Editor: Rekha Saraswat

THE RADICAL HUMANISTJULY 2014Vol. 78 No 3 Rs. 20/month

(Since April 1949)Formerly : Independent India

(April 1937- March 1949)

532

Founder Editor: M.N. Roy

THE RADICAL HUMANIST JULY 2014

The Radical Humanist

Monthly journal of the

Indian Renaissance InstituteDevoted to the development of the

Renaissance Movement; and for promotion of

human rights, scientific-temper, rational

thinking and a humanist view of life.

Founder Editor:

M.N. Roy

Editor:

Dr. Rekha Saraswat

Contributory Editors:

Prof. A.F. Salahuddin Ahmed, Dr. R.M. Pal,

Professor Rama Kundu

Publisher and Printer:

Mr. N.D. Pancholi

Send articles to: Dr. Rekha Saraswat, C-8,

Defence Colony, Meerut, 250001, U.P., India,

Ph. 91-121-2620690, 09719333011

E-mail articles at: [email protected]

Send Subscription / Donation Cheques in

favour of The Radical Humanist to:

Mr. Narottam Vyas (Advocate), Chamber

Number 111 (Near Post Office), Supreme Court

of India, New Delhi, 110001, India

[email protected]

Ph. 91-11-22712434, 91-11-23782836,

09811944600

Please Note: Authors will bear sole

accountability for corroborating the facts that

they give in their write-ups. Neither IRI / the

Publisher nor the Editor of this journal will be

responsible for testing the validity and

authenticity of statements & information cited by

the authors. Also, sometimes some articles

published in this journal may carry opinions not

similar to the Radical Humanist philosophy; but

they would be entertained here if the need is felt

to debate and discuss upon them.

—Rekha Saraswat

Vol. 78 Number 4 July 2014

www.theradicalhumanist.com

1. From the Editor’s Desk:

Our Democratic Illiteracy defined in Kejriwal's

Defeat!!

—Rekha Saraswat 1

2. From the Writings of M.N. Roy:

Historical Role of Islam: The Mission of Islam 2

3. Guests’ Section:

Unconditional Basic Income for all Indians

—R.K.A. Subrahmanya 4

Who bothers about Political Cleansing?

—S.N. Shukla 6

4. Current Affairs’ Section:

Umbrage Against Activists; Switching over to

Hindi?India too passive on Iraq

—Kuldip Nayar 9

Ideological Cronies under Late Capitalism;

Lumpenisation of Rural Youth

—K.S. Chalam 14

5. IRI / IRHA Members’ Section:

Untenable Arguments on the Abrogation Article

370 of Constitution of India

—K. Pratap Reddy 19

6. Academicians' Section:

Authentic Interpreter of Cultural and Spiritual

Heritage

—Ashok K. Chaudhury 21

7. Book Review Section:

Policies from Paris

—Dipavali Sen 29

8. Humanist News Section: 32

a) C.F.D. National Conference; b) 83rdAnnual

Conference of Rationalist Association of India &

18th Biennial Conference of A.P. Rationalist

Association c) Citizens sign against IB Report on

Movements for Secular Democracy d) Civil

society groups assert freedom of expression,

Contents

From The Editor's Desk:

Our Democratic Illiteracy:defined in Kejriwal's Defeat!

Who lost this time? The Indian citizen! Who won

this time? The money, might and media triad, as

always!

Why could Kejriwal not win the people’s faith this

time? Because we Indian voters could not build our

faith in our own selves!

On his part, he could not wave the magic wand and

bring all our troubles to a logical end in Delhi,

when given a chance..

Rather, to our surprise, he began seeking answers

from us for our tribulations. We had depended upon

him to solve our problems as we are culturally

accustomed to do in our democratic monarchy!!

And thus, Delhi served as a fiasco for him!

He could not do wonders for us there. On top of it,

his leaving the C.M. chair was not a sacrifice but an

act of cowardice according to us.

We expected him to steer our boat through the

scum of politics and give us relief in our daily lives,

by hook or by crook. He chose to do neither.

He neither had the aura nor the arrogance of a ruler.

We missed both in him!

We sought in him the authority of a sovereign and

the enigma of a leader!! He was capable of neither!

When we began ridiculing his simplicity we

actually were ridiculing our own worth!

His muffler, his coughs, his chappals – we didn’t

want to identify with any of them because we have

had enough of these in our own lives.

We easily threw ink at him, we slapped him and we

tested his patience from every corner! He kept

saying sorry; he kept begging excuse!

Oh no, we realized that he was actually a common

man and, like us, if he could not save his own

dignity on the streets how could he be our savior!!

And the most important reason for his defeat was

the test that he wanted to put us to. We suddenly

realized that if we were expected to guide him to

solve our problems then we had to become

responsible towards the state, towards the society,

towards our neighbourhood and towards our own

selves. We wanted to do nothing of that sort.

We wanted twenty four hours electricity supply in

our homes and offices with bills reduced to the

minimum without reducing its usage and stopping

its pilferage.

We wanted regular water supply in our taps paying

least or no charges for it without controlling our

habits of wasting it.

We wanted regular hikes in our salaries with least

attendance in our work-places without external

checks and internal discipline.

Above all, we wanted a corruption-free state and

society without curtailing our own desires to earn

beyond our legal income for leading comfortable

lives and to pay more than the official charges for a

hassle-free delivery of goods and services to us.

How-so-ever vulnerable and gullible we, the

common people, may appear to be, we are not so

simple and innocent that we will harm our own

life-pattern of survival for a mission that is only

worthy of sermonizing and advocating as a noble

utopia upon others to follow!!

Let us keep blaming Kejriwal, Rahul and after

some time, Modi, one after the other for their

follies.

We are content with what we are and as we are;

democracy or no democracy!!

1


Rekha Saraswat

From the Writings of M.N. Roy:

Historical Role of IslamChapter III

Social and Historical Background of

Islam

In the beginning, the Arab collected his

tribute according to his peculiar code of

law and morality. But, in course of time, he

discovered that trade would be more profitable than

robbery. Of all the Arab tribes, the Koreish were

the first to exchange the turbulent for the peaceful

but more profitable profession. They inhabited the

coastline of the Red Sea and commanded the

Abyssinian trade long before the Asiatic traffic also

came their way. In the earlier centuries of the

Christian era, the capital of the Koreish tribe,

Mecca, had become the point where the important

trade routes from south to north and east to west

intersected. At Yemen, on the Arabian Sea, the

Koreish caravans took over the commodities from

India; at a point near modern Aden, their precious

burden was increased by the African riches from

Abyssinia. The journey northwards terminated at

the busy marts of Damascus, where corn and

manufactured articles were brought with the

exchange of aromatics, pearls, precious stones,

tusks etc. The lucrative exchanger diffused plenty

of riches in the streets of Mecca. When, later, the

east-west trade-route also passed through Mecca,

the prosperity of the Koreish became unbounded,

and their ambition proportionately grew.

But other Arabian tribes, jealous of their freedom,

and envious of the prosperity of the Koreish, stood

faithfully by their traditional codes of law and

morality, whose profane origin was no longer

admitted. They were raised to the nobility of

offensive and defensive warfare, on the authority of

tribal Gods. The old national pastime of robbery

which had previously been played at the expense

and unwary strangers, turned out to be ruinous to

the new national occupation of trade. Termination

of the tribal feuds became an essential condition for

further political progress. The task of establishing

unity, by the logic of historical events, developed

upon those who controlled the economic forces

making for the historically necessary goal. The

Koreish appeared as the chosen people of history.

In the midst of their ceaseless feuds, all the Arabian

tribes worshipped and sacrificed at the temple of

Caaba near Mecca. The Koreish had seized the

control of the seat of national worship, and the

sacerdotal office of great power and extensive

privilege had been capture by the Hashemites – the

most important family of the tribe. The Hashemites

therefore, commanded national respect and

veneration, in addition to the opulence derived

from trade. Eventually, a scion of the Hashemite

family issued the call for unity in the form of a new

religion which denied all gods but one.

The severe monotheism of Mohammad not only

echoed the yearning for unity on the part of a

people torn asunder by internecine feuds; it was

also destined to find a ready response from the

neighbouring nations tormented by the intolerance

of the Catholic Church. The religious life of the

people of Persia, Mesopotamia, Syria, Palestine

and Egypt had been hopelessly confused by the

conflicts of Magian Mysticism, Jewish

2


M.N. Roy

conservatism and Christian bigotry. Rigid rites and

rituals had taken the place of religion; hypocritical

ceremonies had taken away devotion; dogmatic

theology had prosecuted faith; and God had disappeared

in a confused crowd of angels, saints and apostles. The

stringent cry of the new religion - “There is but one God”

– softened by great toleration, subject to this

fundamental creed, was enthusiastically hailed by the

distressed multitudes searching for the secure anchor of

a simple faith in the stormy sea of social disintegration,

intellectual bankruptcy and spiritual chaos. The historic

cry was raised by the caravan traders of Arabia who had

stood outside the ruinous conflict of arms and beliefs,

had prospered economically, and progressed in spirit,

while their older and more civilized neighbours had

stagnated, decayed and disintegrated. The propagation

of the stern belief in the Oneness of God prepared the

ground for the rise of a military State which unified all

the social functions – religious, civil, judicial and

administrative. The Unitarianism of the Saracens laid

the foundation of a new social order which rose

magnificently out of the ruins of the antique civilisation.

Such a creed was sure to attract the attention of the

multitudes barbarously persecuted for religious

heterodoxy. The new faith allowed freedom of

conscience to all who placed themselves under its

protection. Islam rose as a protection against religious

persecution and refuge for the oppressed.

The accommodating nature, cosmopolitan spirit,

democratic policy and the monotheistic creed of

Islam were the creation of the geographical

position of the land of its birth. Surrounded with

countries oppressed by native despotism or

devastated by foreign invasions, Arabia maintained

her freedom. The persecuted sects from Egypt and

Persia as well as from Christendom fled to the free

and hospitable desert where they could profess

what they thought, and practise what they

professed. When the Empire of the Assyrians was

conquered by the Persians, and the altars of

Babylon subverted by the Magis, the Sabian priests

retired to the neighbouring desert with their ancient

faith and the precious knowledge of astronomy.

Previously, Assyrian invasion had driven many a

devout son of Israel in the same hospitable

wilderness. All the Hebrew prophets, down to John

the Baptist, lived, meditated and preached in the

depth of the Arabian Desert. The invasion of

Alexander having avenged the wrong done to the

Assyrians, the more orthodox disciple of Zoroaster,

who did not wish to desecrate the purity of their

faith by the toleration of Greek idolatry, migrated

to the free atmosphere of the Arabian Desert to join

hands with the Babylonian adversaries.

Gnosticism and Manichaeanism – those hybrids of

oriental mystic cults – Greek metaphysics and

Christian Gospel, all thrived luxuriantly on the

sandy soil of free Arabia. Finally, Catholic

orthodoxy drove to the same smelting pot of

Arabian hospitality the Nestorian Jacobite and

Eutychian heretics who preferred the simplicity of

the Gospel to the idolatry of the orthodox Church.

Continued..............

[Publisher’s Note: This book, first published in

1939, was written when Roy was in jail in the early

thirties under a sentence of twelve years rigorous

imprisonment, later reduced to six, for ‘conspiring

to deprive’ the king-Emperor of his sovereignty in

India. Looking back at events in the intervening

period, one might wish that this book had been read

more widely in the decade before the Indian

sub-continent became independent and at the same

time partitioned into two States. A better

knowledge and more objective understanding of

the history of Islam on the part of Muslim as well as

non-Muslim India might have prevented much of

the later tragic developments and human suffering.

But it is never too late for knowledge and

understanding to undo the harm that the lack of

them has done. Hence, this small book on the

historical role of Islam, in East and West, may itself

have a historical role to play, apart from its

intrinsic value as a scholarly treatise, beautifully

written, on a fascinating chapter of human history.]

3


Guests' Section:

Unconditional Basic Income forall Indians

Livemint, a usually conservative

newspaper, in a recent issue, has

advocated the idea of introducing a scheme for

providing universal basic income for all Indians

scheme in India. The news paper article has

advocated introduction of the scheme on grounds

of equity. It says: “There are good reasons to

pursue the idea in India, the primary one being

equity. There is a strong case to provide UBI to all

Indians, a significant number of whom do not have

a regular source of income. The second reason,

which is equally important, is the damage that a

bloated government is inflicting on the Indian

economy. A vast number of “welfare schemes”,

“flagship programmes” and the like eat into a huge

amount of government revenue. In fact, the reason

why India is in such dire fiscal straits is the

explosion of such programmes and the money that

has to be borrowed to keep them running. The

macroeconomic consequences have been

devastating. If a lump-sum is handed out to every

Indian family, this flab can be cut easily.”

The idea that “building an effective minimum

income to all residents should be accepted as a

major challenge for social security policy” was

mooted by a committee appointed by the ILO to

chalk out the future of social security in the twenty

first century. The committee stated: “In the view of

the majority, a national minimum is essential to

meet what should be regarded as the first and

certainly an imperative challenge for any good

system of social security: the responsibility for the

disadvantaged and the under privileged. Where

people are deprived of income decent housing and

decent environment, opportunities to participate

fully in the life of the country in which they live,

and above all else, are deprived of self respect, they

cannot be said to be experiencing an acceptable

quality of life. Poverty is multi dimensional and so

normally are its causes. We are not arguing that a

minimum income is a solution to the problem of

poverty. A whole battery of services is needed to

help different groups of poor people to become full

participating members of society. But a minimum

income should be provided with other forms of

help when such help is appropriate. “

This idea has since gained momentum.

In Europe, the European Citizens’ Initiative has

asked European Commission to encourage

cooperation among the member States to explore

the possibility of introducing an Unconditional

Basic Income as a tool to improve their respective

social Security systems. The European

Commission has accepted the initiative of the

citizens to campaign for an Unconditional Basic

Income. The campaign was started on 14th Jan

2013. It aims to collect the statements of 500

million citizens in support of the demand. If they

are able to collect the required number statements

the European Commission will be required to

examine the proposal and to place it before the

European Parliament.

The main objectives of the Initiative is “to offer, in

the long run, to each person in the EU the

unconditional right as an individual, to having

his/her material needs met to ensure a life of

dignity as stated by the EU treaties, and to

empower participation in society supported by

4


R.K.A. Subrahmanya

the introduction of the UBI. In the short term, initiatives

such as “pilot-studies “(Art 156 TFEU) and

examination of different models of UBI (EP

resolution 2010/2039(INI) §44) should be

promoted by the EU.”

(The Initiative should reach 500 million citizens

within the European Union and collect one million

statements of support with minimum numbers

required for at least 7 member states. 20 member

states are already participating in this initiative by

Jan 14, 2014).

