August 2013 RH

Founder Editor: M. N. Roy

520

THE RADICAL HUMANISTAUGUST 2013 Rs. 20/monthVol. 77 No 5

(Since April 1949)

Formerly : Independent India (April 1937- March 1949)

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THE RADICAL HUMANIST AUGUST 2013

The Radical Humanist

Monthly journal of the

Indian Renaissance Institute

Devoted to the development of the Renaissance

Movement; and for promotion of human rights,

scientific-temper, rational thinking and a humanist

view of life.

Founder Editor:

M.N. Roy

Editor:

Dr. Rekha Saraswat

Contributory Editors:

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

Professor Rama Kundu

Publisher:

Mr. N.D. Pancholi

Printer:

Mr. N.D. Pancholi

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

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

91-121-2620690, 09719333011

E-mail articles at: [email protected]

Send Subscription / Donation Cheques in favour of

The Radical Humanist to:

Mr. Narottam Vyas (Advocate), Chamber Number

111 (Near Post Office), Supreme Court of India, New

Delhi, 110001, India [email protected]

Ph. 91-11-22712434, 91-11-23782836, 09811944600

Please Note: Authors will bear sole

accountability for corroborating the facts that

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

Publisher nor the Editor of this journal will be

responsible for testing the validity and

authenticity of statements & information cited by

the authors. Also, sometimes some articles

published in this journal may carry opinions not

similar to the Radical Humanist philosophy; but

they would be entertained here if the need is felt to

Vol. 77 Number 5 August 2013

www.theradicalhumanist.com

1. From the Editor’s Desk:

The Travesty of the Radical Humanist Movement

—Rekha Saraswat 1

2. Guests’ Section:

Consequences of Racial Stereotyping;

Will India Become A Hindu Nation?

—Uday Dandavate 2

3. Current Affairs’ Section:

Lest You Forget Emergency;

Let’s Go Back To People; The Blurred Lines

—Kuldip Nayar 6

Emergency of 1975 and The Judiciary

—Rajindar Sachar 11

Telangana: The Land Locked State;

Primitive Communism of Buddha;

Wealth Creation vs Poverty Alleviation

— K.S. Chalam 13

4. IRI / IRHA Members’ Section:

Look Beyond Hyderabad: For Telangana's Growth

—Vidya Bhushan Rawat 19

Amartya Sen Making Waves

— Jawaharlal Jasthi 23

Corruption in Judiciary

—Ashwin Kumar N. Karia 25

Rise of Maoism in India

—Suresh Korde 28

Builders of Indian Humanist Movement

—Innaiah Narisetti 30

5. Professors' & Research Scholars' Section:

Minority Literacy: A Voice to Inclusive Education

—Seema Jain 31

6. Book Review Section: The Black & White and Grey

of International Business

— Dipavali Sen 35

7. Humanist News: 37

Contents

From The Editor's Desk:

The Travesty of the RadicalHumanist Movement

Radical Humanism envisages a societywhich judges its progress on the scale of

its members’ development on an individual basis.And in situations of tussle between the ‘individual’versus the ‘society’ this philosophy does not wantto sacrifice man’s interests for any abstract egoismof the society.

What one observes now-a-days is that this basicprinciple has been molded and tilted towards the‘humanist’ versus the ‘movement’ although thecontemporary definition of a ‘humanist’ is also incomplete jeopardy.

Radical Humanism is a philosophy of thought. Itcalls for an absolute overhauling in the thinkingprocess of the individual. It wants him to develop ascientific attitude towards life. It expects him to usereason as a guide in his decision making process,may the decisions be taken in his daily routineaffairs or made for his long term planning. Howfriends have now redefined this second basic tenetof Radical Humanism is also quite amusing. Theykeep strictly on its literal lines but have redrafted itsessence to adjust their reason and rational attitudeto suit their personal ego-aggrandizements.

For example, some of us would take out smallextracts from treatises of Radical Humanistliterature and bind them into little booklets addinglong introductions of personal efforts towards

propagating the philosophy, without anysupplement of original thinking of our own, with avision to eternalize one’s contribution in theRadical Humanist Movement. Of course, this is alogical thinking process and yes, it is a rationaloutcome of the principle of individual developmentversus the group progress and very much on thelines of rational thinking.

Theirs’ is a restlessness of souls which one canunderstand. How to go about the process ofpropagating the movement, they are at a cross-roadand find no plausible answer!

If they unite with any political party they arelooked upon with doubt because RadicalHumanism believes in a party-less democracy.

If they associate with some pressure group they areblamed for working under other’s banners and notdirectly publicizing the Radical HumanistMovement and its ideas.

If they join some social activist group they areconsidered narrow in their approach towards theessence of Radical Humanism which is much largeand encompasses everything and anything thatrelates to human growth.

Then how to go about it? We are all past our fiftiesand most of us are beyond the seventies. Time isrunning short! How to satisfy our conscience thatwe have been able to do justice to M.N. Roy’sdreams? Mission we have, but vision is missing!

Should we keep organizing many more meetingsand seminars even if the audiences are scanty toprove that the movement is still breathing?

Should we meticulously take photographs andmake videos of such book launches and programsfrom proper angles with focus on us so that weconfirm to our posterity that yes, we struggled tillwe lasted to make the movement a success?

Would such juvenile efforts help us in ushering in arenaissance of thought in the society? Are we reallycompetent of understanding the core of RadicalHumanist philosophy and the purpose of itsmovement? I really wonder!

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Guest's Section:

From San Francisco, U.S.A.

[Uday Dandavate studies people, cultures and

trends worldwide and uses the understanding

gained from such studies to inspire people

centered innovation strategies. He heads up a

design research consulting firm called SonicRim

in U.S.A. He frequently writes and speaks on

topics related to people centered design and

innovation in international journals and

conferences. [email protected]]

Consequences of RacialStereotyping

I hope the readers in India have beenfollowing the famous case of Trayvon

Martin an African American teen-ager fromFlorida who was shot dead by George Zimmerman(according to him in self defense). The juryacquitted Zimmerman last week and the case hasgenerated a lot of debate about racial profilingleading to this murder. Back in India we are facedwith the controversy over Ishrat Jahan faceencounter. It seems that in public perception,certain groups of people are condemned to live asperpetrators of crime/ terrorism. Our insecurities inan increasingly turbulent environment often evokein us impulse reactions of seeking harshest possiblepunishment to the potential perpetrators.Unfortunately racial profiling often leads toviolence against innocent people. Everyday citizen

today is faced with the task of being more alert todangers in the street. However, racial profiling isnot the answer. The challenges of the new timescall for developing and training people insophisticated approaches to observing behaviors,and sensing danger beyond just respondinginstinctively to common stereotypes.

The killing of a black teenager, Trayvon Martin, inFlorida has brought into focus the racial tensions inAmerican society. Chris Serino, lead investigatorin the case, told FBI agents that he believedZimmerman’s action in shooting down a blackyoung boy were not based on Trayvon Martin’srace, but instead on his attire. Serino implied thatthe fear of being attacked by a hoodie-borne thugprompted Zimmerman to shoot and kill TrayvonMartin. Justifying George Zimmerman’s use ofbrutal force by citing perceptions tied to the hoodieTrayvon was wearing calls for a seriousconsideration to subconscious racial profiling andstereotyping. This case has brought the issue ofracial profiling into the public domain – especiallyin the background of the “Stand your Ground” lawin Florida that allows an individual the right to usereasonable force (meaning the right to shootanother person) to defend himself/herself withoutany requirement to evade or retreat from adangerous situation.

President Barak Obama delivered a very poignantspeech after the Zimmerman verdict. In expressingthe reality of an average African-American childborn to an African-American family, Obamalamented, “Trayvon Martin could have been me 35years ago.” He added, “There are very fewAfrican-American men in this country who haven’thad the experience of being followed when theywere shopping in a department store. That includesme. There are very few African-American menwho haven’t had the experience of walking acrossthe street and hearing the locks click on the doors ofcars. That happens to me – at least before I was asenator. There are very few African Americanswho haven’t had the experience of getting on anelevator and a woman clutching her purse

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Uday Dandavate

nervously and holding her breath until she had achance to get off. That happens often.

Obama further explained, “Now, this isn’t to saythat the African-American community is naïveabout the fact that African-American young menare disproportionately involved in the criminaljustice system; that they’re disproportionately bothvictims and perpetrators of violence. There are a lotof kids out there who need help who are getting alot of negative reinforcement. Is there more that wecan do to give them the sense that their countrycares about them and values them and is willing toinvest in them? It’s not to make excuses for that fact– although black folks do interpret the reasons forthat in a historical context. They understand thatsome of the violence that takes place in poor blackneighborhoods around the country is born out of avery violent past in this country, and that thepoverty and dysfunction that we see in thosecommunities can be traced to a very difficulthistory.”

The Zimmerman verdict has opened fresh woundsfor those who face discrimination on a daily basis.It has also challenged the idea that by electing ablack president for two terms, the American societyhas managed a fundamental shift in race relations.Mass protests are already taking place againstFlorida’s Stand your Ground law that allows acitizen to kill in self-defense. On the other hand, theZimmerman verdict provides a perfect opportunityto understand the plight of the youth trapped inperceptions. It is important to understand that theAmerican judicial process gives rights to a panel ofjury members drawn from the local community toaddress the evidence and determine if the accusedis guilty or not. In Zimmerman’s case, though, hislawyers did not evoke the Stand your Ground lawin his defense; the influence of this law on thejury’s decision-making process was hard to deny.In fact, in an interview on CNN’s Anderson Cooper360 Monday night, an anonymous juror said thepanel that found George Zimmerman not guiltyconsidered Florida’s Stand Your Ground law in itsdeliberations. “Stand your Ground” governs U.S.

federal case law in which the right of self-defense isasserted against a charge of criminal homicide.

The Supreme Court of the United States ruled inBeard v. U.S. that a man who was “on his premises”when he came under attack and “did not provokethe assault, and had at the time reasonable groundsto believe, and in good faith believed, that thedeceased intended to take his life or do him greatbodily harm was not obliged to retreat nor toconsider whether he could safely retreat, but wasentitled to stand his ground.” In a country where theright to bear arms has become a matter ofpassionate national debate, the Florida verdict hasposed a challenge to the supporters of the right tobear arms by exposing the fact that stereotypes areindeed working against the African-Americancommunity. Regardless of whether GeorgeZimmerman’s impulse in shooting Martin wasdriven by racist motivation, it is clear that racialprofiling of impending danger was a trigger for hisactions and grounds on which the jury acquittedZimmerman.

The racial divisions in American society havebecome clear from the reactions to the jury verdict.A Washington Post/ABC News survey found 41percent of respondents in favor and 41 percentagainst the jury’s ruling, with a sharp differencebetween African Americans and whites. The pollshowed 86 percent of African Americans opposedthe verdict, while 51 percent of whites agreed withthe verdict. A Pew Research Center survey showed86 percent of African Americans disagreed with theverdict while 49 percent of whites were in favor.The verdict in Florida and its aftermath will have along-term impact on the future of the movement forsocial justice. It calls for re-examining thestereotypes we harbor in our subconscious and forrealizing possible consequences of letting thosestereotypes guide our impulses. Both thesupporters and opponents of the jury verdict agreeon one point – the unfortunate consequences forMartin were not of his asking. His family sufferedconsequences of racial profiling. In a world tornapart by violence, racial profiling is a mind’s

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natural instinct for safety. Regardless of whether itis racial profiling of a Sikh man in Phoenix after9/11, or of travelers with Muslim names at airportsworldwide, there is a need to develop sophisticatedapproaches to sensing danger beyond commonstereotypes. Progress will not be achieved by onlygaining professional education. Productivity andefficiency – measures of a modern society – willnot serve us well if we do not acquire empathy andresponsibility for overcoming racial stereotypes.

Will India Become

A Hindu Nation?

It is very clear that Rashtriya SwayamsevakSangh (RSS) is in an elated mood. Never

before in the history of free India, has the RSS chiefso openly and adamantly dictated terms to theleadership of the Jan Sangh/ Bharatiya JanataParty, as he has in recent months. The RSS has beenopenly arm-twisting the BJP leadership intoelecting Narendra Modi as the Chairman of itscampaign committee and in hastening the processof declaring him BJP’s Prime Ministerialcandidate. The RSS sees in Narendra modi aninstrument to fulfill its long-cherished goal, whichis expressed clearly In its website:

“Expressed in the simplest terms, the ideal of theSangh is to carry the nation to the pinnacle of glory,through organising the entire society and ensuringprotection of Hindu Dharma. Having identified thisgoal, the Sangh created a method of work inconsonance with that ideal. Decades of functioninghas confirmed that this is the most effective way oforganizing the society”. (Extract from RSSwebsite)

Having followed RSS propaganda for years andhaving argued with my friends with RSSbackground since early child hood I have clearlyunderstood the belief system RSS cultivates in theminds of its cadres.

By proclaiming itself a Hindu Rashtra (nation),

India will be able to provide a more secureenvironment for the Hindu majority, and freedomfrom fear of minorities and terrorists.

Gandhi was responsible for appeasement ofMuslims. He deserved to be removed from thecenter of national attention.

Minorities have a place in India only if they defer tothe domination of the Hindu majority.

Influence of religion (Hindu religion) will bringmorality into Politics.

Secularism is a sham. Hindu Nationalism can aloneprovide a foundation of a prosperous India.

This is the hidden agenda behind RSS’ openinvolvement in the affairs of the BJP. TheBharatiya Janata Party is only a political instrumentof an ideology that has worked behind the scenesfor the past sixty plus years for ensuringdomination of Hindu religion over the politics inIndia.

The leadership of the Jan Sangh and BJP,especially of the RSS has traditionally remainedwith the Brahmins. The RSS has encouraged itscadres to follow the rules and rituals of the Hindureligion, thereby indirectly encouragingperpetuation of the unjust caste system and thedominance of the Brahmins in the social powerstructure. Representation of minorities and lowercastes in the RSS or BJP organizations are onlytoken gestures.

In the aftermath of the political successes the RamJanma Bhumi movement brought to the NationalDemocratic Alliance, involvement of religiousorthodoxy in the affairs of the BJP organizationbecame deeper and blatant. The political rallies ofBJP began to look like religious congregations.Saffron Clad Sadhus began to occupy front rowseats, sharing dais with L.K. Advani, MurliManohar Joshi, Sushma Swaraj, Arun Jetley, andother BJP leaders.

It is clear that the Advani and Vajpayee era in theBJP is now over. Especially Atal Bihari Vajpayeeera was a secular camouflage for RSS’ march tocapture the Indian mind with the spirit of Hindu

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Nationalism. In RSS’s view Narendra Modi is astaunch believer of RSS ideology with nopretentions to secular beliefs. RSS is eager to forceBJP into declaring Modi as party’s candidate forPrime Ministership. They want to hasten theprocess of minimizing potential damage from L.K.Advani to Modi’s prospects and ensure tamingambitions of leaders like Sushma Swaraj and ArunJetley.

