India sinks in corruption and cast-ism
By Vidya Bhushan Rawat
On the eve of our 61st republic day an upright officer in Maharastra was burnt alive by the oil Mafia as he tried to stop them from doing so. No officer of collector level normally travels without a few of his assistants. Additional District Collector of Malegaon Yashwant Sonawane found the Oil Mafia pilfering the oil and adulterating it. To make the case foolproof, he took video of the entire incident on his mobile phone. This resulted in scuffle and Sonawane lost his life in a brutal way. As Mumbai Mid day reported, the officer was allowed to die as none of his assistants tried to douse the flame. He fought with life for nearly 35 minutes before succumbing to burn. Can one believe such incidents where officers and Babus have taken the country for a ride. This incident should not become a tool for these corrupt officers to do away with people’s work and surround them in heavy security cordon. Though every one sympathise with Sonawane yet it does not give certificate of integrity to Indian bureaucrats who remain spineless to political-mafia class and show their spine only to the poor in the villages. Yes, the entire bureaucracy can not be blamed yet India needs cleansing from top to down. Its mindset is not changing. It remains prisoner of caste, gender bias and a corruption. A few years back a bright engineer of Indian Oil Manjunath was brutally murdered by the oil mafias in Uttar-Pradesh.
This incident has shocked the entire nation on the eve of republic day. We are already depressed with the growing unrest and uneasiness in the country. Nothing seems to be working here. When the report of Sonawane’s brutal burning came, the news channels were still busy with whether Sachin Tendulkar would get Bharat Ratna or not. It is business usual for them as they will have other stories to celebrate.
But 61 years after becoming a republic and so-called democratic country, why India is suffering and why it continue to be one of the most corrupted countries in the world. It is ironical that people in India are looking towards despots and dictators for being clean and committed even when they have seen and heard about these in Pakistan, Philippines and elsewhere. Why the situation has arisen when our friends are talking of a Tunisian replication in India. Let us discuss these issues in details.
Corruption did not erupt in India all of a sudden. Indian regimes were heavily corrupted and promoting their own family and relatives. The political system has become victim of this and the ruling Congress Party can not absolve itself from the major ills that the country face today. The Hindutva is a logical illegitimate child of Gandhian variety of politics that Congress and its various offshoots claim to follow. That corruption has a caste angle too needs to be seen in larger perspective.
In 1986, the issue of corruption in high places was highlighted by Late V.P.Singh and he faced not only false accusation and allegation that some of the top ranking editors allowed them to be used by the ruling congress in power games that time. Hence targeting the whistleblower is part of our power polity. All attempts were made to malign him and finish him politically. A fake account in his name was opened in St Kitts and the news for it was leaked through one of country’s top editors Mr M.J.Akbar. Akbar was part of congress party’s cocktail circle and later became spokes-person of the party. The reason for this was that as a finance minister in Rajeev Gandhi’s regime, VP Singh dared to raid the houses of those industrial houses who considered to sacrosanct in this country. Many new things were emerging. Ambanis, India’s most corrupted business house lobbied against it and used CBI and intelligence for its own purpose. State apparatus was playing in the hands of these powerful to lobby for them and thus reducing the state into virtual prisoner of these powers. It was also charged that VP Singh with his confident officials like Bhure Lal and Vinod Pandey were speaking to Fairfax agency to investigate the illegal money of Indian in foreign banks including the Swiss banks. The Prime Minister Gandhi shifted him to defense ministry against the public mood under the impression that India was facing severe challenge from Pakistan. There as a defense minister, he ordered inquiry into German HDW Howitzer deal and found that commission was paid. At the same point of time, news came of the Boforse Gun Deal and commission paid in it and the rest is history. Today, Congress and its most disgusting politicians may claim that this is not an issue but the fact is that Bofors caught the imagination of Indian people and the 1989 mandate against Rajiv Gandhi was a mandate against corruption. Though that government did not survive long yet the contribution of that fight against corruption made congress party virtually defensive and finished its unquestioned monopoly of country’s polity.
V.P.Singh was a hero of the Indian middle classes. He was personally honest and committed to the cause and hence people believed in him. But what happened afterwards. The 1991 acceptance of Mandal Commission Report change his acceptance in the middle classes. From an honest politician, he became one of the most hated one in Indian political scenario who must be shunned and rejected. Those who claimed to be his friends were totally co-opted by the Congress brand of secular politics which meant every thing is accepted as long as you are ‘secular’. They took people for granted and felt that ‘secularism’ is the final chord that this country wants and none is bothered about their deeds. His colleagues could not take themselves to those heights where your moral integrity and individual honesty matters a lot. They took inspiration from Congress’s family world and could not follow that properly. Corruption killed them politically and family world surrounded with their Chamchas was the last nail in their coffin.
BSP founder Kanshi Ram was an exception in this field. He kept himself away from the family and that is why not close to the charges of corruption. Even if some people might have alleged that he took money from Congress party or Rajeev Gandhi, his personal self remained pure. None of his family people could claim that they benefited from his politics and such politics gives you strength. That is why Kanshi Ram remains the idol for many of us who the others might charge as Machiavellian. Whatever he was, he never betrayed his community. The interest of his community was top in his mind. Once you are individually clean and honest, your followers will always ready to fight along with you. BSP’s cadres still remember Kanshiram and get strength from his work for the society. Politicians like Mulayam Singh Yadav, Lalu Yadav, Ram Vilas Paswan could follow neither Lohia, Jai Prakash nor VP Singh or Karpoori Thakur for they all were known for their personal integrity despite their political successes or failures. How will you accept that Karunanidhi is the rightful heir of Periyar. It did not deter them from pursuing their agenda. It is not that there are no politicians of that kind but I am speaking of those who are supposed to be leading figures of their parties.
Unfortunately, the last 10 years, the foundation of Indian republic are under clear challenge from the corrupted. The crony capitalism promoted by the political parties particularly the Congress and BJP has resulted in complete collapse of our system. Bureaucrats are promoting linkages with Industries for their retirement benefits. Industries have controlled media and media is converting the non issues into the issues and avoiding debate on the issues of public interest. None feel shameful when Mukesh Ambani built a five thousand crore empire in Mumbai and his brother promise to create a better one in future. Whose money is this? Is there any shame? Was there any debate as why our Industrialists have no shame in claiming people’s money as their own and spending it on their shameless luxuries. Will there be a law. No, there is no question of a law on private property, say experts. Pranab Mukherjee, India’s finance minister say that the black money put in the Swiss bank can only be brought to India if the names of the people are not made public. Is it in an indirect way approval for an amnesty which Dr Manmohan Singh started several years back to legitimize the illegally begotten money by the corrupt Indian elite? Is it because there are a number of accounts belonging to Indian political class? Is it because we want to save special people from public scrutiny?
According to reports India has the largest number of sum in the Swiss bank followed by Russia but the gap between the first and second is too big and shows how India has sunk further. That this illegal money is of India’s poor is beyond any one’s doubt. It is certain the money has been deposited by politicians, industrialists, moneylenders and others like them as they know well that once they are found guilty in India, they can fly to Switzerland and its beautiful mountains without any problem and can live rest of their lives there.
.
INDIA $1,456 BILLION
RUSSIA $470 BILLION
U.K. $390 BILLION
UKRAINE $100 BILLION
CHINA $96 BILLION
The past 10 years have shown that this nexus between different groups, industrial and business houses and politicians-bureaucrats have influenced India’s policies and planning. So, nothing happened when inflation goes beyond the roof top. Our poor do not earn 50 cent a day while our leaders live in grand style. Their expenses are not questioned. They have discretionary quotas to allot public land to their friends, families and relatives. Y.S.Rajshekar Reddy started it in Andhra Pradesh and BSYadirappa is shameless in doing so and the Hindutva’s ‘soul keepers’ say it is ‘immoral and unethical’ yet not illegal. It is simply Hindutva way of defining corruption. They are calling for strike, stalling Parliament yet remain silent on the marriage of their president’s son. Where has the money come from? Can’t we do it in a simple way Mr Advani? Why our political class want to celebrate their private matter in a Raja-Maharaja style.
Corruption will not become an issue as long as it is not addressed from the root cause. A caste-ist society which is patriarchical believes in spreading the family wings. India’s corruption is basically to strengthen family control. Whether it is bollywood films, politics, industries or judiciary, it is to enlarge their families and circle to control India. You have judges coming from particular families, industrialists strengthening their families and Bollywood and Dollywood (delhi’s dirty political world) ready to fight honesty to promote their families. Political parties with immense benami land and money control will never fight against corruption as they have got ‘people’s mandate. One does not know what is this ‘people’s mandate when more than 50% voters do not even caste their vote. Most of the governments in this country and states are on less than 40% votes of the popular vote caste which actually is 20% of the votes of total eligible voters. That means most of the government in India after independence did not have the popular mandate of the people and that is the reason of their continuous negligence of people’s issues and their deep involvement in the loot of people’s resources. Moreover, when ever they want to change, they would raise some emotive issue and rise on the popular sentiments of the masses. The fact of the matter is that India’s electoral system is corrupted and it is giving rise to more corruption. There is a relative competition with the corrupt politicians who have taken their people for granted as they always felt that it is not going to be an issue. Leaders have become the ‘voice’ and ‘identity’ of their communities as if they are not there the community will be orphaned. This mindset has grown in the communities also and it has now the created the sinking feeling of helplessness and a blank future.
A country of 2 billion people can not be allowed to sink in the blank because of the historical wrongs committed by particular castes, its leaders and mercenaries. A country can not live in the baggage of past as it has to look forward. It can not be a victim of Dronacharya syndrome for ever where definition of corruption was different for different people.
Today, Lal Krishna Adavani and his fellow charioteers are seeking people’s mandate on corruption without ever introspecting on their own deeds of corruption. It is not phenomena that developed suddenly but the way our political system continued to ape the business interest, it was bound to happen. It will happen as long as our political class as a whole is prisoner of business houses, the corporate who will make it dance on their tones. The media will report according to its corporate interest. For getting rid of depression it has cricket and Bolly-wood in its kitty so there is no time for people’s issues. In fact, it is over enthusiastic about World Economic Forum meet in Devos. Hindutva’s cocktail with business and babas is well known to be discussed here. It is tragic that to fight against corruption we will depend on those forces whose basic preamble and ideology is corrupted and based on fanaticism, hatred and brahmanical racist hegemony. Public memory may be short but the facts are clear that in Parliament Congress opposed Mandal Commission Recommendation along with Advani. Lal Krishna Advani started his Kamandal yatra to counter the impact of Mandal on Indian masses and bring the asserting bahujan masses back to the Hindutva fold lead by the caste Hindus. It is beyond doubt that P.V.Narsimha Rao complimented the Hindutva by opening India’s gate for all these companies at the cost of destroying the public sector institutions to eliminate quota system.
At the World Economic Forum, Ajim Premji expressed shock of the collapse of governance in India. But he should introspect also as why the collapse. With the active participation of India’s crony capitalists, the political class alone can not be responsible for bringing us to this stage. It was logical conclusion of the dirt that we thought in the aftermath of the policies initiated by Manmohan Singh as Finance Minister and then followed as Prime Minister. These policies developed in rampant corruption by these companies. Do you think that the political parties and leaders who are selling our farmer’s land and property to private companies are doing it without any personal interest? Why are Vijay Malya, Anil Ambani, elected unopposed in Parliament. Why every political party is looking for an Amar Singh or Pramod Mahajan. Do we respect honesty really? How many of our people know about Madhu Dandwate, Surendra Mohan Karpoori Thakur, Kanshi Ram, Ram Dhan and Indrajeet Gupta. How much did media report about their deaths and their political lives?
Well, a system created to help the powerful class will always deviate from the issues and use media to over turn a mandate. Fortunately, despite all tall claims, people of India still have their own mind to vote and they voted according to their issues and priorities. I always loved what Late Kanshi Ram used to say ‘, we do not need Majboot Sarkar in Delhi but Mazboor sarkar which mean we need a weak government in Delhi and not a strong’. Congress in its second term actually proved how it has drifted from people’s issue and aspirations. Fight against corruption has to come from the above and political parties have to relinquish their family business of promoting their children and imposing on the people of India in the name of what people want. The patience of India’s people should not be tasted for long. If one slap in Tunisia can turn the entire system and brought hope in the Middle East against those despots who ruled in the name of Islam, then we are better prepared. Our people have been cheated and betrayed in the name of democracy. Where is it? In parliament or Assemblies where no discussion takes place and only unanimity is to increase their perks and salaries shamelessly. At the moment, people are not just frustrated with one particular party but with the democratic institutions themselves and that is shocking. The Hindutva want to ride on people’s aspiration and that must be curtailed. It would be worst than the Islamic despots in middle-east. So the challenge is bigger. The very foundation of our corrupt culture has to go and real democracy has to come. Political democracy without social democracy would fail Dr Ambedkar had said long back. Today, we are witnessing how our political democracy is failing as democracy is in the hands of not only corrupted but all those who have no respect for democracy. The depression must take the form of frustration only then we will be able to protect upright officers like Yashwant Sonawane.
Friday, January 28, 2011
Monday, January 17, 2011
Time for a Telengana State
Messing up in Telengana would alienate people from rest of the country
By Vidya Bhushan Rawat
Justice Shri Krishna Committee report on Telengana has strengthened the views of the Telengana people that it was meant to create status quo and buying time to create further confusion and depression among the people of the region. That Shri Krishna Committee could not find logical reasons for carving a separate Telengana state is quite distasteful. But what can one do with a committee of ‘experts’ who hails from state apparatus and know to ‘rule’ and ‘govern’ rather than understanding the historical demands and sentiments of the people. Of course, sentiments do not matter for those in powers as for them it is important to calculate here and there to save their governments and further their own agenda for future.
That Andhra Pradesh has been a loyalist to Congress party and important for its future is a well known fact. And it is this tragedy that has averted creation of Telengana State duly declared by home minister P.Chidambaram on December 9th, 20101 last year after a cabinet meet on the issue. After the builders and minor lobby creating ruckus in Andhra Pradesh, the government backtracked its own decision and formed a committee of ‘expert’ to maintain the status quo. The committee members traveled across the state and met a large number of people and found their assumption that the most suitable thing for the development of the region is to maintain the status quo.
Telenagana is burning again. This time, it is silence in the air but tension is visible on each face. Perhaps, the people are waiting for the Budget session of parliament. They are waiting for the government at the center to come for a final solution. It seems, the Congress party is playing a mind game and testing the patience of the people of the region. Congress is known to do no work, a typical P.V.Narsimharao style which means doing nothing means doing everything. And they are waiting for people to respond.
The important thing that has happened this time is usage of media. This self censorship from the media created an atmosphere where the local people are feeling betrayed. The same media which was broadcasting every small event nearly a year ago is keeping a low profile. The day the Commission report was out, momentum was building up and our anchors were playing great hosts. Telengana Rashtra Samiti President KCR’s son was the most visible face on TV channels explaining eloquently why they reject the Shri Krishna Committee Report. The other faces from the regions were a bunch of expert and congress politicians who are unable to express as they are dying in two loyalties – one to their people and the other to their high command. In the congress culture, high command is most important thing and hence these MPs will wait till their last breathe to wait for a positive decision from High Command. An Indian Express story narrated in details how the Congress MPs from Telenagana regions virtually wept at the feet of Pranab Mukherjee, virtually telling him that their political future would be decimated and that they have no other option then committing suicide. The congress MPs should understand better that they have better option than opposition in creation of Telenagana. Congress should understand that it may lose all the regions due to its dilly dallying tactics on the issue.
Telengana, it seems, is the most misunderstood region. Its political struggle does not appear visible outside the region. The current movement and sentiments remains in the state. It is tragic that the other parts of the country, it is becoming like a hot ‘national’ issue which is linked to disintegration of the country. Some parties and experts claimed that it will divide the country further. Then there are arguments that smaller states are not good. The other argument is that states were divided on the basis of languages and hence no further division of one language state. Many argue according to their convenience like a Bahujan ideologue who said there is nothing for us in Telengana. BJP is supporting as it is known to swim in troubled water as it has no stake in Andhra Pradesh. The Hindutva always gained from the smaller state syndrome as the faulty positions taken up the other parties.
Let us understand that there is no meaning of the explanations given in terms of smaller state or bigger state. There are big states which have failed and there are smaller states which have succeeded. States are not created just because we feel they might fail. If that were the reasons, British should not have left from India. States are created on specific movements for their autonomy and people’s struggle, socio-economic conditions, cultural differences. United States of America has over 50 states while India with such huge population has just 29 states. The states that were created immediately after independence were not always on logical grounds. If one see the logic of the work of the state than you have to scratch your head. How states were created and how their capitals were developed. Thiruvananthpuram is capital of Kerala but it is based on the border of Kerala with Tamilnadu. How can one justify such a capital? Chennai is on one side of Tamilnadu. One can visualize the distance of Hyderabad from Vishakapattanam. French scholar said that nation states are bound not by language and common religion but common history which may not be dynastic but earned through common struggle. The Telenagna people’s strength lies in common struggle against not only the autocratic rule of Nizam but also against feudalism.
