By Saswat Pattanayak

Well, some news is actually good!

Like the news that Munna Bhai is back with his friend Circuit to the silver screen! In an unflinching tribute to his beloved late father Sunil Dutt, who is much missed in this brilliant sequel, Sanjay Dutt has made more than acting come alive. Writer-Director Raju Hirani has once again excelled in popularizing the conventionally absurd, eulogizing the most susceptible, and sketching raw feelings with innate deftness of a master filmmaker.



None of the Mumbai films released this year made much sense this year, with the sole exception of Madhur Bhandarkar’s Corporate, which dealt with feminism’s oppositional intersection with capitalism in a profoundly relevant manner. And in fact, all the rest of the flicks this year, were disastrous experience for someone who has grown up admiring Raj Kapoor and Guru Dutt when it comes to Hindi film industry. In fact, the much touted movies like Kunaal Kohli’s Fanaa, and Karan Johar’s Kabhi Alvida Na Kehna were so pathetic that they deserve entry into the Bollywood Hall of Shame.

Before rushing to ImaginAsian theater, I had a sneak review of Lage Raho Munna Bhai, which did not say much (actually Jason Buchanan got the film’s plot wrong).

Moreover, the film really caught me off guard with introduction of Mahatma Gandhi, considering that with the exception of Kamal Hassan’s Hey Ram (2000), none of the recent movies have treated the Mahatma in a worthy light. In fact, the current crops of Hindi film industry directors have developed some sort of an obsession with making films ridiculing Gandhi and his ideals. So when Munna Bhai got Gandhi as his conscience keeper, it was alarming in the beginning. Indeed, in a scene, Munna came to practice “Gandhi-giri”, and rather displayed some of his own brand of “Dadagiri” to get things done. But as the movie proceeded, there were more complex crossroads between theory and practice that easily left anyone with a deep impression for appreciation.

Just like its predecessor, Munna Bhai MBBS, which radically destroyed the halo around the unholy medicos, this film while actually glorifying the academia, also does its bit to sensitize the fact that no knowledge is good, if it’s not shared. In a bitter way, it denounces the academic elitism of the ivory towers, and the gross arrogance characteristics of the ‘educated’ class, which apathetically witnesses powerful Godmen get away with superstitious spells, and takes active part in promoting such belief structures. It goes even to an extent of patronizing the Marxist analysis of history which is based on mass, not iconic struggles. When an elite history professor flaunts his knowledge on Gandhi, Circuit offers him a slice of his knowledge: history of the misguided youths.

Skillfully done, even the most ardent Gandhian would derive immense pleasure from the absolutely riveting portrayal of the Mahatma. On the flip, devoid of the Kamal Hassan sophistication in filming the Gandhian methods, Lage Raho Munna Bhai may have ended up simplifying Gandhi albeit a bit too much. But looking from the perspective of someone who equates October 2 with a ‘dry day’, the lessons from history is very well learnt with the vulnerabilities and humility intact.



Sunil Dutt legacy:

Lage Raho Munna Bhai has unforgettable moments of Sanjay becoming a radio personality first, to woo his love, then to spread Gandhian messages, and finally to win back his love. One can only recall that Sunil Dutt indeed began his career as a famous radio personality on Radio Ceylon hosting an extremely popular “Lipton Ki Mehfil” in early 1950’s.

Beyond the obvious, Sunil Dutt would have continued to be proud of his son Sanjay, who has been in the past variously accused in aiding of terrorism cases. Like a statesman of high caliber and integrity that his father was while contesting polls from Mumbai, Sanjay Dutt has always silenced his apprehensive critics through his commitment to social justice instead. Sanjay’s unwavering allegiance to his father’s legacy can be traced in movies of his later career. A little known film “Tathastu” made this year starring Sanjay Dutt also reflects the father-son relationship at most beautiful junctions.

Sunil Dutt and his wife Nargis (Fatima Rashid) were widely known as brilliant leading stars for some of the finest Hindi cinemas of yesteryears. But the part that they have most inspired Sanjay with were their commitment to peoples’ causes. Nargis whose progressive works were well known was nominated to Rajya Sabha by Indira Gandhi herself. And Sunil Dutt, through his commitment to carry on the tasks that Nargis had left behind, joined politics in later part of his career. Contesting from Congress ticket would not have come easy for someone in Mumbai, the stronghold of right-wing Hindu fanatic bosses who continue to have a hold over film industry operatives. And yet, Dutt through sheer dedication in his various involvements at grassroots levels, won from his constituency for five terms and passed away while being at office. Not as a successful politician, rather as a conscientious objector and a secular progressive activist, Sunil Dutt liked to live his life.

Whereas right-wing hawkish Indian political leadership celebrated India’s nuclear state status, it should be remembered that Sunil Dutt went from Nagasaki to Hiroshima in order to condemn nuclear weapons. During Punjab crisis, despite anti-Congress wave, he walked 2000 km with his daughter and others from Mumbai to Amritsar in order to plead for peace. At a time when the country was enamored with being declared a superpower (a kind of ‘dadagiri’ if you may) in the making, Dutt traveled through the entire South Asian region in a peace expedition called “Hands Across the Borders”. More importantly, when Babri Masjid was demolished by the Hindu brigade in 1993, Sunil Dutt resigned from his seat as a Member of Parliament, in an exemplary gesture against the communal politicians. Such was the legacy of Sunil Dutt who led his entire political life fighting the communal elements spreading hate and religious intolerance. A peacenik, secularist, progressive politician, and a relentless campaigner in care for cancer and HIV/AIDS affected.

A lesson worth reliving:
Amidst the much mushroomed Bollywood movie scene that proclaims individualistic love, worse, individualistic infidelities, (of the Karan Johar and Mahesh Bhatt variety), misplaced history lessons of free market youths (like Rang De Basanti, hastily made films about Bhagat Singh), of inundated Diasporic cinema of regressive value (Deepa Mehta range of Fire and Water), of sheer reactionary brand of patriotism (Fanaa, Sarfarosh, Border etc), one has to pause awhile and watch Lage Raho Munna Bhai for whatever it has to offer. Its not just principles of Ahimsa and Satyagraha that rejuvenates the undoubtedly best film of this year, but also the fact that anyone in the world can be a Mahatma, and indeed many already are Mahatmas through their committed lives for the sake of others. These Mahatmas are ordinary people like Munna and Circuit who even reform themselves to incorporate Gandhi’s talisman which behooves on us to take steps for the poorest of the poor and to behave appropriately to bring happiness in lives of people we otherwise consider ‘lower’ than us.

For a generation of Indians who take fancy in opposing reservation policies for the oppressed class of people, for those youths who take great pride in their ‘superior’ religions and ‘higher’ castes; for those youths who take pride in their ‘high culture’ sophistication in pursuing ‘cleaner’ high society life, those who gloat in their higher ‘merit’ academic lifestyles, and for those arrogant and innocent and cool and the chic, Lage Raho Munna Bhai will probably provide the greatest lesson of life. This film is the quintessence of the Marx and the Mahatma.

A must-see. A must-felt movie.

Tags: Saswat, Film, Bollywood, India, History, Colonialism

By Saswat Pattanayak

There is no reason why Vande Mataram, the Indian national song, should be in controversy any longer. This song should be now scrapped and deleted from its current status.

Ever since India’s ‘independence’, this song has created controversies, and for obvious reasons. However, just as the ‘secular’ leadership of India had tried to suppress the skeletons in its cupboard, the opportunistic media had also vociferously supported the need for the song to go on in its truncated form.

And India, mostly kept ignorant about the damaging consequences of having such a song was lulled into believing that everything was well so long as we could come to a consensus. For the consensus, however the four power estates of Indian democracy utilized a) the voices of Hindu seculars approving the song’s first two paragraphs, b) the voices of Muslim seculars approving the same paragraphs, c) the voices of Hindu fanatics demanding the whole song to be made compulsory, and d) the confusion of the vast majority of Indians who had no clue whatsoever of any possibility of controversy over a ‘patriotic’ song. But the structure deliberately left out a segment of public which had from the beginning staged protest against the song.

Since the mainstream premise of such a song begins with unquestioned patriotism, anyone who opposes an element within that realm is at once accused of being anti-national. Hence, the remaining group of people, the fifth group which fervently opposed the song everytime, unfortunately most of the time comprised radical Muslims, were denounced to the extent of being silenced by the media.

Bankim Chandra as a Patriot: The lies my teacher told me

In matters of social concerns, half-truths are synonymous with blatant lies. This is so, because half-truths promote biases, prejudices and stereotypes. The text books that most of us studied during our school days were full of the half-truths. This is nothing surprising or exceptional, though. Every government under a popular democracy has to resort to lies in order to sustain its power base. Hence the dominant Congress with its pseudo-Gandhian philosophy also worked towards integrating its lies by to projecting a reconciled difference and reaching a “consensus”.

There is nothing wrong in reaching a consensus, but in this attempt, the critical voices should not be silenced systematically either. And in this case, Vande Mataram should not have been allowed to triumph in a land that should have had it banned subsequent to pursuance of its ideals of secularism. Rajendra Prasad whose fanaticism with Hindutva is well known, of course wanted the song to be given equal status with national anthem. This was unfortunate, although not entirely unexpected of him, considering that the rabid religious elements still wanted to declare India as a Hindu Rashtra. But the condescending statesmen of the time also acquiesced to the demand, albeit in the truncated form.

The future generations of India were not to be told of the lies and deception that went behind projecting Vande Mataram as a national song. As a result, today most people do not even think twice before patronizing the song. Even the ardent Hindu fanatics forgave a Muslim composer making tunes and money off the obsession.

The colonial crisis?

The demands by the rightist brigade to make the song compulsory in educational institution has raised eyebrows. In this case, again, the criticism has mostly come from religious minorities, even at the expense of being categorized as anti-national. We all know it too well how the Hindu fanatics are running to any extent to blame the Muslims of India as instigators of terrorism instead of looking within for managing a society based on complete anarchy and making living off the institutional ignorance. And now, the Hindu supremacists, whose ideological forefathers were infamously hands in gloves with the imperialists (and which is why they were banned from contesting polls in secular India) have picked up sensitive threads of patriotism.

In the classic case of ignorance, the mainstream media propaganda, clearly overlooks certain facts that people of India have right to know and act upon. Here they are in a nutshell:

1. Anti-Muslim: Bankim Chattarjee, the man who wrote this song Vande Mataram was a rabid Hindu fundamentalist whose goal was not emancipation of India from the clutches of the colonialists, rather to establish a Hindu Rashtra by any means. His stress on Islam corruption of India is not only devoid of the highly secular past of India during the Moghul rule, but also smacks of religious chauvinism targeted against Muslim freedom fighters of the colonial period.

Historian R.C. Majumdar writes, “Bankimchandra converted patriotism into religion and religion into patriotism”. In fact Anand Math, the work from which Vande Mataram is derived, is a text of Hindu nationalism, and not Indian nationalism. The work is selectively targeted against Muslims all over the texts. Anand Math is a Hindu temple where there are scenes of Jivananda calling Muslims names: “We have often thought to break up this bird's nest of Muslim rule, to pull down the city of the renegades and throw it into the river - to turn this pig-sty to ashes and make Mother earth free from evil again. Friends, that day has come.”

A G Noorani (Frontline, January 2-15, 1999) quotes M.R.A. Baig’s analysis of the novel in which the song finds exclusive place:

“Written as a story set in the period of the dissolution of the Moghul Empire, the hero of the novel, Bhavananda, is planning an armed rising against the Muslims of Bengal. While busy recruiting, he meets Mahendra and sings the song 'Bande Mataram' or 'Hail Mother'. The latter asks him the meaning of the words and Bhavananda, making a spirited answer, concludes with: 'Our religion is gone, our caste is gone, our honour is gone. Can the Hindus preserve their Hinduism unless these drunken Nereys (a term of contempt for Muslims) are driven away?'... Mahendra, however, not convinced, expresses reluctance to join the rebellion. He is, therefore, taken to the temple of Ananda Math and shown a huge image of four-armed Vishnu, with two decapitated and bloody heads in front, "Do you know who she is?" asks the priest in charge, pointing to an image on the lap of Vishnu, "She is the Mother. We are her children Say 'Bande Mataram'" He is taken to the image of Kali and then to that of Durga. On each occasion he is asked to recite 'Bande Mataram'. In another scene in the novel some people shouted 'kill, kill the Nereys'. Others shouted 'Bande Mataram' 'Will the day come when we shall break mosques and build temples on their sites?””

2. Pro-British: If there ever was a piece of Indian literature that was most pronouncedly pro-colonialists, then it was Anand Math. Interestingly, and naturally enough, the right wing political parties have picked up their ideal role model in Chatterjee since their ideologues were themselves allies of the British rulers in India. Anand Math is replete with anti-Muslim slogans, no doubt. But it also celebrates the British rule in India. It in fact goes to the extent of saying that British were friends of India, and it was only the Muslim people against whom the Hindus should fight against.

In the last chapter of the work, the author speaks through the supreme character: “Your task is accomplished. The Muslim power is destroyed. There is nothing else for you to do.
Your vow is fulfilled. You have brought fortune to your Mother. You have set up a British government. Give up your fighting. Let the people take to their ploughs. Let the earth be rich with harvest and the people rich with wealth.
There are no foes now. The English are our friends as well as rulers.”

This is the context of the song that goes on to celebrate Hindu religious deities entirely and exclusively.

Baahute tumi maa shakti
hR^idaye tumi maa bhakti
tomaara i pratimaa gaDi
mandire mandire
TvaM hi Durgaa dashapraharaNadhaariNii
kamalaa kamaladala vihaariNii
vaaNii vidyaadaayinii namaami tvaaM

Its target is the Muslim people of India and their tradition which has been blatantly misrepresented in the work. And its ally in the vicious hatred campaign is the British rule in India. The mothers in Bande Mataram are the Hindu goddesses and there is no reason why people of other religions should be forced to sing their praises. Just because certain Bengal revolutionaries used this slogan and popularized it, and some more Bengali intellectuals upheld Bankim Chatterjee as an iconic litterateur, it does not mean the great peoples of India will forget the rich multi-cultural tradition that has been in existence in the country since centuries now and in the name of Hindu chauvinism, people should not be misled any further to denounce Moghul rule and celebrate British Raj.

Knowingly or unknowingly, people have believed in the mainstream history of India from almost a harmless angle. They believe that Gandhi was the ‘father of the nation’, that Congress was the party that gave freedom to India, they believe that Hindus contribute the most to the country’s cultural landscape, and they celebrate Saraswati and Sivaji. People are apparently content with the reservation policies working against the Dalits, with nominal celebrations of Islam culture, with not paying reparation to the tribal peoples for having snatched their dear lands.

Even as these acceptances come as mediocre consensus of some form to carry on with a liberal democracy, these have been still in a Gandhian tradition of positive compromises. Our objections should not be towards the social fiber of Indian constitution which is secular, democratic and socialist in its spirit. But if anyone tries to enforce their religious ideals down the future generations of the country, one and all of us must stand in solidarity to oppose the vicious steps. Once and for all, it must be declared that India is not a Hindu country and no Hindu glorifications can take place at an official level, not even if some right wing fanatics come to power once in a while.

We have had many a dramatic stands of consensus in the past. Indeed, this has been the policy of Indian ‘nation’ since its very birth. Although the country is composed of different nation-states, we declared a consensus that we were almost one nation. Although India had distinctly different language groups we declared Hindi as the adopted core. Despite numerous tribal and distinctly exclusive peoples historically inhabiting the country, we agreed that it was a country of the Aryas.

Need to oppose the reactionaries:

But what’s missing from the discourse is not the sense of agreement, but the sense of disagreement. We never studied anything where the genuine disagreements were brought forth for healthy dialogues. We agreed India was the most ancient civilization, that Paravati and Laxmi were goddesses, that Hindus needed more festivities than any other religious groups, that New Delhi needed to be the capital city and Vande Mataram was the national song.

The problem is not in the ultimate acceptance of something as official policy. This is needed for sound governance. The issue at stake is the manner in which the officiating agencies of India never propose the need for the measures that would seriously dwell upon critical issues at stake. Everywhere, regional and national chauvinistic forces are at work in India. The conservatives are creating vandalisms all over with their openly racist and primitively backward views, starting from setting up Saraswati Vidya Mandirs which goes unchallenged even though separation of education from religion should be the spirit of secularism, to install statues in parochial terms. They go on to disrupt Valentines Days, link Muslim cricketers and filmstars with underworld, even as they have formed the most pernicious underworld themselves, only operating wide open in the corridors of political power. They go on to revise history to celebrate Shivaji and claim a Gujarat civilization named after a Hindu goddess. And as their wont, they go on to celebrate their fellow hindu fanatic, one Nathuram Gadse, the killer of Gandhi by revising text books to omit the assassination incident.

We have been taking all these lying down even as the rightist brigade, safely harbored by the domestic business houses of India continues to celebrate the absurd. And now they want the rest of the country to celebrate these sectarian crimes as well, and hence there is a need for the rest of us to resist and desist the temptation to fall into the opium trap. The trap works variously. At times, the enlightened people just assume that its alright if things are this way or that way. Thats the Hindu privilege some people enjoy since their feelings do not get hurt, as long as the hymn remains as the national song.

And if the secular Hindus and religious Muslims of India have not denounced the song in such a serious manner to seek its withdrawal as India’s national song, it speaks of their great tradition of tolerance to Hindu bigotry. This should not be misconstrued as an organic weakness and allowed to be taken advantage of any further.

Tags: Saswat, Literature, India, Islam, Hinduism, Colonialism

By Saswat Pattanayak

Giving into pressure from his promoters, the so-called opposition parties in India, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has, as usual, condemned Pakistan for Mumbai blasts, and threatened disruptions to any peace talk with Pakistan. The right-wingers of India are jubilant at this prospect of forthcoming war with Pakistan, in which they hope to wipe out Islam from the world.

The irreparable damage that could not have resulted from the right wing political rhetoric alone, has now been done through their orchestration of Mumbai tensions. Following the blasts, most of even otherwise liberal people of India are now readily supporting the cause of Hindu fanatics in declaring war against Indian Muslims and Pakistan. This is grossly pathetic display of patriotism by any standard, and a sense of ingratitude towards a great, exemplary minority religious community of India that has actively helped save whatever is left of India’s grace.

