Role of media during Mumbai attack

Media’s Revivalist Agenda
Vidya Bhushan Rawat

Mumbai’s blasts have shocked many but those of us who have been following the self serving political class in India know well that such things will continue to happen as never in the history of India the report of investigations are made public and guilty prosecuted. Of course, these days, the guilty are being pronounced by the loud mouthed anchors of the television channels and ‘public’ at large, the same public that are invited in the TV studios and phone their relatives and friends to ‘watch’ the programmes or read the ‘newspapers’ to publicize their name.

In the post liberalization scenario, two things are clearly emerging in India. One the enormous power of the media and second the powerful cocktail of media-corporate-hindutva to rule over the country and destroy its cultural resources. And therefore Mumbai’s incidents have to be seen in a broader framework and not what is being made visible to us. Mumbai’s ugly incident has given media a tool to justify its jingoism and spread lies and rumors to fix up an agenda which is anti poor and anti Dalit-Adivasis-Bahujan.

It is no doubt that those Islamic Jihadis or Hindu fundamentalists or fanatics who are at war with each other in India are poor cousins of each others. They strengthen each other. Both of them have no love for democracy and democratic values. At both the sides of the story, whether it is Muslim Jehadis or Hindutva fundamentalists, there is ample number of patrons who will come out and speak for the community. Unless people, come out openly against such ‘patrons’, the fight against terror can not be won.

What perturbed me most about the Mumbai coverage is that when on the next day of the attack on Taj, V P Singh, the former P.M of India, who changed the course of the Indian politics and history, none of these news channels and news papers bothered to talk or write about him.. Taj continued to remain the ‘symbol’ of India and ‘Indians’ were ‘outraged’ continued the commentators. Mr. Bachhan’s sleepless nights, Shahrukh’s and Amir’s open criticism of terrorism, and C.M visit to Taj along with the film director Ram Gopal Verma and actor son Ritesh continued to remain the headlines. It was no coincident that over hype of attack on Taj was in away media’s clever attempt to hijack things and decide an agenda of its own. On the eve of new year, it is the debate on ‘war on terror’. ‘We must now ‘do or die’ said some of them. People like us who have been working on the people’s issues are concerned with this fixation of agenda by the media in these circumstances where each one of us needs to ponder. That Muslim community is now under tremendous pressure to ‘show’ its faithfulness and ‘condemn’ terrorism is the new media hype around the issue.

It is not complicated why media made Taj such an issue. The shaheeds whom we witnessed at hotel Taj reflect media’s mind which will discredit our leadership (though I too have no love for them) and glorify the armed forces. Its like what George Bernad Shah wrote in his famous drama ‘Arms and the man’. During those days every English woman would aspire to marry a military man fighting against the enemy. But we live in strange time today. The glorification of the death of a soldier comes from those who would in no way send their children to army or armed forces. Indian army need good officers and this is a well known truth that we seriously need young dynamic youths in the army who can lead. Yet, despite the glory, how many of these ‘candle wallahs’ masses would opt for the army.

Secondly, the media has been projecting that they only believe in India shining story which was actually rejected by the people of this country many time. But ‘people’, for media, means those who eat at Taj. The concerned media became so enraged after the event of Taj that they started instigating people against the entire political system as they were not part of it. And in doing so they started claiming (read miss-claiming) that now the ‘middle class is in danger’. They failed to understand the very basic reality that middle class has always been on the target of terrorists, it is not because of this attack on Taj as how many of the middle classes would afford to eat and sleep at Taj.

Denigrating democracy and glorifying military power is part of a brahmanical culture which is worried about growing challenge to its hegemony. Today, knowledge and power is not its only domain. It controlled Indian power structure and the man who shook this in the 1990s coincidently passed away in the same period. Thanks to media’s over hyped coverage of terror strike, all his work went unnoticed for the entire brahmanical class. This man had challenged the hegemony of the ruling brahminical class and created a new set of the rulers like Mayawati, Lalu Yadav, Ramvilas Paswan and many such others. He made us realize that this rule of the new ruling class is going to stay here as a matter of fact. Thus the brahmanical forces started working on the politics of cooption. Though they agreed to some extent at the later stage on the agenda of social justice but they never condone any one who dares to change their agenda. The current war on terror is clearly an exercise of shifting the agenda of the politics in past 20 years from social justice to ‘terrorism’ which in Indian situation is bound to help the brahmanical ruling elite. That only those will get the title of Shaheed who will die at Taj and the policemen and army people who fight against the insurgency operations and against the Naxals are not Shaheeds. Why didn’t our media stalwarts like Barkha Dutt, Rajdeep Saardesai, Ashutosh, Praveen Swami and their look likes ever visit Kandhamaal or Khairlanjee to share and show the pain of those suffered in the massacre. How can those people who still eat rats say ‘Mera Bharat Mahan’ as people like Arnab Goswami would make all believe. The way the word shaheed was being used by these news channels, it looked as if they are not independent media organizations but government’s spokes person. On the contrary, in the past few years, if you agree, DD News as well as DD Bharati and Lok Sabha TV seems to be the best news and current affairs channels, as they do not cry and exhibit their nationalism in public. Their debates are impressive, unlike those organized by the ‘mathadhishs’ in the paid channels where the anchors want all to speak their language.

There is no doubt that the events in Mumbai were traumatic, but they were over played by an overzealous media which wanted to project that only terror is the issue before the country. The media made us believed that they ‘represent’ the nation and therefore none had the decency to speak about a former prime minister who passed away during this period. Was it pressure of the Mumbai news that forced media to ignore this news or was it their inherent bias against the forces of social justice that they did not want to speak on the subject which had taken most of the space during the past 20 years. Yes, the media could not have ignored had any other political leader passed away during this period as Kancha Illaiah rightly said in his tribute to V.P.Singh in Deccan Herald, comparing the latter with Abraham Lincoln.

Communalization of media
The problem lies in the people who head our media institutions. There is a stark change in the perceptions of the editors these days. Once upon a time, media was a watch dog and voices of dissent were part of their struggle. During the dark days of emergency when the Akashwani was termed as ‘Indirawani’, the ‘Indian Express’ lonely under Ram Nath Goenka became the voice of the masses. In 1986-87 when V.P.Singh was exposing various deals of the government, the entire media fraternity was united in discrediting him. Except for newspapers like Indian Express, the Hindu and the Statesman, the papers provided their space to government agents masquerading as journalists write reports which were totally fabricated and fictitious. Veteran editors were used in this regard to defame the man who challenged the Congress. Making a clever move, the government of the day, also learnt how to censor media without officially censoring it and hence journalists were lured into becoming party spokespersons. Today this trend has been well taken by almost all the political parties which have rootless paratroopers whose only quality is ‘connections’ with media.

However, in the last decade of the 20th century, the course of the history of Indian media was changed by three important events. In 1990, we entered into an era where international warfare was directly being broadcast by CNN. It was amazing to see bombs being hurled on Iraq. India soon became a party to it, thanks to an indecisive Prime Minister Narsimha Rao whose lonely commitment to the people was through open market economy. Manmohan Singh, the then Finance Minister of India allowed all the doors wide open for foreign direct investment. Hundreds of private TV companies were allowed to have their space in the Door Darshan.

The second important event was the acceptance of the recommendations of Mandal Commission by Prime Minister V.P.Singh. This sparked off the violence in the entire north India. The violence was not spontaneous but was sparked off by the goons of Sangh parivar pretending to be journalist. Since they had visualized in advance that opening of the levers of powers for the shudras would endanger the brahmanical hegemony hence they were hell bent to oppose it. So much was the hatred among the upper caste that students immolated themselves in the streets of Delhi. Every bad news is good news and hence media used this opportunity. The beating of students by an insensitive police in the streets of Delhi was actually the high point of India today brand of journalism (please clearify it). Editors of several newspapers exposed their dirt openly and shamelessly that they stand for an upper caste India with no rights for the dalits. Articles were published against reservation granted for the dalits too who were outside the ambit of Mandal Commission report. Arun Shourie in particular, who was then heading the Indian Express group remained more shameless using his newspaper to spread lies, falsehood and rumors. Shourie felt that he was the sole proprietor of truth but the fact is that he spoke truth which was useful for the Hindu upper castes.

The third important event of the decade was the demolition of Babri Maszid. However, Shourie’s campaign did not end only with opposing the legitimate rights to Shudras. He went on to support demolition of the Babari Mosque and attacks on Chrisitans and Muslims also. Later on he wrote a book on Ambedkar terming him as a British stooge. He is the best example of how a journalist who claims to be torch bearer uses ‘truth of convenience’ for his constituency. He knew it very well that the communalization of the middle classes was easy and anything written against the Muslims, Dalits and OBCs would be sold as hot cakes. And it did happen. The Mandal reccomondation saw the worst ever protests of the upper caste youths all over the country and in turn completely and unjustifiably communalized them. With more and more media men getting into politics, the Hindutva fundamentalists were the first to understand the wide power of media and benefits of communalization of the middle classes which is basically opinion maker. It started with a number of editors joining the bandwagon of the Hindutva followed by political reporters. Hence when Lal Krishna Advani said that Ram Mandir Movement was a movement equivalent to 1942’s quit India movement, several editors cum owners of the newpapers jumped into the fray. Dainik Jagaran was the biggest example. The newspaper is the highest circulated Hindi daily from UP became an avid Hindutva protagonist and its editor cum owner Narendra Mohan felt that nothing could be greater than dying for the cause of Ram Mandir.

Thus, most of the Hindi media then turned into Hindu media and the cause of the Ram Mandir became a national cause. At the same time every Muslim became a suspect and every Muslim criminal who was arrested became an ISI agent. Those supporting the demand of a court settlement or who were seen to be with Muslims were termed as Maulana. Both the mandal and mandir issue in 1990 exposed two important myths of Indian media and and their ethos. The liberal media or a tolerant and respecting dissent got exposed the way media became a party in the entire anti mandal charade. Editors became preachers and their gospel forced students to commit suicide. V.P.Singh and other leaders of National Front became the villain. Later when Advani started his rath yatra, a large number of the media men became party to it. The reporting of the event was done at a grand scale. When Advani was arrested in Samastipur Bihar, various states went for communal disturbances instigated by the Sangh Parivar and their elements. But the India media had no regret as it was determined to destroy the greater unity of the Dalit Bahujan communities in the aftermath of the mandal. Thus media’s corruption came in open.
The language of media became aggressive and abusive. The so called saffron saints and sanyasis who were supposed to be very polite got wide publicity in the media spewing venom on the highest political leadership. The Prime Minister and the Chief Minister became the figures highly abused. Awards were put at their heads and newspapers were reporting from every where. Different editions of one newspaper published one report of a reporter in different edition in different ways, often in highly outrageous headlines. In fact, the Press Council of India censored many of them but then how many of media barons respect press council.

