FROG WEDDING TO APPEASE 'RAIN GOD' IN NORTHEAST INDIA

By CJ Sandeep Hazarika in Itanagar

In a ritual to appease the rain god, villagers in Tripura and Assam married off frogs hoping that it would end their sufferings arising out of a protracted dry spell in India’s northeastern region. Frog weddings are traditionally performed in northeastern India during drought-like situations before the onset of monsoon. “It is believed that the rain god is pleased when a frog wedding is performed. Since there has been no rain for the past couple of months, we have conducted a frog wedding to appease ‘Barun Devata’ (rain god),” said Sandhya Chakraborty, a resident of Fatikroy village, 115 km north of here.

TeaGschwendner: The Distinctive Pleasures Of Tea Flavour

After many hours spent without food or drink, Muslims all over the world break their daily fast with water and dates followed by an invigorating cup of tea or coffee. A large part of the pleasure tea affords is that it gets you high but it is a “high” so gentle that we hardly notice it, yet it is for the sake of this subtle “high” that tea has been developed and constantly refined by generations of tea lovers during its five thousand year history.

In 1955, the New York Academy of Medicine held a symposium on “Pharmacological and Physiological Effects of Tea” and confirmed that unlike coffee, tea does not cause nervousness, insomnia, or stomach irritation when drunk in quantity.

Why Nagaland Lynching Was Not Just Outrage Over Rape?

A sensational incident shook the Indian culture and forseen the change in agitation. On 5 March, the country was jolted by a horrific incident that questioned the security of India's jails. Thousands of people stormed a jail in Dimapur, Nagaland, dragged a man accused of rape out on the streets, stripped him and then lynched him. 

The man had allegedly raped a 20-year-old Naga college student several times on 23 and 24 February. Infuriated by the news, residents of Dimapur decided to turn vigilantes and murder the man in full public view.

Inside RSS Women’s Wing: Yes To Wife Beaters, No To Divorce

Following the incident of rape in Delhi, which left a 23-year-old physiotherapy student dead, the struggle for women’s rights and safety has gathered momentum in the country. While one would like to think that women across the country echo the same feelings and are probably equally restless about the patriarchal structure around which they have to arrange their lives, the RSS women’s wing seems to be a study in contradictions.

One one hand they encourage women to come out of their homes to join a political organisation and organise camps to encourage sports on the other hand they keep reiterating that a woman’s primary duty is towards her family and its well-being.

An Outlook article by Neha Dixit, explores the amusing mechanisms within the women’s section of the party, called the Rashtra Sevika Samiti.

The article traces how the pracharikas or the workers of the group take pride in the fact that they are not backing or demanding women’s rights. Rather, they seem to be content with the fact that they are working towards the creation of a ‘Hindu’ nation. The women’s wing, which has close to 55,000 branches across the country also seem skeptical of the feminist movements working their way against patriarchal domination in the country.

In a particularly interesting section, the reporter talks to a young woman about the dynamics of the man-woman relationship, to which the said RSS workers reveals shockingly misogynistic ideas. What is even more strange is probably that, in the mammoth women’s organisation she works in and for, such ideas are endorsed as perfectly credible.

The reporter quotes twenty-something Sharda from Jabalpur: I turn to Sharda from Jabalpur. In her late twenties, Sharda has been a whole timer for five years. She tells me that apart from the shakhas, the Samiti also counsels women in their respective areas. There is a manual that is followed. When I ask her, “What advice would you give to a victim of wife beating?” she answers, “Don’t parents admonish their children for misbehaviour? Just as a child must adjust to his/her parents, so must a wife act keeping in mind her husband’s moods and must avoid irritating him. Only this can keep the family together.” Similarly, divorce is also a non option for women. She says, “Our task is to keep the family together, not break it. We tell the women to adjust. Sometimes, we try counsel the husband too.”

While women of the country might be busy taking potshots at men and the likes of Mohan Bhagwat, perhaps it’s time to take a deeper, critical look at their own kinds.

Last fortnight saw two debuts: One, the nation for the first time thronged the streets on the issue of gender. Two, RSS Supremo Mohan Bhagwat’s moment of epiphany was well timed, like never before, for the nation to reflect upon his misogyny and sexism. Bhagwat, within a span of three days, came up with two significant statements: a rapist prefers ‘Indian’ women over ‘Bharatiya’ women and a woman must satisfy her husband for food, shelter and protection. The Rashtra Sevika Samiti, the RSS’s women wing, with 55,000 shakhas all over the country, not just ascribe to the above tenets but also holds camps and indoctrinates thousands of girls-toddlers, adolescents and old- to propagate the idea of a ‘culturally sanitised’ Hindu rashtra and the patriarchal roles it offers women to conform.

The rubber slippers were neatly lined outside the assembly hall. Thirty eight pairs, I counted. The multi-coloured chalks decorated the blackboard, next to the shut door, that announced, ‘12th December, Swadeshi Diwas, Akhil Bhartiya Pracharika Abhyas Varg, Sambhajinagar.’ This, one of the many, three day training camp for the Pracharikas of the Rashtra Sevika Samiti commenced just a day before Gujarat went to polls. A sudden cacophony of hurried footsteps broke the silence, that was powerfully guarded by the hillocks of Jatwada village twenty five km from Aurangabad district for Arya Chanakya Vidyadham, the venue for the this training camp.

Three black dots appeared in the corridor where I was waiting. They were three women.. Sunita, the first dot was the organiser of the camp in her early forties, ran to the hall to instruct the pracharikas to maintain silence. Shanthakaka, the Pramukh Sanchalika of the Samiti, and Sharad Renu, the Bauddhik pramukh tried to match the fast steps of Suresh ‘Bhaiyyaji’ Joshi, the general secretary of Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS). Bhaiyyaji was here to train the pracharikas over the next three days. Shanthakaka’s authority reflected in her salt and pepper hair and double chin, Sharda’s stoic face changed with a flush of reverence and submission. Bhaiyyaji entered the hall, grabbed the microphone and said, “ Gaiy jab ghas khaati hai to apne bacche ke liye baandh kar nahin laati magar ek mahila kuch bhi khaati hai to apne parivar ke liye baandh kar lati hai. Is antar ko pehchaano. Yahi ek mahila ki shakti hai ( A cow does not pack grass after she finishes grazing but a woman packs some part of it for her family to bring it back home. Identify this difference. This is the strength of a woman.)” While motherhood is taught as the absolute objective for a woman , it is this subordination of Shanthakaka and her battalion of Samiti whole timers to be indoctrinated by a man with alacrity, is what establishes the existence of the Rashtra Sevika Samiti, India’s largest right wing women’s organisation.

Even though the RSS was founded in 1925, when women were already active in all shades of anticolonial movements-nonviolent as well as revo­lutionary extremism-it did not even develop a women's front for the next eleven years. Lakshmibai Kelkar, known as ‘mausiji’, the mother of a Maharashtrian RSS veteran, had approached Dr. Keshav Bali­ram Hegdewar, the founder and leader of the RSS, many times in the early thirties for the admission of women, but he was not responsive. At last in 1936 he agreed to her proposal and advised her to set up a separate women's wing. The Samiti was formed with intention to create awareness among women about their cultural and social responsibilities. Replicating the RSS schedule, the women are trained in the Hindutva idealogy and paramilitary through shakhas, vargs, yoga and discussions.

“Mausiji lived next to my mausi’s house, where I grew up, in Nagpur. Mausiji was touring the region with her son to spread the network of Samiti Shakhas. Her idea of worshipping Devi Ashtabhuja drew me to the Samiti. Devi Ashtabhuja is a symbol of realisation of Hindu women’s image. That of a woman’s chastity, purity, boldness and sacrifice. Above all, a woman has the divine power of womanhood who can nurture a character based society, ”says 83 year old Pramila Medhe fondly known as Pramila Tai. She is the oldest member of the Samiti and has served with all the four Pramukh Sanchalikas and has been a Samiti Pracharika (whole-timer) for the last sixty years. Epitomising the tenets laid down for a samiti pracharika, Pramila Tai is a celibate like the pracharaks of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh. 