Hindus who constitute an overwhelming majority in India have an obligation to display a great sense of responsibility at this time of national crisis. Let it be mentioned that Mumbai blasts is an international tragedy caused by global terrorists (we will soon go to who are the people that are the terrorists and who fund them, and for what cause etc). It is definitely not an occasion to play communal political opportunism. ALL words and actions and thoughts and indications, discriminations and prejudices against Muslim population MUST STOP in India. And blame games against Pakistan and Indian Muslims must end and the peace process must resume as scheduled. This is the least we can do to ensure that India has not yet turned a mad militarist (Although the reality is it is. Although since it’s not North Korea and since it is an ally of USA, India was not declared a terrorist country of the world even after its missile tests last week).

Muslim influence in making of modern India is one for great celebration. Indeed, if the British colonialists would not have forced their way to further gaps between the two communities and would not have manipulated their power structure to divide the country into two or three halves, we would have a different history today.

India’s History of Freedom Struggle against Hindu Fanatics:
The history would have been surely different, if Mahatma Gandhi or Netajee Subhas or Bhagat Singh (all three had radically different ways of approach towards freedom struggle, but convincingly similar goals in mind) would have had their ways. All three of them fought tooth and nail against Hindu fanatics and did not tolerate the ideology that was preached in name of Hinduism. Three of them were secular to the core and they believed that the country’s foundation must be built on Hindu-Muslim unity (not separation).

Whereas Bhagat Singh was assassinated by British imperialists, Subhas Bose’s ideals were massacred by homegrown reactionaries like Sardar Patel and Mahatma Gandhi was shot to death by well organized Hindu fanatics of India.

Whereas the freedom fighters wanted secularism at all costs, the reactionaries wanted communal tensions at all costs. Hence, India’s so-called glorious history has been nothing short of a shameful, casteist, communal history of religious hatred, incited, engaged in, and managed by Hindu supremacists.

This is true that Muslim League, despite having some great patriots of the era, was also religious in nature. But its impact waned after formation of Pakistan. But Hindu Mahasabha, despite having no freedom fighter worth a mention, went on ransacking the emotional wealth of the country even after independence from illegal British rulers.

The history of Hindu ransacking in a Hindu India has gone on unabated in India since British were forced to leave. Although the reality is that these fanatics never got any support from mainstream Indian population, (85% of whom are Hindus) despite their claims to be representing the Hindus!

In the early periods of India’s independent history, which can be truly claimed to be the only glorious period in India’s recent times, the country under Nehru emerged as highly respectable nation in the world, with an internationalist outlook, where India played global role in promoting peace, cooperation and non-violence. India was at its secular best, in curbing the forces of Hindu chauvinism and indeed acted heavily against Hindu fanatics to the extent that they had to go underground. Whereas forming the Non-Aligned Movement in order to refrain from entering a nuclear club (which a shamelessly communalist like Vajpayee or the agent of domestic businessmen like Singh marred by their show of inferiorities---declaration of India as a militarist country…sic!), Nehru stood in solidarity with socialist causes worldwide. India supported the Soviet policies of planning, programming and social welfare. Cooperation, not competition, cooperatives, not private companies, small scale industries, not multinational companies, advancement of scientific rational progressive thoughts, not superstitious religious and fanatic camps…India was the most enviable country as the great role model in the world then.

But just as supremacist Hindus (although a tiny minority, they are so well organized with half pants and lathis and reactionary mechanisms in place) assured the end of Gandhi, they ensured the end of Nehru by fielding Patel against him several times. Both of them had rivalry since few decades before freedom, and even before Nehru could act undemocratically (which was actually the need of the hour, as Netajee had suggested, to educate people about political empowerment), Patel had let the Indian Army loose on Kashmir.

Of course Nehru cannot be forgiven for having tolerated entry of Hindu fanatics in the group already. For example, people like Ambedkar or Aruna Ali were not given the power. Neither Dalits nor Muslims had any primary say in the state of the nation. It was reinstallation of a north Indian Brahmin supremacy in India, that went on playing a different ideology than what Nehru had envisaged (as found in his own writings about the need to curb communal elements in India).

Indian private businesses started to grow after the demise of Nehru and despite valiant efforts by the Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, India had inadvertently fallen into the cold war game. As can be seen from Nixon and Kissinger talks about Indira Gandhi, America started having great interest in India (strategically that’s the best bet to defeat China and USSR at the same time). To that end, as was the creation of Taliban or the Iraqi fascists, foreign aids came to Indian insurgents to organize acts of terror.

Who are the terrorists?
In the pre-independence era, when the British condemned Bhagat Singh as a terrorist, he was very clear on his response. He said he was a revolutionary, and not a terrorist.

We need to dwell on the coinage and definition of who is a terrorist. First off, this is a word founded and coined by the ruling class to portray the resisters negatively, which is why it becomes more logical to believe in their description of who fits the phrase.

For many of the resisters however, they would rather be called Revolutionaries. That’s because revolutionaries fight against the system. And terrorists are integral to the system. Hence, the police forces, military forces and the profiteering governments become the terrorists when they cause circumstances where innocent people are massacred.

This is going on right now in India. The Hindu supremacists of India –the biggest blot in India’s secular image—are the ones who spread the venoms in early last decade by demolishing a national treasure called Babri Masjid. The terrorists who stoned the walls of the mosques and destroyed it with active collaboration of police forces (since they are all integral to the terrorizing network) that December 6, went on to incite the Mumbai bomb blasts—the biggest in India’s history. The riots went on unabated with an entirely unapologetic Shiv Sena supremo Bal Thackerey calling the shots and giving hateful speeches against the Muslims of India. Shiv Sainiks who were aided by BJP in demolishing the mosque are the neo-nazi elements of India who should have been declared as state terrorists long back.

These were the people who came to power by killing extremely popular labor union leader of Maharashtra Krishna Desai, who was a communist leader of amazing popularity, already a MLA and was poised to rule the state. Desai’s murder was the first act of political murder in independent India. Shiva Sena hacked him to death, whereas the police and administration watched haplessly. The rise of political mafia in India has now surfaced to become the voice of the Hindu nationalists, and there cannot be any sadder development than this in India.

Journalist Praveen Swami of Frontline writes:
“Through the 1970s, Sena gangs repeatedly attacked leading Communist trade union leaders, and in 1973 were responsible for the murder of popular Parel MLA Krishna Desai. It was only in 1984, with the Sena discredited as a criminal mafia and in electoral decline, that Thackeray sought alliances with the Hindu Right, first forming the Hindu Mahasangh, and then allying with the BJP.
Violent riots, starting with the anti-Muslim pogroms in Bhiwandi, Kalyan and Thane, and through similar butchery at Panvel, Nashik, Nanded and Amravati, marked this new direction taken by the Sena.”

Activist Praful Bidwai writes:
“The Sena consciously fomented religious hatred and communalised Maharashtra politics. It manufactured chauvinist prejudice against non-Maharashtrians and instigated or committed hate-crimes. The Sena, with its disgusting demagoguery, represents pure, unadulterated evil, a political force that concentrates much that’s negative and deplorable in Indian society, including hierarchical authoritarianism, repression and addiction to the use of force and bullying.”

Ashok Dhawale writes:
“Many other communal decisions were taken by the SS-BJP regime. These were the abolition of the State Minorities Commission, the Urdu Academy and the Haj Committee; the bringing of a bill banning all forms of cow slaughter, including buffaloes, but which was defeated in the Council; a shrill campaign for the imposition of a uniform civil code; an attempt to drive out so-called Bangladeshi infiltrators, most of whom were bonafide citizens of India hailing from West Bengal but who happened to be Muslim; and so on. The claim that was made by the regime that there were no communal riots under its tenure was also false. Communal riots did take place at Pen in Raigad district, Junnar in Pune district, Khirwad in Jalgaon district, in Aurangabad city and other places. The decrease in intensity was simply because the rioters were themselves in state power!”

The riot-ridden India:
By focusing only on the here and now, we shall be basically imitating television reality shows. What is needed is to introspect with historical clarity about how things have shaped up with people.

The great journalist MJ Akbar writes in his book “Riot after Riot” (Roli 2003) that Ayodhya was developed as a case in communal “dispute” back in 1885. The history of it is interesting to be noted here:

“The Englishman who reported this incident more than 100 years ago, that left 75 Muslims dead over the Babri Masjid said that the police were present but merely looked on, being “under strict orders not to interfere”. However a secular judge Pandit Hari Kishan (echoing the voice of millions of Indians) did not award the rights to Hindu fanatics to construct a temple. “Awarding permission to construct the temple at this juncture is to lay the foundation of riot and murder”. A.F. Millett, the British officiating settlement officer even mentioned, “It is said that upto that time (the riot of 1885) the Hindus and Mohammedans alike used to worship in the mosque/temple. Since British rule a railing has been put up to prevent disputes, within which, in the mosque, the Mohammedans pray, while outside the fence the Hindus have raised a platform on which they can make their offerings.”

Akbar says, then in the last quarter of the nineteenth century, the first propagators of modern communalism, the builders of a nation in the name of religion, first came into prominence. These ideologues sent out their missionaries—priests, politicians, novelists, historians---to color the mind of an emerging nation with blood rather than peace. The growing synthesis among the upper and middle classes and the creation of a common culture among the poor was the target. “Purification” became the key of separation, as the leaders indulged in dreams of Muslim and Hindu states…..

The Global Terrorists. Who are they?
The point is the purifiers are still present in one way or the other. Some times, at the helm of power, and at other times, in collaboration. And at all times, they are inciting violence on common people in name of religion. And these days, the local terrorism by dominant religions has been almost replaced by collaborated terrorism across the globe, which we call today as Global Terrorism.

Unfortunately, the global terrorists are this time enjoying power in big powerful countries. On closer look, one can notice the strategies adopted by Indian right-wingers as very akin to the tactics used by Israeli forces. In name of protecting the defense forces (ha!), in name of maintaining national boundaries, in name of safeguarding national interests, the militarist countries like India and Israel (you may please add United States and France and Germany as well&hellip stop nowhere in their quest to dominate the marginalized resisters.

But as is their wont, the ruling class uses every means possible to alienate people from the resisting forces. And when people themselves become resistors, they invent an opposition from the air, in order to project their indispensability. This has happened in every ages. In the most devastating period of economic instability that America has faced since the 1930’s, we are told that Saddam Hussein or Bin Laden are terrorists. Whereas this could be true, the reality is that both of them were creations of the American interventions. Taliban indeed is a logical consequence of American policy in Afghanistan in its attempt to enforce religious fundamentalism in that land.

Likewise, Indian leadership, pathetically criminal in their words and deeds (stealing poor peoples’ thatched roofs to hand them over to industries is one of the recent examples), are detested for rising prices of essential commodities and escalating housing and healthcare costs. In face of real crisis, the country has only its structural governance to blame (BJP or Congress, in the so-called political democracy being run by private businesses, everything is the same after the polls end&hellip. And to avoid these, the creation of external elements as the disrupters is a natural political gameplan. From Hitler to Bush to Singh, everyone has applied this tactic of state control in implicit fashion.

Alright, but who are the terrorists then?
Terrorists are people who cause terror. From our experience, we know that terrors can be imaginary (as in dreams or in political speech) or real (as in price-rise, homelessness, death due to cold wave). So the answer is not very complicated. The real terrorists are the military-industrial complex of politicians who rule through the produces: militia to enforce and money to allure.

But if we need further critical appraisal, here it is: The terrorists make plans. They define territories. They decide on allegiance. They talk of countries and boundaries. They think of their own nationalities, and regionalism. They do not think of world’s working class, they are concerned about domestic business class. They enforce different privileges for citizens and immigrants and aliens. They terrorize people through enforcement of draconian legislations like POTA, TADA or Patriot Act. They use police force and military to perpetrate crime on women and children by declaring war. They use tanks and guns to suppress people who use stones and slogans. They get international support from all terrorists, thus making terrorism not a sectarian act any longer, but a global business.

These terrorists terrorize people by talking sweet and killing their aspirations, or by planting bombs and blaming imaginations. Scolding each other (look how Manmohan Singh scolded Pakistan today for Mumbai blasts!) while failing to apologize and resign because of inability to maintain law and order. In fact they are so involved in creating riots that they make a profession out of it and enjoy allegiance of people.

Today’s India is a result of the Communal Politicians like Bal Thackerey whose party went on rampage merely because of his wife’s statue getting defaced and who has threatened several times to eliminate Pakistan from world map. It is the Communal Politicians like Manmohan Singh who instead of acting on the right wing fanatics are blaming Pakistan for every single law and order disaster in India. New York Times reports Singh saying “I have explained it to the government of Pakistan at the highest level that if the acts of terrorism are not controlled, it is exceedingly difficult for any government to carry forward what may be called a normalization and peace process.”

The same article quotes Tasnim Aslam, the Foreign Office spokeswoman for Pakistan as saying, “In the past two days, India has not given us anything in writing or talked of any evidence.” Sumit Ganguly, a professor of politics at Indiana University in Bloomington says to NYT: It (Mumbai blasts) cannot but help India’s cause in Kashmir.”

Indeed, the goal is to help India’s cause in Kashmir. India’s cause in Kashmir has been one of repression, oppression and violent acquisition of the state’s population. Anyone who resists the Indian Army could be termed as someone backed by Pakistan. Or perhaps some of us might even say backed by America. Things will not change by the proclaimed associations or phrases such as “terrorists”. The power which has been ruling over Kashmir for six decades now need to recognize its need to let the people take back the state. Let there be referendums in Kashmir. Indeed, let there be referendum in India.

Different questions beg different answers. Just like during Mumbai blasts, in recent (as always) Israel attack on Palestine, different questions are being asked too. Some are engaged in finding out who is behind the attacks. I am trying to figure out who benefits in the long run from these attacks.

The people who ask questions like “who will then rule Kashmir” or “who is behind Mumbai blasts” might be asking possibly candid and urgent questions. But my question is altogether different. Mine is “whose interest do these serve”. Occupation of Kashmir or Mumbai blasts serve the political elites of India and Pakistan who are aided in their so-called peace-process (a conversation that takes place entirely without considering the resisting people, who are conveniently always dismissed as “terrorists&rdquo by the US of A. My question then does not seek any answers. Definitely not on this blog. It facilitates further questions.

For example, I am still wondering why the attacks were carried out, why the police without investigations said it was Pakistani backed terrorist groups, why the prime minister before investigations were over, said it was just a few terrorists, why did the Shiv Sainiks go on rampage two days before blasts with its president threatening major repercussions (more violent than the cartoon controversy), why was it that despite its hand in the biggest blast in Mumbai (1993 march) in inciting mass scale murders, and despite right wing roles in genocide in Gujarat---interestingly the media do not touch these communal violence at all as antecedents--no investigations are being done against the parties which have been involved. Even judicial commissions that find Shiv Sena guilty are dismissed (Srikrishna Commission for example). My question also is why has law and order completely failed to take up responsibilities and although we cannot expect the Army (or Indian military) to come help people in crisis, why is it not at least contemplating over the past so many decades of massacres that have been leading to such escalating tensions.

Someone needs to take responsibility. Surely none of the current crop of leaders can take stands like Lal Bahadur Shastri, but its time media stopped quoting a failed and feeble and ashamed agent of global capitalism called Manmohan Singh, and indeed demanded his resignation for failing to act upon the communal elements.

In conclusion:
Every act of terrorism must be condemned. The more pressing need is to understand who are the terrorists. Only a few months back, when the Naveen PatnaiK Government of Orissa in its zealous bid to sell the land to some profiteers ordered mass murder of tribal people without any provocation or need, that was an act of terrorism, which went unnoticed. The Kalinga Nagar incident escaped attention of world media, because it did not involve Muslims. Or when the American firm United Carbide plant killed more than 20,000 people of Bhopal, it was not considered terrorism because it was not a reaction from Muslims. Or when Gujarat Genocide took place under right wingers of India, it was not global terrorism, because Muslims became the worst sufferers.

Without getting lost in the web of words, one must act on the root causes of today’s mishaps. When one does that, it can be unquestionably found that the far-right wing factions of world religions are the perpetrators. And so far at least, in India or America, the Hindus and Christians in their fundamentalist form have been holding power mechanism to their favor to declare war on Islam (American administration has not atoned for its post 9/11 crimes of religious discrimination nature nor is Indian government likely to for its post 7/11 outbursts against Pakistan and Indian Muslims).

The people in Mumbai did not die because they were innocent. They did not die because they were protesting Islam religion. They did not die because they were Hindus. They did not die because they were Mumbaiites.
They were massacred in systematic, organized fashion because the Indian administration failed to arrest the perpetrators even after they had sent clear warnings. And because even after the blasts, the Indian administration failed to carry out investigations into the cause of the blasts. People who planted the bombs could be unemployed, misguided missiles, either Hindus or Muslims. But the ones who used them to further their goals are still in power and they are fighting one religion against another. It is these communal politicians who need to be declared as terrorists. We should not use terrorist word only because the present American president (who has been declared by people as the real International Terrorist on the streets of New York) thinks the war is against Islam.
The war on global terror is actually a war on global poverty, unemployment, illiteracy, a war against war mongers and militarists.

However, terror is not an illusion. The real terrorists are very much present before us. They are the politicians and bureaucrats and blood sucking industrialists who own every means of mental production so much that they make us believe in the unreal terrorism. They do so by generating conditions of violence and then declaring the violence itself as terror, whereas they thrive on the conditions.

We need to ask different questions. Presently, we must force the communal politicians to introspect, if not be forced out by the same people it claims to be “terrorists”. People resisting against the communal politicians actually fight for their own human rights, and I am quoting a great singer from Goa, Remo Fernandes in his album “Politicians Don’t know to Rock ‘n’ Roll”, who represented a profoundly secular majority, thanks due to which the world still is surviving. The minority ruling classes of the world will soon be forced to withdraw from their communal tactics. The world without religions is the one dream…of Lennon to Sahir, and hopefully, to some readers of this blog.

Here’s Remo:

How do you feel?

This song is dedicated
To a species most hated
The curse of the Indian nation
The Communal Politician.

How do you feel? How do you feel?
You who have taught us to kill?
How do you feel? How do you feel?
Are you happy that blood has been spilled?

Do you have sweet dreams at night
Or do the sounds of fright
Come gurgling from your victims
As they feel the knife?
Do you have wet dreams in bed
About the throne you wish you had
Or do you hear the rattling skeletons in your head?

How do you sleep? How do you sleep?
With a dead body lying beside you
How do you sleep? How do you sleep?
Can you smell the rotting heart inside you?

Are you happy inside, or do you try to hide
From the graves you’ve been filling far and wide?
If you can’t have your cake
You’d rather poison the world!

How do you feel? How do you feel?