(Unconditional Basic Income has been defined to

mean “emancipatory universal, individual,

unconditional, income high enough to ensure an

existence in dignity and participation in society.

An Unconditional Basic Income (UBI) or Citizen’s

Income is a guaranteed income, given to all in

addition to any other income they might receive.

By advancing equality and economic participation

while enabling simpler welfare systems, UBI leads

to a fairer and more efficient society. )

In the meantime a German artist called Enno

Schmidt has initiated a basic income movement in

Switzerland. He says that “the basic income would

provide some dignity and security to the poor,

especially Europe’s underemployed and

unemployed. It would also, he said, help unleash

creativity and entrepreneurialism: Switzerland’s

workers would feel empowered to work the way

they wanted to, rather than the way they had to just

to get by. He even went so far as to compare it to a

civil rights movement, like women’s suffrage or

ending slavery.”

There is a similar scheme in China called Urban

“Minimum Living Standards Scheme” MLSS. The

MLSS is a social assistance programme initially

focused on the chronically poor, but later extended

to the long-term unemployed. The extension of the

MLSS led to a rise in the number of beneficiaries

from 2.6 million in 1999 to 20.6 million in 2002,

although long-term poor migrants remain

excluded. There has also been a broadening of the

MLSS, focused initially on mainly income

transfers, but later including education and health

exemptions, community work, and housing.

Having regard to these facts there seems to be a

case of introducing a scheme for payment of a

minimum income to all citizens who are below the

poverty line in replacement of the existing cash

benefits.

[Sri R.K.A. Subrahmanya, former Accountant

General in Assam Orissa, Tamilnadu and Kerala

was Addl Secretary in the Union Ministry of Labor

in 1979. He was Chairman of the Central Board of

Trustees of the EPFO, the Standing Committee of

the ESIC and the Central Board of Workers

Education and represented the Government of

India in the International Labor Conferences held

in Geneva for four years. He was the Chairman of

the Study Group on Social Security set up by the

National Commission on Labor. He was awarded a

Medal of Merit for his contribution to the cause of

social security by the International Social Security

Association in the year 2000. He is the Secretary

General of Social Security Association of India

since 1991. He may be contacted at: 573, 10th

cross, J.P.Nagar, IIIPhase, Bangalore 560078,

Telephone/Fax No.:91-080 -658 0797

[email protected]; [email protected]]

5


Dear Friends,

Your article for the RH should be emailed to me at: [email protected]. Or posted at:C-8, Defence

Colony, Meerut, 250001, U.P. Please send a passport size photograph and your brief resume if it is

being sent for the first time to the RH. A note whether it has also been published elsewhere or is being

sent exclusively for the RH should also be attached with it. — Rekha Saraswat

Who bothers about PoliticalCleansing?

The unanimous Resolution adopted by the

Parliament in 1997 at the time of Golden

Jubilee of Independence began with the resolve,

“That meaningful electoral reforms be carried out

so that our Parliament and other Legislative bodies

be balanced and effective instruments of

democracy; further that political life and process

be free of the adverse impact on governance of

undesirable extraneous factors including

criminalization.” While the successive

governments and Lok Sabhas did nothing in the last

17 years to implement the said Resolution, the

Supreme Court took the first major step towards

much needed political cleansing by striking down

on 10.7.2013 in its judgment in the writ petitions

filed by Lok Prahari and Lily Thomas, in that

order, the 62 years old prima facie obnoxious

provision in Section 8(4) of the Representation of

the People Act, 1951 which permitted even murder

convicts to continue as “Hon’ble” members of

Parliament/State Legislature.

Thereafter, while considering the recommendation

of the Law Commission that disqualification for

membership of Parliament/State Legislature

should be effective, subject to certain safeguards,

upon framing of charges, the Supreme Court

passed an interim order dated 10.3.2014 in the WP

(Civil) No. 536 of 2011 (Public Interest Foundation

& Ors. Vs. UoI & Another) to the following effect:

“11. Presently, we feel that a direction may be

issued in respect of MPs/MLAs who have charges

framed against them for conclusion of the trial

expeditiously to ensure the maintenance of probity

of public office. 12. We, accordingly, direct that in

relation to sitting MPs and MLAs who have

charges framed against them for the offences which

are specified in Section 8(1), 8(2) and 8(3) of the

RP Act, the trial shall be concluded as speedily and

expeditiously as may be possible and in no case

later than one year from the date of the framing of

charge(s). In such cases, as far as possible, the trial

shall be conducted on a day-to-day basis. If for

some extraordinary circumstances the concerned

court is being not able to conclude the trial within

one year from the date of framing of charge(s), such

court would submit the report to the Chief Justice

of the respective High Court indicating special

reasons for not adhering to the above time limit and

delay in conclusion of the trial. In such situation,

the Chief Justice may issue appropriate directions

to the concerned court extending the time for

conclusion of the trial. 13. List the matter after six

months.”

Thereafter, during the campaign for the recent Lok

Sabha elections the present Prime Minister also

said that he would request the Supreme Court to

fast track criminal cases against MPs to rid the

Parliament of criminal elements. After assuming

office he again emphasized the urgent need to

cleanse Parliament of members with tainted record

through judicial intervention and exhorted the

newly elected MPs to get criminal cases against

them expedited so that they are absolved of the taint

in case they were wrongly implicated. Obviously, it

is too much to expect they will invite their own

nemesis.

However, despite this, the aforesaid directions of

the Supreme Court and the PM’s exhortation seem

to have had little impact on expediting disposal of

the criminal cases against the sitting

MPs/MLAs/MLCs. This is apparent from the fact

that neither the Central and State Governments nor

6


S.N. Shukla

the Election Commission of India (ECI) even has

the details of such cases in which charges have

been framed. In the absence of this vital

information monitoring compliance of the

Supreme Court direction and requisite action on the

part of the concerned authorities in this regard is

just not possible.

Vide application dated 19.5.2014 this writer had

sought from the CPIO of the Election Commission

of India details of present MPs against whom

charges have been framed for offences u/s 8(1) (2)

& (3) of the RP Act 1951, and action taken on the

directions contained on the order dated 10.3.2014

of the Apex Court in the aforesaid WP. In his reply

dated 20.6.2014 he CPIO has informed that the

information sought about the MPs against whom

charges have been framed is not available in the

Commission. The disclosures made by the sitting

MPs in this regard in the affidavit in Form 26 are

available in the scanned copies of their affidavits

uploaded on the website of the Chief Electoral

Officers with a hyperlink to ECI website. As

regards action taken on the directions dated

10.3.2014 of the Apex Court, a letter has been sent

on 18.6.2014 to the Secretary, Legislative

Department, Ministry of Law & Justice for

informing the Commission as to whether the said

order has been brought to the notice of all

concerned for compliance, and for sending to the

Commission a copy of the instructions issued in

this regard. Apparently, even after more than 3

months the ECI has no information about the

action taken by the Ministry for ensuring

compliance of the Supreme Court directions for

disposal of such cases within a year.

Similar information was also sought vide

application dated 30.5.2014 from the CPIO of the

Department of Legal Affairs, Ministry of Law &

Justice. Strangely, the CPIO wrongly transferred

the application to the Registrar of the Supreme

Court for appropriate action on the specious plea

that “the subject matter of the application pertains

to Supreme Court of India”, even though it is for

the Ministry to ensure compliance of the directions

of the Supreme Court and the applicant had also

sought photocopies of the letters sent by the

department to the state government and other

authorities for compliance of these directions.

Apparently, the department has done nothing in

this regard and, still worse, does not even consider

it necessary to see that the prosecuting authorities

ensure that the directions of the Apex Court and the

pious declarations of the PM are honoured in a time

bound manner.

Vide application dated 2.4.2014 this writer had also

sought from the PIO of Home Department of UP

Government information against sitting

MLAs/MLCs against whom charges had been

framed by the Court till December 2012 and also

action taken on the directions given by the Apex

Court in the PIL by Public Interest Foundation &

Others for disposing of such cases within a year.

The PIO simply transferred the application to the

Principal Secretary, Vidhan Sabha UP and the PIO

UP DGP office after one and a half month as

against within 5 days stipulated in the RTI Act.

Apparently, the Home Department had not acted on

the Apex Court directions till then, which shows

the seriousness of state government about ensuring

compliance of the directions of the highest court.

The State Information Commission has also failed

to act till now to take any action against the PIO u/s

20 of the RTI Act despite complaint dated

15.5.2014. So much for the respect the

Commission has for the Act, which it is supposed to

enforce, and for the orders of the Supreme Court in

such an important matter like this.

The PIO of Vidhan Sabha Sachivalaya vide his

reply dated 11.6.2014 returned the application to

the PIO of the Home Department saying that

Vidhan Sabha Sachivalaya has no

information/record about criminal cases against the

members and does not possess the information

sought in the application.

The PIO of the DGP Office, vide his letter dated

7.6.2014 transferred the writer’s application to the

PIOs of the Zonal IGs and asked the applicant to

7


contact the PIOs of the Zonal IGs for getting the

information. The Zonal IGs in turn transferred the

application to their range DIGs asking the applicant

to contact PIOs of the range DIGs who ultimately

transferred it to the SSP/SP of the districts asking

the applicant to contact their PIOs to get the

information. However, not one has furnished the

desired information till now. Thus instead of the

home department or the DGP taking any action to

ensure compliance of the Apex Court directives for

disposal within a year of cases against

MPs/MLAs/MLCs in which charges have been

framed the applicant is being made to run from

pillar to post to get details of such cases. This is a

classic case of archaic working of the state

government even in this computer age. The proper

course of action would have been that soon after

coming to know about the directions of the Apex

Court the state government should have sent them

to the DGP who should have asked the District

Police Chiefs by email to furnish the same by

email. Apparently, the concerned authorities did

not consider it necessary to act with diligence and

promptitude in the matter as it concerns “Hon’ble”

under trial members of the state legislature whom

they dare not touch. As a result, even more than 3

months after the order of the Supreme Court the

state government is blissfully unaware of the

criminal cases against their MLAs/MLCs in which

charges were framed more than a year ago.

No wonder that despite State Legislative Assembly

having 188 MLAs with criminal cases, not one has

been disqualified upon conviction after the

landmark historic decision of the Supreme Court in

July 2013. Likewise, except for the initial

disqualification of the 3 MPs (Sarvashri Lalu

Prasad Yadav, Jagdish Sharma and Rashid

Masood) no MP has been convicted thereafter to

attract disqualification even though the previous

Lok Sabha had 162 MPs with criminal cases

against them and the present Lok Sabha has 53 MPs

against whom charges have been framed and face

disqualification if convicted.

The replies of the Public Information Officers of

the Central and State Government and the Election

Commission of India show the indifference and

callousness of the concerned authorities to ensure

that the commendable initiative of the Apex Court

for cleansing the Temples of the Democracy bears

desired fruit at the earliest and the PM’s promise of

taint free Parliament by 2015 is fulfilled. With this

attitude and approach of the powers that be, even

top Judiciary can hardly help the country.

[S.N. Shukla, retired IAS is an advocate and

General Secretary of Lok Prahari, Lucknow. He

may be contacted at: [email protected]]

8


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Current Affairs:

Umbrage Against Activists

Democracy and personal liberty should

never be taken for granted. This is a

warning that the imposition of the Emergency gave

39 years ago when the then Prime Minister, Mrs

Indira Gandhi, furtively extinguished the lights of

freedom on the night of June 25-26 to save her skin.

The Allahabad High Court had disqualified her as

an MP for six years for using official machinery

during her election campaign. Instead of stepping

down, she suspended the Constitution, imposed

Press censorship and constricted personal freedom.

More than 100,000 people were detained without

trial and all the opposition members, including

Jayaprakash Narayan who had led the movement

against her corrupt government, were put behind

bars. The worst was that she destroyed the

institutions which still have not regained their

health.

The lesson to learn is to have a transparent

government which can rule within the precincts of

the constitution. A strong government means an

effective government, not one person rule, which

negates the very parliamentary democracy that we

have preferred to the presidential form. People are

the masters and anything done to silence their say

goes against the very grain of our republic’s

democratic, pluralistic and egalitarian ideals.

Those who violated these principles were punished

when elections were held in 1977. Even a tall

person like Mrs Gandhi was defeated at the polls.

To know all this is important so that it does not

happen again. Yet some signs are starting to be

visible to remind us of those days when we see the

working of the governments. One of its wings, the

Intelligence Bureau (IB) has leaked out certain

passages of a report which alleges that the activities

of Non Governmental Organisations (NGO’s) have

brought down the rate of growth by two to three per

cent.

I cannot blame Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s

government because the report was obviously

prepared during the Congress rule of former Prime

Minister Manmohan Singh. But top bureaucrats are

responsible in putting across such information that

tarnishes the image of those who are working at the

grassroots. Some of the names mentioned in the

report are people of integrity and I, as an activist,

know them personally. Their defense that the

government has circulated “a cock and bull story”

is understandable because they have given years of

their lives to work for the welfare of people in rural

areas.

Disparagingly, they are called ‘jholawalas’. This

tag has been linked with them because they carry

shoulder bags which have grams, a frugal meal for

their long sojourns in remote parts. The allegation

against them that their protests or agitations have

stalled economic growth carries no conviction

because they are conscientious objectors against

big dams, nuclear power stations and the likes.

Take Medha Patkar who is associated with the

opposition to the Narmada Dam. No doubt she had

the World Bank loan for the project cancelled, but

her objection was that you could not displace

people without giving them alternative

accommodation. The opposition to the dam

became so strong at one time that the government

appointed the Narmada Tribunal which said in its

9


Kuldip Nayar

judgment that the people should be given an

equivalent site of land and a rehabilitation grant six

months before they are uprooted.

Gujarat, which is the main beneficiary, took the

responsibility of rehabilitating the displaced

persons. Initially land was given for land, but

subsequently cash awards were offered. Many took

it but today they are mere labourers because the

cash has not lasted for long. The new

announcement that the Narmada Dam would be

built to its original height and that the gates would

be installed amounts to the betrayal of the

understanding given that until the uprooted were

rehabilitated the dam’s height would not be raised.

Prime Minister Modi, hailing from Gujarat, may

not have anything to do with the decision that the

Narmada authorities have made. But he is bound to

be accused of giving his blessing for the additional

work. I recall that when the agitation against the

dam was at its height several Gujaratees told me

that the dam was their Kashmir. “If you do not

allow the dam to come up, we shall be forced to

take up guns as the separatists in Kashmir are

doing.”

The story of nuclear power station at

Koodamkulam in Tamil Nadu is no different.

Rightly, the people living in that area complained

that they did not want a nuclear plant in their midst

and they gave the example of Fukushima in Japan

where the radioactive nuclear fuel leaked into

surrounding areas. Still the plant has come up and is

working to its full capacity with all the hazards that

the inhabitants in that area face.