The position of Pramila Tai, as a pracharika in the Samiti is a prestigious one. With a high level training in paramilitary and the Hindutva ideology, they are expected to take on the responsibility to move into new and sometimes remote areas to spread the message. Chastity heightens their iconic status for it is deeply associated in Hinduism with notions of spirituality, purity. These qualities also make these women reliable spokes­persons for the future Hindu rashtra sons for the future Hindu rashtra (nation). Renunciation-both sexual and material--exercises enor­mous moral force within the parameters of Hinduism. 

Immaculately dressed in a pink cotton nine yard Maharashtrian saree and a spotless, crisp white blouse, she gestures me to eat the freshly plucked custard apples as she goes on to explain the basic values and the purpose behind forming the Samiti and the role of a pracharika. “Pracharikas pledge their lives to the making of the hindu rashtra instead of running towards material and domestic bliss. Once we commit ourselves to the cause, it is the Samiti’s responsibility to take care of our well being. In that process we need to learn to live humbly and simultaneously train ourselves to be strong enough to travel to villages, often alone and use public transport like bus, trains etc.” Once the pracharikas are trained, they establish new shakhas in their areas and train other sevikas in physi­cal or intellectual skills and organize campaigns.

It is important to note that the name Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh means ‘Nationalist Volunteers’. In contrast, the term Rashtra Sevika denotes women who serve the nation. This difference in the meaning does hint at the conventional humble service that is expected of a sacrificial woman. The sense of autonomy and self-choice that are associated with the word "volunteer" are notably missing.

The pracharikas are categorically told that the difference between the Rashtra Sevika Samiti and other women’s organisation is that unlike others they do not fight for women’s rights, instead they fight to create a Hindu rashtra. With the ‘bhagwa’ (saffron) flag for guru, the Samiti believes that the Indian women already enjoy equal rights in an egalitarian Hindu rashtra. “It is the western women who had fight for their rights in the 1920s unlike us,” says Tai emphatically. 

When I ask her how possible is it in a patriarchal society like India where women are expected to conform to the subordination, she is outraged and echoes the same ‘social contract’ Mohan Bhagwat talked about last week, “We are not feminists, we are familists. We believe in ‘dampatya’ (conjugality) where a man and a woman together need to bring up a family.” . The Samiti does not confront them with the larger problems of their socially exploited sisters, so that the Hindutva women are never forced to choose between gender and their own class/caste privileges. It keeps them tied to family interests and ideology while spicing their lives with the excitement of a limited but important public identity.

The gong rings and pracharikas break for lunch. I am invited to join them as they sit in queues, legs folded, waiting for their turn to be served food by the volunteers. That is when I got a chance to interact with Sunita, the organiser of the camp. Sunita, originally from Aurangabad was sent to the Northeast to organise shakhas and mobilise women to join the Samiti. Her posting was a follow up to the Nellie massacre in Assam in 1983 where the Bangladeshi muslims and Assamese Muslims of Bengali origin were targetted as ‘outsiders’ by the locals. Official records suggest that over 1800 people died and several injured. The report submitted by the Tiwari Commission in 1984 was never made public by the government. “I have been working there for the last 25 years under difficult circumstances battling the Muslim and Christian invasions.” 

Conflict areas like the Northeast, often ignored by the Indian state, sometimes for their remoteness and mostly because of cultural alienation are the breeding grounds for indoctrination. Kokrajhar, an Assam district, recently in news for communal riots has been at receiving end of the tensions between the locals and the Muslims, who have to keep proving their East Bengal origins. With increased competition for livelihood, land and political power has led to frequent violence in this district due to its geographical proximity to Bangladesh.

In 2008, in an exact replica of the recent violence in Kokrajhar in July this year, Bodos-minority community violence killed 100 people and displaced nearly 200,000.Twenty eight year old Karabi’s house was also burnt and she lived in the refugee camps for the next three months. “The food was limited, there was no place to even sleep. My family was dispersed and my mother died during the riots. The camp was infiltrated by the Bangladeshi immigrants. It is then when I met Sunita didi. She took me to the Samiti shivir where I learnt how to fight for my rights and to take away what is mine.” 

Karbi, originally from the Bodo tribe is now a carrier of the Hindu religion in Assam. Roma Chakraborty, a Grahini sevika (part-timer) who joined the Samiti in 2009 after retiring from her job at a local power grid, is helping Karbi organise bal shivirs in Silchar district in Assam. They are required to travel to all the tribal villages in the state and distribute Hindu literature, lockets, pamphlets. According to them, travelling to muslim villages in particularly difficult. “By the end of January 2013, we wish to see photographs of Bharat mata in each household in this area.” says Roma. 

The increasing conversions to Christianity in Arunachal Pradesh is another threat that needs to be tackled. “The christians have money and thats how they are luring the tribals and converting their faith.” To fight this, 13 pracharikas from Assam have travelled to train themselves at the camp. Roma also hints at a joint action that is being planned by the samiti along with the RSS to stop the Bangladeshis to cross the border and stay in the refugee camps at Kokrajhar.

The bal shivirs, Karbi and Roma are set to organise, are popular tools to inculcate ideas and cognitive Hindutva strategies in the kids. These kids, often in the age group of 5 to 8, attend camps of different durations ranging from one day to three day organised by the Samiti. “Isn’t it better if they learn ‘Bharat desh, mera desh, meri mata aur pranesh, meri jaan, mere praan, Bharat mata ko qurbaan’ instead of ‘Baba black sheep, have you any wool’, says Radha Mehta, Delhi Prant Karyavahika. The malleable minds of these kids are worked upon through games, patriotic songs, arts and crafts workshops to teach the importance and the need of a Hindu rashtra. “We make them draw Lord Ram, Rani Laxmibai and Lotus flower and make them curious enough to ask about these figures,” she adds. 

Door to door campaigns and counselling of the families helps them convince the parents to send their kids for the camps. Lure of free food and clothing are often reasons enough that these kids become regulars at these camps, the importance of which is best realised in conflict zones like the Northeast, poverty stricken areas like Vidarbha or the ghettos in metros like New Delhi that accommodate the migrants from the villages.

Another training camp targeted at the adolescents is called the kishori varg. In Delhi alone, last year over 250 girls attended the 15 day camp. Door to door campaigns, targeting young girls who hit puberty and thereafter are engaged in ideological discourses about Hindutva and paramilitary exercises like sword fighting and martial arts. The social base of the women of the Hindu Right, however, is easily identified as overwhelmingly upper caste, middle class, and urban. When I ask Radha, sitting in the drawing room of her West Delhi home, with the embellishments accordingly matched to her maroon velvet sofa and cushions, about the socio-economic status of these girls who attend the camps, she is evasive, “ We get volunteers from all classes. There are several migrant families near our office in Paharganj. And then there are girls from areas like Chandni Chowk from ‘well to do’ families.” 

At this point, it is interesting to note that in the last elections in the Chandni Chowk constituency in New Delhi in 2009, it was recorded that the Muslim electorate went down from 40 percent to 13.38 percent with a 62 percent Hindu population, mostly dominated by OBCs and SCs. Inducing the alacrity in the parents to send the daughters to the kishori vargs is lined with initial complications. “People are often apprehensive about sending their daughters to the camp because they think like the pracharikas, their daughters too will opt out of a family life,” says Roma.

Dressed in a salwar kameez, with the dupatta slung across one shoulder and tied on waist diagonally, she was serving food and refilling the pracharikas’s plates at the Aurangabad camp in the most efficient manner. Supriya Hattekar, 22, has been associated with the Samiti since she was 12. When I sit her down and ask her where is she from, she emphatically says, “Sambhajinagar.” In January, 2011, the ruling Shiv Sena in Aurangabad passed a resolution to rename the city to ‘Sambhajinagar’. 

