THE RADICAL HUMANIST

Founder Editor: M. N. Roy

516

THE RADICAL HUMANISTMARCH 2013

Rs. 20/monthVol. 76 No 12

(Since April 1949)

Formerly : Independent India

(April 1937- March 1949)

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THE RADICAL HUMANIST MARCH 2013

—Important Announcement—Dear Friends, Indian Renaissance Institute (IRI) is organizing a two days’ International Seminar tocommemorate the 125th Birth Year of M.N. Roy on 16th & 17th March 2013 at India InternationalCentre, New Delhi.

We read and hear about other humanists like us from distant places but are rarely able to meet eachother personally. The priorities of various humanist groups may vary but their mission and vision isalmost identical. Let us share it together from a common platform, this time in Delhi at the IRI seminar.

I hope you will not miss this opportunity of meeting and sharing our views with many others in the fold.

The theme of the Seminar is:

Humanism & Contemporary Politics.

The sub-themes are as follows:

DAY ONE: 16th March 2013 (Saturday)

Inaugural Session Topic: Challenges before the Human Society.

Session I: Topic: Social & Political Crisis.

Session II: Topic: Globalization & its effects.

DAY TWO: 17th March 2013 (Sunday)

Session I: Topic: Humanist Movements and their role.

Session II: Topic: Effect of Science & Technology upon the Human Value System.

Valedictory Session Topic: Relevance of Radical Humanism.

We will be deciding about the sequence of speakers after we hear from you. Please send (email) yourpapers and their summaries by 28th February 2013. Do come and participate actively in the programmeand make your travel arrangements now itself.

Venue of the Seminar: (Annexe), India International Centre, Delhi.

Registration Fee: Paper Presenters / Delegates: Rs. 500/- Research Scholars / Students: Rs. 250/-

Following facilities will be provided by the organisers.

A) Food at the Seminar venue (on both days);

B) Commuting facility from the place of stay at Tiwari Bhawan to India International Centre;

C) Registration kit will be provided by the organisers;

D) All the papers accepted will be published in The Radical Humanist Special issue of April 2013;

E) The research papers will also be uploaded on the RH Web portal.

Registered participants and delegates would be expected to bear the expenses of their travel and stay.

Beds have been arranged for 15th, 16th & 17th March 2013 in Tiwari Bhawan, Deen Dayal UpadhyayaMarg, near Gandhi Peace Foundation, New Delhi. Cost of each bed is Rs. 200/ day + Rs. 100/- forregistration on the first day of stay.

You may write to or contact Sri. N.D. Pancholi (Secretary, IRI) to get accommodation booked assoon as possible (as limited number of beds are available there) at: [email protected]; Ph:0120-2648691, (M) 09811099532; G-3, Plot No. 617, Shalimar Garden Extn. I, Sahibabad,Ghaziabad 201005 (U.P.) Awaiting an early and positive response from you.

With best wishes.

—Rekha S.

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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 soleaccountability for corroborating the facts that theygive in their write-ups. Neither IRI / the Publishernor the Editor of this journal will be responsiblefor testing the validity and authenticity ofstatements & information cited by the authors.Also, sometimes some articles published in thisjournal may carry opinions not similar to theRadical Humanist philosophy; but they would beentertained here if the need is felt to debate anddiscuss upon them. —Rekha Saraswat

Vol. 76 Number 12 March 2013

www.theradicalhumanist.com

1. From the Editor’s Desk:

Ellen Roy -in synch with herself!

All else - in synch with her!!

—Rekha Saraswat 2

2. Guests’ Section:

Magnetic Myths

—Donald R. Prothero 4

A Plea for Promoting Entrepreneurship

—Kamal Wadhwa 7

India: A melting pot or a salad bowl?

—Uday Dandavate 9

4. Current Affairs’ Section:

Developing alternatives to Petroleum Resources

—J.S.C. Rao 11

Problems of South Indian Diaspora

Autonomous Council for North Andhra

Writers, Scholars and Freedom of Expression

—K.S. Chalam 13

The Maturing of Bodo Dream

—Sandeep Pandey 20

5. IRI / IRHA Members’ Section:

AFSPA and the Sedition Law Must be Repealed

— Mahi Pal Singh 22

Evolution of a patriotic new avatar of superstition

—Sanal Edamaruku 25

Nationalism: Rabindranath & M. N. Roy

—Swarajbrata Sengupta 27

6. Teacher’s & Research Scholar’s Section:

Debacle of Indian Academics

—Mudasir Nazar 30

7. Book Review Section:

Laws For Dalit Rights And Dignity

—R.M. Pal 32

8. Humanist News Section: 34

Contents

From the Editor’s Desk:

Ellen Roy -

in synch with herself!

All else -

in synch with her!!

Reminiscing Ellen Roy’s significancetoday when the Indian Renaissance

Institute is remembering M.N. Roy during his125th birth anniversary year is very necessary andimportant lest we overlook the fact that she wasequally indispensable for the building up of theIndian Radical Humanist Movement!!

Ellen Roy came to India at a young age of 33. Awoman whose canvas of existence was larger thanthe sailcloth of this universe wrapped it entirelyaround a person called M.N. Roy for more than halfof the living years of her life.

Even after his death she continued to remain in hissurroundings till she met with such a gruesome endwhich of all people she did not deserve. A lover ofhumanity was killed for a petty pair of artificialstuds by a person whose education and futurecareer she was so keenly taking care of.

Yes, Ralph Waldo Emerson was so right when hewrote that the years teach much which the daysnever know!

What was in Roy that attracted Ellen to wait for himfor a good nine years of her youth till she leftEurope to join him in India in 1936 even though she

had a wide range of intellectuals, activists andartists around her to choose from as her life partnerin Europe itself?

They all say it was Roy’s charisma that pulled herto him but I argue it was her own reflection in himthat drew her towards him.

She saw in Roy the echoes of her own dreams, herown vision and purpose of life as well as her ownangst for the sorrow of humanity during the periodwhich saw such a colossal loss of civilizationbetween the two world wars; her own anger againstthe colonial cruelties on humankind; her ownshattering of hopes and disillusionment with thecommunist endeavour of delivering relief to thepains and injuries of the poor, the weak and thedown trodden all around the world.

He belonged to a country that suffered thehumiliation and she belonged to a continent thatinflicted the pain. They together saw incommunism the hope to remove the distress; bothworked in it and with it but both realised that themethods as well as the resources were actuallycounter-productive to the cause, giving greatersorrow to the suffering humanity!

They both wanted to find a new solution to theproblem. He came back to India with lots of hopeand positivity to put his viewpoints to practice in anew way. She followed him here to see their jointvision taking shape.

He was in his own land more at home with thethings around. She was in his land more dependentupon his insights and perceptions!

He had been a part of the making of the communisthistory of the world she was a part of it too in herown way simultaneously working as its biographeras well.

He gave logical conclusions to his beliefs to thepeople who came to listen to his views. She becamethe catalyst to collect and grow this list ofindividuals to whom his analysis mattered.

Those who went to meet him and be with him cameback with an impression that he was too towering tobe approached. Had Ellen not been there with him


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Rekha S.

to make his efforts more earthly and benevolent alot many would have been forced to alienatethemselves from his mission. She brought hissublime persona within reach to all his admirersand enquirers.

He spoke well, she wrote well! He elucidated hisphilosophy in spoken words, she illuminated it inwritten scripts. He spoke for them she wrote forthem. She jotted down even his mumblings andmutterings and articulated them intocomprehensible readings.

And she could do so because of her voraciousreading background, her large multilingualvocabulary and her grip over the philosophicaldevelopments around the world.

He concentrated upon the necessity of a culturalregeneration only after he removed his emphasisupon the need for a political reformation, while shewas the personification of a universal andcosmopolitan cultural renaissance ever since shelearnt to define her ‘being’ in this world! She, infact, was a living example of what Roy visualizedthe society to be!

That is why when he envisaged a gurukul oflearning around him she, so naturally, gave her allto the making and evolving of this gurukul namedIndian Renaissance Institute and kept working for

its progress till she lived even after he had left thisworld!

And she could give her best and make all thispossible only because she herself was burning withthe zeal and passion of making this world abeautiful, humane community of spiritually freemen and women endowed with a scientific spiritand a rational culture; beyond the barriers of caste,class, creed, sex and national geographicaldistinctions, with equality in opportunities ofdefining and designing their lives.

She came to India with a confirmed confidence thatM.N. Roy would help her make this effort to realiseher dream as he too had the same obsession andardour right from his childhood which made himtravel around the world in search of means andresources to fulfil it.

How much they together could or could notsucceed is a matter of introspection and analysis forthe followers who, I think, should be maderesponsible for the consequences and for not takingthe banner forward to the extent it was expected.

The two of them did their utmost; it is we wholagged behind!!

I hope the coming seminar would give us anotheropportunity to join our heads and hands together topave a stronger and firmer way forward toaccomplish the cherished dream of our mentors!!

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Ellen Roy opined.....“A rationalist movement is by its nature a movement of ideas. But its task isnot an academic one. It is eminently concerned with the life of the people, of the whole community, inall its aspects. Its task is to show the approach of reason to all problems of individual and social life. Ithas a role to play in the public life of the country. It must criticise what is bad and wrong in our societyby showing that it is not reasonable, and apply reason as the measure of all improvements which aresuggested. If democracy is considered to be the best form of government, it must be shown to be themost reasonable proposition, and this can be shown to be so if the people who are to govern themselveslearn to be conscious of their reason as their supreme and innate human distinction, and to apply it in theshaping of their own destiny. The solution of the crisis of our time depends on a valid sanction for avoluntary spontaneous morality. All other sanctions having failed to achieve this, let reason,scientifically and soberly defined, have its chance.....”

[From the Inaugural Address at the All India Convention of the Indian Rationalist Association held in

Meerut during January 28-30, 1955. And later published in The Radical Humanist, vol. 19, number 10,

6 March, 1955]

Guests’ Section:

[Dr. Donald R. Prothero was Professor of

Geology at Occidental College in Los Angeles,

and Lecturer in Geobiology at the California

Institute of Technology in Pasadena. He earned

M.A., M.Phil., and Ph.D. degrees in geological

sciences from Columbia University in 1982, and a

B.A. in geology and biology (highest honors, Phi

Beta Kappa) from the University of California,

Riverside. He is currently the author, co-author,

editor, or co-editor of 32 books and over 250

scientific papers, including five leading geology

textbooks and five trade books as well as edited

symposium volumes and other technical works.

He is on the editorial board of Skeptic magazine,

and in the past has served as an associate or

technical editor for Geology, Paleobiology and

Journal of Paleontology. He is a Fellow of the

Geological Society of America, the

Paleontological Society, and the Linnaean

Society of London, and has also received

fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation

and the National Science Foundation. He has

served as the President and Vice President of the

Pacific Section of SEPM (Society of Sedimentary

Geology), and five years as the Program Chair

for the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology. In

1991, he received the Schuchert Award of the

Paleontological Society for the outstanding

paleontologist under the age of 40. He has also

been featured on several television

documentaries, including episodes of Paleoworld

(BBC), Prehistoric Monsters Revealed (History

Channel), Entelodon and Hyaenodon (National

Geographic Channel) and Walking with

Prehistoric Beasts (BBC). His website is:

www.donaldprothero.com. Check out Donald

Prothero’s page at Shop Skeptic.]

Article Source: eSkeptic

Magnetic MythsWhy magnets and magnetic fields attract

New Age flimflam and flap-doodle

Throughout the long build-up up to thelatest failed prediction of a global

apocalypse on December 21, 2012, you would hearpeople claiming that the earth-shatteringcatastrophe would include “pole shifts,” or“changes in the earth’s magnetic field,” andassorted other sciencey phrases, proclaimed bypeople with absolutely no idea what they weretalking about.

The idea of “magnetism” is one of the most popularmemes in the lexicon of pseudoscientists and NewAgers, since magnets operate “mysteriously” andexert a force at a distance. From the days of FranzMesmer claiming he had “magnetism” over people,to the trite phrase “animal magnetism,” the conceptof magnetism has always been mysterious andmisunderstood. Hence the big market for stickingmagnets on various parts of your body to “cure”you. All they do is waste money, and possiblydemagnetize the magnetic strip on your creditcards. The idea that somehow the earth’s magneticfield will shift abruptly or that the earth’s core willstop rotating (as in the idiotic Hilary Swank movie“The Core”) or even more wildly, that the earth’srotational pole will change, are all common ideasout there in Wacko-Land.

Most of us know enough about science andapocalyptic predictions to guess that they are notworth taking seriously, but very few people havebothered to debunk this stuff. Unfortunately, wesaw lots of sad consequences of people who did

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Donald R. Prothero

take the ridiculous apocalyptic predictions seriously,

often with tragic results. Among my other specialties,

my professional training is in paleomagnetism, and I’ve

conducted over 35 years of published research in the

field, so I’m very familiar with what we do and do not

know about the earth’s magnetic field and how it

behaves.