Tags: Saswat, India, Hinduism, Islam, Pakistan, History, Literature, Colonialism

By Saswat Pattanayak

Gandhism and Leninism surely intersect at interesting crossroads. And they could be more pivotal than merely interesting. At the macro level they intersect at their common abhorrence towards militarism. At the micro level, they are one with the advocacy for community cooperatives. At both stages though, interests are similar: promote peace, for it is at this situation alone that cooperatives can exist. In every conceivable way, Gandhism and Leninism stressed on peace and cooperation because of their stress on workers’ welfare.

The question which naturally arises then is, if Gandhi believed in social emancipation of working class who worked in cooperatives. The answer is clearly yes, but the methods he would have employed would be different, some of the arguments follow. But I feel, relating Gandhi to working class struggle is as moot a question as relating need of violence to further state’s interest in Stalinist Russia.

I have always believed that Gandhi and Stalin (or you may say Lenin) both used the long-term goals of revolution as primary objective and immediate concerns as secondary. Gandhi’s call for tolerance in face of brutal murders of thousands of Indians was as stoically violent, as was the communist path to emancipation of working class in face of gory class wars.

How then were the goals in liberating Indian masses and emancipating Russian working class similar? The answer is, by the yardstick of labor. By the recognition of working tools. This is where the weapons of the masses come to focus. And Gandhi intersects with the Left.

Gandhian philosophy: From Hindu-centric to Workers-centric:
The critical question here, then is not to the extent that Gandhi respected working peoples’ tools, but how did he acquire this knowledge of need. Whereas Gandhi’s relation with the Left could be an inferred one, in oblivion to his own knowledge (although he has admired Lenin several times in his life and he had only great words to describe the revolutionary), his understanding of working peoples’ aspirations to self assertions is clearly an acquired knowledge.

The educated and well-off Gandhi upon his entry into India saw things similar to South Africa in terms of racism, but not in terms of economic class of peoples. This is important to understand because in South Africa, Gandhi stood for the interests of Indian trading class, not the most poorest economic class (who incidentally were the Blacks of Africa, not so much the browns of India). The only way he could get away with that slant of social justice was to claim to his nationalistic role, and his subsequent inevitable arrival in India to pursue that cause to his death.

What then, led to the transformation in Gandhi from being a Hindu nationalist, to craft a radical talisman; his core belief that he had to work for the ‘poorest of the poor’? What led to his famous declaration that every step that we make must be made towards welfare of only the Poorest of the Poor (the proletariat)? Obviously, his exposure to Gujarat did not do Gandhi any enlightenment. His association with industrialists and trading class of India (just like in South Africa) would have again led him astray into supporting the Indian bourgeois cause of petitioning in the Indian National Congress than walking across all villages to mobilize the greatest mass movement in the world history. What brought him the change, the new worldview?

It was Orissa, a state of India, that continues to be the poorest and most underdeveloped state of the vast country. And the chief architect of Orissa’s struggle for independence, Utkal Gaurav Madhusudan Das, whose birth anniversary was celebrated last week.

Teachings of Madhusudan Das:
Gandhi came to learn from Madhusudan Das that two things afflicted India the most: poverty and superstitions. Basically, the lack of class consciousness and adoption of religious practices. (Interestingly, those days, these two were also the primary motivations for the Bolsheviks to cause revolution in Russia.)

And the real life enactor of those struggles in India was Madhusudan Das. Gandhi knew of two postulates: that India was not poor historically, and its Gods were not discriminatory historically either. The ancient rich state of Orissa, and the most universally worshipped Lord Jagannath were the biggest riddles for Gandhi to solve. And in doing so, Gandhi would change his entire course of action, from representing the Congress (his initial interests in presiding it) to representing the people (his growing attachment to causes of peoples in daily lives). Gandhi wanted an end to religious chauvinism, to Hindu supremacists, to Brahminical casteists and to economic exploitators. For him, the role model was an Oriya of great eminence, Madhusudan Das.

Talking of how he started his struggle for freedom of his self and others, Gandhi pointed at both Jagannath culture and Orissan poverty as the eye-opening experiences. He said, “You know that in the whole of our country the land of Orissa is the dearest to me. As soon as I returned to India I began to hear of Orissa’s poverty and famine. We raised an amount and sent over Thakkar Bapa in the capacity of a servant of this afflicted province and organized famine relief.”

Those were the days when Orissa was really afflicted. Her Lord Jagannath was hijacked by the conquerors of the land who spoke different languages, pretended to be representative of Orissan people and instead forced opium addiction on the poor peasants, and the non-Oriya traders used their lobby to force brahminical supremacy over a large indigenous population of Orissa that were either highlanders or just forest dwellers. In a way, the poverty of mineral rich Orissa was brought on it by the ruling classes of adjoining states who also blackmailed some native Kings into forcing cultural seclusion (attempts to make Hindi a state language in Sambalpur, Bangali as language in rest of the state etc), religious dogmatism (project the Lord Jagannath from a universal goddess of peasant class, a black god representing the working class aspirations and the most secular one, for some of whose greatest followers came from religion of Islam too—the most famous being Bhakta Salabega, to a male god who banned entry of non-hindus and the oppressed), and enforced poverty (the spread of opium—literally in Orissa to keep it economically weak).

Few Oriya leaders who were educated and exposed to international working class movements took up the challenge to fight these three pronged reactionary overbearings of language-religion-economics issue. The primary of them was Utkal Gaurav Madhusudan Das, who went on to inspire Gandhi to lead national struggle against religious dogmatism.

Gandhi's struggle against the Hindu Conservatives & Reformists:
Gandhi said he could not give up his struggles against the Sanatanists (the hindu practitioners). Indeed, he went on to say, “I also realized that if I could serve Orissa somewhat I would by so doing serve India. Thus Orissa became for me a place of pilgrimage—not because the temple of Lord Jagannath was there—for it was not open to me, as it was not open to the Harijans—but because I thought of a novel way of touring the country for the sacred mission of the abolition of untouchability. I had heard that the so-called sanatanists were enraged at my mission of removing untouchability and would even try to frustrate it with violence. If they were really so minded, I said to myself, I should make their work easy by discarding the railway train and motor-car and trekking through the country. Moreover, people don’t go on a pilgrimage in cars and trains.

And if there was trouble in Puri because of the anger of the sanatanists, we could not flee from their wrath. It does not behove a satyagrahi to run away. We must face it. I could not do all this in a car or a railway train, and so I decided to perform the rest of the Harijan pilgrimage on foot. The temple of Lord Jagannath has the reputation of being the most famous in India, for there all human distinctions are supposed to vanish, and all sorts of people, Brahmin and pariah, brush shoulders with one another vying for the darshan of the Lord and even eat His prasad out of one another’s hands. But evidently it had outlived that reputation and the description had become a fiction, for the priests would not admit Harijans, but throw them out of the doors of the Lord of the World. I said to myself that so long as these distinctions of high and low endured before the very eyes of the Lord of the World, that Lord was not my Lord, that He was the Lord of the Brahmins and the Kshatriyas who exploited his name and kept Harijans out, but certainly not the Lord of the World. My ambition of restoring its old reputation to the temple is yet unfulfilled, and you have to help me in fulfilling it. So long as the doors of the Jagannath temple are closed to the Harijans, they are closed to me as well.”

This struggle of Gandhi against the Sanatan Dharmi or the Hindus, was inspired by Madhusudan Das of Orissa, who had himself, out of sheer disgust at Hindu supremacists had adopted Christianity, even if just to demonstrate that untouchability was not going to be practiced by him at any level and nor be tolerated.

Madhubabu's progressive roots:
If Gandhi learnt the lessons in racism at South Africa, he learnt the ways to deal with it, from Madhubabu (fondly so called). Madhubabu had set before Gandhi an example, which the latter would continuously refer to, while defining essence of what a human being should aspire for. Madhubabu, despite his high qualifications as a lawyer, not only opened a tannery in Cuttack, Orissa, but also worked there himself. He invested his own money, worked by his own hands and exemplified at least few core virtues that were to guide Gandhian philosophy in future: self-reliance, non-discrimination (since until then, only the “untouchables” were relegated the work of tanning), and relentless perseverance.

Gandhi was so moved by this living example that he wrote to industrialist GD Birla on September 27, 1925 (during his first series of struggles itself), to lend a helping hand to Madhubabu in his loss-making venture.
“Shri Madhusudan Das owns a tannery at Cuttack which he has developed into a limited company. I feel like acquiring a majority of its shares…. The tannery’s liabilities amount to Rs. 1,20,000. It is necessary to rescue it from this dead weight. The tannery uses only the hides of dead animals….; I would also like you to undertake its management. If that is not practicable, I shall find someone else who can manage it. The tannery has a few acres of land which I have seen myself. Shri Madhusudan Das has spent a considerable amount on it out of his own pocket.”

Gandhi acknowledged that there was a need for the country to be sensitized in the direction of thought that was pursued by Madhubabu. Indeed, he thought Madhusudan Das was showing light in the direction of future that India must strive towards: use of hands and feet to abolish class society (yet another Marxist principle) and establish an industrial climate based on vocation (a Soviet measure during that period). In “Navajivan” of September 23, 1928, Gandhi wrote an editorial, “This country needs an industrial climate. In the education of this country, the vocational aspect should constitute its dominant part. When this takes place, the students who will go on learning a craft will support their schools through it. Shri Madhusudan Das had conceived such a plan with regard to his tannery in Cuttack. The plan was a fine one. But it did not materialize as the prevailing atmosphere in the country provided no encouragement to vocational training or a tannery. Why should not carpentry be an indispensable part of our higher education? Education without a knowledge of weaving would be comparable to the solar system without the sun. Where such trades are being properly learnt, the students should be able to meet the expenses of their own schools. For this scheme to succeed, the students should have physical strength, will-power and a favorable atmosphere created by the teachers. If a weaver could become a Kabir, why cannot other weavers become, if not Kabirs, at any rate, Gidwanis, Kripalanis or Kalelkars? If a cobbler could become a Shakespeare, why cannot other cobblers become, if not great poets, at any rate, experts in the fields of chemistry, economics and such other subjects?”

Not just blatant untochability, but also the reformist Hindu argument (some quote Swami Vivekananda to substantiate it) that caste division is a necessity to maintain division of labor was completely quashed by Madhusudan Das in his own trade and by Gandhi in his following Madhubabu’s examples.


Need for Public Sector:
Madhusudan Das was not only the greatest fighter against caste and class society, he also enlightened Gandhi about the need to preserve the ethnic living arts of the peoples by welcoming industrialization on national terms (public sector industries). In the editorial on “Swedeshi vs Foreign” in Navajivan on June 19, 1927, Gandhi paid glowing tribute to Madhubabu for his works in words and deeds: “Raw materials worth crores of rupees are produced in this country and, thanks to our ignorance, lethargy and lack of invention, exported to foreign countries; the result is, as Shri Madhusudan Das has pointed out, that we remain ignorant like animals, our hands do not get the training which they ought to and our intellects do not develop as they should. As a consequence, living art has disappeared from our land and we are content to imitate the West. As long as we cannot make the machines required for utilizing the hide of dead cattle, worth nine crores, available in our country, I would be ready to import them from any part of the world and would still believe that I was scrupulously keeping of the world and would still believe that I scrupulously keeping the vow of swadeshi. I would believe that I would be only discrediting that vow by refusing, out of obstinacy, to import those machines. Similarly our country produces a great many things with medicinal properties, and those come back to us in the form of a variety of drugs or other articles. It is our duty to import any machines, and obtain any help, which will enable us to utilize these things in our own country. Swadeshi is an eternal religious duty. The manner of following it may, and ought to, change from age to age. The principle of swadeshi is the soul and khadi is its body in this age and in this country.”

Talking of “Deadly march of Civilization”, Gandhi said in Young India dated May 10, 1928, that “Under the guise of the civilizing influence of commerce the innocent people of Burma are being impoverished and reduced to the condition of cattle. As Sjt. Madhusudan Das has pointed out, people who merely work with cattle and forget the cunning of the hand by giving up handicrafts are impoverished not only in body but also in mind.”

Tolstoy and Madhusudan Das:
In support of workers’ unique contributions, and the needs for intellectuals to stand in solidarity and their participation in workers’ movements, Gandhi compared Madhusudan Das to Lev Tolstoy: “The late Madhusudan Das was a lawyer, but he was convinced that without the use of our hands and feet our brain would be atrophied, and even if it worked it would be the home of Satan. Tolstoy had taught the same lesson through many of his tales.” (Speech at a Marwari Shiksha Mandal on October 22, 1937)

Even as the British were busy creating the class society of high-paying bureaucrats and “lowly” peasants, Gandhi remained unruffled because he always had Madhubabu as the example to follow. At Birbol, in a village industries exhibition on March 25, 1938, Gandhi stressed again, “Man differs from the beast in several ways. As the late Madhusudan Das used to say, one of the distinctions is the differing anatomy of both. Man has feet and hands with fingers that he can use intelligently and artistically. If man therefore depended wholly and solely on agriculture, he would not be using the fingers that God has specially endowed him with. We will be worthy of being called human beings if we utilize our fingers. Moreover, mere agriculture cannot support us, unless it is supplemented by the work of the hands and the fingers.”

Khadi and genesis of the Mahatma:
Likewise, Gandhi’s core realization for stress on Khadi as a village industry came from Madhubabu’s legacy that he left behind. In a speech at a public meeting in Nagpur, Gandhi said on March 1, 1935, “It was during my walk in Orissa, in the course of my Harijan tour, that it was clearly brought home to me that the village industries must be revived if khadi is to be universal.
I could not have realized this in any tour by rail or car. As the late Madhusudan Das had said, our villagers were fast being reduced to the state of the brutes with whom they worked and lived as a result of the forced idleness in which they passed their days. If they continued in that state, not even independence would improve the state of India. I, therefore, decided that I must, even in the evening of my life, make a heroic effort to end this idleness, this inertia.
……..We have to employ all these crores of human machines that are idle, we have to make them intelligent machines, and unless cities decide to depend for the necessaries of life and for most of their other needs on the villages, this can never happen. We are guilty of a grievous wrong against the villagers, and the only way in which we can expiate it is by encouraging them to revive their lost industries and arts by assuring them of a ready market.”

Similarly at another public speech at Ramgarh on March 14, 1940, Gandhi said, “The true Indian civilization is in the Indian villages. The modern city civilization you find in Europe and America, and in a handful of our cities which are copies of the Western cities and which were built for the foreigner, and by him. But they cannot last. It is only the handicraft civilization that will endure and stand the test of time. But it can do so only if we can correlate the intellect with the hand. The late Madhusudan Das used to say that our peasants and workers had, by reason of working with bullocks, become like bullocks; and he was right. We have to lift them from the estate of the brute to the estate of man, and that we can do only by correlating the intellect with the hand. Not until they learn to work intelligently and make something new every day, not until they are taught to know the joy of work, can we raise them from their low estate.”

Workers' tools of freedom:
Workers’ self-reliance, their pride in their own hands and feet, their resistance to superstitious deviance, their need for correlation of intellect with the hand—Gandhi followed Madhu Sudan Das in his footsteps throughout in the struggle for peoples’ freedom.

The tools of the oppressed, according to Madhubabu were their own hands and feet. The tools of the oppressors were the opiums—religious and otherwise. Gandhi understood these basic tenets of human service from his great teacher-Madhusudan Das.

Today, in an increasingly sophisticated machinery world, as we inch more toward monopolistic corporate societies, lessons of Madhusudan Das should not be lost on us. And the dignity of each work, as Madhubabu used to preach and practice, should remain a hallmark in our collective thinking. For, only when we have learnt to appreciate the workers, can we distinguish the seeds of exploitations. Only when we acknowledge the contributions of the working class of the entire world, can we differentiate the ruling class of the unipolar world. Only by realizing that the part-time workers are exploited in the name of non-exemptness, in the name of disguised employment, in the name of unauthorized working permits etc, can we acknowledge that without these so-called low class workers, we would not even exist today as a human race. Workers deserve the rights they demand, in every parts of the world, and we must acknowledge that they deserve equal pay for equal works, no matter the nature of the work, as long as the hours are the same. For a change, like Madhubabu, we must prepare ourselves to undertake any kinds of works, just to be in solidarity with the working class interests, without any discriminations!

Tags: Saswat, Orissa, India, Communism, Colonialism, Capitalism, Racism

By Saswat Pattanayak

Vikram Buddhi could be anyone. He could be the mindful mathematician, eloquently solving world riddles. He could be the calculative genius on behalf of pacifist Einstein. He could have been framed as his family is pleading . He could have himself posted the messages as he is admitting.

I see two dimensions to it: one, the action itself (online participation) and two, the ideology, if any (the politics of it).

The question is what are the circumstances that might have led to his erratic and clearly unjustified postings? As an example, in a chatroom, any frequent visitor will notice the oh-so-frequent postings of hate lines all the time. Clueless people on both sides of political spectrum spit venoms at each other, initially beginning with racist comments like “you Indians always smell curry” or nationalist comments like “why do you all land up in my country” to personal assaults like “get the hell out of here, else we’ll bomb you like we do”.

None of the lines above are manufactured. As a researcher in digital media interactions, I frequent public chatrooms to sense the happenings and all the time face such ballistics. Considering my lifetime trysts with misdirected wraths from the conservatives and casteists, Hindu fanatics and average theists in India, I never ‘confront’ or ‘counter’ such irrational and outlandish racist comments. I fully empathize that the atomized people living in secluded apartment houses as individualistic wholes, without any interaction with neighbors, whom they do not know incidentally (since they speak different languages) or intentionally (since many are immigrants); where behaviors from both issues of immigration and language have been made suspect (how many television shows or films are produced to depict normal behavior from foreign language immigrants?), people then turn to online interactions as a good outlet. There, isolated individuals find others in a community. In America, the community that should be existing in the real neighborhoods actually exists in virtual world.

As an oasis in human society, people flock into bulletin boards to at least find people who can ‘talk’ to them, and not merely put up smileys on the roads. The chatrooms and bulletin boards are of course all moderated. And moderated by people who are political beings themselves. Where it’s the machine, there are words which are censored. Of course the words that are censored are themselves a limited list, and that list consists only of some English words that are recognized as offensive to one culture and omits all the hundreds of words that could be otherwise offensive to other cultures. Cultures here mean, not just countries, but also religions, non-religions, sexual orientation, gender issues in foreign countries, and political philosophies etc. Although everyone is allowed free entry into the boards, their freedom is clearly demarcated.

