Recently, Pappu Yadav, former member of parliament, went on a fast-unto-death in a Patna jail to show support for Anna Hazare’s fast against corruption. Yadav, who faces murder charges, demanded that corruption be weeded out of society.
Incidentally, the media did not lose a wink of sleep when Lepchas were fasting in Sikkim against the taking over of their sacred valley and rivers by the government-aided private companies to build hydroelectric plants. Later, the courts thwarted this without much assistance of the media. The media did not lose sleep when last month between March 11 and March 16 in Dantewada, Chhattisgarh’s Koya commandos, the Central Reserve Police Force and CoBRA battalions burnt more than 300 houses, raped five adivasi women and killed five men in Timapuram, Morpalli and Tarmetla villages of Dantewada, accusing them of being Naxalites (even Naxals don’t deserve to be raped and killed). It also never raised the plight of missing persons in Kashmir whose court cases are stuck in the home ministry for want of permission to proceed against officers. Anyway, with or without the patronage of the media, the masses are angry with politicians and sooner or later they would get wise enough to get angry with the media too, for taking a stand only when it suits them. Meanwhile, the achievements of the people who backed Hazare have been substantial. They have got a gazette notifying a joint committee, including people’s representatives to draft a Bill against corruption. Also, the Bill once passed, would guarantee quick action against the corrupt. People have embraced these remedies following a total loss of faith in the governance system, comprising elected people and selected bureaucrats. While there is no guarantee that vested interests won’t creep into these joint committees, there is an advantage in the presence of activists who have an expertise in the law of a particular subject. For instance, the seed bill now in Parliament, if drafted in partnership with farmer groups would have provided an outcome that would have helped the farmers rather than the seed industry, as it is feared to do now. What the Lok Pal promises is a short cut to justice. For public servants (such as the government employees, judges, armed forces, and members of Parliament) can also be prosecuted for corruption under the Indian Penal Code, 1860, and the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988. However, these require the investigating agency (such as the CBI) to get prior sanction of the central or state government before it can initiate the prosecution process. Lawyers wonder if an all-powerful Lok Pal would endanger democracy. For instance, now the judiciary and legislature keep a check on each other, but once the Lok Pal comes with powers to try government members and judges, it would be putting too many powers in one basket. Says lawyer Sanjay Parikh: A system has to be in place to ensure that the cure does not become worse than the disease. Also, the Lok Pal cannot break the nexus between the government and the private sector and restore the trust of the people. However, an ombudsman like God, is an attractive idea and as decades would go by, there may exist one for each sector, for example for real estate (drafted by home dwellers rather than the real estate companies), one for educational institutions, one for health institutions, one for labour rights, etc. The lesson to be learnt is that new institutions would replace the old, if the latter don’t prove effective and accessible to the people. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Monday, April 11, 2011
When the media gets hold of a cause
Hazare meets a wet blanket
http://www.hindustantimes.com/Hazare-meets-a-wet-blanket/H1-Article1-683304.aspx?sms_ss=facebook&at_xt=4da139a29d8f6745%2C0
by Shiv Viswanathan
Sociology as a vocation is often depressing. The ideas and theories one proposes go against the conventional grain. The recent events around Anna Hazare put me in that mood. The media are acclaiming the movement. TV commentators in particular have gone ecstatic with a ringside seat to revolution. Words like 'Ground zero' and comparisons with the recent demands for democracy in Egypt and Tunisia give India a feeling of global togetherness. Yet the more I watch it, the more puzzled I feel. Spontaneously, I am all with its demands. But sociologically I feel something does not make sense. What we are watching is a sociological simulacra, an imitation of a social movement that looks more authentic than the original.
The recent scams, the epidemics of scandals have left middle-class India tongue-tied. What is worse is that there seems to be no mechanisms either for outlining the truth or bringing the criminals to justice. Our institutional systems seem too slow or appear to be in the hands of corrupt politicians. Reform becomes an invitation for oxymorons. Politics seems to be a desert between India's achievements in sport and India's capability in technology. Our democracy seems to be emptying out in our ability to handle corruption.
Enter Anna Hazare, an old-style Gandhian. An ex-army havaldar who has introduced social reform in his village combating alcoholism and advocating drip irrigation. He is a Gandhian who believes in development and has the Magsaysay award to prove it. Hazare, who has been around on the fringes of the development debate, becomes an archetypal Gandhian. He decides to fast unto death if the Lokpal Bill is not passed.
The prefix 'Gandhian' always intrigued me. The word is used loosely. Even scholars who study Gandhi call themselves Gandhian. People influenced by Gandhi, involved in politics or social work, dub themselves Gandhian. All they imply is an ascetic life and an honest character. The complexity, the diversity, the chaotic nature of the Gandhian experiment is a distant memory. These Gandhians are simplified versions of the original. But the simplification is crucial. They are easy to grasp. They have a single-point value. Their morality is unquestionable, their social work visible; they become vectors of a middle-class dream.