Unfortunately, the entire issue revolves around the fate of Congress party in the region. One must not undermine the factor that political parties are taking positions according to their possibilities for future. When the congress decided to opt for a Telengana state last year, they were hopeful that there would no reaction against it, as has happened in other cases such as Chhatishgarh, Jharkhand and Uttarakhand state where state assemblies passed resolution in this effect. Hence the protest in coastal Andhra regions were well planned by the lobbyist to thwart the separate Telenagana dream. It is unfortunate that the politicians could go to such strength to sustain their interest. We know well that during the Uttarakhand state, the issue of Shaheed Udham Singh Nagar and Hardwar became bone of contention with Uttar-Pradesh Chief Minister Mulayam Singh Yadav continue to say they were part of Uttar-Pradesh ignoring the historic reality of the two cities. It was done to deny Uttarakhand the revenue generated from the region and compelling the center to concede the demand of the state in a truncated form. However, that did not succeed. This time too, the center has to take a decision above the party line. Once that is done, they would be able to handle all other issues.
It is well known facts that many voices for more autonomy for Indian states emerged in 1980s. The demands for autonomy with in the states also raised its head. The grievances of the people in particular states need to be looked after. Rajiv Gandhi actually started his governance with much better way as he not only negotiated in Punjab and Assam at the cost of his own party but also brought Mizo rebel leader Laldenga to negotiating table. When state were demanding fiscal autonomy, regional voices with in the states were raising their head. Gorakhaland, Bodoland, Vidarbha, Harit Pradesh, Bundelkhand are some of the logical demands coming out of part of huge states where people of one region find it difficult to travel to the state capitals. The biases can clearly be found in the state bureaucracy.
The government of India should not be very of thinking about demands for separate states. We can not impose super state nationalism on these sub regional demand. It is important that our people stop looking the sub regional identities through the prism of ‘their’ ‘nationalism. Aspiration for saving their culture, identity and most importantly quest for development and being part of it force the people to think about their own state. As we know in big state, the backward regions are looked down upon and their people have a negative image. Definitely people of Uttarakhand did not have a positive image in Delhi and Lucknow. Students from Jharkhand regions were always maltreated in Bihar while we all know what do people in Andhra think of a Telengana person. I have been traveling Hyderabad and other regions and I have found this bias among them in my conversation with them. Even an auto driver would comment that ‘they’ are ‘lazy’ people. We faced it in Delhi many time being termed as ‘Pahadi’ as if the Pahadi’s have no right to exist or live or as if they do not know any thing. Such biases exist in our system and society and hence better governments tackle that. When arguments are given about development in Telengana region by many economists and also justified by the Shri Krishna Committee report, they failed to respond how many Telenganites are part of these Development. How many of them own industries, business, schools.. What is their percentage in our services and elsewhere. These are genuine concern and can not come through the jargons of ‘we develop Telenegana for you’. Today’s slogan is ‘we, the people of Telengana will develop our Telengana. Your support is welcome.
An important point raised by a number of Dalit Bahujan ideologues is about the movement being led by the upper castes. But should that deter the demands for a separate statehood as it is historical. Secondly, Telengana’s has a very substantial Dalit-Backwardcaste-Muslim population and it is definitely not going to be the same for them all the time. Once, the new state come, these power structure will also collapse. After all, who ever thought that Mayawati would become chief minister in the holy land of ‘Uttar-Pradesh’, the main battle field of Aryavrat. After nearly 40 years of our becoming republic people of Uttar-Pradesh realized the caste identities and their importance and post 1990s, we mostly had chief ministers from Dalit-backward communities. Now, we are entering into another phase where people are becoming more inquisitive and asking more questions from their own leaders and Bihar is another example of how the most deprived revolted against the powerful.
It is therefore important for the center government to initiate a process. Telenagna will not come to peace with patch up solutions. The more delay the government do in this case, they face more problem and people from both Andhra and Telengana regions will suffer. Already, the unrest during the past one year has cost a lot to students and business in the region. Such uncertainty fuel dissatisfaction among the people and alienate them from the rest of the country. They tend to become more rhetorical and will develop more hatred towards the neighbors which need to be shunned at all cost. Two people from same regions can not be allowed to hate each other and kill each other. But this will happen as the more we delay the process, the greater would be the feeling of ‘victimisation’ and betrayal among the people of Telengana region.
One hope that the government will bring the bill for a separate state in the Parliament and stop rest the question of what is going to happen in Telengana. The emotional bondage is completely broken in the region with that of rest of the Andhra Pradesh. And it can come back to normalcy once a new state comes into being. In true democracy it is people’s will to live together. In 1882, French philosopher Ernst Renan delivered a lecture in the University of Sorbonne and said that ‘A nation is therefore a large scale solidarity. Its existence is a daily plebiscite. A province is its inhabitants, if any one has the right to be consulted, it is its inhabitants. A nation never has any real interest in annexing or holding onto a country against its will. The existence of nations is a good thing, a necessity even. Their existence is a guarantee of liberty, which would be lost if, the world has only one law and only one master.’
While Ernst Renan was defining Nationhood and hence a large number of points which he mentioned are very much relevant here in terms of sub regional identities and aspirations. The truth is that if there is a plebiscite in Telengana, it would wholeheartedly reject being part of Andhra Pradesh. A state is not a militerised notion where your demands for autonomy are met with lathiweilding policemen and army. That can never bring peace. Time has come for the government of India to grant statehood to Telengana and also constitute a second State Reorganisation Commission to look into other such demands for the state for better governance. If the solutions for people’s aspirations are in the form of policing the people by putting non political governors in the ‘problematic’ states then India will pay a heavy price for this. Political issues need political solutions and not from those top bureaucrats who have deep contempt for the people and who consider themselves as masters of the people and know only language of violence. Nothing is lost at the moment. Shri Krishna Committee report is nothing but balancing acts of bureaucrats and good for research work. It can not bring solution to the issue without granting statehood to Telengana. To hold on to an unwilling people into a state is violation of their fundamental right. It would be good for Congress party to think beyond their immediate political interest and take a decision. Prolonging the decision will only bring chaos and anarchy which in long term would be detrimental for the economy and health of the country.
By Vidya Bhushan Rawat
Justice Shri Krishna Committee report on Telengana has strengthened the views of the Telengana people that it was meant to create status quo and buying time to create further confusion and depression among the people of the region. That Shri Krishna Committee could not find logical reasons for carving a separate Telengana state is quite distasteful. But what can one do with a committee of ‘experts’ who hails from state apparatus and know to ‘rule’ and ‘govern’ rather than understanding the historical demands and sentiments of the people. Of course, sentiments do not matter for those in powers as for them it is important to calculate here and there to save their governments and further their own agenda for future.
That Andhra Pradesh has been a loyalist to Congress party and important for its future is a well known fact. And it is this tragedy that has averted creation of Telengana State duly declared by home minister P.Chidambaram on December 9th, 20101 last year after a cabinet meet on the issue. After the builders and minor lobby creating ruckus in Andhra Pradesh, the government backtracked its own decision and formed a committee of ‘expert’ to maintain the status quo. The committee members traveled across the state and met a large number of people and found their assumption that the most suitable thing for the development of the region is to maintain the status quo.
Telenagana is burning again. This time, it is silence in the air but tension is visible on each face. Perhaps, the people are waiting for the Budget session of parliament. They are waiting for the government at the center to come for a final solution. It seems, the Congress party is playing a mind game and testing the patience of the people of the region. Congress is known to do no work, a typical P.V.Narsimharao style which means doing nothing means doing everything. And they are waiting for people to respond.
The important thing that has happened this time is usage of media. This self censorship from the media created an atmosphere where the local people are feeling betrayed. The same media which was broadcasting every small event nearly a year ago is keeping a low profile. The day the Commission report was out, momentum was building up and our anchors were playing great hosts. Telengana Rashtra Samiti President KCR’s son was the most visible face on TV channels explaining eloquently why they reject the Shri Krishna Committee Report. The other faces from the regions were a bunch of expert and congress politicians who are unable to express as they are dying in two loyalties – one to their people and the other to their high command. In the congress culture, high command is most important thing and hence these MPs will wait till their last breathe to wait for a positive decision from High Command. An Indian Express story narrated in details how the Congress MPs from Telenagana regions virtually wept at the feet of Pranab Mukherjee, virtually telling him that their political future would be decimated and that they have no other option then committing suicide. The congress MPs should understand better that they have better option than opposition in creation of Telenagana. Congress should understand that it may lose all the regions due to its dilly dallying tactics on the issue.
Telengana, it seems, is the most misunderstood region. Its political struggle does not appear visible outside the region. The current movement and sentiments remains in the state. It is tragic that the other parts of the country, it is becoming like a hot ‘national’ issue which is linked to disintegration of the country. Some parties and experts claimed that it will divide the country further. Then there are arguments that smaller states are not good. The other argument is that states were divided on the basis of languages and hence no further division of one language state. Many argue according to their convenience like a Bahujan ideologue who said there is nothing for us in Telengana. BJP is supporting as it is known to swim in troubled water as it has no stake in Andhra Pradesh. The Hindutva always gained from the smaller state syndrome as the faulty positions taken up the other parties.
Let us understand that there is no meaning of the explanations given in terms of smaller state or bigger state. There are big states which have failed and there are smaller states which have succeeded. States are not created just because we feel they might fail. If that were the reasons, British should not have left from India. States are created on specific movements for their autonomy and people’s struggle, socio-economic conditions, cultural differences. United States of America has over 50 states while India with such huge population has just 29 states. The states that were created immediately after independence were not always on logical grounds. If one see the logic of the work of the state than you have to scratch your head. How states were created and how their capitals were developed. Thiruvananthpuram is capital of Kerala but it is based on the border of Kerala with Tamilnadu. How can one justify such a capital? Chennai is on one side of Tamilnadu. One can visualize the distance of Hyderabad from Vishakapattanam. French scholar said that nation states are bound not by language and common religion but common history which may not be dynastic but earned through common struggle. The Telenagna people’s strength lies in common struggle against not only the autocratic rule of Nizam but also against feudalism.
Unfortunately, the entire issue revolves around the fate of Congress party in the region. One must not undermine the factor that political parties are taking positions according to their possibilities for future. When the congress decided to opt for a Telengana state last year, they were hopeful that there would no reaction against it, as has happened in other cases such as Chhatishgarh, Jharkhand and Uttarakhand state where state assemblies passed resolution in this effect. Hence the protest in coastal Andhra regions were well planned by the lobbyist to thwart the separate Telenagana dream. It is unfortunate that the politicians could go to such strength to sustain their interest. We know well that during the Uttarakhand state, the issue of Shaheed Udham Singh Nagar and Hardwar became bone of contention with Uttar-Pradesh Chief Minister Mulayam Singh Yadav continue to say they were part of Uttar-Pradesh ignoring the historic reality of the two cities. It was done to deny Uttarakhand the revenue generated from the region and compelling the center to concede the demand of the state in a truncated form. However, that did not succeed. This time too, the center has to take a decision above the party line. Once that is done, they would be able to handle all other issues.
It is well known facts that many voices for more autonomy for Indian states emerged in 1980s. The demands for autonomy with in the states also raised its head. The grievances of the people in particular states need to be looked after. Rajiv Gandhi actually started his governance with much better way as he not only negotiated in Punjab and Assam at the cost of his own party but also brought Mizo rebel leader Laldenga to negotiating table. When state were demanding fiscal autonomy, regional voices with in the states were raising their head. Gorakhaland, Bodoland, Vidarbha, Harit Pradesh, Bundelkhand are some of the logical demands coming out of part of huge states where people of one region find it difficult to travel to the state capitals. The biases can clearly be found in the state bureaucracy.
The government of India should not be very of thinking about demands for separate states. We can not impose super state nationalism on these sub regional demand. It is important that our people stop looking the sub regional identities through the prism of ‘their’ ‘nationalism. Aspiration for saving their culture, identity and most importantly quest for development and being part of it force the people to think about their own state. As we know in big state, the backward regions are looked down upon and their people have a negative image. Definitely people of Uttarakhand did not have a positive image in Delhi and Lucknow. Students from Jharkhand regions were always maltreated in Bihar while we all know what do people in Andhra think of a Telengana person. I have been traveling Hyderabad and other regions and I have found this bias among them in my conversation with them. Even an auto driver would comment that ‘they’ are ‘lazy’ people. We faced it in Delhi many time being termed as ‘Pahadi’ as if the Pahadi’s have no right to exist or live or as if they do not know any thing. Such biases exist in our system and society and hence better governments tackle that. When arguments are given about development in Telengana region by many economists and also justified by the Shri Krishna Committee report, they failed to respond how many Telenganites are part of these Development. How many of them own industries, business, schools.. What is their percentage in our services and elsewhere. These are genuine concern and can not come through the jargons of ‘we develop Telenegana for you’. Today’s slogan is ‘we, the people of Telengana will develop our Telengana. Your support is welcome.
An important point raised by a number of Dalit Bahujan ideologues is about the movement being led by the upper castes. But should that deter the demands for a separate statehood as it is historical. Secondly, Telengana’s has a very substantial Dalit-Backwardcaste-Muslim population and it is definitely not going to be the same for them all the time. Once, the new state come, these power structure will also collapse. After all, who ever thought that Mayawati would become chief minister in the holy land of ‘Uttar-Pradesh’, the main battle field of Aryavrat. After nearly 40 years of our becoming republic people of Uttar-Pradesh realized the caste identities and their importance and post 1990s, we mostly had chief ministers from Dalit-backward communities. Now, we are entering into another phase where people are becoming more inquisitive and asking more questions from their own leaders and Bihar is another example of how the most deprived revolted against the powerful.
It is therefore important for the center government to initiate a process. Telenagna will not come to peace with patch up solutions. The more delay the government do in this case, they face more problem and people from both Andhra and Telengana regions will suffer. Already, the unrest during the past one year has cost a lot to students and business in the region. Such uncertainty fuel dissatisfaction among the people and alienate them from the rest of the country. They tend to become more rhetorical and will develop more hatred towards the neighbors which need to be shunned at all cost. Two people from same regions can not be allowed to hate each other and kill each other. But this will happen as the more we delay the process, the greater would be the feeling of ‘victimisation’ and betrayal among the people of Telengana region.
One hope that the government will bring the bill for a separate state in the Parliament and stop rest the question of what is going to happen in Telengana. The emotional bondage is completely broken in the region with that of rest of the Andhra Pradesh. And it can come back to normalcy once a new state comes into being. In true democracy it is people’s will to live together. In 1882, French philosopher Ernst Renan delivered a lecture in the University of Sorbonne and said that ‘A nation is therefore a large scale solidarity. Its existence is a daily plebiscite. A province is its inhabitants, if any one has the right to be consulted, it is its inhabitants. A nation never has any real interest in annexing or holding onto a country against its will. The existence of nations is a good thing, a necessity even. Their existence is a guarantee of liberty, which would be lost if, the world has only one law and only one master.’
While Ernst Renan was defining Nationhood and hence a large number of points which he mentioned are very much relevant here in terms of sub regional identities and aspirations. The truth is that if there is a plebiscite in Telengana, it would wholeheartedly reject being part of Andhra Pradesh. A state is not a militerised notion where your demands for autonomy are met with lathiweilding policemen and army. That can never bring peace. Time has come for the government of India to grant statehood to Telengana and also constitute a second State Reorganisation Commission to look into other such demands for the state for better governance. If the solutions for people’s aspirations are in the form of policing the people by putting non political governors in the ‘problematic’ states then India will pay a heavy price for this. Political issues need political solutions and not from those top bureaucrats who have deep contempt for the people and who consider themselves as masters of the people and know only language of violence. Nothing is lost at the moment. Shri Krishna Committee report is nothing but balancing acts of bureaucrats and good for research work. It can not bring solution to the issue without granting statehood to Telengana. To hold on to an unwilling people into a state is violation of their fundamental right. It would be good for Congress party to think beyond their immediate political interest and take a decision. Prolonging the decision will only bring chaos and anarchy which in long term would be detrimental for the economy and health of the country.
Thursday, December 30, 2010
Growing Intolerance to Freedom of Expression and civil liberties
Need judicial reforms and a debate on the issues of sedition and governance
By Vidya Bhushan Rawat
As year 2010 is approaching to an end, the outrageous verdict pronounced by a Raipur court to Dr Binayak Sen is a reminder of how judicial system is working in India particularly the lower judiciary. It has not only shocked the nation but also proved that in this country any talk of senses would be dealt by the government and its authorities in the similar way. It is more shameful when we find the same charges being leveled against Arundhati Roy for alleged ‘anti-national’ remarks on Kashmir. It is sadly a poor reflection on how things are manipulated in India by authorities.. Definitely, it shocked the middle class upper caste Hindus also who think how such charge can be leveled against him. So far treason and sedition charges are always domain of the ‘Muslims’ but now we are turning more ‘secular’ for the same.