This is what makes the case of online interactions less interesting. A hegemonic set of rules determine what’s called a hate speech. Where ACLU might have got it right and the pro-rule advocates wrong is this fine line. Incidentally today’s world is not one singular nation. With several different cultural codes and the freedom for interaction among all cultures (anyone from Finland can be part of a chatroom of Seattle), that’s been provided by online forums, it’s virtually impossible to deconstruct every insults. And the rules will only help suppress the voices of the minorities whose words and intentions are more susceptible for charges.

Free speech has always worked in favor of those who are free to exercise them. That said, it has also been used to preclude the minority voices. Preclude them on several grounds. And there are several minorities in this country. This case pertains to political diversity.

Clearly, Buddhi is not a liberal or a guy on the left. His views have no consonance with the progressives. No person of any amount of critical thinking skill can even lend support to his words. Basic elementary understanding of the left is that sporadic violence does not lead to any solution. Elected presidents of any country or their party people are truly innocent. The guilty in an electoral democracy where ignorance about general knowledge of cultural history and political geography of the world is rife, are the larger gamut of voters who vote without slightest knowledge of their role in perpetuating an unjust political environment. What Buddhi announced on bulletin board shows either he was provoked into doing so (considering that he had apparently no criminal background), or he was having being completely naïve, stupid, and perhaps idiotic. People may also consider him anything else, and I shall not stand in the way.

However, I have been asked by some friends to take a stand on him. And I shall take one. Clearly I am not in favor of anything that he has said. If his act be considered political, then this is my view. People who want to change the world for the better do the basic minimum homeworks: they need to know a lot of history of all kinds of peoples, they need to organize people on common progressive causes, they need to educate others who could not afford to spend all that time on understanding differences. These steps need not be guided by principles of violence or non-violence. They need to be guided by purposes. And the purpose needs to be for overall betterment of the world, starting with the world’s poorest, the ones who have been historically deprived, the working class and the hungry mass. None of these involve any thoughts around mindless postings of a privileged nutcracker.

All that being said, I could be reading too much into Buddhi’s politics. He may not be a political guy at all. As Mahablog responds to a right-winger, “Hey, buddy, welcome to my world! Do you really think “your” side doesn’t send threats and obscenities to us?” The point is Buddhi episode is an excuse for the folks on the right to make merry and rejoice, by unnecessarily pulling the left into the discourse.

I do not agree that he had anything to do with politics, let alone American party politics. Buddhi has neither done anything which amounts to online political activism, or grassroots political activism or anything that’s worth considering when one looks at what political activism denotes. So I cannot support him on any political ground.

On principle, however, I will support ACLU if freedom of an individual to express something is concerned. This is a shady area, I know. There are all these people who are using homophobic languages and indeed murdering people merely based on their sexual orientations. When ACLU defends the gay activists, it is branded as supporting hate crimes (where speaking in favor of LGBT is considered as hate-speech…ouch!). The fine line between who propagates hate is just that: a fine line. Especially after 9/11, it is more so. And I am not sure if we can tolerate all hate-speeches and protect them under first amendment. Buddhi's talks are cheap and hateful. He must face consequences. But let him not be singled out because he is a foreign national. For, before him, in recent many times, scores of hate speakers have been getting standing ovations. One in a responsible position of authority even went ahead to call for assassination of another elected leader. Many neo-nazi websites are daily preaching hates. And they are fine and running and getting great google ranks! On educational campuses including University of Maryland, one can see preachers all over. I have been stopped by in the campus and my apartment, where preachers come in fake identities to proclaim love and then soon say how all other religions are evil and there is no such thing as a God from other religion.

Buddhi is not an exception in the pool of hate-preachers. Indeed, he is only the most recent (well...almost). And possibly the most inconsequential. And possibly, the most rightist among them.

Tags: Saswat, Capitalism, India, Colonialism, Media, Technology

By Saswat Pattanayak

Come senators, congressmen
Please heed the call
Don't stand in the doorway
Don't block up the hall
For he that gets hurt
Will be he who has stalled
There's a battle outside
And it is ragin'.
It'll soon shake your windows
And rattle your walls
For the times they are a-changin'.


Come mothers and fathers
Throughout the land
And don't criticize
What you can't understand
Your sons and your daughters
Are beyond your command
Your old road is
Rapidly agin'.
Please get out of the new one
If you can't lend your hand
For the times they are a-changin'.
(Bob Dylan (1963). His anthem for the American Freedom Movement of the 60's!)

Class societies thrive on racial discriminations. And Europe provides the recent most glaring example.

In November 2005, when a huge number of young people from the minority communities protested in France, it was being called a riot. The race-blindness that afflicts the privileged French exhibited its true color when the Blacks and the Muslims were being systematically deprived of what has been their overdue.

Of course the skepticism was thus because the protestors were immigrant youths who took to the street to register their discomfort against mass-scale discriminations. Although it continued for weeks, there were no signs of organized violence or even sporadic assaults. They could not yet be termed as the so-called “terrorists” for acts they never committed. But they were treated as just short of it. The French government did not care a franc for their demands. The elite people of the mainland France turned their cheeks to the “Other France”—the France which we rarely read about, the France that is suppressed beneath the sleaze and neon of perfumes and Eiffel Tower.

In November, the official statements coming from France dismissed the protests as riots that needed to be controlled by the police state. And control they did. Towing the democratic norms, the country went back to business as normally as possible. The resisting voices were silenced. The media changed headlines and the protestors were detained mass-scale.

I talked to some of my friends from Europe who professed complete ignorance regarding consequences of such vandalism. They claimed it was just a minority work and is probably a race thing, but since the government says France has no race issues, then it must be just some kind of agitation. It will be over very soon, just like the strikes at Charles de Gaulle.

Well, undermining the race factor came easy for the administration the last time. But the embarrassing fact is that Muslims still constitute the largest proportion of unemployed youth in that color-blind country.

This time, more than a million French youths are on the streets! They have actively and vociferously supported the just demands of the “immigrant youths” who took to the streets last November. Not only that, a huge majority of French youths, of all colors have decided to follow the examples of the minority protestors. This must be really awkward for the administrators to know, but historically, every race based conflict has culminated into a larger class warfare where majority of working class people have always lent their support to the discriminated social minorities.

The elites, who are elites both in terms of their inherited race privileges and acquired class privileges must be on guard now, because they are now going to combat not just some small group of disciplined protestors who are too scared to harm anyone, but a huge majority of disenchanted, alienated organized youths who are not scared to topple the power structure.

Hundreds of youths have already been involved in violence that saw bottles and rocks hurled at the police and journalists and left at least two cars burned, three others overturned and dozens damaged. Railways have been blockaded, airports disrupted, and up to two thirds of France's universities and schools have been occupied or disrupted. Clashes with police have been occurring throughout the country.
Some of the Indymedia pics demonstrate the facets that the mainstream media is gleefully ignoring: That it is a united effort by people of all races who are affected economically. This is a large scale Class war, and it can happen anywhere in today's world!

The so-called democratic state will obviously not wake up. It has proven what a zilch it cares for labor laws when it proclaims that young people can be fired anytime without any reason! The Union-bias of French administration sounds as shallow as the Liberal-bias of American media. The lip-service has been done for way too long now. The reality is that no law in the world has ever been passed in favor of the working people anywhere until and unless the people have taken to mass demonstration to demand for fair treatment. The French students, just like the American students in the times of Dylan in the 60’s, are demanding for social justice, anti-war stances, pro-minority treatments, and secured pro-labor laws. France is reeling under huge unemployment rates, starting from 10% for the Whites to 50% for the minorities. 80% of all education institutes are under-funded and in even worse shape than the equally less-talked about public schools in Washington DC. Only a small elite population, just like in the days of the royals (not that it has withered away anywhere from the enlightened Europe), keep enjoying the privileges of secured life.

Vilgot Sjöman had created I am Curious-Blue and Yellow, to showcase the class society of Sweden even at the prime of its so-called claim to petty bourgeois socialism. And the film revealed in multi-layers the utter hypocrisy that exists among Swedish society that claims to have socialist pro-labor stances and yet thrives only upon a class society assumption. People everywhere in Swedent were shown justifying why manual workers need to get paid much less than the thinking elites.

In France of today, the situation is no different. All these underfed schools are producing students in an atmosphere that does not respect manual labor works. French government not only projects its elitist biases in promoting the cultures of France as that of a monolithic sophistication, it even looks at the societal unrest issues from that very lens (of elitism). Unfortunately, the governments in such hoax democracies that do not give two hoots even to its future (the young insecure students) will always be run by the elites, for the elites.

Race war, it could have avoided despite Algerian crisis, but the class war is one the whole of Europe will need to watch out for; for the crisis rests not in Africa, its actually nearer home. Right outside the windows.

Tags: Saswat, France, EU, Capitalism, Colonialism, Racism, Communism

By Saswat Pattanayak

As an initial conversation with the Unrepentant Marxist Louis Proyect regarding the Indian revolutionaries, I produce in full a letter written by Bhagat Singh to his father Sardar Kishan Singh, who in the eve of judgment submitted a petition to the trial judges for permission to produce a defense witness to save his son.

I have typed it out from a chapter written by Bhagat Singh’s friend and comrade Bejoy Kumar Sinha. For reproducing this work, I am thankful to the Delhi-based People’s Publishing House for the book “India’s Freedom Struggle: Several Streams”, edited by Sarkar, Bardhan, & Balaram, 1986; and to my dear father who introduced me to this work of eternal significance.

The letter is being published online for the first time to commemorate March 23, 1931-- the date that saw Bhagat Singh’s martyrdom. I am sure readers will go beyond the sentiments to view a glimpse of India’s freedom struggle, and yet understand that the deep seated well meaning sentiments do affect revolutionary goals negatively at many times. The line between professed selfish love and practiced social goals need to be one of the bold revolutionary nature, sans which it becomes quite easy to tow the line of individualistic aspirations and solely personal freedoms.

There are too many distractions in the world today, from Ayn Rand to God Blessed Flags; from salary hikes to Friday parties; from getting an Oprah ticket to being ticketed for drunk driving; from life on the celebrity fast lanes to life on edge of thrilling video games; and it’s quite easy to fall prey to the “good family”, or “happy couple” theories of the heterosexist preachers and the model minority status of the aspiring educated urban youths. Too many temptations, I am sure.

However, there are just a very few goals in order to attain social justice for the most, and despite that, its often invariably less taken. And they are not so difficult to head towards, if one knows that individual life is as precious as one’s convictions would lead one to believe. Bhagat Singh as an instance, clearly overlooked, ignored and trampled the individual yardsticks (and came down heavily on his ‘good-family’ background in the following letter) when it came to deciding between the individual liberty and social equality principles, and clearly upholding the need of social equality, he took the road less taken.

At the same time, its important to remember that he never acted alone, and never on an impulse. Never as a terrorist. Never as a trigger-happy war-monger. Never as a violent reactionary.

He was a great organizer and agitator, and to educate his own self and that of his comrades, he looked into oceans of progressive literatures. His was a planned commitment to attainment of freedom from imperialistic designs, not just a national liberation that would have transferred power from the colonialists to petty bourgeois. As this following letter would amply show: he was “pursuing a definite policy”.

I am always deeply moved by Bhagat Singh’s sacrifices and so have at times found his death was in vain. There have been such occasions while looking at the state of affairs among today’s youths when it has seemed so very hopeless. Yet, revolutionaries do not look backwards to proceed, they look back only to learn so as to march forward even with greater vigor. Hence the reality is that Bhagat Singh must continue to be an inspiration to many of us in our different worlds and we must feel the resonance every time there is a struggle against religious fundamentalism, against irrational superstitions, against orthodoxy, against conservatism and against narrow nationalists. Every time there is an uncompromising battle against the warlords, the police states, the rogue powerholders, a battle that has international sentiments echoing with the courage of Che Guevera and valor of Salvador Allende. All of them have represented the need of global unity against forces of injustice, against mighty powers of economic and social exploiters.

I am sure the following letter is a good prologue to the example we need to exemplify:

“Respected dear father,
“I was astounded to learn that you had submitted a petition to the members of the Special Tribunal in connection with my defense. This intelligence proved to be too severe a blow to be borne with equanimity. It has upset the whole equilibrium of my mind. I have not been able to understand how you could think it proper to submit such a petition at this stage and in these circumstances. In spite of all the sentiments and feeling of a father, I don’t think, you were at all entitled to make such a move on my behalf without even consulting me. You know that in the political field my views have always differed with those of yours. I have always been acting independently, without having cared for your approval or disapproval.

“I hope you can recall to yourself that since the very beginning you have been trying to convince me to fight my case very seriously and to defend myself properly. But you also know that I was always opposed to it. I never had any desire to defend myself and never did I seriously think about it, whether it was a mere vague ideology or that I had certain arguments to justify my position, is a different question and that cannot be discussed here.

“You know that we have been pursuing a definite policy in this trial. Every action of mine ought to have been consistent with that policy, my principles and the program. At present the circumstances were altogether different but had the situation been otherwise, even then I would have been the last man to offer defense. I had only one idea before me throughout the trial, i.e., to show complete indifference towards the trial in spite of the serious nature of the charges against us. I have always been of opinion that all the political workers should be indifferent and should never bother about the legal fight in the law courts and should boldly bear the heaviest possible sentences inflicted upon them. They may defend themselves but always from purely political considerations and never from a personal point of view. Our policy in this trial has always been consistent with this principle. Whether we were successful in that or not is not for me to judge. We have always been doing our duty quite disinterestedly.

“In the statement accompanying the text of the Lahore Conspiracy Case Ordinance the Viceroy had stated that the accused in this case were trying to bring both law and justice into contempt. The situation afforded us an opportunity to show to the public whether we were trying to bring law into contempt or whether others were doing so. People might disagree with us on this point. You might be one of them. But that never meant that such moves should be made on my behalf without my consent or even my knowledge. My life is not so precious – at least to me – as you may probably think it to be. It is not at all worth buying at the cost of my principles. There are other comrades of mine whose case is as serious as that of mine. We had adopted a common policy, and have so far stood shoulder to shoulder, so shall we stand to the last—no matter how dearly we have to pay individually for it.

“Father, I am quite perplexed. I fear I might overlook the ordinary principles of etiquette, and my language may become a little bit harsh while criticizing or rather censuring this move on your part. Let me be candid, I feel as though I have been stabbed at the back. Had any other person done it, I would have considered it to be nothing short of treachery, but in your case let me say that it has been a weakness—a weakness of the worst type.

“This was the time when everybody’s mettle was being tested. Let me say, father, you have failed. I know you are as sincere a patriot as one can be. I know you have devoted your life to the cause of Indian independence; but why at this moment have you displayed such a weakness? I cannot understand.

“In the end I would like to inform you and my other friends and all the people interested in my case, that I have not approved of your move. I am still not at all in favor of offering any defense. Even if the court had accepted that petition submitted by some of my co-accused regarding defense etc., I would have not defended myself. My applications submitted to the Tribunal regarding my interview during the hunger-strike were misinterpreted and it was published in the press that I was going to offer defense, though in reality I was never willing to offer any defense. I still hold the same opinion as before. My friends in the Borstal Jail will be taking it as a treachery and betrayal on my part. I shall not even get an opportunity to clear my position before them.

“I want that the public should know all the details about this complication and therefore, I request you to publish this letter.
Yours obediently,
Bhagat Singh”

Tags: Saswat, India, Colonialism, Communism, Literature, Atheism

By Saswat Pattanayak

Rang De Basanti, the biggest movie to come out of Bollywood in years is a landmark in Indian cinema history. It created records on its revenue collections in the opening week at least in 10 cities. On the opening weekend it made a phenomenal $4.79 million. In the UK alone, after its fourth weekend it raked in GBP 700,000. In India, some theatres had to start a 6am show just for this instant blockbuster!

A commercial success of a cinema does not reflect its artistic values. Indeed money-spinners are not known for their social-realism value either. But going by the critics and their almost undisputed claims about the stature of this movie as both an eye-candy and an old warrior, I am unflinchingly affected. My close friends and associates back in India have been urging me to watch the film, few have narrated how much they are shaken out of their shell from watching this film, some have even told me in jest that it was as good as what Nirvana was supposed to be.

They are not alone. The various reviewers have been unequivocal. Just watch this: “A phenomenon of sorts... would be an apt way to describe this movie. One of the most unique, touching and awe-inspiring movies.....More a tale of humanity, morality, and taking a stand rather than being part of the silent majority. Its audacious spirit becomes its beauty. 'A Generation Awakens' - It surely does.”
Then: “It is rare that such a well-crafted and beautifully told story is seen in Hindi cinema.” And : “A well-made film, it caters more to the elite and the thinking viewer than the aam junta or the masses.”

Again: “I don't remember when I last saw a movie that had a story to tell and a message to give -- and did so in a real, gritty manner without being either preachy or dreary.” and : “One of best movies of recent times. Makes you sit up and think about what you can do to help the country better !” More: “A thought-provoking, soul-stirring wake up call to the youth of India...Engrossing entertainment meets taut social comment with perfect timing in Rang De Basanti. Wake up India, Rang De Basanti is here! A pure delight, Rang De Basanti is a cult film - the sort that comes along in a long time, and will raise the bar for everyone.”
Viewers say: “We would have got freedom faster, if Gandhi wasn't standing in the way” and the BBC: “An entertaining mix of romance, history and social commentary, this quality production takes Hindi cinema in a fresh direction... Accomplished and universally appealing, this is the way Bollywood films should be made.”

There is a flip review theme too which invariably rejects the movie’s approach to solutions of modern Indian crises: “the bloody violence”. These could be purely Gandhians, or Gandhi-bashers depending on what side of the political fence they come from, since the movie does quite a bit to expose the right-winger communal and corrupt agendas, even as denouncing Gandhian tactics as counterproductive.

The more thoughtful ones might contemplate over the subtle genius that is at work in a movie that’s both here and there, both happy and sad, both anti Gandhi, and anti-rightists. They will even, as a reviewer above states, gloat over the fact that here is finally a movie not meant for the “aam-junta”!

My Take:
True, this movie was not produced for the “aam-junta”. Its elitist bias is evident reel after reel, and this is something that could have made the audience throw up. But it turns out that the ‘educated’ class of India is far more eager to dissociate itself from the aam-junta (the masses) and this movie provides just the outlet.

I full agree with the reviewer’s comments that this is a movie that’s about Bhagat Singh and his comrades and yet it actually produces an effect that creates a class society of the elites and the masses! I also agree that here is a film that reminds people of their forgotten patriotism, that makes them call Gandhi names, and lets them think they don’t have to be the part of the silent majority!