The point which emerges from such projects is that

the government cannot take people for granted and

that there is more to life than ends justifying the

means as they did in Communist China or

Communist Russia. But Mahatma Gandhi’s India

was different. Of course development is important

but it has to be balanced against the adverse fallout

affecting every individual.

India’s first Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, did

point out that there were two ways available to

build the future India: communist dictatorship or

democratic transparency and accountability. He

said that India had chosen the path of consensus,

which is an essential ingredient of a democratic

system.

I personally think that the costs of the project go up

and the delay in completion takes place because of

red tape-ism and corruption at every tier of

government, right up to the minister. The effort to

put the blame on NGOs is bound to go awry

because the media today is vigilant to expose the

scams even at the highest level. The Manmohan

Singh government was notorious for that. One

scandal after another would tumble out of its

cupboard. All the guilty have escaped punishment

because there is no accountability in the system.

In fact my fear is that the atmosphere of paranoia is

being built because some undemocratic steps are in

the offing. I hope they do not end up with another

Emergency, another era where dissent would be

construed as anti-national.

Switching over to Hindi?

I am convinced that the Narendra Modi

government is guided, if not goaded, by

the Hindi chauvinists. The Bhartiya Janata Party

(BJP) has several liberal leaders who realize that

the pace of switch over to Hindi would have to be

slow, keeping in mind unity in diversity.

Apparently, they do not have much say.

Within the very first fortnight of the Modi’s

regime, the central government offices have

received a circular that Hindi should be used on

social media. This is an entrance through the

backdoor. Non-Hindi speaking states spotted the

fugitive move and protested against it. New Delhi

readily withdrew its step and declared that the

circular was meant for the Hindi-speaking states.

This belated realization does not convince anyone.

I think the government was testing the waters.

When it found that what it considered an innocuous

10


step has evoked strong opposition, it changed its

stance. But the circular has done the damage. The

fears of non-Hindi speaking people have got

rekindled. And they are afraid of what may happen

tomorrow.

India has gone through large linguistic riots in the

late ‘50s and early ‘60s. At that time also the Home

Ministry had issued instructions to different

departments to make preparations for a switchover

from English to Hindi as laid down in the

constitution. Riots took place in southern states and

one man immolated himself in Tamil Nadu to

convey his refusal to accept Hindi. Even the old

slogan of secession got renewed.

The then Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, was

unhappy but did not want to interfere. However,

when he saw the fire spreading, he gave an

assurance on the floor of parliament that there

would be no switchover until the non-Hindi

speaking people themselves said that they were

ready for Hindi to be an exclusive language of

Union administration. This categorical statement

disappointed Hindi fanatics but the nation on the

whole heaved a sigh of relief that India had

retrieved from the brink.

No doubt, Modi feels at home with Hindi and his

sweep in the Lok Sabha elections is primarily

because of the campaign he led in Hindi, somewhat

Sanskritised for northern Indians. But he should

remember Nehru’s promise made in 1963 that both

Hindi and English would continue to be the link

languages for administration throughout the

country. He did not fix any deadline for the

exclusive use of Hindi.

I wish this bilingualism should have continued

without anyone tinkering with it. But then the

Modi’s men were in a hurry. They wanted to

restrict the use of English to certain fields. Yet they

realize that their haste can tell upon the country’s

unity. Non-Hindi speaking states, particularly

Tamil Nadu, have accepted the constitutional

provision that Hindi is the Indian Union’s

language. But they want time to learn it and come

up to the standards of people living in the Hindi belt

like Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh or Rajasthan.

Already some candidates from Kerala, Tamil

Nadu, Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka, whose

mother tongue is not Hindi, have excelled in

competitive examinations. India of today is very

different from what it was 50 years ago, each

linguistic group asserting for its identity. The

turmoil during the States’ Reorganization process

should be a warning. The idea of India can be

jeopardized. The entire fabric can get torn if the

sensitivities of the people are not allayed. What is

the hurry? A few more decades’ wait is too small a

price to pay for preserving the nation’s cohesion.

I recall how the Hindi fanatics offered quotas in

jobs in cases where the use of English was stopped.

This approach by ex-speaker Purshotam Das

Tandon from Uttar Pradesh was ridiculed by a

parliament member in Kerala. He warned him not

to open the floodgates of quota lest there should be

a demand for such an arrangement in every field.

All other members from non-Hindi speaking areas

also supported him. Finally, the proposal was

dropped.

There are 22 languages recognized in the

constitution, each with its own script. True, Hindi is

a link language along with English, but all the 22

languages are national. This was conceded by the

parliamentary committee on language commission,

although the committee gave Hindi the status of

principal language and additional language status

to English.

The purpose of my narration is that the status quo

should continue until the nation can have a

consensus on some other formula. This means that

the push currently given to Hindi will have to take

into consideration the feelings and aspirations of

each area and assure that there is no alienation of

any language of any linguistic community. Modi’s

fiats to quicken the pace of switchover to Hindi

have created the alarm.

Meanwhile, the chauvinist supporters of Hindi

should patiently wait till people all over the country

11


are proficient in Hindi. Already, it is a compulsory

subject in all the states except Tamil Nadu. Job

seekers from different states too have underlined

the necessity of learning Hindi. Films have spread

the language throughout the country and one can

converse in the south in Hindi or Hindustani. A few

more years will see the entire non-Hindi speaking

population speaking the language fluently.

Language is a very potent force. Urdu in preference

to Bengali gave birth to Bangladesh. The

step-motherly treatment meted out to Baluchi is at

the back of demand for an autonomous Baluchistan

in neighbouring Pakistan.

In fact, the rulers’ worry should be how to save

regional languages like Punjabi which is being

gradually discarded at Punjabi homes. The new

generation is indifferent to their mother tongue and

for them English, which brightens their

employment prospects, comes first because it helps

them to secure bread and butter.

Heritage is linked with languages and therefore

leaders all over the country will have to devise

ways and means whereby regional languages get

succor. Without a long-term plan to reinvigorate

them, some regional languages would fall by the

wayside as the days go by. How many regional

languages will survive 50 years hence is anybody’s

guess.

India too passive on Iraq

Only the Holy Koran joins them.

Otherwise Shias and Sunnis, the two

sects of Muslims, are poles apart. Their

estrangement towards each other is as entrenched

as is the caste system among the Hindus. What is

happening in Iraq today is the fallout of an

antagonism that stretches back many centuries.

Regretfully, there has never been any serious

attempt for the leaders of the two sects to sit across

the table and sort out their differences which have

given a bad name to Islam.

Left to the radical Sunnis, Shias would have been

declared as non-Muslim as was done in the case of

Ahmedias in Pakistan. But the superiority of Shias

in letters, arts and culture is a reality that it cannot

be clouded by prejudice or reproach.

India, a pluralistic society, could have tried to cite

the example of its own tradition of tolerance to

bring about reconciliation. But it has preferred to

stay distant lest it should be blamed for fanning the

flames of enmity. It has witnessed clashes between

Shias and Sunnis in Lucknow or elsewhere. Even

though the government has been scrupulously

neutral, both Shias and Sunnis have tended to

blame it for taking sides.

I wish New Delhi had done more in West Asia to

bring about conciliation for two reasons—one,

because it has a large Shia community and, two,

because hostility between Shia and Sunni has grave

repercussions for India. There was a time when

New Delhi was a member of the Organization of

Islamic Cooperation (OIC) due to a large Muslim

population in the country. But it apparently

withdrew because a secular India did not fit the

mould.

Washington could not hide its responsibility of

pushing New Delhi out of the OIC. The Americans

did not want a parallel organization to influence

events in West Asia in which they did not have a

dominant role, albeit behind the scenes. Moscow

has been lately taking sides openly and supporting

the “progressive territories” it perceives.

What New Delhi does not realize is that if Iraq is

not sorted out amicably, it can set into motion an

unending battle between Shias and Sunnis at

different places. And India will be sucked into a

battle of attrition without it even wanting to do so.

That necessitates a more active role than the

government’s stock statement that New Delhi is

watching the situation, whether by front door, back

door or trap door (secret activity).

Whatever the quantum of democracy, it has been

introduced mainly by India not only to give voice

to millions of Muslims in the area, but also to rebuff

the West’s propaganda that Islam and democracy

were not compatible. Iraq’s Saddam Hussein, even

12


though a dictator, was influenced by New Delhi in

giving limited rights to people. But for some

reason, President Bush Senior had developed

hatred against Saddam. The US was convinced that

the Iraqi President was intent on developing

nuclear weapons which, when happened, would

make Saddam unassailable.

Poor Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, the Pakistan President

who became the country’s Prime Minister, had to

pay the price for completing the same ambition of

developing the world’s first Islamic bomb. Today,

the West is trying to placate Islamabad by giving it

both military and economic aids. But Islamabad’s

suspicion that it has some ulterior motive to serve is

responsible for anti-US sentiments in the country.

Had India and Pakistan been on better terms they

could have jointly influenced the events in West

Asia and would have thwarted Washington’s

ambition to be an arbiter.

In politics or in other fields the vacuum is filled

sooner than later. Al Qaida guiding the Taliban

movement has plugged the gap. The whole region

faces the danger of fundamentalism spreading and

even influencing the youth as is happening in

Pakistan where young boys are growing the beard

to confirm their Islamic identity.

This poses a threat to India in the sense that 15-16

crore Muslims in the country are beginning to draw

their inspiration from what is happening to

Afghanistan and northern parts of Pakistan. And

since India has taken a turn ideologically to the

right, as the parliamentary elections have shown,

the distance between democratic India and the Al

Qaida inspired areas to its north will look

unbridgeable as the days go by. Not only that,

Hindu fundamentalism will become more assertive

than it is today.

The idea of India, a democratic, pluralistic and

egalitarian society, will be endangered. Leaders

and governments will mix religion with politics,

something which it has been successfully resisted

all these years since independence, even though

Partition was on the basis of religion.

That necessitates greater strengthening of

secularism to stall fundamentalism, however

limited it may be at this time. New Delhi’s lack of

initiative in West Asia to ensure better and

democratic governance has weakened the

movements like the Arab Spring, which were

against autocratic rule in most West Asian

countries.

The call by Anjuman-e-Haideri for volunteers to

help defend the centres of Shia Islam in Iraq may

invite a similar response among the Sunnis to get

together to fight against the Shia consolidation.

That may come later, but in the meanwhile the

Shia’s assertiveness for identity will set into

motion a process which may strengthen religious

appeals and their leaders.

It is ironical that even the radical Hindus are

volunteering themselves to stand

shoulder-to-shoulder with Shias who say they want

to form a human chain to protect the holy shrines of

Karbala and Najaf in Iraq. The Shias, always

feeling as if they were the underdog, should take

heart from the example of such Hindus and try to

influence New Delhi to take more interest in the

problem than it has done so far.

New Delhi’s say will help the Indians

economically. There are two million of them

occupying different jobs in the area. Any tension

may jeopardize their future. This has happened

before when Israel was resisting pressure of the US

and the UK not to settle the Jews at Golden Heights

or such other areas. This is the time when India can

become proactive and send a special envoy to bring

about rapprochement among the different leaders

of both Shias and Sunnis. Otherwise, the radicals

may win.

[Kuldip Nayar is a veteran syndicated columnist

catering to around 80 newspapers and journals in

fourteen languages in India and abroad. He may be

contacted at:[email protected]]

13


Ideological Cronies under LateCapitalism

The notion of crony capitalism became

popular during the election season due to

the strategic view taken by some political parties to

hit the opponents. Crony capitalism was

documented and eloquently promoted by western

scholars after the plunge of their Asian Tigers

model.

A dispassionate analysis of ideas of scholars

particularly economists indicates that they keep on

inventing terms and ideologies to suit the

conditions of the prevailing period. We may say

that it is one of the functions of a scholar and there

is nothing wrong with it. But, if a group is

constituted to outwit the other and to popularise

their ideas even at the cost of eminence and

integrity, it is to be seen differently. It is in this

context, we may reflect on the squabbles between

Jagadish Bhagwathi and Amartya Sen so

popularised by the corporate media as a part of the

Na Mo spectacle.

It is projected that they are fighting from different

ideological backgrounds and under varied

assumptions about the future of India. But, the fact

of the matter is that both of them have reposed

confidence in the efficacy of the market in solving

the contemporary problems of India. It is true that

Sen is more concerned about the welfare of the

people while Bhagwati is fond of wealth.

Interestingly both of them represent two distinct

geographical and social backgrounds, Sen

represents the East and Bhagwati West India.

Bhagwati tells us that he has dabbled with planning

in the 60s and gave it up due to its futility in

resolving the issues of common man and therefore

left India. He has remained as a NRI (Never

Returned Indian) in the USA sermonising on the

need for liberalisation and more FDIs, if possible

making India as part of US. Sen goes round the

West with an Indian passport and lands here as a

transit to find out what is happening to the poor.

The discourse that they generate is now

entertaining the intellectual community and the

leisure class. We are happy that both of them call

themselves as Economists in an era where Business

Economics rather than Economics proper is

triumphed.

While discussing about the factors responsible for

crony capitalism or capitalism or even imperialism,

the role played by cartels, guilds, collusion, finance

capital etc are illustrated as very important. It is

deplored that the contribution of experts, scholars

and lobbyists in the discourse are not properly

appreciated and recognised.

It may be due to the fact that they are considered as

part of an intellectual class distinct from the elite or

bourgeoisie in the traditional classification of the

last century. But, now the incredible role played by

the experts or the prize fighters in sustaining ideas

relating to the international capitalist expansion is

inseparable from that of the finance capital.

In fact, they do not even hesitate to display their

loyalty. For instance, Jagadish Bhagwati’s titles

exhibit that he is defending globalisation and seen

attending their conclaves like some of our

corporate Babas. Therefore, there is no confusion

about his role in the whole debate on more

liberalisation, FDI, less government and so on. He

may not be a crony capitalist in that sense, but

14


K.S. Chalam

definitely an ideological crony to carry the debate

at the intellectual level and at government policy

making bodies and create more cronies as

bandwagon to carry the legacy. I am told that a

section of Gujarati business class has a tradition of

carrying the Gurus with them, to ethically and

intellectually support their actions.

We may for a moment look at Bhagawati’s Gujarati

background. They were the first Indians to have

developed international trade and business

particularly in the West as they are geographically

adjacent to that region.

In fact, Mohandas Karam Chand Gandhi was sent

to South Africa to defend the Gujarati business

interests for two decades and later developed

detestation against the British. Gujaratis were the

harbingers of international business from time

immemorial and in recent times they were the first

settlers in the USA, not directly from India but

through Africa. It is quite natural for some of them

to look at the business prospects in each

government policy irrespective of their

consequences. Sen representing East India does not

have a clear exposure of any trend but may have a

mixture of many.