First, some science:

The earth’s magnetic field has at least twocomponents, the dipolar field, which makes upabout 90% of the magnetism we normally feel, anda non-dipole field, which is normally hard to detectbeneath it but makes up at least 10% of the earth’sfield. The dipole field is not exactly lined up withthe rotational axis of the earth (i.e., there is a smallangle between magnetic north and true north), butover geologic spans of time, this magnetic northwanders around the rotational pole; this movementis known as secular variation. Studies have shownthat over the long term, its position averages out tobeing identical to the rotational pole. The field isgenerated by complex fluid dynamos operatingwithin the outer core of the earth (made of iron andnickel), which operates a bit like a spinningdynamo made of copper wire (a good conductor),which generates a magnetic field and electricalcurrent when it spins within a magnetic field. Theexact nature of how this works is a matter of thecomplexities of geophysical fluid dynamics, soscientists are still working on modeling what kindsof dynamos are found in the outer core. Butwhatever their configuration, the model has to fitthe constraints that the direction can be reversed (soa compass pointing north now would point south800,000 years ago), and also explain the oddbehavior of the field when the dipole componentweakens and the non-dipole component becomesvisible.

Now let’s consider some of the common false

claims about magnets and magnetism that

plague the Internet:

Timeline of Polarity Reversals:1. Earth’s field isabout to reverse! The earth’s field does reversedirection, but normally the process takes

7000–10,000 years to complete. It does not happenin days or weeks, as some claim. We know thisfrom detailed studies of thick stacks of lava flowsthat erupted over the span of a reversal, as well ashigh-resolution deep-sea cores that span theinterval as well. So if the field were beginning toreverse, we would not know for at least a fewthousand years. And we cannot predict when thisreversal will occur, since they have been occurringon an irregular basis for all of geologic history, andat least a 300 times in the past 100 million years.Reversals typically occur roughly every200,000–300,000 years apart, although the lastreversal (the Brunhes-Matuyama boundary) wasover 780,000 years ago. Some, however, are muchshorter (less than 50,000 years) while in some casesthe earth’s field remained stable for 30 millionyears. This irregular pattern of field reversals iscompletely unpredictable, but it also gives a nicenon-periodic, non-repeating signal, like a bar code,that allows magnetic stratigraphers to correlatetheir local magnetic sequences with the globalpattern.

2. When the field reverses and vanishes, we’ll all bebombarded by cosmic radiation! When the fieldslowly reverses over thousands of years, only thedipolar component of the field weakens. Thenon-dipole component of the field is alwayspresent, and there’s no evidence that the earth hasever been unshielded from cosmic radiation orcompletely lacked magnetic field. Nor is there anyevidence that a slightly weaker magnetic field overthe thousands of years when the dipole field isreversing will have any affect on life, or on ourelectrical grid, or anything else. Calculations showthat during reversal, the field is only slightlyweaker than we feel normally—about thedifference between the field we would feel at theequator and the field we would feel at the magneticnorth pole. In other words, it is undetectable exceptby sensitive instruments. In fact, a former professorof mine (Jim Hays of Lamont-Doherty EarthObservatory, a micropaleontologist and myco-author on several papers) conducted the crucial

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experiment on the issue over 40 years ago. He wasthe first to see the evidence of field reversal indeep-sea cores from the Antarctic, and wondered ifthere was any effect on life. Jim Hays’ first effort in1971 (Hays, J.D. 1971. Faunal extinctions andreversal of the Earth’s magnetic field. GeologicalSociety of America Bulletin, 82, 2433–2447)demonstrated no association between fieldreversals and extinctions, and it has since beencorroborated over and over again by a wide varietyof statistical techniques. And why should there beany extinction? If the difference in the field felt byorganisms is so slight, and the effect on the cosmicray influx is so tiny, there’s no reason to expectotherwise. At very worst, a weaker magnetic fieldwith a relatively strong non-dipole componentmight disorient animals (from bees to whales tobirds) that navigate by the field direction, butthere’s no way to test that hypothesis in the fossilrecord, and no evidence that it’s happening toorganisms right now.

3. What about recent studies that showed muchmore rapid field changes? These were conductedby my former colleague Scott Bogue at OccidentalCollege. Bogue was looking at a set of lava flowsthat cooled as the field was reversing andweakening, and he focused on just the fieldrecorded when the dipole field was nearly gone,and the non-dipole field was revealed. The

non-dipole field does indeed move rapidly and inweird ways, but there’s no evidence that anythinghas been affected by such weird field directionsduring the short period of time that it is thedominant field of the earth. And there’s noevidence that the much stronger dipolar field willever change that fast.

4. What about the evidence that the magnetic poleis rapidly changing direction? This is along-studied and well-known phenomenon calledsecular variation, as I have already mentioned. It isnot news, nor is it some scandalously dangerousdiscovery being hidden by NASA. It is a constantfeature of the earth’s magnetic field, but over timethe average direction of the magnetic pole averagesout to be approximately the same as the rotationalpole. We can study secular variation overthousands of years as recorded in deep-sea cores,lake sediment cores, and many other records. Thereis no scary change that threatens us, just a lot ofnoisy wobbling of the magnetic north that averagesout to nothing in the long run.

So the next time you hear someone worrying aboutthe earth’s magnetic field, you can assume that it ismisinformed and false. There are plenty of realdangers to worry about, like global climate change,so we don’t need to scare people by hyping falseideas.

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From the Writings of M.N. Roy:

I have a strong dislike for the idea of writing one’s own history, be it mental or physical. History is a

science. Critically composed biographies have a place in historical literature. Autobiographies,

however, are worthless as historical records. The incentive to write an autobiography is supplied by

egoism — by the belief in one’s own importance. Only people, obsessed with the idea that they are

destined to play historical roles, write autobiographies. The inevitable results of that underlying motive

can be counter-balanced only by an extra-ordinarily high degree of self-criticism. The two cannot

naturally go together. One cannot be egotistic and self-critical, at the same time. Autobiographies are

worth reading only as works of fine literature. Very few of them, however, can measure up to that

standard. For these considerations, I have never been inclined to record the events of my life or to trace

the development of my mind.

[From the Preface To The First Edition of The Memoirs of a Cat—Dehradun, October, 1940]

A Plea for PromotingEntrepreneurship

[Kamal Wadhwa is an Honours graduate in

Literature from the University of Chicago and

has also studied Economic & Social Development

at the University of Pittsburgh. He can be reached

at [email protected]]

It is time for the Indian republic toacknowledge that its favored agents for

spearheading economic growth – the older businessclass consisting of the Tatas, Birlas, Singhanias andmany others have failed in their mission badly. TheTatas, not too long ago, were even the target oflitigation charged with dumping cheap Indian steelin a foreign market.

This class of corporate firms has also flouted thelaw with impunity and has prospered at the cost ofthe national exchequer. It has manufacturedshoddy, defective and often outdated goods basedon imports of obsolete technology dating back todecades. To make matters worse, it has chargedsteep prices in the domestic market made possibleby the formation of monopolies and oligopolies. Ineffect, it has undermined entrepreneurship in India.

The older business class has also failed to succorthe Indian nation when such succor was badlyneeded. While it has made profits, it has done so

purely from a captive market and the perks andincentives offered by the Indian government.

This business class has imported and exportedsub-standard goods and flaunted its dubiousachievements before an ignorant and credulouspublic. With the Government mollycoddling itsenterprises, competition has been thwarted and apowerful, leisured class with bureaucraticconnections has been created.

The Indian consumer has been kept ignorant of theworld outside India by the corporate establishmentin collusion with the bureaucracy. Consider, forexample, the tobacco industry. Even after sixdecades of independence, not a single quality andaffordable cigarette is available to the massesbecause no tobacco firm has taken the trouble tostudy the cigarette market and the preferences ofthe Indian smoker.

While cigarette brands such as Gold Flake, Bristol,Gold and Four Squares enjoy household popularityin India, Indian smokers have been kept ignorant ofnewer and quality cigarettes that use more refinedtobacco and have less tar content. This is one morereason for promoting a new, independent and brashentrepreneurship based on our time-tested andancient traditions.

Next, consider the education bandwagon. Scores ofschools and colleges of every hue and quality havebeen set up in India and an army of graduates andpost-graduates enters the employment marketevery year. While literacy is a national asset, highereducation of the Indian variety with its emphasis onfilling in slots in the national economy, is a nationaldisaster.

The Indian economy is simply not big enough toabsorb so many educated people, more so in viewof their high material expectations. Even cooks anddomestics have worthless degrees and diplomasthat have alienated them from their true and testedvocations. As a consequence, we may soon becomea nation where the majority of working people areeither clerks or cyber coolies.


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Kamal Wadhwa

The Indian government’s employment guaranteescheme is also non viable as artificial employmenthas to be created to feed the rural proletariat such aslandless laborers. These people have abandonedtheir true vocations as farmers and picked updysfunctional work that falls just short of drudgery.In the process, everyone has become discontentedwith work. Is entrepreneurship a way out for thesepeople?

An argument can also be made that the populationboom is in part due to the Indian government’smistaken policy of promoting artificialemployment schemes and its maintenance of thepublic distribution system (PDS).

Guaranteed employment and cheap food are adangerous mix and possibly the easiest way tocommit national suicide. The people most likely toprocreate as a result of these amenities are the poormasses who are always in search of such mannafrom the national government.

The above hypothesis is supported by the fact thatbirth rates are the lowest among urban educatedIndians who follow Western lifestyles, marry lateand procreate later, if ever. Even this class ofpeople will lose out in the long run as it lacks thematerial resources to protect and preserve its owninterest in self-propagation.

Moreover, fewer and fewer resources allocated tothis beleaguered class of people by successivegovernments means that it too might feel theburden of its qualifications. Given thesecircumstances, this stratum of citizens will have todeal severely with its own survival because there issimply no help coming from the State. Can thisclass overcome its fears and take to

entrepreneurship?

Then again, very little can be expected from thenon-resident Indian (NRI) to save this country fromits travails and tribulations. This class of Indiansenjoys the best of both worlds – the West and India.In the West the NRI gets plum jobs and sells Indianculture thereby gaining vast prestige and income inthe bargain!

In India, the NRI expects and gets the maximumconcessions from the Government because it isobsessed with earning foreign exchange eventhough it is so expensive. With the falling rupee inmind, the Government allows itself to be used andexploited in the vain hope that the NRI will prove tobe patriotic in crisis situations.

Nothing could be further removed from the truth.Simply put, the NRI has profitably absorbed thematerialism and acquisitiveness of the West and hisdealings with his former homeland are brittle andexploitative. Where else can he get 45 rupees to adollar?

Given this abject scenario of India’s economicprospects, it is time to move away from falsesolutions to India’s problems. India needs to placeless stress on higher education of the elitist varietyand it must abandon its goal of more intensiveindustrialization.

In essence, what are truly needed are the recoveryof India’s past and its ancient values of honestbusiness dealings and greater entrepreneurship.Indiscriminate and total industrialization or fullemployment financed with public borrowings willprove to be a disastrous recipe for the nation as itruns up against environmental and other externalconstraints.


8

Dear Friends,

Please email your articles at: [email protected]. Send them by post (if you are not able to emailthem) at: C-8 Defence Colony, Meerut, 250001, U.P., India.

Please try to keep them within the limit of 1500-2000 words. You should also inform me whether theyhave been published elsewhere. Do email or post your passport size photographs as separateattachments (in JPG format) along with your brief introductions, if you are contributing in the RH forthe first time. Please feel free to contact me at 91-9719333011 for any other querry. —Rekha S.

[Uday Dandavate studies people, cultures and

trends worldwide and uses the understanding

gained from such studies to inspire people

centered innovation strategies. Uday Dandavate

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.]

India: A melting pot

or a salad bowl?

As the elections to the Indian Parliamentapproach there will be a rapid increase in

political rhetoric to capture the imagination of thenation eager for a new direction for freeing India ofmany of its lingering problems – corruption,communal violence, terrorism and lack ofdevelopment. As political parties tune their rhetoricto appeal to the impatient India, I fear emergence ofchauvinistic rhetoric in the national discoursepaving the way for homogenizing of India.

The melting pot, a metaphor for a heterogeneoussociety becoming more homogeneous, the differentelements “melting together” into a harmoniouswhole with a common culture is often used todescribe the assimilation of immigrants to the

USA; the melting-together metaphor was in use bythe 1780s.

The melting pot metaphor supports theory of ethnicrelations, which sees American identity as centredupon the acculturation or assimilation and theintermarriage of white immigrant groups, has beenanalyzed by the emerging academic field ofwhiteness studies. This discipline examines the‘social construction of whiteness’ and highlightsthe changing ways in which whiteness has beennormative to American national identity from theseventeenth to the twentieth century. (Extract fromWikipedia)

While the leadership in many developing nations,including India have embraced the free marketeconomic model of the United States, they haveconveniently overlooked the struggles the UnitedStates had to go through in managing its ethnicdiversity. It is increasingly being acknowledgedthat America’s future challenges and opportunitieslay in its ability to harness the ethnic diversity. Inthis process, there is growing realization in theUnited States that the metaphor of a melting potneeds to be discarded in favour of a new metaphorof a salad bowl to best bring out the flavour ofintercultural life evolving in the heart of America.The essence of the salad bowl metaphor being- inan intercultural society cultures will be juxtaposed— like salad ingredients — but will not merge intoa single homogeneous culture. Each culture keepsits own distinct qualities.

Most conflicts around the world are born from lackof respect for other cultures and a threat to culturalidentify. Economic progress will not ease culturalconflicts. On the contrary, undue emphasis oneconomic progress and relentless pursuit ofdevelopment without consideration to humanissues will push cultural issues under the carpet,leading to a cultural and moral disintegration of thesociety.

As India gets ready for general election campaign itis important to keep a balanced perspective on theneed for development and cultural harmony. The


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Uday Dandavate

metaphor of a Salad Bowl needs to be clearlyunderstood and made a part of national aspirationsas we go about searching for a new set of leaders.As much as corruption is the core issue in the mindsof people- it would be disastrous for the well beingof the nation to follow leaders who promise

development through crushing of diversity andcreation of a homogenized melting pot. We shouldlook for leaders who are incorruptible and at thesame time understand and respect the diversity ofIndia.