In fact, when Justice P.B.Sawant became chief of press council and censored many of the news papers, majority of the media barons turned against him. None ever bothered about the rebuke of the press council. Media gets worried only when an authority asks them do so. Every suggestion is countered under the guise of ‘freedom of expression’. They feel uncomfortable if they are asked to remain unbiased and unprejudiced. After the Gujarat riots (read Sangh Parivar engineered riots), the entire Gujrati media turned highly against Muslims and every report that was asking for justice to Muslims in the state was considered an assault to ‘Gujarati Asmita’ as if Gujrati Muslims do not have a Gujarati identity, as if they do not have right to live in Gujarat and get justice. The vernacular press too was very loud in spreading the message of the ruling political class all over the state. Those who tried to remain rational was banned by the Narendra Modi government of flimsy ground. While none of us would ever recommend the prohibition measures, media events expose their own positions.

Dalits and Media
In the 1990s, the Hindi media had become Hindu media on the issue of Ayodhya question, the English media, with some eceptions, had opposed the demolition of the Babari mosque. The leading luminaries of the media decried demolition of the mosque as an assault on the constitution. But nevertheless, when the political movement for the Ramjanambhoomi was build up, the English media too did not remain behind in carefully crafting the image of Lal Krishna Advani as a national leader. No one felt that the forces of the destruction of India should be given the space they deserved. In fact, media research showed that the Hindutva and its frontal organizations had become household names. Their strength was displayed in such a way as if the entire nation wanted them.

In the post 1990s when the Dalit assertion grew diametrically higher in India, an Indian journalist B.K.Uninyal wrote an article in the Pioneer about the presence of dalits in the Indian media. It became a ‘hallmark’ for the dalit writing activism in the media. The Pioneer which was one of the finest newspapers under Vinod Mehta in the 1990 championing secular cause became the mouthpiece of Sangh Parivar once Chandan Mitra purchased it. Later it was understood that it was a tactic adopted by him to make his way to Rajya Sabha. Mitra degraded a people’s news-daily into a bundle of calumny, lies and propaganda of the hindu right wing through his editorialized news reports. The circulation of the daily was virtually nothing yet Chandan Mitra, was a brand himself. Earlier in his position as an assistant editor of Hindustan Times, he expressed his anti mandal views during his caste aspersion reports on some of the judges of Supreme Court for which he was indicted by the Supreme Court and later shunted out by the management of Hindustan Times. As BJP led NDA took power in Centre under Atal Bihri Vajpayee, the Sangh parivar and its sympathizers in the media grew and so were their greed to extract mileage to power. Hence even person like Aruh Shourie, who once condemned Ambedkar, RSS and its sympathizers worked hard to bring the Dalit ‘intellectuals’ to its fold (its not clear and it contradicts the earlier statements on Shourie). Of course, they know it well that it would be suicidal for any so-called dalit intellectuals to side with the Sangh Parivar and Hindutva forces directly so the media provided them space. Uniyal, a Brahmin actually paved the way of some of the dalits intellectuals to write in Pioneer. A separate column was granted in Sunday Pioneer for this purpose. The careful scanning of these columns easily reflect that the target of these writings were so-called communists and socialists.

In the present scenario, it is interesting to note that maximum glorification of Mayawati comes from the brahmanical media when she started reviving the bramins in Uttar-Pradesh. When she along with Kanshiram was talking about ‘Tilak Taraju aur Talwar, Maro Inko Jute Char (it means throw shoes on Brahmins, Vaishyas and Kshatriyas), the media disowned them and rebuked them. Rightly or wrongly, BSP was always portrayed itself in a much negative fashion. But later Maywati realized that her dream to gain power could not become a reality without the support of other communities, especially the brahmin in particular. However, the upper caste dominated media saw it as an opportunity. Giving tickets to Brahmins for assembly in excess to their proportion was termed by them as ‘social engineering’. They forgot that when VP Singh did the same for OBCs under mandal recommendations, they had termed it as ‘casteism’ and they did the same during the recommendation of reservation in higher education for OBC by the central government in 2006.

Media, therefore, is keeping its caste interest ahead of anything else. When Arun Shourie writes abuses against the Dalits, Muslims and other minorities in his self-proclaimed ‘research’, the media jumps into it and starts debating it without involving others who can ‘expose’ Shourie in his own ‘web’. The Chandan Mitras and Shouries know well how to use the upper caste dishonesty towards dalits and Muslims for their nefarious purposes and the rest of the media follows quietly. It is this that the BJP and Hindutva exploit very well. When Shourie writes, Vasant Sathe would not disagree with him in his final analysis. All together feel that Hinduism is the most tolerant religion.

Media uses and misuses its right to ‘freedom of expression’ when the history is being analyzed from the dalit bahujan view point. Hence writings of Periyar and Ambedkar are highly intolerable. When Shourie was writing against Ambedkar, it was this intolerance of the upper caste which did not allow any dissent in our social cultural life. However, Ms Mayawati making a strange move in Uttar-Pradesh has deleted Periyar from BSP’s list of icons. It is said that Behenji was worried about the Brahmin votes and Periyar, being the staunch anti Brahmin and anti Ram was therefore replaced by Ravidas.

But the biggest surprise is that when Ms. Mayawati banned ‘Sachchi Ramayan’, (true Ramayan) in Uttar-Pradesh, none in the brahmanical media defended the book. On the contrary when Teesari Azadi, a docu-drama made by some Dalit Bahujan activists, was getting very popular in among the community people, IBN -7 , a news channel in Hindi started a campaign against it, asking for its ban. Ashutosh, another loud mouth anchor from the channel termed it as a ‘Jehrili CD’ (poisonous CD). He said that it was spreading social discord and the channel broadcasted the news several times. Those in the Dalit Bahujan movement know well that this is nothing but an upper caste intolerance to accept fair criticism.

Rather it is media’s double standard that is creating discord among the people. Their selective criticism to serve their interest is a great hindrance in Dalit people’s right to information. It can make a Lalu Yadav great when he protect the business interest of the private parties dominated by the upper castes and lumpunise him when he talks of the rights of backward classes. The media negligence and apathy towards V.P.Singh is yet another example. While the foreign media wrote him in terms of Indian Mandela or a person in the category of Abrahom Lincoln, the Indian media not only ignored his death but asked people like Megnath Desai to analyse him. It is the travesty of truth that persons like Megnath Desai, who remain stooge to British interest in India, are allowed to judge a person who remain most relevant in today’s politics. It seems that the brahmanical media continued to feel threatened with even the ghost of V.P.Singh.

Media’s tactic of making and unmaking of leader has resulted in its disprortionate respect for itself. It was important for it to remain as a watch dog of the civil society and fight for people’s right. It should not have hesitated in defending human rights and boycotting social evils, but unfortunately, no one does so. A death due to hunger does not get reflection in our media and violence against dalits only reflects when it serves either the political interest of a party or the market interest of the news channels and news papers.

When Mayawati, after becoming the Chief Minister of UP, expressed her desire to become the Prime Minister of India, Jug Surraiya, well know humourist yet anti reservationists wrote a piece comparing her with Barrack Obama, the first black US President, asking when India can have its Obama. His colleague Swaminathan Aiyer also appreciated Maya’s aspirations. How did this sudden change happen! The basic fact is that Maywati’s ‘social engineering’ (as proclaimed by Brahmins) is nothing but brahmanical revivalism. It has fascinated the upper caste intellectuals as well as those who find greatness in clubbing with the new global capitalist agenda and if any appreciation of the new global order comes from the Dalits intellectual then it legitmise the anti people stand of the votaries of this system.


When media reported the anti mandal agitation in 1990, the basic question raised was why the government do not take steps in supporting the OBCs in education. It was often remarked that supporting the dalits and OBCs in education would help the ultimate cause and not through providing separate quota for them in jobs. But in 2007 when the government wanted to reserve seats in the higher education, all the hell was let loose. AIIMS castiest doctors went on strike against the government order. Purely and openly supported by K.Venugopal, the dalit students became victim of their vicious campaign.
Newspaper gave disproportionate representation to anti reservation news while supporters of the pro reservation got little space in their channels. The Times of India reported it as ‘Apartheid’. Does Times of India mean that providing reservation to the marginalized sections of society is tantamount to be equal to apartheid in South Africa? If a newspaper which claims to be more progressive and represent the voice of the middle classes write such an obnoxious story and claim that the affirmative action programme are apartheid in reverse order, one can understand their mindset and their appreciation for the dalit writers and dalit activism.

Media and market
Octavio Paz, who got Nobel Prize in 1990 said in his acceptance speech,
[T]he market economy can not be simply a cause for joy. As a mechanism, the market is efficient, but like all mechanism, it lacks both conscience and compassion. We must find a way of integrating it into society so that it expresses the social contact and become an instrument for justice and fairness.

The advanced democratic societies have reached an enviable level of prosperity and at the same point of time they are islands of abundance in an ocean of universal misery. A society possessed by the frantic need to produce more in order to consume more tends to reduce ideas, feeling, art, love, friendship and people themselves to consumer good. Everything becomes an item to be bought, used and then thrown on the rubbish dump.

Today, media’s commitment to the people’s cause is reflection of what Paz predicted 15 years before. Unfortunately, it has degenerated into a vulgar act of glorification of market world and superstitious mindset that exists in India. We can estimate where media stands when even sophisticated channels are producing ‘tarot reading’ every day and NDTV in its entertainment section is forced to produce ‘Ramayana’ and ‘Shani Ki Mahima’. The surge of religious programme on the Indian silver screen, i.e. television is a new phenomenon of religious revivalism in the country. Hundreds of channels have come up which are broadcasting religious discourse of semiliterate Babas who have targeted the ignorant middle classes which have no social concern yet want to adhere to its age old taboos and traditions in the name of identity. This identity is being carefully crafted in the silver coated pills of religiosity added with a new flavor of ‘art of living’ style morality and keeping yourself fit with yoga. Hence both yoga guru Ramdev and Art of Living champion Ravi Shankar are the most sought after Gurus apart from morality preacher of the middle classes like Shiv Khera and Deepak Chopra. All these and others represent religious revivalism of Hindus, particularly of the upper caste variety. Most of them have their anti backward, anti Dalit stand open and hence come handy to media to use them as a tool against these sections of society. So in a debate for reservation people like Shiv Khera and Ravi shankar are a part for TV news room.