Keeping the economic trends and the associated

ramifications particularly in social and cultural

areas, F.Jameson the American scholar developed

the concept of postmodernism. There are several

notions associated with this. Sombart, the German

Marxist scholar was the first to distinguish between

'early capitalism’ and ‘late capitalism’ after first

world war, in his studies. Sombart was the Ph.D.

supervisor of Indian socialist thinker Rammanohar

Lohia in the 1930s.

Later the concept was elaborated by Ernest

Mandel, a French scholar in his dissertation on

‘Late Capitalism’ that became a plank on which

Jameson has elaborated his thesis on

Post-modernism.

Of course, the contributions of the Frankfurt school

of thinkers like Adorno, Marcuse and others like

Derrida, Foucault are very significant to

understand the trends that we see in the discourses

of scholars and thinkers in the Indian context.

The Sen-Bhagwati samvads need to be looked at

from this back-drop to appreciate their moorings

and not necessarily the alleged shallow economic

content.

We believe that mere understanding of Economics

proper may not help to land us anywhere except

publishing elegant papers supporting either of

them. We need to know the social and historical

relevance of the ideas.

Scholars like Jameson, Poulantzas, and Mandel

have reflected on the emerging intellectual trends

in Late Capitalism.

It is noted that:

1. New forms of business organisations like MNCs,

2. Internationalisation of business beyond one

nation,

3. New dynamics in banking like stock exchange,

4. New forms of media like TV, film, internet,

5.Mass production using computers and

automation,

6. Planned obsolescence of products to bring fresh

wave of goods, and

7. American military domination, are the factors

that dominate postmodernism. One may dispute

about the concept, but we cannot repudiate the

phenomena described by postmodernists and

experienced by Indians in the above episode. In the

Sen-Bhagwathi dialogue, particularly the latter has

used an insolent language against Sen, his own

colleague in the profession is disgusting. What

does it indicate?

Mandel, an economist has described state as an

instrument of bourgeois rule and elaborated the

concept of ‘comprador bourgeois’ as one who is

not engaged in industrial investment but maintains

relationship with metropolitan capital.

The term that was considered as outdated seems to

have entered the literature under globalisation to

describe certain functionaries who appear to be

15


intellectuals but dishonest in making their

intentions clear.

If globalisation or some other world system

survives it is not entirely due to the economic gains

of the system but definitely one should appreciate

the propaganda literature generated by some of the

categories noted above.

They however, taunt and heckle the opponents with

language and literature that are promoted by their

masters. They are more aggressive than the so

called socialists or democratic socialists who

became apologetic after the end of cold war. But

the truth would never dissolve under the vile of the

brainy and resurface through the indignant

experience of the oppressed at an appropriate

moment.

Lumpenisation of Rural Youth

India is eulogised by many as a nation

endowed with demographic dividend from

its major segment of youth population. The so

called demographic dividend seen in urban areas

however, has not affected the economic conditions

of the people in states like Bihar, Odissa and even

in backward regions of combined state of Andhra

Pradesh that led to bifurcation of the state with their

active participation. Young people in the age group

of 15-29 constituting 27.5 per cent of our

population are reported to have contributed 34 per

cent of GDP after 2011. The significant change or

impact that they have made in recent times relates

to their active participation in polls and help to

decimate the ruling dispensation. The young

people in urban areas had their lively interaction on

the social media. It is reported that PM Modi has

around 43 million followers on the net and has

become the most popular personality after Obama.

This would not have been possible without the

active involvement of motivated youth. It is

reported by Govil a functionary of RSS that

students with a background of RSS family are

selected and each one is given a task of sending

1000 Emails in favour of Modi with fictitious

names as executives. It is not only due to their

participation, but as a result of the anger against the

Congress economic policies and bureaucratic and

short sighted civil society orientation, the youth

have silently turned the tides. This is a dividend

realized by Modi.

Political pundits have started their analysis

attributing the success of Modi to his ability of

reaching the youth in urban areas. Realising the

potential of the youth, International funding

agencies have been providing hints that India could

become a vibrant democracy if the youth are

captured. It was AAP and the Anna Hazare who

have tried to experiment with the youth in Delhi

and successfully captured power. But, the formal

marketing techniques used by BJP branding Modi

and capturing the imagination of the youth has

ultimately brought them absolute majority in the

Parliament. Interestingly, there are very few

comments on the internal differentiation of the

youth that is really an exasperating issue that

bothers those who wish to see an egalitarian

society. The characteristics and the dynamics of

rural youth missing in most of our mainstream

media reports are actually undergoing a great

transformation. Do the recent election results

mirror this?

Indian ethos is mostly characterised in the epics,

Ramayana and Mahabharata or vice versa. Krishna

in the original epic appears as a grown up man and

therefore (we had a separate Bhagavata to

understand his youthful activities) was always on

his own. Rama is captured by the Arya rishis at a

young age and his personality was moulded by

them. In fact, the Hindu epics are the great classics

of the World that describe the power of media in

shaping the thoughts and actions of people from

time immemorial. The vitality of the epics is further

strengthened in the electronic age with its inherent

malleability and effective symbols in the social

media. In the modern period, this seems to be

regulated by a central authority replacing the

Rishis.

16


While the youth are not confined only to

chronological age but related broadly to the spirit

of enquiry, vigour, temper, militancy, experiments

with risk and so on, they are not uniform across

socio-cultural groups and urban and rural setting.

This is also true in the US where the African

American, Hispanic, Indian (US) and White do not

share the same characters. There are studies to

show how the African Americans are thrown in to

ghettos and from there in to Jails. It seems the

conditions have been prevailing from the very

beginning but, more focussed after 1964 after

Martin Luther Jr. movement. The militancy is

suppressed and the Black youth energy

channelized in to dirty business and dissipated. It is

reported that at the age 25, 14.4 per cent of blacks

are High school drop outs and 40 per cent of them

live in poverty and exactly the same percentage of

them are inmates of US prisons. One out of nine in

the age group of 20-34 is incarcerated /imprisoned

today. This is how according to some

commentators, US is buying peace and continuity

in the system. Are we different from the USA in

this respect?

There seems to be some dissimilarity between

Indian and the US youth particularly with reference

to their social background. The African Americans

have a very short history in the country; they were

brought from Africa and treated as untouchables,

while India had inherited a structured system where

some groups are condemned by birth as

untouchables or ex-untouchables by law. The

youth in India had some differentiation across rural

and urban, the former being rude and the latter

sophisticated is seen increasingly lessening the

difference in recent times. Rural youth therefore is

the real force that seizes the muscle to change the

present impasse in our socio-economic situation.

This is brought out by several studies including the

ones sponsored by international agencies that have

hidden motives. The character of the youth in

developing societies like India is undergoing

change with commoditisation of culture and

excessive use of TV and social media. Added to

this, some religious organisations are diverting the

attention of the youth from their usual attributes of

challenging the established norms and are co-opted

in to run of the mill functions. They are now drawn

in to purposeless pursuits with hedonism as a goal.

They lose the youthful characters and end up with

self indulgence, lavish lifestyles, sexual freedom,

market liberty, profligacy, co-habitation and

remarriage etc. The role of consumer electronics

and mobile culture are so engraved in the UK that a

scholar has worked on a theme “consuming talk”

for his Ph.D. India, more vulnerable due to the so

called communication revolution, may not be

different from others.

The characters narrated above make the youth to

get easily absorbed as lumpen proletariat. “The

word “lumpen-proletariat” is a German word,

which literally means “rag proletariat”. The term

was originally coined by Marx to describe that

segment of the working class that would never

achieve class consciousness, and was therefore

worthless in the context of the revolutionary

struggle to achieve the dictatorship of the

proletariat. It is in this context a Western scholar

described them as follows. “1. A

lumpen-proletariat is the lowest, most degraded

stratum of the proletariat. It was used originally in

Marxist theory to describe those members of the

proletariat, especially criminals, vagrants, and the

unemployed, who lacked class consciousness. 2. A

lumpen-proletariat is the underclass of a human

population. In India, this class is referred to as the

untouchables. In the developed world we are

creating an untouchable class of the new

lumpen-proletariat”.

The lumpen proletariat of the kind described above

is more pronounced in the rural areas particularly

among the dalit and artisan communities. It is

noticed that the rural development schemes like

NAREGA have further strengthened the situation

where the aimless youth getting Rs 150 wage per

day is becoming prey to the corporate

commoditization. The school drop outs from

among the Dalits, it was alleged were responsible

17


for Chunduru type incidents in Andhra. Though,

the youth of other castes do also indulge in such

incidents as in Tenali recently, but dalits are easily

targeted. Easy money and easily accessible

alcohol-IMFl, talk time, TV, cinema, cyber cafes,

games etc make them alienated and socially

excluded. They are becoming a positive nuisance in

the villages. It is reported that 83 per cent of the

convicts are from this group consisting of 30 per

cent OBC, 22 per cent S.C, 13 per cent ST and 18

per cent Muslims. Interestingly, the proportion of

rural youth is 25 per cent from S.C category

indicating higher representation that worries the

activists of social reform. Is it not a simple solution

to restrain militancy rather than using police or

military?

[K.S. Chalam has been Vice- Chancellor,

Dravidian University, Kuppam (AP), (2005);

Member, Planning Board, Govt. of M.P.,

(2002-04); Founder Director, UGC Academic

Staff College, Andhra University, Visakhapatnam

(1987-2005); Director, Swamy Ramananda Tirtha

Rural Institute, Pochampally, Hyderabad

(1997-98); Professor of Economics, Andhra

University (1990-2005). He is on several

Committees as Hon’ble Chairman, Member such

as UGC, NCRI, A.U. etc. He may be contacted at:

[email protected]]

18


IRI / IRHA Members:

Untenable Arguments on theAbrogation Article 370 of

Constitution of India

The controversial contentions relating to

Article 370 of the Constitution of India

being raised or allowed to be raised, by the BJP

establishment are not only untenable but will also

not be in the interest of the B.J.P; much less in the

interest of Integrity of the Nation.

For having a full comprehension of the subject, it is

necessary to have a glimpse at the historical

background of the formation of the Indian Union.

On 15th August, 1947, when India became

independent, Jammu & Kashmir was not part of its

territory. It was only by an “Instrument of

Accession”, dated 27th October, 1947, signed by

the Maharaja of Jammu & Kashmir and the newly

formed Government of India, the erstwhile

independent State of Jammu & Kashmir acceded to

the Indian Union. Clause (3) of the “Instrument of

Accession” specifies the matters in the Schedule

annexed thereto excluded some subjects from the

powers of Indian Union and more particularly in

the Constitution to be framed by the Constituent

Assembly. It may be noted that while the

“Instrument of Accession” was dated 27th October,

1947, the Constitution of India was enacted on 26th

November 1949 and came into effect from 26th

January, 1950. The Instrument of Accession signed

by the Maharaja of Jammu and Kashmir on 27th

October, 1947 and accepted by the then

Government of India included only three items,

namely, Defense, External Affairs and

Communications with respect to which Parliament

could make laws for the State of Jammu and

Kashmir.

Accepting and also respecting the solemn

agreement, between the erstwhile Maharaja of

State of Jammu and Kashmir and the then

Government of India, the Founding Fathers of the

Constitution incorporated this special Art. 370 in

the Constitution of India which laid down that

notwithstanding anything in the Constitution the

powers of Parliament to make laws relating to the

state of Jammu and Kashmir shall be limited to only

those matters in the “Union List” and “Concurrent

List” which are declared by the President of India,

after obtaining the consent of the Legislative

Assembly of the State of J & K, and to be in

accordance with matters specified in the

“Instrument of Accession”, dated 27th October,

1947, referred to above.

We must appreciate the fact that India is a

Federation of States. The very first Article of the

Constitution declares that:

(1) India, that is Bharat, shall be a Union of States.

(2) The States and the territories thereof shall be as

specified in … the First Schedule.

(3) The territory of India shall comprise-

(a) The territories of the States;

(b) The Union territories specified in … the First

Schedule; and

(c) Such other territories as may be acquired.

Apart from the territories specified in the First

Schedule in the Constitution of India, Parliament

may, by law, admit any other State in Union on

such terms and Conditions as it thinks fit. The 13

Judge Bench Judgment in Keshavanand Bharti’s

case had laid down that the “Federal structure” of

19


K. Pratap Reddy

Union of India is one of the “Basic Features” of our

Constitution. The background and philosophy

behind the concept of making India a “Union of

States” shall be better understood on the basis of

the historical background of the growth and

formation of India as it now exists.

Before 1947 and even earlier thereto India was

never one political unit either in Aryan’s period or

in the periods thereafter including the powerful

Mogul Rule. Even after the advent of the British

Rule, India consisted of “British India” and various

other States under the local rulers, having their own

powers of legislation, (even though under the

British suzerainty). Before leaving India the British

purported to lift their suzerainty on the Indian

States and tried to divide India into more than 500

States. By the herculean task of statesmanship

Sardar Vallab Bhai Patel, these 500 odd states ruled

by different Rajas & Nawabs, merged in the Indian

Union under various agreements or instruments, as

the case maybe, by granting them constitutional

safeguards including Financial Aid, known as

“Privy Purses”. Thereafter, the Founding Fathers

of the Constitution made a herculean effort to frame

the Indian Constitution and declared it as Union of

India in its very first Article in the background

referred to above.

We need to consider the basic fact that India that is

Bharat as it stands now comprised of several

religions, races, customs, cultures and civilizations.

It was not possible to make India as a “Unitary

State”. It was in that context, the Founding Fathers

of the Constitution have given us a Federal

Constitution constituting India that is Bharat as a

“Union of States”.

We also need to consider that Art. 370 of the

Constitution was not the only provision of the

Constitution purporting to declare certain

concessions to the Legislature of J & K. There are

many other provisions in the same part XXI of the

Constitution purporting to make certain

concessions in regard to several other States. The

very next Article, namely, Article 371 (now

omitted by the 13th Amendment) purported to give

some concessions to the State of Maharashtra as it

existed earlier including Gujarat, Vidarbha,

Sourashtra and Kutch.

Similarly, Article 371 (A) gives several

concessions including those relating to ownership

and transfer of land and other resources in the State

of Nagaland except with the prior resolution of the

Legislative Assembly of Nagaland.

Similarly, Article 371 (B) declares certain

concessions to the Legislative Assembly of the

State of Assam; Article 371 (C) declares certain

concessions to the Legislative Assembly of the

State of Manipur; Articles 371 (F), 371 (G), 371

(H), 371 (I) provide similar provisions in respect of

States of Sikkim, Mizoram, Arunachal Pradesh and

Goa respectively.

