Long Live Revolution!

பண'வீக்கத்தின்' பணப்புழக்கம்!

2008-08-06T19:47:00.000-07:00

கலைஞர் கருணாநிதி அறக்கட்டளைக்கு
அழகிரி 'கல்வி' அறக்கட்டளை
10 இலட்ச ரூபாய் நன்கொடை!

To hope or not to hope...

2008-06-15T04:23:00.000-07:00

After Modi's Vicory in gujarat elections, now the victory of BJP in Karanataka is called as a victory to Moditva, a new breed of Hindutva. Moditva is defined as the proper mixture of upper caste, anti-muslim, anti-christian, regional, linguistic chauvinist politics. It's the successful proven mixture of creating and instilling the 'other' in the minds of people and creating a fictious, dubious 'us' with a sense of statehood, covering the poisonous hindutva agenda. Harsh mander recalls the story of abhdulbhai and noorie below, which again shows the real picture of the Hindu Rashtra and how fascism is an every day way of life in one part of this country. Harsh mander is himself an answer to all those who may shook their shoulders and say, "what can i do for this?".

...

From The Hindu

Another Bakery, another Parzania
HARSH MANDER

The carnage of 2002 changed everything for Abdulbhai and Noorie.... This fortnightly feature introduces us to people in the margins, and their unheard voices.
PHOTO: A. ROY CHOWDHURY

Going up in flames: Even as faith and courage hold no answer....

Today, more than six years after it was charred in the flaming carnage of 2002 in Ahmedabad, their small cottage bakery remains shut. The rebuilt furnace stands forlorn and empty, the metal trays and moulds piled unused and rusting in a corner, like the skeletons of the dead. None of their former clients agrees any more to buy their flour biscuits, cakes and bread, although these were popular in the past.

When they had built their bakery a decade earlier, they had proudly named it Jai Hind. “Others name their shops after gods and goddesses. But we wanted to name our bakery in honour of our country,” they would tell their neighbours proudly. When Abdulbhai and Noorie Bahen had bought the land for the bakery and their home in 1992, they had not worried for a moment that theirs would be the only Muslim home and establishment in the Hindu settlement Thakkar Nagar. “There was no discrimination, no hate, no suspicion at all in the hearts of our neighbours at that time, and there was none in ours.” But then came 2002, with its tempests and fires of loathing, and it changed everything.

When the couple had returned from six months in the relief camp to the ruins of their home, part of their family missing, and their life’s earnings scorched, they were still not defeated. They first rebuilt a makeshift earthen furnace, borrowed money for working capital, and reopened Jai Hind Bakery. But their goods remained unsold, as consequence of a still pervasive city-wide boycott of Muslim products, enforced not just through a shadowy network of communal organisations, but also through large mass consent.

Abdulbhai set out his wares on a wooden cart to sell in parts of the city where people do not know his Muslim identity, shamed by the fall in his economic status, distraught that he needed to hide who he was. They earned a small fraction of what they did in the past.

For years after the slaughter, they held firm to hope and the belief that the trails of hate would one day end. But Abdul and Noorie are now defeated and dispensable in Modi’s resurgent, triumphant Gujarat. The state has no place any longer for people like them, people who worship an ‘alien’ God.

Material destruction

They have still not been able to rebuild the roof over most of their destroyed house. Noorie’s voice quivers as she takes us on a conducted tour of what their home used to be, but is no longer. They are now resigned and vanquished, desperate to find a buyer of their properties, so they can move to the safety (and penury) of a Muslim ghetto. But people know their desperation, and are unwilling to pay more than a small fragment of the market price.

They have lost a lot in 2002: their business, their home, the money they had saved and stored away in crevices of their home to marry off their children, but even more importantly the friendship of their neighbours, their faith and their spirit. However, most tragically of all, they have lost two children, for whom they still wait with throbbing longing and with long-frayed, decayed but stubborn hope.

From the morning of February 28, 2002, relatives started pouring in from various corners of Ahmedabad weighed down with terrifying stories of mass murder, rape, arson and pillage.

Abdul’s old friend, Rajendra, a Hindu lawyer, also dropped by to warn them, but the couple was convinced that their neighbours would never allow them to be harmed. Rajendra still insisted on taking one of their sons Zahid who was at the bakery at that time to his own home, to protect him from any danger. This eventually saved this boy’s life.

Evening fell, and Abdul was baking biscuits and Noorie cooking food for the frightened relatives who had gathered at their home, seeking haven after fleeing desperately from the massacres at Naroda and elsewhere. It was then that mobs converged from two directions to the lone Muslim home and commercial establishment in the neighbourhood, baying for their blood. Some neighbours dissuaded the leaders of the mob, but shortly after, police vans gathered, further inciting the mobs. The relatives and family ran in different directions in the frenzied confusion that followed.

The fire

Two sisters Salma and Sanno, both barely in their teens ran to the inter-state bus terminal. Abdul screamed to them to wait there, until they reached them. Noorie grabbed their youngest son Allah Deen, barely five, and hid trembling in a ditch behind their home, her palm clasped over his mouth all the while, petrified that he would scream and give them away. They watched in secret the mob loot their home and bakery, and set it on fire.

They also saw their oldest son, teenaged Wahid run in another direction with his youngest sister Saira. This was the last time any of them have seen the two children alive, or dead….

Late at night, after the laggards in the mob dispersed and the flames that razed their home were still smouldering, Abdul and Noorie, with their little son Allah Deen, escaped in the shadows to the highway and eventually to the bus stand, in cold dread of the fires blazing everywhere, the calls for assault, and the smoke and the screams that crowded the gathering darkness. At the bus stand, they found to their great relief their two girls who sat waiting for their parents in a corner.

Luckily Noorie was wearing a sari that day, and people took them to be Hindus. They went first to the home of a Hindu friend Thakur, pleading that they take in their two daughters. But the man was out, and the woman refused to open the door, frightened that the mobs would avenge this by torching their home. Noorie does not blame her. “Those were terrible times,” she recalls. “People were too frightened to even offer us a cup of water.”

Chaos rules

But they had more luck when they reached their other Hindu friend Rambhai. He readily — and hastily — took them in, but worried that the mobs would find them before long, as many knew of their friendship. He went out and found a para-military contingent, on whom he had more faith than the local police. The armed men in uniform escorted the family to a junior school building in a Muslim area, which the community had converted into a relief camp.

Their first task was to bring together again their family, scattered by the catastrophe. Two girls were with them. They were reassured about Zahid’s safety, as Rambhai spoke on the telephone to Rajendra, the lawyer who sheltered Zahid at his home for eight days. He finally dropped the boy at the camp, to be reunited with his grieving family. But Wahid and Saira were still nowhere to be found.

As the days and nights in the camp followed each other, laden with sorrow and loss for the thousands sheltered there, the camp organisers arranged vehicles for families to search for their lost loved ones. Hundreds went feverishly from camp to camp. Some like Shah Alam had more than 12,000 residents, and they had set up a unit near the large gate of the dargah to assist separated families to locate lost loved ones. The desperate Abdul and Noorie scoured the faces of several thousand children who were gathered there, but their own children were nowhere to be found.

The estranged parents finally accepted advice from the camp organisers to search among the unclaimed bodies at the mortuaries of government hospitals. There were rotting bodies piled one on top of the other, spilling out on to the corridors, and many frantic family members searched the faces of the dead, several burned or badly scarred by knife wounds. “In our desperation, we started tossing bodies aside, forgetting that they were bodies of loved ones of other people like us.” But they still could not find their children anywhere.

Their quest has not ended even after six long years. And who can say when their search will end, if ever? They do not have a single photograph of their children, as these too were burned down with the fire that the mob lit in their home, so they cannot advertise on television or the newspapers. People tell them that a child was spotted who looked like their children in some corner of this vast country, and they rush there, only to be disappointed. They have journeyed to Mumbai, Delhi, and their ancestral village in Uttar Pradesh, and always returned with empty hands and full aching hearts.

But who can ask a father and mother to abandon their search for their missing children, and by doing so affirm that they are slaughtered, never to return to them? They weep still inconsolably: “We do not know whether to hope any longer, or not to hope …”

Harsh Mander is human rights worker and writer based in Delhi. He is convenor of Aman Biradari, a people’s campaign for secularism, justice and caring.

voice of the voiceless...

2008-05-31T10:50:00.000-07:00

Shrikrishna Kalamb...i don't know his face. no photograph of him is available in internet or anywhere...i don't know any of his poems other than the ones mentioned in the below article... but not really. i know him...i am able to see him...able to see the despair in his eyes... sense the agony in his voice...the voice of the mute 1,50,000 deceased peasants of india...the voice of the voiceless which couldn't penetrate the deafening hysterical noise of the superpower, which has no glamour, only sweat and blood.

...

excerpts from 'We cultivate pearls, but our children go hungry'

Two days before he hanged himself to death on March 24, fifty-year-old farmer of five acres Shrikrishna Kalamb penned his last poem.

My life
Is different
My death will be like untimely rain.

The cotton in black soil is like a poem to me
Its roots as sweet as sugarcane…

Symbolism and emotions fill the strong poems of Kalamb, who ended himself at his sister's home in Murtijapur town, 25 km from his native village Babhulgaon (Jahangir) in Akola district. Like other farmers, he had debts and responsibility – of marrying five daughters.

Kalamb's life as a poet-farmer and his musings symbolise the agrarian crisis that is wreaking havoc in the countryside, and taking a toll on the farmers. In his striking muse, Vasare (Calves), he pens:
Amhi vasare vasare, muki upasi vasare
gaya panhavato amhi, chor kalatat dhar
tapa tapa gham unarato, unarato bhuivar
moti pikavato amhi, tari upasi lekare

[We are calves, dumb hungry calves
We tend to the cows, thieves walk away with milk and cream
We sweat and sweat on fields
We cultivate pearls, but our children remain hungry]

Soaked in chaste Warhadi, a sweet Marathi dialect in Vidarbha, Kalamb's poems reflect on and resonate with life of an Indian farmer in changing economic order. Through his 50-plus poems, he commented on varied subjects from politics to the social changes, while keeping rural India at the centre of sweeping realities. In one of his poems titled Lek (Daughter), he goes on to showcase the tensions of a father, whose vocation is farming. The poem remains relevant for all times. In Itihaas, he questions ‘Time’ for preserving only the glorious history of rich and mighty, but willfully burying the resilient struggles of millions of poor. Kalamb was determined to die if one goes by his latest musing.

His crisis went well beyond the issue of outstanding bank loans. He could not earn enough to make both ends meet. The loan waiver won't raise his income levels magically. He too had perhaps cracked in the face of a gigantic crisis plaguing not just him alone but his entire farm neighbourhood. He had failed on financial front. There was virtually no income from his five-acre farm. But he owed Rs 20,000 bank loan, and over Rs 50,000 private debt. The private borrowings may be more."He sustained us on that money for ten years. But now, we had little options so he was contemplating selling remaining land," says his eldest daughter, Usha, 20. "He had asthma and would not work hard in the fields," she says.

Another major worry for Kalamb was the marriages of his daughters, his bereaved wife Rukmini reveals. "He was also sad that Usha was saddled by the family responsibilities and had to cut short her education," she says. On that fateful day, Kalamb tied up a rope to a door beam and kept tryst with it. People saw him walk into his room, but did not suspect his intentions. Says Vivek, his nephew, proudly reciting a few of his poems in remembrance, "It's difficult to fathom that the man who always supported others ended himself in isolation."

"A mass clinical depression is silently sweeping the farmers of Vidarbha", warns Dr Sujay Patil, a leading psychiatrist in Akola. Dr Patil offers a free treatment and counseling to farmers suffering from depression with roots in economic slide. Millions of farmers, he fears, are suffering silently from mental instability owing to a long prevailing economic depression. "It won't subside merely with waiver; the issue of income will have to be addressed seriously," he insists. Nearly 50 farmers have taken their own lives in Vidarbha from Holi festival on March 21, and more than 250 since January this year.

"He would hold us in rapt attention and sometime in tears, when he would recite his poems," remembers Vitthal. Usha has carefully rewritten all her father's poems in a register and wishes to see it published in the form of a collection.She says: "My father died as a farmer, in perpetual debt and worries. But he lived as a poet, and will remain immortal in his poems."

...

Also Read Manufacturing A Food Crisis, a must read article, to know who killed kalamb.

One tight slap!

2008-04-28T23:50:00.000-07:00

“What we’re witnessing is the most successful secessionist struggle ever waged in independent India — the secession of the middle and upper classes from the rest of the country. It’s a vertical secession, not a lateral one. They’re fighting for the right to merge with the world’s elite somewhere up there in the stratosphere.”

- Arundhati Roy

Hope everybody knew the slap episode of Indian Premier League (IPL) cricket tournament. Today's morning newspapers have come up with photographs in its masthead of Bhajji (Harbhajan singh) hugging sreesanth and asking for apology. The kiddish cry of sreesanth and all the drama that has followed reminds another infamous episode, not in cricket but of the so-called entertainment industry. The great saga of Shilpa shetty in UK big brother show and the Indian brothers and sisters who fought for her!

Some may question why you differentiate them, as after all cricket too falls under entertainment industry. I appreciate the validity of the question. But since I am 'biased' and 'cynical', I thought of getting a fair opinion. I questioned about the money involved and the extravaganza of the Twenty20 to one of the cricket fan I know, and he shot back clearly. “Cricket is no more a sport, it's an entertainment business.” Yet he loves cricket just because he has got used to watching it. Cricket, Cinema and Religion are the three opiums of India and Twenty20 is the grand new reality show of the great entertainment business of this country.

We are able to see all the shining stars of the 'shining India', or in Shoba de’s words which they understand better, of the brand ‘Superstar India –from incredible to unstoppable’, come together at this grandeur event. Vijay mallya, Sharukh khan, Preity zinta, Rahul Gandhi, Priyanka Gandhi, etc., etc… The only resentment was raised by saffron and that too was only on the attire of cheerleaders. The loose-controlled angry ‘rebels’ of the awakened, new Rang De Basanti generation and its gurus shot back. “The clothes and dance moves of Cheerleaders are not more vulgar than that of any Indian cinema. Then, why not this?” Satellite channel anchors condemned the Maharashtra BJP government of moral policing for banning cheerleaders dance in Mumbai IPL matches. So according to BJP, there is no issue if the cheerleaders wear full-covered saree after all even Bal Thackeray is also a lover of sports like cricket other than his favorite blood sports.

It’s not the targeted bikini clad cheerleaders but the entire Twenty 20 is a wicked and vulgar extravagant display of the so-called global Indians and it’s nauseating in its entirety. When Inflation and price rise of essential commodities is threatening the near existence of this country, When economists and even world bank officials warn of an awaiting unrest and chaos due to the food crisis in 33 countries of the world including India, when these nostradamus predictions have already got proved right in the food riots that took place in Haiti, Egypt, Senegal and Cameron in the last two months, when it’s a proven statistic that for every half-an-hour an Indian farmer takes the extreme step of his life, these bastards of bats and balls are bursting crackers in crores. Twenty 20 is the ugliest act of the Indian elite to show its urge to merge with the world elite. As Amit Bhaduri notes, "According to the Forbes magazine list for 2007, the number of Indian billionaires rose from nine in 2004 to 40 in 2007: much richer countries like Japan had only 24, France 14 and Italy 14. Even China, despite its sharply increasing inequality, had only 17 billionaires. The combined wealth of Indian billionaires increased from $ 106 to $ 170 billion in the single year, 2006-07 [information from Forbes quoted in Jain and Gupta 2008]. " Twenty 20 has become possible in India only because of the mushrooming new billionaires and the 'trickling down' of their wealth to some sections of the upwardly mobile classes and now, it's their party time.

The over enthusiastic media, cheering crowds, stars and dancers reminds me one of Prof. Madhukar’s post which follows below.

In a talk on Neoliberal Destructions - which are uploaded at Google video here (part1), here (part2) and here (part3) - that P Sainath gave in Univ of California , Berkeley, he ends his talk with the Cornelius Tacitus’ description of Nero’s parties:

Emperor Nero’s parties in his garden were attended by all the Who’s Who of Rome. Often the the parties were in progress, but then the dusk fell, and night arrived. There was no light around for the guests to continue to enjoy the festivities. Nero came up with a innovative solution to provide illumination: the prisoner and poors were brought and burnt on the stakes party all around the arena to illuminate the garden… Tacitus (The Annals, Book XV, C.E. 62-65 ) noted:

“(they) were doomed to the flames and burnt, to serve as a nightly illumination when daylight had expired. Nero offered his gardens for the spectacle.”

…and the party continued….

Of course, Nero, as most people know, was mad and cruel - and so, his conduct is perhaps not really so surprising - even if it was sensational.

But what about Nero’s Guests?

They were, after all, the prominent elites of Rome - the intellectuals, the traders, the artists… sort of the “owners” of Roman culture and prosperity… (one would perhaps find them similar to our contemporary urban eduacated elites in temperaments and aspirations)…

It is important to understand the psyche of people - our own, actually- who could enjoy their wine and food, while the crackling light from burning bodies provided illumination to their delights…

as the party (i.e., the GDP, the Shopping Malls, the brands, GDP, SEZs, etc.) continues…

….So, are you one of the “Nero’s Guests”?

I don’t even have a trace of belief that these whiz kids of globalisation will ever care our words. But the vast masses of India who are getting marginalized as waste by the same globalisation, will definitely arise against this system which is nearing by, thanks to the price rise and inflation. On that day, all Nero’s guests will be paid back in Bhajji’s language, one tight slap!

மேன்மக்கள் மேன்மக்களே!

2008-04-22T23:08:00.000-07:00

வேலூர் சிறையில்
கண்ணீரால் முறையிட்ட
ஆனந்த பவனத்து
குலக்கொழுந்துக்கு,
நளினி
என்ன பதில்
சொல்லியிருக்கக் கூடும்?
தெரிந்து கொள்ள
யாருக்கும் ஆர்வம் இல்லை.

பதில் கிடக்கட்டும்.
இந்தப் புதுமை
புல்லரிக்க வைக்கவில்லையா?
குற்றவாளி
தனது குற்றத்தை உணர்ந்து
குமைய வைக்கும் கண்ணீர்...
மனங்களிடையேயான
அகழிகளை நிரப்பும்
பாதிக்கப்பட்டவர்களின்
பரிசுத்தமான கண்ணீர்...
என்ன இருந்தாலும்
மேன்மக்கள் மேன்மக்களே!

ஆனால்,
கேவலம்
அவ்வாறு
கண்ணீர் சிந்தி கதறியழும்
வாய்ப்பையேனும்
என்றைக்காவது
எமக்கு வழங்கியிருக்கிறீர்களா
எசமானர்களே...?

தகப்பன் பாசம் கூட
சீமாட்டிகளுக்குத்தான்
சொந்தமோ?
மணிப்பூரின் தாய்மார்கள்
மன்மோகன் சிங்கை சந்திக்கவும்,
நரோடா பாட்டியாவின்
இசுலாமியக் குழந்தைகள்
மோடியை கண்டு முறையிடவும்...
முறையிட அல்ல,
மனுக் கொடுப்பதேனும் சாத்தியமா?
இவற்றுக்கும்
உளவுத் துறை
உறுதுணையாய் வருமா?

சீமாட்டிகளின்
பொழுதுபோக்குகளில்
சுவாரஸ்யத்திற்கு
பஞ்சமில்லை.
அதனால்தான்
அடுத்த சில நாட்களில்
அரை மணி நேரத்திற்கு
ஒரு விவசாயி
தற்கொலை செய்து கொள்ளும்
இழவு நாட்டில்,
சற்றும் துணுக்குறாமல் நடைபெறும்
வக்கிரக் கொண்டாட்டத்தில்
அம்மையார் பிரசன்னமானார்.

வேலூர் சிறை 'த்ரில்'
அலுத்துப் போயிருக்கலாம்.
ஷாருக் கானின் அருகாமையில்
புதிய 'த்ரில்'
தேவைப்பட்டிருக்கலாம்.
அல்லது
அங்கும் கூட
அன்பிற்குரிய
அப்பா தென்பட்டிருக்கலாம்.
உண்மைதானே,
21-ஆம் நூற்றாண்டுக்கு
இந்தியாவை அழைத்துச் செல்லும்
ராஜீவின் கனவு
20-20-ல் தானே நிறைவேறுகிறது...

ஆனால்,
பிரியத்திற்கிடமற்ற
பிரியங்கா அம்மையாரே...
ஒன்றை மட்டும்
நினைவில் கொள்ளுங்கள்...
தண்ணீரை விட மட்டுமல்ல,
கண்ணீரை விடவும்
இரத்தம் அடர்த்தியானது.

வாக்கிங்..

2008-04-08T18:31:00.000-07:00

நாள் முழுதும்
வாக்கிங் செல்லும்
கீரைக்காரியும்,
நாளின் துவக்கத்தில்
அரை மணி நேரம்
வாக்கிங் செல்லும் நானும்,
தினந்தோறும் சந்திக்கும்
ஒரு திருப்பத்தில்,
ஒருவரையொருவர்
ஏறிட்டுக் கொள்வதில்லை.
ஒரு வேளை ஏறிட்டால்,
செருப்பணியாத
அவளது கால்களிலிருந்து,
தலையில்
புதர் போல மண்டி
அவளது முகம் மறைக்கும்
கீரைப் பொதி வரை
தொக்கி நிற்கும்
கேலிப் புன்னகையில்,
எனது
கேன்வாஸ் ஷூ
கருகி விடக் கூடும்.

காற்று அதனை விடுவதில்லை...!

2008-03-29T19:00:00.000-07:00

காற்று வீசுகிறது...
கொடி அசைகிறது...

நீர்த்திவலைகள் தெறிக்க
அடித்து வருகிறது
மடை திறந்த
வெள்ளம்.
முரசங்கள் அதிர்கின்றன.
பறை முழங்குகிறது.
மகிழ்ச்சியில்
கசிகிறது சினம்.
சினத்தில்
கலக்கிறது மகிழ்ச்சி.

கல்லறைச் சுவரில்
மோதி எதிரொலிக்கிறது
அடங்க மறுக்கும் குரல்.
அதனடியில்
ஆயிரமாண்டாய்
சலனமற்று வெந்த உடல்
சடசடக்கிறது.

பரவும் அனலில்
சுவரின்
காரை பெயர்கிறது.
சிதறிக் கிடக்கிற
திரிசூலத் துண்டுகள்
மெல்லப் பொசுங்குகின்றன..

எரிகின்ற உடலின்
இதழ்க் கோடியில்
விரிகிறதொரு
புன்னகை.
மீளும் சுவாசத்தில்
அதிர்கிறது
நிலம்.

காற்று வீசுகிறது...
கொடி அசைகிறது...
கரம் இறுகுகிறது...
பேனா ஈட்டியாகிறது...

(29-03-08 அன்று சிதம்பரத்தில் நடைபெற்ற மனித உரிமைப் பாதுகாப்பு மையம், மக்கள் கலை இலக்கியக் கழகம் ஆகிய புரட்சிகர அமைப்புகள் நடத்திய 'தில்லைச் சமரில் வென்றது தமிழ்' பொதுக் கூட்டத்தில், காற்றின் வழியே கடந்து சென்ற சொற்கள்...)

Naseem

2008-03-13T09:39:00.001-07:00

Recently got a chance to watch ‘Naseem’ (morning breeze), a Saeed Mirza movie, in Lok Sabha Television. As usual, without any clue of the plot and keeping faith on NFDC’s 'old' new wave, I started watching the subtle, dull-colored movie. Initially felt like whether should I ‘spoil’ the evening on a movie on Bombay ‘riots’. (In real, the cold-blooded massacre of Muslims by Shiv Sena and saffron thugs)...thought at last I have to witness the hapless cries of Naseem, the protagonist and should say to myself that it’s just a movie. But somehow decided to watch the movie and it turned out to be different.

The movie revolves around Naseem (Mayuri Kango), a 15-year old school going girl, her Muslim family and her loving, ill, bed-ridden grand father (Kaifi Azmi) in the troubled times of 1992, the year of Babri Masjid demolition. Kaifi Azmi’s splendid performance and his mesmerizing, deep voice kept me glued. The movie doesn’t has even a single violent act. Instead it unravels the beautiful, mischievous, adolescent life of Naseem and how the troubled times disturb her life. It captures the despair of Muslim families at those times, watching television filled with hate in air.

Naseem’s grand father shares the fond memories of his beloved wife and their life in Agra with her. Often movie travels to short flashbacks. When Naseem gets upset with one of her friend’s father dumping her family for a second marriage, she asks him why people go for second marriage and why he didn’t. He says it was not her grand mother but he was worried that she may leave him for a second marriage. Naseem laughs at the septuagenarian’s humble confession. His confessions of surrender to his wife and the wholesome influence of her in him leave you to admire the old man and his deep love as Naseem does.

But the troubled times disturb the family’s peace. Naseem’s father gets irate at watching television and desperately says, “Are Jab hum yahan jeena jaathe hain tho hum ko bahar kyun bhejna chathe ho?”(When we want to live here, why do you want to send us outside?). After Eid-feast, family and friends sit around grand father. He starts reciting a poem of Faiz Ahmed Faiz. He forgets a line and the visibly disturbed Zafar (debut film of Kay Kay Menon), friend of Naseem’s brother recites the line with anger conveying a different meaning for otherwise a romantic verse. When grand father objects, Zafar argues that Faiz’s lines no more have the same meaning, when their men and women are getting butchered all over the country. Zafar symbolizes the agonized Muslim youth and grand father represents the diminishing 'tolerant'(hate that word...why do minorities always need to tolerate..) muslim. Some months later, outside frenzy reaches the peak and reflections occur in home. Naseem’s brother shouts at grand father. Naseem's father, though equally agitated asks politely, “Baba, Why did you choose to remain here during partition?”

Azmi answers in a soft voice. “You remember the tree we grew before our house in Agra...Your Mother loved it so much and me too.” Naseem’s father leaves the room without a word. she gets back to him puzzled. “Was it just for a tree Dada?” He acknowledges with a simple nod.

After some days, grand father dies silently in his bed at the day of Babri Masjid demolition. When his body passes home, Zafar stands nearby with his friends discussing the demolition with fury. He looks at the deceased and says in a cold voice. “Its right time you got end today.” Naseem sits in her grand father’s bed taking the voidness in. Her memory drags back. She remembers watching the sky with him once. She asks him, “Dada, why the sky is blue?” He replies. “I thought of painting it in white but mistakenly I put the blue color in the bucket and that’s why.” She laughs and says, “Dada, you are joking.” He replies with a smile. “But you smiled. That’s what is important. Your smile.” Naseem smiles back inhaling the memory and the movie gets end.

It reminded me the brave smile of Bilkis Bano. I understand the analogy doesn't suits well. Naseem has a past to cherish and smile while bilkis bano cannot get anything to smile from her horrendous past. she smiles only at the present and that smile has a never ending sorrow deep in it. But the message is clear. We need to smile...to live, to fight, to fight like Bano...to fight against all the demons who try to snatch our smile. Our smile is our weapon that spits on the face of Asma Jehangir likes who was recently so pleased with her host, Narendra Modi. Certainly, on hosts too.

...

Read Bhupinder's gripping write-up on Kaifi Azmi.

A beautiful scene from the movie follows. I found the subtle satire on Jingoism more appealing in it.

Naseem

தீட்சிதப் பூணூலுக்கு சூத்திரக் கவசமா?

2008-03-07T18:47:00.000-08:00

"தில்லைவாழ் அந்தணர்தம் அடியார்க்கு அடியேன்" என்ற தேவாரப் பண்ணைப் படிக்கும் பொழுது , ஆறறிவு படைத்த, மான ஈனமுள்ள மனிதன் எவனும் அவ்வாறு வாழ்ந்திருப்பானா என நாம் யோசித்திருப்போம். அப்படி யோசிப்பவர்களுக்கு ஒரு வாழும் உதாரணமாகத் திகழ்பவர்தான் இந்து மக்கள் கட்சியின் தலைவர் அர்ஜீன் சம்பத். ஆனால், இவர் அடியாருக்கு அடியார் மட்டும் அல்ல, அதையும் தாண்டி, அடியாளுக்கு அடியாளாக (செல்லமாக அ.அ) இந்து மதத்துக்கு 'சேவை' செய்து வருபவர். கோவை 'கலவரத்தில்' அப்பாவி இசுலாமியர்களை 'களையெடுக்கும் உழவாரப் பணி' செய்த உத்தமர். அந்த மகா உத்தமர், நேற்று(07-03-2008) தினமணி நாளிதழில், 'ஆன்மிகத்துக்கு விடுக்கப்பட்ட சவால்' என சிதம்பரம் தேவாரப் போராட்டத்தைக் குறிப்பிட்டு ஒரு கட்டுரை எழுதியுள்ளார்.