Once Narendra Modi is declared the PM candidateRSS will begin timely cleansing of BJP and gettingrid of leaders with questionable loyalty to the causeof Hindu Rastra. Regardless of whether the electioncommission allows it to openly chant the slogan“Garv Se Kaho Ham Hindu Hai”, the whispercampaign of the RSS will feed the Indian voter withan appeal, “For a change, take pride in being aHindu”.

RSS cadres are bubbling with enthusiasm at theprospect of Narendra Modi leading the way tounfurling the Saffron Flag atop the Red Fort. Itsfront organizations such as the Bajrang Dal,Vishwa Hindu Parishad, and Bharatiya MazdoorSangh, are gearing up for the campaign.

Organizations such as the Shri Ram Sene areexcited about the prospects of Hidu revivalism.Sadhu Samaj is revising their knowledge of ManuSmriti, so that the future leaders of India can beimparted with appropriate knowledge of moralgovernance of a Hindu Rashtra.

In the meanwhile Sudhindra Kulkarni, animportant advisor in Atal Bihari Vajpyee’s PMOwho was also involved in L.K. Advani’sunsuccessful 2009 PM bid, was left to lament,—

“An autocrat (Modi) is sought to be enthroned, anda perfect democrat (Advani) is being marginalizedand humiliated. A self-centered leader who hasshown that he cares two hoots for the partyorganization and long-time party colleagues in hisown state has suddenly become all powerful in theBJP’s national scheme of things, whereas a selflessleader who toiled for many decades to build the

party brick by brick is being cast aside as a uselessrelic.”.

(A quote from Sudhindra Kulkarni’s statement.)

In the meanwhile, the electorate in India is quietlywatching the evolving scenario. The internet isbuzzing with the supporters of Narendra Modichampioning the idea of taking the Gujarat modelof development to the national level. The hatecampaign against Muslims is gaining ground. Thecongress party in the meanwhile is faced with acrisis of Identity.

Dr. Manmohan Singh has already become a LameDuck Prime Minister-not being able to provide anycredible defense of his government or a forcefulretort to BJP’s campaign.

The Congress President Sonia Gandhi, is making alast ditch effort at salvaging the dwindlingprospects of the Congress Party by forcing theFood Security Bill and trying to get congress cadresexcited about making the promise of food securityprevail in public imagination over the memory of afailed government with a trail of scandals to itsrecord. In this scenario what choice do the peopleof India have?

Will utter failure of the congress government turnpeople to the RSS? Will people care to preserve thediversity of India? Is the promise of Gujarat modelof develop development (over Orissa model orBihar model) so compelling that we turn India’sslow evolution into a functioning democracy into atotalitarian and religious state?

I believe it is time to only encourage people toassert the ultimate power in collective action thatwas witnessed during the Lok Pal movement andduring the protests against the rape in Delhi.

The only way for India to escape from the viciouscycle of making choices between discreditedpolitical agendas is to not vote for a Prime Ministerbut to vote for a people’s representative who willbest serve their interest, and then let a congregationof men (and women) of integrity select a team togovern India driven by the conscience and the vigilof the people in the streets.

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Current Affairs Section:

From New Delhi—

[Kuldip Nayar is a veteran Indian journalist,

syndicated columnist, human right activist and

author, noted for his long career as a left-wing

political commentator. He was in Indian Foreign

Service a diplomat and also nominated as a

Member of the upper house of the Indian

Parliament in 1997. He is also a human right

activist and a peace activist. He was a member of

India's delegation to the United Nations in 1996.

He was appointed High Commissioner to Great

Britain in 1990 and nominated to the upper house

of Indian Parliament, Rajya Sabha in August

1997. He writes columns and op-eds for over 80

newspapers in 14 languages including The Daily

Star, The Sunday Guardian, The News

(Pakistan), Express Tribune (Pakistan), Dawn

(Pakistan). Every year since 2000, Nayar has

been leading peace activists to light candles on

the Independence days of Pakistan and India

(14/15 August) at the Attari-Wagah

India-Pakistan border near Amritsar. He has

been working to free Indian prisoners in Pakistan

and Pakistani prisoners in India, who have

completed their sentences, but have not been set

free. He has also authored 15 books, including

“Beyond the Lines”, “Distant Neighbours: A

Tale of the Subcontinent”, “India after Nehru”,

“Wall at Wagah, India-Pakistan Relationship”,

“The Judgement”, “The Martyr”, “Scoop” and

“India House” [email protected].]

Lest You Forget Emergency

India should never forget certain days in itshistory. One of them is June 26 when the

emergency was imposed late at night 38 years ago.Lights of personal freedom were switched off andthe nation was left to grope in the darkness ofdictatorship. The constitution was suspended, thepress gagged and liberty stamped out. Thegovernment became an illegal authority to harass,harm, detain and whatever went with it to silencecritics. All this happened because the then PrimeMinister, Indira Gandhi, was unseated fromParliament for a poll offence and disqualified forfive years. She could have appealed against what ispopularly known as the Allahabad High Courtjudgment to the Supreme Court. But she preferredto change the system itself and appropriated powerto introduce her personal rule.

A democratic country embracing dictatorship cameas a shock to the liberal world. For the people inIndia, it was unbelievable after having enjoyed aconstitutional polity for almost three decades. Oneremark by a close associate of Mrs. Gandhi waspoignant: “I can take care of enemies but what do Itell our friends?” Mrs. Gandhi had no explanationto offer except to rule more ruthlessly through herson Sanjay Gandhi who had become anextra-constitutional authority. The emergencylasted for nearly two years. Fortunately, electionsthrew out the mother and the son lock, stock andbarrel for democracy to return.

The atrocities which the two committed wereshameful. One glaring thing was to removethousands of people forcibly from their homes andputting them in the wilderness many miles away.This became a precedent for some extremistorganizations like the Shiv Sena which some yearslater picked up the Bangladeshis, the people theydidn’t like to push them forcibly to the Bangladeshborder.

In fact, Mrs. Gandhi set many perniciousprecedents, such as making the civil service servileand the police obedient to the rulers’ whims. Today

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Kuldip Nayar

many chief ministers, not necessarily those of theCongress party, use civil servants and the police aspart of their retinue to punish critics, just as she did.

The emergency also saw how pliable the mightyjudiciary had become. Four out of five SupremeCourt judges, including the so-called liberal, P.N.Bhagwati, justified the imposition of theemergency. The only one who did not toe the linewas Justice H.R. Khanna. He was superseded whenMrs Gandhi appointed the Chief Justice of India. Ifthe judiciary still looks battered, it is because it hasnot yet recovered from the blows it received duringthose dark days.

Mrs. Gandhi’s father, Jawaharlal Nehru, wasentirely different. He opted for the democraticrepublic after independence and saw to its growth.Take the example of the judiciary. Once he thoughtof superseding Justice Mehr Chand Mahajanbecause of his ‘views’. Nehru had to give in whenhe found the entire S.C. bench was proposing toresign if there was supersession. Indeed, Mahajanwas appointed the C.Justice of India.

The most reprehensible thing was the forced familyplanning. At the instance of Sanjay Gandhi, MrsGandhi introduced forced sterilisation. Having lessnumber of children was not somethingcondemnable. But when it came to implementation,the tactics used were no different from those ofStalin or Mao Zedong. Many above the age of 65were sterilised during the emergency and evenboys who had hardly entered puberty becamevictims. A policeman could even enter into yoursleeping room to check whether family planninginstructions had been followed.

Detention without trial was the colonial legacy.Mrs Gandhi imprisoned more than 100,000 peoplewithout trial. The tragedy today is that the HomeMinistry is copying those very methods. Theministry is restricting the democratic space in thename of curbing terrorism. The unlawful activitiesact can detain people without trial in an open courtof law. Such cases have to be okayed by thegovernment-appointed advisory committee and the

trial had to be held within the jail itself. Dr VinayakSen, the famous doctor-activist, was first detainedunder this act. Subsequently, the BJP-ruledJharkhand government charged him with seditionfor having “contacts” with the Maoists.

I often wonder why we haven’t learnt a lesson fromthe emergency and why the rulers of differentpolitical parties pursue more or less the same paththat Mrs. Gandhi had taken to derail democracy. Ibelieve the reason is that nobody, who was foundguilty of committing excesses, was punished. It iscomical that some of those found guilty are today atthe helm of affairs in P.M. Manmohan Singh’s rule.

The failings of Mrs. Gandhi’s successorgovernment of the Janata Party brought her back topower in less than two years. As the PrimeMinister, she not only shelved cases requiringpunishment but also appointed the same taintedofficers to ensure that the spirit of emergencystayed even if it had not been imposed. The loss ofdemocracy has been more or less forgotten. Theyouth does not know what the country wentthrough. The elders who recall the period sound toowishy-washy. It was a bad dream which was meantto be forgotten. But when today the steps takenduring the emergency have been adopted in thename of security and peace, there seems littledifference between now and then.

There has to be accountability without which nonein power will be afraid of using authority that he orshe likes. The Lokpal Bill, under discussion, isnecessary to find out who are guilty and how theycan be punished. The government’s attitude isuncompromising. If the Lokpal cannot look into thecharges against the Prime Minister, the judiciary,or the MPs indulging in corruption even on thefloor of the house, what is the use of having such aninstitution? The control by the government of theCentral Bureau of Investigation (CBI) makes anyaction by the agency meaningless. It looks as if weare in for anxious days. Thank god, anotheremergency cannot be imposed because the verymeasure requires a two-thirds majority in

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parliament and a similar strength in stateassemblies.

Let’s Go Back To People

It was heartening to watch debates onpoverty on national television channels,

particularly the English ones. Elitist in approach,they seldom deliberate privations of the commonman. Likewise, the English press is reluctant tocarry news or write-ups on poverty because it hascome to believe that its well-to-do readers do notwant to know about the extent of poverty at thebreakfast table. The Hindi and other languagepapers are more sensitive. This is probably thedifference between India and Bharat.

Yet the nation cannot run away from the fact thatroughly 65 per cent of Indians are poor, 35 per centof them destitute. After projecting the PlanningCommission’s criteria for expenditure is Rs 24 invillages and Rs 33 in urban areas, the governmenthas realized that the amount is too paltry toconvince even the most gullible.

Now the average has been placed around Rs 50.This sum is also too meager. Yet some leadingCongressmen have tried to trivialize poverty byproclaiming that one can have a full, hearty mealfor Rs 5 at Delhi and Rs. 12 at Mumbai. Accordingto the Planning Commission, seldom right, povertyhas been reduced to 22 per cent. The Commission,a creature of the ruling Congress, gives credit forthis to P.M. Manmohan Singh’s government.

Planning Commission’s Deputy Chairman MontekSingh Ahluwalia says that the reduction of povertyduring the BJP-led coalition was 0.8 per cent whileit is going down by 2.5 % annually since theCongress takeover. Assuming that the reduction to22 % is correct, still one out of every five Indian ispoor. This is a dismal record in the last six and ahalf decades after independence. If you were to adddimensions, other than food, you end up comparingIndia with backward countries in Africa.

The Congress has been ruling at least for 50 yearsand it is the most to blame for the mess in which thecountry is today. Poverty and education, both

neglected by the British, should have been on top ofthe party’s agenda. An undertaking given duringthe independence struggle on social justice remainson paper. So do the provisions on equalopportunities in the constitution.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, an eminenteconomist, was expected to bring things in orderbut he has been a failure. The growth rate in the lasttwo years is less than the proverbial Hindu growthrate of 3.5 to 4 per cent, although the overallaverage in the last decade is 5.5 per cent, reportedlynext to China, the leader in the world. ManmohanSingh has turned out to be more of a politician thanan economist. This is proved by the fact that he hasmanaged to be the P.M. for nearly a decade.

India’s poor performance is not due to the globalfactors, ascribed by pro-establishment economists,but because of poor governance. The fact is that weare spending more than we are earning. Thegovernment has doubled it in the last 10 years.Inflation has been galloping upward. Printing ofcurrency notes, if at all a short-term relief, is not asolution. The paucity of funds is sought to be metwith panicky measures.

Take the concessions offered to foreign investors,49 per cent in insurance and oil and gas. Themeasures have been compared to opening thefloodgates. Instead of self-sufficiency, the cardinalprincipal after independence, the foreigninvestment has become the mantra. Then foreigninvestment was welcome in technical or such fieldsin which we had no know-how. Now any field ormethod is good enough as long as it attracts foreigninvestors. Still they want more concessions.

Bureaucrats, more than politicians, must share theresponsibility. They too like the Prime Ministerhave followed the World Bank advice to covertIndia into crony capitalist state. America has nothelped a bit despite high-ranking people from theUS visiting the country every other day.

Most members of parliament and state legislatureslive in their make-believe world and continue todelude themselves. It is well known that they get

8


subsidized food and many other things. The centralhall of parliament where the MPs congregate to rubshoulders with the obliging journalists has acanteen which is run by the Railways and sells foodat a ridiculously small price.

The welfare schemes, started with good intention,are starving for funds. The Congress-rungovernment has an eye on the next elections. Forunpredictable gains, the Congress has put the entireeconomic system at stake. The opposition partiesmay be shrill in their criticism, but they are right instating that Manmohan Singh’s rule has beenfraught with mismanagement, corruption and a fewbelated steps to stem the rot. The economicsituation has been going from bad to worse.

India is a non-sympathetic society. Over the years,it has deteriorated in values. There is not asemblance of idealism, much less movement, to liftthe lower half to lead a viable living. Poverty,unemployment and malnutrition, all signs of adecaying society, are visible on an increasing scale.The bureaucracy has been reduced to an authoritymerely affixing seal, from of being the steel framethat it was till the beginning of seventies.

Once in a while a courageous official like DurgaShakti Nagpal appears on the scene to evokeoptimism. Her attack on the mining of sand mafiain UP was applauded. But then state chief minister,Akhilesh Yadav, was influenced by politicians andshe was suspended. Some of these politicians arethe owners of trucks she impounded while carryingsand illegally from Yamuna and Hindon riverbanks. Had the two main political parties, theCongress and the BJP, been together in backingmeasures against corruption in administration, thesituation would have been different.

Probably a mid-term poll could have given a freshstart to the country. The new government wouldhave had at least five-year tenure to formulatepolicies for that period. It would have renewed trustwhich is badly needed for investment from withinand from abroad. Even now Manmohan Singh

should go back to people. His remaining 10 monthsin office are a lame duck rule.

The Blurred Lines

The Congress has set a bad precedent. Theparty has combined two positions: one is

that of party official spokesman and the other thatof Minister’s for Information and Broadcasting.Both have different roles. The official spokesmandefends the stand the party talks, right or wrong.Minister for Information and Broadcasting isIndia’s spokesman, not that of one party. The firstis nominated while the other is elected by thepeople.