But my issue is not with what Binayak Sen and Arundhati Roy write or who they meet which actually is part of the life of all of us who claim to work for people. As human rights activist we are supposed to meet and visit people who feel they are threatened and wrongly abused by the state and its authorities. All this is part of democratic process as the aim is to bring people to negotiating table and force the state to be more responsible. State has all the power and that power need to be used with utmost care and more responsibility and accountability. State can not act in a streetfight acting on tit for tat slogan.
We all know that in the past 20 years, India has further degenerated in to the core values of state’s responsibility. The directive principles of our constitution guided us to make a responsible state towards the Dalits and Adivasis. As the assertion of Dalits and Adviasis grew, the state started abdicating its responsibility in a very shrewd way. The two important issues that are part and parcel of our struggle are Land Redistribution and participation in power structure through reservation in the government jobs. Since 1990s, they became target of the ruling elite. Hence on the one hand, the subsequent government in post 1990s opted for opening up of Indian market and thus killing our farmers on the one hand and allowing privatization of more and more companies thus reducing the job quota to a virtual nil in the government sector. This was the silent poison introduce by the government. The ruling elite were not satisfied with this only. The marginalization and isolation of Muslims was complete. Though this country has a history of communal disturbances yet Babari demolition shook the very basic foundation of our nationhood yet nothing happened to those who were behind the killings of people and incited hatred against the ‘second largest community’ in India Contrary to what we felt that these communalist forces would be thrashed and sent to jail, we saw Lal Krishna Advani became deputy prime minister of the country for his Ayodhya Kand. Narendra Modi became chief minister after massacring thousands of Muslims in Gujarat and Kalyan Singh who took oath to defend the Babari Mosque was sentenced to one day imprisonment for a clear act of sedition which actually created an unprecedented divide in the country. We did not a find single sentence for those who allegedly were responsible for massacring thousands of Sikhs in Delhi’s 1984 riots. After 1993 riots Bal Thackrey’s Shiv Sena came to power in Maharastra. Why not a fast track court for our politicians? Can there be any case against Lal Krishna Advani, Narendra Modi, Uma Bharati and Kalyan Singh under sedition. No, they have raised the consciousness of this country for Ram Mandir, the ‘most important’ issue the country, hence they got awarded with power in the country. Actually, questioning the mainstream politics has become very much like a blasphemy law in India and that could send you to jail. This has to be challenged at all level.
If these things were not enough to break the bone of the people of India, the power brokers forced the government to grab the fertile land of the country. Millions of hectares of land was handed over in a throw away prices to the industrialists who suck our blood from morning till evening. The authorities were hell bent to grab all these for the ‘development’ of our country. In each spheres of our life we find rampant corruption which is killing us. Our politicians, bureaucrats, journalists, along with corporate have looted our resources and displaced people from their own places without providing an alternatives. No debate is taking place in parliament on the issues of national concern. If one party opposes certain initiative, they are doing the same in their state. The Hindutva people knew it very well that a cocktail of ‘capital’ and ‘brahmanism’ is best suited to protect their interests in India and hence they have Brahmanised the Indian polity resulting almost no opposition for government policies on corporate. That is why any mention of ‘Hindu terrorist evoke such sharp reactions in Indian media. They do not have same when we refer to Islamic terrorists or Muslim terrorists. The media already become part of the power gangs and judiciary out of domain for the poor, there is no way out for the poorest of the poor. The issues of tribal are in direct conflict with the issue of development. It is not that they do not want it but then the question is whether any one of us ever thought what they want. The democratic deficit in tribal land turned their anger against the state. Hundreds of them have been arrested and put into the jails for no faults of them. Their voices rarely got representation in the mainstream for the sake of ‘community representation’. It is difficult to understand that even the political parties claiming to work for them rarely raised those issues in Parliament and state assemblies.
Land grabbing helped all those contractors come in close contacts of the power elite. Each event in this country has relation with land grabbing and corruption. It is therefore important why right from Common Wealth Games to building of dams, parks, hotels, resorts, SEZs, High ways are the out come of a big disease called brahmanical capitalism at the moment being developed under the supervision of power elites. There is no debate for it as most of them have their hand strained in the blood of the people. That the issue of corruption will never become an issue as it does not influence people who have grown up in worshipping our political class. The only thing is that it has decentralized. Earlier it has brahmanical hegemony but now slowly the Dalit-Bahujans are also having their take in it though their percentage seems to be very low. But at the end of the day, the impact of this is on the poorest of the poor whether it is taken by any one. You can only be good if you dance to the tone of corporate. Hence a Nitish Kumar will turn sour if he does not allot land to some Tatas or Ambanis on throw away prices like Naveen Patnayak.
When the voices of opposition are nowhere then who has to play the role of it. Hundreds of local struggles have emerged up against the state policies which are uprooting people from their land. Whether it is Chhattishgarh state which is currently being ruled by a non tribal and that is the biggest irony of the state,. Similarly, other states have been governed by those who did not remain behind to keep the Dalits and tribal out of their developmental plans. States such as Andhra Pradesh, Jharkhand, Tamilnadu, Gujarat, Maharastra and Uttarakhand, have provided their fertile land and water resources are at the cost of their people to these greedy corporations, many of whom are being run by our ‘esteemed’ politicians, are facing the protest of the people who are resisting every bit of this illegal take over of their land cultivated and nurtured by their ancestors. For ‘national’ media these are ‘regional’ news but the unrest is high though not formidable as people have to look for their next day meal too. It is not my contention that people do not need development but as a human rights defender, I must add that if State has failed to improve the condition of the people then its sovereignty has no right to take the lives of the people. Where is the state when tribal are dying of hunger or their women are being raped by our police and forces? Will they not turn the people against its might? Why is Kashmir boiling? Why is the North East still unable to reconcile to us? It is not that they do not want to be with us but how have we treated them. Can a Kashmiri Muslim get a room on rent in our cities? What do the girls of the North East face truants in Delhi and other parts of the country? What are we as a state? A State of racist nature, which look down upon those who it feel different than us. Yes, as a nation we still worship the white skin and look down upon the black.
Therefore, it is logical for humanists, human rights activists, and social action groups to play the role of the opposition. The issues of Human Rights of the Dalits were taken to international agenda not by the political parties but by the Dalit rights activists who spoke there and presented despite the powerful opposition from the shameless government of India which denied existence of caste based prejudices in India citing the laws and acts in Indian constitution. It is important for the health of democracy that political parties raise the issues concerning the masses but over the last 20 years politics has just become the game of non political actors and that is a dangerous phenomenon. Political parties might have empowered some of them but it is the social movements which have changed the lives of the people. And since many of the writers, activists, struggles for people’s right over resources are challenging government’s action particularly on the issue of sovereignty they are easily targeted as ‘being anti national’ or supporting secessionists or in more popular discourse, supporting the Maoists. For a nation to survive as a healthy democracy, it is important that we have an open debate on issues concerning our people. A debate on Kashmir can not be judged on Barkha Dutt’s upper caste show on NDTV. It needs to be organized in Kashmir and let those champions of Hindutva be there and speak among the masses. The issue of Advasis, need to be discussed with their people and not with one or two members showcased in the TV studios of Delhi to justify that ‘we have space for ‘their’ voices. Let the journalist report going to nook and corners of the country and not become part and parcel of our ‘intelligence’ network. The greatest danger to our democracy is the growing disappearance of demarcation line between a reporter and an intelligence person, between a PR person and an editor. They all have merged together so much that it is important to know who is the person and what is he writing.
The self styled mainstream media has rarely spoken for people who are rotting in our jails. They speak for Dr Binayak Sen as they feel he was one among them. It is a class-caste consciousness which has shocked them that if such a thing could happen to him, it might happen to them. But the fact is media has completely lost interest in people’s issues. Binayak Sen is not important. Important is the issue of charges against him and the way police framed him. Important is to question our sedition laws and the issue of my right to criticize the state. He was critical of Salawa Judum which the state felt was providing justice to the tribal who were not Naxalites. Even the Supreme Court had held that state can not give private citizens right to kill each other and Salwa Judum was that. Hence, questioning state polices today is being considered as challenge to our sovereignty. Therefore, I am also happy that this verdict will expose the Indian judicial system, its courts, its trial methods and how they function. It is indeed a case for judicial reforms in India.
Therefore, it is not necessary for me to dwell on the argument of Dr Binayak Sen or Arundhati Roy which may suffer from flaws and we all have those flaws as we become too sensitive to the issues close to our heart and that is what true about those who fight for people’s right. We may differ on our perceptions but as writers, authors, human rights activists always believe in their perceptions and beliefs and that makes them different than others. We are not political leaders who speak for the ‘people’. We speak our voices and our feeling. As a human rights defender, I write many things which many may not like, of course, many others like them too yet, it is important that this freedom remain unchallenged. For, because of such people, the forces of state and its sponsored campaigns and laws are challenged.
Is not it a hypocrisy that when a Chinese dissenter got Nobel Peace Prize earlier this year, Indian government send its representative to attend the ceremony despite China’s effort to dissuade India from doing so. It was a great gesture in support of a human rights defender for democracy in that country who has been allegedly framed for treason in that country. Its shameful that Binayak Sen’s case is becoming a very similar one where the state is hell bent to prove that he worked against the state.. Binayak Sen might not have done so many things but in their dirty tricks the government officials will only make him bigger and larger than life. The world will only cry foul on conviction of the local court which looks like a kangaroo trial. For long there have been demands for a National judicial Commission and implementation of quota for SC-ST-OBCs, in the judiciary so that the judges themselves understand their issues with utmost care before passing a judgment. The courts have actually become biggest obstacles in progressive laws. Most of the judges have biases against Dalit-Adivasis and their issues related to them. The issue of quota is being made redundant through judicial interventions. Similarly, land reforms failed in India as in most of the cases the high and mighty went to court against land ceiling laws. The brahmanical minds created various side ways to destroy all the reforms and acts.
Binayak Sen has a formidable background as a doctor as well as a civil rights activist and hence his case became internationalized otherwise ordinary mortals like us would never ever think of civil libertarians and news papers supporting this freedom. Hence, we must support his release and ask for a thorough scrutiny of the conditions in Indian jails and reform in the judiciary. Binayak Sen is definitely bound to get justice but in the din of hello being created around, we must not forget thousands of innocents being put in the jail for being Jehadis, Naxalites and what not. Any one raise the issue for his right is charged with challenging the state and this mindset has to be challenged. It is time to start a complete debate on these issues which have emerged out of Binayak Sen’s conviction.
Monday, December 27, 2010
Understanding the importance of Mahad movement
Relevance of Mahad’s historical struggle
Manusmriti need to be burnt not in its physicality alone but also from our hearts and minds
By Vidya Bhushan Rawat
Two sisters from scavenging community were burnt to death by an upper caste mob in Moradabad district of Uttar-Pradesh for an alleged murder committed by their brother who is still at large. The family requested the police to protect them yet nothing happened. Contrary to what the girl’s distraught mother is saying, the Uttar-Pradesh police already suggested that the girls committed suicide because of the regular humiliation by their neighbors regarding their brothers.
Uttar-Pradesh, people say, is the laboratory of the Dalit-Bahujan politics. Unfortunately, Brahmanism still remains as powerful in the state as ever though its functionality and strategies have changed drastically. The Dalit- Bahujan concept has taken a beating here and to the best now the new agendas of different caste identities have emerged in the state. Tragically, this assertion movement has some where drifted from what Baba Saheb Ambedkar charted for all the oppressed of the country, a new vision under Buddha’s liberating path. Uttar-Pradesh has seen empowered Dalit Bahujan politics but unlike Maharastra the efforts for a counter culture here have not worked well. In the absence of a counter culture, the Dalit Bahujan leaderships of different communities are targeting each other and in the end reinforcing brahmanical beliefs of supremacy and purity. As long as caste remains, Brahmanism will work to the benefits of the powerful and maintain hegemonies of a few.
It is therefore necessary to revisit the historic path of Baba Saheb Ambedkar in Mahad where he fought the rights of the people denied human dignity and access the natural resources. Water is a natural resource and none has right to control it and Ambedkar’s fight for water right for the Dalits is an example of how people’s movement can bring social change as he was not just breaking the brahmanical hegemony over water but also pointing that without equality of women and their effective participation no movement would succeed. He, along with thousands of his followers, predominantly women, burnt Manusmriti, the law book of the Hindus. It was not just symbolic but a strong rejection of racist Hindu social order which denied human being equality, liberty and fraternity. It was just not a political issue as he made an important statement in burning Manusmriti, which means that the rejection of old order based on racial prejudices of cultural supremacy must essentially be part of any movement meant for social justice. Hence, December 25th must be celebrated as a human rights day of the oppressed all over the world. We can not leave this symbolic day to the pages of history only but take it further to demolish Machiavellian politics of highest kind where people are marginalized through divine sanctions and subjugated further in the name of Gods and the books supposedly written by them. No book was bigger than human liberty and freedom and therefore they need to be questioned and formulated according to modern concept of rights for all.
For every student of social sciences and human rights in India must read and understand this historical event of December 25th, 1927, as this will give them ideas to learn and understand what Ambedkar stood for and what he revolted. That was the time, when Baba Saheb challenged the religious superiority of Manu Smriti and termed it a law book of injustice and burnt it with his supporters, it was a big event for millions of people were fooled to believe in a book which can not be changed yet which was responsible for their miseries and sorrows. A person like Ambedkar would not believe in tokenism as he countered each of these laws with his thought provoking critical analysis, yet it was important for him to do something symbolic which sends a positive message among the community.
This is Ambedkar’s century and his forthright views are now a challenge for all hegemonies. Today, the movement for social justice can not imagine anything leaving Ambedkar from the centrality of it. Yet, very unfortunately, many new things are coming up projecting Ambedkar as a person from a particular community, who married to a non Dalit woman and most shockingly, they alleged, he embrace Buddhism under pressure of Hindus. This is the outcome of the growing caste identities being used for individual leaders and their fancies to achieve ‘political power’. There is nothing wrong in attaining political power but how will it sustain without a common cause and common rejection of the Varnashram dharma. How can we challenge Brahmanism without a counter-culture, which is more humane, progressive and ideologically stronger and better than an order based on prejudices and stereotypes? As Dalit Bahujan movement further split into the caste and sub-castes identities hitting at each other, the power of Ambedkar’s cultural vision become more than relevant for all of us. Ambedkar as a challenger of hegemony, a free thinker and an iconoclast would answer to all the irrelevant manipulations of his formulations and ideological constructs being constructed by these prophets of religions who find it unacceptable as why he embraced Buddhism. Problem with these thinking is that all of them denigrate Ambedkar’s great moral courage and hence it is essential to understand Ambedkar in true spirit of his philosophy of life and mission.
Yes, those who feel Ambedkar embraced Buddhism out of fear and pressure from Sangh Parivar do not really appreciate his commitment and strength. A man who could walk out of an audience with Pope John Paul just because the latter could not respond to his questions properly must have been having the courage of conviction. One must understand that Baba Saheb Ambedkar clearly mentioned that Hindu Fundamentalists are the biggest threat and Hindu Rashtra would be a colossal tragedy for India. He talked against political Islam and its threat. It would be very difficult to find a man of Ambedkar’s vision and courage who single handedly brought change in the lives of millions of people in India.
Ambedkar is the name of Freedom, liberty and enlightened individual. And he is aspiration and hope of millions of people denied rights and yet by dint of their hard work, they have challenge the brahmanical superstructure. He was a man of great pragmatism yet never ever compromised on his principles. His pragmatism never ever reflected in politics of opportunism which is very much part of today’s politics and politicians. His thrust on individual is a landmark from any standard as even European society and Americans had not discovered that individualism that Ambedkar aspired for. For him individual was supreme and those who denigrate individual can not really build a healthy society? Our societies deny individual the basic liberty and that is why it can not be called a society.
