Shame

Khairlanji verdict expose our national concern on violence against Dalits

By Vidya Bhushan Rawat

Khaurlanji’s verdict is out. The Bombay High court did not find the case rarest of the rare. Though, the Maharastra government is going to challenge the verdict in the Supreme Court and we must wait for the same, the verdict has left most of us who were following the case deeply disappointed. But for me the High Court’s judgment not finding it as rarest of the rare reflect that, such things are happening regularly at different parts of the country and we are habitual offenders of the dignity and self respect of the Dalits in the country. Hence if the ‘honorable’ high courts give capital punishment on ‘such normal things’, then a large number of our friends will have to face gallows. We all know how judiciary is being put to pressure by media and political forces. They will shout loudly over the issues and convert a non issue into a national problem but when the issues which should be discussed and focused the media keeps that for a one minute byte or into the middle pages of their news papers.

We can easily establish how media publicized the issue of Jesica Lal or Ruchira case that their families become ‘social activist’ rather than a respondent and played an activist role asking people to protest and come in the street. How can the same media completely sidelining the case of Khairlanji? Why is this that the issue of boycott of Dalit cooks in Uttar-Pradesh and other parts of the country do not attract the same space as Jessica Lal or Ruchira case? The news of Indians being targeted racially in Australia has always made headlines in almost all the news channels and some of them actually following each and every incidents involving Indians in that country. The size of the news is enormous and many of the reports regarding Indians being racially targeted turned out to be faked. Yet, the outrage is high in this country which takes morally high ground against ‘racial prejudices’ yet the news in its own home turf do not make headlines. It is passed as another incident of ‘violence’ against the Dalits. It is not termed as the basic nature of Indian society which has not been able to digest the fact that we have a constitution that empower each citizen of the country and that the Dalits are equal citizens with equal rights. Our editors do not shout and grin as they do on Maoism or terrorism, that this country should hang its head in shame when children learn to discriminate. We always sang song that the children are innocent and do not believe in the caste system, do not know who is big and who is small but if you read what is happening in different parts of the country including Uttar-Pradesh, then we will have to hang our head in shame. Why don’t we discuss this issue so seriously and take the governments, the officials to task. Why does not it become our campaign against prejudices in our society? Why the feelings of our editors and news reporters are not hurt the same way when they shout on any issue and turn the non issue as a major issue. Well, we have to understand that for these racist, the wedding of Mahendra Singh Dhoni was more important than the racial prejudices of children who refused to eat with Dalit children or refused to eat food cooked by the Dalit cooks at school. Unfortunately, rather than taking action against them, the government seem to buckle under the pressure as if that has hurt the sentiments of the upper caste children. Is it because there is no one speaking for them? Is it because the media has conspicuously kept silent on this issue?

The irony is that a few weeks ago, a UP court asked police to file cases against some of the ministers and publishers of ‘Ambedkar Today’, a journal in Hindi, for ‘hurting’ the sentiments of ‘Hindus’ by writing vitriolic language against their Gods. Some years ago, the activists of Vishwa Shudra Mahasabha in Lucknow, were charged for ‘hurting’ the sentiments of Hindus. Periyar is out of Uttar-Pradesh and its BSP’s icon list as the upper castes do not want him as he is the most famously known Ram bashers. The Hindutva brigade said ‘Ram-drohi’ is desh drohi i.e. anti national. So, writing on any fictitious things hurt the sentiments of others but killing as well as justification of killings and discrimination does neither hurt our sentiments nor compel us introspecting our literature and religious texts. ‘How can they hurt our sentiments, traditions given to us by our ancestors’, said a supporter of ban. ‘But I consider Buddha, Kabir, Raidas, Ambedkar, Phule, Periyar, Bhagat Singh as my ancestors’, I told him, and added that I too am bound to respect their sentiments too. All of them asked me to be a humanist and questioned the religious texts too. All of them were rationalist humanists who fought against the ugly racist caste order. How can one enjoy the festivals that celebrate the victory of a racist order on the others who they claimed were ‘Rakshashas’. Times have changed and a thing of 3000 years back may not be true to us and may not be respected. How can our judicial system justify those years old texts when we know well that our constitution which is just 60 years old has the flexibility of changing according to the needs and demands of the time? Why can’t we dump these holy text which continue to guide our children and deny some of them right to live with dignity while give a false sense of superiority complex to others. We need to learn from France in this respect where the constitution wants citizens to follow the egalitarian and secular values of its constitution. W do not need a secular constitution which glorify every act of regression in the garb of multi-culturarlism and where every act of questioning ‘hurt’ the ‘sentiments’ of those who never cared the sentiments of the others.

One is amazed to see why our sentiments are never hurt when children are told to discriminate against each other. How can a country planning to host Common Wealth Games, going to tell the world that racial brahmanical disorder is a thing of past. Is it possible to demolish the caste structure in this country which is suffering from ‘identity’ dilemma?

Caste is the biggest issue in this country. Daily the maximum violence that the Dalits face is because of caste. It is nothing but a false passport to superiority and further developing the clan culture where a few ‘respected’ men decide about the fate of others. Children are being brutally killed and we do not feel shame on it. In fact, we feel proud of ‘protecting’ our honor by killing our children who dared to love. Love is the most hated word in the town but watching the C grade ‘colored’ films are not bad in these sacred heartlands from UP to Bihar to Rajasthan. I do not believe much in the theory that some Indians are better than others as often comparative notes are given to us like Delhi is worst or Mumbai is better or Chennai superior to Hyderabad. All the diversity in India has a commonality of caste and gender discrimination. North, East South West caste seems to be the best for Indians who can not live with out, who are told infinite virtues of their caste and the great achievements of it.

My point is that as far as feudal structure is concerned, that remain intact in India despite a secular constitution. It is a bullying tactics to make all those who look different or dissenters to either fall in line or perish. Hence, if Baba Saheb Ambedkar writes something on the riddles of Hinduism, the protesters are up in arms to burn the book. Even if some body makes an expose of a so-called holy book on our religious faith that hurts the Bahujans and Dalits, he will surely face criminal action for hurting the sentiments of the people. In Indian context we will have to understand the exploitation and annihilation of the Dalit culture by these fascist elements. Yet, they want no further study on the subject. The subaltern history is coming with new ideas and new explanation of every brahmancial text and that is creating ripples in the minds of these elements. Hence a film like Teesari Azadi was termed as ‘ Zaharili CD’, a poisonous propaganda material by many in the media asking for a complete Ban on it while the film was just explaining how crooked our caste system was and how the Brahmins manipulated the system for their benefit. What is wrong in it? Have we not seen the annihilation of Buddhist culture, and its cooption as well as destructions of Buddha Viharas by the brahmanical forces? Why are the historians and social anthropologists silent on it? One has to understand the movements of the Dalit Bahujan and their effort to get out of the clutched of the brahmanical value sytem. One will have to understand the meanings of these festivals. Every major festival is a celebration of some killings or work of treachery over the Dalit Bahujan masses. How can any right thinking person celebrate such festivities, but these forces want us not to question those festivals, not to question those celebrations. Fine, but why should we celebrate them. Not celebrating them becomes a droha, a challenge to the country. Whatever we do but new thesis, new question will always be raised on these texts and we must be prepared to face all of them.

If we know the Indian system and how work then we should not be surprised. As a nation, we have not grown and develop into an egalitarian democratic society. A democratic society is only possible where social system is based on democracy. A society segregated so much on caste lines can not really built a democratic culture in the country. Here, we feel proud of our caste being higher then the other one. We continue to bow to those in ascending order and regularly assault and humiliate those in the descending order. It is not surprising therefore that we still have millions of manual scavengers, carrying human excreta manually and we do not feel any shame in it. Our heart does not melt when we see young children who should have been in the school but carry night soil. How will our heart melt when the so called civil society, opinion makers, middle classes have a small chhotu at their home who take the heavy bags of their children to school bus and regularly do the service. How can we ever feel the shame when we have employed these chhotus at our home virtually buying them from their helpless parents?



Khairlanji verdict shocked us but still the reaction is calm unlike the time of the incident that raised fire in Mahrastra. We thought a new movement is on the way when the Dalits protested there. A few committed workers worked on the case while a majority of forgot it after a few days pilgrimage. Why should case of such a magnitude which shook us is termed as a Dalit issue alone? Why as human being and fellow national we do not feel the same pained and agony on these issues? The attitude of Mahrastra government was disgusting. See the contrast. When you have fight against Muslim accused, the media, the Hindutva and the ‘nationalist’ all join hand in the common ‘national’agenda but Khairlanji does not bother them, the denial of dignity to Dalit children in school does not bother them.


The basic question is why is there a regular denial of justice? Who will judge the judges who do not take these issues seriously while give certain judgments that hurt the basic premise of our constitution? Our government and political class will have to think on these issues more seriously. How can a judge leave the cases in the absence of ‘credible’ evidence? But the fact is that the state has no desire to get justice. It does not provide any credible evidence and then want us to blame it to the judges only.

The word of Baba Saheb Ambedkar remained prophetic as ever when he describes the nature of our villages. Truly, the villages still live in darkness, in caste identities, in feudalism. Yes, when I went to Allahabad recently where upper caste goons tried to molest a Dalit woman, demolished her home, beat her mercilessly along with her child and her husband and to my deep shock and anguish none ‘saw’ the incident. Not a single person in the village ‘saw’ it. There are numerous incidents where we have brought to the notice of the authorities but do not have ‘credible’ ‘evidence’. That does not exist. Once, I filed a report on manual scavenging and I am still getting letters that it does not exists in that part because the municipality say so. How interesting is this system is that you file a complaint against some one and the same person is made responsible to answer your question.

How can you get credible evidence when an entire village turns up against the person belonging to a particular community? Where is the credible evidence against those who are killing their own children in the name of ‘honor’? Is not it a shame when those who kills people in the name of honor terming it their ‘culture’ and asking the government to ‘bend’ on their whims and fancies and look how it is ‘crawling’ to the demands of such ‘civilized’ people.