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Letter to the Editor:

Rekha,

I have received the January issue three days ago.

Your Editorial is intense, charged with emotion and also, through the bewilderment, makes an attemptto understand. Apart from the central role of the family there is also always the influence of the ‘milieu’into which a child (let us say a boy) is plunged as soon as he steps out. I look back and think that I wasfortunate as a boy. I had a proud nature and never accepted the domination of the ‘gang leaders’ of ourlocality. Sometimes, though thin and not strong at all, I fought. But looking back I know that thoseaggressive boys were not so wicked. They could have beaten me to a pulp. But they did not. They justwanted to show that they were stronger. The situation would be different now. At school there were noreal bullies. In fact a ‘good boy’ (meaning also a good student) would be taken ‘under protection’ by thestrong, athletic ones. I was enthusiastic about football, cricket and badminton. The Captains wouldoften say “Amitabha, you must be in my team!” I was happy to be so. In college life it continued likethis. I remember that once, selected for a match, I was playing a miserable game. I heard a supportermaking an excuse for me in a low voice. “He is a very good student, you know”. I think back and feel “Iwas lucky!”. I do not know how different the situation might be now. I can only make guesses.

May be my piece on Hypatia acquires an accidental, tenuous resonance in the present context — howsocieties have continued to treat men and women differently.

I would like to make a remark concerning the article by K.S. Chalam: ‘University Education...’.

He says (page 13) “......Srinivasa Ramanujan and several others have emerged from our universitysystem.”

Ramanujan did not emerge from any university system whatsoever. Though this is very well known letme cite some lines about his ‘lost’ notebooks which have been found recently and are being studied:“These notebooks were begun about 1903, when he was 15 or 16, and are a compilation of hismathematical discoveries without proofs. The last entries were made in 1914, when he sailed toEngland at the urging of G.H. Hardy.” This is from an article with Bruce Brendt as co-author —Brendt,who has found practically all the proofs that Ramanujan did not bother to write down.

When Ramanujan, now famous, returned from England he was indeed given a post at the university.But he was already ill and died shortly afterwards. During his last illness he discovered ‘mock thetafunctions’ his last dazzling feat. There are several books about his life.

—Amitabha Chakrabarti

[email protected]

Centre de Phys.Théor. (CPHT) of Ecole Polytechnique,

France

Current Affairs' Section:

[J. Sharath Chandra Rao has been contributing

articles to Newspaper like ‘Vaartha’ and ‘Andhra

Jyothi’ and other periodicals on environment,

economics and other social issues. He may be

contacted at 1-2-593/40, Gagan Mahal Colony,

Hyderabad, Phone: 040-27638039]

Developing alternatives toPetroleum Resources is needed

Industrial Development of today wasachieved largely through the extraction of

fossil fuels from the earth’s crust. Transportation isanother sector in the world being heavily dependenton oil whether the mobility is by land, air or water.Any price rise in petroleum resources will lead tohigher transportation costs, as well as higher cost ofpower. Fossil fuel is still the main, basic resourceof the world’s economy. The skyrocketing ofInternational crude oil prices in recent times withthe demand for oil ever increasing with theproduction of oil being concentrated in the hands ofa few suppliers will affect the world economy.Shortage of oil in the coming years, the signs beingalready visible might land the world in a seriouseconomic crisis. Building up the entireinfrastructure all these years solely depending onone single source of oil for both the industrial andagricultural production usage as well as fordomestic needs with the crude oil prices

periodically increasing in the international markethas affected poor countries and their people muchmore than the developed countries. For a countrylike India inspite of giving subsidies of Rs. 77,637crores per year on petroleum and fertilizers, peopleare still facing great hardships because of high costof essential needs.

Higher crude oil prices will push transport costswhich in turn will lead to escalation of prices ofseveral essential commodities and productsaffecting the common man. With India importingabout 80% of its fuel requirement with the rupeedepreciation making fuel costlier be it petrol,diesel, gas or kerosene, we are fast becomingimport dependent on a single petroleum source ofenergy. A study revealed a steep rise in the price ofworld crude oil will affect nearly five lakh productsbecoming prohibitively costly. Such a rise will alsoreduce consumer demand because of higher cost.Also usage of energy for avoidable consumerproducts will obviously reduce the energy availablefor Industrial and domestic purposes of the societyin turn which in turn will affect the common man.Higher oil prices can give a boost to publictransport system such as trains and buses as well asgiving boost to alternative renewable energy optionof solar and wind making them financially moreviable and attractive to switch over. Renewableenergy options are clean and free of pollution,which can also create tremendous employmentopportunities. However higher oil prices will leadto not only the Government experiencing majorloss of revenue collection but it will also lead to anincrease in welfare expenditure to meet the risingcost of living. The conventional economicdevelopment based on fossil fuel usage in futurecan become a major risk factor for the security ofthe world with the possibility of rising conflicts andwars.

The ever increasing oil prices in India led to a steepincrease in the basic essential needs affecting thecommon man’s budget on his livelihood, the heavyprice being paid for depending solely on oil. This isinspite of heavy subsidies being given on


11

J. S.C. Rao

petroleum products of diesel, kerosene and gaswhich in reality is more than what is being spent onhealth and education put together. Such anapproach of not curtailing oil usage forunproductive purposes of extensive consumerismand leisure entertainment also led to an increase inpollution and congestion and enormous wastageproblems detrimental to human health. Rampantencouragement of consumerism and excessivecommercialization had led to the misuse of severalresources more particularly of oil on a large scaleresulting in several destructive patterns of rise intemperatures, storms and cyclones erupting,glaciers melting due to green house gas emissionsand also earthquakes inflicting extensive damage tothe plant and human life. It has also resulted incausing ill-health problems making the planet lessviable to live on it. Health problems like Cancer,Heart Ailments, Asthma, Lung diseases andallergies are all being caused due to the emissionsof the fossil fuels usage. Switching over tonon-polluting, clean alternative energy systemswhich do not effect health and the environment andwhich do not emit greenhouse gas emission andalso of no noxious emissions of nuclear waste beinggenerated in producing Nuclear energy will alwaysbe a better option. By doing so, many developingcountries like India can overcome economic,environmental and social cost of petroleum fuelsproviding in the process enormous employmentopportunities. We should not forget that byencouraging consumerism we have causedextensive damage to the environment affecting ourvery existence of livelihood. This led to the usageof more energy and materials discarding in theprocess our age old cultural tradition of the valuesof thrift and austerity. These have beensystematically downgraded by giving way toneedless material product purchases and avoidable

entertainment spending. Many household in Indiapossessing T.V. sets and Internet had access to getto know various goods being available which led toan increase in purchasing of several products whichin turn led to increasing energy consumption toproduce all such products. Buying such productswhich include fancy products obviously will lead toconsumption of huge energy requirement of oil.India is presently witnessing glittering officetowers, shopping malls, luxury shops spreadingconsumer culture amidst plenty of simple houses.One can see a clear demonstration of thepurchasing power of the trend setting classes andtheir lifestyles which is often in total variance withthose of the ordinary citizens who are struggling fortheir basic needs.

The development path of industrialization andagriculture has not visualized the impendingshortage of oil resources. They have not reckonedwith the fact that fossil fuels will no longer be easyand cheaper to procure. Also the presentdevelopmental model has no regard for efficientuse of resources and energy, reducing wastageparticularly in the developed countries. What willhappen to agricultural production if there is a steepincrease of diesel oil etc. more particularly whenmechanization in farming is the order now? Wehave already replaced bullocks ploughing our landswith tractors and other mechanized harvestingmachinery. Mechanical modernization inagriculture has already thrown countlessindividuals out of their traditional jobs makingagriculture being dependent on fossil fuel energy. Ifthe petroleum resources further go up are we toswitch over from the present mechanicalmodernization of agriculture to our ancientmethods of cultivation more particularly when wedo not have sufficient cattle to do so?


12

Letter to the Editor: Dear Rékhâ, To celebrate the jubilee of Tagore's Nobel award, I am preparing aBengali-French-English anthology with 110 poems. This will be released with a few recitals composedof songs and poems from the book. Warm regards.—Prithwindra-dâ,

[email protected]

[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 [email protected]]

I

Problems of South IndianDiaspora

The controversial visit of Sri LankaPresident Mahindra Rajapaksa to

Tirupati recently evoked violent protests in theSouth while Telugus remained awestruck. It isstrange to notice that very few are conversant withthe Sri Lankan issue where millions ofIndian-origin people were alleged to have beenkilled. In fact, some of the so called Tamils whowere slain or persecuted are actually Telugus. I hadthe opportunity to meet some of the plantationworkers in Colombo sometime ago when I wasthere to participate in a seminar. Some of themwere migrants from coastal Andhra Pradeshparticularly from Prakasam and North Andhra andthey are lumped together with Tamils. It alsoreminds me of a phenomenon, had we not remained

complacent when the Telugu speaking workersfrom Telangana distressed in the Emirates? It islargely because of our insensitivity to the conceptof Telugu Diaspora. But everyone seems to beaware of our migrants to USA (only from someparts of AP). Is this not a great besmirch to ourcommon history and heritage?

The term Diaspora is originated from the dispersionof Jews from Israel since the time of Old Testamentand particularly after the decimation attempt byHitler (seems to be their long lost kin) during theSecond War. There are scholarly studies on thefascinating aspects of South Asian Diasporaincluding the economic networks that help hastenglobalization in recent times. But, the issuesrelating to the South are hardly discussed thoughwe were the first to widen our rule outside thepeninsula in the historical past. It is really painful toobserve that some of us keep on talking about themigrants of the North West or Jammu and Kashmir(like Pandits,Sindhis) while keeping speechlesswhen our own South Indians are being killed orpersecuted. It is necessary to raise the predicamentsof not only the North western Indians but also aboutour own people when incidents of victims ofgenocide are discussed (in the South). Of course,the exclusive right to talk about Tamilians asDravidians, seized by our neighbors may be partlyresponsible for this restricted action. Strangely,there is interesting discussion on the Net about thesabotage done to Tamilians in Sri Lanka by twoimportant antithetical personalities from the statebelonging to two different ideologies, yet unitedagainst the interests of the Tamils due to theiralleged roots in the North.

It is disgusting to read and discuss about the foreignthreats only as a North Western phenomenon. Thehistory, culture, language, politics and even crossborder issues are deliberated as North or Northwestern India as if nothing exists beyond Vindhyasor even in the East. In fact, the border with othernations is much longer on the Coast and in theHimalayas than the Western rim. No one appearedto be perturbed when the IPKF forces from


13

K.S. Chalam

Visakhapatnam had suffered causalities andtensions prevailed on the East or down South atKacchativu or persecution of fishermen on a dailybasis on our continental shelf. Are they notIndians?

The Tamil problem as it called in Sri Lanka isneither of a recent hitch nor the so called Tamils didmigrate from mainland India? We had a longhistory as old as the concept of Diaspora of Jews.Those who have an alien mind set or imaginarycultural roots with the cow belt while sustainingwith the local resources for generations in theSouth, is responsible for this fallacy. Sri Lanka wasonce a colony of India and according to somesources, both the Sinhalese and the Tamilians weremigrants from India while Prof SudarshanSeneviratne show that there are some nativeindigenous populations in the Island. The Andhra/Telugu people had a long link with Sri Lanka fromthe time of the Satavahana period when Hala theseventeenth monarch met the Sri Lankan princessLilavati and married her. It was Pallavas who builtKovils there and Rajaraja Chola I annexed SriLanka as part of his empire. It is said that, Mahindaand Sanghamitra left for Sri Lanka throughKalingapatnam and the left canine tooth of Buddhawas taken to Anuradhapura from Dantapura (SriKakulam, A.P). However, the plantationworkers and indentured labourers were exportedfrom the coastal South during 19th and early 20th

century by the British. Thus, we had long andcherished relations with the island that should haverattled our Telugu conscience when the issue ofTamil Diaspora surfaced.

There are two categories of Tamils in the Island.The original Sri Lankan Tamils are known as ElamTamils who had been there from 2nd century BCmostly in the North (Jaffna), and the Tamil, Teluguand Malayalee workers popularly called as IndianTamils are alleged to be from the recent origin andspread in different parts of the Island. It is nowestimated that out of 2.02 crores people, nearly onefifth (18%) of them speak Tamil. It seems, thesocial hierarchy prevailed in India had crossed the

border and have today around 20 uraikuts (castes).Though, Sri Lanka does not officially recognizecaste, the cruel design of caste system prevails. It isreported in some studies that the Agricultural casteslike Vellala, lower castes like pariah, pallar, nalavarand the numerically strong Karaiyar (fishermen)along with Brahmin sects like Salagama (Nambudri) , Piraman etc do exist among ITs(Indian Tamils). It is claimed that De Silva orRajapakse titles signify Brahminical allusion.