Their message is simple: a fast unto death until the Lokpal Bill is passed. In four days, the fast is termed 'the second war of Independence'. People are galvanised and the media see in Hazare the makings of the second JP movement. Oddly there is little memory here.
The styles of politics are so different. JP worked with -isms and parties and fought both authoritarianism and corruption. Hazare's movement is anti-politician. His movement refuses to let any politician grab presence on the dais. Uma Bharati had to beat a hurried exit. The movement seems to be anti-politically political. Yet it encourages visitors from Anupam Kher to Meghnad Desai, who turns press conferences into quick tutorials. It is almost as if the movement originates on Page 3 with approval ratings from fashion designers, movie directors and the city glitterati.
There's a wonderful middle classness to it. Professionals drift to it; housewives, students, young professionals, a coterie of NGOs provide the voices for it. Although it's a mix of generations, there is a preponderance of youth. It almost appears a part of the new demographic dividend, a more youthful idea of politics. It conveys the right mix of professionalism, lifestyle and a need for a deep sense of integrity.
There is almost no sense of the usual agitations, with the violence of lathi-charges or arrests. This demonstration seems different. Politicians from Sonia Gandhi to Narendra Modi approve of it and the BJP and the CPI(M) express support. Yet to those who have watched Nav Nirman, or the Emergency campaigns, this one doesn't look like a movement. It's more like a happening.
The candlelight rituals publicised by Aamir Khan's movie and the Jessica Lall campaign also provide a difference in style. The excitement is high. An India proud of its democracy pans its politicians. There is something surreal about the amiability, the bonhomie. Even the answers sound like something from a market survey, endorsing Hazare like a brand name. He could have been a piece of toothpaste or a pair of shoes.
The space within which it is enacted seems magical. It is carnival time but it reverses no categories. It does not threaten the regime, triggers no violence. It's almost playful as a spectacle. It appeals to a whole beyond parties, claiming a politics outside politics. It is an invitation to a temporary utopia where actors enact new rituals of hope, new possibilities of empowerment.
The closest I can get to it is to say that it reminds me of the great millennial movements. These were usually led by prophets and these Christ-like figures promised a new reign of prosperity. The Anna Hazare movement as the Second Independence movement has shades of milleniality with those joining caught in an ecstasy of empowerment. The Millenialists felt bullets could not harm them and here protestors feel that authority can't touch them. They feel they are at the roots of law, creating law for a new era.
As a simulacrum, it seeks a different code of revolution through reform, of realism through innocence, by legislation through tantrums, appropriating Gandhian idioms. It seeks to create history without a sense of history, forcing global affinities where there are none. One meets it with a sense of celebration and doubt because standard categories do not quite capture the nature of this happening.
Shiv Visvanathan is a social scientist. The views expressed by the author are personal.
Hazare praises work of Modi, Nitish
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Hazare-praises-work-of-Modi-Nitish/articleshow/7935282.cmsNEW DELHI: Chief ministers Narendra Modi and Nitish Kumar were praised by anti-corruption activist Anna Hazare for their efforts on rural development, with the Gandhian saying that their counterparts in other states should emulate them.
"The work of chief ministers of Gujarat and Bihar in their states should be adopted by other chief ministers," 73-year-old Hazare, who successfully led the agitation on Lokpal Bill issue, told reporters here on Sunday.
Hazare, though, was quick to add that he was not viewing their performance from any partisan angle but only highlighting the focus of development work at the grassroots level.
When a reporter referred to the 2002 riots in Gujarat when Modi was in power, the Gandhian said that he was only talking about the work of a chief minister and does not want to get into politics.
"I do not support communal politics, riots or any such thing. I am only talking about decentralisation of power," Hazare said.
When pointed out that Modi has not appointed a Lokayukta for the past nine years in Gujarat, he said, "I will accept Modi as 100 per cent ideal when he brings Lokayukta in his state."
Congress MP Rashid Alvi reacted sharply to Hazare's comments saying "no secular person in the country can support Modi.
"If you support Modi, you are supporting the massacre of 2002," he said,
BJP spokesperson Shahnawaz Hussain, however, praised Hazare for appreciating the work done in the party-ruled state.
"These are NDA-ruled states. Concrete steps are being taken there against corruption. This is good that he cited both the states as examples.
"There are many other NDA-ruled states where good work is being done against corruption. We appreciate that he has praised us," he said.
At the press conference, Hazare also denied any "personal" animosity with agriculture minister Sharad Pawar.
"There is no rift with Pawar. Six Ministers had to go on corruption charges. Why only name Pawar. My fight is against the trend and not against one Pawar. It is the deed not the person that I object to and fight against," he said.
Activist Arvind Kejriwal dismissed suggestions that Hazare had invited Pawar to be part of his agitation for Lokpal Bill saying the "question does not arise".