Danger is not just with these kind of religious revivalism. What we are witnessing today is the dose of religiosity added with hardcore superstition is being displayed by the TV channels. The cut throat competition and the fight for TRPs have forced them to bring more such stories such as miracles and extraordinary happenings around us. India TV of Rajat Sharma is notorious for bringing such news. One day it brings out sensational story that the statue of Sai Baba in Sirdi is ‘weeping’ and tears coming out from his eyes. The explanation given to the people was that the Sai is deeply hurt and unhappy on the condition of the society at large. The channel played this news the whole day as the only story. However, the other channel Aaj Tak jumped into the fray to debunk the theory of India TV, suggesting that the said story is fabricated and edited carefully by a software engineer and there is no such news and the management of Sirdi also condemned the channel for broadcasting the ‘fabricated’ news.

Every day we are witnessing such glorious news. Some claims that it has gone to the place where ‘Ravana’ was killed and where his ‘mummies’ are kept, the other finds ‘Ashoka Vatika’. There seems to be more interest in religious revivalism particularly of the Hindutva variety. The Setu Samudram Controversy was also raked up by these channels, each one of them following and allowing hardcore anti rationalist and anti Dravidian politician like Subrahmanyam Swamy and others to fulminate against the Tamilnadu government.

Why the Channels are doing so?

It seems today that the news channels have become more important than news. And with enormous growth of the middle classes in India, the growth of the semi literate people craving for Masala news has increased. The news channels have created new experts who are inherently biased in their opinion. Of course, in the name of putting the other view point, the channels also invite some ‘dissenters’ but the priority is given to those who speak as if they only have the monopoly over patriotism. The anchors are becoming aggressive and they do not allow any dissenting voice to dominate. They always like to have their voice at the end. Whenever any dissenting voice dominates the discussion, the anchor would cut it short.

Arundhati Roy recently commented on them how they were challenging every one who disagreed with the idea of ‘government as responsible for the Mumbai incident’, as if the Mumbai incident happened because of absent of laws.
These anchors are habitual of putting their words into Indian ‘experts’ but when they interview the foreign experts, they forget they are not interviewing an Indian hence we have seen how they fight with experts other than Indians, who do not agree with their view point. For our media, a Pakistani or Bangladeshi or an English expert is supposed to speak our voice. How would it be possible? If journalism is nationalism then the same is true for the journalists in other countries. We can not and should not expect them to speak our language. But then our pundits in the media are the same as happening to American media. I call it is as CNNisation process in Indian media which is embedded media. We do not really follow the BBC and its credibility as a news channel but the commercial CNN which is embedded to American establishment and that is one reason why Al-jejira was born.

The sermonisation of the Indian media is worst as they do not even pretend to have a dissenting voice in them. Eric Alterman has wonderfully narrated the entire sequence of Punditocracy in American media in his book ‘What Liberal Media’ in the following words;
[B]ut where journalism adopts the pretense of reporting only ‘the facts maam’ , the need for ‘opinion writers’ dedicated to placing the news in a larger and more useful context for readers, rises accordingly.

Pundits can be particularly influential in the United states owning to amazing degree of ignorance and or apathy many Americans share regarding politics and public affairs. In a nation where six of ten high school students lack what the department of educaton term ‘even basic knowledge of US history and where more people can give pollsters name of all the three stooges than any three members of the Surpreme Court, the importance of some one helping out with a reasoned and intelligent contextual view of events hardly be overstated.


Going through the Indian media and the lack of indepth analysis in it, one does not wonder why it has happened. A Newspaper like Indian Express which used to the voice of middle classes and under privileged once upon a time, today, represents the voice of the elite Indians. It’s conspicuously denigrated everything that is pro-people and anti American as if the people do not have a right to speak and express themselves. The Times of India, which often represented voice of the liberal India today talks of tougher laws against terror.

Media’s Ethical Failures

After the Mumbai incident, the media has disproportionately shunned every kind of criticism and dissent. I have been witness to many communal disturbances and investigated role of media and its bipartisan nature. We know how Gujarat incidents were reported and justification was sought. The regional media became the campaign manager of BJP and the Hindutva elements. As I write this analysis amidst my Padyatra (foot march) on the issue of the land ceiling and land redistribution in the Tarai region of Uttar-Pradesh and Uttarakhand, the shocking events have forced me to share this with all. The Padyatra was in its 12th day, since it entered Uttarakhand through Nepal border. The issue of the land ceiling and land redistribution are of immense importance for the empowerment of the dalits and other marginalized sections of society, but the intelligence agencies had launched an operation against us. No governments in the world can ignore the issue of land redistribution as it is a way to secure social justice to those who have been denied for long. A way to understand the social inequities in our social system. One is amazed that despite a strong anti ceiling law as well as Zamindar abolition Act in UP and Uttarakhand, the government has not been able to provide justice to the rural poor and now the situation has come to a stage where the government and its authorities are in the process of protecting the interest of the powerful land mafia. Hence any voice to support the cause of the rural poor and their voices are scuttled in the name of nationalism. The governments have failed to protect the lives of the poor. On the contrary those who raise the issue of this fundamental right of the people are termed as anti national. People like us who are raising this issue can be termed as Maoists, while those who are Muslims with us, may be linked to ISI-Maoists set up. Without understanding the ideological perceptive, every one who is raising the voice, is a terrorist here.

Coming to our main focus, during this trip what I could observe was that media has totally lost its ethical responsibilities. The journalists were acting as a tool to the intelligence agencies. Our programme was primarily focused on public awareness, social audits and marching through the street. We had also decided to keep this trip a low profile and march `without mush slogan shouting, due to the prevailing tension in the region. As a precaution we selected to cover villages from only those areas where the land problem really existed. However, what disturbed us was that the media leakages to authorities and their combine network questioning us in different ways to find out our ideology. They kept interviewing us in front of few members whose names and identity they disclosed. Fact of the matter is they were Local Intelligence Unit (LIU) of the Intelligence Bureau. The government of the day has made up an impression that issues related to land rights are just raised by Maoists only, and therefore they wanted to have an eye on us. But why the media sided with them, is highly questionable.

It is strange that media has become a party to government’s (primarily of the upper caste) propaganda. This is dangerous not only for democracy but our fundamental rights too. How can a journalist disclose his sources of information to the police authorities and make the lives of those endangered who might disagree with the functioning of governance. It is not necessary that a dissenter has to be a Maoist. I still remember former Prime Minister V.P.Singh’s interview to a magazine where he said that he would like to become a Maoist if the rights of the people continue to be defied. Unfortunately, our authorities and now the media too feel that all the dissenters are Maoists.

This all sufficiently shows media’s aggressively anti people campaign. It is carefully carving its corporate agenda which are openly anti poor and anti dalit-Adivasi. Hence all the campaign for the dalits and Adivasis are considered to be anti national. In this hour when the nation should remain united and work for poor and the marginalized, the media does not want to miss any opportunity to turn it upside down. Can there be anything more irresponsible than indulged in war mongering when the world is facing a global meltdown and when the rural poor of India are facing uncertainty of their lives. Actually, their main agenda is to push the developmental agenda into the backburner. It is shocking that saner voices are no longer visible in the media. Though the government itself denied that there is any war effort, yet the way all the dissenters including Arundhati Roy was chided by the popular channels and rebuked, makes us believe that media in this country has lost its senses and has completely sold its conscience. It may force people now to resort to internet gimmickries if it continues to present such ideas, voices and opinions. Nevertheless, with the growing availability of internet, blogs and various web groups have come up for discussions, and slowly and steadily media seems to be a gone case. People suspect newspapers for any in-depth analysis; however, they continue reading them for ‘news’, which again are edited carefully to suit certain interests.

Concluding Remarks

Looking at this biasness of the mainstream media, the dalits and other marginalized groups have now come up with their own medium of mass communication. This silver lining is growing as alternative media resources by the dalit-bahujan communities. Whatever claims all these ‘pundits’ might make; they are under vigilance by the people and thankfully to the growth of internet in the world. The Barkhas, Rajdeeps and Arnabs will not go unchallenged today.

The dalit-bahujan groups and their web logs fought valiantly against the misinformation campaign of the brahmanical news channels and their newspapers against reservation as a whole when the government allowed reservation in the higher educational institutions. One is optimist that two years from now when the second or third generations of these communities will emerges and become a strong middle classes, the media and their tarps will find it more difficult to ignore their voices. The writing is on the wall. A new middle classes of dalit-bahujans and Muslims is emerging and the mainstream media will have to change according to aspirations and emotions of these communities.

There is still time that mainstream media provide voice and representations of dalits and minorities, otherwise the days are not far when the mainstream media would turn like mainstream parties which have become almost defunct and non existence. The marginalization of our mainstream political forces and the mainstreamification of our regional parties are the prime example of the growing nature of new dynamics of our socio-political system. The media must reflect them if it wants to survive. It should keep a check on the business of creating ‘suvidha ka satya’ (truth of convenience). It must allow deserved space for those living on the margins, if it wants to remain credible and purposeful.

Prabhash Joshi : An uncomrpomising person

Tribute to An uncompromising media institution: Prabhash Joshi

By Vidya Bhushan Rawat

1980s were the most turbulent days in the history of Independent India. Indira Gandhi’s return of power after emergency was not great. Her grip over power was slipping. Sanjay Gandhi had died in a tragic air crash leaving a vacuum for the youth Congress leaders. The separatist Khalistan movement was growing in Punjab. Delhi had probably turn into a unsafe place with bomb blasts in buses, trains and other places became a regular feature. The issue of Kashmir was growing and in Assam we had seen he worst ever massacre where thousands of Muslims were butchered to death in Nellie, with state just witnessing it helplessly. In between, some happy moments happened like the Asian Games in Delhi in 1982 which changed the city and the historic moment of 1983 world cup triumph under Kapil Dev at Lords. Amidst this was one more happening in the Hindi heartland. It was the emergence of a new daily ‘ Jansatta’ under Prabhash Joshi. I know buying a paper was out of reach for me hence I used to sit at a chai-shop to wait for my turn to read it. The two papers that would come there was Navbharat Times and Jansatta. And NBT which was the flagship of Times group under the veteran Rajendra Mathur while Jansatta was the new beginning made by unstoppable Ramnath Goenka, the owner of Indian Express group of newspapers.

But with in a very short span of time, Jansatta became the hot issue itself and it left behind the other papers in the market for its contents and news items. The lay out was wonderful and the most important thing was a complete change in the language of journalism. It was not a language which we all were habitual of listening to All India Radio and Doordarshan. It was refreshingly a language which we call ‘vox-populi’ and Prabhash Joshi was a master in it. Whether writing on cricket or politics, Joshi’s idioms and terms had the reader wondering and asking for more.