Indian society is still a primitive society which has no space for dissent despite its pretensions to look modern and democratic. Whether it is Khairlanji or Tsunduru, Dalits face violence for being biggest dissenters of the brahmanical system. The fact is once you realize the treacheries of the system, you will become a dissenter. Asking for your right to live with dignity and self respect has become the biggest obstacles for the brahmanical forces. They have turned these democratic demands as dissent and seek to suppress it with violence. Such violence is happening daily but the struggling masses do not cow down to such intimidations. The courts verdict on Khairlanji is similar like what happened in Kanpur where authorities just let the incident happen. But these have raised serious issues of propriety. As a democratic nation which is claiming to become world leader, should such incident be allowed to go unchallenged? When the Indians make so much noises of discrimination against them outside India, why should we not make similar demand from the Indians who go abroad? Should not the government ask its employees to take oath in believing in secular constitution and asking its people to be non religious and non casteists. Should we not ask the foreign government to be very strict with Indians and Indian government on these issues of caste discrimination and caste violence?

The issues of violence against Dalits in India put serious question mark about our judicial system. Why do the Dalits not getting justice in our institutions. India is already facing tribal revolt at the moment, a Dalit revolt will only add to its woes and it would be difficult for it to recover. Let the democracy and its institutions prove that they honor equality and dignity of human being and are capable of providing justice to each and every citizen of the country without any racial discrimination.

Khairlanji’s incident has proved that our courts have not yet sensitized to the Dalit cause. The incidents of children not eating food cooked by the Dalit cooks also reflect that Indian constitution has not yet been able to prove its supremacy over the rigid and outdated laws of Manu. The various forms caste violence, honored killings and inability of children to mixed up only reflect that Indian state has failed in secularizing the people and most importantly the political class itself has no faith in secular values except using it to satisfy the whims and fancies of caste and religious thugs. Nothing could be more shameful for a nation claiming to be a superpower in the 21st century. It’s a wake up call for all.

Rise of Dalit Literature

The rise of 'Dalit lit' marks a new chapter for India's untouchables
As caste divides fade, a fresh crop of writers is emerging

By Andrew Buncombe in Delhi
Wednesday, 30 June 2010

The market in India for Dalit literature is huge: Dalits make up a fifth of the country's population


Ajay Navaria, a writer of novels and short stories, cannot help but laugh as he reflects on the nature of his "other" job teaching Hindu ethics and scripture at a leading university in Delhi. The 39-year-old is a Dalit, a so-called "untouchable", and little more than a generation ago, for him to have even been discussing Hindu texts would have been an offence that could have cost him his life. The fact that he now teaches them brings a smile to his face.

"Fifty years ago it would have been a crime. I think about this and think that if I had touched those scriptures I would have been killed," he says, perched in a booth in a decaying coffee house in Delhi's once grand Connaught Place. "But democracy has given me power. It has given power to the depressed classes and helped to make a more modern society."

In his own way, Navaria is at the spearhead of a quiet cultural revolution sweeping India's literary establishment. Having long been confined to writing only in their own, local languages and largely ignored by the literary mainstream, Dalit authors are now being swooped on by some of the country's biggest publishers, such as Radhakrishna Prakashan which is translating their work into Hindi, the lingua franca of northern India and beyond.

Novelists, poets and writers of short stories are receiving both exposure and opportunity in the market-place that they have never before received. There are Dalit magazines, Dalit literary forums (there are two competing groups in Delhi alone) and Dalit workshops. And as further proof of the rising importance and clout of "Dalit lit", Mr Navaria was this year a guest at the influential Jaipur literary festival, an annual gathering and networker's paradise of Indian and international air-kissing types.

Indian society can sometimes seem harsh or even brutal. Nowhere is this more evident than in its caste system, a centuries-old hierarchy of categorisation based on ancient Hindu teachings that groups people into one of four main castes (and thousands of sub-castes). Traditionally, the caste someone belonged to decided where they would live, what job they would do and even what they would eat. People outside of these groups were considered unclean and not true Hindus, fit only for tasks such as cleaning toilets, making leather and sweeping the roads.

Dalits have suffered centuries of abuse and even today, despite legislation to protect them and an increasingly urbanised society, they are still the victims of widespread prejudice, discrimination and violence. A recent report by the Tamil Nadu Untouchability Eradication Front, a coalition of human rights groups in southern India, revealed a bewildering degree of discrimination, both in scale and form.

Among the various abuses detailed by the authors of the report, Dalits were not allowed to use a mobile phone in the presence of upper-caste people. They were also prevented from having their clothes washed, permitted only to drink tea from coconut shells while squatting on the floor, barred from entering temples, forced to eat faeces, raped and burned alive.

Yet Dalits total more than 150 million people – around 20 per cent of India's population – and the realisation has slowly come that with such critical mass, this community could have considerable leverage. In India's largest state, Uttar Pradesh, low-caste voters have on three occasions elected a Dalit chief minister, Mayawati Kumari.

The size of the population has also been a factor in the emergence of Dalit literature as publishers have woken up to the potentially massive market. As Navaria says: "They are doing their business, they are not missionaries. If they get a profit, they will do it. If they do not, then they won't."

A key figure in the emergence of low-caste writing is Ramnika Gupta. She is not a Dalit but she produces a quarterly magazine, Yuddhrat Aam Aadmi, devoted to previously marginalised writers. She estimates that she and her team of just three full-time assistants have published around 1,500 Dalit writers from across India over the last two decades. Large publishers regularly go to her for information about new talent. She helps on the condition that the publishers agree to produce a paperback edition that is affordable for ordinary people, in addition to the standard hardback run.

In the first-floor drawing room of her home, which also serves as her office, she noted that Dalit writers never lacked subject material. The highly influential writer and Dalit leader, B R Ambedkar, she explained, had said it was essential that low-caste people had their own literature and that they wrote about their own lives.

Mrs Gupta, who has herself written dozens of books on Dalit and tribal people's issues, said of the caste system: "India's culture discriminates. It's a state of exploitation. Everyone thinks 'He is lower than me' or 'I'm superior'. What we are trying to say is that we are all equal and if anyone is weak, we can help them to rise."

Dalit writers say the emergence of low-caste literature has taken place alongside a broader growth of consciousness and activism, particularly in urban India. While in rural India, caste remains all-pervading, in cities many of the signs and signals that identify a person's caste have vanished. In cities, too, Dalits are better organised to stand up for their rights.

"There is a growing consciousness that is emerging. People are now better educated and they all get to know about their rights," said Anita Bharti, a long-time writer and activist who heads a Dalit literary forum that meets every month in Delhi.

Literature, said Ms Bharti, has an important role to play in the ongoing struggle by Dalits to end discrimination. While abuse of low-caste people still happens, "they can now write about it. Also, people realise that Dalits have been mistreated in the past and that there is a need to bring Dalit literature to other people."

Navaria, who is now working on his second novel, agrees. When he wrote his first novel, Udhar Ke Log (People From That Side), he had no doubt that the main antagonist would be a middle-class, urban Dalit. The story tells of the various ways in which his low caste affects his life, including being rejected by his lover – herself a sex-worker – when she discovers he is a Dalit. "I chose to write about Dalit consciousness. I have felt myself treated like this many times," he says.

One of his most painful, burning experiences was as a schoolboy of 12 or 13 when scholarships were being offered to Dalit pupils. His teacher walked into the classroom and asked any low-caste pupils to stand up so that their names could be taken down. "I never stood up. I went to the head teacher later [to apply for the scholarship]," he recalls. "You feel so ashamed. One friend said to me 'You don't look like a Dalit'. I asked him, 'What do you think a Dalit looks like?'"

Navaria rejects the suggestion that by writing about purely Dalit issues and by knowingly organising themselves as Dalits, this new generation of writers is actually reinforcing caste divisions, rather than breaking them down. "If there are divisions in society, how can there not be divisions in literature? Publishers are not promoting these divisions but are reflecting them," he says. "Caste is very important. You cannot imagine India without caste. If a person says they are a Hindu, then they will have a caste."

One breakthrough these writers have yet to make is getting published in English. Partly that is because the writers prefer to work in a medium that their main audience can understand. But Ms Bharti and others say that getting the attention of the "elite" English-language media is still a challenge.

Navaria says he sees many obstacles ahead, but that he has the energy to overcome them. "Writing is not my profession, it's my passion," he says, as he finishes his coffee, Delhi's warm yellow sun slipping from the sky. "I cannot even sleep if an idea is in my head. For two or three nights, I cannot sleep until it's completed. It's a duty to the society."

http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/news/the-rise-of-dalit-lit-marks-a-new-chapter-for-indias-untouchables-2014053.html

Dalit woman wait for justice in Uttar-Pradesh

Dalit Woman Humiliated and victimized in Allahabad

By Vidya Bhushan Rawat



Her one eye is completely turned red at the moment as the upper caste goons threw slippers at her. The entire body bears the brunt of the brahmanical violence on July 3rd, 2010 at the Sheetalpur Tikari village under Tharwai police station in Allahabad. Her cloths were torn and the goons tried to pee on her mouth but the police kept her in the police station for 24 hours and try to deny anything like that happened. This is the story of Lalli Devi, 45, who was constructing a house allotted to her under the Indira Awas Yojna when Devi Sharan Mishra, a local money lender and well connected person came along with some other members and demolished the house. As Lalti tried to reason with the man, she, her husband Gulab and her son aged 12 years were beaten mercilessly by these goons. Her huts where she used to sleep and cook were completely razed to the ground. ‘It was the incident at around 8 am on Saturday when I was cleaning my chulha’, said Lalli. ‘Eight members lead by Devi Mishra just entered in with lathis and thrashed me after beating my husband and son. Sir, they put me on ground, put their feet on my chest and tried to pee on my mouth. I resisted but they torn my cloths, hit at me and threw slippers at me which hurt my eyes. It is aching now and has turned red. I am still not able to breathe properly’, said Lalti when I visited her. There is no place for them to sleep. Its rainy season and given the nature of our villages, Lalli and her family has no way to save them from the fury of nature.

According to police officials, there was a land feud between the two which was in the court and there was a stay on it. When Lalli Devi was constructing her house given to her under Indira Awas Yojna, Devi Mishra and his gangsters demolished it and also razed her other huts to ground, beat up her husband and thrashed her when she reacted. She was humiliated and her body bears the mark of the thrashing.