Several centuries ago, the city was named Aurangabad after the Mughal emperor Aurangzeb whose mortal remains are buried in the city. The city has almost 60 percent Muslim population. Supriya is a student of Master of Computer Application and aspires to become a software engineer. “Besides unemployment, there are two major problems that need to be addressed”, she says. “One is that young girls must be stopped from putting their pictures on social networking websites like Facebook. They risk their honour and then their pictures are morphed into nude ones and circulated. They invite blackmailing by this. Secondly, when girls are eve teased, they are scared to talk about it for the fear of defamation. 

There is a need for a body which these girls can approach to avoid this.” It reverberates the misogynist comments like that of BJP leader Sushma Swaraj who described a rape survivor as a ‘zinda laash’ (corpse). To add to that it also reminds of the fatwa issued by Madarsa Manzar-e-Islam of Dargah Aala Hazrat, an organisation of Sunni Muslim clerics, last month who termed as 'haraam' the uploading of photos on the internet for matrimonial purpose and on social networking sites. Curiously but expectedly, the patriarchal idea of female honour, a commodity that needs to be protected, and the religious practice of putting the onus on women for being wronged are deeply manifested in Supriya’s notion of female values.

It is also significant that female-pattern violence is more often characterized by self-defense as opposed to male pattern violence. The body-centered practices for women have old and varied meanings and values within different currents of Hindu patriarchy. Supriya also volunteers to teach sword fighting and martial arts at the kishori vargs. These trainings can be witnessed at the training camps: elaborate, passionate drills with cries of ‘Jai Shiv Shankar’ and ‘Jai Maa Durga ki’ follow after each attack on the opponent. When I ask Pramila Tai, the purpose of training the girls in sword fighting in this day and age, she says, “I know it is obsolete. But it gives the girls a confidence that if an invader attempts to violate them, they can turn around and hit him hard with any object that comes handy.”

Muslim lust for the Hindu woman has been one of the staples of RSS propaganda and selective memories of rape during the Partition riots are well known.The ‘invader’ here is a direct reference to non-Hindus i.e. Muslims and Christians. From Savarkar's formative writings on Muslim rule in India, the stereotype of an eternally lustful Muslim male with evil designs on Hindu women has been reiterated. While the women are made to establish themselves as political subjects through an agenda of hatred and brutality against a besieged minority, it is love jehad that is seen as a crucial combat that they need to collectively and strongly engage in. Says Shanthakaka, “Muslim boys are encouraged to elope with our girls. The money they are paid to elope and marry a Hindu girl depends on the caste of the girl. The remuneration for Rajput girls is Rs one lakh and for Brahmin girls is Rs two lakhs.” Girls from lower castes are not seen as a good ‘catch’ neither does it bother the Samiti enough.

The kishori vargs are most potent tools to entangle seething teenage emotions with patriarchy. They propogate the idea of gendered spaces, curbing young questioning minds to aspire for domesticity and motherhood instead of independent, ambitious, liberated lives. Says Rekha, “ When the girls join the camp, they question us when we ask them not to wear western outfits like jeans or backless tops. They are told that it not our tradition to show the shape of our body parts. It takes time to make them understand the logic.” Comparatively, this may seem a lesser battle to fight. 

The Samitis regard higher education and professional careers for women as desirable, even though strictly conditional upon pa­rental consent. Not surprisingly, most pracharikas are graduates and postgraduates. However,the Samiti manual clearly mentions that ‘after marriage, a girl will have many responsibilities in her new home. It is not advisable for her to bring disquiet by refusing to compromise. If ordained by her fate, her husband will permit her to study.’ This stems from the clear understanding that domesticity is the sole purpose of a woman’s existence and that equilibrium has to maintained at all personal costs. Similarly, love marriage can only be allowed through parental consent.

Kemi Wahengbam, 26, has been a whole timer for the last two years. Originally from Manipur, her association with the Samiti dates back to when she was a teenager. Initially hostile and then hesitant to talk to me, she said, “ Our work is like sugar in water. You cannot understand it unless you taste it.” Kemi later reveals, “I grew up amidst the army rule, bombs, killings. Association with the Samiti was a welcome change. Religion not just gave my life a direction but also a chance to see the rest of the country.” Kemi has been posted in Gujarat for the last two years and under her tutelage at least 50 new girls have joined the Gujarat shakha. When I ask Kemi about the Gujarat riots and the killings of 2,000 Muslims she resorts to the age old definition of a riot, which is irrational, spontaneous violence, not once acknowledging the possibility of it being organised. She says, “It was a reaction. Hindus are very tolerant by nature. 

Hindu kings have even funded the construction of mosques and churches in this country. So clearly, during Gujarat 2002, all thresholds were crossed for the Hindus to turn so violent.” Kemi’s answer exposes the complicity of the Samiti in the riots and the violence against the Muslims in the way that involves their informed assent to the brutalities against Muslim women which involves gangrapes, slicing of their breasts and the tearing open of pregnant wombs. Refusing to talk to me further, Kemi leaves the dormitory, where the pracharikas were staying for the camp.

I turn to Sharda from Jabalpur. In her late twenties, Sharda has been a whole timer for five years. She tells me that apart from the shakhas, the Samiti also counsels women in their respective areas. There is a manual that is followed. When I ask her, “What advice would you give to a victim of wife beating?” she answers, “Don't parents admonish their children for misbehaviour? Just as a child must adjust to his/her parents, so must a wife act keeping in mind her husband's moods and must avoid irritating him. Only this can keep the family together.” Similarly, divorce is also a non option for women. She says, “our task is to keep the family together, not break it. We tell the women to adjust. Sometimes, we try counsel the husband too.”

Discussion in the Samiti are no mindless gestures but highly informed convictions. Knowledge and education are often used to vociferously debate contemporary issues in the light of Hindutva. The next session was to discuss such issues. FDI, the most recent point of opposition evoked passionate debates among pracharikas. Pramila Tai goes on to give an example, “Twenty years back, there were television commercials for food products that claimed that it is like ‘home-cooked food’. Now a days, the television commercials sell food products with a tagline that it is ‘restaurant-like’. 

Isn’t this an insult to women?” Her argument against capitalism is seen through the prism of the domesticated roles assigned to women. She adds, “Even when I may have ideological differences with Indira Gandhi, she took great care to meet the smallest of demands of her sons, Rajiv and Sanjay.” Live-in relationships are seen as an anomaly. “They do not guarantee legal rights to the women, neither do they provide the framework for a family and children to lead a normal life,” says Poonam, the pracharika from Delhi. She goes on to discuss homosexuality, “These days, western concepts like lesbianism have seeped into the Indian culture. They are destructive and abnormal.” Falling female sex ratio emerges as another talking point. Sharda, the bauddhik pramukh argues, “If the number of girls will go down, the number of Hindus will decrease. 

And it has been historically proven that whenever, the number of Hindus has gone down in this country, the nation has suffered a crisis.” In an ideology, where women are predominantly mothers who could help the Sangh cause most by rearing their children within the RSS framework of samskaras- a combination of family ritual and unquestioning deference toward patriarchy and religion, these responses are predictable. However, the areas of marriage, divorce, inheritance, sexuality, and reproductive rights in this context also define the place of women and assign them a subordinate status within the community. When I ask them about Hindu terrorism and Sadhvi Pragya, Tara from Panipat jumps to the defence of Hindutva, “She cannot be involved in such an incident. It is a conspiracy to malign Hinduism as a religion. The Samiti teaches the concept of ‘vasudev kutumbakam’. 

A Hindu can never be a terrorist. Terrorism in itself is an ‘American concept.’ She cannot harm on her own family members. What she did could have been a reaction.” I see this as an apt moment to bring in the age old debate about the Ram janmabhoomi and Babri Masjid. There is tense silence when Pramila Tai decides to take the lead. “The ASI has handed over evidence of the mandir. Inspite of that we have been suffering the humiliation of not being able to construct a mandir. When we demand it, we are branded as communal. Hindus have a history of tolerance. Unlike, in Russia where people demolished the statues of Lenin and Stalin, we have allowed mosques to exist that were built during Aurangzeb’s era. Instead of appreciating that we are denied our rights and are instead misinterpreted.”