In 1984 Indira Gandhi was assassinated and Delhi witnessed the worst ever massacre of Sikhs in the street. It was a horrific moment for all of us who thought whether India as a nation would survive or not. In far away places, people developed a frenzy against Sikhs and the state were all supporting it. The newspapers were not able to do justice except that Indian Express and Jansatta carried stories about these ghastly murders. In 1984 Rajiv Gandhi came to power with a massive mandate, unimaginable now. It uprooted many opposition stalwarts and made him think that nothing is beyond his reach. He started with a good intention but was highly uncomfortable with uncomfortable questions. His friendship circle was of charming Doon school friends which became a problem for him later. Corruption was growing in his government and VP Singh’s campaign for clean polity was getting wider support. On the other side, human rights groups were asking for justice to Sikh families killed in the massacre in Delhi. And in this Indian Express group provided them the platform. Indian Express started a series of article to save Kehar Singh and Balwant Singh from hanging. Efforts were also made by the paper to raise the issue of Sikhs. On October 31st, 1985, Rajiv addressed the first gathering to commemorate Indira’s death anniversary saying,’ jab bada ped girta hai to dharati hilti hai..’ when a big tree falls the earth shakes.

The Indian Express group had launched a campaign for probity in public life and wholeheartedly supported the Income Tax raids in the Industrial houses. Soon, V.P.Singh was shunted out of finance ministry and income tax sleuths raided Indian Express offices all over the country. Rajiv’s advisers asked him to bring a ‘defamation bill’. Unlike the unity in emergency, this time only a few editors were against it. Indian Express, Hindu, the Statesman were some of the groups which went against it. Most of the other caved in, though the government had to withdraw the bill. One may remember Rajiv Gandhi’s famous statement ‘ hamare dushmano ko hum nani yaad kar denge’.

Along with Arun Shourie, Prabhash Joshi spearheaded the campaign against Rajiv’s government but unlike Arun Shourie, he was not really ready to write Fatwas guiding the political leaders. In the post Boforse situation in India, media was used by congress party to the best of its knowledge for character assassination of the opponent particular VP Singh who was posing a threat to Rajiv Gandhi. Senior Journalists like M.J.Akbar, who was editor of Telegraph, Kolkata, were misused their positions and actually brought ‘breaking news’ of VP Singh’s account in St Kitts. Notorious Chandraswamy was the henchmen who brought such information in connivance with country’s top journalists. It is the peak time to see how Indian media caves in under government pressure. How news was being created in Delhi with country’s journalists sitting in the headquarter of Congress party and writing stories. In fact later the Sangh Parivar used the same tactics in communalizing the media and today a number of those who could not find favor with Congress are with the Sangh Parivar.

In 1990, a decision by the National Front government to implement Mandal Commission report exposed Arun Shourie and his racist ideas. Arun Shourie became a ring leader of anti mandal forces in the media and tried his best to scuttle the implementation of the government. Indian Express became vehicle to support Adwani and his vicious propaganda with Arun Shourie actively promoting the hate campaign against Muslims, much against the policy of the group. Soon, when the Hindutva’s forces started their w(rath) Yatra, Arun Shourie wrote some of the worst pieces in the Express forcing his expulsion from the paper.

In the mean while Jansatta continued to be the voice of intelligentsia. Prabhash Joshi was writing on politics, cricket and all the major issues. Unlike Arun Shourie and his highly self promoting individualistic style, Prabhash created a team of youngsters. Though Joshi himself was anti mandal once upon a time, he had the courage to publish article in support of Mandal as a majority of writers in Jansatta came from socialist leaning. I still remember his series of article against it. A large number of readers wrote angry mail to him condemning his position yet he got them published in the form of an article named as ‘ jaat pe naa jao meri baat pe aao’. I read that piece and got annoyed since I felt Joshi was making a debating issue with young readers and in any news paper it is the editor’s word which are final so what is new if Prabhash Joshi criticize his readers who criticized his position. I wrote a letter to him criticizing his position and his inability to listen to criticism. It was quite surprised that after a few days, I got a neatly hand written letter asking me to meet him and telling me that we should speak on the issues and not on individual’s identity. He said when he was raising the issue of Devi Lal or V.P.Singh, nobody said whose caste they were ? After all, they were not Brahmins.

Prabhash Joshi was actually a die hard Brahmin, who was very proud of his association with Vinoba, JP and Ramnath Goyanka. We all know his peculiar views on Sati after Rupkunwar was forced to commit Sati, he supported. Perhaps getting influence by the argument of Vijaya Raje Scindia who had openly supported Sati as the best tradition of sacrifice of Bharatiya Naari i.e Indian woman.

But Joshi’s finest hours in the journalism came after 1992. Actually, in 1983 when Jansatta was launched and after which the whole campaign against government and Ambani brothers, it was Arun Shourie who was leading the campaign. Joshi remain a pale shadow that time. Yet, after the demolition of Babari Mosque on December 6th, 1992, Jansatta was perhaps the only paper which became the biggest voices of the secular forces apart from Vinod Mehta’s Pioneer. Most of the other news papers including Indian Express had turned saffron as they might have seen the change in the wind and growth of Hindutva in India. Editors were singing praise of Advani and Atal Bihari Vajpayee but Prabhash Joshi became more vocal. He wrote against Sangh Parivar and all those journalists who went to the brigade for green pasture. None had the capacity to call those who demolished the Babari Mosque as ‘terrorists’.

One may disagree with his arguments as coming from a Gandhian view point, he felt that RSS and other members of the Parivar do not represent the Hindu view of life. He wrote ‘ Hindu hone ka dard’ which many of the media friends describe as one of the finest book in recent years on the growth of Hindu fundamentalism and what should we do. He got numerous hate mail from the Hindutva’s professional letter writers but Joshi was powerful enough to respond them in their own language.

In the recent year, Prabhash Joshi was more and more interacting with communities. He had closely associated with late prime minister VP Singh and social movements against WTO, SEZs, land acquisitions and media manipulations by the industrial houses. He had been travelling a lot and his voice mattered a lot in these matters. Among the current day journalists he was the only one who could write with authority on the issue of land acquisition. In fact, despite Jansatta’s shrinking market, it never compromised with quality of contents in it while its counterpart Indian Express was busy in glorification of business interest and open loot of the land.

As I wrote earlier, Prabhash Joshi considered himself a puritan Brahmin who was concerned about the growing communal situation in the country and continuous assault on our natural resources. You may disagree with his view. I never liked his preaching of Sanatan dharma and boasting of ‘Hindu’ ‘liberal’ values which I felt imposing the brahmanical values on us but definitely as an editor he was extraordinary. In his thoughts he did not come close to his contemporary Rajendra Mathur who was highly talented and much stronger on ideological side yet Prabhash Joshi was far more ahead in interaction with people and making a people friendly Jansatta. He was a journalist with a mission. Many of his contemporaries adjusted with those in power, never speak of people ( Arun Shourie is best example who talk of Hindutva yet never really raised people’s issues, supported disinvestment and globalization, went to Ambanis and forgot his vicious campaign against the brothers in 1985 and never ever promoted any youngster in the organisation). While Shourie’s hatred grew against Dalits, Christians and Muslims, Prabhash Joshi never used such vulgar language and that is why the Hindustan’s high priests found it difficult to counter him.

In his last important intervention, Prabhash Joshi wrote against selling of space in media. He has been touring all over the country. He would always write his column in Jansatta and every Sunday people would wait for his column. And definitely he changed how cricket was reported. His narration of cricket matches were the finest as the description had the sweet fragrance of ‘Malwa’. He was always in touch with his roots and felt proud of it. Whether you subscribe to his views, I dare to say that the biggest contribution of Prabhash Joshi to Indian media is its secular character, its freedom of ideas, creation of a few professionals who are now everywhere in media and developing a language which changed the spectrum of Hindi media and forced those in power to give respect to vernacular view points and most importantly in the age of marketing where everything is a product fixed by the market, Prabhash Joshi remained an unpurchaseable brand of Indian media.

Caste and Land : Message from Chengara and Khagaria

Caste and Land : Message from Chengara and Khagaria

By Vidya Bhushan Rawat


At the United Nation’s Human Rights Council the member countries, much to the dismay of the faithful Babus of the government of India, passed a resolution terming caste system as a discrimination and violation of human rights. This is an important event though the Human Rights Council off late has become victim of religious right wing elements working in the name of multiculturalism. We all know this council has passed many such resolutions which violate fundamental principal of secularism, freedom of expression and life beyond religious values. However, in terms of issue of caste, one hopes that such resolution will at least force government of India not to oppose such things in future and accept the dark realities of castes in India.

We all know that UN resolutions do not work much. At the end the battle for dignity and equality has to be fought in India and by the people involved. Two important incidents happened in India with far reaching consequences. One was the killing of 16 farmers belonging to Kurmi community allegedly by the Mushahars in Khagaria, Bihar and second the ‘successful’ ‘culmination’ of Chengara land struggle in Kerala. Coming days would be important to understand the ramification of both the incidents.

Khagaria’s killings have been highly unfortunate and need condemnation yet if the reports of radicalization of Mushahars are true then there is a need of introspection.
They remain one of the most isolated and ostracized community in India and there are many such communities who remain completely marginal. They neither have political representation nor know anything of governance structure. The bureaucracy dominated by the caste Hindus do not even consider them as human being. India was among the first countries to have enacted some of the ‘change making’ laws, a secular constitution, equal rights but Indian villages do not portray the same reality of life. In fact, they remain caged in ‘different’ nations where each caste is a nation as described by V.T.Rajshekar, the formidable editor of Dalit voice. These castes do not even talk to each other and the talks of Bahujan and broader Dalit alliance is actually a political construct because very little has been done to culturally integrate with each other. A number of people feel easier to assimilate themselves with caste Hindus then to siding with the other marginalized communities considered to be below them.