Ironic, but if we read between the lines, we can get the essence of such a film that clearly creates an intellectual division, it rouses people to abandon the silent majority, it definitely takes a stand in favor of the “thinking elites”. And in doing so, the movie does an irreparable damage to the young generation’s worldview.


Postcolonial Ignorance:
Rang De Basanti, in my humble opinion, is one of the most uncritical movies ever made on postcolonial India. It not only centers around a bunch of disoriented well-to-do youths, it even normalizes them as representative of the Indian youths in general. In doing so, the focus is again exactly in line of the commercial Bollywood ideology: the privileged class as the representative voice. In doing so, it silences the majority effectively ( hence, there is nothing called a ‘silent majority’ by default, films like this which focuses on the ‘model minority’ class actually creates and perpetuates the concept of a silent majority). So its not that after the movie, people do not want to be part of the silent majority, its just that the movie has made them the vocal minority now. As vocal minority they do not want to carry on an agenda with the silent majority. What a smudge.

In the post-1947 period India has treaded more on the colonial roadmap than on the sweet will of a majority population. The colonial roadmap is one that’s founded on the British-gifted bureaucratic structure that continues to hunt to this date, but yet it forms the minority elite class in India. The majority of people of India are largely disgruntled, frustrated, angry and never silent. It’s just that their voices are never heard on the media, press and film industry owned by greedy industrialists and producers. These myth makers then go on to form the core of Bollywood thought control industry. As a result RDB focuses on an elite minority in few cities who actually bike around and booze late into nights at campfired elite colleges, and supposes these are worth the screenings. That there is nothing wrong with being rich and spoilt (I still don’t understand why rich kids are called ‘spoilt’ with a wink, instead of being called as ‘horrible greedy money launderers’, with scorn), indeed when the aam-junta could not pass the screening test, the rich kids end up giving best of their lives.

A clear case of ignorance of the director lets the film center around only the ‘educated’ youths who despise education. The truth is a huge majority of students in India still are poor strugglers for a decent education through sheer willpower. The problem is we are so enamored by the exceptions (as they appear newsworthy) that we forget the rules. And our commercial film directors have invariably always focused on the exceptions as the desirable rules so that it draws attention (the shock factor and sensation sells).

To sum it, Rang De Basanti, is not reflective of the Indian youth. It may be valid only in case of some educated drunkards in big cities who in fast career fascination or in idolization of pep culture might have preferred to say ‘Who Bhagat Singh’? And the media by playing on this cliché has almost turned it into an irrefutable truth that people now find easy to identify with. As a pointer, just look at any annual Independence Day issue of India Today and Outlook magazines, where the lousy reporters go interview some students of Hindu College or Lady Sri Ram and then conclude that Indian youths do not know what happened in 1942 or what was the real name of Mahatma Gandhi. And mind you, these magazines sell for this enlightenment piece—to resonate/reassure either an ‘oh at least I know’ or ‘see, I told you, I am not alone’ feeling. Rang De Basanti follows this extremely conventional model. And the students then think “its hip not to know about Gandhi—after all he was such a failure, omigosh!” Needless to say, to fight Gandhi, the media have now got Bhagat Singh, not as a anti-religious, communist hero, but quite the contrary, a business brand for the coke generation that wants an “instant young handsome trigger-happy Gandhi-basher”. Most of the things being projected about Bhagat Singh in the media is factually inaccurate and painful, yet Bollywood goes on cashing his name as it is cashing Emraan Hashmi’s serial kisses.

Colonial Amnesia:
Let’s presuppose that no Indian youth actually thought twice about the martyrs. Now, after our British lady explains their sacrifices, what do the young converts have to say? “My dear Sue, what the f**k was your grandfather doing on our land?” Hell, no. Not even a sentiment remotely connected to anti-British feeling has been expressed, which they should have logically said. To much cheer, they plan, the murder of a corrupt defense minister…

Naturally, they did not air the anti-imperial, anti-colonial speeches of Bhagat Singh. Else the well-meaning Mehra could not have made a ‘universally appealing’ movie that could rake in million pounds in the United Kingdom! In the face of a lip-treated critic of British rule, this constant fascination with Britain is one of the most shameful produce to have come out of the Bollywood garbage can. Exactly in line with all those Hindi movies where the actresses proudly flaunt Union Jack on their tops and denims to dance around the trees and clubs, this movie ends up almost glorifying a British filmmaker. The white woman in the movie is the only character without a fault. She is the only one who apparently knows everything about Indian history. She is the one who informs the Indian youths about what their history was. In the face of indifference of the youths, she is the one to remind them of Indian freedom struggle. And nowhere does she draw a critic of the British Empire as the most ghastly episode in India’s history that has left behind a culturally rich society of India as a today’s English speaking paupers’ call center den.

Nowhere has she felt that she is the opportunistic researcher taking her participants into a ride she has no control over, by creating inspired terrorists out of them. If Mehra would have studied how the classical anthropologists from the West have historically traveled to India to study and civilize their hostile “tribes” who were of course systematically oppressed by the former’s ruling classes, then he would have thought twice before hiring a British actress to educate the Indian youths.

The grander narrative of the white rescuing the brown from the brown has been such an overplayed theme since the days of the Raj, that to see a similar theme after all these years is at its best a despised déjà vu.

The Essentialism Fallacy:
Not only the Indian youths never question the postcolonial roadmap, they are depicted to be wise when they plan to attack the elected representatives in power, and when they die, they are shown as parallel to the freedom martyrs. Nothing could be more absurd than this. It’s not the violence which is a problem here. Indeed no revolution in the world has been non-violent in nature. But no revolution is based on murdering of few oppressors either. The sacrifices Bhagat Singh had made was part of a constant struggle against the imperialists. Historically at that point it was required that he had his revolutionary thoughts recorded well in the court of law so that more organized efforts could take place. He formed left wing political platform to recruit people, to train them, to disseminate Lenin’s speeches among them. He drafted future constitution for an independent India of his dreams, with lots of careful planning. To sensitize people about the need of revolution and to sow the seeds methodically is the mantra of the martyrs everywhere, so that the fruits of their labor won’t go waste. This is what Che Guevara did, or nearer home, this is what Safdar Hashmi did. They educated the people wherever they went. They organized and they agitated them. That is cardinal to revolution.

But to call a popcorn film that waits for suspense at the end where solution comes in form of murders, as a revolutionary cinema, is an insult to the concept of revolution. It’s an insult to the concept of social realism or socialist realism cinemas. If it had to glorify Bhagat Singh et al, the intention was noble. But at the same breadth to glorify a British filmmaker, and some inspired terrorists, is a shame in the name of politically sensible cinema. For the records, Bhagat Singh had flatly refused to accommodate any person who was describing his/her self as belonging to any religion, be it Hinduism or Islam, or Sikhism etc. He had flatly refused entry of any British into his party (just like Malcolm X had refused the Whites, not because he suspected them all the time, but because he did not want to waste time after exceptions, when he had the rules with him). Bhagat Singh had categorically differentiated his philosophy from the philosophy of terrorism and acts of violence. He had always denounced the terrorists as counter-revolutionary. A revolutionary does not kill to eliminate. Revolutionaries kill to replace structures. They plan well ahead like Castro did, they organize mass scale taking the “aam-junta” into account like Mao did, they help the needy people through social activism like Black Panthers did. The heroes of Rang De Basanti were neither of these. And that’s why they are a shame. And hence, at the least, Bhagat Singh would be deeply shocked to see a British woman filming his legacy using these useless parasites as substitutes, if he were to visit today.

The Gunga Din Factor:
Remember Gunga Din story by the racist Kipling. In the movie produced in 1939, the British colonialists face tribal uprising in India. Of course tribal are the savages who were being “civilized” by the British. The British soldiers were well meaning, humorous, and full of life (just like our Sue in RDB). And the tribal are the ignorant and arrogant. So on every occasion the British used their fists to knock some brains into the tribal, the audience had a good time. (Just like the audition session in the RDB where none of the Indians could follow Sue, and everyone failed to speak out “Inquilab Zindabad” correctly and it led the audience on a roar.) And when one of the Indians then betrayed his fellow people and sacrificed his life so that his people could be defeated, the audience was all moved! Bertolt Brecht, the soul of the great peoples’ theatres said: “Throughout, Indians were considered as primitive creatures, either comic or wicked: comic when loyal to the British, and wicked when hostile.”

Such was the power of colonial, propagandist cinema that moved people back those days. Such continues to be its power that we feel enlightened by British education still, and ashamed of identifying with our “aam junta.” Instead of finding out the root cause (that’s called radicalism—going to the roots) of the corruption and poverty in Indian society—which is largely due to the irreversed British power structure, we hopelessly cheer a group of idiots who go and kill an element of the society (that’s called fanaticism—kill the personal enemy at all costs). RDB is disturbing, to say the least, for it proposes a solution to the audience—a so-called solution that’s dangerously counterproductive.

People need to know that it’s not the nature of George Fernandez that leads him to do business with the coffins of the air force officers, or the inseparable trait of the BJP to buy cracked weapons from Russia. And it’s not going to change if we just go kill the defense minister or murder a couple of rightists. That’s reactionary action—an action the ruling class is quite adept at exercising to rule over us (think awhile, the defense minister in the movie would have just killed these people—like the government of India eventually did)..These solitary murders at such arbitrary phases of anger do not maketh a revolution of any nature. A systematic, methodical overthrow of the current bureaucratic structure and a replacement of the same with peoples’ cooperatives is the first need of the day. And to even understand this, one needs to study the unique history of India, which has not been based ever on mindless violence, but rather on very strategic, organized mass efforts by people to force the colonialists out of our lands. People did not emerge as freedom fighters because of personality clashes with their parents. Certainly not because someone’s father was guilty of corruption as the film showed. But because they were supremely rooted with the social problems of the age and wanted to eradicate them through freedom struggles. Likewise, our minds need to come out of gross ignorance of the factors leading to corruption. For that to happen, we shall need a complete dissociation with the global capitalists, as well as a staunch refusal to accommodate their domestic partners in crime—both of which bribe our ministers and bureaucrats well enough to take all of us for a ride. The business barons, the staunch capitalists, are ruling the orders of the day today by maintaining the anti-people democratic regimes in power, which in turn benefit their own similar class interests.

The businesses pour in millions in election campaigns of their favored politicians who win the polls even without visiting the constituencies. This is the biggest sham in the world today in the name of democracy. By killing a couple of political stooges, nothing will ever be replaced. Maybe, some leaders will change the seats. Like they say in Britain: The King is dead. Long live the King. We need to replace the power structure, not change hands of power from one Morarji Desai to one Charan Singh.

Indeed, the very film producers who dine with the corrupt politicians of Maharashtra will continue to spin millions of dollars by making so-called ‘different’ movies to intoxicate the masses into thinking that the solution lies in the surprising twist at the end of the movie, not at beginning of their organized resistance against the unequal society funded by capitalistic economy. We need predictable revolutions, not unpredictable acts of terrorisms.

Tags: Saswat, Film, Bollywood, Colonialism, Feminism

By Saswat Pattanayak

If Gandhi was the “Father” of the Indian mass-scale freedom movement , Subhas was the “Leader”.

Born and brought up in Cuttack, Orissa on January 23, 1897, Netaji Subhas became the international symbol of national liberation, of anti-imperialism, of global socialism. His was a legacy that spoke to generations of freedom fighters of the world how Che Guevera had elsewhere pronounced: “If you tremble with indignation at every injustice, then you are a comrade of mine.”

This indignation of the Leader led him to take steps, hardly anyone in the mainstream politics had ever thought of. At a time when the right-wingers in the traditional Indian National Congress were content with an offer of conditional independence (Swaraj) for the country, Bose was the first leader of worth to resolve for complete independence (Purna Swaraj). He was also the foremost fighter to truly internationalize the liberation movement, the pioneering leader to secularize the Indian armed forces, and to declare that bloody struggle was necessary for freedom from imperialism.

During the second world war, Netaji Subhas was a prime agitator for the armed forces. He trained and sent commandos for conspiratorial activities that resulted in the death sentence of nine combatants in the Madras Coastal Battery conspiracy case. The turning point in the ‘transfer of power’ actually came with what we know as the Royal Indian Navy mutiny brought about by historic actions by Indian National Army founded by Netaji Bose.

Indian independence movement was never a narrow nationalist struggle as often interpreted by some right-wingers. It’s true that Indian National Congress often represented the will of the conservative nationalists, but that was obvious because of its long history of formation as a compromise committee of educated intelligentsia. But what is equally important to remember is that the INC grew in any significance only after Gandhi returned from South Africa and took the lead towards the 1920’s. The effective INC could be credited for resistance movement only for two decades. And most of these years again were times of great political debates, deliberations, differences. On the one hand were the dominant right-wing reactionaries and on the other hand, the leftist aspirators. Gandhi, not to lose focus was a chief moderator, but to underrate the influence of the victory of the Left over the Right faction of INC in order to raise flags of hope, would be to misconstrue the path of freedom movement in India.

The unwritten division among the Right and the Left, just like the official differences between the Moderates and the Extremists, brought alive few major facets of the greatest peoples’ movement in world history. The nature of the Right faction was to administratively move the wheel, to plead with the English, to demand for recognition, to hold talks and supervise national meetings. The nature of the Left faction was to work towards replacing the wheel through peoples’ movements, to reject the British, to chart out independent constitutions, to burn down police stations nationally and to organize international agitations.

Naturally enough, the British always perceived the right wing faction, be it the Patels within the INC or the Hindu Mahasava outside, as their friends in need. The Empire in order to effectively rule a politically conscious mass needed a sense of normalization to penetrate among the masses. They needed to convey to the people that they could take rest and be peaceful since their national heroes were discussing politics with the rulers. They needed to convey to the people that the country was anyway helpless since it was in abysmal darkness of superstitions, religious strife and backwardness (even as the British continued to intensify the blind-beliefs to divide and rule peoples). At their worst, the rulers needed to convince people that those other than the recognized/authorized representatives, who were putting up demonstrations and agitating the workers were the Soviet agents, who had no interests in India’s welfare and so they could be easily branded as terrorists and could be marginalized.

In the meantime, on the other hand, these marginalized revolutionaries were taking up arms against the soothing falsifying words. They were voracious readers of progressive literatures, they were politically sensitized to sense that what was in the interest of the humankind was in the interest of the country. They could distinguish that the British could not fight Fascism and maintain Imperialism at the same time. They could visualize that not just the people in India, but Indian people abroad too needed to get together in their combined struggles. London and Paris (radicals like Krishnavarma, Madam Cama, S.R. Rana and Vinayak Savarkar); Berlin and Stockholm (Virendrananth Chattopadhyay, and Dr Bhupendranath Dutt through Indian Independence Committee); the USA and Canada (Sohan Singh Bhakhna, and Hardayal through Ghadar Party); Iran (Sufi Ambaprasad and Ajit Singh); Kabul (Mahendra Pratap, Barkatullah, and Obeidullah through Indian Provisional Government); Moscow and Tashkent (M.N. Roy, Abani Mukherjee, Tirumal Acharya); Japan and the Far East (Rashbehari Bose); Germany, Japan and the Far East (Subhas Chandra Bose through Azad Hind Government and Indian National Army) rose heads among the global centers of Indian violent resistance movements. These were intensifying at a time when the Indian nationalist movement was deep searching for heroes and figures.

What was unique about Netaji Subhas was that he not only recognized and organized military efforts abroad, he was also deeply rooted to the Indian realities at home. Far from abandoning the Indian National Congress as an opportunistic middle-class forum practicing centrist politics, he in fact got very actively involved with the grassroots of the party so that he could oppose and eradicate the right-wing parasites. The constructive support to the INC was needed so as to reform the party of the old guards and recognize its central role in uniting the peoples from across the country.

Of course, the great hope for India’s freedom movement drew heavily from the Bolshevik October Revolution. The nationalist leader Bipin Chandra Pal vocalized: “There has grown up all over the world a new power—the power of the people, determined to rescue their legitimate rights, the rights of the people to live freely and happily without being exploited and victimized by the wealthier and so-called higher classes. This is Bolshevism.” And Lenin while drafting visions for national struggles in colonial period recognized that, “All communist Parties must assist the bourgeois-democratic liberation movement in these countries”

Against this backdrop of highly charged times, Netaji Subhas Chandra thought of jumping into the river of mainstream freedom movement and reform it from within. He hardly was aware of the great challenges that lay ahead. The initial solace came in form of a fellow socialist thinker Nehru who treaded cautiously most of the times, but came out clear on few occasions to call a dagger a dagger. Nehru, clearly taking a side, mused that the national freedom movement should not be directed against the British nation, but against British imperialism. This found him a friend in Netaji Subhas who together then formed a pressure group within the Congress called “Independence of India League”. Now, this formation was in response to old-guard reactionaries like Rajendra Prasad who opposed the Subhas-Jawaharlal proposal for “Complete Independence”. Prasad (who went on to become the first President of Republic of India, rendering the post of Presidency to a rubber-stamp) in fact mocked at the demand of the duo for complete independence at Madras Congress (1927) saying that Congress will be made a laughing stock of people all over the world! Against such opposition and rebukes, Netaji and Nehru went on to use their pressure group to finally pass the resolution for Purna Swaraj, originally moved by Hasrat Mohani, a leftist (of course it was no easy road, as the right-wingers just would not let “complete independence” be the aim of the Congress, as they narrowly defeated the move in the Calcutta Congress 1928 too). It was in this time of left euphoria, that a decision was also taken to boycott Simon commission, a never-before strike movement was organized, militant youths became active on the national politics. And they elected Nehru and Subhas as general secretaries of the Congress (It would take few more years till Lahore session that the Complete Independence would finally be passed as the aim of the Congress!).

Subsequently, even as Nehru remained content with the flow of the mainstream freedom struggle, Netaji went on to ally with all possible alternative leftist struggles and peoples’ movements. When Bhagat Singh co-founded the Naujawan Bharat Sabha in 1923 and became its general-secretary, he declared that its aim was to achieve “Complete Independence of India by All Possible Means”. Bhagat Singh, a committed leftist freedom fighter, influenced by Bolshevism, recognized that the struggle needed to be internationalized. And he named it in English: “Young India Association” and true to his principles, barred any religious practices within the association. As a result, Hindu Mahasabha, Sikh League and Muslim League members were barred from membership. Candidates were screened for their progressive ideologies. When the Young India Association held its first conference in 1928, it was attended by Netaji and his associates. In fact it was presided by Netaji’s comrade Kedarnath Saigal. When the all India conference took place in Karachi, Netaji Subhas became the president of Young India Association, which was by now also comprised of several Ghadar Party associates.