Today, on December 25th, we must have the courage to be as courageous as Baba Saheb Ambedkar was to his thoughts and action, his creations, his thoughts, of his convictions and commitments. His fight for the fundamental right of access to natural resources, added by rejection of the racist brahmanical order should be part of our college curriculum. Those who believe in egalitarian society must understand the meaning of Ambedkar and his fight for social justice. Today, in the world where our governments and societies are hurting the individual liberty the most, when our political parties are compromising with religious fundamentalists, when our Khap panchayats are deciding what we should do and what should we think, Ambedkar’s ideas remains a beacon of hope. Ambedkar is the hope for all the oppressed. The women in India need to understand that Dr Ambedkar’s struggle for them was supreme. This day when we celebrate the Christmas as big day, it is a big day for millions of people all over the world for their dignity and human right. His ideas need to globalised and propagated internationally so that more and more people understand the enormity of his struggle and modernity of his ideas which changed our world. Let president Obama read Dr Ambedkar and his writings and he will understand the cruelty of Indian village system as well as how a giant like Ambedkar could bring hopes in the lives of million without using any violent methods but simply advocating through a counter culture to oppression and subjugation. The politics of identity is great but as Ambedkar himself said about his own ‘ I was born as Hindu which was not in my hand but I will not die as a Hindu’. It clearly indicates that he was out to create new identity and harp on it. The sacrifice of Baba Saheb Ambedkar was for all of us to live in an enlightened society. We can not have our vision by reasserting our identities created under the brahmanical construct. A new dawn need to be created which means a cultural change is prerequisite for making final assault on Brahmanism and Ambedkar has shown us the path. It is time we chose that identity charted by him and get out of this big brahmanical game of hurting each other. We all may have minor contradiction but we need to understand the bigger contradiction of our life is with the order created by Manu. Baba Saheb chose to hit at that bigger contradiction in Mahad and it is time we need to follow that again and again. We may burn Manu Smriti in public but let us throw it away in the rubbish bin of history and pledge to work for a humanist society as envisaged by Baba Saheb Ambedkar. When we shed our internal prejudices then the mother of the scavenging community girls who were brutally burnt Moradabad would not feel isolated with in the Dalit Bahujan politics and we will not raise an issue when there is a good political crop to harvest. That time every individual is important for us as Baba Saheb time and again maintained. It is tragic that like the Hindus we also prejudge things and confine ourselves in the realm of identity politics. Baba Saheb’s message was meant for all of us and we must come in solidarity of all who need us. It is here that Balmikis of Moradabad need our support. Even if, as some people assume that the brothers of these girls who were burnt, were criminals, that does not mean that the girls and their family should have paid the price for the crime they never committed. Blaming people on their birth identity and on the crime of some one else is brahanical and need to be challenged at all level including our personal and ideological discourse. The biggest defeat of Manu Smriti would be the social-cultural unity of victims of that order created by it, but in the absence of a concrete programme of action and because of conspicuous silence on matter such as these killings create further rifts in the people and make them fall in the hands of those who are actually the biggest offenders of our dignity and human rights. Unity will never happen with big jargons and rhetoric but is only possible with expression of solidarity and participating and being part of every struggle for human dignity and human rights. And message from Mahad is that intellectuals who write must ensure at least some time of their life to be participants of a social movement and struggle for change. How did Baba Saheb Ambedkar found time to write so many things and yet be part of all the major struggles. His writings and work had the conviction strongly inbuilt that unless we become part of social movements for change and unless we shed these brahmanical prejudices and values in our personality, we will always be carrying Manu in our heart and mind. Ambedkar did not have the patience to hear Pope that it will take so many centuries for elimination of caste system and walked out of him. Ambedkar has done his work, it is time for us to pledge that we will not sit ideally unless this notorious system is demolished and the best way to do so would be by taking further his path and creating an enlightened and equitable society, if not among all, at least among our own selves.
Manusmriti need to be burnt not in its physicality alone but also from our hearts and minds
By Vidya Bhushan Rawat
Two sisters from scavenging community were burnt to death by an upper caste mob in Moradabad district of Uttar-Pradesh for an alleged murder committed by their brother who is still at large. The family requested the police to protect them yet nothing happened. Contrary to what the girl’s distraught mother is saying, the Uttar-Pradesh police already suggested that the girls committed suicide because of the regular humiliation by their neighbors regarding their brothers.
Uttar-Pradesh, people say, is the laboratory of the Dalit-Bahujan politics. Unfortunately, Brahmanism still remains as powerful in the state as ever though its functionality and strategies have changed drastically. The Dalit- Bahujan concept has taken a beating here and to the best now the new agendas of different caste identities have emerged in the state. Tragically, this assertion movement has some where drifted from what Baba Saheb Ambedkar charted for all the oppressed of the country, a new vision under Buddha’s liberating path. Uttar-Pradesh has seen empowered Dalit Bahujan politics but unlike Maharastra the efforts for a counter culture here have not worked well. In the absence of a counter culture, the Dalit Bahujan leaderships of different communities are targeting each other and in the end reinforcing brahmanical beliefs of supremacy and purity. As long as caste remains, Brahmanism will work to the benefits of the powerful and maintain hegemonies of a few.
It is therefore necessary to revisit the historic path of Baba Saheb Ambedkar in Mahad where he fought the rights of the people denied human dignity and access the natural resources. Water is a natural resource and none has right to control it and Ambedkar’s fight for water right for the Dalits is an example of how people’s movement can bring social change as he was not just breaking the brahmanical hegemony over water but also pointing that without equality of women and their effective participation no movement would succeed. He, along with thousands of his followers, predominantly women, burnt Manusmriti, the law book of the Hindus. It was not just symbolic but a strong rejection of racist Hindu social order which denied human being equality, liberty and fraternity. It was just not a political issue as he made an important statement in burning Manusmriti, which means that the rejection of old order based on racial prejudices of cultural supremacy must essentially be part of any movement meant for social justice. Hence, December 25th must be celebrated as a human rights day of the oppressed all over the world. We can not leave this symbolic day to the pages of history only but take it further to demolish Machiavellian politics of highest kind where people are marginalized through divine sanctions and subjugated further in the name of Gods and the books supposedly written by them. No book was bigger than human liberty and freedom and therefore they need to be questioned and formulated according to modern concept of rights for all.
For every student of social sciences and human rights in India must read and understand this historical event of December 25th, 1927, as this will give them ideas to learn and understand what Ambedkar stood for and what he revolted. That was the time, when Baba Saheb challenged the religious superiority of Manu Smriti and termed it a law book of injustice and burnt it with his supporters, it was a big event for millions of people were fooled to believe in a book which can not be changed yet which was responsible for their miseries and sorrows. A person like Ambedkar would not believe in tokenism as he countered each of these laws with his thought provoking critical analysis, yet it was important for him to do something symbolic which sends a positive message among the community.
This is Ambedkar’s century and his forthright views are now a challenge for all hegemonies. Today, the movement for social justice can not imagine anything leaving Ambedkar from the centrality of it. Yet, very unfortunately, many new things are coming up projecting Ambedkar as a person from a particular community, who married to a non Dalit woman and most shockingly, they alleged, he embrace Buddhism under pressure of Hindus. This is the outcome of the growing caste identities being used for individual leaders and their fancies to achieve ‘political power’. There is nothing wrong in attaining political power but how will it sustain without a common cause and common rejection of the Varnashram dharma. How can we challenge Brahmanism without a counter-culture, which is more humane, progressive and ideologically stronger and better than an order based on prejudices and stereotypes? As Dalit Bahujan movement further split into the caste and sub-castes identities hitting at each other, the power of Ambedkar’s cultural vision become more than relevant for all of us. Ambedkar as a challenger of hegemony, a free thinker and an iconoclast would answer to all the irrelevant manipulations of his formulations and ideological constructs being constructed by these prophets of religions who find it unacceptable as why he embraced Buddhism. Problem with these thinking is that all of them denigrate Ambedkar’s great moral courage and hence it is essential to understand Ambedkar in true spirit of his philosophy of life and mission.
Yes, those who feel Ambedkar embraced Buddhism out of fear and pressure from Sangh Parivar do not really appreciate his commitment and strength. A man who could walk out of an audience with Pope John Paul just because the latter could not respond to his questions properly must have been having the courage of conviction. One must understand that Baba Saheb Ambedkar clearly mentioned that Hindu Fundamentalists are the biggest threat and Hindu Rashtra would be a colossal tragedy for India. He talked against political Islam and its threat. It would be very difficult to find a man of Ambedkar’s vision and courage who single handedly brought change in the lives of millions of people in India.
Ambedkar is the name of Freedom, liberty and enlightened individual. And he is aspiration and hope of millions of people denied rights and yet by dint of their hard work, they have challenge the brahmanical superstructure. He was a man of great pragmatism yet never ever compromised on his principles. His pragmatism never ever reflected in politics of opportunism which is very much part of today’s politics and politicians. His thrust on individual is a landmark from any standard as even European society and Americans had not discovered that individualism that Ambedkar aspired for. For him individual was supreme and those who denigrate individual can not really build a healthy society? Our societies deny individual the basic liberty and that is why it can not be called a society.
Today, on December 25th, we must have the courage to be as courageous as Baba Saheb Ambedkar was to his thoughts and action, his creations, his thoughts, of his convictions and commitments. His fight for the fundamental right of access to natural resources, added by rejection of the racist brahmanical order should be part of our college curriculum. Those who believe in egalitarian society must understand the meaning of Ambedkar and his fight for social justice. Today, in the world where our governments and societies are hurting the individual liberty the most, when our political parties are compromising with religious fundamentalists, when our Khap panchayats are deciding what we should do and what should we think, Ambedkar’s ideas remains a beacon of hope. Ambedkar is the hope for all the oppressed. The women in India need to understand that Dr Ambedkar’s struggle for them was supreme. This day when we celebrate the Christmas as big day, it is a big day for millions of people all over the world for their dignity and human right. His ideas need to globalised and propagated internationally so that more and more people understand the enormity of his struggle and modernity of his ideas which changed our world. Let president Obama read Dr Ambedkar and his writings and he will understand the cruelty of Indian village system as well as how a giant like Ambedkar could bring hopes in the lives of million without using any violent methods but simply advocating through a counter culture to oppression and subjugation. The politics of identity is great but as Ambedkar himself said about his own ‘ I was born as Hindu which was not in my hand but I will not die as a Hindu’. It clearly indicates that he was out to create new identity and harp on it. The sacrifice of Baba Saheb Ambedkar was for all of us to live in an enlightened society. We can not have our vision by reasserting our identities created under the brahmanical construct. A new dawn need to be created which means a cultural change is prerequisite for making final assault on Brahmanism and Ambedkar has shown us the path. It is time we chose that identity charted by him and get out of this big brahmanical game of hurting each other. We all may have minor contradiction but we need to understand the bigger contradiction of our life is with the order created by Manu. Baba Saheb chose to hit at that bigger contradiction in Mahad and it is time we need to follow that again and again. We may burn Manu Smriti in public but let us throw it away in the rubbish bin of history and pledge to work for a humanist society as envisaged by Baba Saheb Ambedkar. When we shed our internal prejudices then the mother of the scavenging community girls who were brutally burnt Moradabad would not feel isolated with in the Dalit Bahujan politics and we will not raise an issue when there is a good political crop to harvest. That time every individual is important for us as Baba Saheb time and again maintained. It is tragic that like the Hindus we also prejudge things and confine ourselves in the realm of identity politics. Baba Saheb’s message was meant for all of us and we must come in solidarity of all who need us. It is here that Balmikis of Moradabad need our support. Even if, as some people assume that the brothers of these girls who were burnt, were criminals, that does not mean that the girls and their family should have paid the price for the crime they never committed. Blaming people on their birth identity and on the crime of some one else is brahanical and need to be challenged at all level including our personal and ideological discourse. The biggest defeat of Manu Smriti would be the social-cultural unity of victims of that order created by it, but in the absence of a concrete programme of action and because of conspicuous silence on matter such as these killings create further rifts in the people and make them fall in the hands of those who are actually the biggest offenders of our dignity and human rights. Unity will never happen with big jargons and rhetoric but is only possible with expression of solidarity and participating and being part of every struggle for human dignity and human rights. And message from Mahad is that intellectuals who write must ensure at least some time of their life to be participants of a social movement and struggle for change. How did Baba Saheb Ambedkar found time to write so many things and yet be part of all the major struggles. His writings and work had the conviction strongly inbuilt that unless we become part of social movements for change and unless we shed these brahmanical prejudices and values in our personality, we will always be carrying Manu in our heart and mind. Ambedkar did not have the patience to hear Pope that it will take so many centuries for elimination of caste system and walked out of him. Ambedkar has done his work, it is time for us to pledge that we will not sit ideally unless this notorious system is demolished and the best way to do so would be by taking further his path and creating an enlightened and equitable society, if not among all, at least among our own selves.
Saturday, December 25, 2010
Mahad's historical struggle and its importance today
Relevance of Mahad’s historical struggle
Manusmriti need to be burnt not in its physicality alone but also from our hearts and minds
By Vidya Bhushan Rawat
Two sisters from scavenging community were burnt to death by an upper caste mob in Moradabad district of Uttar-Pradesh for an alleged murder committed by their brother who is still at large. The family requested the police to protect them yet nothing happened. Contrary to what the girl’s distraught mother is saying, the Uttar-Pradesh police already suggested that the girls committed suicide because of the regular humiliation by their neighbors regarding their brothers.
Uttar-Pradesh, people say, is the laboratory of the Dalit-Bahujan politics. Unfortunately, Brahmanism still remains as powerful in the state as ever though its functionality and strategies have changed drastically. The Dalit- Bahujan concept has taken a beating here and to the best now the new agendas of different caste identities have emerged in the state. Tragically, this assertion movement has some where drifted from what Baba Saheb Ambedkar charted for all the oppressed of the country, a new vision under Buddha’s liberating path. Uttar-Pradesh has seen empowered Dalit Bahujan politics but unlike Maharastra the efforts for a counter culture here have not worked well. In the absence of a counter culture, the Dalit Bahujan leaderships of different communities are targeting each other and in the end reinforcing brahmanical beliefs of supremacy and purity. As long as caste remains, Brahmanism will work to the benefits of the powerful and maintain hegemonies of a few.
It is therefore necessary to revisit the historic path of Baba Saheb Ambedkar in Mahad where he fought the rights of the people denied human dignity and access the natural resources. Water is a natural resource and none has right to control it and Ambedkar’s fight for water right for the Dalits is an example of how people’s movement can bring social change as he was not just breaking the brahmanical hegemony over water but also pointing that without equality of women and their effective participation no movement would succeed. He, along with thousands of his followers, predominantly women, burnt Manusmriti, the law book of the Hindus. It was not just symbolic but a strong rejection of racist Hindu social order which denied human being equality, liberty and fraternity. It was just not a political issue as he made an important statement in burning Manusmriti, which means that the rejection of old order based on racial prejudices of cultural supremacy must essentially be part of any movement meant for social justice. Hence, December 25th must be celebrated as a human rights day of the oppressed all over the world. We can not leave this symbolic day to the pages of history only but take it further to demolish Machiavellian politics of highest kind where people are marginalized through divine sanctions and subjugated further in the name of Gods and the books supposedly written by them. No book was bigger than human liberty and freedom and therefore they need to be questioned and formulated according to modern concept of rights for all.
For every student of social sciences and human rights in India must read and understand this historical event of December 25th, 1927, as this will give them ideas to learn and understand what Ambedkar stood for and what he revolted. That was the time, when Baba Saheb challenged the religious superiority of Manu Smriti and termed it a law book of injustice and burnt it with his supporters, it was a big event for millions of people were fooled to believe in a book which can not be changed yet which was responsible for their miseries and sorrows. A person like Ambedkar would not believe in tokenism as he countered each of these laws with his thought provoking critical analysis, yet it was important for him to do something symbolic which sends a positive message among the community.
This is Ambedkar’s century and his forthright views are now a challenge for all hegemonies. Today, the movement for social justice can not imagine anything leaving Ambedkar from the centrality of it. Yet, very unfortunately, many new things are coming up projecting Ambedkar as a person from a particular community, who married to a non Dalit woman and most shockingly, they alleged, he embrace Buddhism under pressure of Hindus. This is the outcome of the growing caste identities being used for individual leaders and their fancies to achieve ‘political power’. There is nothing wrong in attaining political power but how will it sustain without a common cause and common rejection of the Varnashram dharma. How can we challenge Brahmanism without a counter-culture, which is more humane, progressive and ideologically stronger and better than an order based on prejudices and stereotypes? As Dalit Bahujan movement further split into the caste and sub-castes identities hitting at each other, the power of Ambedkar’s cultural vision become more than relevant for all of us. Ambedkar as a challenger of hegemony, a free thinker and an iconoclast would answer to all the irrelevant manipulations of his formulations and ideological constructs being constructed by these prophets of religions who find it unacceptable as why he embraced Buddhism. Problem with these thinking is that all of them denigrate Ambedkar’s great moral courage and hence it is essential to understand Ambedkar in true spirit of his philosophy of life and mission.
Yes, those who feel Ambedkar embraced Buddhism out of fear and pressure from Sangh Parivar do not really appreciate his commitment and strength. A man who could walk out of an audience with Pope John Paul just because the latter could not respond to his questions properly must have been having the courage of conviction. One must understand that Baba Saheb Ambedkar clearly mentioned that Hindu Fundamentalists are the biggest threat and Hindu Rashtra would be a colossal tragedy for India. He talked against political Islam and its threat. It would be very difficult to find a man of Ambedkar’s vision and courage who single handedly brought change in the lives of millions of people in India.