Hazare backs Raj's tirade against Non-Marathis
http://www.hindustantimes.com/Hazare-backs-Raj-s-tirade-against-Non-Marathis/Article1-368036.aspx
Veteran social activist Anna Hazare backs Maharashtra Navnirmaan Sena (MNS) chief Raj Thackeray's campaign against non-Marathi 'Dadagiri' (dominance) in Maharashtra, but opposes the violent means being used to achieve the purpose. The 71-year-old social activist expressed support for MNS's programme, while talking to journalists Saturday night after addressing students of the Banaras Hindu University (BHU) on 'Gram Swaraj and Experience in Ralegan', his native village in Ahmednagar district of Maharashtra which he transformed into a model village through persistent efforts.
"Some ideas of Raj Thackeray were correct, but damaging public and national property was not right," Hazare said.
When asked which ideas of the MNS chief were correct, Hazare noted people from many states live in Maharashtra, but "outsiders trying to prove their dominance in the state was not at all acceptable".
In a reference to North India-based political parties like Samajwadi Party and Rashtriya Janata Dal trying to show their strength in Maharashtra by holding rallies and other programmes in the state, he said such activities were not acceptable.
"They have ample space in their states to hold such programmes," he noted.
When asked to comment on attacks by MNS activists on students from Bihar who had gone to Mumbai to appear in railway recruitment exams, Hazare said: "I do not support everything Raj Thackeray does. If violent means are adopted by MNS, it will not be in interest of a united India."
"We need to work for unity of the country and not for its disintegration through violence against innocents," he added.
Mallika Sarabhai's Response to Hazare
Dear Annaji
We are deeply shocked by your endorsement of Narendra Modi's rural development. There has been little or no rural development in ths state. In fact gauchar lands and irrigated farmlands have been stealthily taken by the government and sold off at ridiculous prices to a small club of industrialists. There has been no Lokayukta in Gujarat for nearly seven years so hundreds of complaints against corruption are lying unheard. From the Sujalam Sufalam scam of 1700 crores to the NREGS boribund scam of 109 crores, the fisheries scam of 600 crores, every department is involved in thousands of crores of scams. The poor and rural peoiple are being sold to Modiu's friends the industrialists. The state is in terrible debt because of his largess to industry while 21 lakh farmers wait for compensation.
Your endorsement is apalling and we will be forced to distance ourselves from the Lokpal movement unless it is irrevocably retracted.
Sincerely
Mallika Sarabhai
11.4.2011
8.23am
The Jagran At Jantar Mantar
http://www.outlookindia.com/article.aspx?271279
Wednesday, June 23, 2010
Scientist arrested in Midnapore: a story somewhat different from the one you have been reading so far
By Parni Ray
Nisha Biswas, 56, a family friend and a senior scientist at the Central Glass and Ceramics Research Institute was detained by the West Midnapore police in Lalgarh on the 15th of June, 2010. She has been charged with a long list of cases, most of which fall under the larger bracket of the now ubiquitously used Section 120 of the Indian Penal Code (criminal conspiracy against the state).
Biswas, a moderately fresh face in the slowly burgeoning team of Human Rights activists working in Lalgarh, has been working with the locals of the area for almost 2 years now. This, obviously, was not her first visit to the turbulent area, where section 144 still rages on.
On the 15th of June on her way to Lalgarh on yet another field survey Biswas was accompanied by at least 5 other people, Kaniska Chowdhury (a professor in Behala college), Manik Mondal (human rights activist), two unidentified reporters from CNN-IBN and a journalist from Hindustan Times. Following their arrest, the three journos were let of immediately after a quick clarification of their identities while Biswas, Mandal and Chowdhury were placed in judicial custody.
Alarmingly none of the detailed accounts presented by CNN-IBN of the incident (and there were quite a few see http://ibnlive.in.com/news
Biswas and her associates face the risk of a life imprisonment, or so says the ever so reliable TELEGRAPH. This on the basis of the notebook, pen, digital camera and the meagre 4,500 rupees seized from them, a seizure list of which is yet to be released. This on the basis of the 18 months of 'intelligence reports' acquired by the Kolkata Police by tapping and recording her various phone conversations. Her (and her associates) specific offense in Lalgarh, police claim has been to
a) have attended a kangaroo court held by the villagers (of which there is no proof)
b) to have corresponded with Maoists on a regular basis and have brought along funds for their operation, the 4,500 rupees, Midnapore police claim, was for this purpose alone. Police claim Biswas and the others were picked up while trying to meet Maoist leaders in Lalgarh and while in talks with members of Chhatrodhar Mahato's PCPA.
c) to have instigated the villagers with (but of course) anti-national thoughts and attempted to (but of course) wage war against the state.