Till yesterday, we all know that there were

provisions in Articles 371 (D) & 371 (E) with

respect to the erstwhile integrated State of Andhra

Pradesh which are not now in force after formation

of Telengana.

The Constitutional pundits pointed out great

similarity in the Constitutions of India and USA in

respect of Federation of States. The Executive and

Legislative powers of various states comprising of

U.S.A & Federal State of America are divided and

every caution is taken by every state against the

intervention by the Federal State of America in the

powers of the different states comprising the

U.S.A.

It is therefore necessary that party in power in the

centre, now must appreciate the fact that India, that

is Bharat, is a “Union of States” comprising of

several cultures, religions and linguistic

differences. It is in that context that the special

power under Article. 370 must remain in the

Constitution to maintain the integrity of the Nation.

[K. Prathap Reddy is senior advocate at High

Court of Andhra Pradesh. He is the Chairman of

A.V. Education Society, Andhra Mahila Abyudaya

Samiti and the President of Vigil India Movement.

91-9848055502; [email protected]]

20


Academician's Section:

Manoj Das: AuthenticInterpreter of Cultural and

Spiritual Heritage

One of the most talented and prolific

contemporary bilingual authors writing

in English and Odia, his mother tongue, Manoj

Das, needs no introduction. His more than six

decades contribution to Indian literature have

established him among the foremost accomplished

and acclaimed writers of the 20th century. He has

achieved several distinctions for himself: as

novelist, essayist, poet, columnist, commentator,

editor, scholar, academic, travel writer, children’s

writer, thinker, and philosopher. What makes his

characters from so many varied backgrounds and

display so many different varied dimensions of

human nature, Das observes, “Characters follow

the theme of a story and the words are merely added

to represent the thoughts of the character”. His

writings sensitize the reader with the issues of the

marginalized that is instrumental in the restoration

of the culture and folklore of the indigenous tribes.

As a wizard of words he has mesmerized

generations of readers with sheer genius of his

writing. The lyrical style, imagery, simplicity and

the magical charms of his writing has won him

admires in every generation and across all countries

and continent. His projection of the Indian psyche

and ethos and its authentic best through his short

stories and novels is so spontaneous that it

impresses both the Indian and Western readers with

its authenticity.

Paying tribute to the excellence in every individual

story of Manoj Das, an admirer of R.K. Narayan,

Graham Greene, a world famous fiction writer and

critic, wrote to his friend H.R.F. Keating, a crime

fiction writer, notable for his series of novels

featuring ‘Inspector Ghost’ of the Bombay CID in

1986 appreciating the elements of mystery in them,

“I have now read the stories of Manoj Das with

great pleasure. He will certainly take a place on my

shelves, besides the stories of Narayan. I imagine

Odisha is far from Malgudi, but there is the same

quality in his stories with perhaps an added

mystery”. A British critic A. Russell writes in

Poetry Times, “Manoj Das is a great story-teller of

the subcontinent. His world has the fullness of

human psyche, with its dreams and fantasies, its

awe and wonder, the height of sublimity can be

courted by the depth of the fictive”. K.R.Srinivasa

Iyenger, an author of Indian English writing, once

wrote: ‘‘a country that includes among its literary

classics collection like the Katha-Sarit-Sagar (The

Ocean of Stories) can never fail to cultivate the

‘short story’ as a perennially fresh and fascinating

art form. In our own time masters like Tagore,

Premchand, Mulk Raj Anand and Vaikom

Vuhammad Basheer have made their examples of

the art. And Manoj Das is of the same class… His

stories convincingly autochthonous, have by virtue

of their own Indianness won for him a

discriminating world audience’’.

Written nearly seventy books in different genres,

Manoj Das has received numerous accolades.

Sahitya Akademi, the National Academy of

Letters, bestowed its highest honour ‘Fellowship’

upon him on 8 September 2006. The Citation reads

“Manoj Das, one of the most illustrious living

21


Ashok K. Choudhury

fiction-writer of this country, elected Fellow of

Sahitya Akademi for his eminence as Odia fiction

writer. Honouring the unparalleled master of

narration and passionate advocate of transcendence

by conferring him its Fellowship, the Akademi is

honouring itself”’. Conferring the Fellowship on

one of the best storytellers in the world, Gopi

Chand Narang, then President of the Akademi said,

“Das is a prolific writer who could narrate a story

without losing the Indian charm and ethos. He

could be a best after R K Narayan”. In his

acceptance speech Das stated that once a leading

English literary magazine asked which language

inspired me the most. After a few thoughts, I said it

was the ‘language of silence’. I think I improved

upon this language. He believed in literature that

was inspired but not invented. He reiterated,

“Honouring a person who has not written a story in

the past twelve years means that the Akademi has

decided to honour an ‘inspiration’, not a creator of

literature”.

Das, in fact, has developed the habit of expressing

himself in silence, what his birthplace, a remote

hamlet on the sea, as beautiful as fairytale land,

with natural lakes abounding in lotus between his

house and the sea, has unconscious rendezvous

with the sea and the breeze and moon. Das, in an

interview with P Raja, a Puducherry based

poet-writer, after his Padma Shri award, explained,

“The creative process ought to be allowed some

mystery. Inspiration surely precedes articulation

through any language. This is absolutely true in

regard to good poetry and substantially true in

regard to good fiction. Without this element of

inspiration, which is beyond language to begin

with, literature can hardly have a throbbing soul”.

Followed by Dagar Silver Jubilee Award in 1962,

he has received the Odisha Sahitya Akademi

Award twice in 1965 and 1989, Vishuv Milan

Award (1971), Sahitya Akademi Award (1972),

Sarala Award (1980), Vishuv Award (1972),

Sahitya Bharati Award (1994), Bharatiya Bhasa

Parishad Award (1995), Bookseller and Publishers

Association of South India (BAPASI) Award

(1998) as the English writer in South India, Atibadi

Jagannath Das Award (2007) by Odisha Sahitya

Akademi, NTR Literary Award (2013). During

‘Amritavarsham 60’- the 60th birthday celebration

of mata Amritamayi on 27 September 2013, Das

was honoured with the national Amritakeerti

Puraskar, instituted by Amritamayi Math, for his

vast contribution to the cultural, spiritual and

philosophical literature in India. The year 2001 has

witnessed four highly acclaimed awards for Manoj

Das: Padma Shri in January, Saraswati Samman in

May, Utkal Ratna in July, and Governor Plaque of

Honour, first to receive the highest Odia Award,

and Odisha State Film Award for Best Story.

His research in the archives of London and

Edinburgh brought to light with the publication Sri

Aurobindo in the First Decade of the Century

(1972), which explores some of the lesser known

facts of freedom struggle of India in the first decade

of the 20th century led by Shri Aurobindo and won

first Sri Aurobindo Puraskar by Sri Aurobindo

Bhavan, Kolkata, the birth place of Sri Aurobindo.

This apart, the Berhampur University bestowed on

him the status of Professor of Emeritus. Five

universities have conferred D.Litt. (Honoris

Causa), including the Utkal University of Culture,

Odisha in its first convocation in 2004. Despite

many success and accolades, Manoj Das, a man of

simple habits and humble ways, remains a recluse.

Outside his home state he is widely known as the

foremost successful bilingual writer in the country,

with forty books in English and an equal number of

books in Odia.

His Saraswati Samman Odia novel Amruta Phala

(Nectar Fruit, 1996) deals with man’s eternal quest

for truth, bliss and immortality and explores

answers to questions, which have been bothering

humanity. One of the best novels in contemporary

Odia literature, Amruta Phala based on a tale that

perfectly blends history, legends, mystery, magic,

and realism. It begins with protagonist Amarnath, a

rising entrepreneur, who has forced himself to

forget his quest for the meaning of life at the

demands of his business. By chance he lays his

22


hands upon a manuscript narrating the life and

adventures of Bhartrihari, the legendary King of

Ujjain who became a sage. Using a unique

craftsmanship, the novel portrays, almost in

parallel lines, the life of Bhartrihari and that of

Amarnath with the alternate chapters devoted to

each of them, revealing the undercurrents of the

trials and conflicts of the ancient king and the

present day Amarnath. The crises of our times are

the symptoms of the same problems of

consciousness as those encountered by Bhartrihari

some two thousand years ago.

The novel makes absorbing reading. While it stirs

and enlivens the reader’s sensibility, it never

subjects him to a single dull moment. The way the

two stories in move together: one contextualizing

existential suffering faced by the King to getting a

divine magical fruit; the second and the main story

takes place in the current age, where a suave and

successful businessman goes through similar

existential dilemma. Dwelt briefly on Amruta

Phala, Manoj Das says, “the human aspiration to

delve deep into the meaning of life that has gone

strong since the time of Bhatrihari to the present

day is the theme of the novel. It’s a work of what I

feel to be a inspiration, through weakened by my

capacity to fully capture it in my work, trying to

examine some of the indefatigable questions to life,

love and death”. A continuous search for truth,

Amruta Phala depicts to find out the source from

which items of life have emerged, and the attempt

to return these items to the same source. To quote

scholar-critic J M Mohanty “Amruta Phala is a

two-tire novel, a novel within a novel, more

correctly, two independent accounts linked

together by subtle attitudes and motivation, one

goes to the past and the other to the present, and the

style of writing also varies. It carries a strong

content, a powerful motivation and a felicitation

presentation- a fresh, unusual novel in the total

oeuvres of post-Independent Odia novels”.

Among the galaxy of other awards, he received the

Akademi award in 1972, when he was just thirty

eight years old, for his short story collection Manoj

Dasanka Katha O Kahani (Stories and Tales of

Manoj Das). It is a representative collection of

fifty-seven stories with reference to a variety of

situations. The stories have in general a genial and

humorous structure, but deep inside, subtle ironical

attitudes, particularly against lies and hypocrisy

that have started becoming an essential part of our

character in everyday life. Though apparently

entertaining, the stories have sharp point of view,

and together they constitute serious contemplations

about life. For its universal appeal and powerful use

of language, it has been hailed as an outstanding

contribution to modern Odia fiction in particular

and to contemporary Odia literature in general.

One of his early story collections Aranyaka (The

Primitive Man, 1961), won him the State Sahitya

Akademi Award in 1965, deals with the blatant

irrationality of man. It has posed the problem of the

affluent yet physically and emotionally dissatisfied

beings that could go to any extent to satisfy their

laser instincts and desires. Aranyaka explores the

inner aspects of man from several angles, where the

author points out that though outwardly man has

entered the space age and is considered are much

civilized, yet his inner self continues to be beastly.

As a rare event, Manoj Das was conferred the State

Sahitya Akademi Award of Odisha for the second

time in 1989 for his essays. Many genres of literary

writing have enriched Manoj Das. He began his

writing career during his student days. His first

collection of poems Satabdira Artanada (Groan of

the Century) published in 1947, when he was only

13 then. In the same year, another anthology of

poems appeared as Biplabi Fakirmohan. Next year,

Das brought out the literary journal Diganta as the

founder-editor, which became a powerful medium

of creativity and ideas in Odia. He revived the

literary journal in 1959 as a regular monthly. After

he left for Shri Aurobindo Ashram, Pondicherry in

1963, under the editorship of eminent Odia poet

Sachi Rautray, it continued to be published. At

about the same time, Manoj Das started writing

short stories. Samudra Kshudha (Hunger of the

23


Sea, 1951), his first short story collection won a quick

recognition.

One cannot think of a survey of modern Odia

fiction without the reference of Manoj Das, perhaps

who writes more on value-based theme than any

other Odia writers. This also became true in 1962,

Dagar, a renowned Odia journal, conducted a

survey, among a hundred selected critics,

professors, and other intellectual of the State, on

the occasion of its Silver Jubilee to find out who

contributed most to different genres of

post-Independence Odia literature. Manoj Das was

the youngest, among Gopinath Mahanty and Sachi

Rautray, to be acknowledged as one of the foremost

writers of short stories and was honoured with the

Dagar Silver Jubilee Award.

A number of his short stories have been translated

into major languages of the world as well as of

India. They brought him more limelight and highly

appreciated in the academic circle in the West. John

Harvey in The British Fantasy Society Bulletin

writes, “Manoj Das is one of those writers who can

express in simple language items of considerable

importance while entertaining you, while making

you laugh or cry, happy or sad. Manoj Das is a rare

person in today’s world…” Mid-sixties onward he

began writing English, not for finding a new

avenue to give vent to his creative zeal, but as a

protest against the depiction of the Indian village

life by more than one write in a silly way. Being

born and brought up in a remote village, his thought

was to put the rustic situations and characters in

their proper perspective. His stories, authentically

Indian in content and character, are noted for

freshness of ideas, clarity of perception,

un-digressive style of narration, originality in the

use of words, their sensitivity and strong visual

imagery. His language is free of clichés and

moluded to suit the need of his tales. He has a subtle

sense of humanistic appeal, which reveals the

pathetic inner self of character.

Most of his stories deal with the psychology of

modern man oppressed by the dreary routine of life.

With his keen observation of human nature, Manoj

Das brings out the pathos and predicaments of life.

Through subtle irony and often through comic

extravaganza, he communicates a vision of life

where various existential compulsions weigh on

man making him take, at times, very ridiculous

steps. Mystery in a wide and a subtle sense,

mystery of life, indeed, is the core of his appeal.

Das has thoroughly utilized his experiences,

gathered at a impressionable age, of the

epoch-making transition through the country was

passing. His characters cut off in vortex of India’s

passage from the colonial era to freedom, the

impact of the end of the princely states and the

feudal system, and the mutation of several patches

of rural India into clumsy bazaars. Das, in addition,

has an implicit spiritual enquiry as an integral part

of his stories. He ‘often’ puts tradition, a good

example of his continuous echoes from Bishnu

Sharma and Panchatantra.

He uses with great success an allegorical mode to

show the absurdity of human characters. An

exception in the ocean of stories Das has to his

credit is the one captioned Lakshmira Abhisara

where there is the least of the Salvationistic cynical

elements, which is so typical with him. After

everything has been said and delivered, it is not the

cynicism of the Salvationist that will save

mankind; it may at best make man happily

reconciled to his lot, in the meanwhile taking a sort

of masochistic pleasure at his own misery and

helplessness. Masochism is no remedy for man in

the present predicament, even when good men in

the form of well-knit fables and stories are

prescribing it.

Manoj Das has produced innumerable fables for

children mainly in the English languages: Temples

of India (1970), Stories of Light and Delight

(1970), Tales from Many Lands (1972), Persian

Tales of Wit and Delight (1972), Books for Ever

(1973), Rivers of India (1975), A Bride Inside

Casket (1981) etc. Some of them are also available

in Odia. One of his short story collections has been

named Fables and Fantasies for Adult. It

sometimes appears that most of Manoj Das’s

24


stories read very appropriately as tales for adults.

