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:

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Tags: Saswat, India, Colonialism, Communism, UK

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

An article by George Monbiot in the Guardian 'This Is What We Paid For', which one can read here

This Is What We Paid For

Britain's foreign aid has been used to bankroll a programme for mass
starvation
By George Monbiot. Published in the Guardian 18th May 2004

Tony Blair has lost the election. It's true he wasn't standing, but we won't
split hairs. His policies have just been put to the test by an electorate
blessed with a viable opposition, and crushed. In throwing him out of their
lives, the voters of the Indian state of Andhra Pradesh may have destroyed
the world's most dangerous economic experiment. Read More...

Tags: Saswat, India, Technology, Economics, Capitalism, UK

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To protest against the continuing presence of British and U.S. forces in a sovereign country, thousands of anti-war protesters from across Britain walked through Central London to demand an end to the ‘occupation’ of Iraq.

Tony Blair replicas had distorted names of ‘B.Liar’.

Old British working class humor has not had a demise yet. Thanks to B.Liar!

Tags: Saswat, USA, UK