Biswas has been specifically targeted by the media especially due to her occupation as a 'Scientist', which, as a tag tends to inspire great alarm when paired in relation with 'terrorist' outfits. It is a trifle funny how the media implicitly means to suggest that the only reason a scientist may come into contact with a political association is to help them make explosives! As if all sorts of scientists, irrespective of what their specialization, what their field are equipped to soup up bombs, as if bombs ARE what scientists make!
The media doesn't however stop at introducing this rather ludicrous subtext between the lines, it continues on its path of hilarity in a direction which is particularly enraging. After the prerequisite questioning of the disapproving neighbours, the angry colleagues,the reportage swoops, vulture like, on predictably double-edged phrases. 'She was always aloof', 'she had a fight with a colleague'. Taken out of context and subjected to the tried and tested journalistic methods of 'cut' and 'paste' these damp-as- salt-in-July sentences lend a whole new hue to both, the piece being rendered and the individual being described. It's a particularly horrifying method of social profiling. I tremble with fear at the thought of what my classmates from college or my co-learners at swimming class or my neighbour who I have never met or the lady who comes to take our rubbish in the morning or even that girl I once brawled with in school might tell journalists if they came enquiring after me!
There are a number of reasons why I am writing this post. For one, I am angry. And yes there is no point in denying the urban smugness which has lent a particularly sharper edge to my anger simply because this is happening to a woman I have had dinners and shared a smoke with. But surely there are other reasons as well. One of them, the most important of them, is to further share with you the sham of a media we have already recognized as a puppet in the hands of the state, equally corrupt, equally dictated by corporate demands and in one word, blind. But most importantly I write this so that YOU know, and tell others and tell the OTHERS to tell others so that soon, when one of us decides to do something about this, this particular 'this', or some other 'this', or THIS in general we all know who to stand by and perhaps, what to do.
Spread the word.
see for more
http://www.telegraphindia.
http://redbarricade.blogsp
http://www.myjamshedpur.co
http://ibnlive.in.com/news
Press Notes by PUDR and Sanhati
http://sanhati.com/article
http://sanhati.com/article
Wednesday, November 25, 2009
Saturday, January 26, 2008
http://www.thestatesman.net/page.arcview.php?date=2008-01-15&usrsess=4909188831951&clid=4&id=212671
The CM is a man of word
There should not be any discrepancy between what we say and what we do. Mr Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee is at least a man of word. He is not ready to eat his words even in adverse circumstances. He has often been forced to do a volte face of what he said previously. But this tactical retreat is not what he nurtures in his core of heart. He never forgets to harp on his pet mission, ‘industrialisation’. He is a hard nut to crack and is ready to sacrifice everything to implement it.
Alexander Pope once said: :Words are like leaves; and where they most abound, much fruit of sense beneath is rarely found.”
The CM has been vilified and castigated for his policy of industrialisation; opposition leaders like Mamata and her ilk, others and Maoists have shed rivers of crocodile tears for the land losers and the evicted farmers but the CM is not ready to budge. He is not a hypocrite. He adheres to what seems to be his firm belief.
Still, the critics will hit out at both Jyoti Basu and his successor for asserting that a class-less society seems to be a mirage, a utopia and our emancipation lies in adherence to capitalisation and industrialisation.
Is the CM reneging on his party’s much vaunted pro-poor and pro-farmer policy? Only future will lend credence to what is right.
TARAKDAS MAJUMDER,
7 January, Kolkata.
Priority item
ndustrialisation of West Bengal is not the personal agenda of Mr Buddhhadeb Bhattacharjee. It is a priority item of the CPI-M’s election manifesto on the basis of which the party fought the last Assembly election and retained power with resounding victory by attempting to project a new progressive image.
Rapid steps are being taken for industrialisation and in the process various problems, particularly relating to acquisition of land, have cropped up leading to abandonment of the proposed chemical hub at Nandigram amidst violent protests.
Many fundamental issues have also come up, like the requirement of transparency and public opinion in connection with any project that may affect the interests of common people, particularly the agriculturist, the desired percentage of availability of land/fertile land for improved agricultural produce vis-a-vis the industrial sector, an updated land acquisition act, an apposite policy of compensation to the people displaced from land, and so on.
These critical issues are not for the West Bengal government alone, but are common to all other state governments as well as to the governments of other countries who have embarked upon rapid industrialisation.
Hence, there does not appear to be any ground for Mr Bhattacharjee to be perturbed over the reverses here and there on execution of the projects for which private investments are coming in a big way even in the face of inter-state competition. While the process of industrialisation will have to be hastened in the state, the fundamental issues need to be simultaneously addressed not only at the state level but at the national level too.
PARAMANANDA PAL,
7 January, Kolkata.
Wrong process
Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee has been desperately trying to project himself as an industry-friendly Chief Minister and is determined to deviate from the path of socialism.
But the process he has adopted in achieving his goal is wrong and, therefore, his dreams suffer setbacks from time to time; even the existing industries are in doldrums and are facing closure.