To mix the two is unfair to the occupant, whohappens to be Manish Tiwari at present. He hasbeen doing fairly a good job as the spokesman.Given a chance, he would have probably done evenbetter. Broadcasting in India has not been able toshatter the fetters of officialdom for decades. Stillworse is the telephone calls by a minister or a seniorbureaucrat which changes the news bulletin even atthe last minute.

In the sixties, several activists agitated forautonomy of official media. Subsequently, thegovernment relented and brought the PrasharBharti Bill. It was diluted from the beginning. Butwhen implemented, the Prashar Bharti becameanother department of the broadcasting ministry.

Once I asked one Information and BroadcastingMinister why the Prashar Bharti was not on thepattern of BBC, the original idea, to eschewsubjectivity or slant, the minister was frank enoughto say that the government has to have its ownset-up to disseminate its viewpoint whennewspapers and television channels were privatelyowned. He did admit the criterion should be theobjectivity, not where it comes from.

The Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha channels,although run by public funds, appear to have less ofgovernment’s propaganda. Yet both of them haveno news bulletins and avoid such topic that mayembarrass the government. The channels also seeto it that as far as possible they do not have critics in

9


the news and views programmes. The two channelsdo not spoil the mould which they have developed,not too critical and not too distant from thegovernment’s point of view. In a democratic polity,perception is most important for credibility. Theimpression is that the Lok Sabha and the RajyaSabha channels do not go beyond the red linedrawn for their guidance. It is no use rulersclaiming that the government media is autonomouswhen they themselves do not allow it to be so.

Two recent examples show how the ministry wasout of depth. The death of 23 school children inBihar following the mid-day meals was a tragedywhich the private channels reported from everypossible angle. In comparison, Akashvani andDoordarshan registered the event only. The officialmedia was handicapped because Bihar chiefminister Nitish Kumar may become the Congressally in the 2014 elections.

Take another example. The Central Bureau ofInvestigation has exonerated Pawan Kumar Bansal,former Railway Minister. Some new incriminatinginformation has come out since. Yet, ManishTiwari says on behalf of the Congress that the courtis open to those who level charges. BothAkashwani and Doordarshan do not tell what thenew charges which people want to know.

If the Prashar Bharti had even a bit of autonomy, itwould have done a better job. The governmentmedia tells only the Congress side and puts coldwater on every other version. This was the reasonwhy the activists started an agitation to purveycorrect information in the country. Both thegovernment controlled-radio and television reachfar more population than all the other privatechannels put together.

In the recent past, corruption has penetrated thegovernment media as well. Just as theprivately-owned media has “paid news,” bothAkashvani and D.D. too carry motivated storiesaffecting its credibility. Yet it is beginning to bepreferred by many because views and news are so

mixed that it is difficult to separate fact fromfiction.

In-depth reporting is very limited in governmentmedia because even if a news editor feels likeprobing further, the fear of going wrong from theofficial point of view deters him from doing so.Somehow, those who occupy high positions in theGovernment labour under the belief that they—andthey alone—know what the nation should be toldand when. And they get annoyed if any news whichthey do not like appears in print. Their first attemptis to contradict it and dub it mischievous. Later,when it is realized that a mere denial will notconvince even the most gullible, a lameexplanation is offered that things have not been put“in proper perspective”. Probably, at that time, thegovernment gets away with its version of the story.

But what is not realized is that such methods onlydecrease the credibility of official assertions. Evenhonest claims of the government begin to bequestioned. In a democracy, where faith stirs thepeople’s response, the government cannot afford tohave even an iota of doubt raised about what it saysor does. Somehow New Delhi is not conscious ofthis fact.

In a free society, the press has a duty to inform thepublic without fear or favour. At times it is anunpleasant job, but it has to be performed because afree society is founded on free information. If thepress were to publish only government handouts orofficial statements, there would be nothing topin-point lapses, deficiencies or mistakes. In fact,the truth is that the press is already tooniminy-piminy, too nice, altogether too refined andtoo ready to leave out. The government should notask for more.The combination of being the party’sspokesman and the minister of Information andBroadcasting is beyond me. Government maybelieve that it has got away with it because the act ismany weeks old. The government does not realizethat its credibility has come down several pegs thanbefore. I really feel sorry for Manish Tiwari.

10


From New Delhi —

[Justice Rajindar Sachar is Retd. Chief Justice of

High Court of Delhi, New Delhi. He is UN

Special Rapportuer on Housing, Ex. Member,

U.N. Sub-Commission on Prevention of

Discrimination and Protection of Minorities and

Ex-President, Peoples Union for Civil Liberties

(PUCL) India.]

Emergency of 1975

and The Judiciary

Nations which do not remember theirimmediate past are in danger of

repeating the same tragedy. This thought came tome on June 26th, 2013 (the Emergency day of 1975)when on random questioning of age group of 35young in the country (who are said to make upabout half the population of the country)overwhelmingly of them did not know of anyparticular significance of the day – and more tragic,fairly large number of people above the age of 35

fared no better. The reason was obvious. Most ofthe Population in this hype age get theirinformation from newspapers, which withcommercial angle in view never fail to remind us ofValentine day. But on 26th June, the newspapers didnot even have a small news item in their paper -leave apart on the front page.

Even many opposition parties which were thevictims of emergency chose to keep low key. Eventhough PUCL and other civil liberties organization,as usual held protest meetings, but TV andnewspapers viciously avoided any mention,

overwhelmed as they are with the Governmentsneo liberal policies. Or is it a sense of fear becausethe perpetrator of Emergency is the Ruling party -so much for freedom of press.

And yet tragically it was a day when India lost itsdemocracy and the USA President sarcasticallyboasted that USA was now the largest democracy.It is a different matter that thankfully because of thesacrifices made by Indian people under theinspiring leadership of Jai Prakash Narain (J.P.),the boast of USA President was to end, but onlyafter 18 months. But the wounds have remained –the danger of it being repeated in the same mannermay have been eliminated but a clearly concealedkind of version by the governments in using thevarious security legislations against human Right

activist, trade unionists continues to haunt us.

Question is often asked how come emergencycould happen notwithstanding our constitutiongiving us all the fundamental rights and democracybeing a basic feature of constitution as sorefreshingly held in Kesavananda Bharati case as

far back in 1973 by our Supreme Court. It is notthat there was no resistance to the emergency.Thousands went to Jail which included Ex- CentralMinisters, Ex-Chief Ministers, governors, lawyers,legislators and few brave journalists. Many humanRight activists went underground but there is alimit beyond which unarmed people can fight anintolerant and a near fascist State which India hadbecome those days. A total fear had enveloped thecountry.

And all this because rule of law had completelybeen eliminated by the Supreme Court Ruling inADM Jabalpur case (April 1976), which overruledthe view of 9 High Courts that the legality ofdetaining order passed by the governments couldstill be examined – in fact in some cases the HighCourts had ordered release of detenues. Had thisview been upheld, emergency would havecollapsed. But to our shame the Supreme Court by amajority of 4 judges against one honourableexception (Khanna J.) laid down a proposition of

11


Rajindar Sachar

law, which forever will remain a hall mark ofshame thus— “In view of the Presidential Orderdated June 27, 1975 no person has any locus standito move any writ petition under Article 226 beforea High Court for habeas corpus or any other writ ororder or direction to challenge the legality of anorder of detention on the round that the order is notunder or in compliance with the Act or is illegal oris vitiated by mala fides factual or legal or is based

on extraneous considerations.”

Is it not obvious that emergency could not befought in a legal and democratic manner becausethe Supreme Court accepted Attorney General'sargument that if a policeman under orders of hissuperior was to shoot a person or even arrest aSupreme Court Judge, it would be legal and norelief available. Naturally in this situation, nopeaceful opposition to emergency could continue. Iam shocked how the majority decision could relyon Liversidge Vs. Anderson given during wartimein 1942 by House of Lords, but with a (memorabledissent by Lord Atkin) when English Courtssubsequently felt so ashamed of that decision that aconscious effort was made to throw that decision in

to a dung heap.

Lord Akin caustically remarked about judges who“show themselves more executive minded than theexecutive’ and commented that such, argumentswhich might have been addressed acceptably to theCourt of King’s Bench in the time of Charies-I’. Infact Justice Stable a Judge of High Court Londonwas so upset to say that the status of Judiciary hadbeen reduced “to mice squeaking under a chair in

the Home office”.

In 1963 Lord Radcliff (HL) referred dismissivelyto the very peculiar case in Liversidge Vs.Anderson and said “it should be confinedapparently to a war time context and that it is

already clear that the decision was regarded as an

aberration”.

All this trenchant criticism of Liversidge judgmentwas available in various law quarterly reviewssince the beginning. Law quarterly Review (1970)clearly spelled out how embarrassing the decision

in Liversidge was becoming for English judiciary.

That is why Lord Diplock (HL) in 1979 wasconstrained to rule, “For my part” I think the timehas come to acknowledge openly that the majorityview in Liversidge Vs. Anderson were expedientlyand, at that time, wrong and the dissenting

judgment right”. And Lord Scarman laid finaldemise by saying that “the ghost of that decision

need no longer haunt the law”.

Some commentators have ironically describedmajority in Liversidge case as the court’scontribution to the war effort of England –similarly many in this country are inclined todescribe majority in Jabalpur case as SupremeCourts contribution to the continuance of 1975Emergency. Had Supreme Court taken the sameview as 9 High Courts, the emergency would havecollapsed immediately, because no court couldpossibly have upheld the detention of stalwarts andpatriots like Jayaprakash Narayan Ji, MorarjiDesai, Raj Narain, George Fernandes, MadhuLimaya and thousands of others on the ground thatthey were a danger to the security of the country.The inevitable result would have been theimmediate release of these leaders leading tooverwhelming opposition movement which wouldhave swept away Indira Gandhi Govt. by mid 1976.Alas, how sometime fate of nations can beinfluenced by the pusillanimity of a few individuals– in this case embarrassingly by the highestjudiciary which it can never live down.

12


Dear Friends, Your article for the RH should be emailed at: [email protected].

Or it may be posted at: C-8, Defence Colony, Meerut, 250001, U.P.

A passport size photograph, a small bio-data and a note whether it has also been published elsewhere or is

being sent exclusively for the RH should be attached with it. — Rekha S.

From Hyderabad—

[Prof K.S.Chalam, former Member, UPSC, New

Delhi, former Vice-Chancellor, Dravidian

University, Kuppam, A.P., is known as the

pioneer of the Academic Staff College Scheme in

the country as the scheme was strengthened by

UGC on the basis of his experiments in 1985. He

became the first founder director of the Academic

Staff College at Andhra University in 1987. He

was actively involved in the teachers’ movement,

secular and rationalist activities and served as

the National Secretary, Amnesty International

during 1984-85. [email protected]]

Telangana:

The Land Locked State

The long cherished dream of the people ofTelangana is going to be a reality soon.

The region will be demerged from the combinedstate after 56 years of cohabitation under thefeeling of great pain and sentiment of separation.But, this is how states or nations do emerge anddevelop. This is not the time to reflect on ourcommon Telugu culture and heritage as no one isphysically isolated or rehabilitated elsewhere as inthe time of partition. We continue to live and sailtogether enriching our common culture, languageand future sharing our experiences and resources.

We may briefly reflect here on the economic statusof the region. The Economic History of the regionnarrated by Adapa Satyanarayana,RamakrishnaReddy, Thirumali, Vasant Bawa andothers clearly show that it had a distinct characterdifferent from others. It is really a puzzle to knowhow the Nizam accumulated so much of wealth in a

land locked region. It is revealed that the economicactivity in the form of industrialization wasinitiated by the state got its resources throughprimitive accumulation. One should not forget thatit was Nizam who had invited outsiders (throughadvertisement) to cultivate 40 lakh acres of barrenland during 1920s that helped to create agriculturalsurplus for public investment. Thus, Nizam haddeveloped a model to overcome the handicap ofbeing an isolated province and not to solely rely oninternational trade. The authors have alsoexplained how the “quartet of thugs” (fourdominant castes) bribed the revenue officials to gettheir names entered in revenue records to transformas landowners. Later, the Telangana armed struggleand the distribution of lands in the region alongwith other political developments made some of thescheduled castes, tribes and OBCs as landholderswith an average holdings higher than CoastalAndhra. This character needs to be kept in mindwhile formulating economic programs in the futurestate. The proportion of their population would alsorise after readjustment of data.

There are several states in the country that are landlocked and under developed. The so calledBIMARU states are land locked (Bihar, MadhyaPradesh, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh). EvenPunjab, Haryana and the Himalayan states are notbenefitted from trade liberalization. In fact, theregional disparities have grown during thepost-reform period as the investments; FDIs etc areconcentrated only on the coast and a few urbanagglomerates. Delhi is an exception being theNational Capital City and politically a bufferbetween North and West. That is the reason whythe government is now developing a Delhi-Mumbai corridor for industrial growth. Telangana,being a land locked state needs to learn from theexperiences of the states noted above and from itsdistinct historical and social milieu.

The city of Hyderabad was developed due toseveral land related and socio-economic factors.The city has become bone of contention amongdifferent interest groups spread in to different

13


K.S. Chalam

geographical regions that are close by and not thebackward North Andhra, 1000 km away. There is atendency among some leaders to envision that thecity can be developed as a growth centre to takecare of the development of the entire region. Wemay draw their attention to the recent happeningsin America and Europe where cities like Detroithave crumbled. There is no doubt that the city andits resources can be utilized for the development ofthe rural Telangana. But, the city cannot beoverextended beyond an optimum point thatbecomes counterproductive. (What is the situationof Mumbai?) Further, the city has emerged as acentre of service sector, R and d that do not produceany tangible commodities but only weightlessgoods and software products. They do not needvessels or ships to export them from our borders toother countries. Satellites and internet facilities areenough. Another important factor that needs to bekept in mind is that the whole software business isbased on certain soft skills and advanced educationand training. We are of the view that the proportionof Telangana boys and girls in this sector is limitedas they had inherited a weak and underdevelopedhigher education sector in the districts. As someonehas remarked recently, most of the Engineering andProfessional colleges in the city are either under thecontrol of Minorities or ‘others’. Therefore, as lateJayashankar (Telangana ideologue) used to insistthat educational institutions are to be given priorityto prepare Telangana youth to take up greaterresponsibilities in future.

Some critiques allege that the city of Hyderabaddid not allow people to reason out the conditions inthe rural Telangana. The city and its extendedregion of Ranga Reddy, Medak, parts of Nalgondahave limited influence on the structure ofdevelopment elsewhere. Interestingly, adjoiningMahaboobNagar has remained one of the mostbackward. The per capita SDP of Nizamabad,Adilabad, Mahaboobnagar and even Warangal isless than the combined state SDP and Hyderabad(some districts in Seemandhra have per capita SDPless than state average). If we turn our attention to

the prospects of Agriculture, the size of averageholdings, water and other complimentary factorsare important. It is noted that the average holdingsof Telangana are higher (2.4Ha) than in coastalAndhra (0.7%) and top 5 per cent of the landholders possess 33% of land. It is much higher inSouth Andhra. The issue is that the land lords or bigfarmers in Telangana seem to have not used theirsurplus for the industrialization of the region.Perhaps they are lured by the glamour ofHyderabad and we may hope that they will nowturn their attention to industrialization andmanufacturing in the districts. The newly formedstate like that of Nizam has a responsibility tosponsor not only industrialization but also dispersalof industries to cater to the needs of backwarddistricts in Telangana to realize the dreams of thedisadvantaged. The so called Bahujans in theregion in the name of Samajika Telangana (socialTelangana) have been insisting on just distributionof resources and fruits of development.