In the company of such forthright women, it is only pertinent to ask why women still do not hold powerfully political positions in the country. Shathakaka answered,” We do not believe in satta. Parliament is simply a law producing machine. We believe in reforming the society which cannot happen through the weak foreign and economic policies of the political parties.”

No wonder, when compared to the women’s organisations of the Left like the All India Democratic Women’s Association, the Samiti has always taken a backseat in initiating social reform movements.

The Samiti has led a low­ priority, non innovative, routine-bound existence and it is that passivity and unquestioning attitude that is being indoctrinated in young girls through these camps. They are brainwashed with that Hindu nationalism that has always sought legitimacy in notions of female selflessness, sacrifice, and martyrdom. The image of a sustaining, nurturing commu­nity is then used to undercut all left attacks on political and social hierarchies-be it the demands of the states for greater autonomy or of the lower castes, classes, and women for equal rights and affirmative action.

It is in this light of the recent Delhi gangrape protests, the statements of a Mohan Bhagwat propagating patriarchy and blaming western attacks on family values as the reason of rape in the urban India and that of Asha Ram Bapu who said, “the woman could have been saved had she attempted to evoke brotherly sentiments in the six rapists,” that the Hindu right wings notions of a family need to be questioned. The Sevika Samiti, entangled in its own patriarchal values, will never attempt to don this mantle. 

Or get rid of its myopic vision to see that family values are no less corrupted by the corrosive effects of individualism, consumerism and injustice. As Pramila Tai says, “Women demand extra freedom at the cost of the family. This is destructive.” Instead it legitimises gender differences embodied in traditional attitudes. It never empowers women and alter gender relations in the household. In the Samiti, the women continue to be neither subjects of the democratic discourse, nor active participants in it, but the invisibilized site on which masculinist arguments about state transformation unfold.

The 'Harvest Festival' With Many Moods Of Indian Culture

By Seema Singh | INN Live

Makara Sankranti is one of the most auspicious occasions for the Hindus, and is celebrated in almost all parts of India and Nepal in myriad cultural forms, with great devotion, fervour, and gaiety. It is a harvest festival. It is perhaps the only Indian festival whose date which most often falls on the same day every year. 

The festival is also believed to mark the arrival of spring in India. Makara Sankranti is the day when the Sun begins its movement away from the Tropic of Capricorn and heads towards the northern-hemisphere and thus it signifies an event wherein the Sun-God seems to remind their children that 'Tamaso Ma Jyotirgamaya'—may you go higher and higher, to more and more Light and never to Darkness. It is highly regarded by the Hindus. 

India's forgotten fast for years!

By M H Ahssan

Activists from India's northeast are up in arms against the "discriminatory treatment" being meted out to them by the Indian government, the mainstream media and the "mainland" public.

While a 13-day fast by anti-corruption crusader and social activist Anna Hazare got the Indian government to begin acting on his demand for setting up of a lokpal (ombudsman) institution mandated to independently probe corrupt public officials, an 11-year fast by Irom Sharmila, an activist from the northeastern state of Manipur, has evoked no response from Delhi.

"The Indian government responded to Hazare's 13-day-fast by discussing his demands in parliament but not once in the 11 years since Sharmila began her fast has the Indian parliament her demand for repeal of the AFSPA [Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act, 1958], Irom Singhajit, Sharmila's elder brother who heads the Just Peace Foundation, told Newsindia.

"This is evidence of India's racial discrimination against the people of the northeast," he said.

Thirty-nine-year old Sharmila has been on a hunger strike since November 4, 2000, to press for the repeal of the AFSPA. Two days earlier, she had witnessed the gunning down of 10 civilians waiting at a bus stop near Imphal in Manipur by personnel of the Assam Rifles, a paramilitary counter-insurgency force in the northeast.

Convinced, like millions of others in the northeast that it is the AFSPA that enables and empowers the security forces to kill innocent civilians, she began a fast to draw attention to its draconian content and press for its repeal.

Within days of her embarking on the fast, Sharmila was arrested by police on charges of attempting suicide, an act that is illegal under section 309 of the Indian Penal Code. In the 120 months since she began her protest, Sharmila has not eaten. A nasal drip administered to her by the Indian armed forces in a prison hospital keeps her alive.

In sharp contrast to the 24/7 coverage that India's television channels provided of Hazare's fast in Delhi's Ramlila Grounds, Irom's protest has been rarely covered in India's mainstream media over the past decade.

While tens of thousands of people from across the country participated and expressed solidarity with Hazare's anti-corruption campaign, few Indians living outside the country's conflict zones know that Sharmila has been on a hunger strike since November 2000. Few outside the insurgency-wracked northeast and Jammu and Kashmir (J&K), where AFSPA is in force, are aware of this legislation or of the cause Sharmila so passionately champions.

First imposed in Nagaland in 1958 - the legislation comes into force once an area is declared "disturbed" by the federal or state government - AFSPA was supposed to be in operation for a year only. But 53 years on, the geographic area over which AFSPA's writ runs has grown exponentially. It was first imposed in parts of Manipur in 1961 and extended to the entire state in 1980. It is in effect in "disturbed areas" across all seven northeastern states. It has been in force in Kashmir since July 1990.

AFSPA confers wide powers to the armed forces to shoot at sight on mere suspicion or arrest people on flimsy grounds, conduct searches without warrants and demolish property where suspects are thought to be hiding. It provides the armed forces with immunity from prosecution. Section 6 says "no prosecution, suit or other legal proceeding shall be instituted ... against any person in respect of anything done or purported to be done in exercise of the powers conferred by this act."

Human rights activists have pointed out that AFSPA is responsible for the killing and ‘disappearance' of thousands of innocent civilians in the northeast and J&K. If the aim of AFSPA was to curb insurgency, it has clearly failed. Not only have the number of insurgent groups multiplied manifold since the legislation was first introduced but also the geographic spread of armed conflict has grown. While the armed forces claim they need special powers like those in AFSPA to combat insurgency, it would not be an exaggeration to say that AFSPA has fueled insurgency and unrest in the northeast.

The campaign calling for AFSPA's repeal goes back several decades. It is spearheaded in Manipur by the Apunba Lup, an umbrella grouping of around 32 organizations, the Meira Paibi - a grassroots movement of Manipuri village women - and rights activists. When a person goes missing, the Meira Paibi, flaming torches in their hands, gather outside the camp of the security forces to protest the AFSPA. They have rallied behind Sharmila's fast as have thousands of others in the region.

But outside the Northeast, the campaign for AFSPA's repeal has little support. Few outside the northeast know of AFSPA, let alone its negative fallout or even of Sharmila's heroic protest. This isn't surprising given the Indian media's disinterest in issues in the distant troubled region.

Moreover, since AFSPA does not apply to "mainland" India, few here empathize with the northeast's suffering.

Not that the northeast hasn't tried to draw India's attention to the AFSPA. It has adopted dramatic strategies to shock India into stirring out of its slumber.

In July 2004, for instance, when 32-year-old Thangjam Manorama Devi was raped and then shot dead by personnel of the Assam Rifles, 12 imas (mothers) of the Meira Paibi movement stripped in front of the Kangla Fort, then headquarters of the Assam Rifles, to demand the repeal of the AFSPA.

"Indian army come and rape us all," shouted the 12 naked women outside the Kangla Fort gate. Their dramatic protest was aimed at capturing the attention of the rest of India, indeed the world, regarding the brazen abuse of AFSPA by Indian security forces in the northeast.

In the face of mounting protests in Manipur, the Indian government appointed the Justice B P Jeevan Reddy Committee in 2004 to review the AFSPA. The committee recommended the AFSPA's repeal. Yet the AFSPA remains in force in Manipur and other "disturbed areas".

In the wake of Hazare's protest and the mass support Indians extended it, Manipuris have expressed distress over India's lack of response to their suffering and demands. "The people of the northeast have always been neglected and ignored by the rest of India," says Singhajit.