Starting with the irrational in man and then adding

a few doses of cynicism of the benevolent type to

his total attitude towards those for whom he writes,

he seems to have ended up with looking at man as

an adult who can be satisfied with fables.

There is a strong undercurrent of sadness, which

springs often from a nostalgic yearning for a lost

world of love or innocence, in almost all his stories.

In Dhumrabha Diganta the death of Lily, thus

becomes an abiding symbol that at once

communicates to the reader a tender agonizing

sense of the eternal sorrow of man. Yet there is

often a beatific side of life as has been illustrated in

Shesa Basantara Chithi. The small girl Rina comes

forward to share the common sorrow of the loss of

mother in an intimate human understanding.

He speaks of the agony and ecstasy of life as well.

Manoj Das penetrates into the psyche of the

individual and focuses on the perversions and

miseries of life. His technique is mainly ironic and

an affectionate understanding of life’s various

urges always marks his irony. His stories, however,

cover a vast range of narrative modes from the

realistic and psychological to the supernatural,

fantasy and fable. Das’s stories say very little while

conveying much about his society, and often with a

deft touch of humour that is almost rare in the Odia

literature. The author himself said in an interview

that his stories are written out of creative

inspiration; some are written out of simple creative

joy, some are out of a commitment to society-

Bhavan’s Journal, April 1970.

He established his reputation as an Indo- English

short story writer through the following

collections: A Song for Sunday and other stories

(1967), Short stories (1969), The Crocodile’s Lady

and other stories (1975), Fables and Fantasies for

adults (1978), Man who lifted the Mountain and

other stories (1979), The Vengeance and other

stories (1980), The Submerged valley and other

stories (1986), The Dusky Horizon and other

stories (1989), Mystery of Missing cap and other

stories (1989), Bulldozers and Fables and

Fantasies for Adults (1990), The Miracle (1993),

Farewell to a Ghost (1994), etc. When his first

collection of short stories in English A Song for

Sunday and other stories published, A. Russell, a

British critic, wrote, “There is a little doubt that

Manoj Das is a great story-teller of the

sub-continent and he has too few peers, no matter

what yardstick is applied to measure his ability as

an artist. He shows how powerfully all artifices of

story-telling can be used to write in a story in

realistic genre without any attempt at being faithful

to the photographic details of facts. His world has

the fullness of human psyche: with its dreams and

fantasies, its awe and wonder. The height of

sublimity can be courted by fictive. He proves that

reality is richer than what realist conceived it to

be".

Immediately after the publication of Man who

lifted the Mountain and other stories outside India

(1979), by Specter Press, Fareham, Britain, Adrian

Kol, a famous British fantasy writer, commented,

“There is more fantasy in the story of Manoj Das

than the stories of Arabian Nights, which attracts

inward perception of India”- Fantasy Media,

Oct-Nov. 1979. His equally important latest

collections are: The Escapist (2001), My Little

India, The Lady who died one-and-a-half Times

and other stories, Chasing the Rainbow: Growing

up in a Indian Village (2004), Tales told by

Mystics, etc.

However The Escapist, originally written in Odia

rendering of the title Akashara Isara (1997),

literally means ‘hints or beacons from the blue’.

Translated by him, an English synopsis of The

Escapist was published in The Statesman Annual

under the title ‘Rise and Fall of a Miracle Man’.

Das confesses in the ‘Author’s Note’ in the fiction,

“the kind of reactions generated after the

publication of the novel, particularly the decisive

advice of Mini Krishnan, the project and series

editor of Modern Indian Novels In Translation of

Macmillan made it obvious to me to translate the

entire novel”. The theme of the novel basically

explores the role of faith in human affairs. It does

25


not seek a study of the traditional kind by pitting,

for instance, lack of faith on science.

He describes in the ‘Preface’ that chance is the

pseudonym of God which He uses when He does

not wish to put down His signature. The

protagonist of The Escapist Padmalochan or

Padmananda, the god man, a deceiver, has a certain

immortal proclivity despite himself even though

focuses beyond his control have reduced him to a

false god man and a charlatan. He is a thinking

renegade, endowed with an acute power of self

observation and analyses. Sachidananda Mohanty,

a scholar-critic, who has written the ‘Introduction’

of the novel, says, “The Escapist presented is a

major exercise that combines cardinal reflections

and life- calls it philosophy or spiritual quest- with

fiction. It almost pioneers of the relationship

between faith and novel form”

His narratives keep the spirit of rural India and

discerned with indigenous folk tradition. Also they

carry the spirit of whole world in a rational way

appealing the whole humanity. Chasing the

Rainbow: Growing up in an Indian Village, a

childhood memoirs of Das, depicts the experiences

of rural India. Some characters, incidents, and

settings leave a deep representation of the rural and

sylvan entity and they have a universal appeal. Das

has effectively blended the old art of storytelling

with modern ideas and techniques. He has created a

new genre of stories, chosen since ancient stories

from the Jatakas and the Panchatantra, etc, The

Lady who died one-and-a-half Times and other

stories deals with folktales. He has adopted a very

interesting character ‘abolakara’, literary meaning

‘disobedient’. In Odisha, since centuries, a series of

folktales prevails in which every story is bracketed

Abolakara as well as Samanta, who is a nobleman.

But ‘abolakara’ is totally his own with the

continuation of same themes of the ancient tale.

Das says, “The stories in the volume were

prompted by my feeling that our literature was an

unbreakable tradition. I saw that some of the classic

stories of the folk genre- stories given us by great

minds of the past- could be an excellent basis for

presenting a comment or two on the present, our

own conditions. This bunch constitutes an

exclusive kind”. Another folktales collection Tales

Told by Mystics tales mostly prevailed as oral

traditions and were used by the lost tribe of

wandering mendicants to educate and enlighten the

folks. Das here retold in his own style. Unlike his

earlier stories he has not added any new phase to

them, besides some few are from classics such as

‘Jatakas’ or the ‘Kathasaritsagar’. In addition, Das

has an implicit spiritual enquiry as an integral part

of his stories. He ‘often’ puts emphasis on the past

tradition, a good example of his continuous echoes

from Bishnu Sharma and ‘Panchatantra’.

His novel Cyclones focuses on two important

aspects: ethnic culture, and social criticism. It

portrays through the psyche of an educated Indian

youth ‘The dying old order of an alien rule and the

promised new order of the Swaraj struggling to be

reborn’. The realistic details presented in the novel

are not merely imaginative exuberance, but are

necessitated by contextual properties. Cyclones can

be viewed as a social document in which the writer

discharges the role both of a certain artists and of

social reformer. The study of minds of folks when

their village grows into a hick town is penetrating

in the novel Cyclones.

Another novel A Tiger at Twilight (1991) is in a

class by itself. Twenty years after the princely

states had merged with India, a King, who had lived

all the times in a distant city, snapping ties with the

native and suddenly appears in a hilly area

belonging to his erstwhile principality. At the same

time a tiger turned into a man-eater. The

inhabitants, mostly tribes, expect their former King

to save them from the menace. The King being an

accomplished hunter accepts the challenge, but in a

condition to kill two tigers in one shot: the

man-eater, and a man who had led the fight against

the princely rule and fighting an election. Das,

through a chain of breathtaking but entirely

credible developments, lays bare such aspects of

mice and men that could come as revelations to

characters themselves. A subtle allegory runs side

26


by side with gross realism and their synthesis is an

emotional as well as intellectual feast for the

reader.

In a survey conducted by an eminent editor Martha

Fellow in 1975 to prepare a list of stories of a

prominent writer published in the leading literary

magazines brought out from U.S.A., Manoj Das

was the only Indian writer whose five stories have

been published. Though Manoj Das has been

recognized as an English writer, the main

inspiration of his creative sensibility is certainly

not Western but the Indian tradition of folklore,

spiritual writings and our own deep cultural

consciousness. To a question, in an interview, on

why does he write in English, he says: “At one

stage I felt inspired to write in English because I

was haunted by the feeling- if I do not sound

presumptuous- that much of the Indo-Anglican

fiction that claimed to project the Indian life and

situation was no doing justice to its claim. I thought

that I could present through English a chunk of

genuine India. Well, right or wrong, one is entitled

to one’s faith in oneself”- The Times of India, 18

May 1980. Once the veteran dramatist Vijay

Tendulkar observed, “Manoj Das, like Graham

Greene and R K Narayan, is a deft spinner of yarns.

He is also crisp in his style and very much at easy

with English, which is not his mother tongue.

Narrating an Indian experience in a language,

which is alien or not Indian without losing the

original Indian charm and ethos, is a difficult task.

Manoj Das succeeds in this, like Narayan”.

Deeply spiritual, Das accepts the influences of

Somdev and some others in his writing. He cites

Fakir Mohan Senapati, the great pioneer of modern

Odia fiction, Vyasa, and Valmiki as early

influences. But to begin with, Das reiterates stories

from the Ramayana and the Mahabharata,

recounted to me by his mother stirred his

imaginativeness. She ushered him into the world of

Odia classics. Das is fortunate enough to have a

mother like her, as he confesses, who provided the

wiz kid a personal library containing the treasures

of Odia literature, the complete works of Fakir

Mohan Senapati. In the ‘Preface’ to Biplabi Fakir

Mohan, Das writes, “I am singularly grateful to two

persons: one my mother, and the other Fakir Mohan

Senapati, who shaped my mind in a myriad subtle

ways. His Atmajibani Charitra gave me the self

confidence”. After teaching English for four years

in Christ College at Cuttack, Manoj Das, inspired

by Shri Aurobindo’s philosophy and his felicity on

English language, has been an ashramite at Shri

Aurobindo Ashram, Puducherry since 1963 where

he teaches English literature and philosophy of Shri

Aurobindo at Shri Aurobindo International

University, and his wife Pratijna Devi teaches

Psychology.

He was born in a seaside village, Shankhari,

Balasore district of Odisha on 27 February 1934

and grew up amidst loving rural folk and nature’s

spender’s evergreen meadows. A divesting cyclone

in 1942, followed by terrible famine in his native

region, left a deep impact on him. Das says, “Born

and brought up in a remote village, I thought it was

my duty to put rustic situations and characters in

their proper perspective”. In his quest for a panacea

for human suffering he grew into a radical youth

leader and played an active role in student

movements. In college days he found himself

caught up in the political vortex of the fifties. While

willing or willy-nilly leading students and

peasants’ demonstrations, he also spent a term in

jail at Cuttack in 1955. As an eminent Left youth

leader, his oratorical skill, sometimes accompanied

by lyrics composed and put to tune by him could

arouse thousands to mutiny. Das is an atheist and

adept at brainwashing the vulnerable. He

participated in the Afro-Asian Students Conference

at Bandung, Indonesia in 1956.

Born before independence and hence living

through the transition to freedom at an

impressionable age, Manoj Das is acknowledgment

as a master storyteller and an authentic interpreter

of India’s cultural and spiritual heritage. Besides,

he has earned name as a regular weekly columnist

in dailies like The Hindustan Times (1983-1989)

27


under “The Banyan Tree”, Thought (1968-70),

Times of India, The Statesman, and The Hindu.

His first weekly column was in a weekly journal

from Delhi, Independent India which was founded

by the radical humanist M.N.Roy which is today

this journal - The Radical Humanist.

Simultaneously, he has written columns in the

premier Odia dailies: Samaj, Dharitri, Sambad etc.

He has edited the World Union and Sri Aurobindo’s

Action, The Heritage, during the periods: 1967-68,

1969-71, and 1985-89. Das categorized these

columns writings as deadline-oriented, not failing

to submit them on time. He says that whether I was

in a train or a plane, I carried a portable typewriter

and never failed my editors. For meeting such

reflective, narrative and newspaper columns, etc

one should of course have to forgo one’s own

leisurely or sweet whimsical attitude to the

calendar.

Das further clarified it did not apply to his

reflective writing. The columns he wrote for the

newspapers, he says, “for such writings you must

think and think clearly in the language in which

you propose to write. It is probably provocation, in

a constructive sense of the term, more than

inspiration, which should spur you on”. He visited

twice every year during 1982-85 as an

author-consultant with the Ministry of Education,

Singapore, for taking classes of the teachers for

Ethical Studies Programmes. Besides Singapore,

he travelled extensively, in Indonesia, Malaysia,

Thailand, Egypt, U.K., U.S.A., and European

countries. He was a Member of the General

Council of the Sahitya Akademi (1998-2002) as a

Government of India nominee. He was the leader of

the Indian Writers’ Delegation to China in 2000.

Manojayan, a felicitation volume on him,

published by ‘Manoj Das Abhinandan Samiti’,

Balesore in 2001 under the chairmanship of

Brajanath Rath, a front ranking Odia poet,

consisting of a number of erudite research articles

on Das in both Odia and English, is a befitting

tribute to a great writer. To know the legendary

writer, a website www.worldofmanojdas.in is an

attempt to assimilate the entire world of Manoj

Das. An exclusive website for display of most of

the books at one place has been created by some of

the fans of Das. A unique and first for any Odia

writer, www.callofthehorizon.com facilitates to

order to get some or all of his books from one place

in hassles free manner. A non-profit venture, the

order can be placed online and for the purchase of

Rs.250/- and more are supplied by free post and

with a token discount of 5%. As the most authentic

felicitation, Sahitya Akademi, in its documentation

series, has produced a thirty minutes documentary,

directed by Prafulla Kumar Mohanty, an Akademi

Award winning writer, carrying the images, voices,

the momentous events that moluded the life and

vision and many-sided creative achievements of

Manoj Das.

Besides, warm recognition came to him from the

academic circles in the West. Whoever read him for

the first time felt thrill of a discovery. Either

Graham Greene, HRF Keating and John Harvey, or

discerning critic KRS Iyenger and gifted dramatist

Vijay Tendulkar of India, they all wondered how

each of his stories brought them a sense of wonder

and joy. All of them found the most authentic

Indian ethos in his writing. So many anthologies

and special issues special of serious journals in the

U K and the U S A, whenever they wished to

include a story in their collections that projected the

real Indian genius, chose one of the stories of

Manoj Das. No wonder, more appreciation, more

accolades are on the way for him. Not as it is today,

potentiality being there involved in man, Shri

Aurobindo tells us that a new humanity will evolve

out of the present one. That is the faith sustains

Manoj Das and gives him the impetus to write.