This incident happened about 30 kilometers from Allahabad town on July 3rd, 2010 in the morning hour around 8 am. This nondescript village resembles the old structural villages of India which Baba Saheb Ambedkar described as ‘den of feudalism, nepotism and corruption’. The village in darkness. The village has 5 families of Yadavs, 10 families of Patels (OBCs), 25-30 families Passies (Dalits) and nearly 20 families of Brahmins. Nearly 10 families belong to Telis i.e. Guptas and one family belong to Dhaikar, a Dalit community which is engaged in bamboo weaving work. They make bamboo baskets and other related things. And see the tyranny of the caste system in the village, none of the communities coming to her rescue. The Brahmins, as master manipulators are using all techniques to disturb her. They are in power structure every where. She is alone. The Kurmis near her do not feel for her, the Pasis are known to resist yet not a single person is ready to speak. The terror of these Brahmin is so high that a Dalit woman says, ‘why do you speak to us. Are you not able to see our faces and judge as what is the situation here’? Lalli Devi know this situation as she says, ‘ Most of the people saw me being dragged on the ground and my cloths torn but no body want to speak as they fear the powerful’.

A police Jeep is picketing in front of her house. She went to police station to lodge her complaint but she was not only hounded but kept at the police station for 24 hours. Daily Amar Ujala and Hindustan reported it on July 6th and later the local news channels started running the story on their prime time which suggested that Lalli Devi was attacked and her cloths were torn but police deny she was paraded in the village. However, the question is whether hiding things make the grave incident less grave? For the police officials, it is like any other land dispute. They term it as a fight between two leaders for lording over the Dalits and other communities in the region. The Brahmin politics of Allahabad is well known to be explained here. But for the information of the readers, the Member of Parliament is a former pracharak of BJP but now his ‘heart’ is changed and hence is a man of ‘social justice’ in the BSP, though his brother’s heart still beat for BJP and hence he is MLA from that party. The other brother has just achieved victory for MLC on BSP ticket. None of them had visited so far. But the leaders from other political parties are also visiting her. I do not know but Lalli Devi tells that she was given support of Rs 3000/- by one politician and Rs 1000/- by the other. That is the cost of the dignity and respect of a Dalit woman in India.

The police officers on duty are mostly agreeing that she was beaten up and ‘sab kuchch galat hua’ but they are not ready to accept that ‘her dignity’ was attacked. When I ask them whether any case has been filed under Prevention of SC-ST Atrocities Act, they answer in affirmative but that has to be verified at later stage and action need to be seen. The culprit Devi Mishra’s supporter charge that the Lalli Devi is working on behalf of village Sarpanch Yogesh Tiwari who function as a Sarpanch pati, defecto Sarpanch of the village.

Antecedents of the culprits

Most of the villagers say that the Brahmins play power politics in the village and that Devi Mishra is a moneylender. As we know well that in Uttar-Pradesh, Bihar, Rajasthan, the moneylenders suck your blood more than even the corporate. Here the interest rates are exorbitantly very high. According to the villagers, it very according to the ‘favor’ done by the moneylenders but nonetheless it starts from a minimum interest of 5% per month but normally is 10% month. Most of the villagers actually mortgage their papers and the problem is that at the time of receiving the money, they do not really bother to check the contents of the agreement and later are trapped in the game and therefore lost their land or other immoveable assets.

Devi Mishra’s supporter say that Lalli Devi does not own that land in which she was constructing her Indira Awas as the land was legally belong to him as he bought it from him, while Lalti Devi says that her father in law was a habitual drunk and nobody ever took him seriously. She also says that her husband also is not keeping well and has hearing problem. The fact is that she lives in the Abadi i.e. human settlement side which is never recorded and on the ground the grave reality is that Mishra and his goons assaulted her. Even if everything that Lalli Devi was saying wrong, that does never justify the grave violence inflicted on her by the arrogant brahmanical forces of the region and the dubious role played by the local police which was unable to arrest the culprits.

Though nobody is verifying things yet some of the dalits on the condition of anonymity informed that Devi Mishra is a Junior Engineer with some government department. According to them, he does not go to his office. Probably, it is a common decease in UP and elsewhere that the upper caste benami officers. It is up to the government to think over it and take action against him if it is proved that he is a government servant. Not only should his job records be produced to the court but also all those who connived with him in this misdeed should be arrested.



The village and the lonely woman

As Baba Saheb Ambedkar said that the caste system has never provided any unity of the oppressed and hence annihilation of caste is essential for social justice but how and who would be interested in it as annihilation of the caste itself mean elimination of the brahmanical social order? This hierarchical structure keeps people isolated and it is the biggest obstacle in the unity of the oppressed people ghettoized in their own shells. Here also if one see the isolation of Lalli Devi, one only realize how prophetic Ambedkar was in his analysis of our ‘great’ ‘villages’ which has ascending order of respect and descending order of contempt as the community that Lalli belong to does not serve any political purpose for those for who vote matters the most. Just adjacent to her huts are people, who are not ready to share her pain and agony. Women are inside their house. In the local PDS shop, I meet an old man who refuses to answer my question. I ask him Baba just tell me what happened to Lalli and this man says ‘ sab karmo ka phal hai’, everything is the result of her karma’. I ask Baba, what is your caste and this man inform me that he is a ‘Kurmi’ which is a powerful backward community. Yes, she does not belong to your caste and hence you are not bothered about her, I scold him. Near him, is a lonely woman who brick house is just adjacent to Lalli. Yes, Uma Devi is a Teli by caste. A single woman, she narrates her plight as how her land was snatched and converted by the powerful Brahmin in the village and she was thrown here. Uma is a lonely woman, left by her husband and rejected by her family, she live a life of pain and agony. She does not speak. The villagers speak for her as if she can not speak. The cruelty of village life is reflected in the eyes of Uma. Even a child can scold her in front of every one to the ‘delight’ of all the elders.

She shares the pain of Lalli but only say that she was not at home. Every one is speaking the same language of not being there. How is it possible in the village where you can see huge crowd on a small issue, that a woman is being robbed, molested and none of them has seen it. The police will work for a few days and after some time when ‘situation’ comes back to normalcy. Villagers know it well that they will have to respond again and as there is no ‘witness’ to the case, Lalli Devi may not get justice. The only possibility is that a few politicians and administration would try to ‘compensate’ her honor in a few thousands rupees. But Lalli Devi says,’ Sir, I was born here. My parents and grand parents lived her for so long. I can not leave this place. This is my home. I want to die here only’ But the pressure is on her to leave as none is ready to cooperate with her and we all know after several years the judiciary would not be able to give her justice. Lalli Devi knows that politicians are coming; media is highlighting the issue but just for a few days. After that she will remain alone along with her husband and a child. ‘Politicians promise a lot but I know they never come back’, says Lalli.

While Lalli says she did not face any caste based discrimination but the fact is isolation and ghettoisation is a way of life in the villages and accepted norms. As her opponents are charging her as a close associate with Pradhan she says categorically that she neither knows the Sarpanch nor wants to get involved in their activity. How will he be interested in us, she asks.

As I move around in the Pasi locality, lot of signs boards are there putting slogans of NREGS, promising bright future for the villagers. ‘Why should you leave village when the work is at home’, portray a slogan. The question one must ask these people as why migration is increasing. Is it just for work or it is for dignity also. What do we expect from people like Lalli Devi? Will she be allowed to live a life peacefully in the village by the feudal structure?

There is scarcity of water in the village. In the hamlet of Pasis, for over 25 families, they have just one water connection. So it is war among the poor. One family pay Rs 18/- a month apart from basic investment of Rs 3000/- yet no water on time. ‘Of course, water will be here for a few days as Netas come here and TV cameras roam around, but once things die down, nothing happen. It will again be the same politics of Mishras and Tiwaris, says a villager. None of them have land and yet less than 10% of them have the BPL card. It is shameful, say an old man that all the landless people have APL card. As far as the job card is concern, they do not get any work. Poor people do not even know that they have to apply for the job. They feel it is a favor by the village Pradhan or some political party.

Conclusion

Lalli Devi’s honor was violated at Sheetalpur Tikari. Her house has been demolished. Even the police admit that she was beaten mercilessly though they do not agree with everything that Lalti Devi speak. The issue is much bigger here. Is the crime against her less serious? What is the police doing. Has it really taken investigation to a conclusion? How will it destroy the nexus of the money lending upper castes who are illegally grabbing lands of the Dalits in these areas? Our experience shows that the police and authorities try to shut your mouth by compensating the person. They know well that after some days the issue would close down.

Human Rights are meant for each citizens of the country. A truly democratic governance structure should ensure that the most marginalized and tiniest minority must feel safe and secure. Our villages do not provide that confidence where the women like Lalli Devi feel secure and can live a life with freedom and dignity. The goons can come any time and assault her and our structure try to compensate it in a few thousand rupees while condoning the racist nature of our society. Though the police can not fight such violence, it can best do the work impartially and take the case to a logical conclusion. It will take long time. How can we ensure justice to Lalli Devi. Can our Human Rights bodies take any action against the authorities and follow it up? But if it takes years to get justice then how will Lalli and her family remain free and safe from the violence of the village and that of the goons? Will the police act against its own officers who denied that nothing happened and Lalli was lying?

Indian villages need radical changes. India administration needs bigger changes so that the democratic thought can flourish and women like Lalli Devi do not live in constant fear and humiliation. Can we grow and ensure that each one in the country live in dignity and self respect? Right now, we can only wait for justice to Lalli.

Democracy in the hands of undemocratic people

Democracy as tool to strengthen power elite

The victims of 1984’s disaster wait for justice

By Vidya Bhushan Rawat


The verdict from Bhopal has shocked the nation. After 25 years the victims of this monumental disaster got nothing while Union Carbide and Anderson are safe in America. The man who was at the helm of Madhya Pradesh that time was considered to be a potential prime minister for many years nurturing that secret desire which remain unquenched. In the meanwhile, the people and their generations lost everything that they had without any remorse from the political class. But those who feel that just because Union Carbide was an American Enterprise and hence could not attract any judicial scrutiny must rethink the issue. Is Anderson the only one to have survived a holocaust which happened in Bhopal? We blame him alone for massacring over 25000 people without asking question to his Indian counterparts, our responsible leaders who made him escape and our judicial system which has not been able to provide any hope to millions in Bhopal who are crying for justice. The children, women, old people, all became heap of rubbish in one night and generations have faced the trauma of the horror of the gas tragedy yet that could not prick the conscious our combine nationhood which we witness during Gujarat 2002 or Delhi 1984. It may be because the trauma of Bhopal was not related to any particular identity. It did not hurt our religious feelings which are too often these days. It did not hurt our ‘national security’.