Indeed, the northeast rarely figures in India's history books, its media discourse or even national imagination.

The sharp contrast between the response of the Indian public and media to Hazare's fast and the government's ceding of several of his demands has underscored to the people of the northeast their existence at the periphery of India's consciousness and the low importance they are accorded by India's political class.

The contrast in India's treatment of Hazare and Sharmila was poignantly captured by an editorial in The Sangai Express, an English daily from Manipur, a week into Hazare's fast. Hazare "has managed to grab the attention of the country, send the political establishment into a huddle whenever he announces his intention to stop eating and he has been on a fast for the last seven days or so," it said. In contrast, Sharmila "has been on a fast since November 2000 without creating so much of a flutter in the corridors of power."

Unlike Anna's fast, which took place under the full glare of the media spotlight, with celebrities and high-profile activists flocking to the venue of his fast, Sharmila is not allowed to be with her family. "Even her family members are kept away from her," Singhajit said, pointing out that they need to get government permission to meet her at the prison hospital.

Indians are familiar with fasts and hunger strikes. Mahatma Gandhi undertook 17 fasts, of which three were major fasts-unto-death. Independent India has seen scores of hunger strikes by activists and politicians to press for demands. While some fasts are genuine, several are a farce, as was the post-breakfast, pre-lunch fast in 2009 by Tamil Nadu's former chief minister Muthuvel Karunanidhi to demand a ceasefire in Sri Lanka.

Fasting as conceived by Gandhi was an alternative to violence. Gandhi resorted to fasts to unite people against violence rather than to force concessions out of the British colonial rulers. In the words of his grandson, Rajmohan Gandhi, author of Mohandas, Gandhi's fasts "were to stir consciences, not create convulsions".

This is not the case with most present-day hunger strikers in India. There is an unmistakable coercive element to their fasts, with the threat of violence lurking behind their protests should their demands not be conceded. Sadly, it is to these violent fasts that the Indian government has responded.

Hazare's campaign - contrary to the non-violent Gandhian image it was given in the media - had a coercive element to it. His demands were framed in terms that reeked of intolerance, threat and blackmail.

Hazare's campaign drew on several resources. Indian corporate houses are reported to have bankrolled the latter's country-wide campaign. The country's increasingly powerful middle-class and the influential mainstream media stood by Hazare. Besides, his protest reportedly enjoyed the backing of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, the ideological fount of the Hindu right-wing Sangh Parivar.

It was the size of the crowds with Hazare, the powerful interests backing him and the possibility of his death triggering mass violence and unrest that pushed the government to pay attention to his protest and concede his demands.

India remains unshaken and unmoved by Sharmila's decade-long hunger strike because the cause she champions is too distant to strike a chord with India's upwardly mobile middle class. Her attempt to stir India's conscience goes unheard because the media denies her a voice.

Thus Delhi finds it expedient to violently keep her alive by force-feeding her through painful nasal drip.

Where Are The 'Missing Girls' Of Lakhimpur In Assam?

By M H Ahssan / INN Live

On an average, 40 girls disappear from this district in Assam every month. INN tracks how it has emerged as the new hub of human trafficking.

With its tea gardens and paddy fields, Assam’s Lakhimpur district, located between the Brahmaputra and Subansiri rivers, is a picturesque place. But this pleasant picture hides a chilling reality.

Netas' Sons, Daughters Contesting Above 50 Seat In India

By M H Ahssan | INNLIVE

ELECTIONS 2014 At least 50 parliamentary constituencies will be contested by 'sons and daughters' of politicians. From President Pranab Mukherjee’s son Abhijit to Rahul and Varun Gandhi, at least 50 parliamentary constituencies will be contested by ‘sons and daughters’ of politicians of various parties during the upcoming Lok Sabha polls. Of these, a majority of candidates have been fielded from the ruling Congress party.

Abhijit Mukherjee, a sitting MP, is contesting on a Congress ticket from his present Jangipur (West Bengal) constituency while Rahul Gandhi and Varun Gandhi are fighting from Amethi and Pilibhit constituencies in Uttar Pradesh, respectively.

The Apathy Of Hospitals: One Doctor For 2,100 Indians

By M H Ahssan / INN Live

Last month, tragedy struck Bhargavi and Laisan Kanhar in Sambalpur district of Odisha. The tribal couple’s only child Banita who was in Class III fell into a hot egg curry cauldron at her school in Girischandrapur village while she waited for the midday meal.

The eight-year-old suffered severe burns and was rushed to the nearby primary health centre (PHC), where the only doctor was absent. The hospital staff applied first aid and referred her to the VSS Medical College and Hospital at Burla. 

However, there was no ambulance to take her to the hospital 72 km away. She finally reached there in a private vehicle nearly four hours after the accident. The same evening, she was again referred to the SCB Medical College and Hospital in Cuttack, nearly 300 km away. By next morning, Banita was declared dead at the hospital in Cuttack.

Sunday Interview: 'Confident To Expand MIM's National Footprint To Become A 'National Party': Asaduddin Owaisi

All India Majlis-e-Ittehad-ul Muslimeen chief insists that he isn't a 'coolie of secularism' either.

As the leader of a small Hyderabad-based party, Asaduddin Owaisi has been punching above his weight. He is the sole representative in the Lok Sabha of the All India Majlis-e-Ittehad-ul Muslimeen, better known as MIM, but that hasn't stopped him from presuming to speak on behalf of Indian Muslims both within and outside Parliament.

Over the last year, Owaisi has risen in prominence, partly due to his combative opposition to Hindutva rhetoric, but also because of electoral victories in Maharashtra.

Why 'Aam Aadmi Party' Is More Like A 'Tech Start-Up'?

Arvind Kejriwal's party has the kernel of a new thought so essential for a disruptive idea: changing the way a business is done.

A conversation, factual or embellished, with a taxi driver has been the oldest ploy in the journalist's book. Sometimes it sparks new ideas, sometimes it helps to substantiate your hypothesis, and occasionally it is a farcical ploy to put in an anonymous mouth a too-clever one-liner you'd rather not utter yourself, but say nevertheless.

“A Prime Minister must have numbers, not qualities”

By M H Ahssan & Prithvi Saxena

With the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in a stupor and the Congress hesitant, the Third Front is trying to get its act together for the summer General Election. Propelled by the Left, the Front is looking to get Mayawati’s Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) on its side by the time the next government is in place.

Communist Party of India (CPI) General Secretary AB Bardhan, 83, is probably India’s most senior active Left politician. He is actively cobbling the Third Front together. Bardhan was elected as an MLA to the Mumbai province in 1957. He has been CPI General Secretary since 1997. His recent interventions were in the choice of Pratibha Patil as the presidential nominee and the positioning of Mayawati as a possible Prime Ministerial candidate.

Bardhan is famous for his statement when the Sensex fell in 2004, after the Left announced it was supporting the UPA Government. “Sensex gaya bhaad mein (To hell with the Sensex)”, he snapped when asked what he thought of it. Here, Bardhan spoke to HNN extensively on how the Third Front Government would be structured, if formed, and what policy changes it would affect. Excerpts from the interview:

How do you think this election will change anything?
People will vote in such a way that a new alternative to the Congress-led UPA and the BJP-led NDA will be in place. This alternative government will be based on a more Left democratic programme.

Are you saying that the new government would necessarily have to be a friend of the Left?
It will have to be. Nowadays, barring the extreme rightists and communal parties like the BJP, all other parties want to be close to the Left.

Why do you think other parties are looking to the Left?
This is because everybody recognises that the Left is closer to the people. The Left fights for the poor, fights for the interests of the nation and its people, and is generally free of corruption. For all these reasons, the Left has a certain acceptance in the country.

It is possible that the Left will not be in the equation after the election.
I don’t see such a possibility. I don’t think that the Congress or the BJP will gain in this election. They will be the losers and other parties will relatively gain more. That will create conditions for the formation of another alternative government.