It is surmised that the mainland social hierarchyhad been moved on to Sri Lanka along with theIndo-Aryans who became the ruling elite. The issueof caste in Sri Lanka was raised by Convention onthe Eradication of Racial Discrimination, CERD ofUNO in 1996. There are conflicting views on thesystem of caste in the island; the Sinhalese claimthat it is prevalent only among the Tamils and thelower castes retort saying that everyone has ahidden agenda of caste. But, the issue of lowercastes seems to have played a very important role inthe so called ethnic conflict. It is reported thatPrabhakaran, the slain LTTE leader declared theaim of his movement is to achieve “casteless Tamilsociety by armed struggle’. Prabhakaran being amember of the lower caste Paraiyar (fishermen),banned scavenging and caste discrimination in thecadres and attracted majority from the panchamars( dalit) . But, the problem of social contradictionsamong the Tamils particularly among the InternallyDisplaced Persons (IDP) seems to have beensurfaced once Prabhakaran and the LTTE wereextinguished and their siblings are brutally killed(including Prabhakaran’s 12 year old son cruelend). It is reported that Prabhakaran has allowedthe lower caste cadres to own land and now, afterhis death there seem to be conflicts between thelower castes and the upper caste Vellala or theSinhala government might be playing the castegames by imitating India or getting tutored by somealleged Indian Intellectuals?

It is not only in Sri Lanka, but every where theIndian migrants went either in the past or in recentperiod have the problems of divisiveness based on


14

caste/descent. The problem appears to be serious inSouth Asia and America where our number isconsiderable. It is further provoked by those whoimagine that they are the descendants of Purus,Baratas,Huns,Parthians, Sakas, Pahlavas, Yavanasetc and had come from outside and settled in Indiawith the simple idea of ‘divide and rule’.Nevertheless, it would be an international problemif we fail to find out a solution to the social evilfrom the land where it is originated, and is beingspread to Anglo-American countries. If we fail tofind out a way out and try to fish in the troubledwaters as is being experimented by the Sinhalesewith the alleged support from crooks from India,the next war or Kurukshetra would be fought oncaste lines. Is the World prepared for anotherdiscourse on Niti and Nyaya to be sermonized byAvatar SriKishan?

II

Autonomous Council

for North Andhra

The perception of an autonomous councilto administer certain specific areas in the

country came up for discussion during theGorkhaland struggle. Interestingly, there was littlepublic debate on this issue except among the peoplewho are concerned with the problem and fewbureaucrats. The subject has cropped up once againin the present context of Andhra-Telanganasquabble.

The Constitution has provided for autonomouscouncils for tribal areas. But, it is very specific. It isunder Art 244 a mention is made aboutadministration of Tribal areas in two distinctsettings; the fifth schedule and the sixth schedule.The Fifth schedule is meant for ‘Scheduled Areasand Scheduled Tribes’ while the Sixth schedule isprovided for administration of ‘the Tribal Areas’ inthe North East. There are differences between thetwo. While the provision in the Fifth schedulecovers both the geography and the tribals living

there, the Sixth schedule is related to the region ofthe whole of North East where a stipulation is madefor autonomous council.

We need to understand the history of the region toappreciate the significance of some of the strugglesparticularly the Nepali speaking ethnic group,Gorkhas. It is important to recognize that thedemand for Gorkhaland is present in the district ofDarjeeling and in parts of the neighboringJalpaiguri. Both the districts are in West Bengal.The division of Bengal was archaic and arbitrary(see my previous article) when we look at the 21KMs length of passage to North East throughDarjeeling. We have very little information on theTea Gardens and how are they still under thecontrol of certain dominant powers. Interestingly,all the Gorkhas are not tribals and some of themhave mainland castes like Bahun, chhatri etc. Inother words, Gorkha region is distinctly differentfrom North East to get the label of a tribal region.This seems to be the real problem as they live in theFifth schedule area and have been demandingspecial status like that of the Sixth schedule.However, their struggle seems to have yieldedsome result in the name of Gorkha Land HillCouncil through an Act of the Parliament withBengal state legislative action. In our systemParliament is supreme and it can take any decisionin the interest of the country.

It is necessary to keep in mind that the wholepopulation of Gorkhas is about 10 lakhs and even asper the statements of some leaders, not even 50percent of Darjeeling and Jalpaiguri. Darjeelingdistrict has a population of 18.42 lakhs andJalpaiguri 38.67 lakhs in 2001. Therefore, wecannot compare an issue like Telangana or someother region in the mainland India with Gorkhalandas it would be laden with several intricacies.

In this context, the reckoning of the most neglectedregion in the country is found to be oldVisakhapatnam region consisting of KBK inOdissa and Srikakulam, Vizianagaram andVisakhapatnam districts of Andhra Pradesh. They


15

are found to be most neglected and underdevelopedin terms of every parameter of the economists. Thestate has a coastline of 950 KMs and half of it is inNorth Andhra, without any development exceptdevastation in recent times. The matter is mootedhere to show, if there is any region in the state thatdeserves an autonomous council like that ofDarjeeling, it is North Andhra. Because, the threedistricts including the tribal areas of Khammam(till recently part of Araku Parliamentaryconstituency) constitute the largest concentrationof tribal population in the state under the Fifthschedule.

The total tribal population of the three NA districtsis almost equal to the Gorkhas of Darjeeling andJalpaiguri. The forest and unused land coverage inthe three districts is about 55 percent and the tribalpopulation is about 15 percent of the state. If thesocio-demographic parameters of NA are taken, 90percent are backward with the highest outmigration. The irony is that there are no voicesfrom this region in the current dialogue except, I amtold about a brief memorandum submitted to the SriKrishna committee. This is because of thehegemony of leadership that does not allow thelocal voices to be heard from this region. Thepolitical leadership of North Andhra is so weak thatthe voices from Visakhapatnam are dominated bysome of the advanced districts signifying thepathetic situation there. In fact, late DronamrajuSatyanarayana , leader of the region used to arguein our seminars that outsiders have made politics inthe district a costly affair so that the poor localswould be naturally sidelined. Thus, I am told thatout of 5 legislators of the city, 4 are settlers and thelocals have never been elected for the Parliamentseat for about a quarter century. The newlyemerging voices are either sidelined or rebuked.Does the dumb region deserve a Council?

After having said this, I am of the opinion that mostof the emerging issues of underdevelopment,inequality and political empowerment arise as aresult of a policy framework. This would continueeven after the formation of political or geographical

or even historically recognized regions. It wouldagain create problems after some time. The issue ofTelangana is unequivocal, and by this timeeveryone seems to have reconciled to the fact that itis going to be a reality sooner or later. The problemappears to be about Hyderabad. I have already saidsomething of a parallel situation in Visakhapatnam.The city is swamped by outsiders through a processof marginalization of the locals. But, the wealthcreated in the cities with the help of local resourcesdoes not belong to them nor do the locals haveaccess to it. In fact, the problems of North Andhraare amplified only after the advent of liberalizationand marginalization of public sector. It appears thatin an underdeveloped region like North Andhra orTelangana or Rayalaseema, the (over)expansion ofcities like Hyderabad, Visakhapatnam, Tirupathishould be regulated by the state and privateventures should be allowed only outside theswelling metropolitan centers.

We have an interesting proposal from Vizag. If theproperties in Hyderabad and Visakhapatnam aretransferred to state (like in China) and access tolocals are given first priority (as they were earlierpublic or state properties and grabbed by privateindividuals), half of the problem would be solved.This would also give protection to public/privateproperties from mafia control and the clamor forHyderabad or Visakhapatnam or Tirupati wouldsoon disappear as the notion of property hasundergone a change through capitalization ofmarket. One can live anywhere in the World andstill own property. What is left is Telugu cultureand identity, that is beyond state and nationalboundaries and we should all strive to accomplish itas our common property. Bengalis living across theborder in Bangladesh and West Bengal have shownduring the 150th birth anniversary of RabindranathTagore that language and culture band togetherhumans more than religion. It is also reflected in thehegemonic culture of Anglo-Americans andtherefore the Telugu speaking people need notworry about the division of state on administrativeor other grounds.


16

III

Writers, Scholars and Freedomof Expression

The twenty first century knowledgesociety has created weightless goods and

is responsible for the demise of distance. Thisrevolution has facilitated access to information tothose who have the capacity to own or use ICT. Atthe same time, it is required to help the customer oruser to have free entry that is either seeminglyavailable without cost or at a price. This needsradical changes in the institutional structures thathave been evolved over a period of time and areresponsible for identity of the nations. One mayconsider this, as an element of transformation of thepost-modern society, or hegemony ofneo-liberalism. But, the required technologymaintaining the useful information is cost driven,mostly acquired from the Anglo-Americancountries. Already, the WTO regime is in placewith GATS to make even “expressions” capable ofgetting a patent. It is under this background,according to some cultural theorists, culture,knowledge and several other forms of intangiblegoods are packaged and marketed. Therefore, itneeds a market place to trade. Though, market isnow increasingly shaped by Internet, sometimes itis necessary to create a physical ambience to meetand exchange. If we extend the logic further, we seetoday that even the Media Houses are creating suchfacilities to ‘manufacture’ their own mediaproducts without depending on others. In asituation like this, International Literary Festivalsin countries where there are potential customersand subjects are received with great enthusiasm.

The recent controversy over the statement by aNon- Teaching Professor (Hon Fellow of aResearch Institutive and not a UniversityDepartment) is to be looked in to in the broadcontext of the changing times and the intolerance

against certain excluded groups (when their voicesare also heard feebly). It is alleged that some elitescholars from metropolitan centers under the guiseof research studies have started popularizing thereceived theories without adequate discussion withstudents and or peers. It is not for the first time thatthe country has witnessed such outbursts of peopleon social or cultural issues. We have a long historyof fights and duels in the country over petty issueslike endorsing the status of a particular caste; interfaith and intra sect issues trickling out in publicdiscourses and ending in legal battles. But, thepresent issue appears to be due to themisunderstanding or confusion to make adistinction between the statement/utterance of awriter and the proposition and observation of ascholar. This can also be interpreted as aphenomenon of social change (good or bad).

The increasing market for leisure time activityowing to rise in incomes and alternative sources ofentertainment have proliferated the publishingcompanies to bring, what is popularly called“non-fiction” categories. Otherwise, how do weaccount for the attendees like Ashis Nandy,Binayak Sen, Barkha Dutta, Dalai Lama,Gurucharan Das, Nandan Nilekani, Kiran Bedi et alat the recent Jaipur festival? There are somecreative writers, poets and sundry authors whomight have participated or visited the venue toshow case their writings. But, how do we evaluateor understand this phenomenon?

Writers are generally considered as those who writebooks, stories and other types of creative writing toappeal to the ‘senses or emotions’ of readers orpeople. They are not bound by any restrictionsexcept to correspond to the aesthetic values if theycare to. Literary critiques have developed severaltheories about the evaluation of literary piecesbased on the aesthetics developed in each countrygrounded on their culture and society. Indians arefond of’ Rasa’ theory while the Western, Africanand other nations might have their own parametersto judge creative writings including poetry (I amnot proficient to comment). Scholars are those who

17


have specialized in a discipline and have aptitudefor deep study and reflection. They can be broadlydivided in to scholars of Social Sciences andHumanities and Physical and Natural Sciences.There seem to be a design to marginalize and outwitthe social scientists who raise issues of socialconcern particularly in the emerging uni-polarworld. Therefore, we have deep crisis in socialscience research that I have occasionallycommented in my columns. I have touched theissue about a decade ago in my EPW article “SocialScience Research: the Social Context” (2002). Onthe other hand, there are writers who can addressanything from Nuclear energy to Nuclear familyand publish without sufficient theory, data,methodology and deep study of the problemwithout much concern for the consequences,academic or social. After all Social Scienceresearch is to be considered as a ‘process ofargument and not a body of settled conclusions’.Even established laws in Science are beingquestioned now and therefore, a social scientistshould feel more responsible and cautious inmaking public statements on contested issues!(Creative writers are different and Journos areprivileged people as the publicized word and voiceare under their control).

The scientists are responsible people and must be ina position to defend their argument or make it clearthat they are only making a protocol statementsubject to verification and falsification. In fact,serious scholars are not generally seen discussingissues in public except in the classrooms orinformed groups or gatherings. Unfortunately, thedecadence is seen much faster in issues relating tosocial science research with competing claims byeveryone including the civil society action researchbased on limited and sponsored agenda. If AshishNandy has made the contentious issue as writer, Idon’t think anyone would have an objection(subject to norms of the Constitution). But Nandyhas a tag as Professor of Political Sociology, SocialPsychology etc. It is not only Nandy, there are othercharacters, in recent times, who wanted to be in

limelight in the garb of (a new import from theWest) Public Intellectuals. Some self styled PIswith civil society connections are ever ready todown load standard printouts with high profilenames attached to statements, on any issue withouta proper debate and concrete secular agenda, needto ponder over issues of social consequences in apluralistic society?

The post liberal society has invented severalnotions and categories on the basis of theexperiences in the market economies of the OECD,and pushes them in to developing countries likeIndia through World Bank, MNC sponsoredpublications. It is now debated that the concept ofcivil society originated in the writings of Hegel,Marx and even Gramsci is being inverted toprovide the primacy of market over the state bysome PIs. In fact, Gramsci, it is said, revived thecivil society concept (to strengthen thesuperstructure argument) as a political activity ofstruggle against the tyranny of class state. PIs areneither serious scholars nor organic intellectuals,but are those who can translate complex ideas in tosimple people’s language. In that sense, everythinking person including the media people startingfrom a stringer to cameraman who can project thedegradation of basic human values should beconsidered as a PI. However, we know thestandards of some of our PIs who privatelymanipulate and twist issues depending upon thereciprocal value of the transaction. Do we havepublic Intellectuals like an Edward Said to questionthe hegemony of the West? Do the Nandys or PIscome under this category?