அறிவாய்ந்த இக் கட்டுரையை, ஆறாண்டுகளுக்கு முன்பு, திராவிட, மகஇக கம்யூனிஸ்டுகள் ஆதரவின்றி, தன்னந்தனியனாய், சிற்றம்பல மேடையில் நின்று தேவாரம் பாட முயன்ற ஆறுமுகசாமியைத் தாக்கி, தீட்சிதர்கள் அவரது கையை முறித்த பொழுதே, அவரோ அல்லது அவருக்கு எழுதிக் கொடுத்த ஐடியாமணிகளோ எழுதியிருக்கலாம்... ஆனால், பிரச்சினைக்கு அடிகொள்ளியான இச்சம்பவத்தையே மறைத்து விட்டு, இப்பொழுது ஒரு வெங்காய மூட்டைக் கட்டுரை எழுதியிருக்கிறார்கள். இப்பொழுது ஆறுமுகசாமியைத் தூண்டி விடுவதாகச் சொல்லும் இந்த யோக்கிய சிகாமணிகள் எல்லோரும் ஆறாண்டுகளுக்கு முன்பு இப்படி ஒரு சம்பவம் நடந்ததா இல்லையா என்பதற்கு பதில் சொல்ல வேண்டும். நூற்றாண்டுகளுக்கு முந்தைய சோழர்கள் , சந்தானக் குரவர்கள் காலக் கதையையெல்லாம் பத்தி பத்தியாக விரிக்கத் தெரிந்த அ.அ, ஆறாண்டுக்கு முந்தைய நிகழ்வைப் பற்றி ஒரு வார்த்தையாவது எழுதியிருக்கலாம்.

பாசிசத்தின் உண்மை முகம் இதுதான். எது அடிப்படையான விசயமோ, எது பேசப்பட வேண்டிய விசயமோ, எது பிரச்சினைக்கு ஆதாரமோ அதை மூடி மறைப்பதும், அதனைச் சுற்றி புளுகு மூட்டைகளை அடுக்குவதும், அதன் மூலம் மொத்த விவாதத்தையும் திசை திருப்பி மக்களை மடையர்களாக்குவதும் தான் இட்லர் முதல் இ.ம.க வரை நடத்தி வரும் உத்தி.

சிதம்பரம் கோவிலில் தேவாரம் பாடத் தடையில்லையாம், தீட்சிதர்களும், காசி திருப்பனந்தாள் மடத்திலிருந்து ஓதுவார்களும் அன்றாடம் பாடுகிறார்களாம். பிரச்சினை தீட்சிதர் பாடுகிறாரா, திருப்பனந்தாள் மட ஓதுவார் பாடுகிறாரா என்பதல்ல. அ.அ வியந்தோதுகிற சாதி மத பேதமின்றி கருவறை(அது சித்சபையாம், சிற்றம்பல மேடை இல்லையாம், நீ இன்னா வேணா சொல்லு நைனா, வணக்கம்-னு சொல்லு, நமஸ்தேஜி-ன்னு சொல்லு) வரை சென்று வழிபட முடிகிற சிதம்பரம் நடராஜர் கோவிலில், 'சிவபெருமானின் அம்சமாகக் கருதப்படாத' சாதாரண சிவனடியார்கள், பொதுமக்கள் தேவாரம் பாடி வழிபட முடியுமா, முடியாதா என்பதுதான் பிரச்சினை, வழக்கு. இதற்கு அ.அ பதில் சொல்லவில்லை. சிதம்பரம் தீட்சிதர்கள் உயர்நீதிமன்றத்தில் பதில்(தீர்ப்பு) சொன்னார்கள்.

"நடராசனே ஒரு தீட்சிதர்தான் என்பதால் நாங்கள் தெய்வப் பிறவிகள். இந்தக் கோவிலை நிர்வாகம் செய்வது தீட்சிதர்களின் பிறப்புரிமை. அதன்மீது ஆணையிட அறநிலையத்துறைக்கு அதிகாரம் கிடையாது.

மத நம்பிக்கைகளுக்கும், நடைமுறைகளுக்கும் எதிராக தமிழைப் புகுத்துவதுதான் இந்த அரசின் கொள்கை. எனவே, ஆணையரின் உத்தரவு தொடர்பாக இந்த அரசிடம் மனுச் செய்தால் நீதி கிடைக்காது. ஆறுமுகசாமியின் வழிபாட்டு உரிமை பறிக்கப்படுவதாக ஆணையர் கூறுகிறார். வழிபடுவதற்குத்தான் உரிமையே தவிர, எங்கே நின்று வழிபடுவது, என்ன பாடுவது என்பதெல்லாம் வழிபாட்டு உரிமையில் சேராது. "

- இது அறநிலையத் துறை ஆணையரின் உத்தரவுக்கு எதிராக கடந்த ஜுன் 8, 2007- அன்று சென்னை உயர்நீதிமன்றத்தில் தீட்சிதர்கள் தாக்கல் செய்த மனுவில் உள்ள வாதங்கள்.

ஆக, தீட்சிதர்கள் தான் சிதம்பரம் கோவிலில் என்ன பாடுவது, எப்படிப் பாடுவது, 'புழக்கடையா, வாசற்படியா, வாசற்படி தாண்டியா' -எங்கே நின்று பாடுவது என பாரம்பரிய பார்ப்பனீய உரிமையோடு தீர்மானிப்பார்கள். அதனை ஒரு தேர்ந்தெடுக்கப்பட்ட அரசு கேட்க முடியாது. அறநிலையத் துறை கேட்க முடியாது. ஆறுமுகசாமி கேட்டால் கையை முறிப்பார்கள். நீதிமன்றம் கேட்டால் 'கைலாய மலையிலிருந்து சிவனோடு வந்த' ஆதாரத்தைச் சொல்லி வியாக்கியானம் செய்வார்கள். காவல்துறை சென்றால் கடிப்பார்கள். இந்த இலட்சணத்தில், அங்கே தேவையில்லாமல் 'சர்ச்சை' செய்கிறார்களாம், இதற்கு விளக்கம் தர ஒரு வேதாந்தி! யார் தேவையில்லாமல் 'சர்ச்சை' செய்கிறார்கள்?

சிதம்பரம் கோவிலை 'சர்ச்சை'க்குரியதாக மாற்றியது யார்? நடுநிலைமை வகிப்பதாக சொல்லும் 'இந்துக்கள்', நெஞ்சில் கை வைத்து சொல்லுங்கள். நீதிமன்றத்தின் உத்தரவின்படி, அறநிலையத்துறையின் ஆணையின்படி, காவல்துறை அனுமதி பெற்று பாடச் சென்ற ஆறுமுகசாமியை பாட விடாமல் 'சித்சபையில்' நடராஜர் சிலையைச் சுற்றி நின்று ஊளையிட்டவர்கள் யார்? உடனடியாக கருவறையைச் சாத்தியவர்கள் யார்? பரப் பயலே என்று ஏசிக் கூச்சலிட்டவர்கள் யார்? அவரது கண்ணாடியை உடைத்தவர்கள் யார்? காவல்துறையினரோடு கருவறைக்குள் மல்யுத்தம் நடத்தியவர்கள் யார்? தொலைக் காட்சிப் பெட்டியில் இத்தனையையும் கண்ட நடுநிலைமையான 'இந்துக்களே', புனிதத்தை காப்பாற்றும் நோக்கம் உடையவர்களாக தீட்சிதர்கள் இருந்திருந்தால், என்ன செய்திருக்க வேண்டும்? முதல்வருக்கு மனுச் செய்திருக்கலாம். புனிதம் கெடும் கோவிலைக் காப்பாற்ற தனியாக பூஜை செய்திருக்கலாம். ஏன், வடக்கிருந்து உயிர் துறந்திருக்கலாம். ஆனால், தொலைக்காட்சிப் பெட்டிகள், பத்திரிக்கைகள் முன்னிலையில் கட்டப் பஞ்சாயத்து ரெளடிகளைப் போல காலித்தனம் செய்து விட்டு, தேவாரம் பாட முயன்ற ஆறுமுகசாமியும், அவரை 'தூண்டி' விட்ட மகஇக கம்யூனிஸ்டுகளும் சிதம்பரம் கோவிலுக்கு எதிராக சதி செய்கிறார்களாம்.

ஆறுமுகசாமி தன்னை யாரும் தூண்டி விடவில்லை என பலமுறை சொல்லியிருக்கிறார். ஞாயிறு(02-03-2008) மாலை, மனித உரிமைப் பாதுகாப்பு மைய வழக்கறிஞர்களை காவல்துறை வெறிகொண்டு தாக்கி கைது செய்த பொழுது, தானாக சென்று காவல் நிலைய வாசலில் தன்னையும் கைது செய்யுமாறு உண்ணாவிரதம் இருந்து போராடினார் அந்த எண்பது வயது முதியவர். அவருக்கு இருக்கும் தைரியத்திலும், மான உணர்விலும் பத்தில் ஒரு பங்கு கூட இல்லாத அ.அ, அவரைப் பார்த்துப் பரிதாப்படுவதற்கு எந்த அருகதையுமில்லை . அதே வேளையில், இனிமேல், சிதம்பரத்தில் தேவாரம் பாடுவதற்கு நிச்சயம் மக்களைத் 'தூண்டுவோம்' என்பதையும் இங்கே தெரிவித்துக் கொள்கிறோம். பூணூலுக்கு விடப்பட்ட சவாலை சிரமேற் கொண்டுள்ள அ.அ, தமது 'நியாயமானக்' கருத்துக்களை முன்வைத்து, மக்களை தேவாரம் பாட விடாமல் 'தூண்டுமாறும்' வேண்டிக் கேட்டுக் கொள்கிறோம்.

இறைமறுப்புக் கொள்கை உடையவர்களும், மத நம்பிக்கை இல்லாதவர்களும் ஆன்மிக விஷயங்களில் தலையிட வேண்டிய அவசியம் என்ன என்ற 'ஆழமான' கேள்வியைக் கேட்கிறார் அ.அ. காஞ்சி சங்கர மடம் எனும் ஆன்மிக புனித நிறுவனத்தின் 'புண்ணிய' செயல்களில், ஆர்.எஸ்.எஸில் கூடச் சேராத ஆத்திகரான சங்கர ராமன் தலையிட்டார். விளைவு, தலையே போனது. நேர்மையான, நியாயமான பக்தர்கள் என்ன செய்திருக்க வேண்டும்? பாரபட்சமற்ற விசாரணைக்கு போராடியிருக்க வேண்டும். விவரங்களை சோதித்திருக்க வேண்டும். மகஇக கம்யூனிஸ்டுகள், திராவிடக் கட்சிகள் தூண்டி விடாத சொர்ணமால்யா, அனுராதா ரமணன் போன்ற இந்துப் பெண்களின் கருத்துக்களை கேட்டு, அதற்காகப் போராடியிருக்க வேண்டும். ஏன் பக்தர்கள் போராடவில்லை? ஏனென்றால், யாரும் சங்கர ராமனாகத் தயாரில்லை. நாத்திகர்களுக்கும், நக்சல்பாரிகளுக்கும் மட்டும்தான் சாவதற்கு பயம் இல்லை.

அட சாவதற்குத்தான் பயம், 'இந்துக்களுக்கு' சாப்பிடுவதற்கும் பயமா? கிடா வெட்டத் தடைச் சட்டம் வந்த பொழுது, 'ஆயிரக்கணக்கான ஆண்டுகளாகப் பின்பற்றக் கூடிய மரபுகளையும், சமய நம்பிக்கைகளையும், வழிபாட்டு முறைகளையும் மீறும்' இந்த 'இந்து' விரோதச் செயலுக்காக கொதித்தெழுந்த 'இந்து மக்கள்' யார்? சிதம்பரப் பார்ப்பன ஆன்மிகத்தின் சவாலுக்கு களமிறங்கும் இந்து சூரர்கள், சாதாரண மக்களின் ஆன்மிகத்திற்கு களமிறங்க மறுத்தது ஏன்? அன்றும் திருச்சியில் கிடா வெட்டத் தடைச் சட்டத்தை எதிர்த்து மக்களின் சிறு தெய்வ வழிபாட்டு உரிமைகளை பாதுகாப்பதற்காக கிடா வெட்டி சிறை சென்றது மகஇக கம்யூனிஸ்டு நாத்திகர்களா, தொந்தி வளர்த்த ஆத்திகர்களா? சிதம்பரம் கோயில் வழிபாட்டு முறைகளை சீர்திருத்தம் செய்ய முயற்சிப்பது நமது சமய நம்பிக்கைகளை அழிக்கும் முயற்சி என அ.அ குறிப்பிடுகிறார். சிறு தெய்வ வழிபாட்டு முறைகளை அழிப்பது எந்த கணக்கில் சேர்த்தி?

ஆம். 'இந்துக்களுக்கு' பயம்தான். இரண்டாயிரம் ஆண்டு கால பயம். இந்து மதம் என்ற பெயரில் சுயமரியாதையற்ற அடிமைகளாக இந்து மதப் பட்டியில் கட்டி வைக்கப்பட்டுள்ள தமிழ் மக்களின் 'இந்து' பயம். சைவப் பட்சிணிகளின் அகோரப் பற்களை அறிந்த பயம். புரிந்த தேவாரத்தை வீட்டிற்குள்ளும், புரியாத மந்திரங்களை கோவிலில் புனிதமென்றும் ஏற்றுக் கொள்ளும் சொரணையற்ற பயம். ஆம், 'இந்து' மதத்தின் அக்கிரமங்களை 'இந்துக்களே' தட்டிக் கேட்க முடியாத வெட்கக் கேடான நிலையில் 'இந்து' மதம் இருக்கிறதென்றால், நாத்திகர்களாகிய நக்சல்பாரிகள்தான் எதிர்த்துப் போராட வேண்டியிருக்கிறது.

சிறீரங்க நாதனையும், தில்லை நடராசனையும் பீரங்கி வாய் வைத்து பிளப்பது எந்நாளோ எனச் சொல்பவர்கள்தான் மகஇக கம்யூனிஸ்டுகள் என்கிறார் அ.அ. அது பாரதிதாசன் பாடல். பார்ப்பன மேலாதிக்கத்திற்கு எதிரான ஒரு கவிஞனின் நெருப்பு வரிகள். பீரங்கி வைத்து பிளப்பதுதான் திட்டமென்றால், பேருந்துகளிலும், ரயில் நிலையங்களிலும் எமது தோழர்கள் முழங்கவும், ஆர்ப்பாட்டங்களும், பொதுக்கூட்டங்களும், பத்திரிக்கைகளும் நடத்தி தமிழ் மக்களின் சுயமரியாதை உணர்வை மீட்டெடுக்க வேண்டிய அவசியமுமில்லை. ரத்தம் சொட்டச் சொட்ட தடியடி வாங்க வேண்டிய நிர்ப்பந்தமுமில்லை. ஆனால் , 'இந்து' மதப் போராளிகள்தான் தென்காசியில் தமது அலுவலகத்திற்கு தாமே குண்டு வைத்துப் 'பிளந்து' கொண்டிருக்கிறார்கள். அயோத்தியில் ராம ஜென்ம பூமி விவகாரத்தில் தங்கள் நோக்கத்திற்கு உடன்பட மறுத்த எத்தனை இந்துக் கோயில்களை பாஜக இடித்துத் தள்ளியது என்பதற்கு அயோத்தியில் கொலை செய்யப்பட்ட ராம ஜென்மக் கோவில் பூசாரியும், அங்கே வாழ்ந்து கொண்டிருக்கும் பூசாரிகளுமே சாட்சிகள்.

பாபர் மசூதி இடிப்பிற்குப் பிறகு , "எல்லோரும் இந்துக்கள் என்றால், ஏன் நாங்கள் கருவறைக்குள் நுழையக் கூடாது?" என்ற முழக்கத்தோடு, தாழ்த்தப்பட்டவர்களை அணிதிரட்டி, மகஇக தோழர்கள் திருச்சி சிறீரங்கம் கோவிலில் கருவறை நுழைவுப் போராட்டம் நடத்தினார்கள். அங்கே ரங்கநாதருக்கு செருப்பு மாலை போட்டதாக ஒரு அவதூறு செய்திருக்கிறார் அ.அ. இது ஒரு முழுப் பொய். அம்பேத்கர், பெரியார் படங்களோடு கருவறை நுழைவுப் போராட்டம் நடத்திய தோழர்கள் போலிசாலும், சிறீரங்கப் பார்ப்பனர்களாலும் கொடூரமாகத் தாக்கப்பட்டனர் என்பது தான் நடந்த உண்மை. சொந்த மதத்தில் உள்ள மக்களையே சூத்திரர்கள், பஞ்சமர்கள் என இழிவுபடுத்தி, கருவறையிலிருந்து விலக்கி வைத்து விட்டு, இசுலாமியர்களை இந்து விரோதிகளாக சித்தரித்து, இசுலாமிய வழிபாட்டுத் தலங்களை இடிப்பதற்கும், அப்பாவி மக்களை கொன்று குவிப்பதற்கு கூலிப்படையாக தமிழ் மக்களை மாற்ற முடியாது என்பதற்கான அடையாளமாக, ஒரு பதில் நடவடிக்கையாக அப் போராட்டத்தை நாங்கள் நடத்தினோம். சிதம்பரத்திலோ ஒரு பக்தர் தேவாரம் பாடி வழிபட வேண்டுமென்பதற்காக, ஆறாண்டுகளாக தன்னந்தனியாகப் போராடுகிறார். வேடிக்கை பார்த்த வீடணர்களெல்லாம் இன்று வியாக்கியானம் செய்கிறார்கள்.

சரி, நாத்திகர்கள், நக்சலைட்டுகளை விடுங்கள். ஆத்திகரான பச்சையப்பன் அறக்கட்டளையின் முன்னாள் டிரஸ்டி சேரன், தீட்சிதர்களின் நகை களவாடலை, கோவிலுக்குள்ளேயே அரங்கேற்றும் சீர்கேடுகளை நக்கீரன் (மார்ச்-8, 2008) இதழில் சாடுகிறார். 1997-ல் சென்னை உயர்நீதிமன்றம் தீட்சிதர்களை கைது செய்து, கிரிமினல் வழக்கு தொடர வேண்டும் என தெரிவித்திருக்கிறது. நாத்திகர்களுக்கு என்ன வேலை எனக் கேள்வி கேட்கிற அ.அ, சிதம்பரம் கோவிலுக்கு படியளக்கும் பச்சையப்பன் அறக்கட்டளைக்கும், உயர் நீதிமன்றத்திற்கும் என்ன பதில் சொல்வார்?

தீட்சிதப் பூணூலுக்கு விடுக்கப்பட்ட சவாலை ஆன்மிகத்திற்கு விடுக்கப்பட்ட சவாலாக மடை மாற்றுவதற்காகத்தான், வேண்டுமென்றே அர்ஜீன் சம்பத் என்ற பார்ப்பனரல்லாத, பெயர் தெரியாத இந்து மக்கள் கட்சியின் தலைவர் பெயரால், சூத்திரக் கவசமணிவித்து ஒரு கட்டுரையை வெளியிட்டிருக்கிறது தினமணி. தில்லைவாழ் அந்தணர்களின் அடியாட்களுக்கு அடியாட்களின் பொருமலையும், புலம்பலையும் வெளியிடுவது அரசாணையை அவமதிப்பதன் தொடர்ச்சி மட்டுமல்ல, நீதிமன்றத்தில் வழக்கில் உள்ள விவகாரத்தில் கருத்துத் தெரிவிக்கும் நீதிமன்ற அவமதிப்பு மட்டுமல்ல, இது தமிழ் மொழிக்கும், தமிழ் மக்களின் சுயமரியாதை உணர்வுக்கும் விடுக்கப்பட்டுள்ள சவால். இம் மோசடித் தகிடுதத்தங்கள் எடுபடாது. கிரிமினல் கும்பலான தீட்சிதர்களிடமிருந்து சிதம்பரம் கோவிலை மீட்டெடுக்கும் வரை தமிழ் மக்கள் போராட்டம் ஓயாது. தேவாரப் பண்ணிசை முழக்கம் இப் போராட்டத்தின் முரசு மட்டும்தான். போர் உண்மையில் இப்பொழுதுதான் தொடங்குகிறது. 'பக்தர்கள்' என்று தம்மை கருதிக் கொள்ளும் தமிழ் மக்கள் இப்போரில் வெகு நாட்களுக்கு நடுநிலைமையில் தஞ்சமடைய முடியாது. இரண்டிலொரு நிலையை எடுத்துதானாக வேண்டும்.

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ஓயாது சிதம்பர 'சர்ச்சை'!

2008-03-05T19:26:00.000-08:00

சர்ச்சை என்ற சொல் எப்பொழுதும் 'சர்ச்சைக்குரியதாகவே' இருக்கிறது. பல சமயங்களில் சர்ச்சைக்குரிய கட்டிடம் என 'நட்ட நடுநிலைமை' வகிக்கும் தினமணியால் குறிப்பிடப்பட்ட 'சர்ச்சைக்குரிய' பாபர் மசூதியைப் போல, இன்று(06-03-2008) 'ஓய்ந்தது சிதம்பரம் சர்ச்சை' என்ற தலைப்பில் செய்தி வெளியிட்டுள்ளது தினமணி. 'சர்ச்சை' என்ற சொல் திட்டமிட்டு சர்வத்தையும் மூடி மறைக்கும் சர்வரோக நிவாரணியாக நடுநிலைமை வேடம் போடுபவர்களால் பயன்படுத்தப்படுகிறது.

சிதம்பரம் விசயத்தில் சர்ச்சைக்கிடமானதாக எதுவும் இருக்கிறதா? தீட்சிதர்களும், சிவனடியாரும் முழுநம்பிக்கை வைத்து, இரு தரப்பாக நின்று வாதாடிய வழக்கில், நீதிமன்றத்தின் வழிகாட்டுதலின் பேரில், இந்து அறநிலையத்துறை முறைப்படி வெளியிட்ட அரசாணையின் அடிப்படையில், குமுடிமூலை சிவனடியார் ஆறுமுகசாமியும், அவரது வழிபாட்டு உரிமையான மனித உரிமையை பாதுகாப்பதற்காக, அவருக்கு பாதுகாவலாக மனித உரிமைப் பாதுகாப்பு மைய வழக்குரைஞர்களும் கடந்த ஞாயிறு(02-03-2008) தேவாரம் பாடச் செல்கின்றனர். ஆனால், வாயிலை மறித்து நின்ற தீட்சிதர்களாலும், உள்ளே நடராஜர் சிலை மேல் ஏறி அமர்ந்து, (நடராஜர் அப்பொழுது கப்பு தாங்காம மூக்கைப் பொத்திக் கொண்டாராம்.) அதனைச் சுற்றிலும் மறித்துக் கொண்ட தீட்சிதர்களாலும் அவர்கள் தாக்கப்படுகின்றனர். அரசாணை நிறைவேற்றச் சென்ற காவல்துறையினர் தாக்கப்படுகின்றனர். கடந்த திங்கட்கிழமை தினமலர் குறிப்பிட்டது போல் காவல்துறையினரை தீட்சிதர்கள் 'கடித்தனர்'. (ஈஸ்வரா!...)

'சர்ச்சைக்கு' இடமில்லாமல், தெளிவாக, சட்ட விரோதமாக, துலக்கமான நீதிமன்ற அவமதிப்பாக, தீட்சிதர்கள் காலித்தனத்தில் ஈடுபட்டது உலகுக்கே தெரிய வந்து, ஒட்டு மொத்த தமிழகமும் காறித் துப்பிய பிறகு, சிதம்பரம் 'சர்ச்சை' என்றால் என்ன அர்த்தம்? நாடு முழுதும் உள்ள மக்களுக்கு செய்தி சொல்லும் பத்திரிக்கை இப்படி ஒரு பச்சை அயோக்கினத்தனத்தில் ஈடுபடுவதன் காரணம் என்ன, சமீபத்தில் ஆசிரியராகப் பொறுப்பேற்றுள்ள வைத்தியநாதன் சோவிடம் ஞானப் பால் குடித்த காரணத்தைத் தவிர?

காரணம் மட்டுமே காரியங்களைத் தீர்மானிப்பது சாதாரண மனிதர்களுக்குத்தான். பொதுக் கருத்தை குறிப்பிட்ட திசையில் உருவாக்கும் பத்திரிக்கை பிதாமகர்களுக்கு காரணம் மட்டுமல்ல, நோக்கம் தான் காரியங்களைத தீர்மானிக்கிறது. ஞாயிற்றுக்கிழமை சிவனடியாரும், தோழர்களும் தாக்கப்பட்ட பிறகு தீட்சிதர்கள் முழுமையாக மக்கள் அரங்கில் தனிமைப்பட்டு போயினர். ஜெயலலிதா, சோ முதலான தலைகள் வாய் திறக்கவில்லை. நாட்டு ஆமை சரத்குமார், பொன். இராதாகிருஷ்ணன், இல.கணேசன் போன்ற வால்கள் தான் ஆடின. சட்டத்திற்கு உட்பட மறுக்கும் தீட்சிதர்களிடமிருந்து கோயிலைப் பறிமுதல் செய்ய வேண்டும் என பல திசைகளிலிருந்தும் குரல் எழும்ப, முதலுக்கே மோசம் வந்ததே எனப் பயந்துதான் தீட்சிதர்கள், நேற்று(05-03-2008) உள்ளே சென்ற தோழர்களுக்கு மாலை அணிவித்து மரியாதை செய்திருக்கின்றனர். மொத்தத்தில் இவர்களது நோக்கம், இத்தோடு இப்பிரச்சினைக்கு முற்றுப்புள்ளி வைப்பதுதான்.

1952-ல் சிதம்பரம் கோவில் தீட்சிதர்கள் சொத்துதான், அது பொதுச் சொத்தல்ல என வழக்கு நியாயங்களைக் கவனிக்க மறுத்து தீர்ப்பளித்த உயர்நீதிமன்றம், ஒரு அசாதாரண சூழ்நிலை ஏற்படுமானால், அரசு இக் கோவில் நிர்வாகத்தில் தலையிடலாம் எனத் தீர்ப்பளித்தது. பின்னர் சில ஆண்டுகள் கழித்து, அரசால் நியமிக்கப்பட்ட நிர்வாக அதிகாரியை, கடந்த பல ஆண்டுகளுக்கும் மேலாக கோவில் கணக்குகளை பார்க்க விடாமல இழுத்தடித்து, நீதிமன்றத்தின் துணையோடு தமது உண்டியல்களையும், கணக்கு வழக்கற்ற தமது கொள்ளையையும் பாதுகாத்துக் கொண்டார்கள் தீட்சிதர்கள். கடந்த மூன்று நாள் சம்பவங்கள், உயர்நீதிமன்றம் குறிப்பிட்ட அசாதாரண சூழ்நிலையை மக்களுக்கு உணர்த்தி விட்டது. சொத்தை தக்க வைத்துக் கொள்வதற்காக, சட்டத்தைக் கூட மீறும் ரெளடிகள்தான் தீட்சிதர்கள் என்பது தெளிவாகப் புலப்பட்டு விட்டது. எனவே, இப்பொழுது 'சர்ச்சை' ஓய்வதுதான் தீட்சிதர்களுக்கும், தினமணிக்கும் நோக்கமாக இருக்கிறது.

ஆனால், சர்ச்சை ஓயாது. வரலாற்று விரோதமாக, ஆதாரங்களின்றி இத்தனைகாலம் மக்களுக்கு சொந்தமான சிதம்பரம் கோவிலை ஆக்கிரமித்து, அங்கே குடி, விபச்சாரம் எனக் கொட்டமடித்தது மட்டுமல்லாமல், தமிழில் வழிபடுவதை தமது ஆதிக்கத்திற்கும், பார்ப்பனீய மேலாண்மைக்கும் சவாலாகக் கருதி, முன்பொரு முறை ஆறுமுகசாமியின் கையை முறித்தவர்களும், இன்று மீண்டும் மக்கள் மீதும், காவல்துறையின் மீதும் தாக்குதல் நடத்தி விட்டு, இப்பொழுது ஒண்ணும் தெரியாத பாப்பாக்களாக மாலை அணிவிக்கும் இக் கிரிமினல் கும்பலான தீட்சிதர்களிடமிருந்து அக் கோவிலை பறிமுதல் செய்து மக்கள் சொத்தாக்கும் வரை சிதம்பரம் சர்ச்சை ஓயவே ஓயாது. ஓய முடியாது. இந்த வெற்றி முதல் அடிதான். இரண்டாவது அடி சிதம்பரம் கோவிலை மீட்பது. மூன்றாவது அடி மொத்த பார்ப்பனீய சக்திகளின் தலை மீதேறி மனுதர்மக் கொடுங்கோன்மைக்கு மூடு விழா நடத்துவது. பெருமாளே உலகளக்கும் போது, புரட்சியாளர்கள் சோளப் பொரியோடு சும்மா உட்காருவார்களா, என்ன?

கொசுறு : எது எப்படியோ, கடவுள் நம்பிக்கை இல்லாதவர்கள் தேவாரம் பாடியதன் மூலம் நடராஜருக்குத்தான் வெற்றி என்று தீட்சிதர்களும், பொதுமக்களும் பெருமிதத்துடன் கூறினர் என தினமணி குறிப்பிடுகிறது. தினமணி சொன்னா சரியாத்தான் இருக்கும். எவ்ளோ நல்ல மனசு,..ஆக, இதனால் சகலமானவர்களுக்கும் தெரிவிப்பது என்னவென்றால், நல்ல மனசுடைய தீட்சிதர்கள் பெருமிதம் மேலும் அதிகரிக்கும் வண்ணமாக ஆத்திகர்கள், நாத்திகர்கள் எல்லோரும் குடும்பம் குடும்பமாக சிதம்பரத்திற்கு சென்று கனகசபையில் நின்று தேவாரம் பாட வேண்டும். போகும் பொழுது, அவர்களிடம் நல்ல மனதோடு பேசிப் பழக வேண்டும். பெண் கொடுத்து பெண் எடுக்கிற வரைக்குப் போனாலும் பரவாயில்லை. என்ன இருந்தாலும் நடராஜருக்குத்தானே இறுதி வெற்றி!..