During the Left Front’s long regime, not much stress has been put on improving the basic infrastructure in the state. This has kept industrialists away from opening new units.
I think, it would be prudent on his part to take the opposition parties into confidence, especially for reviving old industries. His adamant attitude may not bring success to his mission, which he needs to realise.
RANJAN GUPTA
8 January, Kolkata.
Taste of capital
The Buddhas and Karats have found capital so tasty that they did not hesitate to shake off their socialist pretensions and don the mantle of capitalism to go ahead with industrialisation.
The loss of some 10,000 votes by the CPI-M in the Balagarh Assembly by-election is a clear indication of a veto by the people against the industrialisation policy.
As a matter of fact, the Chief Minister had hinted at his party’s radical shift in its ideological position sometime last year when he had told media men at the Kolkata Press Club that he was willing to work as the agent of any industrialist, why only Tatas.
The CPI-M did not have even the minimum courtesy to inform its other partners in the Left Front that it was changing colours ~ from socialism and communism to capitalism.
Mr Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee became so arrogant at the bright prospect of Indian and foreign capitalists filling up the coffers of the CPI-M before being granted permission to set up industries in West Bengal at the cost of the domestic ones, that he asserted that he was not only committed to industrialisation of the state, but would rely “solely on capitalism and not socialism” for realising the goal.
This is a radical shift in the CPI-M’s ideological position. It has become a votary of capitalism and should change its name to the “Capitalist Party of India (Money-Making)”.
ASABARI SEN,
7 January, Santiniketan.
Sunday, December 2, 2007
What Lies Beneath
http://myownfairystories.blogspot.com/2007/11/what-lies-beneath.html
Over the years, Sauce!, a founding member of The Be Serious Society, has shown remarkable restraint in demonstrating seriousness of expression or purpose. We (that is to say, I) at Sauce! have always shown by our (that is to say, my) actions that Sauce! believes there is enough serious discourse on our immediate and larger societies on several thousand blogs, and a few more paltry sentences would not be missed. We -- or to give credit where it's due, I -- have instead striven to entertain, and I don't mind saying I imagine I did a halfway decent job of it.
It is with uncharacteristic sombreness, therefore, that I must warn you that the following post is long, and is most un-Sauce!like. Read at your discretion.
If you were in Calcutta during the last two weeks, there is a fair chance you may have walked alongside nearly a hundred thousand others on the 14th of November, Wednesday, from College Square to Dalhousie, silently protesting against the bloodbath and the willful, brash destruction of civil liberties at Nandigram. Almost everyone I know, and people they know, and their neighbours and friends and grandparents were at the march. Indeed, such disciplined spontaneity from a city used and subjected to bands, strikes and chakka-jaams as expressions of dissent was as astounding as it was heartening, even though there seemed to be a degree of disparity about cause espoused. Some marched in protest of the State government's open and unapologetic "paying them back in their own coin" course of cadre-brutality action, some decried the collapse of democracy, quite a few matched in protest of police action in Nandigram on the 14th of March this year and partisan behaviour since. I didn't walk that day, but my reasons were personal. I supported the walk, if such support counts, in spirit.
If you were in Calcutta last Wednesday, the 21st of November, you would have been in a state of cold panic all day, as rumours and news poured in from every available source about an escalating number of people injured, cars burnt, houses set fire to, the sealing off a section of the city (which contains, apart from all of Mother Teresa's Missionaries of Charity buildings and the offices of three prominent media houses, several of the city's schools, all in mid-session. To see how they're situated, click to enlarge the map here), the deployment of the Rapid Action Force, and finally, the Army. The panic-calls shot up to almost 60 per cent the usual volume, clogging the cellular system.
I was out on the streets from late morning till evening last Wednesday, and I saw the anxiety, the suppressed excitement, the traffic blockades and the unusual sight of chaperoned highschoolers going home at twelve noon first hand, all the while following the news third or fourth hand and several times embroidered. I also did not miss the customers at Subway and Pizza Hut, or, travelling in a bus crammed with corporate commuters returning early, the cars parked outside Eliot Park from which children scrambled out, a mere four hours before curfew was due to start on the other end of Park Street.
The local electronic media has earned my respect by not beaming footage of the latter, especially the aforementioned clientèle of international food chains, in order to demonstrate either the "resilience of the people of Kolkata" in an imitation of those of Mumbai, or the much-hashed "social indifference of the upwardly mobile slaves of global capitalism", which is a steady literary vein that still adorns the novels in various Puja editions of every publishing house, the political and economic behaviour of said houses notwithstanding.