And in such a scenario the votaries of Bahujan should understand that their work is much bigger than what they think. By merely chanting anti brahmanical mantra would not work as it has not worked in the absence of discussion the differences between the different communities. One has to understand that in the absence of an ideological clarity no coming together would succeed and would be easily co-opted and misused by the powerful. A mere political coalition would meet the same fate as happened to Mulayam-Maywati coming together and later the efforts by Nitish Kumar in Bihar, who created term Mahadalit to forge a combination with his power community of Kurmis. One need to understand that these political terminologies are more for the consumption of the political class and do not mean anything beyond electoral politics. When the Samajawadi party and BSP came together, it never meant that the Dalits and backward communities particularly the chamars and Yadavs would socialize more. Some people felt but it was not possible unless the backward castes debrahminise themselves. Similar thing happened in Bihar where the Kurmis first thought of Mahadalit as a counter to Muslim-Yadav-Dusadh politics of Laloo and Ramvilas Paswan. In his zeal to divide the Dalits and reap a good harvest, Nitish Kumar appointed a commission to assess the need of the Mahadalits in Bihar. The commission headed by One senior bureaucrat Mr Bandhopadhyaya has submitted its recommendation but the government of Bihar is not keen to present the report in the assembly. Now, the worst things are emerging after Khagaria killings. Initially, the government blamed it on the Naxals but later reports coming in the Indian Express suggested it was an intern caste land dispute and the Mushahars had been demanding land redistribution. The dark fact from UP, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Andhra Pradesh and Tamilnadu are that most of the village land, which is called as government land or Panchayat land in different states, is illegally grabbed the local powerful communities. Hence, when we talk of land reform and implementation of ceiling laws, how the farming communities go jittery and the fictitious unity in the name of Bahujan breaks. The Kurmis have now warned chief Minister Nitish Kumar not to ‘appease’ the Mushahars. ‘How dare they do it?’ The fear among them is that if the Mushahars start questioning about the land ceiling and other acts, then it would be difficult to contain their anger. So for the vote bank the concept of Bahujan bite dust. At the end, it is your caste that matter so if you lose the caste support then the human rights values and all the concerns for the ‘poor dalits’ disappear.

While reports from Bihar suggests concern, another report is emerging from Chengara, in Kerala where the movement for the land rights of the people has culminated in an agreement between the government and Sadhujana Vimochana Samyuktha Vedi led by Laha Gopalan and one can understand how the pink dailies of the country had a sigh of relief terming it one of the biggest victory through Ahimsa in recent years. Even we all know that Laha Gopalan and his organizations had nothing to do with Gandhi, the authors were ready to propagate his movement as that of Gandhian struggle. ‘There is every chance of one getting carried away by the mannerisms of a loser expressed by Laha Gopalan after the discussion on Monday. But, in reality, it was the expression of success in a very peculiar way. Chengara struggle was fought on Ahimsa and won by Ahimsa. The portraits of Buddha and Ambedkar that were seen everywhere in the Chengara struggle heartland were the real driving force behind Laha Gopalan and team. After living in penury for 795 days and sacrificing 13 precious lives, the Sadhhujana Vimochana Samyuktha Vedi could make the Government of Kerala bite the dust. The biggest difference between the Muthanga struggle led by C.K.Janu and Geethanandan and the Chengara struggle led by Laha Gopalan is the result. The Muthanga agitators are still fighting for their promised piece of land while Chengara strikers could fetch a timebound assurance from the Chief Minister that the promises will be fulfilled in three months’ wrote an ‘expert’ in ‘Financial Express’, yesterday.

Now, we all know the Dalits and tribal have been treated worst in the so called left governments whether it is West Bengal or Kerala because they say that they do not belive in caste system hence it does not exist. If people remember well, the way CPI(M) government in Kerala had gone overboard on this issue to avoid a replication of Nandigram. Discussion with activists and friends in Chengara suggest that the government and political parties have done every effort to divide the Dalit movement which was growing and Chengara’s land struggle actually changed the entire situation. For the first time, we witness the Dalits, tribal and other community’s landless people fighting together. They have been altogether these years but now the government’s decision to distribute land has to be seen from a different angle. When everybody of the 1400 odd families fought together for their land right, why is that the compensation is different for different communities. Clear enough, the government and political parties in Kerala are afraid of an independent Dalit-tribal unity. The mainstream political parties always want the Dalits and tribal to be their tail-enders.

Laha Gopalan himself admitted that he was forced to compromise. One has to understand the psychology of the powerful communities in India. All the upper caste forces united under different names in Kerala against Chengara struggle. Even the Christian upper castes of Kottayam and Pathannamitththa were not interested in the struggle. Trade unions ( and our revolutionary friends are very much in owe with the dirty politics of trade unions) joined hand and created a blockade against the people of Chengara. If the Hindutva and Congress created a Salwajudam to get the tribal fight each others in Chhatishgarh, the government of Kerala used trade union of all political parties to create an unlawful blockade against the people of Chengara. One need to see the similar situation which existed in West Bengal when the Sweepers of Howrah municipal corporation, who used to live in 200 years old Belilius park, were thrown away by the state police and none of the political parties in Bengal came in support of these people. Over 7000 families are living in utter humiliation in West Bengal. Every time, one visit to such a state, it does not look different then Gujarat if you want to speak a language different than the CPM people.

Hence the newspapers may write about a victory of Chengara struggle but it is a careful manipulation by the government. It has already asked three months time to give the Dalits and tribal some land. Problem arise, when they are already occupying land which is actually government land as the state must redistribute the ceiling surplus land, where else they can send these people. The land supposed to be given to these people in lieu of leaving the Harrison Plantation would be abysmally low and will not alter any power equations in Kerala. Moreover, activists doubt the availability of land in Kerala. If government is really bothered it must redistribute land in Kerala. Lot of talks about redistribution and ‘progressive’ ‘communist’ government in Kerala but the fact of the matter is the Dalit-Adivasi assertion in Kerala has been successfully countered by the mainstream political parties. First they sidelined Gauri Amma, a powerful backward caste leader and now Laha Gopalan has been successfully brought to the so-called negotiation table to give them peanuts. Perhaps, the Marxists are full of new ideas where they can send these people to different locations and destroy the movement. Activists are fearing that a police action is eminent as there are different fractions in Chengara and not all would like to leave the place. Secondly, none of them know where they will get the plot of land. It is unlikely that people would leave the place without getting rehabilitation.

Both the Bihar and Kerala experience shows how the governments which are in power have used particular ideological formulations to build their own political empire and how they manipulate people’s sentiments. Such stories are emerging from everywhere and they will always happen as long as the movements are not democratic and their leaders embedded with a particular formulation dictate their fancies to the people. The condition of both the Dalits and Adivasis remain a matter of concern in all these states whether they come to power in the name of social justice or Marxism.

When those who claim to stick to the values of social justice and power to proletariat find it difficult to implement land reform and succumb to big industrial houses, hand over state forest, land and water to these big companies without asking the local people and their Panchayats, the impact would be wider and people are not going to sit silently. Governments over the years, have flouted norms developed by them including famous Samatha Judgment where the Supreme Court fixed up guidelines to take permission from the local tribal Panchayats. Yet, the political class continues on selling spree without any shame.

India’s power politics goes via land and participation in power. Land is the most important tool in bringing radical changes in our social structure based on hierarchical values. Historically Dalits have been denied right to own property and access to land. Adivasis had their land in the forest yet isolated and illegally grabbed by local feudal castes. Now the companies have their eyes on it. The political class is using the majoritarian parliamentary system for the benefit of its use, making leaders as messiah who distributes hard cash and liquor during the polls. The depressing scenario is that most of them have billions of rupees to use foul practices to get elected. The democratic system has failed resulting in utter chaos. If those in power use ‘sama, dama, dand, bhed, to destroy people’s movement, there will be further chaos as people are not going to leave their places and it will be a leaderless condition everywhere, very difficult to contain. Hopefully, those who believe in social justice and power to the people, would do the needful, at least justifying their ideology when they are in power. Both Bihar and Kerala need to act immediately, implement land ceiling laws fairly. There will be opposition to it by powerful communities, political interest groups but then international and national laws can not be circumvented to make a few communities and their political leaders happy at the cost of social justice and human rights.

Forgotten Hero : Dashrath Majhi

A legends family languishes in Hunger

By Vidya Bhushan Rawat


Almost three years after the death of legendary Dashrath Majhi, a visit to the landmark created by the ‘Pahad purush’ i.e. mountain man in Dashrath Nagar, Gehlaur (Gaya) in Bihar makes one wonder how the government’s forgets their promises? The man who hailed from Mushahar community is today revered as Pahad baba. Those who have seen the primitive conditions of Mushahars and their persistent marginalization, they would certainly vouch that the recognition and acknowledgement of the work done by one among them, will go to rejuvenate the community and bring it to the life back. One does not know these facts but Dashrath Majhi’s work might make a fascinating story for young minds and the importance of commitment for a cause.

On August 17th, 2007, when Dashrath Majhi, 70, died of a prolonged illness and the Nitish Kumar government of the time took care of his treatments in AIIMS, Delhi, it looked that they would honor the words given to Dashrath Majhi and his villagers. Not only this, Baba, as Dashrath Majhi, is reverently addressed in the entire area, was asked what should be done for him. ‘Yes, we will provide 5 acres of land to your family’, the chief minister had promised. Baba that time said he did not anything for him but ‘build’ a hospital for the village. After the death of Baba, the government named the road that Baba cut through the huge mountain as Dashrath Majhi Road and the village as Dasharath Nagar. A temple is being constructed in the name of Baba which is called as Ghat.

Born in a deeply poverty entrenched family of Mangaru Majhi and Pattiya Devi in the Gahlor Ghati which was surrounded by the mountains and no connectivity of roads to the nearest town, Baba saw the difficulties of people living in Gehlor Ghati. His wife would go along with others to get water mounting the difficult terrain. He saw tremendous pain of inability for those who needed medical aid and old folks who found it difficult to climb the hill to reach the other side. The other way to reach the nearest town was by road which was about 75 kilometer. It was nearly impossible. Baba decided himself that they need some one way to reduce this and it was only possible if he would cut through the mountain and will make way for every one. While the governance was absent in the village and there was no way for the community to speak to political class to provide them roads and infrastructure. And one can understand what would have been the situation in 1960 when there were not much money and political power was still in the hands of dominant communities. So Dasharath must have felt that the only way to overcome this hurdle was to take some initiative and do the work. Hence then one fine day in 1960 he started his work. The pains and agony of people strengthened his determination particularly as his wife too had to face tremendous problems during these days. With shovel in hand, he started digging the mountains. Actually, Mushahars of the region depended a lot on stone cutting as it is their main source of livelihood. But Baba was not much doing it for commercial gains as he was keen on reducing the difficulties of his fellow villagers. It was a herculean task. The family never liked, the villagers called him mad. ‘How will this man cut such a rocky mountain? Has he gone mad? Does he has no other work to do? What is he doing”, were the scornful questions thrown at Baba. But Dasharath Majhi was determined and just did not care for these remarks. It is not that he was cutting the mountain from morning till evening. Actually, for him it was an additional work, as he had to support his family and it would have been impossible if he was not working on land or cutting stone for his survival. Whenever, he was without work or holidays, he would start cutting the stones himself. No body came to support him. He did not have the tools to cut big rocky stones; neither had he had money, the only thing that was with him, ‘courage and determination, against all the odds which exist in our communities. It was a complete madness towards his work and to relieve people from hardship.