Just remember the gory events of October-November 1984, just a month before Bhopal pogrom took place. Indira Gandhi was assassinated and our doordarshan was broadcasting ‘ khoon ka badla khoon se lenge’.. eye for an eye and the streets of Delhi were witnessing another holocaust of Sikhs. The political leaders used the opportunity to polarize the event. Every Sikh became a ‘terrorist’, a suspect and our prime minister offered an explanation for these gruesome killings saying ‘ jab bada ped girta hai to dharti hilati hai.. when a big tree falls, the earth shakes’. Again, the children became orphaned here as they saw brutal killing of their parents. Families lost everything and yet years after those horrific nights, people waited for justice and it still eludes them though the political class reaped a great harvest on it.

In December 1992 Babari Masjid was razed to ground by the Hindutva goons and our conscious was hurt differently. Prime Minister Narshima Rao, who remained mute in 1984’s Delhi pogrom, promised the nation that the mosque would be rebuilt. He promised to take action against the culprits. Immediately after that Bombay witnessed the worst ever riots with open involvement of both Shiv Sena and Congress goons in 1993. What was the response of the government? Rajiv Gandhi came to power in 1984 over the dead bodies of Sikhs. It was a polarization that made Congress the mascot of Hindutva while after demolishing the Babari Mosque, the BJP took away that nationalism which was sole domain of the Congress and ultimately came to power in Delhi. It brought party from marginalization to mainstream their vicious agenda.

The Mumbai riots brought Shiva Sena and BJP to power in Maharastra while the great Gujarat pogrom strengthened Narendra Modi for ever. The polarization is so powerful that the more you abuse Modi, the bigger his image in Gujarat. He is being projected as one of the finest leaders and those who were the victim of his conspiracy are facing charges.

For the past two months we have witnessed violence against the Dalits in Haryana. In Mirchipur the cruelty of humanity occurred which is usual as the caste Hindus can not even think that it is abnormal. A young physically challenged girl from Balmiki community was burnt with her father and the state remains mute. It tries to justify the violence under some pretext. The Dalits have not yet returned to their villages while Congress is making lot of noises about the condition of Dalits in Uttar-Pradesh, Harayana’s record in protecting Dalits would put any government to shame. It is not that just of party politics. Haryana is essentially Jaat Politics. Whether you go to Congress party or counter it from Indian National Lok Dal, Harayana’s polity is dominated by Jaats. When the community has understood the power of its number, then it does not bother about right or wrong. Might is right and Jaats think that way that they can force a government on knees. They have done it in past. In Jaat Gujjar land in Western Uttar-Pradesh, when the Dalits could never exercise their votes though their leader Charan Singh always claimed to lead the Dalit Kisan and Majdoor. Of course in reality, these Dalits and majdoors were never equal to kisan in the Jaat Gujjar heartland. Violence against them never made the newspaper headlines and oppression was systematized. One can understand the same arrogance when Mahendra Singh Tikait, the leader of Bharatiya Kisan Union virtually abused UP Chief Minister Mayawati using derogatory caste references. He only cowed down when Mayawati was determined to teach him a lesson yet the Jaats had no remorse. They did not feel that such things are wrong. This is the arrogance of muscle power which emnates not through guns but through vast land commercialized by the builder lobby and protected by the political class of the community.

Today, Harayana’s chief minister Bhupendra Singh Hooda is demanding change in Hindu Code Bill to ban inter gotra marriages. It is strange for such people to become moral guardians today. Problem in this Jaat-Gujjar land is that you can not even commit to an inter-caste marriage. You will be killed and state leaders will always justify it as the ‘ijjat’ of the society. So many khap panchayats have dictated death sentence to young couples daring to marry at their own over coming their caste prejudices yet no action is taken against them.

What commonality do we see in all these? Barring Anderson, all of them are Indian nationals and respected national leaders. They justify their act in the name of ‘people’s sentiments and take over the charge of becoming the moral guardians of our communities. They find excuse in killings and murders in the name of community sentiments. None of the politicians have so far gone to Jail or face criminal charges against their misdeeds which threatened life of people and integrity of the country. There are certain facts which can not be ignored in Indian context. Though we adopted the west minister module of Parliamentary form of democracy yet it is the Manu’s model which dominates our national life. Those who are leading democracy are highly undemocratic in their personal lives. How can the undemocratic people be made responsible to protect democracy. That is the Indian contradiction. Democracy here is nothing to respect individual and everything to legitimize the misdeeds of political class. Hence, you can do anything in the name of democracy here. You can massacre people in the name of democracy; you can unleash a rain of terror to minority community under some pretext. If we see how these things are happening and who are doing it then we will realize who are taking democracy to ransom. The powerful leaders come from powerful communities. Nothing can ever happen to them. Powerful communities can get away with all kind of violence and no action is taken. You can not arrest Bal Thackery. Instead make Udhav as member of National integration Council. Sharad Pawar is a powerful leader from Maharastra who presided over a regime which allowed Bal Thackery and his goons to bleed Mumbai in 1993. Thousands of farmers are committing suicide in Vidarbha but Sharad Pawar will not lose any election. He will remain the tallest leader of Maharastra as he is the symbol of Maratha asmita, i.e. Maratha pride which perhaps is the only reason why Bal Thackery could not tame Pawar despite all his short comings because in the caste scheme of things, the Marathas can tame the caste of Thackery and hence playing the Hindutva card is his compulsion. Nothing has happened to either Thackrey or Pawar.

Kalyan Singh proudly said that he was responsible for destruction of Babari Masjid and he said he is responsible towards the biggest court of the Lord Rama where he kept his words and destroyed a mosque which according to him symbolizes the enslaved mentality of Hindus. He became the symbol of Hindu pride. Could Kalayan Singh have said the same if he were a Muslim? Lal Krishna Advani went on a Rath yatra which spilled bloods in the streets in different parts of India to fulfill his long cherished Ayodhya March. What happened to him? His party grew from 2 seats to 120 and finally came to power in Delhi and he became Home Minister and Deputy Prime Minister, presiding the same department which charge sheeted him on Ayodhya matter.

During the constituent assembly debates Sardar Hukum Singh raised some valid questions about minority rights. He said,’ Majority’s assertion would always term as nationalism while minorities cry for their rights will be termed as communalism’. And this is reality why everything that the Sangh Parivar, Shiv Sena, all these Khaps and other Panchayats could speak in such derogatory manner as they will never face the level of being ‘anti national’ or working against the interest of Indian state. Patriotism for them is natural through their caste order. Though, we develop a secular constitution the fact remain that we are predominantly a brahmanical state and it is they who decide what is nationalism and what is not. What should be our national priorities and what not? It does not care for the sentiments of those who differ with it. It wants to treat them militarily and through the barrel of the guns. It will not vote. Even for the census, its people, the urban middle class do not want to be counted. They look down upon those who are coming for enumerations yet it want to claim everything on our national resources. It does not vote yet it gets everything. Unfortunately those who participate in this democratic exercise still remains in the slums, and in semi urban areas where elections and democracy seems to be the biggest mela. Democracy does not respect the poor. It has not given the poor any hope and solution so far. Those who have utter contempt for democracy are its guardians and use its tools to legitimize their illegal acts. Anderson hails from American democracy which killed millions in Iraq, Afghanistan and middle- east. It legitimizes Talibans and when they question thrash them. It ensures that people’s resources are handed over to the few powerful corporate houses.

It is interesting to see how Anderson escaped from India. Chief Minister Arjun Singh, our secular hero, sent his personal plane to rescue him from Bhopal. None of us ever questioned him. Today, we are shocked because our media is pretending to do so. I am sure, after some days, media will help thing die down. Indian Express has already written a nasty editorial for forgetting things. None of the Indian Industrial houses have said anything on the issue. The Confederation of Indian Industries, FICCI and all other organizations which should have been in the forefront are conspicuously silent because they know that they do not follow safety norms. What happened to recent industrial disaster at the Indian Oil depot in Jaipur could have been a repeat of Bhopal but then I don’t think we demand justice for people of Jaipur. No head rolled and no one was sent to jail for those who were responsible for disaster. Did we ever say that the managing director of Indian Oil is responsible for the gas leak in Jaipur. Like the Americans we too have our own criteria to target people. We make difference between ‘indigenous murderers and external murderers’. We are ready to fight against the ‘external’ forces as it is easier as all the indigenous defaulters also take shelter in Indian nationalism and look more patriotic then others. But the fact is a murder is a murder whether carried out by Anderson or Indian Oil.

And it is here there is a commonality between all these incidents. That the powerful can get away with justice. The hypocrisy is that Bhopal disaster’s victims were not a vote bank. It could not instigate a nation which is easily choked on communal, religious, regions and other identity lines. Is it because our middle classes have been working with the big corporations? Is it because all the victims are commonly known as poor who predominantly consisted of Dalits and Muslims? The secular Arjun Singh would not bother about these incidents as they don’t matter as the crime was committed by a company and not by politically opponent ideology hence it would not serve the purpose. This is important meeting point of our political parties whether BJP or congress that they do not speak against industrial misconducts. Jindal will get his work done anywhere whether it’s a BJP state or Congress. Similarly things are true with other corporates. Hence corporate misconduct do not fall in the secular-communal ambit and therefore our secular friends keep quite on these issues. They feel it is not their issue.

My friend John Dayal rightly said that 1984 was one of the most traumatic year in the history of post independent India. It was clear that time that Indira Gandhi’s policies were tilting towards Hindutva when she send Indian army to invade Golden Temple to get rid of Bhindaranwale and his fellow terrorists who she created to counter the Akali Dal. The most traumatic events of June 1984 resulted in her own assassination on October 31st, 1984, resulting in brutal massacre of Sikhs in Delhi and other parts of the country. We all know nothing has happened to those who were involved in these incidents. No political leader has ever got convicted to any case in the 1984 trials. We have not seen any one going to jail for Babari demolition, for 1992 riots, for 2002 massacre of Muslims in Gujarat.