Some of the PIs including the media houses citeArticle 19 of the Indian Constitution time and againto vent their views in the name of freedom ofspeech and expression. They just do not tell us whythey have not been able to use it or have distortedImrana case or Kharlanzi or the latest case of a DalitProfessor being attacked in Dhule, Maharastrawhen he spoke on reformation movement in theclassroom that was captured in a cell phone andwebcasted to incite communal hatred? In fact,

18


article 19 is meant for citizens and not corporatebodies and consists of 6 other freedoms, withreasonable restrictions (of the Press Act of 1951,Press Council Act 1978 read with 1835 Act).Freedom of ‘opinion and expression’ isincorporated as Art 19 in the Universal Declarationof Human Rights of UNO and not the IndianConstitution. There are studies to show how theCorporate Media Houses particularly the dominantones restrict the freedom of expression of citizens

by manipulating and distorting facts as episodes orwhat Chomsky calls the ‘manufacturing ofconsent’. It is perhaps with the indulgence of somerepresentatives of the media; either confuse ordeliberately put statements of persons like Nandyas conduits of their depraved feelings and abusefreedom of expression of citizens. It may be due tothe willing cooperation of PIs who degenerate orget pampered by sectional interests, create ruckusout of nothing as perishable news value, but not adurable commodity of expert opinion.

19


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[Sandeep Pandey is an alumnus of Syracuse

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Award in 2002 for the emergent leadership

category. He has served as an adviser to CABE.

His idea of education is based on empowerment

by imbibing the spirit of cooperation instead of

competition. Currently he is working as a Visiting

Professor in the Mechanical Engineering

Department at IIT, Gandhinagar. He has been

involved in numerous struggles from workers’rights, communal harmony to nuclear

non-proliferation in order to protest the injustices

to the underprivileged people.

[email protected]]

The Maturing of Bodo Dream

A Tibeto-Burman tribe, the largest in theNortheast, habitating in Assam is

fighting for its right to be recognized as a distinctculture and people. Their demand is for a separateBodoland within Assam. At the 45th annualconference of the All Bodo Students Union during7-9 February, 2013, the wall writings in Tamulpurof Baksa district said ‘Divide Assam 50/50’. In2003 when Bodoland Territorial Council wasformed four districts – Baksa, Chirang, Kokrajharand Udalgiri – were included within it. It isbelieved that half the Bodos still live outside thisarea. Hence the Bodo aspiration is to create aBodoland consisting of entire area north ofBrahmaputra in Assam. The area under BTCjurisdiction called Bodo Territorial AutonomousDistrict has been created under the sixth scheduleof the Constitution of India. In 2004 Bodo languagewas granted 8th Schedule recognition withDevanagri script.

The demand for autonomy is justified because theConstitution of India has envisioned self-rule fortribal areas. However, this dream for tribals has notbeen realized anywhere. The state and centralgovernments retain the control over tribal areas andhave allowed only limited autonomy. The Acts likethe Panchayat (Extension to Scheduled Areas) orScheduled Tribes and Other Traditional ForestDwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) are notearnestly implemented by most electedgovernments of the country.

In fact, the BTC doesn't have provision forelections at the lowest and intermediate levels.Unless the Village Committees are elected thegrassroots democratic participation will remain adistant dream for people. These elections will alsoallow communities other than Bodo to have a say ingovernance process.

The movment for autonomy had begun as far backas in 1967 by a political party called Plain TribalCouncil of Assam, however, nothing much cameoff its efforts. The ABSU started its movmentdemanding a separate Bodoland on 2nd March,1987, under the leadership of Upendra NathBrahma. In 1993 Bodoland Autonomous Council


20

Sandeep Pandey

was created. But ABSU denounced the accord as itdid not address the grievances or aspirations ofBodo people and began a fresh movement forautonomy in 1996. It is a classic case of howdelaying tactics of government of India have beencounterproductive. While ABSU believed inpeaceful means of agitation, an armed group by thename of Bodo Liberation Tigers surfaced and wasinstrumental in signing the next accord with thegovernment in another incarnation as BodolandPeople's Front, which now controls the BTCthrough electoral process. Even after creation ofBTC, the BLT was not disbanded completely andcontinues to attract youth to its fold in the name ofBodoland Royal Tiger Force, an illegal entity set upto counter the other insurgent group called NationalDemocratic Front of Bodoland. The proof ofexistence of these armed groups is the occasionalkilling of intellectuals who dare to speak outagainst the BPF ruled council. It is also believedthat these organised armed groups were involved inmost of the killings during the recent communalriots which started as a provocation after killing offour former BLT and BRTF cadres. ABSUdemanded a CBI enquiry into the riots. It has alsorepeated its demand for deweaponisation of BTC.

Because of the bleak scenario of employmentyouth, especially the school drop outs from poorfamilies, are easily lured by the insurgent groups.As the BTAD fails to fulfill thesocio-politico-economic aspirations of thecommunity more and more youth find the logic ofjoining the militant groups quite compelling. Thison one hand means wastage of young talent whocould otherwise be engaged in constructive societybuilding and on the other results in weakening ofdemocratic values.

The literacy rate among the Bodo community isonly about 33% with the rate among the womenbeing lower than that of men. The community of 15lakhs people living within BTAD has produced 4IAS, 2 IPS, 2 IFS, 1700 Post-graduates and 4800graduates. The ABSU is making special efforts toimprove the status of education in the community

by organising career counselling for youth, creatinghealthy academic environment and encouragingteachers to upgrade their skills. The enlargement ofits agenda from a movement demanding autonomyto ensuring development rights is a very curiousphenomenon. They are now interested in learningways of accessing their rights and benefits due tothem through various government programmes.Hence they are learning about subjects like right toinformation and right to food with the help ofexternal experts. ABSU has taken a consciousdecision to focus on socio-economic andeducational betterment of Bodo community and todevelop a scientific culture to counter superstitions.The organisation has realised the futility ofviolence and is trying to wean away youth from thatpath.

The ABSU now commemorates 30th July asanti-terrorism day and celebrates Gandhi Jayanti asInternational Non-violence day. They havematured to the next level where they are conceivingof an Arms Free Bodoland and have taken a clearstand against the illegal arms culture and killingssince 2008 as they believe it spoils the futuregeneration.

With the adoption of non-violence and democraticagenda the ABSU has also opened its arms to othercommunities. The stage on 9th February, 2013, inTamulpur, at the open session was shared byrepresentatives from Gorkha, Missing, Tiwa,Rabha and other tribal communities. In addition to'we want Bodoland', the slogan 'we wantGorkhaland' was also being raised. It clearly showsthat they consider themselves part of the largerstruggle for assertion by marginalised communitiesand are willing to joind hands with other struggles.In fact, the demand for Bodoland has received animpetus after the recent movement for Telangana inAP.

Looking at development as human rights, adoptingnon-violence and reaching out to other democraticmovements are welcome signs of maturing of theBodo movement.


21

IRI / IRHA Members’ Section:

AFSPA and the Sedition LawMust be Repealed

Justice Jeevan Reddy and Justice J.S. Verma

Committees’ Recommendations

must be honoured and implemented:

While delivering the K. SubrahmanyamMemorial Lecture on ‘India’s National

Security – Challenges and Priorities’ at the Institutefor Defence Studies and Analyses on 6th February2013, the senior-most Cabinet Minister, P.Chidambaram, made a bizarre statement regardingmaking the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act amore “humanitarian” law, that the Uniongovernment could not move forward as there was“no consensus” between it and the Army on theissue. He further stated, “The Army has taken astrong stand against any dilution of the AFSPA…We can’t move forward because there is noconsensus. The present and former Army Chiefshave taken a strong position that the Act should notbe amended. They also do not want the governmentnotification [of bringing areas under the AFSPA] tobe taken back. How does the government moveforward…to make the AFSPA a morehumanitarian law?”

His words, coming as they do from the mouth of themost powerful minister of the Union government,do not augur well, in more than one way, for the

future of the world’s biggest democracy we claimto be. First, it is a stark admission of the fact that thepolicies of the government are determined by the‘strong stand’ of the armed forces and not guidedby the democratic and sacred Constitution of thecountry, nor are they bound by the opinion of ‘We,the People’ who gave the country that Constitution.Even Pakistan, which by no means claims to be atruly democratic state, has never admitted that itspolicies are influenced by the military generals orthe ISI (Inter Services Intelligence), a fact acceptedeven by the close allies of Pakistan. Perhaps heforgot that the country is governed by a civiliangovernment representing the will of the people whoexercise their control over it through their electedrepresentatives sitting in the Lok Sabha and itsfunctioning is based on the principle of thesuperiority of the civilian government over all otherdepartments of the government including thedefence establishment. His remark also seems tothrow into the dustbin the recommendations of thetwo important committees established by thegovernment itself – one under Justice JeevanReddy and the other under Justice J.S. Verma –both of whom have made recommendations againstcontinuance of the AFSPA in its present form.

Justice J.S. Verma Committee has recommendedthe Review of Security Laws in Conflict Zones.Giving the reasons for it the Committee has, in anutshell, made the following recommendations:

“Due to the number of reports of sexual offencescommitted by the armed forces in India's conflictareas such as Kashmir and the North East, theArmed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA) - acontroversial law that gives sweeping powers toand often confers immunity on security forces -must be reviewed. Security forces must be broughtunder the purview of ordinary criminal law ratherthan under army law. Special commissioners forwomen's security must be deployed in all areas ofconflict. Such commissioners will have powers tomonitor and take action in all cases of sexualviolence against women by armed personnel.Introduce ‘Breach of command responsibility’ -


22

Mahi Pal Singh

making a senior officer of security forces or policeliable to a jail term of at least seven years if his/hersubordinate commits rape.”

Justice Jeevan Reddy Committee has rightlyobserved, “While providing protection against civil- or criminal proceedings in respect of the acts anddeeds done by such forces while carrying out theduties entrusted to them, it is equally necessary toensure that where they knowingly abuse or misusetheir powers, they must be held accountabletherefor and must be dealt with according to lawapplicable to them. It is not unusual that there willbe some indisciplined individuals in these forces aswell, but their wrong actions should not be allowedto sully the fair name of the armed forces and thepara military forces. While our armed forces areone of the most disciplined in the world, situationsmay arise when they are deployed outside theirregular duties, i.e., when they are deployed formaintaining public order or for quelling internaldisturbance in a part of the territory of India, whencertain members thereof may seek to takeadvantage of their power and position to harass orotherwise trample upon the rights of the citizens ofthis country. The legal mechanism should ensurethat such incidents do not take place and shouldalso ensure that adequate remedial measures doexist where such incidents do take place.”

“Keeping in view the material placed before us andthe impressions gathered by the Committee duringthe course of its visits and hearings held within andoutside the North-Eastern States, the Committee isof the firm view that:

(a) The Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act, 1958should be repealed. Therefore, recommending thecontinuation of the present Act, with or withoutamendments, does not arise. The Act is too sketchy,too bald and quite inadequate in severalparticulars.” Commenting on the constitutionalityof the Act, the Committee says, “It is true that theHon'ble Supreme Court has upheld itsconstitutional validity but that circumstance is notan endorsement of the desirability or advisability of

the Act. When the constitutional validity of anenactment is challenged in a Court, the Courtexamines (i) whether the Act is within thelegislative competence of the Legislature whichenacted it and (ii) whether the enactment violatesany of the provisions of the Constitution. The Courtdoes not - it is not supposed to - pronounce upon thewisdom or the necessity of such an enactment.”

Was the minister’s remark of throwing theresponsibility of not letting the AFSPA be‘humanised’ squarely on the armed forces meant asan excuse for the government’s inability to amendor repeal the Act or is the government itselfcomplicit in the whole affair? It is true that the armygenerals would not like the impunity clausesremoved from the Act because they give their menthe freedom to act as they will, without anyaccountability being fixed on them or their higherups. If in the line of their duty they have to act toughone can understand it but, as the Supreme Courtobserved in a case related to the killing of fivevillagers in Kashmir by personnel of the armedforces in Pathribal incident, “You go to a place inexercise of AFSPA, you commit rape, you commitmurder, then where is the question of sanction (forprosecuting such officers)? It is a normal crimewhich needs to be prosecuted and that is our stand,”the judgement by Justice Swatanter Kumar andB.S. Chauhan declared a year ago. This is exactlywhat the Justice Verma Committee has observedand it is this impunity from prosecution whichJustice Jeevan Reddy Committee wanted to doaway with when it recommended repeal of the Act.No wonder that because of this impunity provisionin the last 54 years since the Act came into force in1958 not a single personnel of the armed forces hasbeen prosecuted for murder, rape and burning anddestruction of houses and villages in Manipur orKashmir where there are reports of disappearancesof people running into tens of thousands and massgraves of unidentified people were recentlydiscovered in the Kashmir valley. That the Uniongovernment has not published the Justice ReddyCommittee report or tabled it in Parliament till date,


23

though it was submitted in 2005, speaks volumesabout the seriousness of the government to makethe law more ‘humanitarian’.

The minister’s remark shows not only utterinsensitivity to the sufferings of the people,particularly women who ultimately suffer the bruntof the atrocities perpetrated on innocent peopleincluding tribals, apart from the pain of rape andmurder they are made victims of, but also contemptof the public opinion and saner voices raisedagainst draconian laws like the AFSPA, thesedition law and the UAPA which have been, andstill are, used against the suffering masses whoraise their voices in protest against forcedusurpation of their land and means of livelihood,

their health and safety rights and their right todissent – be it in Jammu and Kashmir, Odisha,Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, Tamil Nadu or elsewherein the country. In a democratic set up such lawshave no place and go they must. These laws haveonly resulted in untold suffering to the people,alienating them and brewing more and morediscontent among them. The government must alsounderstand that it is not ‘impunity’ but‘accountability’ which is the governing principle ina democratic country and that the ultimate‘sovereign’, “We, the People”, have every right todemand it and the government is morally bound tohonour that demand, particularly in the light of thereport of the two Committees.


