Otherwise they must remain as they are confined to receiving a few crumbs from the top table, always at the mercy of the Capitalist class and their ideology of Brahmanvad as defined by Dr Ambedkar.
The program , policies and objectives will need the agreement of all. However there will be sufficient flexibility for local initiatives depending on the material and human resources , and the stage of development which have been reached in different locales , in the uneven matrix of social and economic indicators that we are confronted with , as long as they conform to the direction and goals of the movement .
Dr Ambedkar is honored as the Principal Architect of the Indian Constitution . The Fundamental Rights and the Directive Principles of State Policy are his special contribution . If the chapter on Fundamental Rights , particularly its cardinal articles on Equality before the Law , Equality of Opportunity and the Right to Life ( and Livelihood ) as interpreted by the Apex Court are indeed held sacred , then read with Articles 37, 38 and 39
of the Directive Principles they are the guiding spirit of the Constitution and immutable. Unfortunately those who take their oath of office by swearing to uphold the Constitution are the very same who are swimming with the tidal wave of Globalisation and ‘Reforms’ which violate in substance and spirit , the Constitution of India andx that threaten the very existence people’s livelihood and their peaceful existence in a democratic , equal order , with dignity and self-respect . The Directive Principles of State Policy, were held to be legally unenforceable at the time the Constitution was adopted in the name of “ We the People..’’ . However Directive Principles of State Policy have a mandatory character, as the injunction to the State and , therefore, to the Judiciary , Legislative and the Executive is always “ SHALL” and not a ‘May’. The Founding Fathers and Dr Ambedkar can be presumed to know the difference in jurisprudence !!! What the Government , the Legislatures and the Judiciary in times today are doing are not only violating the “ soul “ of the Constitution , as many former Justices of the Apex Court have publicly expressed , but in fact may be effectively participating in a ‘foreclosure’ of the democratic process and the path to Democracy that Dr Ambedkar sincerely paved . The Western Capitalist system and the ‘Reforms’ “ dictated by the Structural Adjustment Loan / Programs”, which amount to a Recolonisation of India, are neither conducive to a democratic order nor compatible with a democracy for 1100 million ( growing to be 1800 million ) Indians. No foreign model , in its entirety , forced from above, or even legally upheld by the courts, can be a model to emulate.
The most worrying and distressing aspect of all this is that 50 years after the passing away of Dr Ambedkar , the torch and the baton have not been carried forward.
Debate and discussion are usually confined to issues such as Reservations and promotions in the public domain / services and now the latest ‘red-herring’ , reservations in the private sector ( including MNCs) which provide only 8.3 % jobs in the formal sector. (7000 MNCs provide only 28 million , low paid jobs in their world wide ‘looting’ operations) .
The question of asserting the SC/ST rights in admissions to educational institutions at all levels , specially higher and technical courses , which are again being effectively denied, has been brilliantly exposed in the pioneering work done by Sarvashri Pradeep Gaikwad and Prof ( Dr ) Awani Patil in respect of Maharahtra . Privatisation of education , now state sponsored and subsidized from public funds , is making higher and technical education a right and privilege only for the ‘Haves’ or the exploiting classes ‘ which is more than just a fascist characteristic and , therefore, to be fought as Dr Ambedkar would have done , for Dalit rights ; shoulder to shoulder , together with all other ‘deprived sections and classes’. The essence of Buddhism and Dhamma as Dr Ambedkar observed was socialist ( even the first communist idea ) and thus his dream of establishing an egalitarian society , with the help of Buddhism.
However, after all this agitation , if those who benefit from reservations change or ‘convert’ or transform unto another class , an upper class , and stand with the exploiting class , directly or indirectly , then what is gained for the overwhelming majority who remain where they have always been , along with the others who have been marginalized by loot , robbery and theft , phrases which a person of such refined legal education as Dr Ambedkar used in Manmad and thereafter ? Dr Ambedkar expressing concern for the downtrodden , said in one of his lectures, “…ever since I began to understand the meaning of life , I have always followed one principle in life and that is to serve my ‘untouchable’ brethern . Wherever I may be and in whatsoever position I may be , I have always been thinking and working for the betterment of my bretheren . I have never given so much attention to any other problem . I must guard the interests of the untouchables ; that has been the aim of my life in the past and will continue to be in the future too .” In the context in which his life and work and economic philosophy /ideology should be faithfully understood , that is Bhimrao Ambedkar, the revolutionary who fought for political and economic democracy for the oppressed and exploited masses of the Indian people ; we have to ask ourselves just one question : Do we stand with Dr Ambedkar and the exploited or the upper and middle classes to which we have migrated ; and therefore betray the class where 99% of our people are enslaved ?