There are plenty of opportunities in the state interms of mineral and natural resources includingwater that need to be imaginatively augmented forits development. Interestingly, Telangana hasslowly shifted to cotton by devoting around 30 percent of its fertile land. The state had sufficient skillbase in handlooms and textiles but, they were nevereffectively utilized as raw cotton is exported toTamil Nadu and yarn is imported. This is veryexpensive for the survival of handlooms and powerlooms that led to distress migration and suicide ofweavers. Further, it has to develop its roads andcorridors to connect with the emergingInternational Air Cargo corridor in Nagpur(nearby) and to sea port in the neighbouringPrakasam/ Guntur of Coastal Andhra. This wouldprovide sufficient scope to share its surplusresources in exchange of Coastal Andhra space andfunds to come out of the handicap of land lock togrow together. This is a win-win situation for boththe regions to continue their legacy of brotherhoodand inseparability in the years to come todemonstrate their combined prowess of Telugu

14


culture.

Primitive Communism ofBuddha to take on Religious

Fundamentalism

The recent attack on the Buddha Gayashrine has evoked little protest and

exposed our wide spread ignorance about history.This is not the first time that an assault on thetemple of Buddha is made. Buddha perhaps, is theonly historical person who had received the largestand the most heinous attempts on his life when hewas alive and on his memorials after theparinirvana. No individual in human historyreceived so much of attention (with hatred) as didBuddha for the simple preaching of non-violenceand compassion towards fellow human being.Therefore, we need to contextualise the so calledreligious fundamentalist attacks on Buddhism, notyet clear who was behind it, to highlight there-emergence of its relevance in a troubled world ofcapitalist expansion.

The emergence of Buddhism needs to be looked atas a response to the religious bigotry andinstitutional exploitation of an order at an earlystage of gana-sanghas in the Sakhya and Koliyaregion. The advent of Buddhist thought as achallenge to the decadence of Vedic Hinduism bothin philosophy and more in practice is an gravequestion not considered here and can be dealt within a different paper. It is instructive to notice thatAjatasatru who became a disciple of Buddhabelongs to Naga clan, a native Indian tribe as thename of his grandfather Naga Sena suggests(Romila Thapar). It was not an advanced republicand the relations among the groups seem to havebeen relied on ideological considerations. Theconditions resemble primitive communism. This isvery important to understand the so calledPre-capitalist modes of production includingprimitive communism, ancient society etc tounderstand the context of Buddhist upsurge.Primitive communism as distinguished from

primitive accumulation according to Hindess andHrist (Pre-capitalist Modes of Production) is anarticulation of a combination of economic andideological relations between individuals. In factthe authors revealed how Marx and Engels haveadopted an erroneous classification of firstorganisation of society in history from the writingsof millionaire Railway Contractor cum missionary,Morgan. The scholars who have followed themethod have failed to evaluate Buddhism in itsproper context. Let us not get in to the debate tounderstand our situation now.

The enunciation and mission of Buddha during hislifetime appears to be an integration of thedowntrodden and exploited under conditions ofprimitive communism. After conceiving the notionof dialectics, the first intellectual breakthrough inthe history of ideas, Buddha collected his disciples.Lakshmi Narasu (apart from European scholarslike Rhys Davids, Winternitz, Oldenberg etal)gives the list of his first batch of disciplesconsisting of the wretched and rejected of the earth.The list includes Anathapindaka, Alavaka, Upali,Ambapali, Jivaka, Sunita,, Visakha, Angulimala(Mala, Mahar Madigas claim their ancestry to himand the Mallas where Buddha breathed his last) .Interestingly, all of them seem to have originatedfrom the local indigenous groups waiting for aleader to champion their cause. (Visakha being awoman seems to be an exception) Earlier Buddhahad dialogues with the Ajivikas like Poornakasyapa, Ajitakesa Kambal (most of them seem tohave gone from our Dandaka) and later several ofthem joined his order. The local princess of Kosala,Magadh etc joined the order perhaps due to theexpediency when majority of the lowly subjects gotadmitted. The social context and the rationalanalysis of the existing conditions during the timeof Buddha seem to be relevant here to understandwhy there is a sustained attack on Buddhism both inIndia and elsewhere. It is more appropriate now tostudy the background when the religiousfundamentalism is cunningly promoted byneo-colonialism (for instance, American

15


engagement in Afghanistan after Soviet retreat,double standards in India). The home grownreligious fundamentalists in India are of the samecadre. Is Buddhism emerging as a countervailingforce today?

One of the weaknesses in certain segments ofBuddhist teachings and practice alleged to be thepriority given to Astanga marg and panchshila asrituals without much study and reflection on thecore of Buddhism. Some of the Bikkhus and thelaity who claimed to follow Buddha are not awareof the greatest intellectual contributions ofBuddhism to humankind, lamented Dalai Lama in aseminar (I was present) at Bodh Gaya in 2009. Itcould be due to the split of the order in to 18 groupslike every other belief system. But, the distinctionof Buddhism is that it did not develop as a Religion(no god, no priest) but only as a way of life in theSouth Asian countries with common intellectuallegacy. The contributions of the greatest Buddhistscholars like Dignaga and DharmaKirti apart fromVasubandhu and even Rahul Sankrutyan areaccepted by every Buddhist. What seems to bemissing in the Buddhist order today is some kind ofa parochial approach to project limited version orinterpretations without a universal appeal to themasses. Some people appear to think that it is notintellectually challenging and may be it hasemerged as a blind faith without looking at thecorpus of literature of Buddhism and on Buddhism.I must confess here that Sharad Patil wrote to me tofind out the details of Dharama Kirti, one of thegreatest Buddhit scholars, was a Telugu person.Yes, he was, if Kumarila Bhatt was his nephew, hebelongs to Kalingandhra and Dignaga was fromcoastal Andhra. I regret that I could not devote timeto gather information on the studies and in fact hisEnglish translations are just available (2004Dunne). The commentary on Epistemology inPramanavartika by DharamaKirti was presaged 12hundred years before what Hume propounded inthe 18th century, was unfortunately out of the reachof Indians for historical reasons. Dharmakirti whoconfronted the unreality of caste through his

secular philosophical discourse was thrown out ofIndia and sheltered in Tibet.

We may now reflect on how the so called Taliban(derivative of talib, in Arabic meaning students)alleged to be one of the fundamentalist groupsalong with several other religious formationscreating social tensions. It is easy to trivialise andstereotype a community for political reasons. But,we may never get in to the roots of the rudimentswithout understanding the socio-economic andhistorical transformation of a community. In thiscontext, the contribution of Afghanistan to theworld of knowledge and culture particularly toBuddhist realm need to be recognised. How couldanyone overlook the contribution of Gandhara Art(as blend of Greek and Indian) in the BamiyanBuddhas and the greatest service done by pathanbrothers Asanga and Vasubandhu to BuddhistMetaphysics. As a transit of the silk route, thepeople of the region had enriched and were in turnprofited by the cross cultural interactions. Theywere dragged in to the present situation due to theArab problem. In this context, we must recognisethe enlightened effort made by ProphetMohammed in uniting and giving an identity to theanarchic groups in the Mediterranean region. Hebrought peace through Islam. Buddhism, scholarsassert had enriched Abrahaimic and Indian thoughtthrough its Philosophy of Logic and Templearchitecture as the first monastic order in history.The cross fertilisation of ideas have contributed tothe development of science and technology. Itseems the discovery of crude in the region and theaccumulation of money through exports createdproblems due to Sharia. Interest on lending isforbidden for obvious reasons in the Middle Eastseemed to have helped to craft a dubious strategyby the Saudi billionaires with the support ofAmerican bankers. The region is once again torn into pieces and there seem to be no leader or Messiahlike Mohammed to bring unity and peace in theregion and the poor have become a prey to thewicked designs of the global powers. It is allegedthat the internal and external enemies of Buddhism

16


through Pushyamitra, Shankaracharya, Ghajani,Gori etc are drawn from the same Aryan ideologyof expansionism. It is reported that the poor amongthe Muslims in Saudi constitute 20 per cent and inAfghanistan 45 per cent and the same amount inPakistan and India. They are frustrated.

The transition from feudalism to internationalcapitalism through technology seems to havecomplicated several social issues in thenon-Western society. The conditions in India todayremind us the days of Buddha. The leadership is ingreat confusion as to how to grapple with thecontemporary crisis. They were constrained to lookat the historical and intellectual directions likeBuddhism to find solutions to the Talibanisation ofa section of the population. The oil rich have noproblems as all of their investments are safe in thewest and therefore, the poor are made weird. Thisinternal socio-economic discrepancy across Asiaand Middle East are in muddles waiting for acompetent leader and ideology to take onfundamentalism (Market and Religious). Do thethree corner stones of Anitya, Anatma and Nirvanaof Buddhism with its original ideology ofcompassion and integration would help address thecontemporary upheaval in Asia?

Wealth Creation versus

Poverty Alleviation

The country is undergoing an economicturmoil. The international situation

seems to be not comfortable to recover from theloss of stature and pride once India claimed to haveenjoyed. The business economists and idealistscholars are quarrelling on petty issues in theirdisplay of loyalty to market. It is not easy to changethe rules of the game once travelled too far underthe beacon of macro-economic models. Themanifestation of CAD, low industrial growth,increasing trends of inflation etc is a symptom of aparticular type of economic policy and therefore,the consequences are within the comprehension ofthe experts. Consequently, they assure us thepossible restoration soon.

We must appreciate the recent Ordinance on theRight to Food, a very courageous and relevant actto provide relief to the poor who are adverselyaffected by some of the economic policies. Thecritiques might say that the policy is only to win theconfidence of the poor, the real voters. It is amusingto note the comments of our political class accusingthe other as gaining political mileage out of it. But,the politicians or party functionaries are not therejust to watch and wink, they are supposed toexecute their artifices at appropriate time. What welearn from academic discussions are broadcontours of a game given the parameters.Nonetheless, they just don’t happen like that. Everypolitician irrespective of the Party plays the same towin the elections. No political party contestselections, except the left, to educate or formulatepolicies for the welfare of the people. Elections in acapitalist democracy may perhaps be considered asa process to gain control over decision making todistribute resources among their clientele and maynot necessarily for those whose support is bought.The transaction has a cost and benefit. In thiscontext, the poor are justified in supporting thosethat dispense doles instantly and do not trust in apromise of delivery at a future date. This is howsome crumbs flow in to their quarters. People arepragmatic in their outlook unlike some ideologueslike us.

The record of achievements of liberalisation, theprotagonists claim is not a mean accomplishmentgiven the amount of wealth created in the countryin too short a period. Let us look at the meaning ofwealth. Economists from the time of Adam Smithhave been defining and measuring wealthconsisting of ‘the annual produce of the land andlabour’. It is further enlarged to include all goods,resources, assets that have an exchange value. Thisis different from Income that has a quality ofproviding a stream of benefits over a period of time.National income therefore is flow of goods andservices in a country during a year.

Wealth creation needs conditions of scarcity andcapability to exchange. As long as free goods and

17


public goods exist, they do not add value to thewealth. They are to be made economic goods.Keeping the Principles of Economics in mind, thepolicy makers who are conditioned by their job andthe persuasive soft skills of internationalorganisations have designed programmes andschemes in India to create wealth.

The first thing that they have done: liberated tradeto exchange our wares outside the country. It is saidthat the country has been administered so far byunwise nationalist patriots who did not allow this tohappen and the country remained backward withthe Hindu rate of growth. Some of our Hindupatriots have also agreed with this idea andpromoted it as we were getting copious donationsand gifts (including in places of worship) in dollarsfrom expatriates who were working abroad. OurNRI experts developed ideas and theories to enrichthe capitalist world through their publicationsmarketed by international publishing houses. Thishas improved our competence. However, someaccuse that they are responsible to a large extent forthe current crisis.

At home, the country had scarce natural resourceslike minerals, rivers, talents and so on and manyfree goods like clean air, atmosphere etc that werelanguishing without proper use. The commonproperty resources like forests, livelihoodresources etc that were freely accessible to poor gotrestricted. The NRIs changed our mind-set andliberated the caged economy. The tiger in the cageis released and the elephant started walking on itslegs. The rate of growth of the economy almostreached double digit, dollars poured in and oururban land scape brimmed with beautiful structuresand as someone remarked, even dalits got(cleaning) jobs. The per capita income raised andour investments and buyouts abroad by our IndianInc. proliferated. The wealth of a few isaccumulated in leaps and bounds. How did thishappen. It is very simple and easy. Nothing ishidden from the market, everything including our

traditions and the so called family silver our mines,our human resources were exported, our climatetraded to get dollars. The economy is linked withtrade one and half times its size. FDIs, FIIsincluding the Swiss Bank deposits rolled in to realestate, new investment projects etc. This has putpressure to import gold and trendy automobiles etc.The wealth thus created is so easy and simplethrough what is called a change of mind set.

Interestingly, the absolute number of poor hasincreased during the same period. Per capitaavailability of cereals declined. Economists havetried to define and formulate innovative ideas tobring down the figure to satisfy the internationalagencies and their confidence.

No doubt, the rates have declined, but at a rate atwhich it was falling before the economic reformsunder the direct control of our own policies (if therates are adjusted for the present criterion ofcalories). The governments at the centre and instates have been formulating umpteen numbers ofpolicies to reduce poverty with welfare schemeslike Food Security to keep the poor alive. Theproportion of poor has remained at 40 according toone definition and hover around 50 per cent inanother method of measurement. Therefore, thecriterion of per capita income of Rs 27 in rural areasand Rs 33 in urban areas (reduced nutritionalstandards to 1700 calories from 2100); the magicfigure of 22 per cent (below nutrition poverty) isobtained. The figures are worked out with transferof income through MNAREGA, a wonderfulstatistical exercise.

Yet, the rate of decline of poverty is 2 per centwhile GDP growth is around 5 per cent per year. Itseems the drop in poverty is not due to the fast rateof growth as the best performers are Kerala,Himachal Pradesh, and Punjab etc that showedmoderate growth, Bihar and Odissa with a lowbase. Is poverty such a difficult object to elude ourcrafty policy makers for so long?