24

Please join the Encyclopedia of Radical HumanistsTo be loaded on the RH Website

http://www.theradicalhumanist.com

Dear Friends,

This is to request you to send in your personal details, contact numbers etc. (along with your

passport size photographs) as well as brief accounts of how you got associated with M.N.

Roy/Radical Democratic Party/Radical Humanist Movement directly or indirectly through the

philosophy of New Humanism.

This is also a request to all those friends, whose deceased parent/parents were involved in or

were sympathetic with Radical Humanism and its Movement, to send in accounts of their

parent’s/parents’ association (as much as they can recollect and recount). This will be a loving

and emotional tribute to their memories from your side.

All this effort is being made to form an encyclopedia of the Radical Humanists right from the

days of the beginning of M.N. Roy’s social and political activities in India and abroad.

All this information will be uploaded and permanently stored on the RH Website in the Profile

section for everyone to read and come in contact with one another.

This will be a historical check-list to connect with all the crusaders who worked or are still

working for the human cause on the humanist lines.

—Rekha S.

[Sanal Edamaruku is the founder president of

the Indian Rationalist Association (IRA). He has

been appointed an Honorary Associate of the

Rationalist Press Association (RPA) of Britain

and the New Zealand Association of Rationalists

and Humanists (NZARH) in 2000. He is a well

known author, columnist and speaker at

conferences and universities in India and abroad,

appears frequently in various Indian TV channels

and is considered to be the most prominent and

outspoken advocate of rationalism in India.

[email protected] Article taken from:www.rationalistinternational.net.]

Japan - South Africa – India

Evolution of a patriotic newavatar of superstition

Tiranga Bangle is the name of a newproduct on the great Indian superstition

bazaar. This copper bracelet promises to relieveyou from pain, cure a range of illnesses includinggout and arthritis, protect you from the damaginginfluence of radioactivity and boost your energy,strength and vitality. Such claims are nothing veryspecial in a country where scores of lucky charms,miraculous pendants, protective amulets, healingcrystals and holy oils are out to lure the gullible andthe fearful. But this is a slightly different story. Andit is alarming.

This wondrous product does not come in the usualtranscendental wrapping. No mantra tantrabusiness. The gentlemen who make a pitch for it arewell educated, suave and sophisticated Congresspoliticians, widely respected for their modern,liberal and socially responsible approach. The headof the bangle business, Naveen Jindal, studiedmanagement at Dallas, USA. He is one of thecountry’s richest industrialists and a member of theIndian Parliament. For the high profileinauguration in January, Jindal was joined byShashi Tharoor, once Under Secretary General ofthe UN and currently serving as Minister of Statefor Human Resource Development. Tharoor isanother Congress politician cultivating a modernman of the world image.

Jindal presents the bangles’ beneficial effects asachievement of cutting edge science. They areenergized with what he calls Tri-Vortextechnology. But despite all its pseudo-scientificblahblah, it is as baseless as witchcraft and voodoo.In an interview that appeared in the magazineOUTLOOK, I reminded at the Indian Constitutioncontaining the fundamental duty to develop andpromote scientific temper. “If ministers promotemagical charms, they have no right to remain inpower. They should be booked under the MagicalRemedies (Objectionable Advertisement) Act fornot verifying the veracity of their claims”,OUTLOOK quotes me. Tharoor reacted quicklyand distanced himself from the miracle claims. He


25

Sanal Edamaruku

only spoke about the good work of the FlagFoundation, Tharoor later clarified.

Yes, that is the cue: Tiranga is the name of theIndian flag. The magic bangle has been launchedand is now sold under the auspices of the FlagFoundation of India. That is an NGO founded byJindal and his wife to promote the display of thenational flag at every possible opportunity. Theyfought a successful court battle to get the flag codechanged and won the right for every Indian to flythe banner on all days. Not too many people makeuse of this victory, but ever since the seventeenbillion “Jindal Group” would show Indian colors ingiant format. Patriotism pays in India. And now,Jindal and his NGO try to make Indians believe thatwearing a bangle in flag’s name is a patriotic act.With the bracelet around your wrist you don’t justboost your personal health, you also do your bit tosave the nation, as the bangle is designed to serveIndia’s ‘oneness’ and unity.

Patriotism is highly respected and widespread inIndia. Seen as a positive and constructive force tocreate unity in a country of great diversity, it isclose to everybody’s heart.

It is not old fashioned, on the contrary. It isflourishing today among young and future orientedIndian achievers. In times of rapid developmentsand confusing globalism, they find stability andsecurity in the pride to be Indian.

Superstition, neatly dressed up as science andlinked to patriotic feelings is an unscrupulous newbusiness plan. It is aiming beyond the shrinkingtraditional circles of incense smelling psychopathsto delve into untapped markets with great futurepotential.

To make it sustainable, customers are asked toregister their bangle on the Flag Foundationswebsite and get reminded when it needs to berecharged.

As Indian as Jindals’ Tiranga campaign may look,it has international roots. The idea is imported fromSouth Africa, where the energized copper braceletis selling as “46664 bangle” like hot cake since

years. It is sold by one Dr. Anton Ungerer, whopopularized his business by advertising that itsproceeds were to benefit the Nelson Mandela Fund.

Jindal refers to Ungerer’s elaborate scientificresearch on the Tri-Vortex technique that isdescribed like this: In an electrical chamber, apowerful field of complex energy is generated“including properties of sound, light andgeometry”. Within 24 hours, it creates “flowingmolecule structures” in the copper bangles (or inanything else that you put in the chamber, likewood, food or water).

By way of “biomimicry”, the energized itemsimprove the “cellular coherence” and the flow ofenergy in plants, cows and humans, causing allkinds of beneficial effects. Sounds great, but isunfortunately only pseudo-scientific blahblah.Renowned scientists have dismissed such claims,and neither Jindal nor Anton Ungerer could so farpresent any evidence or independent scientificresearch supporting them.

In South Africa, a respected consumer rightsorganization stood up against Ungerer. Meantime,the Advertising Standards Association of thecountry has ordered his company to withdraw their“unsubstantiated claims”.

Ungerer did not invent the Tri-Vortex technique.He took it from Japan. The murky source of it allseems to be the work of one Dr. Mararo Emoto,who specialized on energizing water. Emotopresented his sensational “scientific” findings in2003 – and was immediately challenged by JamesRandy. Randy offered him one million dollar if hecould reproduce his claimed results in a controlleddouble blind test. Emoto was not ready to accept.

Marato Emoto’s claim he could create healingwater by transforming molecule structures andenergy flows is far older than his Tri-Vortextechnique. Before 2003, he used to propagatesimpler methods: meditation and prayer. Or hewould affix scrips with magic words on watertanks. Jindal’s Tiranga Bangle has come a longway!


26

[Dr. Swarajbrata Sengupta is a celebrated

author, editor and linguist from West Bengal. He

is a permanent Fellow, South East Asian,

Underdeveloped Language Communities

(Manila). He has authored many prominent

books; some of them being—Modern Science:

Man and his Imagination; Modern Science:

Philosophy of M.N. Roy; Science, Society and

Secular Humanism; Gathering Fuel; Jean Paul

Sartre; Surrealism; Poem in the Ear; Arts and

Semitics. Ph. 91-033-6730398]

Nationalism: Rabindranath &M. N. Roy

Nationalism is a political philosophy inwhich the welfare of the nation is

paramount. But the word is used loosely to implyexcessive zeal for the national honour and welfare.In general, nationalism may apply to nationality inboth the political and cultural sense. Nationalismhas played a vital and constructive part in thecreation of modern nation-states. In states wherethis function has already been realised, however“the worst features of nationalism have emerged, asin Fascist Italy and National Socialist or NaziGermany” (M. N. Roy). Fervent love of nationimplies a belief in national superiority andgenerally involves the glorification of nationalhistory and cultural heritage, which are often usedto justify narrow-minded national interest. “Thus

strong nationalism may lead to hostility towardother nations.”(Rabindranath) Internal conflict andeconomic depression may lead to nationalistaggressiveness and to the attempt to solve problemsby the booty and glory of conquest. Suchnationalism is thus frequently linked withimperialism.

Blind belief in the superiority of one’s own cultureand fear of rival cultures have been found to exist inprimitive tribes. The feeling is akin to nationalism,and similar doctrines played a part in the history ofmost of the successful ancient states. Evenstronger, however, was the tendency toward thecreation of universal states. The development ofancient empires, especially of Rome, providedpolitical and cultural concepts that bound togetherdiverse peoples. When the Roman Empire wasfragmented into innumerable small statesorganised around feudalism and manorial system,the tradition of universality did not die. A universalscholarly language and cultural heritage, and auniversal Church still remained, and the HolyRoman Empire was based on universal concepts.But as strong centralised monarchies were builtfrom petty feudal states, as regional art forms andlanguages were evolved, and as local economieswidened, popular identification with thesedevelopments became increasingly strong, thusmodern nationalism began to emerge. The religiouswars of the Reformation set nation against nation,though the strongest loyalty continued to adhere tothe sovereign rather than to the state. In thesixteenth and seventeenth centuries the nationalisteconomic doctrine of mercantilism appeared. Inareas such as Italy, which were not yet singlenations, recurring invasions led such thinkers asMachiavelli to advocate national politicalfederation. The growth of the middle classes, theirdesire for political power and the consequentdevelopment of democratic political theory wereclosely connected with the emergence of modernnationalism. A full-blown nationalist literatureappeared with romanticism. Herder was anadvocate of nationalism in Germany, where

27


Swarajbrata Sengupta

political national sentiment was lost in the localismof inconsequential independent states. He saw inthe energetic development of national sentiment nodanger to other nationalities; each could serve theworld best, he thought, by fully developing itsindividual attributes. In England Jeremy Benthamadvocated national development in his liberalutilitarian philosophy. Thus at first nationalism wasclosely linked to democracy and liberalism.Nationalism first emerged in politics in the FrenchRevolution. The revolutionists glorified theirnation as well as their principles of liberty, equalityand fraternity, and they desire to spread theirdoctrines abroad by armed force if necessary.

It was in opposition to the empire of Napoleon thatnationalism rose as a vital force in Europeanpolitics. In the era of reaction under Metternichstrong efforts were made to put down nationaliststrivings. But the Balkans was shaken, especiallyby the Greek War of Independence, and in LatinAmerica the new Republics imitated the UnitedStates. The revolutions of 1830 were to a largeextent nationalist, the revolutions of 1848 saw theContinent overrun with nationalistic fervour.Nationalism had become the driving force innineteenth century politics. Italy obtained unitythrough revolution and bloodshed, and Germanywas unified under the leadership of Prussia, thoughBismarck’s policies led to three wars. The last ofthese, the Franco-Prussian War, raised anothernationalist problem by the taking ofAlsace-Lorraine, for irredentism is close tonationalism. In America the national unity wasmaintained at the cost of the civil war. Imperialistnationalism appeared in the attempts to ‘Russify’Poland and to ‘Germanise’ the Czechs in Austria.Hungary, Bohemia, Ireland and Poland allexperienced strong nationalist movements. Therewas widespread sympathy and support for theliberation of ‘suppressed nationalities’ such as theIrish and the Poles. With the emergence in Europeof strong integrated nation-states, nationalismbecame increasingly a sentiment of conservativesand it found outlet in pursuit of glory and empire.

Nationalist conflicts had much to do with bringingon the First World War.

Woodrow Wilson’s fourteen points guaranteed theself-determination of peoples; nationalself-determination was the basic principle at theParis Peace Conference and the League of Nationswas founded on principles of internationalism.However, the years after the War saw a resurgenceof nationalism, partly because of irredentism andpartly because of economic difficulties. Nationalisteconomic movements (high tariffs and the like)appeared. Fascism, which emerged and took powerin Italy. Germany, Spain and Japan, drew heavilyon national sentiment. The Fascist dictatorshipused nationalism to divide their opponents and tounify their own groups. At the same time arecrudescence of nationalism (‘nationalism paintedred’ as name by M. N. Roy) seemed to appear inRussia. In Asia and Africa colonial territories,seeking to cast off imperial bonds, developedstrong nationalist movements.

The Indian National congress, for example, was thepolitical aspect of a nationalist enthusiasm that hadlong pervaded Indian life. In the pre-colonial pastHindus, Bantus and Ashantis and other groups wereglorified culturally and historically, in order toshow the existence of elements endemic tonationhood.

After the Second World War with the fall of FascistPowers and the victory of ideals of freedom anddemocracy, nationalism that, in the long run, mighthave betrayed these ideals triumphed in theemergence of many newly independent Asian andAfrican states. Nationalism in Europe, Asia andAfrica has been most ardently promoted even bysome leftist groups and leaders. Though the UnitedNations supports valid national aspirations, itprimarily symbolises the ideal of world allegiance.Nevertheless, nationalism remains a powerful forcethroughout the world.