Not only did Netaji Subhas extend himself to the alternative organized movements, he actively aided in organizing strikes of workers throughout the country. The railway strike at Kharagpur led by the communists had thousands and thousands of workers boycotting the British and Netaji Subhas as then president of Bombay Provincial Congress Committee issued joint statements of support with trade unionists to collect more than Rs 50,000 as strike aid funds.

The conflicts within the nationalist freedom struggles was at the peak even as young revolutionaries and committed leftists were organizing large scale combats against the Raj. The mainstream Congress party led by right-wingers like Vallabhbhai Patel, Rajendra Prasad, C. Rajgopalachari, J.B. Kripalani etc, were firmly defeating the socialist visions of cautious progressives like Nehru on the margin. Nehru struggling to maintain his base had been radicalized in the meantime after his meeting with RPD (Comrade Rajani Palme Dutt) in London and as the then president of Congress at Lucknow, he finally announced: “Where do we stand then, we who labor for a free India? Inevitably, we take out stand with the progressive forces of the world which are ranged against fascism and imperialism. Between Indian nationalism and British Imperialism, there can be no common ground…I am convinced that the only key to the solution of India’s problems lies in socialism”. He was hugely supported by all leftists in the country. This naturally led to the biggest crisis in the Congress, with the right-wing working committee members resigning from the party (Vallabhbhai Patel, Rajendra Prasad etc) denouncing speeches of Nehru’s and “other socialist colleagues”. Indian capitalist class, represented by Birla etc of course got united to fight the leftist bias by defeating them on policy grounds through votes. And temporarily again, Patel’s missives led to defeat of Nehru’s radicalism.

During this time, to rescue the largest political base of the country from the opportunists, Netaji Subhas, solidly grounded with alternative movements everywhere in the country entered into political scene again in 1938 (also upon his return from abroad), and became the president of the Indian National Congress. So huge was his reputation by now as the de facto leader of the oppressed people, (and not as any representative of domestic business class), that he was unanimously elected to the post! Not only that, the Communist Party of India (of course considered ‘illegal&rsquo took the lead to suggest that Subhas Chandra be re-elected for president’s post with support of the entire Left and every CPI publication screamed “Vote for Subhas”. This second time, Netaji Subhas had to contest with the right-wing Congress candidate Pattabhi Sitaramayya and with support from the Left, he convincingly defeated Pattabhi. Subhas Chandra then suggested that a left consolidation committee be formed and the communists readily agreed and it was successfully formed. Subhas was thus going to be the future leader of the country uniting the progressives to awaken political consciousness among the oppressed peoples, if not for extreme right-wing reactionaries who made his office a suffocating experience, forcing him to resign from presidentship in the middle of 1939.

Subhas quit the electoral politics, but gained grounds in military onslaughts and guerilla warfare against the imperialists, fighting them tooth and nail from within India and abroad. Hardly anyone has organized so much efforts for one’s national liberation from the claws of professional imperialists. Through Azad Hind Fauz he organized armed struggles, included women and members of the minority communities in his force and marched from every angle in the Far-East to Germany. Subhas Chandra’s personal commitment to be politically active remains unique in the history of humankind. In retrospect, it surely sounds like a romantic journey of the true revolutionary, with his goal for complete independence, his beloved.

Unfortunately, even as we observe his birth anniversary, more concentration is given to his mysterious "death" circumstances, to deny his death, and to make him a heroic immortal nationalist figure. The administration is not prepared to admit that Netaji is dead. A legend is made out of a leader who fought against legends and myths.

Instead, a serious study of India’s colonial past would reveal all the factors for which Netaji Subhas must be celebrated for humankind, for his indomitable opposition to blatant injustice everywhere. What we need to focus instead are Subhas Chandra’s need and own historical involvement with radical left-wing politics, his numerous attempts to revamp the biggest political organization (Congress), his vast irreconcilable differences with right-wingers like Patel and Prasad, and his visions for a new modern international India based on optimism of social progress. From this, the least we can derive are few priceless lessons: India, or any other land on this planet needs to be socially progressive, secularly oriented, courageous in face of crises, brave against the petty opportunists and opportunistic imperialists. That was what he lived for. And gave up his life for.

It's not important to imagine that he is still alive, its rather crucial to know that he is no more amidst us, now that our larger society is devoid of all the values he fought for. If the human society of the day does not recognize his contributions to progress of the world by adjusting the worldviews to match his visions, it has anyway killed his entity.

Tags: Saswat, History, Orissa, India, Colonialism

"I can't understand why anyone said that the thing was signed in Jammu, because we never went to Jammu."

[thing: (instrument of accession proclaming Kashmir's conditional status)]

And what else? Sam Manekshaw, the first field marshal in the Indian army, recalls:

As usual Nehru talked about the United Nations, Russia, Africa, God almighty, everybody, until Sardar Patel lost his temper. He said, 'Jawaharlal, do you want Kashmir, or do you want to give it away'. He (Nehru) said,' Of course, I want Kashmir (emphasis in original). Then he (Patel) said 'Please give your orders'. And before he could say anything Sardar Patel turned to me and said, 'You have got your orders'.

This is how Indian leadership (read, the nationalist Patel) operated. And the hapless playboy king Hari Singh who had lost all legitimacy to govern the state that forced him to flee, decided on the fate of the state! As a careless albeit colorful international celebrity associated with the blackmail scandal in London, the pearls, diamonds and emeralds, Singh gave in to pressures amidst the New Delhi leaders. But the condition of a referendum has remained still unfulfiled--despite declarations by both the UN and Nehru (seems like they died together)!
{My friend Diptiman Tripathy from Moscow sent this link. }

Tags: Saswat, India, Colonialism, History

That time of the year again! Let's revisit (and re-read) the inimitable Arundhati Roy:
(text of her speech at the opening Plenary of the World Social Forum in Mumbai on January 16, 2004):

Do turkeys enjoy thanksgiving? Read More...

Tags: Saswat, Communism, Colonialism, Indigenous, USA, India

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By Saswat Pattanayak

Now that the Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy has toned down his rhetoric after a crisis meeting, what should be the alternatives?

Paris riots are the most significant popular revolution taken place in recent times. It is noteworthy because they are violent, yet they are not taking lives of innocent people. In this manner they are indicative that this is symbolic of the oppressed. As for the oppressors we have seen more than 300 arrests already. More will follow. Once the so-called peace is restored by the authorities, the official riots will take place inside the prisons. And the difference between the riots that are caused by the oppressed and those that are caused by oppressors are vast. One is in defense, the other is in authoritarian suppression. However both types of riots have the similar consequences for the oppressed group. Either way, they are arrested and attacked at the slightest or no provocation.

Amnesty International only 7 months ago had declared that the “The French government ministers, judges and senior police officers are allowing members of the police force to use excessive and sometimes lethal force against suspects of Arab and African origin without fear of serious repercussions.”

So much so that, in the case of Ahmed Selmouni, (July 1999), the European Court of Human Rights had to intervene since France had violated the prohibition against torture as well as the right to fair trial within a reasonable time. Despite its intervention, the case only reached the French courts several years after the violations had been committed, and under pressure of the European Court investigation.

And when one French court decided to sentence one police officer to an “exemplary” prison term, owing to the demands of the public, that too failed, when police unions expressed their anger in the streets. Of course in a police state, it is a known fact as to who controls the rule of the jungle. The police officers who were the perpetrators in this case continued merrily in their police careers as their “honor” needed to defended, than their criminal conduct. Institutional racism of France has been well recorded and so are increasing cases of police violence.

Human Rights Watch too has monitored racist and xenophobic violence in Western Europe, including against Arabs and Muslims in the wake of the 11 September attacks in the United States. It has condemned these attacks, which have included verbal abuse, physical assaults and attacks on mosques-and express alarm that they continue.

In wake of these racist process (not some aberrant incidents) the media need to focus on Western Europe’s continuing saga of racism and state-sponsored violence. The next G-8 (including Chechnya-ravaged Russia) meeting should focus on generating a mass apology for the callousness and indifference that the top capitalist countries have so far displayed to a carefully orchestrated exclusionary approach they have chosen when it has come to the so-called immigrants. In addition, France should immediately do the following:

1. Investigate what led to the deaths of two teenagers on Oct 27, that led to riots. They ran for at least one kilometer before taking shelter in a place that got them killed. It obviously was not some english channel race they were upto. They were trying desperately to save their lives. From the police. This time at least, unlike ever before, the government must book the police officers responsible for these two deaths and punish them exemplarily. No matter if the police fraternity gets to streets. They are on the streets everyday anyway. Remember when the lawmakers break laws, common people have no one to turn to than the electrocuted cells.

2. Sack Sarkozy immediately. He has admittedly changed his rhetoric. Highly irresponsible right-wingers like him should be immediately not tolerated by any civic society. Instead of trying to deconstruct his government’s collective apathy, he was fast in his approach to apprehend “hooligans”. Indeed he is the master enactor of the drama just to appease a racist society to elect his likes in coming 2007 elections.

3. Release the rioters: Just the way democracy allows for people to vote, it allows them rights to protest. This protest was long overdue. Yes some vehicles have been burnt. But the rich folks can get it back from the insurance company. Yet they are unaware of the real root cause of violence in a class society where they are instrumental in hundreds of official deaths of the poor and secluded. A dialogue, than arrests, is the need of the hour.

4. Stop official tortures: Police atrocities and flagrant violation in Paris is well recorded. Every step must be taken to stop that. The attacks are done on Arabs and Africans and since they don’t own the media outlets, the news reach very late if some “liberal” La Monde ever publishes such stories. But the statistics even by INSEE demonstrates the racial biases in these tortures.

5. Facilitate immigration and grant due rights in a multicultural society. Just because the demographic profiling are not done properly does not mean France is not a multicultural society. Indeed the growing resentments of the racist society is owing to increasing number of immigrants. Hence the factor of diversity must be acknowledged and different cultural ethos must be respected at any cost. No form of any assimilation or any attempt to do so should be allowed ever. Forced or voluntary propaganda assimilation. People often assimilate to the extent of forgetting their own languages because that is cited as a condition for employment and decent living. The authorities must acknowledge their roles and reverse them for chrissake.

6. Equality, Liberty, Fraternity: Or whatever the statue of liberty ever meant to imply. Whereas there is 5% overall unemployment for university graduates in France, there is 26.5% unemployment for “North African” university graduates. This is indicative of biases in the field of employment for the Muslims and Blacks. This is 21st century slave-owners mindset afflicting the racist France. Everything must be done to ensure affirmative actions to reserve quotas in employment for minorities so that they are at least represented well and compensated well in lieu of all tortures that mainland France has caused and benefited from the Muslims and Blacks so far.

The riddles ghettos are the contradictions of capitalist France and it must do whatever to amend ways or await revolution by the oppressed masses.

Tags: Saswat, France, Islam, EU, Colonialism

By Saswat Pattanayak

The French with the burden of ‘civilizing the savages’ have displayed their mammoth colonialist, racist and classist traits once again, yet again.

The recent Paris urban riots just indicate the systematic exploitative regimes called Western Democracies. The illusions that go with such democracies overwhelm the vast reality of gross injustices to the extent that folks talk about such regimes only after popular outbreak of resentments (that is, the culmination brings attention than the process itself). It’s such a matter of shame that the gory history of French colonialism is never the point of international condemnation and the phony democracies thrive with such examples. These myopists defenders of liberal democracy claim that France is the most diverse country in the whole of Europe. What they forget to mention is that it is the most racist nation as well.

What is again lost on the pundits is that the immigrants are not the ‘problem’. Far from it, France occupied territories and was in dire need of immigrants so that it could catch up with other industrialized nations after World War II. When the immigrant workforce of Italy and Spain could not achieve its goals, it thrived on the immigrant workers from Africa and Asia. While the European immigrants easily were incorporated into the upper class, the non-European immigrants from Africa and Asia were forced to work at the lowest wages (which continues to this day of 2005). Not only is the systematic exploitation so prevalent, but the minority cultures are forced to give up their ethos and assimilate to the France mainland on conditions of sustenance. Practice of different religions and use of languages are not permitted.

Race statistics are not kept in France so that forced assimilation of Muslim population can be made possible. Law forbids Muslim women from wearing headscarfs! Laws are in place to forbid Muslim practices, whereas Christian norms are forced upon immigrants.


When the government and its pseudo-socialist (capitalist reformers) opposition itself resorts to such human rights violations forcing people to give up their cultural identities just so they will be entirely French (and become what—colonialist of the 21st century?), what to speak of “the failure of the politics of Nicolas Sarkozy”?

The recent riots in France are result of a sustained cultural domination of the Whites over the immigrant population who were exploited systematically since occupation of Algeria in 1830’s to reconstruct France from time to time. And yet the African, Arab and Asian workers who lent their lot to make France such a shining fashion nation of the globalized age, are the least benefited lot. They are concentrated in slums, impoverished, segregated, policed and brutally attacked by the government with racist slurs.

When the lawmakers of France are so slanted by their bias against the black and Muslim population, it will be wishful thinking to assume that law will grant any equal rights to anyone. The reality is France is at least 40 years behind United States in realizing that salad bowl and not melting pot is the need of the hour. No matter of coercion will allow people to sit quiet and take orders of repressive phony democracies. The current riots are manifestation of century old frustrations, at times expressed by the oppressed.

At least Belgium and Netherlands have displayed a better sense of respect for their immigration population, from which France needs to learn. And even in those countries, riots have become common phenomenon owing to systematic apathy.

Indeed the savage France must learn civilization codes from the Arab European League which states as its mission : “We believe in a multicultural society as a social and political model where different cultures coexist with equal rights under the law. We do not want to assimilate and we do not want to be stuck somewhere in the middle. We want to foster our own identity and culture while being law abiding and worthy citizens of the countries where we live. In order to achieve that it is imperative for us to teach our children the Arabic language and history and the Islamic faith. We will resist any attempt to strip us of our right to our own cultural and religious identity, as we believe it is one of the most fundamental human rights.”

Its founder Dyab Abou Jahjah, who was himself arrested in November 2002 and charged with inciting Muslims in Antwerp to riot (Belgian Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt said that the AEL was “trying to terrorize the city&rdquo, has declared: “Assimilation is cultural rape. It means renouncing your identity, becoming like the others.” He complains that in Europe “I could still eat certain dishes from the Middle East, but I cannot have certain thoughts that are based on ideologies and ideas from the Middle East.”

Even the careful mainstream media have come down heavily against inequalities prevailing in France today.
“The unrest has highlighted the division between France's big cities and their poor suburbs, with frustration simmering in the housing projects in areas marked by high unemployment, crime and poverty.” (AP) Reuters agree with AP’s attribution of all the unrest to economic injustice, and adds a suggestion of racism: “The unrest in the northern and eastern suburbs, heavily populated by North African and black African minorities, have been fuelled by frustration among youths in the area over their failure to get jobs and recognition in French society.” Deutsche Presse Agentur called the high-rise public housing in the Paris suburbs “a long-time flashpoint of unemployment, crime and other social problems.”
“The areas hardest hit by the riots are home to North African and black African minorities that feel excluded from French society” (Reuters). “The violence also cast doubt on the success of France's model of seeking to integrate its large immigrant community -- its Muslim population, at an estimated 5 million, is Western Europe's largest -- by playing down differences between ethnic groups. Rather than feeling embraced as full and equal citizens, immigrants and their French-born children complain of police harassment and of being refused jobs, housing and opportunities” (AP).
Le Monde suggests in an editorial that the Interior Minister was deliberately stirring up tensions to divide France. “The minister believes in the existence of a clear separation between ‘them’ and ‘us’,” the newspaper said.

This is simply gross in an era of multi-culture co-existences. But the French elites are hell bent upon against any protests of any sort in that country. Labor unions (even championed by the white workers) are suppressed, workers are laid off whenever they go on strike. Paris has become the citadel of capitalistic contradictions. With high society of mannerisms, the French elites have continuously exhibited disdain for the working class. History is replete with examples every passing week as France evolves to supersede its competitive rogue nations that practice dangerous democracies. Sartre, the philosopher of our age, had drawn a similar parallel when he wrote the following:

“I will not go so far as to say that we were as cynical as in that southern state of the USA where a law, maintained until the beginning of the nineteenth century, prohibited people from teaching black slaves to read—offenders would be fined. But we did want to make our ‘Muslim brothers’ a population of illiterates. Still today 80 per cent of Algerians are illiterate. It would not be so bad if we had just forbidden them the use of our own language. But a necessary aspect of the colonial system is that it attempts to bar the colonized people from the road of history; as nationalist claims, in Europe, have always been founded on linguistic unity, the Muslims were denied the use of their own language. Since 1830, the Arabic language has been considered as a foreign language in Algeria; it is still spoken, but it hardly survives as a written language. And that is not all: to keep the Arabs fragmented, the French administration confiscated their religion; it recruited leaders of the Islamic religion among creatures in its pay. It has maintained the most base superstitions, because they disunite.

The French republic maintains the cultural ignorance and the beliefs of the feudal system, but suppresses the structures and customs which permit a living feudal system to be, despite everything, a human society; it imposes an individualistic and liberal legal code in order to ruin the frameworks and development of the Algerian community, but it maintains kinglets who derive their power solely from it and who govern on its behalf.

In a word, it fabricates ‘natives’ by a double movement which separates them from their archaic community by giving them or maintaining in them, in the solitude of liberal individualism, a mentality whose archaism can only be perpetuated in relation to the archaism of the society. It creates masses but prevent them from becoming a conscious proletariat by mystifying them with the caricature of their own ideology.” (p 41, Colonialism and Neocolonialism. Jean-Paul Sartre)

Even as most of the world is learning to grow, the French are trying to go back to cave ages created by them as though colonialism were their core identity by forcefully trying to assimilate cultures into one whole European sad saga. If the world bodies such as the UN have any shame, its time to “teach the French a lesson”. How can I not end with the Clash’s London Burning? This time, Paris is burning again!