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புகைப்பட உதவி: வே.மதிமாறன்

மேலும் படிக்க:

வ.கெளதமனின் தீ மிதிப்பதை நிறுத்து! தீட்சிதரை மிதி!
வே. மதிமாறனின் சிதம்பர ரகசியம் அம்பலமானது
தோழர் அசுரனின் செவ்வணக்கங்கள்

அசுர யுத்தம்!

2008-03-03T19:15:00.000-08:00

அரும றையனை
ஆணொடு
பெண்ணனைக் கண்குளிரக் கண்டு
காத லாகிக் கசிந்துகண் ணீர்மல்கி
உள்ளம் உள்கி உகந்து சிவனென்று
மெள்ள வுள்ள,
அகவை எண்பதாகிய
வாழும் நந்தனொருவன்,
தேவாரப் பண்ணிசைக்கத்
தேடிச் சென்றனன்.

இது காறும்
கல்லாய்ச் சிலையாய்
பரமன் பார்த்திருக்க
குடியும் கூத்துமாய்
கூடிக் களித்து
வயிறு வளர்த்து
மதனெனும் பாறையில்
புரண்டிருந்த
குடுமிக் கொழுந்துகள்
நந்தன்
குலையறுக்கப் பாய்ந்த போதும்,
அரங்கநாதனைத் துயிலெழுப்பிய
நரகாசுர வாரிசுகள்
அரணாய் நிற்க,
யுகங்கள் கடந்து
கூத்தன்
குழைக் காதுடையான்
செவி குளிர
முழங்கிற்று தமிழ்.
மறிந்து வீழ்ந்திற்று
புரிவெண்ணூல்.

ஆரவாரம் அடங்கி
நலந்தீங்கிலும் உன்னை
மறந்தறியவொண்ணாது
நித்தலும் கைதொழுவேனென
திரும்பி வருகையில்.
வேதியன் மிடறினில் அடக்கிய
கடல்தனில் அமுதொடு கலந்தநஞ்சு
கைத்தடிகளில் இறங்கியதோ,
வீதிகளில் பெருகிற்று
ஆக்கை இரத்தம்.

முற்றும் உணர்ந்த முதல்வன்
நெற்றிக் கண் திறக்கவில்லை.
கடலிற் போட்டாலும்
கட்டுமரமாகும் கவிதை பேசவில்லை.
தமிழுக்கே சோறு போடும்
ஆன்றோரும், சான்றோரும்
செஞ்சோற்று கடன் தீர்க்க வந்தாரில்லை.
வெண்தாடிக் கிழவனின் வாரிசுகள்
மீளாத் துயிலிலிருந்து மீளவில்லை.
அன்னிய மிலேச்சர்கள்
புண்ணிய உறையுளை
ஆக்கிரமித்ததாய்
செங்கல் சுமக்கும்
எத்தர் கூட்டம்
நந்திகளிடமிருந்து
எம்பெருமானை மீட்க வந்தாரில்லை.

அசுரர்கள் மட்டுமே
யுத்தம் தொடர்கின்றனர்.
தெறித்த குருதித் துளிகளில்
அடங்க மறுக்கிறது
தீந்தமிழ்.
தீய்க்காமல் ஓயுமோ
நந்தனைத் தீயிலிட்ட கரங்களை?

Caveats all the way!

2008-02-17T00:49:00.000-08:00

“Liberals often make the mistake of believing that free speech is a fundamental right given to us by the Constitution — and that when it is curbed, either by the state or by vigilante militias, it is because the Constitution is being subverted. This is not true. Free speech is not our constitutional right. It is a contained right, beset with caveats that are always used by the powerful to control and dominate those who are powerless,”

- Ms. Arundhati Roy in the press conference held in New Delhi in support of Taslima Nasreen on Feb 14, 2008

The Next day, after voices raised by notable radical forces of the country, Taslima Nasreen’s Visa extended to another six months by the 'generous' Indian government. Ya, this time too they didn't miss out their ‘advice’. The foreign office spokesperson has said,

“We expect that they (Taslima) do not undertake actions that could hurt the sentiments of the many communities that make up our multi-religious and multi-ethnic nation. These are the same restraints which we in India follow. We expect nothing less from our guests.”

Well, Sirji, Better preach your moral lessons to Hosts(Thackreys, Modi etc., etc.,) first and then to guests.

...

The complete press statement by the Forum for the Protection of Free Speech and Expression is available here.

Listen to the Grasshoppers!

2008-02-10T01:22:00.000-08:00

I pen down these lines after watching ‘The Big City Debate’ in CNN-IBN, some minutes before. The debate revolved around the recent assaults on North Indian people (UP and Bihar migrants) in Mumbai. It should have been a surprise to common south Indians who have very less idea of the dialects and differences between the Hindi–speaking people.

Today morning had a glimpse of ‘The Week’ magazine hanging over in a shop, with the front cover depicting Raj Thackrey as Hitler. I seriously wonder whether it’s a condemnation or a flattery. Even I doubt what would be the feelings of so-called Mumbaikars while repeatedly watching the footages of hapless taxi drivers and paanwalas getting beaten up by Sena hoodlums. Will it incur remorse or a sense of celebration? After what Gujarat has taught to us, do the vague moral preach of restraint hold any value? When Raj Thackrey openly thanks Vilasrao deshmukh for not arresting him, yet another time proving that Thackrey Dons cannot be arrested for any reason, do debates make any point? What’s the purpose of a debate after they finish off all they want to do and what’s the result of such a debate? Is this not a part of the Tamasha? Do they give such a 'democratic space' to Naxalites, Kashmir and Manipuri fighters? When compared to Sena, these ‘anti-nationals’ have done less violence on innocent masses. But how come Sena is always credible for a debate? One of the panelists, rebuking the idea of ‘locals’, said even for the formation of Maharashtra, several Telegu and Kannadiga people have died in the fight. Does that make any sense to frenzied proud Mumbaikars?

What a farce? Why should Raj Thackrey fight for the ‘cause’ of Mumbaikars alone? What about the peasant suicides of Vidharbha for the last six years? Don’t they belong to his state? Which ‘North Indian’ is responsible for 4,453 suicides accounted by P.Sainath? Why there is a selective silence on farm suicides while such a hue and cry is made over Amitabh bachan opening a college? Now this is what perfect fascism is. In Gujarat Muslims have to ‘prove their sincerity’ to the state and Now, North Indians are slapped to ‘prove their sincerity’ to Mumbai. Growth is ‘Trickling down’.

First they came for the Communists, and I didn’t speak up,
because I wasn’t a Communist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I didn’t speak up,
because I wasn’t a Jew.
Then they came for the Catholics, and I didn’t speak up,
because I was a Protestant.
Then they came for me, and by that time there was no one left
to speak up for me.
- Martin Niemöller

Hearing the same words again and again from Gujarat to Nandigram to Mumbai…‘Insider’, ‘Outsider’, ‘Pride’ (Asmita / Garv), ‘spontaneous outbursts’, ‘Tarnishing the image’ ‘Development’ etc., etc., In her recent speech in Istanbul, Arundhathi Roy vividly captures the synthesis of Fascism in Indian and international context, the dangerous mix of fanaticism and ‘development’. She narrates the massacre of Armenians and how those naïve people sensed the bad omen days before, with swarms of grasshoppers arriving in their village. Grasshoppers fly all over India… Modi Masks in Gujarat…Mumbaikar Masks in Mumbai…Red Masks in Nandigram…India is a fast-growing nation. Indeed, growing very fast in Fascism.

சில பழைய கவிதைகள் - V

2008-01-07T08:32:00.000-08:00

பரவசம்!

உயிரிலிருந்து
உள்ளெழும்புகிறது நேசம்
பல சமயங்களில்.

சொற்கள் கடந்த கவிதையாய்
சூழ்ந்து நிற்கிறது பரவசம்.

உண்மைகளை ஏந்தி வாழ்வதற்கும்,
பதாகையோடு
இணைந்து பயணிப்பதற்கும்,
வானில் எழும் பறவையாய்
உலகையே உள்வாங்கி
மெளனமாய் உவகை கொள்வதற்கும்
பெருமிதமாய் இருக்கிறது.

வெல்வோம் என்ற வெளிச்சம் படர,
வாழ்க்கை மொத்தமும்
ஒளிர்கின்ற தருணங்களில்...
நம்பிக்கையோடு நிமிர்ந்து
யோசிக்கையில்,
உடனடியாய் வேண்டும்
போலிருக்கும்

புரட்சி!

சில பழைய கவிதைகள் - IV

2008-01-07T08:05:00.000-08:00

புத்துயிர்ப்பு

இயல்பாய்
படர்ந்து விடும் விரிசல்கள்
நொடிகளில் - வளை உலகிற்குள்.

ஆனால்
உள்ளடங்கிய முஷ்டி உயருகையில்...
உத்வேகத்துடன்
உண்மைகளைப் பரிமாறுகையில்...
திரண்டு நின்று போராடுகையில்...
அன்னியங்களும்
அன்னியோன்யங்களாக
ஆழப்படும்.

வாழ்க்கை
அர்த்த்முடையதாகப் படும்,
வளை உலகம்தாண்டி வருகையில்.

Laughing Buddha ....

2007-12-18T17:50:00.000-08:00

The social fascism of CPI(M) came with its full face in Nandigram. we found both Modi and Buddha were successful in setting the context of mass debate to revolve around development. This 'development' fascism is the face and future of recolonisation. A must read article on Nandigram is given below. It's a brief summary and a sharp commentary. Thanks to Bhumkal.

...

Laughing Buddha ....

By Sushmita

Did you see the smile on Buddhadev's face when he announced the recapture of Nandigram? Did it not look similar to that of George Bush when he announced his capture on Iraq and Afghanistan? The only difference is that Bush was happy by killing the people of some other country while Buddha's hands are dripping with the blood of his own people.

It will not be wrong on your part if Buddha's smile looked similar also to that of Narendra Modi's when he justified the Genocide of Gujarat by saying that 'every action has equal and opposite reaction '. Faces have amalgamated.At last Nandigram has been captured. A deadly dance that took away hundreds of lives and hundreds are still missing. Dozens of women have been raped beneath the CPM flag. Houses have been reduced to ashes. Life will never be the same for the women and children there.

The villagers say that the second round of violence has claimed about 150 lives, 2000 are missing. That day around 550 people were roped and taken to Khejuri where the CPM used them as shields against any retaliation. Sources say that criminals and goons were mobilized for the deadly operation. The genocide went on successfully under the leadership of four of CPM's MPs. Tapan Ghosh and Shakur Ali who are wanted by the CBI in Choto angariya massacre case were amongst the goons who played the death game. It is being said that preparations were going on for months in Khejuri. For this, goons were hired from Raniganj-Assansol- Coal Belt, Gorbeta, and Keshpur.We heard that the people of Nandigram have got a taste of there own medicine.We heard that socialism would be brought if ladies showed their backs to Medha Patekar.We also heard that CPM flags were put inside the bodies of women of Nandigram. We heard and were shamed. We heard about those who sold the ray of hope to the guardians of darkness. We heard about a CM who after killing 150 people washed his hands with rose water and started preparing for film festival.The air is filled with the victory songs and slogans…Nandigram has been captured. Terrified …. Deserted… Burnt…. Burnt Nandigram. That Nandigram which is a sign of hope for us. That Nandigram which is the hottest blood amongst the great struggles of Paris commune Russia, China, Vietnam, and Naxalbari.

The plot of seizure was prepared a year ago. The people of Nandigram had already taken lessons from the Singur episode. On July 2006 the word spread that 28000 acres of land would be acquired for a chemical hub. People started resisting the land grab. In the march 2007 CPM tried its best to capture land from the peasants. But they failed. It became a question of prestige for them. They couldn't bare the challenge posed by the people of Nandigram so this time they conspired and organized this butchery. First they came to negotiating terms with the Bhumi Uchched Pratirodh Committee and then attacked them so that they were not ready for this attack.CPM's Lakshman Seth said "Maaro, na maro". Vinay Konar addressed the women asking them to pull up their saaris and show their backs to Medha Patekar.

Viman Bose was continuously saying, "The people of Nandigram were not feeding us rosogullas".Amongst these killer slogans could be heard the laughter in writer's building were the inhabitants congratulated each other saying that the people of Nandigram have been paid back in there own coin.The deployment of CRPF was also a very shrewd act. First the killing operation was conducted and then despite of the strong protests by the masses and other democrats of West Bengal, CRPF was deployed to gain control over the area. The center's gesture of sending a CRPF battalion is like bribing the CPI(M) not to push their demand of de operationalising of the Indo-US Nuclear agreement.

The CPI(M) will now stage a 'mock opposition' in the impending parliamentary debate on nuclear deal. This act shows how the party is licking the feet of imperialist forces.Buddhadev says that peace has been restored in Nandigram but the fact is that there is silence. A silence that can be found at the cremation ground. Silence combined with ashes. Only the hangman is shouting. He is advising the people of Nandigram to behave. He is enlightening the whole country with what is democracy.We are being told that this step has been taken by an elected govt. therefore it is justified. We are being told that any question arising on the Nandigram issue is a conspiracy against an elected govt. Narendra Modi spoke the same language in 2002. Do we have the right to remember this 'comrades'?

Does George Bush speak any different language while attacking the weak and resisting countries in the name of democracy?D.Raja of CPI and Prakash Karat of CPI(M) say that a democratically elected govt. was not allowed to function in Nandigram. In other words their democracy was in danger. Is democracy only a tool in the hands of ruling class to justify state sponsored killings? Does the govt. have the right to chase the people out of there homes only because the govt. is so called democratically elected? If democracy has a threat from the people of Nandigram then why don't the people have a right to say that they are scared of this kind of democracy? This democracy is banning there right to live.

The truth is that the people are fighting for there right to live which ultimately is a fight to save their motherland.Nandigram is not the only witness of this kind of state oppression. Imperialist forces have carried over this kind of campaign all over the globe.The tribes of Latin America and Vietnam have been displaced or killed to gain control over resources. At some places not even a single person was spared. Whole tribe was butchered. The comparadors of imperialists in India are applying the same tactics. Years back the state had taken similar steps in Muthanga (Kerela) where the state crushed the brave resistance of the tribes in a bloody campaign. The story follows in Chattisgarh. Disputes were created amongst the tribes and some were taken to relief camps. The rest were frequently attacked and hence displaced. The govt. is planning to turn the relief camps to villages.

All of them were displaced from there land and the land was handed over to the MNCs. A similar process is to be started in Orissa, Jharkhand and west Bengal. That is by hook or by crook remove indigenous people from their land and then surrender the land at the feet of imperialists. In Nandigram the resisting villagers have been chased out. It is being said that they can come back only on CPM's will.We feel that we are in peace because unrest is somewhere in Muthanga, Chattisgarh or Nandigram. But suddenly we find the green snake beneath our seats. It is hidden amongst the green grass so we are unable to see it. In such case we are compelled to leave our seats.

The snake is crawling amongst the grasses. From Muthanga to Chattisgarh, Kalingnagar, Jharkhand, Singur, Nandigram and no one knows where.The CPI and CPM assert that the opponents are against development. But statistics reveal the fact that already 55,000 factories are closed in West Bengal due to various reasons. Sick industries account to 1,13,846 i.e . 45.60% of the total sick industries in India. 15 lakh workers have lost jobs in the past 15 years. Where as only 43,888 people got employment. In 1980, employment in organized sector (both public and private) was 26,64,000. In the wave of industrialization the level came down to 22,30,000. In 1977(when left front came to power) registered unemployed were 22,27,000. It increased to 72,27,117 in 2005. Here it is necessary to point out that people above 35 years of age are not considered.

Agricultural backwardness has created a more devastating situation. The CPM leaders never stop boasting about land reforms in West Bengal. They also assert that agriculture in West Bengal has created a strong base for industries in the state. But the veil is removed when actual situation comes to the front. After 1983, operation bargha and an attempt to make barren lands cultivable was stopped. The Human Rights Development Report 2004, state that 14.31% bargadars were displaced. The rate differed in different places i.e. in 31.60% in Jalpaiguri, 30.2% in Kuchbihar, 31.42 in North Dinajpur and 30.75 in South Dinajpur. Not only this, around 13.23% people who were given land on lease (patta) were displaced. From 1992-2000, 48.9% village households became landless.As far as food grain production is concerned, in 1976 the per capita food grain availability for the nation was 402 gms. Where as for West Bengal it was 412 gms. In 1999 all India per capita food grain availability was 502 gms whereas for West Bengal it was 444 gms which fell down to 413 gms in 2001 (source-Ajith Narayan Basu,'Pashchim Bengal ki Arthniti Avam Rajniti). The above stated facts clear the crisis in agriculture.

The development models propounded by the western economists and borrowed by Buddhadev, mainly stress on increasing GNP and industrialization as the base of development. After the Second World War, in the age of neo-colonialism, this development model was imposed in the Less Developed Countries. The western model negated the alternative of a socialist model arising in Russia and China. Marx in his development theory had talked about industrialization on the debris of feudalism and pre-capitalist relationships. The modern theory failed in almost all the poor countries after 1970's. To solve the internal crisis, the imperialist countries now preached the western model with the help of World bank, IMF, and other imperialist agencies. As said before Buddhadev borrowed this theory when he said in Indonesia that agriculture is a sign of backwardness where as industry is a sign of growth.

This is nothing but buttering up the imperialists.Agriculture is neither a sign of backwardness nor a problem. Problem arises when there is inequality in distribution, increase in number of middlemen, making space for MNCs, large number of shopping malls and fertile lands are destroyed for making highways.

And this is what the CPM has been doing all these years.The CPM's notion for development basically suits the interest of imperialists and goes against the peasants. This approach to development would create chaos in the state. Conversion of vast fertile lands for other purposes will lead to further fall in the production of food grains and many more people will live in a state of despair.Events in Nandigram have proved that this government with its sharp claws can crush any voice arising against the imperialist techniques used by them.

The CPM has applied this technique to all its political opponents. Any force arising against the CPM had to face armed oppression. The CPM never allowed the opposition to develop more than a fetus. This is why the CPM could exist there for such a long period. But the areas where people continued powerful resistance till date, there CPM is fighting for existence. Gorbeta is an example of such an area. The goons of Gorbeta are now being used in Singur and Nandigram. The leaders of CPM have accepted that they cannot let go of places like Nandigram (tehelka). We can conclude from this that the opposition to survive in West Bengal will have to be prepared and well equipped to resist the henchmen of CPM.

Therefore may be they are afraid of the Maoists. They say that violence in Nandigram was due to the presence of Maoists. That is the CPM would have completed its work peacefully if the Maoists had not been there.From 1970s CPM has been charged of social fascism. Social fascism and communal fascism are two faces of the same coin. And Nandigram has cleared this. There are also communal charges against the CPM in the Nandigram issue concerning the minorities. What is important is that Nandigram has played a true role of opposition. It has continued the resistance struggle for almost one whole year.Nandigram has been recaptured. Just like the victory of capitalism over the proletariats in Paris commune, China and other countries. Triumphantly they are celebrating as the State has celebrated after every victory over the mass rebellion.So, will we not get a glimpse of hope even in the last lines of a poem? Will the laughter of children be made impossible in the climax of a film? Will the sky never be fragrant with the flights of birds? Will the earth filled with dreams come to an end? Has the spring gone forever to never come back?We heard that the fields in Nandigram could not be cultivated this season. We heard that stones and bodies of the dead are lying in the fields. But have you not heard of the yield of hope that has ripened there? In the war front moving ahead and back is a part of the war. Moving back does not mean to surrender. The dreams of masses are still alive.

Masses will write the history of all Karats and Buddhadevs. Dreams haven't ended for the masses of Nandigram. They have retreated from the front but they have not surrendered. They will again rise to take their front back. Masses from Muthanga, Chattisgarh, Kalingnagar, Singur and Nandigram and all other places are joining in this front. They won't leave their seats. They are searching for the green snake and preparing to chase it far off. Are you listening Buddhadev ji?

Translated by lalima from hindi

...

Lajja on us!

2007-12-12T09:36:00.000-08:00

Recently read an article by one Mr. Soroor Ahmed, a man much worried about getting neglected by mainstream news papers, has written some vague comments and arguments against Taslima Nasreen. I replied to him. My reply is given below.

In my opinion, i simply don't care about the so-called 'literary value' of Lajja, the only book i have read of Taslima's. may be i'll be called a bingujarati in literature in this debate as i have not read any other book of her. But, what was said in Lajja is a documented truth of what happened in Bangladesh, of how muslim ruffians perpetrated rape,loot, arson etc., etc., exactly in the same way the saffron thugs did in this 'holy' land, the land of 'unity in diversity' .

This weak argument of saying 'everything-is-for-sensation' is more or less of how modi responds to attacks on him. i don't care about what Taslima said on Mohammad or on bengali intellectuals. Taslima is not the person to defame Mohammad than the caliphs, sheikhs and sultans . we know what all these god-fearing, five time worshipping, devout, arab sheikhs do in kerala, marrying minor girls and how maulvi's help them out. If the sentiments of muslims are not hurt by all these atrocities, if these deeds are not seen as blasphemous, i don't know how they can claim Taslima's words are blasphemous.

It's a harsh truth. Taslima is getting treated like a criminal. Nandigram murderers are wholly responsible for it. The true secularists and the democratic forces of india have not also really helped her because we had also let her suffer as we are unable to overpower this situation. The
silence is getting bigger to every issue, from Gujarat to Nandigram to Taslima. This dangerous silence is alarming. It's Lajja on us. In the words of Arundhati Roy,

"I feel very bad for her because, let me say this, her’s is actually the tragedy of displacement. Once, she has been displaced from her home. She has no rights. She is a guest and she is being treated very badly. She is being humiliated."

Joker of the Year - 2007!

2007-11-02T21:15:00.000-07:00

A thought kept on ticking in my mind that I am not properly recognizing the achievements of our netas (leaders). Some day history may charge me that I didn’t rewarded them what they deserved, when they deserved it dearly. I am not gonna answer those persons who will ask, 'who is history?'. Hence I came up with the idea of "Joker of the Year - 2007" Awards. I formed a special jury panel with eminent personalities. We received three entries.

1. Madhu Koda, Chief minister of BJP government in Jharkand.

2. Uma Bharti, Bharti(ya) Jan Shakthi party leader.

3. HR Bharadwaj, a congress leader, Law Minister of UPA government in centre.

Before announcing the results, let me take you to the show.

Entry - 1

Madhu Koda during a brief speech at the Congress Bhavan on the occasion of Indira Gandhi’s death Anniversary (Oct-31,2007) said, "Today is also Sonia Gandhi's martyrdom day ... Sonia Gandhi laid down her life fighting for the nation ... Sonia Gandhi sustained bullets in her chest...". CNN IBN reported that it’s not once or twice but throughout his speech he referred Late Sonia Gandhi in high regard and asked people to follow her path.

Entry – 2

Uma Bharti said former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee and his deputy L K Advani should apologise to the nation for their mistake. She said the order for "demolition of the setu (bridge)" was given by BJP leader and shipping minister Shatrughan Sinha in the NDA government in which she also had a ministry portfolio. Retired Hindutva activist Govindacharya also charged the same some days before. It is alleged that when Uma Bharti made the statement an old hindi song was playing in the background. “ Jo tum ko ho pasand wahi baat karenge, tum din ko agar raat kahoge tho raat kahenge” (I’ll speak what you wish. if you say it’s night, I’ll utter the same even if it’s day)

Entry – 3

After withdrawing the Archeological Survey of India affidavit in Supreme Court on Adam's Bridge issue, Law Minister HR Bharadwaj immediately called the press He made a mind-blowing statement, “As the Himalaya is Himalaya, as the Ganga is Ganga, Ram is Ram.”

We, the panel, believe it’s a mischief that HR Bharadwaj’s comment was made as an entry to our show. Actually scientists from all over the world have claimed that Bharadwaj’s comment has solved the mystery which not even Einstein was able to. A simple question, “is cat is a cat and a dog is a dog?”. Since his comment has contributed so much to science, we felt it can seldom be called as joke. Hence we rejected it.

Some of the Jury members noted that though Uma Bharthi's entry can be accepted, the lynchosarkoma-amnesia suffered by her and the involvement of some mysterious substance called ‘pyar ka chakkar’ (The effect of Love) should be taken in to account. So her entry was also rejected.

Hence, here by we announce that, undoubtedly, Madhu Koda is the winner of ‘Joker of the Year - 2007.’ We request Late Advaniji and Late Manmohan Singhji to preside the function and present the award to him. We request the music band to play the song ‘Yeh dosti hum nahin chodenge’ (We'll never leave this friendship), when they come to the stage.

Thaaliyan! (clap your hands!)

மெளனம்...

2007-10-22T06:46:00.000-07:00

நடவுப் பாட்டு
எதுவும் கேட்கவில்லை.
ஆனால்
சுற்றி நிற்கிற மெளனம்
சொற்களற்ற மெளனமல்ல.

நிலமெங்கும்
பச்சை நாற்றுக்கள்...
வியர்வையில்
குளிர்ந்த களங்கமில்லா நீர்...
மாறாத நம் வாழ்க்கை போல
கருத்து மிளிரும் சேறு...
ஊன்றிய கற்களுக்குள்ளிருந்து எழும்பும்
சவமான நிலத்தின் பிணவாடை...
அசோகர் மரம் நட்ட கதையை
புரியாத மொழியில்
நெட்டுருப் போடும் சத்தம்...

சுற்றி வளைத்து விழுங்குகிறது
கண்ணுக்குத் தெரியாத
மலைப் பாம்பு.
இருண்டு கிடக்கும்
என் கண்களில்
பாலிடால் தெரிகிறது.
பாட மறந்த உன்னில்
உழைத்து வாழத் துடிக்கும்
பிடிவாதம் பேசுகிறது.

நடவுப் பாட்டு
எதுவும் கேட்கவில்லை.
அது தற்செயலானதல்ல.

An unspoken consensus

2007-10-09T21:11:00.000-07:00

Vidhya Subramaniam highlights the unspoken consensus of excluding the muslims from the election debate prevailing in all quarters in Gujarat, in her article "The Muslim question in Gujarat" (The Hindu - dated 09-10-07) . A timely and thought-provoking article on the "number one state in Asia".

...

From The Hindu

The Muslim question in Gujarat
Vidya Subrahmaniam

Five years after Narendra Modi’s stupendous victory in the Assembly election, Gujarat is set to go to the polls again — admittedly in entirely different circumstances. Election 2002 was surcharged with sectarian emotion. The violence inherent in the Godhra aftermath extinguished all debate, forcing the Congress, the principal opposition party, to conduct a low-key campaign that skirted the most obvious election issue: The sadism visited on Muslims.

In 2007, Mr. Modi gives the appearance of having moved on. Already in campaign mode, he avoids the past election’s caustic references to Godhra, mullahs and Mian Musharraf, focussing instead on the “11 per cent growth” Gujarat has achieved with him as helmsman. If he brings up the Ramar Sethu issue, it is not with the intensity expected of him.

The 2007 election in Gujarat is what psephologists would call a “normal” election, unattended by passion, and without an overarching issue. Yet this normal election seems no less contemptuous of a community that forms over nine per cent of the State’s population. In 2002, the debate targeted Muslims. In 2007, the debate has bypassed Muslims. The community has been kept out of the discourse by an unspoken consensus that includes Mr. Modi, the Congress and the anti-Modi dissidents.

In an interview with The Hindu en route from Ahmedabad to Vadodara , Mr. Modi described Gujarat ki seva, seva, seva ( service, service and service of Gujarat) as his single mission. The mission obsessed him, he said, adding proudly that under him Gujarat had become the “number one State in Asia.” Among his achievements in five years: an almost four-fold increase in agricultural income from Rs.9,000 crore to Rs.34,000 crore; rise in cotton production from 23 lakh bales to 1.23 crore bales and uninterrupted electricity supply to rural homes. As he spoke, it was apparent that he had programmes for every section — women, adivasis, farmers and so forth.

Yet the Chief Minister was to turn hostile on the question of Muslims. Asked where Muslims figured in his vision of Gujarat, he flared up: “I don’t like this thinking. I work for five-and-a-half crore Gujaratis. For me, anyone who lives here is a Gujarati, and I will not allow politics to come into this.”

If only this were true. In Vadodara, Professor Ganesh Devy, literary critic, activist and director of the Tribal Academy at Tejgadh, took me on a tour of Tandalja and Vasna Road, two parallel streets only six metres apart. The first was a mostly Muslim area, the second housed Hindus. The contrast wrenched the heart. Mounds of rotting garbage, dark, damp, crowded homes, and desolate young men standing in groups made the Muslim part instantly recognisable. The brightness of Vasna Road equally identified it as a Hindu area. The divide is as much physical as mental — and as much in Vadodara as in other Gujarat cities. It is a symbol of complete, absolute Muslim isolation in a State that Mr. Modi claims is “number one in Asia.”

It is perhaps a consolation that unhygienic and wretched as their living conditions are, these Muslims at least live in their own homes. There are many who don’t. In October 2006, the National Commission for Minorities reported that over 5000 displaced Muslim families lived in “sub-human conditions” in 46 makeshift colonies spread across the riot-affected districts of Gujarat.