Ambedkar is the name of Freedom, liberty and enlightened individual. And he is aspiration and hope of millions of people denied rights and yet by dint of their hard work, they have challenge the brahmanical superstructure. He was a man of great pragmatism yet never ever compromised on his principles. His pragmatism never ever reflected in politics of opportunism which is very much part of today’s politics and politicians. His thrust on individual is a landmark from any standard as even European society and Americans had not discovered that individualism that Ambedkar aspired for. For him individual was supreme and those who denigrate individual can not really build a healthy society? Our societies deny individual the basic liberty and that is why it can not be called a society.
Today, on December 25th, we must have the courage to be as courageous as Baba Saheb Ambedkar was to his thoughts and action, his creations, his thoughts, of his convictions and commitments. His fight for the fundamental right of access to natural resources, added by rejection of the racist brahmanical order should be part of our college curriculum. Those who believe in egalitarian society must understand the meaning of Ambedkar and his fight for social justice. Today, in the world where our governments and societies are hurting the individual liberty the most, when our political parties are compromising with religious fundamentalists, when our Khap panchayats are deciding what we should do and what should we think, Ambedkar’s ideas remains a beacon of hope. Ambedkar is the hope for all the oppressed. The women in India need to understand that Dr Ambedkar’s struggle for them was supreme. This day when we celebrate the Christmas as big day, it is a big day for millions of people all over the world for their dignity and human right. His ideas need to globalised and propagated internationally so that more and more people understand the enormity of his struggle and modernity of his ideas which changed our world. Let president Obama read Dr Ambedkar and his writings and he will understand the cruelty of Indian village system as well as how a giant like Ambedkar could bring hopes in the lives of million without using any violent methods but simply advocating through a counter culture to oppression and subjugation. The politics of identity is great but as Ambedkar himself said about his own ‘ I was born as Hindu which was not in my hand but I will not die as a Hindu’. It clearly indicates that he was out to create new identity and harp on it. The sacrifice of Baba Saheb Ambedkar was for all of us to live in an enlightened society. We can not have our vision by reasserting our identities created under the brahmanical construct. A new dawn need to be created which means a cultural change is prerequisite for making final assault on Brahmanism and Ambedkar has shown us the path. It is time we chose that identity charted by him and get out of this big brahmanical game of hurting each other. We all may have minor contradiction but we need to understand the bigger contradiction of our life is with the order created by Manu. Baba Saheb chose to hit at that bigger contradiction in Mahad and it is time we need to follow that again and again. We may burn Manu Smriti in public but let us throw it away in the rubbish bin of history and pledge to work for a humanist society as envisaged by Baba Saheb Ambedkar. When we shed our internal prejudices then the mother of the scavenging community girls who were brutally burnt Moradabad would not feel isolated with in the Dalit Bahujan politics and we will not raise an issue when there is a good political crop to harvest. That time every individual is important for us as Baba Saheb time and again maintained. It is tragic that like the Hindus we also prejudge things and confine ourselves in the realm of identity politics. Baba Saheb’s message was meant for all of us and we must come in solidarity of all who need us. It is here that Balmikis of Moradabad need our support. Even if, as some people assume that the brothers of these girls who were burnt, were criminals, that does not mean that the girls and their family should have paid the price for the crime they never committed. Blaming people on their birth identity and on the crime of some one else is brahanical and need to be challenged at all level including our personal and ideological discourse. The biggest defeat of Manu Smriti would be the social-cultural unity of victims of that order created by it, but in the absence of a concrete programme of action and because of conspicuous silence on matter such as these killings create further rifts in the people and make them fall in the hands of those who are actually the biggest offenders of our dignity and human rights. Unity will never happen with big jargons and rhetoric but is only possible with expression of solidarity and participating and being part of every struggle for human dignity and human rights. And message from Mahad is that intellectuals who write must ensure at least some time of their life to be participants of a social movement and struggle for change. How did Baba Saheb Ambedkar found time to write so many things and yet be part of all the major struggles. His writings and work had the conviction strongly inbuilt that unless we become part of social movements for change and unless we shed these brahmanical prejudices and values in our personality, we will always be carrying Manu in our heart and mind. Ambedkar did not have the patience to hear Pope that it will take so many centuries for elimination of caste system and walked out of him. Ambedkar has done his work, it is time for us to pledge that we will not sit ideally unless this notorious system is demolished and the best way to do so would be by taking further his path and creating an enlightened and equitable society, if not among all, at least among our own selves.
Manusmriti need to be burnt not in its physicality alone but also from our hearts and minds
By Vidya Bhushan Rawat
Two sisters from scavenging community were burnt to death by an upper caste mob in Moradabad district of Uttar-Pradesh for an alleged murder committed by their brother who is still at large. The family requested the police to protect them yet nothing happened. Contrary to what the girl’s distraught mother is saying, the Uttar-Pradesh police already suggested that the girls committed suicide because of the regular humiliation by their neighbors regarding their brothers.
Uttar-Pradesh, people say, is the laboratory of the Dalit-Bahujan politics. Unfortunately, Brahmanism still remains as powerful in the state as ever though its functionality and strategies have changed drastically. The Dalit- Bahujan concept has taken a beating here and to the best now the new agendas of different caste identities have emerged in the state. Tragically, this assertion movement has some where drifted from what Baba Saheb Ambedkar charted for all the oppressed of the country, a new vision under Buddha’s liberating path. Uttar-Pradesh has seen empowered Dalit Bahujan politics but unlike Maharastra the efforts for a counter culture here have not worked well. In the absence of a counter culture, the Dalit Bahujan leaderships of different communities are targeting each other and in the end reinforcing brahmanical beliefs of supremacy and purity. As long as caste remains, Brahmanism will work to the benefits of the powerful and maintain hegemonies of a few.
It is therefore necessary to revisit the historic path of Baba Saheb Ambedkar in Mahad where he fought the rights of the people denied human dignity and access the natural resources. Water is a natural resource and none has right to control it and Ambedkar’s fight for water right for the Dalits is an example of how people’s movement can bring social change as he was not just breaking the brahmanical hegemony over water but also pointing that without equality of women and their effective participation no movement would succeed. He, along with thousands of his followers, predominantly women, burnt Manusmriti, the law book of the Hindus. It was not just symbolic but a strong rejection of racist Hindu social order which denied human being equality, liberty and fraternity. It was just not a political issue as he made an important statement in burning Manusmriti, which means that the rejection of old order based on racial prejudices of cultural supremacy must essentially be part of any movement meant for social justice. Hence, December 25th must be celebrated as a human rights day of the oppressed all over the world. We can not leave this symbolic day to the pages of history only but take it further to demolish Machiavellian politics of highest kind where people are marginalized through divine sanctions and subjugated further in the name of Gods and the books supposedly written by them. No book was bigger than human liberty and freedom and therefore they need to be questioned and formulated according to modern concept of rights for all.
For every student of social sciences and human rights in India must read and understand this historical event of December 25th, 1927, as this will give them ideas to learn and understand what Ambedkar stood for and what he revolted. That was the time, when Baba Saheb challenged the religious superiority of Manu Smriti and termed it a law book of injustice and burnt it with his supporters, it was a big event for millions of people were fooled to believe in a book which can not be changed yet which was responsible for their miseries and sorrows. A person like Ambedkar would not believe in tokenism as he countered each of these laws with his thought provoking critical analysis, yet it was important for him to do something symbolic which sends a positive message among the community.
This is Ambedkar’s century and his forthright views are now a challenge for all hegemonies. Today, the movement for social justice can not imagine anything leaving Ambedkar from the centrality of it. Yet, very unfortunately, many new things are coming up projecting Ambedkar as a person from a particular community, who married to a non Dalit woman and most shockingly, they alleged, he embrace Buddhism under pressure of Hindus. This is the outcome of the growing caste identities being used for individual leaders and their fancies to achieve ‘political power’. There is nothing wrong in attaining political power but how will it sustain without a common cause and common rejection of the Varnashram dharma. How can we challenge Brahmanism without a counter-culture, which is more humane, progressive and ideologically stronger and better than an order based on prejudices and stereotypes? As Dalit Bahujan movement further split into the caste and sub-castes identities hitting at each other, the power of Ambedkar’s cultural vision become more than relevant for all of us. Ambedkar as a challenger of hegemony, a free thinker and an iconoclast would answer to all the irrelevant manipulations of his formulations and ideological constructs being constructed by these prophets of religions who find it unacceptable as why he embraced Buddhism. Problem with these thinking is that all of them denigrate Ambedkar’s great moral courage and hence it is essential to understand Ambedkar in true spirit of his philosophy of life and mission.
Yes, those who feel Ambedkar embraced Buddhism out of fear and pressure from Sangh Parivar do not really appreciate his commitment and strength. A man who could walk out of an audience with Pope John Paul just because the latter could not respond to his questions properly must have been having the courage of conviction. One must understand that Baba Saheb Ambedkar clearly mentioned that Hindu Fundamentalists are the biggest threat and Hindu Rashtra would be a colossal tragedy for India. He talked against political Islam and its threat. It would be very difficult to find a man of Ambedkar’s vision and courage who single handedly brought change in the lives of millions of people in India.
Ambedkar is the name of Freedom, liberty and enlightened individual. And he is aspiration and hope of millions of people denied rights and yet by dint of their hard work, they have challenge the brahmanical superstructure. He was a man of great pragmatism yet never ever compromised on his principles. His pragmatism never ever reflected in politics of opportunism which is very much part of today’s politics and politicians. His thrust on individual is a landmark from any standard as even European society and Americans had not discovered that individualism that Ambedkar aspired for. For him individual was supreme and those who denigrate individual can not really build a healthy society? Our societies deny individual the basic liberty and that is why it can not be called a society.
Today, on December 25th, we must have the courage to be as courageous as Baba Saheb Ambedkar was to his thoughts and action, his creations, his thoughts, of his convictions and commitments. His fight for the fundamental right of access to natural resources, added by rejection of the racist brahmanical order should be part of our college curriculum. Those who believe in egalitarian society must understand the meaning of Ambedkar and his fight for social justice. Today, in the world where our governments and societies are hurting the individual liberty the most, when our political parties are compromising with religious fundamentalists, when our Khap panchayats are deciding what we should do and what should we think, Ambedkar’s ideas remains a beacon of hope. Ambedkar is the hope for all the oppressed. The women in India need to understand that Dr Ambedkar’s struggle for them was supreme. This day when we celebrate the Christmas as big day, it is a big day for millions of people all over the world for their dignity and human right. His ideas need to globalised and propagated internationally so that more and more people understand the enormity of his struggle and modernity of his ideas which changed our world. Let president Obama read Dr Ambedkar and his writings and he will understand the cruelty of Indian village system as well as how a giant like Ambedkar could bring hopes in the lives of million without using any violent methods but simply advocating through a counter culture to oppression and subjugation. The politics of identity is great but as Ambedkar himself said about his own ‘ I was born as Hindu which was not in my hand but I will not die as a Hindu’. It clearly indicates that he was out to create new identity and harp on it. The sacrifice of Baba Saheb Ambedkar was for all of us to live in an enlightened society. We can not have our vision by reasserting our identities created under the brahmanical construct. A new dawn need to be created which means a cultural change is prerequisite for making final assault on Brahmanism and Ambedkar has shown us the path. It is time we chose that identity charted by him and get out of this big brahmanical game of hurting each other. We all may have minor contradiction but we need to understand the bigger contradiction of our life is with the order created by Manu. Baba Saheb chose to hit at that bigger contradiction in Mahad and it is time we need to follow that again and again. We may burn Manu Smriti in public but let us throw it away in the rubbish bin of history and pledge to work for a humanist society as envisaged by Baba Saheb Ambedkar. When we shed our internal prejudices then the mother of the scavenging community girls who were brutally burnt Moradabad would not feel isolated with in the Dalit Bahujan politics and we will not raise an issue when there is a good political crop to harvest. That time every individual is important for us as Baba Saheb time and again maintained. It is tragic that like the Hindus we also prejudge things and confine ourselves in the realm of identity politics. Baba Saheb’s message was meant for all of us and we must come in solidarity of all who need us. It is here that Balmikis of Moradabad need our support. Even if, as some people assume that the brothers of these girls who were burnt, were criminals, that does not mean that the girls and their family should have paid the price for the crime they never committed. Blaming people on their birth identity and on the crime of some one else is brahanical and need to be challenged at all level including our personal and ideological discourse. The biggest defeat of Manu Smriti would be the social-cultural unity of victims of that order created by it, but in the absence of a concrete programme of action and because of conspicuous silence on matter such as these killings create further rifts in the people and make them fall in the hands of those who are actually the biggest offenders of our dignity and human rights. Unity will never happen with big jargons and rhetoric but is only possible with expression of solidarity and participating and being part of every struggle for human dignity and human rights. And message from Mahad is that intellectuals who write must ensure at least some time of their life to be participants of a social movement and struggle for change. How did Baba Saheb Ambedkar found time to write so many things and yet be part of all the major struggles. His writings and work had the conviction strongly inbuilt that unless we become part of social movements for change and unless we shed these brahmanical prejudices and values in our personality, we will always be carrying Manu in our heart and mind. Ambedkar did not have the patience to hear Pope that it will take so many centuries for elimination of caste system and walked out of him. Ambedkar has done his work, it is time for us to pledge that we will not sit ideally unless this notorious system is demolished and the best way to do so would be by taking further his path and creating an enlightened and equitable society, if not among all, at least among our own selves.
Thursday, November 25, 2010
Reality Check of Bihar's verdict
Understanding Bihar’s verdict
By Vidya Bhushan Rawat
Bihar polls have brought ‘smile’ to many faces on our TV channels. As Nitish Kumar romp through a landslide victory along with his ally in the NDA, the media started writing obituary of Lalu Yadav as well as Ram Vilas Paswan. I still remember a statement from George Fernandez not to make mistake of writing obituary of political leaders unless they are buried or cremated as they can always bounce back. There is no scientific methodology for people to vote. A middle class hero Man Mohan Singh could be defeated easily from a constituency like South Delhi which is considered to be ‘educated and well off’. Hence it is too much if we think that caste has been eliminated from the minds of people in Bihar in particular and India in general since our TV ‘experts’ wants us to believe so without changing their own caste mind.
Yes, Bihar’s results need more analysis and in-depth reading. Did Lalu and Ram Vilas’s arrogance hurt the voters? Did they take their voters for granted? Is corruption not an issue with the Dalit Bahujan communities? I think one will have to analyse the whole issue. Has Mandal failed or the forces of social justice let down the Mandal revolution in India with their continuously opportunistic and unholy alliances with the caste forces?
Coincidently, when Bihar’s Nitish Kumar government assumes office for second term, a new scenario has emerged for the forces of Social Justice which need to be understood. And it is post modern Mandalism now with most backward communities challenging the status quo and asking for the accountability. That you can not rule over them in the name of Dalit and backward without providing a space for them in the governance structure. If the political class in the name of social justice does not come out of the family business, they will be wiped out as happened in Bihar. The forces of social justice can not have Gandhi family as their idol.
However, these polls also show the inadequacy of political system where a party just getting 39% of the popular votes has got nearly 89% seats in the assembly. Most of the media termed that Bihar has now got rid of caste identities but the fact is that the Maha Dalits and most backward castes are seeking their space and Nitish Kumar should not feel that he can put the upper caste agenda on Bihar to term it as a ‘casteless’ state. How many of them are ready to leave their caste interest aside and speak for a casteless society. Will the forces of Hindutva work for a casteless society? If yes then the annihilation of caste is annihilation of Brahmanism in India which is not really the agenda of Nitish Kumar and his allies.
Nitish Kumar failed in implementing the Bandhopadhyay Commission report on land redistribution. Just a few days before the election results we saw violence against Dalits by powerful Bhumihar community which seemed to enjoy Nitish Kumar’s rule in Bihar. The violence by Bhumihars on the Dalits was because of the land issue in Pathua village of district Lakhisarai in which about 900 bighas of land declared surplus under Ceiling Act was being encroached by the goons of a particular Bhumihar leader as they wanted to uproot the Dalits and most backward communities living on the said land. Land will remain one of the most contentious issue and if Nitish Kumar in the din of the euphoria created by corporate media ignore this issue then he will meet the same fate as Lalu and Ram Vilas Paswan have met with. That the most backward communities and Dalits have signaled to Bihar politicians which largely revolved around powerful OBCs, Bhumihars, Brahmin, Kayasthas and Rajputs that they too are an important segment of state. The Pasmanda Muslims also joined hand with these forces and hence the expectations are high. However, an attempt is being made to convert the entire verdict into so-called developmental frame work. While it is true that people want accountability from their leaders and they want participation in power. They will not be satisfied with the rhetoric of development. We all know Bihar remain peaceful during the past few years as no displacement took place because of so-called industrialization as it did not happen. The first phase of Nitish’s rule was basically roads, electricity and water but big companies are eyeing Bihar now. Nitish Kumar should be careful enough to understand that he can not take away people’s land in the name of development. An image is being created for Nitish Kumar as if he is the replica of Naveen Patnayak of Orissa. Nitish should be careful enough in dealing people’s issues s Bihar is definitely not Orissa and any such displacement of people will come to haunt him and decimate him for ever. We know the media is very happy with ‘merit’ winning in Bihar because they want to push their own agenda and get land for a few corporate houses.