18


IRI / IRHA Members' Section:

[Vidya Bhushan Rawat is Director at Social

Development Foundation, a non religious

secular human rights organisations working on

the issue of Dalits, tribals and other marginalised

communities particularly on the issue of hunger,

starvation, land rights and rights over natural

resource. www.thesdf.org]

Look Beyond Hyderabad ForThe Growth Of Telangana

Telangana is set to become the 29th stateof India. After much dilly dallying the

Congress Party finally approved the formation ofTelangana state but before that it had a lot of heartburn among people. New ideas were floated forinclusion of Ananthpur and Kurnool into the newstate against the wishes of the Telangana people.The biggest issue was Hyderabad where a lot ofconspiracy theories were working such asdeclaration of joint capital or union territory,however, it is good that the centre decided to give10 years period for Andhra Pradesh government tofunction from Hyderabad and after that it willbecome the capital city of Telangana alone.

Hyderabad is undoubtedly the heart of Telanganabut over the period of time it has grown multifoldand attracted loads of foreign investment. Today, ithas become a cosmopolitan city like Bombay,Bangalore and Delhi. It is already developed andwill attract more funds and investment. Politicalleaders who are against the division of AndhraPradesh have their huge properties in the city and

hence they are resisting the bifurcation. The fact ofthe matter is that Andhra leaders would never havebothered about the division of the state had it notbeen the issue of Hyderabad. There are other issuessuch as sharing of river water resources but thatdoes not affect the politicians more than the statusof Hyderabad where they have invested ineverything right from real estate to business andentertainment industry. The grim reality for them isthat Hyderabad cannot become a joint capital as itis situated in the heart of Telangana and distance ofany Andhra city would be nearly one hundred fiftykilometer to say the least. In such a situation, a statecannot be run smoothly whose capital issurrounded and situated in the heart of anotherstate.

The protest by the Andhra Pradesh leaders andpeople are highly unnecessary and prove that thosewho enjoy fruits of power do not want to share it atall. The merger of Telangana with Andhra Pradeshstate was never complete and the ‘gentlemenagreement’ was neither respected norimplemented. The feeling was that A.P. statecontinued to neglect the Telangana region. The factis that Telangana had more resources than manyother parts of Andhra Pradesh but it is also a realitythat none of the Telangana cities were as developedas Vishakhapattanam, Vijayawada, Tirupathi,Guntur, Kurnool etc.

The reality is that Hyderabad was the focus and therealtors actually wanted that only. In the past 30years, since we adopted the so-called ‘economicliberalisation’ policies, the focus of most of thestates have been to develop the capital cities alongwith a few other cities and ignore the vast ruraltowns and villages. While the cities aremodernizing themselves with cosmopolitanism thevillages are sought to be strengthening the casteidentities. A majority of these areas remainundeveloped despite the grave fact that theleadership of the states are still controlled by therural caste elite and their continued interest hasbeen to keep villages subjugated in their owncontradictions while they enjoy the ‘maharaja’ life

19


V.B. Rawat

in the capital cities. In the name of Andhra, actuallya few cities got developed but the maximumamount came for Hyderabad. We all feel proud of a‘Jewel’ but that is feudal. Does this mean that thepeople living in capital city should be morepampered and should become the ruling class, withmore facilities? Not just the political leaders, butbureaucrats, businessmen, media and academiaalso hail from these parts and hence rural towns donot get the much needed attention?

During the Nizam period too, Hyderabad was thesymbol of his ‘prosperity’ and hence his entirefocus was on that resulting in wide scale ofsuperstition, poverty and feudalism among hissubjects in places like Gulbarga, Bidar, (now inKarnataka), Medak, Nizamabad and Adilabad etcin Telangana, Aurangabad and other regions ofMarathwada which are now in Maharashtra. TheMuslims who were picked up to lead the Nizam’sgovernment as well as army and other servicesnever really were the sons of the soil but werealways hailed from outside the country. Thedevelopment at that time was uneven resulting in ahuge gap between towns and cities, rich and poor.Moreover, the conditions of most of themarginalized people like Dalits, Aadivasis, andeven Muslim Dalits was worst off. The impact ofthat regime continues as only the political class haschanged, the ‘subjects’ remain the same. That iswhy the condition of Dalits and even Muslim Dalitsin these regions is a matter of great concern and thefruits of development have not reached them. Theirsocio-economic conditions remain difficult and arebeing used by religious parties to attain their ownulterior political agenda. Hindu communalism wasgaining ground in this region as the power eliterealized that it is the best way to counter ‘Muslim’parties like MIM of the Owaisies who feelHyderabad is their traditional fiefdom. Therefore,the rest of the people in the Nizam’s period becamevictim of his ‘lavishness’ for Hyderabad which wasconsidered to be one of the best cities, mostprosperous among Indian princely states but thecondition of people in remote regions of Nizam’s

regime was worst and that impact is found in theirsocio-political conditions even today.

A very similar situation is arising now. Thepolitical class has been focusing on capital citiesand is using different tactics to bring people intotheir ‘false’ nationalistic vision. Sometimes it is the‘others’ who are responsible for your plight andwhen you become leader and questions are raisedabout the leadership qualities then some otherissues crop up. So till now, the Andhra leadershipwere to be blamed though there were many fromTelangana region who were ministers and hencethey cannot be absolved from their acts ofomissions and commissions in variousgovernments of which they were part of. The pointhere is that the fight for Telangana cannot beconfined to Hyderabad. It is very much part of thestate and it has required infrastructure which is avery positive things. For our political class, theNizam has already built up huge palaces and otherluxurious things hence they will have no worryabout the residences, secretariats etc of the newstate. So, we will have democratically electedRajas, Maharajas to rule the state. The point is thatnow Telananga and Andhra need to focus on theirmultiple cities and rural populace. Let the capitalcities remain the seat of assembly but let them notbecome hub of everything which is happening. Ifeverything has to happen from Hyderabad or othercapital city then 20 years later, people will havenobody else to blame except themselves.Hyderabad was already developed and willdevelop any way but the focus needs to be on theheart of Telangana’s rural populations who havebeen denied justice and who were the real‘warriors’ of this movement. As this movement forseparate state has raised hopes, it is basically not forthe people of Hyderabad but for the people of otherregions who have been kept away by the powerelite. The power need to go to them, their issues andproblems need to be understood and policies likecomprehensive land reform, people’s access towater and forest resources need to be implemented.The development of a people is not just

20


‘investment’in real estate and capital cities butmore of the people who have struggled for long.They felt betrayed by others but now they needjustice. Will our leaders show some statesmanshipas their real test lies ahead.

In the olden days, the capital city, the palaces, thewealth of the kings and queens were synonymouswith the people of those states. Living in thosefeudal days, we have become habitual of beingproud of the ‘wealth’ of our ‘political class’. Wewalk around the cities and feel proud of the loot ofpeople’s resources. If Rajasthan has some of thebest palaces today which we appreciate, I canassure you, the result is the deep feudal system ofthat state. What is the human development index inRajasthan today? Has social equity found a waythere? And probably that is a reality of all thosestates which were ruled by Rajas and Maharajas.We feel ‘proud’ of them and defend themaccording to our ‘ideological’ or ‘religious’sentiments while they have become instruments ofspreading vicious political agenda of the communalforces too but the fact remain that most of theseNawabs, Rajas were feudal and enjoyed lavishlyplunging their own people in deep poverty andsuperstition.

The British regime was different in working as theyfocused on developing institutions and notbuildings alone which the princely states were notfond off as King was the law unto himself. We canfind the difference between the two regions ofAndhra Pradesh itself. The Andhra part which waspart of Madras Presidency had more colleges andinstitutions and in the Telangana region, we do nothave much except development of Hyderabad only.Anyway, the point of discussion is not thedifference between the princely States and formerBritish dominions but the reality that it is time nowwe get out of those notions of ‘nationalism’ whichrevolved around one political family, religion andcapital cities and their development.

The people of India have paid heavy price for thesekinds of nationalism which have resulted in uneven

development of our social system which isiniquitous. The leadership of the Telangana statewill have to show more maturity because till datethey have blamed the Andhra lobby but now theywill have to work on their own. The blame gamemust end but the fact is for politicians this game isnever ending and that is the tragedy of India.

One hopes that the government of India will besincere this time and will not succumb to anypressure. This is rather unfortunate and verymanipulative when you see Andhra lobby trying itsbest to scuttle the process even today. India cannotbe strengthened if the issue of one state should bedecided by someone else. Since independence, theissue of Kashmir in India has been a political hotpotato for non-Kashmiris. It became our ‘symbol’of secularism for Congress and for BJP's Hindutvait was like loss of India’s might but what isdisturbing is that none ask the Kashmiris what dothey think? Similar situation is in Nagaland,Meghalaya, Darjeeling and elsewhere. Theproblem with the political class is that they put thequestion of division to those who are outside theproblem-areas and who have nothing to do with theissue except to ‘fancifully’ claim it is ‘Indianissue’. What would a person in Kolkata be able tospeak about Darjeeling or Gorkhaland issue? Whyshould Mamta Banerjee seek answer from Bengalipopulation of Kolkata and not from people inDarjeeling? It is the same tactics of the ruling elitewhen we ask Telangana question to people inAndhra region. When Telangana people have forthe past five year with their persistent demand haverefused to be in the state of Andhra Pradesh, why isthe political class not ready to respond positively?And here lies the colonial mindset of Indians. Yes,we are happy to colonize people and feel happy toshowcase it.

In the coming days, when the informationtechnology reaches more homes, when educationchanges many more minds, these questions willfurther disturb us. We are a huge country and everynationality here is seeking answers. Some of theareas have not been developed and many feel

21


culturally different. India will have to respond tothem. It will have to sit with those people who feelbetrayed and ask questions and not those whoenjoyed the fruits of their colonialism. It is time wechange our perception as it will becounter-productive and create further divisions andhatred among people. Let us learn some lessonsfrom not just the struggle of Telangana but alsofrom the mess created by an absolutelydisconcerted political class whipping up passionsof people against it despite the known fact that theunification of two different regions actually neverhappened mentally. It is better for everyone toseparate peacefully, respect each other and notstick together for the sake of a ‘unified’ family,fighting daily and blaming each other for everyfault. No state can run on uncertainty and strikes

every day. It is time to go to work and build ourregions brick by brick without living in concealedhatred. Let the people focus on their work, cities,towns and people who laid down their lives for thestate of Telangana rather than focusing too muchon Hyderabad which is already developed and isnot the same what it was during the Nizam’sregime. The infrastructure that was developedduring that period remains the same while thepopulation might have grown ten times more andhence it is crumbling. Therefore, it is important thatHyderabad be relieved from the burden of ‘hope’and ‘despair’ of the new states so that focus of boththe new states is more on their populations andtowns which deserve attention from the powersnow.

22


[Mr. Jawahar Lal Jasthi has been associated

with the Radical Humanist and the Rationalist

Movement since his college days. Mr Jasthi has

contributed articles in Telugu and English. His

unpublished book Oh My God is based on the

futile search for God in the annals of science.

[email protected]]

Amartya Sen Making Waves

It is not necessary to remind that AmartyaSen is an outstanding economist with

original contributions as it is alreadyacknowledged in the form of a Nobel Prize. Inaddition, he is also a proud Indian and rightly aBharat Ratna. Recently he came to India to launchhis new book “An Uncertain Glory : India and itsContradictions”. While in India, he made somepolitical statements that made waves and started

controversy.

In his interviews he made categorical statementsthat “despite great success in many areas over thelast two decades, the fact is that India is in adreadful state.” Perhaps, that may be the theme ofhis new book as well. It is a fact that thegovernment of India is harping too much oneconomic growth as an indicator of economichealth and success of their policies. Even when therate of growth is falling they are trying to maintainthat the economy is strong enough not to worry.Still they continue to insist that the rate is quitecrucial and it will improve in the near future. At the

same time Amartya Sen states that “There seems tobe a basic lack of involvement about how growthhappens.” It means that the government is harpingon economic growth without proper understandingof the mechanics of growth. This is a commentfrom the renowned economist who is overtlyfriendly to the government and personally to thehead of the government. Naturally, he refuses tohold the government responsible for it. On the otherhand he apologizes on their behalf.

Amartya Sen cites examples of so many third worldcountries – Brazil, Mexico, Thailand, Taiwan andKorea along with developed countries likeSingapore and also China – which have adopted hisway of development and succeeded. Those statesbegan with “education and health care right awaywithout waiting for you to become rich and then ontop of that, strengthen those investments further bylater ploughing in the resources that rapid growthgenerated.” Obviously, it is the model suggestedby Amartya Sen. India failed to adopt it and failedin development. But Amartya Sen refuses to saythat clearly and offers excuses on behalf of his

revered friend.

In the 1990s P.M. Manmohan Singh had an excuse– supplied by Amartya Sen – for his failure to dowhat he wanted to do. He might not have gotclearance from his Prime Minister, he said; that, inspite of P.V.’s reputation to have given a free handto his finance minister. But in 2004 ManmohanSingh had himself become the Prime Minister. Stillhe failed to do what he claims he wanted to do.Amarytya Sen offers an explanation:”Manmohanis not a politician and he is surrounded by coalitionpartners in government and I have often wondered,since he is such an old and close friend, how Iwould have behaved if I was surrounded by peoplewhose support is essential to my survival in office.So, on one side everyone is criticizing you for notdoing enough and you have become an objectof vilification. And on the other you try to carryon.” Sen did not say that he might have kicked offhis job in such a situation. On the other hand, he

23


Jawaharlal Jasthi

expresses sympathy for Manmohan, his ‘old andclose friend’, as he had to carry on with all that. Isthe ‘survival in office’ so vital for him? What couldbe the reaction of an honest man in such a situation?

Amartya Sen admits that, when India is comparedwith other BRIC and other emerging economies,the differences are glaring. “China may have moreinequality, but you don’t have a situation wherechildren don’t have a school to go to, where peopledon’t have decent healthcare or a toilet near theirhomes or greatly undernourished rural children.”By saying so, Sen has indirectly admitted that allthose situations are now prevailing in India in spiteof a decade of rule by his ‘old and close friend’.But, he refuses to put the blame on him even if hehappens to be the head of government.

At the same time he is anxious to find fault withNarendra Modi and brands him as a divisive forceand not fit to be the Prime Minister of a democraticcountry like India. It is true. Narendra Modi isdivisive, aggressive and self-aggrandizing. He isalso adamant, which is a vice but his supporters sayhe is decisive, which is a virtue absent in the presentrulers. Amartya Sen, who has so beautifullyanalyzed the course of events over the last decades,fails to notice that the divisive tendency had startedway back with the practice of vote bank politics,which is divisive and discriminatory. It helpedthose in power to stay in power without any strainas they could do it at the cost of exchequer,claiming full credit for them. The entire machineryof government was directed to catch vote bankswith policies that have no economic justification.Narendra Modi is a product of those policies. Hedid not fall from heaven or hell.