The NCM team, which visited 17 camps, accused the Gujarat Government of refusing to fulfil “its constitutional responsibility.” It also contradicted the Chief Minister’s claim that the families had opted to live there: “In view of the overwhelming evidence to the contrary, the Commission finds this viewpoint untenable and evasive of a government’s basic responsibility.” The team’s findings brought help to the displaced families — but from the Central Government which announced a compensation package.

However, to blame Mr. Modi alone for the social and political exclusion of Muslims would be to turn away from a truth that involves a much wider spectrum. Holding centre-stage at the dissident-led farmers’ rally in Rajkot was Gordhan Zadaphia, the Home Minister who stood by Mr. Modi during the 2002 pogrom. A compact disc showing crucial details of his whereabouts at the time of the riots is currently before the Nanavati Commission of Enquiry.

Recently, Mr. Zadaphia told The Indian Express that while he accepted moral responsibility for the 2002 violence, that was not why he turned critical of Mr. Modi. “What happened in 2002 was different”, he said, tracing his revolt to the government’s indifference to the “issues of poor people, farmers and rural folks.” No mention of Muslims.

Little wonder then that the main complaint aired from the Rajkot platform was that Mr. Modi had deserted his Hindutva roots. The BJP dissidents turned on Mr. Modi for forsaking the agenda that brought him to power. They accused him of betraying the Hindu community on Ayodhya and warned him not to raise the Ramar Sethu issue: “Don’t you dare talk of Ram Sethu, Modi.” After the meet, I spoke to some of the rebels. Their unanimous verdict: Mr. Modi could no longer lay claim to the title ‘Hindu Hriday Samrat.’

The Congress has not ridiculed itself to this extent. But its leaders seem convinced that to talk secularism in Gujarat is to commit suicide. Asked why the Congress associated with men like Mr. Zadaphia who were identified with the 2002 violence, Shankarsinh Waghela argued that people called him a “BJP man.” Further that the Congress was a ‘samudra’ (sea) that absorbed all ideologies. Other Congress leaders said they did not want to dilute the anti-Modi movement by raising the Muslim issue.

A veteran of many elections put it this way: In Gujarat, there are two currents of opinion. One is against Muslims, the other against Mr. Modi. If the first were raised, Mr. Modi would revert to his post-Godhra violent image which would compel Gujaratis to side with him against a “much worse” enemy. The most secular among Congresspersons buy this theory. Their case: the ideological compromises are necessary to win this do-or-die election.

The KHAM formula

It is a sad state of affairs in a party that in the late 1970s crafted the ingenious KHAM (Kshatriya, Harijan, Adivasi, Muslim) formula. KHAM brought the depressed, marginalised classes on one platform and delivered stunning results for the Gujarat Congress. In 1980, it won 141 out of the 182 Assembly seats, and in 1985 it bettered the record with 149 seats. The Congress achieved its majorities — far larger than what Mr. Modi secured in 2002 — by mobilising the lowest in the social order. KHAM was more than an electoral strategy. It was a daring effort to empower the historically subjugated classes.

Tragically, for that very reason, the alliance invited the backlash of the forward castes. Brahmins, Banias and Patidars, who mobilised themselves through the medium of the 1985 anti-reservation protests, gradually shifted towards the BJP, going on to form the party’s core. Yet the forward castes could never win power on their own. And thus began the calculated dismantling of KHAM. Using the proxy of Hindu unity, the BJP and the sangh parivar targeted the KHAM communities, enticing Kolis, Dalits and Advasis into joining their majoritarian project.

The Congress helplessly watched as Hindutva forces penetrated the Adivasi areas of central and east Gujarat. The cultural indoctrination focussed on showing up the tribal culture, including their forms of worship, as inferior. Tribal villagers I met spoke of being visited by the various Hindu sects. The Vishwa Hindu Parishad distributed Ganesh and Ram idols in the villages, because of which today Ram is a recognised name among tribals. Yet the political influence of Hindutva remained limited in the tribal belt. In 2002, this barrier too was breached with the co-option of tribals into the anti-Muslim pogrom. This was not voluntary, and as Professor Devy pointed out in his essay, “Tribal voice and violence” (Seminar, issue 513), the Rathwa tribals in Tejgadh and Panval were uninfluenced by the communal argument. So the arsonists pushed the commercial angle with the focus on Muslim moneylenders. Today, there is regret in these areas for the 2002 aberration.

Whether the Congress will benefit from this is anybody’s guess. Because in 2007, the authors of KHAM are in league with the destroyers of KHAM. What place can Adivasis and Muslims claim in a party that is firing at Mr. Modi from the shoulder of his more Hindutva opponents?

Also Read : A Trip to Gujarat by Yoginder Sikand in Indian Muslims

we believed in people and life...

2007-09-26T02:37:00.000-07:00

Well-known tamil writer, political satirist Paamaran quoted Otto Rene Castillo's 'Apolitical Intellectuals' in his post recently. He mentioned it as the poem that showed him the direction on which he need to write. I think i have read it before in some other compilation of revolutionary poems though i am not sure due to my bad memory. anyhow, Thanks to him, it rekindled the desire for Castillo's poems and google helped. i have given some of his poems below. if anybody know some other poems of him, pls send the links.

There are no words to describe his 'Apolitical Intellectuals' poem as it conveys the revolutionary outlook straight and sharp. I simply love this poem, 'You have a gun and i am hungry'. It's simply awesome. How amazingly he has conveyed the class struggle in simple words? Poems 'Satisfaction' and 'Before the scales, tomorrow:' are par excellence and it is the same line in which i dwelt with my simple understanding and came up with my recent poem, உணர்வு (spirit). Though its absurd to compare my poem with poems wrote by a legend, i couldn't resist it because of the same subject. I find the rejoice and hope that are emerging from those poems are really missing in mine. Happy to share his poems with you all!

...

Otto Rene Castillo, born 1936, was a Guatemalan revolutionary, a guerilla fighter, and a poet. Following the 1954 CIA-sponsored coup that overthrew the democratic Arbenz government, Castillo went into exile in El Salvador, where he met Roque Dalton and other writers who helped him publish his early works. When the dictator Armas died in 1957 he returned to Guatemala and in 1959 went to the German Democratic Republic to study, where he received aMasters degree. Castillo returned to Guatemala in 1964 and became active in the Workers Party, founded the Experimental Theater of the Capital City Municipality, and wrote and published numerous poems. That same year, he was arrested but managed to escape, going into exile once again, this time inEurope. Later that year he went back to Guatemala secretly and joined one of the armed guerilla movements operating in the Zacapa mountains. In 1967, Castillo and other revolutionary fighters were captured; he, along with his comrades and some local campesinos, were brutally tortured and then burned alive.

Introduction from Marxists

...

Apolitical Intellectuals

One day
the apolitical intellectuals
of my country
will be interrogated
by the simplest of our people.

They will be asked
what they did
when their nation died out slowly,
like a sweet firesmall and alone.

No one will ask them about their dress,
their long siestas after lunch,
no one will want to know
about their sterile combats
with "the ideaof the nothing"
no one will care about
their higher financial learning.

They won't be questioned
on Greek mythology,
or regarding their self-disgust
when someone within them
begins to die the coward's death.

They'll be asked nothing
about their absurd justifications,
born in the shadow of the total life.

On that day
the simple men will come.
Those who had no place
in the books and poems
of the apolitical intellectuals,
but daily delivered their bread and milk,
their tortillas and eggs,
those who drove their cars,
who cared for their dogs and gardens and worked for them,
and they'll ask:
"What did you do
when the poorsuffered,
when tenderness and lifeburned out of them?"

Apolitical intellectuals
of my sweet country,
you will not be able to answer.
A vulture of silence
will eat your gut.
Your own misery
will pick at your soul.
And you will be mute in your shame.

...

You have a gun
And I am hungry

You have a gun
Because I am hungry

You have a gun
Therefore I am hungry

You can have a gun
You can have a thousand bullets and even another thousand
You can waste them all on my poor body
You can kill me one, two, three, two thousand, seven thousand times
But in the long run
I will always be better armed than you

If you have a gun
And I
Only hunger.

...

Satisfaction

The most beautiful thing
for those who have fought a whole life
is to come to the end and say;
we believed in people and life,
and life and the people
never let us down.

Only in this way do men become men,
women become women,
fighting day and night
for people and for life.

And when these lives come to an end
the people open their deepest rivers
and they enter those waters forever.
And so they become, distant fires, living,
creating the heart of example

The most beautiful thing
for those who have fought a whole life
is to come to the end and say;
we believed in people and life,
and life and the people
never let us down.

...

Before the Scales,
Tomorrow:

And when the enthusiastic
story of our time
is told,
who are yet to be born
but announce themselves
with more generous face,
we will come out ahead
--those who have suffered most from it.

And that
being ahead of your time
means much suffering from it.
But it's beautiful to love the world
with eyes
that have not yet
been born.

And splendid
to know yourself victorious
when all around you
it's all still so cold,
so dark.

Poems courtesy : http://www.geocities.com/marxist_lb/otto_rene_castillo.htm

Chak De Tamilnadu!

2007-09-25T02:40:00.000-07:00

image courtesy: http://dinamalar.in/

The vast apolitical masses of India, especially in North India are euphoric today with the Indian win in the T20 world cup and we hear ‘Chak De India’ everywhere from overjoyed News Channels to streets. At the same time, the political scenario of the country is facing a crucial challenge of North-south divide. It would be simplistic to say it as North-South divide as it is more than that. It is the fight between Brahminic cultural hegemony and the undying Dravidian cultural resistance.

Everyone would have known the recent turn of events on Ram Sethu or Adam’s bridge issue. Hindutva brigade tried to catch the attention before and after the Subramanian Swamy Case in SC that led to temporary stalling of the Sethu Samudram Canal Project. But it couldn’t reap any sensation as expected and eventually all the protests went without notice. With the Affidavit of ASI, it got a fresh chance to play its vicious game but if the congress government would have acted firm by not withdrawing the affidavit and standing by the ASI, then the RSS goons would have got no card to hold. It would have ended merely shouting in North as the political outfits of Sangh parivar has already degenerated and exposed to a certain extent. By outwardly posing insecured and inwardly showing its true Hindutva color, Congress created the plane for the issue repeating what it did in Babri Masjid.

Hindutva forces saw the readily available meat offered to them and seized the opportunity. Karunanidhi’s remark on Ram was encountered by BJP with its usual naïve-posed fascist tone that ‘belief cannot be questioned’ and questioning them even by citing their own scriptures is ‘hurting their sentiments’. Karunanidhi’s daughter home was attacked and two innocent Tamilians got killed in the bus torching in Bangalore.

To everyone’s surprise, Karunanidhi suddenly turned offensive against his one-time allies with his series of remarks exposing the Brahminic, anti-people, immoral character of Ram. BJP got stunned for a day as they may have felt ‘its getting serious’ as for the past several decades after the demise of Periyar, there was virtually no big massive attack on Ram.

But Vedanti, a former lok-sabha member, head of Ram janmabhoomi trust who recently caught red-handed in the sting operation of CNN-IBN in black-money laundering, came up with a ‘fatwa’ by offering gold for the person’s weight who beheads the devil that opposes Ram, clearly indicating Karunanidhi in full media light. He reminded the fury of the Muslim MP’s who attacked Taslima Nasreen recently in Hyderabad. He can certainly offer as you can get a clue of how much huge ‘commission’ he gets for the ‘social service of cleaning the black money’.

This time sentiments of DMK workers ‘got hurt’ and with Arcot Veerasamy flagging off with a press release, DMK men attacked the BJP offices ferociously all over Tamilnadu on last sunday. Till today effigies of Advani and Vedanti are burnt. Protests cover all over Tamilnadu and stiff attacks were carried out even in the BJP strongholds like Kanyakumari. The majority of Tamilnadu elated to see the attacks on BJP offices because of the Dravidian cultural underpinnings and also by and large everybody got outraged by the brazenness of Vedanti and the recent attacks in Bangalore. At last now Hindutva is at the receiving end after years and years.

Vedanta’s antecedents show his ‘dignified’ profile. He is so famous for his comments when CNN-IBN spoke to him after the black money expose. He burst out against the 'anti-national Muslims'(CNN-IBN) whom he described as: ma&*r ch*^& and kat£$. He was complained in Police by one Sam Verma, an NRI, that Vedanti was threatening his trust by making a statement that ‘his trust is a terrorist den by employing Muslims and Christians.’ He filed in the complaint that Vedanti’s posture is due to the spiritual reason that he denied to offer ‘a new car’ to him as ‘Dakshina’ for a pooja held in the trust.

Regarding SSCP, it is a project for revenues on the interests of the ruling classes and imperialists. It is projected that it will create jobs and commerce. But on the contrary even in 80’s itself, thousands of T.S.A workers were thrown out of jobs in Tuticorin Harbor and today all harbors are computerized and the job creation is just a lie. The commercial interests are questioned by experts like this article in EPW. (Thanks to Bhupinder) The ecologists oppose the project and tried their best to voice their concerns but were unheard. While this kind of rational opposition from experts should be pushed forward and taken in to account, the false cry of BJP and ADMK should be exposed vehemently. To cite from the past, it should be noted that it was the ministry under Mr.Thirunavukkarasar, now the leading figure of Tamilnadu BJP Unit, ordered for cutting the canal in Path No: 6 or Adam’s bridge during the NDA rule and it was the same ADMK which vowed for achieving SSCP by removing the Adam’s bridge in its 2001 electoral manifesto.

Now BJP has announced for a national level campaign for Ramar Sethu, another Rath Yatra using the opportunity. Bhupinder Singh brilliantly exposes the ongoing drama in his post with ease. While whipping the saffron brigade satirically he notes on Karunanidhi, “This would be amusing were it not just so silly. Not so much the question of Lord Rama’s engineering degree but that of Karunanidhi remembering that there was once upon a time a movement called the self respect movement that he belonged to and that had posed questions like these in circa 1967. The era of Rip Van Winkles is not yet over! Soon he may also remember that Periyar garlanded Lord Rama’s statues with slippers.”

While sharing the same surprise with him, I would like to say whether Karunanidhi remembers or not, it’s time for the anti-brahminic, democratic, revolutionary forces of Tamilnadu to remind India that it is the land of Periyar who garlanded Lord Rama’s statues with slippers and burnt Gita. People’s Art and Literary Association (PALA), Tamilnadu is about to conduct public meetings, release booklets and planning for agitations attacking the re-emerging Hindutva venom in the name of Ram. PALA has the tradition of upholding Periyar by slapping Ram statues with slippers as a protest all over Tamilnadu, when Babri Masjid was demolished. Instead of waiting for the moves of Saffron brigade, we should gear up and attack politically taking advantage of the momentum. If not, serpents of saffron will easily spread the venom and will haunt the country again.

As Comrade Marudhaiyan said in his speech in the conference against Brahminic Terrorism, 2003, “If Gujarat is the Laboratory of Hindutva, Tamilnadu is the Laboratory of safeguarding true secularism, of crushing the Brahminic fascism. If to hold the pride that this is the birth land of Periyar, the land where Siddhas lived, then we should achieve it.” The fight should ensure the detention of Vedanti, punishment of the arrested culprits in Bangalore and the total withdrawal of saffron brigade from this issue this time and from Tamilnadu in long time.

Read more:
(below Links are in Tamil)

PALA and its associate organisations planning protest on coming sep-27 :
'தமிழகத்தின் மீது சித்தாந்த போர்' ஒரு பாசிஸ்டின் சவால் - போரிட தயாராகுங்கள் தமிழர்களே!!

Protest Poster copy and links of speeches and articles of PALA against Brahminic Fascism for the past two decades :தமிழகம் தழுவிய ஆர்ப்பாட்டம்!!

A must-read Article published in Puthiya Jananayagam, a Tamil Marxist-Leninist monthly on Ram Sethu row :
திமுக-பாஜக வழங்கும் 'ராமன் கட்டிய பாலம்' அரட்டை அரங்கம்

Revolutionary tamil Song from 'The Saffron Darkness' album by PALA arts troupe: நெருங்குதடா இருள் நெருங்குதடா ! நெருங்குவதோ காவி இருளடா !!

...

Thanks to Countercurrents editors for republishing this article in countercurrents.org

On State Terrorism and Left Adventurism...

2007-09-17T07:36:00.000-07:00

Spring Thunder has come up with a must-read translation of an article, titled 'What Threatens the State: Arms or Ideology?' published in Puthiya Jananayagam, a Tamil Marxist-Leninist monthly, July 2007 issue. In the long essay, Editors team of Puthitya Jananayagam expose the high drama enacted by the Tamilnadu police and media over the arrests of some Maoist comrades in murugan malai hills near Kodaikanal on June 2006. It compares the various violent incidents of the ruling classes of recent times in Tamilnadu and rubbishes the press hysteria. It upholds the Naxal Politics saying,

"It’s not despair that drives the Naxalites but it’s the rage against the social injustice. The scientific outlook of Marxism-Leninism leads their way. Naxalites bear the society on their shoulders. Naxalites are the men and women who come forward by their own will to sacrifice their personal pleasures of life for the sake of masses. Naxalites neither are disillusioned youth nor is Communism an ideology that withers away when plates are full. "

and unmasks the usual ruling class arguments that are thrust in to the minds of people. At the same time, upholding the zeal of undying Naxalbari politics, the latter part of the article criticises Maoists on their left adventurism that gave the chance for the state to stage the hysteria and points out the flaws in a comradely manner. When the essay gets over, we understand the necessity of the criticism and find the below lines are true.

"The treachery of right opportunists and pseudo communists easily gets exposed. But many fail to understand that the left adventurism also causes extensive damage to revolution."

I request the readers to read the article.

Height of Callousness!

2007-09-12T00:05:00.000-07:00

Last Sunday Union textiles minister Shanker Singh Vaghela and Vilas Rao Deshmukh showed the height of callousness. The ‘enlightened’ brain of Vaghela came up with a 'discovery' that the 'laziness' of Vidharba farmers is the reason for the agrarian crisis that has claimed the lives of more than 1500 farmers even by official count.

Mr. Vaghela said, “There are power cuts in Gujarat and Maharashtra. The farmers in Gujarat, just like farmers here, chew tobacco but after that they go to work on fields but the farmers here [in Vidharbha] sit idly. What can the government do in this situation? You must try and emulate the farmers of Gujarat.” at the Cotton broker’s conference held in Akola. Further, he advised the farmers of Maharashtra to go to Gujarat and see for themselves the practice there. “While flying to Akola [in a helicopter], I did not see a single farmer working on his field,” Mr. Vaghela went on. His awe-inspiring remarks shows not the ignorance but a sheer coldness which might have trickled down from their master’s brain, World Bank.

Telegraph literally slapped Vaghela in his face. Excerpts from the article titled, 'Seeds of Death' follow.

“It is the farmers' fault that they kill themselves in their hundreds in Maharashtra ― they chew tobacco and sit around. It is refreshing to have such a novel thesis issuing from the Union textile minister himself. Shankersinh Vaghela offered as counterpoint the example of Gujarat's farmers ― they work hard after having chewed their tobacco. His thesis comes close to an earlier 'scientific' report on the suicide of farmers in Karnataka, which claimed that alcoholism was the ill that plagued suicidal farmers in that state. Other factors, such as high-priced pesticides, debt, crop failures and enforced monoculture were issues that were noticed in the report but found to be irrelevant in the main.”

“If everything is the farmers' fault, why did the prime minister encourage them in their laziness by offering the distressed farmers of Vidarbha a relief package of Rs 3,750 crore in July 2006? Obviously the money has not helped, either because it has not got to where it is most needed, or because it is not really the solution: 1,500 farmers have died by their own hand between July 2006 and May this year.”

“The root of the problem is controversial: it has to do with the conditions of globalized trade and the situation of the small Indian farmer. The law against saving seeds, forcing the farmer to buy seeds supplied by corporations every year, the insistence on monoculture that leaves them vulnerable to crop failure, the repeated failures of untested seeds and the ineffectiveness of expensive pesticides that lead farmers into irredeemable debt have all been discussed and debated upon. The cotton farmer of Vidarbha has been hit especially hard, because of the artificially lowered prices of cotton in the world market. The solution would lie in rethinking and reorganizing farming systems.”

Vidharba Jan Andolan Samiti (VJAS), a lonely voice from Maharashtra trying consistently to bring the forgotten farmers of Vidharba to the conscience of the country has covered the news in its blog. One Mr. Linn has written a letter in which he counters Vaghela by pointing the role of Monsanto BT seeds as a primary reason for the disaster in Vidharba and how Gujarat farmers got escaped from the tentacles of Monsanto thanks to the organic farming. Journalist P.Sainath, who was awarded with Magsasay award recently, has covered the Debt and Seed trap widely in his series of articles. I think it would be absurd to extend countering Vaghela’s ridiculous statement with pain-staking logical arguments.

Vilas Rao Deshmukh, the chief minister of Maharashtra went ahead of Vaghela by portraying the cotton farmers as Criminals. He said “They (farmers) sprinkle water on cotton or insert stones in cotton bales [to increase weight] before bringing the produce to procurement centres,” in the meeting. Kishore Tiwari of VJAS comes with a sharp reply for this cruel accusation. “The State’s Cotton Marketing Federation has not registered a single case of such cheating by a farmer but there were several such cases against cotton traders who connived with officials of the Federation.”

While BJP and Shiv sena are trying to fish in the troubled waters, VJAS and other progressive organizations are protesting against the remarks in Maharashtra. It is learnt from their blog that the Effigy of Vaghela is burnt and the protests are continuing. Let us be impartial. I think Mr. Vaghela and Mr. Deshmukh may be right. Hence I request them to convey their ‘discovery’ in person to the farmers than in brokers meetings. I pray them to go to each one of those 1500 homes and tell the widows that their husband was lazy and that’s why he took the extreme step. I assure, they will give you a memorable reply with due respect, Mr.Vaghela.

Replace Despair with Anger!

2007-09-05T22:01:00.000-07:00

Anindita Sengupta, has written a lengthy, thought-provoking, must-read post in youngfeminists, on the suicide of Shylaja Praveen in bangalore due to workplace sexual harrassment. The post is given below. Today in a 'globalised' india, a dubious cry is made out on the 'empowerment of women' and on a 'successful career' . Women are showcased as commodities in every media platform and it's projected as 'confidence' and 'progressiveness'. Average Middle class women trapped in the workplace sexual harrassment either end their life like shylaja or give up their career as a whole. As i noted in my comment in their blog, now the despair of one shylaja needs to be filled by collective anger and the scores need to be settled in the streets.

Shylaja Praveen: When Despair Replaces Anger

At 24, Shylaja Praveen’s life was ahead of her — an untrammeled space to be explored, full of possibilities and promise. That’s not quite how it turned out though. Shylaja committed suicide last month, allegedly driven to despair by continual sexual harassment by the regional head of ING Vysya Financial Services in Bangalore where she worked.

This is not the first case of this kind. In June 2000, Sangeeta Sharma, an advocate in the Andhra Pradesh High Court killed herself after leaving a suicide note containing allegations of sexual harassment by fellow lawyers and senior advocates. Sangeeta did not want to name her harassers because she feared repercussions for herself and her child. Shylaja tried multiple routes to justice in vain, including and up to approaching the State Women’s Commission. Both had probably reached some nadir of hopelessness where they felt the only way out was death.

These were not weak women. They had explored their options. In Shylaja’s case, she had even asked her superiors for help as recommended by Pramila Nesargi, Director of Karnataka Women’s Commission. She must have patiently recounted her story again and again, risking humiliation and further victimization. This was no wilting flower.

Suicide and depression share a close bond and internationally, various studies have established a clear link between sexual harassment in the workplace and severe psychological trauma. According to the Fourth European Working Conditions Survey:

The proportion of workers reporting symptoms of psychosocial factors, such as sleeping problems, anxiety and irritability, is nearly four times greater among those who have experienced violence or bullying and harassment as among those who have not. The negative impacts are not exclusively psychological or mental, however. It is also the case that a higher incidence of physiological symptoms, notably stomach ache, is reported by those subjected to bullying and harassment.

So it’s not hard to see how continually dealing with sexual harassment at the workplace can, in some cases, lead to suicide. What is more disturbing is that in India, we have a socio-cultural ethos that actively encourages women to be soft, submissive and, above all, silent. Take a look at how the Deccan Herald reported the story. The first paragraph said:

She used to lead the retail and corporate team in her bank and was known for her knack for communicating well in her profession. But ironically, she failed to take charge of her own life, and unable to cope with the alleged harassment from her boss, ended it on Friday evening.

Instead of focusing on the sexual harassment (they haven’t even used the term), there is a condescending statement on Shylaja’s inability to handle her own life. Because women are expected to take these things in their stride, ignore it, smile in the fact of it. Suck it up, baby. After all, it gets much worse. And if you give in and break, it’s your own fault for failing to “take charge” of your own life. Meanwhile, the culpable one cocks a snook at the cops and retreats into hiding. Immediately after the suicide, Bharath, the sexual offender who was also regional head at the bank, was absconding. Later reports said that no comprehensive evidence had been found. Why doesn’t this surprise me?

Then, take a look at how Pramila Nesargi, Chairperson, Karnataka Women’s Commission, helped her ‘fight’ this battle. She advised her to ‘talk to her superiors’. Later, she said: “Unfortunately, they were not very helpful. One of her bosses said he would help her find another job after directing her to save the messages sent by Bharath.”

Is that the best Ms Nesargi could do? The most effective plan she could craft as an ‘expert’? Where was the contingency plan? What was the backup option? What was the recommended Plan B? When the superiors were not helpful, why didn’t she immediately ask Shylaja to file a complaint, to demand that an Enquiry Committee be set up? When Nesargi was aware that the company did not even have a sexual harassment policy in place, on what basis did she trust (and therefore ask the girl to trust) her superiors for a solution? Why didn’t she encourage her to take a hard line on this?

Let’s not kid around. When you’re fighting something like sexual harassment, you cannot also play ‘nice girl’. The problem is that, inevitably, others expect you to. Even the women. Sometimes, especially the women. No matter what a woman is being forced to deal with, she must maintain the veneer of politeness, of delicacy, of being a ‘good woman’. And good women don’t get aggro.

Expecting women to continually seek the most ‘peaceful’ solutions, to compromise rather than confront, to negotiate rather than demand is a form of repression. It forces women to put up with more than they need to, stick in there longer than they have to. It forces them to continually settle for second best, for less than they deserve. And when the peaceable methods don’t work (because, let’s face it, they often don’t), this expectation makes them feel trapped. Because nobody ever tells them that fighting is an option — sometimes, the best option.

While fighting sexual harassment in my previous job, aggression is what got me through. Well-planned, deliberate aggression. Every time the company came back with a carrot, a compromise, or a cock-and-bull story, I went back with long emails on what was wrong with it and how it had pissed me off even further. I was angry. And I showed it, acted on it, practically lived on it for three months. Things may have turned out differently if Shylaja had felt that way. If she had felt anger instead of despair. If somebody had helped her marshal her mental forces and told her she can ‘fight’. Not ask, plead, negotiate, request or supplicate, but fight. If they had looked her in the eyes, shaken her by the shoulders, and said: ‘Get the bastard and I’ll help you’.

She may have felt less helpless. She may have felt like she had a choice.

The tragedy is that Shylaja actually approached the State Women’s Commission and tried to access the relevant support mechanisms. Few women would have had the courage to do this. But the commission failed to provide her with options or bolster her confidence. Shylaja’s descent into despair is not just another unhappy accident. It is the product of a culture that traps women into choiceless living. And worse, it is a failure of the women’s rights mechanism in the state.

உணர்வு...

2007-09-04T09:50:00.000-07:00

ஒளிபுகாத

அடர்காட்டின் நடுவில்

அரிவாள்களை கூராக்கி

பாதை செய்கிறோம்.

ஏளனச் சிரிப்புகளும்,

வன்மம் பொங்கும்

ஊளைச் சத்தங்களும்,

முற்றும் அறிந்த

மேதாவித்தனங்களும்,

திரும்பும் திசைகளிளெல்லாம்

எதிரொலிக்கின்றன.

புதைசேறு அழுத்துகிறது.

புரட்ட முடியாத பாறைகளில்

யுகங்கள் கழிகின்றன.

அரவம் நெளிகிறது.

சற்றே கண்ணயர்ந்தாலும்

அட்டைகள் உயிர் குடிக்கின்றன.

சதுப்பு நிலத்தில்

தெறித்து மின்னும்

எங்கள் வியர்வைத் துளிகளின்

வெளிச்சத்தில்தான்

பாதை தொடர்கிறது.

பின்னொரு நாளில்

பனிக்கட்டிகள்

சேகரிக்க வரும் பொழுது

நீ இதனை நம்ப மறுப்பாய்...

நாங்கள்

நம்ப மறுத்ததைப் போல.

ஆனால்

நாங்கள்

இப்படித்தான் வாழ்கிறோம்,

வாழ்ந்தோம்.

எது தூண்டிற்று

என நீ கேட்பாய்.

~~வேறு என்ன செய்வதென்று~~

~~எங்களுக்குத் தெரியவில்லை.~~

உணர்வு என்பேன்.

அதன் பொருளை

அகராதிகளில் கண்டறிய முடியாது.

பனிக்கட்டி மறந்து

பதிலின் விளக்கம் கேட்பாய்.

உரையாடல் தொடருகையில்

மாலை கவிந்து

நட்சத்திரங்கள் முளைக்கத் துவங்கும்.