Slowly some of the people realized that he was really into it, so they would help him with voluntary work for time to time. It is rather strange that the government and its authorities were completely unmindful of his work. It shows why a major part of India is still out of governance and people have to depend on their own self for their development. Such a major work was done by a man and his community and yet it remained unseen, unheard, unreported and unchecked. Yet, Baba completed his task by 1982 by cutting about 300 meter long and 25 ft wide mountain and therefore converting the distance of 75 kilometer to just 1 kilometer and it became easier particularly those on cycles and motor bikes to take their elderly people to the nearest town for medical aid. Today, you see streams of people using the way. Women going to forest, getting grass for their pets while motor bikers, cyclists and other villagers are using this path. And this has reduced their burden and pains. Today, Baba has slipped into folklore as a folk hero as people are constructing a temple for him. A local organization has painted the rock on the way saying that legendary Dashrath Majhi completed this herculean task of linking Ghivra mauja of Dashrath Nagar, in Gehlaur Ghati to Atara Prakhand, Wajirganj by reducing the distance from 75 kilometer to just one kilometer, in 22 years.

But after three years of death, none of the promises made by the Bihar government have been fulfilled. Baba’s lonely son Bhagirath is a physically challenged man. His daughter in law, Basanti Devi suffers from physical disability. Baba’s daughter Lavangi Devi too lives in the house along with others as they have a small semi constructed house. Daughter in law Basanti Devi cook mid day meal in the nearby primary school while her husband Bhagirath get Rs 200/- pension every month but not because of any love for Baba but for ‘disability’ reasons. The total land they got was about 1.5 acre which they got along with other villagers long back.

While the family now knows that their Baba was not just a useless mad man but did something for the society yet Basanti Devi was not amused, ‘He did nothing for us. What have we got from his work? Our children are starving and no way to educate them. The government promised us 5 acre land but it never came’. One can understand the frustration of the family members as for them the issue of the survival of their children is more important. Though they know that Baba did wonder yet they feel that the government has not really honored its words. Somewhere they feel that Baba would have asked more from the government so that they could have lived a better life.
Their Indira Awas is still incomplete. The huts are not enough to keep the family better. In one side, the family keeps the photographs of Dasharath. His son and daughter and their children live together though cook separately. Yet, they are hoping against hope as people come and seek their interview.

The situation is pathetic and though the area is open and wide yet a community can not live on ‘fresh air’. It needs work. The road network is now being developed in the area. But one wonder how long will it take. Not many efforts by the government to change the life of the people. No medical assistance, no proper school for the children.Baba’s grand daughter Lakhsmi who is nearly 15 ( I could say less than that) is a married girl. She could not get admission to Kasturba Balika Vidyalaya. She does not know why but most of the children complained about that. She can just read and write and perhaps completed her Vth standard.


The children are hungry and asking for more. The mother beat them for lack of food and virtually annoying. The house is incomplete and in a mess. Tears rolls down from Basanti Devi as she starts talking about Baba and narrate their own plight.’ People come here, ask about Baba, his work and passion, but we remain the same’. We have nothing to eat. I do not know what to tell people about Baba but if they want to see how government honors people, they can see our conditions.’ Actually, after Nitish Kumar government honored Baba, a lot of media hype was created added with Maha Dalit slogan of Bihar government. Nitish had actually called Dashrath Majhi to Patna and asked him to sit in front of him said his son Bhagirath. They were elated at this respect shown by the most powerful man of Bihar but then little did they know that politicians will do everything to gain political gains. Mushahars may not matter as voters for them but honoring Dashrath Majhi gave tremendous good will of the Dalit communities in Bihar.

The village of Dashrath Majhi need a facelift. It need not only electricity and proper road network which is coming up but also development of the community. Often, social activists working among Mushahars, blame them for their laziness and social attitude, but a man called Dashrath Majhi has given example how legends can come from any community. It is time that Bihar government honor its promises made to Dashrath Majhi, take care of the entire Mushahar community, provide them alternative livelihood and make life of Dashrath Majhi as part of the school text books. If the government of Bihar is really sincere towards its promises, it should initiate special schemes for Mushahars in the name of Dashrath Majhi and create more schools with special reference for the poor children, apart from a full fledged government hospital. That would be the best tribute to the man who moved mountain for the benefit of fellow human being and epitomize the tremendous will of human spirit.

Freedom for justice or freedom from Ideologies.

Crisis of ideology or war of fear from freedom

By Vidya Bhushan Rawat


‘You mother f….r, how dare you write about implementing ceiling laws in the Tarai region of Uttarakhand. We will take enough care if you dare to come here’, came a response to my article on my blog written after the completion of the padyatra related to land issues in Uttarakhand.

Such responses are not new to me as they keep coming. ‘ I have not read an idiotic article like this’, was a response to my review article on Telengana in mynews.in yesterday. Another one wrote, ‘ how much money are you getting in to divide Hindu society’.. you are fortunate enough that you are not born in China and Pakistan, he wrote, otherwise you would have seen what could have done to you..

Just a few years back during the anti Mandal agitation initiated by the caste Hindus in the AIIMS, Delhi, I got a number of hate mail at the CNN-IBN blogs as perhaps I was among very few to question their ‘meritocracy’. ‘You beggar quotawallah, go beg at Connaught place first, then seek a reserve job’, wrote some one. Times of India mentioned it as ‘apartheid’ against ‘poor’ upper caste. It is a discrimination against the upper caste, it intended to say.

Is there a problem in our thinking process ? Are we not ready to accept diversent view point ? And whose divergent view point as at the end of the day, there are ideologies and perceptions which force us to act violently against those we disagree. Hence, a Taslima is unwelcome as she is threat to Islam, M.F. Hussein, at the age of 90, has become a ‘threat’ to our omnipotent-omnipresent gods. Children are killed when they dare to marry against their parental desires. Dalits are killed if their raise their head and claim to be equal national of the country.

Therefore it is important to understand as what is the attitudinal or ideological problem with Indians? Are they afraid of ideologies? Do they take shelter in fake ideological constructs and live in their own world. The biggest problem with them is that they live in double standard. They speak two languages, one for their children and different for outsider. So a majority of the high profile ‘ideologues’ could not sale Marxism and Maoism to their children, then why they are selling the same to the tribal, I debated. ‘Oh no, our children are separate. We can not decide about them. They have their freedom, why do you want them to be controlled’, they say. ‘But then why you want to control others’. ‘You give everything to your children’s growth’, look for Its, finding space for them in US and UK, why, I said. ‘Oh, that is not to be debated. How can we do that? Mulayam Singh, the great disciple of Lohia wanted English to be boycotted so he sent his son Akhilesh to Doon school and then to Australia. Late Charan Singh condemned computer education and modern sciences as threat to agriculture, hence Ajit Singh went to United States to study computer sciences when computer was unheard thing in India. Clear enough, in this double standard, we sale Marxism, socialism, Hinduism, Christianity and Maoism to tribal and capitalism to our children. You see most of the Hindutva ideologues actually came from the best college of Delhi called St Stephens College.

Who were two biggest dissenters in Indian social system. The first was Buddha and thousands of years later it was Ambedkar. And since accepting dissent is not a part of any of these traditions which claims to revolutionary or uniting Hindus or political ideology of the day, we find attack against them in each and every form. Buddha Viharas were attacked and Buddhists were annihilated. Ambedkar was scorned at for ‘dividing’ Hindus and termed as a very ‘ordinary’ scholar.

‘ No, neither Buddha, nor Ambedkar can help the Dalits, only Marx can help them, wrote Rang Nayakamma, an old upper caste romantic of communism in Andhra Pradesh in her book ‘For the solution of caste question’. How many of these revolutionaries staged a battle against social evils in India. If that is not important for them, then why they expect the Dalits to join them. Rang Nayakamma wrote passionately like Arun Shourie, against Ambedkar.

She blamed Ambedkar as why it took him so long for converting to Buddhism. Why Ambedkar attacks Marx and glorify Buddha. In the entire book, Rangnaykamma’s brahmanical past is visible even when she can claim to be a Marxist and that has been the problem with most of the upper caste Marxists who remain arrogant to their brahmanical roots. For them, a shudra does not have the intellect. Even when the Hindutva’s saffron brigade is busy in social engineering, the brahmanical Marxist have not been able to provide Dalits a space in their scheme of things. Writes Nayakamma in her chapter ‘ Caste Question : Ambedkar has changed religion ( page 407), ‘ The moment he start writing, there began a baseless confidence in Ambedkar that is a great intellectual. There emerged a kind of false logic namely, ‘whatever, I wrote is logic’. This is the true story of brahmanical Marxists whose problem with Ambedkar is that he gave Dalits an understanding to assert themselves. Who knows Nayakammas and all those who have great appreciation for her ‘radical’ views can understand that her writings are pure brahmanical frustration because of growing Dalit assertion. That assertion is not really visible among the tribal and that is the reason the brahmanical revolutionaries are leading them. She goes on to condemn those who admire ambedkar saying that ‘ Biographers of Ambedkar glorified every aspect of his research, however inconsistent and haphazard it may have been. There is not a single instance where they raised the question namely, ; what is this argument’? what kind of research is this?

She further writes in Vartha, a Telugu daily (quoted in her book): Since Ambedkar was favorable to the exploitation of labour, all his Dalit disciples too took the same path and ‘turned their faces away’ from Marxism. It is such a stupid path that makes them incapable of knowing whether they are doing good or harm to themselves’.( page 421)

Many of us know how veteran Sharad Patil has been writing for long the theory of Buddha, Phule, Ambedkar Marx philosophy as a remedy to current situation in India. How do you do it with the current short of Marxists in India who do not want to share, who remain ‘consistent’ in their condemnation of Ambedkar. Why Arun Shourie and Rangnayakmma hate Ambedkar. Is it because, Ambedkar’s Dalits have charted their path on their own and not through the farcical brahmanical revolution? And yes, it does not mean condemning Marx but they will simply not make a God of Marx like the Marxists have done. Ofcourse, Ambedkarite Dalits can not accept Gandhism and its so-called virtues as way to their salvation. Actually right from left, right, centre, Hindutva or missionary variety, in their action they did not have time to speak up against the exploitation of labour in the villages and caste dimension of it. Instead, Hindutva ideologue people like Shourie calls him a British supporter while so called Marxist like Rangnakamma blame him for supporting the exploiter. Can there be any truth in such vicious campaign and propaganda? Yes Ambedkar condemned three classes which he says British, Brahmin and Bania and the real meanings of these should be understood. By British he meant imperialist forces, Brahmin symbolizing brahmanical Hinduism and Bania, he meant capitalism. How can any one suggest that Ambedkar did not speak against capitalism. Those who have read him know that he wanted to nationalized land. Now was that a capitalist agenda? He formed Indian Labour party, Depressed Classes, Republic party of India.. where did he put caste identity in focus in these. Did he deny any class or caste entry in his movement ?