As Nitish takes over the reins of tomorrow, he would probably remember his colleague and senior leader V P Singh’s effort for probity in public life. It is important to understand the importance of VP Singh today and how Nitish could further that agenda of Mandal. The result in Bihar are not end of Mandal politics but as VP Singh often remarked that the Mandal forces have to capture the opposition space also. It is important for the forces of social justice to be free from corruption and family business. Nitish Kumar could do it. Bihar’s voter was very clear this time when they defeated all the major Bahubalis and those who thought politics as family domain. In the realm of social justice politics there are very few who did not leave behind any family legacy for the others.
We know it very well that the corporate run media is hell bent to undo the historical change of the post Mandal era. They do it with all their might. Using every thing under their belt to scuttle all the voices of social justice. It is not for the unknown reasons that V.P.Singh still remains one of the most hated politicians of the country. Lalu and Ramvilas must understand. Nitish and Sharad may understand it even when they are being glorified by the same upper caste media which villainised them in 1990. Is not it a fact that Sharad Yadav and
Ram Vilas Paswan were two most hated face along with V P Singh during those tumultuous years that India faced just because a government dutifully promised to implement the Mandal Commission Report.
It is time to revisit that. It is time for introspection. The political forces of social justice actually betrayed themselves. The issue of corruption may not look important to all those ideologues who are in a comparative mode but it affects the common people. It does not matter whether the corruption involve Karunanidhi, Lalu Yadav or Rajiv Gandhi. It simply means loss of generation for poor in India. It means denial of their right and basic facilities. And people today are judging their political leaders. They understand that the political class is corrupted by the power politics and that is why Lalu and Rabri might not have thought that she will face such humiliating defeat in her own den where Yadavas called the shot. The verdict is clear that you can not take your own community for granted. May be they could have learnt a few lesson from Kanshi Ram who had no family to place over the people. He created a Mayawati and a committed cadre in BAMSEF and among various Dalit communities and people accepted her wholeheartedly. Ofcourse, Mayawati too, should take a few lessons from Bihar verdict even when Bihar and Uttar-Pradesh are quite contrast yet none should take their own community as for granted. Mayawati will have to work for Sarvjan but not at the cost of the Dalits in Uttar-Pradesh otherwise the most loyal voter will ditch her. There is a limit to the people’s patience. That is one big lesson we get from the defeat of close relatives of both Ram Vilas Paswan as well as Lalu Yadav. One can not term mere representation of one’s family as the ‘voice’ of people. You will have to go beyond slogans and create a movement. People are not going to believe in your hollow secularism unless you launch an anti caste struggle. Unfortunately, anti caste movement was never on the agenda of those who claimed the legacy of social justice movement in India. Yes, we need people with clean image and clear ideology to fight against the brahmanical forces who are basking over the glory of Bihar’s rejection to ‘caste’. One hope Nitish Kumar understand that caste is the real cause of poverty in Bihar as well as in India. Mushahars, Dushadhs, Nishads, Chamars, Doms are not poor because of their class only but because they were born in these particular communities. So, he will have to reach them. He formed Maha Dalit to break the greater Dalit alliance and unfortunately none noticed it but the fact is these are the time of alliance building. Nitish’s alliance is still artificial as there can not be any alliance between the exploiters and exploited. Nitish Kumar’s upper caste vote bank will still not want that land reform be implemented and land be redistributed to poor. That Lalu too does not want.
It is important to break the myth of Bihar’s revolution. Bihar actually has little to offer to Dalits as the politics here is very much a domain game of powerful upper castes verses neo powerful OBCs. Dalits and Muslims are just an annexure to their broader agenda. It’s similar to what is happening in Tamilnadu in the name of social justice. It is actually the biggest failure of Ramvilas Paswan and Lalu Yadav as they failed to reach the poorest Dalit and economically backward communities who were feeling marginalized and left out. Nitish Kumar carefully cultivated them along with Muslims and succeeded. Those pretending to lead anti caste forces must unite all such forces victim of caste forces in Bihar in complete harmony and not mere followers of a few individuals and their families.
By Vidya Bhushan Rawat
Bihar polls have brought ‘smile’ to many faces on our TV channels. As Nitish Kumar romp through a landslide victory along with his ally in the NDA, the media started writing obituary of Lalu Yadav as well as Ram Vilas Paswan. I still remember a statement from George Fernandez not to make mistake of writing obituary of political leaders unless they are buried or cremated as they can always bounce back. There is no scientific methodology for people to vote. A middle class hero Man Mohan Singh could be defeated easily from a constituency like South Delhi which is considered to be ‘educated and well off’. Hence it is too much if we think that caste has been eliminated from the minds of people in Bihar in particular and India in general since our TV ‘experts’ wants us to believe so without changing their own caste mind.
Yes, Bihar’s results need more analysis and in-depth reading. Did Lalu and Ram Vilas’s arrogance hurt the voters? Did they take their voters for granted? Is corruption not an issue with the Dalit Bahujan communities? I think one will have to analyse the whole issue. Has Mandal failed or the forces of social justice let down the Mandal revolution in India with their continuously opportunistic and unholy alliances with the caste forces?
Coincidently, when Bihar’s Nitish Kumar government assumes office for second term, a new scenario has emerged for the forces of Social Justice which need to be understood. And it is post modern Mandalism now with most backward communities challenging the status quo and asking for the accountability. That you can not rule over them in the name of Dalit and backward without providing a space for them in the governance structure. If the political class in the name of social justice does not come out of the family business, they will be wiped out as happened in Bihar. The forces of social justice can not have Gandhi family as their idol.
However, these polls also show the inadequacy of political system where a party just getting 39% of the popular votes has got nearly 89% seats in the assembly. Most of the media termed that Bihar has now got rid of caste identities but the fact is that the Maha Dalits and most backward castes are seeking their space and Nitish Kumar should not feel that he can put the upper caste agenda on Bihar to term it as a ‘casteless’ state. How many of them are ready to leave their caste interest aside and speak for a casteless society. Will the forces of Hindutva work for a casteless society? If yes then the annihilation of caste is annihilation of Brahmanism in India which is not really the agenda of Nitish Kumar and his allies.
Nitish Kumar failed in implementing the Bandhopadhyay Commission report on land redistribution. Just a few days before the election results we saw violence against Dalits by powerful Bhumihar community which seemed to enjoy Nitish Kumar’s rule in Bihar. The violence by Bhumihars on the Dalits was because of the land issue in Pathua village of district Lakhisarai in which about 900 bighas of land declared surplus under Ceiling Act was being encroached by the goons of a particular Bhumihar leader as they wanted to uproot the Dalits and most backward communities living on the said land. Land will remain one of the most contentious issue and if Nitish Kumar in the din of the euphoria created by corporate media ignore this issue then he will meet the same fate as Lalu and Ram Vilas Paswan have met with. That the most backward communities and Dalits have signaled to Bihar politicians which largely revolved around powerful OBCs, Bhumihars, Brahmin, Kayasthas and Rajputs that they too are an important segment of state. The Pasmanda Muslims also joined hand with these forces and hence the expectations are high. However, an attempt is being made to convert the entire verdict into so-called developmental frame work. While it is true that people want accountability from their leaders and they want participation in power. They will not be satisfied with the rhetoric of development. We all know Bihar remain peaceful during the past few years as no displacement took place because of so-called industrialization as it did not happen. The first phase of Nitish’s rule was basically roads, electricity and water but big companies are eyeing Bihar now. Nitish Kumar should be careful enough to understand that he can not take away people’s land in the name of development. An image is being created for Nitish Kumar as if he is the replica of Naveen Patnayak of Orissa. Nitish should be careful enough in dealing people’s issues s Bihar is definitely not Orissa and any such displacement of people will come to haunt him and decimate him for ever. We know the media is very happy with ‘merit’ winning in Bihar because they want to push their own agenda and get land for a few corporate houses.
As Nitish takes over the reins of tomorrow, he would probably remember his colleague and senior leader V P Singh’s effort for probity in public life. It is important to understand the importance of VP Singh today and how Nitish could further that agenda of Mandal. The result in Bihar are not end of Mandal politics but as VP Singh often remarked that the Mandal forces have to capture the opposition space also. It is important for the forces of social justice to be free from corruption and family business. Nitish Kumar could do it. Bihar’s voter was very clear this time when they defeated all the major Bahubalis and those who thought politics as family domain. In the realm of social justice politics there are very few who did not leave behind any family legacy for the others.
We know it very well that the corporate run media is hell bent to undo the historical change of the post Mandal era. They do it with all their might. Using every thing under their belt to scuttle all the voices of social justice. It is not for the unknown reasons that V.P.Singh still remains one of the most hated politicians of the country. Lalu and Ramvilas must understand. Nitish and Sharad may understand it even when they are being glorified by the same upper caste media which villainised them in 1990. Is not it a fact that Sharad Yadav and
Ram Vilas Paswan were two most hated face along with V P Singh during those tumultuous years that India faced just because a government dutifully promised to implement the Mandal Commission Report.
It is time to revisit that. It is time for introspection. The political forces of social justice actually betrayed themselves. The issue of corruption may not look important to all those ideologues who are in a comparative mode but it affects the common people. It does not matter whether the corruption involve Karunanidhi, Lalu Yadav or Rajiv Gandhi. It simply means loss of generation for poor in India. It means denial of their right and basic facilities. And people today are judging their political leaders. They understand that the political class is corrupted by the power politics and that is why Lalu and Rabri might not have thought that she will face such humiliating defeat in her own den where Yadavas called the shot. The verdict is clear that you can not take your own community for granted. May be they could have learnt a few lesson from Kanshi Ram who had no family to place over the people. He created a Mayawati and a committed cadre in BAMSEF and among various Dalit communities and people accepted her wholeheartedly. Ofcourse, Mayawati too, should take a few lessons from Bihar verdict even when Bihar and Uttar-Pradesh are quite contrast yet none should take their own community as for granted. Mayawati will have to work for Sarvjan but not at the cost of the Dalits in Uttar-Pradesh otherwise the most loyal voter will ditch her. There is a limit to the people’s patience. That is one big lesson we get from the defeat of close relatives of both Ram Vilas Paswan as well as Lalu Yadav. One can not term mere representation of one’s family as the ‘voice’ of people. You will have to go beyond slogans and create a movement. People are not going to believe in your hollow secularism unless you launch an anti caste struggle. Unfortunately, anti caste movement was never on the agenda of those who claimed the legacy of social justice movement in India. Yes, we need people with clean image and clear ideology to fight against the brahmanical forces who are basking over the glory of Bihar’s rejection to ‘caste’. One hope Nitish Kumar understand that caste is the real cause of poverty in Bihar as well as in India. Mushahars, Dushadhs, Nishads, Chamars, Doms are not poor because of their class only but because they were born in these particular communities. So, he will have to reach them. He formed Maha Dalit to break the greater Dalit alliance and unfortunately none noticed it but the fact is these are the time of alliance building. Nitish’s alliance is still artificial as there can not be any alliance between the exploiters and exploited. Nitish Kumar’s upper caste vote bank will still not want that land reform be implemented and land be redistributed to poor. That Lalu too does not want.
It is important to break the myth of Bihar’s revolution. Bihar actually has little to offer to Dalits as the politics here is very much a domain game of powerful upper castes verses neo powerful OBCs. Dalits and Muslims are just an annexure to their broader agenda. It’s similar to what is happening in Tamilnadu in the name of social justice. It is actually the biggest failure of Ramvilas Paswan and Lalu Yadav as they failed to reach the poorest Dalit and economically backward communities who were feeling marginalized and left out. Nitish Kumar carefully cultivated them along with Muslims and succeeded. Those pretending to lead anti caste forces must unite all such forces victim of caste forces in Bihar in complete harmony and not mere followers of a few individuals and their families.
Monday, November 22, 2010
The Legacy of Bhagwan Das
Tribute to Bhagwan Das
A true inheritor of Ambedkar’s mission
By Vidya Bhushan Rawat
The passing away of veteran Ambedkarite Bhagwan Das is closure of a great chapter in the contemporary Dalit movement. A close associate of Baba Saheb Ambedkar, Bhagwan Das in every sense of life lived a life of true follower of Baba Saheb. I had opportunities to meet on several occasions and would vouch that I remained highly impressed and in awe with his simplicity and the library of knowledge that he had on Ambedkar’s work and writing. He was not a rebel rouser but proved through his meticulous writings that he was much more concerned and his views were immensely important to the growth of Ambedkarite movement. Those narratives and documented work on the life and mission of Ambedkar are inalienable part of the Dalit movement.
It was a great opportunity for me to have heard his counseling on various occasions. For me, just an association with Dr Ambedkar made him a legend in my eyes. But that was not enough; his association with people’s movement particularly with those who believed in Ambedkarite perspective gave him credibility. He has tremendous knowledge about different caste and their issues. I can say that after Dr Ambedkar, he was the most read person in the community who spoke on the contemporary issues with great passion and with a command and conviction of ideas. Though, he was the most respected Ambedkarite of his time, one does not know why the politicians claiming Ambedkar’s legacy kept away from him. It is ironical that the tallest ambedkarite became victim of his caste identity. Though, he was most concerned about the schedule castes yet he often spoke about the marginalization of ‘Bhangis’. Yet, just usage of the term Bhangi made him unpopular among many of his own folks who started using Balmiki which according to Bhagwan Dasji was a term cleverly used to Hinduise the community. His book ‘ Main Bhangi Hoon’, became popular among people yet the community leaders never ever thought of involving him in their issues. I had put this question to him many times as why there is a perception that Balmikis did not join hand with Baba Saheb Ambedkar. But, Bhagwan Das ji was very clear about this and said that the myth that the Balmikis not being part of Ambedkarite movement was absolutely an attempt to divide Ambedkar’s struggle. . He referred to Baba Saheb and his support to the cause of scavengers in Punjab. According to him, it was the Bhangis who invited Baba Saheb to Punjab. But because of politicization of castes, many among his caste felt otherwise. Similarly, the other communities who felt that he was not from them alienated him. It was most tragic thing that I felt and that Bhagwan Dasji knew but Ambedkarism and Buddhism were his two commitments and he never dithered from that.
The 1990s were turbulent years in contemporary Indian political history. The forces of Hindutva were gaining ground with growing assertion of Dalits and backward communities. The Mandal commission report and its aftermath show how the Indian middle classes and caste Hindus did every dirty trick to thwart the implementation of the report. It also showed how the struggle for implementation of Mandal Commission Report was more carried forward by the Dalits and not by the so-called other backward communities for whom the entire exercise was meant. They bore the brunt of the contempt and violence of these reactionary forces. It was also a period of ascendancy of the Bahujan Samaj Party and its politics. They were becoming a force to reckon with yet Bhagwan Das and many other veteran Ambedkarites kept away from it. One does not know whether they kept away from it or were unwanted in the BSP kind of politics. He always focused to develop an enlightened Dalit community which can respond to the upper caste lies and manipulations through knowledge and arguments. He would go to different parts of the country particularly in organizations like Samta Sainik Dal to strengthen the movement.
It was tragic that the person who was an embodiment of a true Ambedkarite did not get the respect that he deserved. It is an undeniable fact that Bhagwan Das was perhaps the tallest Ambedkarite in the post Ambedkar era. The amount of work that he contributed to explore Ambedkar and his writings is unparallel. He was a living encyclopedia of Ambedkarite perspective on various contemporary issues. I can say without any doubt in my mind that whenever I had any doubt about anything about Baba Saheb’s writing and work, I would first speak to him and try to find the factual position. He had numerous anecdotes about Baba Saheb Ambedkar and how he got influenced with his life and action. Each time, I visited him; I would just listen to his arguments and narratives. With his personal warmth, each narrative was important and that is why I felt that I should record his views and one day I went with my camera to record his views on contemporary issues. It was a seer pleasure to listen his enlightened views.
It was always a sense of deep enlightenment to have met Bhagwan Dasji. A man who saw and worked with Ambedkar was so simple in his personal life. I was fortunate enough to have met him so many times and in our small association he too developed respect of the work that I was doing and hence was always available for the seminars and conferences that we organized on contemporary issues related to Dalits and marginalized. In those days, I was regular in these meetings and listening to him always gave a great pleasure. Anyone, who heard him for one or two hours, could never say that his grasp over the subject was not increased. His understanding of Indian caste system was tremendous. A widely traveled person, Bhagwan Dasji would inform you about the caste and sub caste issues with impeccable knowledge on the issue. That also showed that he was not just a book worm but a widely accessible person to people who understood their feelings and issues.