Therefore, it is sheer hypocrisy when we shout that Anderson was left to go abroad. What has the government of India done for the people? Can you allow people to be killed without any assistance simply because the company is multinational and you can not fight with it? What is the state’s responsibility? Have we taken any lesson from it? In fact, we are promoting it. We want Posco and Vedanta at the cost of our people. We want Jindals and Essar at the cost of the tribal. So what is learnt from Bhopal is nothing but an eye wash since the issue is now picked up by the media hence something should be said and justify your inaction under the pretext of inability to arrest some powerful man of America. We forget to ask our political class as what has it done for the people of Bhopal? How can government allow a generation to be destroyed? Let the government fight endless battle with Union Carbide but how can people who lost everything wait for more. Why were the victims left to defend themselves?

Targeting Anderson is escapism as we all know the powerful corporate interest. It exonerates our political class from their misdeeds as they are hand in glove with these international corporations. They fight their cases in Supreme Courts and represent their interest at many places. The Indian state has a history of not providing justice to any victim whether it is massacres which we call as communal violence or those who are displaced to make way for big companies. A number of the killers in these riots are in India. They became ministers, chief ministers and prime ministers. Has any one of them got convicted?

1984’s horror will always haunt us as people are still waiting for the government to deliver its promises. It is difficult task as behind every act of these is efforts to save the big people responsible for both these tragedies and our agencies have no spine to question the powerful. The committees may be formed but the will of the state is not there to provide justice. Bhopal does not suite the political interest of any political party like the tribal of Dantewada hence the ‘shock’, ‘anguish’ will be there for a few days and disappear soon. Union Carbide was an international giant and might be following certain norms there are hundreds in India secretly killing our people and environment and our media and political parties will not be able to take them on as a number of these ‘disasters’ may be owned by the leaders themselves. We need not only national but international mechanism to provide justice to the people the government and political parties can not take shelter in the court proceedings. At least, the support must be provided immediately. Let the government fight with Anderson and Union Carbide but people can not be allowed to die and suffer inhumanely because of the consequences of it. The government provided land and protection to the company and therefore it can not take shelter in the courts and judicial process. It must continue but let not the people suffer endlessly. Will this democratic structure for which we write reams of paper work for the people of Bhopal, or for the Dalits in Haryana, for the tribal at Dantewada or for those who lost their everything in 1984 stage managed riots? The coming days will show whether this edifice of democracy is really working for the poor or legitimizing the corporate interest. Political class as a whole will have to respond in unison to this great crisis of democracy which can not survive through serving the corporate interests only and that would be the saddest day if all these victims lose complete faith in democratic structure and its judicial process and decide to take law in their own hand.

Initiate Political Process in the Tribal Hinterland

Who is afraid of civil society ?

By Vidya Bhushan Rawat

‘Now, I would like to talk a little about the welfare of the elite, who profess to be concerned about the welfare of the people, who do little but blare it out from the rooftops. The rich build temples, mosques and churches, give donations to charities, and for this, are portrayed as great humanitarians. First they render people homeless and create orphans and then they open orphanage for them. In the name of development, they deprive people of their means of living, throw them out in the streets, force the women into prostitution, then they set up NGOs and campaign for Self Employment and brothel reform Centers. Not much money needs to be spent on this, even a tiny percentage of the millions and billions earned through the rampant loot of forest resources and minerals are sufficient to set up the propaganda machinery. They try to cover up the crimes of constructing the Tehri Dam (Which completely submerged the historic town of Tehri and forty villages, partially submerged 72 villages and affected 100,000 people) and the Narmada project ( which affected tribal areas of three states-Gujarat, Maharastra and Madhya Pradesh), by running a few NGOs and buying space in newspapers and that too at no more cost than expenses incurred on some product publicity.’

(Statement of Maoist Guerrilla Narang quoted dutifully by Satanam in his book ‘ Jangalnama’ published by Penguin India- page 121).

The above statement is not new to those who know the working pattern of political or semi political activists claiming to be sole champion of revolutions in India. Frankly speaking the revolutionaries are highly intolerant to any other view point and since they are not really capable to listen to dissenting voices, the result is in political violence. It happens because people feel they are being victimized. A victim mind is always creates extreme reactions and that is what happening in the forest zone. It is not that the articulations are wrong but in the articulations the issue of how to attain is more important. Emotions are created and amidst chant of rhetoric of a new wonder world, people come and join you. It is equally important that for a poor ideology is not important than survival and when he sees the apparatus of state working virtually against him, the discrimination of being a tribal or feeling of contempt towards him, the hatred grows and rhetoric further fires the passion for sacrifice.

As I write this comes the news of horrible train tragedy in Jhargram, West Bengal in which over 140 innocent people have been killed because of a derailment of Gyaneswhari Express. The Central government has given it to CBI to investigate while the West Bengal government has openly blamed PCPA, Lalgarh, for doing this. The government says civil society and human rights activists are not condemning it and all the time they put ifs and buts. May be they are unable to articulate it in the TV channels or Newspapers articles because of paucity of space and time. And there are so many voices in civil society and not all of them can speak in one voice. How can it be possible when the political parties can not speak in the same voice? Yes, after the recent attacks on trains and buses where innocent human beings are killed, one need to ask the questions to those who claim to speak for the ‘people’ as who has given them right to snatch the life of others. If the state is killing the innocent as they charge, then why they kill innocent. At the end it is the innocent who are being killed. And such killing needs to be condemned unequivocally and unambiguously. Those who do not have words for such killings should be prepared to receive the same news for themselves and their relatives and friends. Thinking about that is painful but then why we keep quiet on such heinous attack and justify it with other things.

Home Minister, P.Chidambarm is suave and articulate. He is the favorite of our English speaking media who think he provide answer to every problem of India particularly that emanate from the forests. They are absolutely sure that Chidambaram would resolve the current crisis and India will grow fast. Why is this that Chidambaram is getting huge support from the English speaking media but unable to garner support from different political parties including his party’s own senior leaders like Digvijay Singh and Ajit Jogi both of them have been important leaders from both Madhya Pradesh and Chhatishgarh.

Actually, the home ministry has little time to evaluate the way police actions are alienating the people. Chidambaram and his ministry seems to be too conscious of criticism in Delhi but not bothered about the sentiments in the tribal hinterlands where a sense of insecurity has gripped in the minds of the people. The pen pushers in Delhi who recommend army, air force and all other forces to flush out ‘Maoist terrorist’ do not know the terrain of the region. Most of the senior police officials have on record spoken against air support including Air Chief and Chief of our armed forces.

The biggest criticism of the government is coming through people like Arundhati Roy who does not need to have an NGO or an organization to air her view. She is famous enough to write and her writings are well marketed by the same corporate who she decries. Similarly, Varvara Rao is an ideologue based in Hyderabad who has been persistently claiming that every actions that ‘revolutionaries’ are taking is a retaliation against police atrocities. There are so many lawyers and academics who have been writing and speaking. Mr BD.Sharma wrote to the President of India about the marginalization of tribal. It is well known fact that Sharma was the first commissioner for Schedule caste and Schedule Tribe and his reports in the commission are path breaking. Justice Rajender Sachar is a former Chief Justice of Delhi High Court. This apart there are many academics from Delhi-University, JNU, Jamia Milia and other Universities who do not support government’s initiatives in Chhatisgarh. There are many former bureaucrats who do not agree with the government’s strategies. Then there are Gandhians who are well connected with state apparatus and do not subscribe to Chidambaram and his theories. And all these people do not need an NGO to stand. They are much bigger than NGOs and even some time so called civil society. Then there are organizations like PUCL and PUDR which have their own positions on this unambiguously. They can shout as they do not receive any funds from the government or abroad. That gives them power to shout. Organisations like Asian Human Rights Commission have clearly condemned Maoist Violence while Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have track record of condemning not only state violence but also non state actors.

Then there are thousands of smaller organizations being run by people at the grassroots. Most of them are involved in their ‘projected work’. Some work on health, while some on NREGS and a number of them create Self Help Groups. There are Dalit organizations working on particular issues while a numerous organizations working on Land and acquisition issue. The fight of Narmada Bachao Andolan is going on for years and the government must explain to us as how much it respected a completely democratic movement. There is a struggle going on against Posco at Kalinganagar ? It is not being run by the Maoists yet the tribal are being killed and humiliated in their own land. Does the home ministry not realize that people will rebel if they are left with no option except fighting?

Therefore a smart politician like Chidambaram should not have made nuisance remark about the civil society but the fact is that home ministries mandarins are behaving in worst possible way to control the criticism of their failures to tackle the Maoist menace in the country. That the Moists have virtually caught the fancy of tribal is a feeling in the Ministry because the government of India has its dirty track record of suppressing all the people’s movement through their intimidation as well as vicious media propaganda. In fact, in the name of independent media, we have corporate interest groups sitting in the chat rooms and speaking their own interests.

It is the nationalism quintessentially upper caste nationalism that is being played through the news rooms. And the cost is those who disagree with them and do not look like them. The consensus is created through media and some of the warriors find their way in these chat rooms to show that we ‘care’ for the opposite view point, though the likes of Arnab Goswami never even allow them to speak.

Is home ministry so naïve not to understand the criticism? Why is afraid of criticism? Why it is targeting the civil society organizations? Let us examine these questions?

The fact is that the Maoists or for the matter any close door ideological perception never like openness. With open ness they fear that people would get new ideas and may shift their ideological perception. West Bengal under CPM suffered this as any body who would not speak the language of the Marxists would be spied. Gujarat suffered it under the BJP’s Hindutva experiment as any fresh air is considered dangerous. Any ideological dissimilarity is a threat. This is happening in many other parts of South Asia whether it is Pakistan, Bangladesh or Afghanistan under Taliban. The Maoist will never want any civil society organization to work in their area. Those who pretend to work there can only do on the mercy of the Maoists and can not have their own freedom of expression because dissent is not allowed in the Maoist brand of democracy. NGOs for them and for many others are imperialist conspiracy to befool the people and defuse their resistance.