[Ashok K. Choudhury, has a Doctorate in

Literature and is a a literature critic with Sahitya

Akademi, New Delhi. He may be contacted

at:choudhury_ [email protected]]

28


Book Review Section:

Policies from Paris

[BOOK: OECD “Better Policies” Series India

Sustaining High And Inclusive Growth,

OCTOBER 2012, Organisation for Economic

Co-operation and Development (OECD), OCDE

Paris 2, rue André Pascal, 75775 Paris Cedex 16]

As the publication itself says, the OECD

works with 34 members, key partners

and over 100 countries to better understand what

drives economic, social and environmental change

in order to foster the well-being of people around

the world. The OECD Better Policies Series

provides an overview of the key challenges faced

by individual countries and appropriate policy

recommendations. Drawing on the OECD’s

expertise in comparing country experiences and

identifying best practices, the Better Policies Series

tailor the OECD’s policy advice to the specific and

timely priorities of member and partner countries,

focusing on how governments can make reform

happen. This is an important aspect because

economic development and poverty removal are

areas where the government has a crucial role to

play. In fact right from late 19th century, poverty

and backwardness in India have been traced to the

governance of the country. The first Indian treatise

on Economics was Poverty and Un-British Rule in

India by Dadabhai Naoroji, published in 1901.It

was colonial rule, specifically, the Economic

Drain, which Naoroji identified as the cause of

poverty in India then. It was directly related to the

governance of the country, rather, as Naoroji

implied, a deliberate mis-governance unworthy of

the British reputation.

The Nationalist movement in India had a strong

economic pivot. Foreign rule was made responsible

for most of the economic ills, from the deprivation

of the agricultural sector, to the so-called

De-industrialization, from the lack of industrial

growth to the discrimination in respect of

protection in foreign trade.

Historians like Daniel Thorner, Amiya Bagchi and

Rajat Ray have re-iterated this through their

reasoning. They have generally agreed that

exploitative colonial domination, rather than any

dearth of natural resources or human responses,

was the factor behind India’s backwardness at the

time of India’s Independence.

As is generally accepted, the First Five Year Plan

(1952-56) of India was based on the aggregative

Harrod-Domar model of economic growth. The

Second Five Year Plan (1956-61) was based on the

Mahalanobis model which in turn was based on the

Feldman model of the Soviet Union under Stalin.

Its central idea was that the greater the allocation of

the country’s investible resources I, generally to the

Industrial sector and specifically to the

Capital-goods sector, the higher the growth rate for

the country. Not only is there no concern for the

various sections of the population, but there is a

definite de-emphasizing of them, in

de-emphasizing the Agricultural sector which was

(and remains) the most crucial sector for the

population, a rapidly growing one at that. But by

the time of the Fourth Plan (1969-74), emphasis on

29


Dipavali Sen

self-reliance was necessitated by India’s ‘food

problem’ and the PL 480 imports. By the Fifth Plan

(1974-79), it was the equity objective which came

into focus. The very slogan Garibi Hatao

associated with Prime Minister (and Chairperson of

the Planning Commission) Indira Gandhi testified

to the fact that growth was not ensuring equity.

Re-distribution was needed to rectify the poverty

that had been generated along with growth. In other

words, growth was not being inclusive.

Nevertheless there were no basic changes in the

plan strategies or objectives. The Indian

economy travelled along the ‘planned’ growth

path, picking up poverty and inequality on the

way.

From the new millennium, Sustainable

Development and Inclusive Growth came into

vogue. The UPA government at the centre, led by

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, stressed the

need for giving greater emphasis to agriculture and

environment.

Under Montek Singh Ahluwalia as the Deputy

Chairman of the Planning Commission, the

Eleventh Plan (2007-08 to 2011-12) titled

“Towards Faster and More Inclusive Growth” and

subsequently also the Twelfth Plan (2012-13 to

2016-17) titled “Faster, More Inclusive and

Sustainable Growth”, were formed,

Right from the beginning of his coming to power,

the new prime minister too has endorsed the

Inclusive Growth idea,

In this context the OECD publication becomes

especially relevant.

The Foreword begins with Angel Gurría,

Secretary-General, OECD, wishing India

“stronger, cleaner and fairer economic growth”.

The first two chapters deal with ‘Sustaining high

and inclusive growth’ and ‘Addressing fiscal

challenges’. It then moves to ‘Improving the

business environment’.

Next comes ‘Improving regulation, public

governance and transparency’. Here the key

recommendations are as follows:

Conduct an administrative simplification

programme to reduce the burdens and costs on

businesses.

Create the necessary policies, institutions, and

processes to implement transparent, evidence

based regulation-making system using regulator

best practice tools.

Mitigate risks of waste and corruption in the whole

procurement cycle (from project design through the

tendering process and to the contract management).

Focus efforts to increase public transparency and

reinforce public trust.

Strengthen the independence of the

Lokpal/Ombudsman mechanism.

The next sections relate to ‘Reducing trade and FDI

barriers’, ‘Strengthening innovation’, ‘Improving

transport infrastructure’, and ‘Financial sector

reform’.

The attention then turns to Sustainability and

Environment. In the section ‘Promoting Greener

Growth’, the recommendations are:

Continue efforts to reduce fossil fuel subsidies to

free-up scarce public resources while reducing the

incentives for environmentally harmful activities.

Evaluate the use of environmentally related taxes

and consider carefully whether the tax rates applied

reflect environmental damage caused by

consumption and production.

Continue promoting a balanced expansion of the

renewable energy sector.

The next relate to the human factor, viz., ‘Lowering

poverty and inequality’.

‘Improving health care quality and access while

improving efficiency’, ‘Improving quality and

access in education’, and ‘Reforming labour

markets’.

The final section is about ‘Increasing productivity

in agriculture’.

The OECD is committed to the market economy,

democracy and good practices pursued through

‘soft laws’.

30


How relevant it is to a vast and diverse country like

India where Planning is an essential aspect of good

governance?

Are policy prescriptions from Paris of any use in

India? Well, if only to make up our minds about it,

this publication needs a read.

[Dipavali Sen, from DSE and Gokhale Institute of

Politics and Economics (Pune), Visva Bharati

University, Santiniketan teaches at Sri Guru

Gobind Singh College of Commerce, Delhi

University. She is a prolific writer and has written

creative pieces and articles both in English and

Bengali. [email protected]].

31


Books By M.N. ROY

Published By Renaissance Publishers,

Indian Renaissance Institute,

Oxford University Press And Others

1. POLITICS POWER AND PARTIES Rs. 90.00

2. SCIENCE AND PHILOSOPHY Rs.95.00

3. BEYOND COMMUNISM Rs.40.00

4. THE HISTORICAL ROLE OF ISLAM Rs.40.00

5. MEN I MET Rs.60.00

6. INDIA’S MESSAGE Rs.100.00

7. MATERIALISM Rs. 110.00

8. REVOLUTION & COUNTER REVOLUTION IN CHINA Rs. 250.00

9. REASON, ROMANTICISM AND REVOLUTION Rs.300.00

10. NEW ORIENTATION Rs 090.00

11. ISLAAM KI ETIHASIK BHOOMIKA (IN HINDI) Rs.25.00

12. HAMARA SANSKRITIK DARP (IN HINDI) Rs.40.00

13. NAV MANAVWAD (IN HINDI) Rs.90.00

14 .SAMYAWAD KE PAAR (IN HINDI) Rs.45.00

Humanist News Section:

I

C.F.D. National Conference:An All India Conference of the Citizens For

Democracy will be held at Gandhi Peace

Foundation on 12th & 13th July 2014

(Saturday-Sunday) to consider the situation arising

out of the results of the recent General

Elections. The theme is: “Future Of The

Secularism And The Federal Structure”

As a result of the recent elections, the new

Government at the Centre has assumed office.

Though Principles of ‘secularism’ and ‘federalism’

have been embedded in our constitutional

philosophy, the same were forcefully sought to be

derided and ridiculed in the recent general election

by a few political parties and a section of the media.

It has been decided to discuss and debate the future

of these twin principles as per following agenda:

Session I:

Saturday – 12th July 2014 (10:00 am to 1:00 pm)

Subject: Future of Secularism

1:00 to 2:00 pm Lunch

Session II:

Saturday- 12th July 2014 (2:00 pm to 5:00 pm)

Subject: Future of Federal Structure

Session III:

Sunday – 13th July 2014(10:00 am to 1:00 pm)

Subject: Role of Media

1:00 to 2:00 pm Lunch

Session IV:

2:00 – 5:00 pm

Subject: What is to be done?

Venue: Gandhi Peace Foundation, 223-Deendayal

Upadhaya Marg, New Delhi 110002

Those who want accommodation may inform the

undersigned. Cost of per bed per day is

about Rs.300/-.

You are requested to make it convenient to attend

the meeting. Please confirm your participation.

—N.D. Pancholi

Gen. Secretary

Citizens For Democracy (CFD)

Mob: 9811099532

II

83rd Annual Conference ofRationalist Association of India

& 18th Biennial conference ofA.P. Rationalist Association:

Both these conferences were held at Radical

Humanist centre, Inkollu, Praksam (D.t), A.P. from

14th to 15th June, 2014 under the guidance of

Ravipudi Venkatadri, Chairman, RAI. Rationalist

Humanist national Study camp was organized on

this occasion in Radical Humanist Bhavan.

Delegates from Bharatiya Yukthivada Sangam,

Kerala, Telangana, Maharashtra and Tamilanadu

attended the study camp and conferences.

Attaluri Suryanarayana, Ex. General Secretary to

Indian Rationalist Association who played an

active role in establishing A.P. Rationalist

Association in 1979 was felicitated on this

occasion by Ravipudi Venkatadri, Chairman, RAI.

He inaugurated the conference. Books written by

Gumma Veeranna on the volumes on Ravipudi, by

Jasthi Rama Swamy on Ramayana, Ravipudi

Venkatadri on Rationalist thought in Telugu were

released in the study camp. T. Ravichand, Mylinda

Publications. Ravipudi and Gumma Veeranna

released their books with their comments.

“Religious Fundamentalism and Rationalism”,

Vaastu, Astrology and Yoga" “Physical realism

and Nature of Universe” “Established Religion and

Scientific Outlook; Rationalist Humanist

movement”; “Rationalist thought and humanist

way”; Failure of Politics and Democracy;" were the

topics discussed in the study camp.

The participants who delivered lectures were:

1.Ravipudi Venkatadri, Chairman, RAI., Editor,

32


Hetuvadi, Telugu Monthly Magazine

2.Kurra Hanumantha Rao, President RAI.

3.Srini Pattathanam, Vice Chairman, RAI

4.Meduri Satyanarayana, GEneral Secretary, RAI.

5.Kanan Sivaram, Kerala, Joint Secretary, RAI

6.Gumma Veeranna, President, APRA

7.Vutla Ranganayakulu, Gen. Secretary, APRA

8.Kari Hani Babu, Vice President, APRA

9.Shaik Babu, Treasurer, RAI

10.Aluri Prafulla Chandra, Humanist Writer

11.Chunchu Seshaiah, Ex. President, APRA

12.Dr. P. Raghavan, Scientist, Vice President, RAI

13.T. Ravichand, Mylinda Pulication

14.Esvar, CDS, Convenor

15.Narane Venkata Subbaiah, Joint Secretary , RAI

Tumma Bhaskar, Sankatala Ramaiah, Telangana;

Raghu, Maharastra, Shaik Daryavali, Kaki

Rajasekhar and others from A.P. attended the

conference. 100 delegates attended the study camp

as well as conference.

Details of the Elected Bodies are as follows -

A)National Council Members:

1.Ravipudi Venkatadri, A.P.

2.Srinipattathanam, Kerala

3.Kurra Hanumantha Rao, A.P.

4.Gumma Veeranna, A.P.

5.Dr. P. Raghavan, Delhi

6.Meduri Satyanarayana, A.P.

7.Kanan Sivaram, Kerala

8.Shaik Babu, A.P.

9.Narne venkata Subbaiah, A.P.

10.Chunchu Seshaiah, A.P.

11.Aluri Prafulla Chandra, A.P.

12.Liakhath Ali, A.P.

13.Vutla Ranganayakulu, A.P.

14.Tumma Baskar, Telangana

15.Sankathala Ramaiah, Telangana

16.P. Raghava Rao, Telangana

17.Abdulla Meppayur, Kerala

18. T. Parameswaran, Kerala

19. Dr. P.K. Narayanan, Kerala

20. Raghu, Maharashtra

21. K. Srishnan Kutti, Kerala

22. K.K.Abdul Ali, Kerala

23. Dr. Ramendra, Bihar

24. A.N.Karia, Gujarath

25. P.C.Alexander, Kerala

26. Sayed Mahammad anakkayam, Kerala

27. P. Manmadan, Kerala

28. Sivadasan Perambra, Kerala

29. P.Sivan, Kerala

30. Peroor Nadarajan, Kerala

31. Min Krishman Kanay, Kerala

32. Kari Hari Babu, A.P.

33. C.L.N. Gandhi, A.P.

34. G. Parvathaiah, A.P.

35. Shaik Darya Vali, A.P.

36. Ala Adi Narayana, A.P

37. R. Jagapathi Raju, A.P.

B)Excutive Committee Members:

1.Chunchu Seshaiah, A.P.

2.Aluri Prafulla Chandra, A.P.

3.Liakhath Ali, A.P.

4.Vutla Ranganayakulu, A.P.

5.Tumma Bhaskar, Telangana

6.Sankathala Ramaiah, Telangana

7.P. Raghava Rao, Tamilanadu

8.Abdulla Meppyur, Kerala

9.T. Parameswaran, Kerala

10.Dr. P.K.Narayanan, Kerala

11.K. Krishna kutti, Kerala

12.Raghu, Maharashtra

13.K.K. Abdul Ali, Kerala

C) Managing Committee Members:

1.Chairman: Ravipudi Venkatadri, A.P.

2.ViceChairman: Sinipattathanam, Kerala

3.President: Kurra Hanumantha Rao, A.P

33


4.Vice President: Gumma Veeranna, A.P.

5.Vice President: Dr. P. Raghavan, Delhi

6.General Secretary: Meduri satyanarayana, A.P.

7.Joint Secretary: Narne Venkata Subbaiah, A.P.

8.Joint Secretary: Kanana Sivaram, Kerala

9.Treasurer: Shaik Babu, A.P.

5.Joint Secretary: D. Rajasekhar

6.Joint Secretary: Ala Adinarayana

7.Treasurer: Buddha Vishal

27 members were elected to the Executive

committee of APRA.

The Joint conference of RAI and APRA reiterated

its stand on working for a Revolution in Ideas

among people; propagation of Rationalist

Methodology through the production of literature,

organization of study camps and conferences

annually and biennially. It was resolved to organize

organizations in other sates of India

—Report prepared by: Meduri Satyanarayana

& sent by Gumma Veeranna

[email protected]

III

Citizens sign against IB Reporton Movements for Secular

DemocracyForwarding Letter:

4 July 2014

To,

The President of India,

New Delhi.