The day after the riots, when the national print media woke up to the news, I found they had discovered a vital angle to the recent happenings in and around Calcutta (I refrain from saying 'in West Bengal' for obvious reasons -- there is a great deal of ethnicity-based violence, especially in the north, which has little to do directly with the recent turmoil at Nandigram and Kolkata) that we had been missing since March. The NDA in it's wisdom -- and it certainly has the requisite amount, given it's political history and that of it's constituent parties -- has declared that Muslims were the worst hit in Nandigram atrocities, and that this challenges the secularism of the state's Left Front government (for an example of how much currency this point of view has quickly gained see this article on TwoCircles.net, second paragraph). Of course, the NDA's concern for minority communities is understandable when one takes into account the impending consequences of Tehelka's Gujarat exposé, and in the hands of the Left no less, but before making such potentially incendiary comments, the NDA would have done well to have taken into account the basic ground situation at Nandigram, as would a few other earnest protesters of the doubtless heinous atrocities that went on there, and those that seem inclined to blame the police for Wednesday's riot.
First, the minority angle did not make headlines in the local media because it is common knowledge that a large section of the farmers and share-croppers at Nandigram on each side of the political divide are Muslims. It is not a fact that needs underlining -- in fact it is a common thread of pride in this city that communal politics has found little space in it -- and all partisan behaviour so far has been on grounds of political allegiance, not religious. Which is to say, Hindus and Muslims of and on the side of the CPI(M) -- who according to their political conviction should not, indeed, have a religious identity at all -- fought, killed, raped and looted Muslims and Hindus of what can best be described as the non-CPI(M) side. A little contextual understanding would have prevented the NDA embarrassment and saved the State unnecessary communal tension.
Second, the Bhumi Uchhed Protirodh Committee (Committee for the Prevention of [Land] Eviction). Just so we're clear on this, the BUPC is not an apolitical platform of 'the people of Nandigram', farmers who want no part of politics and are merely defending their livelihood. The BUPC is an unstable faction of Trinamool workers, CPI(M) defectors, the SUCI, farmers/share-croppers, and are now also said to have had strong Maoist affiliations. The instability of this Committee is due in part to the shifting loyalties of a section of its members, most of them CPI(M) defectors who returned to the fold (as it were) either for benefit or under duress, after the forced breaking-in by the police earlier this year, and by the CPI(M) cadres' motorbike gang a few weeks back.
What mystifies me is the insistence on equating the BUPC, and therefore State-enforced victimisation, with meek suffering, because from ground zero personal reports, the BUPC is not meek in its resistance at all. And let me here add that if they wanted to resist eviction successfully, they could not afford to be unarmed or meek. The 'collapse of democracy' is, in fact, being mourned very belatedly. In rural areas, and I can bear personal witness to this, there has been very little democratic living with space for 'the voice of dissent' or even clinically detached apoliticalism. The supposed apolitical inclinations of The Common Man has been ground to dust, if it ever existed, in the rural areas of Bengal, where things such as being served by shopkeepers, finding labourers to work for you, putting your child in school, all depend on your politics. The civil democracy that is India according to it's Constitution does not exist much beyond it's urban centres.
Third, and this is where the assumed safety of urban centres falls apart: creating and encouraging, whether purposefully or inadvertently, a sense of marginalisation bordering on social exclusion; and the role of rumour in fuelling social insecurities. Contrary to popular belief, the battle rages on at Nandigram not because the land is still under threat, but because an alienated Nandigram is a seat of power that the sectarian forces (Maoists or Maobaadi, whose presence in the area and contact/collusion with the local Trinamool Congress seems to have been satisfactorily established), eager to establish a stronghold and threatened by rumours of attempted takeovers/evictions in the future (strenthened by the fact that, despite the Chief Minister's claims of "acquisition only after discussion", popular consent is not required for governmental acquisition of land) were not ready to let go of.
On Wednesday, it now appears that the carefully pre-planned violence (for The Telegraph's report of the Kolkata Police's opinion, see this, and click to enlarge the map to see how the riot spread) depended on rumours of evicting the busties along and around Bridge No. 4, otherwise known as the Park Circus connector, to kick into action. Police reports and interviews of protesters indicate that a systematic spreading of rumour and panic worked the areas adjacent Park Circus into frenzy. Demographically, Park Circus, Ripon Street, Entally and the CIT Road/Darga Road area are amongst the economically disadvantaged sections of the city, and from a social context of large families with low income, it also houses a good section of the city's school dropout and formally unemployed youths -- a group whose sense of being victimised by the State is easy to work on. On Wednesday close to 12,000 (The Telegraph puts the number between 12,000 to 15,000) of these young men took to the streets, taking positions of low rooftops and darting into bylanes, hurling bricks and soda bottles from carefully accumulated stacks.