Recently a Dalit Leader of education, learning and standing , told me that since ‘Money’ had overtaken free and fair elections the danger was not that he would be able to democratize the system but whether he would be corrupted and taken over himself.
If Babasaheb is made unto granite , stone or marble then he too is in danger of becoming an ‘idol’ to be revered and worshipped on two days in the year. On the other hand , Dr Ambedkar , can be our daily inspiration “to educate , agitate and organize” as he himself exhorted so often . On a personal note , how so ever symbolic, if every Dalit can carry a pocket size card with the main articles of the Constitution, on his person in his own mother tongue, and discuss it in his habitat or cluster of Jhopdis and Jhuggis for five minutes every day, in the neighbourhood , what Babasaheb has as his message, then there is a fair chance that they may begin to question the self appointed Netaji(s) on what is to be done. Certainly not to break the homes and hearths of those who share his misery . Every one does not need higher education , though everyone who has the merit must have those doors open to him or her. Everyone , however , needs to be able to live with self respect and in dignity , in a society where he has the right to livelihood, equal education opportunities for his children and medical care if they fall sick as they are bound to with nothing in their stomachs , and suffering chronic mal- nourishment , as the large majority of his compatriots . If we continuously lower the poverty line then the number in the BPL will of course reduce in the Government’s Annual Economic Surveys , the Central Statistical Organisation’s books; and the National Sample Survey’s figures.
The adherents of ‘hard’ Hindutva and ‘soft’ Hindutva are effectively Trojan horses of the recolonising forces . Hindutva is a mask for Brahmanvad . This Hindutva loudly propagandises ‘rashtravad’ while it goes about as a salesman and poster- boy for foreign capital and the MNCs ,banks and insurance ( brokers and commission agents of big foreign companies of the US and Europe , as Mahatma Gandhi described them ) . Hindutva has created its ‘internal enemies’ like the Nazi Party did in Germany . It assumes its sacredness by wearing the tilak on the forehead . This does not hide its destructive character and mentality , or wash its murderous, bloody hands . Like in the past Hindutva or Brahmanvad , is fronting the parasitical class. A Finance Minister had opened India to the multi-nationals on the dishonest plea ‘that the nation has been living beyond its means –nation indeed , when a good majority of our people simply have no means to live and most others none to indulge in living beyond….’ Another Finance Minister pleading with the Globalisers in London said “ You came to India and stayed for 200 years . Now come prepared to invest and stay for another 200 years and there will be huge rewards .” How do the parties representing the expropriated classes , the 80 % majority gear up to the challenge ? The parties of the Dalits have 20 splinter groups in Maharashtra alone and the parties that claim to pursue forward looking economic programs are also split into 20 and more groupings on the all India level. This is not a mere accident. This may not be engineered by the new Brahmins , but it certainly enjoys their support . Dr Ambedkar always said ‘we are Indians firstly and lastly. ’ The challenge is before us and that is why it is so incumbent on those who are Ambedkarites to carry forward the central mission where Dr Ambedkar left off.

To conclude, Dhamma or Dharma enjoins another ideal . It says unequivocally that without Justice for all , a King is no King ; and his Kingdom will perish and cease to exist. If that caution is not heeded, then someday the phoenix must rise !

Acknowledgements:

To Shrimati Niloufer Bhagwat , jurist , who introduced me to the real Dr Bhimrao Ambedkar whose socialist ideology was until some years ago also unknown to me.

To Shri Pradeep Gaikwad , Publisher & Editor Samta Prakashan, a dedicated Ambedkarite , who gave me his time and attention to make an enquiry into the truth of ‘social and economic justice’ , which Dr Ambedkar relentlessly pursued.

To Dr ML Kasare , distinguished Professor , whose book “Economic Philosophy of Dr BR Ambedkar” which I read recently further enlightened me in my understanding of the ‘Man and his Ideas’ .

To all three my grateful thanks . I accept responsibility for any errors in the paper , even though I believe that I have humbly attempted to highlight the revolutionary Ambedkar’s outstanding ideas and his central mission , his total identification with the toiling masses of our country, to free themselves from bondage and slavery , and establish economic democracy.