How would this alternative government be structured?
The Left parties rule three states. We expect good results there. In Tamil Nadu, the Left parties have entered into an alliance with the AIADMK. We hope to broaden that front with the possible inclusion of the PMK in the coming days. That will be a formidable front. In Andhra Pradesh, the Left has entered into an alliance with the Telugu Desam Party (TDP) and the Telangana Rashtra Samiti (TRS). That also is a formidable combination. In Karnataka, we have come to an agreement with the Janata Dal (S). In Assam and Manipur, we have arrangements with the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) and local outfits like the Assam United Democratic Front (AUDF). Similar arrangements, I hope, will be reached in some other states before and after the polls.

In which states do you see these developments taking place?
Talks are going on in other states. In the coming days, you may see the some arrangements maturing before the polls in states where regional parties are anti-Congress and anti-BJP. In other states they may be willing to join the formation of an alternative government after the election.

You mentioned arrangements with the NCP, AIADMK, JD(S) and the TRS. The NCP is in talks with the Shiv Sena and the Congress. The AIADMK, JD(S) and TRS are also talking with the Congress-led UPA. How do you reconcile that?
These are state-specific arrangements. We have a very specific non-Congress, non-BJP agenda. Some of the other secular parties may not have exactly the same agenda. That is why I said that in some cases it might be a post-poll arrangement.

Bihar and Orissa are led by the Janata Dal (United) and the Biju Janata Dal (BJD). Are they parties you might work with?
We are certainly in touch with them.

Has the centre of political gravity in India shifted from bigger to smaller parties?
Nothing of that sort has happened. Regional parties have come up because the bigger parties have failed in their task, particularly the Congress. The Left has not been able to extend its base particularly in the Hindi area. It has now woken up to that task but it will take time. Meanwhile, we have to reckon with the reality that regional parties exist.

How would this alternative be different from similar alternatives in the past?
India is different now. The situation is also different. Similar alternatives in the past did not have a clear picture about domestic, economic and foreign policy. Now we do. Moreover, the parties are far more experienced now than what they were. It is not merely a question of power now. It is a question of power for what and for whom.

An issue that confuses voters is the number of people who want to be Prime Minister in the third alternative. Could you clarify this?
Everyone knows that becoming a Prime Minister is not a joke. There have to be numbers. Anybody can dream of being a Prime Minister. Nobody can take away the right to dream. There have to be numbers. There has to be a basis. And then, it ultimately comes down to one or two people whom you can think of as Prime Minister. Only when an alternative is capable of taking over reins of the government does the question of becoming Prime Minister come up. Till then, there are a number of people who go on projecting themselves. They are free to do so. I don’t think that people will be fooled by it.

Are there some basic things you would look for in a Prime Minister apart from just numbers?
I am not looking to any qualities of the person who can be Prime Minister. Obviously, it has to be from a party that has the required numbers in a coalition. In that case, it becomes easy as to who should be the Prime Minister.

Say the numbers look good for the Left. Is the Left in a position to project a candidate of its own?
The Left is the only group which is not immediately thinking of that. We have the required patience. We have fought all these years for socialism. We can afford to wait till our base spreads.

So, the Left will not have a candidate for the Prime Minister’s post.
We don’t have one at the moment.

Have things gone so bad that you will not support a Congress government after this election?
We broke with them on the issue of policy. Not on the issue of this election or that. I’ll prefer to sit in the opposition than support or participate in a Congress government, which will carry on the same policies. What would be the point in it?

Would you be agreeable if the Congress agrees to be part of a government it is not leading?
Don’t think a leopard suddenly changes its spots. Even today, the Congress is saying we are the only national party that exists in the country. Let us see what happens to them when they have such megalomaniac traits, forgetting the reality in the country today.

How different would your non-Congress, non-BJP government, assuming it is formed, be in terms of policy?
In economic policy we would like to give up the neoliberal capitalist path, which has brought disaster. The economic slowdown started from the US, but it has affected other developing countries also, including India. Therefore, we want changes in economic policy. We would like to see policies being undertaken based first on agriculture, which is the major industry in India. We want the domestic market to be built on the basis of employment-oriented industries, rather than only technology and capital-intensive industries. That will create a market in our country. It will put money in the pockets of our people.

The fast economic growth of the past five years has put money in the hands of a few and deprived the masses. We have an ocean of poverty with a few jutting out as billionaires, like rocks in a sea. We don’t want that type of development. The dalits, the adivasis, the minorities, Muslims in particular, have been excluded from economic, educational and social growth. We want these people, who add up to 40 percent of the country, to be part of development.

We also look forward to changes in foreign policy. We would like to see an independent foreign policy being pursued by our country and not a policy that is aligned with the US, the strongest imperialist power in the world today. We have seen the effect of the policies pursued by George W Bush. There is no sign as yet that the current president of the US will change this policy.

Would the third alternative create the state of Telangana?
That is a commitment we have given to the people of Andhra Pradesh. It is immaterial how many months this takes, but steps will have to be taken. It is a commitment. We must fulfil it immediately. Otherwise, we will lose credibility.

Would you make similar commitments elsewhere? Say, for instance, Vidarbha and other places?
No no. Those issues have not come up. We are not opening a Pandora’s box. That is one reason why we have not talked of a second states reorganisation commission. The Congress has talked of it because it wants to drown the specific by talking of generalities. They learnt it from the British who put off solutions by setting up committees and commissions.

But it won’t stop with Telangana. There are demands from other places also.

There are demands everywhere. Telangana is not merely a demand. It is a movement. There is a struggle.

Would the third alternative seek a reversal of the Indo-US civilian nuclear agreement?
It is not an equal deal. It affects our sovereignty and self-reliance in nuclear energy. But I don’t know how a reversal will take place. We have to examine this question now that the deal has been signed. The point is how far to go with the agreement even if you don’t reverse it. The latest report of the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) has pointed out that we have uranium reserves. Who says that we don’t have? The government has deliberately created a scarcity of uranium to be able to justify going to the US and other countries. We could’ve used our uranium. We have indigenous development of atomic energy that could be further developed. But it has come to a halt precisely because we’ve been going elsewhere and trying to import their uranium, technology and reactors. In the process we have accepted so many conditions in the Indo-US nuclear deal.

What judicial reform would the third alternative bring?
These are all issues that will find a place in our election manifesto. Talk of judicial accountability involves the question of a judicial commission and how judges are to be recruited and removed. How judges are to be made accountable to the people. There is the question of quick justice. Imagine, for instance, Sukhram has been sentenced now after 15 years. (Sukhram is a former communications minister found guilty, from a case in the mid-1990s, of amassing wealth disproportionate to known income).

Would you expect a non-Congress, non-BJP alternative to have caste-based reservation in the private sector as well?
Sure. Affirmative action has to draw in the masses in our country that have been excluded for centuries. Reservation is a must, and not only in the public sector, but particularly at a time when the government is privatising the public sector more and more. Therefore reservation has to be there in the private sector as well if it has to continue.

There’s a tax practically on everything barring breathing. What changes in the taxation structure would the third alternative propose?
The trouble is that this government is relying more and more on indirect taxes rather than direct taxes. Indirect taxes, particularly on all types of commodities including water, lead to a situation where the burden falls on the common people. Remember the tax on salt for which Gandhi had to fight a battle? He was one of the first who indicated that this kind of indirect tax is at the root of exploitation of the masses. We have been struggling for direct taxes that can be in a progressive manner, so that those who are the wealthiest pay the most. We have been telling the government to strengthen direct taxes on the rich, like capital gains tax and wealth tax. These should be added up and all sorts on taxes on commodities should be cut.

Then the question of oil prices comes up. We demanded that the customs duties on oil be brought down. It was more than the price for crude oil that we were paying for our imports. These taxes constitute more than 50 percent of the price structure. What is the point in the government saying it is subsiding when it is actually earning more. More over, these taxes are ad valorem. This means that as prices go up, the taxes to the government also go up.