A peal of spring thunder

2007-09-01T07:58:00.000-07:00

A good news...Comrade Thippu has started a blog titled Spring Thunder, a historically significant word inspired from the prophetic commentary of Chinese communist party on Naxalbari. This blog as noted in it's 'About' section,

is an unofficial initiative by the blog authors to archive the publications of People’s Art and Literary Association (PALA), New Democratic Labour Front (NDLF), Peasants Liberation Front (PLF) and Revolutionary Students Youth Front (RSYF) of Tamilnadu and Translations from Revolutionary Tamil magazines namely ‘Puthiya Jananayagam’ (New Democracy) and ‘Puthiya Kalacharam’ (New Culture).

That's really a good news to hear about. At present, it has the papers presented by PALA in AILRC and a series of posts on the counter revolutionary nature of WSF. hope we can expect more posts.A single spark has got ignited indeed as the caption of the blog says. I request the readers to check out the blog to know more.

Trapped!

2007-08-24T21:37:00.000-07:00

Recently one more barbaric atrocity got added to the list of countless atrocities heaped out on the tribals of India. On Aug 21, 11 tribal women of vakapalli village of Vishaka agency area(in Vishakapattinam) were gang raped by greyhound policemen. Till date the police has not officially admitted the crime. The Kondia tribe men , the husbands, fathers, and uncles of the the rape victims boycott their own women saying that they are 'impure' and need to be purified. On one side, Uniformed beasts pounce on them and on the other side male-chauvinistic, patriarchal cultural values boycott them. The story of 11 tribal women narrates the agony of 'non-shining' india.They are trapped in an inhuman system and they live through it. 60 years of independence has given an unforgettable gift to the 11 women.

sare jagan se acha hindu sita hamara hamara!

...

From 'The Hindu'

Rape victims face social boycott
G. Narasimha Rao

PADERU: Even as a strong wave of protest is sweeping against the gang-rape of 11 Girijan women in the Visakha agency area, and the police top brass fully denying the charge, more insult is heaped on the victims in the shape of a social boycott.

Since they have returned to their village Vakapalli in G. Madugula mandal, about 50 km from here on Tuesday night, the rape victims are not allowed into their home. "You are policemen's women," their husbands told them. The women watch their children from a distance. The victims are given shelter by village headman Korra Dumarayya.

The women faced "Keedu" (lost the honour as they were raped by other men) and redemption for them is only after those who brought them "Keedu" are punished. Then they will be purified according to Kondu rituals.

"This is our custom and decided by our elders," said Dumarayya on Thursday at the village. However, he seems not too happy with the trauma the women are facing.

Among the women, Janaki has a small boy, Eswara Rao, who is still fed by his mother's milk. Now, Janaki's husband Masteswara Rao is giving gruel to his son.

Vantala Rendo has two daughters. When the younger one Bharati, just about two years, was brought outside her house by a neighbour she started crying after noticing her mother.

The rest of the women have school-going children. The children loiter around the headman's house and their mothers watch them with pain in their eyes as they could not feed them after coming back from school, a daily chore a mother will not miss. Husbands of victims were in their fields on Thursday afternoon.

Pangi Sridevi, wife of Suryam who was picked up by the police for interrogation and brought to the village on Monday morning and was witness to the gang-rape, lost her one-and-half-month-old baby one week before the incident. But she was also subjected to the gang-rape in her house, which is at one end of the first row of houses.

The victims said 21 policemen entered the village around 6 a.m. while some others were positioned around the village.

The men folk leave the village around 3 a.m. everyday and the policemen gang-raped them, said the victims. Some broken bangles were still lying on the trampled plants in the fields adjacent to the village, where some women were raped.

On Thursday morning, Sub-Collector of Paderu, Lokesh Kumar, visited the village and assured them that many benefits like silver oak trees, bulls, sheep, loans, Anganwadi Centre, etc., would be provided to them. But he did not talk about the gang-rape incident, the villagers said. "No official visited us before," they said.

Later, Member of SC and ST Commission Gummadi Sandhya Rani visited the village. State leaders of several peoples' organisations and local leaders of political parties visited the village to console the victims and offered support.

Among them was Chandranna of Jana Shakti Party, who participated in the peace talks between the Government and naxalites a few years ago.

The village is located in a picturesque valley and provides a beautiful sight from the G. Madugula-Boithali road. But the 11 women in the village are facing a great insult of social boycott.

...

From 'NDTV'

Gang rape: People demand Judicial Enquiry

Activists are crying hoarse that the government is turning a blind eye to the reported gang rape of 11 tribal women in Visakhapatnam and are demanding a probe by a sitting judge.

Meanwhile, the alleged victims are facing a double tragedy.

They are reportedly not being accepted back home because tribal custom requires the guilty to be brought to book and the women to be cleansed after that as per tribal rituals.

An effigy of Andhra Pradesh police chief M A Basith was burnt before the Visakhapatnam Collectorate.

The police chief had dismissed the reported gang rape of 11 tribal women allegedly by special party police personnel early on Monday as a ploy by Maoists to discourage the police from carrying out combing operations in the agency areas.

''We demand a probe by sitting judge. The hearings should be held in the village and not somewhere else,'' said a tribal woman.

''When they are labeling me, Pasiya Padma, a Maoist for protesting atrocities, they can so easily label anyone of these tribal women and men as naxals and arrest them,'' said an activist.

Activists say there was a deliberate delay in getting the alleged victims medically examined. Samples have also been sent to the Forensic Sciences Laboratory in Hyderabad.

''Not a single responsible official has gone there. They are making all these comments sitting elsewhere. Can any woman come out and seek justice in such circumstances,'' said D Prabhavati, AIDWA.

The police have refused to comment on camera but a rape case is booked by a government servant and also of prevention of atrocities against SC/ST.

A Note

2007-08-23T07:40:00.000-07:00

So refreshing to type here again...! sorry pals, due to some personal reasons i couldn't blog for the last one month. Though my blog is not updated every day, the frequency of posts were atleast three to four in a month. Comrade Abhay enquired about the inactivity in a comment and i believe some more readers, especially my silent readers would have wanted to ask the same. Though i am not sure of whether i can increase the frequency of posts in the near future too due to limited browsing time, i'll try my best to maintain it. In the meantime many events had bypassed. some of them which really need to be brought in to focus and many must-read articles passed away. lemme try to catch them. I have read very less fiction in english. recently I read Roy's 'God of small things' and Taslima's 'Lajja'. i'll write about them in the forthcoming posts and also watched some movies, 'Babasaheb Ambedkar' by Jabbar patel and 'Life in Metro'. i'll try to change the font size of the posts as some said it's tiny.

sope i am back! bear with me. :)

Then count me too!

2007-07-04T01:34:00.000-07:00

Anand Patwardhan, noted film-maker who made the unforgettable films like, 'Raam ke naam','Father, Son and Holy War','In memory of friends' etc., has written on the criminal silence of Chattisgarh state in Binayak Sen's arrest. Like Praful Bidwai, Subash Gatade and others, he traces his 'links' with Binayak Sen, Shanker guha niyogi and their organisation, Chattisgarh Mukthi Morcha(CMM). A must-read article.Thanks to Abhay.

...

from Sanhati.com

Dr Binayak Sen, General Secretary of the People’s Union for Civil Liberties, was arrested in May this year by the Chattisgarh police, apparently because he had ‘links’ with a jailed ‘Naxalite’. World over, from Amnesty International to Amartya Sen, there have been strong protests against the arrest. Support has also poured in from across the country. The world’s medical fraternity has also taken up the cause, for Sen is that rarest of rare doctors - one who walks and works among the poorest and the most deprived. Yet, our cries so far have fallen on deaf ears.

I first met Sen in 1986 when Shankar Guha Niyogi, leader of the Chhatisgarh Mukti Morcha (CMM), had invited me to screen ‘Bombay Our City’ to the mine-workers of Chhatisgarh. Niyogi was no ordinary union leader. Originally a worker in the Bhilai Steel plant, his thinking went far beyond the wage-struggle politics of most unions of the day.

I witnessed democracy at work every evening when workers sat down in a large circle to discuss the ideological and practical issues of the day and saw how innovative their thinking was. The predominantly adivasi workforce needed to have their own symbols of struggle, so the CMM revived the memory of a forgotten hero, Shaheed Veer Narayan Singh, a 19th century adivasi who had been hanged by the British in 1857 for feeding his people from the granaries.

Inspired by Niyogi, Sen came to work among the mine workers of Chhatisgarh. They were instrumental in conceiving and setting up a 15-bed Shaheed Hospital, a modest but impressive institution built and maintained with the voluntary labour of the mine workers. By mid-1980s, the hospital had grown to a 50-bed one with its own self-sufficient operating theatre. The love, care and pride that went into the daily work at the hospital made it a unique institution, one of its kind.

The Legendary -Shankar Guha Niyogi

The revolution that Niyogi and his comrades envisaged was acquainted both by the failures of the Left as well as by the knowledge of environmental degradation wrought by the development paradigm.

When disillusionment with the traditional Left set in by the mid-1980s, there was a search for an alternate vision. Niyogi and the CMM in Chhatisgarh seemed a harbinger of a new Left movement, using not armed struggle but grassroots organisation and mass mobilisation as their primary weapon.

The screening of Bombay Our City, a film that described the daily struggle for survival of Bombay’s slum-dwellers, was an instant hit with the workers. Over a thousand attended the open air screening and discussions lasted long into the night. So lively was the exchange that the union wanted its own print. I promised to return but to my regret, never kept my promise.

But Niyogi and the CMM had other powerful enemies. Growing confidence among workers had allowed the union to tackle social evils like alcoholism. The union imposed a small fine on those who drank but incredibly, secretly returned the fined amount to the wives of the alcoholic worker. Shrinking consumption levels hit the liquor mafia hard. Other powerful enemies included labour contractors who had lost their exploitative livelihood, to the most intractable force of all, an industrialist/politician nexus that could not tolerate a strong workers’ movement.

On the night of September 27, 1991, Shankar Guha Niyogi was shot dead as he lay asleep in his hut. Those who organised the murder were never punished although everyone in the area knows who they are. The additional district and sessions court found six persons guilty and awarded the death sentence to the man who fired the gun and life sentences to the other five, including two prominent industrialists close to the BJP, charged with planning and funding the murder. With the BJP in power, the Madhya Pradesh high court freed the accused, citing lack of evidence. The orphaned CMM struggled on, led by Janak Lal Thakur among others. Sen, and his wife Ilina, stayed on, working with the CMM. He later began work with the civil liberties movement and took up the position of General Secretary of the Chhatisgarh unit of the People’s Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL).

The assassination of Niyogi and the logic of ‘liberalisation’ led to a rapid worsening of repression against adivasis and workers in the region. Into this vacuum, armed resistance in the form of the Naxalite movement began to grow. In response, the State launched one of its most infamous anti-Naxal operations we know as the ‘Salwa Judum’ — arming and training civilians to form para-military vigilante outfits to combat Naxalism. As General Secretary of PUCL, Sen documented and published reports on the reign of terror unleashed in Chhatisgarh by the State-para-military forces nexus.

The State took its revenge and put a warrant out for his arrest. It was alleged that Sen met a Maoist leader lodged in Central Prison, Raipur, and facilitated an exchange of letters from jail, despite the fact that the PUCL had sought and obtained official permission from prison authorities for this meeting. Since May 14, Sen has been held for over 2 months now as a Naxalite.

If Sen is deemed a Naxalite because he documented State atrocities, then count me in as one too.

அ.மார்க்ஸ் -> அ.காந்தி

2007-06-28T23:05:00.000-07:00

'தீராநதி' ஜீன்-2007 இதழில், 'பேசாப் பொருளை பேசத் துணிந்தேன்' எனும் தொடரில், பேராசிரியர் அ.மார்க்ஸ் பகத்சிங் குறித்து ஒரு கட்டுரை எழுதியுள்ளார். மிகத் தாமதமாகவே அதனை படிக்க நேர்ந்தது. அ.மார்க்ஸின் பின்நவீனத்துவக் கருத்துக்கள் குறித்து எனக்கு பெரிதாக ஒன்றும் தெரியாது. அதே வேளை, இந்துத்துவம் குறித்து அவர் எழுதிய சில நூல்களையும், கட்டுரைகளையும் நான் வாசித்திருக்கிறேன். இந்துத்துவ எதிர்ப்பில் சித்தாந்தத் தளத்தில் அவர் எழுதியுள்ள நூல்கள், அவருடைய பங்களிப்பு குறிப்பிடத்தக்கது. ஆனால், அவரது இக்கட்டுரை, பகத்சிங்கை குறித்த அவரது பார்வை, மிகவும் வருத்தம் தருவதாக இருந்தது. நான் அறிந்த வரலாற்றுத் தகவல்களுக்கு முற்றிலும் மாறுபட்ட, சில தவறான தகவல்களை அவர் எழுதியுள்ளார். எனவே, கீழ்க்காணும் எனது எதிர்வினையை 'தீராநதி' இதழுக்கு அனுப்பியுள்ளேன். அதே வேளையில், பகத்சிங்கின் நூற்றாண்டில், பகத்சிங்கை குறித்து இருட்டடிப்பு செய்யப்படுவதற்கும், திரிக்கப்படுவதற்கும், பூசைப் படமாக, அரசியலற்ற வீரனாக வெற்றுச் சின்னமாக்கப்படுவதற்கும் இடையில், இப்படியேனும் ஒரு கட்டுரை வந்ததே என எனக்கு மகிழ்ச்சியே.

அ.மார்க்சின் கட்டுரையை வாசிக்க :
http://www.kumudam.com/magazine/Theranadi/2007-06-01/pg4.php

எனது எதிர்வினை:
----------------------------

பேசாப் பொருளை பேசத் துணிந்தேன் :
ஆனால், நிதானத்தோடும், நேர்மையோடும் பேசுங்கள் !

தீராநதி ஜீன்-2007 இதழில், 'பேசாப் பொருளை பேசத் துணிந்தேன்' எனும் தொடரில், பேராசிரியர் அ.மார்க்ஸ் பகத்சிங் குறித்து எழுதியுள்ள கட்டுரைக்கு எதிர்வினையாக சில கருத்துக்களை முன்வைப்பது அவசியமெனக் கருதுகிறேன்.

பகத்சிங்கின் 'பிராண்ட்' தேசபக்தி என ஓரிடத்தில் குறிப்பிடுகிறார் அ.மார்க்ஸ். அதனை புரிந்து கொள்ள, பகத்சிங்கின் நேதாஜி, நேரு மதிப்பீடு கட்டுரையின் அம்சங்களை சுட்டுகிறார். ஆனால், அவர் சுட்டுகிற கட்டுரையில், 'பிராண்ட்' தேசபக்தி எப்படி வெளிப்படுகிறது என அ.மார்க்ஸ் தான் விளக்க வேண்டும். முற்போக்கான கருத்துக்களை ஆதரிக்க முற்படுவது 'பிராண்ட்' தேசபக்தியோ?

சாண்டர்ஸ் கொலையில் அறவியல் கேள்விகளை எழுப்பியும், இதே பொருளைப் பேசத் துணிந்த காந்தியவாதிகளான பட்டாபி சீத்தாராமையா, டி.பி. தாஸ் கூட 'துணியாத' அளவிற்கு வக்காலத்து வாங்கியும் நகர்கிறது கட்டுரை.

முதலாவது, அ.மார்க்ஸ் எழுப்பும் அறவியல் கேள்விகள் குறித்தது. பகத்சிங்கின் மேற்கோளை சுட்டிக் காட்டி, அறங்களில் 'அற்பமானது', 'உன்னதமானது' என வேறுபாடு உண்டா எனக் கேட்கிறார். மேலும், தனது அறக் கருத்தாக "வன்முறையும், தனிநபர் கொலையும் மனிதரின் அடிப்படையான அற உந்துதலுக்கு(moral impulse) எதிரானவை " என்கிறார். அதனடிப்படையில், சுரண்டல் சமுதாயம் உருவாக்கும் 'பேரறத்தை'க்| காட்டிலும், மனிதர்களுக்கிடையில் நிலவும் 'சிற்றறம்' முக்கியமானதில்லையா என வினவுகிறார்.

மனிதன், மனிதர்கள், அடிப்படை அறம், சிற்றறம், பேரறம்... வர்க்க சமூகம் நிலவுகிற வரை வர்க்கச் சார்பற்ற அறம் என ஒன்று உண்டா? அதனால் தான், பகத்சிங் ஆளும் வர்க்கம் போதிக்க விரும்பும் அறங்களை அற்பமானதென்றும், அர்த்தமற்றதென்றும் ஒதுக்கித் தள்ளுகிறார். ஜெனரல் டயர், கோபால கிருஷ்ண நாயுடு முதல் நரேந்திர மோடி, கேர்லாஞ்சி மிருகங்கள் வரையிலான 'மனிதர்கள்' மனிதர்களுக்கிடையிலான 'சிற்றற'த்தை மதிக்காத பொழுது, ஒடுக்கப்படும் 'மனிதர்கள்' அறபோதனைகள் பற்றி கட்டுரை வரைந்து கொண்டிருக்க வேண்டுமா? இந்த ஆளும் வர்க்க சேவை அறபோதனை, காந்தியத்தின் நகல் பிரதிதான். இப்படிப்பட்ட கருத்தை மொழிவதற்கு மார்க்ஸ் பெயரை ஏன் பின்னே சேர்த்துக் கொள்ள வேண்டும்? அ.காந்தி என மாற்றிக் கொள்ளலாம்.

இரண்டாவதாக, சாண்டர்ஸ் கொலையில் யாரைக் கொல்ல தீர்மானித்தார்கள் என்பதில் முரண்பட்ட கருத்துக்கள் எழும்ப முக்கிய காரணம், அக் கொலை குறித்து தீர்மானிக்கப்பட்ட கூட்டத்தில் இரகசியம் கருதி, கூட்டக் குறிப்புகள் எடுக்கப்படாதது தான். யஷ்பாலின் நூலைத் தாண்டி, பதுக் நாத் மற்றும் சோகன் சிங் ஜோஷ் ஆகியோர் சொல்வதன் அடிப்படையில், பகத்சிங் நேரடியாக சோகன் சிங் ஜோஷிடம் சம்பவம் நடந்த அன்று இரவு சொன்னதைப் போல, 'அவர்கள் வேறொரு சாத்தானைத் தேடிச் சென்றார்கள், ஆனால் மற்றொரு சாத்தான் வெளிப்பட்டது' (பகத்சிங்கும், இதர முந்தைய புரட்சியாளர்களும், சோகன் சிங் ஜோஷ்)

சில பத்திகள் கழித்து, சாண்டர்ஸ் போன்ற அப்பாவிகள் கொல்லப்படுவது குறித்து ஒரு திறந்த வாதத்தை தவிர்க்கக் கூடாது என அ.மார்க்ஸ் அறிவுறுத்துகிறார். 'அப்பாவி' என்ற சொல்லே தெளிவற்றது. 'பயங்கரவாதி' , 'தீவிரவாதி' , சிபிஎம் நந்திகிராமில் பயன்படுத்திய 'வெளியாள்' போன்ற சொற்களைப் போல வரையற்று பயன்படுத்தப்படும் சொல்லாகி விட்டது. புஷ்ஷும், பிளேரும் கூட இதே சொல்லைத்தான் பயன்படுத்துகிறார்கள். எனவே, அதனை மேற்கூறிய அ.காந்தியின் அற போதனையின் அடிப்படையில் பரிசீலிக்க முடியாது. லாலாஜி மீது ஸ்காட்டின் ஆணையின்படி, சாண்டர்ஸ் தடியடிப் பிரயோகம் நிகழ்த்தினான் என்பதுதான் இதுவரை வரலாற்றாசிரியர்கள் சொல்லியிருக்கும் செய்தி. அப்படியில்லை, அவன் பயிற்சியாளன்தான் என்றால், முற்றிலும் முரண்பட்ட இத்தகவலுக்கு அ.மார்க்ஸ் ஆதாரம் வழங்க வேண்டும்.

அப்படியே சாண்டர்ஸிற்கும், லாலாஜியின் மீதான தடியடிப் பிரயோகத்திற்கும் எவ்விதத் தொடர்புமேயில்லையென நீங்கள் ஆதாரமே வழங்கினாலும், அங்கே இன்னொரு கேள்வி முளைக்கிறது. ஒரு நாட்டை ஆக்கிரமிக்கும் அன்னியப் படையின் கைக் கூலி போலிசுக்காரன், அல்லது போலிசுப் பயிற்சியாளன், ஒரு சம்பவத்தோடு தொடர்பில்லை என்பதானாலேயே எப்படி அப்பாவியாவான்? ஒரு வேளை ஆயிரக்கணக்கான அப்பாவிகள்தான் இன்று இராக்கிலும் ஆக்கிரமித்துக் கொண்டிருக்கிறார்களோ? அபு கிரைபிற்காக அதிலே சம்பந்தப்பட்ட அதிகாரிகளை மட்டும் லிஸ்ட் எடுத்துத் தான், இராக் மக்கள் தாக்க வேண்டுமோ? இல்லையென்றால் அது அற மீறலோ?

மேலும், பகத்சிங்கை விடுதலை செய்யும் விசயத்தில், காந்தி நடந்து கொண்டதை பட்டியலிடும் அ.மார்க்ஸ், தாமே காந்தியின் கூற்றுக்கு ஆதரவாக மார்ச் 23 கடிதத்தை மட்டுமே குறிப்பிட முடியும் எனக் கூறுகிறார். (இதற்கும் அ. மார்க்ஸ் ஆதாரம் வழங்க வேண்டும்). பிறகு அவரே அது தும்பை விட்டு வாலை பிடிப்பது என்கிறார். இது காந்தியின் உண்மை, அகிம்சை நிலைபாடுகளின்படியிலான மனப் போராட்டத்தைக் காட்டுகிறதாம். ஏனென்றால், காந்திக்கு 'அகிம்சை' ஒரு மதமாக, ஒருங்கே அதன் சரியான, மோசமான அம்சங்களோடு ஒருந்ததாம்.

சரி, ஒரு வாதத்திற்காக அப்படியே வைத்துக் கொள்வோம். இதே காந்தி-இர்வின் உடன்படிக்கை பேச்சுவார்த்தைகளின் பொழுதுதான், எல்லைப்புற மாகாணத்தில், சில கார்வாலி படை வீரர்கள் நிராயுதபாணியான மக்கள் மீது சட மறுத்தார்கள் என்பதற்காக, இராணுவக் கோர்ட்டில் விசாரிக்கப்பட்டு கடுங் காவல் தண்டனைக்கு ஆளாக்கப்பட்டார்கள். பேச்சுவார்த்தையில், சத்தியாக்கிரகத்தை(கவனிக்க, அவர்கள் சுட மட்டுமே மறுத்தார்கள், கலகத்தில் ஈடுபடவில்லை.) கடைபிடித்த இவ்வீரர்களை விடுதலை செய்ய காந்தி கோர வேண்டுமென மக்கள் வேண்டுகோள் விடுத்ததை, பட்டாபி சீத்தாரமையா, தனது இந்திய தேசிய காங்கிரசின் சரித்திரத்தில் குறிப்பிட்டுள்ளார் (ஆதாரம்: பகத்சிங்கும், அவரது காலங்களும், மன்மத் நாத் குப்தா).

வன்முறையை பிரயோகித்த, தனக்கு சமதையாக வளர்ந்த பகத்சிங்கின் மீதான காழ்ப்புணர்ச்சி கூட 'மகாத்மா' காந்திக்கு மனப்போராட்டத்தின் காரணமாக இருந்து விட்டுப் போகட்டும். (மேலும், காந்தி காப்பாற்றுவாரென்று எதிர்பார்த்து பகத்சிங் குண்டு வீச முடிவெடுக்கவில்லை) ஆனால், சத்தியாக்கிரகத்தை பிரயோகித்த கார்வாலி வீரர்களைக் கூட காந்தி காப்பாற்றாமல் போனதற்கு, அவரது 'மதத்தின்' எந்தக் கோட்பாடு காரணமாக இருந்திருக்க வேண்டும், "வாடிக்கையாளரே நமது எசமானர் " என்ற உயர்ந்த கோட்பாட்டைத் தவிர? இல்லையென்றால், காந்தி-இர்வின் உடன்படிக்கையின் முக்கிய ஷரத்தாக, கீழ்ப்படிய மறுத்த போலிசு, இராணுவ வீரர்கள் ஆகியோர், அரசியல் கைதிகள் விடுதலைக்கான ஒப்பந்த வரம்புகளுக்குள் வர மாட்டார்கள் என ஏன் எழுதப்பட வேண்டும்? என்ன செய்ய, காந்தியை என்னதான் காப்பாற்ற முயன்றாலும், அவர் ஆளும் வர்க்கத்தின் ஆன்மாவாக (அந்தராத்மா) செயல்பட்ட வரலாறு சந்தி சிரிக்கிறதே.

இறுதியாக, சிறையில் பாய் ரன்பீர் சிங்கின் முயற்சியால், பகத்சிங் மீண்டும் சீக்கிய அடையாளங்களுக்கு திரும்பியதாகவும், அவற்றை நீக்கிக் கொண்டதற்காக 'வெட்கப்பட்டதாகவும்', 'அறிந்ததாக’ குறிப்பிடுகிறார் அ.மார்க்ஸ். அவர் எப்படி, எங்கிருந்து அவ்வாறு 'அறிந்து' கொண்டார் என அறிந்து கொள்ள ஆர்வப்படுகிறோம். ஏனென்றால் இந்த ரன்பீர் சிங் யாரென்று தெரியவில்லை. ஆனால், சிறையில் பாய் ரந்தீர் சிங் என்பவர் பகத்சிங்கின் நாத்திகக் கொள்கைகளால் ஆத்திரமுற்று, பகத்சிங்கை கர்வம் பிடித்தவன் எனச் சொல்ல, அதற்கு எதிர்வினையாக பகத்சிங் தனது இறுதி நாட்களில் எழுதிய கட்டுரைகளில் ஒன்று தான், புகழ்பெற்ற 'நான் நாத்திகன் - ஏன்?'. எனவே இத்தகவலை, ஆதாரம் வழங்கப்படாத வரை, எதிரிகள் கூட செய்யத் துணியாத அவதூறு என்று மட்டுமே சொல்ல முடியும். தயவு செய்து காலிஸ்தானி குண்டர்களின் ஆதாரங்கள் வேண்டாம், ஆனந்த் பட்வர்தன் அவற்றை ஏற்கெனவே அம்பலப்படுத்தியிருக்கிறார்.

இவற்றையெல்லாம் தாண்டி, ஆற்றொழுக்கான நடையில், பகத்சிங்கின் எழுத்துக்கள் குறித்து கட்டுரையின் முன்பகுதியில் சிலாகித்து எழுதியிருப்பதற்கும், பகத்சிங் குறித்து படிக்க வேண்டுகோள் விடுத்தற்காகவும், அ.மார்க்சுக்கு எனது உள்ளார்ந்த பாராட்டுக்களும், நன்றிகளும். ஆம், பகத்சிங்கின் ஒவ்வொரு கட்டுரையையும் நாம் அவசியம் படிக்க வேண்டும். ஏனெனில் அவரை திருஉருவாக மட்டுமே நிறுத்தி, சவமாக்க முயலும் போலி கம்யூனிஸ்டுகளின் முகத்திரையை கிழிக்க அது மட்டுமே உதவும்.

மேலும் படிக்க:

புதிய கலாச்சாரத்தில் வெளிவந்த பகத்சிங் குறித்த கட்டுரை
பகத்சிங்கின் எழுத்துக்கள் - புரட்சிகர இலக்கியம்
பகத்சிங் மேற்கோள்கள்

S.O.S

2007-06-27T01:33:00.000-07:00

Recently while reading a booklet by CPI (Maoist), named 'Salwa Judum - The inside story', I encountered the below letter of Mahaswetha Devi, a well-known Bengali novelist. She had written this letter when the land acquisitions in Singur rocked the country. It conveys the agitated mind of a writer on the ongoing onslaught who doesn't wants to rest even in her fragile health. I think this letter lives beyond its date. Singur has become a signpost to denote the capitalist land grabbing in this globalised era in India. Hence Now with SEZ's propping up all over India, Singur in this letter means the entire country and enemies mean everyone of ruling class, not only Buddhadeb. This letter remains like a hoisted danger signal and a clarion call to fight for past, present and future.

...

from Dainik Statesman, 27/11/2006

Message of Warning

Singur is in danger!
East Medinipur is in danger!

Today just before leaving for Shantiniketan, I am giving the readers a grave message of warning – an S.O.S.

After 29/11/06 the fascist State Government is sending 10, 20 or maybe 50 thousand police to grab the land in Singhur. There will be one policeman for each struggling man or woman – that is the news. All the thanas of district Hooghly are being emptied and police are being brought from there. Along with them will be CPM “cadre vahini”. They will take Singhur. They will take the coastal and surrounding agricultural lands of the East Medinipur.

Buddhadev and Bush have become one. I am not able to have faith in the other constituent parties of the Front. I am addressing all the people of West Bengal including the writers, artists, intellectuals, students and women. Intellectuals, do not let the allurement of governmental awards make you keep a distance. All the organizations must join in. Rivers of blood will flow. The State Government will deploy police. Wherever one is, all must go to Singur. Otherwise at least protest in one’s own place.

This is a war. I will say to the women of Singur. Keep chilly powder and salt with you. Throw it into the eyes of the assailants including the police. If it was possible I would have gone too, but I am not able.

Post Script – On Saturday evening there was a Citizens Convention in support of Singur at Chakdah. Today there is a rally in Barasat. It is being reported that 40 organisations have signed the memorandum. This is a war. All have to react collectively. Singur is watching you.