Rabindranath Tagore, the poet-philosopher andManabendranath Roy, thephilosopher-revolutionary, these two Great

28


Sentinels of our time did never give way to thispowerful force. Rabindranath wrote, “when thisorganisation of politics and commerce, whose othername is the Nation, becomes all powerful at thecost of harmony of the higher social life, then it isan evil day for humanity (Nationalism, p.5). Aftertwo decades or more Manabendranath named it ‘anantiquated cult’, ‘a philosophy of the frog in thewell’. While Rabindranath in his book dealt withbigoted ideas of nationalism in Japan, and India andthe West, Manabendranath very boldly dealt withdeluded ways of nationalist movements in Indiaespecially during the years of the Second WorldWar. Both were equally conscious and cautious ofthe evils of nationalism.

Rabindranath’s Nationalism was first published in1917 and Manbendranath’s in 1942. Theperspectives or the ways of regarding nationalismwere, naturally, more or less different, though theystood on a common ground of all-pervadingphilosophy of human progress. Rabindranath’sideas and views had great concern and anguish forwarring nations of Asia and Europe. He wastroubled and tormented if and when haughty andpowerful nations did encroach upon thesovereignty of other nations in the first two decadesof the twentieth century. The rise of Fascism, too,

had roused his agonised concern for humanity.Manabendranath concentrated his vision to the riseof Fascism (the other name for vulgar nationalism)in variegated forms in these two continents and itsoffensive attack on freedom and democracy in thelast two decades of the century. He held the viewthat it might be the most dreadful destroyer ofhuman civilisation, with which history of mankindhad ever come in confrontation. In allegiance tothis view, in the Second World War, he stronglysupported the Allied Nations led by Great Britain intheir determined attempts to destroy the‘destroyer’. He could visualise that after the Warand defeat of Fascism, and in the process ofweakening of the imperialist nations, India andother colonies ruled by them would be independentsooner or later. He was a much abused man in theIndian nationalist circle. It is, however, in him- notin the nationalist leaders- that Rabindranath, anavowed idol of the Indian nationalists, had akindred spirit. Both the savants drank deep in theideas of the Renaissance and had great confidencein man and his rationality. Like Rabindranath,Manabendranath too had always spoken againstorthodoxy of nationalism-nationalism that wasdegraded and dehumanised.

29


Humanist News:

Dr Samaram in Telugu Book of Records

for writing 200 books on Medical Science And Health Education

Dr. Samaram of Atheist Centre has written and printed 200 books on Medical Science and health

Education in Telugu language. He promotes science and scientific outlook and exposes blind beliefs

and superstitions.

His aim is to promote individual and social health. The Telugu Book of World records recognized his

contribution and presented the Certificate of his Record.

—News sent by Dr. G. Vijayam,

Executive Director,

Atheist Centre,

Benz Circle, Vijayawada, 520010, Andhra Pradesh, India

Teacher’s & Research Scholar’s Section:

Debacle of IndianAcademics

The condition ofIndian academics

has receded to worst in recentyears. The absence of Indianuniversities figuring nowhere

among the top 200 universities of the world,indicates the receding condition of academics, itslow quality and poor performance of academiciansthroughout country. Why India fails to producegreat thinkers and scientists and why Indianscholars fail to produce such research work asproduced by foreign universities. No doubt, Indiahad produced some good scholars but in meagernumbers. There are multiple reasons fordowngrading academics in India which range fromstructural problems, social problems, and systemfailures to student deficiencies. No one can escapefrom its responsibility behind the academicdebacle; government, institutions, teachers,students and society’s socio-cultural setup, all areresponsible for degrading academics in India.

While in western countries academic institutionsare autonomous, ironically in India they are undergovernment control, whose influence is visible allover their functioning, management and control.Their autonomous freedom is curtailed, asuniversities are not immune from rigidadministrative manipulations. The posts ofchancellors in state universities are occupied bygovernors and in central universities by centralpolitical executive. This naturally connectsacademics with politics and forms interlink withpolitical setup of the country. The politicalexecutive often warns universities to eschewpolitics, at a time when genuine demands are raisedinconsistent with political objectives. The syllabus

is modeled as per the wishes of politians. Havinginternal political connections and outer control, therecruitment process in universities is usually underquestion, where posts are filled on the basis ofnepotism, favoritism and corruption. Many timesmerit is openly neglected, and in conflict proneareas, like Kashmir, status quo oriented people arerecruited and those who raise a voice against thesystem are often rejected.

Most universities have been turned into managinginstitutions and most of them neither teache wellnor conduct proper researches, what they do is toproduce ‘copy-paste’ dissertations. Least trainingis given to research scholars to do research andmany times are guided even by teachers to applythe art of plagiarism. Often students lack researchability while pursuing research. It follows that theprocesses of selection and selectors are faulty. Themethod of selection of research scholars is simple;either you have high marks in masters or pass theentrance exam. To some later may seem good, but itis as faulty as the former. Student just memorizessome questions and writes them in examination,and in India it is easy to make guesses aboutexamination questions. Recently, candidates whoqualify NET JRF were directly selected for PhD.This is not correct for research because this exam isonly a tag with memorization based examination,and there is no chance of showing research aptitudeof students by it. Often those who qualify JRFactually have less research aptitude and ability. Theproblem of all ills is faulty examination process. Noexam of Indian academics highlights intelligenceof the students, evaluation is faulty; everything isdone on short-term memory based process. Withthe result that there appears to be only acompetition of obtaining more marks. Theexamination pattern is narrow focused, and notsuited to the proper academic requirements.

The teachers themselves merely disseminate theknowledge produced by others without doingcreative original research work. They enjoyadvantages, power, high salary, prestige, andprivileges attached to their job. Even some teachers


30

Mudasir Nazar

though getting one lack to two lack rupees salaryper month, do not teach a single class. The nobleprofession has been polluted by many incompetentteachers. In most of the universities, teachers havedeveloped authoritarian mind set and a veryuncomfortable relationship with students. Bias inacademics is like a poison in Indian academicinstitutions, which eats students’ creativity andharms their thought-process. Teachers oftendiscriminate in giving grades during exams, on thebias of caste, color, class, religion, and ideology.Voice against injustice is taken as poison and itsoutcome often is lesser grades in their researchworks.

Students themselves too are not immune from it.We often read selective information and read onlyin order to pass examination and as such have noculture of reading. Many students even PhDscholars are copying (cheating) in the so-calledexaminations. What does research mean in India?Nothing more than simply editing and imitating. Ascholar brings 20-40 articles and some fifteen totwenty books and starts to copy and edit from theminto a body of dissertation. Research is often donein AC libraries, and scholar fails to attain the fieldknowledge attached to his topic of study and sodoes not research over them. We are making fun ofresearch and our country too when they pass ourdissertations. Students disinterested in research can

be found empirically in universities and race to getemployment is the actual concern of scholars andnot research. Why because Indian situation andIndian social setup both confirms to it.

Moreover, students while pursuing research areactually preparing for civil services exams, andspend too much time in reading newspapers andmagazines and precise information in order to passexam. The civil service syndrome has taken awayresearch aptitude of scholars, due to huge privilegesascribed to it by the society; and academicprofessions are considered subordinate by thepeople and often students are put under heavypressure to choose their career to enter into civilservices because of the benefits associated with it.This results in brain drain of higher education toadministration and good and capable mindssometimes become defunct. The feudal attitude ofpeople to encourage their children to enter intogovernment services and not teaching would leadto serious repercussions on the academicprofession. People claim that corruption should endbut also want their children to become civilservants in order to manipulate the system forpersonal gains, earn money through illegal waysand get hidden benefits from the state. Such is thestate of our higher studies!

Mudasir Nazar is pursuing M.phill in South AsianStudies, JNU, New Delhi, India, and can be mailedat [email protected].


31

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Book Review Section:

[R.M. Pal co-edited Human Rights of Dalits with

Mr. G.S. Bhargava. He has also co-edited Power

to the People: The Political Thought of Gandhi,

M.N. Roy and Jaiprakash Narayan with Mrs.

Meera Verma, published by Gyan Books, New

Delhi in two volumes and ‘Human Rights Issues

and other Radical Essays’, Aakar Books, New

Delhi. He is the former Editor of PUCL Bulletin

and The Radical Humanist. He is also the former

President of Delhi State PUCL.]

[BOOK: A. Ramaiah, Laws For Dalit Rights

And Dignity, ISBN: 81-316-0057-2, Edition2007, Pages 304, Price Rs.625 / US$45, BindingHardback]

I have been greatly interested in theresearch findings of Dr. Ramaiah, because

I myself since I took over the PUCL Bulletin as itseditor introduced the topic of societal violations ofHuman Rights, i.e. atrocities perpetrated on Dalits.In fact, I introduced this topic as an agenda for thePUCL and lobbied with the NHRC. It is at mysuggestion and persuasion that the NHRC held aconference on the subject of Human Rights ofDalits. The conference was held in Chennai incollaboration with the Chennai based NGO DalitLiberation Education Trust. It was a successfulconference held in 1997.

I was first introduced to Dr. Ramaiah’s scholarshipand research through one of his articles published

in the Delhi based weekly Mainstream. In thatarticle he maintained after quoting increasingfigures of atrocities on Dalits in spite of laws thatexisted for curbing such atrocities on Dalits. In thesame article he gave evidence of his research abilitywhen he refered to a village in Tamil Nadu whereupper caste Christians who converted from uppercaste Hindus to Christianity and yet followed theupper caste status. They compelled the lower casteChristians to drink human urine and eat humanexcreta. The fact that this can happen still inindependent India drove me to the conclusion thatwithout abolishing the caste and varna system it isnot possible to stop atrocities on Dalits. I used thisarticle of Dr. Ramaiah in my book ‘State of HumanRights in India’ stating that I expected to get thesefacts and figures from the annual report of NHRCand not from any research article. When Dr.Ramaiah received this note from me he was verykind to send me a complimentary copy of his bookunder review.

When I was in Delhi I had come to know fromJustice Ramaswamy, a member of the NHRC that anew law, Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe(Prevention of Atrocities) Act 1989 had come intoforce and that the provisions of the act were sosevere that the atrocities against the Dalits arebound to come to an end. I was not so sure of thisassertion. It is after this that I read Dr. Ramaiah’sbook, a product of massive research and massivescholarship. Let me start by quoting from thepreface in the book Protecting Dalits (ScheduledCastes, SCs)who constitute a significant proportionof Indian population, from those who treat them asuntouchables and subject them to inhumanbrutalities and extreme forms of exploitation whichhave been a major challenge to both the State andthe civil society organizations since India’sindependence despite special protective laws suchas the Protection of Civil Rights Act 1955 and SCand ST (Prevention of Atrocities Act) 1989. Evenafter their implementation for several decades,atrocities on SCs continue to remain a day-to-dayreality in most parts of India. Unlike most other

32


R.M. Pal

evaluated studies which rely heavily on empiricaldata the present study is based mostly on qualitativedata and has depth in its rigour. The unique featureof this book is also that it presents to the readers theviews of the stakeholders and others concerned asthey have expressed to the author. These viewshave however been grouped under differentsub-headings with a view to avoiding repetition ofideas and views. Such an approach on the one handgives an opportunity to the readers for making theirown judgment on the ground reality and on theother restrains the author from interpreting thereality either by over-playing or under-playing thedata which are always there for the readers to checkand recheck. I must quote a few lines from hisintroduction (in order to indicate his passion foruplift of Dalits). India, one of the oldestcivilizations and second largest popular countryhousing over 16% of the world population, hasachieved multi-faceted progress sinceindependence. It has become self sufficient inagriculture production, literacy has increased from18.33 in 1951 to 52.21in 1991, among theindustrialized countries it stands 10th; it is the 6th

powerful nation in the world particularly in thefield of information and technology. Moreimportantly, in all international forums India hasstood against all kinds of discrimination includingracial discrimination like apartheid. Yet a section ofthe citizens, the Dalits (SCs who constitute over16% of its population as per census of India 2001),are subjected to inhuman and invidious indignities,exploitations and brutalities and treated asuntouchables even today. Such a scenario defeatsthe very meaning of freedom from the British ruleand also the ideal of Indian Constitution – Justice,Equality and Fraternity. I may add that as a matterof fact these Dalits have not even been recognizedas person in India for centuries and this is all aboutwhat Dr. Ramaiah explains in this great book. Dr.Ramaiah has done a very useful thing for humanrights activists in that he has given summaries of allthe important acts like the PCR Act 1999 and POAAct in Tamil Nadu. He has also given the number ofcases reported under PCR Act, nature of atrocitiescommitted against the chosen 15 cases, and alsofactors responsible for acquittal in PCR/POA Actcases.

33


Humanist News Section:

I

Inauguration of Books written by Radical

Humanist, Late K Radhakrishnamurthy.

As a part of 125th birth anniversarycelebrations of M.N.Roy, a book release

function was organized by Adarsh Publications,Hyderabad on 27th January 2013 at Press Club,Basheer Bagh, Hyderabad. Sri Ravela Somayya, aveteran socialist, presided over the function.

The book, Gandhian Way was inaugurated byDr.K.P.C. Gandhi, founder director of TruthLaboratories, Hyderabad and spoke about thecontents of the book, appreciatingRadhakrishnamurthy for his balanced criticism onGandhi.

The book Marxism and Communism was

inaugurated by Sri K.Srinivas, editor of AndhraJyothi daily and spoke on the occasion about themerits and demerits of Gandhism and Marxism.

Sri Ramachandra Reddy, Ex-member of parliament(Rajyasabha) inaugurated the book M.N.Roy –Lifeand Thought and appreciated the greatness of thephilosophy of the Radical Humanism, proposed byM.N.Roy.