Although the protest -- organised by the All India Minority Forum, the Furfura Sarif Muzadeedia Anath Foundation and the Jamait Ulema-i-Hind -- had a twelve-point protest agenda, and Idris Ali (President of the AIMF and member of the Congress Party) kept repeating his solidarity with the people of Nandigram on television, creating a vague cause-and-effect correspondent between the Nandigram violence and 21st's riot, the rioters' cry demanded only the eviction of Tasleema Nasrin. Given the profile of the average protestor-turned-rioter, it is doubtful they read Tasleema's book (and this is not so much to show intellectual condescension as to point out that the book, apart from being generally unavailable, is written in Bengali, and most of the rioters did not seem to speak much Bengali), a doubt sustained by the media, who had swarmed the areas since the beginning of the rally and followed the riot through its course. When asked why they were calling for the writer's expulsion, the young men retorted that their leaders asked them to, since she had abused Islam. On being asked whether they had read her books, they said they did not. While in this case the rumour may have been sustained by a degree of truth, the point is that to the people who took to the streets demanding her expulsion, Tasleema's disparaging of Islam was unverified information taken at face value. Thus, what fuelled Wednesday's Islamic youth fury was two pieces of received information: one, that a part of their living area would be demolished and they would be evicted, and two, that a woman of the faith had abused their religion.
Finally, the police. It is no secret that in this State the police is almost always in compliance with the party currently in power, and it is widely held that they employed unnecessary violence on the 14th of March and since (see the CRPF officer in charge of Nandigram's reaction to police behaviour here), and have been drawing flak from all public quarters, especially the local the combined forces of the city's 'intelligentsia' and Star Anondo. The police didn't do themselves any favours by arresting about sixty of the city's prominent glitterati from the Nandan compound during the Calcutta Film Festival for protesting against the Nandigram violence, something which in part led to the march on November 14th. However, what people tend not to remember is what the media rhetoric was before 14th March. The Telegraph -- and indeed it's electronic counterpart, Star Anondo -- who have recently been retrospectively critical of the police for their actions on March 14th, had this (text and link archived at Development Dialouges here) to say in February, going so far as to begin the editorial with "Violence has only one antidote: counter-violence".
On Wednesday, however, the police showed a great deal of restraint, if reports are to be believed, and since the reports came from media houses which have been their harshest critics recently, there is not much space for doubt. It is certainly true that all the police had permission to use was their batons and tear gas, even when the trouble escalated into a riot-situation, when open-firing is considered a justifiable course of action. When questioned about the paltry number of police -- 250 -- deployed to control the situation and the reluctance to open-fire, Police Commissioner Goutam Chakravarti said, not without bitterness, I should imagine, that the Kolkata Police did not open-fire even when provoked because "It would have been called unconstitutional". The adjective had, in fact, been used by the High Court to describe police action in Nandigram on 14th March, and not without reason. This might in part have prompted the State government to ask the Army to mediate in what some consider haste, but if the police were denied means to control the situation -- video footage actually shows them running for cover from the pre-planned sustained missile attack -- the decision of calling the Army in does not seem particularly hasty.
There is space for debate about whether a non-partisan police force would have the moral authority to deal with the riot as established methods demanded. First, I cannot credit the existence of a police force that is completely unbiased. Functioning as it does under the elected government, no tool of administration can make independent decisions. Secondly, once outsiders -- and I use the term deliberately -- like the NDA's representatives begin commenting on minority exclusion or community-specific losses, falling in, for once, with a section of the liberal media and public-domain academics who tend to decontexualise each religious, ethnic or racial issue and seek to address them with the same rhetoric of oppression or marginalisation or victimisation, the entire issue of police firing on or even lathi-charging a mob in a Muslim-dominated area would become the chief source of fuel to the communal/partisan politics fire.
At a time of such inter-community tension (I am obviously not talking merely of Hindu-Muslim relations here) and especially when the Home Ministry reports a growing base of fundamentalist infiltration of Bengal and India via the porous Bangladesh borders (not that it was a surprise), we can ill-afford to create such a volatile political and religious situation. We have enough militant religiosity of both the Hindu and Muslim kind, enough sectarian forces battling it out with the State's defence mechanisms and enough legacies of race/caste hatred as it is. Freedom of expression is a very, very valuable right that the liberal democracies have won for their citizens, and all I ask is for it to be used with consideration and responsibility, with a horizon beyond immediate short-term gains in mind.
I ask this, not of politicians, for I don't believe in fairies any more, but I do ask this of the national and local media, and I ask this of our intelligentsia: academics, actors, directors, artists, authors, singers. And I ask this of teachers and community leaders. Or we're headed down the road to perdition, global capitalism et all, and there will be few breaks on our way.
Arrogance hallmark of CPM leaders
http://www.thestatesman.net/page.news.php?clid=13&id=178146&usrsess=1
THE ISSUE: Court says 14 March firing at Nandigram was unconstitutional. But the arrogant CPI-M leaders won’t learn.
All praise to Mr Justice SS Nijjar and Mr Justice Pinaki Chandra Ghosh for rightly holding that the 14 March firing at Nandigram was unjustified and unconstitutional. But I am sorry to say that considering the instant reactions of some top ranking CPI-M leaders who have openly criticised the judgment in a disgraceful manner, I doubt whether the judgment would come as an eye-opener to the government.