Do you expect the alternative you are working for to do all these things?
Of course. Any government will require some time, but the steps will have to be taken. The steps a government takes is the most important thing in determining whether the government is going in the right direction.

The largest chunk of money in Swiss banks is from India. Would you expect the third alternative to take steps to get this back?
The Deputy General Secretary of our party, Sudhakar Reddy, has asked that the government make an official effort to find out deposits from India in Swiss banks. They are black money deposits, made by all sorts of manoeuvres by robbing the exchequer and exploiting the people. The amount of money lying in Swiss banks is many times the GDP of our country. If that money is brought it can tackle at one go the question of food security, education and healthcare to the masses. The government must find out. Many things are also being done brazenly through the tax haven of Mauritius. That also has to be put an end to.

What steps should the non-Congress, non-BJP alternative take on this?
The Swiss banks can be compelled to reveal only if the government makes an effort. Individual efforts don’t succeed in these cases because of a certain amount of confidentiality. Why is the government of India dragging its feet? Why is it afraid of exposing all this? Is it because it is running the country on behalf of those people who have stacked money in the Swiss banks?

What about the thousands of crores of loans that Indian banks have given businessmen and industrialists? How does the third alternative propose to recover these?
These so-called non-performing assets are in lakhs of crores. This money has been taken on loan and not repaid. If a rickshawaalah takes a loan to purchase a rickshaw, we know how he is harassed if he doesn’t pay an instalment or two. Steps will have to be taken on these issues while ensuring the stability of the government and economic prosperity of the nation. These steps will have to be taken in due course.

You mentioned giving up the neoliberal path. Are there sectors where you want the third alternative to reverse the steps taken by the UPA Government?
Both in India and the US, money was pumped into the automobile sector recently. They say it is for public transport. I am not sure of that. They seek to keep the automobile industry up. There are far more basic industries. What are they doing for that? In our country, food security has to be one of the priority issues.

What about privatisation of the electricity sector? There is a big energy crisis looming.
The big energy crisis will become deeper if energy is privatised. What is the result of the 2003 Electricity Act (privatising state electricity boards)? The energy crisis has worsened. Energy has to be with the public sector. The Electricity Act has corporatised state boards by making companies. It is easy to privatise these companies. That is the ultimate goal for which the UPA government is striving. We are opposed to it and will reverse it.

Centre-State relations are a big issue for the third alternative. What will it do about Governors?
Basically we have been against the institution of the Governor. But it is easier said than done. You can’t remove all of them tomorrow. There are short-term issues, there are medium-term issues and there are long-term issues. We are not discussing long-term issues now. Not a single step has gone ahead after we gave our views on the Governor’s office to the government.

Would the third alternative act on the issue of Governors?
Let us see. There are priorities for any government. The priority is the economy and getting over the economic crisis. The priority is foreign policy.

How does the third alternative propose to deal with agricultural distress and its fallout?
We need thorough land reforms. A new class of landowners is being created with the so-called Special Economic Zones (SEZs). Plenty of real estate is being given to them. These SEZs are becoming a weapon for the capitalist and monopolist class. Thousands of hectares are being grabbed. What for? What industry requires so much of land? What project needs so much of land? All this is leading to real estate speculation. We cannot allow that.

So SEZs would not be encouraged.

Certainly not. We are fighting even today. Whatever we will try to undertake tomorrow will follow from what we are fighting for today.

You are saying the system has become immune to integrity. How does the third alternative propose to change that?
This is one of the more serious charges that I have against this government. Corruption is only a consequence of all this. You end up this way if you don’t take pro-people measures. This is creating a lot of frustration. People talk of terrorism, extremism and financial ruin in this country. All this is a consequence of the frustration that has crept in.

How would the non-Congress, non-BJP alternative open the system to integrity? How will you make it answerable?
These are not things that can be done in one election or one five-year term of a government. I’m saying that this path has to change if you look at the future. One has to start somewhere. We think that an alternative to the Congress and the BJP will be a starting point. You are talking to a person who believes in socialism. We think many of the problems will be solved only then. After the fall of the Soviet Union, a triumphant message was sent out that socialism has failed and that Marxism is dead. Some people talked of the end of history as if neocapitalism is the last word. We have seen what happened.

Has anyone plumbed the depths of the crisis that has come about, a crisis that will last at least two years? Not even the most optimistic person is talking of the crisis coming to an end immediately, except some fools in our government who make statements as if we are either immune or will be tomorrow. This is when our people in the export industry are facing layoffs and unemployment, and when suicides have started. The truth is that capitalism has no solution to the problem of ending poverty and unemployment.

How would the new alternative deal with Pakistan?
When there is a terrorist attack it has to be met. Our intelligence and security system has to be such that most of the time it is able to anticipate and prevent. But if a terrorist attack still takes place, it has to be met as in the Mumbai attack. But the important thing is to see that democracy grows in Pakistan also. We should not talk of a war because that will again drive Pakistan to a military takeover. Pakistan is very weak democracy. They have only recently got an elected government. It is good if that democratic government strengthens. It has to deal with many problems including the Taliban.

And the Taliban is the creation of the US. This fact must be hammered home in the minds of the Indian people. The US created the Taliban in Afghanistan and Pakistan because they thought it was necessary to fight the Soviet Union. They created this Frankenstein that is becoming a problem even for Pakistan. We have to adopt a policy that could lead to peace and good neighbourliness between India and Pakistan. We should do it with every neighbouring country.

Nobody seems to know what this peace policy should be like. This is a clear and current issue.
Are there no problems in our country? People talk of Naxalism and this and that. So there are problems in our country and in neighbouring countries. The way to solve them is not by working at cross-purposes and spreading hatred and hostility towards each other. That will only exaggerate the problems further.

Even if we don’t talk in hostile terms, Pakistan’s deal with the Taliban is seen as supping with the devil. India now has a big worry.
Who created the devil? This is what we have come to. If we are not careful, today they are in Swat valley, tomorrow they will be in Islamabad, in Lahore. And where will we be? And mind you, as against that Taliban, Hindu Talibanisation is taking place in our country. Fortunately we are country that is so deeply rooted in democracy and secularism that these groups have not been able to flourish as yet. But they can blossom if we pursue a policy based on hatred and hostility.

What about Bangladesh and the mutiny there? What would it imply for the next government in India?
We have to be friends with them as well. Bangladesh has just had an election after two years. It is good that the worst communal force, the Jamaat-e-Islami, has been defeated there. They were playing an unfortunate role and Khaleda Zia’s BNP was patronising them. Even Hasina was hobnobbing with them to some extent. Let us give time to the forces that have come up. The extent of the problems in Bangladesh can be seen in the BDR mutiny. Therefore, let us be patient. Let us cooperate, rather than worsen issues.

What about Sri Lanka? The third alternative involves parties with a deep stake in the affairs of Sri Lanka. What would the third alternative do?
The only solution is political. There has to be devolution of power. They are avoiding using the word autonomy. There are Tamil majority areas in the north and east of Sri Lanka. We have been saying that within a united Sri Lanka, these areas have to be given autonomy. So that they can develop on their own. Unfortunately, the government of Sri Lanka is indulging in arms confrontation. A military solution cannot be brought about. You can finish off the LTTE and win the battle in a positional war. But what will happen tomorrow? They will resort to all types of suicide bombings and terrorism. Will guerrilla warfare solve the issue? The issue has to be solved politically.

A few Islamist terrorist groups have drawn the India-US-Israel as a foe. What should the third alternative’s steps be towards Israel?
The India-US-Israel axis was spelt out during the days of the NDA. Advani had visited Israel; he was a great friend of the US. He started all this. The NDA’s National Security Adviser Brijesh Mishra spoke of India-US-Israel in a major speech. This will be a disaster in the Asian continent. What is Israel? How did it come into being? We are prepared to see Israel coexist with the state of Palestine. But they are not allowing this. Palestine is not the problem; Israel is the problem. The Americans fully back Israel by giving it financial support, arms and equipment.