Those who are privileged to call him divisive,hesitate to call the head of government indecisiveand dishonest. It is during his regime that thecredibility of the renowned Indian Institutes ofTechnology is damaged. Private engineeringcolleges were allowed to flourish uncontrolled tosuch an extent that they acquired status to dictatepolicy of technical education. They are offered

reimbursement of fees on behalf of the students, sothat they need not depend on students and theirparents. Needless to say that they are making haywhile the government shines. That is what theyhave done to higher education. For elementaryeducation, the lesser we say is better. More than70% of elementary schools have no buildings. 90%of the schools have no benches for the students tosit. On many occasions, even secondary schoolsstudents were made to sit on floor to writeexaminations. There are no drinking waterfacilities in schools and no toilets. That is the stateof elementary education. Attention to education isone of the fundamental requirements of economicprogress according to Amartya Sen. Still he did notsay anything about it in his comments.

Obviously, the Prime Minister wants to repay thedebt of the party in power by being loyal at any costas they offered him the Chair even when he was nota member of the party. He allowed himself to beused by the politicians to stay in power using him asa cloak. He also tried to explain his inability byblaming the partners in coalition. For him, reformmeans opening of gates for foreign investments indefense as well as in retail shops. He expects us tobelieve that it is reforming of economy. There arereports that the fall in capital market is because ofthe foreign investors withdrawing their funds. Itcould happen in any sector in which they madeinvestments. Indigenous innovation is killed just tokeep doors open for corruption throughcompulsory purchases from outside sources. Wecannot blame the government for all this as theyare surrounded by coalition partners. Isn’t it? Everydemocratic institution is ruined. Every process ofdecision making is damaged. We don’t have theintegrity to call a spade a spade. That is the

bankruptcy of Indian intellectuals.

Amartya Sen says that Narendra Modi is not aperson fit to be the Prime Minister of this country.Agreed. But who in his opinion is a better person?He does not tell us about that person who has theperfect credentials according to his definition.

24


Corruption in Judiciary—Ashwin Kumar N. Karia

[Prof. A.K.N. Karia is a Rationalist-Humanist. He

retired as Principal Palanpore Law College and is still

teaching Law to students there.]

Under the Constitution of India, Judiciaryis accorded priority as compared to other

organs of the Government. The reason being, that ithas an obligation under the Constitution to protectFundamental Rights and render justice to thepeople of the country. For this purpose, it is notdeclared accountable to any other organ in contrastto the executive, as it is made accountable to thelegislature. On the contrary, there are adequateprovisions in our Constitution to protect itsindependence and respect. But this does not meanthat the judiciary is in no way, accountable toanyone. In fact, our Constitution, apart from itsbeing democratic, parliamentary, socialist andsecular, it is also Republic and people aresovereign. Accountability of the judiciary is thefacet of its independence. It is liable to its people, ifnot to any other organ. But due to lack of anymonitoring system over it, corruption has shown itsmaximum output. No details or figures arenecessary to be given to substantiate this claim.From courts of the lowest grade up to Apex Courtare covered within the scope of corruption.

Article 21 of the Constitution empowers everyperson to seek judicial remedy for protection ofhis/her fundamental rights. Right to speedy justiceis one of fundamental rights of every person underArticle 21. Rule of law guarantees fair, speedy andeffective justice. But due to mounting arrears ofcases, extreme delay, huge expenses, emphasis onthe disposition instead of justice, witnessesdeposing untrue statements on oath, low quality ofjudgments, leading to appeal, revision, review,interlocutory orders, etc. there has occurred, vastdistance between performance of the judiciary andpeoples’ expectations, and corruption has pouredfuel to that scenario.

Causes of corruption:

1) Complicated language of enactments:

Our majority enactments were drafted and passedby the British. They had their own selfish purpose.But after our independence, it is strange that wehave continued to adopt the same complicatedlanguage and legislative procedures, whether it isCompanies Act, 1956, Essential Commodities Act,1955, Maternity Benefit Act, 1961, Bonus Act,1965, Juvenile Justice Act, 2000 or any other Act.It widens the scope for confusing interpretations bythe courts, including the Supreme Court of Indiaand the High Courts. If there is no uniformity asregards interpretation of a particular enactmentamongst various High Courts, what could beexpected from Advocates and ignorant people?

2) Apathy for Constitutional Provisions:

By all Governments and in all proceedings by theGovernment, a very important principle ofdemocracy is discarded that all powers come andflow from the people, and all Govt. organs andinstitutions are for the public good. The origin ofour all complexities lies here in the violation of thisfacet of democracy. In a country, havingdemocratic set-up, citizens of the country should beplaced in the centre and it should be reflected inevery action of the governmental agency.

3) Inordinate delay and heavy expenses:

Our judicial system has failed to respond to thelowest expectations of the people. Inordinate delayand huge expenses lead to disappointment andresort to extra-judicial remedies. Legal proceduresand technicalities are complicated, uncertain andslow. Civil and criminal, both these judicialsystems are on the verge of collapse. We havereached to such a stage that no one can deny thesituation that this system exists more for the judgesand the lawyers, rather than the people.

4) Lack of monitoring system:

In the name and under the guise of judicialindependence, there is an absolute lack of anymonitoring or supervising mechanism to review theperformance of our judicial system. Impeachmentprocedure is a failure and impracticable. High

25


Courts are empowered to take disciplinary actionagainst errant judges in subordinate judiciary. But,except two or three, all High Courts are sooverburdened that their supervision has become aritual affair and has lost its significance. Thismechanism has proved ineffective and it haswidened the scope of corruption.

5) Low quality of legal education:

It is surprising that no note of low qualityeducation, being imparted in our law colleges, istaken note of by any section of the society or anyorgan of the State. It is unbelievable but at the sametime, it is widely acknowledged that it is difficult tofail at the LL.B. examination. Our legal educationsystem has failed to produce not only good lawyersand judges, but good citizens also. It is taken forgranted that law colleges are established not forquality legal education, but to facilitate the studentsto appear and get through the LL.B. examinations.This scenario requires ‘surgery’.

Remedies:

1) Establishment of supervising mechanism:

Our Law Minister Mr. Veerappa Moiley hasintroduced a Bill in the Parliament relating toaccountability of the judges. But the scrutiny of thisBill reveals that the procedure to make the judgesaccountable is made more stringent. Surprisingly,there is no provision to suspend a judge underenquiry. In France, Britain, America, Norway,Sweden, there is some mechanism, enactment or aninstitution called “Ombudsman”. There exists theprocedure to suspend, rebuke, warn, remove oreven dismiss the judge, if found guilty. Most of theHigh Courts have vigilance cells. But the results arenot encouraging. There must be an independentbody to hear the complaints against the judges andlawyers with appropriate powers given to it.

2) Simplification of procedures and enactments:

It is well said that “that government is best whichgoverns the least”. There is no attempt to give theexact number of the enactments in force of ourcountry. But it is presumed that there are more thanten thousand enactments prevalent in the country.

Our most of the enactments and their proceduresare not simply worded, giving scope for variousinterpretations. This leads to anarchism and createsthe most difficult situation to follow. If thelanguage is simple, litigants themselves can handletheir legal battles. Complicated language of theAct, lack of uniformity in interpretations andinordinate delay, compel the litigant to engage alawyer. If all laws and their procedures are simpleno help of a lawyer would be required.

3) Separate cell to implement judicial orders,

decrees etc.:

Implementation of orders, decrees, passed by thecourts is again a herculean task for any litigant.Once orders etc. are passed, their execution shouldnot be left at the sweet will of court officers orconstables. In many cases, judicial orders anddecrees remain unexecuted due to complicatedprocedures, delay tactics adopted by lawyers,corruption and ignorance. In order to see that thereis proper execution of all judicial orders, there mustbe separate cell for the purpose with all necessarypowers given to it.

4) Legal education system should be

strengthened:

It is indeed shocking that hardly any concern isshown for low quality education being imparted inlaw colleges across several States. Those whoexpress concern are in thin minority. Changes,effected so far are not real, but superficial. Largeabsenteeism of the students in class-rooms,stereotype and irresponsible coaching by theteachers, mass copying at the time of examinations,poor and extra-liberal assessment of answer-books,are some of the characteristics of legal educationsystem if not all, particularly in the state of Gujarat

5) Emphasis should be on justice, rather than on

disposal:

It is a mockery of justice that more emphasis is puton the procedural aspects and compromise, ratherthan rendering justice to the parties. Number ofprocedures to be followed should be very few andas far as possible, should be simple. It is also well

26


said that only such laws should be passed, which can be

implemented. Our laws like C.P.C., Cr.P.C., Consumer

Protection Act, Limitation Act, prescribe the time limit

for disposal and filing complaints, suits, appeals, etc.

Non-implementation of time limit is taken forgranted by all stake holders. Whenever a lawyer, ajudge or a litigant, is found responsible for delay,

he should be penalized and taken to task. Parties orlawyers should be penalized for filing false cases orpleas. Similarly, Contempt of Courts Act shouldnot be used to terrorize the litigants. LawCommission has recommended amendment to thisAct.

27


BOOKS BY M.N. ROYPublished by Renaissance Publishers, Indian Renaissance Institute,

Oxford University Press and Others

1. POLITICS POWER AND PARTIES Rs. 90.00

2. SCIENCE AND PHILOSOPHY Rs.95.00

3. BEYOND COMMUNISM Rs.40.00

4. THE HISTORICAL ROLE OF ISLAM Rs.40.00

5. MEN I MET Rs.60.00

6. INDIA’S MESSAGE Rs.100.00

7. MATERIALISM Rs. 110.00

8. REVOLUTION & COUNTER REVOLUTION IN CHINARs. 250.00

9. REASON, ROMANTICISM AND REVOLUTION Rs.300.00

10. NEW ORIENTATION Rs 090.00

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

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

13. NAV MANAVWAD (IN HINDI) Rs.90.00

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

[Mr. Sudhesh Korde belongs to a Radical

Humanist family and keeps engaged in humanist

activities to the extent he can in his physically

challenged condition . He is a B.Com, D.B.M.

and M.B.A. (Finance). He can be contacted at

[email protected], Mob.: 09879545389]

Rise of Maoism in India

It is a very serious matter for a country likeIndia to see the rise of those groups of

Maoists, who are indulging in all sorts of violenceand killing innocent people. Indian government hasnot only failed to curtail this movement but alsofailed to take action against them. This is makingthe citizens vulnerable.

One is compelled to remember those groups ofbandits who were in large numbers in the states ofM.P., U.P., Rajasthan, Maharashtra, Bihar, etc. Themost famous of them were from Chambal ghati.They were ferocious but at the same time they werelarge hearted too. They used to loot zamindars orrich people. They used to roam in mountainousregions from one place to another. They had theinformers, who would inform their leaders aboutthe region, zamindars, etc. and give them leads sothat they could carry out their mission. They wouldloot their cash, gold ornaments, etc. whatever wasavailable but at the same time they would keep inmind that their gang-members do not harasswoman, children, and old people. Their onlymission was to loot these zamindars. At no pointwould they try to kill them. They would fire onlywhen needed otherwise they would force them tohand over the cash and ornaments. Secondly theywould never take away the mangalsutra (goldenchain) being worn by the married ladies. This they

would spare them.

These people were forced to become bandits due totheir circumtances. The main reason behind thiswas the attrocities of the money lenders, zamindarsetc. who would take away their lands and wouldcharge exorbitant interest on the loan given to thepeople. The borrower would always remain in debt.He would not be able to repay the full amount ofloan. The amount of loan would never zero down asthe interest charges by the lenders were exorbitant.The principle amount remained and passed out tothe heirs of the borrowers. Even the heirs alsoremained indebted throughout their lives. Butsometimes some of the people from the harassedcommunity would rebel against this system andwould take guns/pistols in their hands and make agroup in reaction. They would attack but alwayspoint their guns towards the zamindars/lendersonly and carry out the loot. Of course, if there wereresistence from the latter they would not hesitate toshoot them. But at no point would they shootinnocent people, woman, children and old people.

Even today the situation has not changed for thepoor people who still starve. They are still indebtedto the money lenders or we can say to the whitecallered zamindars. There seems to be nodifference between the old money lenders orzamindars and those policy makers andindustrialists of today under whose administrationthe poor are still being exploited and they continueto remain poor in this independent democraticcountry and still they never rebel against thesystem.

Now the Maoists claim to speak and rebel on theirbehalf. They also operate with the same modusoperandi and take up arms and become anti-sociallike the bandits of the past. They have advancedarms like A.K.56, light machine guns, bombs, etc.They also have informers who provide them withfull information about the movement of policeforce, politicians etc. They feel that all politicians,political parties, etc. do not care for the poorpeople. Their position has not changed at all even

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Suresh Korde

after more than sixty years of independence. Theyare still starving. The poor people are helped bythese Maoists. They provide them food, shelter etc.and in turn they want them to assist them in theirrevolt against the system and administrationbecause they say that it is for the poor only that theyhave taken up arms. So, the main ideology of theMaoists and their only objective is to go against thepoliticians and administrators. They feel that thepoliticians have no heart and are concerned onlyabout ruling the nation by hook or crook. Theywant to remain in power at any cost and makemoney. Here I would like to remember formerPrime Minister of Britain Mr. Winston Churchill.At the time of giving independence to India he hadsaid that the greatest agony of India is that thepeople of India will suffer more. How visionary hewas and how true it is for India in today'sperspective. Recently there was an attack onCongress rally in Chhattisgarh, killing leaders ofCongress as well the police force and innocentpeople. How-ever noble the objective of theMaoists may be but killing of innocents can not bejustified by any logic. The politicians, both in theruling as well as in the opposition parties are notbeing able to contain the growing menace ofterrorism, in whatever form it comes. On the other

hand, no laws are becoming effective in containingpeople with tainted images to contest and win theLok Sabha and Vidhan Sabha elections. A fascistattitude is fast growing in all the political forums.Although the representatives are elected by thepeople but people are completely alienated fromthem. The leaders don't seem to be interested insolving the grave problem of terror and violencewhich hits the common man the most.Governments seem to have failed miserably intaking any action and hence the people of India aresuffering. Violence in any form is to be stopped.Let us come together and fight against all types ofviolence created by any group with any ideology.And this problem can be solved only when thepolitical parties, in power or in opposition, have thewill to do so. For that the people living in theviolence infested areas should be taken intoconfidence by the parties who are ruling thosestates and their problems should be solved at theearliest by the administrators. This is moreimportant than the petty fighting among variouspolitical parties who keep pointing accusingfingers towards each other for this dilemma and arenot taking sufficient remedial steps against to comeout of it.

29


Letter to the Editor:

With reference to the article “Celebrating Mandela’s Life” in the July issue of The Radical Humanist, thewriter has emphasized the importance of education in changing the world, which Nelson Mandelaadopted. The writer then goes on to bring out the chasm between the political parties. He states that themembers of Jan Sangh did not participate in India’s freedom struggle! It is presumed that the statement iscorrect, though debatable. The writer further states that “Voting for Congress Party means perpetuatingthe network of vested interests.” As a common citizen endowed with very limited intelligence and withvery limited means of survival, I want to raise a few questions. 1) A middle class honest tax payer wantsaffordable housing, provisions and vegetables at affordable rates, reasonably good mode of transport tocommute, affordable quality education for children, in short the basic needs that one requires for meresurvival. 2) The writer has forgotten that an honest tax payer is worried about his survival by maintaininga minimum standard of living rather than finding faults with the available political parties and theirideologies. 3) Could the enlightened writer please help the common man in deciding which politicalparty to vote for which will assuredly fulfill the basic needs?—Regards,

Makarand Bapat, [email protected]

Builders of IndianHumanistMovement: 1) V B Karnik

—Innaiah Narisetti

I intend to reminisce about some builders ofthe Humanist movement in India. I will

confine to those who were or are known to me. Thismight help the present generation to know the pasthistory of the movement to some extent. I willcommence with late Vasant Bhagwati Karnik.