We all know, arrogance is the hallmark of CPI-M leaders. Having been in power for the last 30 years they have taken it for granted that the actions of the government would go unchallenged. Law is not for them. Their leaders are immune from all actions and are free to make contemptuous remarks against courts with impunity.
In the past, similar remarks were made by senior CPM leaders but they were allowed to go scot free. Therefore, I do not think the CPM leaders would take any cognizance of this latest judgment unless these leaders are booked under law of contempt.
ARUN GUPTA,
19 November, Kolkata.
Party prefers
violence
The court has pulled up the Left Front government for the firing at Nandigram on 14 March. But the CPI-M leaders adopted a “don’t care” attitude. Arrogance often prevents a person from seeing the truth.
Mr Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee’s move to recapture Nandigram with the help of armed cadres has confirmed our worst fears. It is now clear that Mr Bhattacharjee is not the people’s Chief Minister, but belongs to the party first, and the party prefers violence to silence its opponents.
RATHIN CHATTERJEE,
19 November, Dum Dum.
Legal assault
on CM
Any government respecting the Constitution would have bowed out, and any civilised Chief Minister having self-respect would have stepped down after the Division Bench of Calcutta High Court severely censured and indicted the administration and the police for the “wholly unjustified and constitutional” actions at Nandigram on 14 March.
This is a direct legal assault on Mr Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee, who also holds the Home (Police) portfolio, as his own police came under fire from the HC for unwarranted shooting above-the-belt of unarmed people both by the police and CPI-M cadres in police uniform. But the arrogant CPI-M leaders, led by its state secretary, Mr Biman Bose, continued their tirade against the High Court judges as also the Governor, Mr Gopalkrishna Gandhi, instead of feeling ashamed for their conduct.
Mr Bose, and his comrades, Binoy Konar and Shyamal Chakraborty, have forgotten that the CPI-M state secretary’s appeal against an earlier judgment for contempt of court is pending before the Supreme Court. Its inordinate delay should not be taken as a licence to shoot his mouth off. Perhaps Mr Bose feels that the country’s highest court is scared to take any action against him, thanks to the CPI-M’s clout in the capital city.
ASABARI SEN,
19 November, Bolpur.
Not above law
It is observed that the CPI-M leaders don’t behave well with the Governor, judges of the High Court and the media persons who are opposed to the undemocratic activities of the party, such as the 14 March firing at Nandigram.
In democracy everyone has the right to criticise any person but that should be done in a civilised way and in dignified language. But the CPI-M leaders do not hesitate to express their views about Governor Mr Gopalkrishna Gandhi in the most uncouth manner. In a democracy the ruling party is not above the law. It should introspect whether there has been any unlawful and undemocratic activities on the part of the government.
It is strange that the party does not care even for the protests of intellectuals, artistes and writers, many of whom are Left minded. Doesn’t the haughty attitude of the CPI-M leaders bring back memories of the 1970s?
DILIP KUMAR DUTTA,
19 November, Midnapore (W).
State’s right
The court judgment must have evoked mixed reactions - the opposition happy and the state government jittery. What seemed to have gladdened those opposed to the Left Front was that the HC rejected all the arguments of the state government and directed a fresh CBI inquiry.
With due respect to the Hon’ble Chief Justice Mr SS Nijjar and Mr Justice Pinaki Ranjan Ghosh of the High Court passing the verdict, is it unethical to question the propriety of the media to spew vile and venomous expletives on the government? Isn’t the media sitting in judgment on something entirely within the purview of the court? The government expressed its shock and regretted the 14 March Nandigram incident time and again, saying that it shouldn’t have happened. It also lost no time instituting an inquiry assuring that none found guilty would be spared.
The state has every right to challenge a court order. It doesn’t necessarily imply defiance of the directive passed. The public is also entitled to criticise any judgment. Hasn’t the judiciary been found overactive and manipulative? Hasn’t if frowned upon the people’s representatives? If one pillar of democracy transgresses the constitutional limits, should anyone be barred from raising his or her voice against it? After all, it takes two to tango just as it takes two hands to clap. One ought to pause to ponder before calling a party arrogant.
PB SAHA,
21 November, Kolkata.
Means fair or foul
Calcutta High Court’s judgement came immediately after the Opposition bandh on 12 November together with the HC lawyers’ suspension of work for a day demanding speedy justice for the “police excesses” on 14 March and the Governor’s statement of lawlessness and the state government’s inability to restore normalcy.
It’s known to all, that the Marxist party moves on with its own “ideology” defying everything else. The party adopts all possible means to reach its objective, even by violating all democratic tenets keeping in mind the panchayat elections ahead.
RANADIP GANGULY,
19 November, Kolkata.