Prof K.S.Chalam ex member of U.P.S.C., who wasthe chief guest of the function summarized thecontributions of M.N.Roy on physical realism,party less democracy, social change andcosmopolitan humanism. Sri Somayya gave a briefaccount of Radhakrishnamurthy’s Life andThought besides comparing contributions of Marx,Gandhi and M.N.Roy. He also congratulated thefamily members of Radhakrishnamurthy forbringing out the re-prints of above three books.

On behalf of Adarsh Publications, Sri JawaharlalJasti welcomed the guests to the dias in thebegining and also conveyed vote of thanks to all theparticipants, for making the function a success atthe end.

About the author of the books—

Late Koganti Radhakrishnamurthy

Born on 18thSeptember 1914 at Kuchipudi village near Tenali,Mr Koganti Radhakrishna Murthy was earliestRadical Democrat and follower of M N Royphilosophy. He established Nalanda Press in Tenali


34

and brought out several radical publications inTelugu. He founded the journal Sameekshafortnightly around 1945 in which several eminentpersons like Kodavadiganti Kutumbarao, Chalam,Sri Sri, contributed articles.

He also started publishing company called PrajaSahitya parishad under which several books werepublished. Besides writing a book on the Life andThought of M.N.Roy in Telugu, Mr Radha KrishnaMurthy also translated M N Roy’s articles inTelugu and brought out a volume entitled: RoyVyaasaalu.

Mr Radha Krishna Murthy contested as a candidateof Radical Democratic party in Tenali (GunturDistrict) Constituency during 1946 assemblyelections. In those days only tax payers have voteand hence their number was very limited. MrRadhakrishna Murthy lost the election but madevigorous campaign to propagate the ideas ofRadical Democratic party. After independence MrRadhakrishna Murthy with the cooperation of MrM V Ramamurthy established Prajaa swamyaprachuranalu and brought several RadicalHumanist books in Telugu. He was activelyassociated with Lala Laja Pat Rai cultural club inTenali.

He participated in several radical democratic studycamps and public meetings in Andhra. MrRadhakrishna Murthy wrote lengthy preface toTripuraneni Ramaswami`s revolutionary bookBhagavadgita. He passed away on 3rd January1989.

Report by— Gumma Veeranna, C.B. Rao

II

An Invitation on behalf of Forum For All

India Socialist Democratic Forces:

RASALO MANCH

I am sure you must be greatly disturbed bythe present socio-political situation over

shadowed by all-round corruption, crime againstwomen, dalits and other weaker sections, fastgrowing inequalities, erosion of human rights,

politics devoid of democratic values, economicsetup that is bent upon keeping the masses on dolerevisiting the king-beggar relation of the past; inother words, crumbling of the edifice of secular,socialist, republic that we built 65 years ago.

For last two years, we have been witnessing theexplosion of young generation’s anger andfrustration in agitations against corruption andatrocities against women, dalits and other weakersections of the society. This new phenomenon,which has puzzled many, reminds us of severalrevolutions going on simultaneously, as mentionedby Dr. Rammanohar Lohia, in his lecture on ‘SevenRevolutions’, delivered in 1962. This is a call for anew setup, not only political but also economic,social, cultural and educational. This presents achallenge to intellectuals and activists of all fieldsand expects some guidelines from them. With thisaim it is proposed to hold a meeting of activists andintellectuals and try to prepare the framework forfuture action.

To begin with, we propose to deliberate on theagenda for the alternative political setup. The draftagenda which was evolved out of discussions heldduring last two decades is attached. It is proposed tohold discussion on this and try to give clearguidelines for the future.

The meeting will be held, on Saturday, 23rd March,2013 (birthday of Dr. Rammanohar Lohia andmartyrdom day of Bhagat Singh, Sukh Dev and RajGuru) at Rajendra Bhavan, Rajendra Akademy,Deen Dayal Upadhyay marg, New Delhi, 110002,from 11.00 Am to 5 PM. The detailed programmewill be intimated to you later. In the meantime, werequest you to see the draft and intimate yoursuggestions as well as your consent to participate inthe deliberations so that we may finalize theprogramme accordingly.

We will eagerly wait for your response.

Yours Sincerely

Mastram Kapoor

Phone: 22710479

[email protected]


35

III

Bangladesh blogger murdered amid massive

protests

Ahmed Rajib Haider (on Facebook)

While thousands of demonstratorscontinued their agitation and

occupation of the streets and in particular theprotest hot spot of Dhaka’s Shahbagh Squreintersection, a blogger activist was stabbed – hisefforts joined those caught up in the hysteria of amass demand for a death sentence for Jamaat leaderAbdul Quader Mollah, not just the life sentencehanded down.

Protestors included teachers, students, politiciansand cultural activists, who vowed to continue themovement until their demand is met.

Forty-two years after the Liberation War, oldmemories and sentiments of the Bangladeshliberation were rekindled as the multitudes refusedto leave the street and go home until their demandfor capital punishment for Bangladesh 1972 warcriminals were met.

The sudden agitation began on 12 February, 2013,after a Bangladesh 1971 War Crime Tribunal gavea life sentence to Jamaat leader Abdul QuaderMollah, with the unrest continuing throughout thenight.

“The spirit of the protest spread to other parts ofBangladesh,” reports Nasrul Jashim, humanistactivist, “with sit-ins and demonstrations takingplace in Chittagong, Sylhet, Rajshahi, Rangpur,

Sunamganj, Barisal, Rajbari, Noakhali andNarsingdi,” and by 15 February, such were the heatof the protests in Cox’s Bazar there were threedeaths – on top of the one in Dhaka and the other inChittagong.

Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami has called acountrywide dawn-to-dusk general strike for 11February besides the daylong shutdown in Cox’sBazar district for the 16 February in protest againstthe killings. These might be a last gasps becausepopular opinion now calls for the party’sdissolution.

In the capital’s Shahbagh, different political partiesand their student wings joined the rally that beganas a people’s movement. The parties included theruling Awami League, Workers’ Party ofBangladesh, Communist Party of Bangladesh(CPB), Jatiya Samajtantrik Dal (JSD), andBangladesh Samajtantrik Dal (BSD).

“The spirit in Shahbagh is infectious as people keptbreaking out in chants of ‘Tui Razakar’ [in English- you're a war criminal] and sang gono shongeet(mass song) in unison,” Jashim reports.

“Dhaka University Art Institute students paintedmurals and caricatures of the known war criminalswhile others made effigies with papers and sloganboards and hung them from poles,” Jashim says.“There was even a life-size game of ‘Razakar ludu’– a game of snakes and ladders with the warcriminals as the main players. Street plays anddances lent the event a festive air, without lesseningthe gravity of the protestors’ demand for the deathsentence. Candle light vigils and torch processionshave continued after dark.”

Now there is an added dimension among the youngbecause news of the killing of blogger AhmedRajib Haider (blogger ThabaBaba – #shahbag) iscirculating – he too demanded the death penalty.

The so-called International Crimes Tribunal isquestioned not only about that decision but aboutits credibility and fairness. Also, the government isunder strong criticism. This is annulling any creditit might have earned for bringing the perpetrators of


36

war crimes to justice, and this disjoint indicates adifferent perspective of the youthful who havelargely distanced themselves from the eversquabbling political parties, the powerful familiesruling either side of the political divide.

…“A spontaneous uprising of conscientious andconscious young men and women, deliberatelydistancing itself from the established politicalleadership and entities, this is the most excitingmoment in Bangladeshi politics for years,” is oneline by Zafar Sobhan, editor of the Dhaka Tribune,a daily newspaper.

As that commentator says, “It is richly ironic thatthe current opposition to the government is fromthose supporting the war crimes trials and notagainst them. This is opposition from a directionthe government never anticipated, and if they arenot able to either co-opt or cool down or otherwisecontain this mobilisation of consciousness andawakening of activist emotion, it may yet consumethem.”

The prosecutions are long overdue. Over fourdecades the ghost of the atrocities and crimescommitted during the war of independence haveechoed around in the Bangladeshi psyche. Initiatedby the Awami League on their return to power in2009, the nation has begun to better come to termswith its past and could move forward as a whole.

Each of the 10 of those on trial for war crimes hadmoved into senior political positions, in either theJamaat or the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP),and were figures of massive influence and respectand two were ministers in Khaleda Zia’s lastalliance government.

It was well known and was darkly spoken thatpeople like Abul Kalam Azad, a fugitive fromjustice for the past 10 months, were able to avoidprosecution and were able to remain powerful andinfluential figures pointed at the underlyingproblems at the heart of the Bangladeshi societyand government.

21 January, 2013, will find a place in Bangladeshhistory as the day the first war crimes conviction

was handed down, against Abul Kalam Azad akaBachchu Razakar, 65, found guilty on seven countsof murder, rape, abduction, torture, and genocide,and sentenced to death in absentia.

“A more punctilious judicial process that was notopen to any question would have served the nationimmeasurably better,” continues Zafar Sobhan,“even better than a judicial process, a truth andreconciliation commission would have been evenmore useful. I for one would be willing to tradepunishment for a full and honest accounting andapology.”

In this stand he is one of a minority on the streetsthat don’t support the death penalty for any crime,no matter how heinous. For now though, the headystreet action has the populous fired up.

As spoken by another commentator on theBangladesh protests, “Something exciting ishappening inside Bangladesh, and the verdict issimply a catalyst, but the people must exerciseextreme caution not to allow passion to trample thefundamental underpinnings of democracy,” FrankDomenico Cipriani, founder of The GathererInstitute.

He says the fact that Abdul Quader Mollah waseven brought to trial is remarkable considering theeasy fate of some of the most of notorious warcriminals in post Cold War history and goes on tolist (as an apologetic USA citizen he concentrateson his own backyard!):

“1953, Iran: Mohammed Mossadegh threatens tonationalize British Petroleum interests in Iran. TheUS supports the overthrow of Mossadegh and he isreplaced by Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi. Theregime’s secret police, SAVAK, regularly torturesand murders any Iranian deemed “Enemies of theState.” Pahlavi rules as Shah of Iran until he isoverthrown in 1979. He dies in exile, neverstanding trial for treason or crimes againsthumanity.

1954, Guatemala: After a democratic governmentis deposed by the CIA, Efraín Ríos Montteventually comes to power in Guatemala. In a

37


non-binding tribunal conducted by the RomanCatholic Church, Montt is convicted of massacres,rape, and torture, and for carrying out a policy ofgenocide of the indigenous people. He is purportedto be responsible for the death of over 200,000 ofhis countrymen. He gained immunity, and is onlynow, in 2013, standing trial.

1959, Haiti: US helps install “Papa Doc” Duvalier.He and his son, “Baby Doc,” initiate a reign ofterror in which over 100,000 people are killed. TheHaitian government has recently put Baby Doc ontrial for corruption only, despite the carnage of hisregime. Duvalier may, in fact, dismiss all casesagainst him. The former dictator lives freely andopulently in Haiti.

Dictatorships in Brazil and the DominicanRepublic, killed thousands. No one was ever

brought to justice. Chilean Dictator Pinochet,Indonesia’s Suharto, Pol Pot, and Milosevic allescaped punishment of any sort.”

It is timely and opportune that the trials take placeand the debate and confrontations are necessary,the only caveat is, why the violence and on thatscore, why the death penalty when imprisonmentfor life gives that long period of isolation for areconsideration of how changes should take place,with least harm to the nation and its nationals.

Dhaka, Bangladesh- Posted by: Tony

Henderson Posted date: 17 February 2013 In:

Asia, International, Politics

—Tony Henderson

Journalist and Chairman of theHumanistAssociation of Hong Kong

Mobile: 90487639

[email protected]

38


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An Appeal for Donations

Indian Renaissance Institute (IRI) was founded by M.N. Roy, noted revolutionary and thinker, in

1946. The main objective of the Institute is to promote scientific thinking, rationalism and values of

‘Renaissance’. You may visit our website to know more about our Institute:

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In its continuous efforts of pursuing its objectives and for commemorating the occasion of 125th

Birth Anniversary year (21st March, 2012-20th March, 2013) of M.N. Roy IRI is holding an

International Seminar on the theme: “Humanism & Contemporary Politics”, on 16th

& 17th

March 2013 at India International Centre, New Delhi, India as already announced on the first

page of this issue.

The subjects chosen for discussion are, thus, focusing on the basic theme of humanism, such as

Challenges before the Human Society, Social & Political Crisis, Globalization & its effects,

Humanist Movements and their role, Effect of Science & Technology upon the Human Value

System and Relevance of Radical Humanism.

Large numbers of participants are expected to join from India and abroad.

We, therefore, appeal to members, subscribers and sympathizers of our movement

to make donations to enable us to successfully organize the seminar and carry out

our other activities for our cherished objects.

Cheques /bank drafts may be made in the name of the ‘Indian Renaissance Institute’ and may be

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Online donations can be sent to at the following address:

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Appeal made by:

B.D. Sharma, President

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Between Renaissance and Revolution-Selected Essays: Vol. I- H.C.350.00

In Freedom’s Quest: A Study of the Life and Works of M.N. Roy:

Vol.Ill H.C.250.00

Against the Current - H.C.350.00

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Science and Superstition - H.C.125.00

AWAITED OUTSTANDING PUBLICATIONS

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Nationalism - H.C.150.00

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The Intellectual Roots of Modern Civilization - H.C.150.00

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From the Communist Manifesto - P.B.100.00

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From the Absurdity to Creative Rationalism - P.B. 90.00

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Voice of A Great Sentinel - H.C.175.00

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