There was no difference in his personal life and beliefs. I knew many veteran Ambedkarites for whom Ambedkarism was just a political thought but Bhagwan Dasji proved through his life and mission how one can live a life of true Ambedkarite. It is difficult to see that kind of warmth that he possessed when we become machines without emotions and solidarity. As a young activist, I learnt from him so many things that it is difficult to narrate but every time when I would visit him, the first thing he would ask me to relax or take a cup of tea of coffee prepared by him. He would bring himself the tea and ask me to first have it and then discuss any other thing. He would inquire how am coming from a far away place to meet him and he always encouraged my deep sense of commitment to Ambedkarite thought.
Bhagwan Das was the first person who brought the issue untouchables ( I am using his term only as he refused to use the word Dalit) or Scheduled Castes at the international forums, at the United Nations and at various international human rights forums. Today, the Dalit issues have got international recognition and many may claim to have done it but the ground work for it was done by Bhagwan Das when there were not many civil society organizations working for human rights of the Dalits.
It is equally important to know that these Dalit rights organizations never felt to honor him or take his guidance on the issues of the Dalits in contemporary India. Of course, last year a Hindi literary journal devoted to Ambedkarite philosophy carried a special issue on him. It is tragic that a man of his stature remained a person non grata in his own community because he embraced Buddhism and was a true Ambedkarite. He was concerned about the manual scavenging practices in our society and was worried about their conditions and isolation with in the Dalit movement yet he never really supported the sub-caste identities. For him, being Ambedkarite was the most important part of a person life and that is where I felt that he was far above than many of his contemporaries. I understood the politics going in the name of Dalit Bahujan and had his own reservation about them. There were very few like him who could speak of conviction despite the emotional feelings of many. His commitment was to Baba Saheb Ambedkar’s thought and he traveled to nook and corner of the country to spread the message of Dr Ambedkar in true sense.
Today, when the media has been highlighting the ‘Dalit issues’ and some of them have given some ‘space’ to new ‘Dalit’ ‘movement’, yet the harsh reality is that none ever thought to approach him to speak on the contemporary issues. Was it because he did not have JNU tag which our media wants? Was it because he equally condemned the globalization and knew the international instruments of human rights much better and hence would not speak the language of the corporate media for the sake of appearing in their programme? It is shocking that none in the mainstream media thought of writing about the man who was undoubtedly the tallest Ambedkarite amongst us. Like Baba Saheb he reminded us the power of knowledge and self change. That cultural change in self made Bhagwan Das is much bigger than others but alas our political class, self proclaimed messiahs and so-called international activists would have taken a few things from him for the benefit of masses. He never resorted to rhetoric which are the hall mark of today’s literature and politics. He shined through his knowledge, his humility and his convictions. Whether corporatised brahmanical media remember him or not, Bhagwan Das remain am icon for all those who have not compromised on their basic principals and adhered to original philosophy of Baba Saheb Ambedkar of enlightenment through passion and participation. Like Baba Saheb Ambedkar, he left with a rich legacy of enormous material on Ambedkarism, Caste particularly related to Scheduled castes and on Buddhism. Generations will benefit from his work on caste and religion in India particularly those who are the most marginalized and how Dr Ambedkar fought his battle against the status quoits forces. As we grow and face so many challenges of caste, class, imperialism and communalism, Bhagwan Dasji’s writings will be the guide for us to understand Baba Saheb Ambedkar and how Ambedkar could have responded to current crisis. We remain indebted to him for his path breaking work on Baba Saheb Ambedkar and his unquestionable integrity to strengthen an Ambedkarite India where each one of us can live with equality, dignity and self esteem.
A true inheritor of Ambedkar’s mission
By Vidya Bhushan Rawat
The passing away of veteran Ambedkarite Bhagwan Das is closure of a great chapter in the contemporary Dalit movement. A close associate of Baba Saheb Ambedkar, Bhagwan Das in every sense of life lived a life of true follower of Baba Saheb. I had opportunities to meet on several occasions and would vouch that I remained highly impressed and in awe with his simplicity and the library of knowledge that he had on Ambedkar’s work and writing. He was not a rebel rouser but proved through his meticulous writings that he was much more concerned and his views were immensely important to the growth of Ambedkarite movement. Those narratives and documented work on the life and mission of Ambedkar are inalienable part of the Dalit movement.
It was a great opportunity for me to have heard his counseling on various occasions. For me, just an association with Dr Ambedkar made him a legend in my eyes. But that was not enough; his association with people’s movement particularly with those who believed in Ambedkarite perspective gave him credibility. He has tremendous knowledge about different caste and their issues. I can say that after Dr Ambedkar, he was the most read person in the community who spoke on the contemporary issues with great passion and with a command and conviction of ideas. Though, he was the most respected Ambedkarite of his time, one does not know why the politicians claiming Ambedkar’s legacy kept away from him. It is ironical that the tallest ambedkarite became victim of his caste identity. Though, he was most concerned about the schedule castes yet he often spoke about the marginalization of ‘Bhangis’. Yet, just usage of the term Bhangi made him unpopular among many of his own folks who started using Balmiki which according to Bhagwan Dasji was a term cleverly used to Hinduise the community. His book ‘ Main Bhangi Hoon’, became popular among people yet the community leaders never ever thought of involving him in their issues. I had put this question to him many times as why there is a perception that Balmikis did not join hand with Baba Saheb Ambedkar. But, Bhagwan Das ji was very clear about this and said that the myth that the Balmikis not being part of Ambedkarite movement was absolutely an attempt to divide Ambedkar’s struggle. . He referred to Baba Saheb and his support to the cause of scavengers in Punjab. According to him, it was the Bhangis who invited Baba Saheb to Punjab. But because of politicization of castes, many among his caste felt otherwise. Similarly, the other communities who felt that he was not from them alienated him. It was most tragic thing that I felt and that Bhagwan Dasji knew but Ambedkarism and Buddhism were his two commitments and he never dithered from that.
The 1990s were turbulent years in contemporary Indian political history. The forces of Hindutva were gaining ground with growing assertion of Dalits and backward communities. The Mandal commission report and its aftermath show how the Indian middle classes and caste Hindus did every dirty trick to thwart the implementation of the report. It also showed how the struggle for implementation of Mandal Commission Report was more carried forward by the Dalits and not by the so-called other backward communities for whom the entire exercise was meant. They bore the brunt of the contempt and violence of these reactionary forces. It was also a period of ascendancy of the Bahujan Samaj Party and its politics. They were becoming a force to reckon with yet Bhagwan Das and many other veteran Ambedkarites kept away from it. One does not know whether they kept away from it or were unwanted in the BSP kind of politics. He always focused to develop an enlightened Dalit community which can respond to the upper caste lies and manipulations through knowledge and arguments. He would go to different parts of the country particularly in organizations like Samta Sainik Dal to strengthen the movement.
It was tragic that the person who was an embodiment of a true Ambedkarite did not get the respect that he deserved. It is an undeniable fact that Bhagwan Das was perhaps the tallest Ambedkarite in the post Ambedkar era. The amount of work that he contributed to explore Ambedkar and his writings is unparallel. He was a living encyclopedia of Ambedkarite perspective on various contemporary issues. I can say without any doubt in my mind that whenever I had any doubt about anything about Baba Saheb’s writing and work, I would first speak to him and try to find the factual position. He had numerous anecdotes about Baba Saheb Ambedkar and how he got influenced with his life and action. Each time, I visited him; I would just listen to his arguments and narratives. With his personal warmth, each narrative was important and that is why I felt that I should record his views and one day I went with my camera to record his views on contemporary issues. It was a seer pleasure to listen his enlightened views.
It was always a sense of deep enlightenment to have met Bhagwan Dasji. A man who saw and worked with Ambedkar was so simple in his personal life. I was fortunate enough to have met him so many times and in our small association he too developed respect of the work that I was doing and hence was always available for the seminars and conferences that we organized on contemporary issues related to Dalits and marginalized. In those days, I was regular in these meetings and listening to him always gave a great pleasure. Anyone, who heard him for one or two hours, could never say that his grasp over the subject was not increased. His understanding of Indian caste system was tremendous. A widely traveled person, Bhagwan Dasji would inform you about the caste and sub caste issues with impeccable knowledge on the issue. That also showed that he was not just a book worm but a widely accessible person to people who understood their feelings and issues.
There was no difference in his personal life and beliefs. I knew many veteran Ambedkarites for whom Ambedkarism was just a political thought but Bhagwan Dasji proved through his life and mission how one can live a life of true Ambedkarite. It is difficult to see that kind of warmth that he possessed when we become machines without emotions and solidarity. As a young activist, I learnt from him so many things that it is difficult to narrate but every time when I would visit him, the first thing he would ask me to relax or take a cup of tea of coffee prepared by him. He would bring himself the tea and ask me to first have it and then discuss any other thing. He would inquire how am coming from a far away place to meet him and he always encouraged my deep sense of commitment to Ambedkarite thought.
Bhagwan Das was the first person who brought the issue untouchables ( I am using his term only as he refused to use the word Dalit) or Scheduled Castes at the international forums, at the United Nations and at various international human rights forums. Today, the Dalit issues have got international recognition and many may claim to have done it but the ground work for it was done by Bhagwan Das when there were not many civil society organizations working for human rights of the Dalits.
It is equally important to know that these Dalit rights organizations never felt to honor him or take his guidance on the issues of the Dalits in contemporary India. Of course, last year a Hindi literary journal devoted to Ambedkarite philosophy carried a special issue on him. It is tragic that a man of his stature remained a person non grata in his own community because he embraced Buddhism and was a true Ambedkarite. He was concerned about the manual scavenging practices in our society and was worried about their conditions and isolation with in the Dalit movement yet he never really supported the sub-caste identities. For him, being Ambedkarite was the most important part of a person life and that is where I felt that he was far above than many of his contemporaries. I understood the politics going in the name of Dalit Bahujan and had his own reservation about them. There were very few like him who could speak of conviction despite the emotional feelings of many. His commitment was to Baba Saheb Ambedkar’s thought and he traveled to nook and corner of the country to spread the message of Dr Ambedkar in true sense.
Today, when the media has been highlighting the ‘Dalit issues’ and some of them have given some ‘space’ to new ‘Dalit’ ‘movement’, yet the harsh reality is that none ever thought to approach him to speak on the contemporary issues. Was it because he did not have JNU tag which our media wants? Was it because he equally condemned the globalization and knew the international instruments of human rights much better and hence would not speak the language of the corporate media for the sake of appearing in their programme? It is shocking that none in the mainstream media thought of writing about the man who was undoubtedly the tallest Ambedkarite amongst us. Like Baba Saheb he reminded us the power of knowledge and self change. That cultural change in self made Bhagwan Das is much bigger than others but alas our political class, self proclaimed messiahs and so-called international activists would have taken a few things from him for the benefit of masses. He never resorted to rhetoric which are the hall mark of today’s literature and politics. He shined through his knowledge, his humility and his convictions. Whether corporatised brahmanical media remember him or not, Bhagwan Das remain am icon for all those who have not compromised on their basic principals and adhered to original philosophy of Baba Saheb Ambedkar of enlightenment through passion and participation. Like Baba Saheb Ambedkar, he left with a rich legacy of enormous material on Ambedkarism, Caste particularly related to Scheduled castes and on Buddhism. Generations will benefit from his work on caste and religion in India particularly those who are the most marginalized and how Dr Ambedkar fought his battle against the status quoits forces. As we grow and face so many challenges of caste, class, imperialism and communalism, Bhagwan Dasji’s writings will be the guide for us to understand Baba Saheb Ambedkar and how Ambedkar could have responded to current crisis. We remain indebted to him for his path breaking work on Baba Saheb Ambedkar and his unquestionable integrity to strengthen an Ambedkarite India where each one of us can live with equality, dignity and self esteem.
Saturday, November 06, 2010
How can we keep Indo-Pak relations free from prejudices
Reproducing from my archive in the interest of a positive India-Pakistan relationship.
Review Article
A Khakhi version of Indo-Pak relations
Vidya Bhushan Rawat
Indo-Pak relations have been subject of intense discussion for many in the subcontinent including the ‘security hawks’ and hate mongering foreign ministry experts. General K.M.Arif held important positions in the Pakistan army under different presidents and was particularly closer to General Zia-ul-Haq. Like many Pakistanis he also think that the stories on the Indo-Pak wars had been a one sided affair so far as only Indian versions have come out and Pakistan government has unnecessarily put restrictions on such publication. This is a lament by no less than a general that Pakistan should be an open society and that military should better concentrate on its professional duties rather then meddling into the political affairs of the country on the regular basis. This will, he argues, affect military capability to fight the external enemy i.e. India.
It is interesting to note the different intrigues that Pakistan polity face and the reasons sited by the General to justify military rule in Pakistan, though he must be complimented to put the internal security situation in Pakistan in a very clear perspective but the general has really been parochial and conventionalist when writing about India. His entire thesis on India shows how military in Pakistan and India both the countries have prejudices and bias about each other. The Pakistan army therefore does not hide its communal leaning in terming India as a Hindu state while Pakistan as a Muslim country. The general terms Nehru as a Hindu leader who had a vision for the country while Pakistan after the first round of leadership of the likes of M.A.Jinnah, Liaqat Ali Khan lacked a second ranking leadership. We sitting in India when analyse the Pakistan situation and its reason of military leadership lack the understanding of internal intrigues of Pakistan army and so-called democracy.
The general says that the 1965 Indo-Pak war was an unintended war in which ‘each side reacted disproportionately to the perceived provocation by the other and in the end lost control’. But he nevertheless blames India for the aggression quoting an known Jansangh leader Mr U.M.Trivedi in the Lok Sabha that the Indian army must go to ‘ right up to Lahore to bring Pakistan to its senses.’ Even the socialist leader Ram Manohar Lohia wanted India to over run Pakistan. Of course, many in Indian think the same way as the general says but such opinion exist the other side of the border and it would be better for saner people not to give legitimacy and justification to such rhetoric. The General then pat the novice Pakistan leadership under Ayub Khan and quotes him as saying: If Pakistan wanted to commit aggression it would have chosen a better area than the mud flats and also a better time when the Indian forces were on the run after their defeat at the hands of China.
The author then goes on comment on the crisis that erupted in East Pakistan now known as Bangladesh. Though unlike many other Pakistanis he admit the fault of Punjabi dominated bureaucracy and leadership to ignore the claims of Bengalis in Pakistan’s national-political life. He says that since most of the Punjabi’s and Sindhies were educated enough hence they had a major share in bureaucracy but unfortunately Bengalis did not have the ‘ trained manpower’ and most importantly they were culturally dominated by Hindus who had a grudge against Pakistan. There was a slanderous campaign about uneven treatment given to East Pakistanis. And according to General Khan, Pakistani leadership should have acted in a much-matured fashion to diffuse the crisis. It is interesting to note that the general blames the illiteracy and untrained Bengali leadership for their under representation in the services and leadership and feel that it was overreacted by the Awami League president Sheikh Mujeeb who was conspiring against the Pakistanis with clear support from the Indian ruling establishment.
The process of Bangladesh was very old and began with the opposition of Urdu language in East Bengal where students were adamant that Bangla should be their mother tongue. Here the learned General supports Jinnah for supporting Urdu as the link language of the country and relates Bengali as a clearly Hindu dominated language, which un-necessarily swayed the Bangla Muslims. In the 1970 elections held for Pakistan’s National Assembly, Awami League won 160 seats out of 162 reserved for East Pakistan while Pakistan People’s Party of Z.A.Bhutto won 81 seats from West Pakistan out of 138 seats reserved for them. Clear enough Awami League should have been allowed to form the government but larger than life ego of Bhutto never really allowed this to succeed. According to the General, since both the parties were regional hence they should have formed the government jointly but he did not say that if there was no consensus than the democratically elected largest political party i.e. Awami League should have been invited to form the government in Pakistan. But then the general only justified this by his earlier saying that though East Bengal has a majority of seats and population, it did not have a ‘merit’ like the Punjabis and Sindhies and hence could not be filled in the respective quota. This itself is an argument which many of our upper caste fellows in India gives regarding the Dalits on the grounds that they don’t have required merit and hence they should not be allowed to come up with the general category boys. The argument regarding Urdu language is the same as that we face here in India regarding Hindi when states like Tamilnadu could go the extent of threatening to secede from India but then Nehru has a greater vision to run India and the foundation of Pakistan was on a very dangerous precedent. If Islam were the only thing that united all the Muslims of the subcontinent then Pakistan would not have so many internal problems for which blame is given not to Indian establishment but Hindus. This is a dangerous theory like Islam being presented globally as a religion of sword. The fact presented here reflects clearly that every community wants to preserve its culture and language. Nothing could be far from the truth when we say that religion decide culture. The proximity between Bengali Muslim and Bengali Hindu is much more than a Bengali Muslim and a Punjabi Muslim. It is true for all other cases.