London calling to the faraway towns
Now that war is declared-and battle come down
London calling to the underworld
Come out of the cupboard, all you boys and girls
London calling, now don't look at us
All that phoney Beatlemania has bitten the dust
London calling, see we ain't got no swing
'Cept for the ring of that truncheon thing

The funny thing is the French elites do not feel any difference. No riots ever affect them. Their children do not get electrocuted while escaping police brutalities. Their socio-economic class does not get adversely affected by misery of urban slum-dwellers who have been systematically segregated (a popular solution approach in whole of Europe today). French governments show concern over increasing poverty and crime rate, but they don’t necessarily relate those two, do not speak of the origin and growth of them and the government’s roles to perpetuate those gaps by creating unequal laws, by undermining the racial factors, by refusing to acknowledge that different races exist in huge number in the country thrived on exploitation of minority immigrants. Such a shame!

Tags: Saswat, Indigenous, France, Racism, Colonialism, Islam

By Saswat Pattanayak

In a world driven by infotainment, the dividing line between what has been written and how they have been interpreted becomes blurred by the day. Although a critical scholar, by no means I claim a post-modern critique of illusory truths. There indeed have been revolutionary struggles for the better and there indeed have been reactionary efforts to suppress them. Avoiding mind contact with the same not just amounts to an intellectual privilege, but also leads to callous indifference.

Let’s then visit the original documents. You may not find them anywhere else on the web. But I am sure my romance with the keyboard to bring back what might have been forgotten in a deliberately fast-paced world of ours, will surely be a small contribution towards the continuing struggles. In understanding that the freedom struggles in India was not as exotic as is often portrayed. That it was a gory revolutionary war on the imperialists, the homegrown reactionary landlords and the alien capitalists. It was violent. Despite pleas from the reformist pacifists, the peasants, farmers and mill workers fought back with every might to rebel against the landowners, privileged classes, and the British imperialists.

The following appeal refers to the trial of a number of Indians who, on 4 February 1922, had taken part in an attack on the Chauri-Chaura police station, in which all except two of the policemen were beaten to death. International appeals came from the leftists all over the world who wanted justice for the condemned peasants. At a time when the reformists withdrew from the mainstream struggles in face of such uprising, which went against their ethos of tolerance, the workers from many parts of the world got united to defend the ones who had openly defied the brutal capitalists.
The following letter was drafted on 14th March, 1923:

Read More...

Tags: Saswat, India, Colonialism, Communism, UK

Much has been written about the anti-colonial struggles of Indians which finally ensured that the Sun indeed set on the British Empire. 1947 steadily but surely set the world on a new order to march for freedom with rekindled hopes.
Ironically, the first martyr of this struggle was not some giant figure of world history ever studied (like Gandhi, Nehru, Bose etc), but a 13-year young revolutionary from Orissa, whom the historians have conveniently let go from the collective memory.

Historians, they say, are more powerful than God. They have the power to even change the past. So the mainstream history teaches us how to be passive, how to live by leaders, how to wait and watch, how to calm down to pragmatism, how to compete for our own survival. It teaches us to be mature like the successes, not restless like failures. For it tells us who the successes in the world were and how history is always narrated through their voices. And yes, we have learnt from history, that not all of us are capable of standing up against the mighty. Only a few clad in guerilla coats or declared communists or mothers of war victims do stand up and be losers. It teaches us October revolution was a failure, Indian experiment was unique to its own, and Kennedy was a hero who changed the shape of the world. What it does not teach us is that each of us is capable of bringing the mighty down, when we the people, collectively take action. In the past, we have demonstrated that. It just takes us to acknowledge that this had been indeed the case. It just takes the history books to recognize that common people, irrespective of their social locations have had uncommon roles, from which we have everything to learn.

Lest we have a shaky foundation with a mutilated past, we must not forget that most resilient struggle against the most powerful empire on earth was borne out of a childlike innocence, simplicity, non-compromising attitude, the deep anger, rebellious emotion, stiff resistance, and proud self.

The children in us are often compromised at the alter of adult wisdoms, or as Freud would argue, at a forced direction. But if we can learn from our own selves, our individual and collective spirits of humane defense, the realization of our suppressed potential, our ability to be educated, agitated and organized, just the way the selfless children do, just the way Baji Raut did, without any thought control of modern individualist class-promoting education, we would have learnt the first few steps of life correct.

Here is the most comprehensive and an extremely valuable article on Baji Raut, the hero who must live in all of us, who must inspire us no end, by SCP from Orissamatters.com. Read More...

Tags: Saswat, History, India, Orissa, Colonialism

By Saswat Pattanayak

I celebrated the independence day fine.

Well that’s the India’s freedom from the British Raj, I am referring to. August 15th midnight hours were the times of the “trysts with destiny” as Nehru proclaimed. And I am just going to reflect on the layers of destinies in store now.

Switched on the television set to find if there was any anti-colonial flavor, any celebration of a multi-cultural society willing to adopt welfare socialist economy or a people nostalgic of huge dreams, broader visions.

Of course it was a disaster. Instead all I could notice was the running advertorials on grand marshals of Indian freedom: Anil Kapoor, Karisma Kapoor, Randhir Kapoor, Babita Kapoor etc are the chief guests to celebrate India’s day of freedom in New York about to be organized on August 20 instead (why? Ask Karisma what courtroom drama she is into these days, that’s why).

Its better to be off to office, I thought. Took the entire office folks to the Tiffin, an Indian restaurant.

Thought there would be fanfare inside the restaurant. Some special smiles. Some warmer greetings. Some big balloons.

Well there was nothing of that nature anywhere. Business as usual. My colleagues and I ended up sharing some unique heritages of freedom struggles in our respective lands. And wished more power to Indian people on the day.

Could not blame the restaurant much. You see, although the owners may be of India origin, almost all people who work there are from Nepal. And I don’t think there is any special reason for Nepalese workers to celebrate independence of their Indian bosses.

Caught a cab to take my new friend and her papa to dinner where we were all invited. The driver was from Pakistan. “Happy belated Independence Day”, I said. He was quick to wish me the same back. And then, said “today is yours”. I said, “but of course we are not such different people that we have to rival each other in celebrating. Remember we both together ousted the British from our land.” He also agreed that while it was true, the fact is the partition was the most painful byproduct anyway. That was true. But does he feel anyway proud?

“What rubbish? I am hiding in the US from being prosecuted in Pakistan. Hence driving cab. Otherwise I used to be a Catholic priest in Pak.”

Had excellent dinner, a very memorable one. I called it the Independence Day dinner. Only that we did not recall the sacrifices of people without whom the day would not have come to such a pass.

Depending on where one comes from, the day will be perceived. For the cab guy, the day was not just bitter, but it never leaves his shadows. No amount of talk would convince him that all religious leaders have used gullible people to further their politics of hatred. “But there is nothing called Christian fundamentalism”, he retorted. I explained for an hour and gave up. But he was sure we were not going to celebrate anything. No matter what.

The fault is not with him. Indeed the way we have crafted the history of struggles with the British domination and how we have carried forth the heritage is the cause of distress. Instead of correctly looking back at the freedom struggle as a secular one where people of all color/religions/castes had taken part to eliminate the oppressive rulers, we are looking back at it as a Hindu struggle to create Hindustan and Muslim struggle to create Pakistan. What we have been taught to forget is the contributions of the peasant class, the industrial workers, the lower rungs in the military, the naval strike, the secular nature of Indian National Army, the atheism of Bhagat Singh and revolutionaries. The Maulana Azad, the Kaifi Azmi. The Progressive Writers Movements, the Indian Peoples’ Theatres (IPTA), the Aruna Asaf Alis and the Quit India Movement which in 1942 was led by no leader, but orchestrated by the entire masses of people who boycotted the British and challenged them to “Quit” India. Never before and never after has such a call been so pronouncedly made. Just when we were to win, the British had a map ready. We lost big time.

We have now been reduced to religious symbols in the world. Far from being hailed as the founders of the anti-colonial peoples’ struggles, we are today a Muslim poverty called Pakistan and a Hindu bomb called India. And we are the cheapest tech-slaves of the 21st century. The biggest consumer market, the largest slum-dwellers, the saddest communal fanatics.

And we don’t have heroes. Not one in real life. Why blame the cab guy?

Tags: Saswat, Immigrant, USA, Racism, Colonialism

Long Walk to Freedom
Mandela's commitments towards the oppressed cause--in defining and achieving a sense of freedom for self, by trying to gain it for everybody else. How fortunate are we that Mandela's own words are available for us to inspire us for all times to come!
Most of this autobiography was written secretly while Mandela was imprisoned for 27 years on Robben Island by South Africa's apartheid regime.

Tags: Saswat, Africa, Colonialism, Communism, Black Power, Literature

By Saswat Pattanayak

What is the equation between individualism and nationalism in the neocolonial period?

With most nations breaking free from foreign dominations (although quite many still remain occupied, viz., Sikkim in India or Hawaii in US—and their status are not likely to be challenged anytime soon), have preached individual progress, what effectively has taken place is an enforced allegiance of the subjects towards the State.

In fulfilling the individual dreams, the State persistently demanded individuals to give for the country, not to assume what the country can do for them. Most of us must have grown up with quoting the Kennedy lines and reciting the national anthems of our respective countries with pride.

This ideology of isolated patriotism has left us a growing distrust for those who differed from us: Isolated patriotisms have few features— national ideologies, national interests, national flags, which have unequivocally been uniquely crafted. This is ironical, since the interests of people of the world are hardly any different (food, clothes, shelter, education and empowerment). Yet political leaderships in each country draft their interests differently!

This love for one’s land as inscribed in national anthems and portrayed in national flags have one major purpose: to leave people feeling that they exist, because they are different from the “others”. The Others in this case have been defined by the degree to which “they” have disagreed with “us”, and by the type of nationalities they have had (completely obliterating the historical similarities in peoples’ struggles to gain independence). This has led to an assumes sense of right vs wrong war where we are always right and they are always wrong, and as united we stand, “we” are defined by our nationalities rather than our intrinsic similarities (for example, the people of Latin America in their struggles, the African Americans in theirs, the colonial peoples of Asia in theirs—were all similar in their approach towards their oppressors, yet they never joined hands together, since they were made to believe that they were of different countries having different “interests”! So when Paul Robeson wrote to Indonesian people, he was actually criticized back home by the Black leaderships. And when Indo-China war was on, civil rights leaders largely turned away from protesting. Interests in home became more crucial than interests outside. After all, that’s what the primary lessons of good socialization process-how to safeguard one’s own interests.

Hence when it’s family members preaching inhuman sermons, our neighbors harassing their children, or even our local politicians ransacking public wealth, we are used not to take much notice. If the government prescribes conscriptions or curfews, we are the gullible law-abiders giving in to the neofascists with glee.

To recognize these efforts, any expressions of intolerance within one’s country are always met with dire consequences by the respective police states. But try enacting the same drama against, let’s say other countries (the famous “enemy” countries--burning effigies of Bush, Musharraf or Saddam) and suddenly that becomes the hallmark of free expressions. One quick mental exercise to assess the “national” leaders (since there are not many “world” leaders—except Mandela and Castro), and we are well aware of the fear psychoses techniques they employ against their people to keep them united. Yet there are vehement expressions of oppositions against some among them, depending on which side folks are on. To be a “true” Indian, one needs to hate Pakistan, to be a “true” Chinese one needs to hate Japanese, to be a “true” American, one needs to show disdain towards Iraq or towards anyone who is not with the Bush administration, notwithstanding that the vice versa are true in all cases too.

In quest to affirm one’s true identity of nationalistic allegiance, one unfortunately has been relegated to hate something. Reverse the question: Who does one need to love, in order to be a true anything? Such questions are not much asked. But of course, the propaganda mill teaches that for unity to prevail, people need to love each other. Then again, the mill teaches that the “each other” need to be part of the same territory.
For its not forming human communities which is the priority here, it’s ruling a country, which is.

And to rule subjects as a unitary, homogenous, one culture whole, a sense of acute distrust towards potential threats (in case of none, threats need to be manufactured) becomes necessary. National flags are symbolic not just of a country’s unique colors of identity from another, but they have historically always been a means of asserting one’s standing on one’s land (remember that all the colonial struggles were led by flag-marching freedom fighters). But the irony is that the flags during colonial times by struggling people were in retaliation to the imposition of a foreign flag, not a novelty by any standard. In the hands of fighters, flags call war. They shout protests. They cry freedom. In the hands of the oppressors, flags become a shame. They become systematic means to declare that no one is above the state, no one is above the rulers, howsoever right the individual might be, howsoever wrong the state machinery might be.

As we grow more individualistic, our social commitments also become an extension of the same trait. Isolationistic patriotism that proves reactionary becomes the end-result. When as freedom fighters, patriotism is displayed, it is epitome of mass consciousness to build a new society of cooperation. When as rulers, they display patriotism, it easily gets converted into the weapon to subjugate the vast majority of people under constant fear of the “others”, those others who do not bow to the same flag. And we too often sadly forget that it was Hitler who as the ruler led the most patriotic bunch of people ever in the world.

Tags: Saswat, Philosophy, Colonialism, Capitalism, Immigrant

By Saswat Pattanayak

I don’t have any problem with Manmohan Singh per se. What hurts is the expectation of people to expect any better from him.

Apparently only after the Indian PM shamelessly praised the “good governance” model of the British colonial rule, both the rightist and leftist parties have vehemently stood up against him.

True, Singh insulted the sentiments of all patriotic Indians who still find a reason to live with dignity, only in name of sacrifices of the indomitable freedom fighters who laid down their lives to drive the British out. They find a reason to live with dignity in a country whose prospects are marred by widespread poverty, corruption and unemployment. For nearly six decades now, people have been celebrating their existence in the ravaged land because they could not simply afford to disrespect the lives lost in pursuit for self-governance. Hope prevailed high that Indians shall one day reap the benefits of the freedom struggle, redeem faith in the belief that autonomy from foreign rule held the key.

And this abstract panacea in the form of self-aware third world nationalism for concrete afflictions characterizing the “developing” countries has finally been challenged. The people have been woefully represented by leaderships that have sung the praises of exploiters, homegrown and foreign.

And this time, since he was “emotional”, a capitalist leader has been just accidentally become more direct in his praises.

The centrist or even left of the center party, Congress has nothing to complain. They knew it was coming. Manmohan Singh indeed earlier during his tenure as finance minister had submitted an economic modernization plan that was a joy to the right wing parties. Instead of being rejected wholeheartedly, it was accepted for its reform values. And those reforms as we know served the capitalistic interests of foreign concerns. India was soon converted into the largest sweatshop in the world market. Pretending to be complaining the domestic capitalists (who had earlier funded rightists to power in 1977) easily gained stronghold of economy to vote right wing nationalists to power. They knew for example, any business with McDonald’s was only going to help the franchisee owners in India! They thus furthered the plan of domestic privatizations and indeed sold off more than half of public properties to any business house that could afford, in lieu of kickbacks. They worsened it such that people exercising their Hobson’s choice had to throw them out of power (even if the only difference was their colors as religious fanatics). But the rightist soon made Sonia Gandhi an issue. No way they were to accept that lady or anyone else from Congress, save for one man. And that man was the architect of liberalization in India: Manmohan Singh. Only after Singh was installed the right wingers kept silence. And since then, much to their expectation and merry, the privatization policies continued.

Between the bad and worse, Indians went on paying heavy prices as privatization went murkier. As privatization went on appeasing the foreign concerns and their domestic partner capitalists, Singh appeared everywhere, from Charlie Rose Show to Time Magazine. At one of these points of mutual adulations, Singh thought of expressing his gratitude to the ideology that had raised him to this level of shrewdness. Oxford University.

Singh said,

As the painstaking statistical work of the Cambridge historian Angus Maddison has shown, India's share of world income collapsed from 22.6 per cent in 1700, almost equal to Europe's share of 23.3 per cent at that time, to as low as 3.8 per cent in 1952. ..Indeed, at the beginning of the 20th Century, "the brightest jewel in the British Crown" was the poorest country in the world in terms of per capita income.

And yet unashamedly unruffled and praising the British for this downfall of Indian economy that resulted in profiting the super-rich sycophants of the Raj, and torturing the mass population of downtrodden, Singh philosophized almost to justify everything that had gone wrong. Indians must have been hungry dogs, as Churchill had said. And hence we were never meant to know how to govern good, Singh confessed, as though to speak for himself and absolve himself of his incompetencies:

'Even at the height of our campaign for freedom from colonial rule, we did not entirely reject the British claim to good governance. We merely asserted our natural right to self-governance.'

Singh’s understanding that British had “good governance” and that people of Indian did not reject the British (a bunch of lunatics those freedom fighters at the gallows must have been, considering Singh’s beliefs) in India has to be sympathetically understood. Here is a man firmly committed to the idea of selling the hapless indigenous to the mighty foreign, in lieu of some recognitions (in this case a honorary degree or two). And his entire life has been dedicated to this cause. From Garibi Hatao (Eradicate poverty) to Garibko Hatao (Eradicate the poor), the motto of capitalism is well ingrained in this man. What else did the Center expect from the PM?

As for the Left, they should have nothing to complain either. They are out of wits. Why else would they have ever lent any support to a government led by an avowed pro-market economist? Why are they objecting to Singh as anti-nationalist, when they could not attack him ever for being a staunch capitalist? Moreover, should the Left pledge allegiance to the cause of narrow nationalistic politics or to the international mobilizations against capitalistic expansions?

Finally, amidst the mud, the pigs enjoy the most. The rightist parties are clear winner in this case. Just when Advani and Joshi and the team of vandals were about to face charges for inciting communal violence, nothing would have come as a better relief. Such a ruckus was after all created by their own man. Singh, if anything, is the dream of the right-wingers in India. They needed someone who would be smart enough to fool the masses by slogans of development, sabotage the communists by policies, promote the financiers of right-wing politics by disinvestments, represent the profit interests by privatization, sophisticatedly draft market economy mantras that won’t sound offensive, kill Sonia Gandhi as a leader, represent the rightist interests outside the country, and finally praise the British rule (considering the long standing support of the right wingers towards British rule for which they were infamous during the freedom struggle, and for which they were infamous after they killed Gandhi and were banned for anti-national activities in the newly independent India).

In ways as should not appear surprising at all, Manmohan Singh is the man from the extreme Right of the political spectrum. Under him the private business will flourish, private rules of law will dictate the land (the recent Gurgaon incident where hundreds of workers were brutalized by police force commissioned by Honda), private multinationals will spread their wings and benefit the commercial interests of domestic partners, disinvestments will continue at full pace and the British Raj will be praised.

Those of us who are surprised are fools. For us who are shocked, we must realize that the people deserve the kind of government they elect. Only in a so-called ballot-driven democracies, do politicians like Manmohan Singh stay in power even after all that has been said and done.