Marx has been a great revolutionary and his vision still stand for an equitable society. But why Marxist hate Buddha and then Ambedkar is beyond understanding. If Buddha waged relentless war against superstition and caste system, why should not Indian follow him? After all, Buddha was born much before Marx. How did the caste Hindus kill both Buddha and Marx together in their pursuit for power? One has to understand the tribal question deeply as why the tribal leadership is unable to emerge and in the name of tribal liberation it is the brahmanical forces which are dominant in the region. ‘They can not fight their own battle, said a friend, so these revolutionaries are there. Why can not tribal fight their own battle when they had a Birsa Munda who revolted against the British.

The other day, an ideologue from Andhra said on Times Now,’ the Maoists are like Bhagat Singh, fighting against state repression’. It is tragic to do such a comparison that easily. Bhagat singh had never justified violence and in fact wrote about the issue of untouchability as the biggest challenge to our society. Secondly, Bhagat Singh never lived in double standard. At the age of 23, he went to gallows and scolded his parents who wanted to get pardon from the British. Who had the courage to openly claim himself as an atheist and demolish all the religious symbolism from his body? In fact, that is the problem with our modern day Gandhian historians that they never considered anybody else for contributing to our freedom struggle, other than Gandhi and his followers. Bhagat Singh was just branded as gun trotting revolutionary and not an ideologue who defended freedom and secular values. They do not feel that Bhagat Singh while fighting against British imperialism concentrated on our own weaknesses of caste system, untouchability and communalism.

The other day, some human rights activists claimed that state is killings hundreds of people and we must speak against them. But who stops human rights activists to not to speak against those who are killing the innocent. ‘No, in the war these things are justified, they say. Fine, in the war, the state will also use its might and that too is justified despite human rights activists like us asking the police and military to follow norms, but practically where have these norms followed in war? Redcross, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, all know it well that human rights are violated heavily in arms conflict. Their pressure makes a lot of things during no war period but during war, only the gun speaks.

Problem is that brahminism in India has various roots to survive. It is monster and has different forms. Some where it survives through pure Manuwaad, we all know, the gangs of Hindutva and their cousins elsewhere. It comes through socialism, it come through communism, it come through all shorts of ism including the Dalits themselves. How is that every perception in India failed because of this. Reason is that India needed social revolution and we opted for political one. I do not say that only caste matter (Ofcourse it is the most important aspect) and class too matters. Why can not our friend take both as Ambedkar visualized in his famous work ‘ thought on Pakistan’ when he said that ‘Hindu Rastra would be a calamity’.

Problem is that in the human rights discourse, we are conveniently using ideological slants for our purposes. Hence those who are not with left leanings become a right wing. If you are not with RSS then you are seculars, communists and what not. I am proud to be a secular whether they want to use it in negative term or something else. The problem is that none of them appreciate freedom. Some keep conspicuous silence when Taslima speaks, while others want to raise the issue of MF Hussein and his paintings. The issue of Satanic verses would be raised by one set of freedom fighters while others would demand a ban on riddles of Hinduism written by Ambedkar. So, whenever the opportunity comes closed mind will not allow this freedom. That is why, Ambedkar is a problem for all the closed mind. Ambedkar was essentially a modern man, a liberal democrat who could not close his eyes to global changes. He was a free thinker who challenged the supremacy of the religious text books. He knew that Indian society has no respect for individual and he believed in it and perhaps these are things which were not liked by those people who lionize a particular ideology, do not believe in individual freedom and have nothing to offer to demolish the age old prejudices and our very indigenous capitalist order entirely based on your identities.

This article is not against a particular short of ideology. It is basically on issues that in the name of ideologies, we are justifying everything, human pain and agony. How can it be in a modern democracy where each life should be considered precious? For those in authorities, it is prudent that the ideology need a counter ideology. If development fail to reach to the people, if social justice is not there in our villages, if India still remain caged to feudal mindset, if our village resources, our rivers, our mountains are on sale on throw away prices then Mr Chidambaram and his team will have to do a lot of soul searching.

Step out side Raipur and you will see the big companies lining up in Chhatishgarh. Jindal tops the list with thousands of hectares of land being granted to them for mining. Hundreds others are there to ‘develop’ Chhatishgarh. Tribals remain sandwiched between the two. They have lost their land. Chhatishgarh is being colonized now by the non Chhatishgarhis, big companies and Babas and sadhus. And where are the poor? Mr Chidambaram would do well to take a round in the city of Raipur’s famous Rajkumar college in the morning hours and watch the irony of large cue of people waiting to defecate in open even when there is a Sulabh Shauchalaya. It means that people can buy rice at one rupee kilogram but no money to defecate as the charges in the public toilet are higher then the price of rice in the state.

Where ever the political set up failed non democratic forces took up. The tribal who have been exploited for years gets new hope in those who give them ‘instant’ justice. There is a Vth schedule of constitution where you need permission of the village panchayat for starting any new private ventures? But how many times have the government cared to speak to them. So, the result is growing disenchantment among them. They have lost their habitat and without addressing the basic issue of land, forest and water, the government would not be able to tackle whole issue. Those who have isolated the tribal population must be made answerable to them. In the meanwhile, each one of the revolutionaries from Hindutva’s saffron gangs to Christian Missionaries to Naxals, will sandwich tribal except from the tribal themselves. Each one of them consider themselves as ‘protecting’ tribal from ‘outside’ influence but at the end of day none of them actually belong to tribal themselves. It is time when we address the issues of the people’s exploitation without being indulged in the ‘greatness’ of ideologies. Greatness of ideologies lies in the emancipation of human being and not on controlling their minds. Let us defend the human rights of all but let not human rights become instrument for those who spread hatred and violence.

On the other side which is equally darker, let not the ‘threat’ of terrorism become an instruments to violate human rights of the people. Let not every padyatra, slogan, publication which question the motives of the government become a target of security agencies in the name of ‘fight against terror’. It is a very delicate battle and the responsibility on the state is higher as on the human rights activists too. The more you oppress the common man, the bigger will be the fascination for ‘revolution’.

It is time we speak against oppression and for human rights. Let us condemn violence in unequivocal term. It is time we rise up against social injustice. The seeds of social democracy should reach each part of the civilization. Let ideologies not become bigger than the human liberty. Let human right discourse does not become good or bad because of a personal perception based on basic political principals and conditioning of our mind, after all, the movement for social justice, the principals of human rights too came from hard core struggles of the masses. It is time we accept criticism with open heart. Speak against the perception and not on individual. Those who believe that only ideology can counter ideology must come up with ideological arguments to spread their ideology. With a gun in hand to promote their ‘democratic’ ideas would not work and will definitely not do justice to millions of those whose name this entire battle is being fought.

The Great Betrayal of Telangana

Review Article


The Great Betrayal of Telangana

Is the Manipulations and caste politics root of the betrayal of the cause of Telangana

By Vidya Bhushan Rawat


One of the most important struggles for a separate state in India is definitely that of Telangana state. Unfortunately, immediately after partition, when the state of Hyderabad merged into Indian Union, various new states were being formed or re-formed on the basis of languages. Big states like Madras, Hyderabad were recreated on the basis of languages. So part of Telugu speaking areas in erstwhile Madras state and other areas from the state of Nizam formed the part of new Andhra.

The history of Telangana’s movement lies in its struggle against the autocratic Nizam who sucked the blood of its Telugu populace and was not willing to accede to Indian union against the wishes of the majority of its people. Hence, when the new state were being formalised, the issue of Telangana ceded to the Telugu maître of maha Andhra issue simply because the political parties and their leaders succumbed to the temptation of their caste politics, ofcourse, in the name of linguistic affinity. I know such facts are not accepted in politics but anybody can guess the politics of Andhra Pradesh in the post independent era is actually the politics of power grab between two powerful communities of Reddy and Kamma.

Therefore it is tragic that a movement so popular and widespread could not culminate into the formation of a new state. Who are the forces responsible for this? Why Telengana is still a far away dream? Have the political class betrayed the cause of telengana? What about the cultural movement? Why have the intellectuals and social activists of Telengana remained mute? If not why were they not able to translate people’s anger into a focused movement for the formation of a new state? These are questions which the authors of this book are looking. ‘ Civil society is yet to create the intellectual tool and action plans that can distinguish people’s politics from power politics’ says the authors of the book,’ Telangana : The state of Affairs’.

The editors acknowledge that there is very little information about Telangana in other languages as well as outside Andhra Pradesh. ‘One drawback is that most of the available material in print about Telangana can only be accessed by readers in Telugu’, they write. That brings us to a new point which I consider as a draw back of this book or may be of that of Telangana movement. The reason for my discomfort is that there is not a single chapter devoted to the demand for autonomy in other parts of the country. It is natural for people who have been left on the margins to call for a separate state and for more fiscal autonomy. Telangana was not the first one to demand for it. It will not be the last one. We all know how the anti Hindi agitation in Tamilnadu in the 1950s and 1960s shook entire India. The fact is very clear that Tamilnadu had a distinct identity and it aspired for it and did not succumb to the pressure of the central leadership. It resulted in a unique situation of this state that except for a brief period, Tamilnadu rejected the national parties and powerful castes. It is another matter that the less powerful castes now have become more powerful and replicating the brahmanical ‘wisdom’ in Tamilnadu but that is another matter of discussion at a separate place. Andhra’s politics remained loyal to strong Centre. In fact it provided strength to Congress party and its leadership in Delhi. Andhra Pradesh got that symptom very late in the formation of Telugu Desham but the fact is that the formation of Telugu Desham was not really a demand for more autonomy to Andhra but more as a counter to the Reddy domination of Congress Party. Till that period, Andhra’s Reddy’s dominated the political discourse and occupied all the space including the so-called revolutionary space. One has nothing against them in person but the fact that such a monopoly over the political cultural space in Andhra Pradesh resulted in doom of the politics of marginalized in AP. In the past 15 years the Kamma, Reddy dominated Andhra Pradesh has witnessed significant marginalization of the Dalits, Adivasis and backward classes. Both Chandra Babu Naidu and YSR Rajshekar Reddy became big magnet and darling of the upper caste media and corrupt business companies. The tragedy of the entire state is that no credible leadership has emerged from the marginalised communities and even the social movements have been hijacked by the powerful communities. The result is that Mao and Marx have failed by the brahmanical system and their deep rooted caste conspiracy to sideline everything that come in their way.