In the beginning the Congress party was afraid of them during the emergency when Indira Gandhi actually prohibited us to even express our ideas. So, newspapers just crawled when they were asked to bend, a phrase often used by politicians victimized during the emergency. Democratic opposition to Indira Gandhi grew up in entire country and finally mighty family had to bite dust resulting in the formation of the first non congress government at the center. Unfortunately, it had the same structure and therefore the internal contradictions helped congress come back to power again.

In the post 1980s, India’s issues took different turn. For the first time polity was facing a big challenge. In Punjab and Assam, there was a real challenge to mainstream polity in India. It was not just mainstream politics but to the very fabric of the constitution of India. Earlier we had thought it is just Kashmir and Nagaland which were seeking extra constitutional mandate but now the other states also started questioning.

The reasons were lots. The powerful center which could dismiss the states at their own. The governor’s became the stooge of the home ministry and the non congress governments were being targeted. To finish the Akalis in Punjab, the congress promoted Bhindarwale while to strengthen its base it promoted demographic changes in both Assam and Tripura. While the seculars may not like this but the fact is that the tribal in Tripura today are minority in their own state. How can a community of a state be called a minority?

Today, Shekhar Gupta in the Indian Express calls for the might of Indian state against Maoist Indian terrorist but forget that his own former boss in the Express campaigned to save two alleged killers of Indira Gandhi in the name of human rights. Shourie wrote extensively on Punjab violence and the role of Indian state there. We all know which side of the fence is Arun Shourie today.

It is also true that we can not really compare the private armies and their justification of picking up guns. State has a right to protect its citizens and since its forces are legitimate and accountable they need to follow the rules of the law and procedures. Ofcourse, Maoists are deliberating provoking so that it becomes a fight between them and the state and all the other actors are eliminated in between. The government and political parties must understand it. The issues raised by them are valid and need to be addressed. These issues have been raised by civil society for long and the government only looked it in utter contempt. Even the Courts orders are not being followed; environmental norms are not being followed. So, when you close all democratic process the end product is romanticism of guns and violence. The Maoists also know that the Indian state is a might state and their vision of overthrowing it is a sheer stupidity. But the state of India has given them shelter under tribal pain and agony.

We all know that if the state does not heal the wounds the situation will never change. The wounds in Punab were healed through a political process and hence Punjab is going better. Same thing happened in the north east. We invite Muviah to Nagaland and talk to him. We discuss with Laldenga in Mizoram and later he became chief minister. We are initiating political process in Kashmir. Unfortunately, there seems to be no political process in Chhatisgarh, because the political class thinks that they are ‘elected’ ‘democratically’and have got a political mandate to do anything. Yes, the bureaucrats who have least regard for our political class along with these same corporate who have no respect for rule of law, are preaching us the virtues of this democracy. Kanwal Sibbal, a former Ambassador of India in US, condemned the NGOs for taking money from abroad and selling country’s interest. I am surprised at the stupidity of these remarks of those whose children always study abroad and whose life can not be complete without visiting abroad. Prime Minister and his colleagues have studied abroad. Some of them worked for the world Bank. A large number of our IAS officers are getting huge offers in UN. A number of our subsidized IIAtians and Medical Students are getting lucrative offers abroad. Big companies are getting investment. Newspapers are publishing articles from magazines. TV channels are doing everything to show foreign films, view points and what not.. Then what is this particular about foreign. We never said, Manmohan Singh has lost his ‘Indian ness’ because he studied abroad or the planning commission is not Indian since it is inviting foreign experts.

I am amazed how can this thought come in our mind. If we are open society, we must not be afraid of criticism. If Kanwal Sibbol and others could not be purchased so are others also hence a criticism has to be countered ideologically and not who you are and what is your support base. Ofcouse, all those who speak democratically follow the rule of the law.

If this democratic mandate is used as a bogey to install the corrupt mining companies then the Home Minister will have to think more. The questions are simple. Where are the tribal MPs, their leaders, their Panchayat leaders. Why are we silent on this issue? The government is saying that let the Maoist stop of the violence and it is ready to speak. I go one step forward. Let the government declare its intent clear. I again say, will it stay all the mining deals in the tribal areas. Can it stop immediately all the MOUs in these regions which are responsible for the possible displacement of millions of tribal. Not all tribal are Maoists. Those who do not have land, second time meal, do not have the luxury of ideology. If the tribal today are supporting the Maoist, it is the fear of losing their land. They know once the forest department and other government official comes back to them, they will lose all the land redistributed by the Maoists. Let the government declare that all the tribal who own land and are tilling land will not lose it. All the tribal and other forest dwellers who have land on papers will get it immediately. All the mining companies will be packed from the tribal region. Are we ready to say this? The consensus that the government is talking about is in Delhi and not in tribal land. The land where this battle is being fought need to be reassured Mr Chidambaram. They need to be reassured that they will not lose their land and their access to forest. By making the civil society the number one enemy, you are actually changing the track. In the fight against armed struggles, it is the democratic voices which need to be strengthened in these regions. Unfortunately, the political parties are playing dirty politics and media protecting corporate interest and therefore the best people to be blamed for the whole process is civil society. Let the ruling party puts its house in order and send its leader to all the Zones. Why should the poor CRPF Jawans go to the unknown terrain, a politician must know the terrain... let them ready to sacrifice their life so that people get assured that their leaders cares and have not sold their interest to crony corporate for throw away prices. The failure of the government and political parties should not be put on the civil society.

No society can flourish under the dictatorship of ideologues and those who fancy themselves to be the sole champion of serving the poor. The Maoists, it seems, believe in finality of their document which can not be changed. Mao for them has become a tool like the religious thugs who believe the finality of their religious books and are highly intolerant to the dissenting voice. It is this flexibility and capacity to listen to the dissenting voices which was envisioned in our constitution by Dr Baba Saheb Ambedkar, will make us stronger nation. Democracy means justice to the lowest and poorest and not justice in the name of the corporate. People will always pick up guns where the democratic process failed. Democratic processes have failed in Chhatisgarh, Jharkhand, Orissa, Andhra West Bengal and North East. In most of the states, the political parties, the governments have openly and in most brazen way, sided with corporate interests forcing the people to jumps in the ideological framework of those who provide instant justice. The answer to them is initiations of political process in decision making. Political process mean not just becoming political parties and play politics but involving people in their issues and getting solution from them and of course, putting a complete moratorium in further mining in those areas. If this democratic process does not help the poorest of the poor as emphasized by Dr Ambedkar in his Constituent Assembly address, then the same people will blow up the structure of democracy we so laboriously built. It is time the government introspect its strategy and ensure that the political parties take up issues, visit those areas, meet people and initiate a debate on it.

M.N.Roy and his idea of Buddhism

M.N. Roy on Brahminical Religion and Buddhism

Vidya Bhushan RAWAT

“Societal violation of human rights is as serious, if not more than, state violation. And, caste divides, and divisiveness and dissension will always stand in the way of India’s progress. If we want India to occupy her rightful place in the comity of nations, we must recognize that the worst forms of human rights violations and infringements of civil liberties are caused by the ‘varnavayvastha’ directly or indirectly,’ say Dr R.M.Pal in his background paper of the seminar. There were a number of intellectuals in per-independent India who waged war on the system referred to here. M.N.Roy was one of them. This paper makes an attempt to analyze his views and philosophy.

The values of human dignity and human rights in India were recognized in ancient India despite the fact that the varna system looked down upon various sects which were considered not only untouchables but un-seeable as well. Right from the time of the Buddha there have been various movements against the cultural violation of human rights. The caste based Hindu society virtually looked down, with utter contempt, upon Dalits, women and working masses. They were relegated to the status of shudras and avarnas whose very sight could pollute a Brahmin, supposed to be the brokers of God.

Buddha was against the caste system. He desanskritised the education system, by preaching ‘pali” language which is voxpopuli of the time. For the first time education was allowed for even the outcastes. ‘Education for all’ was Buddha’s special gift to India. That women were allowed to become nun-monks was an extraordinary achievement in the circumstances and condition prevailing in India at that time. Mahavira was also a progressive intellectual and fought against orthodoxy. In the medieval period, Nanak, Shaikh Farid, Kabir and other Sufis fought against the caste system.

II
Since I am going to deal with M.N.Roy’s views on Buddhism I may refer to Dr Ambedkar’s conversion to Buddhism. He said: “There are two aspects of conversion, social as well as religious, material as well as spiritual. Whatever may be the aspects or line of thinking it is necessary to understand the beginning, the nature of untouchability and how it is practiced? Without this understanding, you will not be able to realize the real meaning underlying my declaration of conversion. In order to have a clear understanding of untouchability and its practice in real life, I want you to recall stories of the atrocities perpetrated against you. Very few of you might have realized why all this happens. To me it is very necessary, that we understand it.” While deciding to embrace Buddhism, he said: “Three factors are required for the uplift of an individual. They are sympathy, equality and liberty. Can you say by experience that any of these factors exist for you in Hinduism? The Hindus can be ranked among those cruel people whose utterances and acts are two poles apart. They have this Ram on their tongues and a knife under their armpits. They speak like saints and but act like butchers”1. Citing his reason for embracing Buddhism in a broadcast on All India Radio on October 3rd, 1954, he said: “Every man should have a philosophy, for every one must have a standard by which to measure his conduct. Negatively, I reject Hindu social philosophy propounded in the Bhagwatgita based as it is, on the Triguna philosophy of the Sankhya philosophy, which in my judgment is a cruel perversion of the philosophy, which in my judgement is a cruel perversion of the philosophy of Kapila, and which had made the caste system and the system of graded inequality the law of Hindu social life. Positively my social philosophy may be said to be enshrined in three words: liberty, equality and fraternity. My philosophy has roots in religion and not in political science. I have derived them from the teachings of my Master, the Buddha”2.