Yours,
Mahasweta Devi.

The Bluff of Super Star - THE BOSS!

2007-06-19T06:18:00.000-07:00

(a poster in Trichy, replacing Gandhi's face in the currency)

" Mass adulation can make you a money-making brand, but it means nothing for the soul, for society or for history. Because true greatness can’t be bought or sold, like the memory of Che Guevara or the writings of Munshi Premchand or the films of Guru Dutt, Satyajit Ray and Ritwik Ghatak."

Amit Sengupta in 'What the Superstar is selling today?'

No media-informed person of India could have escaped the recent orchestrated frenzy of 'Sivaji'. 'Sivaji - THE BOSS', (The expansion goes such - The Bachelor of Social Service!!) a Rajinikanth-starrer Tamil movie got released last week and it occupied the entire news spectrum as if a marvel has happened. News channels like CNN-IBN, NDTV, Times Now, Headlines News etc., went on with 'Sivaji specials' all through the week. These channels gave a similar coverage of such an extent 'Rang De Basanti', Jessica lal case and Anti-reservation riots in recent times while Kherlanji, Kalinga nagar etc., were kept as one amongst the ten.

It's obvious that the emerging upwardly mobile, globalised citizens of India, who have dissected themselves from the rest of the country, relate with all their mind and soul with the above mentioned issues that are highlighted by the English Media. Now with 'Sivaji' released it seems their party time arrived. So the party fever started. They were in search of such a Desi flavour to pep up their party and the deal got done.

A movie on a mammoth budget of 90 Crores (in a country were people live with Rs.12 a day) hit the screen and the tickets were sold in black for Rs.1000 per ticket. News anchors went in full cry on such a huge response and showed the word-mongering idiots who showed the tickets they have bought for Rs.1000/- (a monthly salary of many in India) as if they have done some achievement. No single papparazi who followed Rajini from Chennai to Tirupathi and to wherever he went to ask the storyline of the Movie (it is said to be with a message against black money - don't imagine much, as it may lay around somewhere between shreya's navel show and rajini's histrionics) questioned the open Black ticket sale-out, who are otherwise 'genuinely' against the corruptions of politicians. It's a known fact that 25% share of the ticket sales goes to Rajinikanth. leave it, it's party time, folks. No rules.

Rajinikanth is called as the Super Star of Tamil Cinema and he was compared with Amitabh Bachan, (the poor farmer who is not able to buy a land in UP) another Super Star of Hindi cinema in a Headlines News Sivaji Special show. This hair-splitting comparison and analysis went for an hour. Both these Super Stars and the other Super Stars of Indian Cinema or this bluff of Super Star is the primary reason for the dilapidation of Indian Cinema. This Humble Super Star Rajinikanth has got a salary of 16 Crore for this movie which is one of the primary reasons for the steep ticket rise. To maintain the Super Star pattern, all the movies are done with same rubbish melodrama formulas, propagated extensively by the media showing their sincerity to the bribes offered and corrupt the Film appreciation of masses and today it's a sad fact that meaningful and sensible cinema has lost its way.

Rajini has screened the movie to Chandrababu Naidu, Jayalalitha, Karunanidhi etc., crossing all political differences. They all have appreciated the movie. (What else we can expect from those staunch fighters against black money). The so-called 'educated' urban middle class finds a desi, peppy pass time and they really celebrate it. The victims are the poor, lower middle class youth in their teens who also join this ugly frenzy putting their hard-earned money or who mortgage household items to put up a poster for this narcissist shit.

I remember John Abraham, (No, this John has got nothing to do with Bipasha basu) an yesteryear director from Kerala, a fire-brand came out of Ghatak's school of thought, who made a Tamil Movie named 'Agraharathil Kazhudhai', once saying that wherever he goes, be it in bus stop or saloon or in home, rubbish cinema songs follow him everywhere and torture him like anything defying his resistance. This entire frenzy on a third-grade cinema creates such nausea to me.

Thanks to Asuran for the inspiration.

There is no erasure!

2007-06-05T02:55:00.000-07:00

“What happened in Gujarat was a mini Rwanda: your neighbour raped you; people killed between 9 and 6 and went home singing. It was like a football match where the Hindus won. There remains festivity around it, the state denies victimhood, and there is no erasure.”- Ahmedabad-based sociologist Shiv Vishvanathan

Last February, I came up with three posts on Gujarat pogrom and its aftermath. In today's 'The Hindu', a news item has got published on the displaced Muslim people of Gujarat. A Supreme Court-appointed committee has found that 4,545 families comprising around 30,000 persons affected by the post-Godhra riots are still living in difficult and pathetic conditions in 81 relief colonies across Gujarat with acute problems in getting food and livelihood security.

The supreme court committee report has suggested that a contempt notice be issued to the Chief Secretary and other officials for misrepresenting facts and furnishing incomplete and inaccurate information to the commissioners.After scrutinising the report, a vacation Bench consisting of Justices Arijit Pasayat and D.K. Jain on Monday posted the case for further hearing after the summer vacation.

what a response? when zaheera sheikh lied and retracted her statements, it was perjury. but when a state that calls itself as representatives of people misrepresent facts, it's not perjury and the supreme court judges want to finish their vacation and then to look in to the issue.notices, contempt's, directives , committees,...all institutionalised bullshit. As prashant jha says, "The 2002 riots were a tragic tale of visible violence, under the glare of the national media, which provoked outrage. But Gujarat 2006 is the story of invisible violence – systematic and subtle, at the state and social levels." Aveek Sen, below in his article on Telegraph gets us to those forgotten people who bear that invisible violence every day and night in the ghettos of Gujarat. As his title suggests, the Muslims of Gujarat today are considered just like garbages and had been thrown out of the civil life limits. Read the article and decide how long they should wait until all gods return from their vacation.
...

Juhapura, Ahmedabad’s largest ghetto

From Communalism Watch

THE GARBAGE PEOPLE

The Gujarat government continues to deny the existence of the internally displaced survivors of the 2002 genocide, writes Aveek Sen

There are two words that come up frequently if you talk at any length to the survivors of the 2002 genocide in Gujarat — tufaan or a storm, and mazaak or a joke. The first is a memory-word. It provides an image, or story, for the immediate purpose of remembering and talking about a series of events that both compels and eludes the grasp of words. The second is a colder, grimmer word. It stands for the dawning of a post facto sense of things — the five-year-long unfolding of a design, more persistent and rooted than just a storm that comes from somewhere else, devastates, and then runs itself out.

“Un logo ne mazaak kee Musalmano ke saath,” Mukhtar Muhammad told me with a bright-eyed grin that seemed to relish, for a moment, the devilishness of this mazaak. We were eating brain curry and chapatis for lunch, while his two little sons played Tiny Toon with the sound politely turned off. This was in Mukhtar’s sparsely-furnished, month-old house in the more middle-class part of Juhapura, one of Ahmedabad’s less noticeably backward, though quite as segregated, Muslim neighbourhoods. After the 2002 riots, Mukhtar moved to Ahmedabad, from the small town of Kaalol in the Panchmahal district, where he was a successful hardware manufacturer. During, and for months after, the violence, he ran a relief camp in his area where he got the government to provide rations, from March to May 2002. He had also arranged for free medical treatment for the 3,500 people who took refuge in his camp with help from his friend, a local Hindu doctor, whose courage, in the face of threats from other Hindus, did not last very long.

After the doctor backed out and the state government abruptly stopped rations, Mukhtar ran the camp on his own resources until December, 2002. Then, as things started ‘coming back to normal’, he found himself getting increasingly involved in the legal work of claiming compensation and rehabilitation support for those Muslims — mostly poor, illiterate rural folk — who were left homeless, bereft, and severely injured or traumatized by the carnage. And it was only when he started figuring out the diabolically complicated bureaucracy and loopholes of the entire compensation and rehabilitation process, and those entitled to Rs 50,000 for loss of property were being sent away with cheques for Rs 300, that the nature and scale of the joke being played on the survivors began to dawn on him.

Mukhtar’s relative affluence, good sense and robustness helped him negotiate with the separatist kattarwadis in his own community who did not want the displaced to return to their own homes. He and his wife, Anisa, then started getting serious threat calls, and that is when he decided to move to Ahmedabad, from where he continues his work with the survivors, with some valued training and support from an NGO called Centre for Social Justice. Yet, he cannily resists the label of ‘community leader’ and eludes most Islamist stereotypes, keeping a mischievously-smiling, unillusioned distance from fundamentalists, politicians and celebrity social activists alike.

With his sons and daughter in a mixed-community, English-medium school, his spacious, new house, and his relocated business evidently looking up, Mukhtar, together with Anisa, is a survivor whose painstakingly reconstituted world could not have provided a greater contrast to what I had seen of human survival the day before, in the rapidly industrializing wildernesses outside Ahmedabad’s city-limits. It was Jumma-baar that day, and around mid-day, Khairunnesa and Usha, two social workers from a local NGO, took me with them to visit the Bombay Hotel area miles outside the city. There was a cluster of colonies there, where “riot victims”, as they are now collectively referred to, have been “resettled” after they found it impossible to return to their original homes — because these homes did not exist any more and they got no help from the state to rebuild them, or because they were still too afraid to return and live among their Hindu neighbours.

As you approach Bombay Hotel, first the stench hits you — of rotting waste and burning plastic. And then you see the huge mountain range of garbage, silhouetted, all the refuse of the city dumped high, with wisps of smoke rising from here and there. And nestling in the foothills, surrounded by sulphurous pools and swamps, are the little colonies of single-storied, flat-roofed pukka houses. The first one we went to — far off the highway, connected to it by a winding, bumpy, kutcha lane — was called Citizen Nagar. The jokes are at their blackest here, I realized. Another colony, a little way away, was called Ekta Nagar.

Citizen Nagar, built by the Islamic Relief Society and the Kerala State Muslim League Relief Committee on land privately acquired, houses about 400 people in 60-odd families. They have been displaced from such places as Naroda Patia and Gulberg Society, which had seen some of the worst massacres in 2002. Nothing I had read of the various reports and newspaper articles about these colonies had prepared me for the bleakness and degradation I saw here. There is no drinking water, no sewerage, no health centre, no school within miles, no street lighting. Every facility, from electricity to water, has to be paid for. Because of the vast dumping ground nearby, the ground water, accessed by bore wells, is dangerously polluted. So is the air, by fumes from the burning garbage that waft in continually.

When it rains, the whole place is flooded by water mixed with chemical waste from the neighbouring factories. Most people suffer from skin and gastric diseases, and some children from a peculiar type of crippling, polio-like illness. Because the hospitals are so far away, women in labour deliver or die on their way to them. After dark, the whole area is unlit and unsafe. Children have to walk miles to go to school, and attendance levels are abysmal.

These are people who have not only experienced extreme brutality and loss, but have also lost all their official papers: ration cards, birth certificates, BPL cards. Many of them have been given voter ID cards, but their ration cards have been re-issued with their BPL status changed to APL. This is only one of the many sleights of hand denuding them of their most basic human entitlements from the State. The men find it impossible to find jobs, and when they do, are paid pittances.

Many of these men have been unable to save their wives, sisters, daughters, and mothers from being raped, tortured or killed or, in many cases, all three. The mix of trauma, outrage, fear and the sense of profound ineffectuality and emasculation, made worse by the lack of employment, breeds a feeling of irredeemable victimhood — easily handed down to the children or taken out on the women — that hangs like a miasma over the place. The men look hopeless and passive, lying around in the afternoon heat on khatias with blank eyes. The women, in contrast, seem bustling with energy, articulate and better organized together. They recount their experiences vividly and are very clear about what is happening, or not happening, to them. Yet, after a while, you begin to sense a different kind of incapacitation in them too, born out of persistent fear and a long history of disempowerment, that makes them unwilling, for instance, to go out and look for work outside the home.

This sense of victimhood and the scramble for getting most out of a system determined to make nothing easy result in another peculiar phenomenon: the battle for evidence. It is fought against an inhuman machinery that is geared to strategic denial and forgetting. Apart from personal papers and testimonies, photographs are crucial here. Every survivor carries around a personal portfolio of photographs — of damaged property, dead family members and, most unforgettably, of terrible physical wounds. These last are often well-lit studio photographs with fancy backdrops. You will be made to sit and look closely at these photographs and listen to the accompanying tales.

Most of the time, several individuals will be doing this together with a bizarre combination of desperate urgency and profound mistrust. Even as they trust you with their stories and images, with half a mind they wonder if you have come to conduct another survey of the sort that was done before the tufaan, when innocuous-looking surveyors came to their homes to see where and how they lived. Every survivor tells, over and over again, of the signs of systematic planning, with constant help from the police, in the months before the violence erupted.

From siesta-time at Citizen Nagar to the late evening azaan at Naroda Patia, we saw about ten of the 69 colonies that exist all over Gujarat today. Citizen Nagar is more or less representative of them all. The latest survey of 2007 shows 4,473 internally displaced families — 23,081 men, women and children — living in them. None of the land they are built on has been provided by the government, and most of the inhabitants do not yet have proper ownership papers. The state government denies that these people exist at all, and claim that they have chosen to remain in the colonies because it happens to be a better option for them economically.

Mukhtar believes that victimhood, together with the rehm-o-karam mentality that comes with it, has spread like a disease among them, exploited, in different ways, by the State and by organizations that believe building mosques in these colonies is more important than building schools or health centres. “So why shouldn’t 2002 happen again?” he asks.

Farmers are Life convicts!

2007-06-01T01:47:00.000-07:00

P.Sainath travels in Karnataka and brings out 'not so hot-news' of women who bear the brunt of life after their husbands suicided few years ago due to the agrarian crisis imposed by the centre-state and the super government WTO. In this article he compares the life of these women with convicts in jail and asks what the crime these women have done. As he narrates we understand, today in india, farming is the worst crime than all crimes and the so-called backbones of the country, farmers, are life convicts.

...

from The Hindu

Farmer's diet worse than a convict's
P. Sainath
Several women in Karnataka's Mandya district like Jayalakshmamma, whose husband committed suicide four years ago, still stand up to the unending pressure with incredible resilience.

Jayalakshmamma with her husband's portrait.

In Karnataka, her BPL card entitles her to less rice a day than a convict in prison gets in a single meal. WHEN JAYALAKSHMAMMA finishes her 12 hours of labour — on those days she can find work — she's entitled to less than a fourth of the rice given to a convict in prison. In fact, the rice she gets on average for a whole day is far less than what the incarcerated offender gets in a single meal.

Jayalakshmamma is not a convict in prison. She's a marginal farmer whose husband H.M. Krishna, 45, killed himself in Huluganahalli village of Mandya district four years ago. This district was among the worst affected by the farm suicides of 2003 in Karnataka. In this State, her BPL (below the poverty line) card entitles her to only four kg of rice (and a kg of wheat) a month. True, those four kg are subsidised by the State. But she cannot afford to buy a lot more than that at prevailing market price. She is also one of over a lakh of women across India who have lost their husbands in suicides arising from the farm crisis these past 14 years.

"Four kilograms a month means about 135 grams a day," says T. Yashavantha, who is from a farming family of the same district. He is also State vice-president of the Students Federation of India. "Even an undertrial or convict gets more." What's more, they get cooked rice. She gets four kg of grain. Jail diets in the State vary according to whether the prisoner is on a "rice diet," a "ragi diet" or a "chapati diet."

Jail officials in Bangalore told The Hindu "those on rice diets and doing rigorous imprisonment get 710 grams of cooked rice per meal. Those on non-rice diets get 290 grams of rice. Undertrials and those doing simple imprisonment [who are on rice diets] get 505 grams of rice per meal." The convict doing rigorous imprisonment does eight hours of labour. Jayalakshmamma does 12 or more. "But her entitlement is 45 grams per meal if she has three a day," points out Mr. Yashavantha. She doesn't have the time, though, to make comparisons. Her daughter now works at breadline wages in a Bangalore garment company. "At most she can send us Rs.500 in a year," she told us at her village. This leaves her son and herself at home. Their joint entitlement on the BPL card would yield 270 grams per day. That is: they would together still get less rice than even a prisoner on "ragi diet" gets — 290 grams or more.

They own around 0.4 acres and had leased two acres before Krishna's suicide. "On the former we grew vegetables. On the latter, we had sericulture. Vegetable prices have been terrible. Once, we got Rs.1 a kilo for tomatoes. And water costs came to Rs.9,000 (or Rs.70 per hour) over six months." Now they have only the 0.4 acres. "We also sold all our livestock after his death." They have been paying off his loans and most of the compensation they received appears to have gone this way.

"My boy Nandipa grazes the goats of others but there's no daily income from it." Instead, they will share the offspring of the animals — if any — with the owner. "I myself make Rs.35 a day working this off-season." "I wanted Nandipa to study. But he was in despair. Three years ago, then aged 12, he ran off to Bangalore and worked in a hotel. There he was beaten by the owner. He ran away, took the wrong train and landed up in Mumbai. After a while, he was brought back." "All widows have problems. But those bereaved by the farm crisis suffer worse," says Sunanda Jayaram, president of the women's wing of the Karnataka Rajya Ryuthu Sangha (Puttanaiah group) "Even after losing her husband she has to maintain his father and mother, her own children and the farm — with no economic security for herself. And she is saddled with his debts. Her husband took his own life. She will pay the price all her life."

In Bidarahosahalli village, Chikktayamma's state exemplifies this. Her husband, Hanumegowda, 38, killed himself in 2003. "The debts are all we're left with," she says, without self-pity. "What we earn won't pay off even the interest on loans to the money lenders." She's struggled to educate her three children — who might be forced to drop out though all want to study further. "The girls should study, too. But later, we'll have to raise lots of money for their marriages as well." One girl, Sruthi, has done her SSLC exams and another, Bharathi, is in the second year of her pre-university course. Her son Hanumesh is in the 8th standard. Her husband's mother and a couple of other relatives also live in this house. Chikktayamma is the sole breadwinner for at least five people. "We have only 1.5 acres [on part of which she grows mangoes]. So I also work as a labourer when I can for Rs. 30 a day. I had a BPL card but they [the authorities] took it from me saying `we'll give you a new card.'" It never came back, says Mr. Yashavantha. "Instead, they gave her an APL [above the poverty line] one."

Huge debt

In Huligerepura, Chenamma and her family grapple with a debt of over Rs.2 lakh left by her husband Kadegowda, 60, who took his life four years ago. "Sugarcane just sank and it crushed him," says his son Sidhiraj. "We have only three acres," says Chenamma. "It's hard to generate a living from that now." But she and her sons still try. And the family plans to shift to paddy this year. In Thoreshettahalli, Mr. Yashavantha's father, Thammanna, a farmer for decades, says the farm crisis is biting deep. "Most cane growers are not recovering the cost of production. Input costs go upwards, incomes downwards. Also, some 40 borewells were drilled in this village last month but only one succeeded. People are giving up. You will find farmland lying unused even during season."

What about self-help groups? Jayalakshmamma has paid an initial amount "but the group has not yet launched. And I cannot afford the Rs.25 a week. Nor the 24 per cent interest each year." Chikktayamma cannot think of making such payments regularly. "The SHG concept is a good one," says KRRS leader K.S. Puttannaiah. "But in some cases, they've also become moneylenders. Meanwhile, after the initial compensations, the State has no plan for widows and orphans of farm suicides. When have they even thought about it?"

"Remember, these and all other farm women are breadwinners and have always been so," says Ms. Jayaram. "Yet, they have no land rights and no land security. Even in agricultural labour, they are paid far less than men. Those widowed by the suicides are in constant tension. There are debts hanging on their heads which they did not incur. There are daughters whose marriages are pending. The pressure is unending." It is. But all the three women and many more like them in Mandya stand up to it with incredible resilience and still try to run their farms and feed their families with dignity and respect.

If you’re not with us, you are with them!

2007-05-31T02:12:00.000-07:00

"About Naxals and Maoists — well… India is about to become a police state in which everybody who disagrees with what’s going on risks being called a terrorist. Islamic terrorists have to be Islamic — so that’s not good enough to cover most of us. They need a bigger catchment area. So leaving the definition loose, undefined, is effective strategy, because the time is not far off when we’ll all be called Maoists or Naxalites, terrorists or terrorist sympathisers, and shut down by people who don’t really know or care who Maoists or Naxalites are. " Arundhati Roy in her recent interview to TEHELKA

Noted rights activist Dr.Binayak Sen got detained on May 14 under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, 2004, and the Chhattisgarh Special Public Security Act, 2005. Sen, general secretary of the Chhattisgarh People’s Union for Civil Liberties, and PUCL’s national vice-president, was arrested for his alleged links with Maoist groups.

Dr. Binayak Sen is a very well known person and highly respected both in Chhattisgarh and elsewhere. As a medical doctor, Dr Sen has been actively involved in reaching health care to the poorest people as well as monitoring the health and nutrition status of the people of Chhattisgarh.

As General Secreatary of the Chhattisgarh PUCL, he has helped to organize numerous fact finding campaigns into human rights violations in the state including custody deaths, fake encounters, hunger deaths, dysentery epidemics, malnutrition, and other similar violations. In recent times has worked intensively to bring large scale oppression and malgovernance within the so called Salwa Judum in Dantewara to national and international attention. Dr. Sen has regularly spoken to the local and national media on these issues.

After arresting Sen, Police searched the his house and found some pamphlets related to resistance against US imperialism and a letter written by a CPI (Maoist) leader named Madan in which he described the worst condition of prisoners in raipur central jail and has requested to take some action against this by PUCL Chhatishgarh. In this particular letter the maoist leader addresed Dr. binayak as " priya comrade binayak"(Dear Comrade Binayak). the police is acclaiming that this addressing show the connection of Dr. sen with maoist. Morever the critical charge is that Sen met Maoist leader Narayan Sanyal more than 30 times in recent months in the Raipur jail.

As praful bidwai puts it, " The charge is preposterous. Sen met Sanyal with the authorities’ knowledge and consent and always in a jailer’s presence. It’s his legitimate function to meet detainees and defend their fundamental rights. Whether he met Sanyal 35 times or 100 times is irrelevant. "

As the noted human rights activists say, "Arresting of civil and democratic rights activists is neither new nor original. The experience of various Civil Rights organizations including the Andhra Pradesh Civil Liberties Committee over the last two decades is enough proof of how the state has attacked those who have questioned the state and exposed the truth behind fake encounters, disappearances and rapes that form an integral part of the operations of state forces. In the present context, it is well known that the Chhattisgarh Government has been indulging in the most brazen brutality in the adivasi areas of the State to suppress the Maoist movement. Dr. Sen's untiring work in documenting the atrocities and violations committed by the state forces in the guise of the Salwa Judum has earned him the ire of the police. PUCL, Chhattisgarh and other democratic activists have been raising their voice and campaigning against these illegal and inhuman practices, and for this service to democracy, the familiar allegation of being a 'Maoist' is made against them."

This brutal onslaught by the state on the Chattisgarh people by creating the mercenary force Salwa judum in the pretext of anti-naxal operations has a bigger agenda than combating Naxals. In the words of Roy," There is a civil war in Chhattisgarh sponsored, created by the Chhattisgarh government, which is publicly pursing the Bush doctrine: if you’re not with us, you are with the terrorists. The lynchpin of this war, apart from the formal security forces, is the Salva Judum — a government-backed militia of ordinary people forced to take up arms, forced to become spos (special police officers). The Indian State has tried this in Kashmir, in Manipur, in Nagaland. Tens of thousands have been killed, hundreds of thousands tortured, thousands have disappeared. Any banana republic would be proud of this record. Now the government wants to import these failed strategies into the heartland. Thousands of adivasis have been forcibly moved off their mineral-rich lands into police camps. Hundreds of villages have been forcibly evacuated. Those lands, rich in iron-ore, are being eyed by corporations like the Tatas and Essar. mous have been signed, but no one knows what they say. Land acquisition has begun. This kind of thing happened in countries like Colombia — one of the most devastated countries in the world. While everybody’s eyes are fixed on the spiralling violence between government-backed militias and guerrilla squads, multinational corporations quietly make off with the mineral wealth. That’s the little piece of theatre being scripted for us in Chhattisgarh."

Hence now the brutal state of Chattisgarh wants to say that even human rights activists have got nothing to do and there can be no voices expressing even a slight bit of dissent. it fears if the Government is exposed by the sincere human-rights activists like Sen, then its bigger agenda will be at stake. So now you need to be like Gandhi's monkeys to safe-guard this super-power. if you are with 'us', you need to speak only what the state speaks. you need to hear only what the state wants us to hear. you need to see only what the state wants us to see. if not then you are with 'them'.

So, my dear readers or the terrorists who read a terrorist's blog as per the current definition, i request you to forward this news to all you know. This is the present and future of this country. There is no place to hide and no shortcuts and no way left to call yourself neutral. If the state wants us to rest with this kind of repression to build its colony for its imperial masters, it's mistaken. by arresting Binayak Sen, State cannot terrorise the people and the ravage by Globalisation will never allow people to rest. Revolutionary movements spearhead this struggle all over the country and the recent developments in Singur, Nandigram, Ranchi and Chattisgarh show that people are not going to wait for any assured elixir to trickle down. let's see what they can do when instead of one Binayak Sen, crores of Binayak Sens rise up.

சில பழைய கவிதைகள் - III

2007-05-29T09:42:00.000-07:00

The below content will not display correctly if Unicode Encoding is not enabled in your browser. The content is written in tamil. To make it readable, pls install unicode tamil font latha.

மோனம் கிழித்து....!

ஒரு அதிகாலைப் பொழுதின் கருக்கலில்
விநாடிப் பொழுதின் இடைவெளியில்
இருளார்ந்த கானகத்தின் நடுவே
சாகேத்ராஜனின் மரணம் சம்பவித்தது.
புரட்சியின் கனவுகளில் இயங்கிய
அவரது இரத்த நாளங்களைத்
தெறிக்கப் பாய்ந்தது தோட்டா.
அன்றிலிருந்து
துவங்குகிறது மோனப் பாசாங்கு.
திரும்பும் திசையெங்கும்
முணுமுணுப்பு கூட சாத்தியமாகவில்லை.
கொடூர அமைதி...
கொலை முடித்த அமைதி...

சட்லெட்ஜ் நதிக்கரையில்
பகத்சிங்கின் உடல்
எவருக்கும் தெரியாமல்
எரித்துச் சாம்பலாக்கப்பட்டது போலவே...
பிரேம் என்ற சாகேத்ராஜனும்
சாம்பலாக்கப்பட்டார்.
செய்த குற்றம் என்ன?
சுட்டுத் தள்ளுமளவிற்கு என்ன நேர்ந்தது?
கேட்க முடியாது.
கேட்கக் கூடாது.
'நக்சலைட்'....!
அவ்வளவுதான்,
நியாயம் பிறந்து விட்டது.
பொதுக் கருத்தின் வரம்புகளில் நின்று
கேள்வியெழுப்ப முடியாத நியாயம்...

மணிப்பூரில் மனோரமா தேவியை
சீருடையணிந்த வெறி நாய்கள்
புணர்ந்து கொலை செய்யவும்,
கஜூரேலை இரண்டாண்டுகளுக்கும் மேலாய்
தொடர்ந்து வதைக்கவும்,
ஊத்தங்கரையில் சிறைப்பட்ட நாள் முதலாய்
வெஞ்சிறையில் வாடவும்,
சுவரொட்டி ஒட்டுவதற்கும்,
கூட்டம் கூட்டுவதற்கும் கூட சிறையில் தள்ளப்படவும்,
வழி சமைக்கும் நியாயம்...

எழுதப்பட்ட தீர்ப்புகளோடு
தொடர்கிறது வழக்கு.
நக்சலியம்
சமூகப் பிரச்சினையா,
சட்ட ஒழுங்குப் பிரச்சினையா?
அறிவுஜீவிகளின்
வடிகட்டிய சொற்களில்
தொடர்கிறது விவாதம்.
மற்றொரு புறத்தில்
துப்பாக்கிகளின் பேரிரைச்சலில்
தொடர்கிறது வதம்.

பகத்சிங்கின் காலம் தொட்டு
பகரப்படும் சட்டம் இதுதான்,
அரசு மாறலாம்,
ஆட்சி மாறலாம்.
ஆள்வோர் மாறலாம்,
ஆள்வோரின் நிறம் மாறலாம்.
அடிப்படையை மாற்ற முயன்றால்...
துப்பாக்கிகளுக்கு பசியெடுக்கும்.
ஊடகங்கள் உறங்கிப் புரளும்.
கொடூர அமைதி நிலைநாட்டப்படும்.

சாகேத் ராஜன் எழுதிய
வரலாற்று நூல்கள்
கர்நாடகப் பல்கலைக் கழகங்களில்
பாடமாக்கப்பட்டிருப்பதை
எண்ணிப் பதறுகிறது அரசு.
நாளை அது நீக்கப்படலாம்.
ஆனால்,
காற்றினில் எழுதிச் சென்ற
அவரது வாழ்க்கை கவிதையை
எங்கும் ஒளித்து வைக்க முடியாது.
கவனமாய் வடிவமைக்கப்பட்ட
இந்தக் கருத்துச் சிறையை
ஊடுருவி
அக் கவிதை
விரிசல்களை எழுப்பிக் கொண்டே இருக்கும்.