Dear Sir,

The recent secret report “Impact of NGOs on

Development” from the Intelligence Bureau

accusing select NGOs of scuttling Indian

development submitted to the Union home

department and PMO is very disturbing one. The

IB Report has accused Movement for Secular

Democracy and others for making efforts to

debunk the development of Gujarat. As a matter of

fact Movement for Secular

Democracy is a broadest platform of the citizens of

the civil society of Gujarat. It is not an NGO and

does not receive any foreign fund.

The IB report is designed to muzzle the voices of

the citizens defending the secularism and

democracy inscribed in our Constitution of our

country. The concerned citizens of India have

condemned the IB Report on MSD and signed the

Memorandum, which explains the historic role of

Movement for Secular Democracy in Gujarat for

the cause of Communal Harmony, Peace and

Justice since 1993 and defending the Secular

Democracy and stand by the victims in communal

violence.

The signature campaign was launched on 25th

June, the Anti Emergency Day and closed on 3rd

July, 2014.Some names of the signatories are as

following-

They are: Shri Chunibhai Vaidya, known Gandhian

and Sarvoday activist, Shri Rajmohan Gandhi, Dr.

Romila Thaper, Prof. Yogendra Yadav, Dr.

Mallika Sarabhai, Dr. J.S. Bandukwala, Prof.

Gulam Mohammad Sheikh, Prof. Dhaval Mehta,

Prof. Dinesh Shukla, Advocate Girish Patel, Fr.

Cedric Prakash, Shri Gautam Thaker, Prof. Svati

Joshi, Shri Gagan Sethi, Prof. Ghanshyam Shah,

Dr.

Ram Puniyani, Prof. Abid Shamsi, Shri Sukla Sen,

Ms Kamayani Bali Mahabal, Kumar Prashant,

Prof. J. I. Laliwala, Shri Manishi Jani, Dr. Saroop

Dhruv, Prof. Rohit Shukla, Shri Chinu Srinivasan,

Dr. Ila Joshi,, Dr. Trupti Shah, Shri Madhu Prasad,

Shri Dilip Chandulal, Shri Dwarika Nath Rath and

many others.

The Memorandum with the signatures of the

citizens is attached.

Thanking You,

Yours truly,

Prakash N. Shah, Convenor,

34


Movement for Secular Democracy (MSD)

Mob. 09879919421

Address: Narmad-Meghani Library, Opp. Natraj

Railway Crossing, Meethakhali,

Ellis Bridge, Ahmedabad-380006. Ph. (079)

26404418. [email protected]

Memorandum25th June,2014

To,

The President of India,

New Delhi.

On 39th year of Emergency, “Emergency” still

knocks at the door!

We severely condemn IB report on Movement for

Secular Democracy (M.S.D.) and reiterate our firm

resolve to the Constitutional morals of Secular

Democracy!

Dear Sir,

We, the undersigned citizens, severely condemn

the leaked report of Intelligence Bureau on

Movement for Secular Democracy (M.S.D.).

Gujarat is known worldwide as the land of Gandhiji

and Sardar. But here a continual connivance is

going on to create a communal atmosphere with

specific political motive is since long. When the

state witnessed many communal tensions, sporadic

incidents and riots in 1980s , the citizens of Gujarat

has made many efforts by taking various

programme as a

Civil society to maintain peace, amity and

democratic values in the society.

The Babri Demolition incident of December 1992

created a frenzied communal atmosphere in

Gujarat and the entire country. Shocked by these

and with intention to save Secular Democratic

values of the Constitution, the eminent citizens of

almost all fields of Gujarat convened at H. K. Arts

College on 21st February, 1993 and formed a

voluntary, non-party civil society movement and

named it as “Movement for Secular Democracy”.

So, contrary to Intelligence Bureau’s version,

M.S.D. is neither a N.G.O. nor it has any

relationship with “foreign funding”. M.S.D. is

purely a citizen’s Civil Society Movement

committed to the Constitutional values of Secular

Democracy.

In the inaugural speech of this convention, former

member of Planning Commission and well known

political analyst, Sh. Rajni Kothari stressfully

advocated for “Democracy against Mobocracy”,

while Eminent Sarvoday leader Sh. Narayanbhai

Desai appealed for “Unity against Autocracy”.

At this juncture, we would like to acquaint you with

the five resolutions passed in this founding

convention which reflects its commitment towards

constitutional values as well as its dream &

understanding of the new society:

1.Resolution on Movement for Secular

Democracy.

2.Appeal to stop to vitiate the public life for petty

vote bank politics

3.Call to carry forward the struggle of Social

Reform

4.Call to provide dignity and fearlessness to the

women

5. Future programme and organization.

This movement which started on 21st February,

1993 took an innumerable programme among

students, youths, women and other sections of the

society to spread Secular democratic values and

openly and courageously presented its views on all

social, political and economic issues. This

movement exposed the communal attitude and

decisions of several groups and the State Govt.’s

machinery after 1993. Further it also continued the

campaign to protect Secular Democracy against

these attacks. The Carnage of 2002 posed a

Challenge to Movement for Secular Democracy.

We had to pass through a very critical period to

save the Civil Society from an all out communal

attack. But in this trying period, MSD made all to

rally round all the democratic and secular forces

and raised the voice against irresponsible and

35


communal attitude of the ruling party in the State

with all intensity.

Further it thrived to create a consensus over

rehabilitation and justice to the carnage victims.

In 2002, we have experienced total breakdown of

law and order in Gujarat. The intensity of the

activism & advocacy of Movement for Secular

Democracy in 2002 has obviously annoyed the

communal elements and those elements who

wanted to reap political mileage out of communal

identity. But ‘Justice’ for the 2002 Carnage victims

and desire of ‘Peace and Amity’ in the society has

been the main slogan of Movement for Secular

Democracy to which it firmly adhered till this date.

This Movement has also actively participated in

Human Rights and Civil Liberties Movements

since last 20 years with Peoples’ Union for Civil

Liberties (P.U.C.L.) and other organizations. The

Peoples’ Union for Civil Liberties (P.U.C.L.) is

well known Civil Liberty voluntary organization

founded jointly by Loknayak Jayprakash Narayan

and Justice Tarkunde. It is quite shocking that such

a reputed Civil Liberty Organization has been

linked with N.G.O. and foreign funds in the report

of Intelligence Bureau.

We strongly feel that presently also there is a long

way to go for campaign and awareness about

Secular culture and Rule of Law in Gujarat and the

country.

In short, we reiterate again our deep trust in Secular

Democracy inscribed in our Constitution for a

healthy society in our country to thwart the

atmosphere of political misuse of communal

identity. We also appeal you to take measures to

scrap this report of Intelligence Bureau intended to

malign the image of the organizations and muzzle

the people’s voice of dissent.

We are the signatories:

Prakash N. Shah Chunibhai Vaidya

A.D. Shukla Abhinav Shukla Akhilesh Dave

Alpesh Bhavsar Ami Parikh Arun Panchal

Ashok Gupta Ashok Punjabi Ashokkumar

Shrivastav

Badribhai Joshi Bakul Rashtrapal Baldevbhai K.

Patel

Bharat Makwana Bhavik Raja Binit Modi

Bipin Shroff Budhdhidhan Trivedi Cedric Prakash

(Prashant)

Chinu Shrinivasan Daniel Macwan Dankesh Oza

Dasharath Shrimali Dheerubhai Rupareliya Dilip

Chandulal

Deepak Dholakia Deepak Vyas Dr. Damini Shah

Dr. J.S. Bandukwala Dr. Jharna Pathak Dr. Mallika

Sarabhai

Dr. Saroop Dhruv Dr.Ila Joshi Dr.Trupti Shah

Dwarika Nath Rath Gagan Shethi Ganpat Rathod

Gautam Thaker Ghanshyam P. Chavda Girish Patel

Govind Joshi Gulam Mohammad Sheikh H.P.

Mishra

Harshida Dave Hemal Jadav Hemantkumar Shah

Hiren Chauhan Hiren Gandhi Ikram Mirza

Jagdish Patel Jagdish Shah Jatin Sheth

Jayesh Patel Jimmy Dhabi Jitendrakumar Shah

K.M.Kapure K.P. Sasi Kamalesh Bhavsar

Kamlesh Oza Kamayani Bali Mahipal Kantilal

Dabhi

Kaushik Joshi Ketan Rupera Kumar Prashant

Lankesh Chakravarty Loknad Madhu Prasad

Mahadev Vidrohi Mahesh Pandya Manishi Jani

Manjibhai Rawal Meenakshi Joshi Mehul Trivedi

Nita Mahadev Muniza Khan N.R. Malik

Naresh M.Vaghela Neerad Vidrohi Nirav Patel

Pallavi Patel Pankaj Bhatt Persis Ginwalla

Prasad Chacko Pravin M Shah Prof. Abid Shamsi

Dr. Dhanraj Pandit Prof. Dhaval Mehta Prof.

Dinesh Shukla

Prof. J I Laliwala Prof. Kanu Khadadiya Prof.

Rohitbhai Shukla

Prof.Ghanshyam Shah Prof.R. D. Desai Prof.Swati

Joshi

Prof.Yogendra Yadav R.R.Soman Rajesh

36


Ramkrishnan

Rajmohan Gandhi Ram Puniyani Ramesh Borisa

Romila Thaper Ranjit Gadhvi Rasik R. Shah

Renu Khanna Rimmi Vaghela S.H. Mansuri

Saraben Baldiwala Sevantilal Modi Shukla Sen

Shwetangini S.Patel Smita Parmar Subhash Joshi

Sukhdev Patel Suryaben Shah Timir V. Amin

Ushaben Pandit Uttam Parmar Vasant D.

Brahmbhatt

Vijay Dave Vikram Savai Vinubhai Amin

Vismay Shah Y. G. Goswami Yaqub Kothariya

Yashavantbhai Trivedi Zakia Somani

IV

“Civil society groups assertfreedom of expression, assembly

and association. Demand thatgovernment should respond to

the malicious IB report”We, as individuals, people’s organizations, citizens

groups, trade unions and mass movements came

together on June 26, 2014 at Indian Social Institute,

New Delhi to reiterate our deep conviction about

the importance of preserving and nurturing spaces

for social dissent and the freedoms of association,

assembly and expression as the essential hallmarks

of a democratic society.

Indian social life has been enriched greatly by the

wide and rich variety of engagements of people’s

organizations, committed to just, equitable and

sustainable development, peace, social justice and

gender, class, caste and communal equality; and

issues ranging from the rights of marginalised

communities, dalits and tribal rights, gender rights,

religious minorities, sexual minorities, disability,

displacement, homelessness, forest rights, right to

food and health, environment and ecosystem and

human rights, secularism, welfare and rights, and

transnational corporations and their impact, and

increasing poverty in the country.

In this context, the gathering expressed its disquiet

and concern over the report of Indian Intelligence

Bureau (IB) on the role of development

organizations, people’s movements, human rights

organizations, and peace and justice activists. This

report which made shrill and unsubstantiated

claims was deliberately leaked to spur a medial

trial, and is therefore a barely disguised official

attempt to discourage and intimidate the

democratic rights of citizens to express dissent with

dominant state policies and to protest. The report

particularly targets organizations which question

the corporate-led development model and the

nuclear policy, and champion environmental and

labour rights. We are dismayed by the dubious

manner with which the Indian Intelligence Bureau

has maligned, demonised and criminalised many

greatly respected social activists and groups in this

country who have committed their lives for a social

cause.

We see this move as an attempt to restrict

democratic space for civil society action and

silence dissenting voices of individuals,

organizations, social movements and trade unions.

It is also an attempt to stifle the voices of the

defenders of human rights who represent the

voiceless, marginalised sections of the society. We

strongly feel that it is our right and moral duty to

collectively raise and represent the voice of

invisible majority of this country. We endorse the

statements of Greenpeace, People’s Union for Civil

Liberties (PUCL), MazdoorKisan Shakti

Sangathan (MKSS), Navdanya,

Concerned Citizens and others and express our

complete solidarity with them and the fears and

apprehensions they have raised to be faced by the

civil society groups in future.

The Supreme Court of India’s judgments have also

upheld from time to time the constitutionality of the

rights of dissent and free expression. These also

find affirmation in many recent international

frameworks of the United Nations and its Special

Rapporteurs. In the last couple of years

37


engagement of mainstream media and social media

with the pressing social and economic issues has

taken place on enormous scale despite the

increasing control of corporate houses on media.

Therefore we believe that the attacks of this nature

especially the IB’s current report is essentially a

handiwork of both transnationals and big Indian

business interests driven by profit motive.

We are also concerned with the accountability of

institutions like the Intelligence Bureau which till

today functions within an indeterminate legal

framework. This assumes all the more importance

in the prevailing national scenario where the

national security management policy has been

purposefully left ambiguous and therefore remains

undefined. We also demand that report of the L.P.

Singh Committee instituted after the emergency in

1977 on the misuse of intelligence agencies should

be made public.

We, as part of civil society groups simultaneously

uphold the value of transparency within this sector

whether we are locally funded or foreign funded

organizations.

We demand that the present government should

either own or at least respond to the parentage of

this IB Report which to our knowledge was

initiated by the past UPA government.

We are also striving for an open-ended platform,

broad alliance and solidarity across all sections of

the society and especially those engaged in the

fight for equality, equity, secularism, pluralism,

right to association, right to assembly and freedom

of expression. Therefore, we now stand united at

this critical stage in all solidarity at the local and

national levels with all those organizations

mentioned in the IB Report with a sense of hope

and not despair.

We have decided to initiate a Secretariat to be

based temporarily in Indian Social Institute (ISI),

New Delhi to assist Human Rights Defenders with

about 20 advisors representing various thematic

engagements. Any individual or organization in

any part of the country who feel aggrieved by any

action which infringes their right to assembly and

association, freedom of expression are invited to

approach the Secretariat for further course of

action, including legal action for which we shall

also form a legal defence fund.

We are giving a collective nationwide call for

diverse course of action at the district and state

levels on August 9, 2014 to mark the celebration of

our assertion and celebration of public action

reclaiming the republic with its core ideas of

freedom, pluralism, just, sustainable and equitable

development, and peace, across the country.

—Public Statement Issued in Gujarat by Gautam

Thaker, General Secretary, PUCL (Gujarat)

V

Levi Fragell To Be Honoured byK. Veramani, Chancellor, PMU,

Tamil Nadu

Levi Fragell, former President of IHEU and former

Secretary General of Norwegian Humanist

Association will be honored with an honourary

degree of D.Litt by Periyar Mianammai University,

Tamilnad, India on July 4, 2014.

Dr. G. Vijayam, Executive Director, Atheist

Centre, Vijayawada, Andhra Pradesh will be

accompanying Levi Fragell to all other

programmes in Tamilnadu.

—News sent by G. Vijayam

Mob: +91 9848458220

[email protected]

www.atheistcentre.in

38


39


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