Apropos of Buddhism and fight against harmful theories of Hinduism on the philosophical and ideological plane, one Indian who stand out but who is not widely read, is M.N.Roy. Even a cursory study of Roy and Ambedkar would indicate how close their philosophical postulates are. Born a Brahmin, Roy worked with Lenin and Stalin and occupied the highest positions in the communist hierarchy, the Communist International. Subsequently, he gave up communism, went beyond communism and propounded his philosophy of scientific humanism. Roy was the only Marxist who came down heavily on the Brahminical social order of Sanskritic Hinduism and remained so until the last day of his life. Almost all his writings during the period 1930-36 while he was in jail are devoted to this aspect. Many of these were printed and reprinted during his life time.

One such treatise is Materialism in which Roy explains the rational Indian philosophy of Lokayata, Charvak Darshan and Buddhism. “The spiritual revolt represented by the Indian materialists eventually culminated in the rise of Buddhism which all but liquidated the Vadic natural religion and freed India from Brahminical domination for several hundred years. Internal evidence proves that Vedanta sutras were composed for combating Buddhism. Therefore, they could not be regarded as the direct outcome of the speculative thought recoded in the Upanishads. The composition of earlier Upnishads and Vedanta Sutras must have been separated by several hundred years, during which period the spiritual development of India, was in the direction of materialism, represented by Kanada, Kapila and many others, and of rationalism, represented by the Buddhists and Jains subsequently. The triumph of Buddhism and its supremacy for so many centuries, prove that the metaphysical school of thought, and rationalism. It was only after the defeat of the Buddhist revolution that Vedantist metaphysics and pantheism were revived as the ideology of Brahminical orthodoxy.”3

The idealistic deviation of Buddhist philosophy was caused by its having enlisted the patronage of the upper classes. “In order to refute Brahminical dogma of eternal truth the rebels expounded the doctrines of momentariness of everything. In course of time, the doctrine of temporariness was applied not only to the physical but also to the mental phenomena. When the more civilized Dravidians were subjugated by the pastoral Aryans, the latter imposed upon the former social laws which checked the growth of the trading class and consequently of free thought. As regards the happiness of material possessions, of the beef-eating and soma drinking, the vedic priests were not averse to it. But in order to retain the position of power and privilege they could not let the masses participate in that happiness. Hence the spiritual superiority’ of Indo-Aryan culture”4.

Commending the role of Buddhism towards a just and rationale society Roy writes: “As the composite outcome of all the positive elements in the whole pervious history of Indian thought, Buddhism shook the very foundation of the hoary edifice of Brahminical orthodoxy. It disputed the authority of scriptures, vigorously condemned the sacrificial rites and rituals of the Vedic Natural Religion, it denied the existence even of an impersonal First Cause (the Brahman of the Upnishads_, and it discarded the doctrine of soul. For the first time, there began to develop in India a system of truly philosophical thought, having for its point of departure the atomism of the Nyaya-Vaisheshikha system and rationalist-mechanistic conception of nature contained in the Sankhya system”5.

An original thinker much ahead of his time, Roy was an iconoclast. He writes in his book, Fascism: Its Philosophy, Professions and Practice, while in jail 1930-36: “Incidentally, it may be mentioned that the roots of the philosophy of Fascism can be traced in the divine philosophy of the Gita, according to which all power (bhibhutis) on earth are the powers of God. Thus, philosophically, Fascism has no philosophy. Fascist philosophy is the logical outcome of the spiritualist way of life. The logical connection between the doctrines preached in the Gita and the Fascist neo-Hegelian metaphysical conception of the state, is easily perceived. As a matter of fact, the philosophy of Fascist dictatorship results directly from the modern schools of mysticism and spiritualism which represent reaction against the scientific view of life. Its Indian ancestry can be traced through Schopenhauer whose disciple Nietzsche, was the father of the philosophy of Fascism”6.

Indian establishment intellectuals never thought that the nationalism, even the one preached by Gandhiji, could give rise to fascist forces in the country. What we are witnessing today is fascism in the form of invocation of Hindutva cult and cultural nationalism in our country. If we analyse the events of Babri Masjid demolition and Pokharan nuclear explosions and how the Hindutva forces were dancing in the street as a symbol of Hindu victory, we can see the fascist tendencies of Hindutva forces coming to the fore thus proving Roy correct after so many years.

In his book New Orientation about how fascism will enter India, Roy observes: “Fascism is not a platonic idea like cowhood or treehood or horsehood, for all actual cows or trees or horses to fit in. fascism is a socio-political manifestation of our time and its pattern is determined by the peculiarities of the country in which it grows. In Germany fascism was different from that of Italy and fascism in the East European countries were different from the both. Therefore, we should not have an a priori notion about our enemy. Neither will Subhas Bose return as Indian Mussolini, nor Patel be Hitler of India. To put the point straight: Indian Fascism will be cultural; it will be a cultural reaction. Therefore, violence may not be such a very outstanding feature of Indian fascism… the Indian people can be more easily regimented spiritually because thanks to our cultural tradition they are predisposed that way”7.

Roy’s criticism of Indian nationalism and the nationalist leaders including Gandhiji might be based on his analysis as a Marxist but the fact remains that many Indian leaders were admirers of Hitler and Mussolini. Gandhiji met Mussolini in the 1930s and wrote to Romain Rolland: “Mussolini is an enigma to me. Many of the reforms he has made attract me. He seems to have dome a great deal for the peasantry. Of course the iron glove is there. But allowing that force is the basis of western society, Mussolini’s reforms deserve an impartial study. His care for the poor people, his opposition to over urbanization, his attempt to bring about co-ordination between capital and labour seem to me to demand very careful attention. What strikes me is that behind Mussolini’s ruthlessness is the motive of serving his people. Even behind his bombastic speeches there is a ring of sincerity and burning love for his people. Its also seems to me that the bulk of the Italians like Mussolini’s iron rule.” (Gandhi’s letter to Romain Rolland on Dec 20, 1931, Romain Rolland-Gandhi Correspondence: page 241).8 (It is interesting to note that when Gandhi was praising a fascist dictator, M.N.Roy, sitting in jail, was writing against the philosophy and practice of fascism.)

Roy apprehended that cultural nationalism would be a dangerous thing for India and might be responsible for the rise of a fascist state violating all norms of a civilized society. Today a large number of Hindutvavadi outfits are thriving as cultural nationalists with hardly any opposition from secularists, not even the Royists, who seem to have forgotten the rational and radical message of M.N.Roy. Today, we must understand what actually is this Indian culture, which Roy wanted us to get rid of as this culture gives rise to an unjust hierarchical society” “Spiritual culture has taught the Indian masses to point out the difference in the size of the five fingers of the same hand when their attention is drawn to the social inequity and inequality to which they are subjected. They have taught to accept their position as befitting their merit. They have not only been taught to be reconciled to their hard lot but to look upon the established social order as an expression of divine dispensation. Nietzsche also argued that ‘there being much hard and rought work to be done, some people must be held down in conditions that make them fit for this sort of work’. The entire caste system-that creation of the special genius of India-was inspired by the Aryan spirit of caste when he suggested that ‘masses of Asiatic’ and African barbarians could be imported so that uncivilized world might constantly be at the service of the civilized. Why not? Did not the Aryan Brahmans with the help of their warrior allies, condemn the bulk of the aboriginal population of India to perpetual servitude”9.

Reference may also be made to Roy’s approach to the communal and the Hindu Muslim question, which has continued to be a major source of societal violation of human rights. The only way to solve this problem, according to Roy, was for Hindus to recognize the positive aspects of Islam, and for Muslims to adhere to real Islamic tenets. Roy wrote in the Historical Role of Islam in jail 1930-36: “A critical investigation of the internal as well as external causes of the Muslim conquest of India is of practical value today. It will remove the prejudice that makes the orthodox Hindu look upon his Muslim neighbour as an inferior being. Freed from preconceived ideas, the Hindus will be in a position to appreciate the constructive consequences of Muslim coquets of India. That will enable them to live down the hatred of the conquered for the conquerors. Unless a radical change of attitude is brought about by a sober sense of history, the communal question will never be solved. The Hindus will never be able to look upon the Muslims as integral parts of the Indian nation until they come to appreciate the contribution they made towards the emergence of Indian society out of the chaos caused by the breakdown of the antique civilization. Besides a proper understanding of history derived from a correct understanding of the successful advent of the Muslims in India, will enable us to ascertain and stamp out the deeper causes of our present misfortune”10. “In view of the realistic reading of history, Hindu superciliousness towards the culture and religion of Muslim is absurd. It insults the history and injures the political future of our country. Learning from the Muslims Europe became the leader of modern civilization. Even today her best sons are not ashamed of the past indebtedness. Unfortunately, India could not fully benefit by the heritage of Islamic culture because she did not deserve the distinction. Now in the throes of a belated Renaissance, Indians both Hindus and Muslims could profitably draw inspiration from that memorable chapter of human culture and a proper appreciation of the historical value of that contribution would shock the Hindus out of their arrogant self-satisfaction, and cure the narrow mindedness of the Muslims of our day by bringing them face to face with the true spirit of the faith they profess”11. Else where Roy writes (1948): “Nationalism, heavily tainted by Hindu orthodoxy, bred Muslim communalism. Therefore, the ideal of Hindu-Muslim unity, placed before the country by Gandhiji could not be attained. During his last days he staked his life for restoring communal harmony… communal harmony is not possible in the mediaeval atmosphere of religious orthodoxy and fanaticism.”

Roy waged war against Fascism during the Second World War. He maintained that if the fascists were not defeated, human freedom could not survive and in that eventuality, the question of Indian independence would not arise. India would remain a perpetual slave to fascist powers. It was war between fascism and democracy. So he took a strong stand in favour of full Indian support for British was effort. His main arguments in this regard were: (1) that fascism was the greater evil and all forces should be rallied against it, and (2) that the British would emerge from the war so exhausted militarily and economically that it would have to grant independence to India. Dr Ambedkar joined the Viceroy’s Executive Council as a Member of the Labour Department because he too like Roy and thousands of other Indian intellectuals and leaders wanted that fascism must be defeated.