கோட்டையில் கொடி மாறும் வரை
பகத்சிங்கும் பயங்கரவாதியாகத்தான் அறியப்பட்டார்.
கொடியோடு
கோட்டையையும் கைமாற்றும் வரை
சாகேத்ராஜனும் தீவிரவாதியாகத்தான் அறியப்படுவார்.
இரத்தப் பலிகளால்
இறுதி நாளை
வெகுநாட்களுக்கு தவிர்த்து விட முடியாது.
நிறுவப்பட்ட கொடூர அமைதி
உடைந்து நொறுங்கும்.
எழும்பும் உரத்த குரல்களோடு
பகத்சிங்கினதும், சாகேத்ராஜனதுமான உயிர்கள்
புதிய உருவம் பெறும்.

...

பிப்ரவரி 6-ஆம் தேதி 2005 அன்று மாவோயிஸ்ட் கட்சித் தோழரான பிரேம் என்ற சாகேத்ராஜன் போலீஸால் சுட்டுக் கொல்லப்பட்டார். மாவோயிஸ்ட் கட்சியின் நடைமுறைகளில், இந்தியப் புரட்சிக்கான அவர்களது அரசியல், இராணுவப் பாதைகளில் கருத்து வேறுபாடுகள், விமர்சனங்கள் இருப்பினும், சாகேத்ராஜனுடைய, சாகேத்ராஜனைப் போன்ற எண்ணற்ற அக்கட்சித் தோழர்களின் தியாகம் அளவிறந்த மதிப்பிற்குரியது. இக்கவிதை மார்ச் - 23, 2005 அன்று எழுதப்பட்டது. சாகேத்ராஜன் குறித்த எனது பழைய வலைப்பதிவையும், அவரது அமைப்பின் ஆதரவாளர்கள் அவர் குறித்து உருவாக்கியிருக்கும் வலைத் தளத்தையும் படித்துப் பாருங்கள்.

Oust Reliance!

2007-05-24T21:51:00.000-07:00

The meaning of May Day is rubbished in India primarily by the pseudo-communist parties CPI and CPI (M) and by the ruling class parties like Congress, BJP etc., Historically May Day came in to existence to commemorate the Haymarket Martyrs of 1886 who fought for the Eight-Hour work day. The remaining eight-hours other than work and sleep for which the workers fought is not for entertainment as interpreted today. It is for organising the working class to build their future. Hence May Day cannot be celebrated as yet another holiday to rest at home or to distribute sweets as a ceremony to apoliticise and castrate the working class.

With this understanding, People’s and Literary Association (PALA) and its associate organisations namely New Democratic Labour Front (NDLF), Peasants Liberation Front (PLF) and Revolutionary Students Youth Front (RSYF) in Tamilnadu set specific political agenda for every May Day to organise the working class to make conscious of its duty. Hence, for the past two decades, May Day in Tamilnadu is marked with arousing protests, agitations and conferences by PALA. This year,as announced earlier,as part of the one month campaign against Reliance and MNC’s entering in Retail sector, PALA organised the protests encircling Reliance Fresh Shops. The one month campaign had 1,50,000 pamphlets, thousands of posters and wall writings and 25,000 booklets covering all over Tamilnadu but the primary focus was on Chennai as at present Reliance has started shops only in Chennai. The intensive campaign involved the doorstep propaganda in and around areas of Reliance shops.

The arousing march was flagged off by Comrade.Mukundan, President of NDLF and it started from the Koyambedu Market which is at the verge of extinction due to the Reliance entry in Chennai. The fervent slogans raised by the comrades of these organisations exposed the political parties, bureaucracy and Reliance while upholding the Naxalbari Revolutionaries as the only alternative to face the Recolonisation onslaught. The Revolutionary songs of PALA arts troupe roared in the air. Children and women carried the placards defying the scorching heat. The march reached the Reliance Fresh shop at Virugambakkam Market Road one in sense and two thousand in numbers.

The shop was closed expecting the protest and the police were all ready with barricades. Comrade Marudhaiyan, Secretary of PALA and Comrade Kaliappan, Joint-Secretary of PALA gave speeches explaining the movement. As the one-month campaign in various forms already reached the people of that area, they came in large numbers to watch the agitation bearing the three-hour traffic jam. The comrades got arrested 50 yards before the shop. When they all were carried in Police vans, Koyambedu trader’s union designators came to wish the comrades. Comrade.Marudhiyan thanked them and said, “The distance between us and the shop is just 50 yards. But the distance between the understandings of the people on the menace of MNC’s in retail sector and the reality is far more. Our motto at present of this struggle is to reduce that gap. If reliance to be put down, then Koyambedu should rise up!”

The false and confused ideas ruling the minds of people that deter them to foray were not formed by Ambani. These ideas were thrust in by the ruling class, media and political parties with the implementation of Recolonisation from the last decade. When the traders alone raise the slogan to oust the MNC’s, Reliance masquerades in ‘quality and cheaper prices’ and lures the people. But when the fight begins as a fight against Recolonisation then the slogan will become a people’s slogan and the definite moment will arrive.

The recent, spontaneous, laudable struggle of Ranchi vendors shows the desperation of the small vendor class. The land of Birsa Munda atlast showed the way to the country. These struggles should be organised and shouldn’t be allowed to be corrupted with decomposed political parties. People’s movements should be channelised as movements against Recolonisation as a whole and not to fade away as scattered and spontaneous.photographs of the protest on May 01,2007 at Chennai:

* Watch the Video of the protest above. Thanks to Karumpalakai.

* To read the tamil press clips of the protest read here.

* To read the tamil summary of the thought-provoking speech by Comrade Marudhaiyan, General Secretary, PALA in Public meeting on 27-04-07, read here.

*To hear the speech, click here

Come and See

2007-05-24T00:27:00.000-07:00

Some weeks before I watched the Movie ‘Come and See’, a Soviet/ Belarussian film directed by Elem Klimov in a NFDC screening. As Rita Kempley, of the Washington Post puts it, I felt, Klimov with an angry eloquence, taps into that hallucinatory nether world of blood and mud and escalating madness. The movie talks about the Nazi war crimes in Belarussia where the Nazis torched 628 villages. I have seen some war movies before but watching this movie was totally a different experience. Usually I felt the war movies generated a sense of thrill or a show of blasts and guns. But this movie generates a deep agony which is beyond words. I remember a scene in which the lead teen character, Florya meets the village head in a forest. Village head lying in his death bed with skin peeled out due to bomb shelling talks to him painfully. I found many left the hall unbearable to watch that scene.

The mystic music...Glasha and Florya taking bath in dew drops by shaking the trees ....the shock caused by the bombs...the expression of Florya when he watches the whole village burning....that last amazing montage....inexplicable!

I am not sure whether you can get whole feeling by reading the story of the film in this link. But ofcourse you can get a gist as this wikipedia piece is really written in a simple and nice way.

சில பழைய கவிதைகள் - II

2007-05-11T08:14:00.000-07:00

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பத்து நாள் தீவிரவாதி!

இடிபாடுகளுக்குள்
நசுங்கிக் கிடக்கிறது
உன் முகம்.
பத்து நாட்களுக்கு முன்னால்
கருப்பையிலிருந்து வெளிப்போந்து,
நீ கண்விழித்த நாள் முதலாய்
அரவணைத்த அன்னையின்
உருக்குலைந்த கரங்களுக்குள்
நீ மீளா உறக்கத்தில் ஆழ்ந்திருக்க்கிறாய்.

பெயரிடப்படாத நீ அறிந்திருக்க நியாயமில்லை,
தீவிரவாதத்தினால்
'தீவிரமாக பாதிக்கப்பட்ட'
இசுரேல் சொல்லும் நியாயம் இதுதான்.
" நீ ஒரு ஹிஸ்புல்லா தீவிரவாதி!
நீ ஒரு அல்கொய்தா தீவிரவாதி!
லெபனானில் பிறந்த,
பிறக்கப் போகின்ற ஒவ்வொரு குழந்தையும்
ஹிஸ்புல்லா தீவிரவாதிதான்!
உருத்தெரியாமல்
சிதைக்கப்பட வேண்டியவர்கள்தான்!"

திசையெங்கும்
ஒலிக்கிறது மரண ஓலம்.
தொலைக்காட்சியில்
ரசிக்கிறது மேலை உலகம்.
வானத்திலிருந்து
ஹிட்லர் சிரிக்கிறான்.
வரலாறு மீண்டும்
ரத்தத்தில் நனைகிறது.

...

ஹிஸ்புல்லா தீவிரவாதிகளுக்கு பதிலடி தரும் போர்வையில், லெபனானின் கடந்த ஆண்டில் ஒரு கோர யுத்தத்தை இசுரேல் அரசு நிகழ்த்திய பொழுது, ஆகஸ்ட் 7, 2006 அன்று கொல்லப்பட்ட ஒரு கைக்குழந்தையின் கதை இது. இத்தாக்குதலில் அக்குடும்பத்தின் 11 உறுப்பினர்களும் கொல்லப்பட்டனர். இக்கவிதை மறுநாள் எழுதப்பட்டது.

சில பழைய கவிதைகள் - I

2007-05-11T07:46:00.000-07:00

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நாலாவது தூண்

தினத் தந்தி தலைப்புச் செய்தி:
பிறந்தார் பேரன்;
தாத்தா ஆனார் ரஜினிகாந்த்!

தலைப்புச் செய்தியே இப்படி என்றால்,
உள்ளே என்ன இருக்கும்?

சிறப்புச் செய்தி:
அதிசயம்,
ஆனால் உண்மை!

பிறந்தார் பேரன்;
தாத்தா ஆனார் ரஜினிகாந்த்!
ரஜினிகாந்த் தாத்தா ஆனதால்,
லதா ரஜினிகாந்த் பாட்டி ஆனார்!
ரஜினிகாந்த் தாத்தா ஆனதால்,
தனுஷ் அப்பா ஆனார்!
ரஜினிகாந்த் தாத்தா ஆனதால்,
ஐஸ்வர்யா தனுஷ் அம்மா ஆனார்!
ரஜினிகாந்த் தாத்தா ஆனதால்,
ஐஸ்வர்யாவின் தங்கை சித்தி ஆனார்!
ரஜினிகாந்த் தாத்தா ஆனதால்,
தனுஷின் அண்ணன் பெரியப்பா ஆனார்!

உங்களால் நம்ப முடிகிறதா,
ரஜினிகாந்த் தாத்தா ஆனதால்,
கஸ்தூரி ராஜா கூட தாத்தா ஆனார்!
ரஜினிகாந்த் தாத்தா ஆனதால்,
கஸ்தூரி ராஜா பொண்டாட்டி கூட பாட்டி ஆனார்!
ரஜினிகாந்த் தாத்தா ஆனதால்,
கஸ்தூரி ராஜாவின் ஒன்று விட்ட சித்தப்பா....

பிற முக்கியமில்லாத செய்திகள்:
டெங்கு காய்ச்சல் பரவுகிறது! அரசு மெத்தனம்!
கடன் தொல்லையால் விஷம் குடித்த விவசாயி சாவு!
--இன்னும் சில இது போன்ற சில வழக்கமான,
ஆச்சரியப்பட வேண்டாத செய்திகள்--------

வாங்கிப் படியுங்கள் தினத் தந்தி!
வாழ்க இந்தியா!
வளர்க நாலாவது தூண்!

The 'Trishul' expose!

2007-05-08T00:21:00.000-07:00

CNN-IBN has recently exposed the criminal acts of 'seers' picking three notable figures from north to south, thus by showing the 'unity in diversity'. read the excerpts and imagine 'mera bharat kitna mahaan hain'!

FROM CNN-IBN

In this age of “instant karma, quick nirvana”, it’s perhaps natural that some individuals or organisations become the repositories of a country’s collective faith. Spiritual gurus, babas, Godmen – they are known by many names and have become forces to reckon with when it comes to faith, specially in India where the lines between superstition and religion have blurred significantly. But the faith has been maligned and many who claim to be Godmen, promising to rid lives of evil in the name of God have been proven close to evil themselves.A CNN-IBN-Cobra Post investigation exposes the ugly side of some the most popular Godmen - Pilot Baba, a former Indian Air Force officer, Vedanti Maharaj, former BJP MP and Guruvayur Surya Namboodiri, who claims to be an astrologer – shattering the myth that surrounds Godmen of modern times.

Money launderer leads Ram temple trust

IN THE NAME OF TRUST: Vedanti Maharaj uses Ram temple Trust for money laundering racket.

New Delhi Thousands of Ram temple believers have put in their trust in this God man. They feel he will realise their vision of a Ram temple.

Cobrapost and CNN-IBN Special Investigation reveals that he is just a common criminal running a very clever money laundering racket.

Meet Vedanti Maharaj - chairman of the Ramjanmabhoomi Trust in Ayodhya. A man who says he has no worldly pursuits but this Godman is lying.

Vedanti Maharaj: What percentage will I get?

CNN-IBN: Whatever you want.

Vedanti Maharaj: No, you need to tell me what I will get. Suppose you convert Rs 5 crore how much would I get?

Vedanti Maharaj has mastered the art of persuasion not just at his Ayodhya rallies, but also behind closed doors.

Vedanti Maharaj: How much will I get?

CNN-IBN:Rs 1.5 crore.

Vedanti Maharaj: Ask for Rs 3 crore instead, and give me Rs 2 crore.

CNN-IBN:No, we need to keep a margin.

Vedanti Maharaj: Alright, you will need to give a discount.

The Baba cheats the government of crore in taxes with impunity.

Maharaj says, "I do not need permission to use my Trust's funds. Let me consult my CA. Come to Ayodhya and I will get everything done there.”

Operating like a master criminal, Vedanti Mahraj launders black money for a commission, by issuing fake bills and receipts through his lesser-known Matri Sewa Trust.

CNN-IBN: Do you head the Ramjanmabhoomi Trust?

Vedanti Maharaj: Yes but if we put your money in the Ramjanambhoomi Trust it can't be recovered.

Vedanti Maharaj s aide: Not a single penny. You will need detailed accounts for that.

Vedanti Maharaj: Because its an international Trust.

CNN-IBN: Ramjanmabhoomi Trust?

Vedanti Maharaj: No the IB and CBI keep a watch on this Trust.

CNN-IBN: But your Trust is free of problems?

Vedanti Maharaj: No I made the Matri Sewa Trust for this purpose.

Using the promise of a Ram Mandir to keep the masses hooked, money laundering and tax evasion is what this man is actually all about.

Watch the Video: http://www.ibnlive.com/videos/39845/money-launderer-leads-ram-temple-trust.html

God-man turning black money to white

New Delhi: Thousands put their trust in them. But few can imagine some of our country's revered God-men are common criminals running very clever money laundering racket.

Former wing commander Kapil Advait, who fought for India in the 1965 and 1971 wars, later became a spiritual baba revered by thousands as Pilot Baba. But a CNN IBN-Cobrapost investigation unmasked this Godman. Pilot Baba says, "I will give you a cheque of whatever amount you need as long as you can convert it to white money.”CNN-IBN investigation team posed as corporate agents and approached Pilot Baba's henchman Jyoti in Delhi. The investigation team told him that it could convert Rs 10 crore of black money to white. Jyoti demanded Rs 30 lakh commission to fix a deal with the baba and a meeting with pilot baba was fixed.

CNN-IBN: Tell us what is the kind of deal that you would like?

Pilot Baba: It depends on the percentage of returns. I have been offered 20, 30 and 50 percent in the past.

CNN-IBN: There is hardly any margin in 20 per cent.

Pilot Baba: That's for you to decide.

CNN-IBN: Will ten per cent do?

Pilot Baba: No.

CNN-IBN: Not on ten?

Pilot Baba: Why take so much risk just for 10 per cent.

Pilot Baba blatantly admitted to laundering money for foreign firms.

Pilot Baba says, "Companies from Japan and America want us to convert hundreds of crore into white money."

Not just multinational corporations but also politicians of repute - a former prime minister, two former chief ministers and a ruling chief minister - this Godman claims they are all his followers.

"We have access to politicians who give Rs 500 crore bring down governments and buy off MPs," Pilot Baba adds.

CNN-IBN: Tell us who all are special?

Pilot Baba: All of them.

CNN-IBN: As you told us N D Tiwari also puts money.

Pilot Baba: All of them whether it is Mulayam or Mayawati, everybody needs us.

Pilot Baba: I know Narayna Dut Tiwari since long for the last forty years. Since Tiwari was on the streets. N D Tiwari, Murli Manohar joshi, Atal Bihari Vajpayee - I know them all since long.

The Pilot Baba also boasted about his connections with criminals.

Pilot Baba: I am from Bihar from a royal family not just anybody. I have contacts. I can fix anyone who tries to mess with me.

Even as fraudulent God-men like pilot baba indulge in corrupt and criminal activities all in the name of God. Thousands flock to them for spiritual guidance. And yet, these false men of God betray their trust.

Watch the Video: http://www.ibnlive.com/videos/39841/05_2007/pilot_baba/godman-turning-black-money-to-white.html

Southern godmen exposed turns dirty money holy

New Delhi: The third Godman exposed in the Cobrapost and CNN-IBN investigation was Guruvayur Surya Nambudiri, who is famous for making prophecies.

But as it happened the man who claims that he can predict what the tomorrow holds, could not get over his love for money. And to make more money, he is even willing to convert black money into white.

When he said the Shankracharya would go to jail, he did. Guruvayur Surya Nambudiri Swami is known for his prophecies, and for his huge following in South India.

But the Swami is also an expert in money laundering. Cobrapost and CNN-IBN investigators posing as corporate agents wanting to convert their black money approached Swamiji through his henchman.

Swami's aide: Guruji wants to know what his share is. For instance, if you give Rs 1 lakh in black to the Trust, how much would be returned, and what percentage do you expect?

CNN-IBN: Swamiji may decide according to prevalent rates.

The Swami was told Rs 10 crore of black money had to be converted into white money. Tough negotiations followed.

Swami's aide: Guruji says that his ashram has a clean reputation for the last 25 years. If someone were to find out about our work, we would have to pay tax.

CNN-IBN: What do you want?

Swamiji: 25 per cent.

Swami's aide: At least 25 per cent.

CNN-IBN: Let us also make some profit out of this.

Swami's aide: You asked for 10 per cent, Swamiji put it at 25.

CNN-IBN: Let's close the deal at 15 per cent.

Swami's aide: 20 is final.

CNN-IBN: We are also agreed at 20 per cent.

Swami's aide: Is 20 fine?

Swami: Done.

CNN-IBN: We are supposed to pay the amount in black on behalf of the company.

Swami's aide: But you'll have to make the payment in Chennai.

Payments in Chennai and in hard cash so that the Swami can stash away his own black income and evade taxes.

Swami's aide: Ensure payment in Rs 1000 rupee notes.

CNN-IBN: That won't be a problem.

Swami's aide: When do you want to convert the money?

CNN-IBN: Within 15 days.

Swami's aide: If you want a cheque, then you will have to wait for at least a month.

The transaction would take a month, we were told. As the Swami-and his aide duo would need time to arrange fake bills and receipts.

Swami's aide: Swamiji says that if you give Rs 10 crore then after a month.

CNN-IBN: You will return Rs 8 crore by cheque.

Swami's aide: We will return it by cheque so that we may get time to circulate the funds to avoid taxes. We will return Rs 8 crore to you. Inform us of the next deal.

Not just the Income Tax department but even thousands of his followers should ask their Swami - what he does in the name of God.

Watch the Video:
http://www.ibnlive.com/videos/39851/southern-seer-turns-dirty-money-holy.html

The Malignant Resentments

2007-04-20T22:55:00.000-07:00

"What is your major malfunction, numbnuts? Didn't your Mommy and Daddy show you enough attention, when you were a child?" Lawrence immediately shoots his tormentor, killing him instantly. Lawrence then sits down, puts the rifle in his mouth, and commits suicide. --from the movie, full metal jacket

The Cho episode is end and the American media is on the move to other news. But, even today morning a man has entered NASA killing a hostage and himself. As David Walsh argued in his previous article, the American society is reluctant to understand the social roots of these incidents. Cho's description and the arguments of Walsh in the below article, reminded me of the movie full metal jacket where you find the evolution of a so-called 'psycho' in a US marine base. Walsh again insists the need to question the foundations of Capitalist society in particular American society in the below article.
-------------------
excerpts from
The Malignant Resentments That Erupted Into Mass Murder In Virginia
David Walsh
21 April, 2007
World Socialist Web

The Virginia Tech tragedy, which led to the brutal deaths of 33 people, is an event that needs to be considered soberly and at length. But even before funerals have taken place and the dead properly memorialized, government and university officials are urging students, faculty and the population at large to “move on.”

The appeals to “move on” from officials combine callousness and stupidity. This has become a terrible cliché, repeated again and again, and directed against critical thought and feeling. No, people should not “move on.” ‘Enough, back to business!’ Here is the backwardness and indifference of the entire social superstructure, which cannot and will not look the reality it has created in the face. It is part of the ongoing refusal to analyze or understand. The attempt to transform every mass gathering at the Virginia Tech campus into a “pep rally” has something perverse and unseemly about it.

“Normalcy never comes back,” nor should it. Everyone in America and around the world knows this is not the last such atrocity. This could happen in any part of the country, it is a matter of the nation’s social pathology.

No one can argue in this case that there were not warning signs. It seems that Cho, the product of an arranged marriage between a man 10 years older than his apparently reluctant bride, did not have a happy upbringing. As a child, Cho was nearly mute; some in the family thought he might have mental problems. His parents ran a used-book store in South Korea, which was not profitable, and lived in a cramped basement apartment. They emigrated to the US in 1992 with very little.

The boy had difficulties in his new American school. He “was picked on, pushed around and laughed at over his shyness” (Associated Press) as a schoolboy in the Washington, D.C., suburb of Centreville, Virginia. In high school, Cho earned A’s in mathematics. When he started college, according to the Guardian, “his mother took his dormitory mates to one side to explain about her son’s unusual character and implored them to help.” He spoke to others, his roommates, classmates and professors at Virginia Tech as little as possible. He sometimes referred to himself as “Question Mark” and spoke in whispers. One of his dormitory suite mates told CNN that “he was just like a shadow.”

Difficulties came alarmingly to the surface in 2005. He annoyed two female students with his messages and attention. His sullen and angry conduct in class provoked the ire of one of his professors, who insisted that he be removed from her course. When Cho indicated in December 2005 that he might kill himself, a temporary detention order was obtained from a judge and he was taken to a mental health facility. A doctor evaluated him and reported that he was mentally ill but no imminent danger to himself or others. There is no record of any follow-up or subsequent treatment. Various professors seem to have done all they could personally for Cho.

Lucinda Roy, the head of the English department at Virginia Tech, in particular, took it upon herself to tutor him one-on-one after his removal from the problem class, as well as to warn authorities. She found him deeply troubled, “I was concerned that he was suicidal, that he was depressed. There was a negativity. It was like talking to a hole. There was such an absence when he entered a room. Everything just emptied out and it turned very dark.” Numerous people individually attempted to help, but, in the end, the university system treated his difficulties in a pro forma manner, as it does in so many instances. The university could have done more, without question, but there is no institutional or police solution to generalized social alienation.

A recent study of the Anxiety Disorders Association of America (ADAA) notes that “Nearly all survey respondents at both national universities and liberal arts colleges reported an increase in student usage of mental health services throughout the past three years.” They go on: “Schools see a growing number of students coming to college with a history of mental illness, increased anxiety after 9/11 and increased awareness of mental health issues.”

The ADAA observes that “While a variety of services are offered, many aren’t staffed appropriately to meet growing demand.” It points out that “Every year, 19 percent of young adults in the general [US] population think about suicide, and nearly 9 percent make an actual suicide attempt.”

A spring 2006 survey, cited in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, of nearly 95,000 students on 117 campuses found that almost half of them felt “so depressed it was difficult to function as least once during the previous academic year; 16 percent felt that way on at last five occasions.” Nearly two thirds felt hopeless at least once. Nine percent had considered suicide. “More than 93 percent had felt overwhelmed at least once by all they had to do.”

Students face immense economic pressures.A low grade, a failed class, a missed academic opportunity, and futures are ruined. The number of students working part-time has increased, along with the competition for jobs. Young people leave college or university with tens of thousands of dollars in debt, a burden that will take years to pay off.

And there is the general climate in the country. The US has been in a continual state of war since 2001, with government officials promising decades or a half-century more of bloody conflict. The Bush administration’s terror threat level has stood at “Elevated” (Yellow) for most of the time since then. Repeated warnings about the risk of biological, chemical or nuclear weapons being set off in the country, endless threats against foreign governments and individuals, the most bloodcurdling language used by government officials (“We either were going to kill him or capture him, and our policy is we try and capture and not kill and if we’re not able to capture and we can kill, we do it”—former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld)....

No wonder there is stress and anxiety. What is the impact of all this on the most fragile and unstable personalities?

No one in the media dares to make any link between the violence America is visiting on the world every day and the violence it visits on itself. No one in official circles will suggest that the country ought to take a penetrating look at itself in the mirror.

Cho’s videos are very disturbing. He poses with handguns, pointing them at the camera or his own head, holds a knife to his throat or wields a hammer in a menacing manner.

In other segments, he rails against the world at large: “You have vandalized my heart, raped my soul and torched my conscience. You thought it was one pathetic boy’s life you were extinguishing. Thanks to you, I die like Jesus Christ, to inspire generations of the weak and the defenseless people.”

And: “You have never felt a single ounce of pain your whole life. And you want to inject as much misery in our lives because you can, just because you can. You had everything you wanted. Your Mercedes wasn’t enough, you brats. Your golden necklaces weren’t enough, you snobs. Your trust fund wasn’t enough. Your vodka and cognac wasn’t enough. All your debaucheries weren’t enough. Those weren’t enough to fulfill your hedonistic needs. You had everything.”

Finally, horribly: “This is it. This is where it all ends. What a life it was. Some life.”

This is an extremely disturbed person, but it is clear, if one listens to his words, that conditions in society were playing on his mind. He felt many resentments. This doesn’t justify any of his insane acts, but the resentments have a real basis. He was mentally unbalanced, but that doesn’t mean there was no connection between social life and what he did. And now television analysts begin heaping abuse on his head, as a substitute for taking the problems seriously. “He was a coward,” and so on. This is almost a provocation, an incitement of others. The resentments are real.

Huge social divisions exist on a college campus. Snobbery and elitism exist. With Cho, the resentments were psychotically internalized and developed in a pathological manner. The society denies that social classes exists, it papers over social inequality. The contradictions emerge in a malignant fashion, they explode in this anti-social form.

This is the ongoing price American society pays for the absence of a progressive and revolutionary social movement that offers a way out of the present impasse, for the lack of class consciousness and social solidarity. The emergence of such a movement would have a wonderfully regenerative and healthy effect on the national psyche, and pose a mortal threat to the social and financial status quo. That is why the ruling elite fears the emergence of such a movement a thousand times more than it does a deranged individual with a gun.

Note: Emphasis mine

Social Roots Of Another American Tragedy

2007-04-19T01:43:00.000-07:00

excerpts from
The Virginia Tech Massacre:
Social Roots Of Another American Tragedy
David Walsh
19 April, 2007
World Socialist Web

A day after the mass killing at Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, Virginia, along with grief and dismay, some reflections on life in the US are clearly in order. The event was horrifying, but no one who has followed the evolution of American society over the past quarter-century will be entirely shocked. Such psychopathic episodes, including dozens of multiple killings or attempted killings in workplaces and schools, have occurred with disturbing regularity, particularly since the mid-1980s. A timeline assembled by the Associated Press and the School Violence Resource Center lists some 30 school and college shootings alone since 1991.

Speaking of the Blacksburg killings, Bush commented: “Those whose lives were taken did nothing to deserve their fate. They were simply in the wrong place at the wrong time. Now they’re gone—and they leave behind grieving families, and grieving classmates, and a grieving nation.” If he and his cronies were not entirely immune to the consequences of their own policies, it might strike them that they could be speaking about the masses of the dead in Iraq, who have also done “nothing to deserve their fate.”

The events at Virginia Tech follow almost eight years to the day the mass killing at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado, in which 15 people died. At the time, the media and politicians performed a ritual breast-beating, with Bill Clinton in the lead. Much was made of the need for new gun controls, increased security in the schools and the need to counsel troubled students. Then, as now, official American public opinion refused to recognize the killings as a social disorder.

What has occurred in the intervening years? Can anyone argue that American society has developed since 1999 in such a manner as to make tragedies similar to Columbine less likely?

Everyday life in America has continued to have a violent, remorseless backdrop. In April 1999 US and NATO forces were launching cruise missile after cruise missile against the former Yugoslavia and inflicting lethal sanctions and periodic bombing raids on Iraq. Somalia and Afghanistan had also already come in for punishment from the Clinton administration. American militarism, however, has truly flourished in the present decade. The USMiddle East for most of the eight years since Columbine. Following a hijacked election and making use of the terrorist attacks on September 11, the Bush-Cheney regime launched a war based on lies. The lesson taught by the ruling elite is clear: in achieving one’s aims, any sort of ruthlessness is legitimate.

At the same time, the social gap in America has widened in the past decade. By 2005 the top one-tenth of 1 percent of the US population earned nearly as much income as the bottom 150 million Americans. Those 300,000 wealthy individuals each received 440 times as much income as the average person in the poorest half of the population, nearly doubling the divide from 1980. The rich lord it over everyone else, piling up fortunes that come directly at the expense of wide layers of working people. Society is divided starkly into “winners” and “losers.” For the latter, the future is bleak.