That gives rise to my question. How come a leader of another power community called Velma, lead the voices of the marginalized in Telengana. Since Telangana remained part of the Nizam and even the left wing forces fought battle for independence the communalization of Telangana is not ruled out. Hence, it is an ideal ground for the Hindutva forces. One must not feel that BJP is not present in Telengana. The agenda of Hindutva does not lie with a particular party. Their agenda is to Hinduise the political parties and we have seen that systematic Hindutvaisation of the political parties in India who works on the agenda of the Sangh Parivar. Narsimha Rao’s connections with the Sangh parivar dates back from the days of anti Nizam struggle in the region. The dominant party of Telangana joined hand with everyone from BJP to Congress for its pursuit to power but could not force them to accede to its demand for a separate state when they were in power in centre. Now the Congress actually rubbished them and got a majority of seats in the last Vidhan Sabha elections in May 2009.

So consolidation of all the ‘Hindu’ votes against a Muslim challenge could bring some more vote to powerful party of Telengana but at the end of the day defeat the very purpose of the movement. Any movement is the result of the marginalization and ostracisation of communities. In the case of Telengana, it is basically Dalits and other marginalized. Similarly Chhatishgarh, Jharkhand were tribal states and remained marginalized under the Madhya Pradesh and Bihar. Uttarakhand’s case is different. It was a mountain state and the Pahadis were considered to be inferior in not only Delhi but also in other parts of Uttar-Pradesh. Little funds were allocated for educational and other developmental programmes. A majority of Netas and ministers hailed from the Uttar-Pradesh were least bothered about hills as they were not able to influence the power politics of an elephantine state of Uttar-Pradesh. Yet, not all Pahadis were equal in socio-economic status, as the Brahmins of Uttarakhand actually were among the most powerful in India. Some of these Brahmin families ruled Uttar-Pradesh hence leader became bigger then the state and the cause of the state remained marginalized. It is not a tragedy that the biggest obstacle of the Uttarakhand state was Narain Dutt Tiwari but he was imposed on a state which did not fight elections under him. So, the brahmanical leadership is actually powerful in denigrating others and creating artificial differences in the name of religion, region and castes.

Demand for autonomy has been one of the major reasons of discontent in India. Right from Kashmir to North Eastern regions like Nagaland, Manipur, Meghalaya states have been demanding more autonomy and freedom. Punjab suffered a lot under it. However, there is a wider difference between these movements for autonomy is that while movements for self determination in Kashmir, Manipur and Nagaland, yet a good linkage to understand the issues of the people and their voices for freedom and autonomy.

In the chapter ‘Subregionalism in India : The case of Telangana’, Duncan B Forrester, says “ it remains true that it is not possible to distinguish Telangana sharply from the rest of Andhra Pradesh in terms of caste’. He writes : ‘ Non Brahmin feeling was never as strong in the Telugu Country as in Tamilnadu, but nevertheless Brahmin dominance was gradually challenged by rising non Brahmin castes, particularly, the Kammas, and Reddies who tended initially to support justice party and the Andhra Movement, finding themselves at loggerheads with each other only after setting up of Andhra Pradesh in 1953.’

Actually, a comparison would have helped analyse things much better how certain powerful communities dominates each state. So whether you get a state or not, the question is that we are imposing a democratic value system on a society which remain highly antidemocratic and feudal. Hence The issue of mulkis and non mulkis is evident in other parts of the country. Uttarakhand never got the right due from Uttar-Pradesh. Since the region had only 25 seats and the contempt for the people of uttarakhand was high.. Vidarbha is complaining the same from Maharastra, Darjeeling asking for its right from West Bengal, Bodos are asking the same from Assam and Chhatishgarh had similar problem with Madhya Pradesh and Jharkhand always remained undeveloped under Bihar. Leaders became bigger than the movement.

A number of activist friends from Telangana always claimed to have a unique ‘cultural’ difference between Telangana and Andhra Pradesh. However, these distinctions exists every where including those states which have been created in past 10 years.

I however disagree with the point that ‘subregional conflicts can break down caste political solidarity in a different way and force state politics to concern itself not so much with balancing the claims of significant caste groups as with balancing the claims of various areas with in the state to equality of treatment, particularly in economic development. Actually the article was written by the author in the late sixties and that time the popular media and popular intellectual discourse was divided between Congress and the left forces. That time any talk of the Dalits and Adivasis or backward communities was considered as ‘caste’ approach. However, witnessing the degradation of the Marxian principals hijacked by the upper caste landlords, one can easily say that a new caste identity of the Dalits and backward communities along with Adivasis is the need of the hour to save the Telangana movement being hijacked by the same forces as happened with other states particularly in Uttarakhand, Jharkhand and Chhatishgarh. In all these states, the forces of Hindutva were the first to do the social engineering while the social strata of the self proclaimed revolutionaries remained highly feudal and upper caste. One can not shy away from the fact that the leadership of the Telangana movement largely drawn strength from specific communities with the Dalit communities simply jumping in their bandwagon without focusing on the issue of their identity.

N.Venugopal in his essay ‘ Demand for separate Telangana Towards Understanding the Core issues, has pointed out the regional inequalities. He explained the Telangana struggle in historical perspective. He argues the inequalities during the Nizam’s period against the Telugu Speaking people as well as Kannada speaking people. I think we make mistake here too. A number of Muslims living in Telangana regions have not benefited from the Nizam’s rule. A few of them might have got benefit in the name of their religion but majority of them remained under the poverty line. The biggest damage to the cause of Telangana was caused by the power elite of Andhra Pradesh which hobnobbed with Congress party at the centre. It brings us back to question that castes matter a lot in India. So, for the power elite of Andhra Pradesh, Telangana cropped up only according to convinence and not really a matter of conviction.

The historical cultural evolution of Telangana is not reflected outside Andhra Pradesh. The activists feel they are special but they should also understand that the communist fighters fought against Nizams, so were many other forces. Like any other movement in India, in Telengana too, no efforts were made to understand the discontents among the Dalits against the upper caste leadership of the movement. While the leaders hobnobbed with power elites and played with the sentiments of the people, it is important to understand the feeling M Bharat Bhushan in his analysis mention that initially it might have been a movement against resistance and crossed caste, class and religion differences but it looks today that ‘movement’ by political class is basically to monopolise the power structure, resorting emotional blackmail, non people means of the movement which he says are political one upmanship, Unpredictability of the political class, but I would prefer to use the term ambiguity of the political class is another reason for inability to get a separate state. So Bharat is right in saying that a Telengana for TRS may be different than what a large number of activists think. Like activists who died for the cause of Uttarakhand, Jharkhand and Chhatishgarh today feel betrayed as the leadership in these states remains the hands of status quoists. Most of the chief ministers that Uttarakhand have so far, whether under BJP or Congress are Brahmins who constitute not more than 20% of the population. The Chief Ministers in Chhatishgarh is a non tribal at the moment.
There is no guarantee that such things will not happen in Telangana if state comes into being. That the elected representatives become more loyal to their party and party leaders then to their constituents. If there is any uniqueness of Telangana struggle then the activists, students, academics should join hand and start a social movement. The voices of marginalized should lead the movement of Telangana. If a separate Telangana have the same order as existed in Andhra Pradesh, I am afraid it would become more dangerous than Andhra Pradesh. Let me put some more points for cause of three states that were carved out. Uttarakhand came into being because BJP wanted a state where upper caste interests remain intact as people were unhappy with the Mandal commission recommendations. It was essentially a movement against Mandal Commission Reports that resulted in building of Uttarakhand state. Chhatishgarh and Jharkhand were created to facilitate the World Bank and transnational corporations. Since Andhra government was already facilitating things for the neo liberal policies, there was no need for a separate state here. One has to understand the factor that the day any government creates problems for facilitation of SEZs or SAZs, the power games would offer you a separate state in platter.

Telangana’s marginalized people have suffered a lot from the hands of the power elite of Andhra. In an article ‘Do elections foster separatism : The case of Telangana’ written by Dean E McHenry suggest if he goes by the election results of 2004 assembly elections and 2006 Karimnagar byeelection when Telangana Rastra Samiti members overwhelmingly got support from the masses. But I have not ready to take this argument the reason for separatism. The original demand for separate state is caused by a variety of issues such as socio-economic marginalization, cultural gaps and continuous exploitation of resources. As revealed in the book itself how Telangana produced more revenue and how the State Reorganisation Committee Report was rejected by the government.

As far as the book is concern, it contains very important documents, articles and annexures which I have seen for the first time. Stories such as Golla Ramavva written by PV Narsimha Rao and Land by Allam Rajayya are also part of it. However, I would definitely have loved if such stories are reproduced which comes from the communities themselves. People like Narsimha Rao were proclaimed intellectuals but at the end of the day they contributed very little for the cause of Telangana and its culture. It is important to note that mere by being born in a region does not make a person concerned about its identity. Rao presided over a communal regime in Delhi(despite being a congress person), opened up India’s land for the grab by the international companies as well as our own feudal lords in the name of ‘globalisation’, just to counter the growing assertion and awareness among the Dalits and marginalized in the post Mandal era’s India.

The annexures contains State Re-organisation Commissions Report, Gentlemen agreement in 1956, Six point formula issued on September 21st, 1973 by Andhra politicians, article 371D i.e. special provisions with respect to Andhra Pradesh, Order of Government of Andhra Pradesh in 1975 on the issue of recruitment of local cadres. All these information are very relevant to understand the crisis of Telangana. They are important document which reflect clearly how the cause of Telangana was betrayed by the people in power. It is important that such documents need to be analysed fairly so that generations may know how the issue of backwardness of a region is tackled by our political class and how the ambition of a few makes way for the miseries of the majority.

The Telangana debate must continue. Even if political Telangana is not there, let there be efforts to develop the socio-cultural values of Telangana. It is time to know who betrayed of the cause of Telengana state in the struggle for which 370 students and youths were killed in the police firing, and for the loss of academic year in 1969. If the state could not become a reality then time is to fix responsibility. That can only happen if there is a movement which has mass support and which is not based on sentiments but positive thought of what makes Telangana and its people different than Andhra people despite their common language and common castes? Can we expect that Telangana will not have the politics of the domination of two or three power communities in like Andhra? If the Andhra dominant theory is repeated here in Telangana, then there is no point fighting for such a state as it would be more damaging to the cause of the people of Telangana.

This book can be termed as good beginning for people like me who are far away from the living realities of Telangana but who were always fascinated by the people’s struggle of Telangana. Definitely it is an entry point for all those who wish to understand socio-cultural crisis of Telangana and its polity. One hope that the authors will not end with this only and will bring more such volumes so that people get evidence based information on the issue of Telangana and may understand its uniqueness.



Telangana : The State of Affairs
Editors : M Bharath Bhushan
N. Venugopal
Published in August 2009
Publisher L AdEd Velue Ventures,
Hyderabad
Price : Rs 250
Pages : 210