I may refer to Mr. Arun Shourie’s blasphemous attack on Roy and Ambedkar in his book, Worshipping the False Gods, regarding war efforts in which the Government sanctioned, cleared by the Central Legislature, an amount of Rs 13,000 per moth to Indian Federation of Labour, of which M.N.Roy was General Secretary, for pursuing and organizing anti-fascist activities. Dr Ambedkar as Member, Labour Department disbursed the amount. Roy personally did not receive any amount. His colleagues received the amount. Some of these persons rose to very high positions in free India making immense contribution towards the human rights movement in India and preserving its secular heritage. Mr. V.M.Tarkunde waged war on the rise of fascism in India in was in jail, all anti-fascists fought against the dictatorship of Indira Gandhi. Yet Mr. Arun Shourie, who one of Mr. Tarkunde’s followers in those dark days has now attacked Roy and Ambedkar for aligning themselves with anti-fascist forces which included the British during the second world war. Mr. Arun Shourie, who is today a leading Hindutavavadi intellectual belonging to Sangh Parivar has written the book denouncing Dr Ambedkar, for among other things, fighting the anti-fascist forces and for Shouries’s attack on Roy and Ambedkar is that both of them were philosophically and ideologically opposed to the Brahminical religion; Mr. Arun Shouri, an intellectual leader of the Sangh Parivar, and members of the Sangh Parivar are passionately, emotionally and thoughtlessly attached to the Brahminical religion.

I may quote what Mr V.M. Tarkunde writes in this connection: “Before giving details of this episode, I must explain in short the attitude of M.N.Roy and his colleagues like myself towards the Second World War and its possible impact on India’s struggle for freedom. We were of the view that it was an anti-fascist war, that it was a war, not between fascism and British imperialism, but between fascism and democracy, that if fascism succeeded in the war the result would be that democracy throughout the world would be destroyed and the chances of India acquiring democratic freedom would be wiped out for generations to come, that if on the other hand the war resulted in the defeat of fascism, democracy would be strengthened throughout the world including Great Britain and British imperialism itself would be weekend, that defeat of fascism would thus bring India nearer to the attainment of freedom and that since the defeat of fascism was necessary for our own freedom, we must unconditionally support the Government’s war efforts. We knew that this line of thinking, although quite correct, ran against the anti British sentiments of our people and would be highly unpopular, but the war had created a highly critical situation and we had to tell the people what was in their true interest, however unpalatable the truth may be. We regarded unconditional war support as an essential and vital part of our struggle for freedom. Subsequent history has fully corroborated Roy’s war analysis. I was asked by M.N.Roy in December 1942 whether I could leave my legal practice in Poona and whether I an my wife would become whole time workers of the Radical Democratic Party and the Indian Federation of Labour. I readily agreed and left for Bombay with my wife in January 1943 to do a whole time trade union work. Shortly thereafter Mr. D.R. Pradhan, an I.C.S. officer called me to his office and told me that I would be receiving a cheque of Rs13,000/- every month and that the money was to be utilized for anti-fascist propaganda in the working class in India. I soon received a list of about 50 persons including myself working in different parts of the country who were whole time workers of the Indian Federation of Labour. As far as I remember, the list was given to me by my senior colleague and friend V.B.Karnik (the will known trade union leader). The monthly cheques given to the whole timers varied from Rs 75/- to Rs 150/- per month. Most of the monthly amount was spent in publishing anti-fascist literature and some for traveling expenses. The same system continued when I shifted to Delhi towards the end of 1943. No part of Rs 13,000/- was sent to M.N. Roy who stayed normally at Dehradun. We were, of course, collecting donations for our other expenses from the sympathizers of the Radical Democratic Party and the Indian Federation of Labour. Most of the nearly 50 whole time workers had left their jobs and professions and sacrificed a great deal of work for the pittance which we could afford to give them. I am still deeply moved by the sacrifice they committed during the war period. This is the substance of the grave ‘scandal’ described so vividly by Shri Arun Shourie.

“Mr Jamnadas Mehta (Jamnadas Mehta was an important office bearer of the Indian Federation of Labour to whom Mr. Shourie refers in this book) was not right when he said that Rs 13,000/- per month were not given to the Indian Federation of Labour and that he was not aware of it. I was working in our Delhi office at that time and I found a letter in our record signed by Mr Jamanadas Mehta which showed that he was aware of the grant of Rs. 13,000/- per month from the beginning and approved of the acceptance of the grant. I published a photocopy of the letter in the daily Vanguard which was produced and edited in Delhi by my friend the late Ram Singh. On Dr Ambedkar’s request I sent him a copy of the issue which reproduced Mr. Jamnadas Mehta’s letter. Mr. Jamnadas Mehta never denied his signature.

“Turning to other amount of Rs 13,000/- per month sent by the Government to the manager of the Weekly Independent India, which was then published from Delhi and was edited by M.N. Roy from Dehradun, I know the essential facts of the case because my wife worked as manager of Independent India. The Government of India had sent us a list of persons sot whom complimentary amounted to Rs 13,000/- per month. Independent India was always a non-profit journal. More subscribers did not imply any profit to the journal or to those who produced it. The journal had started much before the war (in April 1937) and continued after the Government subscription terminated. It is still being produced since about 1949 it was called The Radical Humanist and it became a monthly journal from April 1970”12.

Roy believed like Ambedkar that unless the Congress fought for a social revolution there would be no benefit of this so called political freedom. In his manifesto for the RPIWC, (Revolutionary Party of Indian Working Class) Roy expressed his deep resentment over Congress’s political resolution of political freedom. “The Congress failed to develop the popular anti-imperialist forces because its ideal of swaraj, even if this is interpreted as complete independence, does not represent the social revolution which is a historic necessity as the overthrow of imperialism is necessary as a prelude to the long delayed social revolution, (the) political freedom of India will be conquered by the forces making social revolution. The goal of national freedom abstracted from a comprehensive programme of social revolution will never be realizes. The congress has been endeavoring to lead the masses towards this goal of simple political freedom”13.

Emphasizing the need to work for social freedom first, Roy exhorted his followers: “Unless you are ready to carry though the historical necessary social revolution political freedom will never be attained. The oppressed and exploited masses being the forces irreconcilably antagonistic to imperialist domination the struggle for national freedom must coincide with the struggle for the social emancipation of toiling masses. A party that does not consciously stand for the welfare of the masses against the privilege of the upper classes and carry on incessant struggle to promote the welfare, is incapable of leading the movement for the national freedom to victory. The future of the nation as a whole will have precedence over the present fortunate few who constitute a vociferous minority of the nation. No nation can prosper and progress as long as the productive masses constituting its overwhelming majority languish in economic bankruptcy, social stagnation, intellectual backwardness and culture reaction”14. What Roy said long ago characterize the present situation, in all details, in our independent India today.

Roy was among those very few intellectuals who had the courage to disown the Vendanta theory as well as Karma philosophy of the Gita which violate the basic human rights. He studied the Lokayat Darshan of Indian philosophy and many other schools of Indian philosophy such as Charvak, Buddhism, Jainism etc. to put fourth his view points vigorously and in a forthright manner, at a time when people in the Congress party were hell-bent on communalizing the national movement and nationalizing the Hindu festivals. He had the courage to speak out and make himself unpopular.

I will conclude my paper with one more quotation from Roy’s writings. Roy, while narrating an ancient story, writes: “Barahmihir, for example, describes a conversation between two men in a sad plight. One voicing the spirit of revolt, naturally endangered by intolerable oppression says, ‘we are suffering for the ill-doings of our king.’ There upon, the not true; our suffering is the fruit of our own actions of past life.’ The doctrine of Karma, the belief in the transmigration of soul, here stands in its real significance. These doctrines of ‘spiritualist’ philosophy were expounded by the rishis of old with the object of making the masses feel themselves responsible for their misery and thus be reconciled to. The attitude of the second man exonerated the oppressor from all responsibility, and the established social order is guaranteed against the danger of a threating popular revolt”15. Hindutvavadis are today alarmed by the prospect of a revolt, hence some of their “theoreticians” have come down heavily on Ambedkar and his Dalit followers and on M.N. Roy.

Roy’s philosophy is of immense importance today at a time when the fascist forces of Hindutva are intoxicated by the heady wine, cultural nationalism. While Ambedkar, Buddha and Gandhi have become “pratah Smaraniya” for the Sangh Parivar-a clever way to assimilate their ideologies-in actual fact it is to misrepresent their ideologies.

It has been a great loss for the country that intellectual giants like Roy, Periyar and Ambedkar could not come to one platform and lead India towards the much awaited social revolution. It is time those of us who are working for the social revolution, initiate a dialogue among the followers of various revolutionaries for a better understanding of our social movements of the past and need for a common cause in the future, otherwise the political independence of India will have no meaning without realization of human rights of millions of the down trodden-the Dalits including the Adivasis and the Muslim minority, and now the Christian minority and women. (This is a revised version of my paper presented before the Seminar on human rights organized by Indian Social Institute, New Delhi on November 13th and 14th 1998).

1 Ahir D.C., The Legacy of Dr. Ambedkar, 1990, B.R. Publishing Corporation, New Delhi. Page:21-22
2 ibid. chapter ‘Pilgrimage to Buddhism’ Page 154
3 “Materialism” in Selected Works of M.N.Roy, volume IV: 1932-1936, Oxford University Press, 1997,
edited by Sibnarayan Ray, Page 326.
4 Ibid. Page 343
5 ibid. Page 335
6 Fascism: Its Philosophy, Professions and Practice, in Volume IV, Selected Works of M.N. Roy, Page 432-
433
7 New Orientation, by Ajanta Publications, New Delhi, 1981
8 Romain Rolland – Gandhi Correspondence, Publication Divisions, Ministry of Broadcasting, New Delhi, Second Edition, 1990, Page 241.
9 Selected Works of M.N. Roy, Volume IV: 1932-1936, Oxford University Press, 1997, Edited by
Sibnarayan Ray, Chapter Fascism: Page 437
10 ibid under chapter “The Historical Role of Islam”, Page 400
11 ibid Page 401
12 Justice V.M.Tarkunde’s letter to the Editor of Asian Age (taken from Mr. Tarkunde’s personal
correspondence).
13 ibid. Page 215 under chapter “Manifesto of the RPIWC’.
14 ibid. Page 220 under chapter “Manifesto of RPIWC”.
15 ibid. “Crime and Karma”, in selected works of M.N. Roy, Page: 516-517