The decay of social solidarity, the domination of the political process by cash, the erosion of democratic rights, the transformation of the media into more or less a propaganda arm of the government and the Pentagon—all of these processes, under way in 1999, have now attained a far more finished state.

More generally, the past twenty-five years have witnessed a sharp lurch to the right by the American political and media establishment, driven by its relative economic decline, and an accompanying coarsening and degeneration of the social atmosphere. Brutality in language and action is now the preferred policy of the powers that be.

The proliferation of violence, the continuous appeals to fear, the incitement of paranoia—all of this has consequences, it creates a certain type of climate. American society has for so long tried to cover up or ignore its most pressing problems. What are the official responses? Punishment first, then the invocation of the deity. The suppression of contradictions, however, doesn’t make them disappear.

The culture as a whole has suffered. Without giving any ground to the right-wing morality police, the prevalence of video games, popular music and films that celebrate rape and killing can hardly be taken as a sign of social well-being. Every effort has been made to atomize people, to render them callous and inured to the suffering of others. Human life has been devalued and often held in contempt.

Clearly, there have been consequences. The ability to kill one’s fellow students methodically in cold blood reveals a terrible level of social anomie. A doctor at Montgomery Regional Hospital, where the injured were treated, commented: “The injuries were amazing. This man was brutal. There wasn’t a shooting victim that didn’t have less than three bullet wounds in him.”

The gunman in Blacksburg, a 23-year-old Korean-American, Cho Seung-Hui, is one of those forlorn individuals who inevitably figure in such tragedies. He was a “loner,” says one college official. His roommates describe him as “weird,” a young man who ate by himself, refused to engage in conversation, appeared to have no friends or girl-friends and who sat at his computer for hours or simply sat “staring at his desk, just staring at nothing.”

Cho’s English professor indicated that there “were signs he was troubled,” based on his work in a creative writing course and directed him to counseling. One of his fellow students in a playwriting class described his work as “really morbid and grotesque.” She remembered one of his plays: “It was about a son who hated his stepfather. In the play the boy threw a chainsaw around, and hammers at him. But the play ended with the boy violently suffocating the father with a Rice Krispy treat.” It’s unpleasant to have to acknowledge, but would such a scenario be unthinkable in the contemporary American film industry?

Cho, who came to the US as a child and attended high school in Fairfax County, Virginia, in suburban Washington, DC, left behind a note, in which he reportedly ranted against “rich kids,” “debauchery” and “deceitful charlatans.” He also wrote, “You caused me to do this.” According to school authorities, the young man posted a warning on a school online forum, “im going to kill people at vtech today.”

This was a troubled person, but nothing was done. He fell through the cracks, like so many. There are plenty of well-meaning individuals in America, more than willing to lend a hand, but as a society it is uncaring. Many obstacles—institutional, financial—block the way of truly helping people, and all of this takes place in unyieldingly competitive conditions.

What has been learned since Columbine about the source of this social alienation? A perusal of the editorials in the nation’s major newspapers would inevitably draw one to the conclusion ... essentially nothing.

Virtually no portion of the media coverage is devoted to the social causes of the events. The political and media establishment responds to the Virginia Tech massacre as it does to every significant indication of social malaise, with a combination of denial and self-delusion. In deluding themselves that the epidemic of shootings can be treated by increased vigilance or the transformation of campuses into fortresses, the politicians and editorialists demonstrate how far from reality they are.

Such events bring home how necessary it is for another way to be found, for more sensitive answers, real answers to problems. This, in turn, raises the need for a different social orientation, which calls into question the present foundations of American society. And such searching critiques should not be reserved only for moments of national calamity.

Note: Higlights are not in the original.

Bajrang Dal's Social Service!

2007-04-12T21:46:00.000-07:00

News Item from Times of India
Dated April 12, 2007
Image Courtesy: CNN-IBN
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MUMBAI/BHOPAL: In an unusual development, Bombay High Court and MP High Court came to the rescue of a Muslim-Hindu couple, Mohammed Umer and Priyanka Wadhwani, who were facing death threats allegedly from Bajrang Dal after their marriage.

On April 2 Priyanka and Umer left Bhopal for Mumbai. The next day Umer underwent shuddhikaran (purification ceremony) and converted to Hinduism after changing his name to Umesh. The same day they got married in a traditional Hindu ceremony.

Despite both being adults the Bhopal police had lodged a case of kidnapping against Umer. "His brother was picked up by the Koh-Fiza police in Bhopal and detained illegally," the couple's petition filed in the Bombay High Court alleged.

Justice Ranjana Desai and Justice Dilip Bhosale of Bombay High Court held that the couple who had fled from Bhopal to take shelter in Mumbai were married and ordered the Mumbai police to provide them protection.

The judges have also restrained the Bhopal police from arresting Umer against whom a case of kidnapping has been registered at the behest of the girl's parents.

"We are relieved," said Priyanka, emerging out of the court. "I left of my own free will and was not kidnapped. My husband's family is being harassed by the police in MP and we hope the court's order will put a stop to it."

The family dispute over the inter-religious marriage took a political colour when Bajrang Dal activists organised protests outside Umer's home in Bhopal. The couple also said they were threatened with physical harm if they returned to Bhopal.

The Bombay HC judges interviewed Priyanka in their chamber where she reiterated that she was an adult and had left her parents' house of her own will. Besides ordering protection to the couple, the judges have also asked Bhopal SP to file a reply to the couple's petition by April 18.

Madhya Pradesh High Court in Jabalpur, too, directed the state government to provide security to the newly-wed. The ruling was given on a writ filed by Mohammed Samin, one of the brothers of Umer.

In its order to the principal secretary, home, and the Bhopal collector and SP, the court has asked them to ensure the couple's safety. State advocate general R N Singh submitted before the court that the state government would provide full protection to the couple.

Chief Justice A K Patnaik and Justice K K Lahoit also directed Kohe-Fiza PS in-charge to file a reply on Samin's allegation that one of his brothers was detained at the PS on April 13.

In Bhopal, Bajrang Dal activists took to the streets, clashing with a large contingent of police, including RAF and SAF personnel, deployed in old city for protection of the minority community.

The saffrong outfit has called for Bhopal bandh on Thursday. Bajrang Dal has also announced formation of a Hindu Kanya Raksha Samiti for the protection of Hindu girls following two recent cases of inter-communal elopement.

Incidentally, Umer's family is not ready to accept him as a Hindu. His father, Shafiq Pathan, said, "Since he has converted, let him live with his wife wherever he wants to. Let him not come here and disrupt our lives." Two of Pathan's sons are married to Hindu girls who converted to Islam.

"His first son, Akeel, had eloped with the daughter of an ex-Dgp. The officer left town and didn't return. His second son Shakeel eloped with a judge's daughter. If two Hindu girls can convert to Islam and live in his house, why can't he accept Umar as a Hindu?" asked a Bajrang Dal man.
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Response from me, whom they will call as a 'muslim-appeasing', 'anti-national', 'terrorist', 'pseudo-secularist' etc., etc., ,

‘Purification’ ceremony for umer!

So now who has converted whom? advani can rest at peace, Ram Rajya has come in to existence.

Bhopal bandh!

now you can understand how patriotic and socially responsible Bajrang Dal Men are? they immediately react for such 'necessary', 'public' issues that haunt our country and they 'restrain' themselves politely from 'unnecessary', 'private issues' like privatisation, globalisation onslaught, farmer suicides, FDI in retail sector etc.,

Kanya Raksha Samithi!

Initially they formed Ko Raksha Samithi(cow safegaurding committee). now they have formed Kanya Raksha Samithi like Babu Bajrangi of Gujarat whose life has been 'dedicated' to save hindu girls being 'lured' from Muslim boys. So what they mean atlast? girls are more or less equal to cows, an house-hold animal which cannot protect itself by its own sense and needs to be safegaurded.

I request hindu girls and boys who feel humiliated by these Bajrang Dal acts to make a vow that they will never marry within their caste and will only marry in other castes or other religions particularly from muslim religion.

My wish is to die!

2007-04-11T22:07:00.000-07:00

“My wish is to die,” 27-year-old Adnan Farhan Abdullatif of Yemen said through his lawyer. “We are living in a dying situation.”

This is the voice emerging out of Gaunatanamo Bay,a hell on earth built by US to 'deal' with the Jihadi terrorist 'suspects'. The horror stories of Gauntanamo inmates are beyond human imagination and US is on its pursuit brazenly surpassing condemnation of all countries. Now at the end of the long tunnel, rays of hope have started emreging as the inmates have started a hunger strike.

We are with you Guantanamo detainees!
People of all countries,
protest against the torture of Guantanamo detainees! Down with US Imperialism! Victory to the hunger strike!

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from countercurrents
Hunger Strike Expanding Despite Repression At Guantánamo Prison Camp
By Tom Carter
12 April, 2007
World Socialist Web

Despite the threat of retaliation by prison guards, several more Guantánamo prisoners recently joined an ongoing hunger strike, according to an April 8 article in the New York Times. US authorities acknowledge that 13 prisoners are now on hunger strike, though lawyers who have recently visited the prison put the number as high as 40.

In October 2005, after as many as 150 prisoners, or more than a third of the prison’s population, had joined a long-running hunger strike, the prison authorities ordered a ruthless force-feeding crackdown. Hunger strikers were strapped to restraint chairs, and feeding tubes were forcefully inserted through the prisoners’ nostrils without anesthetic, often while the prisoner struggled to remove the tube. Prison guards lacking the requisite medical training used tubes “with the bile and the blood still on the tube from the previous detainee,” according to one lawyer who spoke with the victims of this procedure.

The number of strikers dropped precipitously in the face of this vindictive policy.

That a hunger strike could now expand under conditions where prisoners can expect this treatment can only reflect the desperation of the Guantánamo inmates, who have been placed outside the protection of both international and US federal law. Many of the inmates, some of whom were captured as teenagers, are in their fifth year of incarceration, and in the five-year history of the camp, only 10 prisoners have ever been charged with a crime.

“My wish is to die,” 27-year-old Adnan Farhan Abdullatif of Yemen said through his lawyer. “We are living in a dying situation.”

The newly expanded Guantánamo Bay prison houses almost 400 individuals, most swept up in the initial stages of the invasion of Afghanistan in 2002 and carried away by US soldiers. The prison’s name has become synonymous with torture, humiliation, religious persecution, sexual abuse, and the abrogation of the most basic democratic rights associated with the so-called “war on terror.”

The brutal force-feeding practices at Guantánamo have been widely documented and roundly denounced by numerous human rights watch groups, including the American Civil Liberties Union, Amnesty International (AI), the Center for Constitutional Rights, Human Rights First, the UN Human Rights Commission, and Physicians for Human Rights.

A recent AI report cited one prisoner who described how “three times, the tube had been inserted the wrong way so that it went into his lungs; he said he frequently vomited after being force-fed and was not given clean clothes.”

“Guards have allegedly subjected hunger-striking detainees in one block to further punitive treatment,” the report continued, “such as pepper spraying them or turning the air-conditioning up high.”

Sami al-Hajj, a 38-year-old former cameraman for the Al-Jazeera news agency, described the terror and pain that accompanied the prolonged presence of the feeding tube in his throat in a diary entry he gave to his lawyer: “I said I would begin to scream unless they took it out.... They finally did.”

Navy Cmdr. Robert Durand, a Guantánamo spokesman, acknowledged in statements to the press that all of the current hunger strikers are being force-fed though feeding tubes inserted through the nose. Some have been relocated to a special “feeding block” outfitted with restraint chairs designed for the more determined hunger strikers.

Guantánamo officials have defended the practice of force-feeding as “safe and humane.”

According to lawyers for the inmates, the renewed hunger strike is largely a response to the opening in December 2006 of a $38 million concrete-walled facility dubbed “Camp 6,” which features tiny, sealed, windowless cells for each inmate. Many inmates who were formerly housed in primitive cages next to other inmates now find themselves arbitrarily placed in solitary confinement in Camp 6, deprived of all contact with other inmates and the outside world.

According to the recent AI report, prisoners at Camp 6, which houses 160 inmates, are kept locked in their sealed cells for 22 hours a day and are only allowed two hours of exercise in mesh cages each day. Bright fluorescent lights are kept on at all times, temperatures are kept low, contact between prisoners is forbidden, virtually no personal items are allowed, and female guards watch prisoners while they shower and use the toilet.

Under these conditions, it is no surprise that the mental health of the prisoners deteriorates rapidly and prisoners are willing to take more reckless and desperate actions to call attention to their situation.

“They’re just sitting on a powder keg down there,” lawyer Sabin Willett told the Times. “You’re going to have an insane asylum.”

Reliance Fresh: Deadly fresh

2007-04-10T02:37:00.000-07:00

Reliance, a corporate rogue which is built with deceit, forgery and all sorts of fraudulent acts at each and every step from its inception, has opened its chain of stores named ‘Reliance Fresh’ in Chennai. It has opened 14 stores covering major locations with expanding its tentacles every nook and corner of the city.

The wholesale grocery market at Koyambedu, a location at North Chennai which is delivering the groceries to Chennai and its surroundings has felt the instant tremors. Sales have fallen by 40% percent than before and the Number of small traders coming to Koyambedu for procurement has got reduced. Labourers dependent on the market have lost their income and jobs. As a whole, the lives of one lakh families dependent on Koyambedu Market are at stake.

Following Reliance, Tata and Birla also foray in to the Retail market with their chain of stores all over India. Moreover, American Wal-Mart, Metro from GermanyIndia. and Carrefour of France had announced their plans to open their retail outlets in the major cities of India.

India stands fourth in the Retail sales in the International level. The Indian reatil sector is estimated to be worth of 12 Lakh Crore per annum and the Chennai Market alone is of 20 Crore. It has been roughly estimated as more than 4 Crore people are engaged in Retail Sector. The MNC’s, TNC’s and the Vultures of Shining India are trying to swallow this entire market and to wipe out the ‘hurdles’ that come across their way.

Finance Minister P.Chidambram, the living example of all colonial traitors says that by allowing MNC’s and the comprador capitalists like Tata, Reliance etc., the farmers will be assured of fair rates and with the ‘elimination’ of Intermediaries consumers can also enjoy low costs. According to that ‘Intelligent’ definition, from the wholesale dealer who buys vegetables from farmers to the road-side grocery vendor, all are ‘Intermediaries’ and they are the ones who are getting ‘eliminated’ now. The crux of the issue is not only the loss of business of small retail traders with the MNC entry but it’s far above that. Markets, whoesale sales and retail form an axis of the economy while productive sectors like Agriculture, textile, industries form the other axis. By exerting their might on the former axis, MNC’s try to control the latter axis of economy.

If production, sales and retail will fall in to the hands of 10-20 MNC’s, then all prices will be under their dictate and nobody can defy them. Like the cement traders of today, they will dictate the prices of all essential commodities and will plunder the people. The arguments of Chidambaram is rubbish as Ambani is not coming to Chennai with 3000 Crores to ensure fair rates for the farmers or for ensuring cheap prices to consumers. Middle class fools too buy this argument by astonishing at the A/C showrooms and the attractive schemes of Reliance.

In the name of hygiene and consumer consciousness, a vicious propaganda is on set by the State that people shouldn’t buy products which are not sealed and not to buy goods without bill. What is the state of hygiene in MNC Products? isn’t the glossy covered Cadbury’s chocolate was found with worms and got banned in Maharashtra? The Killer Coke bottles were found with cockroaches, lizards, nails and even condoms. Was the Coke and Pepsi were banned even after it was proved that they had pesticide residuals that could cause cancer? What about the tightly sealed ‘Lays’ chips that hang around in all petty shops? Isn’t the chemical mixtures added in ‘Lays’ to avoid decomposition were clinically proved to cause cardiac arrest?

Is bill is the sole criteria for consumer safety? Ofcourse Reliance billed its consumers who used its mobile services to make calls to US and UK. But it forged those calls as local calls and deceived the Indian Government for about 3000 Crores. This fully deserved financial crime of Reliance was forgiven by its friend Dayanidhi Maran, the communications minister with a meager fine. A ‘Consumer’ from Chennai has filed a case on the fraudulent act of Reliance Mobiles. Last year it has announced a contest named ‘Film Dhamaka’ and this ‘Consumer’ sent 6000 SMS messages at the cost Rs.6/- per message to the Number 8888. After paying 36,000/- as bill, now he is fighting at the Court that Reliance has not actually conducted the contest and had not given any prize to anyone till date. Do we need any other example to show how cheap tricks can reliance play?

Retail trading in India is the last resort of people who are driven out of all other trades. State and Capitalist vultures want to ‘eliminate’ them even from that verge. Supreme Court showed its complicity by locking the shops of Delhi small traders. In Metros, Platform shops were bulldozed. As a final decisive blow, VAT was implemented to facilitate the entry of MNC’s all over India.

All the parliamentary firebrands are conspicuously maintaining their silence or had washed their hands with formal statements. Even the so-called Left parties are satisfied with their ritual statements. India is not a sovereign country. It has been sold to World Bank, WTO, US and MNC’s. Nationalism, Regionalism, and all those sorts of political trends of India are just jugglery of words and they are not even capable of throwing even a tomato away from the Reliance Shops.

Ambani is not the only one and Koyambedu is not a separate issue. MNC’s are entering in Retail sector only on the pretext of Privatisation and Liberalisation, and the traders of Koyambedu cannot defeat them individually. All compradors of India are backing Ambani. State Machinery, Police, Courts, Political parties and MNC’s are behind them. To defeat such a big enemy, all people affected due to Globalisation need to stand one and by fighting alone they will not be able to move even an inch.

Hunger strikes of traders will not give any results. Strikes and Ghereos are to be organised in the door steps of Reliance Shops. People should boycott Reliance shops and should realise that the so-called freshness assured is just a farce and each and every paisa spent at Reliance shops is nothing but a nail on the coffins of Lakhs and Lakhs of fellow people who served us all these days with all their hard work. We shouldn’t be like Nero’s guests who stood muted to the burning of slaves for the party lights.

Reliance is the first Serpent that had poured its venom in the retail sector. More and more massive serpents are on the pipeline. The only option left out is to slay the snake instead of shivering with fear and get bitten.

Sarfaroshi ki tamanna ab hamare dil me hain, Dekhna hain zor kitna bazuven khatil mein hain.

(The passion of Patriotism linger in our hearts, Let’s see, how powerful the weapons of enemies are! )*

This post is an abridged version of the booklet released by People’s Art and Literary Association (PALA), New Democratic Labour Front (NDLF), Revolutionary Students Youth Front (RSYF) and Peasants Liberation Front (PLF) in Tamil. These organisations have planned for a protest encircling Reliance Fresh Shops in Chennai on coming May 1, 2007.

* One of the favorite songs of Bhagat singh and his comrades.

Corporate Party of India (Murderers) – CPI (M)

2007-04-06T02:30:00.000-07:00

“ Let us not get into the issue of whether the “growth rate” has actually accelerated or not; doing so would entail precisely an acceptance of the problematic of “vulgar economy”. But to say that a “high growth rate”, no matter how it is achieved or what it entails by way of changing social relations, will overcome poverty, is to concentrate only on “thingness” and be oblivious to social relations, to accept the analogy of the “cake”, (“a bigger cake is good for all”) which is a thing, a materiality, apparently devoid of any connection with the realm of social relations. This is “vulgar economy” par excellence. It obliterates social relations to a point where poverty, an expression of social relations, is made dependent on the size of a material object, a “thing”, called the GDP (the “cake”).

Marx was particularly emphatic about the fact that poverty was the expression of social relations: “Accumulation of wealth at one pole is .therefore at the same time accumulation of misery, agony of toil, slavery, ignorance, brutality, mental degradation, at the opposite pole, i.e. on the side of the class that produces its own product in the form of capital”. The “vulgarity” of contemporary “vulgar economy” consists in its claim that the size or the growth of a “thing”, seen completely in isolation from the social relations of which it is an expression, will overcome per se the social relations underlying poverty.”

- From ‘ The Assault of Vulgar Economy ’, Prabhat Patnaik, people’s democracy (CPI (M) magazine),17-09-06

When Buddhadeb clique ferociously argues for their ‘Development’ theory, Prabhat patnaik exposed the real meaning of ‘development’ in CPI (M) magazine itself some days before Singur and Nandigram. CPI (M) leadership probably believes that its cadres will never take these contradictions seriously. Now ‘Development’ theorists have shown their full face with Nandigram. Karat family is out with shameless arguments and like 70’s, CPI (M) is back with it's CIA propaganda.

In Nandigram they ask a ‘high moral’ question that how can they sit back and watch, when law and order is at stake? This year marks the 100^th Birth anniversary of Bhagat singh. let me quote from him.

" The sanctity of law can be maintained only so long as it is the expression of the will of the people."

When the people are deceived by its own elected government they have no other choice but to break the law and order as it’s no more the expression of the will of the people. With out being able to hide its real face, revisionist CPI (M) has now started to blabber mindlessly all the way.

Amit sengupta in the below article traces the trajectory of unmasking CPI (M) rightly from Naxalbari to Nandigram, slapping the CPI (M) in a clear voice. I feel, equating Naxalbari with Nandigram is not altogether right. While Nandigram is a ghastly massacre, Naxalbari is not an incident but a political path defying the revisionism of CPI and CPI (M), which changed the meaning of revolution once for all in India. As Amit sounds somewhat praising on CPI (M-L) (Liberation) in his short reference to it, I find it necessary to add my disclaimer. I think CPI (M-L) (Liberation) can never become an alternative to CPI (M) with their involvement with NGOs and opportunist Parliamentary line. It’s time for the CPI (M) cadres and intellectuals to come out of dogma and think from Nandigram to Naxalbari as the latter pronounced CPI (M) as butcherers and revisionists in 1970 itself. And for the Naxalbari revolutionaries, it's time we resolve our ideological-political differences to become a unified party and to practice mass line in a correct sense to face the engulfing dark era that grows day by day.

Thanks to Hard News.

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The train stops at Nandigram
Amit Sengupta,Delhi

After 30 years of being big bully, big brother in Orwellian West Bengal, with ‘Buddha’ being equated with Narendra Modi as ‘the role model of development’, Nandigram might mark the epitaph of the CPI(M) in ‘India Shining’

Those days, in the early 1970s, the slogan used to be in a fiery rhythm, almost a melody:

Aamar Naam, Tomar Naam, Shobaar Naam: Vietnam… Vietnam…
Aamar Bari, Tomar Bari, Shobaar Bari: Naxalbari… Naxalbari…

Literally, it means,

my name, your name, everyone’s name: Vietnam, Vietnam;
my home, your home, everyone’s home: Naxalbari, Naxalbari.

So it is not unpredictable or jarring, when the slogan, in 10 per cent growth rate, ‘Manmohanics India of March’, 2007, turns out to be as rhythmic and beautiful, almost Gandhian in its rooted simplicity:

Aamar Gram, Tomar Gram, Shobar Gram: Nandigram, Nandigram.
My village, your village, everyone’s village: Nandigram, Nandigram.

Like a flash of memory, and an inverted image of camera obscura, the slogan resurrects vicious cycle of epic tragedies: thousands of farmers in village after village committing suicides, every day, non-stop, in Vidharbha, Sangrur, Ananthapur; and thousands of farmers, dalits, tribals, being forcibly displaced to benefit big business and big projects, in Kashipur, Kalinganagar, Bastar, Punjab, Dadri, the Narmada valley, Tehri Garhwal.

Those days, in the early 1970s, the eclectic post-freedom idealism had failed. The dream of a young democracy after protracted sacrifices by revolutionaries like Bhagat Singh, Sukhdev, Rajguru, Batukeshwar Dutt, Khudiram Bose, Jatin Sen, Chandrashekhar Azad, Ashfaqullah Khan, Ramprasad Bismil, among thousands of others, had been subverted and sucked into a black hole of greed, injustice and inequality by the new feudal and economic elite. Those days the story was that the train never stopped at Naxalbari. And why should the train stop in that obscure village silence in West Bengal, near Siliguri and Darjeeling?

No one would then know that this silence would one day become a spring thunder, heard across the world, become etched as a landmark of history, a rupture within and outside the ‘official Left’. Four decades after this sudden, stunning, spontaneous uprising rocked West Bengal and other flash-points in ‘unfree India’, followed by cold-blooded State repression whereby an entire generation was wiped out by the Congress and CPI(M) establishments, will Nandigram become another Naxalbari?

“Yes,” says Dipankar Bhattacharya, General Secretary, CPI-ML (Liberation). “Nandigram will mark a turning point in history. It will reassert the struggle of village India, the poorest farmers, versus the corporate sharks who are backed by the State. In West Bengal, the CPI(M) has become an agent of the capitalists. Look at the irony, between ‘Siddharth’ Shankar Ray, who led the elimination brigades after Naxalbari along with the CPI(M), and Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee, the current icon of capitalism, the similarity is not only of politics, but also of name: both mean ‘Buddha’ but both are a shame on Buddha. If the CPI(M) continues this repressive and brazenly pro-business, anti-farmer politics, it will create space for the Right-wing in Bengal. And we will not allow that to happen.”

So it is significant that March 23 marked the 100th birth anniversary of Bhagat Singh. This year also marks the 150th anniversary of the great anti-British rebellion of 1857, which Marx called the first war of Indian Independence. And since history takes you by surprise, you become blind when it stares you at point-blank range. Because here, in the heart of Delhi, in memory of the martyrs of 1857 and Bhagat Singh, and in protest against the Nandigram massacre and SEZs, almost 2,50,000 people, the poorest of the poor from all parts of rural India, waving tens of thousands of red flags, shouted in one voice:

SEZs murdabad,
Nandigram lal salaam,
Inquilab zindabad.

They came in disciplined, non-violent, totally committed and organised groups led by the CPI-ML (Liberation): from Giridih in Jharkhand and Arwal in Jehanabad, to Singur in Bengal, Sonebhadra in UP, Karbi Anglong in Assam, Mansa in Punjab and interiors of South India. They came in waves of red, the people of India, the invisible majority; there were no traffic jams, no violence, not a moment of metropolitan disruption. This was perhaps the biggest rally in years in the capital and the topical backdrop was the Nandigram massacre.

Next day, not a word was reported in any of the big papers in Delhi. Not one word. As if, this India, this massive protest, does not exist. But this India exists, in affirmation and hope, in sacrifice and struggle, in dissent and resistance. Because revolutions don’t happen in Lakme fashion shows or in the big bucks of schizophrenic cricket, when the entire media lost it. People learn from history, from mistakes of the past. Revolutions move relentlessly in invisible spirals, of quiet, volcanic, unseen social unrest, in the daily struggles of survival and despair, when the radical turning point is waiting in the next bylane of an unknown village. Like Naxalbari, Nandigram and Kalinganagar. And when it happens, even the ‘official Left’, riding the bourgeois bandwagon, goes berserk, as the CPI(M) cadre and police did in the massacre of Nandigram. To protect the interests of a notorious MNC Salem, which aligned with dictator Suharto, when 2 million communists, dissenters and human rights activists were killed in Indonesia.No wonder Buddha says that capital has no ideology or colour.

Almost the entire country is witness to this revulsion, this brazen sell out of the Left to the Right. “If you want to behave like a capitalist party, declare it openly and go ahead. But don’t kill people,” said Prabhu Mahapatra, professor of history at Delhi University, in the protest in Delhi one day after the massacre. “The genocide is not over. The genocide is going on. Now. And why have the Left allies lost their speech?” asked an anguished Sumit Chakravarty, editor, Mainstream, joining the protestors. “The CPI(M) cadre and the police have become agents of the corporates. They have unleashed a reign of terror. They want to teach a lesson to all those who are protesting against forcible land acquisition,” said Medha Patkar, who has repeatedly fought her way through police barricades into the prohibited zones of Nandigram and Singur. Even as I write this, she is in jail, as the ‘Sangharsh 2007’ campaign of hundreds of people’s movements, take on the UPA government, backed by the Left Front. While seeking a ban on privatisation of water outside Montek Singh’s Planning Commission, she and other activists were smashed by the police, and packed off to jail.

Across the spectrum eminent intellectuals have protested against the CPI(M) policies in Bengal: historians Romilla Thapar, Tanika Sarkar, Sumit Sarkar, novelist Arundhati Roy, journalist Praful Bidwai – and they are not right-wingers, so even the CPI(M)’s propaganda machinery can’t brand them and get away. What is also significant is the eerie silence of the ‘CPI(M)’ intellectuals, including economists Jayati Ghosh, Prabhat Patnaik, Utsa Patnaik, CP Chandrashekhar and CPI(M)’s cultural front, Sahmat, even while an unrepentant Sitaram Yechuri and Brinda Karat blamed the people of Nandigram for the massacre. It took two weeks for these intellectuals to issue a muted statement. Not surprising, because the CPI(M) also supported the Tiananmen Square massacre, and branded the fasting pro-democracy students as ‘CIA agents and juvenile delinquents’. And doesn’t Nandigram remind of the Gujarat genocide: murderous, rapist VHP/Bajrang Dal mobs unleashed, backed by the police and the BJP regime?

A poster said it all in Delhi: Capitalist Party of India (Murderers) – CPI(M). After 30 years of being big bully, big brother in Orwellian West Bengal, with ‘Buddha’ being equated with Narendra Modi as ‘the role model of development’ by Right-wing journos, this poster might mark the epitaph of the CPI(M) in this neo-liberal epoch of ‘India Shining’. Because these days the train stops at Naxalbari. As it will, in Nandigram.

Because,

your village,
my village,
everyone’s village is Nandigram, Nandigram...