Writing about Mohajir problem in Pakistan the author makes these points: “These people had settled in Pakistan but could not emotionally disengage themselves from the Ganga-Jamuni culture. Instead of merging themselves with the social and cultural environment of Sindh to create a new and enriched blend of distinticitve identity for Pakistan, they endeavored to practice their UP culture in the desert of Sindh and hoped that their cultural identity would also be adopted by the old Sindhis. This attitude brought them in conflict with the local nationalists power centers who were themselves no less possessive and proud of their own ancient language, distintictive dress and rich cultural heritage.” Interestingly, the general does not say that Pakistan itself became a victim of its own identity problem and that Muslim League a party of rich peasantry and migrants from UP had to ultimately bow to the pressure of local ethnic identities, though he suggest that Military interventions in Pakistan came because of a virtually corrupt and defunct political leadership and army being a nationalist organizations could not have allowed the country to go like this. Appreciably, the general still points out that Army is not the final answer for Pakistan’s problems but it is the democracy which will make Pakistan a strong nation and he lament how the vision of a democratic, plural and progressive Pakistan was lost due to the lure of power by the powerful feudal elite in Pakistan who usurped everything in the name of democracy. He says, “ Military dictators were not the sole spoilers of the democratic order. Many elected leaders in the country were in fact only democratic in name but autocratic in their conduct and behavior. They promoted a brand of sham democracy to further their personal interests and for reasons of political expediency. Such persons contributed no less in eroding Pakistan’s nascent democratic order.”
Paying tribute to Nehru as a great visionary, the General has made a post-mortem of Pakistan’s various military juntas who ruled the country under the pretext of democracy. In a remarkable show of clarity and sobriety he says: “ In their respective tenures in office Ayub, Yahya, Bhutto and Zia wore two hats each, one, that of the Chief martial law administrator, and the second, of the President of Pakistan. It was an administrative, legal and diplomatic requirement for the country to have a head of the state. However, in the spirit of law, this designation was misnomer. The four presidents of Pakistan were in reality about absolute military rulers who did not derive their authority either from the constitution, which was abrogated or suspended, or from the Parliament, which did not exist. They ruled by the gun and wielded absolute power without any institutional system of accountability.”
The author must be complimented for bringing out the most intriguing factors of Pakistan polity and its armed forces and he no doubt admits that in the power game it was West Pakistan, which dominated despite East Pakistan’s majority. Terming Z.A.Bhutto, former Pakistan prime minister as ‘ a feudal by birth, a socialist by his own declaration, but a capitalist at heart’, he says that Bhutto’s downfall was ultimately his own creation. The democratic institutions were considerably weakened during his period. That was a fact also in the cased of Nawaz Sharief which paved way for the intervention of army under General Parvez Musharraf. The general gives version of what Musharraf gave to Pakistan and does not try to give the other side of the story. He says that since the Institution of army was under threat hence Musharraf had to intervene. In an interesting inner revelation, the general says that General Zia was not interested to step in when Bhutto’s personalized cult touched a nadir in Pakistan. It was Bhutto, who wanted to divide the army and the army declined to fire on the protesters against the Bhutto administration which Zia feared would divide the only saved institution of Pakistan and that’s why he unwillingly imposed Martial Law in Pakistan. He however could not hide his military bias when he says that it was not military which gave death sentence to Bhutto but the courts and that Zia ultimately gave his consent for final hanging under public pressure. Given the cult of Bhutto in Pakistan, even today, one can only laugh at this that the president did not give pardon to a former prime minister because the people welcomed his persecution. The fact is that Zia went against a very large number of international appeals for an amnesty to Bhutto and hanged him so that he could rule Pakistan uninterruptedly because after Bhutto’s death Pakistan was plunged into a political crisis.
In the Epilogue of the book, the author speak about the Kargil war and how the ‘freedom fighters’ occupied the Kargil-Drass sector and surprised India’s military command. However, if this was the case of ‘freedom fighters’, then one wonder as the why the author is petting the Pakistan army for giving a run to India and finally Pakistan submitted because of the American Pressure.
This book has an interesting narration and many new things for the students of south Asian politics and army interventions in Pakistan. Perhaps, this is for the first time that a Pakistani general has openly given his viewpoint on the polity of the country. It is also good that a general of his caliber support democratic set up in the country and want the army to be out of the day-to-day politics of the country. However, there are many things which need to be introspected by the Indians and Pakistanis both, which is about our shared history and culture. It is here where the army men need more concentration, otherwise how could one justify comment from General Arif about Mohajir’s practicing
‘Ganga Jamuni’ culture in Pakistan was against the new identity of Pakistan. Why the general think that everything that Indian is dangerous for the identity of Pakistan. How could those who created Pakistan ( Mohazirs were in the forefront of it), forget about their culture and language. After all, the same general justify Urdu language as being declared as the national language of Pakistan despite the fact that it was not a language of any province in Pakistan. After all, Urdu itself is a ‘Gangajamnui’ language and has a great cultural legacy. Pakistan and India are two sovereign nation and have to remain neighbor for ever and it is therefore necessary as both work together to achieve peace and prosperity in the region and for this shared cultural legacy must be brought forward, rather than creating a fear psychosis of alien culture in the minds of our people which our political-military leadership had been doing in India and Pakistan. Ganga-Jamuni culture is not a bad culture and would definitely do better for Pakistan society than any other culture, which has divided the society. The hegimonistic Hindu India or Muslim evil Pakistan, as our army men would make us believe should now become a matter of past. This book must be read by all particularly Indians as it gives the ‘other’ side of story. It is an informative work and gives us ample scope to introspect and the author has full marks when he repeatedly speaks of a viable democracy in Pakistan free from religious fanaticism. Such thought gives us hope that military leadership in Pakistan will one day realize that ultimately it is democracy, which will bring laurels to Pakistan and not the army.
Name of the Book: Khaki Shadows: Pakistan (1947-1997)
Author: General K.M.Arif
Published by: Oxford University Press, Karachi
Year: 2001
Price: not mentioned
Pages: 450
Review Article
A Khakhi version of Indo-Pak relations
Vidya Bhushan Rawat
Indo-Pak relations have been subject of intense discussion for many in the subcontinent including the ‘security hawks’ and hate mongering foreign ministry experts. General K.M.Arif held important positions in the Pakistan army under different presidents and was particularly closer to General Zia-ul-Haq. Like many Pakistanis he also think that the stories on the Indo-Pak wars had been a one sided affair so far as only Indian versions have come out and Pakistan government has unnecessarily put restrictions on such publication. This is a lament by no less than a general that Pakistan should be an open society and that military should better concentrate on its professional duties rather then meddling into the political affairs of the country on the regular basis. This will, he argues, affect military capability to fight the external enemy i.e. India.
It is interesting to note the different intrigues that Pakistan polity face and the reasons sited by the General to justify military rule in Pakistan, though he must be complimented to put the internal security situation in Pakistan in a very clear perspective but the general has really been parochial and conventionalist when writing about India. His entire thesis on India shows how military in Pakistan and India both the countries have prejudices and bias about each other. The Pakistan army therefore does not hide its communal leaning in terming India as a Hindu state while Pakistan as a Muslim country. The general terms Nehru as a Hindu leader who had a vision for the country while Pakistan after the first round of leadership of the likes of M.A.Jinnah, Liaqat Ali Khan lacked a second ranking leadership. We sitting in India when analyse the Pakistan situation and its reason of military leadership lack the understanding of internal intrigues of Pakistan army and so-called democracy.
The general says that the 1965 Indo-Pak war was an unintended war in which ‘each side reacted disproportionately to the perceived provocation by the other and in the end lost control’. But he nevertheless blames India for the aggression quoting an known Jansangh leader Mr U.M.Trivedi in the Lok Sabha that the Indian army must go to ‘ right up to Lahore to bring Pakistan to its senses.’ Even the socialist leader Ram Manohar Lohia wanted India to over run Pakistan. Of course, many in Indian think the same way as the general says but such opinion exist the other side of the border and it would be better for saner people not to give legitimacy and justification to such rhetoric. The General then pat the novice Pakistan leadership under Ayub Khan and quotes him as saying: If Pakistan wanted to commit aggression it would have chosen a better area than the mud flats and also a better time when the Indian forces were on the run after their defeat at the hands of China.
The author then goes on comment on the crisis that erupted in East Pakistan now known as Bangladesh. Though unlike many other Pakistanis he admit the fault of Punjabi dominated bureaucracy and leadership to ignore the claims of Bengalis in Pakistan’s national-political life. He says that since most of the Punjabi’s and Sindhies were educated enough hence they had a major share in bureaucracy but unfortunately Bengalis did not have the ‘ trained manpower’ and most importantly they were culturally dominated by Hindus who had a grudge against Pakistan. There was a slanderous campaign about uneven treatment given to East Pakistanis. And according to General Khan, Pakistani leadership should have acted in a much-matured fashion to diffuse the crisis. It is interesting to note that the general blames the illiteracy and untrained Bengali leadership for their under representation in the services and leadership and feel that it was overreacted by the Awami League president Sheikh Mujeeb who was conspiring against the Pakistanis with clear support from the Indian ruling establishment.
The process of Bangladesh was very old and began with the opposition of Urdu language in East Bengal where students were adamant that Bangla should be their mother tongue. Here the learned General supports Jinnah for supporting Urdu as the link language of the country and relates Bengali as a clearly Hindu dominated language, which un-necessarily swayed the Bangla Muslims. In the 1970 elections held for Pakistan’s National Assembly, Awami League won 160 seats out of 162 reserved for East Pakistan while Pakistan People’s Party of Z.A.Bhutto won 81 seats from West Pakistan out of 138 seats reserved for them. Clear enough Awami League should have been allowed to form the government but larger than life ego of Bhutto never really allowed this to succeed. According to the General, since both the parties were regional hence they should have formed the government jointly but he did not say that if there was no consensus than the democratically elected largest political party i.e. Awami League should have been invited to form the government in Pakistan. But then the general only justified this by his earlier saying that though East Bengal has a majority of seats and population, it did not have a ‘merit’ like the Punjabis and Sindhies and hence could not be filled in the respective quota. This itself is an argument which many of our upper caste fellows in India gives regarding the Dalits on the grounds that they don’t have required merit and hence they should not be allowed to come up with the general category boys. The argument regarding Urdu language is the same as that we face here in India regarding Hindi when states like Tamilnadu could go the extent of threatening to secede from India but then Nehru has a greater vision to run India and the foundation of Pakistan was on a very dangerous precedent. If Islam were the only thing that united all the Muslims of the subcontinent then Pakistan would not have so many internal problems for which blame is given not to Indian establishment but Hindus. This is a dangerous theory like Islam being presented globally as a religion of sword. The fact presented here reflects clearly that every community wants to preserve its culture and language. Nothing could be far from the truth when we say that religion decide culture. The proximity between Bengali Muslim and Bengali Hindu is much more than a Bengali Muslim and a Punjabi Muslim. It is true for all other cases.
Writing about Mohajir problem in Pakistan the author makes these points: “These people had settled in Pakistan but could not emotionally disengage themselves from the Ganga-Jamuni culture. Instead of merging themselves with the social and cultural environment of Sindh to create a new and enriched blend of distinticitve identity for Pakistan, they endeavored to practice their UP culture in the desert of Sindh and hoped that their cultural identity would also be adopted by the old Sindhis. This attitude brought them in conflict with the local nationalists power centers who were themselves no less possessive and proud of their own ancient language, distintictive dress and rich cultural heritage.” Interestingly, the general does not say that Pakistan itself became a victim of its own identity problem and that Muslim League a party of rich peasantry and migrants from UP had to ultimately bow to the pressure of local ethnic identities, though he suggest that Military interventions in Pakistan came because of a virtually corrupt and defunct political leadership and army being a nationalist organizations could not have allowed the country to go like this. Appreciably, the general still points out that Army is not the final answer for Pakistan’s problems but it is the democracy which will make Pakistan a strong nation and he lament how the vision of a democratic, plural and progressive Pakistan was lost due to the lure of power by the powerful feudal elite in Pakistan who usurped everything in the name of democracy. He says, “ Military dictators were not the sole spoilers of the democratic order. Many elected leaders in the country were in fact only democratic in name but autocratic in their conduct and behavior. They promoted a brand of sham democracy to further their personal interests and for reasons of political expediency. Such persons contributed no less in eroding Pakistan’s nascent democratic order.”
Paying tribute to Nehru as a great visionary, the General has made a post-mortem of Pakistan’s various military juntas who ruled the country under the pretext of democracy. In a remarkable show of clarity and sobriety he says: “ In their respective tenures in office Ayub, Yahya, Bhutto and Zia wore two hats each, one, that of the Chief martial law administrator, and the second, of the President of Pakistan. It was an administrative, legal and diplomatic requirement for the country to have a head of the state. However, in the spirit of law, this designation was misnomer. The four presidents of Pakistan were in reality about absolute military rulers who did not derive their authority either from the constitution, which was abrogated or suspended, or from the Parliament, which did not exist. They ruled by the gun and wielded absolute power without any institutional system of accountability.”
The author must be complimented for bringing out the most intriguing factors of Pakistan polity and its armed forces and he no doubt admits that in the power game it was West Pakistan, which dominated despite East Pakistan’s majority. Terming Z.A.Bhutto, former Pakistan prime minister as ‘ a feudal by birth, a socialist by his own declaration, but a capitalist at heart’, he says that Bhutto’s downfall was ultimately his own creation. The democratic institutions were considerably weakened during his period. That was a fact also in the cased of Nawaz Sharief which paved way for the intervention of army under General Parvez Musharraf. The general gives version of what Musharraf gave to Pakistan and does not try to give the other side of the story. He says that since the Institution of army was under threat hence Musharraf had to intervene. In an interesting inner revelation, the general says that General Zia was not interested to step in when Bhutto’s personalized cult touched a nadir in Pakistan. It was Bhutto, who wanted to divide the army and the army declined to fire on the protesters against the Bhutto administration which Zia feared would divide the only saved institution of Pakistan and that’s why he unwillingly imposed Martial Law in Pakistan. He however could not hide his military bias when he says that it was not military which gave death sentence to Bhutto but the courts and that Zia ultimately gave his consent for final hanging under public pressure. Given the cult of Bhutto in Pakistan, even today, one can only laugh at this that the president did not give pardon to a former prime minister because the people welcomed his persecution. The fact is that Zia went against a very large number of international appeals for an amnesty to Bhutto and hanged him so that he could rule Pakistan uninterruptedly because after Bhutto’s death Pakistan was plunged into a political crisis.
In the Epilogue of the book, the author speak about the Kargil war and how the ‘freedom fighters’ occupied the Kargil-Drass sector and surprised India’s military command. However, if this was the case of ‘freedom fighters’, then one wonder as the why the author is petting the Pakistan army for giving a run to India and finally Pakistan submitted because of the American Pressure.
This book has an interesting narration and many new things for the students of south Asian politics and army interventions in Pakistan. Perhaps, this is for the first time that a Pakistani general has openly given his viewpoint on the polity of the country. It is also good that a general of his caliber support democratic set up in the country and want the army to be out of the day-to-day politics of the country. However, there are many things which need to be introspected by the Indians and Pakistanis both, which is about our shared history and culture. It is here where the army men need more concentration, otherwise how could one justify comment from General Arif about Mohajir’s practicing
‘Ganga Jamuni’ culture in Pakistan was against the new identity of Pakistan. Why the general think that everything that Indian is dangerous for the identity of Pakistan. How could those who created Pakistan ( Mohazirs were in the forefront of it), forget about their culture and language. After all, the same general justify Urdu language as being declared as the national language of Pakistan despite the fact that it was not a language of any province in Pakistan. After all, Urdu itself is a ‘Gangajamnui’ language and has a great cultural legacy. Pakistan and India are two sovereign nation and have to remain neighbor for ever and it is therefore necessary as both work together to achieve peace and prosperity in the region and for this shared cultural legacy must be brought forward, rather than creating a fear psychosis of alien culture in the minds of our people which our political-military leadership had been doing in India and Pakistan. Ganga-Jamuni culture is not a bad culture and would definitely do better for Pakistan society than any other culture, which has divided the society. The hegimonistic Hindu India or Muslim evil Pakistan, as our army men would make us believe should now become a matter of past. This book must be read by all particularly Indians as it gives the ‘other’ side of story. It is an informative work and gives us ample scope to introspect and the author has full marks when he repeatedly speaks of a viable democracy in Pakistan free from religious fanaticism. Such thought gives us hope that military leadership in Pakistan will one day realize that ultimately it is democracy, which will bring laurels to Pakistan and not the army.
Name of the Book: Khaki Shadows: Pakistan (1947-1997)
Author: General K.M.Arif
Published by: Oxford University Press, Karachi
Year: 2001
Price: not mentioned
Pages: 450
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