So will India be a friend of Israel under the third alternative?
Israel is indulging in genocide against the Palestinians. That does not mean I am saying that we become an enemy of Israel. We are saying that you will have to take steps to see that it stops. At this moment, we have become the biggest arms purchaser from Israel. What does this mean? We are entering into all sorts of military deals with Israel. Whom does it help? Whom does it harm? With the money that it gets from us, Israel is escalating the war against the Palestinian people. Israel has violated every UN resolution on the Palestinian homeland, the Gaza Strip and Jerusalem. And the hawks have come to power again in Israel. We have encouraged them. We have played a role that is not what India has traditionally been playing towards Palestine.

Are you saying that the third alternative would nullify the deals with Israel?
They have to cancel the deals.

Which countries would the third alternative seek to befriend?
It is very important that India, China, Russia and Brazil, the BRIC countries, should come together. Along with South Africa, they will form a formidable force for peace and development. The centre of political gravity has shifted east. Europe has ceased to be the centre of gravity. America will in the course of a few years lose the centre of gravity they have tried to assume, about which George Bush once said this is the American century. The American century has lost out even before it matured.

We are entering a period where Asia, with India and China in the lead, will play a big role. Therefore, India, China, Russia and Brazil will have to come together. We also have to target our attention a good deal towards events in Latin America. It is no longer the backyard of the US. They have broken through and are putting forward the slogan that another world is possible. The other world may not be clear yet as to what it should be, but there is no doubt that it will be a new world that will shift away from capitalism.

Do you expect the TDP, AIADMK, TRS, NCP and maybe the Bahujan Samaj Party, to back all these policies with a clear understanding?
Even today they are taking positions on many of these issues which we think are correct. They will have to go a long way, but I think experience will drive them towards that end. It is a daunting task but with patience and plenty of goodwill, we will be able to bring them all together.

Only Votes can Clean Politics of Criminals

By Joginder Singh

An executive engineer of the Uttar Pradesh Public Works Department (PWD) was beaten to death in Auraiya, Uttar Pradesh, on December 25, allegedly by a history-sheeter MLA of the Bahujan Samaj Party, his supporters, and allegedly, two PWD engineers. The engineer was reportedly killed because he refused to cough up Rs 50 lakhs for the birthday celebrations of chief minister Mayawati on January 15, 2009. The state government and Ms Mayawati have denied this allegation.

The accused Shekhar Tiwari, since arrested, has several cases pending against him. In 2001, he was also booked under the Gangster Act and remained behind bars for several months. In June 2008, two state ministers, one from Uttar Pradesh and the other from Assam, were removed from their offices and arrested. The Uttar Pradesh fisheries minister Jamuna Nishad was arrested for allegedly killing a police constable while leading a mob protesting police protection for an accused in the rape of a girl belonging the Nishad community. The education minister of Assam, Ripun Bora, was arrested and later sacked for trying to bribe CBI officials with Rs 10 lakhs so that they would go soft on him in the murder investigation against him.

According to the Election Commission, Uttar Pradesh and Bihar account for at least 40 MPs and 700 MLAs who have faced criminal charges that include murder, dacoity, rape, theft and extortion. Some leading lights include Pappu Yadav (convicted of murdering a Left party legislator) and Syed Shahabuddin. Both are in jail. Union law minister told the Rajya Sabha the in 2008 that there were over 1,300 cases pending against sitting MPs and MLAs in various courts. The CBI was investigating 65 of these. There is a regional concentration in terms of criminal cases. Bihar, UP, Jharkhand and Madhya Pradesh comprise 28 per cent of all MPs but account for over 50 per cent of MPs with high-penalty criminal cases. The party-wise position of MPs is that the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) leads in the proportion of criminal cases (43.5 per cent).

In respect of criminal cases with severe penalties (five or more years’ imprisonment), RJD tops the list with 34.8 per cent of MPs, BSP with 27.8 per cent and the Samajwadi Party with 19.4 per cent. Congress MPs in this category account for 7.6 per cent of their total number in Parliament. For BJP it is 10.9 per cent.

A former chief minister, when asked about the 22 ministers in his Cabinet with criminal antecedents, said, “I don’t bother about the ministers’ past. After joining the government they are not indulging in crimes and want to help suppress criminal activities. Ask the people why they have elected them”.

On July 9, 1993 the Government of India constituted a committee, under the chairmanship of home secretary, with secretary, Raw, Director, Intelligence Bureau, Director, CBI, Special Secretary (Home) as members, to take stock of all available information about the activities of criminal syndicates and mafia organisations which had developed links with and were being protected by government functionaries and political personalities.

Director CBI told the committee that all over India crime syndicates have become a law unto themselves. In smaller towns and rural areas, musclemen have become the order of the day and hired assassins are a part of these organisations. The nexus between criminal gangs, police, bureaucracy and politicians has come out clearly in various parts of the country.

The existing criminal justice system, essentially designed to deal with individual offences/crimes, is unable to deal with the activities of the mafia. The provisions of law with regard to economic offences are weak and there are insurmountable legal difficulties in attaching or confiscating property acquired through mafia activities.

When pressed further to know what action had been taken to end criminalisation, the then Union home minister S.B. Chavan had said that he had forwarded the committee’s reports to the state governments for necessary action. That was the end of efforts to prevent criminalisation of politics and society.

Political power has flowed from the barrel of the gun in states where in criminals have adorned elective offices of not one but all political parties.

No politician or a political party is in the business of politics for dharma-karam and politicians are quick to seize all opportunities for electoral gains. The caste card is unabashedly played to drum up support. Whenever a question is put about how they intend to eliminate criminalisation of politics, the standard response is that political parties must arrive at a consensus. Politicians will have consensus only when it suits their interests and it will never suit them to have a person with a clean record whose electoral victory might be doubtful.

After all what matters in politics are numbers, whether they are procured by hook or crook, temptations of pelf or power. Middle class people talk about criminalisation and they are the ones who do not go out to cast their votes on the ground that either it is too cold or too hot or they have another engagement or they do not want to stand in a queue. As countrymen we get a chance once in five years to elect our rulers. Instead of lamenting about the sorry state of affairs, why don’t we go out and discharge our duties as citizens and elect the best possible candidate? This is the only way to end criminalisation in politics. Especially since our governments aren’t just unable to end criminalisation, they are simply unwilling to do so.

It is worthwhile to quote what former US President Ronald Reagan said: “Politicians may think prostitution is a grim, degrading life. But prostitutes think the same of politics. Getting a lecture on morality from a politician is like getting a lecture on chastity from a whore”.

'Lakhs May Die If High Magnitude Quake Hits Himalayas'

By Sudheer Sharma / Delhi

Over eight lakh people may die if an earthquake measuring 8 on the Richter scale occurs in the seismically-active Himalayan states from Jammu and Kashmir to Arunachal Pradesh, National Disaster Management Authority's vice chairman M. Shashidhar Reddy has warned.

The entire Himalayan belt is seismically very active and during a short span of 53 years between 1897 and 1950, four major earthquakes, (Shillong -1897, Kangra -1905, Bihar-Nepal -1934 and Assam -1950) exceeding magnitude 8 on the Richter scale occurred in the region causing vast devastation.

Colours, Pride, Fervour Marks Indian Republic Day In India

By Likha Veer | INN Live

The 65th Republic Day was celebrated on Sunday across the country amid tight security and hoisting of the National Tricolour in different states.

West Bengal: In Kolkata Governor M K Narayanan presided over the marchpast of armed and police forces. Colourful parade  and procession with decorated tableaux portraying the state’s culture and heritage were highlights of the programme, which was attended by Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee.

Assam: Assam Governor Janaki Ballav Patnaik today appealed the underground militant groups to abjure violence and come to the discussion table to solve the issues for an overall development of the state. Hoisting the National Flag on the 65th Republic Day here, Patnaik also condemned the recent incidents of violence in many districts across the state.  Besides, various initiatives were started under the Multi Sectoral Development Plan in areas like agriculture, cottage industry, drinking water and education to uplift the minority communities.