V.B. Karnik was known as Baba in the Bombaycircle during the Freedom movement and later.

He was very familiar to Andhra Radical Humanistssince 1940s. He toured frequently to develop themovement and party. I come across V.B. Karnikduring the 60s. We corresponded and then met invarious meetings, seminars and conferences. Istarted personal correspondence with him. V.B.Karnik was a regular visitor of Administrative StaffCollege and delivered lectures there. Mr. G.R.Dalvi was staff member in the college. He wouldinvite Karnik. That gave a good opportunity toRadical Humanists at Hyderabad to meet Karnik. Ialso organized some very useful lectures by him.He was in the editorial board of The Radical

Humanist after the death of M.N. Roy and EllenRoy. Among the four editors V.B. Karnik was onewho regularly contributed articles and organizedsubject-matter for the journal.

A curious incident occurred around that time. Itwas the occasion of Ravindranath Tagore’sCentenary celebrations. Late Mr. A.G. Murthy, aprominent Radical Humanist from Andhra,addressed a few meetings and spoke criticallyabout Tagore’s mysticism. I summarized his talksand sent them as an article to The Radical Humanist

weekly in Mumbai. But they did not publish it.When asked Karnik informed hat Prof SibnarayanRay was not happy with the criticism and hence itwas withheld. I objected to that and insisted uponits publication. Since I was adamant, Karnik wroteto Mr A.G.K. Murthy to pacify me and not topersist with the matter. Much later I met

Sibnarayan Ray and enquired about this incident.But, unfortunately, he did not remember about it.

Karnik was also associated with Lesley Sawhaney

programs of Panchayat Raj, decentralization and

people’s participation. Hence Karnik frequently toured

Andhra to speak in these camps. I also would meet him

during those camps. He was a prolific writer. He wrote

“Strikes in India”, “Trade unions in India”. Those two

books are very good research works with plenty of

reference material. I took the permission to translate

them into Telugu. My Telugu translations were

published by Telugu Academy, Andhra Pradesh. Later,

Mr. Karnik wrote monograph on the life of M.N. Roy.

He again gave permission to me to translate it and my

Telugu translation was published by National Book

Trust, Delhi.

He was one of the earliest associates of M.N. Royin Mumbai, as early as 1930. Since then he workedas a Royist, a Trade Unionist, a Radical Democrat,and finally as a Radical Humanist. During late1930s there was a rift between Tayyab Shaik andV.B. Karnik; somehow M.N. Roy stood by Karnik.That led Tayyab to leave the country and themovement as well. He settled in England. Ienquired about this aspect when Karnik visited theHyderabad. He narrated the matter to me in a politemanner without going into details. I left it at that.

Consistently, I followed the meetings of V.B.Karnik. During 1970s I attended the study camp atDehra Dun. It was a great experience for personslike me since we could hear the talks of G.D.Parekh and C.R.M. Rao along with other stalwarts.

V.B. Karnik wrote a voluminous work on M NRoy’s life history. Andhra Radicals liked it. W.S.Kane brought the volume to Andhra and sold it. Itwas a good book though Karnik never touched thecontroversial points or the disputed aspects ofRoy’s personal life.

Whenever I visited Bombay I called upon V.B.Karnik at his residence “Sahitya Sahawas”. His sonwho worked in the Intelligence Service became myfriend. I met him in Delhi and later in Bombay.

V.B. Karnik was a great asset to the movement.

30


Academicias' & Research Scholars' Section:

[Dr. Seema Jain is Principal, Raghunath Girls'

Post Graduate College in Meerut. She received a

Doctoral Degree in English Literature on

"American Poetess Joyce Carol Oates's

projection of the tragic vision of life in American

Society". She began her teaching career in 1990.

She has many research papers to her credit, has

edited several books on English Poetry and has

written extensively on Indian Writings in English

and American Literature. She has Chaired and is

on the board of various national academic

bodies. [email protected]]

Minority Literacy:

A Voice to Inclusive EducationAbstract:

Culturally enriched, accommodating,multi-religious and multi-cultural nature

of India and its people forms a nexus of uniquecharacter. But the religious diversity inadvertentlyor otherwise shows undesired outcomes upondifferent socio-cultural and economic status whichcauses great human group disparities and forms adicision of subordinate groups in society. Muslimsare one of them who constitute the largest minorityof the country. But the socio-economic status ofMuslims is miserable and education level ismarginalized. This paper, in particular, is set to

explore the pitfalls of Muslims' educationalbackwardness and focuses on the recent initiativesthat have been taken by the government to bring theMuslim literacy rate equal to the lettered section ofsociety. The paper also highlights the majorrecommendations of Sachar report which stronglydemand for the educational advancement ofMuslims and hope for ensuring just and equitableshare of minority in the promotion of education..

Introduction:

Literacy is a part of the Human Rights Dialogue.Most of the nations of the world have accepted theirobligation to provide at least free elementaryeducation to their citizens. Article 26 of theUniversal Declaration of Human Rights declares:

“Everyone has the right to education. Educationshall be free, at least in the elementary andfundamental stages. Elementary education shall becompulsory. Technical and professional educationshall be generally available and higher educationshall be equally accessible to all on the basis ofmerits.”

The right is repeated in the United NationsDeclaration of right of the child which seeks toensure “Right to free and compulsory education atleast in the elementary stages and education topromote general culture, abilities, judgment andsense of responsibility to become a useful memberof society and opportunity to recreation, and play toattain the same purpose as of education.” India hasalready ratified the above and these have the powerof domestic laws. The constitution under article 45made it obligatory on the government to achieve100% literacy rate and confirms the provision forfree and compulsory education for all children untilthey complete the age of fourteen years. The 93rd

constitution amendment 2001 enacting free andcompulsory education for all children is endorsedas a fundamental right. Yet there always remainsdoubt whether these special rights and facilitygiven to uneducated section of our country aresufficient to attain a cent percent literacy rate at thefastest pace. These are the genuine concerns that

31


Seema Jain

must be taken into account. As the Muslims,belonging to the largest minority group of ourcountry ar literally unlettered. That Muslims areeducationally marginalized has already beenproved by earlier research studies conducted onthis issue to bring out their tangible and dismalcondition before everyone. The findings reveal thatMuslims constituting 15% of the nationalpopulation suffer their lot and emerge as the mosttroublesome group of Indian society. According tothe first report on religious Census of India 2001,Lakshadweep recorded the highest proportion ofMuslims; staggering 95% followed by Jammu andKashmir, Assam, West Bengal, Kerala, U.P.,Bihar, Jharkhand, Karnataka and Delhi etc. But thesocio economic status of Muslims in India as theSachar report 2006 on November states is worsethan that of certain schedule castes and scheduletribes. The situation is more serious with regard totheir education and employment and the types ofoccupations. The various policy provisions toencourage more widespread participation in highereducation among minority have miserably failed inpractice. National Sample Survey Organisation(NSSO) has also confirmed that India’s largestreligious minority is the most backwardcommunity on the education front. In its 64th report,titled “Education in India, 2007-2008:Participation And Expenditure” it says that of 100Muslims in education system, just 7 are enrolled inhigh school and above as compared to 12 in ruralareas “this is because poor Muslims in urban areasdo not have easy access to education as they have inrural areas. The landless poor-labors, rickshawpullers etc. – are hardly able to make their bothends meet, leave aside the education of theirchildren.” The report of National Commission onminorities establishes the extent of educationaldeprivation experienced by the Muslimcommunity. Muslims are at double disadvantagewith low levels of education combined with lowquality education. Their deprivation increasesmany folds as the standard of education rises. TheSachar report explicitly recognizes that attainment

of Muslim education is lower than average. This ismost regretful that 25% of Muslim children in the6-14 age group have either never attended school orhave dropped out. At the level of higher education,less than 4% Muslims are graduates or diplomaholders as against the national average of 7% forthe age group 20 and above. At the post-graduatelevel one out of twenty students is a Muslim and thereason for this deteriorated situation of the Muslimcommunity’s educational backwardness has beenenumerated as poverty. Poverty is considered as themain cause of its poor level of education. Access togovernment schools for Muslim children is limitedparticularly with regard to the Muslim girls forwhom the non-availability of schools within easyreach hampers access to education at the primarylevel. These crystal clear findings of differentcommissions on minority education stronglyconfirm the deplorable condition of Muslims. Thisalarmingly deteriorated condition of Muslimsdemands well coveted measure from government,private institutions and NGOs to shrug off thefactors that are oppressive for the Muslim childrento receive quality education at the fastest pace. Toovercome these problems is the need of hour.Because to achieve the objective of inclusiveeducation, the foremost issue in our country is tobridge the minority achievement gap in education.

It is a matter of great concern that the regularaffordable school education is not available toMuslims in most of the localities. Only few schoolsfor girls with poor quality infrastructure are set upin localities of Muslim concentration, particularlyfor the students of 9-12 standards. This hampershigher participation of girls in school education.Induction of female teachers, provision of hostelsand transport facilities are not available to theMuslims girls. Absence of institutions of morescholarship for professional and technical coursesdishearten the Muslims students to avail greateropportunities in higher education. Muslims aremostly concentrated in undesirable and lowinfrastructure locations which also affect theiraccess to other basic services like health facilities,

32


transport etc. On the other side the skillsdevelopment initiatives for those who have notcompleted school education are less in number.Although government has sponsored schemes forwelfare of SCs, STs and OBCs, such schemes forthe development of minorities are very few,moreover, they are inadequately funded and havenot benefited many Muslims.

This condition is most distressful when we keep theprospect of cent-percent literacy rate in view forour country because we lag behiond when it comesto the different aspects of policy implementation.The untoward conditions hinder the path ofchildren to get easy and qualitative education.These impending factors contribute to check theeducational advancement of Muslims. Thelack-lustre response towards prompt initiativesregarding the issue have caused great loss of humanresource. Therefore, there is urgent need to focuson the affirmative actions that need to be taken tomark the beginning of a new era where every childis literate and the sagacious society shells out its100% contribution to the economic and socialdevelopment of the country. Sharp focus on schooleducation combined with more opportunities inhigher education will yield the maximum benefitsto Muslims children and will certainly amelioratetheir literacy rate in the next couple of years.Bearing in mind all the urgent needs of minorityeducation status the Sachar report 2005 had placedemphasis on speedy redressal of the problem ofMuslim backwardness. On the other hand, theRanganath Commission also proposed to secure10% reservation for Muslims but theserecommendations are yet not addressed sincerely.This is truly a matter of discontentment amongMuslims and the top most thinkers of our societyconsider these suggestions extremely relevant andindispensable not only in the interest of equity andfair play but also in the national interest because nocountry can hope to progress if it neglects 150million of its population letting it remainunlettered. We may corroborate the emphasis ofthis research paper throught he following data

which compares the Muslims Status of Education

with the other sections of Indian society.

Literacy Rate-59%; Hindu Graduate-15.3%;Women Literacy Rate-50%; OBC Graduate-4.4%;Matriculation above 17 Years-17%; SC/STGraduate-2.2%; Under Graduate-4%; PostGraduate-2%; Muslims Graduate-3.4%; Presencein IIMs-1.3%; Presence in IITs-2.3%; OtherCommunity-8.9%; Madarsa education (At SchoolGoing Age)-3%.

This comparison proves the point that there is adire need to reconsider the recommendations of theSachar Committee Report for specific policyinitiatives to give education top priority to raise the

level of education among Muslims. The important

points of the Sachar Committee Report are as

follows:

1.Set up high quality government school in allareas of Muslims concentration.

2.Set up exclusive schools for girls should,particularly for the 9-12 standard…Appoint morewomen teachers in co-education schools.

3.Availability of primary education in one’smother tongue.

4.Technical Education and Training fornon-matriculates.

5.Skill development initiative of IITs andpolytechnics.

6.The eligibility for such programs should beextended to the Madarsa educated children.

7.Additional funds to support minority institutions,

8. Providing facility of good hostels at reasonablecosts.

9. Effective teacher training programme should bemonitored by the National Council of TeacherEducation (NCTE).

10. The problem of Urdu teacher appointmentshould be sorted out.

11. Availability of good quality text books in Urdulanguage.

12. Sincere efforts to Link Madarsas to mainstreameducation.

33


13. Recognition of the degrees from Madarsas forthe civil services, banks, defense services and othersuch examinations.

To address the all round low participation of

minorities especially Muslims the ministry of

human Resource Development has taken

several significant initiatives, such as:

1. The coverage of Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA)has been concurrently extended to recognized ornon-recognized volunteering Madarsas/Maktabs.

2. Action plan for the year 2010-11 envisages25093 new primary schools including 11930 inMuslims' Concentration Districts (MCDs), 9396new primary schools including 2370 in MCDs, andsanction of 48001 teachers in MCDs.

3. During the year 2010-11 out of 2573,427Kasturba Gandhi Balika Vidhyalyas have beensanctioned in rural and urban areas of Muslims'concentration areas. States have been advised tomake available Urdu teachers on demand.

4. The scheme ‘SAAKSHAR BHARAT’ hasspecial focus on women, belonging to minorities. Itproposed to cover 12 million Muslims (10 millionwomen + 2 million men) under the program.

5. The certificates/qualifications of the MadarsaBoard which have been granted equivalence by theState Education Board to that of their Secondaryand Senior Secondary qualifications have beenequated with corresponding levels of the CentralBoard of Secondary Education (CBSE), Council ofBoard of School Education in India (COBSE) andother school examination boards, for the purpose ofemployment and entry to higher levels ofeducation.

6. ‘Academies for the Professional Development ofUrdu Medium Teachers’ have been set up in thethree Central Universities viz, Aligarh MuslimUniversity, Jamia Milia Islamia and Maulana AzadNational Urdu University.

7. National Council for Promotion of UrduLanguage (NCPUL) is being strengthened.

8. National Council for Minority Education

Institutions (NCMI) declared the Capital's CentralUniversity, Jamia Milia Islamia, a minorityinstitution, keeping 50% of the seats reserved forMuslims.

9. During the year 2009-10, Rs. 50 crore wasprovided under scheme for providing qualityeducation in Madarsa for 1978 Madarsa and 4961teachers.