And the right-wingers want the system to flourish, so that they can rule the country without the participation of the people (how many consciously vote anyone?), so that they can manufacture consents with use of their media (Advani on Zee TV claiming that millions want Ram Mandir!), and finally can sing the praises of their colonial masters!


For a related article, click here!

Tags: Saswat, India, Capitalism, Colonialism

By Saswat Pattanayak

Raj Kumar Santoshi’s film on Bhagat Singh was powerful, to say the least. It most appropriately showcased the hero and his missions. Among five films on Bhagat Singh released that year (2002), Santoshi’s movie topped. It was the only worthwhile cinematic experience one can have about the freedom fighter. And so far, the only film ever made on him that’s notable, anyway.

Bhagat Singh, for the uninitiated, was one of the radical faces of Indian freedom struggle. In a country dominated by centrist politics since post-British times, the sacred texts of Indian history never duly acknowledged the peasants’ movements in India to oust the feudal and foreign rules. Hence any film on Bhagat Singh was to be a welcoming scenario.

Yet it was not meant to be. At least it did not turn out so for me. Even as the movie addressed Bhagat Singh’s legacy, it induced what my adjacent movie-goers felt. Amidst several scenes in the film, members of the audience were exclaiming “shut up, bastard” when it came to any scene showing Gandhi. People watching the movie were almost up in arms against Gandhi who, according to them, was the reason behind Bhagat Singh’s death!

Gandhi was being called names. Which is not unlikely in a society which has grown egalitarian over the time to understand several nuances of Gandhi so as to study him dispassionately than merely hero-worship. At the same time, this sentiment has been played up both by the opportunistic Dalit movement and the fanatic Hindu organizations which have disgraced Gandhi in deeds and words for political ends. Hence, it was definitely another matter altogether to call him the enemy of the people, the killer of Bhagat Singh.

In a review which resounds few of my sentiments too, the author opines that Santoshi lacks some fairness. “He should have known that if a film were to be made on Gandhi, Bhagat Singh would have been regarded as a villain, not as a national hero,” the reviewer comments.

There lies my precise objection. Why does this instinct of posing one against the other in a hero-villain paradigm take shape? Why should Bhagat Singh, and not the then British rulers, be considered villain in a film about Gandhi? Whose interests do such theories serve? Any freedom struggle is not an individual prerogative: it necessarily ingrains within many different voices, different ideologies and ideologues. Speaking of the unique situation as India’s freedom struggle, it was neither aimed at overthrowing the empire, nor at securing civil rights, but at ensuring that the rulers needed to leave the colony alone. In this manner, it was unlike the evolutions in America, nor the revolution in Russia, nor the shift of power at South Africa. India’s freedom struggle was the kind where people of all walks of life participated (if not before the time Gandhi arrived, when it was limited to the armed forces, native rulers and some elites). And they participated not to make a compromise of legal adjustments, or royal massacres, but to secure back their own lands and throw the perpetrators out of the country. And they succeeded (for all those theorists who point out the exhaustion of the British following second world war, one needs only to look at the colonialism in the 1950’s and onwards in whole of Africa and parts of Asia to rationalize that there was no such haste for the British to leave India unless under compulsion!)

It’s important to remember that Bhagat Singh was not a wayward violent activist as he is often portrayed. Certainly he began as one. But soon he organized himself in relation to the people, in much a Gandhian way of providing leadership, for which he has always credited Gandhi. Although starting off as an anarchist, he later on embraced broad people-based struggle. He recognized the source of aura that Gandhi had in India and he understood that without mass scale organized efforts at uniting people, no revolution was going to be a reality.

Gandhi, obviously aware of the genuine efforts of the radicals was opposed only in spirit, since his stance of non-violence was in direct conflict. But for someone famously in support of gun over cowardice, Gandhi never cut off his relationship with members of the nationalist party who publicly supported the extremists, namely Jawaharlal Nehru, Subhas Bose, Motilal Nehru (who used to finance revolutionary Chandra Sekhar Azad), Maulana Shaukat Ali and Krishna Kant Malviya etc. Gandhi, the relentless worker among the poorest of the poor, was only too aware of the class conflicts that existed. For his brand of movement though, he needed mass mobilization, even if it meant that he extracted money from the domestic capitalists whom he treated as friends.

Hence, whereas the end was the same, the means were vehemently different. But this difference was not one that was meant to disrupt each other’s paths, let alone posing as challenges. The current intelligentsia assuming that Gandhi and Bhagat Singh and ilk were contradictory is misplaced. Contrary, they might have been at the best. In fact Bhagat Singh categorically refuted the claims that he was a terrorist or preacher of violence. “I am not a terrorist and I never was, except perhaps in the beginning of my revolutionary career. And I am convinced that we cannot gain anything through these methods. One can easily judge it from the history of the Hindustan Socialist Republican Association. All our activities were directed towards an aim, i.e., identifying ourselves with the great movement as its military wing. If anybody has misunderstood me, let him amend his ideas. I do not mean that bombs and pistols are useless, rather the contrary. But I mean to say that mere bomb throwing is not only useless but sometimes harmful. The military department of the party should always keep ready all the war-material it can command for any emergency. It should back the political work of the party. It cannot and should not work independently.” (ed. Shiv Verma, Selected Writings of Shaheed Bhagat Singh, New Delhi, 1986)

Even when he threw the bomb in the Assembly, it was not kill anyone, but to emphatically make the British realize that there was a voice they could no longer ignore. Bhagat Singh cried freedom at the Lahore Conspiracy case –January 21, 1930—in front of the magistrate in the court (lines which never appeared in any of the films ever made): “Long Live Socialist Revolution', 'Long Live the Communist International', 'Long live the people', 'Lenin's name will never die', and 'Down with Imperialism.' He subsequently went on to read the text of the following telegram in the court and asked the Magistrate to transmit it to the Third International:

'On Lenin Day we send hearty greetings to all who are doing something for carrying forward the ideas of the great Lenin, we wish success to the great experiment Russia is carrying out. We join our voice to that of the International working class movement. The proletariat will win. Capitalism will be defeated. Death to Imperialism'.

This historic event is never mentioned in the popular media for obvious reasons. And 2002 was testament to that sentiment. In a ridiculous attempt to recreate a myth of Bhagat Singh as a nationalistic leader who would be best suited to the emotions of the detached youths of today, the right-wingers have declared Bhagat Singh as their hero!

One, because of their hand in assassination of Gandhi, they badly needed a hero who would have categorically challenged Gandhi. And two, as though to kill two birds with one stone, the hero would then be declared a domestic one who gave up life for India, and not for some leftist ideology. Of course his death would not have come had Gandhi intervened—hence Gandhi was decidedly the cause behind Bhagat Singh’s death, the arguments of the reactionaries go.

Bhagat Singh, hence stripped of his international commitment to wipe out imperialism, has over time been depicted as a sad hero who could not be saved, and the blame has always been put on Gandhi for his inaction. The truth, however is quite the contrary. In a letter that he wrote to his father (which I will later publish on the blog soon), Bhagat Singh was so defiant that one will find it incredible. In a world full of heroes who pleaded for their cases, Bhagat Singh called his own father a traitor and one who stabbed him on his back, for having considered a defense lawyer for him while he was on trial! He said it will be a tragedy if he defended himself, since the cause was not for him to survive, it was for the revolution to win the order of the day and it was required that he died for the cause!

For those who fantasized that Bhagat Singh would have been salvaged had Gandhi pleaded to the British, they only stand to insult the revolutionary’s ideals. For those who are bent upon making Bhagat a national hero instead of an international agitator of social justice, they are only murdering the values for which he gave up his life, with a smile and lots of hope.

Alas, it’s a different world now. And what a shame the world is.

Tags: Saswat, History, India, Colonialism, Bollywood, Film

By Saswat Pattanayak

Gandhi was never out of the limelight. But since a couple of years now, he has been in it for all the wrong reasons.

The pan-African movement recognizes him as a crude Indian nationalist by citing that he never stood up for the then South African Black people as much he did for the Indian population. The Indian rightists ruling class abhor Gandhi for his alleged anti-nationalist stance when it came to his professed compassion for the Muslims. The bourgeois intellectual film directors Raj Kumar Santoshi and Shyam Benegal have portrayed Gandhi in ways to suit their standpoints: movies have been made to celebrate Bhagat Singh and Subhas Bose only so that their characters can clash with Gandhi. The pacifists have used Gandhi to show that we don’t need any violence at all, as though that were the lessons Gandhi demonstrated. The conservatives have utilized Gandhi to prove that religious fundamentalism is the path to God and hence prayers should be made compulsory in schools. Dalits think Gandhi was their worst enemy. Brahmins think Gandhi was their worst enemy.


Gandhi is back in limelight. I shall allow myself to swim in the bundle of contradictions and take a retake on my own view of the first para: maybe he has been in it for all the right reasons.

So that we be forced to rethink. Not to rethink Gandhi per se, which is the act, several interest groups are hard-pressing for the people to do. For I don’t think Gandhi being right or wrong is all that important (since no person can logically be right all the time—where will that leave the relativity of judgments leading to the mindless wars we have witnessed—the need is not to be right all the time, but to be right for the just causes). To me, what’s crucial is our motives for evaluating him the way we have done...

Tags: Saswat, History, India, Colonialism, Bollywood, Film

By Saswat Pattanayak

First they killed the African peoples. Injected hunger and deprivation. Malnutrited them. Abject poverty led to baseless violence. They provided the poor with the rich man’s guns. So that the poor stay as domesticated security guards of the conquerors and merciless killers of their own peoples.

Then they killed the Asian peoples. Colonized them and plundered away to merry. Took everything they could find. From the women to the wealth. For hundreds of years kept the people subjugated under terror.

Then they attacked the Australians peoples. The indigenous remained no more so. The Myall Creek massacre became their party as they went on subsequently to own the continent they had no right over to begin with.

Now they have targeted European peoples.

The attack in London was not an attack on Londoners. It was a dastardly attack orchestrated in order to get the necessary media coverage so that some new draconic bills can be passed without the slightest protest. And the attacks on Europeans can be validated.

As the world watches with awe, one question arises. Bombing is taking place and taking tolls of hundreds on everyday basis in many parts of the world. Worse they are not even called scarce bombing. They are organized war efforts. Why is it that, people (by which we mean the world leaders at the G8) are so normalized about what’s going on to hundreds of dying civilians in the middle-east daily on military warfare and why is it that they are so indifferent to hundreds of people dying in Africa daily on hunger warfare and people elsewhere on psychological warfare.

Why sudden fascination towards the London Calling?

Of course none of us want another bombing to take place in London tomorrow. But it might take place a year from now, two years from now. Are we prepared to face the grim reality and actually mend our own ways to reflect if we as a collective whole in the world have gone wrong somewhere, to deserve this?

Nay, we cannot escape it by saying we never deserve to be bombed! Those of us who silently support their respective governmental draconisms are answerable. Those of us who actively support the racists are answerable. Those of us who do not voice resentments in face of injustice are answerable.

Who says we never deserve to be bombed? The question is what do we need to do so that we shall not deserve to be bombed. The bombmakers will make bombs. They will never stop at that until we organize. They shall strike the biggest business deals with prospective bomb owners. The show will go on with our implicit permissions. What do we ensure?

One, who buys bombs and why? Some fundamentalists for attack, some cowards for defense. Both patronage the bombmakers and spread the web of terror. The fundamentalists indulge in organized bombings like the Wars against developing nations. The cowards indulge in retaliation of minor attacks that so far have killed very few civilians in comparison. But the fundamentalists who own the media propaganda machines make sure to have their “patriotic” efforts be appreciated as a normal peacekeeping measure, at the same time branding the cowards as the evil terrorists who need to be wiped out using taxpayers’ money.

The bombings need to be understood in context, if and only if, we want to prevent recurrence. And that is, that the bombings are taking place as a two-way process. Both the war-mongers and cowards are engaged in constant battle, leaving out the majority of people in the conversation, and instead they profit the arms manufacturers’ business which thrives in all times of crisis (which is why we are made to live under constant crisis of security, believing that sex is bad and war is good).

Once this context is understood, we need to sympathize with neither. Instead, we, the majority people, who are as silent as Audre Lorde had predicated her theory about (“Silence will not Protect you&rdquo, need to do something about this damn affair which is taking away all the future securities.

War will only breed war. Of smaller type. Or of different variety. International despotism run by G8 has to be ended. The NATO forces have so far caused the biggest catastrophes on the civilization. Instead of preaching against the reactions, the G8 leaders should do better to practice and reflect on their own original actions that have ripple effects among the cowards lots.

Any terrorism efforts need to be condemned. G8 leaders are right in their verbal responses. And now its time to start the charity from their homes.

Tags: Saswat, Philosophy, UK, History, Colonialism

By Saswat Pattanayak

Whose purpose does it serve to reduce individuals to essential cultures? As cultural essentialism plays well into the hands of the economists and political strategists while creating the future of the underdeveloped and developing countries, the question holds promise and helps clarify few doubts.

Any quintessential viewer of Indian Diaspora movies will vouch, the films are 1) an essentialist picture of certain section of Indian population (Gujarati, Punjabi, Marwari, or on the parallel front, the Bengali), 2) an unequivocal depiction of socio-economic homogeneity (rich, business families who are highly “successful” overseas), 3) the major theme revolves around a heterosexual marriage search of arranged nature which culminates pronouncedly into a “love” relationship to prove the “progress”, 4) unrelenting traditional father then gives ways to obedient modern children’s wishes, initially ignoring the mother and afterward letting the mother be a redundant character anyway, 5) the distinction of Indian culture is made from the American/British culture, where Indian culture is always proved to be superior in spirit, despite the proponents swim in the foreign wealth and subjugation, and 6) marrying a foreigner is a sin, and marrying a black Muslim is unforgivable, hence impossible (but remember the marriage, still is the overriding issue).

Unfortunately, such an essentialist depiction is never limited only to Diaspora movies. It has its place in the great Indian modern novels as well as great Indian classics. No wonder more Bollywood Masala movies too turn to the classics by Sarat Chandra, a Bengali writer whose works thrived on essentialism.

The danger which lies is this: the story often told and retold and made believable then are not questioned anymore. In Bend it Like Beckham, that big hit of recent years, the courage of the Indian girl and her family’s eventual support were depicted as an Indian tradition which was changing. Or after watching Bride and Prejudice, my fellow viewers were thrilled to see the ending, a perfect union. Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge or Pardes were the Masala Hits which also ended happily with the “traditional father” giving in to the wishes after resentments. Go back to Devdas or Parineeta and one finds other shades of historical essentialism that plays the right cards.

Whose cards are these? The question which emerges is, are these cultural characteristics at all generic? If so viewed, is there something more to it (genealogy of the tradition) which needs to be explained in context in order that people don’t get misled into interpreting something as “Indian”/Oriental?

Sati (immolation of wife on the husband’s pyre) has been much debated and only recently it’s essentialist features finding resonance with the “Indians” was challenged by Lata Mani in her “Contentious Traditions: The Debate on SATI in Colonial India” (1987). Mani argued that Sati was not just perpetrated/continued by an elite class of people, but with the help of the British, it was created as a tradition for administrative records. Hence the follow-ups were quite clear, so as to save the brown woman from the brown men by the whites.

The female protagonist of “Bride and Prejudice” who is currently the most acclaimed actress of India and a Time magazine’s most influential people of the world, refreshingly reprimands to a white businessman that Indian women need not be looked at as reduced icons of western gratifications. Towards the end of the film, she realizes she was in the wrong about her perception of this man, because he happened to have saved her from another lusty man. Of course she realizes her prejudices and very proudly weds the businessman atop an elephant and thousands of poor people cheering them and celebrating their wedding. In essence, she reinforces the essentialist part (that Indian marriages, even with such a radical working class woman, takes place in such majestic manner!).



In Bend it like Beckham, one shudders to think what would have happened if the coach would have been a black man, and god forbid, an Allah preacher. Would the ending have been this happy? Or then, why does it have to be a happy ending when Indian young women, in these movies, are always educated by the white men about what is culturally progressive. And even as the condition of getting permission of the elderly for the marriage is invariably fulfilled in these cinemas. A judicious blend of Indian-ness (respect for old tradition) with western-ness (that thing they call Love) and one gets a movie done to satisfy the culture-hungry.

Where does that leave the rest of us? Well, with amazement about a country that its 80% population and more are completely unaware of. The middle class economic crisis, the agricultural production upheavals, the lack of sound healthcare, essential lapse of education as a motivated sector, a dearth of a visionary leader. Problems are many. I would not say that certain Indians from Gujarat don’t have their own Ram Navami Dandia funs. But with abound poverty in a country of over a billion population, the responsibilities of the creative performers who represent entertainment and of the political leaders who represent social well being are falling flat.

I don’t expect much of the scientists who await generous grants to build nuclear arsenals and the businesspersons who await profits for continuance of monopolies to do much. But owing to their most visible and conspicuously powerful state, the entertainment/media sector who export “Indian culture” and the political/bureaucratic sector who create them, are just negatively contributing by reinforcing the hegemonic norms.

“Wow! Is India like that!” is to ask “Wow, is US like this”. The dominant cultural depictions of course tell the tales of the times. And the times are essentially told by the rulers who own the times. Unfortunately it is still the old guard, whose hypocrisies are told by the age old Indian classics, who are still ruling. The only problem is, we the masses, are tired by their shits. We don’t need the story of a one percent elite population to dominate over the conscience of the social majority who are portrayed vis-à-vis them.

For what happens then, is well known. To sound politically correct, to be judged according to the yardsticks of the proclaimers, the rest blindly emulate, out of compulsion, which later seems like a matter of choice exercise. The evil traditions of the Indian society were never manufactured by the large majority of people. They were thrust down upon them by a selected caste/class of people who were hand in gloves for their own interests of ruling the masses using coercive methods of tyrannical rule and subtle methods of religious preaching to justify the subjugation (subjugation to god also implied subjugation to the messengers of god---the king being the manifestation).

It worked to the interest of the classes then to depict an Indian picture of backwardness so that the burden lied on the shoulders of the White man. The trend was so normalized subsequently that so far the truth is not far from this depiction. Hence the genealogy of such normalized state of subjugation, which arises out of essentialist pictures of Indian culture and society (or for that matter any oriental societies) need to be revisited and exposed.

Only with the self-awareness of how peoples have been divided and ruled by certain sections of rulers and preachers with active support of other sections of rulers and preachers to define the lives of the ruled and the damned, will help formulate the radical steps to replace, not change their tradition, not ours.

Tags: Saswat, Bollywood, Colonialism, Feminism, India, Film