10. UGC has sanctioned 233 women’s hostelsduring 11th plan in 90 MCDs. 12279.19 lakhs hasbeen released.

The Common Minimum Programme of UPAgovernment is committed to promote modern andtechnical education among all minoritycommunities and social and economicempowerment of minorities through systematicattention to education and employment. Theobjective of ‘Prime Minister’s new 15 pointprogramme is to enhance opportunities foreducation of minorities, ensuring an equitableshare in economic activities and employment. Dueto these interventions the share of Muslim childrenenrolled at primary and upper primary level mayshoot up in the days ahead. Though the recentinitiatives taken by HRD Ministry to improve theeducation status of minorities, especially ofMuslims are commendable; but this would stillneed a long journey to carve a niche in changing thepresent condition of Muslims’ education. Goodplanning would reap better only if prompt attentionwould be given to its implementation. The dream of‘Education to All’ would not come true unlessissues of access, equity and quality of education arehonestly addressed. So the need is to develop along-term strategy in which every step taken addsto sound base for inclusive education.

The issues relating to educational advancement ofminorities are of utmost importance to our nationtoday. Partnerships between the government, thecommunity and the private sector may also be quiteuseful to deal with the educational problems facedby Muslims.

34


Book Review Section:

[Ms. Dipavali Sen has been a student of Delhi

School of Economics and Gokhale Institute of

Politics and Economics (Pune). She has taught at

Visva Bharati University, Santiniketan, and

various colleges of Delhi University. She is, at

present, teaching at Sri Guru Gobind Singh

College of Commerce, Delhi University. She is a

prolific writer and has written creative pieces and

articles for children as well as adults, both in

English and Bengali. [email protected]]

The Black-and-White and Greyof International Business

[B. Bhattacharya, The World of International

Business 2025 Environment, Actors, Imperatives,

Governance, published by Global Business Press,New Delhi, 2013; hardcover, pp 416, price Rs595]

2025 is not such a long way off. So it isquite in order to visualize what it may be

like, embedded as we are in the realities of 2013.

The author is a doyen on the subject of internationalbusiness. He has served as a Dean in the IndianInstitute of Foreign Trade (IIFT), Senior Advisor tothe U.N., and Consultant to UNCTAD,UN-ESCAP, Commonwealth Secretariat, and soon. He has written articles in major Indianeconomic and political dailies, and authors more

than a dozen books on international business,including the much-appreciated Export Marketing:Strategies for Success (also a publication of GlobalBusiness Press).

The author, Professor Bhattacharya, uses the year2025 “as a metaphor for the medium term” (frontcover flap). As Lord Keynes had said, in the longrun we may all be dead. So long run prognoses arethus less interesting than medium run ones. Whilethe short run may be too chaotic or confusing, themedium term is more crystallized. So what doesProfessor Bhattacharya say about it?

As the Preface says, the book is not a statistical orhighly technical work. It is directed at all those whoare interested in different facets of global business,as active players, policy-makers as well asacademics. As reflected in the sub-title of the book,it has four distinct but inter-related compartments,viz., Environment, Actors, Imperatives andGovernance.

Chapter 1 (Globalization And All That) beginswith a quotation from Thomas L. Friedman and isintersperse with several 'boxes’ of useful andinteresting information. This is a major featurerelieving boredom, and is followed in thesucceeding chapters as well. The chapter lists thecharacteristics of Globalization and a “globalMindset’ (p 38).

Chapter 2 (A Peep Into the Future) over-views thefragmented’, 'Multi-speed’ global world and pointsout that it is “anything but unified, homogeneous,with linear risk and preference profiles” ( p 67).

Chapter 3 (Nobody’s Century) describes first ‘TheDecline and Fall of the USA” ( Note the nuance ofGibbon’s Decline and fall of the Roman Empire.)and then the rise of other 'aspirants’ like China,India, Japan and Indonesia.

Chapter 4 (When China Bared Its Teeth) presentsChina as an 'Unpredictable Dragon.’ Chapter 5(Sunset Dollar, Sunrise Yuan) describes how “thesun is no longer burning bright” on the `empire’ ofthe Dollar, although there is no immediate need forwriting its `epitaph’ (pp 164-5).

35


Dipavali Sen

The focus then turns to the WTO. Chapter 6 (QuoVedas WTO). After a competent account of itsdevelopments, Professor Bhattacharya feels that“the best that can be expected” of it is ability toresist protectionist measures in case of furtherdeterioration of market conditions.

Chapter 7 (A Question of Control) analyses theissue of export restrictions and Chapter 8 (TradePolicy Making: Why, How and Where Is It Going)that of protectionism. Chapter 9 (FromOutsourcing to Reverse Outsourcing: The RoadTraveled) is a long chapter , describing variousbusiness models with case studies, e.g., CitizenWatch Co., the leading Japanese watchmaker, offshoring to China in a big way since 2002, HyundaiMotors making India an export but since 2003.

Professor Bhattacharya feels that the ‘newimperative’ in international business is thedevelopment of ‘soft power’.

This is discussed in Chapter 10 (Charm Offensive:The New Imperative).

Chapter 11(In Good We Trust) discusses how goodgovernance can be a factor in internationalcompetitiveness, as the European Commissionfeels it can.

Chapter 12 (An Eye on India) covers the structuralchanged in the Indian economy after the process of

economic reforms started. Professor Bhattacharyafeels that if India could take care of her politicalaspects, the economic aspects would be shiningbrighter. In the last decade India’s policy has beento “look east”. Now it should be “cultivate yourneighbours” (p 395).

The Epilogue strikes a cheerful note to this seriousstudy conducted with erudition. “This is a classicIndian growth story, pessimistically of a yesterday,optimistically of a tomorrow” (p 396). It ends witha quote from Robert Browning: “The best is yet tobe” (p 398).

The Endnotes are useful. However there is noglossary. As there are several newly-coined termsand phrases in the book, apart from technicaljargon, a glossary should be added in the newedition that is sure to follow- so good is the rest ofit.

It is difficult to write a book on internationalbusiness which had liveliness as well as literarytouches. Professor Bhattacharya has done thatdifficult job successfully. He has struck the rightbalance between academic excellence andreader-friendliness. Global Business Press haspresented it elegantly in black and white and grey.International business is, after all inblack-and-white, with some grey areas.

36


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Humanist News Section:

I

Online petition by Aruna Roy against

amendments to RTI

Dear Friends,

Eversince the RTI act came into effect it has provedto be a powerful means to fight corruption and thearbitrary use of power. The vigilance and protest bythe RTI community across India kept theestablishment from proceeding with the dormantand explicit desire to curtail transparency andaccountability entitlements. We are now informedthat the Government is thinking of movingamendments to the RTI Act in the coming sessionof Parliament, to negate the CIC order declaringthat political parties are public authorities under theRTI Act. It is likely that these amendments willseek to not only address this issue but to curtailvarious other entitlements that have nowestablished the ability of the RTI to fight corruptionand the arbitrary use of power by the establishment.We appeal to you for your help and support. Anonline petition has been created to oppose theproposed amendments and SAVE RTI. Please signand share the petition, which is available at:

http://defindia.us5.list-manage1.com/track/clic

k?u=c9fe6772e5891b3068ff7cad8&id=9dfcc8ca

29&e=ada27f7eb0

With warm regards,

Yours sincerely,

Bharat Dogra, Shekhar Singh, Shailesh Gandhi,Harsh Mander, Aruna Roy

Our mailing address is:

Digital Empowerment Foundation

44, Kalu Sarai

Delhi 110016

II

They served them poison for lunch: Dalia

Hashad - Avaaz.org

Dear friends across India,

It’s our worst nightmare — dropping off a smilingchild at school in the morning, then hearing theywere poisoned by their lunch. The Bihar tragedyhas killed over 20 children — let’s raise our voicesto make India’s school meals safer!

The Bihar tragedy is the result of lax oversight thatallows schools to serve dangerous food. Now, thegovernment plans to launch a new panel to monitorthe massive mid-day meal scheme. But its powersare vague and there’s no way for parents to makesure it’s doing its job. The only way to clean upschool meals is to conduct and publish regularinspection reports so parents can see what their kidsare eating — and impose strict punishments oncontractors who provide bad food.

Moments like this can bring massive change if weact fast. When over 50,000 of us sign our call fortransparent school meal inspections across India,and accountability for those responsible in Bihar,we will invite politicians to try samples of schoolfood, and get it covered in the news nationwide.

Sign now:

https://secure.avaaz.org/en/midday_meal_trage

dy_india/?bZmESbb&v=27479

Covering nearly 120 million school children,India’s mid-day meal scheme is one of the largestand most ambitious school nutrition programmes inthe world. It was put in place as an incentive to poorparents to send their children to governmentschools and address the massive problem ofmalnutrition and illiteracy. Economists havetestified to the program’s success in improvingprimary school enrollment, and good nutrition canhelp a child succeed. But this Bihar tragedy showsthat there is no room for complacency.

37


An initial report on the cause of death of the littlechildren in Bihar has confirmed that the food theywere served was contaminated with dangerouspesticides. In addition to the Bihar case, there havebeen several other instances that have exposed theprogram’s weaknesses. In many schools, there is noinfrastructure to store food safely and often thefood is cooked in highly unhygienic surroundings,such as next to garbage sites. The cooks andassistants who prepare the food are also oftenuntrained in basic hygiene. In Delhi alone, 80% ofthe food samples recently tested were found to besubstandard.

The government has announced that safety normswill now be painted on school walls but that’s notenough. We need total transparency in the foodinspection process. No more governmentcover-ups of school food villains! Sign now:

When a little baby died in a Punjab hospital, Avaazmembers demanded greater access to health carerights for poor people in the state. Let’s cometogether again and protect India’s vulnerablechildren who are needlessly dying because of ourcarelessness and corruption.

With hope and determination,

Dalia, Alaphia, Joseph, Anne, Ari, Alice, Ricken,Alex and the rest of the Avaaz team

PS: Many Avaaz campaigns are started bymembers of our community! Start yours now andwin on any issue - local, national or global:

http://www.avaaz.org/en/petition/start_a_petition/?bgMYedb&v=23918

Sources:

Bihar mid-day meal tragedy: Fatal school mealcontained pesticide, confirms forensic report(DNA):

http://www.dnaindia.com/india/1863686/report-bihar-mid-day-meal-tragedy-fatal-school-meal-contained-pesticide-confirms-forensic-report

Delhi’s mid-day meal dilemma: 80% of the foodcooked substandard (India Today):

http://indiatoday.intoday.in/story/delhis-mid-day-

meal-misery-only-50-out-of-280-food-samples-passed-quality-test/1/291998.html

New panel to monitor mid-day meal scheme (TheHindu):

http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/new-panel-to-monitor-midday-meal-scheme/article4928874.ece

Why Bihar serves poor quality meals to school kids(Down to Earth):

http://www.downtoearth.org.in/content/why-bihar-serves-poor-quality-meals-school-kids

The Indian school lunch deaths are tragic but wemust not lose perspective (The Guardian):

http://www.guardian.co.uk/global-development/poverty-matters/2013/jul/19/indian-school-lunch-deaths-midday-meals

III

MPs’ letters to President Obama are authentic

says forensic report: Coalition Against

Genocide (CAG)

- U.S. Court Certified Forensic Examiner’s reportdebunks allegations of forgery

Sunday, July 28, 2013

Coalition Against Genocide (CAG), a broadalliance dedicated to justice and accountability forthe Gujarat pogrom of 2002, today released aforensic examination report establishing theauthenticity of the letters written by 64 members ofboth houses of Parliament to President BarackObama. The MPs’ letters had urged the President tocontinue America’s long-standing policy ofbanning the entry of Chief Minister Narendra Modiinto the United States. These letters were releasedby CAG after BJP President Mr. Rajnath Singhwent on record to say that one of the objectives ofhis US visit was to urge US lawmakers to revokethe visa ban on Mr. Modi.

The report by Ms. Nanette Barto, a U.S.Court-Certified Forensic Document Examinerestablishes the following:

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Each letter “was created in a single event, and thatthe signatures found upon it are original/authenticwet ink signatures.”

There is no evidence of “cut and paste” or computeralterations performed on the documents.

Each signature was executed by a different handthereby dispelling any doubt of one personexecuting more than one signature.

“The forensic report establishes beyond any doubtthat the letters written by the MPs to PresidentObama were genuine,” said Raja Swamy,spokesperson for the Coalition Against Genocide(CAG). “It is time to refocus the discussion aroundthe letters’ content, and the reasons that compelledthe MPs to write to the US President,” added Mr.Swamy. “Allegations of forgery related to the MPsletters are frivolous, and intended to stiflediscussion on the issues of justice and human rightsthat the letters have brought to the fore” said Dr.Shaik Ubaid, President of Indian AmericanMinorities Network, a CAG affiliate. “In light ofthe forensic examiner’s report the futile debate onthe authenticity of the letters must end, and giveway to a national discussion on accountability forthe pogrom of 2002, fake encounter killings andsuppression of religious freedom in Gujarat,”added Dr. Ubaid.

The fact that nine members of Parliament wereunable to summon the courage to stand by theirown signatures under heavy party pressure shouldnot become an excuse for doubting the veracity ofthe letter. CAG commends all the MPs who standby the letter, its contents and their signatures, astheir position has been vindicated by the forensicreport. The Coalition Against Genocide calls uponthe Indian Parliament to dedicate some time duringthe upcoming session to discuss issues raised in theletter, and chart a path forward for a nation that isstill reeling under the onslaught of a hate-filled anddivisive ideology. The Coalition Against Genocideincludes a diverse spectrum of organizations andindividuals in the United States and Canada that

have come together in response to the Gujaratgenocide to demand accountability and justice.

Contact:

Mr. Raja Swamy, Phone: 864-804-0216

Mr. Shaik Ubaid, Phone: 516-567-0783

Coalition Against Genocide,

Phone/Fax: (443) 927-9039

Email: [email protected]

http://www.coalitionagainstgenocide.org

References: MPs’ letters to Barack Obama onNarendra Modi visa ‘original and authentic’

http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/politics-and-nation/mps-letters-to-barack-obama-on-narendra-modi-visa-original-and-authentic/articleshow/21424507.cms

Text of Joint Letter by India’s Parliamentarians toPresident Barack Obama

Lok Sabha Letter:

http://coalitionagainstgenocide.org/press/support/letter-ls-mps-obama.pdf

Rajya Sabha Letter:

http://coalitionagainstgenocide.org/press/support/letter-rs-mps-obama.pdf

Links to Forensic Examiner’s Report

http://coalitionagainstgenocide.org/press/support/forensic-report-ls-letter.pdf

http://coalitionagainstgenocide.org/press/support/forensic-report-rs-letter.pdf

CPI MP says he saw Sitaram Yechury signing theletter

http://www.hindustantimes.com/audio-news-video/AV-India/I-got-signature-of-Yechury-on-letter-against-Modi-CPI-leader/Article2-1097720.aspx

Will go to jail if signatures on letter to Obama areforged: Md Adeeb -

http://zeenews.india.com/news/nation/will-go-to-jail-if-signatures-on-letter-to-obama-are-forged-md-adeeb_864286.html

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